RIVIERA D'AMALFI, AND ITS LONG-DEAD GREATNESS
Loath as every traveller must be to turn his back on Capri and lose
sight of Sorrento lying on its black cliff by the sea, yet it is a
rare moment when first one tops the mountain barrier and sees the Gulf
of Salerno far spreading at one's feet, with the Islands of the Sirens
just below, and away over the blue distance the plain of Paestum, once
a rose garden, now a fever-stricken flat, hemmed in between the
mountains and the sea. The road, traversing the plain as far as Meta,
in the shadow of St. Angelo, commences to ascend by long convolutions,
winding perpetually through orange groves and orchards of amazing
richness and fertility, mounting continually, gaining every moment
wider views over plain and mountain. Directly in the path rises the
sharp cone of Vico Alvano, precipitous and rugged. It seems to block
the way, but suddenly the road sweeps towards the right, the ridge is
gained at last, and all the Gulf of Salerno lies spread out below.
"So I turned to the sea, and there slumbered
As greenly as ever
Those Isles of the Sirens, your Galli;
No ages can sever
The three, nor enable the sister
To join them--half-way
On the voyage, she looked at Ulysses."
There is no escaping the spell of this ancient legend. At every turn
it confronts one, testifying to the passage of unnumbered years since
the first ships sailed upon this lovely gulf which in its time has
seen such mighty armaments. It was shipping which made the power of
the cities on the gulf. By the sea they rose, and by the sea the
noblest of them fell. For Amalfi has been torn away yard by yard;
wharf and palace have been alike engulfed; and now there remains so
little of the ancient city that one must guess and guess again before
discovering where its splendour lay. Its greatness has departed as
utterly as that of Paestum, and though it still teems with people,
while the city of Neptune is desolate and silent, there seems no more
chance for one than for the other that the spirit of old days will
return to animate the present, or set the modern energies towards a
goal which fits their past. What is it, in Heaven's name, which
filches from so many splendid cities the desire to excel, and leaves
them content to see the weeds grow over their past achievements?
I have said already that the mountains of the peninsula show their
sternest face towards Salerno. The road which is carried along these
precipices is of astonishing grandeur. From the very summit of the
mountains the cliffs fall by wide steep slopes to the deep water
washing round their feet. Farms or cottages scarcely exist; the
ravines seem inaccessible. Beaches there are none, save at three or
four points in the long distance to Amalfi; few fishermen dwell on
this barren coast. Only at one or two points are the tunny nets spread
upon the sea; and one may trudge for miles without meeting any soul
but travellers whisked along by their quick-trotting ponies, or here
and there a knot of soldiers lounging, rifle in hand, outside a
guardhouse. The cliff is red and yellow; the grass slopes and the
jutting crags which break them are odorous with rosemary. The road
follows a course meant only for the sea-birds, now buttressed out over
the very face of the abyss, guarded only by a low, crumbling wall, now
driven through the flank of some great headland which could not be
turned. Every yard reminds one that the road is modern, that no
trodden way led along the faces of these cliffs in mediaeval times, and
when one comes at last to the ravine of Positano and looks down on the
old brown town, clinging like a hawk's nest to the steep sides of the
gulley which gives access to the sea, the first thought which occurs
is that here was a site of wondrous strength, secure from all attack
save that which came across the ocean, and faced the perils of a
landing on the narrow beach.
Positano feared nothing from the ocean so long as the banner of Amalfi
flew. For this strange cluster of half abandoned houses, looking now
as if some giant had gone through the streets poking holes in the
baked clay of the walls, was a member of that group of towns and
havens which to the world outside the gulf called itself Amalfi.
Positano, Prajano, Conca, Pontone, Scala, Ravello, Minori, Majori,
Cetara--all these and other communes supplied the hardy sailors and
keen merchants who packed the city with the silks and spices of the
East, who, though traders, retained their nobility, like the gentlemen
of Venice, and whose regard for discipline and social obligations was
so keen that the sea laws they had evolved in their two centuries of
admiralty became the wonder and the pattern of the world.
The standing puzzle on the Riviera d'Amalfi is to discover the
original impulse which gave birth to this commonalty. Whence came the
high spirit and the desire of greatness which burnt so brightly, and
flickered out so utterly, these many centuries ago? If the belief of
some historians be true, Positano, which originally was a monks' town,
a mere cluster of houses in the shadow of a monastery, was made
populous by an influx of refugees from Paestum, fleeing across the gulf
from the pirates who, in the ninth century, gave the _coup de grace_
to that dying city. The tale is not improbable, and it may be that men
born in the shadow of the splendid ruins which we see to-day carried
with them to their new settlement some tradition of past greatness,
which was stung to life again by the shock of their misfortunes. But
the virile energy which made Paestum feared upon the sea must have been
almost a forgotten memory even then, and doubtless one should search
elsewhere for the spirit which breathed life into the growing state.
Whencesoever it came, there was once a high audacity among the seamen
of this small port, little as it counts among the harbours of Italy
to-day. It is here that Flavio Gioja dwelt, by whom, as is boasted at
Amalfi, the mariner's compass was given to the world. It is quite
certain that the polarity of the magnet was known before Gioja lived,
if live he did; but though he was assuredly not the first of mankind
to observe the properties of the needle, it may well be that he did
bring back the knowledge from some trading voyage to the East, and
make it known in his own portion of the earth. If so, was he not
entitled to the honour which his country claims for him? At the end of
the thirteenth century, to which his lifetime is ascribed, discoveries
of science were not noised about the world as they are to-day. The
knowledge of one man radiated only a short distance round his
birthplace. Those strangers who had the wit to appreciate it and
carry it elsewhere earned scarcely less honour, and by as just a
title.
