Every one has heard of the strange position of this hoary island-citadel
(a metropolis, already, in neolithic days). It is of oval shape, the
broad sides washed by the Ionian Sea and an oyster-producing lagoon;
bridges connect it at one extremi-y with the arsenal or new town, and at
the other with the so-called commercial quarter. It is as if some
precious gem were set, in a ring, between two others of minor worth. Or,
to vary the simile, this acropolis, with its close-packed alleys, is the
throbbing heart of Taranto; the arsenal quarter - its head; and that
other one - well, its stomach; quite an insignificant stomach as compared
with the head and corroborative, in so far, of the views of
Metch-nikoff, who holds that this hitherto commendable organ ought now
to be reduced in size, if not abolished altogether. . . .
From out of this window I gaze upon the purple lagoon flecked with
warships and sailing-boats; and beyond it, upon the venerable land of
Japygia, the heel of Italy, that rises in heliotrope-tinted undulations
towards the Adriatic watershed. At night-time an exquisite perfume of
flowers and ripe corn comes wafted into my room over the still waters,
and when the sun rises, white settlements begin to sparkle among its
olives and vineyards. My eyes often rest upon one of them; it is
Grottaglie, distant a few miles from Taranto on the Brindisi line. I
must visit Grottaglie, for it was here that the flying monk received his
education.
The flying monk!
The theme is not inappropriate at this moment, when the newspapers are
ringing with the Paris-Rome aviation contest and the achievements of
Beaumont, Garros and their colleagues. I have purposely brought his
biography with me, to re-peruse on the spot. But let me first explain
how I became acquainted with this seventeenth-century pioneer of aviation.
It was an odd coincidence.
I had arrived in Naples, and was anxious to have news of the proceedings
at a certain aviation meeting in the north, where a rather inexperienced
friend of mine had insisted upon taking a part; the newspaper reports of
these entertainments are enough to disturb anybody. While admiring the
great achievements of modern science in this direction, I wished
devoutly, at that particular moment, that flying had never been
invented; and it was something of a coincidence, I say, that stumbling
in this frame of mind down one of the unspeakable little side-streets in
the neighbourhood of the University, my glance should have fallen upon
an eighteenth-century engraving in a bookseller's window which depicted
a man raised above the ground without any visible means of
support - flying, in short. He was a monk, floating before an altar. A
companion, near at hand, was portrayed as gazing in rapturous wonder at
this feat of levitation. I stepped within and demanded the volume to
which this was the frontispiece.
The salesman, a hungry-looking old fellow with incredibly dirty hands
and face, began to explain.
"The Flying Monk, sir, Joseph of Copertino. A mighty saint and conjuror!
Or perhaps you would like some other book? I have many, many lives of
santi here. Look at this one of the great Egidio, for instance. I can
tell you all about him, for he raised my mother's grand-uncle from the
dead; yes, out of the grave, as one may say. You'll find out all about
it in this book; and it's only one of his thousand miracles. And here is
the biography of the renowned Giangiuseppe, a mighty saint and - - "
I was paying little heed; the flying monk had enthralled me. An
unsuspected pioneer of aviation . . . here was a discovery!
"He flew?" I queried, my mind reverting to the much-vaunted triumphs of
modern science.
"Why not? The only reason why people don't fly like that nowadays is
because - well, sir, because they can't. They fly with machines, and
think it something quite new and wonderful. And yet it's as old as the
hills! There was Iscariot, for example - Icarus, I mean - - "
"Pure legend, my good man."
"Everything becomes legend, if the gentleman will have the goodness to
wait. And here is the biography of - - "
"How much for Joseph of Copertino?" Cost what it may, I said to myself,
that volume must be mine.
He took it up and began to turn over the pages lovingly, as though
handling some priceless Book of Hours.
"A fine engraving," he observed, sotto voce. "And this is the best of
many biographies of the flying monk. It is by Rossi, the
Minister-General of the Franciscan order to which our monk belonged; the
official biography, it might be called - dedicated, by permission, to His
Holiness Pope Clemens XIII, and based on the documents which led to the
saint's beatification. Altogether, a remarkable volume - - "
And he paused awhile. Then continued:
"I possess a cheaper biography of him, also with a frontispiece, by
Montanari, which has the questionable advantage of being printed as
recently as 1853. And here is yet another one, by Antonio Basile - oh, he
has been much written about; a most celebrated taumaturgo,
(wonder-worker)! As to this Life of 1767, I could not, with a good
conscience, appraise it at less than five francs."
"I respect your feelings. But - five francs! I have certain scruples of
my own, you know, and it irks my sense of rectitude to pay five francs
for the flying monk unless you can supply me with six or seven
additional books to be included in that sum.
"Twelve soldi (sous) apiece - that strikes me as the proper price of
such literature, for foreigners, at least. Therefore I'll have the great
Egidio as well, and Montanari's life of the flying monk, and that other
one by Basile, and Giangiuseppe, and - - "
"By all means!
