The Mediterranean: Its Storied Cities and Venerable Ruins

The Palazzo Reale may doubtless too be remembered by him, as affording him the point of view from which he has obtained his first idea of the unrivaled situation of Palermo. From the flat roof of the Observatory, fitted up in the tower of S. Ninfa, a noble panorama lies stretched around us. The spectator is standing midway between Amphitrite and the Golden Shell that she once cast in sport upon the shore. Behind him lies the Conca d’Oro, with the range of mountains against which it rests, Grifone and Cuccio, and the Billieni Hills, and the road to Monreale winding up the valley past La Rocca; in front lies the noble curve of the gulf, from Cape Mongerbino to the port, the bold outlines of Monte Pellegrino, the Bay of Mondello still farther to the left, and Capo di Gallo completing the coast-line with its promontory dimly peering through the haze. Palermo, however, does not perhaps unveil the full beauty of its situation elsewhere than down at the sea’s edge, with the city nestling in the curve behind one and Pellegrino rising across the waters in front.

But the environs of the city, which are of peculiar interest and attraction, invite us, and first among these is Monreale, at a few miles’ distance, a suburb to which the traveller ascends by a road commanding at every turn some new and striking prospect of the bay. On one hand as he leaves the town, lies the Capuchin Monastery, attractive with its catacombs of mummified ex-citizens of Palermo to the lover of the gruesome rather than of the picturesque. Farther on is the pretty Villa Tasca, then La Rocca, whence by a winding road of very ancient construction we climb the royal mount crowned by the famous Cathedral and Benedictine Abbey of Monreale. Here more mosaics, as has been said, as fine in quality and in even greater abundance than those which decorate the interior of the Cappella Palatina; they cover, it is said, an area of seventy thousand four hundred square feet. From the Cathedral we pass into the beautiful cloisters, and thence into the fragrant orange-garden, from which another delightful view of the valley towards Palermo is obtained. San Martino, the site of a suppressed Benedictine monastery, is the next spot of interest. A steep path branching off to the right from Monreale leads to a deserted fort, named Il Castellaccio, from which the road descends as far as S. Martino, whence a pleasant journey back to Palermo is made through the picturesque valley of Bocca di Falco.

The desire to climb a beautiful mountain is as strong as if climbing it were not as effectual a way of hiding its beauties as it would be to sit upon its picture; and Monte Pellegrino, sleeping in the sunshine, and displaying the noble lines of what must surely be one of the most picturesque mountains in the world, is likely enough to lure the traveller to its summit. That mass of gray limestone, which takes such an exquisite flush under the red rays of the evening, is not difficult to climb. The zigzag path which mounts its sides is plainly visible from the town, and though steep at first, it grows gradually easier of ascent on the upper slopes of the mountain. Pellegrino was originally an island, and is still separated by the plain of the Conca d’Oro from the other mountains near the coast. Down to a few centuries ago it was clothed with underwood, and in much earlier times it grew corn for the soldiers of Hamilcar Barca, who occupied it in the first Punic War. Under an overhanging rock on its summit is the Grotto of Sta. Rosalia, the patron saint of the city, the maiden whom tradition records to have made this her pious retreat several centuries ago, and the discovery of whose remains in 1664 had the effect of instantaneously staying the ravages of the plague by which Palermo was just then being desolated. The grotto has since been converted, as under the circumstances was only fitting, into a church, to which many pilgrimages are undertaken by the devout. A steep path beyond the chapel leads to the survey station on the mountain top, from which a far-stretching view is commanded. The cone of Etna, over eighty miles off as the crow flies, can be seen from here, and still farther to the north, among the Liparæan group, the everlasting furnaces of Stromboli and Vulcano. There is a steeper descent of the mountain towards the southwest, and either by this or by retracing our original route we regain the road, which skirts the base of the mountain on the west, and, at four miles’ distance from the gate of the town, conducts to one of the most charmingly situated retreats that monarch ever constructed for himself, the royal villa-chateau of La Favorita, erected by Ferdinand IV. (Ferdinand I. of the Two Sicilies), otherwise not the least uncomfortable of the series of uncomfortable princes whom the Bourbons gave to the South Italian peoples.

