Cortona

“ Strength is the parent of sweetness in this wonderful winged youth. But not a single sacrifice is made in the whole picture to mere elegance.—Cortona is a place which, independently of Signorelli, well deserves a visit. Like all Etruscan towns, it is perched on the top of a high hill, whence it commands a wonderful stretch of landscape—Monte Amiata and Montepulciano to the south, Chiusi with its lake, the lake of Thrasymene, and the whole broad Tuscan plain. ”

“ In truth, a certain degree of wonder is awakened by the fact that Cortona exists at all. It would have been by no means amazing if we had found only its ruins, as on so many other old-world sites for which later times have found no use. Great in its earliest days, foremost among the Etruscan cities of the mountains, Cortona has never been great in any later age. As a Roman city and colony it was of so little account that, even in Italy, where bishops are so thick upon the ground, it did not become a bishopric 16 till the fourteenth century. ”

“ Yet it was not for Santa Margherita that we climbed Cortona's hill at dawn, but to see the rich plain of Tuscany in its amphitheatre of blue hills, each with a towered city for its crown—Chiusi, Città della Pieve, Montepulciano, and a host of others to which we had not learned to give their names. It was a panorama of surpassing beauty which opened out before us. Fold on fold the mountains lifted their heads above the mists of the valley, rising always towards the mighty crest of Monte Amiata, which was to loom upon so many of our horizons while we were journeying through the heart of Italy. ”

“ Up on the hillside men and girls were reaping in the shadow of the ancient wall. 'And the reapers, reaping early,' quoth the poet softly to himself. Their laughter floated down to us. Every now and then a girl would straighten her lithe figure, stand upright curved scythe in hand, and sing, her clear notes soaring like a lark's in the crystal air. At our feet Cortona nestled in the embrace of her great wall, and far below, the plain of Tuscany rolled away to the hills where the sunlight fired the towers of other mountain cities. ”

“ These grey ramparts are in great part still visible, and form the chief attraction of Cortona. It is perched on the very pinnacle of a mountain, and I wound and doubled interminably over the face of the great hill, while the jumbled roofs and towers of the arrogant little city still seemed nearer to the sky than to the railway-station. “Rather rough,” Murray pronounces the local inn; and rough indeed it was; there was scarce a square foot of it that you would have cared to stroke with your hand. The landlord himself, however, was all smoothness and the best fellow in the world ”

“ Castiglione distinctly does stand on a hill-top; Cortona sits enthroned on a height which it would hardly be straining language to speak of as a mountain. We have now come to a site of the oldest class, the stronghold on the height, like Akrokorinthos and the Larissa of Argos. But at Argos and Corinth the mountain-fortress became, at a later stage, the citadel of the younger city which grew up at the mountain's foot. But at Cortona, as at greater Perugia, the city still abides on the height; it has never come down into the plain. ”

“ The hill-city of Perugia supplies an instructive contrast with the hill-city of Cortona. The obvious contrast in the matter of modern prosperity and importance is an essential part of the comparative history. Cortona has through all ages lived on, but not much more than lived on. Perugia has, through all ages, kept, if not a place in the first rank of Italian cities, yet at any rate a high place in the second rank. She never had the European importance of Venice, Genoa, Florence, Naples, and Milan, or of Pisa in her great days. ”

“ We next employed an old man as guide. Of course he knew all about Luca Signorelli. He could show us all his frescos and pictures in Cortona. Some of them were bad enough, as he supposed the Signore knew; they were painted in the artist's youth. But we wanted to see his house? Ah! we had but to follow him, and he led us in triumph to that of Pietro da Cortona. As this would not do, he consulted with an old woman, who recommended a visit to a certain padre. The padre was in his kitchen. He had never heard of Signorelli's house, and honestly admitted his ignorance. ”

