Unfortunately (So They Say) There Is Not Much
Chance Of Its Ever Seeing The Light, For Just As He Is
On the verge of
publication, some new Jewish catacombs are discovered in another part of
the world which cause the
Professor to revise all his previous theories.
The work must be written anew and brought up to date, and hardly is this
accomplished when fresh catacombs are found elsewhere, necessitating a
further revision. The Professor once more rewrites the whole. . . .
You will find accounts of the Trinita in Bertaux, Schulz and other
writers. Italian ones tell us what sounds rather surprising, namely,
that the abbey was built after a Lombard model, and not a French one. Be
that as it may - and they certainly show good grounds for their
contention - the ruin is a place of rare charm. Not easily can one see
relics of Roman, Hebrew and Norman life crushed into so small a space,
welded together by the massive yet fair architecture of the
Benedictines, and interpenetrated, at the same time, with a
Mephistophelian spirit of modern indifference. Of cynical
insouciance; for although this is a "national monument," nothing
whatever is done in the way of repairs. Never a month passes without
some richly carven block of stonework toppling down into the weeds,
[Footnote: The process of decay can be seen by comparing my photograph
of the east front with that taken to illustrate Giuseppe de Lorenzo's
monograph "Venosa e la Regione del Vulture" (Bergamo, 1906).]
and were it not for the zeal of a private citizen, the interior of the
building would long ago have become an impassable chaos of stones and
shrubbery.
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