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CENNO STORICO SULL'ANTICHISSIMA CITT? DI RUVO NELLA PEUCEZIA

DEL GIURECONSULTO NAPOLITANO

GIOVANNI JATTA

COLLA GIUNTA

Della breve istoria del famoso combattimento de' tredici Cavalieri Italiani con altrettanti Francesi seguito nelle vicinanze della detta citt? nel d? 13 Febbraio 1503.

L'AUTORE

AL SUO NIPOTE GIOVANNINO JATTA.

? stato sempre vivo in me il desiderio di riunire le notizie istoriche relative all'antichissima citt? di Ruvo mia patria che ho sempre amata, ed amo sommamente. Ma quando li miei anni erano verdi e la mia salute robusta, prima le occupazioni dell'Avvocheria, ed indi i sacri doveri della Magistratura non mi lasciarono mai il tempo necessario a simili ricerche. Sciolto da queste cure e stimolato dallo stesso desiderio, mi ha in verit? sgomentato dal secondarlo la scarsezza positiva del materiale che bisogna per potersi tessere una Storia.

Molte citt?, comunque antiche e ragguardevoli, sono rimaste nella oscurit? sia perch? sono mancate le occasioni che avrebbero potuto dare agli antichi Scrittori la opportunit? di parlar di esse, sia perch? le opere di coloro che ne han parlato non sono sventuratamente giunte fino a noi. La citt? di Ruvo si vede appena nominata da qualche antico Scrittore. Si pu? solo conoscere con sicurezza ch'era una delle antiche citt? della Peucezia. Della sua origine, della sua popolazione, delle sue istituzioni, della sua coltura nelle scienze e nelle belle arti, e di ogni altra circostanza che possa rendere ragguardevole una citt? nulla si conosce dagli antichi Scrittori.

N? coteste investigazioni per loro stesse laboriosissime possono attendersi da qualunque Scrittore il quale non sia animato dall'impegno positivo d'illustrare una citt?. Quindi ? che i Commentatori degli antichi Scrittori, e coloro che hanno scritto sulla Geografia antica non hanno dati della citt? di Ruvo che cenni molto brevi e secchi, e talvolta anche assurdi, ed incoerenti come anderemo a vederlo nel prosieguo del mio discorso.

Se questo illustre Scrittore non allog? anche la nostra citt? tra le altre citt? Greche, delle quali fece la enumerazione, causa ne fu il silenzio degli antichi Scrittori su tal circostanza, e 'l non esser state all'epoca in cui egli scrisse pubblicate ancora o conosciute le antiche monete Greche Ruvestine, le quali hanno scoperta dappoi la sua origine. N? si erano a quel tempo disotterrati tampoco que' tesori che all'epoca nostra hanno resa la citt? suddetta molto illustre, cio? li numerosissimi vasi fittili Italo-Greci pregiatissimi non meno per la somma eleganza delle forme, e per la nobilt? e perfezione del pennello, che per la ricercatezza delle favole non ovvie che vi sono dipinte.

Questi capi-lavori i quali pareggiano e forse anche superano i vasi di Nola, creduti per lo innanzi i pi? pregiati, si hanno attirata la giusta ammirazione di tutti gli Archeologi di Europa, e pruovano a trabocco due circostanze. La prima che nella citt? di Ruvo fiorivano in grado eminente le scienze e le belle arti, poich? questi monumenti giustificano la somma abilit? de' Pittori Ruvestini, e la loro piena istruzione nella Storia, nella Favola, e nella Mitologia. N? meno pregevoli sono i lavori ivi rinvenuti di oro, di argento, di bronzo, e di bellissimi vasellini di vetro colorato di diverse ed eleganti forme.

La seconda ch'era quella citt? abitata da famiglie ricche e ragguardevoli, poich? cotesti oggetti preziosi che si trovano riposti ne' loro sepolcri non costavano allora meno di quello che si pagano adesso, ed un lusso funerario cos? profuso non potevano usarlo che le persone distinte e doviziose.

