Legends Of Florence Part 17

from Pius IV.

There is a popular legend that once on a time a poor girl was arrested in Florence for having stolen a chain, a bracelet, or some such article of jewellery of immense value. She was thrown into prison, but though there was collateral or indirect evidence to prove her guilt, the stolen article could not be found. Gossip and rumour const.i.tuted ample grounds for indictment and trial, and torture did the rest in the pious times when it was generally taught and believed that Providence would always rescue the innocent, and that everybody who came to grief on the gallows had deserved it for something or other at some time, and that it was all right.

So the girl was executed, and almost forgotten. When a long time after, some workman or other was sent up to the top of the column of the Piazza Trinita, and there found that a jackdaw or magpie had built a nest in the balance or scales held by Justice, and in it was the missing jewel.

This is an Italian form of "The Maid and the Magpie," known the world over from ancient times. The scales suggest a droll German story. There was in front of a certain palace or town-hall, where all criminals were tried, a statue of Justice holding a pair of scales, and these were not cast solid, but were a _bona fide_ pair of balances. And certain low thieves having been arrested with booty-whatever it was-it was discovered that they had divided it among themselves very accurately, even to the ounce. At which the magistrate greatly marvelling, asked them how they could have done it so well, since it had appeared that they had not been in any house between the period of the theft and their arrest. Whereupon one replied: "Very easily, your Honour, for, to be honourable, honest, and just as possible, we weighed the goods in the scales of Justice itself, here on the front of the _Rath-haus_."

It is for every reason more probable that the bird which stole the jewel of the column was a jackdaw than a magpie, and it is certainly fitter that it should have been thus in Florence. "It is well known," says Oken in his "Natural History" (7 B. Part I. 347), "that the jackdaw steals glittering objects, and carries them to its nest." Hence the ancient legend of Arne, who so greatly loved gold, that she sold her native isle Siphnos to Minos, and was for that turned by the G.o.ds into a daw (Ovid's "Metamorphoses," vii. 466). As a mischief-making, thieving, and chattering bird of black colour, the jackdaw was naturally considered evil, and witches, or their imps, often a.s.sumed its form. In fact, the only really good or pious bird of the kind on record known to me, is the jackdaw of Rheims sung by Ingoldsby Barham.

According to Kornmannus, the column was placed where it now stands, because Cosimo was in the Piazza Trinita when he heard the news of the surrender of Siena.

After I had written the foregoing legend, I found the following:

LA COLONNA DI SANTA TRINITa.

"The pillar di Santa Trinita was in times a meeting-place for fairies (_Fate_), whither they went afoot or in their carriages. At the base of the column there was a great stone, and there they exchanged greetings or consulted about their affairs. They were all great ladies, of kindly disposition. And when it came that any one was cast into the city prison, they inquired into the affair, and then a _fate_ would go as a magistrate in disguise and question the accused. Now they always knew whether any one spoke the truth, and if the prisoner did so, and was deserving mercy, they delivered him; but if he lied, they left him to be hanged, with a _buon pro vi faccia_!-Much good may it do you!

"Of evenings they a.s.sembled round the rock at the foot of the column in a great company, and had great merriment and love-making. Then in the crowd a couple would descend, or one after another into their vaults below, and then come again, often taking with them mortals who were their friends or favourites.

"Their chief was a matron who always held a pair of scales. Now when they were to judge the fate of any one, they took with great care the earth from one of his footprints, and weighed it most scrupulously, for thereby they could tell whether in his life he had done more good or evil, and it was thus that they settled the fate of all the accused in the prisons.

"And it often came to pa.s.s that when prisoners were young and handsome, these _fate_ or fairy-witches took them from their cells in the prison through subterranean ways to their vaults under the Trinita, and pa.s.sed the time merrily enough, for all was magnificent there.

"But woe unto those, no matter how handsome they might be, who betrayed the secrets and the love of the _fate_. Verily they had their reward, and a fine long repentance with it, for they were all turned into cats or mice, and condemned to live in the cellars and subterranean pa.s.sages of the old Ghetto, which is now destroyed-and a nasty place it was. In its time people often wondered that there were so many cats there, but the truth is that they were all people who had been enchanted by those who were called in olden time _le Gran Dame di Firenze_-the Great Ladies of Florence.

"And the image holding the scales is called _la Giustizia_, but it really represents the Matrona, or Queen of the Fate, who of old exercised such strict justice with her scales in Florence."

This is, I am confident, a tradition of great antiquity, for all its elements are of a very ancient or singularly witch-like nature. In it the _fate_ are found in their most natural form, as _fates_, weighing justice and dealing out rewards and punishments. Justice herself appears navely and amusingly to the witches as Queen of the _Fate_, who are indeed all spirits who have been good witches in a previous life.

What is most mystical and peculiarly cla.s.sic Italian is the belief that the earth on which a human being has trod can be used wherewith to conjure him. This subject is treated elsewhere in my "Etruscan Roman Traditions."

