Backed by gentle slopes well wooded and well tilled, and screened from the northern blasts by its guarding amphitheatre of grey crags, Salerno occupies a delightful position upon the Bay to which it gives its own name. The long stretch of its Marina, tolerably clean to the eye if not at all points agreeable to the nostrils, follows the broad curve of the strand, and an idle hour or so may pleasantly be whiled away in watching the fishing craft moored beside the mole and the attendant sailors. At the northern end of this promenade, in what constitutes the most fashionable quarter of the place, is a tiny garden with palms and daturas, whilst hard by stands a large theatre, evidences of the gentility of modern Salerno. But the whole town appears sleepy and dead-alive to a stranger, though at the sunset hour a band occasionally plays in this open space, the music attracting hither a crowd composed of all the divers elements of society in the quiet old city. Yet though not possessing any great attractions for a sojourn in itself, Salerno makes an excellent centre whence to explore the neighbourhood, for it lies within easy reach of the great Benedictine Abbey of Santa TrinitÀ; of beautiful La Cava, “that Alpine valley under an Italian sky”; of [pg 173]Nocera, with its ancient cathedral that was once a pagan temple; and last, but very far from least, of that glorious group of temples at Paestum. It has tolerable hotels, and if only their padroni could be brought to realise that a flavouring of rosemary and garlic in every dish is not appreciated by the palates of the forestieri, the fare provided would be excellent. As in all Italian cities, northern or southern, however, the nocturnal noise is prodigious. Shouting and shrieking, quarrelling and yelling rend the air at all hours, whilst the practice of serenading, more agreeable in romantic poetry than in everyday life, is here carried to excess, and the twanging of the mandoline and the throaty voices of ardent lovers are rarely silent o’ nights in the dark narrow streets of Salerno.
“A lu scur’ vagi cercann’
La bella mia addo È?
Mo m’annascunn’ po’ fann’ dispera’,
I mor’, I mor’ pe’ te,
Ripos’ cchiÙ ne ho!”
(“In favouring dusk I wandering go,
My fair, where shall I find her?
Now she attracts, now drives me wild;
I die, I die for her;
Repose no more have I.”)
Behind the long line of lofty well-built houses facing the Bay, the streets are gloomy, narrow and crooked, a labyrinth of dark mysterious lanes that contain no palaces or churches of note, and but few artistic “bits” to catch the eye and delight the soul of a painter. As in the case of Amalfi, the Cathedral of San Matteo at Salerno is almost the sole monument left standing of a past that is peculiarly rich in historical associations. [pg 174]Ever since the accession of the Angevin kings Salerno has remained a quiet provincial town, neither rich nor poor, but stagnant and without commerce. Into its harbour, which Norman and Suabian princes attempted to improve, the sand has long since silted, and Naples for many centuries past has been able to regard with serene contempt the city that it was once intended to make her commercial rival:
“Se Salerno avesse un porto,
Napoli sarebbe morto.”
Well, Naples owns an excellent harbour, and has in consequence grown into one of the largest sea-ports on the shores of the Mediterranean, whilst little Salerno can only afford anchorage for fishing boats.
The chief interest of the place centres in its close connection with the great Norman house of Hauteville, and especially with Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia and Calabria, who after a fierce struggle managed to capture this city from the Lombard princes. Sprung from a hardy race of valvassors or bannerets in Normandy, Duke Robert was one of the twelve sons of Tancred of Hauteville in the bishopric of Coutances. Joining his elder half-brother William Bras-de-Fer in Italy, Robert at once began to make a remarkable display of soldierly and statesman-like qualities. An adventurer pure and simple in an alien land, this sharp-witted Norman in course of time obtained the nick-name of Guiscard, or the Wiseacre, and on the death of his elder brother he was nominated Count of Apulia by acclamation of the Norman followers, to the exclusion of his helpless young nephews. Robert Guiscard’s appearance and character have been sketched [pg 175]for us with loving care by one of the most famous of the world’s historians, who was fully able to appreciate the mingled force and cunning, the suaviter in modo and the fortiter in re, of this leader of a handful of Normans in a hostile and distant country. Let Gibbon’s stately prose therefore present to us a word-painting of the Great Adventurer himself:—
