 | THE CAPITAL. Isabel, or, Sicily |  |
THE CAPITAL.
“To see the wonders of the world abroad.”
Two Gentlemen of Verona.
The Cassaro of Palermo presents the usual scene
of mingled pomp and poverty observable in the
main street of every European city. To one whose
eye has been familiar with the red bricks and slated
roofs, the green blinds and cheerful portals of the
American dwellings, such thoroughfares are rife with
novelty. He has been accustomed to the click of the
mason's trowel, and the hasty greetings of hurrying
pedestrians, eager to reach the scene of traffic or the
sanctuary of home. All around him has worn an
aspect of freshness; everything has been symbolical
of newness and growth. How different the view
now presented! The high stone walls of the edifices
throw a gloomy shade over the broad flags. There
is the gay uniform of the soldier, and the dark robe
of the priest. At his side the mendicant urges his
petition. Near yonder shrine a kneeling peasant
cavalier displays his exquisite horsemanship. Against
the adjacent palace-wall, a poorly-clad old man urges
his donkey, whose slender proportions are almost
hidden beneath a towering load of vegetables. In
the café opposite, groups are composedly discussing
the merits of the new prima donna; and near the
door, a knot of porters are vociferously disputing
about the division of a penny. This dazzling equipage
in the carriage of the archbishop; that stripling
with sheep-skin hose, is driving his goats into a yard
to milk them for the table of some English resident
who can afford the luxury. These half naked boys
are gambling away, on the sunny curb-stone, the few
grains which some passer has thrown them in charity;
the other cluster of untidy women are ridding each
other's heads of vermin—an incessant and conspicuous
employment. From the overhanging balconies
flaunts the wet linen hung out to dry; and the venders,
with baskets of fish, pulse, and herbs, dexterously
wend their way through the vehicles and
loungers, and announce their commodities above the
hum and shouts of the crowd. Sternly a file of soldiers,
awkwardly shrouded in loose gray coats, conduct
a band of miserable prisoners chained together; and
morosely glides by a Capuchin friar with bare head,
long beard, and enormous sack, in search of alms
for the expectant poor.
Through this heterogeneous assemblage, as Frazier's
carriage was one day passing. Vittorio asked
them to observe a building of unusual extent. “This
“formerly possessed in Palermo by that once wealthy
and powerful community—the Jesuits. The
broad airy court of the college is surrounded by
spacious corridors, conducting to chambers where
instruction is gratuitously given in the various
branches of literature and science. This society is
one of the few truly useful fraternities of priests existing
in Sicily. They are the ministers of education,
and engage in their mission with a zeal and an interest
worthy of the cause.”
“It is remarkable,” said Frazier, “how that intriguing
association, whose influence was once so
widely felt, has dwindled into insignificance. Who
would imagine that in those quiet looking young
men promenading in the yard, we see members of
that sect whom we read of as the secret devotees
of ambition in the courts of princes.”
“An incident occurred at their institution not long
since,” said Vittorio, “which would indicate that
they are still not deficient in cunning. One of their
number who acted as treasurer, embezzled a sum of
money, and gave it as a dowry to his sister on her
marriage. As he had entered the society quite poor,
when the rumor of his generous donation reached
the ears of the brethren, they held a council, and
having no doubt of the fraud, ordered him into their
presence with the determination to banish him from
the college. Upon being asked if he had presented
his sister with the specified sum, he replied affirmatively;
sudden wealth, answered quite unabashed, that he
had taken it from the common fund. “For,” he
added, “is not our creed that we are all bound
together by the tie of Christian fellowship; and are
obligated in weal and wo, to afford mutual aid? I
took the gold, and appropriated it as a dowry for our
sister in the faith, in accordance with those principles
of charity and love which we profess.” The
sincerity of the delinquent's manner, with the force
of his arguments, sealed the lips of the council, and
he was acquitted.”
At no great distance are the Quartro Cantoni,
where the two principal streets of the metropolis
intersect each other at right angles, and whence one
can gaze through the long and crowded vistas to
the four gates. Upon the huge, dark corners of
the adjacent palaces are hung the theatre advertisements,
and below, several fountains fall into
old marble basins. No one can pause at this
spot without feeling that he is in the very centre
of a populous city. Beyond, and separated from
the street by a spacious square, is the Cathedral.
