ISCHIA AND THE LADY OF THE ROCK
Embarking at Torregaveta, the little terminus of the _Ferrovia Cumana_,
which traverses the classic district of the Phlegraean Fields, we are
quickly transported in a small coasting steamer past the headland of
Misenum to the island and port of Procida, the “alta Prochyta” of Virgil.
Although the poet calls the island lofty, it is remarkably flat
considering its volcanic origin, for Procida and Ischia were undoubtedly
one in remote ages, as the learned Strabo rightly conjectured. Its only
eminence is the Rocciola, the castle-crowned hillock to the north-east of
the island, but as this hill must first have caught the expectant eye of
Aeneas’ steersman, perhaps the epithet is after all not so misplaced as
would appear at first sight. Carefully tilled and densely populated, the
island produces a large proportion of the fruit, vegetables, and olive
oil, that are sold in the Naples market, and as it possesses no remains of
antiquity, no medieval churches, no works of art, and but few beauties of
nature to recommend it for inspection, Procida is rarely visited by
strangers. Its inhabitants, who are chiefly husbandmen, are hard working
and independent, and content also to retain the manners and customs of
their frugal forefathers, and even to a certain extent to continue the use
of their national dress, so that the festivals of Procida have more
interest and local colour than those observed in tourist-haunted Capri or
Sorrento. Unconcerned at the progress of the world without, unspoiled by
the gold of the _forestiere_, the Procidani pursue the even tenor of their
old-fashioned ways, unenvious of and unenvied by their neighbours on the
mainland.
“O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona nôrint,
Agricolas!”
We halt at the port of Procida, with its flat-roofed gaily coloured houses
lining the quay and ascending the gentle slope towards the Rocciola.
Thence, skirting the low-lying fertile shores of the island, and passing
the olive-clad islet of Vivara, we soon come in sight of the steep
headland on which are perched the grey masses of the Castle of Ischia,
“the Mount St Michael of Italy.”
Covered from base to summit with fume-weed, lentisk, aromatic cistus, and
every plant that loves the sun, the wind and the salt foam of the
Mediterranean, the huge solitary cliff rises majestically from the deep
blue water. Whether viewed in brilliant sunshine under a cloudless sky, or
in foul weather, when the sea is hurling its waves over the stone causeway
that connects the isolated crag with the little city of Ischia, the first
sight of this historic castle is singularly impressive. Nor is its
grandeur lessened on a near approach, for the ascent to its topmost tower
takes us through a labyrinth of staircases and mysterious subterranean
passages, through vaulted chambers and curious hanging gardens to an airy
platform, which commands a glorious view in every direction over land and
sea.
Built by Alphonso V. of Aragon in the fifteenth century, this massive
pile, half-fortress and half-palace, is famous in Italian annals for its
long association with the noble poetess Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of
Pescara. Born in the old Castle of Marino, near Rome, one of the
strongholds of the great feudal house of Colonna, the poetess, who was
great-great-niece to Pope Martin V., was betrothed in her infancy at the
instigation of King Ferdinand of Naples to the youthful heir of the
d’Avalos family, hereditary governors of the island of Ischia. The elder
sister of Vittoria’s affianced husband, Constance d’Avalos, the widowed
Duchess of Francavilla, was the “châtelaine” of Ischia during her
brother’s minority, so that it was but natural that his Colonna
bride-elect should be sent to dwell with Constance in this castle. Here
Vittoria under her sister-in-law’s excellent tutelage grew up to womanhood
amidst the intellectual atmosphere of the Italian Renaissance, and here
she was trained to develop into one of the most learned, the most
interesting and the most attractive figures that all Italy produced at
this period. Childless in her early marriage at eighteen, and with her
husband frequently, not to say usually, engaged in military expeditions on
the mainland, Vittoria had every opportunity of cultivating her mind and
of filling her sea-girt palace with men of genius. The poets Cariteo and
Bernado Tasso (the father of Torquato Tasso), were frequent visitors at
this
“Superbo scoglio, altaro e bel ricetto,
Di tanti chiari eroi, d’ imperadori,
Orde raggi di gloria escono fuori,
Ch’ ogni altro lume fan scuro e negletto.”
