THROUGH ITALIAN LAKELAND
The lake region of the north is perhaps the most romantic in all Italy;
certainly its memories have much appeal to the sentimentally inclined.
Indeed the tourists are so passionately fond of the Italian lakeland
that they leave it no "close" season, but are everywhere to be remarked,
from Peschiera on the east to Orta on the west. Seemingly they are all
honeymoon couples and seek seclusion, and are therefore less offensive
than the general run of conducted parties which now "do" the Italian
round for a ten pound note from London, or the same thing from New York
for a couple of hundred dollars.
It is the fashion to revile the automobilist as a hurried traveller, but
he at least gets a sniff of the countryside en route which the others do
not.
Coming from the east through Verona, the traveller by road might do
worse than make a detour of a hundred kilometres out and back to
Mantua.
Mantua, on the banks of the Mincio, sits like a water-surrounded town of
the Low Countries. Mantua, above all, is a place of war, one of the
strongest in North Italy, forming with Verona, Legnago and Peschiera the
famous "Quadrilatera." Mantua has at least a tenth part of its
population made up of Jews. It sits partly surrounded by an artificial
lake formed by the Mincio, and the marsh land to the south can be
flooded, if it is deemed advisable, in case of siege. A great walled
enclosure, a series of fortified dykes, and a collection of detached
forts roundabout, put Mantua in a class quite by itself. It is a
melancholy, unlovely place from an æsthetic standpoint, but picturesque
in a certain crude way. The ancient Palazzo Gonzague of the Dukes of
Mantua, now known as the Corte Reale, is one of the most ambitious
edifices of its class in Italy. The view of the Palazzo Ducale at
Mantua, with the rising background of roofs, towers and domes, as seen
from the further end of the cobble-stone paved bridge over the Mincio,
is delightful. Artists do not like it as a general rule because of the
ugly straight line of the bridge, and the "camera fiend" makes a
hopeless mess of it, unless he seeks an hour or more for a "point of
view;" but for all that the scene is as quaint and beautiful a
composition as one can get of unspoiled mediævalism in these progressive
times, when usually telegraph poles and tram cars project themselves
into focus whether or no. There is nothing of the kind here.
[Illustration: PALAZZO DUCAL MANTUA]
The road from Mantua to Cremona, following the banks of the Mincio,
still preserves its Virgilian aspect. _Mantua væ miseræ nimium vicina
Cremonæ._ From this one infers that it is a bad road, and in truth it is
very bad; automobilists will not like it. Cremona's tower is seen from
afar, like the sailors' beacon from the sea. It is one of the most hardy
and the most renowned Gothic towers of Italy and has a height
approximating a hundred and twenty odd metres, say a little less than
four hundred feet.
Neighbouring upon this great Torrazo is the Palazzo Gonfaloneri, dating
from 1292. These two monuments, together with the magnificent Romanesque
Lombard Cathedral of the twelfth century, and the Casa Stradivari--where
he who gave his name to a violin lived--are Mantua's chief "things to
see." If the traveller can include Mantua in his itinerary, which truth
to tell is not easy without doubling on one's tracks, he should do so.
Travellers coming westward from Venice and passing Verona, hastening to
the Italian and Swiss lakes, usually give that region lying between
Verona and Como little heed. Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice and then
Switzerland and the Rhine is still too often the itinerary of hurried
papas and fond mamas. Even if the automobilist does not drop down on
Mantua and Cremona he should take things leisurely through the lake
region and stop en route as often as fancy wills. The Lago di Garda is
the most easterly of the Italian Lakes and the largest.
It is of great depth, 350 metres or more, is sixty odd kilometres in
length, and in places a third as wide. It is a product of the rivers and
torrents flowing down from the mountains of the Italian Tyrol. The
sudden storms which frequently come up to ruffle its bosom were
celebrated by some lines of Virgil and his example has been followed by
every other traveller ever caught in one of these storms. "_Fluctibus et
fremitu assurgens_" sang the bard, and the words still echo down through
time.
