Ancona

“ No stranger approaching by the high road from Florence, which follows the curve of the bay, with the promontory on which Ancona is built stretching forth like a gigantic arm to impede his onward course, and forming the boundary of the prospect, can have an idea of the nature of the scenery which lies behind this barrier, and is perhaps unique in its combination of all the softest features of a pastoral region, with the lofty cliffs and sea-views of a grander landscape. ”

“ LORETO TO THE BATHS OF LUCCA
On the Wednesday after dinner I travelled through a fertile open country of a varied character, and after a journey of fifteen miles I arrived at Ancona in time for supper. Ancona is the capital of the Marches, which district was called by the Latins Picænum. The city is populous, swarming especially with Greeks, Turks, and Sclavonians, and a busy place of traffic. It is well built, flanked on either side by lofty hills, which project into the sea, one of these being occupied by a strong fort, by which we entered, and the [Pg 2] other by a church. ”

“ To watch the boats of Ancona drift into the little harbour at sundown, furling their sails, is to find oneself taken back to the Age of Beautiful Things when the ideal form and colour were as natural as sunlight and shadow. It was for this reason that we took rooms in the Albergo Milano, which is a bad and cheerless inn, for below our windows lay the whole fleet of graceful craft, with up-curved bows like ancient galleys, and sails emblazoned with devices, flaunting gay colours—old gold and purple, and Venetian browns and reds at dawn and sunset. ”

“ Anco ́na, a seaport of Italy, capital of the province of the same name, on the Adriatic, 130 miles N.E. of Rome, with harbour works begun by Trajan, who built the ancient mole or quay. A triumphal arch of white marble, erected in honour of Trajan, stands on the mole. Ancona is a station of the Italian fleet, and the commerce is increasing. The town is indifferently built, but has some remarkable edifices, among others, the cathedral. There is a colossal statue of Count Cavour. Ancona is said to have been founded about four centuries B.C., by Syracusan refugees. ”

“ We, too, stood upon the crest of Monte Guasco behind its bulwark of acacia trees, on our first evening by the Adriatic, and looked down upon the busy wharf, [192] with the long arm of Trajan's Mole encircling the harbour, and the white crescent of Ancona stretching round the bay to Monte Astagno. It was nearing the hour of sunset. Across the sunlit water we could see the great Appennines towering towards heaven, aerial as clouds upon the horizon. There Rimini lay, on that fair coast, and Venice and Ravenna, the homes of Poetry and Romance. ”

“ Ancona is not included in every one’s Italian itinerary. This is the more to be regretted in that it is very accessible, not only by road but by rail from Ravenna or Perugia, or by sea, in eight or ten hours, from Venice. The city of fifty thousand inhabitants, with a Ghetto of six thousand Jews, is beautifully situated on an amphitheatre of hills overlooking the Adriatic. The mole which encloses its harbour supports two triumphal arches, making a sort of monumental water-gate unequalled by anything similar in all the world. ”

“ It is a granary of rare and interesting Byzantine fragments, and its choir is graced by ten of the marble columns which once stood in the temple of Aphrodite.
Ancona of to-day is a garden where the beautiful flowers of an ancient architecture are still flourishing [194] among the energetic weeds and herbs of everyday life. Between the two horns of her crescent bay, Monte Astagno, crowned by the Spanish bastions of the Fortezza, and Monte Guasco, which enthrones the lovely church of San Ciriaco, there is a network of streets. ”

“ After much difficulty, we have concluded a written contract with an Italian voiturier to take us to Ancona. May our Divine Keeper, in his infinite mercy, grant us protection and safety, even in the hands of ungodly men!
The journey to Ancona took them seventeen days; they crossed the Alps by the Simplon, and traversed Italy through Milan and Bologna. Martha Yeardley touches upon a few points of the journey in a letter to Elizabeth Dudley. ”

