Vol. 12, no. 1 (2020)

But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave
Of the most living crystal that was e’er
The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave
Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear
Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer
Grazes; the purest god of gentle waters!
And most serene of aspect, and most clear;
Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters,
A mirror and a bath for Beauty’s youngest daughters!

(G.G. Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, 1812-1818)

One of the motives that drew so many travellers to Italy in the age of the Grand Tour, and later in the nineteenth century, was the desire to come face to face with Latin and Greek antiquity, the latter through the colonies the Greeks had founded in the south of the Peninsula. The buildings, the ruins, the sculptures: all of it was an object of admiration and of aesthetic delight. In this regard it is worth recalling that in the countries of Northern Europe, from which most travellers came, the reading of the ancient texts lay at the foundation of the educational system. A command of the ancient languages was held to be indispensable to the forming of taste. In England, for example, the reading of Virgil and Horace became one of the pleasures proper to a grown man, just as in France the study of antiquity played a fundamental part in the culture of the age. In their choice of places, travellers sought out those that evoked classical beauty and lent themselves to quotation. One reference recurring in travellers’ descriptions is the mythical Vale of Tempe in Greece, a spot celebrated by the Greek poets as particularly delightful and favoured by Apollo and the Muses, a place no one had had the chance to see, yet the mere fact of having read its description in the Greek classics was enough to turn it into a term of comparison. Cicero himself, indeed, in a letter to Atticus, likens the valley of Rieti to that of Tempe. In Umbria it is the valleys between Terni and Narni, and between Foligno and Spoleto, that are repeatedly compared to the Vale of Tempe. Another source of great interest was any place where a Latin writer had lived; among the most coveted and sought-after we find Horace, Cicero, Virgil, Pliny, Seneca. In a manual for those travelling in Italy the Frenchman Jean-Dominique Cassini writes, in 1778, of the road between Rome and Naples: “The countries it passes through are extremely interesting in relation to Roman history. Whoever wishes to follow, step by step, the indications of the ancient Authors, and to indulge in the search for the principal places they have named, will need to make a long halt”[1]. Moreover, in the Victorian age, for British travellers to come to Italy meant to reckon with what survived as testimony of the greatness of that Roman Empire whose true heirs they felt themselves to be[2].

The travellers, steeped in classical culture, take their pleasure in gazing upon those very places where the authors they loved had lingered; from the ancient sources they infer what they wish to see. They do not look at these places with their own eyes, but borrow the gaze of another, of an ancient, the better to drink in the spectacle, imagined unchanged, of nature. The traveller’s emotional response to a place is set against what the ancient writer had written of it. Even his own words become superfluous, when the more telling words of the Latin classics are ready to hand[3]. Alain Corbin has shrewdly observed: “In writing, they do no more than arrange the repertoire of borrowings, recovering memories and emotions born of the reading of the ancient text”[4]. At the origin of this sort of interest we may place the British writer and playwright Joseph Addison. He was the author of a volume, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, etc. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, published in 1705, which became a best seller and, for much of the century, the travel book most consulted by English travellers; in it he writes: “I must confess it was not one of the least entertainments that I met with in travelling, to examine these several descriptions, as it were, upon the spot, and to compare the natural face of the country with the landskips that the poets have given us of it”[5]. Some years later it was another British writer, Horace Walpole, who stayed in Italy in the years 1739-1741, who took this approach to task. The author of The Castle of Otranto writes, in fact, of Addison that he had “travelled through the poets, and not through Italy; for all his ideas are borrowed from the descriptions, and not from the reality”[6].

In the eighteenth century Umbria was essentially a land of transit for those going to Rome or returning from it, not least because few were the places and monuments that bore witness to antiquity, essentially two: the remains of the bridge of Augustus over the river Nera near Narni, and the Springs of the Clitunno with the little temple that rises there, whose date was uncertain for the travellers of the time. The reader will wonder why a place, delightful and beguiling though it undoubtedly is, should have drawn so many travellers. The explanation is to be sought in the fact that it had been described and sung by numerous Latin authors, on the grounds that its waters were believed to whiten the hides of the oxen that drank from them. These white cattle were then used in the triumphs at Rome and in the sacrifices to the gods. It was that classic ancient locus amoenus they went in search of, since it possessed all the requisites of a happy nature.