Peschiera and Desenzano are the principal ports at the southern end of
the lake, and each in its way is trying to be a "resort." The environs
are charming and the towns themselves interesting enough, though chiefly
from the point of view of the artist. The seeker after the gaieties and
pleasures of the great watering places will find nothing of the sort
here.
Between Peschiera and Desenzano juts out the promontory of Sermione. A
village is entered by a drawbridge and a mediæval gate on the south. On
the opposite side is a fortified wall that separates it from the
northerly portion of the island, and through which opens the only gate
in that direction. The old castle, in the form of a quadrangle, with a
high square tower, was entered on the north by a drawbridge. This
entrance is still well preserved, as well as its small port or
_darsena_, surrounded by crenelated battlements; but the principal
entrance is now on the side of the village, by a gate over which are
shields bearing the arms of the Scaligers. It is one of the most
imposingly militant of all the castles of north Italy. Only that of
Fénis in the Val d'Aoste is more so.
Riva, at the Austrian end of the lake of Garda, has its drawbacks but it
occupies a wonderful site nevertheless.
While Northern Tyrol is still wrapped in the white mantle of winter's
snow, and winter sports of every description furnish great amusement for
old and young, the lovely Lake of Garda is already beginning to show
signs of spring. All along the lake the great "_stanzoni_," or
lemon-houses for sheltering the lemon trees in winter, are, even in
January, often filled with blossoms.
[Illustration: _On the Lago di Garda_]
The best time to visit Riva is from February to June, and from the
middle of August to the end of October, but Riva at all times will be a
surprise and a delight to those who do not mind a _régime_ table d'hôte,
as the doctors have it, and the fact that everybody round about appears
to be a semi-invalid.
To Brescia from the foot of the Lake of Garda is a matter of twenty odd
kilometres, through a greatly varied nearby landscape, set off here and
there by vistas of the azure of the distant lake, the Alps of Tyrol and
the nearer Bergamese mountains.
"_Bologna la Grassa_" and "_Brescia Armata_" are two nick-names by which
the respective cities are known up and down Italy. Brescia, like most
Italian towns, is built on a hill top and is castle-crowned as becomes a
mediæval burg. Brescia's castle is an exceptionally strongly fortified
feudal monument. _Brescia Armata_ took its name from the fact that it
was ever armed against its enemies, which in the good old days every
Italian city was or it was of no account whatever. Brescia's enemies
could never have made much headway when attacking this hill-top
fortress, and must have contented themselves with sacking the cities of
the surrounding plain. To-day firearms in great quantities are made
here, and thus the city is still entitled to be called _Brescia
Armata_.
Brescia's market place is more thickly covered with great, squat,
mushroom umbrellas than that of any other city of its size in Italy.
Brescia is dear to the French because of its wraith of a mediæval
castle, once so vigorously defended by the Chevalier Bayard, that famous
knight _sans peur et sans reproche_.
A bastioned wall surrounds the gay little Lombard city in the genuine
romance fashion, albeit there is to-day very little romance in Brescia,
which lives mostly by the exploitation of its textile and metal
industries.
Brescia housefronts are as gaily decorated as those of Nuremberg, many
of them at least. It is a remarkable feature of Brescia's domestic
architecture.
The castle or citadel itself was built by the Viscontis in the
fourteenth century on the summit of a hill overlooking the town. The
Venetians strengthened it and again the Austrians. General Haynau
bombarded the low-lying city round about in barbarous fashion, so much
so that the memory of it caused him to be chased from London some years
later, when he was sent there as Ambassador.
[Illustration: _Castle of Brescia_]
The men of Brescia seem to have a passion for wearing a great Capucin
shoulder cloak, which looks very Spanish. It is most picturesque, and is
one of the characteristic things seen in all Brescia's public places,
_caffés_ and restaurants, and is worn by all those classes whom a
discerning traveller once described as men who work hard at doing
nothing, for Brescia's street corners are never vacant and her _caffés_
never empty.
