Chapter Two: The principal themes in Fucini’s novelle, his treatment of social classes and his socio-political engagement

In this chapter the circumstances which led Fucini to embark upon a literary career are explored and an examination is made of the principal themes in Fucini’s novelle as well as his portrayal of members from different social classes in his stories. We will also assess whether he is a socially and politically engaged writer.

2.1. The circumstances which led Fucini to embark upon a literary career

1875 was an annus horribilis for Fucini since the transfer of the political capital from Florence to Rome, three years earlier, had virtually bankrupted the Comune of Florence, and had almost bankrupted Ubaldino Peruzzi, the mayor of the Comune who was made a scapegoat for the financial disaster- to such an extent that he was verbally abused in public and was even physically set upon in the street. After the sudden economic downturn, many Florentines found themselves without gainful employment. Fucini was no exception, and to his profound shock, lost his job as aiuto-ingegnere with the Comune of Florence in that year. Fucini believed that his friendship with the powerful patrician, Ubaldino Peruzzi, would have enabled him to find new employment in Florence without much difficulty. To Fucini’s considerable chagrin, this was not the case as we learn in a letter he wrote to Giovanni Procacci dated 5 October 1877:

[I Peruzzi] mi hanno sempre dimostrato la più simpatica amicizia a pranzo e a parole, ma in fatti sono stati sempre duri. Il Peruzzi, come Sindaco, come Deputato, come ex-Ministro, e come Ubaldino avrebbe potuto farmi, dall’oggi al domani, una posizione in Firenze e non me l’ha fatta...Io ho durato un pezzo a raccomandarmi a lui ed alla signora Emilia, ed ora mi basta. Il tornare ora alla carica con loro sarebbe per me una specie di umiliazione, alla quale il mio debolissimo orgoglio non mi permette abbassarmi.

Fucini appears to have held the Peruzzis, especially Ubaldino, directly responsible for his financial predicament (it was difficult for him to continue to care for a young wife and two young daughters without a regular income) and also for his abrupt departure from the vibrant former capital and for his separation from his numerous literary and artistic friends, particularly Giovanni Fattori and the other Macchiaioli artists at the Caffè Michelangiolo. Fucini’s relationship with the Peruzzis cooled considerably and after 1877, he appears to have broken off all contact with Ubaldino altogether. He only resumed corresponding with Emilia many months after transferring to Pistoia and when he was safely established there. The trauma of losing his job weighed heavily on Fucini and brought home to him, very forcefully, just how dependent workers from the lower orders were on their employers and their whims and how many found themselves exploited by them. Fucini was also made more aware of how many Tuscans, especially those working in agriculture in the Florentine ‘contado’, had been drawn to Florence on the promise of higher wages and an easier life, only to lose their jobs a few years later. Moreover, some who were forced to re-apply for their former jobs were often turned down, while others were re-hired, often on less favourable terms, and even for less wages, by their unscrupulous former employers.

Fucini was also bitter about losing his job and resented having to leave Florence for the ‘piccola e provinciale Pistoia.’ This resentment had a double effect on him. First, it made him more aware of the plight of the lower classes, especially those in the contado fiorentino, and second, it coloured his judgement against the upper and ruling classes. Fucini’s eyes were further opened to the poverty of the lower orders and he would recall the plight of the popolino in his novelle especially in Il Matto delle giuncaie, Lucia, Fiorella, Lo spaccapietre, La pipa di Batone, Vanno and Tornan di Maremma, L’eredità di Vermùtte, Menico and Il battello, to name but a few. It is certainly not coincidental that all the mayors, councillors and ‘giunte comunali’ which feature in his novelle are invariably portrayed in an unfavourable light. After his own bitter experience Fucini must have reached the conclusion that the poor and the innocent are often disappointed and are even traduced by those in authority, the bourgeoisie, who seldom safeguard the best interests of those for whom they are responsible.

Through the good offices of Ferdinando Martini and especially Giovanni Procacci, Fucini was appointed a teacher of Italian at the Scuole Tecniche in Pistoia, in 1877, and two years later, was promoted to the post of Inspector of schools in Pistoia and the Appennino Pistoiese. This beautiful mountainous region and its surrounding foothills, together with the Padule di Fucecchio, south-west of Pistoia, provided the setting for his novelle in the Veglie di Neri and All’Aria Aperta. During his twenty-one years as a school-inspector in the Appennino Pistoiese, Fucini became very well acquainted with the area, its inhabitants, their lives, dialects, superstitions and their customs. Claudia Lazzeri makes the valid point that: Questo lungo periodo…fu fondamentale per la sua maturazione umana e culturale, offrendogli il destro di osservare attentamente il mondo poi ritratto nelle prose delle Veglie di Neri e di All’Aria Aperta.

2. 2. Fucini in the Appennino Pistoiese and his School-Inspector’s notebooks

As a school-inspector, Fucini was required to visit all the local schools in a very large area. Many of the towns and especially the villages and hamlets he had to visit in his Circondario were far-flung, and in some cases, particularly those in the higher reaches of the Appennino range, were quite remote – interconnected by mere ‘viottoli’ and ‘sentieri’ (or ‘stradelli’, to use the local dialect word used throughout the Appennino Pistoiese which Fucini reproduces) and in some extreme cases, were only accessible by mule. Not many of the strade statali had been built at this time and the few that had, remained largely unmade and unmetalled until the very late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Fucini invariably made his tours of inspection on foot, although, when the weather was inclement, he had to resort to a horse, a horse-drawn vehicle or a mule. Clearly, being in close contact with the Appennino Pistoiese and the Padule di Fucecchio for such a long period, he knew the area where he set his stories, intimately. As part of his duties as a school-inspector, for which he was paid ‘venticinque centesimi il kilometro’, Fucini was required to make extensive notes on the performance of pupils, the often abject conditions of schools and classrooms, and the competence, or otherwise, of school-teachers. Portraits of two such school-teachers, are provided in La maestrina in Le Veglie, the other, of an incompetent teacher, the gout-ridden and cane-happy sadist, Il signor cappellano in All’Aria Aperta. Moreover, there is no doubt that his portrait, or literary sketch (bozzetto) of a stonebreaker in Lo spaccapietre was also directly drawn from life, as we will soon see from an entry in Fucini’s school-inspector’s notebooks. It is also interesting to learn that Fucini referred to several of his novelle in these notebooks as ‘bozzetti in progetto’. In notebook Ms. N.3971, in the Fondo Fucini, he compiled a list of forty-six ‘bozzetti in progetto’, seven more than the stories which he eventually wrote and published - thirty-nine stories in total - eighteen in Le Veglie di Neri and twenty-one in All’Aria Aperta. The entry carries the date June, 1878, four years after the publication of Nedda, and gives us a clear idea of which novelle or bozzetti Fucini had already written or was intending to write by this time. Some bozzetti, marked with an asterisk*, indicated stories which had already been written or had even been published by this time, for example, Il Matto delle giuncaie, (1876), or which Fucini was in the process of writing at this time. The list is fascinating since some of these bozzetti could have provided the initial inspiration for, or details which were later incorporated into some of the stories which Fucini did eventually publish, which I have attempted to identify, and is reproduced in full. From this list of bozzetti in progetto, it clearly transpires Fucini was planning an ambitious series of stories depicting a considerably wide range of life in nineteenth-century rural Tuscany almost as if, originally, he intended to present his reader with a broad, panoramic view of Paesi e figure della campagna Toscana. Fucini may well have had some of Verga’s historical novels, in mind when he compiled his list of bozzetti which had appeared in serialized parts in journals such as Il Fanfulla, La Rivista Settimanale and Il Fanfulla della Domenica individually, before being published in a collection. This is also certainly the case with Verga’s short stories, especially with Nedda (1874), the poor Sicilian peasant girl ‘raggomitolata sull’ultimo gradino della scala umana’ who ekes out a meagre existence on the slopes of Mount Etna, exploited, like Fucini’s Fiorella, the Tuscan equivalent of Nedda, (or Fucini’s spaccapietre or his agricultural labourer Menico) which Verga eventually collected and published in Vita dei campi (1880). Indeed, Verga’s Nedda may well have inspired Fucini to write Fiorella and he was probably influenced by other stories by Verga, which were published individually, but which did not appear as a collection in Novelle rusticane until 1882 (dated 1883) as well as Verga’s novels Eva (1873), Tigre reale (1873), Eros (1875), Fantasticheria (1879) and Padron ’Ntoni which was begun as a bozzetto marinaresco, after the publication of Nedda, and which was later to become I Malavoglia (1881). Moreover, Fucini’s novella Sereno e nuvole bears a close resemblance to Verga’s earlier Cavalleria Rusticana.

From Fucini’s list of ‘bozzetti in progetto’ it is evident that his original canvas is quite broad and, as we would expect from stories set in rural surroundings, they feature many characters from the lower orders. Indeed, the lower classes represented in the slightly restricted view of Tuscany Fucini depicts in his novelle, are well represented - peasants, (Menico), shepherds, (Fiorella), herdsmen, (Lucia), professional fishermen and huntsmen, (Tigrino). game-keepers, (La fatta), farmers, particularly share-croppers, (Perla), cappoccie, reed-cutters, (Il Matto), travelling-salesmen, (Il battello), a stonebreaker, (Lo spaccapietre), carters, (L’eredità di Vemùtte), wood-cutters, woodsmen and charcoal-burners who feature prominently in the novelle (especially in L’oriolo col cuculo), but the list in the notebooks refers also to knife-grinders, trout-fishermen, and the sculptor of statues of the Madonna (Il Madonnaio). Although some aspects of farming in Tuscany appear in Fucini’s stories, for example, the share-cropping system practised in Tuscany, referred to as mezzadria, in Perla, Fucini’s projected ‘bozzetti in progetto’ intended to represent a more comprehensive view of rural activities in Tuscany, especially grape-harvesting and grape-pressing (‘la svina’), the decanting and blending of new wine (‘la svinatura’), the growing and harvesting of olives and olive-oil production, the ‘segatura’ which is the gathering of corn and cereal crops in general, and ‘il metato’, the growing and harvesting of sweet-chestnuts which are served freshly-roasted, and are referred to as ‘le bruciate’, or boiled, and are referred to as ‘le ballotte’, or are dried out in stone towers, referred to as ‘seccatoie’ to be ground down later to produce a flour which is used to make ‘polenta’ (often pronounced ‘pulenda’ in the Appennino Pistoiese and the Alto Mugello) which were, and are, to this day, served as a staple substitute for the costlier pasta fresca.

It is also possible that Fucini may have originally intended to describe other areas of rural Tuscany nearer to the contado of Florence, (especially the Alto and Basso Mugello, North of Florence), of Pisa or Siena since some of the agricultural practices described in the list of bozzetti in progetto, for example, the growing and tending of vines and olive-groves, and the respective production of wine and olive-oil, can only be carried out on hillsides or in valleys which are fairly well protected and where the micro-climate is reasonably clement and overnight temperatures do not fall significantly. It is likely that the more Fucini became familiar with the Appennino Pistoiese and the Padule di Fucecchio, the more he may have concluded he had sufficient material upon which to base his novelle and, consequently, might have decided to restrict his descriptions and settings of his stories to an area with which he was extremely familiar, thereby remaining loyal to the theories of verismo. Even at this stage of our examination of the fidelity of the picture Fucini paints of rural Tuscany in the Ottocento, although not exhaustive, it would appear to be a reasonably accurate one, although the precise level of fidelity will be examined in more detail in Chapter Three.

Fucini, however, does not restrict his characters to the lower orders - he also depicts the upper and middle classes- school-teachers, inn-keepers, shop-keepers and merchants, musicians, medical-doctors, chemists, mayors, complete with their fawning town-councillors, engineers, priests, minor land-owners, carabinieri, two Colonels (in Perla and Il signor colonnello) a Brigadiere dei Carabinieri (Tigrino), and even a Prefect (La visita del Prefetto). Fucini, in effect, recreates a microcosm of Tuscan society and describes many of the social conditions prevailing in rural Tuscany at the time. Clearly Fucini never completed all these bozzetti in progetto but the list provides us with an insight into what he might have intended to write. We will probably never know why he never completed all these stories, just as we will probably never know why he never wrote a novel, however, a few suggestions will be offered in the Conclusion.

Just as he had done with his Taccuino when gathering information and writing Napoli a Occhio Nudo, Fucini, unofficially, also jotted down in his official school-inspector’s notebooks numerous details and anecdotes about various aspects of life in the Appennino Pistoiese, the inhabitants, their physical details, character traits, local customs, superstitions, spropositi, and (just as Verga did for his characters) incorporated their dialects, sgrammaticature, and Tuscan modi di dire, in particular, their use of pistoiesismi, into his novelle. Fucini continued to make these unofficial jottings in his official notebooks well into the 1880s. He used these notes and jottings as an aide memoire and they often formed the basis of events or characters which were often incorporated at a later stage in his novelle in Le Veglie di Neri or All’Aria Aperta.

Fucini’s notebooks contain a wealth of information on the language, especially the dialect words used by montanini, their spropositi, superstitions, interesting types and conditions in the Appennino Pistoiese. An entry dated 2 June, 1878, is fascinating:

Da Pistoia alla Collina –

Sinibbio (nevischio folto) differente da fogno. Vecchietta del Signorino mi racconta storiella del pellegrino rimasto sotto la rafa (valanga). Aveva la pala seco e credeva di essere sicuro-La Nebbia- e mi pagò garbatamente e bene- La mandò via come una ribelle- I racconti della Zia. – Ammalato che [ri?]torna di Maremma; il figlio lo lascia allo spedale di Pistoia per andare a prendere la mamma -Tornan tutt’e due e lo trovono morto- Stradelli per viottoli- Questa gita l’ho fatta in compagnia di Giuseppe Trinci- (omo selvatico conosciuto per cristiano perche [sic] ha detto dio ladro alle frustate che gli danno)-Bomba scoppiata in corpo al soldato con le gambe di legno.

We can immediately appreciate Fucini’s eye for detail and his ear for language, especially for colloquialisms. The Pistoian dialect word sinibbio (nevischio folto) is so rare that it is unrecorded by Fanfani in his Vocabolario dell’Uso Toscano (1863), and The Cambridge Italian Dictionary. Sinibbio is an alternative for another Pistoian dialect word, nevischio (a snow-blizzard, not in Fanfani either), both words, plus rafa, probably a Pistoian shortening of raffica, probably from the German raffen, appear in Vanno in Maremma:‘Infatti si durava fatica a star ritti, tanta era la forza del vento gelato che, avendogli voltato contro le spalle, ci tormentava sbacchiandoci nel collo un nevischio duro e tagliente’.(p.63). Fucini also incorporates the word nevischio in L’oriolo col cuculo: ‘Il sor Pasquale in quel momento era felice. S’era alleggerito del misterioso fagotto che con tante pene aveva portato intatto attraverso al freddo e al nevischio per quattordici miglia’.(p.31) The reference to the sick man who dies on his return from Maremma is partially incorporated in Tornan di Maremma and could well have provided the inspiration for this story. The rare Pistoian dialect word stradello which is also unrecorded in Fanfani, as opposed to viottolo, are incorporated by Fucini, and both words appear in Fra due litiganti.

A second entry in another notebook dated 5 June, 1878, is equally fascinating:

Nella Limentra alla pesca delle trote- Spaccapietre guadagna in un giorno 90 centesimi lavorando assiduo- Domando a uno - come va? Mi risponde - potrebbe andar meglio [my Italics]. Priore di Spedaletto con gli occhiali accomodati da sé con pezzetti di legno- Priore alle prese coi popolani per le rogazioni [the religious festival referred to in Il Matto delle giuncaie] e non vogliono passare la Limentra perché la benedizione, dicono, non passa l’acqua, e vogliono benedetta ogni sementa pezzo per pezzo- Alle mucche il cui latte non fa burro, credendole stregate, attaccano pezzi di panno rosso a tutti i crini- Male di sferza ai bambini che lasciati soli muojono per le fasce troppo strinte-Bambino dimenticato dalla mamma che lo lascia in una selva di faggi la sera tardi; ritrovato nella notte dopo cena. Chi campa campa di bambini e non ci hanno cura perchè tanto vanno in paradiso- Priore che mi dice che è chiamato bue perchè lo vedono leggere e credono che non abbia finito di imparare. Portano in Maremma bambini di 10 anni, a piedi- Cerimonie nuziali in quel di Maresca ecc. Avanti e dopo sposato alla chiesa pranzo alla campagna- doni nella zuppiera con la coda di pecora - pecora il pranzo, musica di zufolo doppio o violino e ballo trescone o rubacore (fiasco di vino in mezzo). Chi t’ha rubato il core Lisa? E Lisa mesce a tutti da bere. A spedaletto ho visto una pellagrosa- ha il viso color terra che pende in giallo e azzurro, le mani screpolate, ha l’aspetto d’un cadavere in avanzata putrefazione.

Dati annunziatori- manutengoli loro- bullette e impedimenti sparsi per la via perchè sono scalzi- burle-annunziatore che ha scordato il nome- percosse- fra due litiganti il terzo gode-Ciarlatano che racconta e insegna il modo di distruggere le zanzare prendendole per lo stomaco, costringedole ad aprir la bocca con un ginocchio sullo stomaco e premendogli allora giù per la gola il suo segreto.- Dopo la risata tratta di zucconi perchè non leggono l’istruzione su l’etichetta- Uno dei grandi requisiti degli scrittori moralizzatori è quello di non scomodare nessuno facendogli cambiare abitudini.

The meeting with a real-life stonebreaker and the reference to his wage and Fucini’s brief conversation with him, ‘Spaccapietre guadagna in un giorno 90 centesimi lavorando assiduo- Domando a uno - come va? Mi risponde- potrebbe andar meglio,’ certainly inspired the story Lo spaccapietre although, as we will see in Chapter Three, Fucini alters the stonebreaker’s wage, for dramatic effect. This real-life meeting is expanded into a literary sketch which consists of two vignettes of the stonebreaker at work, in summer and in winter, and the bozzetto is developed further when the reader is introduced to the various vicissitudes the stonebreaker and other members of his family have to endure. The phrase ‘Chi campa campa di bambini e non ci hanno cura perchè tanto vanno in paradiso’ is partly echoed in the very resigned, if not fatalistic, reaction by peasants when they learn of the tragic death of the stonebreaker’s son, Gigino: ‘Parte per lo spavento, parte per le percosse, dopo quindici giorni gli morì di convulsioni, che tutti non fecero altro che dire <peccato> ! perchè delle creature belle in quella maniera non era tanto facile vederne’.(p.92).

These aspects of the story and the stonebreaker’s exploitation by the accollatario are examined in Chapter Three. The reference to the tender age when children are taken to Maremma is referred to in Vanno in Maremma and is, very probably, the main inspiration for this story and also for Tornan di Maremma. The musical instruments and the authentic Tuscan music referred to as a ‘passagallo’ which are played to accompany the dance known in Tuscany as a ‘trescone’, are incorporated in Sereno e nuvole, and the humorous antics of the charlatans, described in the notebook, provided the inspiration for the street-wise ‘ciarlatani’ who fleece the entire inhabitants of a village in Passaggio memorabile. It is fascinating to note how Fucini has recorded the superstitious nature of the ‘montanini’ and peasants who considered their cattle whose milk did not produce butter, to be bewitched. He has incorporated the superstitious nature of peasants, recorded in his notebook, by describing the superstitions of the cruel peasants who consider the unfortunate dog Perla to be bewitched, when she performs her party-trick of standing on her hind-legs,‘per intenerire i nuovi padroni’(p.21). The superstitious nature of peasants is even more dramatically incorporated in La strega, in which, Baronto, the local medicine-man and quack-doctor, convinces the local peasantry that nonna Pelagia has bewitched a peasant-boy for which Pelagia pays the ultimate price for the peasants’ superstition at their murderous hands. It is also curious to see that the phrase ‘Fra due litiganti il terzo gode’, later becomes the title, and very probably, inspired Fucini’s novella Fra due litiganti.

From these examples alone, one can see how Fucini’s jottings, which record real facts, events and real characters, have provided the inspiration for some novelle or have been later incorporated into other stories and, how, in effect, the unofficial jottings in his notebooks formed the DNA of some of his novelle – in short, how he began to turn fact into fiction. We will see further evidence of Fucini turning fact into fiction in Chapter Three and in the Conclusion. However, before this, we will examine Fucini’s Language in Le Veglie and All’Aria Aperta in Chapter Three.

There can be little doubt that Fucini was principally influenced by Verga’s stories, not only Nedda (1874), but also Primavera (1877), Rosso Malpelo (1878), Fantasticheria (1879), Jeli il pastore (1879-1880), La Lupa and especially Cavalleria rusticana (1880), L’amante di Gramigna (Raja) (1880) and Vita dei campi (1880) and Fucini had certainly read and annotated them when they were first published, singly, in journals. Fucini was also influenced by Capuana’s Profili di donne (1877) in which Capuana appeared to have sympathized greatly with Flaubert’s search for objectivity in the study of the human soul, the latter having written: ‘Quand on aura, pendant quelque temps, traité l’âme humaine avec l’impartialité que l’on met dans les sciences physiques à étudier la matière, on aura fait un pas immense.’ Flaubert’s quotation, as well as Zola’s works, in turn, greatly influenced Capuana and Verga. Luperini even suggests that Flaubert’s quotation could almost have been written by Verga himself as an introduction to I Malavoglia and L’amante di Gramigna which, in turn, had an equally profound influence on Fucini.

