MILAN AND THE PLAINS OF LOMBARDY
The great artichoke of Lombardy, whose petals have fallen one by one
before its enemies of Piedmont, is now much circumscribed in area
compared with its former estate.
From Como to Mantua and from Brescia to Pavia, in short the district of
Milan as it is locally known to-day, is the only political entity which
has been preserved intact. Tortona, Novara, Alessandria and Asti have
become alienated entirely, and for most travellers Milan is Lombardy and
Lombardy is Milan. To-day the dividing line in the minds of most is
decidedly vague.
Lombardy is the region of all Italy most prolific in signs of modernity
and prosperity, and, with Torino, Milan shares the honour of being the
centre of automobilism in Italy. The roads here, take them all in all,
are of the best, though not always well conditioned. That from Milan to
Como can be very, very good and six months later degenerate into
something equally as bad. The roads of these parts have an enormous
traffic over them and it is for this reason, as much as anything, that
their maintenance is difficult and variable. For the greater part they
are all at a general level, except of course in entering or leaving
certain cities and towns of the hills and on the direct roads leading to
the mountain passes back of Torino, or the roads crossing the lake
region and entering Switzerland or the Oberland.
Lombardy in times past, and to-day to some extent, possessed a dialect
or patois quite distinct from the Franco-Italian mélange of Piedmont, or
the pure Italian of Tuscany. The Lombard, more than all other dialects
of Italy, has a decided German flavour which, considering that the
Lombard crown was worn by a German head, is not remarkable. In
time--after the Guelph-Ghibelline feud--Lombardy was divided into many
distinct camps which in turn became recognized principalities.
The Viscontis ruled the territory for the most part up to 1447, when the
condottière Francesco Sforza developed that despotism which brought
infamy on his head and State, a condition of affairs which the Pope
described as conducive to the greatest possible horrors.
[Illustration: A Lombard Fête]
Lombardy has ever been considered the real paradise and land of riches
of all Italy, and even now, in a certain luxuriousness of attitude
towards life, it lives up to its repudiation of the days of the
dominating Visconti and Sforza.
Milan is to-day the luxurious capital of Lombardy, as was Pavia in the
past. At one time, be it recalled, Milan was a Duchy in its own right.
Years of despotism at the hands of a man of genius made Milan a great
city and the intellectual capital of Italy. Milanese art and
architecture of the fifteenth century reached a great height. It was
then, too, that the Milanese metal workers became celebrated, and it was
a real distinction for a knight to be clad in the armour of Milan.
"Well was he armed from head to heel
In mail and plate of Milan steel."
Milan has a history of the past, but paradoxically Milan is entirely
modern, for it struggled to its death against Pavia, the city of five
hundred and twenty-five towers, and was born again as it now is. One
should enter Milan in as happy a mood as did Evelyn who "passynge by
Lodi came to a grete citty famous for a cheese little short of the best
Parmesan." It was a queer mood to have as one was coming under Milan's
spell, and the sculptured and Gothic glories of the Cathedral, as it
stands in completion to-day, are quite likely to add to, rather than
detract from, any preconceived idea of the glories of the city and its
treasures.
Milan is one of the most princely cities of Europe, and lies in the
centre of a region flowing with milk and honey. In Evelyn's time it had
a hundred churches, seventy monasteries and forty thousand inhabitants.
To-day its churches and monasteries are not so many, but it has a
population of half a million souls.
The comment of the usual tourist is invariably: "There is so little to
see in Milan." Well, perhaps so! It depends upon how hard you look for
it. Milan is a very progressive up-to-date sort of city, but its storied
past has been most momentous, and historic monuments are by no means
wanting. Milan is modern in its general aspect, it is true, and has
little for the unexpert in antiquarian lore, but all the same it has
three magic lode stones; its luxuriously flamboyant Gothic Duomo; its
Ambrosian Library and its Palace of arts and sciences, La Brera.
Tourists may forget the two latter and what they contain, but they will
not forget the former, nor the Arch of Triumph built as a guide post by
Napoleon on his march across Europe, or the Galleria Victor-Emmanuel,
"as wide as a street and as tall as a Cathedral," a great arcade with
shops, cafés, restaurants and the like.
There is the Scala opera house, too, which ranks high among its kind.
