Oriental trade. One looks in vain for any trace of ruin or shrine that
still suggests the ancient splendors of activity. The strata of the
past, so visible in other mediaeval cities, are not apparent here. The
great cathedral is a most interesting study in the art of
architecture,--its exquisite arcades, its delicate, lofty campanile
glittering in the sun. The green-roofed cupola is a distinctive feature,
and up the many flights of stairs the old Capuccini convent lies,--the
unique, romantic hotel where the cells of the monks are now the rooms of
the perpetual procession of guests. Does the wraith of Cardinal
Capuano, who founded this convent, still wander in midnight hours
through the dim cloisters? Does he still keep watch by the body of St.
Andrew, the apostle, which he is said to have found and brought to the
cathedral where the saint lies, as a saint should lie, gloriously
entombed. St. Andrew was the patron saint of Amalfi, but at his death
his body was carried from Patras to the Bosphorus, where it was placed
in a church in Constantinople. The legend runs that Cardinal Capuano,
being in Constantinople, entered the Church of the Holy Apostles to
pray, and knowing that the body of the saint was in that city, he
besought the heavenly powers to guide him to it. Rising from his
devotions he was approached by an aged priest, who announced to the
Cardinal that the object of his search was in that very church in which
he was praying for guidance; and, aided by unseen powers, he was able to
recover it and convey it to Amalfi. All Italian towns that respect
themselves offer the allurement of an entombed saint and if,
occasionally, the same identical saint does duty for more than one city,
who is to decide the local genuineness of the claim? Nothing in all
Italy is so curious as is this town of staircases instead of streets; of
houses perched on the angles of impossible eyries suggesting that, as
the Venetians go about in gondolas, so the Amalfians must have airships,
or the wings of Icarus, with which to circle in air from their dwellings
to the beach.
The precipitous gorges and dark ravines have on their crests low
parapets of stone walls over which the visitor lingers and leans
watching the bluest of seas lying fair under the bluest of skies. The
main road,--there is only one,--descending from the hill to the water's
edge, makes its progress through a tunnel.
The old Amalfi, with its palaces, its arches and colonnades, lies under
the sea. Just as the Pensione Caterina with its rose walks and terraces
slipped into the sea in December of 1899, when two guests and several
fishermen lost their lives, so the ancient Amalfi fell, its cliffs
swallowed up in the waters below.
"Hidden from all mortal eyes,
Deep the sunken city lies;
Silent streets and vacant halls,
Ruined roofs and towers and walls;
Even cities have their graves!"
When, on a May evening, the white moonlight falls in cascades of silver
sheen over terraces and sea, with Amalfi all alabaster and pearl like a
dream city in the ethereal air; when the stars hang low in the skies and
the fairy lights of the fishermen's boats twinkle far out at sea; when
the summer silence is suddenly thrilled by the melody of Neapolitan
songs on the air, as if it were a veritable _chant d'amour_ of
sirens,--then does one believe in the buried city. These rich baritone
voices are surely those of some singers of the buried ages. They are
floating across the centuries since Amalfi had its pride and place among
the great centres of activity. Atrani, Amalfi's twin city, lies in the
adjoining defile of the mountains which arch above them. The strange old
houses are all dazzlingly white, transfigured under the moon to an
unearthly loveliness.
The tragedy of the ruin of Amalfi is related by Petrarca, who was then
living in Naples. It was in 1343 that a terrible cataclysm--an
earthquake accompanied by a tempest--caused the destruction and the
submergence of the city in the sea.
The believers in astrology will find their faith re-enforced by the fact
that a bishop, who was also an astrologist, had read in the stars that
in December of 1343 a terrible disaster would occur on the Naples coast.
It arrived on schedule time. Petrarca, writing of it to Giovanni
Colonna, states that in consequence of the prediction of the bishop, the
people were in a condition of wild terror, endeavoring to repent of
their sins and aspiring to a purer moral life. In this tide of religious
emotion, ordinary occupations were neglected. On the very day of the
calamity people were crowding the churches and kneeling in prayer. At
night, after the people were in bed, the shock came. The sunset had been
fair, the evening quiet, and the people were reassured. But they were
awakened from sleep by the violence of falling walls and the terror of
the tempest. Petrarcha was lodging in a convent, and he heard the monks
calling to one another as they rushed from cell to cell. They hastily
gathered crosses and sacred relics in their hands, and, preceded by the
prior, sought the chapel, where they passed the night in prayer while
the tempest raged outside. The sea broke against the rocks with a fury
that seemed to tear the very foundations of the earth. The thunder
pealed, and mingled with it were the shrieks of the frightened
populace. The rain fell in torrents, deluging the city as if the sea
itself were pouring on it. When the morning came the darkness still
continued. In the harbor broken ships crashed helplessly together. The
sands were strewn with mutilated dead bodies. Between Capri and the
shore the sea ran mountains high. Amalfi was completely destroyed, and
has never regained her prestige.
