FOR A START YOU MUST FIND YOUR BEES A SUITABLE HOME, A POSITION
SHELTERED FROM WIND (FOR WIND WILL KEEP THEM FROM RETURNING WITH
THEIR FORAGE), A CLOSE WHERE SHEEP NOR GOATS COME BUTTING IN
TO JUMP ON THE FLOWERS, NOR BLUNDERING HEIFER STRAY TO FLICK
THE DEW FROM THE MEADOW AND STAMP DOWN THE NEW PASTURE.
*
“The Veneto consists of the territory occupied by the Venetians in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, when the reign of the Milanese Visconti was coming to an end.” Piazza Brà situation, under warming, late-morning sun, the sound of clicking heels on its broad, handsome, marble-flagstone esplanade. “Venice had confined her interest mainly to maritime affairs, the inland cities remaining closer to Lombardy.” A fragment of the Arena’s outer wall basks in light somewhat muted by a pleasant haze. “Verona, Padua, Vicenza and Treviso in the twelfth century formed the Veronese League, in imitation of the Lombard League.” The Piazza is centered by a large, spreading evergreen. “With the same end, of checking the Emperor’s power.” From this point of view it almost obscures the early-nineteenth-century Palazzo Municipio. “After the pillaging of the piratical Ezzelino da Romano.” Elderly gentlemen, white-mustachioed, in stylish topcoats, stroll by. “Who terrorized the Adige valley in the early thirteenth century.” Their hands clasped behind them. “There followed an age of great families.” A squat powerful woman in red overcoat walks in the street, pulling a little boy by the hand. “The Scalerigieri in Verona and Vicenza.” He has been dressed up in a red cape and green sweater. “The Carraresi in Padua and Vicenza.” Her gray-haired husband. “The Da Camino in Treviso.” In black trench coat. “Held their little courts.” Brings up the rear. “Brilliant in literature and art.” An orange dump truck. “Finally they were overcome.” Having deposited its load at a work site. “By the Visconti.” Traverses the Piazza to exit through one of the arches of Portoni della Brà (1389). A large-breasted blonde in dark glasses, yellow top, late twenties, fashionable beige coat almost to the ankle, strides past. “By 1420, after the fall of the Milanese, the whole territory from Verona to Udine, from Belluno to Padua, had acknowledged the Lion of St. Mark.” The arches of the near-perfect Arena provide a constant backdrop.
“At the outset Ariosto establishes his independence by breaking chronology and beginning anew at a point of his own choosing; in effect he dismantles the Innamorato and incorporates various portions of its narrative into his own, recomposing as he proceeds. What distinguishes him from his predecessors is an ambition to reshape the entire story before completing it. In so doing he introduces a design, as well as a realism, into Boiardo’s rich but shapeless and rather fantastic material.”
A man of 57 in aviator glasses, brown tam and green loden coat, hands in its pockets, walks through the scene with an inquisitive air. “Ariosto’s stance of critical independence is apparent in his selection of a title: his will be the tale of an Orlando who, once sensually innamorato, becomes furioso, a mad man.” Across the square an English sheepdog picks up and drops a red Frisbee, picks it up once more only to drop it again.
“On the 12th of March Tasso left his room; the moving revels excited him; the inattention of old friends seemed designed to mock him; his dudgeon rose to fury, bursting forth in a maniacal storm. On an impulse he rushed to the Bentivogli palace, where he found only the lady of the house and some other noble dames. He indulged them with a volley of abuse directed against the Duke and the Duchess, against the whole House of Este and the gentlemen of the court. Then he ran off wildly to the Castello, where he insisted on seeing the Duchess. He demanded the return of his manuscripts; he must save his honor from calumny; his enemies conspire to make him out a heretic, he said. They design his death. The ladies of the court were blanched with fear; they tried to soothe him, but he continued to stutter out invective and dreadful accusations; no one escaped the venom of his reckless tongue, certainly not the bride. Someone hastens to tell the Duke, and Torquato is carried off to St. Anna’s Hospital, happily quite near at hand.”
