Embarking at Torregaveta, the little terminus of the Ferrovia Cumana, which traverses the classic district of the Phlegraean Fields, we are quickly transported in a small coasting steamer past the headland of Misenum to the island and port of Procida, the “alta Prochyta” of Virgil. Although the poet calls the island lofty, it is remarkably flat considering its volcanic origin, for Procida and Ischia were undoubtedly one in remote ages, as the learned Strabo rightly conjectured. Its only eminence is the Rocciola, the castle-crowned hillock to the north-east of the island, but as this hill must first have caught the expectant eye of Aeneas’ steersman, perhaps the epithet is after all not so misplaced as would appear at first sight. Carefully tilled and densely populated, the island produces a large proportion of the fruit, vegetables, and olive oil, that are sold in the Naples market, and as it possesses no remains of antiquity, no medieval churches, no works of art, and but few beauties of nature to recommend it for inspection, Procida is rarely visited by strangers. Its inhabitants, who are chiefly husbandmen, are hard working and independent, and content also to retain the manners and customs of their frugal forefathers, and [pg 276]even to a certain extent to continue the use of their national dress, so that the festivals of Procida have more interest and local colour than those observed in tourist-haunted Capri or Sorrento. Unconcerned at the progress of the world without, unspoiled by the gold of the forestiere, the Procidani pursue the even tenor of their old-fashioned ways, unenvious of and unenvied by their neighbours on the mainland.
“O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona nÔrint,
Agricolas!”
We halt at the port of Procida, with its flat-roofed gaily coloured houses lining the quay and ascending the gentle slope towards the Rocciola. Thence, skirting the low-lying fertile shores of the island, and passing the olive-clad islet of Vivara, we soon come in sight of the steep headland on which are perched the grey masses of the Castle of Ischia, “the Mount St Michael of Italy.”
Covered from base to summit with fume-weed, lentisk, aromatic cistus, and every plant that loves the sun, the wind and the salt foam of the Mediterranean, the huge solitary cliff rises majestically from the deep blue water. Whether viewed in brilliant sunshine under a cloudless sky, or in foul weather, when the sea is hurling its waves over the stone causeway that connects the isolated crag with the little city of Ischia, the first sight of this historic castle is singularly impressive. Nor is its grandeur lessened on a near approach, for the ascent to its topmost tower takes us through a labyrinth of staircases and mysterious subterranean passages, through vaulted chambers and curious hanging gardens to an airy platform, which commands a glorious view in every direction over land and sea.
[pg 277] Built by Alphonso V. of Aragon in the fifteenth century, this massive pile, half-fortress and half-palace, is famous in Italian annals for its long association with the noble poetess Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara. Born in the old Castle of Marino, near Rome, one of the strongholds of the great feudal house of Colonna, the poetess, who was great-great-niece to Pope Martin V., was betrothed in her infancy at the instigation of King Ferdinand of Naples to the youthful heir of the d’Avalos family, hereditary governors of the island of Ischia. The elder sister of Vittoria’s affianced husband, Constance d’Avalos, the widowed Duchess of Francavilla, was the “chÂtelaine” of Ischia during her brother’s minority, so that it was but natural that his Colonna bride-elect should be sent to dwell with Constance in this castle. Here Vittoria under her sister-in-law’s excellent tutelage grew up to womanhood amidst the intellectual atmosphere of the Italian Renaissance, and here she was trained to develop into one of the most learned, the most interesting and the most attractive figures that all Italy produced at this period. Childless in her early marriage at eighteen, and with her husband frequently, not to say usually, engaged in military expeditions on the mainland, Vittoria had every opportunity of cultivating her mind and of filling her sea-girt palace with men of genius. The poets Cariteo and Bernado Tasso (the father of Torquato Tasso), were frequent visitors at this
“Superbo scoglio, altaro e bel ricetto,
Di tanti chiari eroi, d’ imperadori,
Orde raggi di gloria escono fuori,
Ch’ ogni altro lume fan scuro e negletto.”