“His lofty stature surpassed the tallest of his army; his limbs were cast in the true proportion of strength and gracefulness; and to the decline of life he maintained the patent vigour of health and the commanding dignity of his form. His complexion was ruddy, his shoulders were broad, his hair and beard were long and of a flaxen colour, his eyes sparkled with fire, and his voice, like that of Achilles, could impress obedience and terror amidst the tumult of battle. In the ruder ages of chivalry, such qualifications are not below the notice of the poet or historian; they may observe that Robert at once and with equal dexterity could wield in the right hand his sword, his lance in the left; that in the battle of Civitella he was thrice unhorsed, and that on the close of that memorable day he was adjudged to have borne away the prize of valour from the warriors of the two armies. His boundless ambition was founded on the consciousness of superior worth: in the pursuit of greatness he was never arrested by the scruples of justice, and seldom moved by the feelings of humanity: though not insensible of fame, the choice of open or clandestine means was determined only by his present advantage. The surname of Guiscard was applied to this master of political wisdom, which is too often confounded with the practice of dissimulation and deceit; and Robert [pg 176]is praised by the Apulian poet for excelling the cunning of Ulysses and the eloquence of Cicero. Yet these arts were disguised by an appearance of military frankness: in his highest fortune he was accessible and courteous to his fellow soldiers, and while he indulged the prejudices of his new subjects, he affected in his dress and manners to maintain the ancient fashion of his country. He grasped with a rapacious, that he might distribute with a liberal hand; his primitive indigence had taught the habits of frugality; the gain of a merchant was not below his attention; and his prisoners were tortured with slow and unfeeling cruelty to force a discovery of their secret treasure. According to the Greeks, he departed from Normandy with only five followers on horse-back, and thirty on foot; yet even this allowance appears too bountiful;—the sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim, and his first military band was levied among the adventurers of Italy.”
Gaining over the Pope Nicholas II. to his interests, the new Count was able to exact an oath of fealty in 1060 from the Italian barons, hitherto his equals, to recognise him as “Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and here-after of Sicily, by the grace of God and of St Peter,” although it took many years of hard fighting before these lands, thus proudly claimed, could be subdued. Beginning with the conquest of the Duchy of Benevento, Guiscard at once laid siege to Salerno, taking it after an obstinate resistance lasting over eight months, during which he was himself severely wounded by a splinter from one of his own engines of war. The city captured with such difficulty now became the victor’s favourite residence and the recipient of his [pg 177]bounty and enlightened rule, so that Salerno quickly rose to the rank of one of the most illustrious towns in Europe, supplanting even its magnificent neighbour Amalfi in popular esteem.
“Urbs Latii non est hÂc delitiosior urbe,
Frugibus arboribus vino redundat; et unde
Non tibi poma nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt,
Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum.”
(“All Latium shows no more delightful place,
Whose sunny slopes the vine and almond grace;
’Midst fruitful groves her palaces uprear,
Her men are virtuous, and her women fair.”)
It was under the Guiscard’s auspices that the famous school of Medicine that had long been seated at Salerno rose to its highest point of excellence. “Paris for learning, Bologna for law, Orleans for poetry, and Salerno for Medicine”;—such was the verdict of the age. With the somewhat grudging consent of the clergy, the hygienic skill of the dreaded Arabs was in this city permitted to temper the crass ignorance of medieval Italy, and at Salerno alone were the works of the infidel Avicenna and of the pagans Galen and Hippocrates openly studied. The result was that the fame of the doctors of this Fons Medicinae spread over all Western Europe, so that distinguished patients either came hither to be treated in person or else sent emissaries to explain their symptoms and to obtain advice. Nor were the professors of the healing art at Salerno tied down by a strict adherence to drugs and boluses, for they fully realised that the height of all human ambition, the mens sana in corpore sano, is in any case more easily to be obtained by self-control than by all the in[pg 178]gredients of the pharmacopoeia. They were warm believers apparently in the doctrine of moderation in all things, which after all is one of the most valuable prescriptions of modern hygiene:
“Curas tolle graves, irasci crede profanum,
Parce mero, coenato parum, non sit tibi vanum,
Surgere post epulas, somnum fuge meridianum.”
(“Throw off dull care; thine angry moods restrain;
Eschew the wine-cup; lightly eat, nor vain
Deem our advice to make Enough thy feast.
Take exercise, and shun the noon-day rest.”)
Such was the oracular reply of the Salernitan sages to Robert, Duke of Normandy, and no one can dispute the sound common sense of the prescription given, nor doubt that it is applicable to half the patients who to-day throng the consulting rooms of fashionable London physicians.