One of the principal aims of verismo purported to be the depiction of life, especially of low-life, as realistically, dispassionately, objectively and as naturally as possible. It is therefore, unsurprising to find Fucini also exploring some of these or similar themes and describing the conditions of life among the lower orders recorded and depicted in Dickens’ London, Zola’s Paris and in Verga’s Sicily as well as in the works of Capuana, De Roberto, Serao and Deledda. Like some of the themes discussed by these writers, Fucini’s stories, set in rural Tuscany, especially those in Le Veglie, also deal with characters from the lower orders and their invariably hard and often sad lives. Although, perhaps, not leading quite such hard lives nor having to endure such difficult struggles, nor the abject conditions faced by Verga’s Nedda, Rosso Malpelo, Jeli il pastore, Carmenio in Pane nero, Mazzarò in La Roba, who spends his entire life amassing riches by hard work and considerable sacrifice, only to discover that he cannot take his wealth with him when death approaches, or Peppa in L’amante di Gramigna, further examples of Verga’s vinti, the conditions endured by Fucini’s lower-class characters in his novelle, and in real-life rural Tuscany in the Ottocento, were very tough and physically very demanding for the lower orders. Despite Fucini’s Menico and Nonno Damiano, who are very notable exceptions, surviving to eighty-two and eighty-four years of age, respectively, the official statistics for life-expectancy in Italy in the 1880s, in general, are quite stark - the mean average for both men and women from all social classes throughout the whole peninsula, being a mere thirty-five point four years - which is unsurprising considering that at the time, many died in childbirth and succumbed to malaria, cholera and consumption – with the result that hard-working, contemporary Tuscan peasants would consider themselves fortunate to reach, let alone, to survive, much beyond the age of thirty.

2.3 Principal and recurrent themes in Fucini’s novelle

2.3.1 The theme of Hardship

As we have seen earlier in this chapter with Fucini’s list of bozzetti in progetto, his partially published school-inspector’s notebooks but also in his recently discovered and hitherto unpublished lecture on L’Appennino Pistoiese, there is clear evidence that he had an intimate knowledge of the Appennino Pistoiese and that through his novelle, his eventual intention was to present his reader with an accurate, albeit not an exhaustive picture, of what life was like in rural Tuscany during the Ottocento.

One of Fucini’s principal themes is the exploration and depiction of the often abject poverty of many of his rural characters in the Appennino Pistoiese and in the Padule di Fucecchio. The reader is given some inkling of the harsh conditions endured by many of Fucini’s lower-class characters and provides an insight into their passionate and often violent natures early on in his first novella, Il Matto delle giuncaie:

E quel vasto campo che un istante prima mi parlava di morte, lo vedevo ora popolato da una quantità innumerevole di pallide e rabbuffate figure padulane dalla fibra d’acciaio e dall’animo generoso e feroce, nel petto delle quali le passioni scoppiano con tal violenza, che il delitto ne diventa spesso il termine funesto. E idillî soavi e drammi sanguinosi si svolgevano dinanzi alla mia immaginazione, e la tristezza intanto si faceva maggiore nell’animo mio (p.10).

The conditions endured by Il Matto, who lives in the treacherous marsh and swamp-lands and the disease-ridden, reed-beds, despite having paid his debt to society (imprisonment at Volterra), who is systematically ostracized by the cruel padulani who amuse themselves by taking pot-shots at him on sight, and abandon him to a lonely death in the giuncaie, are appalling. One of the girls described by Fucini singing a melancholy song in the story is typical of:

‘una di quelle tante miserabili che vivono felici in quell’ambiente mefitico i mesi e gli anni interi, lavorando con l’acqua fino alla cintola e il fango fino alle ginocchia.’ (p.10).

Similarly, Lo spaccapietre, who is exploited by his employer, the accollatario, is described as being ‘uno di questi splendidi esemplari di carne da lavoro’(p.91). The loyal and devoted peasant Menico who spends his whole life toiling in the fields, or the goatherd Lucia, could both be considered to be Tuscan versions of Verga’s vinti since the former, like the Matto (and Rosso Malpelo) is also exploited by his ‘vecchio padrone’, and is similarly referred to as a ‘[un] core vergine di animale da lavoro’(p.215). Similarly Lucia, whose ‘father’ (she never knew the identity of her natural parents) died of a fever (probably malaria) in Maremma, and who had not seen her ‘mother’ nor her ‘brother’, who ‘andò soldato’(p.25), in years, is also exploited by the avaricious peasant, Rosalba, who employs her as a goatherd. Rosalba is often violent towards Lucia and threatens to force her to reimburse her for any of her precious goats which might go astray while in her care:

Se ritorni senza la capra, pover’ a te!- le ha detto dianzi Rosalba cacciandola a spintoni fuori della stalla. E Lucia lo sa che cosa l’aspetta se la capretta fosse smarrita; lo sa e col mento appoggiato sopra una mano tende l’occhio addolorato alle pendici del colle e pensa e singhiozza.

-Se non ritrovo la mia capretta, stasera non mi daranno da cena e Rosalba mi picchierà come l’altra volta…mi fece tanto male al petto! O Dio, Dio!....Mi manderanno via…domani! Forse stasera! e non ci ho colpa. Le ho munte stamani alle sei, le ho contate e c’erano tutte…Dodici lire! E dove le trovo per dire a Rosalba:- Tenete; la capra è smarrita e queste sono le dodici lire che costava-? Ma non le ho! Non mi daranno da cena; Rosalba mi picchierà e mi chiameranno…O dio, Dio! (p.26).

At the end of the story, the hapless girl who is still searching for her missing goat, Bianchina, is ambushed and is brutally raped by another peasant ‘il ruvido Tonio’(p.27). Lucia could be considered a Tuscan equivalent of Verga’s Nedda or a Tuscan vinta or, indeed, another Tuscan example of ‘[una] povera figliuola raggomitolata sull’ultimo gradino della scala umana’.

As we have seen from the extract from Fucini’s school-inspector’s notebooks, in Vanno in Maremma, two children, ‘sotto i dodici anni’(p.63), are described as one of the numerous groups of children who, annually, are forced to migrate with their montanini parents, in mid-winter, on the long and perilous journey (invariably made on foot) from the high and rich pasture-lands in the Appennino Pistoiese, to Maremma (to Talamone) having to survive on a mere basketful of chestnuts and necci. The father of the sad, poverty-stricken family informs the narrator he has been undertaking the perilous journey each year for the last thirty-five years, on his own, and that: ‘più volentiri li avrei fatti restare tutti a casa; ma non avevo da lasciargli nulla, signore mio, nulla! nemmanco un po’ di farina per isvernare’(p.65).

The fact that the members of this wretched family were undertaking this dangerous journey in the depth of winter, without livestock of their own to migrate with, underlines just how poor they were.

The return journey, in Tornan di Maremma, in which the montanini (who originate from Fiumalbo) are described accompanying their sheep which have been safely overwintered in Maremma, on their return to the Appennino Pistoiese, in the spring, is also not without its hardships and perils as Gian Luca discovers when he learns of the death of his betrothed, Giuditta, in his absence. Indeed, while in Maremma, Gian Luca had written to Giuditta and her parents, instructing them that should her health take a turn for the worse, they should write to him informing him of this, so that he would not return home to the Appennino Pistoiese but would remain in Maremma and seek his fortune there.

In L’eredità di Vermùtte we learn that the eponymous vetturale and his family had to make do and survive with one solitary shad: ‘una salacca…una salacca sola in sette persone, la sera di Ceppo!’(p.197). Many lower-class characters also have to endure considerable physical hardships in order to eke out a very hard and meagre existence, for example, the stonebreaker is described as: ‘Le sue mani paiono due pezzi informi di carne callosa, il suo viso screpolato piuttosto che solcato da rughe, pare un pezzo di pane da cani, e i suoi occhi, dopo tanti anni di sole, di polvere e d’umidità, sono contornati di rosso e gli lacrimano di continuo sulle occhiaie infiammate, che la notte gli bruciano e non gli danno riposo’(pp.91-92).

Note how Fucini uses harsh and dehumanizing language to capture the sense that the wretched stonebreaker has been reduced to being ‘uno di questi splendidi esemplari di carne da lavoro’(p.91). As a consequence of a lifetime of constant toil and labour, exposed to the elements- the blazing sun in summer and the wind and rain in winter- his hands have been reduced to mere formless ‘chunks of meat’- he is regarded as a mere commodity and is mercilessly exploited by the accollatario. Fucini uses alliteration- ‘due pezzi informi di carne callosa’, - ‘pare un pezzo di pane da cani’ (note the use of ‘parole aspre’ in his alliteration) the implication being that the stonebreaker is regarded by the accollatario as being on the same level as a dog- indeed, the spaccapietre’s life is little more than ‘a dog’s life’ since he has to endure a worse life than the pampered dog Pelliccia who, (after a difficult early life), spends her final years in comparative luxury. Fucini may have had the biblical story of Dives and Lazarus, in which dogs are described licking the open sores of the wretched Lazarus, in mind, when writing this story. He uses the slightly coarser word ‘viso’ rather than the more genteel ‘faccia’ or ‘volto’ (but not ‘muso’, nor the Luccan dialect word ‘ghigna’, which would have been equally appropriate) to reinforce the animal-like quality of the stonebreaker who has almost been dehumanized through exploitation. He is, in effect, ‘easy meat’ for the accollatario who exploits him. The choice of the word ‘pezzo di pane’, apart from its attractive alliteration, is deliberately used to convey the sense of feeding a mere animal. Fucini does not use the word ‘fetta di pane’ at this point in his story, however, he does use the phrase later on:

Dimmi: se tu potessi in questo momento ottenere tutto quello che ti paresse, che desidereresti?

-‘Una fetta di pane bianco per darlo inzuppato alla mi’ vecchia che non ha più denti.’ (p.93)

However, earlier in the story one finds ‘boccone’:‘senza aver fatto nè un centesimo nè un boccone di pane’(p.93) and ‘tozzo’: ‘la mattina andava a chiedere l’elemosina, e, se aveva fatto qualche tozzo di pane, verso il mezzogiorno glielo portava dove era a spezzare’(p.93).

Fucini’s use of the verb ‘fare’ here is interesting- ‘fare qualche tozzo di pane’ in this context, signifies to beg for, or to scrounge a few crusts of bread. He further dehumanizes his stonebreaker by comparing him to other animals- he once had the stomach of a camel, and by using corrosive irony with reference to the mythical Croesus (with the ironic implication that whatever the other mythical King, Midas, touched, turned to gold, however, with the stonebreaker, whatever he touches turns to ‘frantumi di pietra’) and finally, by continuing the oriental imagery, by comparing his body to that of an ancient Egyptian mummy:

Ah! ma questo che conosco io è stato sempre un signore, il Creso degli spaccapietre, perchè fino a sessanta anni sonati, stomaco di cammello e muscoli di leone, ha guadagnato sempre il massimo che può fruttare il suo lavoro, e la polenta gialla o il pane bigio non sono mai spariti altro che per eccezione dalla sua tavola…. Ha le gambe torte e rigide dal lungo starsi a sedere, la schiena fortemente curvata, il corpo intero di mummia, lo spirito consumato dai dolori (pp.91-2).

The stonebreaker’s hardship and anguish appear to be endless. The hopelessness of his situation and the futility of his labours recall the myth of Sisyphus. We also learn that his daughter died in childbirth ‘la sua figliola maritata partorì alla macchia dov’era andata a far legna’(p.92), his grandson died very young, and his son, Gigino, was so savagely attacked by the blows rained down on him by a farmer (for scrumping his cherries to slake his thirst after eating a salty ‘salacca’) that soon after the traumatic event, he died of the blows sustained. The stonebreaker’s wife, blinded, accidentally, by a stray stone-splinter from his hammer, is reduced to begging for ‘un boccone di pane.’(p.93).

Similarly, the battello, a travelling-hawker, unique to the Appennino Pistoiese, also risks life and limb having to carry a large wicker basket of wares on his back, transporting foodstuffs and items of haberdashery as he travels to the remoter parts of the Appennino during the depths of winter. He ekes out an equally meagre existence by selling his wares to the few remaining montanini who have been unable to migrate over winter, or who are so poor they do not own livestock of their own, thereby making migration to Maremma unneccessary. The battello is often paid in kind by the impoverished montanini, occasionally with freshly-laid eggs (a luxury for many at the time) and should he have the misfortune to stumble and break these eggs, he would have risked his life for no profit whatsoever. On the rare occasions he decides to ‘fare scialo’ (to ‘push the boat out’), we learn that this consisted of: ‘una farinata gialla col soffritto di porri, e un’aringa intera sul treppiede’(p.188).

In order to emphasize the hardship and poverty of his lower-class characters, Fucini often draws attention to the meagre amounts of food they have to survive on and stresses that many suffer hunger. Indeed, the narrator in Vanno in Maremma, on realizing that the wretched family migrating to Maremma only has a few chestnuts and necci to survive on, is so moved to pity at their plight that he gives them ‘un piccolo foglio’(p.66). This paucity of food explains the extreme violence which Tonto and Lilli use against each other when fighting over a single sausage in Castore e Polluce. This also provides the reader with a considerable insight into the concern Verdiana has at the waste of the uneaten baccalà prepared for the montanini in Tornan di Maremma: ‘Povere creature!- esclamò. Poi volgendosi con un lungo sospiro alla sua bottega.- E ora, di tutto quel baccalà che me ne faccio?’(p.89).

Conversely, Fucini criticizes his middle and upper-class characters for wasting food or for over-indulging themselves- for example, Don Cosimo and the clergy who eat to excess in Scampagnata, and the greedy clergy in Il merlo di Vestro who deplete Vestro’s wine-cellar, and il signor Felice and il signor Pietro in Temperamenti sani who, after going through the motions of expressing their concern at the recent bad news ‘dall’Affrica’, as soon as they hear ‘la campana del mezzogiorno’ ring, we learn:

Come all’annunzio improvviso di una strepitosa vittoria delle nostre armi, le loro fisionomie si irradiarono di serena beatitudine; si strinsero con effusione la mano e, uno per un verso uno per l’altro, si allontanarono sorridenti e frettolosi.

Tutt’e due ci avevano per desinare il loro piatto favorito. Il signor Felice ci aveva la fricassea d’agnello; il signor Pietro, il cavolo ripieno (p.203).

Clearly Fucini is criticizing the bourgeoisie for their hypocrisy since they appear to be more concerned about lining their stomachs than with being fully committed to the lot of their brave comrades, fighting on their behalf at the front.

The loyal and reliable peasant Menico is also taken for granted and like the Matto and Lo spaccapietre, is also exploited by his master, ‘il fattore Ippolito’. Menico, who had devoted the whole of his hard and hum-drum life to clearing and replanting a new vineyard and orchard, single-handedly, exhausting and back-breaking work, only to be told ‘Bravo!’ and for all his labours was presented with ‘una bella cacciatora usata’(p.215) by his avaricious master who was too mean to buy him a new shooting-jacket. When the taciturn Menico, who had been a stickler for work all his life and who had constantly chided his younger, fellow-peasants for slacking in their duties, eventually dies, aged eighty-two (Fucini implies that Menico, like Lo spaccapietre is, in effect, another beast of burden) of sheer exhaustion, in the open fields, after an endless life of toil, death being his only release from his hardship, it is amid the taunts and jeering of his younger ‘compagni di lavoro’(p.214):

-Volete una materassa, Menico?

Menico non rispondeva.

-Ora vi cantiamo la ninna nanna. La volete, Menico, un po’ di ninna nanna?....

Un vecchio si accostò a Menico per accertarsi e per domandargli se avesse bisogno di qualche cosa; e posatagli una mano sulla spalla, lo scosse lievemente per destarlo.

Il corpo di Menico, già morto da una mezz’ora, strisciando la schiena al tronco scabroso dell’albero, andò a fermarsi, a rotoloni, in un solco (p.216).

Note how despite taunting Menico, his younger fellow peasants still address him with the formal voi form, out of respect, a practice which persisted in parts of rural Tuscany until the 1970s.

2. 3. 2 The theme of Death

The theme of death, in its numerous variant forms and manifestations, is another principal theme, which often features in Fucini’s novelle, for example, death caused by violence, usually at the hands of lower-class characters, who, as we learn and have seen in il Matto delle giuncaie, are often hot-tempered and display relatively primitive and primeval passions and possess an innate disposition to violence.

Death by manslaughter, if not premeditated murder, is the principal theme of La strega in which the innocent Nonna Pelagia pays the ultimate price at the hands of a frenzied mob of superstitious peasants who have been duped by Baronto, the local stregone, into believing that one of their young peasant-boys has had a spell cast on him by a ‘witch’. Death through manslaughter, or death brought about by a crime passionnel, occurs in Il Matto. While the Matto (Fucini tantalizingly, never mentions the Matto by name) had been absent, working in Maremma, his love, the materialistic Stella, has her head turned, by another love-rival: ‘L’interesse, capisce. L’interesse! Gli venne fra’ piedi quell’altro infame a fargli vedere una casuccia e qualche cento di scudi.’(p.14). While out hunting, the Matto meets his rival for Stella’s hand, and thinking that the latter was mocking him, promptly shoots him. Another crime passionnel occurs in Sereno e nuvole in which the jealous and hot-bloodied Cecco, stabs Pierone (his rival for Chiarastella’s hand) to death, in an animated fight, recalling Turiddu and Compare Alfio’s fight to the death in Verga’s Cavalleria rusticana.

The main character in Tigrino, like Il Matto and Nonno Damiano, is another padulano and inhabitant of the Padule di Fucecchio who ekes out a hard living as a professional huntsman and fisherman: ‘Lo conobbi una fredda mattina di novembre, quando capitai per la prima volta in quella zona di padule che poteva dirsi il suo regno, quel padule dove egli era nato e dove, fino da ragazzo, campava esercitando insieme i due mestieri: di cacciatore e di pescatore.’ (p.300).

The reader is forewarned of Tigrino’s somewhat exaggerated sense of honour and his varying mood-changes early in the story with the contrasting, graphic and telling image as the story gathers momentum and unfolds inexorably, to its violent and tragic end:

L’onore è per lui un sacramento, la sua parola è un contratto davanti al notaio. Ma guai a non mantenere la parola data a lui! La medaglia si rovescia subito e allora si vede che il soprannome di Tigrino non glie l’hanno messo a caso. Siamo amici da trent’anni, e lo conosco bene. L’ho veduto in bonaccia e l’ho veduto in tempesta.

Nella bonaccia, una bambina lo guiderebbe con un filo di seta; nella tempesta…misericordia! Un leone scapperebbe dallo spavento. (p.304).

Tigrino, an upright pillar of society, is respected by all his fellow padulani. His sense of family honour is of paramount importance to him, and his word is his bond. During the celebrations for the Feast of the Ascension, attended by all the local padulani, two gun-shots ring out in the distance. All are surprised since the hunting-season is closed. Tigrino is stunned and humiliated to discover his son, il Bimbo, has been arrested by two carabinieri. It transpires that il Bimbo knows who the poacher is, but refuses to disclose his identify to the Brigadiere dei Carabinieri. The latter informs Tigrino that if he identifies the culprit, they will release him: ‘appena compiute le debite formalità, voi lo riavrete libero all’istante’.(p.308). Tigrino assumes that the Brigadiere also abides by a similar code of honour and takes it for granted that his word is also his bond. Tigrino persuades il Bimbo to identify the culprit (Il Faina). However, Tigrino fears he has lost face among his fellow padulani and has been humiliated by thinking that his son would be released from the custody of the carabinieri, immediately:

‘Il Brigadiere cercò di persuaderlo facendogli intendere che quel subito voleva dire: dopo le formalità di legge. Lo assicurò che era questione di ore e che, subito dopo un breve interrogatorio davanti al Pretore, il Bimbo sarebbe ritornato a casa sua…forse avanti buio.’ (p.309).

Fearing that his honour has been compromised and feeling betrayed and believing he has been duped by the Brigadiere, Tigrino has no compunction in shooting the Brigadiere fatally.

Death by suicide is examined in Fiorella. The narrator recalls his first meeting with the young shepherd Pipetta, and his young peasant sweetheart, Fiorella, in the Appennino Pistoiese:

Percorrendo il crine di quel monte che staccandosi dall’Appennino a Serravalle va a perdersi con dolci declivi nelle strette gole della Golfolina, presso Signa, l’alpinista discreto che non aspiri alle pericolose glorie del camoscio, può incontrare i più stupendi quadri, dei quali l’amica natura ha fatto tanto ricca e malinconica la poesia dei nostri facili colli toscani. (p.94).

Fucini’s idyllic description has a distinct Leopardian ring to it and recalls Leopardi’s concept of nature being, at times, a friend, but more usually, indifferent or even a potential enemy, to man – another minor theme in Fucini’s novelle. The narrator explains how, over a number of years, he befriends the two sweethearts and they eventually become formally engaged. Things are brought to a head when Pipetta announces he has been called up to do his military-service. This news provides the catalyst to the story. Fiorella suffers a nervous-breakdown on hearing she will be separated from her beloved Pipetta. The latter, realizing the devastating effect that separation from Fiorella will entail, can no longer sustain the enormous pressure he faces and commits suicide by drowning himself in a nearby mill-pond:

‘Che è stato?