“ But the lower city is still thoroughly a hill-city. The hill of Perugia is lower than the hill of Cortona, while the city of Perugia 27 is vastly greater than the city of Cortona. But Perugia is as far removed as Cortona from coming down into the plain. On the little hill of Arezzo such a process could happen, and it has happened. Not so with the loftier seats of its neighbours. Cortona is not likely to grow; Perugia very likely may. But it will take a long period of downward growth before unbroken dwellings of men stretch all the way from its railway station to its municipal palace. ”

“ Near the town we met two young lovers, their arms around each other's waists, and a group of men who directed us in our search for the inn up a short steep hill leading away from the main road. Above, inside the city gate, several other citizens told us we must go down again, for the road we had left led right by the door. Clearly the Albergo della Stella—for that was its name—was not well known in Cortona. After a climb of three miles it was provoking to go even a foot out of our way, and we turned back in no cheerful mood. ”

“ Margaret of Cortona, converted by the example of her penitence, and like her, took the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis, as did their friend B. Gilia or Egidia of Cortona, and, both became companions of Margaret, in her works meet for repentance, and died before her. All three are buried in the church of the Friars Minors, in Cortona (Jacobilli, SS. dell' Umbria) . S. F. Ordenskalendar says Adriana died immediately after winning the indulgence of Portiuncula at Assisi, and went straight into heaven, without passing through the fires of purgatory. ”

“ It is a wide leap from these days of study to the beginning of his citizen's life in Cortona, when, a man of thirty-eight, he first settled down as a burgher discharging important duties there, but it would be idle to attempt to fill the gap, and only one document exists to help in any way to bridge it over. ”

“ Try to see it on a winter morning, when the mists are lying white and low and thin upon the plain, when distant hills rise islanded into the air, and the outlines of lakes are just discernible through fleecy haze.—Next to Cortona in importance is the Convent of Monte Oliveto in the neighbourhood of Siena, where Signorelli painted eight frescoes from the story of S. Benedict, distinguished by his customary vigour of conception, masculine force of design, and martial splendour in athletic disdainful young men. ”

“ It was here too we were to part with Sandrino. He must be back in Montepulciano by six; more friends were coming. Would we write him postal cards to tell him of the distance and time we made? And that map of Tuscany we said we would give him, would we not remember it? He was going to take some great rides, and it would help him. Then we turned one way, and he, riding his best for the [pg 116] young ladies, the other, to be seen by us no more.
It was roses all the way to Cortona. They grew in villa gardens and along the road up the mountain ”

“ The outlook is very lovely, with the three serrated peaks Monte Cristallo, Monte Piano and Monte Tofana, standing as guardian sentinels over the little valley of Ampezzo far below, where lies Cortina sleeping in the sun, while in the distance shine the snow fields of the Marmolata. Just as steeply as it climbed up one side, the road descends on the other side, to Cortina. This place is the capital of the valley and altogether lovely; beautiful in its woods and meadows, beautiful in its mountain views, beautiful in the town itself and beautiful in its people. ”

“ Like the old town of Taranto, Cotrone occupies the site of the ancient acropolis, a little headland jutting into the sea; above, and in front of the town itself, stands the castle built by Charles V., with immense battlements looking over the harbour. From a road skirting the shore around the base of the fortress one views a wide bay, bounded to the north by the dark flanks of Sila (I was in sight of the Black Mountain once more) , and southwards by a long low promontory, its level slowly declining to the far-off point where it ends amid the waves. ”

“ This in the town which still bears the name of Croton. The people are all more or less unhealthy; one meets peasants horribly disfigured with life-long malaria. There is an agreeable cordiality in the middle classes; business men from whom I sought casual information, even if we only exchanged a few words in the street, shook hands with me at parting. I found no one who had much good to say of his native place; every one complained of a lack of water. Indeed, Cotrone has as good as no water supply. ”

