Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino
by Samuel Butler · English · Gutenberg #2576 · 506,525 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino
Author: Samuel Butler
Release date: April 1, 2001 [eBook #2576]
Most recently updated: September 26, 2019
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2576
Credits: Transcribed from the 1913 A. C. Fifield edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALPS AND SANCTUARIES OF PIEDMONT AND THE CANTON TICINO ***
Transcribed from the 1913 A. C. Fifield edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Public domain book cover]
[Picture: Mortuary Chapel at Soazza (etching)]
ALPS AND SANCTUARIES
Of Piedmont And the Canton Ticino
(Op. 6)
By Samuel Butler
Author of “Erewhon,” “Life and Habit,” “The Way of All Flesh,” etc.
_New and Enlarged Edition_, _with Author’s Revisions_
_and Index_, _and an Introduction by R. A. Streatfeild_
[Picture: St. Maria della Neve]
London: A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford’s Inn, E.C.
1913
* * * * *
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH
Introduction
THE publication of a new and revised edition of “Alps and Sanctuaries” at
a much reduced price and in a handier and more portable form than the
original will, I hope, draw general attention to a book which has been
undeservedly neglected. “Alps and Sanctuaries” has hitherto been the
Cinderella of the Butler family. While her sisters, both elder and
younger, have been steadily winning their way to high places at the
feast, she has sat unrecognised and unhonoured in the ashes. For this,
of course, the high price of the book, which was originally issued at a
guinea, was largely responsible, as well as its unmanageable size and
cumbrousness. But Time has revenges in his wallet for books as well as
for men, and I cannot but believe that a new life is in store for one of
the wisest, wittiest and tenderest of Butler’s books.
“Alps and Sanctuaries” originally appeared at a time (1881) when the
circle of Butler’s readers had shrunk to very narrow dimensions.
“Erewhon” (1872) had astonished and delighted the literary world, but
“The Fair Haven” (1873) had alienated the sympathies of the orthodox, and
“Life and Habit” (1877) and its successors “Evolution, Old and New”
(1879) and “Unconscious Memory” (1880) had made him powerful and
relentless enemies in the field of science. In 1881 Butler was, as he
often termed himself, a literary pariah, and “Alps and Sanctuaries” was
received for the most part with contemptuous silence or undisguised
hostility. Now that Butler is a recognised classic, his
twentieth-century readers may care to be reminded of the reception that
was accorded to this—one of the most genial and least polemical of his
works. Very few papers reviewed it at all, and in only four or five
cases was it honoured with a notice more than a few lines long.
Strange as it may seem, Butler’s best friends were the Roman Catholics.
_The Weekly Register_ praised “Alps and Sanctuaries” almost unreservedly,
and _The Tablet_ became positively lyrical over it. The fact is that
about this time Butler was dallying with visions of a _rapprochement_
between the Church of Rome and the “advanced wing of the Broad Church
party,” to which he always declared that he belonged. In the second
edition of “Evolution, Old and New,” which was published in 1882, there
is a remarkable chapter, entitled “Rome and Pantheism,” in which Butler
holds out an olive branch to the Vatican, and suggests that if Rome would
make certain concessions with regard to the miraculous element of
Christianity she might win the adherence of liberal-minded men, who are
equally disgusted by the pretensions of scientists and the dissensions of
Protestants.
“Alps and Sanctuaries” contains nothing like a definite eirenicon, but it
is pervaded by a genuine if somewhat vague sympathy for Roman
institutions, which, emphasised as it is by some outspoken criticism of
Protestantism, will serve to explain the welcome that it received in
Roman Catholic circles. Nevertheless, one may venture to doubt whether
Butler felt altogether at ease in the society of his new friends, and it
was probably with rather mixed feelings that he read _The Tablet’s_
description of “Alps and Sanctuaries” as “a book that Wordsworth would
have gloated over with delight.” On the other hand, the compliment paid
to his little discourse on the “wondrous efficacy of crosses and
crossing,” which the pious _Tablet_ read in a devotional rather than a
biological sense and characterised as “so very suggestive and moral that
it might form part of a sermon,” must have pleased him almost as much as
_The Rock’s_ naïf acceptance of “The Fair Haven” as a defence of
Protestant orthodoxy.
“Alps and Sanctuaries” is essentially a holiday book, and no one ever
enjoyed a holiday more keenly than Butler. “When a man is in his
office,” he used to say, “he should be exact and precise, but his holiday
is his garden, and too much precision here is a mistake.” He acted up to
his words, and in “Alps and Sanctuaries” we see him in his most
unbuttoned mood, giving the rein to his high spirits and letting his
fantastic humour carry him whither it would. Butler always spent his
holidays in Italy, a country which he had known and loved from his
earliest childhood, and for which the passing years only increased his
affection. Few Englishmen have ever studied her people, her landscape
and her art with deeper sympathy and understanding, and she never
received a sincerer tribute than the book which Butler dedicated to his
“second country” as “a thank-offering for the happiness she has afforded
me.”
Butler used to declare that he wrote his books so that he might have
something to read in his old age, knowing what he liked much better than
any one else could do. But though he cared little for contemporary
popularity, no man valued intelligent appreciation more highly. He
recorded in his “Note-books” with evident delight the remark made by a
lady after reading “Alps and Sanctuaries”: “You seem to hear him
speaking,” adding, “I don’t think I ever heard a criticism of my books
which pleased me better.” The story of another unsolicited testimonial I
must give in his own words:
“One day in the autumn of 1886 I walked up to Piora from Airolo,
returning the same day. At Piora I met a very nice quiet man whose name
I presently discovered, and who, I have since learned, is a well-known
and most liberal employer of labour somewhere in the north of England.
He told me that he had been induced to visit Piora by a book which had
made a great impression upon him. He could not recollect its title, but
it had made a great impression upon him; nor yet could he recollect the
author’s name, but the book had made a great impression upon him; he
could not remember even what else there was in the book; the only thing
he knew was that it had made a great impression upon him.
“This is a good example of what is called a residuary impression.
Whether or no I told him that the book which had made such a great
impression upon him was called ‘Alps and Sanctuaries,’ and that it had
been written by the person he was addressing, I cannot tell. It would
have been very like me to have blurted it all out and given him to
understand how fortunate he had been in meeting me. This would be so
fatally like me that the chances are ten to one that I did it; but I
have, thank Heaven, no recollection of sin in this respect, and have
rather a strong impression that, for once in my life, I smiled to myself
and said nothing.”
Butler always remembered with satisfaction that “Alps and Sanctuaries”
gained him the friendship of Dr. Mandell Creighton. In her biography of
her husband, Mrs. Creighton mentions that the Bishop had been reading
“Alps and Sanctuaries,” which charmed him so much that he determined to
visit some of the places described therein. On his return to England,
Dr. Creighton wrote to Butler, telling him how much “Alps and
Sanctuaries” had added to the pleasure of his trip, and begged him to
come to Peterborough and pay him a visit. The story is told in Butler’s
“Note-books,” but I cannot resist the temptation to repeat it:
“The first time that Dr. Creighton asked me to come down to Peterborough,
I was a little doubtful whether to go or not. As usual, I consulted my
good clerk Alfred, who said:
“‘Let me have a look at his letter, sir.’
“I gave him the letter, and he said:
“‘I see, sir, there is a crumb of tobacco in it; I think you may go.’
“I went, and enjoyed myself very much. I should like to add that there
are few men who have ever impressed me so profoundly and so favourably as
Dr. Creighton. I have often seen him since, both at Peterborough and at
Fulham, and like and admire him most cordially.”
“Alps and Sanctuaries” was published a few months before the opening of
the St. Gothard tunnel in 1882. That event naturally made many and great
changes in the Val Leventina, and we who know the valley only as a
thoroughfare for shrieking smoking expresses, can scarcely realise its
ancient peace in the days of which Butler wrote. But apart from the
incursion of the railway, Butler’s beloved valleys have changed but
little since “Alps and Sanctuaries” was written. A few more roads have
been made, and a few more hotels have been built. Butler’s prediction to
the effect that the next great change in locomotion in the Ticinese
valleys “would have something to do with electricity”—a prediction which
in 1881 was by no means so obvious as a twentieth-century reader might
suppose—has been strikingly fulfilled. Electric railways now run up the
Val Blenio from Biasca to Acquarossa, half-way to Olivone; up the Val
Mesocco from Bellinzona to Mesocco, and from Locarno up the Val Maggia to
Bignasco. Ere long they will doubtless penetrate the higher recesses of
the valleys. Many of the “nice people” mentioned in “Alps and
Sanctuaries” have passed away. Signer Dazio no longer reigns in Fusio;
his hotel is in other hands, “and from the sign is gone Sibylla’s name.”
Signor Guglielmoni has long since fallen a victim to the rigours of the
Alpine winter, which Butler so feelingly describes. At S. Michele,
however, there are still some monks who remember Butler and a copy of
“Alps and Sanctuaries,” given by him to the Sanctuary, is one of their
most cherished possessions. The lapse of thirty years has left S.
Michele unaltered, so far as I could see a few years ago, save for the
arm-chairs made out of clipped box-trees. These have fallen grievously
from their high estate as depicted on p. 103, and are now deplorably thin
and ragged.
I think that Butler must at one time have intended to bring out a new
edition of “Alps and Sanctuaries”—the so-called second edition published
in 1882 by Mr. David Bogue being merely a re-issue of the original sheets
with a new title-page—since he took the trouble to compile an elaborate
and highly characteristic index, the manuscript of which is bound up in a
copy of the so-called second edition now in my possession. This idea he
seems to have abandoned, and he did not revise the text of the book,
beyond correcting two or three misprints. He continued, however, to
accumulate material for a possible sequel, and at his death he left a
large mass of rough notes recording impressions of many holiday
expeditions to various parts of Italy, in particular to his favourite
Lombard and Ticinese valleys. Mr. Festing Jones and I have examined
these notes with great care, and from them Mr. Jones, who was, I need
hardly say, Butler’s constant companion both at home and abroad, and his
collaborator in the original “Alps and Sanctuaries,” has constructed one
entirely new chapter, “Fusio Revisited,” and made considerable additions
to Chapter X. I have, in addition, borrowed two passages, relating
respectively to Bellinzona (p. 198) and Varese (p. 257) from Butler’s
recently published “Note-books,” and Mr. Jones has kindly allowed me to
take the note on Medea Colleone and her _passero solitario_ (p. 23) from
his “Diary of a Journey through North Italy and Sicily.” I have revised
the original text of the book, into which some trifling errors had crept,
and have completed the index by adding references to the new matter. I
have also ventured to consign to an appendix the original Chapter IX,
“Reforms instituted at S. Michele in the year 1478,” which contains a
summary of certain documents relating to the Sanctuary. These are
valuable to scholars and students, but are not likely to interest the
ordinary reader, and I am following the suggestion of a friend in
transplanting the chapter bodily to the end of the book. The
illustrations, all save six which the reader will easily distinguish, are
printed from the original Dawson-Process blocks, which are interesting
examples of early photo-engraving work.
Mr. Fifield’s determination to make the present edition handy and
portable has unfortunately compelled him to abandon Mr. Charles Gogin’s
design for the original cover, which requires a larger volume than would
in the present case be convenient. Readers who propose to carry the book
from S. Ambrogio up to the Sanctuary of S. Michele will, I am sure,
acquiesce in the sacrifice.
My last words must be an expression of cordial thanks to Mr. Festing
Jones, whose help and counsel have been invaluable to me in preparing the
book for republication.
R. A. STREATFEILD.
_May_, 1913.
Author’s Preface to First Edition
I SHOULD perhaps apologise for publishing a work which professes to deal
with the sanctuaries of Piedmont, and saying so little about the most
important of them all—the Sacro Monte of Varallo. My excuse must be,
that I found it impossible to deal with Varallo without making my book
too long. Varallo requires a work to itself; I must, therefore, hope to
return to it on another occasion.
For the convenience of avoiding explanations, I have treated the events
of several summers as though they belonged to only one. This can be of
no importance to the reader, but as the work is chronologically inexact,
I had better perhaps say so.
The illustrations by Mr. H. F. Jones are on pages 95, 211, 225, 238, 254,
260. The frontispiece and the illustrations on the title-page and on
pages 261, 262 are by Mr. Charles Gogin. There are two drawings on pages
136, 137 by an Italian gentleman whose name I have unfortunately lost,
and whose permission to insert them I have, therefore, been unable to
obtain, and one on page 138 by Signor Gaetano Meo. The rest are mine,
except that all the figures in my drawings are in every case by Mr.
Charles Gogin, unless when they are merely copied from frescoes or other
sources. The two larger views of Oropa are chiefly taken from
photographs. The rest are all of them from studies taken upon the spot.
I must acknowledge the great obligations I am under to Mr. H. F. Jones as
regards the letterpress no less than the illustrations; I might almost
say that the book is nearly as much his as mine, while it is only through
the care which he and another friend have exercised in the revision of my
pages that I am able to let them appear with some approach to confidence.
_November_, 1881.
Table of Contents
PAGE
INTRODUCTION, BY R. A. STREATFEILD 5
AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION 11
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 15
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTION 17
II. FAIDO 22
III. PRIMADENGO, CALPIOGNIA, DALPE, CORNONE, AND 33
PRATO
IV. ROSSURA, CALONICO 49
V. CALONICO (_continued_) AND GIORNICO 59
VI. PIORA 77
VII. S. MICHELE AND THE MONTE PIRCHIRIANO 86
VIII. S. MICHELE (_continued_) 92
IX. THE NORTH ITALIAN PRIESTHOOD 106
X. S. AMBROGIO AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 113
XI. LANZO 131
XII. CONSIDERATIONS ON THE DECLINE OF ITALIAN ART 141
XIII. VIÙ, FUCINE, AND S. IGNAZIO 160
XIV. SANCTUARY OF OROPA 169
XV. OROPA (_continued_) 175
XVI. GRAGLIA 188
XVII. SOAZZA AND THE VALLEY OF MESOCCO 198
XVIII. MESOCCO, S. BERNARDINO, AND S. MARIA IN 207
CALANCA
XIX. THE MENDRISIOTTO 228
XX. SANCTUARY ON MONTE BISBINO 237
XXI. A DAY AT THE CANTINE 243
XXII. SACRO MONTE, VARESE 249
XXIII. ANGERA AND ARONA 258
XXIV. LOCARNO 268
XXV. FUSIO 277
XXVI. FUSIO REVISITED 287
APPENDIX A. WEDNESBURY COCKING 305
APPENDIX B. REFORMS INSTITUTED AT S. MICHELE 309
IN THE YEAR 1478
AUTHOR’S INDEX 326
List of Illustrations
MORTUARY CHAPEL AT SOAZZA (ETCHING) _Frontispiece_
STA. MARIA DELLA NEVE _Title-page_
PRATO FROM NEAR DAZIO 26
TICINESE BARLEY-STACKS 29
CAMPO SANTO AT CALPIOGNIA 30
PRIMADENGO 35
DALPE 37
PRATO, AND VALLEY OF ST. GOTHARD 43
PRATO CHURCH PORCH, NO. 1 45
PRATO CHURCH PORCH, NO. 2 48
ROSSURA CHURCH 49
ROSSURA CHURCH PORCH 50
ROSSURA CHURCH PORCH IN 1879 53
TENGIA, NO. 1 56
TENGIA, NO. 2 57
CALONICO CHURCH, NO. 1 64
CALONICO CHURCH, NO. 2 65
MAIN DOORWAY, S. NICOLAO 73
INTERIOR OF OLD CHURCH, GIORNICO 74
CHAPEL OF S. CARLO, PIORA 81
S. MICHELE FROM NEAR BUSSOLENO 86
S. MICHELE 86
S. MICHELE FROM S. PIETRO 93
S. MICHELE, NEAR VIEW 95
S. MICHELE, FROM PATH TO AVIGLIANA 95
MAIN ENTRANCE TO THE SANCTUARY 96
STEPS LEADING TO THE CHURCH, NO. 1 98
STEPS LEADING TO THE CHURCH, NO. 2 100
GARDEN AT THE SANCTUARY OF S. MICHELE 103
INN AT S. AMBROGIO 113
S. GIORIO—COMBA DI SUSA 115
CASINA DI BANDA 119
VOTIVE PICTURE 121
MEDIÆVAL TOWER AT LANZO 132
PIAZZA AT LANZO 133
STUDY BY AN ITALIAN AMATEUR, NO. 1 136
STUDY BY AN ITALIAN AMATEUR, NO. 2 137
STUDY BY A SELF-TAUGHT ITALIAN 138
PARADISO! PARADISO! 145
BY AN ITALIAN SCHOOLBOY 147
AVOGADRO’S VIEW OF S. MICHELE 149
FUNERAL OF TOM MOODY 159
S. IGNAZIO, NEAR LANZO 161
FRESCO NEAR CERES 161
VIÙ CHURCH 162
FUCINE, NEAR VIÙ 164
FAÇADE OF THE SANCTUARY OF OROPA 172
INNER COURT OF SANCTUARY OF OROPA 174
CHAPELS AT OROPA 175
CHAPEL OF S. CARLO AT GRAGLIA 189
SANCTUARY OF GRAGLIA 194
SOAZZA CHURCH 203
CASTLE OF MESOCCO 208
S. CRISTOFORO 209
FRESCO AT MESOCCO—MARCH 211
FRESCO AT MESOCCO—APRIL 211
FRESCO AT MESOCCO—MAY 212
FRESCO AT MESOCCO—AUGUST 212
APPROACH TO STA. MARIA 224
STA. MARIA, APPROACH TO CHURCH 225
FRONT VIEW OF STA. MARIA 226
TOP OF MONTE BISBINO 238
VEDUTA DEL MONTE BISBINO 240
TABLE ON MONTE BISBINO 241
CHAPEL OF S. NICOLAO 241
SOMMAZZO 247
SACRO MONTE OF VARESE 253
SACRO MONTE OF VARESE, NEARER VIEW 254
TERRACE AT THE SACRO MONTE, VARESE 255
SACRO MONTE FROM ABOVE 256
CASTLE OF ANGERA 259
CASTLE OF ANGERA, FROM S. QUIRICO 260
TERRACE AT CASTLE OF ANGERA, NO. 1 261
TERRACE AT CASTLE OF ANGERA, NO. 2 262
ROOM IN WHICH S. CARLO BORROMEO WAS BORN 263
SACRO MONTE, LOCARNO, NO. 1 269
SACRO MONTE, LOCARNO, NO. 2 270
CLOISTER AT SACRO MONTE, LOCARNO 271
FUSIO FROM THE CEMETERY 279
STREET VIEW IN FUSIO 280
Chapter I
Introduction
MOST men will readily admit that the two poets who have the greatest hold
over Englishmen are Handel and Shakespeare—for it is as a poet, a
sympathiser with and renderer of all estates and conditions whether of
men or things, rather than as a mere musician, that Handel reigns
supreme. There have been many who have known as much English as
Shakespeare, and so, doubtless, there have been no fewer who have known
as much music as Handel: perhaps Bach, probably Haydn, certainly Mozart;
as likely as not, many a known and unknown musician now living; but the
poet is not known by knowledge alone—not by _gnosis_ only—but also, and
in greater part, by the _agape_ which makes him wish to steal men’s
hearts, and prompts him so to apply his knowledge that he shall succeed.
There has been no one to touch Handel as an observer of all that was
observable, a lover of all that was loveable, a hater of all that was
hateable, and, therefore, as a poet. Shakespeare loved not wisely but
too well. Handel loved as well as Shakespeare, but more wisely. He is
as much above Shakespeare as Shakespeare is above all others, except
Handel himself; he is no less lofty, impassioned, tender, and full alike
of fire and love of play; he is no less universal in the range of his
sympathies, no less a master of expression and illustration than
Shakespeare, and at the same time he is of robuster, stronger fibre, more
easy, less introspective. Englishmen are of so mixed a race, so
inventive, and so given to migration, that for many generations to come
they are bound to be at times puzzled, and therefore introspective; if
they get their freedom at all they get it as Shakespeare “with a great
sum,” whereas Handel was “free born.” Shakespeare sometimes errs and
grievously, he is as one of his own best men “moulded out of faults,” who
“for the most become much more the better, for being a little bad;”
Handel, if he puts forth his strength at all, is unerring: he gains the
maximum of effect with the minimum of effort. As Mozart said of him, “he
beats us all in effect, when he chooses he strikes like a thunderbolt.”