Milan's "eighth wonder of the world," its great Cathedral, is the chef
d'oeuvre of the guide books. Details of its magnitude and splendours
are there duly set forth. Milan's Cathedral has long sheltered a dubious
statue of St. Bartholomew, and tourists have so long raved over it that
the authorities have caused to be graven on its base: "I am not the work
of Praxiteles but of Marcus Agrates." Now the throngs cease to admire,
and late experts condemn the work utterly. Such is the follow-my-leader
idea in art likes and dislikes! And such is the ephemeral nature of an
artist's reputation!
The Palazzo Reale occupies the site of the Palazzo di Corte of the
Visconti and the Sforza of the fourteenth century, "one of the finest
palaces of its time," it is recorded. The Palazzo of to-day is a poor,
mean thing architecturally, although the residence of the King to-day
when he visits Milan. The Archiepiscopal Palace of the sixteenth
century is perhaps the finest domestic establishment of its class and
epoch in Milan.
Milan's Castello, the ancient castle of Milan, was the ancient ducal
castle, built by Galeazzo Visconti II in 1358, to keep the Milanese in
subjection. It was demolished after his death, but rebuilt with
increased strength by Gian Galeazzo. On the death of the Duke Filippo
Maria, the Milanese rose (1447), and, having proclaimed the "Aurea
respublica Ambrosiana," destroyed the castle. It was rebuilt (1452) by
Francesco Sforza, "for the ornament (he said) of the city and its safety
against enemies." This building, completed in 1476, is the one now
standing. In the interior is a keep, where the dukes often resided.
Philip II added extensive modern fortifications, and caused to be pulled
down all the neighbouring towers which overlooked them. The castle was
taken by the French in 1796, and again in 1800, when Napoleon ordered
the fortifications to be razed. It has since been converted into a
barrack. Of the round towers at the angles, those towards the north have
been replaced by modern brick ones, while the two towards the city,
formed of massive granite blocks, remain. During the vice-royalty of
Eugene Beauharnais, a Doric gateway of granite, with a portico, or
line of arches, now filled up, on each side, and in the same style, was
erected on the northwest side; between each arch is a medallion
containing the bas-relief portrait of some illustrious Italian military
commander.
[Illustration: _The Ancient Castle of Milan_]
The Napoleonic arch, the Arco della Pace, is a remarkably interesting
civic monument, a reproduction of a temporary affair first built of wood
and canvas in 1806. Now it stands, a comparatively modern work to be
sure, but of splendid design and proportions, built of white marble, and
elaborately decorated with sculptures all at the expense of Napoleon,
who, on his march of migratory conquest, deigned to devote 200,000
francs to the purpose.
Milan's hotels are of all sorts and conditions, but with a decided
tendency towards the good, as is fitting in so opulent a country.
Bertolini's Hotel Europe takes a high rank, at corresponding charges, as
for instance four francs for a "box" for your automobile. The Touring
Club Italiano endorses the Albergo del Cervo, where you pay nothing for
garage and may eat as bountifully as you will of things Italian, real
Italian, at from two to three francs a meal. One of the most amusing
things to do in Milan is to lunch or dine in one of the great glass
covered galleries near the cathedral, and one feasts well indeed for the
matter of four francs, with another couple of francs for a bottle of
Asti. These great restaurants of the galleries may lack a certain aspect
of the next-to-the-soil Italian restaurants, but they do show a phase of
another class of Italian life and here "Young Italy" may be seen taking
his midday meal and ordering English or German beer or Scotch or
American whiskey. He shuns the Italian items on the bill of fare and
orders only exotics. You on the contrary will do the reverse.
Pavia, thirty odd kilometres south of Milan, was ever a rival of the
greater city of to-day. Pavia is a tourist point, but only because it is
on the direct road from Milan.
Pavia was the Lombard capital from 572 to 774. Its old walls and
ramparts remain, in part, to-day and the whole aspect of the town is one
of a certain mediævalism which comports little with the modernity of its
neighbour, Milan, which has so far outgrown its little brother.
Pavia's Certosa, on the road from Milan to Pavia, is its chief
architectural splendour. Of that there is no doubt. It is the most
gorgeously endowed and most splendid monastery in all the world, founded
in 1396 by one of the Visconti as an atonement to his conscience for
having murdered his uncle and father-in-law.
A Venetian, Bernardo da Venezia, was probably the architect of the
Certosa, and brick work and superimposed marble slabs and tablets all
combine in an elegance which marks the Certosa of Pavia as
characteristic of the most distinctive Lombard manner of building of its
epoch.
