filled with precious stones, which by a miracle—and miracles were common enough in the days of the _Decameron_—not only floated of itself but also supported the weight of Master Landolfo. In any case, the rescued merchant, with the greed and ingratitude which are often accounted for sharpness and wit, presented his kind hostess with the empty trunk, whilst he concealed the gems in a belt upon his own person. Equipped with these jewels, he made his way across the Adriatic to the Apulian coast, and thence reached Ravello with greater wealth than he had ever hoped to obtain with his original capital at the time he set sail for Cyprus. [Illustration: RAVELLO: IL DUOMO] Fortunately Ravello, though shrunk to such modest proportions nowadays, still possesses many memorials of its glorious past. Travellers will of course turn their steps towards the Duomo, with its yellow baroque façade abutting on the little piazza that, with its daisy-starred turf and old acacia trees, forms so pleasant a play-ground for the merry dark-eyed children of the place. The cathedral of St Pantaleone is—or rather was—one of the most interesting and richly decorated churches erected in Southern Italy under the combined influence of Norman and Saracenic art at a time when cunning workmen were able to blend together the styles of East and West, and to produce that rich harmonious architecture of which the splendid churches of Monreale and Palermo present to us the happiest examples. There still exist intact the magnificent bronze doors with their fifty-four panels of sculpture in relief, the gift of Sergio Muscettola and his wife, Sigilgaita Rufolo, and the work of the Italian artist Barisanus of Trani, who likewise designed and cast the portals of the cathedrals of his native town and of Monreale. But alas! the interior of the building, that was once rich with mosaic and fresco and fanciful carving, has been converted into one of those dull soulless caverns of stucco that the wanderer in all parts of Italy meets with only too frequently. This deplorable act of vandalism at Ravello dates of course from the eighteenth century, and appears to have been the work of a bishop named Tafuri, who in his frenzied eagerness to possess a cathedral worthy of comparison with the fashionable atrocities in plaster then being erected at Naples, did not hesitate to destroy wholesale almost all the ancient and elaborate ornamentation of his Duomo. His architect—perhaps the miserable Fuga, who ruined the interior of the Cathedral at Palermo, who knows?—dug up the fine old pavement, tore out the mosaics and had them carted away, effaced the frescoes, and at last transformed the venerable building with its memories of popes and princes into a commonplace white-washed chamber. Why this wretched prelate stayed his hand at the pulpit, it is difficult to say: perhaps he was meanwhile translated for his private virtues, perhaps Death overtook him in the work of