EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ROADS
crossing them."[1] In more detail Nugent comments: "This road is so incommodious for wheel-carriages that those who travel between Bologna and Florence choose either litters or mules, because of being obliged so often to alight and walk a-foot, rather than calashes, in which they travel in the plain country. The litters from Bologna to Florence usually cost two pistoles and a half, or three pistoles, the horses eighteen or twenty julios, according to the season."[2]
Roads crossing the Apennines might be expected to offer some difficulty, but even the great highways connecting the North and the South were little better. The road from Siena to Rome, one of the most traveled in Italy, had an evil reputation. Says De Brosses, "It was more than enough to dishearten travellers without mentioning broken shafts or axles, somersaults, and other little incidents of the trip."[3]
Worst of all were the roads throughout the South. In traveling in the Kingdom of Naples everything, says Tivaroni, had to be carried on the backs of mules. "It was difficult or dangerous to go on horseback in Calabria, and little less in the Abruzzi."[4] "Up to the time of Charles III, the Kingdom [of Naples] had no roads except that to Rome and perhaps in part that to Foggia. Every other trace of passable roads was lacking. 'It is impossible,' remarked Gorani, who was later at Naples, when already the roads had increased in number, 'to travel in this kingdom. The roads are extremely neglected and dangerous; because there is no police, they offer none of the conveniences that are found in the greater part of the countries of Europe. Most journeys are made on horseback, with horses or mules following for carrying baggage and provisions.'"[5]
De La Lande confirms Tivaroni by saying of the road between Rome and Naples that it was so bad in winter that one ran great risk of being swallowed up in the mud-holes.[6] "Charles III opened roads for wheeled carriages from Naples as far as Capua, Caserta, Persano, Venafro, and Bovino. They led to the kings' hunting grounds."[7] From
48
- ↑ Remarks on Italy, Works, ii, 330.
- ↑ Grand Tour, iii, 324. A note written on the margin by a later tourist remarks, "Very fine road now."
- ↑ Lettres sur l'Italie, ii, 98 f.
- ↑ Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 341.
- ↑ Ibid., i, 340, 341.
- ↑ Voyage en Italie, vii, 238, 239.
- ↑ Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 341.
