A Sweet and Glorious Land Read online

  George Gissing, photographed two years before leaving for Italy on the 1897 journey that led to the writing of By the Ionian Sea. Photo by Mendelssohn

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Map of southern Italy/Magna Graecia

  Map of northern Calabria

  Map of southern Basilicata/southern Puglia

  Chronology

  Introduction

  1. Naples

  2. A Hand in the Pocket

  3. Tales of the Conquerors

  4. A Sicilian in Naples

  5. No Boats Stop at Paola

  6. The Missing Madonna, and Concrete Bunkers with a View

  7. Cosenza

  8. Where Spartacus Fell

  9. Searching for Sybaris

  10. The Right to Work

  11. Sunlight on Old Stones

  12. Line in the Sand

  13. A Walk in the Sun

  14. The Albergo Concordia

  15. Pictures on a Wall

  16. Bunkers, a Church with No Floor, a Lonely Column

  17. Paparazzo’s Kitchen

  18. Bridge with No Road

  19. In the Lair of Cassiodorus

  20. The End of the Toe

  Acknowledgments

  Select Bibliography

  Copyright

  For Connie-Lou Disney

  All the faults of the Italian people are whelmed in forgiveness as soon as their music sounds under the Italian sky. One remembers all they have suffered, all they have achieved in spite of wrong. Brute races have flung themselves, one after another, upon this sweet and glorious land; conquest and slavery, from age to age, have been the people’s lot. Tread where one will, the soil has been drenched with blood.

  George Gissing

  By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy, 1901

  Gissing, far left, in Rome early in 1898, a few months after returning from southern Italy and his Ionian Sea adventure. With, left to right, Ernest W. Hornung, brother-in-law of Arthur Conan Doyle; Doyle; and H. G. Wells. Photographer unknown

  Chronology

  B.C.E.

  circa 5000

  First agricultural settlements in Egypt

  c. 2700

  Beginning of Egyptian Old Kingdom

  c. 2300

  Full European Bronze Age begins

  c. 1775–1200

  Mycenaean civilization on mainland Greece, eventually evolves into Greek civilization

  c. 1560

  Rise of Egyptian New Kingdom

  c. 1100

  Spread of Phoenicians (thought to be the precursors of Carthaginians) throughout the Mediterranean

  c. 1000

  Hilltop settlements established in Rome, including on the Palatine Hill

  c. 1050–950

  Migration of Ionian Greeks to the eastern Aegean, principally along coast of modern-day southwestern Turkey

  c. 900

  End of Greek Dark Age; rise of the Archaic Age

  c. 875–730

  Greek colonization of the West begins

  c. 776

  First Olympic Games held in Greece

  c. 753

  Traditional, perhaps mythical, founding of Rome by Romulus

  c. 750

  Homer’s Iliad first written down

  First Greek colony in Magna Graecia (Great Greece), or southern Italy, believed established on modern Ischia, in Gulf of Naples.

  740

  Cumae (modern Cuma), earliest Greek colony on Italian mainland, established

  720

  Sybaris (later named Thurii by Greeks and still later renamed Copia by Romans) in the far south of Italy founded by Achaean Greeks near the mouth of the river Crati

  Rhegion (Roman Rhegium, modern Reggio di Calabria) founded by Chalcidian Greeks

  710

  Kroton (modern Crotone, known as Cotrone from the Middle Ages until C.E. 1928) founded by Achaean Greeks

  706

  Taras (Roman Tarentum, modern Taranto), founded by Spartan Greeks

  c. 700

  Palatine settlement in Rome expands. The Forum, between the Palatine and the Capitoline Hills, is laid out as a public meeting place

  Metapontion (Roman Metapontum, modern Metaponto) established along the Bradano River as buffer colony between Taras (Taranto) and Sybaris

  c. 650

  Rise of the “tyrants” in Greece

  First Greek coins and rise of lyric Greek poetry

  c. 600

  Foundation of Greek colony at Massilia (modern Marseilles in southern France)

  Greek colony at Neapolis (modern Naples) founded by colonists from Cumae, ten miles to the northwest

  Sybaris establishes colony at Poseidonia, later renamed Paestum by Romans in 273 B.C.E.