Great as are the attractions of Palermo, they will hardly avail to detain the visitor during the rest of his stay in Sicily. For him who wishes to see Trinacria thoroughly, and who has already made the acquaintance of Messina and Syracuse, of Catania and Girgenti, the capital forms the most convenient of head-quarters from which to visit whatever places of interest remain to be seen in the western and southwestern corner of the island. For it is hence that, in the natural order of things, he would start for Marsala (famous as the landing-place of “the Thousand,” under Garibaldi, in 1860, and the commencement of that memorable march which ended in a few weeks in the overthrow of the Bourbon rule) and Trapani (from drepanon), another sickle-shaped town, dear to the Virgilian student as the site of the games instituted by Æneas to the memory of the aged Anchises, who died at Eryx, a poetically appropriate spot for a lover of Aphrodite to end his days in. The town of the goddess on the top of Monte San Giuliano, the ancient Eryx, is fast sinking to decay. Degenerate descendants, or successors would perhaps be more correct, of her ancient worshippers prefer the plain at its foot, and year by year migrations take place thither which threaten to number this immemorial settlement of pagan antiquity among the dead cities of the past, and to leave its grass-grown streets and moldering cathedral alone with the sea and sky. There are no remains of the world-famed shrine of Venus Erycina now save a few traces of its foundation and an ancient reservoir, once a fountain dedicated to the goddess. One need not linger on San Giuliano longer than is needful to survey the mighty maritime panorama which surrounds the spectator, and to note Cape Bon in Africa rising faintly out of the southward haze.

For Selinunto has to be seen, and Segesta, famous both for the grandeur and interest of their Greek remains. From Castelvetrano station, on the return route, it is but a short eight miles to the ruins of Selinus, the westernmost of the Hellenic settlements of Sicily, a city with a history of little more than two centuries of active life, and of upwards of two thousand years of desolation. Pammilus of Megara founded it, so says legend, in the seventh century B. C. In the fifth century of that era the Carthaginians destroyed it. Ever since that day it has remained deserted except as a hiding-place for the early Christians in the days of their persecution, and as a stronghold of the Mohammedans in their resistance to King Roger. Yet in its short life of some two hundred and twenty years it became, for some unknown reason of popular sanctity, the site of no fewer than seven temples, four of them among the largest ever known to have existed. Most of them survive, it is true, only in the condition of prostrate fragments, for it is supposed that earthquake and not time has been their worst foe, and the largest of them, dedicated to Hercules, or as some hold, to Appollo, was undoubtedly never finished at all. Its length, including steps, reaches the extraordinary figure of three hundred and seventy-one feet; its width, including steps, is a hundred and seventy-seven feet; while its columns would have soared when completed to the stupendous height of fifty-three feet. It dates from the fifth century B. C., and it was probably the appearance of the swarthy Carthaginian invaders which interrupted the masons at their work. It now lies a colossal heap of mighty, prostrate, broken columns, their flutings worn nearly smooth by time and weather, and of plinths shaped and rounded by the same agencies into the similitude of gigantic mountain boulders.

It is, however, the temples of Selinunto rather than their surroundings which command admiration and in this respect they stand in marked contrast to that site of a single unnamed ruin, which is, perhaps, taking site and ruin together, the most “pathetic” piece of the picturesque in all Sicily, the hill and temple of Segesta. From Calatafimi, scene of one of the Garibaldian battles, to Segesta the way lies along the Castellamare road, and through a beautiful and well-watered valley. The site of the town itself is the first to be reached. Monte Barbaro, with the ruins of the theater, lies to the north, to the west the hill whereon stands the famous Temple. No one needs a knowledge of Greek archæology or Greek history, or even a special love for Greek art, in order to be deeply moved by the spectacle which the spot presents. He needs no more than the capacity of Virgil’s hero to be touched by “the sense of tears in mortal things.” The Temple itself is perfect, except that its columns are still unfluted; but it is not the simple and majestic outline of the building, its lines of lessening columns, or its massive architraves upborne upon those mighty shafts, which most impress us, but the harmony between this great work of man and its natural surroundings. In this mountain solitude, and before this deserted shrine of an extinct worship we are in presence of the union of two desolations, and one had well-nigh said of two eternities, the everlasting hills and the imperishable yearnings of the human heart. No words can do justice to the lonely grandeur of the Temple of Segesta. It is unlike any other in Sicily in this matter of unique position. It has no rival temple near it, nor are there even the remains of any other building, temple or what not, to challenge comparison, within sight of the spectator. This ruin stands alone in every sense, alone in point of physical isolation, alone in the austere pathos which that position imparts to it.

