Chapter XIV: Naples, 325 (7)

More than one of the smaller churches of Genoa is of archæological interest, and the more modern fabric, called L'Annunziata, is extremely rich in its internal decorations, though these are more remarkable for their sumptuousness than for their good taste. But one structure calls for some notice in any account of the city. This is the Campo Santo, or burial-place of Genoa, situated at some distance without the walls in the Valley of the Bisagno. A large tract of land on the slope which forms the right bank of that stream has been converted into a cemetery, and was laid out on its present plan rather more than twenty-five years since. Extensive open spaces are enclosed within and divided by corridors with cloisters; terraces also, connected by flights of steps, lead up to a long range of buildings situated some distance above the river, in the center of which is a chapel crowned with a dome, supported internally by large columns of polished black Como marble. The bodies of the poorer people are buried in the usual way in the open ground of the cemetery, and the floor of the corridors appears to cover a continuous series of vaults, closed, as formerly in our churches, with great slabs of stone; but a very large number of the dead rest above the ground in vaults constructed on a plan which has evidently been borrowed from catacombs like those of Rome. There is, however, this difference, that in the latter the "loculi," or separate compartments to contain the corpses, were excavated in the rock, while here they are constructed entirely of masonry. In both cases the "loculus" is placed with its longer axis parallel to the outer side, as was occasionally the method in the rock-hewn tombs of Palestine, instead of having an opening at the narrower end, so that the corpse, whether coffined or not, lies in the position of a sleeper in the berth of a ship. After a burial, the loculus, as in the catacombs, is closed, and an inscription placed on a slab outside. Thus in the Campo Santo at Genoa we walk through a gallery of tombs. On either hand are ranges of low elongated niches, rising tier above tier, each bearing a long white marble tablet, surrounded by a broad border of dark serpentine breccia. The interior generally is faced with white marble, which is toned down by the interspaces of the darker material, and the effect produced by these simple monumental corridors, these silent records of those who have rested from their labors, is impressive, if somewhat melancholy. In the cloisters, as a rule, the more sumptuous memorials are to be found. Here commonly sections of the wall are given up to the monuments of a family, the vaults, as I infer, being underneath the pavement. These memorials are often elaborate in design, and costly in their materials. They will be, and are, greatly admired by those to whose minds sumptuousness is the chief element in beauty, and rather second-rate execution of conceptions distinctly third-rate gives no offense. Others, however, will be chiefly impressed with the inferiority of modern statuary to the better work of classic ages, and will doubt whether the more ambitious compositions which met our eyes in these galleries are preferable to the simple dignity of the mediæval altar tomb, and the calm repose of its recumbent figure.

The drive to the Campo Santo, in addition to affording a view of one of the more perfect parts of the old defensive enclosure of Genoa, of which the Porta Chiappia, one of the smaller gates, may serve as an example, passes within sight, though at some distance below, one of the few relics of classic time which the city has retained. This is the aqueduct which was constructed by the Romans. Some portions of it, so far as can be seen from below, appear to belong to the original structure; but, as it is still in use, it has been in many parts more or less reconstructed and modernized.

The environs of Genoa are pleasant. On both sides, particularly on the eastern, are country houses with gardens. The western for a time is less attractive. The suburb of Sanpierdarena is neither pretty nor interesting; but at Conigliano, and still more at Sestre Ponente, the grimy finger-marks of commerce become less conspicuous, and Nature is not wholly expelled by the two-pronged fork of mechanism. Pegli, still farther west, is a very attractive spot, much frequented in the summer time for sea-bathing. On this part of the coast the hills in places draw near to the sea, and crags rise from the water; the rocks are of interest in more than one respect to the geologist. One knoll of rock rising from the sand in the Bay of Pra is crowned by an old fortress, and at Pegli itself are one or two villas of note. Of these the gardens of the Villa Pallavicini commonly attract visitors. They reward some by stalactite grottoes and "sheets of water with boats, under artificial caverns, a Chinese pagoda, and an Egyptian obelisk;" others will be more attracted by the beauty of the vegetation, for palms and oleanders, myrtles, and camellias, with many semi-tropical plants, flourish in the open air.

We may regard Genoa as the meeting-place of the two Rivieras. The coast to the west--the Riviera di Ponente--what has now, by the cession of Nice, become in part French soil, is the better known; but that to the east, the Riviera di Levante, though less accessible on the whole, and without such an attractive feature as the Corniche road, in the judgment of some is distinctly the more beautiful. There is indeed a road which, for a part of the way, runs near the sea; but the much more indented character of the coast frequently forces it some distance inland, and ultimately it has to cross a rather considerable line of hills in order to reach Spezzia. The outline of the coast, indeed, is perhaps the most marked feature of difference between the two Rivieras. The hills on the eastern side descend far more steeply to the water than they do upon the western. They are much more sharply furrowed with gullies and more deeply indented by inlets of the sea; thus the construction of a railway from Genoa to Spezzia has been a work involving no slight labor. There are, it is stated, nearly fifty tunnels between the two towns, and it is strictly true that for a large part of the distance north of the latter place the train is more frequently under than above ground. Here it is actually an advantage to travel by the slowest train that can be found, for this may serve as an epitome of the journey by an express: "Out of a tunnel; one glance, between rocks and olive-groves, up a ravine, into which a picturesque old village is wedged; another glance down the same to the sea, sparkling in the sunlight below; a shriek from the engine, and another plunge into darkness." So narrow are some of these gullies, up which, however, a village climbs, that, if I may trust my memory, I have seen a train halted at a station with the engine in the opening of one tunnel and the last car not yet clear of another.