But to return to Robert Guiscard, who shares the historical honours of the place, together with the great Pope Gregory VII., of whom we shall speak presently. After subduing the southern half of Italy and the island of Sicily, the great Duke next turned his victorious arms against the Eastern Empire, with the secret intention, it was suspected, of ascending the throne of Constantine. With the pseudo-Emperor Michael in his train, the Great Adventurer in 1081 assembled a vast army at Otranto, consisting of 30,000 Italian subjects and of 1300 Norman knights, with the object of crossing over to Epirus. Durazzo on the opposite Albanian coast, the Dyrrachium of the ancients, a city that was henceforth destined to be closely associated with succeeding dynasties of South Italy, was the objective of this gigantic expedition, [pg 179]for it was commonly reported to be the key of the Eastern Empire. Thither the flotilla set sail, but before reaching the Greek shore, an unexpected and unseasonable tempest scattered Guiscard’s argosy, destroying many of the ships and drowning many crews. Nevertheless, the undaunted spirit and endless resources of the Norman Duke rose superior to all misfortunes. Landing with the remnant of his army he at once laid siege to Durazzo, despite the fact that the Emperor Alexius was marching to its relief, and that the Venetian fleet was already anchored in its harbour. In spite of overwhelming odds, Guiscard utterly routed the Byzantine army. With his heir Bohemond and his wife Sigilgaita beside him, the Duke watched the progress of the battle, and at its most critical juncture, at a moment when it appeared inevitable that the hard-pressed Italian army must yield to the sheer numbers of the foe, the deep voice of the leader could be heard booming like a deep-toned bell over the battlefield, as he addressed his wavering troops. “Whither do ye fly? Your enemy is implacable, and death is less grievous than slavery!” Joined with the hoarse voice of Guiscard, the Norman warriors could distinguish the exhortations of the Amazon-like Sigilgaita, “a second Pallas, less skilful in arts, but no less terrible in arms than the Athenian goddess.” Rallying at the words of their master and shamed by the martial ardour of the Duchess, the invading troops made one last desperate effort, whereby the Imperial army was driven back and scattered, so that Alexius barely escaped with his life. Having routed the Emperor in fair fight, Guiscard now made use of his unparalleled cunning by bribing the [pg 180]treacherous Venetians, who eventually assisted the Italian forces to enter the city gates, and thus Durazzo was gained at the point of the sword after one of the fiercest sieges known to history. Scarcely had the beleaguered town been reduced, than the indomitable Guiscard found himself compelled to return to Italy, where the Emperor of the West, the unhappy Henry IV., vainly endeavouring to wipe out the humiliation of Canossa, had seized Rome and was actually besieging the great Hildebrand in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo. Leaving his son Bohemond in command of the army in Macedonia, Robert recrossed the sea, and hastened with a handful of men towards Rome. But so intense a fear did the victor of Durazzo inspire, that the terrified Emperor without waiting to give combat fled headlong together with his anti-pope from the Holy City, where Guiscard was received with acclamation. “Thus, in less than three years,” remarks Gibbon, “the son of Tancred of Hauteville enjoyed the glory of delivering the Pope, and of compelling the two Emperors of the East and West to fly before his victorious arms.” Guiscard’s triumphal entry into Rome was however marred by scenes of violence and scandal, due to the conduct of the Saracen troops which his brother, the great Count Roger of Sicily, had brought to assist the enterprise. So infuriated were the Romans by the behaviour of the infidels, that the prudent Gregory deemed it wiser to return to Salerno together with his deliverer, and it was in Guiscard’s palace that the famous “Caesar of spiritual conquest” expired three years later. As to the Great Adventurer himself, he died in the island of Cephalonia in the very year of the Pope’s death at Salerno (1085) [pg 181]and was buried beside his first wife, the gentle Alberada, at Venosa in Apulia, though the city which he had always loved and favoured would seem to have offered a more appropriate spot for his interment.
But although the mortal remains of the Great Adventurer do not rest within the precincts of his beloved city, an undying monument of his glorious but turbulent reign is to be found in the Cathedral, which despite the neglect and alterations of eight centuries may still be ranked as one of the most interesting buildings in Southern Italy. Standing in a secluded part of the town, this magnificent church gains nothing from its position, for it can only be reached by means of tortuous dingy lanes, and even on a near approach the effect produced on the visitor is not impressive. “The Cathedral-church of San Matteo,” says the Scotch traveller, Joseph Forsyth, in quaint pedantic language, “is a pile so antique and so modern, so repaired and rhapsodic, that it exhibits patches of every style, and is of no style itself.” But is not this quality, we ask, exactly what a great historic building, such as Guiscard’s church, truly demands? Ought not it to bear the impress of the various ages it has survived, and of the many famous persons who have contributed to its embellishment? From Duke Robert’s day to the present time, the Cathedral is an epitome of the history of Salerno, a sermon in stones concerning the great past and the inglorious present of the city.
