Pozzolana

“ If laid horizontally it is very strong, but if set on end its crystalline structure is a great source of weakness, and it splits from end to end. Neglect on the part of Roman builders of this important precaution in many cases caused a complete failure in the structure. This was notably the case in the rostra. (6) Pulvis Puteolanus (pozzolana) , so called from extensive beds of it at Puteoli—a volcanic product, which looks like red sandy earth, and lies in enormous beds under and round the city of Rome. ”

“ In a short time the fire increased to such a degree that it burst open the earth in this place, and threw up a quantity of ashes and pumice-stones, mixed with water, which covered the whole country. The next morning the poor inhabitants of Pozzuoli quitted their habitations in terror, covered with the muddy and black shower, which continued the whole day in that country—flying from death, but with death painted in their countenances. Some with their children in their arms, some with sacks full of their goods; others leading an ass, loaded with their frightened family, towards Naples.... ”

“ Hence, we passed again those boiling and smoking hills, till we came to Pozzolo, formerly the famous Puteoli, the landing-place of St. Paul, when he came into Italy, after the tempest described in the Acts of the Apostles. Here we made a good dinner, and bought divers medals, antiquities, and other curiosities, of the country people, who [Pg 156] daily find such things among the very old ruins of those places. This town was formerly a Greek colony, built by the Samians, a seasonable commodious port, and full of observable antiquities. ”

“ The electric tram and the rail-road have in fact killed Pozzuoli as a winter resort, more’s the pity, for it is not only a spot of singular interest in itself but its climate is certainly superior to that of Naples, for the great headland which shuts off the city from the Phlegrean Fields serves also to act as a buffer against the icy tramontana that sweeps along the Chiaja in winter and early spring. ”

“ He passed through the long grotta of Posillipo, gloomy, chilly, and dank; then out again into the sunshine, and along the road to Bagnoli. On walls and stone-heaps the little lizards darted about, innumerable; in vineyards men were at work dismantling the vine-props, often singing at their task. From Bagnoli, still walking merely that a movement of his limbs might accompany his busy thoughts, he went along by the seashore, and so at length, still long before midday, had come to Pozzuoli. ”

“ Midway in the bay the ancient town of Pozzuoli nestles by the water's edge, deserted this long while by all the trade which brought it into touch with Alexandria and many another city further east, filling its harbour with strange ships, crowding its quays with swarthy sailors, and with silks and spices of the Orient. All that old consequence has gone now like a dream, and no one visits the cluster of old brown houses for any other reason than to see that which is still left of its ancient greatness. ”

“ The Italians think as highly of Foscolo as they can of any man, divided and miserable as they are, and with neither leisure at present to read, nor head nor heart to judge of any thing but extracts from French newspapers and the Lugano Gazette.
"We are all looking at one another, like wolves on their prey in pursuit, only waiting for the first falling on to do unutterable things. ”

“ Certainly their reception in the town is not likely to inspire them with a wish to return, for the guides and touts swarm here more than in any other spot in Italy; “until he has spent half an hour in Pozzuoli,” says the author of Dolce Napoli, “let no man say that he understands the signification of the verb to pester.”
Putting aside even the objectionable habits of so many of its citizens, it cannot be said that the town itself of Pozzuoli to-day is particularly attractive, although its situation on the Bay of Baiae is charming and its quays are full of picturesque life and movement. ”

“ One emerges into the fresh open air and the bright light of day with a feeling of relief.
The drive hence to Pozzuoli, four or five miles, was extremely beautiful. The fields were covered with the new tender grain, and by the short passage through the grotto we had changed a busy and crowded city for scenes of as quiet rural loveliness as ever charmed the eye. We soon reached the lip of the bay, and then the road turned away to the right, along the beach, passing the small island of Nisida (where Brutus had a villa, and which is now a prison for the carbonari) . ”

