TOWNS SITUATED ON THE MOUNTAIN.
Paterno.--Ste. Maria di Licodia.--The site of the ancient town of
Aetna.--Biancavilla.--Aderno.--Sicilian Inns.--Adranum.--Bronte.--
Randazzo.--Mascali.--Giarre.--Aci Reale.--Its position.--The Scogli
de'Ciclopi.--Catania, its early history, and present condition.
We have before alluded to the fact that Etna is far more thickly
populated than any other part of Sicily or Italy; in fact, more so than
almost any equal area in the world, of course excepting large cities and
their neighbourhood. This is due to the wonderful fertility of the soil,
the salubrity of the climate, and, on the eastern base, to the proximity
of a sea-coast indented with excellent harbours. The habitable zone of
Etna is restricted to the _Regione Coltivata_, nevertheless some of the
towns on the north and west have a considerable elevation; thus Bronte
is 2,782 feet above the sea, and Randazzo 2,718. All the principal towns
are situated on the base road of the mountain, which was indeed
constructed in order to connect them. Out of the sixty-four towns and
villages on the mountain, the following are the most important:
Catania, Aci Reale, Paterno, Aderno, Bronte, Randazzo, Aci S. Antonio,
Biancavilla, Calatabiano, Giarre, Francavilla, Linguagrossa, Licodia,
Mascali, Misterbianco, Nicolosi, Pedara, Piedemonte, Trecastagne, and
Tremestieri.
On our return from the summit, we rested for awhile at Nicolosi, and in
the cool of the evening started to make a _giro_ of the mountain by way
of the base road. Descending by the Nicolosi road as far as Mascalucia,
we branched off to the west, and made for Paterno, passing near the town
of Belpasso, which was destroyed by the earthquake of 1669, and
subsequently erected on a new site. It still contains more than 7,000
inhabitants, although the district is extremely unhealthy.
Paterno, the second largest town on the flanks of Etna after Catania and
Aci Reale, stands in the very heart of the Regione Coltivata, and
possesses more than 16,000 inhabitants. According to Cluverius, it is
the site of the city of Hybla Major (~Hybla Megale~), a Sikelian
city which was unsuccessfully attacked by the Athenians soon after they
first landed in Sicily. During the second Punic War, the inhabitants
went over to the Carthagenians, but the city was speedily recovered by
the Romans. Pliny, Cicero, and Pausanias allude to it, but its later
history has not come down to us. An altar was lately found in Paterno
dedicated to _Veneri Victrici Hyblensi_. Several towns in Sicily were
called Hybla, probably--according to Pausanias--in honour of a local
deity. Paterno was founded by Roger I. in 1073: it was once a feudal
city of some importance, and possessed a cathedral and castle, and
several large monasteries. Although much fallen to decay, it still
possesses a good deal of vitality, and the population is on the
increase.
On leaving Paterno the road turns to the North-west, and passes through
the village of Ste. Maria di Licodia. Here originally stood the Sikelian
City of Inessa (~Inessa~), which, after the death of Hiero I.,
was peopled by colonists from Katana (then called ~Aitne~). The
new occupants of the city changed its name from Inessa to Aetna, which
it retained. The town later fell into the hands of the Syracusans, and
in 462 B.C. the Athenians in vain attempted to take it. During the
Athenian expedition both Aetna and Hybla were allies of Syracuse. In 403
B.C. Aetna was taken by Dionysius, who placed in it a body of Campanian
mercenaries. Sixty-four years later (B.C. 339) the town was taken by
Timoleon. For many succeeding years we find no further mention of it.
Cicero speaks of it in his time as an important place, and the centre of
a very fertile district; it is also mentioned by Pliny and Ptolemy, and
Strabo says that it was usually the starting point for those who
ascended the mountain. Of its later history we know absolutely nothing.
Six miles to the north-west of St. Mariah di Licodia, the road passes
through Biancavilla--a town of 13,000 inhabitants, and the centre of a
cotton district.
