The Italy of the Italians (1906)
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^ A c c ••••/« C t • • ' • ', t c • ICC t c I t « c c c c ^ c c c c ' c < «.c f ' r r t r r = 2 < o 2 tJ o< Q < O 2 1/5 5 The Italy of the Italians Bv Helen Zimmern Author of " Schopenhauer, his Life and Philosophy/ " Lessing, his Life and Works," " The Epic of Kings," etc., etc. LONDON : SIR ISAAC PITMAN AND SONS, LTD., NO : 1 AMEN CORNER, E.C. ^ ^ 1906 Italy, my Italy f Queen Mary's saying serves for me {When fortune's malice Lost her Calais), Open my heart and you will see " Graved inside of it, Italy." Such lovers old are I and she, So it always was, so shall ever be t FOREWORD Since that memorable year, 1870, Italy has, happily, ceased to be "a geographical expression," as Prince Metternich contemptuously phrased it. Nevertheless, though thousands of travellers over-run her fair borders in the course of each year, in ever increasing numbers, to the greater proportion she still remains little else than a geographical expression, and her citizens are regarded either as the staffage to a lovely landscape or as the custodians of her artistic treasures. These travellers, too, seldom know the language of the land and hence are apt to get their information from guides, hotel porters, cabmen, and others the like. As a result they may see towns and museums but they get little or no idea of Italy's real life and civilization. Few stop even to wonder what are the impulses, the aims, the hopes, the ambitions that cause the heart of this land to pulsate with energy, that virtue on which her greatest poet, Dante, laid such stress. Few enquire what is her present position in the world of European thought. What she gave us in the past, how, together with Greece, we owe her all our culture, is familiar enough. Less familiar, on the other hand, is her contribution to the modern move- ment, her bequest to the fabrics of contemporary science, art, literature, and philosophy. It is the aim of this book to give a popular reply to such questions as many an intelligent traveller would fain put, but which he is hindered from pronouncing by his scant knowledge of the language. It does not pretend to be either learned or exhaustive. It only desires to excite an intelligent curiosity in the hope of inducing its readers to prosecute studies on their own behalf in such sections of the vast theme as particularly appeal to their individual sympathies. And here I must take occasion to acknowledge my grateful 253164 iv Italy of the Italians thanks to those who have generously supplied me with information, and especially I would mention Professor Giuseppe Signorini, the late Signor Alfredo Bona, Marchese Ridolfo Peruzzi, Conte Giorgio Mannini, Commendatore Guido Biagi, and Mr. George Gregory Smith. I also acknowledge the permission accorded by the editors of the Cornhill Magazine and the Fortnightly Review to reprint portions of my own articles. My affectionate thanks are also due to my cousin, Mr. Alfred E. Zimmern, of New College, Oxford, for kind advice, encouragement, and assistance in proof reading. HELEN ZIMMERN. Palazzo Buondelmonti, Florence, August 1. 1906. CONTENTS CHAP. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Frontispiece. —their majesties the king and queen OF ITALY AND THEIR CHILDREN. HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF ITALY viii Italy of the Italians PAGE MILAN CATHEDRAL, PIAZZA AND GALLERY . 242 LORENZO PEROSI 244 PIETRO MASCAGNI 248 NEAPOLITAN STREET TYPES AT THE FESTA OF PIEDIGROTTA 254 DRAWING OF THE LOTTO 258 PREPARATIONS FOR A TOMBOLA 264 PALIO OF SIENA 268 A GAME OF PALLONE 274 the Italians The Italy of CHAPTER I THE KING It is told on excellent authority that Queen Victoria, whose long experience of men and things had made her a keen observer, picked out the Prince of Naples The King, from among all the heirs to European monarchies as the most promising and able. Time has justified the old Queen's prophecy. There sits no wiser, keener, more cultured or more modern sovereign on throne none who more identifies himself any ; thoroughly with his country or better understands its needs. And all the King does is done so quietly and unobtrusively, without fireworks of phrase or parade of action, that even in Italy it has taken a little while to find out and gauge the new sovereign's value. Still, when he ascended the throne with the new century but a few months begun, it was instinctively hoped, if not felt, that a new and better era was dawning for Italy, and a great wave of hope greeted his advent. In order to understand the full reason for this it is needful to cast a bird's-eye glance over Italian politics. At the time of King Humbert's