Seeing Europe with Famous Authors Volume VIII Part 4

On emerging from the second tunnel,[20] beyond a wild and narrow gorge, there lies suddenly before us, as in a gorgeous fairyland or in the landscape of a dream, the blue expanse of Lake Lugano, with its setting of green meadows and purple mountains, with the many-colored village spires, and the great white fronts of the hotels and villas. Oh, what a wonderful picture!

We feel as if we were going down into an enchanted garden that has been hidden by the great snowy walls of the Alps. The air is full of the perfume of roses and jessamine. The hedges are in flower, b.u.t.terflies are dancing, insects are humming, birds are singing. Up above, in the mountain, is snow, ice, winter, and silence; here there is sunshine, life, joy, love--all the living delights of spring and summer. Golden harvests are shining on the plains, and the lake in the distance is like a piece of the sky brought down to earth.

Lugano is already Italy, not only because of the richness of the soil and the magnificence of the vegetation, but also as regards the language, the manners, and the picturesque costumes. In each valley the dress is different; in one place the women wear a short skirt, an ap.r.o.n held in by a girdle, and a bright colored bodice; in another they wear a cap above which is a large shady hat; in the Val Maroblio they have a woolen dress not very different from that of the Capuchins.

The men have not the square figure, the slow, heavy walk of the people of Basle and Lucerne; they are brisk, vigorous, easy; and the women have something of the wavy suppleness of vine branches twining among the trees. These people have the happy, childlike joyousness, the frank good-nature, of those who live in the open air, who do not shut themselves up in their houses, but grow freely like the flowers under the strong, glowing sunshine.

At every street corner sellers are sitting behind baskets of extraordinary vegetables and magnificent fruit; and under the arcades that run along the houses, big grocers in shirt sleeves come at intervals to their shop doors to take breath, like hippopotami coming out of the water for the same purpose. In this town, ultramontane in its piety, the bells of churches and convents are sounding all day long, and women are seen going to make their evening prayer together in the nearest chapel.

But if the fair s.e.x in Lugano are diligent in frequenting the churches, they by no means scorn the cafes. After sunset the little tables that are all over the great square are surrounded by an entire population of men and women. How gay and amusing those Italian cafes are! full of sound and color, with their red and blue striped awnings, their advance guard of little tables under the shade of the orange-trees, and their babbling, stirring, gesticulating company. The waiters, in black vests and leather slippers, a corner of their ap.r.o.n tucked up in their belt, run with the speed of kangaroos, carrying on metal plates syrups of every shade, ices, sweets in red, yellow, or green pyramids. Between seven and nine o'clock the whole society of Lugano defiles before you.

There are lawyers with their wives, doctors with their daughters, bankers, professors, merchants, public officials, with whom are sometimes misted stout, comfortable, jovial-looking canons, wrapping themselves in the bitter smoke of a regalia, as in a cloud of incense.

LAKE COMO[21]

BY PERCY BYSSHE Sh.e.l.lEY

We have been to Como, looking for a house. This lake exceeds anything I ever beheld in beauty, with the exception of the arbutus islands of Killarney. It is long and narrow, and has the appearance of a mighty river winding among the mountains and the forests. We sailed from the town of Como to a tract of country called the Tremezina, and saw the various aspects presented by that part of the lake. The mountains between Como and that village, or rather cl.u.s.ter of villages, are covered on high with chestnut forests (the eating chestnuts, on which the inhabitants of the country subsist in time of scarcity), which sometimes descend to the very verge of the lake, overhanging it with their h.o.a.ry branches. But usually the immediate border of this sh.o.r.e is composed of laurel-trees, and bay, and myrtle, and wild fig-trees, and olives which grow in the crevices of the rocks, and overhang the caverns, and shadow the deep glens, which are filled with the flashing light of the waterfalls. Other flowering shrubs, which I can not name, grow there also. On high, the towers of village churches are seen white among the dark forests.