In the year preceding his own death and that of the great Pontiff, who was tarrying at Salerno as his not over-willing guest, Duke Robert erected this Cathedral, obtaining the chief ornaments for his new [pg 182]structure and also its most important relic, the supposed body of the Apostle St Matthew, from the lately deserted city of Paestum across the bay. The church is approached by means of a quadrangular fore-court, a cloister supported on antique columns, such as can still be observed in a few of the old Roman churches, so that we venture to think that this idea at Salerno was suggested by the great Pope himself. A number of sculptured sarcophagi, which, like the pillars, were the spoils of Paestum, are ranged alongside the entrance walls; and once upon a time there stood in the centre of the courtyard the huge granite basin that all visitors to Naples will recall as set in the middle of the Villa Reale, where it performs the humble office of decorating a miniature pond, wherein lily-white ducks quack and gobble at the bread crumbs thrown to them by children and their nurses. Fancy the irate disgust of Duke Robert at waking to learn that the antique fountain for his new Cathedral, brought with such care and toil from distant Poseidonia, should have been transported to the rival city and turned to such base uses! Above the splendid bronze doors, the gift of Landolfo Butomilea and his wife shortly after Guiscard’s death, we perceive the dedication of the church to the Apostle Matthew by the proud conqueror of the Two Sicilies and the protector of Hildebrand.
“A Duce Roberto donaris Apostole templo:
Pro meritis regno donetur ipse superno.”
The donor, we note, is confident that the Apostle, in return for so glorious a fabric, will undertake to obtain the Kingdom of Heaven for this generous client upon earth.
The interior, which is sadly marred by white-wash [pg 183]and gaudy decoration, is a perfect treasure-house of works of art—antique, medieval, Renaissance—of which the guide-book will give a detailed list. Succeeding generations have put to strange uses some of the fine marble reliefs that Guiscard transported hither from Paestum, and we note that one archbishop has gone so far as to filch a sarcophagus carved with a Bacchanal procession to serve for his own tomb. We might perhaps infer that the deceased prelate was addicted to the wine-flask, and to have been a firm believer in and follower of one of the rules of the medical school of his own diocese:
“Si nocturna tibi noceat potatio vini,
Hoc ter mane libas iterum, et fuerit medicina.”
(“If a carouse at night do make thee ill,
For morning medicine drink of wine thy fill”)
Let us hope that this extraordinary receipt for “hot coppers” was intended satirically, or else given seriously as the only advice that a confirmed toper was likely to follow in any case. But the use of classical adjuncts to adorn Christian tombs, which to-day appears so incongruous to us, was popular enough at the time of the Renaissance, and readers of Robert Browning’s poetry will call to mind the story of the dying Bishop’s injunction to his heirs concerning his tomb in St Praxed’s church at Rome:
“The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
Some tripod thyrsus with a vase or so,
The Saviour at His sermon on the mount,
Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off,
And Moses with the tables....”