A much larger dog, a German shepherd, arrives to harass him. “Further extensions of the Doges’ dominion and the League of Cambrai (1508) put an end to Venice’s imperial ambitions.” Three gentlemen, the first in beige coat and hat, the second in dark blue, the third in gray with foulard, stop to commentate the scene, all three holding a single finger of one hand in the other hand, behind their backs. “For three hundred years Venetian dominions in Italy remained united.” A woman in fur strides by, a paper bag from Farmacia Internazionale in one hand, her handbag in the other. “Finally, the Napoleonic invasion of Italy saw the dismemberment of Venetia, Venice itself along with its territories east of the Adige ceding to Austria in 1797, as the western portion, in 1814, fell to the same power.” A man in black jacket, black pants walks hand in hand with his black-parkaed, black-panted wife, she in dark glasses. “In 1859 an armistice stopped the progress of Victor Emmanuel at the Lombard frontier.” A white, unmarked delivery truck arrives, over its cab a wind-retarding hood. “It was not until the Austrian defeat of the Prussians in 1866 that Venetia was able by plebiscite to join the Piedmontese kingdom.” A brown pigeon pecks among pieces of confetti for crumbs. “During World War II Verona suffered considerably from allied bombing.” Behind the evergreen, to the left of the Gran Guardia, a fountain sparkles quietly. An equestrian statue blends into the conifers, which in turn blend into the general ambiance. “German resistance had practically collapsed by the time the Allied armies reached Venice.” The square is pervaded by the rising tones of the French language, a tour bus having disgorged a middle-aged crowd. “Udine was entered, May 1, 1945, the last day of fighting in Italy.” All in the plaza is placid.
“After the work’s title, its opening stanzas compel attention.” A city of great beauty and municipal decorum. “Here the three main actions of the Innamorato are presented in orderly fashion and emerge as interlocking and interdependent:” With ample evidence of its Roman heritage. “The wars of the pagans on Charlemagne.” Verona merges the Romanesque with the Gothic. “The insane love of Orlando for Angelica.” Early with late Renaissance. “The travails of Ruggiero.” Later centuries it absorbs into the present. “In the progress to his destiny as Christian dynast.” Together all form an harmonious esthetic imperium. “Ariosto’s preconceived plan is apparent from first to last.” Polite, successful, even quietly triumphant. “The principal elements in its framework cooperating as part of a whole to create a complex system of interlace utterly beyond what Pulci or Boiardo had conceived.”
“It was not until the first decades of the sixteenth century that the great Trecento writers, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Dante, began to gain the status accorded the best-known ancient Greek and Roman authors, and even this status was granted unreservedly only to Petrarch and Boccaccio. The work usually credited for having played the vital role in canonizing these two is Pietro Bembo’s Prose della volgar lingua (1525). Though Bembo firmly established Petrarch and Boccaccio as master authors, he did not bestow such prestige on Dante. His assessment of the divine poet’s style was actually rather unfavorable, and he questioned the appropriateness of writing a poem on the subject of Christian theology.”
From Piazza Brà the scene now shifts by way of the Via Roma to the Castelvecchio. “In reducing the Bible to the level of poetic lies, Ariosto is extrapolating and reversing one of the standard defenses of poetry.” In the direction of Arco dei Gavi, we take the Vicolo Miracoli, its building fronts in beige, gray, dirty salmon. “To wit, that it can be rescued from the accusation of lying because the Bible itself uses parabolic fiction and nonliteral symbols.” Two young girls, arm in arm, head toward us. “Because no human words can express the literal reality of the Deity.” The second has dyed her dark hair bright blond in symmetrical inch-wide strands on either side of the central part.
