Campo Santo

“ Immediately back of the heart of the city are a number of these salient spurs, on one of which is planted the Campo Santo—foreign and native cemeteries—while those to the right have been, by trouble and means of the foreigners, cleared away into small esplanades, having neat and pretty cottages, surrounded by shrubbery—one, the flora pondia, a very beautiful, but diminutive tree, blossoms luxuriantly, with delicate, white flowers, shaped like inverted cones, or bells, and although shedding no odor during the day, yet at night it fairly renders the air oppressive with perfume. ”

“ There is something terrifically grand in the crouching angel in the Campo Santo,—not in the form, nor in the face, which is mostly hid, but in the conception of the attitude of horror with which he beholds the awful scene. ”

“ The Campo Santo or burial ground of Bologna (and that of Genoa) are considered the finest cemeteries in Europe. The Campo Santo is not like the Pere la Chaise of Paris, a crowd of monuments on a vast exposed plain, but is a great structure, in which the graves and beautiful marble monuments are arranged in long arcades. ”

“ I came away after a time and entered the Campo Santo, the loveliest thing of its kind that I saw in Europe. I never knew, strange to relate, that graveyards were made, or could be made, into anything so impressively artistic. This particular ground was nothing more than an oblong piece of grass, set with several cypress trees and surrounded with a marble arcade, below the floor and against the walls of which are placed the marbles, tombs and sarcophagi. The outer walls are solid, windowless and decorated on the inside with those naïve, light-colored frescoes of the pupils of Giotto. ”

“ Sometimes it was touching, sometimes it was revolting; and in Italy it is not otherwise. The Campo Santo of San Miniato at Florence, the Campo Santo at Bologna, the Campo Santo wherever else you find it, you find of one quality with the Campo Santo at Genoa. It makes you the helpless confidant of family pride, of bruised and lacerated love, of fond aspiration, of religious longing, of striving faith, of foolish vanity and vulgar pretence, but, if the traveller would read the local civilization aright, he cannot do better than go to study it there. ”

“ I strolled for some time spell-bound about the cathedral, not caring to multiply impressions by [Pg 36] entering, shivering a little in the wind which held a recollection of the sea, and was at the same time cold and feverish. By and by, however, I made my way into the Campo Santo, lingering fascinated in those strange sculptured arcades, with the visions of life and death, and hell and heaven, painted on the walls.
One or two cypresses rose from the little grass-plot in the middle, and in the rank grass the jonquils were already in flower. ”

“ As the remains of heretics are not permitted to pollute either the church-yard or Campo Santo, those Americans who have died in Santa Fé, have been buried on a hill which overlooks the town to the northward. ”

“ Death mocks even the homage done him by our poor fears and hopes: with dust he wipes out dust, and with decay he blots the image of decay.
I assure the reader that I made none of these apt reflections in the Campo Santo at Pisa, but have written them out this morning, in Cambridge, because there happens to be an east wind blowing. No one could have been sad in the company of our cheerful and patient cicerone, who, although visibly anxious to get his fourteen-thousandth American family away, still would not go till he had shown us that monument to a dead enmity which hangs in the Campo Santo. ”

“ No vehicles are in the streets, though a few horses roam untethered through the town. Every burden is carried on the heads of men or women. The house-doors are all open; but the interior is generally too dark to disclose much of the inner mysteries to the stranger. Westward from the town lies the new Campo Santo, and beyond this the almost impenetrable forest. ”

“ One goes into such a burying place as the Campo Santo at Pisa, or reads Dante's Divina Comedia, and the painters who adorned the walls with frescoes depicting the future abodes of the blessed and the damned, and the poet who actually travelled in thought through Hell and Purgatory and Paradise, were as keenly aware of these places as of neighboring Italian towns. We lack a definite neighborhood in which to locate the lives that pass from our sight. ”

“ It is useless to argue against facts. A single look of interest draws a half dozen guides who want to explain all about the Virgin and the image. I give them enough money to get drunk on and die if they will leave me alone and tell me no more about the wonder. After they are gone I turn to the Campo Santo, just{134} behind the chapel. This is the Westminster of Guadalupe, full to running over with illustrious pilgrims, bandits and all. ”