The road continues in the same direction until the town of Aderno is
reached; and here we arrived late in the evening, and gained our first
experience of a Sicilian inn in an out-of-the-way town. After many
enquiries we were directed to the only inn which the place could boast,
kept by a doctor. No one appeared at or near the entrance, of course
there was no bell or knocker, and we made our way up a dark stone
staircase till we arrived at a dimly-lighted passage. A horrible old
Sicilian woman now appeared, and showed us with great incivility the
only room in the house, which its inmates were willing to place at our
disposal. It was a fairly large room, with a stone floor which
apparently had not been swept for weeks, and walls that had once been
whitewashed; the furniture consisted of three beds placed on tressels, a
plain deal table, and some primitive chairs. As to food they had neither
bread, meat, wine, eggs, macaroni, fruit, or butter in the house;
neither did they offer to procure anything. Even when some eggs had been
obtained, and (after an hour's delay) cooked, there was not a single
teaspoon to eat them with. The people of the town appear to subsist
chiefly on beans and a kind of dried fish. If our courier had not been a
very handy fellow and a tolerable cook, we should have been obliged
more than once to go to bed supperless. As it was, the best he could do
on this occasion was to get some bread, eggs, and wine, and--best of
all--some snow, for the heat was intolerable. In a town of the same
size--15,657 inhabitants--in England, we should have at least two really
comfortable inns ready at any moment to receive and entertain the weary
traveller.
[Illustration: View of Etna from Bronte]
Aderno stands on the site, and has preserved the name, of the ancient
Sikelian city of Adranum (~Adranon~). According to Diodorus there
existed here, from very early times, the temple of a local deity named
Adranus. The city was founded by the elder Dionysius in 400 B.C.; it
owed its importance to the renown of its temple, which was guarded by a
thousand dogs. In 345 B.C. the city fell into the hands of Timoleon, and
it was taken by the Romans at the commencement of the first Punic War.
After this we cease to hear of it. The modern town was founded by Roger
I. in the 12th century. The fine Norman tower--now used as a prison--and
the monastery, were both built by King Roger.
After leaving Aderno the base-road ascends, turns nearly due north, and
leads us past a number of lava streams, notably those of 1610, 1603, and
1651. A good view of Monte Minardo, and the minor cones in its more
immediate neighbourhood, is obtained on the left, while on the right we
see the Valley of the Simeto, and Centorbi high upon the hills.
Nearly due west of the great crater is the town of Bronte, which is
2,782 feet above the sea, and has a population of more than 15,000. It
is a very primitive place, and several centuries behind the age; it
reminded us forcibly, in one or two particulars, of Pompeii: the streets
are narrow and tortuous, and the roadway very uneven. Awnings are
sometimes hung across the street from side to side to provide shade. The
shops are exactly like those at Pompeii; and in the main street we
noticed an open-air kitchen, to which the would-be diner repairs,
purchases a plateful of food, and eats it standing in the public way.
The inn was even worse than that of Aderno, and apparently had never
before received guests. We were offered one miserable room, without a
lock to the door, and unprovided with either table or chair. Of course
the bare idea of offering to procure, or furnish, or cook, any kind of
food was too monstrous to be entertained for a moment. With difficulty
the courier obtained some eggs, macaroni, and fruit, on which we dined
in a small barn attached to a wine-shop.
At Bronte we are only nine miles from the crater, on the steepest side
of the mountain, and near the Tertiary sandstone which underlies this
portion of the mountain. A short distance outside the town we saw great
beds of the lava of 1832, piled up fantastically in all sorts of forms,
and excessively rugged and uneven. It is quite bare of vegetation, and
does not appear to have even commenced to be decomposed.
Bronte gave its name to Lord Nelson, who was created Duke of Bronte by
Ferdinand IV.:--an appropriate name for a great warrior ([Greek:
bronte], thunder). The Nelson estates are scattered around the town.
On leaving Bronte the road conducted us past several high hills of
sandstone and quartzite near Monte Rivoglia; then we passed near
Maletto, and, leaving the malarious lake Gurrita on our left, we soon
after arrived at Randazzo. Near Maletto the road reaches it highest
point--3,852 feet.