Strange to relate, her husband, the Marquis of Pescara, was destined to
forestall his learned lady in the matter of poetry, for during his
imprisonment at Milan in the year 1512, he composed a “Dialogo d’Amore” to
send to his sorrowing wife at Ischia, a production which the learned Paolo
Giovio, the historian and bishop of Nocera, pronounced as being “summae
jucunditatis,” though in reality it seems to have been feeble enough. But
however halting and commonplace the warrior’s verses, Pescara’s
composition had the immediate effect of opening the flood-gates of his
wife’s poetic temperament, for she replied at once to her spouse’s effort
with an epistle conceived in the _terza rima_ employed by Dante, and
though the poem is turgid in diction and shallow in thought, full of
classical names and allusions, “a parade of all the treasures of the
school-room,” it exhibits the graceful ease and high scholarship which
mark all Vittoria’s writings. Meanwhile, unblest with offspring of her own
and ever separated by the cruel circumstance of war from the husband she
seemed perfectly content to admire from a distance, Vittoria did not
expend all her time at Ischia in sacrificing to Apollo and the Muses, for
she now undertook the education of her husband’s young cousin and heir,
Alphonso d’Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, whose manhood certainly did credit
to his instructress, for del Vasto under her influence grew up to be a
brave soldier and a tolerable scholar.
After sixteen years of married life with a husband who, although
professing deep devotion to his brilliant and virtuous consort, was almost
invariably absent from her side, Vittoria found herself left a widow
shortly after the great battle of Pavia in 1525 wherein Francis I. of
France surrendered to the Emperor Charles V. The Marquis of Pescara, after
the usual career of bloodthirsty adventures which passed in those days for
a life of knight-errantry, died at Milan towards the close of this year,
leaving behind him an unenviable reputation for treachery towards his
master. But however hard were the things said of the deceased Fernando
d’Avalos by the outside world, no breath of suspicion seems ever to have
penetrated to the heart of the faithful if placid Vittoria, who mourned
bitterly if somewhat theatrically over her departed hero. The Lady of the
Rock was now in her thirty-fifth year, and her beauty, so we are told,
still remained undimmed; in fact it was rather improved by a tendency
towards plumpness, for sorrow and poetry are not necessarily associated
with a meagre appearance. Spending her time partly in the great Italian
cities, but chiefly on her beloved _scoglio superbo_, the widow of Pescara
now set herself to write that series of sonnets in memory of her dead
husband which have rescued his unworthy name from oblivion and have
rendered her own famous in Italian literature. For the sonnets of Vittoria
Colonna, though appearing cold classical and pedantic to our northern
ideas, evidently appeal to the Italian temperament, so that the praises of
Pescara and his widow’s stilted complaints, couched in the elegant
language of the Renaissance, are still read and appreciated to-day by her
compatriots. As time passed, and the ghost of sorrowful remorse was
supposed to be decently laid, the sonnets contain somewhat less of
hero-worship, and assume a religious and speculative character. Some
critics have even gone so far as to affect to perceive a latent spirit of
Protestantism underlying the graceful platitudes and commonplace but
grandly expressed ideas. Very likely the Lady of the Rock dabbled in the
fashionable heterodoxy of the hour, as it is at least certain that she was
on terms of intimacy with the celebrated Princess Renée, the “Protestant”
Duchess of Ferrara. On the other hand, several of her acquaintances and
correspondents were amongst the most prominent of the unyielding Churchmen
of the day; in their number being, it is interesting to note, Cardinal
Reginald Pole, great-nephew of King Edward IV. of England and afterwards
Queen Mary’s Archbishop of Canterbury, who was certainly not likely to
encourage Vittoria’s unorthodox or reforming tendencies. “The more
opportunity,” so writes the poetess to Cardinal Cervino, afterwards Pope