[pg 184] But it is necessary to shake off the spirit of Renaissance dilettantism before we venture to approach the chapel of John of Procida to the right of the high altar, where stands the stern figure of the greatest of the medieval Pontiffs. Above the marble statue of the Caesar of the Papacy, that was tardily erected to his memory by the unfortunate Pio Nono, appear the glittering mosaics of the apse of the chapel, from which look down the figures of John of Procida and of King Manfred, the last sovereign prince of the hated Suabian line that Gregory twice anathematized. Beneath the cold forbidding eye of the last of the Hohenstaufen and his friend and avenger here rest, strangely enough, the ashes of that “great and inflexible asserter of the supremacy of the sacerdotal order: the monk Hildebrand, afterwards Pope Gregory the Seventh.” Born the son of a poor carpenter in the Tuscan village of Soana, this extraordinary man rose to eminence as a monk of Cluny, where he became famous for his extreme asceticism of life in an age of undisguised clerical corruption and luxury, when simony, lay investiture and priestly marriages were the rule rather than the exception on all sides, so that but few Churchmen were able to rise above their surrounding temptations. Such few as could resist the world, the flesh and the devil were accounted, and not unfrequently were in reality, ignorant crazy fanatics, half-pitied and half-despised. Between these two extremes of worldly indulgence and of unreasoning severity of life, Hildebrand ever pursued a middle course, for whilst on the one hand he eschewed the vanities of life around him, on the other he never sank into the self-effacement of [pg 185]a hermit. His acknowledged purity and zeal soon won for him from the laity a respect mingled with awe, whilst his natural talents, his indomitable will, and his genuine piety in course of time brought all Churchmen who had any regard for their holy office to fix their hopes upon this Clugniac monk, now a Cardinal. For some years before his actual election to the Papal throne in 1079, Hildebrand had begun to exercise an immense control over the councils of the Church, and he was personally responsible for the epoch-making resolution under Nicholas II., which declared that the choice of a new Pontiff was vested in the College of Cardinals alone. His own election, under the terms of this new and drastic arrangement, became the signal for the fierce struggles, equally of the battlefield and the council-chamber, that were destined to distract Italy for generations to come. For, as might have been expected, the Emperor Henry IV., King of the Romans, was not long in protesting against so decided an infringement of his secular claims. From the synods of Worms and Piacenza came the Imperial decree of deposition against Gregory, which was addressed by “Henry, not by usurpation but by God’s holy ordination, King, to Hildebrand, no longer Pope, but false monk.” Gregory, strong alike in virtue and in resolve, and aided by the might of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany and of Robert Guiscard, answered by pronouncing a solemn anathema upon his secular adversary. In awe-struck silence the Council of the Lateran listened to the Pope’s final excommunication of the King, and of all those who dared to associate themselves with him. “I absolve,” said Gregory, “all Christians from the oaths [pg 186]which they have taken or may take to him; and I decree that no one shall obey him as king; for it is fitting that he, who has endeavoured to diminish the honour of the Church, should himself lose that honour which he seems to have.” We all know the final act of that terrible unequal struggle, the duel of brute force against spiritual terrors in a rude age of violence and superstition, which took place in the courtyard of the Castle of Canossa, the Countess Matilda’s fortress in the Apennines.
“On a dreary winter morning, with the ground deep in snow, the King, the heir of a long line of Emperors, was permitted to enter within the two outer of the three walls which girded the Castle of Canossa. He had laid aside every mark of royalty or of distinguished station; he was clad only in the thin white linen dress of the penitent, and there, fasting, he awaited in humble patience the pleasure of the Pope. But the gates did not unclose. A second day he stood, cold, hungry and mocked by vain hopes. And yet a third day dragged on from morning till evening over the unsheltered head of the discrowned King. Every heart was moved save that of the representative of Jesus Christ.”
Can we wonder then that the phrase “to go to Canossa” (gehen nach Canossa) has become ingrafted on to the German language, or that so significant an expression was openly used by Prince Bismarck during the fierce religious struggles in the days of the “Kultur-kampf” between the newly-formed Empire and the direct successor of the spiritual Caesar who had thus humbled a former Emperor of Germany? It was in vain that Henry afterwards endeavoured, [pg 187]by making war upon his oppressor, to undo the evil effects of his public recantation at Canossa; the act of humiliation was too marked ever to be wiped out either by himself or by his descendants. For good or for bad, Gregory had succeeded in rendering the Papacy free from lay control; he had gained for ever for the Church one of her most cherished tenets, the absolute independence of the Pope’s election by the College of Cardinals; and he had even partially reduced the Western Empire into a fief of the Church itself. The former of Gregory’s great objects, the freedom of election, still remains intact after an interval of more than eight hundred years; the latter attempt, though long struggled for and apparently with success at times, has, we know, ultimately failed.
Having accomplished so much during his reign, it is strange to think that Gregory’s last days should have been passed in a form of exile away from the Eternal City which he claimed as the metropolis of the Universal Church. There is pathos to be found in the Pope dying at Salerno, far removed from the scene of his ambition and success. With the bitter feeling that his name was execrated in Rome after Guiscard’s sack, and that his host was bent upon obtaining the imperial title from his reluctant guest, Gregory’s declining days were spent in melancholy reflections. To the last he spoke confidently of the righteousness of his cause, and whilst making his peace with all mankind in anticipation of his approaching end, he deliberately excepted from his own and God’s mercy the names of his arch-enemy Henry and the anti-pope Guibert, together with all their followers. Thus the aged Pontiff languished to his end within [pg 188]the walls of the Castle of Salerno, encircled by flattering Churchmen who did their utmost to cheer their dying champion. “I have loved justice and hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile,” are the famous words recorded of Hildebrand in the face of the King of Terrors. “In exile thou canst not die!” eagerly responded an attendant priest. “Vicar of Christ and His Apostles, thou hast received the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”
Perhaps the expiring Pope was cheered by these words—who can tell? In any case they were prophetic, for the present world-wide character of the Roman Church, which embraces in its fold all nationalities and holds its members together all the globe over in one indissoluble bond of a spiritual empire, is largely due to the trials and exertions of one man: the monk Hildebrand, Pope Gregory the Seventh.
