The Gulf
“Citizens, you must get to kno the port of Luna, it's woth it!”
Quinto Ennio, father of Latin poetry
Gulf of La Spezia
It was called Luna at the time of the Roman invasion, then Porto Lunense, Portus Veneris, Ericis Portus, Gurfum Spezia, and finally Gulf of La Spezia.
The etymology of the name “La Spezia” is shrouded in mystery and is not definitive. Several theories suggest the name may derive from “Hospitium” (a hospitable place for travelers), from “Specula” (watchtower), from “Specia” (beauty, ornament), or from “Spedia” (related to the salt trade).
“Oh beautiful Spezia, splendid pearl by the sea, of the Riviera, an unreal picture"
wrote Eugenio Giovando in the 1960s, when sung poetry became the most popular form.
Gulf of Poets
a taste of the gulf
Porto Venere & Byron Cave
Byron Cave
Porto Venere Church
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.
George Gordon Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
canto IV – stanza CLXXVIII
To those who arrive by sea, the Port of Venus appears on the shore, and here, in the hills draped in olive trees, it is said that even Minerva forgot her native Athens, so great was the sweetness…”
Francesco Petrarca
1338
Palmaria & Tino
Palmaria
Tino
Tufts of myrtle, holm oaks, a ruined cloister, a lighthouse, a small bay, and the joyful waves of the sea
August von Platen-Hallermünde
Renamed “the island of the mermaids” by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Lerici & Tellaro
Lerici
Tellaro
Between Lerici and Turbia, the most deserted, the most broken ruin is a stairway—toward it, easy and ope
Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio, Canto III
“A place you cannot pass through, only arrive at.”
“The sea’s eternal song”
Mario Soldati & David Herbert Lawrence