whitebeard

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

CHAPTER III

CASTLES OF THE GUIDI

“Chiefless castles breathing stern farewells.

And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind,
worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd,
all tenantless, save to the crannying wind."

ON the hillside, above the ruined Castle of Porciano, grows a sorb tree, noted in the country for a remarkable echo which throws back with extraordinary clearness, from the wall of the old tower opposite, a sound uttered on this spot. A whole sentence will be repeated with the exact inflections of the speaker’s voice, yet with an added plaintiveness, which seems to belong to some other being; some spirit, perhaps, imprisoned in those mouldering stones. It might be the lost spirit of the past, still unburied and condemned to mock with idle repetition the million questions which we ask of it.
As you stand beneath the tree, with that enigmatical voice in your ears, and look down upon the pensive Valley below, stretching far away southwards, a hundred such mystic echoes are breathed back to you. Close by, upon a little rise, the jagged tower of Porciano fronts you, one—eyed and broken-fanged, like an old wolf, standing up dark and massive, flanked by the shattered walls of the castle, over the gorge of the unseen Arno. Beyond the river the steeps rise again, crowned farther down by the gaunt ruins of Romena, gigantic skeleton fingers pointing to the sky. More distant still, small stately Poppi hovers in the misty depths of the Valley, and far away Bibbiena may be just descried, a faint cloud speck against the blue pallor of the morning hills.
These towered heights, as one sees them in the early hours of the day, rising out of the river of mist which marks the winding course of the Arno, and sweeping away into the far distance between the long lines of the hills, remind one of those twilight times of the first Conti Guidi, when the castles held hands across the intervening valleys and represented an undivided strength and dominion. In their unbroken chain upon the river’s flood they might stand as symbols of that ordered authority flowing from a divinely-appointed source, which a poet dreamed of once here in the Valley. But as they emerge with the increasing hours into distinctness and take form and substance from the sunlight and shadow we see them as it were in the c1earer light of later history sundered by party differences and fraternal hatred, and breathing anger and defiance at one another across the narrow ravines, a picture in little of the divided Italy of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries . The eyries degenerate into nests of greedy carrion birds, the towers decay with their weakening lords, till now in the late afternoon of that historic day they appear empty, ruined, silent, the fleshless ribs of the grand old past.
But their tragic aspect only enhances the beauty and peacefulness of this forgotten place. Here beside the sorb, on this hillside turned to the south, you may bask at midday with the lizards in the sun, though the year is sloping to its winter, and already nights and mornings have a keen tooth. Beside you is a pleasant green le a, spread with a few sparse chestnut trees. Behind rise up the rocky pastures and forest-hung slopes of Falterona, and in front is the blue immensity of valley, mountain and sky. The ebb and flow of a quiet human life pulses in the silence. From the castle opposite a steep path winds down to a fountain hid in the hol1ow at our feet, and all day long women descend and ascend with pitchers in their hands or bundles of linen poised upon their heads, for they are washing at the well, and voices call down with that sweet melancholy fall which carries the words as far as if they were song.
It is hard to think that this idyllic hamlet was once of some account in the world. Yet the ruined tower yonder represents the once redoubtable stronghold of those powerful barons, the Conti Guidi of Porciano, whose allegiance was an important element in the schemes and reckonings of an Emperor. The mountain paths were frequented then by ambassadors and knights and persons of importance, and travellers of all sorts. Wandering minstrels found their way to these Alpine regions, and rich merchants coming from the eastern ports with their strings of laden mules used to pass beneath the castle on their way to Florence and Pisa. The descendants of the Counts Palatine of Tuscany did not disdain to fall occasionally upon these last and re1ieve them of their wealth; for in spite of their ancient name and possessions the Lords of Porciano seemed to have lacked gentilezza. One who knew them well likens them to the swine which fed in the oak forests of Falterona around their castle, for it can hardly be doubted that the poet of the Divina Commedia intends to indicate them with a savage play upon words in the famous lines :

"fra brutti porci più degni di galle
che d'altro cibo fatto in uman uso."