“ The castle, with its ugly modern fortifications, rises again above the church; and the duomo of Trieste, with its shapeless outline and its low, heavy, unsightly campanile, does not catch the eyes like the Greek cross and cupola of Ancona.
Again at Trieste the arch could never, in its best days, have been a rival to the arch at Ancona; and now either we have to hunt it out by an effort, or else it comes upon us suddenly, standing, as it does, at the head of a mean street on the ascent to the upper town. Of a truth it can not compete with Ancona or with Rimini, with Orange [6] or with Aosta. ”

“ Political condition of Ancona—Arrogance of the Austrian General—Strictness of the martial law—A man shot on the denunciation of his wife—Application of the stick—Republican excesses—Proneness to assassination—Infernal Association in 1849.
Except passingly I have not yet touched upon the political condition of Ancona. This town, ever since June, 1849, had been occupied by a large Austrian force, holding it in the Pope's name, and ostensibly for the maintenance of his authority.
Never was a garrison more overbearing, or less popular. ”

“ The hills and declivities are there cut out into terraces, and cultivated with garden husbandry in as perfect style as in the mountains of Tuscany. The marches of Ancona contain 426,222 inhabitants, spread over 2111 square miles, which is about 200 to the square mile; but, considering how large a part of the territory is barren rock, the proportion on the fertile parts is about 300 to the square mile, while the average of England is only 260. The soil is cultivated to the depth of two and three feet. ”

“ Little as the Anconitans are given to locomotion, I never met an instance of one who had not visited the shrine at least once in his or her life, whilst a few make it a point of conscience to repair thither every year. The distance from Ancona, by the high-road, is twenty miles—a journey of five hours, in that country of [197] steep hills and slow coaches; but travellers are generally disposed to overlook the tedium of the way in their admiration of the scenery it discloses. ”

“ But as M. Vais calls upon you, tell me whether you have informed him of my having spent a few days in Ancona?"
"I did, and I even told him that you had been arrested because you had lost your passport."
I understood why the officer had smiled as he was talking with me. After my conversation with Therese, I received the compliments of the mother and of the young sisters who appeared to me less cheerful and less free than they had been in Ancona. They felt that Bellino, transformed into Therese, was too formidable a rival. ”

“ For a man to know where the churches are, they have around them large trees; by that they are known, even before they are reached.
[117]
Cap. li.—Of the church of Ancona, and how in the kingdom of Angote iron and salt are current for money, and of a monastery which is in a cave.
On the following Wednesday we travelled (not a long way) , and began to descend through a large and beautiful valley and lowland, where there were large fields of millet and beans. This vale is named the country of Ancona. At the head of this vale is a very noble church named St. ”

“ THE THIRD CONTINENTAL JOURNEY.
1833-4.
PART II.--GREECE
On the 21st of the Eleventh Month John and Martha Yeardley left Ancona, and had a safe but suffering voyage of two days to Corfu, the capital of the island of that name.
The atmosphere in this place, writes J. Y., soon after they landed, is different from Ancona in every respect. It has to us a feeling of home, and our minds are clothed with peace and, I trust, gratitude to the Father of mercies. What we may find to do is yet a secret to us, but He who has brought us here will in his own time open the way before us. ”

“ ANCONA, a seaport and episcopal see of the Marches, Italy, capital of the province of Ancona, situated on the N.E. coast of Italy, 185 m. N.E. of Rome by rail and 132 m. direct, and 127 m. S.E. of Bologna. Pop. ”

“ The name, however, has long ceased to be the official designation of any part of Italy, and the present province of Ancona, which has an area of 740 square miles, and a population of 262,369, corresponds in extent neither to the March of Ancona, nor to the Papal delegation of the same name. There is little that is peculiar in the physical features of the province; the rivers are small and unim portant, and the hills are of no great height. Agriculture is the chief industry, and the soil, although naturally poor, yields large and profitable crops through the energy of its inhabitants. ”