Marcellus II., “I have had of observing the actions of his Eminence the
Cardinal of England, the more clear has it seemed to me that he is a true
and sincere servant of God. Whenever, therefore, he charitably condescends
to give me his opinion on any point, I conceive myself safe from error in
following his advice.” And on the strength of Cardinal Pole’s astute
counsels, Vittoria promptly broke off all communication with the leading
reformer, Bernardino Ochino, and (a thing which does not strike us as
particularly honourable) forwarded his letters to herself unopened to his
spiritual adversaries. But it is evident that Vittoria’s “Protestantism”
was a mere pose, assumed at a time when adverse criticism from all sides
was being levelled at the political abuses of the Papacy and at the
various scandals in the Church which were patent to the eyes of all
onlookers. In short her religious verses are if anything more frigid and
artificial than those which compose the _In Memoriam_ to her husband, her
_Bel Sole_, as she usually terms him. Whilst admitting considerable merit
in Vittoria’s compositions, we find it at this distance of time very
difficult to understand the extravagant praise which was showered upon her
poems by the Italian critics of the day, or to conceive how a sonnet from
the gifted pen of the Marchioness of Pescara could possibly have been
considered an important event in the literary world by cardinals, princes,
poets, wits and scholars. From Naples to Rome, from Rome to Ferrara, from
Ferrara to Mantua and Milan, the precious manuscript containing the
last-born sonnet of the illustrious Lady of Ischia was eagerly passed
along. Court poets read aloud amidst breathless silence the divine
Vittoria’s fourteen lines of jejune sentiment draped in folds of elegant
verbiage; nobles and prelates applauded, hailing the authoress as a
heaven-sent genius. Sincere to a certain extent this strange admiration
undoubtedly was, although the homage was paid perhaps in equal proportions
to the excellence of the verse and to the high rank of the author. She was
a Colonna by birth; she was the widow of a petty despot; she was governor
of a large island;—any literary production, however indifferent, from so
high a personage would have been received throughout Italy with respect or
flattery. But Vittoria was no mean or careless aspirant to fame; it was
the fault of an artificial age rather than the lack of her own natural
ability that has made her poetry cold and soulless, for under healthy
conditions of life and thought, “the Divine Vittoria” was doubtless
capable of producing something warmer and more human than the lifeless but
graceful sonnets that bear her name.
It is chiefly through her close connexion with the great literary movement
of the Italian Renaissance and her intimacy with its leading artists and
writers, rather than through her own reputation as a poetess, that the
name of Vittoria Colonna herself is remembered outside the borders of
Italy. With her wealth, her culture, her virtue and her unique position in
the world of rank and of letters, it is nothing marvellous that so
fortunate and gifted a mortal should have become the idol of the leading
persons of her day. She belonged, in fact, to a brilliant and famous group
of which she was the soul and centre; of which she was at once the patron,
the disciple and the teacher. That great master of Italian prose, Pietro
Bembo, set a high value on her powers of criticism; other men, almost as
distinguished as the Venetian cardinal, besought her for advice on
literary subjects. Foremost in her circle of admirers appears of course
the great Michelangelo, with whom the immaculate Vittoria condescended to
indulge in one of those cold platonic pseudo-passions which constituted
the true _divino amore_ of the idealists of the Renaissance. So here was
nothing to cavil at, nothing to arouse base suspicion. Considered the
greatest man and the greatest woman in all Italy, both were of mature age,
he in the sixties and she in the forties, when Michelangelo first
professed himself seized with a pure but unquenchable love and devotion
for the widowed Lady of the Rock.
The last days of Vittoria, which were chiefly spent within the walls of
the Convent of Sant’ Anna at Rome, were clouded by ill-health and sorrow.
