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Operations Management Heizer 9th Edition Test
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Chapter 1 Operations and Productivity

True/False

1) Some of the operations-related activities of Hard Rock Café include designing meals and
analyzing them for ingredient cost and labor requirements.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1
Topic: Global company profile
Objective: LO1-1

2) Because Hard Rock Cafes are themed restaurants, operations managers focus their layout
design efforts on attractiveness while paying little attention to efficiency.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1
Topic: Global company profile
Objective: no LO

3) All organizations, including service firms such as banks and hospitals, have a production
function.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2
Topic: What is operations management?
Objective: LO1-1

4) Operations management is the set of activities that creates value in the form of goods and
services by transforming inputs into outputs.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1
Topic: What is operations management?
Objective: LO1-1

5) An example of a "hidden" production function is money transfers at banks.

Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2
Topic: What is operations management?
Objective: LO1-1

6) One reason to study operations management is to learn how people organize themselves for
productive enterprise.
1-1
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1
Topic: Why study OM?
Objective: LO1-1

1-2
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
7) The operations manager performs the management activities of planning, organizing, staffing,
leading, and controlling of the OM function.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1
Topic: What operations managers do
Objective: LO1-1

8) "How much inventory of this item should we have?" is within the critical decision area of
managing quality.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1
Topic: What operations managers do
Objective: LO1-1

9) In order to have a career in operations management, one must have a degree in statistics or
quantitative methods.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1
Topic: What operations managers do
Objective: LO1-1

10) Henry Ford is known as the Father of Scientific Management.

Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: LO1-1

11) Shewhart's contributions to operations management came during the Scientific Management
Era.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: LO1-1

12) Customer interaction is often high for manufacturing processes, but low for services.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 2
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

13) Productivity is more difficult to improve in the service sector.

Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-6

1-3
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
14) Manufacturing now constitutes the largest economic sector in postindustrial societies.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 2
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

15) In the past half-century, while the number of people employed in manufacturing in the
United States has decreased slightly, the output per worker has increased significantly.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

16) A knowledge society is one that has migrated from work based on knowledge to one based
on manual work.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-3

17) Productivity is the total value of all inputs to the transformation process divided by the total
value of the outputs produced.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-3

18) Measuring the impact of a capital acquisition on productivity is an example of multifactor

productivity.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-5

19) Ethical and social dilemmas arise because stakeholders of a business have conflicting
perspectives.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1
Topic: Ethics and social responsibility
AACSB: Ethical Reasoning
Objective: no LO

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Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Multiple Choice

1) Which of the following is not one of the Ten Critical Decisions of Operations Management?
A) location strategy
B) human resources and job design
C) managing quality
D) design of goods and services
E) determining the financial leverage position
Answer: E
Diff: 2
Topic: What operations managers do
Objective: no LO

2) An operations task performed at Hard Rock Café is

A) borrowing funds to build a new restaurant
B) advertising changes in the restaurant menu
C) calculating restaurant profit and loss
D) preparing employee schedules
E) all of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: Global company profile
Objective: LO1-1

3) Operations management is applicable

A) mostly to the service sector
B) to services exclusively
C) mostly to the manufacturing sector
D) to all firms, whether manufacturing or service
E) to the manufacturing sector exclusively
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: What is operations management?
Objective: LO1-1

4) Which of the following are the primary functions of all organizations?

A) production/operations, marketing, and human resources
B) marketing, human resources, and finance/accounting
C) sales, quality control, and production/operations,
D) marketing, production/operations, and finance/accounting
E) research and development, finance/accounting, and purchasing
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: Organizing to produce goods and services
Objective: LO1-1

1-5
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
5) Which of the following pioneers was not making a professional impact during the Scientific
Management Era?
A) Frank Gilbreth
B) W. Edwards Deming
C) Henry L. Gantt
D) Lillian Gilbreth
E) Frederick W. Taylor
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: no LO

6) Which of the following would not be an operations function in a commercial bank?

A) auditing
B) teller scheduling
C) maintenance
D) collection
E) check clearing
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: Organizing to produce goods and services
Objective: LO1-1

7) The marketing function's main concern is with

A) producing goods or providing services
B) procuring materials, supplies, and equipment
C) building and maintaining a positive image
D) generating the demand for the organization's products or services
E) securing monetary resources
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: Organizing to produce goods and services
Objective: LO1-1

8) Which of the following tasks within an Airline Company are related to Operations?
A) Crew Scheduling
B) International Monetary Exchange
C) Sales
D) Advertising
E) Accounts Payable
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: Organizing to produce goods and services
Objective: LO1-1

1-6
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
9) Reasons to study Operations Management include
A) studying how people organize themselves for productive enterprise
B) knowing how goods and services are consumed
C) understanding what human resource managers do
D) learning about a costly part of the enterprise
E) A and D
Answer: E
Diff: 2
Topic: Why study OM?
Objective: LO1-1

10) Reasons to study Operations Management include learning about

A) how people organize themselves for productive enterprise
B) how goods and services are produced
C) what operations managers do
D) a costly part of the enterprise
E) all of the above
Answer: E
Diff: 1
Topic: Why study OM?
Objective: LO1-1

11) The five elements in the management process are

A) plan, direct, update, lead, and supervise
B) accounting, finance, marketing, operations, and management
C) organize, plan, control, staff, and manage
D) plan, organize, staff, lead, and control
E) plan, lead, organize, manage, and control
Answer: D
Diff: 1
Topic: What operations managers do
Objective: LO1-1

12) Illiteracy and poor diets have been known to cost countries up to what percent of their
productivity?
A) 2%
B) 5%
C) 10%
D) 20%
E) 50%
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: Productivity variables
AACSB: Multicultural and Diversity
Objective: LO1-6

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Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
13) Which of the following is not an element of the management process?
A) controlling
B) leading
C) planning
D) pricing
E) staffing
Answer: D
Diff: 1
Topic: What operations managers do
Objective: LO1-1

14) An operations manager is not likely to be involved in

A) the design of goods and services to satisfy customers' wants and needs
B) the quality of goods and services to satisfy customers' wants and needs
C) the identification of customers' wants and needs
D) work scheduling to meet the due dates promised to customers
E) maintenance schedules
Answer: C
Diff: 1
Topic: What operations managers do
Objective: LO1-1

15) All of the following decisions fall within the scope of operations management except for
A) creating the company income statement
B) design of goods and processes
C) location of facilities
D) managing quality
E) All of the above fall within the scope of operations management.
Answer: A
Diff: 1
Topic: What operations managers do
Objective: LO1-1

16) The Ten Critical Decisions of Operations Management include

A) layout strategy
B) maintenance
C) process and capacity design
D) managing quality
E) all of the above
Answer: E
Diff: 1
Topic: Why study OM?
Objective: LO1-1

1-8
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
17) Which of the following is not one of The Ten Critical Decisions of Operations Management?
A) layout strategy
B) maintenance
C) process and capacity design
D) mass customization
E) supply-chain management
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: Why study OM?
Objective: LO1-1

18) The Ten Critical Decisions of Operations Management include

A) finance/accounting
B) advertising
C) process and capacity design
D) pricing
E) all of the above
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: Why study OM?
Objective: LO1-1

19) Which of the following are part of the Ten Critical Decisions of Operations Management?
I. Design of goods and services
II. Managing Quality
III. Layout Strategy
IV. Marketing
V. Pricing of Goods and Services
A) I,II,V
B) I,II,IV
C) II,III,V
D) I,II,III
E) All of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: Why study OM?
Objective: LO1-1

1-9
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
20) ASQ, ISM, APICS, and PMI are important professional organizations to operations
management because
A) they provide certification for professionals
B) they allow professionals to keep up with industry developments
C) they facilitate professional networking
D) none of the above
E) all of the above
Answer: E
Diff: 2
Topic: What operations managers do
Objective: LO1-1

21) Walter Shewhart is listed among the important people of operations management because of
his contributions to
A) assembly line production
B) measuring the productivity in the service sector
C) just-in-time inventory methods
D) statistical quality control
E) all of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: LO1-1

22) Walter Shewhart, in the __________, provided the foundations for __________ in operations
management.
A) 1920s; statistical sampling
B) United Kingdom; mass production
C) U.S. Army; logistics
D) nineteenth century; interchangeable parts
E) none of the above
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: LO1-1

23) Eli Whitney, in the __________, provided the foundations for __________ in operations
management.
A) 1920s; statistical sampling
B) United Kingdom; mass production
C) U.S. Army; logistics
D) nineteenth century; interchangeable parts
E) none of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: LO1-1

1-10
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24) The person most responsible for popularizing interchangeable parts in manufacturing was
A) Frederick Winslow Taylor
B) Henry Ford
C) Eli Whitney
D) Whitney Houston
E) Lillian Gilbreth
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: LO1-1

25) The "Father of Scientific Management" is

A) Henry Ford
B) Frederick W. Taylor
C) W. Edwards Deming
D) Frank Gilbreth
E) just a figure of speech, not a reference to a person
Answer: B
Diff: 1
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: LO1-1

26) Henry Ford is noted for his contributions to

A) material requirements planning
B) statistical quality control
C) assembly line operations
D) scientific management
E) time and motion studies
Answer: C
Diff: 1
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: LO1-1

27) Who among the following is associated with contributions to quality control in operations
management?
A) Charles Babbage
B) Henry Ford
C) Frank Gilbreth
D) W. Edwards Deming
E) Henri Fayol
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: LO1-1

1-11
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
28) The field of operations management is shaped by advances in which of the following fields?
A) chemistry and physics
B) industrial engineering and management science
C) biology and anatomy
D) information technology
E) all of the above
Answer: E
Diff: 2
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: LO1-1

29) Which of the following is the best example of a pure service?

A) counseling
B) oil Change
C) heart transplant
D) electric Co-Op
E) all of the above
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

30) Which of the following statements is true?

