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As we thread our way along the road that curves round headland after headland, and is carried over sheer precipices whose base is lapped by the cool jade-green water, we begin to realize the essential difference between the Sorrentine shores we have left behind us, and the marvellous Costiera d’Amalfi we are now passing.
It is the whistle of a railway-engine descending the slope from Vietri above us down to Salerno; it is the neighing of the iron horse that has not yet pranced along the unconquered Costiera d’Amalfi, nor befouled its crystal-clear air with his smoky breath.
It is true that the prosperity of Amalfi did not disappear immediately after the inroad of the Pisans, for Boccaccio, writing in the fourteenth century, still speaks of the ancient territory of the destroyed Republic as “a rocky ridge beside a smiling sea, which its inhabitants call the Costa d’Amalfi; full of little cities, of gardens, of fountains, and of rich and enterprising merchants.” It was in fact reserved for relentless Nature herself to complete the work of destruction that Norman armies and Pisan fleets had more than half accomplished.
Such is our first acquaintance with the Costiera d’Amalfi, that wonderful stretch of indented rocky coast-line once containing the Republic of Amalfi, which was the forerunner of the glorious Commonwealths of Florence and Venice.
Carpe diem; let us enjoy the Costiera d’Amalfi in the freshness of early spring-time, before the oranges and lemons have been stripped from the leafy groves and before the sun has had time to scorch up the vegetation that now gives colour to every cleft and crevice of the rocky coast-line.
But our days upon the beautiful Costiera d’Amalfi are at an end, and the moment has at last come for us to bid farewell to these enchanted scenes and to the ancient city slumbering peacefully in its rocky valley by the shore.
Some thirty years later King Roger of Naples forcibly seized the whole of the Costiera d’Amalfi, allowing the citizens to retain their own form of government. Four years after this, the Pisan fleet, coming to aid the people of Naples against King Roger, utterly destroyed the once vaunted navy of Amalfi, and sacked both the city itself and the two hill-set towns of Scala and Ravello.
Well, perhaps some future Gibbon—or more probably some budding Mommsen—may in time present the world with a true impartial and erudite history of the Costiera d’Amalfi.
Its glories have long vanished, but the Costiera d’Amalfi remains an enchanted land, not only on account of its natural beauties, but also by reason of its historical associations which give an additional charm to every breezy headland and every little town upon this wonderful shore.
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