Between Brescia and Bergamo is the Lake of Iseo; the fourth in size of
the north Italian lakes. The vegetation of its shores is purely Italian
and vineyards and olive groves abound. A fringe of old castle towers, of
walls, palaces and villas surround it, all blended together with a
historic web and woof of mediævalism and romance.
From Brescia to Bergamo runs one of the best national highroads in
Italy. The automobilist will appreciate this and will want to push on to
the end. He would do better to break it midway and drop down on the road
to Martinengo, a detour of twenty kilometres only, passing the great
Castle of Malpaga built by the celebrated Bartolommeo Colleoni, an
edifice which gives a more complete idea of unspoiled, unrestored
residence of a mediæval Italian nobleman than any other extant.
Bergamo is a strange combination of the new and the old. The upper and
lower towns--for it is built on a rise of the Bergamon Alps--have
nothing in common with each other. In the lower town there are great
hotels, shops, and even a vast factory which turns out a celebrated make
of automobiles. In the upper town there are market-men and women, with
chickens, vegetables and fruit to sell, all spread out under an imposing
array of great mushroom umbrellas only second to those of the market
place at Brescia.
Bergamo's chief architectural monuments are its churches, but its
ancient Broletto, or castle, of not very pure Gothic, but with a most
original façade, is worth them all put together in its appeal to one
with an eye for the picturesque. Its tower is a remarkably firm, solid
and yet withal graceful sentinel of dignity and power.
[Illustration: _Bergamo_]
Bergamo's great fair of Saint Alexander, held every year in August, was
once the rival of those great trading fairs of Leipzig and Beaucaire. Of
late it is of less importance, but holds somewhat to its ancient
traditions. Certainly it filled the Albergo Capello d'Oro to such an
extent that it was doubtful for a time if we could find a place. A sight
of our mud-covered automobile and of our generally bedraggled
appearance--for it had rained again, though that of itself is nothing
remarkable in Italy, and we had "mud-larked it" for the last fifty
kilometres,--caused somebody's conscience to smite him and find us
shelter.
[Illustration: Map The Italian Lakes]
Beyond Bergamo one enters the classic Italian Lake region, that which
has usually been seen through a honeymoon perspective, a honeymoon that
is long-lasting, as it invariably is in Italy as some of us know. All
through this lakeland of north Italy is an unbroken succession of charms
which certainly, from the sentimental and romantic point, has no equal
in Italy, or out of it in the same area.
The whole battery of little cities, towns, and townlets which surround
Lakes Como, Varese, Lugano and Maggiore are delightful from all points.
Theirs is a unique variety of charm which comports with the tranquil
mood, not at all the same as that possessed by the average scorching
automobilist who reads as he runs, and wishes to eat and drink and
absorb his romantic and historic lore in the same up-to-date fashion.
Not that the region is unsuited to automobile travel. Not at all, the
roads thereabouts are quite the best in Italy, and the towns themselves
picturesquely charming, if often lacking in ruined monuments of
mediævalism of the first rank. All of it is historic ground, and filled
with echoes of fact and fancy which still reverberate from its hills and
through its vales.
Not all of these lake-side towns can be catalogued here, no more than
are all included in the average itinerary, but from Lecco, at the
southern end of the Lecco arm of the Lago di Como, to Orta on the Lago
d'Orta will be found myriads of scenic surprises, dotted here and there
with quaint waterside towns, the lakes themselves being punctuated with
great white winged barques, with here and there the not unpicturesque
coil of smoke belching into the clear sky from a cranky, fussy little
steamboat.
One most often approaches the lake district from the east, via Lecco on
the eastern arm of Lake Como, or as it is locally called the Lago di
Lecco. Lecco itself is of no importance. Its site is its all-in-all, but
that is delightful. Between Lecco and Milan the highway crosses the Adda
by a magnificent bridge of ten arches built by Azzo Visconti in 1335.