The town of Randazzo was founded by the Lombards in the 10th century;
during the Middle Ages it appears to have been a prosperous, populous,
place; at present it possesses more than 8,000 inhabitants. The Emperor
Frederick II. created his son Duke of Randazzo, and added to the name of
the town, _Etnea_. It contains several very interesting architectural
remains; a church of the 13th century, a mediaeval palace--the Palazzo
Finochiaro,--and a ducal palace now used as a prison. The houses are for
the most part built of lava, and some of the shops have massive lava
counters extending half across their open front, while the door occupies
the remainder, as at Pompeii. The view from Randazzo is very fine in
every direction; the crater of Etna appears near, and Monte
Spagnuolo--many hours distant--just outside the town. The town is 2,718
feet above the sea, just above the Valley of the Alcantara--of which it
commands a fine view, and also of the limestone hills on the other side.
We were obliged to pass the night in the town, in an inn scarcely
superior to that of Aderno, but distinctly better than the miserable
Albergo Collegio at Bronte. At least the people were civil, and did
their best. The one room of the inn had a bed in each corner, and a deal
table in the middle. Three of the beds were occupied by engineers who
were surveying in connection with a new line of railway; the fourth was
made over to the courier. I slept in a small kind of ante-room on a bed
chiefly composed of deal boards placed on tressels. Here again the
courier was invaluable, in fact it would be simply impossible to make
the circuit of Etna without a courier. He procured some eggs, macaroni,
fruit, snow, tomatoes, and even meat, and cooked everything well,
without a trace of garlic. He also took care that the linen was clean,
and the general arrangements as comfortable as they could be under the
circumstances. Let us also admit that neither at Aderno, Bronte, nor
Randazzo were we troubled with musquitoes or any worse species of
insect. These, we were assured, would appear in full force in the
following month (September). Our only inconvenience of this nature
arose from swarms of flies. The inns of these out-of-the-way towns
probably receive scarcely a dozen travellers in the year, and these are
Sicilians, who are not used to better accommodation. Evidently a
_forestiare_ is quite a novelty: the people of these small towns used to
look at us with great curiosity, and crowded round the carriage when we
started. At Bronte we had a good example of this curiosity: owing to the
hardness of the lava of 1832 the head had come off the handle of our
hammer, and we went into a carpenter's shop to have it put on again.
Presently we noticed that eleven people, including a priest, were
looking on, apparently with intense and absorbing interest.
From Randazzo the base-road descends, until at Giarre it is near the
sea-level. This road is one of the most beautiful in Sicily; it is part
of the old military route from Messina to Palermo, and it was traversed
by Himilco in 396 B.C.; by Timoleon in 344 B.C.; and by Charles V. in
1534. After leaving Randazzo the valley of the Alcantara becomes
visible, while beyond it rise the lofty mountains of the Nebrodes. The
road passes near Monte Dolce, and soon reaches Linguaglossa, a small
town from whence the craters of 1865 may be reached in about four hours.
The rapidly descending road passes through Piedemonte and Mascali, in
the heart of an extraordinarily fertile region. Mascali, a village of
3050 inhabitants, was considered by Cluverius to be the site of the
Greek town of Callipolis, founded by a colony from Naxos as early as the
fifth century, B.C. A full view of the coast line is obtained from the
Capo di Taormina on the north, to a point below Riposto on the south. We
descended through plantations of nuts, and groves of oranges and lemons,
to gentle slopes covered with vineyards.
From the town of Giarre, (17,965 inhabitants), we get a view of the Val
del Bove, which, however, is almost always obscured by thin white
clouds, while the summit of the mountain is clear. We noticed, indeed,
every day that the summit, which had been absolutely clear all the day
and night, became covered with clouds shortly before sunset, while about
an hour later the clouds cleared off, and the mountain was sharply
defined against the sky during the starlit night. Some of the effects of
sunset behind clouds resting on the summit, while all the rest of the
sky was bright blue, were exceedingly beautiful, and were quite
untranslatable into any known language, save that of painting, and of
music. Perhaps Turner could have done justice to them.