A) The person most responsible for initiating the use of interchangeable parts in manufacturing
was Eli Whitney.
B) The origins of management by exception are generally credited to Frederick W. Taylor.
C) The person most responsible for initiating the use of interchangeable parts in manufacturing
was Walter Shewhart.
D) The origins of the scientific management movement are generally credited to Henry Ford.
E) The person most responsible for initiating the use of interchangeable parts in manufacturing
was Henry Ford.
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: LO1-1

31) The service sector makes up approximately what percentage of all jobs in the United States?
A) 12%
B) 40%
C) 66%
D) 79%
E) 90%
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

1-12
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
32) Which is not true regarding differences between goods and services?
A) Tangible goods are generally produced and consumed simultaneously; services are not.
B) Most goods are common to many customers; services are often unique to the final customer.
C) Services tend to have a more inconsistent product definition than goods.
D) Services tend to have higher customer interaction than goods.
E) All of the above are true.
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

33) Which is not true regarding differences between goods and services?
A) Services are generally produced and consumed simultaneously; tangible goods are not.
B) Services tend to be more knowledge-based than goods.
C) Services tend to have a more inconsistent product definition than goods.
D) Goods tend to have higher customer interaction than services.
E) None of the above is true.
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

34) Which of the following services is least likely to be unique, i.e., customized to a particular
individual's needs?
A) dental care
B) hairdressing
C) legal services
D) elementary education
E) computer consulting
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

35) Which of the following is not a typical service attribute?

A) intangible product
B) easy to store
C) customer interaction is high
D) simultaneous production and consumption
E) difficult to resell
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

1-13
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
36) Which of the following statements is true?
A) Manufacturing now constitutes the largest economic sector in postindustrial societies
B) The number of people employed in manufacturing has increased since 1950
C) Each manufacturing employee now produces about 20 times more than in 1950
D) All of the above are true.
E) None of the above is true.
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

37) Which of the following attributes is most typical of a service?

A) production and consumption occur simultaneously
B) tangible
C) mass production
D) consistency
E) easy to automate
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

38) Which of the following is a similarity between goods and services?

A) mass production
B) consistency
C) automation
D) application of operations management
E) all of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

39) Current trends in operations management include all of the following except
A) just-in-time performance
B) rapid product development
C) mass customization
D) empowered employees
E) All of the above are current trends.
Answer: E
Diff: 2
Topic: Exciting new trends in operations management
Objective: LO1-1

1-14
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
40) Which of the following is not a current trend in operations management?
A) just-in-time performance
B) global focus
C) supply-chain partnering
D) mass customization
E) All of the above are current trends.
Answer: E
Diff: 2
Topic: Exciting new trends in operations management
Objective: LO1-1

41) New trends in operations management include

A) global focus
B) mass customization
C) empowered employees
D) rapid product development
E) All of the above are new trends in operations management.
Answer: E
Diff: 2
Topic: Exciting new trends in operations management
Objective: LO1-1

42) Which of the following statements about trends in operations management is false?
A) Job specialization is giving way to empowered employees.
B) Local or national focus is giving way to global focus.
C) Environmentally-sensitive production is giving way to low-cost focus.
D) Rapid product development is partly the result of shorter product cycles.
E) All of the above statements are false.
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: Exciting new trends in operations management
Objective: LO1-1

43) A foundry produces circular utility access hatches (manhole covers). If 120 covers are
produced in a 10-hour shift, the productivity of the line is
A) 1.2 covers/hr
B) 2 covers/hr
C) 12 covers/hr
D) 1200 covers/hr
E) none of the above
Answer: C
Diff: 1
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-4

1-15
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
44) A foundry produces circular utility access hatches (manhole covers). Currently, 120 covers
are produced in a 10-hour shift. If labor productivity can be increased by 20%, it would then be
A) 14.4 covers/hr
B) 24 covers/hr
C) 240 covers/hr
D) 1200 covers/hr
E) none of the above
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-4

45) Gibson Valves produces cast bronze valves on an assembly line. If 1600 valves are produced
in an 8-hour shift, the productivity of the line is
A) 2 valves/hr
B) 40 valves/hr
C) 80 valves/hr
D) 200 valves/hr
E) 1600 valves/hr
Answer: D
Diff: 1
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-4

46) Gibson Valves produces cast bronze valves on an assembly line, currently producing 1600
valves each 8-hour shift. If the productivity is increased by 10%, it would then be
A) 180 valves/hr
B) 200 valves/hr
C) 220 valves/hr
D) 880 valves/hr
E) 1760 valves/hr
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-4

1-16
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
47) Gibson Valves produces cast bronze valves on an assembly line, currently producing 1600
valves per shift. If the production is increased to 2000 valves per shift, labor productivity will
increase by
A) 10%
B) 20%
C) 25%
D) 40%
E) 50%
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-4

48) The Dulac Box plant produces 500 cypress packing boxes in two 10-hour shifts. What is the
productivity of the plant?
A) 25 boxes/hr
B) 50 boxes/hr
C) 5000 boxes/hr
D) none of the above
E) not enough data to determine productivity
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-4

49) The Dulac Box plant works two 8-hour shifts each day. In the past, 500 cypress packing
boxes were produced by the end of each day. The use of new technology has enabled them to
increase productivity by 30%. Productivity is now approximately
A) 32.5 boxes/hr
B) 40.6 boxes/hr
C) 62.5 boxes/hr
D) 81.25 boxes/hr
E) 300 boxes/hr
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-4

1-17
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
50) The Dulac Box plant produces 500 cypress packing boxes in two 10-hour shifts. Due to
higher demand, they have decided to operate three 8-hour shifts instead. They are now able to
produce 600 boxes per day. What has happened to productivity?
A) It has not changed.
B) It has increased by 37.5 boxes/hr.
C) It has increased by 20%.
D) It has decreased by 8.3%.
E) It has decreased by 9.1%.
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-4

51) Productivity measurement is complicated by

A) the competition's output
B) the fact that precise units of measure are often unavailable
C) stable quality
D) the workforce size
E) the type of equipment used
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-3

52) The total of all outputs produced by the transformation process divided by the total of the
inputs is
A) utilization
B) greater in manufacturing than in services
C) defined only for manufacturing firms
D) multifactor productivity
E) none of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-5

53) Which productivity variable has the greatest potential to increase productivity?
A) labor
B) globalization
C) management
D) capital
E) none of the above
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-6

1-18
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
54) Which of the following nets the largest productivity improvement?
A) increase output 15%
B) decrease input 15%
C) increase both output and input by 5%
D) increase output 10%, decrease input 3%
E) decrease input 10%, increase output 3%
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-5

55) Productivity can be improved by

A) increasing inputs while holding outputs steady
B) decreasing outputs while holding inputs steady
C) increasing inputs and outputs in the same proportion
D) decreasing inputs while holding outputs steady
E) none of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-6

56) The largest contributor to productivity increases is __________, estimated to be responsible

for __________ of the annual increase.
A) management; over one-half
B) Mr. Deming; one-half
C) labor; two-thirds
D) capital; 90%
E) technology; over one-half
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-6

57) The factor responsible for the largest portion of productivity increase in the U.S. is
A) labor
B) management
C) capital
D) All three combined; it is impossible to determine the contribution of individual factors.
E) None of these
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-6

1-19
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
58) Which of the following is not true when explaining why productivity tends to be lower in the
service sector than in the manufacturing sector?
A) Services are typically labor-intensive.
B) Services are often difficult to evaluate for quality.
C) Services are often an intellectual task performed by professionals.
D) Services are difficult to automate.
E) Service operations are typically capital intensive.
Answer: E
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-6

59) Three commonly used productivity variables are

A) quality, external elements, and precise units of measure
B) labor, capital, and management
C) technology, raw materials, and labor
D) education, diet, and social overhead
E) quality, efficiency, and low cost
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-3

60) The service sector has lower productivity improvements than the manufacturing sector
because
A) the service sector uses less skilled labor than manufacturing
B) the quality of output is lower in services than manufacturing
C) services usually are labor-intensive
D) service sector productivity is hard to measure
E) none of the above
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-6

61) Productivity tends to be more difficult to improve in the service sector because the work is
A) often difficult to automate
B) typically labor-intensive
C) frequently processed individually
D) often an intellectual task performed by professionals
E) All of the above make service productivity more difficult.
Answer: E
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-6

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62) Firm A operates 10 hours each day, producing 100 parts/hour. If productivity were increased
20%, how many hours would the plant have to work to produce 1000 parts?
A) less than 2 hours
B) between 9 and 10 hours
C) between 2 and 6 hours
D) between 6 and 8 hours
E) between 8 and 9 hours
Answer: E
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-4

63) A cleaning company uses 10 lbs each of chemicals A, B and C for each house it cleans.
After some quality complaints, the company has decided to increase its use of chemical A by an
additional 10 lbs for each house. By what % has productivity (houses per pound of chemical)
fallen?
A) 0%
B) 10%
C) 15%
D) 25%
E) 33%
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-4

64) A cleaning company uses $10 of chemicals, $40 of labor, and $5 of misc. expenses for each
house it cleans. After some quality complaints, the company has decided to increase its use of
chemicals by 50%. By what % has multifactor productivity fallen?
A) 0%
B) 8.3%
C) 25%
D) 50%
E) none of the above or unable to determine
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-5

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Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
65) Among the ethical and social challenges facing operations managers are
A) honoring stakeholder commitments
B) maintaining a sustainable environment
C) efficiently developing and producing safe, quality products
D) providing a safe workplace
E) all of the above
Answer: E
Diff: 1
Topic: Ethics and social responsibility
AACSB: Ethical Reasoning
Objective: no LO

66) Among the ethical and social challenges facing operations managers are
A) honoring financial commitments
B) maintaining a sustainable environment
C) developing low-cost products
D) providing an efficient workplace
E) all of the above
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: Ethics and social responsibility
AACSB: Ethical Reasoning
Objective: no LO

67) Which of the following is not among the ethical and social challenges facing operations
managers?
A) honoring stakeholder commitments
B) maintaining a sustainable environment
C) efficiently developing and producing safe, quality products
D) increasing executive pay
E) providing a safe workplace
Answer: D
Diff: 1
Topic: Ethics and social responsibility
AACSB: Ethical Reasoning
Objective: no LO

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Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
68) A business's stakeholders, whose conflicting perspectives cause ethical and social dilemmas,
include
A) lenders
B) suppliers
C) owners
D) employees
E) all of the above
Answer: E
Diff: 1
Topic: Ethics and social responsibility
AACSB: Ethical Reasoning
Objective: no LO

