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]