The to dwell at any length upon the thrice-told tale of monkish superstition and fraud. bishops of Amalfi, we are told, have come down in uninterrupted succession from the time of Leone, who, in 987, was archbishop of this see. It is further related, that Cardinal Pietro Capuano, on his return from the East, whither he had accompanied the crusaders, brought with him and presented to his native city, the remains of the body of Saint Andrew. These precious relics, deposited in a silver coffin, were on the 8th of May, 1208, borne in solemn procession to the church of the Holy Apostle. Nearly a century after the deposition of the relics, a miraculous liquor was seen, by an old pilgrim, to ooze from the bones; and it has continued to flow ever since. This liquid, named the manna of Amalfi, has been a constant source of revenue to the church, and to this day it is sought as an unfailing preservative against shipwreck and sickness. The profits accruing from the sale of the manna were so considerable, that, in 1463, Pius II. ordered the head of the saint to be sent and deposited in the Basilica Vaticana in Rome, hoping thereby to become a sharer in the emoluments. The remains of St. Andrew were not, however, the only treasure that Capuano brought from the East; he appears to have been an indefatigable relic-hunter, and his success was commensurate with his zeal. He discovered and brought away the bodies of St. Macario, St. Viot, St. Cosmo, and St. Damiano, the first of whom was an Egyptian cænobite, and the remaining three were martyrs. In addition to these, he obtained the heads of St. James the Less, St. Basil, and St. Diomed; the skull of St. Pancras; the hand of St. Philip the Apostle; and the arm of St. George the martyr; numerous bones in minute fragments of the Holy Innocents; three great bones of St. Zacharias, the father of St. John the Baptist; a thorn of the crown of our Saviour; and a fine piece of the wood of the cross; together with many other valuable and authentic relics, quæ nunc perscribere longum est-or, as the local historian says, "too numerous to mention." The political history of Amalfi dawns in the sixth century, in connection with a ducal authority sanctioned by the exarchs of Ravenna. Subsequently, counts of Amalfi appear; and after these, we find an independent people under their Doges. At a later period the famous count Roger of Sicily either took the city under his protection, or appropriated it as a conquest. It was during his government that the Pisans, availing themselves of the absence of the Amalfians, who had accompanied the count to the siege of Aversa, took and sacked Amalfi; and though the latter returned by forced marches to the rescue of their city, the Pisans succeeded in carrying off the celebrated Pandects of Justinian. Whence, or in what manner, the Amalfians obtained this treasure, history does not record; it is supposed, however, to have been purchased by some of the princely merchants trading with Constantinople. It was believed to be the original copy of the Pandects, in the hand-writing of the emperor himself. The Pisans were afterwards compelled to surrender their prize to Florence; but the date of its seizure by them is sufficient to identify with Amalfi those modern systems of jurisprudence which are based upon the institutes of Justinian. After the sack of the city by the Pisans, Amalfi lost much of the importance it had gained by its commerce, shipping, riches, and acknowledged maritime authority. It was afterwards restored to an independent dukedom, under prince Orsini of Salerno; and the ducal authority was subsequently conferred on Antonio Piccolomini, the nephew of Pope Pius II. In 1650, this state was conveyed to Ottavio Piccolomini by a formal grant from the king of Spain. But the glory of Amalfi may be said to have terminated with the plunder of the city by the Pisans; for its subsequent partial restoration merely rendered its decline more gradual. The character and the numerical strength of the population of Amalfi, in the present day,. contrast strongly with the busy multitudes that crowded its streets and quays in the tenth and eleventh centuries, when the fleets of its Doges compassed the seas and traded to every known part of the world. The city now contains scarcely three thousand inhabitants, and these are poor fishermen, but in the days of its power and distinction it numbered a population of 50,000 inhabitants, composed of industrious artisans and princely merchants. It was one boast of the Amalfians that they coined their own money:— ..her coins, Silver and gold, circled from clime to clime; The commerce of the Amalfians naturally directed their attention to maritime jurisprudence, and their celebrated code, the Tarole Amalfitane became the basis of those laws relating to navigation which continue to be acknowledged by commercial nations. "Then were the nations by her wisdom swayed; Amalfi shared the general enthusiasm, and joined the crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land from the infidels. Her merchants established an hospital in Jerusalem, which afterwards became the foundation of the famous order of the Knights Hospitallers of Jerusalem, and subsequently of Malta. "in Palestine, By the way-side, in sober grandeur stood The pilgrims of the west; and when 'twas ask'd, Who are the noble founders ?' every tongue At once replied, The Merchants of Amalfi.'' The historian long claimed for an Amalfian the honour of having invented the Mariner's Compass, but this distinction recent researches have denied; although it is probable that the citizen Flavius Gioja (1301) improved the instrument and extended its use. If the universal consent of history be worth anything, it declares the stability of commercial states to be as unsteady as the waters over which their vessels ride. Amalfi, the rival of Venice and Genoa, whose factories were established in every emporium of the commercial world, has become the habitation of a few fishermen, and its fame is now confined to reminiscences of past glory, and picturesque beauties of site and scenery over which time and conflicting temporal interests can work little of change. "to him who sails Under the shore, a few white villages, And glittering through their lemon-groves, announce THE TEMPLES OF PESTUM. They stand between the mountains and the sea; Rogers. LL inquiry concerning Pæstum and its temples terminates in a few vague guesses; yet these, although historically valueless, add by their very obscurity to the interest which attaches to the memorials of a people utterly unknown. The silence of history contrasts with the ruined temples of Pæstum in a manner that powerfully affects the mind. Even the pyramids of Egypt yield in point of interest to these ruins: the former are immense structures of a character suited to withstand the combined action of time and the elements, and the mind readily admits that they belong to an age which authentic records cannot reach; the latter, on the contrary, are edifices of ordinary size, composed of architectural members whose details are liable to injury, and yet so singularly preserved that they might be the remains of a people not more than a century distant from ourselves. "Time was they stood along the crowded street, Learned conjecture, taking the place of authentic history, attributes the origin of Pæstum to a Phenician or Dorian colony. It was first named Posetan, or Postan, and was dedicated to Neptune. About five hundred years before the Christian era, the primitive inhabitants were expelled by the Sybarites, under whom the city assumed the Greek appellation of Posidonia. The Sybarites, in turn, gave place to the Lucanians, and these last to the Romans, who colonized the city and gave it the name of Pæstum. The poets, from Virgil to Claudian, allude to the blooming gardens of Pæstum, and celebrate "the Pæstan roses and their double spring." The final destruction of the city took place in the ninth century, when the Saracens drove out the inhabitants and compelled them to seek refuge in the neighbouring mountains. A Norman plunderer, Robert Guiscard, carried off a great portion of the ruins of Pæstum to construct and decorate the cathedral of Salerno. Owing probably to the unhealthiness of the district, the remaining memorials were not discovered till about the middle of the last century, when either a shepherd or a painter is said to have found them in the course of a morning's ramble from Capaccio. 2 F-2 G |