DOI Kapitel:
Chapter XII: Capri
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.59000#0482
Capri
late years. How curious is the need—is it decadent ?
— certain modern types of mind display of being
surrounded by old walls and ruins ! They gather a
veritable inspiration from the deserted dwellings of past
lives ; and the more “ modern ” is life in other respects,
the more does it draw intellectually on these mysterious
sentiments which, perhaps, were unknown in the days
when the ruined walls were new and firm.
In Capri one of these “ torrione ” can be seen from
a lovely point of view at Caprioli, hiding amid a gray
wilderness of olives far above the sea. Rescued from
threatened vandalism, it is now in the possession of
Dr. Munthe, the Swedish author of Letters from a
Mourning City, who first settled in the island years
before tourist elements and disfiguring architecture and
eccentric legends had destroyed its wild charm. It is
the natural lot of all of our day who love and covet
remote beauty in Nature to watch that charm dwindle
before encroaching civilisation. It is at least consoling
to think that perhaps even Tiberius in his day experi-
enced a foretaste of it, hunted from villa to villa up to
the heights of Anacapri.
The Podere of olives and orange-trees in the midst
of which stands this winter home is, I believe, the
largest in Capri. A long path bordered with rude
overgrown pillars leads to the tower, and on every side
beneath the trees the brown earth has been planted
with a wild growth of roses, free to grow whithersoever
they will unthreatened by gardener’s laws : a Roman
rose garden, without the fastidious artificiality of Roman
229
late years. How curious is the need—is it decadent ?
— certain modern types of mind display of being
surrounded by old walls and ruins ! They gather a
veritable inspiration from the deserted dwellings of past
lives ; and the more “ modern ” is life in other respects,
the more does it draw intellectually on these mysterious
sentiments which, perhaps, were unknown in the days
when the ruined walls were new and firm.
In Capri one of these “ torrione ” can be seen from
a lovely point of view at Caprioli, hiding amid a gray
wilderness of olives far above the sea. Rescued from
threatened vandalism, it is now in the possession of
Dr. Munthe, the Swedish author of Letters from a
Mourning City, who first settled in the island years
before tourist elements and disfiguring architecture and
eccentric legends had destroyed its wild charm. It is
the natural lot of all of our day who love and covet
remote beauty in Nature to watch that charm dwindle
before encroaching civilisation. It is at least consoling
to think that perhaps even Tiberius in his day experi-
enced a foretaste of it, hunted from villa to villa up to
the heights of Anacapri.
The Podere of olives and orange-trees in the midst
of which stands this winter home is, I believe, the
largest in Capri. A long path bordered with rude
overgrown pillars leads to the tower, and on every side
beneath the trees the brown earth has been planted
with a wild growth of roses, free to grow whithersoever
they will unthreatened by gardener’s laws : a Roman
rose garden, without the fastidious artificiality of Roman
229