Part 7 (2/2)
La vade su salgha, Non abbia paura, Ci sono io sotto.'
”'Go on, go on, Signora, Go up the stairs-oh go!
Be not afraid, my lady!
For I am here below.'
”Then the visitor hearing this believes it is one of the guides employed (_inpiegati_), or one of the gentlemen or ladies who are ascending after.
And often when half-way up there comes a great puff of wind which blows up their skirts (_fa gonfiare le sottane_) which causes great laughter, and they think that this is only a common thing, and do not perceive that it does not happen to others.
”And it is said that this fairy appears by night in the Piazza del Duomo, or Cathedral Square, in different forms.”
The reason why Giotto is so popularly known as having been a shepherd is that on the central tablet of the tower or campanile, facing the street, there is a bas-relief of a man seated in a tent with sheep before him, and this is naturally supposed to represent the builder or Giotto himself, since it fills the most prominent place. In a very popular halfpenny chapbook, ent.i.tled ”The Statues under the Uffizzi in Florence, Octaves improvised by Giuseppe Moroni, called _Il Niccheri_ or the Illiterate,” I find the following:
GIOTTO.
”Voi di Mugello, nato dell' interno, Giotto felice, la da' Vespignano Prodigiose pitture in ogni esterno A Brescia, a Roma, Firenze e Milano, Nelle pietre, ne' marmi nel quaderno, L'archittetura al popolo italiano.
Da non trovare paragone simile, Vi basti, per esempio, il campanile.”
”Thou of Mugello, born in Italy, Happy Giotto, gav'st to Vespignan Great pictures which on every front we see At Brescia, Rome, in Florence and Milan, In stone, in marble, and in poetry, And architecture, all Italian.
Nothing surpa.s.sed thy wondrous art and power, Take for example, then, our great bell-tower.”
The fact that this is taken from a very popular halfpenny work indicates the remarkable familiarity with such a name as that of Giotto among the people.
THE GOBLIN OF THE TOWER BELLA TRINITA, OR THE PORTA SAN NICCOLO
”They do not speak as mortals speak, Nor sing as others sing; Their words are gleams of starry light, Their songs the glow of sunset light, Or meteors on the wing.”
I once begun a book-the ending and publis.h.i.+ng of it are in the dim and remote future, and perhaps in the limbo of all things unfinished. It was or is ”The Experiences of Flaxius the Immortal,” a sage who dwells for ever in the world, chiefly to observe the evolution of all things absurd, grotesque, quaint, illogical-in short, of all that is strictly human.
And on him I bestowed a Florentine legend which is perhaps of great antiquity, since there is a hint in it of an ancient Hebrew work by Rabbi ben Mozeltoff or the learned Gedauler Chamar-I forget which-besides being found in poetic form in my own great work on Confucius.
That money is the life of man, and that treasure buried in the earth is a sin to its possessor, forms the subject of one of Christ's parables. The same is true of all talent unemployed, badly directed, or not developed at all. The turning-point of evolution and of progressive civilisation will be when public opinion and state interests require that every man shall employ what talent he has, and every mere idler be treated as a defaulter or criminal. From this truly Christian point of view the many tales of ghosts who walk in agony because of buried gold are strangely instructive.
FLAXIUS AND THE ROSE.
”Midnight was ringing from the cloister of San Miniato in Florence on the hill above, and Flaxius sat by the Arno down below, on the bank by the square grey tower of other days, known as the Niccol, or _Torre delta Trinita_, because there are in it three arches. . . .
”It was midnight in mid-winter, and a full moon poured forth all its light over Florence as if it would fain preserve it in amber, and over the olive groves as if they had become moss agates. . . .
[”'Or I,' quoth Flaxius, 'a fly in hock.']
”Yes, it was a clear, cold, Tuscan night, and as the last peal of bells went out into eternity and faded in the irrevocable, thousands of spirits of the departed began to appear, thronging like fireflies through the streets, visiting their ancient haunts and homes, greeting, gossiping, arranging their affairs just as the peasants do on Friday in the great place of the Signoria, as they have done for centuries.
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