[pg 278] Strange to relate, her husband, the Marquis of Pescara, was destined to forestall his learned lady in the matter of poetry, for during his imprisonment at Milan in the year 1512, he composed a “Dialogo d’Amore” to send to his sorrowing wife at Ischia, a production which the learned Paolo Giovio, the historian and bishop of Nocera, pronounced as being “summae jucunditatis,” though in reality it seems to have been feeble enough. But however halting and commonplace the warrior’s verses, Pescara’s composition had the immediate effect of opening the flood-gates of his wife’s poetic temperament, for she replied at once to her spouse’s effort with an epistle conceived in the terza rima employed by Dante, and though the poem is turgid in diction and shallow in thought, full of classical names and allusions, “a parade of all the treasures of the school-room,” it exhibits the graceful ease and high scholarship which mark all Vittoria’s writings. Meanwhile, unblest with offspring of her own and ever separated by the cruel circumstance of war from the husband she seemed perfectly content to admire from a distance, Vittoria did not expend all her time at Ischia in sacrificing to Apollo and the Muses, for she now undertook the education of her husband’s young cousin and heir, Alphonso d’Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, whose manhood certainly did credit to his instructress, for del Vasto under her influence grew up to be a brave soldier and a tolerable scholar.
After sixteen years of married life with a husband who, although professing deep devotion to his brilliant and virtuous consort, was almost invariably absent from her side, Vittoria found herself left a widow shortly [pg 279]after the great battle of Pavia in 1525 wherein Francis I. of France surrendered to the Emperor Charles V. The Marquis of Pescara, after the usual career of bloodthirsty adventures which passed in those days for a life of knight-errantry, died at Milan towards the close of this year, leaving behind him an unenviable reputation for treachery towards his master. But however hard were the things said of the deceased Fernando d’Avalos by the outside world, no breath of suspicion seems ever to have penetrated to the heart of the faithful if placid Vittoria, who mourned bitterly if somewhat theatrically over her departed hero. The Lady of the Rock was now in her thirty-fifth year, and her beauty, so we are told, still remained undimmed; in fact it was rather improved by a tendency towards plumpness, for sorrow and poetry are not necessarily associated with a meagre appearance. Spending her time partly in the great Italian cities, but chiefly on her beloved scoglio superbo, the widow of Pescara now set herself to write that series of sonnets in memory of her dead husband which have rescued his unworthy name from oblivion and have rendered her own famous in Italian literature. For the sonnets of Vittoria Colonna, though appearing cold classical and pedantic to our northern ideas, evidently appeal to the Italian temperament, so that the praises of Pescara and his widow’s stilted complaints, couched in the elegant language of the Renaissance, are still read and appreciated to-day by her compatriots. As time passed, and the ghost of sorrowful remorse was supposed to be decently laid, the sonnets contain somewhat less of hero-worship, and assume a religious and speculative character. Some critics have even gone so far as to [pg 280]affect to perceive a latent spirit of Protestantism underlying the graceful platitudes and commonplace but grandly expressed ideas. Very likely the Lady of the Rock dabbled in the fashionable heterodoxy of the hour, as it is at least certain that she was on terms of intimacy with the celebrated Princess RenÉe, the “Protestant” Duchess of Ferrara. On the other hand, several of her acquaintances and correspondents were amongst the most prominent of the unyielding Churchmen of the day; in their number being, it is interesting to note, Cardinal Reginald Pole, great-nephew of King Edward IV. of England and afterwards Queen Mary’s Archbishop of Canterbury, who was certainly not likely to encourage Vittoria’s unorthodox or reforming tendencies. “The more opportunity,” so