Its interior is wanting in effect from the lightness
which distinguishes and deforms the churches of the
island. After regarding the cluster of sarcophagi
which contains the ashes of the Sicilian sovereigns,
the travellers passed on and entered a chaste little
chapel on the right of the main altar. “These bassorelievos,”
said the Count, “are the work of Gaggini.
away War, Famine, and Pestilence,—the enemies of
mankind, from Palermo, at the intercession of St.
Rosalia, whom you see kneeling at the feet of Jesus
and smiling at the success of her petition. That circular
portrait over the altar is a representation of the
fair saint, and beneath are preserved, in a box of
silver studded with jewels, her mortal remains. The
tradition is that ages ago Rosalia, the daughter of a
wealthy and noble house, turned aside from the allurements
of pleasure and youth and retired to the
bleak summit of mount Pelegrino, to give her life to
prayer. Centuries of change rolled away, and the
story of the lovely anchorite was lost in obscurity;
when the plague visited Palermo. At the very height
of its ravages, a poor man of the city dreamed that
an angel appeared to him in the form of St. Rosalia,
directing him to tell the archbishop to seek on the
mountain, beneath her ancient retreat, for her bones,
and bear them in solemn procession through the
streets, when he was assured the pestilence would
instantly cease. This was done amid much pomp
and solemnity, and the promised miracle wrought.
The senate immediately declared St. Rosalia the protectress
of Palermo, and ever since she has been
worshipped as their patron saint. For five days in
July a feast is held in celebration of this event, exceeding
in magnificence every similar festival. Fireworks,
social gaiety, triumphal processions, illuminations
and music, are the uninterrupted announcements
flower-decked car of the saint, drawn by fifty oxen
covered with garlands, moves gaily along the thronged
Toledo.”
At a short distance from the cathedral is the
royal palace, where an ancient chapel and one of the
finest observatories in Europe interested the strangers.
Returning, Vittorio bade them note the building now
devoted to the tribunals in the Piazza Marina. It is
a Saracenic structure, formerly the seat of the inquisition,
and bears interesting evidences of the date
of its erection. The best monument, however, of
this period of Sicilian history, an epoch involved in
great obscurity, is a large fabric at Olivuza, near the
city, called the ziza, and supposed to have been an
emir's residence.
The contrasts, however, between the old and new
world are not confined to the results of Art. Around
the congregated dwellings of both hemispheres
is spread the varied scenery of Nature; and the
sojourner, if he be not an inveterate worlding, has
been wont to repair thither for solace and refreshment.
Yet how different are the emblems of her
benignant presence from those to which he has been
accustomed! at home, he gazed upon the flowing
stream whose greatest charm is its bright hue and
crystal clearness; in this distant region, he roams
beside a turbid river only attractive from the events
of which it has been the scene, or the classic legend
which arrays it in fictitious glory. At home, his
them, vegetable gardens in the rear, and hard-by
the long well-pole poised in the air; now he beholds
the peasants cottage of stone, and the olive, aloe, Indian
fig, or grape-vine constitute the verdure
around it. There the little belfry of the village school
rose conspicuous; here the open shrine of some local
saint; there the forest outspread in wild majesty;
here the campagna stretches in peaceful undulations.
There the chirp of the cricket announced
the close of day; here the tinkling bell of the returning
mules, and Avé Maria stealing on the breeze, usher
in the evening. There many an uninvaded haunt
repays the wanderer with romantic dreams; here
the spell of some ruined temple entrances his fancy
with hours of retrospective musing. Still Nature's
votary feels that the same gentle companionship is
with him; and recognizes the invisible spirit of the
universe endeared by communion in another land;
for there is a well known voice with which she greets
her children in every clime.
One of the most pleasing characteristics of the
Sicilian Capital is the beauty of its environs. It is a
curious fact that one of the most conspicuous of the
mountains which environ the city is strikingly similar
to Vesuvius, while Mount Pelegrino, from one
point of view, presents the same form and general
aspect as the rock of Gibraltar. Many happy hours,
when the state of the elements was auspicious, were
passed by Frazier, his niece, and their friend, in rides
Palermo. Sometimes, on horseback they ascended
to Monreale, a picturesque town about four miles
from the city, where the Norman kings are buried.
The old church here situated was built by William I.,
and is lined with mosaics, which serve admirably to
awaken the associations of that primitive era after
the establishment of Christianity, when the zeal of
her advocates was expended upon gorgeous temples
and elaborate ornament. Still higher, a rich convent
of Benedictines affords another fine point of view.
