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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Naples Riviera by Herbert M. Vaughan
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: The Naples Riviera
+
+Author: Herbert M. Vaughan
+
+Release Date: December 9, 2009 [Ebook #30634]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NAPLES RIVIERA***
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: CHARCOAL CARRIERS, AMALFI]
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  *THE*
+                             *NAPLES RIVIERA*
+
+
+                                   BY
+                    HERBERT M. VAUGHAN, B.A. (OXON.)
+                AUTHOR OF “THE LAST OF THE ROYAL STUARTS”
+
+
+
+WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY
+MAURICE GREIFFENHAGEN
+
+
+METHUEN & CO
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+LONDON
+
+
+
+
+
+                        _First Published in 1907_
+
+                                   TO
+                                G. L. L.
+                              IN MEMORY OF
+                  MANY PLEASANT DAYS IN THE SUNNY SOUTH
+                              THIS BOOK IS
+                        AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+                              BY THE AUTHOR
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 CONTENTS
+
+
+     CHAPTER I                                     PAGE
+     INTRODUCTORY                                     1
+     CHAPTER II
+     THE VESUVIAN SHORE AND MONTE SANT’ ANGELO        8
+     CHAPTER III
+     LA CITTÀ MORTA                                  38
+     CHAPTER IV
+     VESUVIUS                                        66
+     CHAPTER V
+     THE CORNICHE ROAD                              100
+     CHAPTER VI
+     AMALFI AND THE FESTIVAL OF ST ANDREW           126
+     CHAPTER VII
+     RAVELLO AND THE RUFOLI                         152
+     CHAPTER VIII
+     SALERNO                                        172
+     CHAPTER IX
+     PAESTUM AND THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE          198
+     CHAPTER X
+     SORRENTO AND ITS POET                          221
+     CHAPTER XI
+     CAPRI AND TIBERIUS THE TYRANT                  249
+     CHAPTER XII
+     ISCHIA AND THE LADY OF THE ROCK                275
+     CHAPTER XIII
+     PUTEOLI AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME         295
+     ————
+     INDEX                                          321
+
+
+
+
+
+                          LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                     PAGE
+     CHARCOAL CARRIERS, AMALFI             _Frontispiece_
+     A CAPRIOTE FISHERMAN’S WIFE                       16
+     ROAD NEAR CASTELLAMARE                            30
+     MONTE FAITO, CASTELLAMARE                         37
+     THE FORUM, POMPEII                                46
+     LA CASA DEI VETTII, POMPEII                       58
+     VESUVIUS AND THE BAY OF NAPLES                    80
+     POZZANO                                          101
+     EVENING AT AMALFI                                124
+     AMALFI                                           132
+     IN THE VALLEY OF THE MILLS, AMALFI               140
+     AMALFI: PIAZZA AND DUOMO                         148
+     RAVELLO: IL DUOMO                                156
+     A STREET IN RAVELLO                              163
+     MINORI AT SUNSET                                 170
+     ON THE ROAD TO RAVELLO                           186
+     THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE, PAESTUM                   204
+     AFTERNOON, SORRENTO                              230
+     FARAGLIONI ROCKS, CAPRI                          249
+     CAPRI FROM THE VILLA JOVIS                       254
+     IN THE BLUE GROTTO, CAPRI                        262
+     A GATEWAY, CAPRI                                 274
+     ON THE PICCOLA MARINA, CAPRI                     288
+     ISCHIA FROM CASTELLAMARE (SUNSET)                294
+     ON THE BEACH                                     306
+
+
+
+
+
+                               BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+A small selection out of the books I have consulted during the preparation
+                      of this work is given below:—
+
+E. GIBBON: _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_.
+
+DEAN MERIVALE: _The Romans under the Empire_.
+
+_Pliny’s Letters_: (Church’s and Brodribb’s Translation, London, 1897).
+
+J. PHILLIPS: _Vesuvius_ (Oxford, 1869).
+
+C. RAMAGE: _Nooks and Byways of Italy_.
+
+C. LENORMANT: _À Travers la Lucanie et l’Apulie_.
+
+W. J. A. STAMER: _Dolce Napoli_ (London, 1878).
+
+E. NEVILLE ROLFE: _Naples in 1888_.
+
+CONSTANCE GIGLIOLI: _Naples in 1799_.
+
+C. L. SISMONDI: _Histoire des __Républiques__ Italiennes_.
+
+L. ALBERTI: _Descrizione di tutta l’ Italia_ (Venetia, 1596).
+
+C. MILLS: _The Travels of Theodore Ducas_ (London, 1822).
+
+_Les Délices d’Italie_ (Paris, 1707).
+
+_Nuova Guida de’ Forastieri in Napoli, etc._ (1751).
+
+COUNT STOLBERG: _Travels through Italy and Sicily in 1756_.
+
+A. H. NORWAY: _Naples, Past and Present_ (London, 1904).
+
+E. BUSK: _Folk-Songs of Italy_.
+
+J. A. SYMONDS: _Sketches and Studies in Italy_.
+
+CATHERINE PHILLIMORE: _Studies in Italian Literature_ (London, 1891).
+
+T. A. TROLLOPE: _A Decade of Italian Women_ (London, 1859).
+
+G. BOCCACCIO: _Il Decamerone_.
+
+A. MAU: _Pompeii: its Life and Art_ (New York, 1899).
+
+J. FERGUSSON: _Handbook of Architecture_ (London, 1859).
+
+FRANZ VON REBER: _History of Ancient and Mediæval Art_ (New York, 1882).
+
+E. JAMESON: _Sacred and Legendary Art_ (London, 1879).
+
+J. ELWORTHY: _History of the Evil Eye_ (London, 1888).
+
+N. VALLETTA: _Cicalata sul Fascino detto Jettatura_ (Napoli, 1819).
+
+A. CANALE: _Storia dell’ Isola di Capri_.
+
+G. AMALFI: _Tradizioni ed Vsi nella Penisola Sorrentina_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            THE NAPLES RIVIERA
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I
+
+
+                               INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+                   “In otia natam
+            Parthenopen.”
+
+
+That the city of Naples can prove very delightful, very amusing, and very
+instructive for a week or ten days no one will attempt to dispute. There
+are long mornings to be spent in inspecting the churches scattered
+throughout the narrow streets of the old town,—harlequins in coloured
+marble and painted stucco though they be, they are yet treasure-houses
+containing some of the most precious monuments of Gothic and Renaissance
+art that all Italy can display. There are afternoon hours that can be
+passed pleasantly amidst the endless halls and galleries of the great
+Museo Nazionale, where the antiquities of Pompeii and Herculaneum may be
+studied in advance, for the wise traveller will not rush headlong into the
+sacred precincts of the buried cities on the Vesuvian shore, before he has
+first made himself thoroughly acquainted with the wonderful collections
+preserved in the Museum. Then comes the evening drive along the gentle
+winding ascent towards Posilipo with its glorious views over bay and
+mountains, all tinged with the deep rose and violet of a Neapolitan
+sunset; or the stroll along the fashionable sea front, named after the
+luckless Caracciolo the modern hero of Naples, where in endless succession
+the carriages pass backwards and forwards within the limited space between
+the sea and the greenery of the Villa Reale. Or it may be that our more
+active feet may entice us to mount the winding flights of stone steps
+leading to the heights of Sant’ Elmo, where from the windows of the
+monastery of San Martino there is spread out before us an entrancing view
+that has but two possible rivals for extent and interest in all Italy:—the
+panorama of the Eternal City from the hill of San Pietro in Montorio, and
+that of Florence with the valley of the Arno from the lofty terrace of San
+Miniato. We can while away many hours leisurely in wandering on the
+bustling Chiaja or Toledo with their shops and their amusing scenes of
+city life, or in the poorer quarters around the Mercato, where the
+inhabitants ply their daily avocations in the open air, and eat, play,
+quarrel, flirt, fight or gossip—do everything in short save go to
+bed—quite unconcernedly before the critical and non-admiring eyes of
+casual strangers. Pleasant it is to hunt for old prints, books and other
+treasures amongst the dark unwholesome dens that lie in the shadow of the
+gorgeous church of Santa Chiara or in the musty-smelling shops of the
+curiosity dealers in the Strada Costantinopoli, picking up here a volume
+of some _cinque-cento_ classic and there a piece of old china that may or
+may not have had its birth in the famous factory of Capodimonte. All this
+studying of historic sculpture in the churches and of antiquities in the
+Museum, this observing the daily life of the populace, and bargain-hunting
+in the Strada de’ Tribunali, are agreeable enough for a while, but of
+necessity there comes a time when the mind grows weary of yelling people
+and of jostling crowds, of stuffy churches and of the chilly halls of the
+Museum, of steep dirty streets and of glaring boulevards, so that we begin
+to sigh for fresh air and a change of scene. Nor is there any means of
+escape within the precincts of the city itself from the eternal cracking
+of whips, from the insulting compliments (or complimentary insults) of the
+incorrigible cabmen, from the continuous babel of unmusical voices, and
+from the reiterated strains of “Santa Lucia” or “Margari” howled from
+raucous throats or strummed from rickety street-organs. Oh for peace, and
+rest, and a whiff of pure country air! For there are no walks in or around
+the City of the Siren, where there is nowhere to stroll save the narrow
+strip of the much-vaunted Villa (which is either damp or dusty according
+to weather) or the fatiguing ascent amidst walled gardens and newly built
+houses to the heights of the Vomero, which are covered with a raw suburb.
+Moreover our pristine delight in the place is beginning to flag, as we
+gradually realise that the city, like the majority of great modern towns,
+is being practically rebuilt to the annihilation of its old-world
+features, which used to give to Naples its peculiar charm and its marked
+individuality amongst large sea-ports. Long ago has disappeared Santa
+Brigida, that picturesque high-coloured slum, on whose site stands the
+garish domed gallery of which the Neapolitans are so proud; gone in these
+latter days is classic Santa Lucia with its water-gate and its fountain,
+its vendors of medicated water and _frutti di mare_, those toothsome shell
+fish of the unsavoury beach; vanished for ever is many a landmark of old
+Naples, and new buildings, streets and squares, blank, dreary, pretentious
+and staring, have arisen in their places. This thorough _sventramento di
+Napoli_, as the citizens graphically term this drastic reconstruction of
+the old capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, is no doubt
+beneficial, not to say necessary, and we make no protest against these
+wholesale changes, which have certainly tended to destroy utterly its
+ancient character and appearance. But all seems commonplace, new, smart,
+and unpoetic, and we quickly grow weary of Naples now that it has been
+turned into a Liverpool of the South without the local colour and the
+peculiar attributes of which author and artist have so often raved. The
+life of the people, picturesque enough in its old setting, now appears
+mean and squalid; the toilers in the streets look jaded, oppressed and
+discontented; we search in vain for the spontaneous gaiety of which we
+have heard so much. We feel disappointed, cheated even, in our
+expectations of Naples, and we begin to understand that its chief
+attraction consists in its proximity to the scenes of beauty that mark the
+course of its Riviera.
+
+
+
+The Riviera of Naples may be said to extend from the heights of Cumae, at
+the end of the Bay of Gaeta to the north, as far as Salerno in a southerly
+direction, whilst, lying close to this stretch of shore, are included the
+three populous islands of Capri, Procida and Ischia, which in prehistoric
+times doubtless formed part and parcel of the Parthenopean coast itself.
+Our pleasant task it is to write of these classic shores and islands,
+where the beauties of nature contend for pre-eminence with the glorious
+traditions of the past that centre round them. What spot on earth can
+surpass, or even be compared with, Amalfi in the perfect lustre of its
+setting? What loftier or bolder cliffs than those of Capri can the wild
+bleak headlands of the North Sea exhibit? The fertile lands of France
+cannot vie with the richness of the Sorrentine Plain, nor can any mountain
+on the face of the globe rival in human interest the peak of Vesuvius;
+Pompeii is unique, the most precious storehouse of ancient knowledge the
+world possesses; whilst the Bay of Baia recalls the days of Roman power
+and luxury more vividly to our minds than any place save the Eternal City
+itself. And again: what illustrious names in history and in
+literature—classical, medieval, modern—are for ever associated with these
+smiling shores! Robert Guiscard and Hildebrand in quiet Salerno, Tasso at
+health-giving Sorrento, Vittoria Colonna in her palace-fortress on the
+crags of Ischia, the great Apostle of the west at Puteoli:—these are but a
+few of the more eminent and gracious figures that arise before us at the
+casual bidding of memory. Then there are the infamous, as well as the
+virtuous and the gallant, whose misdeeds are still freshly remembered upon
+these coasts or in their fertile valleys. The sinister Tiberius, the
+half-crazy and wholly vicious Caligula, many a king and queen of evil
+repute that ruled Naples, the vile Pier-Luigi Farnese, the adventurer
+Joachim Murat, all have left the marks of their personality upon the
+coveted shores of the Neapolitan Riviera. From the days of the Sibyl and
+of the Trojan hero to the stirring times of Garibaldi and of King Bomba,
+which were but of yesterday, Naples and its environs have played a
+prominent part in the annals and development of the civilised western
+world; Roman emperors, Pagan statesmen and poets, Norman, French and
+Spanish princes, popes, saints and theologians, merchants and scientists
+of the Middle Ages, writers of the Renaissance and heroes of the
+_Risorgimento_, all have combined to shed a halo of historical romance
+upon Naples and its Riviera, where there is scarcely a sea-girt town or a
+crumbling fortress that is not redolent of the memory of some personage
+whose name is inscribed on the roll of European history. It seems but
+right, therefore, that many works should have been written concerning this
+favoured corner of Italy, so replete with natural charm and with
+historical interest; and in truth multitudes of books, large and small,
+witty and dull, erudite and empty, light and heavy, prosaic and
+rhapsodical, have poured forth from the prolific pens of generations of
+authors. We feel sincerely the need of an apology for making a fresh
+addition to the ever-increasing pile of Neapolitan literature, and we can
+only urge in extenuation of our crime of authorship that the same scene
+appeals in varied ways to different persons, and that every fresh
+description is apt to shed additional light upon old familiar subjects. In
+the following pages we make no profession to act the part of a guide to
+the neighbourhood of Naples, for are there not the carefully prepared
+pages of Murray and Baedeker, to say nothing of the works of such writers
+as Augustus Hare, to lead the wanderer into every church and castle, to
+show him every nook in valley and mountain, and to supply him thoroughly
+with accurate dates and facts? No, our treatment of this theme may be
+deemed a poor one, but it has at least the merit and the courage of
+following its own peculiar lines. For we pursue our own course, and we
+touch lightly here and omit there; we run to dissertation in this place,
+we glide by silently in another. We take our own views of people and
+places, and give them for what they are worth to our readers to approve or
+to condemn, as they think fit. We offer a medley of history and of
+imagination, of biography and of private comment; and we crave indulgence
+for our short-comings by observing that any deficiencies in these pages
+can easily be remedied by application to the abundant literature upon
+Naples and its surrounding districts which every good library is presumed
+to contain.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER II
+
+
+                THE VESUVIAN SHORE AND MONTE SANT’ ANGELO
+
+
+That little stream the Sebeto, which is indeed, as the courtly Metastasio
+observes, “scanty in depth of water though overflowing with honour,” may
+be considered as the boundary line that divides the city of Naples from
+its eastern environs, although it is evident that the whole stretch of
+coast from Posilipo to Torre del Greco is covered with an unbroken line of
+houses. Past the highly cultivated _Paduli_, the chief market-gardens on
+this side of the city, with the town of La Barra on the fertile slopes to
+our left, we pass by way of San Giovanni a Teduccio to Portici, once a
+favourite resort of royalty. Here the dilettante Charles III., first
+Bourbon King of Naples, built a palace and laid out gardens in the days of
+patches and powder, constructing a royal pleasaunce that was destined to
+become the chief residence of the temporary supplanter of his own family,
+Joachim Murat, the citizen king of Naples and brother-in-law of the great
+Napoleon. Villa and gardens still remain, but monarchs have ceased to
+visit Portici since the days of Bomba, and the old royal demesne has been
+turned into an agricultural college. Adjoining and practically forming
+part of Portici is the town of Resina, which preserves almost intact the
+old classical name of Retina that it bore in the distant days when it
+served as the port of Herculaneum. Here then in the mean streets of Resina
+we find ourselves standing above, though certainly not upon, historic
+ground, for the temples and villas, the theatres and private houses of the
+famous buried city lie far below the surface trodden by our feet. To visit
+Herculaneum it is necessary for us to descend some seventy to a hundred
+feet into the depths of the earth, passing more than one layer of ancient
+lava, for Resina and Portici themselves are but modern editions of former
+towns that have been engulfed in the course of ages. If the stranger can
+derive any solid satisfaction from the descent by a gloomy underground
+passage and from fleeting glimpses of ancient walls and dwellings seen
+through a forest of wooden baulks, which serve to support the spaces
+excavated, he must indeed be an enthusiast. But most people, perhaps all
+sensible people, will be content to take the undoubted interest of
+Herculaneum on trust, probably agreeing (at any rate after their visit)
+that the inspection of this subterranean city is not worth the candle, by
+whose flickering beams alone can objects be distinguished in the
+oppressive darkness. Personally we strongly hold to the expressed opinion
+of Alexandre Dumas, who declared that even the most hardened antiquary
+could not desire more than one hour’s contemplation of this hidden mass of
+shapeless wreckage. “Herculaneum,” writes that genial Frenchman, “but
+wearies our curiosity instead of exciting it. We descend into the
+excavated city as into a mine by a species of shaft; then come corridors
+beneath the earth which can only be entered by the light of tapers; and
+these smoke-grimed passages allow us from time to time to obtain a
+momentary glimpse of the angle of a house, the colonnade of some temple,
+the steps of a theatre. Everything is fragmentary, mutilated, dingy,
+uncertain, confused, and therefore unsatisfactory. Well, at the end of an
+hour spent in wandering amongst these abysmal recesses, the most hardened
+archæologist, the most dry-as-dust antiquary, the most inquisitive of
+tourists begins to experience only one feeling—an intense desire to ascend
+to the light of day and to breathe once more the fresh air of the upper
+world.”
+
+Nevertheless, it was from these dismal caverns, black as Erebus, that some
+of the choicest marbles and bronzes that now adorn the Museum at Naples
+were originally extracted. From a villa at Herculaneum also was taken the
+famous collection of 3000 rolls of papyrus, chiefly filled with the
+writings of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, perhaps the greatest
+“find” of ancient literature that has yet been made, although the contents
+of this damaged library, deciphered with equal toil and ingenuity, have
+not proved to be of the value originally set upon them by expectant
+scholars. But much of the city itself has yet hardly been touched since
+the days when it was destroyed in the reign of Titus, so that far below
+the squalid lanes of Portici and Resina there must still exist acres upon
+acres of undisturbed buildings, public and private, many of them perhaps
+filled with priceless works of Greek and Roman art, for Herculaneum,
+unlike Pompeii, was never tampered with by the ancients themselves, for
+the coating of volcanic mud, which filled the whole area of the city, made
+impracticable a systematic searching of its ruins by the despoiled
+citizens. Then, as if nature had not already buried the city sufficiently
+deep, subsequent eruptions of Vesuvius have superimposed additional layers
+of lava, whilst confiding human beings have in their turn built
+habitations upon the volcanic crust.
+
+
+
+We all know the story, perhaps mythical, of the discovery of Herculaneum
+at the beginning of the eighteenth century by the accidental sinking of a
+well upon its long-forgotten site and of the subsequent excavations made
+by the Prince d’Elbœuf. These so-called explorations were, however, made
+in the most greedy and destructive spirit, for the prince’s sole object
+was to obtain antique works of art for his private collection, not to make
+intelligent enquiries about the dead and buried city lying beneath his
+estate. Ignorant workmen were despatched to hew and hack wholesale in the
+mirky depths in order to discover statuary and paintings, and since there
+was no receptacle at hand to contain the _débris_, they took the simple
+course of filling in each hollow made with the masses of rubbish already
+excavated. Later in the same century the Bourbon king was induced by
+Neapolitan savants to take some interest in the work, but, strange to
+relate, the superintendent appointed, a certain Spanish officer named
+Alcubier, was so ignorant and careless that half the objects found under
+his supervision were broken or lost before they reached Naples; this
+ignoramus, it was said, even went so far as to order whole architraves to
+be smashed up and their bronze lettering to be picked out before making a
+copy of the original inscription! Under these circumstances the marvel is
+that anything of beauty or value should have survived at all, for this
+selfish plundering of Herculaneum, in strong contrast with the reverent
+treatment meted out to Pompeii, may be considered one of the greatest
+pieces of vandalism ever perpetrated. In spite of this wholesale
+destruction, however, there must remain untouched, as we have said, a vast
+quantity of objects, beautiful, useful or curious, yet it is extremely
+doubtful if we shall live to see any serious and intelligent effort made
+to bring these hidden treasures forth to the light of day. The expense of
+working this buried hoard would be enormous in any case, whilst the
+existence of the houses of Resina and Portici overhead necessitates
+special measures of precaution on the part of the excavators. The only
+method of examining Herculaneum properly would be in fact to treat the
+buried site like an immense mine by the construction of regular galleries
+and shafts for the entrance of skilled workmen, and to remove the rubbish
+displaced to the outer air. Perhaps some multi-millionaire might be found
+ready to undertake so arduous, yet so fascinating a task, though we fear
+that the Italian Government, which has always shown itself as tenacious of
+its subterranean wealth of antiquity as it appears languid in the work of
+quarrying it, would indignantly refuse to accede to any such offer. As
+regards the ancient city of Hercules, therefore, we must perforce remain
+content to inspect the magnificent bronzes and the other objects of
+interest that are to be found in the Museum of Naples, for we are not
+likely to see any further researches just at present, more’s the pity,
+since there is every reason to suppose that a thorough investigation
+conducted regardless of cost would yield up to the world the most
+marvellous and valuable results.
+
+Some two miles of dusty suburb lie between Resina and Torre del Greco,
+which has been destroyed time after time by the lava streams descending
+from “that peak of Hell rising out of Paradise,” as Goethe once named the
+burning mountain overhead. Nevertheless, the Torrese continue to sit
+patiently at the feet of the fire-spouting monster, trembling when he is
+angry, pleased when he is quiescent, and ready to abandon meekly their
+homes when he renders them insupportable by his furious outbursts. Yet
+these people never fail to return and risk the ever-present chances of
+death and destruction. And little can we blame them for their fatalism,
+when we gaze upon the glorious views that reveal themselves at this spot,
+whence Naples rising proudly from the sea, the rocky islands of Ischia and
+Capri, the aerial heights of Monte Sant’ Angelo and all the features of
+the placid bay are seen spread around us in a panorama of unsurpassed
+loveliness. Beneath lava rocks, black and sinister, that contrast
+strangely in their sombre hues with the brilliant tints of sea and sky,
+lie little beaches of glittering gravel that would afford delightful
+retreats for meditation, were it not for the dozens of half-naked
+brown-skinned imps, children of the fisher-folk of Torre del Greco, who
+wallow in the warm sand or rush with joyful screams into the tepid surf.
+The population must have increased not a little since those days, nearly a
+century ago, when the unhappy Shelley could find peace and solitude in his
+darkest hours of unrest upon these shores, where it would be well-nigh
+impossible for a twentieth-century poet to espy a retreat for soothing his
+soul in verse. Yet somehow, during the drowsy noontide rest when the
+active life of the South ceases, if only for an hour or so, it is still
+possible to catch the spirit in which that melancholy wanderer indited one
+of his most exquisite lyrics:—sunshine, clear sky, murmuring seas, the
+fragrance of the Italian spring, all are present to our reverie; and how
+true and perfect a picture has the poet-artist drawn for us of this
+beautiful Vesuvian shore!
+
+  “The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
+     The waves are dancing fast and bright,
+  Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
+     The purple noon’s transparent light:
+  The breath of the moist earth is light
+     Around its unexpanded buds;
+  Like many a voice of one delight,
+     The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
+  The City’s voice itself is soft, like Solitude’s.
+
+  I see the Deep’s untrampled floor
+     With green and purple seaweeds strown;
+  I see the waves upon the shore,
+     Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
+  I sit upon the sands alone;
+     The lightning of the noontide ocean
+  Is flashing round me, and a tone
+     Arises from its measured motion,
+  How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion?”
+
+But it must be admitted that the seashore by Torre del Greco does not
+often lend itself as a suitable spot for romantic or solitary communings
+with nature; it is a busy place where the struggle for life is keen and
+practical enough, and its inhabitants have little time or inclination to
+bestow on the pursuit of poetry. As in all the towns of the _Terra di
+Lavoro_, as this collection of human ant-hills on the eastern side of
+Naples is sometimes designated, the old command given to the first parents
+of mankind—“by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread”—is scrupulously
+observed in Torre del Greco. It is little enough, however, that these
+frugal people demand, for a hunk of coarse bread, tempered with a handful
+of beans or an orange in winter or with a slice of luscious pink
+water-melon or a few figs in summer, is thought to constitute a full meal
+in this climate; nor are these simple viands washed down by anything more
+potent than a draught of _mezzo-vino_, the weak sour wine of the country.
+A dish of maccaroni or a plateful of kid or veal garnished with vegetables
+is a treat to be reserved for a marriage or some great Church festival,
+whilst a chicken is regarded as a luxury in which only _gran’ signori_ of
+boundless wealth can afford to indulge. Amongst the many classes of
+toilers with which populous Torre del Greco abounds, that of the
+coral-fishers is perhaps the most interesting. There is pure romance in
+the very notion of hunting for the beautiful coloured substance lying
+hidden in the crystalline depths of the Mediterranean, and its quest is
+not a little suggestive of azure caverns beneath the waves, peopled by
+soft-eyed mermaids and strange iridescent fishes. As a matter of fact, it
+would be difficult to name a harder occupation or a more dismal monotonous
+existence than that of the coral-fishers, many hundreds of whom leave this
+little port every spring in order to spend the summer months on the coasts
+of Tripoli, Sardinia, or Sicily. The men employed, who work under contract
+during some six months of unending drudgery, are by no means all natives
+of Torre del Greco, but are collected from various places of the
+neighbourhood, not a few of them being thrifty youths from Capri, who are
+eager to amass as quickly as possible the lump sum of money requisite to
+permit of marriage. It is true that the amount actually paid by the owners
+of the coral fleet sounds proportionately large, yet it is in reality poor
+enough recompense when measured by the ceaseless toil, the burning heat
+and the wretched food, which the venture entails. The lot of the
+coral-fisher has however much improved of late years, partly by measures
+of government which now compel the contractors to treat their servants
+more humanely, and partly by the fact that the practice of emigration in
+Southern Italy has reduced the numbers of applicants for the coral-fishing
+business and has thereby, indirectly at least, raised wages and bettered
+the old conditions of service. A truly pitiable account is given of these
+poor creatures some thirty years ago by an English writer, whose knowledge
+of the Neapolitan people and character remains probably unsurpassed; and
+it is some satisfaction to reflect that even in Mr Stamer’s day the bad
+old oppressive system had already been somewhat tempered for the benefit
+of these white slaves, who for nearly half the round of the year were
+worse treated than King Bomba’s unhappy victims in the pestilent prisons
+of Naples and Gaeta.
+
+  [Illustration: A CAPRIOTE FISHERMAN’S WIFE]
+
+“Badly paid, badly fed, and hard worked is the poor coral-fisher. Compared
+with his, the life of a galley-slave is one of sybaritical indolence. His
+treatment was, until very recently, not one whit better than that of the
+poor oppressed negro as he existed in the vivid imagination of Mrs Harriet
+Beecher Stowe; immeasurably worse than that of the real Simon Pure. The
+thirty ducats for which he sold his seven months’ services once paid, he
+was just as much a slave as Uncle Tom of pious memory, harder worked, more
+brutally handled. His _padrone_ was a sea-monster, alongside of whom Mr
+Legree would have seemed a paragon of Quaker-like gentleness and
+amiability. His word was law and a rope’s end well laid on his sole reply
+to any remonstrance on the part of his bondsmen. For six days out of the
+seven he kept them working incessantly, not unfrequently on the seventh
+into the bargain, if the weather was favourable; and that they might be
+strong, hearty and able to haul away, their food consisted of dry
+biscuits; a dish of maccaroni with just sufficient oil to make the sign of
+the cross being served out for the Sunday’s dinner.”(1)
+
+In those “good old days,” not so very far distant, the dredging nets were
+coarse and weighty, and the capstan of the clumsiest and most primitive
+description, so that the coral-seeking serfs under contract were worked
+like bullocks until they were often wont to fall asleep out of sheer
+exhaustion as they hauled away mechanically. We can imagine then with what
+raptures of joy these ill-treated mortals must have hailed the advent of
+October, the month that terminated their long spell of suffering and
+semi-starvation, and with what eagerness they must have returned
+homewards, the more industrious to perform odd jobs during the winter
+season on farms or in factories; the lazier to enjoy a well-earned holiday
+of loafing on the quay or in the piazza. And although times have changed
+for the better in the eyes of the coral-fisher, his lot still remains hard
+enough, even in the present days of grace; whilst any employment that saps
+the workman’s strength during the hot summer months and leaves him idle or
+unemployed in winter time cannot well be described as a desirable trade.
+Yet the temptation to obtain a considerable sum of money in advance, as is
+the case in this particular industry, often proves overwhelming to the
+young man of the Torres or of Castellamare, imprudently married before he
+is out of his teens and with an ever-increasing family. It is so easy to
+accept the proffered gold, which will keep wife and babies in comparative
+comfort throughout the long hot summer; unskilled labour is paid so
+lightly on these teeming shores of the Terra di Lavoro; saddled already
+with children he cannot make up his feeble mind to emigrate; in short, to
+go a-coralling is his sole chance, if he wishes to keep his home together
+and to stave off charity or starvation from his young wife and family.
+
+Beyond Torre del Greco we seem to escape to a certain extent from the
+enveloping network of human dwellings, so that we are at last enabled to
+gain some idea of the natural features of the country. The oriental
+character of the landscape, which marks more or less distinctly the whole
+of the Neapolitan coast-line, will at once be noticed in the domed farm
+buildings, not unlike Mahommedan _koubbas_, washed a glistening white,
+that stand out sharply against the lugubrious tints of the lava beds.
+Above us, crowning a bosky hillock that juts forth from the mountain
+flank, stands one of the many convents of the monks of Camaldoli, whose
+houses are scattered throughout the breadth of Southern Italy. The
+position of their Vesuvian settlement is certainly unique, for the rising
+ground on which it is perched appears like some verdant oasis amid the
+arid fields of sable lava. Secure in its commanding site, the monastery
+has many a time been completely surrounded by burning streams, which have
+invariably left the building and its woody demesne unscathed. More than
+once have the good brethren, who wear the white robe of St Romualdo of
+Ravenna, looked down from their convent walls upon the work of destruction
+below, and have watched the waves of liquid fire surging angrily but
+uselessly round the rocky base of their retreat. Hard manual labour,
+prayer, solitude and contemplation: these are the chief duties enjoined by
+the famous Tuscan order, and surely no more suitable place for carrying
+out such precepts could have been chosen by the pious founder of this
+Vesuvian convent. For what scenes on earth could be deemed more beautiful
+to contemplate, we wonder, than the wide stretches of heaven and ocean, of
+fertile plain and of rugged mountain, that are ever before the eyes of the
+brethren; or more instructive than the constant spectacle of disappointed
+human ambition and energy, which is afforded by the barren lava beds and
+the ruined cities close at hand!
+
+Descending from the slopes of Camaldoli, we cross a tract of country
+wherein black lava alternates with patches of rich cultivation and of
+thriving vineyards, and gaining the high road we soon reach Torre
+Annunziata. Here it is evident that the manufacture of maccaroni forms the
+chief industry of its population, for on all sides are to be seen the
+frames filled with the golden coloured strings of _pasta_ that have been
+hung up to dry in the sunshine. Every flat roof in the place, moreover, is
+covered with smooth concrete and protected by a low parapet for the
+spreading of the grain, and on the beach are laid huge cloths of coarse
+brown material that are heaped with masses of the crude corn, whilst men
+with their naked feet from time to time turn the grain so as to dry the
+whole bulk. Torre Annunziata and its inland neighbour, Gragnano, are in
+fact the two chief local scenes of this industry with which the Bay of
+Naples has always been so closely associated, and it is here that we can
+best make ourselves acquainted with the process of manufacturing
+maccaroni. By following any one of the tall brown-skinned fellows,
+stripped to the waist and bare-legged, who have been breathing the fresh
+air of the street for a few moments, we quickly arrive at the entrance of
+one of the many small factories with which the town abounds. In spite of
+open doors and windows its atmosphere feels hot and stifling, for it is
+impregnated with tiny particles of flour dust, which too often, alas! are
+apt to affect permanently the lungs of the workmen. The dough of maccaroni
+is obtained by mixing pure wheaten flour with semolina in certain
+proportions, only water being used for the purpose, whilst the task of
+kneading is carried out in primitive fashion by means of a lever worked
+continuously by two or more men. When the dough has at length arrived at
+the required consistency after some hours of steady kneading, it is placed
+in a large perforated copper cylinder, each hole having a central pin at
+the bottom and a valve on top. A powerful screw is then employed to press
+down upon the dough, which is thus squeezed out of the imprisoning
+cylinder through the holes in the serpentine shape that is so familiar to
+us. On reaching a certain length these pipes, issuing from the holes, are
+twisted off and are then removed for drying to the frames in the open air.
+Maccaroni has, of course, many varieties of form and quality, from the
+thin fluffy vermicelli, known under the poetical name of _Capilli degli
+Angeli_, to the great thick pipe-stem-like article of ordinary commerce.
+There are endless means of cooking and dressing this, the national dish of
+Italy, but perhaps the most popular of all is _alla Napolitana_, wherein
+it is served with tomato sauce, to which a sprinkling of grated Parmesan
+cheese is frequently added. A compound of eggs and maccaroni, sometimes
+known as a Neapolitan omelette, likewise makes an appetising dish, though
+it is one that is little known to foreigners. One circumstance is patent;
+the dismal so-called “maccaroni pudding” one meets with in England seems
+to have nothing in common with the delicately flavoured, sustaining dish
+that can be obtained for a few pence in any Southern restaurant.
+
+Torre Annunziata has the reputation of being a dirty malodorous town,
+composed of shabby stone houses and full of quarrelsome people. Well,
+perhaps there is a scintilla of truth in the sweeping observation, yet if
+we can contrive to endure the smells and racket of the place for a brief
+space of time, there is much of human interest to be observed in the daily
+scenes of its crowded beach and its noisy streets. After all, no odours of
+the South can compare in all-pervading intensity with the blended aroma of
+fried fish and London fog that old Drury Lane can often produce; nor are
+the Torrese more dangerous to strangers or more objectionable in their
+habits than the crowds of Lambeth or Seven Dials. In strength of lungs, it
+must be granted, the Italian easily surpasses the Londoner, for the
+Southern voice is positively alarming in its vigour and its far-reaching
+power. No one—man, woman or child—can apparently speak below a scream;
+even the most amiable or trivial of conversations seems to our
+unaccustomed ears to portend an imminent quarrel, to so high a pitch are
+the naturally harsh voices strained. Morning, noon and night the same
+hubbub of men shouting, of women screeching, and of children yelling
+continues for nobody minds noise in Italy, where people are troubled with
+no nerves of their own and consequently have no consideration for those of
+strangers. And why, therefore, should they suspend their native habits to
+please a handful of cavilling _forestieri_?
+
+A stroll through Torre Annunziata, although it possesses not a few
+drawbacks, can be made both amusing and instructive; we can even find
+something attractive in the quality of the local atmosphere, which
+suggests at one and the same time sunshine, garlic, incense, stale fish
+and wood smoke; it is the pungent but characteristic aroma of the South,
+filled “with spicy odours Time can never mar.” And what truly charming
+pictures do the family groups present in the wide archways giving on the
+untidy courts within, full of sun and shadow and gay with bright-coloured
+garments swaying in the wind! The ebon-haired young mother with teeth like
+pearls and with warm-tinted cheeks sits fondling the last helpless little
+addition to her growing family, whilst toddlers of any age from two to
+seven, unkempt but bright-eyed and engaging, play around the door-step,
+watched over by their grandmother, or may be their great-grandam, who with
+her wizened face enfolded in her yellow kerchief, her skinny neck, and her
+distaff in the bony fingers, looks as if she had stepped out of some
+Renaissance painting of the Three Fates in a Florentine gallery. Crimson
+carnations in earthenware pots stand on the steps of the outside
+staircase, giving a touch of refinement to the squalid home, and from the
+balcony overhead the glossy-black, yellow-billed _passer solitario_, the
+favourite cage-bird of the Neapolitan poor, chirrups with apparent
+cheerfulness in his wicker-work prison. Behind, in the dim shadows of the
+large room, which serves as sole habitation, we can espy the inevitable
+household altar with the oil lamp glimmering before the little
+crude-coloured print of the Virgin and Child, and its usual accessory, the
+piece of palm or olive that was blessed by the priest last Palm Sunday;
+poor and mean though the chamber be, its bed linen and simple appointments
+are more cleanly than might perhaps be inferred from the appearance of the
+family itself. In a shady corner close by, three or four young labourers
+at their mid-day rest have finished their frugal repast of bread and
+beans, and are now playing eagerly the popular game of _zecchinetto_ with
+a frayed and grimy pack of cards. Wives or sweethearts watch with anxious
+faces from a respectful distance, for it is not meet to disturb the lords
+of creation when they happen to be engaged in a game of chance. What
+possibilities of farce and tragedy can be drawn from so simple, so common
+a scene upon these shores, where human life is less artificially conducted
+than elsewhere in Europe, and where human passions are kept under less
+restraint? Terrible are the tales of jealousy and revenge, of deliberate
+treachery and of uncontrolled violence, which are related of these
+quick-tempered grown-up children of the South, who seem to love and hate
+with the blind intensity of untutored savages.
+
+  “Lo ’nnamorato’ mmio sse chiammo Peppo,
+  Lo capo jocatore de le carte;
+  Ss’ ha jocato ’sto core a zecchinetto,
+  Dice ca mo’ lo venne, e mo’ lo parte.
+  Che n’agg’ io a fare lo caro de carte?
+  Vogho lo core che tinite ’m pietto!”
+
+  (“That lover of mine is called Handsome Beppo,
+  The best player of cards all around this way;
+  He’s been playing on Hearts at _zecchinetto_,
+  And says now they turn up, now are sorted away.
+  What matters the heart in the card-pack to me?
+  The heart in his bosom’s the heart for me!”)
+
+Here lies the sleeping fisherman, worn out probably with hours of hauling
+at the heavy nets, who is snatching a chance hour of repose, prone upon
+his chest with face buried in his crossed arms. Little he seems to reck of
+the damp of the soil or the heat of the sun, nor can a noisy game of
+_mora_ played by a couple of his companions beside him disturb his deep
+slumber. _Mora_ has ever been the classic game of the South, and indeed,
+there is abundant evidence to show that it was played by the ancestors of
+these dwellers in Magna Graecia hundreds of years before Pompeii was
+overthrown. The game, which requires nothing but the human fingers, bears
+no little resemblance to our own humble pastime of “Up Jenkin!” which may
+almost be described as a species of drawing-room _mora_; perhaps some
+Italian traveller in a past age may actually have introduced this form of
+the southern diversion into prosaic England. The two players, face to face
+and craning forward with outstretched necks, simultaneously extend their
+right hands with one or more fingers pointing upward, the aim of each man
+being to guess the exact number, from two to ten, jointly displayed by
+both right hands. If one of them hit upon the correct figure, then he
+gains one point towards the stakes, which are usually made in _centesimi_
+rather than in _soldi_. How rapidly do the lean supple brown fingers flash
+backwards and forwards, and with what gusto do the two frenzied combatants
+yell out their numbers! _Mora_ has been a favourite recreation with these
+people almost from their cradles, and he would be a bold man indeed who
+would venture to challenge a Torrese at this game, for the native’s skill
+and experience are almost bound to tell eventually in his favour, and the
+odds are “Lombard Street to a China orange” against the outside player.
+There are certain maxims too with regard to the game which are closely
+observed by those who play it, as well as peculiar expressions, such as
+_tutte_ to denote that all ten fingers are being shown, or _chiarella_ for
+all but one. Five points usually make the game, and these are commonly
+marked by holding up one or more fingers of the disengaged left
+hand.—These are a few of the many sights to be witnessed by those who can
+afford to endure the pestering attentions of small boys, and the
+uncomplimentary staring of the adult population in such places as the
+Torres or Castellamare; and such as wish to make themselves acquainted
+with the details of southern life and manners cannot do better than pass
+an idle hour in the fishmarket or the piazza of these little industrial
+towns of the Vesuvian shore. For to regard Southern Italy from the
+majestic isolation of a railway compartment or a hired carriage cannot
+possibly give the traveller the smallest insight into the ordinary phases
+of local life; for he is ever looking, as it were, into a picture from
+which all trace of colour has vanished.
+
+It is but a short quarter of an hour by train from Torre Annunziata to
+Castellamare di Stabia, the ill-fated Stabiae of the Romans, which shared
+the evil lot of Pompeii and Herculaneum. On our right we have the sea,
+with the castle-topped islet of Revigliano, whilst on looking to the left
+we can survey the fertile valley of the Sarno, and the shapeless mounds
+which hide that precious goal of every traveller to these shores, the
+buried city of Pompeii. Everywhere thrives sub-tropical vegetation:—cactus
+and aloe draped in wreaths of smilax; tall straggling masses of scarlet
+geranium that cling for protection to the Indian fig, and blossom in
+security amid their spiky but safe retreats; shrubs of fragrant yellow
+genista; clumps of purple-leaved _ricini_, as the Italians name the
+castor-oil plant. If it were summer time, the daturas would be covered
+with their great white floral trumpets, and every oleander bush would be
+one blaze of the coarse carmine blossoms that are here called _Mazza di
+San Giuseppe_, or St Joseph’s nosegay, and a very gaudy rank bouquet they
+make. But in spring-time the oleander can but display long greyish leaves
+and pods of snowy fluff, which is blown hither and thither like
+thistle-down on the air; and it is only in flaming summer that these
+regions are brightened by St Joseph’s flower, or by the still more
+gorgeous masses of the mesembryanthemum, which clambers on all sides over
+the lava rock and hangs in crimson festoons from tufa cliffs, making
+impossibly splendid splashes of colour in the landscape.
+
+
+                              * * * * * * *
+
+
+So many writers have expatiated upon the sordid ugliness of Castellamare
+and upon the beauty of the wooded slopes above the town, that a further
+description of the place may well be dispensed with. Uninteresting,
+however, as this industrial town appears, it boasts a long historical
+record, to which its crumbling medieval castle bears witness. The great
+Emperor Frederick the Second, the scholar-pope Pius the Second, and all
+the monarchs of the Angevin, Aragonese and Bourbon dynasties have been
+associated with this “castle by the sea.” The whole district was once the
+property of that human monster Pier-Luigi Farnese, duke of Parma, heir of
+Pope Paul the Third, of whose demoniacal cruelty and treachery the racy
+pages of Cellini’s Memoirs give so vivid an account, and whose repulsive
+face has grown familiar to us from Titian’s famous portraits in the
+gallery of Naples. It was the evil Pier-Luigi’s descendant and
+heiress-general of the family, Elizabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain, who
+conveyed the beautiful villa and woods of Quisisana to the Bourbon kings,
+and here the Neapolitan royal family for several generations sought health
+(as the name of the place implies) and repose upon the breezy heights that
+lie so conveniently near to the great city in full view to the west.
+Nowadays the old royal villa, deserted by crowned heads since Ferdinand’s
+days and fallen from its high estate to its present use of a hotel and
+pension, forms with its park the chief attraction of Castellamare, where
+English travellers are wont to congregate in winter, and Neapolitan and
+Greek seekers of pleasure or drinkers of medicinal waters resort in the
+hot summer months. The Southerners who come here for their _villeggiatura_
+certainly enjoy a better time than the winter visitors, for the bulky form
+of Monte Sant’ Angelo intercepts much of the sunshine, thereby rendering
+the place damp and chilly in the cold season of the year. Nominally it is
+the mineral springs that attract the Neapolitan folk, wherein they have a
+fine choice of health-giving beverages, varying from the _acqua ferrata_,
+a mild chalybeate that is found useful as a tonic, to the powerful _acqua
+del Muraglione_, that is warranted to reduce the stoutest mortal to a mere
+shadow of his former self in a trice. But though the waters may be
+occasionally sipped of a morning and wry faces made, it is in reality the
+warm sea-bathing on the shore, where people spend hours pickling in tepid
+salt water, and also the cool rides or walks amongst the shady alleys of
+sweet chestnut and ilex woods of Quisisana and Monte Coppola, which draw
+hither in summer the elegant world of Naples, and even of Athens, to visit
+Castellamare. The leafy groves on the zephyr-swept hill sides, once sacred
+to the pleasures of Bourbon tyrants, now ring with peals of noisy
+laughter, with gallant compliments, and with the harsh shouting of the
+_ciucciari_, the leaders of the poor over-driven donkeys. Unhappy patient
+beasts! usually covered with raws and galls, that are urged forward at a
+gallop by the remorseless stick, or even by the goad, for the Neapolitan
+donkey-boy is absolutely callous to the feelings of his animal. Not that
+he is cruel out of sheer cussedness, for cruelty’s sake, for he can be
+really kind to his dog or his cat; but the beast of burden, the helpless
+uncomplaining servant of man, suffers terribly at his hands. It is useless
+to remonstrate or argue with the young ruffian, who at our sharp reprimand
+will merely open wide his big black eyes and stare in genuine amazement.
+_Non sono Cristiani_—they have no souls, and the beasts are their property
+and not yours; what does it matter then to you how they are treated,
+provided they carry you properly? That is the sum total of the
+donkey-boy’s argument, and he has high ecclesiastical authority to back up
+his private theory, if he had the wit to enter into a discussion with us
+on the subject. Almost equally hopeless is it to point to the simple fact
+that a well-groomed, well-treated animal lasts longer than a half-starved,
+mutilated scare-crow. “How old is your horse?” we once asked a driver in
+the south. “He is very old indeed, _eccelenza_,” was the reply; “he must
+be nearly twelve!” On being informed that horses often worked well up to
+twenty years old and over in England, he let us infer, quite politely,
+that he thought we were romancing. Tenderness towards the dumb creation is
+a common, not to say a prevailing characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race,
+and it must be confessed that the thoughtless and horrible cruelty towards
+animals witnessed on all sides in the Neapolitan Riviera amounts to a
+serious drawback to the full enjoyment of its many beauties and amenities.
+Matters are improving a little of late, it is only fair to add. There is
+an Italian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and its
+officials have done some good in the streets of Naples itself, but
+naturally its new ideas have not yet penetrated far into the country
+districts.
+
+  [Illustration: ROAD NEAR CASTELLAMARE]
+
+To the healthy and energetic the most delightful excursion that
+Castellamare can offer is the ascent to the summit of Monte Sant’ Angelo,
+that monarch of the Bay of Naples, whose lofty crest gleams with snowy
+streaks until the spring be well advanced. The lazy or the feeble can make
+use of one of the poor oppressed donkeys, but it is better to engage its
+ragged master, who without his four-footed drudge to whack and kick is a
+harmless enough being, to act as guide over the steep ill-defined pathway
+that leads ever upwards. As we slowly ascend through the sub-tropical
+region of fig and vine, of olive and carouba, we question our guide, who
+in spite of his bright eyes and well-knit frame seems about as intelligent
+a companion as the poor ass left behind in the stall, where he is
+enjoying, let us hope, an unexpected holiday. It is not easy to extract
+information from our native attendant, yet with a little judicious
+pressing we learn from him that the top of the mountain, which is our
+bourne, was once inhabited by evil spirits, until a holy hermit took up
+his abode on the peak, since when his sanctity has kept the place
+tolerably clear of witches and foul incubi. Wicked sprites, however, still
+haunt the spreading woods of beech and chestnut which we must presently
+traverse, and our guide (whose name is Vincenzo) admits to us that he
+would not care to venture there alone, even in broad daylight. There is,
+he tells us, warming up at last to the subject, much gold hidden there,
+which the spirits guard so jealously that they are ready to tear in pieces
+any mortal who is clever enough to find and bold enough to rifle their
+secret hoards. Only a priest, on account of his sacred office, is reckoned
+safe from their iniquitous spells. “But has not any one dared,” we ask,
+“to go in company with a holy man, to search for this hidden treasure?”
+Well, yes, he had been told that men from Vico had once ventured up into
+the woods to search for the gold. With a little encouragement Vincenzo is
+finally prevailed upon to give us the whole story, which is evidently of
+somewhat recent date.
+
+Once upon a time there were four men, one of them being a priest, who
+lived in Vico, and one of these men had often been told by his father that
+in the forests near the top of Monte Sant’ Angelo there lay buried a chest
+full of gold—_molto! molto!_ The father of the man had been himself in his
+youth to search for the treasure, but find it he never could, for he would
+never take a priest with him to avert the spells of the evil spirits of
+the mountain sides, who kept the place hidden. So this time the man chose
+two out of his friends, the boldest and the trustiest he could fix upon,
+to accompany him, and at the same time he obtained the promise of a
+cousin, who was a priest, to assist in the undertaking. All four made
+their way up to the woods, and whilst the three men were digging and
+searching, the priest continued to read aloud the incantations out of a
+certain book he had brought with him for the purpose. In course of time
+the chest was discovered to the joy of all, and sure enough it was bulging
+with the desired gold pieces. They opened it without difficulty, and the
+four friends divided its contents in equal shares. Scarcely had the work
+of division been carried out, than there came a loud voice issuing from
+the unknown, calling out the question:—“_Che ferete con questo tesoro?_”
+“_Mangeremo, beveremo!_” boldly replied one of the group, to whom this
+sudden accession of wealth offered dreams of unlimited platters of
+maccaroni and countless flasks of ruby-red Gragnano in the future. “We
+shall eat, we shall drink, but we shall also make abundant alms!” called
+out another—let us hope it was the priest!—but no sooner had the word
+_elemosina_ (alms) been uttered than there was heard a most terrific
+rattling of chains, the gold pieces turned to dead leaves in the
+affrighted mortals’ hands, and the four men took to their heels and fled
+in alarm down the mountain flank.
+
+Vincenzo believes this tale implicitly, just as it was related to him, and
+he adds to combat our own incredulity that the priest and one of the men
+who took part in this strange adventure were still living and ready to
+confirm the story, but that of the remaining two, one was now dead, and
+the other had been deaf and dumb ever since the event. It seem a pity to
+criticise Vincenzo’s simple little narrative, which makes a pretty
+fairy-story and points a sound moral, as it stands.
+
+We enter the fresh scented woods that have now replaced in our climb the
+rich cultivated crops and terraced gardens, and here amidst the clumps of
+ancient chestnuts our guide points out to us the great snow-pits, the
+contents of which are used to cool the water sold by the _acquaioli_
+during hot summer nights in the sultry streets of Naples. These pits are
+dug about fifty feet deep, and half as much across, being conical in shape
+with a grating placed a short distance above the tapering base to allow
+the melted snow to drain off into the soil. The sides of each pit are
+first well-lined with straw and leafy branches, and the new-fallen snow
+shovelled in and forced into a solid mass by pressure from above, whilst
+on top is placed a sound thatched roof. As we wander through the silent
+woods we see patches of anemones, white and blue, lying upon the
+leaf-strewn ground, and beside them in many places are tufts of the pale
+starry primroses; coarse spurge, and lush masses of the hellebore with its
+large pale green flowers and dark leaves are common enough on all sides.
+From amongst the naked trees we emerge into the bare bleak stony stretches
+that lead to the summit, covered with the coarse but aromatic vegetation
+that clothes the dry limestone wastes of the south. How truly marvellous
+is the description of these wind-swept, weed-grown solitudes that Robert
+Browning presents to us in what is perhaps the most truly Italian in
+feeling of all his poems, “The Englishman in Italy!” For here with the
+rich imagination, worthy of some of Shelley’s finest flights, is mingled
+an accurate appreciation of Nature, of which Wordsworth might well be
+proud; for the Lake poet himself could not have improved upon this
+exquisite description of the various shrubs and plants of a limestone
+hill-top in Italy.
+
+  “The wild path grew wilder each instant,
+    And place was e’en grudged
+  ’Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones,
+    Like the loose broken teeth
+  Of some monster which climbed there to die
+    From the ocean beneath—
+  Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-weed
+    That clung to the path,
+  And dark rosemary ever a-dying,
+    That, spite the wind’s wrath,
+  So loves the salt rock’s face to seaward,
+    And lentisks as staunch
+  To the stone where they root and bear berries,
+    And ... what shows a branch
+  Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets
+    Of pale sea-green leaves.”
+
+Above our heads hovers a kite, performing graceful circles in the keen
+clear air and breaking the oppressive silence of the place with his shrill
+screams, for his mate must have her nest hidden in some cleft of yon grey
+towering cliff. A pair of crested hoopoes with brown plumage and ruddy
+breasts keep fluttering a little way before us, uttering from time to time
+their curious notes of alarm. Mercifully these handsome birds have escaped
+the fowler, who lays his snares even amongst the spirit-haunted crags of
+this desolate region. The hoopoe, though a very rare visitor to our
+northern shores, is fairly common on the Mediterranean coast, and he would
+be still more frequently encountered, were it not for his hereditary
+enemy, Man. There is a venerable legend concerning this interesting
+bird—_bubbola_, the Italians call him—which relates how ages ago on the
+scorching plains of Palestine a number of hoopoes once followed King
+Solomon as he was riding, and in order to protect the great king from the
+fierce rays of the sun, they formed themselves into a living screen to
+shelter the royal head. Grateful for this welcome attention, Solomon Ben
+David at eventide sent for the king of the Hoopoes to ask him what reward
+he would like to receive for this service, and the answer was promptly
+made that a crown of pure gold on the head would be acceptable. The Jewish
+monarch smiled grimly as he granted the request, whereupon immediately
+each bird found his poll decorated with a tuft of pure golden feathers,
+and mightily pleased with their new magnificence were the conceited
+hoopoes. But alas! the news was quickly spread abroad that there were to
+be seen strange birds with plumes of real gold, and the eternal lust of
+gain at once set men in quest of the hoopoes, whom they began to slay
+wholesale with stones, arrows, and traps in order to obtain the coveted
+precious metal they bore on their heads. In despair, the king of the
+hoopoes then flew to the monarch sitting on his ivory throne at Jerusalem,
+and begged him to change their golden crowns for crests of feathers.
+Solomon the Wise smilingly gave the order; at once lovely red and black
+feathers took the place of the golden plumes, and the slaughter of the
+hoopoes in Palestine forthwith ceased. And the story, argues the recorder
+of this lesson upon the folly of personal adornment, must of necessity be
+true, for it is certain that the hoopoes bear a crown of feathers upon
+their heads unto this day.
+
+Slowly we toil up the last portion of the peak, until we reach the ruined
+chapel of St Michael upon its summit, which is still a resort of local
+pilgrims, although in these days of doubt and avarice, when “sins are so
+many and saints so few,” the statue of the Archangel since its removal
+from this spot no longer perspires with the sacred dew, which the priests
+used to collect with cotton wool on the first day of August and distribute
+to the peasants of the district. Like the oil that was once wont to exude
+from the blessed relics of St Andrew in the Cathedral of Amalfi, _non c’è
+più_; we may possess motor cars and radium, but we must contrive to exist
+without these precious exhibitions of the miraculous.
+
+It would be sheer folly to attempt a full description of that glorious
+view, comprising the bays of Gaeta, Naples, and Salerno; of Vesuvius with
+his ascending smoky clouds; of the endless chain of the snow-tipped
+Abruzzi Mountains that bound the vision to the east; of the vast expanse
+of the Mediterranean, stretching in one unbroken sheet of turquoise to the
+west, varied by violet patches of reflected cloud, and studded by
+innumerable ships, from the vast liners to the tiny fishing craft with
+their glistening sails, like snow-white sea-swallows resting on the calm
+waters. Again we turn to Robert Browning, most human of poets and most
+kindly of philosophers, to find adequate expression for the thoughts we
+dare not, cannot utter.
+
+  “Oh, heaven and the terrible crystal!
+    No rampart excludes
+  Your eye from the life to be lived
+    In the blue solitudes.
+  Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement!
+    Still moving with you;
+  For ever some new head and breast of them
+    Thrusts into view
+  To observe the intruder; you see it
+    If quickly you turn,
+  And before they escape you surprise them.
+    They grudge you should learn
+  How the soft plains they look on, lean over
+    And love (they pretend)
+  —Cower beneath them, the flat sea-pine crouches,
+    The wild fruit-trees bend;
+  E’en the myrtle leaves curl, shrink and shut,
+    All is silent and grave:
+  ’Tis a sensual and timorous beauty.
+    How fair! but a slave.”
+
+  [Illustration: MONTE FAITO, CASTELLAMARE]
+
+We descend by the slopes of Monte Faito in the quiet of the evening,
+facing the distant headland of Posilipo and the sunset, where above the
+horizon we see collecting thick masses of dark purple cloud, which augur a
+stormy morrow. Above us the peak of the Archangel is already wreathed in
+garlands of white mist, a sure sign of coming tempest, and it is amid a
+lurid light from the sinking sun that we hasten downwards, bending our
+steps in the direction of Pozzano, where the form of its convent stands
+out sharply defined against the background of the Bay. Night is rapidly
+approaching, and in the gathering darkness as we strike the road below the
+convent, we can already hear the ominous roaring and seething of the
+waters under the cliff, lashed to fury by the first deep breaths of the
+coming squall. Hurrying along the broad smooth roadway it is not long
+before we reach our hotel door, where we bid good night to Vincenzo, just
+as the first heavy drops of rain have begun to fall; pleasantly exhausted
+after our long excursion, we are ready to appreciate to the full the
+warmth and good cheer of the hospitable Hotel Quisisana.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER III
+
+
+                              LA CITTÀ MORTA
+
+
+Pompeii can never be visited without the same haunting conviction, the
+same oppressive thought: how terribly difficult it is to understand the
+City of the Dead which holds in so small a space the whole secret of the
+antique world! There are far more grandiose and impressive ruins to be
+seen in Rome; the city of Timgad in Northern Africa is more complete as a
+specimen of a Roman settlement than the half-excavated town near Vesuvius;
+yet here, and here only, can the men of the past stretch hands, as it
+were, across the barrier of eighteen intervening centuries to the dweller
+of to-day, and the dead-and-gone spirits of a highly organized
+civilization can whisper into the living ears of the twentieth century.
+For Pompeii will speak to us, if we will take the trouble to learn the
+tongue in which alone she can convey the secret of her story. It is
+needless to say that this language is not obtainable by one or two cursory
+visits to the Naples Museum, and a few hurried half-hours given to the
+contents of the guide-book; no, the language of Pompeii, which constitutes
+the key of access to the hidden chambers of the Roman world, can only be
+acquired with much expenditure of precious time and with infinite trouble.
+But “life is short and time is fleeting,” and our bustling age expects to
+seize its required knowledge in the twinkling of an eye; well, in that
+case the story of Pompeii must remain a sealed volume to the traveller,
+who is conveyed to the City of the Dead in a train crammed with
+fellow-tourists; who eats a heavy unwholesome luncheon to the sound of
+mandoline-players twanging sprightly Neapolitan airs; and who is finally
+piloted round the sacred area by a chattering guide in the oppressive heat
+and glare of a sunny afternoon. Fatigued in mind and body, such an one
+will sink with ill-concealed relief upon the dusty velvet cushions of the
+returning train, thoroughly disappointed in the vaunted marvels of
+Pompeii, which his imagination had led him to expect. A vague impression
+of low broken walls, of narrow—to his eyes absurdly narrow—streets, of
+broken columns and of peeling frescoes fills his tired brain, as he is
+borne back to his hotel in Naples. But this disenchantment is his own
+fault, for no one who sets foot within the Sea Gate of the buried city in
+the proper spirit of knowledge and appreciation can possibly fail to enjoy
+the privilege which has thus been afforded him—
+
+        “to stand within the City Disinterred;
+  And hear the autumnal leaves like light footfalls
+  Of spirits passing through the streets; and hear
+  The Mountain’s slumberous voice at intervals
+      Thrill through those roofless halls.”
+
+Before passing through the Porta Marina into the purlieus of the city, let
+us first of all instil into our minds the essential difference that exists
+between the ruins of Pompeii and the historic fragments of Rome or Athens.
+When we gaze upon the well-known sites of the vanished glories of the
+Palatine or the Acropolis, we experience no effort in looking backward
+through the vista of the past and in conjuring up some vague
+representation of the scenes that were once enacted in these places; the
+more imaginative feel the very air vibrating with the unseen spirits of
+men and women famous in the world’s history. He must be indeed a
+Philistine or a dullard who cannot contrive to arouse a passing exaltation
+at the thought of treading in the footsteps of Cicero and the Caesars in
+Rome, of Pericles and Socrates in Athens, for the very soil of the Forum
+and the stones of the citadel of Pallas seem impregnated with the very
+essence of history. But this is far from being the case at Pompeii, where
+long careful study of details and a grasp of hard facts are really of more
+avail than a poetic imagination in reclothing with flesh the dry bones of
+the past, for the importance of the Campanian city is almost purely
+social. The _names_ of many of its prominent citizens are certainly
+familiar to us from inscriptions found, yet who were these persons that we
+should take so deep an interest in their lives and fates? Who were Pansa
+the ædile, Eumachia the priestess, Caecilius Jucundus, Aulus Vettius and
+Epidius Rufus, and a score of other Pompeian worthies? The answer is, they
+were officials or simple dwellers in a flourishing provincial town; they
+had no especial literary or public reputation; their names were probably
+little known beyond the walls of their own city. Imagine an English
+country town, such as Exeter or Shrewsbury, suddenly overwhelmed by some
+unforeseen freak of Nature and afterwards embalmed in the manner of
+Pompeii as a curiosity for the edification of future ages. To what extent,
+we ask, would the discovery of a place of this size and population supply
+the existing dweller with a complete impression of our national life and
+civilization in the opening years of the twentieth century? The reply will
+be that it would give a very good idea of the average provincial town, but
+that it would hardly serve as a fair criterion to judge of the life
+pursued in the capital, or in the really large cities. Such a comparison
+will afford us a certain clue to the unveiling of the mysteries of
+Pompeii.
+
+For the city at the mouth of the Sarno was an ancient Campanian
+settlement, founded long before the days wherein Greek adventurers beached
+their triremes on the shores of the Siren. It was a native community of
+Oscans, deriving its name from the Oscan word _pompe_ (five), and, unlike
+Paestum, it appears to have retained its original appellation under all
+its successive masters. Its primitive inhabitants seem to have
+intermingled with their Hellenic victors, and to have grown civilized by
+intercourse with them. Temples of heavy Doric architecture were raised;
+walls and watch-towers were built; and by the time the city fell into the
+hands of the encroaching Romans, it had become a flourishing place with
+some twenty to thirty thousand inhabitants, owing its prosperity to its
+excellent situation at the mouth of the river, which made Pompeii a
+convenient port to serve the rich district of Campania that lies eastward
+of Vesuvius. Nuceria (the modern Nocera) and the larger city of Nola were
+both dependent on it, for the Sarno was in those days navigable, so that
+ships bringing Egyptian corn and Eastern merchandise frequently left the
+Pompeian harbour and sailed up stream to unload their cargoes at these
+cities. Let us picture then to ourselves a compact town, an irregular oval
+in form, surrounded by walls pierced by eight gates and embellished with
+twelve towers; its eastern extremity towards Nocera containing the
+Amphitheatre, and its most westerly point marked by the Herculaneum gate
+leading to the Street of Tombs. Southward, we must imagine the sea much
+closer to its walls than at the present day, for the alluvial deposits
+have in the course of nearly two thousand years added many acres of solid
+ground to the shores of the Bay. Behind the city to the north rose the
+mountain side, not seared with the traces of lava as in these days, nor
+surmounted by a smoking cone, but radiant with vineyards and gardens which
+extended unbroken up to the very rim of the ancient crater. Amidst the
+greenery of the luxuriant slopes peeped forth innumerable farms and villas
+of wealthy Romans, for this exquisite spot had long become an abode of
+cultured leisure. Within the closely packed streets of the town itself
+there were to be found few open spaces except the Forum, and perhaps a
+small park in front of the amphitheatre, for the place was prosperous,
+though not wealthy, and its chief citizens were forced to remain content
+with the tiny gardens enclosed within the walls of their own dwellings.
+
+Internally Pompeii presented, like many another Roman town, marks of its
+six hundred years of existence. There was at least one perfect Doric
+temple; there were Oscan-Grecian buildings, notably the so-called “House
+of the Surgeon,” with its air of old-fashioned simplicity; there were
+houses of the Republican period; there were numberless dwellings of the
+Imperial era; there were unfinished structures that were being completed
+at the time of the city’s overthrow. For, sixteen years before Vesuvius
+suddenly awoke from its long sleep, the neighbourhood had been visited by
+the severe earthquake shock of 63, and the effects produced by this
+disaster had not nearly been effaced, when the great event of 79
+transformed the town into a huge museum for the delight and instruction of
+future generations. Pompeii therefore preserves the marks of more than
+half a thousand years of civilization, so that those who will take the
+necessary trouble can trace within its area the gradual progress of its
+social and political life from the far-off days of Greeks and Oscans to
+the reign of the Emperor Titus. The case of a ruined Exeter or Shrewsbury
+could not be widely different. The students of ensuing ages would be able
+to find in the dead town one or two churches of Norman or Plantagenet
+times; portions of medieval city walls and gateways, perhaps even some
+undoubted traces of Roman baths or fortifications; some few public
+buildings erected under Tudor or Stuart sovereigns; a large number of the
+plain roomy mansions of the Georgian period; and, last of all, a
+preponderating quantity of nineteenth century structures of every
+description—churches, warehouses, factories, inns, barracks, shops,
+dwelling-houses. Many would be the inscriptions and monuments we should
+find in such a town, alluding to private and public persons utterly
+unknown to English history, but more or less noteworthy in local annals:
+grandees of civic life, soldiers, philanthropists, clergymen, _et hoc
+genus omne_. Future generations of scholars would doubtless strive eagerly
+to obtain details of the careers of these provincial worthies, who filled
+municipal offices in the reigns of Queen Victoria and King Edward, in
+order to throw more light upon the period wherein they flourished. Let us
+apply then the same principles to the study of Pompeii _mutatis mutandis_,
+for in our quest of better knowledge of the old Roman life we fix
+anxiously upon every detail concerning the leading personages of the dead
+city. Nevertheless, it is its existence in the aggregate that proves of
+surpassing interest to us; we desire to learn of the daily tasks and
+occupations of the mass of its population, rather than to become
+acquainted with the private histories of its leading individuals; we study
+the former, in fact, only as a means to a definite end. We cry for
+information, which to a certain extent we can secure, as to how an average
+Roman city was administered, provisioned, drained; how its inhabitants
+passed their time both in leisure and in business; how they amused
+themselves in their homes and in the theatre; what they ate and what they
+drank—the endless trifles of human life, in short, which like the
+_tesseræ_, the tiny cubes of their own mosaic pavements, go to make up a
+complete picture out of a thousand fragments. Not a few of the cubes in
+this case are missing, it is true, nor are they ever likely to be found;
+nevertheless, we own an abundant supply wherewith we can piece together a
+tolerably accurate picture of the life of a Roman provincial city during
+the first century of the Christian era.
+
+It is of course quite outside our province to attempt any detailed account
+of the wonders of Pompeii. The reader who desires full information must
+turn to the elaborate works of Mau and Helbig, of Gell and Overbeck, to
+say nothing of the descriptive pages, full of condensed knowledge,
+contained in Murray’s and Baedeker’s guide-books in order to obtain a
+clear impression of all he wishes to inspect. We can but dwell on a point
+here and there, and even then but lightly and superficially, for any
+endeavour on our part to add to the statements and theories of the great
+archaeologists already cited would be indeed a matter of supererogation
+and presumption.
+
+Entering then by the Marine Gate, and pursuing our course eastwards along
+the lines of naked broken house-fronts, we reach the great rectangular
+space of the Forum. Here at its southern extremity let us select a shady
+corner, for the sun beats down fiercely upon the bare ruins at every
+season of the year, and even on a winter’s afternoon the air often
+shimmers with the heat haze, so that in no place on earth is the use of an
+umbrella so necessary or desirable as at Pompeii.
+
+What an ideal spot for the founding of a city! That is our first
+impression, as we glance across the broad sunlit enclosure on to the
+empurpled slopes of Vesuvius rising grandly above the broken columns of
+the great temple of the Capitoline Jove; behind us, we know, is the azure
+Bay with Capri and the Sorrentine cape lying on its unruffled bosom, so
+that we stand between sea and mountain to north and south, whilst we have
+the luxuriant slopes of Vesuvius to westward, and to the east the rich
+valley of the Sarno, thickly dotted with groves and hamlets. One element
+alone is wanting in the glorious scene before us—Life; it will be our duty
+and pleasure to re-invest as far as possible this empty space before us
+with the semblance of the busy crowds that once flitted in and out of its
+colonnades and porticoes; to rebuild in imagination its shapeless ruins,
+so that we may obtain a fleeting picture of the Pompeian Forum in early
+Imperial days.
+
+  [Illustration: THE FORUM, POMPEII]
+
+Conceive, then, in front of us, instead of this long bare stretch flanked
+by broken walls and strewn with shapeless fragments of brick and stone, an
+immense double arcade, two stories in height, affording ample protection
+against sun or rain and enclosing an oblong pavement whereon are set
+numerous statues of emperors or private citizens, occupying lofty
+positions of honour above the heads of the surging throng below. Imagine
+that group of shattered pillars, which obstructs our full view of the
+distant cone of Vesuvius, transformed into an imposing temple, covered
+with polychrome decoration, not in the best of taste according to our
+modern ideas of art, but gorgeous and cheerful in the clear atmosphere of
+the south. Rebuild, in the mind’s eye, the Basilica and the temple of
+Apollo on the left, and straight before us, as we look forward from our
+coign of vantage at the narrow southern end of the colonnade, let us plant
+the three dominant statues of Augustus, Claudius and Agrippina to form our
+foreground. If we can construct by stress of fancy some such setting of
+classical architecture, gay with primary colours and gilding and graceful
+in design, it is easier to people the Pompeian Forum with the masses of
+humanity that once mingled here. For we have the knowledge of modern
+Italian life to guide us to a certain extent; we have seen the swarms of
+citizens who to-day fill the main piazzas of the towns, especially those
+of the provincial type, where the morning market is held and the chief
+cafés and shops are situated. But if the general use of the piazza is
+characteristic of the modern second-class Italian city, this concentration
+of life was far more marked in the ancient Roman town, wherein the Forum
+must have appeared as the very heart of the whole body social and politic.
+Roman city life indeed displayed two strongly antagonistic phases:—the
+utmost privacy in the home, the most public exhibition in the Forum, where
+every trade and form of business were carried on in the open air, and
+whither pursuit of gain, or pleasure, or religious duty led all the
+citizens to direct their steps. For, as we have already shown, almost all
+the public life of the place was concentrated within this space and its
+surroundings; temples, markets, shops, law courts, municipal offices, all
+abutted on the Forum; it was not merely the chief, but the only place that
+drew together the daily crowd, bent alike on business or amusement. No
+chariots were permitted to cross the area sacred to the claims of
+money-making, of gossip, and of worship; so that we must picture to
+ourselves a great mass of people undisturbed by the passing of vehicles,
+or by the shouts and whip-crackings of the noisy charioteers—was ever such
+a thing as a quiet Italian coachman, ancient or modern, we digress to
+wonder! All was orderly and decorous when compared with the quarrelling,
+screaming groups of citizens that block the congested streets of modern
+Naples. Happily for us various paintings of the Forum of Pompeii have been
+discovered, and these are naturally of immense value in helping us to a
+proper understanding of the habits and methods of the people, and of the
+general appearance of the Forum itself during its busiest hours. The
+costumes of men, women and children; the articles of clothing and of food
+ready for sale; the little knots of loiterers or gossips; the citizens
+intent on reading the municipal notices that are herein portrayed, all
+combine to present us with an authentic picture of Pompeian and therefore
+of Roman civic life. “There is nothing new under the sun,” grumbled the
+Preacher many centuries before the city under Vesuvius had reached its
+zenith of civilization, and it must be confessed that the general
+impression conveyed after studying the contemporary pictures of antique
+life does not differ very widely from that which we obtain by observing
+present Italian conditions. For the frescoes in the Naples Museum and in
+certain of the Pompeian houses seem to recall strongly the scenes of the
+piazza, where all the elements of society, irrespective of rank or
+station, are still wont to congregate. Differences of dress, of manner, of
+custom are doubtless evident enough, yet somehow we perceive an essential
+sameness in these two representations of classical and modern Italy.
+Nevertheless, these simple and often rude wall-paintings furnish us with
+many pieces of information that we search for in vain amidst the ancient
+authors, who naturally considered the commonplace everyday scenes of life
+beneath the notice of contemporary record. We are enabled to learn, for
+instance, how the citizens were usually dressed in the Forum, and how, in
+an age when hats and umbrellas were practically non-existent, the pointed
+hood, like that of the Arab burnous, was often used to cover the head in
+cold or wet weather. Again, it is easy to perceive from the same source
+that the diet of the Pompeians must have resembled closely that of their
+present descendants; even the shape of the loaves has in most cases
+continued unchanged to the present day. And one curious coincidence is
+certainly worth mentioning, in that a peculiar method of preparing figs
+with caraway seeds, which was long supposed to be a local speciality of a
+remote town in Central Italy, has now been recognized as a common method
+of dressing this fruit for the table at Pompeii, for large quantities of
+figs so treated have been unearthed in shops and kitchens. Such grains of
+information as the wearing of hoods and the preserving of figs may appear
+trifling enough at first sight, yet it is from a number of petty details
+such as these that we are assisted to an intimate understanding of a state
+of society extinct nearly two thousand years ago.
+
+Close beside us on the eastern side of the Forum is set the Chalcidicum,
+the large building of the priestess Eumachia, one of the most gracious
+personalities of Pompeii with which the modern world has become
+acquainted. It was this lady who generously presented this structure, one
+of the handsomest and most solid of the public buildings of the city, to
+the fullers to serve as their exchange, wherein goods might be exposed
+upon benches and tables for the convenience alike of sellers and
+purchasers. “Priestess Eumachia,” remarks a modern critic, “has done the
+thing well; no expense has been spared in the building and its
+decorations. The columns of the portico are of white marble; the statues
+of Piety and Concord, works of art; and the flower-borders along the
+panelled walls, prettily conceived and carefully executed. After so much
+plaster and stucco, it is a relief to see something so solid and genuine.
+When a third-rate city apes the capital, there must needs be a certain
+amount of sham. But at Pompeii it is all sham, or next door to it. In the
+entire city are not more than half a dozen edifices whose columns are of
+real marble, the bas-reliefs and cornices of anything more solid than
+stucco; and of these half-dozen, the Exchange heads the list.”
+
+We feel tolerably secure in assigning this fine building to the early
+years of the Emperor Tiberius, and in naming the Emperor’s mother, Livia,
+as the divinity to whom it was dedicated. The statue of Concord with the
+golden horn of plenty doubtless once adorned the large pedestal which
+still stands in the eastern apse of the Exchange, but though the figure
+and emblem were those of Concordia, the face bore certainly the features
+of Imperial Livia. Yet more interesting than the various speculations as
+to the actual uses of this edifice and the different names of the statues
+which once embellished its alcoves, is the circumstance that the marble
+portrait of the foundress herself has been discovered. It is true that
+only a copy in plaster now occupies the pedestal at the back of the apse
+where Eumachia’s statue once stood, for the original has been removed for
+safety to Naples, but it is not difficult to call to mind the calm gentle
+face of this Pompeian Lady Bountiful, and her graceful figure in its
+flowing robes. The existence of this statue adds undoubtedly a touch of
+special human interest to the whole building, and we find our minds
+excited by the brief inscription which still informs the curious that the
+fullers of Pompeii erected this portrait in marble in grateful
+appreciation “to Eumachia, a city-priestess, daughter of Lucius
+Eumachius.”
+
+Outside the Chalcidicum, at the corner of the lane usually termed Via
+dell’ Abbondanza, is to be seen a pathetic little memorial of the working
+life of the city: the fountain of Concordia Augusta, the divinity of
+Eumachia’s noble building hard by. Dusty and heating is the business of
+fulling cloth, and it generates thirst, so that it is but natural to find
+a fountain close at hand, whereat the labourers could refresh their
+parched throats. With what eagerness must the exhausted toilers during
+those long summers of centuries past have leaned forward to press their
+human lips to the cool mouth of the sculptured goddess that ejected with
+pleasing gurgles a volume of water into the basin below! That this
+fountain proved a boon to weary citizens is evident enough, for the
+features of water-spouting Concordia are half worn away by thirsty human
+kisses, and her suppliants’ hands have left deep smooth furrows in the
+stone-work of the basin, whereon they were wont to support their bodies,
+so as to direct the cooling draught into the dry and dusty gullet. In
+Italian cities to-day we can frequently observe some exhausted labourer
+bend deftly downwards to snatch a drink of water from the mouth of some
+fantastic figure in a public fountain. Who has not paused, for instance,
+beside Tacca’s famous bronze boar in the Florentine market-place without
+noting an incident of this kind? If we ourselves are too dainty to place
+our own aristocratic lips where our fellow-mortals have pressed theirs,
+not so are the abstemious descendants of the ancient Romans, the Italians,
+whose minds remain untroubled by any nasty-nice qualms of possible
+infection.
+
+Here then is the setting of the picture, and we must ourselves endeavour
+to repeople the empty space with the crowds of high and low that once
+collected here.
+
+“It is high change, and the Forum is crowded. All Pompeii is here, and his
+wife. _Patres conscripti_, inclined to corpulence, taking their
+constitutional, exquisites lazily sauntering up and down the pavements;
+decurions discussing the affairs of the nation, and the last news from
+Rome; city magnates fussing, merchants chaffering, clients petitioning,
+parasites fawning, soldiers swaggering, and Belisarius begging at the
+gate.... It is a bright and animated scene. Beneath, the crowded Forum,
+with its colonnades and statues, at one end a broad flight of steps
+leading to the Temple of Jupiter, at the other a triumphal arch; on one
+side the Temple of Venus and the Basilica; on the other the Macellum, the
+Temple of Mercury, the Chalcidicum; overhead the deep blue sky. Mingled
+with the hum of many voices and the patter of feet on the travertine
+pavement are the ringing sounds of the stonemasons’ chisels and hammers,
+for the Forum is undergoing a complete restoration. Although fifteen years
+have elapsed since the city was last visited by earthquake, the damage
+then done to the public buildings has not been entirely repaired. First
+the Gods, then the people. The temples of Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury are
+completed, but the Forum and Chalcidicum are still in the workmen’s
+hands.”(2)
+
+With this fleeting glimpse at the public life of the city, let us now turn
+our attention to its domestic arrangements. Of the many houses which have
+been excavated of recent years under the truly admirable superintendence
+of Signor Fiorelli, none is better calculated to give us a striking
+impression of the working details of an upper-class Roman household than
+the private dwelling which is known equally under the two names of the
+Casa Nuova and the House of the Vettii;—perhaps the former name has now
+ceased to own any significance, since the buildings were laid bare as far
+back as the winter of 1894-5. An hour or two spent in a careful inspection
+of this house and its contents is to most persons worth four times the
+same amount of time occupied in aimless wandering amongst the hot glaring
+streets of the city, peeping into this courtyard and that, and listening
+to the interminable tales of guide or custodian. If we study the Casa
+Nuova intelligently, lovingly and minutely, it will not be long before we
+obtain a tolerable grasp of Roman life and manners, which will prove of
+immense service and of genuine delight. What then is it, the question will
+be asked, that makes the House of the Vettii so valuable as an example of
+antique architecture and decoration, in preference to other mansions which
+can boast an equal and often a greater distinction? The answer is simple
+enough: it is because this particular group of buildings has been allowed
+to remain as far as practicable in the exact condition wherein it was
+originally unearthed, when its various rooms and courts were once more
+exposed to the light of day. For until the clearing of this “new house” a
+decade or so ago, no proper opportunity had so far been afforded to the
+amateur of our own times of judging for himself the interior of a Roman
+dwelling in full working order, and with all its furniture, paintings, and
+utensils complete. Up to this, almost every object of value had been
+removed at once for safety, every fresco even of importance had been cut
+bodily out of its setting and placed in one of those immense halls on the
+ground floor of the Museum in Naples. How well do we remember those gaunt
+chilly chambers, filled from pavement to ceiling with painted fragments of
+all sizes, a medley of domestic subjects and of classical myths! Torn from
+the walls they were specially executed to adorn, divorced from their
+proper scheme of surrounding ornament, these wan dejected ghosts stare at
+us like faces out of a mist. The uninitiated cannot find pleasure in them,
+for they have no pretention to be called works of art; on the contrary
+they form an inherent part of a conventional system of house decoration.
+The classical student can of course find many points of interest in the
+incidents portrayed, but all charm of local environment is absent;—it is,
+in short, impossible to judge of Roman decoration from this collection of
+crumbling, fading pieces of painted stucco. It would be as easy to imagine
+the effect of a rose-bush in full bloom from the sight of a few withered
+rose-buds, pressed until every vestige of colour had left their petals, as
+to understand the significance of antique domestic art from the contents
+of the Museo Nazionale.
+
+But here, in the House of the Vettii, the public was for the first time
+initiated into the mysteries of true Roman life; here it was admitted to
+gaze upon the fruits of classical taste and refinement, and to contrast
+them, favourably or unfavourably, with prevailing modern standards. The
+Casa Nuova has been left as an object lesson, a complete museum in itself,
+wherein every daily incident of Pompeian life, every domestic secret,
+reveal themselves to our inquisitive eyes. Here in the roofless halls we
+can be taken from entrance to dining-hall, from _atrium_ to sleeping
+rooms, spying into the minutest detail of shape, size and colour, as
+though we were seriously intending to rent the house for our own
+habitation. The last tenant has even left his money-chest in his hall, his
+pots and pans in the kitchen, and as we inspect his utensils, we wonder if
+they would suit our own requirements to-day. Of portable objects of
+value—plate, jewels, statuettes of precious metals and the like—belonging
+to the late owner, there is certainly no trace, for Signor Fiorelli’s
+labourers were not the first to break the deep silence of this buried
+mansion. For it was the survivors of the stricken town, the citizens of
+Pompeii themselves, who were the foremost pioneers to excavate, and they
+carried off every work of art they could conveniently remove. Cutting from
+above into the deposit of ashes that filled the streets, they managed to
+reach in course of time the level of the ground, after which they
+tunnelled from room to room, from house to house, collecting every object
+they thought worth the trouble of transporting. Perhaps the owners of the
+house, the Vettii themselves, presuming they escaped in the general
+catastrophe, may have returned with skilled workmen to recover some of
+their treasures; perhaps some “man of three letters”—the colloquial Roman
+term for thief (_fur_)—may have forestalled the masters’ efforts—who
+knows? And at this distance of time, who cares?
+
+The house once occupied by Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus Vettius
+Corvina stands in a quiet district not far from the Capuan Gate, and
+consequently at some distance from the Forum. Like all Roman habitations
+it was essentially Oriental in its outward aspect, and must have resembled
+closely any one of those mysterious dwellings of wealthy Arab citizens
+which we constantly encounter in the native quarters of Algiers or Tunis.
+The gateway giving on the street was wide, certainly, but it was well
+defended both by human and canine porters; its windows were few and small,
+and were probably closely latticed like those of the nunneries which we
+sometimes perceive overhead in the crowded streets of Naples. There must
+have been something austere, even suspicious, in the external appearance
+of the Casa de’ Vettii, but snarling dog and grim janitor have long since
+disappeared, and we pass unmolested through the _atrium_ and thence into
+the Great Peristyle, which is perhaps the most remarkable feature of this
+house. The peristyle, as its name implies, is a Greek importation in a
+Roman city, and its use would have been scorned by the old-fashioned
+citizens, such as the master of the “House of the Surgeon”; yet it was in
+truth admirably suited to the character of Southern Italy, where it
+afforded shelter from sun and wind, and its arcades protected from the
+rainfall. The peristyle of the Vettii, with its gaudily tinted pillars of
+stucco, is highly ornate; perhaps it passes the limits of good taste in
+certain points of colour and æsthetic decoration, yet the general effect
+is undoubtedly pleasing to the eye. This courtyard is at once a lounge
+open to the sky; it is a garden; it is an art-gallery; for the cheerful
+court of Greek domestic architecture had nothing in common with its
+successor of the Middle Ages, the monastic cloister of religious
+meditation. Cannot we imagine to ourselves the goodman of the house
+proudly leading his guests after a sumptuous meal in the adjacent
+dining-room into the cool corridors of his peristyle, in order to point
+out to them his statues and vases of bronze or porphyry, and to expatiate
+upon their value or elegance of form? On such a festive occasion these
+great shallow basins of pure white marble before us would be heaped high
+with fragrant pyramids of red and white roses, roses that were perhaps
+plucked all dewy in the famous gardens of Paestum on the other side of
+Mons Gaurus. For the flowering shrubs in the tiny pleasaunce itself are
+far too precious to be stripped of their blossoms in so lavish a manner,
+and perhaps if Vettius be anything of an amateur gardener, he may comment
+to his visitors upon the rare plants that fill his diminutive flower-beds.
+Careful and reverent hands have restored the little garden as near as
+possible to its pristine plan and appearance. There are still standing the
+two bronze statues of urchins holding in their chubby arms ducks from
+whose bills once gushed the limpid water, making a soothing sound amidst
+the alleys of the peristyle; corroded and injured they certainly appear,
+yet here they hold their original positions in Vettius’ domain long after
+temple and tower have fallen to the ground. The marble chairs and tripod
+tables likewise remain, and around them still thrive the very plants that
+the servants of the house were wont to tend in the days of Titus. For, by
+a rare chance, we find depicted on the walls of the excavated house the
+actual flowers and herbs that were popular during Vettius’ lifetime, and
+these have been replanted by modern hands in the garden of the peristyle.
+There are clumps of papyrus, the strange mop-headed rush from the banks of
+the Nile, introduced into Italy as a botanical novelty after the conquest
+of Egypt; there are rose-bushes, of course; and also masses of shining ivy
+trained in the ancient Roman manner upon a cage of wicker-work fixed into
+the soil. As we watch the verdure-clad sunlit space there descends,
+delicately fluttering, one of those splendid pale yellow brimstone
+butterflies of the South with flame-coloured blushes on its wings, and
+after some moments of graceful hesitation, this new visitor settles upon
+the purple head of an iris bloom. With its vivid colouring and its quick
+movements the butterfly brings an atmosphere of life into the courtyard
+that was hitherto lacking. Its appearance too suggests the famous
+allegory, the unsolved riddle of human existence which so puzzled the
+divine Plato and the ancient philosophers of Athens and Syracuse. Here are
+we, the living men of to-day, watching the corpse of a departed world upon
+which the mystic symbol of Psyche has just alighted. _Tempus breve est_ is
+the simple little truism that rises to our reflecting minds. Eighteen
+centuries between the Vettii and ourselves! They are gone like a flash,
+and we are amazed to note how little has our nature altered either for the
+better or the worse within that space of time, long enough if we measure
+its limit by the standard of history, trivial if we reckon it by the
+progress made in human ethics and human understanding. Surely there are
+lessons to be learned in the silent city; Pompeii, we realize, is not
+merely a heap of antique dross whence we can pick up precious grains of
+knowledge, but it is an oracle in itself, which, if properly consulted,
+will give us plain answers to our modern speculations, and will possibly
+reprove us for our conceited assumption of omniscience.
+
+  [Illustration: LA CASA DEI VETTII, POMPEII]
+
+Still brilliant in their strong prevailing tints of black, yellow and
+vermilion are the decorative schemes which make a visit to the house of
+the Vettii of such supreme importance for those who wish to understand
+fully the artistic tastes of the Romans, and also their artistic
+limitations. If the contents of the Museum seem colourless and cold, and
+prove unsatisfying and disappointing, here the eye of the artist can feast
+upon the classical ornamentation which remains fairly fresh in spite of a
+dozen years of exposure to daylight. For this province of art is
+peculiarly associated with the opening years of the Empire, and Pompeii is
+naturally the chief place for its study, and in Pompeii the untouched Casa
+Nuova is all important for the student. According to Pliny, the inventor
+of this pleasing style of decoration was a certain Ludius, who flourished
+in the reign of Augustus, and first persuaded the Romans to embellish
+their flat wall-surfaces with designs of “villas and halls, artificial
+gardens, hedges, woods, hills, water basins, tombs, rivers, shores, in as
+great a variety as could be desired; figures sitting at ease, mariners,
+and those who, riding upon donkeys or in waggons, look after their farms;
+fishermen, snarers of birds, hunters and vine-dressers; also swampy
+passages before beautiful villas, and women borne by men who stagger under
+their burdens, and other witty things of this nature; finally, views of
+sea-ports, everything charming and suitable”:—a fairly long and
+comprehensive list of subjects, truly, from which a patron might pick and
+choose, or an artist might execute!
+
+Although the great architect Vitruvius strongly denounced this new
+striving after scenic effect and characterized it as petty and false, yet
+none can deny that these cheerful scenes with their bright colours and
+their agreeable if trivial subjects were singularly well adapted to
+improve the appearance of the bare narrow rooms, the meagre proportions of
+which seem to us absolutely incompatible with plain comfort, to say
+nothing of luxury. Space may be increased, so far as the eye is concerned,
+by an architectural or landscape painting ingeniously conceived, and thus
+the restricted rooms seem to obtain by means of this new system of
+decoration a wider expansion, and with it an increased sense of ease and
+lightness. The invention of Ludius became at once the fashion, the rage;
+and all Rome began to cover the walls of its narrow chambers with these
+novel designs, which had already found favour in Imperial circles.
+Campania, where the old Greek love for polychrome still lingered, was not
+slow in imitating the new taste of the Capital, so that Pompeii bears
+undoubted testimony to the popularity of this revolution in artistic
+ideas, which substituted a lighter freer method for the old conventional
+severity of treatment. Experts profess to trace—and none will endeavour to
+gainsay them—a marked difference between the frescoes executed before the
+earthquake of 63 and those undertaken subsequent to that date. The wall
+paintings of the first group, carried out when the art was comparatively
+novel, are superior in harmony of colour, in choice of themes and in
+technical finish to those which belong to the latter period, the sixteen
+years that intervened between the earthquake and the eruption of Vesuvius.
+From this circumstance it has been inferred, not without reason, that this
+particular house must have passed some time before the year 63 out of the
+possession of people of good taste into the hands of vulgarians, ignorant
+of the fundamental principles of art and anxious only to obtain what was
+startling and garish. As freedmen, the two Vettii would naturally belong
+to a class which was not remarkable for culture; nevertheless, they seem
+to have had the good sense to leave intact some of their predecessor’s
+most cherished works of decoration, and for this exhibition of restraint
+we must feel duly grateful towards our dead-and-gone hosts, the maligned
+Vettii.
+
+But it is not only for purposes of examining Roman internal decoration _in
+situ_ that this art gallery of the Casa Nuova is available. Below the
+painted panels of the dining-room runs a long string of ornament, whereon
+are represented Cupids and Psyches engaged in the various occupations of
+Pompeian daily life. Full of dainty grace and of lively expression, these
+little winged figures initiate us into a number of the trades and customs
+of the ancients. For they are made to appear before us as goldsmiths,
+vine-dressers, makers and sellers of olive oil, dealers in wine, fullers
+of cloth, and as partakers in a dozen other scenes of town or country
+life. Where learned antiquaries had hitherto doubted and disputed, the
+discovery of the paintings of these celestial little mechanics and
+merchants helped to solve many a difficulty, for the secret of half the
+arts and crafts of Pompeii is revealed to us in this playful guise. Nor
+are the designs themselves contemptible from an artistic point of view;
+look how intent, for example, is the pose of the tiny jeweller working
+with a graver’s tool upon the gold vessel before him; how steadily he
+bears himself at a task which requires at once strength of hand and
+delicacy of workmanship. Look again at the nervous pose of the pretty elf
+who is gingerly pouring wine out of a huge amphora, which he holds in his
+arms, into a shallow tasting cup offered by a brother Cupid. How
+thoroughly must the unknown artist have enjoyed the task of painting this
+frieze! How unfettered his fancy, as his brush glided smoothly and deftly
+over the carefully prepared wall-surface! Excellent, no doubt, he thought
+his work at the time of execution, but even the most conceited of
+Campanian artists could hardly have dreamed that these creations of his
+brush would still at the end of two thousand years be admired, commented
+upon and even reproduced in thousands, by a process he never dreamed of,
+for the benefit of citizens of nations as yet unborn or unforeseen.
+
+As the spring evening softly steals over the city and the shadows of the
+colonnades lengthen, let us leave the silent halls and chambers of the
+Casa dei Vettii and turn our footsteps westward; and issuing out of the
+Gate of Herculaneum, let us traverse the famous Street of Tombs, that
+extends along the road leading to the sister buried city. In ancient times
+this was the Via Domitiana, a branch road of the Appian Way, and it formed
+the most frequented entrance into Pompeii. To Roman ideas, therefore, it
+was but natural that tombs should be erected alongside its borders, whilst
+the spirits of the passing and repassing crowds were in no wise affected
+by the memorials of death attending their exits and entrances. And with
+the surging human tide that was ever flowing in this thoroughfare the
+funeral processions must constantly have mingled, the wailing of the hired
+mourners rising sharply above the din of harsh voices, the creaking of
+clumsy wooden wheels and the braying of the heavily laden asses. Now over
+all reigns a decorous silence, such as we moderns deem fitting for a
+cemetery; only the hum of insects breaks the deep quiet of the atmosphere,
+nor are there any living creatures visible at this late hour save the bats
+which flit restlessly in and out of the weed-grown piles of brick or stone
+that once were stately monuments of wealth or piety. Above our heads the
+tall sombre cypresses shoot upward like gigantic spear-heads into the
+crystal-clear air, pointing heavenward like our own church spires in a
+rural English landscape. This Street of the Dead in the City of the Dead
+is in truth a solemn and a soothing spot; nor can we find its precincts
+melancholy, when we stand in the midst of such glorious scenery. For Monte
+Sant’ Angelo towers to our left against the mellow evening sky, flecked
+with lines of peach-blossom cloud, whilst in front of us the dark form of
+Capri seems to float in a golden haze between firmament and ocean. Behind
+us the dark mass of the Mountain with its breath of ascending smoke seems
+like an eternal funeral pyre in honour of the Dead, who were spared the
+horrors of that fearful disaster which overwhelmed the living. Upon the
+broken tombs and altars the light from the setting sun falls with warm
+cheerful radiance, flushing stone and brick-work with a ruddy glow like
+jasper; whilst, high in the heavens above the cypress tops, the crescent
+moon prepares to turn to gold from silver.
+
+_Beati sunt mortui_: here rest, we know, the priestess Mammia, the
+decemvir Aricius, Libella the aedile, and a host of other citizens with
+whose names the student or the lover of Pompeii is familiar. How many a
+time has this line of roadway rung with the sound of the last sad appeal,
+the thrice repeated valediction: “_Vale, vale, vale!_ farewell until the
+day when Nature will allow us to follow thee!” How often have the wooden
+pyres flung up in these precincts their clouds of perfumed smoke into the
+clear air, now redolent with the aroma of yellow broom, of dewy thyme and
+of sweet marigolds! Perhaps it was amidst these lines of cypress-set tombs
+by the Herculaneum Gate that the poetic genius, whose verses were spurned
+by his own generation, composed his famous Ode to Naples, for in its
+opening lines Shelley tells us it was the aspect of the “city disinterred”
+that gave him inspiration:—
+
+  “Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre
+  Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure
+  Were to spare Death, had never made erasure;
+    But every living lineament was clear
+    As in the sculptor’s thought; and there
+  The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy and pine,
+   Like winter-leaves o’ergrown by moulded snow,
+   Seemed only not to move and grow,
+   Because the crystal silence of the air
+   Weighed on their life....”
+
+Tranquilly and slowly descends night upon the untenanted city, as one by
+one the stars begin to peep forth like chrysolites in the heavens, which
+have changed from azure to a deep indigo during the sunset hour. Amid
+chilly dews, to the sound of the evening bell from the distant church of
+Santa Maria di Pompeii, we hasten in the growing darkness from the Street
+of the Tombs towards our modest inn outside the Marine Gate, anticipating
+with delight a ramble in the city in the freshness of the coming morning.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IV
+
+
+                   VESUVIUS: THE STORY OF THE MOUNTAIN
+
+
+The first appearance of Vesuvius, whether viewed from the deck of a
+steamer entering the Bay of Naples or espied from the window of a railway
+carriage on the main line running southward from Rome, makes an impression
+that will linger for ever in the memory. It is open to argument which is
+the more striking of the two experiences: the Mountain rising proudly from
+the deep blue waters into the paler shade of the upper air, or its
+graceful broken contour seen from the landward side to the north across
+the green fertile plains of the Campagna Felice. From a long acquaintance
+with both ways of approaching Naples, we are inclined to prefer the latter
+view. Travelling in an express train from Rome we find ourselves whirled
+suddenly, by magic as it were, into the atmosphere of the South, when with
+the sight of the domes and towers of Capua, the ancient capital of
+Campania the Prosperous, we first note the presence of orange trees and
+hedges of aloe, of white lupin crops and clumps of prickly pear, and we
+feel we are nearing Naples with “its burning mountain and its tideless
+sea,” so that we eagerly strain our eyes in a southerly direction to catch
+our first glimpse of Vesuvius, with whose shape and history we have been
+so familiar since our childhood’s days. At length we perceive its double
+summit, with smoke tranquilly issuing from the cone and obscuring the
+clarity of the air, and as we hurry forward towards our destination,
+through the plains studded with elm-trees festooned with vines, we have
+the satisfaction of observing its form grow larger and more distinct in
+outline.
+
+On our arrival at Naples, in course of time we grow more intimately
+acquainted with the peculiar attractions of “the Mountain,” as the
+Neapolitans always designate their treacherous but fascinating neighbour,
+of whose near existence they have every reason to be proud, for certainly
+Vesuvius, though barely as lofty as Ben Nevis, _is_ to us westerns the
+most famous mountain upon earth. Regarding Vesuvius both from the land and
+the sea, we note that it rises in solitary majesty from an extended base
+some thirty miles in circumference, and that it sweeps upwards in graceful
+curving lines until at a distance of about 3000 feet from sea level its
+summit is cleft into two peaks; that to the north being a rocky ridge
+which catches our eye as we gaze eastward from the heights of Sant’ Elmo
+or the Corso at Naples, the other point being the actual cone of the
+volcano itself. The upper part of the Mountain has in fact two aspects; in
+other words, Vesuvius is double, being composed of the ridge of Monte
+Somma to the north, 3760 feet in height, which is pre-historic; and the
+ever-shifting modern dome of Vesuvius to the south, which is _about_ 4000
+feet high. We say “about” purposely, for Vesuvius proper sometimes
+over-tops, sometimes equals, and sometimes even crouches under its
+immovable sister-peak, according to the effect produced by volcanic
+action. Monte Somma, which is one of the everlasting hills, is the parent,
+and Vesuvius is the child, born but yesterday from a geological point of
+view, for it is not so old as the Christian era;—“it is a variable heap
+thrown up from time to time, and again, not seldom, by a greater effort of
+the same force, tossed away into the air, and scattered in clouds of dust
+over far-away countries. Thus it has happened often, in the course of
+these variations of energy, that Vesuvius has risen to a conical height
+exceeding that of Somma by 500 or 600 feet, and again, the top has been
+truncated to a level as low as Somma, or even as much below that mountain
+as we now behold it above.”(3)
+
+To understand the story of the Mountain, therefore, it is necessary for us
+to travel back in retrospect to ancient Roman days. In the first place,
+however, one word as to its present name that we use to-day, for all are
+familiar with Vesuvius, but comparatively few, until they visit Naples,
+have heard mention made of Monte Somma. The name of Vesuvius, then, though
+strictly applicable only to the volcanic and modern portion of the
+Mountain, is not a recent appellation; on the contrary, it is probably of
+far more ancient origin than _Mons Summanus_ by which the whole was known
+to the Romans. The point is by no means unimportant, for etymologists
+derive Vesuvius from the Syriac “Vo Seevev, the abode of flame,” thereby
+proving to us that whatever opinions may have been held as to the nature
+of the Mountain in the century preceding the Christian era, its volcanic
+nature must have been perfectly well understood by those who gave it this
+suggestive title in a more remote age. But the secret locked up in Mons
+Summanus was not altogether unsuspected by the Roman scientists. Strabo,
+the geographer, writing about thirty years before the birth of Christ,
+made a careful examination of the crest of Mons Summanus, then a
+saucer-shaped hollow surrounded by a steep rocky edge and occupied by a
+flat plain covered with cinders and void of grass, although the flanks of
+the Mountain were extraordinarily fertile. From what he saw during his
+visit, Strabo conjectured the Mountain to be an extinct volcano, in which
+surmise he was destined to be proved partly in the right and partly in the
+wrong; whilst Vitruvius, the famous architect of the Emperor Augustus,
+“who found Rome of brick and left it of marble,” as well as Tacitus the
+historian, shared the same opinion. About a century and a half before the
+first recorded eruption in 79, Mons Summanus figures prominently in Roman
+history as the scene of a curious incident during the Servile War, so that
+in the pages of the old chronicler Florus we obtain an interesting
+description—especially interesting because it was not given for scientific
+purposes—of the condition of the mountain top at that period. The brave
+gladiator Spartacus and his intrepid band of revolted slaves, seeking a
+place of safety from the pursuing Roman legions, not very wisely selected
+the top of this isolated peak, which, although affording a good position
+of defence and possessing a wide outlook over the Campanian plain, had
+only one narrow passage in its rocky rim to serve as entrance or outlet.
+Followed hither by the Roman forces and caught like rats in a trap,
+Spartacus and his men were doomed either to be reduced by starvation, or
+else to run the gauntlet of the sole narrow exit, which the Senate’s
+commander, Clodius Glabrus, was already guarding. The story of Spartacus’
+escape from his terrible dilemma is told in the history of Florus, and
+repeated with further details by Plutarch in his Life of Crassus.
+
+“Clodius the Prætor, with three thousand men, besieged them in a mountain,
+having but one narrow and difficult passage, which Clodius kept guarded;
+all the rest was encompassed with broken and slippery precipices, but upon
+the top grew a great many wild vines: they cast down as many of these
+boughs as they had need of, and twisted them into ladders long enough to
+reach from thence to the bottom, by which, without any danger, all got
+down save one, who stayed behind to throw them their arms, after which he
+saved himself with the rest.”
+
+A dozen learned statements of a scientific nature as to the ancient
+appearance and slumbering condition of the Mountain could not impress our
+imagination more vividly with its subsequent natural changes than the
+account of this episode of Spartacus and his handful of rebels,
+beleaguered by Clodius within the very crater of the volcano. We can see
+the Mountain in the last years of the Roman Republic before us, with its
+truncated cone encircled by a low rampart of rock half hidden by wild
+vine, ivy, eglantine, honeysuckle and all the creeping plants whose tough
+trailing stems enabled the besieged gladiators to effect their escape from
+the snare into which they had unwittingly fallen. We can understand from
+this event how utterly remote was the idea of any upheaval of nature to
+the dwellers on these shores, whose ancestors remembered the crest of the
+mountain as the scene of a military operation.
+
+The first warning of a coming eruption after unnumbered centuries of quiet
+was given by a series of earthquakes which did an immense amount of damage
+at Herculaneum and Pompeii; yet in a district which had from time
+immemorial been subject to similar convulsions of nature, the shocks,
+though unusually distressing and destructive to life and property, were
+evidently unconnected in the popular mind with their true cause: the
+reawakening to life of the mountain overhead. The mischief done by the
+earthquakes was accordingly repaired as quickly as possible, and the
+normal course of life was resumed until the terrific and wholly unexpected
+outbreak of August 24th 79, during the reign of the Emperor Titus. Of
+this, the first recorded eruption of Vesuvius, we are exceptionally
+fortunate in possessing the testimony of a credible eye-witness, who was
+no less a personage than Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, better known to
+the modern world as Pliny the Younger, who wrote two lengthy letters to
+Tacitus on the subject of this event, the first describing the fate of his
+uncle, the Elder Pliny, most eminent of Roman naturalists, who perished
+during this period of terror; and the second containing a more detailed
+account of the eruption itself. For it so happened—luckily for
+posterity—that at the time of this sudden outburst of Mons Summanus, the
+Elder Pliny was in command of the Roman fleet at Misenum on the Bay of
+Naples, where his young nephew (who was also his adopted son) was living
+with his mother in a villa. “On the 24th of August,” writes Pliny the
+Younger some eleven years after the event he is about to describe, “about
+one in the afternoon, my mother desired my uncle to observe a cloud which
+appeared of a very unusual size and shape. He had just returned from
+taking the benefit of the sun, and after bathing himself in cold water,
+and taking a slight repast, was retired to his study. He immediately arose
+and went out upon an eminence, from whence he might more distinctly view
+this very uncommon appearance. It was not at that distance discernible
+from what mountain this cloud issued, but it was found afterwards to
+ascend from Mount Vesuvius. I cannot give a more exact description of its
+figure than by resembling it to that of a pine-tree, for it shot up to a
+great height in the form of a trunk, which extended itself on the top into
+a sort of branches, occasioned, I imagine, either by a sudden gust of air
+that impelled it, the force of which decreased as it advanced upwards, or
+the cloud itself being pressed back again by its own weight, expanded in
+this manner; it appeared sometimes bright, and sometimes dark and spotted,
+as it was more or less impregnated with earth and cinders. This
+extraordinary phenomenon excited my uncle’s philosophical curiosity to
+take a nearer view of it.” The nephew then proceeds to relate how his
+uncle sailed by way of Retina, the port of Herculaneum, to Stabiae, where
+he met with his second in command, one Pomponianus. Meanwhile the Younger
+Pliny, who had declined to accompany his uncle’s expedition on the plea of
+having to pursue the studies with which as a hard-working youth of
+seventeen he was evidently engrossed, became alarmed during the night for
+the Elder Pliny’s safety. His own and his mother’s terrible experiences
+are vividly portrayed in the second letter, which, at the historian’s
+special request, the Younger Pliny wrote to Tacitus in later years.
+
+“When my uncle had started, I spent such time as was left on my studies—it
+was on their account, indeed, that I had stopped behind. Then followed the
+bath, dinner and sleep, this last disturbed and brief. There had been
+noticed for many days before a trembling of the earth, which had caused,
+however, but little fear, because it is not unusual in Campania. But that
+night it was so violent, that one thought everything was being not merely
+moved, but absolutely overturned. My mother rushed into my chamber; I was
+in the act of rising, with the same intention of awaking her, should she
+have been asleep. We sat down in the open court of the house, which
+occupied a small space between the buildings and the sea. And now—I do not
+know whether to call it courage or folly, for I was but in my eighteenth
+year—I called for a volume of Livy, read it as if I were perfectly at
+leisure, and even continued to make some extracts which I had begun. Just
+then arrived a friend of my uncle, who had lately come to him from Spain;
+when he saw that we were sitting down—that I was even reading—he rebuked
+my mother for her patience, and me for my blindness to the danger. Still I
+bent myself as industriously as ever over my book. It was now seven
+o’clock in the morning, but the daylight was still faint and doubtful. The
+surrounding buildings were now so shattered, that in the place where we
+were, which though open was small, the danger that they might fall on us
+was imminent and unmistakable. So we at last determined to quit the town.
+A panic-stricken crowd followed us.... We saw the sea retire into itself,
+seeming, as it were, to be driven back by the trembling movement of the
+earth. The shore had distinctly advanced, and many marine animals were
+left high and dry upon the sands. Behind us was a dark and dreadful cloud,
+which, as it was broken with rapid zig-zag flashes, revealed behind it
+variously shaped masses of flame; these last were like sheet lightning,
+though on a larger scale.... It was not long before the cloud that we saw
+began to descend upon the earth and cover the sea. It had already
+surrounded and concealed the island of Capreae, and had made invisible the
+promontory of Misenum. My mother besought, urged, even commanded me to fly
+as best I could; ‘I might do so,’ she said, ‘for I was young; she, from
+age and corpulence, could move but slowly, but would be content to die, if
+she did not bring death upon me.’ I replied that I would not seek safety
+except in her company; I clasped her hand and compelled her to go with me.
+She reluctantly obeyed, but continually reproached herself for delaying
+me. Ashes now began to fall—still, however, in small quantities. I looked
+behind me; a dense dark mist seemed to be following us, spreading itself
+over the country like a cloud. ‘Let us turn out of the way,’ I said,
+‘whilst we can still see, for fear that, should we fall in the road, we
+should be trodden under foot in the darkness by the throngs that accompany
+us.’ We had scarcely sat down when night was upon us,—not such as we have
+seen when there is no moon, or when the sky is cloudy, but such as there
+is in some closed room where the lights are extinguished. You might hear
+the shrieks of women, the monotonous wailing of children, the shouts of
+men. Many were raising their voices, and seeking to recognise by the
+voices that replied, parents, children, husbands or wives. Some were
+loudly lamenting their own fate, others the fate of those dear to them.
+Some even prayed for death, in their fear of what they prayed for. Many
+lifted their hands in prayer to the gods; more were convinced that there
+were now no gods at all, and that the final endless night of which we have
+heard had come upon the world.... It now grew somewhat light again; we
+felt sure that this was not the light of day, but a proof that fire was
+approaching us. Fire there was, but it stopped at a considerable distance
+from us; then came darkness again, and a thick, heavy fall of ashes. Again
+and again we stood up and shook them off; otherwise, we should have been
+covered by them, and even crushed by the weight. At last the black mist I
+had spoken of seemed to shade off into smoke or cloud, and broke away.
+Then came genuine daylight, and the sun shone out with a lurid light, such
+as it is wont to have in an eclipse. Our eyes, which had not yet recovered
+from the effects of fear, saw everything changed, everything covered deep
+with ashes as if with snow. We returned to Misenum, and after refreshing
+ourselves as best we could, spent a night of anxiety in mingled hope and
+fear. Fear, however, was still the stronger feeling; for the trembling of
+the earth continued, while many frenzied persons, with their terrific
+predictions, gave an exaggeration that was even ludicrous to the
+calamities of themselves and of their friends. Even then, in spite of all
+the perils which we had experienced, and which we still expected, we had
+not a thought of going away till we could hear news of my uncle.”(4)
+
+As to the fate of the Elder Pliny, it seems that the old man had been
+obliged together with his friends and servants to fly from the villa at
+Stabiae where he was resting. The sea being too agitated to allow of an
+embarkation, the fugitives turned their steps towards the slopes of Mons
+Gaurus, the present Monte Sant’ Angelo, with pillows bound over their
+heads to serve as protection against the showers of hot cinders that were
+falling thickly on all sides. At length the famous old writer, who was
+somewhat plethoric and unwieldy, sank exhausted to the ground, never to
+rise again, and shortly expired in an attack of heart failure, induced by
+the unusual excitement and fatigue he had lately been called upon to
+endure. At any rate, it appears fairly certain that the Elder Pliny did
+not perish, as is still sometimes asserted, by the direct effects of the
+eruption, but rather through an ordinary collapse of nature—syncope,
+perhaps. Three days later his body was found lying not far from Stabiae by
+his grief-stricken nephew, who describes his uncle’s corpse as looking
+“more like that of a sleeping than of a dead man.”
+
+This then was the first, as it was also the most violent, of the many
+outbreaks of Vesuvius which our own age has witnessed, and with this
+eruption of 79 in the reign of Titus, the Mountain, as we have already
+said, greatly altered its shape. More than half the rim of the ancient
+crater that had enclosed Spartacus and his men less than two hundred years
+before had been torn away and destroyed, its remaining portion on the
+landward side retaining the old name of Mons Summanus. Between this
+remnant of the old wall of the crater and the scene of wreckage on the
+southern face of the Mountain, there now appeared the great cleft, the
+horse-shoe shaped valley called the Atrio del Cavallo, which separates the
+two peaks of the whole summit. A fragment only of the original crater,
+known as the Pedimentina, still remains on the seaward side above Torre
+del Greco. From that terrible day, so vividly described by the Younger
+Pliny, to our own times, a period stretching over 1800 years, a vast
+number of eruptions, great and small, have been enumerated, for owing to
+the nearness of Vesuvius to one of the largest cities in Europe, every
+incident connected with its activity has been carefully noted, at least
+since the time of the Renaissance. Out of the many upheavals we propose to
+select the eruptions of 1631 and 1779, as being amongst the most
+significant.
+
+Ever since an outburst in the year 1500, the Mountain appears to have
+lapsed into a remarkable condition of quietude, even of apparent
+extinction, for over a century and a quarter, during which period, it may
+be remarked, the Sicilian volcano of Etna was unusually active. Once more
+the summit of Vesuvius was beginning to assume the form it had borne in
+the days previous to the overthrow of Pompeii; the riven crater was
+becoming filled with dense undergrowth and even with forest trees, amidst
+which wild boar made their lairs and were occasionally hunted. The learned
+Abate Giulio Braccini, whose account of the eruption of 1631 is the most
+graphic and accurate we possess, explored the crater shortly before the
+outbreak of the volcano, but found little to suggest any idea of an
+approaching convulsion. He reckoned the deep depression occupying the
+crest of the mountain to be about five miles in circumference, and to take
+about a thousand paces of walking so as to reach the lowest point within
+its area. He remarked abundance of brushwood on its sides, and observed
+cattle grazing peacefully upon the open grassy patches in the midst of the
+over-grown space. A deep crack, however, ran from end to end of the whole
+crater, which allowed persons so minded to descend amidst rocks and
+boulders to a large plain below the surface, whereon Braccini found three
+pools of hot steamy water, of a saline and sulphureous taste. Such was the
+tranquil aspect of the Mountain as surveyed by the Abate Braccini in the
+first half of the seventeenth century; to men of science signs of latent
+energy were certainly not wanting, yet to the ignorant, careless peasants
+of the hill-side and the scarcely less ignorant dwellers of the towns on
+the seashore, the state of repose in which the Mountain had continued for
+four or five generations suggested no fears or suspicions. Tilling of
+vineyards, building of new houses, sinking of wells, went on apace as
+cheerfully as though an eruption were an impossibility, till certain
+unmistakable portents that occurred towards the close of the year 1631
+roughly dissipated this spell of fancied security. Earthquakes, more or
+less severe, began at this time to be felt along the whole of the volcanic
+line stretching from Ischia to the eastern slopes of Vesuvius; the plain
+within the crater of the Mountain began to heave and rise in an alarming
+fashion, and the water in all the local wells sank mysteriously below
+ground. The signs of some impending disaster coming from the heights above
+were too strongly marked to be lightly disregarded; the idea of a volcanic
+convulsion, though by this time a long-distant and vague memory, became so
+terrifying to the dwellers on the mountain’s flanks and in Torre del
+Greco, Resina and the various towns that line the seaward base of the
+Mountain, that the majority of the people removed themselves and their
+property with all speed to places of safety. Nevertheless, despite the
+warnings given by Nature and also by men of science and the royal
+officials, many remained behind in their houses, and in consequence
+perished, to the immense number, it is surmised, of 18,000. On the morning
+of Wednesday, December 16th, the long threatened eruption burst forth in
+earnest upon an expectant world. Amidst crashes like prolonged volleys of
+artillery the people of Naples and the surrounding district beheld the
+terrible pine-tree of smoke and ashes, described centuries ago by Pliny,
+ascend from the south-western side of the summit of the Mountain, veiling
+the sky for miles around, and so charged with electricity, that many were
+even killed by the _ferilli_, or lightning flashes, that darted from the
+smoking mass. The spectacle of the ominous pine-tree was at once followed
+by a terrific rumbling and an ejection of lava, which after flowing down
+the southern flank in several streams finally reached the sea, making the
+waters hiss and boil at the moment of contact. Slowly but surely these
+relentless red-hot rivers of lava crept like serpents along the hill-side,
+destroying vineyard and garden, cottage and chapel, on their downward
+path. Resina shared the fate of its ancient forerunner Herculaneum, whilst
+Torre del Greco and Portici suffered severely, as we can see to-day by
+noting the great masses of lava flung on to the strand at various points.
+To add to the universal confusion of Nature, the sea, which had now become
+extraordinarily tempestuous, probably owing to some submarine
+earthquake-shock, suddenly retreated half a mile from the coast, and then
+as suddenly returned in a tidal wave more than a hundred feet beyond its
+normal limits. Such were the main features of the second great eruption of
+Vesuvius, wherein the ashes ejected by the Mountain were wafted by the
+wind beyond the Adriatic, to the Greek islands and even to Constantinople
+itself.
+
+  [Illustration: VESUVIUS AND THE BAY OF NAPLES]
+
+From this date onward the Mountain became very active in contrast with its
+previous condition of lethargy, and throughout the whole of the eighteenth
+century there were frequent eruptions, many of them on a vast scale. All
+these outbursts have been carefully recorded and commented upon, for
+naturally the scientists of a great city like Naples were intensely
+interested in the passing phases of their own volcano. During the latter
+half of this century all the phenomena have been described for us by Sir
+William Hamilton, British ambassador at the Court of the Two Sicilies, the
+versatile diplomatist who eventually married the beautiful but frail Emma
+Hart. During his long period of residence in Naples, Sir William made no
+fewer than fifty-eight explorations of the crater alone, besides carefully
+studying every peculiarity visible upon the sides of the Mountain. He was,
+of course, a close observer of the great eruptions of 1766-7, and also of
+the still greater convulsion of 1779, which, strangely enough, occurred on
+the seventeenth centenary of the awakening of the Mountain from its
+pre-historic slumbers. On this occasion, Hamilton, accompanied by a Mr
+Bowdler of Bath, had the temerity to track the streams of flowing lava to
+their hidden source by walking over the rough unyielding crust of stones
+and earth that had formed upon the surface of the molten stream, as it
+slowly trickled down hill at the rate of about a mile an hour. The
+adventurous pair of Englishmen were successful in their quest, and Sir
+William thus describes the fountain-head of the fiery streams that he
+found a quarter of a mile distant from the top of the cone.
+
+“The liquid and red-hot matter bubbled up violently, with a hissing and
+crackling noise, like that which attends the playing off of an artificial
+firework; and by the continued splashing up of the vitrified matter, a
+kind of arch, or dome, was formed over the crevice from whence the lava
+issued; it was cracked in many parts, and appeared red-hot within, like a
+heated oven. This hollowed hillock might be about fifteen feet high, and
+the lava that ran from under it was received into a regular channel,
+raised upon a sort of wall of scoriae and cinders, almost perpendicularly,
+of about a height of eight or ten feet, resembling much an ancient
+aqueduct.”
+
+Some days later, at midnight on August 7th, a veritable fountain of red
+fire shot up from the crest of Vesuvius, illuminating all the surrounding
+country; and on the following night a still more marvellous sheet of flame
+appeared, hanging like a fiery veil between heaven and earth, and reaching
+to a height (so Sir William Hamilton guessed) of about 10,000 feet above
+the summit, affording a wonderfully grand but terrible spectacle. This
+great curtain of fiery particles, accompanied by inky black clouds from
+which were darting continual flashes of lightning, was reflected clearly
+on the smooth surface of the Bay, delighting the Court and the scientific
+world of Naples, but inspiring, as may well be imagined, the mass of
+superstitious inhabitants with the direst alarm. The theatres were closed
+and the churches were opened; above the rumblings and explosions of the
+agonised volcano could be heard the tolling of the bells. Maddened by
+terror, the Neapolitan mob rushed to the Archbishop’s palace to demand the
+immediate production of the holy relics of St Januarius, the protector of
+the city, and on this request being refused, set fire to the entrance
+gates, a forcible argument that soon persuaded his Eminence of the
+propriety of the people’s demand. Thereupon the head of the Saint,
+enclosed in its case of solid silver, was accordingly borne in solemn
+procession with wailing and repentant crowds behind it to an improvised
+shrine, hung with garlands, on the Ponte della Maddalena, at the extreme
+eastern boundary of the city. Nor was the confidence reposed by the
+Neapolitans in their patron Saint misplaced, for except from the stifling
+smells and the dense rain of ashes, the terror-stricken capital suffered
+not a whit, whilst the general alarm inspired its inhabitants with a
+revival of religious fervour which was by no means insalutary. As usual,
+the old cynical proverb was once more justified:—_Napoli fa gli peccati, e
+la __Torre gli paga_, for of course poor Torre del Greco was grievously
+affected by the lava streams. In this case, however, even Torre del Greco
+and Resina did not fare so badly as did the towns on the northern slopes
+of Monte Somma, a district which is of course perfectly immune from lava
+inundations owing to the protecting rocky ridge of the Atrio del Cavallo.
+But it seems that the great veil of clouds and fire, extending some
+thousands of feet from the crest of the mountain to the heavens above, was
+swayed by a chance current of air, so that its component red-hot dust,
+ashes and stones were emptied in one fatal shower upon the northern flank
+of the Mountain. Whole villages were ruined, hundreds of acres of vines
+and crops were scorched and burned; the smiling peaceful hillside was in a
+few minutes converted into a parched wilderness. Ottajano, a large town of
+some 12,000 inhabitants, was the place most seriously injured by this
+wholly unexpected rain of destruction, for a tempestuous fall of red-hot
+stones, some of immense size, and a shower of ashes killed hundreds of the
+terrified and suffocating citizens, and blocked up the streets with
+smoking debris to a depth of four feet.
+
+Of the recent eruptions of Vesuvius, which have been pretty frequent
+during the latter half of last century, that of April 1872, so carefully
+recorded by Professor Palmieri, who in spite of imminent danger never
+abandoned his post in the Observatory, is the most notable. It is
+remembered also owing to the catastrophe whereby some twenty persons out
+of a large crowd of strangers, who had imprudently ascended to the Atrio
+del Cavallo to get a closer view of the phenomenon, were suddenly caught
+by the lava stream and enfolded in its burning clutches. For if ignorance
+and superstition seem to make the poor fisherman or peasant unduly alarmed
+on such occasions, curiosity and self-confidence are sometimes apt to lead
+the educated or scientific into unnecessary peril. Naples itself was once
+more alarmed in 1872, so that the relics of St Januarius at the furious
+demand of the populace were again brought forth in solemn procession, and
+exposed towards the face of the Mountain on the Ponte della Maddalena.
+Thousands of quaking mortals gathered near this spot, joining in the
+chanting of the priests and watching with pallid anxious faces the fiery
+currents of lava slowly trickling down the south-western flank of Vesuvius
+towards the city itself. A certain number of attendants meanwhile were
+engaged in perpetually brushing away from the image of the Saint, from his
+improvised altar, and from its votive garlands the ever-accumulating
+mantle of grey dust, and it is scarcely to be wondered at that a certain
+cool-headed Neapolitan artist, Il Vaccaro, should all this time have been
+busily engaged in painting so characteristic and highly picturesque a
+scene. Within the churches, and particularly in St Januarius’ own
+cathedral, enormous crowds of hysterical men and women had collected,
+loudly bewailing their past sins and imploring the Divine mercy, for
+
+      “E belle son le supplice
+  Pompe di penitenza, in alto lutto.”
+
+Again the historic _palladium_ proved effectual, and the city, that was
+never for a moment in danger, was once more saved! Naples received no
+damage beyond a temporary panic and a heavy fall of ashes, which covered
+every street and flat surface within the town to a depth of some inches
+and which it took many days of enforced labour to remove. Again it was the
+poor confiding vine-dressers and tillers of the Vesuvian soil who suffered
+in this upheaval, for though the loss of life was very slight indeed, yet
+numerous houses, fields and vineyards were totally destroyed and many more
+were injured. Truly it is a maxim well proven by time:—_Napoli fa gli
+peccati, e Torre gli paga._
+
+
+
+Such, told baldly and briefly, is the history of the Mountain, which forms
+the most conspicuous feature of the Bay of Naples and dominates one of the
+fairest and most populous districts on the face of the globe. But it does
+not take long to make visitors to the Neapolitan shore understand the
+mysterious charm, not unmixed with awe, and the all-pervading influence of
+Vesuvius. Go where we will within the circuit of the Bay of Naples and
+even outside it, we are never out of sight of the obtruding Mountain and
+its smoky wreath. We begin to feel that the Mountain is an animated thing,
+that the destiny of the Parthenopean shore is locked up in the breast of
+the Demon who has his dwelling within its red-hot caverns. So sudden are
+the actions, and so capricious the moods of this Monster of the Burning
+Mountain, that no one can tell the day, or even the hour, wherein he will
+give us an exhibition of his fiery temper, though, it is true, in the case
+of violent eruptions he is kind enough to afford timely warning by means
+of a succession of earthquakes and other signals almost equally alarming.
+His Majesty’s presence is felt everywhere; each morning as we open our
+window upon the dazzling waters of the Bay, we note with relief his
+tranquil aspect; each night, ere we retire to sleep, we find ourselves
+inevitably drawn to watch the glare thrown by the molten lava within the
+crater upon the thick vapour overhead. The nightly expectation of this
+aerial bonfire possesses an extraordinary fascination for the stranger.
+Some times the lurid glare is continuous; at other times there are long
+intervals of waiting, and even then the reflected light is very faint, a
+mere speck of reddish glow in the surrounding blackness, gone in the
+twinkling of an eye. But, strangely enough, one grows to understand the
+Mountain better from a distance and by watching its moods from afar, like
+the Neapolitans themselves, who never ascend to probe its mysteries,
+except a few vulgar guides and touts who batten on the curiosity of the
+foreigner.
+
+On clear windless days the intermittent clouds of vapour sent up from the
+crater assume the most fantastic shapes—trees, ships, men, birds,
+animals—ever changing like the forms of Proteus. It would seem as if the
+Spirit of the Mountain were idly amusing himself, like a child blowing
+bubbles, or a vendor at a fair-stall carving out little figures of
+gingerbread to tickle the fancy of country boys and girls. The clouds so
+formed sometimes cause amusement by their uncanny shapes, but not
+unfrequently they inspire alarm. The superstitious peasant of the
+_Paduli_, looking up suddenly from his work amidst the early peas or
+tomatoes, beholds against the blue sky a vague nebulous form that to his
+untutored mind suggests a gigantic crucifix upheld in mid-air above the
+Mountain, and he crosses himself devoutly ere he bends down to earth once
+more to his work in the rich dark soil. “Such stuff as dreams are made of”
+appear in truth the weird phantoms that the sly Demon of Vesuvius flings
+up into the pure aether, and if credulous mankind likes to draw inferences
+for good or bad from these unsubstantial creations of his fancy, he laughs
+to himself with a hollow reverberating sound. It must, however, have been
+in the true spirit of prophecy on the occasion of King Manfred’s birth,
+that the genius of the Mountain despatched two cloud-forms into the sky
+(so the unabashed old chroniclers gravely relate), one having the
+appearance of a warrior armed cap-à-pie, and the other that of a fully
+vested priest. The affrighted gazers below, struck with the strange
+phenomenon, beheld the two figures sway towards each other and finally
+become locked together in deadly aerial combat, until all resemblance to
+human shape had vanished from the pair. Then, after an interval of time,
+men perceived the cloudy mass once more assume a mortal shape, and a huge
+towering priest with flowing robes and tiara on head was left in solitary
+and victorious possession of the sky. The Churchman had swallowed up the
+soldier; the Pontiff had vanquished the King; it was a true premonition of
+the fatal field of Benevento, which saw the ultimate triumph of the Papal
+over the Imperial cause.
+
+But if the near presence of the burning mountain has tended to make the
+inhabitants of its immediate zone the slaves of superstitious awe, the
+disasters of generations have likewise imbued them with a spirit of
+fatalism, that appears even stronger than their outward show of credulity.
+Life is not so sweet nor so dear apparently to these children of the
+South, but that they can afford to take their chance of disturbance or
+death with a true philosophic calm. The fisher-folk and maccaroni workers
+of Resina, Portici and the two Torres have, it is true, little to lose; a
+small boat can at the last moment easily convey their families and slender
+stock of household furniture to a place of temporary safety, and when the
+danger is over-past, the same shallop can bring back the refugees and
+their belongings. But with the husbandmen the case is different. Not only
+has he to fear the actual stream of lava, which may or may not overwhelm
+his house and farm in its slow inevitable course, but there are also the
+showers of hot ashes and of scalding water that will frizzle up in a few
+seconds every green blade and leaf upon his tiny domain, for which he pays
+an enormous rental, sometimes as much as £12 sterling an acre. Yet the
+_contadino_ takes his chances with a seraphic resignation that we do not
+usually attribute to the southern temperament. After the eruption of 1872,
+which covered the rich _Paduli_ with a deep coating of grey ashes, a young
+peasant girl was heard deploring the loss of her carefully tended gourds
+and melons; “_Oh come volimme fa? Addio, pummarole! addio, cucuzzielle!_”
+whereupon an older woman, witnessing these useless tears, upbraided her
+with the words: “Do not complain, child, lest worse befall you!” And
+indeed the whole population of the _Paduli_, instead of lamenting over
+their scorched and spoiled crops, were jubilant at the thought that the
+havoc done was only partial, not irrevocable;—a few months of incessant
+labour, said they, would bring back the holdings to their former state of
+perfection. Yet a general opinion prevails among foreigners that the
+Neapolitans are lazy, thriftless and helpless! They indeed rely to a
+certain extent upon St Januarius to protect their crops from the efforts
+of Nature, over which, they argue, the Saint is more likely to possess
+control than his human applicants, but when once the fatal shower of ashes
+has fallen, they do not expect “San Gennaro” to set their injured acres to
+rights again, but with a rare patience turn to the task themselves. A more
+industrious, and at the same time a more capable and practical race of
+agriculturists than the tillers of the slopes of Vesuvius, it would be
+hard to match. And thus in the sunshine of the south, yet ever under the
+shadow of death and destruction, dwell many thousands of human beings, as
+unconcerned as though Vesuvius were miles and miles away. Not unconscious,
+but fully conscious of their doom, the victims of the Mountain toil and
+moil upon the fertile farms (in many cases risen phoenix-like from their
+own ashes) that grow the early beans and tomatoes, the egg-plants and the
+white fennel roots (_finocchi_) that well-fed travellers devour in the
+hotels of Naples. Or else they tend the vines that yield the generous
+_Lagrima Christi_, of which imprudent and heated visitors drink long
+draughts unmixed with water, and then complain of ensuing languor and
+pains beneath their waistcoats. Luscious, yet seductive wine! Counsellor
+of moderation after a first experience of excess! Essence of Vesuvius,
+whose strange name so puzzled the poet Chiabrera!
+
+  “Chi fu de’ contadini il si indiscreto,
+  Ch’ a sbigottir la gente
+  Diede nome dolente
+  Al vin’ che sovra gli altri il cuor fa lieto?
+  Lagrima dunque appellerassi un riso
+  Parte di nobilissima vendemmia?”
+
+  (“Who was the jesting countryman, I cry,
+  That gave so fearsome and so dour a name
+  To that choice vintage, which of all think I
+  Most warms the heart’s blood with its genial flame?
+  Smiles, and not tears, the epithet should be
+  Of juice wrung from so fair a vinery.”)
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+Scarcely had the above pages been written, than the Mountain, which had
+been drowsing for more than thirty years, suddenly awakened to give
+appalling evidence of its latent activity and powers of mischief. The
+eruption of April 1906 has, in fact, surpassed all previous outbursts
+within living memory, and it may probably be reckoned amongst the most
+violent of all hitherto recorded. Many of the details of this event
+doubtless remain fresh in the memory, and in any case the sad condition of
+numerous towns and villages, and of the beautiful Vesuvian districts, the
+_paesi ridenti_ as the Neapolitans affectionately term these fertile
+lands, will serve for some years to come as a sinister and ever-present
+reminder of the horrors of the past and of the dread possibilities of the
+future. All vegetation for miles around the volcano has been injured or
+destroyed, for not only was the Mountain itself covered deep with grit and
+ashes, but the streets and gardens of Naples, the luxuriant plain of
+Sorrento, and even the heights of Capri, twenty miles distant across the
+Bay, were shrouded in a funereal mantle of the greyish-yellow dust that
+Vesuvius had flung into the air to let fall like a shower of parching and
+destructive rain upon the earth. How vast was the amount of matter ejected
+from the crater and scattered in this form over the surrounding country,
+we may judge from the scientific calculation that 315,000 tons fell in
+Naples alone! Everywhere appeared the same scenes of desolation, the same
+dreary tint, for so thickly had this aerial torrent of ashes descended,
+that buildings, trees and plants were completely hidden by it, the whole
+landscape suggesting the idea of a recent heavy fall of dirty-coloured
+snow. _Paesi ridenti_, indeed! It was a land of ugliness and mourning, a
+city of stifling air and of human terror.
+
+A few days previous to the eruption, which began on April 5th, the island
+of Ustica, which lies some forty miles north of Palermo, had been visited
+by earthquake shocks of such violence that the Italian Government at last
+decided to remove the greater part of its population to the mainland, as
+well as the convicts attached to the penal settlements on the island.
+Scarcely had these manifestations ceased at Ustica, than Vesuvius began to
+show signs of increased activity; the supplies in the wells on the
+mountain sides began to fail, and there was observed a strong taste of
+sulphur in the drinking water; whilst—most dreaded phenomenon of all—the
+ever-active crater of Stromboli, that lies midway between Naples and
+Messina, suddenly lapsed into quiescence. We all know the subsequent story
+of the outbreak; of the thousands of fugitives flying into Naples or other
+places of refuge; of the utter destruction of houses and cultivated
+lands;—the doleful scenes of a Vesuvian eruption have been enacted and
+described time after time in the history of the Mountain, and there is
+every reason to suppose they will be repeated at intervals for centuries
+to come. The marvel is how human beings can calmly settle down and pass
+their lives so close to the jaws of the fire-spouting monster, and why an
+intelligent Government permits its subjects to dwell in places which are
+ever exposed to catastrophes such as that which we have just witnessed.
+Well, it is the natural temperament of the Vesuviani to be fatalistic,
+despite their religious fervour; and acts of legislature cannot force them
+to abandon their old deep-rooted notions; all that the Italian Government
+can do therefore is to stand ready prepared to help, when the upheaval
+_does_ occur, as it inevitably must.
+
+It is always a matter of speculation on these occasions as to what course
+the ejected lava will pursue; whose turn, of the many settlements on the
+southern slopes of the Mountain, will it be to suffer? This time it was
+Bosco-Trecase, a village above Torre Annunziata, that was devastated by
+the sinuous masses of incandescent matter, high as a house and broad as a
+river. Torre Annunziata itself, as also ruined Pompeii were threatened,
+but the red-hot streams of destruction mercifully stopped short of their
+expected prey. The story of horrors and panic in the overthrow of
+Bosco-Trecase is happily relieved by many a recorded incident of valour
+and unselfishness. The royal _Carabinieri_, that splendid body of mounted
+police, who in their cocked hats and voluminous cloaks appear as
+ornamental in times of quiet as they prove themselves useful in the stormy
+hours of peril, acquitted themselves, as usual, like heroes. It was they
+who guided away the trembling peasants before the advance of the lava,
+searching the doomed houses for sick and crippled, whom they carried on
+their shoulders to places of security. Working, too, with almost equal
+zeal and practical good sense were the Italian soldiers, who richly
+deserved the praise that their royal commander, the Duke of Aosta,
+subsequently bestowed upon them for their invaluable services rendered
+during these fearful days of darkness and danger. “Soldiers!” declared the
+Duke, in his address to the troops on April 23rd, “I have seen you calm
+and happy in the work of alleviating the misfortunes of others, and I put
+on record the praise you have won. By promptly appearing at the places
+distressed by the eruption, you have encouraged the people by your
+presence and your example; you have maintained order and have safe-guarded
+property. Helping the local authorities, and even in some instances
+filling their offices, you have carried out the most urgent and dangerous
+duties in order to save the houses and to keep clear the roads. In the
+spots most heavily afflicted you have lent your assistance in removing and
+caring for the injured, and in searching for and burying the dead you have
+given proofs of great self-sacrifice and reverence (_pietà_). Not a few of
+the refugees have obtained food and shelter in your barracks, and whole
+communities without means of existence have been provided by you with the
+necessaries of life. Everywhere and from all your conduct has gained you
+loud applause. Nevertheless, your task is not yet ended; continue at it
+out of love for your country and devotion to your King!”(5)
+
+With such a reputation for kindness of heart and energy in time of need,
+no wonder that the Army is popular with all classes in Italy!
+
+Nor did the King and Queen hold aloof from the scene of disaster, for they
+hurried from Rome at midnight of that terrible Palm Sunday on purpose to
+comfort the terror-stricken population. Victor-Emmanuel even penetrated in
+his motor-car as far as Torre Annunziata, in spite of the fumes of sulphur
+and the many difficulties in proceeding along roads clogged deep with
+volcanic dust and ashes. On another occasion the King and Queen paid a
+visit to the afflicted district of the slopes of Monte Somma, where
+Ottajano and San Giuseppe had been almost buried by the continuous falling
+of burning material from the crater. In fact, these localities suffered
+even more severely than the towns on the seaward face of the Mountain
+(Bosco-Trecase excepted), and at Ottajano hardly a house in the place
+remained intact at the close of the eruption, whilst the loss of human
+life was probably higher here than elsewhere. The Duke and Duchess of
+Aosta—he the king’s cousin, and she the popular Princess Hélène, daughter
+of the late Comte de Paris—were likewise indefatigable in their efforts to
+assist and reassure the demoralized population, and to make every possible
+arrangement for the feeding and housing of the numberless refugees and the
+tending of the injured in the hospitals of Naples. Equally valorous was
+the conduct of the great scientist, Professor Matteucci, who remained
+together with a few Carabinieri throughout all phases of the eruption at
+the Vesuvian Observatory, although in imminent peril of death amidst a
+deadly atmosphere of heat and sulphureous fumes.
+
+It was on April 5th that the streams of burning lava first burst from the
+riven crater and made their way down the south-eastern slopes, destroying
+Bosco-Trecase and reaching to the very suburbs of Torre Annunziata.
+Pompeii itself was imperilled, and it is always well to remember that
+during an eruption this precious relic of antiquity may possibly be lost
+to the world. Meanwhile the rain of ashes and mud—formed by dust and hot
+water commingling—fell incessantly; 150,000 inhabitants of the Vesuvian
+districts fled in precipitate flight towards Naples, towards the shore,
+towards the hill country beyond the Sarno. It was truly a marvellous
+spectacle to observe the relentless stream of burning lava crushing
+irresistibly every opposing object in its fatal path. Onlookers at a
+distance could perceive the walls of houses bulging outward under pressure
+of the moving mass, until the roof collapsed in an avalanche of tiles upon
+the ground, whilst with a final crash the whole structure—cottage, farm,
+church or stately villa—succumbed to the overwhelming weight.
+
+Many are the tales of courage and intrepidity; not a few, alas! are the
+stories of folly and cowardice that are related in connection with the
+eruption. It cannot be said that the population of Naples, where everybody
+was perfectly safe even if the atmosphere was unpleasant and the distant
+thunders of the Mountain reverberated alarmingly, comported itself with
+dignity or calm; and this criticism applies in particular to the hundreds
+of visitors—English, German, American and other _forestieri_—who besieged
+the railway station in frantic and indecent anxiety to remove themselves
+with all speed from the city. Some excuse might perhaps be found for the
+hysterical terror of the poor inhabitants of the Mergellina or the
+Mercato, who spent their time in wailing within the churches or in
+screaming for the public exhibition of the venerated relics of their
+patron Saint, which again on this occasion the Archbishop, _nolens
+volens_, was compelled by the mob to produce. But for the great mass of
+educated foreigners then filling the hotels and pensions of the place, it
+cannot be said that their conduct was edifying, particularly in face of
+the example set by the King and Queen of Italy. To add to the general
+panic prevailing in the city, the Neapolitans themselves were not
+unnaturally greatly exasperated by the serious accident which took place
+at the Central Market Hall near Monte Oliveto in the heart of the old
+town. Here, early one morning during the course of the eruption, the great
+roof of corrugated iron collapsed, killing many and frightening the whole
+of the populace, already sufficiently unnerved by recent events. That this
+catastrophe was due to the casual methods, amounting in this case to
+criminal neglect of plain duty, of the municipal authorities, who had
+neglected to sweep the accumulation of heavy volcanic ash from off the
+thin metal roof, none can deny; and this glaring example of public
+stupidity had of course a bad effect on the demoralized multitude, which
+threatened to grow unruly, as well as terrified. No, the graceless
+stampede of educated foreigners to the railway-station, the incompetence
+of the Municipality, and the behaviour of the Neapolitan crowd do not
+appear very creditable to the supposed enlightenment of the twentieth
+century. It had been confidently predicted that nearly fifty years of
+State education and liberal government would work wonders in dispelling
+the crass ignorance and the deep-seated superstition of the dwellers on
+the Bay of Naples. Yet, so far as can be judged from recent events,
+matters seem to have changed but little on these shores, for the mass of
+the population evidently preferred to pin its hope of safety to the
+miracle-working relics of San Gennaro, rather than to the reassuring
+messages of Professor Matteucci, sent from his post of undoubted peril on
+the mountain-side.
+
+If the inhabitants of a great city, which was never seriously threatened
+with danger, should have acted thus, there is undoubtedly much excuse to
+be found for the Vesuviani themselves, whose houses and lives were
+certainly in danger from the devastating streams of lava. It was with a
+sigh and a smile that we learned how the good people of Portici attributed
+their escape from the fate of Bosco-Trecase to the direct interposition of
+a wonder-working Madonna enshrined in one of their own churches. For some
+days the town had been threatened, so that many were convinced of its
+impending doom, when happily at the last moment the expected fate was
+averted, as though by a miracle. And miracle it truly was in the eyes of
+the people of Portici, when it was observed that the snow-white hands of
+their popular Madonna had turned black in some mysterious manner during
+the night hours. What could be a simpler or easier deduction from this
+circumstance, than that Our Lady’s Effigy, taking pity on its affrighted
+suppliants, had with its own hands pushed back the advancing mass of lava,
+and thus saved the town! Great was the joy, and equally great the
+gratitude, displayed by these poor souls at Portici, who at once organised
+a triumphal procession in honour of their prescient patroness “delle mani
+nere.” Does not such an incident, we ask, lend a touch of picturesque
+medievalism to a modern scene of horror and darkness, exhibiting to us, as
+it does, the traits of a simple touching faith and of genuine human
+thankfulness?
+
+Well, the great eruption of 1906 is over, and the inhabitants of the
+Vesuvian communes are once more settling down in their ruined homes, or
+their damaged farms and gardens. No doubt a new Bosco-Trecase will arise
+on the shapeless ruins of the old site, for fear of danger seems powerless
+to deter the outcast population from reoccupying its old haunts. Ottajano
+will be rebuilt, not for the first time, and its citizens will again trust
+to luck—and to St Januarius—for protection from the evil fate which has
+repeatedly overtaken their town. The two Torres, Resina, Portici, and the
+villages along the shore, have this time contrived to escape the lava
+streams, and though their buildings have been severely shaken, and even
+wrecked in many instances, the people will doubtless mend the cracks in
+their walls and place fresh tiles on the injured roofs. They are wise in
+their own generation, for the Mountain is not likely to burst forth again
+for another quarter of a century at least after so violent a fit, _salvo
+complicazioni_, of course, as the more cautious Italians themselves say.
+But another outburst is inevitable; and whose turn to suffer will it be
+then? Will it be Portici, or either of the Torres? Who knows?—and what
+dweller under Vesuvius to-day cares at this moment? “Under Vesuvius,” but
+it is a new Vesuvius, for the tall cone which was so conspicuous a feature
+of the Bay of Naples has disappeared completely, and the summit of the
+volcano has been once more reduced to the level of Monte Somma. How many
+years, we wonder, will be required for the Mountain to raise for itself
+once more the tall pyre of ashes that it has itself demolished and flung
+on all sides to the winds? At any rate let us now look for a period of
+rest, a period of prosperity to recoup the disturbed denizens of these
+_paesi già ridenti_ for their heavy losses and terrible experiences.
+_Speriamo._
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER V
+
+
+              THE CORNICHE ROAD FROM CASTELLAMARE TO AMALFI
+
+
+It is without any feelings of regret that we learn of the non-existence of
+a railway line beyond Castellamare, so that our journey to Amalfi along
+the coast must be performed in the good old-fashioned manner of long-past
+_vetturino_ days. Three skinny horses harnessed abreast are standing ready
+at the hotel door to draw our travelling chariot, each member of the team
+gorgeously decked with plumes of pheasant feathers in his head-gear and
+with many-coloured trappings, whilst on the harness itself appears in more
+than one place the little brazen hand, which is supposed to ensure the
+steed’s safety from the dangers of any chance _jettatore_, the unlucky
+wight endowed with the Evil Eye. Nor is the swarthy picturesque ruffian
+who acts as our driver unprovided with a talisman in case of emergency,
+for we observe hanging from his heavy silver watch-chain the long twisted
+horn of pink coral, which is popularly supposed to catch the first baleful
+glance, and to act on the principle of a lightning-conductor, in
+deflecting the approaching danger from the prudent wearer of the coral
+trinket. Merrily to the sound of jingling bells and the deep-chested
+exhortations of our coachman do we bowl along the excellent road in the
+freshness of the morning air and light “through varying scenes of beauty
+ever led,” for the Corniche road towards Amalfi is admitted to be one of
+the finest in the world. Following the serpentine curves above the cliffs,
+we have on our right hand the dazzling Mediterranean with classic capes
+and islands all flushed in the early sunshine, whilst above us on the left
+rise the steep fertile slopes of the Lactarian Hills. Convent and villa,
+cottage and farmhouse, peep out of embowering verdure, whilst our road is
+shaded in many places by the overhanging boughs of blossoming almond and
+loquat trees. The whole region is in truth a veritable garden of the
+Hesperides, where in the mild equable climate fruit and flowers ripen and
+bloom without a break throughout the rolling year.
+
+  [Illustration: POZZANO]
+
+  “Tall thriving trees confess’d the fruitful mould;
+  The verdant apple ripens here to gold;
+  Here the blue fig with luscious juice o’erflows,
+  With deepest red the full pomegranate glows,
+  The branches bend beneath the weighty pear,
+  And silver olives flourish all the year;
+  The balmy spirit of the western gale
+  Eternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail.
+  Each dropping pear another pear supplies,
+  On apples apples, figs on figs arise;
+  The same mild season gives the blooms to blow,
+  The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow.”
+
+A lovely and a fertile scene it is indeed, and thoroughly typical of the
+peculiar charm of Southern Italy, wherein the rich well-tilled lands
+appear in striking contrast with the near-lying stony fallows and
+scrub-covered wastes.
+
+Beneath the picturesque pile of Santa Maria a Pozzano, perched aloft above
+the roadway, we pass along the edge of the sea-girt precipice, rounding
+the Capo d’Orlando, until we reach the pretty little town of Vico Equense,
+with its churches and gay-coloured villas nestling amidst groves of olive
+and orange trees. Vico owes its prosperity in the first instance to the
+patronage of “Carlo il Zoppo,” Charles the Dwarf, the lame son and heir of
+King Charles of Anjou, who founded a settlement and built a villa upon the
+site of the ancient Roman colony; and it was in the old royal demesne of
+the Angevins that the hand of the deformed king’s daughter, the Princess
+Clementia, was demanded formally in marriage by the French monarch, Philip
+the Bold, who sought to marry her to his third son, Charles of Valois. The
+match between the young prince of France and his cousin, the Neapolitan
+princess, appeared suitable to all concerned in every respect save one;
+for it was well known that the King of Naples had been lame from his
+birth, and it could never be deemed fit for the expected heir of France to
+marry any but a perfectly sound and healthy bride. Now the Queen of Naples
+was too proud to accede to the hints of the French ladies, who evidently
+were most anxious to acquaint themselves with the satisfactory condition
+of her daughter’s “walking members,” though she went so far as to allow
+the maiden to appear before them clad only in a flowing robe of gossamer
+silk. The possible danger of losing her opportunity to become Queen of
+France proved, however, beyond the ambitious young lady’s powers of
+endurance, and to the horror of her haughty mother and the delight of the
+foreign emissaries, the Princess Clementia then and there doffed her
+silken robes and appeared before all in the historic garb of Lady Godiva.
+A glance at the princess’s form _in puris naturalibus_ sufficed to
+convince the inquisitive Frenchwomen that no hereditary taint from Il
+Zoppo descended to his daughter; and accordingly the betrothal of the two
+young people was celebrated that very evening amidst the usual revels and
+feastings.
+
+The clean cheerful town on the sheer limestone crags boasts a cathedral,
+wherein, so the guide-book informs us, we shall find the tomb of
+Filangieri, the great Italian jurist. But the building contains in reality
+far more stirring associations than those connected with a prominent
+lawyer. It is but a rococo structure of the usual Italian type, and its
+painted series of portraits of past bishops is by no means an uncommon
+complement of cathedral churches in the South. But here, amidst the long
+rows of indifferent portraits, we note an omission, a space that is
+occupied, not by a likeness but by a medallion, which represents a cherub
+with the forefinger of his right hand laid as a seal of silence upon the
+lips. Here-by indeed hangs a tale, obscure perhaps, but pathetic and human
+to the last degree. We all remember the broad frieze filled with Doges’
+faces which is carried round the great hall of the ducal palace in Venice,
+wherein the place assigned to the traitor, Marino Faliero, contains a
+black veil instead of the usual portrait. Here in little Vico Equense is
+to be found a somewhat similar incident, but with this important
+difference:—the bishop whose portrait is here omitted was the most worthy
+of remembrance of all his peers.
+
+The crime of Monsignore Michele Natale, Bishop of Vico Equense, to which
+the silent cherub bears everlasting witness, was that of being a patriot
+and a Liberal (in the truest sense of that term) during the anxious times
+of the ill-fated Parthenopean Republic, that short-lived period of
+aristocratic government which was set up in self-defence by certain
+Neapolitan nobles, prelates and men of science after the abrupt departure
+of their cowardly King and Queen to Palermo. We all remember the terrible
+ending of that government: how the vile rabble-army of Cardinal Ruffo
+assaulted Naples; how the city capitulated to the Cardinal on the express
+condition that all life and property should be spared; and how Lord
+Nelson, refusing to recognise the terms that Ruffo himself had agreed to,
+and overruling the Cardinal’s protests, treated the unhappy prisoners. The
+Bishop of Vico Equense was one of this band of martyrs, for he suffered
+death under circumstances of exceptional brutality on the morning of
+August 20th 1799, in the piazza in front of the church of the Carmine,
+together with two Neapolitans of noble rank, Giuliano Colonna and Gennaro
+Serra, and with the poetess, Eleonora Pimentel, a Portuguese by birth but
+the widow of a Neapolitan officer. All went nobly to their doom amidst the
+execrations of the demoralised bloodthirsty mob of _lazzaroni_, yelling at
+and insulting the “Jacobins,” and kept back with no little difficulty by
+the royal troops from mutilating the corpses of women, bishops and
+princes. Monsignore Natale himself was hanged, and in his case the public
+executioner—“Masto Donato” as he was nick-named by the populace—gave vent
+to many pleasantries concerning the episcopal rank of his victim.
+Blindfolded and with the cord of infamy depending from his neck, the
+Bishop was led up to the fatal ladder amid deafening shouts of
+
+  “Viva la forca e Masto Donato;
+  Sant’ Antonio sia priato!”
+
+On reaching the top of the gallows, the hangman made fast the rope to the
+cross-tree, and then an assistant (_tirapiede_) from below adroitly pushed
+the unseeing prisoner into space, catching on to his legs meanwhile,
+whilst “Masto Donato” himself adroitly leaped from the gallows-top upon
+the prelate’s shoulder. With the hangman on his back, shouting aloud how
+much he was enjoying his ride upon a real bishop, and with the other
+ruffian clinging to his heels, Monsignore Natale swayed backwards and
+forwards amidst yells of execration and gratified hate on that hot August
+morning in front of the Church of the Carmine little more than one hundred
+years ago. His body was left on the gallows to be insulted by the mob
+throughout the long sweltering day, and then, stripped of all its
+clothing, was finally flung with other corpses of noble men and women into
+a charnel-house at Sant’ Alessio al Lavinaio. Who it was that placed this
+quaint little memorial to the murdered prelate in his cathedral church we
+know not; but here the speechless yet eloquent cherub tells Natale’s sad
+story of brutality and injustice to all who care to listen. Happily the
+spell of silence is at length broken, and the true history of that hateful
+era of crime, cruelty, lying, and intrigue is gradually being revealed;
+and the enemies of the Church in Italy learn with an astonishment, which
+is perhaps feigned, that in that glorious army of martyrs of 1799 more
+than one ecclesiastic of high rank suffered in the ill-starred and
+premature cause of Neapolitan liberty.
+
+Crossing the little river Arco, we proceed uphill through the region of
+vines and olives, until we have passed the Punta di Scutolo, where begins
+our descent into that famous tract of country, the Piano di Sorrento, a
+plateau above the cliffs, some four miles in length by one in breadth.
+Poets of antiquity and bards of the Middle Ages alike have sung the
+delights of the Sorrentine Plain, and have painted in glowing colours of
+inspired verse its race of happy peasants, its fruitful fields and
+orchards, its luscious vines, its excellent flocks. Galen, the cunning old
+physician, recommended to his nervous patients what would now be termed a
+“rest cure” in these favoured regions; whilst the grateful Bernardo Tasso,
+father of the immortal Torquato, speaks of the capital of this district as
+“l’Albergo della Cortesia,” and in an ecstasy of delighted appreciation,
+goes on to add: “l’aere e si sereno, si temperato, si salutifero, si
+vitale, che gli uomini che senza provar altero cielo ci vivono sono quasi
+immortali.” And though praise from Torquato’s courtly sire must not be
+taken too seriously, yet few will deny that the beautiful plain deserves
+many of the eulogies that have been showered upon it. At the small town of
+Meta, the next place of importance after Sorrento itself, the road divides
+at the Church of the Madonna of the Laurel: our way to Amalfi leading
+southward over the opposing ridge—the “Sorrentini Colles” of Ovid—whilst
+the other traverses the length of the plain by way of Pozzopiano and Sant’
+Agnello, until it reaches Sorrento.
+
+One prominent feature of this district has already attracted our
+attention; the number of deep ravines with which the whole plain is
+intersected. These natural clefts are marvellously lovely in their rich
+luxuriance of foliage, and with their precipitous sides and verdure-clad
+depths will recall the wonderful _latomiè_, the ancient stone-quarries of
+Syracuse. Their depths are filled with orange and lemon trees, mingled
+with sable spires of cypress and the tall forms of bays, which here bear
+jet-black berries, such as are rarely seen in our northern clime; whilst
+the edges of the cliffs are clothed with a serried mass of wild flowers;
+red valerian, crimson snap-dragon, tall blue campanulas, the dark green
+wild fennel, white-blossoming cistus, and a hundred other plants, gay with
+colour and strong with aromatic perfume.
+
+  “The quarry’s edge is lined with many a plant,
+  With many a flower distilling fragrant dew
+  From brightly coloured petals. Almond trees
+  Give snowy promise of sweet leaves and fruit;
+  Here all the scented tangle of the South
+  Covers the boulders, calcined by the sun
+  To pearly whiteness; thorn or asphodel
+  Sprout from each cranny of the topmost ledge
+  To nod against the deep blue sky, or peer
+  Into the verdure-clad abyss below.”
+
+It is not surprising to learn that these romantic glens, filled with
+greenery, are reputed locally to be the haunts of fairies, _Monacelli_, as
+the Sorrentine inhabitants name them. Like the “good folk” of certain
+country districts in England, the pixies of Devonshire, and the “Tylwyth
+Teg” of rural Wales, these elfin people of the ravines are not malicious
+or unkindly in their nature, but they are particular and somewhat exacting
+in certain matters. They appreciate the attentions of mortal men, and
+offerings of fresh milk or choice fruit are not beneath the notice of the
+Monacelli. Borrowing the idea from the votive offerings they make in the
+churches to the Virgin and the Saints, the peasants sometimes place little
+lamps in the fern-draped grottoes of these gullies, and to such as
+punctually perform these acts of courtesy, the Monacelli frequently show
+signs of favour. The _padrone_ of a local inn has assured us that he and
+his wife stood very high in the good graces of the little people, who had
+on one occasion actually written them a letter, although as the characters
+employed were unknown to any person in the village, the object of their
+communication by this means seems somewhat of a mystery. Another and a
+more practical instance of their patronage was then related, for the
+favoured landlord assured us that on one occasion, when he and his wife
+descended downstairs in the morning, they found the house cleared, the
+hearth ready swept, and all the contents of last night’s supper-table
+relaid on the brick floor, but _d’un modo squisito_, such as no human hand
+could ever have been deft enough to contrive. Just a simple innocent
+trifle of Sorrentine folk-lore, but how closely does it resemble the
+old-time gossip of rustic England, of which the great poet has left us so
+charming a picture!—
+
+  “Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat
+  To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
+  When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
+  His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
+  That ten day labourers could not end.”
+
+For, as we have already said, the Monacelli show themselves grateful to
+those who anticipate their wants, and will serve their votaries with
+industry and fidelity. _Fuore avra il Monacello in casa_—perhaps he has
+had the Fairy in the house—has passed into a local phrase to designate a
+neighbour’s unexplained prosperity. But, again, the lucky recipient of
+these favours must never blab or even hint at the origin of his good
+fortune, for all gossip is highly distasteful to the fairy folk; and that,
+we suppose, is the true reason why so little authentic information can be
+gleaned as to the methods of the Monacelli.
+
+In direct contrast with the Monacelli of the ravines, who are, on the
+whole, well inclined towards mortals, are the Maghe, first cousins
+evidently to the terrible _ginns_ of Arabian folk-lore; perhaps the
+Saracenic pirates themselves may have introduced their oriental sprites to
+the Neapolitan shores. In the popular mind the Maghe are supposed to
+possess vast treasures hidden in caves by the seashore, or on the bleak
+mountain side, and it was doubtless concerning these spirits that the
+guide’s tale, given in a previous chapter, relates. The most celebrated
+Maga of all is the demon who haunts a certain underground corridor near
+Pozzuoli, containing an immense hoard of gold and jewels, which he is
+willing to present to anybody that is ready to give in exchange a new-born
+baby, presumably for purposes of devouring. Nor was the general belief in
+the cave-dwelling monster at Pozzuoli limited to the poor peasants and
+fisher-folk, for rumour persistently asserted that King Francis of Naples,
+father of Bomba of impious memory, more than once attempted to negotiate
+with the guardian of this buried treasure; but the Maga’s terms, it seems,
+were too bloodthirsty and extravagant even for a Neapolitan Bourbon to
+comply with, and in that case they must indeed have been pretty startling.
+Malignant fairies are, in short, quite common upon the Sorrentine plain,
+where exasperated mothers are sometimes in the habit of frightening their
+squalling children into silence by threatening to introduce them to
+_Mammone_—perhaps a corruption of the old Greek word _mormo_—a terrible
+ghost, that must be a near relation to the “Big Black Man” of English
+nurseries, who is ever ready to carry off naughty boys and girls in his
+sack.
+
+But the whole of the Sorrentine Peninsula is full of local superstitions,
+the vast majority of which can easily be traced to the influence of
+Catholicism, whilst comparatively few seem to be the legacy of ancient
+Greek or Roman mythology. Belief in witchcraft is universal in these
+parts, but the witch herself (_strega_) is regarded somewhat in the light
+of a beneficent “wise woman,” who can arrest the far more dreaded spell of
+the Evil Eye, rather than as the malevolent old hag of bucolic England in
+the past. Certainly there has never been recorded in Southern Italy any
+such popular persecution of poor harmless old crones as once disgraced
+English countrysides; nor has any Italian jurist, like the erudite Sir
+Matthew Hale, ever condescended to supply legal information concerning the
+peculiarities of witches, and the best methods of prosecuting and burning
+them. But the _strega_, though not as a rule dangerous to mankind,
+provided she be not disturbed or insulted, has the same supernatural power
+of transit on a broomstick that is possessed by her northern sister. On
+many a dark night have the peasants crossed themselves with fear on
+hearing the witches flying through the storm-vexed air to keep their
+unholy tryst beside the famous walnut tree of Benevento, which has been
+described for us by the learned Pietro Piperno in his mysterious treatise,
+entitled _De Nuce Beneventana_. Even snatches of the witches’ song can
+sometimes be distinguished above the howling of the gale—
+
+  “Sott’ aero e sopra vento,
+  Sotto la Nuce di Benevento!”
+
+Perhaps it may afford some consolation to those who have a dread of
+witches that the word “Sabato,” solemnly pronounced on these awful
+occasions, is of real service to the utterer; whilst such as have had the
+good fortune to be born on a Friday in March are permanently placed
+outside the evil power of their spells, since our Saviour was crucified on
+a Friday in that month.
+
+But at length we have finished the ascent of the ridge, and our driver
+halts for a moment at the inn of the “Due Golfi.” A smiling damsel,
+dressed in the picturesque native costume, advances to offer us the
+national drink of Italy, sweet vermouth that is frothed up with a little
+fizzing water in a narrow tumbler; and though carriage exercise is not
+liable to produce thirst, yet we cannot be so churlish as to refuse the
+draught, especially as the delay allows us to take our farewell look at
+the Bay of Naples. For here we have reached the peak of the rocky saddle
+that divides the two famous gulfs; and before us we now behold the wide
+crescent of the Bay of Salerno with its sunburnt vineyards and its
+precipitous cliffs. To our right we perceive the craggy headlands
+stretching southward till they culminate in the Cape of Minerva:—how much
+more attractive sounds the good old classical name than the new-fangled
+Punta della Campanella, so called from the alarm bell which used to be
+tolled in the ruined fortress at the approach of the Moslem pirate
+galleys! Vastly different is the aspect on this side of the peninsula to
+that which we have just left behind us. There is the plain below us,
+thickly dotted with farms and villas set amidst crops and orchards, a
+fertile scene of industry and population; here on the Salerno side are
+wild stony tracts affording only pasturage for a few sheep and goats, and
+covered for miles with broom, cytizus, coronella, myrtle, and numberless
+fragrant weeds, all struggling fiercely for existence on the dry barren
+soil, and filling the clear air with an incense-like perfume. Such is our
+first acquaintance with the Costiera d’Amalfi, that wonderful stretch of
+indented rocky coast-line once containing the Republic of Amalfi, which
+was the forerunner of the glorious Commonwealths of Florence and Venice.
+From the grey cliffs of Capri to the west, as far as the headland beside
+Salerno, stretched this diminutive state, composed of a confederacy of
+sister-cities, whereof Amalfi herself was the queen and metropolis. Its
+glories have long vanished, but the Costiera d’Amalfi remains an enchanted
+land, not only on account of its natural beauties, but also by reason of
+its historical associations which give an additional charm to every breezy
+headland and every little town upon this wonderful shore.
+
+Below us, as we rapidly descend the slopes by the curves of the Corniche
+road, lies the little beach known as Lo Scaricotojo, whence in the days
+previous to the construction of this splendid highway all visitors were
+wont to embark for Amalfi;—that is, unless they attempted the expedition
+by way of the mountain roads leading thither from Castellamare or La Cava.
+It raises a smile in these days of swift and luxurious travelling to learn
+from an early Victorian guide-book that “the most elegible mode of going
+from Sorrento to Amalfi is either to ride or to be carried in a _chaise à
+porteurs_ to that part of the Colli where begins a rapid descent, and
+thence descending on foot to the Marinella of the Scaricotojo on the Gulf
+of Salerno.... The ride occupies about an hour and a quarter, and the
+descent which, though steep, is not dangerous, occupies about an hour.”
+_Nous avons changé tout ça_; yet there are still living amongst us those
+who lament the passing away of the old-fashioned days of Italian travel,
+when inns were bad but picturesque, and expeditions to such remote places
+as Amalfi were not only difficult but even dangerous; since in
+compensation for slow progress and risk of brigands every town owned a
+primitive charm which is now rapidly disappearing before the modern
+irruption of locust-like swarms of tourists with their motor cars, their
+luncheon baskets, and their kodaks. Well, to the majority of travellers
+the value of natural scenery is not a little enhanced by the sense of
+comfort, and here on the Costiera d’Amalfi the most particular can have no
+cause to complain, since it is one of the few lovely spots of Southern
+Europe that has not yet been invaded by the dividend-paying railway. No,
+the old Republic retains to a great extent its ancient atmosphere of
+unspoiled beauty and remoteness from the bustling world. It is still a
+stretch of glorious and historic country wherein one can obtain a pleasant
+and valued respite for a time from the overpowering improvements of an
+industrial age.
+
+As we look southward across the breadth of the Bay, our eye is at once
+caught by the group of the Isles of the Sirens, which, though in reality
+fully a mile distant from the nearest point of the coast, seem in this
+clear atmosphere as though they were lying within a stone’s throw of the
+beach. Around these bare bluffs of rock, seemingly flung by the hand of
+Nature in a sportive mood into the blue waves, lingers one of the most
+insidious of all the old Greek legends, for it was past these lonely
+cliffs that the cunning Ulysses sailed during his long career of mazy
+wanderings in search of his island home and his faithful Penelope. In
+those days, so the Greek bard tells us, there dwelt upon these islets
+strange sea-witches with the faces and forms of most beautiful maidens,
+although their lower limbs had the resemblance of eagles’ feet and talons.
+Two sirens only, says Homer, dwelt upon these coasts, although later poets
+have increased the number of the fatal sisters to three or even four.
+Singing the most enchanting songs to the sound of tortoise-shell lyres,
+there used to bask in the sunlight beside the gentle ripple the Sirens,
+their nether limbs well hidden from the gaze of passing seamen, who,
+attracted by the tuneful notes, hastened hither to discover the
+whereabouts of the musicians. Innocent eyes, angelic faces, flowing golden
+locks and white beckoning hands had every power to draw the curious
+mariner nearer and nearer, until he came within reach of the fell
+enchantresses. For the Sirens loved the flesh of mortals, and bleached
+skulls and bones of digested victims lay in heaps upon the sandy floor of
+their azure-hued caverns. Gold and jewels, too, the spoils of many a brave
+galley that had been lured to destruction by these charmers, likewise
+littered their retreat, and perhaps it was as much the glittering of this
+gold as their own lovely features that in certain cases enticed the wary
+merchant into this fatal trap. Gold and a pretty face: what male heart
+could be proof against the double temptation the Isles of the Sirens
+offered to the navigator in the days of the Odyssey! Only one sailor over
+these seas proved himself a match for the wiles of the cruel goddesses of
+the Amalfitan coast; for Ulysses, as we know, stopped the ears of his
+companions with wax on their approach towards this dangerous spot, whilst
+he himself, always eager to hear and see everything yet perfectly well
+aware of the Sirens’ magnetic power, had himself tightly bound by cords to
+the mast. So whilst the deaf rowers stolidly tugged at their oars,
+oblivious of the weird unearthly melody around them, the clever King of
+Ithaca gained the honour of becoming the only mortal who had listened to
+that subtle song without paying the penalty of a hideous and ignoble
+death.
+
+It is strangely disappointing to find that no recollection of Sirens or of
+Ulysses lingers in the lore of the present dwellers upon these coasts.
+They have no more notion of the aspect of a Siren than they have of a
+pleisosaurus, and, as a modern writer naïvely complains, they are not
+sharp-witted enough to invent fanciful tales to please the enquiring
+foreigner. Nor is this lack of intelligence to be wondered at, when we
+recall to mind the clean sweep of all classical learning and tradition
+which that period of time, truly known as the Dark Ages, made throughout
+Italy; if Petrarch found it necessary to explain to King Robert the Wise
+with the greatest tact and delicacy that Vergil was a poet and not a
+wizard, what must have been the appalling ignorance prevailing amongst the
+peasant and the fisherman? And yet these barren rocks were known as the
+Isles of the Sirens centuries before the verses of the Aeneid immortalized
+the mythic voyage of the Trojan adventurer, who passed along this
+iron-bound coast on his way towards the mouth of Tiber. Their modern, or
+rather medieval name of I Galli is somewhat of a puzzle. Erudite scholars
+affect to derive it from Guallo, a fortress captured during a war between
+King Roger and the Republic of Amalfi, but this explanation, we confess,
+does not sound very reasonable. Others prefer to imagine that the word
+Gallo (a cock) contains an allusion to the claws and feathers of the
+Sirens themselves, for certain of the ancient writers endowed these dire
+Virgins of the Rocks with the wings as well as the claws of birds;—in
+fact, they represented them as Harpies, those horrible fowls with women’s
+faces that appeared upon the scene at Prospero’s bidding to spoil the bad
+king’s supper party. But why, if the Sirens were female,—and on this point
+all their critics agree with an unanimity that is wonderful—should their
+ancient haunts be called “The Cocks?” The untutored natives themselves,
+understanding nothing of Sirens or of Odysseys, hold their own theory with
+regard to the disputed name, which they connect with the construction of a
+harbour at distant Salerno, and though this legend sounds foolish enough,
+it is scarcely less flimsy than the notions already quoted. A certain
+enchanter, one Pietro Bajalardo, undertook—in modern parlance,
+contracted—to build in a single night the much needed breakwater at
+Salerno on the strange condition that all cocks in the neighbourhood
+should first be killed; for the wizard, so the story runs, had a special
+aversion to Chanticleer on account of his having caused the repentance of
+St Peter by his crowing. In any case, the reigning Prince of Salerno
+gladly complied with the eccentric request, and at his command every cock
+in or near the place was accordingly slaughtered, with the solitary
+exception of one old rooster, who, being very dear to the heart of his
+aged mistress, was kept concealed beneath a tub and thus escaped the
+general holocaust. Throughout the livelong night Bajalardo was busily
+engaged in superintending the work of building the harbour, whilst the
+fiends who carried out his behest were actively conveying huge blocks of
+broken cliff from the Cape of Minerva to place in the waters of Salerno.
+But at daybreak the cock imprisoned beneath the tub, the sole survivor of
+his race, according to natural custom announced the dawn, to the despair
+of Bajalardo and the terror of his attendant fiends, who in their
+precipitate flight dropped into the sea near the Punta Sant’ Elia the huge
+masses of stone they were then carrying; and these rocks are called by men
+I Galli in consequence to this day.
+
+But, to be strictly impartial, it was not the Sirens alone who were
+responsible for all the victims who perished on these arid rocks. _Homo
+homini lupus_; man is always ready to prey upon man, and many of the dark
+tales concerning the Galli go to prove the truth of the terrible old
+adage. At what period the Sirens abandoned their ancient retreat and swam
+or flew away to more congenial haunts is unknown to history; but certain
+it is that the rulers of proud Amalfi committed many a cruel deed of
+murder or torture upon their deserted islets. For here, many a hapless
+political prisoner languished for years in abject misery, a prey to the
+heat and glare of summer and to the fierce gales of bitter winter nights.
+Rock-cut steps and ruined towers still remain as mementoes of those dark
+days, when callous human gaolers worthily filled the places of the absent
+Sirens. It was in a chamber of yonder turret, still standing, that the
+Doge Mansone II., blinded by a brother’s vengeance, dragged out years of
+utter misery in pain and darkness, until the Emperor of the East, suzerain
+of Amalfi, at last took compassion upon the prisoner’s wretched plight and
+allowed him to be removed into honourable confinement at Byzantium. For
+many hundreds of years the Isles of the Sirens have lain untenanted, nor
+are they visited nowadays save by a few inquisitive travellers or by the
+fishermen of the Scaricotojo, who find safe shelter under their lee during
+the sudden squalls of the Mediterranean. For, strange to relate, there are
+no dangerous currents, no treacherous whirlpools close to these rocky
+islets, such as we might expect to give some natural interpretation to the
+ancient myth, the origin of which remains unexplained and constitutes a
+very pretty mystery as it stands.
+
+We bid farewell to the group of ill-omened rocks, as we proceed rapidly
+under the rocky slopes of the Monte di Chiosse towards Positano, which
+extends in a long curving line of cheerful-tinted flat-roofed houses from
+the summit of its protecting cliff to the strand below, sprinkled with
+boats and nets and cloths with heaps of grain a-drying. The descent to the
+lower portion of the little town is singularly charming with its varied
+scenery of rocks and hanging woods above us, with the tiled domes of
+churches outlined against the deep blue waters, and with the whole scene
+dominated by the pierced crag of Montapertuso, beyond which thrusts up
+into the cloudless sky the triple peak of the giant Sant’ Angelo. Positano
+is a thriving as well as an ancient place, and of its dense population we
+have abundant evidence in the swarms of children that pursue our carriage,
+brown-skinned picturesque little nuisances, shrilly and incessantly crying
+out for _soldi_. Most of these infants wear bright coloured rags, but not
+a few are dressed in garments that at once recall the ginger-coloured
+robes of the Capuchin friars, for the brothers of the Order of St Francis
+are popularly reputed to be especially competent in keeping aloof evil
+spells from young persons entrusted to their charge; and of course, argue
+the doting parents, it is only natural that the spirits of darkness should
+not dare to molest the little ones tricked out in robes similar to those
+worn by these holy men.
+
+From the point of view of history the chief interest of Positano centres
+in the time-honoured tradition that Flavio Gioja, the original inventor of
+the compass, was a native of this town, once a flourishing and important
+member of the group of cities which comprised the Amalfitan Republic in
+its palmy days. But Clio, the Muse of History, is an inexorable mistress,
+and she will not rest content with mere hearsay, however venerable, and as
+a result of careful investigation it would seem that Flavio Gioja, who for
+centuries has been generally credited with this marvellous discovery, must
+himself have been a personage almost as mythic as the Sirens of this
+shore, for his very name is spelled in a variety of ways that is
+hopelessly confusing. Nor has the question of his place of birth ever been
+satisfactorily settled, for both Positano and Amalfi claim this hero of
+science for a son, although only in Amalfitan annals can the disputed name
+be detected. Be this as it may, it was a citizen of this Costiera who has
+ever been acknowledged as the inventor of the compass, though concerning
+both himself and his alleged discovery there is a complete absence of any
+contemporary record. Later writers have, it is true, always admitted the
+honour on behalf of the Republic, and Pontano goes so far as to call
+Amalfi _magnetica_ in compliment thereof, whilst during the later crusades
+the Amalfitani, who were evidently convinced of the genuine nature of
+Gioja’s claim, had an heraldic figure of the mariner’s compass emblazoned
+on their banners. It seems a thousand pities to throw doubt upon so
+picturesque a tradition, for the date of the invention of the compass has
+been fixed as 1302, two years only after the holding of the famous Papal
+Jubilee in Rome which Dante’s verse has described for us. Nor can the
+ingenious theory be upheld that the fleur-de-lys, the emblem of the French
+kings of Naples, which still decorates the dial of the compass in almost
+all lands, is in any wise connected with Carlo il Zoppo, the monarch to
+whom Gioja is said to have dedicated his ingenious discovery. No, we have
+little doubt that the compass, like so many of the scientific wonders that
+crept into Europe before and during the time of the Renaissance, was
+originally brought from the far East, a farther East than the argosies of
+Amalfi had ever penetrated. The little magic box with its moving needle
+was first used, it is now admitted, by the cunning merchants of Cathay
+during their trading expeditions across the stony monotonous plains of
+Central Asia that lay between the Flowery Land and the civilization of
+Persia. From Cathay the use of the magnetic needle was introduced to the
+Arab mathematicians of Baghdad and Cairo, and through them the secret of
+the lodestone of China was conveyed to the coast towns of the Levant. At
+Aleppo or Alexandria some astute trader of Amalfi—perhaps his name really
+was Flavio Gioja—contrived to learn the new method of steering from some
+Moslem or Jewish merchant, and he in his turn brought this novel and
+precious piece of information back to the Italian shores. If, then, a
+native of Amalfi did not evolve the idea of the compass out of his own
+brain, at least it was the old Republic which first impressed the Western
+world with its immense value, and this, too, at a far earlier period than
+the date usually assigned to Gioja’s “discovery.” For a Christian bishop
+of Jerusalem a hundred years before Gioja’s day makes mention of the
+compass as being in common use amongst the Saracens of Palestine, whilst
+its existence was certainly known to Brunetto Latini, the tutor of Dante,
+whom for certain moral failings upon earth his brilliant pupil somewhat
+harshly places in the infernal regions. History has, in short, long
+deprived poor disconsolate Positano of its vaunted glory in the production
+of a medieval scientist whose very existence has now become a matter of
+speculation.
+
+As we thread our way along the road that curves round headland after
+headland, and is carried over sheer precipices whose base is lapped by the
+cool jade-green water, we begin to realize the essential difference
+between the Sorrentine shores we have left behind us, and the marvellous
+Costiera d’Amalfi we are now passing. Ever green and smiling are the
+favoured districts that stretch from Castellamare to Massa Lubrense, with
+the mountain tops acting as screens to protect the groves and crops from
+the sun’s ardent rays and with the fresh reviving breezes from the Abruzzi
+ever breathing upon them. But here we seem to be under the very eyes of
+the Sun-God, who stares fixedly from rising to setting upon the Amalfitan
+coast. Welcome enough is this continuous basking in his smiles during the
+short winter days; but oh! the long, long summer hours wherein King Helios
+relentlessly pours down his burning glances upon the shallow soil that
+covers the rocky face of the Costiera! We who visit the territories of the
+old Republic in winter or early spring only perceive one aspect of the
+picture. We rejoice in the gladdening warmth afforded by unbroken sunshine
+and by the complete absence of cutting winds which Monte Sant’ Angelo’s
+towering form excludes from these shores; we note with delight the
+premature unfolding of buds and blossoms, and we marvel at the young fruit
+of the dark-leaved loquat trees—the _nespoli_ of the South—turning to pale
+yellow even in February. But we cannot realise the blinding glare and the
+torrid heat of a July or August, making a perfect furnace of this
+sheltered corner, where the thin layer of cultivated soil, that has been
+scraped together painfully by human hands, becomes baked through and
+through, when the water-tanks are exhausted, and when the clouds of thick
+dust hang like a pall of white smoke for miles above the sinuous course of
+the Corniche road. How close and sweltering must be the atmosphere of
+these populous coves, when the very waves are flung luke-warm upon the hot
+sand! How must the inhabitants sigh for a breath of cool air from the
+Abruzzi, for the zephyr that tempers the heat on the Sorrentine plain!
+_Carpe diem_; let us enjoy the Costiera d’Amalfi in the freshness of early
+spring-time, before the oranges and lemons have been stripped from the
+leafy groves and before the sun has had time to scorch up the vegetation
+that now gives colour to every cleft and crevice of the rocky coast-line.
+
+As we advance eastward from Positano we obtain glimpses from time to time
+of mountain valleys thickly clothed with brushwood, and far above our
+heads we perceive Agerola perched aloft under the shadow of the topmost
+crag of Monte Sant’ Angelo—Agerola, where wolves still haunt the dim
+recesses of the chestnut woods, and where the charcoal burners can tell us
+of the great grey Were-Wolf that prowls round the village on stormy
+nights. Passing the torrent of the Arriengo and the Punta di San Pietro
+with its lonely chapel looking out to sea; glancing down upon the deep set
+strand and gloomy caverns of Furore, and rounding Cape Sottile, we find
+ourselves at Prajano, one of the prettiest spots to be found on all this
+wonderful coast. Here we stop to visit the church of San Luca, which
+stands on a little grassy platform overhanging the sea and commanding a
+superb view of the Bay of Salerno. It is a baroque structure of the type
+common everywhere in Italy, which travellers are apt to despise without
+acknowledging how picturesque this decadent style of architecture can
+appear. At Prajano the wooden doors of green faded to the hue of ancient
+bronze, the yellow-washed plaster façade and the lichen-covered tiles of
+the roof and tower make up a charming mass of varied colouring when viewed
+against the broad blue band of sea and sky beyond. Within, the church is
+mean and tawdry, just a
+
+  “Sad charnel-house of humble hopes and crimes,
+  Long dead and buried in obscurity;”
+
+but the afternoon sun struggling through the curtains that cover its
+fantastic windows allows a mellow light to fill the expanse of the
+building. A toothless old woman and a young girl, both of them thinly and
+poorly clad, are the sole occupants of the church, and they are evidently
+too much absorbed in prayer to notice our presence. They have placed
+beside the Madonna’s altar lighted tapers which glimmer feebly in a shaft
+of strong sunlight that falls through a rent in the curtain overhead. For
+what purpose, we wonder, have these candles been bought out of a scanty
+store! Are they burning on behalf of some sailor-boy now being tossed upon
+the ocean? Or are they offered to obtain some boon more selfish and less
+pathetic? At any rate, this pair of intent worshippers, representing fresh
+Southern youth and crabbed age, make up a pretty picture as they kneel
+together on the pavement of tiles ornamented in bright rococo patterns to
+represent the coat-of-arms of some forgotten noble benefactor: it is too
+simple and everyday a sight in Italy to offer a theme for verse, too
+sacred a subject for an idle photograph. We leave the church on tip-toe,
+and return to the terrace with its low marble seats and its stunted acacia
+trees to sit a few moments before re-entering the carriage.
+
+  [Illustration: EVENING AT AMALFI]
+
+Skirting the Capo di Conca we obtain our first sight of proud Amalfi, and
+we realize that our drive, long in distance perhaps, but all too short
+with its varied beauties and interests, is drawing to a close. Nearer and
+nearer do we approach our goal, the shining turrets of the Cathedral tower
+acting as our beacon, until at length our chariot clatters beneath the
+echoing tunnel hewn in the cliff that leads into the town itself.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER VI
+
+
+                   AMALFI AND THE FESTIVAL OF ST ANDREW
+
+
+The traveller’s first impressions of Amalfi, which is essentially the
+beauty-spot of the Riviera of Naples, are usually associated with the old
+Capuchin convent, long since turned into a hotel and now the bourne of
+most visitors to this coast. Its arcaded façade and its terraced garden
+stand on a plateau seemingly cut out of the sheer face of the cliff,
+whilst high above the town the lofty barren rocks enfold the Convent and
+its verdant demesne within a natural amphitheatre and protect this sunny
+paradise from the keen blasts of winter. A flight of steps zigzagging up
+the rocky hill-side connects the building with the high road below; whilst
+a narrow pathway, leading between stone walls and now passing beneath dark
+mysterious archways, wherein the lamps burning before the Madonna’s
+shrines afford a welcome light even at midday, descends by steep gradients
+from the garden above into the main piazza of the little city. Built by
+the celebrated Cardinal Pietro Capuano nearly seven hundred years ago for
+Cistercian monks, the monastery in the sixteenth century came into the
+possession of the Capuchin Friars, those brown-robed figures that with
+their bare feet and girdles of knotted white cord are such familiar and
+picturesque objects in the daily crowds of every Italian town. But the
+friars have been forced to abandon their airy retreat ever since the
+suppression of the religious houses, which succeeded the union of the old
+Neapolitan kingdom with young Italy, and their convent has long been put
+to secular uses. Yet the old monastic church still exists, and
+superstitious people declare that the spectral forms of ejected Capuchins
+are sometimes to be seen advancing slowly up the rocky ascent in order to
+revisit the sacred building that is now closed for worship. Nevertheless
+the church is cared for by the members of the Vozzi family, its present
+owners, who every Christmas-tide still prepare the popular _presepio_,
+that curious representation of the scene in the stable at Bethlehem,
+wherein a score of gaily dressed figures of painted wood represent the
+Holy Family and the worshipping peasants. Little in fact has been changed
+within the building itself, and the exquisite cloistered court with its
+slender intertwining Saracenic columns still remains to delight alike the
+artist and the antiquary. We say “still remains” advisedly; for beyond the
+tiny quadrangle our eyes at once light upon a scene of hideous
+devastation.
+
+Doubtless many persons will recall the great land-slip of December 1899,
+when almost without warning the whole face of the rocky headland that
+shelters Amalfi on the west tore itself loose and slid with a crash like
+thunder into the sea below, overwhelming in its fall the little inn known
+as the “Santa Caterina” and burying in its ruins two English ladies and
+several fishermen. The sinister scar still continues as a blot upon the
+lovely landscape, speaking only too eloquently to all of sudden death and
+destruction amidst the surrounding scenes of life and beauty. The older
+portion of the Capuchin convent, by a miracle as it were, escaped the
+on-rush of the land-slide, but its famous “Calvary,” the large group of
+the Crucifixion that appears prominently in so many pictures of Amalfi,
+was completely swept away, so that the boatmen from the sands below can no
+longer behold the immense vivid representation of the Last Agony which was
+wont to greet their upturned eyes. Already Time’s kindly hand has begun to
+drape the scene of the catastrophe with a decent mourning veil of grey and
+green, for the hardy succulent plants that can withstand the sun’s fierce
+rays and can thrive despite the boisterous salt sea-winds are already
+sprouting from every crack and cranny of the riven earth. Perhaps it is as
+well for us selfish and self-satisfied mortals to possess a _memento mori_
+close at hand in a spot so teeming with the joy of life; yet somehow the
+first sight of that mass of broken headland and the dark ominous fissure
+in the hill-side, flung across the sunlit scene, is apt to send a slight
+shiver through the frame of the beholder.
+
+There are three indisputable advantages to be gained by turning a
+suppressed religious house into a modern hotel, so a cunning old Italian
+inn-keeper once confided to us; that is, of course, provided one is not
+afraid of the proverbial curse that clings to the buying of any of the
+Church’s sequestrated property. These three things are good air, good
+water, and lovely views; benefits that a layman is fully as competent to
+understand as any cloistered ecclesiastic. And certainly the worthy Vozzi
+are fully justified in offering these privileges to their guests at the
+Albergo Cappuccini. Signor Vozzi! How many travellers in the South recall
+with infinite pleasure their host’s tall commanding figure, his snowy
+drooping whiskers, the sun-shade that was rarely out of his hand, his
+old-fashioned courteous manners, and his famous family of cats, whereof
+the coal-black Nerone was the prime favourite, a feline monster almost as
+tyrannical as his Imperial namesake of evil reputation. Signor Vozzi’s
+striking personality, the sable fur of agate-eyed Nerone, the eternal
+sunshine, and the wide all-embracing views over sea and land, are somehow
+all jumbled together in our perplexed mind, as it recurs to the many days
+spent beneath the convent roof. Nay, not beneath the roof! For we were
+wont to pass the whole day, even the short December day, in basking on the
+warm sheltered terrace and peering over the busy beach and the dazzling
+waters below, whereon the tale of Amalfitan fisher-life could be read as
+it were from the pages of a book.
+
+Somehow the old monastic buildings appear marvellously well adapted to
+modern needs. The former inmates’ cells, wherein the brown-robed brethren
+of the Order of St Francis until lately were wont to pass their placid
+uneventful lives, afford comfortable if somewhat limited accommodation;
+whilst the covered _loggia_ that runs the whole length of the cells has
+been turned into a series of delightful little sitting-rooms, their broad
+arc-shaped windows facing full south, a boon that only a winter resident
+in Italy can properly appreciate. _Dove non entra il sole, entra il
+medico_, is a hackneyed but well-proven adage; consequently here in the
+old Capuchin convent the services of the local medicine-man ought rarely
+to be required. Signor Vozzi’s guests partake of their meals in the
+ancient refectory, a large bare echoing chamber with a vaulted ceiling,
+which still contains the old stone pulpit from which in more pious days a
+grave brother was wont to read aloud choice passages from the works of the
+early Fathers of the Church or of St Bonaventura, the Seraphic Doctor of
+the Franciscans, during the hours allotted to the frugal repasts of the
+friars. But the public rooms and the cool white-washed corridors do not
+present such attractions as the glorious garden with its famous _pergola_
+and its views of the Bay. Here even in Christmas week we found quantities
+of plants in full bloom: the delicate yellow blossoms of the Soffrana
+rose; trailing ivy-leaved geraniums with gay heads of carmine flowers; the
+honey-scented budleia with its little globes of dark yellow flowerets:
+clumps of gorgeous scarlet salvia; and straggling masses of the pretty
+cosmia, red, pink and white. Humming-bird hawk-moths darted hither and
+thither in the sunshine, restless little creatures whose wings are never
+for a moment still, as they poise gracefully over each separate blossom in
+turn. The _pergola_ itself, which every artist at Amalfi paints as a
+matter of course, generally with a Capuchin friar—at least a friar _pro
+hac vice_—or a pretty dark-eyed damsel in the native costume, sitting in
+the foreground, was certainly bare of foliage, we admit, for even in the
+soft warm air of the Bay of Salerno the grape-vine wisely refuses to burst
+into leaf at Yuletide, no matter how enticing the warmth. But the thick
+white pillars and their wooden cross-beams, around which are entwined the
+leafless coiling limbs of the sleeping vine, throw dark blue patterns of
+chequered shadow upon the sunlit ground. Above the terraced garden rises
+the orangery, well watered by many artificial rillets, and from the midst
+of the orange and lemon trees there emerges a path leading to the
+entrancing _bosco_, or grove, that fills the deep hollow space formed by
+the sheltering cliffs behind. It was mid-winter, as we have said, yet pink
+cyclamens and strong-scented double narcissi were blooming freely, whilst
+from the dark boughs of the ilex trees overhead there fell upon the ear
+the pleasant twittering of innumerable birds, for happily the cruel snare
+and the gun are strictly forbidden in this sacred spot, so that his
+“little sisters, the birds,” that the gentle Saint of Assisi loved so
+tenderly, can still sing their songs of innocence and build their nests in
+peace amidst the trees that no longer remain the property of the great
+humanitarian Order. At nightfall this garden is almost equally beautiful
+beneath a star-lit sky and with the many lamps of the town below throwing
+long bars of yellow light upon the placid waters of the Bay. As we pace
+the long terrace, wrapped in the glory of a million stars and revelling in
+the exalted yet fairy-like loveliness of the scene around us, we perceive
+the mellow night air to be redolent of a strange but fascinating perfume.
+It is the _olea fragrans_, the humble inconspicuous oriental shrub that
+from its clusters of tiny white flowers is thus giving out its secret soul
+at the falling of the night dews, and permeating the whole garden with its
+marvellous floral incense. But if the star-lit, flower-scented nights of
+Amalfi are to be accounted as exquisite memories, how much more glorious
+and exhilarating is the rising of the sun, as he appears in full majesty
+of crimson and gold above the classic hills that overlook Paestum to the
+east! Leaning at early dawn from the windows of the Cappuccini, we have
+watched the sky flush at the first caress of “rosy-fingered Eôs” and seen
+the fragment of the waning moon turn to silver at the approach of the
+burning God of Day, still tarrying behind the lofty barrier of the capes
+and mountains of the Lucanian shore.
+
+  “Slowly beyond the headlands comes the day,
+  Though moon and planet on a sky of gold,
+  Chequered with orange and vermilion-stoled,
+  Have floated long before the sun’s first ray
+  Has shot across the waters to display
+  Amalfi in her dotage; as of old
+  His beams lit up her splendours manifold,
+  Her quays and palaces that fringed the bay.
+  His smile makes every barren hill-side blush
+  In rose and purple for the glories fled,
+  As early watchers note th’ encroaching flush
+  From proud Ravello to Atrani spread,
+  And curse the cruel arm that once did crush
+  This sea-sprung Niobe, and leave her dead.”
+
+  [Illustration: AMALFI]
+
+Dead, alas! For the old liberties of the great Republic of Amalfi have
+been extinct for more than half a thousand years, and it is in consequence
+difficult for us to realise that the quaint noisy squalid picturesque
+little city by the sea-shore, huddled into the narrow gorge of the
+Canneto, is that self-same Amalfi whose navies rode triumphant over the
+Mediterranean before the days of the Early Crusades. Yet Amalfi, which may
+be reckoned amongst the first-born of that fair family of medieval cities
+that their prolific parent the land of Italy brought forth in an age of
+darkness, was also the foremost to droop and die, her glories scattered
+and passed before Florence had ceased to be an obscure country town. In
+this case History presents to us a most forcible, not to say an unique
+example of the origin, rise and decline of a power, all occurring within a
+short space of time. Amalfi springs, as it were, out of the void as a city
+of importance, for no Roman colony occupied its site in antique times. Its
+very nomenclature is a puzzle to scholars, and the usual statement that it
+owed its name to Byzantine settlers coming hither from the ancient town of
+Melfi in the Basilicata does not sound very convincing, though for want of
+a better theory it must suffice. Why, when, and by whom the city was in
+reality founded remains an enigma, yet we learn from a passage in one of
+the letters of St Gregory the Great that the place was of sufficient size
+to be governed by a bishop in the sixth century. By the tenth we find the
+Republic of Amalfi already risen to a position of commanding importance,
+and holding its own against the rival states between which its territories
+were wedged; the dukedom of Naples to the west and the principality of
+Salerno to eastward. Dexterously playing on the greed and prejudices of
+the various tyrants who ruled Naples and Salerno, and occasionally allying
+itself with them in order to repel the fierce attacks of their common
+enemy, the Saracenic hordes who were then harrying the Lucanian coast,
+Amalfi continued to uphold its political freedom and dignity in the face
+of immense difficulties. And in gratitude for the vigour with which the
+Amalfitani had waged war against the infidel invaders, Pope Leo IV. in
+course of time conferred upon the Duke or Doge, the chief magistrate of
+the Republic, the title of “Defender of the Faith.” Nominally under the
+suzerainty of the Greek Emperor at Constantinople, Amalfi was practically
+independent; its system of government was conducted on lines somewhat akin
+to those of aristocratic Venice; its population is said to have exceeded
+fifty thousand in the capital city alone; its boundaries extended from the
+Promontory of Minerva on the west to the town of Cetara upon the confines
+of Salerno; whilst many daughter-towns of wealth and importance, such as
+Scala and Ravello, sprang into being within the narrow limits of the
+sea-girt republic. Owning a small and by no means fertile extent of land,
+the inhabitants of Amalfi from its earliest days were forced to become
+merchants and sailors; to use a modern phrase, the Amalfitani came to
+possess a complete monopoly of trade with Eastern lands, both Christian
+and Mahommedan. It was the ships of the Republic that alone brought to the
+shores of Italy the rich stuffs, the gold and silver embroideries, the
+dried fruits and the strange birds and beasts of Asia Minor and Arabia,
+and in exchange for their oriental merchandise obtained an abundance of
+corn, wine, oil, meat and other commodities of life that their beautiful
+but somewhat sterile dominions were unable to supply to an ever increasing
+population. But it was not only the material products of the East that the
+sailors of Amalfi conveyed to Europe in their home-bound argosies; for
+they brought back with them the rudiments of arts and sciences that
+distracted Italy had well-nigh forgotten during the period of the
+barbarian invasions. Through the merchant princes of Amalfi, the secrets
+of astronomy, of mathematics and of scientific navigation were
+re-introduced into the land that had almost lost its old Roman
+civilization. A priceless manuscript of that great code of laws, the
+Pandects, which a Byzantine Emperor, the famous Justinian, had caused to
+be compiled with such skill and labour, putting into concise and accurate
+form the collected wisdom of generations of Roman jurists, was included
+amongst the treasures of the East that were borne back to Italy in the
+Republic’s vessels. And in addition to restoring the old Roman
+jurisprudence to its original home, the city of Amalfi had the honour of
+promulgating the celebrated _Tabula Amalphitana_, the new maritime laws
+that were henceforth destined to regulate the whole commercial system of
+the western world. No marvel then that the poet William of Apulia should
+praise in unmeasured terms the glories of the new-sprung city, whose trade
+extended to the shores of India and whose merchants possessed independent
+settlements in every great city of the Levant.
+
+  “Nulla magis civitas argento, vestibus, auro
+  Partibus innumeris; hac plurimus urbe moratur
+  Nauta marit coelique vias aperiri peritus.
+  Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe
+  Regia et Antiochi. Zeus haec freta plurima transit
+  His Arabes, Indi, Siculi nascuntur et Afri.
+  Haec genus est totum prope nobilitata per orbem,
+  Et mercanda ferens, et amans mercata referre.”
+
+  (“No city richer in its store of gold,
+  Of precious stones and silks doth Europe hold;
+  Her skilful mariners o’er treacherous seas
+  With aid of compass sail where’er they please.
+  From Egypt and from Antioch they land,
+  Their precious cargoes on th’ Italian strand.
+  Scathless Amalfi’s navies penetrate
+  The distant ports of every Paynim state.
+  Match me throughout the circuit of this earth
+  Another race so full of zeal and worth.”)
+
+A small state on a barren shore, yet the holder of the balance between
+East and West by means of its wide-spread commerce, such was Amalfi during
+the tenth and eleventh centuries. In some respects this Republic of the
+Middle Ages appears as the prototype of the Venice of the Renaissance, for
+there is not a little in common between the city that was built upon the
+marshy islets of the Adriatic lagoons, and the city that was erected at
+the base of the treacherous cliffs of the Tyrrhene Sea. Solely by means of
+commerce both foundations rose from nothingness to splendour and power:
+both held the gorgeous East in fee; and both fell lamentably from their
+high estate. The chief point of difference in this comparison of their
+careers is obvious; Amalfi collapsed suddenly and utterly, whilst the
+Queen of the Adriatic has sunk gradually to decay until she has become the
+interesting monument of a vanished magnificence which we admire to-day.
+
+It was the rising naval power of Pisa that finally crushed the greatness
+of Amalfi, although the Republic had already entered into its days of
+decline when Robert Guiscard at the time of the First Crusade had
+temporarily annexed its dominions to his new principality. Some thirty
+years later King Roger of Naples forcibly seized the whole of the Costiera
+d’Amalfi, allowing the citizens to retain their own form of government.
+Four years after this, the Pisan fleet, coming to aid the people of Naples
+against King Roger, utterly destroyed the once vaunted navy of Amalfi, and
+sacked both the city itself and the two hill-set towns of Scala and
+Ravello. Its political liberty had already been crushed by the Normans,
+and now its ships and its wealth were dissipated by the Pisans; it was a
+double measure of ignominy and disaster from which Amalfi never recovered.
+Amidst its humiliations and sorrows, the stricken city had also to mourn
+the loss of its greatest treasure, its secular _palladium_, that most
+precious copy of the Pandects of Justinian, which the Pisan marauders
+seized and carried back with them to their city on the Arno. Here in Pisa
+the famous volume remained in safe keeping for some three hundred years,
+and then, as Time’s round brought its inevitable vengeance on the
+plunderers of Amalfi, it was removed by the victorious Florentines to
+their own city. So intense a veneration for the book itself now manifested
+itself amongst the scholars and students of Florence, that at one period
+offerings of incense were often made to the inscribed wisdom of past ages
+as to a most holy relic of some Saint, and the clerk or jurist about to
+peruse its faded characters was wont, first of all, to breathe a prayer of
+genuine gratitude on his knees for the preservation of this ancient book.
+Amalfi, Pisa, Florence, each in its turn has owned the guardianship of
+this most famous literary jewel, which is to-day jealously guarded as the
+chief treasure of the world-renowned Laurentian Library.
+
+It is true that the prosperity of Amalfi did not disappear immediately
+after the inroad of the Pisans, for Boccaccio, writing in the fourteenth
+century, still speaks of the ancient territory of the destroyed Republic
+as “a rocky ridge beside a smiling sea, which its inhabitants call the
+Costa d’Amalfi; full of little cities, of gardens, of fountains, and of
+rich and enterprising merchants.” It was in fact reserved for relentless
+Nature herself to complete the work of destruction that Norman armies and
+Pisan fleets had more than half accomplished. We have already spoken of
+the terrible land-slips to which this beautiful shore is eminently
+subject, even at the present day, as the mass of wreckage outside the old
+Capuchin convent only too clearly testifies. In the year 1343, during the
+progress of a storm of exceptional fury, of which the poet Petrarch has
+left us a vivid account in one of his letters, the greater part of the
+devoted city was swept away by a tidal wave. The whole line of quays
+stretching from the headland by the Cappuccini to the point of Atrani on
+the east, together with churches, palaces, and warehouses, was now
+swallowed up by the surging waters and engulfed for ever in the depths of
+the sea; and thus the very element that had brought wealth, power, and
+prosperity to Amalfi in the past now proved the direct cause of her final
+calamity. With this fearful cataclysm of Nature following upon the heels
+of its political extinction, we can hardly wonder at the rapid decline of
+this “Athens of the Middle Ages,” whose population has now sunk to about
+one seventh part of the 50,000 citizens it once boasted in the far distant
+days of her maritime supremacy.
+
+Reflecting upon the famous past of this ancient city, let us descend the
+steep pathway from the terrace of the Cappuccini to visit the crowded
+beach below. Here we find ourselves in the midst of a cheerful animated
+throng, engaged in mending nets, in painting boats, and in other
+occupations connected with a sea-faring life. The tall fantastic houses
+with balconied windows that line the curve of the sea-shore, the
+glistening sands and the brown-legged, gay-capped fishermen, combine to
+present a charming picture of southern Italian life, so that we could
+gladly linger in observing the ever-changing scenes of life and industry.
+But we cannot tarry long, for the ubiquitous beggars who have begun to
+pester us ever since we passed the hotel gates have meantime dogged our
+descending footsteps, and their forces have been recruited on the way
+hither by many willing assistants. No doubt the vast majority of the
+Amalfitani are hard working and self-respecting, for the little town
+possesses maccaroni factories and old-established paper mills of no small
+importance, yet it is obvious that a considerable portion of the total
+population and at least one-half of all the children spend their whole
+time in demanding alms of strangers. Before, behind, and from a distance
+arises the ceaseless cry of “_Qual co’ signor’! Fame! Fame!_” in hateful
+tones of make-belief misery, and these whining appeals are aided by all
+the expressive pantomimic gestures of the South. You are placed on the
+horns of a dilemma: give, and the report that a generous and fabulously
+wealthy Signore has arrived in Amalfi will run like wild-fire through the
+whole place, and your life in consequence will become an absolute burden
+for the remainder of your sojourn in this spot. Refuse, and the wretches
+who have hitherto been wheedling and cringing at your heels, will at once
+grow insolent and threatening, especially in the case of unprotected
+ladies. It is in fact a choice of two evils, and the only remedy that we
+ourselves can suggest is for the persecuted traveller to select a good
+stout larrikin and pay him freely to keep at arm’s length his detestable
+brothers and sisters in professional beggary. But the uninitiated usually
+endure these odious importunities for a certain length of time, and then,
+exasperated by the unchecked mendicancy of the place, at last fly
+precipitately from this beautiful shore, to seek comparative peace and
+freedom elsewhere. For it is useless to argue; it is foolish, even
+dangerous to grow angry. “Why should we give to you?” we asked one day in
+desperation of a particularly persistent woman. “Because,” was the
+unabashed and impudent but unanswerable reply, “you have much, and I have
+nothing!” Driven by these human pests from the sunlit strand, we make our
+way through the busy piazza, where peasant women with piles of fruit and
+vegetables make a glowing mass of colour around the central fountain below
+St Andrew’s statue, and proceed towards the Valley of the Mills. A
+different phase of Amalfitan life now greets us, for here are to be found
+the hard-working bees of this human hive, and it must be confessed their
+ways make an agreeable change from the habits of the pestering drones that
+infest the beach and the neighbourhood of the hotels. The whole of the
+steep rocky gorge of that tiny torrent the Canneto is full of mills, each
+emitting a whirring sound which mingles with the continual plash of the
+water as it descends in miniature cascades the full length of the ravine,
+providing in its headlong course towards the sea the motive power required
+to turn all this quantity of machinery. Bridges span the Canneto at
+several points, whilst either bank is occupied by tiny factories of paper
+or soap, and by winding stone stair-ways that lead upward to terraces
+contrived to catch the sunshine for the purpose of drying the goods. The
+whole valley, with its strong contrasting effects of sun and shade and its
+varied atmosphere of intense heat and of chilly dampness, is full of
+seething picturesque humanity. The combined sounds of creaking wheels, of
+falling water and of human chattering are almost deafening within this
+narrow echo-filled gorge, above which in the far distance we catch a
+glimpse of rocky heights with the town of Scala perched eyrie-like against
+the deep blue of the sky overhead. Pretty laughing girls, bare-footed and
+with marvellously white teeth, emerge from the open door-ways to smile
+pleasantly at us, for the workers of the Valle de’ Molini are thoroughly
+accustomed to the presence of strangers in their midst. Half-naked men,
+who have stepped for a moment out of the hot rooms of the maccaroni
+factories in order to breathe the fresh air, regard us with calm disdain
+and without any seeming interest. Our presence is tolerated, even if our
+reception excites no feelings of surprise or cordiality, so that we are
+allowed to pursue our walk up the ever-narrowing valley in peace and
+comfort and to admire at our leisure the wonderfully beautiful effects of
+colouring produced by the cascades of purple-stained water, the graceful
+forms and gay dresses of the girls, and the peeps of fruit-laden orange
+trees above fern-clad walls. And how dark the people are! For though black
+eyes and hair are commonly associated with the Italian race, yet in the
+North we find abundant evidence of the admixture of Teutonic blood, whilst
+in the South the fair-haired Norman settlers have left indelible marks of
+their conquest of Naples and Sicily in many blue-eyed and white-skinned
+descendants; but here in Amalfi a blonde complexion seems to be absolutely
+unknown. “_Com’ è bianco! Com’ è bianco!_” called out one of a party of
+girls with swarthy skin and ebon hair and tresses, who languidly came out
+to stare at us, as we wended our way slowly up the Valley of the Mills.
+
+  [Illustration: IN THE VALLEY OF THE MILLS, AMALFI]
+
+But the chief pride of Amalfi, and indeed its sole surviving fragment of
+departed magnificence, is the Cathedral, dedicated to St Andrew the
+Apostle, who is patron of the city. A broad flight of steps, flanked on
+either side by the Archbishop’s Palace and the residence of the Canons,
+leads to a platform covered by a most beautiful Gothic _loggia_ set with
+richly traceried windows and upheld by antique marble columns. At its
+northernmost angle we see springing into the blue aether the tall graceful
+red-and-white striped campanile, surmounted by its barbaric-looking
+green-tiled cupola and pinnacles. Facing the top of the steps are the two
+magnificent doors, specially designed in distant Byzantium to embellish
+this church more than eight hundred years ago, and cast by the famous
+artist in bronze, Staurachios. Two Latin inscriptions, incised in letters
+of silver upon the baser metal, relate to the world that one Pantaleone,
+son of Maurice, caused this work to be undertaken in honour of the holy
+Apostle Andrew, in order that he might obtain pardon for the sins he had
+committed whilst upon earth. These glorious gates were the gifts to their
+native city of members of the family of Pantaleone of Amalfi, merchant
+princes who had amassed an immense fortune by trade in the Levant. They
+are splendid specimens of _niello_ work, which consisted in ornamenting a
+surface of bronze by engraving upon it lines that were subsequently filled
+in with coloured enamel or with some precious metal. These portals of
+Amalfi, perhaps the earliest example in Southern Italy of this rare form
+of art, are divided into panels adorned with Scriptural subjects simply
+and quaintly treated, wherein the stiff attitudes of the figures and the
+many long straight lines introduced testify plainly enough to their
+Byzantine origin and workmanship. As we enter the cool dark
+incense-scented building, we note that though cruelly maltreated by the
+baroque enthusiasts of the eighteenth century, the general effect of the
+interior is still impressive with its rows of ancient pillars and its
+richly decorated roof. On all sides marble fragments with exquisite
+reliefs meet the eye, spoils evidently filched from the abandoned city of
+Paestum across the Salernian Bay and presented to the church by the Norman
+conquerors of Amalfi. After inspecting the classical bas-reliefs, we
+descend into the ancient crypt, which well-meaning artists have completely
+encased with a covering of precious marbles and garish frescoes of the
+Neapolitan school. It is a place of more than local sanctity, this
+modernized crypt, for the possession of the relics of the Apostle which
+Cardinal Capuano proudly brought hither after the sack of Constantinople
+in the early years of the thirteenth century, was considered by many to
+constitute a sufficient recompense to Amalfi for her lost independence.
+Popes and sovereigns were in the habit of approaching the shrine, and the
+number of these illustrious visitors includes the names of St Francis of
+Assisi, Pope Urban IV., the holy St Bridget of Sweden, and the notorious
+Queen Joanna II. of Naples. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope
+Pius II., however, seems to have thought Amalfi, ever dwindling in size
+and importance, too mean a place to own so great a treasure, and he
+accordingly transported the head of the Saint to Rome, where it is now
+accounted amongst the four chief relics of St Peter’s. Perhaps it was to
+counterbalance the loss of so important a member of the Saint’s anatomy,
+that in the succeeding century there arose a report which spoke of the
+rescue of certain relics of the Apostle Andrew during the headlong course
+of the Reformation in Scotland. The most precious objects preserved in the
+Cathedral of St Andrew’s, says this legend, were secretly saved from the
+expected fury of Knox’s partisans and brought to Amalfi, where they were
+reverently added to the store of remains that had survived the plundering
+of Pius II. Whether or no there be any truth in this somewhat fantastic
+theory, it is enough to state that St Andrew continues to be patron Saint
+of this maritime city, for which office the character of the Galilean
+fisherman who was called to be a fisher of men seems specially
+appropriate. Nevertheless, despite the valuable additions made in
+Reformation days, the sanctity of the shrine is not held so high as it
+used to be. No longer do the venerated bones ooze with the sweet-scented
+moisture that in medieval days was piously collected to be used for
+purposes so varied as the curing of warts, or the scattering of Paynim
+fleets! Yet so late as the days of Tasso, the great Apostle himself was
+evidently connected in the popular mind with the performance of so bizarre
+a miracle:—
+
+  “Vide in sembianza placida e tranquilla
+  Il Divo, che di manna Amalfi instilla.”
+
+But although the present times are too sinful to allow of the distillation
+of the fragrant dew of Amalfi, we observe the kneeling forms of not a few
+intent worshippers within the dimly-lighted crypt, in the midst of which
+the Spaniard Naccarino’s bronze figure of the Apostle uprises with
+dignified mien and life-like attitude. Sant’ Andrea is still “Il Divo,”
+the tutelary god of the Amalfitani; he remains in the estimation of these
+simple ignorant folk the special protector of the community. Times and
+ideas change, but not the old deep-rooted feeling of a personal tie
+between the Saint and his favoured people.
+
+We were lucky in happening upon the great popular festival of Sant’ Andrea
+during our visit to Amalfi, and consequently were enabled not only to
+witness a picturesque scene of considerable splendour, but also to observe
+how strong a devotion the Amalfitani still manifest towards their own
+especial Saint. With the first flush of early dawn, discharges of mortars
+from the beach and the neighbouring hills began to arouse the echoes and
+to remind the still slumbering population that once more the great
+anniversary had arrived. The world was quickly astir to do honour to the
+great St Andrew, and from a very early hour an interminable stream of
+peasants and villagers, young and old, male and female, began to enter the
+town from all quarters, and to congregate in the piazza where stands the
+large fountain crowned by the Saint’s own effigy. Here with exemplary
+patience the throng waited until the hour of the ceremony in the Cathedral
+drew nigh. Within the huge building priests and lay-helpers were actively
+employed in preparing for the event, and by their exertions the whole
+interior had been transformed into what may be best described as a
+magnificent ball-room, for every blank wall had been covered with
+draperies of rich crimson damask and the very pillars had been swathed
+from base to capital in the same gorgeous material. Innumerable old
+cut-glass chandeliers, that had reposed since the last _festa di Sant’
+Andrea_ in huge round boxes in some secluded vault, had been slung by
+means of cords from the ceiling and the arches of the nave, whilst a large
+number of mirrors set in carved gilt frames had been affixed to various
+points of the walls and columns. The fine marble pavement lay thickly
+strewn with bay and myrtle leaves, emitting a pleasant wholesome scent
+when crushed under foot by the picturesque but somewhat malodorous crowd
+of fisher-folk and peasants. On entering the church, at the first sound of
+the bells booming over head, we found ourselves heavily pressed by the
+surging throng of worshippers, and it was only with difficulty we could
+obtain a sight of the ceremonies at the high altar, prominent upon which
+stood the silver bust of the Apostle containing the precious relics. It
+was a typical Italian _festa_. The chanting was harsh and discordant; the
+antiquated inharmonious organ emitted unexpected squeals, as if in
+positive pain; there was, it is needless to add, a complete absence of
+that “churchy” demeanour which passes for reverence in the North; yet
+withal, despite the shrill discordant music, the tawdry embellishments of
+the grand old building and the absence of propriety of the crowd, there
+was perceptible some mysterious underlying force that compelled us to note
+the extraordinary hold the Church has upon the people of Southern Italy.
+For all this throng of persons had assembled that day with one definite
+purpose: to see their universal friend and patron, their Saint and their
+worker of domestic miracles; they had come to pay their homage to a
+celestial acquaintance, with whom, thanks to the Church’s teaching, they
+had all been intimate from their cradles. They had not thus assembled at
+an early hour, deserting their mills and their shops, their boats and
+their nets, renouncing their chances of gain, to hear a preacher’s
+eloquence or to listen to fine music, but merely to pay their annual visit
+of respect to their Spiritual Master. Why should we aliens intrude upon so
+private a gathering? In any case, we have grown weary of standing in the
+close sickly atmosphere, wherein the fragrance of the crushed bay-leaves,
+the fumes of incense and the strange smell of garlic-eating humanity blend
+in an oppressive manner. We push our way through the eager and intent
+congregation, and gaining the door-way step with a sigh of relief into the
+sunshine that is flooding the _loggia_. But it is too hot to remain here,
+and we descend the great stair-case in order to take up a post of vantage
+in the shade on the opposite side of the piazza; having gained our desired
+position we expect in patience the arrival of the procession. Nor have we
+very long to wait. The officials of the town suddenly dart forward to
+clear the steps of their crowd of ragged children, and almost
+simultaneously the great bronze doors of Pantaleone are flung open to the
+sweet air and the sunshine. It was a wonderful and deeply interesting
+experience to watch the glittering train slowly emerge from the darkness
+of the church into the glare of day, and then descend that stately flight
+of marble stairs to the sound of joy-bells and to the accompaniment of
+explosions of fireworks. First came the leading members of the various
+Confraternities of the little city, all bearing tapers whose tongues of
+flame shone feebly in the fierce contemptuous sunlight, and all wearing
+snow-white smocks and coloured scarves. Red, green, blue, white, purple,
+yellow, gleamed the huge banners of these different societies, each borne
+by a tall _vessillifero_, or standard bearer, assisted by quaint solemn
+little figures who acted as pages. Then followed the body of the clergy in
+copes of white and gold, with eyes downcast as they chaunted in loud nasal
+tones from books in their hands; next came the Canons of the Cathedral in
+fine old festal vestments reserved for such occasions and with mitres on
+their heads, for Amalfi clings to the ancient ecclesiastical privileges
+that were granted in distant days when Florence and Venice were little
+more than villages. Last of all walked the Archbishop, an aged tottering
+figure, weighed down by his cope of cloth of gold and seemingly crushed
+beneath his immense jewelled mitre. Two lackeys, almost as infirm as their
+venerable master, and clad in threadbare liveries edged with armorial
+braid, were in close attendance, whilst behind the Archbishop, beneath a
+gorgeous canopy of state upheld by six white-robed assistants, was borne
+the great silver bust of St Andrew. The appearance of the Image of “Il
+Divo,” upon which the sunbeams were playing in dazzling coruscations of
+light, was greeted with a murmur of applause and satisfaction from the
+expectant crowd in the open. Hats were doffed; knees were bent; prayers
+were muttered, as with slow and cautious steps the bearers of the Image
+and its canopy began to descend. Having gained the lower ground in safety,
+a momentary halt was made, during which we were able to note the mass of
+votive offerings—jewels, chains, rings, watches, seals—suspended round the
+Saint’s neck, amongst them being many silver fishes, doubtless the gifts
+of grateful mariners. And at this point we were spectators of a pretty
+incident. A little girl with black ringlets and eager eyes was dexterously
+lifted on to her father’s shoulder, in order that she might present “Il
+Divo” with a golden chain, which the tiny fingers deftly clasped round the
+bejewelled neck of the silver bust. The crowd saw and applauded; it was a
+moment of triumph for the dark-eyed child, for the Church, and for the
+approving throng. With the new addition of the child’s necklet to the
+treasury of the Saint, the procession pursued its way through the square
+towards the Valley of the Mills, with banners waving, with priests
+chaunting in harsh monotonous tones, and with clouds of incense rising
+into the sun-kissed air. It was truly a beautiful and curious sight, this
+festival of the Church amidst people so devout and surroundings so
+appropriate.
+
+  [Illustration: AMALFI: PIAZZA AND DUOMO]
+
+On his safe return to his now brilliantly lighted Cathedral, the Saint was
+welcomed with indescribable enthusiasm. The crazy old organ was made to
+produce the loudest and liveliest of music; the uniformed municipal band
+awoke the echoes of the venerable but bedizened fabric with its
+complimentary braying; and urchins were even permitted to scatter
+fire-crackers upon the floor in honour of the event. It was a real
+ecclesiastical Saturnalia of a most innocent and joyous description. All
+Amalfi spent the remaining hours of day-light in feasting, dancing and
+singing, and when at last darkness fell upon the merry scene, rockets and
+Roman candles were seen to spring into the night air from many points in
+the landscape, illumining the sea with quickly dying trails of coloured
+light. Watching the bonfires and the fireworks, and listening to the
+sounds of revelry and song arising from the town below, we pondered over
+our experiences of the day as we paced our airy terrace of the Cappuccini.
+Surely the South has remained immutable for centuries in its deeply rooted
+love of religious festivals. The forefathers of these devotees of Andrew
+the Fisherman were equally enthusiastic worshippers of Poseidon or of
+Apollo. The Church has not in reality altered the outer attributes; it has
+but added a special moral significance to the old pagan gatherings. The
+ancient gods of Greece and Rome are dethroned, and their very names
+forgotten by the populace; but their cult survives, for it has been
+adapted to the glorification of Christian Saints. True it is that the
+milk-white sacrificial oxen and the gay garlands of antiquity have been
+omitted; nevertheless, there remain the music, the incense and the
+unrestrained jollity of the people. Much that is beautiful and suggestive
+has perished, yet there survives enough of the old classical ritual for us
+to see that the true spirit of antiquity has never wholly died out amongst
+these sunburnt children of Magna Graecia.
+
+  “See the long stair with colour all ablaze,
+  With banners swaying in pellucid air,
+  As mitred priests with cautious footsteps bear
+  The silver Image, flashing back the rays
+  Of jealous Phoebus—Ah! the altered days
+  When these Lucanians with wind-lifted hair,
+  Blossom-bedecked, with limbs and bosoms bare,
+  Sang to Apollo psalms of love and praise!
+  With bells and salvoes all the hills resound,
+  And incense mingles with the atmosphere,
+  As still this Southern race, ill-clothed, uncrowned,
+  Retains the memory of the Pagan year,
+  When changed, yet all unchanged, Time’s round
+  Makes the Jew Fisherman a god appear.”
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VII
+
+
+                          RAVELLO AND THE RUFOLI
+
+
+No visit to Amalfi can be considered complete without ascending to the
+decayed town of Ravello, that crowns the rocky heights to the north-east
+of the parent city by the sea-shore. The road thither leads along the
+beach, passing between the picturesque old convent that is now the Hotel
+Luna, beloved of artists, and the solitary watch tower on the precipice
+which stands sentinel above the waters on our right hand. At this point we
+turn the corner, and find ourselves in Atrani, lying in the deep gorge of
+the Dragone and joining its buildings to those of Amalfi on the road above
+the beach. Prominent upon the steep ridge that separates the two cities
+stands the ruined keep of Pontone, the last relic of the town of Scaletta
+that was a flourishing place in days of the Republic. A tall belfry of
+peculiar and striking architecture which dominates Atrani is usually
+attributed to the art of the Saracens, whom King Manfred called in to
+garrison this place during his wars with Pope Innocent IV. Atrani, which
+is but a suburb of Amalfi, suffered equally with the Capital during the
+great upheaval of Nature that desolated this coast in the fourteenth
+century, so that little of interest remains except the quaint church of
+San Salvatore a Bireta, wherein the Doges of Amalfi were once elected and
+crowned. This ancient building lies hidden in a sandy cove beneath the
+roadway, and those who care to run the gauntlet of beggars and descend to
+the beach below, can examine its beautiful bronze doors, which the
+generous citizen Pantaleone gave _pro mercede animae suae et merito S.
+Sebastiani Martyris_. But there is very little else to inspect, for the
+interior has been hopelessly modernized.
+
+Soon after passing Atrani we turn sharply up hill to the left, and begin
+our ascent towards Ravello. The dusty white road winds upwards through a
+region of carefully cultivated terraces filled with olives and vines,
+intermingled here and there with orange, lemon, fig, and pomegranate
+trees. As we gain higher ground, our horizon tends ever to widen, and we
+behold the expanse of sea and sky melting in the far distance into “some
+shade of blue unnameable,” whilst the mountain-fringed ring of the Bay of
+Salerno becomes vividly mapped out to our eyes from the Cape of Minerva to
+the Punta di Licosia. On our left we peer down into the depths of the dark
+ravine of the Dragone, whose black shadows are popularly supposed to give
+its name of Atrani to the cheerful little town we have left behind. Let us
+thank Heaven that we are at last out of reach of the beggars, and that the
+only human beings to be encountered upon the road are a few peasants with
+loads of fruit or vegetables, and an occasional charcoal-burner bearing
+his grimy burden to the town below. The _carbonaio_ with his blackened
+face and queer outlandish garments is a familiar figure throughout all
+parts of Southern Italy. He belongs to a race apart, that dwells in the
+belt of forest land clothing the higher hills, and he only descends to the
+cities of the shore and the plain in order to sell his goods. He is
+despised by the sharper-witted townsman, who beats down his prices for the
+combustibles he has borne with such fatigue from his distant mountain
+home. Sometimes the old people are despatched to do the money bargaining,
+the selling and buying. Look at the old couple at this moment passing us;
+an aged man and woman that Theocritus might have known in earlier days
+when the world was less civilized and less greedy of gain. With bare
+travel-stained feet, with feeble frames supported by long staves and with
+the heavy sacks of charcoal on their bent backs, the modern Baucis and
+Philemon crawl along the white road beneath a broiling sun, patient and
+uncomplaining, and apparently with no feelings of envy as they cast one
+careless glance at our carriage. Weary and foot-sore, they will only
+obtain a few _quattrini_ in the town for all their toil and trouble, and
+then they must retrace every step up the long hill-side, with their little
+stock of provisions to help eke out a miserable existence. Yet can any
+life in such a climate and amid such surroundings be truly accounted
+miserable, we ask, no matter how humble the dwelling or frugal the fare?
+
+As our carriage creeps slowly upward, we find the land less cultivated,
+and now and again we pass tracts of woodland whence little purling streams
+fall over rocky ledges on to the roadway. We catch sight of small clumps
+of cyclamen, and in the shady hollows we detect tufts of the maiden-hair
+fern—_Capilli di Venere_, “Venus’ tresses,” as the Italians sometimes call
+this graceful little plant. At a curve of the road we are confronted by a
+smiling old peasant with gold rings in his ears, who in the expectation of
+_forestieri_ coming this way has been patiently sitting for hours on a
+boulder. Doffing his battered hat and putting a sunburnt hand to his
+mouth, the old fellow in a deep musical bass wakens all the sleeping
+echoes that lie in the many folds of the valley, so that we hear the words
+of welcome repeated again and again, growing fainter and fainter as the
+sound of the voice travels from cliff to cliff. The performer is delighted
+with a few _soldi_, and the jaded scarecrow of a horse seems pleased with
+his momentary halt. _Iterum altiora petimus_; by degrees we reach the airy
+platform upon which Ravello stands, and finally alight at the comfortable
+old inn so long associated with the excellent family of Palumbo.
+
+Ravello undoubtedly owes its early foundation to certain patrician
+families of Amalfi, which after securing their fortunes decided to leave
+the hot close city beside the shore, and to seek new homes in the bracing
+air of the hill-top above. Placing itself under the protection of the
+powerful Robert Guiscard, Ravello became faithfully attached to the Norman
+interest, and in 1086, at the suggestion of the great Count Roger, who
+cherished a deep regard for the Rufolo family, the town was created a
+bishopric by Pope Victor III. As a subject city of the Norman princes,
+Ravello was during this period at the zenith of its fame and importance.
+Its actual population is unknown at this distant day, but we learn that
+under Count Roger the large area of the city was entirely girdled by
+strong walls set with towers; that it contained thirteen churches, four
+monasteries, many public buildings, and a large number of private palaces.
+Its cathedral was founded in honour of Saint Pantaleone by Niccolò Rufolo,
+Duke of Sora and Grand Admiral of Sicily, the head of the powerful family
+whose name is still gratefully remembered in this half-deserted town. In
+1156 Ravello was honoured by a state visit from Pope Adrian IV.—the
+English monk, Nicholas Breakspear, the only Briton who ever succeeded in
+gaining the papal tiara and who gave the lordship of Ireland to Henry
+Plantagenet—and during his stay the Pontiff was entertained as the guest
+of the all-powerful Rufoli. Born of humble parents in the village of
+Bensington, near Oxford, Nicholas Breakspear became a monk at St Alban’s,
+and having once entered the religious life, he rose by sheer force of
+intellect and an iron strength of will to the attainment of the highest
+honour the Church could bestow. It was in the hey-day of his power that
+the English pope entered Ravello and sang Mass in the Cathedral in the
+presence of all the noble citizens of the place, for in the previous year
+he had crushed for ever the dangerous heresy of Arnold of Brescia, by
+boldly sentencing that ardent reformer to be burnt at the stake in Rome
+and his ashes cast into the Tiber. The Pontiff during his visit sojourned
+in the Palazzo Rufolo, the beautiful Saracenic building that is still
+standing intact after so many centuries, and by a curious coincidence is
+now the property of the well-known English family of Reid. Nor was Pope
+Adrian the only sovereign who honoured Ravello by his presence, for
+Charles of Anjou, brother of St Louis of France and the murderer of poor
+Conradin, and King Robert the Wise also received the hospitality of the
+Rufolo family within these walls. The whole existing town in fact is
+eloquent of the long extinct but by no means forgotten Rufoli, who may
+fairly be reckoned among the more enlightened of the petty tyrants of
+medieval Italy. That their name was still familiar in Italian society in
+the fourteenth century is evident from the circumstances that Boccaccio
+puts a story, no doubt founded on fact, into the mouth of the fair
+Lauretta, which deals with the adventures of one Landolfo Rufolo of
+Ravello, “who, not content with his great store, but anxious to make it
+double, was near losing all he had, and his life also.” The novel proceeds
+to relate how this member of a wealthy and respected family turned
+corsair, after losing all his capital in a mercantile speculation in
+Cyprus; how he, in his turn, was robbed of his ill-gotten gains on the
+high seas by some thievish merchants of Genoa; and how Landolfo, after
+passing through a variety of more or less improbable adventures, was
+finally rescued from drowning off the coast of Corfu by a servant-maid
+who, whilst washing dishes by the sea-shore, chanced to espy the
+unconscious merchant drifting towards the beach with his arms clasped
+round a small wooden chest, which kept him afloat. “Moved by compassion,”
+says the relator of the tale, “she stepped a little way into the sea,
+which was now calm, and seizing the half-drowned wretch by the hair of his
+head, drew both him and the chest to land, where with much trouble she
+unfolded his arms from the chest, which she set upon the head of her
+daughter who was with her. She herself carried Landolfo like a little
+child to the town, put him on a stove, and chafed and washed him with warm
+water, by which means the vital heat began to return, and his strength
+partially revived. In due time she took him from the stove, comforted him
+with wine and good cordials, and kept him some days till he knew where he
+was; she then restored him his chest, and told him he might now provide
+for his departure.”(6) Of course the little chest that Landolfo had
+clutched by chance in his agony of drowning eventually turned out to be
+filled with precious stones, which by a miracle—and miracles were common
+enough in the days of the _Decameron_—not only floated of itself but also
+supported the weight of Master Landolfo. In any case, the rescued
+merchant, with the greed and ingratitude which are often accounted for
+sharpness and wit, presented his kind hostess with the empty trunk, whilst
+he concealed the gems in a belt upon his own person. Equipped with these
+jewels, he made his way across the Adriatic to the Apulian coast, and
+thence reached Ravello with greater wealth than he had ever hoped to
+obtain with his original capital at the time he set sail for Cyprus.
+
+  [Illustration: RAVELLO: IL DUOMO]
+
+Fortunately Ravello, though shrunk to such modest proportions nowadays,
+still possesses many memorials of its glorious past. Travellers will of
+course turn their steps towards the Duomo, with its yellow baroque façade
+abutting on the little piazza that, with its daisy-starred turf and old
+acacia trees, forms so pleasant a play-ground for the merry dark-eyed
+children of the place. The cathedral of St Pantaleone is—or rather was—one
+of the most interesting and richly decorated churches erected in Southern
+Italy under the combined influence of Norman and Saracenic art at a time
+when cunning workmen were able to blend together the styles of East and
+West, and to produce that rich harmonious architecture of which the
+splendid churches of Monreale and Palermo present to us the happiest
+examples. There still exist intact the magnificent bronze doors with their
+fifty-four panels of sculpture in relief, the gift of Sergio Muscettola
+and his wife, Sigilgaita Rufolo, and the work of the Italian artist
+Barisanus of Trani, who likewise designed and cast the portals of the
+cathedrals of his native town and of Monreale. But alas! the interior of
+the building, that was once rich with mosaic and fresco and fanciful
+carving, has been converted into one of those dull soulless caverns of
+stucco that the wanderer in all parts of Italy meets with only too
+frequently. This deplorable act of vandalism at Ravello dates of course
+from the eighteenth century, and appears to have been the work of a bishop
+named Tafuri, who in his frenzied eagerness to possess a cathedral worthy
+of comparison with the fashionable atrocities in plaster then being
+erected at Naples, did not hesitate to destroy wholesale almost all the
+ancient and elaborate ornamentation of his Duomo. His architect—perhaps
+the miserable Fuga, who ruined the interior of the Cathedral at Palermo,
+who knows?—dug up the fine old pavement, tore out the mosaics and had them
+carted away, effaced the frescoes, and at last transformed the venerable
+building with its memories of popes and princes into a commonplace
+white-washed chamber. Why this wretched prelate stayed his hand at the
+pulpit, it is difficult to say: perhaps he was meanwhile translated for
+his private virtues, perhaps Death overtook him in the work of
+destruction; at any rate, the famous pulpit of Ravello mercifully escaped
+the general onslaught, though it must have been by fortunate accident and
+not by design that Monsignore Tafuri omitted to remove this unique
+specimen of a style of architecture, which doubtless he considered
+barbaric and un-Christian in its character. For this pulpit is one of the
+finest examples of the ornate, if somewhat bizarre art of the thirteenth
+century, and belongs to a type of work that is not unfrequently met with
+throughout Italy. Six spiral columns, springing from the backs of crouched
+lions, support the rostrum of marble inlaid with beautiful mosaics; whilst
+above the arch of the stair-way of ascent stands the famous portrait,
+usually called that of Sigilgaita Rufolo, wife of the founder of the
+Cathedral. The striking face, which is surmounted by an elaborate diadem
+with two pendent lappets, is evidently an excellent likeness of the
+original; yet there can be no doubt that this interesting bust has been
+wrongly named, since the pulpit itself, as a Latin inscription duly
+records, was erected in the year 1272 by Niccolò Rufolo, a descendant of
+the famous Grand Admiral, so that we may fairly conclude that the portrait
+represents the wife, or perhaps sister or daughter, of the donor. But
+popular tradition dies hard; and the name of Sigilgaita will probably
+cling for ever to the female face which has for over six centuries looked
+calmly down upon generation after generation of worshippers. Perhaps those
+severe proud features may have impressed the ignorant Vandal-Bishop as
+that of some unknown Saint, whom it might be dangerous to offend, and may
+thereby have saved the pulpit of Niccolò Rufolo from the destruction that
+must have seemed inevitable. Be that as it may, the bust has survived
+uninjured, which, apart from the feeling of sentiment, is particularly
+fortunate, for it belongs to a small class of artistic work, of which
+existing specimens are rare and highly prized. For there must have been a
+local and premature Renaissance in this part of Italy during the
+thirteenth century, otherwise a statue so imbued with true classical
+feeling and so correct in technical finish as that of Sigilgaita in
+Ravello Cathedral could never have been produced; yet the names of the
+artist or artists who thus anticipated the great plastic revival remain
+undiscovered. Portrait-busts, similar in treatment and idea to that of the
+so-called Sigilgaita, are to be found here and there in museums, but this
+effigy in remote Ravello remains unique amidst its original surroundings.
+
+Turning aside from Sigilgaita’s steady gaze and making the round of the
+bleak white-washed building, our eyes are suddenly attracted by a fine
+picture, in the manner of Domenichino, representing the martyrdom of
+Pantaleone, the popular Amalfitan Saint to whom this church was dedicated
+by the Rufolo family.
+
+The cult of this Asiatic martyr in Amalfi is of course another legacy of
+the Republic’s close connection with the Levant, whence some relic-hunting
+admiral or merchant of the state reverently brought Pantaleone’s bones to
+the Italian coast. As the veneration of this Saint still exists so
+deep-seated that his Hellenic name is frequently bestowed on children at
+baptism, it may not be deemed amiss to give a very brief account of this
+eastern Martyr, who is so closely associated with Amalfitan, and later
+with Venetian life. Pantaleone was born at Nicomedia, in Bithynia, the son
+of a Pagan father and a Christian mother. Well educated by his parents, he
+became a physician, and on account of his skill, his learning, his
+graceful manners and his handsome face, was finally selected to attend the
+person of the Emperor Maximian. At the Imperial Court the young doctor,
+who had meantime neglected the faith of his mother, was recalled to a true
+sense of Christian duty by the precepts of an old priest named Hermolaus.
+Pantaleone now began to heal the sick and to preach the Gospel, and even
+at times to perform miracles. Information as to his conduct having reached
+the Emperor’s ears, Maximian gave the young physician the choice of
+renouncing Christianity or of suffering death, whereat Pantaleone boldly
+declared he would rather die than apostatize. Thereupon the Saint,
+together with the Christian priest Hermolaus, was bound to an olive tree
+and beheaded with a sword. The story of his martyrdom has been frequently
+treated in Venetian art, for as an eastern Saint Pantaleone has a church
+dedicated to him in Venice, wherein the brush of Paul Veronese has painted
+in glowing colours the chief incidents of his life and death. As in the
+case of other physician-saints of the Roman Church—St Roch, St Cosmo and
+St Damiano—Pantaleone was especially besought in cases of the plague,
+which owing to the intercommunication between Amalfi and the Orient,
+frequently ravaged the towns of this coast.
+
+  [Illustration: A STREET IN RAVELLO]
+
+From the Cathedral we proceeded to visit the quaint little church of Santa
+Maria del Gradillo, that with its oriental-looking towers and cupolas
+affords a pleasing example of the mixed Lombard and Saracenic style which
+was in vogue in the years when the house of Hohenstaufen were masters of
+Southern Italy. We found little that was worth seeing inside the building,
+except the pretty black-eyed daughter of the toothless tottering old
+sacristan, who slunk off grumbling on his child’s appearance, leaving her
+to do the honours of the place. Her merry face with its welcoming smile
+and her modest loquacity excited our interest, and in answer to our
+questions we gathered that she was twenty years old, and was still
+unmarried, not for lack of opportunity, she naïvely told us, but because
+she was unwilling to leave her old parents, who had no one in the world
+but herself to attend to them. Coming to the door of the church, Angela
+(for that was her name) pointed out her home, a little white-washed
+cottage with a heavily barred window over-hanging the grass-grown lane. We
+wished our pleasant companion a warm good-bye, or rather _a riverderla_,
+at the entrance of the dwelling, where through the open doorway we could
+espy a small sun-smitten courtyard tenanted by a wizened old woman sitting
+in the shade of an orange tree, by three cats, and by a large family of
+skinny hens. On a low wall we noted some shallow earthenware pans filled
+with carnation plants, whose red and yellow heads were clearly silhouetted
+against the blue sky over head. Perhaps Angela’s life, we thought, is
+after all happier thus spent in the tending of her parents, her poultry
+and her garden, than if joined to that of some swarthy rascal of the beach
+below or dull peasant of the hillside. Long may the old people survive to
+keep their guardian Angel from the mingled sorrows and joys of matrimony!
+
+  “Tenete l’uocchie de miricula nere;
+  Che ffa la vostra matre che n’n de’ marite?
+  La vostra matre n’a de’ marito’ apposte
+  Pe’ ne’ lleva’ son fior, a la fenestre.”
+
+  (“Your eyes are marvellously black and bright!
+  How is it that your mother does not wed you?
+  She will not wed you, not to lose her light—
+  Not to remove the flower that decks her window!”)
+
+The well-known hotel kept by Madame Palumbo, who is thoroughly conversant
+with English ways and requirements, occupies a delightful position in the
+old aristocratic quarter of Ravello known as “Il Toro,” the name of which
+is still retained in the interesting little church of San Giovanni del
+Toro close by. This comfortable hostelry has been constructed out of the
+_Vescovado_, the ancient episcopal residence, and it still retains many
+curious and attractive features of the original building, notably the
+quaint little stair-way that descends from the bishop’s private chamber
+into the chapel, which is now the _salon_ of the hotel. With its
+magnificent views, its interesting buildings and its pure exhilarating
+air, Ravello would seem to be an ideal spot wherein to linger, and it
+affords a most agreeable change in the later Spring months from the close
+atmosphere and enervating heat of Amalfi or the coast towns. Perched on
+this breezy hill-top, from the terrace of the hotel can be observed the
+whole circuit of the Bay of Salerno, whilst behind to the north and east
+the ring of enclosing mountains rises sharp and distinct against the sky.
+From this point we are presented with a complete view of the territories
+of the ancient Republic, spread out like a map beneath our feet and
+stretching from the Punta della Campanella to the heights above Vietri,
+and backed by the arid grey mountain peaks. If the garden of the Hotel
+Palumbo seems a fitting place wherein to idle or to dream, might not it
+also appeal to some historian, not tied to time nor to the hard necessity
+of money-making, as a suitable spot for the conception of a history of the
+origin, rise, decline and fall of the great maritime Republic, whose
+dominions, still smiling and populous, surround Ravello on all sides?
+Gibbon found the first suggestion for his Roman History whilst musing upon
+the ruins of the Capitol, and he finished his great work in a Swiss garden
+amidst the scent of acacia bloom; might not the annals of the Amalfitan
+Republic likewise spring from reflections made upon this terrace, where
+the memories of a former greatness still beautiful in its decay must
+operate so powerfully? Well, perhaps some future Gibbon—or more probably
+some budding Mommsen—may in time present the world with a true impartial
+and erudite history of the Costiera d’Amalfi.
+
+We bask lazily in the afternoon sunshine, to the soft, rather soporific
+cooing of some caged doves, that live in the back-ground out of sight
+behind a screen of lemon trees in huge red jars, such as Morgiana must
+have been familiar with. Beyond the terrace wall we note the carefully
+tended vines, precious plants, for their grapes produce the delicate
+_Episcopio_ wine, perhaps the choicest vintage to be obtained around
+Naples, and boasting a flavour and bouquet that are rarely to be
+encountered except in the products of the most celebrated vineyards of
+France or Germany.
+
+  “O quam placens in colore,
+  O quam fragrans in odore,
+  O quam sapidum in ore,
+    Dolce linguae vinculum.
+
+  “Felix venter quem intrabis,
+  Felix guttur quod rigabis,
+  Felix os quod tu lavabis;
+    Et beata labia!”
+
+Below the vinery we catch glimpses of the dancing waters of the Bay and of
+the little towns of Minori and Majori, seen through a screen of olive and
+almond trees that are gently swayed by the south wind. Opposite to us
+towers the huge form of the mountain of the Avvocata, upon whose slopes
+centuries ago the Madonna herself appeared in a flood of glory to an
+ignorant but pious shepherd lad, promising the startled youth to become
+his mediator, the _avvocata_ of his simple prayers. The story must be
+true, say the peasants, for there on the hillside can still be seen the
+ruins of the shrine that the wondering and grateful villagers raised upon
+the very site of the apparition in honour of their celestial visitor. But
+the whole country-side teems with interesting and often beautiful legends
+and traditions, handed down by generations of the simple hardy folk who
+toil for their daily bread amidst the vineyards and olive groves that
+clothe the sun-baked slopes descending to the shore.
+
+The intervening distance is not great between Ravello and La Scala, which
+surmounts the opposite ridge of the valley of the Dragone, whence good
+walkers can easily descend by the ancient mule track that leads down
+direct to Amalfi by way of Scaletta. Like its neighbour and historic rival
+across the valley, the annals and fortunes of Scala are closely interwoven
+with those of Amalfi; and it was during the palmy days of the Republic
+that this daughter-town reached its height of prosperity. Although the
+tradition that once Scala possessed a hundred towers upon its walls and a
+hundred and thirty churches is obviously exaggerated, yet it must have
+been a place of importance even as early as 987, when Pope John XVI raised
+it to the rank of a bishopric, an honour which did not fall to Ravello
+until many years later. Early in the twelfth century Scala was pillaged by
+the Pisans, but some years afterwards, when the mother city tamely
+submitted to the demands of these Tuscan invaders without the smallest
+effort at self-defence, the higher-spirited mountaineers of La Scala
+manned their walls with skill and vigour, though without avail. The
+hill-set city was ultimately carried by storm, and so thoroughly did the
+enraged Pisans wreak their vengeance upon the place that Scala never again
+rose to fame or eminence, but henceforward dwindled in wealth and size
+until it finally sank to the condition of a large village, whilst Clement
+VIII offered an additional indignity to the city in its dotage by
+depriving it of episcopal rank. But though the citizens of modern Scala no
+longer possess a bishop in their midst, they are still the proud
+possessors and jealous guardians of the magnificent mitre presented by
+Charles of Anjou, who was greatly pleased by the men and money that this
+ancient town sent to aid his brother, St Louis of France, in his Crusade.
+Some sculptured tombs, one of them a monument in honour of Marinella
+Rufolo of Ravello, who was married to a Coppola of Scala, remain in the
+churches to interest the curious traveller, but most visitors will find
+the principal charm of this dilapidated little city in its lofty striking
+situation beneath the frowning mass of Monte Cerrato.
+
+But the sunset has come and gone, and the last tints of its rose-pink glow
+are rapidly disappearing from the serrated line of mountain tops against
+their background of daffodil sky. Stars are beginning to peep in the
+firmament, and yellow lights, the stars of earth, are springing up fast in
+the town below, and even appearing at rare intervals of space amongst the
+cottages of the woody hillside, or upon the fishing boats that lie on the
+bosom of the Bay, now turning to a deep purple under the advancing shadows
+of night. A cheerful concert of unseen insects greets our ears as we
+descend rapidly towards Atrani, whilst the goatbells amid the distant
+pastures tinkle pleasantly from time to time. We soon exchange the dewy
+freshness of evening in the country for the heavy air, thick with dust,
+that hangs over the coast road, and in a few moments more find ourselves
+at the foot of the rock-cut staircase that leads to our convent inn.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+But our days upon the beautiful Costiera d’Amalfi are at an end, and the
+moment has at last come for us to bid farewell to these enchanted scenes
+and to the ancient city slumbering peacefully in its rocky valley by the
+shore. Our rows upon the glassy waters of the Bay, our scrambles up the
+wild scrub-covered hillsides above the town, our evening walks along the
+broad high-road to catch the fleeting glories of the sun-set,—all are
+ended; the day, the hour of departure has actually arrived.
+
+Casting a longing look behind we quit Amalfi in the cool of the evening,
+in order to cover the eight intervening miles of coast road that lie
+between us and Salerno. We pass Atrani, with its tall parti-coloured
+tower, and proceed towards our destination with the smooth plain of waters
+below us and the fertile slopes above our heads, and thus we quickly gain
+Minori, another of the busy little settlements that once helped to make up
+the collected might of the old Republic. We meet with bare-footed
+sun-embrowned peasants, in their suits of blue linen and broad shady straw
+hats; lean sinewy figures, returning from a long day’s work in the
+fragrant orange groves by which the town is surrounded. We meet also,
+alas! with the usual crowd of beggars, the halt, the maimed, and the
+pseudo-blind, who are quickly left behind; nevertheless the naughty
+picturesque half-naked children, loudly screaming for _soldi_, caper in
+the dust alongside our carriage, until these little pests are
+out-stripped, but only to give way to other imps, equally naughty and
+unclothed, from Majori. Majori, nestling by the seashore amidst the
+enfolding mountains, appears to us a second Amalfi, with its crowded beach
+and brightly coloured boats, with its paper and maccaroni mills, huddled
+into the narrow ravine of the Senna, which cuts the town in half ere it
+empties itself into the Bay. Overhead the huge ruined castle of San
+Niccolò looms distinct against the rose-flushed evening sky, crouching
+like some decrepit old giant above the little city which he so oppressed
+in the bad old days when Sanseverini and Colonna carried on a perpetual
+selfish strife that allowed their humble neighbours no repose. Beautiful
+as is Majori, it is no lovelier than many another spot upon this exquisite
+coast; it is but as one pearl in a well-matched necklace, for the country
+that lies between Amalfi and Salerno is fully as rich in historical
+interest and natural charm as is the western portion that we have just
+traversed. Behind Majori we behold Monte Falerio, with its rocky summit
+tipped with the glow of evening and its base in purple shadow, descending
+abruptly into the darkening waters of the Bay. Slanting down to the
+surf-fringed beach, the great mountain seem to bar our further progress,
+but with a guttural imprecation and a loud cracking of the whip, our
+coachman deftly guides his half-starved but cunning little horses round
+the sharp corner of the mountain spur known as the Capo del’ Orso, and in
+a trice Amalfi, whither we have been straining our eyes, is snatched from
+our vision; a few minutes later, and we have rounded the Capo del Tumulo,
+with its memories of the great Genoese admiral, Filippino Doria, who in
+the treacherous currents that circle round this Cape, destroyed the
+Spanish fleet of the Emperor Charles V. Already the sun has dipped below
+the horizon, and the calm expanse of the Tyrrhene has lost the last
+reflected ray; forward our driver urges his horses in the fast-fading
+light. The Angelus rings out from half a score of belfries beside the
+seashore and on the hillside, breaking the stillness of the gloaming with
+musical reverberations. Sunset and evening star, twilight and evening
+bell; how exquisite is the fall of night upon the shores of the Bay of
+Salerno! We pass the fishing village of Cetara, and in so doing we pass by
+the willing strength of imagination out of the dominion of the ancient
+Republic of Amalfi into the Principality of Salerno. Onward we press, and
+it is not long before a shrill familiar sound bursts upon our ears, a
+sound that quickly tears the gossamer threads of a fancy revelling in the
+thoughts of long-extinct principalities and powers. It is the whistle of a
+railway-engine descending the slope from Vietri above us down to Salerno;
+it is the neighing of the iron horse that has not yet pranced along the
+unconquered Costiera d’Amalfi, nor befouled its crystal-clear air with his
+smoky breath. For at Vietri we re-enter the every-day world, and leave
+behind us the sea-girt fairy-land; Vietri, not Cetara, is the true
+frontier town to-day. But the lights of Salerno are drawing nearer and
+nearer, and in a few moments of time we are tearing along the broad
+lamp-lit Marina of the town, in the middle of which our driver pulls up
+suddenly at the entrance of that old-fashioned comfortable inn, the
+Albergo d’Inghilterra:
+
+  “Another day has told its feverish story,
+  Another night has brought its promised rest.”
+
+  [Illustration: MINORI AT SUNSET]
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+                   SALERNO AND THE HOUSE OF HAUTEVILLE
+
+
+Backed by gentle slopes well wooded and well tilled, and screened from the
+northern blasts by its guarding amphitheatre of grey crags, Salerno
+occupies a delightful position upon the Bay to which it gives its own
+name. The long stretch of its Marina, tolerably clean to the eye if not at
+all points agreeable to the nostrils, follows the broad curve of the
+strand, and an idle hour or so may pleasantly be whiled away in watching
+the fishing craft moored beside the mole and the attendant sailors. At the
+northern end of this promenade, in what constitutes the most fashionable
+quarter of the place, is a tiny garden with palms and daturas, whilst hard
+by stands a large theatre, evidences of the gentility of modern Salerno.
+But the whole town appears sleepy and dead-alive to a stranger, though at
+the sunset hour a band occasionally plays in this open space, the music
+attracting hither a crowd composed of all the divers elements of society
+in the quiet old city. Yet though not possessing any great attractions for
+a sojourn in itself, Salerno makes an excellent centre whence to explore
+the neighbourhood, for it lies within easy reach of the great Benedictine
+Abbey of Santa Trinità; of beautiful La Cava, “that Alpine valley under an
+Italian sky”; of Nocera, with its ancient cathedral that was once a pagan
+temple; and last, but very far from least, of that glorious group of
+temples at Paestum. It has tolerable hotels, and if only their _padroni_
+could be brought to realise that a flavouring of rosemary and garlic in
+every dish is not appreciated by the palates of the _forestieri_, the fare
+provided would be excellent. As in all Italian cities, northern or
+southern, however, the nocturnal noise is prodigious. Shouting and
+shrieking, quarrelling and yelling rend the air at all hours, whilst the
+practice of serenading, more agreeable in romantic poetry than in everyday
+life, is here carried to excess, and the twanging of the mandoline and the
+throaty voices of ardent lovers are rarely silent o’ nights in the dark
+narrow streets of Salerno.
+
+  “A lu scur’ vagi cercann’
+  La bella mia addo è?
+  Mo m’annascunn’ po’ fann’ dispera’,
+      I mor’, I mor’ pe’ te,
+      Ripos’ cchiù ne ho!”
+
+  (“In favouring dusk I wandering go,
+      My fair, where shall I find her?
+  Now she attracts, now drives me wild;
+      I die, I die for her;
+      Repose no more have I.”)
+
+Behind the long line of lofty well-built houses facing the Bay, the
+streets are gloomy, narrow and crooked, a labyrinth of dark mysterious
+lanes that contain no palaces or churches of note, and but few artistic
+“bits” to catch the eye and delight the soul of a painter. As in the case
+of Amalfi, the Cathedral of San Matteo at Salerno is almost the sole
+monument left standing of a past that is peculiarly rich in historical
+associations. Ever since the accession of the Angevin kings Salerno has
+remained a quiet provincial town, neither rich nor poor, but stagnant and
+without commerce. Into its harbour, which Norman and Suabian princes
+attempted to improve, the sand has long since silted, and Naples for many
+centuries past has been able to regard with serene contempt the city that
+it was once intended to make her commercial rival:
+
+  “Se Salerno avesse un porto,
+  Napoli sarebbe morto.”
+
+Well, Naples owns an excellent harbour, and has in consequence grown into
+one of the largest sea-ports on the shores of the Mediterranean, whilst
+little Salerno can only afford anchorage for fishing boats.
+
+The chief interest of the place centres in its close connection with the
+great Norman house of Hauteville, and especially with Robert Guiscard,
+Duke of Apulia and Calabria, who after a fierce struggle managed to
+capture this city from the Lombard princes. Sprung from a hardy race of
+_valvassors_ or _bannerets_ in Normandy, Duke Robert was one of the twelve
+sons of Tancred of Hauteville in the bishopric of Coutances. Joining his
+elder half-brother William Bras-de-Fer in Italy, Robert at once began to
+make a remarkable display of soldierly and statesman-like qualities. An
+adventurer pure and simple in an alien land, this sharp-witted Norman in
+course of time obtained the nick-name of Guiscard, or the Wiseacre, and on
+the death of his elder brother he was nominated Count of Apulia by
+acclamation of the Norman followers, to the exclusion of his helpless
+young nephews. Robert Guiscard’s appearance and character have been
+sketched for us with loving care by one of the most famous of the world’s
+historians, who was fully able to appreciate the mingled force and
+cunning, the _suaviter in modo_ and the _fortiter in re_, of this leader
+of a handful of Normans in a hostile and distant country. Let Gibbon’s
+stately prose therefore present to us a word-painting of the Great
+Adventurer himself:—
+
+“His lofty stature surpassed the tallest of his army; his limbs were cast
+in the true proportion of strength and gracefulness; and to the decline of
+life he maintained the patent vigour of health and the commanding dignity
+of his form. His complexion was ruddy, his shoulders were broad, his hair
+and beard were long and of a flaxen colour, his eyes sparkled with fire,
+and his voice, like that of Achilles, could impress obedience and terror
+amidst the tumult of battle. In the ruder ages of chivalry, such
+qualifications are not below the notice of the poet or historian; they may
+observe that Robert at once and with equal dexterity could wield in the
+right hand his sword, his lance in the left; that in the battle of
+Civitella he was thrice unhorsed, and that on the close of that memorable
+day he was adjudged to have borne away the prize of valour from the
+warriors of the two armies. His boundless ambition was founded on the
+consciousness of superior worth: in the pursuit of greatness he was never
+arrested by the scruples of justice, and seldom moved by the feelings of
+humanity: though not insensible of fame, the choice of open or clandestine
+means was determined only by his present advantage. The surname of
+_Guiscard_ was applied to this master of political wisdom, which is too
+often confounded with the practice of dissimulation and deceit; and Robert
+is praised by the Apulian poet for excelling the cunning of Ulysses and
+the eloquence of Cicero. Yet these arts were disguised by an appearance of
+military frankness: in his highest fortune he was accessible and courteous
+to his fellow soldiers, and while he indulged the prejudices of his new
+subjects, he affected in his dress and manners to maintain the ancient
+fashion of his country. He grasped with a rapacious, that he might
+distribute with a liberal hand; his primitive indigence had taught the
+habits of frugality; the gain of a merchant was not below his attention;
+and his prisoners were tortured with slow and unfeeling cruelty to force a
+discovery of their secret treasure. According to the Greeks, he departed
+from Normandy with only five followers on horse-back, and thirty on foot;
+yet even this allowance appears too bountiful;—the sixth son of Tancred of
+Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim, and his first military band was
+levied among the adventurers of Italy.”
+
+Gaining over the Pope Nicholas II. to his interests, the new Count was
+able to exact an oath of fealty in 1060 from the Italian barons, hitherto
+his equals, to recognise him as “Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and here-after
+of Sicily, by the grace of God and of St Peter,” although it took many
+years of hard fighting before these lands, thus proudly claimed, could be
+subdued. Beginning with the conquest of the Duchy of Benevento, Guiscard
+at once laid siege to Salerno, taking it after an obstinate resistance
+lasting over eight months, during which he was himself severely wounded by
+a splinter from one of his own engines of war. The city captured with such
+difficulty now became the victor’s favourite residence and the recipient
+of his bounty and enlightened rule, so that Salerno quickly rose to the
+rank of one of the most illustrious towns in Europe, supplanting even its
+magnificent neighbour Amalfi in popular esteem.
+
+  “Urbs Latii non est hâc delitiosior urbe,
+  Frugibus arboribus vino redundat; et unde
+  Non tibi poma nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt,
+  Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum.”
+
+  (“All Latium shows no more delightful place,
+  Whose sunny slopes the vine and almond grace;
+  ’Midst fruitful groves her palaces uprear,
+  Her men are virtuous, and her women fair.”)
+
+It was under the Guiscard’s auspices that the famous school of Medicine
+that had long been seated at Salerno rose to its highest point of
+excellence. “Paris for learning, Bologna for law, Orleans for poetry, and
+Salerno for Medicine”;—such was the verdict of the age. With the somewhat
+grudging consent of the clergy, the hygienic skill of the dreaded Arabs
+was in this city permitted to temper the crass ignorance of medieval
+Italy, and at Salerno alone were the works of the infidel Avicenna and of
+the pagans Galen and Hippocrates openly studied. The result was that the
+fame of the doctors of this _Fons Medicinae_ spread over all Western
+Europe, so that distinguished patients either came hither to be treated in
+person or else sent emissaries to explain their symptoms and to obtain
+advice. Nor were the professors of the healing art at Salerno tied down by
+a strict adherence to drugs and boluses, for they fully realised that the
+height of all human ambition, the _mens sana in corpore sano_, is in any
+case more easily to be obtained by self-control than by all the
+ingredients of the pharmacopoeia. They were warm believers apparently in
+the doctrine of moderation in all things, which after all is one of the
+most valuable prescriptions of modern hygiene:
+
+  “Curas tolle graves, irasci crede profanum,
+  Parce mero, coenato parum, non sit tibi vanum,
+  Surgere post epulas, somnum fuge meridianum.”
+
+  (“Throw off dull care; thine angry moods restrain;
+  Eschew the wine-cup; lightly eat, nor vain
+  Deem our advice to make Enough thy feast.
+  Take exercise, and shun the noon-day rest.”)
+
+Such was the oracular reply of the Salernitan sages to Robert, Duke of
+Normandy, and no one can dispute the sound common sense of the
+prescription given, nor doubt that it is applicable to half the patients
+who to-day throng the consulting rooms of fashionable London physicians.
+
+But to return to Robert Guiscard, who shares the historical honours of the
+place, together with the great Pope Gregory VII., of whom we shall speak
+presently. After subduing the southern half of Italy and the island of
+Sicily, the great Duke next turned his victorious arms against the Eastern
+Empire, with the secret intention, it was suspected, of ascending the
+throne of Constantine. With the pseudo-Emperor Michael in his train, the
+Great Adventurer in 1081 assembled a vast army at Otranto, consisting of
+30,000 Italian subjects and of 1300 Norman knights, with the object of
+crossing over to Epirus. Durazzo on the opposite Albanian coast, the
+Dyrrachium of the ancients, a city that was henceforth destined to be
+closely associated with succeeding dynasties of South Italy, was the
+objective of this gigantic expedition, for it was commonly reported to be
+the key of the Eastern Empire. Thither the flotilla set sail, but before
+reaching the Greek shore, an unexpected and unseasonable tempest scattered
+Guiscard’s argosy, destroying many of the ships and drowning many crews.
+Nevertheless, the undaunted spirit and endless resources of the Norman
+Duke rose superior to all misfortunes. Landing with the remnant of his
+army he at once laid siege to Durazzo, despite the fact that the Emperor
+Alexius was marching to its relief, and that the Venetian fleet was
+already anchored in its harbour. In spite of overwhelming odds, Guiscard
+utterly routed the Byzantine army. With his heir Bohemond and his wife
+Sigilgaita beside him, the Duke watched the progress of the battle, and at
+its most critical juncture, at a moment when it appeared inevitable that
+the hard-pressed Italian army must yield to the sheer numbers of the foe,
+the deep voice of the leader could be heard booming like a deep-toned bell
+over the battlefield, as he addressed his wavering troops. “Whither do ye
+fly? Your enemy is implacable, and death is less grievous than slavery!”
+Joined with the hoarse voice of Guiscard, the Norman warriors could
+distinguish the exhortations of the Amazon-like Sigilgaita, “a second
+Pallas, less skilful in arts, but no less terrible in arms than the
+Athenian goddess.” Rallying at the words of their master and shamed by the
+martial ardour of the Duchess, the invading troops made one last desperate
+effort, whereby the Imperial army was driven back and scattered, so that
+Alexius barely escaped with his life. Having routed the Emperor in fair
+fight, Guiscard now made use of his unparalleled cunning by bribing the
+treacherous Venetians, who eventually assisted the Italian forces to enter
+the city gates, and thus Durazzo was gained at the point of the sword
+after one of the fiercest sieges known to history. Scarcely had the
+beleaguered town been reduced, than the indomitable Guiscard found himself
+compelled to return to Italy, where the Emperor of the West, the unhappy
+Henry IV., vainly endeavouring to wipe out the humiliation of Canossa, had
+seized Rome and was actually besieging the great Hildebrand in the Castle
+of Sant’ Angelo. Leaving his son Bohemond in command of the army in
+Macedonia, Robert recrossed the sea, and hastened with a handful of men
+towards Rome. But so intense a fear did the victor of Durazzo inspire,
+that the terrified Emperor without waiting to give combat fled headlong
+together with his anti-pope from the Holy City, where Guiscard was
+received with acclamation. “Thus, in less than three years,” remarks
+Gibbon, “the son of Tancred of Hauteville enjoyed the glory of delivering
+the Pope, and of compelling the two Emperors of the East and West to fly
+before his victorious arms.” Guiscard’s triumphal entry into Rome was
+however marred by scenes of violence and scandal, due to the conduct of
+the Saracen troops which his brother, the great Count Roger of Sicily, had
+brought to assist the enterprise. So infuriated were the Romans by the
+behaviour of the infidels, that the prudent Gregory deemed it wiser to
+return to Salerno together with his deliverer, and it was in Guiscard’s
+palace that the famous “Caesar of spiritual conquest” expired three years
+later. As to the Great Adventurer himself, he died in the island of
+Cephalonia in the very year of the Pope’s death at Salerno (1085) and was
+buried beside his first wife, the gentle Alberada, at Venosa in Apulia,
+though the city which he had always loved and favoured would seem to have
+offered a more appropriate spot for his interment.
+
+But although the mortal remains of the Great Adventurer do not rest within
+the precincts of his beloved city, an undying monument of his glorious but
+turbulent reign is to be found in the Cathedral, which despite the neglect
+and alterations of eight centuries may still be ranked as one of the most
+interesting buildings in Southern Italy. Standing in a secluded part of
+the town, this magnificent church gains nothing from its position, for it
+can only be reached by means of tortuous dingy lanes, and even on a near
+approach the effect produced on the visitor is not impressive. “The
+Cathedral-church of San Matteo,” says the Scotch traveller, Joseph
+Forsyth, in quaint pedantic language, “is a pile so antique and so modern,
+so repaired and rhapsodic, that it exhibits patches of every style, and is
+of no style itself.” But is not this quality, we ask, exactly what a great
+historic building, such as Guiscard’s church, truly demands? Ought not it
+to bear the impress of the various ages it has survived, and of the many
+famous persons who have contributed to its embellishment? From Duke
+Robert’s day to the present time, the Cathedral is an epitome of the
+history of Salerno, a sermon in stones concerning the great past and the
+inglorious present of the city.
+
+In the year preceding his own death and that of the great Pontiff, who was
+tarrying at Salerno as his not over-willing guest, Duke Robert erected
+this Cathedral, obtaining the chief ornaments for his new structure and
+also its most important relic, the supposed body of the Apostle St
+Matthew, from the lately deserted city of Paestum across the bay. The
+church is approached by means of a quadrangular fore-court, a cloister
+supported on antique columns, such as can still be observed in a few of
+the old Roman churches, so that we venture to think that this idea at
+Salerno was suggested by the great Pope himself. A number of sculptured
+sarcophagi, which, like the pillars, were the spoils of Paestum, are
+ranged alongside the entrance walls; and once upon a time there stood in
+the centre of the courtyard the huge granite basin that all visitors to
+Naples will recall as set in the middle of the Villa Reale, where it
+performs the humble office of decorating a miniature pond, wherein
+lily-white ducks quack and gobble at the bread crumbs thrown to them by
+children and their nurses. Fancy the irate disgust of Duke Robert at
+waking to learn that the antique fountain for his new Cathedral, brought
+with such care and toil from distant Poseidonia, should have been
+transported to the rival city and turned to such base uses! Above the
+splendid bronze doors, the gift of Landolfo Butomilea and his wife shortly
+after Guiscard’s death, we perceive the dedication of the church to the
+Apostle Matthew by the proud conqueror of the Two Sicilies and the
+protector of Hildebrand.
+
+  “A Duce Roberto donaris Apostole templo:
+  Pro meritis regno donetur ipse superno.”
+
+The donor, we note, is confident that the Apostle, in return for so
+glorious a fabric, will undertake to obtain the Kingdom of Heaven for this
+generous client upon earth.
+
+The interior, which is sadly marred by white-wash and gaudy decoration, is
+a perfect treasure-house of works of art—antique, medieval, Renaissance—of
+which the guide-book will give a detailed list. Succeeding generations
+have put to strange uses some of the fine marble reliefs that Guiscard
+transported hither from Paestum, and we note that one archbishop has gone
+so far as to filch a sarcophagus carved with a Bacchanal procession to
+serve for his own tomb. We might perhaps infer that the deceased prelate
+was addicted to the wine-flask, and to have been a firm believer in and
+follower of one of the rules of the medical school of his own diocese:
+
+  “Si nocturna tibi noceat potatio vini,
+  Hoc ter mane libas iterum, et fuerit medicina.”
+
+  (“If a carouse at night do make thee ill,
+  For morning medicine drink of wine thy fill”)
+
+Let us hope that this extraordinary receipt for “hot coppers” was intended
+satirically, or else given seriously as the only advice that a confirmed
+toper was likely to follow in any case. But the use of classical adjuncts
+to adorn Christian tombs, which to-day appears so incongruous to us, was
+popular enough at the time of the Renaissance, and readers of Robert
+Browning’s poetry will call to mind the story of the dying Bishop’s
+injunction to his heirs concerning his tomb in St Praxed’s church at Rome:
+
+  “The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
+  Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
+  Some tripod thyrsus with a vase or so,
+  The Saviour at His sermon on the mount,
+  Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
+  Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off,
+  And Moses with the tables....”
+
+But it is necessary to shake off the spirit of Renaissance dilettantism
+before we venture to approach the chapel of John of Procida to the right
+of the high altar, where stands the stern figure of the greatest of the
+medieval Pontiffs. Above the marble statue of the Caesar of the Papacy,
+that was tardily erected to his memory by the unfortunate Pio Nono, appear
+the glittering mosaics of the apse of the chapel, from which look down the
+figures of John of Procida and of King Manfred, the last sovereign prince
+of the hated Suabian line that Gregory twice anathematized. Beneath the
+cold forbidding eye of the last of the Hohenstaufen and his friend and
+avenger here rest, strangely enough, the ashes of that “great and
+inflexible asserter of the supremacy of the sacerdotal order: the monk
+Hildebrand, afterwards Pope Gregory the Seventh.” Born the son of a poor
+carpenter in the Tuscan village of Soana, this extraordinary man rose to
+eminence as a monk of Cluny, where he became famous for his extreme
+asceticism of life in an age of undisguised clerical corruption and
+luxury, when simony, lay investiture and priestly marriages were the rule
+rather than the exception on all sides, so that but few Churchmen were
+able to rise above their surrounding temptations. Such few as could resist
+the world, the flesh and the devil were accounted, and not unfrequently
+were in reality, ignorant crazy fanatics, half-pitied and half-despised.
+Between these two extremes of worldly indulgence and of unreasoning
+severity of life, Hildebrand ever pursued a middle course, for whilst on
+the one hand he eschewed the vanities of life around him, on the other he
+never sank into the self-effacement of a hermit. His acknowledged purity
+and zeal soon won for him from the laity a respect mingled with awe,
+whilst his natural talents, his indomitable will, and his genuine piety in
+course of time brought all Churchmen who had any regard for their holy
+office to fix their hopes upon this Clugniac monk, now a Cardinal. For
+some years before his actual election to the Papal throne in 1079,
+Hildebrand had begun to exercise an immense control over the councils of
+the Church, and he was personally responsible for the epoch-making
+resolution under Nicholas II., which declared that the choice of a new
+Pontiff was vested in the College of Cardinals alone. His own election,
+under the terms of this new and drastic arrangement, became the signal for
+the fierce struggles, equally of the battlefield and the council-chamber,
+that were destined to distract Italy for generations to come. For, as
+might have been expected, the Emperor Henry IV., King of the Romans, was
+not long in protesting against so decided an infringement of his secular
+claims. From the synods of Worms and Piacenza came the Imperial decree of
+deposition against Gregory, which was addressed by “Henry, not by
+usurpation but by God’s holy ordination, King, to Hildebrand, no longer
+Pope, but false monk.” Gregory, strong alike in virtue and in resolve, and
+aided by the might of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany and of Robert
+Guiscard, answered by pronouncing a solemn anathema upon his secular
+adversary. In awe-struck silence the Council of the Lateran listened to
+the Pope’s final excommunication of the King, and of all those who dared
+to associate themselves with him. “I absolve,” said Gregory, “all
+Christians from the oaths which they have taken or may take to him; and I
+decree that no one shall obey him as king; for it is fitting that he, who
+has endeavoured to diminish the honour of the Church, should himself lose
+that honour which he seems to have.” We all know the final act of that
+terrible unequal struggle, the duel of brute force against spiritual
+terrors in a rude age of violence and superstition, which took place in
+the courtyard of the Castle of Canossa, the Countess Matilda’s fortress in
+the Apennines.
+
+“On a dreary winter morning, with the ground deep in snow, the King, the
+heir of a long line of Emperors, was permitted to enter within the two
+outer of the three walls which girded the Castle of Canossa. He had laid
+aside every mark of royalty or of distinguished station; he was clad only
+in the thin white linen dress of the penitent, and there, fasting, he
+awaited in humble patience the pleasure of the Pope. But the gates did not
+unclose. A second day he stood, cold, hungry and mocked by vain hopes. And
+yet a third day dragged on from morning till evening over the unsheltered
+head of the discrowned King. Every heart was moved save that of the
+representative of Jesus Christ.”
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO RAVELLO]
+
+Can we wonder then that the phrase “to go to Canossa” (_gehen nach
+Canossa_) has become ingrafted on to the German language, or that so
+significant an expression was openly used by Prince Bismarck during the
+fierce religious struggles in the days of the “Kultur-kampf” between the
+newly-formed Empire and the direct successor of the spiritual Caesar who
+had thus humbled a former Emperor of Germany? It was in vain that Henry
+afterwards endeavoured, by making war upon his oppressor, to undo the evil
+effects of his public recantation at Canossa; the act of humiliation was
+too marked ever to be wiped out either by himself or by his descendants.
+For good or for bad, Gregory had succeeded in rendering the Papacy free
+from lay control; he had gained for ever for the Church one of her most
+cherished tenets, the absolute independence of the Pope’s election by the
+College of Cardinals; and he had even partially reduced the Western Empire
+into a fief of the Church itself. The former of Gregory’s great objects,
+the freedom of election, still remains intact after an interval of more
+than eight hundred years; the latter attempt, though long struggled for
+and apparently with success at times, has, we know, ultimately failed.
+
+Having accomplished so much during his reign, it is strange to think that
+Gregory’s last days should have been passed in a form of exile away from
+the Eternal City which he claimed as the metropolis of the Universal
+Church. There is pathos to be found in the Pope dying at Salerno, far
+removed from the scene of his ambition and success. With the bitter
+feeling that his name was execrated in Rome after Guiscard’s sack, and
+that his host was bent upon obtaining the imperial title from his
+reluctant guest, Gregory’s declining days were spent in melancholy
+reflections. To the last he spoke confidently of the righteousness of his
+cause, and whilst making his peace with all mankind in anticipation of his
+approaching end, he deliberately excepted from his own and God’s mercy the
+names of his arch-enemy Henry and the anti-pope Guibert, together with all
+their followers. Thus the aged Pontiff languished to his end within the
+walls of the Castle of Salerno, encircled by flattering Churchmen who did
+their utmost to cheer their dying champion. “I have loved justice and
+hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile,” are the famous words
+recorded of Hildebrand in the face of the King of Terrors. “In exile thou
+canst not die!” eagerly responded an attendant priest. “Vicar of Christ
+and His Apostles, thou hast received the nations for thine inheritance,
+and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”
+
+Perhaps the expiring Pope was cheered by these words—who can tell? In any
+case they were prophetic, for the present world-wide character of the
+Roman Church, which embraces in its fold all nationalities and holds its
+members together all the globe over in one indissoluble bond of a
+spiritual empire, is largely due to the trials and exertions of one man:
+the monk Hildebrand, Pope Gregory the Seventh.
+
+Here then he sleeps his last sleep, the friend of Matilda, the mortal foe
+of King Henry, the patron of William the Conqueror, the guest of Robert
+Guiscard:—what a galaxy of illustrious names shines upon that dim silent
+chapel in the Cathedral of Salerno! Here stands in unchanging benediction
+his gleaming marble effigy, calmly surveyed by King Manfred near at hand
+in imperial robes, the last prince of the hated and twice banned Suabian
+House, whose bones were destined to bleach in the sun and rattle in the
+wind by the bridge of Benevento under a Papal curse.
+
+Before we quit the Cathedral in order to enjoy the evening sunshine, which
+is filling the interior with its roseate glow, let us return for one brief
+moment to the northern aisle, to glance at the grave of the Duchess who
+fought so boldly by her husband’s side at Durazzo. It is easy to find, for
+her simple tomb stands not far from the beautiful and elaborate monument
+of Margaret of Durazzo (strange coincidence!) wife of King Charles of
+Naples, wherein the sculptor has portrayed angels drawing aside a curtain
+so as to display the sleeping form of the dead Queen within. Close to this
+monument of a not unusual Renaissance type, we discover the last resting
+place of Robert Guiscard’s second wife, the Duchess Sigilgaita, their son
+Roger Bursa and their grandson William, in whom the direct line of the
+Great Adventurer became extinct. Many stories are told by the old
+chroniclers of this bold intrepid princess (not always to her
+credit)—daughter of the last Lombard prince Gisulf of Salerno and wife of
+her father’s supplanter, whose humble Norman ancestry she affected to
+despise. But despite her reputation for cruelty and even for murder,
+Sigilgaita was a faithful wife and a brave woman, with a character not
+unlike that of our own Queen Margaret of Anjou; and it seems strange that
+so devoted and well mated a pair as herself and Robert Guiscard should be
+separated in death, he at Venosa and she in the cathedral of her husband’s
+foundation.
+
+Passing out of the silent church into the warm light of eventide, by steep
+alleys and by stony footpaths we gradually mount upwards towards the
+ruined castle that commands a lofty position with an all-embracing view of
+the bay and its encircling mountains. The crumbling fragment of the old
+palace of Salerno differs but little in appearance from any one of those
+innumerable dilapidated piles of the Middle Ages with which Southern Italy
+is so thickly studded, yet coming fresh from visiting Guiscard’s cathedral
+and Hildebrand’s last resting-place, we find it comparatively easy to
+conjure up some recollections of its past, so as to invest its crumbling
+red-hued walls with a spell of interest. These broken apertures were
+surely once the windows through which the dying Pope must have wearily
+glanced upon the sun-smitten waves and violet-shadowed hills that we
+behold to-day; here in this embrasure, long despoiled of its marble seat,
+must have brooded the fierce and unscrupulous Sigilgaita, thinking of how
+best to rid herself of her step-son Bohemond, in order that her own
+children might inherit their father’s realms. The ghosts of princes and
+popes are around us, yet the only living inhabitant of the roofless castle
+is the ragged little goat-herd, whose unsavoury charges are cropping the
+short grass that covers the site of the banqueting hall, where Norman
+knights and Italian barons once caroused in the crusading days of long
+ago. We seat ourselves on the dry sward in a sun-warmed angle of the
+ruins, where an almond tree that has sprouted from the rubble sends down
+from time to time upon our heads a tiny shower of pale pink blossoms at
+the bidding of the soft evening breeze. At our feet are masses of the dark
+shiny leaves of the wild arum, and rank grass which is plentifully starred
+with tall-stemmed crimson-petalled daisies and the mauve wind-flowers that
+are drowsily closing their cups at the approach of night. The little
+goat-herd eyes us solemnly, but—strange and welcome to relate—shows no
+inclination to pester the _signori_. The soft murmuring of the distant
+sea, the subdued hum of the city far below us and the drowsy buzzing of
+the bees in the almond and ivy bloom close at hand combine to strengthen
+the golden chain of imagination. As we sit basking in the peaceful beauty
+of the scene around us and serenely conscious of its glorious past, one of
+our party suddenly remembers in a welcome flash of inspiration that this
+deserted courtyard has been made the scene of one of Boccaccio’s most
+famous tales. It is a story that many writers of succeeding ages have
+endeavoured to imitate in prose or verse, but this fictitious love-tragedy
+between a princess and a page at Salerno has a simple charm and dignity in
+its original setting that only the master-hand of the Tuscan author could
+impart. The scene of the novel of Guiscard and Ghismonda is laid, as we
+have said, at this very spot, and as the hero, the heroine and the villain
+of the tale have Norman names, we may be allowed to conjecture that this
+graceful story, which Boccaccio puts into the mouth of the lady Fiammetta,
+was founded upon some actual but half-forgotten family scandal in the
+annals of the mighty but self-made House of Hauteville.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+Once upon a time there reigned in Salerno the Prince Tancred, who was a
+widower, and the father of an only daughter, Ghismonda, Duchess of Capua.
+The Duchess, who was considered one of the most beautiful, accomplished
+and virtuous princesses of her day, had been early married to the Duke of
+Capua, but on his death after a very few years of matrimony had been left
+a childless widow. Being still very young, the Princess Ghismonda was now
+taken back to his court by her father, who jealously guarded her and
+seemed unwilling for her to be remarried. Living in rooms that over-looked
+the courtyard of the palace, the Duchess, who found time hang on her hands
+somewhat heavily, used to spend hours daily in watching the lords and
+pages of her father’s household passing and repassing the quadrangle
+below, and amongst the many well-favoured youths a certain page named
+Guiscard found most favour in her sight. Now Guiscard, who had thus all
+unwittingly attracted Ghismonda’s attention and finally won her heart, was
+a young Norman of no great lineage and of small means, but being discreet,
+upright and sensible-minded, had obtained a high place in Prince Tancred’s
+estimation. Skilfully questioning her maids of honour without exciting
+their suspicions, the Princess gained all she wished to know concerning
+Guiscard’s position and attainments, and it was not long before she found
+means of conveying the secret of her affection to the youth, who in fact
+had already fallen head over ears in love with the beautiful Duchess who
+so often leaned from the casement above. She now sent him a letter hidden
+in a pair of bellows, wherein she explained to him the existence of a
+secret passage, long disused, that led from a hollow in the hillside below
+the castle walls up to her own apartment. Over-joyed at receiving this
+missive, the infatuated page took the first occasion, as we may well
+imagine, to make use of this friendly clue, and before many hours had
+passed after receiving the letter, the young man, flushed and triumphant,
+was standing in the chamber of his beloved mistress, who had meanwhile
+taken every necessary preparation for receiving her lover in secret. Many
+a time were the pair able to meet thus without awakening the least
+suspicion in the minds of Prince Tancred or of the maids of honour, and
+all would doubtless have gone well for an indefinite period of time, but
+for a most unforeseen accident. It appears that one morning the old Prince
+of Salerno, wishing to confer with his daughter on some matter of state,
+came to her private apartment, and on learning that she had gone out
+riding settled himself upon a couch that stood within a curtained alcove,
+and whilst waiting for her return fell sound asleep. After some hours of
+repose the prince was suddenly roused from his heavy slumber by the sound
+of two voices in the room, that of his daughter and of a strange man.
+Peeping stealthily through the folds of the draperies, he now beheld to
+his fury and amazement the Duchess alone with his page Guiscard. But the
+descendant of Robert the Wiseacre well knew how to temper vengeance with
+dissimulation. Dreading the scandal that would follow an open exposure,
+the Prince, in spite of his years and the stiffness of his joints,
+contrived to quit the chamber unperceived by means of a convenient window.
+That very night the unsuspecting Guiscard was seized by his sovereign’s
+orders and thrust into a foul dungeon of the palace, whither Tancred
+himself descended to question his prisoner and to reprove him violently
+for his base ingratitude. But the unhappy page could only make repeated
+answer: “Sire, love hath greater powers than you or I!” On the following
+morning Tancred proceeded to visit the Duchess, still ignorant of her
+paramour’s fate, and in a voice strangled with the conflicting emotions of
+paternal love and desired vengeance bitterly upbraided his erring child.
+“Daughter, I had such an opinion of your modesty and virtue, that I could
+never have believed, had I not seen it with mine own eyes, that you would
+have violated either, even so much as in thought. The recollection of this
+will make the pittance of life that is left very grievous to me. As you
+were determined to act in that manner, would to Heaven you had made choice
+of a person more suitable to your own quality; but this Guiscard is one of
+the meanest persons about my court. This gives me such concern, that I
+scarce know what to do. As for him, he was secured by my order last night,
+and his fate is determined. But with regard to yourself, I am influenced
+by two different motives: on one side, the tenderest regard that a father
+can have for a child; and on the other, the justest vengeance for the
+great folly you have committed. One pleads strongly in your behalf; and
+the other would excite me to do an act contrary to my nature. But before I
+come to a resolution, I would fain hear what you have to say for
+yourself.”
+
+Seeing clearly from her father’s words that her secret had been discovered
+and that her lover was in prison, the intrepid Ghismonda, a true daughter
+of the high-spirited House of Hauteville, assuming a composure she was
+very far from feeling, made a dignified appeal on behalf of Guiscard and
+herself.
+
+“Father, it is not my purpose either to deny or to entreat; for as the one
+can avail me nothing, so I intend the other shall be of little service. I
+will by no means bespeak your love and tenderness towards me; but shall
+first, by an open confession, endeavour to vindicate myself, and thus do
+what the greatness of my soul prompts me to. It is most true that I have
+loved, and do still love Guiscard; and whilst I live, which will not be
+long, shall continue to love him; and if such a thing as love be after
+death, I shall never cease to love him.... It appears from what you say,
+that you would have been less incensed if I had made choice of a nobleman,
+and you bitterly reproach me for having condescended to a man of low
+condition. In this you speak according to vulgar prejudice, and not
+according to truth; nor do you perceive that the fault you blame is not
+mine, but Fortune’s, who often exalts the unworthy, and leaves the
+worthiest in low estate. But, not to dwell on such considerations, look a
+little into first principles, and you will see that we are all formed of
+the same material and by the same hand. The first difference amongst
+mankind, who are all born equal, was made by virtue; they who were
+virtuous were deemed noble, and the rest were all accounted otherwise.
+Though this law, therefore, may have been obscured by contrary custom, yet
+is it discarded neither by nature nor good manners. If you regard only the
+worth and virtue of your courtiers, and consider that of Guiscard, you
+will find him the only noble person, and these others a set of poltroons.
+With regard to his worth and valour, I appeal to yourself. Who ever
+commended man more for anything that was praise-worthy than you have
+commended him? And deservedly, in my judgment; but if I was deceived, it
+was by following your opinion. If you say, then, that I have had an affair
+with a person base and ignoble, I deny it; if with a poor one, it is to
+your shame to have let such merit go unrewarded. Now concerning your last
+doubt, namely how you are to deal with me: use your pleasure. If you are
+disposed to commit an act of cruelty, I shall say nothing to prevent such
+a resolution. But this I must apprise you of; that unless you do the same
+to me, which you either have done, or mean to do to Guiscard, mine own
+hands shall do it for you. If you mean to act with severity, cut us off
+both together, if it appear to you that we have deserved it.”
+
+The Duchess’ able defence of her choice of Guiscard and her democratic
+views of society were hardly likely to influence the proud tyrant of
+Salerno, although his house was sprung from a plebeian stock of Normandy.
+Ignoring her plea and arguments, Tancred left his daughter alone with her
+grief, and proceeded to the cells below to give the order for Guiscard’s
+immediate death by strangling. But Tancred’s fury was by no means appeased
+by the page’s death, for tearing the unhappy youth’s heart from the warm
+and still quivering body, the brutal prince had the bleeding flesh placed
+in a golden covered cup, which he bade his chamberlain deliver to
+Ghismonda, with these cruel words: “Your father sends this present to
+comfort you with what was most dear to you; even as he was comforted by
+you in what was most dear to him.” With a calm countenance and with a
+gracious word of thanks, the Princess accepted the gift, and on removing
+the cover and realising the contents of the cup, said with meaning to the
+bearer of this gruesome present: “My father has done very wisely; such a
+heart as this requires no worse a sepulchre than one of gold.” Then after
+lamenting for a while over her lover’s fate, Ghismonda filled the goblet
+with a draught of poison that she had already prepared in anticipation of
+her father’s vengeance, and quaffed its contents. After this she lay down
+upon her bed, clasping the cup to her bosom, whereupon her maids, all
+ignorant of the cause of their mistress’ conduct, ran terrified to call
+Prince Tancred, who arrived in time to witness his unhappy daughter’s
+death agony. Now that it was too late, the Prince was stricken with
+remorse and began loudly to bewail the violence of his late anger. “Sire,”
+said the dying Princess, “save those tears against worse fortune that may
+happen, for I want them not. Who but yourself would mourn for a thing of
+your own doing?” Then dropping her tone of irony, she made one last
+request of her weeping and repentant father, that her own and Guiscard’s
+bodies might be honourably interred within the same tomb. Thus perished by
+her own hand the beautiful Princess Ghismonda of Salerno, Duchess of
+Capua, urged to the fell deed by a parent’s inexorable cruelty. And it is
+some slight consolation to the sad ending of the story to learn that
+Tancred did at least carry out his daughter’s dying entreaty, for the
+bodies of Ghismonda and Guiscard were duly laid in one grave amidst the
+pomp of religion and the cold comfort of a public mourning.(7)
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+But the sun has long since sunk below the horizon, and the chill dews of
+night are falling round us. Hastily we leave the old palace of the princes
+of Salerno to the solitary occupation of the bats and owls, to seek warmth
+and cheerfulness in our inn upon the Marina.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IX
+
+
+                  PAESTUM AND THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE
+
+
+In these days of easy travelling there lies a choice of two routes to
+Paestum and its temples: one by driving thither direct from La Cava or
+Salerno, in the mode of our forefathers; and the other by taking the train
+to the little junction of Battipaglia, and thence proceeding southward by
+the coast line to the station of Pesto itself, that stands almost within a
+stone’s throw of the chief gate of Poseidonia. A third, and perhaps a
+preferable way, consists in using the railway beyond Battipaglia to Eboli,
+a town of no little interest in the upper valley of the Silarus, and
+thence driving along the base of the rocky hills that enclose the maritime
+plain and through the oak wood of Persano that was brigand-haunted within
+living memory. But though the scenery between Eboli and Paestum
+undoubtedly owns more charm and variety than the marshy flats can boast,
+yet the strange loneliness of the sea-girt level has a fascination of its
+own, which will appeal strongly to all lovers of pristine undisturbed
+nature. For the larger portion of these Lucanian plains still remains
+uncultivated, so that thickets of fragrant wild myrtle and lentisk, of
+coronella and of white-blossomed laurustinus, stud the landscape; whilst
+the open ground is thickly covered with masses of hardy but gay flowering
+weeds. The great star-thistles run to seed unchecked by the scythe, and
+the belled cerinthia and the glaucous-leaved tall yellow mulleins seem to
+thrive heartily on the barren soil. Boggy ground alternates with patches
+of dry stony earth, and in early summer every little pool of water affords
+sustenance to coarse-scented white water-lilies, and clumps of the yellow
+iris that are over-shadowed by masses of tall graceful reeds. These
+_arundini_, which are to be found near every water-course or pool
+throughout Italy, are characteristic of the country with their broad grey
+leaves, their heads of pink feathery bloom, and their mournful whispering
+answers to the question of every passing breeze; elegant in their growth,
+they are also beloved by the practical peasant who utilizes their long
+slender stems for a variety of purposes in his domestic economy. For the
+reeds, stripped of their foliage, support his tender young vines and make
+good frame-work whereon to train his peas and tomatoes; the longest canes
+of all, moreover, serve well as handles for the long feather brushes which
+are used so extensively in all Italian households. Other floral denizens
+of the plain are the great rank _porri_, or wild leeks, conspicuous with
+their bright green curling leaves issuing from globe-like roots above the
+ground, and of course, the asphodel, the plant of Death. For the asphodel
+is pre-eminently the flower of Southern Italy and of Sicily, since it
+presents a fit emblem of a departed grandeur that is still impressive in
+its decay. How beautiful to the eye appear the dark grey-green sword-like
+leaves from the centre of which up-shoots the tall branching stem with its
+clusters of delicate pink-striped blossoms, that show so lovely yet smell
+so vile! Apart from its fetid odour, the asphodel is a thing of intense
+beauty, so that a long line of these plants in full bloom, covering some
+ridge of orange-coloured tufa or the velvety-grey crest of some ancient
+wall, with their spikes of starry flowers standing out distinct like
+floral candelabra against the clear blue of a southern sky, makes an
+impression upon the beholder that will ever be gratefully remembered.
+
+But flowers and shrubs are not the only occupants of the Poseidonian
+plain, for as we proceed on our way towards the Temples, we notice in the
+drier pastures large herds of the long-horned dove-coloured cattle of the
+country, whilst in marshy places our interest is aroused by the sight of
+great shaggy buffaloes of sinister mien. The buffalo has long been
+acclimatized in Italy, though its original home seems to have been the
+trackless marshes of the Tigris and Euphrates. The conquering Arabs first
+introduced these uncouth Eastern cattle into Sicily, whence they were
+imported into Italy by the Norman kings of Naples. In spite of its
+malevolent nature and the poor quality of its flesh and hide, the buffalo
+came to be extensively bred in the Pontine and Lucanian marshes, where the
+moisture of the soil and the unwholesome air always affected the native
+herds unfavourably. For hours together these fierce untameable beasts love
+to lie amidst the swampy reed-beds, wallowing up to their flanks in slimy
+malodorous mud and seemingly impervious to the ceaseless attacks of the
+local wasps and gad-flies, which try in vain to penetrate with their
+barbed stings the thick hairy covering of defence. Perchance between
+Battipaglia and Paestum we may encounter a herd of these shaggy beeves
+being driven by a peasant on horse-back, with his _pungolo_ or small lance
+in hand: a human being that in his goat-skin breeches and with his
+luxuriant untrimmed locks, seems to our eyes only one degree less savage
+and unkempt than the fierce beasts he guides. As cultivation has made
+progress of recent years and the unhealthy marshes of the coast line are
+being gradually drained, the numbers of buffalo tend to decrease, whilst
+the native Italian oxen are being introduced once more into the newly
+reclaimed pastures. That former arch-enemy of the cattle in the days of
+Vergil seems to have disappeared: that “flying pest,” the _asilo_ of the
+Romans and the _aestrum_ of the Greeks, which in antique times was wont to
+drive the grazing herds frantic with terror and pain, until the valley of
+the Tanager and the Alburnian woods re-echoed with the agonised lowing of
+the poor tortured creatures. And speaking of noxious insects, a general
+belief prevails in Italy that their bite—as well as that of snakes and
+scorpions—becomes more acute and dangerous when the sun enters into the
+sign of Lion, so that human beings, as well as defenceless cattle, must
+carefully avoid all chances of being bitten during the months of July and
+August.
+
+Before our goal can be reached it is necessary for us to cross the broad
+willow-fringed stream of the Sele, the Silarus of antiquity, which
+according to the testimony of Silius Italicus once possessed the property
+of petrifying wood. In the distant days of the eighteenth century, the
+traveller to Paestum had to endure amidst other difficulties and dangers
+of the road the disagreeable business of being ferried across the Sele,
+which was then bridgeless. Owing to the malaria and the loneliness of the
+spot, the acting of ferryman over this river was not an agreeable post,
+and Count Stolberg, a German dilettante who has left some memories of his
+Italian wanderings, relates how a feeble dismal soured old man, a
+veritable Charon of the upper air, had great difficulty in conveying
+himself, his horse and his servant across the swollen stream. The old
+man’s age and misery aroused the Count’s compassion, so that he asked him
+why he continued thus to perform a task at once so arduous and so
+distasteful. “Sir,” replied the boatman, “I would gladly be excused, but
+that my master compels me to undertake this work.” “And who, pray, is this
+tyrant of a master of yours?” indignantly enquired the Count. “Sir, it is
+my Lord Poverty!” grimly answered the old ferryman, as he pocketed the
+Teuton’s fee. Times have changed with regard to the necessity of a ferry
+over the Sele, but to judge from the appearance of the people and from the
+accounts in the journals, we much doubt if my Lord Poverty’s sway has been
+much weakened in these parts.
+
+At length we reach the tiny hamlet and station of Pesto, surrounded by its
+groves of mournful eucalyptus trees, and if we visit the station itself,
+we cannot help noticing the fine gauze net-work over every window and
+door, also the veiled faces and be-gloved hands of the station-master and
+his _facchini_. It is not difficult to gauge the reason of the eucalyptus
+trees at Pesto, an alien importation like the buffalo, for these native
+trees of Australia have been planted here with the avowed object of
+reducing the malaria, for which the place is only too renowned. Scientists
+have positively declared that the mosquitoes which rise in clouds from the
+poisonous swamps at sunset are directly responsible for this terrible form
+of ague, and a paternal Government has accordingly introduced gum-trees to
+improve the quality of the air, and has presented gloves, veils and fine
+lattice work to its servants in the hope of protecting them from the bites
+of these tiny pestilence-bearing insects. We do not wish to dispute the
+wisdom of modern bacteriologists, but somehow we have no great faith in
+this elaborate scheme for battling with Nature; and indeed not a few
+persons who have studied the matter declare that though the reeking
+marshes are certainly productive of malaria in themselves (so much so that
+it is dangerous to linger amidst the ruined temples of an evening), yet
+these spiteful little creatures are at least innocent of innoculating
+humanity with this particular disease. Moreover, a plausible idea that is
+now largely held insists that the recent spread of cultivation over the
+Lucanian Plain is itself largely responsible for the increase of malaria;
+it is the up-turning of the germ-impregnated earth that has lain fallow
+for centuries, say the supporters of this theory, which awakens and sets
+free the slumbering demon of fever in the soil, so that the speeding of
+the plough on the Neapolitan coast must inevitably mean also the spreading
+of this fell and mysterious sickness. Let us therefore give the devil his
+due: the mosquito is a hateful and persistent foe, and his sting is both
+painful and disfiguring, but do not let us accuse him of carrying malaria
+until the case can be better proved against him. But enough of fevers and
+doctors’ saws! Let us turn our willing eyes towards the three great
+temples that confront us close at hand. Before however proceeding to
+inspect these great monuments of Grecian art and civilization, which rank
+amongst the most venerable as well as the most beautiful relics of
+antiquity, it is only meet that we should carry with us into their ruined
+halls a few grains of historical knowledge, whereby our sense of reality
+and our appreciation of their greatness and splendour may be increased.
+
+  [Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE, PAESTUM]
+
+Although we do not possess a definite history of Paestum, similar to that
+of Rome or of Athens, yet from the many allusions to be found scattered
+throughout the pages of classical historians, as well as from the various
+inscriptions and devices found upon ancient coins of this city, it is not
+a difficult task to piece together the main features of Poseidonian
+annals. From a very remote period of antiquity there was undoubtedly a
+settlement on or near the coast to the south of the river Silarus, whilst
+it is commonly held that this spot was called Peste—a name almost
+identical with the modern Italian appellation—many hundreds of years
+before the arrival of Doric settlers on the shores of the Tyrrhene Sea.
+Late in the seventh century before Christ, the Greek colony of Poseidonia,
+the city of the Sea God, was founded on or near the site of Italian Peste
+by certain Hellenic adventurers from Trœzen, who were amongst the
+inhabitants of Sybaris, at that time one of the most flourishing of the
+famous cities of Magna Graecia: and this new colony of Trœzenians
+henceforward was accounted one of the twenty-five subject-towns that
+recognised Sybaris for their metropolis, or mother and suzerain city. We
+have no details of its early history, but it is quite certain that under
+the protection of Sybaris the new city of Poseidonia rose by degrees to
+such wealth and importance that in course of time it gave its own name to
+the whole Bay of Salerno, which henceforth became known to the Greeks as
+the Poseidonian Gulf and later, to the Romans, as the Bay of Paestum. With
+the fall of the mother city, this flourishing colony was left alone to
+face the attacks of the Samnites, the native barbarians who peopled the
+dense forests and the barren mountains of Lucania; yet it somehow
+contrived to retain its independence until the close of the fourth century
+B.C., when the Samnite hordes, forcing the fortified line of the Silarus,
+made themselves masters of Poseidonia, and put an end, practically for
+ever, to its existence as a purely Hellenic city. From its Lucanian
+masters the captured town received the name of Paestum, and its
+inhabitants were at once deprived of their independence, were forbidden to
+carry arms, and were probably in many instances reduced to the level of
+serfs. A large number of Samnites also settled within the walls of the
+town, and compelled the former owners to surrender to them the larger and
+richer portion of the public and private lands upon the maritime plain.
+The use of the Hellenic language and public worship were however
+permitted, and, strange to relate, no interference was made with a solemn
+annual festival, which the depressed and enslaved population now
+inaugurated with the confessed object of remembering for ever their Greek
+origin and their former greatness. For once a year at a fixed date all
+Greeks were wont to gather together and to bewail in public, outside the
+great temple of Poseidon, their lost liberty and their vanished power. It
+is evident that the Lucanians did not fear the tears and lamentations of
+this unhappy subject state, for this custom continued to be observed
+throughout the whole period of Samnite oppression, and survived even till
+Roman times—perhaps to the very end of the city’s existence,—although in
+the course of passing generations there could have been but few persons of
+pure Greek descent left in the place.
+
+With the advent of Alexander of Epirus, who had been called into Italy by
+the Greeks of Tarentum in order to assist the sorely-pressed colonies of
+Magna Graecia, Epirot troops were landed at the mouth of the Silarus.
+Under the very walls of Paestum there now took place a stubborn fight
+wherein the army of the Samnites was completely routed, and its survivors
+driven in confusion from the coast into the wild woods and rocky valleys
+of the Lucanian hills. For a brief interval of years Poseidonia regained
+its lost liberty and its Hellenic name, but with the overthrow and death
+of Alexander of Epirus, the scattered hordes pressed down once more from
+their mountain fastnesses upon the rich plain, and the city was for the
+second time enslaved by the ruder conquering race. Forty years later,
+after the Pyrrhine war, all Lucania fell under the rising power of Rome, a
+change that was by no means unacceptable to the Greek cities, which were
+groaning under the rude tyranny of the Samnites. A Latin colony was now
+planted at Paestum, to form a convenient centre whence the neighbouring
+district could be kept in order and peaceably developed according to Roman
+ideas. These Roman colonists, although they did not restore the lands and
+buildings held by the expelled Samnites to their rightful owners, yet
+lived on terms of amity with the Greek population, with whom they must
+have freely intermarried. The original Hellenic inhabitants, relieved of
+the bonds of servitude, were now placed on an equal footing with the new
+colonists, partaking of political rights in the city thus freshly
+re-created under the supremacy of Rome, and soon they grew to imitate the
+speech and manners of their new masters, so that as an immediate result of
+the expulsion of the barbaric Samnites and the entry of the progressive
+Romans, Paestum began to recover a considerable portion of its ancient
+splendour.
+
+During the course of the second Punic War the name of Paestum is not
+unfrequently mentioned in Roman annals, and owing its revived prosperity
+to its annexation by Rome, it is not surprising to find the existence of a
+strong feeling of gratitude amongst the inhabitants. At the date of fatal
+Cannæ this faithful Greek city sent assurances of unswerving allegiance to
+the Senate, and also more substantial help in the form of all the golden
+vessels from its temples. It was Paestum also that early in the third
+century B.C. supplied part of the ill-fated fleet of Decius Quinctius,
+that was raised to run the blockade of Tarentum. But even the loss of its
+ships and men did not deter this loyal city from coming forward a second
+time with expressions of fealty and promise of further aid to the great
+suzerain city in this dark hour of its difficulties. From this point
+onward till the close of the Republic, History is almost silent with
+regard to Paestum; but its numerous coins go far to attest its continued
+welfare, for it now shared, together with Venusia, Brundusium and Vibo
+Valentia, a special right to strike money in its own name and with its own
+devices. Under the Empire, Paestum managed to uphold its size and
+importance, so that it became the capital of one of the eight Prefectures
+into which the district of Lucania had been divided. At this period, there
+can be no doubt, the surrounding plain was in the highest state of
+cultivation, whilst its prolific rose-gardens—_biferi rosaria Paesti_—have
+supplied the theme of every Roman poet from Vergil to Ausonius. Yet in
+spite of its apparent prosperity, the seeds of coming decline had already
+been sown. Strabo tells us that even in early Imperial days the city was
+obtaining an unenviable reputation for malaria: a circumstance that was
+due to the over-flowing of the unwholesome streamlet, the Salso, whose
+reeking and fever-bearing waters began to impregnate the earth.
+Engineering works on a large scale were planned to remedy this drawback,
+but these were never executed, and in consequence the unhealthiness of the
+place increased. With the decline of the Roman power the population and
+prosperity of Paestum likewise tended to lessen, so that its citizens were
+placed in a worse position than before with regard to the carrying out of
+this vast but necessary scheme of sanitation.
+
+In a spot so accessible to external influence, it is easy to understand
+that Christianity early took root in Paestum, which in the fifth century
+of our own era had already become a bishopric. The story of the growth of
+the Faith in Lucania is closely connected with a legend that centres round
+a native of the place, a certain Gavinius, a general in the army of the
+Emperor Valentinian, who whilst serving in Britain against the Picts by
+some means succeeded in obtaining a valuable relic, supposed to be nothing
+less than the body of the Apostle Matthew, which he brought back with him
+to his native place. Early in the ninth century there appeared a fresh
+cause of alarm, more serious and far-reaching even than the dreaded
+malaria, for plundering Saracens, foes alike to the old Roman civilisation
+and to the new Christian creed, now began to harass the Tyrrhenian shores.
+Settling at Agropoli to the south of the Bay, these Oriental freebooters
+found little difficulty in effecting a landing on the Poseidonian beach,
+and in raiding the weakened and almost defenceless city. Able-bodied men
+and young maidens were forcibly carried off to the pirates’ nest at
+Agropoli, or perhaps even to the distant coast of Barbary, to be sold into
+perpetual slavery. Alarmed beyond measure by this raid, the remaining
+inhabitants of the place, at the advice and under the guidance of their
+bishop, now decided—wisely, for they had to choose between immediate
+flight or gradual extermination by disease, slavery and the sword—to
+remove themselves to the barren mountains in their rear, once the haunts
+of the Samnites, and to build a new Paestum on a site at once more healthy
+and better protected by Nature against the raids of infidel corsairs. In a
+body therefore the remaining citizens amid deep wailing left for ever the
+ancient city with its glorious temples, and retired to a strong position
+to the east. The spot chosen for the new residence of these exiles lay
+close to the source that supplied with pure water their ancient aqueduct,
+known for this reason as Caputaqueum, now corrupted into Capaccio. A link
+with the old city, that lay deserted in the plain below, was still
+retained by the bishop of the newly founded town in the mountains, who
+continued to be known as _Episcopus Paestanus_. In the eleventh century
+Robert Guiscard systematically plundered the ruins of Paestum in order to
+erect or embellish the churches and palaces of Salerno and Amalfi. Every
+remaining piece of sculpture and of marble was removed, and it was only
+the vast size of the pillars of the three great temples, and the
+consequent difficulty attending their transport by boat across the bay or
+along the marshy ground of the coast line, that saved from destruction
+these magnificent relics of “the glory that was Greece.” But even humble
+Capaccio did not afford a final resting-place to the harried Paestani, for
+in the year 1245 the great Emperor Frederick II., who had been defied by
+the feudal Counts of Capaccio, besieged and utterly destroyed this
+stronghold of the mountains that had been the child of Poseidonia of the
+sea-girt plains. Another and a yet loftier retreat had to be sought by the
+survivors of the Imperial vengeance, so that the ruined Capaccio the Old
+was abandoned for another settlement, which still exists as a miserable
+village amidst those barren hills that had ever looked down with jealous
+envy upon the proud city with its pillared temples. One curious
+circumstance with regard to Paestum must finally be mentioned, in that the
+existence of its ruins, the grandest and most ancient group of monuments
+on the mainland of Italy, remained unknown to the learned world until
+comparatively modern times. Only the local peasants and the inhabitants of
+the poverty-stricken towns in the Lucanian hills seem to have been aware
+of the presence of the gigantic temples standing in lonely majesty by the
+shore and as the superstitious nature of these ignorant people attributed
+these structures to the work of a magician—perhaps to the great wizard
+Vergil himself—they were shunned both by night and by day as the haunt of
+malignant spirits. Poor fisher-folk and buffalo-drivers, who had of
+necessity to pass near the ruined fanes, were wont to slink by in fear and
+trembling, and doubtless they brought back strange stories of its ghostly
+occupants with which they regaled their friends or families by the
+fire-side of a winter’s evening. Yet it is most strange that during the
+period of the Renaissance, at a time when enthusiastic research was being
+made into the neglected antiquities of Italy, this unique group of Doric
+temples should have escaped notice. For neither Cyriaco of Ancona nor
+Leandro Alberti, who visited Lucania ostensibly for the sake of recording
+its classical remains, make mention of “the ruined majesty of Paestum,”
+and it was reserved for a certain Count Gazola (whose name is certainly
+worthy of being recorded), an officer in the service of the Neapolitan
+King, to present to the notice of scholars and archaeologists towards the
+middle of the eighteenth century the first known description of what is
+perhaps Italy’s chief existing treasure of antiquity. From Gazola’s day
+onward the beauty and interest of Paestum have been appraised at their
+true worth, and numberless artists and writers of almost every nationality
+have sketched or described its marvellous temples.
+
+With this brief introduction to the history of a city, whose chief
+building is still standing almost intact after a lapse of 2500 years, let
+us take a rapid survey of Poseidonia as it exists to-day. Its walls, of
+Greek construction but probably built or restored as late as the time of
+Alexander of Epirus, who gave the captured town a fleeting spell of
+liberty, form an irregular pentagon about three miles in circumference,
+whereon the remains of eight towers can be observed, whilst the four
+gates, placed at the four cardinal points of the compass, are clearly
+traceable. We enter this _città morta_ by the so-called Porta della
+Sirena, the eastern gate that faces the hostile Samnite Hills and (oh, the
+prosaic touch!) the modern railway-station. This gate remains in a
+tolerable state of preservation, and draws its name from the key-stone of
+its arch, which bears in low relief a much defaced design of a mermaid or
+siren, its counterpart on the inner keystone being a dolphin: two devices
+very appropriate to the entrance of a city dedicated to the Lord of Ocean.
+Passing the picturesque yellow-washed Villa Salati, with its high walls
+and iron-barred windows testifying only too plainly to the lawlessness
+that once reigned in this district, we find ourselves face to face with
+the great temple of Neptune or Poseidon, and its companion-fane, the
+so-called Basilica. The Temple of Neptune (for in this instance at least
+the popular appellation chances to be the correct one), in all probability
+co-eval with the first Greek foundation of the city, formed the central
+point of the life of Poseidonia during the 1400 years of its existence as
+a Hellenic, a Samnite, and finally a Roman city. In its simple grandeur
+and its perfect proportions this wonderful temple possesses only one rival
+outside Greece itself: the Temple of Concord at Girgenti, which the poet
+Goethe compared to a god, after designating the building before us as a
+giant. Superiority in grace is therefore a disputed point between the two
+great structures of Poseidonia and Agrigentum, yet in every other respect
+the temple of the Lucanian Plain surpasses its Sicilian rival.
+
+To-day, after more than a score of centuries of exposure to the salt winds
+and to the burning sunshine of the south, the walls and pillars of these
+great buildings have been calcined to a glorious shade of tawny yellow,
+fit to delight the soul of every artist, whether he views their Titanic
+but graceful forms outlined against the deep blue of sky and sea on the
+western horizon, or against the equally lovely background of grey and
+violet mountains to the east. But it was not always thus. The porous local
+travertine that gave their building material to the Greeks of the sixth
+century before Christ was once carefully stuccoed, and, in the manner of
+Hellenic art, painted in the most brilliant hues of azure and vermilion,
+so that it becomes hard for us to realise the original effect of such
+gorgeous masses standing erect in a landscape that is itself fraught with
+glowing colour. But better to appreciate the magnificence before us, let
+us give a brief technical description of the greatest of the temples in
+the choice words of an eminent French antiquary.
+
+“The largest and most elegant, and likewise the oldest of the Temples of
+Paestum, is that commonly known by the name of the Temple of Neptune. This
+building shares, together with the Temple of Theseus at Athens, the honour
+of being the best preserved monument of the Doric order in existence, and
+the impression of grandeur that it gives to the spectator rivals even the
+first sight of the Parthenon itself. In front of the building is a
+platform in the midst of which can be seen the hollow space that formerly
+held the altar of sacrifice, for according to the practice of the Greek
+religion, these rites of blood-shedding took place in the open air and
+outside the temple. With a length of 190 feet and a breadth of 84 feet,
+this building is hypoethral, which means that the _cella_, or sanctuary
+that held the statue of the deity, was constructed open to the sky. It is
+peripteral, and presents a row of six pillars fluted at base and top, with
+twelve on each side, making thirty-six in all. The _cella_ itself in the
+interior is upheld by sixteen columns about six feet in diameter, which in
+their turn are surmounted by two rows of smaller pillars above that
+support the roof. With the exception of one side of the upper stage of the
+interior every column of the temple remains intact, as do likewise the
+entablature and pediments. Only the wall of the _cella_ has been pulled
+down; doubtless to supply material for building.”(8)
+
+Having quoted Monsieur Lenormant’s careful description of the chief pride
+of Poseidonia, we shall confine ourselves to as few remarks as possible
+concerning the two remaining temples. The Basilica, a misnomer of which
+the veriest amateur must at once perceive the absurdity, is inferior both
+in size and in beauty of proportion to its close neighbour of Neptune. Its
+chief peculiarity from an architectural point of view will be at once
+remarked, for it has its two façades composed of seven—an odd number—of
+columns, so that its interior easily divides itself into two narrow
+chambers of equal length, affording ample ground for the theory, now
+generally held, that this building was not a hall of Justice, or
+_Basilica_, but a temple intended expressly for the worship of dual
+divinities. Almost without a doubt it was erected—probably not long after
+the Temple of Poseidon—in honour of Demeter (Ceres) and of her only child
+Persephone (Proserpine), who was seized from her mother’s care by the
+amorous god of the Infernal Regions, as she was plucking anemones in the
+verdant meadows of Enna. We all know “the old sweet mythos”; we all
+understand its hidden allegory with regard to the sowing, the up-springing
+and the garnering of the yellow corn, that spends half the year in the
+embraces of the earth, the palace of Pluto, and half the year on the broad
+loving bosom of Mother Demeter. Here then within these bare and ruined
+walls were mother and daughter worshipped by the people of Poseidonia, who
+reasonably considered that the two goddesses of the Earth should have
+their habitation as near as possible to the Sanctuary of the Sovereign of
+Ocean.
+
+Much smaller than either of these immense temples is the third remaining
+Greek building of Paestum, which lies a good quarter of a mile to the
+north, not far from the Golden Gate, the Porta Aurea, that leads northward
+in the direction of Salerno. Like that of Neptune, this temple is
+hexastyle, with six columns on each of its façades and twelve on either
+flank, but as it is little more than half the size of its grander and
+older brethren, it is now frequently known as “Il Piccolo Tempio,”
+although its former incorrect ascription to Ceres still clings to it in
+popular parlance. It is from this building, which stands on slightly
+rising ground, that the best impression of the whole city and of its
+wondrous setting between the savage Lucanian hills and the blue
+Mediterranean can be obtained.
+
+  “Between the mountains and the tideless sea
+  Stretches a plain where silence reigns supreme;
+  A land of asphodel and weeds that teem
+  Where once a city’s life ran joyfully.
+  ‘Vanity! Vanity! All Vanity!’
+  Whisper the winds to Sele’s murmuring stream;
+  Whilst the vast temples preach th’ eternal theme,
+  How pass the glories and their memory.
+  Think what these ruins saw! what songs and cries
+  Once through these roofless colonnades did ring!
+  What crowds here gathered, where the all-seeing skies
+  For centuries have watched the daisies spring!
+  Dead all within this crumbling circle lies:
+  Dead as the roses Roman bards did sing.”
+
+Beautiful as Paestum presents itself in the bright noontide of a Spring
+day, beneath a cloudless sky and with the blue waters of the Mediterranean
+lapping the distant yellow sands, there appears something incongruous in
+the sharp contrast between this joyfulness of vigorous life and the solemn
+atmosphere of the deserted city. The noisy twittering of multitudes of
+ubiquitous sparrows, equally at home in Doric temples as amongst the sooty
+chimney stacks of London; the twinklings and rustlings of the lizards in
+the young leaves and grass; the polyglot babble of excursionists from
+Naples or La Cava that a warm day in Spring invariably attracts to
+Paestum:—these are not sounds that blend well with the solemn spirit of
+the place. We long to cross the intervening ages so as to throw ourselves,
+if only for one short hour, outside the cares and interests of to-day into
+the heart of that refined civilisation which is gone for ever;—with the
+cheerful sunlight around us, and with our fellow-mortals on pleasure bent
+close at hand, we find it difficult to forget the present. Would it be
+possible, we ask ourselves, to spend a nocturnal vigil within the hall of
+the great temple of the Sea God, so as to behold, like that undaunted
+traveller, Crawford Ramage, the shafts of crystalline moonlight shed
+through the aperture of the roof leap from pillar to pillar, making bars
+of brilliant light amidst the surrounding blackness! O to sit and meditate
+thus engrossed with the memory of the past, and with no other sounds
+around us than the sad cry of the _aziola_, the little downy owl that
+Shelley so loved! But the gaunt spectre of Fever ever haunts this spot,
+and after sunset his power is supreme; so that he would be a bold man
+indeed who in an age of luxury and selfish comfort would carry out an idea
+at once so romantic and so perilous.
+
+We ourselves were especially fortunate on the occasion of our last visit
+to Poseidonia on a mild day in December, a month which on the Lucanian
+shore somewhat resembles a northern October. A soft luminous haze hung
+over the landscape and over the Bay of Salerno itself, rendering the
+classic mountains at once indistinct in outline and unnaturally lofty to
+the eye. More grandiose and mysterious than under the fierce light of a
+sunny noontide appeared that day the three giant pillared forms, as we
+entered the precincts of the ruined city by the Siren’s Gate, and made our
+way through the thick herbage still pearled with dew, since there was
+neither sunshine nor sirocco to dry “the tears of mournful Eve” off the
+clumps of silver-glinted acanthus, or the tall grasses bending with the
+moisture. In the warm humid air we seated ourselves on the plinth of a
+column, and gazing around allowed the influence of this marvellous spot to
+sink deep into the soul. No tourists with unseemly or unnecessary chatter
+arrived that day to share our selfish delight or to break the
+all-pervading spell of solitude; all lay peaceful and deserted. All was
+silent too save for the low monotonous sobbing of the sea on the unseen
+beach near at hand, the historic beach on which at various times
+throughout the roll of past ages Doric colonists, Epirot warriors, Roman
+legionaries and fierce Mohammedan pirates had disembarked, all with the
+same object:—to seize the proud city that had now for the last thousand
+years lain uninhabited, save for the owls and the bats. It was too cloudy
+a day for sun-loving creatures such as lizards or serpents to emerge and
+rustle amongst the broken stones and leaves, over all of which during the
+silent hours of the past night Arachne had been employed in weaving her
+softest and whitest textures, that the windless morning had allowed to
+remain intact. The only sign of animate life was visible in a pair of
+lively gold-finches, which with merry notes were fluttering from thistle
+to thistle, picking the down from each ripened flower-head and prodigally
+scattering the seeds upon the weed-grown soil where once had bloomed the
+odorous Roses of Paestum that the poets loved.
+
+Sitting thus amid the silence and solitude of a city half as old as Time
+itself, we were unexpectedly aroused by a gruff salutation proceeding from
+a little distance behind the temple. Turning quickly in the direction of
+the sound, we perceived the figure of a tall bearded man dressed in
+conical hat, with goat-skin trousers and cross-gartered legs, who but for
+the gun slung across his shoulders by a stout leathern strap might well
+have been mistaken for an apparition of the god Pan himself returned to
+earth. Vague recollections of the brigand Manzoni, the scourge of the
+neighbourhood and the murderer of more than one unhappy visitor to the
+ruins of Paestum in the good old _vetturino_ days, flashed through our
+mind, as we surveyed the muscular frame and the fowling-piece of the
+strange being before us. It was with a sigh of relief that we noted upon
+the straight stretch of white road leading to the Little Temple in the
+distance the presence of two royal _carabinieri_ majestically riding at a
+foot’s pace, their tall forms enveloped in long black cloaks whose folds
+swept over their horses’ tails. We felt reassured, and when for a second
+time the guttural voice addressed us in unintelligible _patois_, we
+perceived the innocent object of this mysterious visit. Searching in a
+capacious goat-skin bag, a species of Neapolitan sporran, this descendant
+of the Poseidonian Greeks produced and held up to our gaze three birds
+that he had shot in his morning’s hunting. For the modest sum of three
+lire the game exchanged hands, and the sportsman departed, well satisfied
+with his luck. Next evening we feasted royally in our inn at Salerno upon
+a succulent woodcock fattened upon the berries of the wood of Persano, and
+upon a couple of snipe that had grown plump amongst the Neptunian marshes.
+Nor was this dainty addition to our supper that night altogether
+undeserved; for having decided in a momentary fit of enthusiasm to forego
+the usual basket of hotel food at the time of starting from Salerno, in
+order to follow the advice of old Evelyn “to diet with the natives,” we
+had preferred to take our chance of midday refreshment at the solitary
+_osteria_ within the ruined city wall. The good people of the inn did what
+they could to regale the two _gran’ signori Inglesi_, whose unexpected
+presence had the effect of creating some stir within their humble walls.
+No little time was expended in bustling preparations, before a flask of
+red wine, some coarse bread, a dish of fried eggs and a plateful of cold
+sausage were placed before us upon the rough oak table, well scored with
+knife-cuts. Eggs, wine and bread are usually tolerable everywhere
+throughout Italy, no matter how mean the inn that provides them; but the
+Lucanian sausage, though interesting as a relic of classical times, is
+positive poison to the Anglo-Saxon digestion. For the Lucanian sausage of
+to-day is the _Lucanica_ unchanged; the same tough, greasy, odoriferous
+compound, in fact, that Cicero describes as “an intestine, stuffed with
+minced pork, mixed with ground pepper, cummin, savory, rue, rock-parsley,
+berries of laurel, and suet.” And we have only to add that mingling with
+the above-mentioned condiments there was an all-pervading flavour of
+wood-smoke, due to the sausage’s place of storage, a hook within the
+kitchen chimney. But if the fare was rough, it was cheap and smacked of
+classical times, and our reception by the Paestani of to-day was most
+cordial.
+
+We left Poseidonia late in the afternoon, casting back many regretful
+glances at the three giant sentinels of the plain, looming preternaturally
+large in the rapidly fading light of a starless evening. At that hour we
+felt we could understand and sympathise with the poor untutored peasant’s
+fear and avoidance of these lonely ruins, for superstition is often as
+much the result of chance environment as of crass ignorance.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER X
+
+
+                          SORRENTO AND ITS POET
+
+
+It has been said of more than one spot on this globe, that it was so
+beautiful in summer the marvel was to think any one could die there; and
+so wretched in winter, it was a miracle for its inhabitants to survive.
+Sorrento may be said to belong to this class of place, for the climate of
+its short winter is one of the most trying and inclement that can possibly
+be imagined, whilst during spring, summer and early autumn it well merits
+its local reputation as _il piccolo paradiso_ of the Bay of Naples, and
+its air is considered by Neapolitans as the “balm in Gilead” for every
+evil to which human flesh is heir. The Lactarian Mountains protect the
+plain of Sorrento in summer from the scorching rays of the sun, and lay
+their beneficent shadow for several hours of the long hot summer’s day
+over the many thousands who dwell on the fertile Piano di Sorrento at
+their base. But in winter these same hills intercept the blessed sunshine,
+which is what most travellers speed southwards to obtain, and leave the
+coast line from Castellamare to the Punta di Sorrento with its northern
+aspect wrapped in shade and moisture, whilst the remainder of the Bay is
+still basking in the genial warmth, so that anything more miserable than a
+mid-winter sojourn in Sorrento it would be impossible to conceive. There
+are of course calm warm days to be met with even in December and January,
+but these are occasional and by no means dependable blessings, and the
+visitor who persists in taking up his abode here at this season of the
+year must prepare himself to experience cold, damp, wind and rain, without
+any of the contrivances or comforts of a northern winter. “One swallow
+does not make a summer,” and on the same principle a southern latitude and
+the presence of orange groves do not necessarily imply a salubrious
+climate; indeed, the sub-tropical surroundings seem to add an extra degree
+of chilliness to the place. To sit at Christmastide in a large lofty room
+before a meagre fire of sputtering smoky logs, with Vesuvius wrapped from
+crest to base in a white mantle of new fallen snow, and with an icy
+_tramontana_ from the bleak Abruzzi howling round the house, bending the
+bay trees and penetrating into every corner of the chamber, is by no means
+the ideal picture of a winter in the Sunny South; yet this is only what
+the traveller must be prepared to face, and is very likely to obtain. Nor
+is the cold compensated for by any advantages in the neighbourhood itself,
+for there is but the high road from Castellamare which passes through the
+town and leads above the seashore to Massa Lubrense. It is all very well
+in its way, but in wet weather its surface is one sheet of slippery mud,
+and the streams pouring down the hillside make it chilly and damp for all
+who are not quick walkers. Besides this not very attractive and soon
+exploited walk, there are only the _vicoletti_, the narrow steep rocky
+paths running up hill, which make rough going and give little pleasure,
+for they are almost all bounded on either side by high stone walls that
+jealously exclude the view. So much for Sorrento in its winter dress. But
+when the spring comes, here truly is a transformation from cold and
+torpor! The soft warm air is redolent of the penetrating fragrance of
+orange blossom, of stocks, of jessamine, of wallflower, and of a hundred
+odorous plants and shrubs from each garden and grove behind the many
+obstructing walls. The balconies and gate-pillars are draped in scented
+masses of the beautiful wistaria, which in Italy produces its long pendant
+bunches of purple flowers before putting forth its bronze-coloured leaves.