Short Answer

1) Starbucks stopped requiring signatures on credit-card purchases under $25 in an attempt to

reduce __________ .
Answer: transaction time (or service time)
Diff: 1
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-6

2) __________ is the set of activities that transforms inputs into goods and services.
Answer: Operations management
Diff: 1
Topic: What is operations management?
Objective: LO1-1

3) Marketing, Production, and __________ are the three functions that all organizations must
perform to create goods and services.
Answer: finance/accounting
Diff: 1
Topic: Organizing to produce goods and services
Objective: LO1-1

4) "Should we make or buy this component?" is an issue in the __________ critical decision
area.
Answer: supply chain management
Diff: 1
Topic: What operations managers do
Objective: LO1-1

5) Henry Ford and __________ are credited with the development of the moving assembly line.
Answer: Charles Sorensen
Diff: 1
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: LO1-1

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Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
6) When a tangible product is not included in a service, such as with counseling, it is called a
__________.
Answer: pure service
Diff: 1
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

7) __________ is the ability of the organization to be flexible enough to cater to the individual
whims of consumers.
Answer: Mass customization
Diff: 2
Topic: Exciting new trends in operations management
Objective: LO1-1

8) __________ is the operations management trend that moves more decision making to the
individual worker.
Answer: Empowered employees
Diff: 2
Topic: Exciting new trends in operations management
Objective: LO1-1

9) __________ is the total of all outputs produced by the transformation process divided by the
total of the inputs.
Answer: Multifactor productivity
Diff: 1
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-5

10) Productivity is the ratio of __________ to __________. Using this relationship, productivity
can be improved by __________ or __________.
Answer: outputs, intputs; reducing inputs while holding outputs constant; increasing outputs
while holding inputs constant.
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-6

11) Identify three or more operations-related tasks carried out by Hard Rock Café.
Answer: Providing custom meals; designing, testing, and costing meals; acquiring, receiving ,
and storing supplies; recruiting and training employees; preparing employee schedules;
designing efficient restaurant layouts.
Diff: 1
Topic: Global company profile
Objective: no LO

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Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
12) Identify two operations-related tasks carried out by Hard Rock Café. Match each to its area
of the Ten Critical Decisions.
Answer: Providing custom meals–design of goods and services; designing, testing, and costing
meals–design of goods and services; acquiring, receiving , and storing supplies–supply- chain
management; recruiting and training employees–human resources , job design and work
measurement; preparing employee schedules–intermediate and short-term scheduling; designing
efficient restaurant layouts–layout strategy.
Diff: 2
Topic: Global company profile
Objective: no LO

13) Define operations management. Will your definition accommodate both manufacturing and
service operations?
Answer: Operations management can be defined as the management of all activities directly
related to the creation of goods and/or services through the transformation of inputs into outputs.
Yes.
Diff: 1
Topic: What is operations management?
Objective: LO1-1

14) Identify the items that Fredrick W. Taylor believed management should be more responsible
for.
Answer: He believed that management should be more responsible for matching employees to
the right job, providing the proper training, providing proper work methods and tools, and
establishing legitimate incentives for work to be accomplished.
Diff: 2
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: LO1-1

15) Operations managers should be well versed in what disciplines in order to make good
decisions?
Answer: Management science, information technology, and often one of the biological or
physical sciences.
Diff: 2
Topic: The heritage of operations management
Objective: LO1-1

16) Why are services typically more difficult to standardize, automate, and make efficient?
Answer: Services typically require customer interaction, which makes it difficult to standardize,
automate, and make efficient.
Diff: 2
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

1-25
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
17) How do services differ from goods? Identify five ways.
Answer: Pick from the following: a service is usually intangible; it is often produced and
consumed simultaneously; often unique; it involves high customer interaction; product definition
is inconsistent; often knowledge-based; and frequently dispersed.
Diff: 2
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

18) Services are often knowledge-based. Provide two examples, and explain why they are
knowledge-based.
Answer: Answer will vary, but the textbook used educational, medical, and legal services.
Diff: 2
Topic: Operations in the service sector
Objective: LO1-2

19) Why are organizations changing from batch (large) shipments to just-in-time (JIT)
shipments?
Answer: Organizations are switching to JIT shipments because inventory requires a large
financial investment, and impedes the responsiveness to changes in the marketplace.
Diff: 2
Topic: Exciting new trends in operations management
Objective: LO1-1

20) Why are organizations becoming more global?

Answer: Organizations are becoming more global with the decline in the cost of communication
and transportation. Additionally, resources–capital, material, talent, and labor–are also
becoming more global.
Diff: 2
Topic: Exciting new trends in operations management
Objective: LO1-1

21) Identify the three productivity variables used in the text.

Answer: The three common variables are labor, capital, and management.
Diff: 2
Topic: Productivity variables
Objective: LO1-6

22) What is a knowledge society?

Answer: A knowledge society is one in which much of the labor force has migrated from
manual work to work based on knowledge.
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
Objective: LO1-6

1-26
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
23) Why are operations managers faced with ethical and social challenges?
Answer: Businesses have diverse stakeholders, which include owners, employees, lenders, and
distributors. These stakeholders hold conflicting perspectives.
Diff: 1
Topic: Ethics and social responsibility
AACSB: Ethical Reasoning
Objective: LO1-1

24) What are some of the ethical and social challenges faced by operations managers?
Answer: Efficiently developing and producing safe quality products; maintaining a clean
environment; providing a safe workplace; honoring community commitments.
Diff: 1
Topic: Ethics and social responsibility
AACSB: Ethical Reasoning
Objective: LO1-1

25) As the administrative manager in a law office, you have been asked to develop a system for
evaluating the productivity of the 15 lawyers in the office. What difficulties are you going to
have in doing this, and how are you going to overcome them?
Answer: Productivity measures for a law office are difficult. Simple criteria, like number of
cases processed, fail to consider complexity of the case. Even counting wins is difficult, as many
cases are settled with some sort of compromise. External elements such as the quality of the
opposing counsel and the tenacity of the opposition also make counting look rather silly.

Categories of cases can help–(i.e., uncontested divorce, no personal injury auto case, etc.)
However, many firms end up counting hours billed. This in turns leads to other problems, as
noted by the number of false billing cases.
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Reflective Thinking
Objective: LO1-6

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Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Essay

1) Susan has a part-time "cottage industry" producing seasonal plywood yard ornaments for
resale at local craft fairs and bazaars. She currently works 8 hours per day to produce 16
ornaments.
a. What is her productivity?
b. She thinks that by redesigning the ornaments and switching from use
of a wood glue to a hot-glue gun she can increase her total
production to 20 ornaments per day. What is her new productivity?
c. What is her percentage increase in productivity?
Answer:
a. 16 ornaments/8 hours = 2 ornaments/hour
b. 20 ornaments/8 hours = 2.5 ornaments/hour
c. Change in productivity = 0.5 ornaments/hour; percent change = 0.5/2= 25%
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-4

2) A firm cleans chemical tank cars in the Bay St. Louis area. With standard equipment, the firm
typically cleaned 70 chemical tank cars per month. They utilized 10 gallons of solvent, and two
employees worked 20 days per month, 8 hours a day. The company decided to switch to a larger
cleaning machine. Last April, they cleaned 60 tank cars in only 15 days. They utilized 12 gallons
of solvent, and the two employees worked 6 hours a day.
1. What was their raw material and their labor productivity with the standard equipment?
2. What is their raw material and their labor productivity with the larger machine?
3. What is the change in each productivity measure?
Answer:
Standard
Resource Equipment Larger Machine Percent Change
70 60 5-7
=7 =5 = -28.57%
Solvent 10 12 7
70 60 .33 - .22
= 0.22 = .33 = 50%
Labor 320 180 .22

Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-4

1-28
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
3) The Dulac Box plant produces wooden packing boxes to be used in the local seafood industry.
Current operations allow the company to make 500 boxes per day, in two 8-hour shifts (250
boxes per shift). The company has introduced some small changes in equipment, and conducted
appropriate job training, so that production levels have risen to 300 boxes per shift. These
changes did not require any change in the amount of capital spending or energy use. What is the
firm's new labor productivity?
Answer: 600 boxes per day / 16 hours = 37.5 boxes per hour
Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-4

4) Mark's Ceramics spent $4000 on a new kiln last year in the belief that it would cut energy
usage 25% over the old kiln. This kiln is an oven that turns "greenware" into finished pottery.
Mark is concerned that the new kiln requires extra labor hours for its operation. Mark wants to
check the energy savings of the new oven, and also to look over other measures of their
productivity to see if the change really was beneficial. Mark has the following data to work with:

Last Year This Year

Production (finished units) 4000 4000
Greenware (pounds) 5000 5000
Labor (hrs) 350 375
Capital ($) 15000 19000
Energy (kWh) 3000 2600

Were the modifications beneficial?

Answer: The energy modifications did not generate the expected energy savings; also, labor and
capital productivity decreased.

Pct.
Resource Last Year This Year Change Change
4000 / 350 = 4000 / 375 =
Labor 11.43 10.67 -0.76 -6.7%
4000 / 15000 = 4000 / 19000 =
Capital 0.27 .21 -0.060 -22.2%
4000 / 3000 = 4000 / 2600 =
Energy 1.33 1.54 0.21 15.4%

Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-5

1-29
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
5) Martin Manufacturing has implemented several programs to improve its productivity. They
have asked you to evaluate the firm's productivity by comparing this year's performance with last
year's. The following data are available:

Last Year This Year

Output 10,500 units 12,100 units
Labor Hours 12,000 13,200
Utilities $7,600 $8,250
Capital $83,000 $88,000

Has Martin Manufacturing improved its productivity during the past year?
Answer: Productivity improved in all three categories this year; utilities showed the greatest
increase, and labor the least.

