Morning journal and courier., 1891-01-10
MIR. wAKEMAN,s JoURNKYINGs
At Florence, Italy-"Lorenzo, the Magnihcent' - Olden Aqulai-Melf and Its Castle of the old Forman Sovereigns - The Shepherds of Southern Italy.
FLORENCE, Italy, Nov. 27

SOutherh
 FLORENCE, Italy, Nov. 27.
 To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 About the year 14s0, at the dawn of the golden age in Italy, there were daily gath cred at the table of the chief citizen of Florence such men as Pulci, Filippino Lip pi, Botticeli, Ghirlandajo and Michael Angelo. The host, whose wealth and matchless attainments made him known among the potentates and savants of south ern Europe as "Lorenzo, the Magnificent" wrote a pastoral poem of wondrous sweet ness and power called ''La Nencia Da Bar barino." I was once in a position Cbeing an editor, worse luckD to have this little known though surpassing composition translated for the first time into English, in the original metre, by no less scholar and poet than Sir Edwin Arnold. The poem, comprising three hundred lines, de- picts in simple though glowing words and imagery the hopeless and consuming pas sion of the shepherd-lad, "Ravella," for dainty pessant-girl, "Nencia." One can not read this lowly-life heart-cry without the awakening in his own soul of thrill ing and commiserative tenderness for the humble lives it so plaintively reveals; and it was with this feeling that sought. per haps over-much for the poetic and roman tic side of the picture, to know the real everyday lives of those who tend the hocks and herds of Italy.
 My first wanderings were in southern Italy, the territory of olden Aqulia. Once this was part of Gr@cia Magma. Its great cities were Arpinum, Luceria, Arpi and Canusium. Partly on foot, partly by the antique cabriolet of provincial Italy, part ly by Iettiga, the lectia of the ancient Ro- mans, and partly on the backs of tiny donkeys of wondrous shagginess and mar vicious power, made my way in zig-zag course back and forth across the infre- quently-trayeled, little known, weird and lonely, yet always transcendently beauti- full and fascinating peninsula. Upwards of three hundred castles, modern, medic val and in ruins, strikingly recalling the splendor and decay of Ireland, were counted. The few remaining relics of Canne, where the Romans met their l crushing defeat of B. c. 218, and where | 1O83, by Robert Guiscard, one of Tasso's | heroes, were found. Bari, upon the Adri-
 atic, as famous now for its fish as in the | time of Horace, was seen. The ancient abbey and church of s. Niccolo, where are | found the paintings of one of the earliest Italian masters, Viyarini, and where in | 1908 Pope Urban II. held the famous coun-
 cil which sought to reconcile the church of | Greece with that of Rome, was visited. l climbed past Melf, with its glorious castle of the old Forman sovereigns, to the ex-
 tinct volcano, Monte Vulture, the "Apu-
 lian Vultur" of Horace, whose crater, | overgrown with oaks and beeches, now
 contains two lakes, perched above one of
 which is the most eerie monastery of Flu
 rope, possibly excepting Monserrat, in | Spain, and from whose towers the blue | waters of the Mediterranean on the west,
 and those of the Adriatic on the east, | could be discerned. I tramped, too, with | hundreds of returning pilgrims, camping with them at night by the wayside; sat ! with the carrettajo as his cart and ox l waited by the fountains; climbed to the | shrines with reverential pilgrims; waited | by the mounting blocks with roadside beg l gars; made countless and astounding ex- cuses to get into the interior of cabins for
 draughts of acqua di latte and nanfa, but | ter-milk and orange water, which you can
 get anywhere in the country for the value of half an American cent; struggled from
 town to mountain with the pecore and his l flocks; assisted more than one shepherd in | building @ rude hut of stone, after the
 manner of the Pagan "bee-hive" cell upon
 wind-swept moors; and after making my home for brief season among the shep- I herds of the eastern mountain range of l Otranto, followed on foot the classic Ap-
 plan Way to the shepherd haunts of the I olive and vine-girt-hills of Tuscany.
 Shepherds, shepherds everywhere; but no-
 where was the dream of shepherd-life breathing from ssLa Nencia," as the altar from the heart of rose, fulfilled.
 I One of the-most interesting facts re- l garding the shepherds of southern Italy is l that they are not only g distinct class, but,