+Cascades of white and yellow banksia roses fall over each confining
+barrier, or else their stems may be seen climbing like huge serpents up
+the trunks of pine and olive, to burst forth amidst the topmost boughs
+into floral rockets against the cloudless sky. The ravines with which the
+whole of the Piano di Sorrento is intersected are filled with a perfect
+jungle of fresh spring foliage, amidst whose varied tints of green appear
+here and there the bright red shoots of the pomegranate trees bursting
+into leaf. In the heavily perfumed air at dusk, or when the bright
+moonlight is flooding the whole scene and is turning the Bay into a mirror
+of molten silver, the song of the innumerable nightingales can be heard
+resounding from all sides; alas! too often sweet songs of sorrow for nests
+despoiled by the ruthless hands of young Sorrentine imps, as in the days
+of the Georgics.
+
+  “Qualis populeâ mærens Philomela sub umbrâ
+  Amissos queritur fetus, quos durus arator
+  Observans nido implumes detraxit, at illa
+  Flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen
+  Integrat, et mœstis late loca questibus implet.”
+
+  (“At nightfall hear sad Philomel upraise
+  Her mellow notes amid the dark-leaved bays,
+  Mourning her babes and desecrated bower,
+  Which some rough peasant robbed in evil hour;
+  She tells her story of despair and love,
+  Until her plaintive music fills the grove.”)
+
+All is fragrant, warm, genial, and peaceful, save for the melancholy notes
+of poor ill-used Philomel, who is foolish enough to visit a cruel country,
+wherein every bird is merely regarded as a toothsome morsel for the family
+pot. We bird-lovers of Britain, with our Selborne Societies and our Wild
+Birds’ Protection Acts, find it extremely difficult to understand the
+utter indifference displayed by Italians of all classes towards the
+feathered race. The whole of the beautiful country with its cypress hedges
+and olive groves lies almost mute and lifeless, for on every festival the
+fields and lanes are patrolled by bands of _cacciatori_ with dogs and guns
+on the look-out for game, if blackbirds and sparrows can be accounted
+such. In some districts it is even dangerous for pedestrians to use the
+roads on a Sunday, for fear of a stray bullet, since all, as a rule, fire
+recklessly at any creature within and out of range. Nor is this senseless
+war of extermination carried on merely with guns, for trapping is used
+extensively, and very ingenious and elaborate are some of the arts
+employed in this wretched quest. Every country house has its _uccellare_,
+or snare for the securing of small birds for the table, whilst many of the
+parish priests in the mountain districts add to their scanty incomes by
+catching the fledglings which the young peasants sell in the neighbouring
+market. The result is what might only naturally be expected—a scarcity of
+birds and an almost complete absence of song, for the whole countryside
+has been practically denuded of blackbirds and thrushes; even the
+nightingale has escaped destruction rather on account of its nocturnal
+habits than of its tiny size and exquisite notes. It is positively
+sickening to observe the quantities of slaughtered wild birds in an
+Italian market at any season of the year, for the work of devastation
+proceeds apace equally in spring time. Basketfuls of thrushes and
+blackbirds, and strings of smaller varieties—linnets, sparrows, robins,
+finches, even the diminutive gold-finches, most beautiful, most gay, and
+most innocent of all songsters—are being hawked about by leathern-lunged
+_contadini_, who, alas! always manage to find customers in plenty. No
+matter how melodious, how lovely, or how useful to the farmer a bird may
+be, no Italian, high or low, seems to have any sense or appreciation of
+its merits except as an article of food; it is merely a thing that
+requires to be caught, killed, cooked and eaten, and Providence has
+decreed its existence for no other purpose; even gold-finches in the eye
+of an Italian look better served on a skewer than when they are flying
+round the thistle-heads, uttering their bright musical notes and
+enlivening the dead herbage of winter with their gay plumage. _Che bel
+arrosto!_ (what a glorious dish!) sigh the romantic peasants, as they
+glance upward for a moment from their labour in the fields at the sound of
+the larks carolling overhead; and though an educated Italian would
+probably not give vent to so vulgar a remark, he would much prefer the
+_bel arrosto_ to the “profuse strains of unpremeditated art” that so
+entrance the northerner, who is in reality far more of a poet by nature
+than the more picturesque dweller of the South. _Tantum pro avibus._
+
+As summer advances, the delight of bathing in the limpid waters of the Bay
+is added to the other attractions of Sorrento, whilst many pleasant and
+profitable hours can be passed in reading or writing during the long
+midday rest in the cool airy carpetless and curtainless rooms, where on
+the frescoed ceilings there plays the green shimmer of light that
+penetrates through the closed bars of the _persiani_, the outside heavy
+wooden shutters that let in the sweet air, but somehow seem to exclude the
+intense heat. With the approach of sunset and the throwing open of
+casements to catch the westerly breeze, there comes a delightful ramble,
+perhaps an excursion on mule-back to the famous convent of the Deserto or
+some other point of interest; or else a row upon the glassy waters at our
+feet, to explore “Queen Joanna’s Bath,” or some strange caverns beyond the
+headland of Sorrento, well known to our boat-men. That is the true life of
+_dolce far niente_, but such an ideal existence can only be indulged in
+during summer time or in late spring; to pass a winter at Sorrento the
+heaviest of clothing, abundance of overcoats and rugs, hot-water bottles,
+cough drops, ammoniated quinine and all the usual adjuncts of a northern
+yule-tide must be carefully provided before-hand by the traveller, who is
+bold enough to tempt Providence by turning what is essentially a warm
+weather retreat into a place of winter residence.
+
+In early autumn also the place has its charms, in the days when the market
+is filled with stalls heaped with glowing masses of fruit, many of them
+unknown to us wanderers from the north. There are peaches that resemble
+our own fruit at home, and there are also great yellow flushed velvety
+globes, like the sun-kissed cheeks of a fair Sorrentina, that appear
+tempting to the eye, but are in reality tough as leather, for they are the
+_cotogni_ or quince-peaches of Italy, which to our feeble palates and
+digestions seem only fit for cooking, though the experienced native
+contrives to make them edible by soaking the fruit in wine. The moment he
+sits down to table, he carefully pares his _cotogne_ and cuts it into
+sections, which he drops into a glass of red wine where they repose until
+the meal is finished; by this time the fruit has become thoroughly
+saturated, and it is then eaten with apparent relish. There are hundreds
+of apples, some of a shining rich crimson and others of dull yellow
+peppered over with tiny black specks, the _renati_, highly prized by the
+natives for their delicate flavour and soft flesh. There are of course
+loads of grapes, varying from the little honey-tasting purple sort, that
+has been introduced from California, to the huge but somewhat insipid
+bunches of the white _Regina_; we note also the quaintly shaped “Ladies’
+Fingers,” which are especially sweet. The figs, massed together in serried
+layers between fresh vine leaves and costing a _soldo_ the dozen, stand
+around in glossy purple pyramids, so luscious that their sugary tears are
+exuding from their skins, and so ripe that they seem to cry to be eaten
+before noon. Here is a barrow piled high with the little green fruit, each
+separate fig being decorated with a pink cyclamen stuck in its crest; and
+here is a smaller load of the black _Vescovo_, which is said to obtain its
+ecclesiastical name from the fact that the parent stock of this highly
+esteemed variety originally flourished in the bishop’s garden at Sorrento.
+No one who has not visited the shores of the Mediterranean in September or
+early October can realize the luscious possibilities of the fig; for there
+seems nothing in common between the freshly-picked fruit of the south,
+bursting its skin with liquid sugar, and the dry sweetish woolly object
+which tries to ripen on the sheltered wall of an English garden and is
+eaten with apparent gusto by those who know not its Italian brother. Being
+autumn, we have missed one prominent feature of the fruit market, the
+great green-skinned water-melons (_poponi_) with their rose-coloured pulp
+and masses of coal-black seeds, which form the favourite summer fruit of
+the people, who find both food and drink in their cool nutritious flesh.
+But even gayer and more striking than the fruits are the piles of
+vegetables, arranged with a fine appreciation of colour to which only an
+Italian eye can aspire. Carrots, turnips, tomatoes, purple-headed
+cauliflowers, all the broccoli and many others to be observed are old
+familiar friends, but who in England ever saw such gorgeous objects on a
+coster’s stall or in a green-grocer’s shop as the yellow, scarlet and
+shining green pods of the _peperoni_, or the banana-shaped egg-plants of
+iridescent purple, or the split pumpkins, revealing caverns of
+saffron-hued pulp within? Truly, the Sorrentine market contains a feast of
+colour to satisfy the craving of an artist!
+
+At vintage time the whole Piano di Sorrento reeks with the vinous scent of
+the spilt juice, that is carelessly thrown on to the stone-paved roads by
+the jolting of the country carts which bring in the great wooden tubs, so
+that the very streets seem to run with the crimson ooze. Slender youths in
+yet more slender clothing, with legs purple-stained from treading the
+grapes (for in the South wine is still made on the primitive plan), are to
+be met with on all sides, playing at their favourite game of bowls on the
+public road, in order to relieve their brains of the pungent fumes of the
+fermenting grape juice. Somehow at the very thought of a Campanian vintage
+with its long hot dusty days, its bare-legged brown-skinned peasants
+treading the pulp, and its all-pervading aroma of wine-lees, there rise to
+memory the truly inspired lines of John Keats:
+
+  “O for a draught of vintage, that hath been
+  Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
+  Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
+  Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth!
+  O for a beaker full of the warm South,
+  Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
+  With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
+      And purple-stained mouth.”
+
+But all these joys of odorous gardens made musical by nightingales, of
+morning plunges into the blue Mediterranean, of the wealth of southern
+fruit and the novel delights of the vintage are not for the winter
+traveller, who had far better spend the December or January days of his
+visit to the Bay in a steam-heated Neapolitan hotel, rather than face the
+cold and wet in a Sorrentine inn on its overhanging cliff. Nevertheless
+the warm autumn often extends itself into a continuous St Martin’s summer,
+that lasts almost until the New Year, before skies grow clouded and the
+snow-flakes descend upon the vineyards and the lava streams of Vesuvius.
+Nothing can be pleasanter in fact than some of the long walks in a sharp
+exhilarating air, and though days are short and nights are often chilly,
+one can sometimes linger on comfortably in Sorrento, though it is as well
+to be prepared for departure in case of a sudden spell of stormy weather,
+for winter sunshine is a necessity, not a luxury, on the Piano di
+Sorrento.
+
+  [Illustration: AFTERNOON, SORRENTO]
+
+Unlike other towns upon the Bay of Naples, Sorrento is divided into two
+distinct portions; the city on the cliffs, with its streets and squares,
+its cathedral and ancient walls, its villas and gay gardens; and the
+Marina, lying at the mouth of the gorge below, close to the water’s edge.
+The population of Upper Sorrento is agricultural and labouring, whilst
+that of the lower consists entirely of fisher-folk and sailors; it is
+needless to add that the latter are far less prosperous than their
+fellow-citizens who live over-head. Until recent times little
+communication between these two sets of Sorrentines took place and
+intermarriages were rare, for the sea-faring population only ascended to
+the town above and intermingled with the people of Upper Sorrento on the
+great occasions of local festivals, such as the enthronement or funeral of
+a bishop. Nor has the levelling spirit of the age as yet broken down the
+deep-rooted feeling of local clannishness; although it cannot be long
+before time-honoured customs and prejudices will be swept away in the
+tidal wave of modern development. One of the chief industries of the place
+is the manufacture of scarves and sashes of rich silk woven in cross bars
+of strong contrasting colours, so that the Sorrentine silk work strongly
+resembles the well-known Roman variety. Equally popular with visitors are
+the various articles made of olive wood and decorated in _tarsia_, the art
+of inlaying with pieces of stained wood, which is a speciality of the
+place. There are two kinds of this Sorrentine inlaid work; one consisting
+of figures of peasants dancing the _tarantella_, of Pompeian maidens in
+classical drapery, of _contadini_ or priests bestriding mules, and of
+similar local subjects; and the other, of fanciful patterns made up of
+tiny coloured cubes of wood, much in the style of the old Roman stone
+mosaics. The designs employed vary of course with the fashion of the day,
+for there is a local school of art supported by the municipality, which
+professes to improve the tastes of the _tarsiatori_, but most persons will
+certainly prefer the trite but characteristic patterns of the place.
+
+But the main industry of Sorrento consists in the culture of the orange;
+and the dark groves, covered with their globes of shining yellow fruit,
+“like golden lamps in a green light,” to quote Andrew Marvell’s charming
+conceit, constitute the chief feature of its environs. Even the
+coat-of-arms of the medieval city, showing a golden crown encircled by a
+wreath of the dark glossy leaves, attests the antiquity of this industry
+here. The cultivation of the orange in Southern Italy is by no means an
+easy pursuit, though under favourable conditions it may prove a very
+lucrative one, even in a spot so subject to sudden changes of temperature
+as Sorrento in winter time, when a continuance of severe weather, like
+that experienced around Naples in the opening months of the year 1905,
+means total destruction of the fruit crop and temporary ruin to the
+owners.
+
+The fruit of commerce is propagated by means of grafting the sweet variety
+on to the stock of the bitter orange—said on doubtful authority to be
+indigenous to this district—which is fairly hardy and can be grown in the
+open as far north as Tuscany, so that every _aranciaria_ ought to possess
+a nursery of flourishing young sweet-orange shoots, ready in case of
+necessity. For eight long years the grafted tree remains as a rule
+profitless, but having survived and thriven so long, it then becomes a
+valuable asset to its proprietor for an indefinite period;—as a proof of
+the longevity of the orange under normal conditions we may cite the famous
+tree in a Roman convent garden, which on good authority is stated to have
+been planted by St Dominic nearly six hundred years ago. As to the amount
+of fruit yielded, the growers of Sorrento commonly aver that one good
+year, one bad year and one mediocre year constitute the general cycle in
+the prospects of orange farming. Two crops are gathered annually, the
+principle one in December and the other at Eastertide, the fruit produced
+by the later and smaller crop being far finer in size and flavour than
+those of the Christmas harvest. Mandarin oranges are gathered on both
+occasions, but the large luscious loose-skinned fruit of March and
+April—_Portogalli_ as they are commonly termed—are far superior to the
+small hard specimens that appear in December, and seem to consist of
+little else than rind, scent and seeds. The oranges begin to form in
+spring time, almost before the petals have fallen, when the peasants
+anxiously draw their conclusions as to the expected yield. But however
+valuable the fruit, the wood of the tree is worthless for commerce, except
+to make walking-sticks, or to serve the ignoble purpose of supplying
+hotels and cafés with tooth-picks! Lemons, which are far more delicate
+than oranges and require to be kept protected by screens and matting
+during the sharp winter nights, are less common at Sorrento than on the
+warmer shores of the Bay of Baia or the sunny terraced slopes of the
+Amalfitan coast.
+
+With the ripening of the oranges on the trees appear those strange
+creatures from the wilds of the Basilicata or Calabria, the _Zampognari_,
+who visit Naples and the surrounding district in considerable numbers.
+They usually arrive about the date of the great popular festival of the
+Immaculate Conception (December 8th) and remain until the end of the
+month, when they return to their homes with well-filled purses. In outward
+aspect these strangers resemble the stage-brigands that appear in such
+old-fashioned operas as _Fra Diavolo_, for they wear steeple-crowned hats
+with coloured ribands depending, shaggy goat-skin trousers, crimson velvet
+waistcoats, blue cloaks, sandalled feet and gartered legs. Their pale
+faces are unshorn, and their hair hangs in great tawny masses over neck
+and ears, which are invariably adorned with golden rings. These fellows
+come in pairs, one only, properly speaking, being the _zampognaro_, for it
+is he who carries the _zampogna_ or classical bag-pipe of Southern Italy,
+whilst his companion is the _cennamellaro_, so called from his
+ear-splitting instrument, the _cennamella_, a species of primitive flute.
+The _zampogna_ may be described as first cousin to the historic bag-pipes
+of Caledonia, for the sounds emitted strongly resemble the traditional
+“skirling” of the pipes; but no Scotchman even could pretend to delight in
+the shrill notes of the _cennamella_. The former at least of these two
+popular instruments of southern Italy was well known to the omniscient
+author of the Shakespearean plays, for in _Othello_ we have a direct
+allusion to the uncouth braying music still made to-day by these
+outlandish musicians.
+
+“Why, masters, have your instruments been in Naples, that they speak i’
+the nose thus?... Are these, I pray you, wind instruments?... Then put up
+your pipes in your bag, for I’ll away: go; vanish into air; away!”
+
+In the midst of their instrumental duet the two shaggy mountaineers are
+apt to break into a harsh nasal hymn in honour of the Virgin, to visit
+whose shrines at this season of the orange harvest is the main object of
+their Christmas migration to the Neapolitan shores. Very tastefully
+decorated are many of the Madonna’s little sanctuaries in or near the
+orange groves, when the arrival of the _zampognari_ is considered
+imminent. The tiny lamps are well trimmed and shine brightly, whilst heavy
+garlands composed of masses of bay or laurel or ilex leaves, interspersed
+with some of the golden clusters of the ripening fruit are suspended round
+the alcove that holds the figure of the Virgin. This effective but simple
+form of ornamentation will at once suggest the beautiful glazed and
+coloured terra-cotta wreaths of fruit and foliage that are to be seen so
+frequently in Tuscan churches; indeed, it is possible that the members of
+the Della Robbia family may have originally borrowed the decorative
+schemes for their famous plaques and lunettes from the rustic shrines thus
+simply but tastefully embellished. Nominally, the two performers are
+supposed to sing and make music on nine different days at the houses of
+all their patrons in order to make up the total number of the _novena_,
+but the extent of their performances is generally calculated in accordance
+with the depth of the householder’s purse, the sum given for their
+services varying from a few _soldi_ to a five _lire_ note. All classes of
+society employ the zampognari, for it is with the first appearance of the
+lovely golden fruit, essentially _the_ winter fruit of the Italians, that
+the arrival of these picturesque strangers has been associated from time
+immemorial. The _zampognari_ are in fact as much of a national institution
+with the Neapolitans at Christmastide as are the waits or carol-singers in
+our own country, so that to the majority of these people _Natale senza
+zampogna e cennamella_ would seem no true Christmas at all.
+
+Closely connected with the life of the people of the Piano di Sorrento is
+the famous dance known as the _Tarantella_, which may be witnessed by the
+curious at almost any time—for money. Even when performed by professional
+dancers, tricked out in spick and span stage-peasant finery, the
+Tarantella is a most graceful exhibition of movement, although the dance
+naturally gains in interest when it takes place in the days of vintage or
+on the popular festivals of the Church, without the presence of
+largesse-giving strangers. The origin of the name has always puzzled
+antiquarians, although in all probability the dance derives its curious
+appellation from the Greek city of Taranto, whence the Tarentines
+introduced its steps and action into other parts of Italy. But vulgar
+belief is very strong, so that this graceful dance is still closely
+associated in the popular mind with the _tarantula_, a kind of poisonous
+spider found in the neighbourhood of Taranto, the effects of whose bite
+are said to yield to violent exercise followed by profuse perspiration. In
+order to excite the proper amount of exertion necessary for the cure, the
+person afflicted, _il tarantolato_, is induced to leap and caper by the
+sound of music, with the result that there exist a number of tunes
+specially connected with this wild species of dancing. The real
+explanation of this fable seems to lie in the extremely excitable nature
+of the Tarentines themselves, assisted by the exhilarating music and by
+frequent pulls at the wine barrel. The two lines sung to the air of one of
+the tunes employed:
+
+      “Non fu Taranta, ne fu Tarantella,
+      Ma fu la vino della carratella:”
+
+
+    (“It was neither the taranta, nor the tarantella, but it was the
+    wine from the cask.”)
+
+
+sums up pretty accurately the real cause of these strange Tarentine
+orgies, which have really nothing whatever in common with the rhythmical
+dance that is still so popular in the environs of Naples. Nevertheless the
+theory of _tarantella_ and _tarantismo_ has been gravely discussed by old
+Italian writers, and a certain learned prelate of the fifteenth century,
+Niccolo Perotto, Archbishop of Siponto, alludes to the malignant cause of
+this dance-cure as “a species of speckled spider, dwelling in rents of the
+ground caused by excessive heat. It was not known in the time of our
+fore-fathers, but now it is very common in Apulia ... and is generally
+called _Tarantula_. Its bite seldom kills a man, yet it makes him half
+stupid, and affects him in a variety of ways. Some, when a song or tune is
+heard, are so excited that they dance, full of joy and always laughing,
+and do not stop till they are entirely exhausted; others spend a miserable
+life in tears, as if bewailing the loss of friends. Some die laughing, and
+others in tears.”
+
+Such is the curious legend concerning the origin of the Tarantella, which
+is still danced with something of the old spirit by the holiday-making
+crowds of Naples, though it is at the _festa_ of San Michele, the patron
+of Procida, that the Tarantella can now be seen to best advantage. Of the
+three islands that lie close to Naples, Procida is the least known or
+visited by strangers, so that when the Tarantella is danced by the
+Procidani, the old-fashioned popular orchestra is employed to give the
+necessary music. This consists of five quaint instruments (obviously of
+Oriental origin as their counterparts can still be seen amongst the
+Kabyles of Northern Africa): the first being a fife (_siscariello_); the
+second a tin globe covered with skin pierced by a piece of cane
+(_puti-puti_); the third a wooden saw and a split stick, making a
+primitive bow and fiddle (_scetavaiasse_); the fourth an arrangement of
+three wooden mallets, that are rattled together like a gigantic pair of
+bones (_tricca-ballache_); and the fifth a Jew’s harp
+(_scaccia-pensieri_). A tarantella danced to the accompaniment of so weird
+a medley of instruments and by real peasants full of gaiety is naturally a
+thing altogether diverse from the stilted, though graceful and decorous
+performance that can be observed any day for payment in a Sorrentine or
+Neapolitan hotel; yet it must ever be borne in mind that the Tarantella
+proper, whether danced _con amore_ by Procidan peasants or performed for
+lucre by costumed professionals, is no vulgar frenzied _can-can_, but a
+musical love-dance expressive of primitive courtship.
+
+“The Tarantella is a choregraphic love-story, the two dancers representing
+an enamoured swain and his mistress. It is the old theme—‘the quarrel of
+lovers is the renewal of love.’ Enraptured gaze, coy side-look, gallant
+advance, timid retrocession, impassioned declaration, supercilious
+rejection, piteous supplication, softening hesitation; worldly goods
+oblation, gracious acceptation; frantic jubilation, maidenly resignation.
+Petting, wooing, billing, cooing. Jealous accusation, sharp recrimination,
+manly expostulation, shrewish aggravation; angry threat, summary
+dismissal. Fuming on one side, pouting on the other. Reaction,
+approximation, exclamation, exoneration, reconciliation, osculation,
+winding up with a grand _pas de circomstance_, expressive of confidence
+re-established and joy unbounded. That’s about the figure of it; but no
+word-painting can give an idea of the spirit, the ‘go’ of the tarantella
+when danced for love and not for money.”(9)
+
+On a modest scale Sorrento can lay claim to be called an eternal city, for
+the Surrentum of the ancient Romans was a place of no small importance,
+filled with villas of wealthy citizens and boasting a fair-sized
+population, as its numerous remains of antiquity can easily testify;
+whilst its crumbling ivy-clad walls and towers point to its prosperity
+during the Middle Ages, when Sorrento shared the political fortunes of
+Naples. It is now a busy thriving little cathedral town, and the possessor
+of silk and _tarsia_ work industries, so that like Imperial Rome it can
+boast a continuous existence as a city from remote times to the present
+day. Its chief local Saint—for what Italian town does not boast a special
+patron?—is Sant’ Antonio, whose most famous feat is said to have been the
+administering of a severe drubbing to Sicardo, Duke of Benevento, for
+daring to interfere with the liberties of his city in the ninth century.
+It would appear from the legend that all arguments as to ancient rights,
+the quality of mercy and the honour of keeping faith having been vainly
+exhausted upon the cruel and obstinate prince, Bishop Antonio came forward
+with a stout cudgel and belaboured the tyrant in order to obtain a
+favourable answer to the people’s petition. The sanctity of the pugnacious
+prelate and the force of this _argumentum ad baculum_ were evidently too
+much for the Duke of Benevento, who at once conceded the popular demands,
+whilst Antonio’s name has deservedly descended to posterity as the capable
+protector of his native city.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+But the name which above all others Sorrento will cherish as her own, “so
+long as men shall read and eyes can see,” is that of the famous Italian
+poet, Torquato Tasso, whose interesting but melancholy life-story is
+closely associated with this, the town of his birth. Tasso is reckoned as
+the fourth greatest bard of Italy, ranking after Dante and Petrarch, and
+being esteemed on a level with rather than below his rival and
+contemporary, Ludovico Ariosto. In one sense however he may be described
+as the most truly national poet of this immortal quartet, for his career
+is connected with his native country as a whole, rather than with any one
+of the little cities or states then comprising that “geographical
+expression” which is now the Kingdom of Italy. His father’s family was of
+Lombard origin, having been long settled in the neighbourhood of Bergamo,
+where a crumbling hill-set fortress known as the Montagno del Tasso still
+recalls the name of the poet’s ancestors. His mother, Porzia de’ Rossi,
+was Tuscan by birth, her family haling from Pistoja at the foot of the
+Apennines, but owning property near Naples; whilst the poet himself was
+destined to spend his years of childhood at Sorrento and at Naples, his
+youth at Rome and Verona, his brilliant period of fame and prosperity at
+Ferrara and the Lombard courts, and again some of his closing years of
+disgrace and disappointment amidst the familiar scenes of his infancy. Of
+good ancient stock the Tassi owed their acquisition of wealth to the
+re-establishment of the system of posting throughout Northern Italy in the
+thirteenth century, when the immediate progenitor of the poet, one Omodeo
+de’ Tassi, was nominated comptroller, and it is curious to note that owing
+to this circumstance the arms of the family containing the posthorn and
+the badger’s skin—_Tasso_ is the Italian for badger—continued to be borne
+for many centuries upon the harness of all Lombard coach-horses.
+Torquato’s father, Bernardo Tasso, himself a poet of no mean calibre and
+the composer of a scholarly but somewhat prolix work, the _Amadigi_,
+formed for many years a prominent member of that brilliant band of
+literary courtiers within the castle of Vittoria Colonna, the Lady of
+Ischia, of whom we shall speak more fully in another place. But for the
+overwhelming and all-eclipsing fame of his distinguished son, Bernardo
+might have been able to claim a high place in the list of Italian writers
+of the Renaissance; as it was, the father’s undoubted talents were quickly
+forgotten in the blaze of his own beloved “Tassino’s” popularity, so that
+he is now chiefly remembered as the sire of a poetic genius, as one of the
+great Vittoria’s favourite satellites and as the author of an oft-quoted
+sonnet to his intellectual mistress. Bernardo Tasso did not marry until
+the somewhat mature age of forty-seven, when, as we have already said, he
+espoused the daughter of the Tuscan house of Rossi, by whom he had two
+children; a daughter, Cornelia, and the immortal Torquato, who was born in
+1544, three years before the death of the divine poetess of Ischia.
+
+But Bernardo was not merely a bard and a courtier, for he was also,
+unfortunately for himself and his ill-fated family, a keen politician in
+an age when politics offered anything but a safe pursuit, and as his views
+invariably coincided with those of his chief friend and patron, the head
+of the powerful Sanseverino family, Tasso the Elder found himself in
+course of time an exile from Neapolitan territory on account of his
+dislike of the new Spanish masters of Naples. The poet-politician
+therefore took up his abode at Rome, whilst his wife and two young
+children continued to reside at Naples and Sorrento. The boy was a born
+student, almost an infant prodigy of learning, and so great was his desire
+for knowledge that he would insist upon rising long before it was
+day-light, and would even make his way to school through the dark dirty
+streets of Naples, conducted by a servant with a torch in his hand. The
+Jesuits, who had just set up their first academy at Naples, soon
+discovered in the future poet an ideal pupil, and not only did they impart
+to the child all the lore of ancient Greece and Rome, but they also imbued
+his mind, at an age when it was “wax to receive and marble to retain,”
+with their own peculiar theological tenets. It is obvious indeed that the
+faith implanted by the Fathers in his tender years was largely, if not
+wholly answerable for the unswerving belief and firm religious convictions
+that ever stood Tasso in good stead throughout the whole of his chequered
+career. “Give me a child of seven years old,” had once declared the great
+Founder of the Society of Jesus, “and I care not who has the
+after-handling of him”; and in this case the Jesuit professors did not
+fail to carry out Loyola’s precept. But his home life with his mother,
+whom he loved devotedly, and his course of study at the Jesuit school were
+suddenly interrupted when he was barely ten years of age, for the elder
+Tasso was anxious for his little son to join him in Rome, there to be
+educated under his own eye. The boy left his mother, but after his
+departure the Rossi family brutally refused to allow their sister access
+to her absent husband, who had lately been declared a rebel against the
+Spanish government and deprived of his estates. Thus persecuted by her
+unfeeling brothers, Porzia Tasso sought refuge together with Cornelia in a
+Neapolitan convent, where, deprived of her erratic but beloved husband and
+pining for her absent son, the poor woman died of a broken heart a year or
+two later. As for Cornelia, she became affianced when of a marriageable
+age to a gentleman of Sorrento, the Cavaliere Marzio Sersale, and
+consequently returned to live in the home of her childhood.
+
+Of Tasso’s many adventures, of his universal literary fame, of the honours
+heaped upon him by his chief patron, Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, and of his
+subsequent disgrace and imprisonment for daring to lift his eyes in love
+to a princess of the haughty House of Este, we have no space to speak
+here. Let it suffice to say that he was one of the most charming,
+virtuous, brilliant, manly figures, as he was also almost the last true
+representative, of the great Italian Renaissance, the end of which may be
+described as coinciding with his decease. According to his biographer
+Manso, the author of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ was singularly noble and
+refined in appearance, though always possessed of an air of melancholy; he
+was well-built, strong, active and resourceful, anything in fact but a
+carpet-knight who spent his days in writing verse and dallying with
+Italian court beauties:
+
+  “Colla penna e colla spada,
+  Nessun val quanto Torquato;”
+
+sang the populace of Ferrara in honour of their illustrious Sorrentine
+guest, for the Ferrarese delighted in the handsome stranger who could in
+an emergency wield the sword as skilfully as he could ply his quill. Twice
+only however did Tasso revisit the city of his birth, and each return home
+was occasioned by deep tragedy. In 1577, wounded by the attacks of his
+literary rivals and humiliated by the Duke Alfonso’s discovery of his
+infatuation for the Princess Leonora d’Este, the unhappy poet travelled
+southward, reaching Sorrento in the disguise of a shepherd. Making his way
+to the Casa Sersale, the house of his sister, now a widow with two sons,
+Torquato passed himself off as his own messenger, and so eloquently did he
+relate the story of his own grief and wrongs, that the tender-hearted
+Cornelia fainted away at this recital. Having satisfied his mind as to his
+sister’s genuine affection, the pseudo-shepherd now revealed his true
+character, whereupon the pair embraced with transports of joy, though it
+was deemed prudent not to acquaint their friends with the arrival of
+Torquato, who was represented to the good people of Sorrento as a distant
+relative from Bergamo. Cornelia Sersale now entreated the poet to take up
+his abode permanently in her house, and to forget the rebuffs of the cruel
+world without in the enjoyment of family ties and affections; and well
+would it have been for Torquato, had he accepted his sister’s advice and
+passed the succeeding years in simple rural pleasures. But restless and
+inconsequent despite all his virtues, the poet must needs return to
+Ferrara to bask in the presence of his beloved Leonora, with the dire and
+undignified result that all the world knows. Tasso’s second visit took
+place not long before his death, when his strength was rapidly failing, so
+that it seems strange that he did not decide to end his days amidst these
+lovely and well-remembered scenes of his early boyhood, instead of
+deliberately choosing for the last stage of his earthly journey the Roman
+convent of Sant’ Onofrio, where the death-chamber and various pathetic
+relics of the poet are still pointed out.
+
+Students of Tasso’s immortal epic are apt to overlook the immense
+influence exercised on its author by his early Sorrentine days and
+surroundings. The _Gerusalemme Liberata_ contains, as we know, a full
+account of the First Crusade and constitutes an apotheosis of Godfrey de
+Bouillon, first Christian King of Jerusalem; but it is also something more
+than a mere poetical description of a departed age of chivalry. For there
+can be little doubt that the poet aspired to be the singer of a new
+movement which should wrest back the Holy City from the clutches of the
+Saracens, and set a second Godfrey upon the vacant throne of Palestine. To
+this important end the experiences of his infancy and his training by the
+Jesuits had undoubtedly tended to urge the precocious young poet. The
+servants of his father’s house at Sorrento must many a time have regaled
+his eager boyish mind with harrowing tales of the infidel pirates who
+scoured the Tyrrhene Sea within sight of the watch-towers on the coast;
+within ken, perchance, of Casa Tasso itself, perched on the commanding
+cliff above the waters. Scarcely a family dwelling on the Marina below but
+was mourning one or more of its members that had been seized by the
+blood-thirsty marauders, perhaps to be brutally slain on the spot or to
+languish in the dungeons of Tripoli and Smyrna, eking out a life of
+slavery that was far worse than death itself. Stories of tortured
+Christians, like that of the pious Geronimo of Algiers who was tied with
+cords and flung into a mass of soft concrete, were common enough topics
+among the Sorrentine folk, all of whom lived in constant dread of a
+successful raid by the Barbary pirates. For, despite the efforts of the
+great Emperor Charles the Fifth to protect his maritime subjects, the
+swift galleys of Tunis and Tripoli out-stripped the Imperial men-of-war,
+and continued to carry on their vile commerce of slavery. Such a state of
+terrorism must have appeared intolerable to the highly romantic, deeply
+religious spirit of the young poet; and his Jesuit preceptors, working on
+the boy’s imagination, were soon able to instil into his youthful brain
+the notion of a new Crusade which would not only sweep the infidel ships
+from off the Italian seas, but would also recapture the Holy City itself.
+The Church, beginning at last to recover from the effects of Luther’s
+schism, was once more in a position to re-assert its ancient authority
+over Catholic Christendom, and in Torquato Tasso it found an able
+trumpeter to call together the scattered forces of the Faithful, and to
+reunite them in a holy war. Astonished and delighted, all Italy was swept
+by the golden torrent of Tasso’s impassioned verses, that were intended to
+urge the Catholic princes of Europe to the inauguration of a new Crusade.
+Nor were the times unpropitious for such an event. Tunis, that hot-bed of
+infidelity, piracy and iniquity, was in the hands of the Christians; and
+the fleets of the Soldan had been well-nigh annihilated by Don John of
+Austria at the glorious battle of Lepanto:—to convince a doubting and
+hesitating world that the actual moment had come wherein to recover the
+city of Jerusalem was the main object of the author of the _Gerusalemme
+Liberata_. And it was his infancy spent upon this smiling but
+pirate-harassed coast that was chiefly responsible for this desired end in
+the epic of the Crusades; it was Tasso’s early acquaintance with the Bay
+of Naples, combined with his special training by the Jesuits, that forced
+the poet’s genius and ambition into this particular channel.
+
+It is pleasant to think that Sorrento is still appreciative of its honour
+as the birth-place of the great Italian poet. The citizens have erected a
+statue of marble in one of their open spaces; they have called street,
+hotel and _trattoria_ by his illustrious name; and can the modern spirit
+of grateful acknowledgment go further than this? His father’s house has
+perished, it is true, through “Nature’s changing force untrimmed,” for the
+greedy waves have undermined and swallowed up the tufa cliff which once
+supported the old Tasso villa. But there is still standing in Strada di
+San Nicola the old Sersale mansion, wherein the good Cornelia received her
+long-lost brother in his peasant’s guise, an unhappy exile from haughty
+Ferrara. Of more interest however than the old town house of the Sersale
+family is the ancient farm, known as the Vigna Sersale, which once
+belonged to Donna Cornelia, and supplied her household with wine and oil.
+It is a lovely sequestered spot lying on the breezy hill-side not far down
+the Massa road, facing towards Capri and the sunset. Hallowed by its
+historic connection with the poet and his devoted sister, the Vigna
+Sersale can claim perhaps to be one of the most interesting and beautiful
+places of literary pilgrimage upon earth. Ascending by the steep pathway
+that leads upward from the broad high road, it is not long before we reach
+the old _podere_, amidst whose olive groves and vineyards the poet was
+wont to sit dreamily gazing at the glorious view before him. Here are the
+same ancient spreading stone-pines, the same gnarled olive trees that
+sheltered the gentle love-lorn poet, whilst Cornelia and her sons sate
+beside him in the shade, endeavouring—alas! only too vainly—by their
+caresses to detain the roving Torquato in their midst. Could not, we ask
+ourselves, the erratic poet have been content to remain in this spot, “in
+questa terra alma e felice” as he himself styles it, instead of plunging
+once more into the dangers and dissipation of that Vanity Fair of distant
+Ferrara? Why could he not have brooded over his ill-starred infatuation
+for the high-born Leonora in this soothing corner of the earth, allowing
+its quiet and beauty to sink into his soul, until the recollection of his
+Innamorata declined gradually into a fragrant memory that could be
+embalmed in never-dying verse? But like his own favourite hero, the
+Christian King of Jerusalem, the poet must in his inmost heart have
+preferred a changing storm-tossed life to the ideal existence of rustic
+ease; and had he not returned to the treacherous splendours of Alfonso’s
+court, how much less entrancing would his own life-story have appeared to
+after ages! Unconsciously he seems to have composed his own epitaph in
+describing Godfrey’s death; for the crusading king lived and died like a
+true Christian knight, for whom the world has afforded many adventures,
+and but few intervals of peace until the final call to endless rest.
+
+  “Vivesti qual guerrier cristiano e santo,
+  E come bel sei morto: ei godi, e pasci
+  In Dio gli occhi bramosi, o felice alma,
+  Ed hai del ben oprar corona e palma.”
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XI
+
+
+                      CAPRI AND TIBERIUS THE TYRANT
+
+
+Lying between the classic capes of Misenum and Minerva, the island of
+Capri appears like a couched lion, guarding the entrance of the Bay of
+Naples; his majestic head being formed by the stupendous cliffs of the
+Salto that face the sunrise, whilst his back and loins are represented by
+the long broad slope which stretches from the summit of Monte Solaro to
+the most westerly headland of Vitareta. Nor is it only as a guardian to
+their Bay that Capri serves the Neapolitans, for it also presents them
+with a gigantic natural barometer. In fine settled weather a soft haze
+invariably lies over the sea, so that Capri is only faintly visible from
+the shores of Parthenope, save at sunrise and sunset, when for a short
+time the graceful form of the islet looms out clear-cut like a jagged
+amethyst upon a sapphire bed; but before rain or storm it yields up its
+inmost secrets to the public gaze of Naples. The northern Marina, the
+towns of Capri and Ana-Capri, even the little terraced fields become
+discernible to the naked eye: “It will be wet to-morrow” augur the
+weather-wise of Naples, and the prediction is rarely falsified.
+
+  [Illustration: FARAGLIONI ROCKS, CAPRI]
+
+It is an easy matter to cross from Sorrento to the island, whether it be
+by the little steamer that plies daily between Naples and Capri, putting
+in at Sorrento on its journeys backwards and forwards, or—far pleasanter
+if somewhat slower way—by engaging a boat with four rowers, who on a calm
+day ought to make the Marina of Capri in less than two hours. Nothing can
+be more delightful or exhilarating than this old-fashioned method of
+transit; and it gives also a feeling of superiority over less enterprising
+persons who prefer the quicker passage on a smoky steamer, crammed with
+tourists and attendant touts. It is the very morning for a row on the cool
+glassy water, as we step joyfully into our boat with its four stalwart
+Phrygian-capped sailors in attendance:
+
+  “Con questo zeffiro
+    Cosi soave,
+  Oh, com’ e bello
+    Star su la nave!
+  Mare si placido,
+    Vento si caro,
+  Scordar fa i triboli
+    Al marinaro.”
+
+Bending with a will to their oars, our genial mariners quickly impel our
+barque round the first jutting headland, so that the thickly populated
+Piano di Sorrento is at once lost to view. Making good headway over the
+clear water, it is not long before we find ourselves passing beneath the
+wave-washed precipices of the Salto, and well within our time limit of two
+hours we reach the roadstead of the Marina, to find ourselves in a bright
+and busy world of traffic and pleasure. Between the houses coloured
+coral-pink, white, blue, and yellow, and the pale green transparent water
+lies a long stretch of beach covered with every sort of craft that sails
+the Mediterranean, and with a motley crowd of fishermen, tourists and
+noisy children; whilst the whole atmosphere rings with raucous voices
+raised in giving directions, in quarrelling, or in addressing the many
+perplexed strangers. We disembark, and cross the intervening beach with
+its sea-weed veiled boulders and masses of tawny fishing nets; we reach
+the village, and here we meet with our first disappointment in romantic
+Capri. It was not so very many years ago, barely thirty in point of fact,
+that this island was roadless, and in those primitive days the visitor was
+met at the Marina Grande by tall strapping Capriote women, who were wont
+to seize the traveller’s pieces of baggage as though they had been light
+parcels, and to march up the old stone staircase poising these burdens on
+their heads with the carriage of an empress. The stranger’s own entrance
+into Capri was less dignified, for either he had to toil painfully in the
+blazing sun up that steep picturesque flight of steps and reach the
+plateau above, perspiring and probably out of temper; or else he was
+compelled to bestride a miserable ass which a bare-footed damsel steered
+upward by means of the quadruped’s tail. Nowadays, we are spared this
+original and somewhat humiliating manner of arrival at our journey’s end.
+There are little _carrozzelle_, drawn by clever black Abruzzi cobs
+awaiting us, and even one or two hotel conveyances. We find ourselves
+being driven rapidly up the excellent winding road constructed only a
+quarter of a century ago, past the domed Church of San Costanzo, the
+patron Saint of the Caprioti, past hedges of aloe and prickly pear, until
+we gain the saddle of the island-mountain, where stands the small capital
+perched upon a ledge that overlooks the Bay of Naples to the north, and to
+the south the endless expanse of the unruffled Tyrrhene.
+
+It is evident even to the most casual untrained eye, that this huge mass
+of sea-girt rock whereon we stand must in remote ages have formed part of
+the mainland opposite, until some fierce convulsion of nature, common
+enough in this region that is ever changing its outward face through
+subterranean forces, tore what is now Capri asunder from the Punta della
+Campanella, and placed the sea as an eternal barrier between the riven
+headlands of continent and new-formed island. The charm of this rocky
+fragment, thus placed in mid ocean by volcanic action, was first
+discovered by the great Emperor Augustus, who chancing to visit the island
+for some obscure reason was greatly affected by the spectacle of a
+withered ilex tree, that revived and burst into foliage at the auspicious
+moment of his setting foot at the Marina. Flattered at the compliment paid
+by Nature’s self to his august presence and drawing a happy omen from the
+incident, the Emperor at once proposed to the people of Neapolis, who then
+owned the island, that they should exchange barren Capreae for the larger
+and more fertile imperial appanage of Aenaria (Ischia)—a bargain to which
+the shrewd Neapolitans readily agreed. Here then in a spot at once so
+salubrious and so convenient for the management of affairs of state, the
+Emperor sought rest and relaxation at such times as he could escape the
+cares of government. At his bidding villas and pleasaunces were
+constructed; roads were carried by means of viaducts across the airy
+plateau lying between the Salto and the Solaro; and the able bodied
+inhabitants of the island were enrolled as a sort of honorary bodyguard
+for the person of Augustus during his occasional visits. In this secluded,
+yet accessible retreat, the ruler of the Roman world could easily lay his
+finger, as it were, upon the beating pulse of his mighty empire, for
+Capreae was at no great distance from Rome itself, and from the heights of
+the island note could be made of the movements of the Imperial fleet lying
+at Baiae or of the arrival of the corn ships from Egypt and Asia Minor.
+But the name of the good Augustus is scarcely remembered in connection
+with Capreae, which alone recalls its association with Tiberius the
+Tyrant, who spent the last nine years of his reign upon the rocky islet
+that was so beloved of his predecessor. To this spot “Timberio” (as the
+natives invariably misname the Emperor) feeling the rapid approach of
+senile decay, weary of the thankless task of ruling an ungrateful people,
+sick of family dissensions and of court intrigue, at last came in the
+cherished hope of spending the few remaining years of his life in cultured
+leisure and in comparative solitude. An enthusiastic student of astronomy
+and of its sister science, or rather pseudo-science, astrology, Tiberius
+proposed to study the heavens in the company of chosen mathematicians and
+soothsayers. Twelve buildings—palaces, villas, pavilions, call them what
+you will—were now constructed for the special examination of the planets,
+and in consequence the whole of the island, whose limited area after all
+is exceeded by many an English park, was practically turned into one vast
+maritime residence, for all the Imperial pleasure-houses seem to have been
+connected with each other by means of viaducts or secret stair-ways. Yet
+whilst immersed in astronomy and occultism, the aged Emperor contrived to
+find time for the routine of public business, and, like Augustus, he was
+still able to direct from his rocky retreat the policy of the Empire. The
+reports of governors of provinces, for example, were received, read, and
+commented upon by Tiberius in his Capriote home, and amongst these there
+must have been included a certain official document from one Pontius
+Pilatus, Procurator of Judaea, relating how a Jewish prophet from Nazareth
+had been condemned, scourged and crucified by his orders at the special
+request of the Jews themselves. How eloquent is this bald statement of a
+simple fact, that here in this tiny barren islet was brought the casual
+news of the death of Jesus Christ to the then ruler of the Roman world!
+Surely an historical incident such as this is of more value than all the
+hazy legends or pointless miracles of St Januarius or of San Costanzo,
+upon which the imagination of the islanders has been fed for generations.
+
+  [Illustration: CAPRI FROM THE VILLA JOVIS]
+
+Remnants of Tiberius’ palaces, all of which are said to have been razed to
+the ground by order of the Roman Senate at his death, are scattered thick
+as fallen leaves in Vallombrosa over the whole surface of the island, and
+it is to the ruins of the Villa Jovis at its eastern crest that the
+visitor will in all probability first direct his steps. The way thither
+from the little city of Capri leads through narrow lanes along a stony but
+populous hill-side, to which the flat-roofed dazzling white houses with
+their small iron-barred windows lend an oriental aspect; an illusion that
+is aided by the appearance of an occasional date-palm over-topping some
+low wall, and by clumps or hedges of the prickly pear. This latter plant,
+of Indian extraction as its name of _Ficus Indica_ betrays, grows in
+profusion over the sun-baked rocky slopes of southern Italy, especially in
+the neighbourhood of the sea. The peasants find it most useful, for it
+makes impenetrable hedges, and its coarse pulpy leaves when pounded up
+afford good provender for their goats and donkeys. The fruits of the
+prickly pear, those quaint crimson or yellow knobs attached to the edges
+of the leaves, are likewise gathered and eaten by the people, or else
+cleaned of their protecting layers of spiny hairs and despatched in
+baskets to Naples, where the cactus-fruit forms an important item of the
+popular fare. The fruit itself has a lovely colour and a fragrant scent,
+which give promise of a better flavour than it actually possesses, for it
+is hopelessly insipid to the taste, although the Neapolitans declare that
+the pulp, when mashed up into patties and iced, is very palatable.
+
+A long up-hill ramble over rough paths leads eventually to the Villa of
+Jupiter, perched on the Salto—the _Saltus Caprearum_, the “Wild Goats’
+Leap,” of the ancients. There is little of interest to be seen in the
+existing portions of Tiberius’ chief villa, for the building has been
+despoiled centuries ago of its rich marbles, its slabs of _giallo_ and
+_verde antico_, its pillars of red porphyry and _serpentino_, some
+fragments of which may be found imbedded in the pavement of the
+mosque-like little Duomo of Capri. But it is evident from the immense
+extent of its substructures, now used for humble enough purposes, that the
+Villa Jovis must have been a palace of remarkable size. A hermit who
+offers sour wine, a fat middle-aged woman, a figure of fun in her gay
+be-ribboned dress who begins languidly dancing a _tarantella_, and a
+vulgar pestilent guide who produces a spy-glass usually haunt these
+caverns on the look-out for any chance visitor. Buy them off, O stranger!
+with _soldi_, is our advice, for you cannot otherwise escape their
+importunities, and then mounting to the highest point, peer down into the
+clear depths of the water nearly a thousand feet below. For it was here,
+if we can credit serious Roman historians, that the Imperial tyrant, half
+crazy with terror and ever thirsting for human blood, was wont to hurl the
+objects of his hate into the sea; “from this eminence,” Suetonius gravely
+tells us, “after the application of long drawn-out and exquisite tortures,
+Tiberius used to order his executioners to fling their victims before his
+eyes into the water, where boats full of mariners, stationed below, were
+waiting in readiness to beat the bruised bodies with oars, in case any
+spark of life might yet be left in them.” The terrible legend fits in
+aptly with the appearance of this forbidding dizzy precipice, especially
+on a dark stormy afternoon, when the dull roar of the waves dashing
+against the cliffs below, mounts upward to the Villa Jovis like the angry
+bellowing of some insatiable sea-monster.
+
+It was whilst brooding here after the death of Sejanus in Rome, that the
+Emperor, not daring to move beyond the walls of his palace, shunning the
+society of all save his familiar friends and attendants, and with his face
+disfigured by an eruption of the skin of which he was painfully sensitive,
+that there took place an incident (which may or may not be true) mentioned
+by Suetonius. In the privacy of this villa Tiberius was one day surprised
+by an ingenious Capriote fisherman, who in ignorance or defiance of the
+Emperor’s wishes had managed to scale with his naked feet the steep cliffs
+from the sea below, in order to present a fine mullet for the imperial
+table, and of course to earn a high reward for his “gift.” Terrified at
+the mere notion of anybody being able thus to penetrate into his most
+secret domain, the irate Emperor at once gave orders for the intruder’s
+face to be scrubbed with the mullet he had brought, a sentence that the
+imperial minions performed without delay. The intrepid fisherman might
+have congratulated himself on so mild a punishment for having disturbed a
+tyrant’s repose, had he not been possessed of an unusually strong sense of
+humour. For at the close of the mullet-scrubbing episode, the foolish
+fellow remarked by way of a jest to the officer on duty, that he was
+thankful he had not also offered the emperor a large crab which he had
+likewise brought in his basket. This imprudent speech was immediately
+reported to Tiberius, who thereupon commanded the man’s face to be
+lacerated with the aforesaid crab’s claws; but whether this pleasing
+incident ended with a cold plunge from the Salto, the Roman historian does
+not relate.
+
+Other tales of Timberio’s vices and cruelties have been handed down from
+generation to generation, so that the dark deeds committed at the Salto
+have almost passed into a local article of faith; and such being the case,
+it would seem almost a pity to pronounce these picturesque horrors untrue
+or exaggerated. Nevertheless, of recent years there has arisen amongst
+scholars a certain degree of scepticism as regards these highly coloured
+anecdotes of Roman historians known to be prejudiced. The Emperor was
+nearly seventy years old at the time he came to reside in Capreae, and
+until that date his life had been orderly and above reproach; it is not
+likely therefore, argue these modern writers, that Tiberius should
+suddenly, at so extreme an age, have flung himself into a whirl of vices
+and crimes that he had hitherto shunned. The thing is of course possible,
+but it sounds improbable. That he was moody and morose; that he loved
+solitude and hated formal society in the spot he had especially chosen as
+the retreat of his declining years; that he practised certain of the
+mystic arts, as well as studied astronomy, are all likely enough
+conjectures; and these circumstances probably formed the foundation for
+the extravagant legends which now surround the Emperor’s memory. Very
+shocking and reprehensible were the doings at Villa Jovis, if they really
+occurred there, but to try and dispute their authenticity would be a task
+quite outside the scope of this work.(10)
+
+If, despite the negative theories held to-day concerning the private life
+and character of the second Emperor of Rome during his residence on
+Capreae, the traveller be still inclined to trace the sites of the
+remaining eleven Imperial villas, he will find little difficulty in
+meeting with numberless Roman remains scattered over all parts of the
+island. On the beach, for example, a little to the west of the Marina
+Grande, are clearly visible the sunken foundations of the great
+sea-palace, which in the Roman manner jutted into the water and ranked
+probably second in size to the Villa Jovis. The neighbourhood of Ana-Capri
+also, and in fact the whole western portion of the island, is likewise
+plentifully besprinkled with ancient ruins, one of which is still known by
+the suggestive title of Timberino. But most people will prefer to explore
+the unrivalled natural beauties of Capri, rather than to make themselves
+acquainted with its archaeological points of interest.
+
+First and foremost of the many wonders that Capri has to show must be
+ranked the Grotta Azzurra. The pleasantest way of reaching this
+world-famous cavern is by small boat from the Marina, rather than by the
+daily steamer from Naples; and a perfectly calm and bright morning must be
+selected for the expedition, for if the surface of the sea appears in the
+least degree ruffled by northerly winds, it becomes impossible for any
+craft to make the low entrance of the grotto. Capriote boatmen are as a
+rule intelligent and pleasant to deal with, and not a few of the denizens
+of the Marina own to some knowledge of English, or rather of American,
+since several of the inhabitants are the sons of emigrants who have
+settled in the cities of the United States or the Argentine, but whose
+love for their island home is still so strong that they contrive to send
+their children back to Capri, in order that they may retain their Italian
+citizenship and be ready to serve their expected term of years in the
+Army.
+
+Past the gay-coloured shipping of the noisy Marina, past the wave-washed
+halls of Tiberius’ _palazzo a mare_, our boat swiftly glides over the
+pellucid expanse until it reaches those vast towering cliffs of limestone
+that spring almost perpendicular from the waters’ edge to the plateau of
+Ana-Capri, fully a thousand feet above our heads. Clumps of palmetto, of
+cytizus, and of various hardy shrubs manage to sprout and to exist in the
+crannies of this sheer wall of rock; and on some of the larger ledges, far
+out of reach of a despoiling human hand, we see masses of the odorous
+narcissus, though whence they draw their sustenance it is hard to tell. At
+length we reach the entrance of the Grotto, and here, at a signal from our
+boatman, we crouch down low in the body of the boat, whilst our rower,
+skilfully taking advantage of a gentle surging wave, guides our craft with
+his hands through an opening in the sheer wall, so low that the gunwales
+grate against the rocky surface of the natural arch. At once we find
+ourselves in a scene of mystical beauty, in an extravagant voluptuous
+dream of loveliness, such as the Arabian Nights alone could dare to
+suggest. Above us, around us, behind us, before us lies a luminous azure
+atmosphere, which produces the effect of a gigantic molten sapphire, whose
+secret blue fires we have actually tracked to their lurking-place in the
+very heart of the gem. Against the all-pervading shimmering light our own
+forms stand out distinct of an intense and velvety blackness, yet the
+blades of the oars that cleave the melted sapphire of the water, the tips
+of our fingers that dabble in the celestial liquid, appear as if coated
+with tiny globules of silver. Our boatman’s son, a picturesque lad of
+fifteen or there-abouts, has, we notice, been engaged in hastily casting
+off his scanty attire; for a moment his slight graceful figure is outlined
+against the blue light like some antique bronze of Pompeii or Herculaneum,
+and then there is a splash as the youthful form, diving into the pool, is
+instantaneously changed by the genius of the place into a
+silver-glistening sea-god, the very image of the fisherman Glaucus sung of
+old by Ovid, who became an Immortal and dwelt ever afterwards, according
+to the ancient myth, in an azure palace beneath the sea. As the stripling
+rises to the surface all glittering to breathe the air, his head turns
+from frosted silver to ebon blackness, as does likewise his hand, raised
+from the water to clasp the boat’s prow. Slowly we are propelled round the
+lofty domed cavern, and are shown the little beach at its further
+extremity with its mysterious and unexplored flight of stone steps, down
+which, so our mariner informs us, the wicked Timberio used to descend from
+his villa at Damecuta, hundreds of feet overhead, to take a plunge in
+these enchanted waters. The Emperor and his friends may or may not have
+gambolled in this jewelled bath; but certain it is that Tiberius knew of
+the existence of this unique cavern; and equally certain that an artistic
+but demented potentate of our own days was so smitten with the idea of
+owning a secret staircase descending to a blue grotto, that he must needs
+construct within the walls of a fantastic castle in the highlands of
+Bavaria an artificial counterpart of the Grotta Azzurra, with metal swans
+moved by clockwork swimming thereon!
+
+Our genial boatman beguiles the time of our returning by a long story,
+told him in his boyhood by his old grandfather, of how two English
+_Signori_ had managed to rediscover the entrance to the Blue Grotto, which
+had been lost since the days of the Emperor Timberio, and how in
+expectation of the Englishmen’s reward a plucky sailor, named Ferrara, had
+made his way all round the island in a cask, trying to force an entrance
+into every possible cavern, until at last he hit upon the mouth of the
+Grotta Azzurra itself, and thus gained the prize. But as a matter of fact
+the existence of the Grotto was never wholly forgotten, for its beauties
+were certainly known to the old Italian chronicler Capaccio. Yet doubtless
+during the long period of the Napoleonic wars, when Capri from its
+strategic position became a choice bone of contention between French,
+English and Neapolitan forces, there were few if any persons who possessed
+the courage or curiosity to visit the cavern; with the result that its
+_exact_ locality became temporarily lost. It was known, however, to exist
+somewhere at the base of the great northern cliff, so that only a very
+small portion of the coast-line had to be explored, before its tiny
+inconspicuous entrance could be rediscovered. A far more exciting event
+than the refinding of the Blue Grotto was the genuine discovery of the
+beautiful Grotta Verde on the southern side of the island by two
+Englishmen, Mr Reid and Mr Lacaita, in the summer of 1848. This grotto,
+esteemed the second in importance of the many caves that Capri boasts,
+consists of a huge natural archway formed in the cliffs wherein the water
+and rocks appear of an emerald hue, contrasting strangely with the opaque
+blue of the sea beyond, and suggesting in its dual colouring the
+marvellous combination of dark blue and iridescent green in the peacock’s
+tail.
+
+  [Illustration: IN THE BLUE GROTTO, CAPRI]
+
+Capri is a pleasant enough place of residence for a short time,
+particularly if one invests in a pair of the rope-soled shoes affected by
+the people, which enables the wearer to follow with greater ease the rough
+stony tracks, often at a dizzy height above the sea, that form the only
+walks in the eastern portion of Capri, except the villa-lined Tragara road
+leading to the Guardiola, now become the fashionable promenade of the many
+foreign residents upon the island. There are some delightfully peaceful
+nooks to be sought near the water’s edge, not far from the Faraglioni,
+that picturesque trio of rocks lying off the south-eastern corner of
+Capri. Here we can find a sheltered corner, unfrequented alike by the
+pestering native or by the ubiquitous tourist; perchance the deserted hall
+of some maritime villa, for the caverns near the Piccola Marina abound in
+traces of Roman architecture. In such a retreat, with a book on one’s
+knees and with one’s own thoughts for sole company, how fascinating it is
+to lie
+
+  “... on Capri’s rocks, close to their snowy streak
+  Of ambient foam, and watch the restless sea
+  Tossing and tumbling to Eternity,
+  Feeling its salt kiss fall upon the cheek.”
+
+But to those who prefer to take long tramps afield rather than to linger
+in meditation on the sunny beaches near the Piccola Marina, there is
+always the ascent to Ana-Capri by the broad smooth winding road that
+affords a fresh view of the Bay of Naples at every one of its many twists
+and turnings. Over a ravine filled with masses of ilex and myrtle; past
+the fragment of the pirate Barbarossa’s aerial castle, perched on a rocky
+pinnacle and looking like some fantastic creation of Gustave Doré’s brush;
+the broad ribband of road leads across the steep northern flank of Monte
+Solaro, until it ends at Ana-Capri with its white houses nestling round a
+domed church. It is an easy ascent, taking no great space of time, yet
+strange to relate, well within living memory the only approach to this
+hill-set village was by means of the interminable stone staircase with
+some five hundred steps that connected it with the Marina Grande below. A
+charming writer on Neapolitan life and character thus shrewdly sums up the
+general opinion concerning this altered aspect of conditions with regard
+to Ana-Capri, now brought at last into close touch with modern
+civilization and its accruing benefits:
+
+“Before the culminating point is reached, the road crosses the old
+staircase, which has unfortunately been almost completely destroyed by the
+huge masses of rock dislodged from the cliff above by the workmen. It
+makes one sad to look at it, and almost regret that the new road ever was
+constructed. Were every invective that has been vented on those same steps
+turned into a paving-stone, there would be more than sufficient to pave
+the streets of Naples anew; were every drop of sweat that has fallen upon
+them collected, there would be enough water to flood them. And yet now
+that this dreadful staircase has been superseded by a good macadamised
+road, every one seems to regret the change. Says the heavily laden
+_contadina_: ‘The old way was the shortest;’ says the artist: ‘It was
+infinitely more picturesque; that new parapet wall is a dreadful
+eye-sore;’ says the archaeologist: ‘It had the merit of antiquity; it is
+not everywhere that one can tread in the footprints of a hundred
+generations.’ Even those whose every step in the olden time was
+accompanied by a malediction, can remember how good a glass of very
+inferior wine tasted on reaching Ana-Capri.”(11)
+
+But whether Ana-Capri has or has not been really benefited by the Italian
+Government’s finely engineered road, there can be no doubt that the
+primitive charm of the island, which in by-gone days constituted one of
+its chief attractions, has greatly declined with the wholesale
+introduction of modern conventions and improvements. With the sudden
+influx of wealthy strangers, Anglo-Saxon, German, French and Russian, it
+is not surprising to learn that the islanders have become somewhat
+demoralized under the changed conditions of life, and that not a small
+proportion of them have grown venal and grasping. The happy old days when
+artists and inn-keepers, peasants and such chance visitors as loved the
+simple unsophisticated life, hob-nobbed together on terms of equality are
+gone for ever. Fashion, that merciless deity, has annexed the Insula
+Caprearum to her ever-growing dominions;—there are smart villas on the
+Tragara road and even at Ana-Capri; there are British tea-rooms and
+Teutonic _Bierhälle_ in the town. At the present time the tourists and
+foreign residents form the chief source of wealth to the islanders, now
+that the quails have more or less deserted these shores. Instead of
+awaiting in due season with nets ready prepared the advent of the plump
+little feathered immigrants from the African coast, the modern Caprioti
+are continually on the look-out for the steamers that bear hundreds of
+money-spending tourists to the Marina, and these they proceed to enmesh
+with proffered offers of service. And, speaking of the quails, in the days
+before breech-loading guns and reckless extermination had injured this
+valuable source of revenue, the arrival of the birds winging their way
+northward was the signal for every sportsman on the island to hasten to
+collect the annual harvest of game. High poles, supporting nets twenty
+feet broad and sixty feet long, were erected on the grassy slopes of the
+Solaro or in the plateau of the Tragara, towards which, by dint of
+judicious scaring and shouting from expectant watchers stationed at
+various points, the flight of the on-rushing birds was directed. Dashing
+themselves with force against this wall of netting, the poor quails fell
+stunned to the ground, where they were easily taken by hand, whilst scores
+of guns were levelled ready to bring down such birds as had escaped the
+snare prepared for them. From the thousands of quails thus captured the
+islanders were enabled to pay their taxes to the Bourbon Government, as
+well as to provide the income of their Bishop—for in those distant days a
+prelate dwelt at Capri—who in allusion to his chief source of income was
+jocularly known at the Roman court as “Il Vescovo delle Quaglie.”
+
+From Ana-Capri to the western shore extends the most fertile stretch of
+land in the island: a broad slope set with vineyards and groves of
+silver-grey olives, that are interspersed here and there with clumps of
+almond and plum trees. Fine oil is yielded by the _poderi_ of Ana-Capri
+and Damecuta, whilst the grapes produce the highly prized red and white
+Capri vintages, choice wine of which the casual traveller rarely tastes a
+good sample, for it is usually doctored and “improved” for purposes of
+keeping by the wine-merchants of Naples. Thus the rasping red liquid that
+appears on the table of a London restaurant, and the scented
+strong-tasting white stuff that is sold in the hotels of the island itself
+or of Naples under the name of Capri, have little in common with the pure
+unadulterated product of these sunny breezy vineyards. But besides wine
+and oil, the island is likewise celebrated for its beautiful and varied
+flora, and it is amongst the olive groves and lanes of the western side of
+the island that the wild flowers can be found in the greatest profusion.
+Amongst the tender green shoots of the young springing corn are set
+myriads of brilliant hued anemones, purple, scarlet, and white with a
+crimson centre; and even in January can be found in warm sheltered nooks
+the pretty mauve wind-flower, one of the earliest of spring blossoms in
+Italy. The grassy pathways that intersect the various holdings are gay
+with rosy-tipped daisies, white “star-of-Bethlehem,” dark purple
+grape-hyacinth, and the tiny strong-scented marigold, that seems to bloom
+the whole twelve-month round. Amongst the loose stone-work of the walled
+lanes, where beryl-backed lizards peep in and out of every crevice, can be
+found fragrant violets and the delicate fumitory with its pink waxy bells.
+In moist places flourish patches of the wild arum or of the stately great
+celandine, the “swallow-wort” of old-fashioned herbalists, who believed
+that the swallow made use of the thick yellow juice that runs in the veins
+of this plant to anoint the eyes of her fledgelings! And with the
+disappearance of the anemones as the season advances, their place is taken
+by blood-red poppies, by golden hawkweeds and by masses of tall
+magenta-coloured blooms of the wild gladiolus, the “Jacob’s Ladder” of our
+own English gardens. Strange enough amongst these familiar homely flowers
+appear the sub-tropical clumps of prickly pear, and the hedges of aloe
+which here and there have thrown up a gigantic spike of blossom eight or
+ten feet in height, a triumphal favour of Nature that the plant itself
+must pay for by its subsequent death.
+
+From Ana-Capri we ascend to the peak of the lofty Solaro, by no means an
+arduous climb from this point, for we have but to follow a narrow
+goat-track leading across slopes covered with coarse grass and some low
+thickets of stunted lentisk and myrtle. The rosemary too grows plentifully
+on the dry wind-swept soil, and the soft sea breeze wafts its refreshing
+scent to our nostrils. There is a pretty legend of the people which
+relates the cause of this plant obtaining its perfume of unearthly
+sweetness:—how the Madonna one day hung the swaddling clothes of the
+Infant Christ to dry upon a common pot-herb in the garden at Nazareth—the
+rosemary is freely used in Italian cookery, and its taste is as unpleasant
+as its scent is delicious—whereupon the humble plant thus honoured was
+ever afterwards endowed with the delicate odour that is so highly prized.
+And beyond this, the rosemary was likewise permitted to put forth masses
+of flowers of the Madonna’s own colour of blue, concerning which a
+tradition—Celtic, not Italian—avers that on Christmas morning upon every
+plant of rosemary will be found by those who care to seek them expanded
+blooms in honour of St Joseph, the Virgin and the Holy Child. Reaching the
+crest of the Solaro, we are well rewarded for our climb over the stony
+slopes by a wide-spreading view. Owing to the central position of the
+island, we can from its airy summit, some sixteen hundred feet above
+sea-level, command a glorious panorama of the three bays of the Neapolitan
+Riviera, each teeming with a thousand associations of classical or modern
+history. Upon those dancing waters of the Bay of Naples appeared in the
+dim ages of the heroic world the Trojan galleys that were bearing the
+founder of the Roman race towards the beach by Cumae yonder, where dwelt
+the venerable Sibyl; the fleets of ancient Rome and Carthage, the
+war-ships of the great Emperor Charles V., the pirate galleys of the
+Soldan’s vassals, the men-of-war of Nelson have all rode and fought upon
+the bosom of the bay beneath us. What a marvellous perspective of the
+whole naval history of the Mediterranean does a survey of the Bay of
+Naples suggest!
+
+Exquisite and inspiring as is the view on a clear cloudless day, with the
+keen _tramontana_ off the distant Abruzzi flecking the azure waves with
+streaks of creamy foam and driving the white-sailed feluccas merrily
+towards the open sea, the landscape is even more impressive in dull
+lowering weather, when the inky clouds that envelop the sky give promise
+of the approaching hurricane. At such times a striking phenomenon, said to
+be peculiar to the Parthenopean shores, may be observed. From out the
+purple threatening masses that fill the heavens there suddenly falls a
+shaft of rosy light, as though directed by some vast celestial lens fixed
+aloft in the sky, upon a small portion of the opposite shore. The plateau
+of Sorrento with its many white hamlets first becomes illuminated; then
+the light rapidly passes towards Vesuvius, which is instantly revealed
+with marvellous clearness, whilst Sorrento returns to its former dark
+brooding shadows. For some moments we watch the circlet of towns that
+fringe the base of the burning mountain and Camaldoli erect on its wooded
+height, and then our gaze is diverted towards Naples, so clearly revealed
+that one can almost fancy it possible to detect the carriages driving
+along the white line of the Caracciolo. From the city this weird
+fairy-like light glides swiftly towards the headland of Posilipo and the
+great sombre mass of Ischia, and then finally seems to vanish altogether
+in the leaden-hued expanse of the watery horizon. Storm, rain, wind, hail
+and thunder will certainly follow the appearance of this fantastic
+rose-coloured glow, and the visitor to Capri may in consequence be
+compelled to remain willy-nilly upon the island until such time as
+communication with Naples shall be once more restored, for rough weather
+on Capri means complete isolation from the mainland and the outside world.
+A spell of four or five days without a letter or a newspaper may in
+certain cases be restful and even beneficial, but it can also be highly
+inconvenient.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+Comparatively few persons are aware that in the history of Capri is to be
+found a page, not a particularly glorious one perhaps, of the annals of
+our own nation. In the spring of 1806, the year after Trafalgar, whilst
+our fleet was blockading Naples on behalf of its worthless monarch, King
+Ferdinand, then skulking in cowardly ease at Palermo, Admiral Sir Sidney
+Smith, the hero of Acre, managed to capture the island after a sharp
+struggle with the French troops then holding it in the name of Joachim
+Murat, King of Naples and brother-in-law of the great Napoleon. Sir Hudson
+(then Colonel) Lowe—afterwards famous as the Governor of St Helena during
+Buonaparte’s captivity—was now put in command of the newly conquered
+island with some 1500 English and Maltese troops at his disposal. Lowe and
+his second in command, Major Hamill, at once set to work to put the place
+into a strong state of defence, and so satisfied were they with their work
+of fortification, that Lowe in his confidence nick-named the islet “Little
+Gibraltar.” For more than two years the Union Jack floated in triumph from
+the fort-crowned heights of Capri, much to the annoyance of the monarch on
+the mainland, who finally determined at all costs to recapture the
+stronghold facing his capital. Fancying himself perfectly secure in his
+“Little Gibraltar,” now deemed impregnable by a combination of art and
+nature against any hostile descent, Lowe made light of any possible
+expedition from Naples, and when Neapolitan warships actually appeared as
+though making to land troops at the Marinas on either side of the saddle
+of the island, the British commandant was delighted at the ease with which
+these attempts were repelled. But whilst the garrison was busied in
+thwarting the movements on the Marinas, which in reality only constituted
+a feint on Murat’s part, transports were engaged in disembarking at the
+low cliffs of Orico, the western extremity of the island, boat-loads of
+men, who quickly swarmed up the terraced slopes towards Ana-Capri and
+surprised its garrison. On the following day, October 6th 1808, in spite
+of Lowe’s efforts, Ana-Capri with its eight hundred men surrendered to the
+French and Neapolitan troops led by General Lamarque, who at once set up a
+battery on the crest of the Solaro, so as to command the town of Capri and
+the English head-quarters, fixed at the Convent of the Certosa that lies
+between the Tragara Road and the southern shore. The eastern half of the
+island still of course remained in the hands of the British; and failing
+to reduce the town itself and the Convent of the Certosa by bombardment
+from above, General Lamarque decided upon taking the place by storm, so as
+to forestall the arrival of the English fleet, which was hourly expected
+to come to the rescue of the beleaguered garrison. As we have already
+mentioned, there was no road existing upon the whole island in those days
+a hundred years ago, so that in order to attack the capital, the French
+general had to march his victorious troops by the precipitous flight of
+stone steps down to the Marina Grande and then try to carry the position
+from below. Before however the Frenchmen, now further aided by supplies
+sent by Murat’s order from Sorrento, could arrange for the projected
+assault upon the town, the delayed British fleet suddenly appeared in the
+offing, evidently with the intention of bearing down upon the island. But
+on this occasion the luck was all on the side of the French, for scarcely
+had the eagerly expected ships hove in sight, than the besieged garrison
+had the mortification to see their hopes of succour overthrown by the
+uprising of one of those sudden squalls, so common on the Mediterranean,
+which drove the warships southward. More than one assault was repulsed
+with heavy loss by the small English garrison, which had already been
+deprived of half its numbers at Ana-Capri, including the gallant Major
+Hamill, whose death is commemorated in a marble tablet set in the little
+piazza of the town. But with the retirement of the relieving fleet and the
+continuance of foul weather, Colonel Lowe deemed it useless to resist
+further, and like a sensible man decided to capitulate on the best terms
+he could obtain. In return for his immediate surrender of Capri the
+British commandant accordingly stipulated that his garrison should be
+allowed to embark and sail for Sicily unmolested, and that the persons and
+property of the islanders, who seem to have appreciated the British
+occupation, should be respected. But Lamarque, on communicating Colonel
+Lowe’s request to King Murat, received peremptory orders to demand an
+unconditional surrender, whereupon an aide-de-camp of the King’s, a
+certain Colonel Manches, was sent to interview Lowe with the royal letter
+in his pocket. Had the missive been delivered to him, the British Governor
+would in all probability have decided to fight to the bitter end rather
+than to submit to such severe and humiliating conditions. Happily so
+terrible a catastrophe, which must have involved heavy loss of life on
+both sides, followed by a sack of the town, was unexpectedly, averted at
+the last moment, for whilst Manches was actually advancing with a flag of
+truce, the approach of the British fleet was again signalled from the
+look-out on the hill now called the Telegrafo. Before the Governor could
+be made aware of this piece of news, Colonel Manches, cunningly keeping
+his master’s imperious letter in his pocket, told Colonel Lowe that King
+Murat was ready to accept the terms of surrender offered. The weather
+being propitious, the British fleet would have been able this time to
+reach the island, but its nearer approach was prevented by Colonel Lowe
+himself, who sent to acquaint the Admiral, much to his chagrin, of the
+compact already concluded with the besiegers, a compact which, as Hudson
+Lowe himself very properly pointed out, was binding upon the British
+Government. On October 26th, three weeks from the date of the first
+attack, the English troops embarked for Sicily, and the island was
+formally handed over to the French and Neapolitan forces, who held it
+undisturbed until the close of the Napoleonic Wars.
+
+  [Illustration: A GATEWAY. CAPRI]
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XII
+
+
+                     ISCHIA AND THE LADY OF THE ROCK
+
+
+Embarking at Torregaveta, the little terminus of the _Ferrovia Cumana_,
+which traverses the classic district of the Phlegraean Fields, we are
+quickly transported in a small coasting steamer past the headland of
+Misenum to the island and port of Procida, the “alta Prochyta” of Virgil.
+Although the poet calls the island lofty, it is remarkably flat
+considering its volcanic origin, for Procida and Ischia were undoubtedly
+one in remote ages, as the learned Strabo rightly conjectured. Its only
+eminence is the Rocciola, the castle-crowned hillock to the north-east of
+the island, but as this hill must first have caught the expectant eye of
+Aeneas’ steersman, perhaps the epithet is after all not so misplaced as
+would appear at first sight. Carefully tilled and densely populated, the
+island produces a large proportion of the fruit, vegetables, and olive
+oil, that are sold in the Naples market, and as it possesses no remains of
+antiquity, no medieval churches, no works of art, and but few beauties of
+nature to recommend it for inspection, Procida is rarely visited by
+strangers. Its inhabitants, who are chiefly husbandmen, are hard working
+and independent, and content also to retain the manners and customs of
+their frugal forefathers, and even to a certain extent to continue the use
+of their national dress, so that the festivals of Procida have more
+interest and local colour than those observed in tourist-haunted Capri or
+Sorrento. Unconcerned at the progress of the world without, unspoiled by
+the gold of the _forestiere_, the Procidani pursue the even tenor of their
+old-fashioned ways, unenvious of and unenvied by their neighbours on the
+mainland.
+
+  “O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona nôrint,
+  Agricolas!”
+
+We halt at the port of Procida, with its flat-roofed gaily coloured houses
+lining the quay and ascending the gentle slope towards the Rocciola.
+Thence, skirting the low-lying fertile shores of the island, and passing
+the olive-clad islet of Vivara, we soon come in sight of the steep
+headland on which are perched the grey masses of the Castle of Ischia,
+“the Mount St Michael of Italy.”
+
+Covered from base to summit with fume-weed, lentisk, aromatic cistus, and
+every plant that loves the sun, the wind and the salt foam of the
+Mediterranean, the huge solitary cliff rises majestically from the deep
+blue water. Whether viewed in brilliant sunshine under a cloudless sky, or
+in foul weather, when the sea is hurling its waves over the stone causeway
+that connects the isolated crag with the little city of Ischia, the first
+sight of this historic castle is singularly impressive. Nor is its
+grandeur lessened on a near approach, for the ascent to its topmost tower
+takes us through a labyrinth of staircases and mysterious subterranean
+passages, through vaulted chambers and curious hanging gardens to an airy
+platform, which commands a glorious view in every direction over land and
+sea.
+
+Built by Alphonso V. of Aragon in the fifteenth century, this massive
+pile, half-fortress and half-palace, is famous in Italian annals for its
+long association with the noble poetess Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of
+Pescara. Born in the old Castle of Marino, near Rome, one of the
+strongholds of the great feudal house of Colonna, the poetess, who was
+great-great-niece to Pope Martin V., was betrothed in her infancy at the
+instigation of King Ferdinand of Naples to the youthful heir of the
+d’Avalos family, hereditary governors of the island of Ischia. The elder
+sister of Vittoria’s affianced husband, Constance d’Avalos, the widowed
+Duchess of Francavilla, was the “châtelaine” of Ischia during her
+brother’s minority, so that it was but natural that his Colonna
+bride-elect should be sent to dwell with Constance in this castle. Here
+Vittoria under her sister-in-law’s excellent tutelage grew up to womanhood
+amidst the intellectual atmosphere of the Italian Renaissance, and here
+she was trained to develop into one of the most learned, the most
+interesting and the most attractive figures that all Italy produced at
+this period. Childless in her early marriage at eighteen, and with her
+husband frequently, not to say usually, engaged in military expeditions on
+the mainland, Vittoria had every opportunity of cultivating her mind and
+of filling her sea-girt palace with men of genius. The poets Cariteo and
+Bernado Tasso (the father of Torquato Tasso), were frequent visitors at
+this
+
+  “Superbo scoglio, altaro e bel ricetto,
+  Di tanti chiari eroi, d’ imperadori,
+  Orde raggi di gloria escono fuori,
+  Ch’ ogni altro lume fan scuro e negletto.”
+
+Strange to relate, her husband, the Marquis of Pescara, was destined to
+forestall his learned lady in the matter of poetry, for during his
+imprisonment at Milan in the year 1512, he composed a “Dialogo d’Amore” to
+send to his sorrowing wife at Ischia, a production which the learned Paolo
+Giovio, the historian and bishop of Nocera, pronounced as being “summae
+jucunditatis,” though in reality it seems to have been feeble enough. But
+however halting and commonplace the warrior’s verses, Pescara’s
+composition had the immediate effect of opening the flood-gates of his
+wife’s poetic temperament, for she replied at once to her spouse’s effort
+with an epistle conceived in the _terza rima_ employed by Dante, and
+though the poem is turgid in diction and shallow in thought, full of
+classical names and allusions, “a parade of all the treasures of the
+school-room,” it exhibits the graceful ease and high scholarship which
+mark all Vittoria’s writings. Meanwhile, unblest with offspring of her own
+and ever separated by the cruel circumstance of war from the husband she
+seemed perfectly content to admire from a distance, Vittoria did not
+expend all her time at Ischia in sacrificing to Apollo and the Muses, for
+she now undertook the education of her husband’s young cousin and heir,
+Alphonso d’Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, whose manhood certainly did credit
+to his instructress, for del Vasto under her influence grew up to be a
+brave soldier and a tolerable scholar.
+
+After sixteen years of married life with a husband who, although
+professing deep devotion to his brilliant and virtuous consort, was almost
+invariably absent from her side, Vittoria found herself left a widow
+shortly after the great battle of Pavia in 1525 wherein Francis I. of
+France surrendered to the Emperor Charles V. The Marquis of Pescara, after
+the usual career of bloodthirsty adventures which passed in those days for
+a life of knight-errantry, died at Milan towards the close of this year,
+leaving behind him an unenviable reputation for treachery towards his
+master. But however hard were the things said of the deceased Fernando
+d’Avalos by the outside world, no breath of suspicion seems ever to have
+penetrated to the heart of the faithful if placid Vittoria, who mourned
+bitterly if somewhat theatrically over her departed hero. The Lady of the
+Rock was now in her thirty-fifth year, and her beauty, so we are told,
+still remained undimmed; in fact it was rather improved by a tendency
+towards plumpness, for sorrow and poetry are not necessarily associated
+with a meagre appearance. Spending her time partly in the great Italian
+cities, but chiefly on her beloved _scoglio superbo_, the widow of Pescara
+now set herself to write that series of sonnets in memory of her dead
+husband which have rescued his unworthy name from oblivion and have
+rendered her own famous in Italian literature. For the sonnets of Vittoria
+Colonna, though appearing cold classical and pedantic to our northern
+ideas, evidently appeal to the Italian temperament, so that the praises of
+Pescara and his widow’s stilted complaints, couched in the elegant
+language of the Renaissance, are still read and appreciated to-day by her
+compatriots. As time passed, and the ghost of sorrowful remorse was
+supposed to be decently laid, the sonnets contain somewhat less of
+hero-worship, and assume a religious and speculative character. Some
+critics have even gone so far as to affect to perceive a latent spirit of
+Protestantism underlying the graceful platitudes and commonplace but
+grandly expressed ideas. Very likely the Lady of the Rock dabbled in the
+fashionable heterodoxy of the hour, as it is at least certain that she was
+on terms of intimacy with the celebrated Princess Renée, the “Protestant”
+Duchess of Ferrara. On the other hand, several of her acquaintances and
+correspondents were amongst the most prominent of the unyielding Churchmen
+of the day; in their number being, it is interesting to note, Cardinal
+Reginald Pole, great-nephew of King Edward IV. of England and afterwards
+Queen Mary’s Archbishop of Canterbury, who was certainly not likely to
+encourage Vittoria’s unorthodox or reforming tendencies. “The more
+opportunity,” so writes the poetess to Cardinal Cervino, afterwards Pope
+Marcellus II., “I have had of observing the actions of his Eminence the
+Cardinal of England, the more clear has it seemed to me that he is a true
+and sincere servant of God. Whenever, therefore, he charitably condescends
+to give me his opinion on any point, I conceive myself safe from error in
+following his advice.” And on the strength of Cardinal Pole’s astute
+counsels, Vittoria promptly broke off all communication with the leading
+reformer, Bernardino Ochino, and (a thing which does not strike us as
+particularly honourable) forwarded his letters to herself unopened to his
+spiritual adversaries. But it is evident that Vittoria’s “Protestantism”
+was a mere pose, assumed at a time when adverse criticism from all sides
+was being levelled at the political abuses of the Papacy and at the
+various scandals in the Church which were patent to the eyes of all
+onlookers. In short her religious verses are if anything more frigid and
+artificial than those which compose the _In Memoriam_ to her husband, her
+_Bel Sole_, as she usually terms him. Whilst admitting considerable merit
+in Vittoria’s compositions, we find it at this distance of time very
+difficult to understand the extravagant praise which was showered upon her
+poems by the Italian critics of the day, or to conceive how a sonnet from
+the gifted pen of the Marchioness of Pescara could possibly have been
+considered an important event in the literary world by cardinals, princes,
+poets, wits and scholars. From Naples to Rome, from Rome to Ferrara, from
+Ferrara to Mantua and Milan, the precious manuscript containing the
+last-born sonnet of the illustrious Lady of Ischia was eagerly passed
+along. Court poets read aloud amidst breathless silence the divine
+Vittoria’s fourteen lines of jejune sentiment draped in folds of elegant
+verbiage; nobles and prelates applauded, hailing the authoress as a
+heaven-sent genius. Sincere to a certain extent this strange admiration
+undoubtedly was, although the homage was paid perhaps in equal proportions
+to the excellence of the verse and to the high rank of the author. She was
+a Colonna by birth; she was the widow of a petty despot; she was governor
+of a large island;—any literary production, however indifferent, from so
+high a personage would have been received throughout Italy with respect or
+flattery. But Vittoria was no mean or careless aspirant to fame; it was
+the fault of an artificial age rather than the lack of her own natural
+ability that has made her poetry cold and soulless, for under healthy
+conditions of life and thought, “the Divine Vittoria” was doubtless
+capable of producing something warmer and more human than the lifeless but
+graceful sonnets that bear her name.
+
+It is chiefly through her close connexion with the great literary movement
+of the Italian Renaissance and her intimacy with its leading artists and
+writers, rather than through her own reputation as a poetess, that the
+name of Vittoria Colonna herself is remembered outside the borders of
+Italy. With her wealth, her culture, her virtue and her unique position in
+the world of rank and of letters, it is nothing marvellous that so
+fortunate and gifted a mortal should have become the idol of the leading
+persons of her day. She belonged, in fact, to a brilliant and famous group
+of which she was the soul and centre; of which she was at once the patron,
+the disciple and the teacher. That great master of Italian prose, Pietro
+Bembo, set a high value on her powers of criticism; other men, almost as
+distinguished as the Venetian cardinal, besought her for advice on
+literary subjects. Foremost in her circle of admirers appears of course
+the great Michelangelo, with whom the immaculate Vittoria condescended to
+indulge in one of those cold platonic pseudo-passions which constituted
+the true _divino amore_ of the idealists of the Renaissance. So here was
+nothing to cavil at, nothing to arouse base suspicion. Considered the
+greatest man and the greatest woman in all Italy, both were of mature age,
+he in the sixties and she in the forties, when Michelangelo first
+professed himself seized with a pure but unquenchable love and devotion
+for the widowed Lady of the Rock.
+
+The last days of Vittoria, which were chiefly spent within the walls of
+the Convent of Sant’ Anna at Rome, were clouded by ill-health and sorrow.
+The death of the young Marchese del Vasto, “her moral and intellectual
+son,” was an irreparable loss, for which her boundless fame and popularity
+could offer little real consolation. At length the poetess, feeling death
+approaching, moved to the house of Giulia Colonna, her relative, and there
+expired in February 1547, in the fifty-seventh year of her age. To the
+last her death-bed was surrounded by sorrowing and adoring friends,
+amongst them being Michelangelo, who is said to have witnessed with his
+own eyes the last moments of his beloved Lady. And the famous sculptor,
+painter and poet—perhaps the most stupendous genius the world has yet
+produced—is reported to have bitterly regretted in after years that on so
+solemn an occasion he had not ventured to imprint one chaste kiss upon the
+forehead of the woman he had adored so ardently, yet so purely during
+life. By her expressed wish the body of the poetess was buried in San
+Domenico Maggiore at Naples, the finest and least spoiled of all the
+Neapolitan churches, where a velvet-covered coffin containing the ashes of
+the Divine Vittoria and her “Bel Sole,” and surmounted by the sword,
+banner and portrait of Fernando d’Avalos, is still pointed out to the
+stranger, resting on a shelf in the sacristy of the church. We cannot but
+regret that Vittoria’s body did not find a final resting-place in her
+_superbo scoglio_, where all her happiest years were spent and where her
+memory still survives so fresh.
+
+Sadly deserted appear to-day the historic buildings, which are fast
+falling into hopeless decay; even the large domed church of the Castle has
+been desecrated and turned into a stable.
+
+  “Tocsins from yon bleak turrets never ring;
+  No knight or pages pace those galleries,
+  So sombre and so silent: ever cling
+  To that cold church and palace draperies
+  Of glaucous fume-weed; sea-birds ever sing
+  The vanished glories with low mournful cries.”
+
+Ischia itself is a quaint, dirty, straggling town, possessing a small
+cathedral of ancient foundation, but modernised within and without, its
+sole object of interest being a curious font resting on marble lions. The
+charm of the city lies chiefly in the busy scenes to be witnessed daily on
+its sandy beach and on the stone causeway that leads to the Castle, where
+a large part of the population seems to spend most of its time in mending
+the deep brown fishing nets or in attending to the gaudily painted boats.
+
+Almost adjoining the outskirts of the little capital of the island is
+Porto d’Ischia, with a deep circular harbour that was once the crater of
+an extinct volcano, wherein every variety of Mediterranean fishing craft
+is to be seen at anchor. Close to the port, embowered among groves of
+orange and lemon trees that in winter time are laden with bright or pale
+yellow fruit, stands a fine old villa of the Bourbon kings of Naples, once
+a favourite summer retreat of his Majesty King Bomba. Royalty has long
+abandoned Ischia, and the villa has now been converted into a bath house.
+Beyond its neglected park stretches an extensive pine forest, carpeted in
+spring time with daisies, marigolds and anemones, and even in February gay
+with yellow oxalis and redolent with the scent of hidden violets.
+
+The road from Ischia to Casamicciola, a distance of four miles, leads
+along the base of Monte Epomeo through olive groves and vineyards, the
+whitewashed walls of the domed cottages, the flat roofs and cisterns, and
+the frequent clumps of aloe or prickly pear giving an Eastern aspect to
+the scenery, though the sharp tinklings of the goat bells among the
+thickets of white heath and dark myrtle scrub on the hill-sides and the
+continual murmur of the waves breaking on the rocks below, serve to remind
+us we are upon the Neapolitan Riviera. Our destination at length is
+reached, the roadway crossing the deep valley of the Gurgitello with its
+sulphur baths, which once had a wide reputation and are still much
+frequented in the summer months by the people of Naples. Although the
+sources of the springs were certainly damaged by the earthquake of 1883,
+new bathing establishments have been built, and a fair number of patients
+are once more availing themselves of these beneficent waters, which of
+course are warranted to heal every bodily evil under the sun. A course of
+the Ischian waters therefore applied externally and internally (so the
+local doctors inform us)
+
+  “Muove i paralitici,
+  Spedisce gli apopletici,
+  Gli asmatici, gli asfitici,
+  Gl’ isterici, i diabetici
+  Guarisce timpanitidi,
+  E scrofule e rachitidi.”
+
+Formerly the most populous and prosperous township of the whole island,
+Casamicciola consists to-day principally of a mass of shapeless ruins,
+together with a number of dismal corrugated iron huts grouped round an
+ugly modern church, nor can its exquisite views and luxuriant gardens make
+amends for the settled air of melancholy which continues to brood over
+this unlucky spot. Every reader will doubtless remember the story of the
+terrible earthquake of July 28th 1883, when almost without warning the
+whole town, then crowded with its usual influx of summer visitors, was
+overthrown and engulfed in the space of a few seconds of time. Hotels,
+villas, churches, cottages, all suffered equally, and though the exact
+number of those who perished of all classes will never be known, the most
+moderate accounts put the figure as high as 3000 souls. Several English
+people lost their lives in that brief but terrible upheaval, and as many
+of the bodies as were recovered from the wreckage were laid to rest in the
+little cemetery outside the town, a plot of ground overhanging the sea,
+and shaded by cypress and eucalyptus trees. Many and impressive are the
+stories still to be heard from the lips of the present inhabitants, who
+are wont to date all events from that fearful night of darkness and
+destruction, and who all have piteous tales to tell of relations killed
+and houses shattered. The English landlady of the _Piccola Sentinella_,
+who herself had an almost miraculous escape on the occasion, gave us a
+most vivid and heart-rending description of how her hotel and most of its
+inmates were overwhelmed on that awful July night, and how the existing
+inn is literally built upon foundations that are filled with many
+unrecovered bodies of victims. It was on a dark sultry night after the
+evening meal had been finished, when the many guests of the _Piccola
+Sentinella_ were sitting in the public rooms or on the terrace overlooking
+the hotel gardens. In the _salon_ a young Englishman, an accomplished
+musician, had been playing for some time on the piano, when suddenly and
+unexpectedly he plunged into the strains of Chopin’s _Marche Funèbre_,
+which had the immediate effect of scattering his audience, since many of
+his listeners, not caring for so melancholy a piece of music, deserted the
+room for the garden. Lucky indeed were those persons driven forth by the
+strains of Chopin’s dirge, for a few moments later came the earthquake,
+when in a trice the whole hotel was swallowed up in the yawning chasm of
+the earth. Everybody inside the walls was killed, and the body of the poor
+pianist was actually discovered later amidst the wreckage, crushed down
+upon the instrument which had struck the warning notes of impending
+disaster. The horrors of that night still linger vividly in the memory of
+the people, and many are the terrible incidents, and many also, we are
+glad to say, the acts of bravery which are recorded of it. One elderly
+English lady, who owned a small villa on the slope above the hotel, rushed
+at the first suspicion of the catastrophe into the stone archway of a
+window, whence she beheld the whole of her house collapse like a castle of
+cards around her. Nothing daunted by the spectacle, this gallant woman, as
+soon as the shock had ceased and the clouds of dust rising from the ruin
+had cleared away, left her own dismantled home, of which nothing but the
+one wall that had sheltered her remained standing, and joined the
+_parrocco_, the parish priest of Casamicciola, in the task of succouring
+the living and comforting the dying. To the darkness of the night was now
+added a heavy rainfall, yet the good priest and this noble woman traversed
+together the altered and devastated scene amidst the wet and gloom on
+their errand of mercy. It is some satisfaction to learn that this piece of
+unselfish heroism and devotion on the part of the priest was officially
+acknowledged, for the humble curate of Casamicciola was afterwards made a
+prelate by Pope Leo XIII. in recognition of his signal services. Even
+to-day people are inclined to be somewhat chary of spending any length of
+time in this unfortunate spot, where the ruined streets and shapeless
+mounds of earth, only too suggestive of a latter-day Pompeii, speak so
+eloquently of terrible experiences in the past and of possible dangers in
+the future. Nevertheless, if one can triumph over these gloomy feelings,
+Casamicciola affords a delightful centre whence to explore the whole
+island, and many are the pleasant walks to be found on the overhanging
+slopes of Mont’ Epomeo, and many the boating expeditions to be made from
+the Marina below the upper town.
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE PICCOLA MARINA, CAPRI]
+
+It is a two-mile walk through stony lanes overhung by branches of fig and
+orange from Casamicciola to Lacco, a large village well situated on a
+little bay which is distinguished by a curious mushroom-shaped rock, aptly
+nicknamed “Il Fungo” by the natives. This place, which also suffered
+severely in the earthquake of 1883, is the head-quarters of the
+straw-plaiting industry of the island, the women and children noisily
+beseeching every chance visitor to buy their wares in the guise of
+baskets, hats and fans; the pretty coloured tiles (_mattoni_), which are
+used with such good effect in the churches and houses of the island, are
+likewise manufactured here. Lacco is particularly associated with the
+great annual festival of St Restituta on May 17th, which is always marked
+by religious processions and by universal merry-making, followed by
+illuminations and fireworks at nightfall. This saint, of whom an early
+mosaic portrait still exists in her ancient chapel within the Neapolitan
+Cathedral, was once the patroness of the city of Naples, but since
+medieval times she has been honoured as the special guardian of this
+island, whither her body (so the legend runs) was miraculously conveyed
+from Egypt in a boat rowed by angels. A local tradition also asserts that
+on her landing by the beach of Lacco, an Egyptian lotus bloom was found in
+the saint’s hand, as fresh as when it had been plucked months before from
+the banks of the Nile.
+
+Leaving the little bay with its sulphur-impregnated sands, and turning
+inland, we proceed along a road across an ancient lava-stream over-grown
+with pine trees, wild caper and a tangle of aromatic brushwood, to Forio,
+which with its white domed houses, its palm trees, and its stately
+bare-footed women bearing tall pitchers on their heads gives at first
+acquaintance the full impression of an Oriental city. There is little to
+be seen in Forio itself, with the exception of some fine vestments of
+needlework that are preserved in the sacristy of its principal church, but
+no traveller should fail to visit its wonderfully picturesque Franciscan
+monastery, a barbaric-looking pile of dazzling white walls and cupolas set
+against a background of cobalt waters, which stands outside the town on a
+rocky platform jutting into the Mediterranean and is approached by a broad
+flight of marble steps adorned with most realistic figures of souls
+burning in brightly painted flames of Purgatory. This point too commands a
+good view of the extreme north-eastern promontory of the island, a tall
+cliff known as the Punta del Imperatore in honour of the great Emperor
+Charles the Fifth, beyond which visitors rarely penetrate owing to the
+roughness, or rather non-existence of roads, though the southern side of
+the island, which lies between this cape and the castle of Ischia, is
+fully as beautiful as the northern portion just described.
+
+The chief attraction, however, of a visit to Ischia is the ascent of Mont’
+Epomeo, an easy expedition on foot to the active, and feasible to the weak
+or lazy on mule-back. This extinct volcano, whose broad lofty summit is
+visible from many points of the Bay of Naples, is naturally rich in
+classical associations, the ancients believing that within it lay
+imprisoned the giant Typhoeus, whose agonised movements were wont to cause
+the frequent eruptions of the crater that eventually drove away the early
+Greek settlers from this island—the Aenaria or Inarime of antiquity—and in
+later times accounted for the neglect of Ischia as a winter resort by the
+luxurious Romans, in spite of its near presence to fashionable Baiae. So
+destructive of life and property were these convulsions of nature, that
+for long periods, notwithstanding its fertile soil and its lucrative
+fisheries, the island remained uninhabited, and an old tradition,
+mentioned by Ovid, derives one of its ancient names, Pithecusa, from a
+race of apes (_pithēkoi_) that dwelt on its abandoned shores. Since the
+great eruption of 1302, the effects of which can still be traced among the
+large pine woods near Porto d’Ischia, the mountain has been quiescent, and
+the population of the island has increased considerably, although the
+constant shocks of earthquake have always made a permanent residence in
+Ischia somewhat insecure. Nor can we rest assured that Typhoeus himself is
+truly dead, not merely sleeping, but ready to renew his fierce efforts
+after his long spell of slumber, and to change the face of nature as
+unexpectedly as did the Demon of Vesuvius in the reign of Titus.
+
+Like the great volcano of Etna, which the Ischian mountain somewhat
+resembles on a tiny scale. Epomeo contains three distinct climatic zones.
+The lowest is that of the coast line with its rich sub-tropical
+vegetation, the early part of the ascent leading by steep stony paths
+through sun-baked vineyards which produce the white wine of Ischia,
+wholesome and light but somewhat acid in taste. For the storing of this
+vintage the peasants make use of the numerous old stone towers, that once
+served as safe retreats for the terrified inhabitants in times when the
+Barbary pirates frequently descended on the Italian coasts to plunder and
+enslave. Very curious it is to step out of the blinding sunlight into the
+interior of one of these medieval buildings, where in the icy gloom stand
+great barrels of the new white wine, each carefully inscribed with a
+prayer in praise of St Restituta, from one of which the swarthy
+_contadino_, in expectation of a few pence, draws a glassful of the sour
+chilly liquid to offer his visitor. Leaving behind this region of houses
+and of cultivation, the zone of forest is reached, covered with woods of
+chestnut and oak, with a thick undergrowth of heather, myrtle, laurustinus
+and sweet-scented yellow coronella; there is grass under our feet, and
+long-stemmed daisies, violets, mauve anemones and small fragrant marigolds
+everywhere. Through the trees comes the nasal but not unmelodious singing
+of an unseen charcoal-burner, or the plaintive note of the little
+goat-herd’s rustic pipe, accompanied by the musical jingling of his
+goat-bells;—for a moment we try to fancy ourselves in the pastoral Italy
+of Theocritus, where nymphs and shepherds, peasants and dryads, lived
+together on terms of amity in the woods. But soon the chestnut trees
+appear stunted, and the groves become less thick, and we finally gain the
+last zone, the desolate expanse of naked rock and dark lava deposits of
+the summit, where only a few hardy weeds can thrive. Here in some damp
+mouldy chambers dwells a hermit, for nearly all the classic mountains of
+Southern Italy are tenanted by an anchorite, generally an old and
+ignorant, but pious peasant, of the type of Pietro Murrone, the holy
+recluse of the Abruzzi, who was finally dragged from his cell to be
+invested forcibly with the pontifical robes and tiara as Celestine the
+Fifth. The present hermitage on Mont’ Epomeo dates however from
+comparatively modern times, for its first occupant is said to have been a
+German nobleman, a certain Joseph Arguth, governor of Ischia under the
+first Bourbon king, who in consequence of a solemn vow made in battle
+deliberately passed his last years of existence on the topmost peak of the
+island he had lately ruled. His example has been followed and his cell
+filled by many successors, who have endured the spring rains, the summer
+heats, the autumn storms and the winter chills upon this airy height,
+where the glorious view may be found a compensation for eternal
+discomfort, if hermits condescend to appreciate anything so mundane as
+scenery. The shrine and cell are dedicated to St Nicholas of Bari, and to
+this circumstance is due the local uninteresting name of Monte San Niccolò
+to the entire mountain, whose crest, some 3000 feet above sea-level, we
+finally gain by means of steps roughly hewn in the lava.
+
+The view from this height, embracing two out of the three historic bays of
+the Parthenopean coast, is one of the noblest and most extensive in
+Southern Italy. Looking southward, the fantastic cliffs of Capri are seen
+to rise abruptly from the ocean; beyond them appears the graceful outline
+of Monte Sant’ Angelo, with the crater of Vesuvius beside it, veiling the
+clear blue sky with volumes of dusky smoke. Beneath extends the broken
+line of shore, stretching north and south as far as the eye can travel,
+with its classic capes and islands basking in the strong sunshine; whilst
+behind the foam-fringed boundary of land and sea rises the jagged line of
+the Abruzzi Mountains with the huge snow-clad mass of the Gran Sasso
+d’Italia towering above the lower peaks. At our feet is spread the
+beautiful and fertile island, in outward appearance little changed since
+the days when the good Bishop Berkeley “of every virtue under Heaven”
+penned its description nearly two centuries ago in a letter to Alexander
+Pope, wherein he described Ischia as “an epitome of the whole earth.”
+
+In spite of the good Bishop’s eloquent tribute to the genial climate and
+the natural beauty of Ischia, it must be borne in mind that a residence on
+the island possesses one or two serious drawbacks. Apart from the
+ever-present fear of earthquakes, which hangs like the sword of Damocles
+above the heads of the inhabitants, there is yet another disadvantage,
+prosaic but very real, in the lack of pure water, every well and rivulet
+on Ischia being more or less impregnated with sulphur, with the result
+that water for drinking (and in summer even for domestic) purposes has to
+be conveyed by boat from Naples. It is bad enough to be dependant on a
+distant city for a food supply (which is to some extent also the case
+here), but the possibility of enduring a water famine through storms or
+misadventure would be a far more serious calamity; nevertheless as casual
+visitors to this charming and little-known island, we can easily afford to
+smile at such misfortunes.(12)
+
+  [Illustration: ISCHIA FROM CASTELLAMARE (SUNSET)]
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+                  PUTEOLI AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME
+
+
+Passing along the noisy thronged street of the Chiaja and plunging thence
+into the chill gloomy recesses of the ancient grotto of Posilipo, we
+emerge at its further side into a new world, as it were, into a district
+where “there is scarcely a spot which is not identified with the poetical
+mythology of Greece, or associated with some name familiar in the history
+of Rome.” In truth, the headland of Posilipo presents a wonderful landmark
+in the history of Naples, for it forms a barrier between the busy world of
+to-day and the departed civilisation of the ancients: at the latter end of
+this tunnel, the fierce life and movement of a great commercial city; at
+its western exit, a tract of land teeming with recollections of the
+glorious past.
+
+As our carriage emerges once more into the warmth and sunlight, we find
+ourselves in the miserable village of Fuorigrotta, which, by a strange
+coincidence, is associated with the memory of a famous Italian poet. For
+if the name and verses of Sannazzaro cling to Piedigrotta and the
+Parthenopean shore on the eastern side of the hill, the genius of Count
+Giacomo Leopardi sheds its melancholy radiance over the unlovely purlieus
+of Fuorigrotta. Here in the vestibule of the parish church of San Vitale,
+lie the ashes of that unhappy writer, the Shelley of Italian literature,
+who so bewailed the Austrian and Bourbon fetters that enchained his native
+land. Poor Leopardi! It was but eleven years before the first great
+movement of the _Risorgimento_ swept over Italy in 1848 that he passed
+away; his poems were indeed songs before sunrise, a sunrise of which he
+failed to detect the far-off glimmering, so that he could only lament
+without hope the sad condition of his dismembered country, once the
+mistress and now the play-thing of the world, and the abject slave of
+hated Austria:
+
+  “O patria mia, vedo le mure e gli archi
+  E le colonne e i simulacri e l’ erme
+  Torri degli avi nostri,
+  Ma la gloria non vedo;
+  Non vedo il lauro e’l ferro ond’ eran carchi
+  I nostri padri antichi.”
+
+It is a flat dusty stretch of road that lies between Fuorigrotta and
+Bagnoli; the high walls give only occasional glimpses of well-tilled
+_parterres_—one cannot call these tiny patches of cultivation fields—with
+thriving crops of brilliant green corn, of claret-red clover, of purple
+lucerne, and of the white-flowered “sad lupin,” which Vergil has
+immortalised in verse. The round bright yellow beans of the lupin crop,
+known locally by the name of _spassa-tiempî_ (time-killers), afford an
+article of food to the very poorest of the population. A quaint story runs
+that one day an impoverished philosopher, reduced to making his dinner off
+a handful of these beans, and imagining himself in consequence the most
+wretched wight in existence, was cheered and comforted by observing
+himself followed by a still more miserable fellow-mortal, who was engaged
+in picking up and eating the husks of the beans that, _more italiano_, he
+had thrown carelessly on to the pathway after their insipid farinaceous
+contents had been sucked out!
+
+Above us to the right are the heights of Monte Spina, covered with groves
+of the umbrella pine, the typical tree of Naples; to our left extends the
+verdant ridge of Posilipo, ending in Cape Coroglio, beyond which the
+massive form of Nisida rises proudly from the blue expanse of water. All
+the landscape shows somewhat hard in the glare of noontide, and we find
+the enveloping clouds of fine white dust very oppressive and disagreeable.
+From time to time a lumbering country cart is passed with its attendant
+bare-footed peasant; otherwise there is little sign of life on the high
+road. The bright sunlight flashes upon the horse’s polished brass harness,
+and upon the elaborate erection of charms placed thereon, with the avowed
+object of averting the dreaded Evil Eye, that everlasting bugbear of all
+dwellers upon these southern shores. On his poor drooping head the
+worn-out old steed carries a large bell with four jingling clappers and
+two brazen crescents, the horns of one of which point upwards and of the
+other towards the ground. On the off-side of the headgear is a bunch of
+bright-coloured ribbands or woollen tassels, from which depends the single
+horn, the invaluable Neapolitan talisman that is supposed to protect every
+man, woman, child or beast, from the chance glance of a passing
+_jettatore_. Above this glowing mass of colour some three or four feathers
+of a pheasant’s tail are stuck, apparently with no ulterior purpose than
+that of ornament; but beside the bunch of ribbands there is also fixed a
+piece of wolf’s skin, to give strength to the jaded animal, for, remarks
+the sapient Pliny, “a wolf’s skin attached to a horse’s neck will render
+him proof against all weariness.” Personally, we should think a little
+more consideration and some elementary knowledge of farriery would have
+been of more service to the ill-used beasts round Naples than the
+excellent Pliny’s highly original receipt. Besides this powerful battery
+of charms to intercept the _jettatura_, there is the light brass headpiece
+engraved with sacred figures, so that any evil glance must be fully
+absorbed, baffled or exhausted, before it can fix itself upon the animal.
+In addition however to this shining mass of headgear, the horse carries on
+his back one of those curious high pommels that are peculiar to Southern
+Italy and Sicily. The front of the pommel itself is of well-polished
+brass, and covered with a number of studs, whilst at its back is fastened
+a miniature barrel, upon which there stands erect the figure of some local
+saint, generally that of San Gennaro. The exact part that the barrel and
+the row of studs play in this mystic battle against the Evil Eye is
+unknown, but the two revolving flags of brass that swing and creak above
+the pommel itself are believed to represent “the flaming sword which
+turned every way,” and finally expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of
+Eden. Certainly this shimmering metal has the appearance of a flaming
+sword in the bright sunshine, so that it ought to prove efficacious in
+catching and averting any baleful glance. A second patch of wolf skin on
+the crest of the pommel, and some red worsted wound round the spindle of
+the flags complete the list of strange charms that are considered
+necessary to protect a Neapolitan horse from the pernicious influence of a
+casual passer-by.
+
+We soon reach the sea-shore at Bagnoli, a little watering-place much
+frequented by Neapolitans of the middle classes, and on looking back we
+obtain a charming view of the headland of Posilipo and of stately Nisida,
+the Nesis of the ancients, with its memories of Brutus, “the noblest Roman
+of them all,” who on this little island bade farewell for ever to his
+devoted Portia. A very different tenant from the chaste Portia, however,
+who once possessed a villa in this sea-girt retreat during the Middle
+Ages, was Queen Joanna the Second, the last member of the Durazzo branch
+of the Angevin royal house, and sister and heiress of King Ladislaus II.,
+whose splendid monument in San Giovanni a Carbonara is one of the chief
+artistic treasures of Naples. It is of course unnecessary here to remark
+that there were two Queens of Naples, both Joanna by name, and that the
+first of these, the contemporary of Petrarch (whose proper feeling she
+contrived to shock) was certainly not a pattern of female virtue, but that
+she shone as a moral paragon when contrasted with her name-sake and
+successor, the sister of King Ladislaus. Of this second Queen, tradition
+more or less accurate relates a host of stories, none of them to her
+credit; how she dabbled in necromancy and was immersed in love intrigues,
+the most celebrated of which was her amour with the handsome “Ser.
+Gianni,” Giovanni Caracciolo, head of an eminent family that has figured
+prominently in Neapolitan history from the days of Angevin monarchs to
+those of King Ferdinand. Little good did the fickle Queen’s favour do Ser.
+Gianni, who suffered an ignominious fate for having one day boxed Joanna’s
+ears during a lovers’ tiff. Murdered secretly by four assassins,
+Caracciolo’s body was laid to rest in the family chapel in San Giovanni a
+Carbonara beneath a splendid monument which is surmounted by the luckless
+favourite’s effigy. Joanna the First with all her faults was never guilty
+of such light conduct as this, but the peasant mind is always impatient of
+dry details of fact, so that in the popular imagination to-day both Queens
+are blended into one personage, whose character, it is needless to say, is
+about as vile as can be conceived. “Siccome la Regina Giovanna,” is a form
+of peasant execration around Naples that has some historical affinity with
+the time-honoured Irish malediction of the “Curse o’ Cromwell.”
+
+Turning our backs on the island with its memories of Portia the Perfect
+and of Queen Joanna the Improper, we pursue our course along the sea-shore
+with rocks of ancient lava above us to the right, now heavily overgrown
+with brushwood and plants, amongst which we notice tufts of the pretty
+wild asparagus, that the observant Pliny centuries ago found flourishing
+in this district. As an early herb, coming into season long before its
+cultivated cousin is fit for cutting, this succulent vegetable is highly
+prized in the South, and its flavour though somewhat bitter is most
+palatable, so that an omelette _aux pointes d’asperges sauvages_ is a dish
+not to be despised by those who get the opportunity of testing this local
+delicacy. Before us lies our goal, Pozzuoli, with its ancient citadel
+jutting into the placid waters and backed by the classic headland of
+Misenum, above which in turn towers the crest of distant Epomeo.
+
+Pozzuoli in recent years has been much neglected by strangers, so much so
+that no inn worthy to be called an hotel now exists, and such _trattorie_
+as the place offers are all equally extortionate and detestable. Some time
+ago there was a comfortable _pension_ at the edge of the town on the road
+to the Amphitheatre, but its English landlady has long since migrated
+elsewhere, and the comfortable “Hotel Grande Bretagne” is no more; whilst
+nowadays there are to be found no visitors hardy enough to endure a
+prolonged sojourn in the wretched hostelries of the town itself. The
+electric tram and the rail-road have in fact killed Pozzuoli as a winter
+resort, more’s the pity, for it is not only a spot of singular interest in
+itself but its climate is certainly superior to that of Naples, for the
+great headland which shuts off the city from the Phlegrean Fields serves
+also to act as a buffer against the icy _tramontana_ that sweeps along the
+Chiaja in winter and early spring. Invalids used at one time to inhabit
+Pozzuoli on account of its mild atmosphere, and even to visit the
+Solfatara daily on mule-back, in order to inhale its sulphureous fumes,
+which were then believed to be good for weak chests. But medical fashions
+vary like all others, and consumptive patients now seek other places than
+Pozzuoli for their cure.
+
+Many are the walks outside the town, and none are without beauty or
+interest, for, the neighbourhood of Syracuse excepted, we can think of no
+place in Italy wherein one is brought so closely into touch with the
+classical past. Nature has long clothed the ruined area of the ancient
+city with her kindly drapery of foliage and flowers, so that the crumbling
+masses of tawny brick that we come across in our rambles are all swathed
+in garlands of clematis, myrtle, honey-suckle and coronella. It is a
+delight to speculate upon the original use and appearance of these
+shapeless blocks of creeper-clad masonry, which attract the eye on all
+sides amidst the vineyards and orange groves, where the peasants delving
+in the rich soil frequently alight upon treasures of the antique world.
+What a delight it is to wander through the Street of Tombs—alas, long
+rifled of their contents!—where the gay valerian and the pink silene
+sprout from every fissure of the soft tufa rock, and lizards of unusual
+size and brilliancy play games of hide-and-seek in the warm sunshine. We
+moderns are afraid of graveyards and the paraphernalia of the dead: many a
+stout-hearted Englishman objects to passing through a church-yard at
+night; not so the pagan Romans, who placed their cemeteries in public
+places and were wont to proceed through lines of tombs as they entered the
+city of the living: a very salutary and practical reminder of the
+transitory nature of life itself. The whole neighbourhood in short is
+sprinkled with these memorials of Imperial Rome; there is not an orange or
+lemon orchard but stands above some forgotten villa, not an acre of tilth
+but must conceal some hidden mine of classical associations. Charming too
+are the walks by the sea-shore—now sadly disfigured by the _Cantiere
+Armstrong_, with its smoke and ugliness looking like a dirty smudge upon
+the delicate landscape of the Bay—for here again we find endless traces of
+the Imperial age. There can be no more fascinating employment than to
+wander along the beach after one of the heavy winter storms that so often
+vex the quiet of the Bay of Naples, and to search for fragments of
+precious marbles that have been spied by the waves amidst the sunken
+foundations of Roman villas, and thence idly flung upon the shore. Pieces
+of the choicest white Parian, squares of speckled Egyptian porphyry, of
+_verde_, _rosso_ and _giallo antico_, of the coal-black _Africano_, all
+wet and glistening from the waves, can be picked up by the quick-sighted,
+and the gathering of these beautiful trifles, cut and polished by skilled
+hands nearly two thousand years ago, makes an interesting occupation. Nor
+is its classical lore the only feature of the Bay of Baiae, for though its
+actual scenery cannot compare with the grandeur of Capri nor its
+vegetation with the rich luxuriance of Sorrento, yet these shores have a
+quiet beauty of their own. Vine, olive and almond abound on all sides, and
+everywhere we see the groves of orange and lemon that in spring time scent
+the air with their perfumed blossoms. And in the early months of the year
+every patch of warm-coloured, up-turned earth is gay with sheets of that
+beautiful but rapacious weed, hated of the peasant, the oxalis, with its
+clusters of pale yellow flowers: a species of sorrel that is allied to our
+own white-blossomed variety. From many a point on the little ridges that
+rise behind Pozzuoli magnificent views can be obtained, whilst to those
+who care to study the scientific results of volcanic action the Phlegraean
+Fields afford endless occupation and interest. Every one of course visits
+the Solfatara, that curious semi-extinct crater, the _Forum Vulcani_ of
+Strabo, which has remained for over seven hundred years in its present
+condition of languor. A strange experience it is to enter the heart of a
+volcano that is still comparatively active, and to observe woods of poplar
+and a large pine tree beneath which grow masses of spring flowers—bright
+blue bugloss, the crimson vetch, starch hyacinths, purple self-heal, and
+golden spurge—and to pass from these thickets on to a space of bare
+white-coloured ground that trembles and sways under the feet like a sheet
+of insecure ice. Beyond, one sees the little fissures (_fumaroli_)
+emitting fumes of sulphur, and the guides take us to stifling caverns in
+the hill-side where we are shown the beautiful primrose-coloured crystals.
+The Solfatara, the Amphitheatre and the Temple of Serapis, these are the
+recognised “sights” of Pozzuoli, which strangers visit to-day in the space
+of an hour or two, and then return to Naples comforted with the feeling
+that they have exhausted the attractions of the place. Certainly their
+reception in the town is not likely to inspire them with a wish to return,
+for the guides and touts swarm here more than in any other spot in Italy;
+“until he has spent half an hour in Pozzuoli,” says the author of _Dolce
+Napoli_, “let no man say that he understands the signification of the verb
+to pester.”
+
+Putting aside even the objectionable habits of so many of its citizens, it
+cannot be said that the town itself of Pozzuoli to-day is particularly
+attractive, although its situation on the Bay of Baiae is charming and its
+quays are full of picturesque life and movement. Lines of irregular
+yellow-washed buildings, with faded green _persiani_ and balconies draped
+with the domestic washing, with here and there a domed rococo church, look
+down upon the clear tideless waters that gently lap the ancient stone-work
+of the Mole, whilst a mixed crowd of fishermen with bare bronzed limbs, of
+chattering women with gay handkerchiefs tied over their thick black hair,
+and of blue uniformed dapper little customs officers,—_lupi marini_
+(wolves of the sea) as the poor people facetiously term these revenue
+officials of the coast—loiter in the sunlight amidst the piles of tawny
+fishing nets or the pyramids of golden oranges. From the quay we make our
+way to the Largo del Municipio, a typical square of a provincial town in
+the South, enclosed by shabby houses and adorned by a couple of stunted
+date-palms and a battered marble fountain, around which numberless
+children and some slatternly women noisily converse or dispute. There is
+an old proverb in the South, that a good housewife has no need to know any
+thoroughfares save those leading to her church and her fountain, and as
+conversation cannot well be carried on in the former, it is the daily
+visits to the well that usually afford the required opportunity for
+exchange of gossip or for the picking of quarrels. Two statues decorate
+this unlovely but not uninteresting space; one is that of a Spanish
+bishop, Leon y Cardeñas, one of King Philip the Third’s viceroys, which
+serves as a reminder of the many vicissitudes this classic land has
+experienced in the course of history:—Phoenician, Greek, Carthaginian,
+Roman, Barbarian, Norman, German, French, Spanish conquerors have all left
+“footprints on the sands of Time” in the coveted land of the Siren, which
+all have possessed in turn but none have held in perpetuity. His
+Excellency the Bishop Cardeñas stands therefore in the open as a solid
+memento of the glory that once was Spain, when half Europe and all America
+owned the sway of the Catholic King. The second statue, though not a thing
+of beauty, has always had the attraction of an unsolved puzzle, for we
+cannot decide whether it proves a complete absence or an abundant
+superfluity of humour in the Puteolani of to-day. It is the figure of a
+Roman senator, vested in his flowing toga, and owning (as the ancient
+inscription informs us) the grandiose name of Quintus Flavius Mavortius
+Lollianus, whose marble trunk was one of the earliest archaeological
+“finds” made in the excavations at Pozzuoli some two hundred years ago.
+Since the statue lacked a head and was otherwise of no especial value as a
+work of art, the Viceroy of Naples very generously presented this object
+to the place of its discovery, whose citizens, doubtless thinking the
+appearance of the headless statue uncanny, popped a stray antique occiput
+(of which a goodly number, more or less mutilated, are constantly brought
+to light by the peasants) upon Lollianus’ vacant shoulders. Anything more
+comical and at the same time more repellent than this hybrid statue it
+would be impossible to imagine, yet Lollianus of the unknown head remains
+a favourite with the people of Pozzuoli. Leaving the Largo del Municipio,
+with its weird senator and its dusty palms, we ascend by a zigzag lane
+between tall featureless houses to the Cathedral of San Proculo, which
+occupies the site of a temple of Augustus, that once dominated the ancient
+city and harbour below. Within, the cathedral of Proculus, who was a
+companion of St Januarius and a fellow-martyr, is gaudy and painted, one
+of those dismally gorgeous ecclesiastical interiors that are such a
+disappointment to the antiquarian in Southern Italy. In opposition to the
+memorial of Spanish conquest in the square below, we find here an
+elaborate monument to a French viceroy, the Duke of Montpensier, who
+served for some time as Governor of Naples after Charles VIII.’s capture
+of the city. Except the tomb of the young musician Pergolese, who composed
+the original _Stabat Mater_ there is little else to see, and we gladly
+ascend the tower in order to gain a bird’s eye view of the town from a
+point of vantage whither noisy coachmen, troublesome beggars and impudent
+ragamuffins cannot pursue. Captured by the Greek colonists of Cumae, who
+gave the city the name of Dicoearchia instead of its ancient one of
+Puteoli,—a corruption, perhaps, of the Syriac word _petuli_
+(contention)—this old Hellenic settlement was rechristened Puteoli by the
+conquering Romans, under whose beneficent rule the place rapidly aspired
+to wealth and prosperity. With the rise however of Naples, the fame of
+Puteoli began to grow dim, and its importance to decline, although
+throughout Imperial times it ranked after Ostia as the chief victualling
+port of Rome. And of the two celebrated cities which adorned the shores of
+this Bay in classical times, Puteoli was the seat of commerce, and Baiae
+the resort of pleasure and luxury; yet both were doomed to dwindle and
+almost perish in the disastrous years that followed the break-up of the
+Empire. The invading hordes of Germany, the raids of Saracen pirates, and
+the constant presence of malaria on this deserted coast were sufficient
+causes in themselves to reduce in the course of time the thriving port of
+Puteoli to the squalid town of to-day. From our lofty post we can easily
+distinguish the limits of the city in the days of Tiberius and Caligula,
+for to the north we turn our faces towards the ruined bulk of the
+Amphitheatre, now lying amidst fields and gardens, but well within the
+town walls at the time when Nero entertained the Armenian king Tiridates
+and shocked his Asiatic guest by himself descending into the arena and
+deftly performing the usual disgusting feats of a professional gladiator.
+To westward lies the Bay of Baiae, a semi-circle of glittering water
+surrounded by low hills amidst which the Monte Nuovo, unknown to the
+ancients, stands conspicuous. How completely have all traces of splendour
+and extravagance disappeared from these shores! At fashionable Baiae
+across the Bay there is nothing visible save a few shapeless ruins over
+the identity of which scholars dispute; at busy Puteoli there survive
+to-day but the ruined Amphitheatre, the Temple of Serapis, and the arches
+of the famous Mole, to prove to wondering posterity how great were the
+wealth, the population and the magnificence of a spot which is closely
+associated with all the power and culture of the Roman Empire in its
+zenith.
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE BEACH]
+
+Of the various fragments of antiquity that are still standing in this
+district of the Phlegrean Fields, the Mole of Puteoli is undoubtedly the
+best preserved and the most interesting. So splendidly constructed is this
+relic of the past, that but for continuous shocks of earthquake the whole
+breakwater must have survived intact; as it is, more than half the Mole
+has withstood the wear and tear of centuries of wind and storm. It is
+built on the model of a Greek pier, a series of arches of massive masonry,
+acting at once as a barrier against the force of the invading waves and as
+a means of preventing the silting of the sand. Formed of brick, faced with
+stone, and cemented with the local volcanic sand, which is consequently
+known as _puzzolana_, this wonderful breakwater must originally have
+stretched out into the Bay a total length of twenty-five arches, its
+furthest extremity being crowned by a light-house. If we could only call
+up in imagination the Bay of Baiae in the days of the Empire, when its
+shores were fringed by sumptuous villas of famous or infamous Romans and
+its expanse was thickly covered with every variety of vessel of pleasure
+or merchandise, instead of the few fishing boats that now and again flit
+across its glassy surface, we might better be able to realise the
+extraordinary episode which is connected with this classical fragment in
+the little port of Pozzuoli below us. For it was from the Mole of Puteoli
+to the spit of land we see on the western shore opposite that the demented
+tyrant, Caius Caligula, constructed his historic bridge of boats across
+the Baiaean gulf. Every large vessel in the surrounding harbours had been
+pressed into the service of the Emperor for this gigantic piece of folly,
+so that the inhabitants of Rome were seriously inconvenienced by the
+detention of their corn ships, and loud in consequence were the complaints
+of the Roman populace, for whose anger, it is needless to state, the
+Emperor cared not a fig. “History,” says Gibbon, “is but a record of the
+crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind;” and this smiling Bay of Baiae
+will ever be memorable as the scene of what was perhaps the worst
+exhibition of tyrannical caprice that the world has yet witnessed.
+
+Using a double line of vessels well yoked together as a compact and solid
+base, the Emperor now gave orders for a military road of the usual Roman
+type to be constructed of planks of timber covered with earth and paved
+with hewn stones. When this stupendous work was completed, the usual
+station-houses were erected at various intervals, and fresh water was laid
+on by means of pipes connected with the Imperial cisterns at Misenum. Upon
+this broad road, laid across the Baiaean Gulf, the young Emperor now
+advanced on horseback, followed by his whole army clad in array of battle.
+Caligula on this occasion wore a historic coat of armour studded with rare
+gems that had once belonged to Alexander the Great; a jewelled sword was
+fastened to his thigh, and a crown of oak leaves bound his temples.
+Solemnly the Emperor and his army crossed the broad expanse of water on
+dry land and entered Puteoli with mock honours of war. After remaining a
+day in the port to refresh his victorious troops, the Emperor was driven
+back in a splendidly equipped chariot, which was surrounded by a number of
+pretended captives of rank, some noble Parthian hostages being utilised
+for the occasion. At the centre of the bridge the procession halted, and
+the crazy prince next indulged in an absurd bombastic harangue, wherein he
+congratulated his soldiers on their glorious campaign just concluded, and
+declared to them that the famous feats of Xerxes and Darius had at length
+been surpassed. Finally, he invited his troops to a magnificent banquet
+upon this bridge of boats, an entertainment which lasted till far into the
+night and was accompanied by lavish illuminations by land and sea. As
+might only have been expected, the feast soon degenerated into a drunken
+orgy, wherein every guest from the Master of the Roman world to his
+meanest soldier became intoxicated, whilst many persons in their cups lost
+their balance and fell into the waters, so that the sounds of music and
+revelry throughout the midnight hours were mingled with groans and cries
+of drowning men close at hand.
+
+Apart from its senseless extravagance and innate folly, the story of the
+bridging of the Baiaean Gulf, of this harnessing of old Ocean, affects us
+moderns with astonishment at the extraordinary thoroughness of all the
+ancient Roman feats of engineering; had this high road across the Bay been
+intended to serve any useful purpose, instead of merely to satisfy the
+passing whim of a selfish tyrant, we could have had no choice but to
+admire the marvellous speed of the artificers and the completeness of the
+scheme undertaken.
+
+Quarter of a century later, and the Mole of Puteoli was destined to become
+the scene of another event in the world’s history, which has left a far
+more enduring impression on mankind than the so-called miracle of
+Caligula. In the early spring of the year 62 A.D. there dropped anchor in
+the port a certain Alexandrian corn-ship, the _Castor __and__ Pollux_,
+coming from Malta after touching at Syracuse and Rhegium (Reggio) on her
+way northward. Unnoticed amidst the vast phalanx of shipping that lined
+the Mole and filled the broad harbour of Puteoli, the vessel emptied her
+cargo on the quay, whilst there also disembarked from her hold a number of
+prisoners of no great social consequence, who were on their way to Rome
+under the guardianship of a kindly old centurion, named Julius, belonging
+to the cohort _Prima Augusta Italica_. Amongst the persons under Julius’
+charge was a Jew named Paul, who was accompanied by three of his friends,
+Timothy, Luke and Aristarchus of Thessalonica, and all four, thanks to the
+kindness of the centurion, who was evidently much attached to his
+exemplary captive, were permitted to remain at this spot for seven days.
+Paul himself was anxious to tarry at this spot, for of all the Italian
+ports Puteoli was most frequented by men of his own nation, so that the
+city possessed its little community of Christians, who naturally were
+eager to detain the Apostle. So hopelessly intermingled are truth,
+tradition and legend concerning the various places on Italian soil that St
+Paul is known to have visited, that we cannot be too grateful for the
+undoubted link with his journey to Rome that we possess in the existing
+Mole of Puteoli, whose surface has undoubtedly been trodden by the
+sandalled feet of the great Apostle of the West. Here Paul landed amid the
+haughty scenes of Roman pride and power; above him he saw the pagan Temple
+of Augustus, all gleaming with marble and gilded bronze that were mirrored
+in the calm waters of the port: along this famous causeway he passed,
+unmarked by the busy crowd, except perhaps to be mocked by some idler for
+his nationality or his halting speech. Guided by Christian compatriots,
+the Apostle with his three faithful friends was led through the noisy
+jostling concourse of all countries that thronged the great Roman city to
+the humble dwelling of his host. Where he lodged in that mighty city we
+know not, but we do know for a certain fact that he landed on the Mole,
+and that he passed along it to the shore; it is not much, perhaps, but
+that little is very precious.
+
+What a contrast do these two incidents connected with the Mole of Puteoli
+afford! The Roman Emperor, glittering like the morning star in purple
+mantle and jewelled cuirass, riding on his charger across the solid road
+that to humour his own caprice had been flung across the buoyant waters,
+accompanied by soldiery, by music, and by bands of wealthy sycophants; and
+the Apostle, poor, in bonds, a despised prisoner in an alien land, meekly
+threading his way through the crowds towards his mean lodging. Where is
+the proud Temple of Augustus that beheld these two strange scenes, that
+occurred with no great interval of time apart? Where are the villas and
+quays that lined the Bay of Baiae? The very ruins of the palaces and
+warehouses are swept away; the gorgeous temple is a Christian Cathedral
+dedicated to a follower of the despised Jewish captive; the name of
+Caligula lives but in human execration, whilst that of the Apostle is
+enshrined in the hearts of the whole Christian world.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+It is but a three-mile walk along the beach from Pozzuoli to Baiae,
+passing beside the Lucrine Lake and the southern slope of the Monte Nuovo,
+which always seems to us a far more wonderful freak of Nature than the
+Solfatara. Here we have a miniature mountain, a mile and a half round its
+base and nearly five hundred feet high, that was made in the course of a
+single night, and is to-day less than four hundred years old! The presence
+of this brand-new intruder on the shore of the Baiaean Gulf must ever
+remain a wholesome warning to all dwellers on these coasts, that their
+tenure of King Pluto’s dominions is very insecure. One morning towards the
+close of September 1538, after some days of earthquake shocks, “Pozzuoli
+awoke,” says the flippant Alexandre Dumas, “and on looking about did not
+recognise herself! She had left a lake the evening before, and lo! she
+found a mountain; where she had owned a forest, she found ashes; and last
+of all, where she had left a village, she perceived no trace!”
+
+In one sense Dumas’ facetious description is correct: the New Mountain was
+born with extraordinary celerity, and woods, lake and village—familiar and
+beloved landmarks to the people of Baiae and Pozzuoli—disappeared at its
+birth. But the event was no peaceful act of Nature; on the contrary, it
+was accompanied by loud rumblings, by showers of red-hot stones, by clouds
+of smoke, by torrents of scalding water, and by the retreating of the sea,
+which left thousands of fish lying helpless on the exposed shore. The
+village of Tripergola, a summer pleasaunce of the Angevin kings of Naples,
+and many traces of ancient Roman villas and engineering works, all
+perished in this notable cataclysm. Four eye-witnesses have left us
+details of this strange scene of desolation, whilst only a few days after
+Mother Earth had brought forth this new mountain, one of them, the Spanish
+Viceroy of Naples, the valiant Don Pedro of Toledo, owned sufficient pluck
+and curiosity to make the ascent of the Monte Nuovo, still smoking hot and
+reeking of sulphur. Who can tell when this _parvenu_ volcano may spout
+forth fire and ashes? Would any sane person have the courage ever to
+settle within range of a possible eruption? No, the Phlegrean fields are
+interesting to visit, but he must require a strong nerve who would fain
+dwell beneath the shadow of this dormant crater.
+
+It is a very short walk from the base of the Monte Nuovo to the “golden
+shores” of Imperial Baiae, which is certainly not an imposing place in
+these days. What with the destroying hand of time and the still more
+obliterating action of the neighbouring volcano, there is little left for
+the fancy to build upon; certainly the three ruined shells that are called
+temples by courtesy, but served probably a much humbler purpose than that
+of worship, are not particularly striking. It requires not only a good
+classical knowledge, but also no small amount of imagination to picture
+the Baiae of the Roman poets.
+
+“If Pozzuoli has gone down in the world, still more so Baiae. It does not
+require any more sinking; it is low enough as it is, so low that some of
+its ancient villas and palaces can only be visited in a diving-bell. So
+dreary and deserted is the site, that at first glance the visitor feels
+mightily inclined to question the veracity of the historian, and to doubt
+whether Baiae—Baiae the gay, the fashionable, the dissolute, the beloved
+of emperors, statesmen and poets—ever existed. But when he is shown the
+enormous sub-structures lying under water, and the masses of solid masonry
+wherewith the surrounding hills are over-spread, incredulity gives place
+to amazement. What towns of lath and plaster are Brighton, Newport and
+Trouville, when compared with this ‘Rome by the sea,’ where the materials
+used for the foundations of a single villa would more than suffice for the
+construction of a dozen ‘genteel marine residences’ of the modern style!
+What would a Roman architect think of the card-board streets and squares,
+and the stucco crescents and terraces, of an English watering-place? of
+those ‘eligible family mansions’ wherein dancing is dangerous, and to
+venture on whose balconies is perilous in the extreme? Echo answers:
+‘What!’ ”(13)
+
+Here on this desolate strip of sea-shore, now dominated by the Spanish
+viceroy’s frowning fortress on the hill above, the great and opulent of
+ancient Rome founded a city composed wholly of palaces. Here were no noisy
+market-places to annoy aristocratic nerves; no slums to afflict
+plutocratic nostrils; no families of the proletariat to disturb the
+refined senses of the jaded pleasure-seekers who retired hither in the
+winter months. A writer, from whom we have just quoted, makes comparison
+between Baiae and Brighton or Trouville; but in reality the fashionable
+American resort of Newport has more in common with the old classical
+watering-place than any modern European sea-side resort. The hot sulphur
+baths on the Lucrine shore formed of course only a shallow excuse for the
+annual migration of Roman fashionables to Baiae, where blue-blooded
+senators and pushing plutocrats indulged in fierce social struggles for
+individual pre-eminence. Yet certain of the natural warm springs had been
+enclosed in splendid buildings, and were used by the luxurious citizens,
+so that even to-day the Thermae of Nero (Stufe di Nerone) are pointed out
+by the local guides. “Quid Nerone pejus? Quid thermis melius Neronianis?”
+(what is worse than Nero? yet what more beneficent than his baths?) asks
+the poet Martial, whose name will ever be bound up with the tales of
+luxury and vice that are associated with this spot. Baiae in winter, Tibur
+(Tivoli) in summer, the two names stand for the beau-ideal of a Roman
+existence, the cynosure of every wealthy citizen.
+
+But let us ascend out of the close and enervating air of low-lying Baiae
+to the breezy heights of Misenum, which has immortalised the name of the
+Trojan trumpeter whose end was mourned by the tears of pious Aeneas
+himself. In gaining its summit and in gazing upon the landscape spread
+around us, we have penetrated, so it seems, into the very heart of Italy:
+not the Italy of Roman history, but the land of Ausonia itself, the fabled
+shore that the Trojan hero sailed at his goddess-mother’s bidding to
+discover, when all the world was young and the high dwellers of Olympus
+still condescended to take a personal interest in the affairs of favourite
+mortals. Surely the vine-clad terraces of Lake Avernus, the pools of the
+Lucrine and the Mare Morto, the verdure-clad hillocks lying beneath us
+must conceal the true secret of the antique Tyrrhenian country, in whose
+history the rise and fall of Roman power afford but one amongst many
+epochs. Looking to northward, beyond the little landing-stage of
+Torregaveta, we behold the heights of Cumae, that was a flourishing city
+with harbour and citadel hundreds of years before a certain Romulus built
+a wall of mud near the banks of Tiber and slew his brother Remus for
+leaping over his handiwork. The founding of Rome is enveloped in
+impenetrable clouds of legend; the building of Cumae is a fact:—here then
+we obtain a key to Italian history. Rome, whose origin is lost in mists of
+obscurity, is a flourishing modern capital; Cumae is but a shapeless mass
+of crumbling ruins, overgrown with ivy and cytizus, and inhabited by
+lizards and serpents. But both cities, dead Cumae and living Rome, present
+but passing events in the long slow progress of the centuries, which have
+witnessed successive phases of civilisation and destruction in this
+
+  “Woman-country, wooed, not won,
+  Loved all the more by Earth’s male lands,
+     Laid to their hearts instead.”
+
+Is the Genius of Italy, the Sibyl of Cumae, still living, we wonder, in
+some dim recess, some secret cavern of Cimmerian gloom, beneath those
+decaying heaps of the ancient Greek city? She was old, very old, we know,
+when pious Aeneas found her shrieking her strange prophecies, and that was
+long ages before Hellenic wanderers raised a fortress upon the wooded
+heights above the dread lake of Avernus.—Venerable Mother of Italy! dost
+thou still survive muttering thy strange warnings in some sunless
+labyrinth, that the rapacious guides of Baiae have yet failed to
+penetrate? Art thou, like King Arthur of romantic Wales, still keeping
+watch over the destiny of thy country, ever ready to assist in the hour of
+need?
+
+  “Thy cave was stored with scrolls of strange device,
+     The work of some Saturnian Archimage,
+  Which taught the expiations at whose price
+     Men from the gods might win that happy age
+  Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice;
+     And which might quench the earth-consuming rage
+  Of gold and blood—till men should live and move
+  Harmonious as the sacred stars above.”
+
+For Italy has not wholly forgotten her ancient guardian and soothsayer,
+who welcomed the founder of the victorious Roman race; nor did the artists
+of the revived glories of the Renaissance neglect to honour the mysterious
+priestess of the Cimmerian shore. With prophetic mien the Sibyl of Cumae,
+that Michelangelo depicted, watches ever the come-and-go of humanity from
+her lofty post within Pope Sixtus’ Chapel, bidding all remember her
+ancient prophecy of the Judgment Day, which the Roman Church has included
+in one of its most solemn canticles:
+
+  “Dies Irae! Dies illa!
+  Solvet saeclum in favilla,
+  Teste David cum Sibylla.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  INDEX
+
+
+      Abbondanza, Via dell’, 51
+      Abruzzi Mountains, 36, 122, 222
+      Acre, 270
+      Adrian IV., Pope, 156
+      Agerola, 123
+      Agropoli, 209
+      Alberada, 181
+      Albergo Cappuccini, 128
+      Alcubier, 11
+      Aleppo, 121
+      Alexander of Epirus, 206
+      Alexandria, 121
+      Alexius, Emperor, 179
+      Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, 242
+      Algiers, 56
+      Alphonso V. of Naples, 277
+      Amalfi, 5, 36, 100, 106, 112, 126
+      Ana-Capri, 249, 259, 271
+      Angelo, Monte S., 28, 30, 63, 76
+      Annunziata, Torre, 19, 92, 94
+      Aosta, Duke and Duchess of, 93, 94
+      Appian Way, 62
+      Apulia, 181
+      —— William of, 135
+      Arabia, 134
+      Arco, 106
+      Arguth, Joseph, 292
+      Ariosto, Ludovico, 239
+      Aristarchus, 312
+      Arno, 2
+      Arnold of Brescia, 156
+      Arriengo, 123
+      Arthur, King, 318
+      Athens, 28, 39, 58
+      Atrani, 152
+      Atrio del Cavallo, 77
+      Augustus, Emperor, 59, 69
+      —— Temple of, 313
+      Aulus Vettius, Corvina, 55
+      —— —— Restitutus, 40, 55
+      Ausonius, 208
+      Avicenna, 177
+      Avvocata, Madonna dell’, 166
+
+      Baghdad, 121
+      Bagnoli, 296
+      Baiae, 253, 307
+      Bajalardo, Pietro, 117
+      Barbary, 209
+      Barisanus of Trani, 159
+      Barra, La, 8
+      Battipaglia, 198
+      Bembo, Cardinal, 282
+      Benevento, 111
+      Bergamo, 240
+      Berkeley, Bishop, 293
+      Bismarck, 186
+      Boccaccio, 137, 157
+      Bohemond, 179
+      Bomba, King, 6, 8, 16, 109, 284
+      Bosco-Trecase, 92, 97
+      Bowdler, Mr, 81
+      Braccini, Abate, 77
+      Breakspear, Nicholas, 156
+      Browning, R., 33, 36, 183
+      Brunetto Latini, 121
+      Butomilea, Landolfo, 182
+      Byzantium, 118, 142
+
+      Caecilius Jucundus, 40
+      Cairo, 121
+      Caligula, Emperor, 5, 308
+      Camaldoli, 18, 270
+      Campagna Felice, 66
+      Campanella, Punta della, 112
+      Canneto, 132, 140
+      Canossa, 180, 186
+      Capaccio, 209, 262
+      Capodimonte, 2
+      Capri, 4, 5, 13, 45, 63, 74, 90, 112, 249
+      Capua, 66
+      Capuano, Cardinal Pietro, 126, 143
+      Caracciolo, 2
+      Cardeñas, Bishop, 305
+      Cariteo, 277
+      “Carlo il Zoppo,” 102, 103, 121
+      Carmine, Church of the, 105
+      Casamicciola, 284
+      Casa Nuova, 53
+      Castellamare, 18, 25, 26, 100, 113
+_      Castor and Pollux, The_, 311
+      Cathay, 121
+      Cava, La, 113
+      Celestine V., Pope, 292
+      Cellini, Benvenuto, 27
+      Cephalonia, 180
+      Cerrato, Monte, 168
+      Cetara, 134, 170
+      Chalcidicum, 49
+      Charles III. of Naples, 8
+      —— VIII. of France, 307
+      —— of Anjou, 102, 156, 167
+      Chiabrera, 89
+      Chiaja, 2
+      Chiosse, Monte di, 119
+      Cicero, 40
+      Clement VIII., Pope, 167
+      Clementia, Princess, 102
+      Clodius Glabrus, 70
+      Cluny, 184
+      Colonna, Giuliano, 104
+      —— Vittoria, 5, 277
+      Conca, Capo di, 125
+      Concordia Augusta, 51
+      Conradin, 156
+      Constantinople, 80, 134
+      Coppola, Monte, 28, 167
+      Corniche Road, 100
+      Costantinopoli, Strada, 2
+      Crassus, 70
+      Cumae, 4, 317
+
+      Damecuta, 261
+      Dante, 120, 121, 239, 278
+      Devonshire, 107
+      Domenichino, 161
+      Domitiana, Via, 62
+      Dragone, 152
+      Dumas, A., 9, 314
+      Durazzo, 178
+
+      Eboli, 198
+      Elbœuf, Prince d’, 11
+      Epidius Rufus, 40
+      Epirus, 178
+      Etna, 77, 291
+      Eumachia, 40, 49
+      Exeter, 40
+
+      Faito, Monte, 37
+      Falerio, Monte, 170
+      Faliero, Marino, 103
+      Farnese, Elizabeth, 27
+      —— Pier-Luigi, 5, 27
+      Ferdinand, King, 27, 270, 277
+      Ferrara, 240, 248
+      Filangieri, 103
+      Fiorelli, Signor, 53
+      Florence, 2, 112, 132, 148
+      Florus, 70
+      Forio, 289
+      Forsyth, J., 181
+      Francis, King, 109
+      Frederick II., Emperor, 27, 210
+      Fuga, 159
+      Fuorigrotta, 295
+      Furore, 123
+
+      Gaeta, 16, 36
+      —— Bay of, 4
+      Galen, 106, 177
+      Garibaldi, 6
+      Gaurus, Mons, 57, 76
+      Gavinius, 208
+      Gazola, Count, 211
+      Gell, Sir William, 44
+      Genoa, 157
+      Gibbon, Edward, 175, 309
+      Gioja, Flavio, 119
+      Glaucus, 261
+      Goethe, 13, 212
+      Gragnano, 20
+      Greco, Torre del, 8, 13, 18, 77
+      Gregory VII., Pope, 178
+      Grotta Azzurra, 259
+      Grotta Verde, 262
+      Guallo, 116
+      Guiscard, Robert, 5, 136, 155, 174
+      Gurgitello, 285
+
+      Hale, Sir Matthew, 110
+      Hamill, Major, 271
+      Hamilton, Sir William, 80
+      Hare, Augustus, 7
+      Hart, Emma, 80
+      Hauteville, House of, 174
+      Helbig, 44
+      Hélène, Princess, 94
+      Henry IV., Emperor, 180
+      Herculaneum, 1, 9
+      —— Gate of, 62
+      Hermolaus, 162
+      Hildebrand, 5, 180, 182, 184
+      Hippocrates, 177
+      Hohenstaufen, 163
+      Homer, 114
+      House of the Surgeon, 43, 56
+      —— Vettii, 53
+
+      Innocent IV., Pope, 152
+      Ischia, 4, 13, 78, 241, 252, 275
+
+      Joanna II., Queen, 144, 299
+      John XVI., Pope, 167
+      John of Procida, 184
+      Julius the Centurion, 311
+      Jupiter, Temple of, 52
+      Justinian, Emperor, 135
+
+      Keats, John, 229
+
+      La Barra, 8
+      La Cava, 172, 198
+      La Scala, 166
+      Lacaita, Mr, 262
+      Lacco, 288
+      Lactarian Hills, 101
+      Ladislaus II., King, 299
+      Lamarque, Gen., 271
+      Lauretta, 157
+      Lavoro, Terra di, 18
+      Lenormant, F., 214
+      Leo XIII., Pope, 288
+      Leonora d’Este, 243, 248
+      Leopardi, Giacomo, 295
+      Lepanto, 246
+      Libella, 64
+      Livia, 50
+      Livy, 73
+      Lowe, Sir Hudson, 271
+      Lubrense, Massa, 122
+      Lucrine Lake, 313
+      Ludius, 59
+      Luke, 312
+
+      Maddalena, Ponte della, 84
+      Majori, 166
+      Malta, 311
+      Mammia, 64
+      Manches, Colonel, 273
+      Manfred, King, 87, 152, 184
+      Manso, 243
+      Mansone II., Doge, 118
+      Macellum, 52
+      Marcellus II., Pope, 280
+      Margaret of Durazzo, 189
+      Marina, Porta, 39, 45
+      Martin V., Pope, 277
+      Matteucci, Professor, 94, 97
+      Matilda, Countess, 185
+      Mau, 44
+      Maurice, 142
+      Maximian, Emperor, 162
+      Melfi, 133
+      Mercato, Il, 2, 96
+      Mercury, Temple of, 52
+      Mergellina, 96
+      Messina, 91
+      Meta, 106
+      Metastasio, 8
+      Michelangelo, 283, 319
+      Milan, 278
+      Minerva, Cape of, 112, 117, 153
+      Minori, 166
+      Misenum, 71, 74, 249
+      Mole of Puteoli, 308
+      Monreale, 159
+      Mont’ Epomeo, 290
+      Montapertuso, 119
+      Monte Nuovo, 313
+      Montorio, S. Pietro in, 2
+      Montpensier, Duke of, 307
+      Murat, Joachim, 5, 8, 270
+      Muscettola, Sergio, 159
+      Museo Nazionale, 1
+
+      Naccarino, 145
+      Napoleon, 8, 270
+      Natale, Michele, 103
+      Nelson, 104, 269
+      Neptune, Temple of, 212
+      Nero, Emperor, 308
+      Nicholas II., Pope, 176, 185
+      Nicomedia, 162
+      Nisida, 297
+      Nola, 41
+      Nuceria, 41, 173
+
+      Ochino, Bernardino, 280
+      Oliveto, Monte, 96
+      Orico, 271
+      Orlando, Capo d’, 102
+      Oscan inhabitants, 41
+      Otranto, 178
+      Ottajano, 94, 98
+      Overbeck, 44
+      Ovid, 106, 261, 291
+      Oxford, 156
+
+      Paestum, 41, 57, 143, 173, 182, 198
+      Palermo, 91, 159
+      Palumbo, 155
+      Pansa, the Ædile, 40
+      Pantaleone, 142, 148, 161
+      Paolo Giovio, 278
+      Paris, Comte de, 94
+      Parthenope, 249
+      Paul III., Pope, 27
+      Pavia, 279
+      Pedimentina, La, 77
+      Pericles, 40
+      Pescara, Marquis of, 278
+      Petrarch, 116, 138, 239, 299
+      Philip the Bold, 102
+      Phillips, John, 68
+      Philodemus, 10
+      Piacenza, 185
+      Pimentel, Eleonora, 104
+      Piperno, Pietro, 111
+      Pisa, 136
+      Pistoja, 240
+      Pius II., Pope, 27, 144
+      Plato, 58
+      Pliny, 59, 71, 76
+      Pliny the younger, 71
+      Plutarch, 70
+      Pole, Cardinal, 280
+      Pompeii, 1, 5, 24, 38
+      Pomponianus, 72
+      Pontone, 152
+      Portici, 8, 80, 88, 97
+      Porzia de’ Rossi, 240
+      Posilipo, 1, 8, 37, 295
+      Positano, 119
+      Pozzano, 37
+      Pozzopiano, 106
+      Pozzuoli, 109, 301
+      Prajano, 124
+      Procida, 4, 237, 275
+      Puteoli, 5, 295
+
+      Quisisana, 27, 37
+
+      Ravello, 134, 152
+      Reggio, 311
+      Reid, Mr, 156, 262
+      Renée, Duchess of Ferrara, 280
+      Resina, 8, 79, 88, 98
+      Retina, 8, 72
+      Revigliano, 26
+      Rhegium, 311
+      Robert of Normandy, 178
+      —— the Wise, 116, 156
+      Roger, Count, 155, 180
+      —— King, 116, 136
+      Rome, 39, 94, 144, 156, 180, 312
+      Ruffo, Cardinal, 104
+      Rufolo, Niccolò, 155, 160
+
+      S. Agnello, 106
+      S. Alessio al Lavinaio, 105
+      S. Angelo, 13, 119, 122
+      S. Bridget of Sweden, 144
+      S. Brigida, 3
+      S. Chiara, 2
+      S. Costanzo, 251
+      S. Elia, Punta, 117
+      S. Elmo, 2, 67
+      S. Francis of Assisi, 144
+      S. Gennaro, 298
+      S. Giovanni a Teduccio, 8
+      S. Giovanni del Toro, 164
+      S. Giuseppe, 94
+      S. Luca, 124
+      S. Lucia, 3
+      S. Maria a Pozzano, 102
+      S. Maria del Gradillo, 162
+      S. Maria di Pompeii, 65
+      S. Martino, 2
+      S. Matteo, 173, 181
+      S. Michael, 35
+      S. Miniato, 2
+      S. Paul, 312
+      S. Pietro, Punta di, 123
+      S. Proculo, 307
+      S. Restituta, 291
+      S. Romualdo, 19
+      S. Salvatore a Bireta, 153
+      S. Trinità, 172
+      S. Vitale, 296
+      Salerno, 4, 36, 111, 117, 133, 172
+      Samnite Hills, 212
+      Sannazzaro, 295
+      Sanseverini, 169
+      Sardinia, 15
+      Sarno, 26, 41, 95
+      Scala, 134, 167
+      Scaletta, 152
+      Scaricotojo, Lo, 113, 118
+      Scutolo, Punta di, 106
+      Sebeto, 8
+      Sejanus, 256
+      Serapis, Temple of, 308
+      Serra, Gennaro, 104
+      Shelley, 13, 33, 64
+      Shrewsbury, 40
+      Sibyl of Cumae, 318
+      Sicily, 15
+      Sigilgaita, 161, 179
+      Silarus, 198
+      Sirens, Isles of the, 114
+      Sixtus IV., Pope, 318
+      Smith, Sir Sydney, 270
+      Soana, 184
+      Socrates, 40
+      Solaro, 268
+      Soldan, 246
+      Somma, Monte, 67, 94, 99
+      Sorrentine Plain, 5, 106
+      Sorrento, 5, 90, 221
+      Sottile, Cape, 123
+      Spartacus, 69, 76
+      Stabiae, 26, 72, 76
+      Stamer, W. J. A., 16, 52, 238, 265, 316
+      Staurachios, 142
+      Stolberg, Count, 202
+      Stowe, Mrs H. B., 16
+      Strabo, 69, 275
+      Strada Costantinopoli, 2
+        „  de’ Tribunali, 3
+      Stromboli, 91
+      Suetonius, 256
+      Syracuse, 58, 107, 311
+
+      Tacca, 51
+      Tacitus, 69, 71, 73
+      Tafuri, Bishop, 159
+      Tancred of Hauteville, 178, 180
+      Tarver, J. C., 258
+      Tasso, 5, 106, 145, 239
+        „  Bernardo, 106, 240, 277
+      Theocritus, 154, 292
+      Thermae of Nero, 316
+      Tiber, 116, 156
+      Tiberius, Emperor, 5, 50, 253, 308
+      Timgad, 38
+      Timothy, 312
+      Tiridates, 308
+      Titian, 27
+      Titus, Emperor, 10, 57, 71, 76
+      Toledo, The, 2
+      Torregaveta, 275, 317
+      Trafalgar, 270
+      Tragara, 263
+      Tripoli, 15
+      Tunis, 56, 246
+
+      Ulysses, 114
+      Urban IV., Pope, 144
+      Ustica, 91
+
+      Vaccaro, Il, 84
+      Valentinian, Emperor, 208
+      Valley of the Mills, 140, 149
+      Venice, 103, 112, 134, 148
+      Venosa, 181
+      Venus, Temple of, 52
+      Vergil, 208, 211, 275, 296
+      Vesuvius, 5, 11, 36, 66
+      Via Domitiana, 62
+      Vico Equense, 31, 102, 103
+      Victor III., Pope, 155
+      Victor Emmanuel III., King of Italy, 94
+      Vietri, 165, 171
+      Vigna Sersale, 247
+      Villa Jovis, 254
+      Villa Reale, 2
+      Vincenzo, 37
+      Vitruvius, 60, 69
+      Vittoria Colonna, 5, 277
+      Vivara, 276
+      Vomero, 3
+      Vozzi Family, 127
+
+      Wales, 107, 318
+      William Bras-de-Fer, 174
+      Wordsworth, 33
+      Worms, 185
+
+      Zampognari, 233
+      Zoppo, Carlo il, 102, 103, 121
+
+
+
+
+
+                                FOOTNOTES
+
+
+    1 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+    2 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+    3 Professor John Phillips: _Vesuvius_.
+
+    4 Pliny’s Letters. (_Church’s and Brodribb’s Translation._)
+
+_    5 La Nazione_, April 24, 1906.
+
+_    6 The Decameron._ Novel IV. of the Second Day.
+
+_    7 The Decameron_—Novel I, of the Fourth Day.
+
+    8 F. Lenormant: _A travers l’Apulie et la Lucanie_.
+
+    9 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+   10 For an able defence of the Emperor Tiberius, the reader is referred
+      to Mr J. C. Tarver’s _Tiberius the Tyrant_, chap. xviii.
+
+   11 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+   12 A portion of this chapter has already appeared in an article by the
+      Author, entitled _The Island of Ischia_, in the _Westminster
+      Review_, December 1905.
+
+   13 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+
+
+
+
+                            TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
+
+
+The caption of two images (frontispiece, page 288) has been supplied from
+the List of Images.
+
+The following obvious typographical errors have been corrected:
+
+      page xi, “Republiques” changed to “Républiques”
+      page 55, “castastrophe” changed to “catastrophe”
+      page 90, quote mark added after “vendemmia?”
+      page 158, footnote, italics added to “The Decameron”, removed from
+      “Novel IV. of the Second Day”. (Other inconsistencies between the
+      two citations of the _Decameron_ were not changed.)
+      page 159, “mosiac” changed to “mosaic”
+      page 189, “gradully” changed to “gradually”
+      page 206, “Pæstum” changed to “Paestum” (twice)
+      page 212, “wheron” changed to “whereon”
+      page 238, “circomstane” changed to “circomstance”
+      page 241, double “the” removed
+      page 275, “costing” changed to “coasting”
+      page 300, “maledicton” changed to “malediction”
+      page 301, “then” changed to “than”
+      page 311, “aud” changed to “and”
+
+In the Index, the following words have been changed to the spelling used
+in the main text:
+
+      “Baiae” (was: “Baiæ”)
+      “Caecilius Jucundus” (was: “Cæcilius”)
+      “Cumae” (was: “Cumæ”)
+      “Hohenstaufen” (was: “Hohenstauffen”)
+      “Matteucci” (was: “Mateucci”)
+      “Paestum” (was: “Pæstum”)
+      “Pimentel” (was: “Pimental”)
+      “Rufolo, Niccolò” (was: “Nicoló”)
+      “Sannazzaro” (was: “Sannazaro”)
+      “Stabiae” (was: “Stabiæ”)
+      “Staurachios” (was: “Straurachios”)
+      “Thermae of Nero” (was: “Thermæ”)
+      “William Bras-de-Fer” (was: “Bras de Fer”)
+      “Zoppo, Carlo il” (was: “Zoppo, Carlo Il”)
+
+Apart from the index and two occurrences of “Pæstum” in the main text, all
+“æ” ligatures have been maintained: “ædile” (and “aedile”), “archæologist”
+(and “archaeologist”), “æsthetic”, “Cannæ”, “Mediæval” (in a quotation,
+otherwise “medieval”), “mærens”, “Prætor”, “tesseræ”.
+
+Not changed or normalized were small errors in Italian or German
+quotations (“a riverderla”, “Kultur-kampf”, “Bierhälle”), inconsistent
+hyphenation (e. g. “boat-man”/“boatman”, “sea-shore”/“seashore”), spelling
+variations (“Phlegraean”/“Phlegrean”) and unusual spellings (“elegible”
+[in a quotation], “pleisosaurus”, “innoculating”, “choregraphic”).
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NAPLES RIVIERA***
+
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+***FINIS***
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Naples Riviera by Herbert M. Vaughan
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: The Naples Riviera
+
+Author: Herbert M. Vaughan
+
+Release Date: December 9, 2009 [Ebook #30634]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO 8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NAPLES RIVIERA***
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: CHARCOAL CARRIERS, AMALFI]
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  *THE*
+                             *NAPLES RIVIERA*
+
+
+                                   BY
+                    HERBERT M. VAUGHAN, B.A. (OXON.)
+                AUTHOR OF "THE LAST OF THE ROYAL STUARTS"
+
+
+
+WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY
+MAURICE GREIFFENHAGEN
+
+
+METHUEN & CO
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+LONDON
+
+
+
+
+
+                        _First Published in 1907_
+
+                                   TO
+                                G. L. L.
+                              IN MEMORY OF
+                  MANY PLEASANT DAYS IN THE SUNNY SOUTH
+                              THIS BOOK IS
+                        AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+                              BY THE AUTHOR
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 CONTENTS
+
+
+     CHAPTER I                                     PAGE
+     INTRODUCTORY                                     1
+     CHAPTER II
+     THE VESUVIAN SHORE AND MONTE SANT' ANGELO        8
+     CHAPTER III
+     LA CITT� MORTA                                  38
+     CHAPTER IV
+     VESUVIUS                                        66
+     CHAPTER V
+     THE CORNICHE ROAD                              100
+     CHAPTER VI
+     AMALFI AND THE FESTIVAL OF ST ANDREW           126
+     CHAPTER VII
+     RAVELLO AND THE RUFOLI                         152
+     CHAPTER VIII
+     SALERNO                                        172
+     CHAPTER IX
+     PAESTUM AND THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE          198
+     CHAPTER X
+     SORRENTO AND ITS POET                          221
+     CHAPTER XI
+     CAPRI AND TIBERIUS THE TYRANT                  249
+     CHAPTER XII
+     ISCHIA AND THE LADY OF THE ROCK                275
+     CHAPTER XIII
+     PUTEOLI AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME         295
+     --------
+     INDEX                                          321
+
+
+
+
+
+                          LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                     PAGE
+     CHARCOAL CARRIERS, AMALFI             _Frontispiece_
+     A CAPRIOTE FISHERMAN'S WIFE                       16
+     ROAD NEAR CASTELLAMARE                            30
+     MONTE FAITO, CASTELLAMARE                         37
+     THE FORUM, POMPEII                                46
+     LA CASA DEI VETTII, POMPEII                       58
+     VESUVIUS AND THE BAY OF NAPLES                    80
+     POZZANO                                          101
+     EVENING AT AMALFI                                124
+     AMALFI                                           132
+     IN THE VALLEY OF THE MILLS, AMALFI               140
+     AMALFI: PIAZZA AND DUOMO                         148
+     RAVELLO: IL DUOMO                                156
+     A STREET IN RAVELLO                              163
+     MINORI AT SUNSET                                 170
+     ON THE ROAD TO RAVELLO                           186
+     THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE, PAESTUM                   204
+     AFTERNOON, SORRENTO                              230
+     FARAGLIONI ROCKS, CAPRI                          249
+     CAPRI FROM THE VILLA JOVIS                       254
+     IN THE BLUE GROTTO, CAPRI                        262
+     A GATEWAY, CAPRI                                 274
+     ON THE PICCOLA MARINA, CAPRI                     288
+     ISCHIA FROM CASTELLAMARE (SUNSET)                294
+     ON THE BEACH                                     306
+
+
+
+
+
+                               BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+A small selection out of the books I have consulted during the preparation
+                      of this work is given below:--
+
+E. GIBBON: _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_.
+
+DEAN MERIVALE: _The Romans under the Empire_.
+
+_Pliny's Letters_: (Church's and Brodribb's Translation, London, 1897).
+
+J. PHILLIPS: _Vesuvius_ (Oxford, 1869).
+
+C. RAMAGE: _Nooks and Byways of Italy_.
+
+C. LENORMANT: _� Travers la Lucanie et l'Apulie_.
+
+W. J. A. STAMER: _Dolce Napoli_ (London, 1878).
+
+E. NEVILLE ROLFE: _Naples in 1888_.
+
+CONSTANCE GIGLIOLI: _Naples in 1799_.
+
+C. L. SISMONDI: _Histoire des __R�publiques__ Italiennes_.
+
+L. ALBERTI: _Descrizione di tutta l' Italia_ (Venetia, 1596).
+
+C. MILLS: _The Travels of Theodore Ducas_ (London, 1822).
+
+_Les D�lices d'Italie_ (Paris, 1707).
+
+_Nuova Guida de' Forastieri in Napoli, etc._ (1751).
+
+COUNT STOLBERG: _Travels through Italy and Sicily in 1756_.
+
+A. H. NORWAY: _Naples, Past and Present_ (London, 1904).
+
+E. BUSK: _Folk-Songs of Italy_.
+
+J. A. SYMONDS: _Sketches and Studies in Italy_.
+
+CATHERINE PHILLIMORE: _Studies in Italian Literature_ (London, 1891).
+
+T. A. TROLLOPE: _A Decade of Italian Women_ (London, 1859).
+
+G. BOCCACCIO: _Il Decamerone_.
+
+A. MAU: _Pompeii: its Life and Art_ (New York, 1899).
+
+J. FERGUSSON: _Handbook of Architecture_ (London, 1859).
+
+FRANZ VON REBER: _History of Ancient and Medi�val Art_ (New York, 1882).
+
+E. JAMESON: _Sacred and Legendary Art_ (London, 1879).
+
+J. ELWORTHY: _History of the Evil Eye_ (London, 1888).
+
+N. VALLETTA: _Cicalata sul Fascino detto Jettatura_ (Napoli, 1819).
+
+A. CANALE: _Storia dell' Isola di Capri_.
+
+G. AMALFI: _Tradizioni ed Vsi nella Penisola Sorrentina_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            THE NAPLES RIVIERA
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I
+
+
+                               INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+                   "In otia natam
+            Parthenopen."
+
+
+That the city of Naples can prove very delightful, very amusing, and very
+instructive for a week or ten days no one will attempt to dispute. There
+are long mornings to be spent in inspecting the churches scattered
+throughout the narrow streets of the old town,--harlequins in coloured
+marble and painted stucco though they be, they are yet treasure-houses
+containing some of the most precious monuments of Gothic and Renaissance
+art that all Italy can display. There are afternoon hours that can be
+passed pleasantly amidst the endless halls and galleries of the great
+Museo Nazionale, where the antiquities of Pompeii and Herculaneum may be
+studied in advance, for the wise traveller will not rush headlong into the
+sacred precincts of the buried cities on the Vesuvian shore, before he has
+first made himself thoroughly acquainted with the wonderful collections
+preserved in the Museum. Then comes the evening drive along the gentle
+winding ascent towards Posilipo with its glorious views over bay and
+mountains, all tinged with the deep rose and violet of a Neapolitan
+sunset; or the stroll along the fashionable sea front, named after the
+luckless Caracciolo the modern hero of Naples, where in endless succession
+the carriages pass backwards and forwards within the limited space between
+the sea and the greenery of the Villa Reale. Or it may be that our more
+active feet may entice us to mount the winding flights of stone steps
+leading to the heights of Sant' Elmo, where from the windows of the
+monastery of San Martino there is spread out before us an entrancing view
+that has but two possible rivals for extent and interest in all Italy:--the
+panorama of the Eternal City from the hill of San Pietro in Montorio, and
+that of Florence with the valley of the Arno from the lofty terrace of San
+Miniato. We can while away many hours leisurely in wandering on the
+bustling Chiaja or Toledo with their shops and their amusing scenes of
+city life, or in the poorer quarters around the Mercato, where the
+inhabitants ply their daily avocations in the open air, and eat, play,
+quarrel, flirt, fight or gossip--do everything in short save go to
+bed--quite unconcernedly before the critical and non-admiring eyes of
+casual strangers. Pleasant it is to hunt for old prints, books and other
+treasures amongst the dark unwholesome dens that lie in the shadow of the
+gorgeous church of Santa Chiara or in the musty-smelling shops of the
+curiosity dealers in the Strada Costantinopoli, picking up here a volume
+of some _cinque-cento_ classic and there a piece of old china that may or
+may not have had its birth in the famous factory of Capodimonte. All this
+studying of historic sculpture in the churches and of antiquities in the
+Museum, this observing the daily life of the populace, and bargain-hunting
+in the Strada de' Tribunali, are agreeable enough for a while, but of
+necessity there comes a time when the mind grows weary of yelling people
+and of jostling crowds, of stuffy churches and of the chilly halls of the
+Museum, of steep dirty streets and of glaring boulevards, so that we begin
+to sigh for fresh air and a change of scene. Nor is there any means of
+escape within the precincts of the city itself from the eternal cracking
+of whips, from the insulting compliments (or complimentary insults) of the
+incorrigible cabmen, from the continuous babel of unmusical voices, and
+from the reiterated strains of "Santa Lucia" or "Margari" howled from
+raucous throats or strummed from rickety street-organs. Oh for peace, and
+rest, and a whiff of pure country air! For there are no walks in or around
+the City of the Siren, where there is nowhere to stroll save the narrow
+strip of the much-vaunted Villa (which is either damp or dusty according
+to weather) or the fatiguing ascent amidst walled gardens and newly built
+houses to the heights of the Vomero, which are covered with a raw suburb.
+Moreover our pristine delight in the place is beginning to flag, as we
+gradually realise that the city, like the majority of great modern towns,
+is being practically rebuilt to the annihilation of its old-world
+features, which used to give to Naples its peculiar charm and its marked
+individuality amongst large sea-ports. Long ago has disappeared Santa
+Brigida, that picturesque high-coloured slum, on whose site stands the
+garish domed gallery of which the Neapolitans are so proud; gone in these
+latter days is classic Santa Lucia with its water-gate and its fountain,
+its vendors of medicated water and _frutti di mare_, those toothsome shell
+fish of the unsavoury beach; vanished for ever is many a landmark of old
+Naples, and new buildings, streets and squares, blank, dreary, pretentious
+and staring, have arisen in their places. This thorough _sventramento di
+Napoli_, as the citizens graphically term this drastic reconstruction of
+the old capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, is no doubt
+beneficial, not to say necessary, and we make no protest against these
+wholesale changes, which have certainly tended to destroy utterly its
+ancient character and appearance. But all seems commonplace, new, smart,
+and unpoetic, and we quickly grow weary of Naples now that it has been
+turned into a Liverpool of the South without the local colour and the
+peculiar attributes of which author and artist have so often raved. The
+life of the people, picturesque enough in its old setting, now appears
+mean and squalid; the toilers in the streets look jaded, oppressed and
+discontented; we search in vain for the spontaneous gaiety of which we
+have heard so much. We feel disappointed, cheated even, in our
+expectations of Naples, and we begin to understand that its chief
+attraction consists in its proximity to the scenes of beauty that mark the
+course of its Riviera.
+
+
+
+The Riviera of Naples may be said to extend from the heights of Cumae, at
+the end of the Bay of Gaeta to the north, as far as Salerno in a southerly
+direction, whilst, lying close to this stretch of shore, are included the
+three populous islands of Capri, Procida and Ischia, which in prehistoric
+times doubtless formed part and parcel of the Parthenopean coast itself.
+Our pleasant task it is to write of these classic shores and islands,
+where the beauties of nature contend for pre-eminence with the glorious
+traditions of the past that centre round them. What spot on earth can
+surpass, or even be compared with, Amalfi in the perfect lustre of its
+setting? What loftier or bolder cliffs than those of Capri can the wild
+bleak headlands of the North Sea exhibit? The fertile lands of France
+cannot vie with the richness of the Sorrentine Plain, nor can any mountain
+on the face of the globe rival in human interest the peak of Vesuvius;
+Pompeii is unique, the most precious storehouse of ancient knowledge the
+world possesses; whilst the Bay of Baia recalls the days of Roman power
+and luxury more vividly to our minds than any place save the Eternal City
+itself. And again: what illustrious names in history and in
+literature--classical, medieval, modern--are for ever associated with these
+smiling shores! Robert Guiscard and Hildebrand in quiet Salerno, Tasso at
+health-giving Sorrento, Vittoria Colonna in her palace-fortress on the
+crags of Ischia, the great Apostle of the west at Puteoli:--these are but a
+few of the more eminent and gracious figures that arise before us at the
+casual bidding of memory. Then there are the infamous, as well as the
+virtuous and the gallant, whose misdeeds are still freshly remembered upon
+these coasts or in their fertile valleys. The sinister Tiberius, the
+half-crazy and wholly vicious Caligula, many a king and queen of evil
+repute that ruled Naples, the vile Pier-Luigi Farnese, the adventurer
+Joachim Murat, all have left the marks of their personality upon the
+coveted shores of the Neapolitan Riviera. From the days of the Sibyl and
+of the Trojan hero to the stirring times of Garibaldi and of King Bomba,
+which were but of yesterday, Naples and its environs have played a
+prominent part in the annals and development of the civilised western
+world; Roman emperors, Pagan statesmen and poets, Norman, French and
+Spanish princes, popes, saints and theologians, merchants and scientists
+of the Middle Ages, writers of the Renaissance and heroes of the
+_Risorgimento_, all have combined to shed a halo of historical romance
+upon Naples and its Riviera, where there is scarcely a sea-girt town or a
+crumbling fortress that is not redolent of the memory of some personage
+whose name is inscribed on the roll of European history. It seems but
+right, therefore, that many works should have been written concerning this
+favoured corner of Italy, so replete with natural charm and with
+historical interest; and in truth multitudes of books, large and small,
+witty and dull, erudite and empty, light and heavy, prosaic and
+rhapsodical, have poured forth from the prolific pens of generations of
+authors. We feel sincerely the need of an apology for making a fresh
+addition to the ever-increasing pile of Neapolitan literature, and we can
+only urge in extenuation of our crime of authorship that the same scene
+appeals in varied ways to different persons, and that every fresh
+description is apt to shed additional light upon old familiar subjects. In
+the following pages we make no profession to act the part of a guide to
+the neighbourhood of Naples, for are there not the carefully prepared
+pages of Murray and Baedeker, to say nothing of the works of such writers
+as Augustus Hare, to lead the wanderer into every church and castle, to
+show him every nook in valley and mountain, and to supply him thoroughly
+with accurate dates and facts? No, our treatment of this theme may be
+deemed a poor one, but it has at least the merit and the courage of
+following its own peculiar lines. For we pursue our own course, and we
+touch lightly here and omit there; we run to dissertation in this place,
+we glide by silently in another. We take our own views of people and
+places, and give them for what they are worth to our readers to approve or
+to condemn, as they think fit. We offer a medley of history and of
+imagination, of biography and of private comment; and we crave indulgence
+for our short-comings by observing that any deficiencies in these pages
+can easily be remedied by application to the abundant literature upon
+Naples and its surrounding districts which every good library is presumed
+to contain.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER II
+
+
+                THE VESUVIAN SHORE AND MONTE SANT' ANGELO
+
+
+That little stream the Sebeto, which is indeed, as the courtly Metastasio
+observes, "scanty in depth of water though overflowing with honour," may
+be considered as the boundary line that divides the city of Naples from
+its eastern environs, although it is evident that the whole stretch of
+coast from Posilipo to Torre del Greco is covered with an unbroken line of
+houses. Past the highly cultivated _Paduli_, the chief market-gardens on
+this side of the city, with the town of La Barra on the fertile slopes to
+our left, we pass by way of San Giovanni a Teduccio to Portici, once a
+favourite resort of royalty. Here the dilettante Charles III., first
+Bourbon King of Naples, built a palace and laid out gardens in the days of
+patches and powder, constructing a royal pleasaunce that was destined to
+become the chief residence of the temporary supplanter of his own family,
+Joachim Murat, the citizen king of Naples and brother-in-law of the great
+Napoleon. Villa and gardens still remain, but monarchs have ceased to
+visit Portici since the days of Bomba, and the old royal demesne has been
+turned into an agricultural college. Adjoining and practically forming
+part of Portici is the town of Resina, which preserves almost intact the
+old classical name of Retina that it bore in the distant days when it
+served as the port of Herculaneum. Here then in the mean streets of Resina
+we find ourselves standing above, though certainly not upon, historic
+ground, for the temples and villas, the theatres and private houses of the
+famous buried city lie far below the surface trodden by our feet. To visit
+Herculaneum it is necessary for us to descend some seventy to a hundred
+feet into the depths of the earth, passing more than one layer of ancient
+lava, for Resina and Portici themselves are but modern editions of former
+towns that have been engulfed in the course of ages. If the stranger can
+derive any solid satisfaction from the descent by a gloomy underground
+passage and from fleeting glimpses of ancient walls and dwellings seen
+through a forest of wooden baulks, which serve to support the spaces
+excavated, he must indeed be an enthusiast. But most people, perhaps all
+sensible people, will be content to take the undoubted interest of
+Herculaneum on trust, probably agreeing (at any rate after their visit)
+that the inspection of this subterranean city is not worth the candle, by
+whose flickering beams alone can objects be distinguished in the
+oppressive darkness. Personally we strongly hold to the expressed opinion
+of Alexandre Dumas, who declared that even the most hardened antiquary
+could not desire more than one hour's contemplation of this hidden mass of
+shapeless wreckage. "Herculaneum," writes that genial Frenchman, "but
+wearies our curiosity instead of exciting it. We descend into the
+excavated city as into a mine by a species of shaft; then come corridors
+beneath the earth which can only be entered by the light of tapers; and
+these smoke-grimed passages allow us from time to time to obtain a
+momentary glimpse of the angle of a house, the colonnade of some temple,
+the steps of a theatre. Everything is fragmentary, mutilated, dingy,
+uncertain, confused, and therefore unsatisfactory. Well, at the end of an
+hour spent in wandering amongst these abysmal recesses, the most hardened
+arch�ologist, the most dry-as-dust antiquary, the most inquisitive of
+tourists begins to experience only one feeling--an intense desire to ascend
+to the light of day and to breathe once more the fresh air of the upper
+world."
+
+Nevertheless, it was from these dismal caverns, black as Erebus, that some
+of the choicest marbles and bronzes that now adorn the Museum at Naples
+were originally extracted. From a villa at Herculaneum also was taken the
+famous collection of 3000 rolls of papyrus, chiefly filled with the
+writings of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, perhaps the greatest
+"find" of ancient literature that has yet been made, although the contents
+of this damaged library, deciphered with equal toil and ingenuity, have
+not proved to be of the value originally set upon them by expectant
+scholars. But much of the city itself has yet hardly been touched since
+the days when it was destroyed in the reign of Titus, so that far below
+the squalid lanes of Portici and Resina there must still exist acres upon
+acres of undisturbed buildings, public and private, many of them perhaps
+filled with priceless works of Greek and Roman art, for Herculaneum,
+unlike Pompeii, was never tampered with by the ancients themselves, for
+the coating of volcanic mud, which filled the whole area of the city, made
+impracticable a systematic searching of its ruins by the despoiled
+citizens. Then, as if nature had not already buried the city sufficiently
+deep, subsequent eruptions of Vesuvius have superimposed additional layers
+of lava, whilst confiding human beings have in their turn built
+habitations upon the volcanic crust.
+
+
+
+We all know the story, perhaps mythical, of the discovery of Herculaneum
+at the beginning of the eighteenth century by the accidental sinking of a
+well upon its long-forgotten site and of the subsequent excavations made
+by the Prince d'Elboeuf. These so-called explorations were, however, made
+in the most greedy and destructive spirit, for the prince's sole object
+was to obtain antique works of art for his private collection, not to make
+intelligent enquiries about the dead and buried city lying beneath his
+estate. Ignorant workmen were despatched to hew and hack wholesale in the
+mirky depths in order to discover statuary and paintings, and since there
+was no receptacle at hand to contain the _d�bris_, they took the simple
+course of filling in each hollow made with the masses of rubbish already
+excavated. Later in the same century the Bourbon king was induced by
+Neapolitan savants to take some interest in the work, but, strange to
+relate, the superintendent appointed, a certain Spanish officer named
+Alcubier, was so ignorant and careless that half the objects found under
+his supervision were broken or lost before they reached Naples; this
+ignoramus, it was said, even went so far as to order whole architraves to
+be smashed up and their bronze lettering to be picked out before making a
+copy of the original inscription! Under these circumstances the marvel is
+that anything of beauty or value should have survived at all, for this
+selfish plundering of Herculaneum, in strong contrast with the reverent
+treatment meted out to Pompeii, may be considered one of the greatest
+pieces of vandalism ever perpetrated. In spite of this wholesale
+destruction, however, there must remain untouched, as we have said, a vast
+quantity of objects, beautiful, useful or curious, yet it is extremely
+doubtful if we shall live to see any serious and intelligent effort made
+to bring these hidden treasures forth to the light of day. The expense of
+working this buried hoard would be enormous in any case, whilst the
+existence of the houses of Resina and Portici overhead necessitates
+special measures of precaution on the part of the excavators. The only
+method of examining Herculaneum properly would be in fact to treat the
+buried site like an immense mine by the construction of regular galleries
+and shafts for the entrance of skilled workmen, and to remove the rubbish
+displaced to the outer air. Perhaps some multi-millionaire might be found
+ready to undertake so arduous, yet so fascinating a task, though we fear
+that the Italian Government, which has always shown itself as tenacious of
+its subterranean wealth of antiquity as it appears languid in the work of
+quarrying it, would indignantly refuse to accede to any such offer. As
+regards the ancient city of Hercules, therefore, we must perforce remain
+content to inspect the magnificent bronzes and the other objects of
+interest that are to be found in the Museum of Naples, for we are not
+likely to see any further researches just at present, more's the pity,
+since there is every reason to suppose that a thorough investigation
+conducted regardless of cost would yield up to the world the most
+marvellous and valuable results.
+
+Some two miles of dusty suburb lie between Resina and Torre del Greco,
+which has been destroyed time after time by the lava streams descending
+from "that peak of Hell rising out of Paradise," as Goethe once named the
+burning mountain overhead. Nevertheless, the Torrese continue to sit
+patiently at the feet of the fire-spouting monster, trembling when he is
+angry, pleased when he is quiescent, and ready to abandon meekly their
+homes when he renders them insupportable by his furious outbursts. Yet
+these people never fail to return and risk the ever-present chances of
+death and destruction. And little can we blame them for their fatalism,
+when we gaze upon the glorious views that reveal themselves at this spot,
+whence Naples rising proudly from the sea, the rocky islands of Ischia and
+Capri, the aerial heights of Monte Sant' Angelo and all the features of
+the placid bay are seen spread around us in a panorama of unsurpassed
+loveliness. Beneath lava rocks, black and sinister, that contrast
+strangely in their sombre hues with the brilliant tints of sea and sky,
+lie little beaches of glittering gravel that would afford delightful
+retreats for meditation, were it not for the dozens of half-naked
+brown-skinned imps, children of the fisher-folk of Torre del Greco, who
+wallow in the warm sand or rush with joyful screams into the tepid surf.
+The population must have increased not a little since those days, nearly a
+century ago, when the unhappy Shelley could find peace and solitude in his
+darkest hours of unrest upon these shores, where it would be well-nigh
+impossible for a twentieth-century poet to espy a retreat for soothing his
+soul in verse. Yet somehow, during the drowsy noontide rest when the
+active life of the South ceases, if only for an hour or so, it is still
+possible to catch the spirit in which that melancholy wanderer indited one
+of his most exquisite lyrics:--sunshine, clear sky, murmuring seas, the
+fragrance of the Italian spring, all are present to our reverie; and how
+true and perfect a picture has the poet-artist drawn for us of this
+beautiful Vesuvian shore!
+
+  "The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
+     The waves are dancing fast and bright,
+  Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
+     The purple noon's transparent light:
+  The breath of the moist earth is light
+     Around its unexpanded buds;
+  Like many a voice of one delight,
+     The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
+  The City's voice itself is soft, like Solitude's.
+
+  I see the Deep's untrampled floor
+     With green and purple seaweeds strown;
+  I see the waves upon the shore,
+     Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
+  I sit upon the sands alone;
+     The lightning of the noontide ocean
+  Is flashing round me, and a tone
+     Arises from its measured motion,
+  How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion?"
+
+But it must be admitted that the seashore by Torre del Greco does not
+often lend itself as a suitable spot for romantic or solitary communings
+with nature; it is a busy place where the struggle for life is keen and
+practical enough, and its inhabitants have little time or inclination to
+bestow on the pursuit of poetry. As in all the towns of the _Terra di
+Lavoro_, as this collection of human ant-hills on the eastern side of
+Naples is sometimes designated, the old command given to the first parents
+of mankind--"by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread"--is scrupulously
+observed in Torre del Greco. It is little enough, however, that these
+frugal people demand, for a hunk of coarse bread, tempered with a handful
+of beans or an orange in winter or with a slice of luscious pink
+water-melon or a few figs in summer, is thought to constitute a full meal
+in this climate; nor are these simple viands washed down by anything more
+potent than a draught of _mezzo-vino_, the weak sour wine of the country.
+A dish of maccaroni or a plateful of kid or veal garnished with vegetables
+is a treat to be reserved for a marriage or some great Church festival,
+whilst a chicken is regarded as a luxury in which only _gran' signori_ of
+boundless wealth can afford to indulge. Amongst the many classes of
+toilers with which populous Torre del Greco abounds, that of the
+coral-fishers is perhaps the most interesting. There is pure romance in
+the very notion of hunting for the beautiful coloured substance lying
+hidden in the crystalline depths of the Mediterranean, and its quest is
+not a little suggestive of azure caverns beneath the waves, peopled by
+soft-eyed mermaids and strange iridescent fishes. As a matter of fact, it
+would be difficult to name a harder occupation or a more dismal monotonous
+existence than that of the coral-fishers, many hundreds of whom leave this
+little port every spring in order to spend the summer months on the coasts
+of Tripoli, Sardinia, or Sicily. The men employed, who work under contract
+during some six months of unending drudgery, are by no means all natives
+of Torre del Greco, but are collected from various places of the
+neighbourhood, not a few of them being thrifty youths from Capri, who are
+eager to amass as quickly as possible the lump sum of money requisite to
+permit of marriage. It is true that the amount actually paid by the owners
+of the coral fleet sounds proportionately large, yet it is in reality poor
+enough recompense when measured by the ceaseless toil, the burning heat
+and the wretched food, which the venture entails. The lot of the
+coral-fisher has however much improved of late years, partly by measures
+of government which now compel the contractors to treat their servants
+more humanely, and partly by the fact that the practice of emigration in
+Southern Italy has reduced the numbers of applicants for the coral-fishing
+business and has thereby, indirectly at least, raised wages and bettered
+the old conditions of service. A truly pitiable account is given of these
+poor creatures some thirty years ago by an English writer, whose knowledge
+of the Neapolitan people and character remains probably unsurpassed; and
+it is some satisfaction to reflect that even in Mr Stamer's day the bad
+old oppressive system had already been somewhat tempered for the benefit
+of these white slaves, who for nearly half the round of the year were
+worse treated than King Bomba's unhappy victims in the pestilent prisons
+of Naples and Gaeta.
+
+  [Illustration: A CAPRIOTE FISHERMAN'S WIFE]
+
+"Badly paid, badly fed, and hard worked is the poor coral-fisher. Compared
+with his, the life of a galley-slave is one of sybaritical indolence. His
+treatment was, until very recently, not one whit better than that of the
+poor oppressed negro as he existed in the vivid imagination of Mrs Harriet
+Beecher Stowe; immeasurably worse than that of the real Simon Pure. The
+thirty ducats for which he sold his seven months' services once paid, he
+was just as much a slave as Uncle Tom of pious memory, harder worked, more
+brutally handled. His _padrone_ was a sea-monster, alongside of whom Mr
+Legree would have seemed a paragon of Quaker-like gentleness and
+amiability. His word was law and a rope's end well laid on his sole reply
+to any remonstrance on the part of his bondsmen. For six days out of the
+seven he kept them working incessantly, not unfrequently on the seventh
+into the bargain, if the weather was favourable; and that they might be
+strong, hearty and able to haul away, their food consisted of dry
+biscuits; a dish of maccaroni with just sufficient oil to make the sign of
+the cross being served out for the Sunday's dinner."(1)
+
+In those "good old days," not so very far distant, the dredging nets were
+coarse and weighty, and the capstan of the clumsiest and most primitive
+description, so that the coral-seeking serfs under contract were worked
+like bullocks until they were often wont to fall asleep out of sheer
+exhaustion as they hauled away mechanically. We can imagine then with what
+raptures of joy these ill-treated mortals must have hailed the advent of
+October, the month that terminated their long spell of suffering and
+semi-starvation, and with what eagerness they must have returned
+homewards, the more industrious to perform odd jobs during the winter
+season on farms or in factories; the lazier to enjoy a well-earned holiday
+of loafing on the quay or in the piazza. And although times have changed
+for the better in the eyes of the coral-fisher, his lot still remains hard
+enough, even in the present days of grace; whilst any employment that saps
+the workman's strength during the hot summer months and leaves him idle or
+unemployed in winter time cannot well be described as a desirable trade.
+Yet the temptation to obtain a considerable sum of money in advance, as is
+the case in this particular industry, often proves overwhelming to the
+young man of the Torres or of Castellamare, imprudently married before he
+is out of his teens and with an ever-increasing family. It is so easy to
+accept the proffered gold, which will keep wife and babies in comparative
+comfort throughout the long hot summer; unskilled labour is paid so
+lightly on these teeming shores of the Terra di Lavoro; saddled already
+with children he cannot make up his feeble mind to emigrate; in short, to
+go a-coralling is his sole chance, if he wishes to keep his home together
+and to stave off charity or starvation from his young wife and family.
+
+Beyond Torre del Greco we seem to escape to a certain extent from the
+enveloping network of human dwellings, so that we are at last enabled to
+gain some idea of the natural features of the country. The oriental
+character of the landscape, which marks more or less distinctly the whole
+of the Neapolitan coast-line, will at once be noticed in the domed farm
+buildings, not unlike Mahommedan _koubbas_, washed a glistening white,
+that stand out sharply against the lugubrious tints of the lava beds.
+Above us, crowning a bosky hillock that juts forth from the mountain
+flank, stands one of the many convents of the monks of Camaldoli, whose
+houses are scattered throughout the breadth of Southern Italy. The
+position of their Vesuvian settlement is certainly unique, for the rising
+ground on which it is perched appears like some verdant oasis amid the
+arid fields of sable lava. Secure in its commanding site, the monastery
+has many a time been completely surrounded by burning streams, which have
+invariably left the building and its woody demesne unscathed. More than
+once have the good brethren, who wear the white robe of St Romualdo of
+Ravenna, looked down from their convent walls upon the work of destruction
+below, and have watched the waves of liquid fire surging angrily but
+uselessly round the rocky base of their retreat. Hard manual labour,
+prayer, solitude and contemplation: these are the chief duties enjoined by
+the famous Tuscan order, and surely no more suitable place for carrying
+out such precepts could have been chosen by the pious founder of this
+Vesuvian convent. For what scenes on earth could be deemed more beautiful
+to contemplate, we wonder, than the wide stretches of heaven and ocean, of
+fertile plain and of rugged mountain, that are ever before the eyes of the
+brethren; or more instructive than the constant spectacle of disappointed
+human ambition and energy, which is afforded by the barren lava beds and
+the ruined cities close at hand!
+
+Descending from the slopes of Camaldoli, we cross a tract of country
+wherein black lava alternates with patches of rich cultivation and of
+thriving vineyards, and gaining the high road we soon reach Torre
+Annunziata. Here it is evident that the manufacture of maccaroni forms the
+chief industry of its population, for on all sides are to be seen the
+frames filled with the golden coloured strings of _pasta_ that have been
+hung up to dry in the sunshine. Every flat roof in the place, moreover, is
+covered with smooth concrete and protected by a low parapet for the
+spreading of the grain, and on the beach are laid huge cloths of coarse
+brown material that are heaped with masses of the crude corn, whilst men
+with their naked feet from time to time turn the grain so as to dry the
+whole bulk. Torre Annunziata and its inland neighbour, Gragnano, are in
+fact the two chief local scenes of this industry with which the Bay of
+Naples has always been so closely associated, and it is here that we can
+best make ourselves acquainted with the process of manufacturing
+maccaroni. By following any one of the tall brown-skinned fellows,
+stripped to the waist and bare-legged, who have been breathing the fresh
+air of the street for a few moments, we quickly arrive at the entrance of
+one of the many small factories with which the town abounds. In spite of
+open doors and windows its atmosphere feels hot and stifling, for it is
+impregnated with tiny particles of flour dust, which too often, alas! are
+apt to affect permanently the lungs of the workmen. The dough of maccaroni
+is obtained by mixing pure wheaten flour with semolina in certain
+proportions, only water being used for the purpose, whilst the task of
+kneading is carried out in primitive fashion by means of a lever worked
+continuously by two or more men. When the dough has at length arrived at
+the required consistency after some hours of steady kneading, it is placed
+in a large perforated copper cylinder, each hole having a central pin at
+the bottom and a valve on top. A powerful screw is then employed to press
+down upon the dough, which is thus squeezed out of the imprisoning
+cylinder through the holes in the serpentine shape that is so familiar to
+us. On reaching a certain length these pipes, issuing from the holes, are
+twisted off and are then removed for drying to the frames in the open air.
+Maccaroni has, of course, many varieties of form and quality, from the
+thin fluffy vermicelli, known under the poetical name of _Capilli degli
+Angeli_, to the great thick pipe-stem-like article of ordinary commerce.
+There are endless means of cooking and dressing this, the national dish of
+Italy, but perhaps the most popular of all is _alla Napolitana_, wherein
+it is served with tomato sauce, to which a sprinkling of grated Parmesan
+cheese is frequently added. A compound of eggs and maccaroni, sometimes
+known as a Neapolitan omelette, likewise makes an appetising dish, though
+it is one that is little known to foreigners. One circumstance is patent;
+the dismal so-called "maccaroni pudding" one meets with in England seems
+to have nothing in common with the delicately flavoured, sustaining dish
+that can be obtained for a few pence in any Southern restaurant.
+
+Torre Annunziata has the reputation of being a dirty malodorous town,
+composed of shabby stone houses and full of quarrelsome people. Well,
+perhaps there is a scintilla of truth in the sweeping observation, yet if
+we can contrive to endure the smells and racket of the place for a brief
+space of time, there is much of human interest to be observed in the daily
+scenes of its crowded beach and its noisy streets. After all, no odours of
+the South can compare in all-pervading intensity with the blended aroma of
+fried fish and London fog that old Drury Lane can often produce; nor are
+the Torrese more dangerous to strangers or more objectionable in their
+habits than the crowds of Lambeth or Seven Dials. In strength of lungs, it
+must be granted, the Italian easily surpasses the Londoner, for the
+Southern voice is positively alarming in its vigour and its far-reaching
+power. No one--man, woman or child--can apparently speak below a scream;
+even the most amiable or trivial of conversations seems to our
+unaccustomed ears to portend an imminent quarrel, to so high a pitch are
+the naturally harsh voices strained. Morning, noon and night the same
+hubbub of men shouting, of women screeching, and of children yelling
+continues for nobody minds noise in Italy, where people are troubled with
+no nerves of their own and consequently have no consideration for those of
+strangers. And why, therefore, should they suspend their native habits to
+please a handful of cavilling _forestieri_?
+
+A stroll through Torre Annunziata, although it possesses not a few
+drawbacks, can be made both amusing and instructive; we can even find
+something attractive in the quality of the local atmosphere, which
+suggests at one and the same time sunshine, garlic, incense, stale fish
+and wood smoke; it is the pungent but characteristic aroma of the South,
+filled "with spicy odours Time can never mar." And what truly charming
+pictures do the family groups present in the wide archways giving on the
+untidy courts within, full of sun and shadow and gay with bright-coloured
+garments swaying in the wind! The ebon-haired young mother with teeth like
+pearls and with warm-tinted cheeks sits fondling the last helpless little
+addition to her growing family, whilst toddlers of any age from two to
+seven, unkempt but bright-eyed and engaging, play around the door-step,
+watched over by their grandmother, or may be their great-grandam, who with
+her wizened face enfolded in her yellow kerchief, her skinny neck, and her
+distaff in the bony fingers, looks as if she had stepped out of some
+Renaissance painting of the Three Fates in a Florentine gallery. Crimson
+carnations in earthenware pots stand on the steps of the outside
+staircase, giving a touch of refinement to the squalid home, and from the
+balcony overhead the glossy-black, yellow-billed _passer solitario_, the
+favourite cage-bird of the Neapolitan poor, chirrups with apparent
+cheerfulness in his wicker-work prison. Behind, in the dim shadows of the
+large room, which serves as sole habitation, we can espy the inevitable
+household altar with the oil lamp glimmering before the little
+crude-coloured print of the Virgin and Child, and its usual accessory, the
+piece of palm or olive that was blessed by the priest last Palm Sunday;
+poor and mean though the chamber be, its bed linen and simple appointments
+are more cleanly than might perhaps be inferred from the appearance of the
+family itself. In a shady corner close by, three or four young labourers
+at their mid-day rest have finished their frugal repast of bread and
+beans, and are now playing eagerly the popular game of _zecchinetto_ with
+a frayed and grimy pack of cards. Wives or sweethearts watch with anxious
+faces from a respectful distance, for it is not meet to disturb the lords
+of creation when they happen to be engaged in a game of chance. What
+possibilities of farce and tragedy can be drawn from so simple, so common
+a scene upon these shores, where human life is less artificially conducted
+than elsewhere in Europe, and where human passions are kept under less
+restraint? Terrible are the tales of jealousy and revenge, of deliberate
+treachery and of uncontrolled violence, which are related of these
+quick-tempered grown-up children of the South, who seem to love and hate
+with the blind intensity of untutored savages.
+
+  "Lo 'nnamorato' mmio sse chiammo Peppo,
+  Lo capo jocatore de le carte;
+  Ss' ha jocato 'sto core a zecchinetto,
+  Dice ca mo' lo venne, e mo' lo parte.
+  Che n'agg' io a fare lo caro de carte?
+  Vogho lo core che tinite 'm pietto!"
+
+  ("That lover of mine is called Handsome Beppo,
+  The best player of cards all around this way;
+  He's been playing on Hearts at _zecchinetto_,
+  And says now they turn up, now are sorted away.
+  What matters the heart in the card-pack to me?
+  The heart in his bosom's the heart for me!")
+
+Here lies the sleeping fisherman, worn out probably with hours of hauling
+at the heavy nets, who is snatching a chance hour of repose, prone upon
+his chest with face buried in his crossed arms. Little he seems to reck of
+the damp of the soil or the heat of the sun, nor can a noisy game of
+_mora_ played by a couple of his companions beside him disturb his deep
+slumber. _Mora_ has ever been the classic game of the South, and indeed,
+there is abundant evidence to show that it was played by the ancestors of
+these dwellers in Magna Graecia hundreds of years before Pompeii was
+overthrown. The game, which requires nothing but the human fingers, bears
+no little resemblance to our own humble pastime of "Up Jenkin!" which may
+almost be described as a species of drawing-room _mora_; perhaps some
+Italian traveller in a past age may actually have introduced this form of
+the southern diversion into prosaic England. The two players, face to face
+and craning forward with outstretched necks, simultaneously extend their
+right hands with one or more fingers pointing upward, the aim of each man
+being to guess the exact number, from two to ten, jointly displayed by
+both right hands. If one of them hit upon the correct figure, then he
+gains one point towards the stakes, which are usually made in _centesimi_
+rather than in _soldi_. How rapidly do the lean supple brown fingers flash
+backwards and forwards, and with what gusto do the two frenzied combatants
+yell out their numbers! _Mora_ has been a favourite recreation with these
+people almost from their cradles, and he would be a bold man indeed who
+would venture to challenge a Torrese at this game, for the native's skill
+and experience are almost bound to tell eventually in his favour, and the
+odds are "Lombard Street to a China orange" against the outside player.
+There are certain maxims too with regard to the game which are closely
+observed by those who play it, as well as peculiar expressions, such as
+_tutte_ to denote that all ten fingers are being shown, or _chiarella_ for
+all but one. Five points usually make the game, and these are commonly
+marked by holding up one or more fingers of the disengaged left
+hand.--These are a few of the many sights to be witnessed by those who can
+afford to endure the pestering attentions of small boys, and the
+uncomplimentary staring of the adult population in such places as the
+Torres or Castellamare; and such as wish to make themselves acquainted
+with the details of southern life and manners cannot do better than pass
+an idle hour in the fishmarket or the piazza of these little industrial
+towns of the Vesuvian shore. For to regard Southern Italy from the
+majestic isolation of a railway compartment or a hired carriage cannot
+possibly give the traveller the smallest insight into the ordinary phases
+of local life; for he is ever looking, as it were, into a picture from
+which all trace of colour has vanished.
+
+It is but a short quarter of an hour by train from Torre Annunziata to
+Castellamare di Stabia, the ill-fated Stabiae of the Romans, which shared
+the evil lot of Pompeii and Herculaneum. On our right we have the sea,
+with the castle-topped islet of Revigliano, whilst on looking to the left
+we can survey the fertile valley of the Sarno, and the shapeless mounds
+which hide that precious goal of every traveller to these shores, the
+buried city of Pompeii. Everywhere thrives sub-tropical vegetation:--cactus
+and aloe draped in wreaths of smilax; tall straggling masses of scarlet
+geranium that cling for protection to the Indian fig, and blossom in
+security amid their spiky but safe retreats; shrubs of fragrant yellow
+genista; clumps of purple-leaved _ricini_, as the Italians name the
+castor-oil plant. If it were summer time, the daturas would be covered
+with their great white floral trumpets, and every oleander bush would be
+one blaze of the coarse carmine blossoms that are here called _Mazza di
+San Giuseppe_, or St Joseph's nosegay, and a very gaudy rank bouquet they
+make. But in spring-time the oleander can but display long greyish leaves
+and pods of snowy fluff, which is blown hither and thither like
+thistle-down on the air; and it is only in flaming summer that these
+regions are brightened by St Joseph's flower, or by the still more
+gorgeous masses of the mesembryanthemum, which clambers on all sides over
+the lava rock and hangs in crimson festoons from tufa cliffs, making
+impossibly splendid splashes of colour in the landscape.
+
+
+                              * * * * * * *
+
+
+So many writers have expatiated upon the sordid ugliness of Castellamare
+and upon the beauty of the wooded slopes above the town, that a further
+description of the place may well be dispensed with. Uninteresting,
+however, as this industrial town appears, it boasts a long historical
+record, to which its crumbling medieval castle bears witness. The great
+Emperor Frederick the Second, the scholar-pope Pius the Second, and all
+the monarchs of the Angevin, Aragonese and Bourbon dynasties have been
+associated with this "castle by the sea." The whole district was once the
+property of that human monster Pier-Luigi Farnese, duke of Parma, heir of
+Pope Paul the Third, of whose demoniacal cruelty and treachery the racy
+pages of Cellini's Memoirs give so vivid an account, and whose repulsive
+face has grown familiar to us from Titian's famous portraits in the
+gallery of Naples. It was the evil Pier-Luigi's descendant and
+heiress-general of the family, Elizabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain, who
+conveyed the beautiful villa and woods of Quisisana to the Bourbon kings,
+and here the Neapolitan royal family for several generations sought health
+(as the name of the place implies) and repose upon the breezy heights that
+lie so conveniently near to the great city in full view to the west.
+Nowadays the old royal villa, deserted by crowned heads since Ferdinand's
+days and fallen from its high estate to its present use of a hotel and
+pension, forms with its park the chief attraction of Castellamare, where
+English travellers are wont to congregate in winter, and Neapolitan and
+Greek seekers of pleasure or drinkers of medicinal waters resort in the
+hot summer months. The Southerners who come here for their _villeggiatura_
+certainly enjoy a better time than the winter visitors, for the bulky form
+of Monte Sant' Angelo intercepts much of the sunshine, thereby rendering
+the place damp and chilly in the cold season of the year. Nominally it is
+the mineral springs that attract the Neapolitan folk, wherein they have a
+fine choice of health-giving beverages, varying from the _acqua ferrata_,
+a mild chalybeate that is found useful as a tonic, to the powerful _acqua
+del Muraglione_, that is warranted to reduce the stoutest mortal to a mere
+shadow of his former self in a trice. But though the waters may be
+occasionally sipped of a morning and wry faces made, it is in reality the
+warm sea-bathing on the shore, where people spend hours pickling in tepid
+salt water, and also the cool rides or walks amongst the shady alleys of
+sweet chestnut and ilex woods of Quisisana and Monte Coppola, which draw
+hither in summer the elegant world of Naples, and even of Athens, to visit
+Castellamare. The leafy groves on the zephyr-swept hill sides, once sacred
+to the pleasures of Bourbon tyrants, now ring with peals of noisy
+laughter, with gallant compliments, and with the harsh shouting of the
+_ciucciari_, the leaders of the poor over-driven donkeys. Unhappy patient
+beasts! usually covered with raws and galls, that are urged forward at a
+gallop by the remorseless stick, or even by the goad, for the Neapolitan
+donkey-boy is absolutely callous to the feelings of his animal. Not that
+he is cruel out of sheer cussedness, for cruelty's sake, for he can be
+really kind to his dog or his cat; but the beast of burden, the helpless
+uncomplaining servant of man, suffers terribly at his hands. It is useless
+to remonstrate or argue with the young ruffian, who at our sharp reprimand
+will merely open wide his big black eyes and stare in genuine amazement.
+_Non sono Cristiani_--they have no souls, and the beasts are their property
+and not yours; what does it matter then to you how they are treated,
+provided they carry you properly? That is the sum total of the
+donkey-boy's argument, and he has high ecclesiastical authority to back up
+his private theory, if he had the wit to enter into a discussion with us
+on the subject. Almost equally hopeless is it to point to the simple fact
+that a well-groomed, well-treated animal lasts longer than a half-starved,
+mutilated scare-crow. "How old is your horse?" we once asked a driver in
+the south. "He is very old indeed, _eccelenza_," was the reply; "he must
+be nearly twelve!" On being informed that horses often worked well up to
+twenty years old and over in England, he let us infer, quite politely,
+that he thought we were romancing. Tenderness towards the dumb creation is
+a common, not to say a prevailing characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race,
+and it must be confessed that the thoughtless and horrible cruelty towards
+animals witnessed on all sides in the Neapolitan Riviera amounts to a
+serious drawback to the full enjoyment of its many beauties and amenities.
+Matters are improving a little of late, it is only fair to add. There is
+an Italian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and its
+officials have done some good in the streets of Naples itself, but
+naturally its new ideas have not yet penetrated far into the country
+districts.
+
+  [Illustration: ROAD NEAR CASTELLAMARE]
+
+To the healthy and energetic the most delightful excursion that
+Castellamare can offer is the ascent to the summit of Monte Sant' Angelo,
+that monarch of the Bay of Naples, whose lofty crest gleams with snowy
+streaks until the spring be well advanced. The lazy or the feeble can make
+use of one of the poor oppressed donkeys, but it is better to engage its
+ragged master, who without his four-footed drudge to whack and kick is a
+harmless enough being, to act as guide over the steep ill-defined pathway
+that leads ever upwards. As we slowly ascend through the sub-tropical
+region of fig and vine, of olive and carouba, we question our guide, who
+in spite of his bright eyes and well-knit frame seems about as intelligent
+a companion as the poor ass left behind in the stall, where he is
+enjoying, let us hope, an unexpected holiday. It is not easy to extract
+information from our native attendant, yet with a little judicious
+pressing we learn from him that the top of the mountain, which is our
+bourne, was once inhabited by evil spirits, until a holy hermit took up
+his abode on the peak, since when his sanctity has kept the place
+tolerably clear of witches and foul incubi. Wicked sprites, however, still
+haunt the spreading woods of beech and chestnut which we must presently
+traverse, and our guide (whose name is Vincenzo) admits to us that he
+would not care to venture there alone, even in broad daylight. There is,
+he tells us, warming up at last to the subject, much gold hidden there,
+which the spirits guard so jealously that they are ready to tear in pieces
+any mortal who is clever enough to find and bold enough to rifle their
+secret hoards. Only a priest, on account of his sacred office, is reckoned
+safe from their iniquitous spells. "But has not any one dared," we ask,
+"to go in company with a holy man, to search for this hidden treasure?"
+Well, yes, he had been told that men from Vico had once ventured up into
+the woods to search for the gold. With a little encouragement Vincenzo is
+finally prevailed upon to give us the whole story, which is evidently of
+somewhat recent date.
+
+Once upon a time there were four men, one of them being a priest, who
+lived in Vico, and one of these men had often been told by his father that
+in the forests near the top of Monte Sant' Angelo there lay buried a chest
+full of gold--_molto! molto!_ The father of the man had been himself in his
+youth to search for the treasure, but find it he never could, for he would
+never take a priest with him to avert the spells of the evil spirits of
+the mountain sides, who kept the place hidden. So this time the man chose
+two out of his friends, the boldest and the trustiest he could fix upon,
+to accompany him, and at the same time he obtained the promise of a
+cousin, who was a priest, to assist in the undertaking. All four made
+their way up to the woods, and whilst the three men were digging and
+searching, the priest continued to read aloud the incantations out of a
+certain book he had brought with him for the purpose. In course of time
+the chest was discovered to the joy of all, and sure enough it was bulging
+with the desired gold pieces. They opened it without difficulty, and the
+four friends divided its contents in equal shares. Scarcely had the work
+of division been carried out, than there came a loud voice issuing from
+the unknown, calling out the question:--"_Che ferete con questo tesoro?_"
+"_Mangeremo, beveremo!_" boldly replied one of the group, to whom this
+sudden accession of wealth offered dreams of unlimited platters of
+maccaroni and countless flasks of ruby-red Gragnano in the future. "We
+shall eat, we shall drink, but we shall also make abundant alms!" called
+out another--let us hope it was the priest!--but no sooner had the word
+_elemosina_ (alms) been uttered than there was heard a most terrific
+rattling of chains, the gold pieces turned to dead leaves in the
+affrighted mortals' hands, and the four men took to their heels and fled
+in alarm down the mountain flank.
+
+Vincenzo believes this tale implicitly, just as it was related to him, and
+he adds to combat our own incredulity that the priest and one of the men
+who took part in this strange adventure were still living and ready to
+confirm the story, but that of the remaining two, one was now dead, and
+the other had been deaf and dumb ever since the event. It seem a pity to
+criticise Vincenzo's simple little narrative, which makes a pretty
+fairy-story and points a sound moral, as it stands.
+
+We enter the fresh scented woods that have now replaced in our climb the
+rich cultivated crops and terraced gardens, and here amidst the clumps of
+ancient chestnuts our guide points out to us the great snow-pits, the
+contents of which are used to cool the water sold by the _acquaioli_
+during hot summer nights in the sultry streets of Naples. These pits are
+dug about fifty feet deep, and half as much across, being conical in shape
+with a grating placed a short distance above the tapering base to allow
+the melted snow to drain off into the soil. The sides of each pit are
+first well-lined with straw and leafy branches, and the new-fallen snow
+shovelled in and forced into a solid mass by pressure from above, whilst
+on top is placed a sound thatched roof. As we wander through the silent
+woods we see patches of anemones, white and blue, lying upon the
+leaf-strewn ground, and beside them in many places are tufts of the pale
+starry primroses; coarse spurge, and lush masses of the hellebore with its
+large pale green flowers and dark leaves are common enough on all sides.
+From amongst the naked trees we emerge into the bare bleak stony stretches
+that lead to the summit, covered with the coarse but aromatic vegetation
+that clothes the dry limestone wastes of the south. How truly marvellous
+is the description of these wind-swept, weed-grown solitudes that Robert
+Browning presents to us in what is perhaps the most truly Italian in
+feeling of all his poems, "The Englishman in Italy!" For here with the
+rich imagination, worthy of some of Shelley's finest flights, is mingled
+an accurate appreciation of Nature, of which Wordsworth might well be
+proud; for the Lake poet himself could not have improved upon this
+exquisite description of the various shrubs and plants of a limestone
+hill-top in Italy.
+
+  "The wild path grew wilder each instant,
+    And place was e'en grudged
+  'Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones,
+    Like the loose broken teeth
+  Of some monster which climbed there to die
+    From the ocean beneath--
+  Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-weed
+    That clung to the path,
+  And dark rosemary ever a-dying,
+    That, spite the wind's wrath,
+  So loves the salt rock's face to seaward,
+    And lentisks as staunch
+  To the stone where they root and bear berries,
+    And ... what shows a branch
+  Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets
+    Of pale sea-green leaves."
+
+Above our heads hovers a kite, performing graceful circles in the keen
+clear air and breaking the oppressive silence of the place with his shrill
+screams, for his mate must have her nest hidden in some cleft of yon grey
+towering cliff. A pair of crested hoopoes with brown plumage and ruddy
+breasts keep fluttering a little way before us, uttering from time to time
+their curious notes of alarm. Mercifully these handsome birds have escaped
+the fowler, who lays his snares even amongst the spirit-haunted crags of
+this desolate region. The hoopoe, though a very rare visitor to our
+northern shores, is fairly common on the Mediterranean coast, and he would
+be still more frequently encountered, were it not for his hereditary
+enemy, Man. There is a venerable legend concerning this interesting
+bird--_bubbola_, the Italians call him--which relates how ages ago on the
+scorching plains of Palestine a number of hoopoes once followed King
+Solomon as he was riding, and in order to protect the great king from the
+fierce rays of the sun, they formed themselves into a living screen to
+shelter the royal head. Grateful for this welcome attention, Solomon Ben
+David at eventide sent for the king of the Hoopoes to ask him what reward
+he would like to receive for this service, and the answer was promptly
+made that a crown of pure gold on the head would be acceptable. The Jewish
+monarch smiled grimly as he granted the request, whereupon immediately
+each bird found his poll decorated with a tuft of pure golden feathers,
+and mightily pleased with their new magnificence were the conceited
+hoopoes. But alas! the news was quickly spread abroad that there were to
+be seen strange birds with plumes of real gold, and the eternal lust of
+gain at once set men in quest of the hoopoes, whom they began to slay
+wholesale with stones, arrows, and traps in order to obtain the coveted
+precious metal they bore on their heads. In despair, the king of the
+hoopoes then flew to the monarch sitting on his ivory throne at Jerusalem,
+and begged him to change their golden crowns for crests of feathers.
+Solomon the Wise smilingly gave the order; at once lovely red and black
+feathers took the place of the golden plumes, and the slaughter of the
+hoopoes in Palestine forthwith ceased. And the story, argues the recorder
+of this lesson upon the folly of personal adornment, must of necessity be
+true, for it is certain that the hoopoes bear a crown of feathers upon
+their heads unto this day.
+
+Slowly we toil up the last portion of the peak, until we reach the ruined
+chapel of St Michael upon its summit, which is still a resort of local
+pilgrims, although in these days of doubt and avarice, when "sins are so
+many and saints so few," the statue of the Archangel since its removal
+from this spot no longer perspires with the sacred dew, which the priests
+used to collect with cotton wool on the first day of August and distribute
+to the peasants of the district. Like the oil that was once wont to exude
+from the blessed relics of St Andrew in the Cathedral of Amalfi, _non c'�
+pi�_; we may possess motor cars and radium, but we must contrive to exist
+without these precious exhibitions of the miraculous.
+
+It would be sheer folly to attempt a full description of that glorious
+view, comprising the bays of Gaeta, Naples, and Salerno; of Vesuvius with
+his ascending smoky clouds; of the endless chain of the snow-tipped
+Abruzzi Mountains that bound the vision to the east; of the vast expanse
+of the Mediterranean, stretching in one unbroken sheet of turquoise to the
+west, varied by violet patches of reflected cloud, and studded by
+innumerable ships, from the vast liners to the tiny fishing craft with
+their glistening sails, like snow-white sea-swallows resting on the calm
+waters. Again we turn to Robert Browning, most human of poets and most
+kindly of philosophers, to find adequate expression for the thoughts we
+dare not, cannot utter.
+
+  "Oh, heaven and the terrible crystal!
+    No rampart excludes
+  Your eye from the life to be lived
+    In the blue solitudes.
+  Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement!
+    Still moving with you;
+  For ever some new head and breast of them
+    Thrusts into view
+  To observe the intruder; you see it
+    If quickly you turn,
+  And before they escape you surprise them.
+    They grudge you should learn
+  How the soft plains they look on, lean over
+    And love (they pretend)
+  --Cower beneath them, the flat sea-pine crouches,
+    The wild fruit-trees bend;
+  E'en the myrtle leaves curl, shrink and shut,
+    All is silent and grave:
+  'Tis a sensual and timorous beauty.
+    How fair! but a slave."
+
+  [Illustration: MONTE FAITO, CASTELLAMARE]
+
+We descend by the slopes of Monte Faito in the quiet of the evening,
+facing the distant headland of Posilipo and the sunset, where above the
+horizon we see collecting thick masses of dark purple cloud, which augur a
+stormy morrow. Above us the peak of the Archangel is already wreathed in
+garlands of white mist, a sure sign of coming tempest, and it is amid a
+lurid light from the sinking sun that we hasten downwards, bending our
+steps in the direction of Pozzano, where the form of its convent stands
+out sharply defined against the background of the Bay. Night is rapidly
+approaching, and in the gathering darkness as we strike the road below the
+convent, we can already hear the ominous roaring and seething of the
+waters under the cliff, lashed to fury by the first deep breaths of the
+coming squall. Hurrying along the broad smooth roadway it is not long
+before we reach our hotel door, where we bid good night to Vincenzo, just
+as the first heavy drops of rain have begun to fall; pleasantly exhausted
+after our long excursion, we are ready to appreciate to the full the
+warmth and good cheer of the hospitable Hotel Quisisana.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER III
+
+
+                              LA CITT� MORTA
+
+
+Pompeii can never be visited without the same haunting conviction, the
+same oppressive thought: how terribly difficult it is to understand the
+City of the Dead which holds in so small a space the whole secret of the
+antique world! There are far more grandiose and impressive ruins to be
+seen in Rome; the city of Timgad in Northern Africa is more complete as a
+specimen of a Roman settlement than the half-excavated town near Vesuvius;
+yet here, and here only, can the men of the past stretch hands, as it
+were, across the barrier of eighteen intervening centuries to the dweller
+of to-day, and the dead-and-gone spirits of a highly organized
+civilization can whisper into the living ears of the twentieth century.
+For Pompeii will speak to us, if we will take the trouble to learn the
+tongue in which alone she can convey the secret of her story. It is
+needless to say that this language is not obtainable by one or two cursory
+visits to the Naples Museum, and a few hurried half-hours given to the
+contents of the guide-book; no, the language of Pompeii, which constitutes
+the key of access to the hidden chambers of the Roman world, can only be
+acquired with much expenditure of precious time and with infinite trouble.
+But "life is short and time is fleeting," and our bustling age expects to
+seize its required knowledge in the twinkling of an eye; well, in that
+case the story of Pompeii must remain a sealed volume to the traveller,
+who is conveyed to the City of the Dead in a train crammed with
+fellow-tourists; who eats a heavy unwholesome luncheon to the sound of
+mandoline-players twanging sprightly Neapolitan airs; and who is finally
+piloted round the sacred area by a chattering guide in the oppressive heat
+and glare of a sunny afternoon. Fatigued in mind and body, such an one
+will sink with ill-concealed relief upon the dusty velvet cushions of the
+returning train, thoroughly disappointed in the vaunted marvels of
+Pompeii, which his imagination had led him to expect. A vague impression
+of low broken walls, of narrow--to his eyes absurdly narrow--streets, of
+broken columns and of peeling frescoes fills his tired brain, as he is
+borne back to his hotel in Naples. But this disenchantment is his own
+fault, for no one who sets foot within the Sea Gate of the buried city in
+the proper spirit of knowledge and appreciation can possibly fail to enjoy
+the privilege which has thus been afforded him--
+
+        "to stand within the City Disinterred;
+  And hear the autumnal leaves like light footfalls
+  Of spirits passing through the streets; and hear
+  The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals
+      Thrill through those roofless halls."
+
+Before passing through the Porta Marina into the purlieus of the city, let
+us first of all instil into our minds the essential difference that exists
+between the ruins of Pompeii and the historic fragments of Rome or Athens.
+When we gaze upon the well-known sites of the vanished glories of the
+Palatine or the Acropolis, we experience no effort in looking backward
+through the vista of the past and in conjuring up some vague
+representation of the scenes that were once enacted in these places; the
+more imaginative feel the very air vibrating with the unseen spirits of
+men and women famous in the world's history. He must be indeed a
+Philistine or a dullard who cannot contrive to arouse a passing exaltation
+at the thought of treading in the footsteps of Cicero and the Caesars in
+Rome, of Pericles and Socrates in Athens, for the very soil of the Forum
+and the stones of the citadel of Pallas seem impregnated with the very
+essence of history. But this is far from being the case at Pompeii, where
+long careful study of details and a grasp of hard facts are really of more
+avail than a poetic imagination in reclothing with flesh the dry bones of
+the past, for the importance of the Campanian city is almost purely
+social. The _names_ of many of its prominent citizens are certainly
+familiar to us from inscriptions found, yet who were these persons that we
+should take so deep an interest in their lives and fates? Who were Pansa
+the �dile, Eumachia the priestess, Caecilius Jucundus, Aulus Vettius and
+Epidius Rufus, and a score of other Pompeian worthies? The answer is, they
+were officials or simple dwellers in a flourishing provincial town; they
+had no especial literary or public reputation; their names were probably
+little known beyond the walls of their own city. Imagine an English
+country town, such as Exeter or Shrewsbury, suddenly overwhelmed by some
+unforeseen freak of Nature and afterwards embalmed in the manner of
+Pompeii as a curiosity for the edification of future ages. To what extent,
+we ask, would the discovery of a place of this size and population supply
+the existing dweller with a complete impression of our national life and
+civilization in the opening years of the twentieth century? The reply will
+be that it would give a very good idea of the average provincial town, but
+that it would hardly serve as a fair criterion to judge of the life
+pursued in the capital, or in the really large cities. Such a comparison
+will afford us a certain clue to the unveiling of the mysteries of
+Pompeii.
+
+For the city at the mouth of the Sarno was an ancient Campanian
+settlement, founded long before the days wherein Greek adventurers beached
+their triremes on the shores of the Siren. It was a native community of
+Oscans, deriving its name from the Oscan word _pompe_ (five), and, unlike
+Paestum, it appears to have retained its original appellation under all
+its successive masters. Its primitive inhabitants seem to have
+intermingled with their Hellenic victors, and to have grown civilized by
+intercourse with them. Temples of heavy Doric architecture were raised;
+walls and watch-towers were built; and by the time the city fell into the
+hands of the encroaching Romans, it had become a flourishing place with
+some twenty to thirty thousand inhabitants, owing its prosperity to its
+excellent situation at the mouth of the river, which made Pompeii a
+convenient port to serve the rich district of Campania that lies eastward
+of Vesuvius. Nuceria (the modern Nocera) and the larger city of Nola were
+both dependent on it, for the Sarno was in those days navigable, so that
+ships bringing Egyptian corn and Eastern merchandise frequently left the
+Pompeian harbour and sailed up stream to unload their cargoes at these
+cities. Let us picture then to ourselves a compact town, an irregular oval
+in form, surrounded by walls pierced by eight gates and embellished with
+twelve towers; its eastern extremity towards Nocera containing the
+Amphitheatre, and its most westerly point marked by the Herculaneum gate
+leading to the Street of Tombs. Southward, we must imagine the sea much
+closer to its walls than at the present day, for the alluvial deposits
+have in the course of nearly two thousand years added many acres of solid
+ground to the shores of the Bay. Behind the city to the north rose the
+mountain side, not seared with the traces of lava as in these days, nor
+surmounted by a smoking cone, but radiant with vineyards and gardens which
+extended unbroken up to the very rim of the ancient crater. Amidst the
+greenery of the luxuriant slopes peeped forth innumerable farms and villas
+of wealthy Romans, for this exquisite spot had long become an abode of
+cultured leisure. Within the closely packed streets of the town itself
+there were to be found few open spaces except the Forum, and perhaps a
+small park in front of the amphitheatre, for the place was prosperous,
+though not wealthy, and its chief citizens were forced to remain content
+with the tiny gardens enclosed within the walls of their own dwellings.
+
+Internally Pompeii presented, like many another Roman town, marks of its
+six hundred years of existence. There was at least one perfect Doric
+temple; there were Oscan-Grecian buildings, notably the so-called "House
+of the Surgeon," with its air of old-fashioned simplicity; there were
+houses of the Republican period; there were numberless dwellings of the
+Imperial era; there were unfinished structures that were being completed
+at the time of the city's overthrow. For, sixteen years before Vesuvius
+suddenly awoke from its long sleep, the neighbourhood had been visited by
+the severe earthquake shock of 63, and the effects produced by this
+disaster had not nearly been effaced, when the great event of 79
+transformed the town into a huge museum for the delight and instruction of
+future generations. Pompeii therefore preserves the marks of more than
+half a thousand years of civilization, so that those who will take the
+necessary trouble can trace within its area the gradual progress of its
+social and political life from the far-off days of Greeks and Oscans to
+the reign of the Emperor Titus. The case of a ruined Exeter or Shrewsbury
+could not be widely different. The students of ensuing ages would be able
+to find in the dead town one or two churches of Norman or Plantagenet
+times; portions of medieval city walls and gateways, perhaps even some
+undoubted traces of Roman baths or fortifications; some few public
+buildings erected under Tudor or Stuart sovereigns; a large number of the
+plain roomy mansions of the Georgian period; and, last of all, a
+preponderating quantity of nineteenth century structures of every
+description--churches, warehouses, factories, inns, barracks, shops,
+dwelling-houses. Many would be the inscriptions and monuments we should
+find in such a town, alluding to private and public persons utterly
+unknown to English history, but more or less noteworthy in local annals:
+grandees of civic life, soldiers, philanthropists, clergymen, _et hoc
+genus omne_. Future generations of scholars would doubtless strive eagerly
+to obtain details of the careers of these provincial worthies, who filled
+municipal offices in the reigns of Queen Victoria and King Edward, in
+order to throw more light upon the period wherein they flourished. Let us
+apply then the same principles to the study of Pompeii _mutatis mutandis_,
+for in our quest of better knowledge of the old Roman life we fix
+anxiously upon every detail concerning the leading personages of the dead
+city. Nevertheless, it is its existence in the aggregate that proves of
+surpassing interest to us; we desire to learn of the daily tasks and
+occupations of the mass of its population, rather than to become
+acquainted with the private histories of its leading individuals; we study
+the former, in fact, only as a means to a definite end. We cry for
+information, which to a certain extent we can secure, as to how an average
+Roman city was administered, provisioned, drained; how its inhabitants
+passed their time both in leisure and in business; how they amused
+themselves in their homes and in the theatre; what they ate and what they
+drank--the endless trifles of human life, in short, which like the
+_tesser�_, the tiny cubes of their own mosaic pavements, go to make up a
+complete picture out of a thousand fragments. Not a few of the cubes in
+this case are missing, it is true, nor are they ever likely to be found;
+nevertheless, we own an abundant supply wherewith we can piece together a
+tolerably accurate picture of the life of a Roman provincial city during
+the first century of the Christian era.
+
+It is of course quite outside our province to attempt any detailed account
+of the wonders of Pompeii. The reader who desires full information must
+turn to the elaborate works of Mau and Helbig, of Gell and Overbeck, to
+say nothing of the descriptive pages, full of condensed knowledge,
+contained in Murray's and Baedeker's guide-books in order to obtain a
+clear impression of all he wishes to inspect. We can but dwell on a point
+here and there, and even then but lightly and superficially, for any
+endeavour on our part to add to the statements and theories of the great
+archaeologists already cited would be indeed a matter of supererogation
+and presumption.
+
+Entering then by the Marine Gate, and pursuing our course eastwards along
+the lines of naked broken house-fronts, we reach the great rectangular
+space of the Forum. Here at its southern extremity let us select a shady
+corner, for the sun beats down fiercely upon the bare ruins at every
+season of the year, and even on a winter's afternoon the air often
+shimmers with the heat haze, so that in no place on earth is the use of an
+umbrella so necessary or desirable as at Pompeii.
+
+What an ideal spot for the founding of a city! That is our first
+impression, as we glance across the broad sunlit enclosure on to the
+empurpled slopes of Vesuvius rising grandly above the broken columns of
+the great temple of the Capitoline Jove; behind us, we know, is the azure
+Bay with Capri and the Sorrentine cape lying on its unruffled bosom, so
+that we stand between sea and mountain to north and south, whilst we have
+the luxuriant slopes of Vesuvius to westward, and to the east the rich
+valley of the Sarno, thickly dotted with groves and hamlets. One element
+alone is wanting in the glorious scene before us--Life; it will be our duty
+and pleasure to re-invest as far as possible this empty space before us
+with the semblance of the busy crowds that once flitted in and out of its
+colonnades and porticoes; to rebuild in imagination its shapeless ruins,
+so that we may obtain a fleeting picture of the Pompeian Forum in early
+Imperial days.
+
+  [Illustration: THE FORUM, POMPEII]
+
+Conceive, then, in front of us, instead of this long bare stretch flanked
+by broken walls and strewn with shapeless fragments of brick and stone, an
+immense double arcade, two stories in height, affording ample protection
+against sun or rain and enclosing an oblong pavement whereon are set
+numerous statues of emperors or private citizens, occupying lofty
+positions of honour above the heads of the surging throng below. Imagine
+that group of shattered pillars, which obstructs our full view of the
+distant cone of Vesuvius, transformed into an imposing temple, covered
+with polychrome decoration, not in the best of taste according to our
+modern ideas of art, but gorgeous and cheerful in the clear atmosphere of
+the south. Rebuild, in the mind's eye, the Basilica and the temple of
+Apollo on the left, and straight before us, as we look forward from our
+coign of vantage at the narrow southern end of the colonnade, let us plant
+the three dominant statues of Augustus, Claudius and Agrippina to form our
+foreground. If we can construct by stress of fancy some such setting of
+classical architecture, gay with primary colours and gilding and graceful
+in design, it is easier to people the Pompeian Forum with the masses of
+humanity that once mingled here. For we have the knowledge of modern
+Italian life to guide us to a certain extent; we have seen the swarms of
+citizens who to-day fill the main piazzas of the towns, especially those
+of the provincial type, where the morning market is held and the chief
+caf�s and shops are situated. But if the general use of the piazza is
+characteristic of the modern second-class Italian city, this concentration
+of life was far more marked in the ancient Roman town, wherein the Forum
+must have appeared as the very heart of the whole body social and politic.
+Roman city life indeed displayed two strongly antagonistic phases:--the
+utmost privacy in the home, the most public exhibition in the Forum, where
+every trade and form of business were carried on in the open air, and
+whither pursuit of gain, or pleasure, or religious duty led all the
+citizens to direct their steps. For, as we have already shown, almost all
+the public life of the place was concentrated within this space and its
+surroundings; temples, markets, shops, law courts, municipal offices, all
+abutted on the Forum; it was not merely the chief, but the only place that
+drew together the daily crowd, bent alike on business or amusement. No
+chariots were permitted to cross the area sacred to the claims of
+money-making, of gossip, and of worship; so that we must picture to
+ourselves a great mass of people undisturbed by the passing of vehicles,
+or by the shouts and whip-crackings of the noisy charioteers--was ever such
+a thing as a quiet Italian coachman, ancient or modern, we digress to
+wonder! All was orderly and decorous when compared with the quarrelling,
+screaming groups of citizens that block the congested streets of modern
+Naples. Happily for us various paintings of the Forum of Pompeii have been
+discovered, and these are naturally of immense value in helping us to a
+proper understanding of the habits and methods of the people, and of the
+general appearance of the Forum itself during its busiest hours. The
+costumes of men, women and children; the articles of clothing and of food
+ready for sale; the little knots of loiterers or gossips; the citizens
+intent on reading the municipal notices that are herein portrayed, all
+combine to present us with an authentic picture of Pompeian and therefore
+of Roman civic life. "There is nothing new under the sun," grumbled the
+Preacher many centuries before the city under Vesuvius had reached its
+zenith of civilization, and it must be confessed that the general
+impression conveyed after studying the contemporary pictures of antique
+life does not differ very widely from that which we obtain by observing
+present Italian conditions. For the frescoes in the Naples Museum and in
+certain of the Pompeian houses seem to recall strongly the scenes of the
+piazza, where all the elements of society, irrespective of rank or
+station, are still wont to congregate. Differences of dress, of manner, of
+custom are doubtless evident enough, yet somehow we perceive an essential
+sameness in these two representations of classical and modern Italy.
+Nevertheless, these simple and often rude wall-paintings furnish us with
+many pieces of information that we search for in vain amidst the ancient
+authors, who naturally considered the commonplace everyday scenes of life
+beneath the notice of contemporary record. We are enabled to learn, for
+instance, how the citizens were usually dressed in the Forum, and how, in
+an age when hats and umbrellas were practically non-existent, the pointed
+hood, like that of the Arab burnous, was often used to cover the head in
+cold or wet weather. Again, it is easy to perceive from the same source
+that the diet of the Pompeians must have resembled closely that of their
+present descendants; even the shape of the loaves has in most cases
+continued unchanged to the present day. And one curious coincidence is
+certainly worth mentioning, in that a peculiar method of preparing figs
+with caraway seeds, which was long supposed to be a local speciality of a
+remote town in Central Italy, has now been recognized as a common method
+of dressing this fruit for the table at Pompeii, for large quantities of
+figs so treated have been unearthed in shops and kitchens. Such grains of
+information as the wearing of hoods and the preserving of figs may appear
+trifling enough at first sight, yet it is from a number of petty details
+such as these that we are assisted to an intimate understanding of a state
+of society extinct nearly two thousand years ago.
+
+Close beside us on the eastern side of the Forum is set the Chalcidicum,
+the large building of the priestess Eumachia, one of the most gracious
+personalities of Pompeii with which the modern world has become
+acquainted. It was this lady who generously presented this structure, one
+of the handsomest and most solid of the public buildings of the city, to
+the fullers to serve as their exchange, wherein goods might be exposed
+upon benches and tables for the convenience alike of sellers and
+purchasers. "Priestess Eumachia," remarks a modern critic, "has done the
+thing well; no expense has been spared in the building and its
+decorations. The columns of the portico are of white marble; the statues
+of Piety and Concord, works of art; and the flower-borders along the
+panelled walls, prettily conceived and carefully executed. After so much
+plaster and stucco, it is a relief to see something so solid and genuine.
+When a third-rate city apes the capital, there must needs be a certain
+amount of sham. But at Pompeii it is all sham, or next door to it. In the
+entire city are not more than half a dozen edifices whose columns are of
+real marble, the bas-reliefs and cornices of anything more solid than
+stucco; and of these half-dozen, the Exchange heads the list."
+
+We feel tolerably secure in assigning this fine building to the early
+years of the Emperor Tiberius, and in naming the Emperor's mother, Livia,
+as the divinity to whom it was dedicated. The statue of Concord with the
+golden horn of plenty doubtless once adorned the large pedestal which
+still stands in the eastern apse of the Exchange, but though the figure
+and emblem were those of Concordia, the face bore certainly the features
+of Imperial Livia. Yet more interesting than the various speculations as
+to the actual uses of this edifice and the different names of the statues
+which once embellished its alcoves, is the circumstance that the marble
+portrait of the foundress herself has been discovered. It is true that
+only a copy in plaster now occupies the pedestal at the back of the apse
+where Eumachia's statue once stood, for the original has been removed for
+safety to Naples, but it is not difficult to call to mind the calm gentle
+face of this Pompeian Lady Bountiful, and her graceful figure in its
+flowing robes. The existence of this statue adds undoubtedly a touch of
+special human interest to the whole building, and we find our minds
+excited by the brief inscription which still informs the curious that the
+fullers of Pompeii erected this portrait in marble in grateful
+appreciation "to Eumachia, a city-priestess, daughter of Lucius
+Eumachius."
+
+Outside the Chalcidicum, at the corner of the lane usually termed Via
+dell' Abbondanza, is to be seen a pathetic little memorial of the working
+life of the city: the fountain of Concordia Augusta, the divinity of
+Eumachia's noble building hard by. Dusty and heating is the business of
+fulling cloth, and it generates thirst, so that it is but natural to find
+a fountain close at hand, whereat the labourers could refresh their
+parched throats. With what eagerness must the exhausted toilers during
+those long summers of centuries past have leaned forward to press their
+human lips to the cool mouth of the sculptured goddess that ejected with
+pleasing gurgles a volume of water into the basin below! That this
+fountain proved a boon to weary citizens is evident enough, for the
+features of water-spouting Concordia are half worn away by thirsty human
+kisses, and her suppliants' hands have left deep smooth furrows in the
+stone-work of the basin, whereon they were wont to support their bodies,
+so as to direct the cooling draught into the dry and dusty gullet. In
+Italian cities to-day we can frequently observe some exhausted labourer
+bend deftly downwards to snatch a drink of water from the mouth of some
+fantastic figure in a public fountain. Who has not paused, for instance,
+beside Tacca's famous bronze boar in the Florentine market-place without
+noting an incident of this kind? If we ourselves are too dainty to place
+our own aristocratic lips where our fellow-mortals have pressed theirs,
+not so are the abstemious descendants of the ancient Romans, the Italians,
+whose minds remain untroubled by any nasty-nice qualms of possible
+infection.
+
+Here then is the setting of the picture, and we must ourselves endeavour
+to repeople the empty space with the crowds of high and low that once
+collected here.
+
+"It is high change, and the Forum is crowded. All Pompeii is here, and his
+wife. _Patres conscripti_, inclined to corpulence, taking their
+constitutional, exquisites lazily sauntering up and down the pavements;
+decurions discussing the affairs of the nation, and the last news from
+Rome; city magnates fussing, merchants chaffering, clients petitioning,
+parasites fawning, soldiers swaggering, and Belisarius begging at the
+gate.... It is a bright and animated scene. Beneath, the crowded Forum,
+with its colonnades and statues, at one end a broad flight of steps
+leading to the Temple of Jupiter, at the other a triumphal arch; on one
+side the Temple of Venus and the Basilica; on the other the Macellum, the
+Temple of Mercury, the Chalcidicum; overhead the deep blue sky. Mingled
+with the hum of many voices and the patter of feet on the travertine
+pavement are the ringing sounds of the stonemasons' chisels and hammers,
+for the Forum is undergoing a complete restoration. Although fifteen years
+have elapsed since the city was last visited by earthquake, the damage
+then done to the public buildings has not been entirely repaired. First
+the Gods, then the people. The temples of Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury are
+completed, but the Forum and Chalcidicum are still in the workmen's
+hands."(2)
+
+With this fleeting glimpse at the public life of the city, let us now turn
+our attention to its domestic arrangements. Of the many houses which have
+been excavated of recent years under the truly admirable superintendence
+of Signor Fiorelli, none is better calculated to give us a striking
+impression of the working details of an upper-class Roman household than
+the private dwelling which is known equally under the two names of the
+Casa Nuova and the House of the Vettii;--perhaps the former name has now
+ceased to own any significance, since the buildings were laid bare as far
+back as the winter of 1894-5. An hour or two spent in a careful inspection
+of this house and its contents is to most persons worth four times the
+same amount of time occupied in aimless wandering amongst the hot glaring
+streets of the city, peeping into this courtyard and that, and listening
+to the interminable tales of guide or custodian. If we study the Casa
+Nuova intelligently, lovingly and minutely, it will not be long before we
+obtain a tolerable grasp of Roman life and manners, which will prove of
+immense service and of genuine delight. What then is it, the question will
+be asked, that makes the House of the Vettii so valuable as an example of
+antique architecture and decoration, in preference to other mansions which
+can boast an equal and often a greater distinction? The answer is simple
+enough: it is because this particular group of buildings has been allowed
+to remain as far as practicable in the exact condition wherein it was
+originally unearthed, when its various rooms and courts were once more
+exposed to the light of day. For until the clearing of this "new house" a
+decade or so ago, no proper opportunity had so far been afforded to the
+amateur of our own times of judging for himself the interior of a Roman
+dwelling in full working order, and with all its furniture, paintings, and
+utensils complete. Up to this, almost every object of value had been
+removed at once for safety, every fresco even of importance had been cut
+bodily out of its setting and placed in one of those immense halls on the
+ground floor of the Museum in Naples. How well do we remember those gaunt
+chilly chambers, filled from pavement to ceiling with painted fragments of
+all sizes, a medley of domestic subjects and of classical myths! Torn from
+the walls they were specially executed to adorn, divorced from their
+proper scheme of surrounding ornament, these wan dejected ghosts stare at
+us like faces out of a mist. The uninitiated cannot find pleasure in them,
+for they have no pretention to be called works of art; on the contrary
+they form an inherent part of a conventional system of house decoration.
+The classical student can of course find many points of interest in the
+incidents portrayed, but all charm of local environment is absent;--it is,
+in short, impossible to judge of Roman decoration from this collection of
+crumbling, fading pieces of painted stucco. It would be as easy to imagine
+the effect of a rose-bush in full bloom from the sight of a few withered
+rose-buds, pressed until every vestige of colour had left their petals, as
+to understand the significance of antique domestic art from the contents
+of the Museo Nazionale.
+
+But here, in the House of the Vettii, the public was for the first time
+initiated into the mysteries of true Roman life; here it was admitted to
+gaze upon the fruits of classical taste and refinement, and to contrast
+them, favourably or unfavourably, with prevailing modern standards. The
+Casa Nuova has been left as an object lesson, a complete museum in itself,
+wherein every daily incident of Pompeian life, every domestic secret,
+reveal themselves to our inquisitive eyes. Here in the roofless halls we
+can be taken from entrance to dining-hall, from _atrium_ to sleeping
+rooms, spying into the minutest detail of shape, size and colour, as
+though we were seriously intending to rent the house for our own
+habitation. The last tenant has even left his money-chest in his hall, his
+pots and pans in the kitchen, and as we inspect his utensils, we wonder if
+they would suit our own requirements to-day. Of portable objects of
+value--plate, jewels, statuettes of precious metals and the like--belonging
+to the late owner, there is certainly no trace, for Signor Fiorelli's
+labourers were not the first to break the deep silence of this buried
+mansion. For it was the survivors of the stricken town, the citizens of
+Pompeii themselves, who were the foremost pioneers to excavate, and they
+carried off every work of art they could conveniently remove. Cutting from
+above into the deposit of ashes that filled the streets, they managed to
+reach in course of time the level of the ground, after which they
+tunnelled from room to room, from house to house, collecting every object
+they thought worth the trouble of transporting. Perhaps the owners of the
+house, the Vettii themselves, presuming they escaped in the general
+catastrophe, may have returned with skilled workmen to recover some of
+their treasures; perhaps some "man of three letters"--the colloquial Roman
+term for thief (_fur_)--may have forestalled the masters' efforts--who
+knows? And at this distance of time, who cares?
+
+The house once occupied by Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus Vettius
+Corvina stands in a quiet district not far from the Capuan Gate, and
+consequently at some distance from the Forum. Like all Roman habitations
+it was essentially Oriental in its outward aspect, and must have resembled
+closely any one of those mysterious dwellings of wealthy Arab citizens
+which we constantly encounter in the native quarters of Algiers or Tunis.
+The gateway giving on the street was wide, certainly, but it was well
+defended both by human and canine porters; its windows were few and small,
+and were probably closely latticed like those of the nunneries which we
+sometimes perceive overhead in the crowded streets of Naples. There must
+have been something austere, even suspicious, in the external appearance
+of the Casa de' Vettii, but snarling dog and grim janitor have long since
+disappeared, and we pass unmolested through the _atrium_ and thence into
+the Great Peristyle, which is perhaps the most remarkable feature of this
+house. The peristyle, as its name implies, is a Greek importation in a
+Roman city, and its use would have been scorned by the old-fashioned
+citizens, such as the master of the "House of the Surgeon"; yet it was in
+truth admirably suited to the character of Southern Italy, where it
+afforded shelter from sun and wind, and its arcades protected from the
+rainfall. The peristyle of the Vettii, with its gaudily tinted pillars of
+stucco, is highly ornate; perhaps it passes the limits of good taste in
+certain points of colour and �sthetic decoration, yet the general effect
+is undoubtedly pleasing to the eye. This courtyard is at once a lounge
+open to the sky; it is a garden; it is an art-gallery; for the cheerful
+court of Greek domestic architecture had nothing in common with its
+successor of the Middle Ages, the monastic cloister of religious
+meditation. Cannot we imagine to ourselves the goodman of the house
+proudly leading his guests after a sumptuous meal in the adjacent
+dining-room into the cool corridors of his peristyle, in order to point
+out to them his statues and vases of bronze or porphyry, and to expatiate
+upon their value or elegance of form? On such a festive occasion these
+great shallow basins of pure white marble before us would be heaped high
+with fragrant pyramids of red and white roses, roses that were perhaps
+plucked all dewy in the famous gardens of Paestum on the other side of
+Mons Gaurus. For the flowering shrubs in the tiny pleasaunce itself are
+far too precious to be stripped of their blossoms in so lavish a manner,
+and perhaps if Vettius be anything of an amateur gardener, he may comment
+to his visitors upon the rare plants that fill his diminutive flower-beds.
+Careful and reverent hands have restored the little garden as near as
+possible to its pristine plan and appearance. There are still standing the
+two bronze statues of urchins holding in their chubby arms ducks from
+whose bills once gushed the limpid water, making a soothing sound amidst
+the alleys of the peristyle; corroded and injured they certainly appear,
+yet here they hold their original positions in Vettius' domain long after
+temple and tower have fallen to the ground. The marble chairs and tripod
+tables likewise remain, and around them still thrive the very plants that
+the servants of the house were wont to tend in the days of Titus. For, by
+a rare chance, we find depicted on the walls of the excavated house the
+actual flowers and herbs that were popular during Vettius' lifetime, and
+these have been replanted by modern hands in the garden of the peristyle.
+There are clumps of papyrus, the strange mop-headed rush from the banks of
+the Nile, introduced into Italy as a botanical novelty after the conquest
+of Egypt; there are rose-bushes, of course; and also masses of shining ivy
+trained in the ancient Roman manner upon a cage of wicker-work fixed into
+the soil. As we watch the verdure-clad sunlit space there descends,
+delicately fluttering, one of those splendid pale yellow brimstone
+butterflies of the South with flame-coloured blushes on its wings, and
+after some moments of graceful hesitation, this new visitor settles upon
+the purple head of an iris bloom. With its vivid colouring and its quick
+movements the butterfly brings an atmosphere of life into the courtyard
+that was hitherto lacking. Its appearance too suggests the famous
+allegory, the unsolved riddle of human existence which so puzzled the
+divine Plato and the ancient philosophers of Athens and Syracuse. Here are
+we, the living men of to-day, watching the corpse of a departed world upon
+which the mystic symbol of Psyche has just alighted. _Tempus breve est_ is
+the simple little truism that rises to our reflecting minds. Eighteen
+centuries between the Vettii and ourselves! They are gone like a flash,
+and we are amazed to note how little has our nature altered either for the
+better or the worse within that space of time, long enough if we measure
+its limit by the standard of history, trivial if we reckon it by the
+progress made in human ethics and human understanding. Surely there are
+lessons to be learned in the silent city; Pompeii, we realize, is not
+merely a heap of antique dross whence we can pick up precious grains of
+knowledge, but it is an oracle in itself, which, if properly consulted,
+will give us plain answers to our modern speculations, and will possibly
+reprove us for our conceited assumption of omniscience.
+
+  [Illustration: LA CASA DEI VETTII, POMPEII]
+
+Still brilliant in their strong prevailing tints of black, yellow and
+vermilion are the decorative schemes which make a visit to the house of
+the Vettii of such supreme importance for those who wish to understand
+fully the artistic tastes of the Romans, and also their artistic
+limitations. If the contents of the Museum seem colourless and cold, and
+prove unsatisfying and disappointing, here the eye of the artist can feast
+upon the classical ornamentation which remains fairly fresh in spite of a
+dozen years of exposure to daylight. For this province of art is
+peculiarly associated with the opening years of the Empire, and Pompeii is
+naturally the chief place for its study, and in Pompeii the untouched Casa
+Nuova is all important for the student. According to Pliny, the inventor
+of this pleasing style of decoration was a certain Ludius, who flourished
+in the reign of Augustus, and first persuaded the Romans to embellish
+their flat wall-surfaces with designs of "villas and halls, artificial
+gardens, hedges, woods, hills, water basins, tombs, rivers, shores, in as
+great a variety as could be desired; figures sitting at ease, mariners,
+and those who, riding upon donkeys or in waggons, look after their farms;
+fishermen, snarers of birds, hunters and vine-dressers; also swampy
+passages before beautiful villas, and women borne by men who stagger under
+their burdens, and other witty things of this nature; finally, views of
+sea-ports, everything charming and suitable":--a fairly long and
+comprehensive list of subjects, truly, from which a patron might pick and
+choose, or an artist might execute!
+
+Although the great architect Vitruvius strongly denounced this new
+striving after scenic effect and characterized it as petty and false, yet
+none can deny that these cheerful scenes with their bright colours and
+their agreeable if trivial subjects were singularly well adapted to
+improve the appearance of the bare narrow rooms, the meagre proportions of
+which seem to us absolutely incompatible with plain comfort, to say
+nothing of luxury. Space may be increased, so far as the eye is concerned,
+by an architectural or landscape painting ingeniously conceived, and thus
+the restricted rooms seem to obtain by means of this new system of
+decoration a wider expansion, and with it an increased sense of ease and
+lightness. The invention of Ludius became at once the fashion, the rage;
+and all Rome began to cover the walls of its narrow chambers with these
+novel designs, which had already found favour in Imperial circles.
+Campania, where the old Greek love for polychrome still lingered, was not
+slow in imitating the new taste of the Capital, so that Pompeii bears
+undoubted testimony to the popularity of this revolution in artistic
+ideas, which substituted a lighter freer method for the old conventional
+severity of treatment. Experts profess to trace--and none will endeavour to
+gainsay them--a marked difference between the frescoes executed before the
+earthquake of 63 and those undertaken subsequent to that date. The wall
+paintings of the first group, carried out when the art was comparatively
+novel, are superior in harmony of colour, in choice of themes and in
+technical finish to those which belong to the latter period, the sixteen
+years that intervened between the earthquake and the eruption of Vesuvius.
+From this circumstance it has been inferred, not without reason, that this
+particular house must have passed some time before the year 63 out of the
+possession of people of good taste into the hands of vulgarians, ignorant
+of the fundamental principles of art and anxious only to obtain what was
+startling and garish. As freedmen, the two Vettii would naturally belong
+to a class which was not remarkable for culture; nevertheless, they seem
+to have had the good sense to leave intact some of their predecessor's
+most cherished works of decoration, and for this exhibition of restraint
+we must feel duly grateful towards our dead-and-gone hosts, the maligned
+Vettii.
+
+But it is not only for purposes of examining Roman internal decoration _in
+situ_ that this art gallery of the Casa Nuova is available. Below the
+painted panels of the dining-room runs a long string of ornament, whereon
+are represented Cupids and Psyches engaged in the various occupations of
+Pompeian daily life. Full of dainty grace and of lively expression, these
+little winged figures initiate us into a number of the trades and customs
+of the ancients. For they are made to appear before us as goldsmiths,
+vine-dressers, makers and sellers of olive oil, dealers in wine, fullers
+of cloth, and as partakers in a dozen other scenes of town or country
+life. Where learned antiquaries had hitherto doubted and disputed, the
+discovery of the paintings of these celestial little mechanics and
+merchants helped to solve many a difficulty, for the secret of half the
+arts and crafts of Pompeii is revealed to us in this playful guise. Nor
+are the designs themselves contemptible from an artistic point of view;
+look how intent, for example, is the pose of the tiny jeweller working
+with a graver's tool upon the gold vessel before him; how steadily he
+bears himself at a task which requires at once strength of hand and
+delicacy of workmanship. Look again at the nervous pose of the pretty elf
+who is gingerly pouring wine out of a huge amphora, which he holds in his
+arms, into a shallow tasting cup offered by a brother Cupid. How
+thoroughly must the unknown artist have enjoyed the task of painting this
+frieze! How unfettered his fancy, as his brush glided smoothly and deftly
+over the carefully prepared wall-surface! Excellent, no doubt, he thought
+his work at the time of execution, but even the most conceited of
+Campanian artists could hardly have dreamed that these creations of his
+brush would still at the end of two thousand years be admired, commented
+upon and even reproduced in thousands, by a process he never dreamed of,
+for the benefit of citizens of nations as yet unborn or unforeseen.
+
+As the spring evening softly steals over the city and the shadows of the
+colonnades lengthen, let us leave the silent halls and chambers of the
+Casa dei Vettii and turn our footsteps westward; and issuing out of the
+Gate of Herculaneum, let us traverse the famous Street of Tombs, that
+extends along the road leading to the sister buried city. In ancient times
+this was the Via Domitiana, a branch road of the Appian Way, and it formed
+the most frequented entrance into Pompeii. To Roman ideas, therefore, it
+was but natural that tombs should be erected alongside its borders, whilst
+the spirits of the passing and repassing crowds were in no wise affected
+by the memorials of death attending their exits and entrances. And with
+the surging human tide that was ever flowing in this thoroughfare the
+funeral processions must constantly have mingled, the wailing of the hired
+mourners rising sharply above the din of harsh voices, the creaking of
+clumsy wooden wheels and the braying of the heavily laden asses. Now over
+all reigns a decorous silence, such as we moderns deem fitting for a
+cemetery; only the hum of insects breaks the deep quiet of the atmosphere,
+nor are there any living creatures visible at this late hour save the bats
+which flit restlessly in and out of the weed-grown piles of brick or stone
+that once were stately monuments of wealth or piety. Above our heads the
+tall sombre cypresses shoot upward like gigantic spear-heads into the
+crystal-clear air, pointing heavenward like our own church spires in a
+rural English landscape. This Street of the Dead in the City of the Dead
+is in truth a solemn and a soothing spot; nor can we find its precincts
+melancholy, when we stand in the midst of such glorious scenery. For Monte
+Sant' Angelo towers to our left against the mellow evening sky, flecked
+with lines of peach-blossom cloud, whilst in front of us the dark form of
+Capri seems to float in a golden haze between firmament and ocean. Behind
+us the dark mass of the Mountain with its breath of ascending smoke seems
+like an eternal funeral pyre in honour of the Dead, who were spared the
+horrors of that fearful disaster which overwhelmed the living. Upon the
+broken tombs and altars the light from the setting sun falls with warm
+cheerful radiance, flushing stone and brick-work with a ruddy glow like
+jasper; whilst, high in the heavens above the cypress tops, the crescent
+moon prepares to turn to gold from silver.
+
+_Beati sunt mortui_: here rest, we know, the priestess Mammia, the
+decemvir Aricius, Libella the aedile, and a host of other citizens with
+whose names the student or the lover of Pompeii is familiar. How many a
+time has this line of roadway rung with the sound of the last sad appeal,
+the thrice repeated valediction: "_Vale, vale, vale!_ farewell until the
+day when Nature will allow us to follow thee!" How often have the wooden
+pyres flung up in these precincts their clouds of perfumed smoke into the
+clear air, now redolent with the aroma of yellow broom, of dewy thyme and
+of sweet marigolds! Perhaps it was amidst these lines of cypress-set tombs
+by the Herculaneum Gate that the poetic genius, whose verses were spurned
+by his own generation, composed his famous Ode to Naples, for in its
+opening lines Shelley tells us it was the aspect of the "city disinterred"
+that gave him inspiration:--
+
+  "Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre
+  Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure
+  Were to spare Death, had never made erasure;
+    But every living lineament was clear
+    As in the sculptor's thought; and there
+  The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy and pine,
+   Like winter-leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow,
+   Seemed only not to move and grow,
+   Because the crystal silence of the air
+   Weighed on their life...."
+
+Tranquilly and slowly descends night upon the untenanted city, as one by
+one the stars begin to peep forth like chrysolites in the heavens, which
+have changed from azure to a deep indigo during the sunset hour. Amid
+chilly dews, to the sound of the evening bell from the distant church of
+Santa Maria di Pompeii, we hasten in the growing darkness from the Street
+of the Tombs towards our modest inn outside the Marine Gate, anticipating
+with delight a ramble in the city in the freshness of the coming morning.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IV
+
+
+                   VESUVIUS: THE STORY OF THE MOUNTAIN
+
+
+The first appearance of Vesuvius, whether viewed from the deck of a
+steamer entering the Bay of Naples or espied from the window of a railway
+carriage on the main line running southward from Rome, makes an impression
+that will linger for ever in the memory. It is open to argument which is
+the more striking of the two experiences: the Mountain rising proudly from
+the deep blue waters into the paler shade of the upper air, or its
+graceful broken contour seen from the landward side to the north across
+the green fertile plains of the Campagna Felice. From a long acquaintance
+with both ways of approaching Naples, we are inclined to prefer the latter
+view. Travelling in an express train from Rome we find ourselves whirled
+suddenly, by magic as it were, into the atmosphere of the South, when with
+the sight of the domes and towers of Capua, the ancient capital of
+Campania the Prosperous, we first note the presence of orange trees and
+hedges of aloe, of white lupin crops and clumps of prickly pear, and we
+feel we are nearing Naples with "its burning mountain and its tideless
+sea," so that we eagerly strain our eyes in a southerly direction to catch
+our first glimpse of Vesuvius, with whose shape and history we have been
+so familiar since our childhood's days. At length we perceive its double
+summit, with smoke tranquilly issuing from the cone and obscuring the
+clarity of the air, and as we hurry forward towards our destination,
+through the plains studded with elm-trees festooned with vines, we have
+the satisfaction of observing its form grow larger and more distinct in
+outline.
+
+On our arrival at Naples, in course of time we grow more intimately
+acquainted with the peculiar attractions of "the Mountain," as the
+Neapolitans always designate their treacherous but fascinating neighbour,
+of whose near existence they have every reason to be proud, for certainly
+Vesuvius, though barely as lofty as Ben Nevis, _is_ to us westerns the
+most famous mountain upon earth. Regarding Vesuvius both from the land and
+the sea, we note that it rises in solitary majesty from an extended base
+some thirty miles in circumference, and that it sweeps upwards in graceful
+curving lines until at a distance of about 3000 feet from sea level its
+summit is cleft into two peaks; that to the north being a rocky ridge
+which catches our eye as we gaze eastward from the heights of Sant' Elmo
+or the Corso at Naples, the other point being the actual cone of the
+volcano itself. The upper part of the Mountain has in fact two aspects; in
+other words, Vesuvius is double, being composed of the ridge of Monte
+Somma to the north, 3760 feet in height, which is pre-historic; and the
+ever-shifting modern dome of Vesuvius to the south, which is _about_ 4000
+feet high. We say "about" purposely, for Vesuvius proper sometimes
+over-tops, sometimes equals, and sometimes even crouches under its
+immovable sister-peak, according to the effect produced by volcanic
+action. Monte Somma, which is one of the everlasting hills, is the parent,
+and Vesuvius is the child, born but yesterday from a geological point of
+view, for it is not so old as the Christian era;--"it is a variable heap
+thrown up from time to time, and again, not seldom, by a greater effort of
+the same force, tossed away into the air, and scattered in clouds of dust
+over far-away countries. Thus it has happened often, in the course of
+these variations of energy, that Vesuvius has risen to a conical height
+exceeding that of Somma by 500 or 600 feet, and again, the top has been
+truncated to a level as low as Somma, or even as much below that mountain
+as we now behold it above."(3)
+
+To understand the story of the Mountain, therefore, it is necessary for us
+to travel back in retrospect to ancient Roman days. In the first place,
+however, one word as to its present name that we use to-day, for all are
+familiar with Vesuvius, but comparatively few, until they visit Naples,
+have heard mention made of Monte Somma. The name of Vesuvius, then, though
+strictly applicable only to the volcanic and modern portion of the
+Mountain, is not a recent appellation; on the contrary, it is probably of
+far more ancient origin than _Mons Summanus_ by which the whole was known
+to the Romans. The point is by no means unimportant, for etymologists
+derive Vesuvius from the Syriac "Vo Seevev, the abode of flame," thereby
+proving to us that whatever opinions may have been held as to the nature
+of the Mountain in the century preceding the Christian era, its volcanic
+nature must have been perfectly well understood by those who gave it this
+suggestive title in a more remote age. But the secret locked up in Mons
+Summanus was not altogether unsuspected by the Roman scientists. Strabo,
+the geographer, writing about thirty years before the birth of Christ,
+made a careful examination of the crest of Mons Summanus, then a
+saucer-shaped hollow surrounded by a steep rocky edge and occupied by a
+flat plain covered with cinders and void of grass, although the flanks of
+the Mountain were extraordinarily fertile. From what he saw during his
+visit, Strabo conjectured the Mountain to be an extinct volcano, in which
+surmise he was destined to be proved partly in the right and partly in the
+wrong; whilst Vitruvius, the famous architect of the Emperor Augustus,
+"who found Rome of brick and left it of marble," as well as Tacitus the
+historian, shared the same opinion. About a century and a half before the
+first recorded eruption in 79, Mons Summanus figures prominently in Roman
+history as the scene of a curious incident during the Servile War, so that
+in the pages of the old chronicler Florus we obtain an interesting
+description--especially interesting because it was not given for scientific
+purposes--of the condition of the mountain top at that period. The brave
+gladiator Spartacus and his intrepid band of revolted slaves, seeking a
+place of safety from the pursuing Roman legions, not very wisely selected
+the top of this isolated peak, which, although affording a good position
+of defence and possessing a wide outlook over the Campanian plain, had
+only one narrow passage in its rocky rim to serve as entrance or outlet.
+Followed hither by the Roman forces and caught like rats in a trap,
+Spartacus and his men were doomed either to be reduced by starvation, or
+else to run the gauntlet of the sole narrow exit, which the Senate's
+commander, Clodius Glabrus, was already guarding. The story of Spartacus'
+escape from his terrible dilemma is told in the history of Florus, and
+repeated with further details by Plutarch in his Life of Crassus.
+
+"Clodius the Pr�tor, with three thousand men, besieged them in a mountain,
+having but one narrow and difficult passage, which Clodius kept guarded;
+all the rest was encompassed with broken and slippery precipices, but upon
+the top grew a great many wild vines: they cast down as many of these
+boughs as they had need of, and twisted them into ladders long enough to
+reach from thence to the bottom, by which, without any danger, all got
+down save one, who stayed behind to throw them their arms, after which he
+saved himself with the rest."
+
+A dozen learned statements of a scientific nature as to the ancient
+appearance and slumbering condition of the Mountain could not impress our
+imagination more vividly with its subsequent natural changes than the
+account of this episode of Spartacus and his handful of rebels,
+beleaguered by Clodius within the very crater of the volcano. We can see
+the Mountain in the last years of the Roman Republic before us, with its
+truncated cone encircled by a low rampart of rock half hidden by wild
+vine, ivy, eglantine, honeysuckle and all the creeping plants whose tough
+trailing stems enabled the besieged gladiators to effect their escape from
+the snare into which they had unwittingly fallen. We can understand from
+this event how utterly remote was the idea of any upheaval of nature to
+the dwellers on these shores, whose ancestors remembered the crest of the
+mountain as the scene of a military operation.
+
+The first warning of a coming eruption after unnumbered centuries of quiet
+was given by a series of earthquakes which did an immense amount of damage
+at Herculaneum and Pompeii; yet in a district which had from time
+immemorial been subject to similar convulsions of nature, the shocks,
+though unusually distressing and destructive to life and property, were
+evidently unconnected in the popular mind with their true cause: the
+reawakening to life of the mountain overhead. The mischief done by the
+earthquakes was accordingly repaired as quickly as possible, and the
+normal course of life was resumed until the terrific and wholly unexpected
+outbreak of August 24th 79, during the reign of the Emperor Titus. Of
+this, the first recorded eruption of Vesuvius, we are exceptionally
+fortunate in possessing the testimony of a credible eye-witness, who was
+no less a personage than Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, better known to
+the modern world as Pliny the Younger, who wrote two lengthy letters to
+Tacitus on the subject of this event, the first describing the fate of his
+uncle, the Elder Pliny, most eminent of Roman naturalists, who perished
+during this period of terror; and the second containing a more detailed
+account of the eruption itself. For it so happened--luckily for
+posterity--that at the time of this sudden outburst of Mons Summanus, the
+Elder Pliny was in command of the Roman fleet at Misenum on the Bay of
+Naples, where his young nephew (who was also his adopted son) was living
+with his mother in a villa. "On the 24th of August," writes Pliny the
+Younger some eleven years after the event he is about to describe, "about
+one in the afternoon, my mother desired my uncle to observe a cloud which
+appeared of a very unusual size and shape. He had just returned from
+taking the benefit of the sun, and after bathing himself in cold water,
+and taking a slight repast, was retired to his study. He immediately arose
+and went out upon an eminence, from whence he might more distinctly view
+this very uncommon appearance. It was not at that distance discernible
+from what mountain this cloud issued, but it was found afterwards to
+ascend from Mount Vesuvius. I cannot give a more exact description of its
+figure than by resembling it to that of a pine-tree, for it shot up to a
+great height in the form of a trunk, which extended itself on the top into
+a sort of branches, occasioned, I imagine, either by a sudden gust of air
+that impelled it, the force of which decreased as it advanced upwards, or
+the cloud itself being pressed back again by its own weight, expanded in
+this manner; it appeared sometimes bright, and sometimes dark and spotted,
+as it was more or less impregnated with earth and cinders. This
+extraordinary phenomenon excited my uncle's philosophical curiosity to
+take a nearer view of it." The nephew then proceeds to relate how his
+uncle sailed by way of Retina, the port of Herculaneum, to Stabiae, where
+he met with his second in command, one Pomponianus. Meanwhile the Younger
+Pliny, who had declined to accompany his uncle's expedition on the plea of
+having to pursue the studies with which as a hard-working youth of
+seventeen he was evidently engrossed, became alarmed during the night for
+the Elder Pliny's safety. His own and his mother's terrible experiences
+are vividly portrayed in the second letter, which, at the historian's
+special request, the Younger Pliny wrote to Tacitus in later years.
+
+"When my uncle had started, I spent such time as was left on my studies--it
+was on their account, indeed, that I had stopped behind. Then followed the
+bath, dinner and sleep, this last disturbed and brief. There had been
+noticed for many days before a trembling of the earth, which had caused,
+however, but little fear, because it is not unusual in Campania. But that
+night it was so violent, that one thought everything was being not merely
+moved, but absolutely overturned. My mother rushed into my chamber; I was
+in the act of rising, with the same intention of awaking her, should she
+have been asleep. We sat down in the open court of the house, which
+occupied a small space between the buildings and the sea. And now--I do not
+know whether to call it courage or folly, for I was but in my eighteenth
+year--I called for a volume of Livy, read it as if I were perfectly at
+leisure, and even continued to make some extracts which I had begun. Just
+then arrived a friend of my uncle, who had lately come to him from Spain;
+when he saw that we were sitting down--that I was even reading--he rebuked
+my mother for her patience, and me for my blindness to the danger. Still I
+bent myself as industriously as ever over my book. It was now seven
+o'clock in the morning, but the daylight was still faint and doubtful. The
+surrounding buildings were now so shattered, that in the place where we
+were, which though open was small, the danger that they might fall on us
+was imminent and unmistakable. So we at last determined to quit the town.
+A panic-stricken crowd followed us.... We saw the sea retire into itself,
+seeming, as it were, to be driven back by the trembling movement of the
+earth. The shore had distinctly advanced, and many marine animals were
+left high and dry upon the sands. Behind us was a dark and dreadful cloud,
+which, as it was broken with rapid zig-zag flashes, revealed behind it
+variously shaped masses of flame; these last were like sheet lightning,
+though on a larger scale.... It was not long before the cloud that we saw
+began to descend upon the earth and cover the sea. It had already
+surrounded and concealed the island of Capreae, and had made invisible the
+promontory of Misenum. My mother besought, urged, even commanded me to fly
+as best I could; 'I might do so,' she said, 'for I was young; she, from
+age and corpulence, could move but slowly, but would be content to die, if
+she did not bring death upon me.' I replied that I would not seek safety
+except in her company; I clasped her hand and compelled her to go with me.
+She reluctantly obeyed, but continually reproached herself for delaying
+me. Ashes now began to fall--still, however, in small quantities. I looked
+behind me; a dense dark mist seemed to be following us, spreading itself
+over the country like a cloud. 'Let us turn out of the way,' I said,
+'whilst we can still see, for fear that, should we fall in the road, we
+should be trodden under foot in the darkness by the throngs that accompany
+us.' We had scarcely sat down when night was upon us,--not such as we have
+seen when there is no moon, or when the sky is cloudy, but such as there
+is in some closed room where the lights are extinguished. You might hear
+the shrieks of women, the monotonous wailing of children, the shouts of
+men. Many were raising their voices, and seeking to recognise by the
+voices that replied, parents, children, husbands or wives. Some were
+loudly lamenting their own fate, others the fate of those dear to them.
+Some even prayed for death, in their fear of what they prayed for. Many
+lifted their hands in prayer to the gods; more were convinced that there
+were now no gods at all, and that the final endless night of which we have
+heard had come upon the world.... It now grew somewhat light again; we
+felt sure that this was not the light of day, but a proof that fire was
+approaching us. Fire there was, but it stopped at a considerable distance
+from us; then came darkness again, and a thick, heavy fall of ashes. Again
+and again we stood up and shook them off; otherwise, we should have been
+covered by them, and even crushed by the weight. At last the black mist I
+had spoken of seemed to shade off into smoke or cloud, and broke away.
+Then came genuine daylight, and the sun shone out with a lurid light, such
+as it is wont to have in an eclipse. Our eyes, which had not yet recovered
+from the effects of fear, saw everything changed, everything covered deep
+with ashes as if with snow. We returned to Misenum, and after refreshing
+ourselves as best we could, spent a night of anxiety in mingled hope and
+fear. Fear, however, was still the stronger feeling; for the trembling of
+the earth continued, while many frenzied persons, with their terrific
+predictions, gave an exaggeration that was even ludicrous to the
+calamities of themselves and of their friends. Even then, in spite of all
+the perils which we had experienced, and which we still expected, we had
+not a thought of going away till we could hear news of my uncle."(4)
+
+As to the fate of the Elder Pliny, it seems that the old man had been
+obliged together with his friends and servants to fly from the villa at
+Stabiae where he was resting. The sea being too agitated to allow of an
+embarkation, the fugitives turned their steps towards the slopes of Mons
+Gaurus, the present Monte Sant' Angelo, with pillows bound over their
+heads to serve as protection against the showers of hot cinders that were
+falling thickly on all sides. At length the famous old writer, who was
+somewhat plethoric and unwieldy, sank exhausted to the ground, never to
+rise again, and shortly expired in an attack of heart failure, induced by
+the unusual excitement and fatigue he had lately been called upon to
+endure. At any rate, it appears fairly certain that the Elder Pliny did
+not perish, as is still sometimes asserted, by the direct effects of the
+eruption, but rather through an ordinary collapse of nature--syncope,
+perhaps. Three days later his body was found lying not far from Stabiae by
+his grief-stricken nephew, who describes his uncle's corpse as looking
+"more like that of a sleeping than of a dead man."
+
+This then was the first, as it was also the most violent, of the many
+outbreaks of Vesuvius which our own age has witnessed, and with this
+eruption of 79 in the reign of Titus, the Mountain, as we have already
+said, greatly altered its shape. More than half the rim of the ancient
+crater that had enclosed Spartacus and his men less than two hundred years
+before had been torn away and destroyed, its remaining portion on the
+landward side retaining the old name of Mons Summanus. Between this
+remnant of the old wall of the crater and the scene of wreckage on the
+southern face of the Mountain, there now appeared the great cleft, the
+horse-shoe shaped valley called the Atrio del Cavallo, which separates the
+two peaks of the whole summit. A fragment only of the original crater,
+known as the Pedimentina, still remains on the seaward side above Torre
+del Greco. From that terrible day, so vividly described by the Younger
+Pliny, to our own times, a period stretching over 1800 years, a vast
+number of eruptions, great and small, have been enumerated, for owing to
+the nearness of Vesuvius to one of the largest cities in Europe, every
+incident connected with its activity has been carefully noted, at least
+since the time of the Renaissance. Out of the many upheavals we propose to
+select the eruptions of 1631 and 1779, as being amongst the most
+significant.
+
+Ever since an outburst in the year 1500, the Mountain appears to have
+lapsed into a remarkable condition of quietude, even of apparent
+extinction, for over a century and a quarter, during which period, it may
+be remarked, the Sicilian volcano of Etna was unusually active. Once more
+the summit of Vesuvius was beginning to assume the form it had borne in
+the days previous to the overthrow of Pompeii; the riven crater was
+becoming filled with dense undergrowth and even with forest trees, amidst
+which wild boar made their lairs and were occasionally hunted. The learned
+Abate Giulio Braccini, whose account of the eruption of 1631 is the most
+graphic and accurate we possess, explored the crater shortly before the
+outbreak of the volcano, but found little to suggest any idea of an
+approaching convulsion. He reckoned the deep depression occupying the
+crest of the mountain to be about five miles in circumference, and to take
+about a thousand paces of walking so as to reach the lowest point within
+its area. He remarked abundance of brushwood on its sides, and observed
+cattle grazing peacefully upon the open grassy patches in the midst of the
+over-grown space. A deep crack, however, ran from end to end of the whole
+crater, which allowed persons so minded to descend amidst rocks and
+boulders to a large plain below the surface, whereon Braccini found three
+pools of hot steamy water, of a saline and sulphureous taste. Such was the
+tranquil aspect of the Mountain as surveyed by the Abate Braccini in the
+first half of the seventeenth century; to men of science signs of latent
+energy were certainly not wanting, yet to the ignorant, careless peasants
+of the hill-side and the scarcely less ignorant dwellers of the towns on
+the seashore, the state of repose in which the Mountain had continued for
+four or five generations suggested no fears or suspicions. Tilling of
+vineyards, building of new houses, sinking of wells, went on apace as
+cheerfully as though an eruption were an impossibility, till certain
+unmistakable portents that occurred towards the close of the year 1631
+roughly dissipated this spell of fancied security. Earthquakes, more or
+less severe, began at this time to be felt along the whole of the volcanic
+line stretching from Ischia to the eastern slopes of Vesuvius; the plain
+within the crater of the Mountain began to heave and rise in an alarming
+fashion, and the water in all the local wells sank mysteriously below
+ground. The signs of some impending disaster coming from the heights above
+were too strongly marked to be lightly disregarded; the idea of a volcanic
+convulsion, though by this time a long-distant and vague memory, became so
+terrifying to the dwellers on the mountain's flanks and in Torre del
+Greco, Resina and the various towns that line the seaward base of the
+Mountain, that the majority of the people removed themselves and their
+property with all speed to places of safety. Nevertheless, despite the
+warnings given by Nature and also by men of science and the royal
+officials, many remained behind in their houses, and in consequence
+perished, to the immense number, it is surmised, of 18,000. On the morning
+of Wednesday, December 16th, the long threatened eruption burst forth in
+earnest upon an expectant world. Amidst crashes like prolonged volleys of
+artillery the people of Naples and the surrounding district beheld the
+terrible pine-tree of smoke and ashes, described centuries ago by Pliny,
+ascend from the south-western side of the summit of the Mountain, veiling
+the sky for miles around, and so charged with electricity, that many were
+even killed by the _ferilli_, or lightning flashes, that darted from the
+smoking mass. The spectacle of the ominous pine-tree was at once followed
+by a terrific rumbling and an ejection of lava, which after flowing down
+the southern flank in several streams finally reached the sea, making the
+waters hiss and boil at the moment of contact. Slowly but surely these
+relentless red-hot rivers of lava crept like serpents along the hill-side,
+destroying vineyard and garden, cottage and chapel, on their downward
+path. Resina shared the fate of its ancient forerunner Herculaneum, whilst
+Torre del Greco and Portici suffered severely, as we can see to-day by
+noting the great masses of lava flung on to the strand at various points.
+To add to the universal confusion of Nature, the sea, which had now become
+extraordinarily tempestuous, probably owing to some submarine
+earthquake-shock, suddenly retreated half a mile from the coast, and then
+as suddenly returned in a tidal wave more than a hundred feet beyond its
+normal limits. Such were the main features of the second great eruption of
+Vesuvius, wherein the ashes ejected by the Mountain were wafted by the
+wind beyond the Adriatic, to the Greek islands and even to Constantinople
+itself.
+
+  [Illustration: VESUVIUS AND THE BAY OF NAPLES]
+
+From this date onward the Mountain became very active in contrast with its
+previous condition of lethargy, and throughout the whole of the eighteenth
+century there were frequent eruptions, many of them on a vast scale. All
+these outbursts have been carefully recorded and commented upon, for
+naturally the scientists of a great city like Naples were intensely
+interested in the passing phases of their own volcano. During the latter
+half of this century all the phenomena have been described for us by Sir
+William Hamilton, British ambassador at the Court of the Two Sicilies, the
+versatile diplomatist who eventually married the beautiful but frail Emma
+Hart. During his long period of residence in Naples, Sir William made no
+fewer than fifty-eight explorations of the crater alone, besides carefully
+studying every peculiarity visible upon the sides of the Mountain. He was,
+of course, a close observer of the great eruptions of 1766-7, and also of
+the still greater convulsion of 1779, which, strangely enough, occurred on
+the seventeenth centenary of the awakening of the Mountain from its
+pre-historic slumbers. On this occasion, Hamilton, accompanied by a Mr
+Bowdler of Bath, had the temerity to track the streams of flowing lava to
+their hidden source by walking over the rough unyielding crust of stones
+and earth that had formed upon the surface of the molten stream, as it
+slowly trickled down hill at the rate of about a mile an hour. The
+adventurous pair of Englishmen were successful in their quest, and Sir
+William thus describes the fountain-head of the fiery streams that he
+found a quarter of a mile distant from the top of the cone.
+
+"The liquid and red-hot matter bubbled up violently, with a hissing and
+crackling noise, like that which attends the playing off of an artificial
+firework; and by the continued splashing up of the vitrified matter, a
+kind of arch, or dome, was formed over the crevice from whence the lava
+issued; it was cracked in many parts, and appeared red-hot within, like a
+heated oven. This hollowed hillock might be about fifteen feet high, and
+the lava that ran from under it was received into a regular channel,
+raised upon a sort of wall of scoriae and cinders, almost perpendicularly,
+of about a height of eight or ten feet, resembling much an ancient
+aqueduct."
+
+Some days later, at midnight on August 7th, a veritable fountain of red
+fire shot up from the crest of Vesuvius, illuminating all the surrounding
+country; and on the following night a still more marvellous sheet of flame
+appeared, hanging like a fiery veil between heaven and earth, and reaching
+to a height (so Sir William Hamilton guessed) of about 10,000 feet above
+the summit, affording a wonderfully grand but terrible spectacle. This
+great curtain of fiery particles, accompanied by inky black clouds from
+which were darting continual flashes of lightning, was reflected clearly
+on the smooth surface of the Bay, delighting the Court and the scientific
+world of Naples, but inspiring, as may well be imagined, the mass of
+superstitious inhabitants with the direst alarm. The theatres were closed
+and the churches were opened; above the rumblings and explosions of the
+agonised volcano could be heard the tolling of the bells. Maddened by
+terror, the Neapolitan mob rushed to the Archbishop's palace to demand the
+immediate production of the holy relics of St Januarius, the protector of
+the city, and on this request being refused, set fire to the entrance
+gates, a forcible argument that soon persuaded his Eminence of the
+propriety of the people's demand. Thereupon the head of the Saint,
+enclosed in its case of solid silver, was accordingly borne in solemn
+procession with wailing and repentant crowds behind it to an improvised
+shrine, hung with garlands, on the Ponte della Maddalena, at the extreme
+eastern boundary of the city. Nor was the confidence reposed by the
+Neapolitans in their patron Saint misplaced, for except from the stifling
+smells and the dense rain of ashes, the terror-stricken capital suffered
+not a whit, whilst the general alarm inspired its inhabitants with a
+revival of religious fervour which was by no means insalutary. As usual,
+the old cynical proverb was once more justified:--_Napoli fa gli peccati, e
+la __Torre gli paga_, for of course poor Torre del Greco was grievously
+affected by the lava streams. In this case, however, even Torre del Greco
+and Resina did not fare so badly as did the towns on the northern slopes
+of Monte Somma, a district which is of course perfectly immune from lava
+inundations owing to the protecting rocky ridge of the Atrio del Cavallo.
+But it seems that the great veil of clouds and fire, extending some
+thousands of feet from the crest of the mountain to the heavens above, was
+swayed by a chance current of air, so that its component red-hot dust,
+ashes and stones were emptied in one fatal shower upon the northern flank
+of the Mountain. Whole villages were ruined, hundreds of acres of vines
+and crops were scorched and burned; the smiling peaceful hillside was in a
+few minutes converted into a parched wilderness. Ottajano, a large town of
+some 12,000 inhabitants, was the place most seriously injured by this
+wholly unexpected rain of destruction, for a tempestuous fall of red-hot
+stones, some of immense size, and a shower of ashes killed hundreds of the
+terrified and suffocating citizens, and blocked up the streets with
+smoking debris to a depth of four feet.
+
+Of the recent eruptions of Vesuvius, which have been pretty frequent
+during the latter half of last century, that of April 1872, so carefully
+recorded by Professor Palmieri, who in spite of imminent danger never
+abandoned his post in the Observatory, is the most notable. It is
+remembered also owing to the catastrophe whereby some twenty persons out
+of a large crowd of strangers, who had imprudently ascended to the Atrio
+del Cavallo to get a closer view of the phenomenon, were suddenly caught
+by the lava stream and enfolded in its burning clutches. For if ignorance
+and superstition seem to make the poor fisherman or peasant unduly alarmed
+on such occasions, curiosity and self-confidence are sometimes apt to lead
+the educated or scientific into unnecessary peril. Naples itself was once
+more alarmed in 1872, so that the relics of St Januarius at the furious
+demand of the populace were again brought forth in solemn procession, and
+exposed towards the face of the Mountain on the Ponte della Maddalena.
+Thousands of quaking mortals gathered near this spot, joining in the
+chanting of the priests and watching with pallid anxious faces the fiery
+currents of lava slowly trickling down the south-western flank of Vesuvius
+towards the city itself. A certain number of attendants meanwhile were
+engaged in perpetually brushing away from the image of the Saint, from his
+improvised altar, and from its votive garlands the ever-accumulating
+mantle of grey dust, and it is scarcely to be wondered at that a certain
+cool-headed Neapolitan artist, Il Vaccaro, should all this time have been
+busily engaged in painting so characteristic and highly picturesque a
+scene. Within the churches, and particularly in St Januarius' own
+cathedral, enormous crowds of hysterical men and women had collected,
+loudly bewailing their past sins and imploring the Divine mercy, for
+
+      "E belle son le supplice
+  Pompe di penitenza, in alto lutto."
+
+Again the historic _palladium_ proved effectual, and the city, that was
+never for a moment in danger, was once more saved! Naples received no
+damage beyond a temporary panic and a heavy fall of ashes, which covered
+every street and flat surface within the town to a depth of some inches
+and which it took many days of enforced labour to remove. Again it was the
+poor confiding vine-dressers and tillers of the Vesuvian soil who suffered
+in this upheaval, for though the loss of life was very slight indeed, yet
+numerous houses, fields and vineyards were totally destroyed and many more
+were injured. Truly it is a maxim well proven by time:--_Napoli fa gli
+peccati, e Torre gli paga._
+
+
+
+Such, told baldly and briefly, is the history of the Mountain, which forms
+the most conspicuous feature of the Bay of Naples and dominates one of the
+fairest and most populous districts on the face of the globe. But it does
+not take long to make visitors to the Neapolitan shore understand the
+mysterious charm, not unmixed with awe, and the all-pervading influence of
+Vesuvius. Go where we will within the circuit of the Bay of Naples and
+even outside it, we are never out of sight of the obtruding Mountain and
+its smoky wreath. We begin to feel that the Mountain is an animated thing,
+that the destiny of the Parthenopean shore is locked up in the breast of
+the Demon who has his dwelling within its red-hot caverns. So sudden are
+the actions, and so capricious the moods of this Monster of the Burning
+Mountain, that no one can tell the day, or even the hour, wherein he will
+give us an exhibition of his fiery temper, though, it is true, in the case
+of violent eruptions he is kind enough to afford timely warning by means
+of a succession of earthquakes and other signals almost equally alarming.
+His Majesty's presence is felt everywhere; each morning as we open our
+window upon the dazzling waters of the Bay, we note with relief his
+tranquil aspect; each night, ere we retire to sleep, we find ourselves
+inevitably drawn to watch the glare thrown by the molten lava within the
+crater upon the thick vapour overhead. The nightly expectation of this
+aerial bonfire possesses an extraordinary fascination for the stranger.
+Some times the lurid glare is continuous; at other times there are long
+intervals of waiting, and even then the reflected light is very faint, a
+mere speck of reddish glow in the surrounding blackness, gone in the
+twinkling of an eye. But, strangely enough, one grows to understand the
+Mountain better from a distance and by watching its moods from afar, like
+the Neapolitans themselves, who never ascend to probe its mysteries,
+except a few vulgar guides and touts who batten on the curiosity of the
+foreigner.
+
+On clear windless days the intermittent clouds of vapour sent up from the
+crater assume the most fantastic shapes--trees, ships, men, birds,
+animals--ever changing like the forms of Proteus. It would seem as if the
+Spirit of the Mountain were idly amusing himself, like a child blowing
+bubbles, or a vendor at a fair-stall carving out little figures of
+gingerbread to tickle the fancy of country boys and girls. The clouds so
+formed sometimes cause amusement by their uncanny shapes, but not
+unfrequently they inspire alarm. The superstitious peasant of the
+_Paduli_, looking up suddenly from his work amidst the early peas or
+tomatoes, beholds against the blue sky a vague nebulous form that to his
+untutored mind suggests a gigantic crucifix upheld in mid-air above the
+Mountain, and he crosses himself devoutly ere he bends down to earth once
+more to his work in the rich dark soil. "Such stuff as dreams are made of"
+appear in truth the weird phantoms that the sly Demon of Vesuvius flings
+up into the pure aether, and if credulous mankind likes to draw inferences
+for good or bad from these unsubstantial creations of his fancy, he laughs
+to himself with a hollow reverberating sound. It must, however, have been
+in the true spirit of prophecy on the occasion of King Manfred's birth,
+that the genius of the Mountain despatched two cloud-forms into the sky
+(so the unabashed old chroniclers gravely relate), one having the
+appearance of a warrior armed cap-�-pie, and the other that of a fully
+vested priest. The affrighted gazers below, struck with the strange
+phenomenon, beheld the two figures sway towards each other and finally
+become locked together in deadly aerial combat, until all resemblance to
+human shape had vanished from the pair. Then, after an interval of time,
+men perceived the cloudy mass once more assume a mortal shape, and a huge
+towering priest with flowing robes and tiara on head was left in solitary
+and victorious possession of the sky. The Churchman had swallowed up the
+soldier; the Pontiff had vanquished the King; it was a true premonition of
+the fatal field of Benevento, which saw the ultimate triumph of the Papal
+over the Imperial cause.
+
+But if the near presence of the burning mountain has tended to make the
+inhabitants of its immediate zone the slaves of superstitious awe, the
+disasters of generations have likewise imbued them with a spirit of
+fatalism, that appears even stronger than their outward show of credulity.
+Life is not so sweet nor so dear apparently to these children of the
+South, but that they can afford to take their chance of disturbance or
+death with a true philosophic calm. The fisher-folk and maccaroni workers
+of Resina, Portici and the two Torres have, it is true, little to lose; a
+small boat can at the last moment easily convey their families and slender
+stock of household furniture to a place of temporary safety, and when the
+danger is over-past, the same shallop can bring back the refugees and
+their belongings. But with the husbandmen the case is different. Not only
+has he to fear the actual stream of lava, which may or may not overwhelm
+his house and farm in its slow inevitable course, but there are also the
+showers of hot ashes and of scalding water that will frizzle up in a few
+seconds every green blade and leaf upon his tiny domain, for which he pays
+an enormous rental, sometimes as much as �12 sterling an acre. Yet the
+_contadino_ takes his chances with a seraphic resignation that we do not
+usually attribute to the southern temperament. After the eruption of 1872,
+which covered the rich _Paduli_ with a deep coating of grey ashes, a young
+peasant girl was heard deploring the loss of her carefully tended gourds
+and melons; "_Oh come volimme fa? Addio, pummarole! addio, cucuzzielle!_"
+whereupon an older woman, witnessing these useless tears, upbraided her
+with the words: "Do not complain, child, lest worse befall you!" And
+indeed the whole population of the _Paduli_, instead of lamenting over
+their scorched and spoiled crops, were jubilant at the thought that the
+havoc done was only partial, not irrevocable;--a few months of incessant
+labour, said they, would bring back the holdings to their former state of
+perfection. Yet a general opinion prevails among foreigners that the
+Neapolitans are lazy, thriftless and helpless! They indeed rely to a
+certain extent upon St Januarius to protect their crops from the efforts
+of Nature, over which, they argue, the Saint is more likely to possess
+control than his human applicants, but when once the fatal shower of ashes
+has fallen, they do not expect "San Gennaro" to set their injured acres to
+rights again, but with a rare patience turn to the task themselves. A more
+industrious, and at the same time a more capable and practical race of
+agriculturists than the tillers of the slopes of Vesuvius, it would be
+hard to match. And thus in the sunshine of the south, yet ever under the
+shadow of death and destruction, dwell many thousands of human beings, as
+unconcerned as though Vesuvius were miles and miles away. Not unconscious,
+but fully conscious of their doom, the victims of the Mountain toil and
+moil upon the fertile farms (in many cases risen phoenix-like from their
+own ashes) that grow the early beans and tomatoes, the egg-plants and the
+white fennel roots (_finocchi_) that well-fed travellers devour in the
+hotels of Naples. Or else they tend the vines that yield the generous
+_Lagrima Christi_, of which imprudent and heated visitors drink long
+draughts unmixed with water, and then complain of ensuing languor and
+pains beneath their waistcoats. Luscious, yet seductive wine! Counsellor
+of moderation after a first experience of excess! Essence of Vesuvius,
+whose strange name so puzzled the poet Chiabrera!
+
+  "Chi fu de' contadini il si indiscreto,
+  Ch' a sbigottir la gente
+  Diede nome dolente
+  Al vin' che sovra gli altri il cuor fa lieto?
+  Lagrima dunque appellerassi un riso
+  Parte di nobilissima vendemmia?"
+
+  ("Who was the jesting countryman, I cry,
+  That gave so fearsome and so dour a name
+  To that choice vintage, which of all think I
+  Most warms the heart's blood with its genial flame?
+  Smiles, and not tears, the epithet should be
+  Of juice wrung from so fair a vinery.")
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+Scarcely had the above pages been written, than the Mountain, which had
+been drowsing for more than thirty years, suddenly awakened to give
+appalling evidence of its latent activity and powers of mischief. The
+eruption of April 1906 has, in fact, surpassed all previous outbursts
+within living memory, and it may probably be reckoned amongst the most
+violent of all hitherto recorded. Many of the details of this event
+doubtless remain fresh in the memory, and in any case the sad condition of
+numerous towns and villages, and of the beautiful Vesuvian districts, the
+_paesi ridenti_ as the Neapolitans affectionately term these fertile
+lands, will serve for some years to come as a sinister and ever-present
+reminder of the horrors of the past and of the dread possibilities of the
+future. All vegetation for miles around the volcano has been injured or
+destroyed, for not only was the Mountain itself covered deep with grit and
+ashes, but the streets and gardens of Naples, the luxuriant plain of
+Sorrento, and even the heights of Capri, twenty miles distant across the
+Bay, were shrouded in a funereal mantle of the greyish-yellow dust that
+Vesuvius had flung into the air to let fall like a shower of parching and
+destructive rain upon the earth. How vast was the amount of matter ejected
+from the crater and scattered in this form over the surrounding country,
+we may judge from the scientific calculation that 315,000 tons fell in
+Naples alone! Everywhere appeared the same scenes of desolation, the same
+dreary tint, for so thickly had this aerial torrent of ashes descended,
+that buildings, trees and plants were completely hidden by it, the whole
+landscape suggesting the idea of a recent heavy fall of dirty-coloured
+snow. _Paesi ridenti_, indeed! It was a land of ugliness and mourning, a
+city of stifling air and of human terror.
+
+A few days previous to the eruption, which began on April 5th, the island
+of Ustica, which lies some forty miles north of Palermo, had been visited
+by earthquake shocks of such violence that the Italian Government at last
+decided to remove the greater part of its population to the mainland, as
+well as the convicts attached to the penal settlements on the island.
+Scarcely had these manifestations ceased at Ustica, than Vesuvius began to
+show signs of increased activity; the supplies in the wells on the
+mountain sides began to fail, and there was observed a strong taste of
+sulphur in the drinking water; whilst--most dreaded phenomenon of all--the
+ever-active crater of Stromboli, that lies midway between Naples and
+Messina, suddenly lapsed into quiescence. We all know the subsequent story
+of the outbreak; of the thousands of fugitives flying into Naples or other
+places of refuge; of the utter destruction of houses and cultivated
+lands;--the doleful scenes of a Vesuvian eruption have been enacted and
+described time after time in the history of the Mountain, and there is
+every reason to suppose they will be repeated at intervals for centuries
+to come. The marvel is how human beings can calmly settle down and pass
+their lives so close to the jaws of the fire-spouting monster, and why an
+intelligent Government permits its subjects to dwell in places which are
+ever exposed to catastrophes such as that which we have just witnessed.
+Well, it is the natural temperament of the Vesuviani to be fatalistic,
+despite their religious fervour; and acts of legislature cannot force them
+to abandon their old deep-rooted notions; all that the Italian Government
+can do therefore is to stand ready prepared to help, when the upheaval
+_does_ occur, as it inevitably must.
+
+It is always a matter of speculation on these occasions as to what course
+the ejected lava will pursue; whose turn, of the many settlements on the
+southern slopes of the Mountain, will it be to suffer? This time it was
+Bosco-Trecase, a village above Torre Annunziata, that was devastated by
+the sinuous masses of incandescent matter, high as a house and broad as a
+river. Torre Annunziata itself, as also ruined Pompeii were threatened,
+but the red-hot streams of destruction mercifully stopped short of their
+expected prey. The story of horrors and panic in the overthrow of
+Bosco-Trecase is happily relieved by many a recorded incident of valour
+and unselfishness. The royal _Carabinieri_, that splendid body of mounted
+police, who in their cocked hats and voluminous cloaks appear as
+ornamental in times of quiet as they prove themselves useful in the stormy
+hours of peril, acquitted themselves, as usual, like heroes. It was they
+who guided away the trembling peasants before the advance of the lava,
+searching the doomed houses for sick and crippled, whom they carried on
+their shoulders to places of security. Working, too, with almost equal
+zeal and practical good sense were the Italian soldiers, who richly
+deserved the praise that their royal commander, the Duke of Aosta,
+subsequently bestowed upon them for their invaluable services rendered
+during these fearful days of darkness and danger. "Soldiers!" declared the
+Duke, in his address to the troops on April 23rd, "I have seen you calm
+and happy in the work of alleviating the misfortunes of others, and I put
+on record the praise you have won. By promptly appearing at the places
+distressed by the eruption, you have encouraged the people by your
+presence and your example; you have maintained order and have safe-guarded
+property. Helping the local authorities, and even in some instances
+filling their offices, you have carried out the most urgent and dangerous
+duties in order to save the houses and to keep clear the roads. In the
+spots most heavily afflicted you have lent your assistance in removing and
+caring for the injured, and in searching for and burying the dead you have
+given proofs of great self-sacrifice and reverence (_piet�_). Not a few of
+the refugees have obtained food and shelter in your barracks, and whole
+communities without means of existence have been provided by you with the
+necessaries of life. Everywhere and from all your conduct has gained you
+loud applause. Nevertheless, your task is not yet ended; continue at it
+out of love for your country and devotion to your King!"(5)
+
+With such a reputation for kindness of heart and energy in time of need,
+no wonder that the Army is popular with all classes in Italy!
+
+Nor did the King and Queen hold aloof from the scene of disaster, for they
+hurried from Rome at midnight of that terrible Palm Sunday on purpose to
+comfort the terror-stricken population. Victor-Emmanuel even penetrated in
+his motor-car as far as Torre Annunziata, in spite of the fumes of sulphur
+and the many difficulties in proceeding along roads clogged deep with
+volcanic dust and ashes. On another occasion the King and Queen paid a
+visit to the afflicted district of the slopes of Monte Somma, where
+Ottajano and San Giuseppe had been almost buried by the continuous falling
+of burning material from the crater. In fact, these localities suffered
+even more severely than the towns on the seaward face of the Mountain
+(Bosco-Trecase excepted), and at Ottajano hardly a house in the place
+remained intact at the close of the eruption, whilst the loss of human
+life was probably higher here than elsewhere. The Duke and Duchess of
+Aosta--he the king's cousin, and she the popular Princess H�l�ne, daughter
+of the late Comte de Paris--were likewise indefatigable in their efforts to
+assist and reassure the demoralized population, and to make every possible
+arrangement for the feeding and housing of the numberless refugees and the
+tending of the injured in the hospitals of Naples. Equally valorous was
+the conduct of the great scientist, Professor Matteucci, who remained
+together with a few Carabinieri throughout all phases of the eruption at
+the Vesuvian Observatory, although in imminent peril of death amidst a
+deadly atmosphere of heat and sulphureous fumes.
+
+It was on April 5th that the streams of burning lava first burst from the
+riven crater and made their way down the south-eastern slopes, destroying
+Bosco-Trecase and reaching to the very suburbs of Torre Annunziata.
+Pompeii itself was imperilled, and it is always well to remember that
+during an eruption this precious relic of antiquity may possibly be lost
+to the world. Meanwhile the rain of ashes and mud--formed by dust and hot
+water commingling--fell incessantly; 150,000 inhabitants of the Vesuvian
+districts fled in precipitate flight towards Naples, towards the shore,
+towards the hill country beyond the Sarno. It was truly a marvellous
+spectacle to observe the relentless stream of burning lava crushing
+irresistibly every opposing object in its fatal path. Onlookers at a
+distance could perceive the walls of houses bulging outward under pressure
+of the moving mass, until the roof collapsed in an avalanche of tiles upon
+the ground, whilst with a final crash the whole structure--cottage, farm,
+church or stately villa--succumbed to the overwhelming weight.
+
+Many are the tales of courage and intrepidity; not a few, alas! are the
+stories of folly and cowardice that are related in connection with the
+eruption. It cannot be said that the population of Naples, where everybody
+was perfectly safe even if the atmosphere was unpleasant and the distant
+thunders of the Mountain reverberated alarmingly, comported itself with
+dignity or calm; and this criticism applies in particular to the hundreds
+of visitors--English, German, American and other _forestieri_--who besieged
+the railway station in frantic and indecent anxiety to remove themselves
+with all speed from the city. Some excuse might perhaps be found for the
+hysterical terror of the poor inhabitants of the Mergellina or the
+Mercato, who spent their time in wailing within the churches or in
+screaming for the public exhibition of the venerated relics of their
+patron Saint, which again on this occasion the Archbishop, _nolens
+volens_, was compelled by the mob to produce. But for the great mass of
+educated foreigners then filling the hotels and pensions of the place, it
+cannot be said that their conduct was edifying, particularly in face of
+the example set by the King and Queen of Italy. To add to the general
+panic prevailing in the city, the Neapolitans themselves were not
+unnaturally greatly exasperated by the serious accident which took place
+at the Central Market Hall near Monte Oliveto in the heart of the old
+town. Here, early one morning during the course of the eruption, the great
+roof of corrugated iron collapsed, killing many and frightening the whole
+of the populace, already sufficiently unnerved by recent events. That this
+catastrophe was due to the casual methods, amounting in this case to
+criminal neglect of plain duty, of the municipal authorities, who had
+neglected to sweep the accumulation of heavy volcanic ash from off the
+thin metal roof, none can deny; and this glaring example of public
+stupidity had of course a bad effect on the demoralized multitude, which
+threatened to grow unruly, as well as terrified. No, the graceless
+stampede of educated foreigners to the railway-station, the incompetence
+of the Municipality, and the behaviour of the Neapolitan crowd do not
+appear very creditable to the supposed enlightenment of the twentieth
+century. It had been confidently predicted that nearly fifty years of
+State education and liberal government would work wonders in dispelling
+the crass ignorance and the deep-seated superstition of the dwellers on
+the Bay of Naples. Yet, so far as can be judged from recent events,
+matters seem to have changed but little on these shores, for the mass of
+the population evidently preferred to pin its hope of safety to the
+miracle-working relics of San Gennaro, rather than to the reassuring
+messages of Professor Matteucci, sent from his post of undoubted peril on
+the mountain-side.
+
+If the inhabitants of a great city, which was never seriously threatened
+with danger, should have acted thus, there is undoubtedly much excuse to
+be found for the Vesuviani themselves, whose houses and lives were
+certainly in danger from the devastating streams of lava. It was with a
+sigh and a smile that we learned how the good people of Portici attributed
+their escape from the fate of Bosco-Trecase to the direct interposition of
+a wonder-working Madonna enshrined in one of their own churches. For some
+days the town had been threatened, so that many were convinced of its
+impending doom, when happily at the last moment the expected fate was
+averted, as though by a miracle. And miracle it truly was in the eyes of
+the people of Portici, when it was observed that the snow-white hands of
+their popular Madonna had turned black in some mysterious manner during
+the night hours. What could be a simpler or easier deduction from this
+circumstance, than that Our Lady's Effigy, taking pity on its affrighted
+suppliants, had with its own hands pushed back the advancing mass of lava,
+and thus saved the town! Great was the joy, and equally great the
+gratitude, displayed by these poor souls at Portici, who at once organised
+a triumphal procession in honour of their prescient patroness "delle mani
+nere." Does not such an incident, we ask, lend a touch of picturesque
+medievalism to a modern scene of horror and darkness, exhibiting to us, as
+it does, the traits of a simple touching faith and of genuine human
+thankfulness?
+
+Well, the great eruption of 1906 is over, and the inhabitants of the
+Vesuvian communes are once more settling down in their ruined homes, or
+their damaged farms and gardens. No doubt a new Bosco-Trecase will arise
+on the shapeless ruins of the old site, for fear of danger seems powerless
+to deter the outcast population from reoccupying its old haunts. Ottajano
+will be rebuilt, not for the first time, and its citizens will again trust
+to luck--and to St Januarius--for protection from the evil fate which has
+repeatedly overtaken their town. The two Torres, Resina, Portici, and the
+villages along the shore, have this time contrived to escape the lava
+streams, and though their buildings have been severely shaken, and even
+wrecked in many instances, the people will doubtless mend the cracks in
+their walls and place fresh tiles on the injured roofs. They are wise in
+their own generation, for the Mountain is not likely to burst forth again
+for another quarter of a century at least after so violent a fit, _salvo
+complicazioni_, of course, as the more cautious Italians themselves say.
+But another outburst is inevitable; and whose turn to suffer will it be
+then? Will it be Portici, or either of the Torres? Who knows?--and what
+dweller under Vesuvius to-day cares at this moment? "Under Vesuvius," but
+it is a new Vesuvius, for the tall cone which was so conspicuous a feature
+of the Bay of Naples has disappeared completely, and the summit of the
+volcano has been once more reduced to the level of Monte Somma. How many
+years, we wonder, will be required for the Mountain to raise for itself
+once more the tall pyre of ashes that it has itself demolished and flung
+on all sides to the winds? At any rate let us now look for a period of
+rest, a period of prosperity to recoup the disturbed denizens of these
+_paesi gi� ridenti_ for their heavy losses and terrible experiences.
+_Speriamo._
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER V
+
+
+              THE CORNICHE ROAD FROM CASTELLAMARE TO AMALFI
+
+
+It is without any feelings of regret that we learn of the non-existence of
+a railway line beyond Castellamare, so that our journey to Amalfi along
+the coast must be performed in the good old-fashioned manner of long-past
+_vetturino_ days. Three skinny horses harnessed abreast are standing ready
+at the hotel door to draw our travelling chariot, each member of the team
+gorgeously decked with plumes of pheasant feathers in his head-gear and
+with many-coloured trappings, whilst on the harness itself appears in more
+than one place the little brazen hand, which is supposed to ensure the
+steed's safety from the dangers of any chance _jettatore_, the unlucky
+wight endowed with the Evil Eye. Nor is the swarthy picturesque ruffian
+who acts as our driver unprovided with a talisman in case of emergency,
+for we observe hanging from his heavy silver watch-chain the long twisted
+horn of pink coral, which is popularly supposed to catch the first baleful
+glance, and to act on the principle of a lightning-conductor, in
+deflecting the approaching danger from the prudent wearer of the coral
+trinket. Merrily to the sound of jingling bells and the deep-chested
+exhortations of our coachman do we bowl along the excellent road in the
+freshness of the morning air and light "through varying scenes of beauty
+ever led," for the Corniche road towards Amalfi is admitted to be one of
+the finest in the world. Following the serpentine curves above the cliffs,
+we have on our right hand the dazzling Mediterranean with classic capes
+and islands all flushed in the early sunshine, whilst above us on the left
+rise the steep fertile slopes of the Lactarian Hills. Convent and villa,
+cottage and farmhouse, peep out of embowering verdure, whilst our road is
+shaded in many places by the overhanging boughs of blossoming almond and
+loquat trees. The whole region is in truth a veritable garden of the
+Hesperides, where in the mild equable climate fruit and flowers ripen and
+bloom without a break throughout the rolling year.
+
+  [Illustration: POZZANO]
+
+  "Tall thriving trees confess'd the fruitful mould;
+  The verdant apple ripens here to gold;
+  Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows,
+  With deepest red the full pomegranate glows,
+  The branches bend beneath the weighty pear,
+  And silver olives flourish all the year;
+  The balmy spirit of the western gale
+  Eternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail.
+  Each dropping pear another pear supplies,
+  On apples apples, figs on figs arise;
+  The same mild season gives the blooms to blow,
+  The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow."
+
+A lovely and a fertile scene it is indeed, and thoroughly typical of the
+peculiar charm of Southern Italy, wherein the rich well-tilled lands
+appear in striking contrast with the near-lying stony fallows and
+scrub-covered wastes.
+
+Beneath the picturesque pile of Santa Maria a Pozzano, perched aloft above
+the roadway, we pass along the edge of the sea-girt precipice, rounding
+the Capo d'Orlando, until we reach the pretty little town of Vico Equense,
+with its churches and gay-coloured villas nestling amidst groves of olive
+and orange trees. Vico owes its prosperity in the first instance to the
+patronage of "Carlo il Zoppo," Charles the Dwarf, the lame son and heir of
+King Charles of Anjou, who founded a settlement and built a villa upon the
+site of the ancient Roman colony; and it was in the old royal demesne of
+the Angevins that the hand of the deformed king's daughter, the Princess
+Clementia, was demanded formally in marriage by the French monarch, Philip
+the Bold, who sought to marry her to his third son, Charles of Valois. The
+match between the young prince of France and his cousin, the Neapolitan
+princess, appeared suitable to all concerned in every respect save one;
+for it was well known that the King of Naples had been lame from his
+birth, and it could never be deemed fit for the expected heir of France to
+marry any but a perfectly sound and healthy bride. Now the Queen of Naples
+was too proud to accede to the hints of the French ladies, who evidently
+were most anxious to acquaint themselves with the satisfactory condition
+of her daughter's "walking members," though she went so far as to allow
+the maiden to appear before them clad only in a flowing robe of gossamer
+silk. The possible danger of losing her opportunity to become Queen of
+France proved, however, beyond the ambitious young lady's powers of
+endurance, and to the horror of her haughty mother and the delight of the
+foreign emissaries, the Princess Clementia then and there doffed her
+silken robes and appeared before all in the historic garb of Lady Godiva.
+A glance at the princess's form _in puris naturalibus_ sufficed to
+convince the inquisitive Frenchwomen that no hereditary taint from Il
+Zoppo descended to his daughter; and accordingly the betrothal of the two
+young people was celebrated that very evening amidst the usual revels and
+feastings.
+
+The clean cheerful town on the sheer limestone crags boasts a cathedral,
+wherein, so the guide-book informs us, we shall find the tomb of
+Filangieri, the great Italian jurist. But the building contains in reality
+far more stirring associations than those connected with a prominent
+lawyer. It is but a rococo structure of the usual Italian type, and its
+painted series of portraits of past bishops is by no means an uncommon
+complement of cathedral churches in the South. But here, amidst the long
+rows of indifferent portraits, we note an omission, a space that is
+occupied, not by a likeness but by a medallion, which represents a cherub
+with the forefinger of his right hand laid as a seal of silence upon the
+lips. Here-by indeed hangs a tale, obscure perhaps, but pathetic and human
+to the last degree. We all remember the broad frieze filled with Doges'
+faces which is carried round the great hall of the ducal palace in Venice,
+wherein the place assigned to the traitor, Marino Faliero, contains a
+black veil instead of the usual portrait. Here in little Vico Equense is
+to be found a somewhat similar incident, but with this important
+difference:--the bishop whose portrait is here omitted was the most worthy
+of remembrance of all his peers.
+
+The crime of Monsignore Michele Natale, Bishop of Vico Equense, to which
+the silent cherub bears everlasting witness, was that of being a patriot
+and a Liberal (in the truest sense of that term) during the anxious times
+of the ill-fated Parthenopean Republic, that short-lived period of
+aristocratic government which was set up in self-defence by certain
+Neapolitan nobles, prelates and men of science after the abrupt departure
+of their cowardly King and Queen to Palermo. We all remember the terrible
+ending of that government: how the vile rabble-army of Cardinal Ruffo
+assaulted Naples; how the city capitulated to the Cardinal on the express
+condition that all life and property should be spared; and how Lord
+Nelson, refusing to recognise the terms that Ruffo himself had agreed to,
+and overruling the Cardinal's protests, treated the unhappy prisoners. The
+Bishop of Vico Equense was one of this band of martyrs, for he suffered
+death under circumstances of exceptional brutality on the morning of
+August 20th 1799, in the piazza in front of the church of the Carmine,
+together with two Neapolitans of noble rank, Giuliano Colonna and Gennaro
+Serra, and with the poetess, Eleonora Pimentel, a Portuguese by birth but
+the widow of a Neapolitan officer. All went nobly to their doom amidst the
+execrations of the demoralised bloodthirsty mob of _lazzaroni_, yelling at
+and insulting the "Jacobins," and kept back with no little difficulty by
+the royal troops from mutilating the corpses of women, bishops and
+princes. Monsignore Natale himself was hanged, and in his case the public
+executioner--"Masto Donato" as he was nick-named by the populace--gave vent
+to many pleasantries concerning the episcopal rank of his victim.
+Blindfolded and with the cord of infamy depending from his neck, the
+Bishop was led up to the fatal ladder amid deafening shouts of
+
+  "Viva la forca e Masto Donato;
+  Sant' Antonio sia priato!"
+
+On reaching the top of the gallows, the hangman made fast the rope to the
+cross-tree, and then an assistant (_tirapiede_) from below adroitly pushed
+the unseeing prisoner into space, catching on to his legs meanwhile,
+whilst "Masto Donato" himself adroitly leaped from the gallows-top upon
+the prelate's shoulder. With the hangman on his back, shouting aloud how
+much he was enjoying his ride upon a real bishop, and with the other
+ruffian clinging to his heels, Monsignore Natale swayed backwards and
+forwards amidst yells of execration and gratified hate on that hot August
+morning in front of the Church of the Carmine little more than one hundred
+years ago. His body was left on the gallows to be insulted by the mob
+throughout the long sweltering day, and then, stripped of all its
+clothing, was finally flung with other corpses of noble men and women into
+a charnel-house at Sant' Alessio al Lavinaio. Who it was that placed this
+quaint little memorial to the murdered prelate in his cathedral church we
+know not; but here the speechless yet eloquent cherub tells Natale's sad
+story of brutality and injustice to all who care to listen. Happily the
+spell of silence is at length broken, and the true history of that hateful
+era of crime, cruelty, lying, and intrigue is gradually being revealed;
+and the enemies of the Church in Italy learn with an astonishment, which
+is perhaps feigned, that in that glorious army of martyrs of 1799 more
+than one ecclesiastic of high rank suffered in the ill-starred and
+premature cause of Neapolitan liberty.
+
+Crossing the little river Arco, we proceed uphill through the region of
+vines and olives, until we have passed the Punta di Scutolo, where begins
+our descent into that famous tract of country, the Piano di Sorrento, a
+plateau above the cliffs, some four miles in length by one in breadth.
+Poets of antiquity and bards of the Middle Ages alike have sung the
+delights of the Sorrentine Plain, and have painted in glowing colours of
+inspired verse its race of happy peasants, its fruitful fields and
+orchards, its luscious vines, its excellent flocks. Galen, the cunning old
+physician, recommended to his nervous patients what would now be termed a
+"rest cure" in these favoured regions; whilst the grateful Bernardo Tasso,
+father of the immortal Torquato, speaks of the capital of this district as
+"l'Albergo della Cortesia," and in an ecstasy of delighted appreciation,
+goes on to add: "l'aere e si sereno, si temperato, si salutifero, si
+vitale, che gli uomini che senza provar altero cielo ci vivono sono quasi
+immortali." And though praise from Torquato's courtly sire must not be
+taken too seriously, yet few will deny that the beautiful plain deserves
+many of the eulogies that have been showered upon it. At the small town of
+Meta, the next place of importance after Sorrento itself, the road divides
+at the Church of the Madonna of the Laurel: our way to Amalfi leading
+southward over the opposing ridge--the "Sorrentini Colles" of Ovid--whilst
+the other traverses the length of the plain by way of Pozzopiano and Sant'
+Agnello, until it reaches Sorrento.
+
+One prominent feature of this district has already attracted our
+attention; the number of deep ravines with which the whole plain is
+intersected. These natural clefts are marvellously lovely in their rich
+luxuriance of foliage, and with their precipitous sides and verdure-clad
+depths will recall the wonderful _latomi�_, the ancient stone-quarries of
+Syracuse. Their depths are filled with orange and lemon trees, mingled
+with sable spires of cypress and the tall forms of bays, which here bear
+jet-black berries, such as are rarely seen in our northern clime; whilst
+the edges of the cliffs are clothed with a serried mass of wild flowers;
+red valerian, crimson snap-dragon, tall blue campanulas, the dark green
+wild fennel, white-blossoming cistus, and a hundred other plants, gay with
+colour and strong with aromatic perfume.
+
+  "The quarry's edge is lined with many a plant,
+  With many a flower distilling fragrant dew
+  From brightly coloured petals. Almond trees
+  Give snowy promise of sweet leaves and fruit;
+  Here all the scented tangle of the South
+  Covers the boulders, calcined by the sun
+  To pearly whiteness; thorn or asphodel
+  Sprout from each cranny of the topmost ledge
+  To nod against the deep blue sky, or peer
+  Into the verdure-clad abyss below."
+
+It is not surprising to learn that these romantic glens, filled with
+greenery, are reputed locally to be the haunts of fairies, _Monacelli_, as
+the Sorrentine inhabitants name them. Like the "good folk" of certain
+country districts in England, the pixies of Devonshire, and the "Tylwyth
+Teg" of rural Wales, these elfin people of the ravines are not malicious
+or unkindly in their nature, but they are particular and somewhat exacting
+in certain matters. They appreciate the attentions of mortal men, and
+offerings of fresh milk or choice fruit are not beneath the notice of the
+Monacelli. Borrowing the idea from the votive offerings they make in the
+churches to the Virgin and the Saints, the peasants sometimes place little
+lamps in the fern-draped grottoes of these gullies, and to such as
+punctually perform these acts of courtesy, the Monacelli frequently show
+signs of favour. The _padrone_ of a local inn has assured us that he and
+his wife stood very high in the good graces of the little people, who had
+on one occasion actually written them a letter, although as the characters
+employed were unknown to any person in the village, the object of their
+communication by this means seems somewhat of a mystery. Another and a
+more practical instance of their patronage was then related, for the
+favoured landlord assured us that on one occasion, when he and his wife
+descended downstairs in the morning, they found the house cleared, the
+hearth ready swept, and all the contents of last night's supper-table
+relaid on the brick floor, but _d'un modo squisito_, such as no human hand
+could ever have been deft enough to contrive. Just a simple innocent
+trifle of Sorrentine folk-lore, but how closely does it resemble the
+old-time gossip of rustic England, of which the great poet has left us so
+charming a picture!--
+
+  "Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat
+  To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
+  When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
+  His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
+  That ten day labourers could not end."
+
+For, as we have already said, the Monacelli show themselves grateful to
+those who anticipate their wants, and will serve their votaries with
+industry and fidelity. _Fuore avra il Monacello in casa_--perhaps he has
+had the Fairy in the house--has passed into a local phrase to designate a
+neighbour's unexplained prosperity. But, again, the lucky recipient of
+these favours must never blab or even hint at the origin of his good
+fortune, for all gossip is highly distasteful to the fairy folk; and that,
+we suppose, is the true reason why so little authentic information can be
+gleaned as to the methods of the Monacelli.
+
+In direct contrast with the Monacelli of the ravines, who are, on the
+whole, well inclined towards mortals, are the Maghe, first cousins
+evidently to the terrible _ginns_ of Arabian folk-lore; perhaps the
+Saracenic pirates themselves may have introduced their oriental sprites to
+the Neapolitan shores. In the popular mind the Maghe are supposed to
+possess vast treasures hidden in caves by the seashore, or on the bleak
+mountain side, and it was doubtless concerning these spirits that the
+guide's tale, given in a previous chapter, relates. The most celebrated
+Maga of all is the demon who haunts a certain underground corridor near
+Pozzuoli, containing an immense hoard of gold and jewels, which he is
+willing to present to anybody that is ready to give in exchange a new-born
+baby, presumably for purposes of devouring. Nor was the general belief in
+the cave-dwelling monster at Pozzuoli limited to the poor peasants and
+fisher-folk, for rumour persistently asserted that King Francis of Naples,
+father of Bomba of impious memory, more than once attempted to negotiate
+with the guardian of this buried treasure; but the Maga's terms, it seems,
+were too bloodthirsty and extravagant even for a Neapolitan Bourbon to
+comply with, and in that case they must indeed have been pretty startling.
+Malignant fairies are, in short, quite common upon the Sorrentine plain,
+where exasperated mothers are sometimes in the habit of frightening their
+squalling children into silence by threatening to introduce them to
+_Mammone_--perhaps a corruption of the old Greek word _mormo_--a terrible
+ghost, that must be a near relation to the "Big Black Man" of English
+nurseries, who is ever ready to carry off naughty boys and girls in his
+sack.
+
+But the whole of the Sorrentine Peninsula is full of local superstitions,
+the vast majority of which can easily be traced to the influence of
+Catholicism, whilst comparatively few seem to be the legacy of ancient
+Greek or Roman mythology. Belief in witchcraft is universal in these
+parts, but the witch herself (_strega_) is regarded somewhat in the light
+of a beneficent "wise woman," who can arrest the far more dreaded spell of
+the Evil Eye, rather than as the malevolent old hag of bucolic England in
+the past. Certainly there has never been recorded in Southern Italy any
+such popular persecution of poor harmless old crones as once disgraced
+English countrysides; nor has any Italian jurist, like the erudite Sir
+Matthew Hale, ever condescended to supply legal information concerning the
+peculiarities of witches, and the best methods of prosecuting and burning
+them. But the _strega_, though not as a rule dangerous to mankind,
+provided she be not disturbed or insulted, has the same supernatural power
+of transit on a broomstick that is possessed by her northern sister. On
+many a dark night have the peasants crossed themselves with fear on
+hearing the witches flying through the storm-vexed air to keep their
+unholy tryst beside the famous walnut tree of Benevento, which has been
+described for us by the learned Pietro Piperno in his mysterious treatise,
+entitled _De Nuce Beneventana_. Even snatches of the witches' song can
+sometimes be distinguished above the howling of the gale--
+
+  "Sott' aero e sopra vento,
+  Sotto la Nuce di Benevento!"
+
+Perhaps it may afford some consolation to those who have a dread of
+witches that the word "Sabato," solemnly pronounced on these awful
+occasions, is of real service to the utterer; whilst such as have had the
+good fortune to be born on a Friday in March are permanently placed
+outside the evil power of their spells, since our Saviour was crucified on
+a Friday in that month.
+
+But at length we have finished the ascent of the ridge, and our driver
+halts for a moment at the inn of the "Due Golfi." A smiling damsel,
+dressed in the picturesque native costume, advances to offer us the
+national drink of Italy, sweet vermouth that is frothed up with a little
+fizzing water in a narrow tumbler; and though carriage exercise is not
+liable to produce thirst, yet we cannot be so churlish as to refuse the
+draught, especially as the delay allows us to take our farewell look at
+the Bay of Naples. For here we have reached the peak of the rocky saddle
+that divides the two famous gulfs; and before us we now behold the wide
+crescent of the Bay of Salerno with its sunburnt vineyards and its
+precipitous cliffs. To our right we perceive the craggy headlands
+stretching southward till they culminate in the Cape of Minerva:--how much
+more attractive sounds the good old classical name than the new-fangled
+Punta della Campanella, so called from the alarm bell which used to be
+tolled in the ruined fortress at the approach of the Moslem pirate
+galleys! Vastly different is the aspect on this side of the peninsula to
+that which we have just left behind us. There is the plain below us,
+thickly dotted with farms and villas set amidst crops and orchards, a
+fertile scene of industry and population; here on the Salerno side are
+wild stony tracts affording only pasturage for a few sheep and goats, and
+covered for miles with broom, cytizus, coronella, myrtle, and numberless
+fragrant weeds, all struggling fiercely for existence on the dry barren
+soil, and filling the clear air with an incense-like perfume. Such is our
+first acquaintance with the Costiera d'Amalfi, that wonderful stretch of
+indented rocky coast-line once containing the Republic of Amalfi, which
+was the forerunner of the glorious Commonwealths of Florence and Venice.
+From the grey cliffs of Capri to the west, as far as the headland beside
+Salerno, stretched this diminutive state, composed of a confederacy of
+sister-cities, whereof Amalfi herself was the queen and metropolis. Its
+glories have long vanished, but the Costiera d'Amalfi remains an enchanted
+land, not only on account of its natural beauties, but also by reason of
+its historical associations which give an additional charm to every breezy
+headland and every little town upon this wonderful shore.
+
+Below us, as we rapidly descend the slopes by the curves of the Corniche
+road, lies the little beach known as Lo Scaricotojo, whence in the days
+previous to the construction of this splendid highway all visitors were
+wont to embark for Amalfi;--that is, unless they attempted the expedition
+by way of the mountain roads leading thither from Castellamare or La Cava.
+It raises a smile in these days of swift and luxurious travelling to learn
+from an early Victorian guide-book that "the most elegible mode of going
+from Sorrento to Amalfi is either to ride or to be carried in a _chaise �
+porteurs_ to that part of the Colli where begins a rapid descent, and
+thence descending on foot to the Marinella of the Scaricotojo on the Gulf
+of Salerno.... The ride occupies about an hour and a quarter, and the
+descent which, though steep, is not dangerous, occupies about an hour."