The cathedral at Ravello has traces of the rich art it once enshrined,
and the rose gardens of the Palazzo Rufolo might enchant Hafiz himself.
The terrace on the very crest of the mountain commands one of the
wonderful views of the world. The cloistered colonnades of this old
Saracenic palace reveal views even to the plains of Paestum. There are
rare mosaics and fragments of bronzes and marbles yet remaining.
The noble Greek ruins at Paestum--the three temples--stand in all the
majesty of utter desolation. They are overgrown with flowers, however,
and they stand "dewy in the light of the rising dawn-star."
"The shrine is ruined now, and far away
To east and west stretch olive groves, whose shade,
Even at the height of summer noon, is gray.
* * * * *
"Yet this was once a hero's temple, crowned
With myrtle boughs by lovers, and with palm
By wrestlers, resonant with sweetest sound
Of flute and fife in summer evening's calm,
And odorous with incense all the year,
With nard and spice and galbanum and balm."
The detour to Paestum is full of significance. The massive columns of the
temples stand like giants of the ages. "It is difficult," writes John
Addington Symonds, "not to return again and again to the beauty of
coloring at Paestum. Lying basking in the sun on a flat slab of stone,
and gazing eastward, we overlook a foreground of dappled light and
shadow; then come two stationary columns built, it seems, of solid gold,
where the sunbeams strike along their russet surface. Between them lies
the landscape, a medley first of brakefern and asphodel and feathering
acanthus and blue spikes; while beyond and above is a glimpse of
mountains, purple almost to indigo with cloud shadows, and flecked with
snow."
The sail from Amalfi to Paestum is one incomparable in loveliness. The
sunshine is all lurid gold. The faint, transparent blue haze fills all
the defiles of the mountains; the cliffs disclose yawning caverns where
vast clusters of stalactites hang; and as the boat floats toward Capri
from the Sorrento promontory its rocky headlands rise and flame into
purple and rose against the glowing sky. Across the Bay of Naples rises
the great city. It stands in some subtle way reminding one of the scene
where one
"... rowing hard against the stream,
Saw distant gates of Eden gleam."
Capri is the idyllic island of prismatic light and shade, of gay and
joyous life. Here Tiberius had his summer palace, and it was from these
shores that he sent the historic letter which revolutionized the life of
Sejanus. The letter--_verbosa et grandis epistola_--is still vivid in
the historic associations of Rome. Capri is one of the favorite resorts
both for winter and summer. Its former modest prices are now greatly
increased, like all the latter-day expenses of Italy; but its beauty is
perennial, and the artist and poet can still command there a seclusion
almost impossible to secure elsewhere in Italy. The distinguished
artist, Elihu Vedder of Rome, has a country house on Capri, and another
well-known artist, Charles Caryl Coleman, makes this island his home.
There are days--sometimes several days in succession--that the sea is
high and the boats cannot run between Naples, Sorrento, and Capri; and
the enforced seclusion is still the seclusion of the poet's dream. For
he shares it with Mithras, the "unconquered god of the sun," whose cult
influenced all the monarchs of Europe and who holds his court in the
Grotto de Matrimonia. Into this grotto one descends by a flight of
nearly two hundred feet; he strolls among the ruins of the villa of
Tiberius, where the very air is still vital and vocal with those strange
and tragic chapters of Roman life. The Emperor Augustus first founded
here palaces and aqueducts. Tiberius, who retired to Capri in the year
27 A.D., had his architects build twelve villas, in honor of the gods,
the largest of these being for Jupiter and known as the Villa Jovis. In
31 A.D. occurred that dramatic episode in Roman history, the fall of
Sejanus, and six years later Tiberius died. The vast white marble baths
he had built for him are now submerged on the coast, and boats glide
over the spot where they stood. The Villa Jovis stood on a cliff seven
hundred feet above the sea, and the traditions of the barbarities and
atrocities that took place there still haunt the island. The natives
apparently regard them as a certain title to fame, but the wise tourists
persistently ignore horrors; life is made for joy, sweetness, and charm;
it is far wiser to think on these things.