murder (July 29th, 1900) Italian there were unmistakable signs in the air of the near approach of a catastrophe in Italian domestic affairs. A malign influence was leading the various rapidly succeeding Ministries, each and all devoid of a definite programme, along a road of injudicious acts at the end of which 2 Italy of the Italians loomed the downfall of the Monarchy. The murderer Bresci by his dastardly act saved the monarchical principle in Italy and secured the dynasty to the House of Savoy. King Humbert was no self asserting monarch, it may even be said that he was too constitutional for a young country like Italy where political principles have not yet become fixed. For a strong personality can make itself felt even under the constitutional curb, as witness Humbert's own father, Victor Emmanuel II and our King Edward VII. Before the corpse of the King, a good-hearted man if not a wise sovereign, before the blood thus wantonly shed, the various political parties stood dismayed and felt it was necessary to draw together and act in patriotic concert ere it became too late. For, as they suddenly perceived, now that their eyes were opened, if the wranglings of political parties and the preachings of extremists were to result in the abolition of the monarchy, the result would have been civil war, a fresh dismemberment of Italy, and renewed foreign intervention. Beyond question the errors of the Italian Government since the too early death of Cavour, the only Italian statesman endowed with real practical aptitude, have been and The fact is that ^Governmen?^ many great. Italy was made too quickly, the revolution was too suddenly successful : there had not been enough time to allow of the training of free-born citizens. As the patriot " Massimo d'Azeglio said, Italy is made, we must now make the Italians." It would, of course, be absurd to expect a young nation like Italy to have stable arrangements, or precise aims such as pertain to nations that can count centuries of life. Rather, if we look at what Italy was little more than fifty years ago, we have reason to be astonished at the striking advance she has made in so short a time and may well place high hopes upon a people who have given proof of such exuberant and recuperative vitality. The troubles under which Italy groans are of two-fold The King 3 nature, or rather the one is the result of the other. In a land for centuries broken up into petty states no sense of cohesion could exist. Provincialism is rampant and Want of corrodes all the various sections of public Cohesion. ,.. _, , ^ i • • life. But mstead of takmg mto account these sectional differences and utilizing them as helpful factors, instead of keeping alive the autonomous character of these various provinces, the Italian statesmen who had made Italy looked around them for an example to copy for the framing of their administrative and executive power, and most unluckily hit upon France as their model. Now, France has for long been autonomous, her people love system and uniformity and are essentially logical. The keynote to the Italian character, on the other hand, is individualism, and all the past glories of the land, whether as cities, or petty states, sprang from that fact. Then, suddenly, without previous preparation or training, these were all squeezed into one mould. The administrative system, for instance, included the institution in each government department of a Prefect, an anomalous to British most The Prefect and, ideas, and the mischievous functionary who resides in the Municipality, chief city of a province as the representative of the government, holding office during their pleasure and exercising a pressure and a surveillance on the local func- tionaries with whom he has nothing in common. Thus the cities at once come under a divided rule, that of the Municipality and that of the Prefect, often with unfortunate results. In the same way authority over the police is divided and there are two sorts, municipal and governmental, and these by no means work into each other's hands—often quite the contrary. But, while copying the French administrative arrangement, Italy, unfortunately, did not copy its tributary system of taxation. Instead, they took a little from this country, a little with results this is in their from that, hopeless ; noteworthy 4 Italy of the Italians adoption of the English Income Tax, which is in no respects a toll suited to the Italian temperament. Long years of mis-rule and oppression have made the Italians secretive and mistrustful of all governments, the truth where it can be is carefully hidden, and the public treasury suffers. No Italian thinks it wrong to cheat the Government, quite the contrary.