+_Nous avons chang� tout �a_; yet there are still living amongst us those
+who lament the passing away of the old-fashioned days of Italian travel,
+when inns were bad but picturesque, and expeditions to such remote places
+as Amalfi were not only difficult but even dangerous; since in
+compensation for slow progress and risk of brigands every town owned a
+primitive charm which is now rapidly disappearing before the modern
+irruption of locust-like swarms of tourists with their motor cars, their
+luncheon baskets, and their kodaks. Well, to the majority of travellers
+the value of natural scenery is not a little enhanced by the sense of
+comfort, and here on the Costiera d'Amalfi the most particular can have no
+cause to complain, since it is one of the few lovely spots of Southern
+Europe that has not yet been invaded by the dividend-paying railway. No,
+the old Republic retains to a great extent its ancient atmosphere of
+unspoiled beauty and remoteness from the bustling world. It is still a
+stretch of glorious and historic country wherein one can obtain a pleasant
+and valued respite for a time from the overpowering improvements of an
+industrial age.
+
+As we look southward across the breadth of the Bay, our eye is at once
+caught by the group of the Isles of the Sirens, which, though in reality
+fully a mile distant from the nearest point of the coast, seem in this
+clear atmosphere as though they were lying within a stone's throw of the
+beach. Around these bare bluffs of rock, seemingly flung by the hand of
+Nature in a sportive mood into the blue waves, lingers one of the most
+insidious of all the old Greek legends, for it was past these lonely
+cliffs that the cunning Ulysses sailed during his long career of mazy
+wanderings in search of his island home and his faithful Penelope. In
+those days, so the Greek bard tells us, there dwelt upon these islets
+strange sea-witches with the faces and forms of most beautiful maidens,
+although their lower limbs had the resemblance of eagles' feet and talons.
+Two sirens only, says Homer, dwelt upon these coasts, although later poets
+have increased the number of the fatal sisters to three or even four.
+Singing the most enchanting songs to the sound of tortoise-shell lyres,
+there used to bask in the sunlight beside the gentle ripple the Sirens,
+their nether limbs well hidden from the gaze of passing seamen, who,
+attracted by the tuneful notes, hastened hither to discover the
+whereabouts of the musicians. Innocent eyes, angelic faces, flowing golden
+locks and white beckoning hands had every power to draw the curious
+mariner nearer and nearer, until he came within reach of the fell
+enchantresses. For the Sirens loved the flesh of mortals, and bleached
+skulls and bones of digested victims lay in heaps upon the sandy floor of
+their azure-hued caverns. Gold and jewels, too, the spoils of many a brave
+galley that had been lured to destruction by these charmers, likewise
+littered their retreat, and perhaps it was as much the glittering of this
+gold as their own lovely features that in certain cases enticed the wary
+merchant into this fatal trap. Gold and a pretty face: what male heart
+could be proof against the double temptation the Isles of the Sirens
+offered to the navigator in the days of the Odyssey! Only one sailor over
+these seas proved himself a match for the wiles of the cruel goddesses of
+the Amalfitan coast; for Ulysses, as we know, stopped the ears of his
+companions with wax on their approach towards this dangerous spot, whilst
+he himself, always eager to hear and see everything yet perfectly well
+aware of the Sirens' magnetic power, had himself tightly bound by cords to
+the mast. So whilst the deaf rowers stolidly tugged at their oars,
+oblivious of the weird unearthly melody around them, the clever King of
+Ithaca gained the honour of becoming the only mortal who had listened to
+that subtle song without paying the penalty of a hideous and ignoble
+death.
+
+It is strangely disappointing to find that no recollection of Sirens or of
+Ulysses lingers in the lore of the present dwellers upon these coasts.
+They have no more notion of the aspect of a Siren than they have of a
+pleisosaurus, and, as a modern writer na�vely complains, they are not
+sharp-witted enough to invent fanciful tales to please the enquiring
+foreigner. Nor is this lack of intelligence to be wondered at, when we
+recall to mind the clean sweep of all classical learning and tradition
+which that period of time, truly known as the Dark Ages, made throughout
+Italy; if Petrarch found it necessary to explain to King Robert the Wise
+with the greatest tact and delicacy that Vergil was a poet and not a
+wizard, what must have been the appalling ignorance prevailing amongst the
+peasant and the fisherman? And yet these barren rocks were known as the
+Isles of the Sirens centuries before the verses of the Aeneid immortalized
+the mythic voyage of the Trojan adventurer, who passed along this
+iron-bound coast on his way towards the mouth of Tiber. Their modern, or
+rather medieval name of I Galli is somewhat of a puzzle. Erudite scholars
+affect to derive it from Guallo, a fortress captured during a war between
+King Roger and the Republic of Amalfi, but this explanation, we confess,
+does not sound very reasonable. Others prefer to imagine that the word
+Gallo (a cock) contains an allusion to the claws and feathers of the
+Sirens themselves, for certain of the ancient writers endowed these dire
+Virgins of the Rocks with the wings as well as the claws of birds;--in
+fact, they represented them as Harpies, those horrible fowls with women's
+faces that appeared upon the scene at Prospero's bidding to spoil the bad
+king's supper party. But why, if the Sirens were female,--and on this point
+all their critics agree with an unanimity that is wonderful--should their
+ancient haunts be called "The Cocks?" The untutored natives themselves,
+understanding nothing of Sirens or of Odysseys, hold their own theory with
+regard to the disputed name, which they connect with the construction of a
+harbour at distant Salerno, and though this legend sounds foolish enough,
+it is scarcely less flimsy than the notions already quoted. A certain
+enchanter, one Pietro Bajalardo, undertook--in modern parlance,
+contracted--to build in a single night the much needed breakwater at
+Salerno on the strange condition that all cocks in the neighbourhood
+should first be killed; for the wizard, so the story runs, had a special
+aversion to Chanticleer on account of his having caused the repentance of
+St Peter by his crowing. In any case, the reigning Prince of Salerno
+gladly complied with the eccentric request, and at his command every cock
+in or near the place was accordingly slaughtered, with the solitary
+exception of one old rooster, who, being very dear to the heart of his
+aged mistress, was kept concealed beneath a tub and thus escaped the
+general holocaust. Throughout the livelong night Bajalardo was busily
+engaged in superintending the work of building the harbour, whilst the
+fiends who carried out his behest were actively conveying huge blocks of
+broken cliff from the Cape of Minerva to place in the waters of Salerno.
+But at daybreak the cock imprisoned beneath the tub, the sole survivor of
+his race, according to natural custom announced the dawn, to the despair
+of Bajalardo and the terror of his attendant fiends, who in their
+precipitate flight dropped into the sea near the Punta Sant' Elia the huge
+masses of stone they were then carrying; and these rocks are called by men
+I Galli in consequence to this day.
+
+But, to be strictly impartial, it was not the Sirens alone who were
+responsible for all the victims who perished on these arid rocks. _Homo
+homini lupus_; man is always ready to prey upon man, and many of the dark
+tales concerning the Galli go to prove the truth of the terrible old
+adage. At what period the Sirens abandoned their ancient retreat and swam
+or flew away to more congenial haunts is unknown to history; but certain
+it is that the rulers of proud Amalfi committed many a cruel deed of
+murder or torture upon their deserted islets. For here, many a hapless
+political prisoner languished for years in abject misery, a prey to the
+heat and glare of summer and to the fierce gales of bitter winter nights.
+Rock-cut steps and ruined towers still remain as mementoes of those dark
+days, when callous human gaolers worthily filled the places of the absent
+Sirens. It was in a chamber of yonder turret, still standing, that the
+Doge Mansone II., blinded by a brother's vengeance, dragged out years of
+utter misery in pain and darkness, until the Emperor of the East, suzerain
+of Amalfi, at last took compassion upon the prisoner's wretched plight and
+allowed him to be removed into honourable confinement at Byzantium. For
+many hundreds of years the Isles of the Sirens have lain untenanted, nor
+are they visited nowadays save by a few inquisitive travellers or by the
+fishermen of the Scaricotojo, who find safe shelter under their lee during
+the sudden squalls of the Mediterranean. For, strange to relate, there are
+no dangerous currents, no treacherous whirlpools close to these rocky
+islets, such as we might expect to give some natural interpretation to the
+ancient myth, the origin of which remains unexplained and constitutes a
+very pretty mystery as it stands.
+
+We bid farewell to the group of ill-omened rocks, as we proceed rapidly
+under the rocky slopes of the Monte di Chiosse towards Positano, which
+extends in a long curving line of cheerful-tinted flat-roofed houses from
+the summit of its protecting cliff to the strand below, sprinkled with
+boats and nets and cloths with heaps of grain a-drying. The descent to the
+lower portion of the little town is singularly charming with its varied
+scenery of rocks and hanging woods above us, with the tiled domes of
+churches outlined against the deep blue waters, and with the whole scene
+dominated by the pierced crag of Montapertuso, beyond which thrusts up
+into the cloudless sky the triple peak of the giant Sant' Angelo. Positano
+is a thriving as well as an ancient place, and of its dense population we
+have abundant evidence in the swarms of children that pursue our carriage,
+brown-skinned picturesque little nuisances, shrilly and incessantly crying
+out for _soldi_. Most of these infants wear bright coloured rags, but not
+a few are dressed in garments that at once recall the ginger-coloured
+robes of the Capuchin friars, for the brothers of the Order of St Francis
+are popularly reputed to be especially competent in keeping aloof evil
+spells from young persons entrusted to their charge; and of course, argue
+the doting parents, it is only natural that the spirits of darkness should
+not dare to molest the little ones tricked out in robes similar to those
+worn by these holy men.
+
+From the point of view of history the chief interest of Positano centres
+in the time-honoured tradition that Flavio Gioja, the original inventor of
+the compass, was a native of this town, once a flourishing and important
+member of the group of cities which comprised the Amalfitan Republic in
+its palmy days. But Clio, the Muse of History, is an inexorable mistress,
+and she will not rest content with mere hearsay, however venerable, and as
+a result of careful investigation it would seem that Flavio Gioja, who for
+centuries has been generally credited with this marvellous discovery, must
+himself have been a personage almost as mythic as the Sirens of this
+shore, for his very name is spelled in a variety of ways that is
+hopelessly confusing. Nor has the question of his place of birth ever been
+satisfactorily settled, for both Positano and Amalfi claim this hero of
+science for a son, although only in Amalfitan annals can the disputed name
+be detected. Be this as it may, it was a citizen of this Costiera who has
+ever been acknowledged as the inventor of the compass, though concerning
+both himself and his alleged discovery there is a complete absence of any
+contemporary record. Later writers have, it is true, always admitted the
+honour on behalf of the Republic, and Pontano goes so far as to call
+Amalfi _magnetica_ in compliment thereof, whilst during the later crusades
+the Amalfitani, who were evidently convinced of the genuine nature of
+Gioja's claim, had an heraldic figure of the mariner's compass emblazoned
+on their banners. It seems a thousand pities to throw doubt upon so
+picturesque a tradition, for the date of the invention of the compass has
+been fixed as 1302, two years only after the holding of the famous Papal
+Jubilee in Rome which Dante's verse has described for us. Nor can the
+ingenious theory be upheld that the fleur-de-lys, the emblem of the French
+kings of Naples, which still decorates the dial of the compass in almost
+all lands, is in any wise connected with Carlo il Zoppo, the monarch to
+whom Gioja is said to have dedicated his ingenious discovery. No, we have
+little doubt that the compass, like so many of the scientific wonders that
+crept into Europe before and during the time of the Renaissance, was
+originally brought from the far East, a farther East than the argosies of
+Amalfi had ever penetrated. The little magic box with its moving needle
+was first used, it is now admitted, by the cunning merchants of Cathay
+during their trading expeditions across the stony monotonous plains of
+Central Asia that lay between the Flowery Land and the civilization of
+Persia. From Cathay the use of the magnetic needle was introduced to the
+Arab mathematicians of Baghdad and Cairo, and through them the secret of
+the lodestone of China was conveyed to the coast towns of the Levant. At
+Aleppo or Alexandria some astute trader of Amalfi--perhaps his name really
+was Flavio Gioja--contrived to learn the new method of steering from some
+Moslem or Jewish merchant, and he in his turn brought this novel and
+precious piece of information back to the Italian shores. If, then, a
+native of Amalfi did not evolve the idea of the compass out of his own
+brain, at least it was the old Republic which first impressed the Western
+world with its immense value, and this, too, at a far earlier period than
+the date usually assigned to Gioja's "discovery." For a Christian bishop
+of Jerusalem a hundred years before Gioja's day makes mention of the
+compass as being in common use amongst the Saracens of Palestine, whilst
+its existence was certainly known to Brunetto Latini, the tutor of Dante,
+whom for certain moral failings upon earth his brilliant pupil somewhat
+harshly places in the infernal regions. History has, in short, long
+deprived poor disconsolate Positano of its vaunted glory in the production
+of a medieval scientist whose very existence has now become a matter of
+speculation.
+
+As we thread our way along the road that curves round headland after
+headland, and is carried over sheer precipices whose base is lapped by the
+cool jade-green water, we begin to realize the essential difference
+between the Sorrentine shores we have left behind us, and the marvellous
+Costiera d'Amalfi we are now passing. Ever green and smiling are the
+favoured districts that stretch from Castellamare to Massa Lubrense, with
+the mountain tops acting as screens to protect the groves and crops from
+the sun's ardent rays and with the fresh reviving breezes from the Abruzzi
+ever breathing upon them. But here we seem to be under the very eyes of
+the Sun-God, who stares fixedly from rising to setting upon the Amalfitan
+coast. Welcome enough is this continuous basking in his smiles during the
+short winter days; but oh! the long, long summer hours wherein King Helios
+relentlessly pours down his burning glances upon the shallow soil that
+covers the rocky face of the Costiera! We who visit the territories of the
+old Republic in winter or early spring only perceive one aspect of the
+picture. We rejoice in the gladdening warmth afforded by unbroken sunshine
+and by the complete absence of cutting winds which Monte Sant' Angelo's
+towering form excludes from these shores; we note with delight the
+premature unfolding of buds and blossoms, and we marvel at the young fruit
+of the dark-leaved loquat trees--the _nespoli_ of the South--turning to pale
+yellow even in February. But we cannot realise the blinding glare and the
+torrid heat of a July or August, making a perfect furnace of this
+sheltered corner, where the thin layer of cultivated soil, that has been
+scraped together painfully by human hands, becomes baked through and
+through, when the water-tanks are exhausted, and when the clouds of thick
+dust hang like a pall of white smoke for miles above the sinuous course of
+the Corniche road. How close and sweltering must be the atmosphere of
+these populous coves, when the very waves are flung luke-warm upon the hot
+sand! How must the inhabitants sigh for a breath of cool air from the
+Abruzzi, for the zephyr that tempers the heat on the Sorrentine plain!
+_Carpe diem_; let us enjoy the Costiera d'Amalfi in the freshness of early
+spring-time, before the oranges and lemons have been stripped from the
+leafy groves and before the sun has had time to scorch up the vegetation
+that now gives colour to every cleft and crevice of the rocky coast-line.
+
+As we advance eastward from Positano we obtain glimpses from time to time
+of mountain valleys thickly clothed with brushwood, and far above our
+heads we perceive Agerola perched aloft under the shadow of the topmost
+crag of Monte Sant' Angelo--Agerola, where wolves still haunt the dim
+recesses of the chestnut woods, and where the charcoal burners can tell us
+of the great grey Were-Wolf that prowls round the village on stormy
+nights. Passing the torrent of the Arriengo and the Punta di San Pietro
+with its lonely chapel looking out to sea; glancing down upon the deep set
+strand and gloomy caverns of Furore, and rounding Cape Sottile, we find
+ourselves at Prajano, one of the prettiest spots to be found on all this
+wonderful coast. Here we stop to visit the church of San Luca, which
+stands on a little grassy platform overhanging the sea and commanding a
+superb view of the Bay of Salerno. It is a baroque structure of the type
+common everywhere in Italy, which travellers are apt to despise without
+acknowledging how picturesque this decadent style of architecture can
+appear. At Prajano the wooden doors of green faded to the hue of ancient
+bronze, the yellow-washed plaster fa�ade and the lichen-covered tiles of
+the roof and tower make up a charming mass of varied colouring when viewed
+against the broad blue band of sea and sky beyond. Within, the church is
+mean and tawdry, just a
+
+  "Sad charnel-house of humble hopes and crimes,
+  Long dead and buried in obscurity;"
+
+but the afternoon sun struggling through the curtains that cover its
+fantastic windows allows a mellow light to fill the expanse of the
+building. A toothless old woman and a young girl, both of them thinly and
+poorly clad, are the sole occupants of the church, and they are evidently
+too much absorbed in prayer to notice our presence. They have placed
+beside the Madonna's altar lighted tapers which glimmer feebly in a shaft
+of strong sunlight that falls through a rent in the curtain overhead. For
+what purpose, we wonder, have these candles been bought out of a scanty
+store! Are they burning on behalf of some sailor-boy now being tossed upon
+the ocean? Or are they offered to obtain some boon more selfish and less
+pathetic? At any rate, this pair of intent worshippers, representing fresh
+Southern youth and crabbed age, make up a pretty picture as they kneel
+together on the pavement of tiles ornamented in bright rococo patterns to
+represent the coat-of-arms of some forgotten noble benefactor: it is too
+simple and everyday a sight in Italy to offer a theme for verse, too
+sacred a subject for an idle photograph. We leave the church on tip-toe,
+and return to the terrace with its low marble seats and its stunted acacia
+trees to sit a few moments before re-entering the carriage.
+
+  [Illustration: EVENING AT AMALFI]
+
+Skirting the Capo di Conca we obtain our first sight of proud Amalfi, and
+we realize that our drive, long in distance perhaps, but all too short
+with its varied beauties and interests, is drawing to a close. Nearer and
+nearer do we approach our goal, the shining turrets of the Cathedral tower
+acting as our beacon, until at length our chariot clatters beneath the
+echoing tunnel hewn in the cliff that leads into the town itself.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER VI
+
+
+                   AMALFI AND THE FESTIVAL OF ST ANDREW
+
+
+The traveller's first impressions of Amalfi, which is essentially the
+beauty-spot of the Riviera of Naples, are usually associated with the old
+Capuchin convent, long since turned into a hotel and now the bourne of
+most visitors to this coast. Its arcaded fa�ade and its terraced garden
+stand on a plateau seemingly cut out of the sheer face of the cliff,
+whilst high above the town the lofty barren rocks enfold the Convent and
+its verdant demesne within a natural amphitheatre and protect this sunny
+paradise from the keen blasts of winter. A flight of steps zigzagging up
+the rocky hill-side connects the building with the high road below; whilst
+a narrow pathway, leading between stone walls and now passing beneath dark
+mysterious archways, wherein the lamps burning before the Madonna's
+shrines afford a welcome light even at midday, descends by steep gradients
+from the garden above into the main piazza of the little city. Built by
+the celebrated Cardinal Pietro Capuano nearly seven hundred years ago for
+Cistercian monks, the monastery in the sixteenth century came into the
+possession of the Capuchin Friars, those brown-robed figures that with
+their bare feet and girdles of knotted white cord are such familiar and
+picturesque objects in the daily crowds of every Italian town. But the
+friars have been forced to abandon their airy retreat ever since the
+suppression of the religious houses, which succeeded the union of the old
+Neapolitan kingdom with young Italy, and their convent has long been put
+to secular uses. Yet the old monastic church still exists, and
+superstitious people declare that the spectral forms of ejected Capuchins
+are sometimes to be seen advancing slowly up the rocky ascent in order to
+revisit the sacred building that is now closed for worship. Nevertheless
+the church is cared for by the members of the Vozzi family, its present
+owners, who every Christmas-tide still prepare the popular _presepio_,
+that curious representation of the scene in the stable at Bethlehem,
+wherein a score of gaily dressed figures of painted wood represent the
+Holy Family and the worshipping peasants. Little in fact has been changed
+within the building itself, and the exquisite cloistered court with its
+slender intertwining Saracenic columns still remains to delight alike the
+artist and the antiquary. We say "still remains" advisedly; for beyond the
+tiny quadrangle our eyes at once light upon a scene of hideous
+devastation.
+
+Doubtless many persons will recall the great land-slip of December 1899,
+when almost without warning the whole face of the rocky headland that
+shelters Amalfi on the west tore itself loose and slid with a crash like
+thunder into the sea below, overwhelming in its fall the little inn known
+as the "Santa Caterina" and burying in its ruins two English ladies and
+several fishermen. The sinister scar still continues as a blot upon the
+lovely landscape, speaking only too eloquently to all of sudden death and
+destruction amidst the surrounding scenes of life and beauty. The older
+portion of the Capuchin convent, by a miracle as it were, escaped the
+on-rush of the land-slide, but its famous "Calvary," the large group of
+the Crucifixion that appears prominently in so many pictures of Amalfi,
+was completely swept away, so that the boatmen from the sands below can no
+longer behold the immense vivid representation of the Last Agony which was
+wont to greet their upturned eyes. Already Time's kindly hand has begun to
+drape the scene of the catastrophe with a decent mourning veil of grey and
+green, for the hardy succulent plants that can withstand the sun's fierce
+rays and can thrive despite the boisterous salt sea-winds are already
+sprouting from every crack and cranny of the riven earth. Perhaps it is as
+well for us selfish and self-satisfied mortals to possess a _memento mori_
+close at hand in a spot so teeming with the joy of life; yet somehow the
+first sight of that mass of broken headland and the dark ominous fissure
+in the hill-side, flung across the sunlit scene, is apt to send a slight
+shiver through the frame of the beholder.
+
+There are three indisputable advantages to be gained by turning a
+suppressed religious house into a modern hotel, so a cunning old Italian
+inn-keeper once confided to us; that is, of course, provided one is not
+afraid of the proverbial curse that clings to the buying of any of the
+Church's sequestrated property. These three things are good air, good
+water, and lovely views; benefits that a layman is fully as competent to
+understand as any cloistered ecclesiastic. And certainly the worthy Vozzi
+are fully justified in offering these privileges to their guests at the
+Albergo Cappuccini. Signor Vozzi! How many travellers in the South recall
+with infinite pleasure their host's tall commanding figure, his snowy
+drooping whiskers, the sun-shade that was rarely out of his hand, his
+old-fashioned courteous manners, and his famous family of cats, whereof
+the coal-black Nerone was the prime favourite, a feline monster almost as
+tyrannical as his Imperial namesake of evil reputation. Signor Vozzi's
+striking personality, the sable fur of agate-eyed Nerone, the eternal
+sunshine, and the wide all-embracing views over sea and land, are somehow
+all jumbled together in our perplexed mind, as it recurs to the many days
+spent beneath the convent roof. Nay, not beneath the roof! For we were
+wont to pass the whole day, even the short December day, in basking on the
+warm sheltered terrace and peering over the busy beach and the dazzling
+waters below, whereon the tale of Amalfitan fisher-life could be read as
+it were from the pages of a book.
+
+Somehow the old monastic buildings appear marvellously well adapted to
+modern needs. The former inmates' cells, wherein the brown-robed brethren
+of the Order of St Francis until lately were wont to pass their placid
+uneventful lives, afford comfortable if somewhat limited accommodation;
+whilst the covered _loggia_ that runs the whole length of the cells has
+been turned into a series of delightful little sitting-rooms, their broad
+arc-shaped windows facing full south, a boon that only a winter resident
+in Italy can properly appreciate. _Dove non entra il sole, entra il
+medico_, is a hackneyed but well-proven adage; consequently here in the
+old Capuchin convent the services of the local medicine-man ought rarely
+to be required. Signor Vozzi's guests partake of their meals in the
+ancient refectory, a large bare echoing chamber with a vaulted ceiling,
+which still contains the old stone pulpit from which in more pious days a
+grave brother was wont to read aloud choice passages from the works of the
+early Fathers of the Church or of St Bonaventura, the Seraphic Doctor of
+the Franciscans, during the hours allotted to the frugal repasts of the
+friars. But the public rooms and the cool white-washed corridors do not
+present such attractions as the glorious garden with its famous _pergola_
+and its views of the Bay. Here even in Christmas week we found quantities
+of plants in full bloom: the delicate yellow blossoms of the Soffrana
+rose; trailing ivy-leaved geraniums with gay heads of carmine flowers; the
+honey-scented budleia with its little globes of dark yellow flowerets:
+clumps of gorgeous scarlet salvia; and straggling masses of the pretty
+cosmia, red, pink and white. Humming-bird hawk-moths darted hither and
+thither in the sunshine, restless little creatures whose wings are never
+for a moment still, as they poise gracefully over each separate blossom in
+turn. The _pergola_ itself, which every artist at Amalfi paints as a
+matter of course, generally with a Capuchin friar--at least a friar _pro
+hac vice_--or a pretty dark-eyed damsel in the native costume, sitting in
+the foreground, was certainly bare of foliage, we admit, for even in the
+soft warm air of the Bay of Salerno the grape-vine wisely refuses to burst
+into leaf at Yuletide, no matter how enticing the warmth. But the thick
+white pillars and their wooden cross-beams, around which are entwined the
+leafless coiling limbs of the sleeping vine, throw dark blue patterns of
+chequered shadow upon the sunlit ground. Above the terraced garden rises
+the orangery, well watered by many artificial rillets, and from the midst
+of the orange and lemon trees there emerges a path leading to the
+entrancing _bosco_, or grove, that fills the deep hollow space formed by
+the sheltering cliffs behind. It was mid-winter, as we have said, yet pink
+cyclamens and strong-scented double narcissi were blooming freely, whilst
+from the dark boughs of the ilex trees overhead there fell upon the ear
+the pleasant twittering of innumerable birds, for happily the cruel snare
+and the gun are strictly forbidden in this sacred spot, so that his
+"little sisters, the birds," that the gentle Saint of Assisi loved so
+tenderly, can still sing their songs of innocence and build their nests in
+peace amidst the trees that no longer remain the property of the great
+humanitarian Order. At nightfall this garden is almost equally beautiful
+beneath a star-lit sky and with the many lamps of the town below throwing
+long bars of yellow light upon the placid waters of the Bay. As we pace
+the long terrace, wrapped in the glory of a million stars and revelling in
+the exalted yet fairy-like loveliness of the scene around us, we perceive
+the mellow night air to be redolent of a strange but fascinating perfume.
+It is the _olea fragrans_, the humble inconspicuous oriental shrub that
+from its clusters of tiny white flowers is thus giving out its secret soul
+at the falling of the night dews, and permeating the whole garden with its
+marvellous floral incense. But if the star-lit, flower-scented nights of
+Amalfi are to be accounted as exquisite memories, how much more glorious
+and exhilarating is the rising of the sun, as he appears in full majesty
+of crimson and gold above the classic hills that overlook Paestum to the
+east! Leaning at early dawn from the windows of the Cappuccini, we have
+watched the sky flush at the first caress of "rosy-fingered E�s" and seen
+the fragment of the waning moon turn to silver at the approach of the
+burning God of Day, still tarrying behind the lofty barrier of the capes
+and mountains of the Lucanian shore.
+
+  "Slowly beyond the headlands comes the day,
+  Though moon and planet on a sky of gold,
+  Chequered with orange and vermilion-stoled,
+  Have floated long before the sun's first ray
+  Has shot across the waters to display
+  Amalfi in her dotage; as of old
+  His beams lit up her splendours manifold,
+  Her quays and palaces that fringed the bay.
+  His smile makes every barren hill-side blush
+  In rose and purple for the glories fled,
+  As early watchers note th' encroaching flush
+  From proud Ravello to Atrani spread,
+  And curse the cruel arm that once did crush
+  This sea-sprung Niobe, and leave her dead."
+
+  [Illustration: AMALFI]
+
+Dead, alas! For the old liberties of the great Republic of Amalfi have
+been extinct for more than half a thousand years, and it is in consequence
+difficult for us to realise that the quaint noisy squalid picturesque
+little city by the sea-shore, huddled into the narrow gorge of the
+Canneto, is that self-same Amalfi whose navies rode triumphant over the
+Mediterranean before the days of the Early Crusades. Yet Amalfi, which may
+be reckoned amongst the first-born of that fair family of medieval cities
+that their prolific parent the land of Italy brought forth in an age of
+darkness, was also the foremost to droop and die, her glories scattered
+and passed before Florence had ceased to be an obscure country town. In
+this case History presents to us a most forcible, not to say an unique
+example of the origin, rise and decline of a power, all occurring within a
+short space of time. Amalfi springs, as it were, out of the void as a city
+of importance, for no Roman colony occupied its site in antique times. Its
+very nomenclature is a puzzle to scholars, and the usual statement that it
+owed its name to Byzantine settlers coming hither from the ancient town of
+Melfi in the Basilicata does not sound very convincing, though for want of
+a better theory it must suffice. Why, when, and by whom the city was in
+reality founded remains an enigma, yet we learn from a passage in one of
+the letters of St Gregory the Great that the place was of sufficient size
+to be governed by a bishop in the sixth century. By the tenth we find the
+Republic of Amalfi already risen to a position of commanding importance,
+and holding its own against the rival states between which its territories
+were wedged; the dukedom of Naples to the west and the principality of
+Salerno to eastward. Dexterously playing on the greed and prejudices of
+the various tyrants who ruled Naples and Salerno, and occasionally allying
+itself with them in order to repel the fierce attacks of their common
+enemy, the Saracenic hordes who were then harrying the Lucanian coast,
+Amalfi continued to uphold its political freedom and dignity in the face
+of immense difficulties. And in gratitude for the vigour with which the
+Amalfitani had waged war against the infidel invaders, Pope Leo IV. in
+course of time conferred upon the Duke or Doge, the chief magistrate of
+the Republic, the title of "Defender of the Faith." Nominally under the
+suzerainty of the Greek Emperor at Constantinople, Amalfi was practically
+independent; its system of government was conducted on lines somewhat akin
+to those of aristocratic Venice; its population is said to have exceeded
+fifty thousand in the capital city alone; its boundaries extended from the
+Promontory of Minerva on the west to the town of Cetara upon the confines
+of Salerno; whilst many daughter-towns of wealth and importance, such as
+Scala and Ravello, sprang into being within the narrow limits of the
+sea-girt republic. Owning a small and by no means fertile extent of land,
+the inhabitants of Amalfi from its earliest days were forced to become
+merchants and sailors; to use a modern phrase, the Amalfitani came to
+possess a complete monopoly of trade with Eastern lands, both Christian
+and Mahommedan. It was the ships of the Republic that alone brought to the
+shores of Italy the rich stuffs, the gold and silver embroideries, the
+dried fruits and the strange birds and beasts of Asia Minor and Arabia,
+and in exchange for their oriental merchandise obtained an abundance of
+corn, wine, oil, meat and other commodities of life that their beautiful
+but somewhat sterile dominions were unable to supply to an ever increasing
+population. But it was not only the material products of the East that the
+sailors of Amalfi conveyed to Europe in their home-bound argosies; for
+they brought back with them the rudiments of arts and sciences that
+distracted Italy had well-nigh forgotten during the period of the
+barbarian invasions. Through the merchant princes of Amalfi, the secrets
+of astronomy, of mathematics and of scientific navigation were
+re-introduced into the land that had almost lost its old Roman
+civilization. A priceless manuscript of that great code of laws, the
+Pandects, which a Byzantine Emperor, the famous Justinian, had caused to
+be compiled with such skill and labour, putting into concise and accurate
+form the collected wisdom of generations of Roman jurists, was included
+amongst the treasures of the East that were borne back to Italy in the
+Republic's vessels. And in addition to restoring the old Roman
+jurisprudence to its original home, the city of Amalfi had the honour of
+promulgating the celebrated _Tabula Amalphitana_, the new maritime laws
+that were henceforth destined to regulate the whole commercial system of
+the western world. No marvel then that the poet William of Apulia should
+praise in unmeasured terms the glories of the new-sprung city, whose trade
+extended to the shores of India and whose merchants possessed independent
+settlements in every great city of the Levant.
+
+  "Nulla magis civitas argento, vestibus, auro
+  Partibus innumeris; hac plurimus urbe moratur
+  Nauta marit coelique vias aperiri peritus.
+  Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe
+  Regia et Antiochi. Zeus haec freta plurima transit
+  His Arabes, Indi, Siculi nascuntur et Afri.
+  Haec genus est totum prope nobilitata per orbem,
+  Et mercanda ferens, et amans mercata referre."
+
+  ("No city richer in its store of gold,
+  Of precious stones and silks doth Europe hold;
+  Her skilful mariners o'er treacherous seas
+  With aid of compass sail where'er they please.
+  From Egypt and from Antioch they land,
+  Their precious cargoes on th' Italian strand.
+  Scathless Amalfi's navies penetrate
+  The distant ports of every Paynim state.
+  Match me throughout the circuit of this earth
+  Another race so full of zeal and worth.")
+
+A small state on a barren shore, yet the holder of the balance between
+East and West by means of its wide-spread commerce, such was Amalfi during
+the tenth and eleventh centuries. In some respects this Republic of the
+Middle Ages appears as the prototype of the Venice of the Renaissance, for
+there is not a little in common between the city that was built upon the
+marshy islets of the Adriatic lagoons, and the city that was erected at
+the base of the treacherous cliffs of the Tyrrhene Sea. Solely by means of
+commerce both foundations rose from nothingness to splendour and power:
+both held the gorgeous East in fee; and both fell lamentably from their
+high estate. The chief point of difference in this comparison of their
+careers is obvious; Amalfi collapsed suddenly and utterly, whilst the
+Queen of the Adriatic has sunk gradually to decay until she has become the
+interesting monument of a vanished magnificence which we admire to-day.
+
+It was the rising naval power of Pisa that finally crushed the greatness
+of Amalfi, although the Republic had already entered into its days of
+decline when Robert Guiscard at the time of the First Crusade had
+temporarily annexed its dominions to his new principality. Some thirty
+years later King Roger of Naples forcibly seized the whole of the Costiera
+d'Amalfi, allowing the citizens to retain their own form of government.
+Four years after this, the Pisan fleet, coming to aid the people of Naples
+against King Roger, utterly destroyed the once vaunted navy of Amalfi, and
+sacked both the city itself and the two hill-set towns of Scala and
+Ravello. Its political liberty had already been crushed by the Normans,
+and now its ships and its wealth were dissipated by the Pisans; it was a
+double measure of ignominy and disaster from which Amalfi never recovered.
+Amidst its humiliations and sorrows, the stricken city had also to mourn
+the loss of its greatest treasure, its secular _palladium_, that most
+precious copy of the Pandects of Justinian, which the Pisan marauders
+seized and carried back with them to their city on the Arno. Here in Pisa
+the famous volume remained in safe keeping for some three hundred years,
+and then, as Time's round brought its inevitable vengeance on the
+plunderers of Amalfi, it was removed by the victorious Florentines to
+their own city. So intense a veneration for the book itself now manifested
+itself amongst the scholars and students of Florence, that at one period
+offerings of incense were often made to the inscribed wisdom of past ages
+as to a most holy relic of some Saint, and the clerk or jurist about to
+peruse its faded characters was wont, first of all, to breathe a prayer of
+genuine gratitude on his knees for the preservation of this ancient book.
+Amalfi, Pisa, Florence, each in its turn has owned the guardianship of
+this most famous literary jewel, which is to-day jealously guarded as the
+chief treasure of the world-renowned Laurentian Library.
+
+It is true that the prosperity of Amalfi did not disappear immediately
+after the inroad of the Pisans, for Boccaccio, writing in the fourteenth
+century, still speaks of the ancient territory of the destroyed Republic
+as "a rocky ridge beside a smiling sea, which its inhabitants call the
+Costa d'Amalfi; full of little cities, of gardens, of fountains, and of
+rich and enterprising merchants." It was in fact reserved for relentless
+Nature herself to complete the work of destruction that Norman armies and
+Pisan fleets had more than half accomplished. We have already spoken of
+the terrible land-slips to which this beautiful shore is eminently
+subject, even at the present day, as the mass of wreckage outside the old
+Capuchin convent only too clearly testifies. In the year 1343, during the
+progress of a storm of exceptional fury, of which the poet Petrarch has
+left us a vivid account in one of his letters, the greater part of the
+devoted city was swept away by a tidal wave. The whole line of quays
+stretching from the headland by the Cappuccini to the point of Atrani on
+the east, together with churches, palaces, and warehouses, was now
+swallowed up by the surging waters and engulfed for ever in the depths of
+the sea; and thus the very element that had brought wealth, power, and
+prosperity to Amalfi in the past now proved the direct cause of her final
+calamity. With this fearful cataclysm of Nature following upon the heels
+of its political extinction, we can hardly wonder at the rapid decline of
+this "Athens of the Middle Ages," whose population has now sunk to about
+one seventh part of the 50,000 citizens it once boasted in the far distant
+days of her maritime supremacy.
+
+Reflecting upon the famous past of this ancient city, let us descend the
+steep pathway from the terrace of the Cappuccini to visit the crowded
+beach below. Here we find ourselves in the midst of a cheerful animated
+throng, engaged in mending nets, in painting boats, and in other
+occupations connected with a sea-faring life. The tall fantastic houses
+with balconied windows that line the curve of the sea-shore, the
+glistening sands and the brown-legged, gay-capped fishermen, combine to
+present a charming picture of southern Italian life, so that we could
+gladly linger in observing the ever-changing scenes of life and industry.
+But we cannot tarry long, for the ubiquitous beggars who have begun to
+pester us ever since we passed the hotel gates have meantime dogged our
+descending footsteps, and their forces have been recruited on the way
+hither by many willing assistants. No doubt the vast majority of the
+Amalfitani are hard working and self-respecting, for the little town
+possesses maccaroni factories and old-established paper mills of no small
+importance, yet it is obvious that a considerable portion of the total
+population and at least one-half of all the children spend their whole
+time in demanding alms of strangers. Before, behind, and from a distance
+arises the ceaseless cry of "_Qual co' signor'! Fame! Fame!_" in hateful
+tones of make-belief misery, and these whining appeals are aided by all
+the expressive pantomimic gestures of the South. You are placed on the
+horns of a dilemma: give, and the report that a generous and fabulously
+wealthy Signore has arrived in Amalfi will run like wild-fire through the
+whole place, and your life in consequence will become an absolute burden
+for the remainder of your sojourn in this spot. Refuse, and the wretches
+who have hitherto been wheedling and cringing at your heels, will at once
+grow insolent and threatening, especially in the case of unprotected
+ladies. It is in fact a choice of two evils, and the only remedy that we
+ourselves can suggest is for the persecuted traveller to select a good
+stout larrikin and pay him freely to keep at arm's length his detestable
+brothers and sisters in professional beggary. But the uninitiated usually
+endure these odious importunities for a certain length of time, and then,
+exasperated by the unchecked mendicancy of the place, at last fly
+precipitately from this beautiful shore, to seek comparative peace and
+freedom elsewhere. For it is useless to argue; it is foolish, even
+dangerous to grow angry. "Why should we give to you?" we asked one day in
+desperation of a particularly persistent woman. "Because," was the
+unabashed and impudent but unanswerable reply, "you have much, and I have
+nothing!" Driven by these human pests from the sunlit strand, we make our
+way through the busy piazza, where peasant women with piles of fruit and
+vegetables make a glowing mass of colour around the central fountain below
+St Andrew's statue, and proceed towards the Valley of the Mills. A
+different phase of Amalfitan life now greets us, for here are to be found
+the hard-working bees of this human hive, and it must be confessed their
+ways make an agreeable change from the habits of the pestering drones that
+infest the beach and the neighbourhood of the hotels. The whole of the
+steep rocky gorge of that tiny torrent the Canneto is full of mills, each
+emitting a whirring sound which mingles with the continual plash of the
+water as it descends in miniature cascades the full length of the ravine,
+providing in its headlong course towards the sea the motive power required
+to turn all this quantity of machinery. Bridges span the Canneto at
+several points, whilst either bank is occupied by tiny factories of paper
+or soap, and by winding stone stair-ways that lead upward to terraces
+contrived to catch the sunshine for the purpose of drying the goods. The
+whole valley, with its strong contrasting effects of sun and shade and its
+varied atmosphere of intense heat and of chilly dampness, is full of
+seething picturesque humanity. The combined sounds of creaking wheels, of
+falling water and of human chattering are almost deafening within this
+narrow echo-filled gorge, above which in the far distance we catch a
+glimpse of rocky heights with the town of Scala perched eyrie-like against
+the deep blue of the sky overhead. Pretty laughing girls, bare-footed and
+with marvellously white teeth, emerge from the open door-ways to smile
+pleasantly at us, for the workers of the Valle de' Molini are thoroughly
+accustomed to the presence of strangers in their midst. Half-naked men,
+who have stepped for a moment out of the hot rooms of the maccaroni
+factories in order to breathe the fresh air, regard us with calm disdain
+and without any seeming interest. Our presence is tolerated, even if our
+reception excites no feelings of surprise or cordiality, so that we are
+allowed to pursue our walk up the ever-narrowing valley in peace and
+comfort and to admire at our leisure the wonderfully beautiful effects of
+colouring produced by the cascades of purple-stained water, the graceful
+forms and gay dresses of the girls, and the peeps of fruit-laden orange
+trees above fern-clad walls. And how dark the people are! For though black
+eyes and hair are commonly associated with the Italian race, yet in the
+North we find abundant evidence of the admixture of Teutonic blood, whilst
+in the South the fair-haired Norman settlers have left indelible marks of
+their conquest of Naples and Sicily in many blue-eyed and white-skinned
+descendants; but here in Amalfi a blonde complexion seems to be absolutely
+unknown. "_Com' � bianco! Com' � bianco!_" called out one of a party of
+girls with swarthy skin and ebon hair and tresses, who languidly came out
+to stare at us, as we wended our way slowly up the Valley of the Mills.
+
+  [Illustration: IN THE VALLEY OF THE MILLS, AMALFI]
+
+But the chief pride of Amalfi, and indeed its sole surviving fragment of
+departed magnificence, is the Cathedral, dedicated to St Andrew the
+Apostle, who is patron of the city. A broad flight of steps, flanked on
+either side by the Archbishop's Palace and the residence of the Canons,
+leads to a platform covered by a most beautiful Gothic _loggia_ set with
+richly traceried windows and upheld by antique marble columns. At its
+northernmost angle we see springing into the blue aether the tall graceful
+red-and-white striped campanile, surmounted by its barbaric-looking
+green-tiled cupola and pinnacles. Facing the top of the steps are the two
+magnificent doors, specially designed in distant Byzantium to embellish
+this church more than eight hundred years ago, and cast by the famous
+artist in bronze, Staurachios. Two Latin inscriptions, incised in letters
+of silver upon the baser metal, relate to the world that one Pantaleone,
+son of Maurice, caused this work to be undertaken in honour of the holy
+Apostle Andrew, in order that he might obtain pardon for the sins he had
+committed whilst upon earth. These glorious gates were the gifts to their
+native city of members of the family of Pantaleone of Amalfi, merchant
+princes who had amassed an immense fortune by trade in the Levant. They
+are splendid specimens of _niello_ work, which consisted in ornamenting a
+surface of bronze by engraving upon it lines that were subsequently filled
+in with coloured enamel or with some precious metal. These portals of
+Amalfi, perhaps the earliest example in Southern Italy of this rare form
+of art, are divided into panels adorned with Scriptural subjects simply
+and quaintly treated, wherein the stiff attitudes of the figures and the
+many long straight lines introduced testify plainly enough to their
+Byzantine origin and workmanship. As we enter the cool dark
+incense-scented building, we note that though cruelly maltreated by the
+baroque enthusiasts of the eighteenth century, the general effect of the
+interior is still impressive with its rows of ancient pillars and its
+richly decorated roof. On all sides marble fragments with exquisite
+reliefs meet the eye, spoils evidently filched from the abandoned city of
+Paestum across the Salernian Bay and presented to the church by the Norman
+conquerors of Amalfi. After inspecting the classical bas-reliefs, we
+descend into the ancient crypt, which well-meaning artists have completely
+encased with a covering of precious marbles and garish frescoes of the
+Neapolitan school. It is a place of more than local sanctity, this
+modernized crypt, for the possession of the relics of the Apostle which
+Cardinal Capuano proudly brought hither after the sack of Constantinople
+in the early years of the thirteenth century, was considered by many to
+constitute a sufficient recompense to Amalfi for her lost independence.
+Popes and sovereigns were in the habit of approaching the shrine, and the
+number of these illustrious visitors includes the names of St Francis of
+Assisi, Pope Urban IV., the holy St Bridget of Sweden, and the notorious
+Queen Joanna II. of Naples. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope
+Pius II., however, seems to have thought Amalfi, ever dwindling in size
+and importance, too mean a place to own so great a treasure, and he
+accordingly transported the head of the Saint to Rome, where it is now
+accounted amongst the four chief relics of St Peter's. Perhaps it was to
+counterbalance the loss of so important a member of the Saint's anatomy,
+that in the succeeding century there arose a report which spoke of the
+rescue of certain relics of the Apostle Andrew during the headlong course
+of the Reformation in Scotland. The most precious objects preserved in the
+Cathedral of St Andrew's, says this legend, were secretly saved from the
+expected fury of Knox's partisans and brought to Amalfi, where they were
+reverently added to the store of remains that had survived the plundering
+of Pius II. Whether or no there be any truth in this somewhat fantastic
+theory, it is enough to state that St Andrew continues to be patron Saint
+of this maritime city, for which office the character of the Galilean
+fisherman who was called to be a fisher of men seems specially
+appropriate. Nevertheless, despite the valuable additions made in
+Reformation days, the sanctity of the shrine is not held so high as it
+used to be. No longer do the venerated bones ooze with the sweet-scented
+moisture that in medieval days was piously collected to be used for
+purposes so varied as the curing of warts, or the scattering of Paynim
+fleets! Yet so late as the days of Tasso, the great Apostle himself was
+evidently connected in the popular mind with the performance of so bizarre
+a miracle:--
+
+  "Vide in sembianza placida e tranquilla
+  Il Divo, che di manna Amalfi instilla."
+
+But although the present times are too sinful to allow of the distillation
+of the fragrant dew of Amalfi, we observe the kneeling forms of not a few
+intent worshippers within the dimly-lighted crypt, in the midst of which
+the Spaniard Naccarino's bronze figure of the Apostle uprises with
+dignified mien and life-like attitude. Sant' Andrea is still "Il Divo,"
+the tutelary god of the Amalfitani; he remains in the estimation of these
+simple ignorant folk the special protector of the community. Times and
+ideas change, but not the old deep-rooted feeling of a personal tie
+between the Saint and his favoured people.
+
+We were lucky in happening upon the great popular festival of Sant' Andrea
+during our visit to Amalfi, and consequently were enabled not only to
+witness a picturesque scene of considerable splendour, but also to observe
+how strong a devotion the Amalfitani still manifest towards their own
+especial Saint. With the first flush of early dawn, discharges of mortars
+from the beach and the neighbouring hills began to arouse the echoes and
+to remind the still slumbering population that once more the great
+anniversary had arrived. The world was quickly astir to do honour to the
+great St Andrew, and from a very early hour an interminable stream of
+peasants and villagers, young and old, male and female, began to enter the
+town from all quarters, and to congregate in the piazza where stands the
+large fountain crowned by the Saint's own effigy. Here with exemplary
+patience the throng waited until the hour of the ceremony in the Cathedral
+drew nigh. Within the huge building priests and lay-helpers were actively
+employed in preparing for the event, and by their exertions the whole
+interior had been transformed into what may be best described as a
+magnificent ball-room, for every blank wall had been covered with
+draperies of rich crimson damask and the very pillars had been swathed
+from base to capital in the same gorgeous material. Innumerable old
+cut-glass chandeliers, that had reposed since the last _festa di Sant'
+Andrea_ in huge round boxes in some secluded vault, had been slung by
+means of cords from the ceiling and the arches of the nave, whilst a large
+number of mirrors set in carved gilt frames had been affixed to various
+points of the walls and columns. The fine marble pavement lay thickly
+strewn with bay and myrtle leaves, emitting a pleasant wholesome scent
+when crushed under foot by the picturesque but somewhat malodorous crowd
+of fisher-folk and peasants. On entering the church, at the first sound of
+the bells booming over head, we found ourselves heavily pressed by the
+surging throng of worshippers, and it was only with difficulty we could
+obtain a sight of the ceremonies at the high altar, prominent upon which
+stood the silver bust of the Apostle containing the precious relics. It
+was a typical Italian _festa_. The chanting was harsh and discordant; the
+antiquated inharmonious organ emitted unexpected squeals, as if in
+positive pain; there was, it is needless to add, a complete absence of
+that "churchy" demeanour which passes for reverence in the North; yet
+withal, despite the shrill discordant music, the tawdry embellishments of
+the grand old building and the absence of propriety of the crowd, there
+was perceptible some mysterious underlying force that compelled us to note
+the extraordinary hold the Church has upon the people of Southern Italy.
+For all this throng of persons had assembled that day with one definite
+purpose: to see their universal friend and patron, their Saint and their
+worker of domestic miracles; they had come to pay their homage to a
+celestial acquaintance, with whom, thanks to the Church's teaching, they
+had all been intimate from their cradles. They had not thus assembled at
+an early hour, deserting their mills and their shops, their boats and
+their nets, renouncing their chances of gain, to hear a preacher's
+eloquence or to listen to fine music, but merely to pay their annual visit
+of respect to their Spiritual Master. Why should we aliens intrude upon so
+private a gathering? In any case, we have grown weary of standing in the
+close sickly atmosphere, wherein the fragrance of the crushed bay-leaves,
+the fumes of incense and the strange smell of garlic-eating humanity blend
+in an oppressive manner. We push our way through the eager and intent
+congregation, and gaining the door-way step with a sigh of relief into the
+sunshine that is flooding the _loggia_. But it is too hot to remain here,
+and we descend the great stair-case in order to take up a post of vantage
+in the shade on the opposite side of the piazza; having gained our desired
+position we expect in patience the arrival of the procession. Nor have we
+very long to wait. The officials of the town suddenly dart forward to
+clear the steps of their crowd of ragged children, and almost
+simultaneously the great bronze doors of Pantaleone are flung open to the
+sweet air and the sunshine. It was a wonderful and deeply interesting
+experience to watch the glittering train slowly emerge from the darkness
+of the church into the glare of day, and then descend that stately flight
+of marble stairs to the sound of joy-bells and to the accompaniment of
+explosions of fireworks. First came the leading members of the various
+Confraternities of the little city, all bearing tapers whose tongues of
+flame shone feebly in the fierce contemptuous sunlight, and all wearing
+snow-white smocks and coloured scarves. Red, green, blue, white, purple,
+yellow, gleamed the huge banners of these different societies, each borne
+by a tall _vessillifero_, or standard bearer, assisted by quaint solemn
+little figures who acted as pages. Then followed the body of the clergy in
+copes of white and gold, with eyes downcast as they chaunted in loud nasal
+tones from books in their hands; next came the Canons of the Cathedral in
+fine old festal vestments reserved for such occasions and with mitres on
+their heads, for Amalfi clings to the ancient ecclesiastical privileges
+that were granted in distant days when Florence and Venice were little
+more than villages. Last of all walked the Archbishop, an aged tottering
+figure, weighed down by his cope of cloth of gold and seemingly crushed
+beneath his immense jewelled mitre. Two lackeys, almost as infirm as their
+venerable master, and clad in threadbare liveries edged with armorial
+braid, were in close attendance, whilst behind the Archbishop, beneath a
+gorgeous canopy of state upheld by six white-robed assistants, was borne
+the great silver bust of St Andrew. The appearance of the Image of "Il
+Divo," upon which the sunbeams were playing in dazzling coruscations of
+light, was greeted with a murmur of applause and satisfaction from the
+expectant crowd in the open. Hats were doffed; knees were bent; prayers
+were muttered, as with slow and cautious steps the bearers of the Image
+and its canopy began to descend. Having gained the lower ground in safety,
+a momentary halt was made, during which we were able to note the mass of
+votive offerings--jewels, chains, rings, watches, seals--suspended round the
+Saint's neck, amongst them being many silver fishes, doubtless the gifts
+of grateful mariners. And at this point we were spectators of a pretty
+incident. A little girl with black ringlets and eager eyes was dexterously
+lifted on to her father's shoulder, in order that she might present "Il
+Divo" with a golden chain, which the tiny fingers deftly clasped round the
+bejewelled neck of the silver bust. The crowd saw and applauded; it was a
+moment of triumph for the dark-eyed child, for the Church, and for the
+approving throng. With the new addition of the child's necklet to the
+treasury of the Saint, the procession pursued its way through the square
+towards the Valley of the Mills, with banners waving, with priests
+chaunting in harsh monotonous tones, and with clouds of incense rising
+into the sun-kissed air. It was truly a beautiful and curious sight, this
+festival of the Church amidst people so devout and surroundings so
+appropriate.
+
+  [Illustration: AMALFI: PIAZZA AND DUOMO]
+
+On his safe return to his now brilliantly lighted Cathedral, the Saint was
+welcomed with indescribable enthusiasm. The crazy old organ was made to
+produce the loudest and liveliest of music; the uniformed municipal band
+awoke the echoes of the venerable but bedizened fabric with its
+complimentary braying; and urchins were even permitted to scatter
+fire-crackers upon the floor in honour of the event. It was a real
+ecclesiastical Saturnalia of a most innocent and joyous description. All
+Amalfi spent the remaining hours of day-light in feasting, dancing and
+singing, and when at last darkness fell upon the merry scene, rockets and
+Roman candles were seen to spring into the night air from many points in
+the landscape, illumining the sea with quickly dying trails of coloured
+light. Watching the bonfires and the fireworks, and listening to the
+sounds of revelry and song arising from the town below, we pondered over
+our experiences of the day as we paced our airy terrace of the Cappuccini.
+Surely the South has remained immutable for centuries in its deeply rooted
+love of religious festivals. The forefathers of these devotees of Andrew
+the Fisherman were equally enthusiastic worshippers of Poseidon or of
+Apollo. The Church has not in reality altered the outer attributes; it has
+but added a special moral significance to the old pagan gatherings. The
+ancient gods of Greece and Rome are dethroned, and their very names
+forgotten by the populace; but their cult survives, for it has been
+adapted to the glorification of Christian Saints. True it is that the
+milk-white sacrificial oxen and the gay garlands of antiquity have been
+omitted; nevertheless, there remain the music, the incense and the
+unrestrained jollity of the people. Much that is beautiful and suggestive
+has perished, yet there survives enough of the old classical ritual for us
+to see that the true spirit of antiquity has never wholly died out amongst
+these sunburnt children of Magna Graecia.
+
+  "See the long stair with colour all ablaze,
+  With banners swaying in pellucid air,
+  As mitred priests with cautious footsteps bear
+  The silver Image, flashing back the rays
+  Of jealous Phoebus--Ah! the altered days
+  When these Lucanians with wind-lifted hair,
+  Blossom-bedecked, with limbs and bosoms bare,
+  Sang to Apollo psalms of love and praise!
+  With bells and salvoes all the hills resound,
+  And incense mingles with the atmosphere,
+  As still this Southern race, ill-clothed, uncrowned,
+  Retains the memory of the Pagan year,
+  When changed, yet all unchanged, Time's round
+  Makes the Jew Fisherman a god appear."
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VII
+
+
+                          RAVELLO AND THE RUFOLI
+
+
+No visit to Amalfi can be considered complete without ascending to the
+decayed town of Ravello, that crowns the rocky heights to the north-east
+of the parent city by the sea-shore. The road thither leads along the
+beach, passing between the picturesque old convent that is now the Hotel
+Luna, beloved of artists, and the solitary watch tower on the precipice
+which stands sentinel above the waters on our right hand. At this point we
+turn the corner, and find ourselves in Atrani, lying in the deep gorge of
+the Dragone and joining its buildings to those of Amalfi on the road above
+the beach. Prominent upon the steep ridge that separates the two cities
+stands the ruined keep of Pontone, the last relic of the town of Scaletta
+that was a flourishing place in days of the Republic. A tall belfry of
+peculiar and striking architecture which dominates Atrani is usually
+attributed to the art of the Saracens, whom King Manfred called in to
+garrison this place during his wars with Pope Innocent IV. Atrani, which
+is but a suburb of Amalfi, suffered equally with the Capital during the
+great upheaval of Nature that desolated this coast in the fourteenth
+century, so that little of interest remains except the quaint church of
+San Salvatore a Bireta, wherein the Doges of Amalfi were once elected and
+crowned. This ancient building lies hidden in a sandy cove beneath the
+roadway, and those who care to run the gauntlet of beggars and descend to
+the beach below, can examine its beautiful bronze doors, which the
+generous citizen Pantaleone gave _pro mercede animae suae et merito S.
+Sebastiani Martyris_. But there is very little else to inspect, for the
+interior has been hopelessly modernized.
+
+Soon after passing Atrani we turn sharply up hill to the left, and begin
+our ascent towards Ravello. The dusty white road winds upwards through a
+region of carefully cultivated terraces filled with olives and vines,
+intermingled here and there with orange, lemon, fig, and pomegranate
+trees. As we gain higher ground, our horizon tends ever to widen, and we
+behold the expanse of sea and sky melting in the far distance into "some
+shade of blue unnameable," whilst the mountain-fringed ring of the Bay of
+Salerno becomes vividly mapped out to our eyes from the Cape of Minerva to
+the Punta di Licosia. On our left we peer down into the depths of the dark
+ravine of the Dragone, whose black shadows are popularly supposed to give
+its name of Atrani to the cheerful little town we have left behind. Let us
+thank Heaven that we are at last out of reach of the beggars, and that the
+only human beings to be encountered upon the road are a few peasants with
+loads of fruit or vegetables, and an occasional charcoal-burner bearing
+his grimy burden to the town below. The _carbonaio_ with his blackened
+face and queer outlandish garments is a familiar figure throughout all
+parts of Southern Italy. He belongs to a race apart, that dwells in the
+belt of forest land clothing the higher hills, and he only descends to the
+cities of the shore and the plain in order to sell his goods. He is
+despised by the sharper-witted townsman, who beats down his prices for the
+combustibles he has borne with such fatigue from his distant mountain
+home. Sometimes the old people are despatched to do the money bargaining,
+the selling and buying. Look at the old couple at this moment passing us;
+an aged man and woman that Theocritus might have known in earlier days
+when the world was less civilized and less greedy of gain. With bare
+travel-stained feet, with feeble frames supported by long staves and with
+the heavy sacks of charcoal on their bent backs, the modern Baucis and
+Philemon crawl along the white road beneath a broiling sun, patient and
+uncomplaining, and apparently with no feelings of envy as they cast one
+careless glance at our carriage. Weary and foot-sore, they will only
+obtain a few _quattrini_ in the town for all their toil and trouble, and
+then they must retrace every step up the long hill-side, with their little
+stock of provisions to help eke out a miserable existence. Yet can any
+life in such a climate and amid such surroundings be truly accounted
+miserable, we ask, no matter how humble the dwelling or frugal the fare?
+
+As our carriage creeps slowly upward, we find the land less cultivated,
+and now and again we pass tracts of woodland whence little purling streams
+fall over rocky ledges on to the roadway. We catch sight of small clumps
+of cyclamen, and in the shady hollows we detect tufts of the maiden-hair
+fern--_Capilli di Venere_, "Venus' tresses," as the Italians sometimes call
+this graceful little plant. At a curve of the road we are confronted by a
+smiling old peasant with gold rings in his ears, who in the expectation of
+_forestieri_ coming this way has been patiently sitting for hours on a
+boulder. Doffing his battered hat and putting a sunburnt hand to his
+mouth, the old fellow in a deep musical bass wakens all the sleeping
+echoes that lie in the many folds of the valley, so that we hear the words
+of welcome repeated again and again, growing fainter and fainter as the
+sound of the voice travels from cliff to cliff. The performer is delighted
+with a few _soldi_, and the jaded scarecrow of a horse seems pleased with
+his momentary halt. _Iterum altiora petimus_; by degrees we reach the airy
+platform upon which Ravello stands, and finally alight at the comfortable
+old inn so long associated with the excellent family of Palumbo.
+
+Ravello undoubtedly owes its early foundation to certain patrician
+families of Amalfi, which after securing their fortunes decided to leave
+the hot close city beside the shore, and to seek new homes in the bracing
+air of the hill-top above. Placing itself under the protection of the
+powerful Robert Guiscard, Ravello became faithfully attached to the Norman
+interest, and in 1086, at the suggestion of the great Count Roger, who
+cherished a deep regard for the Rufolo family, the town was created a
+bishopric by Pope Victor III. As a subject city of the Norman princes,
+Ravello was during this period at the zenith of its fame and importance.
+Its actual population is unknown at this distant day, but we learn that
+under Count Roger the large area of the city was entirely girdled by
+strong walls set with towers; that it contained thirteen churches, four
+monasteries, many public buildings, and a large number of private palaces.
+Its cathedral was founded in honour of Saint Pantaleone by Niccol� Rufolo,
+Duke of Sora and Grand Admiral of Sicily, the head of the powerful family
+whose name is still gratefully remembered in this half-deserted town. In
+1156 Ravello was honoured by a state visit from Pope Adrian IV.--the
+English monk, Nicholas Breakspear, the only Briton who ever succeeded in
+gaining the papal tiara and who gave the lordship of Ireland to Henry
+Plantagenet--and during his stay the Pontiff was entertained as the guest
+of the all-powerful Rufoli. Born of humble parents in the village of
+Bensington, near Oxford, Nicholas Breakspear became a monk at St Alban's,
+and having once entered the religious life, he rose by sheer force of
+intellect and an iron strength of will to the attainment of the highest
+honour the Church could bestow. It was in the hey-day of his power that
+the English pope entered Ravello and sang Mass in the Cathedral in the
+presence of all the noble citizens of the place, for in the previous year
+he had crushed for ever the dangerous heresy of Arnold of Brescia, by
+boldly sentencing that ardent reformer to be burnt at the stake in Rome
+and his ashes cast into the Tiber. The Pontiff during his visit sojourned
+in the Palazzo Rufolo, the beautiful Saracenic building that is still
+standing intact after so many centuries, and by a curious coincidence is
+now the property of the well-known English family of Reid. Nor was Pope
+Adrian the only sovereign who honoured Ravello by his presence, for
+Charles of Anjou, brother of St Louis of France and the murderer of poor
+Conradin, and King Robert the Wise also received the hospitality of the
+Rufolo family within these walls. The whole existing town in fact is
+eloquent of the long extinct but by no means forgotten Rufoli, who may
+fairly be reckoned among the more enlightened of the petty tyrants of
+medieval Italy. That their name was still familiar in Italian society in
+the fourteenth century is evident from the circumstances that Boccaccio
+puts a story, no doubt founded on fact, into the mouth of the fair
+Lauretta, which deals with the adventures of one Landolfo Rufolo of
+Ravello, "who, not content with his great store, but anxious to make it
+double, was near losing all he had, and his life also." The novel proceeds
+to relate how this member of a wealthy and respected family turned
+corsair, after losing all his capital in a mercantile speculation in
+Cyprus; how he, in his turn, was robbed of his ill-gotten gains on the
+high seas by some thievish merchants of Genoa; and how Landolfo, after
+passing through a variety of more or less improbable adventures, was
+finally rescued from drowning off the coast of Corfu by a servant-maid
+who, whilst washing dishes by the sea-shore, chanced to espy the
+unconscious merchant drifting towards the beach with his arms clasped
+round a small wooden chest, which kept him afloat. "Moved by compassion,"
+says the relator of the tale, "she stepped a little way into the sea,
+which was now calm, and seizing the half-drowned wretch by the hair of his
+head, drew both him and the chest to land, where with much trouble she
+unfolded his arms from the chest, which she set upon the head of her
+daughter who was with her. She herself carried Landolfo like a little
+child to the town, put him on a stove, and chafed and washed him with warm
+water, by which means the vital heat began to return, and his strength
+partially revived. In due time she took him from the stove, comforted him
+with wine and good cordials, and kept him some days till he knew where he
+was; she then restored him his chest, and told him he might now provide
+for his departure."(6) Of course the little chest that Landolfo had
+clutched by chance in his agony of drowning eventually turned out to be
+filled with precious stones, which by a miracle--and miracles were common
+enough in the days of the _Decameron_--not only floated of itself but also
+supported the weight of Master Landolfo. In any case, the rescued
+merchant, with the greed and ingratitude which are often accounted for
+sharpness and wit, presented his kind hostess with the empty trunk, whilst
+he concealed the gems in a belt upon his own person. Equipped with these
+jewels, he made his way across the Adriatic to the Apulian coast, and
+thence reached Ravello with greater wealth than he had ever hoped to
+obtain with his original capital at the time he set sail for Cyprus.
+
+  [Illustration: RAVELLO: IL DUOMO]
+
+Fortunately Ravello, though shrunk to such modest proportions nowadays,
+still possesses many memorials of its glorious past. Travellers will of
+course turn their steps towards the Duomo, with its yellow baroque fa�ade
+abutting on the little piazza that, with its daisy-starred turf and old
+acacia trees, forms so pleasant a play-ground for the merry dark-eyed
+children of the place. The cathedral of St Pantaleone is--or rather was--one
+of the most interesting and richly decorated churches erected in Southern
+Italy under the combined influence of Norman and Saracenic art at a time
+when cunning workmen were able to blend together the styles of East and
+West, and to produce that rich harmonious architecture of which the
+splendid churches of Monreale and Palermo present to us the happiest
+examples. There still exist intact the magnificent bronze doors with their
+fifty-four panels of sculpture in relief, the gift of Sergio Muscettola
+and his wife, Sigilgaita Rufolo, and the work of the Italian artist
+Barisanus of Trani, who likewise designed and cast the portals of the
+cathedrals of his native town and of Monreale. But alas! the interior of
+the building, that was once rich with mosaic and fresco and fanciful
+carving, has been converted into one of those dull soulless caverns of
+stucco that the wanderer in all parts of Italy meets with only too
+frequently. This deplorable act of vandalism at Ravello dates of course
+from the eighteenth century, and appears to have been the work of a bishop
+named Tafuri, who in his frenzied eagerness to possess a cathedral worthy
+of comparison with the fashionable atrocities in plaster then being
+erected at Naples, did not hesitate to destroy wholesale almost all the
+ancient and elaborate ornamentation of his Duomo. His architect--perhaps
+the miserable Fuga, who ruined the interior of the Cathedral at Palermo,
+who knows?--dug up the fine old pavement, tore out the mosaics and had them
+carted away, effaced the frescoes, and at last transformed the venerable
+building with its memories of popes and princes into a commonplace
+white-washed chamber. Why this wretched prelate stayed his hand at the
+pulpit, it is difficult to say: perhaps he was meanwhile translated for
+his private virtues, perhaps Death overtook him in the work of
+destruction; at any rate, the famous pulpit of Ravello mercifully escaped
+the general onslaught, though it must have been by fortunate accident and
+not by design that Monsignore Tafuri omitted to remove this unique
+specimen of a style of architecture, which doubtless he considered
+barbaric and un-Christian in its character. For this pulpit is one of the
+finest examples of the ornate, if somewhat bizarre art of the thirteenth
+century, and belongs to a type of work that is not unfrequently met with
+throughout Italy. Six spiral columns, springing from the backs of crouched
+lions, support the rostrum of marble inlaid with beautiful mosaics; whilst
+above the arch of the stair-way of ascent stands the famous portrait,
+usually called that of Sigilgaita Rufolo, wife of the founder of the
+Cathedral. The striking face, which is surmounted by an elaborate diadem
+with two pendent lappets, is evidently an excellent likeness of the
+original; yet there can be no doubt that this interesting bust has been
+wrongly named, since the pulpit itself, as a Latin inscription duly
+records, was erected in the year 1272 by Niccol� Rufolo, a descendant of
+the famous Grand Admiral, so that we may fairly conclude that the portrait
+represents the wife, or perhaps sister or daughter, of the donor. But
+popular tradition dies hard; and the name of Sigilgaita will probably
+cling for ever to the female face which has for over six centuries looked
+calmly down upon generation after generation of worshippers. Perhaps those
+severe proud features may have impressed the ignorant Vandal-Bishop as
+that of some unknown Saint, whom it might be dangerous to offend, and may
+thereby have saved the pulpit of Niccol� Rufolo from the destruction that
+must have seemed inevitable. Be that as it may, the bust has survived
+uninjured, which, apart from the feeling of sentiment, is particularly
+fortunate, for it belongs to a small class of artistic work, of which
+existing specimens are rare and highly prized. For there must have been a
+local and premature Renaissance in this part of Italy during the
+thirteenth century, otherwise a statue so imbued with true classical
+feeling and so correct in technical finish as that of Sigilgaita in
+Ravello Cathedral could never have been produced; yet the names of the
+artist or artists who thus anticipated the great plastic revival remain
+undiscovered. Portrait-busts, similar in treatment and idea to that of the
+so-called Sigilgaita, are to be found here and there in museums, but this
+effigy in remote Ravello remains unique amidst its original surroundings.
+
+Turning aside from Sigilgaita's steady gaze and making the round of the
+bleak white-washed building, our eyes are suddenly attracted by a fine
+picture, in the manner of Domenichino, representing the martyrdom of
+Pantaleone, the popular Amalfitan Saint to whom this church was dedicated
+by the Rufolo family.
+
+The cult of this Asiatic martyr in Amalfi is of course another legacy of
+the Republic's close connection with the Levant, whence some relic-hunting
+admiral or merchant of the state reverently brought Pantaleone's bones to
+the Italian coast. As the veneration of this Saint still exists so
+deep-seated that his Hellenic name is frequently bestowed on children at
+baptism, it may not be deemed amiss to give a very brief account of this
+eastern Martyr, who is so closely associated with Amalfitan, and later
+with Venetian life. Pantaleone was born at Nicomedia, in Bithynia, the son
+of a Pagan father and a Christian mother. Well educated by his parents, he
+became a physician, and on account of his skill, his learning, his
+graceful manners and his handsome face, was finally selected to attend the
+person of the Emperor Maximian. At the Imperial Court the young doctor,
+who had meantime neglected the faith of his mother, was recalled to a true
+sense of Christian duty by the precepts of an old priest named Hermolaus.
+Pantaleone now began to heal the sick and to preach the Gospel, and even
+at times to perform miracles. Information as to his conduct having reached
+the Emperor's ears, Maximian gave the young physician the choice of
+renouncing Christianity or of suffering death, whereat Pantaleone boldly
+declared he would rather die than apostatize. Thereupon the Saint,
+together with the Christian priest Hermolaus, was bound to an olive tree
+and beheaded with a sword. The story of his martyrdom has been frequently
+treated in Venetian art, for as an eastern Saint Pantaleone has a church
+dedicated to him in Venice, wherein the brush of Paul Veronese has painted
+in glowing colours the chief incidents of his life and death. As in the
+case of other physician-saints of the Roman Church--St Roch, St Cosmo and
+St Damiano--Pantaleone was especially besought in cases of the plague,
+which owing to the intercommunication between Amalfi and the Orient,
+frequently ravaged the towns of this coast.
+
+  [Illustration: A STREET IN RAVELLO]
+
+From the Cathedral we proceeded to visit the quaint little church of Santa
+Maria del Gradillo, that with its oriental-looking towers and cupolas
+affords a pleasing example of the mixed Lombard and Saracenic style which
+was in vogue in the years when the house of Hohenstaufen were masters of
+Southern Italy. We found little that was worth seeing inside the building,
+except the pretty black-eyed daughter of the toothless tottering old
+sacristan, who slunk off grumbling on his child's appearance, leaving her
+to do the honours of the place. Her merry face with its welcoming smile
+and her modest loquacity excited our interest, and in answer to our
+questions we gathered that she was twenty years old, and was still
+unmarried, not for lack of opportunity, she na�vely told us, but because
+she was unwilling to leave her old parents, who had no one in the world
+but herself to attend to them. Coming to the door of the church, Angela
+(for that was her name) pointed out her home, a little white-washed
+cottage with a heavily barred window over-hanging the grass-grown lane. We
+wished our pleasant companion a warm good-bye, or rather _a riverderla_,
+at the entrance of the dwelling, where through the open doorway we could
+espy a small sun-smitten courtyard tenanted by a wizened old woman sitting
+in the shade of an orange tree, by three cats, and by a large family of
+skinny hens. On a low wall we noted some shallow earthenware pans filled
+with carnation plants, whose red and yellow heads were clearly silhouetted
+against the blue sky over head. Perhaps Angela's life, we thought, is
+after all happier thus spent in the tending of her parents, her poultry
+and her garden, than if joined to that of some swarthy rascal of the beach
+below or dull peasant of the hillside. Long may the old people survive to
+keep their guardian Angel from the mingled sorrows and joys of matrimony!
+
+  "Tenete l'uocchie de miricula nere;
+  Che ffa la vostra matre che n'n de' marite?
+  La vostra matre n'a de' marito' apposte
+  Pe' ne' lleva' son fior, a la fenestre."
+
+  ("Your eyes are marvellously black and bright!
+  How is it that your mother does not wed you?
+  She will not wed you, not to lose her light--
+  Not to remove the flower that decks her window!")
+
+The well-known hotel kept by Madame Palumbo, who is thoroughly conversant
+with English ways and requirements, occupies a delightful position in the
+old aristocratic quarter of Ravello known as "Il Toro," the name of which
+is still retained in the interesting little church of San Giovanni del
+Toro close by. This comfortable hostelry has been constructed out of the
+_Vescovado_, the ancient episcopal residence, and it still retains many
+curious and attractive features of the original building, notably the
+quaint little stair-way that descends from the bishop's private chamber
+into the chapel, which is now the _salon_ of the hotel. With its
+magnificent views, its interesting buildings and its pure exhilarating
+air, Ravello would seem to be an ideal spot wherein to linger, and it
+affords a most agreeable change in the later Spring months from the close
+atmosphere and enervating heat of Amalfi or the coast towns. Perched on
+this breezy hill-top, from the terrace of the hotel can be observed the
+whole circuit of the Bay of Salerno, whilst behind to the north and east
+the ring of enclosing mountains rises sharp and distinct against the sky.
+From this point we are presented with a complete view of the territories
+of the ancient Republic, spread out like a map beneath our feet and
+stretching from the Punta della Campanella to the heights above Vietri,
+and backed by the arid grey mountain peaks. If the garden of the Hotel
+Palumbo seems a fitting place wherein to idle or to dream, might not it
+also appeal to some historian, not tied to time nor to the hard necessity
+of money-making, as a suitable spot for the conception of a history of the
+origin, rise, decline and fall of the great maritime Republic, whose
+dominions, still smiling and populous, surround Ravello on all sides?
+Gibbon found the first suggestion for his Roman History whilst musing upon
+the ruins of the Capitol, and he finished his great work in a Swiss garden
+amidst the scent of acacia bloom; might not the annals of the Amalfitan
+Republic likewise spring from reflections made upon this terrace, where
+the memories of a former greatness still beautiful in its decay must
+operate so powerfully? Well, perhaps some future Gibbon--or more probably
+some budding Mommsen--may in time present the world with a true impartial
+and erudite history of the Costiera d'Amalfi.
+
+We bask lazily in the afternoon sunshine, to the soft, rather soporific
+cooing of some caged doves, that live in the back-ground out of sight
+behind a screen of lemon trees in huge red jars, such as Morgiana must
+have been familiar with. Beyond the terrace wall we note the carefully
+tended vines, precious plants, for their grapes produce the delicate
+_Episcopio_ wine, perhaps the choicest vintage to be obtained around
+Naples, and boasting a flavour and bouquet that are rarely to be
+encountered except in the products of the most celebrated vineyards of
+France or Germany.
+
+  "O quam placens in colore,
+  O quam fragrans in odore,
+  O quam sapidum in ore,
+    Dolce linguae vinculum.
+
+  "Felix venter quem intrabis,
+  Felix guttur quod rigabis,
+  Felix os quod tu lavabis;
+    Et beata labia!"
+
+Below the vinery we catch glimpses of the dancing waters of the Bay and of
+the little towns of Minori and Majori, seen through a screen of olive and
+almond trees that are gently swayed by the south wind. Opposite to us
+towers the huge form of the mountain of the Avvocata, upon whose slopes
+centuries ago the Madonna herself appeared in a flood of glory to an
+ignorant but pious shepherd lad, promising the startled youth to become
+his mediator, the _avvocata_ of his simple prayers. The story must be
+true, say the peasants, for there on the hillside can still be seen the
+ruins of the shrine that the wondering and grateful villagers raised upon
+the very site of the apparition in honour of their celestial visitor. But
+the whole country-side teems with interesting and often beautiful legends
+and traditions, handed down by generations of the simple hardy folk who
+toil for their daily bread amidst the vineyards and olive groves that
+clothe the sun-baked slopes descending to the shore.
+
+The intervening distance is not great between Ravello and La Scala, which
+surmounts the opposite ridge of the valley of the Dragone, whence good
+walkers can easily descend by the ancient mule track that leads down
+direct to Amalfi by way of Scaletta. Like its neighbour and historic rival
+across the valley, the annals and fortunes of Scala are closely interwoven
+with those of Amalfi; and it was during the palmy days of the Republic
+that this daughter-town reached its height of prosperity. Although the
+tradition that once Scala possessed a hundred towers upon its walls and a
+hundred and thirty churches is obviously exaggerated, yet it must have
+been a place of importance even as early as 987, when Pope John XVI raised
+it to the rank of a bishopric, an honour which did not fall to Ravello
+until many years later. Early in the twelfth century Scala was pillaged by
+the Pisans, but some years afterwards, when the mother city tamely
+submitted to the demands of these Tuscan invaders without the smallest
+effort at self-defence, the higher-spirited mountaineers of La Scala
+manned their walls with skill and vigour, though without avail. The
+hill-set city was ultimately carried by storm, and so thoroughly did the
+enraged Pisans wreak their vengeance upon the place that Scala never again
+rose to fame or eminence, but henceforward dwindled in wealth and size
+until it finally sank to the condition of a large village, whilst Clement
+VIII offered an additional indignity to the city in its dotage by
+depriving it of episcopal rank. But though the citizens of modern Scala no
+longer possess a bishop in their midst, they are still the proud
+possessors and jealous guardians of the magnificent mitre presented by
+Charles of Anjou, who was greatly pleased by the men and money that this
+ancient town sent to aid his brother, St Louis of France, in his Crusade.
+Some sculptured tombs, one of them a monument in honour of Marinella
+Rufolo of Ravello, who was married to a Coppola of Scala, remain in the
+churches to interest the curious traveller, but most visitors will find
+the principal charm of this dilapidated little city in its lofty striking
+situation beneath the frowning mass of Monte Cerrato.
+
+But the sunset has come and gone, and the last tints of its rose-pink glow
+are rapidly disappearing from the serrated line of mountain tops against
+their background of daffodil sky. Stars are beginning to peep in the
+firmament, and yellow lights, the stars of earth, are springing up fast in
+the town below, and even appearing at rare intervals of space amongst the
+cottages of the woody hillside, or upon the fishing boats that lie on the
+bosom of the Bay, now turning to a deep purple under the advancing shadows
+of night. A cheerful concert of unseen insects greets our ears as we
+descend rapidly towards Atrani, whilst the goatbells amid the distant
+pastures tinkle pleasantly from time to time. We soon exchange the dewy
+freshness of evening in the country for the heavy air, thick with dust,
+that hangs over the coast road, and in a few moments more find ourselves
+at the foot of the rock-cut staircase that leads to our convent inn.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+But our days upon the beautiful Costiera d'Amalfi are at an end, and the
+moment has at last come for us to bid farewell to these enchanted scenes
+and to the ancient city slumbering peacefully in its rocky valley by the
+shore. Our rows upon the glassy waters of the Bay, our scrambles up the
+wild scrub-covered hillsides above the town, our evening walks along the
+broad high-road to catch the fleeting glories of the sun-set,--all are
+ended; the day, the hour of departure has actually arrived.
+
+Casting a longing look behind we quit Amalfi in the cool of the evening,
+in order to cover the eight intervening miles of coast road that lie
+between us and Salerno. We pass Atrani, with its tall parti-coloured
+tower, and proceed towards our destination with the smooth plain of waters
+below us and the fertile slopes above our heads, and thus we quickly gain
+Minori, another of the busy little settlements that once helped to make up
+the collected might of the old Republic. We meet with bare-footed
+sun-embrowned peasants, in their suits of blue linen and broad shady straw
+hats; lean sinewy figures, returning from a long day's work in the
+fragrant orange groves by which the town is surrounded. We meet also,
+alas! with the usual crowd of beggars, the halt, the maimed, and the
+pseudo-blind, who are quickly left behind; nevertheless the naughty
+picturesque half-naked children, loudly screaming for _soldi_, caper in
+the dust alongside our carriage, until these little pests are
+out-stripped, but only to give way to other imps, equally naughty and
+unclothed, from Majori. Majori, nestling by the seashore amidst the
+enfolding mountains, appears to us a second Amalfi, with its crowded beach
+and brightly coloured boats, with its paper and maccaroni mills, huddled
+into the narrow ravine of the Senna, which cuts the town in half ere it
+empties itself into the Bay. Overhead the huge ruined castle of San
+Niccol� looms distinct against the rose-flushed evening sky, crouching
+like some decrepit old giant above the little city which he so oppressed
+in the bad old days when Sanseverini and Colonna carried on a perpetual
+selfish strife that allowed their humble neighbours no repose. Beautiful
+as is Majori, it is no lovelier than many another spot upon this exquisite
+coast; it is but as one pearl in a well-matched necklace, for the country
+that lies between Amalfi and Salerno is fully as rich in historical
+interest and natural charm as is the western portion that we have just
+traversed. Behind Majori we behold Monte Falerio, with its rocky summit
+tipped with the glow of evening and its base in purple shadow, descending
+abruptly into the darkening waters of the Bay. Slanting down to the
+surf-fringed beach, the great mountain seem to bar our further progress,
+but with a guttural imprecation and a loud cracking of the whip, our
+coachman deftly guides his half-starved but cunning little horses round
+the sharp corner of the mountain spur known as the Capo del' Orso, and in
+a trice Amalfi, whither we have been straining our eyes, is snatched from
+our vision; a few minutes later, and we have rounded the Capo del Tumulo,
+with its memories of the great Genoese admiral, Filippino Doria, who in
+the treacherous currents that circle round this Cape, destroyed the
+Spanish fleet of the Emperor Charles V. Already the sun has dipped below
+the horizon, and the calm expanse of the Tyrrhene has lost the last
+reflected ray; forward our driver urges his horses in the fast-fading
+light. The Angelus rings out from half a score of belfries beside the
+seashore and on the hillside, breaking the stillness of the gloaming with
+musical reverberations. Sunset and evening star, twilight and evening
+bell; how exquisite is the fall of night upon the shores of the Bay of
+Salerno! We pass the fishing village of Cetara, and in so doing we pass by
+the willing strength of imagination out of the dominion of the ancient
+Republic of Amalfi into the Principality of Salerno. Onward we press, and
+it is not long before a shrill familiar sound bursts upon our ears, a
+sound that quickly tears the gossamer threads of a fancy revelling in the
+thoughts of long-extinct principalities and powers. It is the whistle of a
+railway-engine descending the slope from Vietri above us down to Salerno;
+it is the neighing of the iron horse that has not yet pranced along the
+unconquered Costiera d'Amalfi, nor befouled its crystal-clear air with his
+smoky breath. For at Vietri we re-enter the every-day world, and leave
+behind us the sea-girt fairy-land; Vietri, not Cetara, is the true
+frontier town to-day. But the lights of Salerno are drawing nearer and
+nearer, and in a few moments of time we are tearing along the broad
+lamp-lit Marina of the town, in the middle of which our driver pulls up
+suddenly at the entrance of that old-fashioned comfortable inn, the
+Albergo d'Inghilterra:
+
+  "Another day has told its feverish story,
+  Another night has brought its promised rest."
+
+  [Illustration: MINORI AT SUNSET]
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+                   SALERNO AND THE HOUSE OF HAUTEVILLE
+
+
+Backed by gentle slopes well wooded and well tilled, and screened from the
+northern blasts by its guarding amphitheatre of grey crags, Salerno
+occupies a delightful position upon the Bay to which it gives its own
+name. The long stretch of its Marina, tolerably clean to the eye if not at
+all points agreeable to the nostrils, follows the broad curve of the
+strand, and an idle hour or so may pleasantly be whiled away in watching
+the fishing craft moored beside the mole and the attendant sailors. At the
+northern end of this promenade, in what constitutes the most fashionable
+quarter of the place, is a tiny garden with palms and daturas, whilst hard
+by stands a large theatre, evidences of the gentility of modern Salerno.
+But the whole town appears sleepy and dead-alive to a stranger, though at
+the sunset hour a band occasionally plays in this open space, the music
+attracting hither a crowd composed of all the divers elements of society
+in the quiet old city. Yet though not possessing any great attractions for
+a sojourn in itself, Salerno makes an excellent centre whence to explore
+the neighbourhood, for it lies within easy reach of the great Benedictine
+Abbey of Santa Trinit�; of beautiful La Cava, "that Alpine valley under an
+Italian sky"; of Nocera, with its ancient cathedral that was once a pagan
+temple; and last, but very far from least, of that glorious group of
+temples at Paestum. It has tolerable hotels, and if only their _padroni_
+could be brought to realise that a flavouring of rosemary and garlic in
+every dish is not appreciated by the palates of the _forestieri_, the fare
+provided would be excellent. As in all Italian cities, northern or
+southern, however, the nocturnal noise is prodigious. Shouting and
+shrieking, quarrelling and yelling rend the air at all hours, whilst the
+practice of serenading, more agreeable in romantic poetry than in everyday
+life, is here carried to excess, and the twanging of the mandoline and the
+throaty voices of ardent lovers are rarely silent o' nights in the dark
+narrow streets of Salerno.
+
+  "A lu scur' vagi cercann'
+  La bella mia addo �?
+  Mo m'annascunn' po' fann' dispera',
+      I mor', I mor' pe' te,
+      Ripos' cchi� ne ho!"
+
+  ("In favouring dusk I wandering go,
+      My fair, where shall I find her?
+  Now she attracts, now drives me wild;
+      I die, I die for her;
+      Repose no more have I.")
+
+Behind the long line of lofty well-built houses facing the Bay, the
+streets are gloomy, narrow and crooked, a labyrinth of dark mysterious
+lanes that contain no palaces or churches of note, and but few artistic
+"bits" to catch the eye and delight the soul of a painter. As in the case
+of Amalfi, the Cathedral of San Matteo at Salerno is almost the sole
+monument left standing of a past that is peculiarly rich in historical
+associations. Ever since the accession of the Angevin kings Salerno has
+remained a quiet provincial town, neither rich nor poor, but stagnant and
+without commerce. Into its harbour, which Norman and Suabian princes
+attempted to improve, the sand has long since silted, and Naples for many
+centuries past has been able to regard with serene contempt the city that
+it was once intended to make her commercial rival:
+
+  "Se Salerno avesse un porto,
+  Napoli sarebbe morto."
+
+Well, Naples owns an excellent harbour, and has in consequence grown into
+one of the largest sea-ports on the shores of the Mediterranean, whilst
+little Salerno can only afford anchorage for fishing boats.
+
+The chief interest of the place centres in its close connection with the
+great Norman house of Hauteville, and especially with Robert Guiscard,
+Duke of Apulia and Calabria, who after a fierce struggle managed to
+capture this city from the Lombard princes. Sprung from a hardy race of
+_valvassors_ or _bannerets_ in Normandy, Duke Robert was one of the twelve
+sons of Tancred of Hauteville in the bishopric of Coutances. Joining his
+elder half-brother William Bras-de-Fer in Italy, Robert at once began to
+make a remarkable display of soldierly and statesman-like qualities. An
+adventurer pure and simple in an alien land, this sharp-witted Norman in
+course of time obtained the nick-name of Guiscard, or the Wiseacre, and on
+the death of his elder brother he was nominated Count of Apulia by
+acclamation of the Norman followers, to the exclusion of his helpless
+young nephews. Robert Guiscard's appearance and character have been
+sketched for us with loving care by one of the most famous of the world's
+historians, who was fully able to appreciate the mingled force and
+cunning, the _suaviter in modo_ and the _fortiter in re_, of this leader
+of a handful of Normans in a hostile and distant country. Let Gibbon's
+stately prose therefore present to us a word-painting of the Great
+Adventurer himself:--
+
+"His lofty stature surpassed the tallest of his army; his limbs were cast
+in the true proportion of strength and gracefulness; and to the decline of
+life he maintained the patent vigour of health and the commanding dignity
+of his form. His complexion was ruddy, his shoulders were broad, his hair
+and beard were long and of a flaxen colour, his eyes sparkled with fire,
+and his voice, like that of Achilles, could impress obedience and terror
+amidst the tumult of battle. In the ruder ages of chivalry, such
+qualifications are not below the notice of the poet or historian; they may
+observe that Robert at once and with equal dexterity could wield in the
+right hand his sword, his lance in the left; that in the battle of
+Civitella he was thrice unhorsed, and that on the close of that memorable
+day he was adjudged to have borne away the prize of valour from the
+warriors of the two armies. His boundless ambition was founded on the
+consciousness of superior worth: in the pursuit of greatness he was never
+arrested by the scruples of justice, and seldom moved by the feelings of
+humanity: though not insensible of fame, the choice of open or clandestine
+means was determined only by his present advantage. The surname of
+_Guiscard_ was applied to this master of political wisdom, which is too
+often confounded with the practice of dissimulation and deceit; and Robert
+is praised by the Apulian poet for excelling the cunning of Ulysses and
+the eloquence of Cicero. Yet these arts were disguised by an appearance of
+military frankness: in his highest fortune he was accessible and courteous
+to his fellow soldiers, and while he indulged the prejudices of his new
+subjects, he affected in his dress and manners to maintain the ancient
+fashion of his country. He grasped with a rapacious, that he might
+distribute with a liberal hand; his primitive indigence had taught the
+habits of frugality; the gain of a merchant was not below his attention;
+and his prisoners were tortured with slow and unfeeling cruelty to force a
+discovery of their secret treasure. According to the Greeks, he departed
+from Normandy with only five followers on horse-back, and thirty on foot;
+yet even this allowance appears too bountiful;--the sixth son of Tancred of
+Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim, and his first military band was
+levied among the adventurers of Italy."
+
+Gaining over the Pope Nicholas II. to his interests, the new Count was
+able to exact an oath of fealty in 1060 from the Italian barons, hitherto
+his equals, to recognise him as "Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and here-after
+of Sicily, by the grace of God and of St Peter," although it took many
+years of hard fighting before these lands, thus proudly claimed, could be
+subdued. Beginning with the conquest of the Duchy of Benevento, Guiscard
+at once laid siege to Salerno, taking it after an obstinate resistance
+lasting over eight months, during which he was himself severely wounded by
+a splinter from one of his own engines of war. The city captured with such
+difficulty now became the victor's favourite residence and the recipient
+of his bounty and enlightened rule, so that Salerno quickly rose to the
+rank of one of the most illustrious towns in Europe, supplanting even its
+magnificent neighbour Amalfi in popular esteem.
+
+  "Urbs Latii non est h�c delitiosior urbe,
+  Frugibus arboribus vino redundat; et unde
+  Non tibi poma nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt,
+  Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum."
+
+  ("All Latium shows no more delightful place,
+  Whose sunny slopes the vine and almond grace;
+  'Midst fruitful groves her palaces uprear,
+  Her men are virtuous, and her women fair.")
+
+It was under the Guiscard's auspices that the famous school of Medicine
+that had long been seated at Salerno rose to its highest point of
+excellence. "Paris for learning, Bologna for law, Orleans for poetry, and
+Salerno for Medicine";--such was the verdict of the age. With the somewhat
+grudging consent of the clergy, the hygienic skill of the dreaded Arabs
+was in this city permitted to temper the crass ignorance of medieval
+Italy, and at Salerno alone were the works of the infidel Avicenna and of
+the pagans Galen and Hippocrates openly studied. The result was that the
+fame of the doctors of this _Fons Medicinae_ spread over all Western
+Europe, so that distinguished patients either came hither to be treated in
+person or else sent emissaries to explain their symptoms and to obtain
+advice. Nor were the professors of the healing art at Salerno tied down by
+a strict adherence to drugs and boluses, for they fully realised that the
+height of all human ambition, the _mens sana in corpore sano_, is in any
+case more easily to be obtained by self-control than by all the
+ingredients of the pharmacopoeia. They were warm believers apparently in
+the doctrine of moderation in all things, which after all is one of the
+most valuable prescriptions of modern hygiene:
+
+  "Curas tolle graves, irasci crede profanum,
+  Parce mero, coenato parum, non sit tibi vanum,
+  Surgere post epulas, somnum fuge meridianum."
+
+  ("Throw off dull care; thine angry moods restrain;
+  Eschew the wine-cup; lightly eat, nor vain
+  Deem our advice to make Enough thy feast.
+  Take exercise, and shun the noon-day rest.")
+
+Such was the oracular reply of the Salernitan sages to Robert, Duke of
+Normandy, and no one can dispute the sound common sense of the
+prescription given, nor doubt that it is applicable to half the patients
+who to-day throng the consulting rooms of fashionable London physicians.
+
+But to return to Robert Guiscard, who shares the historical honours of the
+place, together with the great Pope Gregory VII., of whom we shall speak
+presently. After subduing the southern half of Italy and the island of
+Sicily, the great Duke next turned his victorious arms against the Eastern
+Empire, with the secret intention, it was suspected, of ascending the
+throne of Constantine. With the pseudo-Emperor Michael in his train, the
+Great Adventurer in 1081 assembled a vast army at Otranto, consisting of
+30,000 Italian subjects and of 1300 Norman knights, with the object of
+crossing over to Epirus. Durazzo on the opposite Albanian coast, the
+Dyrrachium of the ancients, a city that was henceforth destined to be
+closely associated with succeeding dynasties of South Italy, was the
+objective of this gigantic expedition, for it was commonly reported to be
+the key of the Eastern Empire. Thither the flotilla set sail, but before
+reaching the Greek shore, an unexpected and unseasonable tempest scattered
+Guiscard's argosy, destroying many of the ships and drowning many crews.
+Nevertheless, the undaunted spirit and endless resources of the Norman
+Duke rose superior to all misfortunes. Landing with the remnant of his
+army he at once laid siege to Durazzo, despite the fact that the Emperor
+Alexius was marching to its relief, and that the Venetian fleet was
+already anchored in its harbour. In spite of overwhelming odds, Guiscard
+utterly routed the Byzantine army. With his heir Bohemond and his wife
+Sigilgaita beside him, the Duke watched the progress of the battle, and at
+its most critical juncture, at a moment when it appeared inevitable that
+the hard-pressed Italian army must yield to the sheer numbers of the foe,
+the deep voice of the leader could be heard booming like a deep-toned bell
+over the battlefield, as he addressed his wavering troops. "Whither do ye
+fly? Your enemy is implacable, and death is less grievous than slavery!"
+Joined with the hoarse voice of Guiscard, the Norman warriors could
+distinguish the exhortations of the Amazon-like Sigilgaita, "a second
+Pallas, less skilful in arts, but no less terrible in arms than the
+Athenian goddess." Rallying at the words of their master and shamed by the
+martial ardour of the Duchess, the invading troops made one last desperate
+effort, whereby the Imperial army was driven back and scattered, so that
+Alexius barely escaped with his life. Having routed the Emperor in fair
+fight, Guiscard now made use of his unparalleled cunning by bribing the
+treacherous Venetians, who eventually assisted the Italian forces to enter
+the city gates, and thus Durazzo was gained at the point of the sword
+after one of the fiercest sieges known to history. Scarcely had the
+beleaguered town been reduced, than the indomitable Guiscard found himself
+compelled to return to Italy, where the Emperor of the West, the unhappy
+Henry IV., vainly endeavouring to wipe out the humiliation of Canossa, had
+seized Rome and was actually besieging the great Hildebrand in the Castle
+of Sant' Angelo. Leaving his son Bohemond in command of the army in
+Macedonia, Robert recrossed the sea, and hastened with a handful of men
+towards Rome. But so intense a fear did the victor of Durazzo inspire,
+that the terrified Emperor without waiting to give combat fled headlong
+together with his anti-pope from the Holy City, where Guiscard was
+received with acclamation. "Thus, in less than three years," remarks
+Gibbon, "the son of Tancred of Hauteville enjoyed the glory of delivering
+the Pope, and of compelling the two Emperors of the East and West to fly
+before his victorious arms." Guiscard's triumphal entry into Rome was
+however marred by scenes of violence and scandal, due to the conduct of
+the Saracen troops which his brother, the great Count Roger of Sicily, had
+brought to assist the enterprise. So infuriated were the Romans by the
+behaviour of the infidels, that the prudent Gregory deemed it wiser to
+return to Salerno together with his deliverer, and it was in Guiscard's
+palace that the famous "Caesar of spiritual conquest" expired three years
+later. As to the Great Adventurer himself, he died in the island of
+Cephalonia in the very year of the Pope's death at Salerno (1085) and was
+buried beside his first wife, the gentle Alberada, at Venosa in Apulia,
+though the city which he had always loved and favoured would seem to have
+offered a more appropriate spot for his interment.
+
+But although the mortal remains of the Great Adventurer do not rest within
+the precincts of his beloved city, an undying monument of his glorious but
+turbulent reign is to be found in the Cathedral, which despite the neglect
+and alterations of eight centuries may still be ranked as one of the most
+interesting buildings in Southern Italy. Standing in a secluded part of
+the town, this magnificent church gains nothing from its position, for it
+can only be reached by means of tortuous dingy lanes, and even on a near
+approach the effect produced on the visitor is not impressive. "The
+Cathedral-church of San Matteo," says the Scotch traveller, Joseph
+Forsyth, in quaint pedantic language, "is a pile so antique and so modern,
+so repaired and rhapsodic, that it exhibits patches of every style, and is
+of no style itself." But is not this quality, we ask, exactly what a great
+historic building, such as Guiscard's church, truly demands? Ought not it
+to bear the impress of the various ages it has survived, and of the many
+famous persons who have contributed to its embellishment? From Duke
+Robert's day to the present time, the Cathedral is an epitome of the
+history of Salerno, a sermon in stones concerning the great past and the
+inglorious present of the city.
+
+In the year preceding his own death and that of the great Pontiff, who was
+tarrying at Salerno as his not over-willing guest, Duke Robert erected
+this Cathedral, obtaining the chief ornaments for his new structure and
+also its most important relic, the supposed body of the Apostle St
+Matthew, from the lately deserted city of Paestum across the bay. The
+church is approached by means of a quadrangular fore-court, a cloister
+supported on antique columns, such as can still be observed in a few of
+the old Roman churches, so that we venture to think that this idea at
+Salerno was suggested by the great Pope himself. A number of sculptured
+sarcophagi, which, like the pillars, were the spoils of Paestum, are
+ranged alongside the entrance walls; and once upon a time there stood in
+the centre of the courtyard the huge granite basin that all visitors to
+Naples will recall as set in the middle of the Villa Reale, where it
+performs the humble office of decorating a miniature pond, wherein
+lily-white ducks quack and gobble at the bread crumbs thrown to them by
+children and their nurses. Fancy the irate disgust of Duke Robert at
+waking to learn that the antique fountain for his new Cathedral, brought
+with such care and toil from distant Poseidonia, should have been
+transported to the rival city and turned to such base uses! Above the
+splendid bronze doors, the gift of Landolfo Butomilea and his wife shortly
+after Guiscard's death, we perceive the dedication of the church to the
+Apostle Matthew by the proud conqueror of the Two Sicilies and the
+protector of Hildebrand.
+
+  "A Duce Roberto donaris Apostole templo:
+  Pro meritis regno donetur ipse superno."
+
+The donor, we note, is confident that the Apostle, in return for so
+glorious a fabric, will undertake to obtain the Kingdom of Heaven for this
+generous client upon earth.
+
+The interior, which is sadly marred by white-wash and gaudy decoration, is
+a perfect treasure-house of works of art--antique, medieval, Renaissance--of
+which the guide-book will give a detailed list. Succeeding generations
+have put to strange uses some of the fine marble reliefs that Guiscard
+transported hither from Paestum, and we note that one archbishop has gone
+so far as to filch a sarcophagus carved with a Bacchanal procession to
+serve for his own tomb. We might perhaps infer that the deceased prelate
+was addicted to the wine-flask, and to have been a firm believer in and
+follower of one of the rules of the medical school of his own diocese:
+
+  "Si nocturna tibi noceat potatio vini,
+  Hoc ter mane libas iterum, et fuerit medicina."
+
+  ("If a carouse at night do make thee ill,
+  For morning medicine drink of wine thy fill")
+
+Let us hope that this extraordinary receipt for "hot coppers" was intended
+satirically, or else given seriously as the only advice that a confirmed
+toper was likely to follow in any case. But the use of classical adjuncts
+to adorn Christian tombs, which to-day appears so incongruous to us, was
+popular enough at the time of the Renaissance, and readers of Robert
+Browning's poetry will call to mind the story of the dying Bishop's
+injunction to his heirs concerning his tomb in St Praxed's church at Rome:
+
+  "The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
+  Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
+  Some tripod thyrsus with a vase or so,
+  The Saviour at His sermon on the mount,
+  Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
+  Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,
+  And Moses with the tables...."
+
+But it is necessary to shake off the spirit of Renaissance dilettantism
+before we venture to approach the chapel of John of Procida to the right
+of the high altar, where stands the stern figure of the greatest of the
+medieval Pontiffs. Above the marble statue of the Caesar of the Papacy,
+that was tardily erected to his memory by the unfortunate Pio Nono, appear
+the glittering mosaics of the apse of the chapel, from which look down the
+figures of John of Procida and of King Manfred, the last sovereign prince
+of the hated Suabian line that Gregory twice anathematized. Beneath the
+cold forbidding eye of the last of the Hohenstaufen and his friend and
+avenger here rest, strangely enough, the ashes of that "great and
+inflexible asserter of the supremacy of the sacerdotal order: the monk
+Hildebrand, afterwards Pope Gregory the Seventh." Born the son of a poor
+carpenter in the Tuscan village of Soana, this extraordinary man rose to
+eminence as a monk of Cluny, where he became famous for his extreme
+asceticism of life in an age of undisguised clerical corruption and
+luxury, when simony, lay investiture and priestly marriages were the rule
+rather than the exception on all sides, so that but few Churchmen were
+able to rise above their surrounding temptations. Such few as could resist
+the world, the flesh and the devil were accounted, and not unfrequently
+were in reality, ignorant crazy fanatics, half-pitied and half-despised.
+Between these two extremes of worldly indulgence and of unreasoning
+severity of life, Hildebrand ever pursued a middle course, for whilst on
+the one hand he eschewed the vanities of life around him, on the other he
+never sank into the self-effacement of a hermit. His acknowledged purity
+and zeal soon won for him from the laity a respect mingled with awe,
+whilst his natural talents, his indomitable will, and his genuine piety in
+course of time brought all Churchmen who had any regard for their holy
+office to fix their hopes upon this Clugniac monk, now a Cardinal. For
+some years before his actual election to the Papal throne in 1079,
+Hildebrand had begun to exercise an immense control over the councils of
+the Church, and he was personally responsible for the epoch-making
+resolution under Nicholas II., which declared that the choice of a new
+Pontiff was vested in the College of Cardinals alone. His own election,
+under the terms of this new and drastic arrangement, became the signal for
+the fierce struggles, equally of the battlefield and the council-chamber,
+that were destined to distract Italy for generations to come. For, as
+might have been expected, the Emperor Henry IV., King of the Romans, was
+not long in protesting against so decided an infringement of his secular
+claims. From the synods of Worms and Piacenza came the Imperial decree of
+deposition against Gregory, which was addressed by "Henry, not by
+usurpation but by God's holy ordination, King, to Hildebrand, no longer
+Pope, but false monk." Gregory, strong alike in virtue and in resolve, and
+aided by the might of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany and of Robert
+Guiscard, answered by pronouncing a solemn anathema upon his secular
+adversary. In awe-struck silence the Council of the Lateran listened to
+the Pope's final excommunication of the King, and of all those who dared
+to associate themselves with him. "I absolve," said Gregory, "all
+Christians from the oaths which they have taken or may take to him; and I
+decree that no one shall obey him as king; for it is fitting that he, who
+has endeavoured to diminish the honour of the Church, should himself lose
+that honour which he seems to have." We all know the final act of that
+terrible unequal struggle, the duel of brute force against spiritual
+terrors in a rude age of violence and superstition, which took place in
+the courtyard of the Castle of Canossa, the Countess Matilda's fortress in
+the Apennines.
+
+"On a dreary winter morning, with the ground deep in snow, the King, the
+heir of a long line of Emperors, was permitted to enter within the two
+outer of the three walls which girded the Castle of Canossa. He had laid
+aside every mark of royalty or of distinguished station; he was clad only
+in the thin white linen dress of the penitent, and there, fasting, he
+awaited in humble patience the pleasure of the Pope. But the gates did not
+unclose. A second day he stood, cold, hungry and mocked by vain hopes. And
+yet a third day dragged on from morning till evening over the unsheltered
+head of the discrowned King. Every heart was moved save that of the
+representative of Jesus Christ."
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO RAVELLO]
+
+Can we wonder then that the phrase "to go to Canossa" (_gehen nach
+Canossa_) has become ingrafted on to the German language, or that so
+significant an expression was openly used by Prince Bismarck during the
+fierce religious struggles in the days of the "Kultur-kampf" between the
+newly-formed Empire and the direct successor of the spiritual Caesar who
+had thus humbled a former Emperor of Germany? It was in vain that Henry
+afterwards endeavoured, by making war upon his oppressor, to undo the evil
+effects of his public recantation at Canossa; the act of humiliation was
+too marked ever to be wiped out either by himself or by his descendants.
+For good or for bad, Gregory had succeeded in rendering the Papacy free
+from lay control; he had gained for ever for the Church one of her most
+cherished tenets, the absolute independence of the Pope's election by the
+College of Cardinals; and he had even partially reduced the Western Empire
+into a fief of the Church itself. The former of Gregory's great objects,
+the freedom of election, still remains intact after an interval of more
+than eight hundred years; the latter attempt, though long struggled for
+and apparently with success at times, has, we know, ultimately failed.
+
+Having accomplished so much during his reign, it is strange to think that
+Gregory's last days should have been passed in a form of exile away from
+the Eternal City which he claimed as the metropolis of the Universal
+Church. There is pathos to be found in the Pope dying at Salerno, far
+removed from the scene of his ambition and success. With the bitter
+feeling that his name was execrated in Rome after Guiscard's sack, and
+that his host was bent upon obtaining the imperial title from his
+reluctant guest, Gregory's declining days were spent in melancholy
+reflections. To the last he spoke confidently of the righteousness of his
+cause, and whilst making his peace with all mankind in anticipation of his
+approaching end, he deliberately excepted from his own and God's mercy the
+names of his arch-enemy Henry and the anti-pope Guibert, together with all
+their followers. Thus the aged Pontiff languished to his end within the
+walls of the Castle of Salerno, encircled by flattering Churchmen who did
+their utmost to cheer their dying champion. "I have loved justice and
+hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile," are the famous words
+recorded of Hildebrand in the face of the King of Terrors. "In exile thou
+canst not die!" eagerly responded an attendant priest. "Vicar of Christ
+and His Apostles, thou hast received the nations for thine inheritance,
+and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession."
+
+Perhaps the expiring Pope was cheered by these words--who can tell? In any
+case they were prophetic, for the present world-wide character of the
+Roman Church, which embraces in its fold all nationalities and holds its
+members together all the globe over in one indissoluble bond of a
+spiritual empire, is largely due to the trials and exertions of one man:
+the monk Hildebrand, Pope Gregory the Seventh.
+
+Here then he sleeps his last sleep, the friend of Matilda, the mortal foe
+of King Henry, the patron of William the Conqueror, the guest of Robert
+Guiscard:--what a galaxy of illustrious names shines upon that dim silent
+chapel in the Cathedral of Salerno! Here stands in unchanging benediction
+his gleaming marble effigy, calmly surveyed by King Manfred near at hand
+in imperial robes, the last prince of the hated and twice banned Suabian
+House, whose bones were destined to bleach in the sun and rattle in the
+wind by the bridge of Benevento under a Papal curse.
+
+Before we quit the Cathedral in order to enjoy the evening sunshine, which
+is filling the interior with its roseate glow, let us return for one brief
+moment to the northern aisle, to glance at the grave of the Duchess who
+fought so boldly by her husband's side at Durazzo. It is easy to find, for
+her simple tomb stands not far from the beautiful and elaborate monument
+of Margaret of Durazzo (strange coincidence!) wife of King Charles of
+Naples, wherein the sculptor has portrayed angels drawing aside a curtain
+so as to display the sleeping form of the dead Queen within. Close to this
+monument of a not unusual Renaissance type, we discover the last resting
+place of Robert Guiscard's second wife, the Duchess Sigilgaita, their son
+Roger Bursa and their grandson William, in whom the direct line of the
+Great Adventurer became extinct. Many stories are told by the old
+chroniclers of this bold intrepid princess (not always to her
+credit)--daughter of the last Lombard prince Gisulf of Salerno and wife of
+her father's supplanter, whose humble Norman ancestry she affected to
+despise. But despite her reputation for cruelty and even for murder,
+Sigilgaita was a faithful wife and a brave woman, with a character not
+unlike that of our own Queen Margaret of Anjou; and it seems strange that
+so devoted and well mated a pair as herself and Robert Guiscard should be
+separated in death, he at Venosa and she in the cathedral of her husband's
+foundation.
+
+Passing out of the silent church into the warm light of eventide, by steep
+alleys and by stony footpaths we gradually mount upwards towards the
+ruined castle that commands a lofty position with an all-embracing view of
+the bay and its encircling mountains. The crumbling fragment of the old
+palace of Salerno differs but little in appearance from any one of those
+innumerable dilapidated piles of the Middle Ages with which Southern Italy
+is so thickly studded, yet coming fresh from visiting Guiscard's cathedral
+and Hildebrand's last resting-place, we find it comparatively easy to
+conjure up some recollections of its past, so as to invest its crumbling
+red-hued walls with a spell of interest. These broken apertures were
+surely once the windows through which the dying Pope must have wearily
+glanced upon the sun-smitten waves and violet-shadowed hills that we
+behold to-day; here in this embrasure, long despoiled of its marble seat,
+must have brooded the fierce and unscrupulous Sigilgaita, thinking of how
+best to rid herself of her step-son Bohemond, in order that her own
+children might inherit their father's realms. The ghosts of princes and
+popes are around us, yet the only living inhabitant of the roofless castle
+is the ragged little goat-herd, whose unsavoury charges are cropping the
+short grass that covers the site of the banqueting hall, where Norman
+knights and Italian barons once caroused in the crusading days of long
+ago. We seat ourselves on the dry sward in a sun-warmed angle of the
+ruins, where an almond tree that has sprouted from the rubble sends down
+from time to time upon our heads a tiny shower of pale pink blossoms at
+the bidding of the soft evening breeze. At our feet are masses of the dark
+shiny leaves of the wild arum, and rank grass which is plentifully starred
+with tall-stemmed crimson-petalled daisies and the mauve wind-flowers that
+are drowsily closing their cups at the approach of night. The little
+goat-herd eyes us solemnly, but--strange and welcome to relate--shows no
+inclination to pester the _signori_. The soft murmuring of the distant
+sea, the subdued hum of the city far below us and the drowsy buzzing of
+the bees in the almond and ivy bloom close at hand combine to strengthen
+the golden chain of imagination. As we sit basking in the peaceful beauty
+of the scene around us and serenely conscious of its glorious past, one of
+our party suddenly remembers in a welcome flash of inspiration that this
+deserted courtyard has been made the scene of one of Boccaccio's most
+famous tales. It is a story that many writers of succeeding ages have
+endeavoured to imitate in prose or verse, but this fictitious love-tragedy
+between a princess and a page at Salerno has a simple charm and dignity in
+its original setting that only the master-hand of the Tuscan author could
+impart. The scene of the novel of Guiscard and Ghismonda is laid, as we
+have said, at this very spot, and as the hero, the heroine and the villain
+of the tale have Norman names, we may be allowed to conjecture that this
+graceful story, which Boccaccio puts into the mouth of the lady Fiammetta,
+was founded upon some actual but half-forgotten family scandal in the
+annals of the mighty but self-made House of Hauteville.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+Once upon a time there reigned in Salerno the Prince Tancred, who was a
+widower, and the father of an only daughter, Ghismonda, Duchess of Capua.
+The Duchess, who was considered one of the most beautiful, accomplished
+and virtuous princesses of her day, had been early married to the Duke of
+Capua, but on his death after a very few years of matrimony had been left
+a childless widow. Being still very young, the Princess Ghismonda was now
+taken back to his court by her father, who jealously guarded her and
+seemed unwilling for her to be remarried. Living in rooms that over-looked
+the courtyard of the palace, the Duchess, who found time hang on her hands
+somewhat heavily, used to spend hours daily in watching the lords and
+pages of her father's household passing and repassing the quadrangle
+below, and amongst the many well-favoured youths a certain page named
+Guiscard found most favour in her sight. Now Guiscard, who had thus all
+unwittingly attracted Ghismonda's attention and finally won her heart, was
+a young Norman of no great lineage and of small means, but being discreet,
+upright and sensible-minded, had obtained a high place in Prince Tancred's
+estimation. Skilfully questioning her maids of honour without exciting
+their suspicions, the Princess gained all she wished to know concerning
+Guiscard's position and attainments, and it was not long before she found
+means of conveying the secret of her affection to the youth, who in fact
+had already fallen head over ears in love with the beautiful Duchess who
+so often leaned from the casement above. She now sent him a letter hidden
+in a pair of bellows, wherein she explained to him the existence of a
+secret passage, long disused, that led from a hollow in the hillside below
+the castle walls up to her own apartment. Over-joyed at receiving this
+missive, the infatuated page took the first occasion, as we may well
+imagine, to make use of this friendly clue, and before many hours had
+passed after receiving the letter, the young man, flushed and triumphant,
+was standing in the chamber of his beloved mistress, who had meanwhile
+taken every necessary preparation for receiving her lover in secret. Many
+a time were the pair able to meet thus without awakening the least
+suspicion in the minds of Prince Tancred or of the maids of honour, and
+all would doubtless have gone well for an indefinite period of time, but
+for a most unforeseen accident. It appears that one morning the old Prince
+of Salerno, wishing to confer with his daughter on some matter of state,
+came to her private apartment, and on learning that she had gone out
+riding settled himself upon a couch that stood within a curtained alcove,
+and whilst waiting for her return fell sound asleep. After some hours of
+repose the prince was suddenly roused from his heavy slumber by the sound
+of two voices in the room, that of his daughter and of a strange man.
+Peeping stealthily through the folds of the draperies, he now beheld to
+his fury and amazement the Duchess alone with his page Guiscard. But the
+descendant of Robert the Wiseacre well knew how to temper vengeance with
+dissimulation. Dreading the scandal that would follow an open exposure,
+the Prince, in spite of his years and the stiffness of his joints,
+contrived to quit the chamber unperceived by means of a convenient window.
+That very night the unsuspecting Guiscard was seized by his sovereign's
+orders and thrust into a foul dungeon of the palace, whither Tancred
+himself descended to question his prisoner and to reprove him violently
+for his base ingratitude. But the unhappy page could only make repeated
+answer: "Sire, love hath greater powers than you or I!" On the following
+morning Tancred proceeded to visit the Duchess, still ignorant of her
+paramour's fate, and in a voice strangled with the conflicting emotions of
+paternal love and desired vengeance bitterly upbraided his erring child.
+"Daughter, I had such an opinion of your modesty and virtue, that I could
+never have believed, had I not seen it with mine own eyes, that you would
+have violated either, even so much as in thought. The recollection of this
+will make the pittance of life that is left very grievous to me. As you
+were determined to act in that manner, would to Heaven you had made choice
+of a person more suitable to your own quality; but this Guiscard is one of
+the meanest persons about my court. This gives me such concern, that I
+scarce know what to do. As for him, he was secured by my order last night,
+and his fate is determined. But with regard to yourself, I am influenced
+by two different motives: on one side, the tenderest regard that a father
+can have for a child; and on the other, the justest vengeance for the
+great folly you have committed. One pleads strongly in your behalf; and
+the other would excite me to do an act contrary to my nature. But before I
+come to a resolution, I would fain hear what you have to say for
+yourself."
+
+Seeing clearly from her father's words that her secret had been discovered
+and that her lover was in prison, the intrepid Ghismonda, a true daughter
+of the high-spirited House of Hauteville, assuming a composure she was
+very far from feeling, made a dignified appeal on behalf of Guiscard and
+herself.
+
+"Father, it is not my purpose either to deny or to entreat; for as the one
+can avail me nothing, so I intend the other shall be of little service. I
+will by no means bespeak your love and tenderness towards me; but shall
+first, by an open confession, endeavour to vindicate myself, and thus do
+what the greatness of my soul prompts me to. It is most true that I have
+loved, and do still love Guiscard; and whilst I live, which will not be
+long, shall continue to love him; and if such a thing as love be after
+death, I shall never cease to love him.... It appears from what you say,
+that you would have been less incensed if I had made choice of a nobleman,
+and you bitterly reproach me for having condescended to a man of low
+condition. In this you speak according to vulgar prejudice, and not
+according to truth; nor do you perceive that the fault you blame is not
+mine, but Fortune's, who often exalts the unworthy, and leaves the
+worthiest in low estate. But, not to dwell on such considerations, look a
+little into first principles, and you will see that we are all formed of
+the same material and by the same hand. The first difference amongst
+mankind, who are all born equal, was made by virtue; they who were
+virtuous were deemed noble, and the rest were all accounted otherwise.
+Though this law, therefore, may have been obscured by contrary custom, yet
+is it discarded neither by nature nor good manners. If you regard only the
+worth and virtue of your courtiers, and consider that of Guiscard, you
+will find him the only noble person, and these others a set of poltroons.
+With regard to his worth and valour, I appeal to yourself. Who ever
+commended man more for anything that was praise-worthy than you have
+commended him? And deservedly, in my judgment; but if I was deceived, it
+was by following your opinion. If you say, then, that I have had an affair
+with a person base and ignoble, I deny it; if with a poor one, it is to
+your shame to have let such merit go unrewarded. Now concerning your last
+doubt, namely how you are to deal with me: use your pleasure. If you are
+disposed to commit an act of cruelty, I shall say nothing to prevent such
+a resolution. But this I must apprise you of; that unless you do the same
+to me, which you either have done, or mean to do to Guiscard, mine own
+hands shall do it for you. If you mean to act with severity, cut us off
+both together, if it appear to you that we have deserved it."
+
+The Duchess' able defence of her choice of Guiscard and her democratic
+views of society were hardly likely to influence the proud tyrant of
+Salerno, although his house was sprung from a plebeian stock of Normandy.
+Ignoring her plea and arguments, Tancred left his daughter alone with her
+grief, and proceeded to the cells below to give the order for Guiscard's
+immediate death by strangling. But Tancred's fury was by no means appeased
+by the page's death, for tearing the unhappy youth's heart from the warm
+and still quivering body, the brutal prince had the bleeding flesh placed
+in a golden covered cup, which he bade his chamberlain deliver to
+Ghismonda, with these cruel words: "Your father sends this present to
+comfort you with what was most dear to you; even as he was comforted by
+you in what was most dear to him." With a calm countenance and with a
+gracious word of thanks, the Princess accepted the gift, and on removing
+the cover and realising the contents of the cup, said with meaning to the
+bearer of this gruesome present: "My father has done very wisely; such a
+heart as this requires no worse a sepulchre than one of gold." Then after
+lamenting for a while over her lover's fate, Ghismonda filled the goblet
+with a draught of poison that she had already prepared in anticipation of
+her father's vengeance, and quaffed its contents. After this she lay down
+upon her bed, clasping the cup to her bosom, whereupon her maids, all
+ignorant of the cause of their mistress' conduct, ran terrified to call
+Prince Tancred, who arrived in time to witness his unhappy daughter's
+death agony. Now that it was too late, the Prince was stricken with
+remorse and began loudly to bewail the violence of his late anger. "Sire,"
+said the dying Princess, "save those tears against worse fortune that may
+happen, for I want them not. Who but yourself would mourn for a thing of
+your own doing?" Then dropping her tone of irony, she made one last
+request of her weeping and repentant father, that her own and Guiscard's
+bodies might be honourably interred within the same tomb. Thus perished by
+her own hand the beautiful Princess Ghismonda of Salerno, Duchess of
+Capua, urged to the fell deed by a parent's inexorable cruelty. And it is
+some slight consolation to the sad ending of the story to learn that
+Tancred did at least carry out his daughter's dying entreaty, for the
+bodies of Ghismonda and Guiscard were duly laid in one grave amidst the
+pomp of religion and the cold comfort of a public mourning.(7)
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+But the sun has long since sunk below the horizon, and the chill dews of
+night are falling round us. Hastily we leave the old palace of the princes
+of Salerno to the solitary occupation of the bats and owls, to seek warmth
+and cheerfulness in our inn upon the Marina.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IX
+
+
+                  PAESTUM AND THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE
+
+
+In these days of easy travelling there lies a choice of two routes to
+Paestum and its temples: one by driving thither direct from La Cava or
+Salerno, in the mode of our forefathers; and the other by taking the train
+to the little junction of Battipaglia, and thence proceeding southward by
+the coast line to the station of Pesto itself, that stands almost within a
+stone's throw of the chief gate of Poseidonia. A third, and perhaps a
+preferable way, consists in using the railway beyond Battipaglia to Eboli,
+a town of no little interest in the upper valley of the Silarus, and
+thence driving along the base of the rocky hills that enclose the maritime
+plain and through the oak wood of Persano that was brigand-haunted within
+living memory. But though the scenery between Eboli and Paestum
+undoubtedly owns more charm and variety than the marshy flats can boast,
+yet the strange loneliness of the sea-girt level has a fascination of its
+own, which will appeal strongly to all lovers of pristine undisturbed
+nature. For the larger portion of these Lucanian plains still remains
+uncultivated, so that thickets of fragrant wild myrtle and lentisk, of
+coronella and of white-blossomed laurustinus, stud the landscape; whilst
+the open ground is thickly covered with masses of hardy but gay flowering
+weeds. The great star-thistles run to seed unchecked by the scythe, and
+the belled cerinthia and the glaucous-leaved tall yellow mulleins seem to
+thrive heartily on the barren soil. Boggy ground alternates with patches
+of dry stony earth, and in early summer every little pool of water affords
+sustenance to coarse-scented white water-lilies, and clumps of the yellow
+iris that are over-shadowed by masses of tall graceful reeds. These
+_arundini_, which are to be found near every water-course or pool
+throughout Italy, are characteristic of the country with their broad grey
+leaves, their heads of pink feathery bloom, and their mournful whispering
+answers to the question of every passing breeze; elegant in their growth,
+they are also beloved by the practical peasant who utilizes their long
+slender stems for a variety of purposes in his domestic economy. For the
+reeds, stripped of their foliage, support his tender young vines and make
+good frame-work whereon to train his peas and tomatoes; the longest canes
+of all, moreover, serve well as handles for the long feather brushes which
+are used so extensively in all Italian households. Other floral denizens
+of the plain are the great rank _porri_, or wild leeks, conspicuous with
+their bright green curling leaves issuing from globe-like roots above the
+ground, and of course, the asphodel, the plant of Death. For the asphodel
+is pre-eminently the flower of Southern Italy and of Sicily, since it
+presents a fit emblem of a departed grandeur that is still impressive in
+its decay. How beautiful to the eye appear the dark grey-green sword-like
+leaves from the centre of which up-shoots the tall branching stem with its
+clusters of delicate pink-striped blossoms, that show so lovely yet smell
+so vile! Apart from its fetid odour, the asphodel is a thing of intense
+beauty, so that a long line of these plants in full bloom, covering some
+ridge of orange-coloured tufa or the velvety-grey crest of some ancient
+wall, with their spikes of starry flowers standing out distinct like
+floral candelabra against the clear blue of a southern sky, makes an
+impression upon the beholder that will ever be gratefully remembered.
+
+But flowers and shrubs are not the only occupants of the Poseidonian
+plain, for as we proceed on our way towards the Temples, we notice in the
+drier pastures large herds of the long-horned dove-coloured cattle of the
+country, whilst in marshy places our interest is aroused by the sight of
+great shaggy buffaloes of sinister mien. The buffalo has long been
+acclimatized in Italy, though its original home seems to have been the
+trackless marshes of the Tigris and Euphrates. The conquering Arabs first
+introduced these uncouth Eastern cattle into Sicily, whence they were
+imported into Italy by the Norman kings of Naples. In spite of its
+malevolent nature and the poor quality of its flesh and hide, the buffalo
+came to be extensively bred in the Pontine and Lucanian marshes, where the
+moisture of the soil and the unwholesome air always affected the native
+herds unfavourably. For hours together these fierce untameable beasts love
+to lie amidst the swampy reed-beds, wallowing up to their flanks in slimy
+malodorous mud and seemingly impervious to the ceaseless attacks of the
+local wasps and gad-flies, which try in vain to penetrate with their
+barbed stings the thick hairy covering of defence. Perchance between
+Battipaglia and Paestum we may encounter a herd of these shaggy beeves
+being driven by a peasant on horse-back, with his _pungolo_ or small lance
+in hand: a human being that in his goat-skin breeches and with his
+luxuriant untrimmed locks, seems to our eyes only one degree less savage
+and unkempt than the fierce beasts he guides. As cultivation has made
+progress of recent years and the unhealthy marshes of the coast line are
+being gradually drained, the numbers of buffalo tend to decrease, whilst
+the native Italian oxen are being introduced once more into the newly
+reclaimed pastures. That former arch-enemy of the cattle in the days of
+Vergil seems to have disappeared: that "flying pest," the _asilo_ of the
+Romans and the _aestrum_ of the Greeks, which in antique times was wont to
+drive the grazing herds frantic with terror and pain, until the valley of
+the Tanager and the Alburnian woods re-echoed with the agonised lowing of
+the poor tortured creatures. And speaking of noxious insects, a general
+belief prevails in Italy that their bite--as well as that of snakes and
+scorpions--becomes more acute and dangerous when the sun enters into the
+sign of Lion, so that human beings, as well as defenceless cattle, must
+carefully avoid all chances of being bitten during the months of July and
+August.
+
+Before our goal can be reached it is necessary for us to cross the broad
+willow-fringed stream of the Sele, the Silarus of antiquity, which
+according to the testimony of Silius Italicus once possessed the property
+of petrifying wood. In the distant days of the eighteenth century, the
+traveller to Paestum had to endure amidst other difficulties and dangers
+of the road the disagreeable business of being ferried across the Sele,
+which was then bridgeless. Owing to the malaria and the loneliness of the
+spot, the acting of ferryman over this river was not an agreeable post,
+and Count Stolberg, a German dilettante who has left some memories of his
+Italian wanderings, relates how a feeble dismal soured old man, a
+veritable Charon of the upper air, had great difficulty in conveying
+himself, his horse and his servant across the swollen stream. The old
+man's age and misery aroused the Count's compassion, so that he asked him
+why he continued thus to perform a task at once so arduous and so
+distasteful. "Sir," replied the boatman, "I would gladly be excused, but
+that my master compels me to undertake this work." "And who, pray, is this
+tyrant of a master of yours?" indignantly enquired the Count. "Sir, it is
+my Lord Poverty!" grimly answered the old ferryman, as he pocketed the
+Teuton's fee. Times have changed with regard to the necessity of a ferry
+over the Sele, but to judge from the appearance of the people and from the
+accounts in the journals, we much doubt if my Lord Poverty's sway has been
+much weakened in these parts.
+
+At length we reach the tiny hamlet and station of Pesto, surrounded by its
+groves of mournful eucalyptus trees, and if we visit the station itself,
+we cannot help noticing the fine gauze net-work over every window and
+door, also the veiled faces and be-gloved hands of the station-master and
+his _facchini_. It is not difficult to gauge the reason of the eucalyptus
+trees at Pesto, an alien importation like the buffalo, for these native
+trees of Australia have been planted here with the avowed object of
+reducing the malaria, for which the place is only too renowned. Scientists
+have positively declared that the mosquitoes which rise in clouds from the
+poisonous swamps at sunset are directly responsible for this terrible form
+of ague, and a paternal Government has accordingly introduced gum-trees to
+improve the quality of the air, and has presented gloves, veils and fine
+lattice work to its servants in the hope of protecting them from the bites
+of these tiny pestilence-bearing insects. We do not wish to dispute the
+wisdom of modern bacteriologists, but somehow we have no great faith in
+this elaborate scheme for battling with Nature; and indeed not a few
+persons who have studied the matter declare that though the reeking
+marshes are certainly productive of malaria in themselves (so much so that
+it is dangerous to linger amidst the ruined temples of an evening), yet
+these spiteful little creatures are at least innocent of innoculating
+humanity with this particular disease. Moreover, a plausible idea that is
+now largely held insists that the recent spread of cultivation over the
+Lucanian Plain is itself largely responsible for the increase of malaria;
+it is the up-turning of the germ-impregnated earth that has lain fallow
+for centuries, say the supporters of this theory, which awakens and sets
+free the slumbering demon of fever in the soil, so that the speeding of
+the plough on the Neapolitan coast must inevitably mean also the spreading
+of this fell and mysterious sickness. Let us therefore give the devil his
+due: the mosquito is a hateful and persistent foe, and his sting is both
+painful and disfiguring, but do not let us accuse him of carrying malaria
+until the case can be better proved against him. But enough of fevers and
+doctors' saws! Let us turn our willing eyes towards the three great
+temples that confront us close at hand. Before however proceeding to
+inspect these great monuments of Grecian art and civilization, which rank
+amongst the most venerable as well as the most beautiful relics of
+antiquity, it is only meet that we should carry with us into their ruined
+halls a few grains of historical knowledge, whereby our sense of reality
+and our appreciation of their greatness and splendour may be increased.
+
+  [Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE, PAESTUM]
+
+Although we do not possess a definite history of Paestum, similar to that
+of Rome or of Athens, yet from the many allusions to be found scattered
+throughout the pages of classical historians, as well as from the various
+inscriptions and devices found upon ancient coins of this city, it is not
+a difficult task to piece together the main features of Poseidonian
+annals. From a very remote period of antiquity there was undoubtedly a
+settlement on or near the coast to the south of the river Silarus, whilst
+it is commonly held that this spot was called Peste--a name almost
+identical with the modern Italian appellation--many hundreds of years
+before the arrival of Doric settlers on the shores of the Tyrrhene Sea.
+Late in the seventh century before Christ, the Greek colony of Poseidonia,
+the city of the Sea God, was founded on or near the site of Italian Peste
+by certain Hellenic adventurers from Troezen, who were amongst the
+inhabitants of Sybaris, at that time one of the most flourishing of the
+famous cities of Magna Graecia: and this new colony of Troezenians
+henceforward was accounted one of the twenty-five subject-towns that
+recognised Sybaris for their metropolis, or mother and suzerain city. We
+have no details of its early history, but it is quite certain that under
+the protection of Sybaris the new city of Poseidonia rose by degrees to
+such wealth and importance that in course of time it gave its own name to
+the whole Bay of Salerno, which henceforth became known to the Greeks as
+the Poseidonian Gulf and later, to the Romans, as the Bay of Paestum. With
+the fall of the mother city, this flourishing colony was left alone to
+face the attacks of the Samnites, the native barbarians who peopled the
+dense forests and the barren mountains of Lucania; yet it somehow
+contrived to retain its independence until the close of the fourth century
+B.C., when the Samnite hordes, forcing the fortified line of the Silarus,
+made themselves masters of Poseidonia, and put an end, practically for
+ever, to its existence as a purely Hellenic city. From its Lucanian
+masters the captured town received the name of Paestum, and its
+inhabitants were at once deprived of their independence, were forbidden to
+carry arms, and were probably in many instances reduced to the level of
+serfs. A large number of Samnites also settled within the walls of the
+town, and compelled the former owners to surrender to them the larger and
+richer portion of the public and private lands upon the maritime plain.
+The use of the Hellenic language and public worship were however
+permitted, and, strange to relate, no interference was made with a solemn
+annual festival, which the depressed and enslaved population now
+inaugurated with the confessed object of remembering for ever their Greek
+origin and their former greatness. For once a year at a fixed date all
+Greeks were wont to gather together and to bewail in public, outside the
+great temple of Poseidon, their lost liberty and their vanished power. It
+is evident that the Lucanians did not fear the tears and lamentations of
+this unhappy subject state, for this custom continued to be observed
+throughout the whole period of Samnite oppression, and survived even till
+Roman times--perhaps to the very end of the city's existence,--although in
+the course of passing generations there could have been but few persons of
+pure Greek descent left in the place.
+
+With the advent of Alexander of Epirus, who had been called into Italy by
+the Greeks of Tarentum in order to assist the sorely-pressed colonies of
+Magna Graecia, Epirot troops were landed at the mouth of the Silarus.
+Under the very walls of Paestum there now took place a stubborn fight
+wherein the army of the Samnites was completely routed, and its survivors
+driven in confusion from the coast into the wild woods and rocky valleys
+of the Lucanian hills. For a brief interval of years Poseidonia regained
+its lost liberty and its Hellenic name, but with the overthrow and death
+of Alexander of Epirus, the scattered hordes pressed down once more from
+their mountain fastnesses upon the rich plain, and the city was for the
+second time enslaved by the ruder conquering race. Forty years later,
+after the Pyrrhine war, all Lucania fell under the rising power of Rome, a
+change that was by no means unacceptable to the Greek cities, which were
+groaning under the rude tyranny of the Samnites. A Latin colony was now
+planted at Paestum, to form a convenient centre whence the neighbouring
+district could be kept in order and peaceably developed according to Roman
+ideas. These Roman colonists, although they did not restore the lands and
+buildings held by the expelled Samnites to their rightful owners, yet
+lived on terms of amity with the Greek population, with whom they must
+have freely intermarried. The original Hellenic inhabitants, relieved of
+the bonds of servitude, were now placed on an equal footing with the new
+colonists, partaking of political rights in the city thus freshly
+re-created under the supremacy of Rome, and soon they grew to imitate the
+speech and manners of their new masters, so that as an immediate result of
+the expulsion of the barbaric Samnites and the entry of the progressive
+Romans, Paestum began to recover a considerable portion of its ancient
+splendour.
+
+During the course of the second Punic War the name of Paestum is not
+unfrequently mentioned in Roman annals, and owing its revived prosperity
+to its annexation by Rome, it is not surprising to find the existence of a
+strong feeling of gratitude amongst the inhabitants. At the date of fatal
+Cann� this faithful Greek city sent assurances of unswerving allegiance to
+the Senate, and also more substantial help in the form of all the golden
+vessels from its temples. It was Paestum also that early in the third
+century B.C. supplied part of the ill-fated fleet of Decius Quinctius,
+that was raised to run the blockade of Tarentum. But even the loss of its
+ships and men did not deter this loyal city from coming forward a second
+time with expressions of fealty and promise of further aid to the great
+suzerain city in this dark hour of its difficulties. From this point
+onward till the close of the Republic, History is almost silent with
+regard to Paestum; but its numerous coins go far to attest its continued
+welfare, for it now shared, together with Venusia, Brundusium and Vibo
+Valentia, a special right to strike money in its own name and with its own
+devices. Under the Empire, Paestum managed to uphold its size and
+importance, so that it became the capital of one of the eight Prefectures
+into which the district of Lucania had been divided. At this period, there
+can be no doubt, the surrounding plain was in the highest state of
+cultivation, whilst its prolific rose-gardens--_biferi rosaria Paesti_--have
+supplied the theme of every Roman poet from Vergil to Ausonius. Yet in
+spite of its apparent prosperity, the seeds of coming decline had already
+been sown. Strabo tells us that even in early Imperial days the city was
+obtaining an unenviable reputation for malaria: a circumstance that was
+due to the over-flowing of the unwholesome streamlet, the Salso, whose
+reeking and fever-bearing waters began to impregnate the earth.
+Engineering works on a large scale were planned to remedy this drawback,
+but these were never executed, and in consequence the unhealthiness of the
+place increased. With the decline of the Roman power the population and
+prosperity of Paestum likewise tended to lessen, so that its citizens were
+placed in a worse position than before with regard to the carrying out of
+this vast but necessary scheme of sanitation.
+
+In a spot so accessible to external influence, it is easy to understand
+that Christianity early took root in Paestum, which in the fifth century
+of our own era had already become a bishopric. The story of the growth of
+the Faith in Lucania is closely connected with a legend that centres round
+a native of the place, a certain Gavinius, a general in the army of the
+Emperor Valentinian, who whilst serving in Britain against the Picts by
+some means succeeded in obtaining a valuable relic, supposed to be nothing
+less than the body of the Apostle Matthew, which he brought back with him
+to his native place. Early in the ninth century there appeared a fresh
+cause of alarm, more serious and far-reaching even than the dreaded
+malaria, for plundering Saracens, foes alike to the old Roman civilisation
+and to the new Christian creed, now began to harass the Tyrrhenian shores.
+Settling at Agropoli to the south of the Bay, these Oriental freebooters
+found little difficulty in effecting a landing on the Poseidonian beach,
+and in raiding the weakened and almost defenceless city. Able-bodied men
+and young maidens were forcibly carried off to the pirates' nest at
+Agropoli, or perhaps even to the distant coast of Barbary, to be sold into
+perpetual slavery. Alarmed beyond measure by this raid, the remaining
+inhabitants of the place, at the advice and under the guidance of their
+bishop, now decided--wisely, for they had to choose between immediate
+flight or gradual extermination by disease, slavery and the sword--to
+remove themselves to the barren mountains in their rear, once the haunts
+of the Samnites, and to build a new Paestum on a site at once more healthy
+and better protected by Nature against the raids of infidel corsairs. In a
+body therefore the remaining citizens amid deep wailing left for ever the
+ancient city with its glorious temples, and retired to a strong position
+to the east. The spot chosen for the new residence of these exiles lay
+close to the source that supplied with pure water their ancient aqueduct,
+known for this reason as Caputaqueum, now corrupted into Capaccio. A link
+with the old city, that lay deserted in the plain below, was still
+retained by the bishop of the newly founded town in the mountains, who
+continued to be known as _Episcopus Paestanus_. In the eleventh century
+Robert Guiscard systematically plundered the ruins of Paestum in order to
+erect or embellish the churches and palaces of Salerno and Amalfi. Every
+remaining piece of sculpture and of marble was removed, and it was only
+the vast size of the pillars of the three great temples, and the
+consequent difficulty attending their transport by boat across the bay or
+along the marshy ground of the coast line, that saved from destruction
+these magnificent relics of "the glory that was Greece." But even humble
+Capaccio did not afford a final resting-place to the harried Paestani, for
+in the year 1245 the great Emperor Frederick II., who had been defied by
+the feudal Counts of Capaccio, besieged and utterly destroyed this
+stronghold of the mountains that had been the child of Poseidonia of the
+sea-girt plains. Another and a yet loftier retreat had to be sought by the
+survivors of the Imperial vengeance, so that the ruined Capaccio the Old
+was abandoned for another settlement, which still exists as a miserable
+village amidst those barren hills that had ever looked down with jealous
+envy upon the proud city with its pillared temples. One curious
+circumstance with regard to Paestum must finally be mentioned, in that the
+existence of its ruins, the grandest and most ancient group of monuments
+on the mainland of Italy, remained unknown to the learned world until
+comparatively modern times. Only the local peasants and the inhabitants of
+the poverty-stricken towns in the Lucanian hills seem to have been aware
+of the presence of the gigantic temples standing in lonely majesty by the
+shore and as the superstitious nature of these ignorant people attributed
+these structures to the work of a magician--perhaps to the great wizard
+Vergil himself--they were shunned both by night and by day as the haunt of
+malignant spirits. Poor fisher-folk and buffalo-drivers, who had of
+necessity to pass near the ruined fanes, were wont to slink by in fear and
+trembling, and doubtless they brought back strange stories of its ghostly
+occupants with which they regaled their friends or families by the
+fire-side of a winter's evening. Yet it is most strange that during the
+period of the Renaissance, at a time when enthusiastic research was being
+made into the neglected antiquities of Italy, this unique group of Doric
+temples should have escaped notice. For neither Cyriaco of Ancona nor
+Leandro Alberti, who visited Lucania ostensibly for the sake of recording
+its classical remains, make mention of "the ruined majesty of Paestum,"
+and it was reserved for a certain Count Gazola (whose name is certainly
+worthy of being recorded), an officer in the service of the Neapolitan
+King, to present to the notice of scholars and archaeologists towards the
+middle of the eighteenth century the first known description of what is
+perhaps Italy's chief existing treasure of antiquity. From Gazola's day
+onward the beauty and interest of Paestum have been appraised at their
+true worth, and numberless artists and writers of almost every nationality
+have sketched or described its marvellous temples.
+
+With this brief introduction to the history of a city, whose chief
+building is still standing almost intact after a lapse of 2500 years, let
+us take a rapid survey of Poseidonia as it exists to-day. Its walls, of
+Greek construction but probably built or restored as late as the time of
+Alexander of Epirus, who gave the captured town a fleeting spell of
+liberty, form an irregular pentagon about three miles in circumference,
+whereon the remains of eight towers can be observed, whilst the four
+gates, placed at the four cardinal points of the compass, are clearly
+traceable. We enter this _citt� morta_ by the so-called Porta della
+Sirena, the eastern gate that faces the hostile Samnite Hills and (oh, the
+prosaic touch!) the modern railway-station. This gate remains in a
+tolerable state of preservation, and draws its name from the key-stone of
+its arch, which bears in low relief a much defaced design of a mermaid or
+siren, its counterpart on the inner keystone being a dolphin: two devices
+very appropriate to the entrance of a city dedicated to the Lord of Ocean.
+Passing the picturesque yellow-washed Villa Salati, with its high walls
+and iron-barred windows testifying only too plainly to the lawlessness
+that once reigned in this district, we find ourselves face to face with
+the great temple of Neptune or Poseidon, and its companion-fane, the
+so-called Basilica. The Temple of Neptune (for in this instance at least
+the popular appellation chances to be the correct one), in all probability
+co-eval with the first Greek foundation of the city, formed the central
+point of the life of Poseidonia during the 1400 years of its existence as
+a Hellenic, a Samnite, and finally a Roman city. In its simple grandeur
+and its perfect proportions this wonderful temple possesses only one rival
+outside Greece itself: the Temple of Concord at Girgenti, which the poet
+Goethe compared to a god, after designating the building before us as a
+giant. Superiority in grace is therefore a disputed point between the two
+great structures of Poseidonia and Agrigentum, yet in every other respect
+the temple of the Lucanian Plain surpasses its Sicilian rival.
+
+To-day, after more than a score of centuries of exposure to the salt winds
+and to the burning sunshine of the south, the walls and pillars of these
+great buildings have been calcined to a glorious shade of tawny yellow,
+fit to delight the soul of every artist, whether he views their Titanic
+but graceful forms outlined against the deep blue of sky and sea on the
+western horizon, or against the equally lovely background of grey and
+violet mountains to the east. But it was not always thus. The porous local
+travertine that gave their building material to the Greeks of the sixth
+century before Christ was once carefully stuccoed, and, in the manner of
+Hellenic art, painted in the most brilliant hues of azure and vermilion,
+so that it becomes hard for us to realise the original effect of such
+gorgeous masses standing erect in a landscape that is itself fraught with
+glowing colour. But better to appreciate the magnificence before us, let
+us give a brief technical description of the greatest of the temples in
+the choice words of an eminent French antiquary.
+
+"The largest and most elegant, and likewise the oldest of the Temples of
+Paestum, is that commonly known by the name of the Temple of Neptune. This
+building shares, together with the Temple of Theseus at Athens, the honour
+of being the best preserved monument of the Doric order in existence, and
+the impression of grandeur that it gives to the spectator rivals even the
+first sight of the Parthenon itself. In front of the building is a
+platform in the midst of which can be seen the hollow space that formerly
+held the altar of sacrifice, for according to the practice of the Greek
+religion, these rites of blood-shedding took place in the open air and
+outside the temple. With a length of 190 feet and a breadth of 84 feet,
+this building is hypoethral, which means that the _cella_, or sanctuary
+that held the statue of the deity, was constructed open to the sky. It is
+peripteral, and presents a row of six pillars fluted at base and top, with
+twelve on each side, making thirty-six in all. The _cella_ itself in the
+interior is upheld by sixteen columns about six feet in diameter, which in
+their turn are surmounted by two rows of smaller pillars above that
+support the roof. With the exception of one side of the upper stage of the
+interior every column of the temple remains intact, as do likewise the
+entablature and pediments. Only the wall of the _cella_ has been pulled
+down; doubtless to supply material for building."(8)
+
+Having quoted Monsieur Lenormant's careful description of the chief pride
+of Poseidonia, we shall confine ourselves to as few remarks as possible
+concerning the two remaining temples. The Basilica, a misnomer of which
+the veriest amateur must at once perceive the absurdity, is inferior both
+in size and in beauty of proportion to its close neighbour of Neptune. Its
+chief peculiarity from an architectural point of view will be at once
+remarked, for it has its two fa�ades composed of seven--an odd number--of
+columns, so that its interior easily divides itself into two narrow
+chambers of equal length, affording ample ground for the theory, now
+generally held, that this building was not a hall of Justice, or
+_Basilica_, but a temple intended expressly for the worship of dual
+divinities. Almost without a doubt it was erected--probably not long after
+the Temple of Poseidon--in honour of Demeter (Ceres) and of her only child
+Persephone (Proserpine), who was seized from her mother's care by the
+amorous god of the Infernal Regions, as she was plucking anemones in the
+verdant meadows of Enna. We all know "the old sweet mythos"; we all
+understand its hidden allegory with regard to the sowing, the up-springing
+and the garnering of the yellow corn, that spends half the year in the
+embraces of the earth, the palace of Pluto, and half the year on the broad
+loving bosom of Mother Demeter. Here then within these bare and ruined
+walls were mother and daughter worshipped by the people of Poseidonia, who
+reasonably considered that the two goddesses of the Earth should have
+their habitation as near as possible to the Sanctuary of the Sovereign of
+Ocean.
+
+Much smaller than either of these immense temples is the third remaining
+Greek building of Paestum, which lies a good quarter of a mile to the
+north, not far from the Golden Gate, the Porta Aurea, that leads northward
+in the direction of Salerno. Like that of Neptune, this temple is
+hexastyle, with six columns on each of its fa�ades and twelve on either
+flank, but as it is little more than half the size of its grander and
+older brethren, it is now frequently known as "Il Piccolo Tempio,"
+although its former incorrect ascription to Ceres still clings to it in
+popular parlance. It is from this building, which stands on slightly
+rising ground, that the best impression of the whole city and of its
+wondrous setting between the savage Lucanian hills and the blue
+Mediterranean can be obtained.
+
+  "Between the mountains and the tideless sea
+  Stretches a plain where silence reigns supreme;
+  A land of asphodel and weeds that teem
+  Where once a city's life ran joyfully.
+  'Vanity! Vanity! All Vanity!'
+  Whisper the winds to Sele's murmuring stream;
+  Whilst the vast temples preach th' eternal theme,
+  How pass the glories and their memory.
+  Think what these ruins saw! what songs and cries
+  Once through these roofless colonnades did ring!
+  What crowds here gathered, where the all-seeing skies
+  For centuries have watched the daisies spring!
+  Dead all within this crumbling circle lies:
+  Dead as the roses Roman bards did sing."
+
+Beautiful as Paestum presents itself in the bright noontide of a Spring
+day, beneath a cloudless sky and with the blue waters of the Mediterranean
+lapping the distant yellow sands, there appears something incongruous in
+the sharp contrast between this joyfulness of vigorous life and the solemn
+atmosphere of the deserted city. The noisy twittering of multitudes of
+ubiquitous sparrows, equally at home in Doric temples as amongst the sooty
+chimney stacks of London; the twinklings and rustlings of the lizards in
+the young leaves and grass; the polyglot babble of excursionists from
+Naples or La Cava that a warm day in Spring invariably attracts to
+Paestum:--these are not sounds that blend well with the solemn spirit of
+the place. We long to cross the intervening ages so as to throw ourselves,
+if only for one short hour, outside the cares and interests of to-day into
+the heart of that refined civilisation which is gone for ever;--with the
+cheerful sunlight around us, and with our fellow-mortals on pleasure bent
+close at hand, we find it difficult to forget the present. Would it be
+possible, we ask ourselves, to spend a nocturnal vigil within the hall of
+the great temple of the Sea God, so as to behold, like that undaunted
+traveller, Crawford Ramage, the shafts of crystalline moonlight shed
+through the aperture of the roof leap from pillar to pillar, making bars
+of brilliant light amidst the surrounding blackness! O to sit and meditate
+thus engrossed with the memory of the past, and with no other sounds
+around us than the sad cry of the _aziola_, the little downy owl that
+Shelley so loved! But the gaunt spectre of Fever ever haunts this spot,
+and after sunset his power is supreme; so that he would be a bold man
+indeed who in an age of luxury and selfish comfort would carry out an idea
+at once so romantic and so perilous.
+
+We ourselves were especially fortunate on the occasion of our last visit
+to Poseidonia on a mild day in December, a month which on the Lucanian
+shore somewhat resembles a northern October. A soft luminous haze hung
+over the landscape and over the Bay of Salerno itself, rendering the
+classic mountains at once indistinct in outline and unnaturally lofty to
+the eye. More grandiose and mysterious than under the fierce light of a
+sunny noontide appeared that day the three giant pillared forms, as we
+entered the precincts of the ruined city by the Siren's Gate, and made our
+way through the thick herbage still pearled with dew, since there was
+neither sunshine nor sirocco to dry "the tears of mournful Eve" off the
+clumps of silver-glinted acanthus, or the tall grasses bending with the
+moisture. In the warm humid air we seated ourselves on the plinth of a
+column, and gazing around allowed the influence of this marvellous spot to
+sink deep into the soul. No tourists with unseemly or unnecessary chatter
+arrived that day to share our selfish delight or to break the
+all-pervading spell of solitude; all lay peaceful and deserted. All was
+silent too save for the low monotonous sobbing of the sea on the unseen
+beach near at hand, the historic beach on which at various times
+throughout the roll of past ages Doric colonists, Epirot warriors, Roman
+legionaries and fierce Mohammedan pirates had disembarked, all with the
+same object:--to seize the proud city that had now for the last thousand
+years lain uninhabited, save for the owls and the bats. It was too cloudy
+a day for sun-loving creatures such as lizards or serpents to emerge and
+rustle amongst the broken stones and leaves, over all of which during the
+silent hours of the past night Arachne had been employed in weaving her
+softest and whitest textures, that the windless morning had allowed to
+remain intact. The only sign of animate life was visible in a pair of
+lively gold-finches, which with merry notes were fluttering from thistle
+to thistle, picking the down from each ripened flower-head and prodigally
+scattering the seeds upon the weed-grown soil where once had bloomed the
+odorous Roses of Paestum that the poets loved.
+
+Sitting thus amid the silence and solitude of a city half as old as Time
+itself, we were unexpectedly aroused by a gruff salutation proceeding from
+a little distance behind the temple. Turning quickly in the direction of
+the sound, we perceived the figure of a tall bearded man dressed in
+conical hat, with goat-skin trousers and cross-gartered legs, who but for
+the gun slung across his shoulders by a stout leathern strap might well
+have been mistaken for an apparition of the god Pan himself returned to
+earth. Vague recollections of the brigand Manzoni, the scourge of the
+neighbourhood and the murderer of more than one unhappy visitor to the
+ruins of Paestum in the good old _vetturino_ days, flashed through our
+mind, as we surveyed the muscular frame and the fowling-piece of the
+strange being before us. It was with a sigh of relief that we noted upon
+the straight stretch of white road leading to the Little Temple in the
+distance the presence of two royal _carabinieri_ majestically riding at a
+foot's pace, their tall forms enveloped in long black cloaks whose folds
+swept over their horses' tails. We felt reassured, and when for a second
+time the guttural voice addressed us in unintelligible _patois_, we
+perceived the innocent object of this mysterious visit. Searching in a
+capacious goat-skin bag, a species of Neapolitan sporran, this descendant
+of the Poseidonian Greeks produced and held up to our gaze three birds
+that he had shot in his morning's hunting. For the modest sum of three
+lire the game exchanged hands, and the sportsman departed, well satisfied
+with his luck. Next evening we feasted royally in our inn at Salerno upon
+a succulent woodcock fattened upon the berries of the wood of Persano, and
+upon a couple of snipe that had grown plump amongst the Neptunian marshes.
+Nor was this dainty addition to our supper that night altogether
+undeserved; for having decided in a momentary fit of enthusiasm to forego
+the usual basket of hotel food at the time of starting from Salerno, in
+order to follow the advice of old Evelyn "to diet with the natives," we
+had preferred to take our chance of midday refreshment at the solitary
+_osteria_ within the ruined city wall. The good people of the inn did what
+they could to regale the two _gran' signori Inglesi_, whose unexpected
+presence had the effect of creating some stir within their humble walls.
+No little time was expended in bustling preparations, before a flask of
+red wine, some coarse bread, a dish of fried eggs and a plateful of cold
+sausage were placed before us upon the rough oak table, well scored with
+knife-cuts. Eggs, wine and bread are usually tolerable everywhere
+throughout Italy, no matter how mean the inn that provides them; but the
+Lucanian sausage, though interesting as a relic of classical times, is
+positive poison to the Anglo-Saxon digestion. For the Lucanian sausage of
+to-day is the _Lucanica_ unchanged; the same tough, greasy, odoriferous
+compound, in fact, that Cicero describes as "an intestine, stuffed with
+minced pork, mixed with ground pepper, cummin, savory, rue, rock-parsley,
+berries of laurel, and suet." And we have only to add that mingling with
+the above-mentioned condiments there was an all-pervading flavour of
+wood-smoke, due to the sausage's place of storage, a hook within the
+kitchen chimney. But if the fare was rough, it was cheap and smacked of
+classical times, and our reception by the Paestani of to-day was most
+cordial.
+
+We left Poseidonia late in the afternoon, casting back many regretful
+glances at the three giant sentinels of the plain, looming preternaturally
+large in the rapidly fading light of a starless evening. At that hour we
+felt we could understand and sympathise with the poor untutored peasant's
+fear and avoidance of these lonely ruins, for superstition is often as
+much the result of chance environment as of crass ignorance.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER X
+
+
+                          SORRENTO AND ITS POET
+
+
+It has been said of more than one spot on this globe, that it was so
+beautiful in summer the marvel was to think any one could die there; and
+so wretched in winter, it was a miracle for its inhabitants to survive.
+Sorrento may be said to belong to this class of place, for the climate of
+its short winter is one of the most trying and inclement that can possibly
+be imagined, whilst during spring, summer and early autumn it well merits
+its local reputation as _il piccolo paradiso_ of the Bay of Naples, and
+its air is considered by Neapolitans as the "balm in Gilead" for every
+evil to which human flesh is heir. The Lactarian Mountains protect the
+plain of Sorrento in summer from the scorching rays of the sun, and lay
+their beneficent shadow for several hours of the long hot summer's day
+over the many thousands who dwell on the fertile Piano di Sorrento at
+their base. But in winter these same hills intercept the blessed sunshine,
+which is what most travellers speed southwards to obtain, and leave the
+coast line from Castellamare to the Punta di Sorrento with its northern
+aspect wrapped in shade and moisture, whilst the remainder of the Bay is
+still basking in the genial warmth, so that anything more miserable than a
+mid-winter sojourn in Sorrento it would be impossible to conceive. There
+are of course calm warm days to be met with even in December and January,
+but these are occasional and by no means dependable blessings, and the
+visitor who persists in taking up his abode here at this season of the
+year must prepare himself to experience cold, damp, wind and rain, without
+any of the contrivances or comforts of a northern winter. "One swallow
+does not make a summer," and on the same principle a southern latitude and
+the presence of orange groves do not necessarily imply a salubrious
+climate; indeed, the sub-tropical surroundings seem to add an extra degree
+of chilliness to the place. To sit at Christmastide in a large lofty room
+before a meagre fire of sputtering smoky logs, with Vesuvius wrapped from
+crest to base in a white mantle of new fallen snow, and with an icy
+_tramontana_ from the bleak Abruzzi howling round the house, bending the
+bay trees and penetrating into every corner of the chamber, is by no means
+the ideal picture of a winter in the Sunny South; yet this is only what
+the traveller must be prepared to face, and is very likely to obtain. Nor
+is the cold compensated for by any advantages in the neighbourhood itself,
+for there is but the high road from Castellamare which passes through the
+town and leads above the seashore to Massa Lubrense. It is all very well
+in its way, but in wet weather its surface is one sheet of slippery mud,
+and the streams pouring down the hillside make it chilly and damp for all
+who are not quick walkers. Besides this not very attractive and soon
+exploited walk, there are only the _vicoletti_, the narrow steep rocky
+paths running up hill, which make rough going and give little pleasure,
+for they are almost all bounded on either side by high stone walls that
+jealously exclude the view. So much for Sorrento in its winter dress. But
+when the spring comes, here truly is a transformation from cold and
+torpor! The soft warm air is redolent of the penetrating fragrance of
+orange blossom, of stocks, of jessamine, of wallflower, and of a hundred
+odorous plants and shrubs from each garden and grove behind the many
+obstructing walls. The balconies and gate-pillars are draped in scented
+masses of the beautiful wistaria, which in Italy produces its long pendant
+bunches of purple flowers before putting forth its bronze-coloured leaves.
+Cascades of white and yellow banksia roses fall over each confining
+barrier, or else their stems may be seen climbing like huge serpents up
+the trunks of pine and olive, to burst forth amidst the topmost boughs
+into floral rockets against the cloudless sky. The ravines with which the
+whole of the Piano di Sorrento is intersected are filled with a perfect
+jungle of fresh spring foliage, amidst whose varied tints of green appear
+here and there the bright red shoots of the pomegranate trees bursting
+into leaf. In the heavily perfumed air at dusk, or when the bright
+moonlight is flooding the whole scene and is turning the Bay into a mirror
+of molten silver, the song of the innumerable nightingales can be heard
+resounding from all sides; alas! too often sweet songs of sorrow for nests
+despoiled by the ruthless hands of young Sorrentine imps, as in the days
+of the Georgics.
+
+  "Qualis popule� m�rens Philomela sub umbr�
+  Amissos queritur fetus, quos durus arator
+  Observans nido implumes detraxit, at illa
+  Flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen
+  Integrat, et moestis late loca questibus implet."
+
+  ("At nightfall hear sad Philomel upraise
+  Her mellow notes amid the dark-leaved bays,
+  Mourning her babes and desecrated bower,
+  Which some rough peasant robbed in evil hour;
+  She tells her story of despair and love,
+  Until her plaintive music fills the grove.")
+
+All is fragrant, warm, genial, and peaceful, save for the melancholy notes
+of poor ill-used Philomel, who is foolish enough to visit a cruel country,
+wherein every bird is merely regarded as a toothsome morsel for the family
+pot. We bird-lovers of Britain, with our Selborne Societies and our Wild
+Birds' Protection Acts, find it extremely difficult to understand the
+utter indifference displayed by Italians of all classes towards the
+feathered race. The whole of the beautiful country with its cypress hedges
+and olive groves lies almost mute and lifeless, for on every festival the
+fields and lanes are patrolled by bands of _cacciatori_ with dogs and guns
+on the look-out for game, if blackbirds and sparrows can be accounted
+such. In some districts it is even dangerous for pedestrians to use the
+roads on a Sunday, for fear of a stray bullet, since all, as a rule, fire
+recklessly at any creature within and out of range. Nor is this senseless
+war of extermination carried on merely with guns, for trapping is used
+extensively, and very ingenious and elaborate are some of the arts
+employed in this wretched quest. Every country house has its _uccellare_,
+or snare for the securing of small birds for the table, whilst many of the
+parish priests in the mountain districts add to their scanty incomes by
+catching the fledglings which the young peasants sell in the neighbouring
+market. The result is what might only naturally be expected--a scarcity of
+birds and an almost complete absence of song, for the whole countryside
+has been practically denuded of blackbirds and thrushes; even the
+nightingale has escaped destruction rather on account of its nocturnal
+habits than of its tiny size and exquisite notes. It is positively
+sickening to observe the quantities of slaughtered wild birds in an
+Italian market at any season of the year, for the work of devastation
+proceeds apace equally in spring time. Basketfuls of thrushes and
+blackbirds, and strings of smaller varieties--linnets, sparrows, robins,
+finches, even the diminutive gold-finches, most beautiful, most gay, and
+most innocent of all songsters--are being hawked about by leathern-lunged
+_contadini_, who, alas! always manage to find customers in plenty. No
+matter how melodious, how lovely, or how useful to the farmer a bird may
+be, no Italian, high or low, seems to have any sense or appreciation of
+its merits except as an article of food; it is merely a thing that
+requires to be caught, killed, cooked and eaten, and Providence has
+decreed its existence for no other purpose; even gold-finches in the eye
+of an Italian look better served on a skewer than when they are flying
+round the thistle-heads, uttering their bright musical notes and
+enlivening the dead herbage of winter with their gay plumage. _Che bel
+arrosto!_ (what a glorious dish!) sigh the romantic peasants, as they
+glance upward for a moment from their labour in the fields at the sound of
+the larks carolling overhead; and though an educated Italian would
+probably not give vent to so vulgar a remark, he would much prefer the
+_bel arrosto_ to the "profuse strains of unpremeditated art" that so
+entrance the northerner, who is in reality far more of a poet by nature
+than the more picturesque dweller of the South. _Tantum pro avibus._
+
+As summer advances, the delight of bathing in the limpid waters of the Bay
+is added to the other attractions of Sorrento, whilst many pleasant and
+profitable hours can be passed in reading or writing during the long
+midday rest in the cool airy carpetless and curtainless rooms, where on
+the frescoed ceilings there plays the green shimmer of light that
+penetrates through the closed bars of the _persiani_, the outside heavy
+wooden shutters that let in the sweet air, but somehow seem to exclude the
+intense heat. With the approach of sunset and the throwing open of
+casements to catch the westerly breeze, there comes a delightful ramble,
+perhaps an excursion on mule-back to the famous convent of the Deserto or
+some other point of interest; or else a row upon the glassy waters at our
+feet, to explore "Queen Joanna's Bath," or some strange caverns beyond the
+headland of Sorrento, well known to our boat-men. That is the true life of
+_dolce far niente_, but such an ideal existence can only be indulged in
+during summer time or in late spring; to pass a winter at Sorrento the
+heaviest of clothing, abundance of overcoats and rugs, hot-water bottles,
+cough drops, ammoniated quinine and all the usual adjuncts of a northern
+yule-tide must be carefully provided before-hand by the traveller, who is
+bold enough to tempt Providence by turning what is essentially a warm
+weather retreat into a place of winter residence.
+
+In early autumn also the place has its charms, in the days when the market
+is filled with stalls heaped with glowing masses of fruit, many of them
+unknown to us wanderers from the north. There are peaches that resemble
+our own fruit at home, and there are also great yellow flushed velvety
+globes, like the sun-kissed cheeks of a fair Sorrentina, that appear
+tempting to the eye, but are in reality tough as leather, for they are the
+_cotogni_ or quince-peaches of Italy, which to our feeble palates and
+digestions seem only fit for cooking, though the experienced native
+contrives to make them edible by soaking the fruit in wine. The moment he
+sits down to table, he carefully pares his _cotogne_ and cuts it into
+sections, which he drops into a glass of red wine where they repose until
+the meal is finished; by this time the fruit has become thoroughly
+saturated, and it is then eaten with apparent relish. There are hundreds
+of apples, some of a shining rich crimson and others of dull yellow
+peppered over with tiny black specks, the _renati_, highly prized by the
+natives for their delicate flavour and soft flesh. There are of course
+loads of grapes, varying from the little honey-tasting purple sort, that
+has been introduced from California, to the huge but somewhat insipid
+bunches of the white _Regina_; we note also the quaintly shaped "Ladies'
+Fingers," which are especially sweet. The figs, massed together in serried
+layers between fresh vine leaves and costing a _soldo_ the dozen, stand
+around in glossy purple pyramids, so luscious that their sugary tears are
+exuding from their skins, and so ripe that they seem to cry to be eaten
+before noon. Here is a barrow piled high with the little green fruit, each
+separate fig being decorated with a pink cyclamen stuck in its crest; and
+here is a smaller load of the black _Vescovo_, which is said to obtain its
+ecclesiastical name from the fact that the parent stock of this highly
+esteemed variety originally flourished in the bishop's garden at Sorrento.
+No one who has not visited the shores of the Mediterranean in September or
+early October can realize the luscious possibilities of the fig; for there
+seems nothing in common between the freshly-picked fruit of the south,
+bursting its skin with liquid sugar, and the dry sweetish woolly object
+which tries to ripen on the sheltered wall of an English garden and is
+eaten with apparent gusto by those who know not its Italian brother. Being
+autumn, we have missed one prominent feature of the fruit market, the
+great green-skinned water-melons (_poponi_) with their rose-coloured pulp
+and masses of coal-black seeds, which form the favourite summer fruit of
+the people, who find both food and drink in their cool nutritious flesh.
+But even gayer and more striking than the fruits are the piles of
+vegetables, arranged with a fine appreciation of colour to which only an
+Italian eye can aspire. Carrots, turnips, tomatoes, purple-headed
+cauliflowers, all the broccoli and many others to be observed are old
+familiar friends, but who in England ever saw such gorgeous objects on a
+coster's stall or in a green-grocer's shop as the yellow, scarlet and
+shining green pods of the _peperoni_, or the banana-shaped egg-plants of
+iridescent purple, or the split pumpkins, revealing caverns of
+saffron-hued pulp within? Truly, the Sorrentine market contains a feast of
+colour to satisfy the craving of an artist!
+
+At vintage time the whole Piano di Sorrento reeks with the vinous scent of
+the spilt juice, that is carelessly thrown on to the stone-paved roads by
+the jolting of the country carts which bring in the great wooden tubs, so
+that the very streets seem to run with the crimson ooze. Slender youths in
+yet more slender clothing, with legs purple-stained from treading the
+grapes (for in the South wine is still made on the primitive plan), are to
+be met with on all sides, playing at their favourite game of bowls on the
+public road, in order to relieve their brains of the pungent fumes of the
+fermenting grape juice. Somehow at the very thought of a Campanian vintage
+with its long hot dusty days, its bare-legged brown-skinned peasants
+treading the pulp, and its all-pervading aroma of wine-lees, there rise to
+memory the truly inspired lines of John Keats:
+
+  "O for a draught of vintage, that hath been
+  Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
+  Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
+  Dance, and Proven�al song, and sun-burnt mirth!
+  O for a beaker full of the warm South,
+  Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
+  With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
+      And purple-stained mouth."
+
+But all these joys of odorous gardens made musical by nightingales, of
+morning plunges into the blue Mediterranean, of the wealth of southern
+fruit and the novel delights of the vintage are not for the winter
+traveller, who had far better spend the December or January days of his
+visit to the Bay in a steam-heated Neapolitan hotel, rather than face the
+cold and wet in a Sorrentine inn on its overhanging cliff. Nevertheless
+the warm autumn often extends itself into a continuous St Martin's summer,
+that lasts almost until the New Year, before skies grow clouded and the
+snow-flakes descend upon the vineyards and the lava streams of Vesuvius.
+Nothing can be pleasanter in fact than some of the long walks in a sharp
+exhilarating air, and though days are short and nights are often chilly,
+one can sometimes linger on comfortably in Sorrento, though it is as well
+to be prepared for departure in case of a sudden spell of stormy weather,
+for winter sunshine is a necessity, not a luxury, on the Piano di
+Sorrento.
+
+  [Illustration: AFTERNOON, SORRENTO]
+
+Unlike other towns upon the Bay of Naples, Sorrento is divided into two
+distinct portions; the city on the cliffs, with its streets and squares,
+its cathedral and ancient walls, its villas and gay gardens; and the
+Marina, lying at the mouth of the gorge below, close to the water's edge.
+The population of Upper Sorrento is agricultural and labouring, whilst
+that of the lower consists entirely of fisher-folk and sailors; it is
+needless to add that the latter are far less prosperous than their
+fellow-citizens who live over-head. Until recent times little
+communication between these two sets of Sorrentines took place and
+intermarriages were rare, for the sea-faring population only ascended to
+the town above and intermingled with the people of Upper Sorrento on the
+great occasions of local festivals, such as the enthronement or funeral of
+a bishop. Nor has the levelling spirit of the age as yet broken down the
+deep-rooted feeling of local clannishness; although it cannot be long
+before time-honoured customs and prejudices will be swept away in the
+tidal wave of modern development. One of the chief industries of the place
+is the manufacture of scarves and sashes of rich silk woven in cross bars
+of strong contrasting colours, so that the Sorrentine silk work strongly
+resembles the well-known Roman variety. Equally popular with visitors are
+the various articles made of olive wood and decorated in _tarsia_, the art
+of inlaying with pieces of stained wood, which is a speciality of the
+place. There are two kinds of this Sorrentine inlaid work; one consisting
+of figures of peasants dancing the _tarantella_, of Pompeian maidens in
+classical drapery, of _contadini_ or priests bestriding mules, and of
+similar local subjects; and the other, of fanciful patterns made up of
+tiny coloured cubes of wood, much in the style of the old Roman stone
+mosaics. The designs employed vary of course with the fashion of the day,
+for there is a local school of art supported by the municipality, which
+professes to improve the tastes of the _tarsiatori_, but most persons will
+certainly prefer the trite but characteristic patterns of the place.
+
+But the main industry of Sorrento consists in the culture of the orange;
+and the dark groves, covered with their globes of shining yellow fruit,
+"like golden lamps in a green light," to quote Andrew Marvell's charming
+conceit, constitute the chief feature of its environs. Even the
+coat-of-arms of the medieval city, showing a golden crown encircled by a
+wreath of the dark glossy leaves, attests the antiquity of this industry
+here. The cultivation of the orange in Southern Italy is by no means an
+easy pursuit, though under favourable conditions it may prove a very
+lucrative one, even in a spot so subject to sudden changes of temperature
+as Sorrento in winter time, when a continuance of severe weather, like
+that experienced around Naples in the opening months of the year 1905,
+means total destruction of the fruit crop and temporary ruin to the
+owners.
+
+The fruit of commerce is propagated by means of grafting the sweet variety
+on to the stock of the bitter orange--said on doubtful authority to be
+indigenous to this district--which is fairly hardy and can be grown in the
+open as far north as Tuscany, so that every _aranciaria_ ought to possess
+a nursery of flourishing young sweet-orange shoots, ready in case of
+necessity. For eight long years the grafted tree remains as a rule
+profitless, but having survived and thriven so long, it then becomes a
+valuable asset to its proprietor for an indefinite period;--as a proof of
+the longevity of the orange under normal conditions we may cite the famous
+tree in a Roman convent garden, which on good authority is stated to have
+been planted by St Dominic nearly six hundred years ago. As to the amount
+of fruit yielded, the growers of Sorrento commonly aver that one good
+year, one bad year and one mediocre year constitute the general cycle in
+the prospects of orange farming. Two crops are gathered annually, the
+principle one in December and the other at Eastertide, the fruit produced
+by the later and smaller crop being far finer in size and flavour than
+those of the Christmas harvest. Mandarin oranges are gathered on both
+occasions, but the large luscious loose-skinned fruit of March and
+April--_Portogalli_ as they are commonly termed--are far superior to the
+small hard specimens that appear in December, and seem to consist of
+little else than rind, scent and seeds. The oranges begin to form in
+spring time, almost before the petals have fallen, when the peasants
+anxiously draw their conclusions as to the expected yield. But however
+valuable the fruit, the wood of the tree is worthless for commerce, except
+to make walking-sticks, or to serve the ignoble purpose of supplying
+hotels and caf�s with tooth-picks! Lemons, which are far more delicate
+than oranges and require to be kept protected by screens and matting
+during the sharp winter nights, are less common at Sorrento than on the
+warmer shores of the Bay of Baia or the sunny terraced slopes of the
+Amalfitan coast.
+
+With the ripening of the oranges on the trees appear those strange
+creatures from the wilds of the Basilicata or Calabria, the _Zampognari_,
+who visit Naples and the surrounding district in considerable numbers.
+They usually arrive about the date of the great popular festival of the
+Immaculate Conception (December 8th) and remain until the end of the
+month, when they return to their homes with well-filled purses. In outward
+aspect these strangers resemble the stage-brigands that appear in such
+old-fashioned operas as _Fra Diavolo_, for they wear steeple-crowned hats
+with coloured ribands depending, shaggy goat-skin trousers, crimson velvet
+waistcoats, blue cloaks, sandalled feet and gartered legs. Their pale
+faces are unshorn, and their hair hangs in great tawny masses over neck
+and ears, which are invariably adorned with golden rings. These fellows
+come in pairs, one only, properly speaking, being the _zampognaro_, for it
+is he who carries the _zampogna_ or classical bag-pipe of Southern Italy,
+whilst his companion is the _cennamellaro_, so called from his
+ear-splitting instrument, the _cennamella_, a species of primitive flute.
+The _zampogna_ may be described as first cousin to the historic bag-pipes
+of Caledonia, for the sounds emitted strongly resemble the traditional
+"skirling" of the pipes; but no Scotchman even could pretend to delight in
+the shrill notes of the _cennamella_. The former at least of these two
+popular instruments of southern Italy was well known to the omniscient
+author of the Shakespearean plays, for in _Othello_ we have a direct
+allusion to the uncouth braying music still made to-day by these
+outlandish musicians.
+
+"Why, masters, have your instruments been in Naples, that they speak i'
+the nose thus?... Are these, I pray you, wind instruments?... Then put up
+your pipes in your bag, for I'll away: go; vanish into air; away!"
+
+In the midst of their instrumental duet the two shaggy mountaineers are
+apt to break into a harsh nasal hymn in honour of the Virgin, to visit
+whose shrines at this season of the orange harvest is the main object of
+their Christmas migration to the Neapolitan shores. Very tastefully
+decorated are many of the Madonna's little sanctuaries in or near the
+orange groves, when the arrival of the _zampognari_ is considered
+imminent. The tiny lamps are well trimmed and shine brightly, whilst heavy
+garlands composed of masses of bay or laurel or ilex leaves, interspersed
+with some of the golden clusters of the ripening fruit are suspended round
+the alcove that holds the figure of the Virgin. This effective but simple
+form of ornamentation will at once suggest the beautiful glazed and
+coloured terra-cotta wreaths of fruit and foliage that are to be seen so
+frequently in Tuscan churches; indeed, it is possible that the members of
+the Della Robbia family may have originally borrowed the decorative
+schemes for their famous plaques and lunettes from the rustic shrines thus
+simply but tastefully embellished. Nominally, the two performers are
+supposed to sing and make music on nine different days at the houses of
+all their patrons in order to make up the total number of the _novena_,
+but the extent of their performances is generally calculated in accordance
+with the depth of the householder's purse, the sum given for their
+services varying from a few _soldi_ to a five _lire_ note. All classes of
+society employ the zampognari, for it is with the first appearance of the
+lovely golden fruit, essentially _the_ winter fruit of the Italians, that
+the arrival of these picturesque strangers has been associated from time
+immemorial. The _zampognari_ are in fact as much of a national institution
+with the Neapolitans at Christmastide as are the waits or carol-singers in
+our own country, so that to the majority of these people _Natale senza
+zampogna e cennamella_ would seem no true Christmas at all.
+
+Closely connected with the life of the people of the Piano di Sorrento is
+the famous dance known as the _Tarantella_, which may be witnessed by the
+curious at almost any time--for money. Even when performed by professional
+dancers, tricked out in spick and span stage-peasant finery, the
+Tarantella is a most graceful exhibition of movement, although the dance
+naturally gains in interest when it takes place in the days of vintage or
+on the popular festivals of the Church, without the presence of
+largesse-giving strangers. The origin of the name has always puzzled
+antiquarians, although in all probability the dance derives its curious
+appellation from the Greek city of Taranto, whence the Tarentines
+introduced its steps and action into other parts of Italy. But vulgar
+belief is very strong, so that this graceful dance is still closely
+associated in the popular mind with the _tarantula_, a kind of poisonous
+spider found in the neighbourhood of Taranto, the effects of whose bite
+are said to yield to violent exercise followed by profuse perspiration. In
+order to excite the proper amount of exertion necessary for the cure, the
+person afflicted, _il tarantolato_, is induced to leap and caper by the
+sound of music, with the result that there exist a number of tunes
+specially connected with this wild species of dancing. The real
+explanation of this fable seems to lie in the extremely excitable nature
+of the Tarentines themselves, assisted by the exhilarating music and by
+frequent pulls at the wine barrel. The two lines sung to the air of one of
+the tunes employed:
+
+      "Non fu Taranta, ne fu Tarantella,
+      Ma fu la vino della carratella:"
+
+
+    ("It was neither the taranta, nor the tarantella, but it was the
+    wine from the cask.")
+
+
+sums up pretty accurately the real cause of these strange Tarentine
+orgies, which have really nothing whatever in common with the rhythmical
+dance that is still so popular in the environs of Naples. Nevertheless the
+theory of _tarantella_ and _tarantismo_ has been gravely discussed by old
+Italian writers, and a certain learned prelate of the fifteenth century,
+Niccolo Perotto, Archbishop of Siponto, alludes to the malignant cause of
+this dance-cure as "a species of speckled spider, dwelling in rents of the
+ground caused by excessive heat. It was not known in the time of our
+fore-fathers, but now it is very common in Apulia ... and is generally
+called _Tarantula_. Its bite seldom kills a man, yet it makes him half
+stupid, and affects him in a variety of ways. Some, when a song or tune is
+heard, are so excited that they dance, full of joy and always laughing,
+and do not stop till they are entirely exhausted; others spend a miserable
+life in tears, as if bewailing the loss of friends. Some die laughing, and
+others in tears."
+
+Such is the curious legend concerning the origin of the Tarantella, which
+is still danced with something of the old spirit by the holiday-making
+crowds of Naples, though it is at the _festa_ of San Michele, the patron
+of Procida, that the Tarantella can now be seen to best advantage. Of the
+three islands that lie close to Naples, Procida is the least known or
+visited by strangers, so that when the Tarantella is danced by the
+Procidani, the old-fashioned popular orchestra is employed to give the
+necessary music. This consists of five quaint instruments (obviously of
+Oriental origin as their counterparts can still be seen amongst the
+Kabyles of Northern Africa): the first being a fife (_siscariello_); the
+second a tin globe covered with skin pierced by a piece of cane
+(_puti-puti_); the third a wooden saw and a split stick, making a
+primitive bow and fiddle (_scetavaiasse_); the fourth an arrangement of
+three wooden mallets, that are rattled together like a gigantic pair of
+bones (_tricca-ballache_); and the fifth a Jew's harp
+(_scaccia-pensieri_). A tarantella danced to the accompaniment of so weird
+a medley of instruments and by real peasants full of gaiety is naturally a
+thing altogether diverse from the stilted, though graceful and decorous
+performance that can be observed any day for payment in a Sorrentine or
+Neapolitan hotel; yet it must ever be borne in mind that the Tarantella
+proper, whether danced _con amore_ by Procidan peasants or performed for
+lucre by costumed professionals, is no vulgar frenzied _can-can_, but a
+musical love-dance expressive of primitive courtship.
+
+"The Tarantella is a choregraphic love-story, the two dancers representing
+an enamoured swain and his mistress. It is the old theme--'the quarrel of
+lovers is the renewal of love.' Enraptured gaze, coy side-look, gallant
+advance, timid retrocession, impassioned declaration, supercilious
+rejection, piteous supplication, softening hesitation; worldly goods
+oblation, gracious acceptation; frantic jubilation, maidenly resignation.
+Petting, wooing, billing, cooing. Jealous accusation, sharp recrimination,
+manly expostulation, shrewish aggravation; angry threat, summary
+dismissal. Fuming on one side, pouting on the other. Reaction,
+approximation, exclamation, exoneration, reconciliation, osculation,
+winding up with a grand _pas de circomstance_, expressive of confidence
+re-established and joy unbounded. That's about the figure of it; but no
+word-painting can give an idea of the spirit, the 'go' of the tarantella
+when danced for love and not for money."(9)
+
+On a modest scale Sorrento can lay claim to be called an eternal city, for
+the Surrentum of the ancient Romans was a place of no small importance,
+filled with villas of wealthy citizens and boasting a fair-sized
+population, as its numerous remains of antiquity can easily testify;
+whilst its crumbling ivy-clad walls and towers point to its prosperity
+during the Middle Ages, when Sorrento shared the political fortunes of
+Naples. It is now a busy thriving little cathedral town, and the possessor
+of silk and _tarsia_ work industries, so that like Imperial Rome it can
+boast a continuous existence as a city from remote times to the present
+day. Its chief local Saint--for what Italian town does not boast a special
+patron?--is Sant' Antonio, whose most famous feat is said to have been the
+administering of a severe drubbing to Sicardo, Duke of Benevento, for
+daring to interfere with the liberties of his city in the ninth century.
+It would appear from the legend that all arguments as to ancient rights,
+the quality of mercy and the honour of keeping faith having been vainly
+exhausted upon the cruel and obstinate prince, Bishop Antonio came forward
+with a stout cudgel and belaboured the tyrant in order to obtain a
+favourable answer to the people's petition. The sanctity of the pugnacious
+prelate and the force of this _argumentum ad baculum_ were evidently too
+much for the Duke of Benevento, who at once conceded the popular demands,
+whilst Antonio's name has deservedly descended to posterity as the capable
+protector of his native city.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+But the name which above all others Sorrento will cherish as her own, "so
+long as men shall read and eyes can see," is that of the famous Italian
+poet, Torquato Tasso, whose interesting but melancholy life-story is
+closely associated with this, the town of his birth. Tasso is reckoned as
+the fourth greatest bard of Italy, ranking after Dante and Petrarch, and
+being esteemed on a level with rather than below his rival and
+contemporary, Ludovico Ariosto. In one sense however he may be described
+as the most truly national poet of this immortal quartet, for his career
+is connected with his native country as a whole, rather than with any one
+of the little cities or states then comprising that "geographical
+expression" which is now the Kingdom of Italy. His father's family was of
+Lombard origin, having been long settled in the neighbourhood of Bergamo,
+where a crumbling hill-set fortress known as the Montagno del Tasso still
+recalls the name of the poet's ancestors. His mother, Porzia de' Rossi,
+was Tuscan by birth, her family haling from Pistoja at the foot of the
+Apennines, but owning property near Naples; whilst the poet himself was
+destined to spend his years of childhood at Sorrento and at Naples, his
+youth at Rome and Verona, his brilliant period of fame and prosperity at
+Ferrara and the Lombard courts, and again some of his closing years of
+disgrace and disappointment amidst the familiar scenes of his infancy. Of
+good ancient stock the Tassi owed their acquisition of wealth to the
+re-establishment of the system of posting throughout Northern Italy in the
+thirteenth century, when the immediate progenitor of the poet, one Omodeo
+de' Tassi, was nominated comptroller, and it is curious to note that owing
+to this circumstance the arms of the family containing the posthorn and
+the badger's skin--_Tasso_ is the Italian for badger--continued to be borne
+for many centuries upon the harness of all Lombard coach-horses.
+Torquato's father, Bernardo Tasso, himself a poet of no mean calibre and
+the composer of a scholarly but somewhat prolix work, the _Amadigi_,
+formed for many years a prominent member of that brilliant band of
+literary courtiers within the castle of Vittoria Colonna, the Lady of
+Ischia, of whom we shall speak more fully in another place. But for the
+overwhelming and all-eclipsing fame of his distinguished son, Bernardo
+might have been able to claim a high place in the list of Italian writers
+of the Renaissance; as it was, the father's undoubted talents were quickly
+forgotten in the blaze of his own beloved "Tassino's" popularity, so that
+he is now chiefly remembered as the sire of a poetic genius, as one of the
+great Vittoria's favourite satellites and as the author of an oft-quoted
+sonnet to his intellectual mistress. Bernardo Tasso did not marry until
+the somewhat mature age of forty-seven, when, as we have already said, he
+espoused the daughter of the Tuscan house of Rossi, by whom he had two
+children; a daughter, Cornelia, and the immortal Torquato, who was born in
+1544, three years before the death of the divine poetess of Ischia.
+
+But Bernardo was not merely a bard and a courtier, for he was also,
+unfortunately for himself and his ill-fated family, a keen politician in
+an age when politics offered anything but a safe pursuit, and as his views
+invariably coincided with those of his chief friend and patron, the head
+of the powerful Sanseverino family, Tasso the Elder found himself in
+course of time an exile from Neapolitan territory on account of his
+dislike of the new Spanish masters of Naples. The poet-politician
+therefore took up his abode at Rome, whilst his wife and two young
+children continued to reside at Naples and Sorrento. The boy was a born
+student, almost an infant prodigy of learning, and so great was his desire
+for knowledge that he would insist upon rising long before it was
+day-light, and would even make his way to school through the dark dirty
+streets of Naples, conducted by a servant with a torch in his hand. The
+Jesuits, who had just set up their first academy at Naples, soon
+discovered in the future poet an ideal pupil, and not only did they impart
+to the child all the lore of ancient Greece and Rome, but they also imbued
+his mind, at an age when it was "wax to receive and marble to retain,"
+with their own peculiar theological tenets. It is obvious indeed that the
+faith implanted by the Fathers in his tender years was largely, if not
+wholly answerable for the unswerving belief and firm religious convictions
+that ever stood Tasso in good stead throughout the whole of his chequered
+career. "Give me a child of seven years old," had once declared the great
+Founder of the Society of Jesus, "and I care not who has the
+after-handling of him"; and in this case the Jesuit professors did not
+fail to carry out Loyola's precept. But his home life with his mother,
+whom he loved devotedly, and his course of study at the Jesuit school were
+suddenly interrupted when he was barely ten years of age, for the elder
+Tasso was anxious for his little son to join him in Rome, there to be
+educated under his own eye. The boy left his mother, but after his
+departure the Rossi family brutally refused to allow their sister access
+to her absent husband, who had lately been declared a rebel against the
+Spanish government and deprived of his estates. Thus persecuted by her
+unfeeling brothers, Porzia Tasso sought refuge together with Cornelia in a
+Neapolitan convent, where, deprived of her erratic but beloved husband and
+pining for her absent son, the poor woman died of a broken heart a year or
+two later. As for Cornelia, she became affianced when of a marriageable
+age to a gentleman of Sorrento, the Cavaliere Marzio Sersale, and
+consequently returned to live in the home of her childhood.
+
+Of Tasso's many adventures, of his universal literary fame, of the honours
+heaped upon him by his chief patron, Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, and of his
+subsequent disgrace and imprisonment for daring to lift his eyes in love
+to a princess of the haughty House of Este, we have no space to speak
+here. Let it suffice to say that he was one of the most charming,
+virtuous, brilliant, manly figures, as he was also almost the last true
+representative, of the great Italian Renaissance, the end of which may be
+described as coinciding with his decease. According to his biographer
+Manso, the author of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ was singularly noble and
+refined in appearance, though always possessed of an air of melancholy; he
+was well-built, strong, active and resourceful, anything in fact but a
+carpet-knight who spent his days in writing verse and dallying with
+Italian court beauties:
+
+  "Colla penna e colla spada,
+  Nessun val quanto Torquato;"
+
+sang the populace of Ferrara in honour of their illustrious Sorrentine
+guest, for the Ferrarese delighted in the handsome stranger who could in
+an emergency wield the sword as skilfully as he could ply his quill. Twice
+only however did Tasso revisit the city of his birth, and each return home
+was occasioned by deep tragedy. In 1577, wounded by the attacks of his
+literary rivals and humiliated by the Duke Alfonso's discovery of his
+infatuation for the Princess Leonora d'Este, the unhappy poet travelled
+southward, reaching Sorrento in the disguise of a shepherd. Making his way
+to the Casa Sersale, the house of his sister, now a widow with two sons,
+Torquato passed himself off as his own messenger, and so eloquently did he
+relate the story of his own grief and wrongs, that the tender-hearted
+Cornelia fainted away at this recital. Having satisfied his mind as to his
+sister's genuine affection, the pseudo-shepherd now revealed his true
+character, whereupon the pair embraced with transports of joy, though it
+was deemed prudent not to acquaint their friends with the arrival of
+Torquato, who was represented to the good people of Sorrento as a distant
+relative from Bergamo. Cornelia Sersale now entreated the poet to take up
+his abode permanently in her house, and to forget the rebuffs of the cruel
+world without in the enjoyment of family ties and affections; and well
+would it have been for Torquato, had he accepted his sister's advice and
+passed the succeeding years in simple rural pleasures. But restless and
+inconsequent despite all his virtues, the poet must needs return to
+Ferrara to bask in the presence of his beloved Leonora, with the dire and
+undignified result that all the world knows. Tasso's second visit took
+place not long before his death, when his strength was rapidly failing, so
+that it seems strange that he did not decide to end his days amidst these
+lovely and well-remembered scenes of his early boyhood, instead of
+deliberately choosing for the last stage of his earthly journey the Roman
+convent of Sant' Onofrio, where the death-chamber and various pathetic
+relics of the poet are still pointed out.
+
+Students of Tasso's immortal epic are apt to overlook the immense
+influence exercised on its author by his early Sorrentine days and
+surroundings. The _Gerusalemme Liberata_ contains, as we know, a full
+account of the First Crusade and constitutes an apotheosis of Godfrey de
+Bouillon, first Christian King of Jerusalem; but it is also something more
+than a mere poetical description of a departed age of chivalry. For there
+can be little doubt that the poet aspired to be the singer of a new
+movement which should wrest back the Holy City from the clutches of the
+Saracens, and set a second Godfrey upon the vacant throne of Palestine. To
+this important end the experiences of his infancy and his training by the
+Jesuits had undoubtedly tended to urge the precocious young poet. The
+servants of his father's house at Sorrento must many a time have regaled
+his eager boyish mind with harrowing tales of the infidel pirates who
+scoured the Tyrrhene Sea within sight of the watch-towers on the coast;
+within ken, perchance, of Casa Tasso itself, perched on the commanding
+cliff above the waters. Scarcely a family dwelling on the Marina below but
+was mourning one or more of its members that had been seized by the
+blood-thirsty marauders, perhaps to be brutally slain on the spot or to
+languish in the dungeons of Tripoli and Smyrna, eking out a life of
+slavery that was far worse than death itself. Stories of tortured
+Christians, like that of the pious Geronimo of Algiers who was tied with
+cords and flung into a mass of soft concrete, were common enough topics
+among the Sorrentine folk, all of whom lived in constant dread of a
+successful raid by the Barbary pirates. For, despite the efforts of the
+great Emperor Charles the Fifth to protect his maritime subjects, the
+swift galleys of Tunis and Tripoli out-stripped the Imperial men-of-war,
+and continued to carry on their vile commerce of slavery. Such a state of
+terrorism must have appeared intolerable to the highly romantic, deeply
+religious spirit of the young poet; and his Jesuit preceptors, working on
+the boy's imagination, were soon able to instil into his youthful brain
+the notion of a new Crusade which would not only sweep the infidel ships
+from off the Italian seas, but would also recapture the Holy City itself.
+The Church, beginning at last to recover from the effects of Luther's
+schism, was once more in a position to re-assert its ancient authority
+over Catholic Christendom, and in Torquato Tasso it found an able
+trumpeter to call together the scattered forces of the Faithful, and to
+reunite them in a holy war. Astonished and delighted, all Italy was swept
+by the golden torrent of Tasso's impassioned verses, that were intended to
+urge the Catholic princes of Europe to the inauguration of a new Crusade.
+Nor were the times unpropitious for such an event. Tunis, that hot-bed of
+infidelity, piracy and iniquity, was in the hands of the Christians; and
+the fleets of the Soldan had been well-nigh annihilated by Don John of
+Austria at the glorious battle of Lepanto:--to convince a doubting and
+hesitating world that the actual moment had come wherein to recover the
+city of Jerusalem was the main object of the author of the _Gerusalemme
+Liberata_. And it was his infancy spent upon this smiling but
+pirate-harassed coast that was chiefly responsible for this desired end in
+the epic of the Crusades; it was Tasso's early acquaintance with the Bay
+of Naples, combined with his special training by the Jesuits, that forced
+the poet's genius and ambition into this particular channel.
+
+It is pleasant to think that Sorrento is still appreciative of its honour
+as the birth-place of the great Italian poet. The citizens have erected a
+statue of marble in one of their open spaces; they have called street,
+hotel and _trattoria_ by his illustrious name; and can the modern spirit
+of grateful acknowledgment go further than this? His father's house has
+perished, it is true, through "Nature's changing force untrimmed," for the
+greedy waves have undermined and swallowed up the tufa cliff which once
+supported the old Tasso villa. But there is still standing in Strada di
+San Nicola the old Sersale mansion, wherein the good Cornelia received her
+long-lost brother in his peasant's guise, an unhappy exile from haughty
+Ferrara. Of more interest however than the old town house of the Sersale
+family is the ancient farm, known as the Vigna Sersale, which once
+belonged to Donna Cornelia, and supplied her household with wine and oil.
+It is a lovely sequestered spot lying on the breezy hill-side not far down
+the Massa road, facing towards Capri and the sunset. Hallowed by its
+historic connection with the poet and his devoted sister, the Vigna
+Sersale can claim perhaps to be one of the most interesting and beautiful
+places of literary pilgrimage upon earth. Ascending by the steep pathway
+that leads upward from the broad high road, it is not long before we reach
+the old _podere_, amidst whose olive groves and vineyards the poet was
+wont to sit dreamily gazing at the glorious view before him. Here are the
+same ancient spreading stone-pines, the same gnarled olive trees that
+sheltered the gentle love-lorn poet, whilst Cornelia and her sons sate
+beside him in the shade, endeavouring--alas! only too vainly--by their
+caresses to detain the roving Torquato in their midst. Could not, we ask
+ourselves, the erratic poet have been content to remain in this spot, "in
+questa terra alma e felice" as he himself styles it, instead of plunging
+once more into the dangers and dissipation of that Vanity Fair of distant
+Ferrara? Why could he not have brooded over his ill-starred infatuation
+for the high-born Leonora in this soothing corner of the earth, allowing
+its quiet and beauty to sink into his soul, until the recollection of his
+Innamorata declined gradually into a fragrant memory that could be
+embalmed in never-dying verse? But like his own favourite hero, the
+Christian King of Jerusalem, the poet must in his inmost heart have
+preferred a changing storm-tossed life to the ideal existence of rustic
+ease; and had he not returned to the treacherous splendours of Alfonso's
+court, how much less entrancing would his own life-story have appeared to
+after ages! Unconsciously he seems to have composed his own epitaph in
+describing Godfrey's death; for the crusading king lived and died like a
+true Christian knight, for whom the world has afforded many adventures,
+and but few intervals of peace until the final call to endless rest.
+
+  "Vivesti qual guerrier cristiano e santo,
+  E come bel sei morto: ei godi, e pasci
+  In Dio gli occhi bramosi, o felice alma,
+  Ed hai del ben oprar corona e palma."
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XI
+
+
+                      CAPRI AND TIBERIUS THE TYRANT
+
+
+Lying between the classic capes of Misenum and Minerva, the island of
+Capri appears like a couched lion, guarding the entrance of the Bay of
+Naples; his majestic head being formed by the stupendous cliffs of the
+Salto that face the sunrise, whilst his back and loins are represented by
+the long broad slope which stretches from the summit of Monte Solaro to
+the most westerly headland of Vitareta. Nor is it only as a guardian to
+their Bay that Capri serves the Neapolitans, for it also presents them
+with a gigantic natural barometer. In fine settled weather a soft haze
+invariably lies over the sea, so that Capri is only faintly visible from
+the shores of Parthenope, save at sunrise and sunset, when for a short
+time the graceful form of the islet looms out clear-cut like a jagged
+amethyst upon a sapphire bed; but before rain or storm it yields up its
+inmost secrets to the public gaze of Naples. The northern Marina, the
+towns of Capri and Ana-Capri, even the little terraced fields become
+discernible to the naked eye: "It will be wet to-morrow" augur the
+weather-wise of Naples, and the prediction is rarely falsified.
+
+  [Illustration: FARAGLIONI ROCKS, CAPRI]
+
+It is an easy matter to cross from Sorrento to the island, whether it be
+by the little steamer that plies daily between Naples and Capri, putting
+in at Sorrento on its journeys backwards and forwards, or--far pleasanter
+if somewhat slower way--by engaging a boat with four rowers, who on a calm
+day ought to make the Marina of Capri in less than two hours. Nothing can
+be more delightful or exhilarating than this old-fashioned method of
+transit; and it gives also a feeling of superiority over less enterprising
+persons who prefer the quicker passage on a smoky steamer, crammed with
+tourists and attendant touts. It is the very morning for a row on the cool
+glassy water, as we step joyfully into our boat with its four stalwart
+Phrygian-capped sailors in attendance:
+
+  "Con questo zeffiro
+    Cosi soave,
+  Oh, com' e bello
+    Star su la nave!
+  Mare si placido,
+    Vento si caro,
+  Scordar fa i triboli
+    Al marinaro."
+
+Bending with a will to their oars, our genial mariners quickly impel our
+barque round the first jutting headland, so that the thickly populated
+Piano di Sorrento is at once lost to view. Making good headway over the
+clear water, it is not long before we find ourselves passing beneath the
+wave-washed precipices of the Salto, and well within our time limit of two
+hours we reach the roadstead of the Marina, to find ourselves in a bright
+and busy world of traffic and pleasure. Between the houses coloured
+coral-pink, white, blue, and yellow, and the pale green transparent water
+lies a long stretch of beach covered with every sort of craft that sails
+the Mediterranean, and with a motley crowd of fishermen, tourists and
+noisy children; whilst the whole atmosphere rings with raucous voices
+raised in giving directions, in quarrelling, or in addressing the many
+perplexed strangers. We disembark, and cross the intervening beach with
+its sea-weed veiled boulders and masses of tawny fishing nets; we reach
+the village, and here we meet with our first disappointment in romantic
+Capri. It was not so very many years ago, barely thirty in point of fact,
+that this island was roadless, and in those primitive days the visitor was
+met at the Marina Grande by tall strapping Capriote women, who were wont
+to seize the traveller's pieces of baggage as though they had been light
+parcels, and to march up the old stone staircase poising these burdens on
+their heads with the carriage of an empress. The stranger's own entrance
+into Capri was less dignified, for either he had to toil painfully in the
+blazing sun up that steep picturesque flight of steps and reach the
+plateau above, perspiring and probably out of temper; or else he was
+compelled to bestride a miserable ass which a bare-footed damsel steered
+upward by means of the quadruped's tail. Nowadays, we are spared this
+original and somewhat humiliating manner of arrival at our journey's end.
+There are little _carrozzelle_, drawn by clever black Abruzzi cobs
+awaiting us, and even one or two hotel conveyances. We find ourselves
+being driven rapidly up the excellent winding road constructed only a
+quarter of a century ago, past the domed Church of San Costanzo, the
+patron Saint of the Caprioti, past hedges of aloe and prickly pear, until
+we gain the saddle of the island-mountain, where stands the small capital
+perched upon a ledge that overlooks the Bay of Naples to the north, and to
+the south the endless expanse of the unruffled Tyrrhene.
+
+It is evident even to the most casual untrained eye, that this huge mass
+of sea-girt rock whereon we stand must in remote ages have formed part of
+the mainland opposite, until some fierce convulsion of nature, common
+enough in this region that is ever changing its outward face through
+subterranean forces, tore what is now Capri asunder from the Punta della
+Campanella, and placed the sea as an eternal barrier between the riven
+headlands of continent and new-formed island. The charm of this rocky
+fragment, thus placed in mid ocean by volcanic action, was first
+discovered by the great Emperor Augustus, who chancing to visit the island
+for some obscure reason was greatly affected by the spectacle of a
+withered ilex tree, that revived and burst into foliage at the auspicious
+moment of his setting foot at the Marina. Flattered at the compliment paid
+by Nature's self to his august presence and drawing a happy omen from the
+incident, the Emperor at once proposed to the people of Neapolis, who then
+owned the island, that they should exchange barren Capreae for the larger
+and more fertile imperial appanage of Aenaria (Ischia)--a bargain to which
+the shrewd Neapolitans readily agreed. Here then in a spot at once so
+salubrious and so convenient for the management of affairs of state, the
+Emperor sought rest and relaxation at such times as he could escape the
+cares of government. At his bidding villas and pleasaunces were
+constructed; roads were carried by means of viaducts across the airy
+plateau lying between the Salto and the Solaro; and the able bodied
+inhabitants of the island were enrolled as a sort of honorary bodyguard
+for the person of Augustus during his occasional visits. In this secluded,
+yet accessible retreat, the ruler of the Roman world could easily lay his
+finger, as it were, upon the beating pulse of his mighty empire, for
+Capreae was at no great distance from Rome itself, and from the heights of
+the island note could be made of the movements of the Imperial fleet lying
+at Baiae or of the arrival of the corn ships from Egypt and Asia Minor.
+But the name of the good Augustus is scarcely remembered in connection
+with Capreae, which alone recalls its association with Tiberius the
+Tyrant, who spent the last nine years of his reign upon the rocky islet
+that was so beloved of his predecessor. To this spot "Timberio" (as the
+natives invariably misname the Emperor) feeling the rapid approach of
+senile decay, weary of the thankless task of ruling an ungrateful people,
+sick of family dissensions and of court intrigue, at last came in the
+cherished hope of spending the few remaining years of his life in cultured
+leisure and in comparative solitude. An enthusiastic student of astronomy
+and of its sister science, or rather pseudo-science, astrology, Tiberius
+proposed to study the heavens in the company of chosen mathematicians and
+soothsayers. Twelve buildings--palaces, villas, pavilions, call them what
+you will--were now constructed for the special examination of the planets,
+and in consequence the whole of the island, whose limited area after all
+is exceeded by many an English park, was practically turned into one vast
+maritime residence, for all the Imperial pleasure-houses seem to have been
+connected with each other by means of viaducts or secret stair-ways. Yet
+whilst immersed in astronomy and occultism, the aged Emperor contrived to
+find time for the routine of public business, and, like Augustus, he was
+still able to direct from his rocky retreat the policy of the Empire. The
+reports of governors of provinces, for example, were received, read, and
+commented upon by Tiberius in his Capriote home, and amongst these there
+must have been included a certain official document from one Pontius
+Pilatus, Procurator of Judaea, relating how a Jewish prophet from Nazareth
+had been condemned, scourged and crucified by his orders at the special
+request of the Jews themselves. How eloquent is this bald statement of a
+simple fact, that here in this tiny barren islet was brought the casual
+news of the death of Jesus Christ to the then ruler of the Roman world!
+Surely an historical incident such as this is of more value than all the
+hazy legends or pointless miracles of St Januarius or of San Costanzo,
+upon which the imagination of the islanders has been fed for generations.
+
+  [Illustration: CAPRI FROM THE VILLA JOVIS]
+
+Remnants of Tiberius' palaces, all of which are said to have been razed to
+the ground by order of the Roman Senate at his death, are scattered thick
+as fallen leaves in Vallombrosa over the whole surface of the island, and
+it is to the ruins of the Villa Jovis at its eastern crest that the
+visitor will in all probability first direct his steps. The way thither
+from the little city of Capri leads through narrow lanes along a stony but
+populous hill-side, to which the flat-roofed dazzling white houses with
+their small iron-barred windows lend an oriental aspect; an illusion that
+is aided by the appearance of an occasional date-palm over-topping some
+low wall, and by clumps or hedges of the prickly pear. This latter plant,
+of Indian extraction as its name of _Ficus Indica_ betrays, grows in
+profusion over the sun-baked rocky slopes of southern Italy, especially in
+the neighbourhood of the sea. The peasants find it most useful, for it
+makes impenetrable hedges, and its coarse pulpy leaves when pounded up
+afford good provender for their goats and donkeys. The fruits of the
+prickly pear, those quaint crimson or yellow knobs attached to the edges
+of the leaves, are likewise gathered and eaten by the people, or else
+cleaned of their protecting layers of spiny hairs and despatched in
+baskets to Naples, where the cactus-fruit forms an important item of the
+popular fare. The fruit itself has a lovely colour and a fragrant scent,
+which give promise of a better flavour than it actually possesses, for it
+is hopelessly insipid to the taste, although the Neapolitans declare that
+the pulp, when mashed up into patties and iced, is very palatable.
+
+A long up-hill ramble over rough paths leads eventually to the Villa of
+Jupiter, perched on the Salto--the _Saltus Caprearum_, the "Wild Goats'
+Leap," of the ancients. There is little of interest to be seen in the
+existing portions of Tiberius' chief villa, for the building has been
+despoiled centuries ago of its rich marbles, its slabs of _giallo_ and
+_verde antico_, its pillars of red porphyry and _serpentino_, some
+fragments of which may be found imbedded in the pavement of the
+mosque-like little Duomo of Capri. But it is evident from the immense
+extent of its substructures, now used for humble enough purposes, that the
+Villa Jovis must have been a palace of remarkable size. A hermit who
+offers sour wine, a fat middle-aged woman, a figure of fun in her gay
+be-ribboned dress who begins languidly dancing a _tarantella_, and a
+vulgar pestilent guide who produces a spy-glass usually haunt these
+caverns on the look-out for any chance visitor. Buy them off, O stranger!
+with _soldi_, is our advice, for you cannot otherwise escape their
+importunities, and then mounting to the highest point, peer down into the
+clear depths of the water nearly a thousand feet below. For it was here,
+if we can credit serious Roman historians, that the Imperial tyrant, half
+crazy with terror and ever thirsting for human blood, was wont to hurl the
+objects of his hate into the sea; "from this eminence," Suetonius gravely
+tells us, "after the application of long drawn-out and exquisite tortures,
+Tiberius used to order his executioners to fling their victims before his
+eyes into the water, where boats full of mariners, stationed below, were
+waiting in readiness to beat the bruised bodies with oars, in case any
+spark of life might yet be left in them." The terrible legend fits in
+aptly with the appearance of this forbidding dizzy precipice, especially
+on a dark stormy afternoon, when the dull roar of the waves dashing
+against the cliffs below, mounts upward to the Villa Jovis like the angry
+bellowing of some insatiable sea-monster.
+
+It was whilst brooding here after the death of Sejanus in Rome, that the
+Emperor, not daring to move beyond the walls of his palace, shunning the
+society of all save his familiar friends and attendants, and with his face
+disfigured by an eruption of the skin of which he was painfully sensitive,
+that there took place an incident (which may or may not be true) mentioned
+by Suetonius. In the privacy of this villa Tiberius was one day surprised
+by an ingenious Capriote fisherman, who in ignorance or defiance of the
+Emperor's wishes had managed to scale with his naked feet the steep cliffs
+from the sea below, in order to present a fine mullet for the imperial
+table, and of course to earn a high reward for his "gift." Terrified at
+the mere notion of anybody being able thus to penetrate into his most
+secret domain, the irate Emperor at once gave orders for the intruder's
+face to be scrubbed with the mullet he had brought, a sentence that the
+imperial minions performed without delay. The intrepid fisherman might
+have congratulated himself on so mild a punishment for having disturbed a
+tyrant's repose, had he not been possessed of an unusually strong sense of
+humour. For at the close of the mullet-scrubbing episode, the foolish
+fellow remarked by way of a jest to the officer on duty, that he was
+thankful he had not also offered the emperor a large crab which he had
+likewise brought in his basket. This imprudent speech was immediately
+reported to Tiberius, who thereupon commanded the man's face to be
+lacerated with the aforesaid crab's claws; but whether this pleasing
+incident ended with a cold plunge from the Salto, the Roman historian does
+not relate.
+
+Other tales of Timberio's vices and cruelties have been handed down from
+generation to generation, so that the dark deeds committed at the Salto
+have almost passed into a local article of faith; and such being the case,
+it would seem almost a pity to pronounce these picturesque horrors untrue
+or exaggerated. Nevertheless, of recent years there has arisen amongst
+scholars a certain degree of scepticism as regards these highly coloured
+anecdotes of Roman historians known to be prejudiced. The Emperor was
+nearly seventy years old at the time he came to reside in Capreae, and
+until that date his life had been orderly and above reproach; it is not
+likely therefore, argue these modern writers, that Tiberius should
+suddenly, at so extreme an age, have flung himself into a whirl of vices
+and crimes that he had hitherto shunned. The thing is of course possible,
+but it sounds improbable. That he was moody and morose; that he loved
+solitude and hated formal society in the spot he had especially chosen as
+the retreat of his declining years; that he practised certain of the
+mystic arts, as well as studied astronomy, are all likely enough
+conjectures; and these circumstances probably formed the foundation for
+the extravagant legends which now surround the Emperor's memory. Very
+shocking and reprehensible were the doings at Villa Jovis, if they really
+occurred there, but to try and dispute their authenticity would be a task
+quite outside the scope of this work.(10)
+
+If, despite the negative theories held to-day concerning the private life
+and character of the second Emperor of Rome during his residence on
+Capreae, the traveller be still inclined to trace the sites of the
+remaining eleven Imperial villas, he will find little difficulty in
+meeting with numberless Roman remains scattered over all parts of the
+island. On the beach, for example, a little to the west of the Marina
+Grande, are clearly visible the sunken foundations of the great
+sea-palace, which in the Roman manner jutted into the water and ranked
+probably second in size to the Villa Jovis. The neighbourhood of Ana-Capri
+also, and in fact the whole western portion of the island, is likewise
+plentifully besprinkled with ancient ruins, one of which is still known by
+the suggestive title of Timberino. But most people will prefer to explore
+the unrivalled natural beauties of Capri, rather than to make themselves
+acquainted with its archaeological points of interest.
+
+First and foremost of the many wonders that Capri has to show must be
+ranked the Grotta Azzurra. The pleasantest way of reaching this
+world-famous cavern is by small boat from the Marina, rather than by the
+daily steamer from Naples; and a perfectly calm and bright morning must be
+selected for the expedition, for if the surface of the sea appears in the
+least degree ruffled by northerly winds, it becomes impossible for any
+craft to make the low entrance of the grotto. Capriote boatmen are as a
+rule intelligent and pleasant to deal with, and not a few of the denizens
+of the Marina own to some knowledge of English, or rather of American,
+since several of the inhabitants are the sons of emigrants who have
+settled in the cities of the United States or the Argentine, but whose
+love for their island home is still so strong that they contrive to send
+their children back to Capri, in order that they may retain their Italian
+citizenship and be ready to serve their expected term of years in the
+Army.
+
+Past the gay-coloured shipping of the noisy Marina, past the wave-washed
+halls of Tiberius' _palazzo a mare_, our boat swiftly glides over the
+pellucid expanse until it reaches those vast towering cliffs of limestone
+that spring almost perpendicular from the waters' edge to the plateau of
+Ana-Capri, fully a thousand feet above our heads. Clumps of palmetto, of
+cytizus, and of various hardy shrubs manage to sprout and to exist in the
+crannies of this sheer wall of rock; and on some of the larger ledges, far
+out of reach of a despoiling human hand, we see masses of the odorous
+narcissus, though whence they draw their sustenance it is hard to tell. At
+length we reach the entrance of the Grotto, and here, at a signal from our
+boatman, we crouch down low in the body of the boat, whilst our rower,
+skilfully taking advantage of a gentle surging wave, guides our craft with
+his hands through an opening in the sheer wall, so low that the gunwales
+grate against the rocky surface of the natural arch. At once we find
+ourselves in a scene of mystical beauty, in an extravagant voluptuous
+dream of loveliness, such as the Arabian Nights alone could dare to
+suggest. Above us, around us, behind us, before us lies a luminous azure
+atmosphere, which produces the effect of a gigantic molten sapphire, whose
+secret blue fires we have actually tracked to their lurking-place in the
+very heart of the gem. Against the all-pervading shimmering light our own
+forms stand out distinct of an intense and velvety blackness, yet the
+blades of the oars that cleave the melted sapphire of the water, the tips
+of our fingers that dabble in the celestial liquid, appear as if coated
+with tiny globules of silver. Our boatman's son, a picturesque lad of
+fifteen or there-abouts, has, we notice, been engaged in hastily casting
+off his scanty attire; for a moment his slight graceful figure is outlined
+against the blue light like some antique bronze of Pompeii or Herculaneum,
+and then there is a splash as the youthful form, diving into the pool, is
+instantaneously changed by the genius of the place into a
+silver-glistening sea-god, the very image of the fisherman Glaucus sung of
+old by Ovid, who became an Immortal and dwelt ever afterwards, according
+to the ancient myth, in an azure palace beneath the sea. As the stripling
+rises to the surface all glittering to breathe the air, his head turns
+from frosted silver to ebon blackness, as does likewise his hand, raised
+from the water to clasp the boat's prow. Slowly we are propelled round the
+lofty domed cavern, and are shown the little beach at its further
+extremity with its mysterious and unexplored flight of stone steps, down
+which, so our mariner informs us, the wicked Timberio used to descend from
+his villa at Damecuta, hundreds of feet overhead, to take a plunge in
+these enchanted waters. The Emperor and his friends may or may not have
+gambolled in this jewelled bath; but certain it is that Tiberius knew of
+the existence of this unique cavern; and equally certain that an artistic
+but demented potentate of our own days was so smitten with the idea of
+owning a secret staircase descending to a blue grotto, that he must needs
+construct within the walls of a fantastic castle in the highlands of
+Bavaria an artificial counterpart of the Grotta Azzurra, with metal swans
+moved by clockwork swimming thereon!
+
+Our genial boatman beguiles the time of our returning by a long story,
+told him in his boyhood by his old grandfather, of how two English
+_Signori_ had managed to rediscover the entrance to the Blue Grotto, which
+had been lost since the days of the Emperor Timberio, and how in
+expectation of the Englishmen's reward a plucky sailor, named Ferrara, had
+made his way all round the island in a cask, trying to force an entrance
+into every possible cavern, until at last he hit upon the mouth of the
+Grotta Azzurra itself, and thus gained the prize. But as a matter of fact
+the existence of the Grotto was never wholly forgotten, for its beauties
+were certainly known to the old Italian chronicler Capaccio. Yet doubtless
+during the long period of the Napoleonic wars, when Capri from its
+strategic position became a choice bone of contention between French,
+English and Neapolitan forces, there were few if any persons who possessed
+the courage or curiosity to visit the cavern; with the result that its
+_exact_ locality became temporarily lost. It was known, however, to exist
+somewhere at the base of the great northern cliff, so that only a very
+small portion of the coast-line had to be explored, before its tiny
+inconspicuous entrance could be rediscovered. A far more exciting event
+than the refinding of the Blue Grotto was the genuine discovery of the
+beautiful Grotta Verde on the southern side of the island by two
+Englishmen, Mr Reid and Mr Lacaita, in the summer of 1848. This grotto,
+esteemed the second in importance of the many caves that Capri boasts,
+consists of a huge natural archway formed in the cliffs wherein the water
+and rocks appear of an emerald hue, contrasting strangely with the opaque
+blue of the sea beyond, and suggesting in its dual colouring the
+marvellous combination of dark blue and iridescent green in the peacock's
+tail.
+
+  [Illustration: IN THE BLUE GROTTO, CAPRI]
+
+Capri is a pleasant enough place of residence for a short time,
+particularly if one invests in a pair of the rope-soled shoes affected by
+the people, which enables the wearer to follow with greater ease the rough
+stony tracks, often at a dizzy height above the sea, that form the only
+walks in the eastern portion of Capri, except the villa-lined Tragara road
+leading to the Guardiola, now become the fashionable promenade of the many
+foreign residents upon the island. There are some delightfully peaceful
+nooks to be sought near the water's edge, not far from the Faraglioni,
+that picturesque trio of rocks lying off the south-eastern corner of
+Capri. Here we can find a sheltered corner, unfrequented alike by the
+pestering native or by the ubiquitous tourist; perchance the deserted hall
+of some maritime villa, for the caverns near the Piccola Marina abound in
+traces of Roman architecture. In such a retreat, with a book on one's
+knees and with one's own thoughts for sole company, how fascinating it is
+to lie
+
+  "... on Capri's rocks, close to their snowy streak
+  Of ambient foam, and watch the restless sea
+  Tossing and tumbling to Eternity,
+  Feeling its salt kiss fall upon the cheek."
+
+But to those who prefer to take long tramps afield rather than to linger
+in meditation on the sunny beaches near the Piccola Marina, there is
+always the ascent to Ana-Capri by the broad smooth winding road that
+affords a fresh view of the Bay of Naples at every one of its many twists
+and turnings. Over a ravine filled with masses of ilex and myrtle; past
+the fragment of the pirate Barbarossa's aerial castle, perched on a rocky
+pinnacle and looking like some fantastic creation of Gustave Dor�'s brush;
+the broad ribband of road leads across the steep northern flank of Monte
+Solaro, until it ends at Ana-Capri with its white houses nestling round a
+domed church. It is an easy ascent, taking no great space of time, yet
+strange to relate, well within living memory the only approach to this
+hill-set village was by means of the interminable stone staircase with
+some five hundred steps that connected it with the Marina Grande below. A
+charming writer on Neapolitan life and character thus shrewdly sums up the
+general opinion concerning this altered aspect of conditions with regard
+to Ana-Capri, now brought at last into close touch with modern
+civilization and its accruing benefits:
+
+"Before the culminating point is reached, the road crosses the old
+staircase, which has unfortunately been almost completely destroyed by the
+huge masses of rock dislodged from the cliff above by the workmen. It
+makes one sad to look at it, and almost regret that the new road ever was
+constructed. Were every invective that has been vented on those same steps
+turned into a paving-stone, there would be more than sufficient to pave
+the streets of Naples anew; were every drop of sweat that has fallen upon
+them collected, there would be enough water to flood them. And yet now
+that this dreadful staircase has been superseded by a good macadamised
+road, every one seems to regret the change. Says the heavily laden
+_contadina_: 'The old way was the shortest;' says the artist: 'It was
+infinitely more picturesque; that new parapet wall is a dreadful
+eye-sore;' says the archaeologist: 'It had the merit of antiquity; it is
+not everywhere that one can tread in the footprints of a hundred
+generations.' Even those whose every step in the olden time was
+accompanied by a malediction, can remember how good a glass of very
+inferior wine tasted on reaching Ana-Capri."(11)
+
+But whether Ana-Capri has or has not been really benefited by the Italian
+Government's finely engineered road, there can be no doubt that the
+primitive charm of the island, which in by-gone days constituted one of
+its chief attractions, has greatly declined with the wholesale
+introduction of modern conventions and improvements. With the sudden
+influx of wealthy strangers, Anglo-Saxon, German, French and Russian, it
+is not surprising to learn that the islanders have become somewhat
+demoralized under the changed conditions of life, and that not a small
+proportion of them have grown venal and grasping. The happy old days when
+artists and inn-keepers, peasants and such chance visitors as loved the
+simple unsophisticated life, hob-nobbed together on terms of equality are
+gone for ever. Fashion, that merciless deity, has annexed the Insula
+Caprearum to her ever-growing dominions;--there are smart villas on the
+Tragara road and even at Ana-Capri; there are British tea-rooms and
+Teutonic _Bierh�lle_ in the town. At the present time the tourists and
+foreign residents form the chief source of wealth to the islanders, now
+that the quails have more or less deserted these shores. Instead of
+awaiting in due season with nets ready prepared the advent of the plump
+little feathered immigrants from the African coast, the modern Caprioti
+are continually on the look-out for the steamers that bear hundreds of
+money-spending tourists to the Marina, and these they proceed to enmesh
+with proffered offers of service. And, speaking of the quails, in the days
+before breech-loading guns and reckless extermination had injured this
+valuable source of revenue, the arrival of the birds winging their way
+northward was the signal for every sportsman on the island to hasten to
+collect the annual harvest of game. High poles, supporting nets twenty
+feet broad and sixty feet long, were erected on the grassy slopes of the
+Solaro or in the plateau of the Tragara, towards which, by dint of
+judicious scaring and shouting from expectant watchers stationed at
+various points, the flight of the on-rushing birds was directed. Dashing
+themselves with force against this wall of netting, the poor quails fell
+stunned to the ground, where they were easily taken by hand, whilst scores
+of guns were levelled ready to bring down such birds as had escaped the
+snare prepared for them. From the thousands of quails thus captured the
+islanders were enabled to pay their taxes to the Bourbon Government, as
+well as to provide the income of their Bishop--for in those distant days a
+prelate dwelt at Capri--who in allusion to his chief source of income was
+jocularly known at the Roman court as "Il Vescovo delle Quaglie."
+
+From Ana-Capri to the western shore extends the most fertile stretch of
+land in the island: a broad slope set with vineyards and groves of
+silver-grey olives, that are interspersed here and there with clumps of
+almond and plum trees. Fine oil is yielded by the _poderi_ of Ana-Capri
+and Damecuta, whilst the grapes produce the highly prized red and white
+Capri vintages, choice wine of which the casual traveller rarely tastes a
+good sample, for it is usually doctored and "improved" for purposes of
+keeping by the wine-merchants of Naples. Thus the rasping red liquid that
+appears on the table of a London restaurant, and the scented
+strong-tasting white stuff that is sold in the hotels of the island itself
+or of Naples under the name of Capri, have little in common with the pure
+unadulterated product of these sunny breezy vineyards. But besides wine
+and oil, the island is likewise celebrated for its beautiful and varied
+flora, and it is amongst the olive groves and lanes of the western side of
+the island that the wild flowers can be found in the greatest profusion.
+Amongst the tender green shoots of the young springing corn are set
+myriads of brilliant hued anemones, purple, scarlet, and white with a
+crimson centre; and even in January can be found in warm sheltered nooks
+the pretty mauve wind-flower, one of the earliest of spring blossoms in
+Italy. The grassy pathways that intersect the various holdings are gay
+with rosy-tipped daisies, white "star-of-Bethlehem," dark purple
+grape-hyacinth, and the tiny strong-scented marigold, that seems to bloom
+the whole twelve-month round. Amongst the loose stone-work of the walled
+lanes, where beryl-backed lizards peep in and out of every crevice, can be
+found fragrant violets and the delicate fumitory with its pink waxy bells.
+In moist places flourish patches of the wild arum or of the stately great
+celandine, the "swallow-wort" of old-fashioned herbalists, who believed
+that the swallow made use of the thick yellow juice that runs in the veins
+of this plant to anoint the eyes of her fledgelings! And with the
+disappearance of the anemones as the season advances, their place is taken
+by blood-red poppies, by golden hawkweeds and by masses of tall
+magenta-coloured blooms of the wild gladiolus, the "Jacob's Ladder" of our
+own English gardens. Strange enough amongst these familiar homely flowers
+appear the sub-tropical clumps of prickly pear, and the hedges of aloe
+which here and there have thrown up a gigantic spike of blossom eight or
+ten feet in height, a triumphal favour of Nature that the plant itself
+must pay for by its subsequent death.
+
+From Ana-Capri we ascend to the peak of the lofty Solaro, by no means an
+arduous climb from this point, for we have but to follow a narrow
+goat-track leading across slopes covered with coarse grass and some low
+thickets of stunted lentisk and myrtle. The rosemary too grows plentifully
+on the dry wind-swept soil, and the soft sea breeze wafts its refreshing
+scent to our nostrils. There is a pretty legend of the people which
+relates the cause of this plant obtaining its perfume of unearthly
+sweetness:--how the Madonna one day hung the swaddling clothes of the
+Infant Christ to dry upon a common pot-herb in the garden at Nazareth--the
+rosemary is freely used in Italian cookery, and its taste is as unpleasant
+as its scent is delicious--whereupon the humble plant thus honoured was
+ever afterwards endowed with the delicate odour that is so highly prized.
+And beyond this, the rosemary was likewise permitted to put forth masses
+of flowers of the Madonna's own colour of blue, concerning which a
+tradition--Celtic, not Italian--avers that on Christmas morning upon every
+plant of rosemary will be found by those who care to seek them expanded
+blooms in honour of St Joseph, the Virgin and the Holy Child. Reaching the
+crest of the Solaro, we are well rewarded for our climb over the stony
+slopes by a wide-spreading view. Owing to the central position of the
+island, we can from its airy summit, some sixteen hundred feet above
+sea-level, command a glorious panorama of the three bays of the Neapolitan
+Riviera, each teeming with a thousand associations of classical or modern
+history. Upon those dancing waters of the Bay of Naples appeared in the
+dim ages of the heroic world the Trojan galleys that were bearing the
+founder of the Roman race towards the beach by Cumae yonder, where dwelt
+the venerable Sibyl; the fleets of ancient Rome and Carthage, the
+war-ships of the great Emperor Charles V., the pirate galleys of the
+Soldan's vassals, the men-of-war of Nelson have all rode and fought upon
+the bosom of the bay beneath us. What a marvellous perspective of the
+whole naval history of the Mediterranean does a survey of the Bay of
+Naples suggest!
+
+Exquisite and inspiring as is the view on a clear cloudless day, with the
+keen _tramontana_ off the distant Abruzzi flecking the azure waves with
+streaks of creamy foam and driving the white-sailed feluccas merrily
+towards the open sea, the landscape is even more impressive in dull
+lowering weather, when the inky clouds that envelop the sky give promise
+of the approaching hurricane. At such times a striking phenomenon, said to
+be peculiar to the Parthenopean shores, may be observed. From out the
+purple threatening masses that fill the heavens there suddenly falls a
+shaft of rosy light, as though directed by some vast celestial lens fixed
+aloft in the sky, upon a small portion of the opposite shore. The plateau
+of Sorrento with its many white hamlets first becomes illuminated; then
+the light rapidly passes towards Vesuvius, which is instantly revealed
+with marvellous clearness, whilst Sorrento returns to its former dark
+brooding shadows. For some moments we watch the circlet of towns that
+fringe the base of the burning mountain and Camaldoli erect on its wooded
+height, and then our gaze is diverted towards Naples, so clearly revealed
+that one can almost fancy it possible to detect the carriages driving
+along the white line of the Caracciolo. From the city this weird
+fairy-like light glides swiftly towards the headland of Posilipo and the
+great sombre mass of Ischia, and then finally seems to vanish altogether
+in the leaden-hued expanse of the watery horizon. Storm, rain, wind, hail
+and thunder will certainly follow the appearance of this fantastic
+rose-coloured glow, and the visitor to Capri may in consequence be
+compelled to remain willy-nilly upon the island until such time as
+communication with Naples shall be once more restored, for rough weather
+on Capri means complete isolation from the mainland and the outside world.
+A spell of four or five days without a letter or a newspaper may in
+certain cases be restful and even beneficial, but it can also be highly
+inconvenient.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+Comparatively few persons are aware that in the history of Capri is to be
+found a page, not a particularly glorious one perhaps, of the annals of
+our own nation. In the spring of 1806, the year after Trafalgar, whilst
+our fleet was blockading Naples on behalf of its worthless monarch, King
+Ferdinand, then skulking in cowardly ease at Palermo, Admiral Sir Sidney
+Smith, the hero of Acre, managed to capture the island after a sharp
+struggle with the French troops then holding it in the name of Joachim
+Murat, King of Naples and brother-in-law of the great Napoleon. Sir Hudson
+(then Colonel) Lowe--afterwards famous as the Governor of St Helena during
+Buonaparte's captivity--was now put in command of the newly conquered
+island with some 1500 English and Maltese troops at his disposal. Lowe and
+his second in command, Major Hamill, at once set to work to put the place
+into a strong state of defence, and so satisfied were they with their work
+of fortification, that Lowe in his confidence nick-named the islet "Little
+Gibraltar." For more than two years the Union Jack floated in triumph from
+the fort-crowned heights of Capri, much to the annoyance of the monarch on
+the mainland, who finally determined at all costs to recapture the
+stronghold facing his capital. Fancying himself perfectly secure in his
+"Little Gibraltar," now deemed impregnable by a combination of art and
+nature against any hostile descent, Lowe made light of any possible
+expedition from Naples, and when Neapolitan warships actually appeared as
+though making to land troops at the Marinas on either side of the saddle
+of the island, the British commandant was delighted at the ease with which
+these attempts were repelled. But whilst the garrison was busied in
+thwarting the movements on the Marinas, which in reality only constituted
+a feint on Murat's part, transports were engaged in disembarking at the
+low cliffs of Orico, the western extremity of the island, boat-loads of
+men, who quickly swarmed up the terraced slopes towards Ana-Capri and
+surprised its garrison. On the following day, October 6th 1808, in spite
+of Lowe's efforts, Ana-Capri with its eight hundred men surrendered to the
+French and Neapolitan troops led by General Lamarque, who at once set up a
+battery on the crest of the Solaro, so as to command the town of Capri and
+the English head-quarters, fixed at the Convent of the Certosa that lies
+between the Tragara Road and the southern shore. The eastern half of the
+island still of course remained in the hands of the British; and failing
+to reduce the town itself and the Convent of the Certosa by bombardment
+from above, General Lamarque decided upon taking the place by storm, so as
+to forestall the arrival of the English fleet, which was hourly expected
+to come to the rescue of the beleaguered garrison. As we have already
+mentioned, there was no road existing upon the whole island in those days
+a hundred years ago, so that in order to attack the capital, the French
+general had to march his victorious troops by the precipitous flight of
+stone steps down to the Marina Grande and then try to carry the position
+from below. Before however the Frenchmen, now further aided by supplies
+sent by Murat's order from Sorrento, could arrange for the projected
+assault upon the town, the delayed British fleet suddenly appeared in the
+offing, evidently with the intention of bearing down upon the island. But
+on this occasion the luck was all on the side of the French, for scarcely
+had the eagerly expected ships hove in sight, than the besieged garrison
+had the mortification to see their hopes of succour overthrown by the
+uprising of one of those sudden squalls, so common on the Mediterranean,
+which drove the warships southward. More than one assault was repulsed
+with heavy loss by the small English garrison, which had already been
+deprived of half its numbers at Ana-Capri, including the gallant Major
+Hamill, whose death is commemorated in a marble tablet set in the little
+piazza of the town. But with the retirement of the relieving fleet and the
+continuance of foul weather, Colonel Lowe deemed it useless to resist
+further, and like a sensible man decided to capitulate on the best terms
+he could obtain. In return for his immediate surrender of Capri the
+British commandant accordingly stipulated that his garrison should be
+allowed to embark and sail for Sicily unmolested, and that the persons and
+property of the islanders, who seem to have appreciated the British
+occupation, should be respected. But Lamarque, on communicating Colonel
+Lowe's request to King Murat, received peremptory orders to demand an
+unconditional surrender, whereupon an aide-de-camp of the King's, a
+certain Colonel Manches, was sent to interview Lowe with the royal letter
+in his pocket. Had the missive been delivered to him, the British Governor
+would in all probability have decided to fight to the bitter end rather
+than to submit to such severe and humiliating conditions. Happily so
+terrible a catastrophe, which must have involved heavy loss of life on
+both sides, followed by a sack of the town, was unexpectedly, averted at
+the last moment, for whilst Manches was actually advancing with a flag of
+truce, the approach of the British fleet was again signalled from the
+look-out on the hill now called the Telegrafo. Before the Governor could
+be made aware of this piece of news, Colonel Manches, cunningly keeping
+his master's imperious letter in his pocket, told Colonel Lowe that King
+Murat was ready to accept the terms of surrender offered. The weather
+being propitious, the British fleet would have been able this time to
+reach the island, but its nearer approach was prevented by Colonel Lowe
+himself, who sent to acquaint the Admiral, much to his chagrin, of the
+compact already concluded with the besiegers, a compact which, as Hudson
+Lowe himself very properly pointed out, was binding upon the British
+Government. On October 26th, three weeks from the date of the first
+attack, the English troops embarked for Sicily, and the island was
+formally handed over to the French and Neapolitan forces, who held it
+undisturbed until the close of the Napoleonic Wars.
+
+  [Illustration: A GATEWAY. CAPRI]
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XII
+
+
+                     ISCHIA AND THE LADY OF THE ROCK
+
+
+Embarking at Torregaveta, the little terminus of the _Ferrovia Cumana_,
+which traverses the classic district of the Phlegraean Fields, we are
+quickly transported in a small coasting steamer past the headland of
+Misenum to the island and port of Procida, the "alta Prochyta" of Virgil.
+Although the poet calls the island lofty, it is remarkably flat
+considering its volcanic origin, for Procida and Ischia were undoubtedly
+one in remote ages, as the learned Strabo rightly conjectured. Its only
+eminence is the Rocciola, the castle-crowned hillock to the north-east of
+the island, but as this hill must first have caught the expectant eye of
+Aeneas' steersman, perhaps the epithet is after all not so misplaced as
+would appear at first sight. Carefully tilled and densely populated, the
+island produces a large proportion of the fruit, vegetables, and olive
+oil, that are sold in the Naples market, and as it possesses no remains of
+antiquity, no medieval churches, no works of art, and but few beauties of
+nature to recommend it for inspection, Procida is rarely visited by
+strangers. Its inhabitants, who are chiefly husbandmen, are hard working
+and independent, and content also to retain the manners and customs of
+their frugal forefathers, and even to a certain extent to continue the use
+of their national dress, so that the festivals of Procida have more
+interest and local colour than those observed in tourist-haunted Capri or
+Sorrento. Unconcerned at the progress of the world without, unspoiled by
+the gold of the _forestiere_, the Procidani pursue the even tenor of their
+old-fashioned ways, unenvious of and unenvied by their neighbours on the
+mainland.
+
+  "O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona n�rint,
+  Agricolas!"
+
+We halt at the port of Procida, with its flat-roofed gaily coloured houses
+lining the quay and ascending the gentle slope towards the Rocciola.
+Thence, skirting the low-lying fertile shores of the island, and passing
+the olive-clad islet of Vivara, we soon come in sight of the steep
+headland on which are perched the grey masses of the Castle of Ischia,
+"the Mount St Michael of Italy."
+
+Covered from base to summit with fume-weed, lentisk, aromatic cistus, and
+every plant that loves the sun, the wind and the salt foam of the
+Mediterranean, the huge solitary cliff rises majestically from the deep
+blue water. Whether viewed in brilliant sunshine under a cloudless sky, or
+in foul weather, when the sea is hurling its waves over the stone causeway
+that connects the isolated crag with the little city of Ischia, the first
+sight of this historic castle is singularly impressive. Nor is its
+grandeur lessened on a near approach, for the ascent to its topmost tower
+takes us through a labyrinth of staircases and mysterious subterranean
+passages, through vaulted chambers and curious hanging gardens to an airy
+platform, which commands a glorious view in every direction over land and
+sea.
+
+Built by Alphonso V. of Aragon in the fifteenth century, this massive
+pile, half-fortress and half-palace, is famous in Italian annals for its
+long association with the noble poetess Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of
+Pescara. Born in the old Castle of Marino, near Rome, one of the
+strongholds of the great feudal house of Colonna, the poetess, who was
+great-great-niece to Pope Martin V., was betrothed in her infancy at the
+instigation of King Ferdinand of Naples to the youthful heir of the
+d'Avalos family, hereditary governors of the island of Ischia. The elder
+sister of Vittoria's affianced husband, Constance d'Avalos, the widowed
+Duchess of Francavilla, was the "ch�telaine" of Ischia during her
+brother's minority, so that it was but natural that his Colonna
+bride-elect should be sent to dwell with Constance in this castle. Here
+Vittoria under her sister-in-law's excellent tutelage grew up to womanhood
+amidst the intellectual atmosphere of the Italian Renaissance, and here
+she was trained to develop into one of the most learned, the most
+interesting and the most attractive figures that all Italy produced at
+this period. Childless in her early marriage at eighteen, and with her
+husband frequently, not to say usually, engaged in military expeditions on
+the mainland, Vittoria had every opportunity of cultivating her mind and
+of filling her sea-girt palace with men of genius. The poets Cariteo and
+Bernado Tasso (the father of Torquato Tasso), were frequent visitors at
+this
+
+  "Superbo scoglio, altaro e bel ricetto,
+  Di tanti chiari eroi, d' imperadori,
+  Orde raggi di gloria escono fuori,
+  Ch' ogni altro lume fan scuro e negletto."
+
+Strange to relate, her husband, the Marquis of Pescara, was destined to
+forestall his learned lady in the matter of poetry, for during his
+imprisonment at Milan in the year 1512, he composed a "Dialogo d'Amore" to
+send to his sorrowing wife at Ischia, a production which the learned Paolo
+Giovio, the historian and bishop of Nocera, pronounced as being "summae
+jucunditatis," though in reality it seems to have been feeble enough. But
+however halting and commonplace the warrior's verses, Pescara's
+composition had the immediate effect of opening the flood-gates of his
+wife's poetic temperament, for she replied at once to her spouse's effort
+with an epistle conceived in the _terza rima_ employed by Dante, and
+though the poem is turgid in diction and shallow in thought, full of
+classical names and allusions, "a parade of all the treasures of the
+school-room," it exhibits the graceful ease and high scholarship which
+mark all Vittoria's writings. Meanwhile, unblest with offspring of her own
+and ever separated by the cruel circumstance of war from the husband she
+seemed perfectly content to admire from a distance, Vittoria did not
+expend all her time at Ischia in sacrificing to Apollo and the Muses, for
+she now undertook the education of her husband's young cousin and heir,
+Alphonso d'Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, whose manhood certainly did credit
+to his instructress, for del Vasto under her influence grew up to be a
+brave soldier and a tolerable scholar.
+
+After sixteen years of married life with a husband who, although
+professing deep devotion to his brilliant and virtuous consort, was almost
+invariably absent from her side, Vittoria found herself left a widow
+shortly after the great battle of Pavia in 1525 wherein Francis I. of
+France surrendered to the Emperor Charles V. The Marquis of Pescara, after
+the usual career of bloodthirsty adventures which passed in those days for
+a life of knight-errantry, died at Milan towards the close of this year,
+leaving behind him an unenviable reputation for treachery towards his
+master. But however hard were the things said of the deceased Fernando
+d'Avalos by the outside world, no breath of suspicion seems ever to have
+penetrated to the heart of the faithful if placid Vittoria, who mourned
+bitterly if somewhat theatrically over her departed hero. The Lady of the
+Rock was now in her thirty-fifth year, and her beauty, so we are told,
+still remained undimmed; in fact it was rather improved by a tendency
+towards plumpness, for sorrow and poetry are not necessarily associated
+with a meagre appearance. Spending her time partly in the great Italian
+cities, but chiefly on her beloved _scoglio superbo_, the widow of Pescara
+now set herself to write that series of sonnets in memory of her dead
+husband which have rescued his unworthy name from oblivion and have
+rendered her own famous in Italian literature. For the sonnets of Vittoria
+Colonna, though appearing cold classical and pedantic to our northern
+ideas, evidently appeal to the Italian temperament, so that the praises of
+Pescara and his widow's stilted complaints, couched in the elegant
+language of the Renaissance, are still read and appreciated to-day by her
+compatriots. As time passed, and the ghost of sorrowful remorse was
+supposed to be decently laid, the sonnets contain somewhat less of
+hero-worship, and assume a religious and speculative character. Some
+critics have even gone so far as to affect to perceive a latent spirit of
+Protestantism underlying the graceful platitudes and commonplace but
+grandly expressed ideas. Very likely the Lady of the Rock dabbled in the
+fashionable heterodoxy of the hour, as it is at least certain that she was
+on terms of intimacy with the celebrated Princess Ren�e, the "Protestant"
+Duchess of Ferrara. On the other hand, several of her acquaintances and
+correspondents were amongst the most prominent of the unyielding Churchmen
+of the day; in their number being, it is interesting to note, Cardinal
+Reginald Pole, great-nephew of King Edward IV. of England and afterwards
+Queen Mary's Archbishop of Canterbury, who was certainly not likely to
+encourage Vittoria's unorthodox or reforming tendencies. "The more
+opportunity," so writes the poetess to Cardinal Cervino, afterwards Pope
+Marcellus II., "I have had of observing the actions of his Eminence the
+Cardinal of England, the more clear has it seemed to me that he is a true
+and sincere servant of God. Whenever, therefore, he charitably condescends
+to give me his opinion on any point, I conceive myself safe from error in
+following his advice." And on the strength of Cardinal Pole's astute
+counsels, Vittoria promptly broke off all communication with the leading
+reformer, Bernardino Ochino, and (a thing which does not strike us as
+particularly honourable) forwarded his letters to herself unopened to his
+spiritual adversaries. But it is evident that Vittoria's "Protestantism"
+was a mere pose, assumed at a time when adverse criticism from all sides
+was being levelled at the political abuses of the Papacy and at the
+various scandals in the Church which were patent to the eyes of all
+onlookers. In short her religious verses are if anything more frigid and
+artificial than those which compose the _In Memoriam_ to her husband, her
+_Bel Sole_, as she usually terms him. Whilst admitting considerable merit
+in Vittoria's compositions, we find it at this distance of time very
+difficult to understand the extravagant praise which was showered upon her
+poems by the Italian critics of the day, or to conceive how a sonnet from
+the gifted pen of the Marchioness of Pescara could possibly have been
+considered an important event in the literary world by cardinals, princes,
+poets, wits and scholars. From Naples to Rome, from Rome to Ferrara, from
+Ferrara to Mantua and Milan, the precious manuscript containing the
+last-born sonnet of the illustrious Lady of Ischia was eagerly passed
+along. Court poets read aloud amidst breathless silence the divine
+Vittoria's fourteen lines of jejune sentiment draped in folds of elegant
+verbiage; nobles and prelates applauded, hailing the authoress as a
+heaven-sent genius. Sincere to a certain extent this strange admiration
+undoubtedly was, although the homage was paid perhaps in equal proportions
+to the excellence of the verse and to the high rank of the author. She was
+a Colonna by birth; she was the widow of a petty despot; she was governor
+of a large island;--any literary production, however indifferent, from so
+high a personage would have been received throughout Italy with respect or
+flattery. But Vittoria was no mean or careless aspirant to fame; it was
+the fault of an artificial age rather than the lack of her own natural
+ability that has made her poetry cold and soulless, for under healthy
+conditions of life and thought, "the Divine Vittoria" was doubtless
+capable of producing something warmer and more human than the lifeless but
+graceful sonnets that bear her name.
+
+It is chiefly through her close connexion with the great literary movement
+of the Italian Renaissance and her intimacy with its leading artists and
+writers, rather than through her own reputation as a poetess, that the
+name of Vittoria Colonna herself is remembered outside the borders of
+Italy. With her wealth, her culture, her virtue and her unique position in
+the world of rank and of letters, it is nothing marvellous that so
+fortunate and gifted a mortal should have become the idol of the leading
+persons of her day. She belonged, in fact, to a brilliant and famous group
+of which she was the soul and centre; of which she was at once the patron,
+the disciple and the teacher. That great master of Italian prose, Pietro
+Bembo, set a high value on her powers of criticism; other men, almost as
+distinguished as the Venetian cardinal, besought her for advice on
+literary subjects. Foremost in her circle of admirers appears of course
+the great Michelangelo, with whom the immaculate Vittoria condescended to
+indulge in one of those cold platonic pseudo-passions which constituted
+the true _divino amore_ of the idealists of the Renaissance. So here was
+nothing to cavil at, nothing to arouse base suspicion. Considered the
+greatest man and the greatest woman in all Italy, both were of mature age,
+he in the sixties and she in the forties, when Michelangelo first
+professed himself seized with a pure but unquenchable love and devotion
+for the widowed Lady of the Rock.
+
+The last days of Vittoria, which were chiefly spent within the walls of
+the Convent of Sant' Anna at Rome, were clouded by ill-health and sorrow.
+The death of the young Marchese del Vasto, "her moral and intellectual
+son," was an irreparable loss, for which her boundless fame and popularity
+could offer little real consolation. At length the poetess, feeling death
+approaching, moved to the house of Giulia Colonna, her relative, and there
+expired in February 1547, in the fifty-seventh year of her age. To the
+last her death-bed was surrounded by sorrowing and adoring friends,
+amongst them being Michelangelo, who is said to have witnessed with his
+own eyes the last moments of his beloved Lady. And the famous sculptor,
+painter and poet--perhaps the most stupendous genius the world has yet
+produced--is reported to have bitterly regretted in after years that on so
+solemn an occasion he had not ventured to imprint one chaste kiss upon the
+forehead of the woman he had adored so ardently, yet so purely during
+life. By her expressed wish the body of the poetess was buried in San
+Domenico Maggiore at Naples, the finest and least spoiled of all the
+Neapolitan churches, where a velvet-covered coffin containing the ashes of
+the Divine Vittoria and her "Bel Sole," and surmounted by the sword,
+banner and portrait of Fernando d'Avalos, is still pointed out to the
+stranger, resting on a shelf in the sacristy of the church. We cannot but
+regret that Vittoria's body did not find a final resting-place in her
+_superbo scoglio_, where all her happiest years were spent and where her
+memory still survives so fresh.
+
+Sadly deserted appear to-day the historic buildings, which are fast
+falling into hopeless decay; even the large domed church of the Castle has
+been desecrated and turned into a stable.
+
+  "Tocsins from yon bleak turrets never ring;
+  No knight or pages pace those galleries,
+  So sombre and so silent: ever cling
+  To that cold church and palace draperies
+  Of glaucous fume-weed; sea-birds ever sing
+  The vanished glories with low mournful cries."
+
+Ischia itself is a quaint, dirty, straggling town, possessing a small
+cathedral of ancient foundation, but modernised within and without, its
+sole object of interest being a curious font resting on marble lions. The
+charm of the city lies chiefly in the busy scenes to be witnessed daily on
+its sandy beach and on the stone causeway that leads to the Castle, where
+a large part of the population seems to spend most of its time in mending
+the deep brown fishing nets or in attending to the gaudily painted boats.
+
+Almost adjoining the outskirts of the little capital of the island is
+Porto d'Ischia, with a deep circular harbour that was once the crater of
+an extinct volcano, wherein every variety of Mediterranean fishing craft
+is to be seen at anchor. Close to the port, embowered among groves of
+orange and lemon trees that in winter time are laden with bright or pale
+yellow fruit, stands a fine old villa of the Bourbon kings of Naples, once
+a favourite summer retreat of his Majesty King Bomba. Royalty has long
+abandoned Ischia, and the villa has now been converted into a bath house.
+Beyond its neglected park stretches an extensive pine forest, carpeted in
+spring time with daisies, marigolds and anemones, and even in February gay
+with yellow oxalis and redolent with the scent of hidden violets.
+
+The road from Ischia to Casamicciola, a distance of four miles, leads
+along the base of Monte Epomeo through olive groves and vineyards, the
+whitewashed walls of the domed cottages, the flat roofs and cisterns, and
+the frequent clumps of aloe or prickly pear giving an Eastern aspect to
+the scenery, though the sharp tinklings of the goat bells among the
+thickets of white heath and dark myrtle scrub on the hill-sides and the
+continual murmur of the waves breaking on the rocks below, serve to remind
+us we are upon the Neapolitan Riviera. Our destination at length is
+reached, the roadway crossing the deep valley of the Gurgitello with its
+sulphur baths, which once had a wide reputation and are still much
+frequented in the summer months by the people of Naples. Although the
+sources of the springs were certainly damaged by the earthquake of 1883,
+new bathing establishments have been built, and a fair number of patients
+are once more availing themselves of these beneficent waters, which of
+course are warranted to heal every bodily evil under the sun. A course of
+the Ischian waters therefore applied externally and internally (so the
+local doctors inform us)
+
+  "Muove i paralitici,
+  Spedisce gli apopletici,
+  Gli asmatici, gli asfitici,
+  Gl' isterici, i diabetici
+  Guarisce timpanitidi,
+  E scrofule e rachitidi."
+
+Formerly the most populous and prosperous township of the whole island,
+Casamicciola consists to-day principally of a mass of shapeless ruins,
+together with a number of dismal corrugated iron huts grouped round an
+ugly modern church, nor can its exquisite views and luxuriant gardens make
+amends for the settled air of melancholy which continues to brood over
+this unlucky spot. Every reader will doubtless remember the story of the
+terrible earthquake of July 28th 1883, when almost without warning the
+whole town, then crowded with its usual influx of summer visitors, was
+overthrown and engulfed in the space of a few seconds of time. Hotels,
+villas, churches, cottages, all suffered equally, and though the exact
+number of those who perished of all classes will never be known, the most
+moderate accounts put the figure as high as 3000 souls. Several English
+people lost their lives in that brief but terrible upheaval, and as many
+of the bodies as were recovered from the wreckage were laid to rest in the
+little cemetery outside the town, a plot of ground overhanging the sea,
+and shaded by cypress and eucalyptus trees. Many and impressive are the
+stories still to be heard from the lips of the present inhabitants, who
+are wont to date all events from that fearful night of darkness and
+destruction, and who all have piteous tales to tell of relations killed
+and houses shattered. The English landlady of the _Piccola Sentinella_,
+who herself had an almost miraculous escape on the occasion, gave us a
+most vivid and heart-rending description of how her hotel and most of its
+inmates were overwhelmed on that awful July night, and how the existing
+inn is literally built upon foundations that are filled with many
+unrecovered bodies of victims. It was on a dark sultry night after the
+evening meal had been finished, when the many guests of the _Piccola
+Sentinella_ were sitting in the public rooms or on the terrace overlooking
+the hotel gardens. In the _salon_ a young Englishman, an accomplished
+musician, had been playing for some time on the piano, when suddenly and
+unexpectedly he plunged into the strains of Chopin's _Marche Fun�bre_,
+which had the immediate effect of scattering his audience, since many of
+his listeners, not caring for so melancholy a piece of music, deserted the
+room for the garden. Lucky indeed were those persons driven forth by the
+strains of Chopin's dirge, for a few moments later came the earthquake,
+when in a trice the whole hotel was swallowed up in the yawning chasm of
+the earth. Everybody inside the walls was killed, and the body of the poor
+pianist was actually discovered later amidst the wreckage, crushed down
+upon the instrument which had struck the warning notes of impending
+disaster. The horrors of that night still linger vividly in the memory of
+the people, and many are the terrible incidents, and many also, we are
+glad to say, the acts of bravery which are recorded of it. One elderly
+English lady, who owned a small villa on the slope above the hotel, rushed
+at the first suspicion of the catastrophe into the stone archway of a
+window, whence she beheld the whole of her house collapse like a castle of
+cards around her. Nothing daunted by the spectacle, this gallant woman, as
+soon as the shock had ceased and the clouds of dust rising from the ruin
+had cleared away, left her own dismantled home, of which nothing but the
+one wall that had sheltered her remained standing, and joined the
+_parrocco_, the parish priest of Casamicciola, in the task of succouring
+the living and comforting the dying. To the darkness of the night was now
+added a heavy rainfall, yet the good priest and this noble woman traversed
+together the altered and devastated scene amidst the wet and gloom on
+their errand of mercy. It is some satisfaction to learn that this piece of
+unselfish heroism and devotion on the part of the priest was officially
+acknowledged, for the humble curate of Casamicciola was afterwards made a
+prelate by Pope Leo XIII. in recognition of his signal services. Even
+to-day people are inclined to be somewhat chary of spending any length of
+time in this unfortunate spot, where the ruined streets and shapeless
+mounds of earth, only too suggestive of a latter-day Pompeii, speak so
+eloquently of terrible experiences in the past and of possible dangers in
+the future. Nevertheless, if one can triumph over these gloomy feelings,
+Casamicciola affords a delightful centre whence to explore the whole
+island, and many are the pleasant walks to be found on the overhanging
+slopes of Mont' Epomeo, and many the boating expeditions to be made from
+the Marina below the upper town.
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE PICCOLA MARINA, CAPRI]
+
+It is a two-mile walk through stony lanes overhung by branches of fig and
+orange from Casamicciola to Lacco, a large village well situated on a
+little bay which is distinguished by a curious mushroom-shaped rock, aptly
+nicknamed "Il Fungo" by the natives. This place, which also suffered
+severely in the earthquake of 1883, is the head-quarters of the
+straw-plaiting industry of the island, the women and children noisily
+beseeching every chance visitor to buy their wares in the guise of
+baskets, hats and fans; the pretty coloured tiles (_mattoni_), which are
+used with such good effect in the churches and houses of the island, are
+likewise manufactured here. Lacco is particularly associated with the
+great annual festival of St Restituta on May 17th, which is always marked
+by religious processions and by universal merry-making, followed by
+illuminations and fireworks at nightfall. This saint, of whom an early
+mosaic portrait still exists in her ancient chapel within the Neapolitan
+Cathedral, was once the patroness of the city of Naples, but since
+medieval times she has been honoured as the special guardian of this
+island, whither her body (so the legend runs) was miraculously conveyed
+from Egypt in a boat rowed by angels. A local tradition also asserts that
+on her landing by the beach of Lacco, an Egyptian lotus bloom was found in
+the saint's hand, as fresh as when it had been plucked months before from
+the banks of the Nile.
+
+Leaving the little bay with its sulphur-impregnated sands, and turning
+inland, we proceed along a road across an ancient lava-stream over-grown
+with pine trees, wild caper and a tangle of aromatic brushwood, to Forio,
+which with its white domed houses, its palm trees, and its stately
+bare-footed women bearing tall pitchers on their heads gives at first
+acquaintance the full impression of an Oriental city. There is little to
+be seen in Forio itself, with the exception of some fine vestments of
+needlework that are preserved in the sacristy of its principal church, but
+no traveller should fail to visit its wonderfully picturesque Franciscan
+monastery, a barbaric-looking pile of dazzling white walls and cupolas set
+against a background of cobalt waters, which stands outside the town on a
+rocky platform jutting into the Mediterranean and is approached by a broad
+flight of marble steps adorned with most realistic figures of souls
+burning in brightly painted flames of Purgatory. This point too commands a
+good view of the extreme north-eastern promontory of the island, a tall
+cliff known as the Punta del Imperatore in honour of the great Emperor
+Charles the Fifth, beyond which visitors rarely penetrate owing to the
+roughness, or rather non-existence of roads, though the southern side of
+the island, which lies between this cape and the castle of Ischia, is
+fully as beautiful as the northern portion just described.
+
+The chief attraction, however, of a visit to Ischia is the ascent of Mont'
+Epomeo, an easy expedition on foot to the active, and feasible to the weak
+or lazy on mule-back. This extinct volcano, whose broad lofty summit is
+visible from many points of the Bay of Naples, is naturally rich in
+classical associations, the ancients believing that within it lay
+imprisoned the giant Typhoeus, whose agonised movements were wont to cause
+the frequent eruptions of the crater that eventually drove away the early
+Greek settlers from this island--the Aenaria or Inarime of antiquity--and in
+later times accounted for the neglect of Ischia as a winter resort by the
+luxurious Romans, in spite of its near presence to fashionable Baiae. So
+destructive of life and property were these convulsions of nature, that
+for long periods, notwithstanding its fertile soil and its lucrative
+fisheries, the island remained uninhabited, and an old tradition,
+mentioned by Ovid, derives one of its ancient names, Pithecusa, from a
+race of apes (_pithekoi_) that dwelt on its abandoned shores. Since the
+great eruption of 1302, the effects of which can still be traced among the
+large pine woods near Porto d'Ischia, the mountain has been quiescent, and
+the population of the island has increased considerably, although the
+constant shocks of earthquake have always made a permanent residence in
+Ischia somewhat insecure. Nor can we rest assured that Typhoeus himself is
+truly dead, not merely sleeping, but ready to renew his fierce efforts
+after his long spell of slumber, and to change the face of nature as
+unexpectedly as did the Demon of Vesuvius in the reign of Titus.
+
+Like the great volcano of Etna, which the Ischian mountain somewhat
+resembles on a tiny scale. Epomeo contains three distinct climatic zones.
+The lowest is that of the coast line with its rich sub-tropical
+vegetation, the early part of the ascent leading by steep stony paths
+through sun-baked vineyards which produce the white wine of Ischia,
+wholesome and light but somewhat acid in taste. For the storing of this
+vintage the peasants make use of the numerous old stone towers, that once
+served as safe retreats for the terrified inhabitants in times when the
+Barbary pirates frequently descended on the Italian coasts to plunder and
+enslave. Very curious it is to step out of the blinding sunlight into the
+interior of one of these medieval buildings, where in the icy gloom stand
+great barrels of the new white wine, each carefully inscribed with a
+prayer in praise of St Restituta, from one of which the swarthy
+_contadino_, in expectation of a few pence, draws a glassful of the sour
+chilly liquid to offer his visitor. Leaving behind this region of houses
+and of cultivation, the zone of forest is reached, covered with woods of
+chestnut and oak, with a thick undergrowth of heather, myrtle, laurustinus
+and sweet-scented yellow coronella; there is grass under our feet, and
+long-stemmed daisies, violets, mauve anemones and small fragrant marigolds
+everywhere. Through the trees comes the nasal but not unmelodious singing
+of an unseen charcoal-burner, or the plaintive note of the little
+goat-herd's rustic pipe, accompanied by the musical jingling of his
+goat-bells;--for a moment we try to fancy ourselves in the pastoral Italy
+of Theocritus, where nymphs and shepherds, peasants and dryads, lived
+together on terms of amity in the woods. But soon the chestnut trees
+appear stunted, and the groves become less thick, and we finally gain the
+last zone, the desolate expanse of naked rock and dark lava deposits of
+the summit, where only a few hardy weeds can thrive. Here in some damp
+mouldy chambers dwells a hermit, for nearly all the classic mountains of
+Southern Italy are tenanted by an anchorite, generally an old and
+ignorant, but pious peasant, of the type of Pietro Murrone, the holy
+recluse of the Abruzzi, who was finally dragged from his cell to be
+invested forcibly with the pontifical robes and tiara as Celestine the
+Fifth. The present hermitage on Mont' Epomeo dates however from
+comparatively modern times, for its first occupant is said to have been a
+German nobleman, a certain Joseph Arguth, governor of Ischia under the
+first Bourbon king, who in consequence of a solemn vow made in battle
+deliberately passed his last years of existence on the topmost peak of the
+island he had lately ruled. His example has been followed and his cell
+filled by many successors, who have endured the spring rains, the summer
+heats, the autumn storms and the winter chills upon this airy height,
+where the glorious view may be found a compensation for eternal
+discomfort, if hermits condescend to appreciate anything so mundane as
+scenery. The shrine and cell are dedicated to St Nicholas of Bari, and to
+this circumstance is due the local uninteresting name of Monte San Niccol�
+to the entire mountain, whose crest, some 3000 feet above sea-level, we
+finally gain by means of steps roughly hewn in the lava.
+
+The view from this height, embracing two out of the three historic bays of
+the Parthenopean coast, is one of the noblest and most extensive in
+Southern Italy. Looking southward, the fantastic cliffs of Capri are seen
+to rise abruptly from the ocean; beyond them appears the graceful outline
+of Monte Sant' Angelo, with the crater of Vesuvius beside it, veiling the
+clear blue sky with volumes of dusky smoke. Beneath extends the broken
+line of shore, stretching north and south as far as the eye can travel,
+with its classic capes and islands basking in the strong sunshine; whilst
+behind the foam-fringed boundary of land and sea rises the jagged line of
+the Abruzzi Mountains with the huge snow-clad mass of the Gran Sasso
+d'Italia towering above the lower peaks. At our feet is spread the
+beautiful and fertile island, in outward appearance little changed since
+the days when the good Bishop Berkeley "of every virtue under Heaven"
+penned its description nearly two centuries ago in a letter to Alexander
+Pope, wherein he described Ischia as "an epitome of the whole earth."
+
+In spite of the good Bishop's eloquent tribute to the genial climate and
+the natural beauty of Ischia, it must be borne in mind that a residence on
+the island possesses one or two serious drawbacks. Apart from the
+ever-present fear of earthquakes, which hangs like the sword of Damocles
+above the heads of the inhabitants, there is yet another disadvantage,
+prosaic but very real, in the lack of pure water, every well and rivulet
+on Ischia being more or less impregnated with sulphur, with the result
+that water for drinking (and in summer even for domestic) purposes has to
+be conveyed by boat from Naples. It is bad enough to be dependant on a
+distant city for a food supply (which is to some extent also the case
+here), but the possibility of enduring a water famine through storms or
+misadventure would be a far more serious calamity; nevertheless as casual
+visitors to this charming and little-known island, we can easily afford to
+smile at such misfortunes.(12)
+
+  [Illustration: ISCHIA FROM CASTELLAMARE (SUNSET)]
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+                  PUTEOLI AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME
+
+
+Passing along the noisy thronged street of the Chiaja and plunging thence
+into the chill gloomy recesses of the ancient grotto of Posilipo, we
+emerge at its further side into a new world, as it were, into a district
+where "there is scarcely a spot which is not identified with the poetical
+mythology of Greece, or associated with some name familiar in the history
+of Rome." In truth, the headland of Posilipo presents a wonderful landmark
+in the history of Naples, for it forms a barrier between the busy world of
+to-day and the departed civilisation of the ancients: at the latter end of
+this tunnel, the fierce life and movement of a great commercial city; at
+its western exit, a tract of land teeming with recollections of the
+glorious past.
+
+As our carriage emerges once more into the warmth and sunlight, we find
+ourselves in the miserable village of Fuorigrotta, which, by a strange
+coincidence, is associated with the memory of a famous Italian poet. For
+if the name and verses of Sannazzaro cling to Piedigrotta and the
+Parthenopean shore on the eastern side of the hill, the genius of Count
+Giacomo Leopardi sheds its melancholy radiance over the unlovely purlieus
+of Fuorigrotta. Here in the vestibule of the parish church of San Vitale,
+lie the ashes of that unhappy writer, the Shelley of Italian literature,
+who so bewailed the Austrian and Bourbon fetters that enchained his native
+land. Poor Leopardi! It was but eleven years before the first great
+movement of the _Risorgimento_ swept over Italy in 1848 that he passed
+away; his poems were indeed songs before sunrise, a sunrise of which he
+failed to detect the far-off glimmering, so that he could only lament
+without hope the sad condition of his dismembered country, once the
+mistress and now the play-thing of the world, and the abject slave of
+hated Austria:
+
+  "O patria mia, vedo le mure e gli archi
+  E le colonne e i simulacri e l' erme
+  Torri degli avi nostri,
+  Ma la gloria non vedo;
+  Non vedo il lauro e'l ferro ond' eran carchi
+  I nostri padri antichi."
+
+It is a flat dusty stretch of road that lies between Fuorigrotta and
+Bagnoli; the high walls give only occasional glimpses of well-tilled
+_parterres_--one cannot call these tiny patches of cultivation fields--with
+thriving crops of brilliant green corn, of claret-red clover, of purple
+lucerne, and of the white-flowered "sad lupin," which Vergil has
+immortalised in verse. The round bright yellow beans of the lupin crop,
+known locally by the name of _spassa-tiemp�_ (time-killers), afford an
+article of food to the very poorest of the population. A quaint story runs
+that one day an impoverished philosopher, reduced to making his dinner off
+a handful of these beans, and imagining himself in consequence the most
+wretched wight in existence, was cheered and comforted by observing
+himself followed by a still more miserable fellow-mortal, who was engaged
+in picking up and eating the husks of the beans that, _more italiano_, he
+had thrown carelessly on to the pathway after their insipid farinaceous
+contents had been sucked out!
+
+Above us to the right are the heights of Monte Spina, covered with groves
+of the umbrella pine, the typical tree of Naples; to our left extends the
+verdant ridge of Posilipo, ending in Cape Coroglio, beyond which the
+massive form of Nisida rises proudly from the blue expanse of water. All
+the landscape shows somewhat hard in the glare of noontide, and we find
+the enveloping clouds of fine white dust very oppressive and disagreeable.
+From time to time a lumbering country cart is passed with its attendant
+bare-footed peasant; otherwise there is little sign of life on the high
+road. The bright sunlight flashes upon the horse's polished brass harness,
+and upon the elaborate erection of charms placed thereon, with the avowed
+object of averting the dreaded Evil Eye, that everlasting bugbear of all
+dwellers upon these southern shores. On his poor drooping head the
+worn-out old steed carries a large bell with four jingling clappers and
+two brazen crescents, the horns of one of which point upwards and of the
+other towards the ground. On the off-side of the headgear is a bunch of
+bright-coloured ribbands or woollen tassels, from which depends the single
+horn, the invaluable Neapolitan talisman that is supposed to protect every
+man, woman, child or beast, from the chance glance of a passing
+_jettatore_. Above this glowing mass of colour some three or four feathers
+of a pheasant's tail are stuck, apparently with no ulterior purpose than
+that of ornament; but beside the bunch of ribbands there is also fixed a
+piece of wolf's skin, to give strength to the jaded animal, for, remarks
+the sapient Pliny, "a wolf's skin attached to a horse's neck will render
+him proof against all weariness." Personally, we should think a little
+more consideration and some elementary knowledge of farriery would have
+been of more service to the ill-used beasts round Naples than the
+excellent Pliny's highly original receipt. Besides this powerful battery
+of charms to intercept the _jettatura_, there is the light brass headpiece
+engraved with sacred figures, so that any evil glance must be fully
+absorbed, baffled or exhausted, before it can fix itself upon the animal.
+In addition however to this shining mass of headgear, the horse carries on
+his back one of those curious high pommels that are peculiar to Southern
+Italy and Sicily. The front of the pommel itself is of well-polished
+brass, and covered with a number of studs, whilst at its back is fastened
+a miniature barrel, upon which there stands erect the figure of some local
+saint, generally that of San Gennaro. The exact part that the barrel and
+the row of studs play in this mystic battle against the Evil Eye is
+unknown, but the two revolving flags of brass that swing and creak above
+the pommel itself are believed to represent "the flaming sword which
+turned every way," and finally expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of
+Eden. Certainly this shimmering metal has the appearance of a flaming
+sword in the bright sunshine, so that it ought to prove efficacious in
+catching and averting any baleful glance. A second patch of wolf skin on
+the crest of the pommel, and some red worsted wound round the spindle of
+the flags complete the list of strange charms that are considered
+necessary to protect a Neapolitan horse from the pernicious influence of a
+casual passer-by.
+
+We soon reach the sea-shore at Bagnoli, a little watering-place much
+frequented by Neapolitans of the middle classes, and on looking back we
+obtain a charming view of the headland of Posilipo and of stately Nisida,
+the Nesis of the ancients, with its memories of Brutus, "the noblest Roman
+of them all," who on this little island bade farewell for ever to his
+devoted Portia. A very different tenant from the chaste Portia, however,
+who once possessed a villa in this sea-girt retreat during the Middle
+Ages, was Queen Joanna the Second, the last member of the Durazzo branch
+of the Angevin royal house, and sister and heiress of King Ladislaus II.,
+whose splendid monument in San Giovanni a Carbonara is one of the chief
+artistic treasures of Naples. It is of course unnecessary here to remark
+that there were two Queens of Naples, both Joanna by name, and that the
+first of these, the contemporary of Petrarch (whose proper feeling she
+contrived to shock) was certainly not a pattern of female virtue, but that
+she shone as a moral paragon when contrasted with her name-sake and
+successor, the sister of King Ladislaus. Of this second Queen, tradition
+more or less accurate relates a host of stories, none of them to her
+credit; how she dabbled in necromancy and was immersed in love intrigues,
+the most celebrated of which was her amour with the handsome "Ser.
+Gianni," Giovanni Caracciolo, head of an eminent family that has figured
+prominently in Neapolitan history from the days of Angevin monarchs to
+those of King Ferdinand. Little good did the fickle Queen's favour do Ser.
+Gianni, who suffered an ignominious fate for having one day boxed Joanna's
+ears during a lovers' tiff. Murdered secretly by four assassins,
+Caracciolo's body was laid to rest in the family chapel in San Giovanni a
+Carbonara beneath a splendid monument which is surmounted by the luckless
+favourite's effigy. Joanna the First with all her faults was never guilty
+of such light conduct as this, but the peasant mind is always impatient of
+dry details of fact, so that in the popular imagination to-day both Queens
+are blended into one personage, whose character, it is needless to say, is
+about as vile as can be conceived. "Siccome la Regina Giovanna," is a form
+of peasant execration around Naples that has some historical affinity with
+the time-honoured Irish malediction of the "Curse o' Cromwell."
+
+Turning our backs on the island with its memories of Portia the Perfect
+and of Queen Joanna the Improper, we pursue our course along the sea-shore
+with rocks of ancient lava above us to the right, now heavily overgrown
+with brushwood and plants, amongst which we notice tufts of the pretty
+wild asparagus, that the observant Pliny centuries ago found flourishing
+in this district. As an early herb, coming into season long before its
+cultivated cousin is fit for cutting, this succulent vegetable is highly
+prized in the South, and its flavour though somewhat bitter is most
+palatable, so that an omelette _aux pointes d'asperges sauvages_ is a dish
+not to be despised by those who get the opportunity of testing this local
+delicacy. Before us lies our goal, Pozzuoli, with its ancient citadel
+jutting into the placid waters and backed by the classic headland of
+Misenum, above which in turn towers the crest of distant Epomeo.
+
+Pozzuoli in recent years has been much neglected by strangers, so much so
+that no inn worthy to be called an hotel now exists, and such _trattorie_
+as the place offers are all equally extortionate and detestable. Some time
+ago there was a comfortable _pension_ at the edge of the town on the road
+to the Amphitheatre, but its English landlady has long since migrated
+elsewhere, and the comfortable "Hotel Grande Bretagne" is no more; whilst
+nowadays there are to be found no visitors hardy enough to endure a
+prolonged sojourn in the wretched hostelries of the town itself. The
+electric tram and the rail-road have in fact killed Pozzuoli as a winter
+resort, more's the pity, for it is not only a spot of singular interest in
+itself but its climate is certainly superior to that of Naples, for the
+great headland which shuts off the city from the Phlegrean Fields serves
+also to act as a buffer against the icy _tramontana_ that sweeps along the
+Chiaja in winter and early spring. Invalids used at one time to inhabit
+Pozzuoli on account of its mild atmosphere, and even to visit the
+Solfatara daily on mule-back, in order to inhale its sulphureous fumes,
+which were then believed to be good for weak chests. But medical fashions
+vary like all others, and consumptive patients now seek other places than
+Pozzuoli for their cure.
+
+Many are the walks outside the town, and none are without beauty or
+interest, for, the neighbourhood of Syracuse excepted, we can think of no
+place in Italy wherein one is brought so closely into touch with the
+classical past. Nature has long clothed the ruined area of the ancient
+city with her kindly drapery of foliage and flowers, so that the crumbling
+masses of tawny brick that we come across in our rambles are all swathed
+in garlands of clematis, myrtle, honey-suckle and coronella. It is a
+delight to speculate upon the original use and appearance of these
+shapeless blocks of creeper-clad masonry, which attract the eye on all
+sides amidst the vineyards and orange groves, where the peasants delving
+in the rich soil frequently alight upon treasures of the antique world.
+What a delight it is to wander through the Street of Tombs--alas, long
+rifled of their contents!--where the gay valerian and the pink silene
+sprout from every fissure of the soft tufa rock, and lizards of unusual
+size and brilliancy play games of hide-and-seek in the warm sunshine. We
+moderns are afraid of graveyards and the paraphernalia of the dead: many a
+stout-hearted Englishman objects to passing through a church-yard at
+night; not so the pagan Romans, who placed their cemeteries in public
+places and were wont to proceed through lines of tombs as they entered the
+city of the living: a very salutary and practical reminder of the
+transitory nature of life itself. The whole neighbourhood in short is
+sprinkled with these memorials of Imperial Rome; there is not an orange or
+lemon orchard but stands above some forgotten villa, not an acre of tilth
+but must conceal some hidden mine of classical associations. Charming too
+are the walks by the sea-shore--now sadly disfigured by the _Cantiere
+Armstrong_, with its smoke and ugliness looking like a dirty smudge upon
+the delicate landscape of the Bay--for here again we find endless traces of
+the Imperial age. There can be no more fascinating employment than to
+wander along the beach after one of the heavy winter storms that so often
+vex the quiet of the Bay of Naples, and to search for fragments of
+precious marbles that have been spied by the waves amidst the sunken
+foundations of Roman villas, and thence idly flung upon the shore. Pieces
+of the choicest white Parian, squares of speckled Egyptian porphyry, of
+_verde_, _rosso_ and _giallo antico_, of the coal-black _Africano_, all
+wet and glistening from the waves, can be picked up by the quick-sighted,
+and the gathering of these beautiful trifles, cut and polished by skilled
+hands nearly two thousand years ago, makes an interesting occupation. Nor
+is its classical lore the only feature of the Bay of Baiae, for though its
+actual scenery cannot compare with the grandeur of Capri nor its
+vegetation with the rich luxuriance of Sorrento, yet these shores have a
+quiet beauty of their own. Vine, olive and almond abound on all sides, and
+everywhere we see the groves of orange and lemon that in spring time scent
+the air with their perfumed blossoms. And in the early months of the year
+every patch of warm-coloured, up-turned earth is gay with sheets of that
+beautiful but rapacious weed, hated of the peasant, the oxalis, with its
+clusters of pale yellow flowers: a species of sorrel that is allied to our
+own white-blossomed variety. From many a point on the little ridges that
+rise behind Pozzuoli magnificent views can be obtained, whilst to those
+who care to study the scientific results of volcanic action the Phlegraean
+Fields afford endless occupation and interest. Every one of course visits
+the Solfatara, that curious semi-extinct crater, the _Forum Vulcani_ of
+Strabo, which has remained for over seven hundred years in its present
+condition of languor. A strange experience it is to enter the heart of a
+volcano that is still comparatively active, and to observe woods of poplar
+and a large pine tree beneath which grow masses of spring flowers--bright
+blue bugloss, the crimson vetch, starch hyacinths, purple self-heal, and
+golden spurge--and to pass from these thickets on to a space of bare
+white-coloured ground that trembles and sways under the feet like a sheet
+of insecure ice. Beyond, one sees the little fissures (_fumaroli_)
+emitting fumes of sulphur, and the guides take us to stifling caverns in
+the hill-side where we are shown the beautiful primrose-coloured crystals.
+The Solfatara, the Amphitheatre and the Temple of Serapis, these are the
+recognised "sights" of Pozzuoli, which strangers visit to-day in the space
+of an hour or two, and then return to Naples comforted with the feeling
+that they have exhausted the attractions of the place. Certainly their
+reception in the town is not likely to inspire them with a wish to return,
+for the guides and touts swarm here more than in any other spot in Italy;
+"until he has spent half an hour in Pozzuoli," says the author of _Dolce
+Napoli_, "let no man say that he understands the signification of the verb
+to pester."
+
+Putting aside even the objectionable habits of so many of its citizens, it
+cannot be said that the town itself of Pozzuoli to-day is particularly
+attractive, although its situation on the Bay of Baiae is charming and its
+quays are full of picturesque life and movement. Lines of irregular
+yellow-washed buildings, with faded green _persiani_ and balconies draped
+with the domestic washing, with here and there a domed rococo church, look
+down upon the clear tideless waters that gently lap the ancient stone-work
+of the Mole, whilst a mixed crowd of fishermen with bare bronzed limbs, of
+chattering women with gay handkerchiefs tied over their thick black hair,
+and of blue uniformed dapper little customs officers,--_lupi marini_
+(wolves of the sea) as the poor people facetiously term these revenue
+officials of the coast--loiter in the sunlight amidst the piles of tawny
+fishing nets or the pyramids of golden oranges. From the quay we make our
+way to the Largo del Municipio, a typical square of a provincial town in
+the South, enclosed by shabby houses and adorned by a couple of stunted
+date-palms and a battered marble fountain, around which numberless
+children and some slatternly women noisily converse or dispute. There is
+an old proverb in the South, that a good housewife has no need to know any
+thoroughfares save those leading to her church and her fountain, and as
+conversation cannot well be carried on in the former, it is the daily
+visits to the well that usually afford the required opportunity for
+exchange of gossip or for the picking of quarrels. Two statues decorate
+this unlovely but not uninteresting space; one is that of a Spanish
+bishop, Leon y Carde�as, one of King Philip the Third's viceroys, which
+serves as a reminder of the many vicissitudes this classic land has
+experienced in the course of history:--Phoenician, Greek, Carthaginian,
+Roman, Barbarian, Norman, German, French, Spanish conquerors have all left
+"footprints on the sands of Time" in the coveted land of the Siren, which
+all have possessed in turn but none have held in perpetuity. His
+Excellency the Bishop Carde�as stands therefore in the open as a solid
+memento of the glory that once was Spain, when half Europe and all America
+owned the sway of the Catholic King. The second statue, though not a thing
+of beauty, has always had the attraction of an unsolved puzzle, for we
+cannot decide whether it proves a complete absence or an abundant
+superfluity of humour in the Puteolani of to-day. It is the figure of a
+Roman senator, vested in his flowing toga, and owning (as the ancient
+inscription informs us) the grandiose name of Quintus Flavius Mavortius
+Lollianus, whose marble trunk was one of the earliest archaeological
+"finds" made in the excavations at Pozzuoli some two hundred years ago.
+Since the statue lacked a head and was otherwise of no especial value as a
+work of art, the Viceroy of Naples very generously presented this object
+to the place of its discovery, whose citizens, doubtless thinking the
+appearance of the headless statue uncanny, popped a stray antique occiput
+(of which a goodly number, more or less mutilated, are constantly brought
+to light by the peasants) upon Lollianus' vacant shoulders. Anything more
+comical and at the same time more repellent than this hybrid statue it
+would be impossible to imagine, yet Lollianus of the unknown head remains
+a favourite with the people of Pozzuoli. Leaving the Largo del Municipio,
+with its weird senator and its dusty palms, we ascend by a zigzag lane
+between tall featureless houses to the Cathedral of San Proculo, which
+occupies the site of a temple of Augustus, that once dominated the ancient
+city and harbour below. Within, the cathedral of Proculus, who was a
+companion of St Januarius and a fellow-martyr, is gaudy and painted, one
+of those dismally gorgeous ecclesiastical interiors that are such a
+disappointment to the antiquarian in Southern Italy. In opposition to the
+memorial of Spanish conquest in the square below, we find here an
+elaborate monument to a French viceroy, the Duke of Montpensier, who
+served for some time as Governor of Naples after Charles VIII.'s capture
+of the city. Except the tomb of the young musician Pergolese, who composed
+the original _Stabat Mater_ there is little else to see, and we gladly
+ascend the tower in order to gain a bird's eye view of the town from a
+point of vantage whither noisy coachmen, troublesome beggars and impudent
+ragamuffins cannot pursue. Captured by the Greek colonists of Cumae, who
+gave the city the name of Dicoearchia instead of its ancient one of
+Puteoli,--a corruption, perhaps, of the Syriac word _petuli_
+(contention)--this old Hellenic settlement was rechristened Puteoli by the
+conquering Romans, under whose beneficent rule the place rapidly aspired
+to wealth and prosperity. With the rise however of Naples, the fame of
+Puteoli began to grow dim, and its importance to decline, although
+throughout Imperial times it ranked after Ostia as the chief victualling
+port of Rome. And of the two celebrated cities which adorned the shores of
+this Bay in classical times, Puteoli was the seat of commerce, and Baiae
+the resort of pleasure and luxury; yet both were doomed to dwindle and
+almost perish in the disastrous years that followed the break-up of the
+Empire. The invading hordes of Germany, the raids of Saracen pirates, and
+the constant presence of malaria on this deserted coast were sufficient
+causes in themselves to reduce in the course of time the thriving port of
+Puteoli to the squalid town of to-day. From our lofty post we can easily
+distinguish the limits of the city in the days of Tiberius and Caligula,
+for to the north we turn our faces towards the ruined bulk of the
+Amphitheatre, now lying amidst fields and gardens, but well within the
+town walls at the time when Nero entertained the Armenian king Tiridates
+and shocked his Asiatic guest by himself descending into the arena and
+deftly performing the usual disgusting feats of a professional gladiator.
+To westward lies the Bay of Baiae, a semi-circle of glittering water
+surrounded by low hills amidst which the Monte Nuovo, unknown to the
+ancients, stands conspicuous. How completely have all traces of splendour
+and extravagance disappeared from these shores! At fashionable Baiae
+across the Bay there is nothing visible save a few shapeless ruins over
+the identity of which scholars dispute; at busy Puteoli there survive
+to-day but the ruined Amphitheatre, the Temple of Serapis, and the arches
+of the famous Mole, to prove to wondering posterity how great were the
+wealth, the population and the magnificence of a spot which is closely
+associated with all the power and culture of the Roman Empire in its
+zenith.
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE BEACH]
+
+Of the various fragments of antiquity that are still standing in this
+district of the Phlegrean Fields, the Mole of Puteoli is undoubtedly the
+best preserved and the most interesting. So splendidly constructed is this
+relic of the past, that but for continuous shocks of earthquake the whole
+breakwater must have survived intact; as it is, more than half the Mole
+has withstood the wear and tear of centuries of wind and storm. It is
+built on the model of a Greek pier, a series of arches of massive masonry,
+acting at once as a barrier against the force of the invading waves and as
+a means of preventing the silting of the sand. Formed of brick, faced with
+stone, and cemented with the local volcanic sand, which is consequently
+known as _puzzolana_, this wonderful breakwater must originally have
+stretched out into the Bay a total length of twenty-five arches, its
+furthest extremity being crowned by a light-house. If we could only call
+up in imagination the Bay of Baiae in the days of the Empire, when its
+shores were fringed by sumptuous villas of famous or infamous Romans and
+its expanse was thickly covered with every variety of vessel of pleasure
+or merchandise, instead of the few fishing boats that now and again flit
+across its glassy surface, we might better be able to realise the
+extraordinary episode which is connected with this classical fragment in
+the little port of Pozzuoli below us. For it was from the Mole of Puteoli
+to the spit of land we see on the western shore opposite that the demented
+tyrant, Caius Caligula, constructed his historic bridge of boats across
+the Baiaean gulf. Every large vessel in the surrounding harbours had been
+pressed into the service of the Emperor for this gigantic piece of folly,
+so that the inhabitants of Rome were seriously inconvenienced by the
+detention of their corn ships, and loud in consequence were the complaints
+of the Roman populace, for whose anger, it is needless to state, the
+Emperor cared not a fig. "History," says Gibbon, "is but a record of the
+crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind;" and this smiling Bay of Baiae
+will ever be memorable as the scene of what was perhaps the worst
+exhibition of tyrannical caprice that the world has yet witnessed.
+
+Using a double line of vessels well yoked together as a compact and solid
+base, the Emperor now gave orders for a military road of the usual Roman
+type to be constructed of planks of timber covered with earth and paved
+with hewn stones. When this stupendous work was completed, the usual
+station-houses were erected at various intervals, and fresh water was laid
+on by means of pipes connected with the Imperial cisterns at Misenum. Upon
+this broad road, laid across the Baiaean Gulf, the young Emperor now
+advanced on horseback, followed by his whole army clad in array of battle.
+Caligula on this occasion wore a historic coat of armour studded with rare
+gems that had once belonged to Alexander the Great; a jewelled sword was
+fastened to his thigh, and a crown of oak leaves bound his temples.
+Solemnly the Emperor and his army crossed the broad expanse of water on
+dry land and entered Puteoli with mock honours of war. After remaining a
+day in the port to refresh his victorious troops, the Emperor was driven
+back in a splendidly equipped chariot, which was surrounded by a number of
+pretended captives of rank, some noble Parthian hostages being utilised
+for the occasion. At the centre of the bridge the procession halted, and
+the crazy prince next indulged in an absurd bombastic harangue, wherein he
+congratulated his soldiers on their glorious campaign just concluded, and
+declared to them that the famous feats of Xerxes and Darius had at length
+been surpassed. Finally, he invited his troops to a magnificent banquet
+upon this bridge of boats, an entertainment which lasted till far into the
+night and was accompanied by lavish illuminations by land and sea. As
+might only have been expected, the feast soon degenerated into a drunken
+orgy, wherein every guest from the Master of the Roman world to his
+meanest soldier became intoxicated, whilst many persons in their cups lost
+their balance and fell into the waters, so that the sounds of music and
+revelry throughout the midnight hours were mingled with groans and cries
+of drowning men close at hand.
+
+Apart from its senseless extravagance and innate folly, the story of the
+bridging of the Baiaean Gulf, of this harnessing of old Ocean, affects us
+moderns with astonishment at the extraordinary thoroughness of all the
+ancient Roman feats of engineering; had this high road across the Bay been
+intended to serve any useful purpose, instead of merely to satisfy the
+passing whim of a selfish tyrant, we could have had no choice but to
+admire the marvellous speed of the artificers and the completeness of the
+scheme undertaken.
+
+Quarter of a century later, and the Mole of Puteoli was destined to become
+the scene of another event in the world's history, which has left a far
+more enduring impression on mankind than the so-called miracle of
+Caligula. In the early spring of the year 62 A.D. there dropped anchor in
+the port a certain Alexandrian corn-ship, the _Castor __and__ Pollux_,
+coming from Malta after touching at Syracuse and Rhegium (Reggio) on her
+way northward. Unnoticed amidst the vast phalanx of shipping that lined
+the Mole and filled the broad harbour of Puteoli, the vessel emptied her
+cargo on the quay, whilst there also disembarked from her hold a number of
+prisoners of no great social consequence, who were on their way to Rome
+under the guardianship of a kindly old centurion, named Julius, belonging
+to the cohort _Prima Augusta Italica_. Amongst the persons under Julius'
+charge was a Jew named Paul, who was accompanied by three of his friends,
+Timothy, Luke and Aristarchus of Thessalonica, and all four, thanks to the
+kindness of the centurion, who was evidently much attached to his
+exemplary captive, were permitted to remain at this spot for seven days.
+Paul himself was anxious to tarry at this spot, for of all the Italian
+ports Puteoli was most frequented by men of his own nation, so that the
+city possessed its little community of Christians, who naturally were
+eager to detain the Apostle. So hopelessly intermingled are truth,
+tradition and legend concerning the various places on Italian soil that St
+Paul is known to have visited, that we cannot be too grateful for the
+undoubted link with his journey to Rome that we possess in the existing
+Mole of Puteoli, whose surface has undoubtedly been trodden by the
+sandalled feet of the great Apostle of the West. Here Paul landed amid the
+haughty scenes of Roman pride and power; above him he saw the pagan Temple
+of Augustus, all gleaming with marble and gilded bronze that were mirrored
+in the calm waters of the port: along this famous causeway he passed,
+unmarked by the busy crowd, except perhaps to be mocked by some idler for
+his nationality or his halting speech. Guided by Christian compatriots,
+the Apostle with his three faithful friends was led through the noisy
+jostling concourse of all countries that thronged the great Roman city to
+the humble dwelling of his host. Where he lodged in that mighty city we
+know not, but we do know for a certain fact that he landed on the Mole,
+and that he passed along it to the shore; it is not much, perhaps, but
+that little is very precious.
+
+What a contrast do these two incidents connected with the Mole of Puteoli
+afford! The Roman Emperor, glittering like the morning star in purple
+mantle and jewelled cuirass, riding on his charger across the solid road
+that to humour his own caprice had been flung across the buoyant waters,
+accompanied by soldiery, by music, and by bands of wealthy sycophants; and
+the Apostle, poor, in bonds, a despised prisoner in an alien land, meekly
+threading his way through the crowds towards his mean lodging. Where is
+the proud Temple of Augustus that beheld these two strange scenes, that
+occurred with no great interval of time apart? Where are the villas and
+quays that lined the Bay of Baiae? The very ruins of the palaces and
+warehouses are swept away; the gorgeous temple is a Christian Cathedral
+dedicated to a follower of the despised Jewish captive; the name of
+Caligula lives but in human execration, whilst that of the Apostle is
+enshrined in the hearts of the whole Christian world.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+It is but a three-mile walk along the beach from Pozzuoli to Baiae,
+passing beside the Lucrine Lake and the southern slope of the Monte Nuovo,
+which always seems to us a far more wonderful freak of Nature than the
+Solfatara. Here we have a miniature mountain, a mile and a half round its
+base and nearly five hundred feet high, that was made in the course of a
+single night, and is to-day less than four hundred years old! The presence
+of this brand-new intruder on the shore of the Baiaean Gulf must ever
+remain a wholesome warning to all dwellers on these coasts, that their
+tenure of King Pluto's dominions is very insecure. One morning towards the
+close of September 1538, after some days of earthquake shocks, "Pozzuoli
+awoke," says the flippant Alexandre Dumas, "and on looking about did not
+recognise herself! She had left a lake the evening before, and lo! she
+found a mountain; where she had owned a forest, she found ashes; and last
+of all, where she had left a village, she perceived no trace!"
+
+In one sense Dumas' facetious description is correct: the New Mountain was
+born with extraordinary celerity, and woods, lake and village--familiar and
+beloved landmarks to the people of Baiae and Pozzuoli--disappeared at its
+birth. But the event was no peaceful act of Nature; on the contrary, it
+was accompanied by loud rumblings, by showers of red-hot stones, by clouds
+of smoke, by torrents of scalding water, and by the retreating of the sea,
+which left thousands of fish lying helpless on the exposed shore. The
+village of Tripergola, a summer pleasaunce of the Angevin kings of Naples,
+and many traces of ancient Roman villas and engineering works, all
+perished in this notable cataclysm. Four eye-witnesses have left us
+details of this strange scene of desolation, whilst only a few days after
+Mother Earth had brought forth this new mountain, one of them, the Spanish
+Viceroy of Naples, the valiant Don Pedro of Toledo, owned sufficient pluck
+and curiosity to make the ascent of the Monte Nuovo, still smoking hot and
+reeking of sulphur. Who can tell when this _parvenu_ volcano may spout
+forth fire and ashes? Would any sane person have the courage ever to
+settle within range of a possible eruption? No, the Phlegrean fields are
+interesting to visit, but he must require a strong nerve who would fain
+dwell beneath the shadow of this dormant crater.
+
+It is a very short walk from the base of the Monte Nuovo to the "golden
+shores" of Imperial Baiae, which is certainly not an imposing place in
+these days. What with the destroying hand of time and the still more
+obliterating action of the neighbouring volcano, there is little left for
+the fancy to build upon; certainly the three ruined shells that are called
+temples by courtesy, but served probably a much humbler purpose than that
+of worship, are not particularly striking. It requires not only a good
+classical knowledge, but also no small amount of imagination to picture
+the Baiae of the Roman poets.
+
+"If Pozzuoli has gone down in the world, still more so Baiae. It does not
+require any more sinking; it is low enough as it is, so low that some of
+its ancient villas and palaces can only be visited in a diving-bell. So
+dreary and deserted is the site, that at first glance the visitor feels
+mightily inclined to question the veracity of the historian, and to doubt
+whether Baiae--Baiae the gay, the fashionable, the dissolute, the beloved
+of emperors, statesmen and poets--ever existed. But when he is shown the
+enormous sub-structures lying under water, and the masses of solid masonry
+wherewith the surrounding hills are over-spread, incredulity gives place
+to amazement. What towns of lath and plaster are Brighton, Newport and
+Trouville, when compared with this 'Rome by the sea,' where the materials
+used for the foundations of a single villa would more than suffice for the
+construction of a dozen 'genteel marine residences' of the modern style!
+What would a Roman architect think of the card-board streets and squares,
+and the stucco crescents and terraces, of an English watering-place? of
+those 'eligible family mansions' wherein dancing is dangerous, and to
+venture on whose balconies is perilous in the extreme? Echo answers:
+'What!' "(13)
+
+Here on this desolate strip of sea-shore, now dominated by the Spanish
+viceroy's frowning fortress on the hill above, the great and opulent of
+ancient Rome founded a city composed wholly of palaces. Here were no noisy
+market-places to annoy aristocratic nerves; no slums to afflict
+plutocratic nostrils; no families of the proletariat to disturb the
+refined senses of the jaded pleasure-seekers who retired hither in the
+winter months. A writer, from whom we have just quoted, makes comparison
+between Baiae and Brighton or Trouville; but in reality the fashionable
+American resort of Newport has more in common with the old classical
+watering-place than any modern European sea-side resort. The hot sulphur
+baths on the Lucrine shore formed of course only a shallow excuse for the
+annual migration of Roman fashionables to Baiae, where blue-blooded
+senators and pushing plutocrats indulged in fierce social struggles for
+individual pre-eminence. Yet certain of the natural warm springs had been
+enclosed in splendid buildings, and were used by the luxurious citizens,
+so that even to-day the Thermae of Nero (Stufe di Nerone) are pointed out
+by the local guides. "Quid Nerone pejus? Quid thermis melius Neronianis?"
+(what is worse than Nero? yet what more beneficent than his baths?) asks
+the poet Martial, whose name will ever be bound up with the tales of
+luxury and vice that are associated with this spot. Baiae in winter, Tibur
+(Tivoli) in summer, the two names stand for the beau-ideal of a Roman
+existence, the cynosure of every wealthy citizen.
+
+But let us ascend out of the close and enervating air of low-lying Baiae
+to the breezy heights of Misenum, which has immortalised the name of the
+Trojan trumpeter whose end was mourned by the tears of pious Aeneas
+himself. In gaining its summit and in gazing upon the landscape spread
+around us, we have penetrated, so it seems, into the very heart of Italy:
+not the Italy of Roman history, but the land of Ausonia itself, the fabled
+shore that the Trojan hero sailed at his goddess-mother's bidding to
+discover, when all the world was young and the high dwellers of Olympus
+still condescended to take a personal interest in the affairs of favourite
+mortals. Surely the vine-clad terraces of Lake Avernus, the pools of the
+Lucrine and the Mare Morto, the verdure-clad hillocks lying beneath us
+must conceal the true secret of the antique Tyrrhenian country, in whose
+history the rise and fall of Roman power afford but one amongst many
+epochs. Looking to northward, beyond the little landing-stage of
+Torregaveta, we behold the heights of Cumae, that was a flourishing city
+with harbour and citadel hundreds of years before a certain Romulus built
+a wall of mud near the banks of Tiber and slew his brother Remus for
+leaping over his handiwork. The founding of Rome is enveloped in
+impenetrable clouds of legend; the building of Cumae is a fact:--here then
+we obtain a key to Italian history. Rome, whose origin is lost in mists of
+obscurity, is a flourishing modern capital; Cumae is but a shapeless mass
+of crumbling ruins, overgrown with ivy and cytizus, and inhabited by
+lizards and serpents. But both cities, dead Cumae and living Rome, present
+but passing events in the long slow progress of the centuries, which have
+witnessed successive phases of civilisation and destruction in this
+
+  "Woman-country, wooed, not won,
+  Loved all the more by Earth's male lands,
+     Laid to their hearts instead."
+
+Is the Genius of Italy, the Sibyl of Cumae, still living, we wonder, in
+some dim recess, some secret cavern of Cimmerian gloom, beneath those
+decaying heaps of the ancient Greek city? She was old, very old, we know,
+when pious Aeneas found her shrieking her strange prophecies, and that was
+long ages before Hellenic wanderers raised a fortress upon the wooded
+heights above the dread lake of Avernus.--Venerable Mother of Italy! dost
+thou still survive muttering thy strange warnings in some sunless
+labyrinth, that the rapacious guides of Baiae have yet failed to
+penetrate? Art thou, like King Arthur of romantic Wales, still keeping
+watch over the destiny of thy country, ever ready to assist in the hour of
+need?
+
+  "Thy cave was stored with scrolls of strange device,
+     The work of some Saturnian Archimage,
+  Which taught the expiations at whose price
+     Men from the gods might win that happy age
+  Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice;
+     And which might quench the earth-consuming rage
+  Of gold and blood--till men should live and move
+  Harmonious as the sacred stars above."
+
+For Italy has not wholly forgotten her ancient guardian and soothsayer,
+who welcomed the founder of the victorious Roman race; nor did the artists
+of the revived glories of the Renaissance neglect to honour the mysterious
+priestess of the Cimmerian shore. With prophetic mien the Sibyl of Cumae,
+that Michelangelo depicted, watches ever the come-and-go of humanity from
+her lofty post within Pope Sixtus' Chapel, bidding all remember her
+ancient prophecy of the Judgment Day, which the Roman Church has included
+in one of its most solemn canticles:
+
+  "Dies Irae! Dies illa!
+  Solvet saeclum in favilla,
+  Teste David cum Sibylla."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  INDEX
+
+
+      Abbondanza, Via dell', 51
+      Abruzzi Mountains, 36, 122, 222
+      Acre, 270
+      Adrian IV., Pope, 156
+      Agerola, 123
+      Agropoli, 209
+      Alberada, 181
+      Albergo Cappuccini, 128
+      Alcubier, 11
+      Aleppo, 121
+      Alexander of Epirus, 206
+      Alexandria, 121
+      Alexius, Emperor, 179
+      Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, 242
+      Algiers, 56
+      Alphonso V. of Naples, 277
+      Amalfi, 5, 36, 100, 106, 112, 126
+      Ana-Capri, 249, 259, 271
+      Angelo, Monte S., 28, 30, 63, 76
+      Annunziata, Torre, 19, 92, 94
+      Aosta, Duke and Duchess of, 93, 94
+      Appian Way, 62
+      Apulia, 181
+      ---- William of, 135
+      Arabia, 134
+      Arco, 106
+      Arguth, Joseph, 292
+      Ariosto, Ludovico, 239
+      Aristarchus, 312
+      Arno, 2
+      Arnold of Brescia, 156
+      Arriengo, 123
+      Arthur, King, 318
+      Athens, 28, 39, 58
+      Atrani, 152
+      Atrio del Cavallo, 77
+      Augustus, Emperor, 59, 69
+      ---- Temple of, 313
+      Aulus Vettius, Corvina, 55
+      ---- ---- Restitutus, 40, 55
+      Ausonius, 208
+      Avicenna, 177
+      Avvocata, Madonna dell', 166
+
+      Baghdad, 121
+      Bagnoli, 296
+      Baiae, 253, 307
+      Bajalardo, Pietro, 117
+      Barbary, 209
+      Barisanus of Trani, 159
+      Barra, La, 8
+      Battipaglia, 198
+      Bembo, Cardinal, 282
+      Benevento, 111
+      Bergamo, 240
+      Berkeley, Bishop, 293
+      Bismarck, 186
+      Boccaccio, 137, 157
+      Bohemond, 179
+      Bomba, King, 6, 8, 16, 109, 284
+      Bosco-Trecase, 92, 97
+      Bowdler, Mr, 81
+      Braccini, Abate, 77
+      Breakspear, Nicholas, 156
+      Browning, R., 33, 36, 183
+      Brunetto Latini, 121
+      Butomilea, Landolfo, 182
+      Byzantium, 118, 142
+
+      Caecilius Jucundus, 40
+      Cairo, 121
+      Caligula, Emperor, 5, 308
+      Camaldoli, 18, 270
+      Campagna Felice, 66
+      Campanella, Punta della, 112
+      Canneto, 132, 140
+      Canossa, 180, 186
+      Capaccio, 209, 262
+      Capodimonte, 2
+      Capri, 4, 5, 13, 45, 63, 74, 90, 112, 249
+      Capua, 66
+      Capuano, Cardinal Pietro, 126, 143
+      Caracciolo, 2
+      Carde�as, Bishop, 305
+      Cariteo, 277
+      "Carlo il Zoppo," 102, 103, 121
+      Carmine, Church of the, 105
+      Casamicciola, 284
+      Casa Nuova, 53
+      Castellamare, 18, 25, 26, 100, 113
+_      Castor and Pollux, The_, 311
+      Cathay, 121
+      Cava, La, 113
+      Celestine V., Pope, 292
+      Cellini, Benvenuto, 27
+      Cephalonia, 180
+      Cerrato, Monte, 168
+      Cetara, 134, 170
+      Chalcidicum, 49
+      Charles III. of Naples, 8
+      ---- VIII. of France, 307
+      ---- of Anjou, 102, 156, 167
+      Chiabrera, 89
+      Chiaja, 2
+      Chiosse, Monte di, 119
+      Cicero, 40
+      Clement VIII., Pope, 167
+      Clementia, Princess, 102
+      Clodius Glabrus, 70
+      Cluny, 184
+      Colonna, Giuliano, 104
+      ---- Vittoria, 5, 277
+      Conca, Capo di, 125
+      Concordia Augusta, 51
+      Conradin, 156
+      Constantinople, 80, 134
+      Coppola, Monte, 28, 167
+      Corniche Road, 100
+      Costantinopoli, Strada, 2
+      Crassus, 70
+      Cumae, 4, 317
+
+      Damecuta, 261
+      Dante, 120, 121, 239, 278
+      Devonshire, 107
+      Domenichino, 161
+      Domitiana, Via, 62
+      Dragone, 152
+      Dumas, A., 9, 314
+      Durazzo, 178
+
+      Eboli, 198
+      Elboeuf, Prince d', 11
+      Epidius Rufus, 40
+      Epirus, 178
+      Etna, 77, 291
+      Eumachia, 40, 49
+      Exeter, 40
+
+      Faito, Monte, 37
+      Falerio, Monte, 170
+      Faliero, Marino, 103
+      Farnese, Elizabeth, 27
+      ---- Pier-Luigi, 5, 27
+      Ferdinand, King, 27, 270, 277
+      Ferrara, 240, 248
+      Filangieri, 103
+      Fiorelli, Signor, 53
+      Florence, 2, 112, 132, 148
+      Florus, 70
+      Forio, 289
+      Forsyth, J., 181
+      Francis, King, 109
+      Frederick II., Emperor, 27, 210
+      Fuga, 159
+      Fuorigrotta, 295
+      Furore, 123
+
+      Gaeta, 16, 36
+      ---- Bay of, 4
+      Galen, 106, 177
+      Garibaldi, 6
+      Gaurus, Mons, 57, 76
+      Gavinius, 208
+      Gazola, Count, 211
+      Gell, Sir William, 44
+      Genoa, 157
+      Gibbon, Edward, 175, 309
+      Gioja, Flavio, 119
+      Glaucus, 261
+      Goethe, 13, 212
+      Gragnano, 20
+      Greco, Torre del, 8, 13, 18, 77
+      Gregory VII., Pope, 178
+      Grotta Azzurra, 259
+      Grotta Verde, 262
+      Guallo, 116
+      Guiscard, Robert, 5, 136, 155, 174
+      Gurgitello, 285
+
+      Hale, Sir Matthew, 110
+      Hamill, Major, 271
+      Hamilton, Sir William, 80
+      Hare, Augustus, 7
+      Hart, Emma, 80
+      Hauteville, House of, 174
+      Helbig, 44
+      H�l�ne, Princess, 94
+      Henry IV., Emperor, 180
+      Herculaneum, 1, 9
+      ---- Gate of, 62
+      Hermolaus, 162
+      Hildebrand, 5, 180, 182, 184
+      Hippocrates, 177
+      Hohenstaufen, 163
+      Homer, 114
+      House of the Surgeon, 43, 56
+      ---- Vettii, 53
+
+      Innocent IV., Pope, 152
+      Ischia, 4, 13, 78, 241, 252, 275
+
+      Joanna II., Queen, 144, 299
+      John XVI., Pope, 167
+      John of Procida, 184
+      Julius the Centurion, 311
+      Jupiter, Temple of, 52
+      Justinian, Emperor, 135
+
+      Keats, John, 229
+
+      La Barra, 8
+      La Cava, 172, 198
+      La Scala, 166
+      Lacaita, Mr, 262
+      Lacco, 288
+      Lactarian Hills, 101
+      Ladislaus II., King, 299
+      Lamarque, Gen., 271
+      Lauretta, 157
+      Lavoro, Terra di, 18
+      Lenormant, F., 214
+      Leo XIII., Pope, 288
+      Leonora d'Este, 243, 248
+      Leopardi, Giacomo, 295
+      Lepanto, 246
+      Libella, 64
+      Livia, 50
+      Livy, 73
+      Lowe, Sir Hudson, 271
+      Lubrense, Massa, 122
+      Lucrine Lake, 313
+      Ludius, 59
+      Luke, 312
+
+      Maddalena, Ponte della, 84
+      Majori, 166
+      Malta, 311
+      Mammia, 64
+      Manches, Colonel, 273
+      Manfred, King, 87, 152, 184
+      Manso, 243
+      Mansone II., Doge, 118
+      Macellum, 52
+      Marcellus II., Pope, 280
+      Margaret of Durazzo, 189
+      Marina, Porta, 39, 45
+      Martin V., Pope, 277
+      Matteucci, Professor, 94, 97
+      Matilda, Countess, 185
+      Mau, 44
+      Maurice, 142
+      Maximian, Emperor, 162
+      Melfi, 133
+      Mercato, Il, 2, 96
+      Mercury, Temple of, 52
+      Mergellina, 96
+      Messina, 91
+      Meta, 106
+      Metastasio, 8
+      Michelangelo, 283, 319
+      Milan, 278
+      Minerva, Cape of, 112, 117, 153
+      Minori, 166
+      Misenum, 71, 74, 249
+      Mole of Puteoli, 308
+      Monreale, 159
+      Mont' Epomeo, 290
+      Montapertuso, 119
+      Monte Nuovo, 313
+      Montorio, S. Pietro in, 2
+      Montpensier, Duke of, 307
+      Murat, Joachim, 5, 8, 270
+      Muscettola, Sergio, 159
+      Museo Nazionale, 1
+
+      Naccarino, 145
+      Napoleon, 8, 270
+      Natale, Michele, 103
+      Nelson, 104, 269
+      Neptune, Temple of, 212
+      Nero, Emperor, 308
+      Nicholas II., Pope, 176, 185
+      Nicomedia, 162
+      Nisida, 297
+      Nola, 41
+      Nuceria, 41, 173
+
+      Ochino, Bernardino, 280
+      Oliveto, Monte, 96
+      Orico, 271
+      Orlando, Capo d', 102
+      Oscan inhabitants, 41
+      Otranto, 178
+      Ottajano, 94, 98
+      Overbeck, 44
+      Ovid, 106, 261, 291
+      Oxford, 156
+
+      Paestum, 41, 57, 143, 173, 182, 198
+      Palermo, 91, 159
+      Palumbo, 155
+      Pansa, the �dile, 40
+      Pantaleone, 142, 148, 161
+      Paolo Giovio, 278
+      Paris, Comte de, 94
+      Parthenope, 249
+      Paul III., Pope, 27
+      Pavia, 279
+      Pedimentina, La, 77
+      Pericles, 40
+      Pescara, Marquis of, 278
+      Petrarch, 116, 138, 239, 299
+      Philip the Bold, 102
+      Phillips, John, 68
+      Philodemus, 10
+      Piacenza, 185
+      Pimentel, Eleonora, 104
+      Piperno, Pietro, 111
+      Pisa, 136
+      Pistoja, 240
+      Pius II., Pope, 27, 144
+      Plato, 58
+      Pliny, 59, 71, 76
+      Pliny the younger, 71
+      Plutarch, 70
+      Pole, Cardinal, 280
+      Pompeii, 1, 5, 24, 38
+      Pomponianus, 72
+      Pontone, 152
+      Portici, 8, 80, 88, 97
+      Porzia de' Rossi, 240
+      Posilipo, 1, 8, 37, 295
+      Positano, 119
+      Pozzano, 37
+      Pozzopiano, 106
+      Pozzuoli, 109, 301
+      Prajano, 124
+      Procida, 4, 237, 275
+      Puteoli, 5, 295
+
+      Quisisana, 27, 37
+
+      Ravello, 134, 152
+      Reggio, 311
+      Reid, Mr, 156, 262
+      Ren�e, Duchess of Ferrara, 280
+      Resina, 8, 79, 88, 98
+      Retina, 8, 72
+      Revigliano, 26
+      Rhegium, 311
+      Robert of Normandy, 178
+      ---- the Wise, 116, 156
+      Roger, Count, 155, 180
+      ---- King, 116, 136
+      Rome, 39, 94, 144, 156, 180, 312
+      Ruffo, Cardinal, 104
+      Rufolo, Niccol�, 155, 160
+
+      S. Agnello, 106
+      S. Alessio al Lavinaio, 105
+      S. Angelo, 13, 119, 122
+      S. Bridget of Sweden, 144
+      S. Brigida, 3
+      S. Chiara, 2
+      S. Costanzo, 251
+      S. Elia, Punta, 117
+      S. Elmo, 2, 67
+      S. Francis of Assisi, 144
+      S. Gennaro, 298
+      S. Giovanni a Teduccio, 8
+      S. Giovanni del Toro, 164
+      S. Giuseppe, 94
+      S. Luca, 124
+      S. Lucia, 3
+      S. Maria a Pozzano, 102
+      S. Maria del Gradillo, 162
+      S. Maria di Pompeii, 65
+      S. Martino, 2
+      S. Matteo, 173, 181
+      S. Michael, 35
+      S. Miniato, 2
+      S. Paul, 312
+      S. Pietro, Punta di, 123
+      S. Proculo, 307
+      S. Restituta, 291
+      S. Romualdo, 19
+      S. Salvatore a Bireta, 153
+      S. Trinit�, 172
+      S. Vitale, 296
+      Salerno, 4, 36, 111, 117, 133, 172
+      Samnite Hills, 212
+      Sannazzaro, 295
+      Sanseverini, 169
+      Sardinia, 15
+      Sarno, 26, 41, 95
+      Scala, 134, 167
+      Scaletta, 152
+      Scaricotojo, Lo, 113, 118
+      Scutolo, Punta di, 106
+      Sebeto, 8
+      Sejanus, 256
+      Serapis, Temple of, 308
+      Serra, Gennaro, 104
+      Shelley, 13, 33, 64
+      Shrewsbury, 40
+      Sibyl of Cumae, 318
+      Sicily, 15
+      Sigilgaita, 161, 179
+      Silarus, 198
+      Sirens, Isles of the, 114
+      Sixtus IV., Pope, 318
+      Smith, Sir Sydney, 270
+      Soana, 184
+      Socrates, 40
+      Solaro, 268
+      Soldan, 246
+      Somma, Monte, 67, 94, 99
+      Sorrentine Plain, 5, 106
+      Sorrento, 5, 90, 221
+      Sottile, Cape, 123
+      Spartacus, 69, 76
+      Stabiae, 26, 72, 76
+      Stamer, W. J. A., 16, 52, 238, 265, 316
+      Staurachios, 142
+      Stolberg, Count, 202
+      Stowe, Mrs H. B., 16
+      Strabo, 69, 275
+      Strada Costantinopoli, 2
+        "  de' Tribunali, 3
+      Stromboli, 91
+      Suetonius, 256
+      Syracuse, 58, 107, 311
+
+      Tacca, 51
+      Tacitus, 69, 71, 73
+      Tafuri, Bishop, 159
+      Tancred of Hauteville, 178, 180
+      Tarver, J. C., 258
+      Tasso, 5, 106, 145, 239
+        "  Bernardo, 106, 240, 277
+      Theocritus, 154, 292
+      Thermae of Nero, 316
+      Tiber, 116, 156
+      Tiberius, Emperor, 5, 50, 253, 308
+      Timgad, 38
+      Timothy, 312
+      Tiridates, 308
+      Titian, 27
+      Titus, Emperor, 10, 57, 71, 76
+      Toledo, The, 2
+      Torregaveta, 275, 317
+      Trafalgar, 270
+      Tragara, 263
+      Tripoli, 15
+      Tunis, 56, 246
+
+      Ulysses, 114
+      Urban IV., Pope, 144
+      Ustica, 91
+
+      Vaccaro, Il, 84
+      Valentinian, Emperor, 208
+      Valley of the Mills, 140, 149
+      Venice, 103, 112, 134, 148
+      Venosa, 181
+      Venus, Temple of, 52
+      Vergil, 208, 211, 275, 296
+      Vesuvius, 5, 11, 36, 66
+      Via Domitiana, 62
+      Vico Equense, 31, 102, 103
+      Victor III., Pope, 155
+      Victor Emmanuel III., King of Italy, 94
+      Vietri, 165, 171
+      Vigna Sersale, 247
+      Villa Jovis, 254
+      Villa Reale, 2
+      Vincenzo, 37
+      Vitruvius, 60, 69
+      Vittoria Colonna, 5, 277
+      Vivara, 276
+      Vomero, 3
+      Vozzi Family, 127
+
+      Wales, 107, 318
+      William Bras-de-Fer, 174
+      Wordsworth, 33
+      Worms, 185
+
+      Zampognari, 233
+      Zoppo, Carlo il, 102, 103, 121
+
+
+
+
+
+                                FOOTNOTES
+
+
+    1 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+    2 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+    3 Professor John Phillips: _Vesuvius_.
+
+    4 Pliny's Letters. (_Church's and Brodribb's Translation._)
+
+_    5 La Nazione_, April 24, 1906.
+
+_    6 The Decameron._ Novel IV. of the Second Day.
+
+_    7 The Decameron_--Novel I, of the Fourth Day.
+
+    8 F. Lenormant: _A travers l'Apulie et la Lucanie_.
+
+    9 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+   10 For an able defence of the Emperor Tiberius, the reader is referred
+      to Mr J. C. Tarver's _Tiberius the Tyrant_, chap. xviii.
+
+   11 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+   12 A portion of this chapter has already appeared in an article by the
+      Author, entitled _The Island of Ischia_, in the _Westminster
+      Review_, December 1905.
+
+   13 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+
+
+
+
+                            TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
+
+
+The caption of two images (frontispiece, page 288) has been supplied from
+the List of Images.
+
+The following obvious typographical errors have been corrected:
+
+      page xi, "Republiques" changed to "R�publiques"
+      page 55, "castastrophe" changed to "catastrophe"
+      page 90, quote mark added after "vendemmia?"
+      page 158, footnote, italics added to "The Decameron", removed from
+      "Novel IV. of the Second Day". (Other inconsistencies between the
+      two citations of the _Decameron_ were not changed.)
+      page 159, "mosiac" changed to "mosaic"
+      page 189, "gradully" changed to "gradually"
+      page 206, "P�stum" changed to "Paestum" (twice)
+      page 212, "wheron" changed to "whereon"
+      page 238, "circomstane" changed to "circomstance"
+      page 241, double "the" removed
+      page 275, "costing" changed to "coasting"
+      page 300, "maledicton" changed to "malediction"
+      page 301, "then" changed to "than"
+      page 311, "aud" changed to "and"
+
+In the Index, the following words have been changed to the spelling used
+in the main text:
+
+      "Baiae" (was: "Bai�")
+      "Caecilius Jucundus" (was: "C�cilius")
+      "Cumae" (was: "Cum�")
+      "Hohenstaufen" (was: "Hohenstauffen")
+      "Matteucci" (was: "Mateucci")
+      "Paestum" (was: "P�stum")
+      "Pimentel" (was: "Pimental")
+      "Rufolo, Niccol�" (was: "Nicol�")
+      "Sannazzaro" (was: "Sannazaro")
+      "Stabiae" (was: "Stabi�")
+      "Staurachios" (was: "Straurachios")
+      "Thermae of Nero" (was: "Therm�")
+      "William Bras-de-Fer" (was: "Bras de Fer")
+      "Zoppo, Carlo il" (was: "Zoppo, Carlo Il")
+
+Apart from the index and two occurrences of "P�stum" in the main text, all
+"�" ligatures have been maintained: "�dile" (and "aedile"), "arch�ologist"
+(and "archaeologist"), "�sthetic", "Cann�", "Medi�val" (in a quotation,
+otherwise "medieval"), "m�rens", "Pr�tor", "tesser�".
+
+Not changed or normalized were small errors in Italian or German
+quotations ("a riverderla", "Kultur-kampf", "Bierh�lle"), inconsistent
+hyphenation (e. g. "boat-man"/"boatman", "sea-shore"/"seashore"), spelling
+variations ("Phlegraean"/"Phlegrean") and unusual spellings ("elegible"
+[in a quotation], "pleisosaurus", "innoculating", "choregraphic").
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NAPLES RIVIERA***
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+    
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+    
+
+<div lang="en" class="tei tei-text" style="margin-bottom: 2.00em; margin-top: 2.00em" xml:lang="en">
+<div class="tei tei-front" style="margin-bottom: 6.00em; margin-top: 2.00em">
+    <div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+      <div id="pgheader" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em"><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 2.00em">The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Naples Riviera by Herbert M. Vaughan</p></div><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost
+          and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it,
+          give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project
+          Gutenberg License <a href="#pglicense" class="tei tei-ref">included with this
+          eBook</a> or online at <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license" class="tei tei-xref">http://www.gutenberg.org/license</a></p></div><pre class="pre tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em">Title: The Naples Riviera
+
+Author: Herbert M. Vaughan
+
+Release Date: December 9, 2009 [Ebook #30634]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NAPLES RIVIERA***
+</pre></div>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+      
+    </div>
+    <hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-pb"></div><a name="Pgii" id="Pgii" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+        <a name="frontis" id="frontis" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/frontisth.jpg" width="288" height="400" alt="Illustration: Charcoal Carriers, Amalfi" title="CHARCOAL CARRIERS, AMALFI" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/frontis.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">CHARCOAL CARRIERS, AMALFI</span></a></div></div>
+
+      </div><hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-titlePage" style="text-align: center">
+<div class="tei tei-pb" style="text-align: center"></div><a name="Pgiii" id="Pgiii" class="tei tei-anchor" style="text-align: center"></a>
+
+<span class="tei tei-docTitle" style="text-align: center">
+  <span class="tei tei-titlePart" style="text-align: center"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 144%; font-weight: 700">THE</span></span><br />
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 173%; font-weight: 700">NAPLES RIVIERA</span></span></span>
+</span>
+
+<div class="tei tei-byline" style="text-align: center; margin-top: 2.00em">BY<br />
+<span class="tei tei-docAuthor" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 120%">HERBERT M. VAUGHAN, B.A. (</span><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 120%; font-variant: small-caps">Oxon.</span></span><span style="font-size: 120%">)</span></span>
+  <br />
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 81%">AUTHOR OF “THE LAST OF THE ROYAL STUARTS”</span></span>
+</div>
+<br /><br /><br />
+<span class="tei tei-titlePart" style="text-align: center">
+ <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY</span></span><br />
+MAURICE GREIFFENHAGEN
+</span>
+<br /><br /><br />
+<span class="tei tei-docImprint" style="text-align: center; margin-top: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 120%">
+  METHUEN &amp; CO</span><br /><span style="font-size: 120%">
+  36 ESSEX STREET W.C.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 120%">
+  LONDON
+</span></span>
+      </div>
+  <hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<div class="tei tei-pb"></div><a name="Pgiv" id="Pgiv" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-style: italic">First Published in 1907</span></span>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="page" /><p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+  </p><div class="tei tei-pb" style="text-align: center"></div><p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+TO<br />
+<span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 120%">G. L. L.</span></span><br />
+IN MEMORY OF<br />
+MANY PLEASANT DAYS IN THE SUNNY SOUTH<br />
+THIS BOOK IS<br />
+AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED<br />
+BY THE AUTHOR
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-pb"></div><a name="Pgvi" id="Pgvi" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+  </div>
+    <hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="pagevii">[pg vii]</span><a name="Pgvii" id="Pgvii" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc1" id="toc1"></a><a name="pdf2" id="pdf2"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">CONTENTS</span></h1>
+      <a name="Pgviii" id="Pgviii" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="3"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: center">CHAPTER I</td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 81%">PAGE</span></span></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Introductory</span></span></td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#Pg001" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">1</a></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: center">CHAPTER II</td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">The Vesuvian Shore and Monte Sant’ Angelo</span></span></td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">8</a></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: center">CHAPTER III</td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">La Città Morta</span></span></td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#Pg038" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">38</a></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IV</td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Vesuvius</span></span></td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#Pg066" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">66</a></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: center">CHAPTER V</td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">The Corniche Road</span></span></td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#Pg100" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">100</a></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VI</td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Amalfi and the Festival of St Andrew</span></span></td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#Pg126" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">126</a></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VII</td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Ravello and the Rufoli</span></span></td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#Pg152" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">152</a></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VIII</td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Salerno</span></span></td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#Pg172" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">172</a></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IX</td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Paestum and the Glory that was Greece</span></span></td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#Pg198" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">198</a></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: center">CHAPTER X</td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Sorrento and its Poet</span></span></td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#Pg221" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">221</a></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XI</td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Capri and Tiberius the Tyrant</span></span></td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#Pg249" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">249</a></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XII</td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Ischia and the Lady of the Rock</span></span></td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#Pg275" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">275</a></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XIII</td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Puteoli and the Grandeur that was Rome</span></span></td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#Pg295" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">295</a></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: center">————</td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"></td>
+          </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+              <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Index</span></span></td>
+              <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#Pg321" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">321</a></td>
+          </tr></tbody></table>
+  </div>
+    <hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="pageix">[pg ix]</span><a name="Pgix" id="Pgix" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc3" id="toc3"></a><a name="pdf4" id="pdf4"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</span></h1>
+        
+<a name="Pgx" id="Pgx" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a table" cellspacing="0" class="tei tei-table" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><colgroup span="3"></colgroup><tbody><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: right"><span style="font-size: 81%">PAGE</span></span></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Charcoal Carriers, Amalfi</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: right"><a href="#frontis" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right"><span style="font-style: italic">Frontispiece</span></a></span></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">A Capriote Fisherman’s Wife</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus01" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">16</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Road near Castellamare</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus02" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">30</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Monte Faito, Castellamare</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus03" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">37</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">The Forum, Pompeii</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus04" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">46</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">La Casa dei Vettii, Pompeii</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus05" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">58</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus06" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">80</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Pozzano</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus07" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">101</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Evening at Amalfi</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus08" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">124</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Amalfi</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus09" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">132</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">In the Valley of the Mills, Amalfi</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus10" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">140</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Amalfi: Piazza and Duomo</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus11" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">148</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Ravello: Il Duomo</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus12" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">156</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">A Street in Ravello</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus13" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">163</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Minori at Sunset</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus14" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">170</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">On the Road To Ravello</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus15" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">186</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">The Temple of Neptune, Paestum</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus16" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">204</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Afternoon, Sorrento</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus17" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">230</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Faraglioni Rocks, Capri</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus18" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">249</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Capri From the Villa Jovis</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus19" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">254</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">In the Blue Grotto, Capri</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus20" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">262</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">A Gateway, Capri</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus21" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">274</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">On the Piccola Marina, Capri</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus22" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">288</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Ischia From Castellamare (Sunset)</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus23" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">294</a></td>
+    </tr><tr class="tei tei-row">
+        <td class="tei tei-cell">  </td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">On the Beach</span></span></td>
+        <td class="tei tei-cell" style="text-align: right"><a href="#illus24" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: right">306</a></td>
+    </tr></tbody></table>
+    </div>
+    <hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="pagexi">[pg xi]</span><a name="Pgxi" id="Pgxi" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc5" id="toc5"></a><a name="pdf6" id="pdf6"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">BIBLIOGRAPHY</span></h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A small selection out of the books I have consulted during the
+preparation of this work is given below:—
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">E. Gibbon</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Dean Merivale</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">The Romans under the Empire</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Pliny’s Letters</span></span>: (Church’s and Brodribb’s Translation, London,
+1897).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">J. Phillips</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Vesuvius</span></span> (Oxford, 1869).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">C. Ramage</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Nooks and Byways of Italy</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">C. Lenormant</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">À Travers la Lucanie et l’Apulie</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">W. J. A. Stamer</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Dolce Napoli</span></span> (London, 1878).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">E. Neville Rolfe</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Naples in 1888</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Constance Giglioli</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Naples in 1799</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">C. L. Sismondi</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Histoire des </span><a name="corrxi" id="corrxi" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-corr"><span style="font-style: italic">Républiques</span></span><span style="font-style: italic"> Italiennes</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">L. Alberti</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Descrizione di tutta l’ Italia</span></span> (Venetia, 1596).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">C. Mills</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">The Travels of Theodore Ducas</span></span> (London, 1822).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Les Délices d’Italie</span></span> (Paris, 1707).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Nuova Guida de’ Forastieri in Napoli, etc.</span></span> (1751).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Count Stolberg</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Travels through Italy and Sicily in 1756</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">A. H. Norway</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Naples, Past and Present</span></span> (London, 1904).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">E. Busk</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Folk-Songs of Italy</span></span>.
