by John Keahey
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