LA BELLA NAPOLI
[Illustration: Naples (diagram)]
South from Rome the highroad to Naples, and on down into Calabria, at
first follows the old Appian Way, built by Appius Claudius in 312 B. C.
It is a historic highway if there ever was one, from its commencement at
Rome's ancient Porta Capuana (now the Porta San Sebastiano) to Capua.
As historic ground it has been excavated and the soil turned over many,
many times until it would seem as though nothing would be left to
discover. Enough has been found and piled up by the roadside to make the
thoroughfare a continuous "sight" for many kilometres. Great churches,
tombs, vineyards, cypress-wind-breaks and the arches of the Claudian
aqueducts line its length, and if the automobilist is so minded he can
easily put in a day doing the first twenty kilometres.
Velletri, thirty-six kilometres from Rome, is the first town of
importance after passing Albano, practically suburban Rome.
Cisterna di Roma, a dozen kilometres further on, is a typical hill top
town overlooking the Pontine Marshes below.
Terracina, on the coast, sixty-two kilometres beyond Velletri, is the
border town between the north and the south, practically the limit
between the extent of the Papal power and that of the kingdom of Naples.
Terracina sits at sea-level, and in all probability it is none too
healthy an abode, though ten thousand souls call it home and seem
content. It has a sea-view that would make the reputation of a resort,
and the French and Italian Touring Clubs recommend the Hotel Royal,
while the local druggist sells gasoline and oil to automobile tourists
at fair rates--for Italy.
At Formia one may turn off the direct road and in half a dozen
kilometres come to the coast again at Gaeta. The road from Formia runs
through a picture paradise, and an unspoilt one, considering it from the
artist's point of view. Little more shall be said, though indeed it is
not as at Sorrento or Capri, but quite as good in its way, and the
Albergo della Quercia, at Formia, is not as yet overrun with a clientèle
of any sort. This is an artists' sketching ground that is some day going
to be exploited by some one; perhaps by the artist who made the pictures
of this book. Who knows?
Over another fragment of the Appian Way the highroad now continues
towards Naples via Capua.
At Capua the road plunges immediately into a maze of narrow streets and
one's only assurance of being able to find his exit from the town is by
employing a gamin to sit on the running board and shout _destra_ or
_sinistra_ at each turning until the open country is again reached at
the dividing of the roads leading to Caserta and Naples respectively.
The highroad from Capua into Naples covers thirty kilometres of as good,
or bad, roadway as is usually found on entering a great city where the
numerous manifest industries serve to furnish a traffic movement which
is not conducive to the upkeep of good roads. It is a good road, though,
in parts, but the nearer you get to "la bella Napoli" the worse it
becomes, as bad, almost, as the roads in and out of Marseilles or Genoa,
and they are about the worst that exist for automobilists to revile.
By either Averso or Caserta one enters Naples by the rift in the hills
lying back of the observatory, and finally by the tram-lined Strada
Forvia, always descending, until practically at sea-level one finds a
garage close beside the Hotel Royal et des Étrangers and lodges himself
in that excellent hostelry. This is one way of doing it; there are of
course others.
The man that first said "_Vedi Napoli e poi mori!_" didn't know what he
was talking about. No one will want to die after seeing Naples. He will
want to live the longer and come again, if not for Naples itself then
for its surroundings, for Pompeii, Herculaneum, Sorrento, Capri, Amalfi,
Vesuvius and Ischia. Naples itself will be a good place at which to
leave one's extra luggage and to use as a mail address.
The history of Naples is vast, and its present and historic past is
most interesting, but for all that Naples without its environs would be
as naught.
The local proverb of old:
"When Salerno has its port
Naples will be mort (dead),"
has no reason for being any more, for Naples' future as a Mediterranean
seaport is assured by the indefatigable German who has recently made it
a port of call for a half a dozen lines of German steamers. Britain may
rule the waves, but the German is fast absorbing the profitable end of
the carrying trade.
Naples is a crowded, uncomfortable city, for within a circumference of
scarce sixteen kilometres is huddled a population of considerably more
than half a million souls.
Naples' chief charms are its site, and its magnificently scenic
background, not its monuments or its people.
"The lazzaroni," remarked Montesquieu of the Neapolitan "won't-works,"
"pass their time in the middle of the street." This observation was made
many, many years ago, but it is equally true to-day.
Naples is not the only Italian city where one sees men live without
apparent means of existence, but it is here most to be remarked. On the
quays and on the promenades you see men and women without work, and
apparently without ambition to look for it save to exploit strangers. On
the steps of the churches you see men and women without legs, arms or
eyes, and infants _sans chemises_, and they, too, live by the same idle
occupation of asking for alms.
Everywhere at Naples, before your hotel, crowded around your carriage or
automobile, or paddling around in boats just over your steamer's side,
are hoards of beggars of all sorts and conditions of poverty and
probity. The beggar population of Naples is doubtless of no greater
proportions than in Genoa, or even Rome, but it is more in evidence and
more insistent. There are singing beggars, lame, halt and blind beggars,
whining beggars, swimming beggars, diving beggars, flower-selling
beggars and just plain _beggars_. Give to one and you will have to give
to all--or stand the consequences, which may be serious or not according
to circumstances. Don't disburse sterilized charity, then, but keep
hard-hearted.