+</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="pagexii">[pg xii]</span><a name="Pgxii" id="Pgxii" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">J. A. Symonds</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Sketches and Studies in Italy</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Catherine Phillimore</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Studies in Italian Literature</span></span>
+(London, 1891).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">T. A. Trollope</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">A Decade of Italian Women</span></span> (London, 1859).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">G. Boccaccio</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Il Decamerone</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">A. Mau</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Pompeii: its Life and Art</span></span> (New York, 1899).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">J. Fergusson</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Handbook of Architecture</span></span> (London, 1859).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">Franz von Reber</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">History of Ancient and Mediæval Art</span></span> (New
+York, 1882).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">E. Jameson</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Sacred and Legendary Art</span></span> (London, 1879).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">J. Elworthy</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">History of the Evil Eye</span></span> (London, 1888).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">N. Valletta</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Cicalata sul Fascino detto Jettatura</span></span> (Napoli, 1819).
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">A. Canale</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Storia dell’ Isola di Capri</span></span>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">G. Amalfi</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Tradizioni ed Vsi nella Penisola Sorrentina</span></span>.
+</p>
+    </div>
+    
+</div>
+<hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-body" style="margin-bottom: 6.00em; margin-top: 6.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page1">[pg 1]</span><a name="Pg001" id="Pg001" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">THE NAPLES RIVIERA</span></h1>
+<div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+    <a name="toc7" id="toc7"></a><a name="pdf8" id="pdf8"></a>
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">CHAPTER I</span></h2>
+
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.40em; margin-top: 2.40em"><span style="font-size: 120%">INTRODUCTORY</span></h2>
+
+<div class="tei tei-epigraph" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 9.00em"><div class="tei tei-lg" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 6.30em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">In otia natam</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Parthenopen.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+That the city of Naples can prove very delightful,
+very amusing, and very instructive for a
+week or ten days no one will attempt to dispute.
+There are long mornings to be spent in inspecting
+the churches scattered throughout the narrow streets
+of the old town,—harlequins in coloured marble and
+painted stucco though they be, they are yet treasure-houses
+containing some of the most precious monuments
+of Gothic and Renaissance art that all Italy
+can display. There are afternoon hours that can be
+passed pleasantly amidst the endless halls and galleries
+of the great Museo Nazionale, where the antiquities
+of Pompeii and Herculaneum may be studied in
+advance, for the wise traveller will not rush headlong
+into the sacred precincts of the buried cities on the
+Vesuvian shore, before he has first made himself
+thoroughly acquainted with the wonderful collections
+preserved in the Museum. Then comes the evening
+drive along the gentle winding ascent towards Posilipo
+with its glorious views over bay and mountains, all
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page2">[pg 2]</span><a name="Pg002" id="Pg002" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>tinged with the deep rose and violet of a Neapolitan
+sunset; or the stroll along the fashionable sea front,
+named after the luckless Caracciolo the modern hero
+of Naples, where in endless succession the carriages
+pass backwards and forwards within the limited space
+between the sea and the greenery of the Villa Reale.
+Or it may be that our more active feet may entice
+us to mount the winding flights of stone steps leading
+to the heights of Sant’ Elmo, where from the windows
+of the monastery of San Martino there is spread out
+before us an entrancing view that has but two possible
+rivals for extent and interest in all Italy:—the
+panorama of the Eternal City from the hill of San
+Pietro in Montorio, and that of Florence with the
+valley of the Arno from the lofty terrace of San
+Miniato. We can while away many hours leisurely in
+wandering on the bustling Chiaja or Toledo with
+their shops and their amusing scenes of city life, or
+in the poorer quarters around the Mercato, where
+the inhabitants ply their daily avocations in the open
+air, and eat, play, quarrel, flirt, fight or gossip—do
+everything in short save go to bed—quite unconcernedly
+before the critical and non-admiring eyes
+of casual strangers. Pleasant it is to hunt for old
+prints, books and other treasures amongst the dark
+unwholesome dens that lie in the shadow of the
+gorgeous church of Santa Chiara or in the musty-smelling
+shops of the curiosity dealers in the Strada
+Costantinopoli, picking up here a volume of some
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">cinque-cento</span></span> classic and there a piece of old china that
+may or may not have had its birth in the famous
+factory of Capodimonte. All this studying of historic
+sculpture in the churches and of antiquities in the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page3">[pg 3]</span><a name="Pg003" id="Pg003" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Museum, this observing the daily life of the populace,
+and bargain-hunting in the Strada de’ Tribunali,
+are agreeable enough for a while, but of necessity
+there comes a time when the mind grows weary of
+yelling people and of jostling crowds, of stuffy
+churches and of the chilly halls of the Museum, of
+steep dirty streets and of glaring boulevards, so that
+we begin to sigh for fresh air and a change of scene.
+Nor is there any means of escape within the precincts
+of the city itself from the eternal cracking of whips,
+from the insulting compliments (or complimentary
+insults) of the incorrigible cabmen, from the continuous
+babel of unmusical voices, and from the reiterated
+strains of <span class="tei tei-q">“Santa Lucia”</span> or <span class="tei tei-q">“Margari”</span> howled
+from raucous throats or strummed from rickety
+street-organs. Oh for peace, and rest, and a whiff
+of pure country air! For there are no walks in or
+around the City of the Siren, where there is nowhere
+to stroll save the narrow strip of the much-vaunted
+Villa (which is either damp or dusty according to
+weather) or the fatiguing ascent amidst walled gardens
+and newly built houses to the heights of the Vomero,
+which are covered with a raw suburb. Moreover our
+pristine delight in the place is beginning to flag, as
+we gradually realise that the city, like the majority
+of great modern towns, is being practically rebuilt to
+the annihilation of its old-world features, which used
+to give to Naples its peculiar charm and its marked
+individuality amongst large sea-ports. Long ago
+has disappeared Santa Brigida, that picturesque high-coloured
+slum, on whose site stands the garish domed
+gallery of which the Neapolitans are so proud; gone
+in these latter days is classic Santa Lucia with its
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page4">[pg 4]</span><a name="Pg004" id="Pg004" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>water-gate and its fountain, its vendors of medicated
+water and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">frutti di mare</span></span>, those toothsome shell fish of
+the unsavoury beach; vanished for ever is many a landmark
+of old Naples, and new buildings, streets and
+squares, blank, dreary, pretentious and staring, have
+arisen in their places. This thorough <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">sventramento di
+Napoli</span></span>, as the citizens graphically term this drastic
+reconstruction of the old capital of the Kingdom of
+the Two Sicilies, is no doubt beneficial, not to say
+necessary, and we make no protest against these
+wholesale changes, which have certainly tended to
+destroy utterly its ancient character and appearance.
+But all seems commonplace, new, smart, and unpoetic,
+and we quickly grow weary of Naples now that it
+has been turned into a Liverpool of the South without
+the local colour and the peculiar attributes of which
+author and artist have so often raved. The life of
+the people, picturesque enough in its old setting, now
+appears mean and squalid; the toilers in the streets
+look jaded, oppressed and discontented; we search
+in vain for the spontaneous gaiety of which we have
+heard so much. We feel disappointed, cheated even,
+in our expectations of Naples, and we begin to understand
+that its chief attraction consists in its proximity
+to the scenes of beauty that mark the course of its
+Riviera.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-tb"> </div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The Riviera of Naples may be said to extend from
+the heights of Cumae, at the end of the Bay of Gaeta
+to the north, as far as Salerno in a southerly direction,
+whilst, lying close to this stretch of shore, are included
+the three populous islands of Capri, Procida and
+Ischia, which in prehistoric times doubtless formed
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page5">[pg 5]</span><a name="Pg005" id="Pg005" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>part and parcel of the Parthenopean coast itself.
+Our pleasant task it is to write of these classic shores
+and islands, where the beauties of nature contend for
+pre-eminence with the glorious traditions of the past
+that centre round them. What spot on earth can
+surpass, or even be compared with, Amalfi in the
+perfect lustre of its setting? What loftier or bolder
+cliffs than those of Capri can the wild bleak headlands
+of the North Sea exhibit? The fertile lands of
+France cannot vie with the richness of the Sorrentine
+Plain, nor can any mountain on the face of the globe
+rival in human interest the peak of Vesuvius;
+Pompeii is unique, the most precious storehouse of
+ancient knowledge the world possesses; whilst the
+Bay of Baia recalls the days of Roman power and
+luxury more vividly to our minds than any place
+save the Eternal City itself. And again: what illustrious
+names in history and in literature—classical,
+medieval, modern—are for ever associated with these
+smiling shores! Robert Guiscard and Hildebrand
+in quiet Salerno, Tasso at health-giving Sorrento,
+Vittoria Colonna in her palace-fortress on the crags
+of Ischia, the great Apostle of the west at Puteoli:—these
+are but a few of the more eminent and gracious
+figures that arise before us at the casual bidding of
+memory. Then there are the infamous, as well as
+the virtuous and the gallant, whose misdeeds are
+still freshly remembered upon these coasts or in
+their fertile valleys. The sinister Tiberius, the half-crazy
+and wholly vicious Caligula, many a king and
+queen of evil repute that ruled Naples, the vile Pier-Luigi
+Farnese, the adventurer Joachim Murat, all
+have left the marks of their personality upon the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page6">[pg 6]</span><a name="Pg006" id="Pg006" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>coveted shores of the Neapolitan Riviera. From
+the days of the Sibyl and of the Trojan hero to
+the stirring times of Garibaldi and of King Bomba,
+which were but of yesterday, Naples and its environs
+have played a prominent part in the annals and
+development of the civilised western world; Roman
+emperors, Pagan statesmen and poets, Norman, French
+and Spanish princes, popes, saints and theologians,
+merchants and scientists of the Middle Ages, writers
+of the Renaissance and heroes of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Risorgimento</span></span>,
+all have combined to shed a halo of historical romance
+upon Naples and its Riviera, where there is scarcely
+a sea-girt town or a crumbling fortress that is not
+redolent of the memory of some personage whose
+name is inscribed on the roll of European history.
+It seems but right, therefore, that many works should
+have been written concerning this favoured corner of
+Italy, so replete with natural charm and with historical
+interest; and in truth multitudes of books, large and
+small, witty and dull, erudite and empty, light and
+heavy, prosaic and rhapsodical, have poured forth
+from the prolific pens of generations of authors. We
+feel sincerely the need of an apology for making a
+fresh addition to the ever-increasing pile of Neapolitan
+literature, and we can only urge in extenuation of
+our crime of authorship that the same scene appeals
+in varied ways to different persons, and that every
+fresh description is apt to shed additional light upon
+old familiar subjects. In the following pages we
+make no profession to act the part of a guide to
+the neighbourhood of Naples, for are there not the
+carefully prepared pages of Murray and Baedeker, to
+say nothing of the works of such writers as Augustus
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page7">[pg 7]</span><a name="Pg007" id="Pg007" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Hare, to lead the wanderer into every church and
+castle, to show him every nook in valley and mountain,
+and to supply him thoroughly with accurate dates
+and facts? No, our treatment of this theme may
+be deemed a poor one, but it has at least the merit
+and the courage of following its own peculiar lines.
+For we pursue our own course, and we touch lightly
+here and omit there; we run to dissertation in this
+place, we glide by silently in another. We take our
+own views of people and places, and give them for
+what they are worth to our readers to approve or to
+condemn, as they think fit. We offer a medley of
+history and of imagination, of biography and of private
+comment; and we crave indulgence for our short-comings
+by observing that any deficiencies in these
+pages can easily be remedied by application to the
+abundant literature upon Naples and its surrounding
+districts which every good library is presumed to
+contain.
+</p>
+
+</div><hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page8">[pg 8]</span><a name="Pg008" id="Pg008" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc9" id="toc9"></a><a name="pdf10" id="pdf10"></a>
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">CHAPTER II</span></h2>
+
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.40em; margin-top: 2.40em"><span style="font-size: 120%">THE VESUVIAN SHORE AND MONTE SANT’ ANGELO</span></h2>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+That little stream the Sebeto, which is indeed, as
+the courtly Metastasio observes, <span class="tei tei-q">“scanty in depth
+of water though overflowing with honour,”</span> may be considered
+as the boundary line that divides the city of
+Naples from its eastern environs, although it is evident
+that the whole stretch of coast from Posilipo to
+Torre del Greco is covered with an unbroken line of
+houses. Past the highly cultivated <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Paduli</span></span>, the chief
+market-gardens on this side of the city, with the town
+of La Barra on the fertile slopes to our left, we pass
+by way of San Giovanni a Teduccio to Portici, once
+a favourite resort of royalty. Here the dilettante
+Charles III., first Bourbon King of Naples, built a
+palace and laid out gardens in the days of patches
+and powder, constructing a royal pleasaunce that was
+destined to become the chief residence of the temporary
+supplanter of his own family, Joachim Murat, the
+citizen king of Naples and brother-in-law of the great
+Napoleon. Villa and gardens still remain, but
+monarchs have ceased to visit Portici since the days
+of Bomba, and the old royal demesne has been turned
+into an agricultural college. Adjoining and practically
+forming part of Portici is the town of Resina, which
+preserves almost intact the old classical name of Retina
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page9">[pg 9]</span><a name="Pg009" id="Pg009" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>that it bore in the distant days when it served as the
+port of Herculaneum. Here then in the mean streets
+of Resina we find ourselves standing above, though
+certainly not upon, historic ground, for the temples and
+villas, the theatres and private houses of the famous
+buried city lie far below the surface trodden by our
+feet. To visit Herculaneum it is necessary for us to
+descend some seventy to a hundred feet into the
+depths of the earth, passing more than one layer of
+ancient lava, for Resina and Portici themselves are but
+modern editions of former towns that have been
+engulfed in the course of ages. If the stranger can
+derive any solid satisfaction from the descent by a
+gloomy underground passage and from fleeting glimpses
+of ancient walls and dwellings seen through a forest of
+wooden baulks, which serve to support the spaces
+excavated, he must indeed be an enthusiast. But
+most people, perhaps all sensible people, will be content
+to take the undoubted interest of Herculaneum
+on trust, probably agreeing (at any rate after their
+visit) that the inspection of this subterranean city is
+not worth the candle, by whose flickering beams alone
+can objects be distinguished in the oppressive darkness.
+Personally we strongly hold to the expressed opinion
+of Alexandre Dumas, who declared that even the most
+hardened antiquary could not desire more than one
+hour’s contemplation of this hidden mass of shapeless
+wreckage. <span class="tei tei-q">“Herculaneum,”</span> writes that genial Frenchman,
+<span class="tei tei-q">“but wearies our curiosity instead of exciting it.
+We descend into the excavated city as into a mine by
+a species of shaft; then come corridors beneath the
+earth which can only be entered by the light of tapers;
+and these smoke-grimed passages allow us from time
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page10">[pg 10]</span><a name="Pg010" id="Pg010" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>to time to obtain a momentary glimpse of the angle of
+a house, the colonnade of some temple, the steps of a
+theatre. Everything is fragmentary, mutilated, dingy,
+uncertain, confused, and therefore unsatisfactory. Well,
+at the end of an hour spent in wandering amongst
+these abysmal recesses, the most hardened archæologist,
+the most dry-as-dust antiquary, the most inquisitive
+of tourists begins to experience only one feeling—an
+intense desire to ascend to the light of day and to
+breathe once more the fresh air of the upper world.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Nevertheless, it was from these dismal caverns, black
+as Erebus, that some of the choicest marbles and
+bronzes that now adorn the Museum at Naples were
+originally extracted. From a villa at Herculaneum
+also was taken the famous collection of 3000 rolls of
+papyrus, chiefly filled with the writings of the Epicurean
+philosopher Philodemus, perhaps the greatest <span class="tei tei-q">“find”</span>
+of ancient literature that has yet been made, although
+the contents of this damaged library, deciphered with
+equal toil and ingenuity, have not proved to be of the
+value originally set upon them by expectant scholars.
+But much of the city itself has yet hardly been touched
+since the days when it was destroyed in the reign of
+Titus, so that far below the squalid lanes of Portici
+and Resina there must still exist acres upon acres of
+undisturbed buildings, public and private, many of
+them perhaps filled with priceless works of Greek and
+Roman art, for Herculaneum, unlike Pompeii, was
+never tampered with by the ancients themselves, for
+the coating of volcanic mud, which filled the whole
+area of the city, made impracticable a systematic
+searching of its ruins by the despoiled citizens. Then,
+as if nature had not already buried the city sufficiently
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page11">[pg 11]</span><a name="Pg011" id="Pg011" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>deep, subsequent eruptions of Vesuvius have superimposed
+additional layers of lava, whilst confiding
+human beings have in their turn built habitations upon
+the volcanic crust.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-tb"> </div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+We all know the story, perhaps mythical, of the
+discovery of Herculaneum at the beginning of the
+eighteenth century by the accidental sinking of a well
+upon its long-forgotten site and of the subsequent
+excavations made by the Prince d’Elbœuf. These so-called
+explorations were, however, made in the most
+greedy and destructive spirit, for the prince’s sole
+object was to obtain antique works of art for his
+private collection, not to make intelligent enquiries
+about the dead and buried city lying beneath his
+estate. Ignorant workmen were despatched to hew
+and hack wholesale in the mirky depths in order to
+discover statuary and paintings, and since there was
+no receptacle at hand to contain the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">débris</span></span>, they took
+the simple course of filling in each hollow made with
+the masses of rubbish already excavated. Later in the
+same century the Bourbon king was induced by
+Neapolitan savants to take some interest in the work,
+but, strange to relate, the superintendent appointed, a
+certain Spanish officer named Alcubier, was so ignorant
+and careless that half the objects found under his
+supervision were broken or lost before they reached
+Naples; this ignoramus, it was said, even went so far
+as to order whole architraves to be smashed up and
+their bronze lettering to be picked out before making
+a copy of the original inscription! Under these
+circumstances the marvel is that anything of beauty
+or value should have survived at all, for this selfish
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page12">[pg 12]</span><a name="Pg012" id="Pg012" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>plundering of Herculaneum, in strong contrast with
+the reverent treatment meted out to Pompeii, may be
+considered one of the greatest pieces of vandalism
+ever perpetrated. In spite of this wholesale destruction,
+however, there must remain untouched, as we
+have said, a vast quantity of objects, beautiful, useful
+or curious, yet it is extremely doubtful if we shall live
+to see any serious and intelligent effort made to bring
+these hidden treasures forth to the light of day.
+The expense of working this buried hoard would
+be enormous in any case, whilst the existence of the
+houses of Resina and Portici overhead necessitates
+special measures of precaution on the part of the
+excavators. The only method of examining Herculaneum
+properly would be in fact to treat the buried
+site like an immense mine by the construction of
+regular galleries and shafts for the entrance of skilled
+workmen, and to remove the rubbish displaced to the
+outer air. Perhaps some multi-millionaire might be
+found ready to undertake so arduous, yet so fascinating
+a task, though we fear that the Italian Government,
+which has always shown itself as tenacious of its
+subterranean wealth of antiquity as it appears languid
+in the work of quarrying it, would indignantly refuse
+to accede to any such offer. As regards the ancient
+city of Hercules, therefore, we must perforce remain
+content to inspect the magnificent bronzes and the
+other objects of interest that are to be found in the
+Museum of Naples, for we are not likely to see any
+further researches just at present, more’s the pity,
+since there is every reason to suppose that a thorough
+investigation conducted regardless of cost would yield up
+to the world the most marvellous and valuable results.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page13">[pg 13]</span><a name="Pg013" id="Pg013" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Some two miles of dusty suburb lie between Resina
+and Torre del Greco, which has been destroyed time
+after time by the lava streams descending from <span class="tei tei-q">“that
+peak of Hell rising out of Paradise,”</span> as Goethe once
+named the burning mountain overhead. Nevertheless,
+the Torrese continue to sit patiently at the feet of
+the fire-spouting monster, trembling when he is angry,
+pleased when he is quiescent, and ready to abandon
+meekly their homes when he renders them insupportable
+by his furious outbursts. Yet these people never
+fail to return and risk the ever-present chances of
+death and destruction. And little can we blame
+them for their fatalism, when we gaze upon the
+glorious views that reveal themselves at this spot,
+whence Naples rising proudly from the sea, the rocky
+islands of Ischia and Capri, the aerial heights of
+Monte Sant’ Angelo and all the features of the placid
+bay are seen spread around us in a panorama of
+unsurpassed loveliness. Beneath lava rocks, black
+and sinister, that contrast strangely in their sombre
+hues with the brilliant tints of sea and sky, lie little
+beaches of glittering gravel that would afford delightful
+retreats for meditation, were it not for the dozens
+of half-naked brown-skinned imps, children of the
+fisher-folk of Torre del Greco, who wallow in the warm
+sand or rush with joyful screams into the tepid surf.
+The population must have increased not a little since
+those days, nearly a century ago, when the unhappy
+Shelley could find peace and solitude in his darkest
+hours of unrest upon these shores, where it would be
+well-nigh impossible for a twentieth-century poet to
+espy a retreat for soothing his soul in verse. Yet
+somehow, during the drowsy noontide rest when the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page14">[pg 14]</span><a name="Pg014" id="Pg014" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>active life of the South ceases, if only for an hour or
+so, it is still possible to catch the spirit in which that
+melancholy wanderer indited one of his most exquisite
+lyrics:—sunshine, clear sky, murmuring seas, the
+fragrance of the Italian spring, all are present to our
+reverie; and how true and perfect a picture has the
+poet-artist drawn for us of this beautiful Vesuvian
+shore!
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The sun is warm, the sky is clear,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 2.70em"><span style="font-size: 90%">The waves are dancing fast and bright,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Blue isles and snowy mountains wear</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 2.70em"><span style="font-size: 90%">The purple noon’s transparent light:</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The breath of the moist earth is light</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 2.70em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Around its unexpanded buds;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Like many a voice of one delight,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 2.70em"><span style="font-size: 90%">The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The City’s voice itself is soft, like Solitude’s.</span></div>
+</div>
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">I see the Deep’s untrampled floor</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 2.70em"><span style="font-size: 90%">With green and purple seaweeds strown;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">I see the waves upon the shore,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 2.70em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">I sit upon the sands alone;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 2.70em"><span style="font-size: 90%">The lightning of the noontide ocean</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Is flashing round me, and a tone</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 2.70em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Arises from its measured motion,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion?</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But it must be admitted that the seashore by
+Torre del Greco does not often lend itself as a
+suitable spot for romantic or solitary communings
+with nature; it is a busy place where the struggle
+for life is keen and practical enough, and its inhabitants
+have little time or inclination to bestow on the
+pursuit of poetry. As in all the towns of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Terra
+di Lavoro</span></span>, as this collection of human ant-hills on
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page15">[pg 15]</span><a name="Pg015" id="Pg015" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the eastern side of Naples is sometimes designated,
+the old command given to the first parents of mankind—<span class="tei tei-q">“by
+the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat
+bread”</span>—is scrupulously observed in Torre del Greco.
+It is little enough, however, that these frugal people
+demand, for a hunk of coarse bread, tempered with a
+handful of beans or an orange in winter or with a
+slice of luscious pink water-melon or a few figs in
+summer, is thought to constitute a full meal in this
+climate; nor are these simple viands washed down by
+anything more potent than a draught of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mezzo-vino</span></span>,
+the weak sour wine of the country. A dish of
+maccaroni or a plateful of kid or veal garnished with
+vegetables is a treat to be reserved for a marriage or
+some great Church festival, whilst a chicken is regarded
+as a luxury in which only <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">gran’ signori</span></span> of
+boundless wealth can afford to indulge. Amongst the
+many classes of toilers with which populous Torre del
+Greco abounds, that of the coral-fishers is perhaps the
+most interesting. There is pure romance in the very
+notion of hunting for the beautiful coloured substance
+lying hidden in the crystalline depths of the Mediterranean,
+and its quest is not a little suggestive of
+azure caverns beneath the waves, peopled by soft-eyed
+mermaids and strange iridescent fishes. As a matter
+of fact, it would be difficult to name a harder occupation
+or a more dismal monotonous existence than that
+of the coral-fishers, many hundreds of whom leave
+this little port every spring in order to spend the
+summer months on the coasts of Tripoli, Sardinia, or
+Sicily. The men employed, who work under contract
+during some six months of unending drudgery, are by
+no means all natives of Torre del Greco, but are
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page16">[pg 16]</span><a name="Pg016" id="Pg016" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>collected from various places of the neighbourhood,
+not a few of them being thrifty youths from Capri,
+who are eager to amass as quickly as possible the
+lump sum of money requisite to permit of marriage.
+It is true that the amount actually paid by the
+owners of the coral fleet sounds proportionately large,
+yet it is in reality poor enough recompense when
+measured by the ceaseless toil, the burning heat and
+the wretched food, which the venture entails. The
+lot of the coral-fisher has however much improved of
+late years, partly by measures of government which
+now compel the contractors to treat their servants
+more humanely, and partly by the fact that the
+practice of emigration in Southern Italy has reduced
+the numbers of applicants for the coral-fishing business
+and has thereby, indirectly at least, raised wages and
+bettered the old conditions of service. A truly pitiable
+account is given of these poor creatures some thirty
+years ago by an English writer, whose knowledge of
+the Neapolitan people and character remains probably
+unsurpassed; and it is some satisfaction to reflect that
+even in Mr Stamer’s day the bad old oppressive system
+had already been somewhat tempered for the benefit
+of these white slaves, who for nearly half the round of
+the year were worse treated than King Bomba’s unhappy
+victims in the pestilent prisons of Naples and
+Gaeta.
+</p><a name="illus01" id="illus01" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus01th.jpg" width="287" height="400" alt="Illustration: A CAPRIOTE FISHERMAN’S WIFE" title="A CAPRIOTE FISHERMAN’S WIFE" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus01.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">A CAPRIOTE FISHERMAN’S WIFE</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Badly paid, badly fed, and hard worked is the poor
+coral-fisher. Compared with his, the life of a galley-slave
+is one of sybaritical indolence. His treatment
+was, until very recently, not one whit better than that
+of the poor oppressed negro as he existed in the vivid
+imagination of Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe;
+im<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page17">[pg 17]</span><a name="Pg017" id="Pg017" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>measurably worse than that of the real Simon Pure.
+The thirty ducats for which he sold his seven months’
+services once paid, he was just as much a slave as
+Uncle Tom of pious memory, harder worked, more
+brutally handled. His <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">padrone</span></span> was a sea-monster,
+alongside of whom Mr Legree would have seemed a
+paragon of Quaker-like gentleness and amiability.
+His word was law and a rope’s end well laid on his
+sole reply to any remonstrance on the part of his
+bondsmen. For six days out of the seven he kept
+them working incessantly, not unfrequently on the
+seventh into the bargain, if the weather was favourable;
+and that they might be strong, hearty and able to
+haul away, their food consisted of dry biscuits; a dish
+of maccaroni with just sufficient oil to make the sign
+of the cross being served out for the Sunday’s dinner.”</span><a id="noteref_1" name="noteref_1" href="#note_1"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">1</span></span></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In those <span class="tei tei-q">“good old days,”</span> not so very far distant,
+the dredging nets were coarse and weighty, and the
+capstan of the clumsiest and most primitive description,
+so that the coral-seeking serfs under contract were
+worked like bullocks until they were often wont to
+fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion as they hauled
+away mechanically. We can imagine then with what
+raptures of joy these ill-treated mortals must have
+hailed the advent of October, the month that terminated
+their long spell of suffering and semi-starvation,
+and with what eagerness they must have returned
+homewards, the more industrious to perform odd jobs
+during the winter season on farms or in factories; the
+lazier to enjoy a well-earned holiday of loafing on the
+quay or in the piazza. And although times have
+changed for the better in the eyes of the coral-fisher,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page18">[pg 18]</span><a name="Pg018" id="Pg018" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>his lot still remains hard enough, even in the present
+days of grace; whilst any employment that saps the
+workman’s strength during the hot summer months
+and leaves him idle or unemployed in winter time
+cannot well be described as a desirable trade. Yet
+the temptation to obtain a considerable sum of money
+in advance, as is the case in this particular industry,
+often proves overwhelming to the young man of the
+Torres or of Castellamare, imprudently married before
+he is out of his teens and with an ever-increasing
+family. It is so easy to accept the proffered gold,
+which will keep wife and babies in comparative comfort
+throughout the long hot summer; unskilled labour
+is paid so lightly on these teeming shores of the Terra
+di Lavoro; saddled already with children he cannot
+make up his feeble mind to emigrate; in short, to go
+a-coralling is his sole chance, if he wishes to keep his
+home together and to stave off charity or starvation
+from his young wife and family.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Beyond Torre del Greco we seem to escape to
+a certain extent from the enveloping network of
+human dwellings, so that we are at last enabled
+to gain some idea of the natural features of the
+country. The oriental character of the landscape,
+which marks more or less distinctly the whole of
+the Neapolitan coast-line, will at once be noticed in
+the domed farm buildings, not unlike Mahommedan
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">koubbas</span></span>, washed a glistening white, that stand out
+sharply against the lugubrious tints of the lava beds.
+Above us, crowning a bosky hillock that juts forth
+from the mountain flank, stands one of the many
+convents of the monks of Camaldoli, whose houses are
+scattered throughout the breadth of Southern Italy.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page19">[pg 19]</span><a name="Pg019" id="Pg019" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>The position of their Vesuvian settlement is certainly
+unique, for the rising ground on which it is perched
+appears like some verdant oasis amid the arid fields
+of sable lava. Secure in its commanding site, the
+monastery has many a time been completely surrounded
+by burning streams, which have invariably
+left the building and its woody demesne unscathed.
+More than once have the good brethren, who wear the
+white robe of St Romualdo of Ravenna, looked down
+from their convent walls upon the work of destruction
+below, and have watched the waves of liquid fire surging
+angrily but uselessly round the rocky base of their
+retreat. Hard manual labour, prayer, solitude and
+contemplation: these are the chief duties enjoined by
+the famous Tuscan order, and surely no more suitable
+place for carrying out such precepts could have been
+chosen by the pious founder of this Vesuvian convent.
+For what scenes on earth could be deemed more
+beautiful to contemplate, we wonder, than the wide
+stretches of heaven and ocean, of fertile plain and of
+rugged mountain, that are ever before the eyes of
+the brethren; or more instructive than the constant
+spectacle of disappointed human ambition and energy,
+which is afforded by the barren lava beds and the
+ruined cities close at hand!
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Descending from the slopes of Camaldoli, we cross
+a tract of country wherein black lava alternates with
+patches of rich cultivation and of thriving vineyards,
+and gaining the high road we soon reach Torre
+Annunziata. Here it is evident that the manufacture
+of maccaroni forms the chief industry of its population,
+for on all sides are to be seen the frames filled with
+the golden coloured strings of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pasta</span></span> that have been
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page20">[pg 20]</span><a name="Pg020" id="Pg020" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>hung up to dry in the sunshine. Every flat roof
+in the place, moreover, is covered with smooth concrete
+and protected by a low parapet for the spreading of
+the grain, and on the beach are laid huge cloths
+of coarse brown material that are heaped with masses
+of the crude corn, whilst men with their naked feet
+from time to time turn the grain so as to dry the
+whole bulk. Torre Annunziata and its inland neighbour,
+Gragnano, are in fact the two chief local scenes
+of this industry with which the Bay of Naples has
+always been so closely associated, and it is here that
+we can best make ourselves acquainted with the
+process of manufacturing maccaroni. By following
+any one of the tall brown-skinned fellows, stripped to
+the waist and bare-legged, who have been breathing
+the fresh air of the street for a few moments, we
+quickly arrive at the entrance of one of the many
+small factories with which the town abounds. In spite
+of open doors and windows its atmosphere feels hot
+and stifling, for it is impregnated with tiny particles
+of flour dust, which too often, alas! are apt to affect
+permanently the lungs of the workmen. The dough
+of maccaroni is obtained by mixing pure wheaten
+flour with semolina in certain proportions, only water
+being used for the purpose, whilst the task of kneading
+is carried out in primitive fashion by means of a lever
+worked continuously by two or more men. When the
+dough has at length arrived at the required consistency
+after some hours of steady kneading, it is placed in a
+large perforated copper cylinder, each hole having
+a central pin at the bottom and a valve on top. A
+powerful screw is then employed to press down upon
+the dough, which is thus squeezed out of the
+imprison<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page021">[pg 021]</span><a name="Pg021" id="Pg021" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ing cylinder through the holes in the serpentine shape
+that is so familiar to us. On reaching a certain length
+these pipes, issuing from the holes, are twisted off and
+are then removed for drying to the frames in the open
+air. Maccaroni has, of course, many varieties of form
+and quality, from the thin fluffy vermicelli, known
+under the poetical name of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Capilli degli Angeli</span></span>, to
+the great thick pipe-stem-like article of ordinary
+commerce. There are endless means of cooking and
+dressing this, the national dish of Italy, but perhaps
+the most popular of all is <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">alla Napolitana</span></span>, wherein
+it is served with tomato sauce, to which a sprinkling
+of grated Parmesan cheese is frequently added. A
+compound of eggs and maccaroni, sometimes known
+as a Neapolitan omelette, likewise makes an appetising
+dish, though it is one that is little known to foreigners.
+One circumstance is patent; the dismal so-called
+<span class="tei tei-q">“maccaroni pudding”</span> one meets with in England
+seems to have nothing in common with the delicately
+flavoured, sustaining dish that can be obtained for
+a few pence in any Southern restaurant.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Torre Annunziata has the reputation of being a
+dirty malodorous town, composed of shabby stone
+houses and full of quarrelsome people. Well, perhaps
+there is a scintilla of truth in the sweeping observation,
+yet if we can contrive to endure the smells and racket
+of the place for a brief space of time, there is much
+of human interest to be observed in the daily scenes
+of its crowded beach and its noisy streets. After all,
+no odours of the South can compare in all-pervading
+intensity with the blended aroma of fried fish and
+London fog that old Drury Lane can often produce;
+nor are the Torrese more dangerous to strangers or
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page22">[pg 22]</span><a name="Pg022" id="Pg022" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>more objectionable in their habits than the crowds of
+Lambeth or Seven Dials. In strength of lungs, it
+must be granted, the Italian easily surpasses the
+Londoner, for the Southern voice is positively alarming
+in its vigour and its far-reaching power. No one—man,
+woman or child—can apparently speak below
+a scream; even the most amiable or trivial of conversations
+seems to our unaccustomed ears to portend
+an imminent quarrel, to so high a pitch are the
+naturally harsh voices strained. Morning, noon and
+night the same hubbub of men shouting, of women
+screeching, and of children yelling continues for
+nobody minds noise in Italy, where people are
+troubled with no nerves of their own and consequently
+have no consideration for those of strangers. And
+why, therefore, should they suspend their native habits
+to please a handful of cavilling <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">forestieri</span></span>?
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A stroll through Torre Annunziata, although it
+possesses not a few drawbacks, can be made both
+amusing and instructive; we can even find something
+attractive in the quality of the local atmosphere, which
+suggests at one and the same time sunshine, garlic,
+incense, stale fish and wood smoke; it is the pungent
+but characteristic aroma of the South, filled <span class="tei tei-q">“with
+spicy odours Time can never mar.”</span> And what truly
+charming pictures do the family groups present in
+the wide archways giving on the untidy courts within,
+full of sun and shadow and gay with bright-coloured
+garments swaying in the wind! The ebon-haired
+young mother with teeth like pearls and with warm-tinted
+cheeks sits fondling the last helpless little
+addition to her growing family, whilst toddlers of any
+age from two to seven, unkempt but bright-eyed and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page23">[pg 23]</span><a name="Pg023" id="Pg023" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>engaging, play around the door-step, watched over by
+their grandmother, or may be their great-grandam,
+who with her wizened face enfolded in her yellow
+kerchief, her skinny neck, and her distaff in the bony
+fingers, looks as if she had stepped out of some
+Renaissance painting of the Three Fates in a Florentine
+gallery. Crimson carnations in earthenware pots stand
+on the steps of the outside staircase, giving a touch of
+refinement to the squalid home, and from the balcony
+overhead the glossy-black, yellow-billed <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">passer solitario</span></span>,
+the favourite cage-bird of the Neapolitan poor, chirrups
+with apparent cheerfulness in his wicker-work prison.
+Behind, in the dim shadows of the large room, which
+serves as sole habitation, we can espy the inevitable
+household altar with the oil lamp glimmering before
+the little crude-coloured print of the Virgin and Child,
+and its usual accessory, the piece of palm or olive
+that was blessed by the priest last Palm Sunday;
+poor and mean though the chamber be, its bed linen
+and simple appointments are more cleanly than might
+perhaps be inferred from the appearance of the family
+itself. In a shady corner close by, three or four young
+labourers at their mid-day rest have finished their
+frugal repast of bread and beans, and are now playing
+eagerly the popular game of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">zecchinetto</span></span> with a frayed
+and grimy pack of cards. Wives or sweethearts
+watch with anxious faces from a respectful distance,
+for it is not meet to disturb the lords of creation when
+they happen to be engaged in a game of chance.
+What possibilities of farce and tragedy can be drawn
+from so simple, so common a scene upon these shores,
+where human life is less artificially conducted than
+elsewhere in Europe, and where human passions are
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page24">[pg 24]</span><a name="Pg024" id="Pg024" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>kept under less restraint? Terrible are the tales of
+jealousy and revenge, of deliberate treachery and of
+uncontrolled violence, which are related of these quick-tempered
+grown-up children of the South, who seem
+to love and hate with the blind intensity of untutored
+savages.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Lo ’nnamorato’ mmio sse chiammo Peppo,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Lo capo jocatore de le carte;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Ss’ ha jocato ’sto core a zecchinetto,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Dice ca mo’ lo venne, e mo’ lo parte.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Che n’agg’ io a fare lo caro de carte?</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Vogho lo core che tinite ’m pietto!</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+    
+    <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">(</span><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">That lover of mine is called Handsome Beppo,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The best player of cards all around this way;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">He’s been playing on Hearts at </span><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">zecchinetto</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">And says now they turn up, now are sorted away.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">What matters the heart in the card-pack to me?</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The heart in his bosom’s the heart for me!</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">)</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Here lies the sleeping fisherman, worn out probably
+with hours of hauling at the heavy nets, who is snatching
+a chance hour of repose, prone upon his chest with
+face buried in his crossed arms. Little he seems to
+reck of the damp of the soil or the heat of the sun,
+nor can a noisy game of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mora</span></span> played by a couple of
+his companions beside him disturb his deep slumber.
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Mora</span></span> has ever been the classic game of the South,
+and indeed, there is abundant evidence to show that
+it was played by the ancestors of these dwellers in
+Magna Graecia hundreds of years before Pompeii was
+overthrown. The game, which requires nothing but
+the human fingers, bears no little resemblance to our
+own humble pastime of <span class="tei tei-q">“Up Jenkin!”</span> which may
+almost be described as a species of drawing-room <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mora</span></span>;
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page25">[pg 25]</span><a name="Pg025" id="Pg025" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>perhaps some Italian traveller in a past age may
+actually have introduced this form of the southern
+diversion into prosaic England. The two players, face
+to face and craning forward with outstretched necks,
+simultaneously extend their right hands with one or
+more fingers pointing upward, the aim of each man
+being to guess the exact number, from two to ten,
+jointly displayed by both right hands. If one of them
+hit upon the correct figure, then he gains one point
+towards the stakes, which are usually made in <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">centesimi</span></span>
+rather than in <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">soldi</span></span>. How rapidly do the lean supple
+brown fingers flash backwards and forwards, and with
+what gusto do the two frenzied combatants yell out
+their numbers! <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Mora</span></span> has been a favourite recreation
+with these people almost from their cradles, and he
+would be a bold man indeed who would venture to
+challenge a Torrese at this game, for the native’s skill
+and experience are almost bound to tell eventually in
+his favour, and the odds are <span class="tei tei-q">“Lombard Street to a
+China orange”</span> against the outside player. There are
+certain maxims too with regard to the game which
+are closely observed by those who play it, as well as
+peculiar expressions, such as <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tutte</span></span> to denote that all
+ten fingers are being shown, or <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">chiarella</span></span> for all but
+one. Five points usually make the game, and these
+are commonly marked by holding up one or more
+fingers of the disengaged left hand.—These are a few
+of the many sights to be witnessed by those who can
+afford to endure the pestering attentions of small boys,
+and the uncomplimentary staring of the adult population
+in such places as the Torres or Castellamare; and
+such as wish to make themselves acquainted with the
+details of southern life and manners cannot do better
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page26">[pg 26]</span><a name="Pg026" id="Pg026" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>than pass an idle hour in the fishmarket or the piazza
+of these little industrial towns of the Vesuvian shore.
+For to regard Southern Italy from the majestic isolation
+of a railway compartment or a hired carriage cannot
+possibly give the traveller the smallest insight into the
+ordinary phases of local life; for he is ever looking,
+as it were, into a picture from which all trace of colour
+has vanished.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is but a short quarter of an hour by train from
+Torre Annunziata to Castellamare di Stabia, the ill-fated
+Stabiae of the Romans, which shared the evil lot
+of Pompeii and Herculaneum. On our right we have
+the sea, with the castle-topped islet of Revigliano,
+whilst on looking to the left we can survey the fertile
+valley of the Sarno, and the shapeless mounds which
+hide that precious goal of every traveller to these
+shores, the buried city of Pompeii. Everywhere thrives
+sub-tropical vegetation:—cactus and aloe draped in
+wreaths of smilax; tall straggling masses of scarlet
+geranium that cling for protection to the Indian fig,
+and blossom in security amid their spiky but safe
+retreats; shrubs of fragrant yellow genista; clumps of
+purple-leaved <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">ricini</span></span>, as the Italians name the castor-oil
+plant. If it were summer time, the daturas would be
+covered with their great white floral trumpets, and
+every oleander bush would be one blaze of the coarse
+carmine blossoms that are here called <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Mazza di San
+Giuseppe</span></span>, or St Joseph’s nosegay, and a very gaudy
+rank bouquet they make. But in spring-time the
+oleander can but display long greyish leaves and pods
+of snowy fluff, which is blown hither and thither like
+thistle-down on the air; and it is only in flaming
+summer that these regions are brightened by St
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page27">[pg 27]</span><a name="Pg027" id="Pg027" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Joseph’s flower, or by the still more gorgeous masses of
+the mesembryanthemum, which clambers on all sides
+over the lava rock and hangs in crimson festoons
+from tufa cliffs, making impossibly splendid splashes of
+colour in the landscape.
+</p>
+    <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">* * * * * * *</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+So many writers have expatiated upon the sordid
+ugliness of Castellamare and upon the beauty of the
+wooded slopes above the town, that a further description
+of the place may well be dispensed with.
+Uninteresting, however, as this industrial town
+appears, it boasts a long historical record, to which
+its crumbling medieval castle bears witness. The
+great Emperor Frederick the Second, the scholar-pope
+Pius the Second, and all the monarchs of the Angevin,
+Aragonese and Bourbon dynasties have been associated
+with this <span class="tei tei-q">“castle by the sea.”</span> The whole
+district was once the property of that human monster
+Pier-Luigi Farnese, duke of Parma, heir of Pope
+Paul the Third, of whose demoniacal cruelty and
+treachery the racy pages of Cellini’s Memoirs give
+so vivid an account, and whose repulsive face has
+grown familiar to us from Titian’s famous portraits
+in the gallery of Naples. It was the evil Pier-Luigi’s
+descendant and heiress-general of the family, Elizabeth
+Farnese, Queen of Spain, who conveyed the beautiful
+villa and woods of Quisisana to the Bourbon kings,
+and here the Neapolitan royal family for several
+generations sought health (as the name of the place
+implies) and repose upon the breezy heights that lie
+so conveniently near to the great city in full view to
+the west. Nowadays the old royal villa, deserted
+by crowned heads since Ferdinand’s days and fallen
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page28">[pg 28]</span><a name="Pg028" id="Pg028" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>from its high estate to its present use of a hotel and
+pension, forms with its park the chief attraction of
+Castellamare, where English travellers are wont to
+congregate in winter, and Neapolitan and Greek
+seekers of pleasure or drinkers of medicinal waters
+resort in the hot summer months. The Southerners
+who come here for their <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">villeggiatura</span></span> certainly enjoy
+a better time than the winter visitors, for the bulky
+form of Monte Sant’ Angelo intercepts much of the
+sunshine, thereby rendering the place damp and
+chilly in the cold season of the year. Nominally it
+is the mineral springs that attract the Neapolitan
+folk, wherein they have a fine choice of health-giving
+beverages, varying from the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">acqua ferrata</span></span>, a mild
+chalybeate that is found useful as a tonic, to the
+powerful <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">acqua del Muraglione</span></span>, that is warranted to
+reduce the stoutest mortal to a mere shadow of his
+former self in a trice. But though the waters may
+be occasionally sipped of a morning and wry faces
+made, it is in reality the warm sea-bathing on the
+shore, where people spend hours pickling in tepid
+salt water, and also the cool rides or walks amongst
+the shady alleys of sweet chestnut and ilex woods of
+Quisisana and Monte Coppola, which draw hither in
+summer the elegant world of Naples, and even of
+Athens, to visit Castellamare. The leafy groves on
+the zephyr-swept hill sides, once sacred to the pleasures
+of Bourbon tyrants, now ring with peals of noisy
+laughter, with gallant compliments, and with the
+harsh shouting of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">ciucciari</span></span>, the leaders of the
+poor over-driven donkeys. Unhappy patient beasts!
+usually covered with raws and galls, that are urged
+forward at a gallop by the remorseless stick, or even
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page29">[pg 29]</span><a name="Pg029" id="Pg029" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>by the goad, for the Neapolitan donkey-boy is
+absolutely callous to the feelings of his animal. Not
+that he is cruel out of sheer cussedness, for cruelty’s
+sake, for he can be really kind to his dog or his cat;
+but the beast of burden, the helpless uncomplaining
+servant of man, suffers terribly at his hands. It is
+useless to remonstrate or argue with the young
+ruffian, who at our sharp reprimand will merely open
+wide his big black eyes and stare in genuine amazement.
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Non sono Cristiani</span></span>—they have no souls, and
+the beasts are their property and not yours; what
+does it matter then to you how they are treated,
+provided they carry you properly? That is the sum
+total of the donkey-boy’s argument, and he has high
+ecclesiastical authority to back up his private theory,
+if he had the wit to enter into a discussion with us
+on the subject. Almost equally hopeless is it to
+point to the simple fact that a well-groomed, well-treated
+animal lasts longer than a half-starved, mutilated
+scare-crow. <span class="tei tei-q">“How old is your horse?”</span> we once
+asked a driver in the south. <span class="tei tei-q">“He is very old indeed,
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">eccelenza</span></span>,”</span> was the reply; <span class="tei tei-q">“he must be nearly twelve!”</span>
+On being informed that horses often worked well up
+to twenty years old and over in England, he let us
+infer, quite politely, that he thought we were romancing.
+Tenderness towards the dumb creation is a
+common, not to say a prevailing characteristic of
+the Anglo-Saxon race, and it must be confessed
+that the thoughtless and horrible cruelty towards
+animals witnessed on all sides in the Neapolitan
+Riviera amounts to a serious drawback to the full
+enjoyment of its many beauties and amenities.
+Matters are improving a little of late, it is only fair
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page30">[pg 30]</span><a name="Pg030" id="Pg030" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>to add. There is an Italian Society for the Prevention
+of Cruelty to Animals, and its officials have done
+some good in the streets of Naples itself, but naturally
+its new ideas have not yet penetrated far into the
+country districts.
+</p>
+<a name="illus02" id="illus02" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus02th.jpg" width="285" height="400" alt="Illustration: ROAD NEAR CASTELLAMARE" title="ROAD NEAR CASTELLAMARE" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus02.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">ROAD NEAR CASTELLAMARE</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+To the healthy and energetic the most delightful
+excursion that Castellamare can offer is the ascent to
+the summit of Monte Sant’ Angelo, that monarch of
+the Bay of Naples, whose lofty crest gleams with
+snowy streaks until the spring be well advanced. The
+lazy or the feeble can make use of one of the poor
+oppressed donkeys, but it is better to engage its
+ragged master, who without his four-footed drudge
+to whack and kick is a harmless enough being,
+to act as guide over the steep ill-defined pathway that
+leads ever upwards. As we slowly ascend through the
+sub-tropical region of fig and vine, of olive and
+carouba, we question our guide, who in spite of his
+bright eyes and well-knit frame seems about as
+intelligent a companion as the poor ass left behind in
+the stall, where he is enjoying, let us hope, an unexpected
+holiday. It is not easy to extract information
+from our native attendant, yet with a little judicious
+pressing we learn from him that the top of the mountain,
+which is our bourne, was once inhabited by evil
+spirits, until a holy hermit took up his abode on the
+peak, since when his sanctity has kept the place
+tolerably clear of witches and foul incubi. Wicked
+sprites, however, still haunt the spreading woods of
+beech and chestnut which we must presently traverse,
+and our guide (whose name is Vincenzo) admits to
+us that he would not care to venture there alone, even
+in broad daylight. There is, he tells us, warming up at
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page31">[pg 31]</span><a name="Pg031" id="Pg031" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>last to the subject, much gold hidden there, which the
+spirits guard so jealously that they are ready to tear
+in pieces any mortal who is clever enough to find and
+bold enough to rifle their secret hoards. Only a
+priest, on account of his sacred office, is reckoned safe
+from their iniquitous spells. <span class="tei tei-q">“But has not any one
+dared,”</span> we ask, <span class="tei tei-q">“to go in company with a holy man,
+to search for this hidden treasure?”</span> Well, yes, he
+had been told that men from Vico had once ventured
+up into the woods to search for the gold. With a
+little encouragement Vincenzo is finally prevailed upon
+to give us the whole story, which is evidently of somewhat
+recent date.
+</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Once upon a time there were four men, one of them
+being a priest, who lived in Vico, and one of these
+men had often been told by his father that in the
+forests near the top of Monte Sant’ Angelo there lay
+buried a chest full of gold—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">molto! molto!</span></span> The father
+of the man had been himself in his youth to search
+for the treasure, but find it he never could, for he
+would never take a priest with him to avert the spells
+of the evil spirits of the mountain sides, who kept the
+place hidden. So this time the man chose two out of his
+friends, the boldest and the trustiest he could fix upon,
+to accompany him, and at the same time he obtained
+the promise of a cousin, who was a priest, to assist in
+the undertaking. All four made their way up to the
+woods, and whilst the three men were digging and
+searching, the priest continued to read aloud the incantations
+out of a certain book he had brought with
+him for the purpose. In course of time the chest was
+discovered to the joy of all, and sure enough it was
+bulging with the desired gold pieces. They opened
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page32">[pg 32]</span><a name="Pg032" id="Pg032" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>it without difficulty, and the four friends divided its
+contents in equal shares. Scarcely had the work of
+division been carried out, than there came a loud voice
+issuing from the unknown, calling out the question:—<span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Che
+ferete con questo tesoro?</span></span>”</span> <span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Mangeremo, beveremo!</span></span>”</span>
+boldly replied one of the group, to whom this
+sudden accession of wealth offered dreams of unlimited
+platters of maccaroni and countless flasks of ruby-red
+Gragnano in the future. <span class="tei tei-q">“We shall eat, we shall drink,
+but we shall also make abundant alms!”</span> called out
+another—let us hope it was the priest!—but no sooner
+had the word <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">elemosina</span></span> (alms) been uttered than there
+was heard a most terrific rattling of chains, the gold
+pieces turned to dead leaves in the affrighted mortals’
+hands, and the four men took to their heels and fled
+in alarm down the mountain flank.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Vincenzo believes this tale implicitly, just as it was
+related to him, and he adds to combat our own incredulity
+that the priest and one of the men who took
+part in this strange adventure were still living and
+ready to confirm the story, but that of the remaining
+two, one was now dead, and the other had been deaf
+and dumb ever since the event. It seem a pity to criticise
+Vincenzo’s simple little narrative, which makes a
+pretty fairy-story and points a sound moral, as it stands.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+We enter the fresh scented woods that have now
+replaced in our climb the rich cultivated crops and
+terraced gardens, and here amidst the clumps of
+ancient chestnuts our guide points out to us the great
+snow-pits, the contents of which are used to cool the
+water sold by the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">acquaioli</span></span> during hot summer nights
+in the sultry streets of Naples. These pits are dug
+about fifty feet deep, and half as much across, being
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page33">[pg 33]</span><a name="Pg033" id="Pg033" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>conical in shape with a grating placed a short distance
+above the tapering base to allow the melted snow to
+drain off into the soil. The sides of each pit are first
+well-lined with straw and leafy branches, and the new-fallen
+snow shovelled in and forced into a solid mass
+by pressure from above, whilst on top is placed a
+sound thatched roof. As we wander through the
+silent woods we see patches of anemones, white and
+blue, lying upon the leaf-strewn ground, and beside
+them in many places are tufts of the pale starry primroses;
+coarse spurge, and lush masses of the hellebore
+with its large pale green flowers and dark leaves
+are common enough on all sides. From amongst the
+naked trees we emerge into the bare bleak stony
+stretches that lead to the summit, covered with the
+coarse but aromatic vegetation that clothes the dry
+limestone wastes of the south. How truly marvellous
+is the description of these wind-swept, weed-grown
+solitudes that Robert Browning presents to us in
+what is perhaps the most truly Italian in feeling of
+all his poems, <span class="tei tei-q">“The Englishman in Italy!”</span> For here
+with the rich imagination, worthy of some of Shelley’s
+finest flights, is mingled an accurate appreciation of
+Nature, of which Wordsworth might well be proud;
+for the Lake poet himself could not have improved
+upon this exquisite description of the various shrubs
+and plants of a limestone hill-top in Italy.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The wild path grew wilder each instant,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">And place was e’en grudged</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">’Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Like the loose broken teeth</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Of some monster which climbed there to die</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">From the ocean beneath—</span></div>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page34">[pg 34]</span><a name="Pg034" id="Pg034" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-weed</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">That clung to the path,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">And dark rosemary ever a-dying,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">That, spite the wind’s wrath,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">So loves the salt rock’s face to seaward,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">And lentisks as staunch</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">To the stone where they root and bear berries,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">And ... what shows a branch</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Of pale sea-green leaves.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Above our heads hovers a kite, performing graceful
+circles in the keen clear air and breaking the oppressive
+silence of the place with his shrill screams, for his
+mate must have her nest hidden in some cleft of yon
+grey towering cliff. A pair of crested hoopoes with
+brown plumage and ruddy breasts keep fluttering a
+little way before us, uttering from time to time their
+curious notes of alarm. Mercifully these handsome
+birds have escaped the fowler, who lays his snares
+even amongst the spirit-haunted crags of this desolate
+region. The hoopoe, though a very rare visitor to
+our northern shores, is fairly common on the Mediterranean
+coast, and he would be still more frequently
+encountered, were it not for his hereditary enemy,
+Man. There is a venerable legend concerning this
+interesting bird—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">bubbola</span></span>, the Italians call him—which
+relates how ages ago on the scorching plains
+of Palestine a number of hoopoes once followed King
+Solomon as he was riding, and in order to protect
+the great king from the fierce rays of the sun, they
+formed themselves into a living screen to shelter the
+royal head. Grateful for this welcome attention,
+Solomon Ben David at eventide sent for the king of
+the Hoopoes to ask him what reward he would like
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page35">[pg 35]</span><a name="Pg035" id="Pg035" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>to receive for this service, and the answer was
+promptly made that a crown of pure gold on the head
+would be acceptable. The Jewish monarch smiled
+grimly as he granted the request, whereupon immediately
+each bird found his poll decorated with a tuft
+of pure golden feathers, and mightily pleased with
+their new magnificence were the conceited hoopoes.
+But alas! the news was quickly spread abroad that
+there were to be seen strange birds with plumes of
+real gold, and the eternal lust of gain at once set men
+in quest of the hoopoes, whom they began to slay
+wholesale with stones, arrows, and traps in order to
+obtain the coveted precious metal they bore on their
+heads. In despair, the king of the hoopoes then flew
+to the monarch sitting on his ivory throne at Jerusalem,
+and begged him to change their golden crowns for
+crests of feathers. Solomon the Wise smilingly gave
+the order; at once lovely red and black feathers took
+the place of the golden plumes, and the slaughter of
+the hoopoes in Palestine forthwith ceased. And the
+story, argues the recorder of this lesson upon the
+folly of personal adornment, must of necessity be true,
+for it is certain that the hoopoes bear a crown of
+feathers upon their heads unto this day.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Slowly we toil up the last portion of the peak,
+until we reach the ruined chapel of St Michael upon
+its summit, which is still a resort of local pilgrims,
+although in these days of doubt and avarice, when
+<span class="tei tei-q">“sins are so many and saints so few,”</span> the statue of
+the Archangel since its removal from this spot no
+longer perspires with the sacred dew, which the priests
+used to collect with cotton wool on the first day of
+August and distribute to the peasants of the district.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page36">[pg 36]</span><a name="Pg036" id="Pg036" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Like the oil that was once wont to exude from the
+blessed relics of St Andrew in the Cathedral of
+Amalfi, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">non c’è più</span></span>; we may possess motor cars and
+radium, but we must contrive to exist without these
+precious exhibitions of the miraculous.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It would be sheer folly to attempt a full description
+of that glorious view, comprising the bays of Gaeta,
+Naples, and Salerno; of Vesuvius with his ascending
+smoky clouds; of the endless chain of the snow-tipped
+Abruzzi Mountains that bound the vision to the east;
+of the vast expanse of the Mediterranean, stretching
+in one unbroken sheet of turquoise to the west, varied
+by violet patches of reflected cloud, and studded by
+innumerable ships, from the vast liners to the tiny
+fishing craft with their glistening sails, like snow-white
+sea-swallows resting on the calm waters. Again we
+turn to Robert Browning, most human of poets and
+most kindly of philosophers, to find adequate expression
+for the thoughts we dare not, cannot utter.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Oh, heaven and the terrible crystal!</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">No rampart excludes</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Your eye from the life to be lived</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">In the blue solitudes.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement!</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Still moving with you;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">For ever some new head and breast of them</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Thrusts into view</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">To observe the intruder; you see it</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">If quickly you turn,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">And before they escape you surprise them.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">They grudge you should learn</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">How the soft plains they look on, lean over</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">And love (they pretend)</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">—Cower beneath them, the flat sea-pine crouches,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">The wild fruit-trees bend;</span></div>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page37">[pg 37]</span><a name="Pg037" id="Pg037" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">E’en the myrtle leaves curl, shrink and shut,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">All is silent and grave:</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">’Tis a sensual and timorous beauty.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">How fair! but a slave.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div><a name="illus03" id="illus03" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus03th.jpg" width="285" height="400" alt="Illustration: MONTE FAITO, CASTELLAMARE" title="MONTE FAITO, CASTELLAMARE" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus03.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">MONTE FAITO, CASTELLAMARE</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+We descend by the slopes of Monte Faito in the
+quiet of the evening, facing the distant headland of
+Posilipo and the sunset, where above the horizon we
+see collecting thick masses of dark purple cloud,
+which augur a stormy morrow. Above us the peak
+of the Archangel is already wreathed in garlands of
+white mist, a sure sign of coming tempest, and it is
+amid a lurid light from the sinking sun that we
+hasten downwards, bending our steps in the direction
+of Pozzano, where the form of its convent stands out
+sharply defined against the background of the Bay.
+Night is rapidly approaching, and in the gathering
+darkness as we strike the road below the convent, we
+can already hear the ominous roaring and seething of
+the waters under the cliff, lashed to fury by the first
+deep breaths of the coming squall. Hurrying along
+the broad smooth roadway it is not long before we
+reach our hotel door, where we bid good night to
+Vincenzo, just as the first heavy drops of rain have
+begun to fall; pleasantly exhausted after our long
+excursion, we are ready to appreciate to the full the
+warmth and good cheer of the hospitable Hotel
+Quisisana.
+</p>
+
+</div><hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page38">[pg 38]</span><a name="Pg038" id="Pg038" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc11" id="toc11"></a><a name="pdf12" id="pdf12"></a>
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">CHAPTER III</span></h2>
+
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.40em; margin-top: 2.40em"><span style="font-size: 120%">LA CITTÀ MORTA</span></h2>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Pompeii can never be visited without the same
+haunting conviction, the same oppressive thought:
+how terribly difficult it is to understand the City of
+the Dead which holds in so small a space the whole
+secret of the antique world! There are far more
+grandiose and impressive ruins to be seen in Rome;
+the city of Timgad in Northern Africa is more complete
+as a specimen of a Roman settlement than the
+half-excavated town near Vesuvius; yet here, and here
+only, can the men of the past stretch hands, as it were,
+across the barrier of eighteen intervening centuries to
+the dweller of to-day, and the dead-and-gone spirits
+of a highly organized civilization can whisper into the
+living ears of the twentieth century. For Pompeii
+will speak to us, if we will take the trouble to learn the
+tongue in which alone she can convey the secret of
+her story. It is needless to say that this language is
+not obtainable by one or two cursory visits to the
+Naples Museum, and a few hurried half-hours given to
+the contents of the guide-book; no, the language of
+Pompeii, which constitutes the key of access to the
+hidden chambers of the Roman world, can only be
+acquired with much expenditure of precious time and
+with infinite trouble. But <span class="tei tei-q">“life is short and time is
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page39">[pg 39]</span><a name="Pg039" id="Pg039" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>fleeting,”</span> and our bustling age expects to seize its
+required knowledge in the twinkling of an eye; well,
+in that case the story of Pompeii must remain a sealed
+volume to the traveller, who is conveyed to the City
+of the Dead in a train crammed with fellow-tourists;
+who eats a heavy unwholesome luncheon to the sound
+of mandoline-players twanging sprightly Neapolitan
+airs; and who is finally piloted round the sacred area
+by a chattering guide in the oppressive heat and glare
+of a sunny afternoon. Fatigued in mind and body,
+such an one will sink with ill-concealed relief upon the
+dusty velvet cushions of the returning train, thoroughly
+disappointed in the vaunted marvels of Pompeii, which
+his imagination had led him to expect. A vague
+impression of low broken walls, of narrow—to his eyes
+absurdly narrow—streets, of broken columns and of
+peeling frescoes fills his tired brain, as he is borne back
+to his hotel in Naples. But this disenchantment is
+his own fault, for no one who sets foot within the Sea
+Gate of the buried city in the proper spirit of knowledge
+and appreciation can possibly fail to enjoy the
+privilege which has thus been afforded him—
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 5.40em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">to stand within the City Disinterred;</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">And hear the autumnal leaves like light footfalls</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Of spirits passing through the streets; and hear</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The Mountain’s slumberous voice at intervals</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 3.60em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Thrill through those roofless halls.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Before passing through the Porta Marina into the
+purlieus of the city, let us first of all instil into our
+minds the essential difference that exists between the
+ruins of Pompeii and the historic fragments of Rome
+or Athens. When we gaze upon the well-known sites
+of the vanished glories of the Palatine or the Acropolis,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page40">[pg 40]</span><a name="Pg040" id="Pg040" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>we experience no effort in looking backward through
+the vista of the past and in conjuring up some vague
+representation of the scenes that were once enacted in
+these places; the more imaginative feel the very air
+vibrating with the unseen spirits of men and women
+famous in the world’s history. He must be indeed a
+Philistine or a dullard who cannot contrive to arouse
+a passing exaltation at the thought of treading in the
+footsteps of Cicero and the Caesars in Rome, of Pericles
+and Socrates in Athens, for the very soil of the Forum
+and the stones of the citadel of Pallas seem impregnated
+with the very essence of history. But this is
+far from being the case at Pompeii, where long careful
+study of details and a grasp of hard facts are really of
+more avail than a poetic imagination in reclothing
+with flesh the dry bones of the past, for the importance
+of the Campanian city is almost purely social. The
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">names</span></span> of many of its prominent citizens are certainly
+familiar to us from inscriptions found, yet who were
+these persons that we should take so deep an interest
+in their lives and fates? Who were Pansa the ædile,
+Eumachia the priestess, Caecilius Jucundus, Aulus
+Vettius and Epidius Rufus, and a score of other
+Pompeian worthies? The answer is, they were
+officials or simple dwellers in a flourishing provincial
+town; they had no especial literary or public reputation;
+their names were probably little known beyond
+the walls of their own city. Imagine an English
+country town, such as Exeter or Shrewsbury, suddenly
+overwhelmed by some unforeseen freak of Nature and
+afterwards embalmed in the manner of Pompeii as a
+curiosity for the edification of future ages. To what
+extent, we ask, would the discovery of a place of this
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page41">[pg 41]</span><a name="Pg041" id="Pg041" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>size and population supply the existing dweller with
+a complete impression of our national life and civilization
+in the opening years of the twentieth century?
+The reply will be that it would give a very good idea
+of the average provincial town, but that it would
+hardly serve as a fair criterion to judge of the life
+pursued in the capital, or in the really large cities.
+Such a comparison will afford us a certain clue to the
+unveiling of the mysteries of Pompeii.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+For the city at the mouth of the Sarno was an
+ancient Campanian settlement, founded long before the
+days wherein Greek adventurers beached their triremes
+on the shores of the Siren. It was a native community
+of Oscans, deriving its name from the Oscan word
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pompe</span></span> (five), and, unlike Paestum, it appears to have
+retained its original appellation under all its successive
+masters. Its primitive inhabitants seem to have intermingled
+with their Hellenic victors, and to have grown
+civilized by intercourse with them. Temples of heavy
+Doric architecture were raised; walls and watch-towers
+were built; and by the time the city fell into the
+hands of the encroaching Romans, it had become a
+flourishing place with some twenty to thirty thousand
+inhabitants, owing its prosperity to its excellent situation
+at the mouth of the river, which made Pompeii a
+convenient port to serve the rich district of Campania
+that lies eastward of Vesuvius. Nuceria (the modern
+Nocera) and the larger city of Nola were both dependent
+on it, for the Sarno was in those days navigable, so that
+ships bringing Egyptian corn and Eastern merchandise
+frequently left the Pompeian harbour and sailed up
+stream to unload their cargoes at these cities. Let us
+picture then to ourselves a compact town, an irregular
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page42">[pg 42]</span><a name="Pg042" id="Pg042" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>oval in form, surrounded by walls pierced by eight
+gates and embellished with twelve towers; its eastern
+extremity towards Nocera containing the Amphitheatre,
+and its most westerly point marked by the Herculaneum
+gate leading to the Street of Tombs. Southward, we
+must imagine the sea much closer to its walls than at
+the present day, for the alluvial deposits have in the
+course of nearly two thousand years added many acres
+of solid ground to the shores of the Bay. Behind the
+city to the north rose the mountain side, not seared
+with the traces of lava as in these days, nor surmounted
+by a smoking cone, but radiant with vineyards and
+gardens which extended unbroken up to the very rim
+of the ancient crater. Amidst the greenery of the
+luxuriant slopes peeped forth innumerable farms and
+villas of wealthy Romans, for this exquisite spot had
+long become an abode of cultured leisure. Within the
+closely packed streets of the town itself there were to
+be found few open spaces except the Forum, and
+perhaps a small park in front of the amphitheatre, for
+the place was prosperous, though not wealthy, and its
+chief citizens were forced to remain content with the
+tiny gardens enclosed within the walls of their own
+dwellings.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Internally Pompeii presented, like many another
+Roman town, marks of its six hundred years of existence.
+There was at least one perfect Doric temple;
+there were Oscan-Grecian buildings, notably the so-called
+<span class="tei tei-q">“House of the Surgeon,”</span> with its air of
+old-fashioned simplicity; there were houses of the
+Republican period; there were numberless dwellings
+of the Imperial era; there were unfinished structures
+that were being completed at the time of the city’s
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page43">[pg 43]</span><a name="Pg043" id="Pg043" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>overthrow. For, sixteen years before Vesuvius suddenly
+awoke from its long sleep, the neighbourhood
+had been visited by the severe earthquake shock of
+63, and the effects produced by this disaster had not
+nearly been effaced, when the great event of 79 transformed
+the town into a huge museum for the delight
+and instruction of future generations. Pompeii therefore
+preserves the marks of more than half a thousand
+years of civilization, so that those who will take the
+necessary trouble can trace within its area the gradual
+progress of its social and political life from the far-off
+days of Greeks and Oscans to the reign of the Emperor
+Titus. The case of a ruined Exeter or Shrewsbury
+could not be widely different. The students of ensuing
+ages would be able to find in the dead town one or two
+churches of Norman or Plantagenet times; portions of
+medieval city walls and gateways, perhaps even some
+undoubted traces of Roman baths or fortifications;
+some few public buildings erected under Tudor or
+Stuart sovereigns; a large number of the plain roomy
+mansions of the Georgian period; and, last of all, a
+preponderating quantity of nineteenth century structures
+of every description—churches, warehouses, factories,
+inns, barracks, shops, dwelling-houses. Many
+would be the inscriptions and monuments we should
+find in such a town, alluding to private and public
+persons utterly unknown to English history, but more
+or less noteworthy in local annals: grandees of civic
+life, soldiers, philanthropists, clergymen, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">et hoc genus
+omne</span></span>. Future generations of scholars would doubtless
+strive eagerly to obtain details of the careers of these
+provincial worthies, who filled municipal offices in the
+reigns of Queen Victoria and King Edward, in order
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page44">[pg 44]</span><a name="Pg044" id="Pg044" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>to throw more light upon the period wherein they
+flourished. Let us apply then the same principles to
+the study of Pompeii <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mutatis mutandis</span></span>, for in our
+quest of better knowledge of the old Roman life we
+fix anxiously upon every detail concerning the leading
+personages of the dead city. Nevertheless, it is its
+existence in the aggregate that proves of surpassing
+interest to us; we desire to learn of the daily tasks
+and occupations of the mass of its population, rather
+than to become acquainted with the private histories
+of its leading individuals; we study the former, in
+fact, only as a means to a definite end. We cry for
+information, which to a certain extent we can secure,
+as to how an average Roman city was administered,
+provisioned, drained; how its inhabitants passed their
+time both in leisure and in business; how they amused
+themselves in their homes and in the theatre; what
+they ate and what they drank—the endless trifles of
+human life, in short, which like the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tesseræ</span></span>, the tiny
+cubes of their own mosaic pavements, go to make up a
+complete picture out of a thousand fragments. Not a
+few of the cubes in this case are missing, it is true, nor
+are they ever likely to be found; nevertheless, we own
+an abundant supply wherewith we can piece together
+a tolerably accurate picture of the life of a Roman
+provincial city during the first century of the Christian
+era.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is of course quite outside our province to attempt
+any detailed account of the wonders of Pompeii. The
+reader who desires full information must turn to the
+elaborate works of Mau and Helbig, of Gell and
+Overbeck, to say nothing of the descriptive pages,
+full of condensed knowledge, contained in Murray’s
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page45">[pg 45]</span><a name="Pg045" id="Pg045" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>and Baedeker’s guide-books in order to obtain a clear
+impression of all he wishes to inspect. We can but
+dwell on a point here and there, and even then but
+lightly and superficially, for any endeavour on our
+part to add to the statements and theories of the
+great archaeologists already cited would be indeed a
+matter of supererogation and presumption.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Entering then by the Marine Gate, and pursuing
+our course eastwards along the lines of naked broken
+house-fronts, we reach the great rectangular space
+of the Forum. Here at its southern extremity let us
+select a shady corner, for the sun beats down fiercely
+upon the bare ruins at every season of the year, and
+even on a winter’s afternoon the air often shimmers
+with the heat haze, so that in no place on earth is
+the use of an umbrella so necessary or desirable as
+at Pompeii.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+What an ideal spot for the founding of a city!
+That is our first impression, as we glance across the
+broad sunlit enclosure on to the empurpled slopes
+of Vesuvius rising grandly above the broken columns
+of the great temple of the Capitoline Jove; behind
+us, we know, is the azure Bay with Capri and the
+Sorrentine cape lying on its unruffled bosom, so that
+we stand between sea and mountain to north and south,
+whilst we have the luxuriant slopes of Vesuvius to
+westward, and to the east the rich valley of the Sarno,
+thickly dotted with groves and hamlets. One element
+alone is wanting in the glorious scene before us—Life;
+it will be our duty and pleasure to re-invest as
+far as possible this empty space before us with the
+semblance of the busy crowds that once flitted in and
+out of its colonnades and porticoes; to rebuild in
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page46">[pg 46]</span><a name="Pg046" id="Pg046" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>imagination its shapeless ruins, so that we may
+obtain a fleeting picture of the Pompeian Forum in
+early Imperial days.
+</p><a name="illus04" id="illus04" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus04th.jpg" width="284" height="400" alt="Illustration: THE FORUM, POMPEII" title="THE FORUM, POMPEII" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus04.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">THE FORUM, POMPEII</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Conceive, then, in front of us, instead of this long
+bare stretch flanked by broken walls and strewn with
+shapeless fragments of brick and stone, an immense
+double arcade, two stories in height, affording ample
+protection against sun or rain and enclosing an oblong
+pavement whereon are set numerous statues of
+emperors or private citizens, occupying lofty positions
+of honour above the heads of the surging throng
+below. Imagine that group of shattered pillars,
+which obstructs our full view of the distant cone of
+Vesuvius, transformed into an imposing temple,
+covered with polychrome decoration, not in the best
+of taste according to our modern ideas of art, but
+gorgeous and cheerful in the clear atmosphere of the
+south. Rebuild, in the mind’s eye, the Basilica and
+the temple of Apollo on the left, and straight before
+us, as we look forward from our coign of vantage at
+the narrow southern end of the colonnade, let us plant
+the three dominant statues of Augustus, Claudius
+and Agrippina to form our foreground. If we can construct
+by stress of fancy some such setting of classical
+architecture, gay with primary colours and gilding
+and graceful in design, it is easier to people the Pompeian
+Forum with the masses of humanity that once
+mingled here. For we have the knowledge of modern
+Italian life to guide us to a certain extent; we have
+seen the swarms of citizens who to-day fill the main
+piazzas of the towns, especially those of the provincial
+type, where the morning market is held and the chief
+cafés and shops are situated. But if the general use
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page47">[pg 47]</span><a name="Pg047" id="Pg047" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>of the piazza is characteristic of the modern second-class
+Italian city, this concentration of life was far
+more marked in the ancient Roman town, wherein
+the Forum must have appeared as the very heart of
+the whole body social and politic. Roman city life
+indeed displayed two strongly antagonistic phases:—the
+utmost privacy in the home, the most public
+exhibition in the Forum, where every trade and form
+of business were carried on in the open air, and
+whither pursuit of gain, or pleasure, or religious duty
+led all the citizens to direct their steps. For, as we
+have already shown, almost all the public life of the
+place was concentrated within this space and its
+surroundings; temples, markets, shops, law courts,
+municipal offices, all abutted on the Forum; it was
+not merely the chief, but the only place that drew
+together the daily crowd, bent alike on business or
+amusement. No chariots were permitted to cross the
+area sacred to the claims of money-making, of gossip,
+and of worship; so that we must picture to ourselves
+a great mass of people undisturbed by the passing of
+vehicles, or by the shouts and whip-crackings of the
+noisy charioteers—was ever such a thing as a quiet
+Italian coachman, ancient or modern, we digress to
+wonder! All was orderly and decorous when compared
+with the quarrelling, screaming groups of
+citizens that block the congested streets of modern
+Naples. Happily for us various paintings of the
+Forum of Pompeii have been discovered, and these
+are naturally of immense value in helping us to a
+proper understanding of the habits and methods of
+the people, and of the general appearance of the
+Forum itself during its busiest hours. The costumes
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page48">[pg 48]</span><a name="Pg048" id="Pg048" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>of men, women and children; the articles of clothing
+and of food ready for sale; the little knots of loiterers
+or gossips; the citizens intent on reading the municipal
+notices that are herein portrayed, all combine to
+present us with an authentic picture of Pompeian and
+therefore of Roman civic life. <span class="tei tei-q">“There is nothing new
+under the sun,”</span> grumbled the Preacher many centuries
+before the city under Vesuvius had reached its zenith
+of civilization, and it must be confessed that the
+general impression conveyed after studying the contemporary
+pictures of antique life does not differ very
+widely from that which we obtain by observing present
+Italian conditions. For the frescoes in the Naples
+Museum and in certain of the Pompeian houses seem
+to recall strongly the scenes of the piazza, where all
+the elements of society, irrespective of rank or station,
+are still wont to congregate. Differences of dress, of
+manner, of custom are doubtless evident enough, yet
+somehow we perceive an essential sameness in these
+two representations of classical and modern Italy.
+Nevertheless, these simple and often rude wall-paintings
+furnish us with many pieces of information
+that we search for in vain amidst the ancient authors,
+who naturally considered the commonplace everyday
+scenes of life beneath the notice of contemporary
+record. We are enabled to learn, for instance, how
+the citizens were usually dressed in the Forum, and
+how, in an age when hats and umbrellas were practically
+non-existent, the pointed hood, like that of the
+Arab burnous, was often used to cover the head in
+cold or wet weather. Again, it is easy to perceive
+from the same source that the diet of the Pompeians
+must have resembled closely that of their present
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page49">[pg 49]</span><a name="Pg049" id="Pg049" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>descendants; even the shape of the loaves has in
+most cases continued unchanged to the present day.
+And one curious coincidence is certainly worth
+mentioning, in that a peculiar method of preparing figs
+with caraway seeds, which was long supposed to be a
+local speciality of a remote town in Central Italy, has
+now been recognized as a common method of dressing
+this fruit for the table at Pompeii, for large quantities
+of figs so treated have been unearthed in shops and
+kitchens. Such grains of information as the wearing
+of hoods and the preserving of figs may appear trifling
+enough at first sight, yet it is from a number of petty
+details such as these that we are assisted to an intimate
+understanding of a state of society extinct nearly two
+thousand years ago.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Close beside us on the eastern side of the Forum is
+set the Chalcidicum, the large building of the priestess
+Eumachia, one of the most gracious personalities of
+Pompeii with which the modern world has become
+acquainted. It was this lady who generously presented
+this structure, one of the handsomest and most
+solid of the public buildings of the city, to the fullers
+to serve as their exchange, wherein goods might be
+exposed upon benches and tables for the convenience
+alike of sellers and purchasers. <span class="tei tei-q">“Priestess Eumachia,”</span>
+remarks a modern critic, <span class="tei tei-q">“has done the thing well; no
+expense has been spared in the building and its
+decorations. The columns of the portico are of white
+marble; the statues of Piety and Concord, works of
+art; and the flower-borders along the panelled walls,
+prettily conceived and carefully executed. After so
+much plaster and stucco, it is a relief to see something
+so solid and genuine. When a third-rate city apes
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page50">[pg 50]</span><a name="Pg050" id="Pg050" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the capital, there must needs be a certain amount of
+sham. But at Pompeii it is all sham, or next door
+to it. In the entire city are not more than half a
+dozen edifices whose columns are of real marble, the bas-reliefs
+and cornices of anything more solid than stucco;
+and of these half-dozen, the Exchange heads the list.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+We feel tolerably secure in assigning this fine
+building to the early years of the Emperor Tiberius,
+and in naming the Emperor’s mother, Livia, as the
+divinity to whom it was dedicated. The statue of
+Concord with the golden horn of plenty doubtless
+once adorned the large pedestal which still stands in
+the eastern apse of the Exchange, but though the
+figure and emblem were those of Concordia, the face
+bore certainly the features of Imperial Livia. Yet
+more interesting than the various speculations as to
+the actual uses of this edifice and the different names
+of the statues which once embellished its alcoves,
+is the circumstance that the marble portrait of the
+foundress herself has been discovered. It is true that
+only a copy in plaster now occupies the pedestal at
+the back of the apse where Eumachia’s statue once
+stood, for the original has been removed for safety to
+Naples, but it is not difficult to call to mind the calm
+gentle face of this Pompeian Lady Bountiful, and her
+graceful figure in its flowing robes. The existence of
+this statue adds undoubtedly a touch of special human
+interest to the whole building, and we find our minds
+excited by the brief inscription which still informs
+the curious that the fullers of Pompeii erected
+this portrait in marble in grateful appreciation <span class="tei tei-q">“to
+Eumachia, a city-priestess, daughter of Lucius
+Eumachius.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page51">[pg 51]</span><a name="Pg051" id="Pg051" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Outside the Chalcidicum, at the corner of the lane
+usually termed Via dell’ Abbondanza, is to be seen
+a pathetic little memorial of the working life of the
+city: the fountain of Concordia Augusta, the divinity
+of Eumachia’s noble building hard by. Dusty and
+heating is the business of fulling cloth, and it generates
+thirst, so that it is but natural to find a fountain close
+at hand, whereat the labourers could refresh their
+parched throats. With what eagerness must the
+exhausted toilers during those long summers of
+centuries past have leaned forward to press their
+human lips to the cool mouth of the sculptured
+goddess that ejected with pleasing gurgles a volume
+of water into the basin below! That this fountain
+proved a boon to weary citizens is evident enough,
+for the features of water-spouting Concordia are half
+worn away by thirsty human kisses, and her suppliants’
+hands have left deep smooth furrows in the stone-work
+of the basin, whereon they were wont to support
+their bodies, so as to direct the cooling draught into
+the dry and dusty gullet. In Italian cities to-day we
+can frequently observe some exhausted labourer bend
+deftly downwards to snatch a drink of water from the
+mouth of some fantastic figure in a public fountain.
+Who has not paused, for instance, beside Tacca’s
+famous bronze boar in the Florentine market-place
+without noting an incident of this kind? If we ourselves
+are too dainty to place our own aristocratic
+lips where our fellow-mortals have pressed theirs,
+not so are the abstemious descendants of the ancient
+Romans, the Italians, whose minds remain untroubled
+by any nasty-nice qualms of possible infection.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Here then is the setting of the picture, and we
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page52">[pg 52]</span><a name="Pg052" id="Pg052" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>must ourselves endeavour to repeople the empty
+space with the crowds of high and low that once
+collected here.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“It is high change, and the Forum is crowded.
+All Pompeii is here, and his wife. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Patres conscripti</span></span>,
+inclined to corpulence, taking their constitutional,
+exquisites lazily sauntering up and down the pavements;
+decurions discussing the affairs of the nation,
+and the last news from Rome; city magnates fussing,
+merchants chaffering, clients petitioning, parasites
+fawning, soldiers swaggering, and Belisarius begging
+at the gate.... It is a bright and animated scene.
+Beneath, the crowded Forum, with its colonnades and
+statues, at one end a broad flight of steps leading
+to the Temple of Jupiter, at the other a triumphal
+arch; on one side the Temple of Venus and the
+Basilica; on the other the Macellum, the Temple of
+Mercury, the Chalcidicum; overhead the deep blue
+sky. Mingled with the hum of many voices and
+the patter of feet on the travertine pavement are the
+ringing sounds of the stonemasons’ chisels and
+hammers, for the Forum is undergoing a complete
+restoration. Although fifteen years have elapsed
+since the city was last visited by earthquake, the
+damage then done to the public buildings has not
+been entirely repaired. First the Gods, then the
+people. The temples of Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury
+are completed, but the Forum and Chalcidicum are
+still in the workmen’s hands.”</span><a id="noteref_2" name="noteref_2" href="#note_2"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">2</span></span></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+With this fleeting glimpse at the public life of the
+city, let us now turn our attention to its domestic
+arrangements. Of the many houses which have been
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page53">[pg 53]</span><a name="Pg053" id="Pg053" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>excavated of recent years under the truly admirable
+superintendence of Signor Fiorelli, none is better
+calculated to give us a striking impression of the
+working details of an upper-class Roman household
+than the private dwelling which is known equally
+under the two names of the Casa Nuova and the
+House of the Vettii;—perhaps the former name has
+now ceased to own any significance, since the buildings
+were laid bare as far back as the winter of
+1894-5. An hour or two spent in a careful inspection
+of this house and its contents is to most persons
+worth four times the same amount of time occupied
+in aimless wandering amongst the hot glaring streets
+of the city, peeping into this courtyard and that, and
+listening to the interminable tales of guide or
+custodian. If we study the Casa Nuova intelligently,
+lovingly and minutely, it will not be long before we
+obtain a tolerable grasp of Roman life and manners,
+which will prove of immense service and of genuine
+delight. What then is it, the question will be asked,
+that makes the House of the Vettii so valuable as
+an example of antique architecture and decoration,
+in preference to other mansions which can boast an
+equal and often a greater distinction? The answer
+is simple enough: it is because this particular group
+of buildings has been allowed to remain as far as
+practicable in the exact condition wherein it was
+originally unearthed, when its various rooms and
+courts were once more exposed to the light of day.
+For until the clearing of this <span class="tei tei-q">“new house”</span> a decade
+or so ago, no proper opportunity had so far been
+afforded to the amateur of our own times of judging
+for himself the interior of a Roman dwelling in full
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page54">[pg 54]</span><a name="Pg054" id="Pg054" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>working order, and with all its furniture, paintings,
+and utensils complete. Up to this, almost every
+object of value had been removed at once for safety,
+every fresco even of importance had been cut bodily
+out of its setting and placed in one of those immense
+halls on the ground floor of the Museum in Naples.
+How well do we remember those gaunt chilly
+chambers, filled from pavement to ceiling with painted
+fragments of all sizes, a medley of domestic subjects
+and of classical myths! Torn from the walls they
+were specially executed to adorn, divorced from their
+proper scheme of surrounding ornament, these wan
+dejected ghosts stare at us like faces out of a mist.
+The uninitiated cannot find pleasure in them, for they
+have no pretention to be called works of art; on the
+contrary they form an inherent part of a conventional
+system of house decoration. The classical student can
+of course find many points of interest in the incidents
+portrayed, but all charm of local environment is
+absent;—it is, in short, impossible to judge of Roman
+decoration from this collection of crumbling, fading
+pieces of painted stucco. It would be as easy to
+imagine the effect of a rose-bush in full bloom from
+the sight of a few withered rose-buds, pressed until
+every vestige of colour had left their petals, as to
+understand the significance of antique domestic art
+from the contents of the Museo Nazionale.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But here, in the House of the Vettii, the public was
+for the first time initiated into the mysteries of true
+Roman life; here it was admitted to gaze upon the
+fruits of classical taste and refinement, and to contrast
+them, favourably or unfavourably, with prevailing
+modern standards. The Casa Nuova has been left
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page55">[pg 55]</span><a name="Pg055" id="Pg055" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>as an object lesson, a complete museum in itself,
+wherein every daily incident of Pompeian life, every
+domestic secret, reveal themselves to our inquisitive
+eyes. Here in the roofless halls we can be taken from
+entrance to dining-hall, from <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">atrium</span></span> to sleeping rooms,
+spying into the minutest detail of shape, size and
+colour, as though we were seriously intending to rent
+the house for our own habitation. The last tenant
+has even left his money-chest in his hall, his pots and
+pans in the kitchen, and as we inspect his utensils, we
+wonder if they would suit our own requirements to-day.
+Of portable objects of value—plate, jewels, statuettes
+of precious metals and the like—belonging to the late
+owner, there is certainly no trace, for Signor Fiorelli’s
+labourers were not the first to break the deep silence
+of this buried mansion. For it was the survivors of
+the stricken town, the citizens of Pompeii themselves,
+who were the foremost pioneers to excavate, and they
+carried off every work of art they could conveniently
+remove. Cutting from above into the deposit of ashes
+that filled the streets, they managed to reach in course
+of time the level of the ground, after which they
+tunnelled from room to room, from house to house,
+collecting every object they thought worth the trouble
+of transporting. Perhaps the owners of the house, the
+Vettii themselves, presuming they escaped in the general
+<a name="corr055" id="corr055" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-corr">catastrophe</span>, may have returned with skilled workmen
+to recover some of their treasures; perhaps some <span class="tei tei-q">“man
+of three letters”</span>—the colloquial Roman term for thief
+(<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">fur</span></span>)—may have forestalled the masters’ efforts—who
+knows? And at this distance of time, who cares?
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The house once occupied by Aulus Vettius Restitutus
+and Aulus Vettius Corvina stands in a quiet district
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page56">[pg 56]</span><a name="Pg056" id="Pg056" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>not far from the Capuan Gate, and consequently at
+some distance from the Forum. Like all Roman
+habitations it was essentially Oriental in its outward
+aspect, and must have resembled closely any one of
+those mysterious dwellings of wealthy Arab citizens
+which we constantly encounter in the native quarters
+of Algiers or Tunis. The gateway giving on the
+street was wide, certainly, but it was well defended
+both by human and canine porters; its windows were
+few and small, and were probably closely latticed like
+those of the nunneries which we sometimes perceive
+overhead in the crowded streets of Naples. There
+must have been something austere, even suspicious, in
+the external appearance of the Casa de’ Vettii, but
+snarling dog and grim janitor have long since disappeared,
+and we pass unmolested through the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">atrium</span></span>
+and thence into the Great Peristyle, which is perhaps
+the most remarkable feature of this house. The
+peristyle, as its name implies, is a Greek importation
+in a Roman city, and its use would have been scorned
+by the old-fashioned citizens, such as the master of
+the <span class="tei tei-q">“House of the Surgeon”</span>; yet it was in truth
+admirably suited to the character of Southern Italy,
+where it afforded shelter from sun and wind, and its
+arcades protected from the rainfall. The peristyle of
+the Vettii, with its gaudily tinted pillars of stucco, is
+highly ornate; perhaps it passes the limits of good
+taste in certain points of colour and æsthetic decoration,
+yet the general effect is undoubtedly pleasing to the
+eye. This courtyard is at once a lounge open to the
+sky; it is a garden; it is an art-gallery; for the
+cheerful court of Greek domestic architecture had
+nothing in common with its successor of the Middle
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page57">[pg 57]</span><a name="Pg057" id="Pg057" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Ages, the monastic cloister of religious meditation.
+Cannot we imagine to ourselves the goodman of the
+house proudly leading his guests after a sumptuous
+meal in the adjacent dining-room into the cool corridors
+of his peristyle, in order to point out to them his
+statues and vases of bronze or porphyry, and to
+expatiate upon their value or elegance of form? On
+such a festive occasion these great shallow basins of
+pure white marble before us would be heaped high
+with fragrant pyramids of red and white roses, roses
+that were perhaps plucked all dewy in the famous
+gardens of Paestum on the other side of Mons
+Gaurus. For the flowering shrubs in the tiny
+pleasaunce itself are far too precious to be stripped
+of their blossoms in so lavish a manner, and perhaps
+if Vettius be anything of an amateur gardener, he
+may comment to his visitors upon the rare plants that
+fill his diminutive flower-beds. Careful and reverent
+hands have restored the little garden as near as
+possible to its pristine plan and appearance. There
+are still standing the two bronze statues of urchins
+holding in their chubby arms ducks from whose bills
+once gushed the limpid water, making a soothing
+sound amidst the alleys of the peristyle; corroded
+and injured they certainly appear, yet here they
+hold their original positions in Vettius’ domain long
+after temple and tower have fallen to the ground.
+The marble chairs and tripod tables likewise remain,
+and around them still thrive the very plants that the
+servants of the house were wont to tend in the days
+of Titus. For, by a rare chance, we find depicted
+on the walls of the excavated house the actual flowers
+and herbs that were popular during Vettius’ lifetime,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page58">[pg 58]</span><a name="Pg058" id="Pg058" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>and these have been replanted by modern hands in
+the garden of the peristyle. There are clumps of
+papyrus, the strange mop-headed rush from the banks
+of the Nile, introduced into Italy as a botanical
+novelty after the conquest of Egypt; there are rose-bushes,
+of course; and also masses of shining ivy
+trained in the ancient Roman manner upon a cage
+of wicker-work fixed into the soil. As we watch the
+verdure-clad sunlit space there descends, delicately
+fluttering, one of those splendid pale yellow brimstone
+butterflies of the South with flame-coloured blushes
+on its wings, and after some moments of graceful
+hesitation, this new visitor settles upon the purple
+head of an iris bloom. With its vivid colouring and
+its quick movements the butterfly brings an atmosphere
+of life into the courtyard that was hitherto lacking.
+Its appearance too suggests the famous allegory, the
+unsolved riddle of human existence which so puzzled
+the divine Plato and the ancient philosophers of
+Athens and Syracuse. Here are we, the living
+men of to-day, watching the corpse of a departed
+world upon which the mystic symbol of Psyche has
+just alighted. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Tempus breve est</span></span> is the simple little
+truism that rises to our reflecting minds. Eighteen
+centuries between the Vettii and ourselves! They
+are gone like a flash, and we are amazed to note
+how little has our nature altered either for the better
+or the worse within that space of time, long enough
+if we measure its limit by the standard of history,
+trivial if we reckon it by the progress made in human
+ethics and human understanding. Surely there are
+lessons to be learned in the silent city; Pompeii, we
+realize, is not merely a heap of antique dross whence
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page59">[pg 59]</span><a name="Pg059" id="Pg059" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>we can pick up precious grains of knowledge, but
+it is an oracle in itself, which, if properly consulted,
+will give us plain answers to our modern speculations,
+and will possibly reprove us for our conceited
+assumption of omniscience.
+</p><a name="illus05" id="illus05" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus05th.jpg" width="277" height="400" alt="Illustration: LA CASA DEI VETTII, POMPEII" title="LA CASA DEI VETTII, POMPEII" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus05.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">LA CASA DEI VETTII, POMPEII</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Still brilliant in their strong prevailing tints of black,
+yellow and vermilion are the decorative schemes which
+make a visit to the house of the Vettii of such supreme
+importance for those who wish to understand fully the
+artistic tastes of the Romans, and also their artistic
+limitations. If the contents of the Museum seem
+colourless and cold, and prove unsatisfying and disappointing,
+here the eye of the artist can feast upon
+the classical ornamentation which remains fairly fresh
+in spite of a dozen years of exposure to daylight.
+For this province of art is peculiarly associated with
+the opening years of the Empire, and Pompeii is
+naturally the chief place for its study, and in Pompeii
+the untouched Casa Nuova is all important for the
+student. According to Pliny, the inventor of this
+pleasing style of decoration was a certain Ludius, who
+flourished in the reign of Augustus, and first persuaded
+the Romans to embellish their flat wall-surfaces with
+designs of <span class="tei tei-q">“villas and halls, artificial gardens, hedges,
+woods, hills, water basins, tombs, rivers, shores, in as
+great a variety as could be desired; figures sitting
+at ease, mariners, and those who, riding upon donkeys
+or in waggons, look after their farms; fishermen,
+snarers of birds, hunters and vine-dressers; also
+swampy passages before beautiful villas, and women
+borne by men who stagger under their burdens, and
+other witty things of this nature; finally, views of sea-ports,
+everything charming and suitable”</span>:—a fairly
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page60">[pg 60]</span><a name="Pg060" id="Pg060" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>long and comprehensive list of subjects, truly, from
+which a patron might pick and choose, or an artist
+might execute!
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Although the great architect Vitruvius strongly
+denounced this new striving after scenic effect and
+characterized it as petty and false, yet none can deny
+that these cheerful scenes with their bright colours and
+their agreeable if trivial subjects were singularly well
+adapted to improve the appearance of the bare narrow
+rooms, the meagre proportions of which seem to us
+absolutely incompatible with plain comfort, to say
+nothing of luxury. Space may be increased, so far
+as the eye is concerned, by an architectural or
+landscape painting ingeniously conceived, and thus
+the restricted rooms seem to obtain by means of
+this new system of decoration a wider expansion, and
+with it an increased sense of ease and lightness. The
+invention of Ludius became at once the fashion, the
+rage; and all Rome began to cover the walls of its
+narrow chambers with these novel designs, which had
+already found favour in Imperial circles. Campania,
+where the old Greek love for polychrome still lingered,
+was not slow in imitating the new taste of the
+Capital, so that Pompeii bears undoubted testimony
+to the popularity of this revolution in artistic ideas,
+which substituted a lighter freer method for the old
+conventional severity of treatment. Experts profess
+to trace—and none will endeavour to gainsay them—a
+marked difference between the frescoes executed
+before the earthquake of 63 and those undertaken
+subsequent to that date. The wall paintings of the
+first group, carried out when the art was comparatively
+novel, are superior in harmony of colour, in choice
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page61">[pg 61]</span><a name="Pg061" id="Pg061" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>of themes and in technical finish to those which belong
+to the latter period, the sixteen years that intervened
+between the earthquake and the eruption of Vesuvius.
+From this circumstance it has been inferred, not
+without reason, that this particular house must have
+passed some time before the year 63 out of the
+possession of people of good taste into the hands of
+vulgarians, ignorant of the fundamental principles of
+art and anxious only to obtain what was startling
+and garish. As freedmen, the two Vettii would
+naturally belong to a class which was not remarkable
+for culture; nevertheless, they seem to have had the
+good sense to leave intact some of their predecessor’s
+most cherished works of decoration, and for this
+exhibition of restraint we must feel duly grateful
+towards our dead-and-gone hosts, the maligned Vettii.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But it is not only for purposes of examining Roman
+internal decoration <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">in situ</span></span> that this art gallery of the
+Casa Nuova is available. Below the painted panels
+of the dining-room runs a long string of ornament,
+whereon are represented Cupids and Psyches engaged
+in the various occupations of Pompeian daily life.
+Full of dainty grace and of lively expression, these
+little winged figures initiate us into a number of the
+trades and customs of the ancients. For they are
+made to appear before us as goldsmiths, vine-dressers,
+makers and sellers of olive oil, dealers in wine, fullers
+of cloth, and as partakers in a dozen other scenes
+of town or country life. Where learned antiquaries
+had hitherto doubted and disputed, the discovery of
+the paintings of these celestial little mechanics and
+merchants helped to solve many a difficulty, for the
+secret of half the arts and crafts of Pompeii is revealed
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page62">[pg 62]</span><a name="Pg062" id="Pg062" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>to us in this playful guise. Nor are the designs
+themselves contemptible from an artistic point of
+view; look how intent, for example, is the pose of
+the tiny jeweller working with a graver’s tool upon
+the gold vessel before him; how steadily he bears
+himself at a task which requires at once strength of
+hand and delicacy of workmanship. Look again at
+the nervous pose of the pretty elf who is gingerly
+pouring wine out of a huge amphora, which he holds
+in his arms, into a shallow tasting cup offered by a
+brother Cupid. How thoroughly must the unknown
+artist have enjoyed the task of painting this frieze!
+How unfettered his fancy, as his brush glided smoothly
+and deftly over the carefully prepared wall-surface!
+Excellent, no doubt, he thought his work at the time
+of execution, but even the most conceited of Campanian
+artists could hardly have dreamed that these creations
+of his brush would still at the end of two thousand
+years be admired, commented upon and even reproduced
+in thousands, by a process he never dreamed
+of, for the benefit of citizens of nations as yet unborn
+or unforeseen.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+As the spring evening softly steals over the city
+and the shadows of the colonnades lengthen, let us
+leave the silent halls and chambers of the Casa dei
+Vettii and turn our footsteps westward; and issuing
+out of the Gate of Herculaneum, let us traverse the
+famous Street of Tombs, that extends along the road
+leading to the sister buried city. In ancient times
+this was the Via Domitiana, a branch road of the
+Appian Way, and it formed the most frequented
+entrance into Pompeii. To Roman ideas, therefore,
+it was but natural that tombs should be erected
+along<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page63">[pg 63]</span><a name="Pg063" id="Pg063" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>side its borders, whilst the spirits of the passing and
+repassing crowds were in no wise affected by the
+memorials of death attending their exits and entrances.
+And with the surging human tide that was
+ever flowing in this thoroughfare the funeral processions
+must constantly have mingled, the wailing
+of the hired mourners rising sharply above the din of
+harsh voices, the creaking of clumsy wooden wheels
+and the braying of the heavily laden asses. Now over
+all reigns a decorous silence, such as we moderns deem
+fitting for a cemetery; only the hum of insects breaks
+the deep quiet of the atmosphere, nor are there any
+living creatures visible at this late hour save the bats
+which flit restlessly in and out of the weed-grown piles
+of brick or stone that once were stately monuments
+of wealth or piety. Above our heads the tall sombre
+cypresses shoot upward like gigantic spear-heads into
+the crystal-clear air, pointing heavenward like our
+own church spires in a rural English landscape. This
+Street of the Dead in the City of the Dead is in truth
+a solemn and a soothing spot; nor can we find its
+precincts melancholy, when we stand in the midst of
+such glorious scenery. For Monte Sant’ Angelo
+towers to our left against the mellow evening sky,
+flecked with lines of peach-blossom cloud, whilst in
+front of us the dark form of Capri seems to float in a
+golden haze between firmament and ocean. Behind
+us the dark mass of the Mountain with its breath of
+ascending smoke seems like an eternal funeral pyre in
+honour of the Dead, who were spared the horrors of
+that fearful disaster which overwhelmed the living.
+Upon the broken tombs and altars the light from the
+setting sun falls with warm cheerful radiance, flushing
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page64">[pg 64]</span><a name="Pg064" id="Pg064" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>stone and brick-work with a ruddy glow like jasper;
+whilst, high in the heavens above the cypress tops,
+the crescent moon prepares to turn to gold from
+silver.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Beati sunt mortui</span></span>: here rest, we know, the priestess
+Mammia, the decemvir Aricius, Libella the aedile, and
+a host of other citizens with whose names the student
+or the lover of Pompeii is familiar. How many a
+time has this line of roadway rung with the sound of
+the last sad appeal, the thrice repeated valediction:
+<span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Vale, vale, vale!</span></span> farewell until the day when Nature
+will allow us to follow thee!”</span> How often have the
+wooden pyres flung up in these precincts their clouds
+of perfumed smoke into the clear air, now redolent
+with the aroma of yellow broom, of dewy thyme and
+of sweet marigolds! Perhaps it was amidst these
+lines of cypress-set tombs by the Herculaneum Gate
+that the poetic genius, whose verses were spurned by
+his own generation, composed his famous Ode to
+Naples, for in its opening lines Shelley tells us it was
+the aspect of the <span class="tei tei-q">“city disinterred”</span> that gave him
+inspiration:—
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Were to spare Death, had never made erasure;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">But every living lineament was clear</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">As in the sculptor’s thought; and there</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy and pine,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Like winter-leaves o’ergrown by moulded snow,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Seemed only not to move and grow,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0.90em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Because the crystal silence of the air</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0.90em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Weighed on their life....</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Tranquilly and slowly descends night upon the
+untenanted city, as one by one the stars begin to peep
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page65">[pg 65]</span><a name="Pg065" id="Pg065" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>forth like chrysolites in the heavens, which have
+changed from azure to a deep indigo during the
+sunset hour. Amid chilly dews, to the sound of the
+evening bell from the distant church of Santa Maria
+di Pompeii, we hasten in the growing darkness from
+the Street of the Tombs towards our modest inn
+outside the Marine Gate, anticipating with delight
+a ramble in the city in the freshness of the coming
+morning.
+</p>
+
+</div><hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page66">[pg 66]</span><a name="Pg066" id="Pg066" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc13" id="toc13"></a><a name="pdf14" id="pdf14"></a>
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">CHAPTER IV</span></h2>
+
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.40em; margin-top: 2.40em"><span style="font-size: 120%">VESUVIUS: THE STORY OF THE MOUNTAIN</span></h2>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The first appearance of Vesuvius, whether viewed
+from the deck of a steamer entering the Bay of
+Naples or espied from the window of a railway
+carriage on the main line running southward from
+Rome, makes an impression that will linger for ever
+in the memory. It is open to argument which is the
+more striking of the two experiences: the Mountain
+rising proudly from the deep blue waters into the
+paler shade of the upper air, or its graceful broken
+contour seen from the landward side to the north
+across the green fertile plains of the Campagna Felice.
+From a long acquaintance with both ways of
+approaching Naples, we are inclined to prefer the
+latter view. Travelling in an express train from
+Rome we find ourselves whirled suddenly, by magic
+as it were, into the atmosphere of the South, when
+with the sight of the domes and towers of Capua, the
+ancient capital of Campania the Prosperous, we first
+note the presence of orange trees and hedges of aloe,
+of white lupin crops and clumps of prickly pear, and
+we feel we are nearing Naples with <span class="tei tei-q">“its burning
+mountain and its tideless sea,”</span> so that we eagerly
+strain our eyes in a southerly direction to catch our
+first glimpse of Vesuvius, with whose shape and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page67">[pg 67]</span><a name="Pg067" id="Pg067" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>history we have been so familiar since our childhood’s
+days. At length we perceive its double summit, with
+smoke tranquilly issuing from the cone and obscuring
+the clarity of the air, and as we hurry forward towards
+our destination, through the plains studded with elm-trees
+festooned with vines, we have the satisfaction of
+observing its form grow larger and more distinct in
+outline.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+On our arrival at Naples, in course of time we grow
+more intimately acquainted with the peculiar attractions
+of <span class="tei tei-q">“the Mountain,”</span> as the Neapolitans always
+designate their treacherous but fascinating neighbour,
+of whose near existence they have every reason to be
+proud, for certainly Vesuvius, though barely as lofty
+as Ben Nevis, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">is</span></span> to us westerns the most famous
+mountain upon earth. Regarding Vesuvius both from
+the land and the sea, we note that it rises in solitary
+majesty from an extended base some thirty miles in
+circumference, and that it sweeps upwards in graceful
+curving lines until at a distance of about 3000 feet
+from sea level its summit is cleft into two peaks;
+that to the north being a rocky ridge which catches
+our eye as we gaze eastward from the heights of Sant’
+Elmo or the Corso at Naples, the other point being
+the actual cone of the volcano itself. The upper part
+of the Mountain has in fact two aspects; in other
+words, Vesuvius is double, being composed of the ridge
+of Monte Somma to the north, 3760 feet in height,
+which is pre-historic; and the ever-shifting modern
+dome of Vesuvius to the south, which is <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">about</span></span> 4000
+feet high. We say <span class="tei tei-q">“about”</span> purposely, for Vesuvius
+proper sometimes over-tops, sometimes equals, and
+sometimes even crouches under its immovable
+sister-<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page68">[pg 68]</span><a name="Pg068" id="Pg068" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>peak, according to the effect produced by volcanic
+action. Monte Somma, which is one of the everlasting
+hills, is the parent, and Vesuvius is the child, born
+but yesterday from a geological point of view, for it
+is not so old as the Christian era;—<span class="tei tei-q">“it is a variable
+heap thrown up from time to time, and again, not
+seldom, by a greater effort of the same force, tossed
+away into the air, and scattered in clouds of dust over
+far-away countries. Thus it has happened often, in
+the course of these variations of energy, that Vesuvius
+has risen to a conical height exceeding that of Somma
+by 500 or 600 feet, and again, the top has been
+truncated to a level as low as Somma, or even as
+much below that mountain as we now behold it
+above.”</span><a id="noteref_3" name="noteref_3" href="#note_3"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">3</span></span></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+To understand the story of the Mountain, therefore,
+it is necessary for us to travel back in retrospect
+to ancient Roman days. In the first place, however,
+one word as to its present name that we use to-day,
+for all are familiar with Vesuvius, but comparatively
+few, until they visit Naples, have heard mention made
+of Monte Somma. The name of Vesuvius, then,
+though strictly applicable only to the volcanic and
+modern portion of the Mountain, is not a recent
+appellation; on the contrary, it is probably of far more
+ancient origin than <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Mons Summanus</span></span> by which the
+whole was known to the Romans. The point is by
+no means unimportant, for etymologists derive
+Vesuvius from the Syriac <span class="tei tei-q">“Vo Seevev, the abode of
+flame,”</span> thereby proving to us that whatever opinions
+may have been held as to the nature of the Mountain
+in the century preceding the Christian era, its volcanic
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page69">[pg 69]</span><a name="Pg069" id="Pg069" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>nature must have been perfectly well understood
+by those who gave it this suggestive title in a more
+remote age. But the secret locked up in Mons
+Summanus was not altogether unsuspected by the
+Roman scientists. Strabo, the geographer, writing
+about thirty years before the birth of Christ, made a
+careful examination of the crest of Mons Summanus,
+then a saucer-shaped hollow surrounded by a steep
+rocky edge and occupied by a flat plain covered with
+cinders and void of grass, although the flanks of
+the Mountain were extraordinarily fertile. From what
+he saw during his visit, Strabo conjectured the
+Mountain to be an extinct volcano, in which surmise
+he was destined to be proved partly in the right and
+partly in the wrong; whilst Vitruvius, the famous
+architect of the Emperor Augustus, <span class="tei tei-q">“who found Rome
+of brick and left it of marble,”</span> as well as Tacitus the
+historian, shared the same opinion. About a century
+and a half before the first recorded eruption in 79,
+Mons Summanus figures prominently in Roman
+history as the scene of a curious incident during
+the Servile War, so that in the pages of the old
+chronicler Florus we obtain an interesting description—especially
+interesting because it was not given for
+scientific purposes—of the condition of the mountain
+top at that period. The brave gladiator Spartacus
+and his intrepid band of revolted slaves, seeking
+a place of safety from the pursuing Roman legions,
+not very wisely selected the top of this isolated peak,
+which, although affording a good position of defence
+and possessing a wide outlook over the Campanian
+plain, had only one narrow passage in its rocky rim
+to serve as entrance or outlet. Followed hither by the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page70">[pg 70]</span><a name="Pg070" id="Pg070" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Roman forces and caught like rats in a trap, Spartacus
+and his men were doomed either to be reduced
+by starvation, or else to run the gauntlet of the sole
+narrow exit, which the Senate’s commander, Clodius
+Glabrus, was already guarding. The story of
+Spartacus’ escape from his terrible dilemma is told
+in the history of Florus, and repeated with further
+details by Plutarch in his Life of Crassus.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Clodius the Prætor, with three thousand men,
+besieged them in a mountain, having but one narrow
+and difficult passage, which Clodius kept guarded; all
+the rest was encompassed with broken and slippery
+precipices, but upon the top grew a great many wild
+vines: they cast down as many of these boughs
+as they had need of, and twisted them into ladders
+long enough to reach from thence to the bottom,
+by which, without any danger, all got down save
+one, who stayed behind to throw them their arms,
+after which he saved himself with the rest.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A dozen learned statements of a scientific nature as
+to the ancient appearance and slumbering condition of
+the Mountain could not impress our imagination more
+vividly with its subsequent natural changes than
+the account of this episode of Spartacus and his handful
+of rebels, beleaguered by Clodius within the
+very crater of the volcano. We can see the Mountain
+in the last years of the Roman Republic before us,
+with its truncated cone encircled by a low rampart
+of rock half hidden by wild vine, ivy, eglantine,
+honeysuckle and all the creeping plants whose tough
+trailing stems enabled the besieged gladiators to effect
+their escape from the snare into which they had unwittingly
+fallen. We can understand from this event
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page71">[pg 71]</span><a name="Pg071" id="Pg071" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>how utterly remote was the idea of any upheaval of
+nature to the dwellers on these shores, whose ancestors
+remembered the crest of the mountain as the scene of
+a military operation.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The first warning of a coming eruption after
+unnumbered centuries of quiet was given by a series
+of earthquakes which did an immense amount of
+damage at Herculaneum and Pompeii; yet in a
+district which had from time immemorial been subject
+to similar convulsions of nature, the shocks, though
+unusually distressing and destructive to life and
+property, were evidently unconnected in the popular
+mind with their true cause: the reawakening to life
+of the mountain overhead. The mischief done by the
+earthquakes was accordingly repaired as quickly as
+possible, and the normal course of life was resumed
+until the terrific and wholly unexpected outbreak of
+August 24th 79, during the reign of the Emperor
+Titus. Of this, the first recorded eruption of Vesuvius,
+we are exceptionally fortunate in possessing the
+testimony of a credible eye-witness, who was no less
+a personage than Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus,
+better known to the modern world as Pliny the
+Younger, who wrote two lengthy letters to Tacitus
+on the subject of this event, the first describing the
+fate of his uncle, the Elder Pliny, most eminent of
+Roman naturalists, who perished during this period of
+terror; and the second containing a more detailed
+account of the eruption itself. For it so happened—luckily
+for posterity—that at the time of this sudden
+outburst of Mons Summanus, the Elder Pliny was in
+command of the Roman fleet at Misenum on the Bay
+of Naples, where his young nephew (who was also his
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page72">[pg 72]</span><a name="Pg072" id="Pg072" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>adopted son) was living with his mother in a villa.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“On the 24th of August,”</span> writes Pliny the Younger
+some eleven years after the event he is about to
+describe, <span class="tei tei-q">“about one in the afternoon, my mother
+desired my uncle to observe a cloud which appeared
+of a very unusual size and shape. He had just
+returned from taking the benefit of the sun, and after
+bathing himself in cold water, and taking a slight
+repast, was retired to his study. He immediately
+arose and went out upon an eminence, from whence
+he might more distinctly view this very uncommon
+appearance. It was not at that distance discernible
+from what mountain this cloud issued, but it was found
+afterwards to ascend from Mount Vesuvius. I cannot
+give a more exact description of its figure than by
+resembling it to that of a pine-tree, for it shot up to
+a great height in the form of a trunk, which extended
+itself on the top into a sort of branches, occasioned, I
+imagine, either by a sudden gust of air that impelled
+it, the force of which decreased as it advanced upwards,
+or the cloud itself being pressed back again by its own
+weight, expanded in this manner; it appeared sometimes
+bright, and sometimes dark and spotted, as it
+was more or less impregnated with earth and cinders.
+This extraordinary phenomenon excited my uncle’s
+philosophical curiosity to take a nearer view of it.”</span>
+The nephew then proceeds to relate how his uncle
+sailed by way of Retina, the port of Herculaneum, to
+Stabiae, where he met with his second in command,
+one Pomponianus. Meanwhile the Younger Pliny,
+who had declined to accompany his uncle’s expedition
+on the plea of having to pursue the studies with which
+as a hard-working youth of seventeen he was evidently
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page73">[pg 73]</span><a name="Pg073" id="Pg073" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>engrossed, became alarmed during the night for the
+Elder Pliny’s safety. His own and his mother’s
+terrible experiences are vividly portrayed in the second
+letter, which, at the historian’s special request, the
+Younger Pliny wrote to Tacitus in later years.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“When my uncle had started, I spent such time as
+was left on my studies—it was on their account,
+indeed, that I had stopped behind. Then followed
+the bath, dinner and sleep, this last disturbed and
+brief. There had been noticed for many days before
+a trembling of the earth, which had caused, however,
+but little fear, because it is not unusual in Campania.
+But that night it was so violent, that one thought
+everything was being not merely moved, but absolutely
+overturned. My mother rushed into my chamber; I
+was in the act of rising, with the same intention of
+awaking her, should she have been asleep. We sat
+down in the open court of the house, which occupied
+a small space between the buildings and the sea.
+And now—I do not know whether to call it courage
+or folly, for I was but in my eighteenth year—I called
+for a volume of Livy, read it as if I were perfectly at
+leisure, and even continued to make some extracts
+which I had begun. Just then arrived a friend of my
+uncle, who had lately come to him from Spain; when
+he saw that we were sitting down—that I was even
+reading—he rebuked my mother for her patience, and
+me for my blindness to the danger. Still I bent
+myself as industriously as ever over my book. It was
+now seven o’clock in the morning, but the daylight
+was still faint and doubtful. The surrounding buildings
+were now so shattered, that in the place where we
+were, which though open was small, the danger that
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page74">[pg 74]</span><a name="Pg074" id="Pg074" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>they might fall on us was imminent and unmistakable.
+So we at last determined to quit the town. A panic-stricken
+crowd followed us.... We saw the sea retire
+into itself, seeming, as it were, to be driven back by
+the trembling movement of the earth. The shore had
+distinctly advanced, and many marine animals were
+left high and dry upon the sands. Behind us was a
+dark and dreadful cloud, which, as it was broken with
+rapid zig-zag flashes, revealed behind it variously shaped
+masses of flame; these last were like sheet lightning,
+though on a larger scale.... It was not long before
+the cloud that we saw began to descend upon the
+earth and cover the sea. It had already surrounded
+and concealed the island of Capreae, and had made
+invisible the promontory of Misenum. My mother
+besought, urged, even commanded me to fly as best I
+could; <span class="tei tei-q">‘I might do so,’</span> she said, <span class="tei tei-q">‘for I was young;
+she, from age and corpulence, could move but slowly,
+but would be content to die, if she did not bring death
+upon me.’</span> I replied that I would not seek safety
+except in her company; I clasped her hand and
+compelled her to go with me. She reluctantly obeyed,
+but continually reproached herself for delaying me.
+Ashes now began to fall—still, however, in small
+quantities. I looked behind me; a dense dark mist
+seemed to be following us, spreading itself over the
+country like a cloud. <span class="tei tei-q">‘Let us turn out of the way,’</span>
+I said, <span class="tei tei-q">‘whilst we can still see, for fear that, should we
+fall in the road, we should be trodden under foot in
+the darkness by the throngs that accompany us.’</span> We
+had scarcely sat down when night was upon us,—not
+such as we have seen when there is no moon, or when
+the sky is cloudy, but such as there is in some closed
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page75">[pg 75]</span><a name="Pg075" id="Pg075" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>room where the lights are extinguished. You might
+hear the shrieks of women, the monotonous wailing of
+children, the shouts of men. Many were raising their
+voices, and seeking to recognise by the voices that
+replied, parents, children, husbands or wives. Some
+were loudly lamenting their own fate, others the fate
+of those dear to them. Some even prayed for death,
+in their fear of what they prayed for. Many lifted
+their hands in prayer to the gods; more were convinced
+that there were now no gods at all, and that
+the final endless night of which we have heard had
+come upon the world.... It now grew somewhat
+light again; we felt sure that this was not the light of
+day, but a proof that fire was approaching us. Fire
+there was, but it stopped at a considerable distance
+from us; then came darkness again, and a thick, heavy
+fall of ashes. Again and again we stood up and
+shook them off; otherwise, we should have been
+covered by them, and even crushed by the weight.
+At last the black mist I had spoken of seemed to
+shade off into smoke or cloud, and broke away. Then
+came genuine daylight, and the sun shone out with a
+lurid light, such as it is wont to have in an eclipse. Our
+eyes, which had not yet recovered from the effects of
+fear, saw everything changed, everything covered deep
+with ashes as if with snow. We returned to Misenum,
+and after refreshing ourselves as best we could, spent
+a night of anxiety in mingled hope and fear. Fear,
+however, was still the stronger feeling; for the
+trembling of the earth continued, while many frenzied
+persons, with their terrific predictions, gave an exaggeration
+that was even ludicrous to the calamities
+of themselves and of their friends. Even then, in
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page76">[pg 76]</span><a name="Pg076" id="Pg076" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>spite of all the perils which we had experienced, and
+which we still expected, we had not a thought of
+going away till we could hear news of my uncle.”</span><a id="noteref_4" name="noteref_4" href="#note_4"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">4</span></span></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+As to the fate of the Elder Pliny, it seems that
+the old man had been obliged together with his friends
+and servants to fly from the villa at Stabiae where he
+was resting. The sea being too agitated to allow
+of an embarkation, the fugitives turned their steps
+towards the slopes of Mons Gaurus, the present
+Monte Sant’ Angelo, with pillows bound over their
+heads to serve as protection against the showers of
+hot cinders that were falling thickly on all sides.
+At length the famous old writer, who was somewhat
+plethoric and unwieldy, sank exhausted to the ground,
+never to rise again, and shortly expired in an attack
+of heart failure, induced by the unusual excitement
+and fatigue he had lately been called upon to endure.
+At any rate, it appears fairly certain that the Elder
+Pliny did not perish, as is still sometimes asserted,
+by the direct effects of the eruption, but rather
+through an ordinary collapse of nature—syncope,
+perhaps. Three days later his body was found lying
+not far from Stabiae by his grief-stricken nephew,
+who describes his uncle’s corpse as looking <span class="tei tei-q">“more
+like that of a sleeping than of a dead man.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+This then was the first, as it was also the most
+violent, of the many outbreaks of Vesuvius which
+our own age has witnessed, and with this eruption
+of 79 in the reign of Titus, the Mountain, as we
+have already said, greatly altered its shape. More
+than half the rim of the ancient crater that had enclosed
+Spartacus and his men less than two hundred
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page77">[pg 77]</span><a name="Pg077" id="Pg077" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>years before had been torn away and destroyed, its
+remaining portion on the landward side retaining the
+old name of Mons Summanus. Between this remnant
+of the old wall of the crater and the scene of wreckage
+on the southern face of the Mountain, there now
+appeared the great cleft, the horse-shoe shaped valley
+called the Atrio del Cavallo, which separates the two
+peaks of the whole summit. A fragment only of
+the original crater, known as the Pedimentina, still
+remains on the seaward side above Torre del Greco.
+From that terrible day, so vividly described by the
+Younger Pliny, to our own times, a period stretching
+over 1800 years, a vast number of eruptions, great
+and small, have been enumerated, for owing to the
+nearness of Vesuvius to one of the largest cities in
+Europe, every incident connected with its activity
+has been carefully noted, at least since the time of
+the Renaissance. Out of the many upheavals we
+propose to select the eruptions of 1631 and 1779,
+as being amongst the most significant.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Ever since an outburst in the year 1500, the
+Mountain appears to have lapsed into a remarkable
+condition of quietude, even of apparent extinction,
+for over a century and a quarter, during which period,
+it may be remarked, the Sicilian volcano of Etna
+was unusually active. Once more the summit of
+Vesuvius was beginning to assume the form it had
+borne in the days previous to the overthrow of
+Pompeii; the riven crater was becoming filled with
+dense undergrowth and even with forest trees, amidst
+which wild boar made their lairs and were occasionally
+hunted. The learned Abate Giulio Braccini, whose
+account of the eruption of 1631 is the most graphic
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page78">[pg 78]</span><a name="Pg078" id="Pg078" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>and accurate we possess, explored the crater shortly
+before the outbreak of the volcano, but found little
+to suggest any idea of an approaching convulsion.
+He reckoned the deep depression occupying the crest
+of the mountain to be about five miles in circumference,
+and to take about a thousand paces of walking
+so as to reach the lowest point within its area. He
+remarked abundance of brushwood on its sides, and
+observed cattle grazing peacefully upon the open
+grassy patches in the midst of the over-grown space.
+A deep crack, however, ran from end to end of the
+whole crater, which allowed persons so minded to
+descend amidst rocks and boulders to a large plain
+below the surface, whereon Braccini found three pools
+of hot steamy water, of a saline and sulphureous
+taste. Such was the tranquil aspect of the Mountain
+as surveyed by the Abate Braccini in the first half
+of the seventeenth century; to men of science signs
+of latent energy were certainly not wanting, yet to
+the ignorant, careless peasants of the hill-side and the
+scarcely less ignorant dwellers of the towns on the
+seashore, the state of repose in which the Mountain
+had continued for four or five generations suggested
+no fears or suspicions. Tilling of vineyards, building
+of new houses, sinking of wells, went on apace as
+cheerfully as though an eruption were an impossibility,
+till certain unmistakable portents that occurred
+towards the close of the year 1631 roughly dissipated
+this spell of fancied security. Earthquakes,
+more or less severe, began at this time to be felt
+along the whole of the volcanic line stretching from
+Ischia to the eastern slopes of Vesuvius; the plain
+within the crater of the Mountain began to heave
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page79">[pg 79]</span><a name="Pg079" id="Pg079" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>and rise in an alarming fashion, and the water in all
+the local wells sank mysteriously below ground.
+The signs of some impending disaster coming from
+the heights above were too strongly marked to be
+lightly disregarded; the idea of a volcanic convulsion,
+though by this time a long-distant and vague memory,
+became so terrifying to the dwellers on the mountain’s
+flanks and in Torre del Greco, Resina and the various
+towns that line the seaward base of the Mountain,
+that the majority of the people removed themselves
+and their property with all speed to places of safety.
+Nevertheless, despite the warnings given by Nature
+and also by men of science and the royal officials,
+many remained behind in their houses, and in consequence
+perished, to the immense number, it is surmised,
+of 18,000. On the morning of Wednesday, December
+16th, the long threatened eruption burst forth in
+earnest upon an expectant world. Amidst crashes
+like prolonged volleys of artillery the people of
+Naples and the surrounding district beheld the terrible
+pine-tree of smoke and ashes, described centuries ago
+by Pliny, ascend from the south-western side of the
+summit of the Mountain, veiling the sky for miles
+around, and so charged with electricity, that many
+were even killed by the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">ferilli</span></span>, or lightning flashes,
+that darted from the smoking mass. The spectacle
+of the ominous pine-tree was at once followed by a
+terrific rumbling and an ejection of lava, which after
+flowing down the southern flank in several streams
+finally reached the sea, making the waters hiss and
+boil at the moment of contact. Slowly but surely
+these relentless red-hot rivers of lava crept like
+serpents along the hill-side, destroying vineyard and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page80">[pg 80]</span><a name="Pg080" id="Pg080" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>garden, cottage and chapel, on their downward path.
+Resina shared the fate of its ancient forerunner
+Herculaneum, whilst Torre del Greco and Portici
+suffered severely, as we can see to-day by noting
+the great masses of lava flung on to the strand at
+various points. To add to the universal confusion of
+Nature, the sea, which had now become extraordinarily
+tempestuous, probably owing to some submarine
+earthquake-shock, suddenly retreated half a mile
+from the coast, and then as suddenly returned in a
+tidal wave more than a hundred feet beyond its
+normal limits. Such were the main features of the
+second great eruption of Vesuvius, wherein the ashes
+ejected by the Mountain were wafted by the wind
+beyond the Adriatic, to the Greek islands and even to
+Constantinople itself.
+</p>
+<a name="illus06" id="illus06" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus06th.jpg" width="400" height="286" alt="Illustration: VESUVIUS AND THE BAY OF NAPLES" title="VESUVIUS AND THE BAY OF NAPLES" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus06.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">VESUVIUS AND THE BAY OF NAPLES</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+From this date onward the Mountain became very
+active in contrast with its previous condition of
+lethargy, and throughout the whole of the eighteenth
+century there were frequent eruptions, many of them
+on a vast scale. All these outbursts have been carefully
+recorded and commented upon, for naturally the
+scientists of a great city like Naples were intensely
+interested in the passing phases of their own volcano.
+During the latter half of this century all the phenomena
+have been described for us by Sir William
+Hamilton, British ambassador at the Court of the
+Two Sicilies, the versatile diplomatist who eventually
+married the beautiful but frail Emma Hart. During
+his long period of residence in Naples, Sir William
+made no fewer than fifty-eight explorations of the
+crater alone, besides carefully studying every peculiarity
+visible upon the sides of the Mountain. He was,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page81">[pg 81]</span><a name="Pg081" id="Pg081" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>of course, a close observer of the great eruptions of
+1766-7, and also of the still greater convulsion of
+1779, which, strangely enough, occurred on the
+seventeenth centenary of the awakening of the
+Mountain from its pre-historic slumbers. On this
+occasion, Hamilton, accompanied by a Mr Bowdler
+of Bath, had the temerity to track the streams of
+flowing lava to their hidden source by walking over
+the rough unyielding crust of stones and earth that
+had formed upon the surface of the molten stream,
+as it slowly trickled down hill at the rate of about a mile
+an hour. The adventurous pair of Englishmen were
+successful in their quest, and Sir William thus describes
+the fountain-head of the fiery streams that he found
+a quarter of a mile distant from the top of the cone.
+</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“The liquid and red-hot matter bubbled up
+violently, with a hissing and crackling noise, like that
+which attends the playing off of an artificial firework;
+and by the continued splashing up of the vitrified
+matter, a kind of arch, or dome, was formed over
+the crevice from whence the lava issued; it was
+cracked in many parts, and appeared red-hot within,
+like a heated oven. This hollowed hillock might be
+about fifteen feet high, and the lava that ran from
+under it was received into a regular channel, raised
+upon a sort of wall of scoriae and cinders, almost
+perpendicularly, of about a height of eight or ten feet,
+resembling much an ancient aqueduct.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Some days later, at midnight on August 7th, a
+veritable fountain of red fire shot up from the crest of
+Vesuvius, illuminating all the surrounding country;
+and on the following night a still more marvellous
+sheet of flame appeared, hanging like a fiery veil
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page82">[pg 82]</span><a name="Pg082" id="Pg082" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>between heaven and earth, and reaching to a height
+(so Sir William Hamilton guessed) of about 10,000
+feet above the summit, affording a wonderfully grand
+but terrible spectacle. This great curtain of fiery
+particles, accompanied by inky black clouds from
+which were darting continual flashes of lightning,
+was reflected clearly on the smooth surface of the
+Bay, delighting the Court and the scientific world of
+Naples, but inspiring, as may well be imagined, the
+mass of superstitious inhabitants with the direst alarm.
+The theatres were closed and the churches were
+opened; above the rumblings and explosions of the
+agonised volcano could be heard the tolling of the
+bells. Maddened by terror, the Neapolitan mob rushed
+to the Archbishop’s palace to demand the immediate
+production of the holy relics of St Januarius, the
+protector of the city, and on this request being
+refused, set fire to the entrance gates, a forcible
+argument that soon persuaded his Eminence of the
+propriety of the people’s demand. Thereupon the
+head of the Saint, enclosed in its case of solid silver,
+was accordingly borne in solemn procession with
+wailing and repentant crowds behind it to an improvised
+shrine, hung with garlands, on the Ponte
+della Maddalena, at the extreme eastern boundary
+of the city. Nor was the confidence reposed by the
+Neapolitans in their patron Saint misplaced, for
+except from the stifling smells and the dense rain
+of ashes, the terror-stricken capital suffered not a whit,
+whilst the general alarm inspired its inhabitants
+with a revival of religious fervour which was by no
+means insalutary. As usual, the old cynical proverb
+was once more justified:—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Napoli fa gli peccati, e la
+</span><span class="tei tei-pb" id="page83">[pg 83]</span><a name="Pg083" id="Pg083" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span style="font-style: italic">Torre gli paga</span></span>, for of course poor Torre del Greco
+was grievously affected by the lava streams. In this
+case, however, even Torre del Greco and Resina
+did not fare so badly as did the towns on the
+northern slopes of Monte Somma, a district which is
+of course perfectly immune from lava inundations
+owing to the protecting rocky ridge of the Atrio del
+Cavallo. But it seems that the great veil of clouds
+and fire, extending some thousands of feet from the
+crest of the mountain to the heavens above, was
+swayed by a chance current of air, so that its component
+red-hot dust, ashes and stones were emptied
+in one fatal shower upon the northern flank of the
+Mountain. Whole villages were ruined, hundreds
+of acres of vines and crops were scorched and burned;
+the smiling peaceful hillside was in a few minutes
+converted into a parched wilderness. Ottajano, a
+large town of some 12,000 inhabitants, was the place
+most seriously injured by this wholly unexpected
+rain of destruction, for a tempestuous fall of red-hot
+stones, some of immense size, and a shower of ashes
+killed hundreds of the terrified and suffocating citizens,
+and blocked up the streets with smoking debris to a
+depth of four feet.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Of the recent eruptions of Vesuvius, which have
+been pretty frequent during the latter half of last
+century, that of April 1872, so carefully recorded
+by Professor Palmieri, who in spite of imminent
+danger never abandoned his post in the Observatory,
+is the most notable. It is remembered also owing
+to the catastrophe whereby some twenty persons out
+of a large crowd of strangers, who had imprudently
+ascended to the Atrio del Cavallo to get a closer
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page84">[pg 84]</span><a name="Pg084" id="Pg084" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>view of the phenomenon, were suddenly caught by the
+lava stream and enfolded in its burning clutches.
+For if ignorance and superstition seem to make the
+poor fisherman or peasant unduly alarmed on such
+occasions, curiosity and self-confidence are sometimes
+apt to lead the educated or scientific into unnecessary
+peril. Naples itself was once more alarmed in 1872,
+so that the relics of St Januarius at the furious
+demand of the populace were again brought forth in
+solemn procession, and exposed towards the face
+of the Mountain on the Ponte della Maddalena.
+Thousands of quaking mortals gathered near this
+spot, joining in the chanting of the priests and
+watching with pallid anxious faces the fiery currents
+of lava slowly trickling down the south-western flank
+of Vesuvius towards the city itself. A certain number
+of attendants meanwhile were engaged in perpetually
+brushing away from the image of the Saint, from his
+improvised altar, and from its votive garlands the
+ever-accumulating mantle of grey dust, and it is
+scarcely to be wondered at that a certain cool-headed
+Neapolitan artist, Il Vaccaro, should all this time
+have been busily engaged in painting so characteristic
+and highly picturesque a scene. Within the churches,
+and particularly in St Januarius’ own cathedral,
+enormous crowds of hysterical men and women had
+collected, loudly bewailing their past sins and imploring
+the Divine mercy, for
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 3.60em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">E belle son le supplice</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Pompe di penitenza, in alto lutto.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Again the historic <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">palladium</span></span> proved effectual, and
+the city, that was never for a moment in danger, was
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page85">[pg 85]</span><a name="Pg085" id="Pg085" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>once more saved! Naples received no damage
+beyond a temporary panic and a heavy fall of ashes,
+which covered every street and flat surface within the
+town to a depth of some inches and which it took
+many days of enforced labour to remove. Again
+it was the poor confiding vine-dressers and tillers of
+the Vesuvian soil who suffered in this upheaval, for
+though the loss of life was very slight indeed, yet
+numerous houses, fields and vineyards were totally
+destroyed and many more were injured. Truly it is
+a maxim well proven by time:—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Napoli fa gli peccati,
+e Torre gli paga.</span></span>
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-tb"> </div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Such, told baldly and briefly, is the history of the
+Mountain, which forms the most conspicuous feature
+of the Bay of Naples and dominates one of the
+fairest and most populous districts on the face of the
+globe. But it does not take long to make visitors
+to the Neapolitan shore understand the mysterious
+charm, not unmixed with awe, and the all-pervading
+influence of Vesuvius. Go where we will within the
+circuit of the Bay of Naples and even outside it, we
+are never out of sight of the obtruding Mountain
+and its smoky wreath. We begin to feel that the
+Mountain is an animated thing, that the destiny of
+the Parthenopean shore is locked up in the breast of
+the Demon who has his dwelling within its red-hot
+caverns. So sudden are the actions, and so capricious
+the moods of this Monster of the Burning Mountain,
+that no one can tell the day, or even the hour, wherein
+he will give us an exhibition of his fiery temper,
+though, it is true, in the case of violent eruptions he
+is kind enough to afford timely warning by means
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page86">[pg 86]</span><a name="Pg086" id="Pg086" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>of a succession of earthquakes and other signals
+almost equally alarming. His Majesty’s presence is
+felt everywhere; each morning as we open our
+window upon the dazzling waters of the Bay, we
+note with relief his tranquil aspect; each night, ere
+we retire to sleep, we find ourselves inevitably drawn
+to watch the glare thrown by the molten lava within
+the crater upon the thick vapour overhead. The
+nightly expectation of this aerial bonfire possesses
+an extraordinary fascination for the stranger. Some
+times the lurid glare is continuous; at other times
+there are long intervals of waiting, and even then the
+reflected light is very faint, a mere speck of reddish
+glow in the surrounding blackness, gone in the
+twinkling of an eye. But, strangely enough, one
+grows to understand the Mountain better from a
+distance and by watching its moods from afar, like
+the Neapolitans themselves, who never ascend to
+probe its mysteries, except a few vulgar guides and
+touts who batten on the curiosity of the foreigner.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+On clear windless days the intermittent clouds of
+vapour sent up from the crater assume the most
+fantastic shapes—trees, ships, men, birds, animals—ever
+changing like the forms of Proteus. It would
+seem as if the Spirit of the Mountain were idly
+amusing himself, like a child blowing bubbles, or a
+vendor at a fair-stall carving out little figures of
+gingerbread to tickle the fancy of country boys and
+girls. The clouds so formed sometimes cause amusement
+by their uncanny shapes, but not unfrequently
+they inspire alarm. The superstitious peasant of the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Paduli</span></span>, looking up suddenly from his work amidst
+the early peas or tomatoes, beholds against the blue
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page87">[pg 87]</span><a name="Pg087" id="Pg087" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>sky a vague nebulous form that to his untutored mind
+suggests a gigantic crucifix upheld in mid-air above
+the Mountain, and he crosses himself devoutly ere he
+bends down to earth once more to his work in the
+rich dark soil. <span class="tei tei-q">“Such stuff as dreams are made of”</span>
+appear in truth the weird phantoms that the sly
+Demon of Vesuvius flings up into the pure aether,
+and if credulous mankind likes to draw inferences
+for good or bad from these unsubstantial creations
+of his fancy, he laughs to himself with a hollow
+reverberating sound. It must, however, have been
+in the true spirit of prophecy on the occasion of
+King Manfred’s birth, that the genius of the Mountain
+despatched two cloud-forms into the sky (so the
+unabashed old chroniclers gravely relate), one having
+the appearance of a warrior armed cap-à-pie, and the
+other that of a fully vested priest. The affrighted
+gazers below, struck with the strange phenomenon,
+beheld the two figures sway towards each other and
+finally become locked together in deadly aerial combat,
+until all resemblance to human shape had vanished
+from the pair. Then, after an interval of time, men
+perceived the cloudy mass once more assume a mortal
+shape, and a huge towering priest with flowing robes
+and tiara on head was left in solitary and victorious
+possession of the sky. The Churchman had swallowed
+up the soldier; the Pontiff had vanquished the King;
+it was a true premonition of the fatal field of
+Benevento, which saw the ultimate triumph of the
+Papal over the Imperial cause.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But if the near presence of the burning mountain
+has tended to make the inhabitants of its immediate
+zone the slaves of superstitious awe, the disasters of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page88">[pg 88]</span><a name="Pg088" id="Pg088" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>generations have likewise imbued them with a spirit of
+fatalism, that appears even stronger than their outward
+show of credulity. Life is not so sweet nor so dear
+apparently to these children of the South, but that
+they can afford to take their chance of disturbance or
+death with a true philosophic calm. The fisher-folk
+and maccaroni workers of Resina, Portici and the two
+Torres have, it is true, little to lose; a small boat can
+at the last moment easily convey their families and
+slender stock of household furniture to a place of
+temporary safety, and when the danger is over-past,
+the same shallop can bring back the refugees and their
+belongings. But with the husbandmen the case is
+different. Not only has he to fear the actual stream
+of lava, which may or may not overwhelm his house
+and farm in its slow inevitable course, but there are
+also the showers of hot ashes and of scalding water
+that will frizzle up in a few seconds every green blade
+and leaf upon his tiny domain, for which he pays an
+enormous rental, sometimes as much as £12 sterling
+an acre. Yet the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">contadino</span></span> takes his chances with a
+seraphic resignation that we do not usually attribute
+to the southern temperament. After the eruption of
+1872, which covered the rich <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Paduli</span></span> with a deep
+coating of grey ashes, a young peasant girl was heard
+deploring the loss of her carefully tended gourds and
+melons; <span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Oh come volimme fa? Addio, pummarole!
+addio, cucuzzielle!</span></span>”</span> whereupon an older woman, witnessing
+these useless tears, upbraided her with the
+words: <span class="tei tei-q">“Do not complain, child, lest worse befall you!”</span>
+And indeed the whole population of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Paduli</span></span>, instead
+of lamenting over their scorched and spoiled crops,
+were jubilant at the thought that the havoc done was
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page89">[pg 89]</span><a name="Pg089" id="Pg089" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>only partial, not irrevocable;—a few months of incessant
+labour, said they, would bring back the holdings
+to their former state of perfection. Yet a general
+opinion prevails among foreigners that the Neapolitans
+are lazy, thriftless and helpless! They indeed rely
+to a certain extent upon St Januarius to protect their
+crops from the efforts of Nature, over which, they
+argue, the Saint is more likely to possess control than
+his human applicants, but when once the fatal shower
+of ashes has fallen, they do not expect <span class="tei tei-q">“San Gennaro”</span>
+to set their injured acres to rights again, but with a
+rare patience turn to the task themselves. A more
+industrious, and at the same time a more capable and
+practical race of agriculturists than the tillers of the
+slopes of Vesuvius, it would be hard to match. And
+thus in the sunshine of the south, yet ever under the
+shadow of death and destruction, dwell many thousands
+of human beings, as unconcerned as though Vesuvius
+were miles and miles away. Not unconscious, but
+fully conscious of their doom, the victims of the
+Mountain toil and moil upon the fertile farms (in
+many cases risen phoenix-like from their own ashes)
+that grow the early beans and tomatoes, the egg-plants
+and the white fennel roots (<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">finocchi</span></span>) that well-fed
+travellers devour in the hotels of Naples. Or else
+they tend the vines that yield the generous <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Lagrima
+Christi</span></span>, of which imprudent and heated visitors drink
+long draughts unmixed with water, and then complain
+of ensuing languor and pains beneath their waistcoats.
+Luscious, yet seductive wine! Counsellor of moderation
+after a first experience of excess! Essence of
+Vesuvius, whose strange name so puzzled the poet
+Chiabrera!
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page90">[pg 90]</span><a name="Pg090" id="Pg090" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Chi fu de’ contadini il si indiscreto,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Ch’ a sbigottir la gente</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Diede nome dolente</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Al vin’ che sovra gli altri il cuor fa lieto?</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Lagrima dunque appellerassi un riso</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Parte di nobilissima </span><a name="corr090" id="corr090" class="tei tei-anchor" style="text-align: left"></a><span class="tei tei-corr" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">vendemmia?</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+    <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">(</span><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Who was the jesting countryman, I cry,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">That gave so fearsome and so dour a name</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">To that choice vintage, which of all think I</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Most warms the heart’s blood with its genial flame?</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Smiles, and not tears, the epithet should be</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Of juice wrung from so fair a vinery.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">)</span></div>
+</div>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">* * * * * *</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Scarcely had the above pages been written, than
+the Mountain, which had been drowsing for more than
+thirty years, suddenly awakened to give appalling evidence
+of its latent activity and powers of mischief.
+The eruption of April 1906 has, in fact, surpassed all
+previous outbursts within living memory, and it may
+probably be reckoned amongst the most violent of all
+hitherto recorded. Many of the details of this event
+doubtless remain fresh in the memory, and in any case
+the sad condition of numerous towns and villages, and
+of the beautiful Vesuvian districts, the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">paesi ridenti</span></span> as
+the Neapolitans affectionately term these fertile lands,
+will serve for some years to come as a sinister and
+ever-present reminder of the horrors of the past and
+of the dread possibilities of the future. All vegetation
+for miles around the volcano has been injured or
+destroyed, for not only was the Mountain itself
+covered deep with grit and ashes, but the streets and
+gardens of Naples, the luxuriant plain of Sorrento, and
+even the heights of Capri, twenty miles distant across
+the Bay, were shrouded in a funereal mantle of the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page91">[pg 91]</span><a name="Pg091" id="Pg091" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>greyish-yellow dust that Vesuvius had flung into the
+air to let fall like a shower of parching and destructive
+rain upon the earth. How vast was the amount of
+matter ejected from the crater and scattered in this
+form over the surrounding country, we may judge from
+the scientific calculation that 315,000 tons fell in
+Naples alone! Everywhere appeared the same scenes
+of desolation, the same dreary tint, for so thickly had
+this aerial torrent of ashes descended, that buildings,
+trees and plants were completely hidden by
+it, the whole landscape suggesting the idea of a
+recent heavy fall of dirty-coloured snow. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Paesi
+ridenti</span></span>, indeed! It was a land of ugliness and
+mourning, a city of stifling air and of human
+terror.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A few days previous to the eruption, which began
+on April 5th, the island of Ustica, which lies some
+forty miles north of Palermo, had been visited by
+earthquake shocks of such violence that the Italian
+Government at last decided to remove the greater
+part of its population to the mainland, as well as the
+convicts attached to the penal settlements on the
+island. Scarcely had these manifestations ceased at
+Ustica, than Vesuvius began to show signs of
+increased activity; the supplies in the wells on the
+mountain sides began to fail, and there was observed
+a strong taste of sulphur in the drinking water;
+whilst—most dreaded phenomenon of all—the ever-active
+crater of Stromboli, that lies midway between
+Naples and Messina, suddenly lapsed into quiescence.
+We all know the subsequent story of the outbreak;
+of the thousands of fugitives flying into Naples or
+other places of refuge; of the utter destruction of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page92">[pg 92]</span><a name="Pg092" id="Pg092" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>houses and cultivated lands;—the doleful scenes of a
+Vesuvian eruption have been enacted and described
+time after time in the history of the Mountain, and
+there is every reason to suppose they will be repeated
+at intervals for centuries to come. The marvel is
+how human beings can calmly settle down and pass
+their lives so close to the jaws of the fire-spouting
+monster, and why an intelligent Government permits
+its subjects to dwell in places which are ever exposed
+to catastrophes such as that which we have just
+witnessed. Well, it is the natural temperament of
+the Vesuviani to be fatalistic, despite their religious
+fervour; and acts of legislature cannot force them to
+abandon their old deep-rooted notions; all that the
+Italian Government can do therefore is to stand ready
+prepared to help, when the upheaval <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">does</span></span> occur, as it
+inevitably must.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is always a matter of speculation on these
+occasions as to what course the ejected lava will
+pursue; whose turn, of the many settlements on the
+southern slopes of the Mountain, will it be to suffer?
+This time it was Bosco-Trecase, a village above Torre
+Annunziata, that was devastated by the sinuous
+masses of incandescent matter, high as a house and
+broad as a river. Torre Annunziata itself, as also
+ruined Pompeii were threatened, but the red-hot
+streams of destruction mercifully stopped short of
+their expected prey. The story of horrors and panic
+in the overthrow of Bosco-Trecase is happily relieved
+by many a recorded incident of valour and unselfishness.
+The royal <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Carabinieri</span></span>, that splendid body of
+mounted police, who in their cocked hats and voluminous
+cloaks appear as ornamental in times of quiet as
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page93">[pg 93]</span><a name="Pg093" id="Pg093" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>they prove themselves useful in the stormy hours of
+peril, acquitted themselves, as usual, like heroes. It
+was they who guided away the trembling peasants
+before the advance of the lava, searching the doomed
+houses for sick and crippled, whom they carried on
+their shoulders to places of security. Working, too,
+with almost equal zeal and practical good sense were
+the Italian soldiers, who richly deserved the praise
+that their royal commander, the Duke of Aosta,
+subsequently bestowed upon them for their invaluable
+services rendered during these fearful days of darkness
+and danger. <span class="tei tei-q">“Soldiers!”</span> declared the Duke, in his
+address to the troops on April 23rd, <span class="tei tei-q">“I have seen
+you calm and happy in the work of alleviating the
+misfortunes of others, and I put on record the praise
+you have won. By promptly appearing at the places
+distressed by the eruption, you have encouraged the
+people by your presence and your example; you
+have maintained order and have safe-guarded property.
+Helping the local authorities, and even in some
+instances filling their offices, you have carried out the
+most urgent and dangerous duties in order to save
+the houses and to keep clear the roads. In the
+spots most heavily afflicted you have lent your
+assistance in removing and caring for the injured,
+and in searching for and burying the dead you have
+given proofs of great self-sacrifice and reverence
+(<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pietà</span></span>). Not a few of the refugees have obtained
+food and shelter in your barracks, and whole communities
+without means of existence have been
+provided by you with the necessaries of life. Everywhere
+and from all your conduct has gained you
+loud applause. Nevertheless, your task is not yet
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page94">[pg 94]</span><a name="Pg094" id="Pg094" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ended; continue at it out of love for your country
+and devotion to your King!”</span><a id="noteref_5" name="noteref_5" href="#note_5"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">5</span></span></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+With such a reputation for kindness of heart and
+energy in time of need, no wonder that the Army is
+popular with all classes in Italy!
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Nor did the King and Queen hold aloof from the
+scene of disaster, for they hurried from Rome at
+midnight of that terrible Palm Sunday on purpose
+to comfort the terror-stricken population. Victor-Emmanuel
+even penetrated in his motor-car as far as
+Torre Annunziata, in spite of the fumes of sulphur
+and the many difficulties in proceeding along roads
+clogged deep with volcanic dust and ashes. On
+another occasion the King and Queen paid a visit to
+the afflicted district of the slopes of Monte Somma,
+where Ottajano and San Giuseppe had been almost
+buried by the continuous falling of burning material
+from the crater. In fact, these localities suffered
+even more severely than the towns on the seaward
+face of the Mountain (Bosco-Trecase excepted), and
+at Ottajano hardly a house in the place remained
+intact at the close of the eruption, whilst the loss of
+human life was probably higher here than elsewhere.
+The Duke and Duchess of Aosta—he the king’s
+cousin, and she the popular Princess Hélène, daughter
+of the late Comte de Paris—were likewise indefatigable
+in their efforts to assist and reassure the
+demoralized population, and to make every possible
+arrangement for the feeding and housing of the
+numberless refugees and the tending of the injured in
+the hospitals of Naples. Equally valorous was the
+conduct of the great scientist, Professor Matteucci,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page95">[pg 95]</span><a name="Pg095" id="Pg095" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>who remained together with a few Carabinieri throughout
+all phases of the eruption at the Vesuvian
+Observatory, although in imminent peril of death
+amidst a deadly atmosphere of heat and sulphureous
+fumes.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It was on April 5th that the streams of burning
+lava first burst from the riven crater and made their
+way down the south-eastern slopes, destroying Bosco-Trecase
+and reaching to the very suburbs of Torre
+Annunziata. Pompeii itself was imperilled, and it is
+always well to remember that during an eruption this
+precious relic of antiquity may possibly be lost to the
+world. Meanwhile the rain of ashes and mud—formed
+by dust and hot water commingling—fell incessantly;
+150,000 inhabitants of the Vesuvian districts fled in
+precipitate flight towards Naples, towards the shore,
+towards the hill country beyond the Sarno. It was
+truly a marvellous spectacle to observe the relentless
+stream of burning lava crushing irresistibly every
+opposing object in its fatal path. Onlookers at a
+distance could perceive the walls of houses bulging
+outward under pressure of the moving mass, until the
+roof collapsed in an avalanche of tiles upon the ground,
+whilst with a final crash the whole structure—cottage,
+farm, church or stately villa—succumbed to the
+overwhelming weight.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Many are the tales of courage and intrepidity; not
+a few, alas! are the stories of folly and cowardice that
+are related in connection with the eruption. It cannot
+be said that the population of Naples, where everybody
+was perfectly safe even if the atmosphere was
+unpleasant and the distant thunders of the Mountain
+reverberated alarmingly, comported itself with dignity
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page96">[pg 96]</span><a name="Pg096" id="Pg096" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>or calm; and this criticism applies in particular to
+the hundreds of visitors—English, German, American
+and other <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">forestieri</span></span>—who besieged the railway station
+in frantic and indecent anxiety to remove themselves
+with all speed from the city. Some excuse might
+perhaps be found for the hysterical terror of the poor
+inhabitants of the Mergellina or the Mercato, who
+spent their time in wailing within the churches or in
+screaming for the public exhibition of the venerated
+relics of their patron Saint, which again on this occasion
+the Archbishop, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">nolens volens</span></span>, was compelled by
+the mob to produce. But for the great mass of
+educated foreigners then filling the hotels and pensions
+of the place, it cannot be said that their conduct was
+edifying, particularly in face of the example set by the
+King and Queen of Italy. To add to the general
+panic prevailing in the city, the Neapolitans themselves
+were not unnaturally greatly exasperated by the
+serious accident which took place at the Central
+Market Hall near Monte Oliveto in the heart of the
+old town. Here, early one morning during the course
+of the eruption, the great roof of corrugated iron
+collapsed, killing many and frightening the whole of
+the populace, already sufficiently unnerved by recent
+events. That this catastrophe was due to the casual
+methods, amounting in this case to criminal neglect of
+plain duty, of the municipal authorities, who had
+neglected to sweep the accumulation of heavy volcanic
+ash from off the thin metal roof, none can deny; and
+this glaring example of public stupidity had of course
+a bad effect on the demoralized multitude, which
+threatened to grow unruly, as well as terrified. No,
+the graceless stampede of educated foreigners to the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page97">[pg 97]</span><a name="Pg097" id="Pg097" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>railway-station, the incompetence of the Municipality,
+and the behaviour of the Neapolitan crowd do not
+appear very creditable to the supposed enlightenment
+of the twentieth century. It had been confidently
+predicted that nearly fifty years of State education
+and liberal government would work wonders in dispelling
+the crass ignorance and the deep-seated
+superstition of the dwellers on the Bay of Naples.
+Yet, so far as can be judged from recent events,
+matters seem to have changed but little on these
+shores, for the mass of the population evidently preferred
+to pin its hope of safety to the miracle-working
+relics of San Gennaro, rather than to the reassuring
+messages of Professor Matteucci, sent from his post
+of undoubted peril on the mountain-side.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+If the inhabitants of a great city, which was never
+seriously threatened with danger, should have acted
+thus, there is undoubtedly much excuse to be found
+for the Vesuviani themselves, whose houses and lives
+were certainly in danger from the devastating streams
+of lava. It was with a sigh and a smile that we
+learned how the good people of Portici attributed
+their escape from the fate of Bosco-Trecase to the
+direct interposition of a wonder-working Madonna enshrined
+in one of their own churches. For some days
+the town had been threatened, so that many were
+convinced of its impending doom, when happily at
+the last moment the expected fate was averted, as
+though by a miracle. And miracle it truly was in
+the eyes of the people of Portici, when it was observed
+that the snow-white hands of their popular
+Madonna had turned black in some mysterious manner
+during the night hours. What could be a simpler
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page98">[pg 98]</span><a name="Pg098" id="Pg098" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>or easier deduction from this circumstance, than that
+Our Lady’s Effigy, taking pity on its affrighted
+suppliants, had with its own hands pushed back the
+advancing mass of lava, and thus saved the town!
+Great was the joy, and equally great the gratitude,
+displayed by these poor souls at Portici, who at once
+organised a triumphal procession in honour of their
+prescient patroness <span class="tei tei-q">“delle mani nere.”</span> Does not such
+an incident, we ask, lend a touch of picturesque
+medievalism to a modern scene of horror and darkness,
+exhibiting to us, as it does, the traits of a simple
+touching faith and of genuine human thankfulness?
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Well, the great eruption of 1906 is over, and the
+inhabitants of the Vesuvian communes are once more
+settling down in their ruined homes, or their damaged
+farms and gardens. No doubt a new Bosco-Trecase
+will arise on the shapeless ruins of the old site, for fear
+of danger seems powerless to deter the outcast population
+from reoccupying its old haunts. Ottajano will
+be rebuilt, not for the first time, and its citizens will
+again trust to luck—and to St Januarius—for protection
+from the evil fate which has repeatedly
+overtaken their town. The two Torres, Resina,
+Portici, and the villages along the shore, have this
+time contrived to escape the lava streams, and
+though their buildings have been severely shaken, and
+even wrecked in many instances, the people will
+doubtless mend the cracks in their walls and place
+fresh tiles on the injured roofs. They are wise in
+their own generation, for the Mountain is not likely to
+burst forth again for another quarter of a century at
+least after so violent a fit, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">salvo complicazioni</span></span>, of course,
+as the more cautious Italians themselves say. But
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page99">[pg 99]</span><a name="Pg099" id="Pg099" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>another outburst is inevitable; and whose turn to
+suffer will it be then? Will it be Portici, or either of
+the Torres? Who knows?—and what dweller under
+Vesuvius to-day cares at this moment? <span class="tei tei-q">“Under
+Vesuvius,”</span> but it is a new Vesuvius, for the tall cone
+which was so conspicuous a feature of the Bay of
+Naples has disappeared completely, and the summit
+of the volcano has been once more reduced to the
+level of Monte Somma. How many years, we
+wonder, will be required for the Mountain to raise for
+itself once more the tall pyre of ashes that it has
+itself demolished and flung on all sides to the winds?
+At any rate let us now look for a period of rest, a
+period of prosperity to recoup the disturbed denizens
+of these <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">paesi già ridenti</span></span> for their heavy losses and
+terrible experiences. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Speriamo.</span></span>
+</p>
+
+</div><hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page100">[pg 100]</span><a name="Pg100" id="Pg100" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc15" id="toc15"></a><a name="pdf16" id="pdf16"></a>
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">CHAPTER V</span></h2>
+
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.40em; margin-top: 2.40em"><span style="font-size: 120%">THE CORNICHE ROAD FROM CASTELLAMARE TO AMALFI</span></h2>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is without any feelings of regret that we learn
+of the non-existence of a railway line beyond
+Castellamare, so that our journey to Amalfi along the
+coast must be performed in the good old-fashioned
+manner of long-past <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">vetturino</span></span> days. Three skinny
+horses harnessed abreast are standing ready at the
+hotel door to draw our travelling chariot, each member
+of the team gorgeously decked with plumes of
+pheasant feathers in his head-gear and with many-coloured
+trappings, whilst on the harness itself appears
+in more than one place the little brazen hand, which is
+supposed to ensure the steed’s safety from the dangers
+of any chance <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">jettatore</span></span>, the unlucky wight endowed
+with the Evil Eye. Nor is the swarthy picturesque
+ruffian who acts as our driver unprovided with a
+talisman in case of emergency, for we observe hanging
+from his heavy silver watch-chain the long twisted
+horn of pink coral, which is popularly supposed to
+catch the first baleful glance, and to act on the
+principle of a lightning-conductor, in deflecting the
+approaching danger from the prudent wearer of the
+coral trinket. Merrily to the sound of jingling bells
+and the deep-chested exhortations of our coachman do
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page101">[pg 101]</span><a name="Pg101" id="Pg101" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>we bowl along the excellent road in the freshness of
+the morning air and light <span class="tei tei-q">“through varying scenes of
+beauty ever led,”</span> for the Corniche road towards Amalfi
+is admitted to be one of the finest in the world.
+Following the serpentine curves above the cliffs, we
+have on our right hand the dazzling Mediterranean
+with classic capes and islands all flushed in the early
+sunshine, whilst above us on the left rise the steep
+fertile slopes of the Lactarian Hills. Convent and
+villa, cottage and farmhouse, peep out of embowering
+verdure, whilst our road is shaded in many
+places by the overhanging boughs of blossoming
+almond and loquat trees. The whole region is in
+truth a veritable garden of the Hesperides, where in
+the mild equable climate fruit and flowers ripen and
+bloom without a break throughout the rolling year.
+</p><a name="illus07" id="illus07" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus07th.jpg" width="283" height="400" alt="Illustration: POZZANO" title="POZZANO" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus07.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">POZZANO</span></a></div></div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Tall thriving trees confess’d the fruitful mould;</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The verdant apple ripens here to gold;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Here the blue fig with luscious juice o’erflows,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">With deepest red the full pomegranate glows,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The branches bend beneath the weighty pear,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">And silver olives flourish all the year;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The balmy spirit of the western gale</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Eternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Each dropping pear another pear supplies,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">On apples apples, figs on figs arise;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The same mild season gives the blooms to blow,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A lovely and a fertile scene it is indeed, and
+thoroughly typical of the peculiar charm of Southern
+Italy, wherein the rich well-tilled lands appear in
+striking contrast with the near-lying stony fallows and
+scrub-covered wastes.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Beneath the picturesque pile of Santa Maria a
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page102">[pg 102]</span><a name="Pg102" id="Pg102" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Pozzano, perched aloft above the roadway, we pass
+along the edge of the sea-girt precipice, rounding the
+Capo d’Orlando, until we reach the pretty little town
+of Vico Equense, with its churches and gay-coloured
+villas nestling amidst groves of olive and orange trees.
+Vico owes its prosperity in the first instance to the
+patronage of <span class="tei tei-q">“Carlo il Zoppo,”</span> Charles the Dwarf,
+the lame son and heir of King Charles of Anjou, who
+founded a settlement and built a villa upon the site of
+the ancient Roman colony; and it was in the old
+royal demesne of the Angevins that the hand of
+the deformed king’s daughter, the Princess Clementia,
+was demanded formally in marriage by the French
+monarch, Philip the Bold, who sought to marry her to
+his third son, Charles of Valois. The match between
+the young prince of France and his cousin, the
+Neapolitan princess, appeared suitable to all concerned
+in every respect save one; for it was well known that
+the King of Naples had been lame from his birth, and
+it could never be deemed fit for the expected heir of
+France to marry any but a perfectly sound and
+healthy bride. Now the Queen of Naples was too
+proud to accede to the hints of the French ladies, who
+evidently were most anxious to acquaint themselves
+with the satisfactory condition of her daughter’s
+<span class="tei tei-q">“walking members,”</span> though she went so far as to
+allow the maiden to appear before them clad only in
+a flowing robe of gossamer silk. The possible danger
+of losing her opportunity to become Queen of France
+proved, however, beyond the ambitious young lady’s
+powers of endurance, and to the horror of her haughty
+mother and the delight of the foreign emissaries, the
+Princess Clementia then and there doffed her silken
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page103">[pg 103]</span><a name="Pg103" id="Pg103" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>robes and appeared before all in the historic garb of
+Lady Godiva. A glance at the princess’s form <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">in
+puris naturalibus</span></span> sufficed to convince the inquisitive
+Frenchwomen that no hereditary taint from Il Zoppo
+descended to his daughter; and accordingly the
+betrothal of the two young people was celebrated that
+very evening amidst the usual revels and feastings.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The clean cheerful town on the sheer limestone
+crags boasts a cathedral, wherein, so the guide-book
+informs us, we shall find the tomb of Filangieri, the
+great Italian jurist. But the building contains in
+reality far more stirring associations than those connected
+with a prominent lawyer. It is but a rococo
+structure of the usual Italian type, and its painted
+series of portraits of past bishops is by no means an
+uncommon complement of cathedral churches in the
+South. But here, amidst the long rows of indifferent
+portraits, we note an omission, a space that is occupied,
+not by a likeness but by a medallion, which
+represents a cherub with the forefinger of his right
+hand laid as a seal of silence upon the lips. Here-by
+indeed hangs a tale, obscure perhaps, but pathetic
+and human to the last degree. We all remember the
+broad frieze filled with Doges’ faces which is carried
+round the great hall of the ducal palace in Venice,
+wherein the place assigned to the traitor, Marino
+Faliero, contains a black veil instead of the usual
+portrait. Here in little Vico Equense is to be found
+a somewhat similar incident, but with this important
+difference:—the bishop whose portrait is here omitted
+was the most worthy of remembrance of all his peers.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The crime of Monsignore Michele Natale, Bishop
+of Vico Equense, to which the silent cherub bears
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page104">[pg 104]</span><a name="Pg104" id="Pg104" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>everlasting witness, was that of being a patriot and
+a Liberal (in the truest sense of that term) during
+the anxious times of the ill-fated Parthenopean
+Republic, that short-lived period of aristocratic government
+which was set up in self-defence by certain
+Neapolitan nobles, prelates and men of science after
+the abrupt departure of their cowardly King and
+Queen to Palermo. We all remember the terrible
+ending of that government: how the vile rabble-army
+of Cardinal Ruffo assaulted Naples; how the
+city capitulated to the Cardinal on the express condition
+that all life and property should be spared;
+and how Lord Nelson, refusing to recognise the terms
+that Ruffo himself had agreed to, and overruling the
+Cardinal’s protests, treated the unhappy prisoners.
+The Bishop of Vico Equense was one of this band
+of martyrs, for he suffered death under circumstances
+of exceptional brutality on the morning of August
+20th 1799, in the piazza in front of the church of
+the Carmine, together with two Neapolitans of noble
+rank, Giuliano Colonna and Gennaro Serra, and with
+the poetess, Eleonora Pimentel, a Portuguese by
+birth but the widow of a Neapolitan officer. All
+went nobly to their doom amidst the execrations of
+the demoralised bloodthirsty mob of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">lazzaroni</span></span>, yelling
+at and insulting the <span class="tei tei-q">“Jacobins,”</span> and kept back with
+no little difficulty by the royal troops from mutilating
+the corpses of women, bishops and princes.
+Monsignore Natale himself was hanged, and in his
+case the public executioner—<span class="tei tei-q">“Masto Donato”</span> as he
+was nick-named by the populace—gave vent to
+many pleasantries concerning the episcopal rank of
+his victim. Blindfolded and with the cord of infamy
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page105">[pg 105]</span><a name="Pg105" id="Pg105" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>depending from his neck, the Bishop was led up to the
+fatal ladder amid deafening shouts of
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Viva la forca e Masto Donato;</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Sant’ Antonio sia priato!</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+On reaching the top of the gallows, the hangman
+made fast the rope to the cross-tree, and then an
+assistant (<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tirapiede</span></span>) from below adroitly pushed the
+unseeing prisoner into space, catching on to his legs
+meanwhile, whilst <span class="tei tei-q">“Masto Donato”</span> himself adroitly
+leaped from the gallows-top upon the prelate’s
+shoulder. With the hangman on his back, shouting
+aloud how much he was enjoying his ride upon a
+real bishop, and with the other ruffian clinging to his
+heels, Monsignore Natale swayed backwards and forwards
+amidst yells of execration and gratified hate
+on that hot August morning in front of the Church
+of the Carmine little more than one hundred years
+ago. His body was left on the gallows to be insulted
+by the mob throughout the long sweltering day, and
+then, stripped of all its clothing, was finally flung
+with other corpses of noble men and women into a
+charnel-house at Sant’ Alessio al Lavinaio. Who it
+was that placed this quaint little memorial to the
+murdered prelate in his cathedral church we know
+not; but here the speechless yet eloquent cherub
+tells Natale’s sad story of brutality and injustice to
+all who care to listen. Happily the spell of silence
+is at length broken, and the true history of that
+hateful era of crime, cruelty, lying, and intrigue is
+gradually being revealed; and the enemies of the
+Church in Italy learn with an astonishment, which
+is perhaps feigned, that in that glorious army of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page106">[pg 106]</span><a name="Pg106" id="Pg106" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>martyrs of 1799 more than one ecclesiastic of high
+rank suffered in the ill-starred and premature cause of
+Neapolitan liberty.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Crossing the little river Arco, we proceed uphill
+through the region of vines and olives, until we have
+passed the Punta di Scutolo, where begins our
+descent into that famous tract of country, the Piano
+di Sorrento, a plateau above the cliffs, some four miles
+in length by one in breadth. Poets of antiquity and
+bards of the Middle Ages alike have sung the
+delights of the Sorrentine Plain, and have painted
+in glowing colours of inspired verse its race of happy
+peasants, its fruitful fields and orchards, its luscious
+vines, its excellent flocks. Galen, the cunning old
+physician, recommended to his nervous patients what
+would now be termed a <span class="tei tei-q">“rest cure”</span> in these favoured
+regions; whilst the grateful Bernardo Tasso, father of
+the immortal Torquato, speaks of the capital of this
+district as <span class="tei tei-q">“l’Albergo della Cortesia,”</span> and in an
+ecstasy of delighted appreciation, goes on to add:
+<span class="tei tei-q">“l’aere e si sereno, si temperato, si salutifero, si vitale,
+che gli uomini che senza provar altero cielo ci vivono
+sono quasi immortali.”</span> And though praise from
+Torquato’s courtly sire must not be taken too
+seriously, yet few will deny that the beautiful plain
+deserves many of the eulogies that have been
+showered upon it. At the small town of Meta, the
+next place of importance after Sorrento itself, the road
+divides at the Church of the Madonna of the Laurel:
+our way to Amalfi leading southward over the opposing
+ridge—the <span class="tei tei-q">“Sorrentini Colles”</span> of Ovid—whilst
+the other traverses the length of the plain by way of
+Pozzopiano and Sant’ Agnello, until it reaches Sorrento.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page107">[pg 107]</span><a name="Pg107" id="Pg107" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+One prominent feature of this district has already
+attracted our attention; the number of deep ravines
+with which the whole plain is intersected. These
+natural clefts are marvellously lovely in their rich
+luxuriance of foliage, and with their precipitous sides
+and verdure-clad depths will recall the wonderful
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">latomiè</span></span>, the ancient stone-quarries of Syracuse. Their
+depths are filled with orange and lemon trees, mingled
+with sable spires of cypress and the tall forms of bays,
+which here bear jet-black berries, such as are rarely seen
+in our northern clime; whilst the edges of the cliffs
+are clothed with a serried mass of wild flowers; red
+valerian, crimson snap-dragon, tall blue campanulas,
+the dark green wild fennel, white-blossoming cistus,
+and a hundred other plants, gay with colour and
+strong with aromatic perfume.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The quarry’s edge is lined with many a plant,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">With many a flower distilling fragrant dew</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">From brightly coloured petals. Almond trees</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Give snowy promise of sweet leaves and fruit;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Here all the scented tangle of the South</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Covers the boulders, calcined by the sun</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">To pearly whiteness; thorn or asphodel</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Sprout from each cranny of the topmost ledge</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">To nod against the deep blue sky, or peer</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Into the verdure-clad abyss below.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is not surprising to learn that these romantic glens,
+filled with greenery, are reputed locally to be the haunts
+of fairies, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Monacelli</span></span>, as the Sorrentine inhabitants
+name them. Like the <span class="tei tei-q">“good folk”</span> of certain country
+districts in England, the pixies of Devonshire, and the
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Tylwyth Teg”</span> of rural Wales, these elfin people of
+the ravines are not malicious or unkindly in their nature,
+but they are particular and somewhat exacting in
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page108">[pg 108]</span><a name="Pg108" id="Pg108" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>certain matters. They appreciate the attentions of
+mortal men, and offerings of fresh milk or choice
+fruit are not beneath the notice of the Monacelli.
+Borrowing the idea from the votive offerings they
+make in the churches to the Virgin and the Saints,
+the peasants sometimes place little lamps in the fern-draped
+grottoes of these gullies, and to such as
+punctually perform these acts of courtesy, the
+Monacelli frequently show signs of favour. The
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">padrone</span></span> of a local inn has assured us that he and
+his wife stood very high in the good graces of the
+little people, who had on one occasion actually
+written them a letter, although as the characters
+employed were unknown to any person in the
+village, the object of their communication by this
+means seems somewhat of a mystery. Another and
+a more practical instance of their patronage was
+then related, for the favoured landlord assured us
+that on one occasion, when he and his wife descended
+downstairs in the morning, they found the house
+cleared, the hearth ready swept, and all the contents
+of last night’s supper-table relaid on the brick floor,
+but <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">d’un modo squisito</span></span>, such as no human hand could
+ever have been deft enough to contrive. Just a simple
+innocent trifle of Sorrentine folk-lore, but how closely
+does it resemble the old-time gossip of rustic England,
+of which the great poet has left us so charming
+a picture!—
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">To earn his cream-bowl duly set,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">That ten day labourers could not end.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page109">[pg 109]</span><a name="Pg109" id="Pg109" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+For, as we have already said, the Monacelli show
+themselves grateful to those who anticipate their
+wants, and will serve their votaries with industry
+and fidelity. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Fuore avra il Monacello in casa</span></span>—perhaps
+he has had the Fairy in the house—has
+passed into a local phrase to designate a neighbour’s
+unexplained prosperity. But, again, the lucky recipient
+of these favours must never blab or even hint
+at the origin of his good fortune, for all gossip is
+highly distasteful to the fairy folk; and that, we
+suppose, is the true reason why so little authentic
+information can be gleaned as to the methods of
+the Monacelli.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In direct contrast with the Monacelli of the ravines,
+who are, on the whole, well inclined towards mortals,
+are the Maghe, first cousins evidently to the terrible
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">ginns</span></span> of Arabian folk-lore; perhaps the Saracenic
+pirates themselves may have introduced their oriental
+sprites to the Neapolitan shores. In the popular mind
+the Maghe are supposed to possess vast treasures
+hidden in caves by the seashore, or on the bleak
+mountain side, and it was doubtless concerning these
+spirits that the guide’s tale, given in a previous chapter,
+relates. The most celebrated Maga of all is the demon
+who haunts a certain underground corridor near
+Pozzuoli, containing an immense hoard of gold and
+jewels, which he is willing to present to anybody
+that is ready to give in exchange a new-born baby,
+presumably for purposes of devouring. Nor was the
+general belief in the cave-dwelling monster at Pozzuoli
+limited to the poor peasants and fisher-folk, for rumour
+persistently asserted that King Francis of Naples,
+father of Bomba of impious memory, more than once
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page110">[pg 110]</span><a name="Pg110" id="Pg110" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>attempted to negotiate with the guardian of this
+buried treasure; but the Maga’s terms, it seems,
+were too bloodthirsty and extravagant even for a
+Neapolitan Bourbon to comply with, and in that
+case they must indeed have been pretty startling.
+Malignant fairies are, in short, quite common upon
+the Sorrentine plain, where exasperated mothers are
+sometimes in the habit of frightening their squalling
+children into silence by threatening to introduce them
+to <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Mammone</span></span>—perhaps a corruption of the old Greek
+word <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mormo</span></span>—a terrible ghost, that must be a near
+relation to the <span class="tei tei-q">“Big Black Man”</span> of English nurseries,
+who is ever ready to carry off naughty boys and girls
+in his sack.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But the whole of the Sorrentine Peninsula is full of
+local superstitions, the vast majority of which can easily
+be traced to the influence of Catholicism, whilst comparatively
+few seem to be the legacy of ancient Greek
+or Roman mythology. Belief in witchcraft is universal
+in these parts, but the witch herself (<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">strega</span></span>) is regarded
+somewhat in the light of a beneficent <span class="tei tei-q">“wise woman,”</span>
+who can arrest the far more dreaded spell of the Evil
+Eye, rather than as the malevolent old hag of bucolic
+England in the past. Certainly there has never been
+recorded in Southern Italy any such popular persecution
+of poor harmless old crones as once disgraced
+English countrysides; nor has any Italian jurist, like
+the erudite Sir Matthew Hale, ever condescended to
+supply legal information concerning the peculiarities
+of witches, and the best methods of prosecuting and
+burning them. But the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">strega</span></span>, though not as a rule
+dangerous to mankind, provided she be not disturbed
+or insulted, has the same supernatural power of transit
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page111">[pg 111]</span><a name="Pg111" id="Pg111" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>on a broomstick that is possessed by her northern
+sister. On many a dark night have the peasants
+crossed themselves with fear on hearing the witches
+flying through the storm-vexed air to keep their unholy
+tryst beside the famous walnut tree of Benevento, which
+has been described for us by the learned Pietro Piperno
+in his mysterious treatise, entitled <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">De Nuce Beneventana</span></span>.
+Even snatches of the witches’ song can sometimes be
+distinguished above the howling of the gale—
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Sott’ aero e sopra vento,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Sotto la Nuce di Benevento!</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Perhaps it may afford some consolation to those
+who have a dread of witches that the word <span class="tei tei-q">“Sabato,”</span>
+solemnly pronounced on these awful occasions, is of
+real service to the utterer; whilst such as have had
+the good fortune to be born on a Friday in March are
+permanently placed outside the evil power of their
+spells, since our Saviour was crucified on a Friday in
+that month.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But at length we have finished the ascent of
+the ridge, and our driver halts for a moment at
+the inn of the <span class="tei tei-q">“Due Golfi.”</span> A smiling damsel,
+dressed in the picturesque native costume, advances to
+offer us the national drink of Italy, sweet vermouth
+that is frothed up with a little fizzing water in a narrow
+tumbler; and though carriage exercise is not liable to
+produce thirst, yet we cannot be so churlish as to
+refuse the draught, especially as the delay allows us to
+take our farewell look at the Bay of Naples. For here
+we have reached the peak of the rocky saddle that
+divides the two famous gulfs; and before us we now
+behold the wide crescent of the Bay of Salerno with
+its sunburnt vineyards and its precipitous cliffs. To
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page112">[pg 112]</span><a name="Pg112" id="Pg112" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>our right we perceive the craggy headlands stretching
+southward till they culminate in the Cape of Minerva:—how
+much more attractive sounds the good old classical
+name than the new-fangled Punta della Campanella,
+so called from the alarm bell which used to be tolled
+in the ruined fortress at the approach of the Moslem
+pirate galleys! Vastly different is the aspect on this
+side of the peninsula to that which we have just left
+behind us. There is the plain below us, thickly dotted
+with farms and villas set amidst crops and orchards, a
+fertile scene of industry and population; here on the
+Salerno side are wild stony tracts affording only pasturage
+for a few sheep and goats, and covered for
+miles with broom, cytizus, coronella, myrtle, and numberless
+fragrant weeds, all struggling fiercely for existence
+on the dry barren soil, and filling the clear air
+with an incense-like perfume. Such is our first acquaintance
+with the Costiera d’Amalfi, that wonderful
+stretch of indented rocky coast-line once containing
+the Republic of Amalfi, which was the forerunner of
+the glorious Commonwealths of Florence and Venice.
+From the grey cliffs of Capri to the west, as far as the
+headland beside Salerno, stretched this diminutive
+state, composed of a confederacy of sister-cities, whereof
+Amalfi herself was the queen and metropolis. Its
+glories have long vanished, but the Costiera d’Amalfi
+remains an enchanted land, not only on account of its
+natural beauties, but also by reason of its historical
+associations which give an additional charm to every
+breezy headland and every little town upon this
+wonderful shore.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Below us, as we rapidly descend the slopes by the
+curves of the Corniche road, lies the little beach known
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page113">[pg 113]</span><a name="Pg113" id="Pg113" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>as Lo Scaricotojo, whence in the days previous to the
+construction of this splendid highway all visitors were
+wont to embark for Amalfi;—that is, unless they
+attempted the expedition by way of the mountain
+roads leading thither from Castellamare or La Cava.
+It raises a smile in these days of swift and luxurious
+travelling to learn from an early Victorian guide-book
+that <span class="tei tei-q">“the most elegible mode of going from Sorrento
+to Amalfi is either to ride or to be carried in a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">chaise
+à porteurs</span></span> to that part of the Colli where begins a
+rapid descent, and thence descending on foot to the
+Marinella of the Scaricotojo on the Gulf of Salerno....
+The ride occupies about an hour and a quarter,
+and the descent which, though steep, is not dangerous,
+occupies about an hour.”</span> <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Nous avons changé tout ça</span></span>;
+yet there are still living amongst us those who lament
+the passing away of the old-fashioned days of Italian
+travel, when inns were bad but picturesque, and expeditions
+to such remote places as Amalfi were not only difficult
+but even dangerous; since in compensation
+for slow progress and risk of brigands every town
+owned a primitive charm which is now rapidly disappearing
+before the modern irruption of locust-like
+swarms of tourists with their motor cars, their luncheon
+baskets, and their kodaks. Well, to the majority of
+travellers the value of natural scenery is not a little
+enhanced by the sense of comfort, and here on the
+Costiera d’Amalfi the most particular can have no
+cause to complain, since it is one of the few lovely
+spots of Southern Europe that has not yet been invaded
+by the dividend-paying railway. No, the old
+Republic retains to a great extent its ancient atmosphere
+of unspoiled beauty and remoteness from the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page114">[pg 114]</span><a name="Pg114" id="Pg114" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>bustling world. It is still a stretch of glorious and
+historic country wherein one can obtain a pleasant and
+valued respite for a time from the overpowering improvements
+of an industrial age.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+As we look southward across the breadth of the
+Bay, our eye is at once caught by the group of the
+Isles of the Sirens, which, though in reality fully a
+mile distant from the nearest point of the coast, seem
+in this clear atmosphere as though they were lying
+within a stone’s throw of the beach. Around these
+bare bluffs of rock, seemingly flung by the hand of
+Nature in a sportive mood into the blue waves, lingers
+one of the most insidious of all the old Greek legends,
+for it was past these lonely cliffs that the cunning
+Ulysses sailed during his long career of mazy wanderings
+in search of his island home and his faithful
+Penelope. In those days, so the Greek bard tells us,
+there dwelt upon these islets strange sea-witches
+with the faces and forms of most beautiful maidens,
+although their lower limbs had the resemblance of
+eagles’ feet and talons. Two sirens only, says Homer,
+dwelt upon these coasts, although later poets have
+increased the number of the fatal sisters to three or
+even four. Singing the most enchanting songs to
+the sound of tortoise-shell lyres, there used to bask
+in the sunlight beside the gentle ripple the Sirens,
+their nether limbs well hidden from the gaze of
+passing seamen, who, attracted by the tuneful notes,
+hastened hither to discover the whereabouts of the
+musicians. Innocent eyes, angelic faces, flowing
+golden locks and white beckoning hands had every
+power to draw the curious mariner nearer and
+nearer, until he came within reach of the fell
+en<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page115">[pg 115]</span><a name="Pg115" id="Pg115" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>chantresses. For the Sirens loved the flesh of
+mortals, and bleached skulls and bones of digested
+victims lay in heaps upon the sandy floor of their
+azure-hued caverns. Gold and jewels, too, the spoils
+of many a brave galley that had been lured to destruction
+by these charmers, likewise littered their
+retreat, and perhaps it was as much the glittering of
+this gold as their own lovely features that in certain
+cases enticed the wary merchant into this fatal trap.
+Gold and a pretty face: what male heart could be
+proof against the double temptation the Isles of the
+Sirens offered to the navigator in the days of the
+Odyssey! Only one sailor over these seas proved
+himself a match for the wiles of the cruel goddesses
+of the Amalfitan coast; for Ulysses, as we know,
+stopped the ears of his companions with wax on
+their approach towards this dangerous spot, whilst he
+himself, always eager to hear and see everything yet
+perfectly well aware of the Sirens’ magnetic power,
+had himself tightly bound by cords to the mast. So
+whilst the deaf rowers stolidly tugged at their oars,
+oblivious of the weird unearthly melody around them,
+the clever King of Ithaca gained the honour of becoming
+the only mortal who had listened to that
+subtle song without paying the penalty of a hideous
+and ignoble death.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is strangely disappointing to find that no recollection
+of Sirens or of Ulysses lingers in the lore
+of the present dwellers upon these coasts. They
+have no more notion of the aspect of a Siren than
+they have of a pleisosaurus, and, as a modern writer
+naïvely complains, they are not sharp-witted enough
+to invent fanciful tales to please the enquiring foreigner.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page116">[pg 116]</span><a name="Pg116" id="Pg116" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Nor is this lack of intelligence to be wondered at,
+when we recall to mind the clean sweep of all
+classical learning and tradition which that period of
+time, truly known as the Dark Ages, made throughout
+Italy; if Petrarch found it necessary to explain to
+King Robert the Wise with the greatest tact and
+delicacy that Vergil was a poet and not a wizard,
+what must have been the appalling ignorance prevailing
+amongst the peasant and the fisherman? And
+yet these barren rocks were known as the Isles of
+the Sirens centuries before the verses of the Aeneid
+immortalized the mythic voyage of the Trojan
+adventurer, who passed along this iron-bound coast
+on his way towards the mouth of Tiber. Their
+modern, or rather medieval name of I Galli is somewhat
+of a puzzle. Erudite scholars affect to derive
+it from Guallo, a fortress captured during a war
+between King Roger and the Republic of Amalfi,
+but this explanation, we confess, does not sound very
+reasonable. Others prefer to imagine that the word
+Gallo (a cock) contains an allusion to the claws and
+feathers of the Sirens themselves, for certain of the
+ancient writers endowed these dire Virgins of the
+Rocks with the wings as well as the claws of birds;—in
+fact, they represented them as Harpies, those
+horrible fowls with women’s faces that appeared upon
+the scene at Prospero’s bidding to spoil the bad
+king’s supper party. But why, if the Sirens were
+female,—and on this point all their critics agree with
+an unanimity that is wonderful—should their ancient
+haunts be called <span class="tei tei-q">“The Cocks?”</span> The untutored
+natives themselves, understanding nothing of Sirens
+or of Odysseys, hold their own theory with regard
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page117">[pg 117]</span><a name="Pg117" id="Pg117" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>to the disputed name, which they connect with the
+construction of a harbour at distant Salerno, and
+though this legend sounds foolish enough, it is
+scarcely less flimsy than the notions already quoted.
+A certain enchanter, one Pietro Bajalardo, undertook—in
+modern parlance, contracted—to build in a
+single night the much needed breakwater at Salerno
+on the strange condition that all cocks in the
+neighbourhood should first be killed; for the wizard,
+so the story runs, had a special aversion to Chanticleer
+on account of his having caused the repentance
+of St Peter by his crowing. In any case, the reigning
+Prince of Salerno gladly complied with the eccentric
+request, and at his command every cock in or near
+the place was accordingly slaughtered, with the
+solitary exception of one old rooster, who, being very
+dear to the heart of his aged mistress, was kept concealed
+beneath a tub and thus escaped the general
+holocaust. Throughout the livelong night Bajalardo
+was busily engaged in superintending the work of
+building the harbour, whilst the fiends who carried
+out his behest were actively conveying huge blocks
+of broken cliff from the Cape of Minerva to place in
+the waters of Salerno. But at daybreak the cock
+imprisoned beneath the tub, the sole survivor of his
+race, according to natural custom announced the dawn,
+to the despair of Bajalardo and the terror of his attendant
+fiends, who in their precipitate flight dropped
+into the sea near the Punta Sant’ Elia the huge masses
+of stone they were then carrying; and these rocks
+are called by men I Galli in consequence to this day.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But, to be strictly impartial, it was not the Sirens
+alone who were responsible for all the victims who
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page118">[pg 118]</span><a name="Pg118" id="Pg118" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>perished on these arid rocks. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Homo homini lupus</span></span>;
+man is always ready to prey upon man, and many of
+the dark tales concerning the Galli go to prove the
+truth of the terrible old adage. At what period the
+Sirens abandoned their ancient retreat and swam or
+flew away to more congenial haunts is unknown to
+history; but certain it is that the rulers of proud
+Amalfi committed many a cruel deed of murder or
+torture upon their deserted islets. For here, many a
+hapless political prisoner languished for years in abject
+misery, a prey to the heat and glare of summer and
+to the fierce gales of bitter winter nights. Rock-cut
+steps and ruined towers still remain as mementoes of
+those dark days, when callous human gaolers worthily
+filled the places of the absent Sirens. It was in a
+chamber of yonder turret, still standing, that the Doge
+Mansone II., blinded by a brother’s vengeance, dragged
+out years of utter misery in pain and darkness, until
+the Emperor of the East, suzerain of Amalfi, at last
+took compassion upon the prisoner’s wretched plight
+and allowed him to be removed into honourable confinement
+at Byzantium. For many hundreds of years
+the Isles of the Sirens have lain untenanted, nor are
+they visited nowadays save by a few inquisitive
+travellers or by the fishermen of the Scaricotojo, who
+find safe shelter under their lee during the sudden
+squalls of the Mediterranean. For, strange to relate,
+there are no dangerous currents, no treacherous whirlpools
+close to these rocky islets, such as we might
+expect to give some natural interpretation to the ancient
+myth, the origin of which remains unexplained and
+constitutes a very pretty mystery as it stands.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+We bid farewell to the group of ill-omened rocks,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page119">[pg 119]</span><a name="Pg119" id="Pg119" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>as we proceed rapidly under the rocky slopes of the
+Monte di Chiosse towards Positano, which extends in
+a long curving line of cheerful-tinted flat-roofed houses
+from the summit of its protecting cliff to the strand
+below, sprinkled with boats and nets and cloths with
+heaps of grain a-drying. The descent to the lower
+portion of the little town is singularly charming with
+its varied scenery of rocks and hanging woods above
+us, with the tiled domes of churches outlined against
+the deep blue waters, and with the whole scene
+dominated by the pierced crag of Montapertuso,
+beyond which thrusts up into the cloudless sky the
+triple peak of the giant Sant’ Angelo. Positano is a
+thriving as well as an ancient place, and of its dense
+population we have abundant evidence in the swarms
+of children that pursue our carriage, brown-skinned
+picturesque little nuisances, shrilly and incessantly
+crying out for <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">soldi</span></span>. Most of these infants wear
+bright coloured rags, but not a few are dressed in
+garments that at once recall the ginger-coloured robes
+of the Capuchin friars, for the brothers of the Order
+of St Francis are popularly reputed to be especially
+competent in keeping aloof evil spells from young
+persons entrusted to their charge; and of course,
+argue the doting parents, it is only natural that the
+spirits of darkness should not dare to molest the little
+ones tricked out in robes similar to those worn by
+these holy men.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+From the point of view of history the chief interest
+of Positano centres in the time-honoured tradition
+that Flavio Gioja, the original inventor of the compass,
+was a native of this town, once a flourishing and
+important member of the group of cities which
+com<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page120">[pg 120]</span><a name="Pg120" id="Pg120" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>prised the Amalfitan Republic in its palmy days.
+But Clio, the Muse of History, is an inexorable
+mistress, and she will not rest content with mere
+hearsay, however venerable, and as a result of careful
+investigation it would seem that Flavio Gioja, who for
+centuries has been generally credited with this marvellous
+discovery, must himself have been a personage almost
+as mythic as the Sirens of this shore, for his very
+name is spelled in a variety of ways that is hopelessly
+confusing. Nor has the question of his place of birth
+ever been satisfactorily settled, for both Positano and
+Amalfi claim this hero of science for a son, although
+only in Amalfitan annals can the disputed name
+be detected. Be this as it may, it was a citizen of
+this Costiera who has ever been acknowledged as
+the inventor of the compass, though concerning both
+himself and his alleged discovery there is a complete
+absence of any contemporary record. Later
+writers have, it is true, always admitted the honour on
+behalf of the Republic, and Pontano goes so far as to
+call Amalfi <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">magnetica</span></span> in compliment thereof, whilst
+during the later crusades the Amalfitani, who were
+evidently convinced of the genuine nature of Gioja’s
+claim, had an heraldic figure of the mariner’s compass
+emblazoned on their banners. It seems a thousand
+pities to throw doubt upon so picturesque a tradition,
+for the date of the invention of the compass has been
+fixed as 1302, two years only after the holding of the
+famous Papal Jubilee in Rome which Dante’s verse
+has described for us. Nor can the ingenious theory
+be upheld that the fleur-de-lys, the emblem of the
+French kings of Naples, which still decorates the dial
+of the compass in almost all lands, is in any wise
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page121">[pg 121]</span><a name="Pg121" id="Pg121" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>connected with Carlo il Zoppo, the monarch to whom
+Gioja is said to have dedicated his ingenious discovery.
+No, we have little doubt that the compass, like so
+many of the scientific wonders that crept into Europe
+before and during the time of the Renaissance, was
+originally brought from the far East, a farther East
+than the argosies of Amalfi had ever penetrated. The
+little magic box with its moving needle was first used,
+it is now admitted, by the cunning merchants of
+Cathay during their trading expeditions across the
+stony monotonous plains of Central Asia that lay
+between the Flowery Land and the civilization of
+Persia. From Cathay the use of the magnetic needle
+was introduced to the Arab mathematicians of Baghdad
+and Cairo, and through them the secret of the lodestone
+of China was conveyed to the coast towns of the
+Levant. At Aleppo or Alexandria some astute trader
+of Amalfi—perhaps his name really was Flavio Gioja—contrived
+to learn the new method of steering from
+some Moslem or Jewish merchant, and he in his turn
+brought this novel and precious piece of information
+back to the Italian shores. If, then, a native of
+Amalfi did not evolve the idea of the compass out of
+his own brain, at least it was the old Republic which
+first impressed the Western world with its immense
+value, and this, too, at a far earlier period than the
+date usually assigned to Gioja’s <span class="tei tei-q">“discovery.”</span> For a
+Christian bishop of Jerusalem a hundred years before
+Gioja’s day makes mention of the compass as being in
+common use amongst the Saracens of Palestine, whilst
+its existence was certainly known to Brunetto Latini,
+the tutor of Dante, whom for certain moral failings
+upon earth his brilliant pupil somewhat harshly places
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page122">[pg 122]</span><a name="Pg122" id="Pg122" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>in the infernal regions. History has, in short, long
+deprived poor disconsolate Positano of its vaunted
+glory in the production of a medieval scientist whose
+very existence has now become a matter of speculation.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+As we thread our way along the road that curves
+round headland after headland, and is carried over
+sheer precipices whose base is lapped by the cool
+jade-green water, we begin to realize the essential
+difference between the Sorrentine shores we have left
+behind us, and the marvellous Costiera d’Amalfi we
+are now passing. Ever green and smiling are the
+favoured districts that stretch from Castellamare to
+Massa Lubrense, with the mountain tops acting
+as screens to protect the groves and crops from
+the sun’s ardent rays and with the fresh reviving
+breezes from the Abruzzi ever breathing upon them.
+But here we seem to be under the very eyes of the
+Sun-God, who stares fixedly from rising to setting
+upon the Amalfitan coast. Welcome enough is this
+continuous basking in his smiles during the short
+winter days; but oh! the long, long summer hours
+wherein King Helios relentlessly pours down his
+burning glances upon the shallow soil that covers the
+rocky face of the Costiera! We who visit the
+territories of the old Republic in winter or early
+spring only perceive one aspect of the picture. We
+rejoice in the gladdening warmth afforded by unbroken
+sunshine and by the complete absence of cutting winds
+which Monte Sant’ Angelo’s towering form excludes
+from these shores; we note with delight the premature
+unfolding of buds and blossoms, and we marvel at the
+young fruit of the dark-leaved loquat trees—the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">nespoli</span></span> of the South—turning to pale yellow even in
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page123">[pg 123]</span><a name="Pg123" id="Pg123" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>February. But we cannot realise the blinding glare
+and the torrid heat of a July or August, making
+a perfect furnace of this sheltered corner, where the
+thin layer of cultivated soil, that has been scraped
+together painfully by human hands, becomes baked
+through and through, when the water-tanks are
+exhausted, and when the clouds of thick dust hang like
+a pall of white smoke for miles above the sinuous course
+of the Corniche road. How close and sweltering must
+be the atmosphere of these populous coves, when the
+very waves are flung luke-warm upon the hot sand!
+How must the inhabitants sigh for a breath of cool
+air from the Abruzzi, for the zephyr that tempers the
+heat on the Sorrentine plain! <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Carpe diem</span></span>; let us enjoy
+the Costiera d’Amalfi in the freshness of early spring-time,
+before the oranges and lemons have been stripped
+from the leafy groves and before the sun has had
+time to scorch up the vegetation that now gives
+colour to every cleft and crevice of the rocky
+coast-line.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+As we advance eastward from Positano we obtain
+glimpses from time to time of mountain valleys
+thickly clothed with brushwood, and far above
+our heads we perceive Agerola perched aloft under
+the shadow of the topmost crag of Monte Sant’
+Angelo—Agerola, where wolves still haunt the dim
+recesses of the chestnut woods, and where the charcoal
+burners can tell us of the great grey Were-Wolf that
+prowls round the village on stormy nights. Passing
+the torrent of the Arriengo and the Punta di San
+Pietro with its lonely chapel looking out to sea;
+glancing down upon the deep set strand and gloomy
+caverns of Furore, and rounding Cape Sottile, we find
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page124">[pg 124]</span><a name="Pg124" id="Pg124" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ourselves at Prajano, one of the prettiest spots to
+be found on all this wonderful coast. Here we
+stop to visit the church of San Luca, which stands on
+a little grassy platform overhanging the sea and
+commanding a superb view of the Bay of Salerno. It
+is a baroque structure of the type common everywhere
+in Italy, which travellers are apt to despise without
+acknowledging how picturesque this decadent style of
+architecture can appear. At Prajano the wooden
+doors of green faded to the hue of ancient bronze,
+the yellow-washed plaster façade and the lichen-covered
+tiles of the roof and tower make up a
+charming mass of varied colouring when viewed
+against the broad blue band of sea and sky beyond.
+Within, the church is mean and tawdry, just a
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Sad charnel-house of humble hopes and crimes,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Long dead and buried in obscurity;</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+but the afternoon sun struggling through the curtains
+that cover its fantastic windows allows a mellow light
+to fill the expanse of the building. A toothless
+old woman and a young girl, both of them thinly and
+poorly clad, are the sole occupants of the church, and
+they are evidently too much absorbed in prayer to
+notice our presence. They have placed beside the
+Madonna’s altar lighted tapers which glimmer feebly
+in a shaft of strong sunlight that falls through a rent
+in the curtain overhead. For what purpose, we
+wonder, have these candles been bought out of a
+scanty store! Are they burning on behalf of some
+sailor-boy now being tossed upon the ocean? Or are
+they offered to obtain some boon more selfish and less
+pathetic? At any rate, this pair of intent worshippers,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page125">[pg 125]</span><a name="Pg125" id="Pg125" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>representing fresh Southern youth and crabbed age,
+make up a pretty picture as they kneel together
+on the pavement of tiles ornamented in bright rococo
+patterns to represent the coat-of-arms of some
+forgotten noble benefactor: it is too simple and everyday
+a sight in Italy to offer a theme for verse, too
+sacred a subject for an idle photograph. We leave
+the church on tip-toe, and return to the terrace with
+its low marble seats and its stunted acacia trees to sit
+a few moments before re-entering the carriage.
+</p><a name="illus08" id="illus08" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus08th.jpg" width="256" height="400" alt="Illustration: EVENING AT AMALFI" title="EVENING AT AMALFI" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus08.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">EVENING AT AMALFI</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Skirting the Capo di Conca we obtain our first
+sight of proud Amalfi, and we realize that our drive,
+long in distance perhaps, but all too short with its
+varied beauties and interests, is drawing to a close.
+Nearer and nearer do we approach our goal, the shining
+turrets of the Cathedral tower acting as our beacon,
+until at length our chariot clatters beneath the echoing
+tunnel hewn in the cliff that leads into the town itself.
+</p>
+
+</div><hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page126">[pg 126]</span><a name="Pg126" id="Pg126" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc17" id="toc17"></a><a name="pdf18" id="pdf18"></a>
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">CHAPTER VI</span></h2>
+
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.40em; margin-top: 2.40em"><span style="font-size: 120%">AMALFI AND THE FESTIVAL OF ST ANDREW</span></h2>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The traveller’s first impressions of Amalfi, which
+is essentially the beauty-spot of the Riviera of
+Naples, are usually associated with the old Capuchin
+convent, long since turned into a hotel and now the
+bourne of most visitors to this coast. Its arcaded
+façade and its terraced garden stand on a plateau
+seemingly cut out of the sheer face of the cliff, whilst
+high above the town the lofty barren rocks enfold the
+Convent and its verdant demesne within a natural
+amphitheatre and protect this sunny paradise from the
+keen blasts of winter. A flight of steps zigzagging
+up the rocky hill-side connects the building with the
+high road below; whilst a narrow pathway, leading
+between stone walls and now passing beneath dark
+mysterious archways, wherein the lamps burning
+before the Madonna’s shrines afford a welcome light
+even at midday, descends by steep gradients from the
+garden above into the main piazza of the little city.
+Built by the celebrated Cardinal Pietro Capuano nearly
+seven hundred years ago for Cistercian monks, the
+monastery in the sixteenth century came into the possession
+of the Capuchin Friars, those brown-robed
+figures that with their bare feet and girdles of knotted
+white cord are such familiar and picturesque objects
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page127">[pg 127]</span><a name="Pg127" id="Pg127" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>in the daily crowds of every Italian town. But the
+friars have been forced to abandon their airy retreat
+ever since the suppression of the religious houses, which
+succeeded the union of the old Neapolitan kingdom
+with young Italy, and their convent has long been
+put to secular uses. Yet the old monastic church
+still exists, and superstitious people declare that the
+spectral forms of ejected Capuchins are sometimes to
+be seen advancing slowly up the rocky ascent in order
+to revisit the sacred building that is now closed for
+worship. Nevertheless the church is cared for by the
+members of the Vozzi family, its present owners, who
+every Christmas-tide still prepare the popular <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">presepio</span></span>,
+that curious representation of the scene in the stable at
+Bethlehem, wherein a score of gaily dressed figures of
+painted wood represent the Holy Family and the
+worshipping peasants. Little in fact has been changed
+within the building itself, and the exquisite cloistered
+court with its slender intertwining Saracenic columns
+still remains to delight alike the artist and the antiquary.
+We say <span class="tei tei-q">“still remains”</span> advisedly; for beyond the
+tiny quadrangle our eyes at once light upon a scene
+of hideous devastation.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Doubtless many persons will recall the great land-slip
+of December 1899, when almost without warning
+the whole face of the rocky headland that shelters
+Amalfi on the west tore itself loose and slid with a
+crash like thunder into the sea below, overwhelming
+in its fall the little inn known as the <span class="tei tei-q">“Santa Caterina”</span>
+and burying in its ruins two English ladies and several
+fishermen. The sinister scar still continues as a blot
+upon the lovely landscape, speaking only too eloquently
+to all of sudden death and destruction amidst the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page128">[pg 128]</span><a name="Pg128" id="Pg128" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>surrounding scenes of life and beauty. The older
+portion of the Capuchin convent, by a miracle as it
+were, escaped the on-rush of the land-slide, but its
+famous <span class="tei tei-q">“Calvary,”</span> the large group of the Crucifixion
+that appears prominently in so many pictures of
+Amalfi, was completely swept away, so that the boatmen
+from the sands below can no longer behold the
+immense vivid representation of the Last Agony which
+was wont to greet their upturned eyes. Already
+Time’s kindly hand has begun to drape the scene of
+the catastrophe with a decent mourning veil of grey
+and green, for the hardy succulent plants that can withstand
+the sun’s fierce rays and can thrive despite the
+boisterous salt sea-winds are already sprouting from
+every crack and cranny of the riven earth. Perhaps
+it is as well for us selfish and self-satisfied mortals to
+possess a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">memento mori</span></span> close at hand in a spot so
+teeming with the joy of life; yet somehow the first
+sight of that mass of broken headland and the dark
+ominous fissure in the hill-side, flung across the sunlit
+scene, is apt to send a slight shiver through the frame
+of the beholder.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+There are three indisputable advantages to be gained
+by turning a suppressed religious house into a modern
+hotel, so a cunning old Italian inn-keeper once confided
+to us; that is, of course, provided one is not afraid of the
+proverbial curse that clings to the buying of any of the
+Church’s sequestrated property. These three things are
+good air, good water, and lovely views; benefits that
+a layman is fully as competent to understand as
+any cloistered ecclesiastic. And certainly the worthy
+Vozzi are fully justified in offering these privileges
+to their guests at the Albergo Cappuccini. Signor
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page129">[pg 129]</span><a name="Pg129" id="Pg129" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Vozzi! How many travellers in the South recall with
+infinite pleasure their host’s tall commanding figure,
+his snowy drooping whiskers, the sun-shade that was
+rarely out of his hand, his old-fashioned courteous
+manners, and his famous family of cats, whereof the
+coal-black Nerone was the prime favourite, a feline
+monster almost as tyrannical as his Imperial namesake
+of evil reputation. Signor Vozzi’s striking personality,
+the sable fur of agate-eyed Nerone, the eternal sunshine,
+and the wide all-embracing views over sea and land,
+are somehow all jumbled together in our perplexed
+mind, as it recurs to the many days spent beneath
+the convent roof. Nay, not beneath the roof! For
+we were wont to pass the whole day, even the short
+December day, in basking on the warm sheltered
+terrace and peering over the busy beach and the
+dazzling waters below, whereon the tale of Amalfitan
+fisher-life could be read as it were from the pages of
+a book.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Somehow the old monastic buildings appear
+marvellously well adapted to modern needs. The
+former inmates’ cells, wherein the brown-robed brethren
+of the Order of St Francis until lately were wont to
+pass their placid uneventful lives, afford comfortable if
+somewhat limited accommodation; whilst the covered
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">loggia</span></span> that runs the whole length of the cells has been
+turned into a series of delightful little sitting-rooms,
+their broad arc-shaped windows facing full south, a
+boon that only a winter resident in Italy can properly
+appreciate. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Dove non entra il sole, entra il medico</span></span>, is
+a hackneyed but well-proven adage; consequently
+here in the old Capuchin convent the services of the
+local medicine-man ought rarely to be required.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page130">[pg 130]</span><a name="Pg130" id="Pg130" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Signor Vozzi’s guests partake of their meals in the
+ancient refectory, a large bare echoing chamber with a
+vaulted ceiling, which still contains the old stone pulpit
+from which in more pious days a grave brother was
+wont to read aloud choice passages from the works of
+the early Fathers of the Church or of St Bonaventura,
+the Seraphic Doctor of the Franciscans, during the
+hours allotted to the frugal repasts of the friars. But
+the public rooms and the cool white-washed corridors
+do not present such attractions as the glorious garden
+with its famous <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pergola</span></span> and its views of the Bay.
+Here even in Christmas week we found quantities of
+plants in full bloom: the delicate yellow blossoms of
+the Soffrana rose; trailing ivy-leaved geraniums with
+gay heads of carmine flowers; the honey-scented
+budleia with its little globes of dark yellow flowerets:
+clumps of gorgeous scarlet salvia; and straggling
+masses of the pretty cosmia, red, pink and white.
+Humming-bird hawk-moths darted hither and thither
+in the sunshine, restless little creatures whose wings
+are never for a moment still, as they poise gracefully
+over each separate blossom in turn. The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pergola</span></span>
+itself, which every artist at Amalfi paints as a matter
+of course, generally with a Capuchin friar—at least a
+friar <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pro hac vice</span></span>—or a pretty dark-eyed damsel in the
+native costume, sitting in the foreground, was certainly
+bare of foliage, we admit, for even in the soft warm air
+of the Bay of Salerno the grape-vine wisely refuses to
+burst into leaf at Yuletide, no matter how enticing the
+warmth. But the thick white pillars and their wooden
+cross-beams, around which are entwined the leafless
+coiling limbs of the sleeping vine, throw dark blue
+patterns of chequered shadow upon the sunlit ground.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page131">[pg 131]</span><a name="Pg131" id="Pg131" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Above the terraced garden rises the orangery, well
+watered by many artificial rillets, and from the midst
+of the orange and lemon trees there emerges a path
+leading to the entrancing <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">bosco</span></span>, or grove, that fills the
+deep hollow space formed by the sheltering cliffs
+behind. It was mid-winter, as we have said, yet pink
+cyclamens and strong-scented double narcissi were
+blooming freely, whilst from the dark boughs of the
+ilex trees overhead there fell upon the ear the pleasant
+twittering of innumerable birds, for happily the cruel
+snare and the gun are strictly forbidden in this sacred
+spot, so that his <span class="tei tei-q">“little sisters, the birds,”</span> that the
+gentle Saint of Assisi loved so tenderly, can still sing
+their songs of innocence and build their nests in peace
+amidst the trees that no longer remain the property of
+the great humanitarian Order. At nightfall this
+garden is almost equally beautiful beneath a star-lit
+sky and with the many lamps of the town below
+throwing long bars of yellow light upon the placid
+waters of the Bay. As we pace the long terrace,
+wrapped in the glory of a million stars and revelling
+in the exalted yet fairy-like loveliness of the scene
+around us, we perceive the mellow night air to be
+redolent of a strange but fascinating perfume. It is
+the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">olea fragrans</span></span>, the humble inconspicuous oriental
+shrub that from its clusters of tiny white flowers is
+thus giving out its secret soul at the falling of the
+night dews, and permeating the whole garden with
+its marvellous floral incense. But if the star-lit,
+flower-scented nights of Amalfi are to be accounted as
+exquisite memories, how much more glorious and
+exhilarating is the rising of the sun, as he appears in
+full majesty of crimson and gold above the classic hills
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page132">[pg 132]</span><a name="Pg132" id="Pg132" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>that overlook Paestum to the east! Leaning at early
+dawn from the windows of the Cappuccini, we have
+watched the sky flush at the first caress of <span class="tei tei-q">“rosy-fingered
+Eôs”</span> and seen the fragment of the waning
+moon turn to silver at the approach of the burning
+God of Day, still tarrying behind the lofty barrier of
+the capes and mountains of the Lucanian shore.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Slowly beyond the headlands comes the day,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Though moon and planet on a sky of gold,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Chequered with orange and vermilion-stoled,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Have floated long before the sun’s first ray</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Has shot across the waters to display</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Amalfi in her dotage; as of old</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">His beams lit up her splendours manifold,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Her quays and palaces that fringed the bay.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">His smile makes every barren hill-side blush</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">In rose and purple for the glories fled,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">As early watchers note th’ encroaching flush</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">From proud Ravello to Atrani spread,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">And curse the cruel arm that once did crush</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">This sea-sprung Niobe, and leave her dead.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div><a name="illus09" id="illus09" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus09th.jpg" width="226" height="400" alt="Illustration: AMALFI" title="AMALFI" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus09.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">AMALFI</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Dead, alas! For the old liberties of the great
+Republic of Amalfi have been extinct for more than
+half a thousand years, and it is in consequence difficult
+for us to realise that the quaint noisy squalid
+picturesque little city by the sea-shore, huddled into
+the narrow gorge of the Canneto, is that self-same
+Amalfi whose navies rode triumphant over the
+Mediterranean before the days of the Early Crusades.
+Yet Amalfi, which may be reckoned amongst the
+first-born of that fair family of medieval cities that
+their prolific parent the land of Italy brought forth in
+an age of darkness, was also the foremost to droop and
+die, her glories scattered and passed before Florence had
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page133">[pg 133]</span><a name="Pg133" id="Pg133" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ceased to be an obscure country town. In this case
+History presents to us a most forcible, not to say
+an unique example of the origin, rise and decline of
+a power, all occurring within a short space of time.
+Amalfi springs, as it were, out of the void as a city
+of importance, for no Roman colony occupied its
+site in antique times. Its very nomenclature is a
+puzzle to scholars, and the usual statement that it
+owed its name to Byzantine settlers coming hither
+from the ancient town of Melfi in the Basilicata does
+not sound very convincing, though for want of a
+better theory it must suffice. Why, when, and by
+whom the city was in reality founded remains an
+enigma, yet we learn from a passage in one of the
+letters of St Gregory the Great that the place was of
+sufficient size to be governed by a bishop in the
+sixth century. By the tenth we find the Republic
+of Amalfi already risen to a position of commanding
+importance, and holding its own against the rival
+states between which its territories were wedged;
+the dukedom of Naples to the west and the principality
+of Salerno to eastward. Dexterously playing on the
+greed and prejudices of the various tyrants who ruled
+Naples and Salerno, and occasionally allying itself
+with them in order to repel the fierce attacks of their
+common enemy, the Saracenic hordes who were then
+harrying the Lucanian coast, Amalfi continued to
+uphold its political freedom and dignity in the face
+of immense difficulties. And in gratitude for the
+vigour with which the Amalfitani had waged war
+against the infidel invaders, Pope Leo IV. in course
+of time conferred upon the Duke or Doge, the chief
+magistrate of the Republic, the title of <span class="tei tei-q">“Defender of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page134">[pg 134]</span><a name="Pg134" id="Pg134" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the Faith.”</span> Nominally under the suzerainty of the
+Greek Emperor at Constantinople, Amalfi was
+practically independent; its system of government
+was conducted on lines somewhat akin to those of
+aristocratic Venice; its population is said to have
+exceeded fifty thousand in the capital city alone; its
+boundaries extended from the Promontory of Minerva
+on the west to the town of Cetara upon the confines
+of Salerno; whilst many daughter-towns of wealth
+and importance, such as Scala and Ravello, sprang
+into being within the narrow limits of the sea-girt
+republic. Owning a small and by no means fertile
+extent of land, the inhabitants of Amalfi from its
+earliest days were forced to become merchants and
+sailors; to use a modern phrase, the Amalfitani came
+to possess a complete monopoly of trade with Eastern
+lands, both Christian and Mahommedan. It was
+the ships of the Republic that alone brought to the
+shores of Italy the rich stuffs, the gold and silver
+embroideries, the dried fruits and the strange birds
+and beasts of Asia Minor and Arabia, and in exchange
+for their oriental merchandise obtained an abundance
+of corn, wine, oil, meat and other commodities of life
+that their beautiful but somewhat sterile dominions
+were unable to supply to an ever increasing population.
+But it was not only the material products of the East
+that the sailors of Amalfi conveyed to Europe in
+their home-bound argosies; for they brought back
+with them the rudiments of arts and sciences that
+distracted Italy had well-nigh forgotten during the
+period of the barbarian invasions. Through the
+merchant princes of Amalfi, the secrets of astronomy,
+of mathematics and of scientific navigation were
+re-<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page135">[pg 135]</span><a name="Pg135" id="Pg135" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>introduced into the land that had almost lost its old
+Roman civilization. A priceless manuscript of that
+great code of laws, the Pandects, which a Byzantine
+Emperor, the famous Justinian, had caused to be
+compiled with such skill and labour, putting into
+concise and accurate form the collected wisdom of
+generations of Roman jurists, was included amongst
+the treasures of the East that were borne back to
+Italy in the Republic’s vessels. And in addition to
+restoring the old Roman jurisprudence to its original
+home, the city of Amalfi had the honour of promulgating
+the celebrated <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Tabula Amalphitana</span></span>, the new
+maritime laws that were henceforth destined to
+regulate the whole commercial system of the western
+world. No marvel then that the poet William of
+Apulia should praise in unmeasured terms the glories
+of the new-sprung city, whose trade extended to the
+shores of India and whose merchants possessed
+independent settlements in every great city of the
+Levant.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Nulla magis civitas argento, vestibus, auro</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Partibus innumeris; hac plurimus urbe moratur</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Nauta marit coelique vias aperiri peritus.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Regia et Antiochi. Zeus haec freta plurima transit</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">His Arabes, Indi, Siculi nascuntur et Afri.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Haec genus est totum prope nobilitata per orbem,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Et mercanda ferens, et amans mercata referre.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+    <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">(</span><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">No city richer in its store of gold,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Of precious stones and silks doth Europe hold;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Her skilful mariners o’er treacherous seas</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">With aid of compass sail where’er they please.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">From Egypt and from Antioch they land,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Their precious cargoes on th’ Italian strand.</span></div>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page136">[pg 136]</span><a name="Pg136" id="Pg136" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Scathless Amalfi’s navies penetrate</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The distant ports of every Paynim state.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Match me throughout the circuit of this earth</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Another race so full of zeal and worth.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">)</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A small state on a barren shore, yet the holder
+of the balance between East and West by means of
+its wide-spread commerce, such was Amalfi during
+the tenth and eleventh centuries. In some respects
+this Republic of the Middle Ages appears as the
+prototype of the Venice of the Renaissance, for there
+is not a little in common between the city that was
+built upon the marshy islets of the Adriatic lagoons,
+and the city that was erected at the base of the
+treacherous cliffs of the Tyrrhene Sea. Solely by
+means of commerce both foundations rose from
+nothingness to splendour and power: both held the
+gorgeous East in fee; and both fell lamentably from
+their high estate. The chief point of difference in
+this comparison of their careers is obvious; Amalfi
+collapsed suddenly and utterly, whilst the Queen of
+the Adriatic has sunk gradually to decay until she
+has become the interesting monument of a vanished
+magnificence which we admire to-day.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It was the rising naval power of Pisa that finally
+crushed the greatness of Amalfi, although the Republic
+had already entered into its days of decline when
+Robert Guiscard at the time of the First Crusade had
+temporarily annexed its dominions to his new principality.
+Some thirty years later King Roger of
+Naples forcibly seized the whole of the Costiera
+d’Amalfi, allowing the citizens to retain their own form
+of government. Four years after this, the Pisan fleet,
+coming to aid the people of Naples against King
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page137">[pg 137]</span><a name="Pg137" id="Pg137" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Roger, utterly destroyed the once vaunted navy of
+Amalfi, and sacked both the city itself and the two
+hill-set towns of Scala and Ravello. Its political
+liberty had already been crushed by the Normans,
+and now its ships and its wealth were dissipated by
+the Pisans; it was a double measure of ignominy
+and disaster from which Amalfi never recovered.
+Amidst its humiliations and sorrows, the stricken city
+had also to mourn the loss of its greatest treasure, its
+secular <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">palladium</span></span>, that most precious copy of the
+Pandects of Justinian, which the Pisan marauders
+seized and carried back with them to their city
+on the Arno. Here in Pisa the famous volume
+remained in safe keeping for some three hundred
+years, and then, as Time’s round brought its inevitable
+vengeance on the plunderers of Amalfi, it was removed
+by the victorious Florentines to their own city. So
+intense a veneration for the book itself now manifested
+itself amongst the scholars and students of Florence,
+that at one period offerings of incense were often made
+to the inscribed wisdom of past ages as to a most
+holy relic of some Saint, and the clerk or jurist about
+to peruse its faded characters was wont, first of all, to
+breathe a prayer of genuine gratitude on his knees for
+the preservation of this ancient book. Amalfi, Pisa,
+Florence, each in its turn has owned the guardianship
+of this most famous literary jewel, which is to-day
+jealously guarded as the chief treasure of the world-renowned
+Laurentian Library.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is true that the prosperity of Amalfi did not
+disappear immediately after the inroad of the Pisans,
+for Boccaccio, writing in the fourteenth century, still
+speaks of the ancient territory of the destroyed
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page138">[pg 138]</span><a name="Pg138" id="Pg138" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Republic as <span class="tei tei-q">“a rocky ridge beside a smiling sea,
+which its inhabitants call the Costa d’Amalfi; full of
+little cities, of gardens, of fountains, and of rich and
+enterprising merchants.”</span> It was in fact reserved for
+relentless Nature herself to complete the work of destruction
+that Norman armies and Pisan fleets had
+more than half accomplished. We have already
+spoken of the terrible land-slips to which this beautiful
+shore is eminently subject, even at the present
+day, as the mass of wreckage outside the old Capuchin
+convent only too clearly testifies. In the year 1343,
+during the progress of a storm of exceptional fury, of
+which the poet Petrarch has left us a vivid account in
+one of his letters, the greater part of the devoted city
+was swept away by a tidal wave. The whole line of
+quays stretching from the headland by the Cappuccini
+to the point of Atrani on the east, together with
+churches, palaces, and warehouses, was now swallowed
+up by the surging waters and engulfed for ever in the
+depths of the sea; and thus the very element that
+had brought wealth, power, and prosperity to Amalfi
+in the past now proved the direct cause of her final
+calamity. With this fearful cataclysm of Nature
+following upon the heels of its political extinction, we
+can hardly wonder at the rapid decline of this
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Athens of the Middle Ages,”</span> whose population has
+now sunk to about one seventh part of the 50,000
+citizens it once boasted in the far distant days of her
+maritime supremacy.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Reflecting upon the famous past of this ancient
+city, let us descend the steep pathway from the terrace
+of the Cappuccini to visit the crowded beach below.
+Here we find ourselves in the midst of a cheerful
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page139">[pg 139]</span><a name="Pg139" id="Pg139" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>animated throng, engaged in mending nets, in painting
+boats, and in other occupations connected with a sea-faring
+life. The tall fantastic houses with balconied
+windows that line the curve of the sea-shore, the
+glistening sands and the brown-legged, gay-capped
+fishermen, combine to present a charming picture of
+southern Italian life, so that we could gladly linger in
+observing the ever-changing scenes of life and industry.
+But we cannot tarry long, for the ubiquitous beggars
+who have begun to pester us ever since we passed the
+hotel gates have meantime dogged our descending
+footsteps, and their forces have been recruited on the
+way hither by many willing assistants. No doubt
+the vast majority of the Amalfitani are hard working
+and self-respecting, for the little town possesses
+maccaroni factories and old-established paper mills
+of no small importance, yet it is obvious that a
+considerable portion of the total population and at
+least one-half of all the children spend their whole
+time in demanding alms of strangers. Before, behind,
+and from a distance arises the ceaseless cry of
+<span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Qual co’ signor’! Fame! Fame!</span></span>”</span> in hateful tones
+of make-belief misery, and these whining appeals are
+aided by all the expressive pantomimic gestures of
+the South. You are placed on the horns of a dilemma:
+give, and the report that a generous and fabulously
+wealthy Signore has arrived in Amalfi will run like
+wild-fire through the whole place, and your life in
+consequence will become an absolute burden for the
+remainder of your sojourn in this spot. Refuse, and
+the wretches who have hitherto been wheedling and
+cringing at your heels, will at once grow insolent and
+threatening, especially in the case of unprotected
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page140">[pg 140]</span><a name="Pg140" id="Pg140" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ladies. It is in fact a choice of two evils, and the
+only remedy that we ourselves can suggest is for the
+persecuted traveller to select a good stout larrikin and
+pay him freely to keep at arm’s length his detestable
+brothers and sisters in professional beggary. But the
+uninitiated usually endure these odious importunities
+for a certain length of time, and then, exasperated by
+the unchecked mendicancy of the place, at last fly
+precipitately from this beautiful shore, to seek comparative
+peace and freedom elsewhere. For it is
+useless to argue; it is foolish, even dangerous to
+grow angry. <span class="tei tei-q">“Why should we give to you?”</span> we
+asked one day in desperation of a particularly persistent
+woman. <span class="tei tei-q">“Because,”</span> was the unabashed and
+impudent but unanswerable reply, <span class="tei tei-q">“you have much,
+and I have nothing!”</span> Driven by these human pests
+from the sunlit strand, we make our way through the
+busy piazza, where peasant women with piles of fruit
+and vegetables make a glowing mass of colour around
+the central fountain below St Andrew’s statue, and
+proceed towards the Valley of the Mills. A different
+phase of Amalfitan life now greets us, for here are to
+be found the hard-working bees of this human hive,
+and it must be confessed their ways make an agreeable
+change from the habits of the pestering drones that
+infest the beach and the neighbourhood of the hotels.
+The whole of the steep rocky gorge of that tiny
+torrent the Canneto is full of mills, each emitting a
+whirring sound which mingles with the continual
+plash of the water as it descends in miniature
+cascades the full length of the ravine, providing in its
+headlong course towards the sea the motive power
+required to turn all this quantity of machinery.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page141">[pg 141]</span><a name="Pg141" id="Pg141" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Bridges span the Canneto at several points, whilst
+either bank is occupied by tiny factories of paper or
+soap, and by winding stone stair-ways that lead upward
+to terraces contrived to catch the sunshine for
+the purpose of drying the goods. The whole valley,
+with its strong contrasting effects of sun and shade
+and its varied atmosphere of intense heat and of
+chilly dampness, is full of seething picturesque
+humanity. The combined sounds of creaking wheels,
+of falling water and of human chattering are almost
+deafening within this narrow echo-filled gorge, above
+which in the far distance we catch a glimpse of rocky
+heights with the town of Scala perched eyrie-like
+against the deep blue of the sky overhead. Pretty
+laughing girls, bare-footed and with marvellously
+white teeth, emerge from the open door-ways to
+smile pleasantly at us, for the workers of the Valle
+de’ Molini are thoroughly accustomed to the presence
+of strangers in their midst. Half-naked men, who
+have stepped for a moment out of the hot rooms of
+the maccaroni factories in order to breathe the fresh
+air, regard us with calm disdain and without any
+seeming interest. Our presence is tolerated, even if
+our reception excites no feelings of surprise or
+cordiality, so that we are allowed to pursue our walk
+up the ever-narrowing valley in peace and comfort
+and to admire at our leisure the wonderfully
+beautiful effects of colouring produced by the
+cascades of purple-stained water, the graceful forms
+and gay dresses of the girls, and the peeps of fruit-laden
+orange trees above fern-clad walls. And how
+dark the people are! For though black eyes and
+hair are commonly associated with the Italian race,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page142">[pg 142]</span><a name="Pg142" id="Pg142" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>yet in the North we find abundant evidence of the
+admixture of Teutonic blood, whilst in the South the
+fair-haired Norman settlers have left indelible marks
+of their conquest of Naples and Sicily in many blue-eyed
+and white-skinned descendants; but here in
+Amalfi a blonde complexion seems to be absolutely
+unknown. <span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Com’ è bianco! Com’ è bianco!</span></span>”</span> called
+out one of a party of girls with swarthy skin and
+ebon hair and tresses, who languidly came out to
+stare at us, as we wended our way slowly up the
+Valley of the Mills.
+</p><a name="illus10" id="illus10" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus10th.jpg" width="281" height="400" alt="Illustration: IN THE VALLEY OF THE MILLS, AMALFI" title="IN THE VALLEY OF THE MILLS, AMALFI" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus10.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">IN THE VALLEY OF THE MILLS, AMALFI</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But the chief pride of Amalfi, and indeed its sole
+surviving fragment of departed magnificence, is the
+Cathedral, dedicated to St Andrew the Apostle, who
+is patron of the city. A broad flight of steps, flanked
+on either side by the Archbishop’s Palace and the
+residence of the Canons, leads to a platform covered
+by a most beautiful Gothic <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">loggia</span></span> set with richly
+traceried windows and upheld by antique marble
+columns. At its northernmost angle we see springing
+into the blue aether the tall graceful red-and-white
+striped campanile, surmounted by its barbaric-looking
+green-tiled cupola and pinnacles. Facing the top of
+the steps are the two magnificent doors, specially
+designed in distant Byzantium to embellish this
+church more than eight hundred years ago, and cast
+by the famous artist in bronze, Staurachios. Two
+Latin inscriptions, incised in letters of silver upon the
+baser metal, relate to the world that one Pantaleone,
+son of Maurice, caused this work to be undertaken
+in honour of the holy Apostle Andrew, in
+order that he might obtain pardon for the sins he
+had committed whilst upon earth. These glorious
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page143">[pg 143]</span><a name="Pg143" id="Pg143" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>gates were the gifts to their native city of members
+of the family of Pantaleone of Amalfi, merchant
+princes who had amassed an immense fortune by
+trade in the Levant. They are splendid specimens of
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">niello</span></span> work, which consisted in ornamenting a surface
+of bronze by engraving upon it lines that were
+subsequently filled in with coloured enamel or with
+some precious metal. These portals of Amalfi,
+perhaps the earliest example in Southern Italy of
+this rare form of art, are divided into panels adorned
+with Scriptural subjects simply and quaintly treated,
+wherein the stiff attitudes of the figures and the
+many long straight lines introduced testify plainly
+enough to their Byzantine origin and workmanship.
+As we enter the cool dark incense-scented building,
+we note that though cruelly maltreated by the
+baroque enthusiasts of the eighteenth century, the
+general effect of the interior is still impressive with
+its rows of ancient pillars and its richly decorated
+roof. On all sides marble fragments with exquisite
+reliefs meet the eye, spoils evidently filched from the
+abandoned city of Paestum across the Salernian Bay
+and presented to the church by the Norman conquerors
+of Amalfi. After inspecting the classical bas-reliefs,
+we descend into the ancient crypt, which well-meaning
+artists have completely encased with a covering of
+precious marbles and garish frescoes of the Neapolitan
+school. It is a place of more than local sanctity,
+this modernized crypt, for the possession of the relics
+of the Apostle which Cardinal Capuano proudly
+brought hither after the sack of Constantinople in the
+early years of the thirteenth century, was considered
+by many to constitute a sufficient recompense to
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page144">[pg 144]</span><a name="Pg144" id="Pg144" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Amalfi for her lost independence. Popes and
+sovereigns were in the habit of approaching the
+shrine, and the number of these illustrious visitors
+includes the names of St Francis of Assisi, Pope
+Urban IV., the holy St Bridget of Sweden, and
+the notorious Queen Joanna II. of Naples. Aeneas
+Silvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., however,
+seems to have thought Amalfi, ever dwindling
+in size and importance, too mean a place to own so
+great a treasure, and he accordingly transported the
+head of the Saint to Rome, where it is now accounted
+amongst the four chief relics of St Peter’s. Perhaps
+it was to counterbalance the loss of so important a
+member of the Saint’s anatomy, that in the succeeding
+century there arose a report which spoke of the
+rescue of certain relics of the Apostle Andrew during
+the headlong course of the Reformation in Scotland.
+The most precious objects preserved in the Cathedral
+of St Andrew’s, says this legend, were secretly saved
+from the expected fury of Knox’s partisans and
+brought to Amalfi, where they were reverently added
+to the store of remains that had survived the plundering
+of Pius II. Whether or no there be any truth in
+this somewhat fantastic theory, it is enough to state
+that St Andrew continues to be patron Saint of this
+maritime city, for which office the character of the
+Galilean fisherman who was called to be a fisher
+of men seems specially appropriate. Nevertheless,
+despite the valuable additions made in Reformation
+days, the sanctity of the shrine is not held so high
+as it used to be. No longer do the venerated bones
+ooze with the sweet-scented moisture that in medieval
+days was piously collected to be used for purposes so
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page145">[pg 145]</span><a name="Pg145" id="Pg145" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>varied as the curing of warts, or the scattering of
+Paynim fleets! Yet so late as the days of Tasso,
+the great Apostle himself was evidently connected in
+the popular mind with the performance of so bizarre
+a miracle:—
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Vide in sembianza placida e tranquilla</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Il Divo, che di manna Amalfi instilla.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But although the present times are too sinful to
+allow of the distillation of the fragrant dew of Amalfi,
+we observe the kneeling forms of not a few intent
+worshippers within the dimly-lighted crypt, in the
+midst of which the Spaniard Naccarino’s bronze figure
+of the Apostle uprises with dignified mien and life-like
+attitude. Sant’ Andrea is still <span class="tei tei-q">“Il Divo,”</span> the tutelary
+god of the Amalfitani; he remains in the estimation
+of these simple ignorant folk the special protector of
+the community. Times and ideas change, but not the
+old deep-rooted feeling of a personal tie between the
+Saint and his favoured people.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+We were lucky in happening upon the great popular
+festival of Sant’ Andrea during our visit to Amalfi,
+and consequently were enabled not only to witness a
+picturesque scene of considerable splendour, but also
+to observe how strong a devotion the Amalfitani still
+manifest towards their own especial Saint. With the
+first flush of early dawn, discharges of mortars from
+the beach and the neighbouring hills began to arouse
+the echoes and to remind the still slumbering population
+that once more the great anniversary had arrived.
+The world was quickly astir to do honour to the great
+St Andrew, and from a very early hour an interminable
+stream of peasants and villagers, young and old, male
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page146">[pg 146]</span><a name="Pg146" id="Pg146" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>and female, began to enter the town from all quarters,
+and to congregate in the piazza where stands the large
+fountain crowned by the Saint’s own effigy. Here
+with exemplary patience the throng waited until the
+hour of the ceremony in the Cathedral drew nigh.
+Within the huge building priests and lay-helpers were
+actively employed in preparing for the event, and by
+their exertions the whole interior had been transformed
+into what may be best described as a magnificent
+ball-room, for every blank wall had been covered
+with draperies of rich crimson damask and the very
+pillars had been swathed from base to capital in the
+same gorgeous material. Innumerable old cut-glass
+chandeliers, that had reposed since the last <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">festa di
+Sant’ Andrea</span></span> in huge round boxes in some secluded
+vault, had been slung by means of cords from the
+ceiling and the arches of the nave, whilst a large
+number of mirrors set in carved gilt frames had been
+affixed to various points of the walls and columns.
+The fine marble pavement lay thickly strewn with bay
+and myrtle leaves, emitting a pleasant wholesome
+scent when crushed under foot by the picturesque but
+somewhat malodorous crowd of fisher-folk and
+peasants. On entering the church, at the first sound
+of the bells booming over head, we found ourselves
+heavily pressed by the surging throng of worshippers,
+and it was only with difficulty we could obtain a sight
+of the ceremonies at the high altar, prominent upon
+which stood the silver bust of the Apostle containing
+the precious relics. It was a typical Italian <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">festa</span></span>.
+The chanting was harsh and discordant; the antiquated
+inharmonious organ emitted unexpected squeals, as if
+in positive pain; there was, it is needless to add, a
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page147">[pg 147]</span><a name="Pg147" id="Pg147" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>complete absence of that <span class="tei tei-q">“churchy”</span> demeanour which
+passes for reverence in the North; yet withal, despite
+the shrill discordant music, the tawdry embellishments
+of the grand old building and the absence of propriety
+of the crowd, there was perceptible some mysterious
+underlying force that compelled us to note the extraordinary
+hold the Church has upon the people of
+Southern Italy. For all this throng of persons had
+assembled that day with one definite purpose: to see
+their universal friend and patron, their Saint and their
+worker of domestic miracles; they had come to pay
+their homage to a celestial acquaintance, with whom,
+thanks to the Church’s teaching, they had all been
+intimate from their cradles. They had not thus
+assembled at an early hour, deserting their mills and
+their shops, their boats and their nets, renouncing their
+chances of gain, to hear a preacher’s eloquence or to
+listen to fine music, but merely to pay their annual
+visit of respect to their Spiritual Master. Why should
+we aliens intrude upon so private a gathering? In
+any case, we have grown weary of standing in the
+close sickly atmosphere, wherein the fragrance of the
+crushed bay-leaves, the fumes of incense and the strange
+smell of garlic-eating humanity blend in an oppressive
+manner. We push our way through the eager and
+intent congregation, and gaining the door-way step
+with a sigh of relief into the sunshine that is flooding
+the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">loggia</span></span>. But it is too hot to remain here, and we
+descend the great stair-case in order to take up a post
+of vantage in the shade on the opposite side of the
+piazza; having gained our desired position we expect
+in patience the arrival of the procession. Nor have
+we very long to wait. The officials of the town
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page148">[pg 148]</span><a name="Pg148" id="Pg148" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>suddenly dart forward to clear the steps of their crowd
+of ragged children, and almost simultaneously the
+great bronze doors of Pantaleone are flung open to the
+sweet air and the sunshine. It was a wonderful and
+deeply interesting experience to watch the glittering
+train slowly emerge from the darkness of the church
+into the glare of day, and then descend that stately
+flight of marble stairs to the sound of joy-bells and to
+the accompaniment of explosions of fireworks. First
+came the leading members of the various Confraternities
+of the little city, all bearing tapers whose
+tongues of flame shone feebly in the fierce contemptuous
+sunlight, and all wearing snow-white smocks and
+coloured scarves. Red, green, blue, white, purple,
+yellow, gleamed the huge banners of these different
+societies, each borne by a tall <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">vessillifero</span></span>, or standard
+bearer, assisted by quaint solemn little figures who
+acted as pages. Then followed the body of the clergy
+in copes of white and gold, with eyes downcast as
+they chaunted in loud nasal tones from books in their
+hands; next came the Canons of the Cathedral in fine
+old festal vestments reserved for such occasions and
+with mitres on their heads, for Amalfi clings to the
+ancient ecclesiastical privileges that were granted in
+distant days when Florence and Venice were little
+more than villages. Last of all walked the Archbishop,
+an aged tottering figure, weighed down by his cope of
+cloth of gold and seemingly crushed beneath his
+immense jewelled mitre. Two lackeys, almost as
+infirm as their venerable master, and clad in threadbare
+liveries edged with armorial braid, were in close
+attendance, whilst behind the Archbishop, beneath a
+gorgeous canopy of state upheld by six white-robed
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page149">[pg 149]</span><a name="Pg149" id="Pg149" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>assistants, was borne the great silver bust of St Andrew.
+The appearance of the Image of <span class="tei tei-q">“Il Divo,”</span> upon
+which the sunbeams were playing in dazzling coruscations
+of light, was greeted with a murmur of applause
+and satisfaction from the expectant crowd in the open.
+Hats were doffed; knees were bent; prayers were
+muttered, as with slow and cautious steps the bearers
+of the Image and its canopy began to descend.
+Having gained the lower ground in safety, a momentary
+halt was made, during which we were able to note
+the mass of votive offerings—jewels, chains, rings,
+watches, seals—suspended round the Saint’s neck,
+amongst them being many silver fishes, doubtless the
+gifts of grateful mariners. And at this point we were
+spectators of a pretty incident. A little girl with
+black ringlets and eager eyes was dexterously lifted on
+to her father’s shoulder, in order that she might present
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Il Divo”</span> with a golden chain, which the tiny fingers
+deftly clasped round the bejewelled neck of the silver
+bust. The crowd saw and applauded; it was a moment
+of triumph for the dark-eyed child, for the Church, and
+for the approving throng. With the new addition of
+the child’s necklet to the treasury of the Saint, the
+procession pursued its way through the square towards
+the Valley of the Mills, with banners waving, with
+priests chaunting in harsh monotonous tones, and with
+clouds of incense rising into the sun-kissed air. It
+was truly a beautiful and curious sight, this festival of
+the Church amidst people so devout and surroundings
+so appropriate.
+</p><a name="illus11" id="illus11" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus11th.jpg" width="253" height="400" alt="Illustration: AMALFI: PIAZZA AND DUOMO" title="AMALFI: PIAZZA AND DUOMO" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus11.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">AMALFI: PIAZZA AND DUOMO</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+On his safe return to his now brilliantly lighted
+Cathedral, the Saint was welcomed with indescribable
+enthusiasm. The crazy old organ was made to
+pro<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page150">[pg 150]</span><a name="Pg150" id="Pg150" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>duce the loudest and liveliest of music; the uniformed
+municipal band awoke the echoes of the venerable
+but bedizened fabric with its complimentary braying;
+and urchins were even permitted to scatter fire-crackers
+upon the floor in honour of the event. It was a real
+ecclesiastical Saturnalia of a most innocent and joyous
+description. All Amalfi spent the remaining hours of
+day-light in feasting, dancing and singing, and when
+at last darkness fell upon the merry scene, rockets
+and Roman candles were seen to spring into the
+night air from many points in the landscape, illumining
+the sea with quickly dying trails of coloured light.
+Watching the bonfires and the fireworks, and listening
+to the sounds of revelry and song arising from the
+town below, we pondered over our experiences of the
+day as we paced our airy terrace of the Cappuccini.
+Surely the South has remained immutable for
+centuries in its deeply rooted love of religious
+festivals. The forefathers of these devotees of Andrew
+the Fisherman were equally enthusiastic worshippers
+of Poseidon or of Apollo. The Church has not in
+reality altered the outer attributes; it has but added
+a special moral significance to the old pagan gatherings.
+The ancient gods of Greece and Rome are
+dethroned, and their very names forgotten by the
+populace; but their cult survives, for it has been
+adapted to the glorification of Christian Saints. True
+it is that the milk-white sacrificial oxen and the gay
+garlands of antiquity have been omitted; nevertheless,
+there remain the music, the incense and the unrestrained
+jollity of the people. Much that is beautiful
+and suggestive has perished, yet there survives enough
+of the old classical ritual for us to see that the true
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page151">[pg 151]</span><a name="Pg151" id="Pg151" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>spirit of antiquity has never wholly died out amongst
+these sunburnt children of Magna Graecia.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">See the long stair with colour all ablaze,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">With banners swaying in pellucid air,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">As mitred priests with cautious footsteps bear</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The silver Image, flashing back the rays</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Of jealous Phoebus—Ah! the altered days</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">When these Lucanians with wind-lifted hair,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Blossom-bedecked, with limbs and bosoms bare,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Sang to Apollo psalms of love and praise!</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">With bells and salvoes all the hills resound,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">And incense mingles with the atmosphere,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">As still this Southern race, ill-clothed, uncrowned,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Retains the memory of the Pagan year,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">When changed, yet all unchanged, Time’s round</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Makes the Jew Fisherman a god appear.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+</div><hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page152">[pg 152]</span><a name="Pg152" id="Pg152" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc19" id="toc19"></a><a name="pdf20" id="pdf20"></a>
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">CHAPTER VII</span></h2>
+
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.40em; margin-top: 2.40em"><span style="font-size: 120%">RAVELLO AND THE RUFOLI</span></h2>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+No visit to Amalfi can be considered complete
+without ascending to the decayed town of
+Ravello, that crowns the rocky heights to the north-east
+of the parent city by the sea-shore. The road
+thither leads along the beach, passing between the
+picturesque old convent that is now the Hotel Luna,
+beloved of artists, and the solitary watch tower on
+the precipice which stands sentinel above the waters
+on our right hand. At this point we turn the corner,
+and find ourselves in Atrani, lying in the deep gorge
+of the Dragone and joining its buildings to those of
+Amalfi on the road above the beach. Prominent
+upon the steep ridge that separates the two cities
+stands the ruined keep of Pontone, the last relic of
+the town of Scaletta that was a flourishing place in
+days of the Republic. A tall belfry of peculiar and
+striking architecture which dominates Atrani is usually
+attributed to the art of the Saracens, whom King
+Manfred called in to garrison this place during his
+wars with Pope Innocent IV. Atrani, which is but
+a suburb of Amalfi, suffered equally with the Capital
+during the great upheaval of Nature that desolated
+this coast in the fourteenth century, so that little of
+interest remains except the quaint church of San
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page153">[pg 153]</span><a name="Pg153" id="Pg153" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Salvatore a Bireta, wherein the Doges of Amalfi were
+once elected and crowned. This ancient building
+lies hidden in a sandy cove beneath the roadway, and
+those who care to run the gauntlet of beggars and
+descend to the beach below, can examine its beautiful
+bronze doors, which the generous citizen Pantaleone
+gave <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pro mercede animae suae et merito S. Sebastiani
+Martyris</span></span>. But there is very little else to inspect, for
+the interior has been hopelessly modernized.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Soon after passing Atrani we turn sharply up hill
+to the left, and begin our ascent towards Ravello.
+The dusty white road winds upwards through a
+region of carefully cultivated terraces filled with olives
+and vines, intermingled here and there with orange,
+lemon, fig, and pomegranate trees. As we gain
+higher ground, our horizon tends ever to widen, and
+we behold the expanse of sea and sky melting in the
+far distance into <span class="tei tei-q">“some shade of blue unnameable,”</span>
+whilst the mountain-fringed ring of the Bay of Salerno
+becomes vividly mapped out to our eyes from the
+Cape of Minerva to the Punta di Licosia. On our
+left we peer down into the depths of the dark ravine
+of the Dragone, whose black shadows are popularly
+supposed to give its name of Atrani to the cheerful
+little town we have left behind. Let us thank Heaven
+that we are at last out of reach of the beggars, and
+that the only human beings to be encountered upon
+the road are a few peasants with loads of fruit or
+vegetables, and an occasional charcoal-burner bearing
+his grimy burden to the town below. The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">carbonaio</span></span>
+with his blackened face and queer outlandish garments
+is a familiar figure throughout all parts of Southern
+Italy. He belongs to a race apart, that dwells in
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page154">[pg 154]</span><a name="Pg154" id="Pg154" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the belt of forest land clothing the higher hills, and
+he only descends to the cities of the shore and the
+plain in order to sell his goods. He is despised by
+the sharper-witted townsman, who beats down his
+prices for the combustibles he has borne with such
+fatigue from his distant mountain home. Sometimes
+the old people are despatched to do the money
+bargaining, the selling and buying. Look at the old
+couple at this moment passing us; an aged man and
+woman that Theocritus might have known in earlier
+days when the world was less civilized and less greedy
+of gain. With bare travel-stained feet, with feeble
+frames supported by long staves and with the heavy
+sacks of charcoal on their bent backs, the modern
+Baucis and Philemon crawl along the white road
+beneath a broiling sun, patient and uncomplaining,
+and apparently with no feelings of envy as they cast
+one careless glance at our carriage. Weary and foot-sore,
+they will only obtain a few <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">quattrini</span></span> in the
+town for all their toil and trouble, and then they must
+retrace every step up the long hill-side, with their
+little stock of provisions to help eke out a miserable
+existence. Yet can any life in such a climate and
+amid such surroundings be truly accounted miserable,
+we ask, no matter how humble the dwelling or frugal
+the fare?
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+As our carriage creeps slowly upward, we find the
+land less cultivated, and now and again we pass tracts
+of woodland whence little purling streams fall over
+rocky ledges on to the roadway. We catch sight of
+small clumps of cyclamen, and in the shady hollows
+we detect tufts of the maiden-hair fern—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Capilli di
+Venere</span></span>, <span class="tei tei-q">“Venus’ tresses,”</span> as the Italians sometimes
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page155">[pg 155]</span><a name="Pg155" id="Pg155" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>call this graceful little plant. At a curve of the road
+we are confronted by a smiling old peasant with gold
+rings in his ears, who in the expectation of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">forestieri</span></span>
+coming this way has been patiently sitting for hours
+on a boulder. Doffing his battered hat and putting
+a sunburnt hand to his mouth, the old fellow in a deep
+musical bass wakens all the sleeping echoes that lie in
+the many folds of the valley, so that we hear the words
+of welcome repeated again and again, growing fainter
+and fainter as the sound of the voice travels from
+cliff to cliff. The performer is delighted with a few
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">soldi</span></span>, and the jaded scarecrow of a horse seems pleased
+with his momentary halt. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Iterum altiora petimus</span></span>; by
+degrees we reach the airy platform upon which Ravello
+stands, and finally alight at the comfortable old inn so
+long associated with the excellent family of Palumbo.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Ravello undoubtedly owes its early foundation to
+certain patrician families of Amalfi, which after securing
+their fortunes decided to leave the hot close city beside
+the shore, and to seek new homes in the bracing air
+of the hill-top above. Placing itself under the protection
+of the powerful Robert Guiscard, Ravello became
+faithfully attached to the Norman interest, and in 1086,
+at the suggestion of the great Count Roger, who
+cherished a deep regard for the Rufolo family, the
+town was created a bishopric by Pope Victor III. As
+a subject city of the Norman princes, Ravello was
+during this period at the zenith of its fame and
+importance. Its actual population is unknown at this
+distant day, but we learn that under Count Roger the
+large area of the city was entirely girdled by strong
+walls set with towers; that it contained thirteen
+churches, four monasteries, many public buildings, and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page156">[pg 156]</span><a name="Pg156" id="Pg156" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>a large number of private palaces. Its cathedral was
+founded in honour of Saint Pantaleone by Niccolò
+Rufolo, Duke of Sora and Grand Admiral of Sicily,
+the head of the powerful family whose name is still
+gratefully remembered in this half-deserted town. In
+1156 Ravello was honoured by a state visit from Pope
+Adrian IV.—the English monk, Nicholas Breakspear,
+the only Briton who ever succeeded in gaining the
+papal tiara and who gave the lordship of Ireland to
+Henry Plantagenet—and during his stay the Pontiff
+was entertained as the guest of the all-powerful Rufoli.
+Born of humble parents in the village of Bensington,
+near Oxford, Nicholas Breakspear became a monk at
+St Alban’s, and having once entered the religious life,
+he rose by sheer force of intellect and an iron strength
+of will to the attainment of the highest honour the
+Church could bestow. It was in the hey-day of his
+power that the English pope entered Ravello and sang
+Mass in the Cathedral in the presence of all the noble
+citizens of the place, for in the previous year he had
+crushed for ever the dangerous heresy of Arnold of
+Brescia, by boldly sentencing that ardent reformer to
+be burnt at the stake in Rome and his ashes cast into
+the Tiber. The Pontiff during his visit sojourned in
+the Palazzo Rufolo, the beautiful Saracenic building
+that is still standing intact after so many centuries,
+and by a curious coincidence is now the property of
+the well-known English family of Reid. Nor was Pope
+Adrian the only sovereign who honoured Ravello by his
+presence, for Charles of Anjou, brother of St Louis of
+France and the murderer of poor Conradin, and King
+Robert the Wise also received the hospitality of the
+Rufolo family within these walls. The whole existing
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page157">[pg 157]</span><a name="Pg157" id="Pg157" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>town in fact is eloquent of the long extinct but by no
+means forgotten Rufoli, who may fairly be reckoned
+among the more enlightened of the petty tyrants of
+medieval Italy. That their name was still familiar in
+Italian society in the fourteenth century is evident
+from the circumstances that Boccaccio puts a story,
+no doubt founded on fact, into the mouth of the fair
+Lauretta, which deals with the adventures of one
+Landolfo Rufolo of Ravello, <span class="tei tei-q">“who, not content with
+his great store, but anxious to make it double, was
+near losing all he had, and his life also.”</span> The novel
+proceeds to relate how this member of a wealthy and
+respected family turned corsair, after losing all his
+capital in a mercantile speculation in Cyprus; how he,
+in his turn, was robbed of his ill-gotten gains on the
+high seas by some thievish merchants of Genoa; and
+how Landolfo, after passing through a variety of more
+or less improbable adventures, was finally rescued from
+drowning off the coast of Corfu by a servant-maid who,
+whilst washing dishes by the sea-shore, chanced to
+espy the unconscious merchant drifting towards the
+beach with his arms clasped round a small wooden
+chest, which kept him afloat. <span class="tei tei-q">“Moved by compassion,”</span>
+says the relator of the tale, <span class="tei tei-q">“she stepped a little way
+into the sea, which was now calm, and seizing the half-drowned
+wretch by the hair of his head, drew both him
+and the chest to land, where with much trouble she
+unfolded his arms from the chest, which she set upon
+the head of her daughter who was with her. She
+herself carried Landolfo like a little child to the town,
+put him on a stove, and chafed and washed him with
+warm water, by which means the vital heat began to
+return, and his strength partially revived. In due
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page158">[pg 158]</span><a name="Pg158" id="Pg158" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>time she took him from the stove, comforted him with
+wine and good cordials, and kept him some days till
+he knew where he was; she then restored him his
+chest, and told him he might now provide for his
+departure.”</span><a id="noteref_6" name="noteref_6" href="#note_6"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">6</span></span></a> Of course the little chest that Landolfo
+had clutched by chance in his agony of drowning
+eventually turned out to be filled with precious stones,
+which by a miracle—and miracles were common
+enough in the days of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Decameron</span></span>—not only floated
+of itself but also supported the weight of Master
+Landolfo. In any case, the rescued merchant, with
+the greed and ingratitude which are often accounted
+for sharpness and wit, presented his kind hostess with
+the empty trunk, whilst he concealed the gems in a
+belt upon his own person. Equipped with these
+jewels, he made his way across the Adriatic to the
+Apulian coast, and thence reached Ravello with
+greater wealth than he had ever hoped to obtain with
+his original capital at the time he set sail for Cyprus.
+</p><a name="illus12" id="illus12" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus12th.jpg" width="290" height="400" alt="Illustration: RAVELLO: IL DUOMO" title="RAVELLO: IL DUOMO" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus12.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">RAVELLO: IL DUOMO</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Fortunately Ravello, though shrunk to such modest
+proportions nowadays, still possesses many memorials
+of its glorious past. Travellers will of course turn
+their steps towards the Duomo, with its yellow
+baroque façade abutting on the little piazza that,
+with its daisy-starred turf and old acacia trees, forms
+so pleasant a play-ground for the merry dark-eyed
+children of the place. The cathedral of St Pantaleone
+is—or rather was—one of the most interesting and
+richly decorated churches erected in Southern Italy
+under the combined influence of Norman and Saracenic
+art at a time when cunning workmen were able to
+blend together the styles of East and West, and to
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page159">[pg 159]</span><a name="Pg159" id="Pg159" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>produce that rich harmonious architecture of which
+the splendid churches of Monreale and Palermo
+present to us the happiest examples. There still
+exist intact the magnificent bronze doors with their
+fifty-four panels of sculpture in relief, the gift of
+Sergio Muscettola and his wife, Sigilgaita Rufolo,
+and the work of the Italian artist Barisanus of Trani,
+who likewise designed and cast the portals of the
+cathedrals of his native town and of Monreale. But
+alas! the interior of the building, that was once
+rich with <a name="corr159" id="corr159" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-corr">mosaic</span> and fresco and fanciful carving, has
+been converted into one of those dull soulless caverns
+of stucco that the wanderer in all parts of Italy meets
+with only too frequently. This deplorable act of
+vandalism at Ravello dates of course from the
+eighteenth century, and appears to have been the
+work of a bishop named Tafuri, who in his frenzied
+eagerness to possess a cathedral worthy of comparison
+with the fashionable atrocities in plaster then being
+erected at Naples, did not hesitate to destroy wholesale
+almost all the ancient and elaborate ornamentation
+of his Duomo. His architect—perhaps the
+miserable Fuga, who ruined the interior of the
+Cathedral at Palermo, who knows?—dug up the fine
+old pavement, tore out the mosaics and had them
+carted away, effaced the frescoes, and at last transformed
+the venerable building with its memories of
+popes and princes into a commonplace white-washed
+chamber. Why this wretched prelate stayed his
+hand at the pulpit, it is difficult to say: perhaps he
+was meanwhile translated for his private virtues,
+perhaps Death overtook him in the work of destruction;
+at any rate, the famous pulpit of Ravello
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page160">[pg 160]</span><a name="Pg160" id="Pg160" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>mercifully escaped the general onslaught, though it
+must have been by fortunate accident and not by
+design that Monsignore Tafuri omitted to remove
+this unique specimen of a style of architecture, which
+doubtless he considered barbaric and un-Christian in
+its character. For this pulpit is one of the finest
+examples of the ornate, if somewhat bizarre art of
+the thirteenth century, and belongs to a type of work
+that is not unfrequently met with throughout Italy.
+Six spiral columns, springing from the backs of
+crouched lions, support the rostrum of marble inlaid
+with beautiful mosaics; whilst above the arch of the
+stair-way of ascent stands the famous portrait, usually
+called that of Sigilgaita Rufolo, wife of the founder
+of the Cathedral. The striking face, which is surmounted
+by an elaborate diadem with two pendent
+lappets, is evidently an excellent likeness of the
+original; yet there can be no doubt that this interesting
+bust has been wrongly named, since the
+pulpit itself, as a Latin inscription duly records, was
+erected in the year 1272 by Niccolò Rufolo, a
+descendant of the famous Grand Admiral, so that we
+may fairly conclude that the portrait represents the
+wife, or perhaps sister or daughter, of the donor.
+But popular tradition dies hard; and the name of
+Sigilgaita will probably cling for ever to the female
+face which has for over six centuries looked calmly
+down upon generation after generation of worshippers.
+Perhaps those severe proud features may have
+impressed the ignorant Vandal-Bishop as that of
+some unknown Saint, whom it might be dangerous
+to offend, and may thereby have saved the pulpit
+of Niccolò Rufolo from the destruction that must
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page161">[pg 161]</span><a name="Pg161" id="Pg161" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>have seemed inevitable. Be that as it may, the bust
+has survived uninjured, which, apart from the feeling
+of sentiment, is particularly fortunate, for it belongs
+to a small class of artistic work, of which existing
+specimens are rare and highly prized. For there
+must have been a local and premature Renaissance
+in this part of Italy during the thirteenth century,
+otherwise a statue so imbued with true classical
+feeling and so correct in technical finish as that of
+Sigilgaita in Ravello Cathedral could never have
+been produced; yet the names of the artist or artists
+who thus anticipated the great plastic revival remain
+undiscovered. Portrait-busts, similar in treatment
+and idea to that of the so-called Sigilgaita, are to be
+found here and there in museums, but this effigy in
+remote Ravello remains unique amidst its original
+surroundings.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Turning aside from Sigilgaita’s steady gaze and
+making the round of the bleak white-washed building,
+our eyes are suddenly attracted by a fine picture,
+in the manner of Domenichino, representing the
+martyrdom of Pantaleone, the popular Amalfitan
+Saint to whom this church was dedicated by the
+Rufolo family.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The cult of this Asiatic martyr in Amalfi is of
+course another legacy of the Republic’s close connection
+with the Levant, whence some relic-hunting
+admiral or merchant of the state reverently brought
+Pantaleone’s bones to the Italian coast. As the
+veneration of this Saint still exists so deep-seated
+that his Hellenic name is frequently bestowed on
+children at baptism, it may not be deemed amiss to
+give a very brief account of this eastern Martyr, who
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page162">[pg 162]</span><a name="Pg162" id="Pg162" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>is so closely associated with Amalfitan, and later with
+Venetian life. Pantaleone was born at Nicomedia,
+in Bithynia, the son of a Pagan father and a Christian
+mother. Well educated by his parents, he became
+a physician, and on account of his skill, his learning,
+his graceful manners and his handsome face, was
+finally selected to attend the person of the Emperor
+Maximian. At the Imperial Court the young doctor,
+who had meantime neglected the faith of his mother,
+was recalled to a true sense of Christian duty
+by the precepts of an old priest named Hermolaus.
+Pantaleone now began to heal the sick and to preach
+the Gospel, and even at times to perform miracles.
+Information as to his conduct having reached the
+Emperor’s ears, Maximian gave the young physician
+the choice of renouncing Christianity or of suffering
+death, whereat Pantaleone boldly declared he would
+rather die than apostatize. Thereupon the Saint,
+together with the Christian priest Hermolaus, was
+bound to an olive tree and beheaded with a sword.
+The story of his martyrdom has been frequently treated
+in Venetian art, for as an eastern Saint Pantaleone
+has a church dedicated to him in Venice, wherein the
+brush of Paul Veronese has painted in glowing colours
+the chief incidents of his life and death. As in the
+case of other physician-saints of the Roman Church—St
+Roch, St Cosmo and St Damiano—Pantaleone
+was especially besought in cases of the plague, which
+owing to the intercommunication between Amalfi
+and the Orient, frequently ravaged the towns of this
+coast.
+</p><a name="illus13" id="illus13" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus13th.jpg" width="253" height="400" alt="Illustration: A STREET IN RAVELLO" title="A STREET IN RAVELLO" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus13.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">A STREET IN RAVELLO</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+From the Cathedral we proceeded to visit the quaint
+little church of Santa Maria del Gradillo, that with its
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page163">[pg 163]</span><a name="Pg163" id="Pg163" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>oriental-looking towers and cupolas affords a pleasing
+example of the mixed Lombard and Saracenic style
+which was in vogue in the years when the house of
+Hohenstaufen were masters of Southern Italy. We
+found little that was worth seeing inside the building,
+except the pretty black-eyed daughter of the
+toothless tottering old sacristan, who slunk off grumbling
+on his child’s appearance, leaving her to do the
+honours of the place. Her merry face with its welcoming
+smile and her modest loquacity excited our
+interest, and in answer to our questions we gathered
+that she was twenty years old, and was still unmarried,
+not for lack of opportunity, she naïvely told us, but
+because she was unwilling to leave her old parents,
+who had no one in the world but herself to attend to
+them. Coming to the door of the church, Angela
+(for that was her name) pointed out her home, a
+little white-washed cottage with a heavily barred
+window over-hanging the grass-grown lane. We
+wished our pleasant companion a warm good-bye,
+or rather <a name="sic163" id="sic163" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">a riverderla</span></span>, at the entrance of the dwelling,
+where through the open doorway we could espy a
+small sun-smitten courtyard tenanted by a wizened
+old woman sitting in the shade of an orange tree, by
+three cats, and by a large family of skinny hens. On
+a low wall we noted some shallow earthenware pans
+filled with carnation plants, whose red and yellow
+heads were clearly silhouetted against the blue sky
+over head. Perhaps Angela’s life, we thought, is after
+all happier thus spent in the tending of her parents,
+her poultry and her garden, than if joined to that of
+some swarthy rascal of the beach below or dull
+peasant of the hillside. Long may the old people
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page164">[pg 164]</span><a name="Pg164" id="Pg164" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>survive to keep their guardian Angel from the mingled
+sorrows and joys of matrimony!
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Tenete l’uocchie de miricula nere;</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Che ffa la vostra matre che n’n de’ marite?</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">La vostra matre n’a de’ marito’ apposte</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Pe’ ne’ lleva’ son fior, a la fenestre.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+    <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">(</span><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Your eyes are marvellously black and bright!</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">How is it that your mother does not wed you?</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">She will not wed you, not to lose her light—</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Not to remove the flower that decks her window!</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">)</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The well-known hotel kept by Madame Palumbo,
+who is thoroughly conversant with English ways and
+requirements, occupies a delightful position in the old
+aristocratic quarter of Ravello known as <span class="tei tei-q">“Il Toro,”</span>
+the name of which is still retained in the interesting
+little church of San Giovanni del Toro close by.
+This comfortable hostelry has been constructed out of
+the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Vescovado</span></span>, the ancient episcopal residence, and it
+still retains many curious and attractive features of
+the original building, notably the quaint little stair-way
+that descends from the bishop’s private chamber
+into the chapel, which is now the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">salon</span></span> of the hotel.
+With its magnificent views, its interesting buildings
+and its pure exhilarating air, Ravello would seem to
+be an ideal spot wherein to linger, and it affords
+a most agreeable change in the later Spring months
+from the close atmosphere and enervating heat of
+Amalfi or the coast towns. Perched on this breezy
+hill-top, from the terrace of the hotel can be observed
+the whole circuit of the Bay of Salerno, whilst behind
+to the north and east the ring of enclosing mountains
+rises sharp and distinct against the sky. From this
+point we are presented with a complete view of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page165">[pg 165]</span><a name="Pg165" id="Pg165" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the territories of the ancient Republic, spread out like
+a map beneath our feet and stretching from the Punta
+della Campanella to the heights above Vietri, and backed
+by the arid grey mountain peaks. If the garden
+of the Hotel Palumbo seems a fitting place wherein to
+idle or to dream, might not it also appeal to some
+historian, not tied to time nor to the hard necessity of
+money-making, as a suitable spot for the conception
+of a history of the origin, rise, decline and fall of
+the great maritime Republic, whose dominions, still
+smiling and populous, surround Ravello on all sides?
+Gibbon found the first suggestion for his Roman
+History whilst musing upon the ruins of the Capitol,
+and he finished his great work in a Swiss garden
+amidst the scent of acacia bloom; might not the
+annals of the Amalfitan Republic likewise spring from
+reflections made upon this terrace, where the memories
+of a former greatness still beautiful in its decay must
+operate so powerfully? Well, perhaps some future
+Gibbon—or more probably some budding Mommsen—may
+in time present the world with a true impartial
+and erudite history of the Costiera d’Amalfi.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+We bask lazily in the afternoon sunshine, to the
+soft, rather soporific cooing of some caged doves, that
+live in the back-ground out of sight behind a screen of
+lemon trees in huge red jars, such as Morgiana must
+have been familiar with. Beyond the terrace wall we
+note the carefully tended vines, precious plants, for
+their grapes produce the delicate <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Episcopio</span></span> wine,
+perhaps the choicest vintage to be obtained around
+Naples, and boasting a flavour and bouquet that
+are rarely to be encountered except in the products of
+the most celebrated vineyards of France or Germany.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page166">[pg 166]</span><a name="Pg166" id="Pg166" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">O quam placens in colore,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">O quam fragrans in odore,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">O quam sapidum in ore,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Dolce linguae vinculum.</span></div>
+</div>
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Felix venter quem intrabis,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Felix guttur quod rigabis,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Felix os quod tu lavabis;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Et beata labia!</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Below the vinery we catch glimpses of the dancing
+waters of the Bay and of the little towns of Minori
+and Majori, seen through a screen of olive and almond
+trees that are gently swayed by the south wind.
+Opposite to us towers the huge form of the mountain
+of the Avvocata, upon whose slopes centuries ago the
+Madonna herself appeared in a flood of glory to
+an ignorant but pious shepherd lad, promising the
+startled youth to become his mediator, the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">avvocata</span></span> of
+his simple prayers. The story must be true, say the
+peasants, for there on the hillside can still be seen the
+ruins of the shrine that the wondering and grateful
+villagers raised upon the very site of the apparition in
+honour of their celestial visitor. But the whole
+country-side teems with interesting and often beautiful
+legends and traditions, handed down by generations of
+the simple hardy folk who toil for their daily bread
+amidst the vineyards and olive groves that clothe the
+sun-baked slopes descending to the shore.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The intervening distance is not great between
+Ravello and La Scala, which surmounts the opposite
+ridge of the valley of the Dragone, whence good
+walkers can easily descend by the ancient mule
+track that leads down direct to Amalfi by way of
+Scaletta. Like its neighbour and historic rival across
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page167">[pg 167]</span><a name="Pg167" id="Pg167" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the valley, the annals and fortunes of Scala are closely
+interwoven with those of Amalfi; and it was during
+the palmy days of the Republic that this daughter-town
+reached its height of prosperity. Although the
+tradition that once Scala possessed a hundred towers
+upon its walls and a hundred and thirty churches is
+obviously exaggerated, yet it must have been a place
+of importance even as early as 987, when Pope John
+XVI raised it to the rank of a bishopric, an honour
+which did not fall to Ravello until many years later.
+Early in the twelfth century Scala was pillaged by the
+Pisans, but some years afterwards, when the mother
+city tamely submitted to the demands of these Tuscan
+invaders without the smallest effort at self-defence, the
+higher-spirited mountaineers of La Scala manned their
+walls with skill and vigour, though without avail.
+The hill-set city was ultimately carried by storm, and
+so thoroughly did the enraged Pisans wreak their
+vengeance upon the place that Scala never again rose
+to fame or eminence, but henceforward dwindled in
+wealth and size until it finally sank to the condition of
+a large village, whilst Clement VIII offered an
+additional indignity to the city in its dotage by depriving
+it of episcopal rank. But though the citizens of
+modern Scala no longer possess a bishop in their
+midst, they are still the proud possessors and jealous
+guardians of the magnificent mitre presented by Charles
+of Anjou, who was greatly pleased by the men and
+money that this ancient town sent to aid his brother,
+St Louis of France, in his Crusade. Some sculptured
+tombs, one of them a monument in honour of Marinella
+Rufolo of Ravello, who was married to a Coppola of
+Scala, remain in the churches to interest the curious
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page168">[pg 168]</span><a name="Pg168" id="Pg168" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>traveller, but most visitors will find the principal charm
+of this dilapidated little city in its lofty striking situation
+beneath the frowning mass of Monte Cerrato.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But the sunset has come and gone, and the last
+tints of its rose-pink glow are rapidly disappearing from
+the serrated line of mountain tops against their background
+of daffodil sky. Stars are beginning to peep
+in the firmament, and yellow lights, the stars of earth,
+are springing up fast in the town below, and even
+appearing at rare intervals of space amongst the
+cottages of the woody hillside, or upon the fishing
+boats that lie on the bosom of the Bay, now turning
+to a deep purple under the advancing shadows of
+night. A cheerful concert of unseen insects greets
+our ears as we descend rapidly towards Atrani, whilst
+the goatbells amid the distant pastures tinkle pleasantly
+from time to time. We soon exchange the dewy
+freshness of evening in the country for the heavy air,
+thick with dust, that hangs over the coast road, and
+in a few moments more find ourselves at the foot of
+the rock-cut staircase that leads to our convent inn.
+</p>
+    <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">* * * * * *</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But our days upon the beautiful Costiera d’Amalfi
+are at an end, and the moment has at last come
+for us to bid farewell to these enchanted scenes and to
+the ancient city slumbering peacefully in its rocky
+valley by the shore. Our rows upon the glassy waters
+of the Bay, our scrambles up the wild scrub-covered
+hillsides above the town, our evening walks along the
+broad high-road to catch the fleeting glories of the
+sun-set,—all are ended; the day, the hour of departure
+has actually arrived.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Casting a longing look behind we quit Amalfi in
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page169">[pg 169]</span><a name="Pg169" id="Pg169" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the cool of the evening, in order to cover the eight
+intervening miles of coast road that lie between us and
+Salerno. We pass Atrani, with its tall parti-coloured
+tower, and proceed towards our destination with the
+smooth plain of waters below us and the fertile slopes
+above our heads, and thus we quickly gain Minori,
+another of the busy little settlements that once helped
+to make up the collected might of the old Republic.
+We meet with bare-footed sun-embrowned peasants,
+in their suits of blue linen and broad shady straw
+hats; lean sinewy figures, returning from a long day’s
+work in the fragrant orange groves by which the town
+is surrounded. We meet also, alas! with the usual
+crowd of beggars, the halt, the maimed, and the
+pseudo-blind, who are quickly left behind; nevertheless
+the naughty picturesque half-naked children,
+loudly screaming for <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">soldi</span></span>, caper in the dust alongside
+our carriage, until these little pests are out-stripped,
+but only to give way to other imps, equally
+naughty and unclothed, from Majori. Majori, nestling
+by the seashore amidst the enfolding mountains, appears
+to us a second Amalfi, with its crowded beach and
+brightly coloured boats, with its paper and maccaroni
+mills, huddled into the narrow ravine of the Senna,
+which cuts the town in half ere it empties itself into
+the Bay. Overhead the huge ruined castle of San
+Niccolò looms distinct against the rose-flushed evening
+sky, crouching like some decrepit old giant above the
+little city which he so oppressed in the bad old days
+when Sanseverini and Colonna carried on a perpetual
+selfish strife that allowed their humble neighbours no
+repose. Beautiful as is Majori, it is no lovelier than
+many another spot upon this exquisite coast; it is but
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page170">[pg 170]</span><a name="Pg170" id="Pg170" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>as one pearl in a well-matched necklace, for the country
+that lies between Amalfi and Salerno is fully as rich
+in historical interest and natural charm as is the
+western portion that we have just traversed. Behind
+Majori we behold Monte Falerio, with its rocky
+summit tipped with the glow of evening and its base
+in purple shadow, descending abruptly into the darkening
+waters of the Bay. Slanting down to the surf-fringed
+beach, the great mountain seem to bar our
+further progress, but with a guttural imprecation and
+a loud cracking of the whip, our coachman deftly
+guides his half-starved but cunning little horses round
+the sharp corner of the mountain spur known as the
+Capo del’ Orso, and in a trice Amalfi, whither we have
+been straining our eyes, is snatched from our vision;
+a few minutes later, and we have rounded the Capo
+del Tumulo, with its memories of the great Genoese
+admiral, Filippino Doria, who in the treacherous
+currents that circle round this Cape, destroyed the
+Spanish fleet of the Emperor Charles V. Already the
+sun has dipped below the horizon, and the calm
+expanse of the Tyrrhene has lost the last reflected ray;
+forward our driver urges his horses in the fast-fading
+light. The Angelus rings out from half a score of
+belfries beside the seashore and on the hillside,
+breaking the stillness of the gloaming with musical
+reverberations. Sunset and evening star, twilight and
+evening bell; how exquisite is the fall of night upon
+the shores of the Bay of Salerno! We pass the fishing
+village of Cetara, and in so doing we pass by the
+willing strength of imagination out of the dominion of
+the ancient Republic of Amalfi into the Principality
+of Salerno. Onward we press, and it is not long
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page171">[pg 171]</span><a name="Pg171" id="Pg171" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>before a shrill familiar sound bursts upon our ears,
+a sound that quickly tears the gossamer threads of a
+fancy revelling in the thoughts of long-extinct principalities
+and powers. It is the whistle of a railway-engine
+descending the slope from Vietri above us
+down to Salerno; it is the neighing of the iron horse
+that has not yet pranced along the unconquered
+Costiera d’Amalfi, nor befouled its crystal-clear air
+with his smoky breath. For at Vietri we re-enter the
+every-day world, and leave behind us the sea-girt fairy-land;
+Vietri, not Cetara, is the true frontier town to-day.
+But the lights of Salerno are drawing nearer
+and nearer, and in a few moments of time we are
+tearing along the broad lamp-lit Marina of the town,
+in the middle of which our driver pulls up suddenly
+at the entrance of that old-fashioned comfortable inn,
+the Albergo d’Inghilterra:
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Another day has told its feverish story,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Another night has brought its promised rest.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div><a name="illus14" id="illus14" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus14th.jpg" width="285" height="400" alt="Illustration: MINORI AT SUNSET" title="MINORI AT SUNSET" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus14.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">MINORI AT SUNSET</span></a></div></div>
+
+</div><hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page172">[pg 172]</span><a name="Pg172" id="Pg172" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc21" id="toc21"></a><a name="pdf22" id="pdf22"></a>
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">CHAPTER VIII</span></h2>
+
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.40em; margin-top: 2.40em"><span style="font-size: 120%">SALERNO AND THE HOUSE OF HAUTEVILLE</span></h2>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Backed by gentle slopes well wooded and well
+tilled, and screened from the northern blasts
+by its guarding amphitheatre of grey crags, Salerno
+occupies a delightful position upon the Bay to which
+it gives its own name. The long stretch of its Marina,
+tolerably clean to the eye if not at all points agreeable
+to the nostrils, follows the broad curve of the strand,
+and an idle hour or so may pleasantly be whiled away
+in watching the fishing craft moored beside the mole
+and the attendant sailors. At the northern end of
+this promenade, in what constitutes the most fashionable
+quarter of the place, is a tiny garden with palms
+and daturas, whilst hard by stands a large theatre,
+evidences of the gentility of modern Salerno. But
+the whole town appears sleepy and dead-alive to a
+stranger, though at the sunset hour a band occasionally
+plays in this open space, the music attracting hither a
+crowd composed of all the divers elements of society
+in the quiet old city. Yet though not possessing any
+great attractions for a sojourn in itself, Salerno makes
+an excellent centre whence to explore the neighbourhood,
+for it lies within easy reach of the great
+Benedictine Abbey of Santa Trinità; of beautiful La
+Cava, <span class="tei tei-q">“that Alpine valley under an Italian sky”</span>; of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page173">[pg 173]</span><a name="Pg173" id="Pg173" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Nocera, with its ancient cathedral that was once a
+pagan temple; and last, but very far from least, of
+that glorious group of temples at Paestum. It has
+tolerable hotels, and if only their <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">padroni</span></span> could be
+brought to realise that a flavouring of rosemary and
+garlic in every dish is not appreciated by the palates
+of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">forestieri</span></span>, the fare provided would be excellent.
+As in all Italian cities, northern or southern, however,
+the nocturnal noise is prodigious. Shouting and
+shrieking, quarrelling and yelling rend the air at all
+hours, whilst the practice of serenading, more agreeable
+in romantic poetry than in everyday life, is here
+carried to excess, and the twanging of the mandoline
+and the throaty voices of ardent lovers are rarely silent
+o’ nights in the dark narrow streets of Salerno.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">A lu scur’ vagi cercann’</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">La bella mia addo è?</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Mo m’annascunn’ po’ fann’ dispera’,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">I mor’, I mor’ pe’ te,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 3.60em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Ripos’ cchiù ne ho!</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+    <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">(</span><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">In favouring dusk I wandering go,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">My fair, where shall I find her?</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Now she attracts, now drives me wild;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">I die, I die for her;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 3.60em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Repose no more have I.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">)</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Behind the long line of lofty well-built houses facing
+the Bay, the streets are gloomy, narrow and crooked,
+a labyrinth of dark mysterious lanes that contain no
+palaces or churches of note, and but few artistic <span class="tei tei-q">“bits”</span>
+to catch the eye and delight the soul of a painter. As
+in the case of Amalfi, the Cathedral of San Matteo at
+Salerno is almost the sole monument left standing of a
+past that is peculiarly rich in historical associations.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page174">[pg 174]</span><a name="Pg174" id="Pg174" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Ever since the accession of the Angevin kings Salerno
+has remained a quiet provincial town, neither rich nor
+poor, but stagnant and without commerce. Into its
+harbour, which Norman and Suabian princes attempted
+to improve, the sand has long since silted, and Naples
+for many centuries past has been able to regard with
+serene contempt the city that it was once intended to
+make her commercial rival:
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Se Salerno avesse un porto,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Napoli sarebbe morto.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Well, Naples owns an excellent harbour, and has
+in consequence grown into one of the largest sea-ports
+on the shores of the Mediterranean, whilst little Salerno
+can only afford anchorage for fishing boats.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The chief interest of the place centres in its close
+connection with the great Norman house of Hauteville,
+and especially with Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia
+and Calabria, who after a fierce struggle managed to
+capture this city from the Lombard princes. Sprung
+from a hardy race of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">valvassors</span></span> or <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">bannerets</span></span> in Normandy,
+Duke Robert was one of the twelve sons of
+Tancred of Hauteville in the bishopric of Coutances.
+Joining his elder half-brother William Bras-de-Fer in
+Italy, Robert at once began to make a remarkable
+display of soldierly and statesman-like qualities. An
+adventurer pure and simple in an alien land, this
+sharp-witted Norman in course of time obtained the
+nick-name of Guiscard, or the Wiseacre, and on the
+death of his elder brother he was nominated Count of
+Apulia by acclamation of the Norman followers, to the
+exclusion of his helpless young nephews. Robert
+Guiscard’s appearance and character have been sketched
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page175">[pg 175]</span><a name="Pg175" id="Pg175" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>for us with loving care by one of the most famous of
+the world’s historians, who was fully able to appreciate
+the mingled force and cunning, the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">suaviter in modo</span></span>
+and the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">fortiter in re</span></span>, of this leader of a handful
+of Normans in a hostile and distant country. Let
+Gibbon’s stately prose therefore present to us a
+word-painting of the Great Adventurer himself:—
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“His lofty stature surpassed the tallest of his army;
+his limbs were cast in the true proportion of strength
+and gracefulness; and to the decline of life he maintained
+the patent vigour of health and the commanding
+dignity of his form. His complexion was ruddy,
+his shoulders were broad, his hair and beard were long
+and of a flaxen colour, his eyes sparkled with fire, and
+his voice, like that of Achilles, could impress obedience
+and terror amidst the tumult of battle. In the ruder
+ages of chivalry, such qualifications are not below the
+notice of the poet or historian; they may observe that
+Robert at once and with equal dexterity could wield
+in the right hand his sword, his lance in the left; that
+in the battle of Civitella he was thrice unhorsed, and
+that on the close of that memorable day he was adjudged
+to have borne away the prize of valour from
+the warriors of the two armies. His boundless ambition
+was founded on the consciousness of superior
+worth: in the pursuit of greatness he was never
+arrested by the scruples of justice, and seldom moved
+by the feelings of humanity: though not insensible of
+fame, the choice of open or clandestine means was
+determined only by his present advantage. The
+surname of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Guiscard</span></span> was applied to this master of
+political wisdom, which is too often confounded with
+the practice of dissimulation and deceit; and Robert
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page176">[pg 176]</span><a name="Pg176" id="Pg176" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>is praised by the Apulian poet for excelling the
+cunning of Ulysses and the eloquence of Cicero. Yet
+these arts were disguised by an appearance of military
+frankness: in his highest fortune he was accessible and
+courteous to his fellow soldiers, and while he indulged
+the prejudices of his new subjects, he affected in his
+dress and manners to maintain the ancient fashion
+of his country. He grasped with a rapacious, that he
+might distribute with a liberal hand; his primitive
+indigence had taught the habits of frugality; the gain
+of a merchant was not below his attention; and his
+prisoners were tortured with slow and unfeeling cruelty
+to force a discovery of their secret treasure. According
+to the Greeks, he departed from Normandy with only
+five followers on horse-back, and thirty on foot; yet
+even this allowance appears too bountiful;—the sixth
+son of Tancred of Hauteville passed the Alps as a
+pilgrim, and his first military band was levied among
+the adventurers of Italy.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Gaining over the Pope Nicholas II. to his interests,
+the new Count was able to exact an oath of fealty in
+1060 from the Italian barons, hitherto his equals, to
+recognise him as <span class="tei tei-q">“Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and here-after
+of Sicily, by the grace of God and of St Peter,”</span>
+although it took many years of hard fighting before
+these lands, thus proudly claimed, could be subdued.
+Beginning with the conquest of the Duchy of Benevento,
+Guiscard at once laid siege to Salerno, taking it
+after an obstinate resistance lasting over eight months,
+during which he was himself severely wounded by a
+splinter from one of his own engines of war. The
+city captured with such difficulty now became the
+victor’s favourite residence and the recipient of his
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page177">[pg 177]</span><a name="Pg177" id="Pg177" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>bounty and enlightened rule, so that Salerno quickly
+rose to the rank of one of the most illustrious towns
+in Europe, supplanting even its magnificent neighbour
+Amalfi in popular esteem.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Urbs Latii non est hâc delitiosior urbe,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Frugibus arboribus vino redundat; et unde</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Non tibi poma nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+    <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">(</span><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">All Latium shows no more delightful place,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Whose sunny slopes the vine and almond grace;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">’Midst fruitful groves her palaces uprear,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Her men are virtuous, and her women fair.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">)</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It was under the Guiscard’s auspices that the
+famous school of Medicine that had long been seated
+at Salerno rose to its highest point of excellence.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Paris for learning, Bologna for law, Orleans for
+poetry, and Salerno for Medicine”</span>;—such was the
+verdict of the age. With the somewhat grudging
+consent of the clergy, the hygienic skill of the dreaded
+Arabs was in this city permitted to temper the crass
+ignorance of medieval Italy, and at Salerno alone
+were the works of the infidel Avicenna and of the
+pagans Galen and Hippocrates openly studied. The
+result was that the fame of the doctors of this <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Fons
+Medicinae</span></span> spread over all Western Europe, so that
+distinguished patients either came hither to be treated
+in person or else sent emissaries to explain their
+symptoms and to obtain advice. Nor were the
+professors of the healing art at Salerno tied down by
+a strict adherence to drugs and boluses, for they fully
+realised that the height of all human ambition, the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mens sana in corpore sano</span></span>, is in any case more easily
+to be obtained by self-control than by all the
+in<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page178">[pg 178]</span><a name="Pg178" id="Pg178" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>gredients of the pharmacopoeia. They were warm
+believers apparently in the doctrine of moderation in
+all things, which after all is one of the most valuable
+prescriptions of modern hygiene:
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Curas tolle graves, irasci crede profanum,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Parce mero, coenato parum, non sit tibi vanum,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Surgere post epulas, somnum fuge meridianum.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+    <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">(</span><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Throw off dull care; thine angry moods restrain;</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Eschew the wine-cup; lightly eat, nor vain</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Deem our advice to make Enough thy feast.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Take exercise, and shun the noon-day rest.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">)</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Such was the oracular reply of the Salernitan
+sages to Robert, Duke of Normandy, and no one can
+dispute the sound common sense of the prescription
+given, nor doubt that it is applicable to half the
+patients who to-day throng the consulting rooms of
+fashionable London physicians.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But to return to Robert Guiscard, who shares the
+historical honours of the place, together with the great
+Pope Gregory VII., of whom we shall speak presently.
+After subduing the southern half of Italy and the
+island of Sicily, the great Duke next turned his
+victorious arms against the Eastern Empire, with the
+secret intention, it was suspected, of ascending the
+throne of Constantine. With the pseudo-Emperor
+Michael in his train, the Great Adventurer in 1081
+assembled a vast army at Otranto, consisting of
+30,000 Italian subjects and of 1300 Norman knights,
+with the object of crossing over to Epirus. Durazzo
+on the opposite Albanian coast, the Dyrrachium of
+the ancients, a city that was henceforth destined to be
+closely associated with succeeding dynasties of South
+Italy, was the objective of this gigantic expedition,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page179">[pg 179]</span><a name="Pg179" id="Pg179" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>for it was commonly reported to be the key of the
+Eastern Empire. Thither the flotilla set sail, but
+before reaching the Greek shore, an unexpected and
+unseasonable tempest scattered Guiscard’s argosy,
+destroying many of the ships and drowning many
+crews. Nevertheless, the undaunted spirit and endless
+resources of the Norman Duke rose superior to all
+misfortunes. Landing with the remnant of his army
+he at once laid siege to Durazzo, despite the fact that
+the Emperor Alexius was marching to its relief, and
+that the Venetian fleet was already anchored in its
+harbour. In spite of overwhelming odds, Guiscard
+utterly routed the Byzantine army. With his heir
+Bohemond and his wife Sigilgaita beside him, the
+Duke watched the progress of the battle, and at its
+most critical juncture, at a moment when it appeared
+inevitable that the hard-pressed Italian army must
+yield to the sheer numbers of the foe, the deep voice
+of the leader could be heard booming like a deep-toned
+bell over the battlefield, as he addressed his wavering
+troops. <span class="tei tei-q">“Whither do ye fly? Your enemy is implacable,
+and death is less grievous than slavery!”</span>
+Joined with the hoarse voice of Guiscard, the Norman
+warriors could distinguish the exhortations of the
+Amazon-like Sigilgaita, <span class="tei tei-q">“a second Pallas, less skilful
+in arts, but no less terrible in arms than the Athenian
+goddess.”</span> Rallying at the words of their master and
+shamed by the martial ardour of the Duchess, the invading
+troops made one last desperate effort, whereby
+the Imperial army was driven back and scattered, so
+that Alexius barely escaped with his life. Having
+routed the Emperor in fair fight, Guiscard now made
+use of his unparalleled cunning by bribing the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page180">[pg 180]</span><a name="Pg180" id="Pg180" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>treacherous Venetians, who eventually assisted the
+Italian forces to enter the city gates, and thus Durazzo
+was gained at the point of the sword after one of the
+fiercest sieges known to history. Scarcely had the
+beleaguered town been reduced, than the indomitable
+Guiscard found himself compelled to return to Italy,
+where the Emperor of the West, the unhappy Henry
+IV., vainly endeavouring to wipe out the humiliation
+of Canossa, had seized Rome and was actually besieging
+the great Hildebrand in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo.
+Leaving his son Bohemond in command of the army
+in Macedonia, Robert recrossed the sea, and hastened
+with a handful of men towards Rome. But so intense
+a fear did the victor of Durazzo inspire, that the
+terrified Emperor without waiting to give combat fled
+headlong together with his anti-pope from the Holy
+City, where Guiscard was received with acclamation.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Thus, in less than three years,”</span> remarks Gibbon, <span class="tei tei-q">“the
+son of Tancred of Hauteville enjoyed the glory of
+delivering the Pope, and of compelling the two
+Emperors of the East and West to fly before his
+victorious arms.”</span> Guiscard’s triumphal entry into
+Rome was however marred by scenes of violence and
+scandal, due to the conduct of the Saracen troops which
+his brother, the great Count Roger of Sicily, had
+brought to assist the enterprise. So infuriated were
+the Romans by the behaviour of the infidels, that the
+prudent Gregory deemed it wiser to return to Salerno
+together with his deliverer, and it was in Guiscard’s
+palace that the famous <span class="tei tei-q">“Caesar of spiritual conquest”</span>
+expired three years later. As to the Great
+Adventurer himself, he died in the island of Cephalonia
+in the very year of the Pope’s death at Salerno (1085)
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page181">[pg 181]</span><a name="Pg181" id="Pg181" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>and was buried beside his first wife, the gentle Alberada,
+at Venosa in Apulia, though the city which he had
+always loved and favoured would seem to have offered
+a more appropriate spot for his interment.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But although the mortal remains of the Great
+Adventurer do not rest within the precincts of his
+beloved city, an undying monument of his glorious
+but turbulent reign is to be found in the Cathedral,
+which despite the neglect and alterations of eight
+centuries may still be ranked as one of the most
+interesting buildings in Southern Italy. Standing in a
+secluded part of the town, this magnificent church
+gains nothing from its position, for it can only be
+reached by means of tortuous dingy lanes, and even
+on a near approach the effect produced on the visitor
+is not impressive. <span class="tei tei-q">“The Cathedral-church of San
+Matteo,”</span> says the Scotch traveller, Joseph Forsyth, in
+quaint pedantic language, <span class="tei tei-q">“is a pile so antique and so
+modern, so repaired and rhapsodic, that it exhibits
+patches of every style, and is of no style itself.”</span> But
+is not this quality, we ask, exactly what a great
+historic building, such as Guiscard’s church, truly
+demands? Ought not it to bear the impress of the
+various ages it has survived, and of the many famous
+persons who have contributed to its embellishment?
+From Duke Robert’s day to the present time, the
+Cathedral is an epitome of the history of Salerno, a
+sermon in stones concerning the great past and the
+inglorious present of the city.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In the year preceding his own death and that of
+the great Pontiff, who was tarrying at Salerno as
+his not over-willing guest, Duke Robert erected this
+Cathedral, obtaining the chief ornaments for his new
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page182">[pg 182]</span><a name="Pg182" id="Pg182" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>structure and also its most important relic, the supposed
+body of the Apostle St Matthew, from the lately
+deserted city of Paestum across the bay. The church
+is approached by means of a quadrangular fore-court,
+a cloister supported on antique columns, such as can
+still be observed in a few of the old Roman churches,
+so that we venture to think that this idea at Salerno
+was suggested by the great Pope himself. A number
+of sculptured sarcophagi, which, like the pillars, were
+the spoils of Paestum, are ranged alongside the
+entrance walls; and once upon a time there stood in
+the centre of the courtyard the huge granite basin
+that all visitors to Naples will recall as set in the
+middle of the Villa Reale, where it performs the
+humble office of decorating a miniature pond, wherein
+lily-white ducks quack and gobble at the bread crumbs
+thrown to them by children and their nurses. Fancy
+the irate disgust of Duke Robert at waking to learn
+that the antique fountain for his new Cathedral, brought
+with such care and toil from distant Poseidonia, should
+have been transported to the rival city and turned to
+such base uses! Above the splendid bronze doors, the
+gift of Landolfo Butomilea and his wife shortly after
+Guiscard’s death, we perceive the dedication of the
+church to the Apostle Matthew by the proud conqueror
+of the Two Sicilies and the protector of Hildebrand.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">A Duce Roberto donaris Apostole templo:</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Pro meritis regno donetur ipse superno.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The donor, we note, is confident that the Apostle,
+in return for so glorious a fabric, will undertake to
+obtain the Kingdom of Heaven for this generous
+client upon earth.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The interior, which is sadly marred by white-wash
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page183">[pg 183]</span><a name="Pg183" id="Pg183" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>and gaudy decoration, is a perfect treasure-house of
+works of art—antique, medieval, Renaissance—of
+which the guide-book will give a detailed list.
+Succeeding generations have put to strange uses some
+of the fine marble reliefs that Guiscard transported
+hither from Paestum, and we note that one archbishop
+has gone so far as to filch a sarcophagus carved with
+a Bacchanal procession to serve for his own tomb.
+We might perhaps infer that the deceased prelate was
+addicted to the wine-flask, and to have been a firm
+believer in and follower of one of the rules of the
+medical school of his own diocese:
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Si nocturna tibi noceat potatio vini,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Hoc ter mane libas iterum, et fuerit medicina.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+    <div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">(</span><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">If a carouse at night do make thee ill,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">For morning medicine drink of wine thy fill</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">)</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Let us hope that this extraordinary receipt for <span class="tei tei-q">“hot
+coppers”</span> was intended satirically, or else given seriously
+as the only advice that a confirmed toper was likely
+to follow in any case. But the use of classical adjuncts
+to adorn Christian tombs, which to-day appears so
+incongruous to us, was popular enough at the time of
+the Renaissance, and readers of Robert Browning’s
+poetry will call to mind the story of the dying
+Bishop’s injunction to his heirs concerning his tomb
+in St Praxed’s church at Rome:
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Some tripod thyrsus with a vase or so,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The Saviour at His sermon on the mount,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">And Moses with the tables....</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page184">[pg 184]</span><a name="Pg184" id="Pg184" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But it is necessary to shake off the spirit of Renaissance
+dilettantism before we venture to approach the
+chapel of John of Procida to the right of the high
+altar, where stands the stern figure of the greatest
+of the medieval Pontiffs. Above the marble statue
+of the Caesar of the Papacy, that was tardily erected
+to his memory by the unfortunate Pio Nono, appear
+the glittering mosaics of the apse of the chapel, from
+which look down the figures of John of Procida and of
+King Manfred, the last sovereign prince of the hated
+Suabian line that Gregory twice anathematized.
+Beneath the cold forbidding eye of the last of the
+Hohenstaufen and his friend and avenger here rest,
+strangely enough, the ashes of that <span class="tei tei-q">“great and
+inflexible asserter of the supremacy of the sacerdotal
+order: the monk Hildebrand, afterwards Pope
+Gregory the Seventh.”</span> Born the son of a poor
+carpenter in the Tuscan village of Soana, this extraordinary
+man rose to eminence as a monk of Cluny,
+where he became famous for his extreme asceticism
+of life in an age of undisguised clerical corruption
+and luxury, when simony, lay investiture and priestly
+marriages were the rule rather than the exception on
+all sides, so that but few Churchmen were able to rise
+above their surrounding temptations. Such few as
+could resist the world, the flesh and the devil were
+accounted, and not unfrequently were in reality,
+ignorant crazy fanatics, half-pitied and half-despised.
+Between these two extremes of worldly indulgence
+and of unreasoning severity of life, Hildebrand ever
+pursued a middle course, for whilst on the one hand
+he eschewed the vanities of life around him, on the
+other he never sank into the self-effacement of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page185">[pg 185]</span><a name="Pg185" id="Pg185" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>a hermit. His acknowledged purity and zeal soon
+won for him from the laity a respect mingled with awe,
+whilst his natural talents, his indomitable will, and
+his genuine piety in course of time brought all
+Churchmen who had any regard for their holy office
+to fix their hopes upon this Clugniac monk, now a
+Cardinal. For some years before his actual election
+to the Papal throne in 1079, Hildebrand had begun
+to exercise an immense control over the councils of
+the Church, and he was personally responsible for
+the epoch-making resolution under Nicholas II., which
+declared that the choice of a new Pontiff was vested
+in the College of Cardinals alone. His own election,
+under the terms of this new and drastic arrangement,
+became the signal for the fierce struggles, equally
+of the battlefield and the council-chamber, that were
+destined to distract Italy for generations to come. For,
+as might have been expected, the Emperor Henry IV.,
+King of the Romans, was not long in protesting against
+so decided an infringement of his secular claims.
+From the synods of Worms and Piacenza came the
+Imperial decree of deposition against Gregory, which
+was addressed by <span class="tei tei-q">“Henry, not by usurpation but
+by God’s holy ordination, King, to Hildebrand, no
+longer Pope, but false monk.”</span> Gregory, strong alike
+in virtue and in resolve, and aided by the might
+of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany and of Robert
+Guiscard, answered by pronouncing a solemn anathema
+upon his secular adversary. In awe-struck silence the
+Council of the Lateran listened to the Pope’s final
+excommunication of the King, and of all those
+who dared to associate themselves with him. <span class="tei tei-q">“I
+absolve,”</span> said Gregory, <span class="tei tei-q">“all Christians from the oaths
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page186">[pg 186]</span><a name="Pg186" id="Pg186" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>which they have taken or may take to him; and
+I decree that no one shall obey him as king; for it
+is fitting that he, who has endeavoured to diminish
+the honour of the Church, should himself lose that
+honour which he seems to have.”</span> We all know
+the final act of that terrible unequal struggle, the
+duel of brute force against spiritual terrors in a rude
+age of violence and superstition, which took place
+in the courtyard of the Castle of Canossa, the
+Countess Matilda’s fortress in the Apennines.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“On a dreary winter morning, with the ground
+deep in snow, the King, the heir of a long line
+of Emperors, was permitted to enter within the
+two outer of the three walls which girded the Castle
+of Canossa. He had laid aside every mark of
+royalty or of distinguished station; he was clad
+only in the thin white linen dress of the penitent,
+and there, fasting, he awaited in humble patience
+the pleasure of the Pope. But the gates did not
+unclose. A second day he stood, cold, hungry and
+mocked by vain hopes. And yet a third day dragged
+on from morning till evening over the unsheltered
+head of the discrowned King. Every heart was moved
+save that of the representative of Jesus Christ.”</span>
+</p><a name="illus15" id="illus15" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus15th.jpg" width="288" height="400" alt="Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO RAVELLO" title="ON THE ROAD TO RAVELLO" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus15.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">ON THE ROAD TO RAVELLO</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Can we wonder then that the phrase <span class="tei tei-q">“to go to
+Canossa”</span> (<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">gehen nach Canossa</span></span>) has become ingrafted
+on to the German language, or that so significant an
+expression was openly used by Prince Bismarck
+during the fierce religious struggles in the days of
+the <span class="tei tei-q">“Kultur-kampf”</span> between the newly-formed
+Empire and the direct successor of the spiritual Caesar
+who had thus humbled a former Emperor of Germany?
+It was in vain that Henry afterwards endeavoured,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page187">[pg 187]</span><a name="Pg187" id="Pg187" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>by making war upon his oppressor, to undo the evil
+effects of his public recantation at Canossa; the act
+of humiliation was too marked ever to be wiped out
+either by himself or by his descendants. For good
+or for bad, Gregory had succeeded in rendering the
+Papacy free from lay control; he had gained for ever
+for the Church one of her most cherished tenets, the
+absolute independence of the Pope’s election by the
+College of Cardinals; and he had even partially reduced
+the Western Empire into a fief of the Church
+itself. The former of Gregory’s great objects, the
+freedom of election, still remains intact after an interval
+of more than eight hundred years; the latter
+attempt, though long struggled for and apparently
+with success at times, has, we know, ultimately failed.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Having accomplished so much during his reign,
+it is strange to think that Gregory’s last days should
+have been passed in a form of exile away from the
+Eternal City which he claimed as the metropolis of
+the Universal Church. There is pathos to be found
+in the Pope dying at Salerno, far removed from the
+scene of his ambition and success. With the bitter
+feeling that his name was execrated in Rome after
+Guiscard’s sack, and that his host was bent upon
+obtaining the imperial title from his reluctant guest,
+Gregory’s declining days were spent in melancholy
+reflections. To the last he spoke confidently of the
+righteousness of his cause, and whilst making his
+peace with all mankind in anticipation of his approaching
+end, he deliberately excepted from his own and
+God’s mercy the names of his arch-enemy Henry and
+the anti-pope Guibert, together with all their followers.
+Thus the aged Pontiff languished to his end within
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page188">[pg 188]</span><a name="Pg188" id="Pg188" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the walls of the Castle of Salerno, encircled by flattering
+Churchmen who did their utmost to cheer their
+dying champion. <span class="tei tei-q">“I have loved justice and hated
+iniquity, and therefore I die in exile,”</span> are the
+famous words recorded of Hildebrand in the face of
+the King of Terrors. <span class="tei tei-q">“In exile thou canst not die!”</span>
+eagerly responded an attendant priest. <span class="tei tei-q">“Vicar of
+Christ and His Apostles, thou hast received the
+nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts
+of the earth for thy possession.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Perhaps the expiring Pope was cheered by these
+words—who can tell? In any case they were prophetic,
+for the present world-wide character of the
+Roman Church, which embraces in its fold all nationalities
+and holds its members together all the globe
+over in one indissoluble bond of a spiritual empire,
+is largely due to the trials and exertions of one man:
+the monk Hildebrand, Pope Gregory the Seventh.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Here then he sleeps his last sleep, the friend of Matilda,
+the mortal foe of King Henry, the patron of William
+the Conqueror, the guest of Robert Guiscard:—what
+a galaxy of illustrious names shines upon that dim
+silent chapel in the Cathedral of Salerno! Here
+stands in unchanging benediction his gleaming marble
+effigy, calmly surveyed by King Manfred near at
+hand in imperial robes, the last prince of the hated
+and twice banned Suabian House, whose bones were
+destined to bleach in the sun and rattle in the wind
+by the bridge of Benevento under a Papal curse.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Before we quit the Cathedral in order to enjoy the
+evening sunshine, which is filling the interior with
+its roseate glow, let us return for one brief moment
+to the northern aisle, to glance at the grave of the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page189">[pg 189]</span><a name="Pg189" id="Pg189" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Duchess who fought so boldly by her husband’s side
+at Durazzo. It is easy to find, for her simple tomb
+stands not far from the beautiful and elaborate
+monument of Margaret of Durazzo (strange coincidence!)
+wife of King Charles of Naples, wherein
+the sculptor has portrayed angels drawing aside a
+curtain so as to display the sleeping form of the dead
+Queen within. Close to this monument of a not
+unusual Renaissance type, we discover the last resting
+place of Robert Guiscard’s second wife, the Duchess
+Sigilgaita, their son Roger Bursa and their grandson
+William, in whom the direct line of the Great Adventurer
+became extinct. Many stories are told by
+the old chroniclers of this bold intrepid princess (not
+always to her credit)—daughter of the last Lombard
+prince Gisulf of Salerno and wife of her father’s
+supplanter, whose humble Norman ancestry she affected
+to despise. But despite her reputation for cruelty
+and even for murder, Sigilgaita was a faithful wife
+and a brave woman, with a character not unlike that
+of our own Queen Margaret of Anjou; and it seems
+strange that so devoted and well mated a pair as
+herself and Robert Guiscard should be separated in
+death, he at Venosa and she in the cathedral of
+her husband’s foundation.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Passing out of the silent church into the warm
+light of eventide, by steep alleys and by stony
+footpaths we <a name="corr189" id="corr189" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-corr">gradually</span> mount upwards towards the
+ruined castle that commands a lofty position with an all-embracing
+view of the bay and its encircling mountains.
+The crumbling fragment of the old palace of Salerno
+differs but little in appearance from any one of those
+innumerable dilapidated piles of the Middle Ages with
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page190">[pg 190]</span><a name="Pg190" id="Pg190" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>which Southern Italy is so thickly studded, yet
+coming fresh from visiting Guiscard’s cathedral and
+Hildebrand’s last resting-place, we find it comparatively
+easy to conjure up some recollections of its
+past, so as to invest its crumbling red-hued walls
+with a spell of interest. These broken apertures
+were surely once the windows through which the
+dying Pope must have wearily glanced upon the
+sun-smitten waves and violet-shadowed hills that we
+behold to-day; here in this embrasure, long despoiled
+of its marble seat, must have brooded the fierce and
+unscrupulous Sigilgaita, thinking of how best to rid
+herself of her step-son Bohemond, in order that her
+own children might inherit their father’s realms.
+The ghosts of princes and popes are around us, yet
+the only living inhabitant of the roofless castle is
+the ragged little goat-herd, whose unsavoury charges
+are cropping the short grass that covers the site of
+the banqueting hall, where Norman knights and
+Italian barons once caroused in the crusading days
+of long ago. We seat ourselves on the dry sward
+in a sun-warmed angle of the ruins, where an almond
+tree that has sprouted from the rubble sends down
+from time to time upon our heads a tiny shower of
+pale pink blossoms at the bidding of the soft evening
+breeze. At our feet are masses of the dark shiny leaves
+of the wild arum, and rank grass which is plentifully
+starred with tall-stemmed crimson-petalled daisies
+and the mauve wind-flowers that are drowsily closing
+their cups at the approach of night. The little goat-herd
+eyes us solemnly, but—strange and welcome to
+relate—shows no inclination to pester the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">signori</span></span>.
+The soft murmuring of the distant sea, the subdued
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page191">[pg 191]</span><a name="Pg191" id="Pg191" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>hum of the city far below us and the drowsy buzzing
+of the bees in the almond and ivy bloom close at
+hand combine to strengthen the golden chain of
+imagination. As we sit basking in the peaceful
+beauty of the scene around us and serenely conscious
+of its glorious past, one of our party suddenly remembers
+in a welcome flash of inspiration that this deserted
+courtyard has been made the scene of one of
+Boccaccio’s most famous tales. It is a story that
+many writers of succeeding ages have endeavoured
+to imitate in prose or verse, but this fictitious love-tragedy
+between a princess and a page at Salerno has
+a simple charm and dignity in its original setting
+that only the master-hand of the Tuscan author
+could impart. The scene of the novel of Guiscard
+and Ghismonda is laid, as we have said, at this very
+spot, and as the hero, the heroine and the villain of
+the tale have Norman names, we may be allowed
+to conjecture that this graceful story, which Boccaccio
+puts into the mouth of the lady Fiammetta, was
+founded upon some actual but half-forgotten family
+scandal in the annals of the mighty but self-made
+House of Hauteville.
+</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">* * * * * *</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Once upon a time there reigned in Salerno the
+Prince Tancred, who was a widower, and the father
+of an only daughter, Ghismonda, Duchess of Capua.
+The Duchess, who was considered one of the most
+beautiful, accomplished and virtuous princesses of
+her day, had been early married to the Duke of
+Capua, but on his death after a very few years
+of matrimony had been left a childless widow.
+Being still very young, the Princess Ghismonda was
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page192">[pg 192]</span><a name="Pg192" id="Pg192" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>now taken back to his court by her father, who
+jealously guarded her and seemed unwilling for her
+to be remarried. Living in rooms that over-looked
+the courtyard of the palace, the Duchess, who found
+time hang on her hands somewhat heavily, used to
+spend hours daily in watching the lords and pages
+of her father’s household passing and repassing the
+quadrangle below, and amongst the many well-favoured
+youths a certain page named Guiscard
+found most favour in her sight. Now Guiscard, who
+had thus all unwittingly attracted Ghismonda’s attention
+and finally won her heart, was a young Norman of
+no great lineage and of small means, but being discreet,
+upright and sensible-minded, had obtained a
+high place in Prince Tancred’s estimation. Skilfully
+questioning her maids of honour without exciting
+their suspicions, the Princess gained all she wished
+to know concerning Guiscard’s position and attainments,
+and it was not long before she found means of
+conveying the secret of her affection to the youth,
+who in fact had already fallen head over ears in
+love with the beautiful Duchess who so often
+leaned from the casement above. She now sent him
+a letter hidden in a pair of bellows, wherein she
+explained to him the existence of a secret passage,
+long disused, that led from a hollow in the hillside
+below the castle walls up to her own apartment.
+Over-joyed at receiving this missive, the infatuated
+page took the first occasion, as we may well imagine,
+to make use of this friendly clue, and before many
+hours had passed after receiving the letter, the young
+man, flushed and triumphant, was standing in the
+chamber of his beloved mistress, who had meanwhile
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page193">[pg 193]</span><a name="Pg193" id="Pg193" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>taken every necessary preparation for receiving her
+lover in secret. Many a time were the pair able to
+meet thus without awakening the least suspicion in
+the minds of Prince Tancred or of the maids of
+honour, and all would doubtless have gone well for
+an indefinite period of time, but for a most unforeseen
+accident. It appears that one morning the old Prince
+of Salerno, wishing to confer with his daughter on
+some matter of state, came to her private apartment,
+and on learning that she had gone out riding settled
+himself upon a couch that stood within a curtained
+alcove, and whilst waiting for her return fell sound
+asleep. After some hours of repose the prince was
+suddenly roused from his heavy slumber by the sound
+of two voices in the room, that of his daughter and of
+a strange man. Peeping stealthily through the folds
+of the draperies, he now beheld to his fury and
+amazement the Duchess alone with his page Guiscard.
+But the descendant of Robert the Wiseacre well knew
+how to temper vengeance with dissimulation. Dreading
+the scandal that would follow an open exposure,
+the Prince, in spite of his years and the stiffness of
+his joints, contrived to quit the chamber unperceived
+by means of a convenient window. That very night
+the unsuspecting Guiscard was seized by his sovereign’s
+orders and thrust into a foul dungeon of the palace,
+whither Tancred himself descended to question his
+prisoner and to reprove him violently for his base
+ingratitude. But the unhappy page could only make
+repeated answer: <span class="tei tei-q">“Sire, love hath greater powers
+than you or I!”</span> On the following morning Tancred
+proceeded to visit the Duchess, still ignorant of her
+paramour’s fate, and in a voice strangled with the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page194">[pg 194]</span><a name="Pg194" id="Pg194" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>conflicting emotions of paternal love and desired
+vengeance bitterly upbraided his erring child.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Daughter, I had such an opinion of your modesty
+and virtue, that I could never have believed, had I
+not seen it with mine own eyes, that you would have
+violated either, even so much as in thought. The
+recollection of this will make the pittance of life that
+is left very grievous to me. As you were determined
+to act in that manner, would to Heaven you had
+made choice of a person more suitable to your own
+quality; but this Guiscard is one of the meanest
+persons about my court. This gives me such concern,
+that I scarce know what to do. As for him, he was
+secured by my order last night, and his fate is determined.
+But with regard to yourself, I am influenced
+by two different motives: on one side, the tenderest
+regard that a father can have for a child; and on the
+other, the justest vengeance for the great folly you
+have committed. One pleads strongly in your behalf;
+and the other would excite me to do an act contrary
+to my nature. But before I come to a resolution, I
+would fain hear what you have to say for yourself.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Seeing clearly from her father’s words that her
+secret had been discovered and that her lover was
+in prison, the intrepid Ghismonda, a true daughter
+of the high-spirited House of Hauteville, assuming
+a composure she was very far from feeling, made a
+dignified appeal on behalf of Guiscard and herself.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Father, it is not my purpose either to deny or to
+entreat; for as the one can avail me nothing, so I
+intend the other shall be of little service. I will by
+no means bespeak your love and tenderness towards
+me; but shall first, by an open confession, endeavour
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page195">[pg 195]</span><a name="Pg195" id="Pg195" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>to vindicate myself, and thus do what the greatness
+of my soul prompts me to. It is most true that I
+have loved, and do still love Guiscard; and whilst I
+live, which will not be long, shall continue to love
+him; and if such a thing as love be after death, I
+shall never cease to love him.... It appears from
+what you say, that you would have been less incensed
+if I had made choice of a nobleman, and you bitterly
+reproach me for having condescended to a man of
+low condition. In this you speak according to vulgar
+prejudice, and not according to truth; nor do you
+perceive that the fault you blame is not mine, but
+Fortune’s, who often exalts the unworthy, and leaves
+the worthiest in low estate. But, not to dwell on
+such considerations, look a little into first principles,
+and you will see that we are all formed of the same
+material and by the same hand. The first difference
+amongst mankind, who are all born equal, was made
+by virtue; they who were virtuous were deemed
+noble, and the rest were all accounted otherwise.
+Though this law, therefore, may have been obscured
+by contrary custom, yet is it discarded neither by
+nature nor good manners. If you regard only the
+worth and virtue of your courtiers, and consider that
+of Guiscard, you will find him the only noble person,
+and these others a set of poltroons. With regard to
+his worth and valour, I appeal to yourself. Who ever
+commended man more for anything that was praise-worthy
+than you have commended him? And
+deservedly, in my judgment; but if I was deceived,
+it was by following your opinion. If you say, then,
+that I have had an affair with a person base and
+ignoble, I deny it; if with a poor one, it is to your
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page196">[pg 196]</span><a name="Pg196" id="Pg196" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>shame to have let such merit go unrewarded. Now
+concerning your last doubt, namely how you are to
+deal with me: use your pleasure. If you are disposed
+to commit an act of cruelty, I shall say nothing
+to prevent such a resolution. But this I must apprise
+you of; that unless you do the same to me, which
+you either have done, or mean to do to Guiscard, mine
+own hands shall do it for you. If you mean to act
+with severity, cut us off both together, if it appear to
+you that we have deserved it.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The Duchess’ able defence of her choice of Guiscard
+and her democratic views of society were hardly
+likely to influence the proud tyrant of Salerno,
+although his house was sprung from a plebeian stock
+of Normandy. Ignoring her plea and arguments,
+Tancred left his daughter alone with her grief, and
+proceeded to the cells below to give the order for
+Guiscard’s immediate death by strangling. But
+Tancred’s fury was by no means appeased by the
+page’s death, for tearing the unhappy youth’s heart
+from the warm and still quivering body, the brutal
+prince had the bleeding flesh placed in a golden
+covered cup, which he bade his chamberlain deliver to
+Ghismonda, with these cruel words: <span class="tei tei-q">“Your father
+sends this present to comfort you with what was
+most dear to you; even as he was comforted by you
+in what was most dear to him.”</span> With a calm
+countenance and with a gracious word of thanks, the
+Princess accepted the gift, and on removing the
+cover and realising the contents of the cup, said with
+meaning to the bearer of this gruesome present:
+<span class="tei tei-q">“My father has done very wisely; such a heart as
+this requires no worse a sepulchre than one of gold.”</span>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page197">[pg 197]</span><a name="Pg197" id="Pg197" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Then after lamenting for a while over her lover’s fate,
+Ghismonda filled the goblet with a draught of poison
+that she had already prepared in anticipation of her
+father’s vengeance, and quaffed its contents. After
+this she lay down upon her bed, clasping the cup to
+her bosom, whereupon her maids, all ignorant of the
+cause of their mistress’ conduct, ran terrified to call
+Prince Tancred, who arrived in time to witness his
+unhappy daughter’s death agony. Now that it was
+too late, the Prince was stricken with remorse and
+began loudly to bewail the violence of his late anger.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Sire,”</span> said the dying Princess, <span class="tei tei-q">“save those tears
+against worse fortune that may happen, for I want
+them not. Who but yourself would mourn for a
+thing of your own doing?”</span> Then dropping her tone
+of irony, she made one last request of her weeping
+and repentant father, that her own and Guiscard’s
+bodies might be honourably interred within the same
+tomb. Thus perished by her own hand the beautiful
+Princess Ghismonda of Salerno, Duchess of Capua,
+urged to the fell deed by a parent’s inexorable cruelty.
+And it is some slight consolation to the sad ending
+of the story to learn that Tancred did at least carry
+out his daughter’s dying entreaty, for the bodies of
+Ghismonda and Guiscard were duly laid in one grave
+amidst the pomp of religion and the cold comfort of
+a public mourning.<a id="noteref_7" name="noteref_7" href="#note_7"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">7</span></span></a>
+</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">* * * * * *</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But the sun has long since sunk below the horizon,
+and the chill dews of night are falling round us. Hastily
+we leave the old palace of the princes of Salerno to the
+solitary occupation of the bats and owls, to seek warmth
+and cheerfulness in our inn upon the Marina.
+</p>
+</div><hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page198">[pg 198]</span><a name="Pg198" id="Pg198" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc23" id="toc23"></a><a name="pdf24" id="pdf24"></a>
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">CHAPTER IX</span></h2>
+
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.40em; margin-top: 2.40em"><span style="font-size: 120%">PAESTUM AND THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE</span></h2>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In these days of easy travelling there lies a choice
+of two routes to Paestum and its temples: one
+by driving thither direct from La Cava or Salerno,
+in the mode of our forefathers; and the other by
+taking the train to the little junction of Battipaglia,
+and thence proceeding southward by the coast line
+to the station of Pesto itself, that stands almost
+within a stone’s throw of the chief gate of Poseidonia.
+A third, and perhaps a preferable way, consists in
+using the railway beyond Battipaglia to Eboli, a
+town of no little interest in the upper valley of the
+Silarus, and thence driving along the base of the
+rocky hills that enclose the maritime plain and through
+the oak wood of Persano that was brigand-haunted
+within living memory. But though the scenery
+between Eboli and Paestum undoubtedly owns more
+charm and variety than the marshy flats can boast,
+yet the strange loneliness of the sea-girt level has
+a fascination of its own, which will appeal strongly
+to all lovers of pristine undisturbed nature. For
+the larger portion of these Lucanian plains still
+remains uncultivated, so that thickets of fragrant
+wild myrtle and lentisk, of coronella and of white-blossomed
+laurustinus, stud the landscape; whilst
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page199">[pg 199]</span><a name="Pg199" id="Pg199" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the open ground is thickly covered with masses of
+hardy but gay flowering weeds. The great star-thistles
+run to seed unchecked by the scythe, and the
+belled cerinthia and the glaucous-leaved tall yellow
+mulleins seem to thrive heartily on the barren soil.
+Boggy ground alternates with patches of dry stony
+earth, and in early summer every little pool of water
+affords sustenance to coarse-scented white water-lilies,
+and clumps of the yellow iris that are over-shadowed
+by masses of tall graceful reeds. These <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">arundini</span></span>,
+which are to be found near every water-course or
+pool throughout Italy, are characteristic of the country
+with their broad grey leaves, their heads of pink
+feathery bloom, and their mournful whispering answers
+to the question of every passing breeze; elegant in
+their growth, they are also beloved by the practical
+peasant who utilizes their long slender stems for
+a variety of purposes in his domestic economy.
+For the reeds, stripped of their foliage, support his
+tender young vines and make good frame-work
+whereon to train his peas and tomatoes; the longest
+canes of all, moreover, serve well as handles for the
+long feather brushes which are used so extensively
+in all Italian households. Other floral denizens of
+the plain are the great rank <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">porri</span></span>, or wild leeks, conspicuous
+with their bright green curling leaves issuing
+from globe-like roots above the ground, and of course,
+the asphodel, the plant of Death. For the asphodel
+is pre-eminently the flower of Southern Italy and of
+Sicily, since it presents a fit emblem of a departed
+grandeur that is still impressive in its decay. How
+beautiful to the eye appear the dark grey-green sword-like
+leaves from the centre of which up-shoots the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page200">[pg 200]</span><a name="Pg200" id="Pg200" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>tall branching stem with its clusters of delicate pink-striped
+blossoms, that show so lovely yet smell so
+vile! Apart from its fetid odour, the asphodel is a
+thing of intense beauty, so that a long line of these
+plants in full bloom, covering some ridge of orange-coloured
+tufa or the velvety-grey crest of some ancient
+wall, with their spikes of starry flowers standing out
+distinct like floral candelabra against the clear blue
+of a southern sky, makes an impression upon the
+beholder that will ever be gratefully remembered.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But flowers and shrubs are not the only occupants
+of the Poseidonian plain, for as we proceed on our way
+towards the Temples, we notice in the drier pastures
+large herds of the long-horned dove-coloured cattle of
+the country, whilst in marshy places our interest is
+aroused by the sight of great shaggy buffaloes of
+sinister mien. The buffalo has long been acclimatized
+in Italy, though its original home seems to have been
+the trackless marshes of the Tigris and Euphrates.
+The conquering Arabs first introduced these uncouth
+Eastern cattle into Sicily, whence they were imported
+into Italy by the Norman kings of Naples. In spite
+of its malevolent nature and the poor quality of its
+flesh and hide, the buffalo came to be extensively bred
+in the Pontine and Lucanian marshes, where the
+moisture of the soil and the unwholesome air always
+affected the native herds unfavourably. For hours
+together these fierce untameable beasts love to lie
+amidst the swampy reed-beds, wallowing up to their
+flanks in slimy malodorous mud and seemingly
+impervious to the ceaseless attacks of the local wasps
+and gad-flies, which try in vain to penetrate with their
+barbed stings the thick hairy covering of defence.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page201">[pg 201]</span><a name="Pg201" id="Pg201" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Perchance between Battipaglia and Paestum we may
+encounter a herd of these shaggy beeves being driven
+by a peasant on horse-back, with his <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pungolo</span></span> or small
+lance in hand: a human being that in his goat-skin
+breeches and with his luxuriant untrimmed locks,
+seems to our eyes only one degree less savage and
+unkempt than the fierce beasts he guides. As cultivation
+has made progress of recent years and the
+unhealthy marshes of the coast line are being gradually
+drained, the numbers of buffalo tend to decrease, whilst
+the native Italian oxen are being introduced once
+more into the newly reclaimed pastures. That former
+arch-enemy of the cattle in the days of Vergil seems
+to have disappeared: that <span class="tei tei-q">“flying pest,”</span> the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">asilo</span></span> of
+the Romans and the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">aestrum</span></span> of the Greeks, which in
+antique times was wont to drive the grazing herds
+frantic with terror and pain, until the valley of the
+Tanager and the Alburnian woods re-echoed with the
+agonised lowing of the poor tortured creatures. And
+speaking of noxious insects, a general belief prevails
+in Italy that their bite—as well as that of snakes and
+scorpions—becomes more acute and dangerous when
+the sun enters into the sign of Lion, so that human
+beings, as well as defenceless cattle, must carefully
+avoid all chances of being bitten during the months of
+July and August.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Before our goal can be reached it is necessary for
+us to cross the broad willow-fringed stream of the Sele,
+the Silarus of antiquity, which according to the testimony
+of Silius Italicus once possessed the property of
+petrifying wood. In the distant days of the eighteenth
+century, the traveller to Paestum had to endure amidst
+other difficulties and dangers of the road the
+disagree<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page202">[pg 202]</span><a name="Pg202" id="Pg202" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>able business of being ferried across the Sele, which
+was then bridgeless. Owing to the malaria and the
+loneliness of the spot, the acting of ferryman over this
+river was not an agreeable post, and Count Stolberg,
+a German dilettante who has left some memories of
+his Italian wanderings, relates how a feeble dismal
+soured old man, a veritable Charon of the upper air,
+had great difficulty in conveying himself, his horse
+and his servant across the swollen stream. The old
+man’s age and misery aroused the Count’s compassion,
+so that he asked him why he continued thus to perform
+a task at once so arduous and so distasteful.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Sir,”</span> replied the boatman, <span class="tei tei-q">“I would gladly be
+excused, but that my master compels me to undertake
+this work.”</span> <span class="tei tei-q">“And who, pray, is this tyrant of a
+master of yours?”</span> indignantly enquired the Count.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Sir, it is my Lord Poverty!”</span> grimly answered the
+old ferryman, as he pocketed the Teuton’s fee. Times
+have changed with regard to the necessity of a ferry
+over the Sele, but to judge from the appearance of the
+people and from the accounts in the journals, we much
+doubt if my Lord Poverty’s sway has been much
+weakened in these parts.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+At length we reach the tiny hamlet and station of
+Pesto, surrounded by its groves of mournful eucalyptus
+trees, and if we visit the station itself, we cannot help
+noticing the fine gauze net-work over every window
+and door, also the veiled faces and be-gloved hands
+of the station-master and his <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">facchini</span></span>. It is not
+difficult to gauge the reason of the eucalyptus trees at
+Pesto, an alien importation like the buffalo, for these
+native trees of Australia have been planted here with
+the avowed object of reducing the malaria, for which
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page203">[pg 203]</span><a name="Pg203" id="Pg203" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the place is only too renowned. Scientists have
+positively declared that the mosquitoes which rise in
+clouds from the poisonous swamps at sunset are
+directly responsible for this terrible form of ague, and
+a paternal Government has accordingly introduced
+gum-trees to improve the quality of the air, and has
+presented gloves, veils and fine lattice work to its
+servants in the hope of protecting them from the bites
+of these tiny pestilence-bearing insects. We do not
+wish to dispute the wisdom of modern bacteriologists,
+but somehow we have no great faith in this elaborate
+scheme for battling with Nature; and indeed not a
+few persons who have studied the matter declare that
+though the reeking marshes are certainly productive of
+malaria in themselves (so much so that it is dangerous
+to linger amidst the ruined temples of an evening), yet
+these spiteful little creatures are at least innocent of
+innoculating humanity with this particular disease.