Pct.
Resource Last Year This Year Change Change
10500 / 12000 =
Labor 0.88 12100 / 13200 = 0.9 0.04 4.8%
10500 / 7600 =
Capital 1.38 12100 / 8250 = 1.47 0.09 6.2%
10500 / 83000 =
Energy 0.13 12100 / 88000 = 0.14 0.01 7.69%

Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-5

6) Felicien grows mirlitons (that's Cajun for Chayote squash) in his 100 by 100 foot garden. He
then sells the crop at the local farmers' market. Two summers ago, he was able to produce and
sell 1200 pounds of mirlitons. Last summer, he tried a new fertilizer that promised a 50%
increase in yield. He harvested 1900 pounds. Did the fertilizer live up to its promise?
Answer: Since the productivity gain was 58.3%, not 50%, the fertilizer was at least as good as
advertised.

Two Summers
ago Last Summer Change
1200 ÷ 10,000 = 1900 ÷ 10,000 = (.19 - .12) ÷ .12 =
.12 1bs/sq. ft .19 lbs/sq. ft 58.3%

Diff: 2
Topic: The productivity challenge
AACSB: Analytic Skills
Objective: LO1-4

1-30
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hotel-lined roadway with a delightful water front and a charming and idyllic
background.
Spezia is reached only by climbing a lengthy mountain road up over the
Pass of the Bracco; sixty kilometres in all from Sestri to Spezia. The
highroad now leaves the coast to wind around inland over the lower slopes
of the Apennines. The railway itself follows the shore.
It is a finely graded road with entrancing far-away vistas of the sea, the
distant snow-capped summits of the mountains to the north and, off
southward, the more gently rising Tuscan hills.
After having climbed some twenty-one hundred feet above the sea, the
highroad runs down through the valley of the Vara, until finally at Spezia,
Italy’s great marine arsenal, one comes again to the Mediterranean shore.
Just before Spezia is reached, snuggled close in a little bay, is Vernazza
—where the wine comes from, at least, the wine the praises of which were
sung by Boccaccio “as the paragon of wines.” Wine is still a product of the
region, but its quality may not be what it once was.
Spezia is a snug, conservative and exclusive military and naval town.
The gold-lace and blue-cloth individuals of the “service” dominate
everything, even to the waiters in the hotels and cafés. No one else has a
show.
The Hotel Croix de Malte (with a French name be it observed) is the
chic hotel of Spezia, with prices on a corresponding scale, and no garage.
The Albergo Italia, equally well situated, a typical Italian house of its class,
is more modest in its prices and better as to its food. It has no garage either,
but under the circumstances, that of itself is no drawback. Across the street,
in a vacant store, you may lodge your automobile for two francs a night, or
for one franc if you tell the ambitious and obliging little man who runs it
that he demands too much. He is really the best thing we found in Spezia.
We had run out of gasoline in entering the city, the long run down hill
flattened out into a plain just before the town was reached, but he
accommodatingly sent out a five gallon tin (“original package” goods from
Philadelphia) and would take no increase in price for his trouble. Such a
thing in the automobile line ought to be encouraged. We pay “through the
nose,” as the French say, often enough as it is.
Spezia’s suburban villas are a natural outcome of its environment, but
they are all modern and have, none of them, the flavour of historic
romanticism about them.
An ancient castle tower on the hills above Spezia is about the only feudal
ruin near by. The viper, the device of the Viscontis, is still graven above its
entrance door to recall the fact that the device of the Milanese nobles was a
viper, and that their natures, too, took after that of the unlovely thing. The
Viper of Milan and the Viscontis is a worthy cage companion to the
hedgehog of François I.
Spezia’s gulf is all that Spezia is not; romantic, lovely and varied. It was
described in ancient times by Strabo, the geographer, and by Persius. Little
of its topographical surroundings or climatic attributes have changed since
that day.
The road down the coast from Spezia is marked on the maps as perfectly
flat, but within a dozen kilometres, before Arcola is reached, is as stiff a
couple of hair-pin turns as one will remember ever having come across
suddenly in his travels. They are not formidable hills, perhaps, but they are
surprising, and since one has to drop down again immediately to sea level
they seem entirely unnecessary.
The river Magra which enters the sea just east of Spezia divided the
Genoese territory from that of Tuscany.

“Macra che per cammin corto

Lo Gonovese parta dal Toscano.”
—Dante, “Paradisio.”

Sarzana is not a tourist point, but the traveller by road will not be in a
hurry to pass it by. It has, curiously enough, an Albergo della Nuova York,
built on the fortification walls of feudal days. It is not for this, though, that
one lingers at Sarzana. The Bonapartes were originally descended from
Sarzana ancestry. It was proven by contemporary documents that a certain
Buonaparte, a notary, lived here in 1264. Supposedly, it was this limb of the
law who became the chief of the Corsican family.
The old feudal castle of Sarzana, with its round tower, its moat and its
later Renaissance gateway is the very ideal of mouldy mediævalism.
From Sarzana, it is, figuratively speaking, but a step to Carrara and
Massa, the centres of the marble industry. Of all the materials the artist
requires, none is so much sought after as the pure white marble of Carrara.
The sculptured marble of Carrara goes out into the world from thousands of
ateliers to thousands of resting places but it all comes from this great white
mountainside in the Apennines which has made the region famous and rich.
This little Tuscan town of Carrara owes its all to its, seemingly,
inexhaustible stores of milk-white, fine-grained marbles. More especially is
the marble of Carrara in demand for statuary; but in all the finer forms of
carven stone it finds its place supreme.
Men and beasts, oxen, horses and mules, and carts of all shapes and
sizes, make the vicinity of Carrara the centre of an uproar that would be
maddening if one had to live in it; but it is all very interesting to the
stranger, and speaks more loudly than words of the importance of the great
industry of the neighbourhood.
All around are great heaps—mountains almost—of broken, splintered
marble; the débris merely of the great blocks which have, in times past,
been quarried and sent to all quarters of the earth.
The quarries of Carrara have been worked ever since the Roman epoch,
and the tufted hillsides round about have been burrowed to their bowels in
taking out this untold wealth which, without exaggeration, has been as great
as that of many mines of gold.
Quite twenty per cent. of the population work at the industry, and five
hundred men are actually engaged in hewing out and slicing off the great
blocks. Ten thousand, at least, find their livelihood dependent upon the
industry, and two hundred thousand tons is a normal annual output; in price,
valued at from 150 to 1,500 francs the cubic metre.
At Massa one joins the main road again running south by the shore. One
never hears of the conventional tourist stopping at Massa; but we found the
Hotel Massa and its dinner in the garden worth the taking and agreed that
the Château, in base rococo style, (now the public administrative buildings),
a curiosity worth seeing. Massa has a Napoleonic memory hanging over it,
too, in that it was once the residence of the Little Corporal’s sister. Massa’s
Castello, high above all else in the town, is grim, lofty and spectacular
though to be viewed only from without. Massa is worth making a note of,
even by the hurried traveller.
Since leaving Sarzana the high road has become worse and worse, until
in the vicinity of Carrara and Massa it is almost indescribably bad. There is
no such stretch of bad road in Europe as this awful fifty kilometres, for it
continues all the way to Lucca and Livorno. The vast amount of traffic
drawn by ten head of oxen at a time is what does it of course, and as there is
no way around one has to go through it, though it’s a heart-breaking job to
one that cares anything for his automobile.
Pietrasanta, eight kilometres farther on, was, for us, an undiscovered
beauty spot and historic shrine; at least, none of us had ever heard of it till
we passed the portals. Now we know that the walls, through which we
passed, were the same that the blood-thirsty, battling Lorenzo di Medici
besieged in 1482; and that the ancient bronze font in the Baptistery was the
work of Donatello. We were glad that Massa and Pietrasanta were counted
in, as they should be by everyone passing this way, even though they did
take up half a day’s time—all on account of the awful road—part of which
time, however, you are eating that excellent lunch in the garden of the Hotel
Massa. That time will not be lost anyway, one must eat somewhere.
Eight kilometres beyond Massa is Viareggio, an unlovely, incipient
seaside resort for dwellers in the Tuscan towns; but a historic spot
nevertheless, and interesting from that viewpoint at any rate.
Viareggio has no villas or palaces of note, and its chief associations for
the traveller lie in its memories of Shelley and Ouida, the Marquise de la
Ramée. There is a monument, erected to Shelley in 1894, commemorating
the fact that he was drowned here, in the Tyrrhenian Sea, and his body
consumed by fire, on the shore.
It was in the village of Massarosa, near Viareggio, that that much-abused
and very abusive old lady, Ouida, the Marquis de la Ramée, died in January,
1908. Since 1877 she had made Italy her home, and for years she had lived
here alone, not in poverty or misery, for she had a “civil pension” which
was more than sufficient to keep the wolf from the door. She died miserable
and alone however. Ouida was a more real, more charitable person than she
was given credit for being. She didn’t like the English, and Americans she
liked still less, but she loved the Italians. Whose business was it then if she
chose to live among them, with her unkempt and unwholesome-looking
dogs and her slatternly maid-of-all-work? Ouida, as she herself said, did not
hate humanity; she hated society; and she had more courage than some of
the rest of us in that she would have nothing to do with it.
The vineyards lying back of Viareggio may not be the most luxuriant in
Italy, but they blossom abundantly enough.
 Lucca is thirty-five kilometres from Viareggio and the road still bad—on
to Livorno, turning to the right instead of the left at Viareggio, it is worse.
Lucca has a right to its claim as one of the most ancient cities of
Tuscany, for it is one of the least up-to-date of Italian cities. When Florence
was still sunk in its marsh Lucca was already old, and filled with a
commercial importance which to-day finds its echo in the distribution of the
Lucca olive oil of trade which one may buy at Vancouver, Johannesburg or
Rio. Indeed the label on the bottle of olive oil is the only reminiscence
many have of Lucca.