“ Josiah thought most probable they worked by the day. Sez he, “Men are most always more shiftless when you pay by the day.”
It has very fine public gardens, and one day we went to the Campo Santo. It is a beautiful spot; they say it has the finest sculpture and statuary in the world. We spent some time wandering around, resting our eyes on the beautiful marble forms on every side.
They wuz a quiet crowd, too; jest as calm and silent as them they kep’ watch over. ”

“ A stronghold which covers the district between the Guadiana and the Tagus, where the French, retreating from this place in March, 1811, were suddenly confronted by a large British force under Marshal Beresford, and a combat ensued which was disastrous to the French.
Campoos. Regiments of infantry in the service of the Mahratta confederates.
Campo Santo. A town of Northern Italy, situated on the Panaro. In 1743 a sanguinary battle was fought here between the Spanish and Austrian forces.
Camp Out, To. To rest for the night without a standing roof ”

“ From the green of the foreground to the blue and mysterious distant swellings of the horizon the face of the Campo has been devoid of humanity. Near by a humble rancho, it is true, raises its diffident walls from the earth, a lowly erection of turf and reeds, enlivened here and there by a small auxiliary patch of corrugated iron, that catches up the sun-rays to flash them back in brilliant defiance. ”

“ It was three o'clock, and we had now travelled six leagues and a half, and were glad to rest. The sunset was lovely.
This village was Congonhas do Campo. We got into a comfortable ranch, and then called on the padre. That is the best thing to do at these places, as he is the man who shows you hospitality, points out the lions, and introduces you and gives you all the information you want. The padre showed us great kindness, and took us to see the college and the church, the most striking part of the village and valley. ”

“ The sloping hillside where we had spent the night breaks at its crest and drops steeply down to the village of Nouvelle, and the rich pasture-land with tall poplar-trees in ordered array. Beyond the ground rises suddenly, with patches of cultivation sloping up to the skyline in gentle undulations. Twenty yards below the crest of the hill, three hundred yards from a small plantation, two field-guns lay abandoned in the open. ”

“ The sleepy people in the little clusters of huts, in the small ranches near the road, recognized by the headlong sound the charge of San Tomé silver escort towards the crumbling wall of the city on the Campo side. ”

“ It had shifted them upon the whole extent of the immense Campo, with the white walls of its haciendas on the knolls dominating the green distances; with its grass-hatched ranchos crouching in the folds of ground by the banks of streams; with the dark islands of clustered trees on a clear sea of grass, and the precipitous range of the Cordillera, immense and motionless, emerging from the billows of the lower forests like the barren coast of a land of giants. ”

“ For the greater part, the Camp is a vast plain, covering five hundred million acres of flat, fertile soil, with scarcely a natural hillock higher than those thrown up by the ants, and no depression more marked than those which the cartwheels have plowed—stretching from horizon to horizon, north, west, and south—vast, silent, and awe-inspiring in the majesty of its enormous extent and productiveness—the calm, inexhaustible bosom which suckles the prodigious infant on the Plata. ”

“ Not till the poor days when the waterless, ruined city sends its people down from the heights to drink of the muddy stream does Campo Marzo become a town, and then, around the castle-tomb of the Colonna and the castle-theatre of the Orsini the wretched houses begin to rise here and there, thickening to a low, dark forest of miserable dwellings threaded [Pg 272] through and through, up and down and crosswise, by narrow and crooked streets, out of which by degrees the lofty churches and palaces of the later age are to spring up. ”

“ On the left lies the Casa de Campo, an immense extent of park, containing, on the high ground, some splendid specimens of the Scotch fir, and, in more sheltered spots, groves of beech, avenues of plane, and masses of the dark-leaved ilex, which grows to great perfection in this climate. ”

“ But there is, nevertheless, a certain fascination about this very vastness of the Camp which grows upon one; in these leagues upon leagues of rich soil, which here spread themselves in readiness to receive the seed from the hand of the farmer, and to yield forth an abounding harvest in return for the labour bestowed. Upon these plains one may watch the herds of cattle and the flocks of the sheep which are scattered clear to the limit of one’s vision, a distance so great that the largest animals stand out as mere specks against the sky. ”