  Development of Latin script

  c. 530

  Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras active in southern Italy

  510

  Sybaris destroyed by fellow colonists from nearby Kroton

  509

  Last of kings expelled from Rome; the Roman Republic founded

  c. 485

  First western historian Herodotus, born at Halicarnassus in what is now southwestern Turkey; dies about 425, either in Thurii, in southern Italy, or in Pella, in Macedonia, north of mainland Greece

  480–460

  Carthage expands African territory

  460–430

  Herodotus writes Histories

  c. 479–338

  Period of Greek classical culture

  444

  Colony of Thurii built by Greek colonists on site of destroyed Sybaris

  Cumae overrun by Italic tribes

  410

  Carthage invades Sicily

  c. 380

  Roman expansion in Italy begins

  Romans conquer Cumae

  341–295

  Rome wages war with native peoples through much of the Italian peninsula; conflicts range from Latin War through Battle of Sentinum, establishing Rome’s supremacy in Italy

  336

  Assassination of Philip at Pella in Macedonia; Alexander the Great (356–323), his son, succeeds to the Macedonian throne as Alexander III of Macedonia

  c. 336–31

  Greek Hellenic period

  323

  Death of Alexander the Great at Babylon

  322–281

  Alexander’s empire, now Greek, divided among his “Successors”

  312

  First Roman roads under construction, beginning with the Via Appia from Rome to Capua; in following centuries, this road is extended to Tarentum (Taranto) and then to Brundisium (Brindisi) along the Adriatic coast of eastern Italy

  272

  Romans capture Greek Taras, the final act in the Roman conquest of Italy; the city renamed Tarentum

  264–241

  First Punic War between Rome and Carthage; Carthage loses Sicily to Romans

  218–201

  Second Punic War; begins when Hannibal invades Italy by crossing the Alps

  216

  Hannibal, after earlier victories in Italy’s north, delivers crushing blow to Romans with military defeat at Cannae

  204

  Consentia/Cosenza, built by native Bruttians, taken by Rome

  203

  Hannibal retreats to Carthage from
near Kroton (Crotone) in southern Italy

  202

  Scipio defeats Hannibal at Zama, in North Africa

  193

  Romans establish Copia on site that had been occupied by Greeks at Thurii/Sybaris

  149–146

  Third Punic War; Carthage destroyed

  44

  Assassination of Julius Caesar; Augustus, following civil war, begins rise as first emperor of Roman Empire, dies C.E. 14

  C.E.

  14–37

  Tiberius emperor of Rome

  393

  Olympic Games in Greece abolished

  395

  Division of Roman Empire between East, in Constantinople (now Istanbul), and West, in Rome

  410

  Alaric the Visigoth (western Goth) sacks Rome for the third time, hastening the eventual fall of the (western) Roman Empire; dies in Consentia/Cosenza and is believed buried in the bed of the Busento River

  476

  Last Roman emperor in the West deposed; replaced by a barbarian king

  489–493

  The Ostrogoths (eastern Goths) under Theodoric invade and conquer Italy

  490

  Cassiodorus born in area around modern-day Squillace in southern Italy, dies about 585; works with his father, who serves Theodoric

  568

  Germanic Lombards take over northern half of the Italian peninsula

  c. 820

  Muslims from North Africa conquer Sicily

  962

  Germanic king invades Italy and is crowned emperor in Rome

  982

  Germanic peoples defeated by the Arabs when they attempt to conquer southern Italy

  1072

  Normans (descendants of the Vikings) capture Palermo in Sicily

  1130

  Norman ruler is crowned king of Sicily, Calabria, and Apulia (modern Puglia)

  1442

  Naples falls to the ruler of Sicily, Alfonso V of Aragon, who in 1443 assumes the title King of the Two Sicilies, that is, of Sicily and Naples

  1504

  Spain assumes control of the Kingdom of Naples, which, for several years around the end of the fifteenth century, has been caught up in the struggles of foreign powers fighting to dominate Italy; Naples and Sicily are ruled by Spanish viceroys for two centuries

  1527

  The out-of-control armies of Emperor Charles V enter Rome and sack the city. Within a week, troops pillage and destroy thousands of churches, palaces, and houses; this event marks Rome’s demise as a center of the Renaissance

  1706–1708

  The Kingdom of Naples comes under the influence of the Austrian Habsburgs, along with Milan and Sardinia

