AMALFI

Having left Capo di Conca behind and gone beyond the beautiful Emerald Grotto, after the unforgettable spectacle of Vallone di Furore, here is before us a suggestive inlet of the Coast. Here the town of Amalfi dominates the scene. It can be considered the key-point of the whole journey along the divine coast. Amalfi clings, as it were, to a side of the rocky cliffs of the Mounts Lattari, in the narrow mouth of the Valle dei Mulini (Valley of the Mills). It is a charming holiday resort, one of the best along the Tyrrhenian coasts, with quiet paths, pleasant silences, boundless spaces, white, little houses reflected in the deep blue sea. But it was not always so. Once the ships, flying the Amalfi flag, competed with those of Genoa, Pisa and Venice; merchants travelled to north and south and developed a trade which made them and their town rich. According to the tradition, Amalfi was founded in the 4th century A.D. by Roman citizens on their way to Constantinople, who were shipwrecked along the dangerous Tyrrhenian coasts. Roman marble and clay fragments, however, found in this area let us think that probably there was a human settlement already during the imperial age. For centuries its name did not appear in the tormented events of our country. Only in the 8th century it came to the fore, when it had to defend itself from the Longobards Princes, who tried to extend their territories. The enemy's raids lasted till the middle of the 9th century, when the people of Amalfi, who wanted freedom and had to defend the riches they were accumulating by their trade, got together and elected a certain Pietro as their leader, with the title of Comes. Having put an end to their civil fights, the greatness and power of Amalfi began and lasted for more than two centuries. It was a free Republic till 1137. It was at first ruled by two Prefects, who changed every year, then by the Judges and lastly by a Doge, whose election had to be approved by the Emperor of the East. The latter, however, was too far away and had no intention of interfering in the ambitions and trade of Amalfi. It was so that this town could control the mainland, too, fighting against Naples on one side and Salerno on the other. Around the XI century the Republic reached the height of its power. Villages inhabited by people of Amalfi were every where along the southern coasts of the Tyrrhenian sea. Their warehouses were in Constantinople, Beirut, Cyprus, Alexandria of Egypt, Tripoli of Syria and developed the trade of spices, perfumes, precious clothes, carpets. In Jerusalem Amalfi built church; and hospitaIs for its citizens. its sea law constituted the code for the whole basin of Mediterranean. Amalfi, however, declined after the XI century. The town, weakened by civil fights and the attacks of the Normans, was ransacked also by its old rivals, the Pisans, who in 1135 and 1137 destroyed its military and commercial power. Amalfi never recovered, though it seemed to flourish again commercially for a short time. The following centuries went by without important events for Amalfi, which of its glorious past keeps very interesting buildings.