an ancient and very strong town, and capital of an island of the same name in the Mediterranean, with a bishop's see. It was ruined by Barbarossa in 1544, who carried away all the inhabitants into slavery, and demolished the place; but it was rebuilt by Charles V. E. Long. 15. 30. N. Lat. 38. 35.
properly, is the general name of a cluster of islands. Those, according to Mr Houel, are principally ten in number, the rest being only uninhabitable rocks of narrow extent. The largest and the most populous of them, that above mentioned, communicates its name to the rest. Vulcano is a desert but habitable island, lying south from the large island of Lipari. Saline, which lies west-north-west from the same island; Felicudi, nearly in the same direction, but 20 miles farther distant; and Alicudi, 10 miles south-west of Felicudi; are inhabited. Panarea is east of Lipari, the famous Stromboli north-east, and both of them are inhabited. The rest are in a desert state; such as Baziluzzo, which was formerly inhabited; Attalo, which might be inhabited; and L'Exambianca, on which some remains of ancient dwellings are still to be found. L'Ecanera is nothing but a bare rock.
The Fermicoli, a word signifying ants, are a chain of small black cliffs which run to the north-east of Lipari, till within a little way of Exambianca and Ecanera, rising more or less above the water, according as the sea is more or less agitated.
Ancient authors are not agreed with respect to the number of the Lipari islands. Few of those by whom they are mentioned appear to have seen them; and in places such as these, where subterraneous fires burst open the earth, and raise the ocean from its bed, terrible changes must sometimes take place. Volcanello and Volcano were once separated by a strait, so as to form two islands. The lava and ashes have filled up the intervening strait; and they are now united into one island, and have by this change become much more habitable.
The castle of Lipari stands upon a rock on the east quarter of the island. The way to it from the city leads up a gentle declivity. There are several roads to it. This castle makes a part of the city; and on the summit of the rock is the citadel, in which the governor and the garrison reside. The cathedral stands in the same situation. Here the ancients, in conformity to their usual practice, had built the temple of a tutelary god. This citadel commands the whole city; and it is accessible only at one place. Were an hostile force to make a descent on the island, the inhabitants might retreat hither, and be secure against all but the attacks of famine.
The ancient inhabitants had also fortified this place. Considerable portions of the ancient walls are still standing in different places, particularly towards the south: Their structure is Grecian, and the stones are exceedingly large, and very well cut. The layers are three feet high, which shows them to have been raised in some very remote period. These remains are surrounded with modern buildings. The remains of walls, which are still to be seen here, have belonged not only to temples, but to all the different sorts of buildings which the ancients used to erect. The vaults, which are in a better state of preservation than any of the other parts of these monuments, are now converted to the purposes of a prison.
In the city of Lipari there are convents of monks of two different orders; but there are no convents for women, that is to say, no cloisters in which women are confined; those, however, whose heads and hearts move them to embrace a state of pious celibacy, are at liberty to engage in a monastic life, with the concurrence of their confessors. They put on the sacred habit, and vow perpetual virginity, but continue to live with their father and mother, and mix in society like other women. The vow and the habit even enlarge their liberty. This custom will, no doubt, M. Houel observes, appear very strange to a French woman; but this was the way in which the virgins of the primitive church lived. The idea of shutting them up together did not occur till the fifth century. The life of these religious ladies is less gloomy than that which those under the same vows lead in other countries. They wear clothes of particular colours, according as they belong to this or that order. Their dress gives them a right to frequent the churches at any hours; and the voice of censure, which takes particular pleasure in directing her attacks against pious ladies, goes so far as to assert, that some young women assume the habit with no other views but that they may enjoy greater freedom.
In this island oxen of a remarkably beautiful species are employed in ploughing the ground. The ancient plough is still in use here. The mode of agriculture practised here is very expeditious. One man traces a furrow, and another follows to sow in it grain and pulse. The ploughman, in cutting the next furrow, covers up that in which the seed has been sown: and thus the field is both ploughed and sown at once. Nature seems to be here uncommonly vigorous and fertile. Vegetation is here more luxuriant, and animals gayer and more healthful, than almost anywhere else.
Near the city of Lipari, the traveller enters deep narrow roads, of a very singular appearance. The whole island is nothing but an assemblage of mountains, all of them consisting of ashes or lava discharged from the depths of the volcano by which it was at first produced. The particles of this puzzolana, or ashes, are not very hard; the action of the rain water has accordingly cut out trenches among the mountains; and these trenches being perhaps less uneven than the rest of the surface, have of consequence been used as roads by the inhabitants, and have been rendered much deeper by being worn for so many ages by the feet of men and other animals. These roads are more than five or six fathoms deep, and not more than seven or eight feet wide. They are very crooked, and have echoes in several places. You would think that you were walking through narrow streets without doors or windows. Their depth and windings shelter the traveller from the sun while he is passing through them; and he finds them deliciously cool.
