[In the following essay, de Beer argues that the account of Campania in the fourth book of the Relation is almost entirely derived from other sources.]

George Sandys's A Relation of a Iourney begun An: Dom: 1610, first published in 1615, was one of the most popular of seventeenth-century travel books.¹ The account of Campania contained in the fourth book² is probably the least important part of the work; the object of the present article is to show that it is almost entirely a compilation. General remarks applying to this part of the work should not be applied to the rest of it without proper inquiry.

In determining the sources used by seventeenth-century topographical writers there is one constant difficulty, the similarity of treatment to be found in many of the works on a given subject. The older writers copied one another freely or derived from the same predecessors; so that the determination of the actual source of a particular passage frequently turns on minutiae. In a mainly derivative passage every detail should so far as possible be accounted for; it is only by the elimination of all possible sources that the presence of any original matter can be established.

Sandys made use of the following works:³

1. J. C. Capacius (G. C. Capaccio), Neapolitanae historiae tomus primus, 1607 (all published). This contains most of the same writer's Puteolana historia, 1604, but rearranged and revised; it adds much new matter. Sandys makes use of the new matter (e.g. in his accounts of Capri and Naples); he shows no knowledge of passages in the earlier work which are altered in or omitted from the later one; it is therefore reasonable to assume that he used the one work throughout. This is a quarto containing a topographical account and the local history of the whole district except Naples, for which there is only the ancient and part of the modern topography and the ancient and early-medieval history.

2. S. Mazzella, Sito, et antichita della citta di Pozzvolo, e del svo amenissimo distretto, con la Descrittione di tutti i luoghi notabili, e degni di memoria, e di Cuma, e di Baia, e di Miseno, e degli altri luoghi conuicini, 1606. Dr. Günther lists earlier editions, one in 1591, and two in 1595. This, an octavo, is a guide-book for the greater part of the area between Posilippo and Miseno. It is natural to assume that Sandys would use the latest edition available (it is the latest recorded). It includes an Opusculum de balneis Puteolanis, by Mazzella, also dated 1606, the signatures and pagination being continuous.⁴

3. Franciscus Schottus, Itinerarium nobiliorum Italiae regionum, urbium, oppidorum, et locorum, edition either of 1601 or 1610. There were four (or perhaps five) editions of Schott's book available. These two contain additions by Fra Girolamo da Capugnano (included in all later editions until the text is transformed). Sandys's account of the coast from Miseno to the promontory of Minerva (p. 296) is taken from one of Capugnano's additions (Schott, Latin ed., 1610, iii. 265); this excludes Schott's first edition of 1600 and the book from which Schott took his whole account of this area, S. V. Pighius, Hercules prodicius, 1587.⁵ There was also an Italian translation published in 1610.⁶ The passage in Sandys relating to the colonies of Cuma (p. 282) is taken from Schott (Latin ed., 1610, iii. 277); a reference in it to Pythagoras shows that the Latin version was used, the reference being omitted in the Italian translation.⁷

4. An anonymous ‘Relatione di Napoli’, dated 1 April 1579, apparently first printed in Thesoro politico, 1589. There are several later editions, including one of 1602 and one of 1610, with a parallel Latin translation. It has proved impossible to determine which edition Sandys used.

Sandys had not only these works to draw upon; he had visited Naples and made the excursion to Pozzuoli and its district; although it is improbable that he saw all the places which he describes. Further, he seems to have been well read.

The account of the present state of the city and kingdom of Naples on pp. 256-9 is almost entirely derived from the ‘Relatione’ of 1579. Of the other sources Sandys seems to use Capaccio most frequently, then Mazzella, then Schott. He does not as a rule give continuous passages from any one of them but links up a series of sentences or clauses taken from one or more of them. For a complete illustration of the process it would be necessary to print parallel passages from Sandys and the three sources; a passage from Sandys with the sentences and phrases actually taken by him from the sources must here suffice. The quotations from ancient, medieval, and modern poets which Sandys introduces freely into his text are generally to be found in Capaccio or Mazzella.