The decadence came to Lucca in due time and it degenerated sadly,

about its last magnificent ray being that shot out when Napoleon gave the
city to his sister Eliza Bacciochi, with the title of Princess of Lucca. She
was a real benefactress to the country, but with the fall of Napoleon all his
satellites were snuffed out, too, and then the benign influences of the
Princess Eliza were forgotten and ignored.
Southwest from Lucca, with Pisa lying between, is the great port of
Leghorn, whence are shipped the marbles of Carrara, the oil of Lucca, the
wines of Chianti and the Leghorn hats and braids of all Tuscany. These four
things keep Livorno going.
Leghorn is as modern as Lucca is antiquated and is the most
cosmopolitan of all Italian cities.
 When Philip III expelled the Moors from Spain Cosmo II, Duke of
Livorno, invited two thousand of them to come to his Dukedom.
Montesquieu remarked upon this conglomerate population, and
approved of it apparently, as he called the founding and populating of the
city the master work of the Medici dynasty.
 CHAPTER VII

ON TUSCAN ROADS

THE valley of the Arno, as the river flows through the heart of Tuscany
from its source high in the hills just south of Monte Falterona, is the most
romantic region in all Italy. It is the borderland between the south and the
north, and, as it was a battle-ground between Guelph and Ghibellines, so
too is it the common ground where the blood of the northerner and
southerner mingles to-day.
As great rivers go, the Arno is neither grand nor magnificent, but, though
its proportions are not great, its banks are lined with historic and artistic
ruins, from the old fortress at Marina di Pisa to Poppi, the ancient capital of
the Casentino, perched so quaintly upon its river-washed rock.
Pisa, Leghorn and Lucca are a triumvirate of Tuscan towns which should
be viewed and considered collectively. One should not be included in an
itinerary without the others, though indeed they have little in common, save
the memories of the past.
 Pisa is another of these dead cities of Europe, like Bruges, Leyden, and
Rothenburg. Once ardent and lively in every activity of life, its population
now has sunk into a state of lethargy. Industry and commerce, and the men
who should busy themselves therewith, are in the background, hidden
behind a barrier of bureaucracy. Pisa, a town of twenty-six thousand
inhabitants, has a tribunal of nine civil judges, a criminal court presided
over by sixty-three more, and a “roll” of more than half a hundred notaries.
Then there is a service of Domains, of Registry and of Public Debt; besides
an array of functionaries in charge of seminaries, orphan asylums, schools
and colleges. All these belong to the state.
Pisa, sitting distant and proud on the banks of the Arno, enjoys a softer
climate than most of the coast cities or interior towns of central Italy. The
Tyrrhenian Sea is but a gulf of the Mediterranean, but just where it bathes
the shore about the mouth of the Arno, it has a higher temperature than most
northern Mediterranean waters.
Pisa is more of a sanitarium than it is a gay watering place however. The
city is, in fact, like its celebrated leaning tower, half tottering on the brink of
its grave. Commerce and industry are far from active and its streets are half
deserted; many of them are literally grass-grown and all the others are
paved with great flat clean-swept flags, a delight for the automobilist,
whose chief experience of pavements has been in France and Belgium.
The entrance to Pisa by road from the north is one of the most pleasing
of that of any Italian city. For the last half dozen kilometres the road
steadily improves until it becomes one of the best as it circles around that
wonderful triumvirate of architectural splendours, the Duomo, the
Baptistery and the tottering Torre. The group is one of the scenic surprises
of Italy, and the automobilist has decidedly the best opportunity of
experiencing the emotions it awakes, for he does not have to come out from
town (for the monuments are some ways from the centre) to see it. It is the
first impression that the traveller by road gets of Pisa and of its architectural
wonders, as he draws suddenly upon it from the slough-like road through
which he has literally ploughed his way for many kilometres. And it is an
impression he will never forget.
All along the banks of the Arno, as it flows through Pisa, are dotted here
and there palaces of Renaissance days. One is now a dependence of a hotel;
another has been appropriated by the post office; others are turned into
banks and offices; but there are still some as well ordered and livable as in
their best days.
The Palazzo Agostini on the Lung’ Arno, its façade ornamented with
terra cotta medallions, is now a part of the Hotel Nettuno which, as well as
any other of Pisa’s hotels, cares for the automobilist in a satisfactory
manner. Its garage accommodations are abominably confined, and to get in
and out one takes a considerable risk of damaging his mud-guards,
otherwise they are satisfactory, though one pays two francs a night for
them, which one should not be obliged to do. Here is another point where
France is superior to Italy as an automobile touring ground.
Pisa and its palaces are a delight from every point of view, though
indeed none of the edifices are very grand, or even luxurious. They strike a
middle course however, and are indicative of the solid comfort and content
in which their original owners must have lived at Pisa in latter Renaissance
times.
Pisa’s Campo Santo is the most famous example of graveyard design and
building in all the world. It is calm and dignified, but stupendous and
startling in its immensity.
From Pisa to Florence by road, following the valley of the Arno, one
passes through the typical Tuscan countryside, although the hill-country lies
either to one side or the other. It is the accessible route however, and the one
usually claimed by the local garage and hotel keepers to be one of the best
of Italian roads. It is and it isn’t; it all depends upon the time of the year, the
fact that the road may recently have been repaired or not, and the state of
the weather. We went over it in a rain which had been falling steadily for
three days and found it very bad, though unquestionably it would have been
much more comfortable going in dry weather. It is the approved route
between the two cities however, and unless one is going directly down the
coast to Rome, via Grosseto, Pisa is the best place from which to commence
the inland détour.
Cascina, a dozen kilometres away, was the scene of a sanguinary defeat
of the Pisans by the Florentines on the feast of San Vittorio in 1364, and
each year the event is celebrated by the inhabitants. It seems singular that a
people should seek to perpetuate the memory of a defeat, but perhaps the
original inhabitants sympathized with Florence rather than with Pisa.
Pontedera is a big country town at the juncture of the Era and the Arno.
It has no monuments and no history worth remarking, but is indicative of
the prosperity of the country round about. Pontedera has no hotel with
garage accommodations, and if you get caught in a thunder storm, as we
did, you will have to grin and bear it and plug along.
San Miniato de Tedeschi rises on its hill top a few kilometres farther on
in an imposing manner. It is the most conspicuous thing in the landscape for
a wide radius. Francesco Sforza was born here, and Frederic II made it the
seat of the Imperial vicarage. San Miniato is a hill town of the very first
rank, and like others of the same class—Fiesole, Colle and Volterra—
(though its hill-top site may have nothing to do with this) it had the
privilege of conferring nobility on plebeians. The Grand Duke of Tuscany
in the nineteenth century accordingly made “an English gentleman of
Hebrew extraction”—so history reads—the Marquis of San Miniato. At any
rate it was probably as good a title as is usually conferred on any one, and
served its soi-disant owner well enough for a crest for his note paper or
automobile door. One wonders what the gentleman took for his motto.
History does not say.
Empoli is a thriving town, engaged principally in killing fowls and
sending them to the Florence market, plaiting straw to be made into hats,
and covering chianti bottles with the same material.
The Ghibellines would have made Empoli their capital in 1260, after
their meeting or “parliament” here. It was proposed too, that Florence
should be razed. One man only, Farinata degli Uberti, opposed it. “Never,”
said he, “will I consent that our beloved city, which our enemies have
spared, shall be destroyed or insulted by our own hands.”
The old palace in which the Ghibelline parliament met still stands on the
Piazza del Mercato.
No automobilist who “happens” on Empoli will ever want to see it again,
on account of the indignities which will be heaped on his automobile,
though the Albergo Guippone, run by a mother and son in most competent,
but astonishing, fashion, is the real thing. The food and cooking are
extraordinarily good, and the house itself new and cleanly. You eat at a big
round table, with a great long-necked bottle of chianti swung on a balance
in the centre. It must hold at least two gallons, and, without the well-sweep
arrangement for pouring out its contents, you would go dry. The wine
served is as good as the rest of the fare offered. The fault with Empoli’s
hotel is that there is no garage and the proprietors recommend no one as
competent to house your automobile, saying you can take your choice of
any one of a half a dozen renters of stallagio near by. They are all bad
doubtless; but the one we tried, who permitted us to put the automobile in
an uncovered dirty hole with horses, donkeys and pigs, took—yes, took,
that’s the word—two lire for the service! If you do go to Empoli keep away
from this ignorant, unprogressive individual.
North of Empoli, on the direct road from Lucca to Florence, are Pistoja
and Prato.
Pistoja is one of the daintiest of Tuscan cities, but not many of the
habitués of Florence know it, at least not as they know Pisa or Siena.
Its past is closely intermingled with Florentine and Italian history, and
indeed has been most interesting. Practically it is a little mountain city,
though lying quite at the base of the Apennines, just before they flatten out
into the seashore plain. Its country people, in town for a market-day, are
chiefly people of the hills, shepherds and the like, but their speech is
Tuscan, the purest speech of Italy, the nearest that is left us to the speech of
Boccaccio’s day.
Pistoja’s old walls and ramparts are not the least of its crumbling glories.
They are a relic of the Medicis and the arms and crests of this family are
still seen carved over several of the entrance gates. One has only to glance
upward as he drives his automobile noisily through some mediæval
gateway to have memories of the days when cavalcades of lords and ladies
passed over the same road on horseback or in state coaches.
All is primitive and unworldly at Pistoja, but there is no ruinous decay,
though here and there a transformed or rebuilt palace has been turned into
some institution or even a workshop.
Prato, a near neighbour of Pistoja on the road to Florence, is also a fine
relic of an old walled Tuscan town. Aside from this its specialty is churches,
which are numerous, curious and beautiful, but except for the opportunity
for viewing them the lover of the romantic and picturesque will not want to
linger long within the city.
Between Empoli and Florence is seen at a distance the Villa
Ambrogiana; a transformation by Ferdinand I of an old castle of the
Ardinghelli; its towers and pinnacles still well preserved, but the whole
forming a hybrid, uncouth structure.
Further on at Montelupo there is a castle, now in ruins, built and fortified
by the Florentines in 1203. It owes its name, Montelupo, to the adoption of
the word lupo, wolf, by the Florentines when they sought to destroy a
neighbouring clan called the Capraja (capra, goat).
Signa is reached after crossing the Arno for the first time. The city walls,
towers and pinnacles, with their battlements and machicolations, are still as
they were when the Florentines caused them to be erected to guard the high
road leading to their city.
Suburban sights, in the shape of modern villas, market gardens and what
not, announce the approach to Florence, which is entered by a broad
straight road, the Strada Pisana, running beneath the Porta S. Frediano.
Instinctively one asks for the Lung’ Arno that he may get his bearings, and
then straightway makes for his hotel or pension.
 Hotels for the automobilist in Florence are numerous. The Automobile
Club de France vouches for the Palace Hotel, where you pay two francs and
a half for garage, and for the Grand Hotel de la Ville with no garage. The
writer prefers the Hotel Helvetia, or better yet the Hotel Porta Rossa, a
genuine Italian albergo, patronized only by such strangers as come upon it
unawares. It is very good, reasonable in price, and you may put your
automobile in the remissa, which houses the hotel omnibus, for a franc a
night. It is convenient to have your automobile close at hand instead of at
the F. I. A. T. garage a mile or more away, and the hotel itself is most
central, directly to the rear of the Strozzi Palace.
“What sort of city is this Florence?” asked Boniface VIII, amazed at the
splendour of the Florentine procession sent to Rome to honour his jubilee.
No one was found ready with an answer, but at last a Cardinal timidly
remarked, “Your Holiness, the City of Florence is a good city.” “Nonsense,”
replied the Pope, “she is far away the greatest of all cities! She feeds,
clothes and governs us all.... She and her people are the fifth element of the
universe.”
One comes to Florence for pictures and palaces, and, for as long or short
a time as fancy suggests, the automobile and the chauffeur, if you have one,
take a needed repose. Your automobile safely housed, your chauffeur will
most likely be found, when wanted, at the Reininghaus on the Piazza
Vittorio-Emanuel drinking German beer and reading “Puck” or “Judge” or
“Punch” or “Le Rire.” This is a café with more foreign papers, one thinks,
than any other on earth.
 Down through the heart of Tuscany, and through
the Chianti district, runs the highroad from Florence
to Rome, via Siena. It is a delightful itinerary,
whether made by road or rail, and, whether one’s
motive is the admiration and contemplation of art or
architecture, or the sampling of the chianti, en route,
the journey through the Tuscan Apennines will ever
remain as a most fragrant memory. It is a lovely
country of vineyards and wheatfields, intermingled,
and, here and there, clumps of mulberry trees, and
always great yoked oxen and contadini working,
walking or sleeping.
These, indeed, are the general characteristics of
all the countryside of central Italy, but here they are
superlatively idyllic. The simple life must be very
nearly at its best here, for the almost unalterable fare
of bread and cheese and wine, which the peasants,
by the roadside, seem always to be munching and
drinking, is not conducive to grossness of thought or
action.
From Florence to Rome there are three principal
roads favoured by automobilists: that via Siena and
Grosseto, 332 kilometres; via Siena, Orvieto and
Viterbo, 325 kilometres; and via Arezzo, Perugia
and Terni, 308 kilometres. They are all equally
interesting, but the latter two are hilly throughout
and the former, in rainy weather, is apt to be bad as
to surface.
The towers of Tuscany might well be made the
interesting subject of an entire book. Some of them,
existing to-day, date from the Etruscans, many
centuries before Christ, and Dionysius wrote that the
Etruscans were called Tyrrhene or Turreno because
they inhabited towers, or strong places—Typeie.
In the twelfth century, local laws, throughout
Tuscany, reduced all towers to a height of fifty braccia. Pisa, Siena and
Florence in the past had several hundred towers, but Volterra and San
Gimignano in the Val d’Elsa are the only remarkable collections still
grouped after the original manner. “San Gimignano delle belle Torri” is a
classic phrase and has inspired many chapters in books and many magazine
articles.
 San Gimignano