O che non lo sa che quando rasciugarono il bottaccio del molino?..

-Affogato!

-Sissignore. Perchè pare che invece di tornare a Firenze, siccome andò via la sera tardi....’(p.103).

Fiorella subsequently falls into a deep depression and the reader is forced to reflect that this trauma could lead to her eventual madness and also, to speculate that she too, will either soon die, broken-hearted, or might also take her own life, and that her death too, in whatever form, cannot be far off. Fucini’s closing lines are particularly poignant:‘Il ritrécine del molino taceva, e nella quiete del tramonto si sentivano su all’alto cantare le starne che dalle cime dei poggi si chiamavano fra loro al riposo.’(p104).

Death as a result of illness, for example, the lingering illness culminating in the death of Il sor Pasquale, is examined in L’oriolo col cuculo. The novella makes a great impact on the reader and heightens anxiety with an added degree of suspense because Pasquale, who buys a cuckoo-clock, of dubious quality, at the market at Cutigliano, becomes increasingly convinced that his latest acquisition, his pride and joy, will run faultlessly. However, for no apparent reason, he becomes increasingly convinced that when his cuckoo-clock will eventually stop running, he too, will stop and die:

Quando si fermerà un’altra volta, tocca a me!– diceva sospirando il povero sor Pasquale, tutte le sere mentre lo caricava prima d’andarsene a letto.- Quest’altra volta tocca a me!- e lo diceva con tanta convinzione che nessuno fu buono di levargli dal capo quel pergiudizio, che a poco a poco diventò una vera fissazione che finì di rovinare la sua indebolita salute. (p.38).

This idée fixe becomes an obsession with Pasquale. As the years pass and despite taking every precaution to keep his precious clock running, continuously, his health eventually, takes a turn for the worse. After a long illness, his prophesy fulfils itself:

Corsero là tutti, intesero, staccarono l’oriolo dal muro e glielo mostrarono. Il sor Pasquale si alzò a sedere sul letto, ci ficcò sopra gli occhi e cadde giù spossato balbettando: -Anche l’ora di Pasquale è sonata…è sonata…è sonata!…

Erano le dodici e due minuti, l’oriolo di cima scala le aveva sonate, e il cuculo era rimasto in silenzio!’ (p.40).

In the poignant closing lines, the reader learns that the local woodsmen kneel and recite the first De profundis for the repose of sor Pasquale’s soul.

It is fairly explicit that the sickly ‘vecchio Ambrogio’, the principal character and paterfamilias to ‘quei cinque giovanotti’(p.259) in La giovenca rossa, will soon die, probably heart-broken, when his prize red heifer, on which the family depends largely for its livelihood, breaks a leg and the future of their small herd is threatened. His anguish is further increased when he and his family are swindled out of the full market value of their heifer by the local veterinary-surgeon and the local butcher (who are probably in collusion with each other).

It is very likely that a similar fate will also befall the frail signor Romualdo in Il castagno della casetta. Despite having been formerly the head of one of the wealthiest families in the Comune, he and his family have since fallen on hard times, having been swindled out of their considerable estates and properties since, as we learn from Romualdo’s medical-doctor:

erano troppo buoni, troppo ingenui e troppo onesti. Una folla di trucconi si mise loro alle costole diventandone i consiglieri e gl’intimi confidenti…in capo a pochi anni videro disperse tutti i loro averi e vennero a rifugiarsi in quella misera casetta…La signora Dorotea…morì presto di dolore. Il signor Romualdo sopravvive; ma in quale stato! Il più lieve dolore può essergli fatale. (p.283).

A local, nouveau-riche, signor Cavaliere, ‘un grosso accollatario di strade ferrate’ who, on a mere whim, wishes to buy up all the land he can see, decides to purchase the land next to Romualdo’s estate. Inevitably, the land which the Cavaliere has designs on, borders on Romualdo’s land, and the fine chestnut-tree ‘il più bel castagno della selva’ and Romualdo’s sole consolation, ‘per i pochi giorni di vita che mi avanzano’(p.284) has to be felled. True to veristic principles, Fucini makes no comment on the Cavaliere’s indifference and heartless action, the onus is placed on the reader to surmize the effect the felling of his beloved chestnut-tree will have on Romualdo.

The theme of death, in war, occurs in La giacchetta rivoltata, and implicitly, in Temperamenti sani. Like Dolci ricordi, Fucini’s most autobiographical story, which recalls his student days at Pisa and provides his reader with an indelible portrait of his father, David, a medico condotto, La giacchetta rivoltata also contains several historically accurate autobiographical details which are confirmed in Foglie al Vento. The story unfolds when the narrator visits his neighbour, sor Maurizio. The former’s attention is drawn to ‘una giacchetta di panno bigio, tutta logora e strapanata’(p.217) which, on further questioning, he is informed, belonged to Maurizio: ‘Quella giacchetta lì me la misi addosso per la prima volta trentasette anni or sono. Fra mia madre e me e un sartuccio che veniva in casa a giornata, me la fecero per andare a Pisa il terzo anno che ero all’Università’(p.219). The narrator recalls the exciting times when Garibaldi and his Thousand were unifying Italy in the 1860s. He and his life-long friend Nando: ‘figlio d’una famiglia di nostri contadini; il mio compagno di giochi puerili nell’infanzia, il mio compagno indivisibile alla caccia, alle gite alpine e alle prime scappate giovanili’(p.221) to whom he donated his old jacket, both decide to enlist and join Garibaldi’s campaign. Fucini very successfully recreates the excitement and patriotic fervour displayed in Tuscany at the time and draws on his own personal experiences while a student at Pisa. Nando dies in battle as sor Maurizio informs the narrator in the poignant closing lines of the story:‘Guardi! – mi disse; e puntò l’indice verso un piccolo foro tondo accanto a un bottone di sinistra...-Di qui passò la palla che aveva spezzato il core a quel mio povero ragazzo’(p.224).

In Il signor colonnello, Fucini examines the somewhat ironic death and funeral of an army Colonel who decides to retire to Pietracava ‘un grosso borgo di capoluogo di Comune’(p.311). Despite having been an upright pillar and much loved member of society, and despite having attended, without fail, every funeral of his new neighbours and friends in Pietracava, invariably wearing his full, dress-uniform and medals, ironically, after a protracted illness, which raised several false alarms and irritated many fair-weather friends, only a handful of mourners finally attend his own funeral, which is described with an air of pathos as: ‘uno squallore’ (p.321).

The inevitable, tragic and premature death of the young ‘padroncino’ who is confined to a wheel-chair, is tacitly alluded to in the poignant Non mai, non mai! Despite the reassurance and encouragement of his wealthy, but extremely sad parents, that one day he will recover from his illness, (which we infer is terminal) and despite the gaiety of the peasant children who run and jump to entertain their young master, the padroncino realizes, deep in his heart: ‘Guardava guardava, e il pensiero gli fingeva liete e sicure speranze; ma il cuore sgomento gli diceva:- Non mai, non mai!’(p.202).

The long illness which will eventually lead to the premature and tragic death of Teresa who is suffering from consumption, and the eventual death of her blind grandfather, provide the major theme in Nonno Damiano. The eighty-four year-old Damiano lives on the borders of the Padule di Fucecchio, with his son, Bobo, a widower, and his grand-daughter Teresa in:‘Una misera catapecchia di tre stanze affumicate,…quasi nascosta dentro una ciuffaia d’ontani in prossimità di quella già da qualche anno abbandonata dal povero Tigrino bon’anima, sulla gronda del padule.’ (p.159).

Before losing his sight, Damiano had been an expert huntsman and marksman. Now that he is blind, he whiles away his days with Teresa, ‘la sua ultima e sola consolazione’, and ‘suo decrepito cane’(p.159). He asks Teresa to point out birds in flight, and in his mind’s eye, takes aim and pretends to shoot them, reliving the days of his youth. Teresa is also seriously ill, suffering from anaemia, as well as consumption:

‘e già abbandonata dal medico, il quale, quando capitava per caso in quelle parti, la guardava senza fiatare, dava qualche mozzicone di sigaro a Damiano e tirava innanzi per il suo viaggio’(p.160).

Damiano cannot afford the expensive medicine the unsympathetic doctor prescribes for Teresa and consequently, has to resort to the cheaper quack-recipes of a local crone which have little practical benefit. Both are waiting for death.

One fateful day, Damiano realizes that his beloved Teresa has died unexpectedly. The pitiful figure is reduced to stumbling about outside his hovel, shouting to alert someone to the tragedy, however, living in an isolated part of the Padule, his desperate cries go unheeded. The reader is left to contemplate Damiano’s fate and the sad duty a neighbour, Beppe, has to perform in notifying Bobo.

From these dominant themes we can already see that many of Fucini’s stories which involve the lower orders, (predominantly in Le Veglie rather than in All’Aria Aperta where he moves up the social scale slightly and describes Tuscan society in less rural surroundings) are often sad, in some cases tragic and, perhaps, even maudlin to the modern reader. However, we should recall that artists, composers and writers during the latter part of the Ottocento, were attracted to these subjects not purely for effect- the young person dying of consumption or pulmonary tuberculosis at a tender age, was not only almost a topos in art with Edvard Munch’s The Sick Child (1885-86), Cristóbal Rojas’ La Miseria (1868) and what has been described as ‘the rise of the tubercular aesthetic’ in the Pre-Raphaelite image of Elizabeth Siddal, especially in Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix (1864-70)– but also in literature - Dickens’s Dombey and Son, Gaskell’s North and South, Dumas’ La dame aux camélias (based on the Parisian beauty Marie Duplessis 1824-47), Fantine in Hugo’s Les misérables, or in opera, Violetta Valéry in Verdi’s La Traviata, or Mimì in Puccini’s La Bohème, but was a common fact of life – the premature deaths of the Brontës, Keats’ tragically young death at the age of twenty-six, and the sobering thought that in 1815, no fewer than one in four of the population of England alone, died of consumption or tuberculosis until a cure for the disease was eventually discovered in 1896. The numbers dying from consumption and tuberculosis in Tuscany at the time, where sanitary conditions were generally worse than those in England, exceeded these alarming statistics.

2.3.3 The effects of external factors and external forces on small, tightly-knit communities in rural Tuscany

The effect of military-service

Apart from hardship and death, another major and recurrent theme in Fucini’s novelle is the effect of external factors, or the very invasive or negative effects or intervention of external forces on the lives of lower-class protagonists in their very closely-knit communities. With official statistics showing that almost ninety per cent of the population of Italy in the Ottocento was involved in working the land or in some form of agriculture, the very disruptive effects of young men being called up to do their military-service had very serious consequences on closely-knit communities in Italy, especially in Tuscany. In families which depended on their able-bodied young men to till the land and to look after precious livestock, especially small families with only one son, the arrival of notification of military-service (la naja) was unwelcome news and often had serious, if not disastrous consequences on the economy of a family and the wider, tightly-knit, peasant community.

In Lucia we learn that Lucia’s ‘brother’ (if, indeed, he was her natural brother) disappears from his peasant family after being called up to do la naja:

‘E il fratello? Chi sa? Andò soldato; lo mandarono di là dal mare; non ha scritto più nulla da due anni…dove sarà?’(p.25).

In Primavera, despite falling in love with the beautiful Gioconda, the love of his life, Maso is also called up. For various reasons which are unexplained in the story, the reader is forced to speculate that Maso, having been separated from Gioconda, gave up all hope of ever seeing her again and decided to cut his losses and relinquish her and remain in the army, pursuing a military career (for a further eighteen years) assuming that in the meantime, Gioconda would have married: ‘Quando lui tornò da fare il soldato, dove stette diciotto anni, la trovò sposa e madre di quattro bambini. Rocco, quello della lisca, delle pedate al ciuco e delle grasse giovenche, l’aveva sposata già da dodici anni. Rocco ebbe da quel tempo fino alla morte tutto l’affetto della sua Gioconda: a Maso, restò sempre l’amore’(p.70).

As a direct consequence of la leva, Maso missed the opportunity of marrying his beloved Gioconda and his chance of happiness and of forming a family of his own. Because of military-service their love was destined not to be, and can only be finally, albeit partially, rekindled, after Rocco’s eventual demise.

Similarly, in Fiorella, Pipetta informs the narrator that ‘sono di leva’ and that he has also ‘tirato su basso’(p.99). Unfortunately, having drawn a low number implied he was destined to do extended military-service. When Fiorella discovers that her betrothed, Pipetta, as well as having been called up to do ‘la naja’, might even have to go off to war, she is dumb-struck and suffers a nervous-breakdown:‘Me lo rubano, me lo rubano, me lo portano via!’(p.100) leading to her enivitable madness. The separation of Pipetta from his beloved Fiorella, proves too much for him, and leads to his suicide. La leva also has equally disastrous consequences in Sereno e nuvole since Pierone is also called up, and having also ‘tirato su basso’, decides to cut his losses and to leave his love-rival, Cecco del Birindi, free to pursue Chiarastella without further competition. However, the story ends with Cecco fatally stabbing Pierone.

Maso and Gioconda’s courtship in Primavera, like Pipetta’s in Fiorella, is brought to an abrupt end since he, too, is called up. Lucia’s ‘brother’ and Pierone also have their lives disrupted by military-service – external forces, particularly ‘la leva’, often ruin the lives of young people in love, especially if they are betrothed, and is an extremely disruptive force in rural communities. The effects of war often have dire consequences as we see when Fiorella discovers that Pipetta might have to go off to war– resulting in her threat to commit suicide. The negative and disruptive consequences of war are also examined in La giacchetta rivoltata, where sor Maurizio narrates the death in battle of his life-long friend Nando, and, to a lesser extent, in Temperamenti sani and in Il signor colonnello in which the Colonel uses his considerable influence in arranging more convenient barracks or even arranging postponments of military-service for some of the young men among his ungrateful and insincere new neighbours. Very few of Fucini’s stories (Fiorella, Lucia, Primavera, Temperamenti sani, La giacchetta rivoltata and Il signor colonnello) have war, and the adverse effects of war on Tuscan communities as their theme. This is probably because of the general disillusionment felt by many Italians, especially artists and writers, at the time, with the Risorgimento failing to live up to the numerous lofty ideals and expectations promised by politicians before Garibaldi’s liberation of Sicily. Fucini, being a dyed-in-the-wool garibaldino, was no exception.

2.3. 4 The effects of migration and other external factors on communities

Economic migration within the Italian peninsula and migration wider afield, outside Italy, particularly economic emigration from Italy, to other countries, especially to the New World, was widespread from the seventeenth century onwards and was particularly prevalent in Tuscany, in the Ottocento. The consequences which migration, even to other parts of Tuscany (especially to the insalubrious Maremma which the montanini were forced to undertake to preserve their livestock), can have on Fucini’s lower-class characters are described in Il Matto delle giuncaie, Vanno in Maremma and Tornan di Maremma and are also referred to in Primavera and Sereno e nuvole. The lives of the montanini who are too poor even to own livestock, are equally grim since they have to rely, almost exclusively, on the sacrifices and considerable risks run by an ‘outsider’, the battello, to keep them supplied in food over winter.

The arrival of the new and attractive school-mistress in La maestrina, has immediate consequences and benefits, especially for the local shopkeepers, who always have their eyes to the ‘main chance’:

Così per amore dell’istruzione dei propri figli, il fornaio contava che avrebbe potuto vendere ogni giorno almeno un mezzo chilogrammo di più del suo pane bianco; lo stesso pensava il macellaio della sua carne, il merciaio dei suoi nastri, l’ortolano della sua insalata. La Belloni, la quale aveva una camera da affittare, dopo che le morì la sorella di quel malaccio in corpo, non stava più nella pelle dalla contentezza.(p.166).

Moreover, the avaricious and scheming La Belloni and her idle son, Gigiotto, have designs on the school-mistress’s annual salary of ‘settecento lire’(p.167) and plot to get her to fall pregnant by Gigiotto, so, following the strict conventions of the time, she is forced to marry him, thereby guaranteeing their financial future. Similarly, the seemingly innocent arrival of a family of three ‘street-wise’, itinerant, charlatans who live off their wits and who were clearly drawn from life, and who fleece the gullible members of a small Tuscan town in Passaggio memorabile. The story opens with the pompous, Signor Girolamo, the nouveau-riche mayor who is described as: ‘un già mercante d’olio arricchito, ma sempre mercante più di quand’era mercante d’olio, calcava molto la parola co-le-ra, accennava a dubbi gravi su un certo medicamento, che era stato dato a tutti quelli che morirono, e inveiva furibondo contro i ciarlatani’- [the phrase is ironically prophetic](p.113).

He constantly falls for the fawning flattery of his councillors. The three charlatans immediately latch on to the mayor’s pomposity and use this to good effect, especially by hinting at a (non existent) cavalierato to gain his confidence. Largely because of Signor Girolamo’s amour propre and gullibility, the charlatans immediately identify his Achilles’ heel and gain his confidence and are accepted and welcomed with open arms into the community. They promptly dupe Girolamo and his councillors and proceed to fleece the inhabitants for whom the giunta comunale is ultimately responsible and affords another good example of the negative effects of external factors or forces on small Tuscan communities.

Similarly, in Il monumento, which as we will see in the Conclusion, has its basis in fact, concerns the proposal to raise a subscription to erect a statue to the memory of the local ‘illustre cittadino’. This involves commissioning the services of an expensive, external outsider- a celebrated sculptor, which, fairly predictably, comes to nothing. Similarly the ambitious plans for the construction of a new fountain in La fonte di Pietrarsa, also necessitates hiring an expensive external engineer which also comes to nothing. The cruel hoax played on a small community by the inhabitants of a rival town, near Sovigliana in La visita del Prefetto, (for which Fucini holds the giunta comunale personally responsible) is also another good example of the negative effects of external forces on small and tightly-knit Tuscan communities, whose inhabitants are fiercely proud and who display a rather exaggerated campanilismo which Fucini describes so well in several novelle. However, the arrival of Il signor colonnello, who retires to Pietracava, is a rare, but telling example of the exact opposite. The colonel becomes a model citizen and a cause for good, indeed, he is so loved by his new neighbours in Pietracava that: ‘L’intero paese, per imitarlo, si era militarizzato…tutti erano per lui, egli era per tutti’(p.314). Ironically, he helps the inhabitants of Pietracava by using his not inconsiderable influence, by intervening to help young men called up for military-service by arranging postponements for them, or by secure postings to barracks closer to Pietracava. In order to pay his last respects at funerals, he unfailingly attends in his full dress-uniform and displays his numerous medals, which serves to underline the irony and the squalid nature of his own funeral, which is attended by a handful of loyal peasants, at which one of the few genuine mourners, is his faithful dog, Ragù.

2.3.5 The attitude of the lower classes to livestock and cruelty to animals

Fucini was a great animal-lover and being a keen huntsman, was especially fond of dogs and did not tolerate any form of cruelty towards animals. However, in his novelle he addresses what he experienced in real life- the often ambiguous attitude to animals by the lower orders. There is little doubt that the latter have a very high regard for their precious livestock or for productive animals, for example, we learn from Pipetta, who is engaged to Fiorella, that his future in-laws will not allow the marriage to take place unless he purchases a further twenty-five sheep for his flock: ‘quelli di lei m’hanno fatto sapere che se non compro altre venticinque pecore, non me la danno’(p.98). As in many rural (and nomadic) communities, livestock is a guarantee of wealth and security and is a tangible commitment and investment in the future. Fucini’s peasants and montanini consider it well worth risking their lives by migrating en masse and taking their herds and flocks from the steep slopes of the Appennino Pistoiese in the autumn, and to undertake the long, arduous, and often dangerous, journey to Maremma (especially to Talamone) to overwinter (per isvernare) safely, in Vanno in Maremma and Tornan di Maremma and to run the considerable risk of contracting malaria there, in order to safeguard their precious livestock and their livelihood.

In Lucia, the eponymous heroine is desperate to find Bianchina, the precious goat entrusted to her care, which she has temporarily mislaid, for fear of the violence from her avaricious mistress, Rosalba, and she knows she will be forced to pay for the missing animal out of her starvation wages. Similarly, the precious heifer in La giovenca rossa upon which the family depends for its survival, or the flock of sheep in Tornan di Maremma, are all highly valued as chattels, per se, since animals are the very livelihood of the peasantry and the latter are prepared to make numerous sacrifices to care for their livestock and to protect their investments. Animals are also considered to be status-symbols by the lower classes, for example, Lo Spagnolino’s heifers ‘orgoglio della casata e invidia dei contadini dei dintorni e ghiottoneria troppo preziosa per Simone macellaro’ in Primavera (p.69), or Sor Augusto Fronzoni’s fine horses and Vermùtte’s own former beautiful horse in L’eredità di Vermùtte (p.191), the red heifer ‘il più bel capo della loro stalla’(p.258) in La giovenca rossa or the fine horses ‘da tiro e da sella’(p.283), previously owned by sor Romualdo and his family, before they were swindled out of their fortune, in Il castagno della casetta, are all telling examples of the status and prestige livestock confers on their owners.