  1734

  Don Carlos de Borbón (later King Charles III of Spain) is granted cultural patronage at Naples and establishes the Bourbon fortunes in Italy

  1735

  Austria cedes Naples and Sicily–the “Kingdom of the Two Sicilies”—to the Bourbons; during the eighteenth century, in the spirit of “enlightened despotism,” the rulers sponsor reforms to rectify social and political injustices and to modernize the state

  1796–1799

  The French, under Napoleon, invade Italy, beginning the era of the Italian Republic

  1802

  Napoleon Bonaparte becomes president of the Italian Republic; Milan is his capital

  1805

  Napoleon declares himself king of Italy his sister Paolina eventually becomes ruler of the duchies of Parma, Guastalla, and Piacenza

  1806

  After first annexing the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to France, Napoleon then declares it independent and installs his brother Joseph as king

  1808

  Joseph is transferred to Spain, and Napoleon gives Naples to his brother-in-law Joachim Murat; under the French, Naples is modernized by the abolition of feudalism and the introduction of a uniform legal code, and Murat is deservedly popular as king; Napoleon also installs his young son as king of Rome

  c. 1815

  Napoleon’s influence begins to wane throughout the Italian peninsula; Bourbon rule is restored in Naples, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies aligns with the conservative states of Europe

  1820

  Sicilian people win constitutional concessions from their Bourbon rulers, as well as further concessions in 1848, when Sicily tries to win independence from Bourbon rule in Naples; the kingdom’s poor political and economic condition leads to its easy collapse in the mid-nineteenth century just prior to Italian unification

  1849

  Vittorio Emanuele II becomes king of Sardinia

  1857

  George R. Gissing, Victorian novelist and short story writer, born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, November 22

  1860

  Garibaldi conquers Sicily, then conquers southern Italy

  1861

  Kingdom of Italy proclaimed under Vittorio Emanuele II; first elections of Italian Parliament; bandits (brigands) dominate much of South

  1865

  Capital of the Kingdom of Italy moves from Turin to Florence

  1870

  Rome proclaimed capital

  1878

  Vittorio Emanuele II dies; succession of Umberto I

  1888

  Gissing’s first wife, Nell, dies in London; Gissing travels to Paris, Naples, Rome, Florence, and Venice

  1889

  Gissing travels to Greece and Naples, and while in Naples suffers from the first bout of a lung disease, probably emphysema, that will kill him fourteen years later

  1891

  Gissing marries Edith Underwood, permanently separating from her in 1897, just before leaving for his third and final trip to Italy

  1897

  Gissing arrives in Italy on September 23, landing in Milan; he settles in Siena to write a critical study of Charles Dickens, which he completes and sends to England on November 6; befriends nineteen-year-old American journalist Brian Ború Dunne; returns briefly to Rome, and then goes on to Naples, where he begins the journey that leads to the writing of By the Ionian Sea—Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy; returns to Rome via Naples and Monte Cassino on December 15

  1898

  During January, Gissing works in Rome on proofs of the Dickens book; socializes with Dunne, Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, and others; leaves April 12 for Berlin and, eventually, England, where he meets Gabrielle Fleury

  1899

  Gissing moves to Paris to live with Gabrielle, later moving with her to the South of France and living in Ciboure, near Saint-Jean-de-Luz, from mid-1902 to mid-1903; from mid-1903 until his death in December 1903, he and Gabrielle live in Ispoure, France, close to Saint-Jean Pied-de-Port

  1900

  Umberto I assassinated; Vittorio Emanuele III becomes king

  1901

  By the Ionian Sea published in England

  1903

  Gissing dies December 28 and is buried in Saint-Jean-de-Luz

  1919

  Fascists organize in Milan

  1925

  Mussolini appointed prime minister of Italy by Vittorio Emanuele III

  1935

  Italian troops, as part of Mussolini’s drive to create a new Roman Empire, invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in North Africa

  1936

  Italy conquers Abyssinia; Mussolini creates the Italian Empire; Rome-Berlin Axis is inaugurated

  1940

  Italy declares war on France and Great Britain

  1943

  Fascist Party dissolved; Italy surrenders to Allies; much of Italy is immediately occupied by the Germans; Allies land at Salerno after capturing Sicily

  1944

  Allies liberate Rome