FRONTIER CITIES OF ITALY 



567 



or prestige, was elected Podesta and 

 founded a princely family, which ruled 

 Verona for a century and a quarter. 



To them she owes most of her great 

 palaces, much of her art, half of her 

 fame. The tiny ladder of their crest 

 (scala means a ladder), the swallow-tail 

 decorations of their architecture, are 

 found today in cities far distant from 

 \>rona — in Brescia, Parma, Lucca, far 

 up Lake Garda and in Tyrol — for under 

 the greatest of them, Can Grande I, the 

 State was the largest that medieval North 

 Italy ever saw, save for a very brief time 

 in Gian Galeazzo Visconti's governorship 

 from Milan. And this proud city com- 

 memorates them ; for the great theater, 

 La Scala, derives its name from this 

 Veronese family, a certain Beatrice della 

 Scala, wife of Bernabo Visconti, found- 

 ing a church upon whose site some four 

 centuries later this theater was built. 



WHERE ROMEO AND JULIET LIVED 



It was in the days of the Scaligeri — 

 that is, the rulers of the della Scala 

 family — that Romeo and Juliet lived and 

 loved and died. Stern history pours 

 much cold water upon this romance, but 

 it will not down, and hundreds of vis- 

 itors to Verona who find no time for the 

 Arena yet make a pilgrimage to Juliet's 

 tomb. Certain it was that two families 

 of the names of our lovers did live once 

 in Verona ; certain also that Italian fam- 

 ilies quarreled and nursed their wrath 

 through generations ; but if one had a 

 son, the other a daughter, if they met 

 and loved and parted, there is no other 

 proof than Shakespeare's page. 



As to the Tomba di Guilietta — a ro- 

 mantic pilgrimage hurts no one in this 

 prosaic world ; but the romance must be 

 taken with one. The cloister is very, very 

 modern ; the medieval stone in the center 

 of the tiny close looks as much like a 

 horse-trough as a tomb. 



The house of the Capuletti is equally 

 unbelievable. It is ancient enough, in all 

 truth, and the narrow, dusky street, the 

 A'ia Cappello, is very favorable to shy 

 lovers ; but alas ! the only balcony is four 

 stories above the pavement. Romeo cer- 

 tainly had a climb of it ! Verona really 

 ought to consider this; it is not fair to 

 credulous visitors. 



VERONALS MARKET-PEACE 



The gayest, the noisiest, the most pic- 

 turesque market in all Italy is held in the 

 one-time forum of the Roman city, the 

 Piazza delle Erbe of today. Surrounded 

 by the stately old palaces of the Scaligeri, 

 now alas far fallen from their high es- 

 tate, their frescoes fading into blurs of 

 charming color, their marbles discolored 

 by neglect and decay ; spreading its huge 

 umbrellas, all shades of sun-faded blues 

 or weathered whites, over a curving 500 

 feet of stone pavement ; heaping its flow- 

 ers and fruits and greens about the trick- 

 ling fountain ; bargaining, buying, selling, 

 talking, laughing with full throat as only 

 an Italian laughs ; flaming into sudden 

 wrath or melting with pity ; chanting the 

 last new music from the opera or whist- 

 ling the last gay tune of the streets ; shift- 

 ing and surging, ever in motion and yet 

 ever at rest — the market is not only the 

 pulse of Verona, it is the heart of Italy. 



What is sold there? Everything. 

 Fruits from the sunniest of orchards, the 

 richest of vineyards ; vegetables warm 

 from the soil, crisp from the fountain ; 

 pigeons and chickens and ducks and le- 

 gions of tiny birds, alive and dead ; hares 

 and rabbits and turtles — fish, flesh, and 

 flowers. There a parrot is scolding 

 wildly ; the demure monkey behind him 

 had a share in that tail-pulling in spite of 

 the meditative eye with which he follows 

 the swallows circling about the great 

 tower. The rabbits are wriggling their 

 anxious little noses and twitching their 

 sensitive ears in an agony of curiosity, 

 but the falcons sit grimly on their 

 perches, looking disdainfully at nothing; 

 the parrot gets no sympathy there. 



A woman has brought a great arm-load 

 of lilies to the fountain and trims their 

 stems for the vase a sweet-faced Sister 

 of Charity holds waiting; a little girl in a 

 dull-blue dress scrubs carrots until they 

 glow with the color of flame ; a small boy 

 balances a pair of snow-white bantams 

 upon his black curls while he seeks pur- 

 chasers ; the mischievous monkey pelts 

 them with a fig and looks the other way. 



The fountain in the piazza has been 

 variously ascribed to Alboin and to Pepin, 

 but its present useful state is due to the 

 Scaligeri, who first gave it adequate 



