An Armchair Traveller's History of Apulia (3 page)

Gregorovius, “Apulische Landschaften”

THE THREE PROVINCES of Apulia are the Capitanata, the Terra di Bari and the Terra d’Òtranto, also known as the Salento – north, centre and south. In classical times the inhabitants were all known as Iapygians but were divided into three tribes – Daunians, Peucetians and Messapians. Although they were almost certainly Illyrians from the Balkans across the Adriatic, legend claims that they came from Greece in groups led by three fugitive sons of Lycaon, King of Arcadia: Daunus, Peucetius and Iapyx. Lycaon, together with fifty of his sons, had sacrificed a child (or a plate of human flesh) to Zeus, for which they had been changed into wolves. Only these three brothers escaped. Until recently, lycanthropy – belief in werewolves, men who change into wolves at night – was prevalent throughout the wilder regions here. None could be wilder than the inner Gargano.

In the extreme north of the Capitanata, the Gargano is the ‘spur” of the Italian boot, but totally different from the rest of Apulia. Since ancient times it has had a sinister name, Horace writing of fearsome north winds that strip the trees of leaves and drown men off its coast. They still blow, so curiously that winter seems to linger long after it is over. “Spring hesitates to smile upon these chill uplands” was Norman Douglas’s impression. Its woods and caves have attracted pagan deities, witches and saints, and even today the Gargano remains among the mysterious places of Italy, despite the holiday makers on its enchanting shores.

One of the Tremiti Islands long ago, it is now joined to the mainland, a great mountainous promontory about thirty-five miles by twenty-five, 3,400 feet above sea-level at its highest, that juts out into the Adriatic, with the same geological structure and configuration as those of the Dalmatian mountains. There are dense forests, mainly of chestnut, and wild, steep-sided glens, deep gullies, bleached cliffs and sandy beaches, many of which are only accessible from the sea. The western half consists of stony fields and lime-stone pavements, with pockets of good grazing in little valleys, where the grey cattle’s bells sound mournfully through the mist.

In spring, the Gargano’s limestone pavements are full of blue, white and yellow dwarf-irises, while orchids grow everywhere, cross-pollenating to an alarming degree. The sheer number of rare plants creates a botanist’s paradise in the area, where 2,000 species have been recorded. Four of these, including the charming
campanula garganic
, are found nowhere else in the world.

Much of the woodland described by ancient writers has disappeared, cleared for agriculture or felled for export to shipbuilders on the far side of the Adriatic. Even so, the Foresta Umbra, now managed by the state, covers 24,000 hectares; most of the trees here are beech or oak instead of chesnut, many as tall as 130 feet, so that the forest lives up to its name of “shady”. Until the 1950s it was inhabited by wild boar and wolf, but only a few wild boar remain while the wolves seem to have vanished. During the Middle Ages large areas of Apulia were covered by woodland of this sort, very unlike today’s treeless landscape.

“Whoever looks at a map of the Gargano promontory will see that it is besprinkled with Greek names of persons and places – Matthew, Mark, Nikander, Onofrius, Pirgiano (Pyrgos) and so forth”, comments Norman Douglas, “Small wonder, for these eastern regions were in touch with Constantinople from early days, and the spirit of Byzance still lingers.” In less flowery language, the Eastern Emperors were nominal rulers here till the twelfth century.

Until the 1960s funeral rites of great antiquity were observed. No one could leave the house for ten days after a relative’s death, or attend the burial, food being sent in by neighbours; men stopped shaving for a month and wore black shirts as well as suits, women wailed and tore at their faces with their nails as the coffin was taken away. At marriages a rope of handkerchiefs barred the church door, the bridegroom untying the knots.

Strange superstitions linger, such as a belief in
Laùro
, the mischievous Apulian Puck. As everywhere in Apulia, there is wide-spread fear of
iettatura
, the evil eye: a tiny piece of coral, silver or horn is worn as protection against it, while a gesture with the first and fourth finger of the right hand can avert it – but only if the
iettatore
sees you make it. Owls are known as ‘birds of death’, since to hear one hooting means that somebody in your family will die. An eclipse of the sun will be followed by famine or pestilence. There are countless other ill-omens, such as spilling oil. Spilling wine, however, can only bring good luck.