But the coast, when explored, is full of exquisite nooks, and here and there, where by chance the hills slightly recede, or a larger valley than usual comes down to the sea, towns of some size are situated, from which, as halting-places, the district might be easily explored, for trains are fairly frequent, and the distances are not great. For a few miles from Genoa the coast is less hilly than it afterwards becomes; nevertheless, the traveller is prepared for what lies before him by being conducted from the main station, on the west side of Genoa, completely beneath the city to near its eastern wall. Then Nervi is passed, which, like Pegli, attracts not a few summer visitors, and is a bright and sunny town, with pleasant gardens and villas. Recco follows, also bright and cheerful, backed by the finely-outlined hills, which form the long promontory enclosing the western side of the Bay of Rapallo. Tunnels and villages, as the railway now plunges into the rock, now skirts the margin of some little bay, lead first to Rapallo and then to Chiavari, one with its slender campanile, the other with its old castle. The luxuriance of the vegetation in all this district cannot fail to attract notice. The slopes of the hills are grey with olives; oranges replace apples in the orchards, and in the more sheltered nooks we espy the paler gold of the lemon. Here are great spiky aloes, there graceful feathering palms; here pines of southern type, with spreading holm-oaks, and a dozen other evergreen shrubs.

Glimpse after glimpse of exquisite scenery flashes upon us as we proceed to Spezzia, but, as already said, its full beauty can only be appreciated by rambling among the hills or boating along the coast. There is endless variety, but the leading features are similar: steep hills furrowed by ravines, craggy headlands and sheltered coves; villages sometimes perched high on a shoulder, sometimes nestling in a gully; sometimes a campanile, sometimes a watch-tower; slopes, here clothed with olive groves, here with their natural covering of pine and oak scrub, of heath, myrtle, and strawberry-trees. A change also in the nature of the rock diversifies the scenery, for between Framura and Bonasola occurs a huge mass of serpentine, which recalls, in its peculiar structure and tints, the crags near the Lizard in England. This rock is extensively quarried in the neighborhood of Levanto, and from that little port many blocks are shipped.

Spezzia itself has a remarkable situation. A large inlet of the sea runs deep into the land, parallel with the general trend of the hills, and almost with that of the coast-line. The range which shelters it on the west narrows as it falls to the headland of Porto Venere, and is extended yet farther by rocky islands; while on the opposite coast, hills no less, perhaps yet more, lofty, protect the harbor from the eastern blasts. In one direction only is it open to the wind, and against this the comparative narrowness of the inlet renders the construction of artificial defenses possible. At the very head of this deeply embayed sheet of water is a small tract of level ground--the head, as it were, of a valley--encircled by steep hills. On this little plain, and by the waterside, stands Spezzia. Formerly it was a quiet country town, a small seaport with some little commerce; but when Italy ceased to be a geographical expression, and became practically one nation, Spezzia was chosen, wisely it must be admitted, as the site of the chief naval arsenal. A single glance shows its natural advantages for such a purpose. Access from the land must always present difficulties, and every road can be commanded by forts, perched on yet more elevated positions; while a hostile fleet, as it advances up the inlet, must run the gauntlet of as many batteries as the defenders can build. Further, the construction of a breakwater across the middle of the channel at once has been a protection from the storms, and has compelled all who approach to pass through straits commanded by cannon. The distance of the town from its outer defenses and from the open sea seems enough to secure it even from modern ordnance; so that, until the former are crushed, it cannot be reached by projectiles. But it must be confessed that the change has not been without its drawbacks. The Spezzia of to-day may be a more prosperous town than the Spezzia of a quarter of a century since, but it has lost some of its beauty. A twentieth-century fortress adds no charm to the scenery, and does not crown a hill so picturesquely as did a mediæval castle. Houses are being built, roads are being made, land is being reclaimed from the sea for the construction of quays. Thus the place has a generally untidy aspect; there is a kind of ragged selvage to town and sea, which, at present, on a near view, is very unsightly. Moreover, the buildings of an arsenal can hardly be picturesque or magnificent; and great factories, more or less connected with them, have sprung up in the neighborhood, from which rise tall red brick chimneys, the campaniles of the twentieth century. The town itself was never a place of any particular interest; it has neither fine churches nor old gateways nor picturesque streets--a ruinous fort among the olive groves overlooking the streets is all that can claim to be ancient--so that its growth has not caused the loss of any distinctive feature--unless it be a grove of old oleanders, which were once a sight to see in summer time. Many of these have now disappeared, perhaps from natural decay; and the survivors are mixed with orange trees. These, during late years, have been largely planted about the town. In one of the chief streets they are growing by the side of the road, like planes or chestnuts in other towns. The golden fruit and the glossy leaves, always a delight to see, appear to possess a double charm by contrast with the arid flags and dusty streets. Ripe oranges in dozens, in hundreds, all along by the pathway, and within two or three yards of the pavement! Are the boys of Spezzia exceptionally virtuous? or are these golden apples of the Hesperides a special pride of the populace, and does "Father Stick" still rule in home and school, and is this immunity the result of physical coercion rather than of moral suasion? Be this as it may, I have with mine own eyes seen golden oranges by hundreds hanging on the trees in the streets of Spezzia, and would be glad to know how long they would remain in a like position in those of an English town, among "the most law-abiding people in the universe!"