The first volcanic eruption in the Lipari islands mentioned in history, is that of which Callias takes notice in his history of the wars in Sicily. Callias was contemporary with Agathocles. That eruption continued without interval for several days and nights; and threw out great stones, which fell at more than a mile's distance. The sea boiled all around the island. The works of Callias are lost, and we know not whether he descended to a detail of particulars concerning the ravages produced by this eruption. Under the consulship of AEmilius Lepidus and L. Aurelius Orestes, 126 years before the Christian era, these islands were affected with a dreadful earthquake. The burning of AEtna was the first cause of that. Around Lipari and the adjacent islands, the air was all on fire. Vegetation was withered; animals died; and fusible bodies, such as wax and resin, became liquid. If the inhabitants of Lipari, from whom our author received these facts, and the writers who have handed down an account of them, have not exaggerated the truth, we must believe that the sea then boiled around the island; the earth became so hot as to burn the cables by which vessels were fixed to the shore, and consumed the planks, the oars, and even the small boats.
Pliny, the naturalist*, speaks of another similar* Lib. ii. event which happened 30 or 49 years afterward, in cap. 105. the time of the war of the allied states of Italy against Rome. One of the Aeolian islands, says he, was all on fire as well as the sea; and that prodigy continued to appear, till the senate appealed, by a deputation, the wrath of the gods. From the time of that war, which happened 86 years before the birth of our Saviour, till the year 144 of our era, we have no account of any eruption of these volcanoes; and from that period again, till the year 1444, we hear of no explosion from them, that is, for the space of 1300 years. But at that time both Sicily and the Aeolian isles were agitated by dreadful shocks of earthquakes; the volcano of these isles poured forth streams of lava with an awful violence, and emitted a volume of flame and smoke which rose to an amazing height. After that it discharged enormous stones which fell at the distance of more than six miles.
A century later, in the year 1550, the fury of this volcano was again renewed. The ashes and stones discharged from the crater filled up the strait between Volcano and Vulcanello.
About two centuries after that, in the year 1739, there was a sixth eruption. The burstings of the volcanic fire were attended with a noise so dreadful, that it was heard as far as Melazzo in Sicily.
Father Leandro Alberti says, that on one of those dreadful occasions, the women of Lipari, after imploring in vain all the saints, vowed to drink no more wine if the volcano should spare them. Their giving up this small gratification was doubtless of great service, yet the eruptions still continue, and have even become more frequent since that time. Only 36 years intervened between this eruption and that which happened in the year 1775. The whole island was then shaken; subterraneous thunder was heard; and considerable streams of flame, with smoke, stones, and vitreous lava, issued from the crater. Lipari was covered over with ashes; and part of these was conveyed by the winds all the way into Sicily. Five years after, however, in the month of April 1780, there issued a new explosion from Volcano; the smoke was thick, the shocks constant, and the subterraneous noise very frequent. So great was the conflagration among the inhabitants of Lipari on this occasion, that the commander Deodati Dolomieu, who visited these islands not long after that event, informs us, that the inhabitants in general, but especially the women, devoted themselves as slaves to the service of the blest virgin; and wore on their arms, as tokens of their fervitude, small iron chains, which they still continue to wear.
This act of piety, however, was not so efficacious as the deputation of the senate had been. For after that deputation, more than 200 years passed before the Aeolian isles were afflicted by any other eruption, at least by any considerable one: Whereas, in three years after the ladies devoted themselves in so submissive a manner to the service of the virgin, the isles of Lipari were agitated anew by that fatal earthquake which ravaged Calabria and part of Sicily, on the 5th of February 1783.
The dry baths of St Calogero, in the island of Lipari, are stoves, where sulphureous exhalations, known to be of a salutary nature, ascend out of the earth by holes or spiracles. A range of apartments are built around the place where the exhalations arise. The heat is communicated through those apartments, in such a way, that when entering at one end, you advance towards the other, the heat still increases upon you till you gain the middle apartment, and again diminishes in the same manner as you proceed from the middle to the other end of the range of chambers. In consequence of this disposition of these apartments, the sick person can make choice of that temperature which best suits the nature of his disease. There are a few miserable huts and a small chapel for the accommodation of the people who repair to these baths. The people of the place are ready to attend them. Physicians likewise follow their patients thither, when the disease is of such a nature as to render their attendance requisite, and the patient rich enough to afford them handsome fees: but there is no physician settled in the place. Besides these dry baths, there are baths of hot water distinguished by the name of St Calogero's baths. There are around them buildings sufficient to lodge a considerable number of sick people with their necessary attendants. At present, however, those buildings are but in a bad condition.
