Naples, Past and Present

by Arthur H. Norway

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.