An Armchair Traveller's History of Apulia (36 page)

Predictably,
Universalisti
supported the Napoleonic regime. So did Duke Placido, whom Murat made Esquire to the King, a high court appointment. He died at Martina Franca in April 1815, a month after Murat’s fall.

In 1816 the restored Borbone monarchy issued a decree confirming the abolition of feudalism, although Placido’s sickly little son, Petracone VIII, retained the palace with much of his wealth. When he died in 1827 the male line of the Caracciolo del Leone became extinct, the title passing to his sister Argentina. Through her it went to the Dukes of Sangro.

Sold in 1914, the palace became the Municipio, but in recent years a programme of systematic restoration has given back the state rooms something of their charm. For over a decade a music festival celebrated throughout Europe has been held annually in the courtyard.

53

...immense, majestic and well built...

Giovanni Battista Pacichelli, “Il Regno di Napoli in Prospettiva”

ANOTHER GREAT FEUDAL FIEF in central Apulia was Francavilla Fontana. Unlike the Acquaviva and the Caracciolo, its lords, the Imperiali, were Northerners by origin, Genoese bankers. They also spent far more time at Naples. It is possible that their enormous wealth made for an easier relationship with the locals than at Conversano or Martina Franca, since they did not have to depend so much on feudal dues for their income.

The foundation of Francavilla Fontana was, once again, the story of finding a wonder-working icon. In 1310, Philip of Anjou, Prince of Tàranto, was hunting when he saw a stag kneeling by a fountain in a valley and shot at it; to his amazement, the arrow turned round in flight and came back to him. He had the valley searched, a small grotto being discovered which contained a portrait of the Madonna and Child, “painted in the Greek manner”. The Prince built a church and, to encourage people to settle around it, granted land to all comers, free from taxes for ten years, giving the settlement the name of Francavilla or ‘Free Town’. Many settlers were attracted by the miracles which were worked by the icon. The most famous was on 24 January 1520, when a severe frost and then snow threatened to destroy the crops; everyone prayed before the Madonna of the Fountain and, on rising from their knees, they found that every plant, every leaf and stem, was free from frost or snow. Given walls in 1364 and a castle in 1450, Francavilla Fontana eventually passed to the Borromeo. Cardinal Carlo Borromeo sold it in 1571, to feed the poor of Milan.

The purchaser was Davide Imperiali, who already possessed vast estates near Genoa and also in Spain, besides a huge banking for-tune. In the same year, 1571, he equipped four galleys at his own expense and took them to fight the Turks at Lepanto. As a reward, King Philip II made him Marquess of Oria. Davide’s son, Michele, acquired the lordships of Avetrana and Massafra in 1647, together with the title ‘Prince of Francavilla’.

Pacichelli is curiously unenthusiastic about the Princes of Francavilla, although he admits that their fief is one of the largest in the realm. However, he admires the wealth of the surrounding countryside – its grain, wine, oil, almonds and “other delights”, remarking also on the town’s “commodious, white-washed houses”. He visited it when Michele II was its Prince. This Michele, who reigned from 1676 until 1724, rebuilt the castle as a palace, one of the largest in Apulia. The basic plan remained unchanged, four square towers at each angle and crenellated battlements, but the interior was modernised, the famous Neapolitan architect Ferdi-nando Sanfelice designing the double staircase which leads to the great hall where the Imperiali displayed their collection of paintings. There were superb guest-rooms, and a small theatre. There was also Cardinal Renato Imperiali’s library, one of the best in Europe, which was open to the public.

The
duomo
at Francavilla, housing the miraculous icon, is large and Baroque, rebuilt in 1743 after an earthquake. Henry Swinburne describes it as “new, gay and well lighted; but so stuccoed, festooned and flowery, that the whole decoration is mere chaos.” He says the plans were drawn in Rome, but muddled up by a local architect. It has paintings by the prolific Domenico Carella, a native of the town. Among them is “Il Caduto del Fulmine” (“The Fall of the Thunderbolt”), commemorating the drama of Palm Sunday 1779. Six hundred of Francavilla’s leading citizens met in the church to discuss public affairs, the debate growing so heated that the Archpriest had to beg them “to respect the house of God.” A certain Angelo Cosimo Candita standing near the main door was particularly noisy. Suddenly a thunderbolt struck the church, killing Candita. His horrified friends commissioned the painting, which still hangs over the main doorway.