Cotesti elementi interessantissimi, il nome istesso della citt?, e le notizie che ci han date gli antichi Scrittori delle diverse trasmigrazioni de' Popoli della Grecia nella Italia mi portano anche pi? oltre. Messo tutto a calcolo ho giusta ragione di credere che la nostra citt? fu fondata dagli Arcadi ed altre Genti dell'Acaja che prima della guerra di Troja vennero a stabilirsi nella Italia sotto i Condottieri Oenotro e Peucezio, e mi lusingo di poterlo concludentemente dimostrare.

In quanto poi ai fatti avvenuti, ed alle vicende che hanno potuto aver luogo ne' tempi di mezzo forza ? confessare che m'imbatto in una oscurit? anche maggiore. Scarsissime sono le notizie che si possono trarre dalle Cronache. Mi ? quindi impossibile scrivere una storia ordinata. Debbo per necessit? limitarmi a quelle poche cose che la mia avanzata et?, ed i continui patimenti di salute che soffro mi han potuto permettere di raccorre. Voglio augurarmi che nella citt? di Ruvo sorgano ingegni pi? vegeti e pi? felici, i quali infervorati dallo stesso impegno d'illustrare vie pi? la commune Patria, si applichino a dilatare per l'onore della stessa quella via che sono stato io il primo ad aprirla.

Per gli ultimi tempi in fine avendo io avuta una gran parte negli avvenimenti seguiti, ed essendo il solo rimasto superstite di coloro che potevano esserne bene informati, sono al caso di poterne parlare con quella verit?, e minutezza che a niun altro sarebbe facile. Cercher? quindi farlo nel modo che possa riuscire anche utile e profittevole ai miei concittadini tanto presenti che futuri.

Farebbe per? una giusta sorpresa il non trovare la citt? di Ruvo nominata neppur da Strabone che fu un Geografo minutissimo, alla di cui attenzione non isfuggirono neppure le citt? distrutte, se il di lui silenzio rispetto alla nostra citt? non fosse derivato da una manifesta alterazione sofferta dal seguente luogo della sua dottissima, ed accuratissima opera, ove della citt? di Ruvo che non si vede punto nominata doveva per necessit? parlarsi.

Ha taluno opinato, come si ? veduto innanzi, di doversi cassare la parola ??????, senza essersi incaricato che tra Celia e Canosa vi ? la distanza di circa cinquanta miglia, e questo cammino non si poteva fare colla vettura in una sola giornata. Quindi cassandosi ?????? era indispensabile sostituire a questa un'altra citt? intermedia di fermata tra Canosa e Celia. Si sono altri incaricati di questa giusta osservazione; ma la citt? intermedia di fermata che hanno sostituita al preteso ?????? o si ? trovata meramente ideale, o l'hanno presa da una Regione diversa e lontanissima, e quindi non suscettiva di essere allogata tra Celia e Canosa.

Ecco la citt? intermedia di fermata tra Canosa e Bari, tra Canosa e Celia. Da Bari Orazio pass? ad Egnazia, e di l? a Brindisi termine della stessa via descritta da Strabone, e del suo viaggio.

All knowledge which has any appearance of being directly reached, immediate, or self-evident, that is to say, of not being inferred from other knowledge, may be divided into four principal varieties: Internal Perception or Introspection of the mind's own feelings; External Perception; Memory; and Belief, in so far as it simulates the form of direct knowledge. The first is illustrated in a man's consciousness of a present feeling of pain or pleasure. The second and the third kinds have already been spoken of, and are too familiar to require illustration. It is only needful to remark here that, under perception, or rather in close conjunction with it, I purpose dealing with the knowledge of other's feelings, in so far as this assumes the aspect of immediate knowledge. The term belief is here used to include expectations and any other kinds of conviction that do not fall under one of the other heads. An instance of a seemingly immediate belief would be a prophetic prevision of a coming disaster, or a man's unreasoned persuasion as to his own powers of performing a difficult task.