But if the vicinity of the town has lost some of its ancient charm, if modern Spezzia reminds us too much, now of Woolwich, now of a "new neighborhood" on the outskirts of London, we have but to pass into the uplands, escaping from the neighborhood of forts, to find the same beauties as the mountains of this coast ever afford. There the sugar-cane and the vine, the fig and the olive cease, though the last so abounds that one might suppose it an indigenous growth; there the broken slopes are covered with scrub oak and dwarf pine; there the myrtle blossoms, hardly ceasing in the winter months; there the strawberry-tree shows its waxen flowers, and is bright in season with its rich crimson berries. Even the villages add a beauty to the landscape--at any rate, when regarded from a distance; some are perched high up on the shoulders of hills, with distant outlooks over land and sea; others lie down by the water's edge in sheltered coves, beneath some ruined fort, which in olden time protected the fisher-folk from the raids of corsairs. Such are Terenza and Lerici, looking at each other across the waters of the little "Porto;" and many another village, in which grey and white and pink tinted houses blend into one pleasant harmony of color. For all this part of the coast is a series of rocky headlands and tiny bays, one succession of quiet nooks, to which the sea alone forms a natural highway. Not less irregular, not less sequestered, is the western coast of the Bay of Spezzia, which has been already mentioned. Here, at Porto Venere, a little village still carries us back in its name to classic times; and the old church on the rugged headland stands upon a site which was once not unfitly occupied by a temple of the seaborn goddess. The beauty of the scene is enhanced by a rocky wooded island, the Isola Palmeria, which rises steeply across a narrow strait; though the purpose to which it has been devoted--a prison for convicts--neither adds to its charm nor awakens pleasant reflections.

To some minds also the harbor itself, busy and bright as the scene often is, will suggest more painful thoughts than it did in olden days. For it is no preacher of "peace at any price," and is a daily witness that millennial days are still far away from the present epoch. Here may be seen at anchor the modern devices for naval war: great turret-ships and ironclads, gunboats and torpedo launches--evils, necessary undoubtedly, but evils still; outward and visible signs of the burden of taxation, which is cramping the development of Italy, and is indirectly the heavy price which it has to pay for entering the ranks of the great Powers of Europe. These are less picturesque than the old line-of-battle ships, with their high decks, their tall masts, and their clouds of canvas; still, nothing can entirely spoil the harbor of Spezzia, and even these floating castles group pleasantly in the distance with the varied outline of hills and headlands, which is backed at last, if we look southward, by the grand outline of a group of veritable mountains--the Apuan Alps.

IX

THE TUSCAN COAST

Shelley's last months at Lerici--Story of his death--Carrara and its
marble quarries--Pisa--Its grand group of ecclesiastical
buildings--The cloisters of the Campo Santo--Napoleon's life on
Elba--Origin of the Etruscans--The ruins of Tarquinii--Civita Vecchia,
the old port of Rome--Ostia.

The Bay of Spezzia is defined sharply enough on its western side by the long, hilly peninsula which parts it from the Mediterranean, but as this makes only a small angle with the general trend of the coast-line, its termination is less strongly marked on the opposite side. Of its beauties we have spoken in an earlier article, but there is a little town at the southern extremity which, in connection with the coast below, has a melancholy interest to every lover of English literature. Here, at Lerici, Shelley spent what proved to be the last months of his life. The town itself, once strongly fortified by its Pisan owners against their foes of Genoa on the one side and Lucca on the other, is a picturesque spot. The old castle crowns a headland, guarding the little harbor and overlooking the small but busy town. At a short distance to the southeast is the Casa Magni, once a Jesuit seminary, which was occupied by Shelley. Looking across the beautiful gulf to the hills on its opposite shore and the island of Porto Venere, but a few miles from the grand group of the Carrara mountains, in the middle of the luxuriant scenery of the Eastern Riviera, the house, though in itself not very attractive, was a fit home for a lover of nature. But Shelley's residence within its walls was too soon cut short. There are strange tales (like those told with bated breath by old nurses by the fireside) that as the closing hour approached the spirits of the unseen world took bodily form and became visible to the poet's eye; tales of a dark-robed figure standing by his bedside beckoning him to follow; of a laughing child rising from the sea as he walked by moonlight on the terrace, clapping its hands in glee; and of other warnings that the veil which parted him from the spirit world was vanishing away. Shelley delighted in the sea. On the 1st of July he left Lerici for Leghorn in a small sailing vessel. On the 8th he set out to return, accompanied only by his friend, Mr. Williams, and an English lad. The afternoon was hot and sultry, and as the sun became low a fearful squall burst upon the neighboring sea. What happened no one exactly knows, but they never came back to the shore. Day followed day, and the great sea kept its secret; but at last, on the 22d, the corpse of Shelley was washed up near Viareggio and that of Williams near Bocca Lerici, three miles away. It was not till three weeks afterwards that the body of the sailor lad came ashore. Probably the felucca had either capsized or had been swamped at the first break of the storm; but when it was found, some three months afterwards, men said that it looked as if it had been run down, and even more ugly rumors got abroad that this was no accident, but the work of some Italians, done in the hope of plunder, as it was expected that the party had in charge a considerable sum of money. The bodies were at first buried in the sand with quicklime; but at that time the Tuscan law required "any object then cast ashore to be burned, as a precaution against plague," so, by the help of friends, the body of Shelley was committed to the flames "with fuel and frankincense, wine, salt, and oil, the accompaniments of a Greek cremation," in the presence of Byron Leigh Hunt, and Trelawny. The corpse of Williams had been consumed in like fashion on the previous day. "It was a glorious day and a splendid prospect; the cruel and calm sea before, the Appennines behind. A curlew wheeled close to the pyre, screaming, and would not be driven away; the flames arose golden and towering." The inurned ashes were entombed, as everyone knows, in the Protestant burial ground at Rome by the side of Keats' grave, near the pyramid of Cestius. Much as there was to regret in Shelley's life, there was more in his death, for such genius as his is rare, and if the work of springtide was so glorious, what might have been the summer fruitage?