The death of the young Marchese del Vasto, “her moral and intellectual
son,” was an irreparable loss, for which her boundless fame and popularity
could offer little real consolation. At length the poetess, feeling death
approaching, moved to the house of Giulia Colonna, her relative, and there
expired in February 1547, in the fifty-seventh year of her age. To the
last her death-bed was surrounded by sorrowing and adoring friends,
amongst them being Michelangelo, who is said to have witnessed with his
own eyes the last moments of his beloved Lady. And the famous sculptor,
painter and poet—perhaps the most stupendous genius the world has yet
produced—is reported to have bitterly regretted in after years that on so
solemn an occasion he had not ventured to imprint one chaste kiss upon the
forehead of the woman he had adored so ardently, yet so purely during
life. By her expressed wish the body of the poetess was buried in San
Domenico Maggiore at Naples, the finest and least spoiled of all the
Neapolitan churches, where a velvet-covered coffin containing the ashes of
the Divine Vittoria and her “Bel Sole,” and surmounted by the sword,
banner and portrait of Fernando d’Avalos, is still pointed out to the
stranger, resting on a shelf in the sacristy of the church. We cannot but
regret that Vittoria’s body did not find a final resting-place in her
_superbo scoglio_, where all her happiest years were spent and where her
memory still survives so fresh.
Sadly deserted appear to-day the historic buildings, which are fast
falling into hopeless decay; even the large domed church of the Castle has
been desecrated and turned into a stable.
“Tocsins from yon bleak turrets never ring;
No knight or pages pace those galleries,
So sombre and so silent: ever cling
To that cold church and palace draperies
Of glaucous fume-weed; sea-birds ever sing
The vanished glories with low mournful cries.”
Ischia itself is a quaint, dirty, straggling town, possessing a small
cathedral of ancient foundation, but modernised within and without, its
sole object of interest being a curious font resting on marble lions. The
charm of the city lies chiefly in the busy scenes to be witnessed daily on
its sandy beach and on the stone causeway that leads to the Castle, where
a large part of the population seems to spend most of its time in mending
the deep brown fishing nets or in attending to the gaudily painted boats.
Almost adjoining the outskirts of the little capital of the island is
Porto d’Ischia, with a deep circular harbour that was once the crater of
an extinct volcano, wherein every variety of Mediterranean fishing craft
is to be seen at anchor. Close to the port, embowered among groves of
orange and lemon trees that in winter time are laden with bright or pale
yellow fruit, stands a fine old villa of the Bourbon kings of Naples, once
a favourite summer retreat of his Majesty King Bomba. Royalty has long
abandoned Ischia, and the villa has now been converted into a bath house.
Beyond its neglected park stretches an extensive pine forest, carpeted in
spring time with daisies, marigolds and anemones, and even in February gay
with yellow oxalis and redolent with the scent of hidden violets.
The road from Ischia to Casamicciola, a distance of four miles, leads
along the base of Monte Epomeo through olive groves and vineyards, the
whitewashed walls of the domed cottages, the flat roofs and cisterns, and
the frequent clumps of aloe or prickly pear giving an Eastern aspect to
the scenery, though the sharp tinklings of the goat bells among the
thickets of white heath and dark myrtle scrub on the hill-sides and the
continual murmur of the waves breaking on the rocks below, serve to remind
us we are upon the Neapolitan Riviera. Our destination at length is
reached, the roadway crossing the deep valley of the Gurgitello with its
sulphur baths, which once had a wide reputation and are still much
frequented in the summer months by the people of Naples. Although the
sources of the springs were certainly damaged by the earthquake of 1883,
new bathing establishments have been built, and a fair number of patients
are once more availing themselves of these beneficent waters, which of
course are warranted to heal every bodily evil under the sun. A course of
the Ischian waters therefore applied externally and internally (so the
local doctors inform us)
“Muove i paralitici,
Spedisce gli apopletici,
Gli asmatici, gli asfitici,
Gl’ isterici, i diabetici
Guarisce timpanitidi,
E scrofule e rachitidi.”
