makes so magnificent a show from the further side of the valley, resolves itself into elements which have very little of the magnificent about them when seen close at hand. One very large portion of the frontage consisted of an open loggia. The loggia at Bella Luce occupied one end of the façade of the building, and consisted of a space enclosed by three solid brick walls, and in front by a range of five arches resting on red-brick pilasters. In that one of the three walls which formed the partition between the loggia and the rest of the house there was a door of communication, which, by the aid of two stone steps projecting into the space enclosed, gave access from the latter to the kitchen of the house.
Most of the case coloniche, or farm-houses, in this part of the country have an open loggia of this sort, half cart-shed, half stable, partly poultry-house, and partly family sitting-room. And much pleasanter and wholesomer sitting-rooms such loggia are in the fine weather, despite the heterogeneous uses which they are required to serve, than the almost always dark, close, and blackened kitchens. There, in the summer evenings, the cradle is brought out, and the wife plies her distaff, while the father of the family, and the son, or the grandfather, or a brother, or a wife’s brother—for these rural families are generally composite, and consist of more members than a single couple and their children—are husking a heap of maize, shot down in a corner, or busy in some other such task of rural economy. Or, quite as probably, the male members of the family are smoking their cigars, and enjoying the dear delights of chat and dolce far niente.
In contradistinction to the ways of some other districts, the rural habitations of this hill country seem almost always to have been selected with some regard to prospect. Perhaps other more material considerations than the pleasure of the eye may have presided over the selection; but the fact is, that most of these hill farmhouses are so placed that the front commands—as was eminently the case at Bella Luce—a view of more or less extent and beauty. And to a stranger, if possibly not consciously to the inhabitants themselves, a charm is added, which makes some of these picturesquely arched loggie,—especially when, as is often the case, a vine is trained around the columns and over the arches,—most agreeable and enticing tempters to an hour of farniente.
A large kitchen; a huge room next to it, that served in part as a sleeping-room for a portion of the male inhabitants of the farm, and in part for a store-room for grain; another still larger building used principally as a wood-house, and beyond that a stable for those important members of an Italian Contadino’s family, the oxen, made up the rest of the long façade. But in order to appreciate justly the entire extent of this frontage, it must be borne in mind that each one of all these rooms and buildings was at least twice as large as any Englishman would deem requisite for their respective purposes.
Over the loggia there were three good-sized sleeping chambers, two of them, however, accessible only by passing through that nearest to the rest of the house, and the furthest only by passing through both of those which preceded it. It would have been perfectly easy to arrange the two latter in such sort as to have rendered them both accessible from the first. But no such modification had struck the architect, or any of those who had had to use his handiwork, as either necessary or desirable.
Over the huge kitchen was an equally large room, intended apparently, as far as might be judged from the nature of its furniture, as the eating-room of the family. And it was used as such on high days and holidays, and other great occasions, whether the farmer’s family had guests on such occasions or not. It was to the solemnity of the occasion, and not to the guests, that the respect manifested by the use of this state chamber was paid. When no such great occasion was to the fore, the great room over the kitchen remained empty of all save its long table and massive benches, and vile French coloured lithographs around the bare yellow washed walls. Above this room was a garret, which served the purpose of a dove-cote. It was the only part of the building that had a second story; and the difference in height thus occasioned broke the outline of the building, as seen from the outside, in a manner very favourable to the picturesqueness of its appearance.
Over the large nondescript room on the other side of the kitchen was a huge chamber, the two windows of which were unglazed, and closable only by heavy, massive, brown-red shutters opening on the outside. It was unceiled also, and the bare rafters were inhabited and draped by a family of spiders of very ancient lineage. The principal use for which it served was that of a deposit for grain, and at certain periods of the year for various fruits, which were spread out on its wide floor to dry. But there was a bed in one corner, which in very bad weather might appear to some persons a more desirable place of repose than the green-hill side, on which the windows looked.
The other two component parts of the long façade, the wood-house, that is to say, and the stable for the draught-oxen, had no buildings over them; and the few chambers, which have been mentioned, together with a staircase, which seemed to have been constructed with a view of ascertaining how much space a staircase could be made to occupy, constituted the entirety of the large house, with the exception of certain annexes at the back, which were devoted to divers purposes varying in dignity from that of a back kitchen to that of a pigstye.
It will be understood from the foregoing account that, notwitstanding the imposing appearance made by Bella Luce, when seen from a distance, any tolerably comfortable English farmer lives with a much greater degree of house-comfort and convenience than Paolo Vanni. With the one exception of space, every point of comparison would be very much in favour of the Englishman. But ample space is an important element in a dwelling, especially in a southern climate.
But of all the appurtenances and appendages which the English farmer possesses, and the Italian farmer does not possess, that of which the Englishman would least tolerate the absence, and