Naples, Past and Present

by Arthur H. Norway

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 "Signurì, u' sold'," and clinging like a leech, in spite of the angriest "Vattèn" 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 mediæval 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."