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Catanzaro was founded in the tenth century, at the same time that Taranto was rebuilt after the Saracen destruction; an epoch of revival for Southern Italy under the vigorous Byzantine rule of Nicephorus Phocas. From my point of view, the interest of the place suffered because I could attach to it no classic memory.
I returned home at night, and just as I was going out of Stanmer Park I met the Duke of Taranto entering, for whom Lord Chichester had sent his carriage. The Duke of Feltre brought the intelligence that the King was at Abbeville. I was considerably annoyed, because it seemed like inclining to England, and relinquishing all hopes of France.
An attempt had been made to urge him to a persecution of the Jews, like that carried out in Spain and imitated by the Popes, by producing a tablet with an inscription bearing the name of St. Cataldus, said to have been buried at Taranto, and afterwards dug up again. When he discovered the fraud, the monks defied him.
Once there, you will not soon weary of that potter's wheel and the fair shapes that blossom forth under its enchanted touch. This ware of Taranto is sent by sea to many parts of south Italy, and you may see picturesque groups of it, here and there, at the street corners. Hardly has the sun disappeared before the lighthouse in the east begins to flash.
This victory gave John hopes of recovering the kingdom; and in October, 1459, he sailed thither from Genoa, with a powerful fleet, and landed at Baia; whence he proceeded to Sessa, by the duke of which place he was favorably received. The prince of Taranto, the Aquilani, with several cities and other princes, also joined him; so that a great part of the kingdom fell into his hands.
And this is only another aspect of that undercurrent of spirituality in south Italy of whose existence the tourist, harassed by sordid preoccupations, remains wholly unaware. This book was printed at Bari. Bari, not long ago, consisted of a dark and tortuous old town, exactly like the citadel of Taranto. It has now its glaring New Quarter, not a whit less disagreeable than the one here.
But with the Guelphs in power in Germany, and the pope his bitter foe in Italy, he was utterly unable to establish his claim, and was forced to cede all lower Italy, except Taranto, to the pontiff. But a new and less implacable pope being elected, the fortunes of Manfred suddenly changed, and he was unanimously proclaimed king at Palermo in 1258.
Several of the chief men of Rome, the Prince of Taranto, and the Condottiere Jacopo Piccinino, were accomplices and supporters of Tiburzio.
At night-time an exquisite perfume of flowers and ripe corn comes wafted into my room over the still waters, and when the sun rises, white settlements begin to sparkle among its olives and vineyards. My eyes often rest upon one of them; it is Grottaglie, distant a few miles from Taranto on the Brindisi line. I must visit Grottaglie, for it was here that the flying monk received his education.
This short plunge into the jungle was a relief, after the all-too-human experiences of Taranto. The forest of Policoro skirts the Ionian; the railway line cleaves it into two unequal portions, the seaward tract being the smaller. It is bounded on the west by the river Sinnc, and I imagine the place has not changed much since the days when Keppel Craven explored its recesses.
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