“ After descending a steep, rocky ridge, we wind through a dreary glen, opening into the valley of Nazareth. We rode through the crooked, filthy and narrow streets of the city of Nazareth, and pitched our tents near its borders. The town is located in narrow ravines, and on the narrow, rocky declivities by which they are separated. A little valley opens out before it, about one mile long and one-half mile in breadth, engirdled by high, bleak hills. The valley is divided into small, plowed fields, in the centre of which are patches of gardens, enclosed by hedges of cactus. ”

“ The walks in the immediate neighbourhood of Pera are the great and little Campo, and somewhat farther distant the great bridge which unites Topana with Constantinople; the latter is a most amusing walk, during which we can view the life and bustle on both shores at the same time. In the little Campo are two Frankish coffee-houses, before which we sit quite in European fashion on handsome chairs and benches, listening to pleasant music, and regaling ourselves with ices. ”

“ Anyone with a map and a normal sense of direction can with a little patience reach his destination. The churches are usually situated on or near a campo; a stream of people will generally be found passing along the streets and over the bridges between the campi, and a well-worn track marks the more frequented ways. ”

“ With my own idea of what a missionary should do, there could be no better spot than San Pro to commence operations. The village was not large, but it is better completely to gain over twenty families, than exhaust one’s energies merely skimming over the surface of a dozen tribes, leaving no permanent impression. We fixed on the best locality for a house, a trim garden, a diminutive church, and a school. It is a soil that would repay culture. ”

“ On the eastern side of the camp stood a canopy, under which the standards were kept, and there numbers of priests were occupied in their office of blessing the warriors, offering sacrifices, and singing hymns and litanies. But these pious sounds were frequently overpowered by the loud voices of the gamblers and revellers, by the blows of the hammers, the hoarse braying of the asses, and the neighing of the horses. ”

“ On March 1st the camp was broken up, and the long western march began. The Mormons were divided into companies of fifty or sixty wagons, and every night the cattle were carefully rounded up and guards set to protect them from attack. From time to time they built more elaborate camps, and men were left in charge to plant grain, build log cabins, dig wells, and fence the farms, in order that they might give food and shelter to other Mormons who would be making the journey later. The weather was all against their progress. ”

“ The stony track brought her at last to the corner of the enclosure of olive-trees belonging to the monastery; it branched here, one path leading straight to the gates of the building, the other skirting the olive-wood plantation, and then passing on out into the barren hills and open country towards Jericho. The girl took the second track, and here, under the friendly shade of the sheltering trees, she walked more erect and easily. When she reached the farther corner of the plantation she stopped and listened, gazing round her. ”

“ As though to herald in the sun, bells began to ring this morning from every church throughout the valley. For this is a great feast. It does not belong more to San Matteo than to San Luca, nor can even la Madonna claim it for a special honour: it is the property of every village, of every saint, and of every parish. That little church niched in among the chestnuts has, therefore, just as good a right to sound her peal in the grey hours of the morning as has any other campanile throughout this valley of the Northern Apennines. ”

“ The valley retained to its close very much the same features; a succession of beautiful palm-groves, here and there a little group of palm-leaf-thatched houses; and towards the end of the valley, which was there also enclosed by hills, although not equal in height to Pan de Matanzas, and Combre, lay a sugar plantation, with a sugar-mill, negro slaves, a slave village, &c, belonging to it. The beautiful valley even has its share in the old curse. ”

“ We could quarry the rock during idle time, and burn our own lime right here on the ranch. While you are here, give me some plans, and we’ll show you that the white element of Las Palomas are not such hopeless heretics as you suppose. Now, if we build the chapel, I’m just going to ask one favor in return: I expect to die and be buried on this ranch. You’re a younger man by twenty years and will outlive me, and on the day of my burial I want you to lay aside your creed and preach my funeral in this little chapel which you and I are going to build. ”