[Page 26.] This gossip about the Grotta del Cane is derived chiefly from a small guide to the locality, published early in the present century.
[Page 37.] Petrarch's account of his visit to the Phlegræan Fields will be found among his Latin verse epistles (Carm. lib. ii. epist. 7).
[Page 41.] Upon the theory that Cumæ was founded so early as a thousand years before Christ, I translate as follows from Holm (Geschichte Griechenlands, vol. i. p. 340), the most recent of authorities, and perhaps the most judicious:—"It is scarcely credible that an organised Greek city existed in these regions in such early times. But it need not be questioned that scattered settlements of Greeks were already established on the Campanian coast a thousand years before Christ; and it cannot be doubted that Cumæ is the earliest Greek colony, recognised as such, in the West.... Cumæ also became the mother city of Naples, but at what precise date cannot be determined."
[Page 45.] The dyke of Hercules. See Beloch, Campanien.
[Page 52.] For the Villa of Vedius Pollio, as well as for all the other antiquities of this region, see Beloch, Campanien.
[Page 53.] The story of the Grotta dei Tuoni is one of the interesting pieces of folklore collected by Signor Gaetano Amalfi, to whose unwearied labours I acknowledge gratefully many debts. It was published in the periodical called Napoli Nobilissima in 1895.
[Page 55.] For the stories of the enchanter Virgil, see Comparetti, Virgilio nel Mediævo. The tale of the plundering of Virgil's tomb in the reign of Roger of Sicily is taken from the same work, where it is told on the authority of Gervasius of Tilbury. It was a widely credited tale, and will be found also in Marin Sanudo, Vite dei Dogi, p. 232 of the fine new edition of Muratori, now (1901) being issued under the direction of Giosuè Carducci, an enterprise which is remarkable both for scholarship and beauty, and deserves the more praise since it emanates from no great city, but from the printing house of Scipione Lapi at Città di Castello, on the upper valley of the Tiber.
[Page 65.] The traditions of Queen Joanna are well set out by Signor Amalfi in La Regina Giovanna nella Tradizione (Naples, 1892), a little work which, though no other exists upon the subject, the British Museum disdains to purchase. Mr. Nutt procured me a copy, though with some difficulty. The book is not as complete as it might be; it contains, for example, no reference to the traditions of the Queen at Amalfi.
[Page 71.] For Alfonso of Aragon, see Guicciardini, Istoria d'Italia, lib. i. cap. 4. Most of my history is taken from this writer.
[Page 72.] For an account of San Lionardo, as well as for the subsequent tale of the Torretta, see Napoli Nobilissima (1892).