As the Gulf of Spezzia is left behind, the Magra broadens out into an estuary as it enters the sea, the river which formed in olden days the boundary between Liguria and Etruria. Five miles from the coast, and less than half the distance from the river, is Sarzana, the chief city of the province, once fortified, and still containing a cathedral of some interest. It once gave birth to a Pope, Nicholas V., the founder of the Vatican Library, and in the neighborhood the family of the Buonapartes had their origin, a branch of it having emigrated to Corsica. Sarzana bore formerly the name of Luna Nova, as it had replaced another Luna which stood near to the mouth of the river. This was in ruins even in the days of Lucan, and now the traveller from Saranza to Pisa sees only "a strip of low, grassy land intervening between him and the sea. Here stood the ancient city. There is little enough to see. Beyond a few crumbling tombs and a fragment or two of Roman ruins, nothing remains of Luna. The fairy scene described by Rutilus, so appropriate to the spot which bore the name of the virgin-queen of heaven, the 'fair white walls' shaming with their brightness the untrodden snow, the smooth, many-tinted rocks overrun with laughing lilies, if not the pure creation of the poet, have now vanished from the sight. Vestiges of an amphitheater, of a semicircular building which may be a theater, of a circus, a _piscina_, and fragments of columns, pedestals for statues, blocks of pavement and inscriptions, are all that Luna has now to show."

But all the while the grand group of the Carrara hills is in view, towering above a lowland region which rolls down towards the coast. A branch line now leads from Avenza, a small seaport town from which the marble is shipped, to the town of Carrara, through scenery of singular beauty. The shelving banks and winding slopes of the foreground hills are clothed with olives and oaks and other trees; here and there groups of houses, white and grey and pink, cluster around a campanile tower on some coign of vantage, while at the back rises the great mountain wall of the Apuan Alps, with its gleaming crags, scarred, it must be admitted, rather rudely and crudely by its marble quarries, though the long slopes of screes beneath these gashes in the more distant views almost resemble the Alpine snows. The situation of the town is delightful, for it stands at the entrance of a rapidly narrowing valley, in a sufficiently elevated position to command a view of this exquisitely rich lowland as it shelves and rolls down to the gleaming sea. Nor is the place itself devoid of interest. One of its churches at least, S. Andrea, is a really handsome specimen of the architecture of this part of Italy in the thirteenth century, but the quarries dominate, and their products are everywhere. Here are the studios of sculptors and the ateliers of workmen. The fair white marble here, like silver in the days of Solomon, is of little account; it paves the street, builds the houses, serves even for the basest uses, and is to be seen strewn or piled up everywhere to await dispersal by the trains to more distant regions. Beyond the streets of Carrara, in the direction of the mountains, carriage roads no longer exist. Lanes wind up the hills here and there in rather bewildering intricacy, among vines and olive groves, to hamlets and quarries; one, indeed, of rather larger size and more fixity of direction, keeps for a time near the river, if indeed the stream which flows by Carrara be worthy of that name, except when the storms are breaking or the snows are melting upon the mountains. But all these lanes alike terminate in a quarry, are riven with deep ruts, ploughed up like a field by the wheels of the heavy wagons that bring down the great blocks of marble. One meets these grinding and groaning on their way, drawn by yokes of dove-colored oxen (longer than that with which Elisha was ploughing when the older prophet cast his mantle upon his shoulders), big, meek-looking beasts, mild-eyed and melancholy as the lotus-eaters. To meet them is not always an unmixed pleasure, for the lanes are narrow, and there is often no room to spare; how the traffic is regulated in some parts is a problem which I have not yet solved.