One of the first to admire the Springs of the Clitunno was Joseph Addison himself, who, after recalling with scepticism the power of these waters to whiten the hides of the cattle, a power in which, he reports, the local inhabitants still believe, quotes the passages of the Latin authors who had written of the place: Propertius, Virgil, Silius Italicus, Lucan, Statius, Juvenal. There is nothing else, no comment, but one senses his satisfaction at having found so many writers who had spoken of the place where he stood, and to their authority he entrusts the task of describing it. From Addison’s quotations both Pliny the Elder and his nephew Pliny the Younger are missing. The latter is the author of a careful description of the springs, in a letter addressed to his friend Voconius Romanus around AD 100, in which he urges him, if he has not already done so, to visit them, for, by his account, it is a particularly delightful spot, where the water is so clear that one can see at the bottom the coins that were thrown into it; rich in little temples and shrines, navigable by boats borne along on the current; nor are there wanting villas and the chance to bathe. “In summa, he writes, nihil erit ex quo non capias voluptatem”[7].

The travellers who follow one after another almost always repeat the same things: the references to the power of the waters to whiten the oxen’s hides, the quotations from Latin authors, Pliny the Elder and Virgil in particular. Johann Jacob Volkmann, whose book, published in the years 1770-1771, was the vade mecum of most German travellers, Goethe among them, writes: “It is, however, ridiculous to believe, as the ancients did, according to the account of Pliny the Elder, that the cattle took their white colour from drinking the water of the Clitunno. This effect of the water is not, at any rate, to be observed in the pigs, which here, as in most parts of Italy, are always black or dark brown”[8]. It is clear that for the intellectual aristocracy of Europe it was hard to credit what the Latin authors, beloved and venerated, had written concerning the property of these waters. Among the texts I have consulted there is one exception: an English traveller known as Dr Maihows, who holds it plausible that the water once possessed this capacity. In support of his thesis he cites an Irish traveller, met there, who believed it was owing to the presence in the water of sulphurous matter that was now no longer there[9].

In 1802, in a Europe racked by the Napoleonic wars, a man of thirty-nine, Johann Gottfried Seume, set out alone and on foot from Leipzig to reach Syracuse, the birthplace of Theocritus, the poet dearest to him. He too, learned and a lover of the classics, made his journey above all in the company of Homer and Virgil. Reaching the Springs of the Clitunno, he observes that, though sullied by donkey-drivers and washerwomen, they are “as beautiful as in the time when Pliny described them with such enthusiasm. Certainly the sacred groves and the many temples are here no longer; but the countryside is most sweet, and I, being thirsty, went down devoutly to the spring and drank in great draughts the water of the largest source, as though it had been the fountain of Hippocrene”[10].

The English-speaking travellers who reach the Springs in the Romantic age replace the quotations from the classics with the verses of Byron’s Childe Harold, which we cited in the epigraph, so much so that the American priest, politician and writer Joel Tyler Headley writes, of this place, that “Childe Harold is the best guide-book for this region”[11].

In the late second half of the nineteenth century, thanks in particular to studies, predominantly by foreign intellectuals, of the figure of Saint Francis, the idea took hold of a spiritual, mystical Umbria, a land of saints, even among those who were not Catholic. Assisi became a destination of the journey, and so too did the places in the region that had witnessed the saint’s deeds. The sacred images as well, scattered through the many churches of the territory, works by artists of greater or lesser importance, reinforced the sense of being in a mystical land. As a counterpoint to this image stand the Springs, which for some travellers are raised to the rank of a place of paganism. The French poet André Suarès bears witness to this when, in 1932, he writes: “A profound calm, disturbed and tormented by no infinite. It is the ancient peace, not that of the Christians, which wavers between expectation and resignation. It is the peace of the pagan soul, which mingles with nature and follows the same laws”[12].