When the visitor has satisfied his curiosity in noting
the marble and alabaster, the literary rarities and
antique relics which enrich this establishment, tenanted
like the one at Catania, exclusively by noblemen;
when his gaze is weary with regarding the paintings
of Monrealese—the best of Sicilian artists—
which decorate its walls; he can survey the broad
and verdant plain, the distant city and its sea-bright
boundary spread out in rich contrast below. A still
more favorite observatory, nearer the metropolis, is the
site of an old asylum of the followers of St. Francis—
the monastery of Maria di Gesù, on the side of the
opposite mountain. From the path constructed along
the cliff, one can look forth upon this picture, pausing
at will, to mark its varying features as he ascends
the umbrageous hill-side. Indeed the public and
private edifices which command views of this unrivalled
scene, are numerous enough to satisfy the
taste of the most fastidious admirer of the picturesque;
imagined than the circuit of the entire plain on a
fine day. It is adorned by the villas of many noble
families, which are surrounded with enclosures well-stocked
with every description of tree, shrub, and
flower. The beautiful effect of these gardens is enhanced
by statues, whose white hue is relieved by
the evergreen around their pedestals, and many
ingenious devices to amuse and surprise the visiter.
One of these domains, erected by the late king, is
arranged in the Chinese style.
How peace-inspiring seemed that valley to the
eye of Isabel, reposing with its grain fields and olive
orchards, many of them planted by the Saracens, its
orange clusters and cypresses, its villas and almond
trees, with the mountains encircling, like majestic
sentinels, its fertile precincts, the domes and roofs
of Palermo rising time-hallowed from amid its green
beauty, and beyond all, the wide and sparkling sea!
In early spring, all there is perfume and song, and
not even when the snow lies in heavy masses upon
the hill-tops, does it cease to cheer the sight with its
evergreen garniture.
“Let us pause,” said Vittorio, one day when they
had arrived at a solitary and elevated part of the
rocky environment. They stood still and looked forth
upon the vale. “The first impression, I think,” continued
he, “is that of abundance. We do not merely
see, we feel, as it were, the luxuriance of the earth.
A new sense of nature's productiveness is borne to
the mind, as it contemplates such verdure and plenty.
us. The tranquillity of the landscape soothes
every common passion into quietness, and lures all
care-born restlesness to sleep. Something of the calm
happiness of primeval existence seems to breathe
from so Eden-like a prospect; and from the lulled
waters of the spirit, as the ancients fabled of the
birth of beauty, emerges the brightest creation of
thought, the fairest offspring of emotion;—a sentiment
of confidence in our origin and destiny, a speechless
gratitude, an undefined hope, a self-content alike
inexplicable and blessed. Is it that we imbibe the language
of the universe, or are exhilirated by her
music? Is it that we momentarily lose the weight
of life's burden, or forget in so cheering a presence
that the earth is not a garden?”
“It is, perhaps,” replied Isabel, “that we realize
anew the goodness of the Creator, and thus renew
our faith in his paternity. The world often seconds
the chill and dark creed of the sceptic, while Nature
ever encourages the hopes of the heart. We see the
beauty lavished upon the physical universe, and
comes there not thence an assurance that if the
domain of matter is thus cared for and enriched, the
quenchless, living spirit is destined to renewal, progression,
and happiness?”