Shakespeare’s strength is perfected in weakness; Handel is the serenity
and unself-consciousness of health itself. “There,” said Beethoven on
his deathbed, pointing to the works of Handel, “there—is truth.” These,
however, are details, the main point that will be admitted is that the
average Englishman is more attracted by Handel and Shakespeare than by
any other two men who have been long enough dead for us to have formed a
fairly permanent verdict concerning them. We not only believe them to
have been the best men familiarly known here in England, but we see
foreign nations join us for the most part in assigning to them the
highest place as renderers of emotion.
It is always a pleasure to me to reflect that the countries dearest to
these two master spirits are those which are also dearest to myself, I
mean England and Italy. Both of them lived mainly here in London, but
both of them turned mainly to Italy when realising their dreams.
Handel’s music is the embodiment of all the best Italian music of his
time and before him, assimilated and reproduced with the enlargements and
additions suggested by his own genius. He studied in Italy; his subjects
for many years were almost exclusively from Italian sources; the very
language of his thoughts was Italian, and to the end of his life he would
have composed nothing but Italian operas, if the English public would
have supported him. His spirit flew to Italy, but his home was London.
So also Shakespeare turned to Italy more than to any other country for
his subjects. Roughly, he wrote nineteen Italian, or what to him were
virtually Italian plays, to twelve English, one Scotch, one Danish, three
French, and two early British.
But who does not turn to Italy who has the chance of doing so? What,
indeed, do we not owe to that most lovely and loveable country? Take up
a Bank of England note and the Italian language will be found still
lingering upon it. It is signed “for Bank of England and Compa.”
(_Compagnia_), not “Compy.” Our laws are Roman in their origin. Our
music, as we have seen, and our painting comes from Italy. Our very
religion till a few hundred years ago found its headquarters, not in
London nor in Canterbury, but in Rome. What, in fact, is there which has
not filtered through Italy, even though it arose elsewhere? On the other
hand, there are infinite attractions in London. I have seen many foreign
cities, but I know none so commodious, or, let me add, so beautiful. I
know of nothing in any foreign city equal to the view down Fleet Street,
walking along the north side from the corner of Fetter Lane. It is often
said that this has been spoiled by the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway
bridge over Ludgate Hill; I think, however, the effect is more imposing
now than it was before the bridge was built. Time has already softened
it; it does not obtrude itself; it adds greatly to the sense of size, and
makes us doubly aware of the movement of life, the colossal circulation
to which London owes so much of its impressiveness. We gain more by this
than we lose by the infraction of some pedant’s canon about the
artistically correct intersection of right lines. Vast as is the world
below the bridge, there is a vaster still on high, and when trains are
passing, the steam from the engine will throw the dome of St. Paul’s into
the clouds, and make it seem as though there were a commingling of earth
and some far-off mysterious palace in dreamland. I am not very fond of
Milton, but I admit that he does at times put me in mind of Fleet Street.
While on the subject of Fleet Street, I would put in a word in favour of
the much-abused griffin. The whole monument is one of the handsomest in
London. As for its being an obstruction, I have discoursed with a large
number of omnibus conductors on the subject, and am satisfied that the
obstruction is imaginary.
When, again, I think of Waterloo Bridge, and the huge wide-opened jaws of
those two Behemoths, the Cannon Street and Charing Cross railway
stations, I am not sure that the prospect here is not even finer than in
Fleet Street. See how they belch forth puffing trains as the breath of
their nostrils, gorging and disgorging incessantly those human atoms
whose movement is the life of the city. How like it all is to some great
bodily mechanism of which the people are the blood. And then, above all,
see the ineffable St. Paul’s. I was once on Waterloo Bridge after a
heavy thunderstorm in summer. A thick darkness was upon the river and
the buildings upon the north side, but just below I could see the water
hurrying onward as in an abyss, dark, gloomy, and mysterious. On a level
with the eye there was an absolute blank, but above, the sky was clear,
and out of the gloom the dome and towers of St. Paul’s rose up sharply,
looking higher than they actually were, and as though they rested upon
space.
Then as for the neighbourhood within, we will say, a radius of thirty
miles. It is one of the main businesses of my life to explore this
district. I have walked several thousands of miles in doing so, and I
mark where I have been in red upon the Ordnance map, so that I may see at
a glance what parts I know least well, and direct my attention to them as
soon as possible. For ten months in the year I continue my walks in the
home counties, every week adding some new village or farmhouse to my list
of things worth seeing; and no matter where else I may have been, I find
a charm in the villages of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, which in its way I
know not where to rival.
I have ventured to say the above, because during the remainder of my book
I shall be occupied almost exclusively with Italy, and wish to make it
clear that my Italian rambles are taken not because I prefer Italy to
England, but as by way of _parergon_, or by-work, as every man should
have both his profession and his hobby. I have chosen Italy as my second
country, and would dedicate this book to her as a thank-offering for the
happiness she has afforded me.
Chapter II
Faido
FOR some years past I have paid a visit of greater or less length to
Faido in the Canton Ticino, which though politically Swiss is as much
Italian in character as any part of Italy. I was attracted to this
place, in the first instance, chiefly because it is one of the easiest
places on the Italian side of the Alps to reach from England. This merit
it will soon possess in a still greater degree, for when the St. Gothard
tunnel is open, it will be possible to leave London, we will say, on a
Monday morning and be at Faido by six or seven o’clock the next evening,
just as one can now do with S. Ambrogio on the line between Susa and
Turin, of which more hereafter.
True, by making use of the tunnel one will miss the St. Gothard scenery,
but I would not, if I were the reader, lay this too much to heart.
Mountain scenery, when one is staying right in the middle of it, or when
one is on foot, is one thing, and mountain scenery as seen from the top
of a diligence very likely smothered in dust is another. Besides I do
not think he will like the St. Gothard scenery very much.
It is a pity there is no mental microscope to show us our likes and
dislikes while they are yet too vague to be made out easily. We are so
apt to let imaginary likings run away with us, as a person at the far end
of Cannon Street railway platform, if he expects a friend to join him,
will see that friend in half the impossible people who are coming through
the wicket. I once began an essay on “The Art of Knowing what gives one
Pleasure,” but soon found myself out of the diatonic with it, in all
manner of strange keys, amid a maze of metaphysical accidentals and
double and treble flats, so I left it alone as a question not worth the
trouble it seemed likely to take in answering. It is like everything
else, if we much want to know our own mind on any particular point, we
may be trusted to develop the faculty which will reveal it to us, and if
we do not greatly care about knowing, it does not much matter if we
remain in ignorance. But in few cases can we get at our permanent liking
without at least as much experience as a fishmonger must have had before
he can choose at once the best bloater out of twenty which, to
inexperienced eyes, seem one as good as the other. Lord Beaconsfield was
a thorough Erasmus Darwinian when he said so well in “Endymion”: “There
is nothing like will; everybody can do exactly what they like in this
world, provided they really like it. Sometimes they think they do, but
in general it’s a mistake.” {23} If this is as true as I believe it to
be, “the longing after immortality,” though not indeed much of an
argument in favour of our being immortal at the present moment, is
perfectly sound as a reason for concluding that we shall one day develop
immortality, if our desire is deep enough and lasting enough. As for
knowing whether or not one likes a picture, which under the present
æsthetic reign of terror is _de rigueur_, I once heard a man say the only
test was to ask one’s self whether one would care to look at it if one
was quite sure that one was alone; I have never been able to get beyond
this test with the St. Gothard scenery, and applying it to the Devil’s
Bridge, I should say a stay of about thirty seconds would be enough for
me. I daresay Mendelssohn would have stayed at least two hours at the
Devil’s Bridge, but then he did stay such a long while before things.
The coming out from the short tunnel on to the plain of Andermatt does
certainly give the pleasure of a surprise. I shall never forget coming
out of this tunnel one day late in November, and finding the whole
Andermatt valley in brilliant sunshine, though from Flüelen up to the
Devil’s Bridge the clouds had hung heavy and low. It was one of the most
striking transformation scenes imaginable. The top of the pass is good,
and the Hotel Prosa a comfortable inn to stay at. I do not know whether
this house will be discontinued when the railway is opened, but
understand that the proprietor has taken the large hotel at Piora, which
I will speak of later on. The descent on the Italian side is impressive,
and so is the point where sight is first caught of the valley below
Airolo, but on the whole I cannot see that the St. Gothard is better than
the S. Bernardino on the Italian side, or the Lukmanier, near the top, on
the German; this last is one of the most beautiful things imaginable, but
it should be seen by one who is travelling towards German Switzerland,
and in a fine summer’s evening light. I was never more impressed by the
St. Gothard than on the occasion already referred to when I crossed it in
winter. We went in sledges from Hospenthal to Airolo, and I remember
thinking what splendid fellows the postillions and guards and men who
helped to shift the luggage on to the sledges, looked; they were so ruddy
and strong and full of health, as indeed they might well be—living an
active outdoor life in such an air; besides, they were picked men, for
the passage in winter is never without possible dangers. It was
delightful travelling in the sledge. The sky was of a deep blue; there
was not a single cloud either in sky or on mountain, but the snow was
already deep, and had covered everything beneath its smooth and heaving
bosom. There was no breath of air, but the cold was intense; presently
the sun set upon all except the higher peaks, and the broad shadows stole
upwards. Then there was a rich crimson flush upon the mountain tops, and
after this a pallor cold and ghastly as death. If he is fortunate in his
day, I do not think any one will be sorry to have crossed the St. Gothard
in mid-winter; but one pass will do as well as another.
Airolo, at the foot of the pass on the Italian side, was, till lately, a
quiet and beautiful village, rising from among great green slopes, which
in early summer are covered with innumerable flowers. The place,
however, is now quite changed. The railway has turned the whole Val
Leventina topsy-turvy, and altered it almost beyond recognition. When
the line is finished and the workmen have gone elsewhere, things will get
right again; but just now there is an explosiveness about the valley
which puzzles one who has been familiar with its former quietness.
Airolo has been especially revolutionised, being the headquarters for the
works upon the Italian side of the great St. Gothard tunnel, as Göschenen
is for those on the German side; besides this, it was burnt down two or
three years ago, hardly one of the houses being left standing, so that it
is now a new town, and has lost its former picturesqueness, but it will
be not a bad place to stay at as soon as the bustle of the works has
subsided, and there is a good hotel—the Hotel Airolo. It lies nearly
4000 feet above the sea, so that even in summer the air is cool. There
are plenty of delightful walks—to Piora, for example, up the Val Canaria,
and to Bedretto.
After leaving Airolo the road descends rapidly for a few hundred feet and
then more slowly for four or five kilometres to Piotta. Here the first
signs of the Italian spirit appear in the wood carving of some of the
houses. It is with these houses that I always consider myself as in
Italy again. Then come Ronco on the mountain side to the left, and
Quinto; all the way the pastures are thickly covered with cowslips, even
finer than those that grow on Salisbury Plain. A few kilometres farther
on and sight is caught of a beautiful green hill with a few natural
terraces upon it and a flat top—rising from amid pastures, and backed by
higher hills as green as itself. On the top of this hill there stands a
white church with an elegant Lombard _campanile_—the _campanile_ left
unwhitewashed. The whole forms a lovely little bit of landscape such as
some old Venetian painter might have chosen as a background for a
Madonna.
[Picture: Prato from near Dazio]
This place is called Prato. After it is passed the road enters at once
upon the Monte Piottino gorge, which is better than the Devil’s Bridge,
but not so much to my taste as the auriculas and rhododendrons which grow
upon the rocks that flank it. The peep, however, at the hamlet of
Vigera, caught through the opening of the gorge, is very nice. Soon
after crossing the second of the Monte Piottino bridges the first
chestnuts are reached, or rather were so till a year ago, when they were
all cut down to make room for some construction in connection with the
railway. A couple of kilometres farther on and mulberries and occasional
fig-trees begin to appear. On this we find ourselves at Faido, the first
place upon the Italian side which can be called a town, but which after
all is hardly more than a village.
Faido is a picturesque old place. It has several houses dated the middle
of the sixteenth century; and there is one, formerly a convent, close to
the Hotel dell’ Angelo, which must be still older. There is a brewery
where excellent beer is made, as good as that of Chiavenna—and a
monastery where a few monks still continue to reside. The town is 2365
feet above the sea, and is never too hot even in the height of summer.
The Angelo is the principal hotel of the town, and will be found
thoroughly comfortable and in all respects a desirable place to stay at.
I have stayed there so often, and consider the whole family of its
proprietor so much among the number of my friends, that I have no
hesitation in cordially recommending the house.
Other attractions I do not know that the actual town possesses, but the
neighbourhood is rich. Years ago, in travelling by the St. Gothard road,
I had noticed the many little villages perched high up on the sides of
the mountain, from one to two thousand feet above the river, and had
wondered what sort of places they would be. I resolved, therefore, after
a time to make a stay at Faido and go up to all of them. I carried out
my intention, and there is not a village nor fraction of a village in the
Val Leventina from Airolo to Biasca which I have not inspected. I never
tire of them, and the only regret I feel concerning them is, that the
greater number are inaccessible except on foot, so that I do not see how
I shall be able to reach them if I live to be old. These are the places
of which I do find myself continually thinking when I am away from them.
I may add that the Val Leventina is much the same as every other
subalpine valley on the Italian side of the Alps that I have yet seen.
I had no particular aversion to German Switzerland before I knew the
Italian side of the Alps. On the contrary, I was under the impression
that I liked German Switzerland almost as much as I liked Italy itself,
but now I can look at German Switzerland no longer. As soon as I see the
water going down Rhinewards I hurry back to London. I was unwillingly
compelled to take pleasure in the first hour and a half of the descent
from the top of the Lukmanier towards Disentis, but this is only a
ripping over of the brimfulness of Italy on to the Swiss side.
The first place I tried from Faido was Mairengo—where there is the oldest
church in the valley—a church older even than the church of St. Nicolao
of Giornico. There is little of the original structure, but the rare
peculiarity remains that there are two high altars side by side.
There is a fine half-covered timber porch to the church. These porches
are rare, the only others like it I know of being at Prato, Rossura, and
to some extent Cornone. In each of these cases the arrangement is
different, the only agreement being in the having an outer sheltered
place, from which the church is entered instead of opening directly on to
the churchyard. Mairengo is full of good bits, and nestles among
magnificent chestnut-trees. From hence I went to Osco, about 3800 feet
above the sea, and 1430 above Faido. It was here I first came to
understand the purpose of certain high poles with cross bars to them
which I had already seen elsewhere. They are for drying the barley on;
as soon as it is cut it is hung up on the cross bars and secured in this
way from the rain, but it is obvious this can only be done when
cultivation is on a small scale. These _rascane_, as they are called,
are a feature of the Val Leventina, and look very well when they are full
of barley.
[Picture: Ticinese Barley-stacks]
From Osco I tried to coast along to Calpiognia, but was warned that the
path was dangerous, and found it to be so. I therefore again descended
to Mairengo, and re-ascended by a path which went straight up behind the
village. After a time I got up to the level of Calpiognia, or nearly so,
and found a path through pine woods which led me across a torrent in a
ravine to Calpiognia itself. This path is very beautiful. While on it I
caught sight of a lovely village nestling on a plateau that now showed
itself high up on the other side the valley of the Ticino, perhaps a
couple of miles off as the crow flies. This I found upon inquiry to be
Dalpe; above Dalpe rose pine woods and pastures; then the loftier _alpi_,
then rugged precipices, and above all the Dalpe glacier roseate with
sunset. I was enchanted, and it was only because night was coming on,
and I had a long way to descend before getting back to Faido, that I
could get myself away. I passed through Calpiognia, and though the dusk
was deepening, I could not forbear from pausing at the Campo Santo just
outside the village. I give a sketch taken by daylight, but neither
sketch nor words can give any idea of the pathos of the place. [Picture:
Campo Santo at Calpiognia] When I saw it first it was in the month of
June, and the rank dandelions were in seed. Wild roses in full bloom,
great daisies, and the never-failing salvia ran riot among the graves.
Looking over the churchyard itself there were the purple mountains of
Biasca and the valley of the Ticino some couple of thousand feet below.
There was no sound save the subdued but ceaseless roar of the Ticino, and
the Piumogna. Involuntarily I found the following passage from the
“Messiah” sounding in my ears, and felt as though Handel, who in his
travels as a young man doubtless saw such places, might have had one of
them in his mind when he wrote the divine music which he has wedded to
the words “of them that sleep.” {31}
[Picture: Score for ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’]
Or again: {32}
[Picture: Score for ‘Suites of Pièces, set i., prelude to No. 8]
From Calpiognia I came down to Primadengo, and thence to Faido.
Chapter III
Primadengo, Calpiognia, Dalpe, Cornone, and Prato
NEXT morning I thought I would go up to Calpiognia again. It was Sunday.
When I got up to Primadengo I saw no one, and heard nothing, save always
the sound of distant waterfalls; all was spacious and full of what Mr.
Ruskin has called a “great peacefulness of light.” The village was so
quiet that it seemed as though it were deserted; after a minute or so,
however, I heard a cherry fall, and looking up, saw the trees were full
of people. There they were, crawling and lolling about on the boughs
like caterpillars, and gorging themselves with cherries. They spoke not
a word either to me or to one another. They were too happy and goodly to
make a noise; but they lay about on the large branches, and ate and
sighed for content and ate till they could eat no longer. Lotus eating
was a rough nerve-jarring business in comparison. They were like saints
and evangelists by Filippo Lippi. Again the rendering of Handel came
into my mind, and I thought of how the goodly fellowship of prophets
praised God. {33}
[Picture: Dettingen Te Deum]
And how again in some such another quiet ecstasy the muses sing about
Jove’s altar in the “Allegro and Penseroso.”
Here is a sketch of Primadengo Church—looking over it on to the other
side the Ticino, but I could not get the cherry-trees nor cherry-eaters.
[Picture: Primadengo]
On leaving Primadengo I went on to Calpiognia, and there too I found the
children’s faces all purple with cherry juice; thence I ascended till I
got to a _monte_, or collection of chalets, about 5680 feet above the
sea. It was deserted at this season. I mounted farther and reached an
_alpe_, where a man and a boy were tending a mob of calves. Going still
higher, I at last came upon a small lake close to the top of the range: I
find this lake given in the map as about 7400 feet above the sea. Here,
being more than 5000 feet above Faido, I stopped and dined.
I have spoken of a _monte_ and of an _alpe_. An _alpe_, or alp, is not,
as so many people in England think, a snowy mountain. Mont Blanc and the
Jungfrau, for example, are not alps. They are mountains with alps upon
them.
An _alpe_ is a tract of the highest summer pasturage just below the
snow-line, and only capable of being grazed for two or three months in
every year. It is held as common land by one or more villages in the
immediate neighbourhood, and sometimes by a single individual to whom the
village has sold it. A few men and boys attend the whole herd, whether
of cattle or goats, and make the cheese, which is apportioned out among
the owners of the cattle later on. The pigs go up to be fattened on
whey. The cheese is not commonly made at the _alpe_, but as soon as the
curd has been pressed clear of whey, it is sent down on men’s backs to
the village to be made into cheese. Sometimes there will be a little hay
grown on an _alpe_, as at Gribbio and in Piora; in this case there will
be some chalets built, which will be inhabited for a few weeks and left
empty the rest of the year.
The _monte_ is the pasture land immediately above the highest enclosed
meadows and below the _alpe_. The cattle are kept here in spring and
autumn before and after their visit to the _alpe_. The _monte_ has many
houses, dairies, and cowhouses,—being almost the _paese_, or village, in
miniature. It will always have its chapel, and is inhabited by so
considerable a number of the villagers, for so long a time both in spring
and autumn, that they find it worth while to make themselves more
comfortable than is necessary for the few who make the short summer visit
to the _alpe_.
