This Was Too Much For
The Brigadiere; It Moved Him To Stammered Astonishment.
Did I mean
to say that books written more than a thousand years ago still
existed?
The jovial friend, good-naturedly scornful, cried out that
of course they did, and added with triumphant air that they were not
in the language of to-day but in latino, latino! All this came as
a revelation to the other, who stared and marvelled, never taking
his eyes from my face. At length he burst out with an emphatic
question; these same books, were they large? Why yes, I answered,
some of them. Were they - were they as large as a missal? A shout
of jolly laughter interrupted us. It seemed to me that my erudite
companion was in the habit of getting fun of out his friend the
brigadiere, but so kindly did he look and speak, that it must have
been difficult for the simpleton ever to take offence.
Meanwhile the sullen sky had grown blacker, and rain was descending
heavily. In any case, I should barely have had time to go further,
and had to be content with a description from my companions of a
larger cave some distance beyond this, which is known as the Grotta
of San Gregorio - with reference, no doubt, to S. Gregory the
Thaumaturgist; to him was dedicated a Greek monastery, built on the
ruined site of Vivariense. After the Byzantine conquest of the sixth
century, Magna Graecia once more justified its ancient name; the
civilization of this region became purely Greek; but for the
Lombards and ecclesiastical Rome, perhaps no Latin Italy would have
survived.
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