There was nothing languorous in the Tuscan airs. Even in the hottest hour of summer one was eager, interested, glad to move about; and when early autumn brought the vintage, life simply bubbled in one’s veins. I could stand all day watching the oxen crawling up those grassy roads between the trellised vines, with the splendid loads of grapes, or hover near the vats where the white-clad youths, who looked like Carpaccio’s pages, danced and leapt as they trod the wine-press. We had to come away before the vintage was over, so as not to miss too much of the October loveliness at home, but the grapes followed us all the way. There was one station—that of Chiusi, I think—where the “ristorante” consisted of a little hand-cart with a high rail all around the sides; the rail was hung with hundreds of bunches of those scented, freckled grapes—two sous a bunch, if you please—and the vendor pushed it up and down the platform close to the carriage windows. It was a hot day, and never was fruit more welcome!
In the “spacious days” of the earlier part of the century the Borghese family, being, though not the most ancient, the wealthiest in Rome, used to mark the crown of the year by giving in their villa certain entertainments, intended chiefly for their own tenants, but the hospitality of which was extended to the entire population. The princely lavishness of these festivities resembled nothing that I have ever heard of in modern times; it recalled indeed the days of Roman Emperors whose only claim to the throne rested on their popularity with the people. On the Sundays of October the villa was thrown open at sunrise, and from all the “castelli” of the Sabine and Alban Hills, and from the sea-coast too, the peasants, who had been watching all night (and in some cases all the previous day), having heard Mass, trooped in with their wives and families, to eat and drink and enjoy themselves. Those were the times when every district had its distinctive costume, and the dazzling effects of colour were such as we shall never see again. The coast towns are very Greek, and the dress of the Nettuno and Fano women is almost Greek still—a clinging skirt and close-fitting coatlet of vivid scarlet, the tint that makes the eyes swim and wince—imparted, by secrets of their own, to a cloth of such velvety purity and softness that it lasts through three and four generations, and cost them (it is probably unobtainable now) five dollars the “palmo” of ten inches—half a dollar an inch. The hair was worn in two long braids hanging down the back from under a small cap of the same cloth, set rather far back on the head, and cap and bodice and skirt were stiff with gold embroidery. The effect was magnificent.