Every inch of the ascent was good, but the descent was even better on
account of the views of the Dalpe glacier on the other side the Ticino,
towards which one’s back is turned as one ascends. All day long the
villages of Dalpe and Cornone had been tempting me, so I resolved to take
them next day. This I did, crossing the Ticino and following a broad
well-beaten path which ascends the mountains in a southerly direction. I
found the rare English fern _Woodsia hyperborea_ growing in great
luxuriance on the rocks between the path and the river. I saw some
fronds fully six inches in length. I also found one specimen of
_Asplenium alternifolium_, which, however, is abundant on the other side
the valley, on the walls that flank the path between Primadengo and
Calpiognia, and elsewhere. _Woodsia_ also grows on the roadside walls
near Airolo, but not so fine as at Faido. I have often looked for it in
other subalpine valleys of North Italy and the canton Ticino, but have
never happened to light upon it.
[Picture: Dalpe]
About three or four hundred feet above the river, under some pines, I saw
a string of ants crossing and recrossing the road; I have since seen
these ants every year in the same place. In one part I almost think the
stone is a little worn with the daily passage and repassage of so many
thousands of tiny feet, but for the most part it certainly is not.
Half-an-hour or so after crossing the string of ants, one passes from
under the pine-trees into a grassy meadow, which in spring is decked with
all manner of Alpine flowers; after crossing this, the old St. Gothard
road is reached, which passed by Prato and Dalpe, so as to avoid the
gorge of the Monte Piottino. This road is of very great antiquity, and
has been long disused, except for local purposes; for even before the
carriage road over the St. Gothard was finished in 1827, there was a
horse track through the Monte Piottino. In another twenty minutes or so,
on coming out from a wood of willows and alders, Dalpe is seen close at
hand after a walk of from an hour-and-a-half to two hours from Faido.
Dalpe is rather more than 1500 feet above Faido, and is therefore nearly
4000 feet above the sea. It is reckoned a _bel paese_, inasmuch as it
has a little tolerably level pasture and tillable land near it, and a
fine _alpe_. This is how the wealth of a village is reckoned. The
Italians set great store by a little bit of _bella pianura_, or level
ground; to them it is as precious as a hill or rock is to a Londoner out
for a holiday. The peasantry are as blind to the beauties of rough
unmanageable land as Peter Bell was to those of the primrose with a
yellow brim (I quote from memory). The people complain of the climate of
Dalpe, the snow not going off before the end of March or beginning of
April. No climate, they say, should be colder than that of Faido;
barley, however, and potatoes do very well at Dalpe, and nothing can
exceed the hay crops. A good deal of the hay is sent down to Faido on
men’s backs or rather on their heads, for the road is impracticable even
for sledges. It is astonishing what a weight the men will bear upon
their heads, and the rate at which they will come down while loaded. An
average load is four hundredweight. The man is hardly visible beneath
his burden, which looks like a good big part of an ordinary English
haystack. With this weight on his head he will go down rough places
almost at a run and never miss his footing. The men generally carry the
hay down in threes and fours together for company. They look distressed,
as well they may: every muscle is strained, and it is easy to see that
their powers are being taxed to their utmost limit; it is better not even
to say good-day to them when they are thus loaded; they have enough to
attend to just then; nevertheless, as soon as they have deposited their
load at Faido they will go up to Dalpe again or Calpiognia, or wherever
it may be, for another, and bring it down without resting. Two such
journeys are reckoned enough for one day. This is how the people get
their _corpo di legno e gamba di ferro_—“their bodies of wood and legs of
iron.” But I think they rather overdo it.
Talking of legs, as I went through the main street of Dalpe an old lady
of about sixty-five stopped me, and told me that while gathering her
winter store of firewood she had had the misfortune to hurt her leg. I
was very sorry, but I failed to satisfy her; the more I sympathised in
general terms, the more I felt that something further was expected of me.
I went on trying to do the civil thing, when the old lady cut me short by
saying it would be much better if I were to see the leg at once; so she
showed it me in the street, and there, sure enough, close to the groin
there was a swelling. Again I said how sorry I was, and added that
perhaps she ought to show it to a medical man. “But aren’t you a medical
man?” said she in an alarmed manner. “Certainly not,” replied I. “Then
why did you let me show you my leg?” said she indignantly, and pulling
her clothes down, the poor old woman began to hobble off; presently two
others joined her, and I heard hearty peals of laughter as she recounted
her story. A stranger visiting these out-of-the-way villages is almost
certain to be mistaken for a doctor. What business, they say to
themselves, can any one else have there, and who in his senses would
dream of visiting them for pleasure? This old lady had rushed to the
usual conclusion, and had been trying to get a little advice gratis.
Above Dalpe there is a path through the upper valley of the Piumogna,
which leads to the glacier whence the river comes. The highest peak
above this upper valley just turns the 10,000 feet, but I was never able
to find out that it has a name, nor is there a name marked in the
Ordnance map of the Canton Ticino. The valley promises well, but I have
not been to its head, where at about 7400 feet there is a small lake.
Great quantities of crystals are found in the mountains above Dalpe.
Some people make a living by collecting these from the higher parts of
the ranges where none but born mountaineers and chamois can venture;
many, again, emigrate to Paris, London, America, or elsewhere, and return
either for a month or two, or sometimes for a permanency, having become
rich. In Cornone there is one large white new house belonging to a man
who has made his fortune near Como, and in all these villages there are
similar houses. From the Val Leventina and the Val Blenio, but more
especially from this last, very large numbers come to London, while
hardly fewer go to America. Signor Gatti, the great ice merchant, came
from the Val Blenio.
I once found the words, “Tommy, make room for your uncle,” on a chapel
outside the walls of one very quiet little upland hamlet. The writing
was in a child’s scrawl, and in like fashion with all else that was
written on the same wall. I should have been much surprised, if I had
not already found out how many families return to these parts with
children to whom English is the native language. Many as are the
villages in the Canton Ticino in which I have sat sketching for hours
together, I have rarely done so without being accosted sooner or later by
some one who could speak English, either with an American accent or
without it. It is curious at some out-of-the-way place high up among the
mountains, to see a lot of children at play, and to hear one of them
shout out, “Marietta, if you do that again, I’ll go and tell mother.”
One English word has become universally adopted by the _Ticinesi_
themselves. They say “waitee” just as we should say “wait,” to stop some
one from going away. It is abhorrent to them to end a word with a
consonant, so they have added “ee,” but there can be no doubt about the
origin of the word. {41}
When we bear in mind the tendency of any language, if it once attains a
certain predominance, to supplant all others, and when we look at the map
of the world and see the extent now in the hands of the two
English-speaking nations, I think it may be prophesied that the language
in which this book is written will one day be almost as familiar to the
greater number of _Ticinesi_ as their own.
I may mention one other expression which, though not derived from
English, has a curious analogy to an English usage. When the beautiful
children with names like Handel’s operas come round one while one is
sketching, some one of them will assuredly before long be heard to
whisper the words “Tira giù,” or as children say when they come round one
in England, “He is drawing it down.” The fundamental idea is, of course,
that the draughtsman drags the object which he is drawing away from its
position, and “transfers” it, as we say by the same metaphor, to his
paper, as St. Cecilia “drew an angel down” in “Alexander’s Feast.”
A good walk from Dalpe is to the Alpe di Campolungo and Fusio, but it is
better taken from Fusio. A very favourite path with me is the one
leading conjointly from Cornone and Dalpe to Prato. The view up the
valley of the St. Gothard looking down on Prato is fine; I give a sketch
of it taken five years ago before the railway had been begun.
The little objects looking like sentry boxes that go all round the church
contain rough modern frescoes, representing, if I remember rightly, the
events attendant upon the Crucifixion. These are on a small scale what
the chapels on the sacred mountain of Varallo are on a large one. Small
single oratories are scattered about all over the Canton Ticino, and
indeed everywhere in North Italy by the roadside, at all halting-places,
and especially at the crest of any more marked ascent, where the tired
wayfarer, probably heavy laden, might be inclined to say a naughty word
or two if not checked. The people like them, and miss them when they
come to England. They sometimes do what the lower animals do in
confinement when precluded from habits they are accustomed to, and put up
with strange makeshifts by way of substitute. I once saw a poor Ticinese
woman kneeling in prayer before a dentist’s show-case in the Hampstead
Road; she doubtless mistook the teeth for the relics of some saint. I am
afraid she was a little like a hen sitting upon a chalk egg, but she
seemed quite contented.
[Picture: Prato, and Valley of St. Gothard]
Which of us, indeed, does not sit contentedly enough upon chalk eggs at
times? And what would life be but for the power to do so? We do not
sufficiently realise the part which illusion has played in our
development. One of the prime requisites for evolution is a certain
power for adaptation to varying circumstances, that is to say, of
plasticity, bodily and mental. But the power of adaptation is mainly
dependent on the power of thinking certain new things sufficiently like
certain others to which we have been accustomed for us not to be too much
incommoded by the change—upon the power, in fact, of mistaking the new
for the old. The power of fusing ideas (and through ideas, structures)
depends upon the power of _con_fusing them; the power to confuse ideas
that are not very unlike, and that are presented to us in immediate
sequence, is mainly due to the fact of the impetus, so to speak, which
the mind has upon it. We always, I believe, make an effort to see every
new object as a repetition of the object last before us. Objects are so
varied, and present themselves so rapidly, that as a general rule we
renounce this effort too promptly to notice it, but it is always there,
and it is because of it that we are able to mistake, and hence to evolve
new mental and bodily developments. Where the effort is successful,
there is illusion; where nearly successful but not quite, there is a
shock and a sense of being puzzled—more or less, as the case may be;
where it is so obviously impossible as not to be pursued, there is no
perception of the effort at all.
Mr. Locke has been greatly praised for his essay upon human
understanding. An essay on human misunderstanding should be no less
interesting and important. Illusion to a small extent is one of the main
causes, if indeed it is not the main cause, of progress, but it must be
upon a small scale. All abortive speculation, whether commercial or
philosophical, is based upon it, and much as we may abuse such
speculation, we are, all of us, its debtors.
[Picture: Prato Church Porch, No. 1]
Leonardo da Vinci says that Sandro Botticelli spoke slightingly of
landscape-painting, and called it “but a vain study, since by throwing a
sponge impregnated with various colours against a wall, it leaves some
spots upon it, which may appear like a landscape.” Leonardo da Vinci
continues: “It is true that a variety of compositions may be seen in such
spots according to the disposition of mind with which they are
considered; such as heads of men, various animals, battles, rocky scenes,
seas, clouds, words, and the like. It may be compared to the sound of
bells which may seem to say whatever we choose to imagine. In the same
manner these spots may furnish hints for composition, though they do not
teach us how to finish any particular part.” {46} No one can hate
drunkenness more than I do, but I am confident the human intellect owes
its superiority over that of the lower animals in great measure to the
stimulus which alcohol has given to imagination—imagination being little
else than another name for illusion. As for wayside chapels, mine, when
I am in London, are the shop windows with pretty things in them.
The flowers on the slopes above Prato are wonderful, and the village is
full of nice bits for sketching, but the best thing, to my fancy, is the
church, and the way it stands, and the lovely covered porch through which
it is entered. This porch is not striking from the outside, but I took
two sketches of it from within. There is, also, a fresco, half finished,
of St. George and the Dragon, probably of the fifteenth century, and not
without feeling. There is not much inside the church, which is
modernised and more recent than the tower. The tower is very good, and
only second, if second, in the upper Leventina to that of Quinto, which,
however, is not nearly so well placed.
The people of Prato are just as fond of cherries as those of Primadengo,
but I did not see any men in the trees. The children in these parts are
the most beautiful and most fascinating that I know anywhere; they have
black mouths all through the month of July from the quantities of
cherries that they devour. I can bear witness that they are
irresistible, for one kind old gentleman, seeing me painting near his
house, used to bring me daily a branch of a cherry-tree with all the
cherries on it. “Son piccole,” he would say, “ma son gustose”—“They are
small, but tasty,” which indeed they were. Seeing I ate all he gave
me—for there was no stopping short as long as a single cherry was
left—he, day by day, increased the size of the branch, but no matter how
many he brought I was always even with him. I did my best to stop him
from bringing them, or myself from eating all of them, but it was no use.
[Picture: Autograph of Tlolinda Del Pietro]
Here is the autograph of one of the little black-mouthed folk. I watch
them growing up from year to year in many a village. I was sketching at
Primadengo, and a little girl of about three years came up with her
brother, a boy of perhaps eight. Before long the smaller child began to
set her cap at me, smiling, ogling, and showing all her tricks like an
accomplished little flirt. Her brother said, “She always goes on like
that to strangers.” I said, “What’s her name?” “Forolinda.” The name
being new to me, I made the boy write it, and here it is. He has
forgotten to cross his F, but the writing is wonderfully good for a boy
of his age. The child’s name, doubtless, is Florinda.
More than once at Prato, and often elsewhere, people have wanted to buy
my sketches: if I had not required them for my own use I might have sold
a good many. I do not think my patrons intended giving more than four or
five francs a sketch, but a quick worker, who could cover his three or
four Fortuny panels a day, might pay his expenses. It often happens that
people who are doing well in London or Paris are paying a visit to their
native village, and like to take back something to remind them of it in
the winter.
From Prato, there are two ways to Faido, one past an old castle, built to
defend the northern entrance of the Monte Piottino, and so over a small
pass which will avoid the gorge; and the other, by Dazio and the Monte
Piottino gorge. Both are good.
[Picture: Prato Church Porch, No. 2]
Chapter IV
Rossura, Calonico
[Picture: Rossura, Calonico] ANOTHER day I went up to Rossura, a village
that can be seen from the windows of the Hotel dell’ Angelo, and which
stands about 3500 feet above the sea, or a little more than 1100 feet
above Faido. The path to it passes along some meadows, from which the
church of Calonico can be seen on the top of its rocks some few miles
off. By and by a torrent is reached, and the ascent begins in earnest.
When the level of Rossura has been nearly attained, the path turns off
into meadows to the right, and continues—occasionally under magnificent
chestnuts—till one comes to Rossura.
The church has been a good deal restored during the last few years, and
an interesting old chapel—with an altar in it—at which mass was said
during a time of plague, while the people stood some way off in a meadow,
has just been entirely renovated; but as with some English churches, the
more closely a piece of old work is copied the more palpably does the
modern spirit show through it, so here the opposite occurs, for the
old-worldliness of the place has not been impaired by much renovation,
though the intention has been to make everything as modern as possible.
[Picture: Rossura Church Porch]
I know few things more touching in their way than the porch of Rossura
church. It is dated early in the last century, and is absolutely without
ornament; the flight of steps inside it lead up to the level of the floor
of the church. One lovely summer Sunday morning, passing the church
betimes, I saw the people kneeling upon these steps, the church within
being crammed. In the darker light of the porch, they told out against
the sky that showed through the open arch beyond them; far away the eye
rested on the mountains—deep blue save where the snow still lingered. I
never saw anything more beautiful—and these forsooth are the people whom
so many of us think to better by distributing tracts about Protestantism
among them!
While I was looking, there came a sound of music through the open
door—the people lifting up their voices and singing, as near as I can
remember, something which on the piano would come thus:—
[Picture: Music score]
[Picture: Music score]
I liked the porch almost best under an aspect which it no longer
presents. One summer an opening was made in the west wall, which was
afterwards closed because the wind blew through it too much and made the
church too cold. While it was open, one could sit on the church steps
and look down through it on to the bottom of the Ticino valley; and
through the windows one could see the slopes about Dalpe and Cornone.
Between the two windows there is a picture of austere old S. Carlo
Borromeo with his hands joined in prayer.
It was at Rossura that I made the acquaintance of a word which I have
since found very largely used throughout North Italy. It is pronounced
“chow” pure and simple, but is written, if written at all, “ciau,” or
“ciao,” the “a” being kept very broad. I believe the word is derived
from “schiavo,” a slave, which, became corrupted into “schiao,” and
“ciao.” It is used with two meanings, both of which, however, are
deducible from the word slave. In its first and more common use it is
simply a salute, either on greeting or taking leave, and means, “I am
your very obedient servant.” Thus, if one has been talking to a small
child, its mother will tell it to say “chow” before it goes away, and
will then nod her head and say “chow” herself. The other use is a kind
of pious expletive, intending “I must endure it,” “I am the slave of a
higher power.” It was in this sense I first heard it at Rossura. A
woman was washing at a fountain while I was eating my lunch. She said
she had lost her daughter in Paris a few weeks earlier. “She was a
beautiful woman,” said the bereaved mother, “but—chow. She had great
talents—chow. I had her educated by the nuns of Bellinzona—chow. Her
knowledge of geography was consummate—chow, chow,” &c. Here “chow” means
“pazienza,” “I have done and said all that I can, and must now bear it as
best I may.”
[Picture: Rossura Church Porch in 1879]
I tried to comfort her, but could do nothing, till at last it occurred to
me to say “chow” too. I did so, and was astonished at the soothing
effect it had upon her. How subtle are the laws that govern consolation!
I suppose they must ultimately be connected with reproduction—the
consoling idea being a kind of small cross which _re-generates_ or
_re-creates_ the sufferer. It is important, therefore, that the new
ideas with which the old are to be crossed should differ from these last
sufficiently to divert the attention, and yet not so much as to cause a
painful shock.
There should be a little shock, or there will be no variation in the new
ideas that are generated, but they will resemble those that preceded
them, and grief will be continued; there must not be too great a shock or
there will be no illusion—no confusion and fusion between the new set of
ideas and the old, and in consequence, there will be no result at all,
or, if any, an increase in mental discord. We know very little, however,
upon this subject, and are continually shown to be at fault by finding an
unexpectedly small cross produce a wide diversion of the mental images,
while in other cases a wide one will produce hardly any result.
Sometimes again, a cross which we should have said was much too wide will
have an excellent effect. I did not anticipate, for example, that my
saying “chow” would have done much for the poor woman who had lost her
daughter; the cross did not seem wide enough; she was already, as I
thought, saturated with “chow.” I can only account for the effect my
application of it produced by supposing the word to have derived some
element of strangeness and novelty as coming from a foreigner—just as
land which will give a poor crop, if planted with sets from potatoes that
have been grown for three or four years on this same soil, will yet yield
excellently if similar sets be brought from twenty miles off. For the
potato, so far as I have studied it, is a good-tempered, frivolous plant,
easily amused and easily bored, and one, moreover, which if bored, yawns
horribly.
As an example of a cross proving satisfactory which I had expected would
be too wide, I would quote the following, which came under my notice when
I was in America. A young man called upon me in a flood of tears over
the loss of his grandmother, of whose death at the age of ninety-three he
had just heard. I could do nothing with him; I tried all the ordinary
panaceas without effect, and was giving him up in despair, when I thought
of crossing him with the well-known ballad of Wednesbury Cocking. {55}
He brightened up instantly, and left me in as cheerful a state as he had
been before in a desponding one. “Chow” seems to do for the Italians
what Wednesbury Cocking did for my American friend; it is a kind of small
spiritual pick-me-up, or cup of tea.
From Rossura I went on to Tengia, about a hundred and fifty feet higher
than Rossura. From Tengia the path to Calonico, the next village, is a
little hard to find, and a boy had better be taken for ten minutes or so
beyond Tengia, Calonico church shows well for some time before it is
actually reached. The pastures here are very rich in flowers, the tiger
lilies being more abundant before the hay is mown, than perhaps even at
Fusio itself. The whole walk is lovely, and the Gribbiasca waterfall,
the most graceful in the Val Leventina, is just opposite.
