The Diary of John Evelyn Volume I Part 13

To this building joins the house of the commendator, who, with his officers attending the sick, make up ninety persons; besides a convent and an ample church for the friars and priests who daily attend. The church is extremely neat, and the _sacristia_ is very rich. Indeed it is altogether one of the most pious and worthy foundations I ever saw. Nor is the benefit small which divers young physicians and chirurgeons reap by the experience they learn here among the sick, to whom those students have free access. Hence, we ascended a very steep hill, near the Port St.

Pancratio, to that stately fountain called Acqua Paula, being the aqueduct which Augustus had brought to Rome, now re-edified by Paulus V.; a rare piece of architecture, and which serves the city after a journey of thirty-five miles, here pouring itself into divers ample lavers, out of the mouths of swans and dragons, the arms of this Pope. Situate on a very high mount, it makes a most glorious show to the city, especially when the sun darts on the water as it gusheth out. The inscriptions on it are:

"_Paulus V. Roma.n.u.s Pontifex Opt. Max. Aquaeductus ab Augusto Caesare extructos, aevi longinqua vetustate collapsos, in ampliorem formam rest.i.tuit anno salutis M.D.CIX. Pont. V._"

And toward the fields:

"_Paulus V. Rom. Pontifex Optimus Maximus, priori ductu longissimi temporis injuria pene diruto, sublimiorem._"

[One or more leaves are here wanting in Evelyn's MS., descriptive of other parts of Rome, and of his leaving the city.]

Thence to Velletri, a town heretofore of the Volsci, where is a public and fair statue of P. Urban VIII., in bra.s.s, and a stately fountain in the street. Here we lay and drank excellent wine.

28th January, 1645. We dined at Sermonetta, descending all this morning down a stony mountain, unpleasant, yet full of olive trees; and, anon, pa.s.s a tower built on a rock, kept by a small guard against the banditti who infest those parts, daily robbing and killing pa.s.sengers, as my Lord Banbury and his company found to their cost a little before. To this guard we gave some money, and so were suffered to pa.s.s, which was still on the Appian to the _Tres Tabernae_ (whither the brethren came from Rome to meet St. Paul, Acts, c. 28); the ruins whereof are yet very fair, resembling the remainder of some considerable edifice, as may be judged by the vast stones and fairness of the arched work. The country environing this pa.s.sage is hilly, but rich; on the right hand stretches an ample plain, being the _Pomptini Campi_. We reposed this night at Piperno, in the posthouse without the town; and here I was extremely troubled with a sore hand, which now began to fester, from a mischance at Rome, upon my base, unlucky, stiff-necked, trotting, carrion mule; which are the most wretched beasts in the world. In this town was the poet Virgil's Camilla born.

The day following, we were fain to hire a strong convoy of about thirty firelocks, to guard us through the cork woods (much infested with the banditti) as far as Fossa Nuova, where was the Forum Appii, and now stands a church with a great monastery, the place where Thomas Aquinas both studied and lies buried. Here we all alighted, and were most courteously received by the Monks, who showed us many relics of their learned Saint and at the high altar the print forsooth of the mule's hoof which he caused to kneel before the Host. The church is old, built after the Gothic manner; but the place is very agreeably melancholy. After this, pursuing the same n.o.ble [Appian] way (which we had before left a little), we found it to stretch from Capua to Rome itself, and afterward as far as Brundusium. It was built by that famous Consul, twenty-five feet broad, every twelve feet something ascending for the ease and firmer footing of horse and man; both the sides are also a little raised for those who travel on foot. The whole is paved with a kind of beach-stone, and, as I said, ever and anon adorned with some old ruin, sepulchre, or broken statue. In one of these monuments Pancirollus tells us that, in the time of Paul III., there was found the body of a young lady, swimming in a kind of bath of precious oil, or liquor, fresh and entire as if she had been living, neither her face discolored, nor her hair disordered; at her feet burnt a lamp, which suddenly expired at the opening of the vault; having flamed, as was computed, now 1,500 years, by the conjecture that she was Tulliola, the daughter of Cicero, whose body was thus found, and as the inscription testified. We dined this day at Terracina, heretofore the famous Anxur, which stands upon a very eminent promontory, the Circean by name. While meat was preparing, I went up into the town, and viewed the fair remainders of Jupiter's Temple, now converted into a church, adorned with most stately columns; its architecture has been excellent, as may be deduced from the goodly cornices, moldings, and huge white marbles of which it is built. Before the portico stands a pillar thus inscribed:

"_Inclyta Gothorum Regis monumenta vetusta Anxuri hoc Oculos exposuere loco;_"

for, it seems, Theodoric drained their marches.

On another more ancient:

"_Imp. Caesar Divi Nervae Filius Nerva Troja.n.u.s Aug. Germanicus Dacicus. Pontif. Max. Trib. Pop. xviii. Imp. vi. Cos. v. p. p.

xviii. Silices sua pecunia stravit._"

Meaning doubtless, some part of the Via Appia. Then:

"_t.i.t. Upio. Aug. optato Pontano Procuratori et Praefect.

Cla.s.sis.--Ti. Julius. T. Fab. optatus, II. vir._"

[Sidenote: FONDI]

Here is likewise a Columna Milliaria, with something engraven on it, but I could not stay to consider it. Coming down again, I went toward the sea-side to contemplate that stupendous strange rock and promontory, cleft by hand, I suppose, for the better pa.s.sage. Within this is the Circean Cave, which I went into a good way; it makes a dreadful noise, by reason of the roaring and impetuous waves continually a.s.saulting the beach, and that in an unusual manner. At the top, at an excessive height, stands an old and very great castle. We arrived this night at Fondi, a most dangerous pa.s.sage for robbing; and so we pa.s.sed by Galba's villa, and anon entered the kingdom of Naples, where, at the gate, this epigraph saluted us: "_Hospes, hc sunt fines Regni Neopolitani; si amicus advenis, pacate omnia invenies, et malis moribus pulsis, bonas leges_."

The Via Appia is here a n.o.ble prospect; having before considered how it was carried through vast mountains of rocks for many miles, by most stupendous labor: here it is infinitely pleasant, beset with sepulchres and antiquities, full of sweet shrubs in the environing hedges. At Fondi, we had oranges and citrons for nothing, the trees growing in every corner, charged with fruit.

29th January, 1645. We descried Mount Caecubus, famous for the generous wine it heretofore produced, and so rode onward the Appian Way, beset with myrtles, lentiscuses, bays, pomegranates, and whole groves of orange trees, and most delicious shrubs, till we came to Formiana [Formiae], where they showed us Cicero's tomb, standing in an olive grove, now a rude heap of stones without form or beauty; for here that incomparable orator was murdered. I shall never forget how exceedingly I was delighted with the sweetness of this pa.s.sage, the sepulchre mixed among all sorts of verdure; besides being now come within sight of the n.o.ble city, Cajeta [Gaieta], which gives a surprising prospect along the Tyrrhene Sea, in manner of a theater: and here we beheld that strangely cleft rock, a frightful spectacle, which they say happened upon the pa.s.sion of our Blessed Savior; but the haste of our procaccio did not suffer us to dwell so long on these objects and the many antiquities of this town as we desired.

At Formi, we saw Cicero's grot; dining at Mola, and pa.s.sing Sinuessa, Garigliano (once the city Mintern), and beheld the ruins of that vast amphitheater and aqueduct yet standing; the river Liris, which bounded the old Latium, Falernus, or Mons Ma.s.sacus, celebrated for its wine, now named Garo; and this night we lodged at a little village called St.

Agatha, in the Falernian Fields, near to Aurunca and Sessa.