The priests have their own legend in explanation of the name which the
town bears. Over the high altar of the church is a picture of the
Virgin and Child painted on a panel of cedar wood. This picture was
rescued--so the story goes--from the fury of the Iconoclasts; and when
the ship which bore it from Greece was nearing Positano, on its way, I
suppose, to Rome, a miraculous voice was heard upon the sea, saying
over and over again, "Posa, posa!" till at last the sailors heeded,
and brought the ship to land, and called the place Positano in memory
of the event.
The road goes down the ravine beside the town of Positano, yet the old
houses go on lower still, to the very edge of the blue sea, where the
water laps in shadow on the beach. There is a fine cascade rushing
down the hillside opposite the town, and high up on the towering
skyline the crag of rock is pierced by a natural arch. The road,
always grand and beautiful, becomes still wilder when the town is
passed, and for a great way it hangs like a ridge of swallows' nests
midway on the face of such precipices as defy description. The
villages come rarely, and the jutting headlands which cut off all
prospect of the different towns increase the solitude of this
wilderness of mountains. When one has passed Vettica Maggiore, where
the women sit plying distaff and spindle in their doorways, one comes
in contact with the degraded and persistent beggary which makes the
peasants of this coast abhorred of strangers; and having rounded the
great cliff of Capo Sottile, one sees far down in a beautiful gorge
the small beach of Prajano, where two or three boats hauled up on the
gravel, with a cottage under the cliff, make a picture of homely
industry which is indescribably refreshing after the savage grandeur
through which one has come for hours. Ere long one sees the beautiful
headland of Conca, with its castle on the cliff. That point is one of
the boundaries of the Bay of Amalfi; and when it has been rounded one
comes ere long to a bridge thrown across the deep gulley of Furore, so
named, it is said, from the wild surging of the waves through its
rocky hollow in rough weather; and so, passing by many a grotto and
overhanging rock, which seems to totter to its fall, one attains at
last to the ancient city of Amalfi.
A long beach of white and grey gravel, facing full south, lies
sparkling in the sunshine. Here and there the strand is littered by
great boulders which have fallen from the cliff, and the sea washes in
among them, cool and translucent. Long lines of net, brown and red,
are extended on the gravel, and here and there a man sits patching it,
while great numbers more sprawl idle on the warm stones. The main
road, descending the hill through a long tunnel in the cliffs, crosses
the Marina. Half the width between the houses and the beach is
occupied by sheets of sacking, on which yellow rice and macaroni are
spread out to bleach. A couple of brown-legged boys in brilliant
scarlet caps sprawl over the half-dried goods, spreading them to catch
the sun more freely; while all the throng of sailors, women going to
the fountain, children pestering visitors for alms, carriages rattling
at quick pace across the stones, crowd up and down the narrow remnant
of the way as best they can.
The mountains drop so steeply on either side of the ravine, and form
with the sea-front a triangle so narrow, that there is but little
space left for the city. The houses are crowded in strange confusion.
It is a town of long vaulted staircases, branching into dark alleys,
out of which the houses are approached by flights of steps. For
several hundred feet one may climb up these eyries, now tasting the
fresh air and catching a glimpse of the blue sea or the many-coloured
campanile rising out of the huddled town below, now dodging to avoid
the refuse flung from some high window on the stair, till at last a
breastwork is attained which sweeps round a corner of the ravine,
lined with houses and protected by a low wall. On a level space below
are orange trees, growing freely among the housetops; and over all
tower the vast mountains, cramping the space on every hand.
Where, one asks oneself, is old Amalfi? In what region of this dirty,
squalid town of idlers are we to seek the relics of that proud city
for the accommodation of whose Oriental trade, brought out of Asia by
the ancient trade route up the Volga and down the Don, a whole quarter
of Constantinople was an emporium not too large. The banner of Amalfi
floated over hospitals for pilgrims in Jerusalem long ere any other
Christian power was able to protect them, and for the better defence
of the sacred places she called into life the noblest of all military
orders, the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who first at Acre, then
at Rhodes, and lastly on the rocks of Malta, sustained the cause of
Europe against the Turk with a passionate devotion which might well
have shamed the monarchs into imitation. Where are the palaces of
those senators and doges, the council halls, the exchanges, the noble
colonnades such as one sees in other cities not more famous? What has
happened to the churches, and the monasteries? And where in this small
harbour, fit only for the accommodation of a few coasting schooners,
could anchorage have been found for the fleets which sought out the
furthest corner of the East, and flaunted the banner of Amalfi in
every port from Alexandria to Trebizond?