Even now, the people of the Gargano are credited with practising magic, often very unpleasant. Love potions based on menstrual blood are not unknown and spells are sometimes laid to harm enemies, animals being used as proxies; occasionally the hind feet of a living dog are chopped off for this purpose, the fate of a fine Alsatian encountered in San Giovanni Rotondo. It is said that some women continue to wear a dead mouse as a protection against the wiles of the Devil, hanging the mouse from their belt over the part where the Devil is most likely to enter in.

Among the supernatural gifts of Padre Pio, the great saint of modern Apulia, was that of being able to see angels and demons. He warned that the sky over San Giovanni Rotondo (where he lived) was literally black with demons. Even the most sceptical might easily suspect that they fly over many other places in the Gargano.

3

...the cave, down some steps, is hallowed by the miraculous apparition

of the Archangel Michael... you go in through a metal door: on the

altar behind some iron railings is the statue, covered in flowers and

crowned with jewels, of the celestial spirit who slew the Dragon from

Hell... It is said that in the silence of the night angels may sometimes

be heard singing, symphonies from paradise.

G B Pacichelli, “Il Regno di Napoli in Prospettiva”

DEVOTION, FIRST PAGAN and then Christian, created the shrine of Monte Sant’ Angelo. The mountain is inland, where the inhabitants were famous for their secretiveness and savagery, even among those whom Gregorovius called “the wild men of the Gargano.” The cave of St Michael has an eerie atmosphere, and after his visit here during the 1680s the Abate Pacichelli wrote of dread mingling with reverence. In ancient times it was the home of the Oracle Calchas, once a Greek soothsayer, whose ghost appeared in dreams. Those consulting him slept outside, wrapped in the fleeces of black rams.

In 493 AD a nobleman searching for a lost bull found it hiding in the cave. The bull refused to emerge, so he shot at it, but the arrow turned in flight, wounding him. The Bishop of Siponto was informed and, according to “The Golden Legend”, had a visitor soon after. “The man was hurt on my account”, he told the bishop. “I am Michael the Archangel and I want this place held in reverence. There must be no more shedding of bull’s blood.” Michael is commander of the Heavenly Host, thrusting down to Hell Satan and all wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.

The bull in the story is significant. Gregorovius, who rode up here in 1874, suspected that devotion to St Michael had been superimposed on a bull-cult. Ninety years later, a
mithraeum
(caves of worship used by the followers of the ancient religion, Mithraism) was discovered beneath the floor, where once the blood of bulls was sacrificed to the sun-god Mithras.

Not until Michael had been seen three times did Monte Gargano become his shrine. Shortly after his first appearance he came to save the citizens of Siponto from a barbarian army. The third vision was to the bishop at the moment when he was about to consecrate the cave. Michael announced that he had already done so, and an altar was found inside, covered by a vermilion cloth with the archangel’s footprint on its altar stone.

The archangel in armour who escorted souls to Heaven through swarms of ravening demons, and frightened even the Devil himself, was venerated throughout medieval times with the dread felt by Pacichelli. Over the shrine’s entrance are the words: “
Terribilis est locus iste: hic domus Dei est, et porta coeli
” – “This place is fearsome: here is the house of God, and the gate of Heaven.” Even today, you feel in the grotto that you are in the presence of some overwhelming, elemental force.

The Byzantine Emperor Constans II came in 683 with rich gifts, lost after the Emir of Bari sacked the shrine two hundred years later. When the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II prayed here in 1022, not only St Michael but Christ appeared in a blaze of light, the archangel presenting a missal to the Lord. Kissing the book, Christ told Michael to give it to the terrified Henry. Having lifted the emperor up to kiss the missal, the archangel threw him to the ground, laming him for life.

In 867 Bernard the Wise, monk of Mont St Michel in northern France, saw the shrine just before its destruction by Saracens. His own monastery was on a rock, where a bull had been discovered in a cave by a bishop, whom the archangel then ordered (this time in a dream) to build a sanctuary. This very similar story helps explain why Norman pilgrims started coming to Monte Sant’ Angelo.