[Picture: Tengia, No. 1]
How often have I not sat about here in the shade sketching, and watched
the blue upon the mountains which Titian watched from under the chestnuts
of Cadore. No sound except the distant water, or the croak of a raven,
or the booming of the great guns in that battle which is being fought out
between man and nature on the Biaschina and the Monte Piottino. It is
always a pleasure to me to feel that I have known the Val Leventina
intimately before the great change in it which the railway will effect,
and that I may hope to see it after the present turmoil is over. Our
descendants a hundred years hence will not think of the incessant noise
as though of cannonading with which we were so familiar. From nowhere
was it more striking than from Calonico, the Monte Piottino having no
sooner become silent than the Biaschina would open fire, and sometimes
both would be firing at once. Posterity may care to know that another
and less agreeable feature of the present time was the quantity of stones
that would come flying about in places which one would have thought were
out of range. All along the road, for example, between Giornico and
Lavorgo, there was incessant blasting going on, and it was surprising to
see the height to which stones were sometimes carried. The dwellers in
houses near the blasting would cover their roofs with boughs and leaves
to soften the fall of the stones. A few people were hurt, but much less
damage was done than might have been expected. I may mention for the
benefit of English readers that the tunnels through Monte Piottino and
the Biaschina are marvels of engineering skill, being both of them
spiral; the road describes a complete circle, and descends rapidly all
the while, so that the point of egress as one goes from Airolo towards
Faido is at a much lower level than that of ingress.
[Picture: Tengia, No. 2]
If an accident does happen, they call it a _disgrazia_, thus confirming
the soundness of a philosophy which I put forward in an earlier work.
Every misfortune they hold (and quite rightly) to be a disgrace to the
person who suffers it; “Son disgraziato” is the Italian for “I have been
unfortunate.” I was once going to give a penny to a poor woman by the
roadside, when two other women stopped me. “Non merita,” they said; “She
is no deserving object for charity”—the fact being that she was an idiot.
Nevertheless they were very kind to her.
Chapter V
Calonico (_continued_) and Giornico
OUR inventions increase in geometrical ratio. They are like living
beings, each one of which may become parent of a dozen others—some good
and some ne’er-do-weels; but they differ from animals and vegetables
inasmuch as they not only increase in a geometrical ratio, but the period
of their gestation decreases in geometrical ratio also. Take this matter
of Alpine roads for example. For how many millions of years was there no
approach to a road over the St. Gothard, save the untutored watercourses
of the Ticino and the Reuss, and the track of the bouquetin or the
chamois? For how many more ages after this was there not a mere
shepherd’s or huntsman’s path by the river side—without so much as a log
thrown over so as to form a rude bridge? No one would probably have ever
thought of making a bridge out of his own unaided imagination, more than
any monkey that we know of has done so. But an avalanche or a flood once
swept a pine into position and left it there; on this a genius, who was
doubtless thought to be doing something very infamous, ventured to make
use of it. Another time a pine was found nearly across the stream, but
not quite, and not quite, again, in the place where it was wanted. A
second genius, to the horror of his fellow-tribesmen—who declared that
this time the world really would come to an end—shifted the pine a few
feet so as to bring it across the stream and into the place where it was
wanted. This man was the inventor of bridges—his family repudiated him,
and he came to a bad end. From this to cutting down the pine and
bringing it from some distance is an easy step. To avoid detail, let us
come to the old Roman horse road over the Alps. The time between the
shepherd’s path and the Roman road is probably short in comparison with
that between the mere chamois track and the first thing that can be
called a path of men. From the Roman we go on to the mediæval road with
more frequent stone bridges, and from the mediæval to the Napoleonic
carriage road.
The close of the last century and the first quarter of this present one
was the great era for the making of carriage roads. Fifty years have
hardly passed and here we are already in the age of tunnelling and
railroads. The first period, from the chamois track to the foot road,
was one of millions of years; the second, from the first foot road to the
Roman military way, was one of many thousands; the third, from the Roman
to the mediæval, was perhaps a thousand; from the mediæval to the
Napoleonic, five hundred; from the Napoleonic to the railroad, fifty.
What will come next we know not, but it should come within twenty years,
and will probably have something to do with electricity.
It follows by an easy process of reasoning that, after another couple of
hundred years or so, great sweeping changes should be made several times
in an hour, or indeed in a second, or fraction of a second, till they
pass unnoticed as the revolutions we undergo in the embryonic stages, or
are felt simply as vibrations. This would undoubtedly be the case but
for the existence of a friction which interferes between theory and
practice. This friction is caused partly by the disturbance of vested
interests which every invention involves, and which will be found
intolerable when men become millionaires and paupers alternately once a
fortnight—living one week in a palace and the next in a workhouse, and
having perpetually to be sold up, and then to buy a new house and
refurnish, &c.—so that artificial means for stopping inventions will be
adopted; and partly by the fact that though all inventions breed in
geometrical ratio, yet some multiply more rapidly than others, and the
backwardness of one art will impede the forwardness of another. At any
rate, so far as I can see, the present is about the only comfortable time
for a man to live in, that either ever has been or ever will be. The
past was too slow, and the future will be much too fast.
Another thing which we do not bear in mind when thinking of the Alps is
their narrowness, and the small extent of ground they really cover. From
Göschenen, for example, to Airolo seems a very long distance. One must
go up to the Devil’s Bridge, and then to Andermatt. From here by
Hospenthal to the top of the pass seems a long way, and again it is a
long way down to Airolo; but all this would easily go on to the ground
between Kensington and Stratford. From Göschenen to Andermatt is about
as far as from Holland House to Hyde Park Corner. From Andermatt to
Hospenthal is much the same distance as from Hyde Park Corner to the
Oxford Street end of Tottenham Court Road. From Hospenthal to the
hospice on the top of the pass is about equal to the space between
Tottenham Court Road and Bow; and from Bow you must go down three
thousand feet of zig-zags into Stratford, for Airolo. I have made the
deviation from the straight line about the same in one case as in the
other; in each, the direct distance is nine and a half miles. The whole
distance from Flüelen, on the Lake of Lucerne, to Biasca, which is almost
on the same level with the Lago Maggiore, is only forty miles, and could
be all got in between London and Lewes, while from Lucerne to Locarno,
actually on the Lago Maggiore itself, would go, with a good large margin
to spare, between London and Dover. We can hardly fancy, however, people
going backwards and forwards to business daily between Flüelen and
Biasca, as some doubtless do between London and Lewes.
But how small all Europe is. We seem almost able to take it in at a
single _coup d’œil_. From Mont Blanc we can see the mountains on the
Paris side of Dijon on the one hand, and those above Florence and Bologna
on the other. What a hole would not be made in Europe if this great
eyeful were scooped out of it.
The fact is (but it is so obvious that I am ashamed to say anything about
it), science is rapidly reducing space to the same unsatisfactory state
that it has already reduced time. Take lamb: we can get lamb all the
year round. This is perpetual spring; but perpetual spring is no spring
at all; it is not a season; there are no more seasons, and being no
seasons, there is no time. Take rhubarb, again. Rhubarb to the
philosopher is the beginning of autumn, if indeed, the philosopher can
see anything as the beginning of anything. If any one asks why, I
suppose the philosopher would say that rhubarb is the beginning of the
fruit season, which is clearly autumnal, according to our present
classification. From rhubarb to the green gooseberry the step is so
small as to require no bridging—with one’s eyes shut, and plenty of cream
and sugar, they are almost indistinguishable—but the gooseberry is quite
an autumnal fruit, and only a little earlier than apples and plums, which
last are almost winter; clearly, therefore, for scientific purposes
rhubarb is autumnal.
As soon as we can find gradations, or a sufficient number of uniting
links between two things, they become united or made one thing, and any
classification of them must be illusory. Classification is only possible
where there is a shock given to the senses by reason of a perceived
difference, which, if it is considerable, can be expressed in words.
When the world was younger and less experienced, people were shocked at
what appeared great differences between living forms; but species,
whether of animals or plants, are now seen to be so united, either
inferentially or by actual finding of the links, that all classification
is felt to be arbitrary. The seasons are like species—they were at one
time thought to be clearly marked, and capable of being classified with
some approach to satisfaction. It is now seen that they blend either in
the present or the past insensibly into one another, and cannot be
classified except by cutting Gordian knots in a way which none but plain
sensible people can tolerate. Strictly speaking, there is only one
place, one time, one action, and one individual or thing; of this thing
or individual each one of us is a part. It is perplexing, but it is
philosophy; and modern philosophy like modern music is nothing if it is
not perplexing.
A simple verification of the autumnal character of rhubarb may, at first
sight, appear to be found in Covent Garden Market, where we can actually
see the rhubarb towards the end of October. But this way of looking at
the matter argues a fatal ineptitude for the pursuit of true philosophy.
It would be a most serious error to regard the rhubarb that will appear
in Covent Garden Market next October as belonging to the autumn then
supposed to be current. Practically, no doubt, it does so, but
theoretically it must be considered as the first-fruits of the autumn (if
any) of the following year, which begins before the preceding summer (or,
perhaps, more strictly, the preceding summer but one—and hence, but any
number), has well ended. Whether this, however, is so or no, the rhubarb
can be seen in Covent Garden, and I am afraid it must be admitted that to
the philosophically minded there lurks within it a theory of evolution,
and even Pantheism, as surely as Theism was lurking in Bishop Berkeley’s
tar water.
[Picture: Calonico Church, No. 1]
To return, however, to Calonico. The church is built on the extreme edge
of a cliff that has been formed by the breaking away of a large fragment
of the mountain. This fragment may be seen lying down below shattered
into countless pieces. There is a fissure in the cliff which suggests
that at no very distant day some more will follow, and I am afraid carry
the church too. My favourite view of the church is from the other side
of the small valley which separates it from the village, (see preceding
page). Another very good view is from closer up to the church.
[Picture: Calonico Church, No. 2]
The _curato_ of Calonico was very kind to me. We had long talks
together. I could see it pained him that was not a Catholic. He could
never quite get over this, but he was very good and tolerant. He was
anxious to be assured that I was not one of those English who went about
distributing tracts, and trying to convert people. This of course was
the last thing I should have wished to do; and when I told him so, he
viewed me with sorrow, but henceforth without alarm.
All the time I was with him I felt how much I wished could be a Catholic
in Catholic countries, and a Protestant in Protestant ones. Surely there
are some things which, like politics, are too serious to be taken quite
seriously. _Surtout point de zèle_ is not the saying of a cynic, but the
conclusion of a sensible man; and the more deep our feeling is about any
matter, the more occasion have we to be on our guard against _zèle_ in
this particular respect. There is but one step from the “earnest” to the
“intense.” When St. Paul told us to be all things to all men he let in
the thin end of the wedge, nor did he mark it to say how far it was to be
driven.
I have Italian friends whom I greatly value, and who tell me they think I
flirt just a trifle too much with _il partito nero_ when I am in Italy,
for they know that in the main I think as they do. “These people,” they
say, “make themselves very agreeable to you, and show you their smooth
side; we, who see more of them, know their rough one. Knuckle under to
them, and they will perhaps condescend to patronise you; have any
individuality of your own, and they know neither scruple nor remorse in
their attempts to get you out of their way. “Il prete,” they say, with a
significant look, “è sempre prete. For the future let us have professors
and men of science instead of priests.” I smile to myself at this last,
and reply, that I am a foreigner come among them for recreation, and
anxious to keep clear of their internal discords. I do not wish to cut
myself off from one side of their national character—a side which, in
some respects, is no less interesting than the one with which I suppose I
am on the whole more sympathetic. If I were an Italian, I should feel
bound to take a side; as it is, I wish to leave all quarrelling behind
me, having as much of that in England as suffices to keep me in good
health and temper.
In old times people gave their spiritual and intellectual sop to Nemesis.
Even when most positive, they admitted a percentage of doubt. Mr.
Tennyson has said well, “There lives more doubt”—I quote from memory—“in
honest faith, believe me, than in half the” systems of philosophy, or
words to that effect. The victor had a slave at his ear during his
triumph; the slaves during the Roman Saturnalia dressed in their masters’
clothes, sat at meat with them, told them of their faults, and blacked
their faces for them. They made their masters wait upon them. In the
ages of faith, an ass dressed in sacerdotal robes was gravely conducted
to the cathedral choir at a certain season, and mass was said before him,
and hymns chanted discordantly. The elder D’Israeli, from whom I am
quoting, writes: “On other occasions, they put burnt old shoes to fume in
the censers; ran about the church leaping, singing, dancing, and playing
at dice upon the altar, while a _boy bishop_ or _pope of fools_
burlesqued the divine service;” and later on he says: “So late as 1645, a
pupil of Gassendi, writing to his master what he himself witnessed at Aix
on the feast of Innocents, says—‘I have seen in some monasteries in this
province extravagances solemnised, which pagans would not have practised.
Neither the clergy nor the guardians indeed go to the choir on this day,
but all is given up to the lay brethren, the cabbage cutters, errand
boys, cooks, scullions, and gardeners; in a word, all the menials fill
their places in the church, and insist that they perform the offices
proper for the day. They dress themselves with all the sacerdotal
ornaments, but torn to rags, or wear them inside out; they hold in their
hands the books reversed or sideways, which they pretend to read with
large spectacles without glasses, and to which they fix the rinds of
scooped oranges . . . ; particularly while dangling the censers they keep
shaking them in derision, and letting the ashes fly about their heads and
faces, one against the other. In this equipage they neither sing hymns
nor psalms nor masses, but mumble a certain gibberish as shrill and
squeaking as a herd of pigs whipped on to market. The nonsense verses
they chant are singularly barbarous:—
Hæc est clara dies, clararum clara dierum,
Hæc est festa dies festarum festa dierum.’” {68}
Faith was far more assured in the times when the spiritual saturnalia
were allowed than now. The irreverence which was not dangerous then, is
now intolerable. It is a bad sign for a man’s peace in his own
convictions when he cannot stand turning the canvas of his life
occasionally upside down, or reversing it in a mirror, as painters do
with their pictures that they may judge the better concerning them. I
would persuade all Jews, Mohammedans, Comtists, and freethinkers to turn
high Anglicans, or better still, downright Catholics for a week in every
year, and I would send people like Mr. Gladstone to attend Mr.
Bradlaugh’s lectures in the forenoon, and the Grecian pantomime in the
evening, two or three times every winter. I should perhaps tell them
that the Grecian pantomime has nothing to do with Greek plays. They
little know how much more keenly they would relish their normal opinions
during the rest of the year for the little spiritual outing which I would
prescribe for them, which, after all, is but another phase of the wise
saying—_Surtout point de zèle_. St. Paul attempted an obviously hopeless
task (as the Church of Rome very well understands) when he tried to put
down seasonarianism. People must and will go to church to be a little
better, to the theatre to be a little naughtier, to the Royal Institution
to be a little more scientific, than they are in actual life. It is only
by pulsations of goodness, naughtiness, and whatever else we affect that
we can get on at all. I grant that when in his office, a man should be
exact and precise, but our holidays are our garden, and too much
precision here is a mistake.
Surely truces, without even an _arrière pensée_ of difference of opinion,
between those who are compelled to take widely different sides during the
greater part of their lives, must be of infinite service to those who can
enter on them. There are few merely spiritual pleasures comparable to
that derived from the temporary laying down of a quarrel, even though we
may know that it must be renewed shortly. It is a great grief to me that
there is no place where I can go among Mr. Darwin, Professors Huxley,
Tyndall, and Ray Lankester, Miss Buckley, Mr. Romanes, Mr. Allen, and
others whom I cannot call to mind at this moment, as I can go among the
Italian priests. I remember in one monastery (but this was not in the
Canton Ticino) the novice taught me how to make sacramental wafers, and I
played him Handel on the organ as well as I could. I told him that
Handel was a Catholic; he said he could tell that by his music at once.
There is no chance of getting among our scientists in this way.
Some friends say I was telling a lie when I told the novice Handel was a
Catholic, and ought not to have done so. I make it a rule to swallow a
few gnats a day, lest I should come to strain at them, and so bolt
camels; but the whole question of lying is difficult. What _is_ “lying”?
Turning for moral guidance to my cousins the lower animals, whose
unsophisticated nature proclaims what God has taught them with a
directness we may sometimes study, I find the plover lying when she lures
us from her young ones under the fiction of a broken wing. Is God angry,
think you, with this pretty deviation from the letter of strict accuracy?
or was it not He who whispered to her to tell the falsehood—to tell it
with a circumstance, without conscientious scruple, not once only, but to
make a practice of it, so as to be a plausible, habitual, and
professional liar for some six weeks or so in the year? I imagine so.
When I was young I used to read in good books that it was God who taught
the bird to make her nest, and if so He probably taught each species the
other domestic arrangements best suited to it. Or did the nest-building
information come from God, and was there an evil one among the birds also
who taught them at any rate to steer clear of priggishness?
Think of the spider again—an ugly creature, but I suppose God likes it.
What a mean and odious lie is that web which naturalists extol as such a
marvel of ingenuity!
Once on a summer afternoon in a far country I met one of those orchids
who make it their business to imitate a fly with their petals. This lie
they dispose so cunningly that real flies, thinking the honey is being
already plundered, pass them without molesting them. Watching intently
and keeping very still, methought I heard this orchid speaking to the
offspring which she felt within her, though I saw them not. “My
children,” she exclaimed, “I must soon leave you; think upon the fly, my
loved ones, for this is truth; cling to this great thought in your
passage through life, for it is the one thing needful; once lose sight of
it and you are lost!” Over and over again she sang this burden in a
small still voice, and so I left her. Then straightway I came upon some
butterflies whose profession it was to pretend to believe in all manner
of vital truths which in their inner practice they rejected; thus,
asserting themselves to be certain other and hateful butterflies which no
bird will eat by reason of their abominable smell, these cunning ones
conceal their own sweetness, and live long in the land and see good days.
No: lying is so deeply rooted in nature that we may expel it with a fork,
and yet it will always come back again: it is like the poor, we must have
it always with us; we must all eat a peck of moral dirt before we die.
All depends upon who it is that is lying. One man may steal a horse when
another may not look over a hedge. The good man who tells no lies
wittingly to himself and is never unkindly, may lie and lie and lie
whenever he chooses to other people, and he will not be false to any man:
his lies become truths as they pass into the hearers’ ear. If a man
deceives himself and is unkind, the truth is not in him, it turns to
falsehood while yet in his mouth, like the quails in the Wilderness of
Sinai. How this is so or why, I know not, but that the Lord hath mercy
on whom He will have mercy and whom He willeth He hardeneth.
My Italian friends are doubtless in the main right about the priests, but
there are many exceptions, as they themselves gladly admit. For my own
part I have found the _curato_ in the small subalpine villages of North
Italy to be more often than not a kindly excellent man to whom I am
attracted by sympathies deeper than any mere superficial differences of
opinion can counteract. With monks, however, as a general rule I am less
able to get on: nevertheless, I have received much courtesy at the hands
of some.
My young friend the novice was delightful—only it was so sad to think of
the future that is before him. He wanted to know all about England, and
when I told him it was an island, clasped his hands and said, “Oh che
Provvidenza!” He told me how the other young men of his own age plagued
him as he trudged his rounds high up among the most distant hamlets
begging alms for the poor. “Be a good fellow,” they would say to him,
“drop all this nonsense and come back to us, and we will never plague you
again.” Then he would turn upon them and put their words from him. Of
course my sympathies were with the other young men rather than with him,
but it was impossible not to be sorry for the manner in which he had been
humbugged from the day of his birth, till he was now incapable of seeing
things from any other standpoint than that of authority.
What he said to me about knowing that Handel was a Catholic by his music,
put me in mind of what another good Catholic once said to me about a
picture. He was a Frenchman and very nice, but a _dévot_, and anxious to
convert me. He paid a few days’ visit to London, so I showed him the
National Gallery. While there I pointed out to him Sebastian del
Piombo’s picture of the raising of Lazarus as one of the supposed
masterpieces of our collection. He had the proper orthodox fit of
admiration over it, and then we went through the other rooms. After a
while we found ourselves before West’s picture of “Christ healing the
sick.” My French friend did not, I suppose, examine it very carefully,
at any rate he believed he was again before the raising of Lazarus by
Sebastian del Piombo; he paused before it and had his fit of admiration
over again: then turning to me he said, “Ah! you would understand this
picture better if you were a Catholic.” I did not tell him of the
mistake he had made, but I thought even a Protestant after a certain
amount of experience would learn to see some difference between Benjamin
West and Sebastian del Piombo.
