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Capri once made odious by the deified beast Tiberius Ischia, Procida, and the thousand distant beauties of the Bay, lie in the blue sea yonder, changing in the mist and sunshine twenty times a day; now close at hand, now far off, now unseen. The fairest country in the world, is spread about us.
Whilst they were thus kept against the appointed hour, the default of them committed, being bruited about everywhere, came to the ears of Ruggieri dell' Oria, a man of inestimable worth and then the king's admiral, whereupon he repaired to the place where they were bound and considering first the girl, commended her amain for beauty, then, turning to look upon the young man, knew him without much difficulty and drawing nearer to him, asked him if he were not Gianni di Procida.
Giannotto and Spina had languished in this sorry plight for full a year, entirely ignored by Currado, when in concert with Messer Gian di Procida, King Peter of Arragon raised a rebellion in the island of Sicily, and wrested it from King Charles, whereat Currado, being a Ghibelline, was overjoyed.
At the very moment this was being done for her by proxy, her father was planning another alliance for his daughter. The husband he had selected, Don Gasparo, was also a young Spaniard, son of Don Juan Francesco of Procida, Count of Aversa. This family had probably removed to Naples with the house of Aragon. Don Juan Francesco's mother was Donna Leonora de Procida y Castelleta, Countess of Aversa.
Thus the Neapolitan Group, which might at first sight seem to be arranged round Vesuvius as a centre, really resolves itself into a line of active and extinct vents of eruption, ranging across Italy from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Adriatic, through Ischia, Procida, Monte Nuovo and the Phlegræan Fields, Vesuvius, and Mount Vultur.
The young man is the son of Landolfo di Procida, own brother to Messer Gian di Procida, by whose means thou art king and lord of this island, and the damsel is the daughter of Marino Bolgaro, to whose influence thou owest it that thine officers have not been driven forth of Ischia.
This entrance to the infernal regions was frozen over the day I saw it; so that the profane prophecy of skating on the bottomless pit might have been realized. The islands of Procida and Ischia continue and complete this side of the bay, which is about twenty miles long as the boat sails. At Castellamare the shore makes a sharp bend, and runs southwest along the side of the Sorrentine promontory.
Above the terraces, the eye reaches the fine outline of the hill; and, to the east, the bare precipice of rock, softened by the purple light; and turning still to the left, as the boat lazily swings, I have Vesuvius, the graceful dip into the plain, and the rise to the heights of Naples, Nisida, the shining houses of Pozzuoli, Cape Misenum, Procida, and rough Ischia.
But this phenomenon to-day was perfectly exhibited. Like a mirage on the wilderness, like Fata Morgana's palace ascending from the deep, the pure and noble vision stayed suspense 'twixt heaven and ocean. At the same time the breeze failed, and we rowed slowly between Procida and Capo Miseno a space in old-world history athrong with Cæsar's navies.
But it is necessary to shake off the spirit of Renaissance dilettantism before we venture to approach the chapel of John of Procida to the right of the high altar, where stands the stern figure of the greatest of the medieval Pontiffs.
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