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A LITTLE PILGRIMAGE IN ITALY


[Illustration: PERUGIA: LOOKING TOWARDS ASSISI.]


A LITTLE PILGRIMAGE IN ITALY

by

OLAVE M. POTTER

Author of 'The Colour of Rome.'

With 8  Plates and Illustrations by Yoshio Markino







Toronto
The Musson Book Company
Limited

First Published November      1911
Cheap Re-Issue                1913

Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty




FOREWORD


One morning of high summer three pilgrims met together in the City
of Genoa to sally forth in search of sunshine and the Middle Ages.

At least that was what the Poet said, for sunshine and Ancient
Stones were the passions of the Poet's life.

The Philosopher insisted that we went in search of Happiness.

It is no matter. But in fact we did meet one July day of sweltering
sunshine in Genoa, the Western Gate of Italy, which is a city of
grateful shadows, whose narrow streets defy the brilliant sun.

This is a book of simple delights, a chronicle of little pleasures,
so I shall not talk much of Genoa, although to my mind she is the
most Italian of all the great cities of Italy. Nor shall I speak of
Florence, or Naples, or Venice, or Rome. Doubtless, like me, you
have loved them all.

[Illustration: A STREET IN GENOA.]

If you come with me I shall take you away from the great cities
where your feet are bruised on the stony streets and never feel the
soft warm earth beneath their soles, where mountainous walls of
brick limit your vision to smoke-clouded strips of sky, where you
never smell the fragrance of the night. If you come with me I shall
take you to the hills, the deep-bosomed rolling hills, with their
valleys and their plains and with towered cities riding on their
crests. You will lie with me under the olives and stone-pines,
where the warm earth cushions your limbs in luxury, and the
sunlight flickering in the green shadows lights on a wealth of
flowers.

Then, if you will, come back to your haunted streets.

But I am persuaded that if you go there you will find a great
content among the little cities of great memories which stand
knee-deep in flowers upon the hills of Italy, or in those nobler
towns,--Siena, who belongs to the Madonna, and Perugia, whose name
is as a torch to light your feet into the Valleys of Romance. In
their streets you are seldom shut away from the mountains and the
sky; and little gracious weeds and grasses have spread a web among
their stones as though an elfin world sought to entrap a monster
and pull him down to ruin.

Our little pilgrimage took us to many shrines, and haunts of
peace and beauty. We made our discoveries, saw much, learned not
a little philosophy. And, most of all, we caught a glimpse of the
heart of Umbria--Umbria of the saints. We watched the gathering of
the golden maize in the plain below Assisi while we walked with
St. Francis among the vines and olives; we saw the vintage being
brought home with song and thanksgiving at Orvieto and Viterbo.
We dwelt among beautiful simple-hearted men and women, living in
little farms far from the toil of the modern world, who still
worship God in the gladness of their hearts and the spirit of the
ardent thirteenth century; who toil and spin and bear children
and lie down to die, not with the stupidity of animals or the
self-satisfaction of the bourgeoisie, but full of a beautiful
content, moved by a beautiful faith. We dipped into Tuscany too,
into Lombardy, into the March of Ancona, into Lazio, but nowhere
else was the world as perfect, as unspoiled as in Umbria. If you
are travel-stained with life, if the sweat of a work-a-day world
still clings about you, if you have lost your saints and almost
forgotten your Gods, you will cure the sickness of your soul in