It is, indeed, said by many thinkers that there are no legitimate immediate beliefs; that all our expectations and other convictions about things, in so far as they are sound, must repose on other genuinely immediate knowledge, more particularly sense-perception and memory. This difficult question need not be discussed here. It is allowed by all that there is a multitude of beliefs which we hold tenaciously and on which we are ready to act, which, to the mature mind, wear the appearance of intuitive truths, owing their cogency to nothing beyond themselves. A man's belief in his own merits, however it may have been first obtained, is as immediately assured to him as his recognition of a real object in the act of sense-perception. It may be added that many of our every-day working beliefs about the world in which we live, though presumably derived from memory and perception, tend to lose all traces of their origin, and to simulate the aspect of intuitions. Thus the proposition that logicians are in the habit of pressing on our attention, that "Men are mortal," seems, on the face of it, to common sense to be something very like a self-evident truth, not depending on any particular facts of experience.

It might seem at a first glance to follow from this four-fold scheme of immediate or quasi-immediate knowledge that there are four varieties of illusion. And this is true in the sense that these four heads cover all the main varieties of illusion. If there are only four varieties of knowledge which can lay any claim to be considered immediate, it must be that every illusion will simulate the form of one of these varieties, and so be referable to the corresponding division.

But though there are conceivably these four species of illusion, it does not follow that there are any actual instances of each class forthcoming. This we cannot determine till we have investigated the nature and origin of illusory error. For example, it might be found that introspection, or the immediate inspection of our own feelings or mental states, does not supply the conditions necessary to the production of such error. And, indeed, it is probable that most persons, antecedently to inquiry, would be disposed to say that to fall into error in the observation of what is actually going on in our own minds is impossible.

With the exception of this first division, however, this scheme may easily be seen to answer to actual phenomena. That there are illusions of perception is obvious, since it is to the errors of sense that the term illusion has most frequently been confined. It is hardly less evident that there are illusions of memory. The peculiar difficulty of distinguishing between a past real event and a mere phantom of the imagination, illustrated in the exclamation, "I either saw it or dreamt it," sufficiently shows that memory is liable to be imposed on. Finally, it is agreed on by all that the beliefs we are wont to regard as self-evident are sometimes erroneous. When, for example, an imaginative woman says she knows, by mere intuition, that something interesting is going to happen, say the arrival of a favourite friend, she is plainly running the risk of being self-deluded. So, too, a man's estimate of himself, however valid for him, may turn out to be flagrantly false.

In the following discussion of the subject I shall depart from the above order in so far as to set out with illusions of sense-perception. These are well ascertained, forming, indeed, the best-marked variety. And the explanation of these has been carried much further than that of the others. Hence, according to the rule to proceed from the known to the unknown, there will be an obvious convenience in examining these first of all. After having done this, we shall be in a position to inquire whether there is anything analogous in the region of introspection or internal perception. Our study of the errors of sense-perception will, moreover, prove the best preparation for an inquiry into the nature and mode of production of the remaining two varieties.

I would add that, in close connection with the first division, illusions of perception, I shall treat the subtle and complicated phenomena of dreams. Although containing elements which ought, according to strictness, to be brought under one of the other heads, they are, as their common appellation, "visions," shows, largely simulations of external, and more especially visual, perception.

Dreams are no doubt sharply marked off from illusions of sense-perception by a number of special circumstances. Indeed, it may be thought that they cannot be adequately treated in a work that aims primarily at investigating the illusions of normal life, and should rather be left to those who make the pathological side of the subject their special study. Yet it may, perhaps, be said that in a wide sense dreams are a feature of normal life. And, however this be, they have quite enough in common with other illusions of perception to justify us in dealing with them in close connection with these.