From Calonico I went down into the main road and walked to Giornico,
taking the right bank of the river from the bridge at the top of the
Biaschina. Not a sod of the railway was as yet turned. At Giornico I
visited the grand old church of S. Nicolao, which, though a later
foundation than the church at Mairengo, retains its original condition,
and appears, therefore, to be much the older of the two. The stones are
very massive, and the courses are here and there irregular as in
Cyclopean walls; the end wall is not bonded into the side walls but
simply built between them; the main door is very fine, and there is a
side door also very good. There are two altars one above the other, as
in the churches of S. Abbondio and S. Cristoforo at Como, but I could not
make the lower altar intelligible in my sketch, and indeed could hardly
see it, so was obliged to leave it out. The remains of some very early
frescoes can be seen, but I did not think them remarkable. Altogether,
however, the church is one which no one should miss seeing who takes an
interest in early architecture.
[Picture: Main Doorway, S. Nicolao] While painting the study from which
the following sketch is taken, I was struck with the wonderfully vivid
green which the whitewashed vault of the chancel and the arch dividing
the chancel from the body of the church took by way of reflection from
the grass and trees outside. It is not easy at first to see how the
green manages to find its way inside the church, but the grass seems to
get in everywhere. I had already often seen green reflected from
brilliant pasturage on to the shadow under the eaves of whitewashed
houses, but I never saw it suffuse a whole interior as it does on a fine
summer’s day at Giornico. I do not remember to have seen this effect in
England.
[Picture: Interior of Old Church, Giornico]
Looking up again against the mountain through the open door of the church
when the sun was in a certain position, I could see an infinity of insect
life swarming throughout the air. No one could have suspected its
existence, till the sun’s rays fell on the wings of these small creatures
at a proper angle; on this they became revealed against the darkness of
the mountain behind them. The swallows that were flying among them
cannot have to hunt them, they need only fly with their mouths wide open
and they must run against as many as will be good for them. I saw this
incredibly multitudinous swarm extending to a great height, and am
satisfied that it was no more than what is always present during the
summer months, though it is only visible in certain lights. To these
minute creatures the space between the mountains on the two sides of the
Ticino valley must be as great as that between England and America to a
codfish. Many, doubtless, live in the mid-air, and never touch the
bottom or sides of the valley, except at birth and death, if then. No
doubt some atmospheric effects of haze on a summer’s afternoon are due to
nothing but these insects. What, again, do the smaller of them live
upon? On germs, which to them are comfortable mouthfuls, though to us
invisible even with a microscope?
I find nothing more in my notes about Giornico except that the people are
very handsome, and, as I thought, of a Roman type. The place was a Roman
military station, but it does not follow that the soldiers were Romans;
nevertheless, there is a strain of bullet-headed blood in the place.
Also I remember being told in 1869 that two bears had been killed in the
mountains above Giornico the preceding year. At Giornico the vine begins
to grow lustily, and wine is made. The vines are trellised, and looking
down upon them one would think one could walk upon them as upon a solid
surface, so closely and luxuriantly do they grow.
From Giornico I began to turn my steps homeward in company with an
engineer who was also about to walk back to Faido, but we resolved to
take Chironico on our way, and kept therefore to the right bank of the
river. After about three or four kilometres from Giornico we reached
Chironico, which is well placed upon a filled-up lake and envied as a
_paese ricco_, but is not so captivating as some others. Hence we
ascended till at last we reached Gribbio (3960 ft.), a collection of
chalets inhabited only for a short time in the year, but a nice place in
summer, rich in gentians and sulphur-coloured anemones. From Gribbio
there is a path to Dalpe, offering no difficulty whatever and perfect in
its way. On this occasion, however, we went straight back to Faido by a
rather shorter way than the ordinary path, and this certainly was a
little difficult, or as my companion called it, “un tantino
difficoltoso,” in one or two places; I at least did not quite like them.
Another day I went to Lavorgo, below Calonico, and thence up to Anzonico.
The church and churchyard at Anzonico are very good; from Anzonico there
is a path to Cavagnago—which is also full of good bits for sketching—and
Sobrio. The highest villages in the immediate neighbourhood of Faido are
Campello and Molare; they can be seen from the market-place of the town,
and are well worth the trouble of a climb.
Chapter VI
Piora
AN excursion which may be very well made from Faido is to the Val Piora,
which I have already more than once mentioned. There is a large hotel
here which has been opened some years, but has not hitherto proved the
success which it was hoped it would be. I have stayed there two or three
times and found it very comfortable; doubtless, now that Signor Lombardi
of the Hotel Prosa has taken it, it will become a more popular place of
resort.
I took a trap from Faido to Ambri, and thence walked over to Quinto; here
the path begins to ascend, and after an hour Ronco is reached. There is
a house at Ronco where refreshments and excellent Faido beer can be had.
The old lady who keeps the house would make a perfect Fate; I saw her
sitting at her window spinning, and looking down over the Ticino valley
as though it were the world and she were spinning its destiny. She had a
somewhat stern expression, thin lips, iron-grey eyes, and an aquiline
nose; her scanty locks straggled from under the handkerchief which she
wore round her head. Her employment and the wistful far-away look she
cast upon the expanse below made a very fine _ensemble_. “She would have
afforded,” as Sir Walter Scott says, “a study for a Rembrandt, had that
celebrated painter existed at the period,” {78} but she must have been a
smart-looking handsome girl once.
She brightened up in conversation. I talked about Piora, which I already
knew, and the Lago Tom, the highest of the three lakes. She said she
knew the Lago Tom. I said laughingly, “Oh, I have no doubt you do.
We’ve had many a good day at the Lago Tom, I know.” She looked down at
once.
In spite of her nearly eighty years she was active as a woman of forty,
and altogether she was a very grand old lady. Her house is scrupulously
clean. While I watched her spinning, I thought of what must so often
occur to summer visitors. I mean what sort of a look-out the old woman
must have in winter, when the wind roars and whistles, and the snow
drives down the valley with a fury of which we in England can have little
conception. What a place to see a snowstorm from! and what a place from
which to survey the landscape next morning after the storm is over and
the air is calm and brilliant. There are such mornings: I saw one once,
but I was at the bottom of the valley and not high up, as at Ronco.
Ronco would take a little sun even in midwinter, but at the bottom of the
valley there is no sun for weeks and weeks together; all is in deep
shadow below, though the upper hillsides may be seen to have the sun upon
them. I walked once on a frosty winter’s morning from Airolo to
Giornico, and can call to mind nothing in its way more beautiful:
everything was locked in frost—there was not a waterwheel but was sheeted
and coated with ice: the road was hard as granite—all was quiet and seen
as through a dark but incredibly transparent medium. Near Piotta I met
the whole village dragging a large tree; there were many men and women
dragging at it, but they had to pull hard and they were silent; as I
passed them I thought what comely, well-begotten people they were. Then,
looking up, there was a sky, cloudless and of the deepest blue, against
which the snow-clad mountains stood out splendidly. No one will regret a
walk in these valleys during the depth of winter. But I should have
liked to have looked down from the sun into the sunlessness, as the old
Fate woman at Ronco can do when she sits in winter at her window; or
again, I should like to see how things would look from this same window
on a leaden morning in midwinter after snow has fallen heavily and the
sky is murky and much darker than the earth. When the storm is at its
height, the snow must search and search and search even through the
double windows with which the houses are protected. It must rest upon
the frames of the pictures of saints, and of the sister’s “grab,” and of
the last hours of Count Ugolino, which adorn the walls of the parlour.
No wonder there is a S. Maria della Neve—a “St. Mary of the Snow”; but I
do wonder that she has not been painted.
From Ronco the path keeps level and then descends a little so as to cross
the stream that comes down from Piora. This is near the village of
Altanca, the church of which looks remarkably well from here. Then there
is an hour and a half’s rapid ascent, and at last all on a sudden one
finds one’s self on the Lago Ritom, close to the hotel.
The lake is about a mile, or a mile and a half, long, and half a mile
broad. It is 6000 feet above the sea, very deep at the lower end, and
does not freeze where the stream issues from it, so that the magnificent
trout in the lake can get air and live through the winter. In many other
lakes, as for example the Lago di Tremorgio, they cannot do this, and
hence perish, though the lakes have been repeatedly stocked. The trout
in the Lago Ritom are said to be the finest in the world, and certainly I
know none so fine myself. They grow to be as large as moderate-sized
salmon, and have a deep red flesh, very firm and full of flavour. I had
two cutlets off one for breakfast and should have said they were salmon
unless I had known otherwise. In winter, when the lake is frozen over,
the people bring their hay from the farther Lake of Cadagno in sledges
across the Lake Ritom. Here, again, winter must be worth seeing, but on
a rough snowy day Piora must be an awful place. There are a few stunted
pines near the hotel, but the hillsides are for the most part bare and
green. Piora in fact is a fine breezy open upland valley of singular
beauty, and with a sweet atmosphere of cow about it; it is rich in
rhododendrons, and all manner of Alpine flowers, just a trifle bleak, but
as bracing as the Engadine itself.
The first night I was ever in Piora there was a brilliant moon, and the
unruffled surface of the lake took the reflection of the mountains. I
could see the cattle a mile off, and hear the tinkling of their bells
which danced multitudinously before the ear as fireflies come and go
before the eyes; for all through a fine summer’s night the cattle will
feed as though it were day. A little above the lake I came upon a man in
a cave before a furnace, burning lime, and he sat looking into the fire
with his back to the moonlight. He was a quiet moody man, and I am
afraid I bored him, for I could get hardly anything out of him but “Oh
altro”—polite but not communicative. So after a while I left him with
his face burnished as with gold from the fire, and his back silver with
the moonbeams; behind him were the pastures and the reflections in the
lake and the mountains; and the distant cowbells were ringing.
[Picture: Chapel of S. Carlo, Piora]
Then I wandered on till I came to the chapel of S. Carlo; and in a few
minutes found myself on the Lago di Cadagno. Here I heard that there
were people, and the people were not so much asleep as the simple
peasantry of these upland valleys are expected to be by nine o’clock in
the evening. For now was the time when they had moved up from Ronco,
Altanca, and other villages in some numbers to cut the hay, and were
living for a fortnight or three weeks in the chalets upon the Lago di
Cadagno. As I have said, there is a chapel, but I doubt whether it is
attended during this season with the regularity with which the parish
churches of Ronco, Altanca, &c., are attended during the rest of the
year. The young people, I am sure, like these annual visits to the high
places, and will be hardly weaned from them. Happily the hay will be
always there, and will have to be cut by some one, and the old people
will send the young ones.
As I was thinking of these things, I found myself going off into a doze,
and thought the burnished man from the furnace came up and sat beside me,
and laid his hand upon my shoulder. Then I saw the green slopes that
rise all round the lake were much higher than I had thought; they went up
thousands of feet, and there were pine forests upon them, while two large
glaciers came down in streams that ended in a precipice of ice, falling
sheer into the lake. The edges of the mountains against the sky were
rugged and full of clefts, through which I saw thick clouds of dust being
blown by the wind as though from the other side of the mountains.
And as I looked, I saw that this was not dust, but people coming in
crowds from the other side, but so small as to be visible at first only
as dust. And the people became musicians, and the mountainous
amphitheatre a huge orchestra, and the glaciers were two noble armies of
women-singers in white robes, ranged tier above tier behind each other,
and the pines became orchestral players, while the thick dust-like cloud
of chorus-singers kept pouring in through the clefts in the precipices in
inconceivable numbers. When I turned my telescope upon them I saw they
were crowded up to the extreme edge of the mountains, so that I could see
underneath the soles of their boots as their legs dangled in the air. In
the midst of all, a precipice that rose from out of the glaciers shaped
itself suddenly into an organ, and there was one whose face I well knew
sitting at the keyboard, smiling and pluming himself like a bird as he
thundered forth a giant fugue by way of overture. I heard the great
pedal notes in the bass stalk majestically up and down, like the rays of
the Aurora that go about upon the face of the heavens off the coast of
Labrador. Then presently the people rose and sang the chorus “Venus
laughing from the skies;” but ere the sound had well died away, I awoke,
and all was changed; a light fleecy cloud had filled the whole basin, but
I still thought I heard a sound of music, and a scampering-off of great
crowds from the part where the precipices should be. The music went
thus:—{83}
[Picture: Score of Handel’s third set of organ concertos, No. 6]
By and by the cantering, galloping movement became a trotting one, thus:—
[Picture: Score of Handel’s third set of organ concertos, No. 6]
After that I heard no more but a little singing from the chalets, and
turned homewards. When I got to the chapel of S. Carlo, I was in the
moonlight again, and when near the hotel, I passed the man at the mouth
of the furnace with the moon still gleaming upon his back, and the fire
upon his face, and he was very grave and quiet.
Next morning I went along the lake till I came to a good-sized streamlet
on the north side. If this is followed for half-an-hour or so—and the
walk is a very good one—Lake Tom is reached, about 7500 feet above the
sea. The lake is not large, and there are not so many chalets as at
Cadagno; still there are some. The view of the mountain tops on the
other side the Ticino valley, as seen from across the lake, is very fine.
I tried to sketch, but was fairly driven back by a cloud of black gnats.
The ridges immediately at the back of the lake, and no great height above
it, are the main dividing line of the watershed; so are those that rise
from the Lago di Cadagno; in fact, about 600 feet above this lake is the
top of a pass which goes through the Piano dei Porci, and leads down to
S. Maria Maggiore, on the German side of the Lukmanier. I do not know
the short piece between the Lago di Cadagno and S. Maria, but it is sure
to be good. It is a pity there is no place at S. Maria where one can put
up for a night or two. There is a small inn there, but it did not look
tempting.
Before leaving the Val Leventina, I would call attention to the beautiful
old parish church at Biasca, where there is now an excellent inn, the
Hotel Biasca. This church is not so old as the one at Giornico, but it
is a good though plain example of early Lombard architecture.
Chapter VII
S. Michele and the Monte Pirchiriano
[Picture: S. Michele and the Monte Pirchiriano]
[Picture: S. Michele] SOME time after the traveller from Paris to Turin
has passed through the Mont Cenis tunnel, and shortly before he arrives
at Bussoleno station, the line turns eastward, and a view is obtained of
the valley of the Dora, with the hills beyond Turin, and the Superga, in
the distance. On the right-hand side of the valley and about half-way
between Susa and Turin the eye is struck by an abruptly-descending
mountain with a large building like a castle upon the top of it, and the
nearer it is approached the more imposing does it prove to be. Presently
the mountain is seen more edgeways, and the shape changes. In
half-an-hour or so from this point, S. Ambrogio is reached, once a
thriving town, where carriages used to break the journey between Turin
and Susa, but left stranded since the opening of the railway. Here we
are at the very foot of the Monte Pirchiriano, for so the mountain is
called, and can see the front of the building—which is none other than
the famous sanctuary of S. Michele, commonly called “della Chiusa,” from
the wall built here by Desiderius, king of the Lombards, to protect his
kingdom from Charlemagne.
The history of the sanctuary is briefly as follows:—
At the close of the tenth century, when Otho III was Emperor of Germany,
a certain Hugh de Montboissier, a noble of Auvergne, commonly called
“Hugh the Unsewn” (_lo sdruscito_), was commanded by the Pope to found a
monastery in expiation of some grave offence. He chose for his site the
summit of the Monte Pirchiriano in the valley of Susa, being attracted
partly by the fame of a church already built there by a recluse of
Ravenna, Giovanni Vincenzo by name, and partly by the striking nature of
the situation. Hugh de Montboissier when returning from Rome to France
with Isengarde his wife, would, as a matter of course, pass through the
valley of Susa. The two—perhaps when stopping to dine at S.
Ambrogio—would look up and observe the church founded by Giovanni
Vincenzo: they had got to build a monastery somewhere; it would very
likely, therefore, occur to them that they could not perpetuate their
names better than by choosing this site, which was on a much travelled
road, and on which a fine building would show to advantage. If my view
is correct, we have here an illustration of a fact which is continually
observable—namely, that all things which come to much, whether they be
books, buildings, pictures, music, or living beings, are suggested by
others of their own kind. It is; always the most successful, like Handel
and Shakespeare, who owe most to their forerunners, in spite of the
modifications with which their works descend.
Giovanni Vincenzo had built his church about the year 987. It is
maintained by some that he had been Bishop of Ravenna, but Claretta gives
sufficient reason for thinking otherwise. In the “Cronaca Clusina” it is
said that he had for some years previously lived as a recluse on the
Monte Caprasio, to the north of the present Monte Pirchiriano; but that
one night he had a vision, in which he saw the summit of Monte
Pirchiriano enveloped in heaven-descended flames, and on this founded a
church there, and dedicated it to St. Michael. This is the origin of the
name Pirchiriano, which means _πῦρ κυρίανον_, or the Lord’s fire.
The fame of the heavenly flames and the piety of pilgrims brought in
enough money to complete the building—which, to judge from the remains of
it embodied in the later work, must have been small, but still a church,
and more than a mere chapel or oratory. It was, as I have already
suggested, probably imposing enough to fire the imagination of Hugh de
Montboissier, and make him feel the capabilities of the situation, which
a mere ordinary wayside chapel might perhaps have failed to do. Having
built his church, Giovanni Vincenzo returned to his solitude on the top
of Monte Caprasio, and thenceforth went backwards and forwards from one
place of abode to the other.
Avogadro is among those who make Giovanni Bishop, or rather Archbishop,
of Ravenna, and gives the following account of the circumstances which
led to his resigning his diocese and going to live at the top of the
inhospitable Monte Caprasio. It seems there had been a confirmation at
Ravenna, during which he had accidentally forgotten to confirm the child
of a certain widow. The child, being in weakly health, died before
Giovanni could repair his oversight, and this preyed upon his mind. In
answer, however, to his earnest prayers, it pleased the Almighty to give
him power to raise the dead child to life again: this he did, and having
immediately performed the rite of confirmation, restored the boy to his
overjoyed mother. He now became so much revered that he began to be
alarmed lest pride should obtain dominion over him; he felt, therefore,
that his only course was to resign his diocese, and go and live the life
of a recluse on the top of some high mountain. It is said that he
suffered agonies of doubt as to whether it was not selfish of him to take
such care of his own eternal welfare, at the expense of that of his
flock, whom no successor could so well guide and guard from evil; but in
the end he took a reasonable view of the matter, and concluded that his
first duty was to secure his own spiritual position. Nothing short of
the top of a very uncomfortable mountain could do this, so he at once
resigned his bishopric and chose Monte Caprasio as on the whole the most
comfortable uncomfortable mountain he could find.
The latter part of the story will seem strange to Englishmen. We can
hardly fancy the Archbishop of Canterbury or York resigning his diocese
and settling down quietly on the top of Scafell or Cader Idris to secure
his eternal welfare. They would hardly do so even on the top of Primrose
Hill. But nine hundred years ago human nature was not the same as
nowadays.
The valley of Susa, then little else than marsh and forest, was held by a
marquis of the name of Arduin, a descendant of a French or Norman
adventurer Roger, who, with a brother, also named Arduin, had come to
seek his fortune in Italy at the beginning of the tenth century. Roger
had a son, Arduin Glabrio, who recovered the valley of Susa from the
Saracens, and established himself at Susa, at the junction of the roads
that come down from Mont Cenis and the Mont Genèvre. He built a castle
here which commanded the valley, and was his base of operations as Lord
of the Marches and Warden of the Alps.
Hugh de Montboissier applied to Arduin for leave to build upon the Monte
Pirchiriano. Arduin was then holding his court at Avigliana, a small
town near S. Ambrogio, even now singularly little altered, and full of
mediæval remains; he not only gave his consent, but volunteered to sell a
site to the monastery, so as to ensure it against future disturbance.
The first church of Giovanni Vincenzo had been built upon whatever little
space could be found upon the top of the mountain, without, so far as I
can gather, enlarging the ground artificially. The present church—the
one, that is to say, built by Hugh de Montboissier about A.D. 1000—rests
almost entirely upon stone piers and masonry. The rock has been masked
by a lofty granite wall of several feet in thickness, which presents
something of a keep-like appearance. The spectator naturally imagines
that there are rooms, &c., behind this wall, whereas in point of fact
there is nothing but the staircase leading up to the floor of the church.