Andrea II (1724–38) was a benevolent ruler who gave the town a school and an orphanage. His son Michele III, fifth and last prince, spent most of his time in Naples where he rented the Cellamare Palace, entertaining seven or eight hundred guests a week; among them was Casanova, who commented that “this amiable and magnificent Prince... preferred the love of Ganymede to Hebe.” Even so, he made the steward of his Apulian estates build villages, schools and workshops, and turn scrub into farmland.

When Swinburne visited Francavilla Fontana, Prince Michele had told its citizens to make him welcome, with “honours sufficient to turn the head of a plain English gentleman.” Don Domenico, formerly Clerk of the Chamber to the Princess, showed him the town, a mob accompanying them throughout. He thought the houses “showy”, but admitted the main street would be “handsome even in a capital city.” As for the palace, “The apartments are spacious; but, as the owner has been absent above fourteen years, everything wears the face of neglect and decadency.” He gives a patronising account of what must have been the town’s most prized diversion:

I was left to take my afternoon nap, and in the evening entertained with the tragedy of Judith and Holofernes, acted by the young people of the town, in a theatre belonging to the castle. Their rude accent, forced gestures, and strange blunders in language, rendered their dismal drama a complete farce. When the heroine murdered the general, the whole house shook with thundering bursts of applause; the upper part of his body was hidden by the side scenes; the lower parts lay on a couch upon the stage, and in the agonies of death were thrown into such convulsions, kickings and writhings, as melted the hearts and ravished the souls of the attentive audience. Judith then came forward, and repeated a long monologue, with her sword in one hand, and a barber’s block dripping with blood, in the other. Never was a tragedy-queen sent off the stage with louder or more sincere acclamations.

Although the Imperiali family was very far from being extinct in Apulia, when Michele III died in 1782 he had no heirs within the fourth degree of consanguinity. The entire fief of Francavilla Fontana therefore reverted to the Crown, together with his other great castles and estates at Manduria, Massafra, Oria and Messagne. Despite having spent so much time away at Naples, he was deeply mourned. When visiting Oria, de Salis heard that Prince Michele had been a man of “rare knowledge and qualities”, who by his kindness had doubled the population of his estates, encouraging many peasants to leave their former lord and settle on his land. But even in 1789, only seven years after the Prince’s death, under the Crown’s management the Imperiali estates had begun to be less prosperous. Due to being run from Naples by bureaucrats who never set foot in Apulia, “the population had dropped by a third, the newly cultivated ground had deteriorated and the manufacturing industries were completely exhausted.”

Francavilla Fontana was very badly bombed in 1944, losing many of the historic “showy” houses next to the
duomo
. Nevertheless, the main street admired by Swinburne two centuries ago remains much as it was during his visit; the palace has been restored, and the little theatre where he saw the tragedy of Judith and Holofernes is still there.

Among the other great houses that once belonged to the Imperiali Princes of Francavilla Fontana, the palace at Manduria also survives intact, although broken up into flats, a bank and a restaurant. The castles at Massafra and Messagne have been restored. Best preserved of all, however, is the beautifully maintained castle at Oria, which since 1933 has belonged to the Counts Martini Carissimo.

Part XIII

54

To many it was as if the kingdom had disintegrated with Ferdinand II.

Sir Harold Acton, “The Last Bourbons of Naples”

KING FERDINAND OF THE TWO SICILIES died on 22 May, 1859, two months after his last visit to Bari. His death paved the way for the
Risorgimento
: the unification of Italy. Nowhere would he be more regretted than in Apulia where, like the Emperor Frederick and King Manfred, he had hunted in the forests. If he did not build castles, he keenly encouraged New Bari’s development, besides giving Apulian titles to three of his sons, the Counts of Bari, Trani and Lucera.