ILLUSIONS OF PERCEPTION: GENERAL.

The errors with which we shall be concerned in this chapter are those which are commonly denoted by the term illusion, that is to say, those of sense. They are sometimes called deceptions of the senses; but this is a somewhat loose expression, suggesting that we can be deceived as to sensation itself, though, as we shall see later on, this is only true in a very restricted meaning of the phrase. To speak correctly, sense-illusions must be said to arise by a simulation of the form of just and accurate perceptions. Accordingly, we shall most frequently speak of them as illusions of perception.

In order to investigate the nature of any kind of error, it is needful to understand the kind of knowledge it imitates, and so we must begin our inquiry into the nature of illusions of sense by a brief account of the psychology of perception; and, in doing this, we shall proceed best by regarding this operation in its most complete form, namely, that of visual perception.

I may observe that in this analysis of perception I shall endeavour to keep to known facts, namely, the psychical phenomena or events which can be seen by the methods of scientific psychology to enter into the mental content called the percept. I do not now inquire whether such an analysis can help us to understand all that is meant by perception. This point will have to be touched later on. Here it is enough to say that, whatever our philosophy of perception may be, we must accept the psychological fact that the concrete mental state in the act of perception is built up out of elements, the history of which can be traced by the methods of mental science.

Confining ourselves for the present to the mental, as distinguished from the physical, side of the operation, we soon find that perception is not so simple a matter as it might at first seem to be. When a man on a hot day looks at a running stream and "sees" the delicious coolness, it is not difficult to show that he is really performing an act of mental synthesis, or imaginative construction. To the sense-impression which his eye now gives him, he adds something which past experience has bequeathed to his mind. In perception, the material of sensation is acted on by the mind, which embodies in its present attitude all the results of its past growth. Let us look at this process of synthesis a little more closely.

When a sensation arises in the mind, it may, under certain circumstances, go unattended to. In that case there is no perception. The sensation floats in the dim outer regions of consciousness as a vague feeling, the real nature and history of which are unknown. This remark applies not only to the undefined bodily sensations that are always oscillating about the threshold of obscure consciousness, but to the higher sensations connected with the special organs of perception. The student in optics soon makes the startling discovery that his field of vision has all through his life been haunted with weird shapes which have never troubled the serenity of his mind just because they have never been distinctly attended to.

When the sensation, or complex sensation, is thus defined and recognized, there follows the process of interpretation, by which I mean the taking up of the impression as an element into the complex mental state known as a percept. Without going into the philosophical question of what this process of synthesis exactly means, I may observe that, by common consent, it takes place to a large extent by help of a reproduction of sensations of various kinds experienced in the past. That is to say, the details in this act of combination are drawn from the store of mental recollections to which the growing mind is ever adding. In other words, the percept arises through a fusion of an actual sensation with mental representations or "images" of sensation. Every element of the object that we thus take up in the act of perception, or put into the percept, as its actual size, distance, and so on, will be found to make itself known to us through mental images or revivals of past experiences, such as those we have in handling the object, moving to and from it, etc. It follows that if this is an essential ingredient in the act of perception, the process closely resembles an act of inference; and, indeed, Helmholtz distinctly calls the perception of distance an unconscious inference or a mechanically performed act of judgment.

I have hinted that these recovered sensations include the feelings we experience in connection with muscular activity, as in moving our limbs, resisting or lifting heavy bodies, and walking to a distant object. Modern psychology refers the eye's instantaneous recognition of the most important elements of an object to a reinstatement of such simple experiences as these. It is, indeed, these reproductions which are supposed to constitute the substantial background of our percepts.

Another thing worth noting with respect to this process of filling up a sense-impression is that it draws on past sensations of the eye itself. Thus, when I look at the figure of an acquaintance from behind, my reproductive visual imagination supplies a representation of the impressions I am wont to receive when the more interesting aspect of the object, the front view, is present to my visual sense.