The only long passages for which no source is traceable appear to be the description of Salerno (pp. 250-1), mainly a quotation from J. C. Scaliger; a digression on amphitheatres (pp. 270-2) and another on circuses (pp. 297-9); the two digressions may be taken from some work on Rome.

The following passage is given as a specimen of Sandys's method:

Sandys, pp. 274-5:

First passing by Ciceros Villa, euen at this day so called, where yet do remaine the ruines of his Academy, erected in imitation of that of Athens.

The pleasures whereof he commendeth in his writings: which he adorned with a schoole, a groue, an open walk, a gallery, and a library.

After his proscription and death, this Villa became the possession of Antistus Vetus a follower of Cæsars: where Tiro, Ciceros free-man, liued till he was an hundred yeares old; and in three bookes composed the life of his Patron.

Not long after his death, diuers fountaines of hote water sprung out of the earth, held soueraigne for the eye-sight: celebrated by Tullius Laura (so called for his excellency in poesie) another of his free-men in this Epigram.

Of Roman speech thou fam'd Restorer, where …

Quo tua Romanæ vindex clarissima linguæ, …

Here the Emperour Adrian was buried: Antoninus erecting a Temple in the place of his sepulture.

The ruines do shew that the buildings were ample: amongst the rest, the foundation of that (as supposed) Academy is yet to be seene, in forme of a Circque, three hundred and seuenty foot long, and so called. Now all is ouergrowne with briers; and sheepe and goates are pastured where the Muses had once their habitation.

It was seated close to the water: in so much as Cicero accustomed to feed the fishes out of his windowes, and to take them for his pleasure with an angle. But now the sea hath forsaken it; forced by earth-quakes to retire, and content it selfe with more narrow bounders: hauing in times past possessed the present possessions of the Dukes of Toledo; whereof a part interposeth it and the Villa. The foresaid fountaines, called Ciceros baths, are to be seene in a Grot at the foot of a rocke, of a maruellous nature and vertue. For they ebbe and flow, according to the qualitie of the sea: filling with fuming waters, the place of their receptacle. Which when ouer-swelling, a part thereof proceeds to the sea, and another part retires to their fountaines. They asswage the paines of the bowels, and aches of the body; but are good especially for the eyes: declaring thereby that they participate of Copperis.

(C = Capaccio; M = Mazzella; S = Schott, ed. 1610.)

… locus antiqui domini seruat nomen … (M, p. 71, quoting Sanfelice).

… la Villa di Cicerone, che esso chiamò Accademia. Era fatto detto luogo alla similitudine dell Accademia d'Athene, e per quel che hora mostrano le sue ruine … (M, p. 69).

Admodum sibi in delitijs locum illum fuisse, ad Atticum suum scribens, frequenter indicat (S, iii. 269).

… quam … excolebat & instruebat cum gymnasio, nemore, xysto, porticu, atque bibliotheca (S, iii. 269).

Post eius verò proscriptionem, atque cædem, possedit villam C. Antistius Vetus, qui legatus Cæsaris partes eius bello ciuili sequutus fuerat (S, iii. 270).

Ibiq. M. Tullium Tironem Ciceronis libertum usque ad c. annos consenuisse scribunt Eusebius, & Isidorus, ibiq. tribus libris Ciceronis vitam fuisse complexum, scribit Asconius Pedianus (C, p. 748).

… non diu post Ciceronis obitum … eruperunt calidi fontes oculis, ac visui perquam salubres, quos Tullius Laurea Ciceronis libertus, à Phœbi corona poetica cognomen habens, insigni celebrauit epigrammate. … (S, iii. 270).

(The epigram is printed in C, pp. 747-8; M, pp. 70-1; Sandys probably followed C.)

Repetere haud piget, Adrianum Imperatorem … in hac villa fuisse sepultum; & Antoninum, sepulcri loco, templum ibi ædificasse (C, p. 748; see also M, p. 71).