Here then he sleeps his last sleep, the friend of Matilda, the mortal foe of King Henry, the patron of William the Conqueror, the guest of Robert Guiscard:—what a galaxy of illustrious names shines upon that dim silent chapel in the Cathedral of Salerno! Here stands in unchanging benediction his gleaming marble effigy, calmly surveyed by King Manfred near at hand in imperial robes, the last prince of the hated and twice banned Suabian House, whose bones were destined to bleach in the sun and rattle in the wind by the bridge of Benevento under a Papal curse.
Before we quit the Cathedral in order to enjoy the evening sunshine, which is filling the interior with its roseate glow, let us return for one brief moment to the northern aisle, to glance at the grave of the [pg 189]Duchess who fought so boldly by her husband’s side at Durazzo. It is easy to find, for her simple tomb stands not far from the beautiful and elaborate monument of Margaret of Durazzo (strange coincidence!) wife of King Charles of Naples, wherein the sculptor has portrayed angels drawing aside a curtain so as to display the sleeping form of the dead Queen within. Close to this monument of a not unusual Renaissance type, we discover the last resting place of Robert Guiscard’s second wife, the Duchess Sigilgaita, their son Roger Bursa and their grandson William, in whom the direct line of the Great Adventurer became extinct. Many stories are told by the old chroniclers of this bold intrepid princess (not always to her credit)—daughter of the last Lombard prince Gisulf of Salerno and wife of her father’s supplanter, whose humble Norman ancestry she affected to despise. But despite her reputation for cruelty and even for murder, Sigilgaita was a faithful wife and a brave woman, with a character not unlike that of our own Queen Margaret of Anjou; and it seems strange that so devoted and well mated a pair as herself and Robert Guiscard should be separated in death, he at Venosa and she in the cathedral of her husband’s foundation.
Passing out of the silent church into the warm light of eventide, by steep alleys and by stony footpaths we gradually mount upwards towards the ruined castle that commands a lofty position with an all-embracing view of the bay and its encircling mountains. The crumbling fragment of the old palace of Salerno differs but little in appearance from any one of those innumerable dilapidated piles of the Middle Ages with [pg 190]which Southern Italy is so thickly studded, yet coming fresh from visiting Guiscard’s cathedral and Hildebrand’s last resting-place, we find it comparatively easy to conjure up some recollections of its past, so as to invest its crumbling red-hued walls with a spell of interest. These broken apertures were surely once the windows through which the dying Pope must have wearily glanced upon the sun-smitten waves and violet-shadowed hills that we behold to-day; here in this embrasure, long despoiled of its marble seat, must have brooded the fierce and unscrupulous Sigilgaita, thinking of how best to rid herself of her step-son Bohemond, in order that her own children might inherit their father’s realms. The ghosts of princes and popes are around us, yet the only living inhabitant of the roofless castle is the ragged little goat-herd, whose unsavoury charges are cropping the short grass that covers the site of the banqueting hall, where Norman knights and Italian barons once caroused in the crusading days of long ago. We seat ourselves on the dry sward in a sun-warmed angle of the ruins, where an almond tree that has sprouted from the rubble sends down from time to time upon our heads a tiny shower of pale pink blossoms at the bidding of the soft evening breeze. At our feet are masses of the dark shiny leaves of the wild arum, and rank grass which is plentifully starred with tall-stemmed crimson-petalled daisies and the mauve wind-flowers that are drowsily closing their cups at the approach of night. The little goat-herd eyes us solemnly, but—strange and welcome to relate—shows no inclination to pester the signori. The soft murmuring of the distant sea, the subdued [pg 191]hum of the city far below us and the drowsy buzzing of the bees in the almond and ivy bloom close at hand combine to strengthen the golden chain of imagination. As we sit basking in the peaceful beauty of the scene around us and serenely conscious of its glorious past, one of our party suddenly remembers in a welcome flash of inspiration that this deserted courtyard has been made the scene of one of Boccaccio’s most famous tales. It is a story that many writers of succeeding ages have endeavoured to imitate in prose or verse, but this fictitious love-tragedy between a princess and a page at Salerno has a simple charm and dignity in its original setting that only the master-hand of the Tuscan author could impart. The scene of the novel of Guiscard and Ghismonda is laid, as we have said, at this very spot, and as the hero, the heroine and the villain of the tale have Norman names, we may be allowed to conjecture that this graceful story, which Boccaccio puts into the mouth of the lady Fiammetta, was founded upon some actual but half-forgotten family scandal in the annals of the mighty but self-made House of Hauteville.