Carrara would come near to being an earthly paradise were it not for the mosquitos, which are said to be such that they would have made even the Garden of Eden untenable, especially to its first inhabitants. Of them, however, I cannot speak, for I have never slept in the town, or even visited it at the season when this curse of the earth is at its worst; but I have no hesitation in asserting that the mountains of Carrara are not less beautiful in outline than those of any part of the main chain of the Alps of like elevation, while they are unequalled in color and variety of verdure.

To Avenza succeeds Massa, a considerable town, beautifully situated among olive-clad heights, which are spotted with villas and densely covered with foliage. Like Carrara, it is close to the mountains, and disputes with Carrara for the reputation of its quarries. This town was once the capital of a duchy, Massa-Carrara, and the title was borne by a sister of Napoleon I. Her large palace still remains; her memory should endure, though not precisely in honor, for according to Mr. Hare, she pulled down the old cathedral to improve the view from her windows. But if Massa is beautiful, so is Pietra Santa, a much smaller town enclosed by old walls and singularly picturesque in outline. It has a fine old church, with a picturesque campanile, which, though slightly more modern than the church itself, has seen more than four centuries. The piazza, with the Town Hall, this church and another one, is a very characteristic feature. In the baptistry of one of the churches are some bronzes by Donatello. About half a dozen miles away, reached by a road which passes through beautiful scenery, are the marble quarries of Seravezza, which were first opened by Michael Angelo, and are still in full work. There is only one drawback to travelling by railway in this region; the train goes too fast. Let it be as slow as it will, and it can be very slow, we can never succeed in coming to a decision as to which is the most picturesquely situated place or the most lovely view. Comparisons notoriously are odious, but delightful, as undoubtedly is the Riviera di Ponenta to me, the Riviera di Levante seems even more lovely.

After Pietra Santa, however, the scenery becomes less attractive, the Apuan Alps begin to be left behind, and a wider strip of plain parts the Apennines from the sea. This, which is traversed by the railway, is in itself flat, stale, though perhaps not unprofitable to the husbandman. Viareggio, mentioned on a previous page, nestles among its woods of oaks and pines, a place of some little note as a health resort; and then the railway after emerging from the forest strikes away from the sea, and crosses the marshy plains of the Serchio, towards the banks of the Arno.

It now approaches the grand group of ecclesiastical buildings which rise above the walls of Pisa. As this town lies well inland, being six miles from the sea, we must content ourselves with a brief mention. But a long description is needless, for who does not know of its cathedral and its Campo Santo, of its baptistry and its leaning tower? There is no more marvelous or complete group of ecclesiastical buildings in Europe, all built of the white marble of Carrara, now changed by age into a delicate cream color, but still almost dazzling in the glory of the mid-day sun, yet never so beautiful as when walls, arches, and pinnacles are aglow at its rising, or flushed at its setting. In the cloisters of the Campo Santo you may see monuments which range over nearly five centuries, and contrast ancient and modern art; the frescoes on their walls, though often ill preserved, and not seldom of little merit, possess no small interest as illustrating medieval notions of a gospel of love and peace. Beneath their roof at the present time are sheltered a few relics of Roman and Etruscan days which will repay examination. The very soil also of this God's acre is not without an interest, for when the Holy Land was lost to the Christians, fifty-and-three shiploads of earth were brought hither from Jerusalem that the dead of Pisa might rest in ground which had been sanctified by the visible presence of their Redeemer. The cathedral is a grand example of the severe but stately style which was in favor about the end of the eleventh century, for it was consecrated in the year 1118. It commemorates a great naval victory won by the Pisans, three years before the battle of Hastings, and the columns which support the arches of the interior were at once the spoils of classic buildings and the memorials of Pisan victories. The famous leaning tower, though later in date, harmonizes well in general style with the cathedral. Its position, no doubt, attracts most attention, for to the eye it seems remarkably insecure, but one cannot help wishing that the settlement had never occurred, for the slope is sufficient to interfere seriously with the harmony of the group. The baptistry also harmonizes with the cathedral, though it was not begun till some forty years after the latter was completed, and not only was more than a century in building, but also received some ornamental additions in the fourteenth century. But though this cathedral group is the glory and the crown of Pisa, the best monument of its proudest days, there are other buildings of interest in the town itself; and the broad quays which flank the Arno on each side, the Lungarno by name, which form a continuous passage from one end of the town to the other, together with the four bridges which link its older and newer part, are well worthy of more than a passing notice.

The land bordering the Arno between Pisa and its junction with the Mediterranean has no charm for the traveller, however it may commend itself to the farmer. A few miles south of the river's mouth is Leghorn, and on the eleven miles' journey by rail from it to Pisa the traveller sees as much, and perhaps more, than he could wish of the delta of the Arno. It is a vast alluvial plain, always low-lying, in places marshy; sometimes meadow land, sometimes arable. Here and there are slight and inconspicuous lines of dunes, very probably the records of old sea margins as the river slowly encroached upon the Mediterranean, which are covered sometimes with a grove of pines.

