The shores of the Adriatic, the Italian side : an architectural and arch©Œological pilgrimage

Preface

The following pages deal with a part of Italy very little known to English people, except for a few towns such as Ravenna, Rimini, and Brindisi, and the author has been emboldened to pubHsh his description of this interesting coast by finding how small is the knowledge of the fine things to be seen in its cities — many of them almost unspoilt — even among those who might be expected to have an interest in the subject.

It has been his endeavour to regard everything from the point of view of picturesqueness rather than from that of historical completeness. At the same time, he has done his best to note whatever appeared to him of special artistic interest, and believes that those whose tastes resemble his own will find in the volume information about things they would wish to see which does not exist in a compact form elsewhere. The guide-books are very deficient in this respect, and of comparatively little use to the archaeological and architectural pilgrim. He hopes also to interest the stay-athome traveller who desires to enlarge his knowledge of the Arts of Italy, and if possible to stimulate in him a desire to see with his own eyes the beautiful things described and illustrated.

The collection of the material has spread over several years, and has been the occasion of repeated journeys to Italy, which are always a delight. Some part of the book has appeared in The Builder, the proprietors vi

PREFACE of which have kindly allowed it to be used again, but all has been revised and a good deal rewritten. The author's thanks are due to the Itahan officials for great kindness and assistance in furthering his objects — specially to Cav. Sarlo at Trani and Sig. Galore at S. Clemente in Casauria ; but everywhere the same civility was shown him, with the single exception of S. Vitale, Ravenna.

M. Lucien Begule, whose book Les Incrustations decoratives des Cathedrales de Lyon et de Vienne " is really an excellent monograph on the process wherever used both in France and Italy, has been so kind as to allow the use, in this volume, of two of his illustrations of the panels in the cathedral, Ancona, which have never been reproduced before and which he had made a special journey to Ancona to draw and photograph, and of one of two panels from the ambo at Bitonto — an act of generosity for which the author begs to thank him very heartily. The plans have most of them been reproduced from Schulz's great book.

Though very little has been written in English upon this part of Italy, there is a good deal in Italian, French, and German. The following works have been made use of and may be consulted by those who desire to study the matter further : M. Bertaux's monumental work, *^UArt dans ITtahe Meridionale,'' Sig. Venturi's '^Storia deirArte Itahana,'' Sig. Rivoira's Le Origini deirArchitettura Lombarda,'* Schulz's Denkmaler der Kunst des Mittelalters in Unteritalien,'' Cattaneo's L'Architettura in Italia dal secolo sesto almille circa,'' and ^^The Basilica of S. Mark, Venice," Mr. Gummings' " A History of Architecture in Italy/' Huillard-Breholles' Recherches sur les monuments des Normands dans 1' Italic Meridionale," Herr Mothes' Die Baukunst des Mittelalters in Itahen," M. Dartein's Etude sur 1' Architecture Lombarde," M. Ghoisy's L'Art de batir chez les Byzantins," Sig. Salazaro's

PREFACE vii

Delia storia dell' Arte in Puglia," Sig. Sylos' L'Arte in Puglia durante le dominazioni Bizantina e Normanna," M. Enlart's Les Origines de I'Art Gothique en Italie," Herr Stiickelberg's Longobardische Plastik," Herr Zimmermann's '' Oberitalische Plastik im friihen und hohen Mittelalters," Eitelberger von Edelberg's " Gesammelte Kunst-historischen schriften," Sig. Gmelin's L'Orificeria mediaevale negli Abruzzi," Abbe Delarc's " Les Normands en Italie/' and the book on which it is founded Amatus Monachus Casinensis — Ystoire de H Normant/' Mr. Hodgkin's Italy and her Invaders," and ''Translation of the Letters of Cassiodorus," Paulus Diaconus' " History of the Lombards," Gregorovius' " Nelle Puglie," Amati's *' Dizionario corografico dTtalia," " Nella Terra di Bari," Sig. Bindi's Monumenti storici ed artistici degli Abruzzi," Sig. Fenicia's " Monografia di Ruvo," Marinelli's Memorie storiche di Terlizzi," Puglia' s " Istoria della Citta di Giovenazzo," Lombardi's " Notitie istoriche della Citta di Molfetta," Sig. Loffredo's " Storia della Citta di Barletta," Perifano's " Cenni storici sulla Origine della Citta di Foggia," Leoni's