Dante is believed to have stayed at Porciano at some period of his exile. The castle is situated precisely under the source of Arno, the locality from which the poet dates his two great political epistles, written in I3I I, though that somewhat .vague indication might certainly apply to Romena or even to Poppi, and here are no means of deciding which place is meant. Be that as it may, the memory of the poet is the proudest and most living tradition of the old castle, while the traces of its arrogant lords are now scarcely heeded. Time's revenge! There is a popular legend that Dante was imprisoned here by the Counts. There seems to be no evidence of this, yet the tradition may have some foundation. It is easy to fancy that he may have scourged them somewhat free1y with his scornful tongue for their lack of zeal and their selfish greed, and that they found it easier to silence him by the bolts and bars of their dungeons than by argument, little reckoning with whom they had to do, and that one day they would be proclaimed porci to all the world for all time. Such summary treatment of him might help to excuse the poet's scathing satire on his hosts, if their political vacillations and the disloyalty to the Emperor .who was come to redeem Italy were not enough in his eyes to loose him from obligation for a hospitality embittered very likely by contempt and neglect.
Of the old stronghold little is left except the great tower and some remains of the towers and walls which surrounded the great court. A few peasants live now in rude dwellings, once part of the castle, and their peaceful vines fin the enclosure where the baron's vassals used to assemble to follow him to battle, and where many a duel of play and of death has been fought. The remains of a great cistern which supplied the castle with water still exist beneath this court. Within the empty shell of the tower, which is pierced by many round-headed windows, traces of the old floors and chambers are plainly visible mounting upwards to the battlements, where the watchmen kept their look-out over hills and valleys for foes and for fat merchants. Fragments of the vaulting which once roofed the great hall still project from the walls, upon which remain traces of painted stucco. But for the rest the ground is a heap of fallen stones and rubbish, the old chambers which sheltered so many generations are open to wind and rain and the birds nest within them. Y our heart aches as you think of the many generations of lives that have been rounded within this place, which now itself, unshaken by a thousand Apennine storms, nor split by all the human passion which it once contained, lives on in a Tithonus-like immortality of age and solitude.
A fine old gateway admits into the precincts of the castle, and outside, still enclosed within the original outer girdle of walls, is the village, as ancient as the tower itself, and hardly changed from the time when the inhabitants were serfs and retainers of the baron, a part of his “family." The only thing that is modern is the church, a plain, commonplace little building, which contains an interesting triptych, an Annunciation with figures of SS. Raphael and James the Less on one side and SS. Margaret and John " Evangelist on the other, and a predella ,wit scenes from the legends of these saints. An inscription records that Count Neri of Modigliano (and Porciano) had it made in honour of the blessed Virgin and St. Raphael Archangel, 1408, and the arms of the Guidi of Porciano are in the corner of the predella. The colour is well preserved, and though without any special distinction the picture has the grace and charm and decorative qualities common to the early Tuscan painters. It is one of many productions of that prolific and artistic entity, Ignoto Toscano, which are to be found scattered throughout the Casentino, no doubt but a small residue, passed over by the modern collectors, of the many works of art with which the Guidi and the other great barons in the Valley once adorned the churches and monasteries.
Poised up here upon its hill Porciano held the little town of Stia, beneath, in subjection, with all the country round. But now life and activity have passed from the old corpse of feudalism to the wise little community which settled itself beside the rushing water below, and which from an insignificant handful of millers and sawyers and husbandmen, whose labour in peace and whose blood in war were claimed as tribute by their liege lord in the castle above, has grown into the flourishing little industrial town of to-day.
A rough causeway leads down to Stia from Porciano. Here we come upon another Dante legend. It is related that the Florentines, enraged by his denunciations of them in his epistles from the Casentino, sent an envoy to Porciano, to demand that the Counts should deliver him up to them. This individual, on his way up from Stia, encountered the poet himself descending; and not knowing who he was, inquired of him whether Dante Alighieri were in the castle. The answer was: “When I was there he was." At this the envoy continued on his way satisfied, and the poet hastened out of the reach of danger.