However, animals which are deemed by the lower orders to be non-productive or to be mere pets, like Perla or Pelliccia, are regarded as mere luxuries and the prerogative of the middle and upper classes, and are considered to be of little practical value by the lower orders. Peasants firmly believe that animals, especially dogs, have to be of use, practical, and have to earn their keep - ‘quando si doveva prendere un cane...era meglio prenderlo da caccia’ as the capoccia’s sons in Perla state, especially since she had been swapped for a ‘dozzina di carciofi’(p.20). Indeed, the superstitious peasants in Perla believe the pedigree, ‘cagnolina maltese’, lost by her distraught owner, the artillery-colonel, (who, ironically, offers a reward of four hundred lire for Perla) to be possessed when she performs one of her party-tricks and raises herself on her hind-legs, ‘per intenerire i nuovi padroni’(p.21) and consequently, her fate is sealed: ‘La povera Perla, sotto il nome di Pillàchera, già da tre giorni dormiva accanto alle radici d’un olivo, con la testa fracassata da un colpo di vanga’(p.23). Even in death, animals, like Perla, have to serve a purpose, such as fertilizing a tree, which is also the fate of the dog, Toppa, in L’oriolo col cucolo: ‘Morì di vecchiaia…ed ora si riposa sotto al ciliegio viscicolo delle ghiacciaie, dove Fiore lo sotterrò pietosamente, pensando che per due anni almeno lì non ci sarebbe stato bisogno di pecorino’(p.37). The only exception to this is Pelliccia who, after a hard, early life, is rescued from a similar fate (of being shot by her peasant owners and buried under an olive-tree) ‘noi s’era pensato di governare un olivo’(p.234) when purchased by her new, wealthy owners. Despite her earlier traumatic life, she lives out her final years in luxury, acting as a loving ‘nanny’ to the young, spoilt, padroncino who adores her and misses her when she is no longer there to gather up his stray toys. The difference in Pelliccia’s fate is in marked contrast to Perla’s:

‘Voglio Pelliccia! voglio Pelliccia!-

Ma Pelliccia non risponde più alla voce che lo chiama. Un piccolo marmo, all’ombra d’un abete del parco, ricorda il suo nome e narra in brevi parole la sua onesta e travagliata esistenza.’ (p.238).

Many lower-class characters have a great affection for their animals, especially for their dogs, some of which are kept as pets which is unsurprising, given that many at the time, earned their livelihood either by fishing, or by shooting for game. Being a keen huntsman, Fucini always owned good gun-dogs and we should also recall that dogs were kept by most families, regardless of their class, at this time. Consequently, dogs and other pets feature prominently in the novelle- the blind Nonno Damiano lives with his son Bobo and his grand-daughter Teresa and his loyal ‘decrepito cane’(p.159), the Matto delle giuncaie dotes on his dog, Moro, his sole companion in the world, and Il signor colonnello has his faithful dog, Ragù. As well as the dogs Perla and Pelliccia, Silvestro also tames and trains a pet blackbird in Il merlo di Vestro, the apple of his eye, before his luckless pet suffers its fate at the hands of the greedy clergy. This affection for pets, and especially for dogs, forms another sub-theme in Fucini’s novelle. Being a dog-lover, Fucini admired the complete, unselfish and undivided loyalty dogs give to their owners - as only a true dog-lover can appreciate. Cruelty to animals which are non-productive, however, appears to be acceptable to some of Fucini’s lower orders, as we see in Vermùtte’s undue haste and his needless harshness in whipping his old horse in L’eredità di Vermùtte as with the needless cruelty inflicted by the gamekeeper Gianni Cerri on his unfortunate working-dog Burrasca, in La fatta, which he kicks savagely for having picked up a false scent. However, the cruelty inflicted by the wealthy Lo Spagnolino in Primavera, who, on being rejected by his sweetheart, Gioconda, mindlessly and cruelly vents his rage on his mule and heifers by beating them soundly is excessive. Moreover, the cruelty of Don Paolo who, despite being a priest, deliberately blinds young chaffinches, in order to cage them, with the specific intention of attracting other birds to his hide and shot-gun, is referred to in Scampagnata, a practice which was eventually outlawed by the Italian State in 1902. We can conclude that despite Fucini’s own clear position regarding cruelty to animals, the attitude to animals among his lower orders and middle and upper-class characters is somewhat ambivalent but probably a realistic portrayal in keeping with Fucini’s faithful reproduction of the customs in rural Tuscany at the time.

2.3.6 Superstition and religious fervour of Fucini’s lower-class characters

As we have seen earlier in this chapter, many Tuscans from the lower orders Fucini encountered on his tours of inspection were superstitious. Given the long tradition of Etruscan pagan rites, it is unsurprising that Tuscany has one of the longest histories and traditions of superstition, witchcraft and witch-hunts of most other Italian regions. Indeed, superstition is still widespread in many parts of Tuscany, especially in rural Tuscany, even today. However, despite their superstition, many of Fucini’s characters in the novelle are devout and religious and, as we will see, occasionally, there is a curious blend of both superstition and religious fervour in some of his lower orders.

The general superstition of Fucini’s lower-class characters forms another main theme. In Perla, her new peasant owners, despite being extremely superstitious, believe the hapless dog to be possessed when they see her standing up on her hind-legs, to gain their sympathy, cannot wait for supper to end ‘per dire il rosario…di quindici poste’ and the capoccia’s wife insists that he takes the ‘ulivo benedetto’(p.21) which apart from being customary and orthodox religious practices, appear to be perceived by some members of the popolino to be both extra magical antidotes. The superstitious capoccia who orders Perla’s destruction, also endeavours to hedge his bets and receive communion, just to be on the safe side. It is ironic that the capoccia himself is despatched to the next world by the bite from a rabid dog, who appears to avenge Perla. However, his attempt at a death-bed confession is thwarted because, as we learn in the final lines, he was unable to receive the last rites, and according to Pasquale barrocciaio:‘ma quello lì, e giocherei la testa, è morto, Gesù ci liberi tutti, dannato!’(p.24).

The peasants in La strega are so superstitious that they fall for the mumbo-jumbo of the sly Baronto, a local charlatan, who acts as a primeval witch-doctor among the local peasantry. Their superstition has dire consequences for nonna Pelagia. Despite having a sick peasant-boy initially blessed by their local priest and after imploring the help of ‘Dio…e la beatissima Vergine’(p.243), and after having exhausted orthodox medicine and religious rituals, the peasants eventually resort to the services of Baronto. The latter, who lives off his wits and preys on the gullibility and superstition of the peasants, persuades them that Pelagia has bewitched the boy with the ‘malocchio’. He incites them to such a state of frenzy that he convinces them that the spell Pelagia has supposedly cast on the boy, can only be broken by forcing her to promise her soul to the devil. In failing to do this, out of ignorance and sheer frustration, they kill her. It is ironic to learn that before Pelagia is killed, the sly Baronto leaves the superstitious peasants with their sincere blessings ringing in his ears: ‘tenendo in braccio un fiasco d’aleatico e nel taschino del panciotto un foglio di dieci lire, se ne andava a pancia piena, accompagnato dalle benedizioni di tutta quella buona gente’(p.246). Note how Fucini often uses buono or buona ironically. The colonello in Perla also refers to the peasants as ‘queste buone creature’(p.23) in a clearly ironic sense.

In La pipa di Batone, the eponymous hero recalls the hard life of Agnese- ‘una buona creatura’. However, being superstitious, he adds: ‘ma si vede che era nata sotto cattiva luna’ - she married the blacksmith ‘Giacinto delle Morette che poi gli morì tisico: ma quando lo prese aveva fior di quattrini, salute da vendere e la bottega sempre piena, perché ferrava che, come lui, bisognava girare dimolte miglia’(p.56). However, Agnese’s oldest daughter, like many of Verga’s characters in his novelle who believe in fatalism and destiny, was also destined to suffer- ‘si vede che Gesù benedetto la volle visitare’ and died of dyptheria.

Unusually, and contrary to what one would expect, superstition is not limited entirely to the lower classes but is also present in some middle-class characters. Il Sor Pasquale in L’oriolo col cucolo becomes obsessed with his prized cuckoo-clock from Cutigliano market. Being superstitious, he is convinced that as soon as it stops ticking, he too, will die- almost like a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The superstitious Sor Cosimo, in Scampagnata, despite being reasonably educated, is equally convinced (but for no apparent rational explanation) that since the yields of his fruit harvest have fallen drastically in recent years, they must have been bewitched by some unknown, third party. Similarly, the schoolmaster in Il signor cappellano, despite being an educated man, is also superstitious believing all people with red hair to be, if not jinxed (like Verga’s Rosso Malpelo), at least, ‘sfortunati’: ‘Bene spese le sue carezze, lustrissimo, bene spese! Se sapesse che arnese è cotesto! Già è di pelo rosso, e tanto basta per…Ah, mi fai le boccacce! Ah, mi fai anche le boccacce, pezzo di galeotto!’(p.290).

Despite their abject poverty, hard and hum-drum lives, many of Fucini’s lower-class characters are described as being religious, pious or having a particular devotion to the Madonna. The Matto wishes to attach his voto to the Madonna del Rosario (p.15). Moreover, the capoccia in Perla heeds his wife’s advice to take ‘l’ulivo benedetto’(p.21) and insists on receiving the last rites, ironically, to little avail. The woodcutters in L’oriolo col cucolo are described by Fucini as singing while at their labours: ‘i boscaioli cantavano nella faggeta’(p.39) and are also pious, since on hearing the church-bell ring ‘l’avemmaria della sera’ they immediately fall to their knees, as we learn in the closing lines:

La sera di poi quando la campana della parrocchia sonava alle forre della montagna l’avemmaria della sera, il sole mandò i suoi ultimi raggi a riflettersi sulle fronti aduste e madide di sudore di un gruppo di boscaioli, che inginocchiati sui tronchi de’ faggi abbattuti, accanto alle loro scuri luccicanti, dicevano il primo De profundis all’anima benedetta del povero signor Pasquale.(p. 40).

Despite her bleak existence, the stonebreaker’s wife, who, even after having been blinded by a stray splinter from her husband’s hammer and having been reduced to begging for alms, is described thus:

il dottore non gli ha ordinato altro che carne e vino generoso. E ora passa le sue giornate sull’uscio seduta a chiedere la carità ai viandanti; ma da che hanno fatto la strada ferrata non passa quasi più nessuno, e spesso, dopo essersi accostata, mezza cieca, a chiedere l’elemosina a chi le viene incontro per chiederla a lei, vede andar sotto il sole senza aver fatto nè un centesimo nè un boccone di pane. Allora s’accuccia per abitudine accanto al fuoco spento, dove aspettando il marito e dicendo la corona s’addormenta (p.93).

Despite her abject poverty and wretched state, the pious stonebreaker’s wife remains devoted to the Madonna and still finds time to say her rosary.

Similarly, in Tornan di Maremma, the two shepherds waiting for Gianluca in order to intercept him and to spare him the shock of the tragic news of the death of his beloved, Giuditta, while in Maremma, as soon as they hear the bell of the Pieve ring ‘mezzogiorno’, instinctively remove their hats and recite the Angelus Domini (p.84).

Tigrino, the ‘padulano’ who, before his unfortunate shooting of the Brigadiere dei Carabinieri, had previously been a devout and practising Christian, and like the whole local community of padulani, attends the Ascension Day celebrations and the inevitable procession which recall similar scenes depicted in Silvestro Lega’s and Francesco Gioli’s paintings Passa il viatico and Francesco Gioli’s and Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo’s La Processione:

Alle undici le campane dettero il cenno che la processione usciva di chiesa. Tutti si alzarono cavandosi i cappelli, e i due carabinieri corsero solleciti a mettersi al loro posto, uno di qua e uno di là, a fianco del baldacchino. E il lungo corteggio d’incappati, di ragazze, di spose, di giovinotti e di vecchi, tutti, secondo il sesso e l’età, vestiti a festa e carichi di seta, di trine, di grandi vezzi di corallo e di larghe buccole d’oro, incominciarono a sfilare attraverso alla piazzetta e su per la strada delle colline, in mezzo alla folla che inginocchiata gli faceva ala.

Tigrino, inginocchiato anch’esso in mezzo al gruppo dei suoi amici, guardava commosso la bella gioventù che passava, e rispondeva con un lieve sorriso e con qualche breve parola agli accenni di saluto che gli venivano ora da questo ora da quello (pp.305-6).

However, after the fatal shooting of the Brigadiere, for which he is incarcerated, Tigrino is no longer a pillar of society, as the reader learns in the closing lines:

Da dieci anni Tigrino più non combina matrimoni e più non regge i figli dei suoi giovani amici al fonte battesimale della Pieve; non più il suo cuore generoso riporta la pace tra le famiglie in discordia, nè più la sua bella voce empie di racconti le lunghe veglie invernali. La sua casa pare la casa dei morti; e la gente che passa, volgendosi addolorata a quelle finestre chiuse e cadenti, o posando lo sguardo sopra una barca imporrata e capovolta sulla ripa, esclama, sospirando -

-Povero Tigrino! (pp.309-10).

Despite being blind and fully aware that his granddaughter, the sickly Teresa, his ‘ultima consolazione’, will probably predecease him, Nonno Damiano, one of Fucini’s most wretched vinti, is not bitter against his creator, but rather, as a devout believer, accepts his fate and God’s will unquestiongly and reasons thus: ‘Morire io prima di lei, non voglio per non lasciarla quasi sola nel mondo; morire lei prima di me, nemmeno; sarebbe troppo dolore!.

‘Dio, Dio onnipotente, sia fatta la tua volontà’(pp.163-64).

We will examine the reasons which may have influenced Fucini to introduce an element of religion and piety in his stories in Chapter Three.

2.3.7 The general exploitation of the lower orders by the middle classes

Another major theme is the general exploitation of the poor, and the often cruel and patronizing attitude towards the lower orders by the middle and the upper classes. Many of Fucini’s comfortably off, middle-class employers clearly regard their employees as disposable commodities. The stonebreaker, for example, is mercilessly exploited by the accollatario who pays him a starvation wage. As we will see later in this chapter, Fucini again alters the original information recorded in his school-inspector’s notebook and reduces the spaccapietre’s daily wage from novanta centesimi ‘lavorando assiduamente’ to ottanta, cinquanta, trenta and even venti centesimi, largely for dramatic effect. Like Marcello and Gian Luca in Tornan di Maremma, the stonebreaker also suffers from ‘il mal del povero’ and we are reminded that ‘la fame si ferma alla sua casa e lo veglia e l’assiste e non l’abbandona.’ We learn that his daughter died soon after she gave birth to his grandson, Gigino – ‘che era la sua consolazione. Ma anche quello il Signore lo volle per sè, perchè si vede che non lo credeva degno di tanta fortuna.’(p.92). We also learn that the stonebreaker’s wife was reduced to begging in order to supplement the meagre wage her husband earns, and when she was successful in begging a piece of bread, she would bring it to her husband:

e qualche volta, in tempo che lui mangiava, si metteva lei a spezzare, tanto per non perder lavoro. Una mattinaccia, in tempo che la su’ donna svoltava la pezzòla del pane, passò un signore in calesse che buttò via un mozzicone di sigaro acceso, il quale andò a cascare vicino al monte de’ sassi. La donna si chinò per raccattarlo e porgerlo al marito, e in quel tempo una scheggia d’alberese la colpì nell’occhio e l’accecò senza rimedio.(p.93).

Their medical-doctor, insensitively and impractically, prescribed ‘carne e vino generoso’ for her recuperation but this medicine, like that prescribed by an equally uncaring doctor, for Nonno Damiano’s Teresa, is simply beyond their means. The callousness and indifference of the doctor, the priest and the undertaker, foretold by the narrator, when the stonebreaker will eventually die: ‘accidenti a chi ti ci ha portato’(p.93) is a sad indictment of the middle classes towards another wretched Tuscan vinto, another Rosso Malpelo.

The veterinary-surgeon in La giovenca rossa, probably in collusion with Zeno, the butcher, is also quite capable of swindling the peasants by not paying them the full market-price for their prize red heifer when the unfortunate animal falls and breaks a leg. Similarly, Menico and Il Matto are also exploited by their respective masters - the former because he has no family of his own and has been a ‘willing-horse’ all his life, and, consequently, has always been ridden, the latter, because he has been imprisoned for manslaughter and has been unable to find gainful employment elsewhere. The middle classes, with very few exceptions - Il signor colonnello, the kindly priest in La maestrina and, to a lesser extent, Dottor Prospero, the medical-doctor in Tipi che spariscono, who cuts considerable corners in his very peremptory diagnoses, are generally portrayed by Fucini in an unfavourable light. Many are described as egotistical, greedy, avaricious, vain, petty, hypocritical, duplicitous, dishonest or corrupt, self-opinionated, nouveau-riche, snobbish, gossipy, back-stabbing, jealous, adulterous, pompous, and often lack professionalism and are callous or insensitive. There is little doubt that the doctor in Nonno Damiano, together with the doctor in Lo spaccapietre, who is described as leaving the wretched stonebreaker in agony –‘il medico, andando a suo comodo dopo la terza chiamata, lo troverà agonizzante’(p.93) are the most callous, unprofessional and insensitive of all Fucini’s doctors and, perhaps, of all his middle-class characters in his novelle. The former keen huntsman, Damiano, who is now blind, and his grand-daughter Teresa, while away the hours and the days, with the latter acting as Damiano’s eyes, looking out for any birds in flight. However, her advanced consumption, causes her to cough incessantly. Unable to afford the expensive medicine prescribed by the doctor, Damiano has to resort to cheaper, quack-remedies, prepared by a local hag, which the frail and anaemic Teresa cannot take:

‘-No, no!...Puzza…è amara…e mi fa vomitare. Non posso…perdonatemi, nonno, non posso!-

Il vecchio desolato, sospirava e guardava il cielo come se volesse pregare . Ma non sapeva che cosa chiedere ai suoi santi protettori.’ (p.163).

The story reaches its dramatic climax with Teresa dying in the arms of her inconsolable grandfather. There is a certain degree of symmetry with Nonno Damiano, Tigrino and Fucini’s first published bozzetto, Il Matto delle giuncaie, since all three stories are set in the Padule di Fucecchio and capture the melancholy nature of this wild area and include several dialect words such as ‘barchino’ (a type of punt), ‘forcino’ (a punt-pole), ‘bertuelli’ (wicker fish-traps), ‘palude’and especially dialect words used to describe the flora and the fauna of the area. Moreover, all three novelle end in tragedy, with the deaths of Il Matto, Teresa, the inevitable death of Damiano and Tigrino’s implicit death from a broken heart.

The callousness and indifference of the upper and middle classes are also well illustrated in Il castagno della casetta by the attitude of ‘Il signor Cavaliere, un grosso accollatario di strade ferrate, già muratore dozzinale e ora quattro volte milionario’ (p.283) who, on a mere whim, and to impress his friends, strives to buy up all the land in the vicinity, as far as the eye can see, including the land next to Romualdo’s hovel. He ignores Romualdo’s pleas (who previously, had been a wealthy landowner in his own right, until he was tricked out of his estate by middle-class confidence-tricksters, underlining just how susceptible all are to changes in fortune) to save the latter’s last remaining pleasure – enjoying the sun and fresh air in the shade of the large chestnut-tree outside his wretched hovel, where, because of his precarious health, he is forced to live out what little remains of his life. Despite having been informed that by re-drawing and reducing the boundary-line to his vast property by a mere ten centimetres, and despite having been warned by Romualdo’s doctor that any stress or shock could be fatal to him, the signor Cavaliere callously ignores all pleas and warnings and has the beautiful chestnut-tree felled. The reader is left to surmize, with what dire consequences for Romualdo:

‘A un tratto, un’onda di luce viva come un lampo inondò la stanza, la chioma del castagno sparì improvvisa agli occhi del vecchio, e, con la romba di una raffica temporalesca, andò scrosciando a sbacchiare sul suolo’ (p.287).

Similarly, in Il signor professore, we see just how fickle fortune can be and how a person’s circumstances can change rapidly in a relatively short time, and how some members of the middle classes, who profit most from the misfortunes of others, and who have good reason to be the most grateful, often show themselves to be selfish, materialistic and callous ingrates. At the beginning of the story we learn that Cecco d’Orsola has fallen on hard times, and in order to make ends meet, is reduced to making up the numbers, literally, by pretending to play a violin (despite being unable to play the instrument) in a humiliating fashion, having to suffer the jeers of his boorish fellow townsfolk, purely to spare the amour propre of the local orchestra director:

‘Il direttore d’orchestra, esasperato e piccato da un articolo del Sistro che metteva in ridicolo i suoi sette sonatori, chiamandoli i sette peccati mortali, volle aumentarne uno a tutti i costi e, per non spendere a farlo venire di fuori, non essendovene altri in paese, inventò la trappola di metter Cecco d’Orsola nel branco a fare da comparsa’ (p.226).

Despite an initial life of hard work which involved considerable sacrifice, Cecco and his wife were able to make ends meet:

Quando prese moglie, il guadagno sul quale poteva fare un certo assegnamento, montava a circa centocinquanta o dugento lire l’anno, che raspollava su su, portando lettere alle ville d’intorno, allevando nidiate di merli e d’usignoli, tosando cani e facendo la barba per un soldo ai contadini...

Finchè non vennero figlioli, fu per i due sposi una cuccagna…Fino al terzo figliolo, nessun cambiamento si notò nei costumi dei due coniugi…al quinto sparì la pipa; al sesto…al sesto, Cecco pensò seriamente ai casi suoi e aprì in un sottoscala una rivendita d’ogni cosa: pentoli, granate, ventole per il fuoco, salvadanari, trabiccoli per il letto, fiammiferi, ecc., ecc. Ma il commercio veramente remuneratore lo faceva di certe paste con gli anaci, di sua invenzione, che chiamava parigine, le quali, ogni mattina, andavano via a ruba fra i ragazzi delle scuole, a un centesimo l’una.(p.227).