Leghorn is not an old town, and has little attraction for the antiquarian or the artist. In fact, I think it, for its size, the most uninteresting town, whether on the sea or inland, that I have entered in Italy. Brindisi is a dreary hole, but it has one or two objects of interest. Bari is not very attractive, but it has two churches, the architecture of which will repay long study; but Leghorn is almost a miracle of commonplace architecture and of dullness. Of course there is a harbor, of course there are ships, of course there is the sea, and all these possess a certain charm; but really this is about as small as it can be under the circumstances. The town was a creation of the Medici, "the masterpiece of that dynasty." In the middle of the sixteenth century it was an insignificant place, with between seven and eight hundred inhabitants. But it increased rapidly when the princes of that family took the town in hand and made it a cave of Adullam, whither the discontented or oppressed from other lands might resort: Jews and Moors from Spain and Portugal, escaping from persecution; Roman Catholics from England, oppressed by the retaliatory laws of Elizabeth; merchants from Marseilles, seeking refuge from civil war. Thus fostered, it was soon thronged by men of talent and energy; it rapidly grew into an important center of commerce, and now the town with its suburbs contains nearly a hundred thousand souls.

Leghorn is intersected by canals, sufficiently so to have been sometimes called a "Little Venice," and has been fortified, but as the defenses belong to the system of Vauban, they add little to either the interest or the picturesqueness of the place. Parts of the walls and the citadel remain, the latter being enclosed by a broad water-ditch. The principal street has some good shops, and there are two fairly large piazzas; in one, bearing the name of Carlo Alberto, are statues of heroic size to the last Grand Duke and to his predecessor. The inscription on the latter is highly flattering; but that on the former states that the citizens had come to the conclusion that the continuance of the Austro-Lorenese dynasty was incompatible with the good order and happiness of Tuscany, and had accordingly voted union with Italy. The other piazza now bears Victor Emmanuel's name; in it are a building which formerly was a royal palace, the town hall, and the cathedral; the last a fair-sized church, but a rather plain specimen of the Renaissance style, with some handsome columns of real marble and a large amount of imitation, painted to match. There are also some remains of the old fortifications, though they are not so very old, by the side of the inner or original harbor. As this in course of time proved too shallow for vessels of modern bulk, the Porto Nuovo, or outer harbor, was begun nearly fifty years since, and is protected from the waves by a semicircular mole. Among the other lions of the place, and they are all very small, is a statue of Duke Ferdinand I., one of the founders of Leghorn, with four Turkish slaves about the pedestal. The commerce of Leghorn chiefly consists of grain, cotton, wool, and silk, and is carried on mainly with the eastern ports of the Mediterranean. There is also an important shipbuilding establishment. It has, however, one link of interest with English literature, for in the Protestant cemetery was buried Tobias Smollet. There is a pleasant public walk by the sea margin outside the town, from where distant views of Elba and other islands are obtained.

The hilly ground south of the broad valley of the Arno is of little interest, and for a considerable distance a broad strip of land, a level plain of cornfields and meadow, intervenes between the sea and the foot of the hills. Here and there long lines of pine woods seem almost to border the former; the rounded spurs of the latter are thickly wooded, but are capped here and there by grey villages, seemingly surrounded by old walls, and are backed by the bolder outlines of the more distant Apennines. For many a long mile this kind of scenery will continue, this flat, marshy, dyke-intersected plain, almost without a dwelling upon it, though village after village is seen perched like epaulettes on the low shoulders of the hills. It is easy to understand why they are placed in this apparently inconvenient position, for we are at the beginning of the Tuscan Maremma, a district scourged by malaria during the summer months, and none too healthy, if one may judge by the looks of the peasants, during any time of the year. But one cannot fail to observe that towards the northern extremity houses have become fairly common on this plain, and many of them are new, so that the efforts which have been made to improve the district by draining seem to have met with success. For some time the seaward views are very fine; comparatively near to the coast a hilly island rises steeply from the water and is crowned with a low round tower. Behind this lies Elba, a long, bold, hilly ridge, and far away, on a clear day, the great mountain mass of Corsica looms blue in the distance.

Elba has its interests for the geologist, its beauties for the lover of scenery. It has quarries of granite and serpentine, but its fame rests on its iron mines, which have been noted from very early times and from which fine groups of crystals of hematite are still obtained. So famed was it in the days of the Roman Empire as to call forth from Virgil the well-known line, "Insula inexhaustis chalybum generosa metallis." When these, its masters, had long passed away, it belonged in turn to Pisa, to Genoa, to Lucca, and, after others, to the Grand Duke Cosimo of Florence. Then it became Neapolitan, and at last French. As everyone knows, it was assigned to Napoleon after his abdication, and from May, 1814, to February, 1815, he enjoyed the title of King of Elba. Then, while discontent was deepening in France, and ambassadors were disputing round the Congress-table at Vienna, he suddenly gave the slip to the vessels which were watching the coast and landed in France to march in triumph to Paris, to be defeated at Waterloo, and to die at St. Helena.

The island is for the most part hilly, indeed almost mountainous, for it rises at one place nearly three thousand feet above the sea. The valleys and lower slopes are rich and fertile, producing good fruit and fair wine, and the views are often of great beauty. The fisheries are of some importance, especially that of the tunny. Porto Ferrajo, the chief town, is a picturesquely situated place, on the northern side, which still retains the forts built by Cosimo I. to defend his newly obtained territory, and the mansion, a very modest palace, inhabited by Napoleon.