Massimo d’Azeglio, whose opinions most people who write books on

Italy exploit as their own, said, with reason, that San Gimignano was as
extraordinary a relic of the past as Pompeii. Of all the fifty odd towers of
the city, none is more imposing than that of the Palazzo Publico, rising up
above the very apartment, where, in the thirteenth century, Dante was
received when he was sent from Florence to parley with the Guelphs of San
Gimignano.
San Gimignano’s Palazzo del Commune dates from 1298, but its tower
was an afterthought, built a century later. This tower of the Palazzo del
Commune is, perhaps, the best preserved of all the “belle torri” of the city.
 San Gimignano and Volterra are much alike, though the latter’s strong
point lies more in its fortification walls. Volterra and its Etruscan lore and
pottery have ever been a source of pride among Italian antiquarians. The
Etruscans of old must have been passionately fond of pottery, for, so
plentifully were the environs of Volterra strewn with broken pitchers, that
one suspects that each square yard must have contained a well. Some one
called the Etruscans lunatics, who were shut up in Volterra and allowed to
pursue their craze for pottery in peace; but they were harmless lunatics, who
devoted themselves to the arts of peace, rather than those of war. The
alabaster bric-à-brac trade and traffic still exists, and provides a livelihood
for a large part of the population of the city; but thousands of Tuscans,
many of them from Volterra, doubtless, have deserted their former arts for
the pleasure of dragging a hand organ from street to street, in London and
New York, and gathering soldi by ministering to the pleasures of the
populace. It is easy for the superior person to sneer at the hand organ, as he
sneers, by the way, at the phonograph and the pianola, but dull alleys and
mean streets are brightened by the music of the itinerant Italian.
“It is a vision of the moyen-age,” wrote Paul Bourget when he first saw
Volterra’s Etruscan walls. High up on its rocky plateau sits Volterra,
protected by its walls and gorges and ravines, in almost impregnable
fashion.
With this incentive no automobilist north or southbound should omit San
Gimignano or Volterra from his itinerary. They are but a few kilometres off
the main road, from Poggibonzi via Val d’Elsa between Siena and Florence.
On a height overlooking Volterra, just over the Romitorio, and almost
within sight of San Gimignano’s towers, Campanello, the celebrated
brigand, was captured, a quarter of a century ago. He had quartered himself
upon an unsuspecting, though unwilling, peasant, as was the fashion with
brigands of the time, and, through a “faux pas,” offended a youth who was
in love with one of his host’s daughters. This was his undoing. The youth
informed the local authorities; and Campanello led away himself by the
blind passion of love, fell precipitately into the trap which the injured youth
had helped to set.
Thus ended another brigand’s tale, which in these days are growing
fewer and fewer. One has to go to Corsica or Sardinia to experience the
sensation of being held up, or to the Paris boulevards where apaches still
reign, or to the east end of London.
Going south from Florence by this road the automobilist has simply to
ask his way via the “Strada per Siena;” after Siena it is the “Strada per
Roma;” and so on from one great town to another. In finding one’s way out
of town the plan is simple, easily remembered and efficient; there are no
false and confusing directions such as one frequently gets in France. You
are either on the Via This or That which ultimately leads to the Strada of the
same name, or you are not. Start right and you can’t miss the road in Italy.
Among all the secondary cities of Italy, none equals Siena in romantic
appeal. Its site is most picturesque, its climate is salubrious, and it has an
entirely mediæval stamp so far as the arrangement of its palaces is
concerned. Siena possesses something unique in church architecture, as
might be expected of a city which once contained sixty places of worship, a
special patois, and women of surpassing beauty. More than by anything
else, Siena is brought to mind by the recollection of that Saint Catherine,
who, according to Pope Pius II, made all who approached her better for her
presence.
The railway and its appurtenances, automobiles and their belongings, the
electric light and the telegraph, are almost the only signs of modernity in
Siena to-day. The rest is of the middle ages, and the chief characters who
stand out to-day are not the political personages of our time; but Bianca
Capello and Marie de Medici and Charles V, who of all other aliens is best
remembered of Siena, because of the Holbein reproduction of his face and
figure which he presented to its citizens.
 CHAPTER VIII

FLORENTINE BACKGROUNDS

THE hills and valleys around Florence offer delightful promenades by

road to the automobilist as well as to those who have not the means at hand
of going so far afield. A commercial enterprise is exploiting them by means
of a great char-a-banc, or “sightseeing” automobile, which detracts from
the sentiments and emotions which might otherwise be evoked, and at the
same time annoys the driver of a private automobile, for the reason that this
public conveyance often crowds him on a narrow road and prevents his
passing. However, this is better than being obstructed, as in former days, by
a string of forty lazy cabs and their drivers.
The round to Fiesole, San Miniato, Vallombrosa, and on through the
Casentino of romantic memory is delightful and may be made in a day or a
week, as one’s fancy dictates.
The new road from Florence to Fiesole, that is the road made in the mid-
nineteenth century, was not a piece of jobbery or graft, but was paid for by
patents of nobility given by the municipality of Fiesole to those who
furnished the means. This was in the days when a Grand Duke ruled
Tuscany and monarchical institutions found favour.
Fiesole had its Libro d’Oro, and inscribed thereon as noble any
individual who would pay the required price. From fifteen hundred lire
upward was the price for which marquises, counts and barons were created
in Florence’s patrician suburb.
Coming out from Florence by another gateway, through the Porta San
Gallo, runs the Fiesole highway. A landmark, which can be readily pointed
out by anyone, is the villa once possessed by Walter Savage Landor and
inhabited by him for nearly thirty years. Here the famous men of letters of
the middle years of the last century visited him. Here he revelled amid
memories of Boccaccio and wrote the Pentameron. There is talk of buying
the place and consecrating it to his memory.
 All the way from Florence to Fiesole the roads are lined with typical
Florentine villas and country houses. The Villa at Poggio Cajano was built
by Lorenzo the Magnificent, who employed Giuliano da San Gallo as his
architect. In 1587 Francesco I died within its walls, and the profligate
Bianca Capello, whose history had best stay buried, also died here on the
following day. Their brother Ferdinand was responsible for their taking off,
as they had already prepared to put him out of the way by the
administration of a dose of poison. He stood over them, with dagger drawn,
and made them eat their own poisoned viands.
The Villa Petraja was a strong-hold of the Brunelleschi family which
defended itself ably against the Pisans and the marauders of Sir John
Hawkwood in 1364, when that rollicking rascal sold his services to the
enemies of Florence. The old tower of the castle, as it then was, still
remains, but the major portion of the present structure dates from quite
modern times.
The Villa Medici in Careggi was built by Cosimo Pater from the designs
of Michelozzi, and though no longer royal it is to-day practically unchanged
in general outline. It, too, was one of the favourite residences of Lorenzo
the Magnificent, and the conclaves of the famous Platonic Academy were
held here on the seventh of November, the anniversary of the date of the
birth and death of Plato. Here died both Cosimo and Lorenzo, the latter on
the eighth of April, 1492, just after his celebrated interview with
Savonarola. The Orsi family came into possession of the villa later on, then
“an English gentleman” and then a certain Signor Segré.
Between Careggi and Fiesole, and on towards Vallombrosa, the villas
and palatial country houses of the Florentines are scattered as thickly as the
leaves of the famous vale itself.
The Villa Salviati is a fine sixteenth century work with a blood-red
memory of the middle ages, at one time the property of the singer Mario,
remembered by a former generation. The Villa Rinuccini has its grounds
laid out in the style of an English formal garden, and the Villa Guadagni
was once the home of the historian, Bartolommeo della Scala.
Of all the Florentine suburban villas none has a tithe of the popular
romantic interest possessed by the Villa Palmieri. The Villa Palmieri is best
seen from its approach by the highroad, up hill, from Florence. At the right
of the iron gate, the cancello, runs the old road to Fiesole. Upward still the
road runs, through the cancello, through a wind-break of trees and around
to the north façade by which one enters. The entire south side of the house
is in the form of a loggia, with a great wide terrace in front, below which is
the sloping garden with its palm trees and azaleas.