“ Whereto replies the much-offended Malvolio: "That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird." He of the crossed garters disdains such fantasy. "I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion."
I took my ticket for Cotrone, which once was Croton. At Croton, Pythagoras enjoyed his moment's triumph, ruling men to their own behoof. At Croton grew up a school of medicine which glorified Magna Graecia. "Healthier than Croton," said a proverb; for the spot was unsurpassed in salubrity; beauty and strength distinguished its inhabitants, who boasted their champion Milon. ”

“ In every country and every age those talk most who have least to say that is worth saying. These tonguesters of Cotrone had their predecessors in the public place of Croton, who began to gossip before dawn, and gabbled unceasingly till after nightfall; with their voices must often have mingled the bleating of goats or the lowing of oxen, just as I heard the sounds to-day. ”

“ During this long and marvellous journey Coronado renewed his courtship. He was cautious, however; he made a confidant of his friend Aunt Maria; begged her favorable intercession.
"Clara," said Mrs. Stanley, as the two women jolted along in one of the lumbering wagons, "there is one thing in your life which perhaps you don't suspect."
The girl, who wanted to hear about Thurstane all the time, and expected to hear about him, asked eagerly, "What is it?"
"You have made Mr. Coronado fall in love with you," said Aunt Maria, thinking it wise to be clear and straightforward, as men are reputed to be. ”

“ I have therefore been an hourly witness of the great and good qualities of Corradino. The bravery of his spirit makes him rise above the weakness of youth and inexperience; he possesses all the nobility of spirit that belongs to the family of Swabia, and, in addition, a purity and gentleness that attracts the respect and love of the old and wary courtiers of Frederic and Conrad. You are brave, and would be generous, did not the fury of your passions, like a consuming fire, destroy in their violence every generous sentiment: how then can you become the tool of Charles? ”

“ Something is just going to happen—somebody is coming, some one we love—you can almost detect a faint perfume, long remembered, never to be forgotten. A Corot is a tryst with all that you most admire and love best—it speaks of youth, joyous, hopeful, expectant youth. The flavor is Grecian, and if the Greeks had left us any paintings they would all have been just like Corot's. ”

“ At that age he had become as rich a man as he might have been had he remained a sensible draper.
Best of all, Corot loved to paint clouds and dewy nights, pale moons and early day, and of all amusements in the world, he preferred the theatre. There he would sit; gay or sad as the play might make him, weeping or laughing and as interested as a little child.
After he had anything to give away, Corot was the most madly generous of men. It was he who gave a pension to the widow of his brother artist, Millet, on which she lived all the rest of her days. ”

“ On that little hill by the city of Florence, where the lovers of Giorgione are lying, it is always the solstice of noon, of noon made so languorous by summer suns that hardly can the slim naked girl dip into the marble tank the round bubble of clear glass, and the long fingers of the lute-player rest idly upon the chords. It is twilight always for the dancing nymphs whom Corot set free among the silver poplars of France. In eternal twilight they move, those frail diaphanous figures, whose tremulous white feet seem not to touch the dew-drenched grass they tread on. ”

“ For years past Cortina has been so considerable a resort of tourists and rest-seekers that splendid accommodation is nowadays obtainable; and one of the first impressions made by the place upon the traveller who comes to it after that of its picturesqueness is its prosperity. It is far cleaner, too, than most Italian or semi-Italian towns of its type. Though the climate is so favourable—even in the coldest of winters the thermometer seldom falls far below freezing-point—the soil of the district is very poor, and the appearance of most of the mountain-sides and valleys is bleak. ”

“ It was unfortunate that I brought no letter of introduction to Cotrone; I should much have liked to visit one of the better houses. Well-to-do people live here, and I was told that, in fine weather, "at least half a dozen" private carriages might be seen making the fashionable drive on the Strada Regina Margherita. But it is not easy to imagine luxury or refinement in these dreary, close-packed streets. Judging from our table at the Concordia, the town is miserably provisioned; the dishes were poor and monotonous and infamously cooked. ”