Aedificij amplitudinem, id quod parietinarum reliqui est, patefacit (C, p. 748).

… fundamenta discernuntur … (S, iii. 270).

… in loco, qui nunc Stadium appellatur … (S, iii. 270).

… era lunga detta Accademia trecentosettanta piedi … è quasi tutta coperta di terra; & il padrone del luogo se ne serue per rinchiuderuici le capre, e pecore … (M, pp. 69-70).

… in eam villam Musarum omnium domicilium. … Hoc tamen lugeant, quòd eloquentiæ locus, ouium balatum, & pastorum iurgia resonat, & tanti viri voces inter vepres perierunt (C, p. 748).

… Musarum … sedem … (S, iii. 269).

Itaque tum quidem fossa, vel euripo tam contigua marinis undis fuit villa, uti Tullius è cenaculo suo manu pascere pisces, & hamo capere posset (S, iii. 270).

Nam recessit inde mare terræmotibus subinde, ac temporum interuallo mutans lectum suum … (S, iii. 270).

Dum littori villa imposita erat, ut ait Plinius, mare nunc recessisse cognoscimus, propterea quòd Toletanus ager mari eo tempore erat perfusus (C, p. 748).

Fontium aquæ calidæ, quas Plinius Ciceronis vocat, in vicino prato visuntur in crypta subterranea ad rupis radicem, quæ mirificæ sunt naturæ, & virtutis. Nam interdiu fons semel, sic item noctu cum Lunæ exortu occasu´que, non secus, ac maris fluxus, atque refluxus calidam, ac fumantem aquam in balnei lacum immittit, qui cùm repletus exundat, pars aquæ riuulo quodam defluit in mare; pars ad fontem suum reuertitur … [Balneum] prædicant rheumata capitis, atque oculorum vitia detergere, corpus ab humoribus pigris expurgare, & podagram sanare … (S, iii. 271).

Ob illud iuuandi oculos experimentum, arbitrantur aliqui aquas cadmia participare, quæ in Cumano agro naturalis est … ac in Baiano. Quippe ibi quoque chalcitis, mysi, sori, melanteria, chalcantum …

(C, p. 812).

Sandys's book is illustrated with engravings. The engraved title-page is signed by Francisco Delaram; the other illustrations have also been attributed to him.⁸ All the illustrations for Campania are derivative; there are some difficulties in determining their exact sources, but in most cases it is easy to identify the original compositions from which they ultimately derive. Schott⁹ is illustrated with etchings; Mazzella and Capaccio with woodcuts. Besides these works Sandys had at his disposal other prints; one series, by G. Hoefnagel, is also used by Schott. The following are the illustrations occurring in the account of Campania:

1. View-plan of the Phlegraean Fields, from Posilippo to Miseno and Cuma (p. 261). This belongs to a group, the original of which is unknown to me. There is a poor etched version of it in Schott, iii. 248, and a large woodcut version in Mazzella. Sandys might have used the latter but a better version was probably available.

2. The Grotto of Posilippo with Naples and Vesuvius beyond (p. 265). The original drawing for this view was made by G. Hoefnagel (1542-1600) in 1578. An engraving from it is to be found in G. Braun and F. Hohenberg, Civitates orbis terrarum, c. 1576-1618, v. 65.¹⁰ A reproduction of this engraving, with slight divergences, occurs in Schott, iii. 216. Sandys's version differs slightly from both Braun's and Schott's, but derives directly from the latter.

3. The Grotta del Cano and its neighbourhood (p. 266). The original version is by Hoefnagel and is to be found in Braun and Hohenberg, iii. 57 (with view of Avernus on same plate in separate compartment). There is a reproduction with alterations in Schott, iii. 241. Sandys follows Hoefnagel.

4. The Solfatara (Foro di Volcano) (p. 268). The original version is by Hoefnagel and is to be found in Braun and Hohenberg, iii. 58 (as Forum Vulcani). Sandys's version is nearer to Hoefnagel than to anything else; but it may have been affected by the woodcut in Capaccio, p. 750. Schott has only a very poor plate (iii. 242), apparently not related to Hoefnagel.