+Moreover, a plausible idea that is now largely held
+insists that the recent spread of cultivation over the
+Lucanian Plain is itself largely responsible for the
+increase of malaria; it is the up-turning of the germ-impregnated
+earth that has lain fallow for centuries,
+say the supporters of this theory, which awakens and
+sets free the slumbering demon of fever in the soil,
+so that the speeding of the plough on the Neapolitan
+coast must inevitably mean also the spreading of this
+fell and mysterious sickness. Let us therefore give
+the devil his due: the mosquito is a hateful and
+persistent foe, and his sting is both painful and disfiguring,
+but do not let us accuse him of carrying
+malaria until the case can be better proved against
+him. But enough of fevers and doctors’ saws! Let
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page204">[pg 204]</span><a name="Pg204" id="Pg204" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>us turn our willing eyes towards the three great
+temples that confront us close at hand. Before however
+proceeding to inspect these great monuments of
+Grecian art and civilization, which rank amongst the
+most venerable as well as the most beautiful relics of
+antiquity, it is only meet that we should carry with
+us into their ruined halls a few grains of historical
+knowledge, whereby our sense of reality and our
+appreciation of their greatness and splendour may be
+increased.
+</p><a name="illus16" id="illus16" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus16th.jpg" width="287" height="400" alt="Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE, PAESTUM" title="THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE, PAESTUM" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus16.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE, PAESTUM</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Although we do not possess a definite history of
+Paestum, similar to that of Rome or of Athens, yet
+from the many allusions to be found scattered throughout
+the pages of classical historians, as well as from
+the various inscriptions and devices found upon ancient
+coins of this city, it is not a difficult task to piece
+together the main features of Poseidonian annals.
+From a very remote period of antiquity there was
+undoubtedly a settlement on or near the coast to the
+south of the river Silarus, whilst it is commonly held
+that this spot was called Peste—a name almost
+identical with the modern Italian appellation—many
+hundreds of years before the arrival of Doric settlers
+on the shores of the Tyrrhene Sea. Late in the
+seventh century before Christ, the Greek colony of
+Poseidonia, the city of the Sea God, was founded on
+or near the site of Italian Peste by certain Hellenic
+adventurers from Trœzen, who were amongst the inhabitants
+of Sybaris, at that time one of the most
+flourishing of the famous cities of Magna Graecia:
+and this new colony of Trœzenians henceforward was
+accounted one of the twenty-five subject-towns that
+recognised Sybaris for their metropolis, or mother and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page205">[pg 205]</span><a name="Pg205" id="Pg205" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>suzerain city. We have no details of its early history,
+but it is quite certain that under the protection of
+Sybaris the new city of Poseidonia rose by degrees to
+such wealth and importance that in course of time it
+gave its own name to the whole Bay of Salerno, which
+henceforth became known to the Greeks as the
+Poseidonian Gulf and later, to the Romans, as the
+Bay of Paestum. With the fall of the mother city,
+this flourishing colony was left alone to face the attacks
+of the Samnites, the native barbarians who peopled
+the dense forests and the barren mountains of Lucania;
+yet it somehow contrived to retain its independence
+until the close of the fourth century <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%">B.C.</span></span>, when the
+Samnite hordes, forcing the fortified line of the Silarus,
+made themselves masters of Poseidonia, and put an
+end, practically for ever, to its existence as a purely
+Hellenic city. From its Lucanian masters the
+captured town received the name of Paestum, and its
+inhabitants were at once deprived of their independence,
+were forbidden to carry arms, and were probably
+in many instances reduced to the level of serfs. A
+large number of Samnites also settled within the walls
+of the town, and compelled the former owners to surrender
+to them the larger and richer portion of the
+public and private lands upon the maritime plain.
+The use of the Hellenic language and public worship
+were however permitted, and, strange to relate, no
+interference was made with a solemn annual festival,
+which the depressed and enslaved population now
+inaugurated with the confessed object of remembering
+for ever their Greek origin and their former greatness.
+For once a year at a fixed date all Greeks were wont
+to gather together and to bewail in public, outside
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page206">[pg 206]</span><a name="Pg206" id="Pg206" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the great temple of Poseidon, their lost liberty and
+their vanished power. It is evident that the Lucanians
+did not fear the tears and lamentations of this unhappy
+subject state, for this custom continued to be observed
+throughout the whole period of Samnite oppression,
+and survived even till Roman times—perhaps to the
+very end of the city’s existence,—although in the
+course of passing generations there could have been
+but few persons of pure Greek descent left in the place.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+With the advent of Alexander of Epirus, who had
+been called into Italy by the Greeks of Tarentum in
+order to assist the sorely-pressed colonies of Magna
+Graecia, Epirot troops were landed at the mouth of
+the Silarus. Under the very walls of <a name="corr206" id="corr206" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-corr">Paestum</span> there
+now took place a stubborn fight wherein the army of
+the Samnites was completely routed, and its survivors
+driven in confusion from the coast into the wild woods
+and rocky valleys of the Lucanian hills. For a brief
+interval of years Poseidonia regained its lost liberty
+and its Hellenic name, but with the overthrow and
+death of Alexander of Epirus, the scattered hordes
+pressed down once more from their mountain fastnesses
+upon the rich plain, and the city was for the
+second time enslaved by the ruder conquering race.
+Forty years later, after the Pyrrhine war, all Lucania
+fell under the rising power of Rome, a change that
+was by no means unacceptable to the Greek cities,
+which were groaning under the rude tyranny of the
+Samnites. A Latin colony was now planted at
+<a name="corr206a" id="corr206a" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-corr">Paestum</span>, to form a convenient centre whence the
+neighbouring district could be kept in order and
+peaceably developed according to Roman ideas.
+These Roman colonists, although they did not restore
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page207">[pg 207]</span><a name="Pg207" id="Pg207" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the lands and buildings held by the expelled Samnites
+to their rightful owners, yet lived on terms of amity
+with the Greek population, with whom they must have
+freely intermarried. The original Hellenic inhabitants,
+relieved of the bonds of servitude, were now placed on
+an equal footing with the new colonists, partaking of
+political rights in the city thus freshly re-created under
+the supremacy of Rome, and soon they grew to imitate
+the speech and manners of their new masters, so that
+as an immediate result of the expulsion of the barbaric
+Samnites and the entry of the progressive Romans,
+Paestum began to recover a considerable portion of
+its ancient splendour.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+During the course of the second Punic War the
+name of Paestum is not unfrequently mentioned in
+Roman annals, and owing its revived prosperity to its
+annexation by Rome, it is not surprising to find the
+existence of a strong feeling of gratitude amongst the
+inhabitants. At the date of fatal Cannæ this faithful
+Greek city sent assurances of unswerving allegiance to
+the Senate, and also more substantial help in the
+form of all the golden vessels from its temples. It
+was Paestum also that early in the third century <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%">B.C.</span></span>
+supplied part of the ill-fated fleet of Decius Quinctius,
+that was raised to run the blockade of Tarentum.
+But even the loss of its ships and men did not deter
+this loyal city from coming forward a second time
+with expressions of fealty and promise of further aid
+to the great suzerain city in this dark hour of its
+difficulties. From this point onward till the close of
+the Republic, History is almost silent with regard to
+Paestum; but its numerous coins go far to attest its
+continued welfare, for it now shared, together with
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page208">[pg 208]</span><a name="Pg208" id="Pg208" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Venusia, Brundusium and Vibo Valentia, a special
+right to strike money in its own name and with its
+own devices. Under the Empire, Paestum managed to
+uphold its size and importance, so that it became the
+capital of one of the eight Prefectures into which the
+district of Lucania had been divided. At this period,
+there can be no doubt, the surrounding plain was in
+the highest state of cultivation, whilst its prolific rose-gardens—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">biferi
+rosaria Paesti</span></span>—have supplied the
+theme of every Roman poet from Vergil to Ausonius.
+Yet in spite of its apparent prosperity, the seeds of
+coming decline had already been sown. Strabo tells
+us that even in early Imperial days the city was
+obtaining an unenviable reputation for malaria: a
+circumstance that was due to the over-flowing of the
+unwholesome streamlet, the Salso, whose reeking and
+fever-bearing waters began to impregnate the earth.
+Engineering works on a large scale were planned to
+remedy this drawback, but these were never executed,
+and in consequence the unhealthiness of the place
+increased. With the decline of the Roman power
+the population and prosperity of Paestum likewise
+tended to lessen, so that its citizens were placed in a
+worse position than before with regard to the carrying
+out of this vast but necessary scheme of sanitation.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In a spot so accessible to external influence, it is
+easy to understand that Christianity early took root
+in Paestum, which in the fifth century of our own era
+had already become a bishopric. The story of the
+growth of the Faith in Lucania is closely connected
+with a legend that centres round a native of the place,
+a certain Gavinius, a general in the army of the
+Emperor Valentinian, who whilst serving in Britain
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page209">[pg 209]</span><a name="Pg209" id="Pg209" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>against the Picts by some means succeeded in obtaining
+a valuable relic, supposed to be nothing less
+than the body of the Apostle Matthew, which he
+brought back with him to his native place. Early in
+the ninth century there appeared a fresh cause of
+alarm, more serious and far-reaching even than the
+dreaded malaria, for plundering Saracens, foes alike
+to the old Roman civilisation and to the new Christian
+creed, now began to harass the Tyrrhenian shores.
+Settling at Agropoli to the south of the Bay, these
+Oriental freebooters found little difficulty in effecting
+a landing on the Poseidonian beach, and in raiding
+the weakened and almost defenceless city. Able-bodied
+men and young maidens were forcibly carried
+off to the pirates’ nest at Agropoli, or perhaps even
+to the distant coast of Barbary, to be sold into
+perpetual slavery. Alarmed beyond measure by this
+raid, the remaining inhabitants of the place, at the
+advice and under the guidance of their bishop, now
+decided—wisely, for they had to choose between
+immediate flight or gradual extermination by disease,
+slavery and the sword—to remove themselves to the
+barren mountains in their rear, once the haunts of
+the Samnites, and to build a new Paestum on a site
+at once more healthy and better protected by Nature
+against the raids of infidel corsairs. In a body therefore
+the remaining citizens amid deep wailing left for
+ever the ancient city with its glorious temples, and
+retired to a strong position to the east. The spot
+chosen for the new residence of these exiles lay close
+to the source that supplied with pure water their
+ancient aqueduct, known for this reason as Caputaqueum,
+now corrupted into Capaccio. A link with the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page210">[pg 210]</span><a name="Pg210" id="Pg210" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>old city, that lay deserted in the plain below, was still
+retained by the bishop of the newly founded town in
+the mountains, who continued to be known as <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Episcopus
+Paestanus</span></span>. In the eleventh century Robert
+Guiscard systematically plundered the ruins of Paestum
+in order to erect or embellish the churches and palaces
+of Salerno and Amalfi. Every remaining piece of
+sculpture and of marble was removed, and it was only
+the vast size of the pillars of the three great temples,
+and the consequent difficulty attending their transport
+by boat across the bay or along the marshy ground
+of the coast line, that saved from destruction these
+magnificent relics of <span class="tei tei-q">“the glory that was Greece.”</span>
+But even humble Capaccio did not afford a final
+resting-place to the harried Paestani, for in the year
+1245 the great Emperor Frederick II., who had been
+defied by the feudal Counts of Capaccio, besieged and
+utterly destroyed this stronghold of the mountains
+that had been the child of Poseidonia of the sea-girt
+plains. Another and a yet loftier retreat had to be
+sought by the survivors of the Imperial vengeance, so
+that the ruined Capaccio the Old was abandoned for
+another settlement, which still exists as a miserable
+village amidst those barren hills that had ever looked
+down with jealous envy upon the proud city with its
+pillared temples. One curious circumstance with
+regard to Paestum must finally be mentioned, in that
+the existence of its ruins, the grandest and most
+ancient group of monuments on the mainland of Italy,
+remained unknown to the learned world until comparatively
+modern times. Only the local peasants
+and the inhabitants of the poverty-stricken towns in
+the Lucanian hills seem to have been aware of the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page211">[pg 211]</span><a name="Pg211" id="Pg211" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>presence of the gigantic temples standing in lonely
+majesty by the shore and as the superstitious nature
+of these ignorant people attributed these structures to
+the work of a magician—perhaps to the great wizard
+Vergil himself—they were shunned both by night and
+by day as the haunt of malignant spirits. Poor
+fisher-folk and buffalo-drivers, who had of necessity
+to pass near the ruined fanes, were wont to slink by in
+fear and trembling, and doubtless they brought back
+strange stories of its ghostly occupants with which
+they regaled their friends or families by the fire-side
+of a winter’s evening. Yet it is most strange that
+during the period of the Renaissance, at a time when
+enthusiastic research was being made into the neglected
+antiquities of Italy, this unique group of Doric
+temples should have escaped notice. For neither
+Cyriaco of Ancona nor Leandro Alberti, who visited
+Lucania ostensibly for the sake of recording its
+classical remains, make mention of <span class="tei tei-q">“the ruined
+majesty of Paestum,”</span> and it was reserved for a certain
+Count Gazola (whose name is certainly worthy of
+being recorded), an officer in the service of the
+Neapolitan King, to present to the notice of scholars
+and archaeologists towards the middle of the eighteenth
+century the first known description of what is perhaps
+Italy’s chief existing treasure of antiquity. From
+Gazola’s day onward the beauty and interest of Paestum
+have been appraised at their true worth, and numberless
+artists and writers of almost every nationality
+have sketched or described its marvellous temples.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+With this brief introduction to the history of a city,
+whose chief building is still standing almost intact
+after a lapse of 2500 years, let us take a rapid survey
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page212">[pg 212]</span><a name="Pg212" id="Pg212" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>of Poseidonia as it exists to-day. Its walls, of Greek
+construction but probably built or restored as late as
+the time of Alexander of Epirus, who gave the captured
+town a fleeting spell of liberty, form an irregular pentagon
+about three miles in circumference, <a name="corr212" id="corr212" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-corr">whereon</span> the
+remains of eight towers can be observed, whilst the
+four gates, placed at the four cardinal points of the
+compass, are clearly traceable. We enter this <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">città
+morta</span></span> by the so-called Porta della Sirena, the eastern
+gate that faces the hostile Samnite Hills and (oh,
+the prosaic touch!) the modern railway-station. This
+gate remains in a tolerable state of preservation, and
+draws its name from the key-stone of its arch, which
+bears in low relief a much defaced design of a mermaid
+or siren, its counterpart on the inner keystone being a
+dolphin: two devices very appropriate to the entrance
+of a city dedicated to the Lord of Ocean. Passing
+the picturesque yellow-washed Villa Salati, with its
+high walls and iron-barred windows testifying only too
+plainly to the lawlessness that once reigned in this
+district, we find ourselves face to face with the great
+temple of Neptune or Poseidon, and its companion-fane,
+the so-called Basilica. The Temple of Neptune
+(for in this instance at least the popular appellation
+chances to be the correct one), in all probability co-eval
+with the first Greek foundation of the city, formed
+the central point of the life of Poseidonia during the
+1400 years of its existence as a Hellenic, a Samnite,
+and finally a Roman city. In its simple grandeur and
+its perfect proportions this wonderful temple possesses
+only one rival outside Greece itself: the Temple of
+Concord at Girgenti, which the poet Goethe compared
+to a god, after designating the building before us as a
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page213">[pg 213]</span><a name="Pg213" id="Pg213" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>giant. Superiority in grace is therefore a disputed
+point between the two great structures of Poseidonia
+and Agrigentum, yet in every other respect the temple
+of the Lucanian Plain surpasses its Sicilian rival.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+To-day, after more than a score of centuries of
+exposure to the salt winds and to the burning sunshine
+of the south, the walls and pillars of these great buildings
+have been calcined to a glorious shade of tawny
+yellow, fit to delight the soul of every artist, whether
+he views their Titanic but graceful forms outlined
+against the deep blue of sky and sea on the western
+horizon, or against the equally lovely background of
+grey and violet mountains to the east. But it was
+not always thus. The porous local travertine that gave
+their building material to the Greeks of the sixth
+century before Christ was once carefully stuccoed, and,
+in the manner of Hellenic art, painted in the most
+brilliant hues of azure and vermilion, so that it becomes
+hard for us to realise the original effect of such
+gorgeous masses standing erect in a landscape that is
+itself fraught with glowing colour. But better to
+appreciate the magnificence before us, let us give a
+brief technical description of the greatest of the temples
+in the choice words of an eminent French antiquary.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“The largest and most elegant, and likewise the
+oldest of the Temples of Paestum, is that commonly
+known by the name of the Temple of Neptune. This
+building shares, together with the Temple of Theseus
+at Athens, the honour of being the best preserved
+monument of the Doric order in existence, and the
+impression of grandeur that it gives to the spectator rivals
+even the first sight of the Parthenon itself. In front of
+the building is a platform in the midst of which can be
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page214">[pg 214]</span><a name="Pg214" id="Pg214" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>seen the hollow space that formerly held the altar of
+sacrifice, for according to the practice of the Greek
+religion, these rites of blood-shedding took place in the
+open air and outside the temple. With a length of
+190 feet and a breadth of 84 feet, this building is
+hypoethral, which means that the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">cella</span></span>, or sanctuary
+that held the statue of the deity, was constructed open
+to the sky. It is peripteral, and presents a row of
+six pillars fluted at base and top, with twelve on each
+side, making thirty-six in all. The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">cella</span></span> itself in the
+interior is upheld by sixteen columns about six feet
+in diameter, which in their turn are surmounted by
+two rows of smaller pillars above that support the roof.
+With the exception of one side of the upper stage of
+the interior every column of the temple remains intact,
+as do likewise the entablature and pediments. Only
+the wall of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">cella</span></span> has been pulled down; doubtless
+to supply material for building.”</span><a id="noteref_8" name="noteref_8" href="#note_8"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">8</span></span></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Having quoted Monsieur Lenormant’s careful
+description of the chief pride of Poseidonia, we shall
+confine ourselves to as few remarks as possible concerning
+the two remaining temples. The Basilica, a
+misnomer of which the veriest amateur must at once
+perceive the absurdity, is inferior both in size and in
+beauty of proportion to its close neighbour of Neptune.
+Its chief peculiarity from an architectural point of view
+will be at once remarked, for it has its two façades
+composed of seven—an odd number—of columns, so
+that its interior easily divides itself into two narrow
+chambers of equal length, affording ample ground for
+the theory, now generally held, that this building was
+not a hall of Justice, or <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Basilica</span></span>, but a temple intended
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page215">[pg 215]</span><a name="Pg215" id="Pg215" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>expressly for the worship of dual divinities. Almost
+without a doubt it was erected—probably not long after
+the Temple of Poseidon—in honour of Demeter (Ceres)
+and of her only child Persephone (Proserpine), who
+was seized from her mother’s care by the amorous god
+of the Infernal Regions, as she was plucking anemones
+in the verdant meadows of Enna. We all know <span class="tei tei-q">“the
+old sweet mythos”</span>; we all understand its hidden
+allegory with regard to the sowing, the up-springing
+and the garnering of the yellow corn, that spends
+half the year in the embraces of the earth, the
+palace of Pluto, and half the year on the broad
+loving bosom of Mother Demeter. Here then within
+these bare and ruined walls were mother and daughter
+worshipped by the people of Poseidonia, who reasonably
+considered that the two goddesses of the Earth
+should have their habitation as near as possible to the
+Sanctuary of the Sovereign of Ocean.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Much smaller than either of these immense temples
+is the third remaining Greek building of Paestum,
+which lies a good quarter of a mile to the north, not
+far from the Golden Gate, the Porta Aurea, that leads
+northward in the direction of Salerno. Like that of
+Neptune, this temple is hexastyle, with six columns on
+each of its façades and twelve on either flank, but as it
+is little more than half the size of its grander and older
+brethren, it is now frequently known as <span class="tei tei-q">“Il Piccolo
+Tempio,”</span> although its former incorrect ascription to
+Ceres still clings to it in popular parlance. It is from
+this building, which stands on slightly rising ground,
+that the best impression of the whole city and of its
+wondrous setting between the savage Lucanian hills
+and the blue Mediterranean can be obtained.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page216">[pg 216]</span><a name="Pg216" id="Pg216" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Between the mountains and the tideless sea</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Stretches a plain where silence reigns supreme;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">A land of asphodel and weeds that teem</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Where once a city’s life ran joyfully.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">‘</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Vanity! Vanity! All Vanity!</span><span style="font-size: 90%">’</span></span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Whisper the winds to Sele’s murmuring stream;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Whilst the vast temples preach th’ eternal theme,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">How pass the glories and their memory.</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Think what these ruins saw! what songs and cries</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Once through these roofless colonnades did ring!</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">What crowds here gathered, where the all-seeing skies</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">For centuries have watched the daisies spring!</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Dead all within this crumbling circle lies:</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Dead as the roses Roman bards did sing.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Beautiful as Paestum presents itself in the bright
+noontide of a Spring day, beneath a cloudless sky
+and with the blue waters of the Mediterranean
+lapping the distant yellow sands, there appears something
+incongruous in the sharp contrast between this
+joyfulness of vigorous life and the solemn atmosphere
+of the deserted city. The noisy twittering of multitudes
+of ubiquitous sparrows, equally at home in Doric
+temples as amongst the sooty chimney stacks of
+London; the twinklings and rustlings of the lizards
+in the young leaves and grass; the polyglot babble
+of excursionists from Naples or La Cava that a warm
+day in Spring invariably attracts to Paestum:—these
+are not sounds that blend well with the solemn spirit
+of the place. We long to cross the intervening ages
+so as to throw ourselves, if only for one short hour,
+outside the cares and interests of to-day into the heart
+of that refined civilisation which is gone for ever;—with
+the cheerful sunlight around us, and with our
+fellow-mortals on pleasure bent close at hand, we find
+it difficult to forget the present. Would it be possible,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page217">[pg 217]</span><a name="Pg217" id="Pg217" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>we ask ourselves, to spend a nocturnal vigil within the
+hall of the great temple of the Sea God, so as to
+behold, like that undaunted traveller, Crawford Ramage,
+the shafts of crystalline moonlight shed through the
+aperture of the roof leap from pillar to pillar, making
+bars of brilliant light amidst the surrounding blackness!
+O to sit and meditate thus engrossed with the memory
+of the past, and with no other sounds around us than
+the sad cry of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">aziola</span></span>, the little downy owl
+that Shelley so loved! But the gaunt spectre of
+Fever ever haunts this spot, and after sunset his power
+is supreme; so that he would be a bold man indeed
+who in an age of luxury and selfish comfort would
+carry out an idea at once so romantic and so perilous.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+We ourselves were especially fortunate on the
+occasion of our last visit to Poseidonia on a mild
+day in December, a month which on the Lucanian
+shore somewhat resembles a northern October. A
+soft luminous haze hung over the landscape and over
+the Bay of Salerno itself, rendering the classic mountains
+at once indistinct in outline and unnaturally
+lofty to the eye. More grandiose and mysterious
+than under the fierce light of a sunny noontide
+appeared that day the three giant pillared forms, as
+we entered the precincts of the ruined city by the
+Siren’s Gate, and made our way through the thick
+herbage still pearled with dew, since there was neither
+sunshine nor sirocco to dry <span class="tei tei-q">“the tears of mournful
+Eve”</span> off the clumps of silver-glinted acanthus, or the
+tall grasses bending with the moisture. In the warm
+humid air we seated ourselves on the plinth of a
+column, and gazing around allowed the influence of
+this marvellous spot to sink deep into the soul. No
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page218">[pg 218]</span><a name="Pg218" id="Pg218" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>tourists with unseemly or unnecessary chatter arrived
+that day to share our selfish delight or to break the
+all-pervading spell of solitude; all lay peaceful and
+deserted. All was silent too save for the low
+monotonous sobbing of the sea on the unseen beach
+near at hand, the historic beach on which at various
+times throughout the roll of past ages Doric colonists,
+Epirot warriors, Roman legionaries and fierce Mohammedan
+pirates had disembarked, all with the same
+object:—to seize the proud city that had now for
+the last thousand years lain uninhabited, save for
+the owls and the bats. It was too cloudy a day for
+sun-loving creatures such as lizards or serpents to
+emerge and rustle amongst the broken stones and
+leaves, over all of which during the silent hours of
+the past night Arachne had been employed in weaving
+her softest and whitest textures, that the windless
+morning had allowed to remain intact. The only sign
+of animate life was visible in a pair of lively gold-finches,
+which with merry notes were fluttering from
+thistle to thistle, picking the down from each ripened
+flower-head and prodigally scattering the seeds upon
+the weed-grown soil where once had bloomed the
+odorous Roses of Paestum that the poets loved.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Sitting thus amid the silence and solitude of a city
+half as old as Time itself, we were unexpectedly
+aroused by a gruff salutation proceeding from a little
+distance behind the temple. Turning quickly in the
+direction of the sound, we perceived the figure of a
+tall bearded man dressed in conical hat, with goat-skin
+trousers and cross-gartered legs, who but for the gun
+slung across his shoulders by a stout leathern strap
+might well have been mistaken for an apparition of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page219">[pg 219]</span><a name="Pg219" id="Pg219" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the god Pan himself returned to earth. Vague recollections
+of the brigand Manzoni, the scourge of the
+neighbourhood and the murderer of more than one
+unhappy visitor to the ruins of Paestum in the good
+old <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">vetturino</span></span> days, flashed through our mind, as we
+surveyed the muscular frame and the fowling-piece
+of the strange being before us. It was with a sigh
+of relief that we noted upon the straight stretch of
+white road leading to the Little Temple in the distance
+the presence of two royal <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">carabinieri</span></span> majestically
+riding at a foot’s pace, their tall forms enveloped in
+long black cloaks whose folds swept over their horses’
+tails. We felt reassured, and when for a second
+time the guttural voice addressed us in unintelligible
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">patois</span></span>, we perceived the innocent object of this
+mysterious visit. Searching in a capacious goat-skin
+bag, a species of Neapolitan sporran, this descendant
+of the Poseidonian Greeks produced and held up to
+our gaze three birds that he had shot in his morning’s
+hunting. For the modest sum of three lire the game
+exchanged hands, and the sportsman departed, well
+satisfied with his luck. Next evening we feasted
+royally in our inn at Salerno upon a succulent woodcock
+fattened upon the berries of the wood of Persano,
+and upon a couple of snipe that had grown plump
+amongst the Neptunian marshes. Nor was this dainty
+addition to our supper that night altogether undeserved;
+for having decided in a momentary fit of
+enthusiasm to forego the usual basket of hotel food
+at the time of starting from Salerno, in order to follow
+the advice of old Evelyn <span class="tei tei-q">“to diet with the natives,”</span>
+we had preferred to take our chance of midday refreshment
+at the solitary <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">osteria</span></span> within the ruined
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page220">[pg 220]</span><a name="Pg220" id="Pg220" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>city wall. The good people of the inn did what they
+could to regale the two <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">gran’ signori Inglesi</span></span>, whose
+unexpected presence had the effect of creating some
+stir within their humble walls. No little time was
+expended in bustling preparations, before a flask of
+red wine, some coarse bread, a dish of fried eggs and
+a plateful of cold sausage were placed before us upon
+the rough oak table, well scored with knife-cuts.
+Eggs, wine and bread are usually tolerable everywhere
+throughout Italy, no matter how mean the inn that provides
+them; but the Lucanian sausage, though interesting
+as a relic of classical times, is positive poison to
+the Anglo-Saxon digestion. For the Lucanian sausage
+of to-day is the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Lucanica</span></span> unchanged; the same tough,
+greasy, odoriferous compound, in fact, that Cicero
+describes as <span class="tei tei-q">“an intestine, stuffed with minced pork,
+mixed with ground pepper, cummin, savory, rue,
+rock-parsley, berries of laurel, and suet.”</span> And we
+have only to add that mingling with the above-mentioned
+condiments there was an all-pervading
+flavour of wood-smoke, due to the sausage’s place of
+storage, a hook within the kitchen chimney. But if
+the fare was rough, it was cheap and smacked of
+classical times, and our reception by the Paestani of
+to-day was most cordial.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+We left Poseidonia late in the afternoon, casting
+back many regretful glances at the three giant sentinels
+of the plain, looming preternaturally large in the
+rapidly fading light of a starless evening. At that
+hour we felt we could understand and sympathise
+with the poor untutored peasant’s fear and avoidance
+of these lonely ruins, for superstition is often as much
+the result of chance environment as of crass ignorance.
+</p>
+</div><hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page221">[pg 221]</span><a name="Pg221" id="Pg221" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc25" id="toc25"></a><a name="pdf26" id="pdf26"></a>
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">CHAPTER X</span></h2>
+
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.40em; margin-top: 2.40em"><span style="font-size: 120%">SORRENTO AND ITS POET</span></h2>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It has been said of more than one spot on this
+globe, that it was so beautiful in summer the
+marvel was to think any one could die there; and so
+wretched in winter, it was a miracle for its inhabitants
+to survive. Sorrento may be said to belong to this
+class of place, for the climate of its short winter is one
+of the most trying and inclement that can possibly be
+imagined, whilst during spring, summer and early
+autumn it well merits its local reputation as <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">il piccolo
+paradiso</span></span> of the Bay of Naples, and its air is considered
+by Neapolitans as the <span class="tei tei-q">“balm in Gilead”</span> for every evil
+to which human flesh is heir. The Lactarian Mountains
+protect the plain of Sorrento in summer from the
+scorching rays of the sun, and lay their beneficent
+shadow for several hours of the long hot summer’s day
+over the many thousands who dwell on the fertile
+Piano di Sorrento at their base. But in winter these
+same hills intercept the blessed sunshine, which is what
+most travellers speed southwards to obtain, and leave
+the coast line from Castellamare to the Punta di
+Sorrento with its northern aspect wrapped in shade
+and moisture, whilst the remainder of the Bay is still
+basking in the genial warmth, so that anything more
+miserable than a mid-winter sojourn in Sorrento it
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page222">[pg 222]</span><a name="Pg222" id="Pg222" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>would be impossible to conceive. There are of course
+calm warm days to be met with even in December and
+January, but these are occasional and by no means
+dependable blessings, and the visitor who persists in
+taking up his abode here at this season of the year
+must prepare himself to experience cold, damp, wind
+and rain, without any of the contrivances or comforts
+of a northern winter. <span class="tei tei-q">“One swallow does not make a
+summer,”</span> and on the same principle a southern latitude
+and the presence of orange groves do not necessarily
+imply a salubrious climate; indeed, the sub-tropical
+surroundings seem to add an extra degree of chilliness
+to the place. To sit at Christmastide in a large lofty
+room before a meagre fire of sputtering smoky logs,
+with Vesuvius wrapped from crest to base in a white
+mantle of new fallen snow, and with an icy <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tramontana</span></span>
+from the bleak Abruzzi howling round the house, bending
+the bay trees and penetrating into every corner of
+the chamber, is by no means the ideal picture of a
+winter in the Sunny South; yet this is only what the
+traveller must be prepared to face, and is very likely to
+obtain. Nor is the cold compensated for by any
+advantages in the neighbourhood itself, for there is but
+the high road from Castellamare which passes through
+the town and leads above the seashore to Massa
+Lubrense. It is all very well in its way, but in wet
+weather its surface is one sheet of slippery mud, and
+the streams pouring down the hillside make it chilly
+and damp for all who are not quick walkers. Besides
+this not very attractive and soon exploited walk, there
+are only the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">vicoletti</span></span>, the narrow steep rocky paths
+running up hill, which make rough going and give
+little pleasure, for they are almost all bounded on either
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page223">[pg 223]</span><a name="Pg223" id="Pg223" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>side by high stone walls that jealously exclude the
+view. So much for Sorrento in its winter dress. But
+when the spring comes, here truly is a transformation
+from cold and torpor! The soft warm air is redolent
+of the penetrating fragrance of orange blossom, of
+stocks, of jessamine, of wallflower, and of a hundred
+odorous plants and shrubs from each garden and grove
+behind the many obstructing walls. The balconies
+and gate-pillars are draped in scented masses of the
+beautiful wistaria, which in Italy produces its long
+pendant bunches of purple flowers before putting forth
+its bronze-coloured leaves. Cascades of white and
+yellow banksia roses fall over each confining barrier,
+or else their stems may be seen climbing like huge
+serpents up the trunks of pine and olive, to burst forth
+amidst the topmost boughs into floral rockets against
+the cloudless sky. The ravines with which the whole
+of the Piano di Sorrento is intersected are filled with
+a perfect jungle of fresh spring foliage, amidst whose
+varied tints of green appear here and there the bright
+red shoots of the pomegranate trees bursting into leaf.
+In the heavily perfumed air at dusk, or when the
+bright moonlight is flooding the whole scene and is
+turning the Bay into a mirror of molten silver, the song
+of the innumerable nightingales can be heard resounding
+from all sides; alas! too often sweet songs of
+sorrow for nests despoiled by the ruthless hands of
+young Sorrentine imps, as in the days of the Georgics.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Qualis populeâ mærens Philomela sub umbrâ</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Amissos queritur fetus, quos durus arator</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Observans nido implumes detraxit, at illa</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Integrat, et mœstis late loca questibus implet.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page224">[pg 224]</span><a name="Pg224" id="Pg224" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">(</span><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">At nightfall hear sad Philomel upraise</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Her mellow notes amid the dark-leaved bays,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Mourning her babes and desecrated bower,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Which some rough peasant robbed in evil hour;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">She tells her story of despair and love,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Until her plaintive music fills the grove.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">)</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+All is fragrant, warm, genial, and peaceful, save for
+the melancholy notes of poor ill-used Philomel, who
+is foolish enough to visit a cruel country, wherein
+every bird is merely regarded as a toothsome morsel
+for the family pot. We bird-lovers of Britain, with
+our Selborne Societies and our Wild Birds’ Protection
+Acts, find it extremely difficult to understand the
+utter indifference displayed by Italians of all classes
+towards the feathered race. The whole of the beautiful
+country with its cypress hedges and olive groves
+lies almost mute and lifeless, for on every festival the
+fields and lanes are patrolled by bands of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">cacciatori</span></span>
+with dogs and guns on the look-out for game, if
+blackbirds and sparrows can be accounted such. In
+some districts it is even dangerous for pedestrians to
+use the roads on a Sunday, for fear of a stray bullet,
+since all, as a rule, fire recklessly at any creature
+within and out of range. Nor is this senseless war
+of extermination carried on merely with guns, for
+trapping is used extensively, and very ingenious and
+elaborate are some of the arts employed in this
+wretched quest. Every country house has its <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">uccellare</span></span>,
+or snare for the securing of small birds for the table,
+whilst many of the parish priests in the mountain
+districts add to their scanty incomes by catching the
+fledglings which the young peasants sell in the
+neighbouring market. The result is what might
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page225">[pg 225]</span><a name="Pg225" id="Pg225" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>only naturally be expected—a scarcity of birds and
+an almost complete absence of song, for the whole
+countryside has been practically denuded of blackbirds
+and thrushes; even the nightingale has escaped
+destruction rather on account of its nocturnal habits
+than of its tiny size and exquisite notes. It is positively
+sickening to observe the quantities of slaughtered
+wild birds in an Italian market at any season of the
+year, for the work of devastation proceeds apace
+equally in spring time. Basketfuls of thrushes and
+blackbirds, and strings of smaller varieties—linnets,
+sparrows, robins, finches, even the diminutive gold-finches,
+most beautiful, most gay, and most innocent
+of all songsters—are being hawked about by leathern-lunged
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">contadini</span></span>, who, alas! always manage to find
+customers in plenty. No matter how melodious, how
+lovely, or how useful to the farmer a bird may be, no
+Italian, high or low, seems to have any sense or
+appreciation of its merits except as an article of
+food; it is merely a thing that requires to be caught,
+killed, cooked and eaten, and Providence has decreed
+its existence for no other purpose; even gold-finches
+in the eye of an Italian look better served on a
+skewer than when they are flying round the thistle-heads,
+uttering their bright musical notes and enlivening
+the dead herbage of winter with their gay
+plumage. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Che bel arrosto!</span></span> (what a glorious dish!)
+sigh the romantic peasants, as they glance upward
+for a moment from their labour in the fields at the
+sound of the larks carolling overhead; and though
+an educated Italian would probably not give vent to
+so vulgar a remark, he would much prefer the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">bel
+arrosto</span></span> to the <span class="tei tei-q">“profuse strains of unpremeditated art”</span>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page226">[pg 226]</span><a name="Pg226" id="Pg226" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>that so entrance the northerner, who is in reality far
+more of a poet by nature than the more picturesque
+dweller of the South. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Tantum pro avibus.</span></span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+As summer advances, the delight of bathing in the
+limpid waters of the Bay is added to the other attractions
+of Sorrento, whilst many pleasant and profitable
+hours can be passed in reading or writing during the
+long midday rest in the cool airy carpetless and
+curtainless rooms, where on the frescoed ceilings there
+plays the green shimmer of light that penetrates
+through the closed bars of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">persiani</span></span>, the outside
+heavy wooden shutters that let in the sweet air, but
+somehow seem to exclude the intense heat. With
+the approach of sunset and the throwing open of
+casements to catch the westerly breeze, there comes
+a delightful ramble, perhaps an excursion on mule-back
+to the famous convent of the Deserto or some
+other point of interest; or else a row upon the glassy
+waters at our feet, to explore <span class="tei tei-q">“Queen Joanna’s Bath,”</span>
+or some strange caverns beyond the headland of
+Sorrento, well known to our boat-men. That is the
+true life of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">dolce far niente</span></span>, but such an ideal existence
+can only be indulged in during summer time or in
+late spring; to pass a winter at Sorrento the heaviest
+of clothing, abundance of overcoats and rugs, hot-water
+bottles, cough drops, ammoniated quinine and
+all the usual adjuncts of a northern yule-tide must
+be carefully provided before-hand by the traveller,
+who is bold enough to tempt Providence by turning
+what is essentially a warm weather retreat into a place
+of winter residence.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In early autumn also the place has its charms, in
+the days when the market is filled with stalls heaped
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page227">[pg 227]</span><a name="Pg227" id="Pg227" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>with glowing masses of fruit, many of them unknown
+to us wanderers from the north. There are peaches
+that resemble our own fruit at home, and there are
+also great yellow flushed velvety globes, like the sun-kissed
+cheeks of a fair Sorrentina, that appear tempting
+to the eye, but are in reality tough as leather, for
+they are the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">cotogni</span></span> or quince-peaches of Italy, which
+to our feeble palates and digestions seem only fit for
+cooking, though the experienced native contrives to
+make them edible by soaking the fruit in wine. The
+moment he sits down to table, he carefully pares his
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">cotogne</span></span> and cuts it into sections, which he drops into
+a glass of red wine where they repose until the meal
+is finished; by this time the fruit has become
+thoroughly saturated, and it is then eaten with
+apparent relish. There are hundreds of apples, some
+of a shining rich crimson and others of dull yellow
+peppered over with tiny black specks, the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">renati</span></span>, highly
+prized by the natives for their delicate flavour and
+soft flesh. There are of course loads of grapes,
+varying from the little honey-tasting purple sort, that
+has been introduced from California, to the huge but
+somewhat insipid bunches of the white <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Regina</span></span>; we
+note also the quaintly shaped <span class="tei tei-q">“Ladies’ Fingers,”</span>
+which are especially sweet. The figs, massed together
+in serried layers between fresh vine leaves and costing
+a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">soldo</span></span> the dozen, stand around in glossy purple
+pyramids, so luscious that their sugary tears are
+exuding from their skins, and so ripe that they seem
+to cry to be eaten before noon. Here is a barrow
+piled high with the little green fruit, each separate
+fig being decorated with a pink cyclamen stuck in its
+crest; and here is a smaller load of the black <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Vescovo</span></span>,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page228">[pg 228]</span><a name="Pg228" id="Pg228" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>which is said to obtain its ecclesiastical name from
+the fact that the parent stock of this highly esteemed
+variety originally flourished in the bishop’s garden at
+Sorrento. No one who has not visited the shores of
+the Mediterranean in September or early October can
+realize the luscious possibilities of the fig; for there
+seems nothing in common between the freshly-picked
+fruit of the south, bursting its skin with liquid sugar,
+and the dry sweetish woolly object which tries to
+ripen on the sheltered wall of an English garden and
+is eaten with apparent gusto by those who know not
+its Italian brother. Being autumn, we have missed
+one prominent feature of the fruit market, the great
+green-skinned water-melons (<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">poponi</span></span>) with their rose-coloured
+pulp and masses of coal-black seeds, which
+form the favourite summer fruit of the people, who
+find both food and drink in their cool nutritious
+flesh. But even gayer and more striking than the
+fruits are the piles of vegetables, arranged with a fine
+appreciation of colour to which only an Italian eye
+can aspire. Carrots, turnips, tomatoes, purple-headed
+cauliflowers, all the broccoli and many others to be
+observed are old familiar friends, but who in England
+ever saw such gorgeous objects on a coster’s stall or
+in a green-grocer’s shop as the yellow, scarlet and
+shining green pods of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">peperoni</span></span>, or the banana-shaped
+egg-plants of iridescent purple, or the split
+pumpkins, revealing caverns of saffron-hued pulp
+within? Truly, the Sorrentine market contains a
+feast of colour to satisfy the craving of an artist!
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+At vintage time the whole Piano di Sorrento reeks
+with the vinous scent of the spilt juice, that is carelessly
+thrown on to the stone-paved roads by the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page229">[pg 229]</span><a name="Pg229" id="Pg229" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>jolting of the country carts which bring in the great
+wooden tubs, so that the very streets seem to run with
+the crimson ooze. Slender youths in yet more slender
+clothing, with legs purple-stained from treading the
+grapes (for in the South wine is still made on the
+primitive plan), are to be met with on all sides, playing
+at their favourite game of bowls on the public road,
+in order to relieve their brains of the pungent fumes
+of the fermenting grape juice. Somehow at the very
+thought of a Campanian vintage with its long hot
+dusty days, its bare-legged brown-skinned peasants
+treading the pulp, and its all-pervading aroma of wine-lees,
+there rise to memory the truly inspired lines of
+John Keats:
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">O for a draught of vintage, that hath been</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Tasting of Flora and the country-green,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth!</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">O for a beaker full of the warm South,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 3.60em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">And purple-stained mouth.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But all these joys of odorous gardens made musical
+by nightingales, of morning plunges into the blue
+Mediterranean, of the wealth of southern fruit and the
+novel delights of the vintage are not for the winter
+traveller, who had far better spend the December or
+January days of his visit to the Bay in a steam-heated
+Neapolitan hotel, rather than face the cold and wet in
+a Sorrentine inn on its overhanging cliff. Nevertheless
+the warm autumn often extends itself into a continuous
+St Martin’s summer, that lasts almost until the New
+Year, before skies grow clouded and the snow-flakes
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page230">[pg 230]</span><a name="Pg230" id="Pg230" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>descend upon the vineyards and the lava streams of
+Vesuvius. Nothing can be pleasanter in fact than
+some of the long walks in a sharp exhilarating air, and
+though days are short and nights are often chilly, one
+can sometimes linger on comfortably in Sorrento,
+though it is as well to be prepared for departure in
+case of a sudden spell of stormy weather, for winter
+sunshine is a necessity, not a luxury, on the Piano di
+Sorrento.
+</p>
+<a name="illus17" id="illus17" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus17th.jpg" width="289" height="400" alt="Illustration: AFTERNOON, SORRENTO" title="AFTERNOON, SORRENTO" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus17.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">AFTERNOON, SORRENTO</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Unlike other towns upon the Bay of Naples,
+Sorrento is divided into two distinct portions; the city
+on the cliffs, with its streets and squares, its cathedral
+and ancient walls, its villas and gay gardens; and the
+Marina, lying at the mouth of the gorge below, close
+to the water’s edge. The population of Upper
+Sorrento is agricultural and labouring, whilst that of
+the lower consists entirely of fisher-folk and sailors;
+it is needless to add that the latter are far less prosperous
+than their fellow-citizens who live over-head. Until
+recent times little communication between these two
+sets of Sorrentines took place and intermarriages were
+rare, for the sea-faring population only ascended to the
+town above and intermingled with the people of Upper
+Sorrento on the great occasions of local festivals, such
+as the enthronement or funeral of a bishop. Nor has
+the levelling spirit of the age as yet broken down the
+deep-rooted feeling of local clannishness; although it
+cannot be long before time-honoured customs and
+prejudices will be swept away in the tidal wave of
+modern development. One of the chief industries of
+the place is the manufacture of scarves and sashes of
+rich silk woven in cross bars of strong contrasting
+colours, so that the Sorrentine silk work strongly
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page231">[pg 231]</span><a name="Pg231" id="Pg231" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>resembles the well-known Roman variety. Equally
+popular with visitors are the various articles made of
+olive wood and decorated in <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tarsia</span></span>, the art of inlaying
+with pieces of stained wood, which is a speciality
+of the place. There are two kinds of this Sorrentine
+inlaid work; one consisting of figures of peasants
+dancing the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tarantella</span></span>, of Pompeian maidens in classical
+drapery, of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">contadini</span></span> or priests bestriding mules, and
+of similar local subjects; and the other, of fanciful
+patterns made up of tiny coloured cubes of wood,
+much in the style of the old Roman stone mosaics.
+The designs employed vary of course with the fashion
+of the day, for there is a local school of art supported
+by the municipality, which professes to improve the
+tastes of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tarsiatori</span></span>, but most persons will certainly
+prefer the trite but characteristic patterns of the place.
+</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But the main industry of Sorrento consists in the
+culture of the orange; and the dark groves, covered
+with their globes of shining yellow fruit, <span class="tei tei-q">“like golden
+lamps in a green light,”</span> to quote Andrew Marvell’s
+charming conceit, constitute the chief feature of its
+environs. Even the coat-of-arms of the medieval city,
+showing a golden crown encircled by a wreath of the
+dark glossy leaves, attests the antiquity of this industry
+here. The cultivation of the orange in Southern Italy
+is by no means an easy pursuit, though under favourable
+conditions it may prove a very lucrative one, even
+in a spot so subject to sudden changes of temperature
+as Sorrento in winter time, when a continuance of
+severe weather, like that experienced around Naples
+in the opening months of the year 1905, means total
+destruction of the fruit crop and temporary ruin to the
+owners.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page232">[pg 232]</span><a name="Pg232" id="Pg232" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The fruit of commerce is propagated by means of
+grafting the sweet variety on to the stock of the bitter
+orange—said on doubtful authority to be indigenous
+to this district—which is fairly hardy and can be
+grown in the open as far north as Tuscany, so that
+every <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">aranciaria</span></span> ought to possess a nursery of flourishing
+young sweet-orange shoots, ready in case of
+necessity. For eight long years the grafted tree
+remains as a rule profitless, but having survived and
+thriven so long, it then becomes a valuable asset to its
+proprietor for an indefinite period;—as a proof of the
+longevity of the orange under normal conditions we
+may cite the famous tree in a Roman convent garden,
+which on good authority is stated to have been planted
+by St Dominic nearly six hundred years ago. As to
+the amount of fruit yielded, the growers of Sorrento
+commonly aver that one good year, one bad year and
+one mediocre year constitute the general cycle in the
+prospects of orange farming. Two crops are gathered
+annually, the principle one in December and the other
+at Eastertide, the fruit produced by the later and
+smaller crop being far finer in size and flavour than
+those of the Christmas harvest. Mandarin oranges
+are gathered on both occasions, but the large luscious
+loose-skinned fruit of March and April—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Portogalli</span></span> as
+they are commonly termed—are far superior to the
+small hard specimens that appear in December, and
+seem to consist of little else than rind, scent and seeds.
+The oranges begin to form in spring time, almost
+before the petals have fallen, when the peasants
+anxiously draw their conclusions as to the expected
+yield. But however valuable the fruit, the wood of
+the tree is worthless for commerce, except to make
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page233">[pg 233]</span><a name="Pg233" id="Pg233" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>walking-sticks, or to serve the ignoble purpose of
+supplying hotels and cafés with tooth-picks! Lemons,
+which are far more delicate than oranges and require
+to be kept protected by screens and matting during
+the sharp winter nights, are less common at Sorrento
+than on the warmer shores of the Bay of Baia or the
+sunny terraced slopes of the Amalfitan coast.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+With the ripening of the oranges on the trees appear
+those strange creatures from the wilds of the Basilicata
+or Calabria, the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Zampognari</span></span>,  who visit Naples and the
+surrounding district in considerable numbers. They
+usually arrive about the date of the great popular
+festival of the Immaculate Conception (December 8th)
+and remain until the end of the month, when they
+return to their homes with well-filled purses. In
+outward aspect these strangers resemble the stage-brigands
+that appear in such old-fashioned operas as
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Fra Diavolo</span></span>, for they wear steeple-crowned hats with
+coloured ribands depending, shaggy goat-skin trousers,
+crimson velvet waistcoats, blue cloaks, sandalled feet
+and gartered legs. Their pale faces are unshorn, and
+their hair hangs in great tawny masses over neck
+and ears, which are invariably adorned with golden
+rings. These fellows come in pairs, one only, properly
+speaking, being the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">zampognaro</span></span>, for it is he who carries
+the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">zampogna</span></span> or classical bag-pipe of Southern Italy,
+whilst his companion is the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">cennamellaro</span></span>, so called
+from his ear-splitting instrument, the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">cennamella</span></span>, a
+species of primitive flute. The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">zampogna</span></span> may be
+described as first cousin to the historic bag-pipes of
+Caledonia, for the sounds emitted strongly resemble
+the traditional <span class="tei tei-q">“skirling”</span> of the pipes; but no Scotchman
+even could pretend to delight in the shrill notes
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page234">[pg 234]</span><a name="Pg234" id="Pg234" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">cennamella</span></span>. The former at least of these two
+popular instruments of southern Italy was well known
+to the omniscient author of the Shakespearean plays,
+for in <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Othello</span></span> we have a direct allusion to the uncouth
+braying music still made to-day by these outlandish
+musicians.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Why, masters, have your instruments been in
+Naples, that they speak i’ the nose thus?... Are
+these, I pray you, wind instruments?... Then put
+up your pipes in your bag, for I’ll away: go; vanish
+into air; away!”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In the midst of their instrumental duet the two
+shaggy mountaineers are apt to break into a harsh
+nasal hymn in honour of the Virgin, to visit whose
+shrines at this season of the orange harvest is the main
+object of their Christmas migration to the Neapolitan
+shores. Very tastefully decorated are many of the
+Madonna’s little sanctuaries in or near the orange
+groves, when the arrival of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">zampognari</span></span> is considered
+imminent. The tiny lamps are well trimmed and
+shine brightly, whilst heavy garlands composed of
+masses of bay or laurel or ilex leaves, interspersed
+with some of the golden clusters of the ripening fruit
+are suspended round the alcove that holds the figure
+of the Virgin. This effective but simple form of
+ornamentation will at once suggest the beautiful glazed
+and coloured terra-cotta wreaths of fruit and foliage
+that are to be seen so frequently in Tuscan churches;
+indeed, it is possible that the members of the Della
+Robbia family may have originally borrowed the
+decorative schemes for their famous plaques and
+lunettes from the rustic shrines thus simply but tastefully
+embellished. Nominally, the two performers
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page235">[pg 235]</span><a name="Pg235" id="Pg235" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>are supposed to sing and make music on nine different
+days at the houses of all their patrons in order to
+make up the total number of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">novena</span></span>, but the
+extent of their performances is generally calculated in
+accordance with the depth of the householder’s purse,
+the sum given for their services varying from a few
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">soldi</span></span> to a five <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">lire</span></span> note. All classes of society employ
+the zampognari, for it is with the first appearance of
+the lovely golden fruit, essentially <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">the</span></span> winter fruit of
+the Italians, that the arrival of these picturesque
+strangers has been associated from time immemorial.
+The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">zampognari</span></span> are in fact as much of a national
+institution with the Neapolitans at Christmastide as
+are the waits or carol-singers in our own country, so
+that to the majority of these people <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Natale senza
+zampogna e cennamella</span></span> would seem no true Christmas
+at all.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Closely connected with the life of the people of the
+Piano di Sorrento is the famous dance known as the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Tarantella</span></span>, which may be witnessed by the curious at
+almost any time—for money. Even when performed
+by professional dancers, tricked out in spick and span
+stage-peasant finery, the Tarantella is a most graceful
+exhibition of movement, although the dance naturally
+gains in interest when it takes place in the days of
+vintage or on the popular festivals of the Church,
+without the presence of largesse-giving strangers.
+The origin of the name has always puzzled antiquarians,
+although in all probability the dance derives its curious
+appellation from the Greek city of Taranto, whence
+the Tarentines introduced its steps and action into
+other parts of Italy. But vulgar belief is very strong,
+so that this graceful dance is still closely associated in
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page236">[pg 236]</span><a name="Pg236" id="Pg236" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the popular mind with the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tarantula</span></span>, a kind of
+poisonous spider found in the neighbourhood of
+Taranto, the effects of whose bite are said to yield to
+violent exercise followed by profuse perspiration. In
+order to excite the proper amount of exertion
+necessary for the cure, the person afflicted, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">il tarantolato</span></span>,
+is induced to leap and caper by the sound of music,
+with the result that there exist a number of tunes
+specially connected with this wild species of dancing.
+The real explanation of this fable seems to lie in the
+extremely excitable nature of the Tarentines themselves,
+assisted by the exhilarating music and by frequent
+pulls at the wine barrel. The two lines sung to the
+air of one of the tunes employed:
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 5.40em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Non fu Taranta, ne fu Tarantella,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Ma fu la vino della carratella:</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em"><span style="font-size: 90%">
+(</span><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">It was neither the taranta, nor the tarantella, but it was the
+wine from the cask.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span><span style="font-size: 90%">)
+</span></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+sums up pretty accurately the real cause of these
+strange Tarentine orgies, which have really nothing
+whatever in common with the rhythmical dance that is
+still so popular in the environs of Naples. Nevertheless
+the theory of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tarantella</span></span> and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tarantismo</span></span> has been
+gravely discussed by old Italian writers, and a certain
+learned prelate of the fifteenth century, Niccolo
+Perotto, Archbishop of Siponto, alludes to the
+malignant cause of this dance-cure as <span class="tei tei-q">“a species of
+speckled spider, dwelling in rents of the ground
+caused by excessive heat. It was not known in the
+time of our fore-fathers, but now it is very common
+in Apulia ... and is generally called <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Tarantula</span></span>.
+Its bite seldom kills a man, yet it makes him half
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page237">[pg 237]</span><a name="Pg237" id="Pg237" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>stupid, and affects him in a variety of ways. Some,
+when a song or tune is heard, are so excited that
+they dance, full of joy and always laughing, and do
+not stop till they are entirely exhausted; others
+spend a miserable life in tears, as if bewailing the
+loss of friends. Some die laughing, and others in
+tears.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Such is the curious legend concerning the origin of
+the Tarantella, which is still danced with something
+of the old spirit by the holiday-making crowds of
+Naples, though it is at the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">festa</span></span> of San Michele, the
+patron of Procida, that the Tarantella can now be
+seen to best advantage. Of the three islands that lie
+close to Naples, Procida is the least known or visited
+by strangers, so that when the Tarantella is danced by
+the Procidani, the old-fashioned popular orchestra is
+employed to give the necessary music. This consists
+of five quaint instruments (obviously of Oriental origin
+as their counterparts can still be seen amongst the
+Kabyles of Northern Africa): the first being a fife
+(<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">siscariello</span></span>); the second a tin globe covered with skin
+pierced by a piece of cane (<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">puti-puti</span></span>); the third a
+wooden saw and a split stick, making a primitive bow
+and fiddle (<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">scetavaiasse</span></span>); the fourth an arrangement of
+three wooden mallets, that are rattled together like a
+gigantic pair of bones (<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tricca-ballache</span></span>); and the fifth a
+Jew’s harp (<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">scaccia-pensieri</span></span>). A tarantella danced to
+the accompaniment of so weird a medley of instruments
+and by real peasants full of gaiety is naturally a
+thing altogether diverse from the stilted, though graceful
+and decorous performance that can be observed
+any day for payment in a Sorrentine or Neapolitan
+hotel; yet it must ever be borne in mind that the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page238">[pg 238]</span><a name="Pg238" id="Pg238" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Tarantella proper, whether danced <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">con amore</span></span> by Procidan
+peasants or performed for lucre by costumed
+professionals, is no vulgar frenzied <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">can-can</span></span>, but a
+musical love-dance expressive of primitive courtship.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“The Tarantella is a choregraphic love-story, the
+two dancers representing an enamoured swain and his
+mistress. It is the old theme—<span class="tei tei-q">‘the quarrel of lovers
+is the renewal of love.’</span> Enraptured gaze, coy side-look,
+gallant advance, timid retrocession, impassioned
+declaration, supercilious rejection, piteous supplication,
+softening hesitation; worldly goods oblation, gracious
+acceptation; frantic jubilation, maidenly resignation.
+Petting, wooing, billing, cooing. Jealous accusation,
+sharp recrimination, manly expostulation, shrewish
+aggravation; angry threat, summary dismissal. Fuming
+on one side, pouting on the other. Reaction,
+approximation, exclamation, exoneration, reconciliation,
+osculation, winding up with a grand <a name="corr238" id="corr238" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-corr"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pas de circomstance</span></span></span>,
+expressive of confidence re-established and
+joy unbounded. That’s about the figure of it; but no
+word-painting can give an idea of the spirit, the <span class="tei tei-q">‘go’</span>
+of the tarantella when danced for love and not for
+money.”</span><a id="noteref_9" name="noteref_9" href="#note_9"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">9</span></span></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+On a modest scale Sorrento can lay claim to be
+called an eternal city, for the Surrentum of the ancient
+Romans was a place of no small importance, filled with
+villas of wealthy citizens and boasting a fair-sized
+population, as its numerous remains of antiquity can
+easily testify; whilst its crumbling ivy-clad walls and
+towers point to its prosperity during the Middle Ages,
+when Sorrento shared the political fortunes of Naples.
+It is now a busy thriving little cathedral town, and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page239">[pg 239]</span><a name="Pg239" id="Pg239" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the possessor of silk and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tarsia</span></span> work industries, so
+that like Imperial Rome it can boast a continuous
+existence as a city from remote times to the present
+day. Its chief local Saint—for what Italian town
+does not boast a special patron?—is Sant’ Antonio,
+whose most famous feat is said to have been the
+administering of a severe drubbing to Sicardo, Duke
+of Benevento, for daring to interfere with the liberties
+of his city in the ninth century. It would appear
+from the legend that all arguments as to ancient
+rights, the quality of mercy and the honour of keeping
+faith having been vainly exhausted upon the cruel and
+obstinate prince, Bishop Antonio came forward with
+a stout cudgel and belaboured the tyrant in order to
+obtain a favourable answer to the people’s petition.
+The sanctity of the pugnacious prelate and the force
+of this <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">argumentum ad baculum</span></span> were evidently too
+much for the Duke of Benevento, who at once conceded
+the popular demands, whilst Antonio’s name has
+deservedly descended to posterity as the capable protector
+of his native city.
+</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">* * * * * *</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But the name which above all others Sorrento will
+cherish as her own, <span class="tei tei-q">“so long as men shall read and
+eyes can see,”</span> is that of the famous Italian poet, Torquato
+Tasso, whose interesting but melancholy life-story
+is closely associated with this, the town of his
+birth. Tasso is reckoned as the fourth greatest bard
+of Italy, ranking after Dante and Petrarch, and being
+esteemed on a level with rather than below his rival
+and contemporary, Ludovico Ariosto. In one sense
+however he may be described as the most truly national
+poet of this immortal quartet, for his career is
+con<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page240">[pg 240]</span><a name="Pg240" id="Pg240" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>nected with his native country as a whole, rather than
+with any one of the little cities or states then comprising
+that <span class="tei tei-q">“geographical expression”</span> which is now
+the Kingdom of Italy. His father’s family was
+of Lombard origin, having been long settled in the
+neighbourhood of Bergamo, where a crumbling hill-set
+fortress known as the Montagno del Tasso still recalls
+the name of the poet’s ancestors. His mother, Porzia
+de’ Rossi, was Tuscan by birth, her family haling from
+Pistoja at the foot of the Apennines, but owning property
+near Naples; whilst the poet himself was
+destined to spend his years of childhood at Sorrento
+and at Naples, his youth at Rome and Verona, his
+brilliant period of fame and prosperity at Ferrara and
+the Lombard courts, and again some of his closing
+years of disgrace and disappointment amidst the
+familiar scenes of his infancy. Of good ancient stock
+the Tassi owed their acquisition of wealth to the re-establishment
+of the system of posting throughout Northern Italy in the
+thirteenth century, when the immediate progenitor of the poet,
+one Omodeo de’ Tassi, was nominated comptroller, and it is
+curious to note that owing to this circumstance the arms of the
+family containing the posthorn and the badger’s skin—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Tasso</span></span>
+is the Italian for badger—continued to be borne for
+many centuries upon the harness of all
+Lombard coach-horses. Torquato’s father, Bernardo
+Tasso, himself a poet of no mean calibre and the
+composer of a scholarly but somewhat prolix work, the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Amadigi</span></span>, formed for many years a prominent member
+of that brilliant band of literary courtiers within the
+castle of Vittoria Colonna, the Lady of Ischia, of whom
+we shall speak more fully in another place. But for
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page241">[pg 241]</span><a name="Pg241" id="Pg241" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the overwhelming and all-eclipsing fame of his distinguished
+son, Bernardo might have been able to claim
+a high place in the list of Italian writers of the
+Renaissance; as it was, the father’s undoubted talents
+were quickly forgotten in the blaze of his own beloved
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Tassino’s”</span> popularity, so that he is now chiefly remembered
+as the sire of a poetic genius, as one of <a name="corr241" id="corr241" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-corr">the</span>
+great Vittoria’s favourite satellites and as the author
+of an oft-quoted sonnet to his intellectual mistress.
+Bernardo Tasso did not marry until the somewhat
+mature age of forty-seven, when, as we have already
+said, he espoused the daughter of the Tuscan house of
+Rossi, by whom he had two children; a daughter,
+Cornelia, and the immortal Torquato, who was born in
+1544, three years before the death of the divine
+poetess of Ischia.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But Bernardo was not merely a bard and a courtier,
+for he was also, unfortunately for himself and his ill-fated
+family, a keen politician in an age when politics
+offered anything but a safe pursuit, and as his views
+invariably coincided with those of his chief friend and
+patron, the head of the powerful Sanseverino family,
+Tasso the Elder found himself in course of time an
+exile from Neapolitan territory on account of his
+dislike of the new Spanish masters of Naples. The
+poet-politician therefore took up his abode at Rome,
+whilst his wife and two young children continued to
+reside at Naples and Sorrento. The boy was a born
+student, almost an infant prodigy of learning, and so
+great was his desire for knowledge that he would
+insist upon rising long before it was day-light, and
+would even make his way to school through the dark
+dirty streets of Naples, conducted by a servant with a
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page242">[pg 242]</span><a name="Pg242" id="Pg242" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>torch in his hand. The Jesuits, who had just set up
+their first academy at Naples, soon discovered in the
+future poet an ideal pupil, and not only did they impart
+to the child all the lore of ancient Greece and
+Rome, but they also imbued his mind, at an age when
+it was <span class="tei tei-q">“wax to receive and marble to retain,”</span> with
+their own peculiar theological tenets. It is obvious
+indeed that the faith implanted by the Fathers in his
+tender years was largely, if not wholly answerable for
+the unswerving belief and firm religious convictions
+that ever stood Tasso in good stead throughout the
+whole of his chequered career. <span class="tei tei-q">“Give me a child of
+seven years old,”</span> had once declared the great Founder
+of the Society of Jesus, <span class="tei tei-q">“and I care not who has the
+after-handling of him”</span>; and in this case the Jesuit
+professors did not fail to carry out Loyola’s precept.
+But his home life with his mother, whom he loved
+devotedly, and his course of study at the Jesuit school
+were suddenly interrupted when he was barely ten
+years of age, for the elder Tasso was anxious for his
+little son to join him in Rome, there to be educated
+under his own eye. The boy left his mother, but
+after his departure the Rossi family brutally refused
+to allow their sister access to her absent husband,
+who had lately been declared a rebel against the
+Spanish government and deprived of his estates.
+Thus persecuted by her unfeeling brothers, Porzia
+Tasso sought refuge together with Cornelia in a
+Neapolitan convent, where, deprived of her erratic but
+beloved husband and pining for her absent son, the
+poor woman died of a broken heart a year or two
+later. As for Cornelia, she became affianced when
+of a marriageable age to a gentleman of Sorrento,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page243">[pg 243]</span><a name="Pg243" id="Pg243" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the Cavaliere Marzio Sersale, and consequently
+returned to live in the home of her childhood.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Of Tasso’s many adventures, of his universal literary
+fame, of the honours heaped upon him by his chief
+patron, Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, and of his subsequent
+disgrace and imprisonment for daring to lift his eyes
+in love to a princess of the haughty House of Este,
+we have no space to speak here. Let it suffice to say
+that he was one of the most charming, virtuous,
+brilliant, manly figures, as he was also almost the last
+true representative, of the great Italian Renaissance,
+the end of which may be described as coinciding with
+his decease. According to his biographer Manso, the
+author of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Gerusalemme Liberata</span></span> was singularly
+noble and refined in appearance, though always
+possessed of an air of melancholy; he was well-built,
+strong, active and resourceful, anything in fact but a
+carpet-knight who spent his days in writing verse and
+dallying with Italian court beauties:
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Colla penna e colla spada,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Nessun val quanto Torquato;</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+sang the populace of Ferrara in honour of their
+illustrious Sorrentine guest, for the Ferrarese delighted
+in the handsome stranger who could in an emergency
+wield the sword as skilfully as he could ply his
+quill. Twice only however did Tasso revisit the city
+of his birth, and each return home was occasioned
+by deep tragedy. In 1577, wounded by the attacks
+of his literary rivals and humiliated by the Duke
+Alfonso’s discovery of his infatuation for the Princess
+Leonora d’Este, the unhappy poet travelled southward,
+reaching Sorrento in the disguise of a shepherd.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page244">[pg 244]</span><a name="Pg244" id="Pg244" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Making his way to the Casa Sersale, the house of his
+sister, now a widow with two sons, Torquato passed
+himself off as his own messenger, and so eloquently
+did he relate the story of his own grief and wrongs,
+that the tender-hearted Cornelia fainted away at this
+recital. Having satisfied his mind as to his sister’s
+genuine affection, the pseudo-shepherd now revealed
+his true character, whereupon the pair embraced with
+transports of joy, though it was deemed prudent not
+to acquaint their friends with the arrival of Torquato,
+who was represented to the good people of Sorrento
+as a distant relative from Bergamo. Cornelia Sersale
+now entreated the poet to take up his abode permanently
+in her house, and to forget the rebuffs of
+the cruel world without in the enjoyment of family
+ties and affections; and well would it have been for
+Torquato, had he accepted his sister’s advice and
+passed the succeeding years in simple rural pleasures.
+But restless and inconsequent despite all his virtues,
+the poet must needs return to Ferrara to bask in the
+presence of his beloved Leonora, with the dire and
+undignified result that all the world knows. Tasso’s
+second visit took place not long before his death,
+when his strength was rapidly failing, so that it seems
+strange that he did not decide to end his days amidst
+these lovely and well-remembered scenes of his early
+boyhood, instead of deliberately choosing for the last
+stage of his earthly journey the Roman convent of
+Sant’ Onofrio, where the death-chamber and various
+pathetic relics of the poet are still pointed out.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Students of Tasso’s immortal epic are apt to overlook
+the immense influence exercised on its author by
+his early Sorrentine days and surroundings. The
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page245">[pg 245]</span><a name="Pg245" id="Pg245" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Gerusalemme Liberata</span></span> contains, as we know, a full
+account of the First Crusade and constitutes an
+apotheosis of Godfrey de Bouillon, first Christian King
+of Jerusalem; but it is also something more than a
+mere poetical description of a departed age of chivalry.
+For there can be little doubt that the poet aspired to
+be the singer of a new movement which should wrest
+back the Holy City from the clutches of the Saracens,
+and set a second Godfrey upon the vacant throne of
+Palestine. To this important end the experiences of
+his infancy and his training by the Jesuits had undoubtedly
+tended to urge the precocious young poet.
+The servants of his father’s house at Sorrento must
+many a time have regaled his eager boyish mind with
+harrowing tales of the infidel pirates who scoured the
+Tyrrhene Sea within sight of the watch-towers on the
+coast; within ken, perchance, of Casa Tasso itself, perched
+on the commanding cliff above the waters. Scarcely
+a family dwelling on the Marina below but was mourning
+one or more of its members that had been seized
+by the blood-thirsty marauders, perhaps to be brutally
+slain on the spot or to languish in the dungeons of
+Tripoli and Smyrna, eking out a life of slavery that
+was far worse than death itself. Stories of tortured
+Christians, like that of the pious Geronimo of Algiers
+who was tied with cords and flung into a mass of soft
+concrete, were common enough topics among the
+Sorrentine folk, all of whom lived in constant dread
+of a successful raid by the Barbary pirates. For,
+despite the efforts of the great Emperor Charles the
+Fifth to protect his maritime subjects, the swift galleys
+of Tunis and Tripoli out-stripped the Imperial men-of-war,
+and continued to carry on their vile commerce
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page246">[pg 246]</span><a name="Pg246" id="Pg246" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>of slavery. Such a state of terrorism must have
+appeared intolerable to the highly romantic, deeply
+religious spirit of the young poet; and his Jesuit
+preceptors, working on the boy’s imagination, were
+soon able to instil into his youthful brain the notion
+of a new Crusade which would not only sweep the
+infidel ships from off the Italian seas, but would also recapture
+the Holy City itself. The Church, beginning
+at last to recover from the effects of Luther’s schism,
+was once more in a position to re-assert its ancient
+authority over Catholic Christendom, and in Torquato
+Tasso it found an able trumpeter to call together the
+scattered forces of the Faithful, and to reunite them
+in a holy war. Astonished and delighted, all Italy
+was swept by the golden torrent of Tasso’s impassioned
+verses, that were intended to urge the Catholic princes
+of Europe to the inauguration of a new Crusade. Nor
+were the times unpropitious for such an event. Tunis,
+that hot-bed of infidelity, piracy and iniquity, was in
+the hands of the Christians; and the fleets of the
+Soldan had been well-nigh annihilated by Don John
+of Austria at the glorious battle of Lepanto:—to
+convince a doubting and hesitating world that the
+actual moment had come wherein to recover the city
+of Jerusalem was the main object of the author of
+the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Gerusalemme Liberata</span></span>. And it was his infancy
+spent upon this smiling but pirate-harassed coast that
+was chiefly responsible for this desired end in the epic
+of the Crusades; it was Tasso’s early acquaintance
+with the Bay of Naples, combined with his special
+training by the Jesuits, that forced the poet’s genius
+and ambition into this particular channel.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is pleasant to think that Sorrento is still
+appre<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page247">[pg 247]</span><a name="Pg247" id="Pg247" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ciative of its honour as the birth-place of the great
+Italian poet. The citizens have erected a statue of
+marble in one of their open spaces; they have called
+street, hotel and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">trattoria</span></span> by his illustrious name; and
+can the modern spirit of grateful acknowledgment go
+further than this? His father’s house has perished, it
+is true, through <span class="tei tei-q">“Nature’s changing force untrimmed,”</span>
+for the greedy waves have undermined and swallowed
+up the tufa cliff which once supported the old Tasso
+villa. But there is still standing in Strada di San
+Nicola the old Sersale mansion, wherein the good
+Cornelia received her long-lost brother in his peasant’s
+guise, an unhappy exile from haughty Ferrara. Of
+more interest however than the old town house of the
+Sersale family is the ancient farm, known as the Vigna
+Sersale, which once belonged to Donna Cornelia, and
+supplied her household with wine and oil. It is a
+lovely sequestered spot lying on the breezy hill-side
+not far down the Massa road, facing towards Capri
+and the sunset. Hallowed by its historic connection
+with the poet and his devoted sister, the Vigna Sersale
+can claim perhaps to be one of the most interesting
+and beautiful places of literary pilgrimage upon earth.
+Ascending by the steep pathway that leads upward
+from the broad high road, it is not long before we
+reach the old <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">podere</span></span>, amidst whose olive groves and
+vineyards the poet was wont to sit dreamily gazing at
+the glorious view before him. Here are the same
+ancient spreading stone-pines, the same gnarled olive
+trees that sheltered the gentle love-lorn poet, whilst
+Cornelia and her sons sate beside him in the shade,
+endeavouring—alas! only too vainly—by their caresses
+to detain the roving Torquato in their midst. Could
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page248">[pg 248]</span><a name="Pg248" id="Pg248" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>not, we ask ourselves, the erratic poet have been content
+to remain in this spot, <span class="tei tei-q">“in questa terra alma e
+felice”</span> as he himself styles it, instead of plunging once
+more into the dangers and dissipation of that Vanity
+Fair of distant Ferrara? Why could he not have
+brooded over his ill-starred infatuation for the high-born
+Leonora in this soothing corner of the earth,
+allowing its quiet and beauty to sink into his soul,
+until the recollection of his Innamorata declined
+gradually into a fragrant memory that could be
+embalmed in never-dying verse? But like his own
+favourite hero, the Christian King of Jerusalem, the
+poet must in his inmost heart have preferred a
+changing storm-tossed life to the ideal existence of
+rustic ease; and had he not returned to the treacherous
+splendours of Alfonso’s court, how much less
+entrancing would his own life-story have appeared to
+after ages! Unconsciously he seems to have composed
+his own epitaph in describing Godfrey’s death;
+for the crusading king lived and died like a true
+Christian knight, for whom the world has afforded
+many adventures, and but few intervals of peace until
+the final call to endless rest.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Vivesti qual guerrier cristiano e santo,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">E come bel sei morto: ei godi, e pasci</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">In Dio gli occhi bramosi, o felice alma,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Ed hai del ben oprar corona e palma.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+</div><hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page249">[pg 249]</span><a name="Pg249" id="Pg249" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc27" id="toc27"></a><a name="pdf28" id="pdf28"></a>
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">CHAPTER XI</span></h2>
+
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.40em; margin-top: 2.40em"><span style="font-size: 120%">CAPRI AND TIBERIUS THE TYRANT</span></h2>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Lying between the classic capes of Misenum
+and Minerva, the island of Capri appears like
+a couched lion, guarding the entrance of the Bay
+of Naples; his majestic head being formed by the
+stupendous cliffs of the Salto that face the sunrise,
+whilst his back and loins are represented by the long
+broad slope which stretches from the summit of
+Monte Solaro to the most westerly headland of
+Vitareta. Nor is it only as a guardian to their
+Bay that Capri serves the Neapolitans, for it also
+presents them with a gigantic natural barometer.
+In fine settled weather a soft haze invariably lies
+over the sea, so that Capri is only faintly visible
+from the shores of Parthenope, save at sunrise and
+sunset, when for a short time the graceful form
+of the islet looms out clear-cut like a jagged amethyst
+upon a sapphire bed; but before rain or storm
+it yields up its inmost secrets to the public gaze
+of Naples. The northern Marina, the towns of
+Capri and Ana-Capri, even the little terraced fields
+become discernible to the naked eye: <span class="tei tei-q">“It will
+be wet to-morrow”</span> augur the weather-wise of Naples,
+and the prediction is rarely falsified.
+</p>
+<a name="illus18" id="illus18" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus18th.jpg" width="283" height="400" alt="Illustration: FARAGLIONI ROCKS, CAPRI" title="FARAGLIONI ROCKS, CAPRI" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus18.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">FARAGLIONI ROCKS, CAPRI</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is an easy matter to cross from Sorrento to the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page250">[pg 250]</span><a name="Pg250" id="Pg250" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>island, whether it be by the little steamer that plies daily
+between Naples and Capri, putting in at Sorrento on
+its journeys backwards and forwards, or—far pleasanter
+if somewhat slower way—by engaging a boat with
+four rowers, who on a calm day ought to make the
+Marina of Capri in less than two hours. Nothing
+can be more delightful or exhilarating than this old-fashioned
+method of transit; and it gives also a
+feeling of superiority over less enterprising persons
+who prefer the quicker passage on a smoky steamer,
+crammed with tourists and attendant touts. It is
+the very morning for a row on the cool glassy water,
+as we step joyfully into our boat with its four
+stalwart Phrygian-capped sailors in attendance:
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Con questo zeffiro</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Cosi soave,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Oh, com’ e bello</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Star su la nave!</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Mare si placido,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Vento si caro,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Scordar fa i triboli</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 1.80em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Al marinaro.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Bending with a will to their oars, our genial
+mariners quickly impel our barque round the first
+jutting headland, so that the thickly populated
+Piano di Sorrento is at once lost to view. Making
+good headway over the clear water, it is not long
+before we find ourselves passing beneath the wave-washed
+precipices of the Salto, and well within our
+time limit of two hours we reach the roadstead of
+the Marina, to find ourselves in a bright and busy
+world of traffic and pleasure. Between the houses
+coloured coral-pink, white, blue, and yellow, and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page251">[pg 251]</span><a name="Pg251" id="Pg251" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the pale green transparent water lies a long stretch of
+beach covered with every sort of craft that sails the
+Mediterranean, and with a motley crowd of fishermen,
+tourists and noisy children; whilst the whole
+atmosphere rings with raucous voices raised in
+giving directions, in quarrelling, or in addressing
+the many perplexed strangers. We disembark, and
+cross the intervening beach with its sea-weed veiled
+boulders and masses of tawny fishing nets; we reach
+the village, and here we meet with our first disappointment
+in romantic Capri. It was not so very many
+years ago, barely thirty in point of fact, that this
+island was roadless, and in those primitive days the
+visitor was met at the Marina Grande by tall
+strapping Capriote women, who were wont to seize
+the traveller’s pieces of baggage as though they had
+been light parcels, and to march up the old stone
+staircase poising these burdens on their heads with
+the carriage of an empress. The stranger’s own
+entrance into Capri was less dignified, for either he
+had to toil painfully in the blazing sun up that
+steep picturesque flight of steps and reach the plateau
+above, perspiring and probably out of temper; or else
+he was compelled to bestride a miserable ass which a
+bare-footed damsel steered upward by means of the
+quadruped’s tail. Nowadays, we are spared this
+original and somewhat humiliating manner of arrival
+at our journey’s end. There are little <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">carrozzelle</span></span>,
+drawn by clever black Abruzzi cobs awaiting us,
+and even one or two hotel conveyances. We find
+ourselves being driven rapidly up the excellent
+winding road constructed only a quarter of a century
+ago, past the domed Church of San Costanzo, the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page252">[pg 252]</span><a name="Pg252" id="Pg252" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>patron Saint of the Caprioti, past hedges of aloe and
+prickly pear, until we gain the saddle of the island-mountain,
+where stands the small capital perched
+upon a ledge that overlooks the Bay of Naples to the
+north, and to the south the endless expanse of the
+unruffled Tyrrhene.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is evident even to the most casual untrained eye,
+that this huge mass of sea-girt rock whereon we stand
+must in remote ages have formed part of the mainland
+opposite, until some fierce convulsion of nature,
+common enough in this region that is ever changing its
+outward face through subterranean forces, tore what is
+now Capri asunder from the Punta della Campanella,
+and placed the sea as an eternal barrier between the
+riven headlands of continent and new-formed island.
+The charm of this rocky fragment, thus placed in mid
+ocean by volcanic action, was first discovered by the
+great Emperor Augustus, who chancing to visit the
+island for some obscure reason was greatly affected by
+the spectacle of a withered ilex tree, that revived and
+burst into foliage at the auspicious moment of his
+setting foot at the Marina. Flattered at the compliment
+paid by Nature’s self to his august presence and
+drawing a happy omen from the incident, the Emperor
+at once proposed to the people of Neapolis, who then
+owned the island, that they should exchange barren
+Capreae for the larger and more fertile imperial
+appanage of Aenaria (Ischia)—a bargain to which the
+shrewd Neapolitans readily agreed. Here then in a
+spot at once so salubrious and so convenient for
+the management of affairs of state, the Emperor sought
+rest and relaxation at such times as he could escape
+the cares of government. At his bidding villas and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page253">[pg 253]</span><a name="Pg253" id="Pg253" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>pleasaunces were constructed; roads were carried by
+means of viaducts across the airy plateau lying between
+the Salto and the Solaro; and the able bodied inhabitants
+of the island were enrolled as a sort of
+honorary bodyguard for the person of Augustus during
+his occasional visits. In this secluded, yet accessible
+retreat, the ruler of the Roman world could easily lay
+his finger, as it were, upon the beating pulse of his
+mighty empire, for Capreae was at no great distance
+from Rome itself, and from the heights of the island
+note could be made of the movements of the Imperial
+fleet lying at Baiae or of the arrival of the corn ships
+from Egypt and Asia Minor. But the name of the
+good Augustus is scarcely remembered in connection
+with Capreae, which alone recalls its association with
+Tiberius the Tyrant, who spent the last nine years
+of his reign upon the rocky islet that was so beloved
+of his predecessor. To this spot <span class="tei tei-q">“Timberio”</span> (as the
+natives invariably misname the Emperor) feeling the
+rapid approach of senile decay, weary of the thankless
+task of ruling an ungrateful people, sick of family dissensions
+and of court intrigue, at last came in the
+cherished hope of spending the few remaining years of
+his life in cultured leisure and in comparative solitude.
+An enthusiastic student of astronomy and of its sister
+science, or rather pseudo-science, astrology, Tiberius
+proposed to study the heavens in the company of
+chosen mathematicians and soothsayers. Twelve
+buildings—palaces, villas, pavilions, call them what
+you will—were now constructed for the special examination
+of the planets, and in consequence the whole
+of the island, whose limited area after all is exceeded
+by many an English park, was practically turned into
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page254">[pg 254]</span><a name="Pg254" id="Pg254" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>one vast maritime residence, for all the Imperial
+pleasure-houses seem to have been connected with each
+other by means of viaducts or secret stair-ways. Yet
+whilst immersed in astronomy and occultism, the aged
+Emperor contrived to find time for the routine of
+public business, and, like Augustus, he was still able
+to direct from his rocky retreat the policy of the
+Empire. The reports of governors of provinces, for
+example, were received, read, and commented upon by
+Tiberius in his Capriote home, and amongst these
+there must have been included a certain official
+document from one Pontius Pilatus, Procurator of
+Judaea, relating how a Jewish prophet from Nazareth
+had been condemned, scourged and crucified by his
+orders at the special request of the Jews themselves.
+How eloquent is this bald statement of a simple fact,
+that here in this tiny barren islet was brought the
+casual news of the death of Jesus Christ to the then
+ruler of the Roman world! Surely an historical
+incident such as this is of more value than all the
+hazy legends or pointless miracles of St Januarius or
+of San Costanzo, upon which the imagination of the
+islanders has been fed for generations.
+</p>
+<a name="illus19" id="illus19" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus19th.jpg" width="283" height="400" alt="Illustration: CAPRI FROM THE VILLA JOVIS" title="CAPRI FROM THE VILLA JOVIS" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus19.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">CAPRI FROM THE VILLA JOVIS</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Remnants of Tiberius’ palaces, all of which are said
+to have been razed to the ground by order of the
+Roman Senate at his death, are scattered thick as
+fallen leaves in Vallombrosa over the whole surface of
+the island, and it is to the ruins of the Villa Jovis at
+its eastern crest that the visitor will in all probability
+first direct his steps. The way thither from the little
+city of Capri leads through narrow lanes along a stony
+but populous hill-side, to which the flat-roofed dazzling
+white houses with their small iron-barred windows lend
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page255">[pg 255]</span><a name="Pg255" id="Pg255" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>an oriental aspect; an illusion that is aided by the
+appearance of an occasional date-palm over-topping
+some low wall, and by clumps or hedges of the prickly
+pear. This latter plant, of Indian extraction as its
+name of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Ficus Indica</span></span> betrays, grows in profusion over
+the sun-baked rocky slopes of southern Italy, especially
+in the neighbourhood of the sea. The peasants find
+it most useful, for it makes impenetrable hedges, and
+its coarse pulpy leaves when pounded up afford good
+provender for their goats and donkeys. The fruits of
+the prickly pear, those quaint crimson or yellow knobs
+attached to the edges of the leaves, are likewise
+gathered and eaten by the people, or else cleaned of
+their protecting layers of spiny hairs and despatched
+in baskets to Naples, where the cactus-fruit forms an
+important item of the popular fare. The fruit itself
+has a lovely colour and a fragrant scent, which give
+promise of a better flavour than it actually possesses,
+for it is hopelessly insipid to the taste, although the
+Neapolitans declare that the pulp, when mashed up
+into patties and iced, is very palatable.
+</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+A long up-hill ramble over rough paths leads eventually
+to the Villa of Jupiter, perched on the Salto—the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Saltus Caprearum</span></span>, the <span class="tei tei-q">“Wild Goats’ Leap,”</span> of the
+ancients. There is little of interest to be seen in the
+existing portions of Tiberius’ chief villa, for the building
+has been despoiled centuries ago of its rich marbles,
+its slabs of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">giallo</span></span> and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">verde antico</span></span>, its pillars of red
+porphyry and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">serpentino</span></span>, some fragments of which may
+be found imbedded in the pavement of the mosque-like
+little Duomo of Capri. But it is evident from the
+immense extent of its substructures, now used for
+humble enough purposes, that the Villa Jovis must
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page256">[pg 256]</span><a name="Pg256" id="Pg256" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>have been a palace of remarkable size. A hermit who
+offers sour wine, a fat middle-aged woman, a figure of
+fun in her gay be-ribboned dress who begins languidly
+dancing a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tarantella</span></span>, and a vulgar pestilent guide who
+produces a spy-glass usually haunt these caverns on the
+look-out for any chance visitor. Buy them off, O stranger!
+with <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">soldi</span></span>, is our advice, for you cannot otherwise
+escape their importunities, and then mounting
+to the highest point, peer down into the clear depths
+of the water nearly a thousand feet below. For it
+was here, if we can credit serious Roman historians,
+that the Imperial tyrant, half crazy with terror and
+ever thirsting for human blood, was wont to hurl the
+objects of his hate into the sea; <span class="tei tei-q">“from this eminence,”</span>
+Suetonius gravely tells us, <span class="tei tei-q">“after the application of
+long drawn-out and exquisite tortures, Tiberius used to
+order his executioners to fling their victims before his
+eyes into the water, where boats full of mariners,
+stationed below, were waiting in readiness to beat the
+bruised bodies with oars, in case any spark of life might
+yet be left in them.”</span> The terrible legend fits in aptly
+with the appearance of this forbidding dizzy precipice,
+especially on a dark stormy afternoon, when the dull
+roar of the waves dashing against the cliffs below,
+mounts upward to the Villa Jovis like the angry bellowing
+of some insatiable sea-monster.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It was whilst brooding here after the death of
+Sejanus in Rome, that the Emperor, not daring to
+move beyond the walls of his palace, shunning the
+society of all save his familiar friends and attendants,
+and with his face disfigured by an eruption of the
+skin of which he was painfully sensitive, that there
+took place an incident (which may or may not be
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page257">[pg 257]</span><a name="Pg257" id="Pg257" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>true) mentioned by Suetonius. In the privacy of
+this villa Tiberius was one day surprised by an
+ingenious Capriote fisherman, who in ignorance or
+defiance of the Emperor’s wishes had managed to
+scale with his naked feet the steep cliffs from the
+sea below, in order to present a fine mullet for the
+imperial table, and of course to earn a high reward
+for his <span class="tei tei-q">“gift.”</span> Terrified at the mere notion of anybody
+being able thus to penetrate into his most
+secret domain, the irate Emperor at once gave orders
+for the intruder’s face to be scrubbed with the mullet
+he had brought, a sentence that the imperial minions
+performed without delay. The intrepid fisherman
+might have congratulated himself on so mild a
+punishment for having disturbed a tyrant’s repose, had
+he not been possessed of an unusually strong sense
+of humour. For at the close of the mullet-scrubbing
+episode, the foolish fellow remarked by way of a
+jest to the officer on duty, that he was thankful he
+had not also offered the emperor a large crab
+which he had likewise brought in his basket. This
+imprudent speech was immediately reported to
+Tiberius, who thereupon commanded the man’s face
+to be lacerated with the aforesaid crab’s claws; but
+whether this pleasing incident ended with a cold
+plunge from the Salto, the Roman historian does not
+relate.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Other tales of Timberio’s vices and cruelties have
+been handed down from generation to generation, so
+that the dark deeds committed at the Salto have almost
+passed into a local article of faith; and such being
+the case, it would seem almost a pity to pronounce
+these picturesque horrors untrue or exaggerated.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page258">[pg 258]</span><a name="Pg258" id="Pg258" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Nevertheless, of recent years there has arisen amongst
+scholars a certain degree of scepticism as regards
+these highly coloured anecdotes of Roman historians
+known to be prejudiced. The Emperor was nearly
+seventy years old at the time he came to reside in
+Capreae, and until that date his life had been orderly
+and above reproach; it is not likely therefore, argue
+these modern writers, that Tiberius should suddenly,
+at so extreme an age, have flung himself into a whirl
+of vices and crimes that he had hitherto shunned.
+The thing is of course possible, but it sounds improbable.
+That he was moody and morose; that he loved solitude and
+hated formal society in the spot he had especially chosen
+as the retreat of his declining years; that he practised
+certain of the mystic arts, as well as studied astronomy,
+are all likely enough conjectures; and these circumstances
+probably formed the foundation for the extravagant legends which
+now surround the Emperor’s memory. Very shocking
+and reprehensible were the doings at Villa Jovis, if
+they really occurred there, but to try and dispute
+their authenticity would be a task quite outside the
+scope of this work.<a id="noteref_10" name="noteref_10" href="#note_10"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">10</span></span></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+If, despite the negative theories held to-day concerning
+the private life and character of the second
+Emperor of Rome during his residence on Capreae,
+the traveller be still inclined to trace the sites of
+the remaining eleven Imperial villas, he will find little
+difficulty in meeting with numberless Roman remains
+scattered over all parts of the island. On the beach,
+for example, a little to the west of the Marina Grande,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page259">[pg 259]</span><a name="Pg259" id="Pg259" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>are clearly visible the sunken foundations of the
+great sea-palace, which in the Roman manner jutted
+into the water and ranked probably second in size to
+the Villa Jovis. The neighbourhood of Ana-Capri
+also, and in fact the whole western portion of the
+island, is likewise plentifully besprinkled with ancient
+ruins, one of which is still known by the suggestive
+title of Timberino. But most people will prefer to
+explore the unrivalled natural beauties of Capri, rather
+than to make themselves acquainted with its archaeological
+points of interest.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+First and foremost of the many wonders that Capri has to
+show must be ranked the Grotta Azzurra. The pleasantest
+way of reaching this world-famous cavern is by small boat
+from the Marina, rather than by the daily steamer from Naples;
+and a perfectly calm and bright morning must be selected for
+the expedition, for if the surface of the sea appears in the
+least degree ruffled by northerly winds, it becomes
+impossible for any craft to make the low entrance of
+the grotto. Capriote boatmen are as a rule intelligent
+and pleasant to deal with, and not a few of the
+denizens of the Marina own to some knowledge of
+English, or rather of American, since several of the
+inhabitants are the sons of emigrants who have
+settled in the cities of the United States or the
+Argentine, but whose love for their island home is
+still so strong that they contrive to send their children
+back to Capri, in order that they may retain their
+Italian citizenship and be ready to serve their expected
+term of years in the Army.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Past the gay-coloured shipping of the noisy Marina,
+past the wave-washed halls of Tiberius’ <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">palazzo a mare</span></span>,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page260">[pg 260]</span><a name="Pg260" id="Pg260" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>our boat swiftly glides over the pellucid expanse until
+it reaches those vast towering cliffs of limestone that
+spring almost perpendicular from the waters’ edge to
+the plateau of Ana-Capri, fully a thousand feet above
+our heads. Clumps of palmetto, of cytizus, and of
+various hardy shrubs manage to sprout and to exist in
+the crannies of this sheer wall of rock; and on some
+of the larger ledges, far out of reach of a despoiling
+human hand, we see masses of the odorous narcissus,
+though whence they draw their sustenance it is hard
+to tell. At length we reach the entrance of the
+Grotto, and here, at a signal from our boatman, we
+crouch down low in the body of the boat, whilst our
+rower, skilfully taking advantage of a gentle surging
+wave, guides our craft with his hands through an
+opening in the sheer wall, so low that the gunwales
+grate against the rocky surface of the natural arch.
+At once we find ourselves in a scene of mystical
+beauty, in an extravagant voluptuous dream of loveliness,
+such as the Arabian Nights alone could dare to
+suggest. Above us, around us, behind us, before us
+lies a luminous azure atmosphere, which produces the
+effect of a gigantic molten sapphire, whose secret blue
+fires we have actually tracked to their lurking-place in
+the very heart of the gem. Against the all-pervading
+shimmering light our own forms stand out distinct of
+an intense and velvety blackness, yet the blades of the
+oars that cleave the melted sapphire of the water, the
+tips of our fingers that dabble in the celestial liquid,
+appear as if coated with tiny globules of silver. Our
+boatman’s son, a picturesque lad of fifteen or there-abouts,
+has, we notice, been engaged in hastily casting
+off his scanty attire; for a moment his slight graceful
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page261">[pg 261]</span><a name="Pg261" id="Pg261" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>figure is outlined against the blue light like some antique
+bronze of Pompeii or Herculaneum, and then there is
+a splash as the youthful form, diving into the pool, is
+instantaneously changed by the genius of the place
+into a silver-glistening sea-god, the very image of the
+fisherman Glaucus sung of old by Ovid, who became
+an Immortal and dwelt ever afterwards, according to
+the ancient myth, in an azure palace beneath the sea.
+As the stripling rises to the surface all glittering to
+breathe the air, his head turns from frosted silver to
+ebon blackness, as does likewise his hand, raised from
+the water to clasp the boat’s prow. Slowly we are
+propelled round the lofty domed cavern, and are shown
+the little beach at its further extremity with its
+mysterious and unexplored flight of stone steps, down
+which, so our mariner informs us, the wicked Timberio
+used to descend from his villa at Damecuta, hundreds
+of feet overhead, to take a plunge in these enchanted
+waters. The Emperor and his friends may or may
+not have gambolled in this jewelled bath; but certain
+it is that Tiberius knew of the existence of this unique
+cavern; and equally certain that an artistic but
+demented potentate of our own days was so smitten
+with the idea of owning a secret staircase descending
+to a blue grotto, that he must needs construct within
+the walls of a fantastic castle in the highlands of
+Bavaria an artificial counterpart of the Grotta Azzurra,
+with metal swans moved by clockwork swimming
+thereon!
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Our genial boatman beguiles the time of our returning
+by a long story, told him in his boyhood by his
+old grandfather, of how two English <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Signori</span></span> had
+managed to rediscover the entrance to the Blue
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page262">[pg 262]</span><a name="Pg262" id="Pg262" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Grotto, which had been lost since the days of the
+Emperor Timberio, and how in expectation of the
+Englishmen’s reward a plucky sailor, named Ferrara,
+had made his way all round the island in a cask,
+trying to force an entrance into every possible cavern,
+until at last he hit upon the mouth of the Grotta
+Azzurra itself, and thus gained the prize. But as a
+matter of fact the existence of the Grotto was never
+wholly forgotten, for its beauties were certainly known
+to the old Italian chronicler Capaccio. Yet doubtless
+during the long period of the Napoleonic wars, when
+Capri from its strategic position became a choice
+bone of contention between French, English and
+Neapolitan forces, there were few if any persons who
+possessed the courage or curiosity to visit the cavern;
+with the result that its <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">exact</span></span> locality became temporarily
+lost. It was known, however, to exist somewhere at
+the base of the great northern cliff, so that only a very
+small portion of the coast-line had to be explored,
+before its tiny inconspicuous entrance could be rediscovered.
+A far more exciting event than the refinding
+of the Blue Grotto was the genuine discovery
+of the beautiful Grotta Verde on the southern side of
+the island by two Englishmen, Mr Reid and Mr
+Lacaita, in the summer of 1848. This grotto,
+esteemed the second in importance of the many caves
+that Capri boasts, consists of a huge natural archway
+formed in the cliffs wherein the water and rocks appear
+of an emerald hue, contrasting strangely with the
+opaque blue of the sea beyond, and suggesting in its
+dual colouring the marvellous combination of dark
+blue and iridescent green in the peacock’s tail.
+</p><a name="illus20" id="illus20" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus20th.jpg" width="270" height="400" alt="Illustration: IN THE BLUE GROTTO, CAPRI" title="IN THE BLUE GROTTO, CAPRI" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus20.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">IN THE BLUE GROTTO, CAPRI</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Capri is a pleasant enough place of residence for a
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page263">[pg 263]</span><a name="Pg263" id="Pg263" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>short time, particularly if one invests in a pair of the
+rope-soled shoes affected by the people, which enables
+the wearer to follow with greater ease the rough stony
+tracks, often at a dizzy height above the sea, that form
+the only walks in the eastern portion of Capri, except
+the villa-lined Tragara road leading to the Guardiola,
+now become the fashionable promenade of the many
+foreign residents upon the island. There are some
+delightfully peaceful nooks to be sought near the water’s
+edge, not far from the Faraglioni, that picturesque trio
+of rocks lying off the south-eastern corner of Capri.
+Here we can find a sheltered corner, unfrequented
+alike by the pestering native or by the ubiquitous
+tourist; perchance the deserted hall of some maritime
+villa, for the caverns near the Piccola Marina abound
+in traces of Roman architecture. In such a retreat,
+with a book on one’s knees and with one’s own
+thoughts for sole company, how fascinating it is to lie
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">... on Capri’s rocks, close to their snowy streak</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Of ambient foam, and watch the restless sea</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Tossing and tumbling to Eternity,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Feeling its salt kiss fall upon the cheek.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But to those who prefer to take long tramps afield
+rather than to linger in meditation on the sunny
+beaches near the Piccola Marina, there is always the
+ascent to Ana-Capri by the broad smooth winding road
+that affords a fresh view of the Bay of Naples at every
+one of its many twists and turnings. Over a ravine
+filled with masses of ilex and myrtle; past the fragment
+of the pirate Barbarossa’s aerial castle, perched on a
+rocky pinnacle and looking like some fantastic creation
+of Gustave Doré’s brush; the broad ribband of road
+leads across the steep northern flank of Monte Solaro,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page264">[pg 264]</span><a name="Pg264" id="Pg264" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>until it ends at Ana-Capri with its white houses nestling
+round a domed church. It is an easy ascent, taking
+no great space of time, yet strange to relate, well within
+living memory the only approach to this hill-set village
+was by means of the interminable stone staircase with
+some five hundred steps that connected it with the
+Marina Grande below. A charming writer on Neapolitan
+life and character thus shrewdly sums up the
+general opinion concerning this altered aspect of
+conditions with regard to Ana-Capri, now brought at
+last into close touch with modern civilization and its
+accruing benefits:
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Before the culminating point is reached, the road
+crosses the old staircase, which has unfortunately been
+almost completely destroyed by the huge masses of
+rock dislodged from the cliff above by the workmen.
+It makes one sad to look at it, and almost regret
+that the new road ever was constructed. Were every
+invective that has been vented on those same steps
+turned into a paving-stone, there would be more than
+sufficient to pave the streets of Naples anew; were
+every drop of sweat that has fallen upon them collected,
+there would be enough water to flood them. And yet
+now that this dreadful staircase has been superseded
+by a good macadamised road, every one seems to regret
+the change. Says the heavily laden <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">contadina</span></span>: <span class="tei tei-q">‘The
+old way was the shortest;’</span> says the artist: <span class="tei tei-q">‘It was
+infinitely more picturesque; that new parapet wall is
+a dreadful eye-sore;’</span> says the archaeologist: <span class="tei tei-q">‘It had
+the merit of antiquity; it is not everywhere that one
+can tread in the footprints of a hundred generations.’</span>
+Even those whose every step in the olden time was
+accompanied by a malediction, can remember how
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page265">[pg 265]</span><a name="Pg265" id="Pg265" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>good a glass of very inferior wine tasted on reaching
+Ana-Capri.”</span><a id="noteref_11" name="noteref_11" href="#note_11"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">11</span></span></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But whether Ana-Capri has or has not been really
+benefited by the Italian Government’s finely engineered
+road, there can be no doubt that the
+primitive charm of the island, which in by-gone days
+constituted one of its chief attractions, has greatly
+declined with the wholesale introduction of modern
+conventions and improvements. With the sudden
+influx of wealthy strangers, Anglo-Saxon, German,
+French and Russian, it is not surprising to learn that
+the islanders have become somewhat demoralized
+under the changed conditions of life, and that not a
+small proportion of them have grown venal and grasping.
+The happy old days when artists and inn-keepers,
+peasants and such chance visitors as loved the simple
+unsophisticated life, hob-nobbed together on terms of
+equality are gone for ever. Fashion, that merciless
+deity, has annexed the Insula Caprearum to her ever-growing
+dominions;—there are smart villas on the
+Tragara road and even at Ana-Capri; there are
+British tea-rooms and Teutonic <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Bierhälle</span></span> in the town.
+At the present time the tourists and foreign residents
+form the chief source of wealth to the islanders, now
+that the quails have more or less deserted these shores.
+Instead of awaiting in due season with nets ready
+prepared the advent of the plump little feathered
+immigrants from the African coast, the modern
+Caprioti are continually on the look-out for the
+steamers that bear hundreds of money-spending
+tourists to the Marina, and these they proceed to
+enmesh with proffered offers of service. And,
+speak<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page266">[pg 266]</span><a name="Pg266" id="Pg266" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ing of the quails, in the days before breech-loading
+guns and reckless extermination had injured this
+valuable source of revenue, the arrival of the birds
+winging their way northward was the signal for every
+sportsman on the island to hasten to collect the annual
+harvest of game. High poles, supporting nets twenty
+feet broad and sixty feet long, were erected on the
+grassy slopes of the Solaro or in the plateau of the
+Tragara, towards which, by dint of judicious scaring
+and shouting from expectant watchers stationed at
+various points, the flight of the on-rushing birds was
+directed. Dashing themselves with force against this
+wall of netting, the poor quails fell stunned to the
+ground, where they were easily taken by hand, whilst
+scores of guns were levelled ready to bring down such
+birds as had escaped the snare prepared for them.
+From the thousands of quails thus captured the
+islanders were enabled to pay their taxes to the
+Bourbon Government, as well as to provide the income
+of their Bishop—for in those distant days a prelate
+dwelt at Capri—who in allusion to his chief source of
+income was jocularly known at the Roman court as
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Il Vescovo delle Quaglie.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+From Ana-Capri to the western shore extends the
+most fertile stretch of land in the island: a broad
+slope set with vineyards and groves of silver-grey
+olives, that are interspersed here and there with clumps
+of almond and plum trees. Fine oil is yielded by the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">poderi</span></span> of Ana-Capri and Damecuta, whilst the grapes
+produce the highly prized red and white Capri vintages,
+choice wine of which the casual traveller rarely tastes
+a good sample, for it is usually doctored and <span class="tei tei-q">“improved”</span>
+for purposes of keeping by the wine-merchants
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page267">[pg 267]</span><a name="Pg267" id="Pg267" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>of Naples. Thus the rasping red liquid that appears
+on the table of a London restaurant, and the scented
+strong-tasting white stuff that is sold in the hotels of
+the island itself or of Naples under the name of Capri,
+have little in common with the pure unadulterated
+product of these sunny breezy vineyards. But besides
+wine and oil, the island is likewise celebrated for its
+beautiful and varied flora, and it is amongst the olive
+groves and lanes of the western side of the island that
+the wild flowers can be found in the greatest profusion.
+Amongst the tender green shoots of the young springing
+corn are set myriads of brilliant hued
+anemones, purple, scarlet, and white with a crimson
+centre; and even in January can be found in warm
+sheltered nooks the pretty mauve wind-flower, one of
+the earliest of spring blossoms in Italy. The grassy
+pathways that intersect the various holdings are gay
+with rosy-tipped daisies, white <span class="tei tei-q">“star-of-Bethlehem,”</span>
+dark purple grape-hyacinth, and the tiny strong-scented
+marigold, that seems to bloom the whole twelve-month
+round. Amongst the loose stone-work of the
+walled lanes, where beryl-backed lizards peep in and
+out of every crevice, can be found fragrant violets and
+the delicate fumitory with its pink waxy bells. In
+moist places flourish patches of the wild arum or of
+the stately great celandine, the <span class="tei tei-q">“swallow-wort”</span> of
+old-fashioned herbalists, who believed that the swallow
+made use of the thick yellow juice that runs in the
+veins of this plant to anoint the eyes of her fledgelings!
+And with the disappearance of the anemones
+as the season advances, their place is taken by blood-red
+poppies, by golden hawkweeds and by masses of
+tall magenta-coloured blooms of the wild gladiolus, the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page268">[pg 268]</span><a name="Pg268" id="Pg268" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-q">“Jacob’s Ladder”</span> of our own English gardens.
+Strange enough amongst these familiar homely flowers
+appear the sub-tropical clumps of prickly pear, and
+the hedges of aloe which here and there have thrown
+up a gigantic spike of blossom eight or ten feet in
+height, a triumphal favour of Nature that the plant
+itself must pay for by its subsequent death.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+From Ana-Capri we ascend to the peak of the lofty
+Solaro, by no means an arduous climb from this point,
+for we have but to follow a narrow goat-track leading
+across slopes covered with coarse grass and some low
+thickets of stunted lentisk and myrtle. The rosemary
+too grows plentifully on the dry wind-swept soil,
+and the soft sea breeze wafts its refreshing scent to
+our nostrils. There is a pretty legend of the people
+which relates the cause of this plant obtaining its
+perfume of unearthly sweetness:—how the Madonna
+one day hung the swaddling clothes of the Infant
+Christ to dry upon a common pot-herb in the
+garden at Nazareth—the rosemary is freely used in
+Italian cookery, and its taste is as unpleasant as its
+scent is delicious—whereupon the humble plant thus
+honoured was ever afterwards endowed with the delicate
+odour that is so highly prized. And beyond this, the
+rosemary was likewise permitted to put forth masses of
+flowers of the Madonna’s own colour of blue, concerning
+which a tradition—Celtic, not Italian—avers that on
+Christmas morning upon every plant of rosemary will
+be found by those who care to seek them expanded
+blooms in honour of St Joseph, the Virgin and the
+Holy Child. Reaching the crest of the Solaro, we are
+well rewarded for our climb over the stony slopes by a
+wide-spreading view. Owing to the central position
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page269">[pg 269]</span><a name="Pg269" id="Pg269" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>of the island, we can from its airy summit, some
+sixteen hundred feet above sea-level, command a
+glorious panorama of the three bays of the Neapolitan
+Riviera, each teeming with a thousand associations of
+classical or modern history. Upon those dancing
+waters of the Bay of Naples appeared in the dim ages
+of the heroic world the Trojan galleys that were bearing
+the founder of the Roman race towards the beach
+by Cumae yonder, where dwelt the venerable Sibyl;
+the fleets of ancient Rome and Carthage, the war-ships
+of the great Emperor Charles V., the pirate galleys of
+the Soldan’s vassals, the men-of-war of Nelson have
+all rode and fought upon the bosom of the bay beneath
+us. What a marvellous perspective of the whole naval
+history of the Mediterranean does a survey of the Bay
+of Naples suggest!
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Exquisite and inspiring as is the view on a clear
+cloudless day, with the keen <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tramontana</span></span> off the distant
+Abruzzi flecking the azure waves with streaks of
+creamy foam and driving the white-sailed feluccas
+merrily towards the open sea, the landscape is even
+more impressive in dull lowering weather, when the
+inky clouds that envelop the sky give promise of the
+approaching hurricane. At such times a striking phenomenon,
+said to be peculiar to the Parthenopean shores,
+may be observed. From out the purple threatening
+masses that fill the heavens there suddenly falls a
+shaft of rosy light, as though directed by some vast
+celestial lens fixed aloft in the sky, upon a small
+portion of the opposite shore. The plateau of Sorrento
+with its many white hamlets first becomes illuminated;
+then the light rapidly passes towards Vesuvius, which
+is instantly revealed with marvellous clearness, whilst
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page270">[pg 270]</span><a name="Pg270" id="Pg270" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Sorrento returns to its former dark brooding shadows.
+For some moments we watch the circlet of towns that
+fringe the base of the burning mountain and Camaldoli
+erect on its wooded height, and then our gaze is
+diverted towards Naples, so clearly revealed that one
+can almost fancy it possible to detect the carriages
+driving along the white line of the Caracciolo. From
+the city this weird fairy-like light glides swiftly towards
+the headland of Posilipo and the great sombre mass
+of Ischia, and then finally seems to vanish altogether
+in the leaden-hued expanse of the watery horizon.
+Storm, rain, wind, hail and thunder will certainly
+follow the appearance of this fantastic rose-coloured
+glow, and the visitor to Capri may in consequence be
+compelled to remain willy-nilly upon the island until
+such time as communication with Naples shall be
+once more restored, for rough weather on Capri means
+complete isolation from the mainland and the outside
+world. A spell of four or five days without a letter
+or a newspaper may in certain cases be restful and
+even beneficial, but it can also be highly inconvenient.
+</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">* * * * * *</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Comparatively few persons are aware that in the
+history of Capri is to be found a page, not a particularly
+glorious one perhaps, of the annals of our own
+nation. In the spring of 1806, the year after Trafalgar,
+whilst our fleet was blockading Naples on behalf of its
+worthless monarch, King Ferdinand, then skulking in
+cowardly ease at Palermo, Admiral Sir Sidney Smith,
+the hero of Acre, managed to capture the island after
+a sharp struggle with the French troops then holding
+it in the name of Joachim Murat, King of Naples
+and brother-in-law of the great Napoleon. Sir Hudson
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page271">[pg 271]</span><a name="Pg271" id="Pg271" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>(then Colonel) Lowe—afterwards famous as the
+Governor of St Helena during Buonaparte’s captivity—was
+now put in command of the newly conquered
+island with some 1500 English and Maltese troops
+at his disposal. Lowe and his second in command,
+Major Hamill, at once set to work to put the place
+into a strong state of defence, and so satisfied were
+they with their work of fortification, that Lowe in his
+confidence nick-named the islet <span class="tei tei-q">“Little Gibraltar.”</span>
+For more than two years the Union Jack floated in
+triumph from the fort-crowned heights of Capri, much
+to the annoyance of the monarch on the mainland,
+who finally determined at all costs to recapture the
+stronghold facing his capital. Fancying himself perfectly
+secure in his <span class="tei tei-q">“Little Gibraltar,”</span> now deemed
+impregnable by a combination of art and nature against
+any hostile descent, Lowe made light of any possible
+expedition from Naples, and when Neapolitan warships
+actually appeared as though making to land troops
+at the Marinas on either side of the saddle of the
+island, the British commandant was delighted at the
+ease with which these attempts were repelled. But
+whilst the garrison was busied in thwarting the movements
+on the Marinas, which in reality only constituted
+a feint on Murat’s part, transports were engaged in
+disembarking at the low cliffs of Orico, the western
+extremity of the island, boat-loads of men, who quickly
+swarmed up the terraced slopes towards Ana-Capri
+and surprised its garrison. On the following day,
+October 6th 1808, in spite of Lowe’s efforts, Ana-Capri
+with its eight hundred men surrendered to the
+French and Neapolitan troops led by General Lamarque,
+who at once set up a battery on the crest of the Solaro,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page272">[pg 272]</span><a name="Pg272" id="Pg272" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>so as to command the town of Capri and the English
+head-quarters, fixed at the Convent of the Certosa that
+lies between the Tragara Road and the southern shore.
+The eastern half of the island still of course remained
+in the hands of the British; and failing to reduce the
+town itself and the Convent of the Certosa by bombardment
+from above, General Lamarque decided upon
+taking the place by storm, so as to forestall the arrival
+of the English fleet, which was hourly expected to come
+to the rescue of the beleaguered garrison. As we
+have already mentioned, there was no road existing
+upon the whole island in those days a hundred years
+ago, so that in order to attack the capital, the French
+general had to march his victorious troops by the
+precipitous flight of stone steps down to the Marina
+Grande and then try to carry the position from below.
+Before however the Frenchmen, now further aided by
+supplies sent by Murat’s order from Sorrento, could
+arrange for the projected assault upon the town, the
+delayed British fleet suddenly appeared in the offing,
+evidently with the intention of bearing down upon the
+island. But on this occasion the luck was all on the
+side of the French, for scarcely had the eagerly expected
+ships hove in sight, than the besieged garrison
+had the mortification to see their hopes of succour
+overthrown by the uprising of one of those sudden
+squalls, so common on the Mediterranean, which drove
+the warships southward. More than one assault was
+repulsed with heavy loss by the small English garrison,
+which had already been deprived of half its numbers
+at Ana-Capri, including the gallant Major Hamill,
+whose death is commemorated in a marble tablet set
+in the little piazza of the town. But with the
+re<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page273">[pg 273]</span><a name="Pg273" id="Pg273" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>tirement of the relieving fleet and the continuance
+of foul weather, Colonel Lowe deemed it useless to
+resist further, and like a sensible man decided to
+capitulate on the best terms he could obtain. In
+return for his immediate surrender of Capri the British
+commandant accordingly stipulated that his garrison
+should be allowed to embark and sail for Sicily unmolested,
+and that the persons and property of the
+islanders, who seem to have appreciated the British
+occupation, should be respected. But Lamarque, on
+communicating Colonel Lowe’s request to King Murat,
+received peremptory orders to demand an unconditional
+surrender, whereupon an aide-de-camp of the King’s, a
+certain Colonel Manches, was sent to interview Lowe
+with the royal letter in his pocket. Had the missive
+been delivered to him, the British Governor would in
+all probability have decided to fight to the bitter end
+rather than to submit to such severe and humiliating
+conditions. Happily so terrible a catastrophe, which
+must have involved heavy loss of life on both sides,
+followed by a sack of the town, was unexpectedly,
+averted at the last moment, for whilst Manches was
+actually advancing with a flag of truce, the approach
+of the British fleet was again signalled from the look-out
+on the hill now called the Telegrafo. Before the
+Governor could be made aware of this piece of
+news, Colonel Manches, cunningly keeping his master’s
+imperious letter in his pocket, told Colonel Lowe that
+King Murat was ready to accept the terms of surrender
+offered. The weather being propitious, the British fleet
+would have been able this time to reach the island,
+but its nearer approach was prevented by Colonel
+Lowe himself, who sent to acquaint the Admiral,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page274">[pg 274]</span><a name="Pg274" id="Pg274" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>much to his chagrin, of the compact already concluded
+with the besiegers, a compact which, as Hudson Lowe
+himself very properly pointed out, was binding upon
+the British Government. On October 26th, three
+weeks from the date of the first attack, the English
+troops embarked for Sicily, and the island was
+formally handed over to the French and Neapolitan
+forces, who held it undisturbed until the close of the
+Napoleonic Wars.
+</p><a name="illus21" id="illus21" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus21th.jpg" width="256" height="400" alt="Illustration: A GATEWAY. CAPRI" title="A GATEWAY. CAPRI" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus21.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">A GATEWAY. CAPRI</span></a></div></div>
+
+</div><hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page275">[pg 275]</span><a name="Pg275" id="Pg275" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc29" id="toc29"></a><a name="pdf30" id="pdf30"></a>
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">CHAPTER XII</span></h2>
+
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.40em; margin-top: 2.40em"><span style="font-size: 120%">ISCHIA AND THE LADY OF THE ROCK</span></h2>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Embarking at Torregaveta, the little terminus
+of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Ferrovia Cumana</span></span>, which traverses the
+classic district of the Phlegraean Fields, we are
+quickly transported in a small <a name="corr275" id="corr275" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-corr">coasting</span> steamer past
+the headland of Misenum to the island and port
+of Procida, the <span class="tei tei-q">“alta Prochyta”</span> of Virgil. Although
+the poet calls the island lofty, it is remarkably flat
+considering its volcanic origin, for Procida and Ischia
+were undoubtedly one in remote ages, as the learned
+Strabo rightly conjectured. Its only eminence is the
+Rocciola, the castle-crowned hillock to the north-east
+of the island, but as this hill must first have caught
+the expectant eye of Aeneas’ steersman, perhaps the
+epithet is after all not so misplaced as would appear
+at first sight. Carefully tilled and densely populated,
+the island produces a large proportion of the fruit,
+vegetables, and olive oil, that are sold in the Naples
+market, and as it possesses no remains of antiquity,
+no medieval churches, no works of art, and but few
+beauties of nature to recommend it for inspection,
+Procida is rarely visited by strangers. Its inhabitants,
+who are chiefly husbandmen, are hard working
+and independent, and content also to retain the
+manners and customs of their frugal forefathers, and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page276">[pg 276]</span><a name="Pg276" id="Pg276" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>even to a certain extent to continue the use of
+their national dress, so that the festivals of Procida
+have more interest and local colour than those
+observed in tourist-haunted Capri or Sorrento. Unconcerned
+at the progress of the world without, unspoiled
+by the gold of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">forestiere</span></span>, the Procidani pursue the
+even tenor of their old-fashioned ways, unenvious of
+and unenvied by their neighbours on the mainland.
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona nôrint,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Agricolas!</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+We halt at the port of Procida, with its flat-roofed
+gaily coloured houses lining the quay and ascending
+the gentle slope towards the Rocciola. Thence, skirting
+the low-lying fertile shores of the island, and passing
+the olive-clad islet of Vivara, we soon come in sight of
+the steep headland on which are perched the grey masses
+of the Castle of Ischia, <span class="tei tei-q">“the Mount St Michael of Italy.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Covered from base to summit with fume-weed,
+lentisk, aromatic cistus, and every plant that loves
+the sun, the wind and the salt foam of the
+Mediterranean, the huge solitary cliff rises majestically
+from the deep blue water. Whether viewed
+in brilliant sunshine under a cloudless sky, or in
+foul weather, when the sea is hurling its waves over
+the stone causeway that connects the isolated crag
+with the little city of Ischia, the first sight of this
+historic castle is singularly impressive. Nor is its
+grandeur lessened on a near approach, for the ascent
+to its topmost tower takes us through a labyrinth
+of staircases and mysterious subterranean passages,
+through vaulted chambers and curious hanging
+gardens to an airy platform, which commands a
+glorious view in every direction over land and sea.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page277">[pg 277]</span><a name="Pg277" id="Pg277" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Built by Alphonso V. of Aragon in the fifteenth
+century, this massive pile, half-fortress and half-palace,
+is famous in Italian annals for its long
+association with the noble poetess Vittoria Colonna,
+Marchioness of Pescara. Born in the old Castle
+of Marino, near Rome, one of the strongholds of
+the great feudal house of Colonna, the poetess, who
+was great-great-niece to Pope Martin V., was betrothed
+in her infancy at the instigation of King Ferdinand
+of Naples to the youthful heir of the d’Avalos family,
+hereditary governors of the island of Ischia. The
+elder sister of Vittoria’s affianced husband, Constance
+d’Avalos, the widowed Duchess of Francavilla, was
+the <span class="tei tei-q">“châtelaine”</span> of Ischia during her brother’s
+minority, so that it was but natural that his Colonna
+bride-elect should be sent to dwell with Constance
+in this castle. Here Vittoria under her sister-in-law’s
+excellent tutelage grew up to womanhood amidst the
+intellectual atmosphere of the Italian Renaissance, and
+here she was trained to develop into one of the most
+learned, the most interesting and the most attractive
+figures that all Italy produced at this period. Childless
+in her early marriage at eighteen, and with her husband
+frequently, not to say usually, engaged in military
+expeditions on the mainland, Vittoria had every
+opportunity of cultivating her mind and of filling her
+sea-girt palace with men of genius. The poets Cariteo
+and Bernado Tasso (the father of Torquato Tasso),
+were frequent visitors at this
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Superbo scoglio, altaro e bel ricetto,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Di tanti chiari eroi, d’ imperadori,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Orde raggi di gloria escono fuori,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Ch’ ogni altro lume fan scuro e negletto.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page278">[pg 278]</span><a name="Pg278" id="Pg278" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Strange to relate, her husband, the Marquis of
+Pescara, was destined to forestall his learned lady in
+the matter of poetry, for during his imprisonment at
+Milan in the year 1512, he composed a <span class="tei tei-q">“Dialogo
+d’Amore”</span> to send to his sorrowing wife at Ischia, a
+production which the learned Paolo Giovio, the historian
+and bishop of Nocera, pronounced as being <span class="tei tei-q">“summae
+jucunditatis,”</span> though in reality it seems to have been
+feeble enough. But however halting and commonplace
+the warrior’s verses, Pescara’s composition had
+the immediate effect of opening the flood-gates of his
+wife’s poetic temperament, for she replied at once to
+her spouse’s effort with an epistle conceived in the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">terza rima</span></span> employed by Dante, and though the poem
+is turgid in diction and shallow in thought, full of
+classical names and allusions, <span class="tei tei-q">“a parade of all the
+treasures of the school-room,”</span> it exhibits the graceful
+ease and high scholarship which mark all Vittoria’s
+writings. Meanwhile, unblest with offspring of her
+own and ever separated by the cruel circumstance
+of war from the husband she seemed perfectly content
+to admire from a distance, Vittoria did not expend
+all her time at Ischia in sacrificing to Apollo
+and the Muses, for she now undertook the education
+of her husband’s young cousin and heir, Alphonso
+d’Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, whose manhood certainly
+did credit to his instructress, for del Vasto
+under her influence grew up to be a brave soldier and
+a tolerable scholar.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+After sixteen years of married life with a husband
+who, although professing deep devotion to his brilliant
+and virtuous consort, was almost invariably absent from
+her side, Vittoria found herself left a widow shortly
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page279">[pg 279]</span><a name="Pg279" id="Pg279" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>after the great battle of Pavia in 1525 wherein Francis I.
+of France surrendered to the Emperor Charles V. The
+Marquis of Pescara, after the usual career of bloodthirsty
+adventures which passed in those days for a life of
+knight-errantry, died at Milan towards the close
+of this year, leaving behind him an unenviable reputation
+for treachery towards his master. But however
+hard were the things said of the deceased Fernando
+d’Avalos by the outside world, no breath of suspicion
+seems ever to have penetrated to the heart of the faithful
+if placid Vittoria, who mourned bitterly if somewhat
+theatrically over her departed hero. The Lady
+of the Rock was now in her thirty-fifth year, and her
+beauty, so we are told, still remained undimmed; in
+fact it was rather improved by a tendency towards
+plumpness, for sorrow and poetry are not necessarily
+associated with a meagre appearance. Spending her
+time partly in the great Italian cities, but chiefly on
+her beloved <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">scoglio superbo</span></span>, the widow of Pescara now
+set herself to write that series of sonnets in memory of
+her dead husband which have rescued his unworthy
+name from oblivion and have rendered her own famous
+in Italian literature. For the sonnets of Vittoria
+Colonna, though appearing cold classical and pedantic
+to our northern ideas, evidently appeal to the Italian
+temperament, so that the praises of Pescara and his
+widow’s stilted complaints, couched in the elegant
+language of the Renaissance, are still read and appreciated
+to-day by her compatriots. As time passed,
+and the ghost of sorrowful remorse was supposed to
+be decently laid, the sonnets contain somewhat less of
+hero-worship, and assume a religious and speculative
+character. Some critics have even gone so far as to
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page280">[pg 280]</span><a name="Pg280" id="Pg280" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>affect to perceive a latent spirit of Protestantism
+underlying the graceful platitudes and commonplace
+but grandly expressed ideas. Very likely the Lady
+of the Rock dabbled in the fashionable heterodoxy of
+the hour, as it is at least certain that she was on terms
+of intimacy with the celebrated Princess Renée, the
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Protestant”</span> Duchess of Ferrara. On the other hand,
+several of her acquaintances and correspondents were
+amongst the most prominent of the unyielding
+Churchmen of the day; in their number being, it is
+interesting to note, Cardinal Reginald Pole, great-nephew
+of King Edward IV. of England and afterwards
+Queen Mary’s Archbishop of Canterbury, who
+was certainly not likely to encourage Vittoria’s unorthodox
+or reforming tendencies. <span class="tei tei-q">“The more
+opportunity,”</span> so writes the poetess to Cardinal Cervino,
+afterwards Pope Marcellus II., <span class="tei tei-q">“I have had of observing
+the actions of his Eminence the Cardinal of England,
+the more clear has it seemed to me that he is a true
+and sincere servant of God. Whenever, therefore, he
+charitably condescends to give me his opinion on any
+point, I conceive myself safe from error in following
+his advice.”</span> And on the strength of Cardinal Pole’s
+astute counsels, Vittoria promptly broke off all communication
+with the leading reformer, Bernardino
+Ochino, and (a thing which does not strike us as particularly
+honourable) forwarded his letters to herself
+unopened to his spiritual adversaries. But it is
+evident that Vittoria’s <span class="tei tei-q">“Protestantism”</span> was a mere
+pose, assumed at a time when adverse criticism from
+all sides was being levelled at the political abuses of
+the Papacy and at the various scandals in the Church
+which were patent to the eyes of all onlookers. In
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page281">[pg 281]</span><a name="Pg281" id="Pg281" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>short her religious verses are if anything more frigid and
+artificial than those which compose the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">In Memoriam</span></span>
+to her husband, her <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Bel Sole</span></span>, as she usually terms him.
+Whilst admitting considerable merit in Vittoria’s compositions,
+we find it at this distance of time very
+difficult to understand the extravagant praise which
+was showered upon her poems by the Italian critics of
+the day, or to conceive how a sonnet from the gifted
+pen of the Marchioness of Pescara could possibly have
+been considered an important event in the literary
+world by cardinals, princes, poets, wits and scholars.
+From Naples to Rome, from Rome to Ferrara, from
+Ferrara to Mantua and Milan, the precious manuscript
+containing the last-born sonnet of the illustrious Lady
+of Ischia was eagerly passed along. Court poets read
+aloud amidst breathless silence the divine Vittoria’s
+fourteen lines of jejune sentiment draped in folds of
+elegant verbiage; nobles and prelates applauded,
+hailing the authoress as a heaven-sent genius. Sincere
+to a certain extent this strange admiration undoubtedly
+was, although the homage was paid perhaps in
+equal proportions to the excellence of the verse and
+to the high rank of the author. She was a Colonna
+by birth; she was the widow of a petty despot; she
+was governor of a large island;—any literary production,
+however indifferent, from so high a personage
+would have been received throughout Italy with
+respect or flattery. But Vittoria was no mean or
+careless aspirant to fame; it was the fault of an
+artificial age rather than the lack of her own natural
+ability that has made her poetry cold and soulless,
+for under healthy conditions of life and thought,
+<span class="tei tei-q">“the Divine Vittoria”</span> was doubtless capable of
+pro<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page282">[pg 282]</span><a name="Pg282" id="Pg282" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ducing something warmer and more human than the
+lifeless but graceful sonnets that bear her name.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is chiefly through her close connexion with the
+great literary movement of the Italian Renaissance
+and her intimacy with its leading artists and writers,
+rather than through her own reputation as a poetess,
+that the name of Vittoria Colonna herself is remembered
+outside the borders of Italy. With her
+wealth, her culture, her virtue and her unique position
+in the world of rank and of letters, it is nothing
+marvellous that so fortunate and gifted a mortal
+should have become the idol of the leading persons of
+her day. She belonged, in fact, to a brilliant and
+famous group of which she was the soul and centre;
+of which she was at once the patron, the disciple and
+the teacher. That great master of Italian prose,
+Pietro Bembo, set a high value on her powers of
+criticism; other men, almost as distinguished as the
+Venetian cardinal, besought her for advice on literary
+subjects. Foremost in her circle of admirers appears
+of course the great Michelangelo, with whom the
+immaculate Vittoria condescended to indulge in one
+of those cold platonic pseudo-passions which constituted
+the true <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">divino amore</span></span> of the idealists of the
+Renaissance. So here was nothing to cavil at, nothing
+to arouse base suspicion. Considered the greatest
+man and the greatest woman in all Italy, both were
+of mature age, he in the sixties and she in the forties,
+when Michelangelo first professed himself seized with
+a pure but unquenchable love and devotion for the
+widowed Lady of the Rock.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The last days of Vittoria, which were chiefly spent
+within the walls of the Convent of Sant’ Anna at
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page283">[pg 283]</span><a name="Pg283" id="Pg283" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Rome, were clouded by ill-health and sorrow. The
+death of the young Marchese del Vasto, <span class="tei tei-q">“her moral
+and intellectual son,”</span> was an irreparable loss, for which
+her boundless fame and popularity could offer little
+real consolation. At length the poetess, feeling death
+approaching, moved to the house of Giulia Colonna,
+her relative, and there expired in February 1547, in
+the fifty-seventh year of her age. To the last her
+death-bed was surrounded by sorrowing and adoring
+friends, amongst them being Michelangelo, who is said
+to have witnessed with his own eyes the last moments
+of his beloved Lady. And the famous sculptor,
+painter and poet—perhaps the most stupendous
+genius the world has yet produced—is reported to
+have bitterly regretted in after years that on so solemn
+an occasion he had not ventured to imprint one chaste
+kiss upon the forehead of the woman he had adored
+so ardently, yet so purely during life. By her expressed
+wish the body of the poetess was buried in
+San Domenico Maggiore at Naples, the finest and
+least spoiled of all the Neapolitan churches, where
+a velvet-covered coffin containing the ashes of the
+Divine Vittoria and her <span class="tei tei-q">“Bel Sole,”</span> and surmounted
+by the sword, banner and portrait of Fernando d’Avalos,
+is still pointed out to the stranger, resting on
+a shelf in the sacristy of the church. We cannot but
+regret that Vittoria’s body did not find a final resting-place
+in her <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">superbo scoglio</span></span>, where all her happiest years
+were spent and where her memory still survives so fresh.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Sadly deserted appear to-day the historic buildings,
+which are fast falling into hopeless decay; even the
+large domed church of the Castle has been desecrated
+and turned into a stable.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page284">[pg 284]</span><a name="Pg284" id="Pg284" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Tocsins from yon bleak turrets never ring;</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">No knight or pages pace those galleries,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">So sombre and so silent: ever cling</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">To that cold church and palace draperies</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Of glaucous fume-weed; sea-birds ever sing</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The vanished glories with low mournful cries.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Ischia itself is a quaint, dirty, straggling town,
+possessing a small cathedral of ancient foundation,
+but modernised within and without, its sole object of
+interest being a curious font resting on marble lions.
+The charm of the city lies chiefly in the busy scenes
+to be witnessed daily on its sandy beach and on the
+stone causeway that leads to the Castle, where a large
+part of the population seems to spend most of its
+time in mending the deep brown fishing nets or in
+attending to the gaudily painted boats.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Almost adjoining the outskirts of the little capital
+of the island is Porto d’Ischia, with a deep circular
+harbour that was once the crater of an extinct volcano,
+wherein every variety of Mediterranean fishing craft
+is to be seen at anchor. Close to the port, embowered
+among groves of orange and lemon trees that in
+winter time are laden with bright or pale yellow
+fruit, stands a fine old villa of the Bourbon kings
+of Naples, once a favourite summer retreat of his
+Majesty King Bomba. Royalty has long abandoned
+Ischia, and the villa has now been converted into a
+bath house. Beyond its neglected park stretches an
+extensive pine forest, carpeted in spring time with
+daisies, marigolds and anemones, and even in February
+gay with yellow oxalis and redolent with the scent of
+hidden violets.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The road from Ischia to Casamicciola, a distance
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page285">[pg 285]</span><a name="Pg285" id="Pg285" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>of four miles, leads along the base of Monte Epomeo
+through olive groves and vineyards, the whitewashed
+walls of the domed cottages, the flat roofs and cisterns,
+and the frequent clumps of aloe or prickly pear giving
+an Eastern aspect to the scenery, though the sharp
+tinklings of the goat bells among the thickets of
+white heath and dark myrtle scrub on the hill-sides
+and the continual murmur of the waves breaking on
+the rocks below, serve to remind us we are upon the
+Neapolitan Riviera. Our destination at length is
+reached, the roadway crossing the deep valley of the
+Gurgitello with its sulphur baths, which once had a
+wide reputation and are still much frequented in the
+summer months by the people of Naples. Although
+the sources of the springs were certainly damaged by
+the earthquake of 1883, new bathing establishments
+have been built, and a fair number of patients are
+once more availing themselves of these beneficent
+waters, which of course are warranted to heal every
+bodily evil under the sun. A course of the Ischian
+waters therefore applied externally and internally (so
+the local doctors inform us)
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Muove i paralitici,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Spedisce gli apopletici,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Gli asmatici, gli asfitici,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Gl’ isterici, i diabetici</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Guarisce timpanitidi,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">E scrofule e rachitidi.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Formerly the most populous and prosperous township
+of the whole island, Casamicciola consists to-day
+principally of a mass of shapeless ruins, together with
+a number of dismal corrugated iron huts grouped
+round an ugly modern church, nor can its exquisite
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page286">[pg 286]</span><a name="Pg286" id="Pg286" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>views and luxuriant gardens make amends for the
+settled air of melancholy which continues to brood
+over this unlucky spot. Every reader will doubtless
+remember the story of the terrible earthquake of
+July 28th 1883, when almost without warning the
+whole town, then crowded with its usual influx of
+summer visitors, was overthrown and engulfed in
+the space of a few seconds of time. Hotels, villas,
+churches, cottages, all suffered equally, and though the
+exact number of those who perished of all classes
+will never be known, the most moderate accounts put
+the figure as high as 3000 souls. Several English
+people lost their lives in that brief but terrible
+upheaval, and as many of the bodies as were
+recovered from the wreckage were laid to rest in the
+little cemetery outside the town, a plot of ground
+overhanging the sea, and shaded by cypress and
+eucalyptus trees. Many and impressive are the
+stories still to be heard from the lips of the present
+inhabitants, who are wont to date all events from
+that fearful night of darkness and destruction, and
+who all have piteous tales to tell of relations killed
+and houses shattered. The English landlady of the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Piccola Sentinella</span></span>, who herself had an almost
+miraculous escape on the occasion, gave us a most
+vivid and heart-rending description of how her hotel
+and most of its inmates were overwhelmed on that
+awful July night, and how the existing inn is literally
+built upon foundations that are filled with many
+unrecovered bodies of victims. It was on a dark
+sultry night after the evening meal had been finished,
+when the many guests of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Piccola Sentinella</span></span> were
+sitting in the public rooms or on the terrace overlooking
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page287">[pg 287]</span><a name="Pg287" id="Pg287" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the hotel gardens. In the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">salon</span></span> a young Englishman,
+an accomplished musician, had been playing for some
+time on the piano, when suddenly and unexpectedly
+he plunged into the strains of Chopin’s <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Marche
+Funèbre</span></span>, which had the immediate effect of scattering
+his audience, since many of his listeners, not caring for
+so melancholy a piece of music, deserted the room
+for the garden. Lucky indeed were those persons
+driven forth by the strains of Chopin’s dirge, for
+a few moments later came the earthquake, when in a
+trice the whole hotel was swallowed up in the yawning
+chasm of the earth. Everybody inside the walls
+was killed, and the body of the poor pianist was
+actually discovered later amidst the wreckage, crushed
+down upon the instrument which had struck the
+warning notes of impending disaster. The horrors
+of that night still linger vividly in the memory of the
+people, and many are the terrible incidents, and many
+also, we are glad to say, the acts of bravery which are
+recorded of it. One elderly English lady, who owned
+a small villa on the slope above the hotel, rushed at
+the first suspicion of the catastrophe into the stone
+archway of a window, whence she beheld the whole of
+her house collapse like a castle of cards around her.
+Nothing daunted by the spectacle, this gallant woman,
+as soon as the shock had ceased and the clouds of
+dust rising from the ruin had cleared away, left her
+own dismantled home, of which nothing but the one
+wall that had sheltered her remained standing, and
+joined the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">parrocco</span></span>, the parish priest of Casamicciola,
+in the task of succouring the living and comforting
+the dying. To the darkness of the night was now
+added a heavy rainfall, yet the good priest and this
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page288">[pg 288]</span><a name="Pg288" id="Pg288" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>noble woman traversed together the altered and
+devastated scene amidst the wet and gloom on their
+errand of mercy. It is some satisfaction to learn that
+this piece of unselfish heroism and devotion on the
+part of the priest was officially acknowledged, for the
+humble curate of Casamicciola was afterwards made
+a prelate by Pope Leo XIII. in recognition of his
+signal services. Even to-day people are inclined to
+be somewhat chary of spending any length of time
+in this unfortunate spot, where the ruined streets and
+shapeless mounds of earth, only too suggestive of a
+latter-day Pompeii, speak so eloquently of terrible
+experiences in the past and of possible dangers in the
+future. Nevertheless, if one can triumph over these
+gloomy feelings, Casamicciola affords a delightful
+centre whence to explore the whole island, and many
+are the pleasant walks to be found on the overhanging
+slopes of Mont’ Epomeo, and many the boating
+expeditions to be made from the Marina below the
+upper town.
+</p>
+<a name="illus22" id="illus22" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus22th.jpg" width="236" height="400" alt="Illustration: On the Piccola Marina, Capri" title="ON THE PICCOLA MARINA, CAPRI" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus22.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">ON THE PICCOLA MARINA, CAPRI</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is a two-mile walk through stony lanes overhung
+by branches of fig and orange from Casamicciola to
+Lacco, a large village well situated on a little bay
+which is distinguished by a curious mushroom-shaped
+rock, aptly nicknamed <span class="tei tei-q">“Il Fungo”</span> by the natives.
+This place, which also suffered severely in the earthquake
+of 1883, is the head-quarters of the straw-plaiting
+industry of the island, the women and children noisily
+beseeching every chance visitor to buy their wares in
+the guise of baskets, hats and fans; the pretty coloured
+tiles (<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mattoni</span></span>), which are used with such good effect in
+the churches and houses of the island, are likewise
+manufactured here. Lacco is particularly associated
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page289">[pg 289]</span><a name="Pg289" id="Pg289" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>with the great annual festival of St Restituta on May
+17th, which is always marked by religious processions
+and by universal merry-making, followed by illuminations
+and fireworks at nightfall. This saint, of whom
+an early mosaic portrait still exists in her ancient chapel
+within the Neapolitan Cathedral, was once the patroness
+of the city of Naples, but since medieval times she has
+been honoured as the special guardian of this island,
+whither her body (so the legend runs) was miraculously
+conveyed from Egypt in a boat rowed by angels. A
+local tradition also asserts that on her landing by the
+beach of Lacco, an Egyptian lotus bloom was found
+in the saint’s hand, as fresh as when it had been
+plucked months before from the banks of the Nile.
+</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Leaving the little bay with its sulphur-impregnated
+sands, and turning inland, we proceed along a road
+across an ancient lava-stream over-grown with pine
+trees, wild caper and a tangle of aromatic brushwood,
+to Forio, which with its white domed houses, its palm
+trees, and its stately bare-footed women bearing tall
+pitchers on their heads gives at first acquaintance the
+full impression of an Oriental city. There is little to
+be seen in Forio itself, with the exception of some fine
+vestments of needlework that are preserved in the
+sacristy of its principal church, but no traveller should
+fail to visit its wonderfully picturesque Franciscan
+monastery, a barbaric-looking pile of dazzling white
+walls and cupolas set against a background of cobalt
+waters, which stands outside the town on a rocky platform
+jutting into the Mediterranean and is approached
+by a broad flight of marble steps adorned with most
+realistic figures of souls burning in brightly painted
+flames of Purgatory. This point too commands a
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page290">[pg 290]</span><a name="Pg290" id="Pg290" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>good view of the extreme north-eastern promontory
+of the island, a tall cliff known as the Punta del
+Imperatore in honour of the great Emperor Charles
+the Fifth, beyond which visitors rarely penetrate owing
+to the roughness, or rather non-existence of roads,
+though the southern side of the island, which lies
+between this cape and the castle of Ischia, is fully as
+beautiful as the northern portion just described.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The chief attraction, however, of a visit to Ischia is
+the ascent of Mont’ Epomeo, an easy expedition on
+foot to the active, and feasible to the weak or lazy on
+mule-back. This extinct volcano, whose broad lofty
+summit is visible from many points of the Bay of
+Naples, is naturally rich in classical associations, the
+ancients believing that within it lay imprisoned the
+giant Typhoeus, whose agonised movements were wont
+to cause the frequent eruptions of the crater that
+eventually drove away the early Greek settlers from
+this island—the Aenaria or Inarime of antiquity—and
+in later times accounted for the neglect of Ischia
+as a winter resort by the luxurious Romans, in spite
+of its near presence to fashionable Baiae. So destructive
+of life and property were these convulsions of
+nature, that for long periods, notwithstanding its fertile
+soil and its lucrative fisheries, the island remained
+uninhabited, and an old tradition, mentioned by Ovid,
+derives one of its ancient names, Pithecusa, from a
+race of apes (<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pithēkoi</span></span>) that dwelt on its abandoned
+shores. Since the great eruption of 1302, the effects
+of which can still be traced among the large pine
+woods near Porto d’Ischia, the mountain has been
+quiescent, and the population of the island has increased
+considerably, although the constant shocks of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page291">[pg 291]</span><a name="Pg291" id="Pg291" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>earthquake have always made a permanent residence
+in Ischia somewhat insecure. Nor can we rest assured
+that Typhoeus himself is truly dead, not merely sleeping,
+but ready to renew his fierce efforts after his long
+spell of slumber, and to change the face of nature as
+unexpectedly as did the Demon of Vesuvius in the
+reign of Titus.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Like the great volcano of Etna, which the Ischian
+mountain somewhat resembles on a tiny scale.
+Epomeo contains three distinct climatic zones. The
+lowest is that of the coast line with its rich sub-tropical
+vegetation, the early part of the ascent leading by steep
+stony paths through sun-baked vineyards which produce
+the white wine of Ischia, wholesome and light but
+somewhat acid in taste. For the storing of this vintage
+the peasants make use of the numerous old stone
+towers, that once served as safe retreats for the terrified
+inhabitants in times when the Barbary pirates frequently
+descended on the Italian coasts to plunder and enslave.
+Very curious it is to step out of the blinding sunlight
+into the interior of one of these medieval buildings,
+where in the icy gloom stand great barrels of the new
+white wine, each carefully inscribed with a prayer in
+praise of St Restituta, from one of which the swarthy
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">contadino</span></span>, in expectation of a few pence, draws a glassful
+of the sour chilly liquid to offer his visitor. Leaving
+behind this region of houses and of cultivation, the
+zone of forest is reached, covered with woods of chestnut
+and oak, with a thick undergrowth of heather, myrtle,
+laurustinus and sweet-scented yellow coronella; there
+is grass under our feet, and long-stemmed daisies,
+violets, mauve anemones and small fragrant marigolds
+everywhere. Through the trees comes the nasal but
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page292">[pg 292]</span><a name="Pg292" id="Pg292" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>not unmelodious singing of an unseen charcoal-burner,
+or the plaintive note of the little goat-herd’s rustic pipe,
+accompanied by the musical jingling of his goat-bells;—for
+a moment we try to fancy ourselves in the pastoral
+Italy of Theocritus, where nymphs and shepherds,
+peasants and dryads, lived together on terms of amity
+in the woods. But soon the chestnut trees appear
+stunted, and the groves become less thick, and we
+finally gain the last zone, the desolate expanse of naked
+rock and dark lava deposits of the summit, where only
+a few hardy weeds can thrive. Here in some damp
+mouldy chambers dwells a hermit, for nearly all the
+classic mountains of Southern Italy are tenanted by an
+anchorite, generally an old and ignorant, but pious
+peasant, of the type of Pietro Murrone, the holy recluse
+of the Abruzzi, who was finally dragged from his cell to be
+invested forcibly with the pontifical robes and tiara as
+Celestine the Fifth. The present hermitage on Mont’
+Epomeo dates however from comparatively modern
+times, for its first occupant is said to have been a
+German nobleman, a certain Joseph Arguth, governor
+of Ischia under the first Bourbon king, who in consequence
+of a solemn vow made in battle deliberately
+passed his last years of existence on the topmost peak
+of the island he had lately ruled. His example has
+been followed and his cell filled by many successors,
+who have endured the spring rains, the summer heats,
+the autumn storms and the winter chills upon this airy
+height, where the glorious view may be found a compensation
+for eternal discomfort, if hermits condescend
+to appreciate anything so mundane as scenery. The
+shrine and cell are dedicated to St Nicholas of Bari,
+and to this circumstance is due the local uninteresting
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page293">[pg 293]</span><a name="Pg293" id="Pg293" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>name of Monte San Niccolò to the entire mountain,
+whose crest, some 3000 feet above sea-level, we finally
+gain by means of steps roughly hewn in the lava.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+The view from this height, embracing two out of
+the three historic bays of the Parthenopean coast, is
+one of the noblest and most extensive in Southern
+Italy. Looking southward, the fantastic cliffs of Capri
+are seen to rise abruptly from the ocean; beyond them
+appears the graceful outline of Monte Sant’ Angelo,
+with the crater of Vesuvius beside it, veiling the clear
+blue sky with volumes of dusky smoke. Beneath
+extends the broken line of shore, stretching north and
+south as far as the eye can travel, with its classic capes
+and islands basking in the strong sunshine; whilst
+behind the foam-fringed boundary of land and sea
+rises the jagged line of the Abruzzi Mountains with
+the huge snow-clad mass of the Gran Sasso d’Italia
+towering above the lower peaks. At our feet is spread
+the beautiful and fertile island, in outward appearance
+little changed since the days when the good Bishop
+Berkeley <span class="tei tei-q">“of every virtue under Heaven”</span> penned its
+description nearly two centuries ago in a letter to
+Alexander Pope, wherein he described Ischia as <span class="tei tei-q">“an
+epitome of the whole earth.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In spite of the good Bishop’s eloquent tribute to the
+genial climate and the natural beauty of Ischia, it
+must be borne in mind that a residence on the island
+possesses one or two serious drawbacks. Apart from
+the ever-present fear of earthquakes, which hangs like
+the sword of Damocles above the heads of the inhabitants,
+there is yet another disadvantage, prosaic
+but very real, in the lack of pure water, every well
+and rivulet on Ischia being more or less impregnated
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page294">[pg 294]</span><a name="Pg294" id="Pg294" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>with sulphur, with the result that water for drinking
+(and in summer even for domestic) purposes has to be
+conveyed by boat from Naples. It is bad enough to
+be dependant on a distant city for a food supply (which
+is to some extent also the case here), but the possibility
+of enduring a water famine through storms or misadventure
+would be a far more serious calamity;
+nevertheless as casual visitors to this charming and
+little-known island, we can easily afford to smile at
+such misfortunes.<a id="noteref_12" name="noteref_12" href="#note_12"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">12</span></span></a>
+</p><a name="illus23" id="illus23" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus23th.jpg" width="400" height="278" alt="Illustration: ISCHIA FROM CASTELLAMARE (SUNSET)" title="ISCHIA FROM CASTELLAMARE (SUNSET)" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus23.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">ISCHIA FROM CASTELLAMARE (SUNSET)</span></a></div></div>
+
+</div><hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page295">[pg 295]</span><a name="Pg295" id="Pg295" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc31" id="toc31"></a><a name="pdf32" id="pdf32"></a>
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.88em; margin-top: 2.88em"><span style="font-size: 144%">CHAPTER XIII</span></h2>
+
+<h2 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 2.40em; margin-top: 2.40em"><span style="font-size: 120%">PUTEOLI AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME</span></h2>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Passing along the noisy thronged street of the
+Chiaja and plunging thence into the chill
+gloomy recesses of the ancient grotto of Posilipo,
+we emerge at its further side into a new world, as
+it were, into a district where <span class="tei tei-q">“there is scarcely a spot
+which is not identified with the poetical mythology
+of Greece, or associated with some name familiar in
+the history of Rome.”</span> In truth, the headland of
+Posilipo presents a wonderful landmark in the history
+of Naples, for it forms a barrier between the busy
+world of to-day and the departed civilisation of the
+ancients: at the latter end of this tunnel, the fierce
+life and movement of a great commercial city; at its
+western exit, a tract of land teeming with recollections
+of the glorious past.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+As our carriage emerges once more into the warmth
+and sunlight, we find ourselves in the miserable village
+of Fuorigrotta, which, by a strange coincidence, is
+associated with the memory of a famous Italian poet.
+For if the name and verses of Sannazzaro cling to
+Piedigrotta and the Parthenopean shore on the eastern
+side of the hill, the genius of Count Giacomo Leopardi
+sheds its melancholy radiance over the unlovely purlieus
+of Fuorigrotta. Here in the vestibule of the parish
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page296">[pg 296]</span><a name="Pg296" id="Pg296" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>church of San Vitale, lie the ashes of that unhappy
+writer, the Shelley of Italian literature, who so bewailed
+the Austrian and Bourbon fetters that enchained his
+native land. Poor Leopardi! It was but eleven years
+before the first great movement of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Risorgimento</span></span>
+swept over Italy in 1848 that he passed away; his
+poems were indeed songs before sunrise, a sunrise of
+which he failed to detect the far-off glimmering, so
+that he could only lament without hope the sad
+condition of his dismembered country, once the
+mistress and now the play-thing of the world, and
+the abject slave of hated Austria:
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">O patria mia, vedo le mure e gli archi</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">E le colonne e i simulacri e l’ erme</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Torri degli avi nostri,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Ma la gloria non vedo;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Non vedo il lauro e’l ferro ond’ eran carchi</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">I nostri padri antichi.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is a flat dusty stretch of road that lies between
+Fuorigrotta and Bagnoli; the high walls give only
+occasional glimpses of well-tilled <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">parterres</span></span>—one
+cannot call these tiny patches of cultivation fields—with
+thriving crops of brilliant green corn, of claret-red
+clover, of purple lucerne, and of the white-flowered
+<span class="tei tei-q">“sad lupin,”</span> which Vergil has immortalised in verse.
+The round bright yellow beans of the lupin crop, known
+locally by the name of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">spassa-tiempî</span></span> (time-killers),
+afford an article of food to the very poorest of the
+population. A quaint story runs that one day an
+impoverished philosopher, reduced to making his
+dinner off a handful of these beans, and imagining
+himself in consequence the most wretched wight in
+existence, was cheered and comforted by observing
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page297">[pg 297]</span><a name="Pg297" id="Pg297" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>himself followed by a still more miserable fellow-mortal,
+who was engaged in picking up and eating
+the husks of the beans that, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">more italiano</span></span>, he had
+thrown carelessly on to the pathway after their insipid
+farinaceous contents had been sucked out!
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Above us to the right are the heights of Monte
+Spina, covered with groves of the umbrella pine, the
+typical tree of Naples; to our left extends the verdant
+ridge of Posilipo, ending in Cape Coroglio, beyond
+which the massive form of Nisida rises proudly from
+the blue expanse of water. All the landscape shows
+somewhat hard in the glare of noontide, and we find
+the enveloping clouds of fine white dust very oppressive
+and disagreeable. From time to time a lumbering
+country cart is passed with its attendant bare-footed
+peasant; otherwise there is little sign of life on the
+high road. The bright sunlight flashes upon the
+horse’s polished brass harness, and upon the elaborate
+erection of charms placed thereon, with the avowed
+object of averting the dreaded Evil Eye, that everlasting
+bugbear of all dwellers upon these southern
+shores. On his poor drooping head the worn-out old
+steed carries a large bell with four jingling clappers
+and two brazen crescents, the horns of one of which
+point upwards and of the other towards the ground.
+On the off-side of the headgear is a bunch of bright-coloured
+ribbands or woollen tassels, from which
+depends the single horn, the invaluable Neapolitan
+talisman that is supposed to protect every man,
+woman, child or beast, from the chance glance of
+a passing <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">jettatore</span></span>. Above this glowing mass of
+colour some three or four feathers of a pheasant’s
+tail are stuck, apparently with no ulterior purpose
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page298">[pg 298]</span><a name="Pg298" id="Pg298" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>than that of ornament; but beside the bunch of
+ribbands there is also fixed a piece of wolf’s skin,
+to give strength to the jaded animal, for, remarks
+the sapient Pliny, <span class="tei tei-q">“a wolf’s skin attached to a horse’s
+neck will render him proof against all weariness.”</span>
+Personally, we should think a little more consideration
+and some elementary knowledge of farriery
+would have been of more service to the ill-used
+beasts round Naples than the excellent Pliny’s
+highly original receipt. Besides this powerful battery
+of charms to intercept the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">jettatura</span></span>, there is the light
+brass headpiece engraved with sacred figures, so
+that any evil glance must be fully absorbed, baffled
+or exhausted, before it can fix itself upon the animal.
+In addition however to this shining mass of headgear,
+the horse carries on his back one of those
+curious high pommels that are peculiar to Southern
+Italy and Sicily. The front of the pommel itself is
+of well-polished brass, and covered with a number of
+studs, whilst at its back is fastened a miniature
+barrel, upon which there stands erect the figure of
+some local saint, generally that of San Gennaro.
+The exact part that the barrel and the row of studs
+play in this mystic battle against the Evil Eye is
+unknown, but the two revolving flags of brass that
+swing and creak above the pommel itself are believed
+to represent <span class="tei tei-q">“the flaming sword which turned every
+way,”</span> and finally expelled Adam and Eve from the
+Garden of Eden. Certainly this shimmering metal
+has the appearance of a flaming sword in the bright
+sunshine, so that it ought to prove efficacious in
+catching and averting any baleful glance. A second
+patch of wolf skin on the crest of the pommel, and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page299">[pg 299]</span><a name="Pg299" id="Pg299" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>some red worsted wound round the spindle of the
+flags complete the list of strange charms that are
+considered necessary to protect a Neapolitan horse
+from the pernicious influence of a casual passer-by.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+We soon reach the sea-shore at Bagnoli, a little
+watering-place much frequented by Neapolitans of
+the middle classes, and on looking back we obtain a
+charming view of the headland of Posilipo and of
+stately Nisida, the Nesis of the ancients, with its
+memories of Brutus, <span class="tei tei-q">“the noblest Roman of them all,”</span>
+who on this little island bade farewell for ever to his
+devoted Portia. A very different tenant from the chaste
+Portia, however, who once possessed a villa in this
+sea-girt retreat during the Middle Ages, was Queen
+Joanna the Second, the last member of the Durazzo
+branch of the Angevin royal house, and sister and
+heiress of King Ladislaus II., whose splendid monument
+in San Giovanni a Carbonara is one of the chief
+artistic treasures of Naples. It is of course unnecessary
+here to remark that there were two Queens of Naples,
+both Joanna by name, and that the first of these, the
+contemporary of Petrarch (whose proper feeling she contrived
+to shock) was certainly not a pattern of female
+virtue, but that she shone as a moral paragon when
+contrasted with her name-sake and successor, the sister
+of King Ladislaus. Of this second Queen, tradition
+more or less accurate relates a host of stories, none of
+them to her credit; how she dabbled in necromancy
+and was immersed in love intrigues, the most celebrated
+of which was her amour with the handsome <span class="tei tei-q">“Ser.
+Gianni,”</span> Giovanni Caracciolo, head of an eminent
+family that has figured prominently in Neapolitan
+history from the days of Angevin monarchs to those
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page300">[pg 300]</span><a name="Pg300" id="Pg300" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>of King Ferdinand. Little good did the fickle Queen’s
+favour do Ser. Gianni, who suffered an ignominious fate
+for having one day boxed Joanna’s ears during a lovers’
+tiff. Murdered secretly by four assassins, Caracciolo’s
+body was laid to rest in the family chapel in San
+Giovanni a Carbonara beneath a splendid monument
+which is surmounted by the luckless favourite’s
+effigy. Joanna the First with all her faults was never
+guilty of such light conduct as this, but the peasant
+mind is always impatient of dry details of fact, so that
+in the popular imagination to-day both Queens are
+blended into one personage, whose character, it is needless
+to say, is about as vile as can be conceived.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Siccome la Regina Giovanna,”</span> is a form of peasant
+execration around Naples that has some historical
+affinity with the time-honoured Irish <a name="corr300" id="corr300" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-corr">malediction</span> of the
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Curse o’ Cromwell.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Turning our backs on the island with its memories
+of Portia the Perfect and of Queen Joanna the Improper,
+we pursue our course along the sea-shore
+with rocks of ancient lava above us to the right,
+now heavily overgrown with brushwood and plants,
+amongst which we notice tufts of the pretty wild
+asparagus, that the observant Pliny centuries ago
+found flourishing in this district. As an early herb,
+coming into season long before its cultivated
+cousin is fit for cutting, this succulent vegetable is
+highly prized in the South, and its flavour though somewhat
+bitter is most palatable, so that an omelette <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">aux
+pointes d’asperges sauvages</span></span> is a dish not to be despised
+by those who get the opportunity of testing this local
+delicacy. Before us lies our goal, Pozzuoli, with its
+ancient citadel jutting into the placid waters and backed
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page301">[pg 301]</span><a name="Pg301" id="Pg301" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>by the classic headland of Misenum, above which in
+turn towers the crest of distant Epomeo.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Pozzuoli in recent years has been much neglected
+by strangers, so much so that no inn worthy to be
+called an hotel now exists, and such <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">trattorie</span></span> as the
+place offers are all equally extortionate and detestable.
+Some time ago there was a comfortable <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pension</span></span> at the
+edge of the town on the road to the Amphitheatre,
+but its English landlady has long since migrated elsewhere,
+and the comfortable <span class="tei tei-q">“Hotel Grande Bretagne”</span>
+is no more; whilst nowadays there are to be found
+no visitors hardy enough to endure a prolonged
+sojourn in the wretched hostelries of the town itself.
+The electric tram and the rail-road have in fact killed
+Pozzuoli as a winter resort, more’s the pity, for it is
+not only a spot of singular interest in itself but
+its climate is certainly superior to that of Naples, for
+the great headland which shuts off the city from the
+Phlegrean Fields serves also to act as a buffer against
+the icy <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tramontana</span></span> that sweeps along the Chiaja in
+winter and early spring. Invalids used at one time
+to inhabit Pozzuoli on account of its mild atmosphere,
+and even to visit the Solfatara daily on mule-back, in
+order to inhale its sulphureous fumes, which were
+then believed to be good for weak chests. But
+medical fashions vary like all others, and consumptive
+patients now seek other places <a name="corr301" id="corr301" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-corr">than</span> Pozzuoli for their
+cure.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Many are the walks outside the town, and none
+are without beauty or interest, for, the neighbourhood
+of Syracuse excepted, we can think of no place
+in Italy wherein one is brought so closely into touch
+with the classical past. Nature has long clothed the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page302">[pg 302]</span><a name="Pg302" id="Pg302" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>ruined area of the ancient city with her kindly
+drapery of foliage and flowers, so that the crumbling
+masses of tawny brick that we come across in our
+rambles are all swathed in garlands of clematis, myrtle,
+honey-suckle and coronella. It is a delight to
+speculate upon the original use and appearance of
+these shapeless blocks of creeper-clad masonry, which
+attract the eye on all sides amidst the vineyards and
+orange groves, where the peasants delving in the rich
+soil frequently alight upon treasures of the antique
+world. What a delight it is to wander through the
+Street of Tombs—alas, long rifled of their contents!—where
+the gay valerian and the pink silene sprout
+from every fissure of the soft tufa rock, and lizards of
+unusual size and brilliancy play games of hide-and-seek
+in the warm sunshine. We moderns are afraid
+of graveyards and the paraphernalia of the dead:
+many a stout-hearted Englishman objects to passing
+through a church-yard at night; not so the pagan
+Romans, who placed their cemeteries in public places
+and were wont to proceed through lines of tombs as
+they entered the city of the living: a very salutary
+and practical reminder of the transitory nature of
+life itself. The whole neighbourhood in short is
+sprinkled with these memorials of Imperial Rome;
+there is not an orange or lemon orchard but stands
+above some forgotten villa, not an acre of tilth but
+must conceal some hidden mine of classical associations.
+Charming too are the walks by the sea-shore—now sadly
+disfigured by the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Cantiere Armstrong</span></span>, with its smoke
+and ugliness looking like a dirty smudge upon the
+delicate landscape of the Bay—for here again we find
+endless traces of the Imperial age. There can be no
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page303">[pg 303]</span><a name="Pg303" id="Pg303" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>more fascinating employment than to wander along
+the beach after one of the heavy winter storms that so
+often vex the quiet of the Bay of Naples, and to
+search for fragments of precious marbles that have
+been spied by the waves amidst the sunken foundations
+of Roman villas, and thence idly flung upon the shore.
+Pieces of the choicest white Parian, squares of speckled
+Egyptian porphyry, of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">verde</span></span>, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">rosso</span></span> and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">giallo antico</span></span>, of
+the coal-black <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Africano</span></span>, all wet and glistening from
+the waves, can be picked up by the quick-sighted, and
+the gathering of these beautiful trifles, cut and polished
+by skilled hands nearly two thousand years ago, makes
+an interesting occupation. Nor is its classical lore
+the only feature of the Bay of Baiae, for though its
+actual scenery cannot compare with the grandeur of
+Capri nor its vegetation with the rich luxuriance of
+Sorrento, yet these shores have a quiet beauty of their
+own. Vine, olive and almond abound on all sides,
+and everywhere we see the groves of orange and
+lemon that in spring time scent the air with their perfumed
+blossoms. And in the early months of the
+year every patch of warm-coloured, up-turned earth is
+gay with sheets of that beautiful but rapacious weed,
+hated of the peasant, the oxalis, with its clusters of
+pale yellow flowers: a species of sorrel that is allied
+to our own white-blossomed variety. From many a
+point on the little ridges that rise behind Pozzuoli
+magnificent views can be obtained, whilst to those who
+care to study the scientific results of volcanic action
+the Phlegraean Fields afford endless occupation and
+interest. Every one of course visits the Solfatara, that
+curious semi-extinct crater, the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Forum Vulcani</span></span> of
+Strabo, which has remained for over seven hundred
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page304">[pg 304]</span><a name="Pg304" id="Pg304" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>years in its present condition of languor. A strange
+experience it is to enter the heart of a volcano that is
+still comparatively active, and to observe woods of
+poplar and a large pine tree beneath which grow
+masses of spring flowers—bright blue bugloss, the
+crimson vetch, starch hyacinths, purple self-heal, and
+golden spurge—and to pass from these thickets on to
+a space of bare white-coloured ground that trembles
+and sways under the feet like a sheet of insecure ice.
+Beyond, one sees the little fissures (<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">fumaroli</span></span>) emitting
+fumes of sulphur, and the guides take us to stifling
+caverns in the hill-side where we are shown the
+beautiful primrose-coloured crystals. The Solfatara,
+the Amphitheatre and the Temple of Serapis, these
+are the recognised <span class="tei tei-q">“sights”</span> of Pozzuoli, which strangers
+visit to-day in the space of an hour or two, and then
+return to Naples comforted with the feeling that they
+have exhausted the attractions of the place. Certainly
+their reception in the town is not likely to
+inspire them with a wish to return, for the guides and
+touts swarm here more than in any other spot in
+Italy; <span class="tei tei-q">“until he has spent half an hour in Pozzuoli,”</span>
+says the author of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Dolce Napoli</span></span>, <span class="tei tei-q">“let no man say that
+he understands the signification of the verb to pester.”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Putting aside even the objectionable habits of so
+many of its citizens, it cannot be said that the town
+itself of Pozzuoli to-day is particularly attractive,
+although its situation on the Bay of Baiae is charming
+and its quays are full of picturesque life and movement.
+Lines of irregular yellow-washed buildings,
+with faded green <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">persiani</span></span> and balconies draped
+with the domestic washing, with here and there a
+domed rococo church, look down upon the clear
+tide<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page305">[pg 305]</span><a name="Pg305" id="Pg305" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>less waters that gently lap the ancient stone-work of
+the Mole, whilst a mixed crowd of fishermen with
+bare bronzed limbs, of chattering women with gay
+handkerchiefs tied over their thick black hair, and of
+blue uniformed dapper little customs officers,—<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">lupi
+marini</span></span> (wolves of the sea) as the poor people facetiously
+term these revenue officials of the coast—loiter
+in the sunlight amidst the piles of tawny fishing nets
+or the pyramids of golden oranges. From the quay
+we make our way to the Largo del Municipio, a
+typical square of a provincial town in the South,
+enclosed by shabby houses and adorned by a couple
+of stunted date-palms and a battered marble fountain,
+around which numberless children and some slatternly
+women noisily converse or dispute. There is an old
+proverb in the South, that a good housewife has no
+need to know any thoroughfares save those leading to
+her church and her fountain, and as conversation cannot
+well be carried on in the former, it is the daily
+visits to the well that usually afford the required
+opportunity for exchange of gossip or for the picking
+of quarrels. Two statues decorate this unlovely but
+not uninteresting space; one is that of a Spanish bishop,
+Leon y Cardeñas, one of King Philip the Third’s
+viceroys, which serves as a reminder of the many
+vicissitudes this classic land has experienced in the
+course of history:—Phoenician, Greek, Carthaginian,
+Roman, Barbarian, Norman, German, French, Spanish
+conquerors have all left <span class="tei tei-q">“footprints on the sands of
+Time”</span> in the coveted land of the Siren, which all have
+possessed in turn but none have held in perpetuity.
+His Excellency the Bishop Cardeñas stands therefore
+in the open as a solid memento of the glory that once
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page306">[pg 306]</span><a name="Pg306" id="Pg306" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>was Spain, when half Europe and all America owned
+the sway of the Catholic King. The second statue,
+though not a thing of beauty, has always had the
+attraction of an unsolved puzzle, for we cannot
+decide whether it proves a complete absence or an
+abundant superfluity of humour in the Puteolani of
+to-day. It is the figure of a Roman senator, vested
+in his flowing toga, and owning (as the ancient inscription
+informs us) the grandiose name of Quintus Flavius
+Mavortius Lollianus, whose marble trunk was one of
+the earliest archaeological <span class="tei tei-q">“finds”</span> made in the
+excavations at Pozzuoli some two hundred years ago.
+Since the statue lacked a head and was otherwise of
+no especial value as a work of art, the Viceroy of
+Naples very generously presented this object to the
+place of its discovery, whose citizens, doubtless
+thinking the appearance of the headless statue uncanny,
+popped a stray antique occiput (of which a goodly
+number, more or less mutilated, are constantly brought
+to light by the peasants) upon Lollianus’ vacant
+shoulders. Anything more comical and at the same
+time more repellent than this hybrid statue it would be
+impossible to imagine, yet Lollianus of the unknown
+head remains a favourite with the people of Pozzuoli.
+Leaving the Largo del Municipio, with its weird senator
+and its dusty palms, we ascend by a zigzag lane
+between tall featureless houses to the Cathedral of
+San Proculo, which occupies the site of a temple of
+Augustus, that once dominated the ancient city and
+harbour below. Within, the cathedral of Proculus,
+who was a companion of St Januarius and a fellow-martyr,
+is gaudy and painted, one of those dismally
+gorgeous ecclesiastical interiors that are such a
+dis<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page307">[pg 307]</span><a name="Pg307" id="Pg307" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>appointment to the antiquarian in Southern Italy. In
+opposition to the memorial of Spanish conquest in
+the square below, we find here an elaborate monument
+to a French viceroy, the Duke of Montpensier, who
+served for some time as Governor of Naples after
+Charles VIII.’s capture of the city. Except the tomb
+of the young musician Pergolese, who composed the
+original <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Stabat Mater</span></span> there is little else to see, and we
+gladly ascend the tower in order to gain a bird’s eye
+view of the town from a point of vantage whither
+noisy coachmen, troublesome beggars and impudent
+ragamuffins cannot pursue. Captured by the Greek
+colonists of Cumae, who gave the city the name of
+Dicoearchia instead of its ancient one of Puteoli,—a
+corruption, perhaps, of the Syriac word <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">petuli</span></span> (contention)—this
+old Hellenic settlement was rechristened
+Puteoli by the conquering Romans, under whose
+beneficent rule the place rapidly aspired to wealth and
+prosperity. With the rise however of Naples, the
+fame of Puteoli began to grow dim, and its importance
+to decline, although throughout Imperial times it ranked
+after Ostia as the chief victualling port of Rome. And
+of the two celebrated cities which adorned the shores
+of this Bay in classical times, Puteoli was the seat of
+commerce, and Baiae the resort of pleasure and luxury;
+yet both were doomed to dwindle and almost perish in
+the disastrous years that followed the break-up of the
+Empire. The invading hordes of Germany, the raids
+of Saracen pirates, and the constant presence of
+malaria on this deserted coast were sufficient causes in
+themselves to reduce in the course of time the thriving
+port of Puteoli to the squalid town of to-day. From
+our lofty post we can easily distinguish the limits of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page308">[pg 308]</span><a name="Pg308" id="Pg308" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the city in the days of Tiberius and Caligula, for to
+the north we turn our faces towards the ruined bulk
+of the Amphitheatre, now lying amidst fields and
+gardens, but well within the town walls at the time
+when Nero entertained the Armenian king Tiridates
+and shocked his Asiatic guest by himself descending
+into the arena and deftly performing the usual disgusting
+feats of a professional gladiator. To westward
+lies the Bay of Baiae, a semi-circle of glittering water
+surrounded by low hills amidst which the Monte
+Nuovo, unknown to the ancients, stands conspicuous.
+How completely have all traces of splendour and
+extravagance disappeared from these shores! At
+fashionable Baiae across the Bay there is nothing visible
+save a few shapeless ruins over the identity of which
+scholars dispute; at busy Puteoli there survive to-day
+but the ruined Amphitheatre, the Temple of Serapis,
+and the arches of the famous Mole, to prove to
+wondering posterity how great were the wealth, the
+population and the magnificence of a spot which is
+closely associated with all the power and culture of
+the Roman Empire in its zenith.
+</p><a name="illus24" id="illus24" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+    
+  <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-figure" style="width: 100%; text-align: center"><img src="images/illus24th.jpg" width="288" height="400" alt="Illustration: ON THE BEACH" title="ON THE BEACH" /><div class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em"><a href="images/illus24.jpg" class="tei tei-xref" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 90%">ON THE BEACH</span></a></div></div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Of the various fragments of antiquity that are still
+standing in this district of the Phlegrean Fields, the
+Mole of Puteoli is undoubtedly the best preserved and
+the most interesting. So splendidly constructed is
+this relic of the past, that but for continuous shocks of
+earthquake the whole breakwater must have survived
+intact; as it is, more than half the Mole has withstood
+the wear and tear of centuries of wind and storm. It
+is built on the model of a Greek pier, a series of arches
+of massive masonry, acting at once as a barrier against
+the force of the invading waves and as a means of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page309">[pg 309]</span><a name="Pg309" id="Pg309" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>preventing the silting of the sand. Formed of brick,
+faced with stone, and cemented with the local volcanic
+sand, which is consequently known as <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">puzzolana</span></span>, this
+wonderful breakwater must originally have stretched
+out into the Bay a total length of twenty-five arches,
+its furthest extremity being crowned by a light-house.
+If we could only call up in imagination the Bay of
+Baiae in the days of the Empire, when its shores were
+fringed by sumptuous villas of famous or infamous
+Romans and its expanse was thickly covered with
+every variety of vessel of pleasure or merchandise,
+instead of the few fishing boats that now and again
+flit across its glassy surface, we might better be able
+to realise the extraordinary episode which is connected
+with this classical fragment in the little port of
+Pozzuoli below us. For it was from the Mole of
+Puteoli to the spit of land we see on the western
+shore opposite that the demented tyrant, Caius Caligula,
+constructed his historic bridge of boats across the
+Baiaean gulf. Every large vessel in the surrounding
+harbours had been pressed into the service of the
+Emperor for this gigantic piece of folly, so that the
+inhabitants of Rome were seriously inconvenienced by
+the detention of their corn ships, and loud in consequence
+were the complaints of the Roman populace,
+for whose anger, it is needless to state, the Emperor
+cared not a fig. <span class="tei tei-q">“History,”</span> says Gibbon, <span class="tei tei-q">“is but a
+record of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind;”</span>
+and this smiling Bay of Baiae will ever be
+memorable as the scene of what was perhaps the worst
+exhibition of tyrannical caprice that the world has yet
+witnessed.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Using a double line of vessels well yoked
+to<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page310">[pg 310]</span><a name="Pg310" id="Pg310" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>gether as a compact and solid base, the Emperor
+now gave orders for a military road of the usual
+Roman type to be constructed of planks of timber
+covered with earth and paved with hewn stones.
+When this stupendous work was completed, the usual
+station-houses were erected at various intervals, and
+fresh water was laid on by means of pipes connected
+with the Imperial cisterns at Misenum. Upon this
+broad road, laid across the Baiaean Gulf, the young
+Emperor now advanced on horseback, followed by his
+whole army clad in array of battle. Caligula on this
+occasion wore a historic coat of armour studded with
+rare gems that had once belonged to Alexander the
+Great; a jewelled sword was fastened to his thigh,
+and a crown of oak leaves bound his temples.
+Solemnly the Emperor and his army crossed the
+broad expanse of water on dry land and entered
+Puteoli with mock honours of war. After remaining
+a day in the port to refresh his victorious troops, the
+Emperor was driven back in a splendidly equipped
+chariot, which was surrounded by a number of
+pretended captives of rank, some noble Parthian
+hostages being utilised for the occasion. At the
+centre of the bridge the procession halted, and the
+crazy prince next indulged in an absurd bombastic
+harangue, wherein he congratulated his soldiers on
+their glorious campaign just concluded, and declared
+to them that the famous feats of Xerxes and Darius
+had at length been surpassed. Finally, he invited his
+troops to a magnificent banquet upon this bridge of
+boats, an entertainment which lasted till far into the
+night and was accompanied by lavish illuminations by
+land and sea. As might only have been expected,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page311">[pg 311]</span><a name="Pg311" id="Pg311" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the feast soon degenerated into a drunken orgy,
+wherein every guest from the Master of the Roman
+world to his meanest soldier became intoxicated,
+whilst many persons in their cups lost their balance
+and fell into the waters, so that the sounds of music and
+revelry throughout the midnight hours were mingled
+with groans and cries of drowning men close at hand.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Apart from its senseless extravagance and innate
+folly, the story of the bridging of the Baiaean Gulf, of
+this harnessing of old Ocean, affects us moderns with
+astonishment at the extraordinary thoroughness of all
+the ancient Roman feats of engineering; had this
+high road across the Bay been intended to serve any
+useful purpose, instead of merely to satisfy the passing
+whim of a selfish tyrant, we could have had no choice
+but to admire the marvellous speed of the artificers
+and the completeness of the scheme undertaken.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Quarter of a century later, and the Mole of Puteoli
+was destined to become the scene of another event in
+the world’s history, which has left a far more enduring
+impression on mankind than the so-called miracle of
+Caligula. In the early spring of the year 62 <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 90%">A.D.</span></span>
+there dropped anchor in the port a certain Alexandrian
+corn-ship, the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Castor </span><a name="corr311" id="corr311" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-corr"><span style="font-style: italic">and</span></span><span style="font-style: italic"> Pollux</span></span>, coming from Malta
+after touching at Syracuse and Rhegium (Reggio) on
+her way northward. Unnoticed amidst the vast
+phalanx of shipping that lined the Mole and filled the
+broad harbour of Puteoli, the vessel emptied her cargo
+on the quay, whilst there also disembarked from her
+hold a number of prisoners of no great social consequence,
+who were on their way to Rome under the
+guardianship of a kindly old centurion, named Julius,
+belonging to the cohort <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Prima Augusta Italica</span></span>.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page312">[pg 312]</span><a name="Pg312" id="Pg312" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>Amongst the persons under Julius’ charge was a Jew
+named Paul, who was accompanied by three of his
+friends, Timothy, Luke and Aristarchus of Thessalonica,
+and all four, thanks to the kindness of the centurion,
+who was evidently much attached to his exemplary
+captive, were permitted to remain at this spot for seven
+days. Paul himself was anxious to tarry at this spot,
+for of all the Italian ports Puteoli was most frequented
+by men of his own nation, so that the city possessed
+its little community of Christians, who naturally were
+eager to detain the Apostle. So hopelessly intermingled
+are truth, tradition and legend concerning the
+various places on Italian soil that St Paul is known to
+have visited, that we cannot be too grateful for the
+undoubted link with his journey to Rome that we
+possess in the existing Mole of Puteoli, whose surface
+has undoubtedly been trodden by the sandalled feet of
+the great Apostle of the West. Here Paul landed
+amid the haughty scenes of Roman pride and power;
+above him he saw the pagan Temple of Augustus, all
+gleaming with marble and gilded bronze that were
+mirrored in the calm waters of the port: along this
+famous causeway he passed, unmarked by the busy
+crowd, except perhaps to be mocked by some idler for
+his nationality or his halting speech. Guided by
+Christian compatriots, the Apostle with his three faithful
+friends was led through the noisy jostling concourse
+of all countries that thronged the great Roman city to
+the humble dwelling of his host. Where he lodged in
+that mighty city we know not, but we do know for a
+certain fact that he landed on the Mole, and that he
+passed along it to the shore; it is not much, perhaps,
+but that little is very precious.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page313">[pg 313]</span><a name="Pg313" id="Pg313" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+What a contrast do these two incidents connected
+with the Mole of Puteoli afford! The Roman
+Emperor, glittering like the morning star in purple
+mantle and jewelled cuirass, riding on his charger
+across the solid road that to humour his own caprice
+had been flung across the buoyant waters, accompanied
+by soldiery, by music, and by bands of wealthy sycophants;
+and the Apostle, poor, in bonds, a despised
+prisoner in an alien land, meekly threading his way
+through the crowds towards his mean lodging. Where
+is the proud Temple of Augustus that beheld these two
+strange scenes, that occurred with no great interval of
+time apart? Where are the villas and quays that
+lined the Bay of Baiae? The very ruins of the palaces
+and warehouses are swept away; the gorgeous temple
+is a Christian Cathedral dedicated to a follower of the
+despised Jewish captive; the name of Caligula lives
+but in human execration, whilst that of the Apostle is
+enshrined in the hearts of the whole Christian world.
+</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em">* * * * * *</p>
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is but a three-mile walk along the beach from
+Pozzuoli to Baiae, passing beside the Lucrine Lake and
+the southern slope of the Monte Nuovo, which always
+seems to us a far more wonderful freak of Nature than
+the Solfatara. Here we have a miniature mountain, a
+mile and a half round its base and nearly five hundred
+feet high, that was made in the course of a single night,
+and is to-day less than four hundred years old! The
+presence of this brand-new intruder on the shore of the
+Baiaean Gulf must ever remain a wholesome warning to
+all dwellers on these coasts, that their tenure of King
+Pluto’s dominions is very insecure. One morning
+towards the close of September 1538, after some days
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page314">[pg 314]</span><a name="Pg314" id="Pg314" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>of earthquake shocks, <span class="tei tei-q">“Pozzuoli awoke,”</span> says the
+flippant Alexandre Dumas, <span class="tei tei-q">“and on looking about
+did not recognise herself! She had left a lake the
+evening before, and lo! she found a mountain; where
+she had owned a forest, she found ashes; and last
+of all, where she had left a village, she perceived no
+trace!”</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+In one sense Dumas’ facetious description is correct:
+the New Mountain was born with extraordinary celerity,
+and woods, lake and village—familiar and beloved landmarks
+to the people of Baiae and Pozzuoli—disappeared
+at its birth. But the event was no peaceful act of
+Nature; on the contrary, it was accompanied by loud
+rumblings, by showers of red-hot stones, by clouds of
+smoke, by torrents of scalding water, and by the retreating
+of the sea, which left thousands of fish lying helpless
+on the exposed shore. The village of Tripergola, a
+summer pleasaunce of the Angevin kings of Naples,
+and many traces of ancient Roman villas and engineering
+works, all perished in this notable cataclysm.
+Four eye-witnesses have left us details of this strange
+scene of desolation, whilst only a few days after Mother
+Earth had brought forth this new mountain, one of
+them, the Spanish Viceroy of Naples, the valiant Don
+Pedro of Toledo, owned sufficient pluck and curiosity
+to make the ascent of the Monte Nuovo, still smoking
+hot and reeking of sulphur. Who can tell when this
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">parvenu</span></span> volcano may spout forth fire and ashes? Would
+any sane person have the courage ever to settle within
+range of a possible eruption? No, the Phlegrean fields
+are interesting to visit, but he must require a strong
+nerve who would fain dwell beneath the shadow of this
+dormant crater.
+</p>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page315">[pg 315]</span><a name="Pg315" id="Pg315" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+It is a very short walk from the base of the Monte
+Nuovo to the <span class="tei tei-q">“golden shores”</span> of Imperial Baiae, which
+is certainly not an imposing place in these days.
+What with the destroying hand of time and the still
+more obliterating action of the neighbouring volcano,
+there is little left for the fancy to build upon; certainly
+the three ruined shells that are called temples by
+courtesy, but served probably a much humbler purpose
+than that of worship, are not particularly striking. It
+requires not only a good classical knowledge, but also
+no small amount of imagination to picture the Baiae of
+the Roman poets.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-q">“If Pozzuoli has gone down in the world, still more
+so Baiae. It does not require any more sinking; it is
+low enough as it is, so low that some of its ancient villas
+and palaces can only be visited in a diving-bell. So
+dreary and deserted is the site, that at first glance the
+visitor feels mightily inclined to question the veracity
+of the historian, and to doubt whether Baiae—Baiae
+the gay, the fashionable, the dissolute, the beloved of
+emperors, statesmen and poets—ever existed. But
+when he is shown the enormous sub-structures lying
+under water, and the masses of solid masonry wherewith
+the surrounding hills are over-spread, incredulity gives
+place to amazement. What towns of lath and plaster
+are Brighton, Newport and Trouville, when compared
+with this <span class="tei tei-q">‘Rome by the sea,’</span> where the materials used
+for the foundations of a single villa would more than
+suffice for the construction of a dozen <span class="tei tei-q">‘genteel marine
+residences’</span> of the modern style! What would a
+Roman architect think of the card-board streets and
+squares, and the stucco crescents and terraces, of an
+English watering-place? of those <span class="tei tei-q">‘eligible family
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page316">[pg 316]</span><a name="Pg316" id="Pg316" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>mansions’</span> wherein dancing is dangerous, and to venture
+on whose balconies is perilous in the extreme? Echo
+answers: <span class="tei tei-q">‘What!’</span> ”</span><a id="noteref_13" name="noteref_13" href="#note_13"><span class="tei tei-noteref"><span style="font-size: 60%; vertical-align: super">13</span></span></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Here on this desolate strip of sea-shore, now
+dominated by the Spanish viceroy’s frowning fortress
+on the hill above, the great and opulent of ancient
+Rome founded a city composed wholly of palaces.
+Here were no noisy market-places to annoy aristocratic
+nerves; no slums to afflict plutocratic nostrils;
+no families of the proletariat to disturb the refined
+senses of the jaded pleasure-seekers who retired hither
+in the winter months. A writer, from whom we have
+just quoted, makes comparison between Baiae and
+Brighton or Trouville; but in reality the fashionable
+American resort of Newport has more in common
+with the old classical watering-place than any modern
+European sea-side resort. The hot sulphur baths on
+the Lucrine shore formed of course only a shallow
+excuse for the annual migration of Roman fashionables
+to Baiae, where blue-blooded senators and
+pushing plutocrats indulged in fierce social struggles
+for individual pre-eminence. Yet certain of the
+natural warm springs had been enclosed in splendid
+buildings, and were used by the luxurious citizens, so
+that even to-day the Thermae of Nero (Stufe di
+Nerone) are pointed out by the local guides. <span class="tei tei-q">“Quid
+Nerone pejus? Quid thermis melius Neronianis?”</span>
+(what is worse than Nero? yet what more beneficent
+than his baths?) asks the poet Martial, whose name
+will ever be bound up with the tales of luxury and
+vice that are associated with this spot. Baiae in
+winter, Tibur (Tivoli) in summer, the two names stand
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page317">[pg 317]</span><a name="Pg317" id="Pg317" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>for the beau-ideal of a Roman existence, the cynosure
+of every wealthy citizen.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+But let us ascend out of the close and enervating air
+of low-lying Baiae to the breezy heights of Misenum,
+which has immortalised the name of the Trojan
+trumpeter whose end was mourned by the tears of
+pious Aeneas himself. In gaining its summit and in
+gazing upon the landscape spread around us, we have
+penetrated, so it seems, into the very heart of Italy:
+not the Italy of Roman history, but the land of
+Ausonia itself, the fabled shore that the Trojan hero
+sailed at his goddess-mother’s bidding to discover,
+when all the world was young and the high dwellers
+of Olympus still condescended to take a personal
+interest in the affairs of favourite mortals. Surely
+the vine-clad terraces of Lake Avernus, the pools of
+the Lucrine and the Mare Morto, the verdure-clad
+hillocks lying beneath us must conceal the true secret
+of the antique Tyrrhenian country, in whose history
+the rise and fall of Roman power afford but one
+amongst many epochs. Looking to northward,
+beyond the little landing-stage of Torregaveta, we
+behold the heights of Cumae, that was a flourishing
+city with harbour and citadel hundreds of years before
+a certain Romulus built a wall of mud near the banks
+of Tiber and slew his brother Remus for leaping over
+his handiwork. The founding of Rome is enveloped
+in impenetrable clouds of legend; the building of
+Cumae is a fact:—here then we obtain a key to
+Italian history. Rome, whose origin is lost in mists
+of obscurity, is a flourishing modern capital; Cumae
+is but a shapeless mass of crumbling ruins, overgrown
+with ivy and cytizus, and inhabited by lizards and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page318">[pg 318]</span><a name="Pg318" id="Pg318" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>serpents. But both cities, dead Cumae and living
+Rome, present but passing events in the long slow
+progress of the centuries, which have witnessed successive
+phases of civilisation and destruction in this
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Woman-country, wooed, not won,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Loved all the more by Earth’s male lands,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 2.70em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Laid to their hearts instead.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+Is the Genius of Italy, the Sibyl of Cumae, still
+living, we wonder, in some dim recess, some secret
+cavern of Cimmerian gloom, beneath those decaying
+heaps of the ancient Greek city? She was old, very
+old, we know, when pious Aeneas found her shrieking
+her strange prophecies, and that was long ages before
+Hellenic wanderers raised a fortress upon the wooded
+heights above the dread lake of Avernus.—Venerable
+Mother of Italy! dost thou still survive muttering thy
+strange warnings in some sunless labyrinth, that the
+rapacious guides of Baiae have yet failed to penetrate?
+Art thou, like King Arthur of romantic Wales, still
+keeping watch over the destiny of thy country, ever
+ready to assist in the hour of need?
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Thy cave was stored with scrolls of strange device,</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 2.70em"><span style="font-size: 90%">The work of some Saturnian Archimage,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Which taught the expiations at whose price</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 2.70em"><span style="font-size: 90%">Men from the gods might win that happy age</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice;</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left; margin-left: 2.70em"><span style="font-size: 90%">And which might quench the earth-consuming rage</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Of gold and blood—till men should live and move</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Harmonious as the sacred stars above.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+For Italy has not wholly forgotten her ancient
+guardian and soothsayer, who welcomed the founder of
+the victorious Roman race; nor did the artists of the
+revived glories of the Renaissance neglect to honour
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page319">[pg 319]</span><a name="Pg319" id="Pg319" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>the mysterious priestess of the Cimmerian shore.
+With prophetic mien the Sibyl of Cumae, that
+Michelangelo depicted, watches ever the come-and-go
+of humanity from her lofty post within Pope
+Sixtus’ Chapel, bidding all remember her ancient
+prophecy of the Judgment Day, which the Roman
+Church has included in one of its most solemn
+canticles:
+</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-left: 1.80em; margin-top: 0.90em">
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Dies Irae! Dies illa!</span></span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Solvet saeclum in favilla,</span></div>
+<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Teste David cum Sibylla.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
+</div>
+
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page320">[pg 320]</span><a name="Pg320" id="Pg320" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+</div></div>
+        <div class="tei tei-back" style="margin-bottom: 2.00em; margin-top: 6.00em"><hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page321">[pg 321]</span><a name="Pg321" id="Pg321" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc33" id="toc33"></a><a name="pdf34" id="pdf34"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">INDEX</span></h1>
+
+<table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Abbondanza, Via dell’, <a href="#Pg051" class="tei tei-ref">51</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Abruzzi Mountains, <a href="#Pg036" class="tei tei-ref">36</a>, <a href="#Pg122" class="tei tei-ref">122</a>, <a href="#Pg222" class="tei tei-ref">222</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Acre, <a href="#Pg270" class="tei tei-ref">270</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Adrian IV., Pope, <a href="#Pg156" class="tei tei-ref">156</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Agerola, <a href="#Pg123" class="tei tei-ref">123</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Agropoli, <a href="#Pg209" class="tei tei-ref">209</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Alberada, <a href="#Pg181" class="tei tei-ref">181</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Albergo Cappuccini, <a href="#Pg128" class="tei tei-ref">128</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Alcubier, <a href="#Pg011" class="tei tei-ref">11</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Aleppo, <a href="#Pg121" class="tei tei-ref">121</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Alexander of Epirus, <a href="#Pg206" class="tei tei-ref">206</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Alexandria, <a href="#Pg121" class="tei tei-ref">121</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Alexius, Emperor, <a href="#Pg179" class="tei tei-ref">179</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, <a href="#Pg242" class="tei tei-ref">242</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Algiers, <a href="#Pg056" class="tei tei-ref">56</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Alphonso V. of Naples, <a href="#Pg277" class="tei tei-ref">277</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Amalfi, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg036" class="tei tei-ref">36</a>, <a href="#Pg100" class="tei tei-ref">100</a>, <a href="#Pg106" class="tei tei-ref">106</a>, <a href="#Pg112" class="tei tei-ref">112</a>, <a href="#Pg126" class="tei tei-ref">126</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ana-Capri, <a href="#Pg249" class="tei tei-ref">249</a>, <a href="#Pg259" class="tei tei-ref">259</a>, <a href="#Pg271" class="tei tei-ref">271</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Angelo, Monte S., <a href="#Pg028" class="tei tei-ref">28</a>, <a href="#Pg030" class="tei tei-ref">30</a>, <a href="#Pg063" class="tei tei-ref">63</a>, <a href="#Pg076" class="tei tei-ref">76</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Annunziata, Torre, <a href="#Pg019" class="tei tei-ref">19</a>, <a href="#Pg092" class="tei tei-ref">92</a>, <a href="#Pg094" class="tei tei-ref">94</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Aosta, Duke and Duchess of, <a href="#Pg093" class="tei tei-ref">93</a>, <a href="#Pg094" class="tei tei-ref">94</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Appian Way, <a href="#Pg062" class="tei tei-ref">62</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Apulia, <a href="#Pg181" class="tei tei-ref">181</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">—— William of, <a href="#Pg135" class="tei tei-ref">135</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Arabia, <a href="#Pg134" class="tei tei-ref">134</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Arco, <a href="#Pg106" class="tei tei-ref">106</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Arguth, Joseph, <a href="#Pg292" class="tei tei-ref">292</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ariosto, Ludovico, <a href="#Pg239" class="tei tei-ref">239</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Aristarchus, <a href="#Pg312" class="tei tei-ref">312</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Arno, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Arnold of Brescia, <a href="#Pg156" class="tei tei-ref">156</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Arriengo, <a href="#Pg123" class="tei tei-ref">123</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Arthur, King, <a href="#Pg318" class="tei tei-ref">318</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Athens, <a href="#Pg028" class="tei tei-ref">28</a>, <a href="#Pg039" class="tei tei-ref">39</a>, <a href="#Pg058" class="tei tei-ref">58</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Atrani, <a href="#Pg152" class="tei tei-ref">152</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Atrio del Cavallo, <a href="#Pg077" class="tei tei-ref">77</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Augustus, Emperor, <a href="#Pg059" class="tei tei-ref">59</a>, <a href="#Pg069" class="tei tei-ref">69</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">—— Temple of, <a href="#Pg313" class="tei tei-ref">313</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Aulus Vettius, Corvina, <a href="#Pg055" class="tei tei-ref">55</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">—— —— Restitutus, <a href="#Pg040" class="tei tei-ref">40</a>, <a href="#Pg055" class="tei tei-ref">55</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ausonius, <a href="#Pg208" class="tei tei-ref">208</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Avicenna, <a href="#Pg177" class="tei tei-ref">177</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Avvocata, Madonna dell’, <a href="#Pg166" class="tei tei-ref">166</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Baghdad, <a href="#Pg121" class="tei tei-ref">121</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Bagnoli, <a href="#Pg296" class="tei tei-ref">296</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-corr">Baiae</span>, <a href="#Pg253" class="tei tei-ref">253</a>, <a href="#Pg307" class="tei tei-ref">307</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Bajalardo, Pietro, <a href="#Pg117" class="tei tei-ref">117</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Barbary, <a href="#Pg209" class="tei tei-ref">209</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Barisanus of Trani, <a href="#Pg159" class="tei tei-ref">159</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Barra, La, <a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref">8</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Battipaglia, <a href="#Pg198" class="tei tei-ref">198</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Bembo, Cardinal, <a href="#Pg282" class="tei tei-ref">282</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Benevento, <a href="#Pg111" class="tei tei-ref">111</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Bergamo, <a href="#Pg240" class="tei tei-ref">240</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Berkeley, Bishop, <a href="#Pg293" class="tei tei-ref">293</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Bismarck, <a href="#Pg186" class="tei tei-ref">186</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Boccaccio, <a href="#Pg137" class="tei tei-ref">137</a>, <a href="#Pg157" class="tei tei-ref">157</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Bohemond, <a href="#Pg179" class="tei tei-ref">179</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Bomba, King, <a href="#Pg006" class="tei tei-ref">6</a>, <a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref">8</a>, <a href="#Pg016" class="tei tei-ref">16</a>, <a href="#Pg109" class="tei tei-ref">109</a>, <a href="#Pg284" class="tei tei-ref">284</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Bosco-Trecase, <a href="#Pg092" class="tei tei-ref">92</a>, <a href="#Pg097" class="tei tei-ref">97</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Bowdler, Mr, <a href="#Pg081" class="tei tei-ref">81</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Braccini, Abate, <a href="#Pg077" class="tei tei-ref">77</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Breakspear, Nicholas, <a href="#Pg156" class="tei tei-ref">156</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Browning, R., <a href="#Pg033" class="tei tei-ref">33</a>, <a href="#Pg036" class="tei tei-ref">36</a>, <a href="#Pg183" class="tei tei-ref">183</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Brunetto Latini, <a href="#Pg121" class="tei tei-ref">121</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Butomilea, Landolfo, <a href="#Pg182" class="tei tei-ref">182</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Byzantium, <a href="#Pg118" class="tei tei-ref">118</a>, <a href="#Pg142" class="tei tei-ref">142</a></td></tr></tbody></table><a name="Pg322" id="Pg322" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-corr">Caecilius</span> Jucundus, <a href="#Pg040" class="tei tei-ref">40</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Cairo, <a href="#Pg121" class="tei tei-ref">121</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Caligula, Emperor, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg308" class="tei tei-ref">308</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Camaldoli, <a href="#Pg018" class="tei tei-ref">18</a>, <a href="#Pg270" class="tei tei-ref">270</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Campagna Felice, <a href="#Pg066" class="tei tei-ref">66</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Campanella, Punta della, <a href="#Pg112" class="tei tei-ref">112</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Canneto, <a href="#Pg132" class="tei tei-ref">132</a>, <a href="#Pg140" class="tei tei-ref">140</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Canossa, <a href="#Pg180" class="tei tei-ref">180</a>, <a href="#Pg186" class="tei tei-ref">186</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Capaccio, <a href="#Pg209" class="tei tei-ref">209</a>, <a href="#Pg262" class="tei tei-ref">262</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Capodimonte, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Capri, <a href="#Pg004" class="tei tei-ref">4</a>, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg013" class="tei tei-ref">13</a>, <a href="#Pg045" class="tei tei-ref">45</a>, <a href="#Pg063" class="tei tei-ref">63</a>, <a href="#Pg074" class="tei tei-ref">74</a>, <a href="#Pg090" class="tei tei-ref">90</a>, <a href="#Pg112" class="tei tei-ref">112</a>, <a href="#Pg249" class="tei tei-ref">249</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Capua, <a href="#Pg066" class="tei tei-ref">66</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Capuano, Cardinal Pietro, <a href="#Pg126" class="tei tei-ref">126</a>, <a href="#Pg143" class="tei tei-ref">143</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Caracciolo, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-corr">Cardeñas</span>, Bishop, <a href="#Pg305" class="tei tei-ref">305</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Cariteo, <a href="#Pg277" class="tei tei-ref">277</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“Carlo il Zoppo,”</span> <a href="#Pg102" class="tei tei-ref">102</a>, <a href="#Pg103" class="tei tei-ref">103</a>, <a href="#Pg121" class="tei tei-ref">121</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Carmine, Church of the, <a href="#Pg105" class="tei tei-ref">105</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Casamicciola, <a href="#Pg284" class="tei tei-ref">284</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Casa Nuova, <a href="#Pg053" class="tei tei-ref">53</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Castellamare, <a href="#Pg018" class="tei tei-ref">18</a>, <a href="#Pg025" class="tei tei-ref">25</a>, <a href="#Pg026" class="tei tei-ref">26</a>, <a href="#Pg100" class="tei tei-ref">100</a>, <a href="#Pg113" class="tei tei-ref">113</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Castor and Pollux, The</span></span>, <a href="#Pg311" class="tei tei-ref">311</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Cathay, <a href="#Pg121" class="tei tei-ref">121</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Cava, La, <a href="#Pg113" class="tei tei-ref">113</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Celestine V., Pope, <a href="#Pg292" class="tei tei-ref">292</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Cellini, Benvenuto, <a href="#Pg027" class="tei tei-ref">27</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Cephalonia, <a href="#Pg180" class="tei tei-ref">180</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Cerrato, Monte, <a href="#Pg168" class="tei tei-ref">168</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Cetara, <a href="#Pg134" class="tei tei-ref">134</a>, <a href="#Pg170" class="tei tei-ref">170</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Chalcidicum, <a href="#Pg049" class="tei tei-ref">49</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Charles III. of Naples, <a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref">8</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">—— VIII. of France, <a href="#Pg307" class="tei tei-ref">307</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">—— of Anjou, <a href="#Pg102" class="tei tei-ref">102</a>, <a href="#Pg156" class="tei tei-ref">156</a>, <a href="#Pg167" class="tei tei-ref">167</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Chiabrera, <a href="#Pg089" class="tei tei-ref">89</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Chiaja, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Chiosse, Monte di, <a href="#Pg119" class="tei tei-ref">119</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Cicero, <a href="#Pg040" class="tei tei-ref">40</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Clement VIII., Pope, <a href="#Pg167" class="tei tei-ref">167</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Clementia, Princess, <a href="#Pg102" class="tei tei-ref">102</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Clodius Glabrus, <a href="#Pg070" class="tei tei-ref">70</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Cluny, <a href="#Pg184" class="tei tei-ref">184</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Colonna, Giuliano, <a href="#Pg104" class="tei tei-ref">104</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">—— Vittoria, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg277" class="tei tei-ref">277</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Conca, Capo di, <a href="#Pg125" class="tei tei-ref">125</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Concordia Augusta, <a href="#Pg051" class="tei tei-ref">51</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Conradin, <a href="#Pg156" class="tei tei-ref">156</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Constantinople, <a href="#Pg080" class="tei tei-ref">80</a>, <a href="#Pg134" class="tei tei-ref">134</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Coppola, Monte, <a href="#Pg028" class="tei tei-ref">28</a>, <a href="#Pg167" class="tei tei-ref">167</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Corniche Road, <a href="#Pg100" class="tei tei-ref">100</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Costantinopoli, Strada, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Crassus, <a href="#Pg070" class="tei tei-ref">70</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-corr">Cumae</span>, <a href="#Pg004" class="tei tei-ref">4</a>, <a href="#Pg317" class="tei tei-ref">317</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Damecuta, <a href="#Pg261" class="tei tei-ref">261</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Dante, <a href="#Pg120" class="tei tei-ref">120</a>, <a href="#Pg121" class="tei tei-ref">121</a>, <a href="#Pg239" class="tei tei-ref">239</a>, <a href="#Pg278" class="tei tei-ref">278</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Devonshire, <a href="#Pg107" class="tei tei-ref">107</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Domenichino, <a href="#Pg161" class="tei tei-ref">161</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Domitiana, Via, <a href="#Pg062" class="tei tei-ref">62</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Dragone, <a href="#Pg152" class="tei tei-ref">152</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Dumas, A., <a href="#Pg009" class="tei tei-ref">9</a>, <a href="#Pg314" class="tei tei-ref">314</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Durazzo, <a href="#Pg178" class="tei tei-ref">178</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Eboli, <a href="#Pg198" class="tei tei-ref">198</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Elbœuf, Prince d’, <a href="#Pg011" class="tei tei-ref">11</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Epidius Rufus, <a href="#Pg040" class="tei tei-ref">40</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Epirus, <a href="#Pg178" class="tei tei-ref">178</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Etna, <a href="#Pg077" class="tei tei-ref">77</a>, <a href="#Pg291" class="tei tei-ref">291</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Eumachia, <a href="#Pg040" class="tei tei-ref">40</a>, <a href="#Pg049" class="tei tei-ref">49</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Exeter, <a href="#Pg040" class="tei tei-ref">40</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Faito, Monte, <a href="#Pg037" class="tei tei-ref">37</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Falerio, Monte, <a href="#Pg170" class="tei tei-ref">170</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Faliero, Marino, <a href="#Pg103" class="tei tei-ref">103</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Farnese, Elizabeth, <a href="#Pg027" class="tei tei-ref">27</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">—— Pier-Luigi, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg027" class="tei tei-ref">27</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ferdinand, King, <a href="#Pg027" class="tei tei-ref">27</a>, <a href="#Pg270" class="tei tei-ref">270</a>, <a href="#Pg277" class="tei tei-ref">277</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ferrara, <a href="#Pg240" class="tei tei-ref">240</a>, <a href="#Pg248" class="tei tei-ref">248</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Filangieri, <a href="#Pg103" class="tei tei-ref">103</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Fiorelli, Signor, <a href="#Pg053" class="tei tei-ref">53</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Florence, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a>, <a href="#Pg112" class="tei tei-ref">112</a>, <a href="#Pg132" class="tei tei-ref">132</a>, <a href="#Pg148" class="tei tei-ref">148</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Florus, <a href="#Pg070" class="tei tei-ref">70</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Forio, <a href="#Pg289" class="tei tei-ref">289</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Forsyth, J., <a href="#Pg181" class="tei tei-ref">181</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Francis, King, <a href="#Pg109" class="tei tei-ref">109</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Frederick II., Emperor, <a href="#Pg027" class="tei tei-ref">27</a>, <a href="#Pg210" class="tei tei-ref">210</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Fuga, <a href="#Pg159" class="tei tei-ref">159</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Fuorigrotta, <a href="#Pg295" class="tei tei-ref">295</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Furore, <a href="#Pg123" class="tei tei-ref">123</a></td></tr></tbody></table><a name="Pg323" id="Pg323" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Gaeta, <a href="#Pg016" class="tei tei-ref">16</a>, <a href="#Pg036" class="tei tei-ref">36</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">—— Bay of, <a href="#Pg004" class="tei tei-ref">4</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Galen, <a href="#Pg106" class="tei tei-ref">106</a>, <a href="#Pg177" class="tei tei-ref">177</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Garibaldi, <a href="#Pg006" class="tei tei-ref">6</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Gaurus, Mons, <a href="#Pg057" class="tei tei-ref">57</a>, <a href="#Pg076" class="tei tei-ref">76</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Gavinius, <a href="#Pg208" class="tei tei-ref">208</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Gazola, Count, <a href="#Pg211" class="tei tei-ref">211</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Gell, Sir William, <a href="#Pg044" class="tei tei-ref">44</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Genoa, <a href="#Pg157" class="tei tei-ref">157</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Gibbon, Edward, <a href="#Pg175" class="tei tei-ref">175</a>, <a href="#Pg309" class="tei tei-ref">309</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Gioja, Flavio, <a href="#Pg119" class="tei tei-ref">119</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Glaucus, <a href="#Pg261" class="tei tei-ref">261</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Goethe, <a href="#Pg013" class="tei tei-ref">13</a>, <a href="#Pg212" class="tei tei-ref">212</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Gragnano, <a href="#Pg020" class="tei tei-ref">20</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Greco, Torre del, <a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref">8</a>, <a href="#Pg013" class="tei tei-ref">13</a>, <a href="#Pg018" class="tei tei-ref">18</a>, <a href="#Pg077" class="tei tei-ref">77</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Gregory VII., Pope, <a href="#Pg178" class="tei tei-ref">178</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Grotta Azzurra, <a href="#Pg259" class="tei tei-ref">259</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Grotta Verde, <a href="#Pg262" class="tei tei-ref">262</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Guallo, <a href="#Pg116" class="tei tei-ref">116</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Guiscard, Robert, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg136" class="tei tei-ref">136</a>, <a href="#Pg155" class="tei tei-ref">155</a>, <a href="#Pg174" class="tei tei-ref">174</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Gurgitello, <a href="#Pg285" class="tei tei-ref">285</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Hale, Sir Matthew, <a href="#Pg110" class="tei tei-ref">110</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Hamill, Major, <a href="#Pg271" class="tei tei-ref">271</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Hamilton, Sir William, <a href="#Pg080" class="tei tei-ref">80</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Hare, Augustus, <a href="#Pg007" class="tei tei-ref">7</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Hart, Emma, <a href="#Pg080" class="tei tei-ref">80</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Hauteville, House of, <a href="#Pg174" class="tei tei-ref">174</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Helbig, <a href="#Pg044" class="tei tei-ref">44</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Hélène, Princess, <a href="#Pg094" class="tei tei-ref">94</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Henry IV., Emperor, <a href="#Pg180" class="tei tei-ref">180</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Herculaneum, <a href="#Pg001" class="tei tei-ref">1</a>, <a href="#Pg009" class="tei tei-ref">9</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">—— Gate of, <a href="#Pg062" class="tei tei-ref">62</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Hermolaus, <a href="#Pg162" class="tei tei-ref">162</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Hildebrand, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg180" class="tei tei-ref">180</a>, <a href="#Pg182" class="tei tei-ref">182</a>, <a href="#Pg184" class="tei tei-ref">184</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Hippocrates, <a href="#Pg177" class="tei tei-ref">177</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-corr">Hohenstaufen</span>, <a href="#Pg163" class="tei tei-ref">163</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Homer, <a href="#Pg114" class="tei tei-ref">114</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">House of the Surgeon, <a href="#Pg043" class="tei tei-ref">43</a>, <a href="#Pg056" class="tei tei-ref">56</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">—— Vettii, <a href="#Pg053" class="tei tei-ref">53</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Innocent IV., Pope, <a href="#Pg152" class="tei tei-ref">152</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ischia, <a href="#Pg004" class="tei tei-ref">4</a>, <a href="#Pg013" class="tei tei-ref">13</a>, <a href="#Pg078" class="tei tei-ref">78</a>, <a href="#Pg241" class="tei tei-ref">241</a>, <a href="#Pg252" class="tei tei-ref">252</a>, <a href="#Pg275" class="tei tei-ref">275</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Joanna II., Queen, <a href="#Pg144" class="tei tei-ref">144</a>, <a href="#Pg299" class="tei tei-ref">299</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">John XVI., Pope, <a href="#Pg167" class="tei tei-ref">167</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">John of Procida, <a href="#Pg184" class="tei tei-ref">184</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Julius the Centurion, <a href="#Pg311" class="tei tei-ref">311</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Jupiter, Temple of, <a href="#Pg052" class="tei tei-ref">52</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Justinian, Emperor, <a href="#Pg135" class="tei tei-ref">135</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Keats, John, <a href="#Pg229" class="tei tei-ref">229</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">La Barra, <a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref">8</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">La Cava, <a href="#Pg172" class="tei tei-ref">172</a>, <a href="#Pg198" class="tei tei-ref">198</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">La Scala, <a href="#Pg166" class="tei tei-ref">166</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Lacaita, Mr, <a href="#Pg262" class="tei tei-ref">262</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Lacco, <a href="#Pg288" class="tei tei-ref">288</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Lactarian Hills, <a href="#Pg101" class="tei tei-ref">101</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ladislaus II., King, <a href="#Pg299" class="tei tei-ref">299</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Lamarque, Gen., <a href="#Pg271" class="tei tei-ref">271</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Lauretta, <a href="#Pg157" class="tei tei-ref">157</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Lavoro, Terra di, <a href="#Pg018" class="tei tei-ref">18</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Lenormant, F., <a href="#Pg214" class="tei tei-ref">214</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Leo XIII., Pope, <a href="#Pg288" class="tei tei-ref">288</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Leonora d’Este, <a href="#Pg243" class="tei tei-ref">243</a>, <a href="#Pg248" class="tei tei-ref">248</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Leopardi, Giacomo, <a href="#Pg295" class="tei tei-ref">295</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Lepanto, <a href="#Pg246" class="tei tei-ref">246</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Libella, <a href="#Pg064" class="tei tei-ref">64</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Livia, <a href="#Pg050" class="tei tei-ref">50</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Livy, <a href="#Pg073" class="tei tei-ref">73</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Lowe, Sir Hudson, <a href="#Pg271" class="tei tei-ref">271</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Lubrense, Massa, <a href="#Pg122" class="tei tei-ref">122</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Lucrine Lake, <a href="#Pg313" class="tei tei-ref">313</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ludius, <a href="#Pg059" class="tei tei-ref">59</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Luke, <a href="#Pg312" class="tei tei-ref">312</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Maddalena, Ponte della, <a href="#Pg084" class="tei tei-ref">84</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Majori, <a href="#Pg166" class="tei tei-ref">166</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Malta, <a href="#Pg311" class="tei tei-ref">311</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Mammia, <a href="#Pg064" class="tei tei-ref">64</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Manches, Colonel, <a href="#Pg273" class="tei tei-ref">273</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Manfred, King, <a href="#Pg087" class="tei tei-ref">87</a>, <a href="#Pg152" class="tei tei-ref">152</a>, <a href="#Pg184" class="tei tei-ref">184</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Manso, <a href="#Pg243" class="tei tei-ref">243</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Mansone II., Doge, <a href="#Pg118" class="tei tei-ref">118</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Macellum, <a href="#Pg052" class="tei tei-ref">52</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Marcellus II., Pope, <a href="#Pg280" class="tei tei-ref">280</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Margaret of Durazzo, <a href="#Pg189" class="tei tei-ref">189</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Marina, Porta, <a href="#Pg039" class="tei tei-ref">39</a>, <a href="#Pg045" class="tei tei-ref">45</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Martin V., Pope, <a href="#Pg277" class="tei tei-ref">277</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-corr">Matteucci</span>, Professor, <a href="#Pg094" class="tei tei-ref">94</a>, <a href="#Pg097" class="tei tei-ref">97</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Matilda, Countess, <a href="#Pg185" class="tei tei-ref">185</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Mau, <a href="#Pg044" class="tei tei-ref">44</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Maurice, <a href="#Pg142" class="tei tei-ref">142</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Maximian, Emperor, <a href="#Pg162" class="tei tei-ref">162</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Melfi, <a href="#Pg133" class="tei tei-ref">133</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Mercato, Il, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a>, <a href="#Pg096" class="tei tei-ref">96</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Mercury, Temple of, <a href="#Pg052" class="tei tei-ref">52</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Mergellina, <a href="#Pg096" class="tei tei-ref">96</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Messina, <a href="#Pg091" class="tei tei-ref">91</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Meta, <a href="#Pg106" class="tei tei-ref">106</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Metastasio, <a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref">8</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Michelangelo, <a href="#Pg283" class="tei tei-ref">283</a>, <a href="#Pg319" class="tei tei-ref">319</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Milan, <a href="#Pg278" class="tei tei-ref">278</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Minerva, Cape of, <a href="#Pg112" class="tei tei-ref">112</a>, <a href="#Pg117" class="tei tei-ref">117</a>, <a href="#Pg153" class="tei tei-ref">153</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Minori, <a href="#Pg166" class="tei tei-ref">166</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Misenum, <a href="#Pg071" class="tei tei-ref">71</a>, <a href="#Pg074" class="tei tei-ref">74</a>, <a href="#Pg249" class="tei tei-ref">249</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Mole of Puteoli, <a href="#Pg308" class="tei tei-ref">308</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Monreale, <a href="#Pg159" class="tei tei-ref">159</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Mont’ Epomeo, <a href="#Pg290" class="tei tei-ref">290</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Montapertuso, <a href="#Pg119" class="tei tei-ref">119</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Monte Nuovo, <a href="#Pg313" class="tei tei-ref">313</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Montorio, S. Pietro in, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Montpensier, Duke of, <a href="#Pg307" class="tei tei-ref">307</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Murat, Joachim, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref">8</a>, <a href="#Pg270" class="tei tei-ref">270</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Muscettola, Sergio, <a href="#Pg159" class="tei tei-ref">159</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Museo Nazionale, <a href="#Pg001" class="tei tei-ref">1</a></td></tr></tbody></table>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page324">[pg 324]</span><a name="Pg324" id="Pg324" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Naccarino, <a href="#Pg145" class="tei tei-ref">145</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Napoleon, <a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref">8</a>, <a href="#Pg270" class="tei tei-ref">270</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Natale, Michele, <a href="#Pg103" class="tei tei-ref">103</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Nelson, <a href="#Pg104" class="tei tei-ref">104</a>, <a href="#Pg269" class="tei tei-ref">269</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Neptune, Temple of, <a href="#Pg212" class="tei tei-ref">212</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Nero, Emperor, <a href="#Pg308" class="tei tei-ref">308</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Nicholas II., Pope, <a href="#Pg176" class="tei tei-ref">176</a>, <a href="#Pg185" class="tei tei-ref">185</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Nicomedia, <a href="#Pg162" class="tei tei-ref">162</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Nisida, <a href="#Pg297" class="tei tei-ref">297</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Nola, <a href="#Pg041" class="tei tei-ref">41</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Nuceria, <a href="#Pg041" class="tei tei-ref">41</a>, <a href="#Pg173" class="tei tei-ref">173</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ochino, Bernardino, <a href="#Pg280" class="tei tei-ref">280</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Oliveto, Monte, <a href="#Pg096" class="tei tei-ref">96</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Orico, <a href="#Pg271" class="tei tei-ref">271</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Orlando, Capo d’, <a href="#Pg102" class="tei tei-ref">102</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Oscan inhabitants, <a href="#Pg041" class="tei tei-ref">41</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Otranto, <a href="#Pg178" class="tei tei-ref">178</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ottajano, <a href="#Pg094" class="tei tei-ref">94</a>, <a href="#Pg098" class="tei tei-ref">98</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Overbeck, <a href="#Pg044" class="tei tei-ref">44</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ovid, <a href="#Pg106" class="tei tei-ref">106</a>, <a href="#Pg261" class="tei tei-ref">261</a>, <a href="#Pg291" class="tei tei-ref">291</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Oxford, <a href="#Pg156" class="tei tei-ref">156</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-corr">Paestum</span>, <a href="#Pg041" class="tei tei-ref">41</a>, <a href="#Pg057" class="tei tei-ref">57</a>, <a href="#Pg143" class="tei tei-ref">143</a>, <a href="#Pg173" class="tei tei-ref">173</a>, <a href="#Pg182" class="tei tei-ref">182</a>, <a href="#Pg198" class="tei tei-ref">198</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Palermo, <a href="#Pg091" class="tei tei-ref">91</a>, <a href="#Pg159" class="tei tei-ref">159</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Palumbo, <a href="#Pg155" class="tei tei-ref">155</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pansa, the Ædile, <a href="#Pg040" class="tei tei-ref">40</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pantaleone, <a href="#Pg142" class="tei tei-ref">142</a>, <a href="#Pg148" class="tei tei-ref">148</a>, <a href="#Pg161" class="tei tei-ref">161</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Paolo Giovio, <a href="#Pg278" class="tei tei-ref">278</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Paris, Comte de, <a href="#Pg094" class="tei tei-ref">94</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Parthenope, <a href="#Pg249" class="tei tei-ref">249</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Paul III., Pope, <a href="#Pg027" class="tei tei-ref">27</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pavia, <a href="#Pg279" class="tei tei-ref">279</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pedimentina, La, <a href="#Pg077" class="tei tei-ref">77</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pericles, <a href="#Pg040" class="tei tei-ref">40</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pescara, Marquis of, <a href="#Pg278" class="tei tei-ref">278</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Petrarch, <a href="#Pg116" class="tei tei-ref">116</a>, <a href="#Pg138" class="tei tei-ref">138</a>, <a href="#Pg239" class="tei tei-ref">239</a>, <a href="#Pg299" class="tei tei-ref">299</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Philip the Bold, <a href="#Pg102" class="tei tei-ref">102</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Phillips, John, <a href="#Pg068" class="tei tei-ref">68</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Philodemus, <a href="#Pg010" class="tei tei-ref">10</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Piacenza, <a href="#Pg185" class="tei tei-ref">185</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-corr">Pimentel</span>, Eleonora, <a href="#Pg104" class="tei tei-ref">104</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Piperno, Pietro, <a href="#Pg111" class="tei tei-ref">111</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pisa, <a href="#Pg136" class="tei tei-ref">136</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pistoja, <a href="#Pg240" class="tei tei-ref">240</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pius II., Pope, <a href="#Pg027" class="tei tei-ref">27</a>, <a href="#Pg144" class="tei tei-ref">144</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Plato, <a href="#Pg058" class="tei tei-ref">58</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pliny, <a href="#Pg059" class="tei tei-ref">59</a>, <a href="#Pg071" class="tei tei-ref">71</a>, <a href="#Pg076" class="tei tei-ref">76</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pliny the younger, <a href="#Pg071" class="tei tei-ref">71</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Plutarch, <a href="#Pg070" class="tei tei-ref">70</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pole, Cardinal, <a href="#Pg280" class="tei tei-ref">280</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pompeii, <a href="#Pg001" class="tei tei-ref">1</a>, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg024" class="tei tei-ref">24</a>, <a href="#Pg038" class="tei tei-ref">38</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pomponianus, <a href="#Pg072" class="tei tei-ref">72</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pontone, <a href="#Pg152" class="tei tei-ref">152</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Portici, <a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref">8</a>, <a href="#Pg080" class="tei tei-ref">80</a>, <a href="#Pg088" class="tei tei-ref">88</a>, <a href="#Pg097" class="tei tei-ref">97</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Porzia de’ Rossi, <a href="#Pg240" class="tei tei-ref">240</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Posilipo, <a href="#Pg001" class="tei tei-ref">1</a>, <a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref">8</a>, <a href="#Pg037" class="tei tei-ref">37</a>, <a href="#Pg295" class="tei tei-ref">295</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Positano, <a href="#Pg119" class="tei tei-ref">119</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pozzano, <a href="#Pg037" class="tei tei-ref">37</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pozzopiano, <a href="#Pg106" class="tei tei-ref">106</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Pozzuoli, <a href="#Pg109" class="tei tei-ref">109</a>, <a href="#Pg301" class="tei tei-ref">301</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Prajano, <a href="#Pg124" class="tei tei-ref">124</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Procida, <a href="#Pg004" class="tei tei-ref">4</a>, <a href="#Pg237" class="tei tei-ref">237</a>, <a href="#Pg275" class="tei tei-ref">275</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Puteoli, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg295" class="tei tei-ref">295</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Quisisana, <a href="#Pg027" class="tei tei-ref">27</a>, <a href="#Pg037" class="tei tei-ref">37</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ravello, <a href="#Pg134" class="tei tei-ref">134</a>, <a href="#Pg152" class="tei tei-ref">152</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Reggio, <a href="#Pg311" class="tei tei-ref">311</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Reid, Mr, <a href="#Pg156" class="tei tei-ref">156</a>, <a href="#Pg262" class="tei tei-ref">262</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Renée, Duchess of Ferrara, <a href="#Pg280" class="tei tei-ref">280</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Resina, <a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref">8</a>, <a href="#Pg079" class="tei tei-ref">79</a>, <a href="#Pg088" class="tei tei-ref">88</a>, <a href="#Pg098" class="tei tei-ref">98</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Retina, <a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref">8</a>, <a href="#Pg072" class="tei tei-ref">72</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Revigliano, <a href="#Pg026" class="tei tei-ref">26</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Rhegium, <a href="#Pg311" class="tei tei-ref">311</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Robert of Normandy, <a href="#Pg178" class="tei tei-ref">178</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">—— the Wise, <a href="#Pg116" class="tei tei-ref">116</a>, <a href="#Pg156" class="tei tei-ref">156</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Roger, Count, <a href="#Pg155" class="tei tei-ref">155</a>, <a href="#Pg180" class="tei tei-ref">180</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">—— King, <a href="#Pg116" class="tei tei-ref">116</a>, <a href="#Pg136" class="tei tei-ref">136</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Rome, <a href="#Pg039" class="tei tei-ref">39</a>, <a href="#Pg094" class="tei tei-ref">94</a>, <a href="#Pg144" class="tei tei-ref">144</a>, <a href="#Pg156" class="tei tei-ref">156</a>, <a href="#Pg180" class="tei tei-ref">180</a>, <a href="#Pg312" class="tei tei-ref">312</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ruffo, Cardinal, <a href="#Pg104" class="tei tei-ref">104</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Rufolo, <span class="tei tei-corr">Niccolò</span>, <a href="#Pg155" class="tei tei-ref">155</a>, <a href="#Pg160" class="tei tei-ref">160</a></td></tr></tbody></table><a name="Pg325" id="Pg325" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Agnello, <a href="#Pg106" class="tei tei-ref">106</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Alessio al Lavinaio, <a href="#Pg105" class="tei tei-ref">105</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Angelo, <a href="#Pg013" class="tei tei-ref">13</a>, <a href="#Pg119" class="tei tei-ref">119</a>, <a href="#Pg122" class="tei tei-ref">122</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Bridget of Sweden, <a href="#Pg144" class="tei tei-ref">144</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Brigida, <a href="#Pg003" class="tei tei-ref">3</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Chiara, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Costanzo, <a href="#Pg251" class="tei tei-ref">251</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Elia, Punta, <a href="#Pg117" class="tei tei-ref">117</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Elmo, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a>, <a href="#Pg067" class="tei tei-ref">67</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Francis of Assisi, <a href="#Pg144" class="tei tei-ref">144</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Gennaro, <a href="#Pg298" class="tei tei-ref">298</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Giovanni a Teduccio, <a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref">8</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Giovanni del Toro, <a href="#Pg164" class="tei tei-ref">164</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Giuseppe, <a href="#Pg094" class="tei tei-ref">94</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Luca, <a href="#Pg124" class="tei tei-ref">124</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Lucia, <a href="#Pg003" class="tei tei-ref">3</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Maria a Pozzano, <a href="#Pg102" class="tei tei-ref">102</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Maria del Gradillo, <a href="#Pg162" class="tei tei-ref">162</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Maria di Pompeii, <a href="#Pg065" class="tei tei-ref">65</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Martino, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Matteo, <a href="#Pg173" class="tei tei-ref">173</a>, <a href="#Pg181" class="tei tei-ref">181</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Michael, <a href="#Pg035" class="tei tei-ref">35</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Miniato, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Paul, <a href="#Pg312" class="tei tei-ref">312</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Pietro, Punta di, <a href="#Pg123" class="tei tei-ref">123</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Proculo, <a href="#Pg307" class="tei tei-ref">307</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Restituta, <a href="#Pg291" class="tei tei-ref">291</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Romualdo, <a href="#Pg019" class="tei tei-ref">19</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Salvatore a Bireta, <a href="#Pg153" class="tei tei-ref">153</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Trinità, <a href="#Pg172" class="tei tei-ref">172</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">S. Vitale, <a href="#Pg296" class="tei tei-ref">296</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Salerno, <a href="#Pg004" class="tei tei-ref">4</a>, <a href="#Pg036" class="tei tei-ref">36</a>, <a href="#Pg111" class="tei tei-ref">111</a>, <a href="#Pg117" class="tei tei-ref">117</a>, <a href="#Pg133" class="tei tei-ref">133</a>, <a href="#Pg172" class="tei tei-ref">172</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Samnite Hills, <a href="#Pg212" class="tei tei-ref">212</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-corr">Sannazzaro</span>, <a href="#Pg295" class="tei tei-ref">295</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Sanseverini, <a href="#Pg169" class="tei tei-ref">169</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Sardinia, <a href="#Pg015" class="tei tei-ref">15</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Sarno, <a href="#Pg026" class="tei tei-ref">26</a>, <a href="#Pg041" class="tei tei-ref">41</a>, <a href="#Pg095" class="tei tei-ref">95</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Scala, <a href="#Pg134" class="tei tei-ref">134</a>, <a href="#Pg167" class="tei tei-ref">167</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Scaletta, <a href="#Pg152" class="tei tei-ref">152</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Scaricotojo, Lo, <a href="#Pg113" class="tei tei-ref">113</a>, <a href="#Pg118" class="tei tei-ref">118</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Scutolo, Punta di, <a href="#Pg106" class="tei tei-ref">106</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Sebeto, <a href="#Pg008" class="tei tei-ref">8</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Sejanus, <a href="#Pg256" class="tei tei-ref">256</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Serapis, Temple of, <a href="#Pg308" class="tei tei-ref">308</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Serra, Gennaro, <a href="#Pg104" class="tei tei-ref">104</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Shelley, <a href="#Pg013" class="tei tei-ref">13</a>, <a href="#Pg033" class="tei tei-ref">33</a>, <a href="#Pg064" class="tei tei-ref">64</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Shrewsbury, <a href="#Pg040" class="tei tei-ref">40</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Sibyl of Cumae, <a href="#Pg318" class="tei tei-ref">318</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Sicily, <a href="#Pg015" class="tei tei-ref">15</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Sigilgaita, <a href="#Pg161" class="tei tei-ref">161</a>, <a href="#Pg179" class="tei tei-ref">179</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Silarus, <a href="#Pg198" class="tei tei-ref">198</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Sirens, Isles of the, <a href="#Pg114" class="tei tei-ref">114</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Sixtus IV., Pope, <a href="#Pg318" class="tei tei-ref">318</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Smith, Sir Sydney, <a href="#Pg270" class="tei tei-ref">270</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Soana, <a href="#Pg184" class="tei tei-ref">184</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Socrates, <a href="#Pg040" class="tei tei-ref">40</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Solaro, <a href="#Pg268" class="tei tei-ref">268</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Soldan, <a href="#Pg246" class="tei tei-ref">246</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Somma, Monte, <a href="#Pg067" class="tei tei-ref">67</a>, <a href="#Pg094" class="tei tei-ref">94</a>, <a href="#Pg099" class="tei tei-ref">99</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Sorrentine Plain, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg106" class="tei tei-ref">106</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Sorrento, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg090" class="tei tei-ref">90</a>, <a href="#Pg221" class="tei tei-ref">221</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Sottile, Cape, <a href="#Pg123" class="tei tei-ref">123</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Spartacus, <a href="#Pg069" class="tei tei-ref">69</a>, <a href="#Pg076" class="tei tei-ref">76</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-corr">Stabiae</span>, <a href="#Pg026" class="tei tei-ref">26</a>, <a href="#Pg072" class="tei tei-ref">72</a>, <a href="#Pg076" class="tei tei-ref">76</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Stamer, W. J. A., <a href="#Pg016" class="tei tei-ref">16</a>, <a href="#Pg052" class="tei tei-ref">52</a>, <a href="#Pg238" class="tei tei-ref">238</a>, <a href="#Pg265" class="tei tei-ref">265</a>, <a href="#Pg316" class="tei tei-ref">316</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-corr">Staurachios</span>, <a href="#Pg142" class="tei tei-ref">142</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Stolberg, Count, <a href="#Pg202" class="tei tei-ref">202</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Stowe, Mrs H. B., <a href="#Pg016" class="tei tei-ref">16</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Strabo, <a href="#Pg069" class="tei tei-ref">69</a>, <a href="#Pg275" class="tei tei-ref">275</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Strada Costantinopoli, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item" style="margin-left: 2.00em">  „  de’ Tribunali, <a href="#Pg003" class="tei tei-ref">3</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Stromboli, <a href="#Pg091" class="tei tei-ref">91</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Suetonius, <a href="#Pg256" class="tei tei-ref">256</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Syracuse, <a href="#Pg058" class="tei tei-ref">58</a>, <a href="#Pg107" class="tei tei-ref">107</a>, <a href="#Pg311" class="tei tei-ref">311</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Tacca, <a href="#Pg051" class="tei tei-ref">51</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Tacitus, <a href="#Pg069" class="tei tei-ref">69</a>, <a href="#Pg071" class="tei tei-ref">71</a>, <a href="#Pg073" class="tei tei-ref">73</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Tafuri, Bishop, <a href="#Pg159" class="tei tei-ref">159</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Tancred of Hauteville, <a href="#Pg178" class="tei tei-ref">178</a>, <a href="#Pg180" class="tei tei-ref">180</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Tarver, J. C., <a href="#Pg258" class="tei tei-ref">258</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Tasso, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg106" class="tei tei-ref">106</a>, <a href="#Pg145" class="tei tei-ref">145</a>, <a href="#Pg239" class="tei tei-ref">239</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item" style="margin-left: 2.00em">  „  Bernardo, <a href="#Pg106" class="tei tei-ref">106</a>, <a href="#Pg240" class="tei tei-ref">240</a>, <a href="#Pg277" class="tei tei-ref">277</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Theocritus, <a href="#Pg154" class="tei tei-ref">154</a>, <a href="#Pg292" class="tei tei-ref">292</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-corr">Thermae</span> of Nero, <a href="#Pg316" class="tei tei-ref">316</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Tiber, <a href="#Pg116" class="tei tei-ref">116</a>, <a href="#Pg156" class="tei tei-ref">156</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Tiberius, Emperor, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg050" class="tei tei-ref">50</a>, <a href="#Pg253" class="tei tei-ref">253</a>, <a href="#Pg308" class="tei tei-ref">308</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Timgad, <a href="#Pg038" class="tei tei-ref">38</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Timothy, <a href="#Pg312" class="tei tei-ref">312</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Tiridates, <a href="#Pg308" class="tei tei-ref">308</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Titian, <a href="#Pg027" class="tei tei-ref">27</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Titus, Emperor, <a href="#Pg010" class="tei tei-ref">10</a>, <a href="#Pg057" class="tei tei-ref">57</a>, <a href="#Pg071" class="tei tei-ref">71</a>, <a href="#Pg076" class="tei tei-ref">76</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Toledo, The, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Torregaveta, <a href="#Pg275" class="tei tei-ref">275</a>, <a href="#Pg317" class="tei tei-ref">317</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Trafalgar, <a href="#Pg270" class="tei tei-ref">270</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Tragara, <a href="#Pg263" class="tei tei-ref">263</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Tripoli, <a href="#Pg015" class="tei tei-ref">15</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Tunis, <a href="#Pg056" class="tei tei-ref">56</a>, <a href="#Pg246" class="tei tei-ref">246</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ulysses, <a href="#Pg114" class="tei tei-ref">114</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Urban IV., Pope, <a href="#Pg144" class="tei tei-ref">144</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Ustica, <a href="#Pg091" class="tei tei-ref">91</a></td></tr></tbody></table><a name="Pg326" id="Pg326" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Vaccaro, Il, <a href="#Pg084" class="tei tei-ref">84</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Valentinian, Emperor, <a href="#Pg208" class="tei tei-ref">208</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Valley of the Mills, <a href="#Pg140" class="tei tei-ref">140</a>, <a href="#Pg149" class="tei tei-ref">149</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Venice, <a href="#Pg103" class="tei tei-ref">103</a>, <a href="#Pg112" class="tei tei-ref">112</a>, <a href="#Pg134" class="tei tei-ref">134</a>, <a href="#Pg148" class="tei tei-ref">148</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Venosa, <a href="#Pg181" class="tei tei-ref">181</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Venus, Temple of, <a href="#Pg052" class="tei tei-ref">52</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Vergil, <a href="#Pg208" class="tei tei-ref">208</a>, <a href="#Pg211" class="tei tei-ref">211</a>, <a href="#Pg275" class="tei tei-ref">275</a>, <a href="#Pg296" class="tei tei-ref">296</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Vesuvius, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg011" class="tei tei-ref">11</a>, <a href="#Pg036" class="tei tei-ref">36</a>, <a href="#Pg066" class="tei tei-ref">66</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Via Domitiana, <a href="#Pg062" class="tei tei-ref">62</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Vico Equense, <a href="#Pg031" class="tei tei-ref">31</a>, <a href="#Pg102" class="tei tei-ref">102</a>, <a href="#Pg103" class="tei tei-ref">103</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Victor III., Pope, <a href="#Pg155" class="tei tei-ref">155</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Victor Emmanuel III., King of Italy, <a href="#Pg094" class="tei tei-ref">94</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Vietri, <a href="#Pg165" class="tei tei-ref">165</a>, <a href="#Pg171" class="tei tei-ref">171</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Vigna Sersale, <a href="#Pg247" class="tei tei-ref">247</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Villa Jovis, <a href="#Pg254" class="tei tei-ref">254</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Villa Reale, <a href="#Pg002" class="tei tei-ref">2</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Vincenzo, <a href="#Pg037" class="tei tei-ref">37</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Vitruvius, <a href="#Pg060" class="tei tei-ref">60</a>, <a href="#Pg069" class="tei tei-ref">69</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Vittoria Colonna, <a href="#Pg005" class="tei tei-ref">5</a>, <a href="#Pg277" class="tei tei-ref">277</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Vivara, <a href="#Pg276" class="tei tei-ref">276</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Vomero, <a href="#Pg003" class="tei tei-ref">3</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Vozzi Family, <a href="#Pg127" class="tei tei-ref">127</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Wales, <a href="#Pg107" class="tei tei-ref">107</a>, <a href="#Pg318" class="tei tei-ref">318</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">William <span class="tei tei-corr">Bras-de-Fer</span>, <a href="#Pg174" class="tei tei-ref">174</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Wordsworth, <a href="#Pg033" class="tei tei-ref">33</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Worms, <a href="#Pg185" class="tei tei-ref">185</a></td></tr></tbody></table><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Zampognari, <a href="#Pg233" class="tei tei-ref">233</a></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Zoppo, Carlo <span class="tei tei-corr">il</span>, <a href="#Pg102" class="tei tei-ref">102</a>, <a href="#Pg103" class="tei tei-ref">103</a>, <a href="#Pg121" class="tei tei-ref">121</a></td></tr></tbody></table>   
+        </div>
+            <div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+            
+                
+                
+                    <hr class="doublepage" /><div id="footnotes" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em">
+                        <a name="toc35" id="toc35"></a>
+                        <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">Footnotes</span></h1>
+                        <dl class="tei tei-list-footnotes"><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_1" name="note_1" href="#noteref_1">1.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">W. J. A. Stamer: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Dolce Napoli</span></span>.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_2" name="note_2" href="#noteref_2">2.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">W. J. A. Stamer: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Dolce Napoli</span></span>.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_3" name="note_3" href="#noteref_3">3.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">Professor John Phillips: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Vesuvius</span></span>.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_4" name="note_4" href="#noteref_4">4.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">Pliny’s Letters. (<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Church’s and Brodribb’s Translation.</span></span>)</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_5" name="note_5" href="#noteref_5">5.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">La Nazione</span></span>, April 24, 1906.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_6" name="note_6" href="#noteref_6">6.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext"><a name="corr158" id="corr158" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><span class="tei tei-hi"><span class="tei tei-corr"><span style="font-style: italic">The Decameron.</span></span></span> <span class="tei tei-corr">Novel IV. of the Second Day</span>.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_7" name="note_7" href="#noteref_7">7.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">The Decameron</span></span>—Novel I, of the Fourth Day.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_8" name="note_8" href="#noteref_8">8.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">F. Lenormant: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">A travers l’Apulie et la Lucanie</span></span>.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_9" name="note_9" href="#noteref_9">9.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">W. J. A. Stamer: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Dolce Napoli</span></span>.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_10" name="note_10" href="#noteref_10">10.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">For an able defence of the Emperor Tiberius, the reader is referred
+to Mr J. C. Tarver’s <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Tiberius the Tyrant</span></span>, chap. xviii.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_11" name="note_11" href="#noteref_11">11.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">W. J. A. Stamer: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Dolce Napoli</span></span>.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_12" name="note_12" href="#noteref_12">12.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">A portion of this chapter has already appeared in an article by the
+Author, entitled <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">The Island of Ischia</span></span>, in the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Westminster Review</span></span>, December
+1905.</dd><dt class="tei tei-notelabel"><a id="note_13" name="note_13" href="#noteref_13">13.</a></dt><dd class="tei tei-notetext">W. J. A. Stamer: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Dolce Napoli</span></span>.</dd></dl>
+                    </div>
+                
+            
+        </div>
+        <hr class="doublepage" /><div class="boxed tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+            <a name="toc36" id="toc36"></a><a name="pdf37" id="pdf37"></a>
+                <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">Transcriber’s Note</span></h1>
+            <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The caption of two images (<a href="#frontis" class="tei tei-ref">frontispiece</a>, 
+                <a href="#illus22" class="tei tei-ref">page 288</a>) has been supplied from the List of Images.</p>
+                <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The following obvious typographical errors have been corrected:</p>
+                <table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><a href="#corrxi" class="tei tei-ref">page xi</a>, <span class="tei tei-q">“Republiques”</span> changed to <span class="tei tei-q">“Républiques”</span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><a href="#corr055" class="tei tei-ref">page 55</a>, <span class="tei tei-q">“castastrophe”</span> changed to <span class="tei tei-q">“catastrophe”</span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><a href="#corr090" class="tei tei-ref">page 90</a>, quote mark added after <span class="tei tei-q">“vendemmia?”</span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><a href="#corr158" class="tei tei-ref">page 158, footnote</a>, italics added to <span class="tei tei-q">“The Decameron”</span>,
+                    removed from <span class="tei tei-q">“Novel IV. of the Second Day”</span>.
+                        (Other inconsistencies between the two citations of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Decameron</span></span>
+                        were not changed.)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><a href="#corr159" class="tei tei-ref">page 159</a>, <span class="tei tei-q">“mosiac”</span> changed to <span class="tei tei-q">“mosaic”</span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><a href="#corr189" class="tei tei-ref">page 189</a>, <span class="tei tei-q">“gradully”</span> changed to <span class="tei tei-q">“gradually”</span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><a href="#corr206" class="tei tei-ref">page 206</a>, <span class="tei tei-q">“Pæstum”</span> changed to <span class="tei tei-q">“Paestum”</span>
+                        (<a href="#corr206a" class="tei tei-ref">twice</a>)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><a href="#corr212" class="tei tei-ref">page 212</a>, <span class="tei tei-q">“wheron”</span> changed to <span class="tei tei-q">“whereon”</span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><a href="#corr238" class="tei tei-ref">page 238</a>, <span class="tei tei-q">“circomstane”</span> changed to <span class="tei tei-q">“circomstance”</span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><a href="#corr241" class="tei tei-ref">page 241</a>, double <span class="tei tei-q">“the”</span> removed</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><a href="#corr275" class="tei tei-ref">page 275</a>, <span class="tei tei-q">“costing”</span> changed to <span class="tei tei-q">“coasting”</span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><a href="#corr300" class="tei tei-ref">page 300</a>, <span class="tei tei-q">“maledicton”</span> changed to <span class="tei tei-q">“malediction”</span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><a href="#corr301" class="tei tei-ref">page 301</a>, <span class="tei tei-q">“then”</span> changed to <span class="tei tei-q">“than”</span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><a href="#corr311" class="tei tei-ref">page 311</a>, <span class="tei tei-q">“aud”</span> changed to <span class="tei tei-q">“and”</span></td></tr></tbody></table>
+            
+          <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the Index, the following words have been changed to the spelling used in the main text:        
+          </p>
+          <table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“Baiae”</span> (was: <span class="tei tei-q">“Baiæ”</span>)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“Caecilius Jucundus”</span> (was: <span class="tei tei-q">“Cæcilius”</span>)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“Cumae”</span> (was: <span class="tei tei-q">“Cumæ”</span>)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“Hohenstaufen”</span> (was: <span class="tei tei-q">“Hohenstauffen”</span>)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“Matteucci”</span> (was: <span class="tei tei-q">“Mateucci”</span>)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“Paestum”</span> (was: <span class="tei tei-q">“Pæstum”</span>)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“Pimentel”</span> (was: <span class="tei tei-q">“Pimental”</span>)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“Rufolo, Niccolò”</span> (was: <span class="tei tei-q">“Nicoló”</span>)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“Sannazzaro”</span> (was: <span class="tei tei-q">“Sannazaro”</span>)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“Stabiae”</span> (was: <span class="tei tei-q">“Stabiæ”</span>)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“Staurachios”</span> (was: <span class="tei tei-q">“Straurachios”</span>)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“Thermae of Nero”</span> (was: <span class="tei tei-q">“Thermæ”</span>)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“William Bras-de-Fer”</span> (was: <span class="tei tei-q">“Bras de Fer”</span>)</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-q">“Zoppo, Carlo il”</span> (was: <span class="tei tei-q">“Zoppo, Carlo Il”</span>)</td></tr></tbody></table>
+          <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Apart from the index and two occurrences of <span class="tei tei-q">“Pæstum”</span> in the main text, all <span class="tei tei-q">“æ”</span> ligatures have been maintained:
+            <span class="tei tei-q">“ædile”</span> (and <span class="tei tei-q">“aedile”</span>),
+            <span class="tei tei-q">“archæologist”</span> (and <span class="tei tei-q">“archaeologist”</span>),
+            <span class="tei tei-q">“æsthetic”</span>,
+            <span class="tei tei-q">“Cannæ”</span>,
+            <span class="tei tei-q">“Mediæval”</span> (in a quotation, otherwise <span class="tei tei-q">“medieval”</span>),
+            <span class="tei tei-q">“mærens”</span>,
+            <span class="tei tei-q">“Prætor”</span>,
+          <span class="tei tei-q">“tesseræ”</span>.
+          </p>
+            
+          <p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Not changed or normalized were
+              small errors in Italian or German quotations (<span class="tei tei-q">“a riverderla”</span>, <span class="tei tei-q">“Kultur-kampf”</span>, 
+            <span class="tei tei-q">“Bierhälle”</span>),
+            inconsistent hyphenation (e. g. <span class="tei tei-q">“boat-man”</span>/<span class="tei tei-q">“boatman”</span>, <span class="tei tei-q">“sea-shore”</span>/<span class="tei tei-q">“seashore”</span>),
+            spelling variations (<span class="tei tei-q">“Phlegraean”</span>/<span class="tei tei-q">“Phlegrean”</span>)
+            and
+            unusual spellings (<span class="tei tei-q">“elegible”</span> [in a quotation], <span class="tei tei-q">“pleisosaurus”</span>, <span class="tei tei-q">“innoculating”</span>,
+              <span class="tei tei-q">“choregraphic”</span>).</p>
+        </div>
+            <hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+      <div id="pgfooter" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em"><pre class="pre tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em">***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NAPLES RIVIERA***
+</pre><hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><a name="rightpageheader38" id="rightpageheader38"></a><a name="pgtoc39" id="pgtoc39"></a><a name="pdf40" id="pdf40"></a><h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">Credits</span></h1><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr><th class="tei tei-label tei-label-gloss">December 9, 2009  </th></tr><tr><td class="tei tei-item"><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-respStmt">
+                <span class="tei tei-resp">Produced by <span class="tei tei-name">Juliet Sutherland</span> and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.</span>
+            </span></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div><hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><a name="rightpageheader41" id="rightpageheader41"></a><a name="pgtoc42" id="pgtoc42"></a><a name="pdf43" id="pdf43"></a><h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">A Word from Project Gutenberg</span></h1><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This file should be named 
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+<!DOCTYPE TEI.2 SYSTEM "http://www.gutenberg.org/tei/marcello/0.4/dtd/pgtei.dtd">
+<TEI.2 lang="en">
+    <teiHeader>
+        <fileDesc>
+            <titleStmt>
+                <title>The Naples Riviera</title>
+                <author><name reg="Vaughan, Herbert M.">Herbert M. Vaughan</name></author>
+            </titleStmt>
+            <publicationStmt>
+                <publisher>Project Gutenberg TEI edition</publisher>
+                <date value="2009-12-09">December 9, 2009</date>
+                <idno type='etext-no'>30634</idno>
+                <availability>
+                  <p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere
+                  at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.
+                  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+                  the terms of the Project Gutenberg License online at
+                  www.gutenberg.org/license</p>
+                </availability>
+            </publicationStmt>
+            <sourceDesc>
+                <p>Vaughan, Herbert M.: The Naples Riviera. - London : Methuen, 1907</p>
+            </sourceDesc>
+        </fileDesc>
+        <encodingDesc>
+        </encodingDesc>
+        <profileDesc>
+          <langUsage>
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+            <language id="de" />
+          </langUsage>
+        </profileDesc>
+        <revisionDesc>
+          <change>
+            <date value="2009-12-09">December 9, 2009</date>
+            <respStmt>
+                <resp>Produced by <name>Juliet Sutherland</name> and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.</resp>
+            </respStmt>
+            <item>Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1</item>
+          </change>
+        </revisionDesc>
+    </teiHeader>
+
+    <pgExtensions>
+      <pgStyleSheet>
+        .italic      { font-style: italic }
+        .smallcaps   { font-variant: small-caps }
+        .small     { font-size: small }
+        .center    { text-align: center }
+        figure     { text-align: center; width: 100% }
+        head       { text-align: center }
+        lg         { margin-left: 2; font-size: 90% }
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+
+<text lang="en">
+<front>
+    <div>
+      <divGen type="pgheader" />
+    </div>
+
+    <div>
+      <divGen type="encodingDesc" />
+    </div>
+    <div rend="page-break-before: right">
+<pb/><anchor id='Pgii'/>
+        <anchor id="frontis"/>
+<pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: CHARCOAL CARRIERS, AMALFI]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/frontisth.jpg" rend="width: 100%">
+      <head rend="small"><xref url="images/frontis.jpg">CHARCOAL CARRIERS, AMALFI</xref></head>
+      <figDesc>Illustration: Charcoal Carriers, Amalfi</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+      </div><titlePage rend="page-break-before: right; center">
+<pb/><anchor id='Pgiii'/>
+
+<docTitle>
+  <titlePart type="main"><hi rend="font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold">THE</hi><lb/>
+  <hi rend="font-size: xx-large; font-weight: bold">NAPLES RIVIERA</hi></titlePart>
+</docTitle>
+
+<byline rend="margin-top: 2">BY<lb/>
+<docAuthor rend="font-size: large">HERBERT M. VAUGHAN, B.A. (<hi rend='smallcaps'>Oxon.</hi>)</docAuthor>
+  <lb/>
+  <hi rend="font-size: x-small">AUTHOR OF “THE LAST OF THE ROYAL STUARTS”</hi>
+</byline>
+<lb/><lb/><lb/>
+<titlePart>
+ <hi rend="font-size: small">WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY</hi><lb/>
+MAURICE GREIFFENHAGEN
+</titlePart>
+<lb/><lb/><lb/>
+<docImprint rend="margin-top: 3; font-size: large">
+  METHUEN &amp; CO<lb/>
+  36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<lb/>
+  LONDON
+</docImprint>
+      </titlePage>
+  <div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb/><anchor id='Pgiv'/>
+
+<p rend="center">
+<hi rend='italic'>First Published in 1907</hi>
+</p>
+
+<p rend="center; page-break-before: always">
+  <pb/><anchor id='Pgv'/>
+TO<lb/>
+<hi rend="font-size: large">G. L. L.</hi><lb/>
+IN MEMORY OF<lb/>
+MANY PLEASANT DAYS IN THE SUNNY SOUTH<lb/>
+THIS BOOK IS<lb/>
+AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED<lb/>
+BY THE AUTHOR
+</p>
+
+<pb/><anchor id='Pgvi'/>
+  </div>
+    <div rend="page-break-before: right">
+<pb n='vii'/><anchor id='Pgvii'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="Contents"/>
+<head>CONTENTS</head>
+      <table rend="tblcolumns: 'l lw(43m) r'">
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell rend="center">CHAPTER I</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend="font-size: x-small">PAGE</hi></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Introductory</hi></cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg001">1</ref></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell rend="center">CHAPTER II</cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>The Vesuvian Shore and Monte Sant’ Angelo</hi></cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg008">8</ref></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell rend="center">CHAPTER III</cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>La Città Morta</hi></cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg038">38</ref></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell rend="center">CHAPTER IV</cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Vesuvius</hi></cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg066">66</ref></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell rend="center">CHAPTER V</cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>The Corniche Road</hi></cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg100">100</ref></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell rend="center">CHAPTER VI</cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Amalfi and the Festival of St Andrew</hi></cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg126">126</ref></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell rend="center">CHAPTER VII</cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Ravello and the Rufoli</hi></cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg152">152</ref></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell rend="center">CHAPTER VIII</cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Salerno</hi></cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg172">172</ref></cell>
+          </row>
+          <pb n='viii'/><anchor id='Pgviii'/>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell rend="center">CHAPTER IX</cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Paestum and the Glory that was Greece</hi></cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg198">198</ref></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell rend="center">CHAPTER X</cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Sorrento and its Poet</hi></cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg221">221</ref></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell rend="center">CHAPTER XI</cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Capri and Tiberius the Tyrant</hi></cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg249">249</ref></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell rend="center">CHAPTER XII</cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Ischia and the Lady of the Rock</hi></cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg275">275</ref></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell rend="center">CHAPTER XIII</cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Puteoli and the Grandeur that was Rome</hi></cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg295">295</ref></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell rend="center">————</cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"></cell>
+          </row>
+          <row>
+              <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+              <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Index</hi></cell>
+              <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="Pg321">321</ref></cell>
+          </row>
+      </table>
+  </div>
+    <div rend="page-break-before: right">
+<pb n='ix'/><anchor id='Pgix'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="List of Illustrations"/>
+<head>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</head>
+        
+<table rend="tblcolumns: 'l lw(35m) r'">
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><hi rend="font-size: x-small">PAGE</hi></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Charcoal Carriers, Amalfi</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><hi rend='italic'><ref target="frontis">Frontispiece</ref></hi></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>A Capriote Fisherman’s Wife</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus01">16</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Road near Castellamare</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus02">30</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Monte Faito, Castellamare</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus03">37</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>The Forum, Pompeii</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus04">46</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>La Casa dei Vettii, Pompeii</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus05">58</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus06">80</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Pozzano</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus07">101</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Evening at Amalfi</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus08">124</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Amalfi</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus09">132</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>In the Valley of the Mills, Amalfi</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus10">140</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Amalfi: Piazza and Duomo</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus11">148</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Ravello: Il Duomo</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus12">156</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>A Street in Ravello</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus13">163</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Minori at Sunset</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus14">170</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>On the Road To Ravello</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus15">186</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>The Temple of Neptune, Paestum</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus16">204</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <pb n='x'/><anchor id='Pgx'/>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Afternoon, Sorrento</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus17">230</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Faraglioni Rocks, Capri</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus18">249</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Capri From the Villa Jovis</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus19">254</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>In the Blue Grotto, Capri</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus20">262</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>A Gateway, Capri</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus21">274</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>On the Piccola Marina, Capri</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus22">288</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>Ischia From Castellamare (Sunset)</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus23">294</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+    <row>
+        <cell>&nbsp;&nbsp;</cell>
+        <cell><hi rend='smallcaps'>On the Beach</hi></cell>
+        <cell rend="text-align: right"><ref target="illus24">306</ref></cell>
+    </row>
+</table>
+    </div>
+    <div rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n='xi'/><anchor id='Pgxi'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="Bibliography"/>
+<head>BIBLIOGRAPHY</head>
+
+<p rend="center">
+A small selection out of the books I have consulted during the
+preparation of this work is given below:—
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>E. Gibbon</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</hi>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>Dean Merivale</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>The Romans under the Empire</hi>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='italic'>Pliny’s Letters</hi>: (Church’s and Brodribb’s Translation, London,
+1897).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>J. Phillips</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Vesuvius</hi> (Oxford, 1869).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>C. Ramage</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Nooks and Byways of Italy</hi>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>C. Lenormant</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>À Travers la Lucanie et l’Apulie</hi>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>W. J. A. Stamer</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Dolce Napoli</hi> (London, 1878).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>E. Neville Rolfe</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Naples in 1888</hi>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>Constance Giglioli</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Naples in 1799</hi>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>C. L. Sismondi</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Histoire des <anchor id="corrxi"/><corr sic="Republiques">Républiques</corr> Italiennes</hi>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>L. Alberti</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Descrizione di tutta l’ Italia</hi> (Venetia, 1596).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>C. Mills</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>The Travels of Theodore Ducas</hi> (London, 1822).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='italic'>Les Délices d’Italie</hi> (Paris, 1707).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='italic'>Nuova Guida de’ Forastieri in Napoli, etc.</hi> (1751).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>Count Stolberg</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Travels through Italy and Sicily in 1756</hi>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>A. H. Norway</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Naples, Past and Present</hi> (London, 1904).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>E. Busk</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Folk-Songs of Italy</hi>.
+</p>
+<pb n='xii'/><anchor id='Pgxii'/>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>J. A. Symonds</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Sketches and Studies in Italy</hi>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>Catherine Phillimore</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Studies in Italian Literature</hi>
+(London, 1891).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>T. A. Trollope</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>A Decade of Italian Women</hi> (London, 1859).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>G. Boccaccio</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Il Decamerone</hi>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>A. Mau</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Pompeii: its Life and Art</hi> (New York, 1899).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>J. Fergusson</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Handbook of Architecture</hi> (London, 1859).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>Franz von Reber</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>History of Ancient and Mediæval Art</hi> (New
+York, 1882).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>E. Jameson</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Sacred and Legendary Art</hi> (London, 1879).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>J. Elworthy</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>History of the Evil Eye</hi> (London, 1888).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>N. Valletta</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Cicalata sul Fascino detto Jettatura</hi> (Napoli, 1819).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='smallcaps'>A. Canale</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Storia dell’ Isola di Capri</hi>.
+</p>
+
+<p><hi rend='smallcaps'>G. Amalfi</hi>: <hi rend='italic'>Tradizioni ed Vsi nella Penisola Sorrentina</hi>.
+</p>
+    </div>
+    
+</front>
+<body rend="page-break-before: right">
+<pb n='1'/><anchor id='Pg001'/>
+
+<head>THE NAPLES RIVIERA</head>
+<div n="1">
+    <index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="1: Introductory"/>
+<head>CHAPTER I</head>
+
+<head type="sub">INTRODUCTORY</head>
+
+<epigraph><lg>
+<l rend='margin-left: 7'><q rend="post: none">In otia natam</q></l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Parthenopen.</q></l>
+</lg>
+</epigraph>
+<p>
+That the city of Naples can prove very delightful,
+very amusing, and very instructive for a
+week or ten days no one will attempt to dispute.
+There are long mornings to be spent in inspecting
+the churches scattered throughout the narrow streets
+of the old town,—harlequins in coloured marble and
+painted stucco though they be, they are yet treasure-houses
+containing some of the most precious monuments
+of Gothic and Renaissance art that all Italy
+can display. There are afternoon hours that can be
+passed pleasantly amidst the endless halls and galleries
+of the great Museo Nazionale, where the antiquities
+of Pompeii and Herculaneum may be studied in
+advance, for the wise traveller will not rush headlong
+into the sacred precincts of the buried cities on the
+Vesuvian shore, before he has first made himself
+thoroughly acquainted with the wonderful collections
+preserved in the Museum. Then comes the evening
+drive along the gentle winding ascent towards Posilipo
+with its glorious views over bay and mountains, all
+<pb n='2'/><anchor id='Pg002'/>tinged with the deep rose and violet of a Neapolitan
+sunset; or the stroll along the fashionable sea front,
+named after the luckless Caracciolo the modern hero
+of Naples, where in endless succession the carriages
+pass backwards and forwards within the limited space
+between the sea and the greenery of the Villa Reale.
+Or it may be that our more active feet may entice
+us to mount the winding flights of stone steps leading
+to the heights of Sant’ Elmo, where from the windows
+of the monastery of San Martino there is spread out
+before us an entrancing view that has but two possible
+rivals for extent and interest in all Italy:—the
+panorama of the Eternal City from the hill of San
+Pietro in Montorio, and that of Florence with the
+valley of the Arno from the lofty terrace of San
+Miniato. We can while away many hours leisurely in
+wandering on the bustling Chiaja or Toledo with
+their shops and their amusing scenes of city life, or
+in the poorer quarters around the Mercato, where
+the inhabitants ply their daily avocations in the open
+air, and eat, play, quarrel, flirt, fight or gossip—do
+everything in short save go to bed—quite unconcernedly
+before the critical and non-admiring eyes
+of casual strangers. Pleasant it is to hunt for old
+prints, books and other treasures amongst the dark
+unwholesome dens that lie in the shadow of the
+gorgeous church of Santa Chiara or in the musty-smelling
+shops of the curiosity dealers in the Strada
+Costantinopoli, picking up here a volume of some
+<hi rend='italic'>cinque-cento</hi> classic and there a piece of old china that
+may or may not have had its birth in the famous
+factory of Capodimonte. All this studying of historic
+sculpture in the churches and of antiquities in the
+<pb n='3'/><anchor id='Pg003'/>Museum, this observing the daily life of the populace,
+and bargain-hunting in the Strada de’ Tribunali,
+are agreeable enough for a while, but of necessity
+there comes a time when the mind grows weary of
+yelling people and of jostling crowds, of stuffy
+churches and of the chilly halls of the Museum, of
+steep dirty streets and of glaring boulevards, so that
+we begin to sigh for fresh air and a change of scene.
+Nor is there any means of escape within the precincts
+of the city itself from the eternal cracking of whips,
+from the insulting compliments (or complimentary
+insults) of the incorrigible cabmen, from the continuous
+babel of unmusical voices, and from the reiterated
+strains of <q>Santa Lucia</q> or <q>Margari</q> howled
+from raucous throats or strummed from rickety
+street-organs. Oh for peace, and rest, and a whiff
+of pure country air! For there are no walks in or
+around the City of the Siren, where there is nowhere
+to stroll save the narrow strip of the much-vaunted
+Villa (which is either damp or dusty according to
+weather) or the fatiguing ascent amidst walled gardens
+and newly built houses to the heights of the Vomero,
+which are covered with a raw suburb. Moreover our
+pristine delight in the place is beginning to flag, as
+we gradually realise that the city, like the majority
+of great modern towns, is being practically rebuilt to
+the annihilation of its old-world features, which used
+to give to Naples its peculiar charm and its marked
+individuality amongst large sea-ports. Long ago
+has disappeared Santa Brigida, that picturesque high-coloured
+slum, on whose site stands the garish domed
+gallery of which the Neapolitans are so proud; gone
+in these latter days is classic Santa Lucia with its
+<pb n='4'/><anchor id='Pg004'/>water-gate and its fountain, its vendors of medicated
+water and <hi rend='italic'>frutti di mare</hi>, those toothsome shell fish of
+the unsavoury beach; vanished for ever is many a landmark
+of old Naples, and new buildings, streets and
+squares, blank, dreary, pretentious and staring, have
+arisen in their places. This thorough <hi rend='italic'>sventramento di
+Napoli</hi>, as the citizens graphically term this drastic
+reconstruction of the old capital of the Kingdom of
+the Two Sicilies, is no doubt beneficial, not to say
+necessary, and we make no protest against these
+wholesale changes, which have certainly tended to
+destroy utterly its ancient character and appearance.
+But all seems commonplace, new, smart, and unpoetic,
+and we quickly grow weary of Naples now that it
+has been turned into a Liverpool of the South without
+the local colour and the peculiar attributes of which
+author and artist have so often raved. The life of
+the people, picturesque enough in its old setting, now
+appears mean and squalid; the toilers in the streets
+look jaded, oppressed and discontented; we search
+in vain for the spontaneous gaiety of which we have
+heard so much. We feel disappointed, cheated even,
+in our expectations of Naples, and we begin to understand
+that its chief attraction consists in its proximity
+to the scenes of beauty that mark the course of its
+Riviera.
+</p>
+
+<milestone unit="tb"/>
+
+<p>
+The Riviera of Naples may be said to extend from
+the heights of Cumae, at the end of the Bay of Gaeta
+to the north, as far as Salerno in a southerly direction,
+whilst, lying close to this stretch of shore, are included
+the three populous islands of Capri, Procida and
+Ischia, which in prehistoric times doubtless formed
+<pb n='5'/><anchor id='Pg005'/>part and parcel of the Parthenopean coast itself.
+Our pleasant task it is to write of these classic shores
+and islands, where the beauties of nature contend for
+pre-eminence with the glorious traditions of the past
+that centre round them. What spot on earth can
+surpass, or even be compared with, Amalfi in the
+perfect lustre of its setting? What loftier or bolder
+cliffs than those of Capri can the wild bleak headlands
+of the North Sea exhibit? The fertile lands of
+France cannot vie with the richness of the Sorrentine
+Plain, nor can any mountain on the face of the globe
+rival in human interest the peak of Vesuvius;
+Pompeii is unique, the most precious storehouse of
+ancient knowledge the world possesses; whilst the
+Bay of Baia recalls the days of Roman power and
+luxury more vividly to our minds than any place
+save the Eternal City itself. And again: what illustrious
+names in history and in literature—classical,
+medieval, modern—are for ever associated with these
+smiling shores! Robert Guiscard and Hildebrand
+in quiet Salerno, Tasso at health-giving Sorrento,
+Vittoria Colonna in her palace-fortress on the crags
+of Ischia, the great Apostle of the west at Puteoli:—these
+are but a few of the more eminent and gracious
+figures that arise before us at the casual bidding of
+memory. Then there are the infamous, as well as
+the virtuous and the gallant, whose misdeeds are
+still freshly remembered upon these coasts or in
+their fertile valleys. The sinister Tiberius, the half-crazy
+and wholly vicious Caligula, many a king and
+queen of evil repute that ruled Naples, the vile Pier-Luigi
+Farnese, the adventurer Joachim Murat, all
+have left the marks of their personality upon the
+<pb n='6'/><anchor id='Pg006'/>coveted shores of the Neapolitan Riviera. From
+the days of the Sibyl and of the Trojan hero to
+the stirring times of Garibaldi and of King Bomba,
+which were but of yesterday, Naples and its environs
+have played a prominent part in the annals and
+development of the civilised western world; Roman
+emperors, Pagan statesmen and poets, Norman, French
+and Spanish princes, popes, saints and theologians,
+merchants and scientists of the Middle Ages, writers
+of the Renaissance and heroes of the <hi rend='italic'>Risorgimento</hi>,
+all have combined to shed a halo of historical romance
+upon Naples and its Riviera, where there is scarcely
+a sea-girt town or a crumbling fortress that is not
+redolent of the memory of some personage whose
+name is inscribed on the roll of European history.
+It seems but right, therefore, that many works should
+have been written concerning this favoured corner of
+Italy, so replete with natural charm and with historical
+interest; and in truth multitudes of books, large and
+small, witty and dull, erudite and empty, light and
+heavy, prosaic and rhapsodical, have poured forth
+from the prolific pens of generations of authors. We
+feel sincerely the need of an apology for making a
+fresh addition to the ever-increasing pile of Neapolitan
+literature, and we can only urge in extenuation of
+our crime of authorship that the same scene appeals
+in varied ways to different persons, and that every
+fresh description is apt to shed additional light upon
+old familiar subjects. In the following pages we
+make no profession to act the part of a guide to
+the neighbourhood of Naples, for are there not the
+carefully prepared pages of Murray and Baedeker, to
+say nothing of the works of such writers as Augustus
+<pb n='7'/><anchor id='Pg007'/>Hare, to lead the wanderer into every church and
+castle, to show him every nook in valley and mountain,
+and to supply him thoroughly with accurate dates
+and facts? No, our treatment of this theme may
+be deemed a poor one, but it has at least the merit
+and the courage of following its own peculiar lines.
+For we pursue our own course, and we touch lightly
+here and omit there; we run to dissertation in this
+place, we glide by silently in another. We take our
+own views of people and places, and give them for
+what they are worth to our readers to approve or to
+condemn, as they think fit. We offer a medley of
+history and of imagination, of biography and of private
+comment; and we crave indulgence for our short-comings
+by observing that any deficiencies in these
+pages can easily be remedied by application to the
+abundant literature upon Naples and its surrounding
+districts which every good library is presumed to
+contain.
+</p>
+
+</div><div n="2" rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n='8'/><anchor id='Pg008'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="2: The Vesuvian Shore and Monte Sant' Angelo"/>
+<head>CHAPTER II</head>
+
+<head type="sub">THE VESUVIAN SHORE AND MONTE SANT’ ANGELO</head>
+
+<p>
+That little stream the Sebeto, which is indeed, as
+the courtly Metastasio observes, <q>scanty in depth
+of water though overflowing with honour,</q> may be considered
+as the boundary line that divides the city of
+Naples from its eastern environs, although it is evident
+that the whole stretch of coast from Posilipo to
+Torre del Greco is covered with an unbroken line of
+houses. Past the highly cultivated <hi rend='italic'>Paduli</hi>, the chief
+market-gardens on this side of the city, with the town
+of La Barra on the fertile slopes to our left, we pass
+by way of San Giovanni a Teduccio to Portici, once
+a favourite resort of royalty. Here the dilettante
+Charles III., first Bourbon King of Naples, built a
+palace and laid out gardens in the days of patches
+and powder, constructing a royal pleasaunce that was
+destined to become the chief residence of the temporary
+supplanter of his own family, Joachim Murat, the
+citizen king of Naples and brother-in-law of the great
+Napoleon. Villa and gardens still remain, but
+monarchs have ceased to visit Portici since the days
+of Bomba, and the old royal demesne has been turned
+into an agricultural college. Adjoining and practically
+forming part of Portici is the town of Resina, which
+preserves almost intact the old classical name of Retina
+<pb n='9'/><anchor id='Pg009'/>that it bore in the distant days when it served as the
+port of Herculaneum. Here then in the mean streets
+of Resina we find ourselves standing above, though
+certainly not upon, historic ground, for the temples and
+villas, the theatres and private houses of the famous
+buried city lie far below the surface trodden by our
+feet. To visit Herculaneum it is necessary for us to
+descend some seventy to a hundred feet into the
+depths of the earth, passing more than one layer of
+ancient lava, for Resina and Portici themselves are but
+modern editions of former towns that have been
+engulfed in the course of ages. If the stranger can
+derive any solid satisfaction from the descent by a
+gloomy underground passage and from fleeting glimpses
+of ancient walls and dwellings seen through a forest of
+wooden baulks, which serve to support the spaces
+excavated, he must indeed be an enthusiast. But
+most people, perhaps all sensible people, will be content
+to take the undoubted interest of Herculaneum
+on trust, probably agreeing (at any rate after their
+visit) that the inspection of this subterranean city is
+not worth the candle, by whose flickering beams alone
+can objects be distinguished in the oppressive darkness.
+Personally we strongly hold to the expressed opinion
+of Alexandre Dumas, who declared that even the most
+hardened antiquary could not desire more than one
+hour’s contemplation of this hidden mass of shapeless
+wreckage. <q>Herculaneum,</q> writes that genial Frenchman,
+<q>but wearies our curiosity instead of exciting it.
+We descend into the excavated city as into a mine by
+a species of shaft; then come corridors beneath the
+earth which can only be entered by the light of tapers;
+and these smoke-grimed passages allow us from time
+<pb n='10'/><anchor id='Pg010'/>to time to obtain a momentary glimpse of the angle of
+a house, the colonnade of some temple, the steps of a
+theatre. Everything is fragmentary, mutilated, dingy,
+uncertain, confused, and therefore unsatisfactory. Well,
+at the end of an hour spent in wandering amongst
+these abysmal recesses, the most hardened archæologist,
+the most dry-as-dust antiquary, the most inquisitive
+of tourists begins to experience only one feeling—an
+intense desire to ascend to the light of day and to
+breathe once more the fresh air of the upper world.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nevertheless, it was from these dismal caverns, black
+as Erebus, that some of the choicest marbles and
+bronzes that now adorn the Museum at Naples were
+originally extracted. From a villa at Herculaneum
+also was taken the famous collection of 3000 rolls of
+papyrus, chiefly filled with the writings of the Epicurean
+philosopher Philodemus, perhaps the greatest <q>find</q>
+of ancient literature that has yet been made, although
+the contents of this damaged library, deciphered with
+equal toil and ingenuity, have not proved to be of the
+value originally set upon them by expectant scholars.
+But much of the city itself has yet hardly been touched
+since the days when it was destroyed in the reign of
+Titus, so that far below the squalid lanes of Portici
+and Resina there must still exist acres upon acres of
+undisturbed buildings, public and private, many of
+them perhaps filled with priceless works of Greek and
+Roman art, for Herculaneum, unlike Pompeii, was
+never tampered with by the ancients themselves, for
+the coating of volcanic mud, which filled the whole
+area of the city, made impracticable a systematic
+searching of its ruins by the despoiled citizens. Then,
+as if nature had not already buried the city sufficiently
+<pb n='11'/><anchor id='Pg011'/>deep, subsequent eruptions of Vesuvius have superimposed
+additional layers of lava, whilst confiding
+human beings have in their turn built habitations upon
+the volcanic crust.
+</p>
+
+<milestone unit="tb"/>
+
+<p>
+We all know the story, perhaps mythical, of the
+discovery of Herculaneum at the beginning of the
+eighteenth century by the accidental sinking of a well
+upon its long-forgotten site and of the subsequent
+excavations made by the Prince d’Elbœuf. These so-called
+explorations were, however, made in the most
+greedy and destructive spirit, for the prince’s sole
+object was to obtain antique works of art for his
+private collection, not to make intelligent enquiries
+about the dead and buried city lying beneath his
+estate. Ignorant workmen were despatched to hew
+and hack wholesale in the mirky depths in order to
+discover statuary and paintings, and since there was
+no receptacle at hand to contain the <hi rend='italic'>débris</hi>, they took
+the simple course of filling in each hollow made with
+the masses of rubbish already excavated. Later in the
+same century the Bourbon king was induced by
+Neapolitan savants to take some interest in the work,
+but, strange to relate, the superintendent appointed, a
+certain Spanish officer named Alcubier, was so ignorant
+and careless that half the objects found under his
+supervision were broken or lost before they reached
+Naples; this ignoramus, it was said, even went so far
+as to order whole architraves to be smashed up and
+their bronze lettering to be picked out before making
+a copy of the original inscription! Under these
+circumstances the marvel is that anything of beauty
+or value should have survived at all, for this selfish
+<pb n='12'/><anchor id='Pg012'/>plundering of Herculaneum, in strong contrast with
+the reverent treatment meted out to Pompeii, may be
+considered one of the greatest pieces of vandalism
+ever perpetrated. In spite of this wholesale destruction,
+however, there must remain untouched, as we
+have said, a vast quantity of objects, beautiful, useful
+or curious, yet it is extremely doubtful if we shall live
+to see any serious and intelligent effort made to bring
+these hidden treasures forth to the light of day.
+The expense of working this buried hoard would
+be enormous in any case, whilst the existence of the
+houses of Resina and Portici overhead necessitates
+special measures of precaution on the part of the
+excavators. The only method of examining Herculaneum
+properly would be in fact to treat the buried
+site like an immense mine by the construction of
+regular galleries and shafts for the entrance of skilled
+workmen, and to remove the rubbish displaced to the
+outer air. Perhaps some multi-millionaire might be
+found ready to undertake so arduous, yet so fascinating
+a task, though we fear that the Italian Government,
+which has always shown itself as tenacious of its
+subterranean wealth of antiquity as it appears languid
+in the work of quarrying it, would indignantly refuse
+to accede to any such offer. As regards the ancient
+city of Hercules, therefore, we must perforce remain
+content to inspect the magnificent bronzes and the
+other objects of interest that are to be found in the
+Museum of Naples, for we are not likely to see any
+further researches just at present, more’s the pity,
+since there is every reason to suppose that a thorough
+investigation conducted regardless of cost would yield up
+to the world the most marvellous and valuable results.
+</p>
+
+<pb n='13'/><anchor id='Pg013'/>
+
+<p>
+Some two miles of dusty suburb lie between Resina
+and Torre del Greco, which has been destroyed time
+after time by the lava streams descending from <q>that
+peak of Hell rising out of Paradise,</q> as Goethe once
+named the burning mountain overhead. Nevertheless,
+the Torrese continue to sit patiently at the feet of
+the fire-spouting monster, trembling when he is angry,
+pleased when he is quiescent, and ready to abandon
+meekly their homes when he renders them insupportable
+by his furious outbursts. Yet these people never
+fail to return and risk the ever-present chances of
+death and destruction. And little can we blame
+them for their fatalism, when we gaze upon the
+glorious views that reveal themselves at this spot,
+whence Naples rising proudly from the sea, the rocky
+islands of Ischia and Capri, the aerial heights of
+Monte Sant’ Angelo and all the features of the placid
+bay are seen spread around us in a panorama of
+unsurpassed loveliness. Beneath lava rocks, black
+and sinister, that contrast strangely in their sombre
+hues with the brilliant tints of sea and sky, lie little
+beaches of glittering gravel that would afford delightful
+retreats for meditation, were it not for the dozens
+of half-naked brown-skinned imps, children of the
+fisher-folk of Torre del Greco, who wallow in the warm
+sand or rush with joyful screams into the tepid surf.
+The population must have increased not a little since
+those days, nearly a century ago, when the unhappy
+Shelley could find peace and solitude in his darkest
+hours of unrest upon these shores, where it would be
+well-nigh impossible for a twentieth-century poet to
+espy a retreat for soothing his soul in verse. Yet
+somehow, during the drowsy noontide rest when the
+<pb n='14'/><anchor id='Pg014'/>active life of the South ceases, if only for an hour or
+so, it is still possible to catch the spirit in which that
+melancholy wanderer indited one of his most exquisite
+lyrics:—sunshine, clear sky, murmuring seas, the
+fragrance of the Italian spring, all are present to our
+reverie; and how true and perfect a picture has the
+poet-artist drawn for us of this beautiful Vesuvian
+shore!
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">The sun is warm, the sky is clear,</q></l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 3'>The waves are dancing fast and bright,</l>
+<l>Blue isles and snowy mountains wear</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 3'>The purple noon’s transparent light:</l>
+<l>The breath of the moist earth is light</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 3'>Around its unexpanded buds;</l>
+<l>Like many a voice of one delight,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 3'>The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,</l>
+<l>The City’s voice itself is soft, like Solitude’s.</l>
+</lg>
+<lg>
+<l>I see the Deep’s untrampled floor</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 3'>With green and purple seaweeds strown;</l>
+<l>I see the waves upon the shore,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 3'>Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:</l>
+<l>I sit upon the sands alone;</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 3'>The lightning of the noontide ocean</l>
+<l>Is flashing round me, and a tone</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 3'>Arises from its measured motion,</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion?</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+But it must be admitted that the seashore by
+Torre del Greco does not often lend itself as a
+suitable spot for romantic or solitary communings
+with nature; it is a busy place where the struggle
+for life is keen and practical enough, and its inhabitants
+have little time or inclination to bestow on the
+pursuit of poetry. As in all the towns of the <hi rend='italic'>Terra
+di Lavoro</hi>, as this collection of human ant-hills on
+<pb n='15'/><anchor id='Pg015'/>the eastern side of Naples is sometimes designated,
+the old command given to the first parents of mankind—<q>by
+the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat
+bread</q>—is scrupulously observed in Torre del Greco.
+It is little enough, however, that these frugal people
+demand, for a hunk of coarse bread, tempered with a
+handful of beans or an orange in winter or with a
+slice of luscious pink water-melon or a few figs in
+summer, is thought to constitute a full meal in this
+climate; nor are these simple viands washed down by
+anything more potent than a draught of <hi rend='italic'>mezzo-vino</hi>,
+the weak sour wine of the country. A dish of
+maccaroni or a plateful of kid or veal garnished with
+vegetables is a treat to be reserved for a marriage or
+some great Church festival, whilst a chicken is regarded
+as a luxury in which only <hi rend='italic'>gran’ signori</hi> of
+boundless wealth can afford to indulge. Amongst the
+many classes of toilers with which populous Torre del
+Greco abounds, that of the coral-fishers is perhaps the
+most interesting. There is pure romance in the very
+notion of hunting for the beautiful coloured substance
+lying hidden in the crystalline depths of the Mediterranean,
+and its quest is not a little suggestive of
+azure caverns beneath the waves, peopled by soft-eyed
+mermaids and strange iridescent fishes. As a matter
+of fact, it would be difficult to name a harder occupation
+or a more dismal monotonous existence than that
+of the coral-fishers, many hundreds of whom leave
+this little port every spring in order to spend the
+summer months on the coasts of Tripoli, Sardinia, or
+Sicily. The men employed, who work under contract
+during some six months of unending drudgery, are by
+no means all natives of Torre del Greco, but are
+<pb n='16'/><anchor id='Pg016'/>collected from various places of the neighbourhood,
+not a few of them being thrifty youths from Capri,
+who are eager to amass as quickly as possible the
+lump sum of money requisite to permit of marriage.
+It is true that the amount actually paid by the
+owners of the coral fleet sounds proportionately large,
+yet it is in reality poor enough recompense when
+measured by the ceaseless toil, the burning heat and
+the wretched food, which the venture entails. The
+lot of the coral-fisher has however much improved of
+late years, partly by measures of government which
+now compel the contractors to treat their servants
+more humanely, and partly by the fact that the
+practice of emigration in Southern Italy has reduced
+the numbers of applicants for the coral-fishing business
+and has thereby, indirectly at least, raised wages and
+bettered the old conditions of service. A truly pitiable
+account is given of these poor creatures some thirty
+years ago by an English writer, whose knowledge of
+the Neapolitan people and character remains probably
+unsurpassed; and it is some satisfaction to reflect that
+even in Mr Stamer’s day the bad old oppressive system
+had already been somewhat tempered for the benefit
+of these white slaves, who for nearly half the round of
+the year were worse treated than King Bomba’s unhappy
+victims in the pestilent prisons of Naples and
+Gaeta.
+</p><anchor id="illus01"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: A CAPRIOTE FISHERMAN’S WIFE]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus01th.jpg" rend="width: 100%">
+      <head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus01.jpg">A CAPRIOTE FISHERMAN’S WIFE</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: A CAPRIOTE FISHERMAN’S WIFE</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+<q>Badly paid, badly fed, and hard worked is the poor
+coral-fisher. Compared with his, the life of a galley-slave
+is one of sybaritical indolence. His treatment
+was, until very recently, not one whit better than that
+of the poor oppressed negro as he existed in the vivid
+imagination of Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe;
+im<pb n='17'/><anchor id='Pg017'/>measurably worse than that of the real Simon Pure.
+The thirty ducats for which he sold his seven months’
+services once paid, he was just as much a slave as
+Uncle Tom of pious memory, harder worked, more
+brutally handled. His <hi rend='italic'>padrone</hi> was a sea-monster,
+alongside of whom Mr Legree would have seemed a
+paragon of Quaker-like gentleness and amiability.
+His word was law and a rope’s end well laid on his
+sole reply to any remonstrance on the part of his
+bondsmen. For six days out of the seven he kept
+them working incessantly, not unfrequently on the
+seventh into the bargain, if the weather was favourable;
+and that they might be strong, hearty and able to
+haul away, their food consisted of dry biscuits; a dish
+of maccaroni with just sufficient oil to make the sign
+of the cross being served out for the Sunday’s dinner.</q><note place="foot">W. J. A. Stamer: <hi rend='italic'>Dolce Napoli</hi>.</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In those <q>good old days,</q> not so very far distant,
+the dredging nets were coarse and weighty, and the
+capstan of the clumsiest and most primitive description,
+so that the coral-seeking serfs under contract were
+worked like bullocks until they were often wont to
+fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion as they hauled
+away mechanically. We can imagine then with what
+raptures of joy these ill-treated mortals must have
+hailed the advent of October, the month that terminated
+their long spell of suffering and semi-starvation,
+and with what eagerness they must have returned
+homewards, the more industrious to perform odd jobs
+during the winter season on farms or in factories; the
+lazier to enjoy a well-earned holiday of loafing on the
+quay or in the piazza. And although times have
+changed for the better in the eyes of the coral-fisher,
+<pb n='18'/><anchor id='Pg018'/>his lot still remains hard enough, even in the present
+days of grace; whilst any employment that saps the
+workman’s strength during the hot summer months
+and leaves him idle or unemployed in winter time
+cannot well be described as a desirable trade. Yet
+the temptation to obtain a considerable sum of money
+in advance, as is the case in this particular industry,
+often proves overwhelming to the young man of the
+Torres or of Castellamare, imprudently married before
+he is out of his teens and with an ever-increasing
+family. It is so easy to accept the proffered gold,
+which will keep wife and babies in comparative comfort
+throughout the long hot summer; unskilled labour
+is paid so lightly on these teeming shores of the Terra
+di Lavoro; saddled already with children he cannot
+make up his feeble mind to emigrate; in short, to go
+a-coralling is his sole chance, if he wishes to keep his
+home together and to stave off charity or starvation
+from his young wife and family.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beyond Torre del Greco we seem to escape to
+a certain extent from the enveloping network of
+human dwellings, so that we are at last enabled
+to gain some idea of the natural features of the
+country. The oriental character of the landscape,
+which marks more or less distinctly the whole of
+the Neapolitan coast-line, will at once be noticed in
+the domed farm buildings, not unlike Mahommedan
+<hi rend='italic'>koubbas</hi>, washed a glistening white, that stand out
+sharply against the lugubrious tints of the lava beds.
+Above us, crowning a bosky hillock that juts forth
+from the mountain flank, stands one of the many
+convents of the monks of Camaldoli, whose houses are
+scattered throughout the breadth of Southern Italy.
+<pb n='19'/><anchor id='Pg019'/>The position of their Vesuvian settlement is certainly
+unique, for the rising ground on which it is perched
+appears like some verdant oasis amid the arid fields
+of sable lava. Secure in its commanding site, the
+monastery has many a time been completely surrounded
+by burning streams, which have invariably
+left the building and its woody demesne unscathed.
+More than once have the good brethren, who wear the
+white robe of St Romualdo of Ravenna, looked down
+from their convent walls upon the work of destruction
+below, and have watched the waves of liquid fire surging
+angrily but uselessly round the rocky base of their
+retreat. Hard manual labour, prayer, solitude and
+contemplation: these are the chief duties enjoined by
+the famous Tuscan order, and surely no more suitable
+place for carrying out such precepts could have been
+chosen by the pious founder of this Vesuvian convent.
+For what scenes on earth could be deemed more
+beautiful to contemplate, we wonder, than the wide
+stretches of heaven and ocean, of fertile plain and of
+rugged mountain, that are ever before the eyes of
+the brethren; or more instructive than the constant
+spectacle of disappointed human ambition and energy,
+which is afforded by the barren lava beds and the
+ruined cities close at hand!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Descending from the slopes of Camaldoli, we cross
+a tract of country wherein black lava alternates with
+patches of rich cultivation and of thriving vineyards,
+and gaining the high road we soon reach Torre
+Annunziata. Here it is evident that the manufacture
+of maccaroni forms the chief industry of its population,
+for on all sides are to be seen the frames filled with
+the golden coloured strings of <hi rend='italic'>pasta</hi> that have been
+<pb n='20'/><anchor id='Pg020'/>hung up to dry in the sunshine. Every flat roof
+in the place, moreover, is covered with smooth concrete
+and protected by a low parapet for the spreading of
+the grain, and on the beach are laid huge cloths
+of coarse brown material that are heaped with masses
+of the crude corn, whilst men with their naked feet
+from time to time turn the grain so as to dry the
+whole bulk. Torre Annunziata and its inland neighbour,
+Gragnano, are in fact the two chief local scenes
+of this industry with which the Bay of Naples has
+always been so closely associated, and it is here that
+we can best make ourselves acquainted with the
+process of manufacturing maccaroni. By following
+any one of the tall brown-skinned fellows, stripped to
+the waist and bare-legged, who have been breathing
+the fresh air of the street for a few moments, we
+quickly arrive at the entrance of one of the many
+small factories with which the town abounds. In spite
+of open doors and windows its atmosphere feels hot
+and stifling, for it is impregnated with tiny particles
+of flour dust, which too often, alas! are apt to affect
+permanently the lungs of the workmen. The dough
+of maccaroni is obtained by mixing pure wheaten
+flour with semolina in certain proportions, only water
+being used for the purpose, whilst the task of kneading
+is carried out in primitive fashion by means of a lever
+worked continuously by two or more men. When the
+dough has at length arrived at the required consistency
+after some hours of steady kneading, it is placed in a
+large perforated copper cylinder, each hole having
+a central pin at the bottom and a valve on top. A
+powerful screw is then employed to press down upon
+the dough, which is thus squeezed out of the
+imprison<pb n='021'/><anchor id='Pg021'/>ing cylinder through the holes in the serpentine shape
+that is so familiar to us. On reaching a certain length
+these pipes, issuing from the holes, are twisted off and
+are then removed for drying to the frames in the open
+air. Maccaroni has, of course, many varieties of form
+and quality, from the thin fluffy vermicelli, known
+under the poetical name of <hi rend='italic'>Capilli degli Angeli</hi>, to
+the great thick pipe-stem-like article of ordinary
+commerce. There are endless means of cooking and
+dressing this, the national dish of Italy, but perhaps
+the most popular of all is <hi rend='italic'>alla Napolitana</hi>, wherein
+it is served with tomato sauce, to which a sprinkling
+of grated Parmesan cheese is frequently added. A
+compound of eggs and maccaroni, sometimes known
+as a Neapolitan omelette, likewise makes an appetising
+dish, though it is one that is little known to foreigners.
+One circumstance is patent; the dismal so-called
+<q>maccaroni pudding</q> one meets with in England
+seems to have nothing in common with the delicately
+flavoured, sustaining dish that can be obtained for
+a few pence in any Southern restaurant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Torre Annunziata has the reputation of being a
+dirty malodorous town, composed of shabby stone
+houses and full of quarrelsome people. Well, perhaps
+there is a scintilla of truth in the sweeping observation,
+yet if we can contrive to endure the smells and racket
+of the place for a brief space of time, there is much
+of human interest to be observed in the daily scenes
+of its crowded beach and its noisy streets. After all,
+no odours of the South can compare in all-pervading
+intensity with the blended aroma of fried fish and
+London fog that old Drury Lane can often produce;
+nor are the Torrese more dangerous to strangers or
+<pb n='22'/><anchor id='Pg022'/>more objectionable in their habits than the crowds of
+Lambeth or Seven Dials. In strength of lungs, it
+must be granted, the Italian easily surpasses the
+Londoner, for the Southern voice is positively alarming
+in its vigour and its far-reaching power. No one—man,
+woman or child—can apparently speak below
+a scream; even the most amiable or trivial of conversations
+seems to our unaccustomed ears to portend
+an imminent quarrel, to so high a pitch are the
+naturally harsh voices strained. Morning, noon and
+night the same hubbub of men shouting, of women
+screeching, and of children yelling continues for
+nobody minds noise in Italy, where people are
+troubled with no nerves of their own and consequently
+have no consideration for those of strangers. And
+why, therefore, should they suspend their native habits
+to please a handful of cavilling <hi rend='italic'>forestieri</hi>?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A stroll through Torre Annunziata, although it
+possesses not a few drawbacks, can be made both
+amusing and instructive; we can even find something
+attractive in the quality of the local atmosphere, which
+suggests at one and the same time sunshine, garlic,
+incense, stale fish and wood smoke; it is the pungent
+but characteristic aroma of the South, filled <q>with
+spicy odours Time can never mar.</q> And what truly
+charming pictures do the family groups present in
+the wide archways giving on the untidy courts within,
+full of sun and shadow and gay with bright-coloured
+garments swaying in the wind! The ebon-haired
+young mother with teeth like pearls and with warm-tinted
+cheeks sits fondling the last helpless little
+addition to her growing family, whilst toddlers of any
+age from two to seven, unkempt but bright-eyed and
+<pb n='23'/><anchor id='Pg023'/>engaging, play around the door-step, watched over by
+their grandmother, or may be their great-grandam,
+who with her wizened face enfolded in her yellow
+kerchief, her skinny neck, and her distaff in the bony
+fingers, looks as if she had stepped out of some
+Renaissance painting of the Three Fates in a Florentine
+gallery. Crimson carnations in earthenware pots stand
+on the steps of the outside staircase, giving a touch of
+refinement to the squalid home, and from the balcony
+overhead the glossy-black, yellow-billed <hi rend='italic'>passer solitario</hi>,
+the favourite cage-bird of the Neapolitan poor, chirrups
+with apparent cheerfulness in his wicker-work prison.
+Behind, in the dim shadows of the large room, which
+serves as sole habitation, we can espy the inevitable
+household altar with the oil lamp glimmering before
+the little crude-coloured print of the Virgin and Child,
+and its usual accessory, the piece of palm or olive
+that was blessed by the priest last Palm Sunday;
+poor and mean though the chamber be, its bed linen
+and simple appointments are more cleanly than might
+perhaps be inferred from the appearance of the family
+itself. In a shady corner close by, three or four young
+labourers at their mid-day rest have finished their
+frugal repast of bread and beans, and are now playing
+eagerly the popular game of <hi rend='italic'>zecchinetto</hi> with a frayed
+and grimy pack of cards. Wives or sweethearts
+watch with anxious faces from a respectful distance,
+for it is not meet to disturb the lords of creation when
+they happen to be engaged in a game of chance.
+What possibilities of farce and tragedy can be drawn
+from so simple, so common a scene upon these shores,
+where human life is less artificially conducted than
+elsewhere in Europe, and where human passions are
+<pb n='24'/><anchor id='Pg024'/>kept under less restraint? Terrible are the tales of
+jealousy and revenge, of deliberate treachery and of
+uncontrolled violence, which are related of these quick-tempered
+grown-up children of the South, who seem
+to love and hate with the blind intensity of untutored
+savages.
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Lo ’nnamorato’ mmio sse chiammo Peppo,</q></l>
+<l>Lo capo jocatore de le carte;</l>
+<l>Ss’ ha jocato ’sto core a zecchinetto,</l>
+<l>Dice ca mo’ lo venne, e mo’ lo parte.</l>
+<l>Che n’agg’ io a fare lo caro de carte?</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Vogho lo core che tinite ’m pietto!</q></l>
+</lg>
+    
+    <lg>
+<l>(<q rend="post: none">That lover of mine is called Handsome Beppo,</q></l>
+<l>The best player of cards all around this way;</l>
+<l>He’s been playing on Hearts at <hi rend='italic'>zecchinetto</hi>,</l>
+<l>And says now they turn up, now are sorted away.</l>
+<l>What matters the heart in the card-pack to me?</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">The heart in his bosom’s the heart for me!</q>)</l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Here lies the sleeping fisherman, worn out probably
+with hours of hauling at the heavy nets, who is snatching
+a chance hour of repose, prone upon his chest with
+face buried in his crossed arms. Little he seems to
+reck of the damp of the soil or the heat of the sun,
+nor can a noisy game of <hi rend='italic'>mora</hi> played by a couple of
+his companions beside him disturb his deep slumber.
+<hi rend='italic'>Mora</hi> has ever been the classic game of the South,
+and indeed, there is abundant evidence to show that
+it was played by the ancestors of these dwellers in
+Magna Graecia hundreds of years before Pompeii was
+overthrown. The game, which requires nothing but
+the human fingers, bears no little resemblance to our
+own humble pastime of <q>Up Jenkin!</q> which may
+almost be described as a species of drawing-room <hi rend='italic'>mora</hi>;
+<pb n='25'/><anchor id='Pg025'/>perhaps some Italian traveller in a past age may
+actually have introduced this form of the southern
+diversion into prosaic England. The two players, face
+to face and craning forward with outstretched necks,
+simultaneously extend their right hands with one or
+more fingers pointing upward, the aim of each man
+being to guess the exact number, from two to ten,
+jointly displayed by both right hands. If one of them
+hit upon the correct figure, then he gains one point
+towards the stakes, which are usually made in <hi rend='italic'>centesimi</hi>
+rather than in <hi rend='italic'>soldi</hi>. How rapidly do the lean supple
+brown fingers flash backwards and forwards, and with
+what gusto do the two frenzied combatants yell out
+their numbers! <hi rend='italic'>Mora</hi> has been a favourite recreation
+with these people almost from their cradles, and he
+would be a bold man indeed who would venture to
+challenge a Torrese at this game, for the native’s skill
+and experience are almost bound to tell eventually in
+his favour, and the odds are <q>Lombard Street to a
+China orange</q> against the outside player. There are
+certain maxims too with regard to the game which
+are closely observed by those who play it, as well as
+peculiar expressions, such as <hi rend='italic'>tutte</hi> to denote that all
+ten fingers are being shown, or <hi rend='italic'>chiarella</hi> for all but
+one. Five points usually make the game, and these
+are commonly marked by holding up one or more
+fingers of the disengaged left hand.—These are a few
+of the many sights to be witnessed by those who can
+afford to endure the pestering attentions of small boys,
+and the uncomplimentary staring of the adult population
+in such places as the Torres or Castellamare; and
+such as wish to make themselves acquainted with the
+details of southern life and manners cannot do better
+<pb n='26'/><anchor id='Pg026'/>than pass an idle hour in the fishmarket or the piazza
+of these little industrial towns of the Vesuvian shore.
+For to regard Southern Italy from the majestic isolation
+of a railway compartment or a hired carriage cannot
+possibly give the traveller the smallest insight into the
+ordinary phases of local life; for he is ever looking,
+as it were, into a picture from which all trace of colour
+has vanished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is but a short quarter of an hour by train from
+Torre Annunziata to Castellamare di Stabia, the ill-fated
+Stabiae of the Romans, which shared the evil lot
+of Pompeii and Herculaneum. On our right we have
+the sea, with the castle-topped islet of Revigliano,
+whilst on looking to the left we can survey the fertile
+valley of the Sarno, and the shapeless mounds which
+hide that precious goal of every traveller to these
+shores, the buried city of Pompeii. Everywhere thrives
+sub-tropical vegetation:—cactus and aloe draped in
+wreaths of smilax; tall straggling masses of scarlet
+geranium that cling for protection to the Indian fig,
+and blossom in security amid their spiky but safe
+retreats; shrubs of fragrant yellow genista; clumps of
+purple-leaved <hi rend='italic'>ricini</hi>, as the Italians name the castor-oil
+plant. If it were summer time, the daturas would be
+covered with their great white floral trumpets, and
+every oleander bush would be one blaze of the coarse
+carmine blossoms that are here called <hi rend='italic'>Mazza di San
+Giuseppe</hi>, or St Joseph’s nosegay, and a very gaudy
+rank bouquet they make. But in spring-time the
+oleander can but display long greyish leaves and pods
+of snowy fluff, which is blown hither and thither like
+thistle-down on the air; and it is only in flaming
+summer that these regions are brightened by St
+<pb n='27'/><anchor id='Pg027'/>Joseph’s flower, or by the still more gorgeous masses of
+the mesembryanthemum, which clambers on all sides
+over the lava rock and hangs in crimson festoons
+from tufa cliffs, making impossibly splendid splashes of
+colour in the landscape.
+</p>
+    <p rend="center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em">* * * * * * *</p>
+<p>
+So many writers have expatiated upon the sordid
+ugliness of Castellamare and upon the beauty of the
+wooded slopes above the town, that a further description
+of the place may well be dispensed with.
+Uninteresting, however, as this industrial town
+appears, it boasts a long historical record, to which
+its crumbling medieval castle bears witness. The
+great Emperor Frederick the Second, the scholar-pope
+Pius the Second, and all the monarchs of the Angevin,
+Aragonese and Bourbon dynasties have been associated
+with this <q>castle by the sea.</q> The whole
+district was once the property of that human monster
+Pier-Luigi Farnese, duke of Parma, heir of Pope
+Paul the Third, of whose demoniacal cruelty and
+treachery the racy pages of Cellini’s Memoirs give
+so vivid an account, and whose repulsive face has
+grown familiar to us from Titian’s famous portraits
+in the gallery of Naples. It was the evil Pier-Luigi’s
+descendant and heiress-general of the family, Elizabeth
+Farnese, Queen of Spain, who conveyed the beautiful
+villa and woods of Quisisana to the Bourbon kings,
+and here the Neapolitan royal family for several
+generations sought health (as the name of the place
+implies) and repose upon the breezy heights that lie
+so conveniently near to the great city in full view to
+the west. Nowadays the old royal villa, deserted
+by crowned heads since Ferdinand’s days and fallen
+<pb n='28'/><anchor id='Pg028'/>from its high estate to its present use of a hotel and
+pension, forms with its park the chief attraction of
+Castellamare, where English travellers are wont to
+congregate in winter, and Neapolitan and Greek
+seekers of pleasure or drinkers of medicinal waters
+resort in the hot summer months. The Southerners
+who come here for their <hi rend='italic'>villeggiatura</hi> certainly enjoy
+a better time than the winter visitors, for the bulky
+form of Monte Sant’ Angelo intercepts much of the
+sunshine, thereby rendering the place damp and
+chilly in the cold season of the year. Nominally it
+is the mineral springs that attract the Neapolitan
+folk, wherein they have a fine choice of health-giving
+beverages, varying from the <hi rend='italic'>acqua ferrata</hi>, a mild
+chalybeate that is found useful as a tonic, to the
+powerful <hi rend='italic'>acqua del Muraglione</hi>, that is warranted to
+reduce the stoutest mortal to a mere shadow of his
+former self in a trice. But though the waters may
+be occasionally sipped of a morning and wry faces
+made, it is in reality the warm sea-bathing on the
+shore, where people spend hours pickling in tepid
+salt water, and also the cool rides or walks amongst
+the shady alleys of sweet chestnut and ilex woods of
+Quisisana and Monte Coppola, which draw hither in
+summer the elegant world of Naples, and even of
+Athens, to visit Castellamare. The leafy groves on
+the zephyr-swept hill sides, once sacred to the pleasures
+of Bourbon tyrants, now ring with peals of noisy
+laughter, with gallant compliments, and with the
+harsh shouting of the <hi rend='italic'>ciucciari</hi>, the leaders of the
+poor over-driven donkeys. Unhappy patient beasts!
+usually covered with raws and galls, that are urged
+forward at a gallop by the remorseless stick, or even
+<pb n='29'/><anchor id='Pg029'/>by the goad, for the Neapolitan donkey-boy is
+absolutely callous to the feelings of his animal. Not
+that he is cruel out of sheer cussedness, for cruelty’s
+sake, for he can be really kind to his dog or his cat;
+but the beast of burden, the helpless uncomplaining
+servant of man, suffers terribly at his hands. It is
+useless to remonstrate or argue with the young
+ruffian, who at our sharp reprimand will merely open
+wide his big black eyes and stare in genuine amazement.
+<hi rend='italic'>Non sono Cristiani</hi>—they have no souls, and
+the beasts are their property and not yours; what
+does it matter then to you how they are treated,
+provided they carry you properly? That is the sum
+total of the donkey-boy’s argument, and he has high
+ecclesiastical authority to back up his private theory,
+if he had the wit to enter into a discussion with us
+on the subject. Almost equally hopeless is it to
+point to the simple fact that a well-groomed, well-treated
+animal lasts longer than a half-starved, mutilated
+scare-crow. <q>How old is your horse?</q> we once
+asked a driver in the south. <q>He is very old indeed,
+<hi rend='italic'>eccelenza</hi>,</q> was the reply; <q>he must be nearly twelve!</q>
+On being informed that horses often worked well up
+to twenty years old and over in England, he let us
+infer, quite politely, that he thought we were romancing.
+Tenderness towards the dumb creation is a
+common, not to say a prevailing characteristic of
+the Anglo-Saxon race, and it must be confessed
+that the thoughtless and horrible cruelty towards
+animals witnessed on all sides in the Neapolitan
+Riviera amounts to a serious drawback to the full
+enjoyment of its many beauties and amenities.
+Matters are improving a little of late, it is only fair
+<pb n='30'/><anchor id='Pg030'/>to add. There is an Italian Society for the Prevention
+of Cruelty to Animals, and its officials have done
+some good in the streets of Naples itself, but naturally
+its new ideas have not yet penetrated far into the
+country districts.
+</p>
+<anchor id="illus02"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: ROAD NEAR CASTELLAMARE]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus02th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus02.jpg">ROAD NEAR CASTELLAMARE</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: ROAD NEAR CASTELLAMARE</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+To the healthy and energetic the most delightful
+excursion that Castellamare can offer is the ascent to
+the summit of Monte Sant’ Angelo, that monarch of
+the Bay of Naples, whose lofty crest gleams with
+snowy streaks until the spring be well advanced. The
+lazy or the feeble can make use of one of the poor
+oppressed donkeys, but it is better to engage its
+ragged master, who without his four-footed drudge
+to whack and kick is a harmless enough being,
+to act as guide over the steep ill-defined pathway that
+leads ever upwards. As we slowly ascend through the
+sub-tropical region of fig and vine, of olive and
+carouba, we question our guide, who in spite of his
+bright eyes and well-knit frame seems about as
+intelligent a companion as the poor ass left behind in
+the stall, where he is enjoying, let us hope, an unexpected
+holiday. It is not easy to extract information
+from our native attendant, yet with a little judicious
+pressing we learn from him that the top of the mountain,
+which is our bourne, was once inhabited by evil
+spirits, until a holy hermit took up his abode on the
+peak, since when his sanctity has kept the place
+tolerably clear of witches and foul incubi. Wicked
+sprites, however, still haunt the spreading woods of
+beech and chestnut which we must presently traverse,
+and our guide (whose name is Vincenzo) admits to
+us that he would not care to venture there alone, even
+in broad daylight. There is, he tells us, warming up at
+<pb n='31'/><anchor id='Pg031'/>last to the subject, much gold hidden there, which the
+spirits guard so jealously that they are ready to tear
+in pieces any mortal who is clever enough to find and
+bold enough to rifle their secret hoards. Only a
+priest, on account of his sacred office, is reckoned safe
+from their iniquitous spells. <q>But has not any one
+dared,</q> we ask, <q>to go in company with a holy man,
+to search for this hidden treasure?</q> Well, yes, he
+had been told that men from Vico had once ventured
+up into the woods to search for the gold. With a
+little encouragement Vincenzo is finally prevailed upon
+to give us the whole story, which is evidently of somewhat
+recent date.
+</p>
+<p>
+Once upon a time there were four men, one of them
+being a priest, who lived in Vico, and one of these
+men had often been told by his father that in the
+forests near the top of Monte Sant’ Angelo there lay
+buried a chest full of gold—<hi rend='italic'>molto! molto!</hi> The father
+of the man had been himself in his youth to search
+for the treasure, but find it he never could, for he
+would never take a priest with him to avert the spells
+of the evil spirits of the mountain sides, who kept the
+place hidden. So this time the man chose two out of his
+friends, the boldest and the trustiest he could fix upon,
+to accompany him, and at the same time he obtained
+the promise of a cousin, who was a priest, to assist in
+the undertaking. All four made their way up to the
+woods, and whilst the three men were digging and
+searching, the priest continued to read aloud the incantations
+out of a certain book he had brought with
+him for the purpose. In course of time the chest was
+discovered to the joy of all, and sure enough it was
+bulging with the desired gold pieces. They opened
+<pb n='32'/><anchor id='Pg032'/>it without difficulty, and the four friends divided its
+contents in equal shares. Scarcely had the work of
+division been carried out, than there came a loud voice
+issuing from the unknown, calling out the question:—<q><hi rend='italic'>Che
+ferete con questo tesoro?</hi></q> <q><hi rend='italic'>Mangeremo, beveremo!</hi></q>
+boldly replied one of the group, to whom this
+sudden accession of wealth offered dreams of unlimited
+platters of maccaroni and countless flasks of ruby-red
+Gragnano in the future. <q>We shall eat, we shall drink,
+but we shall also make abundant alms!</q> called out
+another—let us hope it was the priest!—but no sooner
+had the word <hi rend='italic'>elemosina</hi> (alms) been uttered than there
+was heard a most terrific rattling of chains, the gold
+pieces turned to dead leaves in the affrighted mortals’
+hands, and the four men took to their heels and fled
+in alarm down the mountain flank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vincenzo believes this tale implicitly, just as it was
+related to him, and he adds to combat our own incredulity
+that the priest and one of the men who took
+part in this strange adventure were still living and
+ready to confirm the story, but that of the remaining
+two, one was now dead, and the other had been deaf
+and dumb ever since the event. It seem a pity to criticise
+Vincenzo’s simple little narrative, which makes a
+pretty fairy-story and points a sound moral, as it stands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We enter the fresh scented woods that have now
+replaced in our climb the rich cultivated crops and
+terraced gardens, and here amidst the clumps of
+ancient chestnuts our guide points out to us the great
+snow-pits, the contents of which are used to cool the
+water sold by the <hi rend='italic'>acquaioli</hi> during hot summer nights
+in the sultry streets of Naples. These pits are dug
+about fifty feet deep, and half as much across, being
+<pb n='33'/><anchor id='Pg033'/>conical in shape with a grating placed a short distance
+above the tapering base to allow the melted snow to
+drain off into the soil. The sides of each pit are first
+well-lined with straw and leafy branches, and the new-fallen
+snow shovelled in and forced into a solid mass
+by pressure from above, whilst on top is placed a
+sound thatched roof. As we wander through the
+silent woods we see patches of anemones, white and
+blue, lying upon the leaf-strewn ground, and beside
+them in many places are tufts of the pale starry primroses;
+coarse spurge, and lush masses of the hellebore
+with its large pale green flowers and dark leaves
+are common enough on all sides. From amongst the
+naked trees we emerge into the bare bleak stony
+stretches that lead to the summit, covered with the
+coarse but aromatic vegetation that clothes the dry
+limestone wastes of the south. How truly marvellous
+is the description of these wind-swept, weed-grown
+solitudes that Robert Browning presents to us in
+what is perhaps the most truly Italian in feeling of
+all his poems, <q>The Englishman in Italy!</q> For here
+with the rich imagination, worthy of some of Shelley’s
+finest flights, is mingled an accurate appreciation of
+Nature, of which Wordsworth might well be proud;
+for the Lake poet himself could not have improved
+upon this exquisite description of the various shrubs
+and plants of a limestone hill-top in Italy.
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">The wild path grew wilder each instant,</q></l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>And place was e’en grudged</l>
+<l>’Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>Like the loose broken teeth</l>
+<l>Of some monster which climbed there to die</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>From the ocean beneath—</l>
+<pb n='34'/><anchor id='Pg034'/>
+<l>Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-weed</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>That clung to the path,</l>
+<l>And dark rosemary ever a-dying,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>That, spite the wind’s wrath,</l>
+<l>So loves the salt rock’s face to seaward,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>And lentisks as staunch</l>
+<l>To the stone where they root and bear berries,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>And ... what shows a branch</l>
+<l>Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'><q rend="pre: none">Of pale sea-green leaves.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Above our heads hovers a kite, performing graceful
+circles in the keen clear air and breaking the oppressive
+silence of the place with his shrill screams, for his
+mate must have her nest hidden in some cleft of yon
+grey towering cliff. A pair of crested hoopoes with
+brown plumage and ruddy breasts keep fluttering a
+little way before us, uttering from time to time their
+curious notes of alarm. Mercifully these handsome
+birds have escaped the fowler, who lays his snares
+even amongst the spirit-haunted crags of this desolate
+region. The hoopoe, though a very rare visitor to
+our northern shores, is fairly common on the Mediterranean
+coast, and he would be still more frequently
+encountered, were it not for his hereditary enemy,
+Man. There is a venerable legend concerning this
+interesting bird—<hi rend='italic'>bubbola</hi>, the Italians call him—which
+relates how ages ago on the scorching plains
+of Palestine a number of hoopoes once followed King
+Solomon as he was riding, and in order to protect
+the great king from the fierce rays of the sun, they
+formed themselves into a living screen to shelter the
+royal head. Grateful for this welcome attention,
+Solomon Ben David at eventide sent for the king of
+the Hoopoes to ask him what reward he would like
+<pb n='35'/><anchor id='Pg035'/>to receive for this service, and the answer was
+promptly made that a crown of pure gold on the head
+would be acceptable. The Jewish monarch smiled
+grimly as he granted the request, whereupon immediately
+each bird found his poll decorated with a tuft
+of pure golden feathers, and mightily pleased with
+their new magnificence were the conceited hoopoes.
+But alas! the news was quickly spread abroad that
+there were to be seen strange birds with plumes of
+real gold, and the eternal lust of gain at once set men
+in quest of the hoopoes, whom they began to slay
+wholesale with stones, arrows, and traps in order to
+obtain the coveted precious metal they bore on their
+heads. In despair, the king of the hoopoes then flew
+to the monarch sitting on his ivory throne at Jerusalem,
+and begged him to change their golden crowns for
+crests of feathers. Solomon the Wise smilingly gave
+the order; at once lovely red and black feathers took
+the place of the golden plumes, and the slaughter of
+the hoopoes in Palestine forthwith ceased. And the
+story, argues the recorder of this lesson upon the
+folly of personal adornment, must of necessity be true,
+for it is certain that the hoopoes bear a crown of
+feathers upon their heads unto this day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slowly we toil up the last portion of the peak,
+until we reach the ruined chapel of St Michael upon
+its summit, which is still a resort of local pilgrims,
+although in these days of doubt and avarice, when
+<q>sins are so many and saints so few,</q> the statue of
+the Archangel since its removal from this spot no
+longer perspires with the sacred dew, which the priests
+used to collect with cotton wool on the first day of
+August and distribute to the peasants of the district.
+<pb n='36'/><anchor id='Pg036'/>Like the oil that was once wont to exude from the
+blessed relics of St Andrew in the Cathedral of
+Amalfi, <hi rend='italic'>non c’è più</hi>; we may possess motor cars and
+radium, but we must contrive to exist without these
+precious exhibitions of the miraculous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It would be sheer folly to attempt a full description
+of that glorious view, comprising the bays of Gaeta,
+Naples, and Salerno; of Vesuvius with his ascending
+smoky clouds; of the endless chain of the snow-tipped
+Abruzzi Mountains that bound the vision to the east;
+of the vast expanse of the Mediterranean, stretching
+in one unbroken sheet of turquoise to the west, varied
+by violet patches of reflected cloud, and studded by
+innumerable ships, from the vast liners to the tiny
+fishing craft with their glistening sails, like snow-white
+sea-swallows resting on the calm waters. Again we
+turn to Robert Browning, most human of poets and
+most kindly of philosophers, to find adequate expression
+for the thoughts we dare not, cannot utter.
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Oh, heaven and the terrible crystal!</q></l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>No rampart excludes</l>
+<l>Your eye from the life to be lived</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>In the blue solitudes.</l>
+<l>Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement!</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>Still moving with you;</l>
+<l>For ever some new head and breast of them</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>Thrusts into view</l>
+<l>To observe the intruder; you see it</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>If quickly you turn,</l>
+<l>And before they escape you surprise them.</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>They grudge you should learn</l>
+<l>How the soft plains they look on, lean over</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>And love (they pretend)</l>
+<l>—Cower beneath them, the flat sea-pine crouches,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>The wild fruit-trees bend;</l>
+<pb n='37'/><anchor id='Pg037'/>
+<l>E’en the myrtle leaves curl, shrink and shut,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>All is silent and grave:</l>
+<l>’Tis a sensual and timorous beauty.</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'><q rend="pre: none">How fair! but a slave.</q></l>
+</lg><anchor id="illus03"/>
+<pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: MONTE FAITO, CASTELLAMARE]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus03th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus03.jpg">MONTE FAITO, CASTELLAMARE</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: MONTE FAITO, CASTELLAMARE</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+We descend by the slopes of Monte Faito in the
+quiet of the evening, facing the distant headland of
+Posilipo and the sunset, where above the horizon we
+see collecting thick masses of dark purple cloud,
+which augur a stormy morrow. Above us the peak
+of the Archangel is already wreathed in garlands of
+white mist, a sure sign of coming tempest, and it is
+amid a lurid light from the sinking sun that we
+hasten downwards, bending our steps in the direction
+of Pozzano, where the form of its convent stands out
+sharply defined against the background of the Bay.
+Night is rapidly approaching, and in the gathering
+darkness as we strike the road below the convent, we
+can already hear the ominous roaring and seething of
+the waters under the cliff, lashed to fury by the first
+deep breaths of the coming squall. Hurrying along
+the broad smooth roadway it is not long before we
+reach our hotel door, where we bid good night to
+Vincenzo, just as the first heavy drops of rain have
+begun to fall; pleasantly exhausted after our long
+excursion, we are ready to appreciate to the full the
+warmth and good cheer of the hospitable Hotel
+Quisisana.
+</p>
+
+</div><div n="3" rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n='38'/><anchor id='Pg038'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="3: La citta morta"/>
+<head>CHAPTER III</head>
+
+<head type="sub">LA CITTÀ MORTA</head>
+
+<p>
+Pompeii can never be visited without the same
+haunting conviction, the same oppressive thought:
+how terribly difficult it is to understand the City of
+the Dead which holds in so small a space the whole
+secret of the antique world! There are far more
+grandiose and impressive ruins to be seen in Rome;
+the city of Timgad in Northern Africa is more complete
+as a specimen of a Roman settlement than the
+half-excavated town near Vesuvius; yet here, and here
+only, can the men of the past stretch hands, as it were,
+across the barrier of eighteen intervening centuries to
+the dweller of to-day, and the dead-and-gone spirits
+of a highly organized civilization can whisper into the
+living ears of the twentieth century. For Pompeii
+will speak to us, if we will take the trouble to learn the
+tongue in which alone she can convey the secret of
+her story. It is needless to say that this language is
+not obtainable by one or two cursory visits to the
+Naples Museum, and a few hurried half-hours given to
+the contents of the guide-book; no, the language of
+Pompeii, which constitutes the key of access to the
+hidden chambers of the Roman world, can only be
+acquired with much expenditure of precious time and
+with infinite trouble. But <q>life is short and time is
+<pb n='39'/><anchor id='Pg039'/>fleeting,</q> and our bustling age expects to seize its
+required knowledge in the twinkling of an eye; well,
+in that case the story of Pompeii must remain a sealed
+volume to the traveller, who is conveyed to the City
+of the Dead in a train crammed with fellow-tourists;
+who eats a heavy unwholesome luncheon to the sound
+of mandoline-players twanging sprightly Neapolitan
+airs; and who is finally piloted round the sacred area
+by a chattering guide in the oppressive heat and glare
+of a sunny afternoon. Fatigued in mind and body,
+such an one will sink with ill-concealed relief upon the
+dusty velvet cushions of the returning train, thoroughly
+disappointed in the vaunted marvels of Pompeii, which
+his imagination had led him to expect. A vague
+impression of low broken walls, of narrow—to his eyes
+absurdly narrow—streets, of broken columns and of
+peeling frescoes fills his tired brain, as he is borne back
+to his hotel in Naples. But this disenchantment is
+his own fault, for no one who sets foot within the Sea
+Gate of the buried city in the proper spirit of knowledge
+and appreciation can possibly fail to enjoy the
+privilege which has thus been afforded him—
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l rend='margin-left: 6'><q rend="post: none">to stand within the City Disinterred;</q></l>
+<l>And hear the autumnal leaves like light footfalls</l>
+<l>Of spirits passing through the streets; and hear</l>
+<l>The Mountain’s slumberous voice at intervals</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 4'><q rend="pre: none">Thrill through those roofless halls.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Before passing through the Porta Marina into the
+purlieus of the city, let us first of all instil into our
+minds the essential difference that exists between the
+ruins of Pompeii and the historic fragments of Rome
+or Athens. When we gaze upon the well-known sites
+of the vanished glories of the Palatine or the Acropolis,
+<pb n='40'/><anchor id='Pg040'/>we experience no effort in looking backward through
+the vista of the past and in conjuring up some vague
+representation of the scenes that were once enacted in
+these places; the more imaginative feel the very air
+vibrating with the unseen spirits of men and women
+famous in the world’s history. He must be indeed a
+Philistine or a dullard who cannot contrive to arouse
+a passing exaltation at the thought of treading in the
+footsteps of Cicero and the Caesars in Rome, of Pericles
+and Socrates in Athens, for the very soil of the Forum
+and the stones of the citadel of Pallas seem impregnated
+with the very essence of history. But this is
+far from being the case at Pompeii, where long careful
+study of details and a grasp of hard facts are really of
+more avail than a poetic imagination in reclothing
+with flesh the dry bones of the past, for the importance
+of the Campanian city is almost purely social. The
+<hi rend='italic'>names</hi> of many of its prominent citizens are certainly
+familiar to us from inscriptions found, yet who were
+these persons that we should take so deep an interest
+in their lives and fates? Who were Pansa the ædile,
+Eumachia the priestess, Caecilius Jucundus, Aulus
+Vettius and Epidius Rufus, and a score of other
+Pompeian worthies? The answer is, they were
+officials or simple dwellers in a flourishing provincial
+town; they had no especial literary or public reputation;
+their names were probably little known beyond
+the walls of their own city. Imagine an English
+country town, such as Exeter or Shrewsbury, suddenly
+overwhelmed by some unforeseen freak of Nature and
+afterwards embalmed in the manner of Pompeii as a
+curiosity for the edification of future ages. To what
+extent, we ask, would the discovery of a place of this
+<pb n='41'/><anchor id='Pg041'/>size and population supply the existing dweller with
+a complete impression of our national life and civilization
+in the opening years of the twentieth century?
+The reply will be that it would give a very good idea
+of the average provincial town, but that it would
+hardly serve as a fair criterion to judge of the life
+pursued in the capital, or in the really large cities.
+Such a comparison will afford us a certain clue to the
+unveiling of the mysteries of Pompeii.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the city at the mouth of the Sarno was an
+ancient Campanian settlement, founded long before the
+days wherein Greek adventurers beached their triremes
+on the shores of the Siren. It was a native community
+of Oscans, deriving its name from the Oscan word
+<hi rend='italic'>pompe</hi> (five), and, unlike Paestum, it appears to have
+retained its original appellation under all its successive
+masters. Its primitive inhabitants seem to have intermingled
+with their Hellenic victors, and to have grown
+civilized by intercourse with them. Temples of heavy
+Doric architecture were raised; walls and watch-towers
+were built; and by the time the city fell into the
+hands of the encroaching Romans, it had become a
+flourishing place with some twenty to thirty thousand
+inhabitants, owing its prosperity to its excellent situation
+at the mouth of the river, which made Pompeii a
+convenient port to serve the rich district of Campania
+that lies eastward of Vesuvius. Nuceria (the modern
+Nocera) and the larger city of Nola were both dependent
+on it, for the Sarno was in those days navigable, so that
+ships bringing Egyptian corn and Eastern merchandise
+frequently left the Pompeian harbour and sailed up
+stream to unload their cargoes at these cities. Let us
+picture then to ourselves a compact town, an irregular
+<pb n='42'/><anchor id='Pg042'/>oval in form, surrounded by walls pierced by eight
+gates and embellished with twelve towers; its eastern
+extremity towards Nocera containing the Amphitheatre,
+and its most westerly point marked by the Herculaneum
+gate leading to the Street of Tombs. Southward, we
+must imagine the sea much closer to its walls than at
+the present day, for the alluvial deposits have in the
+course of nearly two thousand years added many acres
+of solid ground to the shores of the Bay. Behind the
+city to the north rose the mountain side, not seared
+with the traces of lava as in these days, nor surmounted
+by a smoking cone, but radiant with vineyards and
+gardens which extended unbroken up to the very rim
+of the ancient crater. Amidst the greenery of the
+luxuriant slopes peeped forth innumerable farms and
+villas of wealthy Romans, for this exquisite spot had
+long become an abode of cultured leisure. Within the
+closely packed streets of the town itself there were to
+be found few open spaces except the Forum, and
+perhaps a small park in front of the amphitheatre, for
+the place was prosperous, though not wealthy, and its
+chief citizens were forced to remain content with the
+tiny gardens enclosed within the walls of their own
+dwellings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Internally Pompeii presented, like many another
+Roman town, marks of its six hundred years of existence.