The next day, having pa.s.sed [the river] Vulturnus, we come by the Torre di Francolisi, where Hannibal, in danger from Fabius Maximus, escaped by debauching his enemies; and so at last we entered the most pleasant plains of Campania, now called Terra di Lavoro; in very truth, I think, the most fertile spot that ever the sun shone upon. Here we saw the slender ruins of the once mighty Capua, contending at once both with Rome and Carthage, for splendor and empire, now nothing but a heap of rubbish, except showing some vestige of its former magnificence in pieces of temples, arches, theatres, columns, ports, vaults, colosses, etc., confounded together by the barbarous Goths and Longobards; there is, however, a new city, nearer to the road by two miles, fairly raised out of these heaps. The pa.s.sage from this town to Naples (which is about ten or twelve English post miles) is as straight as a line, of great breadth, fuller of travelers than I remember any of our greatest and most frequented roads near London; but, what is extremely pleasing, is the great fertility of the fields, planted with fruit trees, whose boles are serpented with excellent vines, and they so exuberant, that it is commonly reported one vine will load five mules with its grapes. What adds much to the pleasure of the sight is, that the vines, climbing to the summit of the trees, reach in festoons and fruitages from one tree to another, planted at exact distances, forming a more delightful picture than painting can describe. Here grow rice, canes for sugar, olives, pomegranates, mulberries, citrons, oranges, figs, and other sorts of rare fruits. About the middle of the way is the town Aversa, whither came three or four coaches to meet our lady travelers, of whom we now took leave, having been very merry by the way with them and the capitano, their gallant.

[Sidenote: NAPLES]

31st January, 1645. About noon we entered the city of Naples, alighting at the Three Kings, where we found the most plentiful fare all the time we were in Naples. Provisions are wonderfully cheap; we seldom sat down to fewer than eighteen or twenty dishes of exquisite meat and fruits.

The morrow after our arrival, in the afternoon, we hired a coach to carry us about the town. First, we went to the castle of St. Elmo, built on a very high rock, whence we had an entire prospect of the whole city, which lies in shape of a theatre upon the sea-brink, with all the circ.u.mjacent islands, as far as Capreae, famous for the debauched recesses of Tiberius.

This fort is the bridle of the whole city, and was well stored and garrisoned with native Spaniards. The strangeness of the precipice and rareness of the prospect of so many magnificent and stately palaces, churches, and monasteries, with the a.r.s.enal, the Mole, and Mount Vesuvius in the distance, all in full command of the eye, make it one of the richest landscapes in the world.

Hence, we descended to another strong castle, called Il Castello Nuovo, which protects the sh.o.r.e; but they would by no entreaty permit us to go in; the outward defense seems to consist but in four towers, very high, and an exceeding deep graff, with thick walls. Opposite to this is the tower of St. Vincent, which is also very strong.

Then we went to the very n.o.ble palace of the Viceroy, partly old, and part of a newer work; but we did not stay long here. Toward the evening, we took the air upon the Mole, a street on the rampart, or bank, raised in the sea for security of their galleys in port, built as that of Genoa.

Here I observed a rich fountain in the middle of the piazza, and adorned with divers rare statues of copper, representing the Sirens, or Deities of the Parthenope, spouting large streams of water into an ample sh.e.l.l, all of cast metal, and of great cost. This stands at the entrance of the Mole, where we met many of the n.o.bility both on horseback and in their coaches to take the fresco from the sea, as the manner is, it being in the most advantageous quarter for good air, delight and prospect. Here we saw divers goodly horses who handsomely become their riders, the Neapolitan gentlemen. This Mole is about 500 paces in length, and paved with a square hewn stone. From the Mole, we ascend to a church of great antiquity, formerly sacred to Castor and Pollux, as the Greek letters carved on the architrave and the busts of their two statues testify. It is now converted into a stately oratory by the Theatines.

The Cathedral is a most magnificent pile, and except St. Peter's in Rome, Naples exceeds all cities for stately churches and monasteries. We were told that this day the blood of St. Januarius and his head should be exposed, and so we found it, but obtained not to see the miracle of the boiling of this blood. The next we went to see was St. Peter's, richly adorned, the chapel especially, where that Apostle said ma.s.s, as is testified on the wall.

After dinner we went to St. Dominic, where they showed us the crucifix that is reported to have said these words to St. Thomas, "_Bene de me scripsisti, Thoma_." Hence, to the Padri Olivetani, famous for the monument of the learned Alexander-ab-Alexandro.

