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Orvieto is renowned and celebrated for its beautiful art and landscapes.
I, when visiting this old Orvietan friend, only had an evening and a night.
My friend welcomed me at the station and we immediately began a grand tour
of the city. We had just set off when the street lights, for some reason and for
some time were not working. But the moon was there and the city was able to
introduce itself to us in its darkest and mysterious magnificence.
Unknown architecture, porticoed buildings, sometimes hiding the facade or leaving it
to spread a sneering paleness, becoming narrower and almost overlapping in the
silent uproar or opening widely, closing lively roads within darkness or giving a
significance to the squares in which the stagnate moon was overflowing.
It was late and the streets were deserted.
We continued the walk to at last overlook the valley from another side, this time in
full moonlight.
"It's absurd to want to leave tomorrow morning. Or rather early this morning.
Because there aren't just Luca Signorelli's nude women on
the backs of devils here. In Orvieto, or in the world,
we have St. Patrick's Well. And you have never visited it!
St.Patrick's Well!" He repeated with a certain
satisfaction.
The monument must seem an obsessive image if you have never been.
It's incredibly large. But the world could be divided into those who have seen it,
and those who haven't. If they could see
it they would be enriched by the experience.
What is Saint Patrick's well? Everyone knows. It is a communal well,
very deep with beautiful architecture. A spiral down to the bottom. Small internal
windows at regular intervals. The every day folk mention the name of the
architect and say that in ancient times it was used to supply the town with water
etc etc…."ah, ah" my friend laughed strangely
"Let's go in I say, let's go in, into the empty closed frightening space."
empty closed frightening space." empty closed frightening space."
If we look over the edge here we get a good idea of how it is formed. A sensitive
creature wouldn't resist the temptation of falling down into that emptiness.
We go down further. The emptiness begins to tower over us. And perhaps if
you look up you'll be able to see a star. In that small disc of sky. And down, down
below the heart of the monster steams, just like the mouth of the dragon killed by
Saint George! As the air becomes blacker, and the light more mournful,
darker and darker along the concave walls. The moss above remains behind.
Not even these inhabitants of the tomb dare to go further down. The sun of God,
the trees, the houses, a thousand aspects and a thousand voices of nature are by
now the dream of the buried! "Right", said my friend, partly recovering
from the excitement. "Right, because what did i say? Nothing! Perhaps I could
help myself with an image, an example. There was once a proud person,
I wouldn't know what else to say about him, I don't know what job he did, or why
I was sometimes walking with him. His proudness was something covered and
hidden. I visited the well with him, and here he told me his secret. From his face
and small motions, from his vainly repressed small reactions, his dominant
passion exploded. His uncontrollable grin was atrocious. "Listen, if you imagine
pride as something outstanding, overhanging".
"Eh no!" he shouted "it's a hollow man, wandering, delirious. The ancient myth is
true, which is almost literally illustrated, that pride is needed to open the infernal
abyss. Well then, I maintained that if Saint Patrick's Well wasn't proud, then it
is the most loyal figure out of pride, and anyway something infernal."