We may distinguish between different steps in the full act of visual recognition. First of all comes the construction of a material object of a particular figure and size, and at a particular distance; that is to say, the recognition of a tangible thing having certain simple space-properties, and holding a certain relation to other objects, and more especially our own body, in space. This is the bare perception of an object, which always takes place even in the case of perfectly new objects, provided they are seen with any degree of distinctness. It is to be added that the reference of a sensation of light or colour to such an object involves the inclusion of a quality answering to the sensation, as brightness, or blue colour, in the thing thus intuited.

This part of the process of filling in, which is the most instantaneous, automatic, and unconscious, may be supposed to answer to the most constant and therefore the most deeply organized connections of experience; for, speaking generally, we never have an impression of colour, except when there are circumstances present which are fitted to yield us those simple muscular and tactual experiences through which the ideas of a particular form, size, etc., are pretty certainly obtained.

The second step in this process of presentative construction is the recognition of an object as one of a class of things, for example, oranges, having certain special qualities, as a particular taste. In this step the connections of experience are less deeply organized, and so we are able to some extent, by reflection, to recognize it as a kind of intellectual working up of the materials supplied us by the past. It is to be noted that this process of recognition involves a compound operation of classifying impressions as distinguished from that simple operation by which a single impression, such as a particular colour, is known. Thus the recognition of such an object as an orange takes place by a rapid classing of a multitude of passive sensations of colour, light, and shade, and those active or muscular sensations which are supposed to enter into the visual perception of form.

A still less automatic step in the process of visual recognition is that of identifying individual objects, as Westminster Abbey, or a friend, John Smith. The amount of experience that is here reproduced may be very large, as in the case of recognizing a person with whom we have had a long and intimate acquaintance.

If the recognition of an object as one of a class, for example, an orange, involves a compound process of classing impressions, that of an individual object involves a still more complicated process. The identification of a friend, simple as this operation may at first appear, really takes place by a rapid classing of all the salient characteristic features which serve as the visible marks of that particular person.

It is to be noted that each kind of recognition, specific and individual, takes place by a consciousness of likeness amid unlikeness. It is obvious that a new individual object has characters not shared in by other objects previously inspected. Thus, we at once class a man with a dark-brown skin, wearing a particular garb, as a Hindoo, though he may differ in a host of particulars from the other Hindoos that we have observed. In thus instantly recognizing him as a Hindoo, we must, it is plain, attend to the points of similarity, and overlook for the instant the points of dissimilarity. In the case of individual identification, the same thing happens. Strictly speaking, no object ever appears exactly the same to us on two occasions. Apart from changes in the object itself, especially in the case of living beings, there are varying effects of illumination, of position in relation to the eye, of distance, and so on, which very distinctly affect the visual impression at different times. Yet the fact of our instantly recognizing a familiar object in spite of these fluctuations of appearance, proves that we are able to overlook a very considerable amount of diversity when a certain amount of likeness is present.

It is further to be observed that in these last stages of perception we approach the boundary line between perception and inference. To recognize an object as one of a class is often a matter of conscious reflection and judgment, even when the class is constituted by obvious material qualities which the senses may be supposed to apprehend immediately. Still more clearly does perception pass into inference when the class is constituted by less obvious qualities, which require a careful and prolonged process of recollection, discrimination, and comparison, for their recognition. Thus, to recognize a man by certain marks of gesture and manner as a military man or a Frenchman, though popularly called a perception, is much more of an unfolded process of conscious inference. And what applies to specific recognition applies still more forcibly to individual recognition, which is often a matter of very delicate conscious comparison and judgment. To say where the line should be drawn here between perception and observation on the one hand, and inference on the other, is clearly impossible. Our whole study of the illusions of perception will serve to show that the one shades off into the other too gradually to allow of our drawing a hard and fast line between them.

