"A poor town." . . .
Driving through modern Castrovillari one might think the place flat and
undeserving of the name of castrum. But the old town is otherwise. It
occupies a proud eminence - the head of a promontory which overlooks the
junction of two streams; the newer settlement stands on the more level
ground at its back. This acropolis, once thronged with folk but now
well-nigh deserted, has all the macabre fascination of decay. A mildewy
spirit haunts those tortuous and uneven roadways; plaster drops unheeded
from the walls; the wild fig thrusts luxuriant arms through the windows
of palaces whose balconies are rusted and painted loggias crumbling to
earth ... a mournful and malarious agglomeration of ruins.
There is a castle, of course. It was built, or rebuilt, by the
Aragonese, with four corner towers, one of which became infamous for a
scene that rivals the horrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta. Numbers of
confined brigands, uncared-for, perished miserably of starvation within
its walls. Says the historian Botta:
"The abominable taint prevented the guards from approaching; the dead
bodies were not carried away. The pestilence increased; in pain and
exhaustion, the dying fell shuddering on the dead; the hale on the
dying; all tearing themselves like dogs with teeth and nails. The tower
of Castrovillari became a foul hole of corruption, and the stench was
spread abroad for a long season."
This castle is now used as a place of confinement. Sentries warned me at
one point not to approach too near the walls; it was "forbidden." I had
no particular desire to disobey this injunction. Judging by the number
of rats that swarm about the place, it is not exactly a model prison.
One of the streets in this dilapidated stronghold bears to this day the
inscription "Giudea," or Jewry. Southern Italy was well stocked with
those Hebrews concerning whom Mr. H. M. Adler has sagely discoursed.
They lived in separate districts, and seem to have borne a good
reputation. Those of Castrovillari, on being ejected by Ferdinand the
Catholic in 1511, obligingly made a donation of their school to the
town. But they returned anon, and claimed it again. Persecuted as they
were, they never suffered the martyrdom of the ill-starred Waldensian
colonies in Calabria.
The houses of this Jewry overlook the Coscile river, the Sybaris of old,
and from a spot in the quarter a steep path descends to its banks. Here
you will find yourself in another climate, cool and moist. The livid
waters tumble gleefully towards the plain, amid penurious plots of beans
and tomatoes, and a fierce tangle of vegetation wherever the hand of man
has not made clearings. Then, mounting aloft once more, you will do well
to visit the far-famed chapel that sits at the apex of the promontory,
Santa Maria del Castello. There is a little platform where you may
repose and enjoy the view, as I have done for some evenings
past - letting the eye roam up-country towards Dolcedorme and its sister
peaks, and westwards over the undulating Sila lands whose highest point,
Botte Donato, is unmistakable even at this distance of forty miles, from
its peculiar shape.
The Madonna picture preserved within the sanctuary has performed so many
miracles in ages past that I despair of giving any account of them. It
is high time, none the less, for a new sign from Heaven. Shattered by
earthquakes, the chapel is in a dis-ruptured and even menacing
condition. Will some returned emigrant from America come forward with
the necessary funds?
That would be a miracle, too, in its way. But gone, for the present, are
the ages of Faith - the days when the peevishly-protestant J. H. Bartels
sojourned here and groaned as he counted up the seven monasteries of
Castrovillari (there used to be nearly twice that number), and viewed
the 130 priests, "fat-paunched rascals, loafing about the streets and
doorways." . . .
From my window in the hotel I espy a small patch of snow on the hills. I
know the place; it is the so-called "Montagna del Principe" past which
the track winds into the Pollino regions. Thither I am bound; but so
complicated is life that even for a short three days' ramble among those
forests a certain amount of food and clothing must be provided - a mule
is plainly required. There seem to be none of these beasts available at
Castrovillari.
"To Morano!" they tell me. "It is nearer the mountain, and there you
will find mules plentiful as blackberries. To Morano!"
Morano lies a few miles higher up the valley on the great military road
to Lagonegro, which was built by Murat and cuts through the interior of
Basilicata, rising at Campo Tenese to a height of noo metres. They are
now running a public motor service along this beautiful stretch of 52
kilometres, at the cheap rate of a sou per kilometre.
En route!
POSTSCRIPT. - Another symptom of the south:
Once you have reached the latitude of Naples, the word grazie (thank
you) vanishes from the vocabulary of all save the most cultured. But to
conclude therefrom that one is among a thankless race is not altogether
the right inference. They have a wholly different conception of the
affair. Our septentrional "thanks" is a complicated product in which
gratefulness for things received and for things to come are
unconsciously balanced; while their point of view differs in nothing
from that of the beau-ideal of Greek courtesy, of Achilles, whose mother
procured for him a suit of divine armour from Hephaistos, which he
received without a word of acknowledgment either for her or for the god
who had been put to some little trouble in the matter. A thing given
they regard as a thing found, a hermaion, a happy hit in the lottery of
life; the giver is the blind instrument of Fortune.