In the Museum of Palermo, to which city the explorer of these ruined sanctuaries of art and religion may now be supposed to have returned, the interesting metopes of Selinus will recall the recollection of that greater museum of ruins which he just visited at Selinunto; but the suppressed monastery, which has been now turned into a Museo Nazionale, has not much else besides its Hellenic architectural fragments to detain him. And it may be presumed, perhaps, that the pursuit of antiquities, which may be hunted with so much greater success in other parts of the islands, is not precisely the object which leads most visitors to Sicily to prolong their stay in this beautifully seated city. Its attraction lies, in effect and almost wholly, in the characteristic noted in the phrase just used. Architecturally speaking, Palermo is naught: it is branded, as has been already said, with the banality and want of distinction of all modern Italian cities of the second class. And, moreover, all that man has ever done for her external adornment she can show you in a few hours; but days and weeks would not more than suffice for the full appreciation of all she owes to nature. Antiquities she has none, or next to none, unless, indeed, we are prepared to include relics of the comparatively modern Norman domination, which of course abound in her beautiful mosaics, in that category. The silt of successive ages, and the detritus of a life which from the earliest times has been a busy one, have irrecoverably buried almost all vestiges of her classic past. Her true, her only, but her all-sufficient attraction is conveyed in her ancient name. She is indeed “Panormus”; it is as the “all harbor city” that she fills the eye and mind and lingers in the memory and lives anew in the imagination. When the city itself and its environs as far as Monreale and San Martino and La Zisa have been thoroughly explored; when the imposing Porta Felice has been duly admired; when the beautiful gardens of La Flora, with its wealth of sub-tropical vegetation, has been sufficiently promenaded on; when La Cala, a quaint little narrow, shallow harbor, and the busy life on its quays have been adequately studied; then he who loves nature better than the works of man, and prefers the true eternal to the merely figurative “immortal,” will confess to himself that Palermo has nothing fairer, nothing more captivating, to show than that chef-d’ œuvre which the Supreme Artificer executed in shaping those noble lines of rock in which Pellegrino descends to the city at its foot, and in tracing that curve of coast-line upon which the city has sprung up under the mountain’s shadow. The view of this guardian and patron height, this tutelary rock, as one might almost fancy it, of the Sicilian capital is from all points and at all hours beautiful. It dominates the city and the sea alike from whatever point one contemplates it, and the bold yet soft beauty of its contours has in every aspect a never-failing charm. The merest lounger, the most frivolous of promenaders in Palermo, should congratulate himself on having always before his eyes a mountain, the mere sight of which may be almost described as a “liberal education” in poetry and art. He should haunt the Piazza Marina, however, not merely at the promenading time of day, but then also, nay, then most of all, when the throng has begun to thin, and, as Homer puts it, “all the ways are shadowed,” at the hour of sunset. For then the clear Mediterranean air is at its clearest, the fringing foam at its whitest, the rich, warm background of the Conca d’Oro at its mellowest, while the bare, volcanic-looking sides of Monte Pellegrino seem fusing into ruddy molten metal beneath the slanting rays. Gradually, as you watch the color die out of it, almost as it dies out of a snow-peak at the fading of the Alpen-gluth, the shadows begin to creep up the mountain-sides, forerunners of the night which has already fallen upon the streets of the city, and through which its lights are beginning to peer. A little longer, and the body of the mountain will be a dark, vague mass, with only its cone and graceful upper ridges traced faintly against pale depths of sky.

Thus and at such an hour may one see the city, bay, and mountain at what may be called their æsthetic or artistic best. But they charm, and with a magic of almost equal potency, at all hours. The fascination remains unabated to the end, and never, perhaps, is it more keenly felt by the traveller than when Palermo is smiling her God-speed upon the parting guest, and from the deck of the steamer which is to bear him away he waves his last farewell to the receding city lying couched, the loveliest of Ocean’s Nereids, in her shell of gold.