"It must be confessed my isle is very little," was Napoleon's remark when for the first time he looked around over his kingdom from a mountain summit above Porto Ferrajo. Little it is in reality, for the island is not much more than fifteen miles long, and at the widest part ten miles across; and truly little it must have seemed to the man who had dreamed of Europe for his empire, and had half realized his vision. Nevertheless, as one of his historians remarks, "If an empire could be supposed to exist within such a brief space, Elba possesses so much both of beauty and variety as might constitute the scene of a summer night's dream of sovereignty."

At first he professed to be "perfectly resigned to his fate, often spoke of himself as a man politically dead, and claimed credit for what he said on public affairs, as having no remaining interest in them." A comment on himself in connection with Elba is amusing. He had been exploring his new domain in the company of Sir Niel Campbell, and had visited, as a matter of course, the iron mines. On being informed that they were valuable, and brought in a revenue of about twenty thousand pounds per annum, "These then," he said, "are mine." But being reminded that he had conferred that revenue on the Legion of Honor, he exclaimed, "Where was my head when I made such a grant? But I have made many foolish decrees of that sort!"

He set to work at once to explore every corner of the island, and then to design a number of improvements and alterations on a scale which, had they been carried into execution with the means which he possessed, would have perhaps taken his lifetime to execute. The instinct of the conqueror was by no means dead within him; for "one of his first, and perhaps most characteristic, proposals was to aggrandize and extend his Lilliputian dominions by the occupation of an uninhabited island called Pianosa, which had been left desolate on account of the frequent descents of the corsairs. He sent thirty of his guards, with ten of the independent company belonging to the island, upon this expedition (what a contrast to those which he had formerly directed!), sketched out a plan of fortification, and remarked with complacency, 'Europe will say that I have already made a conquest.'"

He was after a short time joined on the island by his mother and his sister Pauline, and not a few of those who had once fought under his flag drifted gradually to Elba and took service in his guards. A plot was organized in France, and when all was ready Napoleon availed himself of the temporary absence of Sir Neil Campbell and of an English cruiser and set sail from Elba.

At four in the afternoon of Sunday, the 26th of February, "a signal gun was fired, the drums beat to arms, the officers tumbled what they could of their effects into flour-sacks, the men arranged their knapsacks, the embarkation began, and at eight in the evening they were under weigh." He had more than one narrow escape on his voyage; for he was hailed by a French frigate. His soldiers, however, had concealed themselves, and his captain was acquainted with the commander of the frigate, so no suspicions were excited. Sir Niel Campbell also, as soon as he found out what had happened, gave chase in a sloop of war, but only arrived in time to obtain a distant view of Napoleon's flotilla as its passengers landed.

Pianosa, the island mentioned above, lies to the north of Elba, and gets its name from its almost level surface; for the highest point is said to be only eighty feet above the sea. Considering its apparent insignificance, it figures more than could be expected in history. The ill-fated son of Marcus Agrippa was banished here by Augustus, at the instigation of Livia, and after a time was more effectually put out of the way, in order to secure the succession of her son Tiberius. We read also that it was afterwards the property of Marcus Piso, who used it as a preserve for peacocks, which were here as wild as pheasants with us. Some remnants of Roman baths still keep up the memory of its former masters. Long afterwards it became a bone of contention between Pisa and Genoa, and the latter State, on permitting the former to resume possession of these islands of the Tuscan Archipelago, stipulated that Pianosa should be left forever uncultivated and deserted. To secure the execution of this engagement the Genoese stopped up all the wells with huge blocks of rock.

Capraja, a lovely island to the northwest of Elba, is rather nearer to Corsica than to Italy. Though less than four miles long, and not half this breadth, it rivals either in hilliness, for its ridges rise in two places more than fourteen hundred feet above the sea. Saracen, Genoese, Pisan, and Corsican have caused it in bygone times to lead a rather troubled existence, and even so late as 1796 Nelson knocked to pieces the fort which defended its harbor, and occupied the island.

"The 'stagno,' or lagoon, the sea-marsh of Strabo, is a vast expanse of stagnant salt water, so shallow that it may be forded in parts, yet never dried up by the hottest summer; the curse of the country around for the foul and pestilent vapour and the swarms of mosquitoes and other insects it generates at that season, yet compensating the inhabitants with an abundance of fish. The fishery is generally carried on at night, and in the way often practiced in Italy and Sicily, by harpooning the fish, which are attracted by a light in the prow of the boat. It is a curious sight on calm nights to see hundreds of these little skiffs or canoes wandering about with their lights, and making an ever-moving illumination on the surface of the lake."[2]

Elba seems to maintain some relation with the mainland by means of the hilly promontory which supports the houses of Piombino, a small town, chiefly interesting as being at no great distance from Populonia, an old Etruscan city of which some considerable ruins still remain. Here, when the clans gathered to bring back the Tarquins to Rome, stood

"Sea-girt Populonia,
Whose sentinels descry
Sardinia's snowy mountain tops
Fringing the southern sky."

But long after Lars Porsenna of Clusium had retreated baffled from the broken bridge Populonia continued to be a place of some importance, for it has a castle erected in the Middle Ages. But now it is only a poor village; it retains, however, fragments of building recalling its Roman masters, and its walls of polygonal masonry carry us back to the era of the Etruscans.