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Once upon a time there reigned in Salerno the Prince Tancred, who was a widower, and the father of an only daughter, Ghismonda, Duchess of Capua. The Duchess, who was considered one of the most beautiful, accomplished and virtuous princesses of her day, had been early married to the Duke of Capua, but on his death after a very few years of matrimony had been left a childless widow. Being still very young, the Princess Ghismonda was [pg 192]now taken back to his court by her father, who jealously guarded her and seemed unwilling for her to be remarried. Living in rooms that over-looked the courtyard of the palace, the Duchess, who found time hang on her hands somewhat heavily, used to spend hours daily in watching the lords and pages of her father’s household passing and repassing the quadrangle below, and amongst the many well-favoured youths a certain page named Guiscard found most favour in her sight. Now Guiscard, who had thus all unwittingly attracted Ghismonda’s attention and finally won her heart, was a young Norman of no great lineage and of small means, but being discreet, upright and sensible-minded, had obtained a high place in Prince Tancred’s estimation. Skilfully questioning her maids of honour without exciting their suspicions, the Princess gained all she wished to know concerning Guiscard’s position and attainments, and it was not long before she found means of conveying the secret of her affection to the youth, who in fact had already fallen head over ears in love with the beautiful Duchess who so often leaned from the casement above. She now sent him a letter hidden in a pair of bellows, wherein she explained to him the existence of a secret passage, long disused, that led from a hollow in the hillside below the castle walls up to her own apartment. Over-joyed at receiving this missive, the infatuated page took the first occasion, as we may well imagine, to make use of this friendly clue, and before many hours had passed after receiving the letter, the young man, flushed and triumphant, was standing in the chamber of his beloved mistress, who had meanwhile [pg 193]taken every necessary preparation for receiving her lover in secret. Many a time were the pair able to meet thus without awakening the least suspicion in the minds of Prince Tancred or of the maids of honour, and all would doubtless have gone well for an indefinite period of time, but for a most unforeseen accident. It appears that one morning the old Prince of Salerno, wishing to confer with his daughter on some matter of state, came to her private apartment, and on learning that she had gone out riding settled himself upon a couch that stood within a curtained alcove, and whilst waiting for her return fell sound asleep. After some hours of repose the prince was suddenly roused from his heavy slumber by the sound of two voices in the room, that of his daughter and of a strange man. Peeping stealthily through the folds of the draperies, he now beheld to his fury and amazement the Duchess alone with his page Guiscard. But the descendant of Robert the Wiseacre well knew how to temper vengeance with dissimulation. Dreading the scandal that would follow an open exposure, the Prince, in spite of his years and the stiffness of his joints, contrived to quit the chamber unperceived by means of a convenient window. That very night the unsuspecting Guiscard was seized by his sovereign’s orders and thrust into a foul dungeon of the palace, whither Tancred himself descended to question his prisoner and to reprove him violently for his base ingratitude. But the unhappy page could only make repeated answer: “Sire, love hath greater powers than you or I!” On the following morning Tancred proceeded to visit the Duchess, still ignorant of her paramour’s fate, and in a voice strangled with the [pg 194]conflicting emotions of paternal love and desired vengeance bitterly upbraided his erring child. “Daughter, I had such an opinion of your modesty and virtue, that I could never have believed, had I not seen it with mine own eyes, that you would have violated either, even so much as in thought. The recollection of this will make the pittance of life that is left very grievous to me. As you were determined to act in that manner, would to Heaven you had made choice of a person more suitable to your own quality; but this Guiscard is one of the meanest persons about my court. This gives me such concern, that I scarce know what to do. As for him, he was secured by my order last night, and his fate is determined. But with regard to yourself, I am influenced by two different motives: on one side, the tenderest regard that a father can have for a child; and on the other, the justest vengeance for the great folly you have committed. One pleads strongly in your behalf; and the other would excite me to do an act contrary to my nature. But before I come to a resolution, I would fain hear what you have to say for yourself.”