Bernard says that in his day the ground above the shrine was covered by oak trees. In 1274, however, a great white
campanile
(bell tower) was built. After going down fifty-five steps cut in the rock, you are confronted by jade-green doors of bronze inlaid with silver, bearing panels with scenes from the Bible; they were made at Constantinople in 1076 and paid for by Pantaleone, merchant of Amalfi. Inside the cave church, the names of pilgrims down the centuries are scratched on its walls and floors, some written in the earliest runes known in Italy. During the Crusades, pilgrims often drew a hand or a foot before leaving for the Holy land, vowing to draw its pair on returning safely. Holy water said to cure anything is still distributed in a little silver bucket from a well behind Michael’s statue.

Keppel Craven, who came in 1818, writes “The cave... is low but of considerable extent, branching out into various recesses on different levels, so that the steps are frequent, and the surface is rugged, irregular, and very slippery, from the constant dripping of the vaults... A few glass lamps, suspended from the rock, which have replaced the silver ones of richer times, cast a faint glimmer of uncertain light.” Even Craven was impressed by the pilgrims moving like shadows in the darkness and the hum of prayer.

“The men walked with the air of conquerors”, wrote Janet Ross of the pilgrims who she saw in 1888: “Their dress was jaunty and picturesque – short brown velveteen jackets, brown cloth waist-coats with bright buttons, black velveteen breeches, and black worsted stockings tied under the knee with a bunch of black rib-bons; while round their waists were dark blue girdles. This costume was crowned with a dark-blue knitted cap, with a sky-blue floss-silk tassel worn quite on the back of the head.”

As for the cavern itself, “When we saw it the irregular rock above the high altar was lit by hundreds of wax candles, whose flickering light seemed to make the statue of St Michael, about three feet high with pink cheeks and flaxen curls, move its large white wings, tipped with gold. A priest told me it was a wonderful work of art; he could not remember whether Donatello, Raphael or Michelangelo made it, but probably the latter, ‘because of the name’.”

“A wretched morning was disclosed as I drew open the shutters – gusts of rain and sleet beating again the window-panes”, wrote Norman Douglas, recalling how he set out to visit Monte Sant’ Angelo from Manfredonia, just before the Great War. “I tried to picture to myself the Norman princes, the emperors, popes, and other ten thousand pilgrims of celebrity crawling up these rocky slopes – barefoot – on such a day as this. It must have tried the patience even of St Francis of Assisi, who pilgrimaged with the rest of them and, according to Pontanus, performed a little miracle here
en passant
[in passing], as was his wont.”

No friend to the Catholic religion, he was less than charitable about the shrine and its pilgrims:

Having entered the portal, you climb down a long stairway amid swarms of pious, foul clustering beggars to a vast cavern, the archangel’s abode. It is a natural recess in the rock, illuminated by candles. Here divine service is proceeding to the accompaniment of cheerful operatic airs from an asthmatic organ; the water drops ceaselessly from the rocky vault on to the devout heads of kneeling worshippers that cover the floor, lighted candle in hand, rocking themselves ecstatically and droning and chanting. A weird scene, in truth... It is hot down here, damply hot, as in an orchid-house. But the aroma cannot be described as a floral emanation: it is the
bouquet
, rather, of thirteen centuries of unwashed and perspiring pilgrims... in places like these one understands the uses, and possibly the origin, of incense.

Douglas’s pilgrims sound little different from those seen by Mrs Ross: “travel-stained old women, understudies for the witch of Endor; dishevelled, anaemic and dazed-looking girls; boys too weak to handle a spade at home, pathetically uncouth, with mouths agape and eyes expressing every grade of uncontrolled emotion – from wildest joy to downright idiocy... And here they kneel, candle in hand, on the wet flags of this foetid and malodorous cave, gazing in rapture upon the blandly beaming idol, their sensibilities tickled by resplendent priests reciting full-mouthed Latin phrases, while the organ overhead plays wheezy extracts from ‘La Forza del Destino’.”

“The way down the great flight of steps was... lined with the lame, the maimed, and the afflicted, all of whom exhibited their wounds with a dreadful and almost brutal insistence which was more than one could bear”, shuddered Edward Hutton in the early 1900s. “But the scene in the church beggars description. The mere noise was incredible. Mass was being sung at the high altar, but all around us other devotions were in progress, litanies and prayers were being chanted, and moans and groans rising on all sides. It was impossible to remain for long. Our curiosity seemed more shameful than any superstition.”