Beyond, on the opposite sh.o.r.e, which faces the south, the mountains descend less precipitously to the lake, and altho they are much higher, and some covered with perpetual snow, there intervenes between them and the lake a range of lower hills, which have glens and rifts opening to the other, such as I should fancy the abysses of Ida or Parna.s.sus. Here are plantations of olive, and orange, and lemon trees, which are now so loaded with fruit, that there is more fruit than leaves--and vineyards.

This sh.o.r.e of the lake is one continued village, and the Milanese n.o.bility have their villas here. The union of culture and the untameable profusion and loveliness of nature is here so close, that the line where they are divided can hardly be discovered.

But the finest scenery is that of the Villa Pliniana; so called from a fountain which ebbs and flows every three hours, described by the younger Pliny, which is in the courtyard. This house, which was once a magnificent palace, and is now half in ruins, we are endeavoring to procure. It is built upon terraces raised from the bottom of the lake, together with its garden, at the foot of a semicircular precipice, overshadowed by profound forests of chestnut. The scene from the colonnade is the most extraordinary, at once, and the most lovely that eye ever beheld. On one side is the mountain, and immediately over you are cl.u.s.ters of cypress-trees, of an astonishing height, which seem to pierce the sky.

Above you, from among the clouds, as it were, descends a waterfall of immense size, broken by the woody rocks into a thousand channels to the lake. On the other side is seen the blue extent of the lake and the mountains, speckled with sails and spires. The apartments of the Pliniana are immensely large, but ill-furnished and antique. The terraces, which overlook the lake, and conduct under the shade of such immense laurel-trees as deserve the epithet of Pythian, are most delightful.

BELLAGIO ON LAKE COMO[22]

BY W. D. M'CRACKEN

The picture of the promontory of Bellagio is so beautiful as a whole that the traveler had better stand off for awhile to admire it at a distance and at his leisure. Indeed it is a question whether the lasting impressions which we treasure of Bellagio are not, after all, those derived from across the lake, from the sh.o.r.e-fronts of Tremezzo, Cadenabbia, Menaggio, or Varenna.

A colossal, conquering geological lion appears to have come up from the south in times immemorial, bound for the north, and finding further progress stopt by the great sheet of water in front of him, seems to have halted and to be now crouching there with his n.o.ble head between his paws and his eyes fixt on the snow-covered Alps. The big white house on the lion's neck is the Villa Serbelloni, now used as the annex of a hotel, and the park of n.o.ble trees belonging to the villa forms the lion's mane. Hotels, both large and small, line the quay at the water's edge; then comes a break in the houses, and stately Villa Melzi is seen to stand off at one side. Villa Trotti gleams from among its bowers farther south; on the slope Villa Trivulzio, formerly Poldi, shows bravely, and Villa Giulia has cut for itself a wide prospect over both arms of the lake. At the back of this lion couchant, in the middle ground, sheer mountain walls tower protectingly, culminating in Monte Grigna.

The picture varies from hour to hour, from day to day, and from season to season. Its color-scheme changes with wind and sun, its sparkle comes and goes from sunrise to sunset; only its form remains untouched through the night and lives to delight us another day. As the evening wears on, lights appear one by one on the quay of Bellagio, until there is a line of fire along the base of the dark peninsula. The hotel windows catch the glare, the villas light their storied corridors, and presently Bellagio, all aglow, presents the spectacle of a Venetian night mirrored in the lake.

By this time the mountains have turned black and the sky has faded. It grows so still on the water that the tinkle of a little Italian band reaches across the lake to Cadenabbia, a laugh rings out into the quiet air from one of the merry little rowboats, and even the slight clatter made by the fishermen, in putting their boats to rights for the night and in carrying their nets indoors, can be distinguished as one of many indications that the day is done.

When we land at Bellagio by daylight, we find it to be very much of a bazaar of souvenirs along the water-front, and everybody determined to carry away a keepsake. There is so much to buy--ornamental olive wood and tortoise-sh.e.l.l articles, Como blankets, lace, and what may be described in general terms as modern antiquities. These abound from shop to shop; even English groceries are available. Bellagio's princ.i.p.al street is suddenly converted at its northern end into a delightful arcade, after the arrangement which const.i.tutes a characteristic charm of the villages and smaller towns on the Italian lakes; moreover, the vista up its side street is distinctly original. This mounts steeply from the waterside, like the streets of Algiers, is narrow and constructed in long steps to break the incline.

