Old Calabria | Page 2

round the outside of those turreted walls (they are nearly
a mile in circumference; the enclosure, they say, held sixty thousand
people) there runs a level space. This is my promenade, at all hours of
the day. Falcons are fluttering with wild cries overhead; down below, a
long unimpeded vista of velvety green, flecked by a few trees and

sullen streamlets and white farmhouses--the whole vision framed in a
ring of distant Apennines. The volcanic cone of Mount Vulture, land of
Horace, can be detected on clear days; it tempts me to explore those
regions. But eastward rises up the promontory of Mount Gargano, and
on the summit of its nearest hill one perceives a cheerful building,
some village or convent, that beckons imperiously across the
intervening lowlands. Yonder lies the venerable shrine of the archangel
Michael, and Manfred's town. . . .
This castle being a national monument, they have appointed a
custodian to take charge of it; a worthless old fellow, full of untruthful
information which he imparts with the hushed and conscience-stricken
air of a man who is selling State secrets.
"That corner tower, sir, is the King's tower. It was built by the King."
"But you said just now that it was the Queen's tower."
"So it is. The Queen--she built it."
"What Queen?"
"What Queen? Why, the Queen--the Queen the German professor was
talking about three years ago. But I must show you some skulls which
we found (sotto voce) in a subterranean crypt. They used to throw the
poor dead folk in here by hundreds; and under the Bourbons the
criminals were hanged here, thousands of them. The blessed times!
And this tower is the Queen's tower."
"But you called it the King's tower just now."
"Just so. That is because the King built it."
"What King?"
"Ah, sir, how can I remember the names of all those gentlemen? I
haven't so much as set eyes on them! But I must now show you some
round sling-stones which we excavated (sotto voce) in a subterranean

crypt----"
One or two relics from this castle are preserved in the small municipal
museum, founded about five years ago. Here are also a respectable
collection of coins, a few prehistoric flints from Gargano, some quaint
early bronze figurines and mutilated busts of Roman celebrities carved
in marble or the recalcitrant local limestone. A dignified old lion--one
of a pair (the other was stolen) that adorned the tomb of Aurelius,
prastor of the Roman Colony of Luceria--has sought a refuge here, as
well as many inscriptions, lamps, vases, and a miscellaneous collection
of modern rubbish. A plaster cast of a Mussulman funereal stone, found
near Foggia, will attract your eye; contrasted with the fulsome epitaphs
of contemporary Christianity, it breathes a spirit of noble resignation:--
"In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. May God
show kindness to Mahomet and his kinsfolk, fostering them by his
favours! This is the tomb of the captain Jacchia Albosasso. God be
merciful to him. He passed away towards noon on Saturday in the five
days of the month Moharram of the year 745 (5th April, 1348). May
Allah likewise show mercy to him who reads."
One cannot be at Lucera without thinking of that colony of twenty
thousand Saracens, the escort of Frederick and his son, who lived here
for nearly eighty years, and sheltered Manfred in his hour of danger.
The chronicler Spinelli [Footnote: These journals are now admitted to
have been manufactured in the sixteenth century by the historian
Costanze for certain genealogical purposes of his own. Professor
Bernhard! doubted their authenticity in 1869, and his doubts have been
confirmed by Capasse.] has preserved an anecdote which shows
Manfred's infatuation for these loyal aliens. In the year 1252 and in the
sovereign's presence, a Saracen official gave a blow to a Neapolitan
knight--a blow which was immediately returned; there was a tumult,
and the upshot of it was that the Italian was condemned to lose his hand;
all that the Neapolitan nobles could obtain from Manfred was that his
left hand should be amputated instead of his right; the Arab, the cause
of all, was merely relieved of his office. Nowadays, all memory of
Saracens has been swept out of the land. In default of anything better,

they are printing a local halfpenny paper called "II Saraceno"--a very
innocuous pagan, to judge by a copy which I bought in a reckless
moment.
This museum also contains a buxom angel of stucco known as the
"Genius of Bourbonism." In the good old days it used to ornament the
town hall, fronting the entrance; but now, degraded to a museum
curiosity, it presents to the public its back of ample proportions, and the
curator intimated that he considered this attitude quite appropriate--
historically speaking,