CHAPTER XI

LA BELLA NAPOLI

South from Rome the highroad to Naples, and on down into Calabria, at first follows the old Appian Way, built by Appius Claudius in 312 B. C. It is a historic highway if there ever was one, from its commencement at Rome's ancient Porta Capuana (now the Porta San Sebastiano) to Capua. As historic ground it has been excavated and the soil turned over many, many times until it would seem as though nothing would be left to discover. Enough has been found and piled up by the roadside to make the thoroughfare a continuous "sight" for many kilometres. Great churches, tombs, vineyards, cypress-wind-breaks and the arches of the Claudian aqueducts line its length, and if the automobilist is so minded he can easily put in a day doing the first twenty kilometres.

Velletri, thirty-six kilometres from Rome, is the first town of importance after passing Albano, practically suburban Rome.

Cisterna di Roma, a dozen kilometres further on, is a typical hill top town overlooking the Pontine Marshes below.

Terracina, on the coast, sixty-two kilometres beyond Velletri, is the border town between the north and the south, practically the limit between the extent of the Papal power and that of the kingdom of Naples.

Terracina sits at sea-level, and in all probability it is none too healthy an abode, though ten thousand souls call it home and seem content. It has a sea-view that would make the reputation of a resort, and the French and Italian Touring Clubs recommend the Hotel Royal, while the local druggist sells gasoline and oil to automobile tourists at fair rates--for Italy.

At Formia one may turn off the direct road and in half a dozen kilometres come to the coast again at Gaeta. The road from Formia runs through a picture paradise, and an unspoilt one, considering it from the artist's point of view. Little more shall be said, though indeed it is not as at Sorrento or Capri, but quite as good in its way, and the Albergo della Quercia, at Formia, is not as yet overrun with a clientèle of any sort. This is an artists' sketching ground that is some day going to be exploited by some one; perhaps by the artist who made the pictures of this book. Who knows?

Over another fragment of the Appian Way the highroad now continues towards Naples via Capua.

At Capua the road plunges immediately into a maze of narrow streets and one's only assurance of being able to find his exit from the town is by employing a gamin to sit on the running board and shout _destra_ or _sinistra_ at each turning until the open country is again reached at the dividing of the roads leading to Caserta and Naples respectively.

The highroad from Capua into Naples covers thirty kilometres of as good, or bad, roadway as is usually found on entering a great city where the numerous manifest industries serve to furnish a traffic movement which is not conducive to the upkeep of good roads. It is a good road, though, in parts, but the nearer you get to "la bella Napoli" the worse it becomes, as bad, almost, as the roads in and out of Marseilles or Genoa, and they are about the worst that exist for automobilists to revile.

By either Averso or Caserta one enters Naples by the rift in the hills lying back of the observatory, and finally by the tram-lined Strada Forvia, always descending, until practically at sea-level one finds a garage close beside the Hotel Royal et des Étrangers and lodges himself in that excellent hostelry. This is one way of doing it; there are of course others.

The man that first said "_Vedi Napoli e poi mori!_" didn't know what he was talking about. No one will want to die after seeing Naples. He will want to live the longer and come again, if not for Naples itself then for its surroundings, for Pompeii, Herculaneum, Sorrento, Capri, Amalfi, Vesuvius and Ischia. Naples itself will be a good place at which to leave one's extra luggage and to use as a mail address.

The history of Naples is vast, and its present and historic past is most interesting, but for all that Naples without its environs would be as naught.

The local proverb of old:

"When Salerno has its port Naples will be mort (dead),"

has no reason for being any more, for Naples' future as a Mediterranean seaport is assured by the indefatigable German who has recently made it a port of call for a half a dozen lines of German steamers. Britain may rule the waves, but the German is fast absorbing the profitable end of the carrying trade.

Naples is a crowded, uncomfortable city, for within a circumference of scarce sixteen kilometres is huddled a population of considerably more than half a million souls.

Naples' chief charms are its site, and its magnificently scenic background, not its monuments or its people.

"The lazzaroni," remarked Montesquieu of the Neapolitan "won't-works," "pass their time in the middle of the street." This observation was made many, many years ago, but it is equally true to-day.

Naples is not the only Italian city where one sees men live without apparent means of existence, but it is here most to be remarked. On the quays and on the promenades you see men and women without work, and apparently without ambition to look for it save to exploit strangers. On the steps of the churches you see men and women without legs, arms or eyes, and infants _sans chemises_, and they, too, live by the same idle occupation of asking for alms.

Everywhere at Naples, before your hotel, crowded around your carriage or automobile, or paddling around in boats just over your steamer's side, are hoards of beggars of all sorts and conditions of poverty and probity. The beggar population of Naples is doubtless of no greater proportions than in Genoa, or even Rome, but it is more in evidence and more insistent. There are singing beggars, lame, halt and blind beggars, whining beggars, swimming beggars, diving beggars, flower-selling beggars and just plain _beggars_. Give to one and you will have to give to all--or stand the consequences, which may be serious or not according to circumstances. Don't disburse sterilized charity, then, but keep hard-hearted.