writes the poetess to Cardinal Cervino, afterwards Pope Marcellus II., “I have had of observing the actions of his Eminence the Cardinal of England, the more clear has it seemed to me that he is a true and sincere servant of God. Whenever, therefore, he charitably condescends to give me his opinion on any point, I conceive myself safe from error in following his advice.” And on the strength of Cardinal Pole’s astute counsels, Vittoria promptly broke off all communication with the leading reformer, Bernardino Ochino, and (a thing which does not strike us as particularly honourable) forwarded his letters to herself unopened to his spiritual adversaries. But it is evident that Vittoria’s “Protestantism” was a mere pose, assumed at a time when adverse criticism from all sides was being levelled at the political abuses of the Papacy and at the various scandals in the Church which were patent to the eyes of all onlookers. In [pg 281]short her religious verses are if anything more frigid and artificial than those which compose the In Memoriam to her husband, her Bel Sole, as she usually terms him. Whilst admitting considerable merit in Vittoria’s compositions, we find it at this distance of time very difficult to understand the extravagant praise which was showered upon her poems by the Italian critics of the day, or to conceive how a sonnet from the gifted pen of the Marchioness of Pescara could possibly have been considered an important event in the literary world by cardinals, princes, poets, wits and scholars. From Naples to Rome, from Rome to Ferrara, from Ferrara to Mantua and Milan, the precious manuscript containing the last-born sonnet of the illustrious Lady of Ischia was eagerly passed along. Court poets read aloud amidst breathless silence the divine Vittoria’s fourteen lines of jejune sentiment draped in folds of elegant verbiage; nobles and prelates applauded, hailing the authoress as a heaven-sent genius. Sincere to a certain extent this strange admiration undoubtedly was, although the homage was paid perhaps in equal proportions to the excellence of the verse and to the high rank of the author. She was a Colonna by birth; she was the widow of a petty despot; she was governor of a large island;—any literary production, however indifferent, from so high a personage would have been received throughout Italy with respect or flattery. But Vittoria was no mean or careless aspirant to fame; it was the fault of an artificial age rather than the lack of her own natural ability that has made her poetry cold and soulless, for under healthy conditions of life and thought, “the Divine Vittoria” was doubtless capable of pro[pg 282]ducing something warmer and more human than the lifeless but graceful sonnets that bear her name.
It is chiefly through her close connexion with the great literary movement of the Italian Renaissance and her intimacy with its leading artists and writers, rather than through her own reputation as a poetess, that the name of Vittoria Colonna herself is remembered outside the borders of Italy. With her wealth, her culture, her virtue and her unique position in the world of rank and of letters, it is nothing marvellous that so fortunate and gifted a mortal should have become the idol of the leading persons of her day. She belonged, in fact, to a brilliant and famous group of which she was the soul and centre; of which she was at once the patron, the disciple and the teacher. That great master of Italian prose, Pietro Bembo, set a high value on her powers of criticism; other men, almost as distinguished as the Venetian cardinal, besought her for advice on literary subjects. Foremost in her circle of admirers appears of course the great Michelangelo, with whom the immaculate Vittoria condescended to indulge in one of those cold platonic pseudo-passions which constituted the true divino amore of the idealists of the Renaissance. So here was nothing to cavil at, nothing to arouse base suspicion. Considered the greatest man and the greatest woman in all Italy, both were of mature age, he in the sixties and she in the forties, when Michelangelo first professed himself seized with a pure but unquenchable love and devotion for the widowed Lady of the Rock.
