"The garden that I love,"
said an Italian once to me, "contains good vegetables." This utilitarian
flavour of the south has become very intelligible to me during the last
few days. I, too, am thinking less of calceolarias than of cauliflowers.
A pilgrimage to the Bandusian Fount (if such it be) is no great
undertaking - a morning's trip. The village of San Gervasio is the next
station to Venosa, lying on an eminence only thirteen kilometres from
there.
Here once ran a fountain which was known as late as the twelfth century
as the Fons Bandusinus, and Ughelli, in his "Italia Sacra," cites a deed
of the year 1103 speaking of a church "at the Bandusian Fount near
Venosa." Church and fountain have now disappeared; but the site of the
former, they say, is known, and close to it there once issued a copious
spring called "Fontana Grande." This is probably the Horatian one; and
is also, I doubt not, that referred to in Cenna's chronicle of Venosa:
"At Torre San Gervasio are the ruins of a castle and an abundant spring
of water colder than all the waters of Venosa," Frigus amabile. . . .
I could discover no one in the place to show me where this now vanished
church stood. I rather think it occupied the site of the present church
of Saint Anthony, the oldest in San Gervasio.
As to the fountain - there are now two of them, at some considerable
distance from each other. Both of them are copious, and both lie near
the foot of the hill on which the village now stands. Capmartin de
Chaupy has reasons for believing that in former times San Gervasio did
not occupy its present exalted position (vol. iii, p. 538).
One of them gushes out on the plain near the railway station, and has
been rebuilt within recent times. It goes by the name of "Fontana
rotta." The other, the "Fontana del Fico," lies on the high road to
Spinazzola; the water spouts out of seven mouths, and near at hand is a
plantation of young sycamores. The basin of this fount was also rebuilt
about ten years ago at no little expense, and has now a thoroughly
modern and businesslike aspect. But I was told that a complicated
network of subterranean pipes and passages, leading to "God knows
where," was unearthed during the process of reconstruction. It was
magnificent masonry, said my informant, who was an eye-witness of the
excavations but could tell me nothing more of interest.
The problem how far either of these fountains fulfils the conditions
postulated in the last verse of Horace's ode may be solved by every one
according as he pleases. In fact, there is no other way of solving it.
In my professorial mood, I should cite the cavern and the "downward
leaping" waters against the hypothesis that the Bandusian Fount stood on
either of these modern sites; in favour of it, one might argue that the
conventional rhetoric of all Roman art may have added these embellishing
touches, and cite, in confirmation thereof, the last two lines of the
previous verse, mentioning animals that could hardly have slaked their
thirst with any convenience at a cavernous spring such as he describes.
Caverns, moreover, are not always near the summits of hills; they may be
at the foot of them; and water, even the Thames at London Bridge, always
leaps downhill - more or less. Of more importance is old Chaupy's
discovery of the northerly aspect of one of these springs - "thee the
fierce season of the blazing dog-star cannot touch." There may have been
a cave at the back of the "Fontana del Fico"; the "Fontana rotta" is
hopelessly uncavernous.
For the rest, there is no reason why the fountain should not have
changed its position since ancient days. On the contrary, several things
might incline one to think that it has been forced to abandon the high
grounds and seek its present lower level. To begin with, the hill on
which the village stands is honeycombed by hives of caves which the
inhabitants have carved out of the loose conglomerate (which, by the
way, hardly corresponds with the poet's saxum); and it may well be
that a considerable collapse of these earth-dwellings obstructed the
original source of the waters and obliged them to seek a vent lower down.
Next, there are the notorious effects of deforestation. An old man told
me that in his early days the hill was covered with timber - indeed, this
whole land, now a stretch of rolling grassy downs, was decently wooded
up to a short time ago. I observed that the roof of the oldest of the
three churches, that of Saint Anthony, is formed of wooden rafters (a
rare material hereabouts). Deforestation would also cause the waters to
issue at a lower level.
Lastly, and chiefly - the possible shatterings of earthquakes.
Catastrophes such as those which have damaged Venosa in days past may
have played havoc with the water-courses of this place by choking up
their old channels. My acquaintance with the habits of Apulian
earthquakes, with the science of hydrodynamics and the geological
formation of San Gervasio is not sufficiently extensive to allow me to
express a mature opinion. I will content myself with presenting to
future investigators the plausible theory - plausible because
conveniently difficult to refute - that some terrestrial upheaval in past
days is responsible for the present state of things.
