THE SHRINE OF POVERTY.
OF all the minor disadvantages of travel which have accom- panied the substitution of the locomotive for the coach, perhaps none is so real an evil as the very partial impression an ordinary traveller derives from a short visit to some interesting land. When Rome and Florence, for instance, are brought within the compass of a day's journey, the tourist is little likely to care to break his journey for comparatively obscure cities, much less villages, scurries past "reedy Thrasymene " with- out recognition, and scarce notices the towers and churches of Perugia, rising green and grey on the mountain side. Still less likely is our tourist to arrest his comet-like progression at a rough country station, some fourteen miles from the old Etruscan city, a station where very obviously neither guard nor porter expects him to alight, and which he has some difficulty in identifying by the help of a nearly illegible inscription, as Assisi. And yet there was a time when this forgotten town played no inconsiderable part in the world's history, and was the central seat of an Order that reckoned princes among its followers, and practically divided with the Dominicans the spiritual sovereignty of Europe. And even now, if any very strong- minded traveller should be able to defy the ominous silence of Bradshaw and the neglect of Cook, and more regardful of what has been, than what is, spend a few days in the home of Poverty, he will not regret we think, in after years, his deviation from the accustomed routine of travel ; nay, if he gain no other advantage, he will at least have had a brief space in which to take quiet breath, ere the red-books and the valet de place are again in requisition, ere St. Peter's be- comes No. 17 in the often consulted plan, and Rome takes 4' at least a week to see properly." For at Assisi there is no hurry, and so strong is the spirit of the place that the most energetic tourist quickly succumbs to it ; even those who rush over here from Perugia for a day's excursion treading softly, ere they have been a couple of hours in the city of St. Francis. And now we will suppose that "our uncommercial traveller" has safely escaped the clutches of the three or four inn touts whom his arrival has roused into unwonted energy, and consign- ing his bag to the least ill-favoured, has set out manfully along the dusty road leading from the station to the town ; for be it noted that Assisi is not strong in equipages, and the solitary rough wooden box denominated omnibus, is hardly an attrac- tive conveyance at first sight, though ere long the traveller begins to look upon it as an old friend, as it is to be found during the greater part of the day, standing about in various unexpected parts of the town, being apparently left where- ever it has taken a passenger. One further violence we must do to the mind of the well-instructed tourist, namely, to beg that he will not accept guidance, or torment himself with details, archeological or otherwise, but simply open his eyes to .all the quiet influences of past devotion and present beauty which he will find around him. And first, he will see by the side of the road a vast church, in the most uninteresting style of Renaissance architecture, not unlike a small edition of St. Peter's. This is St. Mary of the Angels, little notable, save for its size, and a small chapel it contains, where St. Francis first assembled his few followers. In it there is little to be seen,—a spoilt fresco, by Perugino, walls dark with age, save where, here and there, the dim lamplight falls upon the silver offerings of penitence and thanksgiving ; and some carved doors, more curious than beautiful. These need not delay us much from the steep ascent to the town. Another dusty mile of road, and Assisi lies before and above us, rising a confused mass of
tiled roofs and massive walla, from the grey depths of the olive- groves which surround it. Not only on a mountain, but of the mountain, does the town seem to be built, the ponderous blocks of dim red and dusty yellow stone, scarcely seeming to have more the characteristics of houses than of the cliffs above, save where, here and there, a square tower of church or fortification lifts itself into clear pre-eminence of definition, from the tum- bled confusion of roofs, walls, and buttresses. Another turn
in the long, winding road, and the great attraction of the few sightseers who visit Assisi,—the convent of St. Francis, with what Bradshaw calla its "three superb churches," stands re- vealed. Picture to yourself a long mass of building, standing upon a double range of tall arches, and pierced with a multi- tude of small windows. This is the convent building itself; -beyond it, on a level with its roof, rises the Church of St. Francis, with its square campanile. Of the same dull-yellowish colour as the other buildings of the town, there is little beauty