Very few of the works of the old bridge-builders bear so ancient a date
as this. From Lecco to Monza the highroad skirts the Brianza, as the
last Alpine foot-hills are called before the mountains flatten out into
the Lombard Plain. At Arcore is the villa of the Adda family with a
modern chapel.
One can go north from Lecco to Bellaggio by steamer, when he will arrive
in the very heart of lakeland, or he may go directly west by the
highroad to Como and take his point of departure from there. The Lake of
Como was the Lacus Larius of the Romans and the Lari Maxime of Virgil.
It is a hundred and ninety metres above sea level and among all other of
the Swiss and Italian lakes holds the palm for the beauty of its
surroundings.
At Nesso is the Villa Pliniana, built in 1570. It is not named for
Pliny, but because of a nearby spring mentioned in his writings.
Pliny's villa was actually at Lenno, in a dull gloomy site and he
properly enough called the villa Tragedia.
Como, the city, is ancient, for the younger Pliny, who was born in the
ancient _municipium_ of Comum, asserts that it was then a "flourishing
state." It does not enter actively into history, however, after the fall
of the Roman Empire, until 1107, when it became an independent city. It
remained a republic for two centuries and then it fell under the
dominion of the Visconti since which time its fate has ever been bound
up with that of Milan.
The Broletto or municipal palace is curiously built of black and white
marble courses, patched here and there with red. It is interesting, but
bizarre, and of no recognized architectural style save that it is a
reminder of the taste of the people of the Lombard Republics with
respect to their civic architecture in the thirteenth century. Como's
Duomo is, on the contrary, a celebrated and remarkably beautiful
structure. The distinction made between the taste in ecclesiastical and
civic architecture of the time can but be remarked.
[Illustration: _On the Lago di Como_]
The military architecture of Como, as indicated by the gates in its old
city wall, was of a high order. The Porta della Torre, the chief of
the gates remaining, and leading out to the Milan road, rises five
stories in air.
The Palazzo Giovio is now the local museum. Paolo Giovio built the
crudely ornate edifice, and began the collection of antiquities and
relics which it now contains. Above Como, but outside the city, rises a
curious lofty tower called the Bardello. It may have been built as one
of the defences of the Lombard Kings, or it may not, but at any rate
there is no doubt that it witnessed the rise and fall of the Milanese
dynasties from the first. Como, one of the first cities to assert its
independence, was the first to lose it. Prisoners of state were put into
iron cages and stowed away in the Bardello--like animals or birds in a
live stock show. They were all tagged and numbered and were fed at
infrequent, uncertain hours. Not many lived out their terms; mostly they
died, some of hunger, some eaten up by vermin and more than one by
having dashed their brains out on the iron bars of their cages.
All about Como are little lake settlements peopled with villas and
hotels where many a mediæval and modern romance has been lived in the
real. It is all very delightful, but in truth all is stagey.
[Illustration: Cadenabbia]
At Cadenabbia is the Villa Carlotta, named for Charlotte the Duchess of
Saxe-Meiningen. Its structural elements build up into something
imposing, if not in the best of taste, and its gardens are of the
conventionally artificial kind which look as though they might be part
of a stage setting.
Bellaggio, on the eastern shore of the lake, is a place of large hotels,
no history of remark, and the site of the villa Serbelloni, with which
the proprietor of one of the hotels seems to have some special
arrangement, in that he passes visitors to and fro from his
establishment to the villa in genuine showman fashion. Beyond its site,
which is entrancingly lovely, it has no appeal whatever from either the
architectural or the landscape gardening point of view.
Mennagio, Belluno and Varenna are in the same category and are tourist
show places only. Gravadona is different in that it has two remarkably
beautiful churches, which can be omitted from no consideration of
Italian church architecture, and the Palazzo de Pero, built in 1586 for
Cardinal Gallio which, with its four angle-towers, is more like a
fortress than a prelate's residence.