“Thus we saw Salutati rescue the pagan poets by pointing to their improper and metamorphic use of language.” As we reach the end of the alley we face, through the arch, two palm trees, one much shorter than the other. “Dante, in his lunar episode, has Beatrice explain to the pilgrim that those transparent souls which he sees are only a fiction.” The clock of the Castelvecchio reads two minutes past 12:00. “Ad hoc projections of souls which really dwell with God in the Empyrean, and the reasons why this must be so:” From opposite directions two buses arrive, their brakes hissing.
Così parlar conviensi al vostro ingegno,
però che sola da sensato apprende
ciò che fa poscia d’intelletto degno.
Per questo la Scrittura condescende
a vostra facultate, e piedi e mano
attribuisce a Dio e altro intende.
As we start down the Corso Cavour, following the river’s current, a poster in a deserted store window reads “L’Amore Platonico”; another, “Filosofia: Una Scalata Interiore”; yet another, “La Nuova Aerobica.” At number 52 we encounter a sleepy artists’ supply shop called “Smalpotecnica.” “Colore,” says a panel beneath a clown’s face, “Belle Arti” another. Author crosses the Corso for closer inspection. In its vitrine, a large display of Liquitex: “Acrilique extra-fine”; behind it, within the store itself, a box of da Vinci brushes. Well up the street, centered from this point of view, towers a red crane, an orange bus approaching it; following behind the bus, a yellow motor scooter. A green Fiat speeds by, overtaking a blue Citroën, they both passing a parked purple Mercedes.
We ourselves are passing Sanmicheli’s Palazzo Canossa; astride its final balustrade are eight magnificent marble figures, all with arms extended or raised above their heads. Across the way, at 39B, the double windows of a Bar Pasticceria reflect author’s image, a “Troccho” van marked “TNT” and the great Palazzo itself. A sign above them reads “Incontri Dolci e Salati.” Between numbers 42 and 40 rises a large green crane, identified on its armature as “Mazzi,” in white letters against a blue ground. Sunlight is bathing the surface of Palazzo Porta Lupi; letters that had once designated the Banca d’Italia have been removed from above its door; its eighteenth-century stages confidently rise through a range of contrapposto figures on either side of a clock showing 11:29. On a garbage container a Venetian scene has been depicted by skilful schoolchildren, white palaces bending with the curve of the Grand Canal. Ahead, another refuse container is decorated with large sunflowers, the names of the pupils recorded on four separate leaves: “Adriana,” “Matteo,” “Laura,” “Vittorio,” the last leaf supported by a little bug. As he observes author’s activity, a rotund, six-foot-four policeman taps his foot, then deferentially looks away.
At 32A we turn to face “Schiavon Timbri Targhe Incisione.” The Romanesque tower of San Lorenzo emerges from above Lavanderia Cavour. Half the Church’s gate stands open. We re-cross the street to enter its courtyard. A woman in red hair passes, holding her fur coat closed at the collar. “Reading ‘with an open notebook’ pours into the continuous mold of an open structure a sinuous, flexible form.” San Lorenzo’s front, its sunlit courses in ocher, orange and burnt sienna, merges with those of more modern buildings. Exiting the courtyard, we face the Piazza Bevilacqua, another sixteenth-century work by Sanmicheli. About its arches languish satyrs and angels. Portrait busts in the Roman manner adorn its lower story. Within, a blue crane has let down its four arms to lift its treads off the ground. Across from the Palazzo a green awning covers a news stand, two of its notices reading “L’Arena: qui si vende” and “La Repubblica,” followed by three stars in orange on white. “Ariosto’s avoidance of designation makes possible a recognition by the reader that an experience he is describing simultaneously etches out another, absent but virtual, version of itself.” Standing at the head of Piazza Santi Apostoli, Ugo Zanoni, in a late marble representation, looks rather tired, a finger holding his place in the pages of a drooping book. To the pedestal has been added in black spray paint a swastika, it in turn overpainted in white with a hammer and sickle. Behind rise the apse, cloister and tower of the Chiesa di Santi Apostoli (1194). From behind it a pigeon flies out into a slightly occluded sky only to disappear behind the two-belled tower.