It must not be forgotten that almost the whole of the coast line described in this chapter, from the river Magra to Civita Vecchia, belonged to that mysterious and, not so long since, almost unknown people, the Etruscans. Indeed, at one time their sway extended for a considerable distance north and south of these limits. Even now there is much dispute as to their origin, but they were a powerful and civilized race before Rome was so much as founded. They strove with it for supremacy in Italy, and were not finally subdued by that nation until the third century before our era. "Etruria was of old densely populated, not only in those parts which are still inhabited, but also, as is proved by remains of cities and cemeteries, in tracts now desolated by malaria and relapsed into the desert; and what is now the fen or the jungle, the haunt of the wild boar, the buffalo, the fox, and the noxious reptile, where man often dreads to stay his steps, and hurries away from a plague-stricken land, of old yielded rich harvests of corn, wine and oil, and contained numerous cities mighty and opulent, into whose laps commerce poured the treasures of the East and the more precious produce of Hellenic genius. Most of these ancient sites are now without a habitant, furrowed yearly by the plough, or forsaken as unprofitable wilderness; and such as are still occupied are, with few exceptions, mere phantoms of their pristine greatness, mere villages in the place of populous cities. On every hand are traces of bygone civilization, inferior in quality, no doubt, to that which at present exists but much wider in extent and exerting far greater influence on the neighboring nations and on the destinies of the world."[3]

South of this headland the Maremma proper begins. Follonica, the only place for some distance which can be called a town, is blackened with smoke to an extent unusual in Italy, for here much of the iron ore from Elba is smelted. But the views in the neighborhood, notwithstanding the flatness of the marshy or scrub-covered plain, are not without a charm. The inland hills are often attractive; to the north lie the headland of Piombino and sea-girt Elba, to the south the promontory of Castiglione, which ends in a lower line of bluff capped by a tower, and the irregular little island of Formica. At Castiglione della Pescaia is a little harbor, once fortified, which exports wool and charcoal, the products of the neighboring hills. The promontory of Castiglione must once have been an island, for it is parted from the inland range by the level plain of the Maremma. Presently Grosseto, the picturesque capital of the Maremma, appears, perched on steeply rising ground above the enclosing plain, its sky-line relieved by a couple of low towers and a dome; it has been protected with defenses, which date probably from late in the seventeenth century. Then, after the Omborne has been crossed, one of the rivers, which issue from the Apennines, the promontory of Talamone comes down to the sea, protecting the village of the same name. It is a picturesque little place, overlooked by an old castle, and the anchorage is sheltered by the island of S. Giglio, quiet enough now, but the guide-book tells us that here, two hundred and twenty-five years before the Christian era, the Roman troops disembarked and scattered an invading Gaulish army. But to the south lies another promontory on a larger scale than Tlamone; this is the Monte Argentario, the steep slopes of which are a mass of forests. The views on this part of the coast are exceptionally attractive. Indeed, it would be difficult to find anything more striking than the situation of Orbitello. The town lies at the foot of the mountain, for Argentario, since it rises full two thousand feet above the sea, and is bold in outline, deserves the name. It is almost separated from the mainland by a great salt-water lagoon, which is bounded on each side by two low and narrow strips of land. The best view is from the south, where we look across a curve of the sea to the town and to Monte Argentario with its double summit, which, as the border of the lagoon is so low, seems to be completely insulated.

Orbitello is clearly proved to have been an Etruscan town; perhaps, according to Mr. Dennis, founded by the Pelasgi, "for the foundations of the sea-wall which surrounds it on three sides are of vast polygonal blocks, just such as are seen in many ancient sites of central Italy (Norba, Segni, Palæstrina, to wit), and such as compose the walls of the neighboring Cosa." Tombs of Etruscan construction have also been found in the immediate neighborhood of the city, on the isthmus of sand which connects it with the mainland. Others also have been found within the circuit of the walls. The tombs have been unusually productive; in part, no doubt, because they appear to have escaped earlier plunderers. Vases, numerous articles in bronze, and gold ornaments of great beauty have been found. Of the town itself, which from the distance has a very picturesque aspect, Mr. Dennis says: "It is a place of some size, having nearly six thousand inhabitants, and among Maremma towns is second only to Grosseto. It is a proof how much population tends to salubrity in the Maremma that Orbitello, though in the midst of a stagnant lagoon ten square miles in extent, is comparatively healthy, and has more than doubled its population in thirty years, while Telamona and other small places along the coast are almost deserted in summer, and the few people that remain become bloated like wine-skins or yellow as lizards." But the inland district is full of ruins and remnants of towns which in many cases were strongholds long before Romulus traced out the lines of the walls of Rome with his plough, if indeed that ever happened. Ansedonia, the ancient Cosa, is a very few miles away, Rusellæ, Saturnia, Sovana at a considerably greater distance; farther to the south rises another of these forest-clad ridges which, whether insulated by sea or by fen, are so characteristic of this portion of the Italian coast. Here the old walls of Corno, another Etruscan town, may be seen to rise above the olive-trees and the holm-oaks.