Arches spring from this masking wall, and are continued thence until the
rock is reached; it is on the level surface thus obtained that the church
rests. The true floor, therefore, does not begin till near what appears
from the outside to be the top of the building.
There is some uncertainty as to the exact date of the foundation of the
monastery, but Claretta {90} inclines decidedly to the date 999, as
against 966, the one assigned by Mabillon and Torraneo. Claretta relies
on the discovery, by Provana, of a document in the royal archives which
seems to place the matter beyond dispute. The first abbot was
undoubtedly Avverto or Arveo, who established the rules of the
Benedictine Order in his monastery. “In the seven hours of daily work
prescribed by the Benedictine rule,” writes Cesare Balbo, “innumerable
were the fields they ploughed, and the houses they built in deserts,
while in more frequented places men were laying cultivated ground waste,
and destroying buildings: innumerable, again, were the works of the holy
fathers and of ancient authors which were copied and preserved.” {91}
From this time forward the monastery received gifts in land and
privileges, and became in a few years the most important religious
establishment in that part of Italy.
There have been several fires—one, among others, in the year 1340, which
destroyed a great part of the monastery, and some of the deeds under
which it held valuable grants; but though the part inhabited by the monks
may have been rebuilt or added to, the church is certainly untouched.
Chapter VIII
S. Michele (_continued_)
I HAD often seen this wonderful pile of buildings, and had marvelled at
it, as all must do who pass from Susa to Turin, but I never went actually
up to it till last summer, in company with my friend and _collaborateur_,
Mr. H. F. Jones. We reached S. Ambrogio station one sultry evening in
July, and, before many minutes were over, were on the path that leads to
San Pietro, a little more than an hour’s walk above S. Ambrogio.
In spite of what I have said about Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, we found
ourselves thinking how thin and wanting, as it were, in adipose cushion
is every other country in comparison with Italy; but the charm is
enhanced in these days by the feeling that it can be reached so easily.
Wednesday morning, Fleet Street; Thursday evening, a path upon the quiet
mountain side, under the overspreading chestnuts, with Lombardy at one’s
feet.
Some twenty minutes after we had begun to climb, the sanctuary became
lost to sight, large drops of thunder-rain began to fall, and by the time
we reached San Pietro it was pouring heavily, and had become quite dark.
An hour or so later the sky had cleared, and there was a splendid moon:
opening the windows, we found ourselves looking over the tops of trees on
to some lovely upland pastures, on a winding path through which we could
almost fancy we saw a youth led by an angel, and there was a dog with
him, and he held a fish in his hand. Far below were lights from villages
in the valley of the Dora. Above us rose the mountains, bathed in
shadow, or glittering in the moonbeams, and there came from them the
pleasant murmuring of streamlets that had been swollen by the storm.
[Picture: S. Michele from S. Pietro]
Next morning the sky was cloudless and the air invigorating. S.
Ambrogio, at the foot of the mountain, must be some 800 feet above the
sea, and San Pietro about 1500 feet above S. Ambrogio. The sanctuary at
the top of the mountain is 2800 feet above the sea-level, or about 500
feet above San Pietro. A situation more delightful than that of San
Pietro it is impossible to conceive. It contains some 200 inhabitants,
and lies on a ledge of level land, which is, of course, covered with the
most beautifully green grass, and in spring carpeted with wild-flowers;
great broad-leaved chestnuts rise from out the meadows, and beneath their
shade are strewn masses of sober mulberry-coloured rock; but above all
these rises the great feature of the place, from which, when it is in
sight, the eyes can hardly be diverted,—I mean the sanctuary of S.
Michele itself.
A sketch gives but little idea of the place. In nature it appears as one
of those fascinating things like the smoke from Vesuvius, or the town on
the Sacro Monte at Varese, which take possession of one to the exclusion
of all else, as long as they are in sight. From each point of view it
becomes more and more striking. Climbing up to it from San Pietro and
getting at last nearly on a level with the lower parts of the building,
or again keeping to a pathway along the side of the mountain towards
Avigliana, it will come as on the following page.
[Picture: S. Michele, near view]
[Picture: S. Michele, from Path to Avigliana]
There is a very beautiful view from near the spot where the first of
these sketches is taken. We are then on the very ridge or crest of the
mountain, and look down on the one hand upon the valley of the Dora going
up to Susa, with the glaciers of the Mont Cenis in the background, and on
the other upon the plains near Turin, with the _colline_ bounding the
horizon. Immediately beneath is seen the glaring white straight line of
the old Mont Cenis road, looking much more important than the dingy
narrow little strip of railroad that has superseded it. The trains that
pass along the line look no bigger than caterpillars, but even at this
distance they make a great roar. If the path from which the second view
is taken is followed for a quarter of an hour or so, another no less
beautiful point is reached from which one can look down upon the two
small lakes of Avigliana. These lakes supply Turin with water, and, I
may add, with the best water that I know of as supplied to any town.
[Picture: Main Entrance to the Sanctuary]
We will now return to the place from which the first of the sketches on
p. 95 was taken, and proceed to the sanctuary itself. Passing the small
but very massive circular ruin shown on the right hand of the sketch,
about which nothing whatever is known either as regards its date or
object, we ascend by a gentle incline to the outer gate of the sanctuary.
The battered plates of iron that cover the wooden doors are marked with
many a bullet. Then we keep under cover for a short space, after which
we find ourselves at the foot of a long flight of steps. Close by there
is a little terrace with a wall round it, where one can stand and enjoy a
view over the valley of the Dora to Turin.
Having ascended the steps, we are at the main entrance to the building—a
massive Lombard doorway, evidently the original one. In the space above
the door there have been two frescoes, an earlier and a later one, one
painted over the other, but nothing now remains save the signature of the
second painter, signed in Gothic characters. On entering, more steps
must be at once climbed, and then the staircase turns at right angles and
tends towards the rock.
At the head of the flight shown p. 98, the natural rock appears. The
arch above it forms a recess filled with desiccated corpses. The great
pier to the left, and, indeed, all the masonry that can be seen, has no
other object than to obtain space for, and to support, the floor of the
church itself. My drawing was taken from about the level of the top of
the archway through which the building is entered. There comes in at
this point a third small staircase from behind; ascending this, one finds
one’s self in the window above the door, from the balcony of which there
is a marvellous panorama. I took advantage of the window to measure the
thickness of the walls, and found them a little over seven feet thick and
built of massive granite blocks. The stones on the inside are so sharp
and clean cut that they look as if they were not more than fifty years
old. On the outside, the granite, hard as it is, is much weathered,
which, indeed, considering the exposed situation, is hardly to be
wondered at.
[Picture: Steps Leading to the Church, No. 1]
Here again how the wind must howl and whistle, and how the snow must beat
in winter! No one who has not seen snow falling during a time when the
thermometer is about at zero can know how searching a thing it is. How
softly would it not lie upon the skulls and shoulders of the skeletons.
Fancy a dull dark January afternoon’s twilight upon this staircase, after
a heavy snow, when the soft fleece clings to the walls, having drifted in
through many an opening. Or fancy a brilliant winter’s moonlight, with
the moon falling upon the skeletons after snow. And then let there be a
burst of music from an organ in the church above (I am sorry to say they
have only a harmonium; I wish some one would give them a fine organ). I
should like the following for example:—{99}
[Picture: Score form Handel; slow movement in the fifth grand concerto]
How this would sound upon these stairs, if they would leave the
church-door open. It is said in Murray’s handbook that formerly the
corpses which are now under the arch, used to be placed in a sitting
position upon the stairs, and the peasants would crown them with flowers.
Fancy twilight or moonlight on these stairs, with the corpses sitting
among the withered flowers and snow, and the pealing of a great organ.
[Picture: Steps Leading to the Church, No. 2]
After ascending the steps that lead towards the skeletons, we turn again
sharp round to the left, and come upon another noble flight—broad and
lofty, and cut in great measure from the living rock.
At the top of this flight there are two sets of Lombard portals, both of
them very fine, but in such darkness and so placed that it was impossible
to get a drawing of them in detail. After passing through them, the
staircase turns again, and, as far as I can remember, some twenty or
thirty steps bring one up to the level of the top of the arch which forms
the recess where the corpses are. Here there is another beautiful
Lombard doorway, with a small arcade on either side which I thought
English, rather than Italian, in character. An impression was produced
upon both of us that this doorway and the arcade on either side were by a
different architect from the two lower archways, and from the inside of
the church; or at any rate, that the details of the enrichment were cut
by a different mason, or gang of masons. I think, however, the whole
doorway is in a later style, and must have been put in after some fire
had destroyed the earlier one.
Opening the door, which by day is always unlocked, we found ourselves in
the church itself. As I have said, it is of pure Lombard architecture,
and very good of its kind; I do not think it has been touched since the
beginning of the eleventh century, except that it has been re-roofed and
the pitch of the roof altered. At the base of the most westerly of the
three piers that divide the nave from the aisles, there crops out a small
piece of the living rock; this is at the end farthest from the choir. It
is not likely that Giovanni Vincenzo’s church reached east of this point,
for from this point onwards towards the choir the floor is artificially
supported, and the supporting structure is due entirely to Hugo de
Montboissier. The part of the original church which still remains is
perhaps the wall, which forms the western limit of the present church.
This wall is not external. It forms the eastern wall of a large chamber
with frescoes. I am not sure that this chamber does not occupy the whole
space of the original church.
There are a few nice votive pictures in the church, and one or two very
early frescoes, which are not without interest; but the main charm of the
place is in the architecture, and the sense at once of age and strength
which it produces. The stock things to see are the vaults in which many
of the members of the royal house of Savoy, legitimate and illegitimate,
lie buried; they need not, however, be seen.
I have said that the whole building is of much about the same date, and,
unless perhaps in the residential parts, about which I can say little,
has not been altered. This is not the view taken by the author of
Murray’s Handbook for North Italy, who says that “injudicious repairs
have marred the effect of the building;” but this writer has fallen into
several errors. He talks, for example, of the “open Lombard gallery of
small circular arches” as being “one of the oldest and most curious
features of the building,” whereas it is obviously no older than the rest
of the church, nor than the keep-like construction upon which it rests.
Again, he is clearly in error when he says that the “extremely beautiful
circular arch by which we pass from the staircase to the corridor leading
to the church, is a vestige of the original building.” The double round
arched portals through which we pass from the main staircase to the
corridor are of exactly the same date as the staircase itself, and as the
rest of the church. They certainly formed no part of Giovanni Vincenzo’s
edifice; for, besides being far too rich, they are not on a level with
what remains of that building, but several feet below it. It is hard to
know what the writer means by “the original building;” he appears to
think it extended to the present choir, which, he says, “retains traces
of an earlier age.” The choir retains no such traces. The only remains
of the original church are at the back of the west end, invisible from
the inside of the church, and at the opposite end to the choir. As for
the church being “in a plain Gothic style,” it is an extremely beautiful
example of pure Lombard, of the first few years of the eleventh century.
True, the middle arch of the three which divide the nave from the aisles
is pointed, whereas the two others are round, but this is evidently done
to economise space, which was here unusually costly. There was room for
more than two round arches, but not room enough for three, so it was
decided to dock the middle arch a little. It is a she-arch—that is to
say, it has no keystone, but is formed simply by propping two segments of
a circle one against the other. It certainly is not a Gothic arch; it is
a Lombard arch, modified in an unusual manner, owing to its having been
built under unusual conditions.
[Picture: Garden at the Sanctuary of S. Michele]
The visitor should on no account omit to ring the bell and ask to be
shown the open Lombard gallery already referred to as running round the
outside of the choir. It is well worth walking round this, if only for
the view.
The official who showed us round was very kind, and as a personal favour
we were allowed to visit the fathers’ private garden. The large
arm-chairs are made out of clipped box-trees. While on our way to the
garden we passed a spot where there was an alarming buzzing, and found
ourselves surrounded by what appeared to be an angry swarm of bees;
closer inspection showed that the host was a medley one, composed of
wasps, huge hornets, hive-bees, humble-bees, flies, dragon-flies,
butterflies, and all kinds of insects, flying about a single patch of ivy
in full blossom, which attracted them so strongly that they neglected
everything else. I think some of them were intoxicated. If this was so,
then perhaps Bacchus is called “ivy-crowned” because ivy-blossoms
intoxicate insects, but I never remember to have before observed that
ivy-blossoms had any special attraction for insects.
I have forgotten to say anything about a beam of wood which may be seen
standing out at right angles from the tower to the right of the main
building. This I believe to have been the gallows. Another like it may
be seen at S. Giorio, but I have not got it in my sketch of that place.
The attendant who took us round S. Michele denied that it was the
gallows, but I think it must have been. Also, the attendant showed us
one place which is called _Il Salto della belle Alda_. Alda was being
pursued by a soldier; to preserve her honour, she leaped from a window
and fell over a precipice some hundreds of feet below; by the
intercession of the Virgin she was saved, but became so much elated that
she determined to repeat the feat. She jumped a second time from the
window, but was dashed to pieces. We were told this as being unworthy of
actual credence, but as a legend of the place. We said we found no great
difficulty in believing the first half of the story, but could hardly
believe that any one would jump from that window twice. {105}
Chapter IX
The North Italian Priesthood
THERE is now a school in the sanctuary; we met the boys several times.
They seemed well cared for and contented. The priests who reside in the
sanctuary were courtesy itself; they took a warm interest in England, and
were anxious for any information I could give them about the monastery
near Loughborough—a name which they had much difficulty in pronouncing.
They were perfectly tolerant, and ready to extend to others the
consideration they expected for themselves. This should not be saying
much, but as things go it is saying a good deal. What indeed more can be
wished for?
The faces of such priests as these—and I should say such priests form a
full half of the North Italian priesthood—are perfectly free from that
bad furtive expression which we associate with priestcraft, and which,
when seen, cannot be mistaken: their faces are those of our own best
English country clergy, with perhaps a trifle less flesh about them and a
trifle more of a not unkindly asceticism.
Comparing our own clergy with the best North Italian and Ticinese
priests, I should say there was little to choose between them. The
latter are in a logically stronger position, and this gives them greater
courage in their opinions; the former have the advantage in respect of
money, and the more varied knowledge of the world which money will
command. When I say Catholics have logically the advantage over
Protestants, I mean that starting from premises which both sides admit, a
merely logical Protestant will find himself driven to the Church of Rome.
Most men as they grow older will, I think, feel this, and they will see
in it the explanation of the comparatively narrow area over which the
Reformation extended, and of the gain which Catholicism has made of late
years here in England. On the other hand, reasonable people will look
with distrust upon too much reason. The foundations of action lie deeper
than reason can reach. They rest on faith—for there is no absolutely
certain incontrovertible premise which can be laid by man, any more than
there is any investment for money or security in the daily affairs of
life which is absolutely unimpeachable. The funds are not absolutely
sale; a volcano might break out under the Bank of England. A railway
journey is not absolutely safe; one person, at least, in several millions
gets killed. We invest our money upon faith mainly. We choose our
doctor upon faith, for how little independent judgment can we form
concerning his capacity? We choose schools for our children chiefly upon
faith. The most important things a man has are his body, his soul, and
his money. It is generally better for him to commit these interests to
the care of others of whom he can know little, rather than be his own
medical man, or invest his money on his own judgment; and this is nothing
else than making a faith which lies deeper than reason can reach, the
basis of our action in those respects which touch us most nearly.
On the other hand, as good a case could be made out for placing reason as
the foundation, inasmuch as it would be easy to show that a faith, to be
worth anything, must be a reasonable one—one, that is to say, which is
based upon reason. The fact is, that faith and reason are like desire
and power, or demand and supply; it is impossible to say which comes
first: they come up hand in hand, and are so small when we can first
descry them, that it is impossible to say which we first caught sight of.
All we can now see is that each has a tendency continually to outstrip
the other by a little, but by a very little only. Strictly they are not
two things, but two aspects of one thing; for convenience sake, however,
we classify them separately.
It follows, therefore—but whether it follows or no, it is certainly
true—that neither faith alone nor reason alone is a sufficient guide: a
man’s safety lies neither in faith nor reason, but in temper—in the power
of fusing faith and reason, even when they appear most mutually
destructive. A man of temper will be certain in spite of uncertainty,
and at the same time uncertain in spite of certainty; reasonable in spite
of his resting mainly upon faith rather than reason, and full of faith
even when appealing most strongly to reason. If it is asked, In what
should a man have faith? To what faith should he turn when reason has
led him to a conclusion which he distrusts? the answer is, To the current
feeling among those whom he most looks up to—looking upon himself with
suspicion if he is either among the foremost or the laggers. In the
rough, homely common sense of the community to which we belong we have as
firm ground as can be got. This, though not absolutely infallible, is
secure enough for practical purposes.
As I have said, Catholic priests have rather a fascination for me—when
they are not Englishmen. I should say that the best North Italian
priests are more openly tolerant than our English clergy generally are.
I remember picking up one who was walking along a road, and giving him a
lift in my trap. Of course we fell to talking, and it came out that I
was a member of the Church of England. “Ebbene, caro Signore,” said he
when we shook hands at parting; “mi rincresce che Lei non crede come me,
ma in questi tempi non possiamo avere tutti i medesimi principii.” {109}
I travelled another day from Susa to S. Ambrogio with a priest, who told
me he took in “The Catholic Times,” and who was well up to date on
English matters. Being myself a Conservative, I found his opinions sound
on all points but one—I refer to the Irish question: he had no sympathy
with the obstructionists in Parliament, but nevertheless thought the
Irish were harshly treated. I explained matters as well as I could, and
found him very willing to listen to our side of the question.
The one thing, he said, which shocked him with the English, was the
manner in which they went about distributing tracts upon the Continent.
I said no one could deplore the practice more profoundly than myself, but
that there were stupid and conceited people in every country, who would
insist upon thrusting their opinions upon people who did not want them.
He replied that the Italians travelled not a little in England, but that
he was sure not one of them would dream of offering Catholic tracts to
people, for example, in the streets of London. Certainly I have never
seen an Italian to be guilty of such rudeness. It seems to me that it is
not only toleration that is a duty; we ought to go beyond this now; we
should conform, when we are among a sufficient number of those who would
not understand our refusal to do so; any other course is to attach too
much importance at once to our own opinions and to those of our
opponents. By all means let a man stand by his convictions when the
occasion requires, but let him reserve his strength, unless it is
imperatively called for. Do not let him exaggerate trifles, and let him
remember that everything is a trifle in comparison with the not giving
offence to a large number of kindly, simple-minded people. Evolution, as
we all know, is the great doctrine of modern times; the very essence of
evolution consists in the not shocking anything too violently, but
enabling it to mistake a new action for an old one, without “making
believe” too much.
One day when I was eating my lunch near a fountain, there came up a
moody, meditative hen, crooning plaintively after her wont. I threw her
a crumb of bread while she was still a good way off, and then threw more,
getting her to come a little closer and a little closer each time; at
last she actually took a piece from my hand. She did not quite like it,
but she did it. This is the evolution principle; and if we wish those
who differ from us to understand us, it is the only method to proceed
upon. I have sometimes thought that some of my friends among the priests
have been treating me as I treated the meditative hen. But what of that?
They will not kill and eat me, nor take my eggs. Whatever, therefore,
promotes a more friendly feeling between us must be pure gain.
The mistake our advanced Liberals make is that of flinging much too large
pieces of bread at a time, and flinging them at their hen, instead of a
little way off her. Of course the hen is fluttered and driven away.
Sometimes, too, they do not sufficiently distinguish between bread and
stones.
As a general rule, the common people treat the priests respectfully, but
once I heard several attacking one warmly on the score of eternal
punishment. “Sarà,” said one, “per cento anni, per cinque cento, per
mille o forse per dieci mille anni, ma non sarà eterna; perchè il Dio è
un uomo forte—grande, generoso, di buon cuore.” {111} An Italian told me
once that if ever I came upon a priest whom I wanted to tease, I was to
ask him if he knew a place called La Torre Pellice. I have never yet had
the chance of doing this; for, though I am fairly quick at seeing whether
I am likely to get on with a priest or no, I find the priest is generally
fairly quick too; and I am no sooner in a diligence or railway carriage
with an unsympathetic priest, than he curls himself round into a moral
ball and prays horribly—bristling out with collects all over like a
cross-grained spiritual hedgehog. Partly, therefore, from having no wish
to go out of my way to make myself obnoxious, and partly through the
opposite party being determined that I shall not get the chance, the
question about La Torre Pellice has never come off, and I do not know
what a priest would say if the subject were introduced,—but I did get a
talking about La Torre Pellice all the same.