5. Statue of gladiator with amphitheatre in background (p. 271). The statue is the Gladiator which in Sandys's time was called ‘Commodus’ and was preserved in the courtyard of the Farnese Palace in Rome.¹¹ Sandys's view of it is copied from an engraving of it by G. B. de Cavalieri (c. 1560) or from a copy of Cavalieri's engraving, such as that in L. della Vaccaria, Antiquarum statuarum urbis Romae … icones, ‘parte terza’, 1584.¹² I have not traced the source of the background; the amphitheatre appears to be the Coliseum.

6. Avernus (p. 279). The original plate is by Hoefnagel and is to be found in Braun and Hohenberg, iii. 57 (see note to no. 3 above). There is an altered reproduction in Schott, iii. 274. Sandys perhaps follows Schott, but for the two figures in the foreground substitutes the two in Capaccio's view of Avernus, p. 792; the costumes, however, are altered and to a less extent the attitudes.

7. Cumaean Sibyl; Cuma in background (p. 285). This is a free combination in reverse of the figure of the Sibyl in Capaccio, p. 647, and the view of Cuma in Capaccio, p. 627.

8. View of Baia (p. 290). This follows fairly closely the view in Capaccio, p. 692; but the details of the two principal ruins are apparently derived from the view of Baia by Hoefnagel and to be found in Braun and Hohenberg, ii. 51.

Notes

1. New editions, or rather reprints, appeared in 1621, 1627, 1632, 1637, 1652, 1658, and 1673. The pagination of the editions from 1615 to 1637 is identical. A Dutch translation was published in 1653 (new edition 1665); and a German translation in 1669. Extracts from the book appear in Purchas and elsewhere.

2. pp. 251-304.

3. The literature on Campania is listed by Dr. R. T. Günther, A Bibliography of Topographical and Geological Works on the Phlegraean Fields, 1908. The principal modern work is J. Beloch, Campanien: Geschichte und Topographie des antiken Neapel und seiner Umgebung, 2nd ed., 1890. This gives some notices of the sixteenth-century literature.

4. Sandys, p. 267, mentions Mazzella by name as a witness of an incident; his source is Mazzella, pp. 78-9.

5. There were new editions 1609 and 1615. I hope to publish an account of Schott's book. Sandys, p. 267, mentions Corona Pighius as making an investigation; his source is Schott, Latin ed., 1610, iii. 241-3, who adapts Pighius, pp. 479-81. It was S. V. Pighius, not Corona, who made the investigation.

6. The author of the book is here said to be Andrea Scoto. The next edition of the translation is dated 1615.

7. I have used below the 1610 edition; there is a copy of the edition of 1601 in the Bodleian. The illustrations mentioned below occur in both these editions, but not in that of 1600 and not in the only copies known to me of the Italian editions of 1610 and 1615.

8. Sir S. Colvin, Early Engraving and Engravers in England, 1905, p. 85. Delaram was working from 1615 to 1624.

9. The illustrations in the edition of 1601 and the Latin edition of 1610 are printed from the same plates; they are used again in the Italian edition of 1622; they do not occur in the copies which I have seen of the edition of 1600 or of the Italian edition of 1610.

10. From the titles given to the Archduke Albert in its dedication this volume appears to have been published in 1595-8.

11. It is now in the Naples Museum, no. 243 in A. Ruesch, Guida illustrata del Museo Nazionale di Napoli [c. 1908].

12. For the bibliography of the sixteenth-century albums of the Roman statues see T. Ashby in British School at Rome, Papers, vol. ix, 1920, pp. 107-58. I have not seen versions of this plate earlier than Vaccaria's. Sandys's plate of Nilus, the statue (p. 95), is also a derivative from Cavalieri; a copy from Cavalieri, in reverse from Sandys's, also occurs in Vaccaria.