Stia is built along the right bank of the Staggia, a mountain torrent which comes down out of a ravine of the .northern hills and joins the Arno just beyond the bridge at the bottom of the hill. Nothing could be sweeter and fresher than the air of this little mountain town, seated at the sources of streams, which refresh your ears all day and at night with the sound of their rushing. It is a town of Arcady, seeming to have only just emerged from the misty gorges, which pierce behind it deep into the primeval forest. Though its prosperity comes from the busy modern c1oth mills which line the Staggia, Stia keeps a primitive gaiety and simplicity. The people themselves speak of it as ridente; an expressive word. There is one principal street, which descends the steep hill and widens .out between arcaded houses into a piazza, in the midst .of which stands a picturesque fountain. Some of the narrow side alleys are ancient and picturesque, with their blackened stone houses, loggias and outside staircases, and you get a charming view from the bridge that crosses the Arno behind the town, where, above the green swirl of the stream, a cluster of irregular rusty-coloured stone buildings stands up upon a massive buttressed wall.
The church, which stands in the main street, is one of a very interesting group in the Casentino, popularly called the Churches of the Countess Matilda, who is said to have founded a hundred churches in Tuscany. It is more probable, however, that these in the Valley were built by the Guidi, who in the eleventh and twelfth centuries established many religious foundations, for the remedy of their souls, but it is quite possible that the Grancontessa, with whom the Counts were intimately associated, may have shared in the pious work. The other churches are those of Romena, Strada and Montemignaio, and perhaps the ruined Buiano may be classed with them. All alike are of Romanesque architecture and are basilicas in form, with massive columns and round-headed arches, and an apsidal east end, and have very remarkable capitals of the curious Composite style of the period, carved with animals and human figures, volutes and stiff foliage, in a rude, grotesque, angular manner, which shows, nevertheless, a good deal of vigour and animation. The designs are of symbolic import, to which the decorative purpose is quite subordinate. The church at Stia has suffered from alterations of later date. An eighteenth century choir has been substituted for the original lapse, and the old façade has been destroyed, and half the last bay of the nave cut off at some time in order to widen the street outside. The floor also has been raised so that the bases of the columns in the upper part are hidden. Otherwise the nave remains unspoilt, with its noble pillars. In richness and elaboration the capitals are finer here than in any of the sister churches. On one of them there is a woman's figure rising out of waves, which is, I think, a symbolic presentment of Eve. Another, with some decorative feeling, is an angel with great drooping wings. There are various other quaint and curious designs. The same Count Neri who gave the triptych in Porciano church had an altar-piece painted by " a good master" in 14°7 for Stia, which is probably the Assumption now placed in the chapel on the left hand of the choir. This is a striking picture, showing the Madonna seated in a quaint and unusual attitude on clouds, surrounded by seraphim and dropping her girdle to St. Thomas, who kneels amid the Apostles below. The colour is richer and warmer than is customary with the Florentine primitives, and, has something of the brilliance of early miniature paiÌ1ting. ,: The gold background appears to have been repainted, and also some of the Apostles. In the chapel on the other side of the choir there is a little ciborium of Della Robbia majolica, an exquisite bit of Renaissance decoration, coloured white and blue, with delicate touches of pale green and yellow, and characteristically bordered with heavy garlands.