Together with the Springs, what draws the traveller is a building that dominates the sources of the short watercourse, known as the Tempietto del Clitunno, or church of San Salvatore. It is an early Christian building, though many travellers will hold it to have been built by the ancient Romans, dating from the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century (some scholars place it between the seventh and the ninth). It stands on the spot where Pliny the Younger records the presence of a sanctuary and of a small shrine dedicated to the cult of the god Clitunno, famous for the gift of delivering oracles. In building the church, materials taken from ancient Roman edifices were probably used. The little temple commands the plain of the Clitunno, in a position of singular beauty.

One of the earliest descriptions is given to us by a French traveller at the end of the seventeenth century, François Maximilien Misson, author of one of the travel books, many times reprinted, most used by those Frenchmen who came to Italy. The book was regularly seized at the entrance to the Papal State, having been placed on the Index for the views it expressed regarding the superstition and abuses of the Catholic Church. Misson too converses with the ancient authors, and classical reminiscences are a constant. He arrives at the Springs in 1688, more interested in the little temple than in the landscape, and refutes a received notion, one that would long persist, that the building was the work of the ancient Romans. Misson writes: “but what common opinion then adds, namely that the little temple was consecrated to Clitumnus, raised to the rank of a divinity, is a thing beyond all appearance of truth; besides which, this temple is built on a cruciform plan, is oriented like most Christian churches, and bears crosses in bas-relief at several points on the pediments, together with the initials of the name of Christ, which does not accord with the forms of paganism. […] At most one might say that this temple was built from the remains of the one dedicated to Clitumnus. It is called San Salvatore today, and the Bishop of Spoleto says Mass there once a year”[13].

The dating of this building vexes the travellers, since aesthetic enjoyment shifts according to who is held to have been its maker. For Alexandre de Rogissart the temple is the work of the Umbrians, who raised it in honour of the god Clitunno; others do not reach so far back, but date it to the Roman period. Thus Edward Wright, notwithstanding the crosses and the Christian inscriptions, maintains that “the architecture seems too fine for the infancy of Christianity, and the building too old to have been raised during the revival of architecture itself; whence it would seem rather to have been an ancient heathen temple converted to Christian use”[14]. For Pierre Augustin Guys it was consecrated to Diana. The scholar, man of letters and expert on ancient art Anne-Claude-Philippe de Caylus, meanwhile, writes in 1715: “Its columns of white marble are of Corinthian architecture, and the manner in which it is built shows that it was raised in the time of the Romans, before the world fell into ignorance, and at the same time as the age of Christianity”[15]. The Marquis de Sade asks himself: “but is it not possible that these signs of Christianity were added at a later time, when the pagan monument was dedicated to the Saviour?”[16]. Other important travellers of the century, such as Lalande, Volkmann and Forrester, agree with Misson in holding it to be an early Christian building.

Near the Springs stood a post station called Le Vene (this was the name by which the site was known before Carducci wrote his ode Alle fonti del Clitumno), and the place was much frequented by beggars, who sought to turn the travellers’ halt, and their eventual visit to the Springs, to some advantage. Of this importunity we have two telling accounts. One is by the Irish writer of liberal opinions, Lady Sydney Morgan, who travelled through Italy at the height of the Restoration. Reaching the Springs of the Clitunno, and having recalled that it is a place mentioned by classical and modern travellers alike, she writes that “notwithstanding the richness of the land, the beggars present themselves in the most degrading shapes. When our carriage appeared, the women and children flung themselves upon the ground and kissed it; then, springing up, they ran frantically along the road, crying Qualche cosa per i morti vostri! Carità! Carità!”[17]. In the course of her journey Lady Morgan finds herself repeatedly describing the extreme poverty in which the population of the Peninsula lived, the fault of the despotic and incompetent governments restored to their places after the defeat of Napoleon; her shafts are aimed in particular at the Papal State. The other account is by the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, who in 1858 notes: “I remember nothing else of the Vale of Clitumnus, except that the beggars in this region of proverbial fertility are almost blasphemous in the urgency of their petitions; they fall upon their knees as you approach, in the very attitude of prayer to their Creator, and beseech you for alms with a fervour which I fear they seldom use before an altar or a shrine. Being refused, they ran hastily along beside the carriage; but, gaining nothing, at last gave it up”[18].