If his hour of departure be in the evening, when the rays of the westering sun strike athwart the base of Pellegrino, and tip with fire the summits of the low-lying houses of the seaport, and stream over and past them upon the glowing waters of the harbor the sight is one which will not be soon forgotten. Dimmer and dimmer grows the beautiful city with the increasing distance and the gathering twilight. The warm rose-tints of the noble mountain cool down into purple, and darken at last into a heavy mass of somber shadows; the sea changes to that spectral silver which overspreads it in the gloaming. It is a race between the flying steamer and the falling night to hide the swiftly fading coast-line altogether from the view; and so close is the contest that up to the last it leaves us doubtful whether it be darkness or distance that has taken it from us. But in a few more minutes, be it from one cause or from the other, the effacement is complete. Behind us, where Palermo lay a while ago, there looms only a bank of ever-darkening haze, and before the bows of our vessel the gray expanse of Mediterranean waters which lie between us and the Bay of Naples.

XIV

NAPLES

The Bay of Naples – Vesuvius – Characteristic scenes of street life – The alfresco restaurants – Chapel of St. Januarius – Virgil’s Tomb – Capri, the Mecca of artists and lovers of the picturesque – The Emperor Tiberius – Description of the Blue Grotto – The coast-road from Castellamare to Sorrento – Amalfi – Sorrento, “the village of flowers and the flower of villages” – The Temples of Pæstum.

Naples in itself, apart from its surroundings, is not of surpassing beauty. Its claim to be “the most beautiful city in Europe” rests solely on the adventitious aid of situation. When the fictitious charm which distance gives is lost by a near approach, it will be seen that the city which has inspired the poets of all ages is little more than a huge, bustling, commonplace commercial port, not to be compared for a moment, æsthetically speaking, with Genoa, Florence, Venice, or many other Italian towns equally well known to the traveller. This inherent lack is, however, more than compensated for by the unrivaled natural beauties of its position, and of its charming environs. No town in Europe, not Palermo with its “Golden Shell,” Constantinople with its “Golden Horn,” nor Genoa, the “Gem of the Riviera,” can boast of so magnificent a situation. The traveller who approaches Naples by sea may well be excused for any exuberance of language. As the ship enters the Gulf, passing between the beautiful isles of Ischia and Capri, which seem placed like twin outposts to guard the entrance of this watery paradise, the scene is one which will not soon fade from the memory. All around stretches the bay in its azure immensity, its sweeping curves bounded on the right by the rocky Sorrentine promontory, with Sorrento, Meta, and a cluster of little fishing villages nestling in the olive-clad precipices, half hidden by orange groves and vineyards, and the majestic form of Monte Angelo towering above. Farther along the coast, Vesuvius, the tutelary genius of the scene, arrests the eye, its vine-clad lower slopes presenting a startling contrast to the dark cone of the volcano belching out fire and smoke, a terrible earnest of the hidden powers within. On the left the graceful undulations of the Camaldoli hills descend to the beautifully indented bay of Pozzuoli, which looks like a miniature replica of the parent gulf with the volcano of Monte Nuovo for its Vesuvius. Then straight before the spectator lies a white mass like a marble quarry; this, with a white projecting line losing itself in the graceful curve of Vesuvius, resolves itself, as the steamer draws nearer, into Naples and its suburbs of Portici and Torre del Greco. Beyond, in the far background, the view is shut in by a phantom range of snowy peaks, an offshoot of the Abruzzi Mountains, faintly discerned in the purple haze of the horizon. All these varied prospects unite to form a panorama which, for beauty and extent, is hardly to be matched in Europe.

This bald and inadequate description may perhaps serve to explain one reason for the pre-eminence among the many beautiful views in the South of Europe popularly allowed to the Bay of Naples. One must attribute the æsthetic attraction of the Bay a good deal to the variety of beautiful and striking objects comprised in the view. Here we have not merely a magnificent bay with noble, sweeping curves (the deeply indented coasts of the Mediterranean boast many more extensive), but in addition we have in this comparatively circumscribed area an unequaled combination of sea, mountain, and island scenery. In short, the Gulf of Naples, with its islands, capes, bays, straits, and peninsulas, is an epitome of the principal physical features of the globe, and might well serve as an object lesson for a child making its first essay at geography. Then, too, human interest is not lacking. The mighty city of Naples, like a huge octopus, stretches out its feelers right and left, forming the straggling towns and villages which lie along the eastern and western shores of the bay. A more plausible, if prosaic, reason for the popularity of the Bay of Naples may, however, be found in its familiarity. Naples and Vesuvius are as well known to us in prints, photographs, or engravings as St. Paul’s Cathedral or the Houses of Parliament. If other famous bays, Palermo or Corinth, for instance, were equally well known, that of Naples would have many rivals in popular estimation.