Besides these works of art in the church, there is to be seen at Stia, in the Municipio, a glazed halflength figure of the Madonna holding the Child, usually attributed to Andrea della Robbia. It is very much in the manner of that master, the Madonna being of the simple virginal type to which he has accustomed us, and the Babe posed in the same way as in many of his altar-pieces, but as a recent writer on the subject (Cruttwell, Luca and Andrea della Robbia, p. 228) points out, the character of the child's face and the comparative coarseness of the modelling betray the less distinguished hand of Andrea's son Giovanni. This beautiful and touching work used to be in a roadside shrine near the town, and was one of many such treasures that the Valley possessed; one comes across numberless old stone shrines now empty of their sacred images which have been carried to museums and private collections, and no longer remain to protect the groves and fields. Many of them were doubtless glazed terra-cotta works of the Della Robbia, in whose characteristic productions some of the sanctuaries of the Casentino are still rich. Since these works have become of very great value, the open air tabernacles have suffered much from sacrilegious marauders. The Stia Madonna is badly cracked by the blows of robbers who were endeavouring on some occasion to force the statue from its shrine, but were fortunately surprised before they could carry out their attempt. There is, or was recently in a private house at Strada, a town a few miles from Stia, a polychromatic relief of the Della Robbia school which formerly occupied a shrine at the mountain village of Caiano. It was removed for safety to a chapel, but was stolen from there shortly afterwards, to be recovered later, in pieces, by a happy chance. A waggoner passing along the Consuma road detected it quite accidentally, hidden in a ditch. The adventures of this relief are typical of what many of these artistic treasures have suffered.
On the left bank of the Staggia, apposite the town, is the site of the vanished castle of the Conti Guidi of Palagio. Here lived the last Count of this line, Antonio, who oppressed the inhabitants of Stia, harried the lands and cattle of his kinsman, Count Piero of Porciano, and recklessly courted his ruin at the hands of Florence. After he had been driven out by Count Piero at the head of a large body of troops sent by the Republic, his lands, consisting of Stia, Palagio, Papiano and a few other insignificant places, were constituted into a commune with the name of Palagio fiorentino. On the right, bank, again, a' little way above Stia, stands the old. ,Castle of Urbech, where, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, Count Piero of Porciano was besieged and murdered by rebellious vassals, and where his descendants, ousted from Porciano by their cousins, the sons of Count Tancred, kept up their diminished power and dignity under the title of Counts of Urbech. Stripped of power and possessions by Florence, family and castle together felt soon into insignificance and decay. A mass of grim stone buildings, with solid walls which tell of fighting days, set upon a little rise on the right bank of the Staggia, represents the old stronghold. A door of stately Renaissance form, traces of a pillared loggia long filled up, show that it was adapted later to the needs and tastes of more peaceful times. A wild legend of one of the last Counts still clings to the old place. I t is said that one midnight, when a shameful orgy in which he had compelled all his vassals to take part was at its height, the castle was suddenly shaken by an awful thunderclap, and the devil himself appeared in terrific guise and carried off the guilty lord bodily from the midst of the trembling revellers. So popular legend weaves the memory of sudden Apennine storms and of old sins and calamity into a moral fable. Now the fierce, dissolute barons and their descendants of the stately sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are succeeded by a colony of peasants, who she1ter themselves and their sheep and asses in the dark stone chambers, and are as unaware of ghosts as birds in an ancient tower 'of the generations that have nested there before them; and the old feudal stronghold looks down upon ugly modern factories built just below it.
The road winds steeply up to the castle, and passing it, divides a little further on. The left-hand path' soon turns into a mule track, leading up by stony ways to the ancient village of Papiano, which consists of scattered groups. of dwellings clinging to the sunny hillside, each surrounded by vineyards and terraced fields, beneath the high Alps that defend them on the north. On the right the road pursues its way deep into the gorge of the restless Staggia, winding past rocky knolls, where a few lean sheep crop here and there among the stones, herded by barefooted peasant girls, and enters presently into the deep forest, among the grey gnarled limbs of secular chestnut trees, where the sound of hidden water running far below seems the very voice of the sylvan silence. Nothing meets you except perhaps a solitary girl with kerchiefed head and calm, curious eyes, slowly jogging along upon a donkey; unless it be the rime when the great timber sleds, each drawn by four yoke of oxen, come down in slow procession from above, with cracking of whips and noise of merry voices. After a time you come to Gaviserri, once a castle of the Guidi, and now quite swallowed up in woodland, with only a lonely church remaining. The pIace seemed, utterly abandoned .when we visited it last autumn;, even the Canonica adjoining the church was empty, and in the tiny desolate graveyard opposite the last priest of the parish lay among the scanty dead beneath the snow. We asked why another had not been appointed in his place, and were told that the church must' be vedova for a year and three days before it could have a new priest. I do not know the meaning of this strange custom, but certainly no place could have seemed more widowed than Gaviserri that day.