“Dana.Shopping” sits in the first floor of a down-at-heel palazzo undergoing “ristrutturazione interna.” Two women in fur coats peer through open grillwork at the shop’s display of “Capi in Pelle.” Across the way, at Bar Claudio, a lace curtain has been parted to reveal a little country house with two leafy trees, the image repeated three times. In a modern building, designed in imitation of the great palazzi, is lodged the “Istituto Nazionale per l’Assicurazione contro gli Infortuni sul Lavoro.” “Glamor” says a sign at number 9, the next open portal. “When the texts that Orlando Furioso evokes have metaphysical import, as Dante’s, Ariosto’s is the letter that kills.” Behind looms another construction site covered in plastic pierced with ellipses. “What remains is the old text joined to the new as mediating symbol.” At number 65 we turn to face the Baroque Palazzo Carroti, its ornate upper window braces shining in the sun, its front a little ratty. In orange and pale green, paper streamers fly from an unoccupied balcony. Having arrived at Via Armando, we peer through the shadowed Porta Borsari, its airy double arches surmounted by architraves, in turn surmounted by two more tiers of beautiful Roman stonework. Through its portals extends a Corso busy with traffic.
“Cutting across the middle of the fields, the Tiber is wide enough to have ships, and to carry all the produce into the capital, at least in winter and in spring; in summer, reduced to an arid bed, it diminishes and abandons the name of a great river, only to resume that name again in the autumn.” –Pliny. Having mounted above the left bank of the river, to transcend the view from the Roman Theater, we reach Castel San Pietro, built upon the foundations of a Visconti castle destroyed by the French in 1801. The gray-blue waters of the river purl past a little church to develop into ripples, eddies, a lace draped across the riverbed’s stone surface. In the immediate near ground a cypress rises from below.
“There is enough water here, plenty of streams, no marshland, because whatever water the sloping earth receives is never allowed to stagnate through delay: either it absorbs the flow to increase what it has already created, or it channels it as a tributary into the Adige, which cuts across the fields of Verona, capable of carrying not just medium-sized but also the largest ships: the Adige, unlike many rivers in ancient literature, which are celebrated in name only, never loses that name, nor in summer does the depth of its waters ever diminish, even beneath a burning sun; it always flows along in a bed rich in waves.” –Guarino Veronese. To one side of the cypress, reading a little ghost-like, is the Duomo’s shadowy tower. Other spires rise at intervals: from the nearby Chiesa Anastasia; from the more distant Piazza dei Signori; on, through increasing haze, to many other spires. Square patches glint off the surface of skylights. Beyond the perimeter of the city a jet plane hums its way northward, heading perhaps for Frankfurt, Paris or London. It is still cool, yet the sun steadily warms the brow. Over the city pigeons descend from twenty feet above to settle on rooftops, on chimneys, on TV antennae. Across the left bank the panorama continues.
I REMEMBER ONCE BENEATH THE BATTLEMENTS OF OEBALIA,
WHERE DARK GALAESUS WATERS THE GOLDEN FIELDS OF CORN,
I WAS AN OLD MAN, A CORYCIAN, WHO OWNED A FEW POOR ACRES
OF LAND ONCE DERELICT, USELESS FOR ARABLE,
NO GOOD FOR GRAZING, UNFIT FOR THE CULTIVATION OF VINES.
On out over Giardino Giusti, past Ponte Navi, the eye settles at last on the Cimitero Monumentale. “BUT HE LAID OUT A KITCHEN GARDEN IN ROWS AMID THE BRUSHWOOD, / BORDERING IT WITH WHITE LILIES, VERBENA, SMALL-SEEDED POPPY.” In the misty atmosphere the Arena has receded from view.