Despite the intrusiveness of mass tourism, and of all that comes with it, refreshment stalls, sellers of souvenirs, the Springs of the Clitunno still exert a remarkable charm upon sensitive souls, upon lovers of nature. In a recent book the Frenchman Jean-Louis Jacquier-Roux writes that, during his stay in Umbria, he went to visit the Springs with a burden of classical reminiscences, and found that, notwithstanding the schoolchildren on their outings and the parties of Koreans, they can still work their attraction[19].

Notes

[1] J.-D. Cassini, Manuel de l’étranger qui voyage en Italie, chez la veuve Duchesne, Paris 1778, pp. 204-205.

[2] On this subject, see the important work of J. Pemble, La passione del Sud. Viaggi mediterranei nell’Ottocento, il Mulino, Bologna 1998, esp. pp. 77-102.

[3] The English clergyman John Chetwode Eustace, author at the beginning of the nineteenth century of a travel book on Italy that met with great success among his countrymen, stuffed with quotations from the classics, writes thus: “The younger Pliny has given a lively and accurate description of this fountain, which the classical reader will prefer, no doubt, to the best modern picture.” J.C. Eustace, A Classical Tour through Italy, 4 vols. Mawman, London 1842³, III, p. 222.

[4] A. Corbin, L’invenzione del mare. L’Occidente e il fascino della spiaggia 1750-1840, Marsilio, Venezia 1990, p. 74.

[5] J. Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, etc. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, J. Tonson, London 1705, Preface, p. [12].

[6] Cited in A. Wilton and I. Bignamini (eds.), Grand Tour. Il fascino dell’Italia nel XVIII secolo, Skira, Milano 1997, p. 27.

[7] Pliny the Younger, Epistolae, VIII, 8.

[8] J.J. Volkmann, Historisch-kritische Nachrichten von Italien ,welche eine Beschreibung dieses Landes, der Sitten, Regierungsform, Handlung, des Zustandes der Wissenschaften und insonderheit der Werke der Kunst enthalten, 3 vols. Fritsch, Leipzig 1770-1771, III, p. 425.

[9] [Maihows], Voyage en France, en Italie e aux isles de l’Archipel, ou Lettres écrites de plusieurs endroits de l’Europe et du levant en 1750, translated from the English, 4 vols. Charpentier, Paris 1763, II, p. 314.

[10] J.G. Seume, L’Italia a piedi 1802, Longanesi & C. Milano 1973, p. 147.

[11] J.T. Headley, Travels in Italy, the Alps and the Rhine, M’Glashan, Dublin, 1849, p. 186.

[12] A. Suarès, Le voyage du condottière, Granit, S.l. 1984, pp. 392-393. The volume gathers the impressions of his travels in Italy from 1893 to 1928.

[13] F.M. Misson, Viaggio in Italia, trans. and ed. by G.E. Viola, L’Epos, Palermo 2007, p. 155.

[14] E. Wright, Some Observations Made in Travelling through France, Italy, etc. in the Years 1720, 1721 and 1722, 2 vols. Ward and E. Wicksteed, London 1730, I, p. 126.

[15] A.-C.-P. de Caylus, Voyage d’Italie 1714-1715, Librairie Fischbacer, Paris 1914, pp. 173-174.

[16] D.-A.-F. de Sade, Viaggio in Italia, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 1996, p. 389.

[17] Lady Sydney Morgan, L’Italie, trans. from the English, 4 vols. A. Wahlen et Co. Bruxelles 1821, III, p. 143. The words in Italian and in italics are in the original.

[18] N. Hawthorne, Passages from the French and Italian Note-books, Houghton, Osgood and Company, Boston 1879, p. 223.

[19] J.-L. Jacquier-Roux, Ombrie. La terre d’en bas, La fosse aux ours, Lyon 2016, pp. 161-163.

Alberto Sorbini is director of the Institute for the History of Contemporary Umbria; he works on the history and anthropology of food, on travel in Italy, and on emigration. He has written books and articles on these themes.