And there is charm and joy to spare on lovely Capri. "Sea-mists are
frequent in the early summer mornings, swathing the cliffs of Capri and
brooding on the smooth water till the day wind rises," says John
Addington Symonds. "Then they disappear like magic, rolling in
smoke-wreaths from the surface of the sea, condensing into clouds and
climbing the hills like Oceanides in quest of Prometheus, or taking
their station on the watch towers of the world as in the chorus of the
Nephelai. Such a morning may be chosen for the _giro_ of the island. The
Blue Grotto loses nothing of its beauty, but rather gains by contrast,
when passing from dense fog you find yourself transported to a world of
wavering subaqueous sheen. It is only through the very topmost arch that
a boat can glide into this cavern; the arch itself spreads downward
through the water so that all the light is transmitted from beneath and
colored by the sea. Outside the magic world of pantomime there is
nothing to equal these effects of blue and silver.... Numberless are the
caves at Capri. The so-called Green Grotto has the beauty of moss agate
in its liquid floor; the Red Grotto shows a warmer chord of color; and
where there is no other charm to notice, endless beauty may be found in
the play of sunlight upon roofs of limestone, tinted with yellow,
orange, and pale pink, mossed over, hung with fern, and catching tones
of blue or green from the still deeps beneath.... After a day upon the
water it is pleasant to rest at sunset in the loggia above the sea. The
Bay of Naples stretches far and wide in front, beautiful by reason of
the long fine line descending from Vesuvius, dipping almost to a level,
and then gliding up to join the highlands of the north. Now sun and moon
begin to mingle: waning and waxing splendors. The cliffs above our heads
are still blushing like the heart of some tea-rose; when lo, the touch
of the huntress is laid upon those eastern pinnacles, and the horizon
glimmers with her rising. Was it on such a night that Ferdinand of
Aragon fled from his capital before the French, with eyes turned ever to
the land he loved, chanting, as he leaned from his galley's stern, that
melancholy psalm, 'Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh
but in vain,' and seeing Naples dwindle to a white blot on the purple
shore?"
The roses of Capri would form a chapter alone. What walks there are
where the air is all fragrance of acacia and rose and orange blossoms!
Cascades of roses in riotous luxuriance festoon the old gray stone
walls; the pale pink of the early dawn or of a shell by the seashore,
the amber of the Banskeia rose, the great golden masses of the Marechal
Niel, their faint yellow gleaming against the deep green leaves of
myrtle and frond. The intense glowing scarlet of the gladiolus flames
from rocks and roadside, and rosemary and the purple stars of hyacinths
garland the ways, until one feels like journeying only in his singing
robes. The deep, solemn green of stone pines forms canopies under the
sapphire skies, and through their trunks one gazes on the sapphire sea.
Is Capri the isle of Epipsychidion?
"Is there now any one that knows
What a world of mystery lies deep down in the heart of a rose?"
One walks among these rose-lined lanes, hearing in the very air that
exquisite lyric by Louise Chandler Moulton:--
"Roses that briefly live,
Joy is your dower;
Blest be the Fates that give
One perfect hour.
And, though too soon you die,
In your dust glows
Something the passer-by
Knows was a Rose."
Monte Cassino is one of the most interesting inland points in Southern
Italy,--the monastery lying on the crest of a hill nearly two thousand
feet above the sea. Dante alludes to this in his Paradiso (XXII,
XXXVII), and in the prose translation made by that eminent Dantean
scholar, Professor Charles Eliot Norton, this assurance of Beatrice to
Dante is thus rendered:--
"That mountain on whose slope Cassino is, was of old frequented on
its summit by the deluded and ill-disposed people, and I am he who
first carried up thither the name of Him who brought to earth the
truth which so high exalts us; and such grace shone upon me that I
drew away the surrounding villages from the impious worship which
seduced the world. Those other fires were all contemplative men,
kindled by that heat which brings to birth holy flowers and fruits.
Here is Macarius, here is Romuald, here are my brothers, who within
the cloisters fixed their feet, and held a steadfast heart. And I
to him, 'The affection which thou displayest in speaking with me,
and the good semblance which I see and note in all your ardors,
have so expanded my confidence as the sun does the rose, when she
becomes open so much as she has power to be. Therefore I pray thee,
and do thou, father, assure me if I have power to receive so much
grace, that I may see thee with uncovered shape.' Whereon he,
'Brother, thy high desire shall be fulfilled in the last sphere,
where are fulfilled all others and my own. There perfect, mature,
and whole is every desire; in that alone is every part there where
it always was: for it is not in space, and hath not poles; and our
stairway reaches up to it, wherefore thus from thy sight it
conceals itself. Far up as there the patriarch Jacob saw it stretch
its topmost part when it appeared to him so laden with Angels. But
now no one lifts his feet from earth to ascend it; and my rule is
remaining as waste of paper. The walls, which used to be an abbey,
have become caves; and the cowls are sacks full of bad meal. But
heavy usury is not gathered in so greatly against the pleasure of
God, as that fruit which makes the heart of monks so foolish. For
whatsoever the Church guards is all for the folk that ask it in
God's name, not for one's kindred, or for another more vile. The
flesh of mortals is so soft that a good beginning suffices not
below from the springing of the oak to the forming of the acorn.