I was going from Turin to Pinerolo, and found myself seated opposite a
fine-looking elderly gentleman who was reading a paper headed, “Le
Témoin, Echo des Vallées Vaudoises”: for the Vaudois, or Waldenses,
though on the Italian side of the Alps, are French in language and
perhaps in origin. I fell to talking with this gentleman, and found he
was on his way to La Torre Pellice, the headquarters of indigenous
Italian evangelicism. He told me there were about 25,000 inhabitants of
these valleys, and that they were without exception Protestant, or rather
that they had never accepted Catholicism, but had retained the primitive
Apostolic faith in its original purity. He hinted to me that they were
descendants of some one or more of the lost ten tribes of Israel. The
English, he told me (meaning, I gather, the English of the England that
affects Exeter Hall), had done great things for the inhabitants of La
Torre at different times, and there were streets called the Via Williams
and Via Beckwith. They were, he said, a very growing sect, and had
missionaries and establishments in all the principal cities in North
Italy; in fact, so far as I could gather, they were as aggressive as
malcontents generally are, and, Italians though they were, would give
away tracts just as readily as we do. I did not, therefore, go to La
Torre.
Sometimes priests say things, as a matter of course, which would make any
English clergyman’s hair stand on end. At one town there is a remarkable
fourteenth-century bridge, commonly known as “The Devil’s Bridge.” I was
sketching near this when a jolly old priest with a red nose came up and
began a conversation with me. He was evidently a popular character, for
every one who passed greeted him. He told me that the devil did not
really build the bridge. I said I presumed not, for he was not in the
habit of spending his time so well.
“I wish he had built it,” said my friend; “for then perhaps he would
build us some more.”
“Or we might even get a church out of him,” said I, a little slyly.
“Ha, ha, ha! we will convert him, and make a good Christian of him in the
end.”
When will our Protestantism, or Rationalism, or whatever it may be, sit
as lightly upon ourselves?
Chapter X
S. Ambrogio and Neighbourhood
SINCE the opening of the railway, the old inn where the diligences and
private carriages used to stop has been closed; but I was made, in a
homely way, extremely comfortable at the Scudo di Francia, kept by Signor
Bonaudo and his wife. I stayed here over a fortnight, during which I
made several excursions.
[Picture: Inn at S. Ambrogio]
One day I went to San Giorio, as it is always written, though San Giorgio
is evidently intended. Here there is a ruined castle, beautifully placed
upon a hill; this castle shows well from the railway shortly after
leaving Bussoleno station, on the right hand going towards Turin. Having
been struck with it, I went by train to Bussoleno (where there is much
that I was unwillingly compelled to neglect), and walked back to San
Giorio. On my way, however, I saw a patch of Cima-da-Conegliano-looking
meadow-land on a hill some way above me, and on this there rose from
among the chestnuts what looked like a castellated mansion. I thought it
well to make a digression to this, and when I got there, after a lovely
walk, knocked at the door, having been told by peasants that there would
be no difficulty about my taking a look round. The place is called the
_Castel Burrello_, and is tenanted by an old priest who has retired
hither to end his days. I sent in my card and business by his servant,
and by-and-by he came out to me himself.
“Vous êtes Anglais, monsieur?” said he in French.
“Oui, monsieur.”
“Vous êtes Catholique?”
“Monsieur, je suis de la religion de mes pères.”
“Pardon, monsieur, vos ancêtres étaient Catholiques jusqu’au temps de
Henri VIII.”
“Mais il y a trois cent ans depuis le temps de Henri VIII.”
“Eh bien! chacun a ses convictions; vous ne parlez pas contre la
religion?”
“Jamais, jamais, monsieur; j’ai un respect énorme pour l’Eglise
Catholique.”
“Monsieur, faites comme chez vous; allez où vous voulez; vous trouverez
toutes les portes ouvertes. Amusez-vous bien.”
He then explained to me that the castle had never been a properly
fortified place, being intended only as a summer residence for the barons
of Bussoleno, who used to resort hither during the extreme heat, if times
were tolerably quiet. After this he left me. Taking him at his word, I
walked all round, but there was only a shell remaining; the rest of the
building had evidently been burnt, even the wing in which the present
proprietor resides being, if I remember rightly, modernised. The site,
however, and the sloping meadows which the castle crowns, are of extreme
beauty.
[Picture: S. Giorio—Comba di Susa]
I now walked down to San Giorio, and found a small inn where I could get
bread, butter, eggs, and good wine. I was waited upon by a good-natured
boy, the son of the landlord, who was accompanied by a hawk that sat
always either upon his hand or shoulder. As I looked at the pair I
thought they were very much alike, and certainly they were very much in
love with one another. After dinner I sketched the castle. While I was
doing so, a gentleman told me that a large breach in the wall was made a
few years ago, and a part of the wall found to be hollow, the bottom of
the hollow part being unwittingly removed, there fell through a skeleton
in a full suit of armour. Others, whom I asked, had heard nothing of
this.
Talking of hawks, I saw a good many boys with tame young hawks in the
villages round about. There was a tame hawk at the station of S.
Ambrogio. The station-master said it used to go now and again to the
church-steeple to catch sparrows, but would always return in an hour or
two. Before my stay was over it got in the way of a passing train and
was run over.
Young birds are much eaten in this neighbourhood. The houses and barns,
not to say the steeples of the churches, are to be seen stuck about with
what look like terra-cotta water-bottles with the necks outwards. Two or
three may be seen in the illustration on p. 113 outside the window that
comes out of the roof, on the left-hand side of the picture. I have seen
some outside an Italian restaurant near Lewisham. They are artificial
bird’s-nests for the sparrows to build in: as soon as the young are old
enough they are taken and made into a pie. The church-tower near the
Hotel de la Poste at Lanzo is more stuck about with them than any other
building that I have seen.
Swallows and hawks are about the only birds whose young are not eaten.
One afternoon I met a boy with a jay on his finger: having imprudently
made advances to this young gentleman in the hopes of getting acquainted
with the bird, he said he thought I had better buy it and have it for my
dinner; but I did not fancy it. Another day I saw the _padrona_ at the
inn-door talking to a lad, who pulled open his shirt-front and showed
some twenty or thirty nestlings in the simple pocket formed by his shirt
on the one side and his skin upon the other. The _padrona_ wanted me to
say I should like to eat them, in which case she would have bought them;
but one cannot get all the nonsense one hears at home out of one’s head
in a moment, and I am afraid I preached a little. The _padrona_, who is
one of the most fascinating women in the world, and at sixty is still
handsome, looked a little vexed and puzzled: she admitted the truth of
what I said, but pleaded that the boys found it very hard to gain a few
_soldi_, and if people didn’t kill and eat one thing, they would another.
The result of it all was that I determined for the future to leave young
birds to their fate; they and the boys must settle that matter between
themselves. If the young bird was a boy, and the boy a young bird, it
would have been the boy who was taken ruthlessly from his nest and eaten.
An old bird has no right to have a homestead, and a young bird has no
right to exist at all, unless they can keep both homestead and existence
out of the way of boys who are in want of half-pence. It is all
perfectly right, and when we go and stay among these charming people, let
us do so as learners, not as teachers.
I watched the _padrona_ getting my supper ready. With what art do not
these people manage their fire. The New Zealand Maoris say the white man
is a fool: “He makes a large fire, and then has to sit away from it; the
Maori makes a small fire, and sits over it.” The scheme of an Italian
kitchen-fire is that there shall always be one stout log smouldering on
the hearth, from which a few live coals may be chipped off if wanted, and
put into the small square gratings which are used for stewing or
roasting. Any warming up, or shorter boiling, is done on the Maori
principle of making a small fire of light dry wood, and feeding it
frequently. They economise everything. Thus I saw the _padrona_ wash
some hen’s eggs well in cold water; I did not see why she should wash
them before boiling them, but presently the soup which I was to have for
my supper began to boil. Then she put the eggs into the soup and boiled
them in it.
After supper I had a talk with the _padrone_, who told me I was working
too hard. “Totam noctem,” said he in Latin, “lavoravimus et nihil
incepimus.” (“We have laboured all night and taken nothing.”) “Oh!” he
continued, “I have eyes and ears in my head.” And as he spoke, with his
right hand he drew down his lower eyelid, and with his left pinched the
pig of his ear. “You will be ill if you go on like this.” Then he laid
his hand along his cheek, put his head on one side, and shut his eyes, to
imitate a sick man in bed. On this I arranged to go an excursion with
him on the day following to a farm he had a few miles off, and to which
he went every Friday.
We went to Borgone station, and walked across the valley to a village
called Villar Fochiardo. Thence we began gently to ascend, passing under
some noble chestnuts. Signor Bonaudo said that this is one of the best
chestnut-growing districts in Italy. A good tree, he told me, would give
its forty francs a year. This seems as though chestnut-growing must be
lucrative, for an acre should carry some five or six trees, and there is
no outlay to speak of. Besides the chestnuts, the land gives a still
further return by way of the grass that grows beneath them. Walnuts do
not yield nearly so much per tree as chestnuts do. In three-quarters of
an hour or so we reached Signor Bonaudo’s farm, which was called the
_Casina di Banda_. The buildings had once been a monastery, founded at
the beginning of the seventeenth century and secularised by the first
Napoleon, but had been purchased from the state a few years ago by Signor
Bonaudo, in partnership with three others, after the passing of the
Church Property Act. It is beautifully situated some hundreds of feet
above the valley, and commands a lovely view of the _Comba_, as it is
called, or _Combe_ of Susa. The accompanying sketch will give an idea of
the view looking towards Turin. The large building on the hill is, of
course, S. Michele. The very distant dome is the Superga on the other
side of Turin.
[Picture: Casina di Banda]
The first thing Signor Bonaudo did when he got to his farm was to see
whether the water had been duly turned on to his own portion of the
estate. Each of the four purchasers had his separate portion, and each
had a right to the water for thirty-six hours per week. Signor Bonaudo
went round with his hind at once, and saw that the dams in the ducts were
so opened or closed that his own land was being irrigated.
Nothing can exceed the ingenuity with which the little canals are
arranged so that each part of a meadow, however undulating, shall be
saturated equally. The people are very jealous of their water rights,
and indeed not unnaturally, for the yield of grass depends in very great
measure upon the amount of irrigation which the land can get.
The matter of the water having been seen to, we went to the monastery,
or, as it now is, the homestead. As we entered the farmyard we found two
cows fighting, and a great strapping wench belabouring them in order to
separate them. “Let them alone,” said the _padrone_; “let them fight it
out here on the level ground.” Then he explained to me that he wished
them to find out which was mistress, and fall each of them into her
proper place, for if they fought on the rough hillsides they might easily
break each other’s necks.
We walked all over the monastery. The day was steamy with frequent
showers, and thunderstorms in the air. The rooms were dark and mouldy,
and smelt rather of rancid cheese, but it was not a bad sort of rambling
old place, and if thoroughly done up would make a delightful inn. There
is a report that there is hidden treasure here. I do not know a single
old castle or monastery in North Italy about which no such report is
current, but in the present case there seems more than usual ground (so
the hind told me) for believing the story to be well founded, for the
monks did certainly smelt the quartz in the neighbourhood, and as no gold
was ever known to leave the monastery, it is most likely that all the
enormous quantity which they must have made in the course of some two
centuries is still upon the premises, if one could only lay one’s hands
upon it. So reasonable did this seem, that about two years ago it was
resolved to call in a somnambulist or clairvoyant from Turin, who, when
he arrived at the spot, became seized with convulsions, betokening of
course that there was treasure not far off: these convulsions increased
till he reached the choir of the chapel, and here he swooned—falling down
as if dead, and being resuscitated with apparent difficulty. He
afterwards declared that it was in this chapel that the treasure was
hidden. In spite of all this, however, the chapel has not been turned
upside down and ransacked, perhaps from fear of offending the saint to
whom it is dedicated.
[Picture: Votive Picture]
In the chapel there are a few votive pictures, but not very striking
ones. I hurriedly sketched one, but have failed to do it justice. The
hind saw me copying the little girl in bed, and I had an impression as
though he did not quite understand my motive. I told him I had a dear
little girl of my own at home, who had been alarmingly ill in the spring,
and that this picture reminded me of her. This made everything quite
comfortable.
We had brought up our dinner from S. Ambrogio, and ate it in what had
been the refectory of the monastery. The windows were broken, and the
swallows, who had built upon the ceiling inside the room, kept flying
close to us all the time we were eating. Great mallows and hollyhocks
peered in at the window, and beyond them there was a pretty
Devonshire-looking orchard. The noontide sun streamed in at intervals
between the showers.
After dinner we went “al cresto della collina”—to the crest of the
hill—to use Signor Bonaudo’s words, and looked down upon S. Giorio, and
the other villages of the _Combe_ of Susa. Nothing could be more
delightful. Then, getting under the chestnuts, I made the sketch which I
have already given. While making it I was accosted by an underjawed man
(there is an unusually large percentage of underjawed people in the
neighbourhood of S. Ambrogio), who asked whether my taking this sketch
must not be considered as a sign that war was imminent. The people in
this valley have bitter and comparatively recent experience of war, and
are alarmed at anything which they fancy may indicate its recurrence.
Talking further with him, he said, “Here we have no signori; we need not
take off our hats to any one except the priest. We grow all we eat, we
spin and weave all we wear; if all the world except our own valley were
blotted out, it would make no difference, so long as we remain as we are
and unmolested.” He was a wild, weird, St. John the Baptist looking
person, with shaggy hair, and an Andrea Mantegnesque feeling about him.
I gave him a pipe of English tobacco, which he seemed to relish, and so
we parted.
I stayed a week or so at another place not a hundred miles from Susa, but
I will not name it, for fear of causing offence. It was situated high,
above the valley of the Dora, among the pastures, and just about the
upper limit of the chestnuts. It offers a summer retreat, of which the
people in Turin avail themselves in considerable numbers. The inn was a
more sophisticated one than Signor Bonaudo’s house at S. Ambrogio, and
there were several Turin people staying there as well as myself, but
there were no English. During the whole time I was in that neighbourhood
I saw not a single English, French, or German tourist. The ways of the
inn, therefore, were exclusively Italian, and I had a better opportunity
of seeing the Italians as they are among themselves than I ever had
before.
Nothing struck me more than the easy terms on which every one, including
the waiter, appeared to be with every one else. This, which in England
would be impossible, is here not only possible but a matter of course,
because the general standard of good breeding is distinctly higher than
it is among ourselves. I do not mean to say that there are no rude or
unmannerly Italians, but that there are fewer in proportion than there
are in any other nation with which I have acquaintance. This is not to
be wondered at, for the Italians have had a civilisation for now some
three or four thousand years, whereas all other nations are,
comparatively speaking, new countries, with a something even yet of
colonial roughness pervading them. As the colonies to England, so is
England to Italy in respect of the average standard of courtesy and good
manners. In a new country everything has a tendency to go wild again,
man included; and the longer civilisation has existed in any country the
more trustworthy and agreeable will its inhabitants be. This preface is
necessary, as explaining how it is possible that things can be done in
Italy without offence which would be intolerable elsewhere; but I confess
to feeling rather hopeless of being able to describe what I actually saw
without giving a wrong impression concerning it.
Among the visitors was the head confidential clerk of a well-known
Milanese house, with his wife and sister. The sister was an invalid, and
so also was the husband, but the wife was a very pretty woman and a very
merry one. The waiter was a good-looking young fellow of about
five-and-twenty, and between him and Signora Bonvicino—for we will say
this was the clerk’s name—there sprang up a violent flirtation, all open
and above board. The waiter was evidently very fond of her, but said the
most atrociously impudent things to her from time to time. Dining under
the veranda at the next table I heard the Signora complain that the
cutlets were burnt. So they were—very badly burnt. The waiter looked at
them for a moment—threw her a contemptuous glance, clearly intended to
provoke war—“Chi non ha appetito {124} . . . ” he exclaimed, and was
moving off with a shrug of the shoulders. The Signora recognising a
challenge, rose instantly from the table, and catching him by the nape of
his neck, kicked him deftly downstairs into the kitchen, both laughing
heartily, and the husband and sister joining. I never saw anything more
neatly done. Of course, in a few minutes some fresh and quite
unexceptionable cutlets made their appearance.
Another morning, when I came down to breakfast, I found an altercation
going on between the same pair as to whether the lady’s nose was too
large or not. It was not at all too large. It was a very pretty little
nose. The waiter was maintaining that it was too large, and the lady
that it was not.
One evening Signor Bonvicino told me that his employer had a very large
connection in England, and that though he had never been in London, he
knew all about it almost as well as if he had. The great centre of
business, he said, was in Red Lion Square. It was here his employer’s
agent resided, and this was a more important part than even the city
proper. I threw a drop or two of cold water on this, but without avail.
Presently I asked what the waiter’s name was, not having been able to
catch it. I asked this of the Signora, and saw a little look on her face
as though she were not quite prepared to reply. Not understanding this,
I repeated my question.
“Oh! his name is Cesare,” was the answer.
“Cesare! but that is not the name I hear you call him by.”
“Well, perhaps not; we generally call him Cricco,” {125a} and she looked
as if she had suddenly remembered having been told that there were such
things as prigs, and might, for aught she knew, be in the presence of one
of these creatures now.
Her husband came to the rescue. “Yes,” said he, “his real name is Julius
Cæsar, but we call him Cricco. Cricco è un nome di paese; parlando così
non si offende la religione.” {125b}
The Roman Catholic religion, if left to itself and not compelled to be
introspective, is more kindly and less given to taking offence than
outsiders generally believe. At the Sacro Monte of Varese they sell
little round tin boxes that look like medals, and contain pictures of all
the chapels. In the lid of the box there is a short printed account of
the Sacro Monte, which winds up with the words, “La religione _e lo
stupendo panorama_ tirano numerosi ed allegri visitatori.” {126}
Our people are much too earnest to allow that a view could have anything
to do with taking people up to the top of a hill where there was a
cathedral, or that people could be “merry” while on an errand connected
with religion.
On leaving this place I wanted to say good-bye to Signora Bonvicino, and
could not find her; after a time I heard she was at the fountain, so I
went and found her on her knees washing her husband’s and her own
clothes, with her pretty round arms bare nearly to the shoulder. It
never so much as occurred to her to mind being caught at this work.
Some months later, shortly before winter, I returned to the same inn for
a few days, and found it somewhat demoralised. There had been grand
doings of some sort, and, though the doings were over, the moral and
material débris were not yet quite removed. The _famiglia_ Bonvicino was
gone, and so was Cricco. The cook, the new waiter, and the landlord (who
sings a good comic song upon occasion) had all drunk as much wine as they
could carry; and later on I found Veneranda, the one-eyed old
chambermaid, lying upon my bed fast asleep. I afterwards heard that, in
spite of the autumnal weather, the landlord spent his night on the grass
under the chestnuts, while the cook was found at four o’clock in the
morning lying at full length upon a table under the veranda. Next day,
however, all had become normal again.
Among our fellow-guests during this visit was a fiery-faced eructive
butcher from Turin. A difference of opinion having arisen between him
and his wife, I told the Signora that I would rather be wrong with her
than right with her husband. The lady was delighted.
“Do you hear that, my dear?” said she. “He says he had rather be wrong
with me than right with you. Isn’t he a naughty man?”
She said that if she died her husband was going to marry a girl of
fifteen. I said: “And if your husband dies, ma’am, send me a dispatch to
London, and I will come and marry you myself.” They were both delighted
at this.
She told us the thunder had upset her and frightened her.
“Has it given you a headache?”
She replied: No; but it had upset her stomach. No doubt the thunder had
shaken her stomach’s confidence in the soundness of its opinions, so as
to weaken its proselytising power. By and by, seeing that she ate a
pretty good dinner, I inquired:
“Is your stomach better now, ma’am?”
