About noon we entered the city of Naples, alighting at the Three Kings, where we found the most plentiful fare all the time we were in Naples. Provisions are wonderfully cheap; we seldom sat down to fewer than eighteen or twenty dishes of exquisite meat and fruits.
The morrow after our arrival, in the afternoon, we hired a coach to carry us about the town. First, we went to the castle of St. Elmo, built on a very high rock, whence we had an entire prospect of the whole city, which lies in shape of a theatre upon the sea-brink, with all the circumjacent islands, as far as Capreæ, famous for the debauched recesses of Tiberius. This fort is the bridle of the whole city, and was well stored and garrisoned with native Spaniards. The strangeness of the precipice and rareness of the prospect of so many magnificent and stately palaces, churches, and monasteries, with the Arsenal, the Mole, and Mount Vesuvius in the distance, all in full command of the eye, make it one of the richest landscapes in the world.
Hence, we descended to another strong castle, called Il Castello Nuovo, which protects the shore; but they would by no entreaty permit us to go in; the outward defense seems to consist but in four towers, very high, and an exceeding deep graff, with thick walls. Opposite to this is the tower of St. Vincent, which is also very strong.
Then we went to the very noble palace of the Viceroy, partly old, and part of a newer work; but we did not stay long here. Toward the evening, we took the air upon the Mole, a street on the rampart, or bank, raised in the sea for security of their galleys in port, built as that of Genoa. Here I observed a rich fountain[Pg 149] in the middle of the piazza, and adorned with divers rare statues of copper, representing the Sirens, or Deities of the Parthenope, spouting large streams of water into an ample shell, all of cast metal, and of great cost. This stands at the entrance of the Mole, where we met many of the nobility both on horseback and in their coaches to take the fresco from the sea, as the manner is, it being in the most advantageous quarter for good air, delight and prospect. Here we saw divers goodly horses who handsomely become their riders, the Neapolitan gentlemen. This Mole is about 500 paces in length, and paved with a square hewn stone. From the Mole, we ascend to a church of great antiquity, formerly sacred to Castor and Pollux, as the Greek letters carved on the architrave and the busts of their two statues testify. It is now converted into a stately oratory by the Theatines.
The Cathedral is a most magnificent pile, and except St. Peter's in Rome, Naples exceeds all cities for stately churches and monasteries. We were told that this day the blood of St. Januarius and his head should be exposed, and so we found it, but obtained not to see the miracle of the boiling of this blood. The next we went to see was St. Peter's, richly adorned, the chapel especially, where that Apostle said mass, as is testified on the wall.
After dinner we went to St. Dominic, where they showed us the crucifix that is reported to have said these words to St. Thomas, "Benè de me scripsisti, Thoma." Hence, to the Padri Olivetani, famous for the monument of the learned Alexander-ab-Alexandro.
We proceeded, the next day, to visit the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, where we spent much time in surveying the chapel of Joh. Jov. Pontanus, and in it the several and excellent sentences and epitaphs on himself, wife, children, and friends, full of rare wit, and worthy of recording, as we find them in several writers. In the same chapel is shown an arm of Titus Livius, with this epigraph. "Titi Livij brachium quod Anton. Panormita a Patavinis impetravit, Jo. Jovianus Pontanus multos post annos hôc in loco ponendum curavit."
Climbing a steep hill, we came to the monastery and Church of the Carthusians, from whence is a most goodly prospect toward the sea and city, the one full of galleys[Pg 150] and ships, the other of stately palaces, churches, monasteries, castles, gardens, delicious fields and meadows, Mount Vesuvius smoking, the promontory of Minerva and Misenum, Capreæ, Prochyta, Ischia, Pausilipum, Puteoli, and the rest, doubtless one of the most divertissant and considerable vistas in the world. The church is most elegantly built; the very pavements of the common cloister being all laid with variously polished marbles, richly figured. They showed us a massy cross of silver, much celebrated for the workmanship and carving, and said to have been fourteen years in perfecting. The choir also is of rare art; but above all to be admired, is the yet unfinished church of the Jesuits, certainly, if accomplished, not to be equalled in Europe. Hence, we passed by the Palazzo Caraffii, full of ancient and very noble statues: also the palace of the Orsini. The next day, we did little but visit some friends, English merchants, resident for their negotiation; only this morning at the Viceroy's Cavalerizza I saw the noblest horses that I had ever beheld, one of his sons riding the menage with that address and dexterity as I had never seen anything approach it.