Seeing clearly from her father’s words that her secret had been discovered and that her lover was in prison, the intrepid Ghismonda, a true daughter of the high-spirited House of Hauteville, assuming a composure she was very far from feeling, made a dignified appeal on behalf of Guiscard and herself.
“Father, it is not my purpose either to deny or to entreat; for as the one can avail me nothing, so I intend the other shall be of little service. I will by no means bespeak your love and tenderness towards me; but shall first, by an open confession, endeavour [pg 195]to vindicate myself, and thus do what the greatness of my soul prompts me to. It is most true that I have loved, and do still love Guiscard; and whilst I live, which will not be long, shall continue to love him; and if such a thing as love be after death, I shall never cease to love him.... It appears from what you say, that you would have been less incensed if I had made choice of a nobleman, and you bitterly reproach me for having condescended to a man of low condition. In this you speak according to vulgar prejudice, and not according to truth; nor do you perceive that the fault you blame is not mine, but Fortune’s, who often exalts the unworthy, and leaves the worthiest in low estate. But, not to dwell on such considerations, look a little into first principles, and you will see that we are all formed of the same material and by the same hand. The first difference amongst mankind, who are all born equal, was made by virtue; they who were virtuous were deemed noble, and the rest were all accounted otherwise. Though this law, therefore, may have been obscured by contrary custom, yet is it discarded neither by nature nor good manners. If you regard only the worth and virtue of your courtiers, and consider that of Guiscard, you will find him the only noble person, and these others a set of poltroons. With regard to his worth and valour, I appeal to yourself. Who ever commended man more for anything that was praise-worthy than you have commended him? And deservedly, in my judgment; but if I was deceived, it was by following your opinion. If you say, then, that I have had an affair with a person base and ignoble, I deny it; if with a poor one, it is to your [pg 196]shame to have let such merit go unrewarded. Now concerning your last doubt, namely how you are to deal with me: use your pleasure. If you are disposed to commit an act of cruelty, I shall say nothing to prevent such a resolution. But this I must apprise you of; that unless you do the same to me, which you either have done, or mean to do to Guiscard, mine own hands shall do it for you. If you mean to act with severity, cut us off both together, if it appear to you that we have deserved it.”
The Duchess’ able defence of her choice of Guiscard and her democratic views of society were hardly likely to influence the proud tyrant of Salerno, although his house was sprung from a plebeian stock of Normandy. Ignoring her plea and arguments, Tancred left his daughter alone with her grief, and proceeded to the cells below to give the order for Guiscard’s immediate death by strangling. But Tancred’s fury was by no means appeased by the page’s death, for tearing the unhappy youth’s heart from the warm and still quivering body, the brutal prince had the bleeding flesh placed in a golden covered cup, which he bade his chamberlain deliver to Ghismonda, with these cruel words: “Your father sends this present to comfort you with what was most dear to you; even as he was comforted by you in what was most dear to him.” With a calm countenance and with a gracious word of thanks, the Princess accepted the gift, and on removing the cover and realising the contents of the cup, said with meaning to the bearer of this gruesome present: “My father has done very wisely; such a heart as this requires no worse a sepulchre than one of gold.” [pg 197]Then after lamenting for a while over her lover’s fate, Ghismonda filled the goblet with a draught of poison that she had already prepared in anticipation of her father’s vengeance, and quaffed its contents. After this she lay down upon her bed, clasping the cup to her bosom, whereupon her maids, all ignorant of the cause of their mistress’ conduct, ran terrified to call Prince Tancred, who arrived in time to witness his unhappy daughter’s death agony. Now that it was too late, the Prince was stricken with remorse and began loudly to bewail the violence of his late anger. “Sire,” said the dying Princess, “save those tears against worse fortune that may happen, for I want them not. Who but yourself would mourn for a thing of your own doing?” Then dropping her tone of irony, she made one last request of her weeping and repentant father, that her own and Guiscard’s bodies might be honourably interred within the same tomb. Thus perished by her own hand the beautiful Princess Ghismonda of Salerno, Duchess of Capua, urged to the fell deed by a parent’s inexorable cruelty. And it is some slight consolation to the sad ending of the story to learn that Tancred did at least carry out his daughter’s dying entreaty, for the bodies of Ghismonda and Guiscard were duly laid in one grave amidst the pomp of religion and the cold comfort of a public mourning.7
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But the sun has long since sunk below the horizon, and the chill dews of night are falling round us. Hastily we leave the old palace of the princes of Salerno to the solitary occupation of the bats and owls, to seek warmth and cheerfulness in our inn upon the Marina.