There is no doubt about the answer. All those splendours, all the
apparatus of this once great city, lie beneath the sea. That which we
look upon to-day is not Amalfi, but a shred of it, only the small
segment which the sea has not yet taken, and the crumbling cliff has
spared from the ruin of its landslips. Look at the western point of
the small harbour. There is just room for the road to climb round
between the mountain and the sea. When one stands at the curve of the
highway, underneath the ancient watchtower that guards the entrance,
one sees the deep creek of Atrani, a town continuous in these days
with Amalfi; and beyond the limits of that creek a wider, broader
indent into the mountain wall, making an open valley, on the further
side of which the town of Majori lies under the vast shadow of the
Monte dell'Avvocato. Such is the aspect of the coast to-day, and one
watches the boats plying in deep water from one point to another of
the cliff. But the chronicle of Minori tells us there was once a beach
from Amalfi to Majori! If that be so, if an alteration so immense has
occurred in the aspect of the coast-line, of what use is it for us to
marvel where the argosies lay, or to guess what may have been reft
from us by the encroaching sea?
It is futile to ponder over what is lost. That which remains is rarely
beautiful, a miracle of colour, and of noisy, seething life. Under the
watchtower of which I spoke there is a broad stone seat, which makes a
pleasant resting-place, if only the greedy beggars of the town will be
content to hunt their prey at the Marina, where the crowd is thickest,
and to leave a moment's peace to the traveller who desires nothing
less than their obtrusive help in discovering what it is worth while
to see. From this point one looks across the beach from hill to hill,
and sidewards up the ravine to the brown mountain-tops. In the very
centre of the town rises the campanile of the cathedral, having a
small cupola roofed with green tiles; and on the hill which closes
down on the further side of the town, approached by a stair of many
flights, stand the long, low buildings of the Cappuccini convent, now
a home for saints no longer, but for sinful tourists, a noisy hostelry
alive with the tongues of many nations, all caring more for cookery
than heaven.
The convent was the work of Cardinal Capuano, a noted ecclesiastic of
Amalfi, on whose name one may pause awhile, if only to recall the fact
that it was he who found the body of St. Andrew the apostle, and
brought it from the East to the cathedral, where it rests beneath a
gorgeous shrine--for ever, we may hope, since the days are past in
which even dead cities are rifled of the bones of saints. It is a
strange fate which gives tombs to two apostles on this coast at so
short a distance from each other as Amalfi and Salerno! The good
Cardinal was at Constantinople shortly after the Crusaders sacked it.
All his life he had been eager to find the body of St. Andrew, patron
saint of his native city. He knew it rested in the city on the
Bosphorus, whither it had been carried from Patras centuries before;
but where the shrine lay no man could tell him. At length, after many
fruitless searches, going one day to the Church of the Holy Apostles
to pray, he was approached by an old priest, who revealed himself to
be his fellow-townsman, and declared the treasure which he sought was
in that very church.
At this point the historian Pansa, from whose learned work I extract
this pious tale, is less precise than could be wished. The Cardinal,
he tells us, watched his opportunity, and got the body of the saint,
with several other bodies, more or less complete in their several
parts. But how? Churches rarely give up relics willingly, and it must
have cost much trouble to abstract so many bones. Some interesting act
of theft is here glossed over. One would like to be quite sure,
moreover, that the relics were authentic, though after all there
cannot really be much doubt of that, for St. Andrew had lain at Amalfi
scarce three centuries and a half when he did the town most signal
service. The corsair Barbarossa, often mentioned in these pages,
having been driven off from Pozzuoli by the Viceroy of Naples,
conceived the idea of revenging himself at Amalfi; and would certainly
have accomplished his fell purpose, the sea power of the city being
long since dead, had not St. Andrew, out of a clear summer sky, raised
such a tempest as taught the pirate once for all that he could not
flout a saint with safety.
I wish that the powers which scattered Barbarossa's ships had been
exerted to hold back the ruin which crashed down on the end of the
long buildings of the Cappuccini some six months ago. As I sit looking
across the harbour to the hillside where the convent stands, my sight
is drawn continually by a ghastly scar in the rock at the further end
of the buildings, and beyond it, down to the very level of the sea, is
a hideous ruin--a wild confusion of gigantic boulders projecting from
steep slopes of rubble and debris. One might look at the wreck of this
evident convulsion a hundred times without guessing what was there six
months ago--indeed, what lies there still, crushed and hidden by the
fall of the overhanging cliff.
Just at the entrance of the town the road passes through the Grotto of
St. Christopher. At the mouth of the grotto is a signboard, bearing
the words, "Hotel e Pensione Santa Caterina," with an arrow pointing
to a narrow path cut round the cliff towards the face of the
projecting headland. The path goes nowhere now; after a few yards it
ends in nothing.
At that point one can see no more; but from this seat on the opposite
side of the harbour one looks towards the headland, formerly most
beautiful. For the overhanging cliff was topped with brushwood; it was
chiselled into slopes and hollows, where the shadows lay superbly.
Midway up its height stood the white buildings of the Pensione
Caterina, with its terraced garden; and a winding footway cut below
the Pensione was the access for sailors to a quay and a pretty strip
of beach, where a few boats were hauled up and the larger barks of
fishermen lay moored in safety. So it looked on that December morning,
when, with little warning, all the face of the headland slipped away
and crashed down upon the shore, carrying with it nearly a third part
of the Cappuccini Convent, and burying the whole of the "Santa
Caterina" as completely as if it had never been.