+There was at least one perfect Doric temple;
+there were Oscan-Grecian buildings, notably the so-called
+<q>House of the Surgeon,</q> with its air of
+old-fashioned simplicity; there were houses of the
+Republican period; there were numberless dwellings
+of the Imperial era; there were unfinished structures
+that were being completed at the time of the city’s
+<pb n='43'/><anchor id='Pg043'/>overthrow. For, sixteen years before Vesuvius suddenly
+awoke from its long sleep, the neighbourhood
+had been visited by the severe earthquake shock of
+63, and the effects produced by this disaster had not
+nearly been effaced, when the great event of 79 transformed
+the town into a huge museum for the delight
+and instruction of future generations. Pompeii therefore
+preserves the marks of more than half a thousand
+years of civilization, so that those who will take the
+necessary trouble can trace within its area the gradual
+progress of its social and political life from the far-off
+days of Greeks and Oscans to the reign of the Emperor
+Titus. The case of a ruined Exeter or Shrewsbury
+could not be widely different. The students of ensuing
+ages would be able to find in the dead town one or two
+churches of Norman or Plantagenet times; portions of
+medieval city walls and gateways, perhaps even some
+undoubted traces of Roman baths or fortifications;
+some few public buildings erected under Tudor or
+Stuart sovereigns; a large number of the plain roomy
+mansions of the Georgian period; and, last of all, a
+preponderating quantity of nineteenth century structures
+of every description—churches, warehouses, factories,
+inns, barracks, shops, dwelling-houses. Many
+would be the inscriptions and monuments we should
+find in such a town, alluding to private and public
+persons utterly unknown to English history, but more
+or less noteworthy in local annals: grandees of civic
+life, soldiers, philanthropists, clergymen, <hi rend='italic'>et hoc genus
+omne</hi>. Future generations of scholars would doubtless
+strive eagerly to obtain details of the careers of these
+provincial worthies, who filled municipal offices in the
+reigns of Queen Victoria and King Edward, in order
+<pb n='44'/><anchor id='Pg044'/>to throw more light upon the period wherein they
+flourished. Let us apply then the same principles to
+the study of Pompeii <hi rend='italic'>mutatis mutandis</hi>, for in our
+quest of better knowledge of the old Roman life we
+fix anxiously upon every detail concerning the leading
+personages of the dead city. Nevertheless, it is its
+existence in the aggregate that proves of surpassing
+interest to us; we desire to learn of the daily tasks
+and occupations of the mass of its population, rather
+than to become acquainted with the private histories
+of its leading individuals; we study the former, in
+fact, only as a means to a definite end. We cry for
+information, which to a certain extent we can secure,
+as to how an average Roman city was administered,
+provisioned, drained; how its inhabitants passed their
+time both in leisure and in business; how they amused
+themselves in their homes and in the theatre; what
+they ate and what they drank—the endless trifles of
+human life, in short, which like the <hi rend='italic'>tesseræ</hi>, the tiny
+cubes of their own mosaic pavements, go to make up a
+complete picture out of a thousand fragments. Not a
+few of the cubes in this case are missing, it is true, nor
+are they ever likely to be found; nevertheless, we own
+an abundant supply wherewith we can piece together
+a tolerably accurate picture of the life of a Roman
+provincial city during the first century of the Christian
+era.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is of course quite outside our province to attempt
+any detailed account of the wonders of Pompeii. The
+reader who desires full information must turn to the
+elaborate works of Mau and Helbig, of Gell and
+Overbeck, to say nothing of the descriptive pages,
+full of condensed knowledge, contained in Murray’s
+<pb n='45'/><anchor id='Pg045'/>and Baedeker’s guide-books in order to obtain a clear
+impression of all he wishes to inspect. We can but
+dwell on a point here and there, and even then but
+lightly and superficially, for any endeavour on our
+part to add to the statements and theories of the
+great archaeologists already cited would be indeed a
+matter of supererogation and presumption.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Entering then by the Marine Gate, and pursuing
+our course eastwards along the lines of naked broken
+house-fronts, we reach the great rectangular space
+of the Forum. Here at its southern extremity let us
+select a shady corner, for the sun beats down fiercely
+upon the bare ruins at every season of the year, and
+even on a winter’s afternoon the air often shimmers
+with the heat haze, so that in no place on earth is
+the use of an umbrella so necessary or desirable as
+at Pompeii.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What an ideal spot for the founding of a city!
+That is our first impression, as we glance across the
+broad sunlit enclosure on to the empurpled slopes
+of Vesuvius rising grandly above the broken columns
+of the great temple of the Capitoline Jove; behind
+us, we know, is the azure Bay with Capri and the
+Sorrentine cape lying on its unruffled bosom, so that
+we stand between sea and mountain to north and south,
+whilst we have the luxuriant slopes of Vesuvius to
+westward, and to the east the rich valley of the Sarno,
+thickly dotted with groves and hamlets. One element
+alone is wanting in the glorious scene before us—Life;
+it will be our duty and pleasure to re-invest as
+far as possible this empty space before us with the
+semblance of the busy crowds that once flitted in and
+out of its colonnades and porticoes; to rebuild in
+<pb n='46'/><anchor id='Pg046'/>imagination its shapeless ruins, so that we may
+obtain a fleeting picture of the Pompeian Forum in
+early Imperial days.
+</p><anchor id="illus04"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: THE FORUM, POMPEII]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus04th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus04.jpg">THE FORUM, POMPEII</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: THE FORUM, POMPEII</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+Conceive, then, in front of us, instead of this long
+bare stretch flanked by broken walls and strewn with
+shapeless fragments of brick and stone, an immense
+double arcade, two stories in height, affording ample
+protection against sun or rain and enclosing an oblong
+pavement whereon are set numerous statues of
+emperors or private citizens, occupying lofty positions
+of honour above the heads of the surging throng
+below. Imagine that group of shattered pillars,
+which obstructs our full view of the distant cone of
+Vesuvius, transformed into an imposing temple,
+covered with polychrome decoration, not in the best
+of taste according to our modern ideas of art, but
+gorgeous and cheerful in the clear atmosphere of the
+south. Rebuild, in the mind’s eye, the Basilica and
+the temple of Apollo on the left, and straight before
+us, as we look forward from our coign of vantage at
+the narrow southern end of the colonnade, let us plant
+the three dominant statues of Augustus, Claudius
+and Agrippina to form our foreground. If we can construct
+by stress of fancy some such setting of classical
+architecture, gay with primary colours and gilding
+and graceful in design, it is easier to people the Pompeian
+Forum with the masses of humanity that once
+mingled here. For we have the knowledge of modern
+Italian life to guide us to a certain extent; we have
+seen the swarms of citizens who to-day fill the main
+piazzas of the towns, especially those of the provincial
+type, where the morning market is held and the chief
+cafés and shops are situated. But if the general use
+<pb n='47'/><anchor id='Pg047'/>of the piazza is characteristic of the modern second-class
+Italian city, this concentration of life was far
+more marked in the ancient Roman town, wherein
+the Forum must have appeared as the very heart of
+the whole body social and politic. Roman city life
+indeed displayed two strongly antagonistic phases:—the
+utmost privacy in the home, the most public
+exhibition in the Forum, where every trade and form
+of business were carried on in the open air, and
+whither pursuit of gain, or pleasure, or religious duty
+led all the citizens to direct their steps. For, as we
+have already shown, almost all the public life of the
+place was concentrated within this space and its
+surroundings; temples, markets, shops, law courts,
+municipal offices, all abutted on the Forum; it was
+not merely the chief, but the only place that drew
+together the daily crowd, bent alike on business or
+amusement. No chariots were permitted to cross the
+area sacred to the claims of money-making, of gossip,
+and of worship; so that we must picture to ourselves
+a great mass of people undisturbed by the passing of
+vehicles, or by the shouts and whip-crackings of the
+noisy charioteers—was ever such a thing as a quiet
+Italian coachman, ancient or modern, we digress to
+wonder! All was orderly and decorous when compared
+with the quarrelling, screaming groups of
+citizens that block the congested streets of modern
+Naples. Happily for us various paintings of the
+Forum of Pompeii have been discovered, and these
+are naturally of immense value in helping us to a
+proper understanding of the habits and methods of
+the people, and of the general appearance of the
+Forum itself during its busiest hours. The costumes
+<pb n='48'/><anchor id='Pg048'/>of men, women and children; the articles of clothing
+and of food ready for sale; the little knots of loiterers
+or gossips; the citizens intent on reading the municipal
+notices that are herein portrayed, all combine to
+present us with an authentic picture of Pompeian and
+therefore of Roman civic life. <q>There is nothing new
+under the sun,</q> grumbled the Preacher many centuries
+before the city under Vesuvius had reached its zenith
+of civilization, and it must be confessed that the
+general impression conveyed after studying the contemporary
+pictures of antique life does not differ very
+widely from that which we obtain by observing present
+Italian conditions. For the frescoes in the Naples
+Museum and in certain of the Pompeian houses seem
+to recall strongly the scenes of the piazza, where all
+the elements of society, irrespective of rank or station,
+are still wont to congregate. Differences of dress, of
+manner, of custom are doubtless evident enough, yet
+somehow we perceive an essential sameness in these
+two representations of classical and modern Italy.
+Nevertheless, these simple and often rude wall-paintings
+furnish us with many pieces of information
+that we search for in vain amidst the ancient authors,
+who naturally considered the commonplace everyday
+scenes of life beneath the notice of contemporary
+record. We are enabled to learn, for instance, how
+the citizens were usually dressed in the Forum, and
+how, in an age when hats and umbrellas were practically
+non-existent, the pointed hood, like that of the
+Arab burnous, was often used to cover the head in
+cold or wet weather. Again, it is easy to perceive
+from the same source that the diet of the Pompeians
+must have resembled closely that of their present
+<pb n='49'/><anchor id='Pg049'/>descendants; even the shape of the loaves has in
+most cases continued unchanged to the present day.
+And one curious coincidence is certainly worth
+mentioning, in that a peculiar method of preparing figs
+with caraway seeds, which was long supposed to be a
+local speciality of a remote town in Central Italy, has
+now been recognized as a common method of dressing
+this fruit for the table at Pompeii, for large quantities
+of figs so treated have been unearthed in shops and
+kitchens. Such grains of information as the wearing
+of hoods and the preserving of figs may appear trifling
+enough at first sight, yet it is from a number of petty
+details such as these that we are assisted to an intimate
+understanding of a state of society extinct nearly two
+thousand years ago.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Close beside us on the eastern side of the Forum is
+set the Chalcidicum, the large building of the priestess
+Eumachia, one of the most gracious personalities of
+Pompeii with which the modern world has become
+acquainted. It was this lady who generously presented
+this structure, one of the handsomest and most
+solid of the public buildings of the city, to the fullers
+to serve as their exchange, wherein goods might be
+exposed upon benches and tables for the convenience
+alike of sellers and purchasers. <q>Priestess Eumachia,</q>
+remarks a modern critic, <q>has done the thing well; no
+expense has been spared in the building and its
+decorations. The columns of the portico are of white
+marble; the statues of Piety and Concord, works of
+art; and the flower-borders along the panelled walls,
+prettily conceived and carefully executed. After so
+much plaster and stucco, it is a relief to see something
+so solid and genuine. When a third-rate city apes
+<pb n='50'/><anchor id='Pg050'/>the capital, there must needs be a certain amount of
+sham. But at Pompeii it is all sham, or next door
+to it. In the entire city are not more than half a
+dozen edifices whose columns are of real marble, the bas-reliefs
+and cornices of anything more solid than stucco;
+and of these half-dozen, the Exchange heads the list.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We feel tolerably secure in assigning this fine
+building to the early years of the Emperor Tiberius,
+and in naming the Emperor’s mother, Livia, as the
+divinity to whom it was dedicated. The statue of
+Concord with the golden horn of plenty doubtless
+once adorned the large pedestal which still stands in
+the eastern apse of the Exchange, but though the
+figure and emblem were those of Concordia, the face
+bore certainly the features of Imperial Livia. Yet
+more interesting than the various speculations as to
+the actual uses of this edifice and the different names
+of the statues which once embellished its alcoves,
+is the circumstance that the marble portrait of the
+foundress herself has been discovered. It is true that
+only a copy in plaster now occupies the pedestal at
+the back of the apse where Eumachia’s statue once
+stood, for the original has been removed for safety to
+Naples, but it is not difficult to call to mind the calm
+gentle face of this Pompeian Lady Bountiful, and her
+graceful figure in its flowing robes. The existence of
+this statue adds undoubtedly a touch of special human
+interest to the whole building, and we find our minds
+excited by the brief inscription which still informs
+the curious that the fullers of Pompeii erected
+this portrait in marble in grateful appreciation <q>to
+Eumachia, a city-priestess, daughter of Lucius
+Eumachius.</q>
+</p>
+
+<pb n='51'/><anchor id='Pg051'/>
+
+<p>
+Outside the Chalcidicum, at the corner of the lane
+usually termed Via dell’ Abbondanza, is to be seen
+a pathetic little memorial of the working life of the
+city: the fountain of Concordia Augusta, the divinity
+of Eumachia’s noble building hard by. Dusty and
+heating is the business of fulling cloth, and it generates
+thirst, so that it is but natural to find a fountain close
+at hand, whereat the labourers could refresh their
+parched throats. With what eagerness must the
+exhausted toilers during those long summers of
+centuries past have leaned forward to press their
+human lips to the cool mouth of the sculptured
+goddess that ejected with pleasing gurgles a volume
+of water into the basin below! That this fountain
+proved a boon to weary citizens is evident enough,
+for the features of water-spouting Concordia are half
+worn away by thirsty human kisses, and her suppliants’
+hands have left deep smooth furrows in the stone-work
+of the basin, whereon they were wont to support
+their bodies, so as to direct the cooling draught into
+the dry and dusty gullet. In Italian cities to-day we
+can frequently observe some exhausted labourer bend
+deftly downwards to snatch a drink of water from the
+mouth of some fantastic figure in a public fountain.
+Who has not paused, for instance, beside Tacca’s
+famous bronze boar in the Florentine market-place
+without noting an incident of this kind? If we ourselves
+are too dainty to place our own aristocratic
+lips where our fellow-mortals have pressed theirs,
+not so are the abstemious descendants of the ancient
+Romans, the Italians, whose minds remain untroubled
+by any nasty-nice qualms of possible infection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here then is the setting of the picture, and we
+<pb n='52'/><anchor id='Pg052'/>must ourselves endeavour to repeople the empty
+space with the crowds of high and low that once
+collected here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>It is high change, and the Forum is crowded.
+All Pompeii is here, and his wife. <hi rend='italic'>Patres conscripti</hi>,
+inclined to corpulence, taking their constitutional,
+exquisites lazily sauntering up and down the pavements;
+decurions discussing the affairs of the nation,
+and the last news from Rome; city magnates fussing,
+merchants chaffering, clients petitioning, parasites
+fawning, soldiers swaggering, and Belisarius begging
+at the gate.... It is a bright and animated scene.
+Beneath, the crowded Forum, with its colonnades and
+statues, at one end a broad flight of steps leading
+to the Temple of Jupiter, at the other a triumphal
+arch; on one side the Temple of Venus and the
+Basilica; on the other the Macellum, the Temple of
+Mercury, the Chalcidicum; overhead the deep blue
+sky. Mingled with the hum of many voices and
+the patter of feet on the travertine pavement are the
+ringing sounds of the stonemasons’ chisels and
+hammers, for the Forum is undergoing a complete
+restoration. Although fifteen years have elapsed
+since the city was last visited by earthquake, the
+damage then done to the public buildings has not
+been entirely repaired. First the Gods, then the
+people. The temples of Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury
+are completed, but the Forum and Chalcidicum are
+still in the workmen’s hands.</q><note place="foot">W. J. A. Stamer: <hi rend='italic'>Dolce Napoli</hi>.</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With this fleeting glimpse at the public life of the
+city, let us now turn our attention to its domestic
+arrangements. Of the many houses which have been
+<pb n='53'/><anchor id='Pg053'/>excavated of recent years under the truly admirable
+superintendence of Signor Fiorelli, none is better
+calculated to give us a striking impression of the
+working details of an upper-class Roman household
+than the private dwelling which is known equally
+under the two names of the Casa Nuova and the
+House of the Vettii;—perhaps the former name has
+now ceased to own any significance, since the buildings
+were laid bare as far back as the winter of
+1894-5. An hour or two spent in a careful inspection
+of this house and its contents is to most persons
+worth four times the same amount of time occupied
+in aimless wandering amongst the hot glaring streets
+of the city, peeping into this courtyard and that, and
+listening to the interminable tales of guide or
+custodian. If we study the Casa Nuova intelligently,
+lovingly and minutely, it will not be long before we
+obtain a tolerable grasp of Roman life and manners,
+which will prove of immense service and of genuine
+delight. What then is it, the question will be asked,
+that makes the House of the Vettii so valuable as
+an example of antique architecture and decoration,
+in preference to other mansions which can boast an
+equal and often a greater distinction? The answer
+is simple enough: it is because this particular group
+of buildings has been allowed to remain as far as
+practicable in the exact condition wherein it was
+originally unearthed, when its various rooms and
+courts were once more exposed to the light of day.
+For until the clearing of this <q>new house</q> a decade
+or so ago, no proper opportunity had so far been
+afforded to the amateur of our own times of judging
+for himself the interior of a Roman dwelling in full
+<pb n='54'/><anchor id='Pg054'/>working order, and with all its furniture, paintings,
+and utensils complete. Up to this, almost every
+object of value had been removed at once for safety,
+every fresco even of importance had been cut bodily
+out of its setting and placed in one of those immense
+halls on the ground floor of the Museum in Naples.
+How well do we remember those gaunt chilly
+chambers, filled from pavement to ceiling with painted
+fragments of all sizes, a medley of domestic subjects
+and of classical myths! Torn from the walls they
+were specially executed to adorn, divorced from their
+proper scheme of surrounding ornament, these wan
+dejected ghosts stare at us like faces out of a mist.
+The uninitiated cannot find pleasure in them, for they
+have no pretention to be called works of art; on the
+contrary they form an inherent part of a conventional
+system of house decoration. The classical student can
+of course find many points of interest in the incidents
+portrayed, but all charm of local environment is
+absent;—it is, in short, impossible to judge of Roman
+decoration from this collection of crumbling, fading
+pieces of painted stucco. It would be as easy to
+imagine the effect of a rose-bush in full bloom from
+the sight of a few withered rose-buds, pressed until
+every vestige of colour had left their petals, as to
+understand the significance of antique domestic art
+from the contents of the Museo Nazionale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But here, in the House of the Vettii, the public was
+for the first time initiated into the mysteries of true
+Roman life; here it was admitted to gaze upon the
+fruits of classical taste and refinement, and to contrast
+them, favourably or unfavourably, with prevailing
+modern standards. The Casa Nuova has been left
+<pb n='55'/><anchor id='Pg055'/>as an object lesson, a complete museum in itself,
+wherein every daily incident of Pompeian life, every
+domestic secret, reveal themselves to our inquisitive
+eyes. Here in the roofless halls we can be taken from
+entrance to dining-hall, from <hi rend='italic'>atrium</hi> to sleeping rooms,
+spying into the minutest detail of shape, size and
+colour, as though we were seriously intending to rent
+the house for our own habitation. The last tenant
+has even left his money-chest in his hall, his pots and
+pans in the kitchen, and as we inspect his utensils, we
+wonder if they would suit our own requirements to-day.
+Of portable objects of value—plate, jewels, statuettes
+of precious metals and the like—belonging to the late
+owner, there is certainly no trace, for Signor Fiorelli’s
+labourers were not the first to break the deep silence
+of this buried mansion. For it was the survivors of
+the stricken town, the citizens of Pompeii themselves,
+who were the foremost pioneers to excavate, and they
+carried off every work of art they could conveniently
+remove. Cutting from above into the deposit of ashes
+that filled the streets, they managed to reach in course
+of time the level of the ground, after which they
+tunnelled from room to room, from house to house,
+collecting every object they thought worth the trouble
+of transporting. Perhaps the owners of the house, the
+Vettii themselves, presuming they escaped in the general
+<anchor id="corr055"/><corr sic="castastrophe">catastrophe</corr>, may have returned with skilled workmen
+to recover some of their treasures; perhaps some <q>man
+of three letters</q>—the colloquial Roman term for thief
+(<hi rend='italic'>fur</hi>)—may have forestalled the masters’ efforts—who
+knows? And at this distance of time, who cares?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The house once occupied by Aulus Vettius Restitutus
+and Aulus Vettius Corvina stands in a quiet district
+<pb n='56'/><anchor id='Pg056'/>not far from the Capuan Gate, and consequently at
+some distance from the Forum. Like all Roman
+habitations it was essentially Oriental in its outward
+aspect, and must have resembled closely any one of
+those mysterious dwellings of wealthy Arab citizens
+which we constantly encounter in the native quarters
+of Algiers or Tunis. The gateway giving on the
+street was wide, certainly, but it was well defended
+both by human and canine porters; its windows were
+few and small, and were probably closely latticed like
+those of the nunneries which we sometimes perceive
+overhead in the crowded streets of Naples. There
+must have been something austere, even suspicious, in
+the external appearance of the Casa de’ Vettii, but
+snarling dog and grim janitor have long since disappeared,
+and we pass unmolested through the <hi rend='italic'>atrium</hi>
+and thence into the Great Peristyle, which is perhaps
+the most remarkable feature of this house. The
+peristyle, as its name implies, is a Greek importation
+in a Roman city, and its use would have been scorned
+by the old-fashioned citizens, such as the master of
+the <q>House of the Surgeon</q>; yet it was in truth
+admirably suited to the character of Southern Italy,
+where it afforded shelter from sun and wind, and its
+arcades protected from the rainfall. The peristyle of
+the Vettii, with its gaudily tinted pillars of stucco, is
+highly ornate; perhaps it passes the limits of good
+taste in certain points of colour and æsthetic decoration,
+yet the general effect is undoubtedly pleasing to the
+eye. This courtyard is at once a lounge open to the
+sky; it is a garden; it is an art-gallery; for the
+cheerful court of Greek domestic architecture had
+nothing in common with its successor of the Middle
+<pb n='57'/><anchor id='Pg057'/>Ages, the monastic cloister of religious meditation.
+Cannot we imagine to ourselves the goodman of the
+house proudly leading his guests after a sumptuous
+meal in the adjacent dining-room into the cool corridors
+of his peristyle, in order to point out to them his
+statues and vases of bronze or porphyry, and to
+expatiate upon their value or elegance of form? On
+such a festive occasion these great shallow basins of
+pure white marble before us would be heaped high
+with fragrant pyramids of red and white roses, roses
+that were perhaps plucked all dewy in the famous
+gardens of Paestum on the other side of Mons
+Gaurus. For the flowering shrubs in the tiny
+pleasaunce itself are far too precious to be stripped
+of their blossoms in so lavish a manner, and perhaps
+if Vettius be anything of an amateur gardener, he
+may comment to his visitors upon the rare plants that
+fill his diminutive flower-beds. Careful and reverent
+hands have restored the little garden as near as
+possible to its pristine plan and appearance. There
+are still standing the two bronze statues of urchins
+holding in their chubby arms ducks from whose bills
+once gushed the limpid water, making a soothing
+sound amidst the alleys of the peristyle; corroded
+and injured they certainly appear, yet here they
+hold their original positions in Vettius’ domain long
+after temple and tower have fallen to the ground.
+The marble chairs and tripod tables likewise remain,
+and around them still thrive the very plants that the
+servants of the house were wont to tend in the days
+of Titus. For, by a rare chance, we find depicted
+on the walls of the excavated house the actual flowers
+and herbs that were popular during Vettius’ lifetime,
+<pb n='58'/><anchor id='Pg058'/>and these have been replanted by modern hands in
+the garden of the peristyle. There are clumps of
+papyrus, the strange mop-headed rush from the banks
+of the Nile, introduced into Italy as a botanical
+novelty after the conquest of Egypt; there are rose-bushes,
+of course; and also masses of shining ivy
+trained in the ancient Roman manner upon a cage
+of wicker-work fixed into the soil. As we watch the
+verdure-clad sunlit space there descends, delicately
+fluttering, one of those splendid pale yellow brimstone
+butterflies of the South with flame-coloured blushes
+on its wings, and after some moments of graceful
+hesitation, this new visitor settles upon the purple
+head of an iris bloom. With its vivid colouring and
+its quick movements the butterfly brings an atmosphere
+of life into the courtyard that was hitherto lacking.
+Its appearance too suggests the famous allegory, the
+unsolved riddle of human existence which so puzzled
+the divine Plato and the ancient philosophers of
+Athens and Syracuse. Here are we, the living
+men of to-day, watching the corpse of a departed
+world upon which the mystic symbol of Psyche has
+just alighted. <hi rend='italic'>Tempus breve est</hi> is the simple little
+truism that rises to our reflecting minds. Eighteen
+centuries between the Vettii and ourselves! They
+are gone like a flash, and we are amazed to note
+how little has our nature altered either for the better
+or the worse within that space of time, long enough
+if we measure its limit by the standard of history,
+trivial if we reckon it by the progress made in human
+ethics and human understanding. Surely there are
+lessons to be learned in the silent city; Pompeii, we
+realize, is not merely a heap of antique dross whence
+<pb n='59'/><anchor id='Pg059'/>we can pick up precious grains of knowledge, but
+it is an oracle in itself, which, if properly consulted,
+will give us plain answers to our modern speculations,
+and will possibly reprove us for our conceited
+assumption of omniscience.
+</p><anchor id="illus05"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: LA CASA DEI VETTII, POMPEII]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus05th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus05.jpg">LA CASA DEI VETTII, POMPEII</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: LA CASA DEI VETTII, POMPEII</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+Still brilliant in their strong prevailing tints of black,
+yellow and vermilion are the decorative schemes which
+make a visit to the house of the Vettii of such supreme
+importance for those who wish to understand fully the
+artistic tastes of the Romans, and also their artistic
+limitations. If the contents of the Museum seem
+colourless and cold, and prove unsatisfying and disappointing,
+here the eye of the artist can feast upon
+the classical ornamentation which remains fairly fresh
+in spite of a dozen years of exposure to daylight.
+For this province of art is peculiarly associated with
+the opening years of the Empire, and Pompeii is
+naturally the chief place for its study, and in Pompeii
+the untouched Casa Nuova is all important for the
+student. According to Pliny, the inventor of this
+pleasing style of decoration was a certain Ludius, who
+flourished in the reign of Augustus, and first persuaded
+the Romans to embellish their flat wall-surfaces with
+designs of <q>villas and halls, artificial gardens, hedges,
+woods, hills, water basins, tombs, rivers, shores, in as
+great a variety as could be desired; figures sitting
+at ease, mariners, and those who, riding upon donkeys
+or in waggons, look after their farms; fishermen,
+snarers of birds, hunters and vine-dressers; also
+swampy passages before beautiful villas, and women
+borne by men who stagger under their burdens, and
+other witty things of this nature; finally, views of sea-ports,
+everything charming and suitable</q>:—a fairly
+<pb n='60'/><anchor id='Pg060'/>long and comprehensive list of subjects, truly, from
+which a patron might pick and choose, or an artist
+might execute!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Although the great architect Vitruvius strongly
+denounced this new striving after scenic effect and
+characterized it as petty and false, yet none can deny
+that these cheerful scenes with their bright colours and
+their agreeable if trivial subjects were singularly well
+adapted to improve the appearance of the bare narrow
+rooms, the meagre proportions of which seem to us
+absolutely incompatible with plain comfort, to say
+nothing of luxury. Space may be increased, so far
+as the eye is concerned, by an architectural or
+landscape painting ingeniously conceived, and thus
+the restricted rooms seem to obtain by means of
+this new system of decoration a wider expansion, and
+with it an increased sense of ease and lightness. The
+invention of Ludius became at once the fashion, the
+rage; and all Rome began to cover the walls of its
+narrow chambers with these novel designs, which had
+already found favour in Imperial circles. Campania,
+where the old Greek love for polychrome still lingered,
+was not slow in imitating the new taste of the
+Capital, so that Pompeii bears undoubted testimony
+to the popularity of this revolution in artistic ideas,
+which substituted a lighter freer method for the old
+conventional severity of treatment. Experts profess
+to trace—and none will endeavour to gainsay them—a
+marked difference between the frescoes executed
+before the earthquake of 63 and those undertaken
+subsequent to that date. The wall paintings of the
+first group, carried out when the art was comparatively
+novel, are superior in harmony of colour, in choice
+<pb n='61'/><anchor id='Pg061'/>of themes and in technical finish to those which belong
+to the latter period, the sixteen years that intervened
+between the earthquake and the eruption of Vesuvius.
+From this circumstance it has been inferred, not
+without reason, that this particular house must have
+passed some time before the year 63 out of the
+possession of people of good taste into the hands of
+vulgarians, ignorant of the fundamental principles of
+art and anxious only to obtain what was startling
+and garish. As freedmen, the two Vettii would
+naturally belong to a class which was not remarkable
+for culture; nevertheless, they seem to have had the
+good sense to leave intact some of their predecessor’s
+most cherished works of decoration, and for this
+exhibition of restraint we must feel duly grateful
+towards our dead-and-gone hosts, the maligned Vettii.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it is not only for purposes of examining Roman
+internal decoration <hi rend='italic'>in situ</hi> that this art gallery of the
+Casa Nuova is available. Below the painted panels
+of the dining-room runs a long string of ornament,
+whereon are represented Cupids and Psyches engaged
+in the various occupations of Pompeian daily life.
+Full of dainty grace and of lively expression, these
+little winged figures initiate us into a number of the
+trades and customs of the ancients. For they are
+made to appear before us as goldsmiths, vine-dressers,
+makers and sellers of olive oil, dealers in wine, fullers
+of cloth, and as partakers in a dozen other scenes
+of town or country life. Where learned antiquaries
+had hitherto doubted and disputed, the discovery of
+the paintings of these celestial little mechanics and
+merchants helped to solve many a difficulty, for the
+secret of half the arts and crafts of Pompeii is revealed
+<pb n='62'/><anchor id='Pg062'/>to us in this playful guise. Nor are the designs
+themselves contemptible from an artistic point of
+view; look how intent, for example, is the pose of
+the tiny jeweller working with a graver’s tool upon
+the gold vessel before him; how steadily he bears
+himself at a task which requires at once strength of
+hand and delicacy of workmanship. Look again at
+the nervous pose of the pretty elf who is gingerly
+pouring wine out of a huge amphora, which he holds
+in his arms, into a shallow tasting cup offered by a
+brother Cupid. How thoroughly must the unknown
+artist have enjoyed the task of painting this frieze!
+How unfettered his fancy, as his brush glided smoothly
+and deftly over the carefully prepared wall-surface!
+Excellent, no doubt, he thought his work at the time
+of execution, but even the most conceited of Campanian
+artists could hardly have dreamed that these creations
+of his brush would still at the end of two thousand
+years be admired, commented upon and even reproduced
+in thousands, by a process he never dreamed
+of, for the benefit of citizens of nations as yet unborn
+or unforeseen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the spring evening softly steals over the city
+and the shadows of the colonnades lengthen, let us
+leave the silent halls and chambers of the Casa dei
+Vettii and turn our footsteps westward; and issuing
+out of the Gate of Herculaneum, let us traverse the
+famous Street of Tombs, that extends along the road
+leading to the sister buried city. In ancient times
+this was the Via Domitiana, a branch road of the
+Appian Way, and it formed the most frequented
+entrance into Pompeii. To Roman ideas, therefore,
+it was but natural that tombs should be erected
+along<pb n='63'/><anchor id='Pg063'/>side its borders, whilst the spirits of the passing and
+repassing crowds were in no wise affected by the
+memorials of death attending their exits and entrances.
+And with the surging human tide that was
+ever flowing in this thoroughfare the funeral processions
+must constantly have mingled, the wailing
+of the hired mourners rising sharply above the din of
+harsh voices, the creaking of clumsy wooden wheels
+and the braying of the heavily laden asses. Now over
+all reigns a decorous silence, such as we moderns deem
+fitting for a cemetery; only the hum of insects breaks
+the deep quiet of the atmosphere, nor are there any
+living creatures visible at this late hour save the bats
+which flit restlessly in and out of the weed-grown piles
+of brick or stone that once were stately monuments
+of wealth or piety. Above our heads the tall sombre
+cypresses shoot upward like gigantic spear-heads into
+the crystal-clear air, pointing heavenward like our
+own church spires in a rural English landscape. This
+Street of the Dead in the City of the Dead is in truth
+a solemn and a soothing spot; nor can we find its
+precincts melancholy, when we stand in the midst of
+such glorious scenery. For Monte Sant’ Angelo
+towers to our left against the mellow evening sky,
+flecked with lines of peach-blossom cloud, whilst in
+front of us the dark form of Capri seems to float in a
+golden haze between firmament and ocean. Behind
+us the dark mass of the Mountain with its breath of
+ascending smoke seems like an eternal funeral pyre in
+honour of the Dead, who were spared the horrors of
+that fearful disaster which overwhelmed the living.
+Upon the broken tombs and altars the light from the
+setting sun falls with warm cheerful radiance, flushing
+<pb n='64'/><anchor id='Pg064'/>stone and brick-work with a ruddy glow like jasper;
+whilst, high in the heavens above the cypress tops,
+the crescent moon prepares to turn to gold from
+silver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='italic'>Beati sunt mortui</hi>: here rest, we know, the priestess
+Mammia, the decemvir Aricius, Libella the aedile, and
+a host of other citizens with whose names the student
+or the lover of Pompeii is familiar. How many a
+time has this line of roadway rung with the sound of
+the last sad appeal, the thrice repeated valediction:
+<q><hi rend='italic'>Vale, vale, vale!</hi> farewell until the day when Nature
+will allow us to follow thee!</q> How often have the
+wooden pyres flung up in these precincts their clouds
+of perfumed smoke into the clear air, now redolent
+with the aroma of yellow broom, of dewy thyme and
+of sweet marigolds! Perhaps it was amidst these
+lines of cypress-set tombs by the Herculaneum Gate
+that the poetic genius, whose verses were spurned by
+his own generation, composed his famous Ode to
+Naples, for in its opening lines Shelley tells us it was
+the aspect of the <q>city disinterred</q> that gave him
+inspiration:—
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre</q></l>
+<l>Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure</l>
+<l>Were to spare Death, had never made erasure;</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>But every living lineament was clear</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>As in the sculptor’s thought; and there</l>
+<l>The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy and pine,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 1'>Like winter-leaves o’ergrown by moulded snow,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 1'>Seemed only not to move and grow,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 1'>Because the crystal silence of the air</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 1'><q rend="pre: none">Weighed on their life....</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Tranquilly and slowly descends night upon the
+untenanted city, as one by one the stars begin to peep
+<pb n='65'/><anchor id='Pg065'/>forth like chrysolites in the heavens, which have
+changed from azure to a deep indigo during the
+sunset hour. Amid chilly dews, to the sound of the
+evening bell from the distant church of Santa Maria
+di Pompeii, we hasten in the growing darkness from
+the Street of the Tombs towards our modest inn
+outside the Marine Gate, anticipating with delight
+a ramble in the city in the freshness of the coming
+morning.
+</p>
+
+</div><div n="4" rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n='66'/><anchor id='Pg066'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="4: Vesuvius"/>
+<head>CHAPTER IV</head>
+
+<head type="sub">VESUVIUS: THE STORY OF THE MOUNTAIN</head>
+
+<p>
+The first appearance of Vesuvius, whether viewed
+from the deck of a steamer entering the Bay of
+Naples or espied from the window of a railway
+carriage on the main line running southward from
+Rome, makes an impression that will linger for ever
+in the memory. It is open to argument which is the
+more striking of the two experiences: the Mountain
+rising proudly from the deep blue waters into the
+paler shade of the upper air, or its graceful broken
+contour seen from the landward side to the north
+across the green fertile plains of the Campagna Felice.
+From a long acquaintance with both ways of
+approaching Naples, we are inclined to prefer the
+latter view. Travelling in an express train from
+Rome we find ourselves whirled suddenly, by magic
+as it were, into the atmosphere of the South, when
+with the sight of the domes and towers of Capua, the
+ancient capital of Campania the Prosperous, we first
+note the presence of orange trees and hedges of aloe,
+of white lupin crops and clumps of prickly pear, and
+we feel we are nearing Naples with <q>its burning
+mountain and its tideless sea,</q> so that we eagerly
+strain our eyes in a southerly direction to catch our
+first glimpse of Vesuvius, with whose shape and
+<pb n='67'/><anchor id='Pg067'/>history we have been so familiar since our childhood’s
+days. At length we perceive its double summit, with
+smoke tranquilly issuing from the cone and obscuring
+the clarity of the air, and as we hurry forward towards
+our destination, through the plains studded with elm-trees
+festooned with vines, we have the satisfaction of
+observing its form grow larger and more distinct in
+outline.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On our arrival at Naples, in course of time we grow
+more intimately acquainted with the peculiar attractions
+of <q>the Mountain,</q> as the Neapolitans always
+designate their treacherous but fascinating neighbour,
+of whose near existence they have every reason to be
+proud, for certainly Vesuvius, though barely as lofty
+as Ben Nevis, <hi rend='italic'>is</hi> to us westerns the most famous
+mountain upon earth. Regarding Vesuvius both from
+the land and the sea, we note that it rises in solitary
+majesty from an extended base some thirty miles in
+circumference, and that it sweeps upwards in graceful
+curving lines until at a distance of about 3000 feet
+from sea level its summit is cleft into two peaks;
+that to the north being a rocky ridge which catches
+our eye as we gaze eastward from the heights of Sant’
+Elmo or the Corso at Naples, the other point being
+the actual cone of the volcano itself. The upper part
+of the Mountain has in fact two aspects; in other
+words, Vesuvius is double, being composed of the ridge
+of Monte Somma to the north, 3760 feet in height,
+which is pre-historic; and the ever-shifting modern
+dome of Vesuvius to the south, which is <hi rend='italic'>about</hi> 4000
+feet high. We say <q>about</q> purposely, for Vesuvius
+proper sometimes over-tops, sometimes equals, and
+sometimes even crouches under its immovable
+sister-<pb n='68'/><anchor id='Pg068'/>peak, according to the effect produced by volcanic
+action. Monte Somma, which is one of the everlasting
+hills, is the parent, and Vesuvius is the child, born
+but yesterday from a geological point of view, for it
+is not so old as the Christian era;—<q>it is a variable
+heap thrown up from time to time, and again, not
+seldom, by a greater effort of the same force, tossed
+away into the air, and scattered in clouds of dust over
+far-away countries. Thus it has happened often, in
+the course of these variations of energy, that Vesuvius
+has risen to a conical height exceeding that of Somma
+by 500 or 600 feet, and again, the top has been
+truncated to a level as low as Somma, or even as
+much below that mountain as we now behold it
+above.</q><note place="foot">Professor John Phillips: <hi rend='italic'>Vesuvius</hi>.</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To understand the story of the Mountain, therefore,
+it is necessary for us to travel back in retrospect
+to ancient Roman days. In the first place, however,
+one word as to its present name that we use to-day,
+for all are familiar with Vesuvius, but comparatively
+few, until they visit Naples, have heard mention made
+of Monte Somma. The name of Vesuvius, then,
+though strictly applicable only to the volcanic and
+modern portion of the Mountain, is not a recent
+appellation; on the contrary, it is probably of far more
+ancient origin than <hi rend='italic'>Mons Summanus</hi> by which the
+whole was known to the Romans. The point is by
+no means unimportant, for etymologists derive
+Vesuvius from the Syriac <q>Vo Seevev, the abode of
+flame,</q> thereby proving to us that whatever opinions
+may have been held as to the nature of the Mountain
+in the century preceding the Christian era, its volcanic
+<pb n='69'/><anchor id='Pg069'/>nature must have been perfectly well understood
+by those who gave it this suggestive title in a more
+remote age. But the secret locked up in Mons
+Summanus was not altogether unsuspected by the
+Roman scientists. Strabo, the geographer, writing
+about thirty years before the birth of Christ, made a
+careful examination of the crest of Mons Summanus,
+then a saucer-shaped hollow surrounded by a steep
+rocky edge and occupied by a flat plain covered with
+cinders and void of grass, although the flanks of
+the Mountain were extraordinarily fertile. From what
+he saw during his visit, Strabo conjectured the
+Mountain to be an extinct volcano, in which surmise
+he was destined to be proved partly in the right and
+partly in the wrong; whilst Vitruvius, the famous
+architect of the Emperor Augustus, <q>who found Rome
+of brick and left it of marble,</q> as well as Tacitus the
+historian, shared the same opinion. About a century
+and a half before the first recorded eruption in 79,
+Mons Summanus figures prominently in Roman
+history as the scene of a curious incident during
+the Servile War, so that in the pages of the old
+chronicler Florus we obtain an interesting description—especially
+interesting because it was not given for
+scientific purposes—of the condition of the mountain
+top at that period. The brave gladiator Spartacus
+and his intrepid band of revolted slaves, seeking
+a place of safety from the pursuing Roman legions,
+not very wisely selected the top of this isolated peak,
+which, although affording a good position of defence
+and possessing a wide outlook over the Campanian
+plain, had only one narrow passage in its rocky rim
+to serve as entrance or outlet. Followed hither by the
+<pb n='70'/><anchor id='Pg070'/>Roman forces and caught like rats in a trap, Spartacus
+and his men were doomed either to be reduced
+by starvation, or else to run the gauntlet of the sole
+narrow exit, which the Senate’s commander, Clodius
+Glabrus, was already guarding. The story of
+Spartacus’ escape from his terrible dilemma is told
+in the history of Florus, and repeated with further
+details by Plutarch in his Life of Crassus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>Clodius the Prætor, with three thousand men,
+besieged them in a mountain, having but one narrow
+and difficult passage, which Clodius kept guarded; all
+the rest was encompassed with broken and slippery
+precipices, but upon the top grew a great many wild
+vines: they cast down as many of these boughs
+as they had need of, and twisted them into ladders
+long enough to reach from thence to the bottom,
+by which, without any danger, all got down save
+one, who stayed behind to throw them their arms,
+after which he saved himself with the rest.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A dozen learned statements of a scientific nature as
+to the ancient appearance and slumbering condition of
+the Mountain could not impress our imagination more
+vividly with its subsequent natural changes than
+the account of this episode of Spartacus and his handful
+of rebels, beleaguered by Clodius within the
+very crater of the volcano. We can see the Mountain
+in the last years of the Roman Republic before us,
+with its truncated cone encircled by a low rampart
+of rock half hidden by wild vine, ivy, eglantine,
+honeysuckle and all the creeping plants whose tough
+trailing stems enabled the besieged gladiators to effect
+their escape from the snare into which they had unwittingly
+fallen. We can understand from this event
+<pb n='71'/><anchor id='Pg071'/>how utterly remote was the idea of any upheaval of
+nature to the dwellers on these shores, whose ancestors
+remembered the crest of the mountain as the scene of
+a military operation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first warning of a coming eruption after
+unnumbered centuries of quiet was given by a series
+of earthquakes which did an immense amount of
+damage at Herculaneum and Pompeii; yet in a
+district which had from time immemorial been subject
+to similar convulsions of nature, the shocks, though
+unusually distressing and destructive to life and
+property, were evidently unconnected in the popular
+mind with their true cause: the reawakening to life
+of the mountain overhead. The mischief done by the
+earthquakes was accordingly repaired as quickly as
+possible, and the normal course of life was resumed
+until the terrific and wholly unexpected outbreak of
+August 24th 79, during the reign of the Emperor
+Titus. Of this, the first recorded eruption of Vesuvius,
+we are exceptionally fortunate in possessing the
+testimony of a credible eye-witness, who was no less
+a personage than Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus,
+better known to the modern world as Pliny the
+Younger, who wrote two lengthy letters to Tacitus
+on the subject of this event, the first describing the
+fate of his uncle, the Elder Pliny, most eminent of
+Roman naturalists, who perished during this period of
+terror; and the second containing a more detailed
+account of the eruption itself. For it so happened—luckily
+for posterity—that at the time of this sudden
+outburst of Mons Summanus, the Elder Pliny was in
+command of the Roman fleet at Misenum on the Bay
+of Naples, where his young nephew (who was also his
+<pb n='72'/><anchor id='Pg072'/>adopted son) was living with his mother in a villa.
+<q>On the 24th of August,</q> writes Pliny the Younger
+some eleven years after the event he is about to
+describe, <q>about one in the afternoon, my mother
+desired my uncle to observe a cloud which appeared
+of a very unusual size and shape. He had just
+returned from taking the benefit of the sun, and after
+bathing himself in cold water, and taking a slight
+repast, was retired to his study. He immediately
+arose and went out upon an eminence, from whence
+he might more distinctly view this very uncommon
+appearance. It was not at that distance discernible
+from what mountain this cloud issued, but it was found
+afterwards to ascend from Mount Vesuvius. I cannot
+give a more exact description of its figure than by
+resembling it to that of a pine-tree, for it shot up to
+a great height in the form of a trunk, which extended
+itself on the top into a sort of branches, occasioned, I
+imagine, either by a sudden gust of air that impelled
+it, the force of which decreased as it advanced upwards,
+or the cloud itself being pressed back again by its own
+weight, expanded in this manner; it appeared sometimes
+bright, and sometimes dark and spotted, as it
+was more or less impregnated with earth and cinders.
+This extraordinary phenomenon excited my uncle’s
+philosophical curiosity to take a nearer view of it.</q>
+The nephew then proceeds to relate how his uncle
+sailed by way of Retina, the port of Herculaneum, to
+Stabiae, where he met with his second in command,
+one Pomponianus. Meanwhile the Younger Pliny,
+who had declined to accompany his uncle’s expedition
+on the plea of having to pursue the studies with which
+as a hard-working youth of seventeen he was evidently
+<pb n='73'/><anchor id='Pg073'/>engrossed, became alarmed during the night for the
+Elder Pliny’s safety. His own and his mother’s
+terrible experiences are vividly portrayed in the second
+letter, which, at the historian’s special request, the
+Younger Pliny wrote to Tacitus in later years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>When my uncle had started, I spent such time as
+was left on my studies—it was on their account,
+indeed, that I had stopped behind. Then followed
+the bath, dinner and sleep, this last disturbed and
+brief. There had been noticed for many days before
+a trembling of the earth, which had caused, however,
+but little fear, because it is not unusual in Campania.
+But that night it was so violent, that one thought
+everything was being not merely moved, but absolutely
+overturned. My mother rushed into my chamber; I
+was in the act of rising, with the same intention of
+awaking her, should she have been asleep. We sat
+down in the open court of the house, which occupied
+a small space between the buildings and the sea.
+And now—I do not know whether to call it courage
+or folly, for I was but in my eighteenth year—I called
+for a volume of Livy, read it as if I were perfectly at
+leisure, and even continued to make some extracts
+which I had begun. Just then arrived a friend of my
+uncle, who had lately come to him from Spain; when
+he saw that we were sitting down—that I was even
+reading—he rebuked my mother for her patience, and
+me for my blindness to the danger. Still I bent
+myself as industriously as ever over my book. It was
+now seven o’clock in the morning, but the daylight
+was still faint and doubtful. The surrounding buildings
+were now so shattered, that in the place where we
+were, which though open was small, the danger that
+<pb n='74'/><anchor id='Pg074'/>they might fall on us was imminent and unmistakable.
+So we at last determined to quit the town. A panic-stricken
+crowd followed us.... We saw the sea retire
+into itself, seeming, as it were, to be driven back by
+the trembling movement of the earth. The shore had
+distinctly advanced, and many marine animals were
+left high and dry upon the sands. Behind us was a
+dark and dreadful cloud, which, as it was broken with
+rapid zig-zag flashes, revealed behind it variously shaped
+masses of flame; these last were like sheet lightning,
+though on a larger scale.... It was not long before
+the cloud that we saw began to descend upon the
+earth and cover the sea. It had already surrounded
+and concealed the island of Capreae, and had made
+invisible the promontory of Misenum. My mother
+besought, urged, even commanded me to fly as best I
+could; <q>I might do so,</q> she said, <q>for I was young;
+she, from age and corpulence, could move but slowly,
+but would be content to die, if she did not bring death
+upon me.</q> I replied that I would not seek safety
+except in her company; I clasped her hand and
+compelled her to go with me. She reluctantly obeyed,
+but continually reproached herself for delaying me.
+Ashes now began to fall—still, however, in small
+quantities. I looked behind me; a dense dark mist
+seemed to be following us, spreading itself over the
+country like a cloud. <q>Let us turn out of the way,</q>
+I said, <q>whilst we can still see, for fear that, should we
+fall in the road, we should be trodden under foot in
+the darkness by the throngs that accompany us.</q> We
+had scarcely sat down when night was upon us,—not
+such as we have seen when there is no moon, or when
+the sky is cloudy, but such as there is in some closed
+<pb n='75'/><anchor id='Pg075'/>room where the lights are extinguished. You might
+hear the shrieks of women, the monotonous wailing of
+children, the shouts of men. Many were raising their
+voices, and seeking to recognise by the voices that
+replied, parents, children, husbands or wives. Some
+were loudly lamenting their own fate, others the fate
+of those dear to them. Some even prayed for death,
+in their fear of what they prayed for. Many lifted
+their hands in prayer to the gods; more were convinced
+that there were now no gods at all, and that
+the final endless night of which we have heard had
+come upon the world.... It now grew somewhat
+light again; we felt sure that this was not the light of
+day, but a proof that fire was approaching us. Fire
+there was, but it stopped at a considerable distance
+from us; then came darkness again, and a thick, heavy
+fall of ashes. Again and again we stood up and
+shook them off; otherwise, we should have been
+covered by them, and even crushed by the weight.
+At last the black mist I had spoken of seemed to
+shade off into smoke or cloud, and broke away. Then
+came genuine daylight, and the sun shone out with a
+lurid light, such as it is wont to have in an eclipse. Our
+eyes, which had not yet recovered from the effects of
+fear, saw everything changed, everything covered deep
+with ashes as if with snow. We returned to Misenum,
+and after refreshing ourselves as best we could, spent
+a night of anxiety in mingled hope and fear. Fear,
+however, was still the stronger feeling; for the
+trembling of the earth continued, while many frenzied
+persons, with their terrific predictions, gave an exaggeration
+that was even ludicrous to the calamities
+of themselves and of their friends. Even then, in
+<pb n='76'/><anchor id='Pg076'/>spite of all the perils which we had experienced, and
+which we still expected, we had not a thought of
+going away till we could hear news of my uncle.</q><note place="foot">Pliny’s Letters. (<hi rend='italic'>Church’s and Brodribb’s Translation.</hi>)</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As to the fate of the Elder Pliny, it seems that
+the old man had been obliged together with his friends
+and servants to fly from the villa at Stabiae where he
+was resting. The sea being too agitated to allow
+of an embarkation, the fugitives turned their steps
+towards the slopes of Mons Gaurus, the present
+Monte Sant’ Angelo, with pillows bound over their
+heads to serve as protection against the showers of
+hot cinders that were falling thickly on all sides.
+At length the famous old writer, who was somewhat
+plethoric and unwieldy, sank exhausted to the ground,
+never to rise again, and shortly expired in an attack
+of heart failure, induced by the unusual excitement
+and fatigue he had lately been called upon to endure.
+At any rate, it appears fairly certain that the Elder
+Pliny did not perish, as is still sometimes asserted,
+by the direct effects of the eruption, but rather
+through an ordinary collapse of nature—syncope,
+perhaps. Three days later his body was found lying
+not far from Stabiae by his grief-stricken nephew,
+who describes his uncle’s corpse as looking <q>more
+like that of a sleeping than of a dead man.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This then was the first, as it was also the most
+violent, of the many outbreaks of Vesuvius which
+our own age has witnessed, and with this eruption
+of 79 in the reign of Titus, the Mountain, as we
+have already said, greatly altered its shape. More
+than half the rim of the ancient crater that had enclosed
+Spartacus and his men less than two hundred
+<pb n='77'/><anchor id='Pg077'/>years before had been torn away and destroyed, its
+remaining portion on the landward side retaining the
+old name of Mons Summanus. Between this remnant
+of the old wall of the crater and the scene of wreckage
+on the southern face of the Mountain, there now
+appeared the great cleft, the horse-shoe shaped valley
+called the Atrio del Cavallo, which separates the two
+peaks of the whole summit. A fragment only of
+the original crater, known as the Pedimentina, still
+remains on the seaward side above Torre del Greco.
+From that terrible day, so vividly described by the
+Younger Pliny, to our own times, a period stretching
+over 1800 years, a vast number of eruptions, great
+and small, have been enumerated, for owing to the
+nearness of Vesuvius to one of the largest cities in
+Europe, every incident connected with its activity
+has been carefully noted, at least since the time of
+the Renaissance. Out of the many upheavals we
+propose to select the eruptions of 1631 and 1779,
+as being amongst the most significant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ever since an outburst in the year 1500, the
+Mountain appears to have lapsed into a remarkable
+condition of quietude, even of apparent extinction,
+for over a century and a quarter, during which period,
+it may be remarked, the Sicilian volcano of Etna
+was unusually active. Once more the summit of
+Vesuvius was beginning to assume the form it had
+borne in the days previous to the overthrow of
+Pompeii; the riven crater was becoming filled with
+dense undergrowth and even with forest trees, amidst
+which wild boar made their lairs and were occasionally
+hunted. The learned Abate Giulio Braccini, whose
+account of the eruption of 1631 is the most graphic
+<pb n='78'/><anchor id='Pg078'/>and accurate we possess, explored the crater shortly
+before the outbreak of the volcano, but found little
+to suggest any idea of an approaching convulsion.
+He reckoned the deep depression occupying the crest
+of the mountain to be about five miles in circumference,
+and to take about a thousand paces of walking
+so as to reach the lowest point within its area. He
+remarked abundance of brushwood on its sides, and
+observed cattle grazing peacefully upon the open
+grassy patches in the midst of the over-grown space.
+A deep crack, however, ran from end to end of the
+whole crater, which allowed persons so minded to
+descend amidst rocks and boulders to a large plain
+below the surface, whereon Braccini found three pools
+of hot steamy water, of a saline and sulphureous
+taste. Such was the tranquil aspect of the Mountain
+as surveyed by the Abate Braccini in the first half
+of the seventeenth century; to men of science signs
+of latent energy were certainly not wanting, yet to
+the ignorant, careless peasants of the hill-side and the
+scarcely less ignorant dwellers of the towns on the
+seashore, the state of repose in which the Mountain
+had continued for four or five generations suggested
+no fears or suspicions. Tilling of vineyards, building
+of new houses, sinking of wells, went on apace as
+cheerfully as though an eruption were an impossibility,
+till certain unmistakable portents that occurred
+towards the close of the year 1631 roughly dissipated
+this spell of fancied security. Earthquakes,
+more or less severe, began at this time to be felt
+along the whole of the volcanic line stretching from
+Ischia to the eastern slopes of Vesuvius; the plain
+within the crater of the Mountain began to heave
+<pb n='79'/><anchor id='Pg079'/>and rise in an alarming fashion, and the water in all
+the local wells sank mysteriously below ground.
+The signs of some impending disaster coming from
+the heights above were too strongly marked to be
+lightly disregarded; the idea of a volcanic convulsion,
+though by this time a long-distant and vague memory,
+became so terrifying to the dwellers on the mountain’s
+flanks and in Torre del Greco, Resina and the various
+towns that line the seaward base of the Mountain,
+that the majority of the people removed themselves
+and their property with all speed to places of safety.
+Nevertheless, despite the warnings given by Nature
+and also by men of science and the royal officials,
+many remained behind in their houses, and in consequence
+perished, to the immense number, it is surmised,
+of 18,000. On the morning of Wednesday, December
+16th, the long threatened eruption burst forth in
+earnest upon an expectant world. Amidst crashes
+like prolonged volleys of artillery the people of
+Naples and the surrounding district beheld the terrible
+pine-tree of smoke and ashes, described centuries ago
+by Pliny, ascend from the south-western side of the
+summit of the Mountain, veiling the sky for miles
+around, and so charged with electricity, that many
+were even killed by the <hi rend='italic'>ferilli</hi>, or lightning flashes,
+that darted from the smoking mass. The spectacle
+of the ominous pine-tree was at once followed by a
+terrific rumbling and an ejection of lava, which after
+flowing down the southern flank in several streams
+finally reached the sea, making the waters hiss and
+boil at the moment of contact. Slowly but surely
+these relentless red-hot rivers of lava crept like
+serpents along the hill-side, destroying vineyard and
+<pb n='80'/><anchor id='Pg080'/>garden, cottage and chapel, on their downward path.
+Resina shared the fate of its ancient forerunner
+Herculaneum, whilst Torre del Greco and Portici
+suffered severely, as we can see to-day by noting
+the great masses of lava flung on to the strand at
+various points. To add to the universal confusion of
+Nature, the sea, which had now become extraordinarily
+tempestuous, probably owing to some submarine
+earthquake-shock, suddenly retreated half a mile
+from the coast, and then as suddenly returned in a
+tidal wave more than a hundred feet beyond its
+normal limits. Such were the main features of the
+second great eruption of Vesuvius, wherein the ashes
+ejected by the Mountain were wafted by the wind
+beyond the Adriatic, to the Greek islands and even to
+Constantinople itself.
+</p>
+<anchor id="illus06"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: VESUVIUS AND THE BAY OF NAPLES]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus06th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus06.jpg">VESUVIUS AND THE BAY OF NAPLES</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: VESUVIUS AND THE BAY OF NAPLES</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+From this date onward the Mountain became very
+active in contrast with its previous condition of
+lethargy, and throughout the whole of the eighteenth
+century there were frequent eruptions, many of them
+on a vast scale. All these outbursts have been carefully
+recorded and commented upon, for naturally the
+scientists of a great city like Naples were intensely
+interested in the passing phases of their own volcano.
+During the latter half of this century all the phenomena
+have been described for us by Sir William
+Hamilton, British ambassador at the Court of the
+Two Sicilies, the versatile diplomatist who eventually
+married the beautiful but frail Emma Hart. During
+his long period of residence in Naples, Sir William
+made no fewer than fifty-eight explorations of the
+crater alone, besides carefully studying every peculiarity
+visible upon the sides of the Mountain. He was,
+<pb n='81'/><anchor id='Pg081'/>of course, a close observer of the great eruptions of
+1766-7, and also of the still greater convulsion of
+1779, which, strangely enough, occurred on the
+seventeenth centenary of the awakening of the
+Mountain from its pre-historic slumbers. On this
+occasion, Hamilton, accompanied by a Mr Bowdler
+of Bath, had the temerity to track the streams of
+flowing lava to their hidden source by walking over
+the rough unyielding crust of stones and earth that
+had formed upon the surface of the molten stream,
+as it slowly trickled down hill at the rate of about a mile
+an hour. The adventurous pair of Englishmen were
+successful in their quest, and Sir William thus describes
+the fountain-head of the fiery streams that he found
+a quarter of a mile distant from the top of the cone.
+</p>
+<p>
+<q>The liquid and red-hot matter bubbled up
+violently, with a hissing and crackling noise, like that
+which attends the playing off of an artificial firework;
+and by the continued splashing up of the vitrified
+matter, a kind of arch, or dome, was formed over
+the crevice from whence the lava issued; it was
+cracked in many parts, and appeared red-hot within,
+like a heated oven. This hollowed hillock might be
+about fifteen feet high, and the lava that ran from
+under it was received into a regular channel, raised
+upon a sort of wall of scoriae and cinders, almost
+perpendicularly, of about a height of eight or ten feet,
+resembling much an ancient aqueduct.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some days later, at midnight on August 7th, a
+veritable fountain of red fire shot up from the crest of
+Vesuvius, illuminating all the surrounding country;
+and on the following night a still more marvellous
+sheet of flame appeared, hanging like a fiery veil
+<pb n='82'/><anchor id='Pg082'/>between heaven and earth, and reaching to a height
+(so Sir William Hamilton guessed) of about 10,000
+feet above the summit, affording a wonderfully grand
+but terrible spectacle. This great curtain of fiery
+particles, accompanied by inky black clouds from
+which were darting continual flashes of lightning,
+was reflected clearly on the smooth surface of the
+Bay, delighting the Court and the scientific world of
+Naples, but inspiring, as may well be imagined, the
+mass of superstitious inhabitants with the direst alarm.
+The theatres were closed and the churches were
+opened; above the rumblings and explosions of the
+agonised volcano could be heard the tolling of the
+bells. Maddened by terror, the Neapolitan mob rushed
+to the Archbishop’s palace to demand the immediate
+production of the holy relics of St Januarius, the
+protector of the city, and on this request being
+refused, set fire to the entrance gates, a forcible
+argument that soon persuaded his Eminence of the
+propriety of the people’s demand. Thereupon the
+head of the Saint, enclosed in its case of solid silver,
+was accordingly borne in solemn procession with
+wailing and repentant crowds behind it to an improvised
+shrine, hung with garlands, on the Ponte
+della Maddalena, at the extreme eastern boundary
+of the city. Nor was the confidence reposed by the
+Neapolitans in their patron Saint misplaced, for
+except from the stifling smells and the dense rain
+of ashes, the terror-stricken capital suffered not a whit,
+whilst the general alarm inspired its inhabitants
+with a revival of religious fervour which was by no
+means insalutary. As usual, the old cynical proverb
+was once more justified:—<hi rend='italic'>Napoli fa gli peccati, e la
+<pb n='83'/><anchor id='Pg083'/>Torre gli paga</hi>, for of course poor Torre del Greco
+was grievously affected by the lava streams. In this
+case, however, even Torre del Greco and Resina
+did not fare so badly as did the towns on the
+northern slopes of Monte Somma, a district which is
+of course perfectly immune from lava inundations
+owing to the protecting rocky ridge of the Atrio del
+Cavallo. But it seems that the great veil of clouds
+and fire, extending some thousands of feet from the
+crest of the mountain to the heavens above, was
+swayed by a chance current of air, so that its component
+red-hot dust, ashes and stones were emptied
+in one fatal shower upon the northern flank of the
+Mountain. Whole villages were ruined, hundreds
+of acres of vines and crops were scorched and burned;
+the smiling peaceful hillside was in a few minutes
+converted into a parched wilderness. Ottajano, a
+large town of some 12,000 inhabitants, was the place
+most seriously injured by this wholly unexpected
+rain of destruction, for a tempestuous fall of red-hot
+stones, some of immense size, and a shower of ashes
+killed hundreds of the terrified and suffocating citizens,
+and blocked up the streets with smoking debris to a
+depth of four feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of the recent eruptions of Vesuvius, which have
+been pretty frequent during the latter half of last
+century, that of April 1872, so carefully recorded
+by Professor Palmieri, who in spite of imminent
+danger never abandoned his post in the Observatory,
+is the most notable. It is remembered also owing
+to the catastrophe whereby some twenty persons out
+of a large crowd of strangers, who had imprudently
+ascended to the Atrio del Cavallo to get a closer
+<pb n='84'/><anchor id='Pg084'/>view of the phenomenon, were suddenly caught by the
+lava stream and enfolded in its burning clutches.
+For if ignorance and superstition seem to make the
+poor fisherman or peasant unduly alarmed on such
+occasions, curiosity and self-confidence are sometimes
+apt to lead the educated or scientific into unnecessary
+peril. Naples itself was once more alarmed in 1872,
+so that the relics of St Januarius at the furious
+demand of the populace were again brought forth in
+solemn procession, and exposed towards the face
+of the Mountain on the Ponte della Maddalena.
+Thousands of quaking mortals gathered near this
+spot, joining in the chanting of the priests and
+watching with pallid anxious faces the fiery currents
+of lava slowly trickling down the south-western flank
+of Vesuvius towards the city itself. A certain number
+of attendants meanwhile were engaged in perpetually
+brushing away from the image of the Saint, from his
+improvised altar, and from its votive garlands the
+ever-accumulating mantle of grey dust, and it is
+scarcely to be wondered at that a certain cool-headed
+Neapolitan artist, Il Vaccaro, should all this time
+have been busily engaged in painting so characteristic
+and highly picturesque a scene. Within the churches,
+and particularly in St Januarius’ own cathedral,
+enormous crowds of hysterical men and women had
+collected, loudly bewailing their past sins and imploring
+the Divine mercy, for
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l rend='margin-left: 4'><q rend="post: none">E belle son le supplice</q></l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Pompe di penitenza, in alto lutto.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Again the historic <hi rend='italic'>palladium</hi> proved effectual, and
+the city, that was never for a moment in danger, was
+<pb n='85'/><anchor id='Pg085'/>once more saved! Naples received no damage
+beyond a temporary panic and a heavy fall of ashes,
+which covered every street and flat surface within the
+town to a depth of some inches and which it took
+many days of enforced labour to remove. Again
+it was the poor confiding vine-dressers and tillers of
+the Vesuvian soil who suffered in this upheaval, for
+though the loss of life was very slight indeed, yet
+numerous houses, fields and vineyards were totally
+destroyed and many more were injured. Truly it is
+a maxim well proven by time:—<hi rend='italic'>Napoli fa gli peccati,
+e Torre gli paga.</hi>
+</p>
+
+<milestone unit="tb"/>
+
+<p>
+Such, told baldly and briefly, is the history of the
+Mountain, which forms the most conspicuous feature
+of the Bay of Naples and dominates one of the
+fairest and most populous districts on the face of the
+globe. But it does not take long to make visitors
+to the Neapolitan shore understand the mysterious
+charm, not unmixed with awe, and the all-pervading
+influence of Vesuvius. Go where we will within the
+circuit of the Bay of Naples and even outside it, we
+are never out of sight of the obtruding Mountain
+and its smoky wreath. We begin to feel that the
+Mountain is an animated thing, that the destiny of
+the Parthenopean shore is locked up in the breast of
+the Demon who has his dwelling within its red-hot
+caverns. So sudden are the actions, and so capricious
+the moods of this Monster of the Burning Mountain,
+that no one can tell the day, or even the hour, wherein
+he will give us an exhibition of his fiery temper,
+though, it is true, in the case of violent eruptions he
+is kind enough to afford timely warning by means
+<pb n='86'/><anchor id='Pg086'/>of a succession of earthquakes and other signals
+almost equally alarming. His Majesty’s presence is
+felt everywhere; each morning as we open our
+window upon the dazzling waters of the Bay, we
+note with relief his tranquil aspect; each night, ere
+we retire to sleep, we find ourselves inevitably drawn
+to watch the glare thrown by the molten lava within
+the crater upon the thick vapour overhead. The
+nightly expectation of this aerial bonfire possesses
+an extraordinary fascination for the stranger. Some
+times the lurid glare is continuous; at other times
+there are long intervals of waiting, and even then the
+reflected light is very faint, a mere speck of reddish
+glow in the surrounding blackness, gone in the
+twinkling of an eye. But, strangely enough, one
+grows to understand the Mountain better from a
+distance and by watching its moods from afar, like
+the Neapolitans themselves, who never ascend to
+probe its mysteries, except a few vulgar guides and
+touts who batten on the curiosity of the foreigner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On clear windless days the intermittent clouds of
+vapour sent up from the crater assume the most
+fantastic shapes—trees, ships, men, birds, animals—ever
+changing like the forms of Proteus. It would
+seem as if the Spirit of the Mountain were idly
+amusing himself, like a child blowing bubbles, or a
+vendor at a fair-stall carving out little figures of
+gingerbread to tickle the fancy of country boys and
+girls. The clouds so formed sometimes cause amusement
+by their uncanny shapes, but not unfrequently
+they inspire alarm. The superstitious peasant of the
+<hi rend='italic'>Paduli</hi>, looking up suddenly from his work amidst
+the early peas or tomatoes, beholds against the blue
+<pb n='87'/><anchor id='Pg087'/>sky a vague nebulous form that to his untutored mind
+suggests a gigantic crucifix upheld in mid-air above
+the Mountain, and he crosses himself devoutly ere he
+bends down to earth once more to his work in the
+rich dark soil. <q>Such stuff as dreams are made of</q>
+appear in truth the weird phantoms that the sly
+Demon of Vesuvius flings up into the pure aether,
+and if credulous mankind likes to draw inferences
+for good or bad from these unsubstantial creations
+of his fancy, he laughs to himself with a hollow
+reverberating sound. It must, however, have been
+in the true spirit of prophecy on the occasion of
+King Manfred’s birth, that the genius of the Mountain
+despatched two cloud-forms into the sky (so the
+unabashed old chroniclers gravely relate), one having
+the appearance of a warrior armed cap-à-pie, and the
+other that of a fully vested priest. The affrighted
+gazers below, struck with the strange phenomenon,
+beheld the two figures sway towards each other and
+finally become locked together in deadly aerial combat,
+until all resemblance to human shape had vanished
+from the pair. Then, after an interval of time, men
+perceived the cloudy mass once more assume a mortal
+shape, and a huge towering priest with flowing robes
+and tiara on head was left in solitary and victorious
+possession of the sky. The Churchman had swallowed
+up the soldier; the Pontiff had vanquished the King;
+it was a true premonition of the fatal field of
+Benevento, which saw the ultimate triumph of the
+Papal over the Imperial cause.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But if the near presence of the burning mountain
+has tended to make the inhabitants of its immediate
+zone the slaves of superstitious awe, the disasters of
+<pb n='88'/><anchor id='Pg088'/>generations have likewise imbued them with a spirit of
+fatalism, that appears even stronger than their outward
+show of credulity. Life is not so sweet nor so dear
+apparently to these children of the South, but that
+they can afford to take their chance of disturbance or
+death with a true philosophic calm. The fisher-folk
+and maccaroni workers of Resina, Portici and the two
+Torres have, it is true, little to lose; a small boat can
+at the last moment easily convey their families and
+slender stock of household furniture to a place of
+temporary safety, and when the danger is over-past,
+the same shallop can bring back the refugees and their
+belongings. But with the husbandmen the case is
+different. Not only has he to fear the actual stream
+of lava, which may or may not overwhelm his house
+and farm in its slow inevitable course, but there are
+also the showers of hot ashes and of scalding water
+that will frizzle up in a few seconds every green blade
+and leaf upon his tiny domain, for which he pays an
+enormous rental, sometimes as much as £12 sterling
+an acre. Yet the <hi rend='italic'>contadino</hi> takes his chances with a
+seraphic resignation that we do not usually attribute
+to the southern temperament. After the eruption of
+1872, which covered the rich <hi rend='italic'>Paduli</hi> with a deep
+coating of grey ashes, a young peasant girl was heard
+deploring the loss of her carefully tended gourds and
+melons; <q><hi rend='italic'>Oh come volimme fa? Addio, pummarole!
+addio, cucuzzielle!</hi></q> whereupon an older woman, witnessing
+these useless tears, upbraided her with the
+words: <q>Do not complain, child, lest worse befall you!</q>
+And indeed the whole population of the <hi rend='italic'>Paduli</hi>, instead
+of lamenting over their scorched and spoiled crops,
+were jubilant at the thought that the havoc done was
+<pb n='89'/><anchor id='Pg089'/>only partial, not irrevocable;—a few months of incessant
+labour, said they, would bring back the holdings
+to their former state of perfection. Yet a general
+opinion prevails among foreigners that the Neapolitans
+are lazy, thriftless and helpless! They indeed rely
+to a certain extent upon St Januarius to protect their
+crops from the efforts of Nature, over which, they
+argue, the Saint is more likely to possess control than
+his human applicants, but when once the fatal shower
+of ashes has fallen, they do not expect <q>San Gennaro</q>
+to set their injured acres to rights again, but with a
+rare patience turn to the task themselves. A more
+industrious, and at the same time a more capable and
+practical race of agriculturists than the tillers of the
+slopes of Vesuvius, it would be hard to match. And
+thus in the sunshine of the south, yet ever under the
+shadow of death and destruction, dwell many thousands
+of human beings, as unconcerned as though Vesuvius
+were miles and miles away. Not unconscious, but
+fully conscious of their doom, the victims of the
+Mountain toil and moil upon the fertile farms (in
+many cases risen phoenix-like from their own ashes)
+that grow the early beans and tomatoes, the egg-plants
+and the white fennel roots (<hi rend='italic'>finocchi</hi>) that well-fed
+travellers devour in the hotels of Naples. Or else
+they tend the vines that yield the generous <hi rend='italic'>Lagrima
+Christi</hi>, of which imprudent and heated visitors drink
+long draughts unmixed with water, and then complain
+of ensuing languor and pains beneath their waistcoats.
+Luscious, yet seductive wine! Counsellor of moderation
+after a first experience of excess! Essence of
+Vesuvius, whose strange name so puzzled the poet
+Chiabrera!
+</p>
+
+<pb n='90'/><anchor id='Pg090'/>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Chi fu de’ contadini il si indiscreto,</q></l>
+<l>Ch’ a sbigottir la gente</l>
+<l>Diede nome dolente</l>
+<l>Al vin’ che sovra gli altri il cuor fa lieto?</l>
+<l>Lagrima dunque appellerassi un riso</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Parte di nobilissima <anchor id="corr090"/><corr sic="quote mark missing">vendemmia?</corr></q></l>
+</lg>
+    <lg>
+<l>(<q rend="post: none">Who was the jesting countryman, I cry,</q></l>
+<l>That gave so fearsome and so dour a name</l>
+<l>To that choice vintage, which of all think I</l>
+<l>Most warms the heart’s blood with its genial flame?</l>
+<l>Smiles, and not tears, the epithet should be</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Of juice wrung from so fair a vinery.</q>)</l>
+</lg>
+<p rend="center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em">* * * * * *</p>
+<p>
+Scarcely had the above pages been written, than
+the Mountain, which had been drowsing for more than
+thirty years, suddenly awakened to give appalling evidence
+of its latent activity and powers of mischief.
+The eruption of April 1906 has, in fact, surpassed all
+previous outbursts within living memory, and it may
+probably be reckoned amongst the most violent of all
+hitherto recorded. Many of the details of this event
+doubtless remain fresh in the memory, and in any case
+the sad condition of numerous towns and villages, and
+of the beautiful Vesuvian districts, the <hi rend='italic'>paesi ridenti</hi> as
+the Neapolitans affectionately term these fertile lands,
+will serve for some years to come as a sinister and
+ever-present reminder of the horrors of the past and
+of the dread possibilities of the future. All vegetation
+for miles around the volcano has been injured or
+destroyed, for not only was the Mountain itself
+covered deep with grit and ashes, but the streets and
+gardens of Naples, the luxuriant plain of Sorrento, and
+even the heights of Capri, twenty miles distant across
+the Bay, were shrouded in a funereal mantle of the
+<pb n='91'/><anchor id='Pg091'/>greyish-yellow dust that Vesuvius had flung into the
+air to let fall like a shower of parching and destructive
+rain upon the earth. How vast was the amount of
+matter ejected from the crater and scattered in this
+form over the surrounding country, we may judge from
+the scientific calculation that 315,000 tons fell in
+Naples alone! Everywhere appeared the same scenes
+of desolation, the same dreary tint, for so thickly had
+this aerial torrent of ashes descended, that buildings,
+trees and plants were completely hidden by
+it, the whole landscape suggesting the idea of a
+recent heavy fall of dirty-coloured snow. <hi rend='italic'>Paesi
+ridenti</hi>, indeed! It was a land of ugliness and
+mourning, a city of stifling air and of human
+terror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few days previous to the eruption, which began
+on April 5th, the island of Ustica, which lies some
+forty miles north of Palermo, had been visited by
+earthquake shocks of such violence that the Italian
+Government at last decided to remove the greater
+part of its population to the mainland, as well as the
+convicts attached to the penal settlements on the
+island. Scarcely had these manifestations ceased at
+Ustica, than Vesuvius began to show signs of
+increased activity; the supplies in the wells on the
+mountain sides began to fail, and there was observed
+a strong taste of sulphur in the drinking water;
+whilst—most dreaded phenomenon of all—the ever-active
+crater of Stromboli, that lies midway between
+Naples and Messina, suddenly lapsed into quiescence.
+We all know the subsequent story of the outbreak;
+of the thousands of fugitives flying into Naples or
+other places of refuge; of the utter destruction of
+<pb n='92'/><anchor id='Pg092'/>houses and cultivated lands;—the doleful scenes of a
+Vesuvian eruption have been enacted and described
+time after time in the history of the Mountain, and
+there is every reason to suppose they will be repeated
+at intervals for centuries to come. The marvel is
+how human beings can calmly settle down and pass
+their lives so close to the jaws of the fire-spouting
+monster, and why an intelligent Government permits
+its subjects to dwell in places which are ever exposed
+to catastrophes such as that which we have just
+witnessed. Well, it is the natural temperament of
+the Vesuviani to be fatalistic, despite their religious
+fervour; and acts of legislature cannot force them to
+abandon their old deep-rooted notions; all that the
+Italian Government can do therefore is to stand ready
+prepared to help, when the upheaval <hi rend='italic'>does</hi> occur, as it
+inevitably must.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is always a matter of speculation on these
+occasions as to what course the ejected lava will
+pursue; whose turn, of the many settlements on the
+southern slopes of the Mountain, will it be to suffer?
+This time it was Bosco-Trecase, a village above Torre
+Annunziata, that was devastated by the sinuous
+masses of incandescent matter, high as a house and
+broad as a river. Torre Annunziata itself, as also
+ruined Pompeii were threatened, but the red-hot
+streams of destruction mercifully stopped short of
+their expected prey. The story of horrors and panic
+in the overthrow of Bosco-Trecase is happily relieved
+by many a recorded incident of valour and unselfishness.
+The royal <hi rend='italic'>Carabinieri</hi>, that splendid body of
+mounted police, who in their cocked hats and voluminous
+cloaks appear as ornamental in times of quiet as
+<pb n='93'/><anchor id='Pg093'/>they prove themselves useful in the stormy hours of
+peril, acquitted themselves, as usual, like heroes. It
+was they who guided away the trembling peasants
+before the advance of the lava, searching the doomed
+houses for sick and crippled, whom they carried on
+their shoulders to places of security. Working, too,
+with almost equal zeal and practical good sense were
+the Italian soldiers, who richly deserved the praise
+that their royal commander, the Duke of Aosta,
+subsequently bestowed upon them for their invaluable
+services rendered during these fearful days of darkness
+and danger. <q>Soldiers!</q> declared the Duke, in his
+address to the troops on April 23rd, <q>I have seen
+you calm and happy in the work of alleviating the
+misfortunes of others, and I put on record the praise
+you have won. By promptly appearing at the places
+distressed by the eruption, you have encouraged the
+people by your presence and your example; you
+have maintained order and have safe-guarded property.
+Helping the local authorities, and even in some
+instances filling their offices, you have carried out the
+most urgent and dangerous duties in order to save
+the houses and to keep clear the roads. In the
+spots most heavily afflicted you have lent your
+assistance in removing and caring for the injured,
+and in searching for and burying the dead you have
+given proofs of great self-sacrifice and reverence
+(<hi rend='italic'>pietà</hi>). Not a few of the refugees have obtained
+food and shelter in your barracks, and whole communities
+without means of existence have been
+provided by you with the necessaries of life. Everywhere
+and from all your conduct has gained you
+loud applause. Nevertheless, your task is not yet
+<pb n='94'/><anchor id='Pg094'/>ended; continue at it out of love for your country
+and devotion to your King!</q><note place="foot"><hi rend='italic'>La Nazione</hi>, April 24, 1906.</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With such a reputation for kindness of heart and
+energy in time of need, no wonder that the Army is
+popular with all classes in Italy!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nor did the King and Queen hold aloof from the
+scene of disaster, for they hurried from Rome at
+midnight of that terrible Palm Sunday on purpose
+to comfort the terror-stricken population. Victor-Emmanuel
+even penetrated in his motor-car as far as
+Torre Annunziata, in spite of the fumes of sulphur
+and the many difficulties in proceeding along roads
+clogged deep with volcanic dust and ashes. On
+another occasion the King and Queen paid a visit to
+the afflicted district of the slopes of Monte Somma,
+where Ottajano and San Giuseppe had been almost
+buried by the continuous falling of burning material
+from the crater. In fact, these localities suffered
+even more severely than the towns on the seaward
+face of the Mountain (Bosco-Trecase excepted), and
+at Ottajano hardly a house in the place remained
+intact at the close of the eruption, whilst the loss of
+human life was probably higher here than elsewhere.
+The Duke and Duchess of Aosta—he the king’s
+cousin, and she the popular Princess Hélène, daughter
+of the late Comte de Paris—were likewise indefatigable
+in their efforts to assist and reassure the
+demoralized population, and to make every possible
+arrangement for the feeding and housing of the
+numberless refugees and the tending of the injured in
+the hospitals of Naples. Equally valorous was the
+conduct of the great scientist, Professor Matteucci,
+<pb n='95'/><anchor id='Pg095'/>who remained together with a few Carabinieri throughout
+all phases of the eruption at the Vesuvian
+Observatory, although in imminent peril of death
+amidst a deadly atmosphere of heat and sulphureous
+fumes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was on April 5th that the streams of burning
+lava first burst from the riven crater and made their
+way down the south-eastern slopes, destroying Bosco-Trecase
+and reaching to the very suburbs of Torre
+Annunziata. Pompeii itself was imperilled, and it is
+always well to remember that during an eruption this
+precious relic of antiquity may possibly be lost to the
+world. Meanwhile the rain of ashes and mud—formed
+by dust and hot water commingling—fell incessantly;
+150,000 inhabitants of the Vesuvian districts fled in
+precipitate flight towards Naples, towards the shore,
+towards the hill country beyond the Sarno. It was
+truly a marvellous spectacle to observe the relentless
+stream of burning lava crushing irresistibly every
+opposing object in its fatal path. Onlookers at a
+distance could perceive the walls of houses bulging
+outward under pressure of the moving mass, until the
+roof collapsed in an avalanche of tiles upon the ground,
+whilst with a final crash the whole structure—cottage,
+farm, church or stately villa—succumbed to the
+overwhelming weight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Many are the tales of courage and intrepidity; not
+a few, alas! are the stories of folly and cowardice that
+are related in connection with the eruption. It cannot
+be said that the population of Naples, where everybody
+was perfectly safe even if the atmosphere was
+unpleasant and the distant thunders of the Mountain
+reverberated alarmingly, comported itself with dignity
+<pb n='96'/><anchor id='Pg096'/>or calm; and this criticism applies in particular to
+the hundreds of visitors—English, German, American
+and other <hi rend='italic'>forestieri</hi>—who besieged the railway station
+in frantic and indecent anxiety to remove themselves
+with all speed from the city. Some excuse might
+perhaps be found for the hysterical terror of the poor
+inhabitants of the Mergellina or the Mercato, who
+spent their time in wailing within the churches or in
+screaming for the public exhibition of the venerated
+relics of their patron Saint, which again on this occasion
+the Archbishop, <hi rend='italic'>nolens volens</hi>, was compelled by
+the mob to produce. But for the great mass of
+educated foreigners then filling the hotels and pensions
+of the place, it cannot be said that their conduct was
+edifying, particularly in face of the example set by the
+King and Queen of Italy. To add to the general
+panic prevailing in the city, the Neapolitans themselves
+were not unnaturally greatly exasperated by the
+serious accident which took place at the Central
+Market Hall near Monte Oliveto in the heart of the
+old town. Here, early one morning during the course
+of the eruption, the great roof of corrugated iron
+collapsed, killing many and frightening the whole of
+the populace, already sufficiently unnerved by recent
+events. That this catastrophe was due to the casual
+methods, amounting in this case to criminal neglect of
+plain duty, of the municipal authorities, who had
+neglected to sweep the accumulation of heavy volcanic
+ash from off the thin metal roof, none can deny; and
+this glaring example of public stupidity had of course
+a bad effect on the demoralized multitude, which
+threatened to grow unruly, as well as terrified. No,
+the graceless stampede of educated foreigners to the
+<pb n='97'/><anchor id='Pg097'/>railway-station, the incompetence of the Municipality,
+and the behaviour of the Neapolitan crowd do not
+appear very creditable to the supposed enlightenment
+of the twentieth century. It had been confidently
+predicted that nearly fifty years of State education
+and liberal government would work wonders in dispelling
+the crass ignorance and the deep-seated
+superstition of the dwellers on the Bay of Naples.
+Yet, so far as can be judged from recent events,
+matters seem to have changed but little on these
+shores, for the mass of the population evidently preferred
+to pin its hope of safety to the miracle-working
+relics of San Gennaro, rather than to the reassuring
+messages of Professor Matteucci, sent from his post
+of undoubted peril on the mountain-side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If the inhabitants of a great city, which was never
+seriously threatened with danger, should have acted
+thus, there is undoubtedly much excuse to be found
+for the Vesuviani themselves, whose houses and lives
+were certainly in danger from the devastating streams
+of lava. It was with a sigh and a smile that we
+learned how the good people of Portici attributed
+their escape from the fate of Bosco-Trecase to the
+direct interposition of a wonder-working Madonna enshrined
+in one of their own churches. For some days
+the town had been threatened, so that many were
+convinced of its impending doom, when happily at
+the last moment the expected fate was averted, as
+though by a miracle. And miracle it truly was in
+the eyes of the people of Portici, when it was observed
+that the snow-white hands of their popular
+Madonna had turned black in some mysterious manner
+during the night hours. What could be a simpler
+<pb n='98'/><anchor id='Pg098'/>or easier deduction from this circumstance, than that
+Our Lady’s Effigy, taking pity on its affrighted
+suppliants, had with its own hands pushed back the
+advancing mass of lava, and thus saved the town!
+Great was the joy, and equally great the gratitude,
+displayed by these poor souls at Portici, who at once
+organised a triumphal procession in honour of their
+prescient patroness <q>delle mani nere.</q> Does not such
+an incident, we ask, lend a touch of picturesque
+medievalism to a modern scene of horror and darkness,
+exhibiting to us, as it does, the traits of a simple
+touching faith and of genuine human thankfulness?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, the great eruption of 1906 is over, and the
+inhabitants of the Vesuvian communes are once more
+settling down in their ruined homes, or their damaged
+farms and gardens. No doubt a new Bosco-Trecase
+will arise on the shapeless ruins of the old site, for fear
+of danger seems powerless to deter the outcast population
+from reoccupying its old haunts. Ottajano will
+be rebuilt, not for the first time, and its citizens will
+again trust to luck—and to St Januarius—for protection
+from the evil fate which has repeatedly
+overtaken their town. The two Torres, Resina,
+Portici, and the villages along the shore, have this
+time contrived to escape the lava streams, and
+though their buildings have been severely shaken, and
+even wrecked in many instances, the people will
+doubtless mend the cracks in their walls and place
+fresh tiles on the injured roofs. They are wise in
+their own generation, for the Mountain is not likely to
+burst forth again for another quarter of a century at
+least after so violent a fit, <hi rend='italic'>salvo complicazioni</hi>, of course,
+as the more cautious Italians themselves say. But
+<pb n='99'/><anchor id='Pg099'/>another outburst is inevitable; and whose turn to
+suffer will it be then? Will it be Portici, or either of
+the Torres? Who knows?—and what dweller under
+Vesuvius to-day cares at this moment? <q>Under
+Vesuvius,</q> but it is a new Vesuvius, for the tall cone
+which was so conspicuous a feature of the Bay of
+Naples has disappeared completely, and the summit
+of the volcano has been once more reduced to the
+level of Monte Somma. How many years, we
+wonder, will be required for the Mountain to raise for
+itself once more the tall pyre of ashes that it has
+itself demolished and flung on all sides to the winds?
+At any rate let us now look for a period of rest, a
+period of prosperity to recoup the disturbed denizens
+of these <hi rend='italic'>paesi già ridenti</hi> for their heavy losses and
+terrible experiences. <hi rend='italic'>Speriamo.</hi>
+</p>
+
+</div><div n="5" rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n='100'/><anchor id='Pg100'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="5: The Corniche Road from Castellamare to Amalfi"/>
+<head>CHAPTER V</head>
+
+<head type="sub">THE CORNICHE ROAD FROM CASTELLAMARE TO AMALFI</head>
+
+<p>
+It is without any feelings of regret that we learn
+of the non-existence of a railway line beyond
+Castellamare, so that our journey to Amalfi along the
+coast must be performed in the good old-fashioned
+manner of long-past <hi rend='italic'>vetturino</hi> days. Three skinny
+horses harnessed abreast are standing ready at the
+hotel door to draw our travelling chariot, each member
+of the team gorgeously decked with plumes of
+pheasant feathers in his head-gear and with many-coloured
+trappings, whilst on the harness itself appears
+in more than one place the little brazen hand, which is
+supposed to ensure the steed’s safety from the dangers
+of any chance <hi rend='italic'>jettatore</hi>, the unlucky wight endowed
+with the Evil Eye. Nor is the swarthy picturesque
+ruffian who acts as our driver unprovided with a
+talisman in case of emergency, for we observe hanging
+from his heavy silver watch-chain the long twisted
+horn of pink coral, which is popularly supposed to
+catch the first baleful glance, and to act on the
+principle of a lightning-conductor, in deflecting the
+approaching danger from the prudent wearer of the
+coral trinket. Merrily to the sound of jingling bells
+and the deep-chested exhortations of our coachman do
+<pb n='101'/><anchor id='Pg101'/>we bowl along the excellent road in the freshness of
+the morning air and light <q>through varying scenes of
+beauty ever led,</q> for the Corniche road towards Amalfi
+is admitted to be one of the finest in the world.
+Following the serpentine curves above the cliffs, we
+have on our right hand the dazzling Mediterranean
+with classic capes and islands all flushed in the early
+sunshine, whilst above us on the left rise the steep
+fertile slopes of the Lactarian Hills. Convent and
+villa, cottage and farmhouse, peep out of embowering
+verdure, whilst our road is shaded in many
+places by the overhanging boughs of blossoming
+almond and loquat trees. The whole region is in
+truth a veritable garden of the Hesperides, where in
+the mild equable climate fruit and flowers ripen and
+bloom without a break throughout the rolling year.
+</p><anchor id="illus07"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: POZZANO]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus07th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus07.jpg">POZZANO</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: POZZANO</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Tall thriving trees confess’d the fruitful mould;</q></l>
+<l>The verdant apple ripens here to gold;</l>
+<l>Here the blue fig with luscious juice o’erflows,</l>
+<l>With deepest red the full pomegranate glows,</l>
+<l>The branches bend beneath the weighty pear,</l>
+<l>And silver olives flourish all the year;</l>
+<l>The balmy spirit of the western gale</l>
+<l>Eternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail.</l>
+<l>Each dropping pear another pear supplies,</l>
+<l>On apples apples, figs on figs arise;</l>
+<l>The same mild season gives the blooms to blow,</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+A lovely and a fertile scene it is indeed, and
+thoroughly typical of the peculiar charm of Southern
+Italy, wherein the rich well-tilled lands appear in
+striking contrast with the near-lying stony fallows and
+scrub-covered wastes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beneath the picturesque pile of Santa Maria a
+<pb n='102'/><anchor id='Pg102'/>Pozzano, perched aloft above the roadway, we pass
+along the edge of the sea-girt precipice, rounding the
+Capo d’Orlando, until we reach the pretty little town
+of Vico Equense, with its churches and gay-coloured
+villas nestling amidst groves of olive and orange trees.
+Vico owes its prosperity in the first instance to the
+patronage of <q>Carlo il Zoppo,</q> Charles the Dwarf,
+the lame son and heir of King Charles of Anjou, who
+founded a settlement and built a villa upon the site of
+the ancient Roman colony; and it was in the old
+royal demesne of the Angevins that the hand of
+the deformed king’s daughter, the Princess Clementia,
+was demanded formally in marriage by the French
+monarch, Philip the Bold, who sought to marry her to
+his third son, Charles of Valois. The match between
+the young prince of France and his cousin, the
+Neapolitan princess, appeared suitable to all concerned
+in every respect save one; for it was well known that
+the King of Naples had been lame from his birth, and
+it could never be deemed fit for the expected heir of
+France to marry any but a perfectly sound and
+healthy bride. Now the Queen of Naples was too
+proud to accede to the hints of the French ladies, who
+evidently were most anxious to acquaint themselves
+with the satisfactory condition of her daughter’s
+<q>walking members,</q> though she went so far as to
+allow the maiden to appear before them clad only in
+a flowing robe of gossamer silk. The possible danger
+of losing her opportunity to become Queen of France
+proved, however, beyond the ambitious young lady’s
+powers of endurance, and to the horror of her haughty
+mother and the delight of the foreign emissaries, the
+Princess Clementia then and there doffed her silken
+<pb n='103'/><anchor id='Pg103'/>robes and appeared before all in the historic garb of
+Lady Godiva. A glance at the princess’s form <hi rend='italic'>in
+puris naturalibus</hi> sufficed to convince the inquisitive
+Frenchwomen that no hereditary taint from Il Zoppo
+descended to his daughter; and accordingly the
+betrothal of the two young people was celebrated that
+very evening amidst the usual revels and feastings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The clean cheerful town on the sheer limestone
+crags boasts a cathedral, wherein, so the guide-book
+informs us, we shall find the tomb of Filangieri, the
+great Italian jurist. But the building contains in
+reality far more stirring associations than those connected
+with a prominent lawyer. It is but a rococo
+structure of the usual Italian type, and its painted
+series of portraits of past bishops is by no means an
+uncommon complement of cathedral churches in the
+South. But here, amidst the long rows of indifferent
+portraits, we note an omission, a space that is occupied,
+not by a likeness but by a medallion, which
+represents a cherub with the forefinger of his right
+hand laid as a seal of silence upon the lips. Here-by
+indeed hangs a tale, obscure perhaps, but pathetic
+and human to the last degree. We all remember the
+broad frieze filled with Doges’ faces which is carried
+round the great hall of the ducal palace in Venice,
+wherein the place assigned to the traitor, Marino
+Faliero, contains a black veil instead of the usual
+portrait. Here in little Vico Equense is to be found
+a somewhat similar incident, but with this important
+difference:—the bishop whose portrait is here omitted
+was the most worthy of remembrance of all his peers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The crime of Monsignore Michele Natale, Bishop
+of Vico Equense, to which the silent cherub bears
+<pb n='104'/><anchor id='Pg104'/>everlasting witness, was that of being a patriot and
+a Liberal (in the truest sense of that term) during
+the anxious times of the ill-fated Parthenopean
+Republic, that short-lived period of aristocratic government
+which was set up in self-defence by certain
+Neapolitan nobles, prelates and men of science after
+the abrupt departure of their cowardly King and
+Queen to Palermo. We all remember the terrible
+ending of that government: how the vile rabble-army
+of Cardinal Ruffo assaulted Naples; how the
+city capitulated to the Cardinal on the express condition
+that all life and property should be spared;
+and how Lord Nelson, refusing to recognise the terms
+that Ruffo himself had agreed to, and overruling the
+Cardinal’s protests, treated the unhappy prisoners.
+The Bishop of Vico Equense was one of this band
+of martyrs, for he suffered death under circumstances
+of exceptional brutality on the morning of August
+20th 1799, in the piazza in front of the church of
+the Carmine, together with two Neapolitans of noble
+rank, Giuliano Colonna and Gennaro Serra, and with
+the poetess, Eleonora Pimentel, a Portuguese by
+birth but the widow of a Neapolitan officer. All
+went nobly to their doom amidst the execrations of
+the demoralised bloodthirsty mob of <hi rend='italic'>lazzaroni</hi>, yelling
+at and insulting the <q>Jacobins,</q> and kept back with
+no little difficulty by the royal troops from mutilating
+the corpses of women, bishops and princes.
+Monsignore Natale himself was hanged, and in his
+case the public executioner—<q>Masto Donato</q> as he
+was nick-named by the populace—gave vent to
+many pleasantries concerning the episcopal rank of
+his victim. Blindfolded and with the cord of infamy
+<pb n='105'/><anchor id='Pg105'/>depending from his neck, the Bishop was led up to the
+fatal ladder amid deafening shouts of
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Viva la forca e Masto Donato;</q></l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Sant’ Antonio sia priato!</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+On reaching the top of the gallows, the hangman
+made fast the rope to the cross-tree, and then an
+assistant (<hi rend='italic'>tirapiede</hi>) from below adroitly pushed the
+unseeing prisoner into space, catching on to his legs
+meanwhile, whilst <q>Masto Donato</q> himself adroitly
+leaped from the gallows-top upon the prelate’s
+shoulder. With the hangman on his back, shouting
+aloud how much he was enjoying his ride upon a
+real bishop, and with the other ruffian clinging to his
+heels, Monsignore Natale swayed backwards and forwards
+amidst yells of execration and gratified hate
+on that hot August morning in front of the Church
+of the Carmine little more than one hundred years
+ago. His body was left on the gallows to be insulted
+by the mob throughout the long sweltering day, and
+then, stripped of all its clothing, was finally flung
+with other corpses of noble men and women into a
+charnel-house at Sant’ Alessio al Lavinaio. Who it
+was that placed this quaint little memorial to the
+murdered prelate in his cathedral church we know
+not; but here the speechless yet eloquent cherub
+tells Natale’s sad story of brutality and injustice to
+all who care to listen. Happily the spell of silence
+is at length broken, and the true history of that
+hateful era of crime, cruelty, lying, and intrigue is
+gradually being revealed; and the enemies of the
+Church in Italy learn with an astonishment, which
+is perhaps feigned, that in that glorious army of
+<pb n='106'/><anchor id='Pg106'/>martyrs of 1799 more than one ecclesiastic of high
+rank suffered in the ill-starred and premature cause of
+Neapolitan liberty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Crossing the little river Arco, we proceed uphill
+through the region of vines and olives, until we have
+passed the Punta di Scutolo, where begins our
+descent into that famous tract of country, the Piano
+di Sorrento, a plateau above the cliffs, some four miles
+in length by one in breadth. Poets of antiquity and
+bards of the Middle Ages alike have sung the
+delights of the Sorrentine Plain, and have painted
+in glowing colours of inspired verse its race of happy
+peasants, its fruitful fields and orchards, its luscious
+vines, its excellent flocks. Galen, the cunning old
+physician, recommended to his nervous patients what
+would now be termed a <q>rest cure</q> in these favoured
+regions; whilst the grateful Bernardo Tasso, father of
+the immortal Torquato, speaks of the capital of this
+district as <q>l’Albergo della Cortesia,</q> and in an
+ecstasy of delighted appreciation, goes on to add:
+<q>l’aere e si sereno, si temperato, si salutifero, si vitale,
+che gli uomini che senza provar altero cielo ci vivono
+sono quasi immortali.</q> And though praise from
+Torquato’s courtly sire must not be taken too
+seriously, yet few will deny that the beautiful plain
+deserves many of the eulogies that have been
+showered upon it. At the small town of Meta, the
+next place of importance after Sorrento itself, the road
+divides at the Church of the Madonna of the Laurel:
+our way to Amalfi leading southward over the opposing
+ridge—the <q>Sorrentini Colles</q> of Ovid—whilst
+the other traverses the length of the plain by way of
+Pozzopiano and Sant’ Agnello, until it reaches Sorrento.
+</p>
+
+<pb n='107'/><anchor id='Pg107'/>
+
+<p>
+One prominent feature of this district has already
+attracted our attention; the number of deep ravines
+with which the whole plain is intersected. These
+natural clefts are marvellously lovely in their rich
+luxuriance of foliage, and with their precipitous sides
+and verdure-clad depths will recall the wonderful
+<hi rend='italic'>latomiè</hi>, the ancient stone-quarries of Syracuse. Their
+depths are filled with orange and lemon trees, mingled
+with sable spires of cypress and the tall forms of bays,
+which here bear jet-black berries, such as are rarely seen
+in our northern clime; whilst the edges of the cliffs
+are clothed with a serried mass of wild flowers; red
+valerian, crimson snap-dragon, tall blue campanulas,
+the dark green wild fennel, white-blossoming cistus,
+and a hundred other plants, gay with colour and
+strong with aromatic perfume.
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">The quarry’s edge is lined with many a plant,</q></l>
+<l>With many a flower distilling fragrant dew</l>
+<l>From brightly coloured petals. Almond trees</l>
+<l>Give snowy promise of sweet leaves and fruit;</l>
+<l>Here all the scented tangle of the South</l>
+<l>Covers the boulders, calcined by the sun</l>
+<l>To pearly whiteness; thorn or asphodel</l>
+<l>Sprout from each cranny of the topmost ledge</l>
+<l>To nod against the deep blue sky, or peer</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Into the verdure-clad abyss below.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+It is not surprising to learn that these romantic glens,
+filled with greenery, are reputed locally to be the haunts
+of fairies, <hi rend='italic'>Monacelli</hi>, as the Sorrentine inhabitants
+name them. Like the <q>good folk</q> of certain country
+districts in England, the pixies of Devonshire, and the
+<q>Tylwyth Teg</q> of rural Wales, these elfin people of
+the ravines are not malicious or unkindly in their nature,
+but they are particular and somewhat exacting in
+<pb n='108'/><anchor id='Pg108'/>certain matters. They appreciate the attentions of
+mortal men, and offerings of fresh milk or choice
+fruit are not beneath the notice of the Monacelli.
+Borrowing the idea from the votive offerings they
+make in the churches to the Virgin and the Saints,
+the peasants sometimes place little lamps in the fern-draped
+grottoes of these gullies, and to such as
+punctually perform these acts of courtesy, the
+Monacelli frequently show signs of favour. The
+<hi rend='italic'>padrone</hi> of a local inn has assured us that he and
+his wife stood very high in the good graces of the
+little people, who had on one occasion actually
+written them a letter, although as the characters
+employed were unknown to any person in the
+village, the object of their communication by this
+means seems somewhat of a mystery. Another and
+a more practical instance of their patronage was
+then related, for the favoured landlord assured us
+that on one occasion, when he and his wife descended
+downstairs in the morning, they found the house
+cleared, the hearth ready swept, and all the contents
+of last night’s supper-table relaid on the brick floor,
+but <hi rend='italic'>d’un modo squisito</hi>, such as no human hand could
+ever have been deft enough to contrive. Just a simple
+innocent trifle of Sorrentine folk-lore, but how closely
+does it resemble the old-time gossip of rustic England,
+of which the great poet has left us so charming
+a picture!—
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat</q></l>
+<l>To earn his cream-bowl duly set,</l>
+<l>When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,</l>
+<l>His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">That ten day labourers could not end.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<pb n='109'/><anchor id='Pg109'/>
+
+<p>
+For, as we have already said, the Monacelli show
+themselves grateful to those who anticipate their
+wants, and will serve their votaries with industry
+and fidelity. <hi rend='italic'>Fuore avra il Monacello in casa</hi>—perhaps
+he has had the Fairy in the house—has
+passed into a local phrase to designate a neighbour’s
+unexplained prosperity. But, again, the lucky recipient
+of these favours must never blab or even hint
+at the origin of his good fortune, for all gossip is
+highly distasteful to the fairy folk; and that, we
+suppose, is the true reason why so little authentic
+information can be gleaned as to the methods of
+the Monacelli.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In direct contrast with the Monacelli of the ravines,
+who are, on the whole, well inclined towards mortals,
+are the Maghe, first cousins evidently to the terrible
+<hi rend='italic'>ginns</hi> of Arabian folk-lore; perhaps the Saracenic
+pirates themselves may have introduced their oriental
+sprites to the Neapolitan shores. In the popular mind
+the Maghe are supposed to possess vast treasures
+hidden in caves by the seashore, or on the bleak
+mountain side, and it was doubtless concerning these
+spirits that the guide’s tale, given in a previous chapter,
+relates. The most celebrated Maga of all is the demon
+who haunts a certain underground corridor near
+Pozzuoli, containing an immense hoard of gold and
+jewels, which he is willing to present to anybody
+that is ready to give in exchange a new-born baby,
+presumably for purposes of devouring. Nor was the
+general belief in the cave-dwelling monster at Pozzuoli
+limited to the poor peasants and fisher-folk, for rumour
+persistently asserted that King Francis of Naples,
+father of Bomba of impious memory, more than once
+<pb n='110'/><anchor id='Pg110'/>attempted to negotiate with the guardian of this
+buried treasure; but the Maga’s terms, it seems,
+were too bloodthirsty and extravagant even for a
+Neapolitan Bourbon to comply with, and in that
+case they must indeed have been pretty startling.
+Malignant fairies are, in short, quite common upon
+the Sorrentine plain, where exasperated mothers are
+sometimes in the habit of frightening their squalling
+children into silence by threatening to introduce them
+to <hi rend='italic'>Mammone</hi>—perhaps a corruption of the old Greek
+word <hi rend='italic'>mormo</hi>—a terrible ghost, that must be a near
+relation to the <q>Big Black Man</q> of English nurseries,
+who is ever ready to carry off naughty boys and girls
+in his sack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the whole of the Sorrentine Peninsula is full of
+local superstitions, the vast majority of which can easily
+be traced to the influence of Catholicism, whilst comparatively
+few seem to be the legacy of ancient Greek
+or Roman mythology. Belief in witchcraft is universal
+in these parts, but the witch herself (<hi rend='italic'>strega</hi>) is regarded
+somewhat in the light of a beneficent <q>wise woman,</q>
+who can arrest the far more dreaded spell of the Evil
+Eye, rather than as the malevolent old hag of bucolic
+England in the past. Certainly there has never been
+recorded in Southern Italy any such popular persecution
+of poor harmless old crones as once disgraced
+English countrysides; nor has any Italian jurist, like
+the erudite Sir Matthew Hale, ever condescended to
+supply legal information concerning the peculiarities
+of witches, and the best methods of prosecuting and
+burning them. But the <hi rend='italic'>strega</hi>, though not as a rule
+dangerous to mankind, provided she be not disturbed
+or insulted, has the same supernatural power of transit
+<pb n='111'/><anchor id='Pg111'/>on a broomstick that is possessed by her northern
+sister. On many a dark night have the peasants
+crossed themselves with fear on hearing the witches
+flying through the storm-vexed air to keep their unholy
+tryst beside the famous walnut tree of Benevento, which
+has been described for us by the learned Pietro Piperno
+in his mysterious treatise, entitled <hi rend='italic'>De Nuce Beneventana</hi>.
+Even snatches of the witches’ song can sometimes be
+distinguished above the howling of the gale—
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Sott’ aero e sopra vento,</q></l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Sotto la Nuce di Benevento!</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps it may afford some consolation to those
+who have a dread of witches that the word <q>Sabato,</q>
+solemnly pronounced on these awful occasions, is of
+real service to the utterer; whilst such as have had
+the good fortune to be born on a Friday in March are
+permanently placed outside the evil power of their
+spells, since our Saviour was crucified on a Friday in
+that month.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But at length we have finished the ascent of
+the ridge, and our driver halts for a moment at
+the inn of the <q>Due Golfi.</q> A smiling damsel,
+dressed in the picturesque native costume, advances to
+offer us the national drink of Italy, sweet vermouth
+that is frothed up with a little fizzing water in a narrow
+tumbler; and though carriage exercise is not liable to
+produce thirst, yet we cannot be so churlish as to
+refuse the draught, especially as the delay allows us to
+take our farewell look at the Bay of Naples. For here
+we have reached the peak of the rocky saddle that
+divides the two famous gulfs; and before us we now
+behold the wide crescent of the Bay of Salerno with
+its sunburnt vineyards and its precipitous cliffs. To
+<pb n='112'/><anchor id='Pg112'/>our right we perceive the craggy headlands stretching
+southward till they culminate in the Cape of Minerva:—how
+much more attractive sounds the good old classical
+name than the new-fangled Punta della Campanella,
+so called from the alarm bell which used to be tolled
+in the ruined fortress at the approach of the Moslem
+pirate galleys! Vastly different is the aspect on this
+side of the peninsula to that which we have just left
+behind us. There is the plain below us, thickly dotted
+with farms and villas set amidst crops and orchards, a
+fertile scene of industry and population; here on the
+Salerno side are wild stony tracts affording only pasturage
+for a few sheep and goats, and covered for
+miles with broom, cytizus, coronella, myrtle, and numberless
+fragrant weeds, all struggling fiercely for existence
+on the dry barren soil, and filling the clear air
+with an incense-like perfume. Such is our first acquaintance
+with the Costiera d’Amalfi, that wonderful
+stretch of indented rocky coast-line once containing
+the Republic of Amalfi, which was the forerunner of
+the glorious Commonwealths of Florence and Venice.
+From the grey cliffs of Capri to the west, as far as the
+headland beside Salerno, stretched this diminutive
+state, composed of a confederacy of sister-cities, whereof
+Amalfi herself was the queen and metropolis. Its
+glories have long vanished, but the Costiera d’Amalfi
+remains an enchanted land, not only on account of its
+natural beauties, but also by reason of its historical
+associations which give an additional charm to every
+breezy headland and every little town upon this
+wonderful shore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Below us, as we rapidly descend the slopes by the
+curves of the Corniche road, lies the little beach known
+<pb n='113'/><anchor id='Pg113'/>as Lo Scaricotojo, whence in the days previous to the
+construction of this splendid highway all visitors were
+wont to embark for Amalfi;—that is, unless they
+attempted the expedition by way of the mountain
+roads leading thither from Castellamare or La Cava.
+It raises a smile in these days of swift and luxurious
+travelling to learn from an early Victorian guide-book
+that <q>the most elegible mode of going from Sorrento
+to Amalfi is either to ride or to be carried in a <hi rend='italic'>chaise
+à porteurs</hi> to that part of the Colli where begins a
+rapid descent, and thence descending on foot to the
+Marinella of the Scaricotojo on the Gulf of Salerno....
+The ride occupies about an hour and a quarter,
+and the descent which, though steep, is not dangerous,
+occupies about an hour.</q> <hi rend='italic'>Nous avons changé tout ça</hi>;
+yet there are still living amongst us those who lament
+the passing away of the old-fashioned days of Italian
+travel, when inns were bad but picturesque, and expeditions
+to such remote places as Amalfi were not only difficult
+but even dangerous; since in compensation
+for slow progress and risk of brigands every town
+owned a primitive charm which is now rapidly disappearing
+before the modern irruption of locust-like
+swarms of tourists with their motor cars, their luncheon
+baskets, and their kodaks. Well, to the majority of
+travellers the value of natural scenery is not a little
+enhanced by the sense of comfort, and here on the
+Costiera d’Amalfi the most particular can have no
+cause to complain, since it is one of the few lovely
+spots of Southern Europe that has not yet been invaded
+by the dividend-paying railway. No, the old
+Republic retains to a great extent its ancient atmosphere
+of unspoiled beauty and remoteness from the
+<pb n='114'/><anchor id='Pg114'/>bustling world. It is still a stretch of glorious and
+historic country wherein one can obtain a pleasant and
+valued respite for a time from the overpowering improvements
+of an industrial age.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we look southward across the breadth of the
+Bay, our eye is at once caught by the group of the
+Isles of the Sirens, which, though in reality fully a
+mile distant from the nearest point of the coast, seem
+in this clear atmosphere as though they were lying
+within a stone’s throw of the beach. Around these
+bare bluffs of rock, seemingly flung by the hand of
+Nature in a sportive mood into the blue waves, lingers
+one of the most insidious of all the old Greek legends,
+for it was past these lonely cliffs that the cunning
+Ulysses sailed during his long career of mazy wanderings
+in search of his island home and his faithful
+Penelope. In those days, so the Greek bard tells us,
+there dwelt upon these islets strange sea-witches
+with the faces and forms of most beautiful maidens,
+although their lower limbs had the resemblance of
+eagles’ feet and talons. Two sirens only, says Homer,
+dwelt upon these coasts, although later poets have
+increased the number of the fatal sisters to three or
+even four. Singing the most enchanting songs to
+the sound of tortoise-shell lyres, there used to bask
+in the sunlight beside the gentle ripple the Sirens,
+their nether limbs well hidden from the gaze of
+passing seamen, who, attracted by the tuneful notes,
+hastened hither to discover the whereabouts of the
+musicians. Innocent eyes, angelic faces, flowing
+golden locks and white beckoning hands had every
+power to draw the curious mariner nearer and
+nearer, until he came within reach of the fell
+en<pb n='115'/><anchor id='Pg115'/>chantresses. For the Sirens loved the flesh of
+mortals, and bleached skulls and bones of digested
+victims lay in heaps upon the sandy floor of their
+azure-hued caverns. Gold and jewels, too, the spoils
+of many a brave galley that had been lured to destruction
+by these charmers, likewise littered their
+retreat, and perhaps it was as much the glittering of
+this gold as their own lovely features that in certain
+cases enticed the wary merchant into this fatal trap.
+Gold and a pretty face: what male heart could be
+proof against the double temptation the Isles of the
+Sirens offered to the navigator in the days of the
+Odyssey! Only one sailor over these seas proved
+himself a match for the wiles of the cruel goddesses
+of the Amalfitan coast; for Ulysses, as we know,
+stopped the ears of his companions with wax on
+their approach towards this dangerous spot, whilst he
+himself, always eager to hear and see everything yet
+perfectly well aware of the Sirens’ magnetic power,
+had himself tightly bound by cords to the mast. So
+whilst the deaf rowers stolidly tugged at their oars,
+oblivious of the weird unearthly melody around them,
+the clever King of Ithaca gained the honour of becoming
+the only mortal who had listened to that
+subtle song without paying the penalty of a hideous
+and ignoble death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is strangely disappointing to find that no recollection
+of Sirens or of Ulysses lingers in the lore
+of the present dwellers upon these coasts. They
+have no more notion of the aspect of a Siren than
+they have of a pleisosaurus, and, as a modern writer
+naïvely complains, they are not sharp-witted enough
+to invent fanciful tales to please the enquiring foreigner.
+<pb n='116'/><anchor id='Pg116'/>Nor is this lack of intelligence to be wondered at,
+when we recall to mind the clean sweep of all
+classical learning and tradition which that period of
+time, truly known as the Dark Ages, made throughout
+Italy; if Petrarch found it necessary to explain to
+King Robert the Wise with the greatest tact and
+delicacy that Vergil was a poet and not a wizard,
+what must have been the appalling ignorance prevailing
+amongst the peasant and the fisherman? And
+yet these barren rocks were known as the Isles of
+the Sirens centuries before the verses of the Aeneid
+immortalized the mythic voyage of the Trojan
+adventurer, who passed along this iron-bound coast
+on his way towards the mouth of Tiber. Their
+modern, or rather medieval name of I Galli is somewhat
+of a puzzle. Erudite scholars affect to derive
+it from Guallo, a fortress captured during a war
+between King Roger and the Republic of Amalfi,
+but this explanation, we confess, does not sound very
+reasonable. Others prefer to imagine that the word
+Gallo (a cock) contains an allusion to the claws and
+feathers of the Sirens themselves, for certain of the
+ancient writers endowed these dire Virgins of the
+Rocks with the wings as well as the claws of birds;—in
+fact, they represented them as Harpies, those
+horrible fowls with women’s faces that appeared upon
+the scene at Prospero’s bidding to spoil the bad
+king’s supper party. But why, if the Sirens were
+female,—and on this point all their critics agree with
+an unanimity that is wonderful—should their ancient
+haunts be called <q>The Cocks?</q> The untutored
+natives themselves, understanding nothing of Sirens
+or of Odysseys, hold their own theory with regard
+<pb n='117'/><anchor id='Pg117'/>to the disputed name, which they connect with the
+construction of a harbour at distant Salerno, and
+though this legend sounds foolish enough, it is
+scarcely less flimsy than the notions already quoted.
+A certain enchanter, one Pietro Bajalardo, undertook—in
+modern parlance, contracted—to build in a
+single night the much needed breakwater at Salerno
+on the strange condition that all cocks in the
+neighbourhood should first be killed; for the wizard,
+so the story runs, had a special aversion to Chanticleer
+on account of his having caused the repentance
+of St Peter by his crowing. In any case, the reigning
+Prince of Salerno gladly complied with the eccentric
+request, and at his command every cock in or near
+the place was accordingly slaughtered, with the
+solitary exception of one old rooster, who, being very
+dear to the heart of his aged mistress, was kept concealed
+beneath a tub and thus escaped the general
+holocaust. Throughout the livelong night Bajalardo
+was busily engaged in superintending the work of
+building the harbour, whilst the fiends who carried
+out his behest were actively conveying huge blocks
+of broken cliff from the Cape of Minerva to place in
+the waters of Salerno. But at daybreak the cock
+imprisoned beneath the tub, the sole survivor of his
+race, according to natural custom announced the dawn,
+to the despair of Bajalardo and the terror of his attendant
+fiends, who in their precipitate flight dropped
+into the sea near the Punta Sant’ Elia the huge masses
+of stone they were then carrying; and these rocks
+are called by men I Galli in consequence to this day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, to be strictly impartial, it was not the Sirens
+alone who were responsible for all the victims who
+<pb n='118'/><anchor id='Pg118'/>perished on these arid rocks. <hi rend='italic'>Homo homini lupus</hi>;
+man is always ready to prey upon man, and many of
+the dark tales concerning the Galli go to prove the
+truth of the terrible old adage. At what period the
+Sirens abandoned their ancient retreat and swam or
+flew away to more congenial haunts is unknown to
+history; but certain it is that the rulers of proud
+Amalfi committed many a cruel deed of murder or
+torture upon their deserted islets. For here, many a
+hapless political prisoner languished for years in abject
+misery, a prey to the heat and glare of summer and
+to the fierce gales of bitter winter nights. Rock-cut
+steps and ruined towers still remain as mementoes of
+those dark days, when callous human gaolers worthily
+filled the places of the absent Sirens. It was in a
+chamber of yonder turret, still standing, that the Doge
+Mansone II., blinded by a brother’s vengeance, dragged
+out years of utter misery in pain and darkness, until
+the Emperor of the East, suzerain of Amalfi, at last
+took compassion upon the prisoner’s wretched plight
+and allowed him to be removed into honourable confinement
+at Byzantium. For many hundreds of years
+the Isles of the Sirens have lain untenanted, nor are
+they visited nowadays save by a few inquisitive
+travellers or by the fishermen of the Scaricotojo, who
+find safe shelter under their lee during the sudden
+squalls of the Mediterranean. For, strange to relate,
+there are no dangerous currents, no treacherous whirlpools
+close to these rocky islets, such as we might
+expect to give some natural interpretation to the ancient
+myth, the origin of which remains unexplained and
+constitutes a very pretty mystery as it stands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We bid farewell to the group of ill-omened rocks,
+<pb n='119'/><anchor id='Pg119'/>as we proceed rapidly under the rocky slopes of the
+Monte di Chiosse towards Positano, which extends in
+a long curving line of cheerful-tinted flat-roofed houses
+from the summit of its protecting cliff to the strand
+below, sprinkled with boats and nets and cloths with
+heaps of grain a-drying. The descent to the lower
+portion of the little town is singularly charming with
+its varied scenery of rocks and hanging woods above
+us, with the tiled domes of churches outlined against
+the deep blue waters, and with the whole scene
+dominated by the pierced crag of Montapertuso,
+beyond which thrusts up into the cloudless sky the
+triple peak of the giant Sant’ Angelo. Positano is a
+thriving as well as an ancient place, and of its dense
+population we have abundant evidence in the swarms
+of children that pursue our carriage, brown-skinned
+picturesque little nuisances, shrilly and incessantly
+crying out for <hi rend='italic'>soldi</hi>. Most of these infants wear
+bright coloured rags, but not a few are dressed in
+garments that at once recall the ginger-coloured robes
+of the Capuchin friars, for the brothers of the Order
+of St Francis are popularly reputed to be especially
+competent in keeping aloof evil spells from young
+persons entrusted to their charge; and of course,
+argue the doting parents, it is only natural that the
+spirits of darkness should not dare to molest the little
+ones tricked out in robes similar to those worn by
+these holy men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the point of view of history the chief interest
+of Positano centres in the time-honoured tradition
+that Flavio Gioja, the original inventor of the compass,
+was a native of this town, once a flourishing and
+important member of the group of cities which
+com<pb n='120'/><anchor id='Pg120'/>prised the Amalfitan Republic in its palmy days.
+But Clio, the Muse of History, is an inexorable
+mistress, and she will not rest content with mere
+hearsay, however venerable, and as a result of careful
+investigation it would seem that Flavio Gioja, who for
+centuries has been generally credited with this marvellous
+discovery, must himself have been a personage almost
+as mythic as the Sirens of this shore, for his very
+name is spelled in a variety of ways that is hopelessly
+confusing. Nor has the question of his place of birth
+ever been satisfactorily settled, for both Positano and
+Amalfi claim this hero of science for a son, although
+only in Amalfitan annals can the disputed name
+be detected. Be this as it may, it was a citizen of
+this Costiera who has ever been acknowledged as
+the inventor of the compass, though concerning both
+himself and his alleged discovery there is a complete
+absence of any contemporary record. Later
+writers have, it is true, always admitted the honour on
+behalf of the Republic, and Pontano goes so far as to
+call Amalfi <hi rend='italic'>magnetica</hi> in compliment thereof, whilst
+during the later crusades the Amalfitani, who were
+evidently convinced of the genuine nature of Gioja’s
+claim, had an heraldic figure of the mariner’s compass
+emblazoned on their banners. It seems a thousand
+pities to throw doubt upon so picturesque a tradition,
+for the date of the invention of the compass has been
+fixed as 1302, two years only after the holding of the
+famous Papal Jubilee in Rome which Dante’s verse
+has described for us. Nor can the ingenious theory
+be upheld that the fleur-de-lys, the emblem of the
+French kings of Naples, which still decorates the dial
+of the compass in almost all lands, is in any wise
+<pb n='121'/><anchor id='Pg121'/>connected with Carlo il Zoppo, the monarch to whom
+Gioja is said to have dedicated his ingenious discovery.
+No, we have little doubt that the compass, like so
+many of the scientific wonders that crept into Europe
+before and during the time of the Renaissance, was
+originally brought from the far East, a farther East
+than the argosies of Amalfi had ever penetrated. The
+little magic box with its moving needle was first used,
+it is now admitted, by the cunning merchants of
+Cathay during their trading expeditions across the
+stony monotonous plains of Central Asia that lay
+between the Flowery Land and the civilization of
+Persia. From Cathay the use of the magnetic needle
+was introduced to the Arab mathematicians of Baghdad
+and Cairo, and through them the secret of the lodestone
+of China was conveyed to the coast towns of the
+Levant. At Aleppo or Alexandria some astute trader
+of Amalfi—perhaps his name really was Flavio Gioja—contrived
+to learn the new method of steering from
+some Moslem or Jewish merchant, and he in his turn
+brought this novel and precious piece of information
+back to the Italian shores. If, then, a native of
+Amalfi did not evolve the idea of the compass out of
+his own brain, at least it was the old Republic which
+first impressed the Western world with its immense
+value, and this, too, at a far earlier period than the
+date usually assigned to Gioja’s <q>discovery.</q> For a
+Christian bishop of Jerusalem a hundred years before
+Gioja’s day makes mention of the compass as being in
+common use amongst the Saracens of Palestine, whilst
+its existence was certainly known to Brunetto Latini,
+the tutor of Dante, whom for certain moral failings
+upon earth his brilliant pupil somewhat harshly places
+<pb n='122'/><anchor id='Pg122'/>in the infernal regions. History has, in short, long
+deprived poor disconsolate Positano of its vaunted
+glory in the production of a medieval scientist whose
+very existence has now become a matter of speculation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we thread our way along the road that curves
+round headland after headland, and is carried over
+sheer precipices whose base is lapped by the cool
+jade-green water, we begin to realize the essential
+difference between the Sorrentine shores we have left
+behind us, and the marvellous Costiera d’Amalfi we
+are now passing. Ever green and smiling are the
+favoured districts that stretch from Castellamare to
+Massa Lubrense, with the mountain tops acting
+as screens to protect the groves and crops from
+the sun’s ardent rays and with the fresh reviving
+breezes from the Abruzzi ever breathing upon them.
+But here we seem to be under the very eyes of the
+Sun-God, who stares fixedly from rising to setting
+upon the Amalfitan coast. Welcome enough is this
+continuous basking in his smiles during the short
+winter days; but oh! the long, long summer hours
+wherein King Helios relentlessly pours down his
+burning glances upon the shallow soil that covers the
+rocky face of the Costiera! We who visit the
+territories of the old Republic in winter or early
+spring only perceive one aspect of the picture. We
+rejoice in the gladdening warmth afforded by unbroken
+sunshine and by the complete absence of cutting winds
+which Monte Sant’ Angelo’s towering form excludes
+from these shores; we note with delight the premature
+unfolding of buds and blossoms, and we marvel at the
+young fruit of the dark-leaved loquat trees—the
+<hi rend='italic'>nespoli</hi> of the South—turning to pale yellow even in
+<pb n='123'/><anchor id='Pg123'/>February. But we cannot realise the blinding glare
+and the torrid heat of a July or August, making
+a perfect furnace of this sheltered corner, where the
+thin layer of cultivated soil, that has been scraped
+together painfully by human hands, becomes baked
+through and through, when the water-tanks are
+exhausted, and when the clouds of thick dust hang like
+a pall of white smoke for miles above the sinuous course
+of the Corniche road. How close and sweltering must
+be the atmosphere of these populous coves, when the
+very waves are flung luke-warm upon the hot sand!
+How must the inhabitants sigh for a breath of cool
+air from the Abruzzi, for the zephyr that tempers the
+heat on the Sorrentine plain! <hi rend='italic'>Carpe diem</hi>; let us enjoy
+the Costiera d’Amalfi in the freshness of early spring-time,
+before the oranges and lemons have been stripped
+from the leafy groves and before the sun has had
+time to scorch up the vegetation that now gives
+colour to every cleft and crevice of the rocky
+coast-line.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we advance eastward from Positano we obtain
+glimpses from time to time of mountain valleys
+thickly clothed with brushwood, and far above
+our heads we perceive Agerola perched aloft under
+the shadow of the topmost crag of Monte Sant’
+Angelo—Agerola, where wolves still haunt the dim
+recesses of the chestnut woods, and where the charcoal
+burners can tell us of the great grey Were-Wolf that
+prowls round the village on stormy nights. Passing
+the torrent of the Arriengo and the Punta di San
+Pietro with its lonely chapel looking out to sea;
+glancing down upon the deep set strand and gloomy
+caverns of Furore, and rounding Cape Sottile, we find
+<pb n='124'/><anchor id='Pg124'/>ourselves at Prajano, one of the prettiest spots to
+be found on all this wonderful coast. Here we
+stop to visit the church of San Luca, which stands on
+a little grassy platform overhanging the sea and
+commanding a superb view of the Bay of Salerno. It
+is a baroque structure of the type common everywhere
+in Italy, which travellers are apt to despise without
+acknowledging how picturesque this decadent style of
+architecture can appear. At Prajano the wooden
+doors of green faded to the hue of ancient bronze,
+the yellow-washed plaster façade and the lichen-covered
+tiles of the roof and tower make up a
+charming mass of varied colouring when viewed
+against the broad blue band of sea and sky beyond.
+Within, the church is mean and tawdry, just a
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Sad charnel-house of humble hopes and crimes,</q></l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Long dead and buried in obscurity;</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+but the afternoon sun struggling through the curtains
+that cover its fantastic windows allows a mellow light
+to fill the expanse of the building. A toothless
+old woman and a young girl, both of them thinly and
+poorly clad, are the sole occupants of the church, and
+they are evidently too much absorbed in prayer to
+notice our presence. They have placed beside the
+Madonna’s altar lighted tapers which glimmer feebly
+in a shaft of strong sunlight that falls through a rent
+in the curtain overhead. For what purpose, we
+wonder, have these candles been bought out of a
+scanty store! Are they burning on behalf of some
+sailor-boy now being tossed upon the ocean? Or are
+they offered to obtain some boon more selfish and less
+pathetic? At any rate, this pair of intent worshippers,
+<pb n='125'/><anchor id='Pg125'/>representing fresh Southern youth and crabbed age,
+make up a pretty picture as they kneel together
+on the pavement of tiles ornamented in bright rococo
+patterns to represent the coat-of-arms of some
+forgotten noble benefactor: it is too simple and everyday
+a sight in Italy to offer a theme for verse, too
+sacred a subject for an idle photograph. We leave
+the church on tip-toe, and return to the terrace with
+its low marble seats and its stunted acacia trees to sit
+a few moments before re-entering the carriage.
+</p><anchor id="illus08"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: EVENING AT AMALFI]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus08th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus08.jpg">EVENING AT AMALFI</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: EVENING AT AMALFI</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+Skirting the Capo di Conca we obtain our first
+sight of proud Amalfi, and we realize that our drive,
+long in distance perhaps, but all too short with its
+varied beauties and interests, is drawing to a close.
+Nearer and nearer do we approach our goal, the shining
+turrets of the Cathedral tower acting as our beacon,
+until at length our chariot clatters beneath the echoing
+tunnel hewn in the cliff that leads into the town itself.
+</p>
+
+</div><div n="6" rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n='126'/><anchor id='Pg126'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="6: Amalfi and the Festival of St Andrew"/>
+<head>CHAPTER VI</head>
+
+<head type="sub">AMALFI AND THE FESTIVAL OF ST ANDREW</head>
+
+<p>
+The traveller’s first impressions of Amalfi, which
+is essentially the beauty-spot of the Riviera of
+Naples, are usually associated with the old Capuchin
+convent, long since turned into a hotel and now the
+bourne of most visitors to this coast. Its arcaded
+façade and its terraced garden stand on a plateau
+seemingly cut out of the sheer face of the cliff, whilst
+high above the town the lofty barren rocks enfold the
+Convent and its verdant demesne within a natural
+amphitheatre and protect this sunny paradise from the
+keen blasts of winter. A flight of steps zigzagging
+up the rocky hill-side connects the building with the
+high road below; whilst a narrow pathway, leading
+between stone walls and now passing beneath dark
+mysterious archways, wherein the lamps burning
+before the Madonna’s shrines afford a welcome light
+even at midday, descends by steep gradients from the
+garden above into the main piazza of the little city.
+Built by the celebrated Cardinal Pietro Capuano nearly
+seven hundred years ago for Cistercian monks, the
+monastery in the sixteenth century came into the possession
+of the Capuchin Friars, those brown-robed
+figures that with their bare feet and girdles of knotted
+white cord are such familiar and picturesque objects
+<pb n='127'/><anchor id='Pg127'/>in the daily crowds of every Italian town. But the
+friars have been forced to abandon their airy retreat
+ever since the suppression of the religious houses, which
+succeeded the union of the old Neapolitan kingdom
+with young Italy, and their convent has long been
+put to secular uses. Yet the old monastic church
+still exists, and superstitious people declare that the
+spectral forms of ejected Capuchins are sometimes to
+be seen advancing slowly up the rocky ascent in order
+to revisit the sacred building that is now closed for
+worship. Nevertheless the church is cared for by the
+members of the Vozzi family, its present owners, who
+every Christmas-tide still prepare the popular <hi rend='italic'>presepio</hi>,
+that curious representation of the scene in the stable at
+Bethlehem, wherein a score of gaily dressed figures of
+painted wood represent the Holy Family and the
+worshipping peasants. Little in fact has been changed
+within the building itself, and the exquisite cloistered
+court with its slender intertwining Saracenic columns
+still remains to delight alike the artist and the antiquary.
+We say <q>still remains</q> advisedly; for beyond the
+tiny quadrangle our eyes at once light upon a scene
+of hideous devastation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Doubtless many persons will recall the great land-slip
+of December 1899, when almost without warning
+the whole face of the rocky headland that shelters
+Amalfi on the west tore itself loose and slid with a
+crash like thunder into the sea below, overwhelming
+in its fall the little inn known as the <q>Santa Caterina</q>
+and burying in its ruins two English ladies and several
+fishermen. The sinister scar still continues as a blot
+upon the lovely landscape, speaking only too eloquently
+to all of sudden death and destruction amidst the
+<pb n='128'/><anchor id='Pg128'/>surrounding scenes of life and beauty. The older
+portion of the Capuchin convent, by a miracle as it
+were, escaped the on-rush of the land-slide, but its
+famous <q>Calvary,</q> the large group of the Crucifixion
+that appears prominently in so many pictures of
+Amalfi, was completely swept away, so that the boatmen
+from the sands below can no longer behold the
+immense vivid representation of the Last Agony which
+was wont to greet their upturned eyes. Already
+Time’s kindly hand has begun to drape the scene of
+the catastrophe with a decent mourning veil of grey
+and green, for the hardy succulent plants that can withstand
+the sun’s fierce rays and can thrive despite the
+boisterous salt sea-winds are already sprouting from
+every crack and cranny of the riven earth. Perhaps
+it is as well for us selfish and self-satisfied mortals to
+possess a <hi rend='italic'>memento mori</hi> close at hand in a spot so
+teeming with the joy of life; yet somehow the first
+sight of that mass of broken headland and the dark
+ominous fissure in the hill-side, flung across the sunlit
+scene, is apt to send a slight shiver through the frame
+of the beholder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are three indisputable advantages to be gained
+by turning a suppressed religious house into a modern
+hotel, so a cunning old Italian inn-keeper once confided
+to us; that is, of course, provided one is not afraid of the
+proverbial curse that clings to the buying of any of the
+Church’s sequestrated property. These three things are
+good air, good water, and lovely views; benefits that
+a layman is fully as competent to understand as
+any cloistered ecclesiastic. And certainly the worthy
+Vozzi are fully justified in offering these privileges
+to their guests at the Albergo Cappuccini. Signor
+<pb n='129'/><anchor id='Pg129'/>Vozzi! How many travellers in the South recall with
+infinite pleasure their host’s tall commanding figure,
+his snowy drooping whiskers, the sun-shade that was
+rarely out of his hand, his old-fashioned courteous
+manners, and his famous family of cats, whereof the
+coal-black Nerone was the prime favourite, a feline
+monster almost as tyrannical as his Imperial namesake
+of evil reputation. Signor Vozzi’s striking personality,
+the sable fur of agate-eyed Nerone, the eternal sunshine,
+and the wide all-embracing views over sea and land,
+are somehow all jumbled together in our perplexed
+mind, as it recurs to the many days spent beneath
+the convent roof. Nay, not beneath the roof! For
+we were wont to pass the whole day, even the short
+December day, in basking on the warm sheltered
+terrace and peering over the busy beach and the
+dazzling waters below, whereon the tale of Amalfitan
+fisher-life could be read as it were from the pages of
+a book.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Somehow the old monastic buildings appear
+marvellously well adapted to modern needs. The
+former inmates’ cells, wherein the brown-robed brethren
+of the Order of St Francis until lately were wont to
+pass their placid uneventful lives, afford comfortable if
+somewhat limited accommodation; whilst the covered
+<hi rend='italic'>loggia</hi> that runs the whole length of the cells has been
+turned into a series of delightful little sitting-rooms,
+their broad arc-shaped windows facing full south, a
+boon that only a winter resident in Italy can properly
+appreciate. <hi rend='italic'>Dove non entra il sole, entra il medico</hi>, is
+a hackneyed but well-proven adage; consequently
+here in the old Capuchin convent the services of the
+local medicine-man ought rarely to be required.
+<pb n='130'/><anchor id='Pg130'/>Signor Vozzi’s guests partake of their meals in the
+ancient refectory, a large bare echoing chamber with a
+vaulted ceiling, which still contains the old stone pulpit
+from which in more pious days a grave brother was
+wont to read aloud choice passages from the works of
+the early Fathers of the Church or of St Bonaventura,
+the Seraphic Doctor of the Franciscans, during the
+hours allotted to the frugal repasts of the friars. But
+the public rooms and the cool white-washed corridors
+do not present such attractions as the glorious garden
+with its famous <hi rend='italic'>pergola</hi> and its views of the Bay.
+Here even in Christmas week we found quantities of
+plants in full bloom: the delicate yellow blossoms of
+the Soffrana rose; trailing ivy-leaved geraniums with
+gay heads of carmine flowers; the honey-scented
+budleia with its little globes of dark yellow flowerets:
+clumps of gorgeous scarlet salvia; and straggling
+masses of the pretty cosmia, red, pink and white.
+Humming-bird hawk-moths darted hither and thither
+in the sunshine, restless little creatures whose wings
+are never for a moment still, as they poise gracefully
+over each separate blossom in turn. The <hi rend='italic'>pergola</hi>
+itself, which every artist at Amalfi paints as a matter
+of course, generally with a Capuchin friar—at least a
+friar <hi rend='italic'>pro hac vice</hi>—or a pretty dark-eyed damsel in the
+native costume, sitting in the foreground, was certainly
+bare of foliage, we admit, for even in the soft warm air
+of the Bay of Salerno the grape-vine wisely refuses to
+burst into leaf at Yuletide, no matter how enticing the
+warmth. But the thick white pillars and their wooden
+cross-beams, around which are entwined the leafless
+coiling limbs of the sleeping vine, throw dark blue
+patterns of chequered shadow upon the sunlit ground.
+<pb n='131'/><anchor id='Pg131'/>Above the terraced garden rises the orangery, well
+watered by many artificial rillets, and from the midst
+of the orange and lemon trees there emerges a path
+leading to the entrancing <hi rend='italic'>bosco</hi>, or grove, that fills the
+deep hollow space formed by the sheltering cliffs
+behind. It was mid-winter, as we have said, yet pink
+cyclamens and strong-scented double narcissi were
+blooming freely, whilst from the dark boughs of the
+ilex trees overhead there fell upon the ear the pleasant
+twittering of innumerable birds, for happily the cruel
+snare and the gun are strictly forbidden in this sacred
+spot, so that his <q>little sisters, the birds,</q> that the
+gentle Saint of Assisi loved so tenderly, can still sing
+their songs of innocence and build their nests in peace
+amidst the trees that no longer remain the property of
+the great humanitarian Order. At nightfall this
+garden is almost equally beautiful beneath a star-lit
+sky and with the many lamps of the town below
+throwing long bars of yellow light upon the placid
+waters of the Bay. As we pace the long terrace,
+wrapped in the glory of a million stars and revelling
+in the exalted yet fairy-like loveliness of the scene
+around us, we perceive the mellow night air to be
+redolent of a strange but fascinating perfume. It is
+the <hi rend='italic'>olea fragrans</hi>, the humble inconspicuous oriental
+shrub that from its clusters of tiny white flowers is
+thus giving out its secret soul at the falling of the
+night dews, and permeating the whole garden with
+its marvellous floral incense. But if the star-lit,
+flower-scented nights of Amalfi are to be accounted as
+exquisite memories, how much more glorious and
+exhilarating is the rising of the sun, as he appears in
+full majesty of crimson and gold above the classic hills
+<pb n='132'/><anchor id='Pg132'/>that overlook Paestum to the east! Leaning at early
+dawn from the windows of the Cappuccini, we have
+watched the sky flush at the first caress of <q>rosy-fingered
+Eôs</q> and seen the fragment of the waning
+moon turn to silver at the approach of the burning
+God of Day, still tarrying behind the lofty barrier of
+the capes and mountains of the Lucanian shore.
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q  rend="post: none">Slowly beyond the headlands comes the day,</q></l>
+<l>Though moon and planet on a sky of gold,</l>
+<l>Chequered with orange and vermilion-stoled,</l>
+<l>Have floated long before the sun’s first ray</l>
+<l>Has shot across the waters to display</l>
+<l>Amalfi in her dotage; as of old</l>
+<l>His beams lit up her splendours manifold,</l>
+<l>Her quays and palaces that fringed the bay.</l>
+<l>His smile makes every barren hill-side blush</l>
+<l>In rose and purple for the glories fled,</l>
+<l>As early watchers note th’ encroaching flush</l>
+<l>From proud Ravello to Atrani spread,</l>
+<l>And curse the cruel arm that once did crush</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">This sea-sprung Niobe, and leave her dead.</q></l>
+</lg><anchor id="illus09"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: AMALFI]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus09th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus09.jpg">AMALFI</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: AMALFI</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+Dead, alas! For the old liberties of the great
+Republic of Amalfi have been extinct for more than
+half a thousand years, and it is in consequence difficult
+for us to realise that the quaint noisy squalid
+picturesque little city by the sea-shore, huddled into
+the narrow gorge of the Canneto, is that self-same
+Amalfi whose navies rode triumphant over the
+Mediterranean before the days of the Early Crusades.
+Yet Amalfi, which may be reckoned amongst the
+first-born of that fair family of medieval cities that
+their prolific parent the land of Italy brought forth in
+an age of darkness, was also the foremost to droop and
+die, her glories scattered and passed before Florence had
+<pb n='133'/><anchor id='Pg133'/>ceased to be an obscure country town. In this case
+History presents to us a most forcible, not to say
+an unique example of the origin, rise and decline of
+a power, all occurring within a short space of time.
+Amalfi springs, as it were, out of the void as a city
+of importance, for no Roman colony occupied its
+site in antique times. Its very nomenclature is a
+puzzle to scholars, and the usual statement that it
+owed its name to Byzantine settlers coming hither
+from the ancient town of Melfi in the Basilicata does
+not sound very convincing, though for want of a
+better theory it must suffice. Why, when, and by
+whom the city was in reality founded remains an
+enigma, yet we learn from a passage in one of the
+letters of St Gregory the Great that the place was of
+sufficient size to be governed by a bishop in the
+sixth century. By the tenth we find the Republic
+of Amalfi already risen to a position of commanding
+importance, and holding its own against the rival
+states between which its territories were wedged;
+the dukedom of Naples to the west and the principality
+of Salerno to eastward. Dexterously playing on the
+greed and prejudices of the various tyrants who ruled
+Naples and Salerno, and occasionally allying itself
+with them in order to repel the fierce attacks of their
+common enemy, the Saracenic hordes who were then
+harrying the Lucanian coast, Amalfi continued to
+uphold its political freedom and dignity in the face
+of immense difficulties. And in gratitude for the
+vigour with which the Amalfitani had waged war
+against the infidel invaders, Pope Leo IV. in course
+of time conferred upon the Duke or Doge, the chief
+magistrate of the Republic, the title of <q>Defender of
+<pb n='134'/><anchor id='Pg134'/>the Faith.</q> Nominally under the suzerainty of the
+Greek Emperor at Constantinople, Amalfi was
+practically independent; its system of government
+was conducted on lines somewhat akin to those of
+aristocratic Venice; its population is said to have
+exceeded fifty thousand in the capital city alone; its
+boundaries extended from the Promontory of Minerva
+on the west to the town of Cetara upon the confines
+of Salerno; whilst many daughter-towns of wealth
+and importance, such as Scala and Ravello, sprang
+into being within the narrow limits of the sea-girt
+republic. Owning a small and by no means fertile
+extent of land, the inhabitants of Amalfi from its
+earliest days were forced to become merchants and
+sailors; to use a modern phrase, the Amalfitani came
+to possess a complete monopoly of trade with Eastern
+lands, both Christian and Mahommedan. It was
+the ships of the Republic that alone brought to the
+shores of Italy the rich stuffs, the gold and silver
+embroideries, the dried fruits and the strange birds
+and beasts of Asia Minor and Arabia, and in exchange
+for their oriental merchandise obtained an abundance
+of corn, wine, oil, meat and other commodities of life
+that their beautiful but somewhat sterile dominions
+were unable to supply to an ever increasing population.
+But it was not only the material products of the East
+that the sailors of Amalfi conveyed to Europe in
+their home-bound argosies; for they brought back
+with them the rudiments of arts and sciences that
+distracted Italy had well-nigh forgotten during the
+period of the barbarian invasions. Through the
+merchant princes of Amalfi, the secrets of astronomy,
+of mathematics and of scientific navigation were
+re-<pb n='135'/><anchor id='Pg135'/>introduced into the land that had almost lost its old
+Roman civilization. A priceless manuscript of that
+great code of laws, the Pandects, which a Byzantine
+Emperor, the famous Justinian, had caused to be
+compiled with such skill and labour, putting into
+concise and accurate form the collected wisdom of
+generations of Roman jurists, was included amongst
+the treasures of the East that were borne back to
+Italy in the Republic’s vessels. And in addition to
+restoring the old Roman jurisprudence to its original
+home, the city of Amalfi had the honour of promulgating
+the celebrated <hi rend='italic'>Tabula Amalphitana</hi>, the new
+maritime laws that were henceforth destined to
+regulate the whole commercial system of the western
+world. No marvel then that the poet William of
+Apulia should praise in unmeasured terms the glories
+of the new-sprung city, whose trade extended to the
+shores of India and whose merchants possessed
+independent settlements in every great city of the
+Levant.
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Nulla magis civitas argento, vestibus, auro</q></l>
+<l>Partibus innumeris; hac plurimus urbe moratur</l>
+<l>Nauta marit coelique vias aperiri peritus.</l>
+<l>Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe</l>
+<l>Regia et Antiochi. Zeus haec freta plurima transit</l>
+<l>His Arabes, Indi, Siculi nascuntur et Afri.</l>
+<l>Haec genus est totum prope nobilitata per orbem,</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Et mercanda ferens, et amans mercata referre.</q></l>
+</lg>
+    <lg>
+<l>(<q rend="post: none">No city richer in its store of gold,</q></l>
+<l>Of precious stones and silks doth Europe hold;</l>
+<l>Her skilful mariners o’er treacherous seas</l>
+<l>With aid of compass sail where’er they please.</l>
+<l>From Egypt and from Antioch they land,</l>
+<l>Their precious cargoes on th’ Italian strand.</l>
+<pb n='136'/><anchor id='Pg136'/>
+<l>Scathless Amalfi’s navies penetrate</l>
+<l>The distant ports of every Paynim state.</l>
+<l>Match me throughout the circuit of this earth</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Another race so full of zeal and worth.</q>)</l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+A small state on a barren shore, yet the holder
+of the balance between East and West by means of
+its wide-spread commerce, such was Amalfi during
+the tenth and eleventh centuries. In some respects
+this Republic of the Middle Ages appears as the
+prototype of the Venice of the Renaissance, for there
+is not a little in common between the city that was
+built upon the marshy islets of the Adriatic lagoons,
+and the city that was erected at the base of the
+treacherous cliffs of the Tyrrhene Sea. Solely by
+means of commerce both foundations rose from
+nothingness to splendour and power: both held the
+gorgeous East in fee; and both fell lamentably from
+their high estate. The chief point of difference in
+this comparison of their careers is obvious; Amalfi
+collapsed suddenly and utterly, whilst the Queen of
+the Adriatic has sunk gradually to decay until she
+has become the interesting monument of a vanished
+magnificence which we admire to-day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the rising naval power of Pisa that finally
+crushed the greatness of Amalfi, although the Republic
+had already entered into its days of decline when
+Robert Guiscard at the time of the First Crusade had
+temporarily annexed its dominions to his new principality.
+Some thirty years later King Roger of
+Naples forcibly seized the whole of the Costiera
+d’Amalfi, allowing the citizens to retain their own form
+of government. Four years after this, the Pisan fleet,
+coming to aid the people of Naples against King
+<pb n='137'/><anchor id='Pg137'/>Roger, utterly destroyed the once vaunted navy of
+Amalfi, and sacked both the city itself and the two
+hill-set towns of Scala and Ravello. Its political
+liberty had already been crushed by the Normans,
+and now its ships and its wealth were dissipated by
+the Pisans; it was a double measure of ignominy
+and disaster from which Amalfi never recovered.
+Amidst its humiliations and sorrows, the stricken city
+had also to mourn the loss of its greatest treasure, its
+secular <hi rend='italic'>palladium</hi>, that most precious copy of the
+Pandects of Justinian, which the Pisan marauders
+seized and carried back with them to their city
+on the Arno. Here in Pisa the famous volume
+remained in safe keeping for some three hundred
+years, and then, as Time’s round brought its inevitable
+vengeance on the plunderers of Amalfi, it was removed
+by the victorious Florentines to their own city. So
+intense a veneration for the book itself now manifested
+itself amongst the scholars and students of Florence,
+that at one period offerings of incense were often made
+to the inscribed wisdom of past ages as to a most
+holy relic of some Saint, and the clerk or jurist about
+to peruse its faded characters was wont, first of all, to
+breathe a prayer of genuine gratitude on his knees for
+the preservation of this ancient book. Amalfi, Pisa,
+Florence, each in its turn has owned the guardianship
+of this most famous literary jewel, which is to-day
+jealously guarded as the chief treasure of the world-renowned
+Laurentian Library.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is true that the prosperity of Amalfi did not
+disappear immediately after the inroad of the Pisans,
+for Boccaccio, writing in the fourteenth century, still
+speaks of the ancient territory of the destroyed
+<pb n='138'/><anchor id='Pg138'/>Republic as <q>a rocky ridge beside a smiling sea,
+which its inhabitants call the Costa d’Amalfi; full of
+little cities, of gardens, of fountains, and of rich and
+enterprising merchants.</q> It was in fact reserved for
+relentless Nature herself to complete the work of destruction
+that Norman armies and Pisan fleets had
+more than half accomplished. We have already
+spoken of the terrible land-slips to which this beautiful
+shore is eminently subject, even at the present
+day, as the mass of wreckage outside the old Capuchin
+convent only too clearly testifies. In the year 1343,
+during the progress of a storm of exceptional fury, of
+which the poet Petrarch has left us a vivid account in
+one of his letters, the greater part of the devoted city
+was swept away by a tidal wave. The whole line of
+quays stretching from the headland by the Cappuccini
+to the point of Atrani on the east, together with
+churches, palaces, and warehouses, was now swallowed
+up by the surging waters and engulfed for ever in the
+depths of the sea; and thus the very element that
+had brought wealth, power, and prosperity to Amalfi
+in the past now proved the direct cause of her final
+calamity. With this fearful cataclysm of Nature
+following upon the heels of its political extinction, we
+can hardly wonder at the rapid decline of this
+<q>Athens of the Middle Ages,</q> whose population has
+now sunk to about one seventh part of the 50,000
+citizens it once boasted in the far distant days of her
+maritime supremacy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reflecting upon the famous past of this ancient
+city, let us descend the steep pathway from the terrace
+of the Cappuccini to visit the crowded beach below.
+Here we find ourselves in the midst of a cheerful
+<pb n='139'/><anchor id='Pg139'/>animated throng, engaged in mending nets, in painting
+boats, and in other occupations connected with a sea-faring
+life. The tall fantastic houses with balconied
+windows that line the curve of the sea-shore, the
+glistening sands and the brown-legged, gay-capped
+fishermen, combine to present a charming picture of
+southern Italian life, so that we could gladly linger in
+observing the ever-changing scenes of life and industry.
+But we cannot tarry long, for the ubiquitous beggars
+who have begun to pester us ever since we passed the
+hotel gates have meantime dogged our descending
+footsteps, and their forces have been recruited on the
+way hither by many willing assistants. No doubt
+the vast majority of the Amalfitani are hard working
+and self-respecting, for the little town possesses
+maccaroni factories and old-established paper mills
+of no small importance, yet it is obvious that a
+considerable portion of the total population and at
+least one-half of all the children spend their whole
+time in demanding alms of strangers. Before, behind,
+and from a distance arises the ceaseless cry of
+<q><hi rend='italic'>Qual co’ signor’! Fame! Fame!</hi></q> in hateful tones
+of make-belief misery, and these whining appeals are
+aided by all the expressive pantomimic gestures of
+the South. You are placed on the horns of a dilemma:
+give, and the report that a generous and fabulously
+wealthy Signore has arrived in Amalfi will run like
+wild-fire through the whole place, and your life in
+consequence will become an absolute burden for the
+remainder of your sojourn in this spot. Refuse, and
+the wretches who have hitherto been wheedling and
+cringing at your heels, will at once grow insolent and
+threatening, especially in the case of unprotected
+<pb n='140'/><anchor id='Pg140'/>ladies. It is in fact a choice of two evils, and the
+only remedy that we ourselves can suggest is for the
+persecuted traveller to select a good stout larrikin and
+pay him freely to keep at arm’s length his detestable
+brothers and sisters in professional beggary. But the
+uninitiated usually endure these odious importunities
+for a certain length of time, and then, exasperated by
+the unchecked mendicancy of the place, at last fly
+precipitately from this beautiful shore, to seek comparative
+peace and freedom elsewhere. For it is
+useless to argue; it is foolish, even dangerous to
+grow angry. <q>Why should we give to you?</q> we
+asked one day in desperation of a particularly persistent
+woman. <q>Because,</q> was the unabashed and
+impudent but unanswerable reply, <q>you have much,
+and I have nothing!</q> Driven by these human pests
+from the sunlit strand, we make our way through the
+busy piazza, where peasant women with piles of fruit
+and vegetables make a glowing mass of colour around
+the central fountain below St Andrew’s statue, and
+proceed towards the Valley of the Mills. A different
+phase of Amalfitan life now greets us, for here are to
+be found the hard-working bees of this human hive,
+and it must be confessed their ways make an agreeable
+change from the habits of the pestering drones that
+infest the beach and the neighbourhood of the hotels.
+The whole of the steep rocky gorge of that tiny
+torrent the Canneto is full of mills, each emitting a
+whirring sound which mingles with the continual
+plash of the water as it descends in miniature
+cascades the full length of the ravine, providing in its
+headlong course towards the sea the motive power
+required to turn all this quantity of machinery.
+<pb n='141'/><anchor id='Pg141'/>Bridges span the Canneto at several points, whilst
+either bank is occupied by tiny factories of paper or
+soap, and by winding stone stair-ways that lead upward
+to terraces contrived to catch the sunshine for
+the purpose of drying the goods. The whole valley,
+with its strong contrasting effects of sun and shade
+and its varied atmosphere of intense heat and of
+chilly dampness, is full of seething picturesque
+humanity. The combined sounds of creaking wheels,
+of falling water and of human chattering are almost
+deafening within this narrow echo-filled gorge, above
+which in the far distance we catch a glimpse of rocky
+heights with the town of Scala perched eyrie-like
+against the deep blue of the sky overhead. Pretty
+laughing girls, bare-footed and with marvellously
+white teeth, emerge from the open door-ways to
+smile pleasantly at us, for the workers of the Valle
+de’ Molini are thoroughly accustomed to the presence
+of strangers in their midst. Half-naked men, who
+have stepped for a moment out of the hot rooms of
+the maccaroni factories in order to breathe the fresh
+air, regard us with calm disdain and without any
+seeming interest. Our presence is tolerated, even if
+our reception excites no feelings of surprise or
+cordiality, so that we are allowed to pursue our walk
+up the ever-narrowing valley in peace and comfort
+and to admire at our leisure the wonderfully
+beautiful effects of colouring produced by the
+cascades of purple-stained water, the graceful forms
+and gay dresses of the girls, and the peeps of fruit-laden
+orange trees above fern-clad walls. And how
+dark the people are! For though black eyes and
+hair are commonly associated with the Italian race,
+<pb n='142'/><anchor id='Pg142'/>yet in the North we find abundant evidence of the
+admixture of Teutonic blood, whilst in the South the
+fair-haired Norman settlers have left indelible marks
+of their conquest of Naples and Sicily in many blue-eyed
+and white-skinned descendants; but here in
+Amalfi a blonde complexion seems to be absolutely
+unknown. <q><hi rend='italic'>Com’ è bianco! Com’ è bianco!</hi></q> called
+out one of a party of girls with swarthy skin and
+ebon hair and tresses, who languidly came out to
+stare at us, as we wended our way slowly up the
+Valley of the Mills.
+</p><anchor id="illus10"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: IN THE VALLEY OF THE MILLS, AMALFI]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus10th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus10.jpg">IN THE VALLEY OF THE MILLS, AMALFI</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: IN THE VALLEY OF THE MILLS, AMALFI</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+But the chief pride of Amalfi, and indeed its sole
+surviving fragment of departed magnificence, is the
+Cathedral, dedicated to St Andrew the Apostle, who
+is patron of the city. A broad flight of steps, flanked
+on either side by the Archbishop’s Palace and the
+residence of the Canons, leads to a platform covered
+by a most beautiful Gothic <hi rend='italic'>loggia</hi> set with richly
+traceried windows and upheld by antique marble
+columns. At its northernmost angle we see springing
+into the blue aether the tall graceful red-and-white
+striped campanile, surmounted by its barbaric-looking
+green-tiled cupola and pinnacles. Facing the top of
+the steps are the two magnificent doors, specially
+designed in distant Byzantium to embellish this
+church more than eight hundred years ago, and cast
+by the famous artist in bronze, Staurachios. Two
+Latin inscriptions, incised in letters of silver upon the
+baser metal, relate to the world that one Pantaleone,
+son of Maurice, caused this work to be undertaken
+in honour of the holy Apostle Andrew, in
+order that he might obtain pardon for the sins he
+had committed whilst upon earth. These glorious
+<pb n='143'/><anchor id='Pg143'/>gates were the gifts to their native city of members
+of the family of Pantaleone of Amalfi, merchant
+princes who had amassed an immense fortune by
+trade in the Levant. They are splendid specimens of
+<hi rend='italic'>niello</hi> work, which consisted in ornamenting a surface
+of bronze by engraving upon it lines that were
+subsequently filled in with coloured enamel or with
+some precious metal. These portals of Amalfi,
+perhaps the earliest example in Southern Italy of
+this rare form of art, are divided into panels adorned
+with Scriptural subjects simply and quaintly treated,
+wherein the stiff attitudes of the figures and the
+many long straight lines introduced testify plainly
+enough to their Byzantine origin and workmanship.
+As we enter the cool dark incense-scented building,
+we note that though cruelly maltreated by the
+baroque enthusiasts of the eighteenth century, the
+general effect of the interior is still impressive with
+its rows of ancient pillars and its richly decorated
+roof. On all sides marble fragments with exquisite
+reliefs meet the eye, spoils evidently filched from the
+abandoned city of Paestum across the Salernian Bay
+and presented to the church by the Norman conquerors
+of Amalfi. After inspecting the classical bas-reliefs,
+we descend into the ancient crypt, which well-meaning
+artists have completely encased with a covering of
+precious marbles and garish frescoes of the Neapolitan
+school. It is a place of more than local sanctity,
+this modernized crypt, for the possession of the relics
+of the Apostle which Cardinal Capuano proudly
+brought hither after the sack of Constantinople in the
+early years of the thirteenth century, was considered
+by many to constitute a sufficient recompense to
+<pb n='144'/><anchor id='Pg144'/>Amalfi for her lost independence. Popes and
+sovereigns were in the habit of approaching the
+shrine, and the number of these illustrious visitors
+includes the names of St Francis of Assisi, Pope
+Urban IV., the holy St Bridget of Sweden, and
+the notorious Queen Joanna II. of Naples. Aeneas
+Silvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., however,
+seems to have thought Amalfi, ever dwindling
+in size and importance, too mean a place to own so
+great a treasure, and he accordingly transported the
+head of the Saint to Rome, where it is now accounted
+amongst the four chief relics of St Peter’s. Perhaps
+it was to counterbalance the loss of so important a
+member of the Saint’s anatomy, that in the succeeding
+century there arose a report which spoke of the
+rescue of certain relics of the Apostle Andrew during
+the headlong course of the Reformation in Scotland.
+The most precious objects preserved in the Cathedral
+of St Andrew’s, says this legend, were secretly saved
+from the expected fury of Knox’s partisans and
+brought to Amalfi, where they were reverently added
+to the store of remains that had survived the plundering
+of Pius II. Whether or no there be any truth in
+this somewhat fantastic theory, it is enough to state
+that St Andrew continues to be patron Saint of this
+maritime city, for which office the character of the
+Galilean fisherman who was called to be a fisher
+of men seems specially appropriate. Nevertheless,
+despite the valuable additions made in Reformation
+days, the sanctity of the shrine is not held so high
+as it used to be. No longer do the venerated bones
+ooze with the sweet-scented moisture that in medieval
+days was piously collected to be used for purposes so
+<pb n='145'/><anchor id='Pg145'/>varied as the curing of warts, or the scattering of
+Paynim fleets! Yet so late as the days of Tasso,
+the great Apostle himself was evidently connected in
+the popular mind with the performance of so bizarre
+a miracle:—
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Vide in sembianza placida e tranquilla</q></l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Il Divo, che di manna Amalfi instilla.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+But although the present times are too sinful to
+allow of the distillation of the fragrant dew of Amalfi,
+we observe the kneeling forms of not a few intent
+worshippers within the dimly-lighted crypt, in the
+midst of which the Spaniard Naccarino’s bronze figure
+of the Apostle uprises with dignified mien and life-like
+attitude. Sant’ Andrea is still <q>Il Divo,</q> the tutelary
+god of the Amalfitani; he remains in the estimation
+of these simple ignorant folk the special protector of
+the community. Times and ideas change, but not the
+old deep-rooted feeling of a personal tie between the
+Saint and his favoured people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were lucky in happening upon the great popular
+festival of Sant’ Andrea during our visit to Amalfi,
+and consequently were enabled not only to witness a
+picturesque scene of considerable splendour, but also
+to observe how strong a devotion the Amalfitani still
+manifest towards their own especial Saint. With the
+first flush of early dawn, discharges of mortars from
+the beach and the neighbouring hills began to arouse
+the echoes and to remind the still slumbering population
+that once more the great anniversary had arrived.
+The world was quickly astir to do honour to the great
+St Andrew, and from a very early hour an interminable
+stream of peasants and villagers, young and old, male
+<pb n='146'/><anchor id='Pg146'/>and female, began to enter the town from all quarters,
+and to congregate in the piazza where stands the large
+fountain crowned by the Saint’s own effigy. Here
+with exemplary patience the throng waited until the
+hour of the ceremony in the Cathedral drew nigh.
+Within the huge building priests and lay-helpers were
+actively employed in preparing for the event, and by
+their exertions the whole interior had been transformed
+into what may be best described as a magnificent
+ball-room, for every blank wall had been covered
+with draperies of rich crimson damask and the very
+pillars had been swathed from base to capital in the
+same gorgeous material. Innumerable old cut-glass
+chandeliers, that had reposed since the last <hi rend='italic'>festa di
+Sant’ Andrea</hi> in huge round boxes in some secluded
+vault, had been slung by means of cords from the
+ceiling and the arches of the nave, whilst a large
+number of mirrors set in carved gilt frames had been
+affixed to various points of the walls and columns.
+The fine marble pavement lay thickly strewn with bay
+and myrtle leaves, emitting a pleasant wholesome
+scent when crushed under foot by the picturesque but
+somewhat malodorous crowd of fisher-folk and
+peasants. On entering the church, at the first sound
+of the bells booming over head, we found ourselves
+heavily pressed by the surging throng of worshippers,
+and it was only with difficulty we could obtain a sight
+of the ceremonies at the high altar, prominent upon
+which stood the silver bust of the Apostle containing
+the precious relics. It was a typical Italian <hi rend='italic'>festa</hi>.
+The chanting was harsh and discordant; the antiquated
+inharmonious organ emitted unexpected squeals, as if
+in positive pain; there was, it is needless to add, a
+<pb n='147'/><anchor id='Pg147'/>complete absence of that <q>churchy</q> demeanour which
+passes for reverence in the North; yet withal, despite
+the shrill discordant music, the tawdry embellishments
+of the grand old building and the absence of propriety
+of the crowd, there was perceptible some mysterious
+underlying force that compelled us to note the extraordinary
+hold the Church has upon the people of
+Southern Italy. For all this throng of persons had
+assembled that day with one definite purpose: to see
+their universal friend and patron, their Saint and their
+worker of domestic miracles; they had come to pay
+their homage to a celestial acquaintance, with whom,
+thanks to the Church’s teaching, they had all been
+intimate from their cradles. They had not thus
+assembled at an early hour, deserting their mills and
+their shops, their boats and their nets, renouncing their
+chances of gain, to hear a preacher’s eloquence or to
+listen to fine music, but merely to pay their annual
+visit of respect to their Spiritual Master. Why should
+we aliens intrude upon so private a gathering? In
+any case, we have grown weary of standing in the
+close sickly atmosphere, wherein the fragrance of the
+crushed bay-leaves, the fumes of incense and the strange
+smell of garlic-eating humanity blend in an oppressive
+manner. We push our way through the eager and
+intent congregation, and gaining the door-way step
+with a sigh of relief into the sunshine that is flooding
+the <hi rend='italic'>loggia</hi>. But it is too hot to remain here, and we
+descend the great stair-case in order to take up a post
+of vantage in the shade on the opposite side of the
+piazza; having gained our desired position we expect
+in patience the arrival of the procession. Nor have
+we very long to wait. The officials of the town
+<pb n='148'/><anchor id='Pg148'/>suddenly dart forward to clear the steps of their crowd
+of ragged children, and almost simultaneously the
+great bronze doors of Pantaleone are flung open to the
+sweet air and the sunshine. It was a wonderful and
+deeply interesting experience to watch the glittering
+train slowly emerge from the darkness of the church
+into the glare of day, and then descend that stately
+flight of marble stairs to the sound of joy-bells and to
+the accompaniment of explosions of fireworks. First
+came the leading members of the various Confraternities
+of the little city, all bearing tapers whose
+tongues of flame shone feebly in the fierce contemptuous
+sunlight, and all wearing snow-white smocks and
+coloured scarves. Red, green, blue, white, purple,
+yellow, gleamed the huge banners of these different
+societies, each borne by a tall <hi rend='italic'>vessillifero</hi>, or standard
+bearer, assisted by quaint solemn little figures who
+acted as pages. Then followed the body of the clergy
+in copes of white and gold, with eyes downcast as
+they chaunted in loud nasal tones from books in their
+hands; next came the Canons of the Cathedral in fine
+old festal vestments reserved for such occasions and
+with mitres on their heads, for Amalfi clings to the
+ancient ecclesiastical privileges that were granted in
+distant days when Florence and Venice were little
+more than villages. Last of all walked the Archbishop,
+an aged tottering figure, weighed down by his cope of
+cloth of gold and seemingly crushed beneath his
+immense jewelled mitre. Two lackeys, almost as
+infirm as their venerable master, and clad in threadbare
+liveries edged with armorial braid, were in close
+attendance, whilst behind the Archbishop, beneath a
+gorgeous canopy of state upheld by six white-robed
+<pb n='149'/><anchor id='Pg149'/>assistants, was borne the great silver bust of St Andrew.
+The appearance of the Image of <q>Il Divo,</q> upon
+which the sunbeams were playing in dazzling coruscations
+of light, was greeted with a murmur of applause
+and satisfaction from the expectant crowd in the open.
+Hats were doffed; knees were bent; prayers were
+muttered, as with slow and cautious steps the bearers
+of the Image and its canopy began to descend.
+Having gained the lower ground in safety, a momentary
+halt was made, during which we were able to note
+the mass of votive offerings—jewels, chains, rings,
+watches, seals—suspended round the Saint’s neck,
+amongst them being many silver fishes, doubtless the
+gifts of grateful mariners. And at this point we were
+spectators of a pretty incident. A little girl with
+black ringlets and eager eyes was dexterously lifted on
+to her father’s shoulder, in order that she might present
+<q>Il Divo</q> with a golden chain, which the tiny fingers
+deftly clasped round the bejewelled neck of the silver
+bust. The crowd saw and applauded; it was a moment
+of triumph for the dark-eyed child, for the Church, and
+for the approving throng. With the new addition of
+the child’s necklet to the treasury of the Saint, the
+procession pursued its way through the square towards
+the Valley of the Mills, with banners waving, with
+priests chaunting in harsh monotonous tones, and with
+clouds of incense rising into the sun-kissed air. It
+was truly a beautiful and curious sight, this festival of
+the Church amidst people so devout and surroundings
+so appropriate.
+</p><anchor id="illus11"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: AMALFI: PIAZZA AND DUOMO]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus11th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus11.jpg">AMALFI: PIAZZA AND DUOMO</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: AMALFI: PIAZZA AND DUOMO</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+On his safe return to his now brilliantly lighted
+Cathedral, the Saint was welcomed with indescribable
+enthusiasm. The crazy old organ was made to
+pro<pb n='150'/><anchor id='Pg150'/>duce the loudest and liveliest of music; the uniformed
+municipal band awoke the echoes of the venerable
+but bedizened fabric with its complimentary braying;
+and urchins were even permitted to scatter fire-crackers
+upon the floor in honour of the event. It was a real
+ecclesiastical Saturnalia of a most innocent and joyous
+description. All Amalfi spent the remaining hours of
+day-light in feasting, dancing and singing, and when
+at last darkness fell upon the merry scene, rockets
+and Roman candles were seen to spring into the
+night air from many points in the landscape, illumining
+the sea with quickly dying trails of coloured light.
+Watching the bonfires and the fireworks, and listening
+to the sounds of revelry and song arising from the
+town below, we pondered over our experiences of the
+day as we paced our airy terrace of the Cappuccini.
+Surely the South has remained immutable for
+centuries in its deeply rooted love of religious
+festivals. The forefathers of these devotees of Andrew
+the Fisherman were equally enthusiastic worshippers
+of Poseidon or of Apollo. The Church has not in
+reality altered the outer attributes; it has but added
+a special moral significance to the old pagan gatherings.
+The ancient gods of Greece and Rome are
+dethroned, and their very names forgotten by the
+populace; but their cult survives, for it has been
+adapted to the glorification of Christian Saints. True
+it is that the milk-white sacrificial oxen and the gay
+garlands of antiquity have been omitted; nevertheless,
+there remain the music, the incense and the unrestrained
+jollity of the people. Much that is beautiful
+and suggestive has perished, yet there survives enough
+of the old classical ritual for us to see that the true
+<pb n='151'/><anchor id='Pg151'/>spirit of antiquity has never wholly died out amongst
+these sunburnt children of Magna Graecia.
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">See the long stair with colour all ablaze,</q></l>
+<l>With banners swaying in pellucid air,</l>
+<l>As mitred priests with cautious footsteps bear</l>
+<l>The silver Image, flashing back the rays</l>
+<l>Of jealous Phoebus—Ah! the altered days</l>
+<l>When these Lucanians with wind-lifted hair,</l>
+<l>Blossom-bedecked, with limbs and bosoms bare,</l>
+<l>Sang to Apollo psalms of love and praise!</l>
+<l>With bells and salvoes all the hills resound,</l>
+<l>And incense mingles with the atmosphere,</l>
+<l>As still this Southern race, ill-clothed, uncrowned,</l>
+<l>Retains the memory of the Pagan year,</l>
+<l>When changed, yet all unchanged, Time’s round</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Makes the Jew Fisherman a god appear.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+</div><div n="7" rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n='152'/><anchor id='Pg152'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="7: Ravello and the Rufoli"/>
+<head>CHAPTER VII</head>
+
+<head type="sub">RAVELLO AND THE RUFOLI</head>
+
+<p>
+No visit to Amalfi can be considered complete
+without ascending to the decayed town of
+Ravello, that crowns the rocky heights to the north-east
+of the parent city by the sea-shore. The road
+thither leads along the beach, passing between the
+picturesque old convent that is now the Hotel Luna,
+beloved of artists, and the solitary watch tower on
+the precipice which stands sentinel above the waters
+on our right hand. At this point we turn the corner,
+and find ourselves in Atrani, lying in the deep gorge
+of the Dragone and joining its buildings to those of
+Amalfi on the road above the beach. Prominent
+upon the steep ridge that separates the two cities
+stands the ruined keep of Pontone, the last relic of
+the town of Scaletta that was a flourishing place in
+days of the Republic. A tall belfry of peculiar and
+striking architecture which dominates Atrani is usually
+attributed to the art of the Saracens, whom King
+Manfred called in to garrison this place during his
+wars with Pope Innocent IV. Atrani, which is but
+a suburb of Amalfi, suffered equally with the Capital
+during the great upheaval of Nature that desolated
+this coast in the fourteenth century, so that little of
+interest remains except the quaint church of San
+<pb n='153'/><anchor id='Pg153'/>Salvatore a Bireta, wherein the Doges of Amalfi were
+once elected and crowned. This ancient building
+lies hidden in a sandy cove beneath the roadway, and
+those who care to run the gauntlet of beggars and
+descend to the beach below, can examine its beautiful
+bronze doors, which the generous citizen Pantaleone
+gave <hi rend='italic'>pro mercede animae suae et merito S. Sebastiani
+Martyris</hi>. But there is very little else to inspect, for
+the interior has been hopelessly modernized.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon after passing Atrani we turn sharply up hill
+to the left, and begin our ascent towards Ravello.
+The dusty white road winds upwards through a
+region of carefully cultivated terraces filled with olives
+and vines, intermingled here and there with orange,
+lemon, fig, and pomegranate trees. As we gain
+higher ground, our horizon tends ever to widen, and
+we behold the expanse of sea and sky melting in the
+far distance into <q>some shade of blue unnameable,</q>
+whilst the mountain-fringed ring of the Bay of Salerno
+becomes vividly mapped out to our eyes from the
+Cape of Minerva to the Punta di Licosia. On our
+left we peer down into the depths of the dark ravine
+of the Dragone, whose black shadows are popularly
+supposed to give its name of Atrani to the cheerful
+little town we have left behind. Let us thank Heaven
+that we are at last out of reach of the beggars, and
+that the only human beings to be encountered upon
+the road are a few peasants with loads of fruit or
+vegetables, and an occasional charcoal-burner bearing
+his grimy burden to the town below. The <hi rend='italic'>carbonaio</hi>
+with his blackened face and queer outlandish garments
+is a familiar figure throughout all parts of Southern
+Italy. He belongs to a race apart, that dwells in
+<pb n='154'/><anchor id='Pg154'/>the belt of forest land clothing the higher hills, and
+he only descends to the cities of the shore and the
+plain in order to sell his goods. He is despised by
+the sharper-witted townsman, who beats down his
+prices for the combustibles he has borne with such
+fatigue from his distant mountain home. Sometimes
+the old people are despatched to do the money
+bargaining, the selling and buying. Look at the old
+couple at this moment passing us; an aged man and
+woman that Theocritus might have known in earlier
+days when the world was less civilized and less greedy
+of gain. With bare travel-stained feet, with feeble
+frames supported by long staves and with the heavy
+sacks of charcoal on their bent backs, the modern
+Baucis and Philemon crawl along the white road
+beneath a broiling sun, patient and uncomplaining,
+and apparently with no feelings of envy as they cast
+one careless glance at our carriage. Weary and foot-sore,
+they will only obtain a few <hi rend='italic'>quattrini</hi> in the
+town for all their toil and trouble, and then they must
+retrace every step up the long hill-side, with their
+little stock of provisions to help eke out a miserable
+existence. Yet can any life in such a climate and
+amid such surroundings be truly accounted miserable,
+we ask, no matter how humble the dwelling or frugal
+the fare?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As our carriage creeps slowly upward, we find the
+land less cultivated, and now and again we pass tracts
+of woodland whence little purling streams fall over
+rocky ledges on to the roadway. We catch sight of
+small clumps of cyclamen, and in the shady hollows
+we detect tufts of the maiden-hair fern—<hi rend='italic'>Capilli di
+Venere</hi>, <q>Venus’ tresses,</q> as the Italians sometimes
+<pb n='155'/><anchor id='Pg155'/>call this graceful little plant. At a curve of the road
+we are confronted by a smiling old peasant with gold
+rings in his ears, who in the expectation of <hi rend='italic'>forestieri</hi>
+coming this way has been patiently sitting for hours
+on a boulder. Doffing his battered hat and putting
+a sunburnt hand to his mouth, the old fellow in a deep
+musical bass wakens all the sleeping echoes that lie in
+the many folds of the valley, so that we hear the words
+of welcome repeated again and again, growing fainter
+and fainter as the sound of the voice travels from
+cliff to cliff. The performer is delighted with a few
+<hi rend='italic'>soldi</hi>, and the jaded scarecrow of a horse seems pleased
+with his momentary halt. <hi rend='italic'>Iterum altiora petimus</hi>; by
+degrees we reach the airy platform upon which Ravello
+stands, and finally alight at the comfortable old inn so
+long associated with the excellent family of Palumbo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ravello undoubtedly owes its early foundation to
+certain patrician families of Amalfi, which after securing
+their fortunes decided to leave the hot close city beside
+the shore, and to seek new homes in the bracing air
+of the hill-top above. Placing itself under the protection
+of the powerful Robert Guiscard, Ravello became
+faithfully attached to the Norman interest, and in 1086,
+at the suggestion of the great Count Roger, who
+cherished a deep regard for the Rufolo family, the
+town was created a bishopric by Pope Victor III. As
+a subject city of the Norman princes, Ravello was
+during this period at the zenith of its fame and
+importance. Its actual population is unknown at this
+distant day, but we learn that under Count Roger the
+large area of the city was entirely girdled by strong
+walls set with towers; that it contained thirteen
+churches, four monasteries, many public buildings, and
+<pb n='156'/><anchor id='Pg156'/>a large number of private palaces. Its cathedral was
+founded in honour of Saint Pantaleone by Niccolò
+Rufolo, Duke of Sora and Grand Admiral of Sicily,
+the head of the powerful family whose name is still
+gratefully remembered in this half-deserted town. In
+1156 Ravello was honoured by a state visit from Pope
+Adrian IV.—the English monk, Nicholas Breakspear,
+the only Briton who ever succeeded in gaining the
+papal tiara and who gave the lordship of Ireland to
+Henry Plantagenet—and during his stay the Pontiff
+was entertained as the guest of the all-powerful Rufoli.
+Born of humble parents in the village of Bensington,
+near Oxford, Nicholas Breakspear became a monk at
+St Alban’s, and having once entered the religious life,
+he rose by sheer force of intellect and an iron strength
+of will to the attainment of the highest honour the
+Church could bestow. It was in the hey-day of his
+power that the English pope entered Ravello and sang
+Mass in the Cathedral in the presence of all the noble
+citizens of the place, for in the previous year he had
+crushed for ever the dangerous heresy of Arnold of
+Brescia, by boldly sentencing that ardent reformer to
+be burnt at the stake in Rome and his ashes cast into
+the Tiber. The Pontiff during his visit sojourned in
+the Palazzo Rufolo, the beautiful Saracenic building
+that is still standing intact after so many centuries,
+and by a curious coincidence is now the property of
+the well-known English family of Reid. Nor was Pope
+Adrian the only sovereign who honoured Ravello by his
+presence, for Charles of Anjou, brother of St Louis of
+France and the murderer of poor Conradin, and King
+Robert the Wise also received the hospitality of the
+Rufolo family within these walls. The whole existing
+<pb n='157'/><anchor id='Pg157'/>town in fact is eloquent of the long extinct but by no
+means forgotten Rufoli, who may fairly be reckoned
+among the more enlightened of the petty tyrants of
+medieval Italy. That their name was still familiar in
+Italian society in the fourteenth century is evident
+from the circumstances that Boccaccio puts a story,
+no doubt founded on fact, into the mouth of the fair
+Lauretta, which deals with the adventures of one
+Landolfo Rufolo of Ravello, <q>who, not content with
+his great store, but anxious to make it double, was
+near losing all he had, and his life also.</q> The novel
+proceeds to relate how this member of a wealthy and
+respected family turned corsair, after losing all his
+capital in a mercantile speculation in Cyprus; how he,
+in his turn, was robbed of his ill-gotten gains on the
+high seas by some thievish merchants of Genoa; and
+how Landolfo, after passing through a variety of more
+or less improbable adventures, was finally rescued from
+drowning off the coast of Corfu by a servant-maid who,
+whilst washing dishes by the sea-shore, chanced to
+espy the unconscious merchant drifting towards the
+beach with his arms clasped round a small wooden
+chest, which kept him afloat. <q>Moved by compassion,</q>
+says the relator of the tale, <q>she stepped a little way
+into the sea, which was now calm, and seizing the half-drowned
+wretch by the hair of his head, drew both him
+and the chest to land, where with much trouble she
+unfolded his arms from the chest, which she set upon
+the head of her daughter who was with her. She
+herself carried Landolfo like a little child to the town,
+put him on a stove, and chafed and washed him with
+warm water, by which means the vital heat began to
+return, and his strength partially revived. In due
+<pb n='158'/><anchor id='Pg158'/>time she took him from the stove, comforted him with
+wine and good cordials, and kept him some days till
+he knew where he was; she then restored him his
+chest, and told him he might now provide for his
+departure.</q><note place="foot"><anchor id="corr158"/><hi rend='italic'><corr sic="italics added">The Decameron.</corr></hi> <corr sic="italics removed">Novel IV. of the Second Day</corr>.</note> Of course the little chest that Landolfo
+had clutched by chance in his agony of drowning
+eventually turned out to be filled with precious stones,
+which by a miracle—and miracles were common
+enough in the days of the <hi rend='italic'>Decameron</hi>—not only floated
+of itself but also supported the weight of Master
+Landolfo. In any case, the rescued merchant, with
+the greed and ingratitude which are often accounted
+for sharpness and wit, presented his kind hostess with
+the empty trunk, whilst he concealed the gems in a
+belt upon his own person. Equipped with these
+jewels, he made his way across the Adriatic to the
+Apulian coast, and thence reached Ravello with
+greater wealth than he had ever hoped to obtain with
+his original capital at the time he set sail for Cyprus.
+</p><anchor id="illus12"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: RAVELLO: IL DUOMO]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus12th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus12.jpg">RAVELLO: IL DUOMO</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: RAVELLO: IL DUOMO</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+Fortunately Ravello, though shrunk to such modest
+proportions nowadays, still possesses many memorials
+of its glorious past. Travellers will of course turn
+their steps towards the Duomo, with its yellow
+baroque façade abutting on the little piazza that,
+with its daisy-starred turf and old acacia trees, forms
+so pleasant a play-ground for the merry dark-eyed
+children of the place. The cathedral of St Pantaleone
+is—or rather was—one of the most interesting and
+richly decorated churches erected in Southern Italy
+under the combined influence of Norman and Saracenic
+art at a time when cunning workmen were able to
+blend together the styles of East and West, and to
+<pb n='159'/><anchor id='Pg159'/>produce that rich harmonious architecture of which
+the splendid churches of Monreale and Palermo
+present to us the happiest examples. There still
+exist intact the magnificent bronze doors with their
+fifty-four panels of sculpture in relief, the gift of
+Sergio Muscettola and his wife, Sigilgaita Rufolo,
+and the work of the Italian artist Barisanus of Trani,
+who likewise designed and cast the portals of the
+cathedrals of his native town and of Monreale. But
+alas! the interior of the building, that was once
+rich with <anchor id="corr159"/><corr sic="mosiac">mosaic</corr> and fresco and fanciful carving, has
+been converted into one of those dull soulless caverns
+of stucco that the wanderer in all parts of Italy meets
+with only too frequently. This deplorable act of
+vandalism at Ravello dates of course from the
+eighteenth century, and appears to have been the
+work of a bishop named Tafuri, who in his frenzied
+eagerness to possess a cathedral worthy of comparison
+with the fashionable atrocities in plaster then being
+erected at Naples, did not hesitate to destroy wholesale
+almost all the ancient and elaborate ornamentation
+of his Duomo. His architect—perhaps the
+miserable Fuga, who ruined the interior of the
+Cathedral at Palermo, who knows?—dug up the fine
+old pavement, tore out the mosaics and had them
+carted away, effaced the frescoes, and at last transformed
+the venerable building with its memories of
+popes and princes into a commonplace white-washed
+chamber. Why this wretched prelate stayed his
+hand at the pulpit, it is difficult to say: perhaps he
+was meanwhile translated for his private virtues,
+perhaps Death overtook him in the work of destruction;
+at any rate, the famous pulpit of Ravello
+<pb n='160'/><anchor id='Pg160'/>mercifully escaped the general onslaught, though it
+must have been by fortunate accident and not by
+design that Monsignore Tafuri omitted to remove
+this unique specimen of a style of architecture, which
+doubtless he considered barbaric and un-Christian in
+its character. For this pulpit is one of the finest
+examples of the ornate, if somewhat bizarre art of
+the thirteenth century, and belongs to a type of work
+that is not unfrequently met with throughout Italy.
+Six spiral columns, springing from the backs of
+crouched lions, support the rostrum of marble inlaid
+with beautiful mosaics; whilst above the arch of the
+stair-way of ascent stands the famous portrait, usually
+called that of Sigilgaita Rufolo, wife of the founder
+of the Cathedral. The striking face, which is surmounted
+by an elaborate diadem with two pendent
+lappets, is evidently an excellent likeness of the
+original; yet there can be no doubt that this interesting
+bust has been wrongly named, since the
+pulpit itself, as a Latin inscription duly records, was
+erected in the year 1272 by Niccolò Rufolo, a
+descendant of the famous Grand Admiral, so that we
+may fairly conclude that the portrait represents the
+wife, or perhaps sister or daughter, of the donor.
+But popular tradition dies hard; and the name of
+Sigilgaita will probably cling for ever to the female
+face which has for over six centuries looked calmly
+down upon generation after generation of worshippers.
+Perhaps those severe proud features may have
+impressed the ignorant Vandal-Bishop as that of
+some unknown Saint, whom it might be dangerous
+to offend, and may thereby have saved the pulpit
+of Niccolò Rufolo from the destruction that must
+<pb n='161'/><anchor id='Pg161'/>have seemed inevitable. Be that as it may, the bust
+has survived uninjured, which, apart from the feeling
+of sentiment, is particularly fortunate, for it belongs
+to a small class of artistic work, of which existing
+specimens are rare and highly prized. For there
+must have been a local and premature Renaissance
+in this part of Italy during the thirteenth century,
+otherwise a statue so imbued with true classical
+feeling and so correct in technical finish as that of
+Sigilgaita in Ravello Cathedral could never have
+been produced; yet the names of the artist or artists
+who thus anticipated the great plastic revival remain
+undiscovered. Portrait-busts, similar in treatment
+and idea to that of the so-called Sigilgaita, are to be
+found here and there in museums, but this effigy in
+remote Ravello remains unique amidst its original
+surroundings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Turning aside from Sigilgaita’s steady gaze and
+making the round of the bleak white-washed building,
+our eyes are suddenly attracted by a fine picture,
+in the manner of Domenichino, representing the
+martyrdom of Pantaleone, the popular Amalfitan
+Saint to whom this church was dedicated by the
+Rufolo family.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cult of this Asiatic martyr in Amalfi is of
+course another legacy of the Republic’s close connection
+with the Levant, whence some relic-hunting
+admiral or merchant of the state reverently brought
+Pantaleone’s bones to the Italian coast. As the
+veneration of this Saint still exists so deep-seated
+that his Hellenic name is frequently bestowed on
+children at baptism, it may not be deemed amiss to
+give a very brief account of this eastern Martyr, who
+<pb n='162'/><anchor id='Pg162'/>is so closely associated with Amalfitan, and later with
+Venetian life. Pantaleone was born at Nicomedia,
+in Bithynia, the son of a Pagan father and a Christian
+mother. Well educated by his parents, he became
+a physician, and on account of his skill, his learning,
+his graceful manners and his handsome face, was
+finally selected to attend the person of the Emperor
+Maximian. At the Imperial Court the young doctor,
+who had meantime neglected the faith of his mother,
+was recalled to a true sense of Christian duty
+by the precepts of an old priest named Hermolaus.
+Pantaleone now began to heal the sick and to preach
+the Gospel, and even at times to perform miracles.
+Information as to his conduct having reached the
+Emperor’s ears, Maximian gave the young physician
+the choice of renouncing Christianity or of suffering
+death, whereat Pantaleone boldly declared he would
+rather die than apostatize. Thereupon the Saint,
+together with the Christian priest Hermolaus, was
+bound to an olive tree and beheaded with a sword.
+The story of his martyrdom has been frequently treated
+in Venetian art, for as an eastern Saint Pantaleone
+has a church dedicated to him in Venice, wherein the
+brush of Paul Veronese has painted in glowing colours
+the chief incidents of his life and death. As in the
+case of other physician-saints of the Roman Church—St
+Roch, St Cosmo and St Damiano—Pantaleone
+was especially besought in cases of the plague, which
+owing to the intercommunication between Amalfi
+and the Orient, frequently ravaged the towns of this
+coast.
+</p><anchor id="illus13"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: A STREET IN RAVELLO]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus13th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus13.jpg">A STREET IN RAVELLO</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: A STREET IN RAVELLO</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+From the Cathedral we proceeded to visit the quaint
+little church of Santa Maria del Gradillo, that with its
+<pb n='163'/><anchor id='Pg163'/>oriental-looking towers and cupolas affords a pleasing
+example of the mixed Lombard and Saracenic style
+which was in vogue in the years when the house of
+Hohenstaufen were masters of Southern Italy. We
+found little that was worth seeing inside the building,
+except the pretty black-eyed daughter of the
+toothless tottering old sacristan, who slunk off grumbling
+on his child’s appearance, leaving her to do the
+honours of the place. Her merry face with its welcoming
+smile and her modest loquacity excited our
+interest, and in answer to our questions we gathered
+that she was twenty years old, and was still unmarried,
+not for lack of opportunity, she naïvely told us, but
+because she was unwilling to leave her old parents,
+who had no one in the world but herself to attend to
+them. Coming to the door of the church, Angela
+(for that was her name) pointed out her home, a
+little white-washed cottage with a heavily barred
+window over-hanging the grass-grown lane. We
+wished our pleasant companion a warm good-bye,
+or rather <anchor id="sic163"/><hi rend='italic'>a riverderla</hi>, at the entrance of the dwelling,
+where through the open doorway we could espy a
+small sun-smitten courtyard tenanted by a wizened
+old woman sitting in the shade of an orange tree, by
+three cats, and by a large family of skinny hens. On
+a low wall we noted some shallow earthenware pans
+filled with carnation plants, whose red and yellow
+heads were clearly silhouetted against the blue sky
+over head. Perhaps Angela’s life, we thought, is after
+all happier thus spent in the tending of her parents,
+her poultry and her garden, than if joined to that of
+some swarthy rascal of the beach below or dull
+peasant of the hillside. Long may the old people
+<pb n='164'/><anchor id='Pg164'/>survive to keep their guardian Angel from the mingled
+sorrows and joys of matrimony!
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Tenete l’uocchie de miricula nere;</q></l>
+<l>Che ffa la vostra matre che n’n de’ marite?</l>
+<l>La vostra matre n’a de’ marito’ apposte</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Pe’ ne’ lleva’ son fior, a la fenestre.</q></l>
+</lg>
+    <lg>
+<l>(<q rend="post: none">Your eyes are marvellously black and bright!</q></l>
+<l>How is it that your mother does not wed you?</l>
+<l>She will not wed you, not to lose her light—</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Not to remove the flower that decks her window!</q>)</l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+The well-known hotel kept by Madame Palumbo,
+who is thoroughly conversant with English ways and
+requirements, occupies a delightful position in the old
+aristocratic quarter of Ravello known as <q>Il Toro,</q>
+the name of which is still retained in the interesting
+little church of San Giovanni del Toro close by.
+This comfortable hostelry has been constructed out of
+the <hi rend='italic'>Vescovado</hi>, the ancient episcopal residence, and it
+still retains many curious and attractive features of
+the original building, notably the quaint little stair-way
+that descends from the bishop’s private chamber
+into the chapel, which is now the <hi rend='italic'>salon</hi> of the hotel.
+With its magnificent views, its interesting buildings
+and its pure exhilarating air, Ravello would seem to
+be an ideal spot wherein to linger, and it affords
+a most agreeable change in the later Spring months
+from the close atmosphere and enervating heat of
+Amalfi or the coast towns. Perched on this breezy
+hill-top, from the terrace of the hotel can be observed
+the whole circuit of the Bay of Salerno, whilst behind
+to the north and east the ring of enclosing mountains
+rises sharp and distinct against the sky. From this
+point we are presented with a complete view of
+<pb n='165'/><anchor id='Pg165'/>the territories of the ancient Republic, spread out like
+a map beneath our feet and stretching from the Punta
+della Campanella to the heights above Vietri, and backed
+by the arid grey mountain peaks. If the garden
+of the Hotel Palumbo seems a fitting place wherein to
+idle or to dream, might not it also appeal to some
+historian, not tied to time nor to the hard necessity of
+money-making, as a suitable spot for the conception
+of a history of the origin, rise, decline and fall of
+the great maritime Republic, whose dominions, still
+smiling and populous, surround Ravello on all sides?
+Gibbon found the first suggestion for his Roman
+History whilst musing upon the ruins of the Capitol,
+and he finished his great work in a Swiss garden
+amidst the scent of acacia bloom; might not the
+annals of the Amalfitan Republic likewise spring from
+reflections made upon this terrace, where the memories
+of a former greatness still beautiful in its decay must
+operate so powerfully? Well, perhaps some future
+Gibbon—or more probably some budding Mommsen—may
+in time present the world with a true impartial
+and erudite history of the Costiera d’Amalfi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We bask lazily in the afternoon sunshine, to the
+soft, rather soporific cooing of some caged doves, that
+live in the back-ground out of sight behind a screen of
+lemon trees in huge red jars, such as Morgiana must
+have been familiar with. Beyond the terrace wall we
+note the carefully tended vines, precious plants, for
+their grapes produce the delicate <hi rend='italic'>Episcopio</hi> wine,
+perhaps the choicest vintage to be obtained around
+Naples, and boasting a flavour and bouquet that
+are rarely to be encountered except in the products of
+the most celebrated vineyards of France or Germany.
+</p>
+
+<pb n='166'/><anchor id='Pg166'/>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">O quam placens in colore,</q></l>
+<l>O quam fragrans in odore,</l>
+<l>O quam sapidum in ore,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>Dolce linguae vinculum.</l>
+</lg>
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Felix venter quem intrabis,</q></l>
+<l>Felix guttur quod rigabis,</l>
+<l>Felix os quod tu lavabis;</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'><q rend="pre: none">Et beata labia!</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Below the vinery we catch glimpses of the dancing
+waters of the Bay and of the little towns of Minori
+and Majori, seen through a screen of olive and almond
+trees that are gently swayed by the south wind.
+Opposite to us towers the huge form of the mountain
+of the Avvocata, upon whose slopes centuries ago the
+Madonna herself appeared in a flood of glory to
+an ignorant but pious shepherd lad, promising the
+startled youth to become his mediator, the <hi rend='italic'>avvocata</hi> of
+his simple prayers. The story must be true, say the
+peasants, for there on the hillside can still be seen the
+ruins of the shrine that the wondering and grateful
+villagers raised upon the very site of the apparition in
+honour of their celestial visitor. But the whole
+country-side teems with interesting and often beautiful
+legends and traditions, handed down by generations of
+the simple hardy folk who toil for their daily bread
+amidst the vineyards and olive groves that clothe the
+sun-baked slopes descending to the shore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The intervening distance is not great between
+Ravello and La Scala, which surmounts the opposite
+ridge of the valley of the Dragone, whence good
+walkers can easily descend by the ancient mule
+track that leads down direct to Amalfi by way of
+Scaletta. Like its neighbour and historic rival across
+<pb n='167'/><anchor id='Pg167'/>the valley, the annals and fortunes of Scala are closely
+interwoven with those of Amalfi; and it was during
+the palmy days of the Republic that this daughter-town
+reached its height of prosperity. Although the
+tradition that once Scala possessed a hundred towers
+upon its walls and a hundred and thirty churches is
+obviously exaggerated, yet it must have been a place
+of importance even as early as 987, when Pope John
+XVI raised it to the rank of a bishopric, an honour
+which did not fall to Ravello until many years later.
+Early in the twelfth century Scala was pillaged by the
+Pisans, but some years afterwards, when the mother
+city tamely submitted to the demands of these Tuscan
+invaders without the smallest effort at self-defence, the
+higher-spirited mountaineers of La Scala manned their
+walls with skill and vigour, though without avail.
+The hill-set city was ultimately carried by storm, and
+so thoroughly did the enraged Pisans wreak their
+vengeance upon the place that Scala never again rose
+to fame or eminence, but henceforward dwindled in
+wealth and size until it finally sank to the condition of
+a large village, whilst Clement VIII offered an
+additional indignity to the city in its dotage by depriving
+it of episcopal rank. But though the citizens of
+modern Scala no longer possess a bishop in their
+midst, they are still the proud possessors and jealous
+guardians of the magnificent mitre presented by Charles
+of Anjou, who was greatly pleased by the men and
+money that this ancient town sent to aid his brother,
+St Louis of France, in his Crusade. Some sculptured
+tombs, one of them a monument in honour of Marinella
+Rufolo of Ravello, who was married to a Coppola of
+Scala, remain in the churches to interest the curious
+<pb n='168'/><anchor id='Pg168'/>traveller, but most visitors will find the principal charm
+of this dilapidated little city in its lofty striking situation
+beneath the frowning mass of Monte Cerrato.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the sunset has come and gone, and the last
+tints of its rose-pink glow are rapidly disappearing from
+the serrated line of mountain tops against their background
+of daffodil sky. Stars are beginning to peep
+in the firmament, and yellow lights, the stars of earth,
+are springing up fast in the town below, and even
+appearing at rare intervals of space amongst the
+cottages of the woody hillside, or upon the fishing
+boats that lie on the bosom of the Bay, now turning
+to a deep purple under the advancing shadows of
+night. A cheerful concert of unseen insects greets
+our ears as we descend rapidly towards Atrani, whilst
+the goatbells amid the distant pastures tinkle pleasantly
+from time to time. We soon exchange the dewy
+freshness of evening in the country for the heavy air,
+thick with dust, that hangs over the coast road, and
+in a few moments more find ourselves at the foot of
+the rock-cut staircase that leads to our convent inn.
+</p>
+    <p rend="center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em">* * * * * *</p>
+<p>
+But our days upon the beautiful Costiera d’Amalfi
+are at an end, and the moment has at last come
+for us to bid farewell to these enchanted scenes and to
+the ancient city slumbering peacefully in its rocky
+valley by the shore. Our rows upon the glassy waters
+of the Bay, our scrambles up the wild scrub-covered
+hillsides above the town, our evening walks along the
+broad high-road to catch the fleeting glories of the
+sun-set,—all are ended; the day, the hour of departure
+has actually arrived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Casting a longing look behind we quit Amalfi in
+<pb n='169'/><anchor id='Pg169'/>the cool of the evening, in order to cover the eight
+intervening miles of coast road that lie between us and
+Salerno. We pass Atrani, with its tall parti-coloured
+tower, and proceed towards our destination with the
+smooth plain of waters below us and the fertile slopes
+above our heads, and thus we quickly gain Minori,
+another of the busy little settlements that once helped
+to make up the collected might of the old Republic.
+We meet with bare-footed sun-embrowned peasants,
+in their suits of blue linen and broad shady straw
+hats; lean sinewy figures, returning from a long day’s
+work in the fragrant orange groves by which the town
+is surrounded. We meet also, alas! with the usual
+crowd of beggars, the halt, the maimed, and the
+pseudo-blind, who are quickly left behind; nevertheless
+the naughty picturesque half-naked children,
+loudly screaming for <hi rend='italic'>soldi</hi>, caper in the dust alongside
+our carriage, until these little pests are out-stripped,
+but only to give way to other imps, equally
+naughty and unclothed, from Majori. Majori, nestling
+by the seashore amidst the enfolding mountains, appears
+to us a second Amalfi, with its crowded beach and
+brightly coloured boats, with its paper and maccaroni
+mills, huddled into the narrow ravine of the Senna,
+which cuts the town in half ere it empties itself into
+the Bay. Overhead the huge ruined castle of San
+Niccolò looms distinct against the rose-flushed evening
+sky, crouching like some decrepit old giant above the
+little city which he so oppressed in the bad old days
+when Sanseverini and Colonna carried on a perpetual
+selfish strife that allowed their humble neighbours no
+repose. Beautiful as is Majori, it is no lovelier than
+many another spot upon this exquisite coast; it is but
+<pb n='170'/><anchor id='Pg170'/>as one pearl in a well-matched necklace, for the country
+that lies between Amalfi and Salerno is fully as rich
+in historical interest and natural charm as is the
+western portion that we have just traversed. Behind
+Majori we behold Monte Falerio, with its rocky
+summit tipped with the glow of evening and its base
+in purple shadow, descending abruptly into the darkening
+waters of the Bay. Slanting down to the surf-fringed
+beach, the great mountain seem to bar our
+further progress, but with a guttural imprecation and
+a loud cracking of the whip, our coachman deftly
+guides his half-starved but cunning little horses round
+the sharp corner of the mountain spur known as the
+Capo del’ Orso, and in a trice Amalfi, whither we have
+been straining our eyes, is snatched from our vision;
+a few minutes later, and we have rounded the Capo
+del Tumulo, with its memories of the great Genoese
+admiral, Filippino Doria, who in the treacherous
+currents that circle round this Cape, destroyed the
+Spanish fleet of the Emperor Charles V. Already the
+sun has dipped below the horizon, and the calm
+expanse of the Tyrrhene has lost the last reflected ray;
+forward our driver urges his horses in the fast-fading
+light. The Angelus rings out from half a score of
+belfries beside the seashore and on the hillside,
+breaking the stillness of the gloaming with musical
+reverberations. Sunset and evening star, twilight and
+evening bell; how exquisite is the fall of night upon
+the shores of the Bay of Salerno! We pass the fishing
+village of Cetara, and in so doing we pass by the
+willing strength of imagination out of the dominion of
+the ancient Republic of Amalfi into the Principality
+of Salerno. Onward we press, and it is not long
+<pb n='171'/><anchor id='Pg171'/>before a shrill familiar sound bursts upon our ears,
+a sound that quickly tears the gossamer threads of a
+fancy revelling in the thoughts of long-extinct principalities
+and powers. It is the whistle of a railway-engine
+descending the slope from Vietri above us
+down to Salerno; it is the neighing of the iron horse
+that has not yet pranced along the unconquered
+Costiera d’Amalfi, nor befouled its crystal-clear air
+with his smoky breath. For at Vietri we re-enter the
+every-day world, and leave behind us the sea-girt fairy-land;
+Vietri, not Cetara, is the true frontier town to-day.
+But the lights of Salerno are drawing nearer
+and nearer, and in a few moments of time we are
+tearing along the broad lamp-lit Marina of the town,
+in the middle of which our driver pulls up suddenly
+at the entrance of that old-fashioned comfortable inn,
+the Albergo d’Inghilterra:
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Another day has told its feverish story,</q></l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Another night has brought its promised rest.</q></l>
+</lg><anchor id="illus14"/>
+<pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: MINORI AT SUNSET]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus14th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus14.jpg">MINORI AT SUNSET</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: MINORI AT SUNSET</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+</div><div n="8" rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n='172'/><anchor id='Pg172'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="8: Salerno and the House of Hauteville"/>
+<head>CHAPTER VIII</head>
+
+<head type="sub">SALERNO AND THE HOUSE OF HAUTEVILLE</head>
+
+<p>
+Backed by gentle slopes well wooded and well
+tilled, and screened from the northern blasts
+by its guarding amphitheatre of grey crags, Salerno
+occupies a delightful position upon the Bay to which
+it gives its own name. The long stretch of its Marina,
+tolerably clean to the eye if not at all points agreeable
+to the nostrils, follows the broad curve of the strand,
+and an idle hour or so may pleasantly be whiled away
+in watching the fishing craft moored beside the mole
+and the attendant sailors. At the northern end of
+this promenade, in what constitutes the most fashionable
+quarter of the place, is a tiny garden with palms
+and daturas, whilst hard by stands a large theatre,
+evidences of the gentility of modern Salerno. But
+the whole town appears sleepy and dead-alive to a
+stranger, though at the sunset hour a band occasionally
+plays in this open space, the music attracting hither a
+crowd composed of all the divers elements of society
+in the quiet old city. Yet though not possessing any
+great attractions for a sojourn in itself, Salerno makes
+an excellent centre whence to explore the neighbourhood,
+for it lies within easy reach of the great
+Benedictine Abbey of Santa Trinità; of beautiful La
+Cava, <q>that Alpine valley under an Italian sky</q>; of
+<pb n='173'/><anchor id='Pg173'/>Nocera, with its ancient cathedral that was once a
+pagan temple; and last, but very far from least, of
+that glorious group of temples at Paestum. It has
+tolerable hotels, and if only their <hi rend='italic'>padroni</hi> could be
+brought to realise that a flavouring of rosemary and
+garlic in every dish is not appreciated by the palates
+of the <hi rend='italic'>forestieri</hi>, the fare provided would be excellent.
+As in all Italian cities, northern or southern, however,
+the nocturnal noise is prodigious. Shouting and
+shrieking, quarrelling and yelling rend the air at all
+hours, whilst the practice of serenading, more agreeable
+in romantic poetry than in everyday life, is here
+carried to excess, and the twanging of the mandoline
+and the throaty voices of ardent lovers are rarely silent
+o’ nights in the dark narrow streets of Salerno.
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">A lu scur’ vagi cercann’</q></l>
+<l>La bella mia addo è?</l>
+<l>Mo m’annascunn’ po’ fann’ dispera’,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 4'>I mor’, I mor’ pe’ te,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 4'><q rend="pre: none">Ripos’ cchiù ne ho!</q></l>
+</lg>
+    <lg>
+<l>(<q rend="post: none">In favouring dusk I wandering go,</q></l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 4'>My fair, where shall I find her?</l>
+<l>Now she attracts, now drives me wild;</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 4'>I die, I die for her;</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 4'><q rend="pre: none">Repose no more have I.</q>)</l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Behind the long line of lofty well-built houses facing
+the Bay, the streets are gloomy, narrow and crooked,
+a labyrinth of dark mysterious lanes that contain no
+palaces or churches of note, and but few artistic <q>bits</q>
+to catch the eye and delight the soul of a painter. As
+in the case of Amalfi, the Cathedral of San Matteo at
+Salerno is almost the sole monument left standing of a
+past that is peculiarly rich in historical associations.
+<pb n='174'/><anchor id='Pg174'/>Ever since the accession of the Angevin kings Salerno
+has remained a quiet provincial town, neither rich nor
+poor, but stagnant and without commerce. Into its
+harbour, which Norman and Suabian princes attempted
+to improve, the sand has long since silted, and Naples
+for many centuries past has been able to regard with
+serene contempt the city that it was once intended to
+make her commercial rival:
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Se Salerno avesse un porto,</q></l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Napoli sarebbe morto.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Well, Naples owns an excellent harbour, and has
+in consequence grown into one of the largest sea-ports
+on the shores of the Mediterranean, whilst little Salerno
+can only afford anchorage for fishing boats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The chief interest of the place centres in its close
+connection with the great Norman house of Hauteville,
+and especially with Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia
+and Calabria, who after a fierce struggle managed to
+capture this city from the Lombard princes. Sprung
+from a hardy race of <hi rend='italic'>valvassors</hi> or <hi rend='italic'>bannerets</hi> in Normandy,
+Duke Robert was one of the twelve sons of
+Tancred of Hauteville in the bishopric of Coutances.
+Joining his elder half-brother William Bras-de-Fer in
+Italy, Robert at once began to make a remarkable
+display of soldierly and statesman-like qualities. An
+adventurer pure and simple in an alien land, this
+sharp-witted Norman in course of time obtained the
+nick-name of Guiscard, or the Wiseacre, and on the
+death of his elder brother he was nominated Count of
+Apulia by acclamation of the Norman followers, to the
+exclusion of his helpless young nephews. Robert
+Guiscard’s appearance and character have been sketched
+<pb n='175'/><anchor id='Pg175'/>for us with loving care by one of the most famous of
+the world’s historians, who was fully able to appreciate
+the mingled force and cunning, the <hi rend='italic'>suaviter in modo</hi>
+and the <hi rend='italic'>fortiter in re</hi>, of this leader of a handful
+of Normans in a hostile and distant country. Let
+Gibbon’s stately prose therefore present to us a
+word-painting of the Great Adventurer himself:—
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>His lofty stature surpassed the tallest of his army;
+his limbs were cast in the true proportion of strength
+and gracefulness; and to the decline of life he maintained
+the patent vigour of health and the commanding
+dignity of his form. His complexion was ruddy,
+his shoulders were broad, his hair and beard were long
+and of a flaxen colour, his eyes sparkled with fire, and
+his voice, like that of Achilles, could impress obedience
+and terror amidst the tumult of battle. In the ruder
+ages of chivalry, such qualifications are not below the
+notice of the poet or historian; they may observe that
+Robert at once and with equal dexterity could wield
+in the right hand his sword, his lance in the left; that
+in the battle of Civitella he was thrice unhorsed, and
+that on the close of that memorable day he was adjudged
+to have borne away the prize of valour from
+the warriors of the two armies. His boundless ambition
+was founded on the consciousness of superior
+worth: in the pursuit of greatness he was never
+arrested by the scruples of justice, and seldom moved
+by the feelings of humanity: though not insensible of
+fame, the choice of open or clandestine means was
+determined only by his present advantage. The
+surname of <hi rend='italic'>Guiscard</hi> was applied to this master of
+political wisdom, which is too often confounded with
+the practice of dissimulation and deceit; and Robert
+<pb n='176'/><anchor id='Pg176'/>is praised by the Apulian poet for excelling the
+cunning of Ulysses and the eloquence of Cicero. Yet
+these arts were disguised by an appearance of military
+frankness: in his highest fortune he was accessible and
+courteous to his fellow soldiers, and while he indulged
+the prejudices of his new subjects, he affected in his
+dress and manners to maintain the ancient fashion
+of his country. He grasped with a rapacious, that he
+might distribute with a liberal hand; his primitive
+indigence had taught the habits of frugality; the gain
+of a merchant was not below his attention; and his
+prisoners were tortured with slow and unfeeling cruelty
+to force a discovery of their secret treasure. According
+to the Greeks, he departed from Normandy with only
+five followers on horse-back, and thirty on foot; yet
+even this allowance appears too bountiful;—the sixth
+son of Tancred of Hauteville passed the Alps as a
+pilgrim, and his first military band was levied among
+the adventurers of Italy.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gaining over the Pope Nicholas II. to his interests,
+the new Count was able to exact an oath of fealty in
+1060 from the Italian barons, hitherto his equals, to
+recognise him as <q>Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and here-after
+of Sicily, by the grace of God and of St Peter,</q>
+although it took many years of hard fighting before
+these lands, thus proudly claimed, could be subdued.
+Beginning with the conquest of the Duchy of Benevento,
+Guiscard at once laid siege to Salerno, taking it
+after an obstinate resistance lasting over eight months,
+during which he was himself severely wounded by a
+splinter from one of his own engines of war. The
+city captured with such difficulty now became the
+victor’s favourite residence and the recipient of his
+<pb n='177'/><anchor id='Pg177'/>bounty and enlightened rule, so that Salerno quickly
+rose to the rank of one of the most illustrious towns
+in Europe, supplanting even its magnificent neighbour
+Amalfi in popular esteem.
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Urbs Latii non est hâc delitiosior urbe,</q></l>
+<l>Frugibus arboribus vino redundat; et unde</l>
+<l>Non tibi poma nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt,</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum.</q></l>
+</lg>
+    <lg>
+<l>(<q rend="post: none">All Latium shows no more delightful place,</q></l>
+<l>Whose sunny slopes the vine and almond grace;</l>
+<l>’Midst fruitful groves her palaces uprear,</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Her men are virtuous, and her women fair.</q>)</l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+It was under the Guiscard’s auspices that the
+famous school of Medicine that had long been seated
+at Salerno rose to its highest point of excellence.
+<q>Paris for learning, Bologna for law, Orleans for
+poetry, and Salerno for Medicine</q>;—such was the
+verdict of the age. With the somewhat grudging
+consent of the clergy, the hygienic skill of the dreaded
+Arabs was in this city permitted to temper the crass
+ignorance of medieval Italy, and at Salerno alone
+were the works of the infidel Avicenna and of the
+pagans Galen and Hippocrates openly studied. The
+result was that the fame of the doctors of this <hi rend='italic'>Fons
+Medicinae</hi> spread over all Western Europe, so that
+distinguished patients either came hither to be treated
+in person or else sent emissaries to explain their
+symptoms and to obtain advice. Nor were the
+professors of the healing art at Salerno tied down by
+a strict adherence to drugs and boluses, for they fully
+realised that the height of all human ambition, the
+<hi rend='italic'>mens sana in corpore sano</hi>, is in any case more easily
+to be obtained by self-control than by all the
+in<pb n='178'/><anchor id='Pg178'/>gredients of the pharmacopoeia. They were warm
+believers apparently in the doctrine of moderation in
+all things, which after all is one of the most valuable
+prescriptions of modern hygiene:
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Curas tolle graves, irasci crede profanum,</q></l>
+<l>Parce mero, coenato parum, non sit tibi vanum,</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Surgere post epulas, somnum fuge meridianum.</q></l>
+</lg>
+    <lg>
+<l>(<q rend="post: none">Throw off dull care; thine angry moods restrain;</q></l>
+<l>Eschew the wine-cup; lightly eat, nor vain</l>
+<l>Deem our advice to make Enough thy feast.</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Take exercise, and shun the noon-day rest.</q>)</l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Such was the oracular reply of the Salernitan
+sages to Robert, Duke of Normandy, and no one can
+dispute the sound common sense of the prescription
+given, nor doubt that it is applicable to half the
+patients who to-day throng the consulting rooms of
+fashionable London physicians.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But to return to Robert Guiscard, who shares the
+historical honours of the place, together with the great
+Pope Gregory VII., of whom we shall speak presently.
+After subduing the southern half of Italy and the
+island of Sicily, the great Duke next turned his
+victorious arms against the Eastern Empire, with the
+secret intention, it was suspected, of ascending the
+throne of Constantine. With the pseudo-Emperor
+Michael in his train, the Great Adventurer in 1081
+assembled a vast army at Otranto, consisting of
+30,000 Italian subjects and of 1300 Norman knights,
+with the object of crossing over to Epirus. Durazzo
+on the opposite Albanian coast, the Dyrrachium of
+the ancients, a city that was henceforth destined to be
+closely associated with succeeding dynasties of South
+Italy, was the objective of this gigantic expedition,
+<pb n='179'/><anchor id='Pg179'/>for it was commonly reported to be the key of the
+Eastern Empire. Thither the flotilla set sail, but
+before reaching the Greek shore, an unexpected and
+unseasonable tempest scattered Guiscard’s argosy,
+destroying many of the ships and drowning many
+crews. Nevertheless, the undaunted spirit and endless
+resources of the Norman Duke rose superior to all
+misfortunes. Landing with the remnant of his army
+he at once laid siege to Durazzo, despite the fact that
+the Emperor Alexius was marching to its relief, and
+that the Venetian fleet was already anchored in its
+harbour. In spite of overwhelming odds, Guiscard
+utterly routed the Byzantine army. With his heir
+Bohemond and his wife Sigilgaita beside him, the
+Duke watched the progress of the battle, and at its
+most critical juncture, at a moment when it appeared
+inevitable that the hard-pressed Italian army must
+yield to the sheer numbers of the foe, the deep voice
+of the leader could be heard booming like a deep-toned
+bell over the battlefield, as he addressed his wavering
+troops. <q>Whither do ye fly? Your enemy is implacable,
+and death is less grievous than slavery!</q>
+Joined with the hoarse voice of Guiscard, the Norman
+warriors could distinguish the exhortations of the
+Amazon-like Sigilgaita, <q>a second Pallas, less skilful
+in arts, but no less terrible in arms than the Athenian
+goddess.</q> Rallying at the words of their master and
+shamed by the martial ardour of the Duchess, the invading
+troops made one last desperate effort, whereby
+the Imperial army was driven back and scattered, so
+that Alexius barely escaped with his life. Having
+routed the Emperor in fair fight, Guiscard now made
+use of his unparalleled cunning by bribing the
+<pb n='180'/><anchor id='Pg180'/>treacherous Venetians, who eventually assisted the
+Italian forces to enter the city gates, and thus Durazzo
+was gained at the point of the sword after one of the
+fiercest sieges known to history. Scarcely had the
+beleaguered town been reduced, than the indomitable
+Guiscard found himself compelled to return to Italy,
+where the Emperor of the West, the unhappy Henry
+IV., vainly endeavouring to wipe out the humiliation
+of Canossa, had seized Rome and was actually besieging
+the great Hildebrand in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo.
+Leaving his son Bohemond in command of the army
+in Macedonia, Robert recrossed the sea, and hastened
+with a handful of men towards Rome. But so intense
+a fear did the victor of Durazzo inspire, that the
+terrified Emperor without waiting to give combat fled
+headlong together with his anti-pope from the Holy
+City, where Guiscard was received with acclamation.
+<q>Thus, in less than three years,</q> remarks Gibbon, <q>the
+son of Tancred of Hauteville enjoyed the glory of
+delivering the Pope, and of compelling the two
+Emperors of the East and West to fly before his
+victorious arms.</q> Guiscard’s triumphal entry into
+Rome was however marred by scenes of violence and
+scandal, due to the conduct of the Saracen troops which
+his brother, the great Count Roger of Sicily, had
+brought to assist the enterprise. So infuriated were
+the Romans by the behaviour of the infidels, that the
+prudent Gregory deemed it wiser to return to Salerno
+together with his deliverer, and it was in Guiscard’s
+palace that the famous <q>Caesar of spiritual conquest</q>
+expired three years later. As to the Great
+Adventurer himself, he died in the island of Cephalonia
+in the very year of the Pope’s death at Salerno (1085)
+<pb n='181'/><anchor id='Pg181'/>and was buried beside his first wife, the gentle Alberada,
+at Venosa in Apulia, though the city which he had
+always loved and favoured would seem to have offered
+a more appropriate spot for his interment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But although the mortal remains of the Great
+Adventurer do not rest within the precincts of his
+beloved city, an undying monument of his glorious
+but turbulent reign is to be found in the Cathedral,
+which despite the neglect and alterations of eight
+centuries may still be ranked as one of the most
+interesting buildings in Southern Italy. Standing in a
+secluded part of the town, this magnificent church
+gains nothing from its position, for it can only be
+reached by means of tortuous dingy lanes, and even
+on a near approach the effect produced on the visitor
+is not impressive. <q>The Cathedral-church of San
+Matteo,</q> says the Scotch traveller, Joseph Forsyth, in
+quaint pedantic language, <q>is a pile so antique and so
+modern, so repaired and rhapsodic, that it exhibits
+patches of every style, and is of no style itself.</q> But
+is not this quality, we ask, exactly what a great
+historic building, such as Guiscard’s church, truly
+demands? Ought not it to bear the impress of the
+various ages it has survived, and of the many famous
+persons who have contributed to its embellishment?
+From Duke Robert’s day to the present time, the
+Cathedral is an epitome of the history of Salerno, a
+sermon in stones concerning the great past and the
+inglorious present of the city.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the year preceding his own death and that of
+the great Pontiff, who was tarrying at Salerno as
+his not over-willing guest, Duke Robert erected this
+Cathedral, obtaining the chief ornaments for his new
+<pb n='182'/><anchor id='Pg182'/>structure and also its most important relic, the supposed
+body of the Apostle St Matthew, from the lately
+deserted city of Paestum across the bay. The church
+is approached by means of a quadrangular fore-court,
+a cloister supported on antique columns, such as can
+still be observed in a few of the old Roman churches,
+so that we venture to think that this idea at Salerno
+was suggested by the great Pope himself. A number
+of sculptured sarcophagi, which, like the pillars, were
+the spoils of Paestum, are ranged alongside the
+entrance walls; and once upon a time there stood in
+the centre of the courtyard the huge granite basin
+that all visitors to Naples will recall as set in the
+middle of the Villa Reale, where it performs the
+humble office of decorating a miniature pond, wherein
+lily-white ducks quack and gobble at the bread crumbs
+thrown to them by children and their nurses. Fancy
+the irate disgust of Duke Robert at waking to learn
+that the antique fountain for his new Cathedral, brought
+with such care and toil from distant Poseidonia, should
+have been transported to the rival city and turned to
+such base uses! Above the splendid bronze doors, the
+gift of Landolfo Butomilea and his wife shortly after
+Guiscard’s death, we perceive the dedication of the
+church to the Apostle Matthew by the proud conqueror
+of the Two Sicilies and the protector of Hildebrand.
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">A Duce Roberto donaris Apostole templo:</q></l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Pro meritis regno donetur ipse superno.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+The donor, we note, is confident that the Apostle,
+in return for so glorious a fabric, will undertake to
+obtain the Kingdom of Heaven for this generous
+client upon earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The interior, which is sadly marred by white-wash
+<pb n='183'/><anchor id='Pg183'/>and gaudy decoration, is a perfect treasure-house of
+works of art—antique, medieval, Renaissance—of
+which the guide-book will give a detailed list.
+Succeeding generations have put to strange uses some
+of the fine marble reliefs that Guiscard transported
+hither from Paestum, and we note that one archbishop
+has gone so far as to filch a sarcophagus carved with
+a Bacchanal procession to serve for his own tomb.
+We might perhaps infer that the deceased prelate was
+addicted to the wine-flask, and to have been a firm
+believer in and follower of one of the rules of the
+medical school of his own diocese:
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Si nocturna tibi noceat potatio vini,</q></l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Hoc ter mane libas iterum, et fuerit medicina.</q></l>
+</lg>
+    <lg>
+<l>(<q rend="post: none">If a carouse at night do make thee ill,</q></l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">For morning medicine drink of wine thy fill</q>)</l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Let us hope that this extraordinary receipt for <q>hot
+coppers</q> was intended satirically, or else given seriously
+as the only advice that a confirmed toper was likely
+to follow in any case. But the use of classical adjuncts
+to adorn Christian tombs, which to-day appears so
+incongruous to us, was popular enough at the time of
+the Renaissance, and readers of Robert Browning’s
+poetry will call to mind the story of the dying
+Bishop’s injunction to his heirs concerning his tomb
+in St Praxed’s church at Rome:
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,</q></l>
+<l>Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance</l>
+<l>Some tripod thyrsus with a vase or so,</l>
+<l>The Saviour at His sermon on the mount,</l>
+<l>Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan</l>
+<l>Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off,</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">And Moses with the tables....</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<pb n='184'/><anchor id='Pg184'/>
+
+<p>
+But it is necessary to shake off the spirit of Renaissance
+dilettantism before we venture to approach the
+chapel of John of Procida to the right of the high
+altar, where stands the stern figure of the greatest
+of the medieval Pontiffs. Above the marble statue
+of the Caesar of the Papacy, that was tardily erected
+to his memory by the unfortunate Pio Nono, appear
+the glittering mosaics of the apse of the chapel, from
+which look down the figures of John of Procida and of
+King Manfred, the last sovereign prince of the hated
+Suabian line that Gregory twice anathematized.
+Beneath the cold forbidding eye of the last of the
+Hohenstaufen and his friend and avenger here rest,
+strangely enough, the ashes of that <q>great and
+inflexible asserter of the supremacy of the sacerdotal
+order: the monk Hildebrand, afterwards Pope
+Gregory the Seventh.</q> Born the son of a poor
+carpenter in the Tuscan village of Soana, this extraordinary
+man rose to eminence as a monk of Cluny,
+where he became famous for his extreme asceticism
+of life in an age of undisguised clerical corruption
+and luxury, when simony, lay investiture and priestly
+marriages were the rule rather than the exception on
+all sides, so that but few Churchmen were able to rise
+above their surrounding temptations. Such few as
+could resist the world, the flesh and the devil were
+accounted, and not unfrequently were in reality,
+ignorant crazy fanatics, half-pitied and half-despised.
+Between these two extremes of worldly indulgence
+and of unreasoning severity of life, Hildebrand ever
+pursued a middle course, for whilst on the one hand
+he eschewed the vanities of life around him, on the
+other he never sank into the self-effacement of
+<pb n='185'/><anchor id='Pg185'/>a hermit. His acknowledged purity and zeal soon
+won for him from the laity a respect mingled with awe,
+whilst his natural talents, his indomitable will, and
+his genuine piety in course of time brought all
+Churchmen who had any regard for their holy office
+to fix their hopes upon this Clugniac monk, now a
+Cardinal. For some years before his actual election
+to the Papal throne in 1079, Hildebrand had begun
+to exercise an immense control over the councils of
+the Church, and he was personally responsible for
+the epoch-making resolution under Nicholas II., which
+declared that the choice of a new Pontiff was vested
+in the College of Cardinals alone. His own election,
+under the terms of this new and drastic arrangement,
+became the signal for the fierce struggles, equally
+of the battlefield and the council-chamber, that were
+destined to distract Italy for generations to come. For,
+as might have been expected, the Emperor Henry IV.,
+King of the Romans, was not long in protesting against
+so decided an infringement of his secular claims.
+From the synods of Worms and Piacenza came the
+Imperial decree of deposition against Gregory, which
+was addressed by <q>Henry, not by usurpation but
+by God’s holy ordination, King, to Hildebrand, no
+longer Pope, but false monk.</q> Gregory, strong alike
+in virtue and in resolve, and aided by the might
+of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany and of Robert
+Guiscard, answered by pronouncing a solemn anathema
+upon his secular adversary. In awe-struck silence the
+Council of the Lateran listened to the Pope’s final
+excommunication of the King, and of all those
+who dared to associate themselves with him. <q>I
+absolve,</q> said Gregory, <q>all Christians from the oaths
+<pb n='186'/><anchor id='Pg186'/>which they have taken or may take to him; and
+I decree that no one shall obey him as king; for it
+is fitting that he, who has endeavoured to diminish
+the honour of the Church, should himself lose that
+honour which he seems to have.</q> We all know
+the final act of that terrible unequal struggle, the
+duel of brute force against spiritual terrors in a rude
+age of violence and superstition, which took place
+in the courtyard of the Castle of Canossa, the
+Countess Matilda’s fortress in the Apennines.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>On a dreary winter morning, with the ground
+deep in snow, the King, the heir of a long line
+of Emperors, was permitted to enter within the
+two outer of the three walls which girded the Castle
+of Canossa. He had laid aside every mark of
+royalty or of distinguished station; he was clad
+only in the thin white linen dress of the penitent,
+and there, fasting, he awaited in humble patience
+the pleasure of the Pope. But the gates did not
+unclose. A second day he stood, cold, hungry and
+mocked by vain hopes. And yet a third day dragged
+on from morning till evening over the unsheltered
+head of the discrowned King. Every heart was moved
+save that of the representative of Jesus Christ.</q>
+</p><anchor id="illus15"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO RAVELLO]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus15th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus15.jpg">ON THE ROAD TO RAVELLO</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO RAVELLO</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+Can we wonder then that the phrase <q>to go to
+Canossa</q> (<hi rend='italic'>gehen nach Canossa</hi>) has become ingrafted
+on to the German language, or that so significant an
+expression was openly used by Prince Bismarck
+during the fierce religious struggles in the days of
+the <q>Kultur-kampf</q> between the newly-formed
+Empire and the direct successor of the spiritual Caesar
+who had thus humbled a former Emperor of Germany?
+It was in vain that Henry afterwards endeavoured,
+<pb n='187'/><anchor id='Pg187'/>by making war upon his oppressor, to undo the evil
+effects of his public recantation at Canossa; the act
+of humiliation was too marked ever to be wiped out
+either by himself or by his descendants. For good
+or for bad, Gregory had succeeded in rendering the
+Papacy free from lay control; he had gained for ever
+for the Church one of her most cherished tenets, the
+absolute independence of the Pope’s election by the
+College of Cardinals; and he had even partially reduced
+the Western Empire into a fief of the Church
+itself. The former of Gregory’s great objects, the
+freedom of election, still remains intact after an interval
+of more than eight hundred years; the latter
+attempt, though long struggled for and apparently
+with success at times, has, we know, ultimately failed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having accomplished so much during his reign,
+it is strange to think that Gregory’s last days should
+have been passed in a form of exile away from the
+Eternal City which he claimed as the metropolis of
+the Universal Church. There is pathos to be found
+in the Pope dying at Salerno, far removed from the
+scene of his ambition and success. With the bitter
+feeling that his name was execrated in Rome after
+Guiscard’s sack, and that his host was bent upon
+obtaining the imperial title from his reluctant guest,
+Gregory’s declining days were spent in melancholy
+reflections. To the last he spoke confidently of the
+righteousness of his cause, and whilst making his
+peace with all mankind in anticipation of his approaching
+end, he deliberately excepted from his own and
+God’s mercy the names of his arch-enemy Henry and
+the anti-pope Guibert, together with all their followers.
+Thus the aged Pontiff languished to his end within
+<pb n='188'/><anchor id='Pg188'/>the walls of the Castle of Salerno, encircled by flattering
+Churchmen who did their utmost to cheer their
+dying champion. <q>I have loved justice and hated
+iniquity, and therefore I die in exile,</q> are the
+famous words recorded of Hildebrand in the face of
+the King of Terrors. <q>In exile thou canst not die!</q>
+eagerly responded an attendant priest. <q>Vicar of
+Christ and His Apostles, thou hast received the
+nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts
+of the earth for thy possession.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps the expiring Pope was cheered by these
+words—who can tell? In any case they were prophetic,
+for the present world-wide character of the
+Roman Church, which embraces in its fold all nationalities
+and holds its members together all the globe
+over in one indissoluble bond of a spiritual empire,
+is largely due to the trials and exertions of one man:
+the monk Hildebrand, Pope Gregory the Seventh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here then he sleeps his last sleep, the friend of Matilda,
+the mortal foe of King Henry, the patron of William
+the Conqueror, the guest of Robert Guiscard:—what
+a galaxy of illustrious names shines upon that dim
+silent chapel in the Cathedral of Salerno! Here
+stands in unchanging benediction his gleaming marble
+effigy, calmly surveyed by King Manfred near at
+hand in imperial robes, the last prince of the hated
+and twice banned Suabian House, whose bones were
+destined to bleach in the sun and rattle in the wind
+by the bridge of Benevento under a Papal curse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before we quit the Cathedral in order to enjoy the
+evening sunshine, which is filling the interior with
+its roseate glow, let us return for one brief moment
+to the northern aisle, to glance at the grave of the
+<pb n='189'/><anchor id='Pg189'/>Duchess who fought so boldly by her husband’s side
+at Durazzo. It is easy to find, for her simple tomb
+stands not far from the beautiful and elaborate
+monument of Margaret of Durazzo (strange coincidence!)
+wife of King Charles of Naples, wherein
+the sculptor has portrayed angels drawing aside a
+curtain so as to display the sleeping form of the dead
+Queen within. Close to this monument of a not
+unusual Renaissance type, we discover the last resting
+place of Robert Guiscard’s second wife, the Duchess
+Sigilgaita, their son Roger Bursa and their grandson
+William, in whom the direct line of the Great Adventurer
+became extinct. Many stories are told by
+the old chroniclers of this bold intrepid princess (not
+always to her credit)—daughter of the last Lombard
+prince Gisulf of Salerno and wife of her father’s
+supplanter, whose humble Norman ancestry she affected
+to despise. But despite her reputation for cruelty
+and even for murder, Sigilgaita was a faithful wife
+and a brave woman, with a character not unlike that
+of our own Queen Margaret of Anjou; and it seems
+strange that so devoted and well mated a pair as
+herself and Robert Guiscard should be separated in
+death, he at Venosa and she in the cathedral of
+her husband’s foundation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Passing out of the silent church into the warm
+light of eventide, by steep alleys and by stony
+footpaths we <anchor id="corr189"/><corr sic="gradully">gradually</corr> mount upwards towards the
+ruined castle that commands a lofty position with an all-embracing
+view of the bay and its encircling mountains.
+The crumbling fragment of the old palace of Salerno
+differs but little in appearance from any one of those
+innumerable dilapidated piles of the Middle Ages with
+<pb n='190'/><anchor id='Pg190'/>which Southern Italy is so thickly studded, yet
+coming fresh from visiting Guiscard’s cathedral and
+Hildebrand’s last resting-place, we find it comparatively
+easy to conjure up some recollections of its
+past, so as to invest its crumbling red-hued walls
+with a spell of interest. These broken apertures
+were surely once the windows through which the
+dying Pope must have wearily glanced upon the
+sun-smitten waves and violet-shadowed hills that we
+behold to-day; here in this embrasure, long despoiled
+of its marble seat, must have brooded the fierce and
+unscrupulous Sigilgaita, thinking of how best to rid
+herself of her step-son Bohemond, in order that her
+own children might inherit their father’s realms.
+The ghosts of princes and popes are around us, yet
+the only living inhabitant of the roofless castle is
+the ragged little goat-herd, whose unsavoury charges
+are cropping the short grass that covers the site of
+the banqueting hall, where Norman knights and
+Italian barons once caroused in the crusading days
+of long ago. We seat ourselves on the dry sward
+in a sun-warmed angle of the ruins, where an almond
+tree that has sprouted from the rubble sends down
+from time to time upon our heads a tiny shower of
+pale pink blossoms at the bidding of the soft evening
+breeze. At our feet are masses of the dark shiny leaves
+of the wild arum, and rank grass which is plentifully
+starred with tall-stemmed crimson-petalled daisies
+and the mauve wind-flowers that are drowsily closing
+their cups at the approach of night. The little goat-herd
+eyes us solemnly, but—strange and welcome to
+relate—shows no inclination to pester the <hi rend='italic'>signori</hi>.
+The soft murmuring of the distant sea, the subdued
+<pb n='191'/><anchor id='Pg191'/>hum of the city far below us and the drowsy buzzing
+of the bees in the almond and ivy bloom close at
+hand combine to strengthen the golden chain of
+imagination. As we sit basking in the peaceful
+beauty of the scene around us and serenely conscious
+of its glorious past, one of our party suddenly remembers
+in a welcome flash of inspiration that this deserted
+courtyard has been made the scene of one of
+Boccaccio’s most famous tales. It is a story that
+many writers of succeeding ages have endeavoured
+to imitate in prose or verse, but this fictitious love-tragedy
+between a princess and a page at Salerno has
+a simple charm and dignity in its original setting
+that only the master-hand of the Tuscan author
+could impart. The scene of the novel of Guiscard
+and Ghismonda is laid, as we have said, at this very
+spot, and as the hero, the heroine and the villain of
+the tale have Norman names, we may be allowed
+to conjecture that this graceful story, which Boccaccio
+puts into the mouth of the lady Fiammetta, was
+founded upon some actual but half-forgotten family
+scandal in the annals of the mighty but self-made
+House of Hauteville.
+</p>
+<p rend="center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em">* * * * * *</p>
+<p>
+Once upon a time there reigned in Salerno the
+Prince Tancred, who was a widower, and the father
+of an only daughter, Ghismonda, Duchess of Capua.
+The Duchess, who was considered one of the most
+beautiful, accomplished and virtuous princesses of
+her day, had been early married to the Duke of
+Capua, but on his death after a very few years
+of matrimony had been left a childless widow.
+Being still very young, the Princess Ghismonda was
+<pb n='192'/><anchor id='Pg192'/>now taken back to his court by her father, who
+jealously guarded her and seemed unwilling for her
+to be remarried. Living in rooms that over-looked
+the courtyard of the palace, the Duchess, who found
+time hang on her hands somewhat heavily, used to
+spend hours daily in watching the lords and pages
+of her father’s household passing and repassing the
+quadrangle below, and amongst the many well-favoured
+youths a certain page named Guiscard
+found most favour in her sight. Now Guiscard, who
+had thus all unwittingly attracted Ghismonda’s attention
+and finally won her heart, was a young Norman of
+no great lineage and of small means, but being discreet,
+upright and sensible-minded, had obtained a
+high place in Prince Tancred’s estimation. Skilfully
+questioning her maids of honour without exciting
+their suspicions, the Princess gained all she wished
+to know concerning Guiscard’s position and attainments,
+and it was not long before she found means of
+conveying the secret of her affection to the youth,
+who in fact had already fallen head over ears in
+love with the beautiful Duchess who so often
+leaned from the casement above. She now sent him
+a letter hidden in a pair of bellows, wherein she
+explained to him the existence of a secret passage,
+long disused, that led from a hollow in the hillside
+below the castle walls up to her own apartment.
+Over-joyed at receiving this missive, the infatuated
+page took the first occasion, as we may well imagine,
+to make use of this friendly clue, and before many
+hours had passed after receiving the letter, the young
+man, flushed and triumphant, was standing in the
+chamber of his beloved mistress, who had meanwhile
+<pb n='193'/><anchor id='Pg193'/>taken every necessary preparation for receiving her
+lover in secret. Many a time were the pair able to
+meet thus without awakening the least suspicion in
+the minds of Prince Tancred or of the maids of
+honour, and all would doubtless have gone well for
+an indefinite period of time, but for a most unforeseen
+accident. It appears that one morning the old Prince
+of Salerno, wishing to confer with his daughter on
+some matter of state, came to her private apartment,
+and on learning that she had gone out riding settled
+himself upon a couch that stood within a curtained
+alcove, and whilst waiting for her return fell sound
+asleep. After some hours of repose the prince was
+suddenly roused from his heavy slumber by the sound
+of two voices in the room, that of his daughter and of
+a strange man. Peeping stealthily through the folds
+of the draperies, he now beheld to his fury and
+amazement the Duchess alone with his page Guiscard.
+But the descendant of Robert the Wiseacre well knew
+how to temper vengeance with dissimulation. Dreading
+the scandal that would follow an open exposure,
+the Prince, in spite of his years and the stiffness of
+his joints, contrived to quit the chamber unperceived
+by means of a convenient window. That very night
+the unsuspecting Guiscard was seized by his sovereign’s
+orders and thrust into a foul dungeon of the palace,
+whither Tancred himself descended to question his
+prisoner and to reprove him violently for his base
+ingratitude. But the unhappy page could only make
+repeated answer: <q>Sire, love hath greater powers
+than you or I!</q> On the following morning Tancred
+proceeded to visit the Duchess, still ignorant of her
+paramour’s fate, and in a voice strangled with the
+<pb n='194'/><anchor id='Pg194'/>conflicting emotions of paternal love and desired
+vengeance bitterly upbraided his erring child.
+<q>Daughter, I had such an opinion of your modesty
+and virtue, that I could never have believed, had I
+not seen it with mine own eyes, that you would have
+violated either, even so much as in thought. The
+recollection of this will make the pittance of life that
+is left very grievous to me. As you were determined
+to act in that manner, would to Heaven you had
+made choice of a person more suitable to your own
+quality; but this Guiscard is one of the meanest
+persons about my court. This gives me such concern,
+that I scarce know what to do. As for him, he was
+secured by my order last night, and his fate is determined.
+But with regard to yourself, I am influenced
+by two different motives: on one side, the tenderest
+regard that a father can have for a child; and on the
+other, the justest vengeance for the great folly you
+have committed. One pleads strongly in your behalf;
+and the other would excite me to do an act contrary
+to my nature. But before I come to a resolution, I
+would fain hear what you have to say for yourself.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Seeing clearly from her father’s words that her
+secret had been discovered and that her lover was
+in prison, the intrepid Ghismonda, a true daughter
+of the high-spirited House of Hauteville, assuming
+a composure she was very far from feeling, made a
+dignified appeal on behalf of Guiscard and herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>Father, it is not my purpose either to deny or to
+entreat; for as the one can avail me nothing, so I
+intend the other shall be of little service. I will by
+no means bespeak your love and tenderness towards
+me; but shall first, by an open confession, endeavour
+<pb n='195'/><anchor id='Pg195'/>to vindicate myself, and thus do what the greatness
+of my soul prompts me to. It is most true that I
+have loved, and do still love Guiscard; and whilst I
+live, which will not be long, shall continue to love
+him; and if such a thing as love be after death, I
+shall never cease to love him.... It appears from
+what you say, that you would have been less incensed
+if I had made choice of a nobleman, and you bitterly
+reproach me for having condescended to a man of
+low condition. In this you speak according to vulgar
+prejudice, and not according to truth; nor do you
+perceive that the fault you blame is not mine, but
+Fortune’s, who often exalts the unworthy, and leaves
+the worthiest in low estate. But, not to dwell on
+such considerations, look a little into first principles,
+and you will see that we are all formed of the same
+material and by the same hand. The first difference
+amongst mankind, who are all born equal, was made
+by virtue; they who were virtuous were deemed
+noble, and the rest were all accounted otherwise.
+Though this law, therefore, may have been obscured
+by contrary custom, yet is it discarded neither by
+nature nor good manners. If you regard only the
+worth and virtue of your courtiers, and consider that
+of Guiscard, you will find him the only noble person,
+and these others a set of poltroons. With regard to
+his worth and valour, I appeal to yourself. Who ever
+commended man more for anything that was praise-worthy
+than you have commended him? And
+deservedly, in my judgment; but if I was deceived,
+it was by following your opinion. If you say, then,
+that I have had an affair with a person base and
+ignoble, I deny it; if with a poor one, it is to your
+<pb n='196'/><anchor id='Pg196'/>shame to have let such merit go unrewarded. Now
+concerning your last doubt, namely how you are to
+deal with me: use your pleasure. If you are disposed
+to commit an act of cruelty, I shall say nothing
+to prevent such a resolution. But this I must apprise
+you of; that unless you do the same to me, which
+you either have done, or mean to do to Guiscard, mine
+own hands shall do it for you. If you mean to act
+with severity, cut us off both together, if it appear to
+you that we have deserved it.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Duchess’ able defence of her choice of Guiscard
+and her democratic views of society were hardly
+likely to influence the proud tyrant of Salerno,
+although his house was sprung from a plebeian stock
+of Normandy. Ignoring her plea and arguments,
+Tancred left his daughter alone with her grief, and
+proceeded to the cells below to give the order for
+Guiscard’s immediate death by strangling. But
+Tancred’s fury was by no means appeased by the
+page’s death, for tearing the unhappy youth’s heart
+from the warm and still quivering body, the brutal
+prince had the bleeding flesh placed in a golden
+covered cup, which he bade his chamberlain deliver to
+Ghismonda, with these cruel words: <q>Your father
+sends this present to comfort you with what was
+most dear to you; even as he was comforted by you
+in what was most dear to him.</q> With a calm
+countenance and with a gracious word of thanks, the
+Princess accepted the gift, and on removing the
+cover and realising the contents of the cup, said with
+meaning to the bearer of this gruesome present:
+<q>My father has done very wisely; such a heart as
+this requires no worse a sepulchre than one of gold.</q>
+<pb n='197'/><anchor id='Pg197'/>Then after lamenting for a while over her lover’s fate,
+Ghismonda filled the goblet with a draught of poison
+that she had already prepared in anticipation of her
+father’s vengeance, and quaffed its contents. After
+this she lay down upon her bed, clasping the cup to
+her bosom, whereupon her maids, all ignorant of the
+cause of their mistress’ conduct, ran terrified to call
+Prince Tancred, who arrived in time to witness his
+unhappy daughter’s death agony. Now that it was
+too late, the Prince was stricken with remorse and
+began loudly to bewail the violence of his late anger.
+<q>Sire,</q> said the dying Princess, <q>save those tears
+against worse fortune that may happen, for I want
+them not. Who but yourself would mourn for a
+thing of your own doing?</q> Then dropping her tone
+of irony, she made one last request of her weeping
+and repentant father, that her own and Guiscard’s
+bodies might be honourably interred within the same
+tomb. Thus perished by her own hand the beautiful
+Princess Ghismonda of Salerno, Duchess of Capua,
+urged to the fell deed by a parent’s inexorable cruelty.
+And it is some slight consolation to the sad ending
+of the story to learn that Tancred did at least carry
+out his daughter’s dying entreaty, for the bodies of
+Ghismonda and Guiscard were duly laid in one grave
+amidst the pomp of religion and the cold comfort of
+a public mourning.<note place="foot"><hi rend='italic'>The Decameron</hi>—Novel I, of the Fourth Day.</note>
+</p>
+<p rend="center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em">* * * * * *</p>
+<p>
+But the sun has long since sunk below the horizon,
+and the chill dews of night are falling round us. Hastily
+we leave the old palace of the princes of Salerno to the
+solitary occupation of the bats and owls, to seek warmth
+and cheerfulness in our inn upon the Marina.
+</p>
+</div><div n="9" rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n='198'/><anchor id='Pg198'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="9: Paestum and the Glory that was Greece"/>
+<head>CHAPTER IX</head>
+
+<head type="sub">PAESTUM AND THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE</head>
+
+<p>
+In these days of easy travelling there lies a choice
+of two routes to Paestum and its temples: one
+by driving thither direct from La Cava or Salerno,
+in the mode of our forefathers; and the other by
+taking the train to the little junction of Battipaglia,
+and thence proceeding southward by the coast line
+to the station of Pesto itself, that stands almost
+within a stone’s throw of the chief gate of Poseidonia.
+A third, and perhaps a preferable way, consists in
+using the railway beyond Battipaglia to Eboli, a
+town of no little interest in the upper valley of the
+Silarus, and thence driving along the base of the
+rocky hills that enclose the maritime plain and through
+the oak wood of Persano that was brigand-haunted
+within living memory. But though the scenery
+between Eboli and Paestum undoubtedly owns more
+charm and variety than the marshy flats can boast,
+yet the strange loneliness of the sea-girt level has
+a fascination of its own, which will appeal strongly
+to all lovers of pristine undisturbed nature. For
+the larger portion of these Lucanian plains still
+remains uncultivated, so that thickets of fragrant
+wild myrtle and lentisk, of coronella and of white-blossomed
+laurustinus, stud the landscape; whilst
+<pb n='199'/><anchor id='Pg199'/>the open ground is thickly covered with masses of
+hardy but gay flowering weeds. The great star-thistles
+run to seed unchecked by the scythe, and the
+belled cerinthia and the glaucous-leaved tall yellow
+mulleins seem to thrive heartily on the barren soil.
+Boggy ground alternates with patches of dry stony
+earth, and in early summer every little pool of water
+affords sustenance to coarse-scented white water-lilies,
+and clumps of the yellow iris that are over-shadowed
+by masses of tall graceful reeds. These <hi rend='italic'>arundini</hi>,
+which are to be found near every water-course or
+pool throughout Italy, are characteristic of the country
+with their broad grey leaves, their heads of pink
+feathery bloom, and their mournful whispering answers
+to the question of every passing breeze; elegant in
+their growth, they are also beloved by the practical
+peasant who utilizes their long slender stems for
+a variety of purposes in his domestic economy.
+For the reeds, stripped of their foliage, support his
+tender young vines and make good frame-work
+whereon to train his peas and tomatoes; the longest
+canes of all, moreover, serve well as handles for the
+long feather brushes which are used so extensively
+in all Italian households. Other floral denizens of
+the plain are the great rank <hi rend='italic'>porri</hi>, or wild leeks, conspicuous
+with their bright green curling leaves issuing
+from globe-like roots above the ground, and of course,
+the asphodel, the plant of Death. For the asphodel
+is pre-eminently the flower of Southern Italy and of
+Sicily, since it presents a fit emblem of a departed
+grandeur that is still impressive in its decay. How
+beautiful to the eye appear the dark grey-green sword-like
+leaves from the centre of which up-shoots the
+<pb n='200'/><anchor id='Pg200'/>tall branching stem with its clusters of delicate pink-striped
+blossoms, that show so lovely yet smell so
+vile! Apart from its fetid odour, the asphodel is a
+thing of intense beauty, so that a long line of these
+plants in full bloom, covering some ridge of orange-coloured
+tufa or the velvety-grey crest of some ancient
+wall, with their spikes of starry flowers standing out
+distinct like floral candelabra against the clear blue
+of a southern sky, makes an impression upon the
+beholder that will ever be gratefully remembered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But flowers and shrubs are not the only occupants
+of the Poseidonian plain, for as we proceed on our way
+towards the Temples, we notice in the drier pastures
+large herds of the long-horned dove-coloured cattle of
+the country, whilst in marshy places our interest is
+aroused by the sight of great shaggy buffaloes of
+sinister mien. The buffalo has long been acclimatized
+in Italy, though its original home seems to have been
+the trackless marshes of the Tigris and Euphrates.
+The conquering Arabs first introduced these uncouth
+Eastern cattle into Sicily, whence they were imported
+into Italy by the Norman kings of Naples. In spite
+of its malevolent nature and the poor quality of its
+flesh and hide, the buffalo came to be extensively bred
+in the Pontine and Lucanian marshes, where the
+moisture of the soil and the unwholesome air always
+affected the native herds unfavourably. For hours
+together these fierce untameable beasts love to lie
+amidst the swampy reed-beds, wallowing up to their
+flanks in slimy malodorous mud and seemingly
+impervious to the ceaseless attacks of the local wasps
+and gad-flies, which try in vain to penetrate with their
+barbed stings the thick hairy covering of defence.
+<pb n='201'/><anchor id='Pg201'/>Perchance between Battipaglia and Paestum we may
+encounter a herd of these shaggy beeves being driven
+by a peasant on horse-back, with his <hi rend='italic'>pungolo</hi> or small
+lance in hand: a human being that in his goat-skin
+breeches and with his luxuriant untrimmed locks,
+seems to our eyes only one degree less savage and
+unkempt than the fierce beasts he guides. As cultivation
+has made progress of recent years and the
+unhealthy marshes of the coast line are being gradually
+drained, the numbers of buffalo tend to decrease, whilst
+the native Italian oxen are being introduced once
+more into the newly reclaimed pastures. That former
+arch-enemy of the cattle in the days of Vergil seems
+to have disappeared: that <q>flying pest,</q> the <hi rend='italic'>asilo</hi> of
+the Romans and the <hi rend='italic'>aestrum</hi> of the Greeks, which in
+antique times was wont to drive the grazing herds
+frantic with terror and pain, until the valley of the
+Tanager and the Alburnian woods re-echoed with the
+agonised lowing of the poor tortured creatures. And
+speaking of noxious insects, a general belief prevails
+in Italy that their bite—as well as that of snakes and
+scorpions—becomes more acute and dangerous when
+the sun enters into the sign of Lion, so that human
+beings, as well as defenceless cattle, must carefully
+avoid all chances of being bitten during the months of
+July and August.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before our goal can be reached it is necessary for
+us to cross the broad willow-fringed stream of the Sele,
+the Silarus of antiquity, which according to the testimony
+of Silius Italicus once possessed the property of
+petrifying wood. In the distant days of the eighteenth
+century, the traveller to Paestum had to endure amidst
+other difficulties and dangers of the road the
+disagree<pb n='202'/><anchor id='Pg202'/>able business of being ferried across the Sele, which
+was then bridgeless. Owing to the malaria and the
+loneliness of the spot, the acting of ferryman over this
+river was not an agreeable post, and Count Stolberg,
+a German dilettante who has left some memories of
+his Italian wanderings, relates how a feeble dismal
+soured old man, a veritable Charon of the upper air,
+had great difficulty in conveying himself, his horse
+and his servant across the swollen stream. The old
+man’s age and misery aroused the Count’s compassion,
+so that he asked him why he continued thus to perform
+a task at once so arduous and so distasteful.
+<q>Sir,</q> replied the boatman, <q>I would gladly be
+excused, but that my master compels me to undertake
+this work.</q> <q>And who, pray, is this tyrant of a
+master of yours?</q> indignantly enquired the Count.
+<q>Sir, it is my Lord Poverty!</q> grimly answered the
+old ferryman, as he pocketed the Teuton’s fee. Times
+have changed with regard to the necessity of a ferry
+over the Sele, but to judge from the appearance of the
+people and from the accounts in the journals, we much
+doubt if my Lord Poverty’s sway has been much
+weakened in these parts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length we reach the tiny hamlet and station of
+Pesto, surrounded by its groves of mournful eucalyptus
+trees, and if we visit the station itself, we cannot help
+noticing the fine gauze net-work over every window
+and door, also the veiled faces and be-gloved hands
+of the station-master and his <hi rend='italic'>facchini</hi>. It is not
+difficult to gauge the reason of the eucalyptus trees at
+Pesto, an alien importation like the buffalo, for these
+native trees of Australia have been planted here with
+the avowed object of reducing the malaria, for which
+<pb n='203'/><anchor id='Pg203'/>the place is only too renowned. Scientists have
+positively declared that the mosquitoes which rise in
+clouds from the poisonous swamps at sunset are
+directly responsible for this terrible form of ague, and
+a paternal Government has accordingly introduced
+gum-trees to improve the quality of the air, and has
+presented gloves, veils and fine lattice work to its
+servants in the hope of protecting them from the bites
+of these tiny pestilence-bearing insects. We do not
+wish to dispute the wisdom of modern bacteriologists,
+but somehow we have no great faith in this elaborate
+scheme for battling with Nature; and indeed not a
+few persons who have studied the matter declare that
+though the reeking marshes are certainly productive of
+malaria in themselves (so much so that it is dangerous
+to linger amidst the ruined temples of an evening), yet
+these spiteful little creatures are at least innocent of
+innoculating humanity with this particular disease.
+Moreover, a plausible idea that is now largely held
+insists that the recent spread of cultivation over the
+Lucanian Plain is itself largely responsible for the
+increase of malaria; it is the up-turning of the germ-impregnated
+earth that has lain fallow for centuries,
+say the supporters of this theory, which awakens and
+sets free the slumbering demon of fever in the soil,
+so that the speeding of the plough on the Neapolitan
+coast must inevitably mean also the spreading of this
+fell and mysterious sickness. Let us therefore give
+the devil his due: the mosquito is a hateful and
+persistent foe, and his sting is both painful and disfiguring,
+but do not let us accuse him of carrying
+malaria until the case can be better proved against
+him. But enough of fevers and doctors’ saws! Let
+<pb n='204'/><anchor id='Pg204'/>us turn our willing eyes towards the three great
+temples that confront us close at hand. Before however
+proceeding to inspect these great monuments of
+Grecian art and civilization, which rank amongst the
+most venerable as well as the most beautiful relics of
+antiquity, it is only meet that we should carry with
+us into their ruined halls a few grains of historical
+knowledge, whereby our sense of reality and our
+appreciation of their greatness and splendour may be
+increased.
+</p><anchor id="illus16"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE, PAESTUM]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus16th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus16.jpg">THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE, PAESTUM</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE, PAESTUM</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+Although we do not possess a definite history of
+Paestum, similar to that of Rome or of Athens, yet
+from the many allusions to be found scattered throughout
+the pages of classical historians, as well as from
+the various inscriptions and devices found upon ancient
+coins of this city, it is not a difficult task to piece
+together the main features of Poseidonian annals.
+From a very remote period of antiquity there was
+undoubtedly a settlement on or near the coast to the
+south of the river Silarus, whilst it is commonly held
+that this spot was called Peste—a name almost
+identical with the modern Italian appellation—many
+hundreds of years before the arrival of Doric settlers
+on the shores of the Tyrrhene Sea. Late in the
+seventh century before Christ, the Greek colony of
+Poseidonia, the city of the Sea God, was founded on
+or near the site of Italian Peste by certain Hellenic
+adventurers from Trœzen, who were amongst the inhabitants
+of Sybaris, at that time one of the most
+flourishing of the famous cities of Magna Graecia:
+and this new colony of Trœzenians henceforward was
+accounted one of the twenty-five subject-towns that
+recognised Sybaris for their metropolis, or mother and
+<pb n='205'/><anchor id='Pg205'/>suzerain city. We have no details of its early history,
+but it is quite certain that under the protection of
+Sybaris the new city of Poseidonia rose by degrees to
+such wealth and importance that in course of time it
+gave its own name to the whole Bay of Salerno, which
+henceforth became known to the Greeks as the
+Poseidonian Gulf and later, to the Romans, as the
+Bay of Paestum. With the fall of the mother city,
+this flourishing colony was left alone to face the attacks
+of the Samnites, the native barbarians who peopled
+the dense forests and the barren mountains of Lucania;
+yet it somehow contrived to retain its independence
+until the close of the fourth century <hi rend='small'>B.C.</hi>, when the
+Samnite hordes, forcing the fortified line of the Silarus,
+made themselves masters of Poseidonia, and put an
+end, practically for ever, to its existence as a purely
+Hellenic city. From its Lucanian masters the
+captured town received the name of Paestum, and its
+inhabitants were at once deprived of their independence,
+were forbidden to carry arms, and were probably
+in many instances reduced to the level of serfs. A
+large number of Samnites also settled within the walls
+of the town, and compelled the former owners to surrender
+to them the larger and richer portion of the
+public and private lands upon the maritime plain.
+The use of the Hellenic language and public worship
+were however permitted, and, strange to relate, no
+interference was made with a solemn annual festival,
+which the depressed and enslaved population now
+inaugurated with the confessed object of remembering
+for ever their Greek origin and their former greatness.
+For once a year at a fixed date all Greeks were wont
+to gather together and to bewail in public, outside
+<pb n='206'/><anchor id='Pg206'/>the great temple of Poseidon, their lost liberty and
+their vanished power. It is evident that the Lucanians
+did not fear the tears and lamentations of this unhappy
+subject state, for this custom continued to be observed
+throughout the whole period of Samnite oppression,
+and survived even till Roman times—perhaps to the
+very end of the city’s existence,—although in the
+course of passing generations there could have been
+but few persons of pure Greek descent left in the place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the advent of Alexander of Epirus, who had
+been called into Italy by the Greeks of Tarentum in
+order to assist the sorely-pressed colonies of Magna
+Graecia, Epirot troops were landed at the mouth of
+the Silarus. Under the very walls of <anchor id="corr206"/><corr sic="Pæstum">Paestum</corr> there
+now took place a stubborn fight wherein the army of
+the Samnites was completely routed, and its survivors
+driven in confusion from the coast into the wild woods
+and rocky valleys of the Lucanian hills. For a brief
+interval of years Poseidonia regained its lost liberty
+and its Hellenic name, but with the overthrow and
+death of Alexander of Epirus, the scattered hordes
+pressed down once more from their mountain fastnesses
+upon the rich plain, and the city was for the
+second time enslaved by the ruder conquering race.
+Forty years later, after the Pyrrhine war, all Lucania
+fell under the rising power of Rome, a change that
+was by no means unacceptable to the Greek cities,
+which were groaning under the rude tyranny of the
+Samnites. A Latin colony was now planted at
+<anchor id="corr206a"/><corr sic="Pæstum">Paestum</corr>, to form a convenient centre whence the
+neighbouring district could be kept in order and
+peaceably developed according to Roman ideas.
+These Roman colonists, although they did not restore
+<pb n='207'/><anchor id='Pg207'/>the lands and buildings held by the expelled Samnites
+to their rightful owners, yet lived on terms of amity
+with the Greek population, with whom they must have
+freely intermarried. The original Hellenic inhabitants,
+relieved of the bonds of servitude, were now placed on
+an equal footing with the new colonists, partaking of
+political rights in the city thus freshly re-created under
+the supremacy of Rome, and soon they grew to imitate
+the speech and manners of their new masters, so that
+as an immediate result of the expulsion of the barbaric
+Samnites and the entry of the progressive Romans,
+Paestum began to recover a considerable portion of
+its ancient splendour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the course of the second Punic War the
+name of Paestum is not unfrequently mentioned in
+Roman annals, and owing its revived prosperity to its
+annexation by Rome, it is not surprising to find the
+existence of a strong feeling of gratitude amongst the
+inhabitants. At the date of fatal Cannæ this faithful
+Greek city sent assurances of unswerving allegiance to
+the Senate, and also more substantial help in the
+form of all the golden vessels from its temples. It
+was Paestum also that early in the third century <hi rend='small'>B.C.</hi>
+supplied part of the ill-fated fleet of Decius Quinctius,
+that was raised to run the blockade of Tarentum.
+But even the loss of its ships and men did not deter
+this loyal city from coming forward a second time
+with expressions of fealty and promise of further aid
+to the great suzerain city in this dark hour of its
+difficulties. From this point onward till the close of
+the Republic, History is almost silent with regard to
+Paestum; but its numerous coins go far to attest its
+continued welfare, for it now shared, together with
+<pb n='208'/><anchor id='Pg208'/>Venusia, Brundusium and Vibo Valentia, a special
+right to strike money in its own name and with its
+own devices. Under the Empire, Paestum managed to
+uphold its size and importance, so that it became the
+capital of one of the eight Prefectures into which the
+district of Lucania had been divided. At this period,
+there can be no doubt, the surrounding plain was in
+the highest state of cultivation, whilst its prolific rose-gardens—<hi rend='italic'>biferi
+rosaria Paesti</hi>—have supplied the
+theme of every Roman poet from Vergil to Ausonius.
+Yet in spite of its apparent prosperity, the seeds of
+coming decline had already been sown. Strabo tells
+us that even in early Imperial days the city was
+obtaining an unenviable reputation for malaria: a
+circumstance that was due to the over-flowing of the
+unwholesome streamlet, the Salso, whose reeking and
+fever-bearing waters began to impregnate the earth.
+Engineering works on a large scale were planned to
+remedy this drawback, but these were never executed,
+and in consequence the unhealthiness of the place
+increased. With the decline of the Roman power
+the population and prosperity of Paestum likewise
+tended to lessen, so that its citizens were placed in a
+worse position than before with regard to the carrying
+out of this vast but necessary scheme of sanitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a spot so accessible to external influence, it is
+easy to understand that Christianity early took root
+in Paestum, which in the fifth century of our own era
+had already become a bishopric. The story of the
+growth of the Faith in Lucania is closely connected
+with a legend that centres round a native of the place,
+a certain Gavinius, a general in the army of the
+Emperor Valentinian, who whilst serving in Britain
+<pb n='209'/><anchor id='Pg209'/>against the Picts by some means succeeded in obtaining
+a valuable relic, supposed to be nothing less
+than the body of the Apostle Matthew, which he
+brought back with him to his native place. Early in
+the ninth century there appeared a fresh cause of
+alarm, more serious and far-reaching even than the
+dreaded malaria, for plundering Saracens, foes alike
+to the old Roman civilisation and to the new Christian
+creed, now began to harass the Tyrrhenian shores.
+Settling at Agropoli to the south of the Bay, these
+Oriental freebooters found little difficulty in effecting
+a landing on the Poseidonian beach, and in raiding
+the weakened and almost defenceless city. Able-bodied
+men and young maidens were forcibly carried
+off to the pirates’ nest at Agropoli, or perhaps even
+to the distant coast of Barbary, to be sold into
+perpetual slavery. Alarmed beyond measure by this
+raid, the remaining inhabitants of the place, at the
+advice and under the guidance of their bishop, now
+decided—wisely, for they had to choose between
+immediate flight or gradual extermination by disease,
+slavery and the sword—to remove themselves to the
+barren mountains in their rear, once the haunts of
+the Samnites, and to build a new Paestum on a site
+at once more healthy and better protected by Nature
+against the raids of infidel corsairs. In a body therefore
+the remaining citizens amid deep wailing left for
+ever the ancient city with its glorious temples, and
+retired to a strong position to the east. The spot
+chosen for the new residence of these exiles lay close
+to the source that supplied with pure water their
+ancient aqueduct, known for this reason as Caputaqueum,
+now corrupted into Capaccio. A link with the
+<pb n='210'/><anchor id='Pg210'/>old city, that lay deserted in the plain below, was still
+retained by the bishop of the newly founded town in
+the mountains, who continued to be known as <hi rend='italic'>Episcopus
+Paestanus</hi>. In the eleventh century Robert
+Guiscard systematically plundered the ruins of Paestum
+in order to erect or embellish the churches and palaces
+of Salerno and Amalfi. Every remaining piece of
+sculpture and of marble was removed, and it was only
+the vast size of the pillars of the three great temples,
+and the consequent difficulty attending their transport
+by boat across the bay or along the marshy ground
+of the coast line, that saved from destruction these
+magnificent relics of <q>the glory that was Greece.</q>
+But even humble Capaccio did not afford a final
+resting-place to the harried Paestani, for in the year
+1245 the great Emperor Frederick II., who had been
+defied by the feudal Counts of Capaccio, besieged and
+utterly destroyed this stronghold of the mountains
+that had been the child of Poseidonia of the sea-girt
+plains. Another and a yet loftier retreat had to be
+sought by the survivors of the Imperial vengeance, so
+that the ruined Capaccio the Old was abandoned for
+another settlement, which still exists as a miserable
+village amidst those barren hills that had ever looked
+down with jealous envy upon the proud city with its
+pillared temples. One curious circumstance with
+regard to Paestum must finally be mentioned, in that
+the existence of its ruins, the grandest and most
+ancient group of monuments on the mainland of Italy,
+remained unknown to the learned world until comparatively
+modern times. Only the local peasants
+and the inhabitants of the poverty-stricken towns in
+the Lucanian hills seem to have been aware of the
+<pb n='211'/><anchor id='Pg211'/>presence of the gigantic temples standing in lonely
+majesty by the shore and as the superstitious nature
+of these ignorant people attributed these structures to
+the work of a magician—perhaps to the great wizard
+Vergil himself—they were shunned both by night and
+by day as the haunt of malignant spirits. Poor
+fisher-folk and buffalo-drivers, who had of necessity
+to pass near the ruined fanes, were wont to slink by in
+fear and trembling, and doubtless they brought back
+strange stories of its ghostly occupants with which
+they regaled their friends or families by the fire-side
+of a winter’s evening. Yet it is most strange that
+during the period of the Renaissance, at a time when
+enthusiastic research was being made into the neglected
+antiquities of Italy, this unique group of Doric
+temples should have escaped notice. For neither
+Cyriaco of Ancona nor Leandro Alberti, who visited
+Lucania ostensibly for the sake of recording its
+classical remains, make mention of <q>the ruined
+majesty of Paestum,</q> and it was reserved for a certain
+Count Gazola (whose name is certainly worthy of
+being recorded), an officer in the service of the
+Neapolitan King, to present to the notice of scholars
+and archaeologists towards the middle of the eighteenth
+century the first known description of what is perhaps
+Italy’s chief existing treasure of antiquity. From
+Gazola’s day onward the beauty and interest of Paestum
+have been appraised at their true worth, and numberless
+artists and writers of almost every nationality
+have sketched or described its marvellous temples.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With this brief introduction to the history of a city,
+whose chief building is still standing almost intact
+after a lapse of 2500 years, let us take a rapid survey
+<pb n='212'/><anchor id='Pg212'/>of Poseidonia as it exists to-day. Its walls, of Greek
+construction but probably built or restored as late as
+the time of Alexander of Epirus, who gave the captured
+town a fleeting spell of liberty, form an irregular pentagon
+about three miles in circumference, <anchor id="corr212"/><corr sic="wheron">whereon</corr> the
+remains of eight towers can be observed, whilst the
+four gates, placed at the four cardinal points of the
+compass, are clearly traceable. We enter this <hi rend='italic'>città
+morta</hi> by the so-called Porta della Sirena, the eastern
+gate that faces the hostile Samnite Hills and (oh,
+the prosaic touch!) the modern railway-station. This
+gate remains in a tolerable state of preservation, and
+draws its name from the key-stone of its arch, which
+bears in low relief a much defaced design of a mermaid
+or siren, its counterpart on the inner keystone being a
+dolphin: two devices very appropriate to the entrance
+of a city dedicated to the Lord of Ocean. Passing
+the picturesque yellow-washed Villa Salati, with its
+high walls and iron-barred windows testifying only too
+plainly to the lawlessness that once reigned in this
+district, we find ourselves face to face with the great
+temple of Neptune or Poseidon, and its companion-fane,
+the so-called Basilica. The Temple of Neptune
+(for in this instance at least the popular appellation
+chances to be the correct one), in all probability co-eval
+with the first Greek foundation of the city, formed
+the central point of the life of Poseidonia during the
+1400 years of its existence as a Hellenic, a Samnite,
+and finally a Roman city. In its simple grandeur and
+its perfect proportions this wonderful temple possesses
+only one rival outside Greece itself: the Temple of
+Concord at Girgenti, which the poet Goethe compared
+to a god, after designating the building before us as a
+<pb n='213'/><anchor id='Pg213'/>giant. Superiority in grace is therefore a disputed
+point between the two great structures of Poseidonia
+and Agrigentum, yet in every other respect the temple
+of the Lucanian Plain surpasses its Sicilian rival.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To-day, after more than a score of centuries of
+exposure to the salt winds and to the burning sunshine
+of the south, the walls and pillars of these great buildings
+have been calcined to a glorious shade of tawny
+yellow, fit to delight the soul of every artist, whether
+he views their Titanic but graceful forms outlined
+against the deep blue of sky and sea on the western
+horizon, or against the equally lovely background of
+grey and violet mountains to the east. But it was
+not always thus. The porous local travertine that gave
+their building material to the Greeks of the sixth
+century before Christ was once carefully stuccoed, and,
+in the manner of Hellenic art, painted in the most
+brilliant hues of azure and vermilion, so that it becomes
+hard for us to realise the original effect of such
+gorgeous masses standing erect in a landscape that is
+itself fraught with glowing colour. But better to
+appreciate the magnificence before us, let us give a
+brief technical description of the greatest of the temples
+in the choice words of an eminent French antiquary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>The largest and most elegant, and likewise the
+oldest of the Temples of Paestum, is that commonly
+known by the name of the Temple of Neptune. This
+building shares, together with the Temple of Theseus
+at Athens, the honour of being the best preserved
+monument of the Doric order in existence, and the
+impression of grandeur that it gives to the spectator rivals
+even the first sight of the Parthenon itself. In front of
+the building is a platform in the midst of which can be
+<pb n='214'/><anchor id='Pg214'/>seen the hollow space that formerly held the altar of
+sacrifice, for according to the practice of the Greek
+religion, these rites of blood-shedding took place in the
+open air and outside the temple. With a length of
+190 feet and a breadth of 84 feet, this building is
+hypoethral, which means that the <hi rend='italic'>cella</hi>, or sanctuary
+that held the statue of the deity, was constructed open
+to the sky. It is peripteral, and presents a row of
+six pillars fluted at base and top, with twelve on each
+side, making thirty-six in all. The <hi rend='italic'>cella</hi> itself in the
+interior is upheld by sixteen columns about six feet
+in diameter, which in their turn are surmounted by
+two rows of smaller pillars above that support the roof.
+With the exception of one side of the upper stage of
+the interior every column of the temple remains intact,
+as do likewise the entablature and pediments. Only
+the wall of the <hi rend='italic'>cella</hi> has been pulled down; doubtless
+to supply material for building.</q><note place="foot">F. Lenormant: <hi rend='italic'>A travers l’Apulie et la Lucanie</hi>.</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having quoted Monsieur Lenormant’s careful
+description of the chief pride of Poseidonia, we shall
+confine ourselves to as few remarks as possible concerning
+the two remaining temples. The Basilica, a
+misnomer of which the veriest amateur must at once
+perceive the absurdity, is inferior both in size and in
+beauty of proportion to its close neighbour of Neptune.
+Its chief peculiarity from an architectural point of view
+will be at once remarked, for it has its two façades
+composed of seven—an odd number—of columns, so
+that its interior easily divides itself into two narrow
+chambers of equal length, affording ample ground for
+the theory, now generally held, that this building was
+not a hall of Justice, or <hi rend='italic'>Basilica</hi>, but a temple intended
+<pb n='215'/><anchor id='Pg215'/>expressly for the worship of dual divinities. Almost
+without a doubt it was erected—probably not long after
+the Temple of Poseidon—in honour of Demeter (Ceres)
+and of her only child Persephone (Proserpine), who
+was seized from her mother’s care by the amorous god
+of the Infernal Regions, as she was plucking anemones
+in the verdant meadows of Enna. We all know <q>the
+old sweet mythos</q>; we all understand its hidden
+allegory with regard to the sowing, the up-springing
+and the garnering of the yellow corn, that spends
+half the year in the embraces of the earth, the
+palace of Pluto, and half the year on the broad
+loving bosom of Mother Demeter. Here then within
+these bare and ruined walls were mother and daughter
+worshipped by the people of Poseidonia, who reasonably
+considered that the two goddesses of the Earth
+should have their habitation as near as possible to the
+Sanctuary of the Sovereign of Ocean.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Much smaller than either of these immense temples
+is the third remaining Greek building of Paestum,
+which lies a good quarter of a mile to the north, not
+far from the Golden Gate, the Porta Aurea, that leads
+northward in the direction of Salerno. Like that of
+Neptune, this temple is hexastyle, with six columns on
+each of its façades and twelve on either flank, but as it
+is little more than half the size of its grander and older
+brethren, it is now frequently known as <q>Il Piccolo
+Tempio,</q> although its former incorrect ascription to
+Ceres still clings to it in popular parlance. It is from
+this building, which stands on slightly rising ground,
+that the best impression of the whole city and of its
+wondrous setting between the savage Lucanian hills
+and the blue Mediterranean can be obtained.
+</p>
+
+<pb n='216'/><anchor id='Pg216'/>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Between the mountains and the tideless sea</q></l>
+<l>Stretches a plain where silence reigns supreme;</l>
+<l>A land of asphodel and weeds that teem</l>
+<l>Where once a city’s life ran joyfully.</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none; post: none"><q>Vanity! Vanity! All Vanity!</q></q></l>
+<l>Whisper the winds to Sele’s murmuring stream;</l>
+<l>Whilst the vast temples preach th’ eternal theme,</l>
+<l>How pass the glories and their memory.</l>
+<l>Think what these ruins saw! what songs and cries</l>
+<l>Once through these roofless colonnades did ring!</l>
+<l>What crowds here gathered, where the all-seeing skies</l>
+<l>For centuries have watched the daisies spring!</l>
+<l>Dead all within this crumbling circle lies:</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Dead as the roses Roman bards did sing.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Beautiful as Paestum presents itself in the bright
+noontide of a Spring day, beneath a cloudless sky
+and with the blue waters of the Mediterranean
+lapping the distant yellow sands, there appears something
+incongruous in the sharp contrast between this
+joyfulness of vigorous life and the solemn atmosphere
+of the deserted city. The noisy twittering of multitudes
+of ubiquitous sparrows, equally at home in Doric
+temples as amongst the sooty chimney stacks of
+London; the twinklings and rustlings of the lizards
+in the young leaves and grass; the polyglot babble
+of excursionists from Naples or La Cava that a warm
+day in Spring invariably attracts to Paestum:—these
+are not sounds that blend well with the solemn spirit
+of the place. We long to cross the intervening ages
+so as to throw ourselves, if only for one short hour,
+outside the cares and interests of to-day into the heart
+of that refined civilisation which is gone for ever;—with
+the cheerful sunlight around us, and with our
+fellow-mortals on pleasure bent close at hand, we find
+it difficult to forget the present. Would it be possible,
+<pb n='217'/><anchor id='Pg217'/>we ask ourselves, to spend a nocturnal vigil within the
+hall of the great temple of the Sea God, so as to
+behold, like that undaunted traveller, Crawford Ramage,
+the shafts of crystalline moonlight shed through the
+aperture of the roof leap from pillar to pillar, making
+bars of brilliant light amidst the surrounding blackness!
+O to sit and meditate thus engrossed with the memory
+of the past, and with no other sounds around us than
+the sad cry of the <hi rend='italic'>aziola</hi>, the little downy owl
+that Shelley so loved! But the gaunt spectre of
+Fever ever haunts this spot, and after sunset his power
+is supreme; so that he would be a bold man indeed
+who in an age of luxury and selfish comfort would
+carry out an idea at once so romantic and so perilous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We ourselves were especially fortunate on the
+occasion of our last visit to Poseidonia on a mild
+day in December, a month which on the Lucanian
+shore somewhat resembles a northern October. A
+soft luminous haze hung over the landscape and over
+the Bay of Salerno itself, rendering the classic mountains
+at once indistinct in outline and unnaturally
+lofty to the eye. More grandiose and mysterious
+than under the fierce light of a sunny noontide
+appeared that day the three giant pillared forms, as
+we entered the precincts of the ruined city by the
+Siren’s Gate, and made our way through the thick
+herbage still pearled with dew, since there was neither
+sunshine nor sirocco to dry <q>the tears of mournful
+Eve</q> off the clumps of silver-glinted acanthus, or the
+tall grasses bending with the moisture. In the warm
+humid air we seated ourselves on the plinth of a
+column, and gazing around allowed the influence of
+this marvellous spot to sink deep into the soul. No
+<pb n='218'/><anchor id='Pg218'/>tourists with unseemly or unnecessary chatter arrived
+that day to share our selfish delight or to break the
+all-pervading spell of solitude; all lay peaceful and
+deserted. All was silent too save for the low
+monotonous sobbing of the sea on the unseen beach
+near at hand, the historic beach on which at various
+times throughout the roll of past ages Doric colonists,
+Epirot warriors, Roman legionaries and fierce Mohammedan
+pirates had disembarked, all with the same
+object:—to seize the proud city that had now for
+the last thousand years lain uninhabited, save for
+the owls and the bats. It was too cloudy a day for
+sun-loving creatures such as lizards or serpents to
+emerge and rustle amongst the broken stones and
+leaves, over all of which during the silent hours of
+the past night Arachne had been employed in weaving
+her softest and whitest textures, that the windless
+morning had allowed to remain intact. The only sign
+of animate life was visible in a pair of lively gold-finches,
+which with merry notes were fluttering from
+thistle to thistle, picking the down from each ripened
+flower-head and prodigally scattering the seeds upon
+the weed-grown soil where once had bloomed the
+odorous Roses of Paestum that the poets loved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sitting thus amid the silence and solitude of a city
+half as old as Time itself, we were unexpectedly
+aroused by a gruff salutation proceeding from a little
+distance behind the temple. Turning quickly in the
+direction of the sound, we perceived the figure of a
+tall bearded man dressed in conical hat, with goat-skin
+trousers and cross-gartered legs, who but for the gun
+slung across his shoulders by a stout leathern strap
+might well have been mistaken for an apparition of
+<pb n='219'/><anchor id='Pg219'/>the god Pan himself returned to earth. Vague recollections
+of the brigand Manzoni, the scourge of the
+neighbourhood and the murderer of more than one
+unhappy visitor to the ruins of Paestum in the good
+old <hi rend='italic'>vetturino</hi> days, flashed through our mind, as we
+surveyed the muscular frame and the fowling-piece
+of the strange being before us. It was with a sigh
+of relief that we noted upon the straight stretch of
+white road leading to the Little Temple in the distance
+the presence of two royal <hi rend='italic'>carabinieri</hi> majestically
+riding at a foot’s pace, their tall forms enveloped in
+long black cloaks whose folds swept over their horses’
+tails. We felt reassured, and when for a second
+time the guttural voice addressed us in unintelligible
+<hi rend='italic'>patois</hi>, we perceived the innocent object of this
+mysterious visit. Searching in a capacious goat-skin
+bag, a species of Neapolitan sporran, this descendant
+of the Poseidonian Greeks produced and held up to
+our gaze three birds that he had shot in his morning’s
+hunting. For the modest sum of three lire the game
+exchanged hands, and the sportsman departed, well
+satisfied with his luck. Next evening we feasted
+royally in our inn at Salerno upon a succulent woodcock
+fattened upon the berries of the wood of Persano,
+and upon a couple of snipe that had grown plump
+amongst the Neptunian marshes. Nor was this dainty
+addition to our supper that night altogether undeserved;
+for having decided in a momentary fit of
+enthusiasm to forego the usual basket of hotel food
+at the time of starting from Salerno, in order to follow
+the advice of old Evelyn <q>to diet with the natives,</q>
+we had preferred to take our chance of midday refreshment
+at the solitary <hi rend='italic'>osteria</hi> within the ruined
+<pb n='220'/><anchor id='Pg220'/>city wall. The good people of the inn did what they
+could to regale the two <hi rend='italic'>gran’ signori Inglesi</hi>, whose
+unexpected presence had the effect of creating some
+stir within their humble walls. No little time was
+expended in bustling preparations, before a flask of
+red wine, some coarse bread, a dish of fried eggs and
+a plateful of cold sausage were placed before us upon
+the rough oak table, well scored with knife-cuts.
+Eggs, wine and bread are usually tolerable everywhere
+throughout Italy, no matter how mean the inn that provides
+them; but the Lucanian sausage, though interesting
+as a relic of classical times, is positive poison to
+the Anglo-Saxon digestion. For the Lucanian sausage
+of to-day is the <hi rend='italic'>Lucanica</hi> unchanged; the same tough,
+greasy, odoriferous compound, in fact, that Cicero
+describes as <q>an intestine, stuffed with minced pork,
+mixed with ground pepper, cummin, savory, rue,
+rock-parsley, berries of laurel, and suet.</q> And we
+have only to add that mingling with the above-mentioned
+condiments there was an all-pervading
+flavour of wood-smoke, due to the sausage’s place of
+storage, a hook within the kitchen chimney. But if
+the fare was rough, it was cheap and smacked of
+classical times, and our reception by the Paestani of
+to-day was most cordial.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We left Poseidonia late in the afternoon, casting
+back many regretful glances at the three giant sentinels
+of the plain, looming preternaturally large in the
+rapidly fading light of a starless evening. At that
+hour we felt we could understand and sympathise
+with the poor untutored peasant’s fear and avoidance
+of these lonely ruins, for superstition is often as much
+the result of chance environment as of crass ignorance.
+</p>
+</div><div n="10" rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n='221'/><anchor id='Pg221'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="10: Sorrento and its Poet"/>
+<head>CHAPTER X</head>
+
+<head type="sub">SORRENTO AND ITS POET</head>
+
+<p>
+It has been said of more than one spot on this
+globe, that it was so beautiful in summer the
+marvel was to think any one could die there; and so
+wretched in winter, it was a miracle for its inhabitants
+to survive. Sorrento may be said to belong to this
+class of place, for the climate of its short winter is one
+of the most trying and inclement that can possibly be
+imagined, whilst during spring, summer and early
+autumn it well merits its local reputation as <hi rend='italic'>il piccolo
+paradiso</hi> of the Bay of Naples, and its air is considered
+by Neapolitans as the <q>balm in Gilead</q> for every evil
+to which human flesh is heir. The Lactarian Mountains
+protect the plain of Sorrento in summer from the
+scorching rays of the sun, and lay their beneficent
+shadow for several hours of the long hot summer’s day
+over the many thousands who dwell on the fertile
+Piano di Sorrento at their base. But in winter these
+same hills intercept the blessed sunshine, which is what
+most travellers speed southwards to obtain, and leave
+the coast line from Castellamare to the Punta di
+Sorrento with its northern aspect wrapped in shade
+and moisture, whilst the remainder of the Bay is still
+basking in the genial warmth, so that anything more
+miserable than a mid-winter sojourn in Sorrento it
+<pb n='222'/><anchor id='Pg222'/>would be impossible to conceive. There are of course
+calm warm days to be met with even in December and
+January, but these are occasional and by no means
+dependable blessings, and the visitor who persists in
+taking up his abode here at this season of the year
+must prepare himself to experience cold, damp, wind
+and rain, without any of the contrivances or comforts
+of a northern winter. <q>One swallow does not make a
+summer,</q> and on the same principle a southern latitude
+and the presence of orange groves do not necessarily
+imply a salubrious climate; indeed, the sub-tropical
+surroundings seem to add an extra degree of chilliness
+to the place. To sit at Christmastide in a large lofty
+room before a meagre fire of sputtering smoky logs,
+with Vesuvius wrapped from crest to base in a white
+mantle of new fallen snow, and with an icy <hi rend='italic'>tramontana</hi>
+from the bleak Abruzzi howling round the house, bending
+the bay trees and penetrating into every corner of
+the chamber, is by no means the ideal picture of a
+winter in the Sunny South; yet this is only what the
+traveller must be prepared to face, and is very likely to
+obtain. Nor is the cold compensated for by any
+advantages in the neighbourhood itself, for there is but
+the high road from Castellamare which passes through
+the town and leads above the seashore to Massa
+Lubrense. It is all very well in its way, but in wet
+weather its surface is one sheet of slippery mud, and
+the streams pouring down the hillside make it chilly
+and damp for all who are not quick walkers. Besides
+this not very attractive and soon exploited walk, there
+are only the <hi rend='italic'>vicoletti</hi>, the narrow steep rocky paths
+running up hill, which make rough going and give
+little pleasure, for they are almost all bounded on either
+<pb n='223'/><anchor id='Pg223'/>side by high stone walls that jealously exclude the
+view. So much for Sorrento in its winter dress. But
+when the spring comes, here truly is a transformation
+from cold and torpor! The soft warm air is redolent
+of the penetrating fragrance of orange blossom, of
+stocks, of jessamine, of wallflower, and of a hundred
+odorous plants and shrubs from each garden and grove
+behind the many obstructing walls. The balconies
+and gate-pillars are draped in scented masses of the
+beautiful wistaria, which in Italy produces its long
+pendant bunches of purple flowers before putting forth
+its bronze-coloured leaves. Cascades of white and
+yellow banksia roses fall over each confining barrier,
+or else their stems may be seen climbing like huge
+serpents up the trunks of pine and olive, to burst forth
+amidst the topmost boughs into floral rockets against
+the cloudless sky. The ravines with which the whole
+of the Piano di Sorrento is intersected are filled with
+a perfect jungle of fresh spring foliage, amidst whose
+varied tints of green appear here and there the bright
+red shoots of the pomegranate trees bursting into leaf.
+In the heavily perfumed air at dusk, or when the
+bright moonlight is flooding the whole scene and is
+turning the Bay into a mirror of molten silver, the song
+of the innumerable nightingales can be heard resounding
+from all sides; alas! too often sweet songs of
+sorrow for nests despoiled by the ruthless hands of
+young Sorrentine imps, as in the days of the Georgics.
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Qualis populeâ mærens Philomela sub umbrâ</q></l>
+<l>Amissos queritur fetus, quos durus arator</l>
+<l>Observans nido implumes detraxit, at illa</l>
+<l>Flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Integrat, et mœstis late loca questibus implet.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<pb n='224'/><anchor id='Pg224'/>
+
+<lg>
+<l>(<q rend="post: none">At nightfall hear sad Philomel upraise</q></l>
+<l>Her mellow notes amid the dark-leaved bays,</l>
+<l>Mourning her babes and desecrated bower,</l>
+<l>Which some rough peasant robbed in evil hour;</l>
+<l>She tells her story of despair and love,</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Until her plaintive music fills the grove.</q>)</l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+All is fragrant, warm, genial, and peaceful, save for
+the melancholy notes of poor ill-used Philomel, who
+is foolish enough to visit a cruel country, wherein
+every bird is merely regarded as a toothsome morsel
+for the family pot. We bird-lovers of Britain, with
+our Selborne Societies and our Wild Birds’ Protection
+Acts, find it extremely difficult to understand the
+utter indifference displayed by Italians of all classes
+towards the feathered race. The whole of the beautiful
+country with its cypress hedges and olive groves
+lies almost mute and lifeless, for on every festival the
+fields and lanes are patrolled by bands of <hi rend='italic'>cacciatori</hi>
+with dogs and guns on the look-out for game, if
+blackbirds and sparrows can be accounted such. In
+some districts it is even dangerous for pedestrians to
+use the roads on a Sunday, for fear of a stray bullet,
+since all, as a rule, fire recklessly at any creature
+within and out of range. Nor is this senseless war
+of extermination carried on merely with guns, for
+trapping is used extensively, and very ingenious and
+elaborate are some of the arts employed in this
+wretched quest. Every country house has its <hi rend='italic'>uccellare</hi>,
+or snare for the securing of small birds for the table,
+whilst many of the parish priests in the mountain
+districts add to their scanty incomes by catching the
+fledglings which the young peasants sell in the
+neighbouring market. The result is what might
+<pb n='225'/><anchor id='Pg225'/>only naturally be expected—a scarcity of birds and
+an almost complete absence of song, for the whole
+countryside has been practically denuded of blackbirds
+and thrushes; even the nightingale has escaped
+destruction rather on account of its nocturnal habits
+than of its tiny size and exquisite notes. It is positively
+sickening to observe the quantities of slaughtered
+wild birds in an Italian market at any season of the
+year, for the work of devastation proceeds apace
+equally in spring time. Basketfuls of thrushes and
+blackbirds, and strings of smaller varieties—linnets,
+sparrows, robins, finches, even the diminutive gold-finches,
+most beautiful, most gay, and most innocent
+of all songsters—are being hawked about by leathern-lunged
+<hi rend='italic'>contadini</hi>, who, alas! always manage to find
+customers in plenty. No matter how melodious, how
+lovely, or how useful to the farmer a bird may be, no
+Italian, high or low, seems to have any sense or
+appreciation of its merits except as an article of
+food; it is merely a thing that requires to be caught,
+killed, cooked and eaten, and Providence has decreed
+its existence for no other purpose; even gold-finches
+in the eye of an Italian look better served on a
+skewer than when they are flying round the thistle-heads,
+uttering their bright musical notes and enlivening
+the dead herbage of winter with their gay
+plumage. <hi rend='italic'>Che bel arrosto!</hi> (what a glorious dish!)
+sigh the romantic peasants, as they glance upward
+for a moment from their labour in the fields at the
+sound of the larks carolling overhead; and though
+an educated Italian would probably not give vent to
+so vulgar a remark, he would much prefer the <hi rend='italic'>bel
+arrosto</hi> to the <q>profuse strains of unpremeditated art</q>
+<pb n='226'/><anchor id='Pg226'/>that so entrance the northerner, who is in reality far
+more of a poet by nature than the more picturesque
+dweller of the South. <hi rend='italic'>Tantum pro avibus.</hi>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As summer advances, the delight of bathing in the
+limpid waters of the Bay is added to the other attractions
+of Sorrento, whilst many pleasant and profitable
+hours can be passed in reading or writing during the
+long midday rest in the cool airy carpetless and
+curtainless rooms, where on the frescoed ceilings there
+plays the green shimmer of light that penetrates
+through the closed bars of the <hi rend='italic'>persiani</hi>, the outside
+heavy wooden shutters that let in the sweet air, but
+somehow seem to exclude the intense heat. With
+the approach of sunset and the throwing open of
+casements to catch the westerly breeze, there comes
+a delightful ramble, perhaps an excursion on mule-back
+to the famous convent of the Deserto or some
+other point of interest; or else a row upon the glassy
+waters at our feet, to explore <q>Queen Joanna’s Bath,</q>
+or some strange caverns beyond the headland of
+Sorrento, well known to our boat-men. That is the
+true life of <hi rend='italic'>dolce far niente</hi>, but such an ideal existence
+can only be indulged in during summer time or in
+late spring; to pass a winter at Sorrento the heaviest
+of clothing, abundance of overcoats and rugs, hot-water
+bottles, cough drops, ammoniated quinine and
+all the usual adjuncts of a northern yule-tide must
+be carefully provided before-hand by the traveller,
+who is bold enough to tempt Providence by turning
+what is essentially a warm weather retreat into a place
+of winter residence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In early autumn also the place has its charms, in
+the days when the market is filled with stalls heaped
+<pb n='227'/><anchor id='Pg227'/>with glowing masses of fruit, many of them unknown
+to us wanderers from the north. There are peaches
+that resemble our own fruit at home, and there are
+also great yellow flushed velvety globes, like the sun-kissed
+cheeks of a fair Sorrentina, that appear tempting
+to the eye, but are in reality tough as leather, for
+they are the <hi rend='italic'>cotogni</hi> or quince-peaches of Italy, which
+to our feeble palates and digestions seem only fit for
+cooking, though the experienced native contrives to
+make them edible by soaking the fruit in wine. The
+moment he sits down to table, he carefully pares his
+<hi rend='italic'>cotogne</hi> and cuts it into sections, which he drops into
+a glass of red wine where they repose until the meal
+is finished; by this time the fruit has become
+thoroughly saturated, and it is then eaten with
+apparent relish. There are hundreds of apples, some
+of a shining rich crimson and others of dull yellow
+peppered over with tiny black specks, the <hi rend='italic'>renati</hi>, highly
+prized by the natives for their delicate flavour and
+soft flesh. There are of course loads of grapes,
+varying from the little honey-tasting purple sort, that
+has been introduced from California, to the huge but
+somewhat insipid bunches of the white <hi rend='italic'>Regina</hi>; we
+note also the quaintly shaped <q>Ladies’ Fingers,</q>
+which are especially sweet. The figs, massed together
+in serried layers between fresh vine leaves and costing
+a <hi rend='italic'>soldo</hi> the dozen, stand around in glossy purple
+pyramids, so luscious that their sugary tears are
+exuding from their skins, and so ripe that they seem
+to cry to be eaten before noon. Here is a barrow
+piled high with the little green fruit, each separate
+fig being decorated with a pink cyclamen stuck in its
+crest; and here is a smaller load of the black <hi rend='italic'>Vescovo</hi>,
+<pb n='228'/><anchor id='Pg228'/>which is said to obtain its ecclesiastical name from
+the fact that the parent stock of this highly esteemed
+variety originally flourished in the bishop’s garden at
+Sorrento. No one who has not visited the shores of
+the Mediterranean in September or early October can
+realize the luscious possibilities of the fig; for there
+seems nothing in common between the freshly-picked
+fruit of the south, bursting its skin with liquid sugar,
+and the dry sweetish woolly object which tries to
+ripen on the sheltered wall of an English garden and
+is eaten with apparent gusto by those who know not
+its Italian brother. Being autumn, we have missed
+one prominent feature of the fruit market, the great
+green-skinned water-melons (<hi rend='italic'>poponi</hi>) with their rose-coloured
+pulp and masses of coal-black seeds, which
+form the favourite summer fruit of the people, who
+find both food and drink in their cool nutritious
+flesh. But even gayer and more striking than the
+fruits are the piles of vegetables, arranged with a fine
+appreciation of colour to which only an Italian eye
+can aspire. Carrots, turnips, tomatoes, purple-headed
+cauliflowers, all the broccoli and many others to be
+observed are old familiar friends, but who in England
+ever saw such gorgeous objects on a coster’s stall or
+in a green-grocer’s shop as the yellow, scarlet and
+shining green pods of the <hi rend='italic'>peperoni</hi>, or the banana-shaped
+egg-plants of iridescent purple, or the split
+pumpkins, revealing caverns of saffron-hued pulp
+within? Truly, the Sorrentine market contains a
+feast of colour to satisfy the craving of an artist!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At vintage time the whole Piano di Sorrento reeks
+with the vinous scent of the spilt juice, that is carelessly
+thrown on to the stone-paved roads by the
+<pb n='229'/><anchor id='Pg229'/>jolting of the country carts which bring in the great
+wooden tubs, so that the very streets seem to run with
+the crimson ooze. Slender youths in yet more slender
+clothing, with legs purple-stained from treading the
+grapes (for in the South wine is still made on the
+primitive plan), are to be met with on all sides, playing
+at their favourite game of bowls on the public road,
+in order to relieve their brains of the pungent fumes
+of the fermenting grape juice. Somehow at the very
+thought of a Campanian vintage with its long hot
+dusty days, its bare-legged brown-skinned peasants
+treading the pulp, and its all-pervading aroma of wine-lees,
+there rise to memory the truly inspired lines of
+John Keats:
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">O for a draught of vintage, that hath been</q></l>
+<l>Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,</l>
+<l>Tasting of Flora and the country-green,</l>
+<l>Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth!</l>
+<l>O for a beaker full of the warm South,</l>
+<l>Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,</l>
+<l>With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 4'><q rend="pre: none">And purple-stained mouth.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+But all these joys of odorous gardens made musical
+by nightingales, of morning plunges into the blue
+Mediterranean, of the wealth of southern fruit and the
+novel delights of the vintage are not for the winter
+traveller, who had far better spend the December or
+January days of his visit to the Bay in a steam-heated
+Neapolitan hotel, rather than face the cold and wet in
+a Sorrentine inn on its overhanging cliff. Nevertheless
+the warm autumn often extends itself into a continuous
+St Martin’s summer, that lasts almost until the New
+Year, before skies grow clouded and the snow-flakes
+<pb n='230'/><anchor id='Pg230'/>descend upon the vineyards and the lava streams of
+Vesuvius. Nothing can be pleasanter in fact than
+some of the long walks in a sharp exhilarating air, and
+though days are short and nights are often chilly, one
+can sometimes linger on comfortably in Sorrento,
+though it is as well to be prepared for departure in
+case of a sudden spell of stormy weather, for winter
+sunshine is a necessity, not a luxury, on the Piano di
+Sorrento.
+</p>
+<anchor id="illus17"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: AFTERNOON, SORRENTO]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus17th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus17.jpg">AFTERNOON, SORRENTO</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: AFTERNOON, SORRENTO</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+Unlike other towns upon the Bay of Naples,
+Sorrento is divided into two distinct portions; the city
+on the cliffs, with its streets and squares, its cathedral
+and ancient walls, its villas and gay gardens; and the
+Marina, lying at the mouth of the gorge below, close
+to the water’s edge. The population of Upper
+Sorrento is agricultural and labouring, whilst that of
+the lower consists entirely of fisher-folk and sailors;
+it is needless to add that the latter are far less prosperous
+than their fellow-citizens who live over-head. Until
+recent times little communication between these two
+sets of Sorrentines took place and intermarriages were
+rare, for the sea-faring population only ascended to the
+town above and intermingled with the people of Upper
+Sorrento on the great occasions of local festivals, such
+as the enthronement or funeral of a bishop. Nor has
+the levelling spirit of the age as yet broken down the
+deep-rooted feeling of local clannishness; although it
+cannot be long before time-honoured customs and
+prejudices will be swept away in the tidal wave of
+modern development. One of the chief industries of
+the place is the manufacture of scarves and sashes of
+rich silk woven in cross bars of strong contrasting
+colours, so that the Sorrentine silk work strongly
+<pb n='231'/><anchor id='Pg231'/>resembles the well-known Roman variety. Equally
+popular with visitors are the various articles made of
+olive wood and decorated in <hi rend='italic'>tarsia</hi>, the art of inlaying
+with pieces of stained wood, which is a speciality
+of the place. There are two kinds of this Sorrentine
+inlaid work; one consisting of figures of peasants
+dancing the <hi rend='italic'>tarantella</hi>, of Pompeian maidens in classical
+drapery, of <hi rend='italic'>contadini</hi> or priests bestriding mules, and
+of similar local subjects; and the other, of fanciful
+patterns made up of tiny coloured cubes of wood,
+much in the style of the old Roman stone mosaics.
+The designs employed vary of course with the fashion
+of the day, for there is a local school of art supported
+by the municipality, which professes to improve the
+tastes of the <hi rend='italic'>tarsiatori</hi>, but most persons will certainly
+prefer the trite but characteristic patterns of the place.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the main industry of Sorrento consists in the
+culture of the orange; and the dark groves, covered
+with their globes of shining yellow fruit, <q>like golden
+lamps in a green light,</q> to quote Andrew Marvell’s
+charming conceit, constitute the chief feature of its
+environs. Even the coat-of-arms of the medieval city,
+showing a golden crown encircled by a wreath of the
+dark glossy leaves, attests the antiquity of this industry
+here. The cultivation of the orange in Southern Italy
+is by no means an easy pursuit, though under favourable
+conditions it may prove a very lucrative one, even
+in a spot so subject to sudden changes of temperature
+as Sorrento in winter time, when a continuance of
+severe weather, like that experienced around Naples
+in the opening months of the year 1905, means total
+destruction of the fruit crop and temporary ruin to the
+owners.
+</p>
+
+<pb n='232'/><anchor id='Pg232'/>
+
+<p>
+The fruit of commerce is propagated by means of
+grafting the sweet variety on to the stock of the bitter
+orange—said on doubtful authority to be indigenous
+to this district—which is fairly hardy and can be
+grown in the open as far north as Tuscany, so that
+every <hi rend='italic'>aranciaria</hi> ought to possess a nursery of flourishing
+young sweet-orange shoots, ready in case of
+necessity. For eight long years the grafted tree
+remains as a rule profitless, but having survived and
+thriven so long, it then becomes a valuable asset to its
+proprietor for an indefinite period;—as a proof of the
+longevity of the orange under normal conditions we
+may cite the famous tree in a Roman convent garden,
+which on good authority is stated to have been planted
+by St Dominic nearly six hundred years ago. As to
+the amount of fruit yielded, the growers of Sorrento
+commonly aver that one good year, one bad year and
+one mediocre year constitute the general cycle in the
+prospects of orange farming. Two crops are gathered
+annually, the principle one in December and the other
+at Eastertide, the fruit produced by the later and
+smaller crop being far finer in size and flavour than
+those of the Christmas harvest. Mandarin oranges
+are gathered on both occasions, but the large luscious
+loose-skinned fruit of March and April—<hi rend='italic'>Portogalli</hi> as
+they are commonly termed—are far superior to the
+small hard specimens that appear in December, and
+seem to consist of little else than rind, scent and seeds.
+The oranges begin to form in spring time, almost
+before the petals have fallen, when the peasants
+anxiously draw their conclusions as to the expected
+yield. But however valuable the fruit, the wood of
+the tree is worthless for commerce, except to make
+<pb n='233'/><anchor id='Pg233'/>walking-sticks, or to serve the ignoble purpose of
+supplying hotels and cafés with tooth-picks! Lemons,
+which are far more delicate than oranges and require
+to be kept protected by screens and matting during
+the sharp winter nights, are less common at Sorrento
+than on the warmer shores of the Bay of Baia or the
+sunny terraced slopes of the Amalfitan coast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the ripening of the oranges on the trees appear
+those strange creatures from the wilds of the Basilicata
+or Calabria, the <hi rend='italic'>Zampognari</hi>,  who visit Naples and the
+surrounding district in considerable numbers. They
+usually arrive about the date of the great popular
+festival of the Immaculate Conception (December 8th)
+and remain until the end of the month, when they
+return to their homes with well-filled purses. In
+outward aspect these strangers resemble the stage-brigands
+that appear in such old-fashioned operas as
+<hi rend='italic'>Fra Diavolo</hi>, for they wear steeple-crowned hats with
+coloured ribands depending, shaggy goat-skin trousers,
+crimson velvet waistcoats, blue cloaks, sandalled feet
+and gartered legs. Their pale faces are unshorn, and
+their hair hangs in great tawny masses over neck
+and ears, which are invariably adorned with golden
+rings. These fellows come in pairs, one only, properly
+speaking, being the <hi rend='italic'>zampognaro</hi>, for it is he who carries
+the <hi rend='italic'>zampogna</hi> or classical bag-pipe of Southern Italy,
+whilst his companion is the <hi rend='italic'>cennamellaro</hi>, so called
+from his ear-splitting instrument, the <hi rend='italic'>cennamella</hi>, a
+species of primitive flute. The <hi rend='italic'>zampogna</hi> may be
+described as first cousin to the historic bag-pipes of
+Caledonia, for the sounds emitted strongly resemble
+the traditional <q>skirling</q> of the pipes; but no Scotchman
+even could pretend to delight in the shrill notes
+<pb n='234'/><anchor id='Pg234'/>of the <hi rend='italic'>cennamella</hi>. The former at least of these two
+popular instruments of southern Italy was well known
+to the omniscient author of the Shakespearean plays,
+for in <hi rend='italic'>Othello</hi> we have a direct allusion to the uncouth
+braying music still made to-day by these outlandish
+musicians.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>Why, masters, have your instruments been in
+Naples, that they speak i’ the nose thus?... Are
+these, I pray you, wind instruments?... Then put
+up your pipes in your bag, for I’ll away: go; vanish
+into air; away!</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the midst of their instrumental duet the two
+shaggy mountaineers are apt to break into a harsh
+nasal hymn in honour of the Virgin, to visit whose
+shrines at this season of the orange harvest is the main
+object of their Christmas migration to the Neapolitan
+shores. Very tastefully decorated are many of the
+Madonna’s little sanctuaries in or near the orange
+groves, when the arrival of the <hi rend='italic'>zampognari</hi> is considered
+imminent. The tiny lamps are well trimmed and
+shine brightly, whilst heavy garlands composed of
+masses of bay or laurel or ilex leaves, interspersed
+with some of the golden clusters of the ripening fruit
+are suspended round the alcove that holds the figure
+of the Virgin. This effective but simple form of
+ornamentation will at once suggest the beautiful glazed
+and coloured terra-cotta wreaths of fruit and foliage
+that are to be seen so frequently in Tuscan churches;
+indeed, it is possible that the members of the Della
+Robbia family may have originally borrowed the
+decorative schemes for their famous plaques and
+lunettes from the rustic shrines thus simply but tastefully
+embellished. Nominally, the two performers
+<pb n='235'/><anchor id='Pg235'/>are supposed to sing and make music on nine different
+days at the houses of all their patrons in order to
+make up the total number of the <hi rend='italic'>novena</hi>, but the
+extent of their performances is generally calculated in
+accordance with the depth of the householder’s purse,
+the sum given for their services varying from a few
+<hi rend='italic'>soldi</hi> to a five <hi rend='italic'>lire</hi> note. All classes of society employ
+the zampognari, for it is with the first appearance of
+the lovely golden fruit, essentially <hi rend='italic'>the</hi> winter fruit of
+the Italians, that the arrival of these picturesque
+strangers has been associated from time immemorial.
+The <hi rend='italic'>zampognari</hi> are in fact as much of a national
+institution with the Neapolitans at Christmastide as
+are the waits or carol-singers in our own country, so
+that to the majority of these people <hi rend='italic'>Natale senza
+zampogna e cennamella</hi> would seem no true Christmas
+at all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Closely connected with the life of the people of the
+Piano di Sorrento is the famous dance known as the
+<hi rend='italic'>Tarantella</hi>, which may be witnessed by the curious at
+almost any time—for money. Even when performed
+by professional dancers, tricked out in spick and span
+stage-peasant finery, the Tarantella is a most graceful
+exhibition of movement, although the dance naturally
+gains in interest when it takes place in the days of
+vintage or on the popular festivals of the Church,
+without the presence of largesse-giving strangers.
+The origin of the name has always puzzled antiquarians,
+although in all probability the dance derives its curious
+appellation from the Greek city of Taranto, whence
+the Tarentines introduced its steps and action into
+other parts of Italy. But vulgar belief is very strong,
+so that this graceful dance is still closely associated in
+<pb n='236'/><anchor id='Pg236'/>the popular mind with the <hi rend='italic'>tarantula</hi>, a kind of
+poisonous spider found in the neighbourhood of
+Taranto, the effects of whose bite are said to yield to
+violent exercise followed by profuse perspiration. In
+order to excite the proper amount of exertion
+necessary for the cure, the person afflicted, <hi rend='italic'>il tarantolato</hi>,
+is induced to leap and caper by the sound of music,
+with the result that there exist a number of tunes
+specially connected with this wild species of dancing.
+The real explanation of this fable seems to lie in the
+extremely excitable nature of the Tarentines themselves,
+assisted by the exhilarating music and by frequent
+pulls at the wine barrel. The two lines sung to the
+air of one of the tunes employed:
+</p>
+
+<lg rend="margin-left: 6">
+<l><q rend="post: none">Non fu Taranta, ne fu Tarantella,</q></l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Ma fu la vino della carratella:</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p rend="display">
+(<q>It was neither the taranta, nor the tarantella, but it was the
+wine from the cask.</q>)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+sums up pretty accurately the real cause of these
+strange Tarentine orgies, which have really nothing
+whatever in common with the rhythmical dance that is
+still so popular in the environs of Naples. Nevertheless
+the theory of <hi rend='italic'>tarantella</hi> and <hi rend='italic'>tarantismo</hi> has been
+gravely discussed by old Italian writers, and a certain
+learned prelate of the fifteenth century, Niccolo
+Perotto, Archbishop of Siponto, alludes to the
+malignant cause of this dance-cure as <q>a species of
+speckled spider, dwelling in rents of the ground
+caused by excessive heat. It was not known in the
+time of our fore-fathers, but now it is very common
+in Apulia ... and is generally called <hi rend='italic'>Tarantula</hi>.
+Its bite seldom kills a man, yet it makes him half
+<pb n='237'/><anchor id='Pg237'/>stupid, and affects him in a variety of ways. Some,
+when a song or tune is heard, are so excited that
+they dance, full of joy and always laughing, and do
+not stop till they are entirely exhausted; others
+spend a miserable life in tears, as if bewailing the
+loss of friends. Some die laughing, and others in
+tears.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such is the curious legend concerning the origin of
+the Tarantella, which is still danced with something
+of the old spirit by the holiday-making crowds of
+Naples, though it is at the <hi rend='italic'>festa</hi> of San Michele, the
+patron of Procida, that the Tarantella can now be
+seen to best advantage. Of the three islands that lie
+close to Naples, Procida is the least known or visited
+by strangers, so that when the Tarantella is danced by
+the Procidani, the old-fashioned popular orchestra is
+employed to give the necessary music. This consists
+of five quaint instruments (obviously of Oriental origin
+as their counterparts can still be seen amongst the
+Kabyles of Northern Africa): the first being a fife
+(<hi rend='italic'>siscariello</hi>); the second a tin globe covered with skin
+pierced by a piece of cane (<hi rend='italic'>puti-puti</hi>); the third a
+wooden saw and a split stick, making a primitive bow
+and fiddle (<hi rend='italic'>scetavaiasse</hi>); the fourth an arrangement of
+three wooden mallets, that are rattled together like a
+gigantic pair of bones (<hi rend='italic'>tricca-ballache</hi>); and the fifth a
+Jew’s harp (<hi rend='italic'>scaccia-pensieri</hi>). A tarantella danced to
+the accompaniment of so weird a medley of instruments
+and by real peasants full of gaiety is naturally a
+thing altogether diverse from the stilted, though graceful
+and decorous performance that can be observed
+any day for payment in a Sorrentine or Neapolitan
+hotel; yet it must ever be borne in mind that the
+<pb n='238'/><anchor id='Pg238'/>Tarantella proper, whether danced <hi rend='italic'>con amore</hi> by Procidan
+peasants or performed for lucre by costumed
+professionals, is no vulgar frenzied <hi rend='italic'>can-can</hi>, but a
+musical love-dance expressive of primitive courtship.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>The Tarantella is a choregraphic love-story, the
+two dancers representing an enamoured swain and his
+mistress. It is the old theme—<q>the quarrel of lovers
+is the renewal of love.</q> Enraptured gaze, coy side-look,
+gallant advance, timid retrocession, impassioned
+declaration, supercilious rejection, piteous supplication,
+softening hesitation; worldly goods oblation, gracious
+acceptation; frantic jubilation, maidenly resignation.
+Petting, wooing, billing, cooing. Jealous accusation,
+sharp recrimination, manly expostulation, shrewish
+aggravation; angry threat, summary dismissal. Fuming
+on one side, pouting on the other. Reaction,
+approximation, exclamation, exoneration, reconciliation,
+osculation, winding up with a grand <anchor id="corr238"/><corr sic="pas de circomstane"><hi rend='italic'>pas de circomstance</hi></corr>,
+expressive of confidence re-established and
+joy unbounded. That’s about the figure of it; but no
+word-painting can give an idea of the spirit, the <q>go</q>
+of the tarantella when danced for love and not for
+money.</q><note place="foot">W. J. A. Stamer: <hi rend='italic'>Dolce Napoli</hi>.</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On a modest scale Sorrento can lay claim to be
+called an eternal city, for the Surrentum of the ancient
+Romans was a place of no small importance, filled with
+villas of wealthy citizens and boasting a fair-sized
+population, as its numerous remains of antiquity can
+easily testify; whilst its crumbling ivy-clad walls and
+towers point to its prosperity during the Middle Ages,
+when Sorrento shared the political fortunes of Naples.
+It is now a busy thriving little cathedral town, and
+<pb n='239'/><anchor id='Pg239'/>the possessor of silk and <hi rend='italic'>tarsia</hi> work industries, so
+that like Imperial Rome it can boast a continuous
+existence as a city from remote times to the present
+day. Its chief local Saint—for what Italian town
+does not boast a special patron?—is Sant’ Antonio,
+whose most famous feat is said to have been the
+administering of a severe drubbing to Sicardo, Duke
+of Benevento, for daring to interfere with the liberties
+of his city in the ninth century. It would appear
+from the legend that all arguments as to ancient
+rights, the quality of mercy and the honour of keeping
+faith having been vainly exhausted upon the cruel and
+obstinate prince, Bishop Antonio came forward with
+a stout cudgel and belaboured the tyrant in order to
+obtain a favourable answer to the people’s petition.
+The sanctity of the pugnacious prelate and the force
+of this <hi rend='italic'>argumentum ad baculum</hi> were evidently too
+much for the Duke of Benevento, who at once conceded
+the popular demands, whilst Antonio’s name has
+deservedly descended to posterity as the capable protector
+of his native city.
+</p>
+<p rend="center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em">* * * * * *</p>
+<p>
+But the name which above all others Sorrento will
+cherish as her own, <q>so long as men shall read and
+eyes can see,</q> is that of the famous Italian poet, Torquato
+Tasso, whose interesting but melancholy life-story
+is closely associated with this, the town of his
+birth. Tasso is reckoned as the fourth greatest bard
+of Italy, ranking after Dante and Petrarch, and being
+esteemed on a level with rather than below his rival
+and contemporary, Ludovico Ariosto. In one sense
+however he may be described as the most truly national
+poet of this immortal quartet, for his career is
+con<pb n='240'/><anchor id='Pg240'/>nected with his native country as a whole, rather than
+with any one of the little cities or states then comprising
+that <q>geographical expression</q> which is now
+the Kingdom of Italy. His father’s family was
+of Lombard origin, having been long settled in the
+neighbourhood of Bergamo, where a crumbling hill-set
+fortress known as the Montagno del Tasso still recalls
+the name of the poet’s ancestors. His mother, Porzia
+de’ Rossi, was Tuscan by birth, her family haling from
+Pistoja at the foot of the Apennines, but owning property
+near Naples; whilst the poet himself was
+destined to spend his years of childhood at Sorrento
+and at Naples, his youth at Rome and Verona, his
+brilliant period of fame and prosperity at Ferrara and
+the Lombard courts, and again some of his closing
+years of disgrace and disappointment amidst the
+familiar scenes of his infancy. Of good ancient stock
+the Tassi owed their acquisition of wealth to the re-establishment
+of the system of posting throughout Northern Italy in the
+thirteenth century, when the immediate progenitor of the poet,
+one Omodeo de’ Tassi, was nominated comptroller, and it is
+curious to note that owing to this circumstance the arms of the
+family containing the posthorn and the badger’s skin—<hi rend='italic'>Tasso</hi>
+is the Italian for badger—continued to be borne for
+many centuries upon the harness of all
+Lombard coach-horses. Torquato’s father, Bernardo
+Tasso, himself a poet of no mean calibre and the
+composer of a scholarly but somewhat prolix work, the
+<hi rend='italic'>Amadigi</hi>, formed for many years a prominent member
+of that brilliant band of literary courtiers within the
+castle of Vittoria Colonna, the Lady of Ischia, of whom
+we shall speak more fully in another place. But for
+<pb n='241'/><anchor id='Pg241'/>the overwhelming and all-eclipsing fame of his distinguished
+son, Bernardo might have been able to claim
+a high place in the list of Italian writers of the
+Renaissance; as it was, the father’s undoubted talents
+were quickly forgotten in the blaze of his own beloved
+<q>Tassino’s</q> popularity, so that he is now chiefly remembered
+as the sire of a poetic genius, as one of <anchor id="corr241"/><corr sic="the the">the</corr>
+great Vittoria’s favourite satellites and as the author
+of an oft-quoted sonnet to his intellectual mistress.
+Bernardo Tasso did not marry until the somewhat
+mature age of forty-seven, when, as we have already
+said, he espoused the daughter of the Tuscan house of
+Rossi, by whom he had two children; a daughter,
+Cornelia, and the immortal Torquato, who was born in
+1544, three years before the death of the divine
+poetess of Ischia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Bernardo was not merely a bard and a courtier,
+for he was also, unfortunately for himself and his ill-fated
+family, a keen politician in an age when politics
+offered anything but a safe pursuit, and as his views
+invariably coincided with those of his chief friend and
+patron, the head of the powerful Sanseverino family,
+Tasso the Elder found himself in course of time an
+exile from Neapolitan territory on account of his
+dislike of the new Spanish masters of Naples. The
+poet-politician therefore took up his abode at Rome,
+whilst his wife and two young children continued to
+reside at Naples and Sorrento. The boy was a born
+student, almost an infant prodigy of learning, and so
+great was his desire for knowledge that he would
+insist upon rising long before it was day-light, and
+would even make his way to school through the dark
+dirty streets of Naples, conducted by a servant with a
+<pb n='242'/><anchor id='Pg242'/>torch in his hand. The Jesuits, who had just set up
+their first academy at Naples, soon discovered in the
+future poet an ideal pupil, and not only did they impart
+to the child all the lore of ancient Greece and
+Rome, but they also imbued his mind, at an age when
+it was <q>wax to receive and marble to retain,</q> with
+their own peculiar theological tenets. It is obvious
+indeed that the faith implanted by the Fathers in his
+tender years was largely, if not wholly answerable for
+the unswerving belief and firm religious convictions
+that ever stood Tasso in good stead throughout the
+whole of his chequered career. <q>Give me a child of
+seven years old,</q> had once declared the great Founder
+of the Society of Jesus, <q>and I care not who has the
+after-handling of him</q>; and in this case the Jesuit
+professors did not fail to carry out Loyola’s precept.
+But his home life with his mother, whom he loved
+devotedly, and his course of study at the Jesuit school
+were suddenly interrupted when he was barely ten
+years of age, for the elder Tasso was anxious for his
+little son to join him in Rome, there to be educated
+under his own eye. The boy left his mother, but
+after his departure the Rossi family brutally refused
+to allow their sister access to her absent husband,
+who had lately been declared a rebel against the
+Spanish government and deprived of his estates.
+Thus persecuted by her unfeeling brothers, Porzia
+Tasso sought refuge together with Cornelia in a
+Neapolitan convent, where, deprived of her erratic but
+beloved husband and pining for her absent son, the
+poor woman died of a broken heart a year or two
+later. As for Cornelia, she became affianced when
+of a marriageable age to a gentleman of Sorrento,
+<pb n='243'/><anchor id='Pg243'/>the Cavaliere Marzio Sersale, and consequently
+returned to live in the home of her childhood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of Tasso’s many adventures, of his universal literary
+fame, of the honours heaped upon him by his chief
+patron, Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, and of his subsequent
+disgrace and imprisonment for daring to lift his eyes
+in love to a princess of the haughty House of Este,
+we have no space to speak here. Let it suffice to say
+that he was one of the most charming, virtuous,
+brilliant, manly figures, as he was also almost the last
+true representative, of the great Italian Renaissance,
+the end of which may be described as coinciding with
+his decease. According to his biographer Manso, the
+author of the <hi rend='italic'>Gerusalemme Liberata</hi> was singularly
+noble and refined in appearance, though always
+possessed of an air of melancholy; he was well-built,
+strong, active and resourceful, anything in fact but a
+carpet-knight who spent his days in writing verse and
+dallying with Italian court beauties:
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Colla penna e colla spada,</q></l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Nessun val quanto Torquato;</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+sang the populace of Ferrara in honour of their
+illustrious Sorrentine guest, for the Ferrarese delighted
+in the handsome stranger who could in an emergency
+wield the sword as skilfully as he could ply his
+quill. Twice only however did Tasso revisit the city
+of his birth, and each return home was occasioned
+by deep tragedy. In 1577, wounded by the attacks
+of his literary rivals and humiliated by the Duke
+Alfonso’s discovery of his infatuation for the Princess
+Leonora d’Este, the unhappy poet travelled southward,
+reaching Sorrento in the disguise of a shepherd.
+<pb n='244'/><anchor id='Pg244'/>Making his way to the Casa Sersale, the house of his
+sister, now a widow with two sons, Torquato passed
+himself off as his own messenger, and so eloquently
+did he relate the story of his own grief and wrongs,
+that the tender-hearted Cornelia fainted away at this
+recital. Having satisfied his mind as to his sister’s
+genuine affection, the pseudo-shepherd now revealed
+his true character, whereupon the pair embraced with
+transports of joy, though it was deemed prudent not
+to acquaint their friends with the arrival of Torquato,
+who was represented to the good people of Sorrento
+as a distant relative from Bergamo. Cornelia Sersale
+now entreated the poet to take up his abode permanently
+in her house, and to forget the rebuffs of
+the cruel world without in the enjoyment of family
+ties and affections; and well would it have been for
+Torquato, had he accepted his sister’s advice and
+passed the succeeding years in simple rural pleasures.
+But restless and inconsequent despite all his virtues,
+the poet must needs return to Ferrara to bask in the
+presence of his beloved Leonora, with the dire and
+undignified result that all the world knows. Tasso’s
+second visit took place not long before his death,
+when his strength was rapidly failing, so that it seems
+strange that he did not decide to end his days amidst
+these lovely and well-remembered scenes of his early
+boyhood, instead of deliberately choosing for the last
+stage of his earthly journey the Roman convent of
+Sant’ Onofrio, where the death-chamber and various
+pathetic relics of the poet are still pointed out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Students of Tasso’s immortal epic are apt to overlook
+the immense influence exercised on its author by
+his early Sorrentine days and surroundings. The
+<pb n='245'/><anchor id='Pg245'/><hi rend='italic'>Gerusalemme Liberata</hi> contains, as we know, a full
+account of the First Crusade and constitutes an
+apotheosis of Godfrey de Bouillon, first Christian King
+of Jerusalem; but it is also something more than a
+mere poetical description of a departed age of chivalry.
+For there can be little doubt that the poet aspired to
+be the singer of a new movement which should wrest
+back the Holy City from the clutches of the Saracens,
+and set a second Godfrey upon the vacant throne of
+Palestine. To this important end the experiences of
+his infancy and his training by the Jesuits had undoubtedly
+tended to urge the precocious young poet.
+The servants of his father’s house at Sorrento must
+many a time have regaled his eager boyish mind with
+harrowing tales of the infidel pirates who scoured the
+Tyrrhene Sea within sight of the watch-towers on the
+coast; within ken, perchance, of Casa Tasso itself, perched
+on the commanding cliff above the waters. Scarcely
+a family dwelling on the Marina below but was mourning
+one or more of its members that had been seized
+by the blood-thirsty marauders, perhaps to be brutally
+slain on the spot or to languish in the dungeons of
+Tripoli and Smyrna, eking out a life of slavery that
+was far worse than death itself. Stories of tortured
+Christians, like that of the pious Geronimo of Algiers
+who was tied with cords and flung into a mass of soft
+concrete, were common enough topics among the
+Sorrentine folk, all of whom lived in constant dread
+of a successful raid by the Barbary pirates. For,
+despite the efforts of the great Emperor Charles the
+Fifth to protect his maritime subjects, the swift galleys
+of Tunis and Tripoli out-stripped the Imperial men-of-war,
+and continued to carry on their vile commerce
+<pb n='246'/><anchor id='Pg246'/>of slavery. Such a state of terrorism must have
+appeared intolerable to the highly romantic, deeply
+religious spirit of the young poet; and his Jesuit
+preceptors, working on the boy’s imagination, were
+soon able to instil into his youthful brain the notion
+of a new Crusade which would not only sweep the
+infidel ships from off the Italian seas, but would also recapture
+the Holy City itself. The Church, beginning
+at last to recover from the effects of Luther’s schism,
+was once more in a position to re-assert its ancient
+authority over Catholic Christendom, and in Torquato
+Tasso it found an able trumpeter to call together the
+scattered forces of the Faithful, and to reunite them
+in a holy war. Astonished and delighted, all Italy
+was swept by the golden torrent of Tasso’s impassioned
+verses, that were intended to urge the Catholic princes
+of Europe to the inauguration of a new Crusade. Nor
+were the times unpropitious for such an event. Tunis,
+that hot-bed of infidelity, piracy and iniquity, was in
+the hands of the Christians; and the fleets of the
+Soldan had been well-nigh annihilated by Don John
+of Austria at the glorious battle of Lepanto:—to
+convince a doubting and hesitating world that the
+actual moment had come wherein to recover the city
+of Jerusalem was the main object of the author of
+the <hi rend='italic'>Gerusalemme Liberata</hi>. And it was his infancy
+spent upon this smiling but pirate-harassed coast that
+was chiefly responsible for this desired end in the epic
+of the Crusades; it was Tasso’s early acquaintance
+with the Bay of Naples, combined with his special
+training by the Jesuits, that forced the poet’s genius
+and ambition into this particular channel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is pleasant to think that Sorrento is still
+appre<pb n='247'/><anchor id='Pg247'/>ciative of its honour as the birth-place of the great
+Italian poet. The citizens have erected a statue of
+marble in one of their open spaces; they have called
+street, hotel and <hi rend='italic'>trattoria</hi> by his illustrious name; and
+can the modern spirit of grateful acknowledgment go
+further than this? His father’s house has perished, it
+is true, through <q>Nature’s changing force untrimmed,</q>
+for the greedy waves have undermined and swallowed
+up the tufa cliff which once supported the old Tasso
+villa. But there is still standing in Strada di San
+Nicola the old Sersale mansion, wherein the good
+Cornelia received her long-lost brother in his peasant’s
+guise, an unhappy exile from haughty Ferrara. Of
+more interest however than the old town house of the
+Sersale family is the ancient farm, known as the Vigna
+Sersale, which once belonged to Donna Cornelia, and
+supplied her household with wine and oil. It is a
+lovely sequestered spot lying on the breezy hill-side
+not far down the Massa road, facing towards Capri
+and the sunset. Hallowed by its historic connection
+with the poet and his devoted sister, the Vigna Sersale
+can claim perhaps to be one of the most interesting
+and beautiful places of literary pilgrimage upon earth.
+Ascending by the steep pathway that leads upward
+from the broad high road, it is not long before we
+reach the old <hi rend='italic'>podere</hi>, amidst whose olive groves and
+vineyards the poet was wont to sit dreamily gazing at
+the glorious view before him. Here are the same
+ancient spreading stone-pines, the same gnarled olive
+trees that sheltered the gentle love-lorn poet, whilst
+Cornelia and her sons sate beside him in the shade,
+endeavouring—alas! only too vainly—by their caresses
+to detain the roving Torquato in their midst. Could
+<pb n='248'/><anchor id='Pg248'/>not, we ask ourselves, the erratic poet have been content
+to remain in this spot, <q>in questa terra alma e
+felice</q> as he himself styles it, instead of plunging once
+more into the dangers and dissipation of that Vanity
+Fair of distant Ferrara? Why could he not have
+brooded over his ill-starred infatuation for the high-born
+Leonora in this soothing corner of the earth,
+allowing its quiet and beauty to sink into his soul,
+until the recollection of his Innamorata declined
+gradually into a fragrant memory that could be
+embalmed in never-dying verse? But like his own
+favourite hero, the Christian King of Jerusalem, the
+poet must in his inmost heart have preferred a
+changing storm-tossed life to the ideal existence of
+rustic ease; and had he not returned to the treacherous
+splendours of Alfonso’s court, how much less
+entrancing would his own life-story have appeared to
+after ages! Unconsciously he seems to have composed
+his own epitaph in describing Godfrey’s death;
+for the crusading king lived and died like a true
+Christian knight, for whom the world has afforded
+many adventures, and but few intervals of peace until
+the final call to endless rest.
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Vivesti qual guerrier cristiano e santo,</q></l>
+<l>E come bel sei morto: ei godi, e pasci</l>
+<l>In Dio gli occhi bramosi, o felice alma,</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Ed hai del ben oprar corona e palma.</q></l>
+</lg>
+</div><div n="11" rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n='249'/><anchor id='Pg249'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="11: Capri and Tiberius the Tyrant"/>
+<head>CHAPTER XI</head>
+
+<head type="sub">CAPRI AND TIBERIUS THE TYRANT</head>
+
+<p>
+Lying between the classic capes of Misenum
+and Minerva, the island of Capri appears like
+a couched lion, guarding the entrance of the Bay
+of Naples; his majestic head being formed by the
+stupendous cliffs of the Salto that face the sunrise,
+whilst his back and loins are represented by the long
+broad slope which stretches from the summit of
+Monte Solaro to the most westerly headland of
+Vitareta. Nor is it only as a guardian to their
+Bay that Capri serves the Neapolitans, for it also
+presents them with a gigantic natural barometer.
+In fine settled weather a soft haze invariably lies
+over the sea, so that Capri is only faintly visible
+from the shores of Parthenope, save at sunrise and
+sunset, when for a short time the graceful form
+of the islet looms out clear-cut like a jagged amethyst
+upon a sapphire bed; but before rain or storm
+it yields up its inmost secrets to the public gaze
+of Naples. The northern Marina, the towns of
+Capri and Ana-Capri, even the little terraced fields
+become discernible to the naked eye: <q>It will
+be wet to-morrow</q> augur the weather-wise of Naples,
+and the prediction is rarely falsified.
+</p>
+<anchor id="illus18"/>
+<pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: FARAGLIONI ROCKS, CAPRI]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus18th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus18.jpg">FARAGLIONI ROCKS, CAPRI</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: FARAGLIONI ROCKS, CAPRI</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+It is an easy matter to cross from Sorrento to the
+<pb n='250'/><anchor id='Pg250'/>island, whether it be by the little steamer that plies daily
+between Naples and Capri, putting in at Sorrento on
+its journeys backwards and forwards, or—far pleasanter
+if somewhat slower way—by engaging a boat with
+four rowers, who on a calm day ought to make the
+Marina of Capri in less than two hours. Nothing
+can be more delightful or exhilarating than this old-fashioned
+method of transit; and it gives also a
+feeling of superiority over less enterprising persons
+who prefer the quicker passage on a smoky steamer,
+crammed with tourists and attendant touts. It is
+the very morning for a row on the cool glassy water,
+as we step joyfully into our boat with its four
+stalwart Phrygian-capped sailors in attendance:
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Con questo zeffiro</q></l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>Cosi soave,</l>
+<l>Oh, com’ e bello</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>Star su la nave!</l>
+<l>Mare si placido,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>Vento si caro,</l>
+<l>Scordar fa i triboli</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'><q rend="pre: none">Al marinaro.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Bending with a will to their oars, our genial
+mariners quickly impel our barque round the first
+jutting headland, so that the thickly populated
+Piano di Sorrento is at once lost to view. Making
+good headway over the clear water, it is not long
+before we find ourselves passing beneath the wave-washed
+precipices of the Salto, and well within our
+time limit of two hours we reach the roadstead of
+the Marina, to find ourselves in a bright and busy
+world of traffic and pleasure. Between the houses
+coloured coral-pink, white, blue, and yellow, and
+<pb n='251'/><anchor id='Pg251'/>the pale green transparent water lies a long stretch of
+beach covered with every sort of craft that sails the
+Mediterranean, and with a motley crowd of fishermen,
+tourists and noisy children; whilst the whole
+atmosphere rings with raucous voices raised in
+giving directions, in quarrelling, or in addressing
+the many perplexed strangers. We disembark, and
+cross the intervening beach with its sea-weed veiled
+boulders and masses of tawny fishing nets; we reach
+the village, and here we meet with our first disappointment
+in romantic Capri. It was not so very many
+years ago, barely thirty in point of fact, that this
+island was roadless, and in those primitive days the
+visitor was met at the Marina Grande by tall
+strapping Capriote women, who were wont to seize
+the traveller’s pieces of baggage as though they had
+been light parcels, and to march up the old stone
+staircase poising these burdens on their heads with
+the carriage of an empress. The stranger’s own
+entrance into Capri was less dignified, for either he
+had to toil painfully in the blazing sun up that
+steep picturesque flight of steps and reach the plateau
+above, perspiring and probably out of temper; or else
+he was compelled to bestride a miserable ass which a
+bare-footed damsel steered upward by means of the
+quadruped’s tail. Nowadays, we are spared this
+original and somewhat humiliating manner of arrival
+at our journey’s end. There are little <hi rend='italic'>carrozzelle</hi>,
+drawn by clever black Abruzzi cobs awaiting us,
+and even one or two hotel conveyances. We find
+ourselves being driven rapidly up the excellent
+winding road constructed only a quarter of a century
+ago, past the domed Church of San Costanzo, the
+<pb n='252'/><anchor id='Pg252'/>patron Saint of the Caprioti, past hedges of aloe and
+prickly pear, until we gain the saddle of the island-mountain,
+where stands the small capital perched
+upon a ledge that overlooks the Bay of Naples to the
+north, and to the south the endless expanse of the
+unruffled Tyrrhene.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is evident even to the most casual untrained eye,
+that this huge mass of sea-girt rock whereon we stand
+must in remote ages have formed part of the mainland
+opposite, until some fierce convulsion of nature,
+common enough in this region that is ever changing its
+outward face through subterranean forces, tore what is
+now Capri asunder from the Punta della Campanella,
+and placed the sea as an eternal barrier between the
+riven headlands of continent and new-formed island.
+The charm of this rocky fragment, thus placed in mid
+ocean by volcanic action, was first discovered by the
+great Emperor Augustus, who chancing to visit the
+island for some obscure reason was greatly affected by
+the spectacle of a withered ilex tree, that revived and
+burst into foliage at the auspicious moment of his
+setting foot at the Marina. Flattered at the compliment
+paid by Nature’s self to his august presence and
+drawing a happy omen from the incident, the Emperor
+at once proposed to the people of Neapolis, who then
+owned the island, that they should exchange barren
+Capreae for the larger and more fertile imperial
+appanage of Aenaria (Ischia)—a bargain to which the
+shrewd Neapolitans readily agreed. Here then in a
+spot at once so salubrious and so convenient for
+the management of affairs of state, the Emperor sought
+rest and relaxation at such times as he could escape
+the cares of government. At his bidding villas and
+<pb n='253'/><anchor id='Pg253'/>pleasaunces were constructed; roads were carried by
+means of viaducts across the airy plateau lying between
+the Salto and the Solaro; and the able bodied inhabitants
+of the island were enrolled as a sort of
+honorary bodyguard for the person of Augustus during
+his occasional visits. In this secluded, yet accessible
+retreat, the ruler of the Roman world could easily lay
+his finger, as it were, upon the beating pulse of his
+mighty empire, for Capreae was at no great distance
+from Rome itself, and from the heights of the island
+note could be made of the movements of the Imperial
+fleet lying at Baiae or of the arrival of the corn ships
+from Egypt and Asia Minor. But the name of the
+good Augustus is scarcely remembered in connection
+with Capreae, which alone recalls its association with
+Tiberius the Tyrant, who spent the last nine years
+of his reign upon the rocky islet that was so beloved
+of his predecessor. To this spot <q>Timberio</q> (as the
+natives invariably misname the Emperor) feeling the
+rapid approach of senile decay, weary of the thankless
+task of ruling an ungrateful people, sick of family dissensions
+and of court intrigue, at last came in the
+cherished hope of spending the few remaining years of
+his life in cultured leisure and in comparative solitude.
+An enthusiastic student of astronomy and of its sister
+science, or rather pseudo-science, astrology, Tiberius
+proposed to study the heavens in the company of
+chosen mathematicians and soothsayers. Twelve
+buildings—palaces, villas, pavilions, call them what
+you will—were now constructed for the special examination
+of the planets, and in consequence the whole
+of the island, whose limited area after all is exceeded
+by many an English park, was practically turned into
+<pb n='254'/><anchor id='Pg254'/>one vast maritime residence, for all the Imperial
+pleasure-houses seem to have been connected with each
+other by means of viaducts or secret stair-ways. Yet
+whilst immersed in astronomy and occultism, the aged
+Emperor contrived to find time for the routine of
+public business, and, like Augustus, he was still able
+to direct from his rocky retreat the policy of the
+Empire. The reports of governors of provinces, for
+example, were received, read, and commented upon by
+Tiberius in his Capriote home, and amongst these
+there must have been included a certain official
+document from one Pontius Pilatus, Procurator of
+Judaea, relating how a Jewish prophet from Nazareth
+had been condemned, scourged and crucified by his
+orders at the special request of the Jews themselves.
+How eloquent is this bald statement of a simple fact,
+that here in this tiny barren islet was brought the
+casual news of the death of Jesus Christ to the then
+ruler of the Roman world! Surely an historical
+incident such as this is of more value than all the
+hazy legends or pointless miracles of St Januarius or
+of San Costanzo, upon which the imagination of the
+islanders has been fed for generations.
+</p>
+<anchor id="illus19"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: CAPRI FROM THE VILLA JOVIS]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus19th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus19.jpg">CAPRI FROM THE VILLA JOVIS</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: CAPRI FROM THE VILLA JOVIS</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+Remnants of Tiberius’ palaces, all of which are said
+to have been razed to the ground by order of the
+Roman Senate at his death, are scattered thick as
+fallen leaves in Vallombrosa over the whole surface of
+the island, and it is to the ruins of the Villa Jovis at
+its eastern crest that the visitor will in all probability
+first direct his steps. The way thither from the little
+city of Capri leads through narrow lanes along a stony
+but populous hill-side, to which the flat-roofed dazzling
+white houses with their small iron-barred windows lend
+<pb n='255'/><anchor id='Pg255'/>an oriental aspect; an illusion that is aided by the
+appearance of an occasional date-palm over-topping
+some low wall, and by clumps or hedges of the prickly
+pear. This latter plant, of Indian extraction as its
+name of <hi rend='italic'>Ficus Indica</hi> betrays, grows in profusion over
+the sun-baked rocky slopes of southern Italy, especially
+in the neighbourhood of the sea. The peasants find
+it most useful, for it makes impenetrable hedges, and
+its coarse pulpy leaves when pounded up afford good
+provender for their goats and donkeys. The fruits of
+the prickly pear, those quaint crimson or yellow knobs
+attached to the edges of the leaves, are likewise
+gathered and eaten by the people, or else cleaned of
+their protecting layers of spiny hairs and despatched
+in baskets to Naples, where the cactus-fruit forms an
+important item of the popular fare. The fruit itself
+has a lovely colour and a fragrant scent, which give
+promise of a better flavour than it actually possesses,
+for it is hopelessly insipid to the taste, although the
+Neapolitans declare that the pulp, when mashed up
+into patties and iced, is very palatable.
+</p>
+<p>
+A long up-hill ramble over rough paths leads eventually
+to the Villa of Jupiter, perched on the Salto—the
+<hi rend='italic'>Saltus Caprearum</hi>, the <q>Wild Goats’ Leap,</q> of the
+ancients. There is little of interest to be seen in the
+existing portions of Tiberius’ chief villa, for the building
+has been despoiled centuries ago of its rich marbles,
+its slabs of <hi rend='italic'>giallo</hi> and <hi rend='italic'>verde antico</hi>, its pillars of red
+porphyry and <hi rend='italic'>serpentino</hi>, some fragments of which may
+be found imbedded in the pavement of the mosque-like
+little Duomo of Capri. But it is evident from the
+immense extent of its substructures, now used for
+humble enough purposes, that the Villa Jovis must
+<pb n='256'/><anchor id='Pg256'/>have been a palace of remarkable size. A hermit who
+offers sour wine, a fat middle-aged woman, a figure of
+fun in her gay be-ribboned dress who begins languidly
+dancing a <hi rend='italic'>tarantella</hi>, and a vulgar pestilent guide who
+produces a spy-glass usually haunt these caverns on the
+look-out for any chance visitor. Buy them off, O stranger!
+with <hi rend='italic'>soldi</hi>, is our advice, for you cannot otherwise
+escape their importunities, and then mounting
+to the highest point, peer down into the clear depths
+of the water nearly a thousand feet below. For it
+was here, if we can credit serious Roman historians,
+that the Imperial tyrant, half crazy with terror and
+ever thirsting for human blood, was wont to hurl the
+objects of his hate into the sea; <q>from this eminence,</q>
+Suetonius gravely tells us, <q>after the application of
+long drawn-out and exquisite tortures, Tiberius used to
+order his executioners to fling their victims before his
+eyes into the water, where boats full of mariners,
+stationed below, were waiting in readiness to beat the
+bruised bodies with oars, in case any spark of life might
+yet be left in them.</q> The terrible legend fits in aptly
+with the appearance of this forbidding dizzy precipice,
+especially on a dark stormy afternoon, when the dull
+roar of the waves dashing against the cliffs below,
+mounts upward to the Villa Jovis like the angry bellowing
+of some insatiable sea-monster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was whilst brooding here after the death of
+Sejanus in Rome, that the Emperor, not daring to
+move beyond the walls of his palace, shunning the
+society of all save his familiar friends and attendants,
+and with his face disfigured by an eruption of the
+skin of which he was painfully sensitive, that there
+took place an incident (which may or may not be
+<pb n='257'/><anchor id='Pg257'/>true) mentioned by Suetonius. In the privacy of
+this villa Tiberius was one day surprised by an
+ingenious Capriote fisherman, who in ignorance or
+defiance of the Emperor’s wishes had managed to
+scale with his naked feet the steep cliffs from the
+sea below, in order to present a fine mullet for the
+imperial table, and of course to earn a high reward
+for his <q>gift.</q> Terrified at the mere notion of anybody
+being able thus to penetrate into his most
+secret domain, the irate Emperor at once gave orders
+for the intruder’s face to be scrubbed with the mullet
+he had brought, a sentence that the imperial minions
+performed without delay. The intrepid fisherman
+might have congratulated himself on so mild a
+punishment for having disturbed a tyrant’s repose, had
+he not been possessed of an unusually strong sense
+of humour. For at the close of the mullet-scrubbing
+episode, the foolish fellow remarked by way of a
+jest to the officer on duty, that he was thankful he
+had not also offered the emperor a large crab
+which he had likewise brought in his basket. This
+imprudent speech was immediately reported to
+Tiberius, who thereupon commanded the man’s face
+to be lacerated with the aforesaid crab’s claws; but
+whether this pleasing incident ended with a cold
+plunge from the Salto, the Roman historian does not
+relate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Other tales of Timberio’s vices and cruelties have
+been handed down from generation to generation, so
+that the dark deeds committed at the Salto have almost
+passed into a local article of faith; and such being
+the case, it would seem almost a pity to pronounce
+these picturesque horrors untrue or exaggerated.
+<pb n='258'/><anchor id='Pg258'/>Nevertheless, of recent years there has arisen amongst
+scholars a certain degree of scepticism as regards
+these highly coloured anecdotes of Roman historians
+known to be prejudiced. The Emperor was nearly
+seventy years old at the time he came to reside in
+Capreae, and until that date his life had been orderly
+and above reproach; it is not likely therefore, argue
+these modern writers, that Tiberius should suddenly,
+at so extreme an age, have flung himself into a whirl
+of vices and crimes that he had hitherto shunned.
+The thing is of course possible, but it sounds improbable.
+That he was moody and morose; that he loved solitude and
+hated formal society in the spot he had especially chosen
+as the retreat of his declining years; that he practised
+certain of the mystic arts, as well as studied astronomy,
+are all likely enough conjectures; and these circumstances
+probably formed the foundation for the extravagant legends which
+now surround the Emperor’s memory. Very shocking
+and reprehensible were the doings at Villa Jovis, if
+they really occurred there, but to try and dispute
+their authenticity would be a task quite outside the
+scope of this work.<note place="foot">For an able defence of the Emperor Tiberius, the reader is referred
+to Mr J. C. Tarver’s <hi rend='italic'>Tiberius the Tyrant</hi>, chap. xviii.</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If, despite the negative theories held to-day concerning
+the private life and character of the second
+Emperor of Rome during his residence on Capreae,
+the traveller be still inclined to trace the sites of
+the remaining eleven Imperial villas, he will find little
+difficulty in meeting with numberless Roman remains
+scattered over all parts of the island. On the beach,
+for example, a little to the west of the Marina Grande,
+<pb n='259'/><anchor id='Pg259'/>are clearly visible the sunken foundations of the
+great sea-palace, which in the Roman manner jutted
+into the water and ranked probably second in size to
+the Villa Jovis. The neighbourhood of Ana-Capri
+also, and in fact the whole western portion of the
+island, is likewise plentifully besprinkled with ancient
+ruins, one of which is still known by the suggestive
+title of Timberino. But most people will prefer to
+explore the unrivalled natural beauties of Capri, rather
+than to make themselves acquainted with its archaeological
+points of interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First and foremost of the many wonders that Capri has to
+show must be ranked the Grotta Azzurra. The pleasantest
+way of reaching this world-famous cavern is by small boat
+from the Marina, rather than by the daily steamer from Naples;
+and a perfectly calm and bright morning must be selected for
+the expedition, for if the surface of the sea appears in the
+least degree ruffled by northerly winds, it becomes
+impossible for any craft to make the low entrance of
+the grotto. Capriote boatmen are as a rule intelligent
+and pleasant to deal with, and not a few of the
+denizens of the Marina own to some knowledge of
+English, or rather of American, since several of the
+inhabitants are the sons of emigrants who have
+settled in the cities of the United States or the
+Argentine, but whose love for their island home is
+still so strong that they contrive to send their children
+back to Capri, in order that they may retain their
+Italian citizenship and be ready to serve their expected
+term of years in the Army.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Past the gay-coloured shipping of the noisy Marina,
+past the wave-washed halls of Tiberius’ <hi rend='italic'>palazzo a mare</hi>,
+<pb n='260'/><anchor id='Pg260'/>our boat swiftly glides over the pellucid expanse until
+it reaches those vast towering cliffs of limestone that
+spring almost perpendicular from the waters’ edge to
+the plateau of Ana-Capri, fully a thousand feet above
+our heads. Clumps of palmetto, of cytizus, and of
+various hardy shrubs manage to sprout and to exist in
+the crannies of this sheer wall of rock; and on some
+of the larger ledges, far out of reach of a despoiling
+human hand, we see masses of the odorous narcissus,
+though whence they draw their sustenance it is hard
+to tell. At length we reach the entrance of the
+Grotto, and here, at a signal from our boatman, we
+crouch down low in the body of the boat, whilst our
+rower, skilfully taking advantage of a gentle surging
+wave, guides our craft with his hands through an
+opening in the sheer wall, so low that the gunwales
+grate against the rocky surface of the natural arch.
+At once we find ourselves in a scene of mystical
+beauty, in an extravagant voluptuous dream of loveliness,
+such as the Arabian Nights alone could dare to
+suggest. Above us, around us, behind us, before us
+lies a luminous azure atmosphere, which produces the
+effect of a gigantic molten sapphire, whose secret blue
+fires we have actually tracked to their lurking-place in
+the very heart of the gem. Against the all-pervading
+shimmering light our own forms stand out distinct of
+an intense and velvety blackness, yet the blades of the
+oars that cleave the melted sapphire of the water, the
+tips of our fingers that dabble in the celestial liquid,
+appear as if coated with tiny globules of silver. Our
+boatman’s son, a picturesque lad of fifteen or there-abouts,
+has, we notice, been engaged in hastily casting
+off his scanty attire; for a moment his slight graceful
+<pb n='261'/><anchor id='Pg261'/>figure is outlined against the blue light like some antique
+bronze of Pompeii or Herculaneum, and then there is
+a splash as the youthful form, diving into the pool, is
+instantaneously changed by the genius of the place
+into a silver-glistening sea-god, the very image of the
+fisherman Glaucus sung of old by Ovid, who became
+an Immortal and dwelt ever afterwards, according to
+the ancient myth, in an azure palace beneath the sea.
+As the stripling rises to the surface all glittering to
+breathe the air, his head turns from frosted silver to
+ebon blackness, as does likewise his hand, raised from
+the water to clasp the boat’s prow. Slowly we are
+propelled round the lofty domed cavern, and are shown
+the little beach at its further extremity with its
+mysterious and unexplored flight of stone steps, down
+which, so our mariner informs us, the wicked Timberio
+used to descend from his villa at Damecuta, hundreds
+of feet overhead, to take a plunge in these enchanted
+waters. The Emperor and his friends may or may
+not have gambolled in this jewelled bath; but certain
+it is that Tiberius knew of the existence of this unique
+cavern; and equally certain that an artistic but
+demented potentate of our own days was so smitten
+with the idea of owning a secret staircase descending
+to a blue grotto, that he must needs construct within
+the walls of a fantastic castle in the highlands of
+Bavaria an artificial counterpart of the Grotta Azzurra,
+with metal swans moved by clockwork swimming
+thereon!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our genial boatman beguiles the time of our returning
+by a long story, told him in his boyhood by his
+old grandfather, of how two English <hi rend='italic'>Signori</hi> had
+managed to rediscover the entrance to the Blue
+<pb n='262'/><anchor id='Pg262'/>Grotto, which had been lost since the days of the
+Emperor Timberio, and how in expectation of the
+Englishmen’s reward a plucky sailor, named Ferrara,
+had made his way all round the island in a cask,
+trying to force an entrance into every possible cavern,
+until at last he hit upon the mouth of the Grotta
+Azzurra itself, and thus gained the prize. But as a
+matter of fact the existence of the Grotto was never
+wholly forgotten, for its beauties were certainly known
+to the old Italian chronicler Capaccio. Yet doubtless
+during the long period of the Napoleonic wars, when
+Capri from its strategic position became a choice
+bone of contention between French, English and
+Neapolitan forces, there were few if any persons who
+possessed the courage or curiosity to visit the cavern;
+with the result that its <hi rend='italic'>exact</hi> locality became temporarily
+lost. It was known, however, to exist somewhere at
+the base of the great northern cliff, so that only a very
+small portion of the coast-line had to be explored,
+before its tiny inconspicuous entrance could be rediscovered.
+A far more exciting event than the refinding
+of the Blue Grotto was the genuine discovery
+of the beautiful Grotta Verde on the southern side of
+the island by two Englishmen, Mr Reid and Mr
+Lacaita, in the summer of 1848. This grotto,
+esteemed the second in importance of the many caves
+that Capri boasts, consists of a huge natural archway
+formed in the cliffs wherein the water and rocks appear
+of an emerald hue, contrasting strangely with the
+opaque blue of the sea beyond, and suggesting in its
+dual colouring the marvellous combination of dark
+blue and iridescent green in the peacock’s tail.
+</p><anchor id="illus20"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: IN THE BLUE GROTTO, CAPRI]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus20th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus20.jpg">IN THE BLUE GROTTO, CAPRI</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: IN THE BLUE GROTTO, CAPRI</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+Capri is a pleasant enough place of residence for a
+<pb n='263'/><anchor id='Pg263'/>short time, particularly if one invests in a pair of the
+rope-soled shoes affected by the people, which enables
+the wearer to follow with greater ease the rough stony
+tracks, often at a dizzy height above the sea, that form
+the only walks in the eastern portion of Capri, except
+the villa-lined Tragara road leading to the Guardiola,
+now become the fashionable promenade of the many
+foreign residents upon the island. There are some
+delightfully peaceful nooks to be sought near the water’s
+edge, not far from the Faraglioni, that picturesque trio
+of rocks lying off the south-eastern corner of Capri.
+Here we can find a sheltered corner, unfrequented
+alike by the pestering native or by the ubiquitous
+tourist; perchance the deserted hall of some maritime
+villa, for the caverns near the Piccola Marina abound
+in traces of Roman architecture. In such a retreat,
+with a book on one’s knees and with one’s own
+thoughts for sole company, how fascinating it is to lie
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">... on Capri’s rocks, close to their snowy streak</q></l>
+<l>Of ambient foam, and watch the restless sea</l>
+<l>Tossing and tumbling to Eternity,</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Feeling its salt kiss fall upon the cheek.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+But to those who prefer to take long tramps afield
+rather than to linger in meditation on the sunny
+beaches near the Piccola Marina, there is always the
+ascent to Ana-Capri by the broad smooth winding road
+that affords a fresh view of the Bay of Naples at every
+one of its many twists and turnings. Over a ravine
+filled with masses of ilex and myrtle; past the fragment
+of the pirate Barbarossa’s aerial castle, perched on a
+rocky pinnacle and looking like some fantastic creation
+of Gustave Doré’s brush; the broad ribband of road
+leads across the steep northern flank of Monte Solaro,
+<pb n='264'/><anchor id='Pg264'/>until it ends at Ana-Capri with its white houses nestling
+round a domed church. It is an easy ascent, taking
+no great space of time, yet strange to relate, well within
+living memory the only approach to this hill-set village
+was by means of the interminable stone staircase with
+some five hundred steps that connected it with the
+Marina Grande below. A charming writer on Neapolitan
+life and character thus shrewdly sums up the
+general opinion concerning this altered aspect of
+conditions with regard to Ana-Capri, now brought at
+last into close touch with modern civilization and its
+accruing benefits:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>Before the culminating point is reached, the road
+crosses the old staircase, which has unfortunately been
+almost completely destroyed by the huge masses of
+rock dislodged from the cliff above by the workmen.
+It makes one sad to look at it, and almost regret
+that the new road ever was constructed. Were every
+invective that has been vented on those same steps
+turned into a paving-stone, there would be more than
+sufficient to pave the streets of Naples anew; were
+every drop of sweat that has fallen upon them collected,
+there would be enough water to flood them. And yet
+now that this dreadful staircase has been superseded
+by a good macadamised road, every one seems to regret
+the change. Says the heavily laden <hi rend='italic'>contadina</hi>: <q>The
+old way was the shortest;</q> says the artist: <q>It was
+infinitely more picturesque; that new parapet wall is
+a dreadful eye-sore;</q> says the archaeologist: <q>It had
+the merit of antiquity; it is not everywhere that one
+can tread in the footprints of a hundred generations.</q>
+Even those whose every step in the olden time was
+accompanied by a malediction, can remember how
+<pb n='265'/><anchor id='Pg265'/>good a glass of very inferior wine tasted on reaching
+Ana-Capri.</q><note place="foot">W. J. A. Stamer: <hi rend='italic'>Dolce Napoli</hi>.</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But whether Ana-Capri has or has not been really
+benefited by the Italian Government’s finely engineered
+road, there can be no doubt that the
+primitive charm of the island, which in by-gone days
+constituted one of its chief attractions, has greatly
+declined with the wholesale introduction of modern
+conventions and improvements. With the sudden
+influx of wealthy strangers, Anglo-Saxon, German,
+French and Russian, it is not surprising to learn that
+the islanders have become somewhat demoralized
+under the changed conditions of life, and that not a
+small proportion of them have grown venal and grasping.
+The happy old days when artists and inn-keepers,
+peasants and such chance visitors as loved the simple
+unsophisticated life, hob-nobbed together on terms of
+equality are gone for ever. Fashion, that merciless
+deity, has annexed the Insula Caprearum to her ever-growing
+dominions;—there are smart villas on the
+Tragara road and even at Ana-Capri; there are
+British tea-rooms and Teutonic <hi rend='italic'>Bierhälle</hi> in the town.
+At the present time the tourists and foreign residents
+form the chief source of wealth to the islanders, now
+that the quails have more or less deserted these shores.
+Instead of awaiting in due season with nets ready
+prepared the advent of the plump little feathered
+immigrants from the African coast, the modern
+Caprioti are continually on the look-out for the
+steamers that bear hundreds of money-spending
+tourists to the Marina, and these they proceed to
+enmesh with proffered offers of service. And,
+speak<pb n='266'/><anchor id='Pg266'/>ing of the quails, in the days before breech-loading
+guns and reckless extermination had injured this
+valuable source of revenue, the arrival of the birds
+winging their way northward was the signal for every
+sportsman on the island to hasten to collect the annual
+harvest of game. High poles, supporting nets twenty
+feet broad and sixty feet long, were erected on the
+grassy slopes of the Solaro or in the plateau of the
+Tragara, towards which, by dint of judicious scaring
+and shouting from expectant watchers stationed at
+various points, the flight of the on-rushing birds was
+directed. Dashing themselves with force against this
+wall of netting, the poor quails fell stunned to the
+ground, where they were easily taken by hand, whilst
+scores of guns were levelled ready to bring down such
+birds as had escaped the snare prepared for them.
+From the thousands of quails thus captured the
+islanders were enabled to pay their taxes to the
+Bourbon Government, as well as to provide the income
+of their Bishop—for in those distant days a prelate
+dwelt at Capri—who in allusion to his chief source of
+income was jocularly known at the Roman court as
+<q>Il Vescovo delle Quaglie.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Ana-Capri to the western shore extends the
+most fertile stretch of land in the island: a broad
+slope set with vineyards and groves of silver-grey
+olives, that are interspersed here and there with clumps
+of almond and plum trees. Fine oil is yielded by the
+<hi rend='italic'>poderi</hi> of Ana-Capri and Damecuta, whilst the grapes
+produce the highly prized red and white Capri vintages,
+choice wine of which the casual traveller rarely tastes
+a good sample, for it is usually doctored and <q>improved</q>
+for purposes of keeping by the wine-merchants
+<pb n='267'/><anchor id='Pg267'/>of Naples. Thus the rasping red liquid that appears
+on the table of a London restaurant, and the scented
+strong-tasting white stuff that is sold in the hotels of
+the island itself or of Naples under the name of Capri,
+have little in common with the pure unadulterated
+product of these sunny breezy vineyards. But besides
+wine and oil, the island is likewise celebrated for its
+beautiful and varied flora, and it is amongst the olive
+groves and lanes of the western side of the island that
+the wild flowers can be found in the greatest profusion.
+Amongst the tender green shoots of the young springing
+corn are set myriads of brilliant hued
+anemones, purple, scarlet, and white with a crimson
+centre; and even in January can be found in warm
+sheltered nooks the pretty mauve wind-flower, one of
+the earliest of spring blossoms in Italy. The grassy
+pathways that intersect the various holdings are gay
+with rosy-tipped daisies, white <q>star-of-Bethlehem,</q>
+dark purple grape-hyacinth, and the tiny strong-scented
+marigold, that seems to bloom the whole twelve-month
+round. Amongst the loose stone-work of the
+walled lanes, where beryl-backed lizards peep in and
+out of every crevice, can be found fragrant violets and
+the delicate fumitory with its pink waxy bells. In
+moist places flourish patches of the wild arum or of
+the stately great celandine, the <q>swallow-wort</q> of
+old-fashioned herbalists, who believed that the swallow
+made use of the thick yellow juice that runs in the
+veins of this plant to anoint the eyes of her fledgelings!
+And with the disappearance of the anemones
+as the season advances, their place is taken by blood-red
+poppies, by golden hawkweeds and by masses of
+tall magenta-coloured blooms of the wild gladiolus, the
+<pb n='268'/><anchor id='Pg268'/><q>Jacob’s Ladder</q> of our own English gardens.
+Strange enough amongst these familiar homely flowers
+appear the sub-tropical clumps of prickly pear, and
+the hedges of aloe which here and there have thrown
+up a gigantic spike of blossom eight or ten feet in
+height, a triumphal favour of Nature that the plant
+itself must pay for by its subsequent death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Ana-Capri we ascend to the peak of the lofty
+Solaro, by no means an arduous climb from this point,
+for we have but to follow a narrow goat-track leading
+across slopes covered with coarse grass and some low
+thickets of stunted lentisk and myrtle. The rosemary
+too grows plentifully on the dry wind-swept soil,
+and the soft sea breeze wafts its refreshing scent to
+our nostrils. There is a pretty legend of the people
+which relates the cause of this plant obtaining its
+perfume of unearthly sweetness:—how the Madonna
+one day hung the swaddling clothes of the Infant
+Christ to dry upon a common pot-herb in the
+garden at Nazareth—the rosemary is freely used in
+Italian cookery, and its taste is as unpleasant as its
+scent is delicious—whereupon the humble plant thus
+honoured was ever afterwards endowed with the delicate
+odour that is so highly prized. And beyond this, the
+rosemary was likewise permitted to put forth masses of
+flowers of the Madonna’s own colour of blue, concerning
+which a tradition—Celtic, not Italian—avers that on
+Christmas morning upon every plant of rosemary will
+be found by those who care to seek them expanded
+blooms in honour of St Joseph, the Virgin and the
+Holy Child. Reaching the crest of the Solaro, we are
+well rewarded for our climb over the stony slopes by a
+wide-spreading view. Owing to the central position
+<pb n='269'/><anchor id='Pg269'/>of the island, we can from its airy summit, some
+sixteen hundred feet above sea-level, command a
+glorious panorama of the three bays of the Neapolitan
+Riviera, each teeming with a thousand associations of
+classical or modern history. Upon those dancing
+waters of the Bay of Naples appeared in the dim ages
+of the heroic world the Trojan galleys that were bearing
+the founder of the Roman race towards the beach
+by Cumae yonder, where dwelt the venerable Sibyl;
+the fleets of ancient Rome and Carthage, the war-ships
+of the great Emperor Charles V., the pirate galleys of
+the Soldan’s vassals, the men-of-war of Nelson have
+all rode and fought upon the bosom of the bay beneath
+us. What a marvellous perspective of the whole naval
+history of the Mediterranean does a survey of the Bay
+of Naples suggest!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Exquisite and inspiring as is the view on a clear
+cloudless day, with the keen <hi rend='italic'>tramontana</hi> off the distant
+Abruzzi flecking the azure waves with streaks of
+creamy foam and driving the white-sailed feluccas
+merrily towards the open sea, the landscape is even
+more impressive in dull lowering weather, when the
+inky clouds that envelop the sky give promise of the
+approaching hurricane. At such times a striking phenomenon,
+said to be peculiar to the Parthenopean shores,
+may be observed. From out the purple threatening
+masses that fill the heavens there suddenly falls a
+shaft of rosy light, as though directed by some vast
+celestial lens fixed aloft in the sky, upon a small
+portion of the opposite shore. The plateau of Sorrento
+with its many white hamlets first becomes illuminated;
+then the light rapidly passes towards Vesuvius, which
+is instantly revealed with marvellous clearness, whilst
+<pb n='270'/><anchor id='Pg270'/>Sorrento returns to its former dark brooding shadows.
+For some moments we watch the circlet of towns that
+fringe the base of the burning mountain and Camaldoli
+erect on its wooded height, and then our gaze is
+diverted towards Naples, so clearly revealed that one
+can almost fancy it possible to detect the carriages
+driving along the white line of the Caracciolo. From
+the city this weird fairy-like light glides swiftly towards
+the headland of Posilipo and the great sombre mass
+of Ischia, and then finally seems to vanish altogether
+in the leaden-hued expanse of the watery horizon.
+Storm, rain, wind, hail and thunder will certainly
+follow the appearance of this fantastic rose-coloured
+glow, and the visitor to Capri may in consequence be
+compelled to remain willy-nilly upon the island until
+such time as communication with Naples shall be
+once more restored, for rough weather on Capri means
+complete isolation from the mainland and the outside
+world. A spell of four or five days without a letter
+or a newspaper may in certain cases be restful and
+even beneficial, but it can also be highly inconvenient.
+</p>
+<p rend="center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em">* * * * * *</p>
+<p>
+Comparatively few persons are aware that in the
+history of Capri is to be found a page, not a particularly
+glorious one perhaps, of the annals of our own
+nation. In the spring of 1806, the year after Trafalgar,
+whilst our fleet was blockading Naples on behalf of its
+worthless monarch, King Ferdinand, then skulking in
+cowardly ease at Palermo, Admiral Sir Sidney Smith,
+the hero of Acre, managed to capture the island after
+a sharp struggle with the French troops then holding
+it in the name of Joachim Murat, King of Naples
+and brother-in-law of the great Napoleon. Sir Hudson
+<pb n='271'/><anchor id='Pg271'/>(then Colonel) Lowe—afterwards famous as the
+Governor of St Helena during Buonaparte’s captivity—was
+now put in command of the newly conquered
+island with some 1500 English and Maltese troops
+at his disposal. Lowe and his second in command,
+Major Hamill, at once set to work to put the place
+into a strong state of defence, and so satisfied were
+they with their work of fortification, that Lowe in his
+confidence nick-named the islet <q>Little Gibraltar.</q>
+For more than two years the Union Jack floated in
+triumph from the fort-crowned heights of Capri, much
+to the annoyance of the monarch on the mainland,
+who finally determined at all costs to recapture the
+stronghold facing his capital. Fancying himself perfectly
+secure in his <q>Little Gibraltar,</q> now deemed
+impregnable by a combination of art and nature against
+any hostile descent, Lowe made light of any possible
+expedition from Naples, and when Neapolitan warships
+actually appeared as though making to land troops
+at the Marinas on either side of the saddle of the
+island, the British commandant was delighted at the
+ease with which these attempts were repelled. But
+whilst the garrison was busied in thwarting the movements
+on the Marinas, which in reality only constituted
+a feint on Murat’s part, transports were engaged in
+disembarking at the low cliffs of Orico, the western
+extremity of the island, boat-loads of men, who quickly
+swarmed up the terraced slopes towards Ana-Capri
+and surprised its garrison. On the following day,
+October 6th 1808, in spite of Lowe’s efforts, Ana-Capri
+with its eight hundred men surrendered to the
+French and Neapolitan troops led by General Lamarque,
+who at once set up a battery on the crest of the Solaro,
+<pb n='272'/><anchor id='Pg272'/>so as to command the town of Capri and the English
+head-quarters, fixed at the Convent of the Certosa that
+lies between the Tragara Road and the southern shore.
+The eastern half of the island still of course remained
+in the hands of the British; and failing to reduce the
+town itself and the Convent of the Certosa by bombardment
+from above, General Lamarque decided upon
+taking the place by storm, so as to forestall the arrival
+of the English fleet, which was hourly expected to come
+to the rescue of the beleaguered garrison. As we
+have already mentioned, there was no road existing
+upon the whole island in those days a hundred years
+ago, so that in order to attack the capital, the French
+general had to march his victorious troops by the
+precipitous flight of stone steps down to the Marina
+Grande and then try to carry the position from below.
+Before however the Frenchmen, now further aided by
+supplies sent by Murat’s order from Sorrento, could
+arrange for the projected assault upon the town, the
+delayed British fleet suddenly appeared in the offing,
+evidently with the intention of bearing down upon the
+island. But on this occasion the luck was all on the
+side of the French, for scarcely had the eagerly expected
+ships hove in sight, than the besieged garrison
+had the mortification to see their hopes of succour
+overthrown by the uprising of one of those sudden
+squalls, so common on the Mediterranean, which drove
+the warships southward. More than one assault was
+repulsed with heavy loss by the small English garrison,
+which had already been deprived of half its numbers
+at Ana-Capri, including the gallant Major Hamill,
+whose death is commemorated in a marble tablet set
+in the little piazza of the town. But with the
+re<pb n='273'/><anchor id='Pg273'/>tirement of the relieving fleet and the continuance
+of foul weather, Colonel Lowe deemed it useless to
+resist further, and like a sensible man decided to
+capitulate on the best terms he could obtain. In
+return for his immediate surrender of Capri the British
+commandant accordingly stipulated that his garrison
+should be allowed to embark and sail for Sicily unmolested,
+and that the persons and property of the
+islanders, who seem to have appreciated the British
+occupation, should be respected. But Lamarque, on
+communicating Colonel Lowe’s request to King Murat,
+received peremptory orders to demand an unconditional
+surrender, whereupon an aide-de-camp of the King’s, a
+certain Colonel Manches, was sent to interview Lowe
+with the royal letter in his pocket. Had the missive
+been delivered to him, the British Governor would in
+all probability have decided to fight to the bitter end
+rather than to submit to such severe and humiliating
+conditions. Happily so terrible a catastrophe, which
+must have involved heavy loss of life on both sides,
+followed by a sack of the town, was unexpectedly,
+averted at the last moment, for whilst Manches was
+actually advancing with a flag of truce, the approach
+of the British fleet was again signalled from the look-out
+on the hill now called the Telegrafo. Before the
+Governor could be made aware of this piece of
+news, Colonel Manches, cunningly keeping his master’s
+imperious letter in his pocket, told Colonel Lowe that
+King Murat was ready to accept the terms of surrender
+offered. The weather being propitious, the British fleet
+would have been able this time to reach the island,
+but its nearer approach was prevented by Colonel
+Lowe himself, who sent to acquaint the Admiral,
+<pb n='274'/><anchor id='Pg274'/>much to his chagrin, of the compact already concluded
+with the besiegers, a compact which, as Hudson Lowe
+himself very properly pointed out, was binding upon
+the British Government. On October 26th, three
+weeks from the date of the first attack, the English
+troops embarked for Sicily, and the island was
+formally handed over to the French and Neapolitan
+forces, who held it undisturbed until the close of the
+Napoleonic Wars.
+</p><anchor id="illus21"/>
+<pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: A GATEWAY. CAPRI]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus21th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus21.jpg">A GATEWAY. CAPRI</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: A GATEWAY. CAPRI</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+</div><div n="12" rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n='275'/><anchor id='Pg275'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="12: Ischia and the Lady of the Rock"/>
+<head>CHAPTER XII</head>
+
+<head type="sub">ISCHIA AND THE LADY OF THE ROCK</head>
+
+<p>
+Embarking at Torregaveta, the little terminus
+of the <hi rend='italic'>Ferrovia Cumana</hi>, which traverses the
+classic district of the Phlegraean Fields, we are
+quickly transported in a small <anchor id="corr275"/><corr sic="costing">coasting</corr> steamer past
+the headland of Misenum to the island and port
+of Procida, the <q>alta Prochyta</q> of Virgil. Although
+the poet calls the island lofty, it is remarkably flat
+considering its volcanic origin, for Procida and Ischia
+were undoubtedly one in remote ages, as the learned
+Strabo rightly conjectured. Its only eminence is the
+Rocciola, the castle-crowned hillock to the north-east
+of the island, but as this hill must first have caught
+the expectant eye of Aeneas’ steersman, perhaps the
+epithet is after all not so misplaced as would appear
+at first sight. Carefully tilled and densely populated,
+the island produces a large proportion of the fruit,
+vegetables, and olive oil, that are sold in the Naples
+market, and as it possesses no remains of antiquity,
+no medieval churches, no works of art, and but few
+beauties of nature to recommend it for inspection,
+Procida is rarely visited by strangers. Its inhabitants,
+who are chiefly husbandmen, are hard working
+and independent, and content also to retain the
+manners and customs of their frugal forefathers, and
+<pb n='276'/><anchor id='Pg276'/>even to a certain extent to continue the use of
+their national dress, so that the festivals of Procida
+have more interest and local colour than those
+observed in tourist-haunted Capri or Sorrento. Unconcerned
+at the progress of the world without, unspoiled
+by the gold of the <hi rend='italic'>forestiere</hi>, the Procidani pursue the
+even tenor of their old-fashioned ways, unenvious of
+and unenvied by their neighbours on the mainland.
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona nôrint,</q></l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Agricolas!</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+We halt at the port of Procida, with its flat-roofed
+gaily coloured houses lining the quay and ascending
+the gentle slope towards the Rocciola. Thence, skirting
+the low-lying fertile shores of the island, and passing
+the olive-clad islet of Vivara, we soon come in sight of
+the steep headland on which are perched the grey masses
+of the Castle of Ischia, <q>the Mount St Michael of Italy.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Covered from base to summit with fume-weed,
+lentisk, aromatic cistus, and every plant that loves
+the sun, the wind and the salt foam of the
+Mediterranean, the huge solitary cliff rises majestically
+from the deep blue water. Whether viewed
+in brilliant sunshine under a cloudless sky, or in
+foul weather, when the sea is hurling its waves over
+the stone causeway that connects the isolated crag
+with the little city of Ischia, the first sight of this
+historic castle is singularly impressive. Nor is its
+grandeur lessened on a near approach, for the ascent
+to its topmost tower takes us through a labyrinth
+of staircases and mysterious subterranean passages,
+through vaulted chambers and curious hanging
+gardens to an airy platform, which commands a
+glorious view in every direction over land and sea.
+</p>
+
+<pb n='277'/><anchor id='Pg277'/>
+
+<p>
+Built by Alphonso V. of Aragon in the fifteenth
+century, this massive pile, half-fortress and half-palace,
+is famous in Italian annals for its long
+association with the noble poetess Vittoria Colonna,
+Marchioness of Pescara. Born in the old Castle
+of Marino, near Rome, one of the strongholds of
+the great feudal house of Colonna, the poetess, who
+was great-great-niece to Pope Martin V., was betrothed
+in her infancy at the instigation of King Ferdinand
+of Naples to the youthful heir of the d’Avalos family,
+hereditary governors of the island of Ischia. The
+elder sister of Vittoria’s affianced husband, Constance
+d’Avalos, the widowed Duchess of Francavilla, was
+the <q>châtelaine</q> of Ischia during her brother’s
+minority, so that it was but natural that his Colonna
+bride-elect should be sent to dwell with Constance
+in this castle. Here Vittoria under her sister-in-law’s
+excellent tutelage grew up to womanhood amidst the
+intellectual atmosphere of the Italian Renaissance, and
+here she was trained to develop into one of the most
+learned, the most interesting and the most attractive
+figures that all Italy produced at this period. Childless
+in her early marriage at eighteen, and with her husband
+frequently, not to say usually, engaged in military
+expeditions on the mainland, Vittoria had every
+opportunity of cultivating her mind and of filling her
+sea-girt palace with men of genius. The poets Cariteo
+and Bernado Tasso (the father of Torquato Tasso),
+were frequent visitors at this
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Superbo scoglio, altaro e bel ricetto,</q></l>
+<l>Di tanti chiari eroi, d’ imperadori,</l>
+<l>Orde raggi di gloria escono fuori,</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Ch’ ogni altro lume fan scuro e negletto.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<pb n='278'/><anchor id='Pg278'/>
+
+<p>
+Strange to relate, her husband, the Marquis of
+Pescara, was destined to forestall his learned lady in
+the matter of poetry, for during his imprisonment at
+Milan in the year 1512, he composed a <q>Dialogo
+d’Amore</q> to send to his sorrowing wife at Ischia, a
+production which the learned Paolo Giovio, the historian
+and bishop of Nocera, pronounced as being <q>summae
+jucunditatis,</q> though in reality it seems to have been
+feeble enough. But however halting and commonplace
+the warrior’s verses, Pescara’s composition had
+the immediate effect of opening the flood-gates of his
+wife’s poetic temperament, for she replied at once to
+her spouse’s effort with an epistle conceived in the
+<hi rend='italic'>terza rima</hi> employed by Dante, and though the poem
+is turgid in diction and shallow in thought, full of
+classical names and allusions, <q>a parade of all the
+treasures of the school-room,</q> it exhibits the graceful
+ease and high scholarship which mark all Vittoria’s
+writings. Meanwhile, unblest with offspring of her
+own and ever separated by the cruel circumstance
+of war from the husband she seemed perfectly content
+to admire from a distance, Vittoria did not expend
+all her time at Ischia in sacrificing to Apollo
+and the Muses, for she now undertook the education
+of her husband’s young cousin and heir, Alphonso
+d’Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, whose manhood certainly
+did credit to his instructress, for del Vasto
+under her influence grew up to be a brave soldier and
+a tolerable scholar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After sixteen years of married life with a husband
+who, although professing deep devotion to his brilliant
+and virtuous consort, was almost invariably absent from
+her side, Vittoria found herself left a widow shortly
+<pb n='279'/><anchor id='Pg279'/>after the great battle of Pavia in 1525 wherein Francis I.
+of France surrendered to the Emperor Charles V. The
+Marquis of Pescara, after the usual career of bloodthirsty
+adventures which passed in those days for a life of
+knight-errantry, died at Milan towards the close
+of this year, leaving behind him an unenviable reputation
+for treachery towards his master. But however
+hard were the things said of the deceased Fernando
+d’Avalos by the outside world, no breath of suspicion
+seems ever to have penetrated to the heart of the faithful
+if placid Vittoria, who mourned bitterly if somewhat
+theatrically over her departed hero. The Lady
+of the Rock was now in her thirty-fifth year, and her
+beauty, so we are told, still remained undimmed; in
+fact it was rather improved by a tendency towards
+plumpness, for sorrow and poetry are not necessarily
+associated with a meagre appearance. Spending her
+time partly in the great Italian cities, but chiefly on
+her beloved <hi rend='italic'>scoglio superbo</hi>, the widow of Pescara now
+set herself to write that series of sonnets in memory of
+her dead husband which have rescued his unworthy
+name from oblivion and have rendered her own famous
+in Italian literature. For the sonnets of Vittoria
+Colonna, though appearing cold classical and pedantic
+to our northern ideas, evidently appeal to the Italian
+temperament, so that the praises of Pescara and his
+widow’s stilted complaints, couched in the elegant
+language of the Renaissance, are still read and appreciated
+to-day by her compatriots. As time passed,
+and the ghost of sorrowful remorse was supposed to
+be decently laid, the sonnets contain somewhat less of
+hero-worship, and assume a religious and speculative
+character. Some critics have even gone so far as to
+<pb n='280'/><anchor id='Pg280'/>affect to perceive a latent spirit of Protestantism
+underlying the graceful platitudes and commonplace
+but grandly expressed ideas. Very likely the Lady
+of the Rock dabbled in the fashionable heterodoxy of
+the hour, as it is at least certain that she was on terms
+of intimacy with the celebrated Princess Renée, the
+<q>Protestant</q> Duchess of Ferrara. On the other hand,
+several of her acquaintances and correspondents were
+amongst the most prominent of the unyielding
+Churchmen of the day; in their number being, it is
+interesting to note, Cardinal Reginald Pole, great-nephew
+of King Edward IV. of England and afterwards
+Queen Mary’s Archbishop of Canterbury, who
+was certainly not likely to encourage Vittoria’s unorthodox
+or reforming tendencies. <q>The more
+opportunity,</q> so writes the poetess to Cardinal Cervino,
+afterwards Pope Marcellus II., <q>I have had of observing
+the actions of his Eminence the Cardinal of England,
+the more clear has it seemed to me that he is a true
+and sincere servant of God. Whenever, therefore, he
+charitably condescends to give me his opinion on any
+point, I conceive myself safe from error in following
+his advice.</q> And on the strength of Cardinal Pole’s
+astute counsels, Vittoria promptly broke off all communication
+with the leading reformer, Bernardino
+Ochino, and (a thing which does not strike us as particularly
+honourable) forwarded his letters to herself
+unopened to his spiritual adversaries. But it is
+evident that Vittoria’s <q>Protestantism</q> was a mere
+pose, assumed at a time when adverse criticism from
+all sides was being levelled at the political abuses of
+the Papacy and at the various scandals in the Church
+which were patent to the eyes of all onlookers. In
+<pb n='281'/><anchor id='Pg281'/>short her religious verses are if anything more frigid and
+artificial than those which compose the <hi rend='italic'>In Memoriam</hi>
+to her husband, her <hi rend='italic'>Bel Sole</hi>, as she usually terms him.
+Whilst admitting considerable merit in Vittoria’s compositions,
+we find it at this distance of time very
+difficult to understand the extravagant praise which
+was showered upon her poems by the Italian critics of
+the day, or to conceive how a sonnet from the gifted
+pen of the Marchioness of Pescara could possibly have
+been considered an important event in the literary
+world by cardinals, princes, poets, wits and scholars.
+From Naples to Rome, from Rome to Ferrara, from
+Ferrara to Mantua and Milan, the precious manuscript
+containing the last-born sonnet of the illustrious Lady
+of Ischia was eagerly passed along. Court poets read
+aloud amidst breathless silence the divine Vittoria’s
+fourteen lines of jejune sentiment draped in folds of
+elegant verbiage; nobles and prelates applauded,
+hailing the authoress as a heaven-sent genius. Sincere
+to a certain extent this strange admiration undoubtedly
+was, although the homage was paid perhaps in
+equal proportions to the excellence of the verse and
+to the high rank of the author. She was a Colonna
+by birth; she was the widow of a petty despot; she
+was governor of a large island;—any literary production,
+however indifferent, from so high a personage
+would have been received throughout Italy with
+respect or flattery. But Vittoria was no mean or
+careless aspirant to fame; it was the fault of an
+artificial age rather than the lack of her own natural
+ability that has made her poetry cold and soulless,
+for under healthy conditions of life and thought,
+<q>the Divine Vittoria</q> was doubtless capable of
+pro<pb n='282'/><anchor id='Pg282'/>ducing something warmer and more human than the
+lifeless but graceful sonnets that bear her name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is chiefly through her close connexion with the
+great literary movement of the Italian Renaissance
+and her intimacy with its leading artists and writers,
+rather than through her own reputation as a poetess,
+that the name of Vittoria Colonna herself is remembered
+outside the borders of Italy. With her
+wealth, her culture, her virtue and her unique position
+in the world of rank and of letters, it is nothing
+marvellous that so fortunate and gifted a mortal
+should have become the idol of the leading persons of
+her day. She belonged, in fact, to a brilliant and
+famous group of which she was the soul and centre;
+of which she was at once the patron, the disciple and
+the teacher. That great master of Italian prose,
+Pietro Bembo, set a high value on her powers of
+criticism; other men, almost as distinguished as the
+Venetian cardinal, besought her for advice on literary
+subjects. Foremost in her circle of admirers appears
+of course the great Michelangelo, with whom the
+immaculate Vittoria condescended to indulge in one
+of those cold platonic pseudo-passions which constituted
+the true <hi rend='italic'>divino amore</hi> of the idealists of the
+Renaissance. So here was nothing to cavil at, nothing
+to arouse base suspicion. Considered the greatest
+man and the greatest woman in all Italy, both were
+of mature age, he in the sixties and she in the forties,
+when Michelangelo first professed himself seized with
+a pure but unquenchable love and devotion for the
+widowed Lady of the Rock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The last days of Vittoria, which were chiefly spent
+within the walls of the Convent of Sant’ Anna at
+<pb n='283'/><anchor id='Pg283'/>Rome, were clouded by ill-health and sorrow. The
+death of the young Marchese del Vasto, <q>her moral
+and intellectual son,</q> was an irreparable loss, for which
+her boundless fame and popularity could offer little
+real consolation. At length the poetess, feeling death
+approaching, moved to the house of Giulia Colonna,
+her relative, and there expired in February 1547, in
+the fifty-seventh year of her age. To the last her
+death-bed was surrounded by sorrowing and adoring
+friends, amongst them being Michelangelo, who is said
+to have witnessed with his own eyes the last moments
+of his beloved Lady. And the famous sculptor,
+painter and poet—perhaps the most stupendous
+genius the world has yet produced—is reported to
+have bitterly regretted in after years that on so solemn
+an occasion he had not ventured to imprint one chaste
+kiss upon the forehead of the woman he had adored
+so ardently, yet so purely during life. By her expressed
+wish the body of the poetess was buried in
+San Domenico Maggiore at Naples, the finest and
+least spoiled of all the Neapolitan churches, where
+a velvet-covered coffin containing the ashes of the
+Divine Vittoria and her <q>Bel Sole,</q> and surmounted
+by the sword, banner and portrait of Fernando d’Avalos,
+is still pointed out to the stranger, resting on
+a shelf in the sacristy of the church. We cannot but
+regret that Vittoria’s body did not find a final resting-place
+in her <hi rend='italic'>superbo scoglio</hi>, where all her happiest years
+were spent and where her memory still survives so fresh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sadly deserted appear to-day the historic buildings,
+which are fast falling into hopeless decay; even the
+large domed church of the Castle has been desecrated
+and turned into a stable.
+</p>
+
+<pb n='284'/><anchor id='Pg284'/>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Tocsins from yon bleak turrets never ring;</q></l>
+<l>No knight or pages pace those galleries,</l>
+<l>So sombre and so silent: ever cling</l>
+<l>To that cold church and palace draperies</l>
+<l>Of glaucous fume-weed; sea-birds ever sing</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">The vanished glories with low mournful cries.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Ischia itself is a quaint, dirty, straggling town,
+possessing a small cathedral of ancient foundation,
+but modernised within and without, its sole object of
+interest being a curious font resting on marble lions.
+The charm of the city lies chiefly in the busy scenes
+to be witnessed daily on its sandy beach and on the
+stone causeway that leads to the Castle, where a large
+part of the population seems to spend most of its
+time in mending the deep brown fishing nets or in
+attending to the gaudily painted boats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Almost adjoining the outskirts of the little capital
+of the island is Porto d’Ischia, with a deep circular
+harbour that was once the crater of an extinct volcano,
+wherein every variety of Mediterranean fishing craft
+is to be seen at anchor. Close to the port, embowered
+among groves of orange and lemon trees that in
+winter time are laden with bright or pale yellow
+fruit, stands a fine old villa of the Bourbon kings
+of Naples, once a favourite summer retreat of his
+Majesty King Bomba. Royalty has long abandoned
+Ischia, and the villa has now been converted into a
+bath house. Beyond its neglected park stretches an
+extensive pine forest, carpeted in spring time with
+daisies, marigolds and anemones, and even in February
+gay with yellow oxalis and redolent with the scent of
+hidden violets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The road from Ischia to Casamicciola, a distance
+<pb n='285'/><anchor id='Pg285'/>of four miles, leads along the base of Monte Epomeo
+through olive groves and vineyards, the whitewashed
+walls of the domed cottages, the flat roofs and cisterns,
+and the frequent clumps of aloe or prickly pear giving
+an Eastern aspect to the scenery, though the sharp
+tinklings of the goat bells among the thickets of
+white heath and dark myrtle scrub on the hill-sides
+and the continual murmur of the waves breaking on
+the rocks below, serve to remind us we are upon the
+Neapolitan Riviera. Our destination at length is
+reached, the roadway crossing the deep valley of the
+Gurgitello with its sulphur baths, which once had a
+wide reputation and are still much frequented in the
+summer months by the people of Naples. Although
+the sources of the springs were certainly damaged by
+the earthquake of 1883, new bathing establishments
+have been built, and a fair number of patients are
+once more availing themselves of these beneficent
+waters, which of course are warranted to heal every
+bodily evil under the sun. A course of the Ischian
+waters therefore applied externally and internally (so
+the local doctors inform us)
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Muove i paralitici,</q></l>
+<l>Spedisce gli apopletici,</l>
+<l>Gli asmatici, gli asfitici,</l>
+<l>Gl’ isterici, i diabetici</l>
+<l>Guarisce timpanitidi,</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">E scrofule e rachitidi.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Formerly the most populous and prosperous township
+of the whole island, Casamicciola consists to-day
+principally of a mass of shapeless ruins, together with
+a number of dismal corrugated iron huts grouped
+round an ugly modern church, nor can its exquisite
+<pb n='286'/><anchor id='Pg286'/>views and luxuriant gardens make amends for the
+settled air of melancholy which continues to brood
+over this unlucky spot. Every reader will doubtless
+remember the story of the terrible earthquake of
+July 28th 1883, when almost without warning the
+whole town, then crowded with its usual influx of
+summer visitors, was overthrown and engulfed in
+the space of a few seconds of time. Hotels, villas,
+churches, cottages, all suffered equally, and though the
+exact number of those who perished of all classes
+will never be known, the most moderate accounts put
+the figure as high as 3000 souls. Several English
+people lost their lives in that brief but terrible
+upheaval, and as many of the bodies as were
+recovered from the wreckage were laid to rest in the
+little cemetery outside the town, a plot of ground
+overhanging the sea, and shaded by cypress and
+eucalyptus trees. Many and impressive are the
+stories still to be heard from the lips of the present
+inhabitants, who are wont to date all events from
+that fearful night of darkness and destruction, and
+who all have piteous tales to tell of relations killed
+and houses shattered. The English landlady of the
+<hi rend='italic'>Piccola Sentinella</hi>, who herself had an almost
+miraculous escape on the occasion, gave us a most
+vivid and heart-rending description of how her hotel
+and most of its inmates were overwhelmed on that
+awful July night, and how the existing inn is literally
+built upon foundations that are filled with many
+unrecovered bodies of victims. It was on a dark
+sultry night after the evening meal had been finished,
+when the many guests of the <hi rend='italic'>Piccola Sentinella</hi> were
+sitting in the public rooms or on the terrace overlooking
+<pb n='287'/><anchor id='Pg287'/>the hotel gardens. In the <hi rend='italic'>salon</hi> a young Englishman,
+an accomplished musician, had been playing for some
+time on the piano, when suddenly and unexpectedly
+he plunged into the strains of Chopin’s <hi rend='italic'>Marche
+Funèbre</hi>, which had the immediate effect of scattering
+his audience, since many of his listeners, not caring for
+so melancholy a piece of music, deserted the room
+for the garden. Lucky indeed were those persons
+driven forth by the strains of Chopin’s dirge, for
+a few moments later came the earthquake, when in a
+trice the whole hotel was swallowed up in the yawning
+chasm of the earth. Everybody inside the walls
+was killed, and the body of the poor pianist was
+actually discovered later amidst the wreckage, crushed
+down upon the instrument which had struck the
+warning notes of impending disaster. The horrors
+of that night still linger vividly in the memory of the
+people, and many are the terrible incidents, and many
+also, we are glad to say, the acts of bravery which are
+recorded of it. One elderly English lady, who owned
+a small villa on the slope above the hotel, rushed at
+the first suspicion of the catastrophe into the stone
+archway of a window, whence she beheld the whole of
+her house collapse like a castle of cards around her.
+Nothing daunted by the spectacle, this gallant woman,
+as soon as the shock had ceased and the clouds of
+dust rising from the ruin had cleared away, left her
+own dismantled home, of which nothing but the one
+wall that had sheltered her remained standing, and
+joined the <hi rend='italic'>parrocco</hi>, the parish priest of Casamicciola,
+in the task of succouring the living and comforting
+the dying. To the darkness of the night was now
+added a heavy rainfall, yet the good priest and this
+<pb n='288'/><anchor id='Pg288'/>noble woman traversed together the altered and
+devastated scene amidst the wet and gloom on their
+errand of mercy. It is some satisfaction to learn that
+this piece of unselfish heroism and devotion on the
+part of the priest was officially acknowledged, for the
+humble curate of Casamicciola was afterwards made
+a prelate by Pope Leo XIII. in recognition of his
+signal services. Even to-day people are inclined to
+be somewhat chary of spending any length of time
+in this unfortunate spot, where the ruined streets and
+shapeless mounds of earth, only too suggestive of a
+latter-day Pompeii, speak so eloquently of terrible
+experiences in the past and of possible dangers in the
+future. Nevertheless, if one can triumph over these
+gloomy feelings, Casamicciola affords a delightful
+centre whence to explore the whole island, and many
+are the pleasant walks to be found on the overhanging
+slopes of Mont’ Epomeo, and many the boating
+expeditions to be made from the Marina below the
+upper town.
+</p>
+<anchor id="illus22"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: ON THE PICCOLA MARINA, CAPRI]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus22th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus22.jpg">ON THE PICCOLA MARINA, CAPRI</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: On the Piccola Marina, Capri</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+It is a two-mile walk through stony lanes overhung
+by branches of fig and orange from Casamicciola to
+Lacco, a large village well situated on a little bay
+which is distinguished by a curious mushroom-shaped
+rock, aptly nicknamed <q>Il Fungo</q> by the natives.
+This place, which also suffered severely in the earthquake
+of 1883, is the head-quarters of the straw-plaiting
+industry of the island, the women and children noisily
+beseeching every chance visitor to buy their wares in
+the guise of baskets, hats and fans; the pretty coloured
+tiles (<hi rend='italic'>mattoni</hi>), which are used with such good effect in
+the churches and houses of the island, are likewise
+manufactured here. Lacco is particularly associated
+<pb n='289'/><anchor id='Pg289'/>with the great annual festival of St Restituta on May
+17th, which is always marked by religious processions
+and by universal merry-making, followed by illuminations
+and fireworks at nightfall. This saint, of whom
+an early mosaic portrait still exists in her ancient chapel
+within the Neapolitan Cathedral, was once the patroness
+of the city of Naples, but since medieval times she has
+been honoured as the special guardian of this island,
+whither her body (so the legend runs) was miraculously
+conveyed from Egypt in a boat rowed by angels. A
+local tradition also asserts that on her landing by the
+beach of Lacco, an Egyptian lotus bloom was found
+in the saint’s hand, as fresh as when it had been
+plucked months before from the banks of the Nile.
+</p>
+<p>
+Leaving the little bay with its sulphur-impregnated
+sands, and turning inland, we proceed along a road
+across an ancient lava-stream over-grown with pine
+trees, wild caper and a tangle of aromatic brushwood,
+to Forio, which with its white domed houses, its palm
+trees, and its stately bare-footed women bearing tall
+pitchers on their heads gives at first acquaintance the
+full impression of an Oriental city. There is little to
+be seen in Forio itself, with the exception of some fine
+vestments of needlework that are preserved in the
+sacristy of its principal church, but no traveller should
+fail to visit its wonderfully picturesque Franciscan
+monastery, a barbaric-looking pile of dazzling white
+walls and cupolas set against a background of cobalt
+waters, which stands outside the town on a rocky platform
+jutting into the Mediterranean and is approached
+by a broad flight of marble steps adorned with most
+realistic figures of souls burning in brightly painted
+flames of Purgatory. This point too commands a
+<pb n='290'/><anchor id='Pg290'/>good view of the extreme north-eastern promontory
+of the island, a tall cliff known as the Punta del
+Imperatore in honour of the great Emperor Charles
+the Fifth, beyond which visitors rarely penetrate owing
+to the roughness, or rather non-existence of roads,
+though the southern side of the island, which lies
+between this cape and the castle of Ischia, is fully as
+beautiful as the northern portion just described.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The chief attraction, however, of a visit to Ischia is
+the ascent of Mont’ Epomeo, an easy expedition on
+foot to the active, and feasible to the weak or lazy on
+mule-back. This extinct volcano, whose broad lofty
+summit is visible from many points of the Bay of
+Naples, is naturally rich in classical associations, the
+ancients believing that within it lay imprisoned the
+giant Typhoeus, whose agonised movements were wont
+to cause the frequent eruptions of the crater that
+eventually drove away the early Greek settlers from
+this island—the Aenaria or Inarime of antiquity—and
+in later times accounted for the neglect of Ischia
+as a winter resort by the luxurious Romans, in spite
+of its near presence to fashionable Baiae. So destructive
+of life and property were these convulsions of
+nature, that for long periods, notwithstanding its fertile
+soil and its lucrative fisheries, the island remained
+uninhabited, and an old tradition, mentioned by Ovid,
+derives one of its ancient names, Pithecusa, from a
+race of apes (<hi rend='italic'>pithēkoi</hi>) that dwelt on its abandoned
+shores. Since the great eruption of 1302, the effects
+of which can still be traced among the large pine
+woods near Porto d’Ischia, the mountain has been
+quiescent, and the population of the island has increased
+considerably, although the constant shocks of
+<pb n='291'/><anchor id='Pg291'/>earthquake have always made a permanent residence
+in Ischia somewhat insecure. Nor can we rest assured
+that Typhoeus himself is truly dead, not merely sleeping,
+but ready to renew his fierce efforts after his long
+spell of slumber, and to change the face of nature as
+unexpectedly as did the Demon of Vesuvius in the
+reign of Titus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Like the great volcano of Etna, which the Ischian
+mountain somewhat resembles on a tiny scale.
+Epomeo contains three distinct climatic zones. The
+lowest is that of the coast line with its rich sub-tropical
+vegetation, the early part of the ascent leading by steep
+stony paths through sun-baked vineyards which produce
+the white wine of Ischia, wholesome and light but
+somewhat acid in taste. For the storing of this vintage
+the peasants make use of the numerous old stone
+towers, that once served as safe retreats for the terrified
+inhabitants in times when the Barbary pirates frequently
+descended on the Italian coasts to plunder and enslave.
+Very curious it is to step out of the blinding sunlight
+into the interior of one of these medieval buildings,
+where in the icy gloom stand great barrels of the new
+white wine, each carefully inscribed with a prayer in
+praise of St Restituta, from one of which the swarthy
+<hi rend='italic'>contadino</hi>, in expectation of a few pence, draws a glassful
+of the sour chilly liquid to offer his visitor. Leaving
+behind this region of houses and of cultivation, the
+zone of forest is reached, covered with woods of chestnut
+and oak, with a thick undergrowth of heather, myrtle,
+laurustinus and sweet-scented yellow coronella; there
+is grass under our feet, and long-stemmed daisies,
+violets, mauve anemones and small fragrant marigolds
+everywhere. Through the trees comes the nasal but
+<pb n='292'/><anchor id='Pg292'/>not unmelodious singing of an unseen charcoal-burner,
+or the plaintive note of the little goat-herd’s rustic pipe,
+accompanied by the musical jingling of his goat-bells;—for
+a moment we try to fancy ourselves in the pastoral
+Italy of Theocritus, where nymphs and shepherds,
+peasants and dryads, lived together on terms of amity
+in the woods. But soon the chestnut trees appear
+stunted, and the groves become less thick, and we
+finally gain the last zone, the desolate expanse of naked
+rock and dark lava deposits of the summit, where only
+a few hardy weeds can thrive. Here in some damp
+mouldy chambers dwells a hermit, for nearly all the
+classic mountains of Southern Italy are tenanted by an
+anchorite, generally an old and ignorant, but pious
+peasant, of the type of Pietro Murrone, the holy recluse
+of the Abruzzi, who was finally dragged from his cell to be
+invested forcibly with the pontifical robes and tiara as
+Celestine the Fifth. The present hermitage on Mont’
+Epomeo dates however from comparatively modern
+times, for its first occupant is said to have been a
+German nobleman, a certain Joseph Arguth, governor
+of Ischia under the first Bourbon king, who in consequence
+of a solemn vow made in battle deliberately
+passed his last years of existence on the topmost peak
+of the island he had lately ruled. His example has
+been followed and his cell filled by many successors,
+who have endured the spring rains, the summer heats,
+the autumn storms and the winter chills upon this airy
+height, where the glorious view may be found a compensation
+for eternal discomfort, if hermits condescend
+to appreciate anything so mundane as scenery. The
+shrine and cell are dedicated to St Nicholas of Bari,
+and to this circumstance is due the local uninteresting
+<pb n='293'/><anchor id='Pg293'/>name of Monte San Niccolò to the entire mountain,
+whose crest, some 3000 feet above sea-level, we finally
+gain by means of steps roughly hewn in the lava.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The view from this height, embracing two out of
+the three historic bays of the Parthenopean coast, is
+one of the noblest and most extensive in Southern
+Italy. Looking southward, the fantastic cliffs of Capri
+are seen to rise abruptly from the ocean; beyond them
+appears the graceful outline of Monte Sant’ Angelo,
+with the crater of Vesuvius beside it, veiling the clear
+blue sky with volumes of dusky smoke. Beneath
+extends the broken line of shore, stretching north and
+south as far as the eye can travel, with its classic capes
+and islands basking in the strong sunshine; whilst
+behind the foam-fringed boundary of land and sea
+rises the jagged line of the Abruzzi Mountains with
+the huge snow-clad mass of the Gran Sasso d’Italia
+towering above the lower peaks. At our feet is spread
+the beautiful and fertile island, in outward appearance
+little changed since the days when the good Bishop
+Berkeley <q>of every virtue under Heaven</q> penned its
+description nearly two centuries ago in a letter to
+Alexander Pope, wherein he described Ischia as <q>an
+epitome of the whole earth.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In spite of the good Bishop’s eloquent tribute to the
+genial climate and the natural beauty of Ischia, it
+must be borne in mind that a residence on the island
+possesses one or two serious drawbacks. Apart from
+the ever-present fear of earthquakes, which hangs like
+the sword of Damocles above the heads of the inhabitants,
+there is yet another disadvantage, prosaic
+but very real, in the lack of pure water, every well
+and rivulet on Ischia being more or less impregnated
+<pb n='294'/><anchor id='Pg294'/>with sulphur, with the result that water for drinking
+(and in summer even for domestic) purposes has to be
+conveyed by boat from Naples. It is bad enough to
+be dependant on a distant city for a food supply (which
+is to some extent also the case here), but the possibility
+of enduring a water famine through storms or misadventure
+would be a far more serious calamity;
+nevertheless as casual visitors to this charming and
+little-known island, we can easily afford to smile at
+such misfortunes.<note place="foot">A portion of this chapter has already appeared in an article by the
+Author, entitled <hi rend='italic'>The Island of Ischia</hi>, in the <hi rend='italic'>Westminster Review</hi>, December
+1905.</note>
+</p><anchor id="illus23"/>
+<pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: ISCHIA FROM CASTELLAMARE (SUNSET)]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus23th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus23.jpg">ISCHIA FROM CASTELLAMARE (SUNSET)</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: ISCHIA FROM CASTELLAMARE (SUNSET)</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+</div><div n="13" rend="page-break-before: always">
+<pb n='295'/><anchor id='Pg295'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="13: Puteoli and the Grandeur that was Rome"/>
+<head>CHAPTER XIII</head>
+
+<head type="sub">PUTEOLI AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME</head>
+
+<p>
+Passing along the noisy thronged street of the
+Chiaja and plunging thence into the chill
+gloomy recesses of the ancient grotto of Posilipo,
+we emerge at its further side into a new world, as
+it were, into a district where <q>there is scarcely a spot
+which is not identified with the poetical mythology
+of Greece, or associated with some name familiar in
+the history of Rome.</q> In truth, the headland of
+Posilipo presents a wonderful landmark in the history
+of Naples, for it forms a barrier between the busy
+world of to-day and the departed civilisation of the
+ancients: at the latter end of this tunnel, the fierce
+life and movement of a great commercial city; at its
+western exit, a tract of land teeming with recollections
+of the glorious past.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As our carriage emerges once more into the warmth
+and sunlight, we find ourselves in the miserable village
+of Fuorigrotta, which, by a strange coincidence, is
+associated with the memory of a famous Italian poet.
+For if the name and verses of Sannazzaro cling to
+Piedigrotta and the Parthenopean shore on the eastern
+side of the hill, the genius of Count Giacomo Leopardi
+sheds its melancholy radiance over the unlovely purlieus
+of Fuorigrotta. Here in the vestibule of the parish
+<pb n='296'/><anchor id='Pg296'/>church of San Vitale, lie the ashes of that unhappy
+writer, the Shelley of Italian literature, who so bewailed
+the Austrian and Bourbon fetters that enchained his
+native land. Poor Leopardi! It was but eleven years
+before the first great movement of the <hi rend='italic'>Risorgimento</hi>
+swept over Italy in 1848 that he passed away; his
+poems were indeed songs before sunrise, a sunrise of
+which he failed to detect the far-off glimmering, so
+that he could only lament without hope the sad
+condition of his dismembered country, once the
+mistress and now the play-thing of the world, and
+the abject slave of hated Austria:
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">O patria mia, vedo le mure e gli archi</q></l>
+<l>E le colonne e i simulacri e l’ erme</l>
+<l>Torri degli avi nostri,</l>
+<l>Ma la gloria non vedo;</l>
+<l>Non vedo il lauro e’l ferro ond’ eran carchi</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">I nostri padri antichi.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+It is a flat dusty stretch of road that lies between
+Fuorigrotta and Bagnoli; the high walls give only
+occasional glimpses of well-tilled <hi rend='italic'>parterres</hi>—one
+cannot call these tiny patches of cultivation fields—with
+thriving crops of brilliant green corn, of claret-red
+clover, of purple lucerne, and of the white-flowered
+<q>sad lupin,</q> which Vergil has immortalised in verse.
+The round bright yellow beans of the lupin crop, known
+locally by the name of <hi rend='italic'>spassa-tiempî</hi> (time-killers),
+afford an article of food to the very poorest of the
+population. A quaint story runs that one day an
+impoverished philosopher, reduced to making his
+dinner off a handful of these beans, and imagining
+himself in consequence the most wretched wight in
+existence, was cheered and comforted by observing
+<pb n='297'/><anchor id='Pg297'/>himself followed by a still more miserable fellow-mortal,
+who was engaged in picking up and eating
+the husks of the beans that, <hi rend='italic'>more italiano</hi>, he had
+thrown carelessly on to the pathway after their insipid
+farinaceous contents had been sucked out!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Above us to the right are the heights of Monte
+Spina, covered with groves of the umbrella pine, the
+typical tree of Naples; to our left extends the verdant
+ridge of Posilipo, ending in Cape Coroglio, beyond
+which the massive form of Nisida rises proudly from
+the blue expanse of water. All the landscape shows
+somewhat hard in the glare of noontide, and we find
+the enveloping clouds of fine white dust very oppressive
+and disagreeable. From time to time a lumbering
+country cart is passed with its attendant bare-footed
+peasant; otherwise there is little sign of life on the
+high road. The bright sunlight flashes upon the
+horse’s polished brass harness, and upon the elaborate
+erection of charms placed thereon, with the avowed
+object of averting the dreaded Evil Eye, that everlasting
+bugbear of all dwellers upon these southern
+shores. On his poor drooping head the worn-out old
+steed carries a large bell with four jingling clappers
+and two brazen crescents, the horns of one of which
+point upwards and of the other towards the ground.
+On the off-side of the headgear is a bunch of bright-coloured
+ribbands or woollen tassels, from which
+depends the single horn, the invaluable Neapolitan
+talisman that is supposed to protect every man,
+woman, child or beast, from the chance glance of
+a passing <hi rend='italic'>jettatore</hi>. Above this glowing mass of
+colour some three or four feathers of a pheasant’s
+tail are stuck, apparently with no ulterior purpose
+<pb n='298'/><anchor id='Pg298'/>than that of ornament; but beside the bunch of
+ribbands there is also fixed a piece of wolf’s skin,
+to give strength to the jaded animal, for, remarks
+the sapient Pliny, <q>a wolf’s skin attached to a horse’s
+neck will render him proof against all weariness.</q>
+Personally, we should think a little more consideration
+and some elementary knowledge of farriery
+would have been of more service to the ill-used
+beasts round Naples than the excellent Pliny’s
+highly original receipt. Besides this powerful battery
+of charms to intercept the <hi rend='italic'>jettatura</hi>, there is the light
+brass headpiece engraved with sacred figures, so
+that any evil glance must be fully absorbed, baffled
+or exhausted, before it can fix itself upon the animal.
+In addition however to this shining mass of headgear,
+the horse carries on his back one of those
+curious high pommels that are peculiar to Southern
+Italy and Sicily. The front of the pommel itself is
+of well-polished brass, and covered with a number of
+studs, whilst at its back is fastened a miniature
+barrel, upon which there stands erect the figure of
+some local saint, generally that of San Gennaro.
+The exact part that the barrel and the row of studs
+play in this mystic battle against the Evil Eye is
+unknown, but the two revolving flags of brass that
+swing and creak above the pommel itself are believed
+to represent <q>the flaming sword which turned every
+way,</q> and finally expelled Adam and Eve from the
+Garden of Eden. Certainly this shimmering metal
+has the appearance of a flaming sword in the bright
+sunshine, so that it ought to prove efficacious in
+catching and averting any baleful glance. A second
+patch of wolf skin on the crest of the pommel, and
+<pb n='299'/><anchor id='Pg299'/>some red worsted wound round the spindle of the
+flags complete the list of strange charms that are
+considered necessary to protect a Neapolitan horse
+from the pernicious influence of a casual passer-by.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We soon reach the sea-shore at Bagnoli, a little
+watering-place much frequented by Neapolitans of
+the middle classes, and on looking back we obtain a
+charming view of the headland of Posilipo and of
+stately Nisida, the Nesis of the ancients, with its
+memories of Brutus, <q>the noblest Roman of them all,</q>
+who on this little island bade farewell for ever to his
+devoted Portia. A very different tenant from the chaste
+Portia, however, who once possessed a villa in this
+sea-girt retreat during the Middle Ages, was Queen
+Joanna the Second, the last member of the Durazzo
+branch of the Angevin royal house, and sister and
+heiress of King Ladislaus II., whose splendid monument
+in San Giovanni a Carbonara is one of the chief
+artistic treasures of Naples. It is of course unnecessary
+here to remark that there were two Queens of Naples,
+both Joanna by name, and that the first of these, the
+contemporary of Petrarch (whose proper feeling she contrived
+to shock) was certainly not a pattern of female
+virtue, but that she shone as a moral paragon when
+contrasted with her name-sake and successor, the sister
+of King Ladislaus. Of this second Queen, tradition
+more or less accurate relates a host of stories, none of
+them to her credit; how she dabbled in necromancy
+and was immersed in love intrigues, the most celebrated
+of which was her amour with the handsome <q>Ser.
+Gianni,</q> Giovanni Caracciolo, head of an eminent
+family that has figured prominently in Neapolitan
+history from the days of Angevin monarchs to those
+<pb n='300'/><anchor id='Pg300'/>of King Ferdinand. Little good did the fickle Queen’s
+favour do Ser. Gianni, who suffered an ignominious fate
+for having one day boxed Joanna’s ears during a lovers’
+tiff. Murdered secretly by four assassins, Caracciolo’s
+body was laid to rest in the family chapel in San
+Giovanni a Carbonara beneath a splendid monument
+which is surmounted by the luckless favourite’s
+effigy. Joanna the First with all her faults was never
+guilty of such light conduct as this, but the peasant
+mind is always impatient of dry details of fact, so that
+in the popular imagination to-day both Queens are
+blended into one personage, whose character, it is needless
+to say, is about as vile as can be conceived.
+<q>Siccome la Regina Giovanna,</q> is a form of peasant
+execration around Naples that has some historical
+affinity with the time-honoured Irish <anchor id="corr300"/><corr sic="maledicton">malediction</corr> of the
+<q>Curse o’ Cromwell.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Turning our backs on the island with its memories
+of Portia the Perfect and of Queen Joanna the Improper,
+we pursue our course along the sea-shore
+with rocks of ancient lava above us to the right,
+now heavily overgrown with brushwood and plants,
+amongst which we notice tufts of the pretty wild
+asparagus, that the observant Pliny centuries ago
+found flourishing in this district. As an early herb,
+coming into season long before its cultivated
+cousin is fit for cutting, this succulent vegetable is
+highly prized in the South, and its flavour though somewhat
+bitter is most palatable, so that an omelette <hi rend='italic'>aux
+pointes d’asperges sauvages</hi> is a dish not to be despised
+by those who get the opportunity of testing this local
+delicacy. Before us lies our goal, Pozzuoli, with its
+ancient citadel jutting into the placid waters and backed
+<pb n='301'/><anchor id='Pg301'/>by the classic headland of Misenum, above which in
+turn towers the crest of distant Epomeo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pozzuoli in recent years has been much neglected
+by strangers, so much so that no inn worthy to be
+called an hotel now exists, and such <hi rend='italic'>trattorie</hi> as the
+place offers are all equally extortionate and detestable.
+Some time ago there was a comfortable <hi rend='italic'>pension</hi> at the
+edge of the town on the road to the Amphitheatre,
+but its English landlady has long since migrated elsewhere,
+and the comfortable <q>Hotel Grande Bretagne</q>
+is no more; whilst nowadays there are to be found
+no visitors hardy enough to endure a prolonged
+sojourn in the wretched hostelries of the town itself.
+The electric tram and the rail-road have in fact killed
+Pozzuoli as a winter resort, more’s the pity, for it is
+not only a spot of singular interest in itself but
+its climate is certainly superior to that of Naples, for
+the great headland which shuts off the city from the
+Phlegrean Fields serves also to act as a buffer against
+the icy <hi rend='italic'>tramontana</hi> that sweeps along the Chiaja in
+winter and early spring. Invalids used at one time
+to inhabit Pozzuoli on account of its mild atmosphere,
+and even to visit the Solfatara daily on mule-back, in
+order to inhale its sulphureous fumes, which were
+then believed to be good for weak chests. But
+medical fashions vary like all others, and consumptive
+patients now seek other places <anchor id="corr301"/><corr sic="then">than</corr> Pozzuoli for their
+cure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Many are the walks outside the town, and none
+are without beauty or interest, for, the neighbourhood
+of Syracuse excepted, we can think of no place
+in Italy wherein one is brought so closely into touch
+with the classical past. Nature has long clothed the
+<pb n='302'/><anchor id='Pg302'/>ruined area of the ancient city with her kindly
+drapery of foliage and flowers, so that the crumbling
+masses of tawny brick that we come across in our
+rambles are all swathed in garlands of clematis, myrtle,
+honey-suckle and coronella. It is a delight to
+speculate upon the original use and appearance of
+these shapeless blocks of creeper-clad masonry, which
+attract the eye on all sides amidst the vineyards and
+orange groves, where the peasants delving in the rich
+soil frequently alight upon treasures of the antique
+world. What a delight it is to wander through the
+Street of Tombs—alas, long rifled of their contents!—where
+the gay valerian and the pink silene sprout
+from every fissure of the soft tufa rock, and lizards of
+unusual size and brilliancy play games of hide-and-seek
+in the warm sunshine. We moderns are afraid
+of graveyards and the paraphernalia of the dead:
+many a stout-hearted Englishman objects to passing
+through a church-yard at night; not so the pagan
+Romans, who placed their cemeteries in public places
+and were wont to proceed through lines of tombs as
+they entered the city of the living: a very salutary
+and practical reminder of the transitory nature of
+life itself. The whole neighbourhood in short is
+sprinkled with these memorials of Imperial Rome;
+there is not an orange or lemon orchard but stands
+above some forgotten villa, not an acre of tilth but
+must conceal some hidden mine of classical associations.
+Charming too are the walks by the sea-shore—now sadly
+disfigured by the <hi rend='italic'>Cantiere Armstrong</hi>, with its smoke
+and ugliness looking like a dirty smudge upon the
+delicate landscape of the Bay—for here again we find
+endless traces of the Imperial age. There can be no
+<pb n='303'/><anchor id='Pg303'/>more fascinating employment than to wander along
+the beach after one of the heavy winter storms that so
+often vex the quiet of the Bay of Naples, and to
+search for fragments of precious marbles that have
+been spied by the waves amidst the sunken foundations
+of Roman villas, and thence idly flung upon the shore.
+Pieces of the choicest white Parian, squares of speckled
+Egyptian porphyry, of <hi rend='italic'>verde</hi>, <hi rend='italic'>rosso</hi> and <hi rend='italic'>giallo antico</hi>, of
+the coal-black <hi rend='italic'>Africano</hi>, all wet and glistening from
+the waves, can be picked up by the quick-sighted, and
+the gathering of these beautiful trifles, cut and polished
+by skilled hands nearly two thousand years ago, makes
+an interesting occupation. Nor is its classical lore
+the only feature of the Bay of Baiae, for though its
+actual scenery cannot compare with the grandeur of
+Capri nor its vegetation with the rich luxuriance of
+Sorrento, yet these shores have a quiet beauty of their
+own. Vine, olive and almond abound on all sides,
+and everywhere we see the groves of orange and
+lemon that in spring time scent the air with their perfumed
+blossoms. And in the early months of the
+year every patch of warm-coloured, up-turned earth is
+gay with sheets of that beautiful but rapacious weed,
+hated of the peasant, the oxalis, with its clusters of
+pale yellow flowers: a species of sorrel that is allied
+to our own white-blossomed variety. From many a
+point on the little ridges that rise behind Pozzuoli
+magnificent views can be obtained, whilst to those who
+care to study the scientific results of volcanic action
+the Phlegraean Fields afford endless occupation and
+interest. Every one of course visits the Solfatara, that
+curious semi-extinct crater, the <hi rend='italic'>Forum Vulcani</hi> of
+Strabo, which has remained for over seven hundred
+<pb n='304'/><anchor id='Pg304'/>years in its present condition of languor. A strange
+experience it is to enter the heart of a volcano that is
+still comparatively active, and to observe woods of
+poplar and a large pine tree beneath which grow
+masses of spring flowers—bright blue bugloss, the
+crimson vetch, starch hyacinths, purple self-heal, and
+golden spurge—and to pass from these thickets on to
+a space of bare white-coloured ground that trembles
+and sways under the feet like a sheet of insecure ice.
+Beyond, one sees the little fissures (<hi rend='italic'>fumaroli</hi>) emitting
+fumes of sulphur, and the guides take us to stifling
+caverns in the hill-side where we are shown the
+beautiful primrose-coloured crystals. The Solfatara,
+the Amphitheatre and the Temple of Serapis, these
+are the recognised <q>sights</q> of Pozzuoli, which strangers
+visit to-day in the space of an hour or two, and then
+return to Naples comforted with the feeling that they
+have exhausted the attractions of the place. Certainly
+their reception in the town is not likely to
+inspire them with a wish to return, for the guides and
+touts swarm here more than in any other spot in
+Italy; <q>until he has spent half an hour in Pozzuoli,</q>
+says the author of <hi rend='italic'>Dolce Napoli</hi>, <q>let no man say that
+he understands the signification of the verb to pester.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Putting aside even the objectionable habits of so
+many of its citizens, it cannot be said that the town
+itself of Pozzuoli to-day is particularly attractive,
+although its situation on the Bay of Baiae is charming
+and its quays are full of picturesque life and movement.
+Lines of irregular yellow-washed buildings,
+with faded green <hi rend='italic'>persiani</hi> and balconies draped
+with the domestic washing, with here and there a
+domed rococo church, look down upon the clear
+tide<pb n='305'/><anchor id='Pg305'/>less waters that gently lap the ancient stone-work of
+the Mole, whilst a mixed crowd of fishermen with
+bare bronzed limbs, of chattering women with gay
+handkerchiefs tied over their thick black hair, and of
+blue uniformed dapper little customs officers,—<hi rend='italic'>lupi
+marini</hi> (wolves of the sea) as the poor people facetiously
+term these revenue officials of the coast—loiter
+in the sunlight amidst the piles of tawny fishing nets
+or the pyramids of golden oranges. From the quay
+we make our way to the Largo del Municipio, a
+typical square of a provincial town in the South,
+enclosed by shabby houses and adorned by a couple
+of stunted date-palms and a battered marble fountain,
+around which numberless children and some slatternly
+women noisily converse or dispute. There is an old
+proverb in the South, that a good housewife has no
+need to know any thoroughfares save those leading to
+her church and her fountain, and as conversation cannot
+well be carried on in the former, it is the daily
+visits to the well that usually afford the required
+opportunity for exchange of gossip or for the picking
+of quarrels. Two statues decorate this unlovely but
+not uninteresting space; one is that of a Spanish bishop,
+Leon y Cardeñas, one of King Philip the Third’s
+viceroys, which serves as a reminder of the many
+vicissitudes this classic land has experienced in the
+course of history:—Phoenician, Greek, Carthaginian,
+Roman, Barbarian, Norman, German, French, Spanish
+conquerors have all left <q>footprints on the sands of
+Time</q> in the coveted land of the Siren, which all have
+possessed in turn but none have held in perpetuity.
+His Excellency the Bishop Cardeñas stands therefore
+in the open as a solid memento of the glory that once
+<pb n='306'/><anchor id='Pg306'/>was Spain, when half Europe and all America owned
+the sway of the Catholic King. The second statue,
+though not a thing of beauty, has always had the
+attraction of an unsolved puzzle, for we cannot
+decide whether it proves a complete absence or an
+abundant superfluity of humour in the Puteolani of
+to-day. It is the figure of a Roman senator, vested
+in his flowing toga, and owning (as the ancient inscription
+informs us) the grandiose name of Quintus Flavius
+Mavortius Lollianus, whose marble trunk was one of
+the earliest archaeological <q>finds</q> made in the
+excavations at Pozzuoli some two hundred years ago.
+Since the statue lacked a head and was otherwise of
+no especial value as a work of art, the Viceroy of
+Naples very generously presented this object to the
+place of its discovery, whose citizens, doubtless
+thinking the appearance of the headless statue uncanny,
+popped a stray antique occiput (of which a goodly
+number, more or less mutilated, are constantly brought
+to light by the peasants) upon Lollianus’ vacant
+shoulders. Anything more comical and at the same
+time more repellent than this hybrid statue it would be
+impossible to imagine, yet Lollianus of the unknown
+head remains a favourite with the people of Pozzuoli.
+Leaving the Largo del Municipio, with its weird senator
+and its dusty palms, we ascend by a zigzag lane
+between tall featureless houses to the Cathedral of
+San Proculo, which occupies the site of a temple of
+Augustus, that once dominated the ancient city and
+harbour below. Within, the cathedral of Proculus,
+who was a companion of St Januarius and a fellow-martyr,
+is gaudy and painted, one of those dismally
+gorgeous ecclesiastical interiors that are such a
+dis<pb n='307'/><anchor id='Pg307'/>appointment to the antiquarian in Southern Italy. In
+opposition to the memorial of Spanish conquest in
+the square below, we find here an elaborate monument
+to a French viceroy, the Duke of Montpensier, who
+served for some time as Governor of Naples after
+Charles VIII.’s capture of the city. Except the tomb
+of the young musician Pergolese, who composed the
+original <hi rend='italic'>Stabat Mater</hi> there is little else to see, and we
+gladly ascend the tower in order to gain a bird’s eye
+view of the town from a point of vantage whither
+noisy coachmen, troublesome beggars and impudent
+ragamuffins cannot pursue. Captured by the Greek
+colonists of Cumae, who gave the city the name of
+Dicoearchia instead of its ancient one of Puteoli,—a
+corruption, perhaps, of the Syriac word <hi rend='italic'>petuli</hi> (contention)—this
+old Hellenic settlement was rechristened
+Puteoli by the conquering Romans, under whose
+beneficent rule the place rapidly aspired to wealth and
+prosperity. With the rise however of Naples, the
+fame of Puteoli began to grow dim, and its importance
+to decline, although throughout Imperial times it ranked
+after Ostia as the chief victualling port of Rome. And
+of the two celebrated cities which adorned the shores
+of this Bay in classical times, Puteoli was the seat of
+commerce, and Baiae the resort of pleasure and luxury;
+yet both were doomed to dwindle and almost perish in
+the disastrous years that followed the break-up of the
+Empire. The invading hordes of Germany, the raids
+of Saracen pirates, and the constant presence of
+malaria on this deserted coast were sufficient causes in
+themselves to reduce in the course of time the thriving
+port of Puteoli to the squalid town of to-day. From
+our lofty post we can easily distinguish the limits of
+<pb n='308'/><anchor id='Pg308'/>the city in the days of Tiberius and Caligula, for to
+the north we turn our faces towards the ruined bulk
+of the Amphitheatre, now lying amidst fields and
+gardens, but well within the town walls at the time
+when Nero entertained the Armenian king Tiridates
+and shocked his Asiatic guest by himself descending
+into the arena and deftly performing the usual disgusting
+feats of a professional gladiator. To westward
+lies the Bay of Baiae, a semi-circle of glittering water
+surrounded by low hills amidst which the Monte
+Nuovo, unknown to the ancients, stands conspicuous.
+How completely have all traces of splendour and
+extravagance disappeared from these shores! At
+fashionable Baiae across the Bay there is nothing visible
+save a few shapeless ruins over the identity of which
+scholars dispute; at busy Puteoli there survive to-day
+but the ruined Amphitheatre, the Temple of Serapis,
+and the arches of the famous Mole, to prove to
+wondering posterity how great were the wealth, the
+population and the magnificence of a spot which is
+closely associated with all the power and culture of
+the Roman Empire in its zenith.
+</p><anchor id="illus24"/>
+    <pgIf output='txt'><then>
+  <p rend="margin-left: 2; margin-right: 2">[Illustration: ON THE BEACH]</p>
+</then><else>
+  <p><figure url="images/illus24th.jpg"><head rend="small"><xref url="images/illus24.jpg">ON THE BEACH</xref></head><figDesc>Illustration: ON THE BEACH</figDesc></figure></p>
+</else></pgIf>
+<p>
+Of the various fragments of antiquity that are still
+standing in this district of the Phlegrean Fields, the
+Mole of Puteoli is undoubtedly the best preserved and
+the most interesting. So splendidly constructed is
+this relic of the past, that but for continuous shocks of
+earthquake the whole breakwater must have survived
+intact; as it is, more than half the Mole has withstood
+the wear and tear of centuries of wind and storm. It
+is built on the model of a Greek pier, a series of arches
+of massive masonry, acting at once as a barrier against
+the force of the invading waves and as a means of
+<pb n='309'/><anchor id='Pg309'/>preventing the silting of the sand. Formed of brick,
+faced with stone, and cemented with the local volcanic
+sand, which is consequently known as <hi rend='italic'>puzzolana</hi>, this
+wonderful breakwater must originally have stretched
+out into the Bay a total length of twenty-five arches,
+its furthest extremity being crowned by a light-house.
+If we could only call up in imagination the Bay of
+Baiae in the days of the Empire, when its shores were
+fringed by sumptuous villas of famous or infamous
+Romans and its expanse was thickly covered with
+every variety of vessel of pleasure or merchandise,
+instead of the few fishing boats that now and again
+flit across its glassy surface, we might better be able
+to realise the extraordinary episode which is connected
+with this classical fragment in the little port of
+Pozzuoli below us. For it was from the Mole of
+Puteoli to the spit of land we see on the western
+shore opposite that the demented tyrant, Caius Caligula,
+constructed his historic bridge of boats across the
+Baiaean gulf. Every large vessel in the surrounding
+harbours had been pressed into the service of the
+Emperor for this gigantic piece of folly, so that the
+inhabitants of Rome were seriously inconvenienced by
+the detention of their corn ships, and loud in consequence
+were the complaints of the Roman populace,
+for whose anger, it is needless to state, the Emperor
+cared not a fig. <q>History,</q> says Gibbon, <q>is but a
+record of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind;</q>
+and this smiling Bay of Baiae will ever be
+memorable as the scene of what was perhaps the worst
+exhibition of tyrannical caprice that the world has yet
+witnessed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Using a double line of vessels well yoked
+to<pb n='310'/><anchor id='Pg310'/>gether as a compact and solid base, the Emperor
+now gave orders for a military road of the usual
+Roman type to be constructed of planks of timber
+covered with earth and paved with hewn stones.
+When this stupendous work was completed, the usual
+station-houses were erected at various intervals, and
+fresh water was laid on by means of pipes connected
+with the Imperial cisterns at Misenum. Upon this
+broad road, laid across the Baiaean Gulf, the young
+Emperor now advanced on horseback, followed by his
+whole army clad in array of battle. Caligula on this
+occasion wore a historic coat of armour studded with
+rare gems that had once belonged to Alexander the
+Great; a jewelled sword was fastened to his thigh,
+and a crown of oak leaves bound his temples.
+Solemnly the Emperor and his army crossed the
+broad expanse of water on dry land and entered
+Puteoli with mock honours of war. After remaining
+a day in the port to refresh his victorious troops, the
+Emperor was driven back in a splendidly equipped
+chariot, which was surrounded by a number of
+pretended captives of rank, some noble Parthian
+hostages being utilised for the occasion. At the
+centre of the bridge the procession halted, and the
+crazy prince next indulged in an absurd bombastic
+harangue, wherein he congratulated his soldiers on
+their glorious campaign just concluded, and declared
+to them that the famous feats of Xerxes and Darius
+had at length been surpassed. Finally, he invited his
+troops to a magnificent banquet upon this bridge of
+boats, an entertainment which lasted till far into the
+night and was accompanied by lavish illuminations by
+land and sea. As might only have been expected,
+<pb n='311'/><anchor id='Pg311'/>the feast soon degenerated into a drunken orgy,
+wherein every guest from the Master of the Roman
+world to his meanest soldier became intoxicated,
+whilst many persons in their cups lost their balance
+and fell into the waters, so that the sounds of music and
+revelry throughout the midnight hours were mingled
+with groans and cries of drowning men close at hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Apart from its senseless extravagance and innate
+folly, the story of the bridging of the Baiaean Gulf, of
+this harnessing of old Ocean, affects us moderns with
+astonishment at the extraordinary thoroughness of all
+the ancient Roman feats of engineering; had this
+high road across the Bay been intended to serve any
+useful purpose, instead of merely to satisfy the passing
+whim of a selfish tyrant, we could have had no choice
+but to admire the marvellous speed of the artificers
+and the completeness of the scheme undertaken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Quarter of a century later, and the Mole of Puteoli
+was destined to become the scene of another event in
+the world’s history, which has left a far more enduring
+impression on mankind than the so-called miracle of
+Caligula. In the early spring of the year 62 <hi rend='small'>A.D.</hi>
+there dropped anchor in the port a certain Alexandrian
+corn-ship, the <hi rend='italic'>Castor <anchor id="corr311"/><corr sic="aud">and</corr> Pollux</hi>, coming from Malta
+after touching at Syracuse and Rhegium (Reggio) on
+her way northward. Unnoticed amidst the vast
+phalanx of shipping that lined the Mole and filled the
+broad harbour of Puteoli, the vessel emptied her cargo
+on the quay, whilst there also disembarked from her
+hold a number of prisoners of no great social consequence,
+who were on their way to Rome under the
+guardianship of a kindly old centurion, named Julius,
+belonging to the cohort <hi rend='italic'>Prima Augusta Italica</hi>.
+<pb n='312'/><anchor id='Pg312'/>Amongst the persons under Julius’ charge was a Jew
+named Paul, who was accompanied by three of his
+friends, Timothy, Luke and Aristarchus of Thessalonica,
+and all four, thanks to the kindness of the centurion,
+who was evidently much attached to his exemplary
+captive, were permitted to remain at this spot for seven
+days. Paul himself was anxious to tarry at this spot,
+for of all the Italian ports Puteoli was most frequented
+by men of his own nation, so that the city possessed
+its little community of Christians, who naturally were
+eager to detain the Apostle. So hopelessly intermingled
+are truth, tradition and legend concerning the
+various places on Italian soil that St Paul is known to
+have visited, that we cannot be too grateful for the
+undoubted link with his journey to Rome that we
+possess in the existing Mole of Puteoli, whose surface
+has undoubtedly been trodden by the sandalled feet of
+the great Apostle of the West. Here Paul landed
+amid the haughty scenes of Roman pride and power;
+above him he saw the pagan Temple of Augustus, all
+gleaming with marble and gilded bronze that were
+mirrored in the calm waters of the port: along this
+famous causeway he passed, unmarked by the busy
+crowd, except perhaps to be mocked by some idler for
+his nationality or his halting speech. Guided by
+Christian compatriots, the Apostle with his three faithful
+friends was led through the noisy jostling concourse
+of all countries that thronged the great Roman city to
+the humble dwelling of his host. Where he lodged in
+that mighty city we know not, but we do know for a
+certain fact that he landed on the Mole, and that he
+passed along it to the shore; it is not much, perhaps,
+but that little is very precious.
+</p>
+
+<pb n='313'/><anchor id='Pg313'/>
+
+<p>
+What a contrast do these two incidents connected
+with the Mole of Puteoli afford! The Roman
+Emperor, glittering like the morning star in purple
+mantle and jewelled cuirass, riding on his charger
+across the solid road that to humour his own caprice
+had been flung across the buoyant waters, accompanied
+by soldiery, by music, and by bands of wealthy sycophants;
+and the Apostle, poor, in bonds, a despised
+prisoner in an alien land, meekly threading his way
+through the crowds towards his mean lodging. Where
+is the proud Temple of Augustus that beheld these two
+strange scenes, that occurred with no great interval of
+time apart? Where are the villas and quays that
+lined the Bay of Baiae? The very ruins of the palaces
+and warehouses are swept away; the gorgeous temple
+is a Christian Cathedral dedicated to a follower of the
+despised Jewish captive; the name of Caligula lives
+but in human execration, whilst that of the Apostle is
+enshrined in the hearts of the whole Christian world.
+</p>
+<p rend="center; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em">* * * * * *</p>
+<p>
+It is but a three-mile walk along the beach from
+Pozzuoli to Baiae, passing beside the Lucrine Lake and
+the southern slope of the Monte Nuovo, which always
+seems to us a far more wonderful freak of Nature than
+the Solfatara. Here we have a miniature mountain, a
+mile and a half round its base and nearly five hundred
+feet high, that was made in the course of a single night,
+and is to-day less than four hundred years old! The
+presence of this brand-new intruder on the shore of the
+Baiaean Gulf must ever remain a wholesome warning to
+all dwellers on these coasts, that their tenure of King
+Pluto’s dominions is very insecure. One morning
+towards the close of September 1538, after some days
+<pb n='314'/><anchor id='Pg314'/>of earthquake shocks, <q>Pozzuoli awoke,</q> says the
+flippant Alexandre Dumas, <q>and on looking about
+did not recognise herself! She had left a lake the
+evening before, and lo! she found a mountain; where
+she had owned a forest, she found ashes; and last
+of all, where she had left a village, she perceived no
+trace!</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In one sense Dumas’ facetious description is correct:
+the New Mountain was born with extraordinary celerity,
+and woods, lake and village—familiar and beloved landmarks
+to the people of Baiae and Pozzuoli—disappeared
+at its birth. But the event was no peaceful act of
+Nature; on the contrary, it was accompanied by loud
+rumblings, by showers of red-hot stones, by clouds of
+smoke, by torrents of scalding water, and by the retreating
+of the sea, which left thousands of fish lying helpless
+on the exposed shore. The village of Tripergola, a
+summer pleasaunce of the Angevin kings of Naples,
+and many traces of ancient Roman villas and engineering
+works, all perished in this notable cataclysm.
+Four eye-witnesses have left us details of this strange
+scene of desolation, whilst only a few days after Mother
+Earth had brought forth this new mountain, one of
+them, the Spanish Viceroy of Naples, the valiant Don
+Pedro of Toledo, owned sufficient pluck and curiosity
+to make the ascent of the Monte Nuovo, still smoking
+hot and reeking of sulphur. Who can tell when this
+<hi rend='italic'>parvenu</hi> volcano may spout forth fire and ashes? Would
+any sane person have the courage ever to settle within
+range of a possible eruption? No, the Phlegrean fields
+are interesting to visit, but he must require a strong
+nerve who would fain dwell beneath the shadow of this
+dormant crater.
+</p>
+
+<pb n='315'/><anchor id='Pg315'/>
+
+<p>
+It is a very short walk from the base of the Monte
+Nuovo to the <q>golden shores</q> of Imperial Baiae, which
+is certainly not an imposing place in these days.
+What with the destroying hand of time and the still
+more obliterating action of the neighbouring volcano,
+there is little left for the fancy to build upon; certainly
+the three ruined shells that are called temples by
+courtesy, but served probably a much humbler purpose
+than that of worship, are not particularly striking. It
+requires not only a good classical knowledge, but also
+no small amount of imagination to picture the Baiae of
+the Roman poets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>If Pozzuoli has gone down in the world, still more
+so Baiae. It does not require any more sinking; it is
+low enough as it is, so low that some of its ancient villas
+and palaces can only be visited in a diving-bell. So
+dreary and deserted is the site, that at first glance the
+visitor feels mightily inclined to question the veracity
+of the historian, and to doubt whether Baiae—Baiae
+the gay, the fashionable, the dissolute, the beloved of
+emperors, statesmen and poets—ever existed. But
+when he is shown the enormous sub-structures lying
+under water, and the masses of solid masonry wherewith
+the surrounding hills are over-spread, incredulity gives
+place to amazement. What towns of lath and plaster
+are Brighton, Newport and Trouville, when compared
+with this <q>Rome by the sea,</q> where the materials used
+for the foundations of a single villa would more than
+suffice for the construction of a dozen <q>genteel marine
+residences</q> of the modern style! What would a
+Roman architect think of the card-board streets and
+squares, and the stucco crescents and terraces, of an
+English watering-place? of those <q>eligible family
+<pb n='316'/><anchor id='Pg316'/>mansions</q> wherein dancing is dangerous, and to venture
+on whose balconies is perilous in the extreme? Echo
+answers: <q>What!</q></q><note place="foot">W. J. A. Stamer: <hi rend='italic'>Dolce Napoli</hi>.</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here on this desolate strip of sea-shore, now
+dominated by the Spanish viceroy’s frowning fortress
+on the hill above, the great and opulent of ancient
+Rome founded a city composed wholly of palaces.
+Here were no noisy market-places to annoy aristocratic
+nerves; no slums to afflict plutocratic nostrils;
+no families of the proletariat to disturb the refined
+senses of the jaded pleasure-seekers who retired hither
+in the winter months. A writer, from whom we have
+just quoted, makes comparison between Baiae and
+Brighton or Trouville; but in reality the fashionable
+American resort of Newport has more in common
+with the old classical watering-place than any modern
+European sea-side resort. The hot sulphur baths on
+the Lucrine shore formed of course only a shallow
+excuse for the annual migration of Roman fashionables
+to Baiae, where blue-blooded senators and
+pushing plutocrats indulged in fierce social struggles
+for individual pre-eminence. Yet certain of the
+natural warm springs had been enclosed in splendid
+buildings, and were used by the luxurious citizens, so
+that even to-day the Thermae of Nero (Stufe di
+Nerone) are pointed out by the local guides. <q>Quid
+Nerone pejus? Quid thermis melius Neronianis?</q>
+(what is worse than Nero? yet what more beneficent
+than his baths?) asks the poet Martial, whose name
+will ever be bound up with the tales of luxury and
+vice that are associated with this spot. Baiae in
+winter, Tibur (Tivoli) in summer, the two names stand
+<pb n='317'/><anchor id='Pg317'/>for the beau-ideal of a Roman existence, the cynosure
+of every wealthy citizen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But let us ascend out of the close and enervating air
+of low-lying Baiae to the breezy heights of Misenum,
+which has immortalised the name of the Trojan
+trumpeter whose end was mourned by the tears of
+pious Aeneas himself. In gaining its summit and in
+gazing upon the landscape spread around us, we have
+penetrated, so it seems, into the very heart of Italy:
+not the Italy of Roman history, but the land of
+Ausonia itself, the fabled shore that the Trojan hero
+sailed at his goddess-mother’s bidding to discover,
+when all the world was young and the high dwellers
+of Olympus still condescended to take a personal
+interest in the affairs of favourite mortals. Surely
+the vine-clad terraces of Lake Avernus, the pools of
+the Lucrine and the Mare Morto, the verdure-clad
+hillocks lying beneath us must conceal the true secret
+of the antique Tyrrhenian country, in whose history
+the rise and fall of Roman power afford but one
+amongst many epochs. Looking to northward,
+beyond the little landing-stage of Torregaveta, we
+behold the heights of Cumae, that was a flourishing
+city with harbour and citadel hundreds of years before
+a certain Romulus built a wall of mud near the banks
+of Tiber and slew his brother Remus for leaping over
+his handiwork. The founding of Rome is enveloped
+in impenetrable clouds of legend; the building of
+Cumae is a fact:—here then we obtain a key to
+Italian history. Rome, whose origin is lost in mists
+of obscurity, is a flourishing modern capital; Cumae
+is but a shapeless mass of crumbling ruins, overgrown
+with ivy and cytizus, and inhabited by lizards and
+<pb n='318'/><anchor id='Pg318'/>serpents. But both cities, dead Cumae and living
+Rome, present but passing events in the long slow
+progress of the centuries, which have witnessed successive
+phases of civilisation and destruction in this
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Woman-country, wooed, not won,</q></l>
+<l>Loved all the more by Earth’s male lands,</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 3'><q rend="pre: none">Laid to their hearts instead.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+Is the Genius of Italy, the Sibyl of Cumae, still
+living, we wonder, in some dim recess, some secret
+cavern of Cimmerian gloom, beneath those decaying
+heaps of the ancient Greek city? She was old, very
+old, we know, when pious Aeneas found her shrieking
+her strange prophecies, and that was long ages before
+Hellenic wanderers raised a fortress upon the wooded
+heights above the dread lake of Avernus.—Venerable
+Mother of Italy! dost thou still survive muttering thy
+strange warnings in some sunless labyrinth, that the
+rapacious guides of Baiae have yet failed to penetrate?
+Art thou, like King Arthur of romantic Wales, still
+keeping watch over the destiny of thy country, ever
+ready to assist in the hour of need?
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Thy cave was stored with scrolls of strange device,</q></l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 3'>The work of some Saturnian Archimage,</l>
+<l>Which taught the expiations at whose price</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 3'>Men from the gods might win that happy age</l>
+<l>Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice;</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 3'>And which might quench the earth-consuming rage</l>
+<l>Of gold and blood—till men should live and move</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Harmonious as the sacred stars above.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<p>
+For Italy has not wholly forgotten her ancient
+guardian and soothsayer, who welcomed the founder of
+the victorious Roman race; nor did the artists of the
+revived glories of the Renaissance neglect to honour
+<pb n='319'/><anchor id='Pg319'/>the mysterious priestess of the Cimmerian shore.
+With prophetic mien the Sibyl of Cumae, that
+Michelangelo depicted, watches ever the come-and-go
+of humanity from her lofty post within Pope
+Sixtus’ Chapel, bidding all remember her ancient
+prophecy of the Judgment Day, which the Roman
+Church has included in one of its most solemn
+canticles:
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l><q rend="post: none">Dies Irae! Dies illa!</q></l>
+<l>Solvet saeclum in favilla,</l>
+<l><q rend="pre: none">Teste David cum Sibylla.</q></l>
+</lg>
+
+<pb n='320'/><anchor id='Pg320'/>
+</div></body>
+        <back><div rend="page-break-before: right">
+<pb n='321'/><anchor id='Pg321'/>
+<index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="Index"/>
+<head>INDEX</head>
+
+<list>
+<item>Abbondanza, Via dell’, <ref target="Pg051">51</ref></item>
+
+<item>Abruzzi Mountains, <ref target="Pg036">36</ref>, <ref target="Pg122">122</ref>, <ref target="Pg222">222</ref></item>
+
+<item>Acre, <ref target="Pg270">270</ref></item>
+
+<item>Adrian IV., Pope, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref></item>
+
+<item>Agerola, <ref target="Pg123">123</ref></item>
+
+<item>Agropoli, <ref target="Pg209">209</ref></item>
+
+<item>Alberada, <ref target="Pg181">181</ref></item>
+
+<item>Albergo Cappuccini, <ref target="Pg128">128</ref></item>
+
+<item>Alcubier, <ref target="Pg011">11</ref></item>
+
+<item>Aleppo, <ref target="Pg121">121</ref></item>
+
+<item>Alexander of Epirus, <ref target="Pg206">206</ref></item>
+
+<item>Alexandria, <ref target="Pg121">121</ref></item>
+
+<item>Alexius, Emperor, <ref target="Pg179">179</ref></item>
+
+<item>Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, <ref target="Pg242">242</ref></item>
+
+<item>Algiers, <ref target="Pg056">56</ref></item>
+
+<item>Alphonso V. of Naples, <ref target="Pg277">277</ref></item>
+
+<item>Amalfi, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg036">36</ref>, <ref target="Pg100">100</ref>, <ref target="Pg106">106</ref>, <ref target="Pg112">112</ref>, <ref target="Pg126">126</ref></item>
+
+<item>Ana-Capri, <ref target="Pg249">249</ref>, <ref target="Pg259">259</ref>, <ref target="Pg271">271</ref></item>
+
+<item>Angelo, Monte S., <ref target="Pg028">28</ref>, <ref target="Pg030">30</ref>, <ref target="Pg063">63</ref>, <ref target="Pg076">76</ref></item>
+
+<item>Annunziata, Torre, <ref target="Pg019">19</ref>, <ref target="Pg092">92</ref>, <ref target="Pg094">94</ref></item>
+
+<item>Aosta, Duke and Duchess of, <ref target="Pg093">93</ref>, <ref target="Pg094">94</ref></item>
+
+<item>Appian Way, <ref target="Pg062">62</ref></item>
+
+<item>Apulia, <ref target="Pg181">181</ref></item>
+
+<item>—— William of, <ref target="Pg135">135</ref></item>
+
+<item>Arabia, <ref target="Pg134">134</ref></item>
+
+<item>Arco, <ref target="Pg106">106</ref></item>
+
+<item>Arguth, Joseph, <ref target="Pg292">292</ref></item>
+
+<item>Ariosto, Ludovico, <ref target="Pg239">239</ref></item>
+
+<item>Aristarchus, <ref target="Pg312">312</ref></item>
+
+<item>Arno, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref></item>
+
+<item>Arnold of Brescia, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref></item>
+
+<item>Arriengo, <ref target="Pg123">123</ref></item>
+
+<item>Arthur, King, <ref target="Pg318">318</ref></item>
+
+<item>Athens, <ref target="Pg028">28</ref>, <ref target="Pg039">39</ref>, <ref target="Pg058">58</ref></item>
+
+<item>Atrani, <ref target="Pg152">152</ref></item>
+
+<item>Atrio del Cavallo, <ref target="Pg077">77</ref></item>
+
+<item>Augustus, Emperor, <ref target="Pg059">59</ref>, <ref target="Pg069">69</ref></item>
+
+<item>—— Temple of, <ref target="Pg313">313</ref></item>
+
+<item>Aulus Vettius, Corvina, <ref target="Pg055">55</ref></item>
+
+<item>—— —— Restitutus, <ref target="Pg040">40</ref>, <ref target="Pg055">55</ref></item>
+
+<item>Ausonius, <ref target="Pg208">208</ref></item>
+
+<item>Avicenna, <ref target="Pg177">177</ref></item>
+
+<item>Avvocata, Madonna dell’, <ref target="Pg166">166</ref></item>
+
+</list><list>
+
+<item>Baghdad, <ref target="Pg121">121</ref></item>
+
+<item>Bagnoli, <ref target="Pg296">296</ref></item>
+
+<item><corr sic="Baiæ">Baiae</corr>, <ref target="Pg253">253</ref>, <ref target="Pg307">307</ref></item>
+
+<item>Bajalardo, Pietro, <ref target="Pg117">117</ref></item>
+
+<item>Barbary, <ref target="Pg209">209</ref></item>
+
+<item>Barisanus of Trani, <ref target="Pg159">159</ref></item>
+
+<item>Barra, La, <ref target="Pg008">8</ref></item>
+
+<item>Battipaglia, <ref target="Pg198">198</ref></item>
+
+<item>Bembo, Cardinal, <ref target="Pg282">282</ref></item>
+
+<item>Benevento, <ref target="Pg111">111</ref></item>
+
+<item>Bergamo, <ref target="Pg240">240</ref></item>
+
+<item>Berkeley, Bishop, <ref target="Pg293">293</ref></item>
+
+<item>Bismarck, <ref target="Pg186">186</ref></item>
+
+<item>Boccaccio, <ref target="Pg137">137</ref>, <ref target="Pg157">157</ref></item>
+
+<item>Bohemond, <ref target="Pg179">179</ref></item>
+
+<item>Bomba, King, <ref target="Pg006">6</ref>, <ref target="Pg008">8</ref>, <ref target="Pg016">16</ref>, <ref target="Pg109">109</ref>, <ref target="Pg284">284</ref></item>
+
+<item>Bosco-Trecase, <ref target="Pg092">92</ref>, <ref target="Pg097">97</ref></item>
+
+<item>Bowdler, Mr, <ref target="Pg081">81</ref></item>
+
+<item>Braccini, Abate, <ref target="Pg077">77</ref></item>
+
+<item>Breakspear, Nicholas, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref></item>
+
+<item>Browning, R., <ref target="Pg033">33</ref>, <ref target="Pg036">36</ref>, <ref target="Pg183">183</ref></item>
+
+<item>Brunetto Latini, <ref target="Pg121">121</ref></item>
+
+<item>Butomilea, Landolfo, <ref target="Pg182">182</ref></item>
+
+<item>Byzantium, <ref target="Pg118">118</ref>, <ref target="Pg142">142</ref></item>
+
+</list><list>
+
+<item><corr sic="Cæcilius">Caecilius</corr> Jucundus, <ref target="Pg040">40</ref></item>
+
+<item>Cairo, <ref target="Pg121">121</ref></item>
+
+<item>Caligula, Emperor, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg308">308</ref></item>
+
+<item>Camaldoli, <ref target="Pg018">18</ref>, <ref target="Pg270">270</ref></item>
+
+<item>Campagna Felice, <ref target="Pg066">66</ref></item>
+
+<item>Campanella, Punta della, <ref target="Pg112">112</ref></item>
+
+<item>Canneto, <ref target="Pg132">132</ref>, <ref target="Pg140">140</ref></item>
+
+<item>Canossa, <ref target="Pg180">180</ref>, <ref target="Pg186">186</ref></item>
+
+<pb n='322'/><anchor id='Pg322'/>
+
+<item>Capaccio, <ref target="Pg209">209</ref>, <ref target="Pg262">262</ref></item>
+<item>Capodimonte, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref></item>
+
+<item>Capri, <ref target="Pg004">4</ref>, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg013">13</ref>, <ref target="Pg045">45</ref>, <ref target="Pg063">63</ref>, <ref target="Pg074">74</ref>, <ref target="Pg090">90</ref>, <ref target="Pg112">112</ref>, <ref target="Pg249">249</ref></item>
+
+<item>Capua, <ref target="Pg066">66</ref></item>
+
+<item>Capuano, Cardinal Pietro, <ref target="Pg126">126</ref>, <ref target="Pg143">143</ref></item>
+
+<item>Caracciolo, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref></item>
+
+<item><corr sic="Cardenas">Cardeñas</corr>, Bishop, <ref target="Pg305">305</ref></item>
+
+<item>Cariteo, <ref target="Pg277">277</ref></item>
+
+<item><q>Carlo il Zoppo,</q> <ref target="Pg102">102</ref>, <ref target="Pg103">103</ref>, <ref target="Pg121">121</ref></item>
+
+<item>Carmine, Church of the, <ref target="Pg105">105</ref></item>
+
+<item>Casamicciola, <ref target="Pg284">284</ref></item>
+
+<item>Casa Nuova, <ref target="Pg053">53</ref></item>
+
+<item>Castellamare, <ref target="Pg018">18</ref>, <ref target="Pg025">25</ref>, <ref target="Pg026">26</ref>, <ref target="Pg100">100</ref>, <ref target="Pg113">113</ref></item>
+
+<item><hi rend='italic'>Castor and Pollux, The</hi>, <ref target="Pg311">311</ref></item>
+
+<item>Cathay, <ref target="Pg121">121</ref></item>
+
+<item>Cava, La, <ref target="Pg113">113</ref></item>
+
+<item>Celestine V., Pope, <ref target="Pg292">292</ref></item>
+
+<item>Cellini, Benvenuto, <ref target="Pg027">27</ref></item>
+
+<item>Cephalonia, <ref target="Pg180">180</ref></item>
+
+<item>Cerrato, Monte, <ref target="Pg168">168</ref></item>
+
+<item>Cetara, <ref target="Pg134">134</ref>, <ref target="Pg170">170</ref></item>
+
+<item>Chalcidicum, <ref target="Pg049">49</ref></item>
+
+<item>Charles III. of Naples, <ref target="Pg008">8</ref></item>
+
+<item>—— VIII. of France, <ref target="Pg307">307</ref></item>
+
+<item>—— of Anjou, <ref target="Pg102">102</ref>, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref>, <ref target="Pg167">167</ref></item>
+
+<item>Chiabrera, <ref target="Pg089">89</ref></item>
+
+<item>Chiaja, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref></item>
+
+<item>Chiosse, Monte di, <ref target="Pg119">119</ref></item>
+
+<item>Cicero, <ref target="Pg040">40</ref></item>
+
+<item>Clement VIII., Pope, <ref target="Pg167">167</ref></item>
+
+<item>Clementia, Princess, <ref target="Pg102">102</ref></item>
+
+<item>Clodius Glabrus, <ref target="Pg070">70</ref></item>
+
+<item>Cluny, <ref target="Pg184">184</ref></item>
+
+<item>Colonna, Giuliano, <ref target="Pg104">104</ref></item>
+
+<item>—— Vittoria, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg277">277</ref></item>
+
+<item>Conca, Capo di, <ref target="Pg125">125</ref></item>
+
+<item>Concordia Augusta, <ref target="Pg051">51</ref></item>
+
+<item>Conradin, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref></item>
+
+<item>Constantinople, <ref target="Pg080">80</ref>, <ref target="Pg134">134</ref></item>
+
+<item>Coppola, Monte, <ref target="Pg028">28</ref>, <ref target="Pg167">167</ref></item>
+
+<item>Corniche Road, <ref target="Pg100">100</ref></item>
+
+<item>Costantinopoli, Strada, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref></item>
+
+<item>Crassus, <ref target="Pg070">70</ref></item>
+
+<item><corr sic="Cumæ">Cumae</corr>, <ref target="Pg004">4</ref>, <ref target="Pg317">317</ref></item>
+
+</list><list>
+
+    <item>Damecuta, <ref target="Pg261">261</ref></item>
+
+<item>Dante, <ref target="Pg120">120</ref>, <ref target="Pg121">121</ref>, <ref target="Pg239">239</ref>, <ref target="Pg278">278</ref></item>
+
+<item>Devonshire, <ref target="Pg107">107</ref></item>
+
+<item>Domenichino, <ref target="Pg161">161</ref></item>
+
+<item>Domitiana, Via, <ref target="Pg062">62</ref></item>
+
+<item>Dragone, <ref target="Pg152">152</ref></item>
+
+<item>Dumas, A., <ref target="Pg009">9</ref>, <ref target="Pg314">314</ref></item>
+
+<item>Durazzo, <ref target="Pg178">178</ref></item>
+
+</list><list>
+
+    <item>Eboli, <ref target="Pg198">198</ref></item>
+
+<item>Elbœuf, Prince d’, <ref target="Pg011">11</ref></item>
+
+<item>Epidius Rufus, <ref target="Pg040">40</ref></item>
+
+<item>Epirus, <ref target="Pg178">178</ref></item>
+
+<item>Etna, <ref target="Pg077">77</ref>, <ref target="Pg291">291</ref></item>
+
+<item>Eumachia, <ref target="Pg040">40</ref>, <ref target="Pg049">49</ref></item>
+
+<item>Exeter, <ref target="Pg040">40</ref></item>
+
+</list><list>
+
+    <item>Faito, Monte, <ref target="Pg037">37</ref></item>
+
+<item>Falerio, Monte, <ref target="Pg170">170</ref></item>
+
+<item>Faliero, Marino, <ref target="Pg103">103</ref></item>
+
+<item>Farnese, Elizabeth, <ref target="Pg027">27</ref></item>
+
+<item>—— Pier-Luigi, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg027">27</ref></item>
+
+<item>Ferdinand, King, <ref target="Pg027">27</ref>, <ref target="Pg270">270</ref>, <ref target="Pg277">277</ref></item>
+
+<item>Ferrara, <ref target="Pg240">240</ref>, <ref target="Pg248">248</ref></item>
+
+<item>Filangieri, <ref target="Pg103">103</ref></item>
+
+<item>Fiorelli, Signor, <ref target="Pg053">53</ref></item>
+
+<item>Florence, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref>, <ref target="Pg112">112</ref>, <ref target="Pg132">132</ref>, <ref target="Pg148">148</ref></item>
+
+<item>Florus, <ref target="Pg070">70</ref></item>
+
+<item>Forio, <ref target="Pg289">289</ref></item>
+
+<item>Forsyth, J., <ref target="Pg181">181</ref></item>
+
+<item>Francis, King, <ref target="Pg109">109</ref></item>
+
+<item>Frederick II., Emperor, <ref target="Pg027">27</ref>, <ref target="Pg210">210</ref></item>
+
+<item>Fuga, <ref target="Pg159">159</ref></item>
+
+<item>Fuorigrotta, <ref target="Pg295">295</ref></item>
+
+<item>Furore, <ref target="Pg123">123</ref></item>
+
+</list><list>
+
+    <item>Gaeta, <ref target="Pg016">16</ref>, <ref target="Pg036">36</ref></item>
+
+<item>—— Bay of, <ref target="Pg004">4</ref></item>
+
+<item>Galen, <ref target="Pg106">106</ref>, <ref target="Pg177">177</ref></item>
+
+<item>Garibaldi, <ref target="Pg006">6</ref></item>
+
+<item>Gaurus, Mons, <ref target="Pg057">57</ref>, <ref target="Pg076">76</ref></item>
+
+<item>Gavinius, <ref target="Pg208">208</ref></item>
+
+<item>Gazola, Count, <ref target="Pg211">211</ref></item>
+
+<item>Gell, Sir William, <ref target="Pg044">44</ref></item>
+
+<item>Genoa, <ref target="Pg157">157</ref></item>
+
+<item>Gibbon, Edward, <ref target="Pg175">175</ref>, <ref target="Pg309">309</ref></item>
+
+<item>Gioja, Flavio, <ref target="Pg119">119</ref></item>
+
+<item>Glaucus, <ref target="Pg261">261</ref></item>
+
+<item>Goethe, <ref target="Pg013">13</ref>, <ref target="Pg212">212</ref></item>
+
+<item>Gragnano, <ref target="Pg020">20</ref></item>
+
+<item>Greco, Torre del, <ref target="Pg008">8</ref>, <ref target="Pg013">13</ref>, <ref target="Pg018">18</ref>, <ref target="Pg077">77</ref></item>
+
+<item>Gregory VII., Pope, <ref target="Pg178">178</ref></item>
+
+<item>Grotta Azzurra, <ref target="Pg259">259</ref></item>
+<pb n='323'/><anchor id='Pg323'/>
+
+<item>Grotta Verde, <ref target="Pg262">262</ref></item>
+<item>Guallo, <ref target="Pg116">116</ref></item>
+
+<item>Guiscard, Robert, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg136">136</ref>, <ref target="Pg155">155</ref>, <ref target="Pg174">174</ref></item>
+
+<item>Gurgitello, <ref target="Pg285">285</ref></item>
+
+</list><list>
+
+    <item>Hale, Sir Matthew, <ref target="Pg110">110</ref></item>
+
+<item>Hamill, Major, <ref target="Pg271">271</ref></item>
+
+<item>Hamilton, Sir William, <ref target="Pg080">80</ref></item>
+
+<item>Hare, Augustus, <ref target="Pg007">7</ref></item>
+
+<item>Hart, Emma, <ref target="Pg080">80</ref></item>
+
+<item>Hauteville, House of, <ref target="Pg174">174</ref></item>
+
+<item>Helbig, <ref target="Pg044">44</ref></item>
+
+<item>Hélène, Princess, <ref target="Pg094">94</ref></item>
+
+<item>Henry IV., Emperor, <ref target="Pg180">180</ref></item>
+
+<item>Herculaneum, <ref target="Pg001">1</ref>, <ref target="Pg009">9</ref></item>
+
+<item>—— Gate of, <ref target="Pg062">62</ref></item>
+
+<item>Hermolaus, <ref target="Pg162">162</ref></item>
+
+<item>Hildebrand, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg180">180</ref>, <ref target="Pg182">182</ref>, <ref target="Pg184">184</ref></item>
+
+<item>Hippocrates, <ref target="Pg177">177</ref></item>
+
+<item><corr sic="Hohenstauffen">Hohenstaufen</corr>, <ref target="Pg163">163</ref></item>
+<item>Homer, <ref target="Pg114">114</ref></item>
+
+
+<item>House of the Surgeon, <ref target="Pg043">43</ref>, <ref target="Pg056">56</ref></item>
+
+<item>—— Vettii, <ref target="Pg053">53</ref></item>
+
+</list><list>
+
+    <item>Innocent IV., Pope, <ref target="Pg152">152</ref></item>
+
+<item>Ischia, <ref target="Pg004">4</ref>, <ref target="Pg013">13</ref>, <ref target="Pg078">78</ref>, <ref target="Pg241">241</ref>, <ref target="Pg252">252</ref>, <ref target="Pg275">275</ref></item>
+
+</list><list>
+
+    <item>Joanna II., Queen, <ref target="Pg144">144</ref>, <ref target="Pg299">299</ref></item>
+
+<item>John XVI., Pope, <ref target="Pg167">167</ref></item>
+
+<item>John of Procida, <ref target="Pg184">184</ref></item>
+
+<item>Julius the Centurion, <ref target="Pg311">311</ref></item>
+
+<item>Jupiter, Temple of, <ref target="Pg052">52</ref></item>
+
+<item>Justinian, Emperor, <ref target="Pg135">135</ref></item>
+
+</list><list>
+
+    <item>Keats, John, <ref target="Pg229">229</ref></item>
+
+</list><list>
+
+    <item>La Barra, <ref target="Pg008">8</ref></item>
+
+<item>La Cava, <ref target="Pg172">172</ref>, <ref target="Pg198">198</ref></item>
+
+<item>La Scala, <ref target="Pg166">166</ref></item>
+
+<item>Lacaita, Mr, <ref target="Pg262">262</ref></item>
+
+<item>Lacco, <ref target="Pg288">288</ref></item>
+
+<item>Lactarian Hills, <ref target="Pg101">101</ref></item>
+
+<item>Ladislaus II., King, <ref target="Pg299">299</ref></item>
+
+<item>Lamarque, Gen., <ref target="Pg271">271</ref></item>
+
+<item>Lauretta, <ref target="Pg157">157</ref></item>
+
+<item>Lavoro, Terra di, <ref target="Pg018">18</ref></item>
+
+<item>Lenormant, F., <ref target="Pg214">214</ref></item>
+
+<item>Leo XIII., Pope, <ref target="Pg288">288</ref></item>
+
+<item>Leonora d’Este, <ref target="Pg243">243</ref>, <ref target="Pg248">248</ref></item>
+
+<item>Leopardi, Giacomo, <ref target="Pg295">295</ref></item>
+
+<item>Lepanto, <ref target="Pg246">246</ref></item>
+
+<item>Libella, <ref target="Pg064">64</ref></item>
+
+<item>Livia, <ref target="Pg050">50</ref></item>
+
+<item>Livy, <ref target="Pg073">73</ref></item>
+
+<item>Lowe, Sir Hudson, <ref target="Pg271">271</ref></item>
+
+<item>Lubrense, Massa, <ref target="Pg122">122</ref></item>
+
+<item>Lucrine Lake, <ref target="Pg313">313</ref></item>
+
+<item>Ludius, <ref target="Pg059">59</ref></item>
+
+<item>Luke, <ref target="Pg312">312</ref></item>
+
+</list><list>
+
+    <item>Maddalena, Ponte della, <ref target="Pg084">84</ref></item>
+
+<item>Majori, <ref target="Pg166">166</ref></item>
+
+<item>Malta, <ref target="Pg311">311</ref></item>
+
+<item>Mammia, <ref target="Pg064">64</ref></item>
+
+<item>Manches, Colonel, <ref target="Pg273">273</ref></item>
+
+<item>Manfred, King, <ref target="Pg087">87</ref>, <ref target="Pg152">152</ref>, <ref target="Pg184">184</ref></item>
+
+<item>Manso, <ref target="Pg243">243</ref></item>
+
+<item>Mansone II., Doge, <ref target="Pg118">118</ref></item>
+
+<item>Macellum, <ref target="Pg052">52</ref></item>
+
+<item>Marcellus II., Pope, <ref target="Pg280">280</ref></item>
+
+<item>Margaret of Durazzo, <ref target="Pg189">189</ref></item>
+
+<item>Marina, Porta, <ref target="Pg039">39</ref>, <ref target="Pg045">45</ref></item>
+
+<item>Martin V., Pope, <ref target="Pg277">277</ref></item>
+
+<item><corr sic="Mateucci">Matteucci</corr>, Professor, <ref target="Pg094">94</ref>, <ref target="Pg097">97</ref></item>
+
+<item>Matilda, Countess, <ref target="Pg185">185</ref></item>
+
+<item>Mau, <ref target="Pg044">44</ref></item>
+
+<item>Maurice, <ref target="Pg142">142</ref></item>
+
+<item>Maximian, Emperor, <ref target="Pg162">162</ref></item>
+
+<item>Melfi, <ref target="Pg133">133</ref></item>
+
+<item>Mercato, Il, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref>, <ref target="Pg096">96</ref></item>
+
+<item>Mercury, Temple of, <ref target="Pg052">52</ref></item>
+
+<item>Mergellina, <ref target="Pg096">96</ref></item>
+
+<item>Messina, <ref target="Pg091">91</ref></item>
+
+<item>Meta, <ref target="Pg106">106</ref></item>
+
+<item>Metastasio, <ref target="Pg008">8</ref></item>
+
+<item>Michelangelo, <ref target="Pg283">283</ref>, <ref target="Pg319">319</ref></item>
+
+<item>Milan, <ref target="Pg278">278</ref></item>
+
+<item>Minerva, Cape of, <ref target="Pg112">112</ref>, <ref target="Pg117">117</ref>, <ref target="Pg153">153</ref></item>
+
+<item>Minori, <ref target="Pg166">166</ref></item>
+
+<item>Misenum, <ref target="Pg071">71</ref>, <ref target="Pg074">74</ref>, <ref target="Pg249">249</ref></item>
+
+<item>Mole of Puteoli, <ref target="Pg308">308</ref></item>
+
+<item>Monreale, <ref target="Pg159">159</ref></item>
+
+<item>Mont’ Epomeo, <ref target="Pg290">290</ref></item>
+
+<item>Montapertuso, <ref target="Pg119">119</ref></item>
+
+<item>Monte Nuovo, <ref target="Pg313">313</ref></item>
+
+<item>Montorio, S. Pietro in, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref></item>
+
+<item>Montpensier, Duke of, <ref target="Pg307">307</ref></item>
+
+<item>Murat, Joachim, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg008">8</ref>, <ref target="Pg270">270</ref></item>
+
+<item>Muscettola, Sergio, <ref target="Pg159">159</ref></item>
+
+<item>Museo Nazionale, <ref target="Pg001">1</ref></item>
+</list>
+<pb n='324'/><anchor id='Pg324'/>
+<list>
+
+<item>Naccarino, <ref target="Pg145">145</ref></item>
+
+<item>Napoleon, <ref target="Pg008">8</ref>, <ref target="Pg270">270</ref></item>
+
+<item>Natale, Michele, <ref target="Pg103">103</ref></item>
+
+<item>Nelson, <ref target="Pg104">104</ref>, <ref target="Pg269">269</ref></item>
+
+<item>Neptune, Temple of, <ref target="Pg212">212</ref></item>
+
+<item>Nero, Emperor, <ref target="Pg308">308</ref></item>
+
+<item>Nicholas II., Pope, <ref target="Pg176">176</ref>, <ref target="Pg185">185</ref></item>
+
+<item>Nicomedia, <ref target="Pg162">162</ref></item>
+
+<item>Nisida, <ref target="Pg297">297</ref></item>
+
+<item>Nola, <ref target="Pg041">41</ref></item>
+
+<item>Nuceria, <ref target="Pg041">41</ref>, <ref target="Pg173">173</ref></item>
+</list><list>
+<item>Ochino, Bernardino, <ref target="Pg280">280</ref></item>
+
+<item>Oliveto, Monte, <ref target="Pg096">96</ref></item>
+
+<item>Orico, <ref target="Pg271">271</ref></item>
+
+<item>Orlando, Capo d’, <ref target="Pg102">102</ref></item>
+
+<item>Oscan inhabitants, <ref target="Pg041">41</ref></item>
+
+<item>Otranto, <ref target="Pg178">178</ref></item>
+
+<item>Ottajano, <ref target="Pg094">94</ref>, <ref target="Pg098">98</ref></item>
+
+<item>Overbeck, <ref target="Pg044">44</ref></item>
+
+<item>Ovid, <ref target="Pg106">106</ref>, <ref target="Pg261">261</ref>, <ref target="Pg291">291</ref></item>
+
+<item>Oxford, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref></item>
+</list><list>
+<item><corr sic="Pæstum">Paestum</corr>, <ref target="Pg041">41</ref>, <ref target="Pg057">57</ref>, <ref target="Pg143">143</ref>, <ref target="Pg173">173</ref>, <ref target="Pg182">182</ref>, <ref target="Pg198">198</ref></item>
+
+<item>Palermo, <ref target="Pg091">91</ref>, <ref target="Pg159">159</ref></item>
+
+<item>Palumbo, <ref target="Pg155">155</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pansa, the Ædile, <ref target="Pg040">40</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pantaleone, <ref target="Pg142">142</ref>, <ref target="Pg148">148</ref>, <ref target="Pg161">161</ref></item>
+
+<item>Paolo Giovio, <ref target="Pg278">278</ref></item>
+
+<item>Paris, Comte de, <ref target="Pg094">94</ref></item>
+
+<item>Parthenope, <ref target="Pg249">249</ref></item>
+
+<item>Paul III., Pope, <ref target="Pg027">27</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pavia, <ref target="Pg279">279</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pedimentina, La, <ref target="Pg077">77</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pericles, <ref target="Pg040">40</ref></item>
+<item>Pescara, Marquis of, <ref target="Pg278">278</ref></item>
+
+
+<item>Petrarch, <ref target="Pg116">116</ref>, <ref target="Pg138">138</ref>, <ref target="Pg239">239</ref>, <ref target="Pg299">299</ref></item>
+
+<item>Philip the Bold, <ref target="Pg102">102</ref></item>
+
+<item>Phillips, John, <ref target="Pg068">68</ref></item>
+
+<item>Philodemus, <ref target="Pg010">10</ref></item>
+
+<item>Piacenza, <ref target="Pg185">185</ref></item>
+
+<item><corr sic="Pimental">Pimentel</corr>, Eleonora, <ref target="Pg104">104</ref></item>
+
+<item>Piperno, Pietro, <ref target="Pg111">111</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pisa, <ref target="Pg136">136</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pistoja, <ref target="Pg240">240</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pius II., Pope, <ref target="Pg027">27</ref>, <ref target="Pg144">144</ref></item>
+
+<item>Plato, <ref target="Pg058">58</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pliny, <ref target="Pg059">59</ref>, <ref target="Pg071">71</ref>, <ref target="Pg076">76</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pliny the younger, <ref target="Pg071">71</ref></item>
+
+<item>Plutarch, <ref target="Pg070">70</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pole, Cardinal, <ref target="Pg280">280</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pompeii, <ref target="Pg001">1</ref>, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg024">24</ref>, <ref target="Pg038">38</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pomponianus, <ref target="Pg072">72</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pontone, <ref target="Pg152">152</ref></item>
+
+<item>Portici, <ref target="Pg008">8</ref>, <ref target="Pg080">80</ref>, <ref target="Pg088">88</ref>, <ref target="Pg097">97</ref></item>
+
+<item>Porzia de’ Rossi, <ref target="Pg240">240</ref></item>
+
+<item>Posilipo, <ref target="Pg001">1</ref>, <ref target="Pg008">8</ref>, <ref target="Pg037">37</ref>, <ref target="Pg295">295</ref></item>
+
+<item>Positano, <ref target="Pg119">119</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pozzano, <ref target="Pg037">37</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pozzopiano, <ref target="Pg106">106</ref></item>
+
+<item>Pozzuoli, <ref target="Pg109">109</ref>, <ref target="Pg301">301</ref></item>
+
+<item>Prajano, <ref target="Pg124">124</ref></item>
+
+<item>Procida, <ref target="Pg004">4</ref>, <ref target="Pg237">237</ref>, <ref target="Pg275">275</ref></item>
+
+<item>Puteoli, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg295">295</ref></item>
+</list><list>
+<item>Quisisana, <ref target="Pg027">27</ref>, <ref target="Pg037">37</ref></item>
+</list><list>
+<item>Ravello, <ref target="Pg134">134</ref>, <ref target="Pg152">152</ref></item>
+
+<item>Reggio, <ref target="Pg311">311</ref></item>
+
+<item>Reid, Mr, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref>, <ref target="Pg262">262</ref></item>
+
+<item>Renée, Duchess of Ferrara, <ref target="Pg280">280</ref></item>
+
+<item>Resina, <ref target="Pg008">8</ref>, <ref target="Pg079">79</ref>, <ref target="Pg088">88</ref>, <ref target="Pg098">98</ref></item>
+
+<item>Retina, <ref target="Pg008">8</ref>, <ref target="Pg072">72</ref></item>
+
+<item>Revigliano, <ref target="Pg026">26</ref></item>
+
+<item>Rhegium, <ref target="Pg311">311</ref></item>
+
+<item>Robert of Normandy, <ref target="Pg178">178</ref></item>
+
+<item>—— the Wise, <ref target="Pg116">116</ref>, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref></item>
+
+<item>Roger, Count, <ref target="Pg155">155</ref>, <ref target="Pg180">180</ref></item>
+
+<item>—— King, <ref target="Pg116">116</ref>, <ref target="Pg136">136</ref></item>
+
+<item>Rome, <ref target="Pg039">39</ref>, <ref target="Pg094">94</ref>, <ref target="Pg144">144</ref>, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref>, <ref target="Pg180">180</ref>, <ref target="Pg312">312</ref></item>
+
+<item>Ruffo, Cardinal, <ref target="Pg104">104</ref></item>
+
+<item>Rufolo, <corr sic="Nicolò">Niccolò</corr>, <ref target="Pg155">155</ref>, <ref target="Pg160">160</ref></item>
+</list><list>
+<item>S. Agnello, <ref target="Pg106">106</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Alessio al Lavinaio, <ref target="Pg105">105</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Angelo, <ref target="Pg013">13</ref>, <ref target="Pg119">119</ref>, <ref target="Pg122">122</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Bridget of Sweden, <ref target="Pg144">144</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Brigida, <ref target="Pg003">3</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Chiara, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Costanzo, <ref target="Pg251">251</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Elia, Punta, <ref target="Pg117">117</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Elmo, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref>, <ref target="Pg067">67</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Francis of Assisi, <ref target="Pg144">144</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Gennaro, <ref target="Pg298">298</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Giovanni a Teduccio, <ref target="Pg008">8</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Giovanni del Toro, <ref target="Pg164">164</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Giuseppe, <ref target="Pg094">94</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Luca, <ref target="Pg124">124</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Lucia, <ref target="Pg003">3</ref></item>
+<pb n='325'/><anchor id='Pg325'/>
+
+<item>S. Maria a Pozzano, <ref target="Pg102">102</ref></item>
+<item>S. Maria del Gradillo, <ref target="Pg162">162</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Maria di Pompeii, <ref target="Pg065">65</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Martino, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Matteo, <ref target="Pg173">173</ref>, <ref target="Pg181">181</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Michael, <ref target="Pg035">35</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Miniato, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Paul, <ref target="Pg312">312</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Pietro, Punta di, <ref target="Pg123">123</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Proculo, <ref target="Pg307">307</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Restituta, <ref target="Pg291">291</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Romualdo, <ref target="Pg019">19</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Salvatore a Bireta, <ref target="Pg153">153</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Trinità, <ref target="Pg172">172</ref></item>
+
+<item>S. Vitale, <ref target="Pg296">296</ref></item>
+
+<item>Salerno, <ref target="Pg004">4</ref>, <ref target="Pg036">36</ref>, <ref target="Pg111">111</ref>, <ref target="Pg117">117</ref>, <ref target="Pg133">133</ref>, <ref target="Pg172">172</ref></item>
+
+<item>Samnite Hills, <ref target="Pg212">212</ref></item>
+
+<item><corr sic="Sannazaro">Sannazzaro</corr>, <ref target="Pg295">295</ref></item>
+
+<item>Sanseverini, <ref target="Pg169">169</ref></item>
+
+<item>Sardinia, <ref target="Pg015">15</ref></item>
+
+<item>Sarno, <ref target="Pg026">26</ref>, <ref target="Pg041">41</ref>, <ref target="Pg095">95</ref></item>
+
+<item>Scala, <ref target="Pg134">134</ref>, <ref target="Pg167">167</ref></item>
+
+<item>Scaletta, <ref target="Pg152">152</ref></item>
+
+<item>Scaricotojo, Lo, <ref target="Pg113">113</ref>, <ref target="Pg118">118</ref></item>
+
+<item>Scutolo, Punta di, <ref target="Pg106">106</ref></item>
+
+<item>Sebeto, <ref target="Pg008">8</ref></item>
+
+<item>Sejanus, <ref target="Pg256">256</ref></item>
+
+<item>Serapis, Temple of, <ref target="Pg308">308</ref></item>
+
+<item>Serra, Gennaro, <ref target="Pg104">104</ref></item>
+
+<item>Shelley, <ref target="Pg013">13</ref>, <ref target="Pg033">33</ref>, <ref target="Pg064">64</ref></item>
+
+<item>Shrewsbury, <ref target="Pg040">40</ref></item>
+
+<item>Sibyl of Cumae, <ref target="Pg318">318</ref></item>
+
+<item>Sicily, <ref target="Pg015">15</ref></item>
+
+<item>Sigilgaita, <ref target="Pg161">161</ref>, <ref target="Pg179">179</ref></item>
+
+<item>Silarus, <ref target="Pg198">198</ref></item>
+
+<item>Sirens, Isles of the, <ref target="Pg114">114</ref></item>
+
+<item>Sixtus IV., Pope, <ref target="Pg318">318</ref></item>
+
+<item>Smith, Sir Sydney, <ref target="Pg270">270</ref></item>
+
+<item>Soana, <ref target="Pg184">184</ref></item>
+
+<item>Socrates, <ref target="Pg040">40</ref></item>
+
+<item>Solaro, <ref target="Pg268">268</ref></item>
+
+<item>Soldan, <ref target="Pg246">246</ref></item>
+
+<item>Somma, Monte, <ref target="Pg067">67</ref>, <ref target="Pg094">94</ref>, <ref target="Pg099">99</ref></item>
+
+<item>Sorrentine Plain, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg106">106</ref></item>
+
+<item>Sorrento, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg090">90</ref>, <ref target="Pg221">221</ref></item>
+
+<item>Sottile, Cape, <ref target="Pg123">123</ref></item>
+
+<item>Spartacus, <ref target="Pg069">69</ref>, <ref target="Pg076">76</ref></item>
+
+<item><corr sic="Stabiæ">Stabiae</corr>, <ref target="Pg026">26</ref>, <ref target="Pg072">72</ref>, <ref target="Pg076">76</ref></item>
+
+<item>Stamer, W. J. A., <ref target="Pg016">16</ref>, <ref target="Pg052">52</ref>, <ref target="Pg238">238</ref>, <ref target="Pg265">265</ref>, <ref target="Pg316">316</ref></item>
+
+<item><corr sic="Straurachios">Staurachios</corr>, <ref target="Pg142">142</ref></item>
+
+<item>Stolberg, Count, <ref target="Pg202">202</ref></item>
+
+<item>Stowe, Mrs H. B., <ref target="Pg016">16</ref></item>
+
+<item>Strabo, <ref target="Pg069">69</ref>, <ref target="Pg275">275</ref></item>
+
+<item>Strada Costantinopoli, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref></item>
+
+<item rend='margin-left: 2'>&nbsp;&nbsp;„&nbsp;&nbsp;de’ Tribunali, <ref target="Pg003">3</ref></item>
+
+<item>Stromboli, <ref target="Pg091">91</ref></item>
+
+<item>Suetonius, <ref target="Pg256">256</ref></item>
+
+<item>Syracuse, <ref target="Pg058">58</ref>, <ref target="Pg107">107</ref>, <ref target="Pg311">311</ref></item>
+</list><list>
+<item>Tacca, <ref target="Pg051">51</ref></item>
+
+<item>Tacitus, <ref target="Pg069">69</ref>, <ref target="Pg071">71</ref>, <ref target="Pg073">73</ref></item>
+
+<item>Tafuri, Bishop, <ref target="Pg159">159</ref></item>
+
+<item>Tancred of Hauteville, <ref target="Pg178">178</ref>, <ref target="Pg180">180</ref></item>
+
+<item>Tarver, J. C., <ref target="Pg258">258</ref></item>
+
+<item>Tasso, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg106">106</ref>, <ref target="Pg145">145</ref>, <ref target="Pg239">239</ref></item>
+<item rend='margin-left: 2'>&nbsp;&nbsp;„&nbsp;&nbsp;Bernardo, <ref target="Pg106">106</ref>, <ref target="Pg240">240</ref>, <ref target="Pg277">277</ref></item>
+
+<item>Theocritus, <ref target="Pg154">154</ref>, <ref target="Pg292">292</ref></item>
+
+<item><corr sic="Thermæ">Thermae</corr> of Nero, <ref target="Pg316">316</ref></item>
+
+<item>Tiber, <ref target="Pg116">116</ref>, <ref target="Pg156">156</ref></item>
+
+<item>Tiberius, Emperor, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg050">50</ref>, <ref target="Pg253">253</ref>, <ref target="Pg308">308</ref></item>
+
+<item>Timgad, <ref target="Pg038">38</ref></item>
+
+<item>Timothy, <ref target="Pg312">312</ref></item>
+
+<item>Tiridates, <ref target="Pg308">308</ref></item>
+
+<item>Titian, <ref target="Pg027">27</ref></item>
+
+<item>Titus, Emperor, <ref target="Pg010">10</ref>, <ref target="Pg057">57</ref>, <ref target="Pg071">71</ref>, <ref target="Pg076">76</ref></item>
+
+<item>Toledo, The, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref></item>
+
+<item>Torregaveta, <ref target="Pg275">275</ref>, <ref target="Pg317">317</ref></item>
+
+<item>Trafalgar, <ref target="Pg270">270</ref></item>
+
+<item>Tragara, <ref target="Pg263">263</ref></item>
+
+<item>Tripoli, <ref target="Pg015">15</ref></item>
+
+<item>Tunis, <ref target="Pg056">56</ref>, <ref target="Pg246">246</ref></item>
+</list><list>
+<item>Ulysses, <ref target="Pg114">114</ref></item>
+
+<item>Urban IV., Pope, <ref target="Pg144">144</ref></item>
+
+<item>Ustica, <ref target="Pg091">91</ref></item>
+</list><list>
+<item>Vaccaro, Il, <ref target="Pg084">84</ref></item>
+
+<item>Valentinian, Emperor, <ref target="Pg208">208</ref></item>
+
+<item>Valley of the Mills, <ref target="Pg140">140</ref>, <ref target="Pg149">149</ref></item>
+
+<item>Venice, <ref target="Pg103">103</ref>, <ref target="Pg112">112</ref>, <ref target="Pg134">134</ref>, <ref target="Pg148">148</ref></item>
+
+<item>Venosa, <ref target="Pg181">181</ref></item>
+
+<item>Venus, Temple of, <ref target="Pg052">52</ref></item>
+
+<item>Vergil, <ref target="Pg208">208</ref>, <ref target="Pg211">211</ref>, <ref target="Pg275">275</ref>, <ref target="Pg296">296</ref></item>
+
+<item>Vesuvius, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg011">11</ref>, <ref target="Pg036">36</ref>, <ref target="Pg066">66</ref></item>
+
+<item>Via Domitiana, <ref target="Pg062">62</ref></item>
+
+<item>Vico Equense, <ref target="Pg031">31</ref>, <ref target="Pg102">102</ref>, <ref target="Pg103">103</ref></item>
+
+<item>Victor III., Pope, <ref target="Pg155">155</ref></item>
+
+<item>Victor Emmanuel III., King of Italy, <ref target="Pg094">94</ref></item>
+<pb n='326'/><anchor id='Pg326'/>
+
+<item>Vietri, <ref target="Pg165">165</ref>, <ref target="Pg171">171</ref></item>
+<item>Vigna Sersale, <ref target="Pg247">247</ref></item>
+
+<item>Villa Jovis, <ref target="Pg254">254</ref></item>
+
+<item>Villa Reale, <ref target="Pg002">2</ref></item>
+
+<item>Vincenzo, <ref target="Pg037">37</ref></item>
+
+<item>Vitruvius, <ref target="Pg060">60</ref>, <ref target="Pg069">69</ref></item>
+
+<item>Vittoria Colonna, <ref target="Pg005">5</ref>, <ref target="Pg277">277</ref></item>
+
+<item>Vivara, <ref target="Pg276">276</ref></item>
+
+<item>Vomero, <ref target="Pg003">3</ref></item>
+
+<item>Vozzi Family, <ref target="Pg127">127</ref></item>
+</list><list>
+<item>Wales, <ref target="Pg107">107</ref>, <ref target="Pg318">318</ref></item>
+
+<item>William <corr sic="Bras de Fer">Bras-de-Fer</corr>, <ref target="Pg174">174</ref></item>
+
+<item>Wordsworth, <ref target="Pg033">33</ref></item>
+
+<item>Worms, <ref target="Pg185">185</ref></item>
+</list><list>
+<item>Zampognari, <ref target="Pg233">233</ref></item>
+
+<item>Zoppo, Carlo <corr sic="Il">il</corr>, <ref target="Pg102">102</ref>, <ref target="Pg103">103</ref>, <ref target="Pg121">121</ref></item>
+</list>   
+        </div>
+            <div>
+            <pgIf output="pdf">
+                <then></then>
+                <else>
+                    <div id="footnotes" rend="page-break-before: right">
+                        <index index="toc"/>
+                        <head>Footnotes</head>
+                        <divGen type="footnotes" />
+                    </div>
+                </else>
+            </pgIf>
+        </div>
+        <div rend="page-break-before: right; x-class: boxed">
+            <index index="toc"/><index index="pdf" level1="Transcriber's Note"/>
+                <head>Transcriber&rsquo;s Note</head>
+            <p>The caption of two images (<ref target="frontis">frontispiece</ref>, 
+                <ref target="illus22">page 288</ref>) has been supplied from the List of Images.</p>
+                <p>The following obvious typographical errors have been corrected:</p>
+                <list>
+                    <item><ref target="corrxi">page xi</ref>, <q>Republiques</q> changed to <q>Républiques</q></item>
+                    <item><ref target="corr055">page 55</ref>, <q>castastrophe</q> changed to <q>catastrophe</q></item>
+                    <item><ref target="corr090">page 90</ref>, quote mark added after <q>vendemmia?</q></item>
+                    <item><ref target="corr158">page 158, footnote</ref>, italics added to <q>The Decameron</q>,
+                    removed from <q>Novel IV. of the Second Day</q>.
+                        (Other inconsistencies between the two citations of the <hi rend="italic">Decameron</hi>
+                        were not changed.)</item>
+                    <item><ref target="corr159">page 159</ref>, <q>mosiac</q> changed to <q>mosaic</q></item>
+                    <item><ref target="corr189">page 189</ref>, <q>gradully</q> changed to <q>gradually</q></item>
+                    <item><ref target="corr206">page 206</ref>, <q>Pæstum</q> changed to <q>Paestum</q>
+                        (<ref target="corr206a">twice</ref>)</item>
+                    <item><ref target="corr212">page 212</ref>, <q>wheron</q> changed to <q>whereon</q></item>
+                    <item><ref target="corr238">page 238</ref>, <q>circomstane</q> changed to <q>circomstance</q></item>
+                    <item><ref target="corr241">page 241</ref>, double <q>the</q> removed</item>
+                    <item><ref target="corr275">page 275</ref>, <q>costing</q> changed to <q>coasting</q></item>
+                    <item><ref target="corr300">page 300</ref>, <q>maledicton</q> changed to <q>malediction</q></item>
+                    <item><ref target="corr301">page 301</ref>, <q>then</q> changed to <q>than</q></item>
+                    <item><ref target="corr311">page 311</ref>, <q>aud</q> changed to <q>and</q></item>
+                </list>
+            
+          <p>In the Index, the following words have been changed to the spelling used in the main text:        
+          </p>
+          <list>
+            <item><q>Baiae</q> (was: <q>Baiæ</q>)</item>
+            <item><q>Caecilius Jucundus</q> (was: <q>Cæcilius</q>)</item>
+            <item><q>Cumae</q> (was: <q>Cumæ</q>)</item>
+            <item><q>Hohenstaufen</q> (was: <q>Hohenstauffen</q>)</item>
+            <item><q>Matteucci</q> (was: <q>Mateucci</q>)</item>
+            <item><q>Paestum</q> (was: <q>Pæstum</q>)</item>
+            <item><q>Pimentel</q> (was: <q>Pimental</q>)</item>
+            <item><q>Rufolo, Niccolò</q> (was: <q>Nicoló</q>)</item>
+            <item><q>Sannazzaro</q> (was: <q>Sannazaro</q>)</item>
+            <item><q>Stabiae</q> (was: <q>Stabiæ</q>)</item>
+            <item><q>Staurachios</q> (was: <q>Straurachios</q>)</item>
+            <item><q>Thermae of Nero</q> (was: <q>Thermæ</q>)</item>
+            <item><q>William Bras-de-Fer</q> (was: <q>Bras de Fer</q>)</item>
+              <item><q>Zoppo, Carlo il</q> (was: <q>Zoppo, Carlo Il</q>)</item>
+          </list>
+          <p>Apart from the index and two occurrences of <q>Pæstum</q> in the main text, all <q>æ</q> ligatures have been maintained:
+            <q>ædile</q> (and <q>aedile</q>),
+            <q>archæologist</q> (and <q>archaeologist</q>),
+            <q>æsthetic</q>,
+            <q>Cannæ</q>,
+            <q>Mediæval</q> (in a quotation, otherwise <q>medieval</q>),
+            <q>mærens</q>,
+            <q>Prætor</q>,
+          <q>tesseræ</q>.
+          </p>
+            
+          <p>Not changed or normalized were
+              small errors in Italian or German quotations (<q>a riverderla</q>, <q>Kultur-kampf</q>, 
+            <q>Bierhälle</q>),
+            inconsistent hyphenation (e.&nbsp;g. <q>boat-man</q>/<q>boatman</q>, <q>sea-shore</q>/<q>seashore</q>),
+            spelling variations (<q>Phlegraean</q>/<q>Phlegrean</q>)
+            and
+            unusual spellings (<q>elegible</q> [in a quotation], <q>pleisosaurus</q>, <q>innoculating</q>,
+              <q>choregraphic</q>).</p>
+        </div>
+            <div rend="page-break-before: right">
+      <divGen type="pgfooter"/>
+    </div>
+        </back>
+    </text>
+</TEI.2>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Naples Riviera by Herbert M. Vaughan
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: The Naples Riviera
+
+Author: Herbert M. Vaughan
+
+Release Date: December 9, 2009 [Ebook #30634]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NAPLES RIVIERA***
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: CHARCOAL CARRIERS, AMALFI]
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  *THE*
+                             *NAPLES RIVIERA*
+
+
+                                   BY
+                    HERBERT M. VAUGHAN, B.A. (OXON.)
+                AUTHOR OF "THE LAST OF THE ROYAL STUARTS"
+
+
+
+WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY
+MAURICE GREIFFENHAGEN
+
+
+METHUEN & CO
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+LONDON
+
+
+
+
+
+                        _First Published in 1907_
+
+                                   TO
+                                G. L. L.
+                              IN MEMORY OF
+                  MANY PLEASANT DAYS IN THE SUNNY SOUTH
+                              THIS BOOK IS
+                        AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+                              BY THE AUTHOR
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 CONTENTS
+
+
+     CHAPTER I                                     PAGE
+     INTRODUCTORY                                     1
+     CHAPTER II
+     THE VESUVIAN SHORE AND MONTE SANT' ANGELO        8
+     CHAPTER III
+     LA CITTA MORTA                                  38
+     CHAPTER IV
+     VESUVIUS                                        66
+     CHAPTER V
+     THE CORNICHE ROAD                              100
+     CHAPTER VI
+     AMALFI AND THE FESTIVAL OF ST ANDREW           126
+     CHAPTER VII
+     RAVELLO AND THE RUFOLI                         152
+     CHAPTER VIII
+     SALERNO                                        172
+     CHAPTER IX
+     PAESTUM AND THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE          198
+     CHAPTER X
+     SORRENTO AND ITS POET                          221
+     CHAPTER XI
+     CAPRI AND TIBERIUS THE TYRANT                  249
+     CHAPTER XII
+     ISCHIA AND THE LADY OF THE ROCK                275
+     CHAPTER XIII
+     PUTEOLI AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME         295
+     --------
+     INDEX                                          321
+
+
+
+
+
+                          LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                     PAGE
+     CHARCOAL CARRIERS, AMALFI             _Frontispiece_
+     A CAPRIOTE FISHERMAN'S WIFE                       16
+     ROAD NEAR CASTELLAMARE                            30
+     MONTE FAITO, CASTELLAMARE                         37
+     THE FORUM, POMPEII                                46
+     LA CASA DEI VETTII, POMPEII                       58
+     VESUVIUS AND THE BAY OF NAPLES                    80
+     POZZANO                                          101
+     EVENING AT AMALFI                                124
+     AMALFI                                           132
+     IN THE VALLEY OF THE MILLS, AMALFI               140
+     AMALFI: PIAZZA AND DUOMO                         148
+     RAVELLO: IL DUOMO                                156
+     A STREET IN RAVELLO                              163
+     MINORI AT SUNSET                                 170
+     ON THE ROAD TO RAVELLO                           186
+     THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE, PAESTUM                   204
+     AFTERNOON, SORRENTO                              230
+     FARAGLIONI ROCKS, CAPRI                          249
+     CAPRI FROM THE VILLA JOVIS                       254
+     IN THE BLUE GROTTO, CAPRI                        262
+     A GATEWAY, CAPRI                                 274
+     ON THE PICCOLA MARINA, CAPRI                     288
+     ISCHIA FROM CASTELLAMARE (SUNSET)                294
+     ON THE BEACH                                     306
+
+
+
+
+
+                               BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+A small selection out of the books I have consulted during the preparation
+                      of this work is given below:--
+
+E. GIBBON: _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_.
+
+DEAN MERIVALE: _The Romans under the Empire_.
+
+_Pliny's Letters_: (Church's and Brodribb's Translation, London, 1897).
+
+J. PHILLIPS: _Vesuvius_ (Oxford, 1869).
+
+C. RAMAGE: _Nooks and Byways of Italy_.
+
+C. LENORMANT: _A Travers la Lucanie et l'Apulie_.
+
+W. J. A. STAMER: _Dolce Napoli_ (London, 1878).
+
+E. NEVILLE ROLFE: _Naples in 1888_.
+
+CONSTANCE GIGLIOLI: _Naples in 1799_.
+
+C. L. SISMONDI: _Histoire des __Republiques__ Italiennes_.
+
+L. ALBERTI: _Descrizione di tutta l' Italia_ (Venetia, 1596).
+
+C. MILLS: _The Travels of Theodore Ducas_ (London, 1822).
+
+_Les Delices d'Italie_ (Paris, 1707).
+
+_Nuova Guida de' Forastieri in Napoli, etc._ (1751).
+
+COUNT STOLBERG: _Travels through Italy and Sicily in 1756_.
+
+A. H. NORWAY: _Naples, Past and Present_ (London, 1904).
+
+E. BUSK: _Folk-Songs of Italy_.
+
+J. A. SYMONDS: _Sketches and Studies in Italy_.
+
+CATHERINE PHILLIMORE: _Studies in Italian Literature_ (London, 1891).
+
+T. A. TROLLOPE: _A Decade of Italian Women_ (London, 1859).
+
+G. BOCCACCIO: _Il Decamerone_.
+
+A. MAU: _Pompeii: its Life and Art_ (New York, 1899).
+
+J. FERGUSSON: _Handbook of Architecture_ (London, 1859).
+
+FRANZ VON REBER: _History of Ancient and Mediaeval Art_ (New York, 1882).
+
+E. JAMESON: _Sacred and Legendary Art_ (London, 1879).
+
+J. ELWORTHY: _History of the Evil Eye_ (London, 1888).
+
+N. VALLETTA: _Cicalata sul Fascino detto Jettatura_ (Napoli, 1819).
+
+A. CANALE: _Storia dell' Isola di Capri_.
+
+G. AMALFI: _Tradizioni ed Vsi nella Penisola Sorrentina_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            THE NAPLES RIVIERA
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I
+
+
+                               INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+                   "In otia natam
+            Parthenopen."
+
+
+That the city of Naples can prove very delightful, very amusing, and very
+instructive for a week or ten days no one will attempt to dispute. There
+are long mornings to be spent in inspecting the churches scattered
+throughout the narrow streets of the old town,--harlequins in coloured
+marble and painted stucco though they be, they are yet treasure-houses
+containing some of the most precious monuments of Gothic and Renaissance
+art that all Italy can display. There are afternoon hours that can be
+passed pleasantly amidst the endless halls and galleries of the great
+Museo Nazionale, where the antiquities of Pompeii and Herculaneum may be
+studied in advance, for the wise traveller will not rush headlong into the
+sacred precincts of the buried cities on the Vesuvian shore, before he has
+first made himself thoroughly acquainted with the wonderful collections
+preserved in the Museum. Then comes the evening drive along the gentle
+winding ascent towards Posilipo with its glorious views over bay and
+mountains, all tinged with the deep rose and violet of a Neapolitan
+sunset; or the stroll along the fashionable sea front, named after the
+luckless Caracciolo the modern hero of Naples, where in endless succession
+the carriages pass backwards and forwards within the limited space between
+the sea and the greenery of the Villa Reale. Or it may be that our more
+active feet may entice us to mount the winding flights of stone steps
+leading to the heights of Sant' Elmo, where from the windows of the
+monastery of San Martino there is spread out before us an entrancing view
+that has but two possible rivals for extent and interest in all Italy:--the
+panorama of the Eternal City from the hill of San Pietro in Montorio, and
+that of Florence with the valley of the Arno from the lofty terrace of San
+Miniato. We can while away many hours leisurely in wandering on the
+bustling Chiaja or Toledo with their shops and their amusing scenes of
+city life, or in the poorer quarters around the Mercato, where the
+inhabitants ply their daily avocations in the open air, and eat, play,
+quarrel, flirt, fight or gossip--do everything in short save go to
+bed--quite unconcernedly before the critical and non-admiring eyes of
+casual strangers. Pleasant it is to hunt for old prints, books and other
+treasures amongst the dark unwholesome dens that lie in the shadow of the
+gorgeous church of Santa Chiara or in the musty-smelling shops of the
+curiosity dealers in the Strada Costantinopoli, picking up here a volume
+of some _cinque-cento_ classic and there a piece of old china that may or
+may not have had its birth in the famous factory of Capodimonte. All this
+studying of historic sculpture in the churches and of antiquities in the
+Museum, this observing the daily life of the populace, and bargain-hunting
+in the Strada de' Tribunali, are agreeable enough for a while, but of
+necessity there comes a time when the mind grows weary of yelling people
+and of jostling crowds, of stuffy churches and of the chilly halls of the
+Museum, of steep dirty streets and of glaring boulevards, so that we begin
+to sigh for fresh air and a change of scene. Nor is there any means of
+escape within the precincts of the city itself from the eternal cracking
+of whips, from the insulting compliments (or complimentary insults) of the
+incorrigible cabmen, from the continuous babel of unmusical voices, and
+from the reiterated strains of "Santa Lucia" or "Margari" howled from
+raucous throats or strummed from rickety street-organs. Oh for peace, and
+rest, and a whiff of pure country air! For there are no walks in or around
+the City of the Siren, where there is nowhere to stroll save the narrow
+strip of the much-vaunted Villa (which is either damp or dusty according
+to weather) or the fatiguing ascent amidst walled gardens and newly built
+houses to the heights of the Vomero, which are covered with a raw suburb.
+Moreover our pristine delight in the place is beginning to flag, as we
+gradually realise that the city, like the majority of great modern towns,
+is being practically rebuilt to the annihilation of its old-world
+features, which used to give to Naples its peculiar charm and its marked
+individuality amongst large sea-ports. Long ago has disappeared Santa
+Brigida, that picturesque high-coloured slum, on whose site stands the
+garish domed gallery of which the Neapolitans are so proud; gone in these
+latter days is classic Santa Lucia with its water-gate and its fountain,
+its vendors of medicated water and _frutti di mare_, those toothsome shell
+fish of the unsavoury beach; vanished for ever is many a landmark of old
+Naples, and new buildings, streets and squares, blank, dreary, pretentious
+and staring, have arisen in their places. This thorough _sventramento di
+Napoli_, as the citizens graphically term this drastic reconstruction of
+the old capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, is no doubt
+beneficial, not to say necessary, and we make no protest against these
+wholesale changes, which have certainly tended to destroy utterly its
+ancient character and appearance. But all seems commonplace, new, smart,
+and unpoetic, and we quickly grow weary of Naples now that it has been
+turned into a Liverpool of the South without the local colour and the
+peculiar attributes of which author and artist have so often raved. The
+life of the people, picturesque enough in its old setting, now appears
+mean and squalid; the toilers in the streets look jaded, oppressed and
+discontented; we search in vain for the spontaneous gaiety of which we
+have heard so much. We feel disappointed, cheated even, in our
+expectations of Naples, and we begin to understand that its chief
+attraction consists in its proximity to the scenes of beauty that mark the
+course of its Riviera.
+
+
+
+The Riviera of Naples may be said to extend from the heights of Cumae, at
+the end of the Bay of Gaeta to the north, as far as Salerno in a southerly
+direction, whilst, lying close to this stretch of shore, are included the
+three populous islands of Capri, Procida and Ischia, which in prehistoric
+times doubtless formed part and parcel of the Parthenopean coast itself.
+Our pleasant task it is to write of these classic shores and islands,
+where the beauties of nature contend for pre-eminence with the glorious
+traditions of the past that centre round them. What spot on earth can
+surpass, or even be compared with, Amalfi in the perfect lustre of its
+setting? What loftier or bolder cliffs than those of Capri can the wild
+bleak headlands of the North Sea exhibit? The fertile lands of France
+cannot vie with the richness of the Sorrentine Plain, nor can any mountain
+on the face of the globe rival in human interest the peak of Vesuvius;
+Pompeii is unique, the most precious storehouse of ancient knowledge the
+world possesses; whilst the Bay of Baia recalls the days of Roman power
+and luxury more vividly to our minds than any place save the Eternal City
+itself. And again: what illustrious names in history and in
+literature--classical, medieval, modern--are for ever associated with these
+smiling shores! Robert Guiscard and Hildebrand in quiet Salerno, Tasso at
+health-giving Sorrento, Vittoria Colonna in her palace-fortress on the
+crags of Ischia, the great Apostle of the west at Puteoli:--these are but a
+few of the more eminent and gracious figures that arise before us at the
+casual bidding of memory. Then there are the infamous, as well as the
+virtuous and the gallant, whose misdeeds are still freshly remembered upon
+these coasts or in their fertile valleys. The sinister Tiberius, the
+half-crazy and wholly vicious Caligula, many a king and queen of evil
+repute that ruled Naples, the vile Pier-Luigi Farnese, the adventurer
+Joachim Murat, all have left the marks of their personality upon the
+coveted shores of the Neapolitan Riviera. From the days of the Sibyl and
+of the Trojan hero to the stirring times of Garibaldi and of King Bomba,
+which were but of yesterday, Naples and its environs have played a
+prominent part in the annals and development of the civilised western
+world; Roman emperors, Pagan statesmen and poets, Norman, French and
+Spanish princes, popes, saints and theologians, merchants and scientists
+of the Middle Ages, writers of the Renaissance and heroes of the
+_Risorgimento_, all have combined to shed a halo of historical romance
+upon Naples and its Riviera, where there is scarcely a sea-girt town or a
+crumbling fortress that is not redolent of the memory of some personage
+whose name is inscribed on the roll of European history. It seems but
+right, therefore, that many works should have been written concerning this
+favoured corner of Italy, so replete with natural charm and with
+historical interest; and in truth multitudes of books, large and small,
+witty and dull, erudite and empty, light and heavy, prosaic and
+rhapsodical, have poured forth from the prolific pens of generations of
+authors. We feel sincerely the need of an apology for making a fresh
+addition to the ever-increasing pile of Neapolitan literature, and we can
+only urge in extenuation of our crime of authorship that the same scene
+appeals in varied ways to different persons, and that every fresh
+description is apt to shed additional light upon old familiar subjects. In
+the following pages we make no profession to act the part of a guide to
+the neighbourhood of Naples, for are there not the carefully prepared
+pages of Murray and Baedeker, to say nothing of the works of such writers
+as Augustus Hare, to lead the wanderer into every church and castle, to
+show him every nook in valley and mountain, and to supply him thoroughly
+with accurate dates and facts? No, our treatment of this theme may be
+deemed a poor one, but it has at least the merit and the courage of
+following its own peculiar lines. For we pursue our own course, and we
+touch lightly here and omit there; we run to dissertation in this place,
+we glide by silently in another. We take our own views of people and
+places, and give them for what they are worth to our readers to approve or
+to condemn, as they think fit. We offer a medley of history and of
+imagination, of biography and of private comment; and we crave indulgence
+for our short-comings by observing that any deficiencies in these pages
+can easily be remedied by application to the abundant literature upon
+Naples and its surrounding districts which every good library is presumed
+to contain.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER II
+
+
+                THE VESUVIAN SHORE AND MONTE SANT' ANGELO
+
+
+That little stream the Sebeto, which is indeed, as the courtly Metastasio
+observes, "scanty in depth of water though overflowing with honour," may
+be considered as the boundary line that divides the city of Naples from
+its eastern environs, although it is evident that the whole stretch of
+coast from Posilipo to Torre del Greco is covered with an unbroken line of
+houses. Past the highly cultivated _Paduli_, the chief market-gardens on
+this side of the city, with the town of La Barra on the fertile slopes to
+our left, we pass by way of San Giovanni a Teduccio to Portici, once a
+favourite resort of royalty. Here the dilettante Charles III., first
+Bourbon King of Naples, built a palace and laid out gardens in the days of
+patches and powder, constructing a royal pleasaunce that was destined to
+become the chief residence of the temporary supplanter of his own family,
+Joachim Murat, the citizen king of Naples and brother-in-law of the great
+Napoleon. Villa and gardens still remain, but monarchs have ceased to
+visit Portici since the days of Bomba, and the old royal demesne has been
+turned into an agricultural college. Adjoining and practically forming
+part of Portici is the town of Resina, which preserves almost intact the
+old classical name of Retina that it bore in the distant days when it
+served as the port of Herculaneum. Here then in the mean streets of Resina
+we find ourselves standing above, though certainly not upon, historic
+ground, for the temples and villas, the theatres and private houses of the
+famous buried city lie far below the surface trodden by our feet. To visit
+Herculaneum it is necessary for us to descend some seventy to a hundred
+feet into the depths of the earth, passing more than one layer of ancient
+lava, for Resina and Portici themselves are but modern editions of former
+towns that have been engulfed in the course of ages. If the stranger can
+derive any solid satisfaction from the descent by a gloomy underground
+passage and from fleeting glimpses of ancient walls and dwellings seen
+through a forest of wooden baulks, which serve to support the spaces
+excavated, he must indeed be an enthusiast. But most people, perhaps all
+sensible people, will be content to take the undoubted interest of
+Herculaneum on trust, probably agreeing (at any rate after their visit)
+that the inspection of this subterranean city is not worth the candle, by
+whose flickering beams alone can objects be distinguished in the
+oppressive darkness. Personally we strongly hold to the expressed opinion
+of Alexandre Dumas, who declared that even the most hardened antiquary
+could not desire more than one hour's contemplation of this hidden mass of
+shapeless wreckage. "Herculaneum," writes that genial Frenchman, "but
+wearies our curiosity instead of exciting it. We descend into the
+excavated city as into a mine by a species of shaft; then come corridors
+beneath the earth which can only be entered by the light of tapers; and
+these smoke-grimed passages allow us from time to time to obtain a
+momentary glimpse of the angle of a house, the colonnade of some temple,
+the steps of a theatre. Everything is fragmentary, mutilated, dingy,
+uncertain, confused, and therefore unsatisfactory. Well, at the end of an
+hour spent in wandering amongst these abysmal recesses, the most hardened
+archaeologist, the most dry-as-dust antiquary, the most inquisitive of
+tourists begins to experience only one feeling--an intense desire to ascend
+to the light of day and to breathe once more the fresh air of the upper
+world."
+
+Nevertheless, it was from these dismal caverns, black as Erebus, that some
+of the choicest marbles and bronzes that now adorn the Museum at Naples
+were originally extracted. From a villa at Herculaneum also was taken the
+famous collection of 3000 rolls of papyrus, chiefly filled with the
+writings of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, perhaps the greatest
+"find" of ancient literature that has yet been made, although the contents
+of this damaged library, deciphered with equal toil and ingenuity, have
+not proved to be of the value originally set upon them by expectant
+scholars. But much of the city itself has yet hardly been touched since
+the days when it was destroyed in the reign of Titus, so that far below
+the squalid lanes of Portici and Resina there must still exist acres upon
+acres of undisturbed buildings, public and private, many of them perhaps
+filled with priceless works of Greek and Roman art, for Herculaneum,
+unlike Pompeii, was never tampered with by the ancients themselves, for
+the coating of volcanic mud, which filled the whole area of the city, made
+impracticable a systematic searching of its ruins by the despoiled
+citizens. Then, as if nature had not already buried the city sufficiently
+deep, subsequent eruptions of Vesuvius have superimposed additional layers
+of lava, whilst confiding human beings have in their turn built
+habitations upon the volcanic crust.
+
+
+
+We all know the story, perhaps mythical, of the discovery of Herculaneum
+at the beginning of the eighteenth century by the accidental sinking of a
+well upon its long-forgotten site and of the subsequent excavations made
+by the Prince d'Elboeuf. These so-called explorations were, however, made
+in the most greedy and destructive spirit, for the prince's sole object
+was to obtain antique works of art for his private collection, not to make
+intelligent enquiries about the dead and buried city lying beneath his
+estate. Ignorant workmen were despatched to hew and hack wholesale in the
+mirky depths in order to discover statuary and paintings, and since there
+was no receptacle at hand to contain the _debris_, they took the simple
+course of filling in each hollow made with the masses of rubbish already
+excavated. Later in the same century the Bourbon king was induced by
+Neapolitan savants to take some interest in the work, but, strange to
+relate, the superintendent appointed, a certain Spanish officer named
+Alcubier, was so ignorant and careless that half the objects found under
+his supervision were broken or lost before they reached Naples; this
+ignoramus, it was said, even went so far as to order whole architraves to
+be smashed up and their bronze lettering to be picked out before making a
+copy of the original inscription! Under these circumstances the marvel is
+that anything of beauty or value should have survived at all, for this
+selfish plundering of Herculaneum, in strong contrast with the reverent
+treatment meted out to Pompeii, may be considered one of the greatest
+pieces of vandalism ever perpetrated. In spite of this wholesale
+destruction, however, there must remain untouched, as we have said, a vast
+quantity of objects, beautiful, useful or curious, yet it is extremely
+doubtful if we shall live to see any serious and intelligent effort made
+to bring these hidden treasures forth to the light of day. The expense of
+working this buried hoard would be enormous in any case, whilst the
+existence of the houses of Resina and Portici overhead necessitates
+special measures of precaution on the part of the excavators. The only
+method of examining Herculaneum properly would be in fact to treat the
+buried site like an immense mine by the construction of regular galleries
+and shafts for the entrance of skilled workmen, and to remove the rubbish
+displaced to the outer air. Perhaps some multi-millionaire might be found
+ready to undertake so arduous, yet so fascinating a task, though we fear
+that the Italian Government, which has always shown itself as tenacious of
+its subterranean wealth of antiquity as it appears languid in the work of
+quarrying it, would indignantly refuse to accede to any such offer. As
+regards the ancient city of Hercules, therefore, we must perforce remain
+content to inspect the magnificent bronzes and the other objects of
+interest that are to be found in the Museum of Naples, for we are not
+likely to see any further researches just at present, more's the pity,
+since there is every reason to suppose that a thorough investigation
+conducted regardless of cost would yield up to the world the most
+marvellous and valuable results.
+
+Some two miles of dusty suburb lie between Resina and Torre del Greco,
+which has been destroyed time after time by the lava streams descending
+from "that peak of Hell rising out of Paradise," as Goethe once named the
+burning mountain overhead. Nevertheless, the Torrese continue to sit
+patiently at the feet of the fire-spouting monster, trembling when he is
+angry, pleased when he is quiescent, and ready to abandon meekly their
+homes when he renders them insupportable by his furious outbursts. Yet
+these people never fail to return and risk the ever-present chances of
+death and destruction. And little can we blame them for their fatalism,
+when we gaze upon the glorious views that reveal themselves at this spot,
+whence Naples rising proudly from the sea, the rocky islands of Ischia and
+Capri, the aerial heights of Monte Sant' Angelo and all the features of
+the placid bay are seen spread around us in a panorama of unsurpassed
+loveliness. Beneath lava rocks, black and sinister, that contrast
+strangely in their sombre hues with the brilliant tints of sea and sky,
+lie little beaches of glittering gravel that would afford delightful
+retreats for meditation, were it not for the dozens of half-naked
+brown-skinned imps, children of the fisher-folk of Torre del Greco, who
+wallow in the warm sand or rush with joyful screams into the tepid surf.
+The population must have increased not a little since those days, nearly a
+century ago, when the unhappy Shelley could find peace and solitude in his
+darkest hours of unrest upon these shores, where it would be well-nigh
+impossible for a twentieth-century poet to espy a retreat for soothing his
+soul in verse. Yet somehow, during the drowsy noontide rest when the
+active life of the South ceases, if only for an hour or so, it is still
+possible to catch the spirit in which that melancholy wanderer indited one
+of his most exquisite lyrics:--sunshine, clear sky, murmuring seas, the
+fragrance of the Italian spring, all are present to our reverie; and how
+true and perfect a picture has the poet-artist drawn for us of this
+beautiful Vesuvian shore!
+
+  "The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
+     The waves are dancing fast and bright,
+  Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
+     The purple noon's transparent light:
+  The breath of the moist earth is light
+     Around its unexpanded buds;
+  Like many a voice of one delight,
+     The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
+  The City's voice itself is soft, like Solitude's.
+
+  I see the Deep's untrampled floor
+     With green and purple seaweeds strown;
+  I see the waves upon the shore,
+     Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
+  I sit upon the sands alone;
+     The lightning of the noontide ocean
+  Is flashing round me, and a tone
+     Arises from its measured motion,
+  How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion?"
+
+But it must be admitted that the seashore by Torre del Greco does not
+often lend itself as a suitable spot for romantic or solitary communings
+with nature; it is a busy place where the struggle for life is keen and
+practical enough, and its inhabitants have little time or inclination to
+bestow on the pursuit of poetry. As in all the towns of the _Terra di
+Lavoro_, as this collection of human ant-hills on the eastern side of
+Naples is sometimes designated, the old command given to the first parents
+of mankind--"by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread"--is scrupulously
+observed in Torre del Greco. It is little enough, however, that these
+frugal people demand, for a hunk of coarse bread, tempered with a handful
+of beans or an orange in winter or with a slice of luscious pink
+water-melon or a few figs in summer, is thought to constitute a full meal
+in this climate; nor are these simple viands washed down by anything more
+potent than a draught of _mezzo-vino_, the weak sour wine of the country.
+A dish of maccaroni or a plateful of kid or veal garnished with vegetables
+is a treat to be reserved for a marriage or some great Church festival,
+whilst a chicken is regarded as a luxury in which only _gran' signori_ of
+boundless wealth can afford to indulge. Amongst the many classes of
+toilers with which populous Torre del Greco abounds, that of the
+coral-fishers is perhaps the most interesting. There is pure romance in
+the very notion of hunting for the beautiful coloured substance lying
+hidden in the crystalline depths of the Mediterranean, and its quest is
+not a little suggestive of azure caverns beneath the waves, peopled by
+soft-eyed mermaids and strange iridescent fishes. As a matter of fact, it
+would be difficult to name a harder occupation or a more dismal monotonous
+existence than that of the coral-fishers, many hundreds of whom leave this
+little port every spring in order to spend the summer months on the coasts
+of Tripoli, Sardinia, or Sicily. The men employed, who work under contract
+during some six months of unending drudgery, are by no means all natives
+of Torre del Greco, but are collected from various places of the
+neighbourhood, not a few of them being thrifty youths from Capri, who are
+eager to amass as quickly as possible the lump sum of money requisite to
+permit of marriage. It is true that the amount actually paid by the owners
+of the coral fleet sounds proportionately large, yet it is in reality poor
+enough recompense when measured by the ceaseless toil, the burning heat
+and the wretched food, which the venture entails. The lot of the
+coral-fisher has however much improved of late years, partly by measures
+of government which now compel the contractors to treat their servants
+more humanely, and partly by the fact that the practice of emigration in
+Southern Italy has reduced the numbers of applicants for the coral-fishing
+business and has thereby, indirectly at least, raised wages and bettered
+the old conditions of service. A truly pitiable account is given of these
+poor creatures some thirty years ago by an English writer, whose knowledge
+of the Neapolitan people and character remains probably unsurpassed; and
+it is some satisfaction to reflect that even in Mr Stamer's day the bad
+old oppressive system had already been somewhat tempered for the benefit
+of these white slaves, who for nearly half the round of the year were
+worse treated than King Bomba's unhappy victims in the pestilent prisons
+of Naples and Gaeta.
+
+  [Illustration: A CAPRIOTE FISHERMAN'S WIFE]
+
+"Badly paid, badly fed, and hard worked is the poor coral-fisher. Compared
+with his, the life of a galley-slave is one of sybaritical indolence. His
+treatment was, until very recently, not one whit better than that of the
+poor oppressed negro as he existed in the vivid imagination of Mrs Harriet
+Beecher Stowe; immeasurably worse than that of the real Simon Pure. The
+thirty ducats for which he sold his seven months' services once paid, he
+was just as much a slave as Uncle Tom of pious memory, harder worked, more
+brutally handled. His _padrone_ was a sea-monster, alongside of whom Mr
+Legree would have seemed a paragon of Quaker-like gentleness and
+amiability. His word was law and a rope's end well laid on his sole reply
+to any remonstrance on the part of his bondsmen. For six days out of the
+seven he kept them working incessantly, not unfrequently on the seventh
+into the bargain, if the weather was favourable; and that they might be
+strong, hearty and able to haul away, their food consisted of dry
+biscuits; a dish of maccaroni with just sufficient oil to make the sign of
+the cross being served out for the Sunday's dinner."(1)
+
+In those "good old days," not so very far distant, the dredging nets were
+coarse and weighty, and the capstan of the clumsiest and most primitive
+description, so that the coral-seeking serfs under contract were worked
+like bullocks until they were often wont to fall asleep out of sheer
+exhaustion as they hauled away mechanically. We can imagine then with what
+raptures of joy these ill-treated mortals must have hailed the advent of
+October, the month that terminated their long spell of suffering and
+semi-starvation, and with what eagerness they must have returned
+homewards, the more industrious to perform odd jobs during the winter
+season on farms or in factories; the lazier to enjoy a well-earned holiday
+of loafing on the quay or in the piazza. And although times have changed
+for the better in the eyes of the coral-fisher, his lot still remains hard
+enough, even in the present days of grace; whilst any employment that saps
+the workman's strength during the hot summer months and leaves him idle or
+unemployed in winter time cannot well be described as a desirable trade.
+Yet the temptation to obtain a considerable sum of money in advance, as is
+the case in this particular industry, often proves overwhelming to the
+young man of the Torres or of Castellamare, imprudently married before he
+is out of his teens and with an ever-increasing family. It is so easy to
+accept the proffered gold, which will keep wife and babies in comparative
+comfort throughout the long hot summer; unskilled labour is paid so
+lightly on these teeming shores of the Terra di Lavoro; saddled already
+with children he cannot make up his feeble mind to emigrate; in short, to
+go a-coralling is his sole chance, if he wishes to keep his home together
+and to stave off charity or starvation from his young wife and family.
+
+Beyond Torre del Greco we seem to escape to a certain extent from the
+enveloping network of human dwellings, so that we are at last enabled to
+gain some idea of the natural features of the country. The oriental
+character of the landscape, which marks more or less distinctly the whole
+of the Neapolitan coast-line, will at once be noticed in the domed farm
+buildings, not unlike Mahommedan _koubbas_, washed a glistening white,
+that stand out sharply against the lugubrious tints of the lava beds.
+Above us, crowning a bosky hillock that juts forth from the mountain
+flank, stands one of the many convents of the monks of Camaldoli, whose
+houses are scattered throughout the breadth of Southern Italy. The
+position of their Vesuvian settlement is certainly unique, for the rising
+ground on which it is perched appears like some verdant oasis amid the
+arid fields of sable lava. Secure in its commanding site, the monastery
+has many a time been completely surrounded by burning streams, which have
+invariably left the building and its woody demesne unscathed. More than
+once have the good brethren, who wear the white robe of St Romualdo of
+Ravenna, looked down from their convent walls upon the work of destruction
+below, and have watched the waves of liquid fire surging angrily but
+uselessly round the rocky base of their retreat. Hard manual labour,
+prayer, solitude and contemplation: these are the chief duties enjoined by
+the famous Tuscan order, and surely no more suitable place for carrying
+out such precepts could have been chosen by the pious founder of this
+Vesuvian convent. For what scenes on earth could be deemed more beautiful
+to contemplate, we wonder, than the wide stretches of heaven and ocean, of
+fertile plain and of rugged mountain, that are ever before the eyes of the
+brethren; or more instructive than the constant spectacle of disappointed
+human ambition and energy, which is afforded by the barren lava beds and
+the ruined cities close at hand!
+
+Descending from the slopes of Camaldoli, we cross a tract of country
+wherein black lava alternates with patches of rich cultivation and of
+thriving vineyards, and gaining the high road we soon reach Torre
+Annunziata. Here it is evident that the manufacture of maccaroni forms the
+chief industry of its population, for on all sides are to be seen the
+frames filled with the golden coloured strings of _pasta_ that have been
+hung up to dry in the sunshine. Every flat roof in the place, moreover, is
+covered with smooth concrete and protected by a low parapet for the
+spreading of the grain, and on the beach are laid huge cloths of coarse
+brown material that are heaped with masses of the crude corn, whilst men
+with their naked feet from time to time turn the grain so as to dry the
+whole bulk. Torre Annunziata and its inland neighbour, Gragnano, are in
+fact the two chief local scenes of this industry with which the Bay of
+Naples has always been so closely associated, and it is here that we can
+best make ourselves acquainted with the process of manufacturing
+maccaroni. By following any one of the tall brown-skinned fellows,
+stripped to the waist and bare-legged, who have been breathing the fresh
+air of the street for a few moments, we quickly arrive at the entrance of
+one of the many small factories with which the town abounds. In spite of
+open doors and windows its atmosphere feels hot and stifling, for it is
+impregnated with tiny particles of flour dust, which too often, alas! are
+apt to affect permanently the lungs of the workmen. The dough of maccaroni
+is obtained by mixing pure wheaten flour with semolina in certain
+proportions, only water being used for the purpose, whilst the task of
+kneading is carried out in primitive fashion by means of a lever worked
+continuously by two or more men. When the dough has at length arrived at
+the required consistency after some hours of steady kneading, it is placed
+in a large perforated copper cylinder, each hole having a central pin at
+the bottom and a valve on top. A powerful screw is then employed to press
+down upon the dough, which is thus squeezed out of the imprisoning
+cylinder through the holes in the serpentine shape that is so familiar to
+us. On reaching a certain length these pipes, issuing from the holes, are
+twisted off and are then removed for drying to the frames in the open air.
+Maccaroni has, of course, many varieties of form and quality, from the
+thin fluffy vermicelli, known under the poetical name of _Capilli degli
+Angeli_, to the great thick pipe-stem-like article of ordinary commerce.
+There are endless means of cooking and dressing this, the national dish of
+Italy, but perhaps the most popular of all is _alla Napolitana_, wherein
+it is served with tomato sauce, to which a sprinkling of grated Parmesan
+cheese is frequently added. A compound of eggs and maccaroni, sometimes
+known as a Neapolitan omelette, likewise makes an appetising dish, though
+it is one that is little known to foreigners. One circumstance is patent;
+the dismal so-called "maccaroni pudding" one meets with in England seems
+to have nothing in common with the delicately flavoured, sustaining dish
+that can be obtained for a few pence in any Southern restaurant.
+
+Torre Annunziata has the reputation of being a dirty malodorous town,
+composed of shabby stone houses and full of quarrelsome people. Well,
+perhaps there is a scintilla of truth in the sweeping observation, yet if
+we can contrive to endure the smells and racket of the place for a brief
+space of time, there is much of human interest to be observed in the daily
+scenes of its crowded beach and its noisy streets. After all, no odours of
+the South can compare in all-pervading intensity with the blended aroma of
+fried fish and London fog that old Drury Lane can often produce; nor are
+the Torrese more dangerous to strangers or more objectionable in their
+habits than the crowds of Lambeth or Seven Dials. In strength of lungs, it
+must be granted, the Italian easily surpasses the Londoner, for the
+Southern voice is positively alarming in its vigour and its far-reaching
+power. No one--man, woman or child--can apparently speak below a scream;
+even the most amiable or trivial of conversations seems to our
+unaccustomed ears to portend an imminent quarrel, to so high a pitch are
+the naturally harsh voices strained. Morning, noon and night the same
+hubbub of men shouting, of women screeching, and of children yelling
+continues for nobody minds noise in Italy, where people are troubled with
+no nerves of their own and consequently have no consideration for those of
+strangers. And why, therefore, should they suspend their native habits to
+please a handful of cavilling _forestieri_?
+
+A stroll through Torre Annunziata, although it possesses not a few
+drawbacks, can be made both amusing and instructive; we can even find
+something attractive in the quality of the local atmosphere, which
+suggests at one and the same time sunshine, garlic, incense, stale fish
+and wood smoke; it is the pungent but characteristic aroma of the South,
+filled "with spicy odours Time can never mar." And what truly charming
+pictures do the family groups present in the wide archways giving on the
+untidy courts within, full of sun and shadow and gay with bright-coloured
+garments swaying in the wind! The ebon-haired young mother with teeth like
+pearls and with warm-tinted cheeks sits fondling the last helpless little
+addition to her growing family, whilst toddlers of any age from two to
+seven, unkempt but bright-eyed and engaging, play around the door-step,
+watched over by their grandmother, or may be their great-grandam, who with
+her wizened face enfolded in her yellow kerchief, her skinny neck, and her
+distaff in the bony fingers, looks as if she had stepped out of some
+Renaissance painting of the Three Fates in a Florentine gallery. Crimson
+carnations in earthenware pots stand on the steps of the outside
+staircase, giving a touch of refinement to the squalid home, and from the
+balcony overhead the glossy-black, yellow-billed _passer solitario_, the
+favourite cage-bird of the Neapolitan poor, chirrups with apparent
+cheerfulness in his wicker-work prison. Behind, in the dim shadows of the
+large room, which serves as sole habitation, we can espy the inevitable
+household altar with the oil lamp glimmering before the little
+crude-coloured print of the Virgin and Child, and its usual accessory, the
+piece of palm or olive that was blessed by the priest last Palm Sunday;
+poor and mean though the chamber be, its bed linen and simple appointments
+are more cleanly than might perhaps be inferred from the appearance of the
+family itself. In a shady corner close by, three or four young labourers
+at their mid-day rest have finished their frugal repast of bread and
+beans, and are now playing eagerly the popular game of _zecchinetto_ with
+a frayed and grimy pack of cards. Wives or sweethearts watch with anxious
+faces from a respectful distance, for it is not meet to disturb the lords
+of creation when they happen to be engaged in a game of chance. What
+possibilities of farce and tragedy can be drawn from so simple, so common
+a scene upon these shores, where human life is less artificially conducted
+than elsewhere in Europe, and where human passions are kept under less
+restraint? Terrible are the tales of jealousy and revenge, of deliberate
+treachery and of uncontrolled violence, which are related of these
+quick-tempered grown-up children of the South, who seem to love and hate
+with the blind intensity of untutored savages.
+
+  "Lo 'nnamorato' mmio sse chiammo Peppo,
+  Lo capo jocatore de le carte;
+  Ss' ha jocato 'sto core a zecchinetto,
+  Dice ca mo' lo venne, e mo' lo parte.
+  Che n'agg' io a fare lo caro de carte?
+  Vogho lo core che tinite 'm pietto!"
+
+  ("That lover of mine is called Handsome Beppo,
+  The best player of cards all around this way;
+  He's been playing on Hearts at _zecchinetto_,
+  And says now they turn up, now are sorted away.
+  What matters the heart in the card-pack to me?
+  The heart in his bosom's the heart for me!")
+
+Here lies the sleeping fisherman, worn out probably with hours of hauling
+at the heavy nets, who is snatching a chance hour of repose, prone upon
+his chest with face buried in his crossed arms. Little he seems to reck of
+the damp of the soil or the heat of the sun, nor can a noisy game of
+_mora_ played by a couple of his companions beside him disturb his deep
+slumber. _Mora_ has ever been the classic game of the South, and indeed,
+there is abundant evidence to show that it was played by the ancestors of
+these dwellers in Magna Graecia hundreds of years before Pompeii was
+overthrown. The game, which requires nothing but the human fingers, bears
+no little resemblance to our own humble pastime of "Up Jenkin!" which may
+almost be described as a species of drawing-room _mora_; perhaps some
+Italian traveller in a past age may actually have introduced this form of
+the southern diversion into prosaic England. The two players, face to face
+and craning forward with outstretched necks, simultaneously extend their
+right hands with one or more fingers pointing upward, the aim of each man
+being to guess the exact number, from two to ten, jointly displayed by
+both right hands. If one of them hit upon the correct figure, then he
+gains one point towards the stakes, which are usually made in _centesimi_
+rather than in _soldi_. How rapidly do the lean supple brown fingers flash
+backwards and forwards, and with what gusto do the two frenzied combatants
+yell out their numbers! _Mora_ has been a favourite recreation with these
+people almost from their cradles, and he would be a bold man indeed who
+would venture to challenge a Torrese at this game, for the native's skill
+and experience are almost bound to tell eventually in his favour, and the
+odds are "Lombard Street to a China orange" against the outside player.
+There are certain maxims too with regard to the game which are closely
+observed by those who play it, as well as peculiar expressions, such as
+_tutte_ to denote that all ten fingers are being shown, or _chiarella_ for
+all but one. Five points usually make the game, and these are commonly
+marked by holding up one or more fingers of the disengaged left
+hand.--These are a few of the many sights to be witnessed by those who can
+afford to endure the pestering attentions of small boys, and the
+uncomplimentary staring of the adult population in such places as the
+Torres or Castellamare; and such as wish to make themselves acquainted
+with the details of southern life and manners cannot do better than pass
+an idle hour in the fishmarket or the piazza of these little industrial
+towns of the Vesuvian shore. For to regard Southern Italy from the
+majestic isolation of a railway compartment or a hired carriage cannot
+possibly give the traveller the smallest insight into the ordinary phases
+of local life; for he is ever looking, as it were, into a picture from
+which all trace of colour has vanished.
+
+It is but a short quarter of an hour by train from Torre Annunziata to
+Castellamare di Stabia, the ill-fated Stabiae of the Romans, which shared
+the evil lot of Pompeii and Herculaneum. On our right we have the sea,
+with the castle-topped islet of Revigliano, whilst on looking to the left
+we can survey the fertile valley of the Sarno, and the shapeless mounds
+which hide that precious goal of every traveller to these shores, the
+buried city of Pompeii. Everywhere thrives sub-tropical vegetation:--cactus
+and aloe draped in wreaths of smilax; tall straggling masses of scarlet
+geranium that cling for protection to the Indian fig, and blossom in
+security amid their spiky but safe retreats; shrubs of fragrant yellow
+genista; clumps of purple-leaved _ricini_, as the Italians name the
+castor-oil plant. If it were summer time, the daturas would be covered
+with their great white floral trumpets, and every oleander bush would be
+one blaze of the coarse carmine blossoms that are here called _Mazza di
+San Giuseppe_, or St Joseph's nosegay, and a very gaudy rank bouquet they
+make. But in spring-time the oleander can but display long greyish leaves
+and pods of snowy fluff, which is blown hither and thither like
+thistle-down on the air; and it is only in flaming summer that these
+regions are brightened by St Joseph's flower, or by the still more
+gorgeous masses of the mesembryanthemum, which clambers on all sides over
+the lava rock and hangs in crimson festoons from tufa cliffs, making
+impossibly splendid splashes of colour in the landscape.
+
+
+                              * * * * * * *
+
+
+So many writers have expatiated upon the sordid ugliness of Castellamare
+and upon the beauty of the wooded slopes above the town, that a further
+description of the place may well be dispensed with. Uninteresting,
+however, as this industrial town appears, it boasts a long historical
+record, to which its crumbling medieval castle bears witness. The great
+Emperor Frederick the Second, the scholar-pope Pius the Second, and all
+the monarchs of the Angevin, Aragonese and Bourbon dynasties have been
+associated with this "castle by the sea." The whole district was once the
+property of that human monster Pier-Luigi Farnese, duke of Parma, heir of
+Pope Paul the Third, of whose demoniacal cruelty and treachery the racy
+pages of Cellini's Memoirs give so vivid an account, and whose repulsive
+face has grown familiar to us from Titian's famous portraits in the
+gallery of Naples. It was the evil Pier-Luigi's descendant and
+heiress-general of the family, Elizabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain, who
+conveyed the beautiful villa and woods of Quisisana to the Bourbon kings,
+and here the Neapolitan royal family for several generations sought health
+(as the name of the place implies) and repose upon the breezy heights that
+lie so conveniently near to the great city in full view to the west.
+Nowadays the old royal villa, deserted by crowned heads since Ferdinand's
+days and fallen from its high estate to its present use of a hotel and
+pension, forms with its park the chief attraction of Castellamare, where
+English travellers are wont to congregate in winter, and Neapolitan and
+Greek seekers of pleasure or drinkers of medicinal waters resort in the
+hot summer months. The Southerners who come here for their _villeggiatura_
+certainly enjoy a better time than the winter visitors, for the bulky form
+of Monte Sant' Angelo intercepts much of the sunshine, thereby rendering
+the place damp and chilly in the cold season of the year. Nominally it is
+the mineral springs that attract the Neapolitan folk, wherein they have a
+fine choice of health-giving beverages, varying from the _acqua ferrata_,
+a mild chalybeate that is found useful as a tonic, to the powerful _acqua
+del Muraglione_, that is warranted to reduce the stoutest mortal to a mere
+shadow of his former self in a trice. But though the waters may be
+occasionally sipped of a morning and wry faces made, it is in reality the
+warm sea-bathing on the shore, where people spend hours pickling in tepid
+salt water, and also the cool rides or walks amongst the shady alleys of
+sweet chestnut and ilex woods of Quisisana and Monte Coppola, which draw
+hither in summer the elegant world of Naples, and even of Athens, to visit
+Castellamare. The leafy groves on the zephyr-swept hill sides, once sacred
+to the pleasures of Bourbon tyrants, now ring with peals of noisy
+laughter, with gallant compliments, and with the harsh shouting of the
+_ciucciari_, the leaders of the poor over-driven donkeys. Unhappy patient
+beasts! usually covered with raws and galls, that are urged forward at a
+gallop by the remorseless stick, or even by the goad, for the Neapolitan
+donkey-boy is absolutely callous to the feelings of his animal. Not that
+he is cruel out of sheer cussedness, for cruelty's sake, for he can be
+really kind to his dog or his cat; but the beast of burden, the helpless
+uncomplaining servant of man, suffers terribly at his hands. It is useless
+to remonstrate or argue with the young ruffian, who at our sharp reprimand
+will merely open wide his big black eyes and stare in genuine amazement.
+_Non sono Cristiani_--they have no souls, and the beasts are their property
+and not yours; what does it matter then to you how they are treated,
+provided they carry you properly? That is the sum total of the
+donkey-boy's argument, and he has high ecclesiastical authority to back up
+his private theory, if he had the wit to enter into a discussion with us
+on the subject. Almost equally hopeless is it to point to the simple fact
+that a well-groomed, well-treated animal lasts longer than a half-starved,
+mutilated scare-crow. "How old is your horse?" we once asked a driver in
+the south. "He is very old indeed, _eccelenza_," was the reply; "he must
+be nearly twelve!" On being informed that horses often worked well up to
+twenty years old and over in England, he let us infer, quite politely,
+that he thought we were romancing. Tenderness towards the dumb creation is
+a common, not to say a prevailing characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race,
+and it must be confessed that the thoughtless and horrible cruelty towards
+animals witnessed on all sides in the Neapolitan Riviera amounts to a
+serious drawback to the full enjoyment of its many beauties and amenities.
+Matters are improving a little of late, it is only fair to add. There is
+an Italian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and its
+officials have done some good in the streets of Naples itself, but
+naturally its new ideas have not yet penetrated far into the country
+districts.
+
+  [Illustration: ROAD NEAR CASTELLAMARE]
+
+To the healthy and energetic the most delightful excursion that
+Castellamare can offer is the ascent to the summit of Monte Sant' Angelo,
+that monarch of the Bay of Naples, whose lofty crest gleams with snowy
+streaks until the spring be well advanced. The lazy or the feeble can make
+use of one of the poor oppressed donkeys, but it is better to engage its
+ragged master, who without his four-footed drudge to whack and kick is a
+harmless enough being, to act as guide over the steep ill-defined pathway
+that leads ever upwards. As we slowly ascend through the sub-tropical
+region of fig and vine, of olive and carouba, we question our guide, who
+in spite of his bright eyes and well-knit frame seems about as intelligent
+a companion as the poor ass left behind in the stall, where he is
+enjoying, let us hope, an unexpected holiday. It is not easy to extract
+information from our native attendant, yet with a little judicious
+pressing we learn from him that the top of the mountain, which is our
+bourne, was once inhabited by evil spirits, until a holy hermit took up
+his abode on the peak, since when his sanctity has kept the place
+tolerably clear of witches and foul incubi. Wicked sprites, however, still
+haunt the spreading woods of beech and chestnut which we must presently
+traverse, and our guide (whose name is Vincenzo) admits to us that he
+would not care to venture there alone, even in broad daylight. There is,
+he tells us, warming up at last to the subject, much gold hidden there,
+which the spirits guard so jealously that they are ready to tear in pieces
+any mortal who is clever enough to find and bold enough to rifle their
+secret hoards. Only a priest, on account of his sacred office, is reckoned
+safe from their iniquitous spells. "But has not any one dared," we ask,
+"to go in company with a holy man, to search for this hidden treasure?"
+Well, yes, he had been told that men from Vico had once ventured up into
+the woods to search for the gold. With a little encouragement Vincenzo is
+finally prevailed upon to give us the whole story, which is evidently of
+somewhat recent date.
+
+Once upon a time there were four men, one of them being a priest, who
+lived in Vico, and one of these men had often been told by his father that
+in the forests near the top of Monte Sant' Angelo there lay buried a chest
+full of gold--_molto! molto!_ The father of the man had been himself in his
+youth to search for the treasure, but find it he never could, for he would
+never take a priest with him to avert the spells of the evil spirits of
+the mountain sides, who kept the place hidden. So this time the man chose
+two out of his friends, the boldest and the trustiest he could fix upon,
+to accompany him, and at the same time he obtained the promise of a
+cousin, who was a priest, to assist in the undertaking. All four made
+their way up to the woods, and whilst the three men were digging and
+searching, the priest continued to read aloud the incantations out of a
+certain book he had brought with him for the purpose. In course of time
+the chest was discovered to the joy of all, and sure enough it was bulging
+with the desired gold pieces. They opened it without difficulty, and the
+four friends divided its contents in equal shares. Scarcely had the work
+of division been carried out, than there came a loud voice issuing from
+the unknown, calling out the question:--"_Che ferete con questo tesoro?_"
+"_Mangeremo, beveremo!_" boldly replied one of the group, to whom this
+sudden accession of wealth offered dreams of unlimited platters of
+maccaroni and countless flasks of ruby-red Gragnano in the future. "We
+shall eat, we shall drink, but we shall also make abundant alms!" called
+out another--let us hope it was the priest!--but no sooner had the word
+_elemosina_ (alms) been uttered than there was heard a most terrific
+rattling of chains, the gold pieces turned to dead leaves in the
+affrighted mortals' hands, and the four men took to their heels and fled
+in alarm down the mountain flank.
+
+Vincenzo believes this tale implicitly, just as it was related to him, and
+he adds to combat our own incredulity that the priest and one of the men
+who took part in this strange adventure were still living and ready to
+confirm the story, but that of the remaining two, one was now dead, and
+the other had been deaf and dumb ever since the event. It seem a pity to
+criticise Vincenzo's simple little narrative, which makes a pretty
+fairy-story and points a sound moral, as it stands.
+
+We enter the fresh scented woods that have now replaced in our climb the
+rich cultivated crops and terraced gardens, and here amidst the clumps of
+ancient chestnuts our guide points out to us the great snow-pits, the
+contents of which are used to cool the water sold by the _acquaioli_
+during hot summer nights in the sultry streets of Naples. These pits are
+dug about fifty feet deep, and half as much across, being conical in shape
+with a grating placed a short distance above the tapering base to allow
+the melted snow to drain off into the soil. The sides of each pit are
+first well-lined with straw and leafy branches, and the new-fallen snow
+shovelled in and forced into a solid mass by pressure from above, whilst
+on top is placed a sound thatched roof. As we wander through the silent
+woods we see patches of anemones, white and blue, lying upon the
+leaf-strewn ground, and beside them in many places are tufts of the pale
+starry primroses; coarse spurge, and lush masses of the hellebore with its
+large pale green flowers and dark leaves are common enough on all sides.
+From amongst the naked trees we emerge into the bare bleak stony stretches
+that lead to the summit, covered with the coarse but aromatic vegetation
+that clothes the dry limestone wastes of the south. How truly marvellous
+is the description of these wind-swept, weed-grown solitudes that Robert
+Browning presents to us in what is perhaps the most truly Italian in
+feeling of all his poems, "The Englishman in Italy!" For here with the
+rich imagination, worthy of some of Shelley's finest flights, is mingled
+an accurate appreciation of Nature, of which Wordsworth might well be
+proud; for the Lake poet himself could not have improved upon this
+exquisite description of the various shrubs and plants of a limestone
+hill-top in Italy.
+
+  "The wild path grew wilder each instant,
+    And place was e'en grudged
+  'Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones,
+    Like the loose broken teeth
+  Of some monster which climbed there to die
+    From the ocean beneath--
+  Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-weed
+    That clung to the path,
+  And dark rosemary ever a-dying,
+    That, spite the wind's wrath,
+  So loves the salt rock's face to seaward,
+    And lentisks as staunch
+  To the stone where they root and bear berries,
+    And ... what shows a branch
+  Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets
+    Of pale sea-green leaves."
+
+Above our heads hovers a kite, performing graceful circles in the keen
+clear air and breaking the oppressive silence of the place with his shrill
+screams, for his mate must have her nest hidden in some cleft of yon grey
+towering cliff. A pair of crested hoopoes with brown plumage and ruddy
+breasts keep fluttering a little way before us, uttering from time to time
+their curious notes of alarm. Mercifully these handsome birds have escaped
+the fowler, who lays his snares even amongst the spirit-haunted crags of
+this desolate region. The hoopoe, though a very rare visitor to our
+northern shores, is fairly common on the Mediterranean coast, and he would
+be still more frequently encountered, were it not for his hereditary
+enemy, Man. There is a venerable legend concerning this interesting
+bird--_bubbola_, the Italians call him--which relates how ages ago on the
+scorching plains of Palestine a number of hoopoes once followed King
+Solomon as he was riding, and in order to protect the great king from the
+fierce rays of the sun, they formed themselves into a living screen to
+shelter the royal head. Grateful for this welcome attention, Solomon Ben
+David at eventide sent for the king of the Hoopoes to ask him what reward
+he would like to receive for this service, and the answer was promptly
+made that a crown of pure gold on the head would be acceptable. The Jewish
+monarch smiled grimly as he granted the request, whereupon immediately
+each bird found his poll decorated with a tuft of pure golden feathers,
+and mightily pleased with their new magnificence were the conceited
+hoopoes. But alas! the news was quickly spread abroad that there were to
+be seen strange birds with plumes of real gold, and the eternal lust of
+gain at once set men in quest of the hoopoes, whom they began to slay
+wholesale with stones, arrows, and traps in order to obtain the coveted
+precious metal they bore on their heads. In despair, the king of the
+hoopoes then flew to the monarch sitting on his ivory throne at Jerusalem,
+and begged him to change their golden crowns for crests of feathers.
+Solomon the Wise smilingly gave the order; at once lovely red and black
+feathers took the place of the golden plumes, and the slaughter of the
+hoopoes in Palestine forthwith ceased. And the story, argues the recorder
+of this lesson upon the folly of personal adornment, must of necessity be
+true, for it is certain that the hoopoes bear a crown of feathers upon
+their heads unto this day.
+
+Slowly we toil up the last portion of the peak, until we reach the ruined
+chapel of St Michael upon its summit, which is still a resort of local
+pilgrims, although in these days of doubt and avarice, when "sins are so
+many and saints so few," the statue of the Archangel since its removal
+from this spot no longer perspires with the sacred dew, which the priests
+used to collect with cotton wool on the first day of August and distribute
+to the peasants of the district. Like the oil that was once wont to exude
+from the blessed relics of St Andrew in the Cathedral of Amalfi, _non c'e
+piu_; we may possess motor cars and radium, but we must contrive to exist
+without these precious exhibitions of the miraculous.
+
+It would be sheer folly to attempt a full description of that glorious
+view, comprising the bays of Gaeta, Naples, and Salerno; of Vesuvius with
+his ascending smoky clouds; of the endless chain of the snow-tipped
+Abruzzi Mountains that bound the vision to the east; of the vast expanse
+of the Mediterranean, stretching in one unbroken sheet of turquoise to the
+west, varied by violet patches of reflected cloud, and studded by
+innumerable ships, from the vast liners to the tiny fishing craft with
+their glistening sails, like snow-white sea-swallows resting on the calm
+waters. Again we turn to Robert Browning, most human of poets and most
+kindly of philosophers, to find adequate expression for the thoughts we
+dare not, cannot utter.
+
+  "Oh, heaven and the terrible crystal!
+    No rampart excludes
+  Your eye from the life to be lived
+    In the blue solitudes.
+  Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement!
+    Still moving with you;
+  For ever some new head and breast of them
+    Thrusts into view
+  To observe the intruder; you see it
+    If quickly you turn,
+  And before they escape you surprise them.
+    They grudge you should learn
+  How the soft plains they look on, lean over
+    And love (they pretend)
+  --Cower beneath them, the flat sea-pine crouches,
+    The wild fruit-trees bend;
+  E'en the myrtle leaves curl, shrink and shut,
+    All is silent and grave:
+  'Tis a sensual and timorous beauty.
+    How fair! but a slave."
+
+  [Illustration: MONTE FAITO, CASTELLAMARE]
+
+We descend by the slopes of Monte Faito in the quiet of the evening,
+facing the distant headland of Posilipo and the sunset, where above the
+horizon we see collecting thick masses of dark purple cloud, which augur a
+stormy morrow. Above us the peak of the Archangel is already wreathed in
+garlands of white mist, a sure sign of coming tempest, and it is amid a
+lurid light from the sinking sun that we hasten downwards, bending our
+steps in the direction of Pozzano, where the form of its convent stands
+out sharply defined against the background of the Bay. Night is rapidly
+approaching, and in the gathering darkness as we strike the road below the
+convent, we can already hear the ominous roaring and seething of the
+waters under the cliff, lashed to fury by the first deep breaths of the
+coming squall. Hurrying along the broad smooth roadway it is not long
+before we reach our hotel door, where we bid good night to Vincenzo, just
+as the first heavy drops of rain have begun to fall; pleasantly exhausted
+after our long excursion, we are ready to appreciate to the full the
+warmth and good cheer of the hospitable Hotel Quisisana.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER III
+
+
+                              LA CITTA MORTA
+
+
+Pompeii can never be visited without the same haunting conviction, the
+same oppressive thought: how terribly difficult it is to understand the
+City of the Dead which holds in so small a space the whole secret of the
+antique world! There are far more grandiose and impressive ruins to be
+seen in Rome; the city of Timgad in Northern Africa is more complete as a
+specimen of a Roman settlement than the half-excavated town near Vesuvius;
+yet here, and here only, can the men of the past stretch hands, as it
+were, across the barrier of eighteen intervening centuries to the dweller
+of to-day, and the dead-and-gone spirits of a highly organized
+civilization can whisper into the living ears of the twentieth century.
+For Pompeii will speak to us, if we will take the trouble to learn the
+tongue in which alone she can convey the secret of her story. It is
+needless to say that this language is not obtainable by one or two cursory
+visits to the Naples Museum, and a few hurried half-hours given to the
+contents of the guide-book; no, the language of Pompeii, which constitutes
+the key of access to the hidden chambers of the Roman world, can only be
+acquired with much expenditure of precious time and with infinite trouble.
+But "life is short and time is fleeting," and our bustling age expects to
+seize its required knowledge in the twinkling of an eye; well, in that
+case the story of Pompeii must remain a sealed volume to the traveller,
+who is conveyed to the City of the Dead in a train crammed with
+fellow-tourists; who eats a heavy unwholesome luncheon to the sound of
+mandoline-players twanging sprightly Neapolitan airs; and who is finally
+piloted round the sacred area by a chattering guide in the oppressive heat
+and glare of a sunny afternoon. Fatigued in mind and body, such an one
+will sink with ill-concealed relief upon the dusty velvet cushions of the
+returning train, thoroughly disappointed in the vaunted marvels of
+Pompeii, which his imagination had led him to expect. A vague impression
+of low broken walls, of narrow--to his eyes absurdly narrow--streets, of
+broken columns and of peeling frescoes fills his tired brain, as he is
+borne back to his hotel in Naples. But this disenchantment is his own
+fault, for no one who sets foot within the Sea Gate of the buried city in
+the proper spirit of knowledge and appreciation can possibly fail to enjoy
+the privilege which has thus been afforded him--
+
+        "to stand within the City Disinterred;
+  And hear the autumnal leaves like light footfalls
+  Of spirits passing through the streets; and hear
+  The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals
+      Thrill through those roofless halls."
+
+Before passing through the Porta Marina into the purlieus of the city, let
+us first of all instil into our minds the essential difference that exists
+between the ruins of Pompeii and the historic fragments of Rome or Athens.
+When we gaze upon the well-known sites of the vanished glories of the
+Palatine or the Acropolis, we experience no effort in looking backward
+through the vista of the past and in conjuring up some vague
+representation of the scenes that were once enacted in these places; the
+more imaginative feel the very air vibrating with the unseen spirits of
+men and women famous in the world's history. He must be indeed a
+Philistine or a dullard who cannot contrive to arouse a passing exaltation
+at the thought of treading in the footsteps of Cicero and the Caesars in
+Rome, of Pericles and Socrates in Athens, for the very soil of the Forum
+and the stones of the citadel of Pallas seem impregnated with the very
+essence of history. But this is far from being the case at Pompeii, where
+long careful study of details and a grasp of hard facts are really of more
+avail than a poetic imagination in reclothing with flesh the dry bones of
+the past, for the importance of the Campanian city is almost purely
+social. The _names_ of many of its prominent citizens are certainly
+familiar to us from inscriptions found, yet who were these persons that we
+should take so deep an interest in their lives and fates? Who were Pansa
+the aedile, Eumachia the priestess, Caecilius Jucundus, Aulus Vettius and
+Epidius Rufus, and a score of other Pompeian worthies? The answer is, they
+were officials or simple dwellers in a flourishing provincial town; they
+had no especial literary or public reputation; their names were probably
+little known beyond the walls of their own city. Imagine an English
+country town, such as Exeter or Shrewsbury, suddenly overwhelmed by some
+unforeseen freak of Nature and afterwards embalmed in the manner of
+Pompeii as a curiosity for the edification of future ages. To what extent,
+we ask, would the discovery of a place of this size and population supply
+the existing dweller with a complete impression of our national life and
+civilization in the opening years of the twentieth century? The reply will
+be that it would give a very good idea of the average provincial town, but
+that it would hardly serve as a fair criterion to judge of the life
+pursued in the capital, or in the really large cities. Such a comparison
+will afford us a certain clue to the unveiling of the mysteries of
+Pompeii.
+
+For the city at the mouth of the Sarno was an ancient Campanian
+settlement, founded long before the days wherein Greek adventurers beached
+their triremes on the shores of the Siren. It was a native community of
+Oscans, deriving its name from the Oscan word _pompe_ (five), and, unlike
+Paestum, it appears to have retained its original appellation under all
+its successive masters. Its primitive inhabitants seem to have
+intermingled with their Hellenic victors, and to have grown civilized by
+intercourse with them. Temples of heavy Doric architecture were raised;
+walls and watch-towers were built; and by the time the city fell into the
+hands of the encroaching Romans, it had become a flourishing place with
+some twenty to thirty thousand inhabitants, owing its prosperity to its
+excellent situation at the mouth of the river, which made Pompeii a
+convenient port to serve the rich district of Campania that lies eastward
+of Vesuvius. Nuceria (the modern Nocera) and the larger city of Nola were
+both dependent on it, for the Sarno was in those days navigable, so that
+ships bringing Egyptian corn and Eastern merchandise frequently left the
+Pompeian harbour and sailed up stream to unload their cargoes at these
+cities. Let us picture then to ourselves a compact town, an irregular oval
+in form, surrounded by walls pierced by eight gates and embellished with
+twelve towers; its eastern extremity towards Nocera containing the
+Amphitheatre, and its most westerly point marked by the Herculaneum gate
+leading to the Street of Tombs. Southward, we must imagine the sea much
+closer to its walls than at the present day, for the alluvial deposits
+have in the course of nearly two thousand years added many acres of solid
+ground to the shores of the Bay. Behind the city to the north rose the
+mountain side, not seared with the traces of lava as in these days, nor
+surmounted by a smoking cone, but radiant with vineyards and gardens which
+extended unbroken up to the very rim of the ancient crater. Amidst the
+greenery of the luxuriant slopes peeped forth innumerable farms and villas
+of wealthy Romans, for this exquisite spot had long become an abode of
+cultured leisure. Within the closely packed streets of the town itself
+there were to be found few open spaces except the Forum, and perhaps a
+small park in front of the amphitheatre, for the place was prosperous,
+though not wealthy, and its chief citizens were forced to remain content
+with the tiny gardens enclosed within the walls of their own dwellings.
+
+Internally Pompeii presented, like many another Roman town, marks of its
+six hundred years of existence. There was at least one perfect Doric
+temple; there were Oscan-Grecian buildings, notably the so-called "House
+of the Surgeon," with its air of old-fashioned simplicity; there were
+houses of the Republican period; there were numberless dwellings of the
+Imperial era; there were unfinished structures that were being completed
+at the time of the city's overthrow. For, sixteen years before Vesuvius
+suddenly awoke from its long sleep, the neighbourhood had been visited by
+the severe earthquake shock of 63, and the effects produced by this
+disaster had not nearly been effaced, when the great event of 79
+transformed the town into a huge museum for the delight and instruction of
+future generations. Pompeii therefore preserves the marks of more than
+half a thousand years of civilization, so that those who will take the
+necessary trouble can trace within its area the gradual progress of its
+social and political life from the far-off days of Greeks and Oscans to
+the reign of the Emperor Titus. The case of a ruined Exeter or Shrewsbury
+could not be widely different. The students of ensuing ages would be able
+to find in the dead town one or two churches of Norman or Plantagenet
+times; portions of medieval city walls and gateways, perhaps even some
+undoubted traces of Roman baths or fortifications; some few public
+buildings erected under Tudor or Stuart sovereigns; a large number of the
+plain roomy mansions of the Georgian period; and, last of all, a
+preponderating quantity of nineteenth century structures of every
+description--churches, warehouses, factories, inns, barracks, shops,
+dwelling-houses. Many would be the inscriptions and monuments we should
+find in such a town, alluding to private and public persons utterly
+unknown to English history, but more or less noteworthy in local annals:
+grandees of civic life, soldiers, philanthropists, clergymen, _et hoc
+genus omne_. Future generations of scholars would doubtless strive eagerly
+to obtain details of the careers of these provincial worthies, who filled
+municipal offices in the reigns of Queen Victoria and King Edward, in
+order to throw more light upon the period wherein they flourished. Let us
+apply then the same principles to the study of Pompeii _mutatis mutandis_,
+for in our quest of better knowledge of the old Roman life we fix
+anxiously upon every detail concerning the leading personages of the dead
+city. Nevertheless, it is its existence in the aggregate that proves of
+surpassing interest to us; we desire to learn of the daily tasks and
+occupations of the mass of its population, rather than to become
+acquainted with the private histories of its leading individuals; we study
+the former, in fact, only as a means to a definite end. We cry for
+information, which to a certain extent we can secure, as to how an average
+Roman city was administered, provisioned, drained; how its inhabitants
+passed their time both in leisure and in business; how they amused
+themselves in their homes and in the theatre; what they ate and what they
+drank--the endless trifles of human life, in short, which like the
+_tesserae_, the tiny cubes of their own mosaic pavements, go to make up a
+complete picture out of a thousand fragments. Not a few of the cubes in
+this case are missing, it is true, nor are they ever likely to be found;
+nevertheless, we own an abundant supply wherewith we can piece together a
+tolerably accurate picture of the life of a Roman provincial city during
+the first century of the Christian era.
+
+It is of course quite outside our province to attempt any detailed account
+of the wonders of Pompeii. The reader who desires full information must
+turn to the elaborate works of Mau and Helbig, of Gell and Overbeck, to
+say nothing of the descriptive pages, full of condensed knowledge,
+contained in Murray's and Baedeker's guide-books in order to obtain a
+clear impression of all he wishes to inspect. We can but dwell on a point
+here and there, and even then but lightly and superficially, for any
+endeavour on our part to add to the statements and theories of the great
+archaeologists already cited would be indeed a matter of supererogation
+and presumption.
+
+Entering then by the Marine Gate, and pursuing our course eastwards along
+the lines of naked broken house-fronts, we reach the great rectangular
+space of the Forum. Here at its southern extremity let us select a shady
+corner, for the sun beats down fiercely upon the bare ruins at every
+season of the year, and even on a winter's afternoon the air often
+shimmers with the heat haze, so that in no place on earth is the use of an
+umbrella so necessary or desirable as at Pompeii.
+
+What an ideal spot for the founding of a city! That is our first
+impression, as we glance across the broad sunlit enclosure on to the
+empurpled slopes of Vesuvius rising grandly above the broken columns of
+the great temple of the Capitoline Jove; behind us, we know, is the azure
+Bay with Capri and the Sorrentine cape lying on its unruffled bosom, so
+that we stand between sea and mountain to north and south, whilst we have
+the luxuriant slopes of Vesuvius to westward, and to the east the rich
+valley of the Sarno, thickly dotted with groves and hamlets. One element
+alone is wanting in the glorious scene before us--Life; it will be our duty
+and pleasure to re-invest as far as possible this empty space before us
+with the semblance of the busy crowds that once flitted in and out of its
+colonnades and porticoes; to rebuild in imagination its shapeless ruins,
+so that we may obtain a fleeting picture of the Pompeian Forum in early
+Imperial days.
+
+  [Illustration: THE FORUM, POMPEII]
+
+Conceive, then, in front of us, instead of this long bare stretch flanked
+by broken walls and strewn with shapeless fragments of brick and stone, an
+immense double arcade, two stories in height, affording ample protection
+against sun or rain and enclosing an oblong pavement whereon are set
+numerous statues of emperors or private citizens, occupying lofty
+positions of honour above the heads of the surging throng below. Imagine
+that group of shattered pillars, which obstructs our full view of the
+distant cone of Vesuvius, transformed into an imposing temple, covered
+with polychrome decoration, not in the best of taste according to our
+modern ideas of art, but gorgeous and cheerful in the clear atmosphere of
+the south. Rebuild, in the mind's eye, the Basilica and the temple of
+Apollo on the left, and straight before us, as we look forward from our
+coign of vantage at the narrow southern end of the colonnade, let us plant
+the three dominant statues of Augustus, Claudius and Agrippina to form our
+foreground. If we can construct by stress of fancy some such setting of
+classical architecture, gay with primary colours and gilding and graceful
+in design, it is easier to people the Pompeian Forum with the masses of
+humanity that once mingled here. For we have the knowledge of modern
+Italian life to guide us to a certain extent; we have seen the swarms of
+citizens who to-day fill the main piazzas of the towns, especially those
+of the provincial type, where the morning market is held and the chief
+cafes and shops are situated. But if the general use of the piazza is
+characteristic of the modern second-class Italian city, this concentration
+of life was far more marked in the ancient Roman town, wherein the Forum
+must have appeared as the very heart of the whole body social and politic.
+Roman city life indeed displayed two strongly antagonistic phases:--the
+utmost privacy in the home, the most public exhibition in the Forum, where
+every trade and form of business were carried on in the open air, and
+whither pursuit of gain, or pleasure, or religious duty led all the
+citizens to direct their steps. For, as we have already shown, almost all
+the public life of the place was concentrated within this space and its
+surroundings; temples, markets, shops, law courts, municipal offices, all
+abutted on the Forum; it was not merely the chief, but the only place that
+drew together the daily crowd, bent alike on business or amusement. No
+chariots were permitted to cross the area sacred to the claims of
+money-making, of gossip, and of worship; so that we must picture to
+ourselves a great mass of people undisturbed by the passing of vehicles,
+or by the shouts and whip-crackings of the noisy charioteers--was ever such
+a thing as a quiet Italian coachman, ancient or modern, we digress to
+wonder! All was orderly and decorous when compared with the quarrelling,
+screaming groups of citizens that block the congested streets of modern
+Naples. Happily for us various paintings of the Forum of Pompeii have been
+discovered, and these are naturally of immense value in helping us to a
+proper understanding of the habits and methods of the people, and of the
+general appearance of the Forum itself during its busiest hours. The
+costumes of men, women and children; the articles of clothing and of food
+ready for sale; the little knots of loiterers or gossips; the citizens
+intent on reading the municipal notices that are herein portrayed, all
+combine to present us with an authentic picture of Pompeian and therefore
+of Roman civic life. "There is nothing new under the sun," grumbled the
+Preacher many centuries before the city under Vesuvius had reached its
+zenith of civilization, and it must be confessed that the general
+impression conveyed after studying the contemporary pictures of antique
+life does not differ very widely from that which we obtain by observing
+present Italian conditions. For the frescoes in the Naples Museum and in
+certain of the Pompeian houses seem to recall strongly the scenes of the
+piazza, where all the elements of society, irrespective of rank or
+station, are still wont to congregate. Differences of dress, of manner, of
+custom are doubtless evident enough, yet somehow we perceive an essential
+sameness in these two representations of classical and modern Italy.
+Nevertheless, these simple and often rude wall-paintings furnish us with
+many pieces of information that we search for in vain amidst the ancient
+authors, who naturally considered the commonplace everyday scenes of life
+beneath the notice of contemporary record. We are enabled to learn, for
+instance, how the citizens were usually dressed in the Forum, and how, in
+an age when hats and umbrellas were practically non-existent, the pointed
+hood, like that of the Arab burnous, was often used to cover the head in
+cold or wet weather. Again, it is easy to perceive from the same source
+that the diet of the Pompeians must have resembled closely that of their
+present descendants; even the shape of the loaves has in most cases
+continued unchanged to the present day. And one curious coincidence is
+certainly worth mentioning, in that a peculiar method of preparing figs
+with caraway seeds, which was long supposed to be a local speciality of a
+remote town in Central Italy, has now been recognized as a common method
+of dressing this fruit for the table at Pompeii, for large quantities of
+figs so treated have been unearthed in shops and kitchens. Such grains of
+information as the wearing of hoods and the preserving of figs may appear
+trifling enough at first sight, yet it is from a number of petty details
+such as these that we are assisted to an intimate understanding of a state
+of society extinct nearly two thousand years ago.
+
+Close beside us on the eastern side of the Forum is set the Chalcidicum,
+the large building of the priestess Eumachia, one of the most gracious
+personalities of Pompeii with which the modern world has become
+acquainted. It was this lady who generously presented this structure, one
+of the handsomest and most solid of the public buildings of the city, to
+the fullers to serve as their exchange, wherein goods might be exposed
+upon benches and tables for the convenience alike of sellers and
+purchasers. "Priestess Eumachia," remarks a modern critic, "has done the
+thing well; no expense has been spared in the building and its
+decorations. The columns of the portico are of white marble; the statues
+of Piety and Concord, works of art; and the flower-borders along the
+panelled walls, prettily conceived and carefully executed. After so much
+plaster and stucco, it is a relief to see something so solid and genuine.
+When a third-rate city apes the capital, there must needs be a certain
+amount of sham. But at Pompeii it is all sham, or next door to it. In the
+entire city are not more than half a dozen edifices whose columns are of
+real marble, the bas-reliefs and cornices of anything more solid than
+stucco; and of these half-dozen, the Exchange heads the list."
+
+We feel tolerably secure in assigning this fine building to the early
+years of the Emperor Tiberius, and in naming the Emperor's mother, Livia,
+as the divinity to whom it was dedicated. The statue of Concord with the
+golden horn of plenty doubtless once adorned the large pedestal which
+still stands in the eastern apse of the Exchange, but though the figure
+and emblem were those of Concordia, the face bore certainly the features
+of Imperial Livia. Yet more interesting than the various speculations as
+to the actual uses of this edifice and the different names of the statues
+which once embellished its alcoves, is the circumstance that the marble
+portrait of the foundress herself has been discovered. It is true that
+only a copy in plaster now occupies the pedestal at the back of the apse
+where Eumachia's statue once stood, for the original has been removed for
+safety to Naples, but it is not difficult to call to mind the calm gentle
+face of this Pompeian Lady Bountiful, and her graceful figure in its
+flowing robes. The existence of this statue adds undoubtedly a touch of
+special human interest to the whole building, and we find our minds
+excited by the brief inscription which still informs the curious that the
+fullers of Pompeii erected this portrait in marble in grateful
+appreciation "to Eumachia, a city-priestess, daughter of Lucius
+Eumachius."
+
+Outside the Chalcidicum, at the corner of the lane usually termed Via
+dell' Abbondanza, is to be seen a pathetic little memorial of the working
+life of the city: the fountain of Concordia Augusta, the divinity of
+Eumachia's noble building hard by. Dusty and heating is the business of
+fulling cloth, and it generates thirst, so that it is but natural to find
+a fountain close at hand, whereat the labourers could refresh their
+parched throats. With what eagerness must the exhausted toilers during
+those long summers of centuries past have leaned forward to press their
+human lips to the cool mouth of the sculptured goddess that ejected with
+pleasing gurgles a volume of water into the basin below! That this
+fountain proved a boon to weary citizens is evident enough, for the
+features of water-spouting Concordia are half worn away by thirsty human
+kisses, and her suppliants' hands have left deep smooth furrows in the
+stone-work of the basin, whereon they were wont to support their bodies,
+so as to direct the cooling draught into the dry and dusty gullet. In
+Italian cities to-day we can frequently observe some exhausted labourer
+bend deftly downwards to snatch a drink of water from the mouth of some
+fantastic figure in a public fountain. Who has not paused, for instance,
+beside Tacca's famous bronze boar in the Florentine market-place without
+noting an incident of this kind? If we ourselves are too dainty to place
+our own aristocratic lips where our fellow-mortals have pressed theirs,
+not so are the abstemious descendants of the ancient Romans, the Italians,
+whose minds remain untroubled by any nasty-nice qualms of possible
+infection.
+
+Here then is the setting of the picture, and we must ourselves endeavour
+to repeople the empty space with the crowds of high and low that once
+collected here.
+
+"It is high change, and the Forum is crowded. All Pompeii is here, and his
+wife. _Patres conscripti_, inclined to corpulence, taking their
+constitutional, exquisites lazily sauntering up and down the pavements;
+decurions discussing the affairs of the nation, and the last news from
+Rome; city magnates fussing, merchants chaffering, clients petitioning,
+parasites fawning, soldiers swaggering, and Belisarius begging at the
+gate.... It is a bright and animated scene. Beneath, the crowded Forum,
+with its colonnades and statues, at one end a broad flight of steps
+leading to the Temple of Jupiter, at the other a triumphal arch; on one
+side the Temple of Venus and the Basilica; on the other the Macellum, the
+Temple of Mercury, the Chalcidicum; overhead the deep blue sky. Mingled
+with the hum of many voices and the patter of feet on the travertine
+pavement are the ringing sounds of the stonemasons' chisels and hammers,
+for the Forum is undergoing a complete restoration. Although fifteen years
+have elapsed since the city was last visited by earthquake, the damage
+then done to the public buildings has not been entirely repaired. First
+the Gods, then the people. The temples of Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury are
+completed, but the Forum and Chalcidicum are still in the workmen's
+hands."(2)
+
+With this fleeting glimpse at the public life of the city, let us now turn
+our attention to its domestic arrangements. Of the many houses which have
+been excavated of recent years under the truly admirable superintendence
+of Signor Fiorelli, none is better calculated to give us a striking
+impression of the working details of an upper-class Roman household than
+the private dwelling which is known equally under the two names of the
+Casa Nuova and the House of the Vettii;--perhaps the former name has now
+ceased to own any significance, since the buildings were laid bare as far
+back as the winter of 1894-5. An hour or two spent in a careful inspection
+of this house and its contents is to most persons worth four times the
+same amount of time occupied in aimless wandering amongst the hot glaring
+streets of the city, peeping into this courtyard and that, and listening
+to the interminable tales of guide or custodian. If we study the Casa
+Nuova intelligently, lovingly and minutely, it will not be long before we
+obtain a tolerable grasp of Roman life and manners, which will prove of
+immense service and of genuine delight. What then is it, the question will
+be asked, that makes the House of the Vettii so valuable as an example of
+antique architecture and decoration, in preference to other mansions which
+can boast an equal and often a greater distinction? The answer is simple
+enough: it is because this particular group of buildings has been allowed
+to remain as far as practicable in the exact condition wherein it was
+originally unearthed, when its various rooms and courts were once more
+exposed to the light of day. For until the clearing of this "new house" a
+decade or so ago, no proper opportunity had so far been afforded to the
+amateur of our own times of judging for himself the interior of a Roman
+dwelling in full working order, and with all its furniture, paintings, and
+utensils complete. Up to this, almost every object of value had been
+removed at once for safety, every fresco even of importance had been cut
+bodily out of its setting and placed in one of those immense halls on the
+ground floor of the Museum in Naples. How well do we remember those gaunt
+chilly chambers, filled from pavement to ceiling with painted fragments of
+all sizes, a medley of domestic subjects and of classical myths! Torn from
+the walls they were specially executed to adorn, divorced from their
+proper scheme of surrounding ornament, these wan dejected ghosts stare at
+us like faces out of a mist. The uninitiated cannot find pleasure in them,
+for they have no pretention to be called works of art; on the contrary
+they form an inherent part of a conventional system of house decoration.
+The classical student can of course find many points of interest in the
+incidents portrayed, but all charm of local environment is absent;--it is,
+in short, impossible to judge of Roman decoration from this collection of
+crumbling, fading pieces of painted stucco. It would be as easy to imagine
+the effect of a rose-bush in full bloom from the sight of a few withered
+rose-buds, pressed until every vestige of colour had left their petals, as
+to understand the significance of antique domestic art from the contents
+of the Museo Nazionale.
+
+But here, in the House of the Vettii, the public was for the first time
+initiated into the mysteries of true Roman life; here it was admitted to
+gaze upon the fruits of classical taste and refinement, and to contrast
+them, favourably or unfavourably, with prevailing modern standards. The
+Casa Nuova has been left as an object lesson, a complete museum in itself,
+wherein every daily incident of Pompeian life, every domestic secret,
+reveal themselves to our inquisitive eyes. Here in the roofless halls we
+can be taken from entrance to dining-hall, from _atrium_ to sleeping
+rooms, spying into the minutest detail of shape, size and colour, as
+though we were seriously intending to rent the house for our own
+habitation. The last tenant has even left his money-chest in his hall, his
+pots and pans in the kitchen, and as we inspect his utensils, we wonder if
+they would suit our own requirements to-day. Of portable objects of
+value--plate, jewels, statuettes of precious metals and the like--belonging
+to the late owner, there is certainly no trace, for Signor Fiorelli's
+labourers were not the first to break the deep silence of this buried
+mansion. For it was the survivors of the stricken town, the citizens of
+Pompeii themselves, who were the foremost pioneers to excavate, and they
+carried off every work of art they could conveniently remove. Cutting from
+above into the deposit of ashes that filled the streets, they managed to
+reach in course of time the level of the ground, after which they
+tunnelled from room to room, from house to house, collecting every object
+they thought worth the trouble of transporting. Perhaps the owners of the
+house, the Vettii themselves, presuming they escaped in the general
+catastrophe, may have returned with skilled workmen to recover some of
+their treasures; perhaps some "man of three letters"--the colloquial Roman
+term for thief (_fur_)--may have forestalled the masters' efforts--who
+knows? And at this distance of time, who cares?
+
+The house once occupied by Aulus Vettius Restitutus and Aulus Vettius
+Corvina stands in a quiet district not far from the Capuan Gate, and
+consequently at some distance from the Forum. Like all Roman habitations
+it was essentially Oriental in its outward aspect, and must have resembled
+closely any one of those mysterious dwellings of wealthy Arab citizens
+which we constantly encounter in the native quarters of Algiers or Tunis.
+The gateway giving on the street was wide, certainly, but it was well
+defended both by human and canine porters; its windows were few and small,
+and were probably closely latticed like those of the nunneries which we
+sometimes perceive overhead in the crowded streets of Naples. There must
+have been something austere, even suspicious, in the external appearance
+of the Casa de' Vettii, but snarling dog and grim janitor have long since
+disappeared, and we pass unmolested through the _atrium_ and thence into
+the Great Peristyle, which is perhaps the most remarkable feature of this
+house. The peristyle, as its name implies, is a Greek importation in a
+Roman city, and its use would have been scorned by the old-fashioned
+citizens, such as the master of the "House of the Surgeon"; yet it was in
+truth admirably suited to the character of Southern Italy, where it
+afforded shelter from sun and wind, and its arcades protected from the
+rainfall. The peristyle of the Vettii, with its gaudily tinted pillars of
+stucco, is highly ornate; perhaps it passes the limits of good taste in
+certain points of colour and aesthetic decoration, yet the general effect
+is undoubtedly pleasing to the eye. This courtyard is at once a lounge
+open to the sky; it is a garden; it is an art-gallery; for the cheerful
+court of Greek domestic architecture had nothing in common with its
+successor of the Middle Ages, the monastic cloister of religious
+meditation. Cannot we imagine to ourselves the goodman of the house
+proudly leading his guests after a sumptuous meal in the adjacent
+dining-room into the cool corridors of his peristyle, in order to point
+out to them his statues and vases of bronze or porphyry, and to expatiate
+upon their value or elegance of form? On such a festive occasion these
+great shallow basins of pure white marble before us would be heaped high
+with fragrant pyramids of red and white roses, roses that were perhaps
+plucked all dewy in the famous gardens of Paestum on the other side of
+Mons Gaurus. For the flowering shrubs in the tiny pleasaunce itself are
+far too precious to be stripped of their blossoms in so lavish a manner,
+and perhaps if Vettius be anything of an amateur gardener, he may comment
+to his visitors upon the rare plants that fill his diminutive flower-beds.
+Careful and reverent hands have restored the little garden as near as
+possible to its pristine plan and appearance. There are still standing the
+two bronze statues of urchins holding in their chubby arms ducks from
+whose bills once gushed the limpid water, making a soothing sound amidst
+the alleys of the peristyle; corroded and injured they certainly appear,
+yet here they hold their original positions in Vettius' domain long after
+temple and tower have fallen to the ground. The marble chairs and tripod
+tables likewise remain, and around them still thrive the very plants that
+the servants of the house were wont to tend in the days of Titus. For, by
+a rare chance, we find depicted on the walls of the excavated house the
+actual flowers and herbs that were popular during Vettius' lifetime, and
+these have been replanted by modern hands in the garden of the peristyle.
+There are clumps of papyrus, the strange mop-headed rush from the banks of
+the Nile, introduced into Italy as a botanical novelty after the conquest
+of Egypt; there are rose-bushes, of course; and also masses of shining ivy
+trained in the ancient Roman manner upon a cage of wicker-work fixed into
+the soil. As we watch the verdure-clad sunlit space there descends,
+delicately fluttering, one of those splendid pale yellow brimstone
+butterflies of the South with flame-coloured blushes on its wings, and
+after some moments of graceful hesitation, this new visitor settles upon
+the purple head of an iris bloom. With its vivid colouring and its quick
+movements the butterfly brings an atmosphere of life into the courtyard
+that was hitherto lacking. Its appearance too suggests the famous
+allegory, the unsolved riddle of human existence which so puzzled the
+divine Plato and the ancient philosophers of Athens and Syracuse. Here are
+we, the living men of to-day, watching the corpse of a departed world upon
+which the mystic symbol of Psyche has just alighted. _Tempus breve est_ is
+the simple little truism that rises to our reflecting minds. Eighteen
+centuries between the Vettii and ourselves! They are gone like a flash,
+and we are amazed to note how little has our nature altered either for the
+better or the worse within that space of time, long enough if we measure
+its limit by the standard of history, trivial if we reckon it by the
+progress made in human ethics and human understanding. Surely there are
+lessons to be learned in the silent city; Pompeii, we realize, is not
+merely a heap of antique dross whence we can pick up precious grains of
+knowledge, but it is an oracle in itself, which, if properly consulted,
+will give us plain answers to our modern speculations, and will possibly
+reprove us for our conceited assumption of omniscience.
+
+  [Illustration: LA CASA DEI VETTII, POMPEII]
+
+Still brilliant in their strong prevailing tints of black, yellow and
+vermilion are the decorative schemes which make a visit to the house of
+the Vettii of such supreme importance for those who wish to understand
+fully the artistic tastes of the Romans, and also their artistic
+limitations. If the contents of the Museum seem colourless and cold, and
+prove unsatisfying and disappointing, here the eye of the artist can feast
+upon the classical ornamentation which remains fairly fresh in spite of a
+dozen years of exposure to daylight. For this province of art is
+peculiarly associated with the opening years of the Empire, and Pompeii is
+naturally the chief place for its study, and in Pompeii the untouched Casa
+Nuova is all important for the student. According to Pliny, the inventor
+of this pleasing style of decoration was a certain Ludius, who flourished
+in the reign of Augustus, and first persuaded the Romans to embellish
+their flat wall-surfaces with designs of "villas and halls, artificial
+gardens, hedges, woods, hills, water basins, tombs, rivers, shores, in as
+great a variety as could be desired; figures sitting at ease, mariners,
+and those who, riding upon donkeys or in waggons, look after their farms;
+fishermen, snarers of birds, hunters and vine-dressers; also swampy
+passages before beautiful villas, and women borne by men who stagger under
+their burdens, and other witty things of this nature; finally, views of
+sea-ports, everything charming and suitable":--a fairly long and
+comprehensive list of subjects, truly, from which a patron might pick and
+choose, or an artist might execute!
+
+Although the great architect Vitruvius strongly denounced this new
+striving after scenic effect and characterized it as petty and false, yet
+none can deny that these cheerful scenes with their bright colours and
+their agreeable if trivial subjects were singularly well adapted to
+improve the appearance of the bare narrow rooms, the meagre proportions of
+which seem to us absolutely incompatible with plain comfort, to say
+nothing of luxury. Space may be increased, so far as the eye is concerned,
+by an architectural or landscape painting ingeniously conceived, and thus
+the restricted rooms seem to obtain by means of this new system of
+decoration a wider expansion, and with it an increased sense of ease and
+lightness. The invention of Ludius became at once the fashion, the rage;
+and all Rome began to cover the walls of its narrow chambers with these
+novel designs, which had already found favour in Imperial circles.
+Campania, where the old Greek love for polychrome still lingered, was not
+slow in imitating the new taste of the Capital, so that Pompeii bears
+undoubted testimony to the popularity of this revolution in artistic
+ideas, which substituted a lighter freer method for the old conventional
+severity of treatment. Experts profess to trace--and none will endeavour to
+gainsay them--a marked difference between the frescoes executed before the
+earthquake of 63 and those undertaken subsequent to that date. The wall
+paintings of the first group, carried out when the art was comparatively
+novel, are superior in harmony of colour, in choice of themes and in
+technical finish to those which belong to the latter period, the sixteen
+years that intervened between the earthquake and the eruption of Vesuvius.
+From this circumstance it has been inferred, not without reason, that this
+particular house must have passed some time before the year 63 out of the
+possession of people of good taste into the hands of vulgarians, ignorant
+of the fundamental principles of art and anxious only to obtain what was
+startling and garish. As freedmen, the two Vettii would naturally belong
+to a class which was not remarkable for culture; nevertheless, they seem
+to have had the good sense to leave intact some of their predecessor's
+most cherished works of decoration, and for this exhibition of restraint
+we must feel duly grateful towards our dead-and-gone hosts, the maligned
+Vettii.
+
+But it is not only for purposes of examining Roman internal decoration _in
+situ_ that this art gallery of the Casa Nuova is available. Below the
+painted panels of the dining-room runs a long string of ornament, whereon
+are represented Cupids and Psyches engaged in the various occupations of
+Pompeian daily life. Full of dainty grace and of lively expression, these
+little winged figures initiate us into a number of the trades and customs
+of the ancients. For they are made to appear before us as goldsmiths,
+vine-dressers, makers and sellers of olive oil, dealers in wine, fullers
+of cloth, and as partakers in a dozen other scenes of town or country
+life. Where learned antiquaries had hitherto doubted and disputed, the
+discovery of the paintings of these celestial little mechanics and
+merchants helped to solve many a difficulty, for the secret of half the
+arts and crafts of Pompeii is revealed to us in this playful guise. Nor
+are the designs themselves contemptible from an artistic point of view;
+look how intent, for example, is the pose of the tiny jeweller working
+with a graver's tool upon the gold vessel before him; how steadily he
+bears himself at a task which requires at once strength of hand and
+delicacy of workmanship. Look again at the nervous pose of the pretty elf
+who is gingerly pouring wine out of a huge amphora, which he holds in his
+arms, into a shallow tasting cup offered by a brother Cupid. How
+thoroughly must the unknown artist have enjoyed the task of painting this
+frieze! How unfettered his fancy, as his brush glided smoothly and deftly
+over the carefully prepared wall-surface! Excellent, no doubt, he thought
+his work at the time of execution, but even the most conceited of
+Campanian artists could hardly have dreamed that these creations of his
+brush would still at the end of two thousand years be admired, commented
+upon and even reproduced in thousands, by a process he never dreamed of,
+for the benefit of citizens of nations as yet unborn or unforeseen.
+
+As the spring evening softly steals over the city and the shadows of the
+colonnades lengthen, let us leave the silent halls and chambers of the
+Casa dei Vettii and turn our footsteps westward; and issuing out of the
+Gate of Herculaneum, let us traverse the famous Street of Tombs, that
+extends along the road leading to the sister buried city. In ancient times
+this was the Via Domitiana, a branch road of the Appian Way, and it formed
+the most frequented entrance into Pompeii. To Roman ideas, therefore, it
+was but natural that tombs should be erected alongside its borders, whilst
+the spirits of the passing and repassing crowds were in no wise affected
+by the memorials of death attending their exits and entrances. And with
+the surging human tide that was ever flowing in this thoroughfare the
+funeral processions must constantly have mingled, the wailing of the hired
+mourners rising sharply above the din of harsh voices, the creaking of
+clumsy wooden wheels and the braying of the heavily laden asses. Now over
+all reigns a decorous silence, such as we moderns deem fitting for a
+cemetery; only the hum of insects breaks the deep quiet of the atmosphere,
+nor are there any living creatures visible at this late hour save the bats
+which flit restlessly in and out of the weed-grown piles of brick or stone
+that once were stately monuments of wealth or piety. Above our heads the
+tall sombre cypresses shoot upward like gigantic spear-heads into the
+crystal-clear air, pointing heavenward like our own church spires in a
+rural English landscape. This Street of the Dead in the City of the Dead
+is in truth a solemn and a soothing spot; nor can we find its precincts
+melancholy, when we stand in the midst of such glorious scenery. For Monte
+Sant' Angelo towers to our left against the mellow evening sky, flecked
+with lines of peach-blossom cloud, whilst in front of us the dark form of
+Capri seems to float in a golden haze between firmament and ocean. Behind
+us the dark mass of the Mountain with its breath of ascending smoke seems
+like an eternal funeral pyre in honour of the Dead, who were spared the
+horrors of that fearful disaster which overwhelmed the living. Upon the
+broken tombs and altars the light from the setting sun falls with warm
+cheerful radiance, flushing stone and brick-work with a ruddy glow like
+jasper; whilst, high in the heavens above the cypress tops, the crescent
+moon prepares to turn to gold from silver.
+
+_Beati sunt mortui_: here rest, we know, the priestess Mammia, the
+decemvir Aricius, Libella the aedile, and a host of other citizens with
+whose names the student or the lover of Pompeii is familiar. How many a
+time has this line of roadway rung with the sound of the last sad appeal,
+the thrice repeated valediction: "_Vale, vale, vale!_ farewell until the
+day when Nature will allow us to follow thee!" How often have the wooden
+pyres flung up in these precincts their clouds of perfumed smoke into the
+clear air, now redolent with the aroma of yellow broom, of dewy thyme and
+of sweet marigolds! Perhaps it was amidst these lines of cypress-set tombs
+by the Herculaneum Gate that the poetic genius, whose verses were spurned
+by his own generation, composed his famous Ode to Naples, for in its
+opening lines Shelley tells us it was the aspect of the "city disinterred"
+that gave him inspiration:--
+
+  "Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre
+  Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure
+  Were to spare Death, had never made erasure;
+    But every living lineament was clear
+    As in the sculptor's thought; and there
+  The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy and pine,
+   Like winter-leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow,
+   Seemed only not to move and grow,
+   Because the crystal silence of the air
+   Weighed on their life...."
+
+Tranquilly and slowly descends night upon the untenanted city, as one by
+one the stars begin to peep forth like chrysolites in the heavens, which
+have changed from azure to a deep indigo during the sunset hour. Amid
+chilly dews, to the sound of the evening bell from the distant church of
+Santa Maria di Pompeii, we hasten in the growing darkness from the Street
+of the Tombs towards our modest inn outside the Marine Gate, anticipating
+with delight a ramble in the city in the freshness of the coming morning.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IV
+
+
+                   VESUVIUS: THE STORY OF THE MOUNTAIN
+
+
+The first appearance of Vesuvius, whether viewed from the deck of a
+steamer entering the Bay of Naples or espied from the window of a railway
+carriage on the main line running southward from Rome, makes an impression
+that will linger for ever in the memory. It is open to argument which is
+the more striking of the two experiences: the Mountain rising proudly from
+the deep blue waters into the paler shade of the upper air, or its
+graceful broken contour seen from the landward side to the north across
+the green fertile plains of the Campagna Felice. From a long acquaintance
+with both ways of approaching Naples, we are inclined to prefer the latter
+view. Travelling in an express train from Rome we find ourselves whirled
+suddenly, by magic as it were, into the atmosphere of the South, when with
+the sight of the domes and towers of Capua, the ancient capital of
+Campania the Prosperous, we first note the presence of orange trees and
+hedges of aloe, of white lupin crops and clumps of prickly pear, and we
+feel we are nearing Naples with "its burning mountain and its tideless
+sea," so that we eagerly strain our eyes in a southerly direction to catch
+our first glimpse of Vesuvius, with whose shape and history we have been
+so familiar since our childhood's days. At length we perceive its double
+summit, with smoke tranquilly issuing from the cone and obscuring the
+clarity of the air, and as we hurry forward towards our destination,
+through the plains studded with elm-trees festooned with vines, we have
+the satisfaction of observing its form grow larger and more distinct in
+outline.
+
+On our arrival at Naples, in course of time we grow more intimately
+acquainted with the peculiar attractions of "the Mountain," as the
+Neapolitans always designate their treacherous but fascinating neighbour,
+of whose near existence they have every reason to be proud, for certainly
+Vesuvius, though barely as lofty as Ben Nevis, _is_ to us westerns the
+most famous mountain upon earth. Regarding Vesuvius both from the land and
+the sea, we note that it rises in solitary majesty from an extended base
+some thirty miles in circumference, and that it sweeps upwards in graceful
+curving lines until at a distance of about 3000 feet from sea level its
+summit is cleft into two peaks; that to the north being a rocky ridge
+which catches our eye as we gaze eastward from the heights of Sant' Elmo
+or the Corso at Naples, the other point being the actual cone of the
+volcano itself. The upper part of the Mountain has in fact two aspects; in
+other words, Vesuvius is double, being composed of the ridge of Monte
+Somma to the north, 3760 feet in height, which is pre-historic; and the
+ever-shifting modern dome of Vesuvius to the south, which is _about_ 4000
+feet high. We say "about" purposely, for Vesuvius proper sometimes
+over-tops, sometimes equals, and sometimes even crouches under its
+immovable sister-peak, according to the effect produced by volcanic
+action. Monte Somma, which is one of the everlasting hills, is the parent,
+and Vesuvius is the child, born but yesterday from a geological point of
+view, for it is not so old as the Christian era;--"it is a variable heap
+thrown up from time to time, and again, not seldom, by a greater effort of
+the same force, tossed away into the air, and scattered in clouds of dust
+over far-away countries. Thus it has happened often, in the course of
+these variations of energy, that Vesuvius has risen to a conical height
+exceeding that of Somma by 500 or 600 feet, and again, the top has been
+truncated to a level as low as Somma, or even as much below that mountain
+as we now behold it above."(3)
+
+To understand the story of the Mountain, therefore, it is necessary for us
+to travel back in retrospect to ancient Roman days. In the first place,
+however, one word as to its present name that we use to-day, for all are
+familiar with Vesuvius, but comparatively few, until they visit Naples,
+have heard mention made of Monte Somma. The name of Vesuvius, then, though
+strictly applicable only to the volcanic and modern portion of the
+Mountain, is not a recent appellation; on the contrary, it is probably of
+far more ancient origin than _Mons Summanus_ by which the whole was known
+to the Romans. The point is by no means unimportant, for etymologists
+derive Vesuvius from the Syriac "Vo Seevev, the abode of flame," thereby
+proving to us that whatever opinions may have been held as to the nature
+of the Mountain in the century preceding the Christian era, its volcanic
+nature must have been perfectly well understood by those who gave it this
+suggestive title in a more remote age. But the secret locked up in Mons
+Summanus was not altogether unsuspected by the Roman scientists. Strabo,
+the geographer, writing about thirty years before the birth of Christ,
+made a careful examination of the crest of Mons Summanus, then a
+saucer-shaped hollow surrounded by a steep rocky edge and occupied by a
+flat plain covered with cinders and void of grass, although the flanks of
+the Mountain were extraordinarily fertile. From what he saw during his
+visit, Strabo conjectured the Mountain to be an extinct volcano, in which
+surmise he was destined to be proved partly in the right and partly in the
+wrong; whilst Vitruvius, the famous architect of the Emperor Augustus,
+"who found Rome of brick and left it of marble," as well as Tacitus the
+historian, shared the same opinion. About a century and a half before the
+first recorded eruption in 79, Mons Summanus figures prominently in Roman
+history as the scene of a curious incident during the Servile War, so that
+in the pages of the old chronicler Florus we obtain an interesting
+description--especially interesting because it was not given for scientific
+purposes--of the condition of the mountain top at that period. The brave
+gladiator Spartacus and his intrepid band of revolted slaves, seeking a
+place of safety from the pursuing Roman legions, not very wisely selected
+the top of this isolated peak, which, although affording a good position
+of defence and possessing a wide outlook over the Campanian plain, had
+only one narrow passage in its rocky rim to serve as entrance or outlet.
+Followed hither by the Roman forces and caught like rats in a trap,
+Spartacus and his men were doomed either to be reduced by starvation, or
+else to run the gauntlet of the sole narrow exit, which the Senate's
+commander, Clodius Glabrus, was already guarding. The story of Spartacus'
+escape from his terrible dilemma is told in the history of Florus, and
+repeated with further details by Plutarch in his Life of Crassus.
+
+"Clodius the Praetor, with three thousand men, besieged them in a mountain,
+having but one narrow and difficult passage, which Clodius kept guarded;
+all the rest was encompassed with broken and slippery precipices, but upon
+the top grew a great many wild vines: they cast down as many of these
+boughs as they had need of, and twisted them into ladders long enough to
+reach from thence to the bottom, by which, without any danger, all got
+down save one, who stayed behind to throw them their arms, after which he
+saved himself with the rest."
+
+A dozen learned statements of a scientific nature as to the ancient
+appearance and slumbering condition of the Mountain could not impress our
+imagination more vividly with its subsequent natural changes than the
+account of this episode of Spartacus and his handful of rebels,
+beleaguered by Clodius within the very crater of the volcano. We can see
+the Mountain in the last years of the Roman Republic before us, with its
+truncated cone encircled by a low rampart of rock half hidden by wild
+vine, ivy, eglantine, honeysuckle and all the creeping plants whose tough
+trailing stems enabled the besieged gladiators to effect their escape from
+the snare into which they had unwittingly fallen. We can understand from
+this event how utterly remote was the idea of any upheaval of nature to
+the dwellers on these shores, whose ancestors remembered the crest of the
+mountain as the scene of a military operation.
+
+The first warning of a coming eruption after unnumbered centuries of quiet
+was given by a series of earthquakes which did an immense amount of damage
+at Herculaneum and Pompeii; yet in a district which had from time
+immemorial been subject to similar convulsions of nature, the shocks,
+though unusually distressing and destructive to life and property, were
+evidently unconnected in the popular mind with their true cause: the
+reawakening to life of the mountain overhead. The mischief done by the
+earthquakes was accordingly repaired as quickly as possible, and the
+normal course of life was resumed until the terrific and wholly unexpected
+outbreak of August 24th 79, during the reign of the Emperor Titus. Of
+this, the first recorded eruption of Vesuvius, we are exceptionally
+fortunate in possessing the testimony of a credible eye-witness, who was
+no less a personage than Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, better known to
+the modern world as Pliny the Younger, who wrote two lengthy letters to
+Tacitus on the subject of this event, the first describing the fate of his
+uncle, the Elder Pliny, most eminent of Roman naturalists, who perished
+during this period of terror; and the second containing a more detailed
+account of the eruption itself. For it so happened--luckily for
+posterity--that at the time of this sudden outburst of Mons Summanus, the
+Elder Pliny was in command of the Roman fleet at Misenum on the Bay of
+Naples, where his young nephew (who was also his adopted son) was living
+with his mother in a villa. "On the 24th of August," writes Pliny the
+Younger some eleven years after the event he is about to describe, "about
+one in the afternoon, my mother desired my uncle to observe a cloud which
+appeared of a very unusual size and shape. He had just returned from
+taking the benefit of the sun, and after bathing himself in cold water,
+and taking a slight repast, was retired to his study. He immediately arose
+and went out upon an eminence, from whence he might more distinctly view
+this very uncommon appearance. It was not at that distance discernible
+from what mountain this cloud issued, but it was found afterwards to
+ascend from Mount Vesuvius. I cannot give a more exact description of its
+figure than by resembling it to that of a pine-tree, for it shot up to a
+great height in the form of a trunk, which extended itself on the top into
+a sort of branches, occasioned, I imagine, either by a sudden gust of air
+that impelled it, the force of which decreased as it advanced upwards, or
+the cloud itself being pressed back again by its own weight, expanded in
+this manner; it appeared sometimes bright, and sometimes dark and spotted,
+as it was more or less impregnated with earth and cinders. This
+extraordinary phenomenon excited my uncle's philosophical curiosity to
+take a nearer view of it." The nephew then proceeds to relate how his
+uncle sailed by way of Retina, the port of Herculaneum, to Stabiae, where
+he met with his second in command, one Pomponianus. Meanwhile the Younger
+Pliny, who had declined to accompany his uncle's expedition on the plea of
+having to pursue the studies with which as a hard-working youth of
+seventeen he was evidently engrossed, became alarmed during the night for
+the Elder Pliny's safety. His own and his mother's terrible experiences
+are vividly portrayed in the second letter, which, at the historian's
+special request, the Younger Pliny wrote to Tacitus in later years.
+
+"When my uncle had started, I spent such time as was left on my studies--it
+was on their account, indeed, that I had stopped behind. Then followed the
+bath, dinner and sleep, this last disturbed and brief. There had been
+noticed for many days before a trembling of the earth, which had caused,
+however, but little fear, because it is not unusual in Campania. But that
+night it was so violent, that one thought everything was being not merely
+moved, but absolutely overturned. My mother rushed into my chamber; I was
+in the act of rising, with the same intention of awaking her, should she
+have been asleep. We sat down in the open court of the house, which
+occupied a small space between the buildings and the sea. And now--I do not
+know whether to call it courage or folly, for I was but in my eighteenth
+year--I called for a volume of Livy, read it as if I were perfectly at
+leisure, and even continued to make some extracts which I had begun. Just
+then arrived a friend of my uncle, who had lately come to him from Spain;
+when he saw that we were sitting down--that I was even reading--he rebuked
+my mother for her patience, and me for my blindness to the danger. Still I
+bent myself as industriously as ever over my book. It was now seven
+o'clock in the morning, but the daylight was still faint and doubtful. The
+surrounding buildings were now so shattered, that in the place where we
+were, which though open was small, the danger that they might fall on us
+was imminent and unmistakable. So we at last determined to quit the town.
+A panic-stricken crowd followed us.... We saw the sea retire into itself,
+seeming, as it were, to be driven back by the trembling movement of the
+earth. The shore had distinctly advanced, and many marine animals were
+left high and dry upon the sands. Behind us was a dark and dreadful cloud,
+which, as it was broken with rapid zig-zag flashes, revealed behind it
+variously shaped masses of flame; these last were like sheet lightning,
+though on a larger scale.... It was not long before the cloud that we saw
+began to descend upon the earth and cover the sea. It had already
+surrounded and concealed the island of Capreae, and had made invisible the
+promontory of Misenum. My mother besought, urged, even commanded me to fly
+as best I could; 'I might do so,' she said, 'for I was young; she, from
+age and corpulence, could move but slowly, but would be content to die, if
+she did not bring death upon me.' I replied that I would not seek safety
+except in her company; I clasped her hand and compelled her to go with me.
+She reluctantly obeyed, but continually reproached herself for delaying
+me. Ashes now began to fall--still, however, in small quantities. I looked
+behind me; a dense dark mist seemed to be following us, spreading itself
+over the country like a cloud. 'Let us turn out of the way,' I said,
+'whilst we can still see, for fear that, should we fall in the road, we
+should be trodden under foot in the darkness by the throngs that accompany
+us.' We had scarcely sat down when night was upon us,--not such as we have
+seen when there is no moon, or when the sky is cloudy, but such as there
+is in some closed room where the lights are extinguished. You might hear
+the shrieks of women, the monotonous wailing of children, the shouts of
+men. Many were raising their voices, and seeking to recognise by the
+voices that replied, parents, children, husbands or wives. Some were
+loudly lamenting their own fate, others the fate of those dear to them.
+Some even prayed for death, in their fear of what they prayed for. Many
+lifted their hands in prayer to the gods; more were convinced that there
+were now no gods at all, and that the final endless night of which we have
+heard had come upon the world.... It now grew somewhat light again; we
+felt sure that this was not the light of day, but a proof that fire was
+approaching us. Fire there was, but it stopped at a considerable distance
+from us; then came darkness again, and a thick, heavy fall of ashes. Again
+and again we stood up and shook them off; otherwise, we should have been
+covered by them, and even crushed by the weight. At last the black mist I
+had spoken of seemed to shade off into smoke or cloud, and broke away.
+Then came genuine daylight, and the sun shone out with a lurid light, such
+as it is wont to have in an eclipse. Our eyes, which had not yet recovered
+from the effects of fear, saw everything changed, everything covered deep
+with ashes as if with snow. We returned to Misenum, and after refreshing
+ourselves as best we could, spent a night of anxiety in mingled hope and
+fear. Fear, however, was still the stronger feeling; for the trembling of
+the earth continued, while many frenzied persons, with their terrific
+predictions, gave an exaggeration that was even ludicrous to the
+calamities of themselves and of their friends. Even then, in spite of all
+the perils which we had experienced, and which we still expected, we had
+not a thought of going away till we could hear news of my uncle."(4)
+
+As to the fate of the Elder Pliny, it seems that the old man had been
+obliged together with his friends and servants to fly from the villa at
+Stabiae where he was resting. The sea being too agitated to allow of an
+embarkation, the fugitives turned their steps towards the slopes of Mons
+Gaurus, the present Monte Sant' Angelo, with pillows bound over their
+heads to serve as protection against the showers of hot cinders that were
+falling thickly on all sides. At length the famous old writer, who was
+somewhat plethoric and unwieldy, sank exhausted to the ground, never to
+rise again, and shortly expired in an attack of heart failure, induced by
+the unusual excitement and fatigue he had lately been called upon to
+endure. At any rate, it appears fairly certain that the Elder Pliny did
+not perish, as is still sometimes asserted, by the direct effects of the
+eruption, but rather through an ordinary collapse of nature--syncope,
+perhaps. Three days later his body was found lying not far from Stabiae by
+his grief-stricken nephew, who describes his uncle's corpse as looking
+"more like that of a sleeping than of a dead man."
+
+This then was the first, as it was also the most violent, of the many
+outbreaks of Vesuvius which our own age has witnessed, and with this
+eruption of 79 in the reign of Titus, the Mountain, as we have already
+said, greatly altered its shape. More than half the rim of the ancient
+crater that had enclosed Spartacus and his men less than two hundred years
+before had been torn away and destroyed, its remaining portion on the
+landward side retaining the old name of Mons Summanus. Between this
+remnant of the old wall of the crater and the scene of wreckage on the
+southern face of the Mountain, there now appeared the great cleft, the
+horse-shoe shaped valley called the Atrio del Cavallo, which separates the
+two peaks of the whole summit. A fragment only of the original crater,
+known as the Pedimentina, still remains on the seaward side above Torre
+del Greco. From that terrible day, so vividly described by the Younger
+Pliny, to our own times, a period stretching over 1800 years, a vast
+number of eruptions, great and small, have been enumerated, for owing to
+the nearness of Vesuvius to one of the largest cities in Europe, every
+incident connected with its activity has been carefully noted, at least
+since the time of the Renaissance. Out of the many upheavals we propose to
+select the eruptions of 1631 and 1779, as being amongst the most
+significant.
+
+Ever since an outburst in the year 1500, the Mountain appears to have
+lapsed into a remarkable condition of quietude, even of apparent
+extinction, for over a century and a quarter, during which period, it may
+be remarked, the Sicilian volcano of Etna was unusually active. Once more
+the summit of Vesuvius was beginning to assume the form it had borne in
+the days previous to the overthrow of Pompeii; the riven crater was
+becoming filled with dense undergrowth and even with forest trees, amidst
+which wild boar made their lairs and were occasionally hunted. The learned
+Abate Giulio Braccini, whose account of the eruption of 1631 is the most
+graphic and accurate we possess, explored the crater shortly before the
+outbreak of the volcano, but found little to suggest any idea of an
+approaching convulsion. He reckoned the deep depression occupying the
+crest of the mountain to be about five miles in circumference, and to take
+about a thousand paces of walking so as to reach the lowest point within
+its area. He remarked abundance of brushwood on its sides, and observed
+cattle grazing peacefully upon the open grassy patches in the midst of the
+over-grown space. A deep crack, however, ran from end to end of the whole
+crater, which allowed persons so minded to descend amidst rocks and
+boulders to a large plain below the surface, whereon Braccini found three
+pools of hot steamy water, of a saline and sulphureous taste. Such was the
+tranquil aspect of the Mountain as surveyed by the Abate Braccini in the
+first half of the seventeenth century; to men of science signs of latent
+energy were certainly not wanting, yet to the ignorant, careless peasants
+of the hill-side and the scarcely less ignorant dwellers of the towns on
+the seashore, the state of repose in which the Mountain had continued for
+four or five generations suggested no fears or suspicions. Tilling of
+vineyards, building of new houses, sinking of wells, went on apace as
+cheerfully as though an eruption were an impossibility, till certain
+unmistakable portents that occurred towards the close of the year 1631
+roughly dissipated this spell of fancied security. Earthquakes, more or
+less severe, began at this time to be felt along the whole of the volcanic
+line stretching from Ischia to the eastern slopes of Vesuvius; the plain
+within the crater of the Mountain began to heave and rise in an alarming
+fashion, and the water in all the local wells sank mysteriously below
+ground. The signs of some impending disaster coming from the heights above
+were too strongly marked to be lightly disregarded; the idea of a volcanic
+convulsion, though by this time a long-distant and vague memory, became so
+terrifying to the dwellers on the mountain's flanks and in Torre del
+Greco, Resina and the various towns that line the seaward base of the
+Mountain, that the majority of the people removed themselves and their
+property with all speed to places of safety. Nevertheless, despite the
+warnings given by Nature and also by men of science and the royal
+officials, many remained behind in their houses, and in consequence
+perished, to the immense number, it is surmised, of 18,000. On the morning
+of Wednesday, December 16th, the long threatened eruption burst forth in
+earnest upon an expectant world. Amidst crashes like prolonged volleys of
+artillery the people of Naples and the surrounding district beheld the
+terrible pine-tree of smoke and ashes, described centuries ago by Pliny,
+ascend from the south-western side of the summit of the Mountain, veiling
+the sky for miles around, and so charged with electricity, that many were
+even killed by the _ferilli_, or lightning flashes, that darted from the
+smoking mass. The spectacle of the ominous pine-tree was at once followed
+by a terrific rumbling and an ejection of lava, which after flowing down
+the southern flank in several streams finally reached the sea, making the
+waters hiss and boil at the moment of contact. Slowly but surely these
+relentless red-hot rivers of lava crept like serpents along the hill-side,
+destroying vineyard and garden, cottage and chapel, on their downward
+path. Resina shared the fate of its ancient forerunner Herculaneum, whilst
+Torre del Greco and Portici suffered severely, as we can see to-day by
+noting the great masses of lava flung on to the strand at various points.
+To add to the universal confusion of Nature, the sea, which had now become
+extraordinarily tempestuous, probably owing to some submarine
+earthquake-shock, suddenly retreated half a mile from the coast, and then
+as suddenly returned in a tidal wave more than a hundred feet beyond its
+normal limits. Such were the main features of the second great eruption of
+Vesuvius, wherein the ashes ejected by the Mountain were wafted by the
+wind beyond the Adriatic, to the Greek islands and even to Constantinople
+itself.
+
+  [Illustration: VESUVIUS AND THE BAY OF NAPLES]
+
+From this date onward the Mountain became very active in contrast with its
+previous condition of lethargy, and throughout the whole of the eighteenth
+century there were frequent eruptions, many of them on a vast scale. All
+these outbursts have been carefully recorded and commented upon, for
+naturally the scientists of a great city like Naples were intensely
+interested in the passing phases of their own volcano. During the latter
+half of this century all the phenomena have been described for us by Sir
+William Hamilton, British ambassador at the Court of the Two Sicilies, the
+versatile diplomatist who eventually married the beautiful but frail Emma
+Hart. During his long period of residence in Naples, Sir William made no
+fewer than fifty-eight explorations of the crater alone, besides carefully
+studying every peculiarity visible upon the sides of the Mountain. He was,
+of course, a close observer of the great eruptions of 1766-7, and also of
+the still greater convulsion of 1779, which, strangely enough, occurred on
+the seventeenth centenary of the awakening of the Mountain from its
+pre-historic slumbers. On this occasion, Hamilton, accompanied by a Mr
+Bowdler of Bath, had the temerity to track the streams of flowing lava to
+their hidden source by walking over the rough unyielding crust of stones
+and earth that had formed upon the surface of the molten stream, as it
+slowly trickled down hill at the rate of about a mile an hour. The
+adventurous pair of Englishmen were successful in their quest, and Sir
+William thus describes the fountain-head of the fiery streams that he
+found a quarter of a mile distant from the top of the cone.
+
+"The liquid and red-hot matter bubbled up violently, with a hissing and
+crackling noise, like that which attends the playing off of an artificial
+firework; and by the continued splashing up of the vitrified matter, a
+kind of arch, or dome, was formed over the crevice from whence the lava
+issued; it was cracked in many parts, and appeared red-hot within, like a
+heated oven. This hollowed hillock might be about fifteen feet high, and
+the lava that ran from under it was received into a regular channel,
+raised upon a sort of wall of scoriae and cinders, almost perpendicularly,
+of about a height of eight or ten feet, resembling much an ancient
+aqueduct."
+
+Some days later, at midnight on August 7th, a veritable fountain of red
+fire shot up from the crest of Vesuvius, illuminating all the surrounding
+country; and on the following night a still more marvellous sheet of flame
+appeared, hanging like a fiery veil between heaven and earth, and reaching
+to a height (so Sir William Hamilton guessed) of about 10,000 feet above
+the summit, affording a wonderfully grand but terrible spectacle. This
+great curtain of fiery particles, accompanied by inky black clouds from
+which were darting continual flashes of lightning, was reflected clearly
+on the smooth surface of the Bay, delighting the Court and the scientific
+world of Naples, but inspiring, as may well be imagined, the mass of
+superstitious inhabitants with the direst alarm. The theatres were closed
+and the churches were opened; above the rumblings and explosions of the
+agonised volcano could be heard the tolling of the bells. Maddened by
+terror, the Neapolitan mob rushed to the Archbishop's palace to demand the
+immediate production of the holy relics of St Januarius, the protector of
+the city, and on this request being refused, set fire to the entrance
+gates, a forcible argument that soon persuaded his Eminence of the
+propriety of the people's demand. Thereupon the head of the Saint,
+enclosed in its case of solid silver, was accordingly borne in solemn
+procession with wailing and repentant crowds behind it to an improvised
+shrine, hung with garlands, on the Ponte della Maddalena, at the extreme
+eastern boundary of the city. Nor was the confidence reposed by the
+Neapolitans in their patron Saint misplaced, for except from the stifling
+smells and the dense rain of ashes, the terror-stricken capital suffered
+not a whit, whilst the general alarm inspired its inhabitants with a
+revival of religious fervour which was by no means insalutary. As usual,
+the old cynical proverb was once more justified:--_Napoli fa gli peccati, e
+la __Torre gli paga_, for of course poor Torre del Greco was grievously
+affected by the lava streams. In this case, however, even Torre del Greco
+and Resina did not fare so badly as did the towns on the northern slopes
+of Monte Somma, a district which is of course perfectly immune from lava
+inundations owing to the protecting rocky ridge of the Atrio del Cavallo.
+But it seems that the great veil of clouds and fire, extending some
+thousands of feet from the crest of the mountain to the heavens above, was
+swayed by a chance current of air, so that its component red-hot dust,
+ashes and stones were emptied in one fatal shower upon the northern flank
+of the Mountain. Whole villages were ruined, hundreds of acres of vines
+and crops were scorched and burned; the smiling peaceful hillside was in a
+few minutes converted into a parched wilderness. Ottajano, a large town of
+some 12,000 inhabitants, was the place most seriously injured by this
+wholly unexpected rain of destruction, for a tempestuous fall of red-hot
+stones, some of immense size, and a shower of ashes killed hundreds of the
+terrified and suffocating citizens, and blocked up the streets with
+smoking debris to a depth of four feet.
+
+Of the recent eruptions of Vesuvius, which have been pretty frequent
+during the latter half of last century, that of April 1872, so carefully
+recorded by Professor Palmieri, who in spite of imminent danger never
+abandoned his post in the Observatory, is the most notable. It is
+remembered also owing to the catastrophe whereby some twenty persons out
+of a large crowd of strangers, who had imprudently ascended to the Atrio
+del Cavallo to get a closer view of the phenomenon, were suddenly caught
+by the lava stream and enfolded in its burning clutches. For if ignorance
+and superstition seem to make the poor fisherman or peasant unduly alarmed
+on such occasions, curiosity and self-confidence are sometimes apt to lead
+the educated or scientific into unnecessary peril. Naples itself was once
+more alarmed in 1872, so that the relics of St Januarius at the furious
+demand of the populace were again brought forth in solemn procession, and
+exposed towards the face of the Mountain on the Ponte della Maddalena.
+Thousands of quaking mortals gathered near this spot, joining in the
+chanting of the priests and watching with pallid anxious faces the fiery
+currents of lava slowly trickling down the south-western flank of Vesuvius
+towards the city itself. A certain number of attendants meanwhile were
+engaged in perpetually brushing away from the image of the Saint, from his
+improvised altar, and from its votive garlands the ever-accumulating
+mantle of grey dust, and it is scarcely to be wondered at that a certain
+cool-headed Neapolitan artist, Il Vaccaro, should all this time have been
+busily engaged in painting so characteristic and highly picturesque a
+scene. Within the churches, and particularly in St Januarius' own
+cathedral, enormous crowds of hysterical men and women had collected,
+loudly bewailing their past sins and imploring the Divine mercy, for
+
+      "E belle son le supplice
+  Pompe di penitenza, in alto lutto."
+
+Again the historic _palladium_ proved effectual, and the city, that was
+never for a moment in danger, was once more saved! Naples received no
+damage beyond a temporary panic and a heavy fall of ashes, which covered
+every street and flat surface within the town to a depth of some inches
+and which it took many days of enforced labour to remove. Again it was the
+poor confiding vine-dressers and tillers of the Vesuvian soil who suffered
+in this upheaval, for though the loss of life was very slight indeed, yet
+numerous houses, fields and vineyards were totally destroyed and many more
+were injured. Truly it is a maxim well proven by time:--_Napoli fa gli
+peccati, e Torre gli paga._
+
+
+
+Such, told baldly and briefly, is the history of the Mountain, which forms
+the most conspicuous feature of the Bay of Naples and dominates one of the
+fairest and most populous districts on the face of the globe. But it does
+not take long to make visitors to the Neapolitan shore understand the
+mysterious charm, not unmixed with awe, and the all-pervading influence of
+Vesuvius. Go where we will within the circuit of the Bay of Naples and
+even outside it, we are never out of sight of the obtruding Mountain and
+its smoky wreath. We begin to feel that the Mountain is an animated thing,
+that the destiny of the Parthenopean shore is locked up in the breast of
+the Demon who has his dwelling within its red-hot caverns. So sudden are
+the actions, and so capricious the moods of this Monster of the Burning
+Mountain, that no one can tell the day, or even the hour, wherein he will
+give us an exhibition of his fiery temper, though, it is true, in the case
+of violent eruptions he is kind enough to afford timely warning by means
+of a succession of earthquakes and other signals almost equally alarming.
+His Majesty's presence is felt everywhere; each morning as we open our
+window upon the dazzling waters of the Bay, we note with relief his
+tranquil aspect; each night, ere we retire to sleep, we find ourselves
+inevitably drawn to watch the glare thrown by the molten lava within the
+crater upon the thick vapour overhead. The nightly expectation of this
+aerial bonfire possesses an extraordinary fascination for the stranger.
+Some times the lurid glare is continuous; at other times there are long
+intervals of waiting, and even then the reflected light is very faint, a
+mere speck of reddish glow in the surrounding blackness, gone in the
+twinkling of an eye. But, strangely enough, one grows to understand the
+Mountain better from a distance and by watching its moods from afar, like
+the Neapolitans themselves, who never ascend to probe its mysteries,
+except a few vulgar guides and touts who batten on the curiosity of the
+foreigner.
+
+On clear windless days the intermittent clouds of vapour sent up from the
+crater assume the most fantastic shapes--trees, ships, men, birds,
+animals--ever changing like the forms of Proteus. It would seem as if the
+Spirit of the Mountain were idly amusing himself, like a child blowing
+bubbles, or a vendor at a fair-stall carving out little figures of
+gingerbread to tickle the fancy of country boys and girls. The clouds so
+formed sometimes cause amusement by their uncanny shapes, but not
+unfrequently they inspire alarm. The superstitious peasant of the
+_Paduli_, looking up suddenly from his work amidst the early peas or
+tomatoes, beholds against the blue sky a vague nebulous form that to his
+untutored mind suggests a gigantic crucifix upheld in mid-air above the
+Mountain, and he crosses himself devoutly ere he bends down to earth once
+more to his work in the rich dark soil. "Such stuff as dreams are made of"
+appear in truth the weird phantoms that the sly Demon of Vesuvius flings
+up into the pure aether, and if credulous mankind likes to draw inferences
+for good or bad from these unsubstantial creations of his fancy, he laughs
+to himself with a hollow reverberating sound. It must, however, have been
+in the true spirit of prophecy on the occasion of King Manfred's birth,
+that the genius of the Mountain despatched two cloud-forms into the sky
+(so the unabashed old chroniclers gravely relate), one having the
+appearance of a warrior armed cap-a-pie, and the other that of a fully
+vested priest. The affrighted gazers below, struck with the strange
+phenomenon, beheld the two figures sway towards each other and finally
+become locked together in deadly aerial combat, until all resemblance to
+human shape had vanished from the pair. Then, after an interval of time,
+men perceived the cloudy mass once more assume a mortal shape, and a huge
+towering priest with flowing robes and tiara on head was left in solitary
+and victorious possession of the sky. The Churchman had swallowed up the
+soldier; the Pontiff had vanquished the King; it was a true premonition of
+the fatal field of Benevento, which saw the ultimate triumph of the Papal
+over the Imperial cause.
+
+But if the near presence of the burning mountain has tended to make the
+inhabitants of its immediate zone the slaves of superstitious awe, the
+disasters of generations have likewise imbued them with a spirit of
+fatalism, that appears even stronger than their outward show of credulity.
+Life is not so sweet nor so dear apparently to these children of the
+South, but that they can afford to take their chance of disturbance or
+death with a true philosophic calm. The fisher-folk and maccaroni workers
+of Resina, Portici and the two Torres have, it is true, little to lose; a
+small boat can at the last moment easily convey their families and slender
+stock of household furniture to a place of temporary safety, and when the
+danger is over-past, the same shallop can bring back the refugees and
+their belongings. But with the husbandmen the case is different. Not only
+has he to fear the actual stream of lava, which may or may not overwhelm
+his house and farm in its slow inevitable course, but there are also the
+showers of hot ashes and of scalding water that will frizzle up in a few
+seconds every green blade and leaf upon his tiny domain, for which he pays
+an enormous rental, sometimes as much as L12 sterling an acre. Yet the
+_contadino_ takes his chances with a seraphic resignation that we do not
+usually attribute to the southern temperament. After the eruption of 1872,
+which covered the rich _Paduli_ with a deep coating of grey ashes, a young
+peasant girl was heard deploring the loss of her carefully tended gourds
+and melons; "_Oh come volimme fa? Addio, pummarole! addio, cucuzzielle!_"
+whereupon an older woman, witnessing these useless tears, upbraided her
+with the words: "Do not complain, child, lest worse befall you!" And
+indeed the whole population of the _Paduli_, instead of lamenting over
+their scorched and spoiled crops, were jubilant at the thought that the
+havoc done was only partial, not irrevocable;--a few months of incessant
+labour, said they, would bring back the holdings to their former state of
+perfection. Yet a general opinion prevails among foreigners that the
+Neapolitans are lazy, thriftless and helpless! They indeed rely to a
+certain extent upon St Januarius to protect their crops from the efforts
+of Nature, over which, they argue, the Saint is more likely to possess
+control than his human applicants, but when once the fatal shower of ashes
+has fallen, they do not expect "San Gennaro" to set their injured acres to
+rights again, but with a rare patience turn to the task themselves. A more
+industrious, and at the same time a more capable and practical race of
+agriculturists than the tillers of the slopes of Vesuvius, it would be
+hard to match. And thus in the sunshine of the south, yet ever under the
+shadow of death and destruction, dwell many thousands of human beings, as
+unconcerned as though Vesuvius were miles and miles away. Not unconscious,
+but fully conscious of their doom, the victims of the Mountain toil and
+moil upon the fertile farms (in many cases risen phoenix-like from their
+own ashes) that grow the early beans and tomatoes, the egg-plants and the
+white fennel roots (_finocchi_) that well-fed travellers devour in the
+hotels of Naples. Or else they tend the vines that yield the generous
+_Lagrima Christi_, of which imprudent and heated visitors drink long
+draughts unmixed with water, and then complain of ensuing languor and
+pains beneath their waistcoats. Luscious, yet seductive wine! Counsellor
+of moderation after a first experience of excess! Essence of Vesuvius,
+whose strange name so puzzled the poet Chiabrera!
+
+  "Chi fu de' contadini il si indiscreto,
+  Ch' a sbigottir la gente
+  Diede nome dolente
+  Al vin' che sovra gli altri il cuor fa lieto?
+  Lagrima dunque appellerassi un riso
+  Parte di nobilissima vendemmia?"
+
+  ("Who was the jesting countryman, I cry,
+  That gave so fearsome and so dour a name
+  To that choice vintage, which of all think I
+  Most warms the heart's blood with its genial flame?
+  Smiles, and not tears, the epithet should be
+  Of juice wrung from so fair a vinery.")
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+Scarcely had the above pages been written, than the Mountain, which had
+been drowsing for more than thirty years, suddenly awakened to give
+appalling evidence of its latent activity and powers of mischief. The
+eruption of April 1906 has, in fact, surpassed all previous outbursts
+within living memory, and it may probably be reckoned amongst the most
+violent of all hitherto recorded. Many of the details of this event
+doubtless remain fresh in the memory, and in any case the sad condition of
+numerous towns and villages, and of the beautiful Vesuvian districts, the
+_paesi ridenti_ as the Neapolitans affectionately term these fertile
+lands, will serve for some years to come as a sinister and ever-present
+reminder of the horrors of the past and of the dread possibilities of the
+future. All vegetation for miles around the volcano has been injured or
+destroyed, for not only was the Mountain itself covered deep with grit and
+ashes, but the streets and gardens of Naples, the luxuriant plain of
+Sorrento, and even the heights of Capri, twenty miles distant across the
+Bay, were shrouded in a funereal mantle of the greyish-yellow dust that
+Vesuvius had flung into the air to let fall like a shower of parching and
+destructive rain upon the earth. How vast was the amount of matter ejected
+from the crater and scattered in this form over the surrounding country,
+we may judge from the scientific calculation that 315,000 tons fell in
+Naples alone! Everywhere appeared the same scenes of desolation, the same
+dreary tint, for so thickly had this aerial torrent of ashes descended,
+that buildings, trees and plants were completely hidden by it, the whole
+landscape suggesting the idea of a recent heavy fall of dirty-coloured
+snow. _Paesi ridenti_, indeed! It was a land of ugliness and mourning, a
+city of stifling air and of human terror.
+
+A few days previous to the eruption, which began on April 5th, the island
+of Ustica, which lies some forty miles north of Palermo, had been visited
+by earthquake shocks of such violence that the Italian Government at last
+decided to remove the greater part of its population to the mainland, as
+well as the convicts attached to the penal settlements on the island.
+Scarcely had these manifestations ceased at Ustica, than Vesuvius began to
+show signs of increased activity; the supplies in the wells on the
+mountain sides began to fail, and there was observed a strong taste of
+sulphur in the drinking water; whilst--most dreaded phenomenon of all--the
+ever-active crater of Stromboli, that lies midway between Naples and
+Messina, suddenly lapsed into quiescence. We all know the subsequent story
+of the outbreak; of the thousands of fugitives flying into Naples or other
+places of refuge; of the utter destruction of houses and cultivated
+lands;--the doleful scenes of a Vesuvian eruption have been enacted and
+described time after time in the history of the Mountain, and there is
+every reason to suppose they will be repeated at intervals for centuries
+to come. The marvel is how human beings can calmly settle down and pass
+their lives so close to the jaws of the fire-spouting monster, and why an
+intelligent Government permits its subjects to dwell in places which are
+ever exposed to catastrophes such as that which we have just witnessed.
+Well, it is the natural temperament of the Vesuviani to be fatalistic,
+despite their religious fervour; and acts of legislature cannot force them
+to abandon their old deep-rooted notions; all that the Italian Government
+can do therefore is to stand ready prepared to help, when the upheaval
+_does_ occur, as it inevitably must.
+
+It is always a matter of speculation on these occasions as to what course
+the ejected lava will pursue; whose turn, of the many settlements on the
+southern slopes of the Mountain, will it be to suffer? This time it was
+Bosco-Trecase, a village above Torre Annunziata, that was devastated by
+the sinuous masses of incandescent matter, high as a house and broad as a
+river. Torre Annunziata itself, as also ruined Pompeii were threatened,
+but the red-hot streams of destruction mercifully stopped short of their
+expected prey. The story of horrors and panic in the overthrow of
+Bosco-Trecase is happily relieved by many a recorded incident of valour
+and unselfishness. The royal _Carabinieri_, that splendid body of mounted
+police, who in their cocked hats and voluminous cloaks appear as
+ornamental in times of quiet as they prove themselves useful in the stormy
+hours of peril, acquitted themselves, as usual, like heroes. It was they
+who guided away the trembling peasants before the advance of the lava,
+searching the doomed houses for sick and crippled, whom they carried on
+their shoulders to places of security. Working, too, with almost equal
+zeal and practical good sense were the Italian soldiers, who richly
+deserved the praise that their royal commander, the Duke of Aosta,
+subsequently bestowed upon them for their invaluable services rendered
+during these fearful days of darkness and danger. "Soldiers!" declared the
+Duke, in his address to the troops on April 23rd, "I have seen you calm
+and happy in the work of alleviating the misfortunes of others, and I put
+on record the praise you have won. By promptly appearing at the places
+distressed by the eruption, you have encouraged the people by your
+presence and your example; you have maintained order and have safe-guarded
+property. Helping the local authorities, and even in some instances
+filling their offices, you have carried out the most urgent and dangerous
+duties in order to save the houses and to keep clear the roads. In the
+spots most heavily afflicted you have lent your assistance in removing and
+caring for the injured, and in searching for and burying the dead you have
+given proofs of great self-sacrifice and reverence (_pieta_). Not a few of
+the refugees have obtained food and shelter in your barracks, and whole
+communities without means of existence have been provided by you with the
+necessaries of life. Everywhere and from all your conduct has gained you
+loud applause. Nevertheless, your task is not yet ended; continue at it
+out of love for your country and devotion to your King!"(5)
+
+With such a reputation for kindness of heart and energy in time of need,
+no wonder that the Army is popular with all classes in Italy!
+
+Nor did the King and Queen hold aloof from the scene of disaster, for they
+hurried from Rome at midnight of that terrible Palm Sunday on purpose to
+comfort the terror-stricken population. Victor-Emmanuel even penetrated in
+his motor-car as far as Torre Annunziata, in spite of the fumes of sulphur
+and the many difficulties in proceeding along roads clogged deep with
+volcanic dust and ashes. On another occasion the King and Queen paid a
+visit to the afflicted district of the slopes of Monte Somma, where
+Ottajano and San Giuseppe had been almost buried by the continuous falling
+of burning material from the crater. In fact, these localities suffered
+even more severely than the towns on the seaward face of the Mountain
+(Bosco-Trecase excepted), and at Ottajano hardly a house in the place
+remained intact at the close of the eruption, whilst the loss of human
+life was probably higher here than elsewhere. The Duke and Duchess of
+Aosta--he the king's cousin, and she the popular Princess Helene, daughter
+of the late Comte de Paris--were likewise indefatigable in their efforts to
+assist and reassure the demoralized population, and to make every possible
+arrangement for the feeding and housing of the numberless refugees and the
+tending of the injured in the hospitals of Naples. Equally valorous was
+the conduct of the great scientist, Professor Matteucci, who remained
+together with a few Carabinieri throughout all phases of the eruption at
+the Vesuvian Observatory, although in imminent peril of death amidst a
+deadly atmosphere of heat and sulphureous fumes.
+
+It was on April 5th that the streams of burning lava first burst from the
+riven crater and made their way down the south-eastern slopes, destroying
+Bosco-Trecase and reaching to the very suburbs of Torre Annunziata.
+Pompeii itself was imperilled, and it is always well to remember that
+during an eruption this precious relic of antiquity may possibly be lost
+to the world. Meanwhile the rain of ashes and mud--formed by dust and hot
+water commingling--fell incessantly; 150,000 inhabitants of the Vesuvian
+districts fled in precipitate flight towards Naples, towards the shore,
+towards the hill country beyond the Sarno. It was truly a marvellous
+spectacle to observe the relentless stream of burning lava crushing
+irresistibly every opposing object in its fatal path. Onlookers at a
+distance could perceive the walls of houses bulging outward under pressure
+of the moving mass, until the roof collapsed in an avalanche of tiles upon
+the ground, whilst with a final crash the whole structure--cottage, farm,
+church or stately villa--succumbed to the overwhelming weight.
+
+Many are the tales of courage and intrepidity; not a few, alas! are the
+stories of folly and cowardice that are related in connection with the
+eruption. It cannot be said that the population of Naples, where everybody
+was perfectly safe even if the atmosphere was unpleasant and the distant
+thunders of the Mountain reverberated alarmingly, comported itself with
+dignity or calm; and this criticism applies in particular to the hundreds
+of visitors--English, German, American and other _forestieri_--who besieged
+the railway station in frantic and indecent anxiety to remove themselves
+with all speed from the city. Some excuse might perhaps be found for the
+hysterical terror of the poor inhabitants of the Mergellina or the
+Mercato, who spent their time in wailing within the churches or in
+screaming for the public exhibition of the venerated relics of their
+patron Saint, which again on this occasion the Archbishop, _nolens
+volens_, was compelled by the mob to produce. But for the great mass of
+educated foreigners then filling the hotels and pensions of the place, it
+cannot be said that their conduct was edifying, particularly in face of
+the example set by the King and Queen of Italy. To add to the general
+panic prevailing in the city, the Neapolitans themselves were not
+unnaturally greatly exasperated by the serious accident which took place
+at the Central Market Hall near Monte Oliveto in the heart of the old
+town. Here, early one morning during the course of the eruption, the great
+roof of corrugated iron collapsed, killing many and frightening the whole
+of the populace, already sufficiently unnerved by recent events. That this
+catastrophe was due to the casual methods, amounting in this case to
+criminal neglect of plain duty, of the municipal authorities, who had
+neglected to sweep the accumulation of heavy volcanic ash from off the
+thin metal roof, none can deny; and this glaring example of public
+stupidity had of course a bad effect on the demoralized multitude, which
+threatened to grow unruly, as well as terrified. No, the graceless
+stampede of educated foreigners to the railway-station, the incompetence
+of the Municipality, and the behaviour of the Neapolitan crowd do not
+appear very creditable to the supposed enlightenment of the twentieth
+century. It had been confidently predicted that nearly fifty years of
+State education and liberal government would work wonders in dispelling
+the crass ignorance and the deep-seated superstition of the dwellers on
+the Bay of Naples. Yet, so far as can be judged from recent events,
+matters seem to have changed but little on these shores, for the mass of
+the population evidently preferred to pin its hope of safety to the
+miracle-working relics of San Gennaro, rather than to the reassuring
+messages of Professor Matteucci, sent from his post of undoubted peril on
+the mountain-side.
+
+If the inhabitants of a great city, which was never seriously threatened
+with danger, should have acted thus, there is undoubtedly much excuse to
+be found for the Vesuviani themselves, whose houses and lives were
+certainly in danger from the devastating streams of lava. It was with a
+sigh and a smile that we learned how the good people of Portici attributed
+their escape from the fate of Bosco-Trecase to the direct interposition of
+a wonder-working Madonna enshrined in one of their own churches. For some
+days the town had been threatened, so that many were convinced of its
+impending doom, when happily at the last moment the expected fate was
+averted, as though by a miracle. And miracle it truly was in the eyes of
+the people of Portici, when it was observed that the snow-white hands of
+their popular Madonna had turned black in some mysterious manner during
+the night hours. What could be a simpler or easier deduction from this
+circumstance, than that Our Lady's Effigy, taking pity on its affrighted
+suppliants, had with its own hands pushed back the advancing mass of lava,
+and thus saved the town! Great was the joy, and equally great the
+gratitude, displayed by these poor souls at Portici, who at once organised
+a triumphal procession in honour of their prescient patroness "delle mani
+nere." Does not such an incident, we ask, lend a touch of picturesque
+medievalism to a modern scene of horror and darkness, exhibiting to us, as
+it does, the traits of a simple touching faith and of genuine human
+thankfulness?
+
+Well, the great eruption of 1906 is over, and the inhabitants of the
+Vesuvian communes are once more settling down in their ruined homes, or
+their damaged farms and gardens. No doubt a new Bosco-Trecase will arise
+on the shapeless ruins of the old site, for fear of danger seems powerless
+to deter the outcast population from reoccupying its old haunts. Ottajano
+will be rebuilt, not for the first time, and its citizens will again trust
+to luck--and to St Januarius--for protection from the evil fate which has
+repeatedly overtaken their town. The two Torres, Resina, Portici, and the
+villages along the shore, have this time contrived to escape the lava
+streams, and though their buildings have been severely shaken, and even
+wrecked in many instances, the people will doubtless mend the cracks in
+their walls and place fresh tiles on the injured roofs. They are wise in
+their own generation, for the Mountain is not likely to burst forth again
+for another quarter of a century at least after so violent a fit, _salvo
+complicazioni_, of course, as the more cautious Italians themselves say.
+But another outburst is inevitable; and whose turn to suffer will it be
+then? Will it be Portici, or either of the Torres? Who knows?--and what
+dweller under Vesuvius to-day cares at this moment? "Under Vesuvius," but
+it is a new Vesuvius, for the tall cone which was so conspicuous a feature
+of the Bay of Naples has disappeared completely, and the summit of the
+volcano has been once more reduced to the level of Monte Somma. How many
+years, we wonder, will be required for the Mountain to raise for itself
+once more the tall pyre of ashes that it has itself demolished and flung
+on all sides to the winds? At any rate let us now look for a period of
+rest, a period of prosperity to recoup the disturbed denizens of these
+_paesi gia ridenti_ for their heavy losses and terrible experiences.
+_Speriamo._
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER V
+
+
+              THE CORNICHE ROAD FROM CASTELLAMARE TO AMALFI
+
+
+It is without any feelings of regret that we learn of the non-existence of
+a railway line beyond Castellamare, so that our journey to Amalfi along
+the coast must be performed in the good old-fashioned manner of long-past
+_vetturino_ days. Three skinny horses harnessed abreast are standing ready
+at the hotel door to draw our travelling chariot, each member of the team
+gorgeously decked with plumes of pheasant feathers in his head-gear and
+with many-coloured trappings, whilst on the harness itself appears in more
+than one place the little brazen hand, which is supposed to ensure the
+steed's safety from the dangers of any chance _jettatore_, the unlucky
+wight endowed with the Evil Eye. Nor is the swarthy picturesque ruffian
+who acts as our driver unprovided with a talisman in case of emergency,
+for we observe hanging from his heavy silver watch-chain the long twisted
+horn of pink coral, which is popularly supposed to catch the first baleful
+glance, and to act on the principle of a lightning-conductor, in
+deflecting the approaching danger from the prudent wearer of the coral
+trinket. Merrily to the sound of jingling bells and the deep-chested
+exhortations of our coachman do we bowl along the excellent road in the
+freshness of the morning air and light "through varying scenes of beauty
+ever led," for the Corniche road towards Amalfi is admitted to be one of
+the finest in the world. Following the serpentine curves above the cliffs,
+we have on our right hand the dazzling Mediterranean with classic capes
+and islands all flushed in the early sunshine, whilst above us on the left
+rise the steep fertile slopes of the Lactarian Hills. Convent and villa,
+cottage and farmhouse, peep out of embowering verdure, whilst our road is
+shaded in many places by the overhanging boughs of blossoming almond and
+loquat trees. The whole region is in truth a veritable garden of the
+Hesperides, where in the mild equable climate fruit and flowers ripen and
+bloom without a break throughout the rolling year.
+
+  [Illustration: POZZANO]
+
+  "Tall thriving trees confess'd the fruitful mould;
+  The verdant apple ripens here to gold;
+  Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows,
+  With deepest red the full pomegranate glows,
+  The branches bend beneath the weighty pear,
+  And silver olives flourish all the year;
+  The balmy spirit of the western gale
+  Eternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail.
+  Each dropping pear another pear supplies,
+  On apples apples, figs on figs arise;
+  The same mild season gives the blooms to blow,
+  The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow."
+
+A lovely and a fertile scene it is indeed, and thoroughly typical of the
+peculiar charm of Southern Italy, wherein the rich well-tilled lands
+appear in striking contrast with the near-lying stony fallows and
+scrub-covered wastes.
+
+Beneath the picturesque pile of Santa Maria a Pozzano, perched aloft above
+the roadway, we pass along the edge of the sea-girt precipice, rounding
+the Capo d'Orlando, until we reach the pretty little town of Vico Equense,
+with its churches and gay-coloured villas nestling amidst groves of olive
+and orange trees. Vico owes its prosperity in the first instance to the
+patronage of "Carlo il Zoppo," Charles the Dwarf, the lame son and heir of
+King Charles of Anjou, who founded a settlement and built a villa upon the
+site of the ancient Roman colony; and it was in the old royal demesne of
+the Angevins that the hand of the deformed king's daughter, the Princess
+Clementia, was demanded formally in marriage by the French monarch, Philip
+the Bold, who sought to marry her to his third son, Charles of Valois. The
+match between the young prince of France and his cousin, the Neapolitan
+princess, appeared suitable to all concerned in every respect save one;
+for it was well known that the King of Naples had been lame from his
+birth, and it could never be deemed fit for the expected heir of France to
+marry any but a perfectly sound and healthy bride. Now the Queen of Naples
+was too proud to accede to the hints of the French ladies, who evidently
+were most anxious to acquaint themselves with the satisfactory condition
+of her daughter's "walking members," though she went so far as to allow
+the maiden to appear before them clad only in a flowing robe of gossamer
+silk. The possible danger of losing her opportunity to become Queen of
+France proved, however, beyond the ambitious young lady's powers of
+endurance, and to the horror of her haughty mother and the delight of the
+foreign emissaries, the Princess Clementia then and there doffed her
+silken robes and appeared before all in the historic garb of Lady Godiva.
+A glance at the princess's form _in puris naturalibus_ sufficed to
+convince the inquisitive Frenchwomen that no hereditary taint from Il
+Zoppo descended to his daughter; and accordingly the betrothal of the two
+young people was celebrated that very evening amidst the usual revels and
+feastings.
+
+The clean cheerful town on the sheer limestone crags boasts a cathedral,
+wherein, so the guide-book informs us, we shall find the tomb of
+Filangieri, the great Italian jurist. But the building contains in reality
+far more stirring associations than those connected with a prominent
+lawyer. It is but a rococo structure of the usual Italian type, and its
+painted series of portraits of past bishops is by no means an uncommon
+complement of cathedral churches in the South. But here, amidst the long
+rows of indifferent portraits, we note an omission, a space that is
+occupied, not by a likeness but by a medallion, which represents a cherub
+with the forefinger of his right hand laid as a seal of silence upon the
+lips. Here-by indeed hangs a tale, obscure perhaps, but pathetic and human
+to the last degree. We all remember the broad frieze filled with Doges'
+faces which is carried round the great hall of the ducal palace in Venice,
+wherein the place assigned to the traitor, Marino Faliero, contains a
+black veil instead of the usual portrait. Here in little Vico Equense is
+to be found a somewhat similar incident, but with this important
+difference:--the bishop whose portrait is here omitted was the most worthy
+of remembrance of all his peers.
+
+The crime of Monsignore Michele Natale, Bishop of Vico Equense, to which
+the silent cherub bears everlasting witness, was that of being a patriot
+and a Liberal (in the truest sense of that term) during the anxious times
+of the ill-fated Parthenopean Republic, that short-lived period of
+aristocratic government which was set up in self-defence by certain
+Neapolitan nobles, prelates and men of science after the abrupt departure
+of their cowardly King and Queen to Palermo. We all remember the terrible
+ending of that government: how the vile rabble-army of Cardinal Ruffo
+assaulted Naples; how the city capitulated to the Cardinal on the express
+condition that all life and property should be spared; and how Lord
+Nelson, refusing to recognise the terms that Ruffo himself had agreed to,
+and overruling the Cardinal's protests, treated the unhappy prisoners. The
+Bishop of Vico Equense was one of this band of martyrs, for he suffered
+death under circumstances of exceptional brutality on the morning of
+August 20th 1799, in the piazza in front of the church of the Carmine,
+together with two Neapolitans of noble rank, Giuliano Colonna and Gennaro
+Serra, and with the poetess, Eleonora Pimentel, a Portuguese by birth but
+the widow of a Neapolitan officer. All went nobly to their doom amidst the
+execrations of the demoralised bloodthirsty mob of _lazzaroni_, yelling at
+and insulting the "Jacobins," and kept back with no little difficulty by
+the royal troops from mutilating the corpses of women, bishops and
+princes. Monsignore Natale himself was hanged, and in his case the public
+executioner--"Masto Donato" as he was nick-named by the populace--gave vent
+to many pleasantries concerning the episcopal rank of his victim.
+Blindfolded and with the cord of infamy depending from his neck, the
+Bishop was led up to the fatal ladder amid deafening shouts of
+
+  "Viva la forca e Masto Donato;
+  Sant' Antonio sia priato!"
+
+On reaching the top of the gallows, the hangman made fast the rope to the
+cross-tree, and then an assistant (_tirapiede_) from below adroitly pushed
+the unseeing prisoner into space, catching on to his legs meanwhile,
+whilst "Masto Donato" himself adroitly leaped from the gallows-top upon
+the prelate's shoulder. With the hangman on his back, shouting aloud how
+much he was enjoying his ride upon a real bishop, and with the other
+ruffian clinging to his heels, Monsignore Natale swayed backwards and
+forwards amidst yells of execration and gratified hate on that hot August
+morning in front of the Church of the Carmine little more than one hundred
+years ago. His body was left on the gallows to be insulted by the mob
+throughout the long sweltering day, and then, stripped of all its
+clothing, was finally flung with other corpses of noble men and women into
+a charnel-house at Sant' Alessio al Lavinaio. Who it was that placed this
+quaint little memorial to the murdered prelate in his cathedral church we
+know not; but here the speechless yet eloquent cherub tells Natale's sad
+story of brutality and injustice to all who care to listen. Happily the
+spell of silence is at length broken, and the true history of that hateful
+era of crime, cruelty, lying, and intrigue is gradually being revealed;
+and the enemies of the Church in Italy learn with an astonishment, which
+is perhaps feigned, that in that glorious army of martyrs of 1799 more
+than one ecclesiastic of high rank suffered in the ill-starred and
+premature cause of Neapolitan liberty.
+
+Crossing the little river Arco, we proceed uphill through the region of
+vines and olives, until we have passed the Punta di Scutolo, where begins
+our descent into that famous tract of country, the Piano di Sorrento, a
+plateau above the cliffs, some four miles in length by one in breadth.
+Poets of antiquity and bards of the Middle Ages alike have sung the
+delights of the Sorrentine Plain, and have painted in glowing colours of
+inspired verse its race of happy peasants, its fruitful fields and
+orchards, its luscious vines, its excellent flocks. Galen, the cunning old
+physician, recommended to his nervous patients what would now be termed a
+"rest cure" in these favoured regions; whilst the grateful Bernardo Tasso,
+father of the immortal Torquato, speaks of the capital of this district as
+"l'Albergo della Cortesia," and in an ecstasy of delighted appreciation,
+goes on to add: "l'aere e si sereno, si temperato, si salutifero, si
+vitale, che gli uomini che senza provar altero cielo ci vivono sono quasi
+immortali." And though praise from Torquato's courtly sire must not be
+taken too seriously, yet few will deny that the beautiful plain deserves
+many of the eulogies that have been showered upon it. At the small town of
+Meta, the next place of importance after Sorrento itself, the road divides
+at the Church of the Madonna of the Laurel: our way to Amalfi leading
+southward over the opposing ridge--the "Sorrentini Colles" of Ovid--whilst
+the other traverses the length of the plain by way of Pozzopiano and Sant'
+Agnello, until it reaches Sorrento.
+
+One prominent feature of this district has already attracted our
+attention; the number of deep ravines with which the whole plain is
+intersected. These natural clefts are marvellously lovely in their rich
+luxuriance of foliage, and with their precipitous sides and verdure-clad
+depths will recall the wonderful _latomie_, the ancient stone-quarries of
+Syracuse. Their depths are filled with orange and lemon trees, mingled
+with sable spires of cypress and the tall forms of bays, which here bear
+jet-black berries, such as are rarely seen in our northern clime; whilst
+the edges of the cliffs are clothed with a serried mass of wild flowers;
+red valerian, crimson snap-dragon, tall blue campanulas, the dark green
+wild fennel, white-blossoming cistus, and a hundred other plants, gay with
+colour and strong with aromatic perfume.
+
+  "The quarry's edge is lined with many a plant,
+  With many a flower distilling fragrant dew
+  From brightly coloured petals. Almond trees
+  Give snowy promise of sweet leaves and fruit;
+  Here all the scented tangle of the South
+  Covers the boulders, calcined by the sun
+  To pearly whiteness; thorn or asphodel
+  Sprout from each cranny of the topmost ledge
+  To nod against the deep blue sky, or peer
+  Into the verdure-clad abyss below."
+
+It is not surprising to learn that these romantic glens, filled with
+greenery, are reputed locally to be the haunts of fairies, _Monacelli_, as
+the Sorrentine inhabitants name them. Like the "good folk" of certain
+country districts in England, the pixies of Devonshire, and the "Tylwyth
+Teg" of rural Wales, these elfin people of the ravines are not malicious
+or unkindly in their nature, but they are particular and somewhat exacting
+in certain matters. They appreciate the attentions of mortal men, and
+offerings of fresh milk or choice fruit are not beneath the notice of the
+Monacelli. Borrowing the idea from the votive offerings they make in the
+churches to the Virgin and the Saints, the peasants sometimes place little
+lamps in the fern-draped grottoes of these gullies, and to such as
+punctually perform these acts of courtesy, the Monacelli frequently show
+signs of favour. The _padrone_ of a local inn has assured us that he and
+his wife stood very high in the good graces of the little people, who had
+on one occasion actually written them a letter, although as the characters
+employed were unknown to any person in the village, the object of their
+communication by this means seems somewhat of a mystery. Another and a
+more practical instance of their patronage was then related, for the
+favoured landlord assured us that on one occasion, when he and his wife
+descended downstairs in the morning, they found the house cleared, the
+hearth ready swept, and all the contents of last night's supper-table
+relaid on the brick floor, but _d'un modo squisito_, such as no human hand
+could ever have been deft enough to contrive. Just a simple innocent
+trifle of Sorrentine folk-lore, but how closely does it resemble the
+old-time gossip of rustic England, of which the great poet has left us so
+charming a picture!--
+
+  "Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat
+  To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
+  When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
+  His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
+  That ten day labourers could not end."
+
+For, as we have already said, the Monacelli show themselves grateful to
+those who anticipate their wants, and will serve their votaries with
+industry and fidelity. _Fuore avra il Monacello in casa_--perhaps he has
+had the Fairy in the house--has passed into a local phrase to designate a
+neighbour's unexplained prosperity. But, again, the lucky recipient of
+these favours must never blab or even hint at the origin of his good
+fortune, for all gossip is highly distasteful to the fairy folk; and that,
+we suppose, is the true reason why so little authentic information can be
+gleaned as to the methods of the Monacelli.