And she said it was. Next day my stomach was bad too.
I told her I had been married, but had lost my wife and had determined
never to marry again till I could find a widow whom I had admired as a
married woman.
Giovanni, the new waiter, explained to me that the butcher was not really
bad or cruel at all. I shook my head at him and said I wished I could
think so, but that his poor wife looked very ill and unhappy.
The housemaid’s name was La Rosa Mistica.
The landlord was a favourite with all the guests. Every one patted him
on the cheeks or the head, or chucked him under the chin, or did
something nice and friendly at him. He was a little man with a face like
a russet pippin apple, about sixty-five years old, but made of iron. He
was going to marry a third wife, and six young women had already come up
from S. Ambrogio to be looked at. I saw one of them. She was a
Visigoth-looking sort of person and wore a large wobbly-brimmed straw
hat; she was about forty, and gave me the impression of being familiar
with labour of all kinds. He pressed me to give my opinion of her, but I
sneaked out of it by declaring that I must see a good deal more of the
lady than I was ever likely to see before I could form an opinion at all.
On coming down from the sanctuary one afternoon I heard the landlord’s
comic song, of which I have spoken above. It was about the musical
instruments in a band: the trumpet did this, the clarinet did that, the
flute went tootle, tootle, tootle, and there was an appropriate motion of
the hand for every instrument. I was a little disappointed with it, but
the landlord said I was too serious and the only thing that would cure me
was to learn the song myself. He said the butcher had learned it
already, so it was not hard, which indeed it was not. It was about as
hard as:
The battle of the Nile
I was there all the while
At the battle of the Nile.
I had to learn it and sing it (Heaven help me, for I have no more voice
than a mouse!), and the landlord said that the motion of my little finger
was very promising.
The chestnuts are never better than after harvest, when they are
heavy-laden with their pale green hedgehog-like fruit and alive with
people swarming among their branches, pruning them while the leaves are
still good winter food for cattle. Why, I wonder, is there such an
especial charm about the pruning of trees? Who does not feel it? No
matter what the tree is, the poplar of France, or the brookside willow or
oak coppice of England, or the chestnuts or mulberries of Italy, all are
interesting when being pruned, or when pruned just lately. A friend once
consulted me casually about a picture on which he was at work, and
complained that a row of trees in it was without sufficient interest. I
was fortunate enough to be able to help him by saying: “Prune them freely
and put a magpie’s nest in one of them,” and the trees became interesting
at once. People in trees always look well, or rather, I should say,
trees always look well with people in them, or indeed with any living
thing in them, especially when it is of a kind that is not commonly seen
in them; and the measured lop of the bill-hook and, by and by, the click
as a bough breaks and the lazy crash as it falls over on to the ground,
are as pleasing to the ear as is the bough-bestrewn herbage to the eye.
To what height and to what slender boughs do not these hardy climbers
trust themselves. It is said that the coming man is to be toeless. I
will venture for it that he will not be toeless if these chestnut-pruning
men and women have much to do with his development. Let the race prune
chestnuts for a couple of hundred generations or so, and it will have
little trouble with its toes. Of course, the pruners fall sometimes, but
very rarely. I remember in the Val Mastallone seeing a votive picture of
a poor lady in a short petticoat and trousers trimmed with red round the
bottom who was falling head foremost from the top of a high tree, whose
leaves she had been picking, and was being saved by the intervention of
two saints who caught her upon two gridirons. Such accidents, however,
and, I should think, such interventions, are exceedingly rare, and as a
rule the peasants venture freely into places which in England no one but
a sailor or a steeple-jack would attempt.
And so we left this part of Italy, wishing that more Hugo de
Montboissiers had committed more crimes and had had to expiate them by
building more sanctuaries.
Chapter XI
Lanzo
FROM S. Ambrogio we went to Turin, a city so well known that I need not
describe it. The Hotel Europa is the best, and, indeed, one of the best
hotels on the continent. Nothing can exceed it for comfort and good
cookery. The gallery of old masters contains some great gems.
Especially remarkable are two pictures of Tobias and the angel, by
Antonio Pollaiuolo and Sandro Botticelli; and a magnificent tempera
painting of the Crucifixion, by Gaudenzio Ferrari—one of his very finest
works. There are also several other pictures by the same master, but the
Crucifixion is the best.
From Turin I went alone to Lanzo, about an hour and a half’s railway
journey from Turin, and found a comfortable inn, the Hotel de la Poste.
There is a fine fourteenth-century tower here, and the general effect of
the town is good.
One morning while I was getting my breakfast, English fashion, with some
cutlets to accompany my bread and butter, I saw an elderly Italian
gentleman, with his hand up to his chin, eyeing me with thoughtful
interest. After a time he broke silence.
“Ed il latte,” he said, “serve per la suppa.” {131}
I said that that was the view we took of it. He thought it over a while,
and then feelingly exclaimed—
“Oh bel!”
Soon afterwards he left me with the words—
“Là! dunque! cerrea! chow! stia bene.”
[Picture: Mediæval Tower at Lanzo]
“Là” is a very common close to an Italian conversation. I used to be a
little afraid of it at first. It sounds rather like saying, “There,
that’s that. Please to bear in mind that I talked to you very nicely,
and let you bore me for a long time; I think I have now done the thing
handsomely, so you’ll be good enough to score me one and let me go.” But
I soon found out that it was quite a friendly and civil way of saying
good-bye.
[Picture: Piazza at Lanzo]
The “dunque” is softer; it seems to say, “I cannot bring myself to say so
sad a word as ‘farewell,’ but we must both of us know that the time has
come for us to part, and so”—
“Cerrea” is an abbreviation and corruption of “di sua Signoria,”—“by your
highness’s leave.” “Chow” I have explained already. “Stia bene” is
simply “farewell.”
The principal piazza of Lanzo is nice. In the upper part of the town
there is a large school or college. One can see into the school through
a grating from the road. I looked down, and saw that the boys had cut
their names all over the desks, just as English boys would do. They were
very merry and noisy, and though there was a priest standing at one end
of the room, he let them do much as they liked, and they seemed quite
happy. I heard one boy shout out to another, “Non c’ è pericolo,” in
answer to something the other had said. This is exactly the “no fear” of
America and the colonies. Near the school there is a field on the slope
of the hill which commands a view over the plain. A woman was mowing
there, and, by way of making myself agreeable, I remarked that the view
was fine. “Yes, it is,” she answered; “you can see all the trains.”
The baskets with which the people carry things in this neighbourhood are
of a different construction from any I have seen elsewhere. They are
made to fit all round the head like something between a saddle and a
helmet, and at the same time to rest upon the shoulders—the head being,
as it were, ensaddled by the basket, and the weight being supported by
the shoulders as well as by the head. Why is it that such contrivances
as this should prevail in one valley and not in another? If, one is
tempted to argue, the plan is a convenient one, why does it not spread
further? If inconvenient, why has it spread so far? If it is good in
the valley of the Stura, why is it not also good in the contiguous valley
of the Dora? There must be places where people using helmet-made baskets
live next door to people who use baskets that are borne entirely by back
and shoulders. Why do not the people in one or other of these houses
adopt their neighbour’s basket? Not because people are not amenable to
conviction, for within a certain radius from the source of the invention
they are convinced to a man. Nor again is it from any insuperable
objection to a change of habit. The Stura people have changed their
habit—possibly for the worse; but if they have changed it for the worse,
how is it they do not find it out and change again?
Take, again, the _pane Grissino_, from which the neighbourhood of Turin
has derived its nickname of _il Grissinotto_. It is made in long sticks,
rather thicker than a tobacco pipe, and eats crisp like toast. It is
almost universally preferred to ordinary bread by the inhabitants of what
was formerly Piedmont, but beyond these limits it is rarely seen. Why
so? Either it is good or not good. If not good, how has it prevailed
over so large an area? If good, why does it not extend its empire? The
Reformation is another case in point: granted that Protestantism is
illogical, how is it that so few within a given area can perceive it to
be so? The same question arises in respect of the distribution of many
plants and animals; the reason of the limits which some of them cannot
pass, being, indeed, perfectly clear, but as regards perhaps the greater
number of them, undiscoverable. The upshot of it is that things do not
in practice find their perfect level any more than water does so, but are
liable to disturbance by way of tides and local currents, or storms. It
is in his power to perceive and profit by these irregularities that the
strength or weakness of a commercial man will be apparent.
One day I made an excursion from Lanzo to a place, the name of which I
cannot remember, but which is not far from the Groscavallo glacier. Here
I found several Italians staying to take the air, and among them one
young gentleman, who told me he was writing a book upon this
neighbourhood, and was going to illustrate it with his own drawings.
This naturally interested me, and I encouraged him to tell me more, which
he was nothing loth to do. He said he had a passion for drawing, and was
making rapid progress; but there was one thing that held him back—the not
having any Conté chalk: if he had but this, all his difficulties would
vanish. Unfortunately I had no Conté chalk with me, I but I asked to see
the drawings, and was shown about twenty, all of which greatly pleased
me. I at once proposed an exchange, and have thus become possessed of
the two which I reproduce here. Being pencil drawings, and not done with
a view to Mr. Dawson’s process, they have suffered somewhat in
reproduction, but I decided to let them suffer rather than attempt to
copy them. What can be more absolutely in the spirit of the fourteenth
century than the drawings given above? They seem as though done by some
fourteenth-century painter who had risen from the dead. And to show that
they are no rare accident, I will give another (p. 138), also done by an
entirely self-taught Italian, and intended to represent the castle of
Laurenzana in the neighbourhood of Potenza.
[Picture: Study by an Italian Amateur, No. 1]
[Picture: Study by an Italian Amateur, No. 2]
If the reader will pardon a digression, I will refer to a more important
example of an old master born out of due time. One day, in the cathedral
at Varallo, I saw a picture painted on linen of which I could make
nothing. It was not old and it was not modern. The expression of the
Virgin’s face was lovely, and there was more individuality than is
commonly found in modern Italian work. Modern Italian colour is
generally either cold and dirty, or else staring. The colour here was
tender, and reminded me of fifteenth-century Florentine work. The folds
of the drapery were not modern; there was a sense of effort about them,
as though the painter had tried to do them better, but had been unable to
get them as free and flowing as he had wished. Yet the picture was not
old; to all appearance it might have been painted a matter of ten years;
nor again was it an echo—it was a sound: the archaism was not affected;
on the contrary, there was something which said, as plainly as though the
living painter had spoken it, that his somewhat constrained treatment was
due simply to his having been puzzled with the intricacy of what he saw,
and giving as much as he could with a hand which was less advanced than
his judgment. By some strange law it comes about that the imperfection
of men who are at this stage of any art is the only true perfection; for
the wisdom of the wise is set at naught, and the foolishness of the
simple is chosen, and it is out of the mouths of babes and sucklings that
strength is ordained.
[Picture: Study by a Self-taught Italian]
Unable to arrive at any conclusion, I asked the sacristan, and was told
it was by a certain Dedomenici of Rossa, in the Val Sesia, and that it
had been painted some forty or fifty years ago. I expressed my surprise,
and the sacristan continued: “Yes, but what is most wonderful about him
is that he never left his native valley, and never had any instruction,
but picked up his art for himself as best he could.”
I have been twice to Varallo since, to see whether I should change my
mind, but have not done so. If Dedomenici had been a Florentine or
Venetian in the best times, he would have done as well as the best; as it
is, his work is remarkable. He died about 1840, very old, and he kept on
improving to the last. His last work—at least I was told upon the spot
that it was his last—is in a little roadside chapel perched high upon a
rock, and dedicated, if I remember rightly, to S. Michele, on the path
from Fobello in the Val Mastallone to Taponaccio. It is a Madonna and
child in clouds, with two full-length saints standing beneath—all the
figures life-size. I came upon this chapel quite accidentally one
evening, and, looking in, recognised the altar-piece as a Dedomenici. I
inquired at the next village who had painted it, and was told, “un certo
Dedomenici da Rossa.” I was also told that he was nearly eighty years
old when he painted this picture. I went a couple of years ago to
reconsider it, and found that I remained much of my original opinion. I
do not think that any of my readers who care about the history of Italian
art will regret having paid it a visit.
Such men are more common in Italy than is believed. There is a fresco of
the Crucifixion outside the Campo Santo at Fusio, in the Canton Ticino,
done by a local artist, which, though far inferior to the work of
Dedomenici, is still remarkable. The painter evidently knows nothing of
the rules of his art, but he has made Christ on the cross bowing His head
towards the souls in purgatory, instead of in the conventional fine
frenzy to which we are accustomed. There is a storm which has caught and
is sweeping the drapery round Christ’s body. The angel’s wings are no
longer white, but many coloured as in old times, and there is a touch of
humour in the fact that of the six souls in purgatory, four are women and
only two men. The expression on Christ’s face is very fine, but
otherwise the drawing could not well be more imperfect than it is.
Chapter XII
Considerations on the Decline of Italian Art
THOSE who know the Italians will see no sign of decay about them. They
are the quickest witted people in the world, and at the same time have
much more of the old Roman steadiness than they are generally credited
with. Not only is there no sign of degeneration, but, as regards
practical matters, there is every sign of health and vigorous
development. The North Italians are more like Englishmen, both in body
and mind, than any other people whom I know; I am continually meeting
Italians whom I should take for Englishmen if I did not know their
nationality. They have all our strong points, but they have more grace
and elasticity of mind than we have.
Priggishness is the sin which doth most easily beset middle-class and
so-called educated Englishmen: we call it purity and culture, but it does
not much matter what we call it. It is the almost inevitable outcome of
a university education, and will last as long as Oxford and Cambridge do,
but not much longer.
Lord Beaconsfield sent Lothair to Oxford; it is with great pleasure that
I see he did not send Endymion. My friend Jones called my attention to
this, and we noted that the growth observable throughout Lord
Beaconsfield’s life was continued to the end. He was one of those who,
no matter how long he lived, would have been always growing: this is what
makes his later novels so much better than those of Thackeray or Dickens.
There was something of the child about him to the last. Earnestness was
his greatest danger, but if he did not quite overcome it (as who indeed
can? It is the last enemy that shall be subdued), he managed to veil it
with a fair amount of success. As for Endymion, of course if Lord
Beaconsfield had thought Oxford would be good for him, he could, as Jones
pointed out to me, just as well have killed Mr. Ferrars a year or two
later. We feel satisfied, therefore, that Endymion’s exclusion from a
university was carefully considered, and are glad.
I will not say that priggishness is absolutely unknown among the North
Italians; sometimes one comes upon a young Italian who wants to learn
German, but not often. Priggism, or whatever the substantive is, is as
essentially a Teutonic vice as holiness is a Semitic characteristic; and
if an Italian happens to be a prig, he will, like Tacitus, invariably
show a hankering after German institutions. The idea, however, that the
Italians were ever a finer people than they are now, will not pass muster
with those who know them.
At the same time, there can be no doubt that modern Italian art is in
many respects as bad as it was once good. I will confine myself to
painting only. The modern Italian painters, with very few exceptions,
paint as badly as we do, or even worse, and their motives are as poor as
is their painting. At an exhibition of modern Italian pictures, I
generally feel that there is hardly a picture on the walls but is a
sham—that is to say, painted not from love of this particular subject and
an irresistible desire to paint it, but from a wish to paint an academy
picture, and win money or applause.
The same holds good in England, and in all other countries that I know
of. There is very little tolerable painting anywhere. In some kinds,
indeed, of black and white work the present age is strong. The
illustrations to “Punch,” for example, are often as good as anything that
can be imagined. We know of nothing like them in any past age or
country. This is the one kind of art—and it is a very good one—in which
we excel as distinctly as the age of Phidias excelled in sculpture.
Leonardo da Vinci would never have succeeded in getting his drawings
accepted at 85 Fleet Street, any more than one of the artists on the
staff of “Punch” could paint a fresco which should hold its own against
Da Vinci’s Last Supper. Michael Angelo again and Titian would have
failed disastrously at modern illustration. They had no more sense of
humour than a Hebrew prophet; they had no eye for the more trivial side
of anything round about them. This aspect went in at one eye and out at
the other—and they lost more than ever poor Peter Bell lost in the matter
of primroses. I never can see what there was to find fault with in that
young man.
Fancy a street-Arab by Michael Angelo. Fancy even the result which would
have ensued if he had tried to put the figures into the illustrations of
this book. I should have been very sorry to let him try his hand at it.
To him a priest chucking a small boy under the chin was simply
non-existent. He did not care for it, and had therefore no eye for it.
If the reader will turn to the copy of a fresco of St. Christopher on p.
209, he will see the conventional treatment of the rocks on either side
the saint. This was the best thing the artist could do, and probably
cost him no little trouble. Yet there were rocks all around him—little,
in fact, else than rock in those days; and the artist could have drawn
them well enough if it had occurred to him to try and do so. If he could
draw St. Christopher, he could have drawn a rock; but he had an interest
in the one, and saw nothing in the other which made him think it worth
while to pay attention to it. What rocks were to him, the common
occurrences of everyday life were to those who are generally held to be
the giants of painting. The result of this neglect to kiss the soil—of
this attempt to be always soaring—is that these giants are for the most
part now very uninteresting, while the smaller men who preceded them grow
fresher and more delightful yearly. It was not so with Handel and
Shakespeare. Handel’s
“Ploughman near at hand, whistling o’er the furrowed land,”
is intensely sympathetic, and his humour is admirable whenever he has
occasion for it.
Leonardo da Vinci is the only one of the giant Italian masters who ever
tried to be humorous, and he failed completely: so, indeed, must any one
if he tries to be humorous. We do not want this; we only want them not
to shut their eyes to by-play when it comes in their way, and if they are
giving us an account of what they have seen, to tell us something about
this too. I believe the older the world grows, the better it enjoys a
joke. The mediæval joke generally was a heavy, lumbering old thing, only
a little better than the classical one. Perhaps in those days life was
harder than it is now, and people if they looked at it at all closely
dwelt upon its soberer side. Certainly in humorous art, we may claim to
be not only _principes_, but _facile principes_. Nevertheless, the
Italian comic journals are, some of them, admirably illustrated, though
in a style quite different from our own; sometimes, also, they are
beautifully coloured.
As regards painting, the last rays of the sunset of genuine art are to be
found in the votive pictures at Locarno or Oropa, and in many a wayside
chapel. In these, religious art still lingers as a living language,
however rudely spoken. In these alone is the story told, not as in the
Latin and Greek verses of the scholar, who thinks he has succeeded best
when he has most concealed his natural manner of expressing himself, but
by one who knows what he wants to say, and says it in his mother-tongue,
shortly, and without caring whether or not his words are in accordance
with academic rules. I regret to see photography being introduced for
votive purposes, and also to detect in some places a disposition on the
part of the authorities to be a little ashamed of these pictures and to
place them rather out of sight.
[Picture: Paradiso! Paradiso!]
Sometimes in a little country village, as at Doera near Mesocco, there is
a modern fresco on a chapel in which the old spirit appears, with its
absolute indifference as to whether it was ridiculous or no, but such
examples are rare.
Sometimes, again, I have even thought I have detected a ray of sunset
upon a milkman’s window-blind in London, and once upon an undertaker’s,
but it was too faint a ray to read by. The best thing of the kind that I
have seen in London is the picture of the lady who is cleaning knives
with Mr. Spong’s patent knife-cleaner, in his shop window nearly opposite
Day & Martin’s in Holborn. It falls a long way short, however, of a good
Italian votive picture: but it has the advantage of moving.
I knew of a little girl once, rather less than four years old, whose
uncle had promised to take her for a drive in a carriage with him, and
had failed to do so. The child was found soon afterwards on the stairs
weeping, and being asked what was the matter, replied, “Mans is all
alike.” This is Giottesque. I often think of it as I look upon Italian
votive pictures. The meaning is so sound in spite of the expression
being so defective—if, indeed, expression can be defective when it has so
well conveyed the meaning.
I knew, again, an old lady whose education had been neglected in her
youth. She came into a large fortune, and at some forty years of age put
herself under the best masters. She once said to me as follows, speaking
very slowly and allowing a long time between each part of the
sentence;—“You see,” sh
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