DOI chapter:
Chapter IX: Amalfi
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.59000#0357
Amalfi
England in the time of Ben Jonson, though very super-
ficially, since it was again introduced a century later, and
then as a delicate dainty at Almack’s, while the name of
the pasta served as nickname to the absurd gallants who
brought it over. But macaroni has persistently resisted
taking root in England. Rowlandson, an intelligent
traveller of the eighteenth century, was so struck with
its excellence as a staple of nourishment that he urged
its use in our navy—in vain! Macaroni may be
said to have reached its present popularity early in the
last century, and (to quote another old traveller)
Whiteside, when he went to Ischia in the ’forties, says
that he found there nothing but “ beds and macaroni.”
To return to Amalfi. When we have rounded the
last jutting point and (if it be an early summer evening)
approached it through air literally blazing with fireflies,
the town rises before us, clinging to the rock much as
a cluster of sea-anemones cling to the rocks beneath
the water. Its structure is as fanciful as one of the
weird conceptions of Victor Hugo embodied in his
drawings. Beautiful is it as a vision—a vision to be
remembered only, and not re-found ; for soon the fact
is borne in on us that the real Amalfi is not what
historic memories and sentiment and wayward imagina-
tion had made it seem. What a writer said of it some
fifty years ago is equally true of the present : “ Amalfi
is a dirty place ; in fact, an Augean stable.” By a
humorous playfulness of fate, the manufacture of soap
is one of its especial trades. But it is one of the
characteristics of small Italian towns that human dirt
167
England in the time of Ben Jonson, though very super-
ficially, since it was again introduced a century later, and
then as a delicate dainty at Almack’s, while the name of
the pasta served as nickname to the absurd gallants who
brought it over. But macaroni has persistently resisted
taking root in England. Rowlandson, an intelligent
traveller of the eighteenth century, was so struck with
its excellence as a staple of nourishment that he urged
its use in our navy—in vain! Macaroni may be
said to have reached its present popularity early in the
last century, and (to quote another old traveller)
Whiteside, when he went to Ischia in the ’forties, says
that he found there nothing but “ beds and macaroni.”
To return to Amalfi. When we have rounded the
last jutting point and (if it be an early summer evening)
approached it through air literally blazing with fireflies,
the town rises before us, clinging to the rock much as
a cluster of sea-anemones cling to the rocks beneath
the water. Its structure is as fanciful as one of the
weird conceptions of Victor Hugo embodied in his
drawings. Beautiful is it as a vision—a vision to be
remembered only, and not re-found ; for soon the fact
is borne in on us that the real Amalfi is not what
historic memories and sentiment and wayward imagina-
tion had made it seem. What a writer said of it some
fifty years ago is equally true of the present : “ Amalfi
is a dirty place ; in fact, an Augean stable.” By a
humorous playfulness of fate, the manufacture of soap
is one of its especial trades. But it is one of the
characteristics of small Italian towns that human dirt
167