The last days of Vittoria, which were chiefly spent within the walls of the Convent of Sant’ Anna at [pg 283]Rome, were clouded by ill-health and sorrow. The death of the young Marchese del Vasto, “her moral and intellectual son,” was an irreparable loss, for which her boundless fame and popularity could offer little real consolation. At length the poetess, feeling death approaching, moved to the house of Giulia Colonna, her relative, and there expired in February 1547, in the fifty-seventh year of her age. To the last her death-bed was surrounded by sorrowing and adoring friends, amongst them being Michelangelo, who is said to have witnessed with his own eyes the last moments of his beloved Lady. And the famous sculptor, painter and poet—perhaps the most stupendous genius the world has yet produced—is reported to have bitterly regretted in after years that on so solemn an occasion he had not ventured to imprint one chaste kiss upon the forehead of the woman he had adored so ardently, yet so purely during life. By her expressed wish the body of the poetess was buried in San Domenico Maggiore at Naples, the finest and least spoiled of all the Neapolitan churches, where a velvet-covered coffin containing the ashes of the Divine Vittoria and her “Bel Sole,” and surmounted by the sword, banner and portrait of Fernando d’Avalos, is still pointed out to the stranger, resting on a shelf in the sacristy of the church. We cannot but regret that Vittoria’s body did not find a final resting-place in her superbo scoglio, where all her happiest years were spent and where her memory still survives so fresh.
Sadly deserted appear to-day the historic buildings, which are fast falling into hopeless decay; even the large domed church of the Castle has been desecrated and turned into a stable.
[pg 284] “Tocsins from yon bleak turrets never ring;
No knight or pages pace those galleries,
So sombre and so silent: ever cling
To that cold church and palace draperies
Of glaucous fume-weed; sea-birds ever sing
The vanished glories with low mournful cries.”
Ischia itself is a quaint, dirty, straggling town, possessing a small cathedral of ancient foundation, but modernised within and without, its sole object of interest being a curious font resting on marble lions. The charm of the city lies chiefly in the busy scenes to be witnessed daily on its sandy beach and on the stone causeway that leads to the Castle, where a large part of the population seems to spend most of its time in mending the deep brown fishing nets or in attending to the gaudily painted boats.
Almost adjoining the outskirts of the little capital of the island is Porto d’Ischia, with a deep circular harbour that was once the crater of an extinct volcano, wherein every variety of Mediterranean fishing craft is to be seen at anchor. Close to the port, embowered among groves of orange and lemon trees that in winter time are laden with bright or pale yellow fruit, stands a fine old villa of the Bourbon kings of Naples, once a favourite summer retreat of his Majesty King Bomba. Royalty has long abandoned Ischia, and the villa has now been converted into a bath house. Beyond its neglected park stretches an extensive pine forest, carpeted in spring time with daisies, marigolds and anemones, and even in February gay with yellow oxalis and redolent with the scent of hidden violets.
The road from Ischia to Casamicciola, a distance [pg 285]of four miles, leads along the base of Monte Epomeo through olive groves and vineyards, the whitewashed walls of the domed cottages, the flat roofs and cisterns, and the frequent clumps of aloe or prickly pear giving an Eastern aspect to the scenery, though the sharp tinklings of the goat bells among the thickets of white heath and dark myrtle scrub on the hill-sides and the continual murmur of the waves breaking on the rocks below, serve to remind us we are upon the Neapolitan Riviera. Our destination at length is reached, the roadway crossing the deep valley of the Gurgitello with its sulphur baths, which once had a wide reputation and are still much frequented in the summer months by the people of Naples. Although the sources of the springs were certainly damaged by the earthquake of 1883, new bathing establishments have been built, and a fair number of patients are once more availing themselves of these beneficent waters, which of course are warranted to heal every bodily evil under the sun. A course of the Ischian waters therefore applied externally and internally (so the local doctors inform us)
“Muove i paralitici,
Spedisce gli apopletici,
Gli asmatici, gli asfitici,
Gl’ isterici, i diabetici
Guarisce timpanitidi,
E scrofule e rachitidi.”