Fucini probably based Cecco d’Orsola’s parigine on the, popular, aniseed-based, waffle-type sweets made at Lamporecchio, near Pistoia, known as Brigidini which are popular throughout Tuscany. Because of a fortunate error in preparing the impasto for his parigine, we learn that Cecco’s fortune was made:

‘Una mattina, avanti giorno, mentre preparava assonnato le sue parigine, sbadigliando, brontolando e impastando, sbagliò la qualità e la dose degli ingredienti. Invece di sale, ci buttò zucchero; invece di anaci, coriandoli.

Da quello sbaglio la sua fortuna.’(p.229).

Cecco’s life is transformed by this error, so much so that despite calling his brother to assist him with the marked increase in extra orders for his new creation, they are unable to keep up with the overwhelming demand for his parigine. After lengthy deliberation, ‘da buon toscani, amici sinceri del quieto vivere, e previdenti, annusata la tempesta che li minacciava, pensarono seriamente ai casi loro, e si misero al coperto prima che incominciasse a piovere più forte’(p.229), they decide to cut their losses and to sell the shop ‘allo Svizzero’(p.230). Ironically, the reader learns, in the closing lines, that among those in the audience mocking Cecco the most, the boorish ingrate who had profitted more than any other from the downturn in Cecco’s circumstances and who had made his own fortune in producing Cecco’s, new recipe, was, precisely:

-Professore, ben alzato.

-Ha riposato bene, professore? -

Fra quei giovanottacci della barcaccia v’era anche il figliolo di quel birbone dello Svizzero che a forza di parigine aveva comprato, in due anni, pezzo di figuro!, un bel cavallo, un bel calesse e una bella casa colle persiane, col giardino e ogni cosa! (p.230).

The middle classes also often exploit and patronize those whom they consider their social inferiors and show little consideration for those who are weaker, less protected, or less fortunate than themselves. The stonebreaker, the Matto and Menico are exploited by their social peers and some members of the professional classes, particularly accollatari, mayors and councillors, medical-doctors and priests, who are often insensitive and ignore the feelings of those for whom they are responsible. Many of Fucini’s middle-class characters appear to take themselves far too seriously, are self-opinionated (often with little justification) and appear to be aware of the minor peccadilloes of others, but are blissfully unaware of their own glaring faults - with their inflated self-pride and self-importance. Most of the mayors in Fucini’s stories, (many of whom are named Girolamo) are corrupt and vain and are mere big fish in little pools, often succumbing to the flattering and fawning of not only their sycophantic councillors and those for whom they are responsible in their communities, but also for the dubious and obsequious flattery of the family of three charlatans, as is the case with the gullible and vain mayor, signor Girolamo, who falls for the potential promise of ‘un cavalierato’ by the sly, charlatan ‘il signor’ Fabio in Passaggio memorabile:

‘Quella è una famiglia che io la vedrei dimolto volentieri stabilirsi qui. Che bravo’uomo! che testa dev’essere quella!...Hai sentito, Carlotta, m’ha dato due o tre volte di cavaliere!...Ma che ci sia qualche cosa alle viste per me, e lui l’abbia già risaputo da quel su’amico di Roma?!...Glie l’hai messo il piumino bono?’ (p.120).

The glaring faults of Fucini’s middle-class characters, especially their assumed airs and graces, vanity and amour propre, ignorance, exaggerated local-pride, rivalry, campanilismo, ignorance and general gullibility, clearly indicate that Fucini displays a general prejudice in favour of the under-dog in his stories. Fucini appears to be convinced that the middle classes, especially mayors and councillors who ultimately, are in control, have the responsibility and duty of care for those who elected them to office. When things go wrong (as they often do and largely as a result of their incompetence), the reader senses that Fucini intends they should take the blame when they allow the inhabitants in their care to be taken advantage of – whether this takes the form of being fleeced by the three charlatans in Passaggio memorabile, to the tune of ‘senza contare i regali di vestiario usato…centonovantasette lire e venticinque centesimi’(p.120), or competing with petty rivalry and campanilismo with other local rival comuni as in Il monumento, La visita del Prefetto and La fonte di Pietrarsa. In the latter story, by not agreeing on how best to settle the problem of harnessing the much needed water from a nearby torrent, the mayor, (another sor Girolamo) and his councillors, open themselves and the inhabitants of Pietrarsa to ridicule. Indeed, the torrent itself, assumes a quasi-human, even an anthropomorphic quality, in being untamed and unharnessed and almost appears to mock the mayor, councillors and inhabitants of Pietrarsa in the knowledge that:

‘nelle sere d’agosto, quando le fronde dormono raggrinzite sui rami, e le cicale stesse tacciono spossate, è un gran conforto all’arsura lo scroscio della cascata che, larga e perenne, rumoreggiando si perde nelle profondità del dirupo’ (p.185).

The ruling classes and particularly mayors and councillors, are also responsible for allowing humiliation and scorn to fall on the communities for which they have a duty of care, as in La fatta and, more seriously, when they fall for the savage April Fool’s hoax played on them by the inhabitants of a nearby rival town (near Sovigliana) in La visita del Prefetto. In La fonte di Pietrarsa, moreover, the lower-class inhabitants of Pietrarsa ‘un piccolo borgo con quattrocento abitanti circa’(p.181) almost riot when they realize that the original site for the fountain is initially destined to be located in the very centre of town: ‘Sempre ogni cosa per comodo dei signori! La fontana nel mezzo eh? Perchè nel mezzo ci sta il sindaco, tre assessori e quel porcone del sor Girolamo! Bene, eh?’(p.182). A humble ‘ombrellaio ambulante’(p.184) appears to have more common sense than the whole giunta comunale, put together, when he suggests the construction of three modest fountains rather than one single lavish one. Similarly, Beppe the modest oste del Cervo d’Oro, in Il monumento, has clearly done his sums more accurately than the mayor and all his councillors who, seeing their original lavish plans to raise a statue in honour of their ‘illustre concittadino’ come to nothing, decide to embezzle the subscription funds and to blow the lot on a fine ‘cena da Beppe’, however, as we learn in the concluding lines:

‘Ma una mezz’ora dopo, Beppe…il quale aveva fatto meglio i suoi conti, mandò un ragazzo a dire al presidente che scorciassero la minuta o allungassero il prezzo, perchè lui, per cinque lire a testa, tutta quella roba non gliela poteva dare’ (p.213).

As we have seen at the beginning of this chapter, Fucini had bitter recollections when he lost his job when the Comune of Florence, under the leadership of Ubaldino Peruzzi, was bankrupted. This event became etched in Fucini’s memory and may well have prejudiced him against mayors and councillors generally, since all the mayors and councillors who feature in his novelle are, invariably, potrayed in an unfavourable light. Consequently, Fucini could be accused of being biased against this section of the ruling classes. However, we should recall that many Florentines were of the opinion that Peruzzi’s ‘governo di destra’ was corrupt and riddled with nepotism and clientelismo. Moreover, many Florentines, especially Garibaldini like Fucini, were angry and frustrated at seeing their capital transferred to Rome and were equally disillusioned at many of the unfulfilled promises made by pro-Risorgimento politicians. We should also recall that at the time Fucini was writing his novelle, Italian mayors and their councillors held considerable power- they could appoint elementary-school teachers (until the Legge Dondi was passed in 1911) as we see in La maestrina and in Il signor cappellano, and in Tuscany, they also had the power to appoint medici condotti (panel-doctors) as we see in Passaggio memorabile. Clearly evidence exists to suggest that on occasions, this power was abused, so Fucini’s portrayals of contemporary giunte comunali may not be biased but were, in fact, more accurate than might at first appear to the modern reader. Fucini is also making one of his veiled criticisms of Italian post-Unification society and its institutions, which we will examine further in Chapter Three.

2.3.8 Fucini’s anticlericalism

With three notable exceptions, Fucini is invariably anticlerical in all his representations of members of the clergy in his novelle. Many members of the Tuscan clergy at the time, did not enjoy an entirely favourable reputation. This attitude to the clergy is, perhaps, hardly surprising, given Fucini’s (and his father David’s) Liberal, or to be more precise, ‘Garibaldino’, political views, which in the pursuit of their Risorgimento and unification goals and ideals would, automatically, make them anticlerical. Bargellini points out that some members of the clergy in Tuscany, at the time, did not take their religious duties too seriously - some took too great an interest in hunting, shooting and fishing, whilst others had a fondness ‘per il fiasco e le carte’. The insinuations on the part of ‘le male lingue’ of the close relationship between a priest and his house-keeper (invariably referred to as ‘La Perpetua’ by Tuscans, even to this day) were not uncommon in parts of Tuscany at the time. Indeed, in Primavera, Maso, who was deeply in love with the beautiful Gioconda, who was so greatly desired and courted by all, that even the local priest was not insensitive to her considerable charms:

‘Dio avrà perdonato a Maso la profanazione, perchè anche il povero priore morto non credeva di far male quando voltandosi al Dominus vobiscum, guardava il cielo, il viso di Gioconda, e riportava puri i suoi occhi sulla mistica mensa’(p.70)

however, knowing Fucini’s anticlericalism, the phrase is clearly ironic.

Since the gluttonous clergy in Il merlo di Vestro have a particular fondness for roast fowl, they, like their greedy clerical colleagues in Scampagnata, are very keen on snaring birds in their uccelliera. They almost eat the naïve, but staunchly religious, Vestro out of house and home and drink him dry of his special ‘vinsanto vecchio’ and leave the floor of his shop strewn with ‘gusci di ballotte biasciate’. Vestro, who is initially described as one who ‘schizzava dalla contentezza trovandosi in mezzo ad un elemento così omogeneo ai suoi principii ultracattolici’ is exploited by the clergy, but even the lavish hospitality he extends to his clerical guests is brought to an abrupt end when he realizes that his pet blackbird has been stolen and sacrificed by one of his greedy clerical friends to sate the Gargantuan appetites of the clerics. The political transformation in Vestro, is remarkable - the formerly devout, ‘ultracattolico’, becomes a staunch supporter of Garibaldi and a firm opponent of Pope Leo XIII. An undercurrent of pro-Garibaldino propaganda gently pervades the story.

The clergy in Scampagnata are even worse. They are described as having little interest in life other than hunting and snaring birds, so that they can line their stomachs and overindulge. Don Paolo, Signor Cosimo’s brother, is described by the latter as ‘un bell’originale…un brontolone!…soffre tanto di mal di stomaco e, con rispetto, d’un vespaio che ha qui’ who, like the Piovano in Il merlo di Vestro, seems to be inordinately preoccupied with snaring birds in his nets, rather than taking an interest in his flock, and his brother’s guest, the narrator. Indeed, he is rude to him, asking him banal and unanswerable questions: ‘O il priore di San Gaggio ne piglia quest’anno, ne piglia?...Dice che padre Lorenzo della Santissima Annunziata che non sta punto bene. Che è vero?’ that he states ‘O dunque, o che non sa nulla lei?’ and, after enquiring when lunch is served, goes off to inspect his bird-nets. On a guided tour of his house by the proud signor Cosimo, the reader learns that in a room, dedicated specially to the abhorrent practice, the Cappellano cruelly ‘mette in chiusa i fringuellotti da accecarsi’(p.136). How a man in Holy Orders can reconcile this barbaric practice with his conscience, beggars belief. We also learn that other members of the clergy take their religious duties very lightly –‘bisogna far presto, perché la messa cantata dell’undici la dice il Proposto delle Sièpole che è il Dio della furia’. The ‘Proposto’, prete Filippo, in Fra due litiganti, also rushes through celebrating Mass so that he can beat his priestly rival, Don Fioravante, and be the first on the scene to shoot the brace of woodcock which have recently been sighted near La Carbonaia (p.330). Rushing the celebration of Mass, the greatest privilege accorded to a priest, is a terrible indictment of Don Paolo (who is based on a real-life character) and his clerical colleagues. We also learn that Don Paolo, nicknamed ‘Cotenna’, constantly overindulges and drinks to excess, to such an extent, he often has to be cured of indigestion, especially ‘di cacio salato e baccelli’ (p.140) by the local doctor.

The thumb-nail sketch given to the narrator by his friend, the medico condotto, is an indictment of the local clergy, in general:

Vedi quello che celebra? È un certo proposto delle Sièpole. Teologo profondo, negoziante d’olio, confessore delle monache, mangiatore strepitoso e gran protettore delle molte sue nipoti. Non mi vuol bene, ma mi tollera dopo che lo curai d’una indigestione di cacio salato e baccelli…E quello che gli sta alla destra,…è il suo Cappellano, il quale mi fa una guerra accanita, spargendo nel contado che sono un eretico, perché rifiutai di fargli un certificato falso di malattia. Credo che fra loro non se la dicano molto per

ragioni di nepotismo però non si lasciano mai; e l’occupazione del Cappellano, quando seguita il principale, è d’annacquargli i moccoli. A ogni primiera ammazzata, il Proposto, un giuraddio! e il cappellano un bacco. E così vanno avanti, salvando l’apparenza e l’anima; ma il Proposto qualche volta la crede una umiliazione e se n’ha per male, e lo rimprovera; e, allora nella stizza, gli scivolan giù i perdii come chicchi di corona sfilati [the image is clearly ironic]; e il Cappellano coi suoi bacco, bacco ripara a tutto, impassabile alle minacce e pronto al martirio piuttosto che cedere. E il primo cacciatore di lepre dei dintorni e giuocatore di briscola da sfidare la piazza. I popolani l’adorano perché dice la messa in dieci minuti, confessa a maniche larghe, e a chi gli fa de’ soprusi, legnate da olio santo.(p.141).

This is also an indictment of the local inhabitants who prefer the worldly ways of the other clergy, with their glaring faults, because it suits them, compared with the‘pretino spicciolo.’ We also learn that Don Paolo has a serious alcohol problem and is the

worse for drink almost daily. Similarly, even though Il signor cappellano is a temporary, substitute school-master (the previous incumbent having left the Comune

in the lurch, as we learn at the beginning of the story): ‘il maestro titolare’ had found a better position and, at very short notice, ‘aveva piantato baracca e burattini, e s’era voltato altrove a fare il proprio interesse. Buon viaggio e buona fortuna’(p.288), is described as a cane-happy, gout-ridden, sadist who endeavours to maintain discipline among his unruly boys by hitting them with ‘tre lunghi vergoni di castagno’ of varying length ‘che egli aveva a portata di mano appoggiati al muro dietro le spalle’(p.291) so that he can strike the boys, in three separate rows. Even allowing for conditions in nineteenth-century Tuscany, his behaviour, was clearly unacceptable. The cappellano was transferred from his teaching-post to ensure he had no further contact with young boys. The reader is not surprised to learn of his new calling in life in the closing lines:

Qualche mese dopo, lo rividi in una città di questo mondo, mentre zoppicando e berciando, teneva dietro a un mortorio. Accompagnandolo con lo sguardo addolorato, pensavo - Anche lui, povero diavolo, ha trovato il suo equilibrio. Nato per le opere di misericordia, non essendo riuscito ad insegnare agli ignoranti, s’è dato a seppellire i morti. Meglio per lui; guadagnerà di più, e i clienti beneficati dal suo cuore non verranno mai, coi pugni caldi e serrati, a chiedergli vendetta dei benefizi ricevuti. (p.292).

Fortunately, not all members of Fucini’s clergy are as bad as those depicted here, there are a few rare exceptions in Scampagnata:

Quel cosino magro dalla parte di qua è uno de’ cosìddetti preti spiccioli; è un buon figliolo, povero in canna, che con una salute da far pietà s’arrabatta a tirarsi avanti con una sorella vecchia e due nipotini che educa e istruisce da sé, facendo da maestro, da zio e da babbo; e intanto s’aiuta con altri quattro o cinque scolarucci che può raccapezzare a una lira il mese, e campa non si sa come, mantenendosi, nella sua miseria, illibata la reputazione di cittadino onorato e di sacerdote esemplare. E quel che più monta, egli, rara avis, non invoca la maledizione di Dio sulla sua patria. In paese, come è facile a capirsi, non se ne occupano, o lo rammentano con disprezzo (p.141),

together with the Pievano (‘tiratore di beccaccini insuperabile’ p.306) who assists Tigrino when his son Il Bimbo, is arrested. (p.308). Nor should we forget the parroco in La maestrina ‘che, sotto una cotenna di rozzezza alta tre dita, era in fondo il solo buon diavolo, il solo uomo di cuore che vestisse panni in quei dintorni, mosso a pietà per quella infelice, la chiamò un giorno e le tenne un lungo discorso pieno di affetto e giudiziosi consigli’ (p.171) who warned Luisa of the risk she was running by lodging with La Belloni and Gigiotto. When the inevitable occurs, he avoids a potential scandal and attenuates Luisa and Gigiotto’s shame by marrying them in secret.

2.3.9 The faults of Fucini’s lower-class characters

Fucini endeavours to strike a balance and to be fair and objective in his portrayal of lower-class characters in his novelle since he shows that they, too, are not without their faults. He describes them as being passionate and often allowing their passions to cloud their judgement and to dominate their often unpredictable behaviour. They are often violent and are even capable of manslaughter and murder as we have seen in Il Matto delle giuncaie, Sereno e nuvole, La strega, and Tigrino. The padulani cruelly ostracize the Matto and amuse themselves by shooting at him and abandon him to a lonely death. Rosalba and her husband take Lucia in off the streets, since, like Verga’s Lucia, in Pane Nero, she also has to keep body and soul together, however, unlike Verga’s Lucia, who succumbs to Don Venerando’s advances, for financial gain (in order to obtain the ‘venti onze di dote’ which Brasi has insisted on, in order to marry her), Fucini’s Lucia, loses her virginity when the peasant Tonio rapes her. She is exploited mercilessly by Rosalba and her husband who abuse her both verbally and physically, and are more interested in the safe return of their precious goat, Bianchina, worth a full ‘dodici lire’(p.26) than Lucia’s fate. The reader learns that Lucia was adopted by two peasants on being orphaned, but there were reasons for their philanthropy:

La madre ed il fratello erano così da lei chiamati, ma non erano tali. L’avevano allevata e tenuta cara finché l’Ospizio dei Trovatelli passò loro quindici lire al mese; dopo, con un tozzo di pane ed un paio di scarpe nuove, le insegnarono la strada, e serrandole dietro la porta:- Dio t’accompagni, bambina mia!- e Lucia scese al piano; ed ora fila, guida le capre alla pastura e guarda quei monti lontani (pp.22-26).

The lower classes are often violent - the scheming and mercenary La Belloni is violent to her son Gigiotto in La maestrina. Pierone who is killed in Sereno e nuvole, is also violent to his father (he kicks him) and Vermùtte half jokingly, threatens to beat his wife in L’eredità di Vermùtte and Gosto, in Tipi che spariscono, who, on being restored to full health, by dottor Prospero, actually does beat his wife regularly:

‘Gosto, è superfluo dirlo, si ristabilì perfettamente in una quindicina di giorni; e ora, prima Dio e poi il dottor Prospero, ha già ricominciato a dare certe legnate alla moglie, che anche lei non fa altro che dire di quella gran bella salute’.(p.257).

In Lo spaccapietre we should recall that his grandson died as a result of the blows inflicted on him by a farmer who used excessive force to protect his precious cherries: ‘Sopraggiunse…gridando da lontano; il bambino, per scendere presto, cadde; si fece male a una gamba, non potè fuggire e fu mezzo massacrato dal contadino che lo raggiunse’. Violence and cruelty to one’s fellow-man appear to have been fairly widespread in the Tuscan contado at the time: ‘Parte per lo spavento, parte per le percosse, dopo quindici giorni gli morì di convulsioni, che tutti non fecero altro che dire <Peccato>! perché delle creature belle in quella maniera non era tanto facile vederne’(p.92). This apparent indifference by the lower classes to Gigino’s death, could imply that life was held cheaply by them, and might appear somewhat callous to the modern reader, but was not unusual among the poor at the time, since, apart from there being one less mouth to feed, it was thought that the child would be spared a hard life - this reaction is noted by Fucini in his notebook: ‘Chi campa campa di bambini e non ci hanno cura perchè tanto vanno in paradiso’ and the sentiment is incorporated in Lo spaccapietre.

Several of Fucini’s lower-class characters, moreover, have fairly basic instincts and primitive passions - they are often jealous (like Verga’s jealous Jeli il pastore who kills don Alfonso when he sees him embracing la Mara) and often lose control of their tempers which can lead to murder, (La strega), manslaughter (Tigrino) and Sereno e nuvole in which Pierone is killed by his jealous love-rival, Cecco, and Il Matto delle giuncaie, or suicide (Pipetta’s) in Fiorella. The idle Gigiotto, who is abetted by his money-grabbing mother, La Belloni, schemes to get her son to impregnate La maestrina, in order to get their hands on her annual salary of seven hundred lire. The goatherd Lucia is lured into a trap and is brutally raped by the ‘ruvido Tonio’. Vermùtte in L’eredità di Vermùtte is so blinded by the money he might inherit from a wealthy, albeit a distant, relative and is so insanely jealous of a faithful maid-servant who might also inherit, thereby depriving him of a part of what he considers his sole inheritance, that he threatens violence, and even death, against her.