“ Venice was kept in check, and at one time Ancona was actually taken by them. Every Italian heart felt triumph in the overthrow of a Pagan and Saracen, and warmed with interest when it was related how they were driven from France. Bojardo made choice of the subject, and he added life to it, by the introduction of Angelica. His invention, his poetic fervour, his ceaseless flow of fancy, were admirable ”

“ If you have stood upon the timber pier at Lowestoft, its wooden sides green with sea-wrack, and watched the deep-sea fishermen lurching out in heavy grey rollers to wrest their living from an [199] angry sea, you will find it hard to reconcile their perilous existence with the gracious beauty of Ancona's fishing-fleet. There life is full of the grandeur and bitterness of toil, salt with the kiss of the sea and the tears of the women weeping for those who never come back; here there is song and sunshine; here you could set sail for dreamland in these painted ships upon the mirroring Adriatic. ”

“ We quitted Ancona at five in the morning, passing no fewer than three distinct dogana, at each of which we were overhauled, though fortunately without paying any duty. I found a trifling bribe go farther than a boat-load of quiet civility or resignation, a papal custom-house officer being devoid of all feeling save the modicum existing in his palms, which when tickled with a small coin, generally expand to the traveller’s advantage. ”

“ The archbishop Christian arrived before Ancona in the beginning of April, 1174, and invested the city with an army levied among the Ghibellines of Tuscany and Umbria. The people of Ancona repulsed their attack with their accustomed bravery. But hunger, more formidable than the sword, soon menaced them. The preceding harvests had failed; their granaries were empty; and an enemy’s fleet closed their port. They saw the harvest ripen, without the possibility of a single sack of corn reaching them. All human subsistence was soon exhausted ”

“ The southern quay was built in 1880, and the harbour is now protected by forts on the heights, while the place is the seat of the 7th army corps.
The port of Ancona was entered in 1904 by 869 steamships and 600 sailing vessels, with a total tonnage of 961,612 tons. The main imports were coal, timber, metals, jute. The main exports were asphalt and calcium carbide. Sugar refining and shipbuilding are carried on.
Ancona is situated on the railway between Bologna and Brindisi, and is also connected by rail with Rome, via Foligno and Orte. ”

“ Macerata is about forty miles distant from Ancona, on the high-road to Rome, finely situated on the loftiest point of a ridge of hills running midway between the sea and the grand chain of Apennines which form the noble background to most Italian scenery. Even at that early period of the year the country through which we passed was remarkable for its beauty and fertility; but the marchesa talked too much and too energetically to permit me to observe anything in detail ”

“ After the fall of the Roman empire Ancona was successively attacked by the Goths, Lombards and Saracens, but recovered its strength and importance. It was one of the cities of the Pentapolis under the exarchate of Ravenna, the other four being Fano, Pesaro, Senigallia and Rimini, and eventually became a semi-independent republic under the protection of the popes, until Gonzaga took possession of it for Clement VII. in 1532. ”

“ While the French besieged Rome, the Austrians had not been idle. They took Bologna in May, after eight days' resistance; and in June, after twenty days' attack by sea and land, Ancona fell into their hands. In these towns they pursued means of 'pacification' resembling those employed at Brescia. All who possessed what by a fiction could be called arms were summarily slaughtered. At Ancona, a woman of bad character hid a rusty nail in the bed of her husband, whom she wished to get rid of ”

“ There is little good in the civil or domestic architecture of Ancona, nor is there much to excite the attention of the antiquary, though some pointed arches and ornaments of the middle ages, may be observed among the later productions. ”

“ It is not yet ended: England and France still swarm with unfortunate exiles—the better portion of the insurgents, who sigh to return to their country, but who will not in hardship and banishment, make those sacrifices of principle which would at once restore them to rank and wealth.
The occupation of Ancona by the French is an event quite distinct from the insurrection of Romagna, though our vague recollections confuse them together. Abandoned by the French, hemmed in by an Austrian army, the insurgents had surrendered, and the pontifical flag again waved over the citadel of Ancona. ”