Nathaniel Hawthorne in Viterbo and Bolsena 

 Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the first American writers to visit the area of Viterbo and Lake of Bolsena and in his “Notebooks” he describes the graft practiced by Papal custom houses workers at Centeno, the boundary between Tuscany and the Papal States. 

His descriptions of the dismal village and the beggars in Radicofani are followed by this drastic picture of the town of Bolsena. The interior of the castle had been destroyed in 1815 by the inhabitants themselves in order to prevent it being used by Luciano Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother , who was the Prince ( and one of the area’s first tomb robbers!) in nearby Canino.

“We now began to ascend again, and the country grew fertile and picturesque….and soon came to the brow of a hill whence we beheld right beneath us, the beautiful lake of Bolsena…a portion of level ground lay between, haunted by the pestilence which has depopulated all these shores and made the lake and its neighborhood a solitude…Descending the hill we passed the ruins of the old town of San Lorenzo of which the prim village on the hill top may be considered the daughter…..Reaching the plain, we drove several miles along the shore of the lake and found the soil fertile and generally well cultivated especially with the vine .”

“Bolsena, there it was again, the same narrow, dirty, time darkened street of piled-up houses which we have so often see; the same swarm of ill-to-do people, grape laden donkeys, little stands or shops of roasted chestnuts, peaches, tomatoes, white and purple figs, the same evidence of a fertile land, and grimy poverty in the midst of abundance which Nature tries to heap into their hands. It seems strange that they can never grasp it.

 The street clambered upward in the oddest fashion, passing under arches, scrambling up steps, so that it was more like a long irregular pair of stairs than anything that Christians call a street; and so large a part of it was under arches that we scarcely seemed to be out of doors.

“But we did not look long at the castle, our attention being drawn to the singular aspect of the town itself, which is the very filthiest place, I do believe, that was ever inhabited by man. Defilement was everywhere; in the piazza, in nooks and corners, strewing the miserable lanes from side to side, the refuse of every day, and of accumulated ages… Rotten vegetables thrown everywhere about, musty straw, standing puddles, running rivulets of dissolved nastiness-these matters were a relief amid viler objects.”“The town was full of great black hogs, wallowing before every door, and they grunted at us with a kind of courtesy and affability as if the town were theirs and it was their part to be hospitable to strangers. Many donkeys likewise accosted us with braying; children , growing more uncleanly every day they lived, pestered us with begging; men stared askance at us as they lounged in corners, and women endangered us with slops which they were flinging from doorways into the street.

And yet I remember the donkeys came up the height loaded with fruit and with little flat-sided barrels of wine; the people had a good atmosphere-except as they polluted it themselves- on their high site, and there seemed to be no reason why they should not live a beautiful and jolly life.

The streets are the narrowest I have seen anywhere-of no more width, indeed than may suffice for the passage of a donkey with his panniers. They wind in and out in strange confusion, and hardly look like streets at all, but..Nevertheless have names printed on the corners just as if they were stately avenues. “

Nor were his first impression of Viterbo very complimentary:

“Viterbo is a large, disagreeable town, built at the foot of a mountain, the peak of which is seen through the vista of some of the narrow streets. There are more fountains in Viterbo than I have seen in any other city of its size and many of them of very good design. Around most of them there were wine hogsheads, waiting their turn to be cleansed and rinsed, before receiving the wine of the present vintage. Passing a doorway, J… saw some men treading out the grapes in a great vat with their naked feet...”

The author’s love-hate relationship with Italy is well-known, and he drew similar pictures of Rome , pondering on the mouldering palazzi, the filthy streets, the beggars and ragged children. Later he praised Rome, wondering how he and his family would live back in Concord where “there were no pictures and no statues”.

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