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And so the great adventurous road proceeds along this wild and beautiful coast under the villages of Tovere, Vettica Minore, Lone and Pastena, down to the shore at last at Amalfi, which it enters through a great tunnel under the Cappuccini.
Approached thus at evening, with the last light from the west full upon it, Amalfi seems to stand about an ampitheatre of hills, its churches, campanili and white houses hanging on the face of the great cliff which towers up above it in an awful magnificence, the little white port under the eastern hill, and all before it the Homeric sea….
I found Amalfi delighted me as much at morning as in that first impression in the twilight. The history of the place knows nothing of any Greek or Roman city, and indeed it seems to have had no existence in antiquity…. In truth, Amalfi seems to have been founded by—at any rate it first appears under the protection of—the Byzantine Empire…. Amalfi is thus one of the first Italian cities to erect herself into a republic, and indeed she can boast that she gave the signal for the awakening of the municipal spirit, the independence of the cities of Italy. She was able, too, to defy the Saracens, the Prince of Palermo, and even in some sort the Norman kings of Naples….
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