“HE WAS HAPPY THERE AS A KING. HE COULD GO INDOORS AT NIGHT / TO A TABLE HEAPED WITH DAINTIES THAT HE NEVER HAD TO BUY.” Still on the left bank of the Adige. “His for the asking the first rose of spring, / the earliest apples in autumn.” In a piazzetta before San Stefano, an ancient church. “AND WHEN GRIM WINTER SPLIT THE ROCKS WITH COLD.” A band called “I Familiari” is setting up. “HOLDING THE WATERCOURSES WITH CURB OF ICE.” On the stage sits a silver vase of two dozen red roses. “ALREADY / THAT MAN WOULD BE CUTTING HIS SOFT-HAIRED HYACINTHS.” Recorded music is playing, to warm up the crowd. “COMPLAINING / OF SUMMER’S BACKWARDNESS AND THE WEST WINDS SLOW TO COME.” In the small space before the stage, crowded with adults, a little girl and her even littler brother are dancing in a choreographed routine. “HIS BEES WERE THE FIRST TO BREED.”
“ORPHEUS, SICK AT HEART, SOUGHT THE COMFORT OF HIS HOLLOW LYRE.” Both have on high red boots and black trousers. “‘YOU, SWEET WIFE,’ HE SANG ALONE BY THE LONELY SHORE.” The little boy, in his orange-and-yellow-striped sweater, continues to dance. “‘YOU AT THE DAWN OF DAY,’ HE SANG, ‘AT DAY’S DECLINE YOU.’” His older sister, in a gray ski parka, a pink collar peeping above it, has paused to rest. “NOW HE HALTS.” On a creamy pale-yellow stucco nineteenth-century building. “EURYDICE, HIS OWN, IS AT THE LIP OF / DAYLIGHT.” Beneath green shutters, a sign reads: “ALAS! HE FORGOT.” “Legume.” “HIS PURPOSE FINALLY BROKEN, HE LOOKED BACK.” A single puff of confetti, tossed by an invisible hand, enlivens the back of a corduroy-jacketed man. “HIS LABOR UNDONE, THE PACT THAT HE HAD MADE THE MERCILESS KING / WAS ANNULLED.” Two even tinier revelers throw handfuls at one another. “THREE TIMES DID THUNDER PEAL OVER THE POOLS OF AVERNUS.” The little girl in long, full yellow skirt, a chipmunk on its front.
“The Orlando Furioso takes a spectacular failure of identity as the occasion for its title.” From a lively café on the Piazza del Duomo we exit to face the Cathedral. “The argument that this appellation is inappropriate.” Companion scares off a pigeon. “For the work as a whole.” Which swerves across the square. “First raised by Ariosto’s Cinquecento commentators.” To ascend over an ancient silvery Volkswagen bug. “Merely signals another schizophrenic feature of the text.” Briefly it returns to hover above the blue-tinted garb of Maria. “One that jeopardizes the poem’s ‘identity.’” Seated in the Romanesque portal with the Christ child in her lap. “Along with the identity of its characters.” The square is bare and nearly uniform. “In any case, there is one central episode.” As though to bring into focus the elegant astringencies of the “Santa Maria Matricolari.” “That of Orlando’s lapse into folly.” As the Duomo is known. “Which confounds both classical signs of human distinctiveness and dignity:” At last the pigeon alights high above on a ledge. “Oratio and ratio.” A part of the solid, ponderous, permanent tower. “(Speech and reason).”