Finally, it is to be noted that these last stages of perception bring us near the boundary line which separates objective experience as common and universal, and subjective or variable experience as confined to one or to a few. In the bringing of the object under a certain class of objects there is clearly room for greater variety of individual perception. For example, the ability to recognize a man as a Frenchman turns on a special kind of previous experience. And this transition from the common or universal to the individual experience is seen yet more plainly in the case of individual recognition. To identify an object, say a particular person, commonly presupposes some previous experience or knowledge of this object, and the existence in the past of some special relation of the recognizer to the recognized, if only that of an observer. In fact, it is evident that in this mode of recognition we have the transition from common perception to individual recollection.

While we may thus distinguish different steps in the process of visual recognition, we may make a further distinction, marking off a passive and an active stage in the process. The one may be called the stage of preperception, the other that of perception proper. In the first the mind holds itself in a passive attitude, except in so far as the energies of external attention are involved. The impression here awakens the mental images which answer to past experiences according to the well-known laws of association. The interpretative image which is to transform the impression into a percept is now being formed by a mere process of suggestion.

When the image is thus formed, the mind may be said to enter upon a more active stage, in which it now views the impression through the image, or applies this as a kind of mould or framework to the impression. This appears to involve an intensification of the mental image, transforming it from a representative to a presentative mental state, making it approximate somewhat to the full intensity of the sensation. In many of our instantaneous perceptions these two stages are indistinguishable to consciousness. Thus, in most cases, the recognition of size, distance, etc., takes place so rapidly that it is impossible to detect the two phases here separated. But in the classification of an object, or the identification of an individual thing, there is often an appreciable interval between the first reception of the impression and the final stage of complete recognition. And here it is easy to distinguish the two stages of preperception and perception. The interpretative image is slowly built up by the operation of suggestion, at the close of which the impression is suddenly illumined as by a flash of light, and takes a definite, precise shape.

Now, it is to be noted that the process of preperception will be greatly aided by any circumstance that facilitates the construction of the particular interpretative image required. Thus, the more frequently a similar process of perception has been performed in the past, the more ready will the mind be to fall into the particular way of interpreting the impression. As G.H. Lewes well remarks, "The artist sees details where to other eyes there is a vague or confused mass; the naturalist sees an animal where the ordinary eye only sees a form." This is but one illustration of the seemingly universal mental law, that what is repeatedly done will be done more and more easily.

It is to be noticed, further, that the perception of a single object or event is rarely an isolated act of the mind. We recognize and understand the things that surround us through their relations one to another. Sometimes the adjacent circumstances and events suggest a definite expectation of the new impression. Thus, for example, the sound of a gun heard during a walk in the country is instantly interpreted by help of suggestions due to the previous appearance of the sportsman, and the act of raising the gun to his shoulder. It may be added that the verbal suggestions of others act very much like the suggestions of external circumstances. If I am told that a gun is going to be fired, my mind is prepared for it just as though I saw the sportsman.

More frequently the effect of such surrounding circumstances is to give an air of familiarity to the new impression, to shorten the interval in which the required interpretative image is forthcoming. Thus, when travelling in Italy, the visual impression answering to a ruined temple or a bareheaded friar is construed much more rapidly than it would be elsewhere, because of the attitude of mind due to the surrounding circumstances. In all such cases the process of preperception connected with a given impression is effected more or less completely by the suggestions of other and related impressions.

It follows from all that has been just said that our minds are never in exactly the same state of readiness with respect to a particular process of perceptional interpretation. Sometimes the meaning of an impression flashes on us at once, and the stage of preperception becomes evanescent. At other times the same impression will fail for an appreciable interval to divulge its meaning. These differences are, no doubt, due in part to variations in the state of attention at the moment; but they depend as well on fluctuations in the degree of the mind's readiness to look at the impression in the required way.

In order to complete this slight analysis of perception, we must look for a moment at its physical side, that is to say, at the nervous actions which are known or supposed with some degree of probability to accompany it.

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