Formerly the most populous and prosperous township of the whole island, Casamicciola consists to-day principally of a mass of shapeless ruins, together with a number of dismal corrugated iron huts grouped round an ugly modern church, nor can its exquisite [pg 286]views and luxuriant gardens make amends for the settled air of melancholy which continues to brood over this unlucky spot. Every reader will doubtless remember the story of the terrible earthquake of July 28th 1883, when almost without warning the whole town, then crowded with its usual influx of summer visitors, was overthrown and engulfed in the space of a few seconds of time. Hotels, villas, churches, cottages, all suffered equally, and though the exact number of those who perished of all classes will never be known, the most moderate accounts put the figure as high as 3000 souls. Several English people lost their lives in that brief but terrible upheaval, and as many of the bodies as were recovered from the wreckage were laid to rest in the little cemetery outside the town, a plot of ground overhanging the sea, and shaded by cypress and eucalyptus trees. Many and impressive are the stories still to be heard from the lips of the present inhabitants, who are wont to date all events from that fearful night of darkness and destruction, and who all have piteous tales to tell of relations killed and houses shattered. The English landlady of the Piccola Sentinella, who herself had an almost miraculous escape on the occasion, gave us a most vivid and heart-rending description of how her hotel and most of its inmates were overwhelmed on that awful July night, and how the existing inn is literally built upon foundations that are filled with many unrecovered bodies of victims. It was on a dark sultry night after the evening meal had been finished, when the many guests of the Piccola Sentinella were sitting in the public rooms or on the terrace overlooking [pg 287]the hotel gardens. In the salon a young Englishman, an accomplished musician, had been playing for some time on the piano, when suddenly and unexpectedly he plunged into the strains of Chopin’s Marche FunÈbre, which had the immediate effect of scattering his audience, since many of his listeners, not caring for so melancholy a piece of music, deserted the room for the garden. Lucky indeed were those persons driven forth by the strains of Chopin’s dirge, for a few moments later came the earthquake, when in a trice the whole hotel was swallowed up in the yawning chasm of the earth. Everybody inside the walls was killed, and the body of the poor pianist was actually discovered later amidst the wreckage, crushed down upon the instrument which had struck the warning notes of impending disaster. The horrors of that night still linger vividly in the memory of the people, and many are the terrible incidents, and many also, we are glad to say, the acts of bravery which are recorded of it. One elderly English lady, who owned a small villa on the slope above the hotel, rushed at the first suspicion of the catastrophe into the stone archway of a window, whence she beheld the whole of her house collapse like a castle of cards around her. Nothing daunted by the spectacle, this gallant woman, as soon as the shock had ceased and the clouds of dust rising from the ruin had cleared away, left her own dismantled home, of which nothing but the one wall that had sheltered her remained standing, and joined the parrocco, the parish priest of Casamicciola, in the task of succouring the living and comforting the dying. To the darkness of the night was now added a heavy rainfall, yet the good priest and this [pg 288]noble woman traversed together the altered and devastated scene amidst the wet and gloom on their errand of mercy. It is some satisfaction to learn that this piece of unselfish heroism and devotion on the part of the priest was officially acknowledged, for the humble curate of Casamicciola was afterwards made a prelate by Pope Leo XIII. in recognition of his signal services. Even to-day people are inclined to be somewhat chary of spending any length of time in this unfortunate spot, where the ruined streets and shapeless mounds of earth, only too suggestive of a latter-day Pompeii, speak so eloquently of terrible experiences in the past and of possible dangers in the future. Nevertheless, if one can triumph over these gloomy feelings, Casamicciola affords a delightful centre whence to explore the whole island, and many are the pleasant walks to be found on the overhanging slopes of Mont’ Epomeo, and many the boating expeditions to be made from the Marina below the upper town.
It is a two-mile walk through stony lanes overhung by branches of fig and orange from Casamicciola to Lacco, a large village well situated on a little bay which is distinguished by a curious mushroom-shaped rock, aptly nicknamed “Il Fungo” by the natives. This place, which also suffered severely in the earthquake of 1883, is the head-quarters of the straw-plaiting industry of the island, the women and children noisily beseeching every chance visitor to buy their wares in the guise of baskets, hats and fans; the pretty coloured tiles (mattoni), which are used with such good effect in the churches and houses of the island, are likewise manufactured here. Lacco is particularly associated [pg 289]with the great annual festival of St Restituta on May 17th, which is always marked by religious processions and by universal merry-making, followed by illuminations and fireworks at nightfall. This saint, of whom an early mosaic portrait still exists in her ancient chapel within the Neapolitan Cathedral, was once the patroness of the city of Naples, but since medieval times she has been honoured as the special guardian of this island, whither her body (so the legend runs) was miraculously conveyed from Egypt in a boat rowed by angels. A local tradition also asserts that on her landing by the beach of Lacco, an Egyptian lotus bloom was found in the saint’s hand, as fresh as when it had been plucked months before from the banks of the Nile.