Other lower-class characters are so avaricious and inordinately violent, that two unnamed characters in Questione d’interessi, fight tooth and nail, almost to the point of murdering each other, over: ‘Il cavallo del fattore, passando pochi minuti avanti, aveva lasciato in mezzo alla strada un discreto mucchio di quel che i cavalli sogliono lasciare in mezzo alle strade’(p.239). Even though horse-droppings are a valuable fertilizer, most would consider it to be an inappropriate use of force to fight and to risk life and limb over mere manure, as the two reduce themselves to in the closing lines of the bozzetto:

‘E si azzuffarono e si avvoltolarono in un diluvio di botte così furibonde, che, poche ore dopo, il medico ricuciva e incerottava la testa d’uno di quei disgraziati, e i carabinieri portavano in prigione quell’altro, mezzo sciancato e pieno di lividi’(p.240).

Similarly, the two blind beggars, Lilli and Tonto, in Castore e Polluce, almost kill each other fighting over one sole coin which, ironically, it transpires, is obsolete, anyway. They are so avaricious that they also almost kill each other fighting over one single sausage. In this story ‘Castore si chiamava Lilli, Polluce si chiamava Tonto’, Fucini emphasizes their poverty- most would consider it a personal tragedy to be blind or to have a member of one’s family who is blind, however, the avaricious inhabitants of Sterpaia, who are only concerned with money and ekeing out an existence, at any cost, deem it a considerable financial advantage, indeed, even a blessing, to have ‘il cieco in casa’: ‘Due famiglie fortunate! Lo dicevano tutti, in paese e nei dintorni:-

Eh, a quella gente gli affari vanno bene! Loro hanno il cieco in casa, e un bel pezzo di ciccia in pentola, la domenica non manca mai’ (p.293).

Similarly, Cerbone in Tigrino, risks his life while searching frantically for forty lire when his hovel catches fire, and had not Tigrino rescued him, he would certainly have perished in the blaze. On the Matto’s return from working in Maremma, the unfortunate man realizes that his betrothed, the materialistic and ambitious Stella, has had her head turned by another love-rival: ‘L’interesse, capisce, l’interesse! Gli venne fra’ piedi quell’altro infame a fargli vedere una casuccia e qualche cento di scudi, e quell’aguzzino di vecchio’(p.14) recalling ‘Peppa, una delle più belle ragazze di Licodia’ in Verga’s L’amante di Gramigna, who was similarly betrothed to Candela di sego, and was due to marry him ‘giusto per Santa Margherita’ until, she too, changed her mind, with disastrous consequences.

The lower classes are also quite capable of swindling other members of their own class such as Zeno macellaro, in La giovenca rossa, who (probably, in collusion with the veterinary-surgeon) profits from the dire circumstances in which the peasants find themselves, only paying them a fraction of the true value of their heifer, while being fully aware that this will bring financial ruin to the family. Fucini’s lower classes often have to live off their wits and have to use their country cunning and keep their eyes wide open to the main chance, in order to survive, as we see with Pelliccia’s original owner, the contadino, who is on his way to shoot the dog. On being asked by the wealthy signori how much he wants for Pelliccia?, slyly replies: ‘mi dia quello che vuole. Il contadino, con la prontezza che hanno per il calcolo a loro vantaggio quelle volpi mascherate da polli, [my italics] aveva subito riflettuto che a non chiedere ci avrebbe guadagnato, e rimase al <mi dia quello che vuole> e si mise a fare carezze al cane che intenerito gli saltava addosso, uggiolando’ (p.235).

With such a description the reader is occasionally prompted to consider whether the narrator’s view of the contadino could be indicative of Fucini’s real view of the lower orders, especially of agricultural workers. Conversely, the reader may be unduly harsh on the narrator, or on Fucini, for providing an accurate description of what is a common characteristic or trait of agricultural workers- country cunning- peasants do need country cunning in order to survive. This is especially true when we compare the glowing description of the Tuscan farming-system the ‘colonnello di artiglieria’(p.22), extols, on thinking he will soon be reunited with his beloved dog in Perla:

‘In un trasporto d’allegrezza il Colonnello abbracciò Pasquale [a humble carter]; gli parlò dell’affezione di sua figlia per la piccola Perla e dello stato di disperazione nel quale da tre giorni si trovava; lodò il sistema toscano della mezzerìa e parlò con entusiasmo dell’indole mite e de’ costumi semplici e patriarcali de’ nostri contadini’ (p.22).

However, the colonel soon changes his mind and refers to the capoccia and his fellow peasants as ‘buone creature’, with deliberate and bitter irony, that is described as ‘angosciosa’, when he discovers Perla’s fate at their hands and is merely reduced to uttering:‘Queste buone creature!...esclamò…con angosciosa ironia,- queste buone creature!-e stringendo convulsamente il portafogli, tornò frettoloso alla vettura’(p.23).

Note how Fucini builds up the suspense in his story since it is only in the final lines that the reader is informed of Perla’s fate. It is also possibile that Fucini uses the colonel’s words as a reflection of or even a mouthpiece for the common contemporary perception of the lower orders by the middle and upper classes, who appear to have held the popolino at a distance and kept them firmly in their place. There are a few instances in the novelle where Fucini appears to be going against the status quo and depicts the lower orders in a favourable light, often by using irony, which at times can be subtle, and at others, quite corrosive. Further examples of Fucini’s support for the lower classes will be referred to as they occur in this and the following chapters.

The charlatans in Passaggio memorabile, and especially Lilli and Tonto in Castore e Polluce, are also sly, hypocritical, and self-centered, and being extremely materialistic, are primarily, only motivated by making money at the expense of the gullible. Like their middle and upper-class counterparts, a few of the lower orders are also selfish and insensitive to the misfortunes of others, as we see with their indifference to the manslaughter of Pierone in Sereno e nuvole and the general callousness of the inhabitants of the ‘borghetto di Sterpaia’ in Castore e Polluce. Some lower-class characters are also petty and indulge in gossip which can have tragic consequences in some stories, for example, the general ostracizing of the maestrina when the villagers incorrectly speculate that she has fallen pregnant. Gossip and rumour can also quickly get out of control, as Fucini beautifully describes in La fatta:

All’or di notte tutto il paese era al fatto dell’accaduto. La serva del Cavaliere l’aveva detto con segretezza, dalla finestra sulla corte, all’ortolana; e l’ortolana l’aveva detto, come in confessione, al suo marito, il quale, dopo dieci minuti, l’aveva fatto risapere a bassa voce nella calzoleria del Nardini, che quella sera appunto era più zeppa del solito dei medesimi fannulloni freddolosi, seduti in giro al braciere di rame coi capi abbassati su quello a mescolare il fumo e lo sfriggolìo delle loro pipe lerce di gruma.

Di lì partì la bomba; e un quarto d’ora dopo non v’era anima viva, dallo zoppo di Lacchie al Sindaco, e da Melevizze al signor Piovano, che non s’occupasse seriamente della cosa (p.44).

They are also often very prone to back-biting – the phrase Fucini uses to describe La Biagiotta in La fatta, is very typical: ‘Che v’hanno fatto, postino?- domandò la Biagiotta che a sentir male del prossimo ci stava con più devozione che alla messa cantata.’(p.48).

Non Mai, Non Mai! is a particularly interesting story because the reader is presented with two groups of children, at both ends of the social spectrum, coming together, albeit at what is an enforced and essentially, ‘artificial’, occasion. The padroncino, the handicapped son of a wealthy landowner, whose father employs the parents of the peasant children, is confined to a wheelchair. The sickly boy is permitted by his doctor to take the air, annually, each April, and sees the peasant children on this sole occasion:

Erano i ragazzi dei contadini, i quali, fatti avvisare dalla padrona, s’erano radunati lì, in quel sereno e tepido pomeriggio d’aprile, ad aspettare il padroncino minore che, anche quell’anno, per la prima volta, dopo una rigida invernata, fra poco sarebbe uscito, col permesso del medico, a respirare l’aria della campagna, adagiato nel suo doloroso carrozzino col mantice di tela bianca.(p.200).

The reader is not informed whether the children have been asked by the boy’s mother to meet her son at their annual incontro- she has, doubtless, alerted them that he will be coming to see them, although, one may ask whether the parents of the peasant children interpret this as a ‘command’ from their padrone. However, the peasants know they will receive sweets and white-wine from their young friend, which he distributes liberally:

-Mamma, li hai presi i dolci per i miei amici?

-Sì, figliolo mio.

-e il vino bianco?

-anche quello- (p.200).

The thought could cross the mind of the more cynical reader that the offerings of sweets and white-wine to the children could be interepreted as ‘bribes’ for his friends, who are socially beneath his elevated and privileged position. It is also possible that the idea of distributing sweets and wine to the children could have been the initiative of the padroncino’s mother. One also wonders how often the two social classes meet throughout the rest of the year, if at all, apart from on this one occasion. However, it should be recalled, that because of the young boy’s frail health, he is only permitted to take the air by his doctor on one occasion annually. Just as one wonders whether the peasant children respond to the wishes, or rather, to the playful ‘commands’ of the padroncino, to play energetically in front of him, more out of respect for his social standing, being the son of their fathers’ employer, rather than out of any true sympathy for his sorry physical condition:

‘E ora rallegratemi,- chiese il pallido giovinetto –rallegratemi con la vostra allegria. Correte, saltate…Sì, sopra tutto, saltate. Saltate quella fossa, rampicate su quegli alberi, fate a chi primo arriva in fondo al prato, correte dietro alle farfalle e gridate…gridate forte, chè qui, all’aria aperta, le vostre grida non mi dànno noia’ (p.201).

This view could be considered to be unduly cynical by some, however, the thought has been skilfully orchestrated by Fucini to cross the mind of the attentive reader. Fucini then adds one of his typical details or pennellate, (descriptive brushstrokes as Verga referred to them and admired so much in Fucini’s work, as we will see in Chapter Four), which gives the reader considerable food for thought:

‘I ragazzi, aggruppati fuori del cancello in fondo al viale, si erano levati involontariamente il cappello, avevano cessato come per incanto dai loro strilli e guardavano.’ (p.200).

By describing this spontaneous, almost instinctive reflex-action of the peasant children, Fucini could be making the point that, despite the tumultuous upheaval which took place during the Ottocento to unite Italy, little if anything had changed among the lower orders of society- no matter how much the lines which divide the social classes in his era are relaxed, on this rare, annual occasion, the old hierarchy, social order and the status quo, will always remain. Fucini, is, perhaps, also endeavouring to reinforce the idea that, given the clearly defined social classes in his generation, peasants and their children will always know their place and will automatically remove their hats (and touch their forelocks) when in the presence of their social superiors. This does not imply Fucini is unaware that the social order should change, nor that he was uncommitted to seeing change in the social fabric which had, hitherto, permitted some of the lower classes, like the spaccapietre, Fiorella, the Matto, Menico, the battello, Tigrino and others, to be exploited by the middle and upper classes. However, one senses a certain degree of nostalgia in Fucini’s stories, a nostalgia which leads one to conclude that he, like the Macchiaioli artists, although working in another medium, were aware that this very rigid, hierarchical order was slowly disappearing as the Ottocento gradually drew to a close. Fucini might also be reinforcing the view that wealth is not everything, especially without health. How dearly would the padroncino trade places with the peasant children so that, he too, could run and jump like them. However, for all his wealth and elevated social position, not many, if any, of the peasant children would be willing to trade places with the sickly boy.

Fucini might also be making the point that despite their considerable hardships, the lower orders are happy, and might, perhaps, be even happier than their social superiors. This brings us to another theme, in several of Fucini’s stories - the fact that despite their considerable hardships, many of Fucini’s lower-class characters (and even some formerly middle and upper-class characters who have since, fallen on hard times, such as Nonno Damiano, Cecco d’Orsola in Il professore and Signor Romulado in Il castagno della casetta) appear to be if not happy, or quite content, at least reasonably satisfied with their lot in life. Fucini’s lower-class characters do not share the spirit of fatalism and of inevitable and cruel fate, the ‘il quel che deve essere sia’, which is prevalent in some of Verga’s lower-class characters in his novelle. In Il Matto delle giuncaie, the narrator observes ‘i padulani vivono felici in quell’ambiente mefitico, nella loro povertà’(p.10). In Fiorella, the narrator meets Pipetta and the young shepherdess, Fiorella, who live, near Serravalle, in the Appennino Pistioese. They are extremely poor and lead hard lives, tending their flock of sheep, yet the narrator notices and comments: ‘Son contenti, poveri ragazzi! – pensai fra me dando un’ultima occhiata al tetto verdastro delle loro casette accucciate fra gli ontani.- Sono felici ! - E ripetendomi in mente queste parole, me ne tornai passo passo a casa.’(p.97). Unlike Verga’s wealthy and self-made Mazzarò, in La roba, Menico does not work for himself but for a padrone, il fattore Ippolito, ‘vecchio merlo, ammaestrato da sessant’anni d’esperienza, ne aveva subito adocchiato la qualità della carne e la quadratura delle spalle’(p.214) who exploits that ‘core vergine di animale da lavoro’(p.215) mercilessly. Menico probably realizes he has been constantly exploited by Ippolito, yet he is neither bitter nor resentful but rather, takes a considerable pride in being selected to take on the most arduous of duties:

ogni volta che si presentava l’occasione d’un lavoro aspro e delicato: -Ditelo a Menico…Ma per Menico erano trionfi. Un soldato valoroso che si sente chiamare per nome dal suo capitano nei momenti di maggior pericolo, poteva aprire il core all’orgoglio come lo apriva quel vigoroso ragazzo, quando il fattore diceva: -Chiamate Menico (p.214).

Despite not owning any personal wealth, or ‘roba’, like Mazzarò, Menico is able to look at the fruits of his labours and is able to reflect on and take pride in what he has achieved during his long and arduous life:

Dov’è quella bella strada carreggiabile, sessant’anni fa era un abisso di frane scoscese. Lui ci lavorò. Quei bei vigneti sulla costa di levante erano, trent’anni addietro, desolate prunicce, dove un grillo sarebbe morto di fame. Lui ci lavorò. Quella bella costa tutta a viti scelte e a fruttami, che è la delizia di chi la vede, lui la piantò, lui fece tutti gl’innesti e quando fu finita, il padrone vecchio, bon’anima, gli regalò una bella cacciatora usata e gli disse: -Bravo! (p.215).

However, at the end of the story, when Menico eventually dies, despite being poor and owning very little, he is at peace with the world and can leave this world without resentment at losing what he has taken a lifetime to work for, unlike the wretched Mazzarò, in La roba, who, despite a lifetime of hard work, sacrifice and accumulation of personal wealth and ‘roba’, cannot reconcile himself to the fact that he cannot take his worldly goods with him on his final journey, as he chases his ducks with a stick, shouting out, rather tragically, ‘roba mia vientene con me’.

Similarly, il signor Romualdo in Il castagno della casetta, despite having been formerly a wealthy man in his own right, and despite having been duped out of his fortune by ‘una folla di trucconi’, also accepts his considerable change in fortune and his fate stoically, but unlike Don Piddu in I Galantuomini, does not rage, furiously, he is content with his lot and takes delight in nature and, particularly, in his pride and joy, his splendid chestnut-tree.

In the main, in Fucini’s novelle there appears to be more general solidarity among the lower classes than among middle-class characters. Despite their very difficult lives, his lower-class characters retain a certain degree of dignity through their adherence to the work ethic and seem to be reasonably content with their lot and their station in life. If they keep their health, which they realize, should never be taken for granted, as we see with the unfortunate Teresa in Nonno Damiano and the padroncino in Non Mai, Non Mai!, they appear to accept their lot stoically. Fucini’s lower orders also appreciate and respect nature and are in harmony with it. They manage to eke out a living by hunting, fishing, tending their livestock, migrating to and returning from Maremma, tilling the soil and growing crops, and despite their hard lives, appear to develop a sense of well-being and satisfaction with the simple pleasures life offers, and appear to be more satisfied with their lot and are generally happier than many of their middle and upper-class counterparts.

2.4. Was Fucini politically and socially engaged in his novelle?

In Chapter One we saw how some literary critics have differed in their interpretation of Fucini’s attitude, or engagement, to the characters and their sufferings he portrays in his novelle. Pancrazi emphasizes the ‘scrittore sollazzevole’ side to Fucini, whereas Bargellini believes Fucini displays an inherent sentimentality which tugs at the heart-strings. Baldacci, however, being a Marxist critic, finds evidence in Lo spaccapietre, Menico and Il battello (and other novelle) that Fucini was politically and socially engagé. Russo, however, dismisses what he considers to be Pancrazi’s rather ‘cosy’ interpretation of Fucini, and concludes that Fucini is cynical and patronizing towards the lower-class characters in his novelle. Russo cites the episode in Tornan di Maremma, in which two montanini are described waiting ‘in una botteguccia d’un povero casolare alle falde della montagna’(p.82) in their compassionate attempt to intercept Gian Luca, who sought his fortune in Maremma with ‘de’ pecorai di Fiumalbo’(p.83) to spare him the shock of the disastrous news of the death of his betrothed, Giuditta. Russo highlights the fact that Fucini refers to and cites spelling-mistakes in a public notice in the botteguccia:

‘Pane vino ligori

e caffè d’altri gieneri’

and uses this, along with the ‘quei tu dati a bruciapelo’, first used by the narrator in addressing Il Matto (instead of the formal ‘Lei’ form with which one would address a complete stranger, following the strict conventions at the time) as evidence that Fucini, through his role of author/narrator/focalizer is patronizing towards some of the characters in his novelle. Russo also accuses Fucini of cynicism towards his characters, citing the closing remarks of Verdiana, the owner of the botteguccia, who, on seeing the two shepherds run off in pursuit of Gian Luca, abandoning their portions of baccalà they had ordered, when she states: ‘povere creature! Esclamò. Poi volgendosi con un lungo sospiro alla sua bottega.- E ora, di tutto quel baccalà che me ne faccio?’(p.89).

One might concur with Russo that Fucini’s immediate use of the ‘tu’ form to the Matto, who immediately addresses the narrator with the more formal and respectful, ‘Lei’ form, could be interpreted as being patronizing towards the Matto. However, one could make allowances for Fucini and one could argue that the ‘tu’ form was used by the narrator to address the Matto, to set the mind of a frightened, social outcast, at ease, and was a gesture of affection by the narrator towards the unfortunate man. However, in my view, Russo overstates his case and also misinterprets Fucini’s attitude and relationship towards the lower-class characters in his novelle. Verdiana, who informs the narrator early on in the story that the two shepherds: ‘Hanno il mal del povero, glielo dico io cos’hanno; quel malaccio che si tira dietro le sette piaghe peggio della carestia’(p.83), is also of very humble origins herself, and, according to the descriptions of her botteguccia, is equally poor, and is merely stating the obvious. Being an extremely practical woman, she merely asks what any poor and practical person would ask- what will I do now with all that salt-cod? Russo might be missing the point Fucini is endeavouring to make. One must recall that Fucini was a school-master and school-inspector. In my opinion, as a disillusioned, post Risorgimento, pro-Garibaldino, Fucini is making a covert criticism of the Italian educational system. By drawing attention to the errors in the notice, he is highlighting how the Italian educational system may have been unfit for purpose, since at the time he was writing his novelle, the overwhelming majority of Italians, especially Italians living in rural areas, were still largely illiterate and that Tuscany had an illiteracy rate of some eighty per cent in 1841.

Baldacci also states that, initially, he also had difficulties with Fucini’s ‘Quei tu dati a bruciapelo a giovani e vecchi’- since the narrator should have addressed characters he met with the ‘Lei’ or even ‘Voi’ forms of address, but Baldacci then makes an intriguing observation:

Ma credo poi di aver capito che quel tu rispondeva nel Fucini a una ragione necessaria: nelle Veglie e in All’Aria Aperta egli è, nei confronti del suo pubblico borghese-progressista, il pubblico dei dottori di campagna e dei medi professionisti di città, una specie di Mèntore, di Dante e Virgilio insieme, sceso di persona a visitare un mondo primordiale che i più ignorano o non immaginano nella sua compiuta realtà. Egli si presenta assai spesso come ‘quel signore di Firenze’ oppure come quell’ingegnere di Firenze. Ė insomma una specie di missionario che riporta al mondo civile le proprie impressioni. E per questo è necessario che il suo occhio di spettatore si distingua dalle cose viste; che insomma tra l’uno e le altre ci sia sempre la dovuta prospettiva.

Ė in fondo questa, a ben pensarci, una delle tecniche più lontane dalle impostazioni di poetica del realismo o del naturalismo.

Clearly Fucini was writing for an educated, middle and upper-class, salon society since most of the lower orders at the time, were illiterate and would only have been familiar with Fucini’s novelle, orally, when they were read out loud to them, by someone who could read, ‘a Veglia’.

In the introduction to his Italian Novels of Peasant Crisis, Brian Moloney makes an interesting statement:

All art, moreover, involves a process of selection, arrangement and stylization which can in turn produce distortion, especially if, in the process, historical truth is sacrificed, intentionally or not, to the emotional or aesthetic effect which the work is intended to produce on the reader. Renato Fucini’s fictional stone-breaker in his tale of that title, ‘Lo spaccapietre’, in Le Veglie di Neri (1882) earns only eighty centesimi for his long day’s laborious work. The author’s notes on his conversation with the real stone-breaker on which the sketch is based show clearly that his wage was in reality ninety (Reidy 1974, 15). To reduce this worthy worker’s wage by ten centesimi solely in order to squeeze an extra tear from the eye of a sympathetic but ill-informed reader is a piece of unacceptable trickery. This is no doubt a relatively minor point, but the test of their fidelity to history must be one of the criteria by which we judge texts which point so unequivocally to an historical extra-text.

