The longer I stay here, the more respect I have for the
taste of the monks of the Middle Ages. They invariably secured the
best places for themselves. They seized all the strategic points;
they appropriated all the commanding heights; they knew where the sun
would best strike the grapevines; they perched themselves wherever
there was a royal view. When I see how unerringly they did select
and occupy the eligible places, I think they were moved by a sort of
inspiration. In those days, when the Church took the first choice in
everything, the temptation to a Christian life must have been strong.
The monastery at the Deserto was suppressed by the French of the
first republic, and has long been in a ruinous condition. Its
buildings crown the apex of the highest elevation in this part of the
promontory: from its roof the fathers paternally looked down upon the
churches and chapels and nunneries which thickly studded all this
region; so that I fancy the air must have been full of the sound of
bells, and of incense perpetually ascending. They looked also upon
St. Agata under the hill, with a church bigger than itself; upon more
distinct Massa, with its chapels and cathedral and overlooking feudal
tower; upon Torca, the Greek Theorica, with its Temple of Apollo, the
scene yet of an annual religious festival, to which the peasants of
Sorrento go as their ancestors did to the shrine of the heathen god;
upon olive and orange orchards, and winding paths and wayside shrines
innumerable.
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