The Villa Palmieri and its gardens are somewhat the worse for stress of
time; and the wind and the hot sun have burned up the shrubs and trees
since the days when Zocchi the draughtsman made that series of formal
drawings of Italian gardens, that of the Villa Palmieri among the number,
which are so useful to the compilers of books on Italian villas and gardens.
Fiesole sits proudly on its height a thousand feet above the level of the
sea. The following anonymous lines—“newspaper verse” they may be
contemptuously described by some—make as admirable a pen picture of
the little town as it were possible to reproduce.

“A little town on a far off hill—

(Fiesole, Fiesole!)
Mossy walls that defy Time’s will,
Olive groves in the sun a-thrill
Thickets of roses where thrushes trill
Winds that quiver and then are still—
Fiesole, Fiesole!”

Fiesole forms an irregular ground plan, rising and falling on the unequal
ground upon which it is built. The long and almost unbroken line of
Cyclopean walls towards the north is the portion which has suffered least
from time or violence. The huge stones of which the Etruscan wall is
composed are somewhat irregular in shape and unequal in size, seldom
assuming a polygonal form. This Cyclopean construction varies with the
geological nature of the rock employed. In all the Etruscan and Pelasgic
towns it is found that, when sandstone was used, the form of the stones has
been that of the parallelopipedon or nearly so, as at Fiesole and Cortona;
whereas, when limestone was the subjacent rock, the polygonal
construction alone is found, as at Cosa and Segni. This same observation
will be found to apply to every part of the world, and in a marked degree to
the Cyclopean constructions of Greece and Asia Minor, and even to the far-
distant edifices raised by the Peruvian Incas. Sometimes the pieces of rock
are dovetailed into each other; others stand joint above joint; but, however
placed, the face, or outward front, is perfectly smooth. No projection, or
work advancing beyond the line of the wall, appears in the remains of the
original structure.
 Fiesole is a built-up fabric in all its parts; its foundation is architecture,
and its churches, palaces and villas are mere protuberances extending out
from a concrete whole. Fiesole is one of the most remarkably built towns
above ground.
Fiesole’s great charm lies in its surrounding and ingredient elements; in
the palaces and villas of the hilltops always in plain view, and in its massive
construction of walls, rather than in its specific monuments, though indeed
its Duomo possesses a crudity and rudeness of constructive and decorative
elements which marks it as a distinct, if barbarous, Romanesque style.
The views from Fiesole’s height are peculiarly fine. On the north is the
valley of the Mugello, and just below is the Villa of Scipione Ammirato, the
Florentine historian. Towards the south, the view commands the central Val
d’Arno, from its eastern extremity to the gorge of the Gonfolina, by which
it communicates with the Val d’Arno di Sotto, with Florence as the main
object in the rich landscape below.
The following is a mediæval point of view as conceived by a
Renaissance historian. He wrote it of Lorenzo the Magnificent, but the
emotions it describes may as well become the possession of plebeian
travellers of to-day.
“Lorenzo ever retained a predilection for his country house just below
Fiesole, and the terrace still remains which was his favourite walk. Pleasant
gardens and walks bordered by cypresses add to the beauty of the spot,
from which a splendid view of Florence encircled by its amphitheatre of
mountains is obtained.”
“In a villa overhanging the towers of Florence, on the steep slopes of
that lofty hill crowned by the mother city, the ancient Fiesole, in gardens
which Tully might have envied, with Ficino, Landino, and Politian at his
side, he delighted his hours of leisure with the beautiful visions of Platonic
philosophy, for which the summer stillness of an Italian sky appears the
most congenial accompaniment.”
This is the twentieth century, but those of mood and mind may
experience the same as did Lorenzo di Medici four hundred years ago. The
hills and vales, the Arno and the City of the Lily, with its domes and towers,
have little changed during the many passing years.
Out from Florence by the Porta alla Croce runs the road to Vallombrosa,
which may be reached also from Fiesole without entering Florence by
taking the road leading over the Ponte a Mensola. Just beyond Pontassieve,
some twenty kilometres distant, the road to Vallombrosa leaves the Arezzo
highway and plunges boldly into the heart of the Apennines.
Of Vallombrosa Lamartine said: “Abbey monumental, the Grande
Chartreuse of Italy built on the summit of the Apennines behind a rocky
rampart, protected by precipices at every turn, by torrents of rushing water
and by dark, dank forests of fir-pines.” The description is good to-day, and,
while the ways of access are many, including even a funiculaire from
Pontassieve to Vallombrosa, to approach the sainted pile in the true and
reverend spirit of the pilgrim one should make his way by the winding
mountain road—even if he has to walk. Indeed, walking is the way to do it;
the horses hereabouts are more inert than vigorous; they mislead one; they
start out bravely, but, if they don’t fall by the wayside, they come home
limping. But for the fact that the road uphill to Vallombrosa is none too
good as to surface and the turns are many and sharp, it is accessible enough
by automobile.
Various granges, hermitages and convent walls are passed en route. At
Sant’Ellero was a Benedictine nunnery belonging to the monks of
Vallombrosa in the thirteenth century, and in its donjon tower—a queer
adjunct for a nunnery by the way—a band of fleeing Ghibellines were
besieged by a horde of Guelphs in 1267.
Domini and Saltino mark various stages in the ascent from the valley. Up
to this latter point indeed one may come by the funiculaire, but that is not
the true pilgrim way.
Up to within a couple of kilometres of the summit chestnuts, oaks, and
beech are seen, justifying Milton’s simile, the accuracy of which has been
called in question on the ground that the forest consisted entirely of fir.

“Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks

In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades,
High overarch’d, embower.”

Four miles beyond Paterno, after passing through a fine forest of pines,
the traveller arrives at the Santuario of Vallombrosa:
 “Cosi fu nominata una badia,
Ricca e bella ne men religiosa
E cortese a chiunque vi venia.”
—Orl. Fur. can. 22, st. 36.