The traveller feels landing a terrible anticlimax. The noble prospect of the city and the bay has raised his expectations to the highest pitch, and the disenchantment is all the greater. The sordid surroundings of the port, the worst quarter of the city, the squalor and filth of the streets, preceded by the inevitable warfare with the rapacious rabble of yelling boatmen, porters, and cab-drivers, make the disillusionized visitor inclined to place a sinister interpretation on the equivocal maxim, Vedi Napoli e poi mori; and Goethe’s aphorism, that a man can never be utterly miserable who retains the recollection of Naples, seems to him the hollowest mockery and the cruellest irony.

The streets of Naples are singularly lacking in architectural interest. Not only are there few historic buildings or monuments, which is curious when we consider the important part Naples played in the mediæval history of the South of Europe, but there are not many handsome modern houses or palaces of any pretensions. Not that Naples is wanting in interest. The conventional sight-seer, who calls a place interesting in proportion to the number of pages devoted to its principal attractions in the guide-books, may, perhaps, contemptuously dismiss this great city as a place which can be sufficiently well “done” in a couple of days; but to the student of human nature Naples offers a splendid field in its varied and characteristic scenes of street life. To those who look below the surface, this vast hive of humanity, in which Italian life can be studied in all its varied phases and aspects, cannot be wholly commonplace.

It is a truism that the life of Naples must be seen in the streets. The street is the Neapolitan’s bedroom, dining-room, dressing-room, club, and recreation ground. The custom of making the streets the home is not confined to the men. The fair sex are fond of performing al fresco toilettes, and may frequently be seen mutually assisting each other in the dressing of their magnificent hair in full view of the passers-by.

As in Oriental cities, certain trades are usually confined to certain streets or alleys in the poorer quarters of the town. The names at street corners show that this custom is a long-established one. There are streets solely for cutlers, working jewelers, second-hand bookstalls, and old clothes shops, to name a few of the staple trades. The most curious of these trading-streets is one not far from the Cathedral, confined to the sale of religious wares; shrines, tawdry images, cheap crucifixes, crosses, and rosaries make up the contents of these ecclesiastical marine stores. This distinctive local character of the various arts and crafts is now best exemplified in the Piazza degli Orefici. This square and the adjoining streets are confined to silversmiths and jewelers, and here the characteristic ornaments of the South Italian peasant women can still be bought, though they are beginning to be replaced by the cheap, machine-made abominations of Birmingham. Apart from the thronging crowds surging up and down, these narrow streets and alleys are full of dramatic interest. The curious characteristic habits and customs of the people may best be studied in the poor quarters round the Cathedral. He who would watch this shifting and ever-changing human kaleidoscope must not, however, expect to do it while strolling leisurely along. This would be as futile as attempting to stem the ebb and flow of the street currents, for the streets are narrow and the traffic abundant. A doorway will be found a convenient harbor of refuge from the long strings of heavily laden mules and donkeys which largely replace vehicular traffic. A common and highly picturesque object is the huge charcoal-burner’s wagon, drawn usually by three horses abreast. The richly decorated pad of the harness is very noticeable, with its brilliant array of gaudy brass flags and the shining repoussé plates, with figures of the Madonna and the saints, which, together with the Pagan symbols of horns and crescents, are supposed to protect the horses from harm. Unfortunately these talismans do not seem able to protect them from the brutality of their masters. The Neapolitan’s cruelty to animals is proverbial. This characteristic is especially noticeable on Festas and Sundays. A Neapolitan driver apparently considers the seating capacity of a vehicle and the carrying power of a horse to be limited only by the number of passengers who can contrive to hang on, and with anything less than a dozen perched on the body of the cart, two or three in the net, and a couple on the shafts, he will think himself weakly indulgent to his steed. It is on the Castellamare Road on a Festa that the visitor will best realize the astonishing elasticity of a Neapolitan’s notions as to the powers of a beast of burden. A small pony will often be seen doing its best to drag uphill a load of twelve or fifteen hulking adults, incited to its utmost efforts by physical suasion in the form of sticks and whips, and moral suasion in the shape of shrill yells and oaths. Their diabolical din seems to give some color to the saying that “Naples is a paradise inhabited by devils.”