Formerly the most populous and prosperous township of the whole island,
Casamicciola consists to-day principally of a mass of shapeless ruins,
together with a number of dismal corrugated iron huts grouped round an
ugly modern church, nor can its exquisite views and luxuriant gardens make
amends for the settled air of melancholy which continues to brood over
this unlucky spot. Every reader will doubtless remember the story of the
terrible earthquake of July 28th 1883, when almost without warning the
whole town, then crowded with its usual influx of summer visitors, was
overthrown and engulfed in the space of a few seconds of time. Hotels,
villas, churches, cottages, all suffered equally, and though the exact
number of those who perished of all classes will never be known, the most
moderate accounts put the figure as high as 3000 souls. Several English
people lost their lives in that brief but terrible upheaval, and as many
of the bodies as were recovered from the wreckage were laid to rest in the
little cemetery outside the town, a plot of ground overhanging the sea,
and shaded by cypress and eucalyptus trees. Many and impressive are the
stories still to be heard from the lips of the present inhabitants, who
are wont to date all events from that fearful night of darkness and
destruction, and who all have piteous tales to tell of relations killed
and houses shattered. The English landlady of the _Piccola Sentinella_,
who herself had an almost miraculous escape on the occasion, gave us a
most vivid and heart-rending description of how her hotel and most of its
inmates were overwhelmed on that awful July night, and how the existing
inn is literally built upon foundations that are filled with many
unrecovered bodies of victims. It was on a dark sultry night after the
evening meal had been finished, when the many guests of the _Piccola
Sentinella_ were sitting in the public rooms or on the terrace overlooking
the hotel gardens. In the _salon_ a young Englishman, an accomplished
musician, had been playing for some time on the piano, when suddenly and
unexpectedly he plunged into the strains of Chopin’s _Marche Funèbre_,
which had the immediate effect of scattering his audience, since many of
his listeners, not caring for so melancholy a piece of music, deserted the
room for the garden. Lucky indeed were those persons driven forth by the
strains of Chopin’s dirge, for a few moments later came the earthquake,
when in a trice the whole hotel was swallowed up in the yawning chasm of
the earth. Everybody inside the walls was killed, and the body of the poor
pianist was actually discovered later amidst the wreckage, crushed down
upon the instrument which had struck the warning notes of impending
disaster. The horrors of that night still linger vividly in the memory of
the people, and many are the terrible incidents, and many also, we are
glad to say, the acts of bravery which are recorded of it. One elderly
English lady, who owned a small villa on the slope above the hotel, rushed
at the first suspicion of the catastrophe into the stone archway of a
window, whence she beheld the whole of her house collapse like a castle of
cards around her. Nothing daunted by the spectacle, this gallant woman, as
soon as the shock had ceased and the clouds of dust rising from the ruin
had cleared away, left her own dismantled home, of which nothing but the
one wall that had sheltered her remained standing, and joined the
_parrocco_, the parish priest of Casamicciola, in the task of succouring
the living and comforting the dying. To the darkness of the night was now
added a heavy rainfall, yet the good priest and this noble woman traversed
together the altered and devastated scene amidst the wet and gloom on
their errand of mercy. It is some satisfaction to learn that this piece of
unselfish heroism and devotion on the part of the priest was officially
acknowledged, for the humble curate of Casamicciola was afterwards made a
prelate by Pope Leo XIII. in recognition of his signal services. Even
to-day people are inclined to be somewhat chary of spending any length of
time in this unfortunate spot, where the ruined streets and shapeless
mounds of earth, only too suggestive of a latter-day Pompeii, speak so
eloquently of terrible experiences in the past and of possible dangers in
the future. Nevertheless, if one can triumph over these gloomy feelings,
Casamicciola affords a delightful centre whence to explore the whole
island, and many are the pleasant walks to be found on the overhanging
slopes of Mont’ Epomeo, and many the boating expeditions to be made from
the Marina below the upper town.
[Illustration: ON THE PICCOLA MARINA, CAPRI]
It is a two-mile walk through stony lanes overhung by branches of fig and
orange from Casamicciola to Lacco, a large village well situated on a
little bay which is distinguished by a curious mushroom-shaped rock, aptly
nicknamed “Il Fungo” by the natives. This place, which also suffered
severely in the earthquake of 1883, is the head-quarters of the
straw-plaiting industry of the island, the women and children noisily
beseeching every chance visitor to buy their wares in the guise of
baskets, hats and fans; the pretty coloured tiles (_mattoni_), which are
used with such good effect in the churches and houses of the island, are
likewise manufactured here. Lacco is particularly associated with the
great annual festival of St Restituta on May 17th, which is always marked
by religious processions and by universal merry-making, followed by
illuminations and fireworks at nightfall. This saint, of whom an early
mosaic portrait still exists in her ancient chapel within the Neapolitan
Cathedral, was once the patroness of the city of Naples, but since
medieval times she has been honoured as the special guardian of this
island, whither her body (so the legend runs) was miraculously conveyed
from Egypt in a boat rowed by angels. A local tradition also asserts that
on her landing by the beach of Lacco, an Egyptian lotus bloom was found in
the saint’s hand, as fresh as when it had been plucked months before from
the banks of the Nile.
