Picturesque environs of Ancona—Dwellings of the peasantry—Their simplicity and trust—Manner of life and amusements—A wedding feast.
By way of an agreeable contrast to the patrician associations which surrounded us, we used in our walks to take great interest in noticing the peasantry or _contadini_ of the environs; and circumstances having protracted my stay beyond what was originally intended, I was enabled, when the lovely month of April invited us to longer excursions, to see a good deal of their primitive mode of life. The town being small, with scarcely any suburbs beyond the gates, a very few minutes were sufficient to transport one from the dark, narrow streets to the open country, rich in its cultivation and fertility, and beautiful in its undulating hills, its towering cliffs, and broad expanse of sea. Never have I known spring more lovely than amid these scenes: the glad blue sky, the fair blossoms and budding foliage, the fields of young corn gently waving in the breeze, the sweet scent of the violets with which the roadside banks were thickly strewn; the sense of beauty, the voiceless music, beneath whose spell each tiny leaf and blade of grass seemed sparkling and harmonious; and, above all, the sea, the silvery sea, so still, so majestic, so sublime—the whole rises to my memory in all its fascination of sunshine, and colouring, and perfume.
No stranger approaching by the high road from Florence, which follows the curve of the bay, with the promontory on which Ancona is built stretching forth like a gigantic arm to impede his onward course, and forming the boundary of the prospect, can have an idea of the nature of the scenery which lies behind this barrier, and is perhaps unique in its combination of all the softest features of a pastoral region, with the lofty cliffs and sea-views of a grander landscape.
From the very gates, the land was laid out in small allotments or _possessioni_, each of barely a few acres in extent, planted with long rows of vines, intersected with patches of wheat, maize, and vegetables, that were studded with apple, peach, almond, and other fruit-trees. No barrier more formidable than a luxuriant hedge, a perfect wilderness of May-flowers, honeysuckles, and dog-roses, divided the _possessione_ from the road; the entrance was by a gate of very simple construction, surmounted by an arch with an image of the Virgin. Like Little Red Riding-hood, all one had to do was to pull up the latch and walk forward—not into the jaws of a perfidious wolf, but up a pretty avenue of mulberry-trees, with vines trained in festoons along their branches. A rude well—so picturesque in its shape that it never failed to bring to my mind the representations of Jacob's meeting with Rachel—always stood in the foreground, while a little in the rear appeared the cottage of the occupants of the farm; these dwellings of stone, blackened by time, were comfortless and primitive in the extreme, the windows unglazed, and the upper story accessible only by an uncovered staircase outside.