Within the city itself still stands the grim Castello, built on the site
of the palace of the Lombard kings. The present building, however, was
begun in 1460 and completed in 1469. It formed an ample quadrangle,
flanked by four towers, two of which alone remain. The inner court was
surrounded by a double cloister, or loggia; in the upper one the arches
were filled in by the most delicate tracery in brickwork. The whole was
crowned by beautiful forked battlements. In the towers were deposited
the treasures of literature and art which Gian Galeazzo had
collected:--ancient armour; upwards of 1,000 MSS., which Petrarch had
assisted in selecting; and many natural curiosities. All these Visconti
collections were carried to France in 1499 by Louis XII and nothing was
left but the bare walls. One side of the palace or castle was demolished
during the siege by Lautrec in 1527; but in other respects it continued
perfect, though deserted, till 1796, when it was again put into a state
of defence by the French. They took off the roof and covered the
vaultings with earth; and when the rains came on in autumn, the weight
broke down the vaultings, and ruined a great part of the edifice. It has
since been fitted up as a military barracks. The great ruined gateway,
once entered by a drawbridge crossing the fosse, is still the most
imposing single detail, and the great quadrangle, with its fourteenth
century arcades and windows, "a medley of Gothic and Bramantesque," is
striking, although the marble and terra-cotta ornaments are much
dilapidated.
François I's famous mot: "all is lost save honour," uttered after the
eventful battle of Pavia, will go down with that other remark of his:
"Oh, God, but thou hast made me pay dear for my crown," as the two most
apropos sayings of Renaissance times.
One has to look carefully "under the walls of Pavia," to-day for any
historical evidence of the fatal day of François I when he lost his
"all, save honour." Du Bellay has painted the picture so well that in
spite of the fact that four hundred years have rolled by, it seems
unlikely that even the most superficial traveller should not find some
historic stones upon which to build his suppositions.
Pavia's great University flowered in 1362, and owes much to the generous
impulses of Galeas II, who founded its chairs of civic and canonical
law, medicine, physics and logic. Galeas II was a great educator, but he
was versatile, for he invented a system of torture which would keep a
political prisoner alive for forty days and yet kill him at the end of
forty-one.
If one returns to Milan via the Bridge of Lodi he will have made a
hundred kilometre round of classic Lombard scenery. It possesses no
elements of topographic grandeur but is rich and prosperous looking, and
replete with historic memory, every kilometre of it.
Lodi has evolved its name from the ancient Laus of the Romans, another
evidence of the oblique transformation of Latin into the modern dialect.
The men of Lodi were ever rivals of the Milanese, but it is to
Napoleon's celebrated engagement at the Bridge of Lodi that it owes its
fame in the popular mind.
Above Lodi, the River Adda circles and boils away in a sort of whirlpool
rapid, which Leonardo da Vinci, setting his palette and brushes aside,
set about to control by a dam and a series of sluices. How well he
succeeded may be imagined by recalling the fact that the Italian Edison
Company in recent years availed themselves of the foundation of his plan
in their successful attempt to turn running water into electricity.
The panorama to the north of Milan is grandiose in every particular. On
the horizon the Alpine chain lies clear-cut against the sky, the Viso,
Grand Paradise, Mont Blanc, Splugen and other peaks descending in one
slope after another, one foothill after another, until all opens out
into the great plain of Lombardy.
North of Milan, towards Como and the Alpine background, is Monza. Lady
Morgan called Monza dreary and silent, but her judgments were not always
sound; she depended too much upon moods and hers were many.
Monza's Broletto was built by Frederick Barbarossa, or it was a part of
a palace built by that monarch. Italian Gothic of an unmistakable local
cast is its style and the effect is heightened by the _ringhiera_
between the windows of the south side.
In Monza's Cathedral--an antique interior with a Gothic exterior, by the
way--is the celebrated Iron Crown of Lombardy with which the German
Emperors of Lombardy were crowned. Charles V, Napoleon and Ferdinand I
also made use of the same historic bauble which is not of much
splendour. It costs a five franc fee to see it, and the sight is not
worth the price of admission.
[Illustration: THE IRON CROWN OF LOMBARDY]
From Milan to Domodossola, leaving Italy via the Simplon Pass, is 177
kilometres, or, via Bellinzona and the Splugen, 207 kilometres with
mediocre roads until the lake region is reached, when they improve
decidedly, being of the very best as they ascend the mountain valleys.