From the upper end of the Marina, if the equestrian
inclines to the right, he comes out upon a
broad, level space called the plain of Erasmus. A
group of bare-legged fishermen, with their nets
spread out for repair upon the green sward, two or
lounging in the noon-tide sun, appeared scattered
over this field; after crossing which, one passes a
pretty little church where the victims of the law are
buried, and soon arrives at the old Saracenic bridge
that spans the Oreto. This river, now shrunk to the
dimensions of a mere brook, constituted the scene of
a noted galley combat which is said to have occurred
near Monreale. Its wide bed and high embankments
are still easily traced. The aspect of
this vicinity is rendered picturesque by masses of
broken wall half-covered with vegetation, and several
tall, square water pillars wreathed with thick hanging
weeds. It was a mild and autumn-like day, and
already long past noon, when the travellers, returning
from a sequestered road, along which their horses
had been slowly pacing for a considerable time,
found themselves again in this somewhat familiar
spot. There was a freshness as well as solemnity in
the appearance of a cypress grove which rose before
them; and they readily turned into the almost
deserted way, left their steeds at the gate, and entered
the Campo Santo. As they did so, two men,
bearing a black sedan chair—the bier of the lower
orders—appeared proceeding slowly up the grassy
pathway. No other moving object disturbed the
profound repose of the burial-place, save the swaying
tops of the gloomy trees and the nodding of some
spire of herbage which had shot up higher than its
fellows. Rows of square flag-stones intersected the
which the naked corpses are promiscuously thrown
with as little ceremony, and less feeling perhaps, than
the fish-packers of the neighboring coast manifest in
arranging their prey. A low, rude cross placed near
one of the reservoirs indicated that it was unsealed
for the day's interments, if so rude a disposition of
the dead merits the name. The strangers involuntarily
paused. They had been inhaling the balmy and
living breath of nature; the hum of a populous city
had scarcely died away upon their ears; their conversation
had been lively and hopeful, for few can
resist the exhilarating influence of a ride on horseback
beneath a lovely sky, and in sight of evergreen
foliage and blue-waving hills; and now they were in
the silent precincts of a grave-yard surrounded by
the emblems of death. An old and miserably clad
friar emerged from the building which bounds the
opposite side of the cemetery, and approaching the
group, offered to display the wonders of the establishment,
with as much complacency as the cicerone
of a gallery of art or continental museum would have
manifested. To one who travels not so much to acquire
miscellaneous information as to realize truth;
not with a view to court novelty but to awaken
thought; not merely to be amused but to enjoy associations
and feast imagination; to one, in a word,
who seeks in foreign scenes congenial mental incitement,
there is nothing more vexatious than the
officiousness, intrusion, and affected jargon of those
localities of Europe. Isabel shuddered as she
beheld this veteran dweller among the dead, and
marked the indifference to scenes of mortality which
familiarity had induced. Frazier followed the monk,
while Isabel and the Count walked to and fro in an
area of the sunny enclosure. “This,” said he, “is
the burial-place of the poorer classes. Their ideas
of doing honor to the dead are quite peculiar. Those
who have the means engage the old friar and his
assistants to preserve the embalmed bodies or skeletons
of their friends, which are placed in hideous
array, some of them decked out in the gayest dresses,
in the lower chambers of that edifice. The poor relatives
of the deceased yearly renew the vesture and
ornaments of the withered bodies, deeming this a
testimony of their remembrance. What a dismal
manner of manifesting the sentiment! Yet how affecting
is this clinging to the mere casket of life!
How does it proclaim the earnestness with which the
most unenlightened repel the thought of annihilation!
But does not such attachment to the mortal remains
evince how dimly the idea of immortality has dawned
upon the minds of these ignorant people? Is it not
another proof of the unspiritual tendency of their
religion as popularly believed? Intelligent men often
ridicule what they call the visionary tenets of some of
the more refined sects—but what can obviate the
appalling impression that death and decay awaken.
—but a faith, not merely general but elaborately
constructed from our inmost experience, and vivified
perfectly independent of physical life—a faith that
habitually regards the tides of thought and love as
already merged in the ocean of eternity, though now
connected by a narrow and ever-evaporating stream
with the river of Time?”
“Still,” said Isabel, “it is not every one who can
best keep alive the glorious truth of an after existence,
by thus maintaining a sense of the distinctness of our
two lives. With many they are too much interwoven;
and with all the inner and the outer world
more or less commingle. Therefore it is, I think,
that the cemetery should be hallowed by nature and
rendered eloquent by art. It seems to me that many
of the customs of Europe in regard to the dead evidence
anything but Christian civilization, and I turn
with pleasure and gratitude from this horrid receptacle,
to the picture my memory affords of the beautiful
cemetery at New Haven and the quiet and
soothing precinct of Mount Auburn, where nought
meets the eye but chaste marble memorials, the refreshing
hue of the greenwood, and the flowers which
enamel the graves.”
“That is happy,” said the Count. “Such scenes
should not remind us of the earthly remains but of
the enfranchised spirit. Who would linger over the
clay when the friend it impersonated has vanished?
An accustomed walk or a favorite book is more
emblematical of the departed than his senseless frame;
for the first ministered to his deathless self; with the
last his connexion has utterly ceased. To preserve
and material a symbol, is as soulless as for the prisoner
to fix his eye upon the dim walls of his dungeon,
when a star beams radiantly through his cold grate,
as if to call his gaze heavenward.”
| THE CAPITAL. Isabel, or, Sicily | |