THE REPUBLIC OF SAN MARINO[23]

BY JOSEPH ADDISON

The town and republic of St. Marino stands on the top of a very high and craggy mountain. It is generally hid among the clouds, and lay under snow when I saw it, though it was clear and warm weather in all the country about it. There is not a spring or fountain, that I could hear of, in the whole dominions; but they are always well provided with huge cisterns and reservoirs of rain and snow water. The wine that grows on the sides of their mountain is extraordinarily good, much better than any I met with on the cold side of the Apennines.

This mountain, and a few neighboring hillocks that lie scattered about the bottom of it, is the whole circuit of these dominions. They have what they call three castles, three convents, and five churches and can reckon about five thousand souls in their community.[24] The inhabitants, as well as the historians who mention this little republic, give the following account of its origin. St. Marino was its founder, a Dalmatian by birth, and by trade a mason. He was employed above thirteen hundred years ago in the reparation of Rimini, and after he had finished his work, retired to this solitary mountain, as finding it very proper for the life of a hermit, which he led in the greatest rigors and austerities of religion. He had not been long here before he wrought a reputed miracle, which, joined with his extraordinary sanct.i.ty, gained him so great an esteem, that the princess of the country made him a present of the mountain, to dispose of at his own discretion. His reputation quickly peopled it, and gave rise to the republic which calls itself after his name.

So that the commonwealth of Marino may boast, at least, of a n.o.bler original than that of Rome, the one having been at first an asylum for robbers and murderers, and the other a resort of persons eminent for their piety and devotion. The best of their churches is dedicated to the saint, and holds his ashes. His statue stands over the high altar, with the figure of a mountain in its hands, crowned with three castles, which is likewise the arms of the commonwealth. They attribute to his protection the long duration of their state, and look on him as the greatest saint next the blessed virgin. I saw in their statute-book a law against such as speak disrespectfully of him, who are to be punished in the same manner as those convicted of blasphemy.

This petty republic has now lasted thirteen hundred years,[25] while all the other states of Italy have several times changed their masters and forms of government. Their whole history is comprised in two purchases, which they made of a neighboring prince, and in a war in which they a.s.sisted the pope against a lord of Rimini. In the year 1100 they bought a castle in the neighborhood, as they did another in the year 1170. The papers of the conditions are preserved in their archives, where it is very remarkable that the name of the agent for the commonwealth, of the seller, of the notary, and the witnesses, are the same in both the instruments, tho drawn up at seventy years' distance from each other.

Nor can it be any mistake in the date, because the popes' and emperors'

names, with the year of their respective reigns, are both punctually set down. About two hundred and ninety years after this they a.s.sisted Pope Pius the Second against one of the Malatestas, who was then, lord of Rimini; and when they had helped to conquer him, received from the pope, as a reward for their a.s.sistance, four little castles. This they represent as the flourishing time of the commonwealth, when their dominions reached half-way up a neighboring hill; but at present they are reduced to their old extent....

The chief officers of the commonwealth are the two capitaneos, who have such a power as the old Roman consuls had, but are chosen every six months. I talked with some that had been capitaneos six or seven times, tho the office is never to be continued to the same persons twice successively. The third officer is the commissary, who judges in all civil and criminal matters. But because the many alliances, friendships, and intermarriages, as well as the personal feuds and animosities, that happen among so small a people might obstruct the course of justice, if one of their own number had the distribution of it, they have always a foreigner for this employ, whom they choose for three years, and maintain out of the public stock. He must be a doctor of law, and a man of known integrity. He is joined in commission with the capitaneos, and acts something like the recorder of London under the lord mayor. The commonwealth of Genoa was forced to make use of a foreign judge for many years, while their republic was torn into the divisions of Guelphs and Ghibelines. The fourth man in the state is the physician, who must likewise be a stranger, and is maintained by a public salary. He is obliged to keep a horse, to visit the sick, and to inspect all drugs that are imported. He must be at least thirty-five years old, a doctor of the faculty, and eminent for his religion and honesty, that his rashness or ignorance may not unpeople the commonwealth. And, that they may not suffer long under any bad choice, he is elected only for three years.