Ancona illustrata," Peruzzi's " Storia d'Ancona and other Works," Sig. Ricci's " Cronache per Storia Ravennate," Ferro's " Istoria di Comacchio," Bottari's " Saggio di Storia della Citta di Caorle," Pasini's La Pala di Caorle," Maniago's Udine and Cividale," " Carducci on the War of the Castle of Love," many articles in Italian publications such as NapoH viii

PREFACE

Nobilissima/' and "UArte/* and the reports of the regional offices as to restorations and repairs — of which may be especially mentioned Sig. Faccioli's report on S. Maria Pomposa and Sig. Avena*s on the restorations executed in Apulia generally.

The photographic illustrations are reproduced from negatives made by Mr. J. Cooper Ashton, with whom the author shares pleasant memories of many delightful days of foreign travel.

Contents

PAGE

Preface v

Lists of Illustrations and Plans xi-xiv

II

The ancient Roman roads which served the southern portion of the east coast of Italy were : The Via Salaria, which runs up the valley of the Velino and reaches the Adriatic by that of the Tronto, the only pass in the Apennines between the tunnel of the Via Flaminia (the Furlo) and the hollow of Benevento. A secondary route, the Via Claudia Nova, reached the Abruzzi by the difficult passes of Antrodoco. The Via Valeria from Tivoli went by way of Carsoli and the pass of CoUe. These two joined near the confluence of the Aternus and Sagittarius known during the Middle Ages as the Pescara. Hence to Pescara it was known as the Via Claudia Valeria. The Via Appia passed by the Pontine marshes to Terracina, meeting with the Via Latina, which went along the valleys of the Sacco and the Liris, at the Volturno by Capua. From this point it went by way of Benevento to the slopes of Monte Vulture by Melfi, and so to Tar anto, where it turned to the east and ended at Brindisi. The Via Trajana, so called because Trajan remade it, left Benevento by a pass to Troja, where it turned to the south-east and passed through Canosa, Andria and Egnatia to Brindisi. This is the route which Horace found so uncomfortable. On the other side of the Adriatic communication was continued to Thessalonica from Durazzo by the Via Egnatia. The end (or commencement) of the Via Appia at Brindisi

BRINDISI was marked by two columns. There are two still there but they were erected at a later date by a Greek protospatharios. One still retains its cap, the style of which IS Roman of the Decadence, the other is only the stump of a column upon its stylobate.

The origin of the city is certainly very ancient, but uncertain ; it was probably lapygian. According to Strabo it was a Cretan colony under Theseus, and the name is said to be derived from Brunda, which means a cape of stags in the Messapian language.

At one time it had its own kings. In 267 B.C. the Romans established a colony at Brundusium and prolonged the Via Appia to its port, in which they prepared their Eastern expeditions. Its decadence began in the wars between Caesar and Pompey, during which Caesar prolonged the breakwater so as to shut up Pompey's fleet in the inner port, which caused the passage to fill up at a later date. Virgil died in Brundusium in 19 B.C. It was raided by the barbarians more than once, and in 698 was besieged and taken by Romuald, Lombard Duke of Benevento, and belonged to that duchy for a considerable time. It was rebuilt by Basil the Macedonian (867-886) after Lewis II. had destroyed it with the intention of keeping the fortress out of the hands of the Saracens. In 1062 Robert Guiscard besieged it, and after the

