NAPLES, ITALY
Naples, the most important seaport in Italy, is also its largest city. In addition to this it is one of the most beautifully situated cities in the world.
The ancient Greeks founded Naples away back in olden times. They came from Cumæ and founded a city which they named Parthenope. Afterward this was divided into Palacopolis, the “old town,” and Neapolis, the “new town.” It was from the second that Naples got its name.
Later many other nations came into possession of the city,—Ostrogoths, Byzantines, and Normans. At one time Charles of Anjou made Naples his capital. Ferdinand I of Aragon, the Spanish viceroy, Don Pedro de Toledo, and the Bourbon Charles III all extended the city. Finally in 1860 the kingdom of which Naples was the capital was united to the kingdom of Italy.
Naples has not so many historic and artistic monuments as other Italian cities; but in the museum are preserved valuable treasures from Pompeii and Herculaneum, the old Roman cities that were destroyed by Vesuvius, and only within recent years have been excavated.
The best view of Naples may be had from the Bay of Naples. The city is built at the base and on the slopes of a range of volcanic hills, and rises from the sea like an amphitheater. The Castle of St. Elmo occupies a hill, from which a transverse ridge runs south to form the promontory of Pizzofalcone and divides the city into two natural crescents. The western part, the Chiara ward, is a long, narrow strip between the sea and Vomero Hill. This is the fashionable quarter. To the east lie the oldest and busiest quarters, of which the long Via Roma is the main street.
One cannot speak about Naples without mentioning Vesuvius. As one writer said, “Mount Vesuvius is to the Neapolitan bay what Fujiyama is to many a landscape of Japan,—the lofty background of the picture, and the grand presiding genius of the place. By day it proudly waves its plume of smoke, by night its torch of fire, as if it claimed to be the champion of destruction.”
A cable railway ascends Vesuvius now, and for many years the mountain has been quiet. But it is only slumbering. Some day it will break loose again and pour forth its streams of redhot lava, its agents of destruction.
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
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