As we enter, author is given a ticket permitting him to visit San Lorenzo and San Zeno, Santa Anastasia and San Fermo. Skirting the Cathedral’s immediate immensities, we turn to view another “Assumption” of Titian’s. “Luce,” reads an inscription. Serenely, modestly, with hands somewhat enlarged. The Lady Vanishes. The Virgin gazes vaguely down upon craning suppliants. (Valeria Finucci.) One of whom examines the emptiness of her tomb. “In Chapter 4, ‘The Narcissistic Woman: Angelica and the Mystique of Femininity,’ I use Freudian terms to explain Angelica’s appeal to the men pursuing her, as well as the fetishistic use of structures of avowal/disavowal they employ to counteract the threat of her narcissistic nature.” In the western aisle restoration is under way. “In Chapter 5, ‘Ego Games/Body Games: The Representation of Olimpia,’ I examine the portrayal of woman as disorder by concentrating on the shift in Olimpia’s characterization from imperious and articulate to acquiescent and silent.” A tall blue scaffolding, baffled in stainless steel panels, has been erected, atop which a man in white gloves and black shirt stirs a plastic tub of plaster. “In Chapter 6, ‘(Dis)Orderly Death, or How to Be In by Being Out: The case of Isabella,’ I investigate the connection between power and sex and between self-identity and self loss.” An immense Greek cross, the crucified Christ depicted upon it, glistens against a golden background. Along the eastern aisle, light pours in from the crossing. “My aim is to show where a politics of rape leads and how a dead woman can be used to refashion a man’s sense of worth.” The semi-circular altar is surrounded with moderne marble chairs. “In Chapter 7, ‘Transvestite Love: Gender Troubles in the Fiordispina Story,’ I follow the progress of the Bradamante-Fiordispina-Ricciardetto triangle.” As if in specimen jars, candles glimmer and gutter. “From a moment of undifferentiated sexuality fostered by cross dressing.” Above a side chapel a Mary in gold sentimentally overlooks the infant Jesus. “To a reaffirmation of sexual difference to an alignment with the law.” Who appears about to fall off her lap. “To a re-mastering of woman.”
By the Via del Duomo we continue on to Santa Anastasia, past a white Mercedes parked as though waiting to pray. “Oggetti d’Arte,” reads a sign, as we approach the second church. Direct sunlight is scarcely sufficient to illuminate the figure of Christ crucified in its tympanum. “Like Orlando’s antics in his fury, the Narrator’s image gravitates toward its own madness.” Enthroned above sits God. “Calling for no gloss, leading nowhere.” We enter the narthex, where two hunchbacks, one seated, one stooping, support two basins of holy water. “This literature of the madman’s image derives from a proliferation of meaning.” Touching them is said to bring good luck. “A multiplication of significance that weaves a sign-system.” Above stands another Christ. “So intertwined, so rich, so numerous.” To either side, two Roman soldiers. “That it can only be disciplined through the self-knowledge of tragedy.” Beneath a golden cloudburst a meek Mary rests her foot demurely on a crescent moon. “These signs become loaded with attributes, allusions, references.” –Marianne Shapiro. “And hence free from the control of form.” Half-hearted rays radiate from her sacred head.
“Orlando does not ‘know himself.’” It is here that views of Verona may be viewed from within Verona, in turn from within the church: “But he can interpret the writing on the wall, since he knows Arabic.” A misty river scene, sailboat moored on gray-green waters, on whose other bank, in a fresco depleted by age, a dreamy landscape of another world. “Three, four, six times Orlando studies Medoro’s poem.” An approach to the medieval city, where two criminals hang from a gibbet, seen from over the rump of a horse, past two dogs. “Interpreting each time more clearly, until he no longer sees the writing.” Over the altar’s candelabra, barely above the mitered heads of silver bishops: “But instead only the cold stone of the cave itself.” The pale gray-pink flesh of the crucified Christ.
Era scritto in Arabico, che’l Conte
Intendea così ben come latino;
Fra moste lingue e molte, ch’avea pronte,
Prontissima avea quella il paladino.
In a side chapel a sexton in half-glasses, having mounted a ladder, dusts with a dry paint brush the black spikes of a crown of thorns. “It is the act of translating the poem that provokes Orlando’s madness.” Natural light barely clarifies this vast space of suffering. “And that act proves more decisive to his fate than the sight of the entwined names of Angelica and Medoro.”