Leaving the little bay with its sulphur-impregnated sands, and turning inland, we proceed along a road across an ancient lava-stream over-grown with pine trees, wild caper and a tangle of aromatic brushwood, to Forio, which with its white domed houses, its palm trees, and its stately bare-footed women bearing tall pitchers on their heads gives at first acquaintance the full impression of an Oriental city. There is little to be seen in Forio itself, with the exception of some fine vestments of needlework that are preserved in the sacristy of its principal church, but no traveller should fail to visit its wonderfully picturesque Franciscan monastery, a barbaric-looking pile of dazzling white walls and cupolas set against a background of cobalt waters, which stands outside the town on a rocky platform jutting into the Mediterranean and is approached by a broad flight of marble steps adorned with most realistic figures of souls burning in brightly painted flames of Purgatory. This point too commands a [pg 290]good view of the extreme north-eastern promontory of the island, a tall cliff known as the Punta del Imperatore in honour of the great Emperor Charles the Fifth, beyond which visitors rarely penetrate owing to the roughness, or rather non-existence of roads, though the southern side of the island, which lies between this cape and the castle of Ischia, is fully as beautiful as the northern portion just described.
The chief attraction, however, of a visit to Ischia is the ascent of Mont’ Epomeo, an easy expedition on foot to the active, and feasible to the weak or lazy on mule-back. This extinct volcano, whose broad lofty summit is visible from many points of the Bay of Naples, is naturally rich in classical associations, the ancients believing that within it lay imprisoned the giant Typhoeus, whose agonised movements were wont to cause the frequent eruptions of the crater that eventually drove away the early Greek settlers from this island—the Aenaria or Inarime of antiquity—and in later times accounted for the neglect of Ischia as a winter resort by the luxurious Romans, in spite of its near presence to fashionable Baiae. So destructive of life and property were these convulsions of nature, that for long periods, notwithstanding its fertile soil and its lucrative fisheries, the island remained uninhabited, and an old tradition, mentioned by Ovid, derives one of its ancient names, Pithecusa, from a race of apes (pithekoi) that dwelt on its abandoned shores. Since the great eruption of 1302, the effects of which can still be traced among the large pine woods near Porto d’Ischia, the mountain has been quiescent, and the population of the island has increased considerably, although the constant shocks of [pg 291]earthquake have always made a permanent residence in Ischia somewhat insecure. Nor can we rest assured that Typhoeus himself is truly dead, not merely sleeping, but ready to renew his fierce efforts after his long spell of slumber, and to change the face of nature as unexpectedly as did the Demon of Vesuvius in the reign of Titus.