Leaving the little bay with its sulphur-impregnated sands, and turning
inland, we proceed along a road across an ancient lava-stream over-grown
with pine trees, wild caper and a tangle of aromatic brushwood, to Forio,
which with its white domed houses, its palm trees, and its stately
bare-footed women bearing tall pitchers on their heads gives at first
acquaintance the full impression of an Oriental city. There is little to
be seen in Forio itself, with the exception of some fine vestments of
needlework that are preserved in the sacristy of its principal church, but
no traveller should fail to visit its wonderfully picturesque Franciscan
monastery, a barbaric-looking pile of dazzling white walls and cupolas set
against a background of cobalt waters, which stands outside the town on a
rocky platform jutting into the Mediterranean and is approached by a broad
flight of marble steps adorned with most realistic figures of souls
burning in brightly painted flames of Purgatory. This point too commands a
good view of the extreme north-eastern promontory of the island, a tall
cliff known as the Punta del Imperatore in honour of the great Emperor
Charles the Fifth, beyond which visitors rarely penetrate owing to the
roughness, or rather non-existence of roads, though the southern side of
the island, which lies between this cape and the castle of Ischia, is
fully as beautiful as the northern portion just described.
The chief attraction, however, of a visit to Ischia is the ascent of Mont’
Epomeo, an easy expedition on foot to the active, and feasible to the weak
or lazy on mule-back. This extinct volcano, whose broad lofty summit is
visible from many points of the Bay of Naples, is naturally rich in
classical associations, the ancients believing that within it lay
imprisoned the giant Typhoeus, whose agonised movements were wont to cause
the frequent eruptions of the crater that eventually drove away the early
Greek settlers from this island—the Aenaria or Inarime of antiquity—and in
later times accounted for the neglect of Ischia as a winter resort by the
luxurious Romans, in spite of its near presence to fashionable Baiae. So
destructive of life and property were these convulsions of nature, that
for long periods, notwithstanding its fertile soil and its lucrative
fisheries, the island remained uninhabited, and an old tradition,
mentioned by Ovid, derives one of its ancient names, Pithecusa, from a
race of apes (_pithēkoi_) that dwelt on its abandoned shores. Since the
great eruption of 1302, the effects of which can still be traced among the
large pine woods near Porto d’Ischia, the mountain has been quiescent, and
the population of the island has increased considerably, although the
constant shocks of earthquake have always made a permanent residence in
Ischia somewhat insecure. Nor can we rest assured that Typhoeus himself is
truly dead, not merely sleeping, but ready to renew his fierce efforts
after his long spell of slumber, and to change the face of nature as
unexpectedly as did the Demon of Vesuvius in the reign of Titus.
Like the great volcano of Etna, which the Ischian mountain somewhat
resembles on a tiny scale. Epomeo contains three distinct climatic zones.