Naples' chief sights for the tourists are its museum, its great domed galleries and their cafés and restaurants, its Castello dell'Ovo and the Castel del Carmine.

The Castello dell'Ovo is out in the sea, at the end of a tiny bridge or breakwater, running from the Pizzofalcone, one of the slopes of the background hills of Naples running down to sea-level.

As a fortress the Castello dell'Ovo is outranked to-day by the least efficient in any land, but one of the Spanish Viceroys, in 1532, Don Pedro of Toledo, thought it a stronghold of prime importance, due entirely to its oval shape, which it preserves unto to-day. It is unique, in form at any rate.

Charles VIII of France, on his memorable Italian journeyings--when he discovered (sic) the Renaissance architecture of Italy and brought it back home with him--dismantled the castle and left it in its now barrack-like condition, shorn of any great distinction save the oval shape of its donjon. One is bound to remark this noble monument as it is from its quay that one embarks on the cranky, little, wobbling steamboat which bears one to Capri. Lucullus, who had some reputation as a good liver, once had a villa here on the very quay which surrounds the Castello.

Opposite the Villa del Popolo (near the Porta del Carmine), the People's Park as we should call it, is a vast, forbidding, unlovely structure.

It was built in 1484 by Ferdinand I, but during Masaniello's little disturbance it became a stronghold of the people. To-day it serves as a barracks--and of course as a military prison; all nondescript buildings in Italy may be safely classed as military prisons, though indeed the Italian soldiery do not look an unruly lot.

It is well to recall here that Masaniello, who gave his name to an opera as well as being a patriot of the most rabid, though revolutionary, type, failed of his ambition and died through sheer inability to keep awake and sufficiently free from anxiety to carry out his plans. Masaniello lost his head toward the end and got untrustworthy, but this was far from justifying either his murder or the infamous treatment of his body immediately after death by the very mob that the day before had adored him. His headless trunk was dragged for several hours through the mud, and was flung at nightfall, like the body of a mad dog, into the city ditch. Next day, through a revulsion of feeling, he was canonized! His corpse was picked out of the ditch, arrayed in royal robes, and buried magnificently in the cathedral. His fisherman's dress was rent into shreds to be preserved by the crowd as relics; the door of his hut was pulled off its hinges by a mob of women, and cut into small pieces to be carved into images and made into caskets; while the very ground he had walked on was collected in small phials and sold for its weight in gold to be worn next the heart as an amulet.

The "Villas" of Naples are often mere _maisons bourgeoises_ of modern date. Many of them might well be in Brixton so far as their architectural charms go.

Over in the Posilippo quarter, a delightful situation indeed, are innumerable flat-topped, whitewashed villas, so-called, entirely unlovely, all things considered. One of these, the Villa Rendel, was once inhabited by Garibaldi, as a tablet on its wall announces.

Garibaldi and the part that he and his red shirt played are not yet forgotten. Apropos of this there is a famous lawsuit still in the Italian courts, wherein the Garibaldian Colonel Cornacci, in accord with Ricciotti Garibaldi, son of the general, makes the following claim against the Italian government:

I. All the "_tresor_" (gold and silver) of the house of Bourbon.

II. Eleven millions of ducats taken from the Garibaldian government at Naples.

III. The Bourbon museum now incorporated with the National Museum.

IV. The Palace of Caserta and its park.

V. The Palace Farnese at Rome.

VI. The Palace and Villa Farnese at Caprarola at Naples.

VII. Two Villas at Naples, Capodimonte and La Favorita.

This is the balance sheet discrepancy resulting from the war of 1860 which the Garibaldian heirs claim is theirs by rights. It's a mere bagatelle of course! One wonders why the Italian government don't settle it at once and be done with it!

Naples is the birth-place of Polichinelle, as Paris is of Pierrot, two figures of fancy which will never die out in literature or art, a tender expression of sentiment quite worthy of being kept alive.

The Neapolitan, en fête, is quite the equal in gayety and irresponsibility of the inhabitant of Seville or Montmartre. The processionings of any big Italian town are a thing which, once seen, will always be remembered. At Naples they seem a bit more gorgeous and spontaneous in their gayety than elsewhere, with rugs and banners floating in the air from every balcony, and flowers falling from every hand. It is every man's carnival, the celebration at Naples.

Leading out to the west, back of Posilippo, is the Strada di Piedigrotta, which is continued as the Grotto Nuovo di Posilipo, and through which runs a tramway, all kinds of animal-drawn wheeled traffic, and automobiles with open exhausts. All this comports little with the fact that the ancient tunnelled road along here was one of the marvels of engineering in the time of Augustus and that it led to Virgil's tomb. This supposed tomb of Virgil is questioned by archæologists, but that doesn't much matter for the rest of us. We know that Virgil himself has said that it was here that he composed the "Georgics" and the "Æneid," and it might well have been his last resting-place too.

"Addio, mia bella Napoli! Addio!"