Near Gravadona is the outline of an ancient highway known as the Strada
Regina. Supposedly it was made centuries and centuries ago by
Theodolinda, Queen of the Lombards, and must be one of the oldest roads
in existence.
The Lago di Lugano is the most irregular of all the Italian Lakes. In
part it lies in Lombardy and in part within the Swiss canton of Ticino.
Its scenery is quite distinct from that of the other Italian lakes, not
more beautiful perhaps, but less prolifically surrounded by that
sub-tropical verdure which is characteristic of Garda and Como. In the
northeasterly portion, around Porlezza, the precipitous outlines of the
mountains round about lend an almost savage aspect.
Lugano itself is very near the Swiss border but is thoroughly Italian,
with deep arcaded streets, and here and there a Renaissance façade such
as can be found nowhere out of Italy.
The Lago di Varese is the smallest of all the lakes. In the
neighbourhood is produced a great deal of silk, and a species of easily
worked marble or alabaster called Marmo Majolica. Varese itself, while
not destitute of monuments of architectural worth, is more noticeably a
place of modern villas, most of which are occupied by wealthy Milanese.
[Illustration: _On the Lago di Maggiore_]
From Varese to Laveno on the Lago di Maggiore is a matter of fifty
kilometres, and here one comes to the most famous, if not the most
beautiful, of all the lakes.
The whole range of towns circling this daintily environed lake have an
almost inexpressible charm, and its islands--the Borromean Islands--are
superlatively beautiful.
Baveno, on the mainland, and its villas, modern though they are, is a
charming place, and Stresa, a little further to the south, is even more
delightfully disposed. All about the Italian lakeland are the modern
villa residences of distinguished Milanese, Turinese and Genoese
families.
Arona is at the southern end of the lake. Above this town is a colossal
statue of San Carlo Borromeo, the head, hands and feet being cast in
bronze, the remainder being fabricated of beaten copper.
The famous Borromean Islands in the Lago di Maggiore number four: Isola
Bella, Isola Madre, Isola San Giovanni and Isola dei Piscatori, of which
the three former belong to the Borromean family, whilst the latter is
divided among small proprietors.
The vast Palazzo of Isola Bella was a conception of an ancestor of the
present family in 1671. The great fabric, with its terraces, gardens and
grottoes, is an exotic thing of the first importance. It is idyllically
picturesque, but withal inartistic from many points of view. The
contrast of all this semi-tropical luxuriousness with its snow-capped
Alpine background is not its least remarkable feature. It has been
called "fairylike," "a caprice of grandiose ideas," and "enchanted," and
these words describe it well enough. It looks unreal, as if one saw it
in a dream. Certainly its wonderful panoramic background and foreground
are not equalled elsewhere and no garden carpet of formal flowerbeds
ever made so beautifully disposed a platform on which to stand and
marvel. The architect of it all made no allowance apparently for the
natural setting, but overloaded his immediate foreground with all things
that suggested themselves to his imaginative mind. Somehow or other he
didn't spoil things as much as he might have done. The setting is
theatrical and so are the accessories; all is splendidly spectacular,
and, since this is its classification, no one can cavil. What other
effect could be produced where ten staired terraces tumble down one on
another in a veritable cascade simply as a decorative accessory to a
monumental edifice and not as a thing of utility?
On Isola Madre is another vast structure surrounded by tropical and
semi-tropical trees, flowers and shrubs. A chapel contains many of the
tombs of the Borromeo family.
The Isola dei Piscatori is the artists' paradise of these parts. It
lacks the "prettiness" of the other islands but gains in "character" as
artists call that picturesqueness which often is unsuspected and unseen
by the masses.
Going back to history, here is what happened once on the Isola Bella: It
is a warm June night. The mauve summits of the Simplon and the _reflets_
of the mirrored lake throw back a penetrating shimmer to the view.