The great stone at the base of the column was a kind of palladium of the city of Florence. There are brief notices of it in many works. It would be curious if it still exists somewhere and can be identified.

"A great palladium, whose virtues lie In undefined remote antiquity; A G.o.d unformed, who sleeps within a stone, Which sculptor's hand as yet has never known; Brought in past ages from some unknown sh.o.r.e; Our fathers wors.h.i.+pped it-we know no more."

LEGENDS OF OR' SAN MICHELE

"The spirit of Antiquity, enshrined In sumptuous buildings, vocal in sweet song, In pictures speaking with heroic tongue, And with devout solemnities entwined."

-WORDSWORTH, "_Bruges_."

Or' San Michele is a very beautiful church in the Italian Gothic style in the Via Calzaioli. It was originally a market or stable below and a barn or granary above, whence some derive its name from _Horreum Sancti Michaelis_, and others from the Italian _Orto_, a garden, a term also applied to a church-congregation. "The statues and decorations on the exterior are among the best productions of the Florentine school of sculpture." As that of Saint Eloy or San Eligio, the blacksmith, with great pincers at an anvil, in a sculpture representing a horse being shod, is the most conspicuous on the facade, the people have naturally concluded that the church was originally a stable or smithy. The legend of the place is as follows:

LA CHIESA OR' SAN MICHELE.

"This was originally a stable and coach-house (_rimessa_), and there was a hayloft above. Every night the horses were heard to neigh, and in the morning they were found all curried and well managed, and no one knew who did it; but none of the grooms ever shed any tears over it that ever I heard of.

"Now, the master of the place had a son, a priest named Michele, who was so holy that he worked many miracles, so that all began to call him a saint. And after he died he appeared to his parents in a dream, and told them that the stable and barn should be transformed into a church, and that he would read ma.s.s therein thrice a day.

"But his parents wished to have him buried under the altar of a church which was on their estate in the country, but the saint did not wish to be buried there.

"One day one of the grooms of the stable found that a horse could not move a foot, so he ran to call the _manescalco_, or blacksmith, who led the horse to his forge. And when he took the hoof to examine it, lo! it came off at the joint and remained in his hand. Then the smith said that the horse should be killed, because he was now worthless. But the horse struck his stump on the hoof, and the latter joined itself to his leg as firmly as ever it had been. But in doing this the old shoe fell off, whence it comes to this day that whoever finds an old horse-shoe gets luck with it.

"When the smith had shod the horse anew, he tried to lead it back into the stable, but it refused to enter. Then it was plain that this was a miracle worked by San Michele. So they removed all the horses and hay from the building, and made of it the fine church which is now called _La Chiesa di Or' San Michele_."

There is a vast ma.s.s of tradition extant relative to the Horse, enough to make a large volume, and in it there is a great deal which is so nearly allied to this story as to establish its antiquity. Karl Blind has found an old Norse spell, in which, by the aid of Balder and Odin, the lameness of a horse's ankle or pastern joint can be cured. There is another version of this story, which runs as follows:

THE SMITH AND SAINT PETER.

"It is a good thing in this world to be bold and have a good opinion of one's self; yes, and to hold your head high-but not so high as to bend over backwards-else that may happen to you which befell the celebrated c.o.c.k of Aspromonte."

"And what happened to him?"

"Only this, Signore-he was so c.o.c.ky, and bent his head so far backwards, that his spurs ran into his eyes and blinded him. Now, the c.o.c.k reminds me of Saint Peter, and too much cheek of the _ferrajo s.p.a.cciato_, or the saucy smith, who wanted to equal him.

"It happened once that the Lord and Saint Peter came to a forge, and the smith was about to lead a horse from the stable to the anvil to shoe him.

Saint Peter said:

"'Thou hast boasted that thou art the best smith in the world, and canst work such wonders in shoeing as man never beheld. Canst thou not shoe this horse without taking him to the forge?'

"'Neither thou, nor I, nor any man can do it,' replied the smith.

"Saint Peter took the hoof in his left hand, gave it a rap with the side of his right across the joint, and the hoof fell off. Then Saint Peter carried it to the anvil, fastened a new shoe on it, returned and put it on the horse again, who stamped with it as if nothing had happened.

"Now the smith, like all boasters, was a great fool, and he only thought that this was something which he had not learned before, and so cried boldly, 'Oh, that is only the Bolognese manner of taking hoofs off and putting them on-we do it much better here in Florence!' So he seized the horse's hoof, and with one blow of a hatchet cut it off.

"'And now put it on again,' said Saint Peter. The smith tried, but it would not stick.

"'The horse is bleeding to death rapidly,' remarked the Saint.

"'I believe,' said the smith ruefully, 'that I am a fool in folio.'

"'_Piu matto che un granchio_-as crazy as a crawfish,' solemnly added one of his a.s.sistants.

"'_Pazzo a bandiera_-as wild and witless as a flapping flag,' quoth another.

"'_Matto di sette cotte_-an idiot seven times baked,' chimed in Saint Peter.

"'A _campanile_-a church bell-tower of a fool,' contributed his wife, who had just come in.