Peter began without gold and without silver, and I with prayers and
with fasting, and Francis in humility his convent; and if thou
lookest at the source of each, and then lookest again whither it
has run, thou wilt see dark made of the white. Truly, Jordan turned
back, and the sea fleeing when God willed, were more marvellous to
behold than succor here."
Dante adds that the company "like a whirlwind gathered itself upward,"
and that "the sweet lady urged me behind them, with only a sign, up over
that stairway; so did her virtue overcome my nature. But never here
below, where one mounts and descends naturally, was there motion so
rapid that it could be compared unto my wing."
The time was when Dante and Beatrice met, and he "was standing as one
who within himself represses the point of his desire, and attempts not
to ask, he so fears the too-much." And then he heard: "If thou couldst
see, as I do, the charity which burns among us thy thoughts would be
expressed. But that thou through waiting mayst not delay thy high end, I
will make answer to thee, even to the thought concerning which thou art
so regardful."
The vast monastery of Monte Cassino, lying on the crest of a hill nearly
two thousand feet above the sea, has one of the most magnificent
locations in all Italy. This monastery was founded (in 529 A.D.) by St.
Benedict, on the site of an ancient temple to Apollo. Dante alludes to
this also in the Paradiso (Canto XX, 11). As seen from below this
monastery has the appearance of a vast castle, or fortress. Its
location is one of the most magnificent in all Italy. The old entrance
was a curious passage cut through solid rock and it is still used for
princes and cardinals--no lesser dignitaries being allowed to pass
through it--and within the past thirty years a new entrance has been
constructed. In the passageway of the mediaeval entrance St. Benedict is
said to have had his cell, and of recent years the German Benedictines,
believing they had located the original cell, had it located, restored,
and decorated with Egyptian frescoes. Several of the courts of this
convent are connected by beautiful arcades with lofty arches, and
adorned with statues, among which are those of St. Benedict and his
sister, St. Scholastica. Still farther up the hill, upon the monastery,
stands the church which is built on the site of the ancient one that was
erected by St. Benedict himself--this present edifice dating back to
1637. Above the portals there is a long inscription in Latin relating
the history of the monastery and the church. These portals are solid
bronze, beautifully carved, with inlaid tablets of silver on which are
inscribed a list of all the treasures of the abbey in the year 1006. The
church is very rich in interior decoration of mosaics, rare marbles,
and wonderful monumental memorials. Either side of the high altar are
monuments to the Prince of Mignano (Guidone Fieramosca) and also to
Piero de Medico. Both St. Benedict and his sister, St. Scholastica, are
entombed under the high altar, which is one of the most elaborately
sculptured in all the churches of Italy.
Among the pictorial decorations of this church are a series of fresco
paintings by Luca Giordano, painted in the seventeenth century,
representing the miracles wrought by St. Benedict. In the refectory is
the "Miracle of the Loaves," by Bassano; and in the chapel below are
paintings by Mazzaroppi and Marco da Siena. Nothing can exceed the
richness and beauty of the carvings of the choir stalls. These were
executed in the seventeenth century by Coliccio.
The library of this monastery is renowned all over Europe--indeed, it is
famous all over the world--for its preservation of ancient manuscripts
done by the monks. These are carefully treasured in the archives. Among
them is the record of a vision that came to the monk Alferic, in the
twelfth century, on which it is believed that Dante founded his
immortal "Divina Commedia;" there is also a fourteenth-century edition
of Dante with margined notes; and the Commentary of Origen (on the
Epistle to the Romans), dating back to the sixteenth century; there is
the complete series of Papal bulls that were sent to the monastery of
Monte Cassino from the eleventh century to the present time, many of
them being richly illuminated and decorated with curiously elaborate
seals. There is an autograph letter of the Sultan Mohammed II to Pope
Nicholas IV, with the Pope's reply,--the theme of the correspondence
being the Pope's threat of war. The imperial Mohammed seems to have been
in terror of this, and in his epistle he expresses his willingness, and,
indeed, his intention, to be converted as soon as he shall visit Rome!
Apparently the Holy Father of that day laid little stress on the
sincerity of this offer on the part of the Sultan. Here, too, is a
wonderful correspondence between Don Erasmo Gattola, the historian of
the abbey, and a great number of the celebrated men of his time; and
there are hundreds of other letters, manuscripts, and documents relating
to kings, nobles, emperors, and many of the nobility of the age.
