Naples possesses an admirable museum of antiquities, open to all the world, and, more precious still, the ruins of Pozzuoli, Baiæ, and Cumæ, and catacombs no less interesting than are those of Rome; and, above everything else, the Roman city of Pompeii, which has been excavated from the ashes of Mount Vesuvius, beneath which it lay buried for seventeen centuries. It is not merely a City of the Dead, with its streets and tombs, temples, markets, and amphitheatres, which these excavations have restored to us, but they have likewise given us an insight into the life of a provincial Roman city. When we gaze upon inscriptions on walls and waxed tablets, at work interrupted, at mummified corpses in the attitude of flight, we almost feel as if we had been present at the catastrophe which overwhelmed the town. No other buried city ever presented us with so striking a contrast between the tumult of life and the stillness of death. In spite of a hundred years of excavation, only one-half of the city has yet been revealed to us. Herculaneum is buried beneath a layer of lava sixty feet in thickness, upon which the houses of Resina, Portici, and other suburbs of Naples have been built, and but very few of its mysteries have been revealed to us. Of Stabiæ, which lies hidden beneath the town of Castellamare, close to the beach, we know hardly anything.
CAPRI, SEEN FROM MASSA LUBRENSE.
Numerous populous towns cluster around Naples, rivalling it in beauty. To the south, on the shores of the bay, are Portici, Resina, Torre del Greco, Torre dell’ Annunziata, Castellamare, and sweet Sorrento, with its delicious climate, its delightful villas and olive groves. Off Cape Campanella, facing the volcanic islands of Ischia and Procida, at the other extremity of the bay, rise the bold cliffs of Capri, full of the memories of hideous Tiberius, the Timberio of the natives. Another bay opens to the south of that barren mass of limestone, its entrance guarded by the islets of the Sirens, who sought in vain to cast their spell over sage Ulysses. This bay is hardly inferior in beauty to that of Naples; its shores are equally fertile, but neither of the three cities, Pæstum, Amalfi, and Salerno, which successively gave a name to it, has retained its importance for any length of time. Amalfi, the powerful commercial republic of the Middle Ages, whose code was accepted by all maritime nations, is almost deserted now, and only shelters a few fishing-smacks within its rocky creek. In a delightful valley near it stands the old Moorish city of Ravello, almost as rich as Palermo in architectural monuments. Salerno is much more favourably situated than Amalfi, for the road of the Campania debouches upon it. The town is said to have been founded by a son of Noah, and when the Normans occupied the country in the eleventh century {303} they made it their capital. But its ancient splendours have gone. Its university, at one time the representative of Arab science, and the most famous in Europe for its medical faculty, has made no sign for ages, and Salerno has now no claim whatever to the title of “Hippocratic town.” It aspires, however, to rise into importance through commerce and industry, and a breakwater and piers might convert it into a formidable rival of Naples. The inhabitants are fond of repeating a local proverb—
“When Salerno a port doth obtain
That of Naples will be inane.”
Pæstum, or Posidonia, the ancient mistress of the bay, stood to the south-east of Salerno. It was founded by the Sybarites on the ruins of a more ancient town of the Tyrrhenians. The Roman poets sang this “city of roses” on account of its cool springs, shady walks, and mild climate. It was destroyed by the Saracens in 915, and its ruins, though amongst the most interesting of all Italy, dating as they do from a period anterior to that of Rome, were known only to shepherds and brigands up to the middle of last century. Its three temples, the most important of which was dedicated to Neptune, or Poseidon, are amongst the most imposing of continental Italy, their effect being heightened by the solitude which surrounds them and the waves which wash their foundations. The traveller, however, cannot afford to remain for any length of time within their vicinity, for the site of the ruins is surrounded by marshes, the exhalations from which sadly interfere with the excavations going on.
Numerous towns and villages are dotted over the champaign country separating Mount Vesuvius from the foot-hills of the Apennines. Starting from Vietri, a suburb of Salerno on the banks of a narrow ravine, we ascend to Cara, a favourite summer retreat, abounding in shade-trees. Near it is a monastery famous amongst antiquaries on account of its ancient parchments and diplomas. On descending to the plain of the Sarno we pass Nocera, a country residence of the ancient Romans; Pagani, still situated within the region of woods; Angri, which manufactures yarns from cotton grown in its environs; and Scafati, more industrious still. Near it may be seen the ruins of Pompeii, the town of Torre dell’ Annunziata, and, on the southern slope of Vesuvius, the houses of Bosco Tre Case and Bosco Reale. There are savants who believe they can trace in the veins of the inhabitants of Nocera and the neighbourhood the Arab and Berber blood of the 20,000 Saracens who were settled here by the Emperor Frederick II.
The valley of the Sarno, above Nocera, is densely peopled as far as the foot of the Apennines, and another chain of villages extends northwards to the town of Avellino, the fields of which are enclosed by hedges of filbert-trees (avellana in Italian), and which is important on account of its intermediary position between the mountains and the plain. The population, however, is densest in that portion of the Campania known as the “Happy” (Felice), which extends between Vesuvius and Monte Vergine. Sarno, named after the river, though far away from it, abounds in cereals, vines, fruit, and vegetables, and manufactures cotton stuffs and raw silk. Palma stands in the midst of fertile fields; Ottajano, the {304} town of Octavius, on the lower slope of the Somma of Vesuvius, is famous for its wines; Nola, where Augustus died, and which gave birth to Giordano Bruno, has fertile fields, but is better known through the fine Greek vases found in its ruins, and on account of the remains of an amphitheatre built of marble, and of greater size than that of Capua.
Famous Capua, the ancient metropolis of the Campania, at one time the rival of Rome, with half a million inhabitants dwelling within its walls, has been completely stripped of its former splendours. Its name is applied now to a sullen fortress on the Volturno, the Casilinum of the Romans; and Santa Maria, which is the representative of the veritable Capua, offers no “delights” other than those of a large village. In its environs, however, may still be seen the ruins of a fine amphitheatre, a triumphal arch, and other remains of a vast city. Caserta, the “town of pleasure” of the modern Campania, lies farther to the south. It boasts of a large palace, shady parks, and vast gardens ornamented with statues and fountains, and was the Versailles of the Neapolitan Bourbons. An aqueduct supplies it with water from a distance of twenty-five miles, and crosses the valley near Maddaloni by means of a magnificent bridge, built about the middle of last century by Vanvitelli, and one of the masterpieces of modern architecture.