The lowest is that of the coast line with its rich sub-tropical
vegetation, the early part of the ascent leading by steep stony paths
through sun-baked vineyards which produce the white wine of Ischia,
wholesome and light but somewhat acid in taste. For the storing of this
vintage the peasants make use of the numerous old stone towers, that once
served as safe retreats for the terrified inhabitants in times when the
Barbary pirates frequently descended on the Italian coasts to plunder and
enslave. Very curious it is to step out of the blinding sunlight into the
interior of one of these medieval buildings, where in the icy gloom stand
great barrels of the new white wine, each carefully inscribed with a
prayer in praise of St Restituta, from one of which the swarthy
_contadino_, in expectation of a few pence, draws a glassful of the sour
chilly liquid to offer his visitor. Leaving behind this region of houses
and of cultivation, the zone of forest is reached, covered with woods of
chestnut and oak, with a thick undergrowth of heather, myrtle, laurustinus
and sweet-scented yellow coronella; there is grass under our feet, and
long-stemmed daisies, violets, mauve anemones and small fragrant marigolds
everywhere. Through the trees comes the nasal but not unmelodious singing
of an unseen charcoal-burner, or the plaintive note of the little
goat-herd’s rustic pipe, accompanied by the musical jingling of his
goat-bells;—for a moment we try to fancy ourselves in the pastoral Italy
of Theocritus, where nymphs and shepherds, peasants and dryads, lived
together on terms of amity in the woods. But soon the chestnut trees
appear stunted, and the groves become less thick, and we finally gain the
last zone, the desolate expanse of naked rock and dark lava deposits of
the summit, where only a few hardy weeds can thrive. Here in some damp
mouldy chambers dwells a hermit, for nearly all the classic mountains of
Southern Italy are tenanted by an anchorite, generally an old and
ignorant, but pious peasant, of the type of Pietro Murrone, the holy
recluse of the Abruzzi, who was finally dragged from his cell to be
invested forcibly with the pontifical robes and tiara as Celestine the
Fifth. The present hermitage on Mont’ Epomeo dates however from
comparatively modern times, for its first occupant is said to have been a
German nobleman, a certain Joseph Arguth, governor of Ischia under the
first Bourbon king, who in consequence of a solemn vow made in battle
deliberately passed his last years of existence on the topmost peak of the
island he had lately ruled. His example has been followed and his cell
filled by many successors, who have endured the spring rains, the summer
heats, the autumn storms and the winter chills upon this airy height,
where the glorious view may be found a compensation for eternal
discomfort, if hermits condescend to appreciate anything so mundane as
scenery. The shrine and cell are dedicated to St Nicholas of Bari, and to
this circumstance is due the local uninteresting name of Monte San Niccolò
to the entire mountain, whose crest, some 3000 feet above sea-level, we
finally gain by means of steps roughly hewn in the lava.
The view from this height, embracing two out of the three historic bays of
the Parthenopean coast, is one of the noblest and most extensive in
Southern Italy. Looking southward, the fantastic cliffs of Capri are seen
to rise abruptly from the ocean; beyond them appears the graceful outline
of Monte Sant’ Angelo, with the crater of Vesuvius beside it, veiling the
clear blue sky with volumes of dusky smoke. Beneath extends the broken
line of shore, stretching north and south as far as the eye can travel,
with its classic capes and islands basking in the strong sunshine; whilst
behind the foam-fringed boundary of land and sea rises the jagged line of
the Abruzzi Mountains with the huge snow-clad mass of the Gran Sasso
d’Italia towering above the lower peaks. At our feet is spread the
beautiful and fertile island, in outward appearance little changed since
the days when the good Bishop Berkeley “of every virtue under Heaven”
penned its description nearly two centuries ago in a letter to Alexander
Pope, wherein he described Ischia as “an epitome of the whole earth.”
In spite of the good Bishop’s eloquent tribute to the genial climate and
the natural beauty of Ischia, it must be borne in mind that a residence on
the island possesses one or two serious drawbacks. Apart from the
ever-present fear of earthquakes, which hangs like the sword of Damocles
above the heads of the inhabitants, there is yet another disadvantage,
prosaic but very real, in the lack of pure water, every well and rivulet
on Ischia being more or less impregnated with sulphur, with the result
that water for drinking (and in summer even for domestic) purposes has to
be conveyed by boat from Naples. It is bad enough to be dependant on a
distant city for a food supply (which is to some extent also the case
here), but the possibility of enduring a water famine through storms or
misadventure would be a far more serious calamity; nevertheless as casual
visitors to this charming and little-known island, we can easily afford to
smile at such misfortunes.(12)
[Illustration: ISCHIA FROM CASTELLAMARE (SUNSET)]