We might include in this walk the immense royal workhouse (Albergo Reale de’ Poveri), intended to contain all the poor of the kingdom of Naples. If completed, the length would have been 2,370 palms, but at present the front is only 1,560, and the number of poor is about 800. They were to be taught everything, and since they were found unequal to the lowest offices in society, an attempt was to be made to fit them in their old age for the higher ones.
LETTER XLIV.
NEIGHBOURHOOD OF NAPLES.
Naples, 10th October, 1817.
Having in my last given you a little sketch of Naples, and of my mode of life there, I shall now proceed to some account of its neighbourhood. The first time of my going to Pozzuoli was on foot; I walked through the Chiaja, and afterwards along a short street, a sudden turn in which exposes the lofty entrance of the Grotto of Pausilippo. Just at the point where this turn takes place, there is a little monument, erected in 1668; which is introduced into most of the published views of the grotto, but the entrance cannot be seen till we arrive at the monument, and consequently their union in one scene is fictitious. Beyond this point there is a high rock on each side of the road, not made perpendicular by nature, but cut so by art, and on the top of the left-hand precipice is the tomb of Virgil, which however I could not distinguish from below; and another more visible fragment exhibiting a portion of a vault, which is, I suppose, a tomb, but I know not of whom. The grotto is at present about ninety feet high at the entrance, but diminishes as we proceed towards the middle; it existed in Roman times, but was complained of as narrow and dusty, and it was necessary to ascend part of the hill in order to reach the entrance. Robert, King of Naples, passing through it one day with Petrarc, required his opinion on the tradition of the neighbourhood, that Virgil had formed it by magic in a single night; but the poet replied, that he saw many marks of iron, but none of demons. Alphonso the First lowered part of the road on the side towards Naples, but D. Pietro di Toledo, viceroy in 1537, cut it down to the present level, and consequently gave it its actual height, and enlarged it considerably. The paving is still more recent, and it is now lighted by lamps night and day. As I walked through it leisurely, frequently stopping to look at the rock, and at the effects of the external scene, as seen through the narrow and lofty arch, I perceived nowhere any deficiency of light; but on other occasions, when I have passed it rapidly in a corribolo, I was hardly able to distinguish any object. From the termination of the grotto, after passing through the miserable village of Fuori Grotta, a straight road between vine-covered poplars, leads down to the sea-shore, which we coast for two or three miles, to Pozzuoli; the scenery is beautiful, but the sea is shallow and rocky. We pass under cliffs of lava, ejected from the Solfatara, rising in broken masses immediately above the road. The town is on a projecting rock, most picturesque in itself, and in its situation; and abundance of fragments of walls and vaults are seen on its rocky and broken shores, but they are mere fragments. Inside, there are some remains of the temple of Augustus, which appears to have been pseudo-peripteral, as the tops of six half-columns are seen in the wall of the cathedral, but all the ornament of the capital is gone, and we can only just determine the order to have been Corinthian. The architrave is of three faces, but without intermediate mouldings, and there are no traces of enrichment, either on this or the remaining course of stones which appears to have formed the frieze; but these members are rather small, and the cornice is wholly wanting. There is said to have been an inscription on the frontispiece, but I could find neither frontispiece nor inscription. We are also conducted to a statue of Q. Flavius Ma sius, a letter being deficient before the s, who he was I cannot tell; and to a pedestal dedicated to Tiberius, and supposed to have supported a statue of that emperor. It is adorned by fourteen female figures, representing as many cities of Asia, which having been injured, or destroyed by an earthquake, were restored by him. There is a name to each, but I have some doubt of their genuineness.
The most valuable antiquity is just out of the town, consisting of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis, and warm baths attached to it. Romanelli Viaggio a Pozzuoli, etc. p. 129, says, that by an inscription found there, it is ascertained to have been erected in the seventh century of Rome; but nothing of that date is now to be determined. You will find a plan in the next page, which I have subjoined, in order to render my description intelligible.
a, cavern with a copious spring of warm water.
b, smaller spring.
c, cell of temple.
d d, rooms with perforated benches.
e e e, the columns which are still erect.
f f f, channel which carries off most of the hot water to the sea.
g g, additional channel for the hot water, formed by breaking through the wall at h.
i i, marble tubs.
The principal feature seems to have consisted of an open portico, of four beautiful columns in front, and two columns and two antæ behind. Three of the front columns are still standing. They are of cipollino, containing crystals of quartz, and about 4 feet 10 inches in diameter. The lower part of the shaft, for about 8 feet, is very perfect, for 5 feet more it is perforated in all directions by a marine shell-fish; the upper part is without perforations, and considerably weatherworn. This upper part, we know, was long exposed to the weather, the lower part was protected by being buried in the earth till about 1750; but how the central part of the column should have been under water, and perforated by the pholas, while still erect in its place, is a standing puzzle for antiquaries and naturalists. The cell was small, open in front, or only inclosed by an iron grating, and terminated by a semicircular apsis, containing one large and deep niche and two smaller ones. An upright joint divides the circular part of the work from the rest, and it is possible it may have been an addition. Part of the variegated marble pavement remains. In front of each of the four external columns there was a pedestal, probably to support a statue, and before the middle intercolumniation is a ring, to which it has been supposed that the victims intended for sacrifice were attached. The court in which this portico or temple stood, has also been surrounded by columns, and remaining fragments of these, and of their entablature, show that some of them were acted upon by the pholas, in the same manner as the principal columns; while others were perhaps thrown down and covered with earth, before this singular phænomenon took place. There is neither capital nor entablature remaining to the larger columns; the bases are Corinthian, and from these, and the workmanship of the columns, we may judge of the excellence of the architecture, both in taste and in execution. The remains of the court are also of the Corinthian order, but the columns have Attic bases, and both the style and execution of the ornament are decidedly inferior to those of the principal building, and announce a more recent date. A large circle of columns on a raised platform, occupied the centre of this colonnaded court. They appear too slender to have supported a domical covering, and some remaining fragments of a circular entablature, which are finished alike on both sides, induce me to believe that they merely formed a screen round the platform. In front of each column, but not rising so high as the platform, there is a pedestal, which was doubtless covered with marble. In two of the spaces between these pedestals are as many marble cylinders, which have been called altars, by those who did not observe that they were hollow; and mouths of wells, by those who did not observe that they were closed at the bottom; they are strictly marble tubs, but as in many other circumstances of this building, we are obliged to confess our ignorance of their use. There was a series of small chambers round the court, which alternately opened internally, and towards an external passage; the former uniformly exhibit traces of having been lined with marble, which is not the case with the others. In some of those at the western end there are a few steps, which seem to indicate an upper story over some of these rooms, if not over all, but there are no vestiges of vaults, or any sort of covering in any part. Opposite to the principal columns there is a larger division, which probably formed the vestibulum of the building. The most curious circumstances of the plan occur in two rooms occupying the angles of the east side of the building. In these we may observe a channel for water close to the walls, then a small space, and then a smaller channel. Over the first channel there was a continued bench, pierced with holes about 6½ inches in diameter, and 16 inches apart, regularly spaced. The guides tell you that the plan was to put one leg in one of these holes, and the other in another, and let the feet dangle in the warm water below; but they are not disposed in pairs. In the best preserved of these two chambers there is at present a current of water in the larger channel, but this is effected by means of a mere hole in the wall, which has been broken through in modern times. The spring which supplies this, rises copiously in an artificial excavation behind the cell of the temple. It is just high enough to give a current to the water across the pavement of the court, and it passes partly in this direction, and partly by a channel cut for it on the south side of the edifice. The pavement is below high water mark, and accordingly, we find it occasionally covered with water. There are two other springs behind the cell, the water of which is cold; all three are mineralized, but with different tastes. Much more of these remains might still have existed, and perhaps enough to satisfy our curiosity in every particular, if instead of preserving the objects as they were discovered, the Neapolitan court had not employed them in the ornamental architecture of Caserta. Other fragments were taken to the museum at Portici, or to the Studii at Naples, where, standing entirely detached, and without any memorial, they are comparatively of little value.
The preceding account is the result not of one, but of several visits to Pozzuoli. The first time that I was there, after leaving the temple, I ascended the hill behind it to some ruins of considerable extent, called with very little reason, the Temple of Neptune. They consist of two massive parallel walls, each I suppose, 300 feet long. The space between has been covered by vaults in different directions, and at different elevations. The brow of the hill here forms a noble terrace, whence the views are admirable. At one end of this terrace is a monument, probably sepulchral, in the form of a little temple. The front was adorned with four brick half columns, and there were five, or possibly six, on the sides; but internally it appears almost solid. A little farther back is the fragment of a room covered with a circular dome, which has been named the Temple of Diana. All these are so buried among vines and poplars, that it is impossible to obtain any general view of them; and as for the architecture, none remains; they are mere masses of brick and rubble walls, mixed with reticulated work. The amphitheatre is of similar materials, and overgrown in the same manner. It has been a large one, but its great object of attraction to the modern Italians is the cell where San Gennajo was confined, previously to being exposed to wild beasts on the arena. At a convent at a little distance a stone is shown, said to have been stained with his blood. At the time when the blood of the saint liquefies at Naples, the mark on this stone becomes of a bright red, which, after eight days, gradually fades into a dull brown, which is its permanent colour; there is no standing against so many sham miracles. It becomes not charity, but folly, to hesitate in pronouncing the monks a set of impostors. The views here are exquisite, for the convent is just on the brow of the hill, and wherever circumstances admit any command of distant objects, the landscape is most beautiful; yet all this beauty is passed over as a matter of course, after a short residence on the spot, and we walk about without noticing it, except now and then from some point where it is seen to particular advantage, or when some circumstances in the sky, or in the mind of the spectator, awaken his attention.
Our next object was the Solfatara, evidently the crater of an extinct volcano, or at least, of one so far extinct as to throw up no fire, and to make no eruptions, but it still smokes, or rather steams, for what arises is a vapour charged with sulphureous acid, which will moisten, and not burn, a paper exposed to it, but which deposits beautiful crystals of sulphur and alum on the borders of the opening from which it issues. The steam issues with considerable violence and a hissing noise. The Solfatara presents a plain, of a form nearly circular, surrounded by steep broken banks. The soil is of a whitish clay, without grass, but it supports bushes of chesnut, which also cover great part of the surrounding banks, and great abundance of the Inula viscosa. The ground sounds hollow, but this arises merely from the spongy texture of the soil, for in digging for sulphur they have proceeded, through a nearly homogeneous substance, to the depth of fifty palms, nearly as many English feet, when their further progress was stopped by the quantity of hot water. The sulphur seems more or less disseminated through the whole mass of this clay. In the part which is dug out, it amounts nearly to one fourth, and is purified on the spot. From the Solfatara I proceeded towards the lake of Agnano, and the Grotto del Cane, but the boy who had accompanied me insisted that these were not included in the bargain we had made, as they were close by Naples, and not near Pozzuoli, I stated my reasons for the contrary opinion, and offered to pay him in proportion to what he had already performed, but I found that I could not obtain attention, and that he still persisted in his assertion, that these were close by Naples, when therefore I had once made him understand me, I walked on without replying to his remonstrances. This was a new subject of grief, which made him quite forget the other, and he began to cry about it, “Ma rispondete Signore, parlate, per l’amor di Dio, una parola, una parola sola,” finding me inexorable, “O sangue di Dio!” he exclaimed, and many other exclamations and invocations familiar to a Neapolitan, and his tears flowed afresh in greater profusion than ever; but at last finding he could make no impression, he became quiet, and did not even grumble when I paid him; he would not have been an Italian if he had not asked for more. He was a youth of about fifteen, who called himself Giovanni. We parted very good friends, with a particular request that I would call for him when I came again to Pozzuoli, which I have done several times, and always have been perfectly satisfied with him. He is civil and intelligent, and if he cannot cheat me himself, seems quite to have made up his mind that nobody else shall.