“ But to Pasotti's penetrating glance, and cunning shrewdness it was quite clear that the two old ladies were concealing a certain dissatisfaction, which was greater in the Marchesa Maironi than in Donna Eugenia. Every time the door opened the dim eyes of the one and the dark eyes of the other were turned in that direction. Once it admitted the prefect of the Santuario della Caravina, with little Signor Paolo Sala, called el Paolin—little Paul—and Signor Paolo Pozzi, called el Paolon—big Paul—who were inseparable companions. ”

“ Whilst here at Naples the blood in the phial boils up, making the straw fixed in the cold, dry clot move about, in Pozzuoli the blood on the marble block gets fresh and bright; and whoso standing on the shore has the eyes of faith sees the saint's livid, cut-off head floating in. The miracle is repeated twice every year. When it is later than the usual hour, it is a bad sign; it means a bad year: if he were not to do the miracle ... but the patron saint could not forsake his faithful city. ”

“ FOSCOLO, UGO (1778-1827) , Italian writer, was born at Zante in the Ionian Isles on the 26th of January 1778. On the death of his father, a physician at Spalatro, in Dalmatia, the family removed to Venice, and in the University of Padua Foscolo prosecuted the studies begun in the Dalmatian grammar school. The fact that amongst his Paduan masters was the abbé Cesarotti, whose version of Ossian had made that work highly popular in Italy, was not without influence on Foscolo’s literary tastes, and his early knowledge of modern facilitated his studies in ancient Greek. ”

“ We have spent three or four days upon Pozzuoli and its environs; its cavern scooped originally by nature’s hand, assisted by the armies of Cocceius Nerva—ever tremendous, ever gloomy grotto!—which leads to the road that shews you Ischia, an old volcano, now an island apparently rent asunder by an earthquake, the division too plain to beg assistance from philosophy: this is commonly called the Grotto di Posilippo though; you pass through it to go to every place ”

“ The way leads past the famous Grotto del Cane, along the Lago d'Agnano, once a lake, now drained. On the road to Pozzuoli, where the Serapeum has had literally so many ups and downs, is the Solfatara, another smaller but livelier crater. A steam-tramway also connects Pozzuoli and Naples, and this may be made the starting-point of a second excursion among further craters. Lake Avernus, etc., which should certainly include a climb up Monte Nuovo, newest of mountains. May you be more fortunate than I, and have a chance to go farther and visit Etna and Sicily! But most of us must now return. ”

“ The most celebrated Maga of all is the demon who haunts a certain underground corridor near Pozzuoli, containing an immense hoard of gold and jewels, which he is willing to present to anybody that is ready to give in exchange a new-born baby, presumably for purposes of devouring. Nor was the general belief in the cave-dwelling monster at Pozzuoli limited to the poor peasants and fisher-folk, for rumour persistently asserted that King Francis of Naples, father of Bomba of impious memory, more than once [pg 110] attempted to negotiate with the guardian of this buried treasure ”

“ He however derived little advantage from this favorable notice at the time, as the Cardinal soon after left Rome on his legation to France and Spain, and the Cav. Marino died about the same time. Poussin now found himself a stranger, friendless and unknown in the Eternal City, in very embarrassed circumstances; but he consoled himself with the thought that his wants were few, that he was in the very place where he had long sighed to be, surrounded by the glorious works of ancient and modern art, and that he should have abundant leisure to study. ”

“ Little more than an eyrie for eagles, Fosdinovo is an almost perfect fortress of the Middle Age. It glowers in the sun like a threat over the ways that now are so quiet, where only the bullocks dragging the marble from Carrara pass all day long from Massa to Spezia, from the valley to the sea. ”

“ We took the Posilippo road, intending to return by the Grotto of Puzzuoli. Nothing can be more beautiful than the view which greets you at the top of the hill, and which, in a steep winding descent, brings you to the town of Puzzuoli. [pg 554] To the left is a high bank of verdure covered with flowering shrubs, and here and there a goat browsing on some almost inaccessible peak. The sea always seemed to me to be even bluer here than in the Bay of Naples. We drive past places bearing some of the grandest names of antiquity; Puzzuoli itself was once a “little Rome”; Cicero's villa was here ”

