One Sunday morning, while at Naples, we went to hear our Mass of obligation in the church of the Servites, erected by the poet Sannazzaro in honor of the divine Maternity of Mary, and called after his famous poem, De Partu Virginis. It stands on the Mergellina, that pezzo di cielo caduto in terra, as the Neapolitans say—“a fragment of heaven to earth vouchsafed”—and certainly the most beautiful shore on which the sun shines. It was this shore that inspired the ardent Stazio. Not far off is the tomb of Virgil, and the place where Pollio lived, and the grove where Silius Italicus conceived the idea of his Punica. Here, too, Sannazzaro had a charming villa which tempted the very Muses to descend from the mountain to dwell on the sandy shore, as Ariosto says:
“Alle Camene
Lasciar fa i monti e abitar le arene.”
Here he wrote most of his poems and gathered around him all the wit and talent of Naples on those Dies geniales, which were as famous at that time as the Noctes Ambrosianæ of Christopher North at Edinburgh in our younger days, though not quite so convivial, perhaps. This villa had about it a certain perfume of antiquity of which we know nothing in these times, and which we affect to despise. It was the natural atmosphere of this Virgilian region, and it had an inspiration of its own which must be taken into account in reading the works of Sannazzaro. He has celebrated his villa in an ode worthy of Horace. He did not, however, notwithstanding his classical tastes, dedicate his household altar to Apollo, or even to Venus—he was too genuine a Christian for that—but to the tutelar care of San Nazzaro, whom he reckoned among his ancestors. When nearly done with life, he built a church on the spot, in memory of that divine Birth which he had so sweetly sung, and attached thereto a convent of Servite monks, to whom he gave the income of eight thousand florins for the solemn celebration of Christmas and certain expiatory services for himself, his ancestors, and King Frederick III. of Naples. Here he also set up an altar to San Nazzaro, and ordered his own tomb to be built.
We had repeatedly passed the Church del Parto without being able to find it, so embedded is it among houses on the side of the cliff. And the entrance is from a side terrace, to which you ascend by a flight of steps, as to the court of a private dwelling. This terrace commands a view that surpasses all the most vivid imagination could conceive. The Castel del Ovo advances directly before you into the incomparable bay, the waters of which, generally blue as the heavens, were at this early hour all crimson and gold and amethyst, with great floods of silver coming in from the sea. Behind them were islands, such as we see in dreams, rising out of the magic waves: Capri, with its marvellous grottos, clouded with the memory of Tiberius; Procida, with its fort on the volcanic rocks; and Ischia, where the beautiful Vittoria Colonna, beloved of Michael Angelo, retired to mourn her husband’s loss, and beneath which the giant Typhœus, transfixed by a thunderbolt from Jupiter, lies imprisoned, at long intervals groaning with pain, and sending forth in his rage fearful eruptions of burning lava. On the inner curve of the bay sits Naples like a queen, with her palaces, her citadels, her white villas gleaming like jewels—her glance all flame, and her heart all fire. Beyond rises Mount Vesuvius, with its cone of perfect symmetry, full of mystery and terror, its summit now flecked with patches of snow, looking like great white flowers that bloom
“Around the crater’s burning lips,
Sweetening the very edge of doom.”
A light vapor, rather than smoke, issued from the top, no longer dark and foreboding like the evil genius whose vase was unsealed, but of soft, dove-like hues, as if some pacific herald. At its foot sleep fair villages among peaceful olive-trees, wreathed with vines, and lulled into forgetfulness by the gentle waves that caress the shore. Harmonious tints blend earth and sky and sea, but they are constantly varying with the rolling hours. There is nothing monotonous here, except the languid air which wearily plays among the odorous trees without the force to agitate their branches. Nature is here a genuine siren, half-earth, half-sea, whose magic voice wooes many a wanderer still to forget his native shore. We feel its charm as we survey the matchless landscape. An electric fire comes over the soul—admiration, wonder, emotions no words can express. Poetry is in the golden air, the bright waves, the enchanting shores, the intense hues that color everything—yes, even in the awful scars and lava streams that furnished the ancients with their ideas of Tartarus, and made Virgil place his descent thereto near the tenebrosa palus—the gloomy lake of Avernus, formed from the overflowing of the Acheron—
“Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep.”
The church bell awoke us from this delightful vision, and we entered the open door. It is a small building whose walls within are tinged a delicate sea-green, and have white mouldings, as if to harmonize with the foam-crested waves of the bay without. The windows are mere lunettes, high up in the arches, and below are five or six deep recesses with altars and paintings. The white marble basin at the entrance, for holy-water, looks like a flower on its tall, slender stem. On it is graven a shield like a chess-board—perhaps the arms of some noble of this farniente land to whom life was a mere game. We were at once struck by a singular crucifix on a kind of a tripod, under a canopy like a penthouse. Near by stood the Addolorata—the Madonna of Many Sorrows—in black like a nun, with wimple and veil, a stole embroidered with gold, and a wheel of gilt arrows piercing the silver heart on her breast. One poor dim lamp was burning before her. Opposite was a more cheerful altar with the Virgin del Parto, the titular of the church, gaily dressed after the Italian taste, and surrounded with lights and flowers. These two Madonnas seemed to personify Bethlehem and Calvary—the Alpha and Omega of the Christian mysteries—and between them we knelt to hear Mass.