Nicknamed ‘Bomba’ for supposedly threatening to shell rebels into submission, a lie spread by enemies, Ferdinand was hated by liberals. He kept the absolute monarchy he had inherited, imprisoning his opponents. Mr Gladstone described his government as “the negation of God”, conveniently ignoring England’s own prison-hulks and record in Ireland. Yet no Southern ruler has been more popular. A big, bluff, virile man, he was a type whom the
Mezzogiorno
(southern Italians) understood, the perennial ‘
capo
’ or boss, constantly sticking cigars into deserving mouths. A Southerner to his fingertips, who spoke and thought in Neapolitan dialect, and whose staple diet was
pasta
, he always listened to petitions, granting generous pensions. If he was superstitious, making St Ignatius a field-marshal on full pay, so were his subjects.

Under his firm rule, the South prospered. Despite lower taxes than other Italian states, it had more money in circulation than any, with the biggest gold reserves; 443 million in gold lire in 1859 compared with Piedmont’s 27 million. In the same year the Royal Navy of the Two Sicilies included ninety-five steam ships, far more than Britain’s Royal navy, though admittedly most of them were tiny. His government built the first Italian railways, steamships, electric telegraph and lenticular lighthouse. Dockyards at Naples and Bari were the most modern in the peninsula. So were the new roads. “Anybody who avoided subversive politics enjoyed complete freedom and could do what he liked”, Giacinto De Sivo wrote in 1868. “Countless foreigners prospered so much that they settled here”, he adds bitterly: “Then Gladstone came and ruined us... unbelievable calumnies were repeated in newspapers all over the world.”

The men of the
Risorgimento
had once hoped Ferdinand would become King of Italy, but he refused, from respect for the rights of other Italian sovereigns, especially for those of the Pope. Had he lived longer and, however unwillingly, granted a constitution and Sicilian autonomy, the South might have been much happier. But he died at forty-nine from a mysterious disease – probably diabetes – which, characteristically, he ascribed to the Evil Eye.

In June 1859 the French defeated the Austrians, who ceded Lombardy to Piedmont. Then the central Italian duchies turned against their Austrian-backed rulers and by March 1860 the Piedmontese were in possession of Tuscany, Parma and Modena, besides occupying part of the Papal States. Yet Piedmont had no intention of invading the
Mezzogiorno
.

In April, however, Garibaldi landed in Sicily where Palermo had risen in revolt. The late king had put down an earlier Sicilian rising and would certainly have known how to deal with this one, but his twenty-two year old son, Francis II, did not. He had already disbanded the Swiss regiments who had been his best troops. After Garibaldi overran Sicily in May, Francis granted a constitution, only hastening the regime’s collapse.

Many Southerners lost confidence in their inexperienced young king. When Garibaldi landed on the mainland in August, a handful of liberals tried to start risings, supported by a few business men eager for new markets in the North and by peasants who hoped naively that the great estates would be shared out. Foggia declared for Garibaldi, but in Bari and other Apulian cities royalist mobs routed similar demonstrations.

In September King Francis abandoned Naples to Garibaldi, withdrawing to the fortress city of Gaeta to concentrate his troops. Piedmont, saddled with an astronomical national debt, realised that it could take over the rich Southern kingdom. In October, a Piedmontese army invaded the
Regno
, occupying Naples and besieging Gaeta, bribing generals and officials. Even the most loyal despaired and at the end of the month, in a carefully rigged plebiscite, Apulians voted with the rest of the South for ‘unity’.

The
Risorgimento
must be judged by its fruits, and for Apulia they were very bitter indeed. Far from improving conditions, the destruction of the ancient
Regno
made them much worse, just as de Sivo claimed. Here is how a recent historian, Roger Absalom, describes the impact of ‘unity’: