Part 11 (2/2)
Sometimes the goats are milked in the streets, the pail being let down from the upper floors of the houses by a string, a pristine type of _ascenseur_. Generally, though, the animal mounts the stairs to be milked, and descends again in the most matter-of-fact manner.
The gaudily painted stalls of the iced-water and lemonade dealers give warmth of color to the streets. There are several grades in the calling of _acquaiolo_ (water-seller). The lowest member of the craft is the peripatetic _acquaiolo_, who goes about furnished simply with a barrel of iced water strapped on his back, and a basket of lemons slung to his waist, and dispenses drinks at two centesimi a tumbler. It was thought that the completion of the Serino aqueduct, which provides the whole of Naples with excellent water at the numerous public fountains, would do away with the time-honored water-seller; but it seems that the poorer cla.s.ses cannot do without a flavoring of some sort, and so this humble fraternity continue as a picturesque adjunct of the streets. These are only a few of the more striking objects of interest which the observer will not fail to notice in his walks through the city. But we must leave this fascinating occupation and turn to some of the regulation sights of Naples.
Though, in proportion to its size, Naples contains fewer sights and specific objects of interest than any other city in Italy, there are still a few public buildings and churches which the tourist should not neglect.
There are quite half-a-dozen churches out of the twenty-five or thirty noticed by the guide-books which fully repay the trouble of visiting them.
The Cathedral is in the old part of the town. Its chief interest lies in the gorgeous Chapel of St. Januarius, the patron saint of Naples. In a silver shrine under the richly decorated altar is the famous phial containing the coagulated blood of the saint. This chapel was built at the beginning of the seventeenth century, in fulfilment of a vow by the grateful populace in honor of the saint who had saved their city ”from the fire of Vesuvius by the intercession of his precious blood.” St. Januarius is held in the highest veneration by the lower cla.s.ses of Naples, with whom the liquefaction ceremony, which takes place twice a year, is an article of faith in which they place the most implicit reliance. The history of the holy man is too well known to need repet.i.tion here. The numerous miracles attributed to him, and the legends which have grown round his name, would make no inconsiderable addition to the hagiological literature of Italy.
Of the other churches, Sta. Chiara, S. Domenico Maggiore, and S. Lorenzo are best worth visiting. In building Sta. Chiara the architect would seem to have aimed at embodying, as far as possible, the idea of the church militant, the exterior resembling a fortress rather than a place of wors.h.i.+p. In accordance with the notions of church restoration which prevailed in the last century, Giotto's famous frescoes have been covered with a thick coating of whitewash, the sapient official who was responsible for the restoration considering these paintings too dark and gloomy for mural decoration. Now the most noteworthy objects in the church are the Gothic tombs of the Angevin kings.
The two churches of S. Domenico and S. Lorenzo are not far off, and the sightseer in this city of ”magnificent distances” is grateful to the providence which has placed the three most interesting churches in Naples within a comparatively circ.u.mscribed area. S. Domenico should be visited next, as it contains some of the best examples of Renaissance sculpture in Naples as Sta. Chiara does of Gothic art. It was much altered and repaired in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but still remains one of the handsomest of the Neapolitan churches. Its most important monument is the marble group in relief of the Virgin, with SS.
Matthew and John, by Giovanni da Nola, which is considered to be the sculptor's best work. The Gothic church of S. Lorenzo has fortunately escaped in part the disfiguring hands of the seventeenth century restorer.
This church is of some literary and historical interest, Petrarch having spent several months in the adjoining monastery; and it was here that Boccaccio saw the beautiful princess immortalized in his tales by the name of Fiammetta.
In order to appreciate the true historical and geographical significance of Naples, we must remember that the whole of this volcanic district is one great palimpsest, and that it is only with the uppermost and least important inscription that we have hitherto concerned ourselves. To form an adequate idea of this unique country we must set ourselves to decipher the earlier-written inscriptions. For this purpose we must visit the National Museum, which contains rich and unique collections of antiquities elsewhere absolutely unrepresented. Here will be found the best treasures from the buried towns of c.u.mae, Herculaneum, and Pompeii. The history of nearly a thousand years may be read in this vast necropolis of ancient art.
To many, however, the living present has a deeper interest than the buried past, and to these the innumerable beautiful excursions round Naples will prove more attractive than all the wealth of antiquities in the Museum.
Certainly, from a purely aesthetic standpoint, all the best things in Naples are out of it if the bull may be allowed. To reach Pozzuoli and the cla.s.sic district of Baiae and c.u.mae, we pa.s.s along the fine promenade of the Villa n.a.z.ionale, which stretches from the Castello dell' Ovo (the Bastille of Naples) to the Posilipo promontory, commanding, from end to end, superb un.o.bstructed views of the Bay. Capri, the central point of the prospect, appears to change its form from day to day, like a fairy island.
Sometimes, on a cloudless day, the fantastic outlines of the cliffs stand out clearly defined against the blue sea and the still bluer background of the sky; the houses are plainly distinguished, and you can almost fancy that you can descry the groups of idlers leaning over the parapet of the little piazza, so clear is the atmosphere. Sometimes the island is bathed in a bluish haze, and by a curious atmospheric effect a novel form of _Fata Morgana_ is seen, the island, appearing to be lifted out of the water and suspended between sea and sky.
The grounds of the Villa n.a.z.ionale are extensive, and laid out with taste, but are disfigured by inferior plaster copies, colossal in size, of famous antique statues. It is strange that Naples, while possessing some of the greatest masterpieces of ancient sculptors, should be satisfied with these plastic monstrosities for the adornment of its most fas.h.i.+onable promenade.
The most interesting feature of the Villa n.a.z.ionale is the Aquarium. It is not merely a show place, but an international biological station, and, in fact, the portion open to the public consists only of the spare tanks of the laboratory. This inst.i.tution is the most important of its kind in Europe, and is supported by the princ.i.p.al European Universities, who each pay for so many ”tables.”
[Ill.u.s.tration]
At the entrance to the tunneled highway known as the Grotto di Posilipo, which burrows through the promontory that forms the western bulwark of Naples, and serves as a barrier to shut out the noise of that overgrown city, is a columbarium known as Virgil's Tomb. The guide-books, with their superior erudition, speak rather contemptuously of this historic spot as the ”so-called tomb of Virgil.” Yet historical evidence seems to point to the truth of the tradition which has a.s.signed this spot as the place where Virgil's ashes were once placed. A visit to this tomb is a suitable introduction to the neighborhood of which Virgil seems to be the tutelary genius. Along the sunny slopes of Posilipo the poet doubtless occasionally wended his way to the villa of Lucullus, at the extreme end of the peninsula. Leaving the gloomy grotto, the short cut to Pozzuoli, on our right, we begin to mount the far-famed ”Corniche” of Posilipo, which skirts the cliffs of the promontory. The road at first pa.s.ses the fas.h.i.+onable Mergellina suburb, fringed by an almost uninterrupted series of villa gardens. This is, perhaps, one of the most beautiful drives in the South of Europe. Every winding discloses views which are at once the despair and the delight of the painter. At every turn we are tempted to stop and feast the eyes on the glorious prospect. Perhaps of all the fine views in and around Naples, that from the Capo di Posilipo is the most striking, and dwells longest in the memory. At one's feet lies Naples, its whitewashed houses glittering bright in the flood of suns.h.i.+ne. Beyond, across the deep blue waters of the gulf, Vesuvius, the evil genius of this smiling country, arrests the eye, from whose summit, like a halo,
”A wreath of light blue vapor, pure and rare, Mounts, scarcely seen against the deep blue sky;
... It forms, dissolving there, The dome, as of a palace, hung on high Over the mountains.”
Portici, Torre del Greco, and Torre del' Annunziata can hardly be distinguished in this densely populated fringe of coast-line, which extends from Naples to Castellamare. Sometimes at sunset we have a magnificent effect. This sea-wall of continuous towns and villages lights up under the dying rays of the sun like glowing charcoal. The conflagration appears to spread to Naples, and the huge city is ”lit up like Sodom, as if fired by some superhuman agency.” This atmospheric phenomenon may remind the imaginative spectator of the dread possibilities afforded by the proximity of the ever-threatening volcano towering _in terrorem_ over the thickly populated plain. There is a certain weird charm born of impending danger, which gives the whole district a pre-eminence in the world of imagination. It has pa.s.sed through its baptism of fire; and who knows how soon ”the dim things below” may be preparing a similar fate for a city so rashly situated? These dismal reflections are, however, out of place on the peaceful slopes of Posilipo, whose very name denotes freedom from care.
The sh.o.r.es of this promontory are thickly strewed with Roman ruins, which are seldom explored owing to their comparative inaccessibility. Most of the remains, theaters, temples, baths, porticoes, and other buildings, whose use or nature defies the learning of the antiquary, are thought to be connected with the extensive villa of the notorious epicure Vedius Polio. Traces of the fish-tanks for the eels, which Seneca tells us were fed with the flesh of disobedient slaves, are still visible. Descending the winding gradients of Posilipo, we get the first glimpse of the lovely little Bay of Pozzuoli. The view is curious and striking. So deeply and sharply indented is the coast, and so narrow and tortuous are the channels that separate the islands Ischia, Procida, and Nisida, that it is difficult to distinguish the mainland. We enjoy a unique panorama of land and sea, islands, bays, straits, capes, and peninsulas all inextricably intermingled.
