"The mount that rises highest o'er the sea.
Mantua me genuit : Calabri rapuere : tenet nunc Parthenope : cecini pascua, rura, duces.
"The epitaph," says Eustace, Classical Tour, I. 499, "which, though not genuine, is yet ancient, was inscribed by order of tile Duke of Pescolangiano, then proprietor of the place, on a marble slab placed in the side of the rock opposite the entrance of tile tomb, where it still remains."
Forsyth, Italy, p. 378, says : "Virgil's tomb is so called, I believe, on the single authority of Donatus. Donatus places it at the right distance from Naples, but on the wrong side of the city; and even there he omits the grotto of Posilipo, which not being so deep in his time as the two last excavations have left it, must have opened precisely at his tomb. Donatus, too, gives, for Virgil's own composition, an epitaph on the cliff now rejected as a forgery. And who is this Donatus?--an obscure grammarian, or rather his counterfeit. The structure itself resembles a ruined pigeon-house, where the numerous columbaria would indicate a family-sepulchre : but who should repose in the tomb of Virgil, but Virgil alone? Visitors of every nation, kings and princes, have scratched their names on the stucco of this apocryphal ruin, but the poet's awful name seems to have deterred them from versifying here."
"The similes by which he illustrates the steepness of that ascent are all taken from the Riviera of Genoa, now traversed by a good carriage road under the name of the Cornice; but as this road did not exist in Dante's time, and the steep precipices and promontories were then probably traversed by footpaths, which, as they necessarily passed in many places over crumbling and slippery limestone, were doubtless not a little dangerous, and as in the manner they commanded the bays of sea below, and lay exposed to the full blaze of the stories of enchantment and romance belong to a ruin that appears as if made for their dwelling-place. It is a scene out of that Italy which is the home of the imagination, and which becomes the Italy of memory.
"As the road winds down to the sea, it passes unde a high isolated peak, on which stands Esa, built as a city of refuge against pirates and Moors. A little farther on,
'Its Roman strength Turbia showed
In ruins by the mountain road,'--
not only recalling the ancient t imes, when it was the boundary city of Italy and Gaul, and when Augustus erected his triumphal arch within it, but associated also with Dante and the steep of Purgatory. Beneath lies Monaco, glowing 'like a gem' on its oval rock, the sea sparkling around it, and the long western rays of the sinking sun lingering on its little palace, clinging to its church belfry and its gray wall, as if loath to leave them."
In the Casa Magni, on the sea-shore near Lerici, Shelley once lived. He was returning thither from Leghorn, when he perished in a sudden storm at sea.
Malispini, Storia, ch.. 187, thus describes his death and burial : "Manfredi, being left with few followers, behaved like a valiant gentleman who preferred to die in battle rather than to escape with shame. And putting on his helmet, which had on it a silver eagle for a crest, this eagle fell on the saddle-bow before him ; and seeing this he was greatly disturbed, and said in Latin to the barons who were near him, 'Hoc est signum Dei ; for this crest south-eastern sun, they corresponded precisely to the situation of the path by which he ascends above the purgatorial sea, the image could not possibly have been taken from a better source for the fully conveying his idea to the reader : nor, by the way, is there reason to discredit, in this place, his powers of climbing ; for, with his usual accuracy, he has taken the angle of the path for us, saying it was considerably more than forty-five. Now a continuous mountain-slope of forty-five degrees is already quite unsafe either for ascent or descent, except by zigzag paths ; and a greater slope than this could not be climbed, straightforward, but by help of crevices or jags in the rock, and great physical exertion besides."
Mr. Norton, Travel and Study, p. I, thus describes the Riviera : "The Var forms the geographical boundary between France and Italy ; but it is not till Nice is left behind, and the first height of the Riviera is surmounted, that the real Italy begins. Here the hills close round at the north, and suddenly, as the road turns at the top of a long ascent, the Mediterranean appears far below, washing the feet of the mountains that form the coast, and stretching away to the Southern horizon. The line of the shore is of extraordinary beauty. Here an abrupt cliff rises from the sea ; here bold and broken masses of rock jut out into it ; here the hills, their gray sides terraced for vineyards, slope gently down to the water's edge ; here they stretch into little promontories covered with orange and olive-trees.