The people are esteemed very honest and rigorous in the execution of justice, and seem to live more happy and contented among their rocks and snows, than others of the Italians do in the pleasantest valleys of the world. Nothing, indeed, can be a greater instance of the natural love that mankind has for liberty, and of their aversion to an arbitrary government, than such a savage mountain covered with people, and the Campania of Rome, which lies in the same country, almost dest.i.tute of inhabitants.

PERUGIA[26]

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

We pursued our way, and came, by and by, to the foot of the high hill on which stands Perugia, and which is so long and steep that Gaetano took a yoke of oxen to aid his horses in the ascent. We all, except my wife, walked a part of the way up, and I myself, with J----[27] for my companion, kept on even to the city gate, a distance, I should think, of two or three miles, at least. The lower part of the road was on the edge of the hill, with a narrow valley on our left; and as the sun had now broken out, its verdure and fertility, its foliage and cultivation, shone forth in miraculous beauty, as green as England, as bright as only Italy.

Perugia appeared above us, crowning a mighty hill, the most picturesque of cities; and the higher we ascended, the more the view opened before us, as we looked back on the course that we had traversed, and saw the wide valley, sweeping down and spreading out, bounded afar by mountains, and sleeping in sun and shadow. No language nor any art of the pencil can give an idea of the scene....

We plunged from the upper city down through some of the strangest pa.s.sages that ever were called streets; some of them, indeed, being arched all over, and, going down into the unknown darkness, looked like caverns; and we followed one of them doubtfully, till it opened, out upon the light. The houses on each side were divided only by a pace or two, and communicated with one another, here and there, by arched pa.s.sages. They looked very ancient, and may have been inhabited by Etruscan princes, judging from the ma.s.siveness of some of the foundation stones. The present inhabitants, nevertheless, are by no means princely, shabby men, and the careworn wives and mothers of the people, one of whom was guiding a child in leading-strings through these antique alleys, where hundreds of generations have trod before those little feet. Finally we came out through a gateway, the same gateway at which we entered last night.

The best part of Perugia, that in which the grand piazzas and the princ.i.p.al public edifices stand, seems to be a nearly level plateau on the summit of the hill; but it is of no very great extent, and the streets rapidly run downward on either side. J---- and I followed one of these descending streets, and were led a long way by it, till we at last emerged from one of the gates of the city, and had another view of the mountains and valleys, the fertile and sunny wilderness in which this ancient civilization stands.

On the right of the gate there was a rude country path, partly overgrown with gra.s.s, bordered by a hedge on one side, and on the other by the gray city wall, at the base of which the tract kept onward. We followed it, hoping that it would lead us to some other gate by which we might reenter the city; but it soon grew so indistinct and broken, that it was evidently on the point of melting into somebody's olive-orchard or wheat-fields or vineyards, all of which lay on the other side of the hedge; and a kindly old woman of whom I inquired told me (if I rightly understood her Italian) that I should find no further pa.s.sage in that direction. So we turned back, much broiled in the hot sun, and only now and then relieved by the shadow of an angle or a tower.

SIENA[28]

BY MR. AND MRS. EDWIN H. BLASHFIELD

That admirers of minute designs and florid detail could appreciate grandeur as well, no one can doubt who has seen the plans of the Sienese cathedral. Its history is one of a grand result, and of far grander, tho thwarted endeavor, and it is hard to realize to-day, that the church as it stands is but a fragment, the transept only, of what Siena willed.

From the state of the existing works no one can doubt that the brave little republic would have finished it had she not met an enemy before whom the sword of Monteaperto was useless. The plague of 1348 stalked across Tuscany, and the chill of thirty thousand Sienese graves numbed the hand of master and workman, sweeping away the architect who planned, the masons who built, the magistrates who ordered, it left but the yellowed parchment in the archives which conferred upon Maestro Lorenzo Maitani the superintendence of the works.