We continue on toward San Fermo, passing a restaurant called “Vini e Cucina di Luciano,” a fish suspended beneath its sign. As we traverse the Piazza di Pescheria, a view opens up of the farther shore. Crossing the Ponte Nuovo a group of Japanese tourists approaches us. Opposite San Fermo, the proprietor of Casa Canarino is covering his birds’ cages with purple cloth. Having arrived in Piazza San Fermo, by a side entrance we descend into the crypt. A collection box reads “Pane per Amore di Dio.” Once we are underground, Gabriel and other angels scowl down at us from a pillar. “Lux Mundi” reads a slab on the lectern.
Up and out of this dank, cavernous space, we return once more to the sunlight. A sign in the square reads “Xenon.” “RC” says a spray-painted graffito on one of the church’s pillars. A black Volvo, license plate AB903CA, drives off, heading toward the Arena. “With subtle mastery on a narrow field the skilful smith expressed an infinity of forms.” “FAR FAR” read the doors of a café. “Without interruption appeared the lineage of Actius, glorious and august.” The ample light of the sun fills the modern street. “Its stream was seen to derive from the ancient Roman fount.” As we approach the ancient ramparts. “Unpolluted and pure.” We enter a CD emporium. “Its princes stand crowned with laurel.” “Shine,” “Goddess,” “Made in Italy.” “The old man shows their wars, and their achievements.”
“He shows him Caius, at the time that the Empire, already in decline, first became prey to foreign peoples, taking up the reins of the willing populace; being made first prince of the Este; and under him his less powerful neighbors sheltering themselves, whose ruler he became through time’s necessity.” Peeking up an alleyway, we glimpse the sun itself as it sets behind a massive Roman wall. “Next he shows the hero that time when the fierce Goth passed again the familiar ford, at Honorius’ invitation.” As we circle back toward Piazza Brà, a light-struck Arena reemerges. “When it seemed that all Italy burned and blazed the more with barbaric fire.” Red on rose it glows. “Prisoner and slave.” Rose on rose. “Fearful of being destroyed to their very foundation, he shows how Aurelius preserves in liberty the people gathered under his scepter.” Rose on white. “Then he shows him Forestus, who opposes himself to the devastating Hun, the ruler of the North.”
“Readily recognized by his features is Attila the cruel, for he seems to gaze about him with dragon’s eyes.” Within the square’s park-like center sits a black woman. “He has the face of a dog, his expression snarling, and you would think from the craft of the artisan that you could hear his howling.” Chicly dressed in pale green coat, she faces toward the equestrian statue. “Then beaten in single combat, the savage man flees again among his soldiery.” Gently she rocks her baby in a white stroller pulled up beside her. “And the good Forestus, that Hector of Italy, is seen taking up thereafter the defense of Aquilea.” The little boy, half-Italian, half-African, has been fitted out for the chilly weather in a yellow snow suit.
“Elsewhere is shown his death, and his fate is the fate of his country. Behold the heir of a mighty father, his mighty son Acarinus, who succeeds him as the champion of Italian honor.” We take a seat opposite mother and child to enjoy the Piazza’s lovely stage-set. “He yielded Altino to the Fates, and not the Huns, then repaired to a stronghold more secure, then gathered together a single city from a thousand households scattered in villages throughout the valley of the Po.” “Pellini Café,” reads a sign across the way. “Against the great river that swells in the flood it was fortified.” “Emmanuel,” another, on a green awning. “Thence arose the city that was destined in future ages to be the royal seat of the magnanimous house of Este. . . .”
“Rinaldo in gazing awakens a thousand impulses of honor from his inborn sparks. His proud spirit, moved with emulative virtue, takes fire and is rapt away in such manner that those events which he has imagined – the city laid low, and taken, and its people killed – he thinks that he sees before his eyes even as if they were present and as if they were true, and he puts on the armor in haste, and in his hopes already preempts to himself the victory and anticipates it.” Taking leave of the Piazza, we reenter the flow of strollers and return to Locanda Catullo.
*