We proceeded, the next day, to visit the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, where we spent much time in surveying the chapel of Joh. Jov. Ponta.n.u.s, and in it the several and excellent sentences and epitaphs on himself, wife, children, and friends, full of rare wit, and worthy of recording, as we find them in several writers. In the same chapel is shown an arm of t.i.tus Livius, with this epigraph. "_t.i.ti Livij brachium quod Anton.

Panormita a Patavinis impetravit, Jo. Jovia.n.u.s Ponta.n.u.s multos post annos hoc in loco ponendum curavit._"

Climbing a steep hill, we came to the monastery and Church of the Carthusians, from whence is a most goodly prospect toward the sea and city, the one full of galleys and ships, the other of stately palaces, churches, monasteries, castles, gardens, delicious fields and meadows, Mount Vesuvius smoking, the promontory of Minerva and Misenum, Capreae, Prochyta, Ischia, Pausilipum, Puteoli, and the rest, doubtless one of the most divertissant and considerable vistas in the world. The church is most elegantly built; the very pavements of the common cloister being all laid with variously polished marbles, richly figured. They showed us a ma.s.sy cross of silver, much celebrated for the workmanship and carving, and said to have been fourteen years in perfecting. The choir also is of rare art; but above all to be admired, is the yet unfinished church of the Jesuits, certainly, if accomplished, not to be equalled in Europe.

Hence, we pa.s.sed by the Palazzo Caraffii, full of ancient and very n.o.ble statues: also the palace of the Orsini. The next day, we did little but visit some friends, English merchants, resident for their negotiation; only this morning at the Viceroy's Cavalerizza I saw the n.o.blest horses that I had ever beheld, one of his sons riding the menage with that address and dexterity as I had never seen anything approach it.

4th February, 1645. We were invited to the collection of exotic rarities in the Museum of Ferdinando Imperati, a Neapolitan n.o.bleman, and one of the most observable palaces in the city, the repository of incomparable rarities. Among the natural herbals most remarkable was the Byssus marina and Pinna marina; the male and female chameleon; an Onocrotatus; an extraordinary great crocodile; some of the Orcades Anates, held here for a great rarity; likewise a salamander; the male and female Manucordiata, the male having a hollow in the back, in which it is reported the female both lays and hatches her eggs; the mandragoras, of both s.e.xes; Papyrus, made of several reeds, and some of silk; tables of the rinds of trees, written with j.a.ponic characters; another of the branches of palm; many Indian fruits; a crystal that had a quant.i.ty of uncongealed water within its cavity; a petrified fisher's net; divers sorts of tarantulas, being a monstrous spider, with lark-like claws, and somewhat bigger.

5th February, 1645. This day we beheld the Vice-king's procession, which was very splendid for the relics, banners, and music that accompanied the Blessed Sacrament. The ceremony took up most of the morning.

6th February, 1645. We went by coach to take the air, and see the diversions, or rather madness of the Carnival; the courtesans (who swarm in this city to the number, as we are told, of 30,000, registered and paying a tax to the State) flinging eggs of sweet water into our coach, as we pa.s.sed by the houses and windows. Indeed, the town is so pestered with these cattle, that there needs no small mortification to preserve from their enchantment, while they display all their natural and artificial beauty, play, sing, feign compliment, and by a thousand studied devices seek to inveigle foolish young men.

[Sidenote: VESUVIUS]

7th February, 1645. The next day, being Sat.u.r.day, we went four miles out of town on mules, to see that famous volcano, Mount Vesuvius. Here we pa.s.s a fair fountain, called Labulla, which continually boils, supposed to proceed from Vesuvius, and thence over a river and bridge, where on a large upright stone, is engraven a notable inscription relative to the memorable eruption in 1630.