BRINDISI — CAPITAL OF COLUMN ERECTED AT THE END OF THE APPIAN WAY

Greeks had in their turn besieged it in 1070, it was sacked by the Normans in 1071, when 40,000 citizens are said to have perished. From mo to 1132 it was in the power of the Venetians. The Crusades brought it prosperity, and in 1233 Frederick II. fortified it. The castle bears great resemblance to those of Bari and Trani in the original design : consisting of four lofty square towers, between which are curtain-walls surrounded by fosses with bridges across them and an inner citadel. It was made into a prison by Murat, and 1500 convicts were employed on the harbour and road works. It is now used for those condemned to the galleys. Charles of Anjou made alterations and additions to it between 1277 1282, and Charles V. also altered it at a later date. It was in this harbour that Charles of Anjou assembled an expedition in 1284 for the rescue of his son, who was prisoner in Sicily. The city was sacked in 1352 by Lewis of Hungary, and in 1383 by Louis of Anjou ; suffered from plague in 1348, and in 1456 from earthquake, when only one church was left standing and most of the inhabitants were killed, yet it was worth giving in pledge to Venice with Otranto and Trani in 1496, and remained hers for eleven years. Charles V. fortified it in the sixteenth century and destroyed a great part of its ancient monuments. One of his gates remains, the Porta Lecce. In the eighteenth century the port was almost abandoned owing to the malaria.

The city possessed the right of coining money both in antiquity and under Frederick II. It now has about 9000 inhabitants and an extreme air of incompletion. Many large buildings have been commenced and the ground floor built, after which apparently all idea of carrying them farther has been abandoned. It lies on two eminences of a peninsula which curves round the port, the finest on the coast. Strabo says of the harbour

BRINDISI. BALCONY IN VIA DEL DUOMO

ARRIVAL AT BRINDISI that it was the best he knew, because it had several basins defended from the fury of the waves within one mouth. It has now two, the second of which was opened in 1301 by Charles II. of Anjou, and is between two and three miles from east to west, and one from north to south. Another of its advantages is a fine spring of water which keeps well for long voyages. The mouths are defended by the sea fort, built by Alfonso of Aragon and enlarged by Philip of Austria, and five small islands called " Le Pedagne." The docks belong to an Enghsh company. The fact of its being on the English highway to the East was made painfully evident to us : on our arrival we were immediately accosted in bad English by six or seven different people, and before our departure we had change given us for a ten-lira note in the railway restaurant, which was short in amount, and included no less than nine coins which do not pass in Italy ! Remonstrance of course produced apologies, and eventually things were set right when the proprietor realised that we were not strangers in the land. On the train we had another experience of the ingenuity of the ItaUan in extracting coin from the unsuspecting foreigner. The official who looked at our tickets observed that one of the party had a camera on a tripod. We had no personal luggage, having left it at Bari. He declared that this was merchandise, and insisted on being paid eighty-five centimes, though we pointed out that we had only a photographic kit with us which weighed very little, and that we might have had heavy valises for which nothing would have been charged— and it is worth while to mention the incident, as it may prevent other Englishmen from suffering as we should have done had we been going a considerable distance instead of merely to Bari.

The cathedral was built by King Roger, but nothmg remains of his period. It once had a celebrated floor

E mosaic with subjects from the epic of Charlemagne, much resembhng that at Otranto, but the last vestiges were destroyed in the earthquake of 1858. In this building Frederick II. was married to lolanthe of Jerusalem, in 1225. During the time it was building Pope Gelasius II. (1118-1119) ordered that onefourth of the income of the See should be devoted to the maintenance of the poor and of pilgrims, onefourth to the building-fund, one fourth to the maintenance of the clergy, and that the remaining fourth should be the archbishop's. The first archbishop came from Constantinople in the tenth century. Where the Via del Duomo opens into the cathedral piazza there is a house with a very fine mediaeval balcony with fragments of Lombard carving, and in the same street a fine later palace with balconies of an ornate kind. The Palazzo Monticelli formerly Di Marzo, stands between two streets with a facade in each, and a very effective loggia at the corner. Rococo in the style of the ornament, but with a severity in the architectural forms which is unusual at that period. The most interesting buildings in Brindisi, however, are the early churches of S. Benedetto and S. Giovanni, the latter of which has been rescued from a state of ruin and now holds a small museum. MM. Schulz and Bertaux consider it a baptistery, which its shape makes probable, but it is a long way from the cathedral to have served such a purpose. Eight pillars in the centre support a drum upon which there was once a central dome, the springing of which still remains. Opposite the door is a shallow chancel (Schulz*s plan shows a choir with apsidal end of which nothing is now to be seen) in which are two square-headed doors with mouldings above. The arches from the columns to the exterior wall which support the aisle vault spring from half columns in the wall, and do not point to the centre but to some point further away.