Since that awful catastrophe, in which two ladies and several
fishermen lost their lives, the ruin has lain untouched. Probably it
will continue so, until time has covered up the scars with moss and
lichen, and softened the piteous tale of the two lost ladies with all
the grace and charm of folklore. Landslips and encroachments of the
sea have dealt hardly with Amalfi. Perhaps it is scarcely strange that
a people so buffeted by fate should lose their hope of greatness, and
conceive no interest save the pillage of their guests. Returning to
the centre of the town, I turn off from the marina by the first
archway leading to the piazza, just where a tablet on the wall calls
on Mary by the name of Stella Maris, "Star of the Sea," to aid all
sailors in peril of the deep; and ere quitting the shadow for the
sunlight, I stand in wonder at the beauty of the prospect. The piazza
is irregular in shape, roughly triangular, following the conformation
of the ground. In its midst is an ancient statue round whose base the
pavement is stacked high with vegetables, piles of lettuces and
carrots lighting up the grey shadowy space, round which stand the
high, irregular houses, with quaint alcoves and dark stairs climbing
to the higher stories. There is a deafening babble of tongues,
swarthy, broad-browed women kneeling by their baskets and screaming
ceaselessly at the purchasers, who themselves are no less voluble,
while the confusion is increased by bawling children, of whom some one
is every moment at the traveller's elbow, pestering him with "Signuri,
u' sold'," and clinging like a leech, in spite of the angriest
"Vatten" which stranger-lips can speak.
It is a striking, many-coloured scene of full and vivid life,
material, not to say degraded, in its aspect. But beyond this crowd of
unaspiring humanity, passionate of gain rather than of any
unsubstantial thing, rises the splendid front of the cathedral, set
upon a height, as the temple of the Lord should be. A long and noble
flight of steps, the haunt of squalid beggar children, gives access to
a portico of many arches, rebuilt in recent years, but resting still
on some of its antique pillars; while on the left rises the
many-coloured campanile, its four small turrets clustered about the
central lantern like the apostles standing round the Incarnate Word,
so Volpicella puts it. Ruined and restored, altered by hands of men
who could not comprehend the strivings of the ancient builders, this
lovely structure still bears witness to the spirituality which dwelt
here, as elsewhere in Italy, seven centuries ago. High over the
babble of the degraded town it towers in its old majesty of form and
colour; while higher still the mountain-slopes behind it rise in
terrace beyond terrace into the silent regions of pure sunlight and
fresh, untainted air.
It is the only spot in Amalfi where soul still triumphs over sense.
The interior has been badly modernised, and is less striking. The
sub-church, as happens so often in south Italy, is but little changed,
and its five apses suggest tolerably clearly that the upper church
must at one time have had double aisles. Indeed, one of those aisles
exists still on the north side, though walled off so as to form a
distinct church.
There are many things worth notice in this church, but I shall speak
chiefly of the doors of the main entrance, the great bronze doors of
workmanship so fine that the most careless visitor cannot pass them by
unnoticed. These doors were given to the cathedral by the great family
of Pantaleone, before the year 1066. They are not of Italian
workmanship, but were wrought in Constantinople, with which town, as I
have said before, Amalfi traders held a constant intercourse. It is
not a bad way of realising the extent and importance of that trade to
stand in front of these very beautiful doors, to consider what their
value must have been, and then to reflect that the family of
Pantaleone gave to Italian churches no less than five pairs of similar
doors. These were their first gift. Others were presented to the
Church of San Salvatore a Bireta at Atrani, where the doges of Amalfi
were elected. It is interesting to compare them with these of the
cathedral. Another set went to Rome, but do not now exist; another to
Monte Cassino; while for another benefaction still the Pantaleoni
reached across the peninsula to the Adriatic shore, and presented
bronze doors to the Church of the Archangel upon Monte Gargano, that
great and solitary mountain shrine which in mediaeval days was all and
more than all that Monte Cassino and Monte Vergine are to-day, visited
with at least as much rapture of devotion and far more famous in the
remotest parts of Christian Europe, being indeed the mother church of
Mont St. Michel and our own St. Michael's Mount.
Monte Gargano looks down on the Apulian coast towns, Trani, Bari,
Barletta, and half a dozen more, all of which, by their situation
facing to the east, are and have always been the chief gates of
Oriental trade passing into Italy. Travellers of to-day are apt to
forget the importance of the Adriatic coast throughout Italian
history. It may well be that a great part of the trade between Amalfi
and Constantinople was conducted by sea; but certainly also much
traffic must have passed across the country from coast to coast; and
it is certain that Ravello and Scala traded chiefly with the Apulian
coast towns, maintaining important settlements in every one, and so
securing a share in the Eastern trade at second hand. Thus it is not
surprising to see in the cathedral at Ravello another pair of bronze
gates, about which there is this interesting fact to be noted, namely
that they are not of Constantinople workmanship, though of that
school, but were wrought by Barisanus of Trani, who also made a
similar pair of gates for the cathedral of his own city, and another
for that of Monreale.
Thus the art practised in Constantinople had passed over sea to one of
the most important of the Apulian towns, and in its passage it had
gained nobility. For the work of the Apulian craftsman is finer and
more dignified than that of his Greek master, and indeed Schulz, who
was no mean critic, declared roundly that the Ravello gates were
unmatched save only by those which, by a miracle of craft, Ghiberti
wrought for the baptistery of Florence.
