seven miles to the west of Salerno, and thirty to the south of Naples, was one of the first Italian cities in which the spirit of commercial enterprise revived after it had been suppressed by the irruption of the barbarians. Though now an obscure village, containing only about 3500 fishermen, it attained, at a remote epoch, to distinction as a maritime republic, and is said by Gibbon to have preceded Venice in re-opening an intercourse with the East. But the more recent researches of Darn, who enjoyed sources of information inaccessible to previous historians, show that this statement is inaccurate, and that Venice carried on a considerable traffic with the Levant before any competitor appeared in the field. But the Amalfitans entered at a very early period on this career, with singular energy and success. In the ninth century, their city is said to have had 50,000 inhabitants. They were extensive navigators and merchants. Their trade comprised the products of Africa, Arabia, and the East; and their settlements in Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, acquired the privileges of independent colonies. William of Apulia, a writer of the eleventh century, has noticed Amalfi in verses, partly quoted by Gibbon, and said by him to "contain much truth and some poetry."

The government was popular under the administration of a duke and the supremacy of the Greek emperor. The mariners who swarmed in her ports excelled in the theory and practice of navigation and astronomy.

We are said to owe a peculiar and not easily exaggerated debt of gratitude to Amalfi. It was, says Sismondi, a citizen of that republic, Flavio Gioja, who invented the compass or introduced it into navigation; in her was found a unique copy of the Pandects which revived the knowledge and the study of jurisprudence in the west; and the maritime laws of Amalfi (Tabula Amalphitana) early acquired in the Mediterranean the same influence that was enjoyed by the laws of the Rhodians in antiquity, and that was acquired at a later period by the laws of Oleron in the countries bordering on the Atlantic. Very large deductions must, however, be made from this too partial statement. Gioja may have improved the compass by rendering the needle more suitable to the purposes of navigation; but if he did this much, it is all, for there can be no doubt that it had already been applied to them. Some authorities treat as a fable the story of the famous manuscript of the Roman law carried off by the Pisans from Amalfi, and now at Florence. And though there be no reasonable ground for this exaggerated scepticism, Savigny and others have shown that the study of the civil law was vigorously prosecuted long previously to the alleged discovery of the MS. referred to. The statements respecting the Tabula Amalphitana appear to be entitled to no credit, and to be wholly founded on a mistake. Though several distinguished authorities have referred to this table, none of them quote it, or appear to have seen it. No trace or vestige can now be found of any such table or law. And the presumption is, that it never had any real existence, and that some other law had been mistaken for it. Though brilliant, the prosperity of Amalfi was but short. It was sacked by the Pisans in 1135, when the MS. of Justinian's Compilations is said to have fallen into their hands, and was soon after subjugated by the Normans. Her commerce having been diverted into other channels, she speedily sunk into total obscurity.

At present Amalfi is subject to Naples, and is the see of an archbishop. It is but a shadow of what it was in its flourishing state, when it extended over the stupendous rocks that hang on each side, still crowned with battlemented walls and ruined towers. Its buildings, Mr Swinburne says, are not remarkable for elegance or size, and contain at most 4000 inhabitants, who seem to be in a poor line of life. The cathedral is an uncoated building. Under the choir is the chapel and tomb of the apostle St Andrew, to whose honour the edifice was dedicated, when Cardinal Capuano, in 1208, brought his body from Constantinople.