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"Get your umbrella, Vere, and a waterproof. You will want them both." At that moment Hermione came in. "Madre, the launch is coming in a frightful hurry, and Monsieur Emile says we must take umbrellas." "Surely it isn't going to rain?" "There is a thunder-storm coming up from Ischia, I believe," said Artois. "Then we will take our cloaks in case. It is fearfully hot.
With these dispositions I proceeded; and soon the cliffs and copses opened to views of the Baian bay, with the little isles of Niscita and Lazaretto lifting themselves out of the waters. Procita and Ischia appeared at a distance, invested with that purple bloom so inexpressibly beautiful, and peculiar to this fortunate climate.
Before them the entire sweep of the gulf, from Ischia to Capri; Naples in its utmost extent, an unbroken line of delicate pink, from Posillipo to Torre Annunziata. Far below their feet the little marina of Sorrento, with its row of boats drawn up on the strand; behind them noble limestone heights. The sea was foaming under the tramontana, and its foam took colour from the declining sun.
And the bay of Naples is so spacious and stately, so broad and deep, its lines those of mountains and the sea, its gem the sunny city, and the islands of Capri, Ischia, and Procida, so large and high and springing so proudly from the water, that it satisfies the expectation; and sometimes this broad water dashes and rolls like the ocean, then subsides into sunny ripples and gleams like glass in the moonlight.
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.
To the right the distant line of Apennines, broken by the shadowy dip that marks the plain of Pæstum, runs southward in a dim succession of capes and headlands; to the left the sunny bow of the Bay of Naples gleams clear and distinct through the brilliant air till Procida and Ischia lead the eye round again to the cliff of Anacapri with the busy little Marina at its feet.
After those first seven years of loneliness at Ischia, Vittoria spent much time in the convents of Orvieto and Viterbo, and later she lived in the greatest seclusion at Rome; there it was that death overtook her. Wherever she went, Michael Angelo's thoughtfulness followed her out, and in those last moments at Rome he was with her, faithful to the end.
In spite of the good Bishop’s eloquent tribute to the genial climate and the natural beauty of Ischia, it must be borne in mind that a residence on the island possesses one or two serious drawbacks.
Alphonso, King of Naples, in despair, abdicated in favor of his son, Ferdinand; and Ferdinand, unable to oppose any effectual resistance, abandoned his kingdom to the conqueror, and fled to the island of Ischia. These alarming aggressions on the part of France, already very powerful, excited general consternation throughout Europe.
Torquato’s father, Bernardo Tasso, himself a poet of no mean calibre and the composer of a scholarly but somewhat prolix work, the Amadigi, formed for many years a prominent member of that brilliant band of literary courtiers within the castle of Vittoria Colonna, the Lady of Ischia, of whom we shall speak more fully in another place.
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