Upon the summit of the mountain which rises behind the cathedral
stands a very noticeable tower. It is of well-authenticated history,
and the guide-books will give all the truth about it. Thus I need
concern myself only with the fable, which I do the more gladly since
it brings on the scene an old acquaintance, no other, indeed, than "La
Regina Giovanna," whom we left behind on the Posilipo. I do not know
of any historical warrant for connecting either Queen Joanna with
Amalfi, though doubtless both visited a city so important in their
day. But the peasants, intent as ever on localising their folklore,
repeat upon this spot all the legends of the luckless Queen, her
lovers and the fate which she reserved for them. I wish some traveller
of leisure would make it his business to collect out of all southern
Italy the various traces of this myth. It has bitten deeply into the
heart of the people from Sicily to Naples, if not further, and in
Provence, which was included in the dominions of the first Joanna, the
tradition is said also to exist. "Si' comme 'a Regina Giuvanna!" is a
taunt which strips the last rag from a woman's character. In Sicily it
is said that the Queen visited her stables nightly and chose her
lovers from her grooms. There is in existence the strangest possible
dialogue in Latin between the Queen and an enchanter, who conjures up
a spirit to foretell her end. It dates from the first half of the
fifteenth century, and embodies what were doubtless the current
traditions when the dissolute life of the second Joanna had revived
and deepened the memory of the failings of the first.
The way to the mountain fastness of Ravello is wild and beautiful. It
turns up across the hill beyond Atrani, and having surmounted the
ridge, drops down again into the valley of the mills, a silent,
shadowy ravine, between the brooding mountains, through which a pretty
brook splashes down from leap to leap. The road winds upwards steadily
till at last the old brown town of Scala is seen on the further side
of the ravine, and a little later the towers of Ravello face it on the
nearer hill. Both are inland villages, deserted in these days by
almost all save peasants. But when Amalfi was great these mountain
cities were great also; and of Ravello a tale is set down by
Boccaccio, which sheds a flood of light on the pursuits of the
dwellers on this coast five centuries ago.
"Near Salerno," says the prince of storytellers, "is a hill country
looking on the sea, named by its inhabitants 'La Costa d'Amalfi,' full
of little cities, of gardens and of fountains, as well as of rich men,
eager in the pursuit of commerce. Among these cities is one named
Ravello, wherein, just as there are rich men in it now, once dwelt
Landolfo Rufolo, who was more than rich, but, not content with his
wealth, tried to double it, and went near to lose the whole."
Landolfo, it appears, had conceived the idea that a large market lay
open in Cyprus for certain kinds of wares, and accordingly he realised
all the capital he could command, bought a large ship, laded it deep
with goods, and set sail from home, but when he reached Cyprus he
found the markets glutted. Prices fell to almost nothing, and he had
almost to give the goods away. Thus he was cast down in a single day
from wealth to poverty, and saw no course open to him but to die or to
turn corsair.
Of these alternatives the natural man would choose the last, and
Landolfo was frankly natural in all his acts. He sold his heavy ship,
bought a light one, fitted it with all things needful for the trade of
piracy, and set sail once more, intent on pillage,--of Turks
especially, but by no means only those, for pirates must be practical.
In this vocation Heaven helped him who helped himself, so that within
a year he had not only regained what Boccaccio quaintly calls "his
own," but much more also; and being minded not to push his luck too
far, set sail for home, where he meant to live in peace.
He had got as far as the Greek archipelago when he met a storm, and
put into a small creek for shelter. In that creek two Genoese ships
were lying, and the Genoese, being of like profession to Landolfo,
made a prize of him, sacked his ship, and scuttled it.
These Genoese were God-fearing men, and having got Landolfo's goods,
by no means desired to deprive him of his life. Thus when the storm
abated the citizen of Ravello, now once more a beggar, set sail for
Genoa on his captors' ship. For a whole day the sea was kind and
smooth; but the storm came back, the two ships were driven far apart,
and the one in which Landolfo was a prisoner, driving on a reef off
the island of Cephalonia, was shattered like a glass bottle flung at a
wall.
The ship was gone; it was dark night; the sea was strewn with floating
wreckage; and Landolfo, who had been calling all day for death to
relieve his sorrows, saw the grisly shape awaiting him and did not
like it. Accordingly he caught at a table which went swimming by, and
getting astride of it as best he could, held on with a grip of
desperation. So he went on, up and down the hills and valleys of the
sea, till at last he became aware of a huge chest floating near him,
which threatened every moment to surge up against his frail raft and
sink it utterly. He fended the chest off with his hand as best he
could, but presently there came a mighty squall of wind, raising a sea
so great that the chest drove down and over the luckless merchant,
tore him from his perch, and sank him in the sea.
When he came up, gasping and half drowned, his raft was so far off
that he feared to make for it. But the chest was close at hand, and
across it he cast himself, and so was tossed up and down all that day
and the next night. But when the light returned, either the will of
God or the force of the wind drove him to the shore of the Island of
Gurfo, where a poor woman happened to be polishing her household pots
among the sand; and she, seeing a shapeless thing tossing up and down
in the surf a little way from shore, waded out and dragged it ashore.
