ce of no small importance,
filled with villas of wealthy citizens and boasting a fair-sized
population, as its numerous remains of antiquity can easily testify;
whilst its crumbling ivy-clad walls and towers point to its prosperity
during the Middle Ages, when Sorrento shared the political fortunes of
Naples. It is now a busy thriving little cathedral town, and the possessor
of silk and _tarsia_ work industries, so that like Imperial Rome it can
boast a continuous existence as a city from remote times to the present
day. Its chief local Saint--for what Italian town does not boast a special
patron?--is Sant' Antonio, whose most famous feat is said to have been the
administering of a severe drubbing to Sicardo, Duke of Benevento, for
daring to interfere with the liberties of his city in the ninth century.
It would appear from the legend that all arguments as to ancient rights,
the quality of mercy and the honour of keeping faith having been vainly
exhausted upon the cruel and obstinate prince, Bishop Antonio came forward
with a stout cudgel and belaboured the tyrant in order to obtain a
favourable answer to the people's petition. The sanctity of the pugnacious
prelate and the force of this _argumentum ad baculum_ were evidently too
much for the Duke of Benevento, who at once conceded the popular demands,
whilst Antonio's name has deservedly descended to posterity as the capable
protector of his native city.

* * * * * *

But the name which above all others Sorrento will cherish as her own, "so
long as men shall read and eyes can see," is that of the famous Italian
poet, Torquato Tasso, whose interesting but melancholy life-story is
closely associated with this, the town of his birth. Tasso is reckoned as
the fourth greatest bard of Italy, ranking after Dante and Petrarch, and
being esteemed on a level with rather than below his rival and
contemporary, Ludovico Ariosto. In one sense however he may be described
as the most truly national poet of this immortal quartet, for his career
is connected with his native country as a whole, rather than with any one
of the little cities or states then comprising that "geographical
expression" which is now the Kingdom of Italy. His father's family was of
Lombard origin, having been long settled in the neighbourhood of Bergamo,
where a crumbling hill-set fortress known as the Montagno del Tasso still
recalls the name of the poet's ancestors. His mother