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.
But these are merely three hypotheses. I proceed to mention three facts
which point in the same direction; i.e. that the water used to issue at
a higher level. Firstly, there is that significant name "Fontana
rotta" - "the broken fountain." . . . Does not this suggest that its flow
may have been interrupted, or intercepted, in former times?
Next, if you climb up from this "Fontana rotta" to the village by the
footpath, you will observe, on your right hand as you ascend the slope,
at about a hundred yards below the Church of Saint Anthony, an old well
standing in a field of corn and shaded by three walnuts and an oak. This
well is still running, and was described to me as "molto antico."
Therefore an underground stream - in diminished volume, no doubt - still
descends from the heights.
Thirdly, in the village you will notice an alley leading out of the
Corso Manfredi (one rejoices to find the name of Manfred surviving in
these lands) - an alley which is entitled "Vico Sirene." The name arrests
your attention, for what have the Sirens to do in these inland regions?
Nothing whatever, unless they existed as ornamental statuary: statuary
such as frequently gives names to streets in Italy, witness the "Street
of the Faun" in Ouida's novel, or that of the "Giant" in Naples (which
has now been re-christened). It strikes me as a humble but quite
scholarly speculation to infer that, the chief decorative uses of Sirens
being that of fountain deities, this obscure roadway keeps alive the
tradition of the old "Fontana Grande" - ornamented, we may suppose, with
marble Sirens - whose site is now forgotten, and whose very name has
faded from the memory of the countryfolk.
What, then, does my ramble of two hours at San Gervasio amount to? It
shows that there is a possibility, at least, of a now vanished fountain
having existed on the heights where it might fulfil more accurately the
conditions of Horace's ode. If Ughelli's church "at the Bandusian Fount"
stood on this eminence - well, I shall be glad to corroborate, for once
in the way, old Ughelli, whose book contains a deal of dire nonsense.
And if the Abbe Chaupy's suggestion that the village lay at the foot of
the hill should ever prove to be wrong - well, his amiable ghost may be
pleased to think that even this does not necessitate the sacrifice of
his Venosa theory in favour of that of the scholiast Akron; there is
still a way out of the difficulty.