Much warm water and judicious rubbing brought back the departing life
to Landolfo's body, and in a day or two he thought himself well enough
to go. The old woman thought so too, and gave him a broad hint to be
off. So the ruined merchant gathered up his rags, and being in no want
of the chest, thought of giving it to his hostess in return for her
Christian care of him. But like a prudent merchant he first took the
precaution of opening it when alone, and found it filled with precious
stones, set and unset, of great value.
Landolfo, though somewhat stunned by this fresh caprice of fortune,
yet saw clearly how improper it would be to give all this wealth to
the old woman. So he packed the whole of it about his person, gave her
the empty chest, and departed with tears and blessings. On some
fisherman's boat he got across to Brindisi, and so up the coast to
Trani, where he found merchants of his own town. Note once more the
close relations between Ravello and the Apulian cities. These friendly
merchants clothed him, gave him a horse, and sent him home, where he
realised his wealth and lived in honour all his days.
This Rufolo family of Amalfi was one of the greatest in all Italy,
though unhappily it has been extinct these many centuries. So far as
can be ascertained, the name of Landolfo does not occur among their
records. But Boccaccio's story has the marks of truth. It is all quite
possible, and its incidents entirely in keeping with the manners of
the age. One writer, I see, calls it a "brutta storia," but we need
not use hard names about what we ourselves should certainly have done
had we lived in the twelfth century. The greedy vulture Charles of
Anjou was often indebted to the wealth of the Rufoli for loans. In
1275 Matteo Rufolo and fifteen other nobles of this neighbourhood held
the royal crown in pledge! What wealth there must have been in the
decaying palaces of these hillsides! The Rufoli had a villa on the
seashore at a spot called "La Marmorata," set by a stream which flows
down through groves of oranges and lemons to the sea. In this villa
they feasted the monarchs of the House of Anjou right royally; and the
peasants still say that at the end of every course the silver dishes
were flung out of the window into the sea, to show how little the
wealthy Rufoli recked even of such precious wares as those. But it is
added that the canny nobles did not really lose the dishes, for nets
had been laid carefully beneath the sea, into which the silver fell,
and out of which it was recovered when the guests had gone.
This tale sounds too remarkable to be invented. Yet it is in fact only
a variant of a myth localised also in Sicily, and doubtless in many
other places. The Palermo version is worth noting. It is a pendant,
of course quite unhistorical, to one of the traditions of the Sicilian
Vespers. After the massacre, the Pope laid an interdict on Sicily. The
churches were closed and the bells silent. The people could not live
so; something must be done. So they built a ship, and a group of
gentlemen went on board, carrying with them all the silver cups and
dishes which they possessed. They sailed to Rome, and having reached
the Tiber, they feigned the speech and manners of some strange
country, and on the deck of their ship they sat banqueting, while as
each precious vessel served its turn they flung it overboard, where it
fell into a net concealed about the vessel's keel. The fame of these
reckless strangers soon reached the Pope, who came down to see the
marvel, and, being very curious about the matter, was easily induced
to step on board. Whereupon the strangers shot out their oars and,
rowing quickly off, carried the Pope to Palermo, where he was soon
persuaded to relieve Sicily of the interdict.
Such tales as these blow about the world like balls of thistledown,
lighting now here, now there, and securing at each resting-place a
passionate belief. What is the truth of the fact common to both these
tales, and in what age and place are we to seek for it? The age of
Mediterranean folklore is past guessing, and the variety of races
which have dwelt upon the shores of the great inland sea should make
it the richest in the world.
Whilst we have been discoursing of the Rufoli the road, having climbed
over the shoulder of the hill above Atrani, has been slowly mounting
the valley of the Dragone, and at last it emerges on the small piazza
fronting the Cathedral of Ravello. By the time he attains this plateau
on the mountain-top the traveller will have seen enough of the
approach to set him pondering by what fact it happened that Ravello
ever grew into an important city. For nothing is more certain than
that the course of trade is not determined by caprice. Chance has no
part in it, and any man who wishes to understand the causes of the
rise or fall of cities must ask himself in every case what convenience
brought trade thither, or what inconvenience checked it. Now the
inconvenience of the situation in which Ravello lies is manifest, and
as the existing road was made out of a rough muletrack only in the
present generation, the difficulty of access either to Ravello or La
Scala must have been immense. Yet that difficulty did not deflect the
trade. Both cities were undoubtedly rich. La Scala is said to have
possessed one hundred and thirty churches, a statement which seems
incredible to-day, even if the outlying towns of Pontone and Minuto be
included in the number. D'Engenio enumerates no less than twenty-five
families of undoubted nobility at Ravello, and adds to his list the
words "et alii." At Scala he mentions only twelve. All abandoned these
hilltops centuries ago, leaving their palaces to decay. That is
scarcely strange. It is easy to understand why trade left this
half-inaccessible eyrie. The wonder is what brought it here. The city
had a great reputation for the dyeing of stuffs. Why did not the dyers
establish their vats at the foot of the hill, profiting by the
constant intercourse of Amalfi with other cities? I can see no other
reason for the growth of Ravello and La Scala than the paramount
necessity in the early Middle Ages of safety from sea rovers. It will
be impossible to verify this guess until some really scholarly man,
probably a German, elects to spend his learning in elucidating the dim
and tangled history of this most interesting coast. It would be a
noble task, and it is strange that some fine scholar has not been
attracted to the work ere now.
