Memory to mankind - to wit, this Chronicle of the most Ancient,
Magnificent, and Faithful City of Cotrone. A worthier effort at
self-perpetuation than that of Strangoli. . . .
A sturgeon, he notes, was caught in 1593 by the Spanish Castellan of the
town. This nobleman, puzzling whom he could best honour with so rare a
dainty, despatched it by means of a man on horseback to the Duke of
Nocera. The Duke was no less surprised than pleased; he thought mighty
well of the sturgeon and of the respectful consideration which prompted
the gift; and then, by another horseman, sent it to Noia Molisi's own
uncle, accompanied, we may conjecture, by some ceremonious compliment
befitting the occasion.
A man of parts, therefore, our author's uncle, to whom his Lordship of
Nocera sends table-delicacies by mounted messenger; and himself a mellow
comrade whom I am loath to leave; his pages are distinguished by a
pleasing absence of those saintly paraphernalia which hang like a fog
athwart the fair sky of the south.
Yet to him and to all of them I must bid good-bye, here and now. At this
hour to-morrow I shall be far from Cotrone.
Farewell to Capialbi, inspired bookworm! And to Lenormant.
On a day like this, the scholar sailed at Bivona over a sea so unruffled
that the barque seemed to be suspended in air. The water's surface, he
tells us, is "unie comme une glace." He sees the vitreous depths invaded
by piercing sunbeams that light up its mysterious forests of algae, its
rock-headlands and silvery stretches of sand; he peers down into these
"prairies pelagiennes" and beholds all their wondrous fauna - the
urchins, the crabs, the floating fishes and translucent medusae
"semblables a des clochettes d'opale." Then, realizing how this
"population pullulante des petits animaux marins" must have impressed
the observing ancients, he goes on to touch - ever so lightly! - upon
those old local arts of ornamentation whereby sea-beasts and molluscs
and aquatic plants were reverently copied by master-hand, not from dead
specimens, but "pris sur le vif et observes au milieu des eaux"; he
explains how an entire school grew up, which drew its inspiration from
the dainty ... apes and movements of these frail creatures. This is au
meilleur Lenormant. His was a full-blooded yet discriminating zest of
knowledge. One wonders what more was fermenting in that restlessly
curious brain, when a miserable accident ended his short life, after 120
days of suffering.
So Italy proved fatal to him, as Greece to his father. But one of his
happiest moments must have been spent on the sea at Bivona, on that
clear summer day - a day such as this, when every nerve tingles with joy
of life.
Meanwhile it is good to rest here, immovable but alert, in the
breathless hush of noon.