Approaching the hill, as we were able with our mules, we alighted, crawling up the rest of the proclivity with great difficulty, now with our feet, now with our hands, not without many untoward slips which did much bruise us on the various colored cinders, with which the whole mountain is covered, some like pitch, others full of perfect brimstone, others metallic, interspersed with innumerable pumices (of all which I made a collection), we at the last gained the summit of an extensive alt.i.tude. Turning our faces toward Naples, it presents one of the goodliest prospects in the world; all the Baiae, c.u.ma, Elysian Fields, Capreae, Ischia, Prochyta, Misenus, Puteoli, that goodly city, with a great portion of the Tyrrhene Sea, offering themselves to your view at once, and at so agreeable a distance, as nothing can be more delightful.

The mountain consists of a double top, the one pointed very sharp, and commonly appearing above any clouds, the other blunt. Here, as we approached, we met many large gaping clefts and chasms, out of which issued such sulphurous blasts and smoke, that we dared not stand long near them. Having gained the very summit, I laid myself down to look over into that most frightful and terrible vorago, a stupendous pit of near three miles in circuit, and half a mile in depth, by a perpendicular hollow cliff (like that from the highest part of Dover Castle), with now and then a craggy prominency jetting out. The area at the bottom is plane, like an even floor, which seems to be made by the wind circling the ashes by its eddy blasts. In the middle and centre is a hill, shaped like a great brown loaf, appearing to consist of sulphurous matter, continually vomiting a foggy exhalation, and ejecting huge stones with an impetuous noise and roaring, like the report of many muskets discharging.

This horrid barathrum engaged our attention for some hours, both for the strangeness of the spectacle, and the mention which the old histories make of it, as one of the most stupendous curiosities in nature, and which made the learned and inquisitive Pliny adventure his life to detect the causes, and to lose it in too desperate an approach. It is likewise famous for the stratagem of the rebel, Spartacus, who did so much mischief to the State lurking among and protected by, these horrid caverns, when it was more accessible and less dangerous than it is now; but especially notorious it is for the last conflagration, when, in _anno_ 1630, it burst out beyond what it had ever done in the memory of history; throwing out huge stones and fiery pumices in such quant.i.ty, as not only environed the whole mountain, but totally buried and overwhelmed divers towns and their inhabitants, scattering the ashes more than a hundred miles, and utterly devastating all those vineyards, where formerly grew the most incomparable Greco; when, bursting through the bowels of the earth, it absorbed the very sea, and, with its whirling waters, drew in divers galleys and other vessels to their destruction, as is faithfully recorded. We descended with more ease than we climbed up, through a deep valley of pure ashes, which at the late eruption was a flowing river of melted and burning brimstone, and so came to our mules at the foot of the mountain.

On Sunday, we with our guide visited the so much celebrated Baia, and natural rarities of the places adjacent. Here we entered the mountain Pausilypus, at the left hand of which they showed us Virgil's sepulchre erected on a steep rock, in form of a small rotunda or cupolated column, but almost overgrown with bushes and wild bay trees. At the entrance is this inscription:

_Stanisi Cencovius.

1589 Qui cineres? Tumuli haec vestigia, conditur olim Ille hoc qui cecinit Pascua, Rura Duces.

Can Ree MDLIII._[26]

[Footnote 26: Such is the inscription, as copied by Evelyn; but as its sense is not very clear, and the Diary contains instances of incorrectness in transcribing, it may be desirable to subjoin the distich said (by Keysler in his "Travels," ii. 433) to be the only one in the whole mausoleum:

"_Quae cineris tumulo haec vestigia? conditur olim Ille hoc qui cecinit pascua, rura, duces._"]

After we were advanced into this n.o.ble and altogether wonderful crypt, consisting of a pa.s.sage s.p.a.cious enough for two coaches to go abreast, cut through a rocky mountain near three quarters of a mile (by the ancient Cimmerii as reported, but as others say by L. Cocceius, who employed a hundred thousand men on it), we came to the midway, where there is a well bored through the diameter of this vast mountain, which admits the light into a pretty chapel, hewn out of the natural rock, wherein hang divers lamps, perpetually burning. The way is paved under foot; but it does not hinder the dust, which rises so excessively in this much-frequented pa.s.sage, that we were forced at midday to use a torch. At length, we were delivered from the bowels of the earth into one of the most delicious plains in the world: the oranges, lemons, pomegranates, and other fruits, blushing yet on the perpetually green trees; for the summer is here eternal, caused by the natural and advent.i.tious heat of the earth, warmed through the subterranean fires, as was shown us by our guide, who alighted, and, cutting up a turf with his knife, and delivering it to me, it was so hot, I was hardly able to hold it in my hands. This mountain is exceedingly fruitful in vines, and exotics grow readily.