SOUTH DOOR, S. BENEDETTO, BRINDLSl

CHURCHES 35

The material is a good deal of it antique ; columns, five of the caps and some bases, impost -mouldings, &c. The other caps show a curious barbaric use of Classic details. It was once known as S. Sepolcro. Among the objects in the museum are a much injured antique mosaic pavement, inscriptions and a few fragments of carving, some of which are painted, early Christian sculptures and architectural carvings up to the tenth century. One or two fusiform caps which came from the destroyed church of S. Andrea are very interesting. One has side wings with two beasts standing tail to tail at the top, and interlacings and bunches of grapes below. The doorway has been very finely carved and shows strong Oriental influence in the design, but cannot be so early as the rest of the building is supposed to be. On one of the jambs among the arabesques is an elephant with mahout and two men blowing trumpets in a howdah. There is one small window with three recessed orders, and another with a semicircular head cut out of the lintel ; pilaster strips occur at intervals all round, occasionally varied by half shafts, the general base resembling that of S. Benedetto a good deal.

The last-named church is a Lombard foundation, but must have been rebuilt towards the end of the eleventh century as the vaulting shows. It has a nave and two aisles of four bays, the nave with quadripartite vaulting with unmoulded ribs, the aisles with half waggon vault and supporting walls on round arches, Hke S. Francesco, Trani. Of the columns, which are antique, six have three rows of leaves and Hons' heads at the corners to which two bodies belong, the rest being based on Corinthian. It has been beautified in the seventeenth century. The south fafade seems almost untampered with. It has an unmoulded arcade with pilaster strips of grey cipoUino and a simple cap and base. Between the pilasters a marble base runs along into which their bases die. Above the string above the arcade is one monster's head as gargoyle. The door is surrounded by a band of most elaborate interlacings which leave little spaces here and there in which are roughly carved beasts and grotesques. The lintel shows monks driving oxen, &c., which twirl their tails very decor atively. To the north of the church is the cloister, which much resembles that of S. Sofia, Bene vent o. Signor Avena says it was certainly originally constructed in the eighth century, when the Lombards of Benevento made of Brindisi a centre of activity and point of junction between themselves and Constantinople.'' This cloister has three bays of four arches each on two sides, and on the other two two bays and an unornamented doorway. There are piers between each group and a discharging round arch. Two walks and half of another are cross- vaulted without ribs and with supporting arches below. The other sides have waggon vaults with the same supporting arches, which spring from simple cushion corbels. Some of the arches are built up. The caps are many of them plain, with a broadly spreading super-abacus to reach the width of the wall, but a few with monsters are found, one in the first walk, one in the third, and three in the fourth ; they are the prototype of later caps at Bitonto. In the third walk is also an interesting ornamental one. The colonnettes are octagonal changing to square at the base, the arches unmoulded but with two orders. The campanile, which looks of the same period, has corner pilasters and a central strip with two arches in each space and one corbel. Above are three arches with white and grey voussoirs, resting on widely splayed abaci which have been carved, set in a two-arched panel with a corbel above the central arch. A string course divides the storeys and there is another above. Then comes a shallow unornamented piece with a deeper

CLOISTER WALK. S. BENEDETTO, BRINDISI

S. BIAGIO AND S. GIOVANNI 37

string course and corner pilasters, and a parapet pierced with rough crosses and finished with a moulding. The crypt of S. Lucia is also ancient, and S. Domenico has a corbelled frieze and windows with central colonnette and bands of ornament, now built up.

Brindisi was one of the points of departure for the Greek monks who came from farther East and hollowed out their lauras (groups of cells or hermitages) in the chalky soil quite near to the Adriatic. They went beyond Bari, and subterranean chapels have been found even but a few leagues from the Ofanto, near Andria and not far from Trani. Fasano, near which there are many Basihan chapels hollowed out in the friable calcareous rock, is designated in the Antonine Itinerary and the Tavola Peutingeriana as ad speluncas, showing that the practice was still more ancient. Near Brindisi are two, S. Biagio and S. Giovanni, both covered with Byzantine painting of the twelfth century, and near the station of Fasano are eleventh-century paintings in the grotto of S. Lorenzo. There are many more such chapels in the south, which have been explored by MM. Diehl and Bertaux, very valuable for the history of the evolution of ItaHan art.