“ MONTE FAITO, CASTELLAMARE We descend by the slopes of Monte Faito in the quiet of the evening, facing the distant headland of Posilipo and the sunset, where above the horizon we see collecting thick masses of dark purple cloud, which augur a stormy morrow. Above us the peak of the Archangel is already wreathed in garlands of white mist, a sure sign of coming tempest, and it is amid a lurid light from the sinking sun that we hasten downwards, bending our steps in the direction of Pozzano, where the form of its convent stands out sharply defined against the background of the Bay. ”

“ Once more, as at the Solfatara, one has the sense of treading over some vast chasm filled with a sleeping power which may awake at any moment. Let us go on beyond the city and see what has happened elsewhere upon this bay, so beautiful and yet so deadly, a strange dwelling-place for men who have but one life to pass on the surface of this earth.
In passing out of Pozzuoli one sees upon the right 37 the vine-clad slopes of Monte Barbaro. ”

“ Margherita Gaetana Agnesi, of Milan, was familiar with Latin at nine years of age; and, while still extremely young, mastered Greek and Hebrew, together with French, Spanish, and German. In the very meridian of her fame, nevertheless, she renounced the brilliant career which lay open to her, in order to devote herself to God as a Sister of Charity. Another fair Italian, Modesta Pozzo, born at Venice in 1555, deserves to be mentioned, although she is better known for her extraordinary powers of memory, than her skill in languages. ”

“ The Brescians are a happy, gay {Pg 375} people; they live less in the town than the inhabitants of the rest of Italy, and take peculiar pleasure in rural amusements; they are hospitable and fond of festivity; not very refined, they are yet open-hearted and cordial, and noted for bravery when in the field. Foscolo's neighbours admired and visited him; persons of every sect and opinion, even the priests, flocked to his house; and often seated under a wide-spreading fig tree which was in his garden, he held forth to a numerous audience. ”

“ I do not blame the reasons of state, through which nations are sold like flocks of sheep; it was ever so, and so will it ever be: but I grieve for my country, which I have lost. 'He was born Italian, and will one day regenerate his country:' others may believe this,—I never can. I replied, and shall always reply, 'Nature made him a tyrant, and a tyrant cares not for his country, nor does he possess one.'"
Ruminating on all these violent and bitter feelings, the offspring of patriotism and adversity, Foscolo took the road to Tuscany. ”

“ Foscolo was a brave man, and faithfully loved freedom, and he must be ranked with those poets who, in later times, have devoted themselves to the liberation of Italy. He is classic in his forms, but he is revolutionary, and he hoped for some ideal Athenian liberty for his country, rather than the English freedom she enjoys. But we cannot venture to pronounce dead or idle the Greek tradition, and we must confess that the romanticism which brought into literary worship the trumpery picturesqueness of the Middle Ages was a lapse from generous feeling. ”

“ Here again what most excites our admiration is the harmonious and easy versification. Among his prose works a high place belongs to his translation of the Sentimental Journey of Sterne, a writer by whom one can easily understand how Foscolo should have been deeply affected. He went as an exile to England, and died there. He wrote for English readers some Essays on Petrarch and on the texts of the Decamerone and of Dante, which are remarkable for the time at which they were written, and which may be said to have initiated a new kind of literary criticism in Italy. ”

“ Through all the country of Pescara, San Silvestro, Fontanella, San Rocco, even as far as Spoltore, and through all the farms of Vallelonga beyond Allento and particularly in the little boroughs where sailors meet near the mouth of the river,—through all this country, where the houses are built of clay and of reeds, and the fire material is supplied by drift wood from the sea, for many years a Catholic rhapsodist with a barbarian and piratical name, who is as blind as the ancient Homer, has been famous. ”