in the church from this point of view, save that of massive strength, and a certain simplicity of design which, when carried out upon so large a scale, almost amounts to grandeur. So, leaving the Convent on our left, we enter beneath a massive square tower the first street of the city. It is difficult to say whence comes the sense of extreme desolation which oppresses us, not from the absence of life certainly, for at this point there are commonly a few of the villagers and townspeople chatting round an old fountain, and on every side resounds the squeaking of the pigs, that every well-to-do inhabitant of Assisi keeps tethered on the ground-floor of his house. Nor is it that there are no signs of commercial enterprise, for we notice a few of the hammered brass and copper jars and cauldrons glimmer- ing dimly in the recesses of one of the dark shops, and a few strings of onions and other vegetables in another. Is it some- thing, we wonder, in the construction of the town itself, in its rough-hewn blocks of dusty stone, its huge buttresses, its blocked-up arches, its weather-beaten tiles, the defacement of its ruined fountains, and the general appearance of enormous toil with which the city must have been con- structed ? Or is it still more the case, that even at the first glance we connect the appearance of the town and the state of the superstition to which it owes its existence ; whose power changed the small Etrurian village into a shrine of the deepest sanctity and proudest priesthood, and having done its work for good and evil, faded gradually away, and now finds voice only on the trembling lips of the half-dozen monks who are all that remain at Assisi of the famous Brotherhood ? For whatever reason, the place is desolate, desolate as no place can be which has not once been great ; and as we ascend the street, the impression deepens. Few of the houses have glass to their windows ; the old arched entrances are blocked up with rough stone, and low, square doorways supply their place ; the ground- floor of the house is commonly used as a store-room, a stable, or a piggery. The upper windows show us nothing within that we are accustomed to connect with ideas of domestic comfort. Even the massive ironwork seems to partake of the general desolation, and is coated with the grey dust of centuries. Here and there we pass a fountain, generally situated in a small grass-grown open space, with a couple of earthen pitchers left to fill themselves leisurely ; and over all there is still the sense of death in life, needing a vigorous effort on our part to endure. We begin to think there was some sense in that philistine American we met at Florence, who smiled so scornfully at our determination to visit Assisi, and to have thoughts of the next train to a more lively spot. However food, and wine at the modest little hotel quickly dissipate our loneliness ; our musings on St. Francis and his monks assume a more pleasant complexion, and by the time we find our way down the long street to the Convent, we are in a fit mood to appreciate any beauty or pleasure which we may chance to find there. And indeed he would be hard to please who could be discontented with the enjoyment here provided, for, whether it be Nature or Art for which his "thirsty soul doth pine," here he may satiate himself at leisure.
Let us pause a little before entering the church, and cast our eyes over the scene before us. We stand on a little terrace half-way up the town, looking down upon tiled roofs, grey walls, and greyer olive groves, interspersed with some brighter greens of acacia and poplar. Beneath us, wind- ing away in long perspective, is the road to the station, with the tall dome of St. Mary of the Angels forming a prominent blot upon the landscape, and breaking the level monotony of the plain. On the right a broad river-bed, nearly dry at the present season, stretches a snake-like course towards Perugia, the towers of which are just visible in the distance. In front of us, the Valley of the Tiber stretches away for miles and miles, broken only by long lines of poplars and tiny villages, which, from the height at which we stand, only show as gleaming spots in the sunshine. In the extreme distance, purple mountains enclese the valley on every side, and immedi- ately behind us rises the mountain on which Assisi is built, crowned with a rained citadel, and black against the sky the sharp pinnacles of cypress-trees. .Whichever way one turns, there is beauty,—in the quaint architecture of the old town, in the wild growth of the ancient olive-trees, and their delicate tints of greyish-green and silver ; in the brighter colours of the plain, with its broad stretches of sunshine and little shadows of cloud; in the ranges of mountains, the darkness of the cypresses, and the brightness of the sky. And so muttering within ourselves