+
+In direct contrast with the Monacelli of the ravines, who are, on the
+whole, well inclined towards mortals, are the Maghe, first cousins
+evidently to the terrible _ginns_ of Arabian folk-lore; perhaps the
+Saracenic pirates themselves may have introduced their oriental sprites to
+the Neapolitan shores. In the popular mind the Maghe are supposed to
+possess vast treasures hidden in caves by the seashore, or on the bleak
+mountain side, and it was doubtless concerning these spirits that the
+guide's tale, given in a previous chapter, relates. The most celebrated
+Maga of all is the demon who haunts a certain underground corridor near
+Pozzuoli, containing an immense hoard of gold and jewels, which he is
+willing to present to anybody that is ready to give in exchange a new-born
+baby, presumably for purposes of devouring. Nor was the general belief in
+the cave-dwelling monster at Pozzuoli limited to the poor peasants and
+fisher-folk, for rumour persistently asserted that King Francis of Naples,
+father of Bomba of impious memory, more than once attempted to negotiate
+with the guardian of this buried treasure; but the Maga's terms, it seems,
+were too bloodthirsty and extravagant even for a Neapolitan Bourbon to
+comply with, and in that case they must indeed have been pretty startling.
+Malignant fairies are, in short, quite common upon the Sorrentine plain,
+where exasperated mothers are sometimes in the habit of frightening their
+squalling children into silence by threatening to introduce them to
+_Mammone_--perhaps a corruption of the old Greek word _mormo_--a terrible
+ghost, that must be a near relation to the "Big Black Man" of English
+nurseries, who is ever ready to carry off naughty boys and girls in his
+sack.
+
+But the whole of the Sorrentine Peninsula is full of local superstitions,
+the vast majority of which can easily be traced to the influence of
+Catholicism, whilst comparatively few seem to be the legacy of ancient
+Greek or Roman mythology. Belief in witchcraft is universal in these
+parts, but the witch herself (_strega_) is regarded somewhat in the light
+of a beneficent "wise woman," who can arrest the far more dreaded spell of
+the Evil Eye, rather than as the malevolent old hag of bucolic England in
+the past. Certainly there has never been recorded in Southern Italy any
+such popular persecution of poor harmless old crones as once disgraced
+English countrysides; nor has any Italian jurist, like the erudite Sir
+Matthew Hale, ever condescended to supply legal information concerning the
+peculiarities of witches, and the best methods of prosecuting and burning
+them. But the _strega_, though not as a rule dangerous to mankind,
+provided she be not disturbed or insulted, has the same supernatural power
+of transit on a broomstick that is possessed by her northern sister. On
+many a dark night have the peasants crossed themselves with fear on
+hearing the witches flying through the storm-vexed air to keep their
+unholy tryst beside the famous walnut tree of Benevento, which has been
+described for us by the learned Pietro Piperno in his mysterious treatise,
+entitled _De Nuce Beneventana_. Even snatches of the witches' song can
+sometimes be distinguished above the howling of the gale--
+
+  "Sott' aero e sopra vento,
+  Sotto la Nuce di Benevento!"
+
+Perhaps it may afford some consolation to those who have a dread of
+witches that the word "Sabato," solemnly pronounced on these awful
+occasions, is of real service to the utterer; whilst such as have had the
+good fortune to be born on a Friday in March are permanently placed
+outside the evil power of their spells, since our Saviour was crucified on
+a Friday in that month.
+
+But at length we have finished the ascent of the ridge, and our driver
+halts for a moment at the inn of the "Due Golfi." A smiling damsel,
+dressed in the picturesque native costume, advances to offer us the
+national drink of Italy, sweet vermouth that is frothed up with a little
+fizzing water in a narrow tumbler; and though carriage exercise is not
+liable to produce thirst, yet we cannot be so churlish as to refuse the
+draught, especially as the delay allows us to take our farewell look at
+the Bay of Naples. For here we have reached the peak of the rocky saddle
+that divides the two famous gulfs; and before us we now behold the wide
+crescent of the Bay of Salerno with its sunburnt vineyards and its
+precipitous cliffs. To our right we perceive the craggy headlands
+stretching southward till they culminate in the Cape of Minerva:--how much
+more attractive sounds the good old classical name than the new-fangled
+Punta della Campanella, so called from the alarm bell which used to be
+tolled in the ruined fortress at the approach of the Moslem pirate
+galleys! Vastly different is the aspect on this side of the peninsula to
+that which we have just left behind us. There is the plain below us,
+thickly dotted with farms and villas set amidst crops and orchards, a
+fertile scene of industry and population; here on the Salerno side are
+wild stony tracts affording only pasturage for a few sheep and goats, and
+covered for miles with broom, cytizus, coronella, myrtle, and numberless
+fragrant weeds, all struggling fiercely for existence on the dry barren
+soil, and filling the clear air with an incense-like perfume. Such is our
+first acquaintance with the Costiera d'Amalfi, that wonderful stretch of
+indented rocky coast-line once containing the Republic of Amalfi, which
+was the forerunner of the glorious Commonwealths of Florence and Venice.
+From the grey cliffs of Capri to the west, as far as the headland beside
+Salerno, stretched this diminutive state, composed of a confederacy of
+sister-cities, whereof Amalfi herself was the queen and metropolis. Its
+glories have long vanished, but the Costiera d'Amalfi remains an enchanted
+land, not only on account of its natural beauties, but also by reason of
+its historical associations which give an additional charm to every breezy
+headland and every little town upon this wonderful shore.
+
+Below us, as we rapidly descend the slopes by the curves of the Corniche
+road, lies the little beach known as Lo Scaricotojo, whence in the days
+previous to the construction of this splendid highway all visitors were
+wont to embark for Amalfi;--that is, unless they attempted the expedition
+by way of the mountain roads leading thither from Castellamare or La Cava.
+It raises a smile in these days of swift and luxurious travelling to learn
+from an early Victorian guide-book that "the most elegible mode of going
+from Sorrento to Amalfi is either to ride or to be carried in a _chaise a
+porteurs_ to that part of the Colli where begins a rapid descent, and
+thence descending on foot to the Marinella of the Scaricotojo on the Gulf
+of Salerno.... The ride occupies about an hour and a quarter, and the
+descent which, though steep, is not dangerous, occupies about an hour."
+_Nous avons change tout ca_; yet there are still living amongst us those
+who lament the passing away of the old-fashioned days of Italian travel,
+when inns were bad but picturesque, and expeditions to such remote places
+as Amalfi were not only difficult but even dangerous; since in
+compensation for slow progress and risk of brigands every town owned a
+primitive charm which is now rapidly disappearing before the modern
+irruption of locust-like swarms of tourists with their motor cars, their
+luncheon baskets, and their kodaks. Well, to the majority of travellers
+the value of natural scenery is not a little enhanced by the sense of
+comfort, and here on the Costiera d'Amalfi the most particular can have no
+cause to complain, since it is one of the few lovely spots of Southern
+Europe that has not yet been invaded by the dividend-paying railway. No,
+the old Republic retains to a great extent its ancient atmosphere of
+unspoiled beauty and remoteness from the bustling world. It is still a
+stretch of glorious and historic country wherein one can obtain a pleasant
+and valued respite for a time from the overpowering improvements of an
+industrial age.
+
+As we look southward across the breadth of the Bay, our eye is at once
+caught by the group of the Isles of the Sirens, which, though in reality
+fully a mile distant from the nearest point of the coast, seem in this
+clear atmosphere as though they were lying within a stone's throw of the
+beach. Around these bare bluffs of rock, seemingly flung by the hand of
+Nature in a sportive mood into the blue waves, lingers one of the most
+insidious of all the old Greek legends, for it was past these lonely
+cliffs that the cunning Ulysses sailed during his long career of mazy
+wanderings in search of his island home and his faithful Penelope. In
+those days, so the Greek bard tells us, there dwelt upon these islets
+strange sea-witches with the faces and forms of most beautiful maidens,
+although their lower limbs had the resemblance of eagles' feet and talons.
+Two sirens only, says Homer, dwelt upon these coasts, although later poets
+have increased the number of the fatal sisters to three or even four.
+Singing the most enchanting songs to the sound of tortoise-shell lyres,
+there used to bask in the sunlight beside the gentle ripple the Sirens,
+their nether limbs well hidden from the gaze of passing seamen, who,
+attracted by the tuneful notes, hastened hither to discover the
+whereabouts of the musicians. Innocent eyes, angelic faces, flowing golden
+locks and white beckoning hands had every power to draw the curious
+mariner nearer and nearer, until he came within reach of the fell
+enchantresses. For the Sirens loved the flesh of mortals, and bleached
+skulls and bones of digested victims lay in heaps upon the sandy floor of
+their azure-hued caverns. Gold and jewels, too, the spoils of many a brave
+galley that had been lured to destruction by these charmers, likewise
+littered their retreat, and perhaps it was as much the glittering of this
+gold as their own lovely features that in certain cases enticed the wary
+merchant into this fatal trap. Gold and a pretty face: what male heart
+could be proof against the double temptation the Isles of the Sirens
+offered to the navigator in the days of the Odyssey! Only one sailor over
+these seas proved himself a match for the wiles of the cruel goddesses of
+the Amalfitan coast; for Ulysses, as we know, stopped the ears of his
+companions with wax on their approach towards this dangerous spot, whilst
+he himself, always eager to hear and see everything yet perfectly well
+aware of the Sirens' magnetic power, had himself tightly bound by cords to
+the mast. So whilst the deaf rowers stolidly tugged at their oars,
+oblivious of the weird unearthly melody around them, the clever King of
+Ithaca gained the honour of becoming the only mortal who had listened to
+that subtle song without paying the penalty of a hideous and ignoble
+death.
+
+It is strangely disappointing to find that no recollection of Sirens or of
+Ulysses lingers in the lore of the present dwellers upon these coasts.
+They have no more notion of the aspect of a Siren than they have of a
+pleisosaurus, and, as a modern writer naively complains, they are not
+sharp-witted enough to invent fanciful tales to please the enquiring
+foreigner. Nor is this lack of intelligence to be wondered at, when we
+recall to mind the clean sweep of all classical learning and tradition
+which that period of time, truly known as the Dark Ages, made throughout
+Italy; if Petrarch found it necessary to explain to King Robert the Wise
+with the greatest tact and delicacy that Vergil was a poet and not a
+wizard, what must have been the appalling ignorance prevailing amongst the
+peasant and the fisherman? And yet these barren rocks were known as the
+Isles of the Sirens centuries before the verses of the Aeneid immortalized
+the mythic voyage of the Trojan adventurer, who passed along this
+iron-bound coast on his way towards the mouth of Tiber. Their modern, or
+rather medieval name of I Galli is somewhat of a puzzle. Erudite scholars
+affect to derive it from Guallo, a fortress captured during a war between
+King Roger and the Republic of Amalfi, but this explanation, we confess,
+does not sound very reasonable. Others prefer to imagine that the word
+Gallo (a cock) contains an allusion to the claws and feathers of the
+Sirens themselves, for certain of the ancient writers endowed these dire
+Virgins of the Rocks with the wings as well as the claws of birds;--in
+fact, they represented them as Harpies, those horrible fowls with women's
+faces that appeared upon the scene at Prospero's bidding to spoil the bad
+king's supper party. But why, if the Sirens were female,--and on this point
+all their critics agree with an unanimity that is wonderful--should their
+ancient haunts be called "The Cocks?" The untutored natives themselves,
+understanding nothing of Sirens or of Odysseys, hold their own theory with
+regard to the disputed name, which they connect with the construction of a
+harbour at distant Salerno, and though this legend sounds foolish enough,
+it is scarcely less flimsy than the notions already quoted. A certain
+enchanter, one Pietro Bajalardo, undertook--in modern parlance,
+contracted--to build in a single night the much needed breakwater at
+Salerno on the strange condition that all cocks in the neighbourhood
+should first be killed; for the wizard, so the story runs, had a special
+aversion to Chanticleer on account of his having caused the repentance of
+St Peter by his crowing. In any case, the reigning Prince of Salerno
+gladly complied with the eccentric request, and at his command every cock
+in or near the place was accordingly slaughtered, with the solitary
+exception of one old rooster, who, being very dear to the heart of his
+aged mistress, was kept concealed beneath a tub and thus escaped the
+general holocaust. Throughout the livelong night Bajalardo was busily
+engaged in superintending the work of building the harbour, whilst the
+fiends who carried out his behest were actively conveying huge blocks of
+broken cliff from the Cape of Minerva to place in the waters of Salerno.
+But at daybreak the cock imprisoned beneath the tub, the sole survivor of
+his race, according to natural custom announced the dawn, to the despair
+of Bajalardo and the terror of his attendant fiends, who in their
+precipitate flight dropped into the sea near the Punta Sant' Elia the huge
+masses of stone they were then carrying; and these rocks are called by men
+I Galli in consequence to this day.
+
+But, to be strictly impartial, it was not the Sirens alone who were
+responsible for all the victims who perished on these arid rocks. _Homo
+homini lupus_; man is always ready to prey upon man, and many of the dark
+tales concerning the Galli go to prove the truth of the terrible old
+adage. At what period the Sirens abandoned their ancient retreat and swam
+or flew away to more congenial haunts is unknown to history; but certain
+it is that the rulers of proud Amalfi committed many a cruel deed of
+murder or torture upon their deserted islets. For here, many a hapless
+political prisoner languished for years in abject misery, a prey to the
+heat and glare of summer and to the fierce gales of bitter winter nights.
+Rock-cut steps and ruined towers still remain as mementoes of those dark
+days, when callous human gaolers worthily filled the places of the absent
+Sirens. It was in a chamber of yonder turret, still standing, that the
+Doge Mansone II., blinded by a brother's vengeance, dragged out years of
+utter misery in pain and darkness, until the Emperor of the East, suzerain
+of Amalfi, at last took compassion upon the prisoner's wretched plight and
+allowed him to be removed into honourable confinement at Byzantium. For
+many hundreds of years the Isles of the Sirens have lain untenanted, nor
+are they visited nowadays save by a few inquisitive travellers or by the
+fishermen of the Scaricotojo, who find safe shelter under their lee during
+the sudden squalls of the Mediterranean. For, strange to relate, there are
+no dangerous currents, no treacherous whirlpools close to these rocky
+islets, such as we might expect to give some natural interpretation to the
+ancient myth, the origin of which remains unexplained and constitutes a
+very pretty mystery as it stands.
+
+We bid farewell to the group of ill-omened rocks, as we proceed rapidly
+under the rocky slopes of the Monte di Chiosse towards Positano, which
+extends in a long curving line of cheerful-tinted flat-roofed houses from
+the summit of its protecting cliff to the strand below, sprinkled with
+boats and nets and cloths with heaps of grain a-drying. The descent to the
+lower portion of the little town is singularly charming with its varied
+scenery of rocks and hanging woods above us, with the tiled domes of
+churches outlined against the deep blue waters, and with the whole scene
+dominated by the pierced crag of Montapertuso, beyond which thrusts up
+into the cloudless sky the triple peak of the giant Sant' Angelo. Positano
+is a thriving as well as an ancient place, and of its dense population we
+have abundant evidence in the swarms of children that pursue our carriage,
+brown-skinned picturesque little nuisances, shrilly and incessantly crying
+out for _soldi_. Most of these infants wear bright coloured rags, but not
+a few are dressed in garments that at once recall the ginger-coloured
+robes of the Capuchin friars, for the brothers of the Order of St Francis
+are popularly reputed to be especially competent in keeping aloof evil
+spells from young persons entrusted to their charge; and of course, argue
+the doting parents, it is only natural that the spirits of darkness should
+not dare to molest the little ones tricked out in robes similar to those
+worn by these holy men.
+
+From the point of view of history the chief interest of Positano centres
+in the time-honoured tradition that Flavio Gioja, the original inventor of
+the compass, was a native of this town, once a flourishing and important
+member of the group of cities which comprised the Amalfitan Republic in
+its palmy days. But Clio, the Muse of History, is an inexorable mistress,
+and she will not rest content with mere hearsay, however venerable, and as
+a result of careful investigation it would seem that Flavio Gioja, who for
+centuries has been generally credited with this marvellous discovery, must
+himself have been a personage almost as mythic as the Sirens of this
+shore, for his very name is spelled in a variety of ways that is
+hopelessly confusing. Nor has the question of his place of birth ever been
+satisfactorily settled, for both Positano and Amalfi claim this hero of
+science for a son, although only in Amalfitan annals can the disputed name
+be detected. Be this as it may, it was a citizen of this Costiera who has
+ever been acknowledged as the inventor of the compass, though concerning
+both himself and his alleged discovery there is a complete absence of any
+contemporary record. Later writers have, it is true, always admitted the
+honour on behalf of the Republic, and Pontano goes so far as to call
+Amalfi _magnetica_ in compliment thereof, whilst during the later crusades
+the Amalfitani, who were evidently convinced of the genuine nature of
+Gioja's claim, had an heraldic figure of the mariner's compass emblazoned
+on their banners. It seems a thousand pities to throw doubt upon so
+picturesque a tradition, for the date of the invention of the compass has
+been fixed as 1302, two years only after the holding of the famous Papal
+Jubilee in Rome which Dante's verse has described for us. Nor can the
+ingenious theory be upheld that the fleur-de-lys, the emblem of the French
+kings of Naples, which still decorates the dial of the compass in almost
+all lands, is in any wise connected with Carlo il Zoppo, the monarch to
+whom Gioja is said to have dedicated his ingenious discovery. No, we have
+little doubt that the compass, like so many of the scientific wonders that
+crept into Europe before and during the time of the Renaissance, was
+originally brought from the far East, a farther East than the argosies of
+Amalfi had ever penetrated. The little magic box with its moving needle
+was first used, it is now admitted, by the cunning merchants of Cathay
+during their trading expeditions across the stony monotonous plains of
+Central Asia that lay between the Flowery Land and the civilization of
+Persia. From Cathay the use of the magnetic needle was introduced to the
+Arab mathematicians of Baghdad and Cairo, and through them the secret of
+the lodestone of China was conveyed to the coast towns of the Levant. At
+Aleppo or Alexandria some astute trader of Amalfi--perhaps his name really
+was Flavio Gioja--contrived to learn the new method of steering from some
+Moslem or Jewish merchant, and he in his turn brought this novel and
+precious piece of information back to the Italian shores. If, then, a
+native of Amalfi did not evolve the idea of the compass out of his own
+brain, at least it was the old Republic which first impressed the Western
+world with its immense value, and this, too, at a far earlier period than
+the date usually assigned to Gioja's "discovery." For a Christian bishop
+of Jerusalem a hundred years before Gioja's day makes mention of the
+compass as being in common use amongst the Saracens of Palestine, whilst
+its existence was certainly known to Brunetto Latini, the tutor of Dante,
+whom for certain moral failings upon earth his brilliant pupil somewhat
+harshly places in the infernal regions. History has, in short, long
+deprived poor disconsolate Positano of its vaunted glory in the production
+of a medieval scientist whose very existence has now become a matter of
+speculation.
+
+As we thread our way along the road that curves round headland after
+headland, and is carried over sheer precipices whose base is lapped by the
+cool jade-green water, we begin to realize the essential difference
+between the Sorrentine shores we have left behind us, and the marvellous
+Costiera d'Amalfi we are now passing. Ever green and smiling are the
+favoured districts that stretch from Castellamare to Massa Lubrense, with
+the mountain tops acting as screens to protect the groves and crops from
+the sun's ardent rays and with the fresh reviving breezes from the Abruzzi
+ever breathing upon them. But here we seem to be under the very eyes of
+the Sun-God, who stares fixedly from rising to setting upon the Amalfitan
+coast. Welcome enough is this continuous basking in his smiles during the
+short winter days; but oh! the long, long summer hours wherein King Helios
+relentlessly pours down his burning glances upon the shallow soil that
+covers the rocky face of the Costiera! We who visit the territories of the
+old Republic in winter or early spring only perceive one aspect of the
+picture. We rejoice in the gladdening warmth afforded by unbroken sunshine
+and by the complete absence of cutting winds which Monte Sant' Angelo's
+towering form excludes from these shores; we note with delight the
+premature unfolding of buds and blossoms, and we marvel at the young fruit
+of the dark-leaved loquat trees--the _nespoli_ of the South--turning to pale
+yellow even in February. But we cannot realise the blinding glare and the
+torrid heat of a July or August, making a perfect furnace of this
+sheltered corner, where the thin layer of cultivated soil, that has been
+scraped together painfully by human hands, becomes baked through and
+through, when the water-tanks are exhausted, and when the clouds of thick
+dust hang like a pall of white smoke for miles above the sinuous course of
+the Corniche road. How close and sweltering must be the atmosphere of
+these populous coves, when the very waves are flung luke-warm upon the hot
+sand! How must the inhabitants sigh for a breath of cool air from the
+Abruzzi, for the zephyr that tempers the heat on the Sorrentine plain!
+_Carpe diem_; let us enjoy the Costiera d'Amalfi in the freshness of early
+spring-time, before the oranges and lemons have been stripped from the
+leafy groves and before the sun has had time to scorch up the vegetation
+that now gives colour to every cleft and crevice of the rocky coast-line.
+
+As we advance eastward from Positano we obtain glimpses from time to time
+of mountain valleys thickly clothed with brushwood, and far above our
+heads we perceive Agerola perched aloft under the shadow of the topmost
+crag of Monte Sant' Angelo--Agerola, where wolves still haunt the dim
+recesses of the chestnut woods, and where the charcoal burners can tell us
+of the great grey Were-Wolf that prowls round the village on stormy
+nights. Passing the torrent of the Arriengo and the Punta di San Pietro
+with its lonely chapel looking out to sea; glancing down upon the deep set
+strand and gloomy caverns of Furore, and rounding Cape Sottile, we find
+ourselves at Prajano, one of the prettiest spots to be found on all this
+wonderful coast. Here we stop to visit the church of San Luca, which
+stands on a little grassy platform overhanging the sea and commanding a
+superb view of the Bay of Salerno. It is a baroque structure of the type
+common everywhere in Italy, which travellers are apt to despise without
+acknowledging how picturesque this decadent style of architecture can
+appear. At Prajano the wooden doors of green faded to the hue of ancient
+bronze, the yellow-washed plaster facade and the lichen-covered tiles of
+the roof and tower make up a charming mass of varied colouring when viewed
+against the broad blue band of sea and sky beyond. Within, the church is
+mean and tawdry, just a
+
+  "Sad charnel-house of humble hopes and crimes,
+  Long dead and buried in obscurity;"
+
+but the afternoon sun struggling through the curtains that cover its
+fantastic windows allows a mellow light to fill the expanse of the
+building. A toothless old woman and a young girl, both of them thinly and
+poorly clad, are the sole occupants of the church, and they are evidently
+too much absorbed in prayer to notice our presence. They have placed
+beside the Madonna's altar lighted tapers which glimmer feebly in a shaft
+of strong sunlight that falls through a rent in the curtain overhead. For
+what purpose, we wonder, have these candles been bought out of a scanty
+store! Are they burning on behalf of some sailor-boy now being tossed upon
+the ocean? Or are they offered to obtain some boon more selfish and less
+pathetic? At any rate, this pair of intent worshippers, representing fresh
+Southern youth and crabbed age, make up a pretty picture as they kneel
+together on the pavement of tiles ornamented in bright rococo patterns to
+represent the coat-of-arms of some forgotten noble benefactor: it is too
+simple and everyday a sight in Italy to offer a theme for verse, too
+sacred a subject for an idle photograph. We leave the church on tip-toe,
+and return to the terrace with its low marble seats and its stunted acacia
+trees to sit a few moments before re-entering the carriage.
+
+  [Illustration: EVENING AT AMALFI]
+
+Skirting the Capo di Conca we obtain our first sight of proud Amalfi, and
+we realize that our drive, long in distance perhaps, but all too short
+with its varied beauties and interests, is drawing to a close. Nearer and
+nearer do we approach our goal, the shining turrets of the Cathedral tower
+acting as our beacon, until at length our chariot clatters beneath the
+echoing tunnel hewn in the cliff that leads into the town itself.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER VI
+
+
+                   AMALFI AND THE FESTIVAL OF ST ANDREW
+
+
+The traveller's first impressions of Amalfi, which is essentially the
+beauty-spot of the Riviera of Naples, are usually associated with the old
+Capuchin convent, long since turned into a hotel and now the bourne of
+most visitors to this coast. Its arcaded facade and its terraced garden
+stand on a plateau seemingly cut out of the sheer face of the cliff,
+whilst high above the town the lofty barren rocks enfold the Convent and
+its verdant demesne within a natural amphitheatre and protect this sunny
+paradise from the keen blasts of winter. A flight of steps zigzagging up
+the rocky hill-side connects the building with the high road below; whilst
+a narrow pathway, leading between stone walls and now passing beneath dark
+mysterious archways, wherein the lamps burning before the Madonna's
+shrines afford a welcome light even at midday, descends by steep gradients
+from the garden above into the main piazza of the little city. Built by
+the celebrated Cardinal Pietro Capuano nearly seven hundred years ago for
+Cistercian monks, the monastery in the sixteenth century came into the
+possession of the Capuchin Friars, those brown-robed figures that with
+their bare feet and girdles of knotted white cord are such familiar and
+picturesque objects in the daily crowds of every Italian town. But the
+friars have been forced to abandon their airy retreat ever since the
+suppression of the religious houses, which succeeded the union of the old
+Neapolitan kingdom with young Italy, and their convent has long been put
+to secular uses. Yet the old monastic church still exists, and
+superstitious people declare that the spectral forms of ejected Capuchins
+are sometimes to be seen advancing slowly up the rocky ascent in order to
+revisit the sacred building that is now closed for worship. Nevertheless
+the church is cared for by the members of the Vozzi family, its present
+owners, who every Christmas-tide still prepare the popular _presepio_,
+that curious representation of the scene in the stable at Bethlehem,
+wherein a score of gaily dressed figures of painted wood represent the
+Holy Family and the worshipping peasants. Little in fact has been changed
+within the building itself, and the exquisite cloistered court with its
+slender intertwining Saracenic columns still remains to delight alike the
+artist and the antiquary. We say "still remains" advisedly; for beyond the
+tiny quadrangle our eyes at once light upon a scene of hideous
+devastation.
+
+Doubtless many persons will recall the great land-slip of December 1899,
+when almost without warning the whole face of the rocky headland that
+shelters Amalfi on the west tore itself loose and slid with a crash like
+thunder into the sea below, overwhelming in its fall the little inn known
+as the "Santa Caterina" and burying in its ruins two English ladies and
+several fishermen. The sinister scar still continues as a blot upon the
+lovely landscape, speaking only too eloquently to all of sudden death and
+destruction amidst the surrounding scenes of life and beauty. The older
+portion of the Capuchin convent, by a miracle as it were, escaped the
+on-rush of the land-slide, but its famous "Calvary," the large group of
+the Crucifixion that appears prominently in so many pictures of Amalfi,
+was completely swept away, so that the boatmen from the sands below can no
+longer behold the immense vivid representation of the Last Agony which was
+wont to greet their upturned eyes. Already Time's kindly hand has begun to
+drape the scene of the catastrophe with a decent mourning veil of grey and
+green, for the hardy succulent plants that can withstand the sun's fierce
+rays and can thrive despite the boisterous salt sea-winds are already
+sprouting from every crack and cranny of the riven earth. Perhaps it is as
+well for us selfish and self-satisfied mortals to possess a _memento mori_
+close at hand in a spot so teeming with the joy of life; yet somehow the
+first sight of that mass of broken headland and the dark ominous fissure
+in the hill-side, flung across the sunlit scene, is apt to send a slight
+shiver through the frame of the beholder.
+
+There are three indisputable advantages to be gained by turning a
+suppressed religious house into a modern hotel, so a cunning old Italian
+inn-keeper once confided to us; that is, of course, provided one is not
+afraid of the proverbial curse that clings to the buying of any of the
+Church's sequestrated property. These three things are good air, good
+water, and lovely views; benefits that a layman is fully as competent to
+understand as any cloistered ecclesiastic. And certainly the worthy Vozzi
+are fully justified in offering these privileges to their guests at the
+Albergo Cappuccini. Signor Vozzi! How many travellers in the South recall
+with infinite pleasure their host's tall commanding figure, his snowy
+drooping whiskers, the sun-shade that was rarely out of his hand, his
+old-fashioned courteous manners, and his famous family of cats, whereof
+the coal-black Nerone was the prime favourite, a feline monster almost as
+tyrannical as his Imperial namesake of evil reputation. Signor Vozzi's
+striking personality, the sable fur of agate-eyed Nerone, the eternal
+sunshine, and the wide all-embracing views over sea and land, are somehow
+all jumbled together in our perplexed mind, as it recurs to the many days
+spent beneath the convent roof. Nay, not beneath the roof! For we were
+wont to pass the whole day, even the short December day, in basking on the
+warm sheltered terrace and peering over the busy beach and the dazzling
+waters below, whereon the tale of Amalfitan fisher-life could be read as
+it were from the pages of a book.
+
+Somehow the old monastic buildings appear marvellously well adapted to
+modern needs. The former inmates' cells, wherein the brown-robed brethren
+of the Order of St Francis until lately were wont to pass their placid
+uneventful lives, afford comfortable if somewhat limited accommodation;
+whilst the covered _loggia_ that runs the whole length of the cells has
+been turned into a series of delightful little sitting-rooms, their broad
+arc-shaped windows facing full south, a boon that only a winter resident
+in Italy can properly appreciate. _Dove non entra il sole, entra il
+medico_, is a hackneyed but well-proven adage; consequently here in the
+old Capuchin convent the services of the local medicine-man ought rarely
+to be required. Signor Vozzi's guests partake of their meals in the
+ancient refectory, a large bare echoing chamber with a vaulted ceiling,
+which still contains the old stone pulpit from which in more pious days a
+grave brother was wont to read aloud choice passages from the works of the
+early Fathers of the Church or of St Bonaventura, the Seraphic Doctor of
+the Franciscans, during the hours allotted to the frugal repasts of the
+friars. But the public rooms and the cool white-washed corridors do not
+present such attractions as the glorious garden with its famous _pergola_
+and its views of the Bay. Here even in Christmas week we found quantities
+of plants in full bloom: the delicate yellow blossoms of the Soffrana
+rose; trailing ivy-leaved geraniums with gay heads of carmine flowers; the
+honey-scented budleia with its little globes of dark yellow flowerets:
+clumps of gorgeous scarlet salvia; and straggling masses of the pretty
+cosmia, red, pink and white. Humming-bird hawk-moths darted hither and
+thither in the sunshine, restless little creatures whose wings are never
+for a moment still, as they poise gracefully over each separate blossom in
+turn. The _pergola_ itself, which every artist at Amalfi paints as a
+matter of course, generally with a Capuchin friar--at least a friar _pro
+hac vice_--or a pretty dark-eyed damsel in the native costume, sitting in
+the foreground, was certainly bare of foliage, we admit, for even in the
+soft warm air of the Bay of Salerno the grape-vine wisely refuses to burst
+into leaf at Yuletide, no matter how enticing the warmth. But the thick
+white pillars and their wooden cross-beams, around which are entwined the
+leafless coiling limbs of the sleeping vine, throw dark blue patterns of
+chequered shadow upon the sunlit ground. Above the terraced garden rises
+the orangery, well watered by many artificial rillets, and from the midst
+of the orange and lemon trees there emerges a path leading to the
+entrancing _bosco_, or grove, that fills the deep hollow space formed by
+the sheltering cliffs behind. It was mid-winter, as we have said, yet pink
+cyclamens and strong-scented double narcissi were blooming freely, whilst
+from the dark boughs of the ilex trees overhead there fell upon the ear
+the pleasant twittering of innumerable birds, for happily the cruel snare
+and the gun are strictly forbidden in this sacred spot, so that his
+"little sisters, the birds," that the gentle Saint of Assisi loved so
+tenderly, can still sing their songs of innocence and build their nests in
+peace amidst the trees that no longer remain the property of the great
+humanitarian Order. At nightfall this garden is almost equally beautiful
+beneath a star-lit sky and with the many lamps of the town below throwing
+long bars of yellow light upon the placid waters of the Bay. As we pace
+the long terrace, wrapped in the glory of a million stars and revelling in
+the exalted yet fairy-like loveliness of the scene around us, we perceive
+the mellow night air to be redolent of a strange but fascinating perfume.
+It is the _olea fragrans_, the humble inconspicuous oriental shrub that
+from its clusters of tiny white flowers is thus giving out its secret soul
+at the falling of the night dews, and permeating the whole garden with its
+marvellous floral incense. But if the star-lit, flower-scented nights of
+Amalfi are to be accounted as exquisite memories, how much more glorious
+and exhilarating is the rising of the sun, as he appears in full majesty
+of crimson and gold above the classic hills that overlook Paestum to the
+east! Leaning at early dawn from the windows of the Cappuccini, we have
+watched the sky flush at the first caress of "rosy-fingered Eos" and seen
+the fragment of the waning moon turn to silver at the approach of the
+burning God of Day, still tarrying behind the lofty barrier of the capes
+and mountains of the Lucanian shore.
+
+  "Slowly beyond the headlands comes the day,
+  Though moon and planet on a sky of gold,
+  Chequered with orange and vermilion-stoled,
+  Have floated long before the sun's first ray
+  Has shot across the waters to display
+  Amalfi in her dotage; as of old
+  His beams lit up her splendours manifold,
+  Her quays and palaces that fringed the bay.
+  His smile makes every barren hill-side blush
+  In rose and purple for the glories fled,
+  As early watchers note th' encroaching flush
+  From proud Ravello to Atrani spread,
+  And curse the cruel arm that once did crush
+  This sea-sprung Niobe, and leave her dead."
+
+  [Illustration: AMALFI]
+
+Dead, alas! For the old liberties of the great Republic of Amalfi have
+been extinct for more than half a thousand years, and it is in consequence
+difficult for us to realise that the quaint noisy squalid picturesque
+little city by the sea-shore, huddled into the narrow gorge of the
+Canneto, is that self-same Amalfi whose navies rode triumphant over the
+Mediterranean before the days of the Early Crusades. Yet Amalfi, which may
+be reckoned amongst the first-born of that fair family of medieval cities
+that their prolific parent the land of Italy brought forth in an age of
+darkness, was also the foremost to droop and die, her glories scattered
+and passed before Florence had ceased to be an obscure country town. In
+this case History presents to us a most forcible, not to say an unique
+example of the origin, rise and decline of a power, all occurring within a
+short space of time. Amalfi springs, as it were, out of the void as a city
+of importance, for no Roman colony occupied its site in antique times. Its
+very nomenclature is a puzzle to scholars, and the usual statement that it
+owed its name to Byzantine settlers coming hither from the ancient town of
+Melfi in the Basilicata does not sound very convincing, though for want of
+a better theory it must suffice. Why, when, and by whom the city was in
+reality founded remains an enigma, yet we learn from a passage in one of
+the letters of St Gregory the Great that the place was of sufficient size
+to be governed by a bishop in the sixth century. By the tenth we find the
+Republic of Amalfi already risen to a position of commanding importance,
+and holding its own against the rival states between which its territories
+were wedged; the dukedom of Naples to the west and the principality of
+Salerno to eastward. Dexterously playing on the greed and prejudices of
+the various tyrants who ruled Naples and Salerno, and occasionally allying
+itself with them in order to repel the fierce attacks of their common
+enemy, the Saracenic hordes who were then harrying the Lucanian coast,
+Amalfi continued to uphold its political freedom and dignity in the face
+of immense difficulties. And in gratitude for the vigour with which the
+Amalfitani had waged war against the infidel invaders, Pope Leo IV. in
+course of time conferred upon the Duke or Doge, the chief magistrate of
+the Republic, the title of "Defender of the Faith." Nominally under the
+suzerainty of the Greek Emperor at Constantinople, Amalfi was practically
+independent; its system of government was conducted on lines somewhat akin
+to those of aristocratic Venice; its population is said to have exceeded
+fifty thousand in the capital city alone; its boundaries extended from the
+Promontory of Minerva on the west to the town of Cetara upon the confines
+of Salerno; whilst many daughter-towns of wealth and importance, such as
+Scala and Ravello, sprang into being within the narrow limits of the
+sea-girt republic. Owning a small and by no means fertile extent of land,
+the inhabitants of Amalfi from its earliest days were forced to become
+merchants and sailors; to use a modern phrase, the Amalfitani came to
+possess a complete monopoly of trade with Eastern lands, both Christian
+and Mahommedan. It was the ships of the Republic that alone brought to the
+shores of Italy the rich stuffs, the gold and silver embroideries, the
+dried fruits and the strange birds and beasts of Asia Minor and Arabia,
+and in exchange for their oriental merchandise obtained an abundance of
+corn, wine, oil, meat and other commodities of life that their beautiful
+but somewhat sterile dominions were unable to supply to an ever increasing
+population. But it was not only the material products of the East that the
+sailors of Amalfi conveyed to Europe in their home-bound argosies; for
+they brought back with them the rudiments of arts and sciences that
+distracted Italy had well-nigh forgotten during the period of the
+barbarian invasions. Through the merchant princes of Amalfi, the secrets
+of astronomy, of mathematics and of scientific navigation were
+re-introduced into the land that had almost lost its old Roman
+civilization. A priceless manuscript of that great code of laws, the
+Pandects, which a Byzantine Emperor, the famous Justinian, had caused to
+be compiled with such skill and labour, putting into concise and accurate
+form the collected wisdom of generations of Roman jurists, was included
+amongst the treasures of the East that were borne back to Italy in the
+Republic's vessels. And in addition to restoring the old Roman
+jurisprudence to its original home, the city of Amalfi had the honour of
+promulgating the celebrated _Tabula Amalphitana_, the new maritime laws
+that were henceforth destined to regulate the whole commercial system of
+the western world. No marvel then that the poet William of Apulia should
+praise in unmeasured terms the glories of the new-sprung city, whose trade
+extended to the shores of India and whose merchants possessed independent
+settlements in every great city of the Levant.
+
+  "Nulla magis civitas argento, vestibus, auro
+  Partibus innumeris; hac plurimus urbe moratur
+  Nauta marit coelique vias aperiri peritus.
+  Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe
+  Regia et Antiochi. Zeus haec freta plurima transit
+  His Arabes, Indi, Siculi nascuntur et Afri.
+  Haec genus est totum prope nobilitata per orbem,
+  Et mercanda ferens, et amans mercata referre."
+
+  ("No city richer in its store of gold,
+  Of precious stones and silks doth Europe hold;
+  Her skilful mariners o'er treacherous seas
+  With aid of compass sail where'er they please.
+  From Egypt and from Antioch they land,
+  Their precious cargoes on th' Italian strand.
+  Scathless Amalfi's navies penetrate
+  The distant ports of every Paynim state.
+  Match me throughout the circuit of this earth
+  Another race so full of zeal and worth.")
+
+A small state on a barren shore, yet the holder of the balance between
+East and West by means of its wide-spread commerce, such was Amalfi during
+the tenth and eleventh centuries. In some respects this Republic of the
+Middle Ages appears as the prototype of the Venice of the Renaissance, for
+there is not a little in common between the city that was built upon the
+marshy islets of the Adriatic lagoons, and the city that was erected at
+the base of the treacherous cliffs of the Tyrrhene Sea. Solely by means of
+commerce both foundations rose from nothingness to splendour and power:
+both held the gorgeous East in fee; and both fell lamentably from their
+high estate. The chief point of difference in this comparison of their
+careers is obvious; Amalfi collapsed suddenly and utterly, whilst the
+Queen of the Adriatic has sunk gradually to decay until she has become the
+interesting monument of a vanished magnificence which we admire to-day.
+
+It was the rising naval power of Pisa that finally crushed the greatness
+of Amalfi, although the Republic had already entered into its days of
+decline when Robert Guiscard at the time of the First Crusade had
+temporarily annexed its dominions to his new principality. Some thirty
+years later King Roger of Naples forcibly seized the whole of the Costiera
+d'Amalfi, allowing the citizens to retain their own form of government.
+Four years after this, the Pisan fleet, coming to aid the people of Naples
+against King Roger, utterly destroyed the once vaunted navy of Amalfi, and
+sacked both the city itself and the two hill-set towns of Scala and
+Ravello. Its political liberty had already been crushed by the Normans,
+and now its ships and its wealth were dissipated by the Pisans; it was a
+double measure of ignominy and disaster from which Amalfi never recovered.
+Amidst its humiliations and sorrows, the stricken city had also to mourn
+the loss of its greatest treasure, its secular _palladium_, that most
+precious copy of the Pandects of Justinian, which the Pisan marauders
+seized and carried back with them to their city on the Arno. Here in Pisa
+the famous volume remained in safe keeping for some three hundred years,
+and then, as Time's round brought its inevitable vengeance on the
+plunderers of Amalfi, it was removed by the victorious Florentines to
+their own city. So intense a veneration for the book itself now manifested
+itself amongst the scholars and students of Florence, that at one period
+offerings of incense were often made to the inscribed wisdom of past ages
+as to a most holy relic of some Saint, and the clerk or jurist about to
+peruse its faded characters was wont, first of all, to breathe a prayer of
+genuine gratitude on his knees for the preservation of this ancient book.
+Amalfi, Pisa, Florence, each in its turn has owned the guardianship of
+this most famous literary jewel, which is to-day jealously guarded as the
+chief treasure of the world-renowned Laurentian Library.
+
+It is true that the prosperity of Amalfi did not disappear immediately
+after the inroad of the Pisans, for Boccaccio, writing in the fourteenth
+century, still speaks of the ancient territory of the destroyed Republic
+as "a rocky ridge beside a smiling sea, which its inhabitants call the
+Costa d'Amalfi; full of little cities, of gardens, of fountains, and of
+rich and enterprising merchants." It was in fact reserved for relentless
+Nature herself to complete the work of destruction that Norman armies and
+Pisan fleets had more than half accomplished. We have already spoken of
+the terrible land-slips to which this beautiful shore is eminently
+subject, even at the present day, as the mass of wreckage outside the old
+Capuchin convent only too clearly testifies. In the year 1343, during the
+progress of a storm of exceptional fury, of which the poet Petrarch has
+left us a vivid account in one of his letters, the greater part of the
+devoted city was swept away by a tidal wave. The whole line of quays
+stretching from the headland by the Cappuccini to the point of Atrani on
+the east, together with churches, palaces, and warehouses, was now
+swallowed up by the surging waters and engulfed for ever in the depths of
+the sea; and thus the very element that had brought wealth, power, and
+prosperity to Amalfi in the past now proved the direct cause of her final
+calamity. With this fearful cataclysm of Nature following upon the heels
+of its political extinction, we can hardly wonder at the rapid decline of
+this "Athens of the Middle Ages," whose population has now sunk to about
+one seventh part of the 50,000 citizens it once boasted in the far distant
+days of her maritime supremacy.
+
+Reflecting upon the famous past of this ancient city, let us descend the
+steep pathway from the terrace of the Cappuccini to visit the crowded
+beach below. Here we find ourselves in the midst of a cheerful animated
+throng, engaged in mending nets, in painting boats, and in other
+occupations connected with a sea-faring life. The tall fantastic houses
+with balconied windows that line the curve of the sea-shore, the
+glistening sands and the brown-legged, gay-capped fishermen, combine to
+present a charming picture of southern Italian life, so that we could
+gladly linger in observing the ever-changing scenes of life and industry.
+But we cannot tarry long, for the ubiquitous beggars who have begun to
+pester us ever since we passed the hotel gates have meantime dogged our
+descending footsteps, and their forces have been recruited on the way
+hither by many willing assistants. No doubt the vast majority of the
+Amalfitani are hard working and self-respecting, for the little town
+possesses maccaroni factories and old-established paper mills of no small
+importance, yet it is obvious that a considerable portion of the total
+population and at least one-half of all the children spend their whole
+time in demanding alms of strangers. Before, behind, and from a distance
+arises the ceaseless cry of "_Qual co' signor'! Fame! Fame!_" in hateful
+tones of make-belief misery, and these whining appeals are aided by all
+the expressive pantomimic gestures of the South. You are placed on the
+horns of a dilemma: give, and the report that a generous and fabulously
+wealthy Signore has arrived in Amalfi will run like wild-fire through the
+whole place, and your life in consequence will become an absolute burden
+for the remainder of your sojourn in this spot. Refuse, and the wretches
+who have hitherto been wheedling and cringing at your heels, will at once
+grow insolent and threatening, especially in the case of unprotected
+ladies. It is in fact a choice of two evils, and the only remedy that we
+ourselves can suggest is for the persecuted traveller to select a good
+stout larrikin and pay him freely to keep at arm's length his detestable
+brothers and sisters in professional beggary. But the uninitiated usually
+endure these odious importunities for a certain length of time, and then,
+exasperated by the unchecked mendicancy of the place, at last fly
+precipitately from this beautiful shore, to seek comparative peace and
+freedom elsewhere. For it is useless to argue; it is foolish, even
+dangerous to grow angry. "Why should we give to you?" we asked one day in
+desperation of a particularly persistent woman. "Because," was the
+unabashed and impudent but unanswerable reply, "you have much, and I have
+nothing!" Driven by these human pests from the sunlit strand, we make our
+way through the busy piazza, where peasant women with piles of fruit and
+vegetables make a glowing mass of colour around the central fountain below
+St Andrew's statue, and proceed towards the Valley of the Mills. A
+different phase of Amalfitan life now greets us, for here are to be found
+the hard-working bees of this human hive, and it must be confessed their
+ways make an agreeable change from the habits of the pestering drones that
+infest the beach and the neighbourhood of the hotels. The whole of the
+steep rocky gorge of that tiny torrent the Canneto is full of mills, each
+emitting a whirring sound which mingles with the continual plash of the
+water as it descends in miniature cascades the full length of the ravine,
+providing in its headlong course towards the sea the motive power required
+to turn all this quantity of machinery. Bridges span the Canneto at
+several points, whilst either bank is occupied by tiny factories of paper
+or soap, and by winding stone stair-ways that lead upward to terraces
+contrived to catch the sunshine for the purpose of drying the goods. The
+whole valley, with its strong contrasting effects of sun and shade and its
+varied atmosphere of intense heat and of chilly dampness, is full of
+seething picturesque humanity. The combined sounds of creaking wheels, of
+falling water and of human chattering are almost deafening within this
+narrow echo-filled gorge, above which in the far distance we catch a
+glimpse of rocky heights with the town of Scala perched eyrie-like against
+the deep blue of the sky overhead. Pretty laughing girls, bare-footed and
+with marvellously white teeth, emerge from the open door-ways to smile
+pleasantly at us, for the workers of the Valle de' Molini are thoroughly
+accustomed to the presence of strangers in their midst. Half-naked men,
+who have stepped for a moment out of the hot rooms of the maccaroni
+factories in order to breathe the fresh air, regard us with calm disdain
+and without any seeming interest. Our presence is tolerated, even if our
+reception excites no feelings of surprise or cordiality, so that we are
+allowed to pursue our walk up the ever-narrowing valley in peace and
+comfort and to admire at our leisure the wonderfully beautiful effects of
+colouring produced by the cascades of purple-stained water, the graceful
+forms and gay dresses of the girls, and the peeps of fruit-laden orange
+trees above fern-clad walls. And how dark the people are! For though black
+eyes and hair are commonly associated with the Italian race, yet in the
+North we find abundant evidence of the admixture of Teutonic blood, whilst
+in the South the fair-haired Norman settlers have left indelible marks of
+their conquest of Naples and Sicily in many blue-eyed and white-skinned
+descendants; but here in Amalfi a blonde complexion seems to be absolutely
+unknown. "_Com' e bianco! Com' e bianco!_" called out one of a party of
+girls with swarthy skin and ebon hair and tresses, who languidly came out
+to stare at us, as we wended our way slowly up the Valley of the Mills.
+
+  [Illustration: IN THE VALLEY OF THE MILLS, AMALFI]
+
+But the chief pride of Amalfi, and indeed its sole surviving fragment of
+departed magnificence, is the Cathedral, dedicated to St Andrew the
+Apostle, who is patron of the city. A broad flight of steps, flanked on
+either side by the Archbishop's Palace and the residence of the Canons,
+leads to a platform covered by a most beautiful Gothic _loggia_ set with
+richly traceried windows and upheld by antique marble columns. At its
+northernmost angle we see springing into the blue aether the tall graceful
+red-and-white striped campanile, surmounted by its barbaric-looking
+green-tiled cupola and pinnacles. Facing the top of the steps are the two
+magnificent doors, specially designed in distant Byzantium to embellish
+this church more than eight hundred years ago, and cast by the famous
+artist in bronze, Staurachios. Two Latin inscriptions, incised in letters
+of silver upon the baser metal, relate to the world that one Pantaleone,
+son of Maurice, caused this work to be undertaken in honour of the holy
+Apostle Andrew, in order that he might obtain pardon for the sins he had
+committed whilst upon earth. These glorious gates were the gifts to their
+native city of members of the family of Pantaleone of Amalfi, merchant
+princes who had amassed an immense fortune by trade in the Levant. They
+are splendid specimens of _niello_ work, which consisted in ornamenting a
+surface of bronze by engraving upon it lines that were subsequently filled
+in with coloured enamel or with some precious metal. These portals of
+Amalfi, perhaps the earliest example in Southern Italy of this rare form
+of art, are divided into panels adorned with Scriptural subjects simply
+and quaintly treated, wherein the stiff attitudes of the figures and the
+many long straight lines introduced testify plainly enough to their
+Byzantine origin and workmanship. As we enter the cool dark
+incense-scented building, we note that though cruelly maltreated by the
+baroque enthusiasts of the eighteenth century, the general effect of the
+interior is still impressive with its rows of ancient pillars and its
+richly decorated roof. On all sides marble fragments with exquisite
+reliefs meet the eye, spoils evidently filched from the abandoned city of
+Paestum across the Salernian Bay and presented to the church by the Norman
+conquerors of Amalfi. After inspecting the classical bas-reliefs, we
+descend into the ancient crypt, which well-meaning artists have completely
+encased with a covering of precious marbles and garish frescoes of the
+Neapolitan school. It is a place of more than local sanctity, this
+modernized crypt, for the possession of the relics of the Apostle which
+Cardinal Capuano proudly brought hither after the sack of Constantinople
+in the early years of the thirteenth century, was considered by many to
+constitute a sufficient recompense to Amalfi for her lost independence.
+Popes and sovereigns were in the habit of approaching the shrine, and the
+number of these illustrious visitors includes the names of St Francis of
+Assisi, Pope Urban IV., the holy St Bridget of Sweden, and the notorious
+Queen Joanna II. of Naples. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope
+Pius II., however, seems to have thought Amalfi, ever dwindling in size
+and importance, too mean a place to own so great a treasure, and he
+accordingly transported the head of the Saint to Rome, where it is now
+accounted amongst the four chief relics of St Peter's. Perhaps it was to
+counterbalance the loss of so important a member of the Saint's anatomy,
+that in the succeeding century there arose a report which spoke of the
+rescue of certain relics of the Apostle Andrew during the headlong course
+of the Reformation in Scotland. The most precious objects preserved in the
+Cathedral of St Andrew's, says this legend, were secretly saved from the
+expected fury of Knox's partisans and brought to Amalfi, where they were
+reverently added to the store of remains that had survived the plundering
+of Pius II. Whether or no there be any truth in this somewhat fantastic
+theory, it is enough to state that St Andrew continues to be patron Saint
+of this maritime city, for which office the character of the Galilean
+fisherman who was called to be a fisher of men seems specially
+appropriate. Nevertheless, despite the valuable additions made in
+Reformation days, the sanctity of the shrine is not held so high as it
+used to be. No longer do the venerated bones ooze with the sweet-scented
+moisture that in medieval days was piously collected to be used for
+purposes so varied as the curing of warts, or the scattering of Paynim
+fleets! Yet so late as the days of Tasso, the great Apostle himself was
+evidently connected in the popular mind with the performance of so bizarre
+a miracle:--
+
+  "Vide in sembianza placida e tranquilla
+  Il Divo, che di manna Amalfi instilla."
+
+But although the present times are too sinful to allow of the distillation
+of the fragrant dew of Amalfi, we observe the kneeling forms of not a few
+intent worshippers within the dimly-lighted crypt, in the midst of which
+the Spaniard Naccarino's bronze figure of the Apostle uprises with
+dignified mien and life-like attitude. Sant' Andrea is still "Il Divo,"
+the tutelary god of the Amalfitani; he remains in the estimation of these
+simple ignorant folk the special protector of the community. Times and
+ideas change, but not the old deep-rooted feeling of a personal tie
+between the Saint and his favoured people.
+
+We were lucky in happening upon the great popular festival of Sant' Andrea
+during our visit to Amalfi, and consequently were enabled not only to
+witness a picturesque scene of considerable splendour, but also to observe
+how strong a devotion the Amalfitani still manifest towards their own
+especial Saint. With the first flush of early dawn, discharges of mortars
+from the beach and the neighbouring hills began to arouse the echoes and
+to remind the still slumbering population that once more the great
+anniversary had arrived. The world was quickly astir to do honour to the
+great St Andrew, and from a very early hour an interminable stream of
+peasants and villagers, young and old, male and female, began to enter the
+town from all quarters, and to congregate in the piazza where stands the
+large fountain crowned by the Saint's own effigy. Here with exemplary
+patience the throng waited until the hour of the ceremony in the Cathedral
+drew nigh. Within the huge building priests and lay-helpers were actively
+employed in preparing for the event, and by their exertions the whole
+interior had been transformed into what may be best described as a
+magnificent ball-room, for every blank wall had been covered with
+draperies of rich crimson damask and the very pillars had been swathed
+from base to capital in the same gorgeous material. Innumerable old
+cut-glass chandeliers, that had reposed since the last _festa di Sant'
+Andrea_ in huge round boxes in some secluded vault, had been slung by
+means of cords from the ceiling and the arches of the nave, whilst a large
+number of mirrors set in carved gilt frames had been affixed to various
+points of the walls and columns. The fine marble pavement lay thickly
+strewn with bay and myrtle leaves, emitting a pleasant wholesome scent
+when crushed under foot by the picturesque but somewhat malodorous crowd
+of fisher-folk and peasants. On entering the church, at the first sound of
+the bells booming over head, we found ourselves heavily pressed by the
+surging throng of worshippers, and it was only with difficulty we could
+obtain a sight of the ceremonies at the high altar, prominent upon which
+stood the silver bust of the Apostle containing the precious relics. It
+was a typical Italian _festa_. The chanting was harsh and discordant; the
+antiquated inharmonious organ emitted unexpected squeals, as if in
+positive pain; there was, it is needless to add, a complete absence of
+that "churchy" demeanour which passes for reverence in the North; yet
+withal, despite the shrill discordant music, the tawdry embellishments of
+the grand old building and the absence of propriety of the crowd, there
+was perceptible some mysterious underlying force that compelled us to note
+the extraordinary hold the Church has upon the people of Southern Italy.
+For all this throng of persons had assembled that day with one definite
+purpose: to see their universal friend and patron, their Saint and their
+worker of domestic miracles; they had come to pay their homage to a
+celestial acquaintance, with whom, thanks to the Church's teaching, they
+had all been intimate from their cradles. They had not thus assembled at
+an early hour, deserting their mills and their shops, their boats and
+their nets, renouncing their chances of gain, to hear a preacher's
+eloquence or to listen to fine music, but merely to pay their annual visit
+of respect to their Spiritual Master. Why should we aliens intrude upon so
+private a gathering? In any case, we have grown weary of standing in the
+close sickly atmosphere, wherein the fragrance of the crushed bay-leaves,
+the fumes of incense and the strange smell of garlic-eating humanity blend
+in an oppressive manner. We push our way through the eager and intent
+congregation, and gaining the door-way step with a sigh of relief into the
+sunshine that is flooding the _loggia_. But it is too hot to remain here,
+and we descend the great stair-case in order to take up a post of vantage
+in the shade on the opposite side of the piazza; having gained our desired
+position we expect in patience the arrival of the procession. Nor have we
+very long to wait. The officials of the town suddenly dart forward to
+clear the steps of their crowd of ragged children, and almost
+simultaneously the great bronze doors of Pantaleone are flung open to the
+sweet air and the sunshine. It was a wonderful and deeply interesting
+experience to watch the glittering train slowly emerge from the darkness
+of the church into the glare of day, and then descend that stately flight
+of marble stairs to the sound of joy-bells and to the accompaniment of
+explosions of fireworks. First came the leading members of the various
+Confraternities of the little city, all bearing tapers whose tongues of
+flame shone feebly in the fierce contemptuous sunlight, and all wearing
+snow-white smocks and coloured scarves. Red, green, blue, white, purple,
+yellow, gleamed the huge banners of these different societies, each borne
+by a tall _vessillifero_, or standard bearer, assisted by quaint solemn
+little figures who acted as pages. Then followed the body of the clergy in
+copes of white and gold, with eyes downcast as they chaunted in loud nasal
+tones from books in their hands; next came the Canons of the Cathedral in
+fine old festal vestments reserved for such occasions and with mitres on
+their heads, for Amalfi clings to the ancient ecclesiastical privileges
+that were granted in distant days when Florence and Venice were little
+more than villages. Last of all walked the Archbishop, an aged tottering
+figure, weighed down by his cope of cloth of gold and seemingly crushed
+beneath his immense jewelled mitre. Two lackeys, almost as infirm as their
+venerable master, and clad in threadbare liveries edged with armorial
+braid, were in close attendance, whilst behind the Archbishop, beneath a
+gorgeous canopy of state upheld by six white-robed assistants, was borne
+the great silver bust of St Andrew. The appearance of the Image of "Il
+Divo," upon which the sunbeams were playing in dazzling coruscations of
+light, was greeted with a murmur of applause and satisfaction from the
+expectant crowd in the open. Hats were doffed; knees were bent; prayers
+were muttered, as with slow and cautious steps the bearers of the Image
+and its canopy began to descend. Having gained the lower ground in safety,
+a momentary halt was made, during which we were able to note the mass of
+votive offerings--jewels, chains, rings, watches, seals--suspended round the
+Saint's neck, amongst them being many silver fishes, doubtless the gifts
+of grateful mariners. And at this point we were spectators of a pretty
+incident. A little girl with black ringlets and eager eyes was dexterously
+lifted on to her father's shoulder, in order that she might present "Il
+Divo" with a golden chain, which the tiny fingers deftly clasped round the
+bejewelled neck of the silver bust. The crowd saw and applauded; it was a
+moment of triumph for the dark-eyed child, for the Church, and for the
+approving throng. With the new addition of the child's necklet to the
+treasury of the Saint, the procession pursued its way through the square
+towards the Valley of the Mills, with banners waving, with priests
+chaunting in harsh monotonous tones, and with clouds of incense rising
+into the sun-kissed air. It was truly a beautiful and curious sight, this
+festival of the Church amidst people so devout and surroundings so
+appropriate.
+
+  [Illustration: AMALFI: PIAZZA AND DUOMO]
+
+On his safe return to his now brilliantly lighted Cathedral, the Saint was
+welcomed with indescribable enthusiasm. The crazy old organ was made to
+produce the loudest and liveliest of music; the uniformed municipal band
+awoke the echoes of the venerable but bedizened fabric with its
+complimentary braying; and urchins were even permitted to scatter
+fire-crackers upon the floor in honour of the event. It was a real
+ecclesiastical Saturnalia of a most innocent and joyous description. All
+Amalfi spent the remaining hours of day-light in feasting, dancing and
+singing, and when at last darkness fell upon the merry scene, rockets and
+Roman candles were seen to spring into the night air from many points in
+the landscape, illumining the sea with quickly dying trails of coloured
+light. Watching the bonfires and the fireworks, and listening to the
+sounds of revelry and song arising from the town below, we pondered over
+our experiences of the day as we paced our airy terrace of the Cappuccini.
+Surely the South has remained immutable for centuries in its deeply rooted
+love of religious festivals. The forefathers of these devotees of Andrew
+the Fisherman were equally enthusiastic worshippers of Poseidon or of
+Apollo. The Church has not in reality altered the outer attributes; it has
+but added a special moral significance to the old pagan gatherings. The
+ancient gods of Greece and Rome are dethroned, and their very names
+forgotten by the populace; but their cult survives, for it has been
+adapted to the glorification of Christian Saints. True it is that the
+milk-white sacrificial oxen and the gay garlands of antiquity have been
+omitted; nevertheless, there remain the music, the incense and the
+unrestrained jollity of the people. Much that is beautiful and suggestive
+has perished, yet there survives enough of the old classical ritual for us
+to see that the true spirit of antiquity has never wholly died out amongst
+these sunburnt children of Magna Graecia.
+
+  "See the long stair with colour all ablaze,
+  With banners swaying in pellucid air,
+  As mitred priests with cautious footsteps bear
+  The silver Image, flashing back the rays
+  Of jealous Phoebus--Ah! the altered days
+  When these Lucanians with wind-lifted hair,
+  Blossom-bedecked, with limbs and bosoms bare,
+  Sang to Apollo psalms of love and praise!
+  With bells and salvoes all the hills resound,
+  And incense mingles with the atmosphere,
+  As still this Southern race, ill-clothed, uncrowned,
+  Retains the memory of the Pagan year,
+  When changed, yet all unchanged, Time's round
+  Makes the Jew Fisherman a god appear."
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VII
+
+
+                          RAVELLO AND THE RUFOLI
+
+
+No visit to Amalfi can be considered complete without ascending to the
+decayed town of Ravello, that crowns the rocky heights to the north-east
+of the parent city by the sea-shore. The road thither leads along the
+beach, passing between the picturesque old convent that is now the Hotel
+Luna, beloved of artists, and the solitary watch tower on the precipice
+which stands sentinel above the waters on our right hand. At this point we
+turn the corner, and find ourselves in Atrani, lying in the deep gorge of
+the Dragone and joining its buildings to those of Amalfi on the road above
+the beach. Prominent upon the steep ridge that separates the two cities
+stands the ruined keep of Pontone, the last relic of the town of Scaletta
+that was a flourishing place in days of the Republic. A tall belfry of
+peculiar and striking architecture which dominates Atrani is usually
+attributed to the art of the Saracens, whom King Manfred called in to
+garrison this place during his wars with Pope Innocent IV. Atrani, which
+is but a suburb of Amalfi, suffered equally with the Capital during the
+great upheaval of Nature that desolated this coast in the fourteenth
+century, so that little of interest remains except the quaint church of
+San Salvatore a Bireta, wherein the Doges of Amalfi were once elected and
+crowned. This ancient building lies hidden in a sandy cove beneath the
+roadway, and those who care to run the gauntlet of beggars and descend to
+the beach below, can examine its beautiful bronze doors, which the
+generous citizen Pantaleone gave _pro mercede animae suae et merito S.
+Sebastiani Martyris_. But there is very little else to inspect, for the
+interior has been hopelessly modernized.
+
+Soon after passing Atrani we turn sharply up hill to the left, and begin
+our ascent towards Ravello. The dusty white road winds upwards through a
+region of carefully cultivated terraces filled with olives and vines,
+intermingled here and there with orange, lemon, fig, and pomegranate
+trees. As we gain higher ground, our horizon tends ever to widen, and we
+behold the expanse of sea and sky melting in the far distance into "some
+shade of blue unnameable," whilst the mountain-fringed ring of the Bay of
+Salerno becomes vividly mapped out to our eyes from the Cape of Minerva to
+the Punta di Licosia. On our left we peer down into the depths of the dark
+ravine of the Dragone, whose black shadows are popularly supposed to give
+its name of Atrani to the cheerful little town we have left behind. Let us
+thank Heaven that we are at last out of reach of the beggars, and that the
+only human beings to be encountered upon the road are a few peasants with
+loads of fruit or vegetables, and an occasional charcoal-burner bearing
+his grimy burden to the town below. The _carbonaio_ with his blackened
+face and queer outlandish garments is a familiar figure throughout all
+parts of Southern Italy. He belongs to a race apart, that dwells in the
+belt of forest land clothing the higher hills, and he only descends to the
+cities of the shore and the plain in order to sell his goods. He is
+despised by the sharper-witted townsman, who beats down his prices for the
+combustibles he has borne with such fatigue from his distant mountain
+home. Sometimes the old people are despatched to do the money bargaining,
+the selling and buying. Look at the old couple at this moment passing us;
+an aged man and woman that Theocritus might have known in earlier days
+when the world was less civilized and less greedy of gain. With bare
+travel-stained feet, with feeble frames supported by long staves and with
+the heavy sacks of charcoal on their bent backs, the modern Baucis and
+Philemon crawl along the white road beneath a broiling sun, patient and
+uncomplaining, and apparently with no feelings of envy as they cast one
+careless glance at our carriage. Weary and foot-sore, they will only
+obtain a few _quattrini_ in the town for all their toil and trouble, and
+then they must retrace every step up the long hill-side, with their little
+stock of provisions to help eke out a miserable existence. Yet can any
+life in such a climate and amid such surroundings be truly accounted
+miserable, we ask, no matter how humble the dwelling or frugal the fare?
+
+As our carriage creeps slowly upward, we find the land less cultivated,
+and now and again we pass tracts of woodland whence little purling streams
+fall over rocky ledges on to the roadway. We catch sight of small clumps
+of cyclamen, and in the shady hollows we detect tufts of the maiden-hair
+fern--_Capilli di Venere_, "Venus' tresses," as the Italians sometimes call
+this graceful little plant. At a curve of the road we are confronted by a
+smiling old peasant with gold rings in his ears, who in the expectation of
+_forestieri_ coming this way has been patiently sitting for hours on a
+boulder. Doffing his battered hat and putting a sunburnt hand to his
+mouth, the old fellow in a deep musical bass wakens all the sleeping
+echoes that lie in the many folds of the valley, so that we hear the words
+of welcome repeated again and again, growing fainter and fainter as the
+sound of the voice travels from cliff to cliff. The performer is delighted
+with a few _soldi_, and the jaded scarecrow of a horse seems pleased with
+his momentary halt. _Iterum altiora petimus_; by degrees we reach the airy
+platform upon which Ravello stands, and finally alight at the comfortable
+old inn so long associated with the excellent family of Palumbo.
+
+Ravello undoubtedly owes its early foundation to certain patrician
+families of Amalfi, which after securing their fortunes decided to leave
+the hot close city beside the shore, and to seek new homes in the bracing
+air of the hill-top above. Placing itself under the protection of the
+powerful Robert Guiscard, Ravello became faithfully attached to the Norman
+interest, and in 1086, at the suggestion of the great Count Roger, who
+cherished a deep regard for the Rufolo family, the town was created a
+bishopric by Pope Victor III. As a subject city of the Norman princes,
+Ravello was during this period at the zenith of its fame and importance.
+Its actual population is unknown at this distant day, but we learn that
+under Count Roger the large area of the city was entirely girdled by
+strong walls set with towers; that it contained thirteen churches, four
+monasteries, many public buildings, and a large number of private palaces.
+Its cathedral was founded in honour of Saint Pantaleone by Niccolo Rufolo,
+Duke of Sora and Grand Admiral of Sicily, the head of the powerful family
+whose name is still gratefully remembered in this half-deserted town. In
+1156 Ravello was honoured by a state visit from Pope Adrian IV.--the
+English monk, Nicholas Breakspear, the only Briton who ever succeeded in
+gaining the papal tiara and who gave the lordship of Ireland to Henry
+Plantagenet--and during his stay the Pontiff was entertained as the guest
+of the all-powerful Rufoli. Born of humble parents in the village of
+Bensington, near Oxford, Nicholas Breakspear became a monk at St Alban's,
+and having once entered the religious life, he rose by sheer force of
+intellect and an iron strength of will to the attainment of the highest
+honour the Church could bestow. It was in the hey-day of his power that
+the English pope entered Ravello and sang Mass in the Cathedral in the
+presence of all the noble citizens of the place, for in the previous year
+he had crushed for ever the dangerous heresy of Arnold of Brescia, by
+boldly sentencing that ardent reformer to be burnt at the stake in Rome
+and his ashes cast into the Tiber. The Pontiff during his visit sojourned
+in the Palazzo Rufolo, the beautiful Saracenic building that is still
+standing intact after so many centuries, and by a curious coincidence is
+now the property of the well-known English family of Reid. Nor was Pope
+Adrian the only sovereign who honoured Ravello by his presence, for
+Charles of Anjou, brother of St Louis of France and the murderer of poor
+Conradin, and King Robert the Wise also received the hospitality of the
+Rufolo family within these walls. The whole existing town in fact is
+eloquent of the long extinct but by no means forgotten Rufoli, who may
+fairly be reckoned among the more enlightened of the petty tyrants of
+medieval Italy. That their name was still familiar in Italian society in
+the fourteenth century is evident from the circumstances that Boccaccio
+puts a story, no doubt founded on fact, into the mouth of the fair
+Lauretta, which deals with the adventures of one Landolfo Rufolo of
+Ravello, "who, not content with his great store, but anxious to make it
+double, was near losing all he had, and his life also." The novel proceeds
+to relate how this member of a wealthy and respected family turned
+corsair, after losing all his capital in a mercantile speculation in
+Cyprus; how he, in his turn, was robbed of his ill-gotten gains on the
+high seas by some thievish merchants of Genoa; and how Landolfo, after
+passing through a variety of more or less improbable adventures, was
+finally rescued from drowning off the coast of Corfu by a servant-maid
+who, whilst washing dishes by the sea-shore, chanced to espy the
+unconscious merchant drifting towards the beach with his arms clasped
+round a small wooden chest, which kept him afloat. "Moved by compassion,"
+says the relator of the tale, "she stepped a little way into the sea,
+which was now calm, and seizing the half-drowned wretch by the hair of his
+head, drew both him and the chest to land, where with much trouble she
+unfolded his arms from the chest, which she set upon the head of her
+daughter who was with her. She herself carried Landolfo like a little
+child to the town, put him on a stove, and chafed and washed him with warm
+water, by which means the vital heat began to return, and his strength
+partially revived. In due time she took him from the stove, comforted him
+with wine and good cordials, and kept him some days till he knew where he
+was; she then restored him his chest, and told him he might now provide
+for his departure."(6) Of course the little chest that Landolfo had
+clutched by chance in his agony of drowning eventually turned out to be
+filled with precious stones, which by a miracle--and miracles were common
+enough in the days of the _Decameron_--not only floated of itself but also
+supported the weight of Master Landolfo. In any case, the rescued
+merchant, with the greed and ingratitude which are often accounted for
+sharpness and wit, presented his kind hostess with the empty trunk, whilst
+he concealed the gems in a belt upon his own person. Equipped with these
+jewels, he made his way across the Adriatic to the Apulian coast, and
+thence reached Ravello with greater wealth than he had ever hoped to
+obtain with his original capital at the time he set sail for Cyprus.
+
+  [Illustration: RAVELLO: IL DUOMO]
+
+Fortunately Ravello, though shrunk to such modest proportions nowadays,
+still possesses many memorials of its glorious past. Travellers will of
+course turn their steps towards the Duomo, with its yellow baroque facade
+abutting on the little piazza that, with its daisy-starred turf and old
+acacia trees, forms so pleasant a play-ground for the merry dark-eyed
+children of the place. The cathedral of St Pantaleone is--or rather was--one
+of the most interesting and richly decorated churches erected in Southern
+Italy under the combined influence of Norman and Saracenic art at a time
+when cunning workmen were able to blend together the styles of East and
+West, and to produce that rich harmonious architecture of which the
+splendid churches of Monreale and Palermo present to us the happiest
+examples. There still exist intact the magnificent bronze doors with their
+fifty-four panels of sculpture in relief, the gift of Sergio Muscettola
+and his wife, Sigilgaita Rufolo, and the work of the Italian artist
+Barisanus of Trani, who likewise designed and cast the portals of the
+cathedrals of his native town and of Monreale. But alas! the interior of
+the building, that was once rich with mosaic and fresco and fanciful
+carving, has been converted into one of those dull soulless caverns of
+stucco that the wanderer in all parts of Italy meets with only too
+frequently. This deplorable act of vandalism at Ravello dates of course
+from the eighteenth century, and appears to have been the work of a bishop
+named Tafuri, who in his frenzied eagerness to possess a cathedral worthy
+of comparison with the fashionable atrocities in plaster then being
+erected at Naples, did not hesitate to destroy wholesale almost all the
+ancient and elaborate ornamentation of his Duomo. His architect--perhaps
+the miserable Fuga, who ruined the interior of the Cathedral at Palermo,
+who knows?--dug up the fine old pavement, tore out the mosaics and had them
+carted away, effaced the frescoes, and at last transformed the venerable
+building with its memories of popes and princes into a commonplace
+white-washed chamber. Why this wretched prelate stayed his hand at the
+pulpit, it is difficult to say: perhaps he was meanwhile translated for
+his private virtues, perhaps Death overtook him in the work of
+destruction; at any rate, the famous pulpit of Ravello mercifully escaped
+the general onslaught, though it must have been by fortunate accident and
+not by design that Monsignore Tafuri omitted to remove this unique
+specimen of a style of architecture, which doubtless he considered
+barbaric and un-Christian in its character. For this pulpit is one of the
+finest examples of the ornate, if somewhat bizarre art of the thirteenth
+century, and belongs to a type of work that is not unfrequently met with
+throughout Italy. Six spiral columns, springing from the backs of crouched
+lions, support the rostrum of marble inlaid with beautiful mosaics; whilst
+above the arch of the stair-way of ascent stands the famous portrait,
+usually called that of Sigilgaita Rufolo, wife of the founder of the
+Cathedral. The striking face, which is surmounted by an elaborate diadem
+with two pendent lappets, is evidently an excellent likeness of the
+original; yet there can be no doubt that this interesting bust has been
+wrongly named, since the pulpit itself, as a Latin inscription duly
+records, was erected in the year 1272 by Niccolo Rufolo, a descendant of
+the famous Grand Admiral, so that we may fairly conclude that the portrait
+represents the wife, or perhaps sister or daughter, of the donor. But
+popular tradition dies hard; and the name of Sigilgaita will probably
+cling for ever to the female face which has for over six centuries looked
+calmly down upon generation after generation of worshippers. Perhaps those
+severe proud features may have impressed the ignorant Vandal-Bishop as
+that of some unknown Saint, whom it might be dangerous to offend, and may
+thereby have saved the pulpit of Niccolo Rufolo from the destruction that
+must have seemed inevitable. Be that as it may, the bust has survived
+uninjured, which, apart from the feeling of sentiment, is particularly
+fortunate, for it belongs to a small class of artistic work, of which
+existing specimens are rare and highly prized. For there must have been a
+local and premature Renaissance in this part of Italy during the
+thirteenth century, otherwise a statue so imbued with true classical
+feeling and so correct in technical finish as that of Sigilgaita in
+Ravello Cathedral could never have been produced; yet the names of the
+artist or artists who thus anticipated the great plastic revival remain
+undiscovered. Portrait-busts, similar in treatment and idea to that of the
+so-called Sigilgaita, are to be found here and there in museums, but this
+effigy in remote Ravello remains unique amidst its original surroundings.
+
+Turning aside from Sigilgaita's steady gaze and making the round of the
+bleak white-washed building, our eyes are suddenly attracted by a fine
+picture, in the manner of Domenichino, representing the martyrdom of
+Pantaleone, the popular Amalfitan Saint to whom this church was dedicated
+by the Rufolo family.
+
+The cult of this Asiatic martyr in Amalfi is of course another legacy of
+the Republic's close connection with the Levant, whence some relic-hunting
+admiral or merchant of the state reverently brought Pantaleone's bones to
+the Italian coast. As the veneration of this Saint still exists so
+deep-seated that his Hellenic name is frequently bestowed on children at
+baptism, it may not be deemed amiss to give a very brief account of this
+eastern Martyr, who is so closely associated with Amalfitan, and later
+with Venetian life. Pantaleone was born at Nicomedia, in Bithynia, the son
+of a Pagan father and a Christian mother. Well educated by his parents, he
+became a physician, and on account of his skill, his learning, his
+graceful manners and his handsome face, was finally selected to attend the
+person of the Emperor Maximian. At the Imperial Court the young doctor,
+who had meantime neglected the faith of his mother, was recalled to a true
+sense of Christian duty by the precepts of an old priest named Hermolaus.
+Pantaleone now began to heal the sick and to preach the Gospel, and even
+at times to perform miracles. Information as to his conduct having reached
+the Emperor's ears, Maximian gave the young physician the choice of
+renouncing Christianity or of suffering death, whereat Pantaleone boldly
+declared he would rather die than apostatize. Thereupon the Saint,
+together with the Christian priest Hermolaus, was bound to an olive tree
+and beheaded with a sword. The story of his martyrdom has been frequently
+treated in Venetian art, for as an eastern Saint Pantaleone has a church
+dedicated to him in Venice, wherein the brush of Paul Veronese has painted
+in glowing colours the chief incidents of his life and death. As in the
+case of other physician-saints of the Roman Church--St Roch, St Cosmo and
+St Damiano--Pantaleone was especially besought in cases of the plague,
+which owing to the intercommunication between Amalfi and the Orient,
+frequently ravaged the towns of this coast.
+
+  [Illustration: A STREET IN RAVELLO]
+
+From the Cathedral we proceeded to visit the quaint little church of Santa
+Maria del Gradillo, that with its oriental-looking towers and cupolas
+affords a pleasing example of the mixed Lombard and Saracenic style which
+was in vogue in the years when the house of Hohenstaufen were masters of
+Southern Italy. We found little that was worth seeing inside the building,
+except the pretty black-eyed daughter of the toothless tottering old
+sacristan, who slunk off grumbling on his child's appearance, leaving her
+to do the honours of the place. Her merry face with its welcoming smile
+and her modest loquacity excited our interest, and in answer to our
+questions we gathered that she was twenty years old, and was still
+unmarried, not for lack of opportunity, she naively told us, but because
+she was unwilling to leave her old parents, who had no one in the world
+but herself to attend to them. Coming to the door of the church, Angela
+(for that was her name) pointed out her home, a little white-washed
+cottage with a heavily barred window over-hanging the grass-grown lane. We
+wished our pleasant companion a warm good-bye, or rather _a riverderla_,
+at the entrance of the dwelling, where through the open doorway we could
+espy a small sun-smitten courtyard tenanted by a wizened old woman sitting
+in the shade of an orange tree, by three cats, and by a large family of
+skinny hens. On a low wall we noted some shallow earthenware pans filled
+with carnation plants, whose red and yellow heads were clearly silhouetted
+against the blue sky over head. Perhaps Angela's life, we thought, is
+after all happier thus spent in the tending of her parents, her poultry
+and her garden, than if joined to that of some swarthy rascal of the beach
+below or dull peasant of the hillside. Long may the old people survive to
+keep their guardian Angel from the mingled sorrows and joys of matrimony!
+
+  "Tenete l'uocchie de miricula nere;
+  Che ffa la vostra matre che n'n de' marite?
+  La vostra matre n'a de' marito' apposte
+  Pe' ne' lleva' son fior, a la fenestre."
+
+  ("Your eyes are marvellously black and bright!
+  How is it that your mother does not wed you?
+  She will not wed you, not to lose her light--
+  Not to remove the flower that decks her window!")
+
+The well-known hotel kept by Madame Palumbo, who is thoroughly conversant
+with English ways and requirements, occupies a delightful position in the
+old aristocratic quarter of Ravello known as "Il Toro," the name of which
+is still retained in the interesting little church of San Giovanni del
+Toro close by. This comfortable hostelry has been constructed out of the
+_Vescovado_, the ancient episcopal residence, and it still retains many
+curious and attractive features of the original building, notably the
+quaint little stair-way that descends from the bishop's private chamber
+into the chapel, which is now the _salon_ of the hotel. With its
+magnificent views, its interesting buildings and its pure exhilarating
+air, Ravello would seem to be an ideal spot wherein to linger, and it
+affords a most agreeable change in the later Spring months from the close
+atmosphere and enervating heat of Amalfi or the coast towns. Perched on
+this breezy hill-top, from the terrace of the hotel can be observed the
+whole circuit of the Bay of Salerno, whilst behind to the north and east
+the ring of enclosing mountains rises sharp and distinct against the sky.
+From this point we are presented with a complete view of the territories
+of the ancient Republic, spread out like a map beneath our feet and
+stretching from the Punta della Campanella to the heights above Vietri,
+and backed by the arid grey mountain peaks. If the garden of the Hotel
+Palumbo seems a fitting place wherein to idle or to dream, might not it
+also appeal to some historian, not tied to time nor to the hard necessity
+of money-making, as a suitable spot for the conception of a history of the
+origin, rise, decline and fall of the great maritime Republic, whose
+dominions, still smiling and populous, surround Ravello on all sides?
+Gibbon found the first suggestion for his Roman History whilst musing upon
+the ruins of the Capitol, and he finished his great work in a Swiss garden
+amidst the scent of acacia bloom; might not the annals of the Amalfitan
+Republic likewise spring from reflections made upon this terrace, where
+the memories of a former greatness still beautiful in its decay must
+operate so powerfully? Well, perhaps some future Gibbon--or more probably
+some budding Mommsen--may in time present the world with a true impartial
+and erudite history of the Costiera d'Amalfi.
+
+We bask lazily in the afternoon sunshine, to the soft, rather soporific
+cooing of some caged doves, that live in the back-ground out of sight
+behind a screen of lemon trees in huge red jars, such as Morgiana must
+have been familiar with. Beyond the terrace wall we note the carefully
+tended vines, precious plants, for their grapes produce the delicate
+_Episcopio_ wine, perhaps the choicest vintage to be obtained around
+Naples, and boasting a flavour and bouquet that are rarely to be
+encountered except in the products of the most celebrated vineyards of
+France or Germany.
+
+  "O quam placens in colore,
+  O quam fragrans in odore,
+  O quam sapidum in ore,
+    Dolce linguae vinculum.
+
+  "Felix venter quem intrabis,
+  Felix guttur quod rigabis,
+  Felix os quod tu lavabis;
+    Et beata labia!"
+
+Below the vinery we catch glimpses of the dancing waters of the Bay and of
+the little towns of Minori and Majori, seen through a screen of olive and
+almond trees that are gently swayed by the south wind. Opposite to us
+towers the huge form of the mountain of the Avvocata, upon whose slopes
+centuries ago the Madonna herself appeared in a flood of glory to an
+ignorant but pious shepherd lad, promising the startled youth to become
+his mediator, the _avvocata_ of his simple prayers. The story must be
+true, say the peasants, for there on the hillside can still be seen the
+ruins of the shrine that the wondering and grateful villagers raised upon
+the very site of the apparition in honour of their celestial visitor. But
+the whole country-side teems with interesting and often beautiful legends
+and traditions, handed down by generations of the simple hardy folk who
+toil for their daily bread amidst the vineyards and olive groves that
+clothe the sun-baked slopes descending to the shore.
+
+The intervening distance is not great between Ravello and La Scala, which
+surmounts the opposite ridge of the valley of the Dragone, whence good
+walkers can easily descend by the ancient mule track that leads down
+direct to Amalfi by way of Scaletta. Like its neighbour and historic rival
+across the valley, the annals and fortunes of Scala are closely interwoven
+with those of Amalfi; and it was during the palmy days of the Republic
+that this daughter-town reached its height of prosperity. Although the
+tradition that once Scala possessed a hundred towers upon its walls and a
+hundred and thirty churches is obviously exaggerated, yet it must have
+been a place of importance even as early as 987, when Pope John XVI raised
+it to the rank of a bishopric, an honour which did not fall to Ravello
+until many years later. Early in the twelfth century Scala was pillaged by
+the Pisans, but some years afterwards, when the mother city tamely
+submitted to the demands of these Tuscan invaders without the smallest
+effort at self-defence, the higher-spirited mountaineers of La Scala
+manned their walls with skill and vigour, though without avail. The
+hill-set city was ultimately carried by storm, and so thoroughly did the
+enraged Pisans wreak their vengeance upon the place that Scala never again
+rose to fame or eminence, but henceforward dwindled in wealth and size
+until it finally sank to the condition of a large village, whilst Clement
+VIII offered an additional indignity to the city in its dotage by
+depriving it of episcopal rank. But though the citizens of modern Scala no
+longer possess a bishop in their midst, they are still the proud
+possessors and jealous guardians of the magnificent mitre presented by
+Charles of Anjou, who was greatly pleased by the men and money that this
+ancient town sent to aid his brother, St Louis of France, in his Crusade.
+Some sculptured tombs, one of them a monument in honour of Marinella
+Rufolo of Ravello, who was married to a Coppola of Scala, remain in the
+churches to interest the curious traveller, but most visitors will find
+the principal charm of this dilapidated little city in its lofty striking
+situation beneath the frowning mass of Monte Cerrato.
+
+But the sunset has come and gone, and the last tints of its rose-pink glow
+are rapidly disappearing from the serrated line of mountain tops against
+their background of daffodil sky. Stars are beginning to peep in the
+firmament, and yellow lights, the stars of earth, are springing up fast in
+the town below, and even appearing at rare intervals of space amongst the
+cottages of the woody hillside, or upon the fishing boats that lie on the
+bosom of the Bay, now turning to a deep purple under the advancing shadows
+of night. A cheerful concert of unseen insects greets our ears as we
+descend rapidly towards Atrani, whilst the goatbells amid the distant
+pastures tinkle pleasantly from time to time. We soon exchange the dewy
+freshness of evening in the country for the heavy air, thick with dust,
+that hangs over the coast road, and in a few moments more find ourselves
+at the foot of the rock-cut staircase that leads to our convent inn.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+But our days upon the beautiful Costiera d'Amalfi are at an end, and the
+moment has at last come for us to bid farewell to these enchanted scenes
+and to the ancient city slumbering peacefully in its rocky valley by the
+shore. Our rows upon the glassy waters of the Bay, our scrambles up the
+wild scrub-covered hillsides above the town, our evening walks along the
+broad high-road to catch the fleeting glories of the sun-set,--all are
+ended; the day, the hour of departure has actually arrived.
+
+Casting a longing look behind we quit Amalfi in the cool of the evening,
+in order to cover the eight intervening miles of coast road that lie
+between us and Salerno. We pass Atrani, with its tall parti-coloured
+tower, and proceed towards our destination with the smooth plain of waters
+below us and the fertile slopes above our heads, and thus we quickly gain
+Minori, another of the busy little settlements that once helped to make up
+the collected might of the old Republic. We meet with bare-footed
+sun-embrowned peasants, in their suits of blue linen and broad shady straw
+hats; lean sinewy figures, returning from a long day's work in the
+fragrant orange groves by which the town is surrounded. We meet also,
+alas! with the usual crowd of beggars, the halt, the maimed, and the
+pseudo-blind, who are quickly left behind; nevertheless the naughty
+picturesque half-naked children, loudly screaming for _soldi_, caper in
+the dust alongside our carriage, until these little pests are
+out-stripped, but only to give way to other imps, equally naughty and
+unclothed, from Majori. Majori, nestling by the seashore amidst the
+enfolding mountains, appears to us a second Amalfi, with its crowded beach
+and brightly coloured boats, with its paper and maccaroni mills, huddled
+into the narrow ravine of the Senna, which cuts the town in half ere it
+empties itself into the Bay. Overhead the huge ruined castle of San
+Niccolo looms distinct against the rose-flushed evening sky, crouching
+like some decrepit old giant above the little city which he so oppressed
+in the bad old days when Sanseverini and Colonna carried on a perpetual
+selfish strife that allowed their humble neighbours no repose. Beautiful
+as is Majori, it is no lovelier than many another spot upon this exquisite
+coast; it is but as one pearl in a well-matched necklace, for the country
+that lies between Amalfi and Salerno is fully as rich in historical
+interest and natural charm as is the western portion that we have just
+traversed. Behind Majori we behold Monte Falerio, with its rocky summit
+tipped with the glow of evening and its base in purple shadow, descending
+abruptly into the darkening waters of the Bay. Slanting down to the
+surf-fringed beach, the great mountain seem to bar our further progress,
+but with a guttural imprecation and a loud cracking of the whip, our
+coachman deftly guides his half-starved but cunning little horses round
+the sharp corner of the mountain spur known as the Capo del' Orso, and in
+a trice Amalfi, whither we have been straining our eyes, is snatched from
+our vision; a few minutes later, and we have rounded the Capo del Tumulo,
+with its memories of the great Genoese admiral, Filippino Doria, who in
+the treacherous currents that circle round this Cape, destroyed the
+Spanish fleet of the Emperor Charles V. Already the sun has dipped below
+the horizon, and the calm expanse of the Tyrrhene has lost the last
+reflected ray; forward our driver urges his horses in the fast-fading
+light. The Angelus rings out from half a score of belfries beside the
+seashore and on the hillside, breaking the stillness of the gloaming with
+musical reverberations. Sunset and evening star, twilight and evening
+bell; how exquisite is the fall of night upon the shores of the Bay of
+Salerno! We pass the fishing village of Cetara, and in so doing we pass by
+the willing strength of imagination out of the dominion of the ancient
+Republic of Amalfi into the Principality of Salerno. Onward we press, and
+it is not long before a shrill familiar sound bursts upon our ears, a
+sound that quickly tears the gossamer threads of a fancy revelling in the
+thoughts of long-extinct principalities and powers. It is the whistle of a
+railway-engine descending the slope from Vietri above us down to Salerno;
+it is the neighing of the iron horse that has not yet pranced along the
+unconquered Costiera d'Amalfi, nor befouled its crystal-clear air with his
+smoky breath. For at Vietri we re-enter the every-day world, and leave
+behind us the sea-girt fairy-land; Vietri, not Cetara, is the true
+frontier town to-day. But the lights of Salerno are drawing nearer and
+nearer, and in a few moments of time we are tearing along the broad
+lamp-lit Marina of the town, in the middle of which our driver pulls up
+suddenly at the entrance of that old-fashioned comfortable inn, the
+Albergo d'Inghilterra:
+
+  "Another day has told its feverish story,
+  Another night has brought its promised rest."
+
+  [Illustration: MINORI AT SUNSET]
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+                   SALERNO AND THE HOUSE OF HAUTEVILLE
+
+
+Backed by gentle slopes well wooded and well tilled, and screened from the
+northern blasts by its guarding amphitheatre of grey crags, Salerno
+occupies a delightful position upon the Bay to which it gives its own
+name. The long stretch of its Marina, tolerably clean to the eye if not at
+all points agreeable to the nostrils, follows the broad curve of the
+strand, and an idle hour or so may pleasantly be whiled away in watching
+the fishing craft moored beside the mole and the attendant sailors. At the
+northern end of this promenade, in what constitutes the most fashionable
+quarter of the place, is a tiny garden with palms and daturas, whilst hard
+by stands a large theatre, evidences of the gentility of modern Salerno.
+But the whole town appears sleepy and dead-alive to a stranger, though at
+the sunset hour a band occasionally plays in this open space, the music
+attracting hither a crowd composed of all the divers elements of society
+in the quiet old city. Yet though not possessing any great attractions for
+a sojourn in itself, Salerno makes an excellent centre whence to explore
+the neighbourhood, for it lies within easy reach of the great Benedictine
+Abbey of Santa Trinita; of beautiful La Cava, "that Alpine valley under an
+Italian sky"; of Nocera, with its ancient cathedral that was once a pagan
+temple; and last, but very far from least, of that glorious group of
+temples at Paestum. It has tolerable hotels, and if only their _padroni_
+could be brought to realise that a flavouring of rosemary and garlic in
+every dish is not appreciated by the palates of the _forestieri_, the fare
+provided would be excellent. As in all Italian cities, northern or
+southern, however, the nocturnal noise is prodigious. Shouting and
+shrieking, quarrelling and yelling rend the air at all hours, whilst the
+practice of serenading, more agreeable in romantic poetry than in everyday
+life, is here carried to excess, and the twanging of the mandoline and the
+throaty voices of ardent lovers are rarely silent o' nights in the dark
+narrow streets of Salerno.
+
+  "A lu scur' vagi cercann'
+  La bella mia addo e?
+  Mo m'annascunn' po' fann' dispera',
+      I mor', I mor' pe' te,
+      Ripos' cchiu ne ho!"
+
+  ("In favouring dusk I wandering go,
+      My fair, where shall I find her?
+  Now she attracts, now drives me wild;
+      I die, I die for her;
+      Repose no more have I.")
+
+Behind the long line of lofty well-built houses facing the Bay, the
+streets are gloomy, narrow and crooked, a labyrinth of dark mysterious
+lanes that contain no palaces or churches of note, and but few artistic
+"bits" to catch the eye and delight the soul of a painter. As in the case
+of Amalfi, the Cathedral of San Matteo at Salerno is almost the sole
+monument left standing of a past that is peculiarly rich in historical
+associations. Ever since the accession of the Angevin kings Salerno has
+remained a quiet provincial town, neither rich nor poor, but stagnant and
+without commerce. Into its harbour, which Norman and Suabian princes
+attempted to improve, the sand has long since silted, and Naples for many
+centuries past has been able to regard with serene contempt the city that
+it was once intended to make her commercial rival:
+
+  "Se Salerno avesse un porto,
+  Napoli sarebbe morto."
+
+Well, Naples owns an excellent harbour, and has in consequence grown into
+one of the largest sea-ports on the shores of the Mediterranean, whilst
+little Salerno can only afford anchorage for fishing boats.
+
+The chief interest of the place centres in its close connection with the
+great Norman house of Hauteville, and especially with Robert Guiscard,
+Duke of Apulia and Calabria, who after a fierce struggle managed to
+capture this city from the Lombard princes. Sprung from a hardy race of
+_valvassors_ or _bannerets_ in Normandy, Duke Robert was one of the twelve
+sons of Tancred of Hauteville in the bishopric of Coutances. Joining his
+elder half-brother William Bras-de-Fer in Italy, Robert at once began to
+make a remarkable display of soldierly and statesman-like qualities. An
+adventurer pure and simple in an alien land, this sharp-witted Norman in
+course of time obtained the nick-name of Guiscard, or the Wiseacre, and on
+the death of his elder brother he was nominated Count of Apulia by
+acclamation of the Norman followers, to the exclusion of his helpless
+young nephews. Robert Guiscard's appearance and character have been
+sketched for us with loving care by one of the most famous of the world's
+historians, who was fully able to appreciate the mingled force and
+cunning, the _suaviter in modo_ and the _fortiter in re_, of this leader
+of a handful of Normans in a hostile and distant country. Let Gibbon's
+stately prose therefore present to us a word-painting of the Great
+Adventurer himself:--
+
+"His lofty stature surpassed the tallest of his army; his limbs were cast
+in the true proportion of strength and gracefulness; and to the decline of
+life he maintained the patent vigour of health and the commanding dignity
+of his form. His complexion was ruddy, his shoulders were broad, his hair
+and beard were long and of a flaxen colour, his eyes sparkled with fire,
+and his voice, like that of Achilles, could impress obedience and terror
+amidst the tumult of battle. In the ruder ages of chivalry, such
+qualifications are not below the notice of the poet or historian; they may
+observe that Robert at once and with equal dexterity could wield in the
+right hand his sword, his lance in the left; that in the battle of
+Civitella he was thrice unhorsed, and that on the close of that memorable
+day he was adjudged to have borne away the prize of valour from the
+warriors of the two armies. His boundless ambition was founded on the
+consciousness of superior worth: in the pursuit of greatness he was never
+arrested by the scruples of justice, and seldom moved by the feelings of
+humanity: though not insensible of fame, the choice of open or clandestine
+means was determined only by his present advantage. The surname of
+_Guiscard_ was applied to this master of political wisdom, which is too
+often confounded with the practice of dissimulation and deceit; and Robert
+is praised by the Apulian poet for excelling the cunning of Ulysses and
+the eloquence of Cicero. Yet these arts were disguised by an appearance of
+military frankness: in his highest fortune he was accessible and courteous
+to his fellow soldiers, and while he indulged the prejudices of his new
+subjects, he affected in his dress and manners to maintain the ancient
+fashion of his country. He grasped with a rapacious, that he might
+distribute with a liberal hand; his primitive indigence had taught the
+habits of frugality; the gain of a merchant was not below his attention;
+and his prisoners were tortured with slow and unfeeling cruelty to force a
+discovery of their secret treasure. According to the Greeks, he departed
+from Normandy with only five followers on horse-back, and thirty on foot;
+yet even this allowance appears too bountiful;--the sixth son of Tancred of
+Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim, and his first military band was
+levied among the adventurers of Italy."
+
+Gaining over the Pope Nicholas II. to his interests, the new Count was
+able to exact an oath of fealty in 1060 from the Italian barons, hitherto
+his equals, to recognise him as "Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and here-after
+of Sicily, by the grace of God and of St Peter," although it took many
+years of hard fighting before these lands, thus proudly claimed, could be
+subdued. Beginning with the conquest of the Duchy of Benevento, Guiscard
+at once laid siege to Salerno, taking it after an obstinate resistance
+lasting over eight months, during which he was himself severely wounded by
+a splinter from one of his own engines of war. The city captured with such
+difficulty now became the victor's favourite residence and the recipient
+of his bounty and enlightened rule, so that Salerno quickly rose to the
+rank of one of the most illustrious towns in Europe, supplanting even its
+magnificent neighbour Amalfi in popular esteem.
+
+  "Urbs Latii non est hac delitiosior urbe,
+  Frugibus arboribus vino redundat; et unde
+  Non tibi poma nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt,
+  Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum."
+
+  ("All Latium shows no more delightful place,
+  Whose sunny slopes the vine and almond grace;
+  'Midst fruitful groves her palaces uprear,
+  Her men are virtuous, and her women fair.")
+
+It was under the Guiscard's auspices that the famous school of Medicine
+that had long been seated at Salerno rose to its highest point of
+excellence. "Paris for learning, Bologna for law, Orleans for poetry, and
+Salerno for Medicine";--such was the verdict of the age. With the somewhat
+grudging consent of the clergy, the hygienic skill of the dreaded Arabs
+was in this city permitted to temper the crass ignorance of medieval
+Italy, and at Salerno alone were the works of the infidel Avicenna and of
+the pagans Galen and Hippocrates openly studied. The result was that the
+fame of the doctors of this _Fons Medicinae_ spread over all Western
+Europe, so that distinguished patients either came hither to be treated in
+person or else sent emissaries to explain their symptoms and to obtain
+advice. Nor were the professors of the healing art at Salerno tied down by
+a strict adherence to drugs and boluses, for they fully realised that the
+height of all human ambition, the _mens sana in corpore sano_, is in any
+case more easily to be obtained by self-control than by all the
+ingredients of the pharmacopoeia. They were warm believers apparently in
+the doctrine of moderation in all things, which after all is one of the
+most valuable prescriptions of modern hygiene:
+
+  "Curas tolle graves, irasci crede profanum,
+  Parce mero, coenato parum, non sit tibi vanum,
+  Surgere post epulas, somnum fuge meridianum."
+
+  ("Throw off dull care; thine angry moods restrain;
+  Eschew the wine-cup; lightly eat, nor vain
+  Deem our advice to make Enough thy feast.
+  Take exercise, and shun the noon-day rest.")
+
+Such was the oracular reply of the Salernitan sages to Robert, Duke of
+Normandy, and no one can dispute the sound common sense of the
+prescription given, nor doubt that it is applicable to half the patients
+who to-day throng the consulting rooms of fashionable London physicians.
+
+But to return to Robert Guiscard, who shares the historical honours of the
+place, together with the great Pope Gregory VII., of whom we shall speak
+presently. After subduing the southern half of Italy and the island of
+Sicily, the great Duke next turned his victorious arms against the Eastern
+Empire, with the secret intention, it was suspected, of ascending the
+throne of Constantine. With the pseudo-Emperor Michael in his train, the
+Great Adventurer in 1081 assembled a vast army at Otranto, consisting of
+30,000 Italian subjects and of 1300 Norman knights, with the object of
+crossing over to Epirus. Durazzo on the opposite Albanian coast, the
+Dyrrachium of the ancients, a city that was henceforth destined to be
+closely associated with succeeding dynasties of South Italy, was the
+objective of this gigantic expedition, for it was commonly reported to be
+the key of the Eastern Empire. Thither the flotilla set sail, but before
+reaching the Greek shore, an unexpected and unseasonable tempest scattered
+Guiscard's argosy, destroying many of the ships and drowning many crews.
+Nevertheless, the undaunted spirit and endless resources of the Norman
+Duke rose superior to all misfortunes. Landing with the remnant of his
+army he at once laid siege to Durazzo, despite the fact that the Emperor
+Alexius was marching to its relief, and that the Venetian fleet was
+already anchored in its harbour. In spite of overwhelming odds, Guiscard
+utterly routed the Byzantine army. With his heir Bohemond and his wife
+Sigilgaita beside him, the Duke watched the progress of the battle, and at
+its most critical juncture, at a moment when it appeared inevitable that
+the hard-pressed Italian army must yield to the sheer numbers of the foe,
+the deep voice of the leader could be heard booming like a deep-toned bell
+over the battlefield, as he addressed his wavering troops. "Whither do ye
+fly? Your enemy is implacable, and death is less grievous than slavery!"
+Joined with the hoarse voice of Guiscard, the Norman warriors could
+distinguish the exhortations of the Amazon-like Sigilgaita, "a second
+Pallas, less skilful in arts, but no less terrible in arms than the
+Athenian goddess." Rallying at the words of their master and shamed by the
+martial ardour of the Duchess, the invading troops made one last desperate
+effort, whereby the Imperial army was driven back and scattered, so that
+Alexius barely escaped with his life. Having routed the Emperor in fair
+fight, Guiscard now made use of his unparalleled cunning by bribing the
+treacherous Venetians, who eventually assisted the Italian forces to enter
+the city gates, and thus Durazzo was gained at the point of the sword
+after one of the fiercest sieges known to history. Scarcely had the
+beleaguered town been reduced, than the indomitable Guiscard found himself
+compelled to return to Italy, where the Emperor of the West, the unhappy
+Henry IV., vainly endeavouring to wipe out the humiliation of Canossa, had
+seized Rome and was actually besieging the great Hildebrand in the Castle
+of Sant' Angelo. Leaving his son Bohemond in command of the army in
+Macedonia, Robert recrossed the sea, and hastened with a handful of men
+towards Rome. But so intense a fear did the victor of Durazzo inspire,
+that the terrified Emperor without waiting to give combat fled headlong
+together with his anti-pope from the Holy City, where Guiscard was
+received with acclamation. "Thus, in less than three years," remarks
+Gibbon, "the son of Tancred of Hauteville enjoyed the glory of delivering
+the Pope, and of compelling the two Emperors of the East and West to fly
+before his victorious arms." Guiscard's triumphal entry into Rome was
+however marred by scenes of violence and scandal, due to the conduct of
+the Saracen troops which his brother, the great Count Roger of Sicily, had
+brought to assist the enterprise. So infuriated were the Romans by the
+behaviour of the infidels, that the prudent Gregory deemed it wiser to
+return to Salerno together with his deliverer, and it was in Guiscard's
+palace that the famous "Caesar of spiritual conquest" expired three years
+later. As to the Great Adventurer himself, he died in the island of
+Cephalonia in the very year of the Pope's death at Salerno (1085) and was
+buried beside his first wife, the gentle Alberada, at Venosa in Apulia,
+though the city which he had always loved and favoured would seem to have
+offered a more appropriate spot for his interment.
+
+But although the mortal remains of the Great Adventurer do not rest within
+the precincts of his beloved city, an undying monument of his glorious but
+turbulent reign is to be found in the Cathedral, which despite the neglect
+and alterations of eight centuries may still be ranked as one of the most
+interesting buildings in Southern Italy. Standing in a secluded part of
+the town, this magnificent church gains nothing from its position, for it
+can only be reached by means of tortuous dingy lanes, and even on a near
+approach the effect produced on the visitor is not impressive. "The
+Cathedral-church of San Matteo," says the Scotch traveller, Joseph
+Forsyth, in quaint pedantic language, "is a pile so antique and so modern,
+so repaired and rhapsodic, that it exhibits patches of every style, and is
+of no style itself." But is not this quality, we ask, exactly what a great
+historic building, such as Guiscard's church, truly demands? Ought not it
+to bear the impress of the various ages it has survived, and of the many
+famous persons who have contributed to its embellishment? From Duke
+Robert's day to the present time, the Cathedral is an epitome of the
+history of Salerno, a sermon in stones concerning the great past and the
+inglorious present of the city.
+
+In the year preceding his own death and that of the great Pontiff, who was
+tarrying at Salerno as his not over-willing guest, Duke Robert erected
+this Cathedral, obtaining the chief ornaments for his new structure and
+also its most important relic, the supposed body of the Apostle St
+Matthew, from the lately deserted city of Paestum across the bay. The
+church is approached by means of a quadrangular fore-court, a cloister
+supported on antique columns, such as can still be observed in a few of
+the old Roman churches, so that we venture to think that this idea at
+Salerno was suggested by the great Pope himself. A number of sculptured
+sarcophagi, which, like the pillars, were the spoils of Paestum, are
+ranged alongside the entrance walls; and once upon a time there stood in
+the centre of the courtyard the huge granite basin that all visitors to
+Naples will recall as set in the middle of the Villa Reale, where it
+performs the humble office of decorating a miniature pond, wherein
+lily-white ducks quack and gobble at the bread crumbs thrown to them by
+children and their nurses. Fancy the irate disgust of Duke Robert at
+waking to learn that the antique fountain for his new Cathedral, brought
+with such care and toil from distant Poseidonia, should have been
+transported to the rival city and turned to such base uses! Above the
+splendid bronze doors, the gift of Landolfo Butomilea and his wife shortly
+after Guiscard's death, we perceive the dedication of the church to the
+Apostle Matthew by the proud conqueror of the Two Sicilies and the
+protector of Hildebrand.
+
+  "A Duce Roberto donaris Apostole templo:
+  Pro meritis regno donetur ipse superno."
+
+The donor, we note, is confident that the Apostle, in return for so
+glorious a fabric, will undertake to obtain the Kingdom of Heaven for this
+generous client upon earth.
+
+The interior, which is sadly marred by white-wash and gaudy decoration, is
+a perfect treasure-house of works of art--antique, medieval, Renaissance--of
+which the guide-book will give a detailed list. Succeeding generations
+have put to strange uses some of the fine marble reliefs that Guiscard
+transported hither from Paestum, and we note that one archbishop has gone
+so far as to filch a sarcophagus carved with a Bacchanal procession to
+serve for his own tomb. We might perhaps infer that the deceased prelate
+was addicted to the wine-flask, and to have been a firm believer in and
+follower of one of the rules of the medical school of his own diocese:
+
+  "Si nocturna tibi noceat potatio vini,
+  Hoc ter mane libas iterum, et fuerit medicina."
+
+  ("If a carouse at night do make thee ill,
+  For morning medicine drink of wine thy fill")
+
+Let us hope that this extraordinary receipt for "hot coppers" was intended
+satirically, or else given seriously as the only advice that a confirmed
+toper was likely to follow in any case. But the use of classical adjuncts
+to adorn Christian tombs, which to-day appears so incongruous to us, was
+popular enough at the time of the Renaissance, and readers of Robert
+Browning's poetry will call to mind the story of the dying Bishop's
+injunction to his heirs concerning his tomb in St Praxed's church at Rome:
+
+  "The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
+  Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
+  Some tripod thyrsus with a vase or so,
+  The Saviour at His sermon on the mount,
+  Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
+  Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,
+  And Moses with the tables...."
+
+But it is necessary to shake off the spirit of Renaissance dilettantism
+before we venture to approach the chapel of John of Procida to the right
+of the high altar, where stands the stern figure of the greatest of the
+medieval Pontiffs. Above the marble statue of the Caesar of the Papacy,
+that was tardily erected to his memory by the unfortunate Pio Nono, appear
+the glittering mosaics of the apse of the chapel, from which look down the
+figures of John of Procida and of King Manfred, the last sovereign prince
+of the hated Suabian line that Gregory twice anathematized. Beneath the
+cold forbidding eye of the last of the Hohenstaufen and his friend and
+avenger here rest, strangely enough, the ashes of that "great and
+inflexible asserter of the supremacy of the sacerdotal order: the monk
+Hildebrand, afterwards Pope Gregory the Seventh." Born the son of a poor
+carpenter in the Tuscan village of Soana, this extraordinary man rose to
+eminence as a monk of Cluny, where he became famous for his extreme
+asceticism of life in an age of undisguised clerical corruption and
+luxury, when simony, lay investiture and priestly marriages were the rule
+rather than the exception on all sides, so that but few Churchmen were
+able to rise above their surrounding temptations. Such few as could resist
+the world, the flesh and the devil were accounted, and not unfrequently
+were in reality, ignorant crazy fanatics, half-pitied and half-despised.
+Between these two extremes of worldly indulgence and of unreasoning
+severity of life, Hildebrand ever pursued a middle course, for whilst on
+the one hand he eschewed the vanities of life around him, on the other he
+never sank into the self-effacement of a hermit. His acknowledged purity
+and zeal soon won for him from the laity a respect mingled with awe,
+whilst his natural talents, his indomitable will, and his genuine piety in
+course of time brought all Churchmen who had any regard for their holy
+office to fix their hopes upon this Clugniac monk, now a Cardinal. For
+some years before his actual election to the Papal throne in 1079,
+Hildebrand had begun to exercise an immense control over the councils of
+the Church, and he was personally responsible for the epoch-making
+resolution under Nicholas II., which declared that the choice of a new
+Pontiff was vested in the College of Cardinals alone. His own election,
+under the terms of this new and drastic arrangement, became the signal for
+the fierce struggles, equally of the battlefield and the council-chamber,
+that were destined to distract Italy for generations to come. For, as
+might have been expected, the Emperor Henry IV., King of the Romans, was
+not long in protesting against so decided an infringement of his secular
+claims. From the synods of Worms and Piacenza came the Imperial decree of
+deposition against Gregory, which was addressed by "Henry, not by
+usurpation but by God's holy ordination, King, to Hildebrand, no longer
+Pope, but false monk." Gregory, strong alike in virtue and in resolve, and
+aided by the might of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany and of Robert
+Guiscard, answered by pronouncing a solemn anathema upon his secular
+adversary. In awe-struck silence the Council of the Lateran listened to
+the Pope's final excommunication of the King, and of all those who dared
+to associate themselves with him. "I absolve," said Gregory, "all
+Christians from the oaths which they have taken or may take to him; and I
+decree that no one shall obey him as king; for it is fitting that he, who
+has endeavoured to diminish the honour of the Church, should himself lose
+that honour which he seems to have." We all know the final act of that
+terrible unequal struggle, the duel of brute force against spiritual
+terrors in a rude age of violence and superstition, which took place in
+the courtyard of the Castle of Canossa, the Countess Matilda's fortress in
+the Apennines.
+
+"On a dreary winter morning, with the ground deep in snow, the King, the
+heir of a long line of Emperors, was permitted to enter within the two
+outer of the three walls which girded the Castle of Canossa. He had laid
+aside every mark of royalty or of distinguished station; he was clad only
+in the thin white linen dress of the penitent, and there, fasting, he
+awaited in humble patience the pleasure of the Pope. But the gates did not
+unclose. A second day he stood, cold, hungry and mocked by vain hopes. And
+yet a third day dragged on from morning till evening over the unsheltered
+head of the discrowned King. Every heart was moved save that of the
+representative of Jesus Christ."
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO RAVELLO]
+
+Can we wonder then that the phrase "to go to Canossa" (_gehen nach
+Canossa_) has become ingrafted on to the German language, or that so
+significant an expression was openly used by Prince Bismarck during the
+fierce religious struggles in the days of the "Kultur-kampf" between the
+newly-formed Empire and the direct successor of the spiritual Caesar who
+had thus humbled a former Emperor of Germany? It was in vain that Henry
+afterwards endeavoured, by making war upon his oppressor, to undo the evil
+effects of his public recantation at Canossa; the act of humiliation was
+too marked ever to be wiped out either by himself or by his descendants.
+For good or for bad, Gregory had succeeded in rendering the Papacy free
+from lay control; he had gained for ever for the Church one of her most
+cherished tenets, the absolute independence of the Pope's election by the
+College of Cardinals; and he had even partially reduced the Western Empire
+into a fief of the Church itself. The former of Gregory's great objects,
+the freedom of election, still remains intact after an interval of more
+than eight hundred years; the latter attempt, though long struggled for
+and apparently with success at times, has, we know, ultimately failed.
+
+Having accomplished so much during his reign, it is strange to think that
+Gregory's last days should have been passed in a form of exile away from
+the Eternal City which he claimed as the metropolis of the Universal
+Church. There is pathos to be found in the Pope dying at Salerno, far
+removed from the scene of his ambition and success. With the bitter
+feeling that his name was execrated in Rome after Guiscard's sack, and
+that his host was bent upon obtaining the imperial title from his
+reluctant guest, Gregory's declining days were spent in melancholy
+reflections. To the last he spoke confidently of the righteousness of his
+cause, and whilst making his peace with all mankind in anticipation of his
+approaching end, he deliberately excepted from his own and God's mercy the
+names of his arch-enemy Henry and the anti-pope Guibert, together with all
+their followers. Thus the aged Pontiff languished to his end within the
+walls of the Castle of Salerno, encircled by flattering Churchmen who did
+their utmost to cheer their dying champion. "I have loved justice and
+hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile," are the famous words
+recorded of Hildebrand in the face of the King of Terrors. "In exile thou
+canst not die!" eagerly responded an attendant priest. "Vicar of Christ
+and His Apostles, thou hast received the nations for thine inheritance,
+and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession."
+
+Perhaps the expiring Pope was cheered by these words--who can tell? In any
+case they were prophetic, for the present world-wide character of the
+Roman Church, which embraces in its fold all nationalities and holds its
+members together all the globe over in one indissoluble bond of a
+spiritual empire, is largely due to the trials and exertions of one man:
+the monk Hildebrand, Pope Gregory the Seventh.
+
+Here then he sleeps his last sleep, the friend of Matilda, the mortal foe
+of King Henry, the patron of William the Conqueror, the guest of Robert
+Guiscard:--what a galaxy of illustrious names shines upon that dim silent
+chapel in the Cathedral of Salerno! Here stands in unchanging benediction
+his gleaming marble effigy, calmly surveyed by King Manfred near at hand
+in imperial robes, the last prince of the hated and twice banned Suabian
+House, whose bones were destined to bleach in the sun and rattle in the
+wind by the bridge of Benevento under a Papal curse.
+
+Before we quit the Cathedral in order to enjoy the evening sunshine, which
+is filling the interior with its roseate glow, let us return for one brief
+moment to the northern aisle, to glance at the grave of the Duchess who
+fought so boldly by her husband's side at Durazzo. It is easy to find, for
+her simple tomb stands not far from the beautiful and elaborate monument
+of Margaret of Durazzo (strange coincidence!) wife of King Charles of
+Naples, wherein the sculptor has portrayed angels drawing aside a curtain
+so as to display the sleeping form of the dead Queen within. Close to this
+monument of a not unusual Renaissance type, we discover the last resting
+place of Robert Guiscard's second wife, the Duchess Sigilgaita, their son
+Roger Bursa and their grandson William, in whom the direct line of the
+Great Adventurer became extinct. Many stories are told by the old
+chroniclers of this bold intrepid princess (not always to her
+credit)--daughter of the last Lombard prince Gisulf of Salerno and wife of
+her father's supplanter, whose humble Norman ancestry she affected to
+despise. But despite her reputation for cruelty and even for murder,
+Sigilgaita was a faithful wife and a brave woman, with a character not
+unlike that of our own Queen Margaret of Anjou; and it seems strange that
+so devoted and well mated a pair as herself and Robert Guiscard should be
+separated in death, he at Venosa and she in the cathedral of her husband's
+foundation.
+
+Passing out of the silent church into the warm light of eventide, by steep
+alleys and by stony footpaths we gradually mount upwards towards the
+ruined castle that commands a lofty position with an all-embracing view of
+the bay and its encircling mountains. The crumbling fragment of the old
+palace of Salerno differs but little in appearance from any one of those
+innumerable dilapidated piles of the Middle Ages with which Southern Italy
+is so thickly studded, yet coming fresh from visiting Guiscard's cathedral
+and Hildebrand's last resting-place, we find it comparatively easy to
+conjure up some recollections of its past, so as to invest its crumbling
+red-hued walls with a spell of interest. These broken apertures were
+surely once the windows through which the dying Pope must have wearily
+glanced upon the sun-smitten waves and violet-shadowed hills that we
+behold to-day; here in this embrasure, long despoiled of its marble seat,
+must have brooded the fierce and unscrupulous Sigilgaita, thinking of how
+best to rid herself of her step-son Bohemond, in order that her own
+children might inherit their father's realms. The ghosts of princes and
+popes are around us, yet the only living inhabitant of the roofless castle
+is the ragged little goat-herd, whose unsavoury charges are cropping the
+short grass that covers the site of the banqueting hall, where Norman
+knights and Italian barons once caroused in the crusading days of long
+ago. We seat ourselves on the dry sward in a sun-warmed angle of the
+ruins, where an almond tree that has sprouted from the rubble sends down
+from time to time upon our heads a tiny shower of pale pink blossoms at
+the bidding of the soft evening breeze. At our feet are masses of the dark
+shiny leaves of the wild arum, and rank grass which is plentifully starred
+with tall-stemmed crimson-petalled daisies and the mauve wind-flowers that
+are drowsily closing their cups at the approach of night. The little
+goat-herd eyes us solemnly, but--strange and welcome to relate--shows no
+inclination to pester the _signori_. The soft murmuring of the distant
+sea, the subdued hum of the city far below us and the drowsy buzzing of
+the bees in the almond and ivy bloom close at hand combine to strengthen
+the golden chain of imagination. As we sit basking in the peaceful beauty
+of the scene around us and serenely conscious of its glorious past, one of
+our party suddenly remembers in a welcome flash of inspiration that this
+deserted courtyard has been made the scene of one of Boccaccio's most
+famous tales. It is a story that many writers of succeeding ages have
+endeavoured to imitate in prose or verse, but this fictitious love-tragedy
+between a princess and a page at Salerno has a simple charm and dignity in
+its original setting that only the master-hand of the Tuscan author could
+impart. The scene of the novel of Guiscard and Ghismonda is laid, as we
+have said, at this very spot, and as the hero, the heroine and the villain
+of the tale have Norman names, we may be allowed to conjecture that this
+graceful story, which Boccaccio puts into the mouth of the lady Fiammetta,
+was founded upon some actual but half-forgotten family scandal in the
+annals of the mighty but self-made House of Hauteville.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+Once upon a time there reigned in Salerno the Prince Tancred, who was a
+widower, and the father of an only daughter, Ghismonda, Duchess of Capua.
+The Duchess, who was considered one of the most beautiful, accomplished
+and virtuous princesses of her day, had been early married to the Duke of
+Capua, but on his death after a very few years of matrimony had been left
+a childless widow. Being still very young, the Princess Ghismonda was now
+taken back to his court by her father, who jealously guarded her and
+seemed unwilling for her to be remarried. Living in rooms that over-looked
+the courtyard of the palace, the Duchess, who found time hang on her hands
+somewhat heavily, used to spend hours daily in watching the lords and
+pages of her father's household passing and repassing the quadrangle
+below, and amongst the many well-favoured youths a certain page named
+Guiscard found most favour in her sight. Now Guiscard, who had thus all
+unwittingly attracted Ghismonda's attention and finally won her heart, was
+a young Norman of no great lineage and of small means, but being discreet,
+upright and sensible-minded, had obtained a high place in Prince Tancred's
+estimation. Skilfully questioning her maids of honour without exciting
+their suspicions, the Princess gained all she wished to know concerning
+Guiscard's position and attainments, and it was not long before she found
+means of conveying the secret of her affection to the youth, who in fact
+had already fallen head over ears in love with the beautiful Duchess who
+so often leaned from the casement above. She now sent him a letter hidden
+in a pair of bellows, wherein she explained to him the existence of a
+secret passage, long disused, that led from a hollow in the hillside below
+the castle walls up to her own apartment. Over-joyed at receiving this
+missive, the infatuated page took the first occasion, as we may well
+imagine, to make use of this friendly clue, and before many hours had
+passed after receiving the letter, the young man, flushed and triumphant,
+was standing in the chamber of his beloved mistress, who had meanwhile
+taken every necessary preparation for receiving her lover in secret. Many
+a time were the pair able to meet thus without awakening the least
+suspicion in the minds of Prince Tancred or of the maids of honour, and
+all would doubtless have gone well for an indefinite period of time, but
+for a most unforeseen accident. It appears that one morning the old Prince
+of Salerno, wishing to confer with his daughter on some matter of state,
+came to her private apartment, and on learning that she had gone out
+riding settled himself upon a couch that stood within a curtained alcove,
+and whilst waiting for her return fell sound asleep. After some hours of
+repose the prince was suddenly roused from his heavy slumber by the sound
+of two voices in the room, that of his daughter and of a strange man.
+Peeping stealthily through the folds of the draperies, he now beheld to
+his fury and amazement the Duchess alone with his page Guiscard. But the
+descendant of Robert the Wiseacre well knew how to temper vengeance with
+dissimulation. Dreading the scandal that would follow an open exposure,
+the Prince, in spite of his years and the stiffness of his joints,
+contrived to quit the chamber unperceived by means of a convenient window.
+That very night the unsuspecting Guiscard was seized by his sovereign's
+orders and thrust into a foul dungeon of the palace, whither Tancred
+himself descended to question his prisoner and to reprove him violently
+for his base ingratitude. But the unhappy page could only make repeated
+answer: "Sire, love hath greater powers than you or I!" On the following
+morning Tancred proceeded to visit the Duchess, still ignorant of her
+paramour's fate, and in a voice strangled with the conflicting emotions of
+paternal love and desired vengeance bitterly upbraided his erring child.
+"Daughter, I had such an opinion of your modesty and virtue, that I could
+never have believed, had I not seen it with mine own eyes, that you would
+have violated either, even so much as in thought. The recollection of this
+will make the pittance of life that is left very grievous to me. As you
+were determined to act in that manner, would to Heaven you had made choice
+of a person more suitable to your own quality; but this Guiscard is one of
+the meanest persons about my court. This gives me such concern, that I
+scarce know what to do. As for him, he was secured by my order last night,
+and his fate is determined. But with regard to yourself, I am influenced
+by two different motives: on one side, the tenderest regard that a father
+can have for a child; and on the other, the justest vengeance for the
+great folly you have committed. One pleads strongly in your behalf; and
+the other would excite me to do an act contrary to my nature. But before I
+come to a resolution, I would fain hear what you have to say for
+yourself."
+
+Seeing clearly from her father's words that her secret had been discovered
+and that her lover was in prison, the intrepid Ghismonda, a true daughter
+of the high-spirited House of Hauteville, assuming a composure she was
+very far from feeling, made a dignified appeal on behalf of Guiscard and
+herself.
+
+"Father, it is not my purpose either to deny or to entreat; for as the one
+can avail me nothing, so I intend the other shall be of little service. I
+will by no means bespeak your love and tenderness towards me; but shall
+first, by an open confession, endeavour to vindicate myself, and thus do
+what the greatness of my soul prompts me to. It is most true that I have
+loved, and do still love Guiscard; and whilst I live, which will not be
+long, shall continue to love him; and if such a thing as love be after
+death, I shall never cease to love him.... It appears from what you say,
+that you would have been less incensed if I had made choice of a nobleman,
+and you bitterly reproach me for having condescended to a man of low
+condition. In this you speak according to vulgar prejudice, and not
+according to truth; nor do you perceive that the fault you blame is not
+mine, but Fortune's, who often exalts the unworthy, and leaves the
+worthiest in low estate. But, not to dwell on such considerations, look a
+little into first principles, and you will see that we are all formed of
+the same material and by the same hand. The first difference amongst
+mankind, who are all born equal, was made by virtue; they who were
+virtuous were deemed noble, and the rest were all accounted otherwise.
+Though this law, therefore, may have been obscured by contrary custom, yet
+is it discarded neither by nature nor good manners. If you regard only the
+worth and virtue of your courtiers, and consider that of Guiscard, you
+will find him the only noble person, and these others a set of poltroons.
+With regard to his worth and valour, I appeal to yourself. Who ever
+commended man more for anything that was praise-worthy than you have
+commended him? And deservedly, in my judgment; but if I was deceived, it
+was by following your opinion. If you say, then, that I have had an affair
+with a person base and ignoble, I deny it; if with a poor one, it is to
+your shame to have let such merit go unrewarded. Now concerning your last
+doubt, namely how you are to deal with me: use your pleasure. If you are
+disposed to commit an act of cruelty, I shall say nothing to prevent such
+a resolution. But this I must apprise you of; that unless you do the same
+to me, which you either have done, or mean to do to Guiscard, mine own
+hands shall do it for you. If you mean to act with severity, cut us off
+both together, if it appear to you that we have deserved it."
+
+The Duchess' able defence of her choice of Guiscard and her democratic
+views of society were hardly likely to influence the proud tyrant of
+Salerno, although his house was sprung from a plebeian stock of Normandy.
+Ignoring her plea and arguments, Tancred left his daughter alone with her
+grief, and proceeded to the cells below to give the order for Guiscard's
+immediate death by strangling. But Tancred's fury was by no means appeased
+by the page's death, for tearing the unhappy youth's heart from the warm
+and still quivering body, the brutal prince had the bleeding flesh placed
+in a golden covered cup, which he bade his chamberlain deliver to
+Ghismonda, with these cruel words: "Your father sends this present to
+comfort you with what was most dear to you; even as he was comforted by
+you in what was most dear to him." With a calm countenance and with a
+gracious word of thanks, the Princess accepted the gift, and on removing
+the cover and realising the contents of the cup, said with meaning to the
+bearer of this gruesome present: "My father has done very wisely; such a
+heart as this requires no worse a sepulchre than one of gold." Then after
+lamenting for a while over her lover's fate, Ghismonda filled the goblet
+with a draught of poison that she had already prepared in anticipation of
+her father's vengeance, and quaffed its contents. After this she lay down
+upon her bed, clasping the cup to her bosom, whereupon her maids, all
+ignorant of the cause of their mistress' conduct, ran terrified to call
+Prince Tancred, who arrived in time to witness his unhappy daughter's
+death agony. Now that it was too late, the Prince was stricken with
+remorse and began loudly to bewail the violence of his late anger. "Sire,"
+said the dying Princess, "save those tears against worse fortune that may
+happen, for I want them not. Who but yourself would mourn for a thing of
+your own doing?" Then dropping her tone of irony, she made one last
+request of her weeping and repentant father, that her own and Guiscard's
+bodies might be honourably interred within the same tomb. Thus perished by
+her own hand the beautiful Princess Ghismonda of Salerno, Duchess of
+Capua, urged to the fell deed by a parent's inexorable cruelty. And it is
+some slight consolation to the sad ending of the story to learn that
+Tancred did at least carry out his daughter's dying entreaty, for the
+bodies of Ghismonda and Guiscard were duly laid in one grave amidst the
+pomp of religion and the cold comfort of a public mourning.(7)
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+But the sun has long since sunk below the horizon, and the chill dews of
+night are falling round us. Hastily we leave the old palace of the princes
+of Salerno to the solitary occupation of the bats and owls, to seek warmth
+and cheerfulness in our inn upon the Marina.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IX
+
+
+                  PAESTUM AND THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE
+
+
+In these days of easy travelling there lies a choice of two routes to
+Paestum and its temples: one by driving thither direct from La Cava or
+Salerno, in the mode of our forefathers; and the other by taking the train
+to the little junction of Battipaglia, and thence proceeding southward by
+the coast line to the station of Pesto itself, that stands almost within a
+stone's throw of the chief gate of Poseidonia. A third, and perhaps a
+preferable way, consists in using the railway beyond Battipaglia to Eboli,
+a town of no little interest in the upper valley of the Silarus, and
+thence driving along the base of the rocky hills that enclose the maritime
+plain and through the oak wood of Persano that was brigand-haunted within
+living memory. But though the scenery between Eboli and Paestum
+undoubtedly owns more charm and variety than the marshy flats can boast,
+yet the strange loneliness of the sea-girt level has a fascination of its
+own, which will appeal strongly to all lovers of pristine undisturbed
+nature. For the larger portion of these Lucanian plains still remains
+uncultivated, so that thickets of fragrant wild myrtle and lentisk, of
+coronella and of white-blossomed laurustinus, stud the landscape; whilst
+the open ground is thickly covered with masses of hardy but gay flowering
+weeds. The great star-thistles run to seed unchecked by the scythe, and
+the belled cerinthia and the glaucous-leaved tall yellow mulleins seem to
+thrive heartily on the barren soil. Boggy ground alternates with patches
+of dry stony earth, and in early summer every little pool of water affords
+sustenance to coarse-scented white water-lilies, and clumps of the yellow
+iris that are over-shadowed by masses of tall graceful reeds. These
+_arundini_, which are to be found near every water-course or pool
+throughout Italy, are characteristic of the country with their broad grey
+leaves, their heads of pink feathery bloom, and their mournful whispering
+answers to the question of every passing breeze; elegant in their growth,
+they are also beloved by the practical peasant who utilizes their long
+slender stems for a variety of purposes in his domestic economy. For the
+reeds, stripped of their foliage, support his tender young vines and make
+good frame-work whereon to train his peas and tomatoes; the longest canes
+of all, moreover, serve well as handles for the long feather brushes which
+are used so extensively in all Italian households. Other floral denizens
+of the plain are the great rank _porri_, or wild leeks, conspicuous with
+their bright green curling leaves issuing from globe-like roots above the
+ground, and of course, the asphodel, the plant of Death. For the asphodel
+is pre-eminently the flower of Southern Italy and of Sicily, since it
+presents a fit emblem of a departed grandeur that is still impressive in
+its decay. How beautiful to the eye appear the dark grey-green sword-like
+leaves from the centre of which up-shoots the tall branching stem with its
+clusters of delicate pink-striped blossoms, that show so lovely yet smell
+so vile! Apart from its fetid odour, the asphodel is a thing of intense
+beauty, so that a long line of these plants in full bloom, covering some
+ridge of orange-coloured tufa or the velvety-grey crest of some ancient
+wall, with their spikes of starry flowers standing out distinct like
+floral candelabra against the clear blue of a southern sky, makes an
+impression upon the beholder that will ever be gratefully remembered.
+
+But flowers and shrubs are not the only occupants of the Poseidonian
+plain, for as we proceed on our way towards the Temples, we notice in the
+drier pastures large herds of the long-horned dove-coloured cattle of the
+country, whilst in marshy places our interest is aroused by the sight of
+great shaggy buffaloes of sinister mien. The buffalo has long been
+acclimatized in Italy, though its original home seems to have been the
+trackless marshes of the Tigris and Euphrates. The conquering Arabs first
+introduced these uncouth Eastern cattle into Sicily, whence they were
+imported into Italy by the Norman kings of Naples. In spite of its
+malevolent nature and the poor quality of its flesh and hide, the buffalo
+came to be extensively bred in the Pontine and Lucanian marshes, where the
+moisture of the soil and the unwholesome air always affected the native
+herds unfavourably. For hours together these fierce untameable beasts love
+to lie amidst the swampy reed-beds, wallowing up to their flanks in slimy
+malodorous mud and seemingly impervious to the ceaseless attacks of the
+local wasps and gad-flies, which try in vain to penetrate with their
+barbed stings the thick hairy covering of defence. Perchance between
+Battipaglia and Paestum we may encounter a herd of these shaggy beeves
+being driven by a peasant on horse-back, with his _pungolo_ or small lance
+in hand: a human being that in his goat-skin breeches and with his
+luxuriant untrimmed locks, seems to our eyes only one degree less savage
+and unkempt than the fierce beasts he guides. As cultivation has made
+progress of recent years and the unhealthy marshes of the coast line are
+being gradually drained, the numbers of buffalo tend to decrease, whilst
+the native Italian oxen are being introduced once more into the newly
+reclaimed pastures. That former arch-enemy of the cattle in the days of
+Vergil seems to have disappeared: that "flying pest," the _asilo_ of the
+Romans and the _aestrum_ of the Greeks, which in antique times was wont to
+drive the grazing herds frantic with terror and pain, until the valley of
+the Tanager and the Alburnian woods re-echoed with the agonised lowing of
+the poor tortured creatures. And speaking of noxious insects, a general
+belief prevails in Italy that their bite--as well as that of snakes and
+scorpions--becomes more acute and dangerous when the sun enters into the
+sign of Lion, so that human beings, as well as defenceless cattle, must
+carefully avoid all chances of being bitten during the months of July and
+August.
+
+Before our goal can be reached it is necessary for us to cross the broad
+willow-fringed stream of the Sele, the Silarus of antiquity, which
+according to the testimony of Silius Italicus once possessed the property
+of petrifying wood. In the distant days of the eighteenth century, the
+traveller to Paestum had to endure amidst other difficulties and dangers
+of the road the disagreeable business of being ferried across the Sele,
+which was then bridgeless. Owing to the malaria and the loneliness of the
+spot, the acting of ferryman over this river was not an agreeable post,
+and Count Stolberg, a German dilettante who has left some memories of his
+Italian wanderings, relates how a feeble dismal soured old man, a
+veritable Charon of the upper air, had great difficulty in conveying
+himself, his horse and his servant across the swollen stream. The old
+man's age and misery aroused the Count's compassion, so that he asked him
+why he continued thus to perform a task at once so arduous and so
+distasteful. "Sir," replied the boatman, "I would gladly be excused, but
+that my master compels me to undertake this work." "And who, pray, is this
+tyrant of a master of yours?" indignantly enquired the Count. "Sir, it is
+my Lord Poverty!" grimly answered the old ferryman, as he pocketed the
+Teuton's fee. Times have changed with regard to the necessity of a ferry
+over the Sele, but to judge from the appearance of the people and from the
+accounts in the journals, we much doubt if my Lord Poverty's sway has been
+much weakened in these parts.
+
+At length we reach the tiny hamlet and station of Pesto, surrounded by its
+groves of mournful eucalyptus trees, and if we visit the station itself,
+we cannot help noticing the fine gauze net-work over every window and
+door, also the veiled faces and be-gloved hands of the station-master and
+his _facchini_. It is not difficult to gauge the reason of the eucalyptus
+trees at Pesto, an alien importation like the buffalo, for these native
+trees of Australia have been planted here with the avowed object of
+reducing the malaria, for which the place is only too renowned. Scientists
+have positively declared that the mosquitoes which rise in clouds from the
+poisonous swamps at sunset are directly responsible for this terrible form
+of ague, and a paternal Government has accordingly introduced gum-trees to
+improve the quality of the air, and has presented gloves, veils and fine
+lattice work to its servants in the hope of protecting them from the bites
+of these tiny pestilence-bearing insects. We do not wish to dispute the
+wisdom of modern bacteriologists, but somehow we have no great faith in
+this elaborate scheme for battling with Nature; and indeed not a few
+persons who have studied the matter declare that though the reeking
+marshes are certainly productive of malaria in themselves (so much so that
+it is dangerous to linger amidst the ruined temples of an evening), yet
+these spiteful little creatures are at least innocent of innoculating
+humanity with this particular disease. Moreover, a plausible idea that is
+now largely held insists that the recent spread of cultivation over the
+Lucanian Plain is itself largely responsible for the increase of malaria;
+it is the up-turning of the germ-impregnated earth that has lain fallow
+for centuries, say the supporters of this theory, which awakens and sets
+free the slumbering demon of fever in the soil, so that the speeding of
+the plough on the Neapolitan coast must inevitably mean also the spreading
+of this fell and mysterious sickness. Let us therefore give the devil his
+due: the mosquito is a hateful and persistent foe, and his sting is both
+painful and disfiguring, but do not let us accuse him of carrying malaria
+until the case can be better proved against him. But enough of fevers and
+doctors' saws! Let us turn our willing eyes towards the three great
+temples that confront us close at hand. Before however proceeding to
+inspect these great monuments of Grecian art and civilization, which rank
+amongst the most venerable as well as the most beautiful relics of
+antiquity, it is only meet that we should carry with us into their ruined
+halls a few grains of historical knowledge, whereby our sense of reality
+and our appreciation of their greatness and splendour may be increased.
+
+  [Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE, PAESTUM]
+
+Although we do not possess a definite history of Paestum, similar to that
+of Rome or of Athens, yet from the many allusions to be found scattered
+throughout the pages of classical historians, as well as from the various
+inscriptions and devices found upon ancient coins of this city, it is not
+a difficult task to piece together the main features of Poseidonian
+annals. From a very remote period of antiquity there was undoubtedly a
+settlement on or near the coast to the south of the river Silarus, whilst
+it is commonly held that this spot was called Peste--a name almost
+identical with the modern Italian appellation--many hundreds of years
+before the arrival of Doric settlers on the shores of the Tyrrhene Sea.
+Late in the seventh century before Christ, the Greek colony of Poseidonia,
+the city of the Sea God, was founded on or near the site of Italian Peste
+by certain Hellenic adventurers from Troezen, who were amongst the
+inhabitants of Sybaris, at that time one of the most flourishing of the
+famous cities of Magna Graecia: and this new colony of Troezenians
+henceforward was accounted one of the twenty-five subject-towns that
+recognised Sybaris for their metropolis, or mother and suzerain city. We
+have no details of its early history, but it is quite certain that under
+the protection of Sybaris the new city of Poseidonia rose by degrees to
+such wealth and importance that in course of time it gave its own name to
+the whole Bay of Salerno, which henceforth became known to the Greeks as
+the Poseidonian Gulf and later, to the Romans, as the Bay of Paestum. With
+the fall of the mother city, this flourishing colony was left alone to
+face the attacks of the Samnites, the native barbarians who peopled the
+dense forests and the barren mountains of Lucania; yet it somehow
+contrived to retain its independence until the close of the fourth century
+B.C., when the Samnite hordes, forcing the fortified line of the Silarus,
+made themselves masters of Poseidonia, and put an end, practically for
+ever, to its existence as a purely Hellenic city. From its Lucanian
+masters the captured town received the name of Paestum, and its
+inhabitants were at once deprived of their independence, were forbidden to
+carry arms, and were probably in many instances reduced to the level of
+serfs. A large number of Samnites also settled within the walls of the
+town, and compelled the former owners to surrender to them the larger and
+richer portion of the public and private lands upon the maritime plain.
+The use of the Hellenic language and public worship were however
+permitted, and, strange to relate, no interference was made with a solemn
+annual festival, which the depressed and enslaved population now
+inaugurated with the confessed object of remembering for ever their Greek
+origin and their former greatness. For once a year at a fixed date all
+Greeks were wont to gather together and to bewail in public, outside the
+great temple of Poseidon, their lost liberty and their vanished power. It
+is evident that the Lucanians did not fear the tears and lamentations of
+this unhappy subject state, for this custom continued to be observed
+throughout the whole period of Samnite oppression, and survived even till
+Roman times--perhaps to the very end of the city's existence,--although in
+the course of passing generations there could have been but few persons of
+pure Greek descent left in the place.
+
+With the advent of Alexander of Epirus, who had been called into Italy by
+the Greeks of Tarentum in order to assist the sorely-pressed colonies of
+Magna Graecia, Epirot troops were landed at the mouth of the Silarus.
+Under the very walls of Paestum there now took place a stubborn fight
+wherein the army of the Samnites was completely routed, and its survivors
+driven in confusion from the coast into the wild woods and rocky valleys
+of the Lucanian hills. For a brief interval of years Poseidonia regained
+its lost liberty and its Hellenic name, but with the overthrow and death
+of Alexander of Epirus, the scattered hordes pressed down once more from
+their mountain fastnesses upon the rich plain, and the city was for the
+second time enslaved by the ruder conquering race. Forty years later,
+after the Pyrrhine war, all Lucania fell under the rising power of Rome, a
+change that was by no means unacceptable to the Greek cities, which were
+groaning under the rude tyranny of the Samnites. A Latin colony was now
+planted at Paestum, to form a convenient centre whence the neighbouring
+district could be kept in order and peaceably developed according to Roman
+ideas. These Roman colonists, although they did not restore the lands and
+buildings held by the expelled Samnites to their rightful owners, yet
+lived on terms of amity with the Greek population, with whom they must
+have freely intermarried. The original Hellenic inhabitants, relieved of
+the bonds of servitude, were now placed on an equal footing with the new
+colonists, partaking of political rights in the city thus freshly
+re-created under the supremacy of Rome, and soon they grew to imitate the
+speech and manners of their new masters, so that as an immediate result of
+the expulsion of the barbaric Samnites and the entry of the progressive
+Romans, Paestum began to recover a considerable portion of its ancient
+splendour.
+
+During the course of the second Punic War the name of Paestum is not
+unfrequently mentioned in Roman annals, and owing its revived prosperity
+to its annexation by Rome, it is not surprising to find the existence of a
+strong feeling of gratitude amongst the inhabitants. At the date of fatal
+Cannae this faithful Greek city sent assurances of unswerving allegiance to
+the Senate, and also more substantial help in the form of all the golden
+vessels from its temples. It was Paestum also that early in the third
+century B.C. supplied part of the ill-fated fleet of Decius Quinctius,
+that was raised to run the blockade of Tarentum. But even the loss of its
+ships and men did not deter this loyal city from coming forward a second
+time with expressions of fealty and promise of further aid to the great
+suzerain city in this dark hour of its difficulties. From this point
+onward till the close of the Republic, History is almost silent with
+regard to Paestum; but its numerous coins go far to attest its continued
+welfare, for it now shared, together with Venusia, Brundusium and Vibo
+Valentia, a special right to strike money in its own name and with its own
+devices. Under the Empire, Paestum managed to uphold its size and
+importance, so that it became the capital of one of the eight Prefectures
+into which the district of Lucania had been divided. At this period, there
+can be no doubt, the surrounding plain was in the highest state of
+cultivation, whilst its prolific rose-gardens--_biferi rosaria Paesti_--have
+supplied the theme of every Roman poet from Vergil to Ausonius. Yet in
+spite of its apparent prosperity, the seeds of coming decline had already
+been sown. Strabo tells us that even in early Imperial days the city was
+obtaining an unenviable reputation for malaria: a circumstance that was
+due to the over-flowing of the unwholesome streamlet, the Salso, whose
+reeking and fever-bearing waters began to impregnate the earth.
+Engineering works on a large scale were planned to remedy this drawback,
+but these were never executed, and in consequence the unhealthiness of the
+place increased. With the decline of the Roman power the population and
+prosperity of Paestum likewise tended to lessen, so that its citizens were
+placed in a worse position than before with regard to the carrying out of
+this vast but necessary scheme of sanitation.
+
+In a spot so accessible to external influence, it is easy to understand
+that Christianity early took root in Paestum, which in the fifth century
+of our own era had already become a bishopric. The story of the growth of
+the Faith in Lucania is closely connected with a legend that centres round
+a native of the place, a certain Gavinius, a general in the army of the
+Emperor Valentinian, who whilst serving in Britain against the Picts by
+some means succeeded in obtaining a valuable relic, supposed to be nothing
+less than the body of the Apostle Matthew, which he brought back with him
+to his native place. Early in the ninth century there appeared a fresh
+cause of alarm, more serious and far-reaching even than the dreaded
+malaria, for plundering Saracens, foes alike to the old Roman civilisation
+and to the new Christian creed, now began to harass the Tyrrhenian shores.
+Settling at Agropoli to the south of the Bay, these Oriental freebooters
+found little difficulty in effecting a landing on the Poseidonian beach,
+and in raiding the weakened and almost defenceless city. Able-bodied men
+and young maidens were forcibly carried off to the pirates' nest at
+Agropoli, or perhaps even to the distant coast of Barbary, to be sold into
+perpetual slavery. Alarmed beyond measure by this raid, the remaining
+inhabitants of the place, at the advice and under the guidance of their
+bishop, now decided--wisely, for they had to choose between immediate
+flight or gradual extermination by disease, slavery and the sword--to
+remove themselves to the barren mountains in their rear, once the haunts
+of the Samnites, and to build a new Paestum on a site at once more healthy
+and better protected by Nature against the raids of infidel corsairs. In a
+body therefore the remaining citizens amid deep wailing left for ever the
+ancient city with its glorious temples, and retired to a strong position
+to the east. The spot chosen for the new residence of these exiles lay
+close to the source that supplied with pure water their ancient aqueduct,
+known for this reason as Caputaqueum, now corrupted into Capaccio. A link
+with the old city, that lay deserted in the plain below, was still
+retained by the bishop of the newly founded town in the mountains, who
+continued to be known as _Episcopus Paestanus_. In the eleventh century
+Robert Guiscard systematically plundered the ruins of Paestum in order to
+erect or embellish the churches and palaces of Salerno and Amalfi. Every
+remaining piece of sculpture and of marble was removed, and it was only
+the vast size of the pillars of the three great temples, and the
+consequent difficulty attending their transport by boat across the bay or
+along the marshy ground of the coast line, that saved from destruction
+these magnificent relics of "the glory that was Greece." But even humble
+Capaccio did not afford a final resting-place to the harried Paestani, for
+in the year 1245 the great Emperor Frederick II., who had been defied by
+the feudal Counts of Capaccio, besieged and utterly destroyed this
+stronghold of the mountains that had been the child of Poseidonia of the
+sea-girt plains. Another and a yet loftier retreat had to be sought by the
+survivors of the Imperial vengeance, so that the ruined Capaccio the Old
+was abandoned for another settlement, which still exists as a miserable
+village amidst those barren hills that had ever looked down with jealous
+envy upon the proud city with its pillared temples. One curious
+circumstance with regard to Paestum must finally be mentioned, in that the
+existence of its ruins, the grandest and most ancient group of monuments
+on the mainland of Italy, remained unknown to the learned world until
+comparatively modern times. Only the local peasants and the inhabitants of
+the poverty-stricken towns in the Lucanian hills seem to have been aware
+of the presence of the gigantic temples standing in lonely majesty by the
+shore and as the superstitious nature of these ignorant people attributed
+these structures to the work of a magician--perhaps to the great wizard
+Vergil himself--they were shunned both by night and by day as the haunt of
+malignant spirits. Poor fisher-folk and buffalo-drivers, who had of
+necessity to pass near the ruined fanes, were wont to slink by in fear and
+trembling, and doubtless they brought back strange stories of its ghostly
+occupants with which they regaled their friends or families by the
+fire-side of a winter's evening. Yet it is most strange that during the
+period of the Renaissance, at a time when enthusiastic research was being
+made into the neglected antiquities of Italy, this unique group of Doric
+temples should have escaped notice. For neither Cyriaco of Ancona nor
+Leandro Alberti, who visited Lucania ostensibly for the sake of recording
+its classical remains, make mention of "the ruined majesty of Paestum,"
+and it was reserved for a certain Count Gazola (whose name is certainly
+worthy of being recorded), an officer in the service of the Neapolitan
+King, to present to the notice of scholars and archaeologists towards the
+middle of the eighteenth century the first known description of what is
+perhaps Italy's chief existing treasure of antiquity. From Gazola's day
+onward the beauty and interest of Paestum have been appraised at their
+true worth, and numberless artists and writers of almost every nationality
+have sketched or described its marvellous temples.
+
+With this brief introduction to the history of a city, whose chief
+building is still standing almost intact after a lapse of 2500 years, let
+us take a rapid survey of Poseidonia as it exists to-day. Its walls, of
+Greek construction but probably built or restored as late as the time of
+Alexander of Epirus, who gave the captured town a fleeting spell of
+liberty, form an irregular pentagon about three miles in circumference,
+whereon the remains of eight towers can be observed, whilst the four
+gates, placed at the four cardinal points of the compass, are clearly
+traceable. We enter this _citta morta_ by the so-called Porta della
+Sirena, the eastern gate that faces the hostile Samnite Hills and (oh, the
+prosaic touch!) the modern railway-station. This gate remains in a
+tolerable state of preservation, and draws its name from the key-stone of
+its arch, which bears in low relief a much defaced design of a mermaid or
+siren, its counterpart on the inner keystone being a dolphin: two devices
+very appropriate to the entrance of a city dedicated to the Lord of Ocean.
+Passing the picturesque yellow-washed Villa Salati, with its high walls
+and iron-barred windows testifying only too plainly to the lawlessness
+that once reigned in this district, we find ourselves face to face with
+the great temple of Neptune or Poseidon, and its companion-fane, the
+so-called Basilica. The Temple of Neptune (for in this instance at least
+the popular appellation chances to be the correct one), in all probability
+co-eval with the first Greek foundation of the city, formed the central
+point of the life of Poseidonia during the 1400 years of its existence as
+a Hellenic, a Samnite, and finally a Roman city. In its simple grandeur
+and its perfect proportions this wonderful temple possesses only one rival
+outside Greece itself: the Temple of Concord at Girgenti, which the poet
+Goethe compared to a god, after designating the building before us as a
+giant. Superiority in grace is therefore a disputed point between the two
+great structures of Poseidonia and Agrigentum, yet in every other respect
+the temple of the Lucanian Plain surpasses its Sicilian rival.
+
+To-day, after more than a score of centuries of exposure to the salt winds
+and to the burning sunshine of the south, the walls and pillars of these
+great buildings have been calcined to a glorious shade of tawny yellow,
+fit to delight the soul of every artist, whether he views their Titanic
+but graceful forms outlined against the deep blue of sky and sea on the
+western horizon, or against the equally lovely background of grey and
+violet mountains to the east. But it was not always thus. The porous local
+travertine that gave their building material to the Greeks of the sixth
+century before Christ was once carefully stuccoed, and, in the manner of
+Hellenic art, painted in the most brilliant hues of azure and vermilion,
+so that it becomes hard for us to realise the original effect of such
+gorgeous masses standing erect in a landscape that is itself fraught with
+glowing colour. But better to appreciate the magnificence before us, let
+us give a brief technical description of the greatest of the temples in
+the choice words of an eminent French antiquary.
+
+"The largest and most elegant, and likewise the oldest of the Temples of
+Paestum, is that commonly known by the name of the Temple of Neptune. This
+building shares, together with the Temple of Theseus at Athens, the honour
+of being the best preserved monument of the Doric order in existence, and
+the impression of grandeur that it gives to the spectator rivals even the
+first sight of the Parthenon itself. In front of the building is a
+platform in the midst of which can be seen the hollow space that formerly
+held the altar of sacrifice, for according to the practice of the Greek
+religion, these rites of blood-shedding took place in the open air and
+outside the temple. With a length of 190 feet and a breadth of 84 feet,
+this building is hypoethral, which means that the _cella_, or sanctuary
+that held the statue of the deity, was constructed open to the sky. It is
+peripteral, and presents a row of six pillars fluted at base and top, with
+twelve on each side, making thirty-six in all. The _cella_ itself in the
+interior is upheld by sixteen columns about six feet in diameter, which in
+their turn are surmounted by two rows of smaller pillars above that
+support the roof. With the exception of one side of the upper stage of the
+interior every column of the temple remains intact, as do likewise the
+entablature and pediments. Only the wall of the _cella_ has been pulled
+down; doubtless to supply material for building."(8)
+
+Having quoted Monsieur Lenormant's careful description of the chief pride
+of Poseidonia, we shall confine ourselves to as few remarks as possible
+concerning the two remaining temples. The Basilica, a misnomer of which
+the veriest amateur must at once perceive the absurdity, is inferior both
+in size and in beauty of proportion to its close neighbour of Neptune. Its
+chief peculiarity from an architectural point of view will be at once
+remarked, for it has its two facades composed of seven--an odd number--of
+columns, so that its interior easily divides itself into two narrow
+chambers of equal length, affording ample ground for the theory, now
+generally held, that this building was not a hall of Justice, or
+_Basilica_, but a temple intended expressly for the worship of dual
+divinities. Almost without a doubt it was erected--probably not long after
+the Temple of Poseidon--in honour of Demeter (Ceres) and of her only child
+Persephone (Proserpine), who was seized from her mother's care by the
+amorous god of the Infernal Regions, as she was plucking anemones in the
+verdant meadows of Enna. We all know "the old sweet mythos"; we all
+understand its hidden allegory with regard to the sowing, the up-springing
+and the garnering of the yellow corn, that spends half the year in the
+embraces of the earth, the palace of Pluto, and half the year on the broad
+loving bosom of Mother Demeter. Here then within these bare and ruined
+walls were mother and daughter worshipped by the people of Poseidonia, who
+reasonably considered that the two goddesses of the Earth should have
+their habitation as near as possible to the Sanctuary of the Sovereign of
+Ocean.
+
+Much smaller than either of these immense temples is the third remaining
+Greek building of Paestum, which lies a good quarter of a mile to the
+north, not far from the Golden Gate, the Porta Aurea, that leads northward
+in the direction of Salerno. Like that of Neptune, this temple is
+hexastyle, with six columns on each of its facades and twelve on either
+flank, but as it is little more than half the size of its grander and
+older brethren, it is now frequently known as "Il Piccolo Tempio,"
+although its former incorrect ascription to Ceres still clings to it in
+popular parlance. It is from this building, which stands on slightly
+rising ground, that the best impression of the whole city and of its
+wondrous setting between the savage Lucanian hills and the blue
+Mediterranean can be obtained.
+
+  "Between the mountains and the tideless sea
+  Stretches a plain where silence reigns supreme;
+  A land of asphodel and weeds that teem
+  Where once a city's life ran joyfully.
+  'Vanity! Vanity! All Vanity!'
+  Whisper the winds to Sele's murmuring stream;
+  Whilst the vast temples preach th' eternal theme,
+  How pass the glories and their memory.
+  Think what these ruins saw! what songs and cries
+  Once through these roofless colonnades did ring!
+  What crowds here gathered, where the all-seeing skies
+  For centuries have watched the daisies spring!
+  Dead all within this crumbling circle lies:
+  Dead as the roses Roman bards did sing."
+
+Beautiful as Paestum presents itself in the bright noontide of a Spring
+day, beneath a cloudless sky and with the blue waters of the Mediterranean
+lapping the distant yellow sands, there appears something incongruous in
+the sharp contrast between this joyfulness of vigorous life and the solemn
+atmosphere of the deserted city. The noisy twittering of multitudes of
+ubiquitous sparrows, equally at home in Doric temples as amongst the sooty
+chimney stacks of London; the twinklings and rustlings of the lizards in
+the young leaves and grass; the polyglot babble of excursionists from
+Naples or La Cava that a warm day in Spring invariably attracts to
+Paestum:--these are not sounds that blend well with the solemn spirit of
+the place. We long to cross the intervening ages so as to throw ourselves,
+if only for one short hour, outside the cares and interests of to-day into
+the heart of that refined civilisation which is gone for ever;--with the
+cheerful sunlight around us, and with our fellow-mortals on pleasure bent
+close at hand, we find it difficult to forget the present. Would it be
+possible, we ask ourselves, to spend a nocturnal vigil within the hall of
+the great temple of the Sea God, so as to behold, like that undaunted
+traveller, Crawford Ramage, the shafts of crystalline moonlight shed
+through the aperture of the roof leap from pillar to pillar, making bars
+of brilliant light amidst the surrounding blackness! O to sit and meditate
+thus engrossed with the memory of the past, and with no other sounds
+around us than the sad cry of the _aziola_, the little downy owl that
+Shelley so loved! But the gaunt spectre of Fever ever haunts this spot,
+and after sunset his power is supreme; so that he would be a bold man
+indeed who in an age of luxury and selfish comfort would carry out an idea
+at once so romantic and so perilous.
+
+We ourselves were especially fortunate on the occasion of our last visit
+to Poseidonia on a mild day in December, a month which on the Lucanian
+shore somewhat resembles a northern October. A soft luminous haze hung
+over the landscape and over the Bay of Salerno itself, rendering the
+classic mountains at once indistinct in outline and unnaturally lofty to
+the eye. More grandiose and mysterious than under the fierce light of a
+sunny noontide appeared that day the three giant pillared forms, as we
+entered the precincts of the ruined city by the Siren's Gate, and made our
+way through the thick herbage still pearled with dew, since there was
+neither sunshine nor sirocco to dry "the tears of mournful Eve" off the
+clumps of silver-glinted acanthus, or the tall grasses bending with the
+moisture. In the warm humid air we seated ourselves on the plinth of a
+column, and gazing around allowed the influence of this marvellous spot to
+sink deep into the soul. No tourists with unseemly or unnecessary chatter
+arrived that day to share our selfish delight or to break the
+all-pervading spell of solitude; all lay peaceful and deserted. All was
+silent too save for the low monotonous sobbing of the sea on the unseen
+beach near at hand, the historic beach on which at various times
+throughout the roll of past ages Doric colonists, Epirot warriors, Roman
+legionaries and fierce Mohammedan pirates had disembarked, all with the
+same object:--to seize the proud city that had now for the last thousand
+years lain uninhabited, save for the owls and the bats. It was too cloudy
+a day for sun-loving creatures such as lizards or serpents to emerge and
+rustle amongst the broken stones and leaves, over all of which during the
+silent hours of the past night Arachne had been employed in weaving her
+softest and whitest textures, that the windless morning had allowed to
+remain intact. The only sign of animate life was visible in a pair of
+lively gold-finches, which with merry notes were fluttering from thistle
+to thistle, picking the down from each ripened flower-head and prodigally
+scattering the seeds upon the weed-grown soil where once had bloomed the
+odorous Roses of Paestum that the poets loved.
+
+Sitting thus amid the silence and solitude of a city half as old as Time
+itself, we were unexpectedly aroused by a gruff salutation proceeding from
+a little distance behind the temple. Turning quickly in the direction of
+the sound, we perceived the figure of a tall bearded man dressed in
+conical hat, with goat-skin trousers and cross-gartered legs, who but for
+the gun slung across his shoulders by a stout leathern strap might well
+have been mistaken for an apparition of the god Pan himself returned to
+earth. Vague recollections of the brigand Manzoni, the scourge of the
+neighbourhood and the murderer of more than one unhappy visitor to the
+ruins of Paestum in the good old _vetturino_ days, flashed through our
+mind, as we surveyed the muscular frame and the fowling-piece of the
+strange being before us. It was with a sigh of relief that we noted upon
+the straight stretch of white road leading to the Little Temple in the
+distance the presence of two royal _carabinieri_ majestically riding at a
+foot's pace, their tall forms enveloped in long black cloaks whose folds
+swept over their horses' tails. We felt reassured, and when for a second
+time the guttural voice addressed us in unintelligible _patois_, we
+perceived the innocent object of this mysterious visit. Searching in a
+capacious goat-skin bag, a species of Neapolitan sporran, this descendant
+of the Poseidonian Greeks produced and held up to our gaze three birds
+that he had shot in his morning's hunting. For the modest sum of three
+lire the game exchanged hands, and the sportsman departed, well satisfied
+with his luck. Next evening we feasted royally in our inn at Salerno upon
+a succulent woodcock fattened upon the berries of the wood of Persano, and
+upon a couple of snipe that had grown plump amongst the Neptunian marshes.
+Nor was this dainty addition to our supper that night altogether
+undeserved; for having decided in a momentary fit of enthusiasm to forego
+the usual basket of hotel food at the time of starting from Salerno, in
+order to follow the advice of old Evelyn "to diet with the natives," we
+had preferred to take our chance of midday refreshment at the solitary
+_osteria_ within the ruined city wall. The good people of the inn did what
+they could to regale the two _gran' signori Inglesi_, whose unexpected
+presence had the effect of creating some stir within their humble walls.
+No little time was expended in bustling preparations, before a flask of
+red wine, some coarse bread, a dish of fried eggs and a plateful of cold
+sausage were placed before us upon the rough oak table, well scored with
+knife-cuts. Eggs, wine and bread are usually tolerable everywhere
+throughout Italy, no matter how mean the inn that provides them; but the
+Lucanian sausage, though interesting as a relic of classical times, is
+positive poison to the Anglo-Saxon digestion. For the Lucanian sausage of
+to-day is the _Lucanica_ unchanged; the same tough, greasy, odoriferous
+compound, in fact, that Cicero describes as "an intestine, stuffed with
+minced pork, mixed with ground pepper, cummin, savory, rue, rock-parsley,
+berries of laurel, and suet." And we have only to add that mingling with
+the above-mentioned condiments there was an all-pervading flavour of
+wood-smoke, due to the sausage's place of storage, a hook within the
+kitchen chimney. But if the fare was rough, it was cheap and smacked of
+classical times, and our reception by the Paestani of to-day was most
+cordial.
+
+We left Poseidonia late in the afternoon, casting back many regretful
+glances at the three giant sentinels of the plain, looming preternaturally
+large in the rapidly fading light of a starless evening. At that hour we
+felt we could understand and sympathise with the poor untutored peasant's
+fear and avoidance of these lonely ruins, for superstition is often as
+much the result of chance environment as of crass ignorance.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER X
+
+
+                          SORRENTO AND ITS POET
+
+
+It has been said of more than one spot on this globe, that it was so
+beautiful in summer the marvel was to think any one could die there; and
+so wretched in winter, it was a miracle for its inhabitants to survive.
+Sorrento may be said to belong to this class of place, for the climate of
+its short winter is one of the most trying and inclement that can possibly
+be imagined, whilst during spring, summer and early autumn it well merits
+its local reputation as _il piccolo paradiso_ of the Bay of Naples, and
+its air is considered by Neapolitans as the "balm in Gilead" for every
+evil to which human flesh is heir. The Lactarian Mountains protect the
+plain of Sorrento in summer from the scorching rays of the sun, and lay
+their beneficent shadow for several hours of the long hot summer's day
+over the many thousands who dwell on the fertile Piano di Sorrento at
+their base. But in winter these same hills intercept the blessed sunshine,
+which is what most travellers speed southwards to obtain, and leave the
+coast line from Castellamare to the Punta di Sorrento with its northern
+aspect wrapped in shade and moisture, whilst the remainder of the Bay is
+still basking in the genial warmth, so that anything more miserable than a
+mid-winter sojourn in Sorrento it would be impossible to conceive. There
+are of course calm warm days to be met with even in December and January,
+but these are occasional and by no means dependable blessings, and the
+visitor who persists in taking up his abode here at this season of the
+year must prepare himself to experience cold, damp, wind and rain, without
+any of the contrivances or comforts of a northern winter. "One swallow
+does not make a summer," and on the same principle a southern latitude and
+the presence of orange groves do not necessarily imply a salubrious
+climate; indeed, the sub-tropical surroundings seem to add an extra degree
+of chilliness to the place. To sit at Christmastide in a large lofty room
+before a meagre fire of sputtering smoky logs, with Vesuvius wrapped from
+crest to base in a white mantle of new fallen snow, and with an icy
+_tramontana_ from the bleak Abruzzi howling round the house, bending the
+bay trees and penetrating into every corner of the chamber, is by no means
+the ideal picture of a winter in the Sunny South; yet this is only what
+the traveller must be prepared to face, and is very likely to obtain. Nor
+is the cold compensated for by any advantages in the neighbourhood itself,
+for there is but the high road from Castellamare which passes through the
+town and leads above the seashore to Massa Lubrense. It is all very well
+in its way, but in wet weather its surface is one sheet of slippery mud,
+and the streams pouring down the hillside make it chilly and damp for all
+who are not quick walkers. Besides this not very attractive and soon
+exploited walk, there are only the _vicoletti_, the narrow steep rocky
+paths running up hill, which make rough going and give little pleasure,
+for they are almost all bounded on either side by high stone walls that
+jealously exclude the view. So much for Sorrento in its winter dress. But
+when the spring comes, here truly is a transformation from cold and
+torpor! The soft warm air is redolent of the penetrating fragrance of
+orange blossom, of stocks, of jessamine, of wallflower, and of a hundred
+odorous plants and shrubs from each garden and grove behind the many
+obstructing walls. The balconies and gate-pillars are draped in scented
+masses of the beautiful wistaria, which in Italy produces its long pendant
+bunches of purple flowers before putting forth its bronze-coloured leaves.
+Cascades of white and yellow banksia roses fall over each confining
+barrier, or else their stems may be seen climbing like huge serpents up
+the trunks of pine and olive, to burst forth amidst the topmost boughs
+into floral rockets against the cloudless sky. The ravines with which the
+whole of the Piano di Sorrento is intersected are filled with a perfect
+jungle of fresh spring foliage, amidst whose varied tints of green appear
+here and there the bright red shoots of the pomegranate trees bursting
+into leaf. In the heavily perfumed air at dusk, or when the bright
+moonlight is flooding the whole scene and is turning the Bay into a mirror
+of molten silver, the song of the innumerable nightingales can be heard
+resounding from all sides; alas! too often sweet songs of sorrow for nests
+despoiled by the ruthless hands of young Sorrentine imps, as in the days
+of the Georgics.
+
+  "Qualis populea maerens Philomela sub umbra
+  Amissos queritur fetus, quos durus arator
+  Observans nido implumes detraxit, at illa
+  Flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen
+  Integrat, et moestis late loca questibus implet."
+
+  ("At nightfall hear sad Philomel upraise
+  Her mellow notes amid the dark-leaved bays,
+  Mourning her babes and desecrated bower,
+  Which some rough peasant robbed in evil hour;
+  She tells her story of despair and love,
+  Until her plaintive music fills the grove.")
+
+All is fragrant, warm, genial, and peaceful, save for the melancholy notes
+of poor ill-used Philomel, who is foolish enough to visit a cruel country,
+wherein every bird is merely regarded as a toothsome morsel for the family
+pot. We bird-lovers of Britain, with our Selborne Societies and our Wild
+Birds' Protection Acts, find it extremely difficult to understand the
+utter indifference displayed by Italians of all classes towards the
+feathered race. The whole of the beautiful country with its cypress hedges
+and olive groves lies almost mute and lifeless, for on every festival the
+fields and lanes are patrolled by bands of _cacciatori_ with dogs and guns
+on the look-out for game, if blackbirds and sparrows can be accounted
+such. In some districts it is even dangerous for pedestrians to use the
+roads on a Sunday, for fear of a stray bullet, since all, as a rule, fire
+recklessly at any creature within and out of range. Nor is this senseless
+war of extermination carried on merely with guns, for trapping is used
+extensively, and very ingenious and elaborate are some of the arts
+employed in this wretched quest. Every country house has its _uccellare_,
+or snare for the securing of small birds for the table, whilst many of the
+parish priests in the mountain districts add to their scanty incomes by
+catching the fledglings which the young peasants sell in the neighbouring
+market. The result is what might only naturally be expected--a scarcity of
+birds and an almost complete absence of song, for the whole countryside
+has been practically denuded of blackbirds and thrushes; even the
+nightingale has escaped destruction rather on account of its nocturnal
+habits than of its tiny size and exquisite notes. It is positively
+sickening to observe the quantities of slaughtered wild birds in an
+Italian market at any season of the year, for the work of devastation
+proceeds apace equally in spring time. Basketfuls of thrushes and
+blackbirds, and strings of smaller varieties--linnets, sparrows, robins,
+finches, even the diminutive gold-finches, most beautiful, most gay, and
+most innocent of all songsters--are being hawked about by leathern-lunged
+_contadini_, who, alas! always manage to find customers in plenty. No
+matter how melodious, how lovely, or how useful to the farmer a bird may
+be, no Italian, high or low, seems to have any sense or appreciation of
+its merits except as an article of food; it is merely a thing that
+requires to be caught, killed, cooked and eaten, and Providence has
+decreed its existence for no other purpose; even gold-finches in the eye
+of an Italian look better served on a skewer than when they are flying
+round the thistle-heads, uttering their bright musical notes and
+enlivening the dead herbage of winter with their gay plumage. _Che bel
+arrosto!_ (what a glorious dish!) sigh the romantic peasants, as they
+glance upward for a moment from their labour in the fields at the sound of
+the larks carolling overhead; and though an educated Italian would
+probably not give vent to so vulgar a remark, he would much prefer the
+_bel arrosto_ to the "profuse strains of unpremeditated art" that so
+entrance the northerner, who is in reality far more of a poet by nature
+than the more picturesque dweller of the South. _Tantum pro avibus._
+
+As summer advances, the delight of bathing in the limpid waters of the Bay
+is added to the other attractions of Sorrento, whilst many pleasant and
+profitable hours can be passed in reading or writing during the long
+midday rest in the cool airy carpetless and curtainless rooms, where on
+the frescoed ceilings there plays the green shimmer of light that
+penetrates through the closed bars of the _persiani_, the outside heavy
+wooden shutters that let in the sweet air, but somehow seem to exclude the
+intense heat. With the approach of sunset and the throwing open of
+casements to catch the westerly breeze, there comes a delightful ramble,
+perhaps an excursion on mule-back to the famous convent of the Deserto or
+some other point of interest; or else a row upon the glassy waters at our
+feet, to explore "Queen Joanna's Bath," or some strange caverns beyond the
+headland of Sorrento, well known to our boat-men. That is the true life of
+_dolce far niente_, but such an ideal existence can only be indulged in
+during summer time or in late spring; to pass a winter at Sorrento the
+heaviest of clothing, abundance of overcoats and rugs, hot-water bottles,
+cough drops, ammoniated quinine and all the usual adjuncts of a northern
+yule-tide must be carefully provided before-hand by the traveller, who is
+bold enough to tempt Providence by turning what is essentially a warm
+weather retreat into a place of winter residence.
+
+In early autumn also the place has its charms, in the days when the market
+is filled with stalls heaped with glowing masses of fruit, many of them
+unknown to us wanderers from the north. There are peaches that resemble
+our own fruit at home, and there are also great yellow flushed velvety
+globes, like the sun-kissed cheeks of a fair Sorrentina, that appear
+tempting to the eye, but are in reality tough as leather, for they are the
+_cotogni_ or quince-peaches of Italy, which to our feeble palates and
+digestions seem only fit for cooking, though the experienced native
+contrives to make them edible by soaking the fruit in wine. The moment he
+sits down to table, he carefully pares his _cotogne_ and cuts it into
+sections, which he drops into a glass of red wine where they repose until
+the meal is finished; by this time the fruit has become thoroughly
+saturated, and it is then eaten with apparent relish. There are hundreds
+of apples, some of a shining rich crimson and others of dull yellow
+peppered over with tiny black specks, the _renati_, highly prized by the
+natives for their delicate flavour and soft flesh. There are of course
+loads of grapes, varying from the little honey-tasting purple sort, that
+has been introduced from California, to the huge but somewhat insipid
+bunches of the white _Regina_; we note also the quaintly shaped "Ladies'
+Fingers," which are especially sweet. The figs, massed together in serried
+layers between fresh vine leaves and costing a _soldo_ the dozen, stand
+around in glossy purple pyramids, so luscious that their sugary tears are
+exuding from their skins, and so ripe that they seem to cry to be eaten
+before noon. Here is a barrow piled high with the little green fruit, each
+separate fig being decorated with a pink cyclamen stuck in its crest; and
+here is a smaller load of the black _Vescovo_, which is said to obtain its
+ecclesiastical name from the fact that the parent stock of this highly
+esteemed variety originally flourished in the bishop's garden at Sorrento.
+No one who has not visited the shores of the Mediterranean in September or
+early October can realize the luscious possibilities of the fig; for there
+seems nothing in common between the freshly-picked fruit of the south,
+bursting its skin with liquid sugar, and the dry sweetish woolly object
+which tries to ripen on the sheltered wall of an English garden and is
+eaten with apparent gusto by those who know not its Italian brother. Being
+autumn, we have missed one prominent feature of the fruit market, the
+great green-skinned water-melons (_poponi_) with their rose-coloured pulp
+and masses of coal-black seeds, which form the favourite summer fruit of
+the people, who find both food and drink in their cool nutritious flesh.
+But even gayer and more striking than the fruits are the piles of
+vegetables, arranged with a fine appreciation of colour to which only an
+Italian eye can aspire. Carrots, turnips, tomatoes, purple-headed
+cauliflowers, all the broccoli and many others to be observed are old
+familiar friends, but who in England ever saw such gorgeous objects on a
+coster's stall or in a green-grocer's shop as the yellow, scarlet and
+shining green pods of the _peperoni_, or the banana-shaped egg-plants of
+iridescent purple, or the split pumpkins, revealing caverns of
+saffron-hued pulp within? Truly, the Sorrentine market contains a feast of
+colour to satisfy the craving of an artist!
+
+At vintage time the whole Piano di Sorrento reeks with the vinous scent of
+the spilt juice, that is carelessly thrown on to the stone-paved roads by
+the jolting of the country carts which bring in the great wooden tubs, so
+that the very streets seem to run with the crimson ooze. Slender youths in
+yet more slender clothing, with legs purple-stained from treading the
+grapes (for in the South wine is still made on the primitive plan), are to
+be met with on all sides, playing at their favourite game of bowls on the
+public road, in order to relieve their brains of the pungent fumes of the
+fermenting grape juice. Somehow at the very thought of a Campanian vintage
+with its long hot dusty days, its bare-legged brown-skinned peasants
+treading the pulp, and its all-pervading aroma of wine-lees, there rise to
+memory the truly inspired lines of John Keats:
+
+  "O for a draught of vintage, that hath been
+  Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
+  Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
+  Dance, and Provencal song, and sun-burnt mirth!
+  O for a beaker full of the warm South,
+  Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
+  With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
+      And purple-stained mouth."
+
+But all these joys of odorous gardens made musical by nightingales, of
+morning plunges into the blue Mediterranean, of the wealth of southern
+fruit and the novel delights of the vintage are not for the winter
+traveller, who had far better spend the December or January days of his
+visit to the Bay in a steam-heated Neapolitan hotel, rather than face the
+cold and wet in a Sorrentine inn on its overhanging cliff. Nevertheless
+the warm autumn often extends itself into a continuous St Martin's summer,
+that lasts almost until the New Year, before skies grow clouded and the
+snow-flakes descend upon the vineyards and the lava streams of Vesuvius.
+Nothing can be pleasanter in fact than some of the long walks in a sharp
+exhilarating air, and though days are short and nights are often chilly,
+one can sometimes linger on comfortably in Sorrento, though it is as well
+to be prepared for departure in case of a sudden spell of stormy weather,
+for winter sunshine is a necessity, not a luxury, on the Piano di
+Sorrento.
+
+  [Illustration: AFTERNOON, SORRENTO]
+
+Unlike other towns upon the Bay of Naples, Sorrento is divided into two
+distinct portions; the city on the cliffs, with its streets and squares,
+its cathedral and ancient walls, its villas and gay gardens; and the
+Marina, lying at the mouth of the gorge below, close to the water's edge.
+The population of Upper Sorrento is agricultural and labouring, whilst
+that of the lower consists entirely of fisher-folk and sailors; it is
+needless to add that the latter are far less prosperous than their
+fellow-citizens who live over-head. Until recent times little
+communication between these two sets of Sorrentines took place and
+intermarriages were rare, for the sea-faring population only ascended to
+the town above and intermingled with the people of Upper Sorrento on the
+great occasions of local festivals, such as the enthronement or funeral of
+a bishop. Nor has the levelling spirit of the age as yet broken down the
+deep-rooted feeling of local clannishness; although it cannot be long
+before time-honoured customs and prejudices will be swept away in the
+tidal wave of modern development. One of the chief industries of the place
+is the manufacture of scarves and sashes of rich silk woven in cross bars
+of strong contrasting colours, so that the Sorrentine silk work strongly
+resembles the well-known Roman variety. Equally popular with visitors are
+the various articles made of olive wood and decorated in _tarsia_, the art
+of inlaying with pieces of stained wood, which is a speciality of the
+place. There are two kinds of this Sorrentine inlaid work; one consisting
+of figures of peasants dancing the _tarantella_, of Pompeian maidens in
+classical drapery, of _contadini_ or priests bestriding mules, and of
+similar local subjects; and the other, of fanciful patterns made up of
+tiny coloured cubes of wood, much in the style of the old Roman stone
+mosaics. The designs employed vary of course with the fashion of the day,
+for there is a local school of art supported by the municipality, which
+professes to improve the tastes of the _tarsiatori_, but most persons will
+certainly prefer the trite but characteristic patterns of the place.
+
+But the main industry of Sorrento consists in the culture of the orange;
+and the dark groves, covered with their globes of shining yellow fruit,
+"like golden lamps in a green light," to quote Andrew Marvell's charming
+conceit, constitute the chief feature of its environs. Even the
+coat-of-arms of the medieval city, showing a golden crown encircled by a
+wreath of the dark glossy leaves, attests the antiquity of this industry
+here. The cultivation of the orange in Southern Italy is by no means an
+easy pursuit, though under favourable conditions it may prove a very
+lucrative one, even in a spot so subject to sudden changes of temperature
+as Sorrento in winter time, when a continuance of severe weather, like
+that experienced around Naples in the opening months of the year 1905,
+means total destruction of the fruit crop and temporary ruin to the
+owners.
+
+The fruit of commerce is propagated by means of grafting the sweet variety
+on to the stock of the bitter orange--said on doubtful authority to be
+indigenous to this district--which is fairly hardy and can be grown in the
+open as far north as Tuscany, so that every _aranciaria_ ought to possess
+a nursery of flourishing young sweet-orange shoots, ready in case of
+necessity. For eight long years the grafted tree remains as a rule
+profitless, but having survived and thriven so long, it then becomes a
+valuable asset to its proprietor for an indefinite period;--as a proof of
+the longevity of the orange under normal conditions we may cite the famous
+tree in a Roman convent garden, which on good authority is stated to have
+been planted by St Dominic nearly six hundred years ago. As to the amount
+of fruit yielded, the growers of Sorrento commonly aver that one good
+year, one bad year and one mediocre year constitute the general cycle in
+the prospects of orange farming. Two crops are gathered annually, the
+principle one in December and the other at Eastertide, the fruit produced
+by the later and smaller crop being far finer in size and flavour than
+those of the Christmas harvest. Mandarin oranges are gathered on both
+occasions, but the large luscious loose-skinned fruit of March and
+April--_Portogalli_ as they are commonly termed--are far superior to the
+small hard specimens that appear in December, and seem to consist of
+little else than rind, scent and seeds. The oranges begin to form in
+spring time, almost before the petals have fallen, when the peasants
+anxiously draw their conclusions as to the expected yield. But however
+valuable the fruit, the wood of the tree is worthless for commerce, except
+to make walking-sticks, or to serve the ignoble purpose of supplying
+hotels and cafes with tooth-picks! Lemons, which are far more delicate
+than oranges and require to be kept protected by screens and matting
+during the sharp winter nights, are less common at Sorrento than on the
+warmer shores of the Bay of Baia or the sunny terraced slopes of the
+Amalfitan coast.
+
+With the ripening of the oranges on the trees appear those strange
+creatures from the wilds of the Basilicata or Calabria, the _Zampognari_,
+who visit Naples and the surrounding district in considerable numbers.
+They usually arrive about the date of the great popular festival of the
+Immaculate Conception (December 8th) and remain until the end of the
+month, when they return to their homes with well-filled purses. In outward
+aspect these strangers resemble the stage-brigands that appear in such
+old-fashioned operas as _Fra Diavolo_, for they wear steeple-crowned hats
+with coloured ribands depending, shaggy goat-skin trousers, crimson velvet
+waistcoats, blue cloaks, sandalled feet and gartered legs. Their pale
+faces are unshorn, and their hair hangs in great tawny masses over neck
+and ears, which are invariably adorned with golden rings. These fellows
+come in pairs, one only, properly speaking, being the _zampognaro_, for it
+is he who carries the _zampogna_ or classical bag-pipe of Southern Italy,
+whilst his companion is the _cennamellaro_, so called from his
+ear-splitting instrument, the _cennamella_, a species of primitive flute.
+The _zampogna_ may be described as first cousin to the historic bag-pipes
+of Caledonia, for the sounds emitted strongly resemble the traditional
+"skirling" of the pipes; but no Scotchman even could pretend to delight in
+the shrill notes of the _cennamella_. The former at least of these two
+popular instruments of southern Italy was well known to the omniscient
+author of the Shakespearean plays, for in _Othello_ we have a direct
+allusion to the uncouth braying music still made to-day by these
+outlandish musicians.
+
+"Why, masters, have your instruments been in Naples, that they speak i'
+the nose thus?... Are these, I pray you, wind instruments?... Then put up
+your pipes in your bag, for I'll away: go; vanish into air; away!"
+
+In the midst of their instrumental duet the two shaggy mountaineers are
+apt to break into a harsh nasal hymn in honour of the Virgin, to visit
+whose shrines at this season of the orange harvest is the main object of
+their Christmas migration to the Neapolitan shores. Very tastefully
+decorated are many of the Madonna's little sanctuaries in or near the
+orange groves, when the arrival of the _zampognari_ is considered
+imminent. The tiny lamps are well trimmed and shine brightly, whilst heavy
+garlands composed of masses of bay or laurel or ilex leaves, interspersed
+with some of the golden clusters of the ripening fruit are suspended round
+the alcove that holds the figure of the Virgin. This effective but simple
+form of ornamentation will at once suggest the beautiful glazed and
+coloured terra-cotta wreaths of fruit and foliage that are to be seen so
+frequently in Tuscan churches; indeed, it is possible that the members of
+the Della Robbia family may have originally borrowed the decorative
+schemes for their famous plaques and lunettes from the rustic shrines thus
+simply but tastefully embellished. Nominally, the two performers are
+supposed to sing and make music on nine different days at the houses of
+all their patrons in order to make up the total number of the _novena_,
+but the extent of their performances is generally calculated in accordance
+with the depth of the householder's purse, the sum given for their
+services varying from a few _soldi_ to a five _lire_ note. All classes of
+society employ the zampognari, for it is with the first appearance of the
+lovely golden fruit, essentially _the_ winter fruit of the Italians, that
+the arrival of these picturesque strangers has been associated from time
+immemorial. The _zampognari_ are in fact as much of a national institution
+with the Neapolitans at Christmastide as are the waits or carol-singers in
+our own country, so that to the majority of these people _Natale senza
+zampogna e cennamella_ would seem no true Christmas at all.
+
+Closely connected with the life of the people of the Piano di Sorrento is
+the famous dance known as the _Tarantella_, which may be witnessed by the
+curious at almost any time--for money. Even when performed by professional
+dancers, tricked out in spick and span stage-peasant finery, the
+Tarantella is a most graceful exhibition of movement, although the dance
+naturally gains in interest when it takes place in the days of vintage or
+on the popular festivals of the Church, without the presence of
+largesse-giving strangers. The origin of the name has always puzzled
+antiquarians, although in all probability the dance derives its curious
+appellation from the Greek city of Taranto, whence the Tarentines
+introduced its steps and action into other parts of Italy. But vulgar
+belief is very strong, so that this graceful dance is still closely
+associated in the popular mind with the _tarantula_, a kind of poisonous
+spider found in the neighbourhood of Taranto, the effects of whose bite
+are said to yield to violent exercise followed by profuse perspiration. In
+order to excite the proper amount of exertion necessary for the cure, the
+person afflicted, _il tarantolato_, is induced to leap and caper by the
+sound of music, with the result that there exist a number of tunes
+specially connected with this wild species of dancing. The real
+explanation of this fable seems to lie in the extremely excitable nature
+of the Tarentines themselves, assisted by the exhilarating music and by
+frequent pulls at the wine barrel. The two lines sung to the air of one of
+the tunes employed:
+
+      "Non fu Taranta, ne fu Tarantella,
+      Ma fu la vino della carratella:"
+
+
+    ("It was neither the taranta, nor the tarantella, but it was the
+    wine from the cask.")
+
+
+sums up pretty accurately the real cause of these strange Tarentine
+orgies, which have really nothing whatever in common with the rhythmical
+dance that is still so popular in the environs of Naples. Nevertheless the
+theory of _tarantella_ and _tarantismo_ has been gravely discussed by old
+Italian writers, and a certain learned prelate of the fifteenth century,
+Niccolo Perotto, Archbishop of Siponto, alludes to the malignant cause of
+this dance-cure as "a species of speckled spider, dwelling in rents of the
+ground caused by excessive heat. It was not known in the time of our
+fore-fathers, but now it is very common in Apulia ... and is generally
+called _Tarantula_. Its bite seldom kills a man, yet it makes him half
+stupid, and affects him in a variety of ways. Some, when a song or tune is
+heard, are so excited that they dance, full of joy and always laughing,
+and do not stop till they are entirely exhausted; others spend a miserable
+life in tears, as if bewailing the loss of friends. Some die laughing, and
+others in tears."
+
+Such is the curious legend concerning the origin of the Tarantella, which
+is still danced with something of the old spirit by the holiday-making
+crowds of Naples, though it is at the _festa_ of San Michele, the patron
+of Procida, that the Tarantella can now be seen to best advantage. Of the
+three islands that lie close to Naples, Procida is the least known or
+visited by strangers, so that when the Tarantella is danced by the
+Procidani, the old-fashioned popular orchestra is employed to give the
+necessary music. This consists of five quaint instruments (obviously of
+Oriental origin as their counterparts can still be seen amongst the
+Kabyles of Northern Africa): the first being a fife (_siscariello_); the
+second a tin globe covered with skin pierced by a piece of cane
+(_puti-puti_); the third a wooden saw and a split stick, making a
+primitive bow and fiddle (_scetavaiasse_); the fourth an arrangement of
+three wooden mallets, that are rattled together like a gigantic pair of
+bones (_tricca-ballache_); and the fifth a Jew's harp
+(_scaccia-pensieri_). A tarantella danced to the accompaniment of so weird
+a medley of instruments and by real peasants full of gaiety is naturally a
+thing altogether diverse from the stilted, though graceful and decorous
+performance that can be observed any day for payment in a Sorrentine or
+Neapolitan hotel; yet it must ever be borne in mind that the Tarantella
+proper, whether danced _con amore_ by Procidan peasants or performed for
+lucre by costumed professionals, is no vulgar frenzied _can-can_, but a
+musical love-dance expressive of primitive courtship.
+
+"The Tarantella is a choregraphic love-story, the two dancers representing
+an enamoured swain and his mistress. It is the old theme--'the quarrel of
+lovers is the renewal of love.' Enraptured gaze, coy side-look, gallant
+advance, timid retrocession, impassioned declaration, supercilious
+rejection, piteous supplication, softening hesitation; worldly goods
+oblation, gracious acceptation; frantic jubilation, maidenly resignation.
+Petting, wooing, billing, cooing. Jealous accusation, sharp recrimination,
+manly expostulation, shrewish aggravation; angry threat, summary
+dismissal. Fuming on one side, pouting on the other. Reaction,
+approximation, exclamation, exoneration, reconciliation, osculation,
+winding up with a grand _pas de circomstance_, expressive of confidence
+re-established and joy unbounded. That's about the figure of it; but no
+word-painting can give an idea of the spirit, the 'go' of the tarantella
+when danced for love and not for money."(9)
+
+On a modest scale Sorrento can lay claim to be called an eternal city, for
+the Surrentum of the ancient Romans was a place of no small importance,
+filled with villas of wealthy citizens and boasting a fair-sized
+population, as its numerous remains of antiquity can easily testify;
+whilst its crumbling ivy-clad walls and towers point to its prosperity
+during the Middle Ages, when Sorrento shared the political fortunes of
+Naples. It is now a busy thriving little cathedral town, and the possessor
+of silk and _tarsia_ work industries, so that like Imperial Rome it can
+boast a continuous existence as a city from remote times to the present
+day. Its chief local Saint--for what Italian town does not boast a special
+patron?--is Sant' Antonio, whose most famous feat is said to have been the
+administering of a severe drubbing to Sicardo, Duke of Benevento, for
+daring to interfere with the liberties of his city in the ninth century.
+It would appear from the legend that all arguments as to ancient rights,
+the quality of mercy and the honour of keeping faith having been vainly
+exhausted upon the cruel and obstinate prince, Bishop Antonio came forward
+with a stout cudgel and belaboured the tyrant in order to obtain a
+favourable answer to the people's petition. The sanctity of the pugnacious
+prelate and the force of this _argumentum ad baculum_ were evidently too
+much for the Duke of Benevento, who at once conceded the popular demands,
+whilst Antonio's name has deservedly descended to posterity as the capable
+protector of his native city.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+But the name which above all others Sorrento will cherish as her own, "so
+long as men shall read and eyes can see," is that of the famous Italian
+poet, Torquato Tasso, whose interesting but melancholy life-story is
+closely associated with this, the town of his birth. Tasso is reckoned as
+the fourth greatest bard of Italy, ranking after Dante and Petrarch, and
+being esteemed on a level with rather than below his rival and
+contemporary, Ludovico Ariosto. In one sense however he may be described
+as the most truly national poet of this immortal quartet, for his career
+is connected with his native country as a whole, rather than with any one
+of the little cities or states then comprising that "geographical
+expression" which is now the Kingdom of Italy. His father's family was of
+Lombard origin, having been long settled in the neighbourhood of Bergamo,
+where a crumbling hill-set fortress known as the Montagno del Tasso still
+recalls the name of the poet's ancestors. His mother, Porzia de' Rossi,
+was Tuscan by birth, her family haling from Pistoja at the foot of the
+Apennines, but owning property near Naples; whilst the poet himself was
+destined to spend his years of childhood at Sorrento and at Naples, his
+youth at Rome and Verona, his brilliant period of fame and prosperity at
+Ferrara and the Lombard courts, and again some of his closing years of
+disgrace and disappointment amidst the familiar scenes of his infancy. Of
+good ancient stock the Tassi owed their acquisition of wealth to the
+re-establishment of the system of posting throughout Northern Italy in the
+thirteenth century, when the immediate progenitor of the poet, one Omodeo
+de' Tassi, was nominated comptroller, and it is curious to note that owing
+to this circumstance the arms of the family containing the posthorn and
+the badger's skin--_Tasso_ is the Italian for badger--continued to be borne
+for many centuries upon the harness of all Lombard coach-horses.
+Torquato's father, Bernardo Tasso, himself a poet of no mean calibre and
+the composer of a scholarly but somewhat prolix work, the _Amadigi_,
+formed for many years a prominent member of that brilliant band of
+literary courtiers within the castle of Vittoria Colonna, the Lady of
+Ischia, of whom we shall speak more fully in another place. But for the
+overwhelming and all-eclipsing fame of his distinguished son, Bernardo
+might have been able to claim a high place in the list of Italian writers
+of the Renaissance; as it was, the father's undoubted talents were quickly
+forgotten in the blaze of his own beloved "Tassino's" popularity, so that
+he is now chiefly remembered as the sire of a poetic genius, as one of the
+great Vittoria's favourite satellites and as the author of an oft-quoted
+sonnet to his intellectual mistress. Bernardo Tasso did not marry until
+the somewhat mature age of forty-seven, when, as we have already said, he
+espoused the daughter of the Tuscan house of Rossi, by whom he had two
+children; a daughter, Cornelia, and the immortal Torquato, who was born in
+1544, three years before the death of the divine poetess of Ischia.
+
+But Bernardo was not merely a bard and a courtier, for he was also,
+unfortunately for himself and his ill-fated family, a keen politician in
+an age when politics offered anything but a safe pursuit, and as his views
+invariably coincided with those of his chief friend and patron, the head
+of the powerful Sanseverino family, Tasso the Elder found himself in
+course of time an exile from Neapolitan territory on account of his
+dislike of the new Spanish masters of Naples. The poet-politician
+therefore took up his abode at Rome, whilst his wife and two young
+children continued to reside at Naples and Sorrento. The boy was a born
+student, almost an infant prodigy of learning, and so great was his desire
+for knowledge that he would insist upon rising long before it was
+day-light, and would even make his way to school through the dark dirty
+streets of Naples, conducted by a servant with a torch in his hand. The
+Jesuits, who had just set up their first academy at Naples, soon
+discovered in the future poet an ideal pupil, and not only did they impart
+to the child all the lore of ancient Greece and Rome, but they also imbued
+his mind, at an age when it was "wax to receive and marble to retain,"
+with their own peculiar theological tenets. It is obvious indeed that the
+faith implanted by the Fathers in his tender years was largely, if not
+wholly answerable for the unswerving belief and firm religious convictions
+that ever stood Tasso in good stead throughout the whole of his chequered
+career. "Give me a child of seven years old," had once declared the great
+Founder of the Society of Jesus, "and I care not who has the
+after-handling of him"; and in this case the Jesuit professors did not
+fail to carry out Loyola's precept. But his home life with his mother,
+whom he loved devotedly, and his course of study at the Jesuit school were
+suddenly interrupted when he was barely ten years of age, for the elder
+Tasso was anxious for his little son to join him in Rome, there to be
+educated under his own eye. The boy left his mother, but after his
+departure the Rossi family brutally refused to allow their sister access
+to her absent husband, who had lately been declared a rebel against the
+Spanish government and deprived of his estates. Thus persecuted by her
+unfeeling brothers, Porzia Tasso sought refuge together with Cornelia in a
+Neapolitan convent, where, deprived of her erratic but beloved husband and
+pining for her absent son, the poor woman died of a broken heart a year or
+two later. As for Cornelia, she became affianced when of a marriageable
+age to a gentleman of Sorrento, the Cavaliere Marzio Sersale, and
+consequently returned to live in the home of her childhood.
+
+Of Tasso's many adventures, of his universal literary fame, of the honours
+heaped upon him by his chief patron, Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, and of his
+subsequent disgrace and imprisonment for daring to lift his eyes in love
+to a princess of the haughty House of Este, we have no space to speak
+here. Let it suffice to say that he was one of the most charming,
+virtuous, brilliant, manly figures, as he was also almost the last true
+representative, of the great Italian Renaissance, the end of which may be
+described as coinciding with his decease. According to his biographer
+Manso, the author of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ was singularly noble and
+refined in appearance, though always possessed of an air of melancholy; he
+was well-built, strong, active and resourceful, anything in fact but a
+carpet-knight who spent his days in writing verse and dallying with
+Italian court beauties:
+
+  "Colla penna e colla spada,
+  Nessun val quanto Torquato;"
+
+sang the populace of Ferrara in honour of their illustrious Sorrentine
+guest, for the Ferrarese delighted in the handsome stranger who could in
+an emergency wield the sword as skilfully as he could ply his quill. Twice
+only however did Tasso revisit the city of his birth, and each return home
+was occasioned by deep tragedy. In 1577, wounded by the attacks of his
+literary rivals and humiliated by the Duke Alfonso's discovery of his
+infatuation for the Princess Leonora d'Este, the unhappy poet travelled
+southward, reaching Sorrento in the disguise of a shepherd. Making his way
+to the Casa Sersale, the house of his sister, now a widow with two sons,
+Torquato passed himself off as his own messenger, and so eloquently did he
+relate the story of his own grief and wrongs, that the tender-hearted
+Cornelia fainted away at this recital. Having satisfied his mind as to his
+sister's genuine affection, the pseudo-shepherd now revealed his true
+character, whereupon the pair embraced with transports of joy, though it
+was deemed prudent not to acquaint their friends with the arrival of
+Torquato, who was represented to the good people of Sorrento as a distant
+relative from Bergamo. Cornelia Sersale now entreated the poet to take up
+his abode permanently in her house, and to forget the rebuffs of the cruel
+world without in the enjoyment of family ties and affections; and well
+would it have been for Torquato, had he accepted his sister's advice and
+passed the succeeding years in simple rural pleasures. But restless and
+inconsequent despite all his virtues, the poet must needs return to
+Ferrara to bask in the presence of his beloved Leonora, with the dire and
+undignified result that all the world knows. Tasso's second visit took
+place not long before his death, when his strength was rapidly failing, so
+that it seems strange that he did not decide to end his days amidst these
+lovely and well-remembered scenes of his early boyhood, instead of
+deliberately choosing for the last stage of his earthly journey the Roman
+convent of Sant' Onofrio, where the death-chamber and various pathetic
+relics of the poet are still pointed out.
+
+Students of Tasso's immortal epic are apt to overlook the immense
+influence exercised on its author by his early Sorrentine days and
+surroundings. The _Gerusalemme Liberata_ contains, as we know, a full
+account of the First Crusade and constitutes an apotheosis of Godfrey de
+Bouillon, first Christian King of Jerusalem; but it is also something more
+than a mere poetical description of a departed age of chivalry. For there
+can be little doubt that the poet aspired to be the singer of a new
+movement which should wrest back the Holy City from the clutches of the
+Saracens, and set a second Godfrey upon the vacant throne of Palestine. To
+this important end the experiences of his infancy and his training by the
+Jesuits had undoubtedly tended to urge the precocious young poet. The
+servants of his father's house at Sorrento must many a time have regaled
+his eager boyish mind with harrowing tales of the infidel pirates who
+scoured the Tyrrhene Sea within sight of the watch-towers on the coast;
+within ken, perchance, of Casa Tasso itself, perched on the commanding
+cliff above the waters. Scarcely a family dwelling on the Marina below but
+was mourning one or more of its members that had been seized by the
+blood-thirsty marauders, perhaps to be brutally slain on the spot or to
+languish in the dungeons of Tripoli and Smyrna, eking out a life of
+slavery that was far worse than death itself. Stories of tortured
+Christians, like that of the pious Geronimo of Algiers who was tied with
+cords and flung into a mass of soft concrete, were common enough topics
+among the Sorrentine folk, all of whom lived in constant dread of a
+successful raid by the Barbary pirates. For, despite the efforts of the
+great Emperor Charles the Fifth to protect his maritime subjects, the
+swift galleys of Tunis and Tripoli out-stripped the Imperial men-of-war,
+and continued to carry on their vile commerce of slavery. Such a state of
+terrorism must have appeared intolerable to the highly romantic, deeply
+religious spirit of the young poet; and his Jesuit preceptors, working on
+the boy's imagination, were soon able to instil into his youthful brain
+the notion of a new Crusade which would not only sweep the infidel ships
+from off the Italian seas, but would also recapture the Holy City itself.
+The Church, beginning at last to recover from the effects of Luther's
+schism, was once more in a position to re-assert its ancient authority
+over Catholic Christendom, and in Torquato Tasso it found an able
+trumpeter to call together the scattered forces of the Faithful, and to
+reunite them in a holy war. Astonished and delighted, all Italy was swept
+by the golden torrent of Tasso's impassioned verses, that were intended to
+urge the Catholic princes of Europe to the inauguration of a new Crusade.
+Nor were the times unpropitious for such an event. Tunis, that hot-bed of
+infidelity, piracy and iniquity, was in the hands of the Christians; and
+the fleets of the Soldan had been well-nigh annihilated by Don John of
+Austria at the glorious battle of Lepanto:--to convince a doubting and
+hesitating world that the actual moment had come wherein to recover the
+city of Jerusalem was the main object of the author of the _Gerusalemme
+Liberata_. And it was his infancy spent upon this smiling but
+pirate-harassed coast that was chiefly responsible for this desired end in
+the epic of the Crusades; it was Tasso's early acquaintance with the Bay
+of Naples, combined with his special training by the Jesuits, that forced
+the poet's genius and ambition into this particular channel.
+
+It is pleasant to think that Sorrento is still appreciative of its honour
+as the birth-place of the great Italian poet. The citizens have erected a
+statue of marble in one of their open spaces; they have called street,
+hotel and _trattoria_ by his illustrious name; and can the modern spirit
+of grateful acknowledgment go further than this? His father's house has
+perished, it is true, through "Nature's changing force untrimmed," for the
+greedy waves have undermined and swallowed up the tufa cliff which once
+supported the old Tasso villa. But there is still standing in Strada di
+San Nicola the old Sersale mansion, wherein the good Cornelia received her
+long-lost brother in his peasant's guise, an unhappy exile from haughty
+Ferrara. Of more interest however than the old town house of the Sersale
+family is the ancient farm, known as the Vigna Sersale, which once
+belonged to Donna Cornelia, and supplied her household with wine and oil.
+It is a lovely sequestered spot lying on the breezy hill-side not far down
+the Massa road, facing towards Capri and the sunset. Hallowed by its
+historic connection with the poet and his devoted sister, the Vigna
+Sersale can claim perhaps to be one of the most interesting and beautiful
+places of literary pilgrimage upon earth. Ascending by the steep pathway
+that leads upward from the broad high road, it is not long before we reach
+the old _podere_, amidst whose olive groves and vineyards the poet was
+wont to sit dreamily gazing at the glorious view before him. Here are the
+same ancient spreading stone-pines, the same gnarled olive trees that
+sheltered the gentle love-lorn poet, whilst Cornelia and her sons sate
+beside him in the shade, endeavouring--alas! only too vainly--by their
+caresses to detain the roving Torquato in their midst. Could not, we ask
+ourselves, the erratic poet have been content to remain in this spot, "in
+questa terra alma e felice" as he himself styles it, instead of plunging
+once more into the dangers and dissipation of that Vanity Fair of distant
+Ferrara? Why could he not have brooded over his ill-starred infatuation
+for the high-born Leonora in this soothing corner of the earth, allowing
+its quiet and beauty to sink into his soul, until the recollection of his
+Innamorata declined gradually into a fragrant memory that could be
+embalmed in never-dying verse? But like his own favourite hero, the
+Christian King of Jerusalem, the poet must in his inmost heart have
+preferred a changing storm-tossed life to the ideal existence of rustic
+ease; and had he not returned to the treacherous splendours of Alfonso's
+court, how much less entrancing would his own life-story have appeared to
+after ages! Unconsciously he seems to have composed his own epitaph in
+describing Godfrey's death; for the crusading king lived and died like a
+true Christian knight, for whom the world has afforded many adventures,
+and but few intervals of peace until the final call to endless rest.
+
+  "Vivesti qual guerrier cristiano e santo,
+  E come bel sei morto: ei godi, e pasci
+  In Dio gli occhi bramosi, o felice alma,
+  Ed hai del ben oprar corona e palma."
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XI
+
+
+                      CAPRI AND TIBERIUS THE TYRANT
+
+
+Lying between the classic capes of Misenum and Minerva, the island of
+Capri appears like a couched lion, guarding the entrance of the Bay of
+Naples; his majestic head being formed by the stupendous cliffs of the
+Salto that face the sunrise, whilst his back and loins are represented by
+the long broad slope which stretches from the summit of Monte Solaro to
+the most westerly headland of Vitareta. Nor is it only as a guardian to
+their Bay that Capri serves the Neapolitans, for it also presents them
+with a gigantic natural barometer. In fine settled weather a soft haze
+invariably lies over the sea, so that Capri is only faintly visible from
+the shores of Parthenope, save at sunrise and sunset, when for a short
+time the graceful form of the islet looms out clear-cut like a jagged
+amethyst upon a sapphire bed; but before rain or storm it yields up its
+inmost secrets to the public gaze of Naples. The northern Marina, the
+towns of Capri and Ana-Capri, even the little terraced fields become
+discernible to the naked eye: "It will be wet to-morrow" augur the
+weather-wise of Naples, and the prediction is rarely falsified.
+
+  [Illustration: FARAGLIONI ROCKS, CAPRI]
+
+It is an easy matter to cross from Sorrento to the island, whether it be
+by the little steamer that plies daily between Naples and Capri, putting
+in at Sorrento on its journeys backwards and forwards, or--far pleasanter
+if somewhat slower way--by engaging a boat with four rowers, who on a calm
+day ought to make the Marina of Capri in less than two hours. Nothing can
+be more delightful or exhilarating than this old-fashioned method of
+transit; and it gives also a feeling of superiority over less enterprising
+persons who prefer the quicker passage on a smoky steamer, crammed with
+tourists and attendant touts. It is the very morning for a row on the cool
+glassy water, as we step joyfully into our boat with its four stalwart
+Phrygian-capped sailors in attendance:
+
+  "Con questo zeffiro
+    Cosi soave,
+  Oh, com' e bello
+    Star su la nave!
+  Mare si placido,
+    Vento si caro,
+  Scordar fa i triboli
+    Al marinaro."
+
+Bending with a will to their oars, our genial mariners quickly impel our
+barque round the first jutting headland, so that the thickly populated
+Piano di Sorrento is at once lost to view. Making good headway over the
+clear water, it is not long before we find ourselves passing beneath the
+wave-washed precipices of the Salto, and well within our time limit of two
+hours we reach the roadstead of the Marina, to find ourselves in a bright
+and busy world of traffic and pleasure. Between the houses coloured
+coral-pink, white, blue, and yellow, and the pale green transparent water
+lies a long stretch of beach covered with every sort of craft that sails
+the Mediterranean, and with a motley crowd of fishermen, tourists and
+noisy children; whilst the whole atmosphere rings with raucous voices
+raised in giving directions, in quarrelling, or in addressing the many
+perplexed strangers. We disembark, and cross the intervening beach with
+its sea-weed veiled boulders and masses of tawny fishing nets; we reach
+the village, and here we meet with our first disappointment in romantic
+Capri. It was not so very many years ago, barely thirty in point of fact,
+that this island was roadless, and in those primitive days the visitor was
+met at the Marina Grande by tall strapping Capriote women, who were wont
+to seize the traveller's pieces of baggage as though they had been light
+parcels, and to march up the old stone staircase poising these burdens on
+their heads with the carriage of an empress. The stranger's own entrance
+into Capri was less dignified, for either he had to toil painfully in the
+blazing sun up that steep picturesque flight of steps and reach the
+plateau above, perspiring and probably out of temper; or else he was
+compelled to bestride a miserable ass which a bare-footed damsel steered
+upward by means of the quadruped's tail. Nowadays, we are spared this
+original and somewhat humiliating manner of arrival at our journey's end.
+There are little _carrozzelle_, drawn by clever black Abruzzi cobs
+awaiting us, and even one or two hotel conveyances. We find ourselves
+being driven rapidly up the excellent winding road constructed only a
+quarter of a century ago, past the domed Church of San Costanzo, the
+patron Saint of the Caprioti, past hedges of aloe and prickly pear, until
+we gain the saddle of the island-mountain, where stands the small capital
+perched upon a ledge that overlooks the Bay of Naples to the north, and to
+the south the endless expanse of the unruffled Tyrrhene.
+
+It is evident even to the most casual untrained eye, that this huge mass
+of sea-girt rock whereon we stand must in remote ages have formed part of
+the mainland opposite, until some fierce convulsion of nature, common
+enough in this region that is ever changing its outward face through
+subterranean forces, tore what is now Capri asunder from the Punta della
+Campanella, and placed the sea as an eternal barrier between the riven
+headlands of continent and new-formed island. The charm of this rocky
+fragment, thus placed in mid ocean by volcanic action, was first
+discovered by the great Emperor Augustus, who chancing to visit the island
+for some obscure reason was greatly affected by the spectacle of a
+withered ilex tree, that revived and burst into foliage at the auspicious
+moment of his setting foot at the Marina. Flattered at the compliment paid
+by Nature's self to his august presence and drawing a happy omen from the
+incident, the Emperor at once proposed to the people of Neapolis, who then
+owned the island, that they should exchange barren Capreae for the larger
+and more fertile imperial appanage of Aenaria (Ischia)--a bargain to which
+the shrewd Neapolitans readily agreed. Here then in a spot at once so
+salubrious and so convenient for the management of affairs of state, the
+Emperor sought rest and relaxation at such times as he could escape the
+cares of government. At his bidding villas and pleasaunces were
+constructed; roads were carried by means of viaducts across the airy
+plateau lying between the Salto and the Solaro; and the able bodied
+inhabitants of the island were enrolled as a sort of honorary bodyguard
+for the person of Augustus during his occasional visits. In this secluded,
+yet accessible retreat, the ruler of the Roman world could easily lay his
+finger, as it were, upon the beating pulse of his mighty empire, for
+Capreae was at no great distance from Rome itself, and from the heights of
+the island note could be made of the movements of the Imperial fleet lying
+at Baiae or of the arrival of the corn ships from Egypt and Asia Minor.
+But the name of the good Augustus is scarcely remembered in connection
+with Capreae, which alone recalls its association with Tiberius the
+Tyrant, who spent the last nine years of his reign upon the rocky islet
+that was so beloved of his predecessor. To this spot "Timberio" (as the
+natives invariably misname the Emperor) feeling the rapid approach of
+senile decay, weary of the thankless task of ruling an ungrateful people,
+sick of family dissensions and of court intrigue, at last came in the
+cherished hope of spending the few remaining years of his life in cultured
+leisure and in comparative solitude. An enthusiastic student of astronomy
+and of its sister science, or rather pseudo-science, astrology, Tiberius
+proposed to study the heavens in the company of chosen mathematicians and
+soothsayers. Twelve buildings--palaces, villas, pavilions, call them what
+you will--were now constructed for the special examination of the planets,
+and in consequence the whole of the island, whose limited area after all
+is exceeded by many an English park, was practically turned into one vast
+maritime residence, for all the Imperial pleasure-houses seem to have been
+connected with each other by means of viaducts or secret stair-ways. Yet
+whilst immersed in astronomy and occultism, the aged Emperor contrived to
+find time for the routine of public business, and, like Augustus, he was
+still able to direct from his rocky retreat the policy of the Empire. The
+reports of governors of provinces, for example, were received, read, and
+commented upon by Tiberius in his Capriote home, and amongst these there
+must have been included a certain official document from one Pontius
+Pilatus, Procurator of Judaea, relating how a Jewish prophet from Nazareth
+had been condemned, scourged and crucified by his orders at the special
+request of the Jews themselves. How eloquent is this bald statement of a
+simple fact, that here in this tiny barren islet was brought the casual
+news of the death of Jesus Christ to the then ruler of the Roman world!
+Surely an historical incident such as this is of more value than all the
+hazy legends or pointless miracles of St Januarius or of San Costanzo,
+upon which the imagination of the islanders has been fed for generations.
+
+  [Illustration: CAPRI FROM THE VILLA JOVIS]
+
+Remnants of Tiberius' palaces, all of which are said to have been razed to
+the ground by order of the Roman Senate at his death, are scattered thick
+as fallen leaves in Vallombrosa over the whole surface of the island, and
+it is to the ruins of the Villa Jovis at its eastern crest that the
+visitor will in all probability first direct his steps. The way thither
+from the little city of Capri leads through narrow lanes along a stony but
+populous hill-side, to which the flat-roofed dazzling white houses with
+their small iron-barred windows lend an oriental aspect; an illusion that
+is aided by the appearance of an occasional date-palm over-topping some
+low wall, and by clumps or hedges of the prickly pear. This latter plant,
+of Indian extraction as its name of _Ficus Indica_ betrays, grows in
+profusion over the sun-baked rocky slopes of southern Italy, especially in
+the neighbourhood of the sea. The peasants find it most useful, for it
+makes impenetrable hedges, and its coarse pulpy leaves when pounded up
+afford good provender for their goats and donkeys. The fruits of the
+prickly pear, those quaint crimson or yellow knobs attached to the edges
+of the leaves, are likewise gathered and eaten by the people, or else
+cleaned of their protecting layers of spiny hairs and despatched in
+baskets to Naples, where the cactus-fruit forms an important item of the
+popular fare. The fruit itself has a lovely colour and a fragrant scent,
+which give promise of a better flavour than it actually possesses, for it
+is hopelessly insipid to the taste, although the Neapolitans declare that
+the pulp, when mashed up into patties and iced, is very palatable.
+
+A long up-hill ramble over rough paths leads eventually to the Villa of
+Jupiter, perched on the Salto--the _Saltus Caprearum_, the "Wild Goats'
+Leap," of the ancients. There is little of interest to be seen in the
+existing portions of Tiberius' chief villa, for the building has been
+despoiled centuries ago of its rich marbles, its slabs of _giallo_ and
+_verde antico_, its pillars of red porphyry and _serpentino_, some
+fragments of which may be found imbedded in the pavement of the
+mosque-like little Duomo of Capri. But it is evident from the immense
+extent of its substructures, now used for humble enough purposes, that the
+Villa Jovis must have been a palace of remarkable size. A hermit who
+offers sour wine, a fat middle-aged woman, a figure of fun in her gay
+be-ribboned dress who begins languidly dancing a _tarantella_, and a
+vulgar pestilent guide who produces a spy-glass usually haunt these
+caverns on the look-out for any chance visitor. Buy them off, O stranger!
+with _soldi_, is our advice, for you cannot otherwise escape their
+importunities, and then mounting to the highest point, peer down into the
+clear depths of the water nearly a thousand feet below. For it was here,
+if we can credit serious Roman historians, that the Imperial tyrant, half
+crazy with terror and ever thirsting for human blood, was wont to hurl the
+objects of his hate into the sea; "from this eminence," Suetonius gravely
+tells us, "after the application of long drawn-out and exquisite tortures,
+Tiberius used to order his executioners to fling their victims before his
+eyes into the water, where boats full of mariners, stationed below, were
+waiting in readiness to beat the bruised bodies with oars, in case any
+spark of life might yet be left in them." The terrible legend fits in
+aptly with the appearance of this forbidding dizzy precipice, especially
+on a dark stormy afternoon, when the dull roar of the waves dashing
+against the cliffs below, mounts upward to the Villa Jovis like the angry
+bellowing of some insatiable sea-monster.
+
+It was whilst brooding here after the death of Sejanus in Rome, that the
+Emperor, not daring to move beyond the walls of his palace, shunning the
+society of all save his familiar friends and attendants, and with his face
+disfigured by an eruption of the skin of which he was painfully sensitive,
+that there took place an incident (which may or may not be true) mentioned
+by Suetonius. In the privacy of this villa Tiberius was one day surprised
+by an ingenious Capriote fisherman, who in ignorance or defiance of the
+Emperor's wishes had managed to scale with his naked feet the steep cliffs
+from the sea below, in order to present a fine mullet for the imperial
+table, and of course to earn a high reward for his "gift." Terrified at
+the mere notion of anybody being able thus to penetrate into his most
+secret domain, the irate Emperor at once gave orders for the intruder's
+face to be scrubbed with the mullet he had brought, a sentence that the
+imperial minions performed without delay. The intrepid fisherman might
+have congratulated himself on so mild a punishment for having disturbed a
+tyrant's repose, had he not been possessed of an unusually strong sense of
+humour. For at the close of the mullet-scrubbing episode, the foolish
+fellow remarked by way of a jest to the officer on duty, that he was
+thankful he had not also offered the emperor a large crab which he had
+likewise brought in his basket. This imprudent speech was immediately
+reported to Tiberius, who thereupon commanded the man's face to be
+lacerated with the aforesaid crab's claws; but whether this pleasing
+incident ended with a cold plunge from the Salto, the Roman historian does
+not relate.
+
+Other tales of Timberio's vices and cruelties have been handed down from
+generation to generation, so that the dark deeds committed at the Salto
+have almost passed into a local article of faith; and such being the case,
+it would seem almost a pity to pronounce these picturesque horrors untrue
+or exaggerated. Nevertheless, of recent years there has arisen amongst
+scholars a certain degree of scepticism as regards these highly coloured
+anecdotes of Roman historians known to be prejudiced. The Emperor was
+nearly seventy years old at the time he came to reside in Capreae, and
+until that date his life had been orderly and above reproach; it is not
+likely therefore, argue these modern writers, that Tiberius should
+suddenly, at so extreme an age, have flung himself into a whirl of vices
+and crimes that he had hitherto shunned. The thing is of course possible,
+but it sounds improbable. That he was moody and morose; that he loved
+solitude and hated formal society in the spot he had especially chosen as
+the retreat of his declining years; that he practised certain of the
+mystic arts, as well as studied astronomy, are all likely enough
+conjectures; and these circumstances probably formed the foundation for
+the extravagant legends which now surround the Emperor's memory. Very
+shocking and reprehensible were the doings at Villa Jovis, if they really
+occurred there, but to try and dispute their authenticity would be a task
+quite outside the scope of this work.(10)
+
+If, despite the negative theories held to-day concerning the private life
+and character of the second Emperor of Rome during his residence on
+Capreae, the traveller be still inclined to trace the sites of the
+remaining eleven Imperial villas, he will find little difficulty in
+meeting with numberless Roman remains scattered over all parts of the
+island. On the beach, for example, a little to the west of the Marina
+Grande, are clearly visible the sunken foundations of the great
+sea-palace, which in the Roman manner jutted into the water and ranked
+probably second in size to the Villa Jovis. The neighbourhood of Ana-Capri
+also, and in fact the whole western portion of the island, is likewise
+plentifully besprinkled with ancient ruins, one of which is still known by
+the suggestive title of Timberino. But most people will prefer to explore
+the unrivalled natural beauties of Capri, rather than to make themselves
+acquainted with its archaeological points of interest.
+
+First and foremost of the many wonders that Capri has to show must be
+ranked the Grotta Azzurra. The pleasantest way of reaching this
+world-famous cavern is by small boat from the Marina, rather than by the
+daily steamer from Naples; and a perfectly calm and bright morning must be
+selected for the expedition, for if the surface of the sea appears in the
+least degree ruffled by northerly winds, it becomes impossible for any
+craft to make the low entrance of the grotto. Capriote boatmen are as a
+rule intelligent and pleasant to deal with, and not a few of the denizens
+of the Marina own to some knowledge of English, or rather of American,
+since several of the inhabitants are the sons of emigrants who have
+settled in the cities of the United States or the Argentine, but whose
+love for their island home is still so strong that they contrive to send
+their children back to Capri, in order that they may retain their Italian
+citizenship and be ready to serve their expected term of years in the
+Army.
+
+Past the gay-coloured shipping of the noisy Marina, past the wave-washed
+halls of Tiberius' _palazzo a mare_, our boat swiftly glides over the
+pellucid expanse until it reaches those vast towering cliffs of limestone
+that spring almost perpendicular from the waters' edge to the plateau of
+Ana-Capri, fully a thousand feet above our heads. Clumps of palmetto, of
+cytizus, and of various hardy shrubs manage to sprout and to exist in the
+crannies of this sheer wall of rock; and on some of the larger ledges, far
+out of reach of a despoiling human hand, we see masses of the odorous
+narcissus, though whence they draw their sustenance it is hard to tell. At
+length we reach the entrance of the Grotto, and here, at a signal from our
+boatman, we crouch down low in the body of the boat, whilst our rower,
+skilfully taking advantage of a gentle surging wave, guides our craft with
+his hands through an opening in the sheer wall, so low that the gunwales
+grate against the rocky surface of the natural arch. At once we find
+ourselves in a scene of mystical beauty, in an extravagant voluptuous
+dream of loveliness, such as the Arabian Nights alone could dare to
+suggest. Above us, around us, behind us, before us lies a luminous azure
+atmosphere, which produces the effect of a gigantic molten sapphire, whose
+secret blue fires we have actually tracked to their lurking-place in the
+very heart of the gem. Against the all-pervading shimmering light our own
+forms stand out distinct of an intense and velvety blackness, yet the
+blades of the oars that cleave the melted sapphire of the water, the tips
+of our fingers that dabble in the celestial liquid, appear as if coated
+with tiny globules of silver. Our boatman's son, a picturesque lad of
+fifteen or there-abouts, has, we notice, been engaged in hastily casting
+off his scanty attire; for a moment his slight graceful figure is outlined
+against the blue light like some antique bronze of Pompeii or Herculaneum,
+and then there is a splash as the youthful form, diving into the pool, is
+instantaneously changed by the genius of the place into a
+silver-glistening sea-god, the very image of the fisherman Glaucus sung of
+old by Ovid, who became an Immortal and dwelt ever afterwards, according
+to the ancient myth, in an azure palace beneath the sea. As the stripling
+rises to the surface all glittering to breathe the air, his head turns
+from frosted silver to ebon blackness, as does likewise his hand, raised
+from the water to clasp the boat's prow. Slowly we are propelled round the
+lofty domed cavern, and are shown the little beach at its further
+extremity with its mysterious and unexplored flight of stone steps, down
+which, so our mariner informs us, the wicked Timberio used to descend from
+his villa at Damecuta, hundreds of feet overhead, to take a plunge in
+these enchanted waters. The Emperor and his friends may or may not have
+gambolled in this jewelled bath; but certain it is that Tiberius knew of
+the existence of this unique cavern; and equally certain that an artistic
+but demented potentate of our own days was so smitten with the idea of
+owning a secret staircase descending to a blue grotto, that he must needs
+construct within the walls of a fantastic castle in the highlands of
+Bavaria an artificial counterpart of the Grotta Azzurra, with metal swans
+moved by clockwork swimming thereon!
+
+Our genial boatman beguiles the time of our returning by a long story,
+told him in his boyhood by his old grandfather, of how two English
+_Signori_ had managed to rediscover the entrance to the Blue Grotto, which
+had been lost since the days of the Emperor Timberio, and how in
+expectation of the Englishmen's reward a plucky sailor, named Ferrara, had
+made his way all round the island in a cask, trying to force an entrance
+into every possible cavern, until at last he hit upon the mouth of the
+Grotta Azzurra itself, and thus gained the prize. But as a matter of fact
+the existence of the Grotto was never wholly forgotten, for its beauties
+were certainly known to the old Italian chronicler Capaccio. Yet doubtless
+during the long period of the Napoleonic wars, when Capri from its
+strategic position became a choice bone of contention between French,
+English and Neapolitan forces, there were few if any persons who possessed
+the courage or curiosity to visit the cavern; with the result that its
+_exact_ locality became temporarily lost. It was known, however, to exist
+somewhere at the base of the great northern cliff, so that only a very
+small portion of the coast-line had to be explored, before its tiny
+inconspicuous entrance could be rediscovered. A far more exciting event
+than the refinding of the Blue Grotto was the genuine discovery of the
+beautiful Grotta Verde on the southern side of the island by two
+Englishmen, Mr Reid and Mr Lacaita, in the summer of 1848. This grotto,
+esteemed the second in importance of the many caves that Capri boasts,
+consists of a huge natural archway formed in the cliffs wherein the water
+and rocks appear of an emerald hue, contrasting strangely with the opaque
+blue of the sea beyond, and suggesting in its dual colouring the
+marvellous combination of dark blue and iridescent green in the peacock's
+tail.
+
+  [Illustration: IN THE BLUE GROTTO, CAPRI]
+
+Capri is a pleasant enough place of residence for a short time,
+particularly if one invests in a pair of the rope-soled shoes affected by
+the people, which enables the wearer to follow with greater ease the rough
+stony tracks, often at a dizzy height above the sea, that form the only
+walks in the eastern portion of Capri, except the villa-lined Tragara road
+leading to the Guardiola, now become the fashionable promenade of the many
+foreign residents upon the island. There are some delightfully peaceful
+nooks to be sought near the water's edge, not far from the Faraglioni,
+that picturesque trio of rocks lying off the south-eastern corner of
+Capri. Here we can find a sheltered corner, unfrequented alike by the
+pestering native or by the ubiquitous tourist; perchance the deserted hall
+of some maritime villa, for the caverns near the Piccola Marina abound in
+traces of Roman architecture. In such a retreat, with a book on one's
+knees and with one's own thoughts for sole company, how fascinating it is
+to lie
+
+  "... on Capri's rocks, close to their snowy streak
+  Of ambient foam, and watch the restless sea
+  Tossing and tumbling to Eternity,
+  Feeling its salt kiss fall upon the cheek."
+
+But to those who prefer to take long tramps afield rather than to linger
+in meditation on the sunny beaches near the Piccola Marina, there is
+always the ascent to Ana-Capri by the broad smooth winding road that
+affords a fresh view of the Bay of Naples at every one of its many twists
+and turnings. Over a ravine filled with masses of ilex and myrtle; past
+the fragment of the pirate Barbarossa's aerial castle, perched on a rocky
+pinnacle and looking like some fantastic creation of Gustave Dore's brush;
+the broad ribband of road leads across the steep northern flank of Monte
+Solaro, until it ends at Ana-Capri with its white houses nestling round a
+domed church. It is an easy ascent, taking no great space of time, yet
+strange to relate, well within living memory the only approach to this
+hill-set village was by means of the interminable stone staircase with
+some five hundred steps that connected it with the Marina Grande below. A
+charming writer on Neapolitan life and character thus shrewdly sums up the
+general opinion concerning this altered aspect of conditions with regard
+to Ana-Capri, now brought at last into close touch with modern
+civilization and its accruing benefits:
+
+"Before the culminating point is reached, the road crosses the old
+staircase, which has unfortunately been almost completely destroyed by the
+huge masses of rock dislodged from the cliff above by the workmen. It
+makes one sad to look at it, and almost regret that the new road ever was
+constructed. Were every invective that has been vented on those same steps
+turned into a paving-stone, there would be more than sufficient to pave
+the streets of Naples anew; were every drop of sweat that has fallen upon
+them collected, there would be enough water to flood them. And yet now
+that this dreadful staircase has been superseded by a good macadamised
+road, every one seems to regret the change. Says the heavily laden
+_contadina_: 'The old way was the shortest;' says the artist: 'It was
+infinitely more picturesque; that new parapet wall is a dreadful
+eye-sore;' says the archaeologist: 'It had the merit of antiquity; it is
+not everywhere that one can tread in the footprints of a hundred
+generations.' Even those whose every step in the olden time was
+accompanied by a malediction, can remember how good a glass of very
+inferior wine tasted on reaching Ana-Capri."(11)
+
+But whether Ana-Capri has or has not been really benefited by the Italian
+Government's finely engineered road, there can be no doubt that the
+primitive charm of the island, which in by-gone days constituted one of
+its chief attractions, has greatly declined with the wholesale
+introduction of modern conventions and improvements. With the sudden
+influx of wealthy strangers, Anglo-Saxon, German, French and Russian, it
+is not surprising to learn that the islanders have become somewhat
+demoralized under the changed conditions of life, and that not a small
+proportion of them have grown venal and grasping. The happy old days when
+artists and inn-keepers, peasants and such chance visitors as loved the
+simple unsophisticated life, hob-nobbed together on terms of equality are
+gone for ever. Fashion, that merciless deity, has annexed the Insula
+Caprearum to her ever-growing dominions;--there are smart villas on the
+Tragara road and even at Ana-Capri; there are British tea-rooms and
+Teutonic _Bierhaelle_ in the town. At the present time the tourists and
+foreign residents form the chief source of wealth to the islanders, now
+that the quails have more or less deserted these shores. Instead of
+awaiting in due season with nets ready prepared the advent of the plump
+little feathered immigrants from the African coast, the modern Caprioti
+are continually on the look-out for the steamers that bear hundreds of
+money-spending tourists to the Marina, and these they proceed to enmesh
+with proffered offers of service. And, speaking of the quails, in the days
+before breech-loading guns and reckless extermination had injured this
+valuable source of revenue, the arrival of the birds winging their way
+northward was the signal for every sportsman on the island to hasten to
+collect the annual harvest of game. High poles, supporting nets twenty
+feet broad and sixty feet long, were erected on the grassy slopes of the
+Solaro or in the plateau of the Tragara, towards which, by dint of
+judicious scaring and shouting from expectant watchers stationed at
+various points, the flight of the on-rushing birds was directed. Dashing
+themselves with force against this wall of netting, the poor quails fell
+stunned to the ground, where they were easily taken by hand, whilst scores
+of guns were levelled ready to bring down such birds as had escaped the
+snare prepared for them. From the thousands of quails thus captured the
+islanders were enabled to pay their taxes to the Bourbon Government, as
+well as to provide the income of their Bishop--for in those distant days a
+prelate dwelt at Capri--who in allusion to his chief source of income was
+jocularly known at the Roman court as "Il Vescovo delle Quaglie."
+
+From Ana-Capri to the western shore extends the most fertile stretch of
+land in the island: a broad slope set with vineyards and groves of
+silver-grey olives, that are interspersed here and there with clumps of
+almond and plum trees. Fine oil is yielded by the _poderi_ of Ana-Capri
+and Damecuta, whilst the grapes produce the highly prized red and white
+Capri vintages, choice wine of which the casual traveller rarely tastes a
+good sample, for it is usually doctored and "improved" for purposes of
+keeping by the wine-merchants of Naples. Thus the rasping red liquid that
+appears on the table of a London restaurant, and the scented
+strong-tasting white stuff that is sold in the hotels of the island itself
+or of Naples under the name of Capri, have little in common with the pure
+unadulterated product of these sunny breezy vineyards. But besides wine
+and oil, the island is likewise celebrated for its beautiful and varied
+flora, and it is amongst the olive groves and lanes of the western side of
+the island that the wild flowers can be found in the greatest profusion.
+Amongst the tender green shoots of the young springing corn are set
+myriads of brilliant hued anemones, purple, scarlet, and white with a
+crimson centre; and even in January can be found in warm sheltered nooks
+the pretty mauve wind-flower, one of the earliest of spring blossoms in
+Italy. The grassy pathways that intersect the various holdings are gay
+with rosy-tipped daisies, white "star-of-Bethlehem," dark purple
+grape-hyacinth, and the tiny strong-scented marigold, that seems to bloom
+the whole twelve-month round. Amongst the loose stone-work of the walled
+lanes, where beryl-backed lizards peep in and out of every crevice, can be
+found fragrant violets and the delicate fumitory with its pink waxy bells.
+In moist places flourish patches of the wild arum or of the stately great
+celandine, the "swallow-wort" of old-fashioned herbalists, who believed
+that the swallow made use of the thick yellow juice that runs in the veins
+of this plant to anoint the eyes of her fledgelings! And with the
+disappearance of the anemones as the season advances, their place is taken
+by blood-red poppies, by golden hawkweeds and by masses of tall
+magenta-coloured blooms of the wild gladiolus, the "Jacob's Ladder" of our
+own English gardens. Strange enough amongst these familiar homely flowers
+appear the sub-tropical clumps of prickly pear, and the hedges of aloe
+which here and there have thrown up a gigantic spike of blossom eight or
+ten feet in height, a triumphal favour of Nature that the plant itself
+must pay for by its subsequent death.
+
+From Ana-Capri we ascend to the peak of the lofty Solaro, by no means an
+arduous climb from this point, for we have but to follow a narrow
+goat-track leading across slopes covered with coarse grass and some low
+thickets of stunted lentisk and myrtle. The rosemary too grows plentifully
+on the dry wind-swept soil, and the soft sea breeze wafts its refreshing
+scent to our nostrils. There is a pretty legend of the people which
+relates the cause of this plant obtaining its perfume of unearthly
+sweetness:--how the Madonna one day hung the swaddling clothes of the
+Infant Christ to dry upon a common pot-herb in the garden at Nazareth--the
+rosemary is freely used in Italian cookery, and its taste is as unpleasant
+as its scent is delicious--whereupon the humble plant thus honoured was
+ever afterwards endowed with the delicate odour that is so highly prized.
+And beyond this, the rosemary was likewise permitted to put forth masses
+of flowers of the Madonna's own colour of blue, concerning which a
+tradition--Celtic, not Italian--avers that on Christmas morning upon every
+plant of rosemary will be found by those who care to seek them expanded
+blooms in honour of St Joseph, the Virgin and the Holy Child. Reaching the
+crest of the Solaro, we are well rewarded for our climb over the stony
+slopes by a wide-spreading view. Owing to the central position of the
+island, we can from its airy summit, some sixteen hundred feet above
+sea-level, command a glorious panorama of the three bays of the Neapolitan
+Riviera, each teeming with a thousand associations of classical or modern
+history. Upon those dancing waters of the Bay of Naples appeared in the
+dim ages of the heroic world the Trojan galleys that were bearing the
+founder of the Roman race towards the beach by Cumae yonder, where dwelt
+the venerable Sibyl; the fleets of ancient Rome and Carthage, the
+war-ships of the great Emperor Charles V., the pirate galleys of the
+Soldan's vassals, the men-of-war of Nelson have all rode and fought upon
+the bosom of the bay beneath us. What a marvellous perspective of the
+whole naval history of the Mediterranean does a survey of the Bay of
+Naples suggest!
+
+Exquisite and inspiring as is the view on a clear cloudless day, with the
+keen _tramontana_ off the distant Abruzzi flecking the azure waves with
+streaks of creamy foam and driving the white-sailed feluccas merrily
+towards the open sea, the landscape is even more impressive in dull
+lowering weather, when the inky clouds that envelop the sky give promise
+of the approaching hurricane. At such times a striking phenomenon, said to
+be peculiar to the Parthenopean shores, may be observed. From out the
+purple threatening masses that fill the heavens there suddenly falls a
+shaft of rosy light, as though directed by some vast celestial lens fixed
+aloft in the sky, upon a small portion of the opposite shore. The plateau
+of Sorrento with its many white hamlets first becomes illuminated; then
+the light rapidly passes towards Vesuvius, which is instantly revealed
+with marvellous clearness, whilst Sorrento returns to its former dark
+brooding shadows. For some moments we watch the circlet of towns that
+fringe the base of the burning mountain and Camaldoli erect on its wooded
+height, and then our gaze is diverted towards Naples, so clearly revealed
+that one can almost fancy it possible to detect the carriages driving
+along the white line of the Caracciolo. From the city this weird
+fairy-like light glides swiftly towards the headland of Posilipo and the
+great sombre mass of Ischia, and then finally seems to vanish altogether
+in the leaden-hued expanse of the watery horizon. Storm, rain, wind, hail
+and thunder will certainly follow the appearance of this fantastic
+rose-coloured glow, and the visitor to Capri may in consequence be
+compelled to remain willy-nilly upon the island until such time as
+communication with Naples shall be once more restored, for rough weather
+on Capri means complete isolation from the mainland and the outside world.
+A spell of four or five days without a letter or a newspaper may in
+certain cases be restful and even beneficial, but it can also be highly
+inconvenient.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+Comparatively few persons are aware that in the history of Capri is to be
+found a page, not a particularly glorious one perhaps, of the annals of
+our own nation. In the spring of 1806, the year after Trafalgar, whilst
+our fleet was blockading Naples on behalf of its worthless monarch, King
+Ferdinand, then skulking in cowardly ease at Palermo, Admiral Sir Sidney
+Smith, the hero of Acre, managed to capture the island after a sharp
+struggle with the French troops then holding it in the name of Joachim
+Murat, King of Naples and brother-in-law of the great Napoleon. Sir Hudson
+(then Colonel) Lowe--afterwards famous as the Governor of St Helena during
+Buonaparte's captivity--was now put in command of the newly conquered
+island with some 1500 English and Maltese troops at his disposal. Lowe and
+his second in command, Major Hamill, at once set to work to put the place
+into a strong state of defence, and so satisfied were they with their work
+of fortification, that Lowe in his confidence nick-named the islet "Little
+Gibraltar." For more than two years the Union Jack floated in triumph from
+the fort-crowned heights of Capri, much to the annoyance of the monarch on
+the mainland, who finally determined at all costs to recapture the
+stronghold facing his capital. Fancying himself perfectly secure in his
+"Little Gibraltar," now deemed impregnable by a combination of art and
+nature against any hostile descent, Lowe made light of any possible
+expedition from Naples, and when Neapolitan warships actually appeared as
+though making to land troops at the Marinas on either side of the saddle
+of the island, the British commandant was delighted at the ease with which
+these attempts were repelled. But whilst the garrison was busied in
+thwarting the movements on the Marinas, which in reality only constituted
+a feint on Murat's part, transports were engaged in disembarking at the
+low cliffs of Orico, the western extremity of the island, boat-loads of
+men, who quickly swarmed up the terraced slopes towards Ana-Capri and
+surprised its garrison. On the following day, October 6th 1808, in spite
+of Lowe's efforts, Ana-Capri with its eight hundred men surrendered to the
+French and Neapolitan troops led by General Lamarque, who at once set up a
+battery on the crest of the Solaro, so as to command the town of Capri and
+the English head-quarters, fixed at the Convent of the Certosa that lies
+between the Tragara Road and the southern shore. The eastern half of the
+island still of course remained in the hands of the British; and failing
+to reduce the town itself and the Convent of the Certosa by bombardment
+from above, General Lamarque decided upon taking the place by storm, so as
+to forestall the arrival of the English fleet, which was hourly expected
+to come to the rescue of the beleaguered garrison. As we have already
+mentioned, there was no road existing upon the whole island in those days
+a hundred years ago, so that in order to attack the capital, the French
+general had to march his victorious troops by the precipitous flight of
+stone steps down to the Marina Grande and then try to carry the position
+from below. Before however the Frenchmen, now further aided by supplies
+sent by Murat's order from Sorrento, could arrange for the projected
+assault upon the town, the delayed British fleet suddenly appeared in the
+offing, evidently with the intention of bearing down upon the island. But
+on this occasion the luck was all on the side of the French, for scarcely
+had the eagerly expected ships hove in sight, than the besieged garrison
+had the mortification to see their hopes of succour overthrown by the
+uprising of one of those sudden squalls, so common on the Mediterranean,
+which drove the warships southward. More than one assault was repulsed
+with heavy loss by the small English garrison, which had already been
+deprived of half its numbers at Ana-Capri, including the gallant Major
+Hamill, whose death is commemorated in a marble tablet set in the little
+piazza of the town. But with the retirement of the relieving fleet and the
+continuance of foul weather, Colonel Lowe deemed it useless to resist
+further, and like a sensible man decided to capitulate on the best terms
+he could obtain. In return for his immediate surrender of Capri the
+British commandant accordingly stipulated that his garrison should be
+allowed to embark and sail for Sicily unmolested, and that the persons and
+property of the islanders, who seem to have appreciated the British
+occupation, should be respected. But Lamarque, on communicating Colonel
+Lowe's request to King Murat, received peremptory orders to demand an
+unconditional surrender, whereupon an aide-de-camp of the King's, a
+certain Colonel Manches, was sent to interview Lowe with the royal letter
+in his pocket. Had the missive been delivered to him, the British Governor
+would in all probability have decided to fight to the bitter end rather
+than to submit to such severe and humiliating conditions. Happily so
+terrible a catastrophe, which must have involved heavy loss of life on
+both sides, followed by a sack of the town, was unexpectedly, averted at
+the last moment, for whilst Manches was actually advancing with a flag of
+truce, the approach of the British fleet was again signalled from the
+look-out on the hill now called the Telegrafo. Before the Governor could
+be made aware of this piece of news, Colonel Manches, cunningly keeping
+his master's imperious letter in his pocket, told Colonel Lowe that King
+Murat was ready to accept the terms of surrender offered. The weather
+being propitious, the British fleet would have been able this time to
+reach the island, but its nearer approach was prevented by Colonel Lowe
+himself, who sent to acquaint the Admiral, much to his chagrin, of the
+compact already concluded with the besiegers, a compact which, as Hudson
+Lowe himself very properly pointed out, was binding upon the British
+Government. On October 26th, three weeks from the date of the first
+attack, the English troops embarked for Sicily, and the island was
+formally handed over to the French and Neapolitan forces, who held it
+undisturbed until the close of the Napoleonic Wars.
+
+  [Illustration: A GATEWAY. CAPRI]
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XII
+
+
+                     ISCHIA AND THE LADY OF THE ROCK
+
+
+Embarking at Torregaveta, the little terminus of the _Ferrovia Cumana_,
+which traverses the classic district of the Phlegraean Fields, we are
+quickly transported in a small coasting steamer past the headland of
+Misenum to the island and port of Procida, the "alta Prochyta" of Virgil.
+Although the poet calls the island lofty, it is remarkably flat
+considering its volcanic origin, for Procida and Ischia were undoubtedly
+one in remote ages, as the learned Strabo rightly conjectured. Its only
+eminence is the Rocciola, the castle-crowned hillock to the north-east of
+the island, but as this hill must first have caught the expectant eye of
+Aeneas' steersman, perhaps the epithet is after all not so misplaced as
+would appear at first sight. Carefully tilled and densely populated, the
+island produces a large proportion of the fruit, vegetables, and olive
+oil, that are sold in the Naples market, and as it possesses no remains of
+antiquity, no medieval churches, no works of art, and but few beauties of
+nature to recommend it for inspection, Procida is rarely visited by
+strangers. Its inhabitants, who are chiefly husbandmen, are hard working
+and independent, and content also to retain the manners and customs of
+their frugal forefathers, and even to a certain extent to continue the use
+of their national dress, so that the festivals of Procida have more
+interest and local colour than those observed in tourist-haunted Capri or
+Sorrento. Unconcerned at the progress of the world without, unspoiled by
+the gold of the _forestiere_, the Procidani pursue the even tenor of their
+old-fashioned ways, unenvious of and unenvied by their neighbours on the
+mainland.
+
+  "O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint,
+  Agricolas!"
+
+We halt at the port of Procida, with its flat-roofed gaily coloured houses
+lining the quay and ascending the gentle slope towards the Rocciola.
+Thence, skirting the low-lying fertile shores of the island, and passing
+the olive-clad islet of Vivara, we soon come in sight of the steep
+headland on which are perched the grey masses of the Castle of Ischia,
+"the Mount St Michael of Italy."
+
+Covered from base to summit with fume-weed, lentisk, aromatic cistus, and
+every plant that loves the sun, the wind and the salt foam of the
+Mediterranean, the huge solitary cliff rises majestically from the deep
+blue water. Whether viewed in brilliant sunshine under a cloudless sky, or
+in foul weather, when the sea is hurling its waves over the stone causeway
+that connects the isolated crag with the little city of Ischia, the first
+sight of this historic castle is singularly impressive. Nor is its
+grandeur lessened on a near approach, for the ascent to its topmost tower
+takes us through a labyrinth of staircases and mysterious subterranean
+passages, through vaulted chambers and curious hanging gardens to an airy
+platform, which commands a glorious view in every direction over land and
+sea.
+
+Built by Alphonso V. of Aragon in the fifteenth century, this massive
+pile, half-fortress and half-palace, is famous in Italian annals for its
+long association with the noble poetess Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of
+Pescara. Born in the old Castle of Marino, near Rome, one of the
+strongholds of the great feudal house of Colonna, the poetess, who was
+great-great-niece to Pope Martin V., was betrothed in her infancy at the
+instigation of King Ferdinand of Naples to the youthful heir of the
+d'Avalos family, hereditary governors of the island of Ischia. The elder
+sister of Vittoria's affianced husband, Constance d'Avalos, the widowed
+Duchess of Francavilla, was the "chatelaine" of Ischia during her
+brother's minority, so that it was but natural that his Colonna
+bride-elect should be sent to dwell with Constance in this castle. Here
+Vittoria under her sister-in-law's excellent tutelage grew up to womanhood
+amidst the intellectual atmosphere of the Italian Renaissance, and here
+she was trained to develop into one of the most learned, the most
+interesting and the most attractive figures that all Italy produced at
+this period. Childless in her early marriage at eighteen, and with her
+husband frequently, not to say usually, engaged in military expeditions on
+the mainland, Vittoria had every opportunity of cultivating her mind and
+of filling her sea-girt palace with men of genius. The poets Cariteo and
+Bernado Tasso (the father of Torquato Tasso), were frequent visitors at
+this
+
+  "Superbo scoglio, altaro e bel ricetto,
+  Di tanti chiari eroi, d' imperadori,
+  Orde raggi di gloria escono fuori,
+  Ch' ogni altro lume fan scuro e negletto."
+
+Strange to relate, her husband, the Marquis of Pescara, was destined to
+forestall his learned lady in the matter of poetry, for during his
+imprisonment at Milan in the year 1512, he composed a "Dialogo d'Amore" to
+send to his sorrowing wife at Ischia, a production which the learned Paolo
+Giovio, the historian and bishop of Nocera, pronounced as being "summae
+jucunditatis," though in reality it seems to have been feeble enough. But
+however halting and commonplace the warrior's verses, Pescara's
+composition had the immediate effect of opening the flood-gates of his
+wife's poetic temperament, for she replied at once to her spouse's effort
+with an epistle conceived in the _terza rima_ employed by Dante, and
+though the poem is turgid in diction and shallow in thought, full of
+classical names and allusions, "a parade of all the treasures of the
+school-room," it exhibits the graceful ease and high scholarship which
+mark all Vittoria's writings. Meanwhile, unblest with offspring of her own
+and ever separated by the cruel circumstance of war from the husband she
+seemed perfectly content to admire from a distance, Vittoria did not
+expend all her time at Ischia in sacrificing to Apollo and the Muses, for
+she now undertook the education of her husband's young cousin and heir,
+Alphonso d'Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, whose manhood certainly did credit
+to his instructress, for del Vasto under her influence grew up to be a
+brave soldier and a tolerable scholar.
+
+After sixteen years of married life with a husband who, although
+professing deep devotion to his brilliant and virtuous consort, was almost
+invariably absent from her side, Vittoria found herself left a widow
+shortly after the great battle of Pavia in 1525 wherein Francis I. of
+France surrendered to the Emperor Charles V. The Marquis of Pescara, after
+the usual career of bloodthirsty adventures which passed in those days for
+a life of knight-errantry, died at Milan towards the close of this year,
+leaving behind him an unenviable reputation for treachery towards his
+master. But however hard were the things said of the deceased Fernando
+d'Avalos by the outside world, no breath of suspicion seems ever to have
+penetrated to the heart of the faithful if placid Vittoria, who mourned
+bitterly if somewhat theatrically over her departed hero. The Lady of the
+Rock was now in her thirty-fifth year, and her beauty, so we are told,
+still remained undimmed; in fact it was rather improved by a tendency
+towards plumpness, for sorrow and poetry are not necessarily associated
+with a meagre appearance. Spending her time partly in the great Italian
+cities, but chiefly on her beloved _scoglio superbo_, the widow of Pescara
+now set herself to write that series of sonnets in memory of her dead
+husband which have rescued his unworthy name from oblivion and have
+rendered her own famous in Italian literature. For the sonnets of Vittoria
+Colonna, though appearing cold classical and pedantic to our northern
+ideas, evidently appeal to the Italian temperament, so that the praises of
+Pescara and his widow's stilted complaints, couched in the elegant
+language of the Renaissance, are still read and appreciated to-day by her
+compatriots. As time passed, and the ghost of sorrowful remorse was
+supposed to be decently laid, the sonnets contain somewhat less of
+hero-worship, and assume a religious and speculative character. Some
+critics have even gone so far as to affect to perceive a latent spirit of
+Protestantism underlying the graceful platitudes and commonplace but
+grandly expressed ideas. Very likely the Lady of the Rock dabbled in the
+fashionable heterodoxy of the hour, as it is at least certain that she was
+on terms of intimacy with the celebrated Princess Renee, the "Protestant"
+Duchess of Ferrara. On the other hand, several of her acquaintances and
+correspondents were amongst the most prominent of the unyielding Churchmen
+of the day; in their number being, it is interesting to note, Cardinal
+Reginald Pole, great-nephew of King Edward IV. of England and afterwards
+Queen Mary's Archbishop of Canterbury, who was certainly not likely to
+encourage Vittoria's unorthodox or reforming tendencies. "The more
+opportunity," so writes the poetess to Cardinal Cervino, afterwards Pope
+Marcellus II., "I have had of observing the actions of his Eminence the
+Cardinal of England, the more clear has it seemed to me that he is a true
+and sincere servant of God. Whenever, therefore, he charitably condescends
+to give me his opinion on any point, I conceive myself safe from error in
+following his advice." And on the strength of Cardinal Pole's astute
+counsels, Vittoria promptly broke off all communication with the leading
+reformer, Bernardino Ochino, and (a thing which does not strike us as
+particularly honourable) forwarded his letters to herself unopened to his
+spiritual adversaries. But it is evident that Vittoria's "Protestantism"
+was a mere pose, assumed at a time when adverse criticism from all sides
+was being levelled at the political abuses of the Papacy and at the
+various scandals in the Church which were patent to the eyes of all
+onlookers. In short her religious verses are if anything more frigid and
+artificial than those which compose the _In Memoriam_ to her husband, her
+_Bel Sole_, as she usually terms him. Whilst admitting considerable merit
+in Vittoria's compositions, we find it at this distance of time very
+difficult to understand the extravagant praise which was showered upon her
+poems by the Italian critics of the day, or to conceive how a sonnet from
+the gifted pen of the Marchioness of Pescara could possibly have been
+considered an important event in the literary world by cardinals, princes,
+poets, wits and scholars. From Naples to Rome, from Rome to Ferrara, from
+Ferrara to Mantua and Milan, the precious manuscript containing the
+last-born sonnet of the illustrious Lady of Ischia was eagerly passed
+along. Court poets read aloud amidst breathless silence the divine
+Vittoria's fourteen lines of jejune sentiment draped in folds of elegant
+verbiage; nobles and prelates applauded, hailing the authoress as a
+heaven-sent genius. Sincere to a certain extent this strange admiration
+undoubtedly was, although the homage was paid perhaps in equal proportions
+to the excellence of the verse and to the high rank of the author. She was
+a Colonna by birth; she was the widow of a petty despot; she was governor
+of a large island;--any literary production, however indifferent, from so
+high a personage would have been received throughout Italy with respect or
+flattery. But Vittoria was no mean or careless aspirant to fame; it was
+the fault of an artificial age rather than the lack of her own natural
+ability that has made her poetry cold and soulless, for under healthy
+conditions of life and thought, "the Divine Vittoria" was doubtless
+capable of producing something warmer and more human than the lifeless but
+graceful sonnets that bear her name.
+
+It is chiefly through her close connexion with the great literary movement
+of the Italian Renaissance and her intimacy with its leading artists and
+writers, rather than through her own reputation as a poetess, that the
+name of Vittoria Colonna herself is remembered outside the borders of
+Italy. With her wealth, her culture, her virtue and her unique position in
+the world of rank and of letters, it is nothing marvellous that so
+fortunate and gifted a mortal should have become the idol of the leading
+persons of her day. She belonged, in fact, to a brilliant and famous group
+of which she was the soul and centre; of which she was at once the patron,
+the disciple and the teacher. That great master of Italian prose, Pietro
+Bembo, set a high value on her powers of criticism; other men, almost as
+distinguished as the Venetian cardinal, besought her for advice on
+literary subjects. Foremost in her circle of admirers appears of course
+the great Michelangelo, with whom the immaculate Vittoria condescended to
+indulge in one of those cold platonic pseudo-passions which constituted
+the true _divino amore_ of the idealists of the Renaissance. So here was
+nothing to cavil at, nothing to arouse base suspicion. Considered the
+greatest man and the greatest woman in all Italy, both were of mature age,
+he in the sixties and she in the forties, when Michelangelo first
+professed himself seized with a pure but unquenchable love and devotion
+for the widowed Lady of the Rock.
+
+The last days of Vittoria, which were chiefly spent within the walls of
+the Convent of Sant' Anna at Rome, were clouded by ill-health and sorrow.
+The death of the young Marchese del Vasto, "her moral and intellectual
+son," was an irreparable loss, for which her boundless fame and popularity
+could offer little real consolation. At length the poetess, feeling death
+approaching, moved to the house of Giulia Colonna, her relative, and there
+expired in February 1547, in the fifty-seventh year of her age. To the
+last her death-bed was surrounded by sorrowing and adoring friends,
+amongst them being Michelangelo, who is said to have witnessed with his
+own eyes the last moments of his beloved Lady. And the famous sculptor,
+painter and poet--perhaps the most stupendous genius the world has yet
+produced--is reported to have bitterly regretted in after years that on so
+solemn an occasion he had not ventured to imprint one chaste kiss upon the
+forehead of the woman he had adored so ardently, yet so purely during
+life. By her expressed wish the body of the poetess was buried in San
+Domenico Maggiore at Naples, the finest and least spoiled of all the
+Neapolitan churches, where a velvet-covered coffin containing the ashes of
+the Divine Vittoria and her "Bel Sole," and surmounted by the sword,
+banner and portrait of Fernando d'Avalos, is still pointed out to the
+stranger, resting on a shelf in the sacristy of the church. We cannot but
+regret that Vittoria's body did not find a final resting-place in her
+_superbo scoglio_, where all her happiest years were spent and where her
+memory still survives so fresh.
+
+Sadly deserted appear to-day the historic buildings, which are fast
+falling into hopeless decay; even the large domed church of the Castle has
+been desecrated and turned into a stable.
+
+  "Tocsins from yon bleak turrets never ring;
+  No knight or pages pace those galleries,
+  So sombre and so silent: ever cling
+  To that cold church and palace draperies
+  Of glaucous fume-weed; sea-birds ever sing
+  The vanished glories with low mournful cries."
+
+Ischia itself is a quaint, dirty, straggling town, possessing a small
+cathedral of ancient foundation, but modernised within and without, its
+sole object of interest being a curious font resting on marble lions. The
+charm of the city lies chiefly in the busy scenes to be witnessed daily on
+its sandy beach and on the stone causeway that leads to the Castle, where
+a large part of the population seems to spend most of its time in mending
+the deep brown fishing nets or in attending to the gaudily painted boats.
+
+Almost adjoining the outskirts of the little capital of the island is
+Porto d'Ischia, with a deep circular harbour that was once the crater of
+an extinct volcano, wherein every variety of Mediterranean fishing craft
+is to be seen at anchor. Close to the port, embowered among groves of
+orange and lemon trees that in winter time are laden with bright or pale
+yellow fruit, stands a fine old villa of the Bourbon kings of Naples, once
+a favourite summer retreat of his Majesty King Bomba. Royalty has long
+abandoned Ischia, and the villa has now been converted into a bath house.
+Beyond its neglected park stretches an extensive pine forest, carpeted in
+spring time with daisies, marigolds and anemones, and even in February gay
+with yellow oxalis and redolent with the scent of hidden violets.
+
+The road from Ischia to Casamicciola, a distance of four miles, leads
+along the base of Monte Epomeo through olive groves and vineyards, the
+whitewashed walls of the domed cottages, the flat roofs and cisterns, and
+the frequent clumps of aloe or prickly pear giving an Eastern aspect to
+the scenery, though the sharp tinklings of the goat bells among the
+thickets of white heath and dark myrtle scrub on the hill-sides and the
+continual murmur of the waves breaking on the rocks below, serve to remind
+us we are upon the Neapolitan Riviera. Our destination at length is
+reached, the roadway crossing the deep valley of the Gurgitello with its
+sulphur baths, which once had a wide reputation and are still much
+frequented in the summer months by the people of Naples. Although the
+sources of the springs were certainly damaged by the earthquake of 1883,
+new bathing establishments have been built, and a fair number of patients
+are once more availing themselves of these beneficent waters, which of
+course are warranted to heal every bodily evil under the sun. A course of
+the Ischian waters therefore applied externally and internally (so the
+local doctors inform us)
+
+  "Muove i paralitici,
+  Spedisce gli apopletici,
+  Gli asmatici, gli asfitici,
+  Gl' isterici, i diabetici
+  Guarisce timpanitidi,
+  E scrofule e rachitidi."
+
+Formerly the most populous and prosperous township of the whole island,
+Casamicciola consists to-day principally of a mass of shapeless ruins,
+together with a number of dismal corrugated iron huts grouped round an
+ugly modern church, nor can its exquisite views and luxuriant gardens make
+amends for the settled air of melancholy which continues to brood over
+this unlucky spot. Every reader will doubtless remember the story of the
+terrible earthquake of July 28th 1883, when almost without warning the
+whole town, then crowded with its usual influx of summer visitors, was
+overthrown and engulfed in the space of a few seconds of time. Hotels,
+villas, churches, cottages, all suffered equally, and though the exact
+number of those who perished of all classes will never be known, the most
+moderate accounts put the figure as high as 3000 souls. Several English
+people lost their lives in that brief but terrible upheaval, and as many
+of the bodies as were recovered from the wreckage were laid to rest in the
+little cemetery outside the town, a plot of ground overhanging the sea,
+and shaded by cypress and eucalyptus trees. Many and impressive are the
+stories still to be heard from the lips of the present inhabitants, who
+are wont to date all events from that fearful night of darkness and
+destruction, and who all have piteous tales to tell of relations killed
+and houses shattered. The English landlady of the _Piccola Sentinella_,
+who herself had an almost miraculous escape on the occasion, gave us a
+most vivid and heart-rending description of how her hotel and most of its
+inmates were overwhelmed on that awful July night, and how the existing
+inn is literally built upon foundations that are filled with many
+unrecovered bodies of victims. It was on a dark sultry night after the
+evening meal had been finished, when the many guests of the _Piccola
+Sentinella_ were sitting in the public rooms or on the terrace overlooking
+the hotel gardens. In the _salon_ a young Englishman, an accomplished
+musician, had been playing for some time on the piano, when suddenly and
+unexpectedly he plunged into the strains of Chopin's _Marche Funebre_,
+which had the immediate effect of scattering his audience, since many of
+his listeners, not caring for so melancholy a piece of music, deserted the
+room for the garden. Lucky indeed were those persons driven forth by the
+strains of Chopin's dirge, for a few moments later came the earthquake,
+when in a trice the whole hotel was swallowed up in the yawning chasm of
+the earth. Everybody inside the walls was killed, and the body of the poor
+pianist was actually discovered later amidst the wreckage, crushed down
+upon the instrument which had struck the warning notes of impending
+disaster. The horrors of that night still linger vividly in the memory of
+the people, and many are the terrible incidents, and many also, we are
+glad to say, the acts of bravery which are recorded of it. One elderly
+English lady, who owned a small villa on the slope above the hotel, rushed
+at the first suspicion of the catastrophe into the stone archway of a
+window, whence she beheld the whole of her house collapse like a castle of
+cards around her. Nothing daunted by the spectacle, this gallant woman, as
+soon as the shock had ceased and the clouds of dust rising from the ruin
+had cleared away, left her own dismantled home, of which nothing but the
+one wall that had sheltered her remained standing, and joined the
+_parrocco_, the parish priest of Casamicciola, in the task of succouring
+the living and comforting the dying. To the darkness of the night was now
+added a heavy rainfall, yet the good priest and this noble woman traversed
+together the altered and devastated scene amidst the wet and gloom on
+their errand of mercy. It is some satisfaction to learn that this piece of
+unselfish heroism and devotion on the part of the priest was officially
+acknowledged, for the humble curate of Casamicciola was afterwards made a
+prelate by Pope Leo XIII. in recognition of his signal services. Even
+to-day people are inclined to be somewhat chary of spending any length of
+time in this unfortunate spot, where the ruined streets and shapeless
+mounds of earth, only too suggestive of a latter-day Pompeii, speak so
+eloquently of terrible experiences in the past and of possible dangers in
+the future. Nevertheless, if one can triumph over these gloomy feelings,
+Casamicciola affords a delightful centre whence to explore the whole
+island, and many are the pleasant walks to be found on the overhanging
+slopes of Mont' Epomeo, and many the boating expeditions to be made from
+the Marina below the upper town.
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE PICCOLA MARINA, CAPRI]
+
+It is a two-mile walk through stony lanes overhung by branches of fig and
+orange from Casamicciola to Lacco, a large village well situated on a
+little bay which is distinguished by a curious mushroom-shaped rock, aptly
+nicknamed "Il Fungo" by the natives. This place, which also suffered
+severely in the earthquake of 1883, is the head-quarters of the
+straw-plaiting industry of the island, the women and children noisily
+beseeching every chance visitor to buy their wares in the guise of
+baskets, hats and fans; the pretty coloured tiles (_mattoni_), which are
+used with such good effect in the churches and houses of the island, are
+likewise manufactured here. Lacco is particularly associated with the
+great annual festival of St Restituta on May 17th, which is always marked
+by religious processions and by universal merry-making, followed by
+illuminations and fireworks at nightfall. This saint, of whom an early
+mosaic portrait still exists in her ancient chapel within the Neapolitan
+Cathedral, was once the patroness of the city of Naples, but since
+medieval times she has been honoured as the special guardian of this
+island, whither her body (so the legend runs) was miraculously conveyed
+from Egypt in a boat rowed by angels. A local tradition also asserts that
+on her landing by the beach of Lacco, an Egyptian lotus bloom was found in
+the saint's hand, as fresh as when it had been plucked months before from
+the banks of the Nile.
+
+Leaving the little bay with its sulphur-impregnated sands, and turning
+inland, we proceed along a road across an ancient lava-stream over-grown
+with pine trees, wild caper and a tangle of aromatic brushwood, to Forio,
+which with its white domed houses, its palm trees, and its stately
+bare-footed women bearing tall pitchers on their heads gives at first
+acquaintance the full impression of an Oriental city. There is little to
+be seen in Forio itself, with the exception of some fine vestments of
+needlework that are preserved in the sacristy of its principal church, but
+no traveller should fail to visit its wonderfully picturesque Franciscan
+monastery, a barbaric-looking pile of dazzling white walls and cupolas set
+against a background of cobalt waters, which stands outside the town on a
+rocky platform jutting into the Mediterranean and is approached by a broad
+flight of marble steps adorned with most realistic figures of souls
+burning in brightly painted flames of Purgatory. This point too commands a
+good view of the extreme north-eastern promontory of the island, a tall
+cliff known as the Punta del Imperatore in honour of the great Emperor
+Charles the Fifth, beyond which visitors rarely penetrate owing to the
+roughness, or rather non-existence of roads, though the southern side of
+the island, which lies between this cape and the castle of Ischia, is
+fully as beautiful as the northern portion just described.
+
+The chief attraction, however, of a visit to Ischia is the ascent of Mont'
+Epomeo, an easy expedition on foot to the active, and feasible to the weak
+or lazy on mule-back. This extinct volcano, whose broad lofty summit is
+visible from many points of the Bay of Naples, is naturally rich in
+classical associations, the ancients believing that within it lay
+imprisoned the giant Typhoeus, whose agonised movements were wont to cause
+the frequent eruptions of the crater that eventually drove away the early
+Greek settlers from this island--the Aenaria or Inarime of antiquity--and in
+later times accounted for the neglect of Ischia as a winter resort by the
+luxurious Romans, in spite of its near presence to fashionable Baiae. So
+destructive of life and property were these convulsions of nature, that
+for long periods, notwithstanding its fertile soil and its lucrative
+fisheries, the island remained uninhabited, and an old tradition,
+mentioned by Ovid, derives one of its ancient names, Pithecusa, from a
+race of apes (_pithekoi_) that dwelt on its abandoned shores. Since the
+great eruption of 1302, the effects of which can still be traced among the
+large pine woods near Porto d'Ischia, the mountain has been quiescent, and
+the population of the island has increased considerably, although the
+constant shocks of earthquake have always made a permanent residence in
+Ischia somewhat insecure. Nor can we rest assured that Typhoeus himself is
+truly dead, not merely sleeping, but ready to renew his fierce efforts
+after his long spell of slumber, and to change the face of nature as
+unexpectedly as did the Demon of Vesuvius in the reign of Titus.
+
+Like the great volcano of Etna, which the Ischian mountain somewhat
+resembles on a tiny scale. Epomeo contains three distinct climatic zones.
+The lowest is that of the coast line with its rich sub-tropical
+vegetation, the early part of the ascent leading by steep stony paths
+through sun-baked vineyards which produce the white wine of Ischia,
+wholesome and light but somewhat acid in taste. For the storing of this
+vintage the peasants make use of the numerous old stone towers, that once
+served as safe retreats for the terrified inhabitants in times when the
+Barbary pirates frequently descended on the Italian coasts to plunder and
+enslave. Very curious it is to step out of the blinding sunlight into the
+interior of one of these medieval buildings, where in the icy gloom stand
+great barrels of the new white wine, each carefully inscribed with a
+prayer in praise of St Restituta, from one of which the swarthy
+_contadino_, in expectation of a few pence, draws a glassful of the sour
+chilly liquid to offer his visitor. Leaving behind this region of houses
+and of cultivation, the zone of forest is reached, covered with woods of
+chestnut and oak, with a thick undergrowth of heather, myrtle, laurustinus
+and sweet-scented yellow coronella; there is grass under our feet, and
+long-stemmed daisies, violets, mauve anemones and small fragrant marigolds
+everywhere. Through the trees comes the nasal but not unmelodious singing
+of an unseen charcoal-burner, or the plaintive note of the little
+goat-herd's rustic pipe, accompanied by the musical jingling of his
+goat-bells;--for a moment we try to fancy ourselves in the pastoral Italy
+of Theocritus, where nymphs and shepherds, peasants and dryads, lived
+together on terms of amity in the woods. But soon the chestnut trees
+appear stunted, and the groves become less thick, and we finally gain the
+last zone, the desolate expanse of naked rock and dark lava deposits of
+the summit, where only a few hardy weeds can thrive. Here in some damp
+mouldy chambers dwells a hermit, for nearly all the classic mountains of
+Southern Italy are tenanted by an anchorite, generally an old and
+ignorant, but pious peasant, of the type of Pietro Murrone, the holy
+recluse of the Abruzzi, who was finally dragged from his cell to be
+invested forcibly with the pontifical robes and tiara as Celestine the
+Fifth. The present hermitage on Mont' Epomeo dates however from
+comparatively modern times, for its first occupant is said to have been a
+German nobleman, a certain Joseph Arguth, governor of Ischia under the
+first Bourbon king, who in consequence of a solemn vow made in battle
+deliberately passed his last years of existence on the topmost peak of the
+island he had lately ruled. His example has been followed and his cell
+filled by many successors, who have endured the spring rains, the summer
+heats, the autumn storms and the winter chills upon this airy height,
+where the glorious view may be found a compensation for eternal
+discomfort, if hermits condescend to appreciate anything so mundane as
+scenery. The shrine and cell are dedicated to St Nicholas of Bari, and to
+this circumstance is due the local uninteresting name of Monte San Niccolo
+to the entire mountain, whose crest, some 3000 feet above sea-level, we
+finally gain by means of steps roughly hewn in the lava.
+
+The view from this height, embracing two out of the three historic bays of
+the Parthenopean coast, is one of the noblest and most extensive in
+Southern Italy. Looking southward, the fantastic cliffs of Capri are seen
+to rise abruptly from the ocean; beyond them appears the graceful outline
+of Monte Sant' Angelo, with the crater of Vesuvius beside it, veiling the
+clear blue sky with volumes of dusky smoke. Beneath extends the broken
+line of shore, stretching north and south as far as the eye can travel,
+with its classic capes and islands basking in the strong sunshine; whilst
+behind the foam-fringed boundary of land and sea rises the jagged line of
+the Abruzzi Mountains with the huge snow-clad mass of the Gran Sasso
+d'Italia towering above the lower peaks. At our feet is spread the
+beautiful and fertile island, in outward appearance little changed since
+the days when the good Bishop Berkeley "of every virtue under Heaven"
+penned its description nearly two centuries ago in a letter to Alexander
+Pope, wherein he described Ischia as "an epitome of the whole earth."
+
+In spite of the good Bishop's eloquent tribute to the genial climate and
+the natural beauty of Ischia, it must be borne in mind that a residence on
+the island possesses one or two serious drawbacks. Apart from the
+ever-present fear of earthquakes, which hangs like the sword of Damocles
+above the heads of the inhabitants, there is yet another disadvantage,
+prosaic but very real, in the lack of pure water, every well and rivulet
+on Ischia being more or less impregnated with sulphur, with the result
+that water for drinking (and in summer even for domestic) purposes has to
+be conveyed by boat from Naples. It is bad enough to be dependant on a
+distant city for a food supply (which is to some extent also the case
+here), but the possibility of enduring a water famine through storms or
+misadventure would be a far more serious calamity; nevertheless as casual
+visitors to this charming and little-known island, we can easily afford to
+smile at such misfortunes.(12)
+
+  [Illustration: ISCHIA FROM CASTELLAMARE (SUNSET)]
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+                  PUTEOLI AND THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME
+
+
+Passing along the noisy thronged street of the Chiaja and plunging thence
+into the chill gloomy recesses of the ancient grotto of Posilipo, we
+emerge at its further side into a new world, as it were, into a district
+where "there is scarcely a spot which is not identified with the poetical
+mythology of Greece, or associated with some name familiar in the history
+of Rome." In truth, the headland of Posilipo presents a wonderful landmark
+in the history of Naples, for it forms a barrier between the busy world of
+to-day and the departed civilisation of the ancients: at the latter end of
+this tunnel, the fierce life and movement of a great commercial city; at
+its western exit, a tract of land teeming with recollections of the
+glorious past.
+
+As our carriage emerges once more into the warmth and sunlight, we find
+ourselves in the miserable village of Fuorigrotta, which, by a strange
+coincidence, is associated with the memory of a famous Italian poet. For
+if the name and verses of Sannazzaro cling to Piedigrotta and the
+Parthenopean shore on the eastern side of the hill, the genius of Count
+Giacomo Leopardi sheds its melancholy radiance over the unlovely purlieus
+of Fuorigrotta. Here in the vestibule of the parish church of San Vitale,
+lie the ashes of that unhappy writer, the Shelley of Italian literature,
+who so bewailed the Austrian and Bourbon fetters that enchained his native
+land. Poor Leopardi! It was but eleven years before the first great
+movement of the _Risorgimento_ swept over Italy in 1848 that he passed
+away; his poems were indeed songs before sunrise, a sunrise of which he
+failed to detect the far-off glimmering, so that he could only lament
+without hope the sad condition of his dismembered country, once the
+mistress and now the play-thing of the world, and the abject slave of
+hated Austria:
+
+  "O patria mia, vedo le mure e gli archi
+  E le colonne e i simulacri e l' erme
+  Torri degli avi nostri,
+  Ma la gloria non vedo;
+  Non vedo il lauro e'l ferro ond' eran carchi
+  I nostri padri antichi."
+
+It is a flat dusty stretch of road that lies between Fuorigrotta and
+Bagnoli; the high walls give only occasional glimpses of well-tilled
+_parterres_--one cannot call these tiny patches of cultivation fields--with
+thriving crops of brilliant green corn, of claret-red clover, of purple
+lucerne, and of the white-flowered "sad lupin," which Vergil has
+immortalised in verse. The round bright yellow beans of the lupin crop,
+known locally by the name of _spassa-tiempi_ (time-killers), afford an
+article of food to the very poorest of the population. A quaint story runs
+that one day an impoverished philosopher, reduced to making his dinner off
+a handful of these beans, and imagining himself in consequence the most
+wretched wight in existence, was cheered and comforted by observing
+himself followed by a still more miserable fellow-mortal, who was engaged
+in picking up and eating the husks of the beans that, _more italiano_, he
+had thrown carelessly on to the pathway after their insipid farinaceous
+contents had been sucked out!
+
+Above us to the right are the heights of Monte Spina, covered with groves
+of the umbrella pine, the typical tree of Naples; to our left extends the
+verdant ridge of Posilipo, ending in Cape Coroglio, beyond which the
+massive form of Nisida rises proudly from the blue expanse of water. All
+the landscape shows somewhat hard in the glare of noontide, and we find
+the enveloping clouds of fine white dust very oppressive and disagreeable.
+From time to time a lumbering country cart is passed with its attendant
+bare-footed peasant; otherwise there is little sign of life on the high
+road. The bright sunlight flashes upon the horse's polished brass harness,
+and upon the elaborate erection of charms placed thereon, with the avowed
+object of averting the dreaded Evil Eye, that everlasting bugbear of all
+dwellers upon these southern shores. On his poor drooping head the
+worn-out old steed carries a large bell with four jingling clappers and
+two brazen crescents, the horns of one of which point upwards and of the
+other towards the ground. On the off-side of the headgear is a bunch of
+bright-coloured ribbands or woollen tassels, from which depends the single
+horn, the invaluable Neapolitan talisman that is supposed to protect every
+man, woman, child or beast, from the chance glance of a passing
+_jettatore_. Above this glowing mass of colour some three or four feathers
+of a pheasant's tail are stuck, apparently with no ulterior purpose than
+that of ornament; but beside the bunch of ribbands there is also fixed a
+piece of wolf's skin, to give strength to the jaded animal, for, remarks
+the sapient Pliny, "a wolf's skin attached to a horse's neck will render
+him proof against all weariness." Personally, we should think a little
+more consideration and some elementary knowledge of farriery would have
+been of more service to the ill-used beasts round Naples than the
+excellent Pliny's highly original receipt. Besides this powerful battery
+of charms to intercept the _jettatura_, there is the light brass headpiece
+engraved with sacred figures, so that any evil glance must be fully
+absorbed, baffled or exhausted, before it can fix itself upon the animal.
+In addition however to this shining mass of headgear, the horse carries on
+his back one of those curious high pommels that are peculiar to Southern
+Italy and Sicily. The front of the pommel itself is of well-polished
+brass, and covered with a number of studs, whilst at its back is fastened
+a miniature barrel, upon which there stands erect the figure of some local
+saint, generally that of San Gennaro. The exact part that the barrel and
+the row of studs play in this mystic battle against the Evil Eye is
+unknown, but the two revolving flags of brass that swing and creak above
+the pommel itself are believed to represent "the flaming sword which
+turned every way," and finally expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of
+Eden. Certainly this shimmering metal has the appearance of a flaming
+sword in the bright sunshine, so that it ought to prove efficacious in
+catching and averting any baleful glance. A second patch of wolf skin on
+the crest of the pommel, and some red worsted wound round the spindle of
+the flags complete the list of strange charms that are considered
+necessary to protect a Neapolitan horse from the pernicious influence of a
+casual passer-by.
+
+We soon reach the sea-shore at Bagnoli, a little watering-place much
+frequented by Neapolitans of the middle classes, and on looking back we
+obtain a charming view of the headland of Posilipo and of stately Nisida,
+the Nesis of the ancients, with its memories of Brutus, "the noblest Roman
+of them all," who on this little island bade farewell for ever to his
+devoted Portia. A very different tenant from the chaste Portia, however,
+who once possessed a villa in this sea-girt retreat during the Middle
+Ages, was Queen Joanna the Second, the last member of the Durazzo branch
+of the Angevin royal house, and sister and heiress of King Ladislaus II.,
+whose splendid monument in San Giovanni a Carbonara is one of the chief
+artistic treasures of Naples. It is of course unnecessary here to remark
+that there were two Queens of Naples, both Joanna by name, and that the
+first of these, the contemporary of Petrarch (whose proper feeling she
+contrived to shock) was certainly not a pattern of female virtue, but that
+she shone as a moral paragon when contrasted with her name-sake and
+successor, the sister of King Ladislaus. Of this second Queen, tradition
+more or less accurate relates a host of stories, none of them to her
+credit; how she dabbled in necromancy and was immersed in love intrigues,
+the most celebrated of which was her amour with the handsome "Ser.
+Gianni," Giovanni Caracciolo, head of an eminent family that has figured
+prominently in Neapolitan history from the days of Angevin monarchs to
+those of King Ferdinand. Little good did the fickle Queen's favour do Ser.
+Gianni, who suffered an ignominious fate for having one day boxed Joanna's
+ears during a lovers' tiff. Murdered secretly by four assassins,
+Caracciolo's body was laid to rest in the family chapel in San Giovanni a
+Carbonara beneath a splendid monument which is surmounted by the luckless
+favourite's effigy. Joanna the First with all her faults was never guilty
+of such light conduct as this, but the peasant mind is always impatient of
+dry details of fact, so that in the popular imagination to-day both Queens
+are blended into one personage, whose character, it is needless to say, is
+about as vile as can be conceived. "Siccome la Regina Giovanna," is a form
+of peasant execration around Naples that has some historical affinity with
+the time-honoured Irish malediction of the "Curse o' Cromwell."
+
+Turning our backs on the island with its memories of Portia the Perfect
+and of Queen Joanna the Improper, we pursue our course along the sea-shore
+with rocks of ancient lava above us to the right, now heavily overgrown
+with brushwood and plants, amongst which we notice tufts of the pretty
+wild asparagus, that the observant Pliny centuries ago found flourishing
+in this district. As an early herb, coming into season long before its
+cultivated cousin is fit for cutting, this succulent vegetable is highly
+prized in the South, and its flavour though somewhat bitter is most
+palatable, so that an omelette _aux pointes d'asperges sauvages_ is a dish
+not to be despised by those who get the opportunity of testing this local
+delicacy. Before us lies our goal, Pozzuoli, with its ancient citadel
+jutting into the placid waters and backed by the classic headland of
+Misenum, above which in turn towers the crest of distant Epomeo.
+
+Pozzuoli in recent years has been much neglected by strangers, so much so
+that no inn worthy to be called an hotel now exists, and such _trattorie_
+as the place offers are all equally extortionate and detestable. Some time
+ago there was a comfortable _pension_ at the edge of the town on the road
+to the Amphitheatre, but its English landlady has long since migrated
+elsewhere, and the comfortable "Hotel Grande Bretagne" is no more; whilst
+nowadays there are to be found no visitors hardy enough to endure a
+prolonged sojourn in the wretched hostelries of the town itself. The
+electric tram and the rail-road have in fact killed Pozzuoli as a winter
+resort, more's the pity, for it is not only a spot of singular interest in
+itself but its climate is certainly superior to that of Naples, for the
+great headland which shuts off the city from the Phlegrean Fields serves
+also to act as a buffer against the icy _tramontana_ that sweeps along the
+Chiaja in winter and early spring. Invalids used at one time to inhabit
+Pozzuoli on account of its mild atmosphere, and even to visit the
+Solfatara daily on mule-back, in order to inhale its sulphureous fumes,
+which were then believed to be good for weak chests. But medical fashions
+vary like all others, and consumptive patients now seek other places than
+Pozzuoli for their cure.
+
+Many are the walks outside the town, and none are without beauty or
+interest, for, the neighbourhood of Syracuse excepted, we can think of no
+place in Italy wherein one is brought so closely into touch with the
+classical past. Nature has long clothed the ruined area of the ancient
+city with her kindly drapery of foliage and flowers, so that the crumbling
+masses of tawny brick that we come across in our rambles are all swathed
+in garlands of clematis, myrtle, honey-suckle and coronella. It is a
+delight to speculate upon the original use and appearance of these
+shapeless blocks of creeper-clad masonry, which attract the eye on all
+sides amidst the vineyards and orange groves, where the peasants delving
+in the rich soil frequently alight upon treasures of the antique world.
+What a delight it is to wander through the Street of Tombs--alas, long
+rifled of their contents!--where the gay valerian and the pink silene
+sprout from every fissure of the soft tufa rock, and lizards of unusual
+size and brilliancy play games of hide-and-seek in the warm sunshine. We
+moderns are afraid of graveyards and the paraphernalia of the dead: many a
+stout-hearted Englishman objects to passing through a church-yard at
+night; not so the pagan Romans, who placed their cemeteries in public
+places and were wont to proceed through lines of tombs as they entered the
+city of the living: a very salutary and practical reminder of the
+transitory nature of life itself. The whole neighbourhood in short is
+sprinkled with these memorials of Imperial Rome; there is not an orange or
+lemon orchard but stands above some forgotten villa, not an acre of tilth
+but must conceal some hidden mine of classical associations. Charming too
+are the walks by the sea-shore--now sadly disfigured by the _Cantiere
+Armstrong_, with its smoke and ugliness looking like a dirty smudge upon
+the delicate landscape of the Bay--for here again we find endless traces of
+the Imperial age. There can be no more fascinating employment than to
+wander along the beach after one of the heavy winter storms that so often
+vex the quiet of the Bay of Naples, and to search for fragments of
+precious marbles that have been spied by the waves amidst the sunken
+foundations of Roman villas, and thence idly flung upon the shore. Pieces
+of the choicest white Parian, squares of speckled Egyptian porphyry, of
+_verde_, _rosso_ and _giallo antico_, of the coal-black _Africano_, all
+wet and glistening from the waves, can be picked up by the quick-sighted,
+and the gathering of these beautiful trifles, cut and polished by skilled
+hands nearly two thousand years ago, makes an interesting occupation. Nor
+is its classical lore the only feature of the Bay of Baiae, for though its
+actual scenery cannot compare with the grandeur of Capri nor its
+vegetation with the rich luxuriance of Sorrento, yet these shores have a
+quiet beauty of their own. Vine, olive and almond abound on all sides, and
+everywhere we see the groves of orange and lemon that in spring time scent
+the air with their perfumed blossoms. And in the early months of the year
+every patch of warm-coloured, up-turned earth is gay with sheets of that
+beautiful but rapacious weed, hated of the peasant, the oxalis, with its
+clusters of pale yellow flowers: a species of sorrel that is allied to our
+own white-blossomed variety. From many a point on the little ridges that
+rise behind Pozzuoli magnificent views can be obtained, whilst to those
+who care to study the scientific results of volcanic action the Phlegraean
+Fields afford endless occupation and interest. Every one of course visits
+the Solfatara, that curious semi-extinct crater, the _Forum Vulcani_ of
+Strabo, which has remained for over seven hundred years in its present
+condition of languor. A strange experience it is to enter the heart of a
+volcano that is still comparatively active, and to observe woods of poplar
+and a large pine tree beneath which grow masses of spring flowers--bright
+blue bugloss, the crimson vetch, starch hyacinths, purple self-heal, and
+golden spurge--and to pass from these thickets on to a space of bare
+white-coloured ground that trembles and sways under the feet like a sheet
+of insecure ice. Beyond, one sees the little fissures (_fumaroli_)
+emitting fumes of sulphur, and the guides take us to stifling caverns in
+the hill-side where we are shown the beautiful primrose-coloured crystals.
+The Solfatara, the Amphitheatre and the Temple of Serapis, these are the
+recognised "sights" of Pozzuoli, which strangers visit to-day in the space
+of an hour or two, and then return to Naples comforted with the feeling
+that they have exhausted the attractions of the place. Certainly their
+reception in the town is not likely to inspire them with a wish to return,
+for the guides and touts swarm here more than in any other spot in Italy;
+"until he has spent half an hour in Pozzuoli," says the author of _Dolce
+Napoli_, "let no man say that he understands the signification of the verb
+to pester."
+
+Putting aside even the objectionable habits of so many of its citizens, it
+cannot be said that the town itself of Pozzuoli to-day is particularly
+attractive, although its situation on the Bay of Baiae is charming and its
+quays are full of picturesque life and movement. Lines of irregular
+yellow-washed buildings, with faded green _persiani_ and balconies draped
+with the domestic washing, with here and there a domed rococo church, look
+down upon the clear tideless waters that gently lap the ancient stone-work
+of the Mole, whilst a mixed crowd of fishermen with bare bronzed limbs, of
+chattering women with gay handkerchiefs tied over their thick black hair,
+and of blue uniformed dapper little customs officers,--_lupi marini_
+(wolves of the sea) as the poor people facetiously term these revenue
+officials of the coast--loiter in the sunlight amidst the piles of tawny
+fishing nets or the pyramids of golden oranges. From the quay we make our
+way to the Largo del Municipio, a typical square of a provincial town in
+the South, enclosed by shabby houses and adorned by a couple of stunted
+date-palms and a battered marble fountain, around which numberless
+children and some slatternly women noisily converse or dispute. There is
+an old proverb in the South, that a good housewife has no need to know any
+thoroughfares save those leading to her church and her fountain, and as
+conversation cannot well be carried on in the former, it is the daily
+visits to the well that usually afford the required opportunity for
+exchange of gossip or for the picking of quarrels. Two statues decorate
+this unlovely but not uninteresting space; one is that of a Spanish
+bishop, Leon y Cardenas, one of King Philip the Third's viceroys, which
+serves as a reminder of the many vicissitudes this classic land has
+experienced in the course of history:--Phoenician, Greek, Carthaginian,
+Roman, Barbarian, Norman, German, French, Spanish conquerors have all left
+"footprints on the sands of Time" in the coveted land of the Siren, which
+all have possessed in turn but none have held in perpetuity. His
+Excellency the Bishop Cardenas stands therefore in the open as a solid
+memento of the glory that once was Spain, when half Europe and all America
+owned the sway of the Catholic King. The second statue, though not a thing
+of beauty, has always had the attraction of an unsolved puzzle, for we
+cannot decide whether it proves a complete absence or an abundant
+superfluity of humour in the Puteolani of to-day. It is the figure of a
+Roman senator, vested in his flowing toga, and owning (as the ancient
+inscription informs us) the grandiose name of Quintus Flavius Mavortius
+Lollianus, whose marble trunk was one of the earliest archaeological
+"finds" made in the excavations at Pozzuoli some two hundred years ago.
+Since the statue lacked a head and was otherwise of no especial value as a
+work of art, the Viceroy of Naples very generously presented this object
+to the place of its discovery, whose citizens, doubtless thinking the
+appearance of the headless statue uncanny, popped a stray antique occiput
+(of which a goodly number, more or less mutilated, are constantly brought
+to light by the peasants) upon Lollianus' vacant shoulders. Anything more
+comical and at the same time more repellent than this hybrid statue it
+would be impossible to imagine, yet Lollianus of the unknown head remains
+a favourite with the people of Pozzuoli. Leaving the Largo del Municipio,
+with its weird senator and its dusty palms, we ascend by a zigzag lane
+between tall featureless houses to the Cathedral of San Proculo, which
+occupies the site of a temple of Augustus, that once dominated the ancient
+city and harbour below. Within, the cathedral of Proculus, who was a
+companion of St Januarius and a fellow-martyr, is gaudy and painted, one
+of those dismally gorgeous ecclesiastical interiors that are such a
+disappointment to the antiquarian in Southern Italy. In opposition to the
+memorial of Spanish conquest in the square below, we find here an
+elaborate monument to a French viceroy, the Duke of Montpensier, who
+served for some time as Governor of Naples after Charles VIII.'s capture
+of the city. Except the tomb of the young musician Pergolese, who composed
+the original _Stabat Mater_ there is little else to see, and we gladly
+ascend the tower in order to gain a bird's eye view of the town from a
+point of vantage whither noisy coachmen, troublesome beggars and impudent
+ragamuffins cannot pursue. Captured by the Greek colonists of Cumae, who
+gave the city the name of Dicoearchia instead of its ancient one of
+Puteoli,--a corruption, perhaps, of the Syriac word _petuli_
+(contention)--this old Hellenic settlement was rechristened Puteoli by the
+conquering Romans, under whose beneficent rule the place rapidly aspired
+to wealth and prosperity. With the rise however of Naples, the fame of
+Puteoli began to grow dim, and its importance to decline, although
+throughout Imperial times it ranked after Ostia as the chief victualling
+port of Rome. And of the two celebrated cities which adorned the shores of
+this Bay in classical times, Puteoli was the seat of commerce, and Baiae
+the resort of pleasure and luxury; yet both were doomed to dwindle and
+almost perish in the disastrous years that followed the break-up of the
+Empire. The invading hordes of Germany, the raids of Saracen pirates, and
+the constant presence of malaria on this deserted coast were sufficient
+causes in themselves to reduce in the course of time the thriving port of
+Puteoli to the squalid town of to-day. From our lofty post we can easily
+distinguish the limits of the city in the days of Tiberius and Caligula,
+for to the north we turn our faces towards the ruined bulk of the
+Amphitheatre, now lying amidst fields and gardens, but well within the
+town walls at the time when Nero entertained the Armenian king Tiridates
+and shocked his Asiatic guest by himself descending into the arena and
+deftly performing the usual disgusting feats of a professional gladiator.
+To westward lies the Bay of Baiae, a semi-circle of glittering water
+surrounded by low hills amidst which the Monte Nuovo, unknown to the
+ancients, stands conspicuous. How completely have all traces of splendour
+and extravagance disappeared from these shores! At fashionable Baiae
+across the Bay there is nothing visible save a few shapeless ruins over
+the identity of which scholars dispute; at busy Puteoli there survive
+to-day but the ruined Amphitheatre, the Temple of Serapis, and the arches
+of the famous Mole, to prove to wondering posterity how great were the
+wealth, the population and the magnificence of a spot which is closely
+associated with all the power and culture of the Roman Empire in its
+zenith.
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE BEACH]
+
+Of the various fragments of antiquity that are still standing in this
+district of the Phlegrean Fields, the Mole of Puteoli is undoubtedly the
+best preserved and the most interesting. So splendidly constructed is this
+relic of the past, that but for continuous shocks of earthquake the whole
+breakwater must have survived intact; as it is, more than half the Mole
+has withstood the wear and tear of centuries of wind and storm. It is
+built on the model of a Greek pier, a series of arches of massive masonry,
+acting at once as a barrier against the force of the invading waves and as
+a means of preventing the silting of the sand. Formed of brick, faced with
+stone, and cemented with the local volcanic sand, which is consequently
+known as _puzzolana_, this wonderful breakwater must originally have
+stretched out into the Bay a total length of twenty-five arches, its
+furthest extremity being crowned by a light-house. If we could only call
+up in imagination the Bay of Baiae in the days of the Empire, when its
+shores were fringed by sumptuous villas of famous or infamous Romans and
+its expanse was thickly covered with every variety of vessel of pleasure
+or merchandise, instead of the few fishing boats that now and again flit
+across its glassy surface, we might better be able to realise the
+extraordinary episode which is connected with this classical fragment in
+the little port of Pozzuoli below us. For it was from the Mole of Puteoli
+to the spit of land we see on the western shore opposite that the demented
+tyrant, Caius Caligula, constructed his historic bridge of boats across
+the Baiaean gulf. Every large vessel in the surrounding harbours had been
+pressed into the service of the Emperor for this gigantic piece of folly,
+so that the inhabitants of Rome were seriously inconvenienced by the
+detention of their corn ships, and loud in consequence were the complaints
+of the Roman populace, for whose anger, it is needless to state, the
+Emperor cared not a fig. "History," says Gibbon, "is but a record of the
+crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind;" and this smiling Bay of Baiae
+will ever be memorable as the scene of what was perhaps the worst
+exhibition of tyrannical caprice that the world has yet witnessed.
+
+Using a double line of vessels well yoked together as a compact and solid
+base, the Emperor now gave orders for a military road of the usual Roman
+type to be constructed of planks of timber covered with earth and paved
+with hewn stones. When this stupendous work was completed, the usual
+station-houses were erected at various intervals, and fresh water was laid
+on by means of pipes connected with the Imperial cisterns at Misenum. Upon
+this broad road, laid across the Baiaean Gulf, the young Emperor now
+advanced on horseback, followed by his whole army clad in array of battle.
+Caligula on this occasion wore a historic coat of armour studded with rare
+gems that had once belonged to Alexander the Great; a jewelled sword was
+fastened to his thigh, and a crown of oak leaves bound his temples.
+Solemnly the Emperor and his army crossed the broad expanse of water on
+dry land and entered Puteoli with mock honours of war. After remaining a
+day in the port to refresh his victorious troops, the Emperor was driven
+back in a splendidly equipped chariot, which was surrounded by a number of
+pretended captives of rank, some noble Parthian hostages being utilised
+for the occasion. At the centre of the bridge the procession halted, and
+the crazy prince next indulged in an absurd bombastic harangue, wherein he
+congratulated his soldiers on their glorious campaign just concluded, and
+declared to them that the famous feats of Xerxes and Darius had at length
+been surpassed. Finally, he invited his troops to a magnificent banquet
+upon this bridge of boats, an entertainment which lasted till far into the
+night and was accompanied by lavish illuminations by land and sea. As
+might only have been expected, the feast soon degenerated into a drunken
+orgy, wherein every guest from the Master of the Roman world to his
+meanest soldier became intoxicated, whilst many persons in their cups lost
+their balance and fell into the waters, so that the sounds of music and
+revelry throughout the midnight hours were mingled with groans and cries
+of drowning men close at hand.
+
+Apart from its senseless extravagance and innate folly, the story of the
+bridging of the Baiaean Gulf, of this harnessing of old Ocean, affects us
+moderns with astonishment at the extraordinary thoroughness of all the
+ancient Roman feats of engineering; had this high road across the Bay been
+intended to serve any useful purpose, instead of merely to satisfy the
+passing whim of a selfish tyrant, we could have had no choice but to
+admire the marvellous speed of the artificers and the completeness of the
+scheme undertaken.
+
+Quarter of a century later, and the Mole of Puteoli was destined to become
+the scene of another event in the world's history, which has left a far
+more enduring impression on mankind than the so-called miracle of
+Caligula. In the early spring of the year 62 A.D. there dropped anchor in
+the port a certain Alexandrian corn-ship, the _Castor __and__ Pollux_,
+coming from Malta after touching at Syracuse and Rhegium (Reggio) on her
+way northward. Unnoticed amidst the vast phalanx of shipping that lined
+the Mole and filled the broad harbour of Puteoli, the vessel emptied her
+cargo on the quay, whilst there also disembarked from her hold a number of
+prisoners of no great social consequence, who were on their way to Rome
+under the guardianship of a kindly old centurion, named Julius, belonging
+to the cohort _Prima Augusta Italica_. Amongst the persons under Julius'
+charge was a Jew named Paul, who was accompanied by three of his friends,
+Timothy, Luke and Aristarchus of Thessalonica, and all four, thanks to the
+kindness of the centurion, who was evidently much attached to his
+exemplary captive, were permitted to remain at this spot for seven days.
+Paul himself was anxious to tarry at this spot, for of all the Italian
+ports Puteoli was most frequented by men of his own nation, so that the
+city possessed its little community of Christians, who naturally were
+eager to detain the Apostle. So hopelessly intermingled are truth,
+tradition and legend concerning the various places on Italian soil that St
+Paul is known to have visited, that we cannot be too grateful for the
+undoubted link with his journey to Rome that we possess in the existing
+Mole of Puteoli, whose surface has undoubtedly been trodden by the
+sandalled feet of the great Apostle of the West. Here Paul landed amid the
+haughty scenes of Roman pride and power; above him he saw the pagan Temple
+of Augustus, all gleaming with marble and gilded bronze that were mirrored
+in the calm waters of the port: along this famous causeway he passed,
+unmarked by the busy crowd, except perhaps to be mocked by some idler for
+his nationality or his halting speech. Guided by Christian compatriots,
+the Apostle with his three faithful friends was led through the noisy
+jostling concourse of all countries that thronged the great Roman city to
+the humble dwelling of his host. Where he lodged in that mighty city we
+know not, but we do know for a certain fact that he landed on the Mole,
+and that he passed along it to the shore; it is not much, perhaps, but
+that little is very precious.
+
+What a contrast do these two incidents connected with the Mole of Puteoli
+afford! The Roman Emperor, glittering like the morning star in purple
+mantle and jewelled cuirass, riding on his charger across the solid road
+that to humour his own caprice had been flung across the buoyant waters,
+accompanied by soldiery, by music, and by bands of wealthy sycophants; and
+the Apostle, poor, in bonds, a despised prisoner in an alien land, meekly
+threading his way through the crowds towards his mean lodging. Where is
+the proud Temple of Augustus that beheld these two strange scenes, that
+occurred with no great interval of time apart? Where are the villas and
+quays that lined the Bay of Baiae? The very ruins of the palaces and
+warehouses are swept away; the gorgeous temple is a Christian Cathedral
+dedicated to a follower of the despised Jewish captive; the name of
+Caligula lives but in human execration, whilst that of the Apostle is
+enshrined in the hearts of the whole Christian world.
+
+
+                               * * * * * *
+
+
+It is but a three-mile walk along the beach from Pozzuoli to Baiae,
+passing beside the Lucrine Lake and the southern slope of the Monte Nuovo,
+which always seems to us a far more wonderful freak of Nature than the
+Solfatara. Here we have a miniature mountain, a mile and a half round its
+base and nearly five hundred feet high, that was made in the course of a
+single night, and is to-day less than four hundred years old! The presence
+of this brand-new intruder on the shore of the Baiaean Gulf must ever
+remain a wholesome warning to all dwellers on these coasts, that their
+tenure of King Pluto's dominions is very insecure. One morning towards the
+close of September 1538, after some days of earthquake shocks, "Pozzuoli
+awoke," says the flippant Alexandre Dumas, "and on looking about did not
+recognise herself! She had left a lake the evening before, and lo! she
+found a mountain; where she had owned a forest, she found ashes; and last
+of all, where she had left a village, she perceived no trace!"
+
+In one sense Dumas' facetious description is correct: the New Mountain was
+born with extraordinary celerity, and woods, lake and village--familiar and
+beloved landmarks to the people of Baiae and Pozzuoli--disappeared at its
+birth. But the event was no peaceful act of Nature; on the contrary, it
+was accompanied by loud rumblings, by showers of red-hot stones, by clouds
+of smoke, by torrents of scalding water, and by the retreating of the sea,
+which left thousands of fish lying helpless on the exposed shore. The
+village of Tripergola, a summer pleasaunce of the Angevin kings of Naples,
+and many traces of ancient Roman villas and engineering works, all
+perished in this notable cataclysm. Four eye-witnesses have left us
+details of this strange scene of desolation, whilst only a few days after
+Mother Earth had brought forth this new mountain, one of them, the Spanish
+Viceroy of Naples, the valiant Don Pedro of Toledo, owned sufficient pluck
+and curiosity to make the ascent of the Monte Nuovo, still smoking hot and
+reeking of sulphur. Who can tell when this _parvenu_ volcano may spout
+forth fire and ashes? Would any sane person have the courage ever to
+settle within range of a possible eruption? No, the Phlegrean fields are
+interesting to visit, but he must require a strong nerve who would fain
+dwell beneath the shadow of this dormant crater.
+
+It is a very short walk from the base of the Monte Nuovo to the "golden
+shores" of Imperial Baiae, which is certainly not an imposing place in
+these days. What with the destroying hand of time and the still more
+obliterating action of the neighbouring volcano, there is little left for
+the fancy to build upon; certainly the three ruined shells that are called
+temples by courtesy, but served probably a much humbler purpose than that
+of worship, are not particularly striking. It requires not only a good
+classical knowledge, but also no small amount of imagination to picture
+the Baiae of the Roman poets.
+
+"If Pozzuoli has gone down in the world, still more so Baiae. It does not
+require any more sinking; it is low enough as it is, so low that some of
+its ancient villas and palaces can only be visited in a diving-bell. So
+dreary and deserted is the site, that at first glance the visitor feels
+mightily inclined to question the veracity of the historian, and to doubt
+whether Baiae--Baiae the gay, the fashionable, the dissolute, the beloved
+of emperors, statesmen and poets--ever existed. But when he is shown the
+enormous sub-structures lying under water, and the masses of solid masonry
+wherewith the surrounding hills are over-spread, incredulity gives place
+to amazement. What towns of lath and plaster are Brighton, Newport and
+Trouville, when compared with this 'Rome by the sea,' where the materials
+used for the foundations of a single villa would more than suffice for the
+construction of a dozen 'genteel marine residences' of the modern style!
+What would a Roman architect think of the card-board streets and squares,
+and the stucco crescents and terraces, of an English watering-place? of
+those 'eligible family mansions' wherein dancing is dangerous, and to
+venture on whose balconies is perilous in the extreme? Echo answers:
+'What!' "(13)
+
+Here on this desolate strip of sea-shore, now dominated by the Spanish
+viceroy's frowning fortress on the hill above, the great and opulent of
+ancient Rome founded a city composed wholly of palaces. Here were no noisy
+market-places to annoy aristocratic nerves; no slums to afflict
+plutocratic nostrils; no families of the proletariat to disturb the
+refined senses of the jaded pleasure-seekers who retired hither in the
+winter months. A writer, from whom we have just quoted, makes comparison
+between Baiae and Brighton or Trouville; but in reality the fashionable
+American resort of Newport has more in common with the old classical
+watering-place than any modern European sea-side resort. The hot sulphur
+baths on the Lucrine shore formed of course only a shallow excuse for the
+annual migration of Roman fashionables to Baiae, where blue-blooded
+senators and pushing plutocrats indulged in fierce social struggles for
+individual pre-eminence. Yet certain of the natural warm springs had been
+enclosed in splendid buildings, and were used by the luxurious citizens,
+so that even to-day the Thermae of Nero (Stufe di Nerone) are pointed out
+by the local guides. "Quid Nerone pejus? Quid thermis melius Neronianis?"
+(what is worse than Nero? yet what more beneficent than his baths?) asks
+the poet Martial, whose name will ever be bound up with the tales of
+luxury and vice that are associated with this spot. Baiae in winter, Tibur
+(Tivoli) in summer, the two names stand for the beau-ideal of a Roman
+existence, the cynosure of every wealthy citizen.
+
+But let us ascend out of the close and enervating air of low-lying Baiae
+to the breezy heights of Misenum, which has immortalised the name of the
+Trojan trumpeter whose end was mourned by the tears of pious Aeneas
+himself. In gaining its summit and in gazing upon the landscape spread
+around us, we have penetrated, so it seems, into the very heart of Italy:
+not the Italy of Roman history, but the land of Ausonia itself, the fabled
+shore that the Trojan hero sailed at his goddess-mother's bidding to
+discover, when all the world was young and the high dwellers of Olympus
+still condescended to take a personal interest in the affairs of favourite
+mortals. Surely the vine-clad terraces of Lake Avernus, the pools of the
+Lucrine and the Mare Morto, the verdure-clad hillocks lying beneath us
+must conceal the true secret of the antique Tyrrhenian country, in whose
+history the rise and fall of Roman power afford but one amongst many
+epochs. Looking to northward, beyond the little landing-stage of
+Torregaveta, we behold the heights of Cumae, that was a flourishing city
+with harbour and citadel hundreds of years before a certain Romulus built
+a wall of mud near the banks of Tiber and slew his brother Remus for
+leaping over his handiwork. The founding of Rome is enveloped in
+impenetrable clouds of legend; the building of Cumae is a fact:--here then
+we obtain a key to Italian history. Rome, whose origin is lost in mists of
+obscurity, is a flourishing modern capital; Cumae is but a shapeless mass
+of crumbling ruins, overgrown with ivy and cytizus, and inhabited by
+lizards and serpents. But both cities, dead Cumae and living Rome, present
+but passing events in the long slow progress of the centuries, which have
+witnessed successive phases of civilisation and destruction in this
+
+  "Woman-country, wooed, not won,
+  Loved all the more by Earth's male lands,
+     Laid to their hearts instead."
+
+Is the Genius of Italy, the Sibyl of Cumae, still living, we wonder, in
+some dim recess, some secret cavern of Cimmerian gloom, beneath those
+decaying heaps of the ancient Greek city? She was old, very old, we know,
+when pious Aeneas found her shrieking her strange prophecies, and that was
+long ages before Hellenic wanderers raised a fortress upon the wooded
+heights above the dread lake of Avernus.--Venerable Mother of Italy! dost
+thou still survive muttering thy strange warnings in some sunless
+labyrinth, that the rapacious guides of Baiae have yet failed to
+penetrate? Art thou, like King Arthur of romantic Wales, still keeping
+watch over the destiny of thy country, ever ready to assist in the hour of
+need?
+
+  "Thy cave was stored with scrolls of strange device,
+     The work of some Saturnian Archimage,
+  Which taught the expiations at whose price
+     Men from the gods might win that happy age
+  Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice;
+     And which might quench the earth-consuming rage
+  Of gold and blood--till men should live and move
+  Harmonious as the sacred stars above."
+
+For Italy has not wholly forgotten her ancient guardian and soothsayer,
+who welcomed the founder of the victorious Roman race; nor did the artists
+of the revived glories of the Renaissance neglect to honour the mysterious
+priestess of the Cimmerian shore. With prophetic mien the Sibyl of Cumae,
+that Michelangelo depicted, watches ever the come-and-go of humanity from
+her lofty post within Pope Sixtus' Chapel, bidding all remember her
+ancient prophecy of the Judgment Day, which the Roman Church has included
+in one of its most solemn canticles:
+
+  "Dies Irae! Dies illa!
+  Solvet saeclum in favilla,
+  Teste David cum Sibylla."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  INDEX
+
+
+      Abbondanza, Via dell', 51
+      Abruzzi Mountains, 36, 122, 222
+      Acre, 270
+      Adrian IV., Pope, 156
+      Agerola, 123
+      Agropoli, 209
+      Alberada, 181
+      Albergo Cappuccini, 128
+      Alcubier, 11
+      Aleppo, 121
+      Alexander of Epirus, 206
+      Alexandria, 121
+      Alexius, Emperor, 179
+      Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, 242
+      Algiers, 56
+      Alphonso V. of Naples, 277
+      Amalfi, 5, 36, 100, 106, 112, 126
+      Ana-Capri, 249, 259, 271
+      Angelo, Monte S., 28, 30, 63, 76
+      Annunziata, Torre, 19, 92, 94
+      Aosta, Duke and Duchess of, 93, 94
+      Appian Way, 62
+      Apulia, 181
+      ---- William of, 135
+      Arabia, 134
+      Arco, 106
+      Arguth, Joseph, 292
+      Ariosto, Ludovico, 239
+      Aristarchus, 312
+      Arno, 2
+      Arnold of Brescia, 156
+      Arriengo, 123
+      Arthur, King, 318
+      Athens, 28, 39, 58
+      Atrani, 152
+      Atrio del Cavallo, 77
+      Augustus, Emperor, 59, 69
+      ---- Temple of, 313
+      Aulus Vettius, Corvina, 55
+      ---- ---- Restitutus, 40, 55
+      Ausonius, 208
+      Avicenna, 177
+      Avvocata, Madonna dell', 166
+
+      Baghdad, 121
+      Bagnoli, 296
+      Baiae, 253, 307
+      Bajalardo, Pietro, 117
+      Barbary, 209
+      Barisanus of Trani, 159
+      Barra, La, 8
+      Battipaglia, 198
+      Bembo, Cardinal, 282
+      Benevento, 111
+      Bergamo, 240
+      Berkeley, Bishop, 293
+      Bismarck, 186
+      Boccaccio, 137, 157
+      Bohemond, 179
+      Bomba, King, 6, 8, 16, 109, 284
+      Bosco-Trecase, 92, 97
+      Bowdler, Mr, 81
+      Braccini, Abate, 77
+      Breakspear, Nicholas, 156
+      Browning, R., 33, 36, 183
+      Brunetto Latini, 121
+      Butomilea, Landolfo, 182
+      Byzantium, 118, 142
+
+      Caecilius Jucundus, 40
+      Cairo, 121
+      Caligula, Emperor, 5, 308
+      Camaldoli, 18, 270
+      Campagna Felice, 66
+      Campanella, Punta della, 112
+      Canneto, 132, 140
+      Canossa, 180, 186
+      Capaccio, 209, 262
+      Capodimonte, 2
+      Capri, 4, 5, 13, 45, 63, 74, 90, 112, 249
+      Capua, 66
+      Capuano, Cardinal Pietro, 126, 143
+      Caracciolo, 2
+      Cardenas, Bishop, 305
+      Cariteo, 277
+      "Carlo il Zoppo," 102, 103, 121
+      Carmine, Church of the, 105
+      Casamicciola, 284
+      Casa Nuova, 53
+      Castellamare, 18, 25, 26, 100, 113
+_      Castor and Pollux, The_, 311
+      Cathay, 121
+      Cava, La, 113
+      Celestine V., Pope, 292
+      Cellini, Benvenuto, 27
+      Cephalonia, 180
+      Cerrato, Monte, 168
+      Cetara, 134, 170
+      Chalcidicum, 49
+      Charles III. of Naples, 8
+      ---- VIII. of France, 307
+      ---- of Anjou, 102, 156, 167
+      Chiabrera, 89
+      Chiaja, 2
+      Chiosse, Monte di, 119
+      Cicero, 40
+      Clement VIII., Pope, 167
+      Clementia, Princess, 102
+      Clodius Glabrus, 70
+      Cluny, 184
+      Colonna, Giuliano, 104
+      ---- Vittoria, 5, 277
+      Conca, Capo di, 125
+      Concordia Augusta, 51
+      Conradin, 156
+      Constantinople, 80, 134
+      Coppola, Monte, 28, 167
+      Corniche Road, 100
+      Costantinopoli, Strada, 2
+      Crassus, 70
+      Cumae, 4, 317
+
+      Damecuta, 261
+      Dante, 120, 121, 239, 278
+      Devonshire, 107
+      Domenichino, 161
+      Domitiana, Via, 62
+      Dragone, 152
+      Dumas, A., 9, 314
+      Durazzo, 178
+
+      Eboli, 198
+      Elboeuf, Prince d', 11
+      Epidius Rufus, 40
+      Epirus, 178
+      Etna, 77, 291
+      Eumachia, 40, 49
+      Exeter, 40
+
+      Faito, Monte, 37
+      Falerio, Monte, 170
+      Faliero, Marino, 103
+      Farnese, Elizabeth, 27
+      ---- Pier-Luigi, 5, 27
+      Ferdinand, King, 27, 270, 277
+      Ferrara, 240, 248
+      Filangieri, 103
+      Fiorelli, Signor, 53
+      Florence, 2, 112, 132, 148
+      Florus, 70
+      Forio, 289
+      Forsyth, J., 181
+      Francis, King, 109
+      Frederick II., Emperor, 27, 210
+      Fuga, 159
+      Fuorigrotta, 295
+      Furore, 123
+
+      Gaeta, 16, 36
+      ---- Bay of, 4
+      Galen, 106, 177
+      Garibaldi, 6
+      Gaurus, Mons, 57, 76
+      Gavinius, 208
+      Gazola, Count, 211
+      Gell, Sir William, 44
+      Genoa, 157
+      Gibbon, Edward, 175, 309
+      Gioja, Flavio, 119
+      Glaucus, 261
+      Goethe, 13, 212
+      Gragnano, 20
+      Greco, Torre del, 8, 13, 18, 77
+      Gregory VII., Pope, 178
+      Grotta Azzurra, 259
+      Grotta Verde, 262
+      Guallo, 116
+      Guiscard, Robert, 5, 136, 155, 174
+      Gurgitello, 285
+
+      Hale, Sir Matthew, 110
+      Hamill, Major, 271
+      Hamilton, Sir William, 80
+      Hare, Augustus, 7
+      Hart, Emma, 80
+      Hauteville, House of, 174
+      Helbig, 44
+      Helene, Princess, 94
+      Henry IV., Emperor, 180
+      Herculaneum, 1, 9
+      ---- Gate of, 62
+      Hermolaus, 162
+      Hildebrand, 5, 180, 182, 184
+      Hippocrates, 177
+      Hohenstaufen, 163
+      Homer, 114
+      House of the Surgeon, 43, 56
+      ---- Vettii, 53
+
+      Innocent IV., Pope, 152
+      Ischia, 4, 13, 78, 241, 252, 275
+
+      Joanna II., Queen, 144, 299
+      John XVI., Pope, 167
+      John of Procida, 184
+      Julius the Centurion, 311
+      Jupiter, Temple of, 52
+      Justinian, Emperor, 135
+
+      Keats, John, 229
+
+      La Barra, 8
+      La Cava, 172, 198
+      La Scala, 166
+      Lacaita, Mr, 262
+      Lacco, 288
+      Lactarian Hills, 101
+      Ladislaus II., King, 299
+      Lamarque, Gen., 271
+      Lauretta, 157
+      Lavoro, Terra di, 18
+      Lenormant, F., 214
+      Leo XIII., Pope, 288
+      Leonora d'Este, 243, 248
+      Leopardi, Giacomo, 295
+      Lepanto, 246
+      Libella, 64
+      Livia, 50
+      Livy, 73
+      Lowe, Sir Hudson, 271
+      Lubrense, Massa, 122
+      Lucrine Lake, 313
+      Ludius, 59
+      Luke, 312
+
+      Maddalena, Ponte della, 84
+      Majori, 166
+      Malta, 311
+      Mammia, 64
+      Manches, Colonel, 273
+      Manfred, King, 87, 152, 184
+      Manso, 243
+      Mansone II., Doge, 118
+      Macellum, 52
+      Marcellus II., Pope, 280
+      Margaret of Durazzo, 189
+      Marina, Porta, 39, 45
+      Martin V., Pope, 277
+      Matteucci, Professor, 94, 97
+      Matilda, Countess, 185
+      Mau, 44
+      Maurice, 142
+      Maximian, Emperor, 162
+      Melfi, 133
+      Mercato, Il, 2, 96
+      Mercury, Temple of, 52
+      Mergellina, 96
+      Messina, 91
+      Meta, 106
+      Metastasio, 8
+      Michelangelo, 283, 319
+      Milan, 278
+      Minerva, Cape of, 112, 117, 153
+      Minori, 166
+      Misenum, 71, 74, 249
+      Mole of Puteoli, 308
+      Monreale, 159
+      Mont' Epomeo, 290
+      Montapertuso, 119
+      Monte Nuovo, 313
+      Montorio, S. Pietro in, 2
+      Montpensier, Duke of, 307
+      Murat, Joachim, 5, 8, 270
+      Muscettola, Sergio, 159
+      Museo Nazionale, 1
+
+      Naccarino, 145
+      Napoleon, 8, 270
+      Natale, Michele, 103
+      Nelson, 104, 269
+      Neptune, Temple of, 212
+      Nero, Emperor, 308
+      Nicholas II., Pope, 176, 185
+      Nicomedia, 162
+      Nisida, 297
+      Nola, 41
+      Nuceria, 41, 173
+
+      Ochino, Bernardino, 280
+      Oliveto, Monte, 96
+      Orico, 271
+      Orlando, Capo d', 102
+      Oscan inhabitants, 41
+      Otranto, 178
+      Ottajano, 94, 98
+      Overbeck, 44
+      Ovid, 106, 261, 291
+      Oxford, 156
+
+      Paestum, 41, 57, 143, 173, 182, 198
+      Palermo, 91, 159
+      Palumbo, 155
+      Pansa, the AEdile, 40
+      Pantaleone, 142, 148, 161
+      Paolo Giovio, 278
+      Paris, Comte de, 94
+      Parthenope, 249
+      Paul III., Pope, 27
+      Pavia, 279
+      Pedimentina, La, 77
+      Pericles, 40
+      Pescara, Marquis of, 278
+      Petrarch, 116, 138, 239, 299
+      Philip the Bold, 102
+      Phillips, John, 68
+      Philodemus, 10
+      Piacenza, 185
+      Pimentel, Eleonora, 104
+      Piperno, Pietro, 111
+      Pisa, 136
+      Pistoja, 240
+      Pius II., Pope, 27, 144
+      Plato, 58
+      Pliny, 59, 71, 76
+      Pliny the younger, 71
+      Plutarch, 70
+      Pole, Cardinal, 280
+      Pompeii, 1, 5, 24, 38
+      Pomponianus, 72
+      Pontone, 152
+      Portici, 8, 80, 88, 97
+      Porzia de' Rossi, 240
+      Posilipo, 1, 8, 37, 295
+      Positano, 119
+      Pozzano, 37
+      Pozzopiano, 106
+      Pozzuoli, 109, 301
+      Prajano, 124
+      Procida, 4, 237, 275
+      Puteoli, 5, 295
+
+      Quisisana, 27, 37
+
+      Ravello, 134, 152
+      Reggio, 311
+      Reid, Mr, 156, 262
+      Renee, Duchess of Ferrara, 280
+      Resina, 8, 79, 88, 98
+      Retina, 8, 72
+      Revigliano, 26
+      Rhegium, 311
+      Robert of Normandy, 178
+      ---- the Wise, 116, 156
+      Roger, Count, 155, 180
+      ---- King, 116, 136
+      Rome, 39, 94, 144, 156, 180, 312
+      Ruffo, Cardinal, 104
+      Rufolo, Niccolo, 155, 160
+
+      S. Agnello, 106
+      S. Alessio al Lavinaio, 105
+      S. Angelo, 13, 119, 122
+      S. Bridget of Sweden, 144
+      S. Brigida, 3
+      S. Chiara, 2
+      S. Costanzo, 251
+      S. Elia, Punta, 117
+      S. Elmo, 2, 67
+      S. Francis of Assisi, 144
+      S. Gennaro, 298
+      S. Giovanni a Teduccio, 8
+      S. Giovanni del Toro, 164
+      S. Giuseppe, 94
+      S. Luca, 124
+      S. Lucia, 3
+      S. Maria a Pozzano, 102
+      S. Maria del Gradillo, 162
+      S. Maria di Pompeii, 65
+      S. Martino, 2
+      S. Matteo, 173, 181
+      S. Michael, 35
+      S. Miniato, 2
+      S. Paul, 312
+      S. Pietro, Punta di, 123
+      S. Proculo, 307
+      S. Restituta, 291
+      S. Romualdo, 19
+      S. Salvatore a Bireta, 153
+      S. Trinita, 172
+      S. Vitale, 296
+      Salerno, 4, 36, 111, 117, 133, 172
+      Samnite Hills, 212
+      Sannazzaro, 295
+      Sanseverini, 169
+      Sardinia, 15
+      Sarno, 26, 41, 95
+      Scala, 134, 167
+      Scaletta, 152
+      Scaricotojo, Lo, 113, 118
+      Scutolo, Punta di, 106
+      Sebeto, 8
+      Sejanus, 256
+      Serapis, Temple of, 308
+      Serra, Gennaro, 104
+      Shelley, 13, 33, 64
+      Shrewsbury, 40
+      Sibyl of Cumae, 318
+      Sicily, 15
+      Sigilgaita, 161, 179
+      Silarus, 198
+      Sirens, Isles of the, 114
+      Sixtus IV., Pope, 318
+      Smith, Sir Sydney, 270
+      Soana, 184
+      Socrates, 40
+      Solaro, 268
+      Soldan, 246
+      Somma, Monte, 67, 94, 99
+      Sorrentine Plain, 5, 106
+      Sorrento, 5, 90, 221
+      Sottile, Cape, 123
+      Spartacus, 69, 76
+      Stabiae, 26, 72, 76
+      Stamer, W. J. A., 16, 52, 238, 265, 316
+      Staurachios, 142
+      Stolberg, Count, 202
+      Stowe, Mrs H. B., 16
+      Strabo, 69, 275
+      Strada Costantinopoli, 2
+        "  de' Tribunali, 3
+      Stromboli, 91
+      Suetonius, 256
+      Syracuse, 58, 107, 311
+
+      Tacca, 51
+      Tacitus, 69, 71, 73
+      Tafuri, Bishop, 159
+      Tancred of Hauteville, 178, 180
+      Tarver, J. C., 258
+      Tasso, 5, 106, 145, 239
+        "  Bernardo, 106, 240, 277
+      Theocritus, 154, 292
+      Thermae of Nero, 316
+      Tiber, 116, 156
+      Tiberius, Emperor, 5, 50, 253, 308
+      Timgad, 38
+      Timothy, 312
+      Tiridates, 308
+      Titian, 27
+      Titus, Emperor, 10, 57, 71, 76
+      Toledo, The, 2
+      Torregaveta, 275, 317
+      Trafalgar, 270
+      Tragara, 263
+      Tripoli, 15
+      Tunis, 56, 246
+
+      Ulysses, 114
+      Urban IV., Pope, 144
+      Ustica, 91
+
+      Vaccaro, Il, 84
+      Valentinian, Emperor, 208
+      Valley of the Mills, 140, 149
+      Venice, 103, 112, 134, 148
+      Venosa, 181
+      Venus, Temple of, 52
+      Vergil, 208, 211, 275, 296
+      Vesuvius, 5, 11, 36, 66
+      Via Domitiana, 62
+      Vico Equense, 31, 102, 103
+      Victor III., Pope, 155
+      Victor Emmanuel III., King of Italy, 94
+      Vietri, 165, 171
+      Vigna Sersale, 247
+      Villa Jovis, 254
+      Villa Reale, 2
+      Vincenzo, 37
+      Vitruvius, 60, 69
+      Vittoria Colonna, 5, 277
+      Vivara, 276
+      Vomero, 3
+      Vozzi Family, 127
+
+      Wales, 107, 318
+      William Bras-de-Fer, 174
+      Wordsworth, 33
+      Worms, 185
+
+      Zampognari, 233
+      Zoppo, Carlo il, 102, 103, 121
+
+
+
+
+
+                                FOOTNOTES
+
+
+    1 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+    2 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+    3 Professor John Phillips: _Vesuvius_.
+
+    4 Pliny's Letters. (_Church's and Brodribb's Translation._)
+
+_    5 La Nazione_, April 24, 1906.
+
+_    6 The Decameron._ Novel IV. of the Second Day.
+
+_    7 The Decameron_--Novel I, of the Fourth Day.
+
+    8 F. Lenormant: _A travers l'Apulie et la Lucanie_.
+
+    9 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+   10 For an able defence of the Emperor Tiberius, the reader is referred
+      to Mr J. C. Tarver's _Tiberius the Tyrant_, chap. xviii.
+
+   11 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+   12 A portion of this chapter has already appeared in an article by the
+      Author, entitled _The Island of Ischia_, in the _Westminster
+      Review_, December 1905.
+
+   13 W. J. A. Stamer: _Dolce Napoli_.
+
+
+
+
+
+                            TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
+
+
+The caption of two images (frontispiece, page 288) has been supplied from
+the List of Images.
+
+The following obvious typographical errors have been corrected:
+
+      page xi, "Republiques" changed to "Republiques"
+      page 55, "castastrophe" changed to "catastrophe"
+      page 90, quote mark added after "vendemmia?"
+      page 158, footnote, italics added to "The Decameron", removed from
+      "Novel IV. of the Second Day". (Other inconsistencies between the
+      two citations of the _Decameron_ were not changed.)
+      page 159, "mosiac" changed to "mosaic"
+      page 189, "gradully" changed to "gradually"
+      page 206, "Paestum" changed to "Paestum" (twice)
+      page 212, "wheron" changed to "whereon"
+      page 238, "circomstane" changed to "circomstance"
+      page 241, double "the" removed
+      page 275, "costing" changed to "coasting"
+      page 300, "maledicton" changed to "malediction"
+      page 301, "then" changed to "than"
+      page 311, "aud" changed to "and"
+
+In the Index, the following words have been changed to the spelling used
+in the main text:
+
+      "Baiae" (was: "Baiae")
+      "Caecilius Jucundus" (was: "Caecilius")
+      "Cumae" (was: "Cumae")
+      "Hohenstaufen" (was: "Hohenstauffen")
+      "Matteucci" (was: "Mateucci")
+      "Paestum" (was: "Paestum")
+      "Pimentel" (was: "Pimental")
+      "Rufolo, Niccolo" (was: "Nicolo")
+      "Sannazzaro" (was: "Sannazaro")
+      "Stabiae" (was: "Stabiae")
+      "Staurachios" (was: "Straurachios")
+      "Thermae of Nero" (was: "Thermae")
+      "William Bras-de-Fer" (was: "Bras de Fer")
+      "Zoppo, Carlo il" (was: "Zoppo, Carlo Il")
+
+Apart from the index and two occurrences of "Paestum" in the main text, all
+"ae" ligatures have been maintained: "aedile" (and "aedile"), "archaeologist"
+(and "archaeologist"), "aesthetic", "Cannae", "Mediaeval" (in a quotation,
+otherwise "medieval"), "maerens", "Praetor", "tesserae".
+
+Not changed or normalized were small errors in Italian or German
+quotations ("a riverderla", "Kultur-kampf", "Bierhaelle"), inconsistent
+hyphenation (e. g. "boat-man"/"boatman", "sea-shore"/"seashore"), spelling
+variations ("Phlegraean"/"Phlegrean") and unusual spellings ("elegible"
+[in a quotation], "pleisosaurus", "innoculating", "choregraphic").
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NAPLES RIVIERA***
+
+
+
+                                 CREDITS
+
+
+December 9, 2009
+
+            Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1
+            Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
+            Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+                      A WORD FROM PROJECT GUTENBERG
+
+
+This file should be named 30634.txt or 30634.zip.
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+
+
+    http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/6/3/30634/
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one -- the old editions will be
+renamed.
+
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