FRONTIER CITIES OF ITALY 



537 



with wondrous pictures ; high cornice 

 roads and open spaces, whence one takes 

 in marvelous stretches of earth and sky 

 and sea. 



Like all Italy, she bears traces of an- 

 cient Roman rule, suggestions of an ear- 

 lier race than they, remembrances of the 

 time when, chief city of a great republic, 

 she rivaled Pisa and Venice ; scars of the 

 strife between Guelph and Ghibelline ; 

 huge modern "improvements," due to the 

 present prosperity which came with a 

 united Italy. 



UNIFIE;d ITALY IS YOUNGER THAN THK 

 UNITED STATES 



The "fatal gift of beauty," which is 

 Italy's dower, is that of each of her chil- 

 dren, as their history is hers. The uni- 

 fied Italy, which our generation has 

 known, is no older than us. The pen- 

 insula bounded, roughly speaking, by the 

 Alps, the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, 

 the Tyrrhenean Sea, has been occupied 

 from the dawn of history to our own 

 time by countless rival states ; has been 

 in turn both conqueror and conquered ; 

 ruler of half the world, vassal of petty 

 kings. Each of its ancient cities presents 

 a shield so dented with scars, so over- 

 written with words and deeds, that no 

 casual tourist may decipher it. Its love- 

 liness, however, he may none - the - less 

 enjoy. 



If Italy's pages in history are drenched 

 with blood, they are gilded and glowing 

 also with music and poetry and song, 

 with valor and love and art. If she were 

 not a nation, she was the home of many ; 

 a bit of earth so lovely that the coolest- 

 headed geographer must admire ; a place 

 that gave birth not only to wondrous 

 fruits and flowers, but to marvelous chil- 

 dren of men. 



AN IMMEASURABLE DEBT 



What our debt to her may be — in archi- 

 tecture, in sculpture, in painting, in 

 music, in poetry, in all that raises life 

 from dull necessitous routine — none may 

 measure. Her political past we may crit- 

 icize ; her artistic, never. Nor here at 

 Genoa may we, Americans, be filled with 

 less than gratitude ; for from a village of 

 the neighborhood and out of this port 



sailed that mariner, Columbus, who gave 

 us our new world. 



From Genoa northward to Pavia is but 

 a little way, but that way is over the 

 Ligurian Alps, all green and gray with 

 vineyards and olive groves, and noisy with 

 swift little rushing rivers and mill-wheels 

 clacking around — a lovely way, not to be 

 hurried, but eventually bringing us into 

 the plain of Lombardy. And here there 

 are many rich cities and much of art and 

 of history, for in this great fertile plain 

 between huge mountain chains armies 

 have ever gathered, looking up toward 

 the Alps, to great victories over the pa- 

 gans beyond them, or, themselves pagans, 

 rejoicing in the luxuriance spread before 

 them, as they faced joyously the Apen- 

 nines and Rome. 



AEPS THE NATURAE BOUNDARY 



N^orthward the snow peaks of the Alps 

 form a natural barrier, it would seem, to 

 the nation tenanting this peninsula ; but 

 soldiers have little sympathy with geo- 

 graphical boundaries save for strategic 

 purposes, and diplomatists none. The 

 western chain of Alps bends southward 

 to the Mediterranean, ending presumably 

 in the great headland between Nice and 

 Monaco. Across this physical boundary 

 line Italy's western limits have been 

 thrust back and forth through centuries, 

 reaching once far beyond Nice, at present 

 not quite touching Mentone, Avhich is 15 

 miles to east of it. In the central Alps 

 the southern slopes belong to Italy, al- 

 though, of course, the greater portion of 

 the chain lays in Switzerland ; but the 

 eastern Alps, to south as well as north, 

 are Austrian. 



This most southerly province of the 

 Austrian Empire, this beautiful, romantic 

 Tyrol, has acquired new interest at pres- 

 ent as a pawn in the great war game. 

 Logically and sympathetically, if not po- 

 litically, the southern slopes of Tyrol be- 

 long to Italy. 



Occupied at the dawn of its history by 

 a wild Celtic tribe — the Rhastians — tamed 

 by all-conquering Rome into the tribu- 

 tary province of Rh^etia. the northern 

 part of Tyrol was Germanized as early 

 as the fifth century. On the other hand, 

 the southern part remained Roman, even 