that the old monk was no bad judge of scenery, after all, we turn in beneath the broad portico of the church. We will not attempt to describe more than its general effect, and indeed that is best done by simply saying that it closely resembles that of St. Mark, at Venice. In detail, there is hardly the least similarity ; but in depth of light and shade, in profusion of rich colour gleaming on every hand, in the general effect of its round arches, mosaic pavement, and glimmering lamps, the similarity is striking. If the lover of Nature found the prospect without to his mind, the lover of Art can hardly fail to be as satisfied with the prospect within. Above the high-altar shine the four greatest works of Giotto, and to right and left of the choir, roof and wall are covered with frescoes by Giotto, Cimabne, Memmi, Gaddi, and others, every inch of space being filled with paintings. Chapel after chapel opens in long series from the choir, each rich in paintings, even the huge round arches of the nave, are painted in deli- cately-involved patterns to represent mosaics of coloured marble. Here our traveller may well rest in silent wonder, that so much beauty remains unvisited, for unvisited it is by nine out of every ten tourists who pass by the gates of Assisi. There is, perhaps—we will even say probably—no building within the limits of the civilised world, in which so much colour-beauty is concentrated as in that of the Lower
Church at Assisi. For five hundred years have these walls glowed like jewels through the "dim, religious light," and the setting sun has lighted up with still greater glory the golden halos of their pictured saints; for five hundred years have prayer and praise rung along these massive arches and echoed up the mountain-side; and now prayer and picture are fading alike; the most damaged fresco on the walls is hardly so maimed, as the rite it witnesses, the vilest restoration, no greater parody on the original than are those few poor monks, parodies of their ancient Order. It is, we think, impossible for any one with a heart which is not entirely dead to all human sympathies not to be greatly moved at this combination of fading art and faded faith, but it is a feeling the power of which we can hardly hope to explain to our readers, apart from the influences which produced it. The religio loci is, of all other influences, the one which is least capable of deliberate analysis, and the combination be- tween extreme colour-beauty and a peculiar solemnity of feeling, one which many people even deny the existence of. Let us enter the sacristy and ascend the narrow stair which leads us to the Upper Church. Here all is changed; the impression is one of light rather than gloom, of delicate grace rather than rough-hewn strength. The Lower Church seems as if it were a cavern, hol- lowed out of some mountain of precious stones; the upper is like the wreath of coloured spray tossed aloft from the foot of a waterfall. Here, too, on roof, pillar, and wall, there are paintings innumerable and priceless, the greater part of which are undergoing destruction either by damp or restoration, only a few being left in fair condition. If may well be that we did not give to this Upper Church the same careful attention as to the Lower, for it seemed to us that it was the Lower in which all the real essence of the place and its history were concen- trated; but still there is enough beauty even in the upper building to give much delight, without entering upon the detailed study of the frescoes. We have left ourselves no space to speak of the other interesting portions of the town, of its quaint and often beautiful architecture, or of the many glorious walks along the mountain to be taken there- from. No more impressive hill scenery are we acquainted with than that which surrounds Assisi, though it is of a somewhat gloomy character. The olive and the cypress are almost the only trees to be seen on one side of the town, and the mountains slope abruptly down to a narrow valley, through which foams a mountain torrent. In the immediate neighbourhood, are the spots connected with the actual life of St. Francis and St. Chiara (the saint who was the first of his female followers), the most interesting of which is the Hermitage of St. Francesco, lying in a cleft of the mountain, some two miles from the town. Many another church and monument is there of interest in this place, but we have outstayed our space and, we fear, our readers' patience ; so let us take the midnight train to more civilised Florence, throw behind us the dreamy idleness of the few days we have spent amongst traditions of saint and miracle, and leave Assisi sleeping upon the mountain-side, in its accus- tomed solitude. In one last look from our comfortable first- class carriage, we see the convent and the sharp points of its surrounding cypresses dark against the clear starlight, and in
another instant the train has swept on out of the shadow of the mountain, and we are in the nineteenth century once more.
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