Moloney’s observations raise a few points which we should consider in our assessment of Fucini’s political or social engagement in his works. Moloney’s criticism seems to rest mainly on the incorrect wage of the stonebreaker. Yet later on in the novella, we learn that the accollatario who exploits him, on occasions, reduces his wages even further to ‘venti o trenta centesimi’(p.91). We should recall that Fucini is not writing a statistical or sociological treatise, but a work of fiction, which, admittedly, does have a considerable basis in fact. Moreover, all writers, and artists, have to be selective in their final choice of material, image, or description they choose to present to their audience. Moloney may, perhaps, appear a little harsh in accusing Fucini of ‘unacceptable trickery’ by reducing the stonebreaker’s wage ‘solely in order to squeeze an extra tear from the eye of a sympathetic but ill-informed reader’ However, Moloney does have a point. Clearly Fucini reduces the stonebreaker’s wage to thirty and even to twenty centesimi in order to elicit a sympathetic, perhaps even, a pathetic reaction, or response in his reader to the plight of this lower-class character. By altering the stonebreaker’s wage Fucini appears to be endeavouring to arouse the sympathy of his reader for his character. However, just as an author is at liberty to select the details of the story he or she is writing, by the same token, the reader is equally at liberty to discuss the implications of the choices an author makes. Perhaps the question we should really be asking is whether Fucini is politically and socially engaged?

The question is not an easy one to answer. Sonnino and Villari saw some sense of social awareness and some evidence of social comment or criticism in Fucini’s earliest Sonetti in vernacolo pisano, clearly sufficient for them to commission him and to send him to Naples to write Napoli a Occhio Nudo. Although, as we have seen, Napoli was an important early sociological and socio-political work on Naples, and despite being recognized as a good example of early investigative journalism and a valuable document of conditions of life in Naples at the time, Napoli is, basically, a work of fiction. As we have seen on several occasions in Napoli, Fucini does not always maintain the necessary detachment and the discipline of pure objectivity in his descriptions and in his narrative accounts which Sonnino and Villari must have expected. On occasions he departs from his brief, for example, when discussing whether Tuscans blaspheme too much, or by using the occasional ‘subjective’ adjective such a ‘malincolica scena’, ‘ganimedi parrucchieri’, ‘triste spettacolo’ which add little to his descriptions. However, these appear to indicate where his loyalties and sympathies as a human-being, clearly lie - with the lower orders and explains Fucini’s continuous popularity among the lower classes, particularly in Tuscany, during his own day and in modern times. Fucini appears to have been clearly shocked by the abject poverty and deprivations he witnessed in Naples and describes some of these rather than adhering to his very specific narrative brief for Napoli. Fucini was also deeply moved by the considerable poverty he often encountered, first-hand, in the Tuscan contado.

Despite a close friendship with Vilfredo Pareto, Carlo Collodi and the Macchiaioli artists (especially with Giovanni Fattori and Telemaco Signorini) who, as we will see, in Chapter Four, were all, to a greater or lesser extent, socially and politically engaged and although a dyed-in-the-wool Garibaldino, like his father, David, as yet, I have been unable to discover any written evidence of Fucini’s political or social engagement per se. One thing is certain he was not a socialist. However, as we have seen from Fucini’s correspondence at the beginning of this chapter, he was critical of Ubaldino Peruzzi and his councillors at the time when the capital Italy of was transferred from Florence to Rome. One is conscious of a tension in Fucini’s novelle, many of which are based in fact, adhering, therefore, to veristic principles, on the one hand (as we will see in Chapter Three and in the Conclusion) and, on the other hand, an attempt by Fucini to expand, at times, the basic material of his story, for artistic or dramatic reasons, and even, on occasion, a deliberate blurring of the true identity of an original character, principally for legal reasons. Being true to veristic principles and basing his stories on fact and on people who actually lived is one thing, but being too close to the truth would have had legal implications for Fucini, hence his attempts to alter slightly some facts, and his attempts to disguise the real identity of some of the people in real-life on whom some of the characters in his novelle are based. This tension will be explored further in the Conclusion.

As we have seen earlier in this chapter, there is an overall empathy and sympathy on Fucini’s part with the working-classes in his novelle. It is true he is seldom blatantly or overtly critical of the social orders in his novelle, because of his intent to adhere to veristic principles, which dictated no direct intervention or comment on the part of the author. However, on occasions, there are a few examples of his indirect criticism of the status quo. Apart from Il Matto, Menico, Il battello and Lucia, the best example of overt criticism which is delivered largely through Fucini’s use of irony, which, on occasions, can be quite corrosive, occurs in the latter part of Lo spaccapietre: By reducing the wage from the ninety centesimi earned by the stonebreaker Fucini met and spoke to in real life, as we have seen he recorded the meeting in his school-inspector’s notebook, in my opinion he is not aiming to trick or to deceive his reader as Moloney suggests, but rather, he is endeavouring to gain the reader’s sympathy for his stonebreaker. Clearly Lo spaccapietre is Fucini’s most politically engaged story and is the only story in which he departs from veristic principles and the narrator/focalizer intervenes directly in his text:

Io ne conosco uno di questi splendidi esemplari di carne da lavoro. Ah! ma questo che conosco io è stato sempre un signore, il Creso degli spaccapietre, perchè fino a sessanta anni sonati, stomaco di cammello e muscoli di leone, ha guadagnato sempre il massimo che può fruttare il suo lavoro, e la polenta gialla o il pane bigio non sono mai spariti altro che per eccezione dalla sua tavola (p.91)

and:

Un giorno che, meno brusco del solito, mi parlava delle sue miserie, dei suoi bisogni e delle sue privazioni, gli domandai quasi scherzando:

- Dimmi se tu potessi in questo momento ottenere tutto quello che ti paresse, che desideresti?

- Una fetta di pane bianco per darlo inzuppato alla mi’ vecchia che non ha più denti (p.93).

There can be little doubt Fucini criticizes society and the status quo in the final lines of Lo spaccapietre which is his most damning indictment of society and especially of the lack of professionalism of the middle classes and their callous disregard for the lower classes. Fucini adds further dramatic details by describing further vicissitudes and a succession of tragic events in the stonebreaker’s life. The stonebreaker is depicted as being exploited by the contractor who employs him, although not very explicitly or overtly- hence the reduction of the stonebreaker’s wage from ‘novanta centesimi’ as recorded in the notebook to ‘ottanta’ and even ‘venti centesimi’ for dramatic effect in the story (p.91).

Fucini, like Verga, makes little intervention in the narrative, apart from the two extracts quoted above, confirming he met a real-life stonebreaker, and his bozzetto is based on a real-life character. However, at some points in the story and especially in the closing lines, there is a criticism of the status quo which is hardly covert or muted, and the ironic references to the accollatario, who exploits the stonebreaker, clearly reveals with whom Fucini’s sympathies lie:

Allora egli è contento perchè ha guadagnato gli ottanta centesimi che gli paga puntualmente l’acollatario del mantenimento della via. Ma non sempre gli va così. Non perchè l’acollatario, che è un vero galantuomo, sia capace di defraudarlo; ma perchè molte sono le cause che possono assottigliargli il guadagno o allontanarlo affatto dal lavoro. Di frequente la pietra che ha da spezzare è troppo forte, e il lavoro non gli comparisce; qualche volta gli si guasta il martello, e perde tempo a riadattarlo; non di rado nell’inverno il maltempo infuria così impetuoso che lo scaccia dal lavoro…E i cinquanta o gli ottanta centesimi allora non vengono, e la fame si ferma alla sua casa e lo veglia e l’assiste e non l’abbandona, finchè non l’ha ricondotto estenuato e pallido presso il monte di pietre che da otto giorni l’aspetta lungo la via. E quella sera mangerà; mangerà poco, perchè poco potrà lavorare; ma l’accollatario, che per fortuna è un vero galantuomo, gli misurerà puntualmente il lavoro fatto, e puntualmente gli darà i suoi venti o trenta centesimi, trascurando i rotti in più della misura, perchè lui a queste piccolezze non ci bada; ha trattato sempre bene chi lavora, e se ne vanta.(p.91).

Fucini’s descriptions of the stonebreaker are no less disturbing than those used to describe Nedda or Rosso Malpelo and the conditions endured by these two Sicilian vinti are not any harsher than those endured by Fucini’s Fiorella, Lucia, Menico, the Matto delle giuncaie, the battello, his stone-breaker and several other characters.

The closing lines of Lo spaccapietre are some of Fucini’s finest and certainly some of his most mordant, and are a bitter indictment of the indifference, cruelty, lack of professionalism and hypocrisy of the middle classes towards those who are down-trodden and less fortunate:

‘Ma quando quest’uomo si ammalerà, il medico andando a suo comodo dopo la terza chiamata, lo troverà agonizzante; il prete, invitato per carità a spicciarsi, vorrà finire il suo desinare e lo troverà morto; il becchino, guardandogli i piedi scalzi e il camicione topposo, gli reciterà la breve orazione:- Accidenti a chi ti ci ha portato.’ (p.93).

We should also reflect that it is possible that Capuana, who held a brief correspondence with Fucini, might have had more of an influence on Fucini than the Tuscan writer would have cared to admit, for Capuana, was, without doubt, the most influential Italian theorist and exponent of verismo who had exerted considerable influence on Verga, as well as on Fucini. In a letter to Fucini dated 16 July, 1882, Capuana states that his favourite novella was La fatta (Verga’s favourite story was Lucia) because, in his opinion, it was the most impersonal - it had the most ‘impersonalità’ – and was the most objective in which the ‘mano dell’artista’ was the least detectable. It is very probable that Fucini, subsequently, might have heeded Capuana’s advice and might have consciously attempted to remain as dispassionate and as detached as possible in his narrative technique and might well have endeavoured to remain as objective as possible when writing his bozzetti in the Veglie and All’Aria Aperta and, subsequently, might have consciously refrained from making any deliberately overt social comment in his stories. However, as we have seen in Napoli a Occhio Nudo and bozzetti such as Lo spaccapietre, (to which we should add Il Matto delle giuncaie, Lucia, Il battello, Vanno in and Tornan di Maremma and Menico), Fucini could not resist the temptation of making some personal social comment on the conditions endured by some of his lower-class characters, and this might explain why many of his novelle appear, on first impression, fairly covert. However, the very choice of themes, subject matter, material, stories and social classes by Fucini are indications of some degree of social commitment. Indeed, the more attentively one reads Fucini’s stories, the more one realizes that despite the literary constraints of verismo, a palpable undercurrent of social criticism, which is largely conveyed through Fucini’s brilliant use of irony, pervades some of his novelle. This social criticism is also muted because he was only partially engaged politically- he was neither a card-carrying socialist nor a Marxist, and was more interested in depicting what he saw before him, realistically, in his novelle rather than being a social commentator.

On receiving a copy of the Veglie, Capuana wrote to Fucini stating he admired La fatta the most of all the Veglie for the following reason:

‘Caro Fucini,

...Ti dirò che la novella più squisita, come fattura è La Fatta. È quell’impersonalità ch’io vorrei vederti raggiungere in tutte le altre che scriverai.... Il tuo aff.mo Luigi Capuana.’

One has some sympathy with Capuana who, on occasions, appears to have encouraged Fucini to embrace veristic principles more openly and more positively. One can imagine the potential for a masterpiece of veristic narrative which could have been produced by Fucini had he followed Capuana’s advice had he not made extraneous comments in stories such as Lo spaccapietre.

There is also a sense in Fucini’s novelle, especially in his Veglie, that despite a certain nostalgia for an innocent, almost rustic idyll of life in rural Tuscany, the reader also senses a relief that the abject conditions endured by the Matto, Menico, the spaccapietre and Il battello, to name but a few of Fucini’s vinti, and the gradual elimination of disease, crime (Lucia), corruption and graft, by not having proper contracts (La maestrina) and trade-unions, ignorance and superstition (La strega) and illiteracy (Tornan di Maremma) and the exploitation of the lower orders, were also gradually disappearing and life for the lower, as well as the middle classes, was generally less arduous and less stressful for them as the century drew to its close. One of the most important changes to rural Tuscany, which is alluded to in passing, in some of Fucini’s stories, Scampagnata, La visita del Prefetto and Il signor colonnello, was the extension of the Italian railway-network which opened up and linked remote places to the rest of Tuscany and to the rest of the peninsula which, subsequently, was to transform and ameliorate the lives of many. More often than not, Fucini’s social comment or criticism is restricted to a mere covert statement, or comment in his novelle and is often transmitted through some degree of irony. However, on balance, there appears to be little evidence that Fucini was politically engaged in his novelle. In my view, there can be little doubt that Fucini is clearly on the side of the lower classes in his novelle and his lower-class characters are, with very few exceptions, invariably drawn more sympathetically and are clearly shown in a generally more favourable light than their middle and upper-class counterparts.

However, in our search for further evidence of Fucini’s social and political engagement in his stories, if we examine Lucia closely, there appears to be less compelling evidence in this story than in Lo spaccapietre. In Lucia the reader cannot fail to notice the frequent occurrence of the word ‘fiore’ in Fucini’s descriptions in this comparatively brief story:

Il sole bacia le sue spalle nude, e la brezza della sera la investe fasciandole i panni alla persona elegante e le assalta briosa la chioma, come se volesse rubarle quel fiore dei campi che agitato rosseggia fra le sue lucide trecce’ (p.25); ‘Una folata di vento più forte le portò via il fiore dai capelli’(p.26); ‘Raccolse il fiore e se lo accomodò più forte tra i capelli. A Lucia era caro quel fiore come tutti gli altri che ogni mattina coglieva per adornarsene il capo e per offrirli la sera alla Madonna che pendeva a capo del suo letticciuolo. Anche quella sera non sarebbe mancato alla Vergine l‘omaggio di quel povero fiore’(p.26); ‘E Lucia s’avviò stanca alla sua cameretta...Cercò il fiore per offrirlo alla Regina degli Angioli, ma l’aveva perduto! Sentì una stretta al core, dette in uno scoppio di pianto e cadde sul suo letticciuolo dove aspettò il giorno spasimando (p.27) [my italics].

The frequency of the word fiore which Fucini uses no fewer than six times, together with his use of the diminuitive cameretta and letticciuolo, which occurs twice in a story of a mere three pages, are further examples of Fucini trying to instill sympathy for another character, in this case, Lucia, in his reader. However, despite being successful in achieving this in Lo spaccapietre, Fucini would appear to be overtly appealing to the sympathy of his reader in Lucia. Moreover, it could be argued that even making allowances for Fucini’s closer adherence to the veristic principle of the non intervention of the narrator in Lucia, the brief story narrates a series of tragic events in Lucia’s life and, in the final analysis, is, perhaps, overly fatalistic to be politically committed.

In the closing lines of Vanno in Maremma the narrator/ focalizer is so moved to pity by the sight of the poor family migrating on foot to overwinter at Talamone that he gives ‘un piccolo foglio’ to one of the young boys. One would hope that in real life, Fucini who would have seen many families migrating to or from Maremma, on his tours of inspection in the Appennino Pistoiese, would also have reacted in a similar fashion. Moving from fiction to fact, apart from not being a socialist, there appears to be little further evidence to suggest that Fucini was politically or socially engaged in real life too. One real life episode, in particular, in my view, casts doubts on Fucini’s general social or political commitment. As we will see in the Conclusion of this thesis, one of the real life elementary school-teachers in his Circondario who was the inspiration for his La maestrina, appealed directly to Fucini, her immediate superior as a school-inspector, for help when she was ostracized by the inhabitants of Porciano, the small Tuscan village where she taught. She had been accused of being the mistress of the local mayor who had appointed her and also of having fallen pregnant by him. Needless to say these serious accusations were completely unfounded and the teacher was entirely innocent. She wrote to Fucini to seek his assitance in resolving her dire situation and in having her transferred to another school in his Circondario or even farther afield. Despite his assurances in a letter he wrote to Emilia Peruzzi that the school-teacher was personally known to him: ‘Ha sentito di quella povera maestrina che si uccise? Era del mio Circondario’ and that he had given her considerable assistance and that his conscience was clear and he had done his duty: ‘ed avevo fatto tanto per lei che nell’inchiesta del Ministero mi sono trovato corazzato come la Lepanto. Ma, quel che più conta, la mia coscienza mi diceva: non aver rimorsi, ché hai fatto il tuo dovere…’ it would appear that Fucini had been a little economical with the truth. Elena Gianini Belotti states that Fucini did not assist the teacher he was responsible for in any way and did not even reply to the school-teacher’s letter. Despite his assurances that he had done his duty and that his conscience was clear, no evidence, as yet, exists, to confirm that he assisted her in any way and, indeed, one doubts whether Fucini had a clear conscience when the real life maestrina, driven to distraction by her marginalization by the inhabitants of Porciano, lost the balance of her mind and committed suicide. It could be argued that actions speak louder than words and that Fucini missed an ideal opportunity of assisting a person truly in need. On balance, there appears to be little evidence in his own life and in his short stories to suggest that Fucini was deeply politically or socially engaged. Indeed, some may conclude that as a writer he was quite content to observe and record the hardships and vicissitudes of the lower orders in fin-de-siècle Tuscany from his own comfortably off, if not privileged position - with an estate of no fewer than four substantial properties and one of the finest art collections of works by the Macchiaioli artists in private hands. Others may reflect that by describing the lower orders as being pious and content with their lot, he was, in effect, quite content to see the status quo remain and for the ruling classes to continue to hold the reins of power, one of the principal sources of discontent and disillusionment among post unification Italians in general and Tuscans in particular, who were still waiting to see the long promised benefits of ‘La Nuova Italia’.

In Chapter Three we will briefly examine some of Verga’s language and some of his narrative techniques used in his novelle and compare them to those adopted by Fucini in his short stories. Fucini’s solution to providing an authentic voice for his characters and especially his use of Tuscan dialect in the novelle is assessed more closely and in greater detail and information on how the Glossary is to be used and further examples of Fucini’s Toscanità are also provided.

Ubaldino Peruzzi de’ Medici (1822-1891) lost much of his personal fortune and was forced to sell his large house in Borgo de’ Greci and move to the smaller family villa at L’Antella, and use the considerable dowry of his wife Emilia see Zeffiro Ciuffoletti ‘Ubaldino Peruzzi, la caduta della Destra e la ‘questione di Firenze’’ in Ubaldino Peruzzi un protagonista di Firenze capitale. Atti del convegno di Firenze, 24-26 gennaio 1992, a cura di Paolo Bagnoli (Florence: Festina Lente), 1994, pp.267-91.

Alfredo Chiti, ‘Ricordi pistoiesi di Renato Fucini’ Bullettino storico pistoiese, 45, (1943), nos. 1-2, pp. 3-28 (p.8).

3 Claudia Lazzeri Un carteggio di fine secolo Renato Fucini-Emilia Peruzzi (1871-1899) (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2006), p.1.

As we have seen on pages 21-23. Giovanni Procacci was Direttore of the Scuole Tecniche at Pistoia and had the final say in appointing Fucini this is confirmed in D. Marracini, ‘Renato Fucini a Pistoia’ Bollettino storico pistoiese (Pistoia), 84, (1982), pp.103-111.

.

5 Lazzeri, op. cit., p.16.

The Appennino Pistoiese extends to 53,767 hectares, 56% of the whole Province of Pistoia, the Padule di Fucecchio occupies 2,000 hectares.

As Fucini informed the Torinese artist Marco Calderini, in a letter dated Dianella, 6 July 1910, Riccardiana, Fondo Fucini, cass.[etta] Cald.[erini] also quoted by Geno Pampaloni in I Macchiaioli di Renato Fucini, (Florence: Pananti, 1985), p.11.

Denis V. Reidy, ‘Renato Fucini: notebooks and short stories’, Association of Teachers of Italian Journal, (Summer), 1974, pp.13-19.

See Appendix Two, pp.3-4.

For example, I Carbonari della montagna (1861-2) and Sulle lagune (1863) (but not Amore e patria (1856-7) which, apart from a few excerpts, has remained in manuscript), Una peccatrice (1866), and La storia di una capinera (1870).

‘Il Colonnello…lodò il sistema toscano della mezzerìa’ p.22. The system of mezzerìa or mezzadria is generally accepted to be a Tuscan phenomenon, see Richard Andrews, A theatre of community memory Tuscan Sharecropping and the Teatro Povero di Monticchiello, Society for Italian Studies, Occasional Papers, Number 4, 1998, pp.xii,1-22, and pp.125-28 and see Glossary pp.195-96.

12 Vestro serves his greedy clerical guests ‘ballotte’ in Il merlo di Vestro who leave a mess in his shop: ‘Ed empirono il pavimento di gusci di ballotte biascicate’(p.72). The family of poor montanini migrating to Maremma in Vanno in Maremma also have ‘un sacchetto di castagne’ with them (p.63) see Glossary for ballotte p.33.

13 The spaccapietre is described eating ‘polenta gialla o il pane bigio’, a staple diet in his poor family, see p.91.

Fucini reproduces both ‘stradello’ and ‘viottolo’ in Fra due litiganti p.327.