Within the church, a bare, modernised little building, there is a large altar-piece in better preservation than most of the Casentino pictures, although badly cracked in two places; the Madonna and Child, with SS. John Baptist and Clement, Bartholomew and Anthony. One is startled to find a work of so much beauty and dignity in this solitary place. The enthroned Virgin, gazing with gentle bent head upon the Child, the grave figures of saints-St. John with his poetic head and the deep, pondering countenance of the grey-bearded Anthony- have a deeply impressive effect in the empty church, where the silence is filled with the rustle of the forest and the monotonous sound of the stream rising from far below. In a gallery herded with a hundred others it would doubtless lose much of its distinction, but it is in any case the work of no mean artist (1). (1) A distinguished art critic, judging from a photograph, tells me that this interesting picture must be by one of the youngest generation of Verrocchio's pupils, some fellow-pupil of Lorenzo di Credi.
A charming little sculptured ciborium of fifteenth.century Florentine workmanship is also to be seen there.
The road continues on its lonely way from Gaviserri, following up the narrow gorge of a side stream and burrowing even deeper into the mountains towards the dark pine woods of Campigny, which, curtain the precipitous ravines further up. At Campigny there is a busy colony of woodcutters, and there the road ends. But a rough path leads on upwards through the forest and brings you after about an hour to the top of the ridge, where there is a magnificent view over the Casentino on one side and the mountains of the Alta Romagna on the other.
About two miles from Stia, further up the Arno, . stands the interesting Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. A road leads thither, passing by on the right, just after leaving Stia, a little oratorio which contains a small picture of some merito lt is a half-length Madonna in dark draperies, with a background of roses against a pale blue sky; the Child has been spoilt by repainting. It is probably early sixteenth century. Further on, the road passes an old building, now a farmhouse, but connected at one ti me with the Hospital of Sta. Maria Nuova at Florence. It has a picturesque loggia with some faded sixteenth century frescoes.
But the pleasantest way to Sta. Maria delle Grazie is by the river, through enchanting green meadows and groves of pale-stemmed poplars, with the _901 rush and ripple of the stream beside one; a path which has a strange charm in the evening twilight, when the woods grow pallid and the colour fades from the pastures and only the white bed of the river gleams, tinged with the sombre glow from the flocks of crimson seraphim deepening and darkening in the zenith, and you seem to be walking into the unknown regions of the gloomy mountains which tower up behind, shutting in the Valley.
The church stands high up on the hillside overhanging the gorge of the river; you know it far off by the spire of dark cypresses which rises behind it. It is impressive to find in this solitary place, surrounded by oak forests, a treasure-house of art, such as this little sanctuary, a votive offering to God of man's best, consecrating the wild places. Sta. Maria delle Grazie claims a miraculous origin. In 1428, when pestilence was raging in the Casentino and all the crops were perishing because of continuous rain and storms, a poor woman, called Monna Giovanna, was one day hoeing on this spot, when the Virgin appeared to her, and promising that the rain should cease, bade her go and tell the people to build a church in that place. But when Monna Giovanna hastened. to Stia and told the Piovano of the wonderful vision he would not believe her, and, weeping, she returned to the field, where the Virgin again appeared, and giving her a lighted torch, bade her go again with it to the Piovano. And though the wind blew furiously, the flame of the torch remained tranquil and steady while she carried it to Stia, where the priest; overcome with awe at the marvel, accorded her this time full credence. The church was built by his efforts and those of Count Neri of Porci- ano, assisted by the alms of the devout, and became a noted sanctuary, whither the country people crowded to seek protection for their flocks and fields. It was burnt down before long, and the present building was raised by the authorities of the Hospital of Sta. Maria Nuova of Florence, to whom the land belonged. The emblem of the hospital, a crutch, is carved over the west door. At the end of the seventeenth century it passed into the possession of the monks of Vallombrosa, who built a monastery beside it, which was called Vallombrosella, and is now the priest's house.
The little church is not architecturally remarkable, but it has a fine choir of Renaissance form, flanked with pilasters with charming arabesques and richly decorated with Della Robbia work. Round the cornice runs a frieze of cherubs, very charming in effect, though there is little difference or individuality in the baby heads, and they look rather as if cast from a mould. In the corners are medallions with well modelled figures of the four Evangelists, white upon blue, and a lunette-shaped recess on either side is filled with an elaborate polychromatic relief of the same glazed terra-cotta work. The one on the left hand represents the vision of Monna Giovanna. A Madonna of somewhat homely type sits surrounded by cherubim, and below kneels the poor peasant woman, .a very touching figure in her nun-like dress, her lean and e1derly face transfigured by devotion. S. Giovanni Gualberto kneels on the other side, and behind appears the shepherd Pietro, who, according to the legend, saw the light of the miraculous apparition while feeding his flock at a distance. The lunette opposite is a Nativity, with a singular1y sweet and graceful Madonna. Both pieces have elaborate landscape details, and it is interesting to note that the oak and chestnut trees of the neighbourhood are introduced into them. Chestnuts too are worked into the thick woven garlands which enframe them, and in which there are also snakes and all sorts of little decorative animals of the woods and fields, and each has an inner border of cherubs, which are modelled with much more care and show much more character than those of the frieze. The colour of both is rich and subdued, the workmanship good, and regarded merely as decoration they have much beauty, and though of course such work, which is a kind of bastard between sculpture and painting, cannot be looked upon as the highest art, it has a peculiar charm of its own. Underneath each lunette runs a line of blue tiles, with a legend now almost effaced, but on the Nativity side the numeral letters MCCCCC. may be distinguished. The seats fitted in below the lunettes are of a good period and are inlaid with narrow patterns. Over the stone altar, which is of the late fifteenth century, there is a very attractive little picture-a Madonna and Saints -conventional in style and .feeling, but painted with extreme delicacy and finish and in an excellent state of preservation, a Florentine work of the fifteenth century. The little shrine with fluted marble pilasters in front of the altar guards the fragment of rock upon which the Virgin stood when she appeared to Monna Giovanna.
In the body of the church there are two paintings of interest. That on the north side is a fresco of the Madonna, attended by angels, with a small half-length figure of the donor kneeling beneath, and an inscription with the date 1485. In colour and arrangement, and in the treatment of the draperies, this has a suggestion of Ghirlandaio. Over the door opposite hangs a tavola of the Madonna and little St. John adoring the Babe, a pleasing little picture, but coarsely painted. Nor do these exhaust the list of treasures, for beneath an altar, on the left-hand side, may be seen a delightful little Della Robbia Annunciation, full of grace, and there is also a holy water stoup by the same school, charmingly ornamented with coloured flowers and fruits.
