INEXHAUSTIBLE ITALY 



54; 



magnificent circular structure surrounded 

 completely with arcades and crowned 

 with a soaring dome of majestic propor- 

 tions and height. Splendid adjunct to the 

 cathedral as it is externally, it is the 

 dazzling interior we can never forget, 

 with its wonderful mosaics of colored 

 stones and its glorious hexagonal pulpit 

 in which Niccola Pisano foreshadowed 

 the Renaissance. 



Most remarkable of all the superb 

 group, however, is the exquisite, colon- 

 naded, white marble campanile or bell- 

 tower. It was intended to be perfectly 

 erect, but by the time the third story had 

 been built the foundations of the south 

 side had subsided and the structure leaned 

 heavily. To prevent it from falling when 

 completed, the Pisans inclined every story 

 above the third slightly toward the north, 

 and the flag-pole and the heaviest bells 

 were placed on the safe side. Yet, despite 

 the correction in its inclination, it leaned 

 14 feet out of plumb a few years ago, 

 and because of further subsidence of the 

 foundation grave fears are felt for its 

 safety (see page 340). 



PISA OF TODAY 



Alongside the cathedral, to the north, 

 is the Campo Santo, or cemetery, every 

 inch of whose sepulchral soil is holy 

 ground, brought from the Holy Land. 

 Its cloisters are now a museum decorated 

 with the trophies of antiquity and re- 

 search, the walls covered with remarkable 

 frescoes. 



The city offers little of its once pictur- 

 esque fame as a town without houses, but 

 full of mighty defensive towers. Most of 

 them have lost their heads, but some re- 

 main to hint of the desperate internecine 

 struggles that raged betimes in the dark 

 and airless streets. The old battlemented 

 walls that hemmed them in still stand, 

 lofty and scarred and patched. 



Outside the rich plain waves with 

 whispering grain and vines, and is odor- 

 ous with the aromatic, balsamy breath 

 of the pine forests that reach down 

 toward the sea, whose ungentle winds 

 have tortured the ancient trees into un- 

 couth gnomes. Near by, about the royal 

 domain of San Rossore, the fields and 

 roads are picturesquely dotted with 

 camels — the only herds in Italy — and the 

 royal race horses. 



It is impossible to express in a few 

 words the charm of northern Tuscany, 

 with its wealth of walled towns, its me- 

 dieval architecture, its luxurious and 

 stately villas and gardens, and the fresh, 

 clean, joyous greenery of the country- 

 side. In such a setting as this the thorny 

 outcrop of factory chimneys would move 

 a Ruskin to cry "Detestable !" The chim- 

 neys are detestable, as landscape, but the 

 industries of which they are the symbol 

 are the life of the region. 



AMERICA IN ITALY 



Xo less surprising is the fluent Ameri- 

 canese that everywhere greets the ear, 

 tripping gaily from the tongues of count- 

 less americani, as those Italians who have 

 been to either of our continents are jocu- 

 larly called by those who have not. Inci- 

 dentally, many of the chimneys are the 

 property of those repatriated americani. 



In every town that amounts to anything 

 at all the neat factory girls and men give 

 the morning and the evening a distinctly 

 American sense of rush and scurry — in 

 sharp contrast to their leisurely neigh- 

 bors — as they obey the big whistles that 

 cut through the melodious appeal of the 

 bells with their imperious summons : 

 "Come! Plunge into my noise of loom 

 and machine, my roar of furnace and 

 grinding of gears, my smoky plumes that 

 are the aura of gold. Forget your dolce 

 far niente of the past. Look to the 

 future. Work — hurry — make progress 

 or die. Be independent — and happy !" 



THE BIRTHPLACE OE RAPHAEL 



To the east of Tuscany is the province 

 of The Marches, high and rugged ground 

 with a narrow strip of coast along the 

 Adriatic furrowed by little river valleys. 

 Its one large seaport, Ancona, is magnifi- 

 cently situated on the slopes of Monte 

 Conero, with its citadel on a peak to the 

 south, the cathedral on a similar height 

 to the north. Between spreads the busy 

 town, fringed by its harbor full of ship- 

 ping. Hundreds of vessels of all the 

 flags afloat discharge great merchandise 

 of coal and timber, jute and metals, and 

 take in exchange the black and smelly 

 asphalt and the white and odorless cal- 

 cium carbide. 