After leaving Giarre we passed through a good deal of highly cultivated
land belonging to Baron Pennisi, the largest landholder and richest man
in Sicily. He makes good use of his wealth, and seems to be very
popular among all classes. He possesses three palaces in Aci Reale, and
has done a great deal to beautify the town. Archaeologists will remember
him as the possessor of the finest collection of Sicilian coins in the
world. Many of these have been found on his own estates, but he never
scruples to give large sums of money for any coin which he covets.
Aci Reale, one of the prettiest towns in Europe, is situated in the
midst of a very fertile region 550 feet above the sea. To the east it
faces the Ionian sea, while on the west towers Etna. The town is full of
wealthy inhabitants, and the houses are large, lofty, and well built. It
contains 24,151 inhabitants, and possesses celebrated sulphur baths, and
one of the best hotels in Sicily. The wealth of this small town is well
shown by the following fact: Since its foundation in the tenth century,
till within a year or two of the present time, the town had been under
the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Catania. It happened, however, a
few years ago, on the occasion of a religious procession in Catania,
that the people of Aci considered that their patron Saint, S. Venera,
was slighted. In fact the image of S. Agata, the patron Saint of the
Catanese--whose veil has so often averted the lava-streams from the
city--was put in all the prominent parts of the procession, while the
image of S. Venera was comparatively neglected. The people of Aci at
once returned home, and sent a petition to the Pope, praying that they
might have a Bishop of their own directly subject to the Holy See, in
order that they might no longer be subjected to such slights. The
Vatican having duly considered the question consented to raise Aci to
the dignity of a Bishopric, and to pay the Bishop a yearly stipend of
10,000 lire, (about L400, but equal to L600 in Sicily), on condition
that 200,000 lire were paid at once into the coffers of the Vatican.
This was promptly done, and now Monsignore Gerlando Genuardi, Bishop of
Aci Reale, may snap his fingers in the face of Monsignore Giuseppe
Benedetto Dusmet, a Benedictine of the Congregation of Monte Cassino,
and Archbishop of Catania.
[Illustration: Island of Columnar Basalt off Trezza]
Six villages in the neighbourhood of Aci Reale bear the name of Aci: Aci
Castello, Aci Sant' Antonio, and so on, but Aci Reale claims to stand
upon the very site rendered memorable by the story of Acis and Galatea.
The river Acis (now called _Acque Grande_) rises from a bed of lava, and
falls into the sea a mile from its source. Aci Reale stands on seven
different beds of superposed lava, having layers of earth resulting from
decomposed lava between. The Canon Recupero calculated from observation,
that a lava requires at least 2000 years to form even a scanty layer of
earth, consequently he inferred that the lowest of the lava streams upon
which Aci rests must have been formed 14,000 years ago. These views he
stated to Brydone a hundred years ago; the latter says, "Recupero tells
me he is exceedingly embarrassed by these discoveries in writing the
history of the mountain. That Moses hangs like a dead weight upon him,
and blunts all his zeal for enquiry; for that really he has not the
conscience to make his mountain so young as that prophet makes the
world. What do you think of these sentiments from a Roman Catholic
Divine? The Bishop, who is strenuously orthodox--for it is an excellent
See--has already warned him to be upon his guard, and not to pretend to
be a better natural historian than Moses; not to presume to urge
anything that may, in the smallest degree, be deemed contradictory to
his sacred authority." The Canon Recupero lost his church preferment on
the publication of Brydone's book, and the whole body of clergy of
Girgenti received a reprimand on account of a capital story which
Brydone told of a dinner at which the Bishop presided, during which
several of the reverend Canons suffered severely from the effects of
English punch, which Brydone had brewed for them. We quite agree with
Admiral Smyth when he says, "It is a pity that Mr. Brydone laboured
under such a cacoethes, as to sacrifice a friend for the sake of a good
story." Of course we now know that Recupero's estimate of the age of
Etna was far within the true limits, but we derive this information
from other sources. No true estimate can be obtained from the
observation of the decomposition of lavas, for it has been often
observed that two lavas will decompose at very different rates.