The baths consist of two halls; one square, the other round. The former is antique; it has been built by the Romans; it is arched with a cupola, and 12 feet in diameter; it has been repaired: The other is likewise arched with a cupola both within and without. The water comes very hot into the first. It gushes up from among pieces of lava, which compose a part of the mountain at the foot of which these baths are built. Those stones remain in their natural state. All that has been done is the raising of a square building enclosing them. Within that building the sick persons either sit down on the stones, or immerse themselves in the intervening cavities which are filled with water. They continue there for a certain time, and approach nearer to, or remain at a farther distance from the spring, according as their physician directs. The place serves also as a stove. The hot vapours arising from the water communicate to the surrounding atmosphere a considerable degree of heat. It is indeed not inferior to that of the hot baths of Termini, which owe their heat to a similar cause. In these baths, therefore, a person can have the benefit either of bathing in the hot water, or of exposing himself to the vapour, the heat of which is more moderate. The bath before mentioned, under the appellation of dry bath, is also a stove; but the hot vapour with which it is filled issues directly from the volcano. The place of the bath is, however, at such a distance from the volcanic focus, that the heat is not at all intolerable.
The mountain at the foot of which these baths are situated is round, and terminates at the summit in a rock of petrified ashes, which are very hard and of a very fine grain. This petrification consists of pretty regular strata, and appears to have been greatly prior in its origin to the adjacent rocks; which consist likewise of ashes, but ashes that have been deposited at a much later period. From this rock there proceeds likewise a stream of hot water, by which some mills in the neighbourhood are moved.
It cannot but appear surprising, that nature has placed nearly on the summit of a volcanic mountain springs which supply so considerable a quantity of water. To account for such a phenomenon would be well worthy of some ingenious naturalist. Nor are these hot springs all; proceeding around the same hill, at about a mile's distance, we find a spring of cold water rising from the summit of the same rock, which on the north-west produces three hot springs. The cold water is very pleasant to drink, and much used both by men and cattle.
Among these mountains there are many enormous loose masses of lava, the appearance of which, M. Houel informs us, naturally leads the observer to take notice, that the lava of the volcano of Lipari is of a much greater diversity of colours, and those richer and more lively, than the lava of Vesuvius and Aetna. The lava of Lipari is in some places, for several miles, of a beautiful red colour. It contains likewise in great abundance small black crystallized scoriae, as well as the small white grains which are commonly found in lava.
Among the eminences which overlook the city of Lipari, there are some rocks of a species which is very rare in Europe. These are large masses of vitrified matter, which rise fix or eight feet above the surface of the ground, and appear to extend to a great depth under it. They exist, through that range of mountains, in enormous masses, mixed with lavas of every different colour, and always standing detached and insulated. Were they cut and followed under ground, they would probably be found to exist in immense quarries in the bowels of the earth. The glas of which they consist might be employed with great advantage in manufactures. It is ready made, and might be easily purified. It is green, compact, and transparent.
The cultivation of the ground is the chief employment of the inhabitants of Lipari. The possession of a few acres of land here gives a man great importance. Parents, when they settle their children, rather give them money than any part of their lands.
More than two-thirds of the island is planted with vines: three-fourths of the grapes which these produce are dried, and sent mostly to London under the name of passola. There are different sorts of passola: one of these, called the black passolina, is prepared from a particular kind of grape, of which the berries are uncommonly small; and sold to Marfeilles, Holland, and Trieste. The vines are in small arbours, which rise only to the height of two feet and a half above the ground. Under these arbours there grow beans, gourds, and other leguminous vegetables. In so hot a climate, the shade of the vines does not injure but protect the vegetables growing under it: they would otherwise be withered by the heat of the sun.
The method of preparing passola and passolina is curious enough: They first make a lixivium of common ashes; after boiling this, they pass it through a cloth or a sieve; they then put it again on the fire; and when it is observed to boil hard, suddenly immerse the grapes, but instantly bring them out again, and expose them to the sun to dry on broad frames of cane. When sufficiently dry, the raisins are put into casks and barrels to be sold and exported. The number of casks of different sorts of raisins annually exported from Lipari are estimated at 10,000.
This island likewise produces figs. There is some white malmsey and a little red wine exported from it.
About 60 or 80 years since, sulphur was one of the articles with which the inhabitants of this island supplied foreign merchants. But that trade has been given up, from an idea which the Liparese entertain, that sulphur infects the air so as to injure the fertility of the vines. The same prejudice prevails in Sicily, but it seems to be ill founded.
There are courts of justice in Lipari of the same powers and character with those in the cities of Sicily. Causes of more than ordinary importance are carried to Palermo.
The island is entirely free from every kind of imposition. The king receives nothing from it; because Count Roger anciently bestowed on its bishop all his rights of royalty over Lipari. The bishop there received annually from the inhabitants a tenth part of the products of their lands. They afterwards, to prevent fraud, estimated the value of that tithe for one year; and on the condition of their paying in future a sum of money equal to what that year's tithe was valued at, he not only gave up his right to the tithe, but also ceded to them a considerable extent of land which belonged to him.
In the archiepiscopal palace, and in the palace of the Baron de Monizzio, there are some noble pieces of painting by Sicilian painters:—A St Peter, a St Rofalia, Jesus disputing with the Jewish doctors, the adulterous woman, the incredulity of St Thomas.