"Salve magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus, Magna virûm; tibi res antiquæ laudis et artis Ingredior...." APPENDIX _Page 6._ The story of the French knights who misunderstood the warning shots from Ischia is told in Brantôme's Life of Dragut, No. 37 of the "Vies des Hommes Illustres." Concerning Vittoria Colonna there is, of course, a considerable literature. A pleasant and readable account of her life is contained in _A Decade of Italian Women_, by T. A. Trollope (Chapman and Hall, 1859). _Page 7._ The tale of Gianni di Procida is Novella VI. of the fifth day of the _Decameron_. _Page 9._ The common tale about the origin of the Sicilian Vespers is that Gianni di Procida, who is sometimes spoken of as having suffered in his own family from the lustful dealings of the French soldiery, and sometimes only as sympathising with the islanders in their intolerable wrongs, went through the island in disguise, beating a drum and capering up to whomsoever he met. If it were a Frenchman, he screamed some mad jest in his ear; if a Sicilian, he whispered some information about the projected rising, which was to take place at the signal of the Vesper bell ringing in Palermo. But for this tale there is no historical authority. Procida had certainly some connection with the revolt; but so far as can be discovered, the actual outbreak was unpremeditated, and the name of the Sicilian Vespers is applied to the massacre by no writer earlier than the latter part of the fifteenth century. The great authority on this subject is of course Amari, _La Guerra del Vespro Siciliano_. _Page 9._ Virgil the enchanter. See note on p. 55. _Page 21._ It is impossible to give separate references to all the authorities which I have consulted in writing this chapter. The work which I have found most valuable--incomparably so--is the _Campanien_ of Beloch, which outstrips both in learning and in judgment all works known to me upon the Phlegræan Fields. It may be said, once for all, that with hardly one exception, the best works upon the region of Naples are by Germans. English scholarship does not appear to advantage. If a man will not read German, he may seek information usefully from Breislak, _Topograpia Fisica della Campania_ (Firenze, 1798). Other useful works are:--Phillips, J., _Vesuvius_ (Oxford, 1869); Daubeny, C. G. B., _A Description of Volcanoes_ (London, 1848); Logan Lobley, _Mount Vesuvius_ (London, 1889); to which should be added the "Physical Notices of the Bay of Naples," by Professor Forbes, in Brewster's _Edinburgh Journal of Science_, vol. x. All these works treat of the Phlegræan Fields, as well as of Vesuvius. _Page 24._ The treatise of Capaccio will be found in the collection of chronicles which bears the name of Grævius, but was, in fact, completed after the death of that great scholar by Peter Burmann. The collection is an honour to Leyden, where it was published full half a century before Muratori commenced his work.