Coming from Baveno, and holding straight its course for Isola Bella, is
a gently moving bark. It is the year 1800, and on the stern seat of the
boat sits the First Consul, who was once the Little Corporal and
afterwards became Napoleon I.
The French army had freed the Alps, some days before. Over the passes of
Mont Cenis, of the Simplon, of Saint Bernard, and Saint Gothard they had
come, soon to form in battle line on the plains of Piedmont. Moncey was
at the gates of Milan, Lannes held the passage of the Po. The First
Consul, arriving on the shores of the Lago di Maggiore, decided to pass
the night in the Castle of Isola Bella, alone on this enchanting isle,
with his thoughts and his plans. Bonaparte jumped first from the boat as
it grated on the sands and was received by a grotesquely attired
major-domo, in the name of the Counts of Borromeo, the sovereign princes
of this tiny archipelago.
In the seigneurial chamber, of which the furniture comprised a great
four poster dating from the time of the Medicis, a massive round table,
its top laid in mosaic, some chairs and a terrestrial globe, Napoleon
shook off the dust of travel forthwith: but he did not seek repose. On
the mosaic table-top Napoleon unfolded a great map of Italy, and with
forehead in his hands gazed attentively at its tracings, soliloquizing
thus: "Yes, Italy is reconquered already; the Austrian army cannot
escape me. Fifteen days will suffice to efface the disasters of two
years. The Austrian army is already in retreat; its rear guard has
become its advance guard. The tricolour of France will yet float on the
shores of the Adriatic. I shall march on Rome. I will chase the hateful
Bourbons from the Kingdom of Naples for ever. Europe will tremble at the
echo of my footsteps."
[Illustration: _Orta_]
Finally the twilight faded; back of the mountains of Lugano shone a
brilliant star. Napoleon thought it his star of destiny. To the wide
open window came the First Consul for a breath of the sweet night air.
It acted like champagne. He turned back into the room; he kicked over
the terrestrial globe of the Borromeo; he threw the map of Italy to the
floor. "What is Italy!" he cried, "a mere nothing! Bah! it's hardly
worth the conquering. Certainly not worth more than a few weeks. But I
will leave the memory of my name behind. And then--and then Saint Jean
d'Acre, the Orient, the Indies. _Allons_, we will follow the route of
Tamerlane! Poland will come to life again, Moscow, St. Petersburg ..."
and then he dreamed.
And that is what passed one night in the Palazzo Borromeo a little more
than a hundred years ago.
From the shores of the Lago di Maggiore to Orta, on the lake of that
name, is a short dozen kilometres from either Arona or Baveno. At Orta
the traveller may take his ease at an humble inn and from its broad
balcony overhanging the lake enjoy emotions which he will not experience
at every halting place.
Orta's Municipio, or Town hall, dominating its tiny Piazza is
unspeakably lovely though indeed it is a hybrid blend of the
architecture of Germany and Italy. It might as well be in Nuremberg, in
Bavaria or Barberino in Tuscany for all it looks like anything else in
Piedmont.
Out in the lake glitters--glitters is the word--Isola San Giulio, its
graceful campanile and ancient stone buildings hung with crimson
creepers and mirrored in the clear blue depths. About this island there
hangs a legend. The story goes that no one could be found ready to ferry
the apostle Julius across to the chosen site of his mission in the year
1500. According to popular rumour the isle was haunted by dragons and
venomous reptiles that none dared face. Not to be deterred from his
purpose, the holy man spread his cloak upon the water, and floated
quickly and quietly across. Nor did the miracle end here, for, as with
St. Patrick of Ireland, the unclean monsters, acknowledging his power,
retired to a far-away mountain, leaving the saint unmolested to carry on
his labours, which were continued after his death by faithful friends.
This is the story as it is told on the spot.
The island was held as an outpost against invasions for many years, and
for long witnessed the hopeless struggles of a brave woman, Villa, wife
of King Berenger of Lombardy, who was besieged there by the Emperor Otho
the Great.