Probably the visitor who has just arrived in the cathedral piazza may
not immediately see with how great beauty Ravello has been adorned. It
is certainly no more than the wreck of what it once was. But this can
be said of so many Italian towns that the point may be scarcely worth
making. The cathedral once possessed a beautiful porch, approached
from the piazza by a double flight of seventeen white marble steps. It
has none now. Within is a lamentable scene of desolation, a church
once filled with glorious works of art among which rather more than a
century ago a bishop was allowed to work his will. An Anglican rector
with a passion for encaustic tiles could not have wrought more
mischief. The bishop's conception of beauty lay in the whitewash pot.
This simple ideal he worked out with such thoroughness that in all the
church only two half-figures remain of the noble frescoes which were
once its pride. The bishop looked round, saw that it was well, and
began on the mosaics, which were priceless and beyond all praise. The
most beautiful of these was probably the baldacchino which surmounted
the high altar. This the energetic bishop got rid of altogether,
unless it be the fact, as some suppose, that a few scraps of it are
embedded in the bishops throne. There were fifty-two choir stalls of
carved walnut wood. They dated from the year 1320, and anyone who
surveys the relics of the great beauty with which the founders of the
church equipped it may guess that the choir stalls were rarely lovely.
Not one chip remains of them. By the time he had done all this the
bishop had made much progress towards bringing his lovely cathedral to
the condition of some Bible Christian chapel in a country village.
But the church was full of marbles. Out they went, no one knows where.
The pulpit was among the most exquisite of man's works. He began to
deface it, but something stayed his hand, I cannot guess what, for
such a man must have been impenetrable to remorse. The man who did us
this intolerable wrong was called Tafuri, and I hope visitors to
Ravello will not forget him.
By some providential accident the pulpit remains but little hurt. Its
western end is carried on six slender spiral pillars, each a twist of
exquisite mosaic, and supported on the backs of lions and lionesses of
strong, fine workmanship. The body of the pulpit is a marvel, a superb
blend of rich soft colour with the purest carving in white marble. It
is wrought with the most delicate fancy and restraint. It lights up
the whole desolated church, and makes one's heart burn for the rare
beauty which was shattered and destroyed by the ignorant Bishop
Tafuri. And, more than that, this pulpit is an object which sets one
pondering whether southern Italy in the great age of the Hohenstaufen,
or their first successors, can have been so destitute of great artists
as is maintained by certain critics, among the rest by Crowe and
Cavalcaselle. It is true that scarce any paintings in Naples can be
attributed to the native artists of that period save those which have
been retouched so often as to be of no value to the argument. But
granting this, it is surely fair to say that the existence of this
pulpit proves the possession of a sense of form and colour so noble
that it must have produced fine painters. The craftsman was Nicolo di
Foggia, again an Apulian town, unless it be the fact, as I see some
say, that a family named De Foggia was settled in Ravello. But art so
beautiful as this is begotten of a long tradition; it is an
inheritance from many predecessors of less merit. It does not leap
into existence in the full blossom of its beauty. The ideals of
Nicolo, and in some measure his attainments also, must have been those
of others in his day, and it cannot be that some of them did not
express their conceptions with the brush. The last four centuries have
wrought almost as much mischief in southern Italy as a barbarian
invasion, yet the cathedral at Ravello remains one of the spots at
which we can best perceive the greatness of that which once was; and
few men who ponder on the grandeur of the doors and the soft wealth of
colour on the pulpit, the ambo, and the bishop's throne, will be
disposed to deny that there was once a tribe of artists in these
regions who earned immortality of fame, though destiny has snatched
away their crown.
It is but a stone's-throw from the cathedral to the gate of the
Palazzo Rufolo, which, by the unselfish courtesy of the late Mr. Reid
and his widow, is freely opened to the inspection of any stranger
anxious to examine its rare beauty. The palace, though lovingly
repaired and tended by Mr. Reid, is but the wreck of itself, having
suffered sorely not only by the waste of time, but also by cruel
barbarity in the last century. Yet it remains a most important example
of the Saracenic taste which crept into this country from the middle
of the ninth century, affecting profoundly both its life and art, and
perhaps carrying with it the seed of ultimate destruction. It is true,
at all events, that the rulers of this coast began in the eleventh or
twelfth century to lay such stress on purity of blood as to suggest
that they discovered peril in the blending of Italian blood with
Moorish. It is not easy to realise in what degree Saracens dwelt
freely in the land. It was in the year 842 that a rival claimant for
the great Lombard Duchy of Benevento called in the aid of Saracens.
Not long afterwards the followers of the Crescent established
themselves at Bari. They pillaged Sant'Angelo, the sacred city on
Monte Gargano, both in 869 and 952, while before the ninth century
closed the Dukes of Naples, Amalfi and Salerno were in league with
them for the plunder of Roman territory. The Norman kings, when they
founded the realm of Naples, made no effort to exterminate them.
Frederick the Second loved their art and science, spoke their
language, and was often taunted with adopting their religion and
manners.
Clearly, then, there is no ground for surprise at finding on this spot
traces of Saracenic influence on architecture. Doubtless, if we had
records of the life led by the founders of this palace, we should find
that it also was largely Saracenic, and that from Bari, Lucera,
Salerno, and elsewhere, many a turbaned scholar or merchant brought
the grace and luxury of the East, and fired the latent sense of beauty
in Italian hearts much as in olden days the Greeks had touched the
selfsame strings.