Like the great volcano of Etna, which the Ischian mountain somewhat resembles on a tiny scale. Epomeo contains three distinct climatic zones. The lowest is that of the coast line with its rich sub-tropical vegetation, the early part of the ascent leading by steep stony paths through sun-baked vineyards which produce the white wine of Ischia, wholesome and light but somewhat acid in taste. For the storing of this vintage the peasants make use of the numerous old stone towers, that once served as safe retreats for the terrified inhabitants in times when the Barbary pirates frequently descended on the Italian coasts to plunder and enslave. Very curious it is to step out of the blinding sunlight into the interior of one of these medieval buildings, where in the icy gloom stand great barrels of the new white wine, each carefully inscribed with a prayer in praise of St Restituta, from one of which the swarthy contadino, in expectation of a few pence, draws a glassful of the sour chilly liquid to offer his visitor. Leaving behind this region of houses and of cultivation, the zone of forest is reached, covered with woods of chestnut and oak, with a thick undergrowth of heather, myrtle, laurustinus and sweet-scented yellow coronella; there is grass under our feet, and long-stemmed daisies, violets, mauve anemones and small fragrant marigolds everywhere. Through the trees comes the nasal but [pg 292]not unmelodious singing of an unseen charcoal-burner, or the plaintive note of the little goat-herd’s rustic pipe, accompanied by the musical jingling of his goat-bells;—for a moment we try to fancy ourselves in the pastoral Italy of Theocritus, where nymphs and shepherds, peasants and dryads, lived together on terms of amity in the woods. But soon the chestnut trees appear stunted, and the groves become less thick, and we finally gain the last zone, the desolate expanse of naked rock and dark lava deposits of the summit, where only a few hardy weeds can thrive. Here in some damp mouldy chambers dwells a hermit, for nearly all the classic mountains of Southern Italy are tenanted by an anchorite, generally an old and ignorant, but pious peasant, of the type of Pietro Murrone, the holy recluse of the Abruzzi, who was finally dragged from his cell to be invested forcibly with the pontifical robes and tiara as Celestine the Fifth. The present hermitage on Mont’ Epomeo dates however from comparatively modern times, for its first occupant is said to have been a German nobleman, a certain Joseph Arguth, governor of Ischia under the first Bourbon king, who in consequence of a solemn vow made in battle deliberately passed his last years of existence on the topmost peak of the island he had lately ruled. His example has been followed and his cell filled by many successors, who have endured the spring rains, the summer heats, the autumn storms and the winter chills upon this airy height, where the glorious view may be found a compensation for eternal discomfort, if hermits condescend to appreciate anything so mundane as scenery. The shrine and cell are dedicated to St Nicholas of Bari, and to this circumstance is due the local uninteresting [pg 293]name of Monte San NiccolÒ to the entire mountain, whose crest, some 3000 feet above sea-level, we finally gain by means of steps roughly hewn in the lava.
The view from this height, embracing two out of the three historic bays of the Parthenopean coast, is one of the noblest and most extensive in Southern Italy. Looking southward, the fantastic cliffs of Capri are seen to rise abruptly from the ocean; beyond them appears the graceful outline of Monte Sant’ Angelo, with the crater of Vesuvius beside it, veiling the clear blue sky with volumes of dusky smoke. Beneath extends the broken line of shore, stretching north and south as far as the eye can travel, with its classic capes and islands basking in the strong sunshine; whilst behind the foam-fringed boundary of land and sea rises the jagged line of the Abruzzi Mountains with the huge snow-clad mass of the Gran Sasso d’Italia towering above the lower peaks. At our feet is spread the beautiful and fertile island, in outward appearance little changed since the days when the good Bishop Berkeley “of every virtue under Heaven” penned its description nearly two centuries ago in a letter to Alexander Pope, wherein he described Ischia as “an epitome of the whole earth.”
In spite of the good Bishop’s eloquent tribute to the genial climate and the natural beauty of Ischia, it must be borne in mind that a residence on the island possesses one or two serious drawbacks. Apart from the ever-present fear of earthquakes, which hangs like the sword of Damocles above the heads of the inhabitants, there is yet another disadvantage, prosaic but very real, in the lack of pure water, every well and rivulet on Ischia being more or less impregnated [pg 294]with sulphur, with the result that water for drinking (and in summer even for domestic) purposes has to be conveyed by boat from Naples. It is bad enough to be dependant on a distant city for a food supply (which is to some extent also the case here), but the possibility of enduring a water famine through storms or misadventure would be a far more serious calamity; nevertheless as casual visitors to this charming and little-known island, we can easily afford to smile at such misfortunes.12