[Sidenote: LAGO D'AGNANO]

We now came to a lake of about two miles in circ.u.mference, environed with hills; the water of it is fresh and sweet on the surface, but salt at bottom; some mineral salt conjectured to be the cause, and it is reported of that profunditude in the middle that it is bottomless. The people call it Lago d'Agnano, from the mult.i.tude of serpents which, involved together about the spring, fall down from the cliffy hills into it. It has no fish, nor will any live in it. We tried the old experiment on a dog in the Grotto del Cane, or Charon's Cave; it is not above three or four paces deep, and about the height of a man, nor very broad. Whatever having life enters it, presently expires. Of this we made trial with two dogs, one of which we bound to a short pole to guide him the more directly into the further part of the den, where he was no sooner entered, but--without the least noise, or so much as a struggle, except that he panted for breath, lolling out his tongue, his eyes being fixed:--we drew him out dead to all appearance; but immediately plunging him into the adjoining lake, within less than half an hour he recovered, and swimming to sh.o.r.e, ran away from us. We tried the same on another dog, without the application of the water, and left him quite dead. The experiment has been made on men, as on that poor creature whom Peter of Toledo caused to go in; likewise on some Turkish slaves; two soldiers, and other foolhardy persons, who all perished, and could never be recovered by the water of the lake, as are dogs; for which many learned reasons have been offered, as Simon Majolus in his book of the Canicular-days has mentioned, colloq. 15. And certainly the most likely is, the effect of those hot and dry vapors which ascend out of the earth, and are condensed by the ambient cold, as appears by their converting into crystalline drops on the top, while at the bottom it is so excessively hot, that a torch being extinguished near it, and lifted a little distance, was suddenly re-lighted.

Near to this cave are the natural stoves of St. Germain, of the nature of sudatories, in certain chambers part.i.tioned with stone for the sick to sweat in, the vapors here being exceedingly hot, and of admirable success in the gout, and other cold distempers of the nerves. Hence, we climed up a hill, the very highway in several places even smoking with heat like a furnace. The mountains were by the Greeks called Leucogaei, and the fields Phlegraen. Hercules here vanquished the Giants, a.s.sisted with lightning.

We now came to the Court of Vulcan, consisting of a valley near a quarter of a mile in breadth, the margin environed with steep cliffs, out of whose sides and foot break forth fire and smoke in abundance, making a noise like a tempest of water, and sometimes discharging in loud reports, like so many guns. The heat of this place is wonderful, the earth itself being almost unsufferable, and which the subterranean fires have made so hollow, by having wasted the matter for so many years, that it sounds like a drum to those who walk upon it; and the water thus struggling with those fires bubbles and spouts aloft into the air. The mouths of these spiracles are bestrewed with variously colored cinders, which rise with the vapor, as do many colored stones, according to the quality of the combustible matter, insomuch as it is no little adventure to approach them. They are, however, daily frequented both by sick and well; the former receiving the fumes, have been recovered of diseases esteemed incurable. Here we found a great deal of sulphur made, which they refine in certain houses near the place, casting it into canes, to a very great value. Near this we were showed a hill of alum, where is one of the best mineries, yielding a considerable revenue. Some flowers of bra.s.s are found here; but I could not but smile at those who persuade themselves that here are the gates of purgatory (for which it may be they have erected, very near it, a convent, and named it St. Januarius), reporting to have often heard screeches and horrible lamentations proceeding from these caverns and volcanoes; with other legends of birds that are never seen, save on Sundays, which cast themselves into the lake at night, appearing no more all the week after.