Many parts of the Palazzo Rufolo show the lovely fancy of the Saracen
builders, but more than elsewhere it is displayed in the remnants of
the courtyard, where one arcade is still intact of arches so delicate
and graceful as make one wish that the same principles of building
might have permeated all the country and transformed the palaces of
other nobles also into dwellings as beautiful as the Palazzo Rufolo
once was. From the court one passes to the terrace garden, which lies
on the very brow of the mountain, commanding what is surely among the
loveliest views of the whole world.
The curious penetrating charm of this terrace garden, the marvel of
its view across the fabled sea which was cleft by the galleys of
Ulysses and AEneas, appealed so strongly to the most romantic spirit of
our generation that Richard Wagner, signing his name in the visitors'
book of the Hotel Palumbo, added the words, "Klingsor's Zaubergarten
ist gefunden."
Destiny is sometimes overkind, or she would not have added to a spot
so rich in memories all the associations which are called up by those
four words,--the lovely songs of the flower maidens, most exquisite of
all our age; the strange passionate seduction of the enchantress
Kundry, plucking chord after chord of memory; the wild ecstasy of
spiritual purity reasserting its dominion over the guileless fool, the
magic spear hurled at him from the battlements and caught harmless in
mid air, the crumbling of the castle walls like the unsubstantial
fabric of a vision. Many an age will go by before what is noblest in
the heart of man will cease to be uplifted by this great fable. And it
is to Ravello that our thoughts must turn whenever _Parsifal_ exalts
them. It is on this mountain-top that the great temptation was trodden
underfoot.
Beyond the Palazzo Rufolo the old mountain city prolongs itself into
what was once its most exclusive quarter, the "Toro." The nobles of
this privileged spot held themselves aloof from their fellow-townsmen,
and assumed the privileges of a ruling caste. On the Piazza in the
centre of this quarter stands the Church of San Giovanni del Toro, of
which Pansa said that it was the most beautiful seen in many hours'
journey along this coast. Like the cathedral, it has been sorely used;
yet of late years something has been done for its preservation. The
crypt with its interesting frescoes was ruined and inaccessible when
Schulz visited Ravello, but is in tolerable order now. There is a
mosaic pulpit, less beautiful than that of the cathedral, but still
magnificent, and traces of fine frescoes remain to show how the
keepers of the church interpreted their obligations to posterity.
More than one of the old palaces in this quarter retains some of its
old splendour. Among them is the Hotel Palumbo, to which I have
referred already--a quiet, comfortable resting-place, in which a
kindly hostess not only speaks English, but understands the habits of
the English far enough to make her house a charming memory with all
who stay there. I do not know of any more beautiful or pleasant spot,
even in Capri, and certainly there can be none healthier than this
mountain town, perched high above the exhalations which strangers
dread, though indeed less justly than they should fear their own
prudence. The hotel was formerly the bishop's palace. Its comfortable
salon was once the chapel, and a little door opening from one corner
gives access to a narrow stair by which the bishop descended to his
meditation chamber. The holier men are, the more the foul fiend
plagues them; and that is doubtless how it comes to pass that in this
meditation chamber there are ladies painted on the walls, temptations
which no doubt the bishop caused to be depicted there in everlasting
memory of his triumphant victory over the intrusive fiend.
The terrace of the hotel commands what is practically the same view
which is seen from the garden of the Palazzo Rufolo. The light is
failing, and the great bulk of the Monte dell'Avvocata is growing
black. I know not how many ages have passed since the Virgin, clothed
in light, appeared to a simple shepherd on the mountain-side, saying
to him, "If thou wilt stay here and pray, I will be thine advocate."
The man did stay to pray, and on the spot where the mother of mankind
became his advocate he built a hermitage which these many years has
lain in ruins. But still the mountain retains its name, for faith
lingers yet upon these heights, where life is simple, and forces up no
problems. My friend Mr. Ferard, staying at the Hotel Palumbo about the
time when the autumn evening darkens down early over hill and valley,
was called out by his hostess to the terrace to listen to the bell of
Sant'Antonio chiming from the ancient convent near the town. It was
the first hour of the night, an hour after Angelus; and as the peal of
Sant'Antonio floated across the steep hillside, it was met by the
answering chimes from the cathedral churches of Majori and Minori,
lying far down by the base of the mountain near the sea. Presently a
number of small lights began to glimmer in the valley. They were the
lamps and candles set outside their houses by the peasants when they
hear the chiming of the bells, and kept there till the ringing ceases.
But why, or with what object? It is because every Thursday evening, at
the first hour of the night, our Lord who redeemed the world comes
down out of heaven and passes through the street. He must not pass in
darkness, and the lamps are set out to light Him by. The chiming of
the bell through the brown autumn air, the lights twinkling like
little stars out of the deep valley, the simple act of faith and
reverence, leave a deep impression on the hearts of those who witness
a ceremony so little tainted with the modern spirit. One is carried
back into an earlier age, when many a lovely vision occupied men's
minds which left the world the poorer when it fled from the earth. And
so I leave Ravello, while the lamps are set outside the windows still
and the chiming of the bells announces that on this mountain-side
faith is not dead, nor the homes of the peasants yet left comfortless.