Twenty-four miles from Brindisi, southward, lies the city of Lecce, a few miles from the coast. It is a cathedral city of some 26,000 inhabitants of which the origin is uncertain though it occupies the site of the ancient Lypia. About three-quarters of a mile away, at Rugge, where antique vases and other objects have been found which are now in the Museum of the Prefettura, was the ancient Rodes or Rudia, a Greek city of Messapia, which is said to have been united to Lypia by a grotto, excavated by the inhabitants of both cities to provide refuge in case of siege. In this town Ennius, the father of Roman poetry, was born 239 B.C. The port of Lypia was at S. Cataldo, seven miles away on the Adriatic. Lecce was known as Lypia until the eighth century. A diploma of Gregory the Great gives the form Lycea of which Lecce is a corruption. It was happy in escaping damage during the barbarian incursions and began to have its own Counts in Norman times, Robert, who was grandfather of Tancred on the mother's side being the first. Tancred succeeded him, but was driven out and had to take refuge in Greece, being restored by William II. Bohemond was also a Count of Lecce. In 1166 the city was ruined by William the Bad. The celebrated Walter, Duke of Athens, rebuilt it, and Frederick II. gave it to his son Pyrrhus, whose daughter Maria, wife of Raymond Orsini, inherited it, and till 1433 their son Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini had it. It became head of the province in consequence of its faithfulness to Ferdinand of Aragon in his war with the King of Navarre. The bishopric, which is now suffragan to Otranto, is of very early date.

The only interesting building of the town is the church of SS. Nicola and Cataldo, which lies a little outside the Porta di Napoli. It was built by Tancred in 1 180, and still retains portions of early work amid the baroque additions which disfigure it in common with most of the churches of S. Italy. The door in the western fagade is of the period of the foundation. The ornament shows oriental influence strongly in its planning. The side door is beneath the vault of a rather pompous cloister corridor, and is of the same period. Upon both the names of Tancred and of King William II. are engraved. The waggon vaults of the interior as well as the arches of the nave arcade are pointed, and there is a bell tower at the side which is quite Northern in character. The church belonged to a Benedictine monastery, and it seems probable that a Clunist or Cistercian brother may have had some hand in its design and construction.

OTRANTO 39

Otranto, which Hes some thirty miles further south, though now but an insignificant fisherman's town with a couple of thousand inhabitants, is the seat of an archbishop, and can boast of great antiquity. It is the ancient Greek Hydrus, so called by Pomponius Mela, though Ptolemy says Hydra. Strabo gives Hydruntum as the name, from which the change to that now used is slight. It once had one of the finest ports in Italy, which was equally with Brindisi a point of departure for Greece — Apollonia in Epirus is generally mentioned in connection with Otranto. It is believed to have been founded by Cretans, and was a place of some importance as is proved by its coins, which bear the figures of Neptune and of Hercules, and by the few remains of edifices. It was a Roman colony and municipium. At the time of the Goths, Cassiodorus called it the Tyre of Italy on account of the number of murices which it yielded. The circuit of the walls was then eleven stadia; and one hundred towers, of which there are some slight remains, further strengthened the defences. It was Byzantine from the sixth to the tenth century, and repulsed the armies of Totila, of the Lombards and of the Franks, which besieged it. The abundance of the natural products of the district and the active commerce which it carried on with the Levant, made it flourishing and wealthy during the early middle ages, and its reputation for wealth brought the Turks down on it, who sacked the city on August ii, 1480, carrying off men and women into slavery, and it never recovered from the effects of this blow. A memory of the misfortune is preserved in the name of Valle de' Martiri," which is still applied to the Contrada where the archbishop died fighting at the head of the citizens. It was rescued from the Turks by Ferdinand L, but in 1537 another attack was made with eighty galleys, ineffectually this time. At the beginning of this century it had become Venetian with other cities of Apulia, and so remained until the war of the league of Cambrai. It was one of the most restive cities to the new form of government which the French introduced in 1799, and in it the nucleus of the force was formed which recovered the Kingdom of Naples for the Bourbons.