"One of the first of these promontories is that of Capo Sant'Ospizio. A close grove of olives half conceals the old castle on its extreme point. With the afternoon sun full upon it, the trees palely glimmering as their leaves move in the light air, the sea so blue and smooth as to be like a darker sky, and not even a ripple upon the beach, it seems as if this were the very home of summer and of repose. It is remote and secluded from the stir and noise of the world. No road is seen leading to it, and one looks down upon the solitary castle and wonders what I fastened on with my own hands in such a way that it could not fall.' But he was not discouraged, and took heart, and went into battle like any other baron, without the royal insignia, in order not to be recognized. But short while it lasted, for his forces were already in flight ; and they were routed and Manfredi slain in the middle of the enemy ; and they were driven into the town by the soldiers of King Charles, for it was now night, and they lost the city of Benevento. And many of Manfredi's barons were made prisoners, among whom were the Count Giordano, Messer Piero Asino degli Uberti, and many others, whom King Charles sent captive into Provence, and there had them put to death in prison ; and he imprisoned many other Germans in different parts of the kingdom. And a few days afterwards the wife of Manfredi and his children and his sister, who were in Nocera de' Sardini in Apulia, were taken prisoners by Charles ; these died in prison. And for more than three days they made search after Manfredi ; for he could not be found, nor was it known if he were dead, or a prisoner, or had escaped ; because he had not worn his royal robes in the battle. And afterwards he was recognized by one of his own camp-followers, from certain marks upon his person, in the middle of the battle-field ; and he threw him across an ass, and came shouting, 'Who will buy Manfredi?' for which a baron of the king beat him with a cane. And the body of Manfredi being brought to King Charles, he assembled all the barons who were prisoners, and asked each one if that was Manfredi ; and timidly they answered yes. Count Giordano smote himself in the face with his hands, weeping and crying, '0 my lord!' whereupon he was much commended by the French, and certain Bretons besought that he might have honourable burial. Answered the king and said, 'I would do it willingly, if he were not excommunicated' ; and on that account he would not have him laid in consecrated ground, but he was buried at the foot of the bridge of Benevento, and each one of the army threw a stone upon his grave, so that a great pile was made. But afterwards it is said, by command of the Pope, the Bishop of Cosenza took him from that grave, and sent him out of the kingdom, because it was Church land. And he was buried by the river Verde, at the confines of the kingdom and the Campagna. This battle was on a Friday, the last day of February, in the year one thousand two hundred and sixty-five."
Villani, who in his account of the battle copies Malispini almost literally, gives in another chapter, VI. 46, the following portrait of Manfredi ; but it must be remembered that Villani was a Guelph, and Manfredi a Ghibelline.
"King Manfredi had for his mother a beautiful lady of the family of the Marquises of Lancia in Lombardy, with whom the Emperor had an intrigue, and was beautiful in person, and like his father and more than his father was given to dissipation of all kinds. He was a musician and singer, delighted in the company of buffoons and courtiers and beautiful concubines, and was always clad in green ; he was generous and courteous, and of good demeanour, so that he was much beloved and gracious ; but his life was wholly epicurean, hardly caring for God or the saints, but for the delights of the body. He was an enemy of holy Church, and of priests and monks, confiscating churches as his father had done ; and a wealthy gentleman was he, both from the treasure which he inherited from the Emperor, and from King Conrad his brother, and from his own kingdom, which was ample and fruitful, and which, so long as he lived, notwithstanding all the wars he had with the Church, he kept in good condition, so that it rose greatly in wealth and power, both by sea and by land."
This battle of Benevento followed close upon that mentioned Inf. XXVIII 16:--
"At Ceperano, where a renegade
Was each Apulian."
"Rio Verde, Rio Verde,
Many a corpse is bathed in thee,
Both of Moors and eke of Christians,
Slain with swords most cruelly."