entry
Feb. 2003 top image added March 2015, update
Nov. 2018
Campi Flegrei - The Flegrean Fields
"The Breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone..." - Isaiah xxx, 33.
A print depicting the Campi
Flegrei as seen through the eyes of
Athanasius Kircher in his Mundus subterraneus from 1665
Athanasius Kircher in his Mundus subterraneus from 1665
Somewhere
there's a German (is that a song title?) who, if he
ever thinks of me at all, remembers me simply as the
joker who gave him a bum steer (taurus impecuniosus)
about the Fiery Fields of Naples, the Flegrean Fields,
the Campi Flegrei. We were sharing a metro
carriage, stopped and apparently wintering over in
Fuorigrotta, when I noticed a young man with an Erich
von Stroheim scalpcut, dueling scar and monocle,
humming The Ride of
the Valkyries under his breath and holding a
guidebook to Naples upside down. I approached and
asked in my best Gothic, "Are you please to be in dire
straits of information, nicht wahr? "
"Zese are ze Flegrean Fields, ja?" he snapped.
"Uh, yeah," I said, in that authoritative Baedecker baritone that is well-known to those who know and love me (not necessarily the same persons), for I, too, had seen the Campi Flegrei sign on the station platform. Spent by the intimacy of conversation, he clicked his heels and got off in gratitude. (I was later to get off in Bagnoli). As we pulled out, I noticed him noticing that he was surrounded by Fiats and cement. I last saw him dolefully rummaging through newsstand post-cards looking for exploding volcanoes and similar stuff that had made Goethe swoon, sturm und drang 150 years earlier.
I now know
that I put young Siegfried off the train at least two
stops too early. (Who could blame him if he has since
dedicated his life to taking revenge on unsuspecting
tourists by standing outside the Black Forest Gasthaus
in the middle of Hamburg and telling them, "Why,
sure, the headwaters of the Danube are right over
there. It says "Black Forest," doesn't it?
Heh-heh-heh.")
The
Campi Flegrei is a cauldron of
volcanic origin extending from the heights of Posillipo
in the south to Cuma in the
north and inland a number of miles. It is a welter of
extinct craters, bubbling sulfur pits, underground
thermal springs, skewed hills and sudden jagged
upcroppings of tufa and solidified lava.
The best way to see this
geological freakshow as a single unit is to get some
high ground. Parco Virgiliano is ideal for this.
The park is on the Posillipo ridge overlooking the
island of Nisida and offers a clear view over to the
other side of the bay, Cape Miseno, and inland to the
Astroni, which is the wildlife reserve and park above
Agnano. Lake Miseno, by the way, was an important port
for the imperial Roman fleet.
There is a lighthouse on the cape, a modern descendant
of the one that guided Roman sailors. The highest point
in the Phlegrean Fields is Camaldoli.
It is home to an ancient hermitage (now a modern convent),
prominently visible from anywhere in the area, perched
as it is, 458 meters above sea-level. It is open to
visitors and offers another clear and broad panorama of
the Fields (photo album
here).
Monte Nuovo
(photo, above), near Arco Felice, is another
remarkable feature of the Campi Flegrei. The
name means "new mountain" and is entirely appropriate.
It was born in a matter of days, beginning early in the
morning of September 29, 1538. In geological terms,
mountains don't come much newer than that, or if they
do, try to be elsewhere when it happens. A Geographical
Dictionary of the Kingdom
of the Two Sicilies published in Naples in
1816 recounts that the eruption destroyed a local town
and a hospital. It also cites the proverbial wisdom that
"grass doesn't grow on Monte Nuovo," then points out how
off the mark that bit of folk wisdom is — there is
grass, not to mention trees, all over Monte Nuovo, says
the encyclopedist.
(See the main article on Monte Nuovo.)
(For a separate item on
the geology of the Bay of Naples, click
here.)
Solfatara is the ever bubbling
sulfur pit just south of Pozzuoli;
it is one of the greatest tourist attractions in the
area. Sulfur fumaroles vent themselves all over the
place, and you may see entire families out for a Sunday
stroll suddenly stop and run over to one and stick their
heads right into the stygian stench. These are not
practitioners of some cult of Neo-Nasal Masochism, for
besides use in vulcanizing rubber, making matches,
gunpowder, insecticides and industrial-grade brimstone
with which to pave the "broad way to destruction,"
sulfur has putative healing powers, so if the stuff
shoots up right beside the road, free for the snorting,
why should you pay for the privilege at one of the many
spas around town?)
[update: tragic update
from September, 2017)
Also, if
someone has told you to go to Hell recently, Lake Averno is on
the left as you leave Pozzuoli and head north up the via
Domiziana. From World Literature, you will
remember that this is the mythological descent to the
underworld, mentioned by Virgil
in the Aeneid. Speaking of which: Cuma, home to Aeneas after his
wanderings and the first Greek settlement on the Italian
mainland, is the last prominent "bump" on the Phlegrean
landscape before it smooths out onto the plain that goes
north towards Gaeta. If there is room for only one
cultural "must" on your list, there is something wrong
with you, but, anyway, Cuma is it. For those of you who
fall into the psychological trap of telescoping all
ancient civilizations into one convenient mind-frame (as
in: "the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans"),
remember that two thousand years ago, an ancient Roman
stood where you are standing and marveled at Cuma
because the ancient Greeks had built it.
The Campi Flegrei have fascinated travelers for centuries. When Charles Dickens was here, he said:
The fairest country in the world is spread about us. Whether we turn towards the Miseno shore of the splendid watery amphitheatre, and go by the Grotto of Posillipo to the Grotta del Cane (Dog) and away to Baiae, or take the other way, towards Vesuvius and Sorrento, it is one succession of delights.
A less poetic view
of the Grotto of the Dog is provided by Mark Twain, who
claimed he was all fired up to really try and suffocate
one of man's best friends in the Grotto's famed noxious
vapors. He couldn't manage to chase down a victim. [Click here for that Mark
Twain passage from The Innocents Abroad.] I'm
not going to tell you where that particular place is.
Find it yourself. Look for the metro stop that says Campi
Flegrei. Then, ask a stranger.
Oh, all right. The Grotto
of the Dog is here.
[Also see Mar 2009 update: "The Baia Castle and the Museum of the Campi Flegrei".]
[and The Big Archie and The Coastal Caves.] [Also update from April 2015.]
[and The Magnicent Magmathon from Nov. 2018.]
[and What, Me Worry? from May 2019.]
[particularly, see this specially developed iTour of the Campi Flegrei, with 19 stops on the tour.]
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