In this monastery there is a most interesting collection of relics, in
bronze, silver, gold, and _rosso antico_. The library proper contains
some eleven thousand volumes, dating back to the very dawn of the
discovery of the art of printing.
Mr. Longfellow, whose poet's pen has pictured so many of the Italian
landscapes and ancient monuments, thus set Monte Cassino to music,
picturing the entire landscape of the Terra di Lavoro region:--
"The Land of Labor and the Land of Rest,
Where mediaeval towns are white on all
The hillsides, and where every mountain's crest
Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall.
* * * * *
"There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town,
Where Juvenal was born, whose lurid light
Still hovers o'er his birthplace like the crown
Of splendor seen o'er cities in the night.
"Doubled the splendor is, that in its streets
The Angelic Doctor as a school-boy played,
And dreamed perhaps the dreams that he repeats
In ponderous folios for scholastics made.
"And there, uplifted, like a passing cloud
That pauses on a mountain summit high,
Monte Cassino's convent rears its proud
And venerable walls against the sky.
"Well I remember how on foot I climbed
The stony pathway leading to its gate;
Above, the convent bells for vespers chimed,
Below, the darkening town grew desolate.
* * * * *
"The silence of the place was like a sleep,
So full of rest it seemed; each passing tread
Was a reverberation from the deep
Recesses of the ages that are dead.
"For, more than thirteen centuries ago,
Benedict fleeing from the gates of Rome,
A youth disgusted with its vice and woe,
Sought in these mountain solitudes a home.
"He founded here his Convent and his Rule
Of prayer and work, and counted work as prayer;
The pen became a clarion, and his school
Flamed like a beacon in the midnight air.
* * * * *
"From the high window, I beheld the scene
On which Saint Benedict so oft had gazed,--
The mountains and the valley in the sheen
Of the bright sun,--and stood as one amazed.
* * * * *
"The conflict of the Present and the Past,
The ideal and the actual in our life,
As on a field of battle held me fast,
Where this world and the next world were at strife."
The monastery of Monte Cassino entertains, as its guests, for dinner or
for a night, all gentlemen who visit it; but there is an alms box on the
ancient gate into which the guest is supposed to place whatever
contribution he pleases for the poor of the place. The Italian
government, in 1866, declared this monastery to be a "Monumento
Nazionale," and it is now a famous ecclesiastical school with some two
hundred students and a resplendent faculty of fifty learned monks under
the direction of the Abbot. Some of the most celebrated prelates in
Europe have been educated at Monte Cassino.
Quite near Monte Cassino, as Longfellow depicts in his lines, is Monte
Aquino, a picturesque hillside where the "Doctor Angelicus," Thomas
Aquinas, was born (in 1224), the son of Count Landulf, in the Castel
Roccasecca. He was educated in the monastery, and one finds himself
recalling here these lines of Thomas William Parsons, entitled "Turning
from Darwin to Thomas Aquinas:"--
"Unless in thought with thee I often live,
Angelic doctor! life seems poor to me.
What are these bounties, if they only be
Such boon as farmers to their servants give?
That I am fed, and that mine oxen thrive,
That my lambs fatten, that mine hours are free--
These ask my nightly thanks on bended knee;
And I do thank Him who hath blest my hive,
And made content my herd, my flock, my bee.
But, Father! nobler things I ask from Thee.
Fishes have sunshine, worms have everything!
Are we but apes? Oh! give me, God, to know
I am death's master; not a scaffolding,
But a true temple where Christ's word could grow."
It was at Aquinum, too, at the foot of Monte Aquino, Juvenal was born.
Near the peaks of Monte Cassino and Monte Aquino is that of Monte Cairo,
five thousand five hundred feet high, from whose summit one of the
finest views of all southern Europe is attained. The Gulf of Gaeta, the
valley of San Germano, the wild and romantic mountain region of the
Abruzzi and a view, too, of the blue sea are in the panorama, bathed in
the opalescent, gleaming lights that often invest the Italian landscape
with jewelled splendor.
"I ask myself, Is this a dream?
Will it all vanish into air?
Is there a land of such supreme
And perfect beauty, anywhere?"
It might have been in this pictured dream-region that Hercules came to
rest.
"When Heracles, the twelve great labors done,
To Calpe came, and there his journey stayed,
He raised two pillars toward the evening sun,
And carved them by a goddess' subtle aid.
Upon their shafts were sacred legends traced,
And round the twain a serpent cincture placed:
'T was at this bound the primal world stood still,
And of Atlantis dreamed, with baffled will."