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The Appian Way is less tiresome...
Horace, “A Journey from Rome to Brundisium”
THE VIA APPIA, most celebrated of the great Roman roads, was the main route between ancient Rome and Southern Italy. Begun by Appius Claudius Caecus in 312 BC, originally ending at Capua, it was extended through Benevento, Venosa, Tàranto and Oria to Brìndisi – a length of 350 miles. A road for all weathers, it provided fast and easy transport to Rome, bringing more trade with the East and prosperity for the Apulians. Before Tàranto the road went through some of Roman Apulia’s most beautiful countryside, and even now you can imagine what it was like when Horace lived at Venosa and Cicero owned a villa there. With the decline of Tàranto, however, and the creation of the Via Traiana linking the cities of the Adriatic coast, the Via Appia lost much of its importance. Eighteenth century travellers preferred the Via Traiana, anxious not to risk meeting brigands for longer than absolutely necessary.
A map of the borders of Apulia and Basilicata can be deceptive. A quick glance shows hilly, even mountainous country, but this is not what you experience. A gently rolling landscape is broken up by small hills, yet the ground rises so gradually and imperceptibly that until reaching Monte Vulture, which for miles can be seen towering above the plateau, you are not aware of being at any height. It is easy to understand why it held such attraction for Horace, the Normans and the Emperor Frederick II, who spent the last summer of his life at Melfi and Castel Lagopesole. Melfi and Venosa figure so prominently in the story of Hautevilles and Hohenstaufen that modern boundaries mean little – spiritually, they are still part of Apulia.
Venosa was sacked by the Emir of Bari, rebuilt by the Frankish Emperor Louis II and won back for the Eastern Empire by Basil the Bulgar Slayer. Beneath its walls the Normans won their first crushing victory over the Byzantines. All that remains of the medieval city is the ancient abbey of La Trinità. Robert Guiscard, greatest of the pioneer Norman leaders, founded its church in 1065 on the site of several earlier churches, beneath which lay a temple of Hymen. His tomb disappeared long ago, his bones being thrown with those of his brothers – William Bras-de-Fer, Humphrey and Drogo – into a simple marble sarcophagus. Visiting Venosa in 1848, Edward Lear saw “a single column, around which, according to the local superstition, if you go hand in hand with any person, the two circumambulants are certain to remain friends for life.”
After Lear’s visit there was a terrible earthquake. Part of the hill north of the abbey fell into the valley below, revealing Jewish catacombs. There were Jews in Apulia from the fourth century until their final expulsion in the seventeenth, who followed the Palestinian practice of using grottoes as cemeteries. Those at Venosa were wealthy landowners and supplied several mayors. Frederick II saw that they were left in peace, but vicious persecution broke out when the Hohenstaufen were replaced by the Angevins. Lenormant found inscriptions in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, some in a strange bastardised Italian written in Hebrew characters.
Lear stayed with Don Nicola Rapolla in a large rambling mansion at the end of the square in which there is a statue of Horace. They dined with Don Nicola’s brother, discussing Shakespeare, Milton and “quel autore adorabile, Valter Scott” (that adorable author, Walter Scott). Lear found everything delightful, food, wine (“superexcellent”), beds and furnishings – which, with the cleanliness of the paved streets, came as a surprise in the depths of the South. One wonders what his hosts made of this very odd Englishman, with his simian features and green glasses. They probably sneered at his watercolours. But he had those letters of introduction that were all important in the old Regno.
In Lear’s day the fifteenth century castle had not yet become the squalid rooming house seen by Norman Douglas. Built by Pirro del Balzo, Prince of Altamura, on top of the old Norman fortress, the walls of its dungeons were still covered with mournful inscriptions by prisoners.
Melfi’s name is associated with Frederick II’s “Constitutions” of 1231, the first written law in Western Europe since Roman times. In his own words, “we do not wish to make distinctions in our judgements but to be fair. Whether a plaintiff or a defendant is Frank, Roman or Lombard, we want him to have justice”. Women could inherit property and widows were entitled to free legal advice. Rape, even of a prostitute (so long as she had put up a good fight), was a capital offence. Pimps were sentenced to slavery.
During the sixteenth century Apulians preferred Spaniards to Frenchmen, and Melfi would never have fallen to Lautrec in 1530 had not a traitor opened its gates. Lautrec sacked the city, killing many of its citizens. The Spaniards swiftly retook it, slaughtering the French garrison. In the municipio courtyard there is a stone pillar with a ring, said to have been the Spanish ‘gallows’ – presumably they used the garrotte.
Little remains of old Melfi, whose great castle over a precipice was considered “perfectly Poussinesque” by Edward Lear. “One of the towers of Roger de Hauteville still exists, but the great hall, where Normans and Popes held councils in bygone days, is now a theatre.” Lear found Melfi attractive, with its clear streams and pretty valleys scattered with walnut trees, black goats clustering on the crags or lying outside the valley’s many caves. There were innumerable sleepy convents and pretty wayside shrines. He may well have been the last Englishman to see Melfi like this. On 13 September, 1851, the Athenaeum Journal printed the following report:
The morning of the 14th of August was very sultry, and a leaden atmosphere prevailed. It was remarked that an unusual silence appeared to extend over the animal world. The hum of insects ceased, the feathered tribes were mute, not a breath of wind moved the arid vegetation. At about half-past two o’clock the town of Melfi rocked for about sixty seconds, and nearly every building fell in.
The castle, especially the modern part where Lear had stayed, was badly damaged, convents and churches obliterated. The houses of the poor ceased to exist, the campanile collapsed, and a new inn with 62 customers and 25 horses inside became a heap of rubble. In all 840 people were killed. King Ferdinand came to direct the relief operations, spending a night of torrential rain in a hut. Next morning he toured the ruins, handing out money. He pardoned prisoners who had helped dig people out from under the rubble, and sacked the mayor for stealing most of the funds sent by charities.
The woods of Monte Vulture were the haunt of brigands until the late 1860s. An expensive safe conduct was essential for a traveller who wished to avoid being held to ransom; unless it was paid immediately, reminders in the form of an ear or a nose were sent to the victim’s family. When the brigands were finally routed, their place in the woods was taken by wolves returning to their old home. They had always been a problem in these remote upland forests, Frederick II ordering poison to be laid for them around his hunting lodge of Lagopesole. Some of the woodland still remains, but the wolves have disappeared.