     Opposite Sta. Maria and nearer to the head of the Valley the old ruin of Castel Castagnaio with its cloven tower is seen ridging a lofty spur. Though there is little of interest left there now, the walk thither is very charming, and is typical of the wooded hill country which surrounds Stia. You cross the river beneath the church, where there is a fine new bridge building. But till it is finished you must do as folks have done for thousands of years, spring across upon a plank unsteadily set upon the stones in the bed of the stream. Or if you go barefoot, in Casentinese fashion, you may wade through the shallow water, but take care that your feet be as brave and hard as a saint's, for the stones are very sharp. The chestnut woods begin on the other side, and you climb up and up the steep hillside, and passing through a gap in the rocks at the top of the ridge, find yourself on the verge of a narrow valley completely enclosed within the thickly-wooded . slopes of the mountains. The loud singing of a stream rises up from far below, and you look across to Castel Castagnaio, seated upon the opposite height above the russet curtains of the forest like some peacock with sweeping, gorgeous tail, or majestic head of an aged queen rising out of the vast folds of her falling robes. The Castle of the Chestnut Forest indeed ! One seems to have wandered into a romance or fairy tale, so apart from reality, so remote and lost in time, is this place. In the dreamy silence one listens for the sound of Sir Tristram's horn, or pictures Sir Percival slowly winding his way up to yonder mysterious tower. That mystic white stag that haunts enchanted springs and leads hunters to strange adventures should appear in some pale mossy glade between these ancient trees, that stand around with trunks. and limbs blanched in the pallid winter sunshine. Except in dream there is little company in the forest. Among the gaunt and mutilated stumps, blasted by many a storm, nothing stirs. Now and. Again a single twitter of a bird is heard. Where the russet shroud of leaves is broken by a green open space. you may chance to hear a knocking, and come upon an old man splitting logs beside a little stone house with smoke rising from beneath its roof, a seccatoio where chestnuts are being dried. Or round a turn in the path will come a string of patient mules with great sacks of charcoal laid across their backs, followed by a charcoal burner with swarthy, blackened face, who bids you good morrow with the friendliest of smiles and perhaps lingers a moment to ask you whence you come and whither you are going. Or a trim maiden comes by, basket on arm, and stops to examine you with wondering eyes as you rest a while on a fallen trunk, and to question you with the freedom and curiosity of a primitive age, telling you in return all about herself and her sick mother in the woodcutter's cottage far above and her errand to fetch the medicine at Stia or some such simple tale.
     The path descends gradually to the level of the stream, where there is a little space of delicate green mead, scattered over with slender poplars, a fit 'setting for some idyll of the Golden Age. Then mounting up again on the other side, you gradually approach the castle. Signs of life appear in the woods. A meagre flock of sheep are cropping the few sweet grasses that spring up between. the boulders; pigs scamper down the steep; the solitary song of a herd girl flows through the trees as continuously as the rustle of the brook below. A steep, winding causeway leads up to the Keep between the grim stone dwellings where the vassals of the Conti Guidi used to live and where now their descendants lead the same primitive existence. The old stronghold occupies the crown of the hill, thrust out over the gorge, and, beneath, the ground is terraced up with a succession of walls, from which it falls precipitously to a great depth. Nothing is left of the tower except one huge gaping fragment of masonry ; the courtyard, beneath which the old cistern still exists, is now a green plateau. Caste! Castagnaio, one of the most ancient of the Guidi' strongholds, belonged, after the division of the dominions, to the Counts of Romena, and later to those of Battifolle. It was never of much importance, but afforded a remote and impregnable refuge in times of danger. It formed part of the dowry of the Contessa Elisabetta of Borgo alla Collina, and was wrested from her by Count Roberto of Poppi. Later on the Count himse1f was forced to take refuge here from the vengeance of Florence, after fighting for Milan against the Republic, and being seized with the plague he died here in 1440. The castle passed into the possession of Florence with the rest of the Casentino in 1440.
    But the chief interest of Castel Castagnaio to-day is the view. You look across over the falling woods of the gorge and the silver stream far below to the blue slopes of. the hills beyond and the great chain of the high Apennines, sweeping' from the rounded crest of Falterona along the fretted ridges to where La Verna appears, a dark shape poised far away in the south-east. As Count Roberto lay dying up here, with all the scene of the former greatness and present calamity of his House spread out before him, the Rock where he and his mighty ancestors had knelt and done homage to the messenger of a joy beyond all worldly power and possession must have been the consoling vision upon which his eyes closed far the last time.