A little to the north of the village of La Scaletta, at the base of the
rocks upon which Aci Reale stands, there are two small caverns in the
abrupt face of the basalt, which can only be approached in a boat. They
consist of columnar basalt bent very curiously, and capped by amorphous
basalt.
A drive of a few miles to the South of Aci Reale brings us to Trezza, a
small village built of lava. A short distance from the shore are the
celebrated _Scogli di Ciclopi_, or rocks of the Cyclops, said to be
those which Polyphemus hurled at Ulysses after his escape from the cave.
The rocks, seven in number, form small islets, the largest of which, the
Isola d'Aci, is about 3000 feet in circumference, and 150 feet high. It
consists of crudely columnar basalt capped by a kind of marl. Near the
top of the island there is a cave called the "Grotto of Polyphemus,"
also a cistern of water. To the south of this island a very picturesque
rock rises from the sea. It is 2000 feet in circumference and about 200
feet in height, and consists of columnar basalt in four and eight-sided
prisms, but not very regular; a hard calcareous substance is found in
their interstices. Fine crystals of analcime are sometimes met with in
the basalts of the Cyclops Islands. Lyell considers these basalts "the
most ancient monuments of volcanic action within the region of Etna."
A few miles south of the Isole di Ciclopi are the bay and city of
Catania. We started from the latter when we commenced our ascent of
Etna, and now on returning to it, we completed the circuit of the
mountain by its base-road of 87 miles.
Katana (~Katane~) is believed to have been founded about 730 B.C.
by a Greek colony of Naxos, which had originally come from Chalcis. The
city maintained its independence till the time of Hieron, who expelled
the original inhabitants in 476 B.C., and peopled the city with
Syracusans and inhabitants of the Peloponnesus to the number of 10,000.
At the same time the name of the city was changed to Aetna ([Greek:
Aitne]). In 461 B.C., however, the old inhabitants retook their city,
and drove out the newly-settled strangers, who betook themselves to
Inessa, occupied it, and changed its name to _Aetna_. At a later period
the Katanians sided with the Athenians against the Syracusans. But in
403 B.C. Dionysius of Syracuse took and plundered the city, sold the
inhabitants as slaves, and established in it a body of Campanian
mercenaries. The latter quitted it and retired to Aetna in 396 B.C.,
when the city was taken by the Carthaginians after a battle off the
rocks of the Cyclops. Katana submitted to the Romans in 263 B.C.,
during the first Punic War, and it soon became a very populous city.
Cicero mentions it as a wealthy city and important seaport. During the
Middle Ages it underwent many changes both at the hands of nature and of
man; it belonged in succession to the Goths, Saracens, and Normans; and
in 1169 was destroyed by an earthquake, during which 15,000 of its
inhabitants perished. Again in 1669, and 1693, it was almost destroyed
by earthquakes. The present town is comparatively new, many of its more
ancient remains are covered with lava, among them the remains of a fine
Greco-Roman theatre, in which it is probable that Alcibiades addressed
the Catanians in 415 B.C. There are also remains of a Roman
amphitheatre, bath, and tombs. Of more modern structures, the cathedral
is the first to claim our notice. It was commenced by Roger I. in 1091,
but in less than a century was almost entirely destroyed by an
earthquake. At one corner of the building you descend through a narrow
passage cut in the lava, to a crypt in which some ancient Roman arches
are shown, partly filled up with lava. Here also is seen a small stream
of very clear water flowing through the lava. The cathedral contains
several interesting tombs, and in the chapel of S. Agata, her body is
preserved in a silver sarcophagus, which during certain fetes is carried
through the town in procession, attended by all the authorities. S.
Agata was martyred by the Praetor Quintianus in the reign of Decius, and
is the patron saint of the city. Whenever Catania has been in trouble
from the approach of lava streams, or from earthquakes, the veil of S.
Agata has been used as a charm to avert the evil.
The University of Catania is the most celebrated in Sicily. It was
founded in 1445 by Alfonso of Arragon, and has produced several men of
eminence. The city also possesses one of the finest monasteries in the
world, now converted into schools and barracks. Formerly the monastery
of S. Nicola was occupied by 40 monks, all members of noble families; it
is sufficiently large to hold 400.