Among the remarkable men who have been monks of Vallombrosa, was
Guido Aretino, who was a member of this house when he first became
known as a writer upon music (about A. D. 1020). After having visited
Rome twice, upon the invitation of two succeeding popes, he was prevailed
upon by the abbot of a monastery at Ferrara to settle there. Some writers
have ascribed to this Guido the invention of counterpoint, which is scarcely
less absurd than ascribing the invention of a language to any individual.
However, it is pretty certain that he was the first person to use, or to
recommend the use of “lines” and “spaces” for musical notation.
High above the convent of Vallombrosa itself rises Il Paradisino (1,036
metres) with a small hermitage, while Monte Secchieta is higher still, 1,447
metres. Vallombrosa, its convent and its hermitages are in the midst of
solitude, as indeed a retreat, pious or otherwise, should be. If only some of
us who are more worldly than a monk would go into a retreat occasionally
and commune with solitude awhile, what a clarifying of ideas one would
experience!
Back of Vallombrosa and the Paradisino the upper valley of the Arno
circles around through Arezzo, Bibbiena and Poppi and rises just under the
brow of Monte Falterona which, in its very uppermost reaches, forms a part
of the Casentino.
From Pontassieve where one branches off for Vallombrosa one may
descend on Arezzo either by Poppi-Bibbiena or Montevarchi, say seventy
kilometres either way.
The Casentino and the Valley of the Arno form one of the most
romantically unspoiled tracts in Italy, although modern civilization is
crowding in on all sides. The memories of Saint Francis, La Verna, Saint
Romuald the Camaldoli and Dante and the great array of Renaissance
splendours of its towns and villages, will live for ever.
Here took place some of the severest conflicts in the civil wars of the
Guelphs and Ghibellines, and in numerous ruins of castles and hill-forts are
retained memorials of the many struggles.
 Just where the Arno traverses the plain of Campaldino was the scene of a
celebrated battle on the 11th of June, 1289. The Aretines, who formed the
chief portion of the Ghibelline party, were routed with a loss of 1,700 men
killed, and 2,000 taken prisoners. Among the former was the celebrated
Guglielmino Ubertini, Bishop of Arezzo, who fell fighting desperately in
the thickest of the fray, having rallied his troops upon the bridge at Poppi,
half a mile further on. Dante was present at this battle, being then twenty-
four years old, and serving in the Guelph cavalry.
The Casentino is the most opulent district in all the region of the
Apennines. Six centuries ago the Counts Palatine of Tuscany held it; then
came the Popes, and then Dante and his followers. The chronicles of the
Casentino are most fascinating reading, particularly those concerned with
the Counts of Guidi.
Guidoguerra IV, Count Palatine of Tuscany in the early thirteenth
century, was a sort of Robin Hood, except that he was not an outlaw. He
made a road near the home of the monks of Camaldoli, and intruded armed
men into their solitude, “and worse still, play actors and women,” where all
women had been forbidden: moreover, he had all the oxen of the monks
driven off. He played pranks on the minstrels and buffoons who came to his
palace. One minstrel, named Malanotte, he compelled to spend a bad night
on the rooftop in the snow; another, Maldecorpo, had to lie and sizzle
between two fires; while a third, Abbas, he tonsured by pulling out his hair.
Literally translated Casentino means “the valley enclosed.” It is a most
romantic region, and the praises of its mountain walls and chestnut woods
have been sung by all sojourners there, ever since Dante set the fashion.
The life of the peasant of the Casentino to-day is much the same as in
Dante’s time, and his pleasures and sorrows are expressed in much the same
manner as of old. Strange folksongs and dances, strange dramas of
courtship, and strange religious ceremonies all find place here in this
unspoiled little forest tract between Florence and Arezzo; along whose
silent paths one may wander for hours and come across no one but a few
contented charcoal-burners who know nothing beyond their own woods.
On the lower levels, the highway leading from Florence to Perugia and
Foligno rolls along, as silent as it was in mediæval times. It is by no means
a dull monotonous road, though containing fewer historic places than the
road by Siena or Viterbo. It is an alternative route from north to south; and
the most direct one into the heart of Umbria.
On arriving from Florence by the highroad one passes through the long
main street of Montevarchi, threading his way carefully to avoid, if
possible, the dogs and ducks which run riot everywhere.
A great fertile plain stretches out on each side of the Arno, the railway
sounding the only modern note to be heard, save the honk! honk! (the
French say coin, coin, which is better) of an occasional passing automobile.
Up and down the hills ox teams plough furrows as straight as on the
level, and the general view is pastoral until one strikes the forests
neighbouring upon Arezzo, eighty kilometres from Florence.
Here all is savage and primeval. Here was many a brigand’s haunt in the
old days, but the Government has wiped out the roving banditti; and to-day
the greatest discomfort which would result from a hold-up would be a
demand for a cigar, or a box of matches. At Palazzaccio, a mere hamlet en
route, was the hiding place of the once notorious brigand Spadolino; a sort
of stage hero, who affected to rob the rich for the benefit of the poor—a
kind of socialism which was never successful. Robin Hood tried it, so did
Macaire, Gaspard de Besse and Robert le Diable and they all came to
timely capture.
Spadolino one day stopped a carriage near Palazzaccio, cut the throats of
its occupants and gave their gold to a poor miller, Giacomo by name, who
wanted ninety francesconi to pay his rent. This was the last cunning trick of
Spadolino, for he was soon captured and hung at the Porta Santa Croce at
Florence, as a warning to his kind.
Not every hurried traveller who flies by express train from Florence to
Rome puts foot to earth and makes acquaintance with Arezzo. The
automobilist does better, he stops here, for one reason or another, and he
sees things and learns things hitherto unknown to him.
Arezzo should not be omitted from the itinerary of any pilgrim to Italy. It
was one of the twelve cities of the Etruscan federation, and made peace
with Rome in 310 A. D. and for ever remained its ally.
The Flaminian Way, built by the Consul Flaminius in 187 B. C., between
Aretium (Arezzo) and Bononia (Bologna), is still traceable in the
neighbourhood.
 Petrarch is Arezzo’s deity, and his birthplace is to be found to-day on the
Via del Orto. On the occasion of the great fête given in 1904 in honour of
the six hundredth anniversary of his birth, the municipality made this place
a historic monument.
Vasari, who as a biographer has been very useful to makers of books on
art, was also born at Arezzo in 1512. His house is a landmark. Local guides
miscall it a palace, but in reality it is a very humble edifice; not at all
palatial.
The Palazzo Pretoria at Arezzo has one of the most bizarre façades
extant, albeit its decorative and cypher panels add no great architectural
beauty.
Arezzo’s cathedral is about the saddest, ugliest religious edifice in Italy.
Within is the tomb of Pope Gregory X.
Poppi and Bibbiena are the two chief towns of the upper valley. Each is
blissfully unaware of the world that has gone before, and has little in
common with the life of to-day, save such intimacy as is brought by the
railroad train, as it screeches along in the valley between them half a dozen
times a day.
Poppi sits on a high table rock, its feet washed by the flowing Arno. The
town itself is dead or sleeping; but most of its houses are frankly modern, in
that they are well kept and freshly painted or whitewashed.
The only old building in Poppi, not in ruins, is its castle, occupying the
highest part of the rock; a place of some strength before the use of heavy
guns. It was built by Lapo in 1230, and bears a family resemblance to the
Palazzo Vecchio at Florence. The court-yard contains some curious
architecture, and a staircase celebrated for the skill shown in its
construction. It resembles that in the Bargello at Florence, and leads to a
chapel containing frescoes which, according to Vasari, are by Spinello
Aretino.
Poppi is a good point from which to explore the western slopes of
Vallombrosa or Monte Secchieta. The landlord and the local guides will
lead one up through the celebrated groves at a fixed price “tutto compreso,”
and, if you are liberal with your tip, will open a bottle of “vino santo” for
you. Could hospitality and fair dealing go further?
Bibbiena, the native town of Francesco Berni, and of the Cardinal
Bibbiena, who was the patron of Raphael, has many of the characteristics of
Poppi, in point of site and surroundings. It is the point of departure for the
convent of La Verna, built by St. Francis of Assisi in 1215; situated high on
a shoulder of rugged rock. The highest point of the mountain, on which it
stands, is called La Penna, the “rock” or “divide” between the valleys of the
Arno and the Tiber. To the eastward are seen Umbria and the mountains of
Perugia; on the west, the valley of the Casentino and the chain of the Prato
Magno; to the northward is the source of the Arno, and to the northeast, that
of the Tiber.
To the east, just where the Casentino, by means of the cross road
connecting with the Via Æmilia, held its line of communication with the
Adriatic, is the Romagna, a district where feudal strife and warfare were
rampant throughout the middle ages. From its story it would seem as though
the region never had a tranquil moment.
The chain of little towns of the Romagna is full of souvenirs of the days
when seigneuries were carved out of pontifical lands by the sword of some
rebel who flaunted the temporal power of the church. These were strictly
personal properties, and their owners owed territorial allegiance to the Pope
no more than they did to the descendants of the Emperors.
Rex Romanorum as a doctrine was dead for ever. Guelph and Ghibelline
held these little seigneuries, turn by turn, and from the Adriatic to the Gulf
of Spezia there was almost constant warfare, sometimes petty, sometimes
great. It was warfare, too, between families, between people of the same
race, the most bloody, disastrous and sad of all warfare.
 CHAPTER IX

THE ROAD TO ROME

SIENA, crowning its precipitous hillside, stands, to-day, unchanged from

what it was in the days of the Triumvirate. Church tower and castle wall jut
out into a vague mystery of silhouetted outline, whether viewed by daylight
or moonlight. The great gates of the ramparts still guard the approach on all
sides, and the Porta Camollia of to-day is the same through which the sons
of Remus entered when fleeing from their scheming Uncle, Romulus.
Siena’s Piazza Vittorio Emanuele is a landmark. Dante called it “a great
square where men live gloriously free,” though then it was simply the
Piazza; and the picture is true to-day, in a different sense. In former days it
was a bloody “mis-en-scène” for intrigue and jealousy; but, to-day, simply
the centre of the life and movement of a prosperous, thriving, though less
romantic city of thirty thousand souls.
 Palazzo della Signoria, Siena

This great Piazza is rounded off by a halo of magnificent feudal palaces,

whose very names are romantic.
All about Siena’s squares and street corners are innumerable gurgling,
spouting fountains, many of them artistically and monumentally beautiful,
and a few even dating from the glorious days of old.
Dante sang of Siena’s famous fountains which, in truth, form a galaxy of
artistic accessories of life hardly to be equalled in any other city of Siena’s
class. Leaving that “noble extravagance in marble,” Siena’s Cathedral, and
its churches quite apart, the city ranks as one of the most interesting tourist
points of Italy.
Siena has still left a relic of mediævalism in the revival of its ancient
horse racing festa, when its great Piazza Vittorio Emanuele is built up and
barricaded like a circus of Roman times. Chariot races, gladiatorial combats
and bull fights, all had their partisans among municipalities, but Siena’s
choice was horse racing. And each year, “Il Palio,” on July the 2nd and on
August the 16th, becomes a great popular amusement of the Sienese. It is
most interesting, and still picturesquely mediæval in costuming and setting;
and is a civic function and fête a great deal more artistically done—as goes
without saying—than the Guy Fawkes celebrations of London, or the fourth
of July “horribles” in America. For the thoroughly genuine and artistic
pageant Anglo Saxons have to go to Italy. There is nothing to be learned
from the Mardi-Gras celebrations of Paris nor the carnivals of the Cote
d’Azur.
Some one has said that Siena sits on the border land between idyllic
Tuscany and the great central Italian plain. Literally this is so. It marks the
distinction between the grave and the gay so far as manners and customs
and conditions of life go. On the north are the charming, smiling hills and
vales, bright with villas, groves and vines; whilst to the south, towards
Rome and the Campagna, all is of an austerity of present day fact and past
tradition. Indeed, the landscape would be stern and repellent, were it not
picturesquely savage.
Straight runs the highroad to Rome via Viterbo, or makes a détour via
Montepulciano and Orvieto. At Asinalunga, Garibaldi was arrested by
government spies, by the order of the monarch to whom he had presented
the sovereignty of Naples. Such is official ingratitude, ofttimes! The town
itself is unworthy of remark, save for that incident of history.
By the direct road the mountains of Orvieto and Montepulciano rise
grimly to the left. The towns bearing the same names are charming enough
from the artistic point of view, but are not usually reckoned tourist sights.
Montepulciano is commonly thought of slight interest, but it is the very
ideal of an unspoiled mediæval town, with a half dozen palazzo façades,
which might make the name and fame of some modern scene painter if he
would copy them.
Chiusi, on the direct road, lies embedded in a circle of hills and
surrounded by orange groves. It is nothing more nor less than a glorified
graveyard, but is unique in its class. Lars Porsena of Clusium comes down
to us as a memory of school-time days, and for that reason, if no other, we
consider it our duty to visit the Etruscan tombs of Clusium, the modern
Chiusi.
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