Continuing our journey past the picturesque town of Pozzuoli, its semi-oriental looking houses cl.u.s.tered together on a rocky headland, like Monaco, we reach the hallowed ground of the cla.s.sical student. No one who has read his Virgil or his Horace at school can help being struck by the constant succession of once familiar names scattered so thickly among the dry bones of the guide-books. The district between c.u.mae and Pozzuoli is the _sanctum sanctorum_ of cla.s.sical Italy, and ”there is scarcely a spot which is not identified with the poetical mythology of Greece, or a.s.sociated with some name familiar in the history of Rome.” Leaving Pozzuoli, we skirt the Phlegraean Fields, which, owing to their malaria-haunted situation, still retain something of their ancient sinister character. This tract is, however, now being drained and cultivated a good deal. That huge mound on our right, looking like a Celtic sepulchral barrow, is Monte Nuovo, a volcano, as its name denotes, of recent origin. Geologically speaking, it is a thing of yesterday, being thrown up in the great earthquake of September 30th, 1538, when, as Alexandre Dumas graphically puts it, ”One morning Pozzuoli woke up, looked around, and could not recognize its position; where had been the night before a lake was now a mountain.” The lake referred to is Avernus, a name familiar to all through the venerable and invariably misquoted cla.s.sical tag, _facilis descensus Averni_, etc. This insignificant-looking volcanic molehill is the key to the physical geography of the whole district.
Though the upheaval of Monte Nuovo has altered the configuration of the country round, the depopulation of this deserted but fertile country is due, not to the crater, but to the malaria, the scourge of the coast. The scarcity of houses on the western horn of the Bay of Naples is very marked, especially when contrasted with the densely populated sea-board on the Castellamare side. Leaving Monte Nuovo we come to a still more fertile tract of country, and the luxuriant vegetation of these Avernine hills ”radiant with vines” contrasts pleasingly with the gloomy land ”where the dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells” of the poet. The mythological traditions of the beautiful plain a few miles farther on, covered with vineyards and olive-groves and bright with waving corn-fields, where Virgil has placed the Elysian Fields, seem far more appropriate to the landscape as we see it. Perhaps a sense of the dramatic contrast was present in the poet's mind when he placed the Paradiso and the Inferno of the ancients so near together.
Quite apart from the charm with which ancient fable and poetry have invested this district, the astonis.h.i.+ng profusion of ruins makes it especially interesting to the antiquary. A single morning's walk in the environs of Baiae or c.u.mae will reveal countless fragmentary monuments of antiquities quite outside of the stock ruins of the guide-books, which the utilitarian instincts of the country people only partially conceal, Roman tombs serving as granaries or receptacles for garden produce, temples affording stable-room for goats and donkeys, amphitheaters half-concealed by olive-orchards or orange-groves, walls of ancient villas utilized in building up the terraced vineyards; and, in short, the trained eye of an antiquary would, in a day's walk, detect a sufficient quant.i.ty of antique material almost to reconstruct another Pompeii. But though every acre of this antiquary's paradise teems with relics of the past, and though every bay and headland is crowded with memories of the greatest names in Roman history, we must not linger in this supremely interesting district, but must get on to the other beautiful features of the Gulf of Naples.
Capri, as viewed from Naples, is the most attractive and striking feature in the Bay. There is a kind of fascination about this rocky island-garden which is felt equally by the callow tourist making his first visit to Italy, and by the seasoned traveller who knew Capri when it was the center of an art colony as well known as is that of Newlyn at the present day. No doubt Capri is now considered by super-sensitive people to be as hopelessly vulgarized and hackneyed as the Isle of Man or the Channel Isles, now that it has become the favorite picknicking ground of shoals of Neapolitan excursionists; but that is the fate of most of the beautiful scenery in the South of Europe, if at all easy of access. These fastidious minds may, however, find consolation in the thought that to the noisy excursionists, daily carried to and from Naples by puffing little c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l steamers, the greater part of the island will always remain an undiscovered country. They may swarm up the famous steps of Anacapri, and even penetrate into the Blue Grotto, but they do not, as a rule, carry the spirit of geographical research farther.
The slight annoyance caused by the great crowds is amply compensated for by the beauties of the extraordinarily grand scenery which is to be found within the island desecrated by memories of that ”deified beast Tiberius,”
as d.i.c.kens calls him. What const.i.tutes the chief charm of the natural features of Capri are the sharp contrasts and the astonis.h.i.+ng variety in the scenery. Rugged precipices, in height exceeding the cliffs of Tintagel, and in beauty and boldness of outline surpa.s.sing the crags of the grandest Norwegian fiords, wall in a green and fertile garden-land covered with orange-orchards, olive-groves, and corn-fields. Cruising round this rock-bound and apparently inaccessible island, it seems a natural impregnable fortress, a sea-girt Gibraltar guarding the entrance of the gulf, girdled round with precipitous crags rising a thousand feet sheer out of the sea, the cliff outline broken by steep ravines and rocky headlands, with outworks of crags, reefs, and t.i.tanic ma.s.ses of tumbled rocks.
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