As a Franciscan
saint, he was obliged to conform to the school of Bethlehem and Assisi.
He was obliged to select a stable. Such is the force of tradition. . . .
Joseph of Copertino lived during the time of the Spanish viceroys, and
his fame spread not only over all Italy, but to France, Germany and
Poland. Among his intimates and admirers were no fewer than eight
cardinals, Prince Leopold of Tuscany, the Duke of Bouillon, Isabella of
Austria, the Infanta Maria of Savoy and the Duke of Brunswick, who,
during a visit to various courts of Europe in 1649, purposely went to
Assisi to see him, and was there converted from the Lutheran heresy by
the spectacle of one of his flights. Prince Casimir, heir to the throne
of Poland, was his particular friend, and kept up a correspondence with
him after the death of his father and his own succession to the throne.
Towards the close of his life, the flying monk became so celebrated that
his superiors were obliged to shut him up in the convent of Osimo, in
close confinement, in order that his aerial voyages "should not be
disturbed by the concourse of the vulgar." And here he expired, in his
sixty-first year, on the 18th September, 1663. He had been suffering and
infirm for some little time previous to that event, but managed to take
a short flight on the very day preceding his demise.
Forthwith the evidences of his miraculous deeds were collected and
submitted to the inspired examination of the Sacred Congregation of
Rites in Rome. Their conscientiousness in sifting and weighing the
depositions is sufficiently attested by the fact that ninety years were
allowed to elapse ere Joseph of Copertino was solemnly received into the
number of the Blessed. This occurred in 1753; and though the date may
have been accidentally chosen, some people will be inclined to detect
the hand of Providence in the ordering of the event, as a challenge to
Voltaire, who was just then disquieting Europe with certain doctrines of
a pernicious nature.
XI
BY THE INLAND SEA
The railway line to Grottaglie skirts the shore of the inland sea for
two or three miles, and then turns away. Old Taranto glimmers in lordly
fashion across the tranquil waters; a sense of immemorial culture
pervades this region of russet tilth, and olives, and golden corn.
They led me, at Grottaglie, to the only convent of males now in use, San
Francesco, recently acquired by the Jesuits. In the sacristy of its
church, where I was told to wait, a slender young priest was praying
rapturously before some image, and the clock that stood at hand recorded
the flight of twenty minutes ere his devotions were ended. Then he arose
slowly and turned upon me a pair of lustrous, dreamy eyes, as though
awakened from another world.
This was quite a new convent, he explained; it could not possibly be the
one I was seeking. But there was another one, almost a ruin, and now
converted into a refuge for a flock of poor old women; he would gladly
show me the way. Was I a "Germanese"? [Footnote: Germanese or
Allemanno = a German. Tedesco, hereabouts, signifies an Austrian - a
detested nationality, even at this distance of time. I have wondered,
since writing the above, whether this is really the place of which Rossi
speaks. He calls it Grottole (the difference in spelling would be of
little account), and says it lies not far distant from Copertino. But
there may be a place of this name still nearer; it is a common
appellation in these honeycombed limestone districts. This Grottaglie
is certainly the birth-place of another religious hero, the
priest-brigand Ciro, who gave so much trouble to Sir R. Church.] No, I
replied; I came from Scotland.
"A Calvinist," he remarked, without bitterness.
"A Presbyterian," I gently corrected.
"To be sure - a Presbyterian."
As we walked along the street under the glowing beams of midday I set
forth the object of my visit. He had never heard of the flying monk - it
was astonishing, he said. He would look up the subject without delay.
The flying monk! That a Protestant should come all the way from "the
other end of the world" to enquire about a local Catholic saint of
whose existence he himself was unaware, seemed not so much to surprise
as positively to alarm him.
Among other local curiosities, he pointed out the portal of the parish
church, a fine but dilapidated piece of work, with a large rosette
window overhead. The town, he told me, derives its name from certain
large grottoes wherein the inhabitants used to take refuge during
Saracen raids. This I already knew, from the pages of Swinburne and
Sanchez; and in my turn was able to inform him that a certain Frenchman,
Bertaux by name, had written about the Byzantine wall-paintings within
these caves. Yes, those old Greeks! he said. And that accounted for the
famous ceramics of the place, which preserved the Hellenic traditions in
extraordinary purity. I did not inform him that Hector Preconi, who
purposely visited Grottaglie to study these potteries, was considerably
disappointed.
At the door of the decayed convent my guide left me, with sundry polite
expressions of esteem. I entered a spacious open courtyard; a well stood
in the centre of a bare enclosure whereon, in olden days, the monks may
have cultivated their fruit and vegetables; round this court there ran
an arched passage, its walls adorned with frescoes, now dim and faded,
depicting sacred subjects. The monastery itself was a sombre maze of
stairways and cells and corridors - all the free spaces, including the
very roof, encumbered with gleaming potteries of every shape and size,
that are made somewhere near the premises.