Fondo Fucini, N.3971 which I published in 1974, op. cit., p.14.

For further information on ‘stradelli’ and ‘viottoli’ and other instances of use of these words in the novelle, see the Glossary p.337 and p.382 respectively.

The Limentra is a small tributary of the river Reno rising in the Alto Appennino Pistoiese, 1,319 metres above sea level which flows near Sambuca Pistoiese until it joins the Reno.

Fondo Fucini, N.3971, Reidy, ‘Notebooks...’, pp.14-15. Fucini’s last sentence appears to summarize the theory and convention of ‘castigat ridendo ex mores’ adopted initially by classical writers and by Molière, Goldoni and other moralizing writers.

I have seen Fucini’s personally annotated copies of Verga’s novelle, cited above, at Dianella. Nedda was first published in Rivista italiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti on 15 June 1874 two years before the publication of Il Matto delle giuncaje (bozzetto padulano) in Nuova Antologia, Vol. 3, December 1876, p.765.

Letter from Flaubert to Louise Colet dated [Croisset] Mercredi, minuit [12 October, 1853], Gustave Flaubert Correspondence (Paris: Corbeil, 1887-1893), Vol. 2, pp.337-8 also cited by Georges Legrand ‘Le réalisme dans le roman français au XIXe siècle’, Revue néo-scolastique, 1902, 9, 36, p.442.

Romano Luperini’s entry for Verismo in The Oxford Companion to Italian Literature, p.620.

Following Zola’s ambitious example of his twenty novels narrating the lives of Les Rougon Macquart, Verga also envisaged a cycle of five novels I Malavoglia, Mastro-don Gesualdo, La duchessa di Leyra, L’onorevole Scipioni and L’uomo di lusso (of which only the first two were written, the third loosely sketched, and the final two never started) in which he explored the lives of his vinti, or the defeated or conquered by life. The overall theme of his vinti is the exploration of the common and universal themes of the struggle for existence and for progress which Verga refers to in his Preface to I Malavoglia:‘Questo racconto è lo studio sincero e spassionato del come probabilmente devono nascere e svilupparsi nelle più umili condizioni le prime irrequietudini pel benessere; e quale perturbazione debba arrecare in una famigliuola, vissuta sino allora relativamente felice, la vaga bramosia dell’ignoto, l’accorgersi che non si sta bene, o che si potrebbe star meglio.

Il movente dell’attività umana che produce la fiumana del progresso è preso qui alle sue sorgenti, nelle proporzioni più modeste e materiali. Il meccanismo delle passioni che la determinano in quelle basse sfere è meno complicato, e potrà quindi osservarsi con maggior precisione. Basta lasciare al quadro le sue tinte schiette e tranquille, e il suo disegno semplice. Man mano che cotesta ricerca del meglio di cui l’uomo è travagliato cresce e si dilata, tende anche ad elevarsi e segue il suo moto ascendente nelle classi sociali’ The point that characters in some of Verga’s novelle can also be considered as further examples of vinti is made by Luigi Russo, Giovanni Verga (Rome: Laterza, 1986); Francesco Nicolosi, Verga tra De Sanctis e Zola (Bologna: Pàtron, 1986); Vittorio Spinazzola, Verismo e positivismo (Milan: Arcipelago, 1997); Romano Luperini, Verga Moderno (Rome: Laterza, 2005) and Gregory Lucente ‘The historical imperative: Giovanni Verga and Italian realism in the light of recent critical trends’, Neohelicon, 15, 2, 1988, pp.149-74.

See Massimo Livi-Bacci, Storia minima della popolazione del mondo (Turin: Loescher, 1989) translated as A concise history of world population (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), p.97, Table 4.3. The mean life-expectancy figures for both sexes for the same period in other European countries are: England 43.3, France 42.1, Sweden 48.5, Germany 37.9. We should recall that by 1900, largely because of malaria and pellagra, no fewer than 1,000,000 Italians had emigrated to the United States alone.

The original unpublished manuscript of Fucini’s lecture L’Appennino Pistoiese, was discovered by the undersigned in Fondo Fucini, Inventario No. 44331 in 1973. Fucini delivered his lecture to the Circolo Artistico di Firenze in December 1902.

Verga’s description of Nedda.

Talamone is in Maremma, in the Province of Grosseto, Fucini’s native province, was a popular destination for the montanini migrating to over-winter with their livestock.

Necci are unique to the Appennino Pistoiese and consist of small chestnut-meal cakes made from ground, sweet-chestnut flour, a staple diet of the montanini see Glossary p.206. Polenta (often pronounced pulenda in Northern Tuscany) is made from the farina gialla produced by grinding sweet-chestnuts into flour is still widely used in the area.

The story was very probably drawn from real life: ‘Ammalato che (ri?)torna di Maremma; il figlio lo lascia allo spedale di Pistoia per andare a prendere la mamma- Tornan tutt’e due e lo trovono morto’ from Fucini’s notebook entry dated 2 June 1878, see pp.88-9 of this thesis. Although not identical to the episode in Tornan di Maremma, it is further evidence that Fucini was very familiar with groups of montanini migrating with their precious flocks or herds to or from, Maremma. As a school-inspector in the Appennino Pistoiese he saw montanini migrating on numerous occasions. Consequently, the scenes described by Fucini are extremely true to life.

29 A salacca is a dried, smoked shad which, like baccalà, also mentioned in Lo spaccapietre (p.92) and Tornan di Maremma, (p.83) is extremely salty in order to keep it preserved in the days before refrigeration. It formed part of the staple diet of the lower-classes, see Lo spaccapietre and Il battello (p.187) who lives on herring-tails (p.188) and Vermùtte and his family of seven (L’eredità di Vermùtte) have to survive on one solitary salacca for Christmas.

30 Ceppo is the Tuscan equivalent of Natale see Glossary pp.59-60.

Fucini uses ‘muso’ in Questione d’interessi (p.239) and ‘ghigna’ (spregiativo Lucchese) in L’eredità di Vermutte see Glossary p.204 and p.141 respectively.

Fucini also uses the phrase ‘soldi e tozzi di pane’ in Castore e Polluce (p.295).

Fucini informs us: ‘Con una metafora immaginosa, chiamano Battelli in alcuni luoghi dell’Appennino, quei venditori ambulanti, i quali, venuti dal piano, corrono la montagna per tutto l’inverno con un grosso corbello dietro le spalle, a vendere mercerie, terraglie, salumi, ecc.’ p.186.

Fucini is probably referring to the Italian military campaign in Africa at Dogali, in 1887, during which 500 Italian troops perished, or the Battle of Adua, fought on 1 March 1896.

The fidelity of Fucini’s portraits of Il Matto, Tigrino and Nonno Damiano and the accuracy of his descriptions of life in the padule di Fucecchio are confirmed in Andrea Zagli, Uomini del Padule: lavoro, vita, tradizioni nel Padule di Fucecchio dal Medioevo a oggi (Florence: Polistampa, 2003).

The story appears to be based in fact since Fucini narrates how he had his own jacket similarly altered while a student at Pisa see Foglie al Vento pp.747-50. This appears to be uncorroborated by others.

Ibid., pp.747-50.

See Katherine Byrne, Tuberculosis and the Victorian Literary Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p.118, see also H. D. Chalke ‘Some historical aspects of tuberculosis’ Public Health (Royal Society for Public Health), [London-New York] 74, Issue (3) December (1959), pp.83-95 (p.93).

Costantino Ottolenghi, L’emigrazione agricola italiana dal 1884 al 1892 (Turin: Clausen, 1894).

Gianni Oliva, ‘La naja’ in Mario Isnenghi (ed.), I luoghi della memoria. Strutture ed eventi dell’ Italia unita (Bari: Laterza, 2010), pp.93-109; see also Operai e contadini nella grande Guerra a cura di Mario Isnenghi (Bologna: Nuova Cappelli, 1982); Mario Isnenghi, Le guerre degli italiani: parole, immagini, ricordi, 1848-1945 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2005); Giuseppe Capaci, Diario di guerra di un contadino toscano, a cura di Dante Priore (Florence: Cultura, 1982).

It is unclear what Fucini means by the phrase ‘Andò soldato; lo mandarono di là dal mare’. It could simply signify Lucia’s ignorance of her brother’s fate. It has been difficult to establish where her brother might have been sent to. 5000 Tuscan volunteers did assist Charles Albert and reserve Piedmontese troops in 1848 but this campaign was entirely on Italian soil see H. Hearder and D. P. Waley A Short History of Italy From Classical Times to the Present Day (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) p.137. Moreover, since Tuscany was still an independent state it did not send troops with Cavour’s Piedmontese troops to the Crimea in 1854, and since Lucia was written in 1882, this rules out the later battles of Dogali, (1887), or Adowa (Adua), in 1896. However, if the incident took place pre 1860, Tuscan troops would have crossed the sea to reach the military bases on the Islands of Elba and Giglio and both of these could be ‘literal’ possibilities. It is also possible that Fucini’s phrase is metaphorical rather in the way that ‘andare in Italia’ was a common expression for military service, post 1860.

At the time young men in Tuscany who were called up for military service had to pick a number from a draw. If the number was high they only had to serve the minimum term, however, if it was low, they had to serve extended ‘leva’. Pierone in Sereno e nuvole has also ‘tirato su basso’ and relinquishes the hand of Chiarastella. See Glossary p.35 and pp.352-53 respectively.

See Luigi Faverio and Graziano Tassello, Cent’anni di emigrazione italiana (1876-1976) (Rome: CSER, 1978); Ercole Sori, L’emigrazione italiana dall’Unità alla seconda Guerra mondiale (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1979); Adriana Dadà, ‘Lavoratori dell’Appennino Toscano in Corsica nel secolo XIX’ Altre Italie, 12, (1994), pp.6-38; Attilio Mori,‘L’emigrazione Toscana dalla Toscana e particolarmente dal Casentino’ Bollettino Emigrazione, 9 (12) 1910.

44 Fucini refers to a group of charlatans he met in his school-inspector’s notebook dated 5 June 1878: Ciarlatano che racconta e insegna il modo di distruggere le zanzare prendendole per lo stomaco, costringedole ad aprir la bocca con un ginocchio sullo stomaco e premendogli allora giù per la gola il suo segreto.- Dopo la risata tratta di zucconi perchè non leggono l’istruzione su l’etichetta- Uno dei grandi requisiti degli scrittori moralizzatori è quello di non scomodare nessuno facendogli cambiare abitudini see pp.90-91 of this thesis, they were very probably, the inspiration for Passaggio memorabile.

Passaggio Memorabile was first published in La Domenica del Fracassa, [Florence], 22 February, 1885.

As we have seen in Chapter One, the inhabitants of Sovigliana provided the inspiration for Fucini’s earliest work La Soviglianeiede, so one can conclude that some of the events recalled in La visita del Prefetto are based on events which actually took place.

Pecorino in this particularlyTuscan context is not the cheese but fertiliser-see Glossary pp.237-8.

Tigrino is also set in the Padule di Fucecchio (the setting for Il Matto delle giuncaie and Nonno Damiano) and is the natural habitat of the eponymous hero, since he was born in the ‘padule che poteva dirsi il suo regno, quel padule dove egli era nato e dove, fino da ragazzo, campava esercitando insieme i due mestieri: di cacciatore e di pescatore’ (p.300). We should recall at the time many made their living by hunting and fishing on a full-time, professional basis see Andrea Zagli, op. cit. Uomini del Padule: lavoro, vita, tradizioni nel Padule di Fucecchio dal Medioevo a oggi see footnote 34 p.102.

49 Fucini wrote ‘i cani furono i primi e più cari amici miei ed anche i più sicuri e fedeli, perchè, se dagli uomini ho avuto qualche morso, dai cani non ne ho avuti mai’ Foglie al Vento, p.693. His poem in lingua ll mio cane, number XLIX from Ombre (p.1025), provides a further insight into his love of dogs:

‘Piange se parto, se non torno geme,

Tanto l’affetto mio nel cuor gli preme.

Se d’un fallo la mia man lo punisce,

Dolce mi guarda, e quella non lambisce

Che a suo tempo gli dà carezze e pane.

Additatemi un uom che a lui somigli!...

O mamme, o mamme, quando passa un cane,

Additatelo ai figli.

See Charles Godfrey Leland, (1824-1903) Etruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1892) and his Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches (London: David Nutt, 1899) and Raven Grimassi Ways of the Strega (St Paul: Llewellyn, 1994) reprinted as Italian Witchcraft: The Old Religion of Southern Europe (St Paul: Llewellyn, 1995) [and in 2000].

The ulivo benedetto is an olive-branch which is blessed during the ceremony of the blessing of the palms on Palm Sunday. In some rural areas of Tuscany it was often distributed instead of costlier palms. The ulivo benedetto also appears in Perla.

Cutigliano, (together with San Marcello and Pracchia) is one of the main market-towns in the Appennino Pistoiese, and a centre of tourism see Francesco Carega di Muricce, Un’estate a Cutigliano: escursioni e ascensioni nell’alto appennino pistoiese (Pistoia: Niccolai,1878) and Giuseppe Tigri, Guida della montagna pistoiese (Florence: Tipografia Della Gazzetta d’Italia, 1875).

Francesco Gioli’s painting Passa il viatico, (1878) See Fig.1, Appendix Two, p.4; Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo’s La processione (1894-5) See Fig. 2, Appendix Two, p.5; and Silvestro Lega’s Passa il viatico, (1864), See Fig. 3, Appendix Two, p.6 and exhibited in Paris, in 1878, were very favourably commented on by Edgar Degas, as well as Gioli’s Angelus Domini (1870) (location unknown) and his Passa la Processione, (1883) were all well known to Italians at the time, and as well known as Millet’s iconic religious subjects such as L’Angélus 1857-1859 (Paris, Musée D’Orsay) which are discussed in Chapters Three and Four. Fattori’s painting of Contadina Toscana (Collezione privata) may well have been inspired by Lucia and Fattori’s numerous views of Butteri in Maremma recall Vanno and Tornan di Maremma and Cecconi’s Veduta di Padule (raccolta Roster) could almost serve as an illustration for Il Matto, Nonno Damiano or Tigrino. The synergy between the Macchiaioli and Fucini in the illustrations they produced for Le Veglie is examined in Chapter Four.

This detail is very probably autobiographical and provides an insight into the final period of Doctor David Fucini’s life for he too, was probably an atheist, as his son appears to be admitting in the final line of his poesia in lingua Ave!.

55 See Glossary pp.223-25. Tuscans often use the masculine noun version Il Padule, a metathesis of Palude, rather than the feminine version of the standard Italian form La Palude. The term is so widely used in Tuscany that Il Padule di Fucecchio has become the official name of this area.

Il Sistro giornale di lettere ed arti which, changed its subtitle to periodico letterario, artistico, teatrale was published weekly in Florence, by Le Monnier, from 15 February 1860 to 22 January 1889. It promoted culture and the arts, particularly music and the theatre, and was regularly consulted by members of the musical and theatrical professions for situations vacant just as Lo Sperimentale: giornale critico di medicina e chirurgia, also published in Florence, by Le Monnier, from 1858 onwards, was the official journal for the medical profession, and was consulted by medici condotti (panel-doctors), in Tuscany, who were looking for a vacant condotta as the doctor who had fallen out with the mayor, Signor Girolamo, and decides to seek his revenge, as we learn in the closing lines of Passaggio memorabile: ‘A quell’ora precisa, il medico sfogliava l’ultimo fascicolo dello Sperimentale per trovarci qualche condotta vacante’(p.120). Since Fucini’s father, David Fucini, was a medico condotto, Lo Sperimentale was well known in the Fucini household. See Glossary p.321 (Sistro) and pp.328-9 (Sperimentale) respectively.

Brigidini are light, round, thin sweets, not unlike potato-crisps, prepared in a flat, metal-press similar to a waffle-iron. Brigidini, like Cecco d’Orsola’s parigine, are flavoured with aniseed and originate from Lamporecchio near Pistoia and are popular at fairs and fêtes throughout Tuscany to this day. Sor Cosimo buys brigidini from the ‘primo banco di brigidini’ for the narrator in Scampagnata (p.156) and the narrator gives Fiorella money to buy brigidini when they first meet in Fiorella p.96. See Glossary pp.45-6.

See Franco Andreucci, ‘Vorrei procacciarmi un’occupazione proficua’. Nemesio Fatichi e il clan Peruzzi fra clientelismo, raccomandazioni, politica’ in Ubaldino Peruzzi, un protagonista di Firenze capitale. Atti del convegno di Firenze, 24-26 gennaio 1992, a cura di Paolo Bagnoli (Florence: Festina Lente, 1994), pp.145-54 especially pp.148-49.

The events described in Passaggio memorabile La maestrina, and Il signor cappellano which may well have some of their basis in fact are examined in the Conclusion.

Piero Bargellini gives a good account of the anticlerical feeling of many Tuscans towards the clergy, seen by the pro Garibaldi faction (Garibaldini) during the Risorgimento as slightly ‘unpatriotic’ in their support for the Pope and the Papal States, the last bastion to fall before Italian unification in 1870. Some of the clergy in rural Tuscany also habitually overindulged, had a passion for hunting, shooting and fishing and a fondness for card-playing see Bargellini, Tre Toscani: Collodi, Fucini, Vamba (Florence: Vallecchi, 1952), pp.109-209 and Pietro Pancrazi, ‘Il Fucini poeta dei Pisani e novelliere dei Macchiaioli’ in Scrittori italiani dal Carducci a D’Annunzio (Bari: Laterza, 1937. The principal character in Il signor cappellano and the clergy in Il merlo di Vestro, Scampagnata and Fra due litiganti, are hardly shining examples of men of the cloth devoted to their priestly vocation.

Bargellini, Tre Toscani, p.111.

At the time some huntsmen blinded birds which were later caged and used to lure other birds to the huntsman who was often concealed in a special hide.

Cacio, the old Latin and Tuscan form for cheese rather than ‘formaggio’, see Glossary pp.48-9.

64 Tuscan Pecorino cheese made from sheep’s milk is very strong and often served with raw, tender, baccelli- the ‘fruit’ of broad-beans, served with rock-salt (sale grosso).

65 ‘Watering down’ and attenuating his swearing and blasphemies see Glossary pp.24-5.

66 Moccoli, i.e. bestemmie see Glossary p.199.

67 The primiera (see Glossary p.264) is one of several ways of adding points in the card-game Scopa see Glossary p.308- the player who has most sevens, the Settebello (of danari) counting one point, the most sixes, wins one point. Scopa which is popular throughout Tuscany is also played with carte napoletane (sometimes referred to as carte romagnole in the Mugello) in suits of coppe, danari, spade and bastoni.

68 Briscola a card game common throughout Tuscany. See Glossary p. 46.

69 Preti comuni or semplici see Glossary p.330.

70 We have seen in Passaggio memorabile, Scampagnata and La maestrina how medical doctors and elementary school-teachers were often at the mercy of the mayor and the local ‘comune’ for their employment, since such appointments were in the gift of mayors and councillors, and consequently, were open to nepotism and other forms of corruption. However, ironically, the tables could, occasionally, be turned on their employers - if a ‘medico condotto’ found a new ‘condotta’ or if a school-teacher found a better position, as soon as they had served out their notice, they were free to take up their position, thereby leaving the mayor and the comune high and dry – ‘un’arma a doppio taglio’.

Procurarsi, mettere insieme see Glossary p.272.

Conta, importa see Glossary pp. 200-01.

The phrase is from Juvenal Satires, 6, 165.

See p.90 of this thesis.

75 See Glossary pp.195-6.

Luigi Baldacci, ‘Fucini e Marx’, Il Giornale del Mattino (Florence), 21 November 1959 and ‘Chi era il Fucini?’ ibid..

Luigi Russo,‘Renato Fucini scrittore sollazzevole?’ Il Mattino (Rome), 23 June 1943.

See Theodore S. Hamecrow, The Birth of a New Europe: State and society in the nineteenth century (Chapel Hill: University of Carolina Press, 1988), p.156.

Luigi Baldacci, ‘Renato Fucini’ in Letteratura e verità (Milan-Naples: Ricciardi, 1963), pp.76-7.

Brian Moloney, Italian Novels of Peasant Crisis, 1930-1950: Bonfires in the night (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005).

Reidy, op.cit., pp.13-19.

Moloney, op. cit., p.14.

See page 90 of this thesis.

The mondine working in the risaie in the Vercellese were also paid 80 centesimi per day in the 1880s. Per Ottanta centesimi (1895) (Vercelli, Civico Museo Borgogna), is the title of Angelo Morbelli’s painting. See The Divisionists exhibition held in the National Gallery from 1 June to 7 September 2008 (London: National Gallery, 2008).

A. Navarria, op. cit., p.467.

This fact is accepted and confirmed nowadays see Claudia Lazzeri Un carteggio di fine secolo Renato Fucini-Emilia Peruzzi (1871-1899) (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2006), p.100 and also Elena Gianini Belotti, Prima della quiete: Storia di Italia Donati (Milan: Rizzoli, 2005), pp.136-38.

From a letter from Fucini to Emilia Peruzzi dated Florence 27 June 1886, cited by Claudia Lazzeri Un carteggio ... letter CXXV p.100. The full text of the letter is reproduced in the Conclusion on p.289-90.

Elena Gianini Belotti, Prima della quiete: pp.136-38.