The castle with its two towers is due to Alfonso of Aragon, but was strengthened by Charles V. The cathedral contains some columns from a temple of Mercury which once stood a little way outside the town near the village of S. Nicola. The crypt is probably of the twelfth century, but contains earlier fragments. Two of the columns have Byzantine capitals of the sixth century with basket-work below, and birds at the angles above, like those at S. Clemente, Rome. Four of the columns have flat scrolls in low relief upon their upper portions, and flutings below a guilloche band. They probably once formed part of a ciborium. In a corner is a portion of a panel of a choir enclosure, very like the panels of the eighth or ninth century in the portico of S. Maria in Trastevere, Rome. There is a very interesting mosaic on the floor of the nave and aisles, and the presbytery. A tree starts from the west doorstep, branches to right and left, and its branches reach as far as the high altar. Upon them and between them are figured Biblical subjects, historical personages, symbols, and real and fantastic animals. M. Lenormant described it as a vast allegory which embraces universal history, the entire life of the world as conceived by the religious philosophy of the epoch.'* The archbishop of Otranto at the time this mosaic was laid down was a Frenchman, named Jonathas (1163-1166), and the names of some of the personages are written in French. Among the historical incidents are some from the Epic of Roland and the Paladins of Charlemagne. The Italo-Normans had their own version which Godfrey of Viterbo, Notary of

SUPERSTITIONS 41

Henry VI., put into verse at the end of the twelfth century. In this version, Charlemagne returned from the Holy Land by way of Sicily, Calabria, and ApuHa, and the Paladins Roland and OHver gave their names to two mountains in Sicily. The mosaic bears the name of the presbyter Pantaleone as maker.

The Capo di Leuca, the extreme point of ApuHa^ which is about thirty-one miles from Otranto, is the ancient Promontorium Japygium or Salentinum. Near to it is the village of S. Maria di Leuca, which occupies the site of the ancient Leuca. Between it and Otranto, is the village of Castro, on a rocky height, beheved to be the representative of the ancient Castrum Minervae, which Virgil says was the first point of Italy seen by iEneas.

In the terra di Otranto,'' many ancient superstitions and usages still linger, some of which, doubtless, have come down from antiquity. For instance, at the time of harvest, when the sun is just setting, the labourers stop work and range themselves in a semicircle, kneeling and looking towards it. The head man then says a prayer to which all respond in chorus, after which the day's work is ended. In the evenings, especially on festa days, they light great fires before the houses. The children then run and jump over the middle of the flames. This is not reserved for Midsummer Day, as in the north of Europe, and suggests a survival of some custom of purification by fire. The women imprint on the bread the phalHc symbol and the oriental symbol of the tripartite force which governs the world. They practise divination by means of dreams. When the old women open the house doors at sunrise they ask the inhabitants what has been dreamt of during the night. Who dreams of much flesh will certainly die before long ; of horses and carriages, will soon have a fortune or marry a rich man ; of a horse with a white cloth, will soon have bad news ; of shoes, will soon be rejoiced

F with good news ; of figs, will soon be beaten or struck ; of a serpent, will soon be calumniated ; of a statue, will have discord in the family. The sight of an eclipse, a shooting star, or a comet, is supposed to presage public calamity ; of an aurora, war and strife. A clove of garlic is a good preventive against the hatred of another, and a little horn of coral or of bone, hung on the neck of a child, not only keeps illness away, but makes it grow healthy, strong, and a lover of peace. Among gamblers he who can hide in his pocket a lizard with two tails, will command fortune and quickly become rich. When a storm threatens, every one says Ave Marias and Paternosters, or burns a certain wood which the sacristan of the parish church gives them. In the Tarentino when black clouds appear, threatening hail and tempest, the women put in the middle of the street a boy or girl of not more than seven years old, and make them throw into the air to the right, to the left, and in front three little pieces of bread, repeating with a high and suppliant voice the following words (dialect of Manduria) :

Cu no fazza mali a me e a nudda criatura.'*