Naples' chief sights for the tourists are its museum, its great domed
galleries and their cafés and restaurants, its Castello dell'Ovo and the
Castel del Carmine.
The Castello dell'Ovo is out in the sea, at the end of a tiny bridge or
breakwater, running from the Pizzofalcone, one of the slopes of the
background hills of Naples running down to sea-level.
As a fortress the Castello dell'Ovo is outranked to-day by the least
efficient in any land, but one of the Spanish Viceroys, in 1532, Don
Pedro of Toledo, thought it a stronghold of prime importance, due
entirely to its oval shape, which it preserves unto to-day. It is
unique, in form at any rate.
Charles VIII of France, on his memorable Italian journeyings--when he
discovered (sic) the Renaissance architecture of Italy and brought it
back home with him--dismantled the castle and left it in its now
barrack-like condition, shorn of any great distinction save the oval
shape of its donjon. One is bound to remark this noble monument as it is
from its quay that one embarks on the cranky, little, wobbling steamboat
which bears one to Capri. Lucullus, who had some reputation as a good
liver, once had a villa here on the very quay which surrounds the
Castello.
Opposite the Villa del Popolo (near the Porta del Carmine), the People's
Park as we should call it, is a vast, forbidding, unlovely structure.
[Illustration: _Castello dell'Ovo, Naples_]
It was built in 1484 by Ferdinand I, but during Masaniello's little
disturbance it became a stronghold of the people. To-day it serves as a
barracks--and of course as a military prison; all nondescript buildings
in Italy may be safely classed as military prisons, though indeed the
Italian soldiery do not look an unruly lot.
It is well to recall here that Masaniello, who gave his name to an opera
as well as being a patriot of the most rabid, though revolutionary,
type, failed of his ambition and died through sheer inability to keep
awake and sufficiently free from anxiety to carry out his plans.
Masaniello lost his head toward the end and got untrustworthy, but this
was far from justifying either his murder or the infamous treatment of
his body immediately after death by the very mob that the day before had
adored him. His headless trunk was dragged for several hours through the
mud, and was flung at nightfall, like the body of a mad dog, into the
city ditch. Next day, through a revulsion of feeling, he was canonized!
His corpse was picked out of the ditch, arrayed in royal robes, and
buried magnificently in the cathedral. His fisherman's dress was rent
into shreds to be preserved by the crowd as relics; the door of his hut
was pulled off its hinges by a mob of women, and cut into small pieces
to be carved into images and made into caskets; while the very ground he
had walked on was collected in small phials and sold for its weight in
gold to be worn next the heart as an amulet.
The "Villas" of Naples are often mere _maisons bourgeoises_ of modern
date. Many of them might well be in Brixton so far as their
architectural charms go.
Over in the Posilippo quarter, a delightful situation indeed, are
innumerable flat-topped, whitewashed villas, so-called, entirely
unlovely, all things considered. One of these, the Villa Rendel, was
once inhabited by Garibaldi, as a tablet on its wall announces.
Garibaldi and the part that he and his red shirt played are not yet
forgotten. Apropos of this there is a famous lawsuit still in the
Italian courts, wherein the Garibaldian Colonel Cornacci, in accord with
Ricciotti Garibaldi, son of the general, makes the following claim
against the Italian government:
I. All the "_tresor_" (gold and silver) of the house of Bourbon.
II. Eleven millions of ducats taken from the Garibaldian government at
Naples.
III. The Bourbon museum now incorporated with the National Museum.
IV. The Palace of Caserta and its park.
V. The Palace Farnese at Rome.
VI. The Palace and Villa Farnese at Caprarola at Naples.
VII. Two Villas at Naples, Capodimonte and La Favorita.
This is the balance sheet discrepancy resulting from the war of 1860
which the Garibaldian heirs claim is theirs by rights. It's a mere
bagatelle of course! One wonders why the Italian government don't settle
it at once and be done with it!
Naples is the birth-place of Polichinelle, as Paris is of Pierrot, two
figures of fancy which will never die out in literature or art, a tender
expression of sentiment quite worthy of being kept alive.
The Neapolitan, en fête, is quite the equal in gayety and
irresponsibility of the inhabitant of Seville or Montmartre. The
processionings of any big Italian town are a thing which, once seen,
will always be remembered. At Naples they seem a bit more gorgeous and
spontaneous in their gayety than elsewhere, with rugs and banners
floating in the air from every balcony, and flowers falling from every
hand. It is every man's carnival, the celebration at Naples.
Leading out to the west, back of Posilippo, is the Strada di
Piedigrotta, which is continued as the Grotto Nuovo di Posilipo, and
through which runs a tramway, all kinds of animal-drawn wheeled traffic,
and automobiles with open exhausts. All this comports little with the
fact that the ancient tunnelled road along here was one of the marvels
of engineering in the time of Augustus and that it led to Virgil's tomb.
This supposed tomb of Virgil is questioned by archæologists, but that
doesn't much matter for the rest of us. We know that Virgil himself has
said that it was here that he composed the "Georgics" and the "Æneid,"
and it might well have been his last resting-place too.
"Addio, mia bella Napoli! Addio!"