TURIN AND THE ALPINE GATEWAYS
The mountains of Piedmont are of the same variety as those of
Switzerland and Savoy. They form the highland background to Turin which
gives it its magnificent and incomparable framing.
Turin, or Torino, was the old capital of the Duchy of Savoy, then of the
Kingdom of Sardinia, up to 1864, and to-day is the chief city of
Piedmont.
Turin is laid out in great rectangular blocks, with long straight
streets, and it is brilliant and beautiful as modern cities go, but
there is not much that is romantic about it, save an occasional
historical memory perpetuated by some public monument.
[Illustration: _Palazzo Madonna, Turin_]
Turin at the time of the founding of the kingdom of Sardinia, which
included also the domain of the house of Savoy, contained but 75,000
inhabitants. Said Montesquieu, who visited it in 1728: "It is the most
beautiful city in the world." De Brosseo, a few years later, declared
it to be "the finest city in Italy, by the proper alignment of its
streets, the regularity of its buildings, and the beauty of its
squares." From this point of view the same holds true to-day, but it is
not sympathetic and winsome in the least, and it is not for the
contemplation of straight streets, square, box-like buildings or formal
public garden plots that one comes to Italy.
Turin's monumental memories are by no means non-existent or unclassed,
but they are almost overpowered by the modern note which rings so loudly
in one's ears and flashes so vividly in one's eyes.
Of them all the Palazzo Madonna has the greatest appeal. It was
originally a thirteenth century construction of the Montferrats, but was
added to at various times until well along in the eighteenth century,
when it became the palace of Madonna Reale, the widow of Charles
Emmanuel II. All its value from an architectural point of view is in its
exterior aspect, but its trim twelve-sided towers have a real
distinction that a heavier, more clumsy donjon often lacks.
The Palazzo Carignano is a fanciful invention of an architect, Guarni by
name, who in 1680 had no very clear idea as to what a consistent and
pleasing architectural conception should be. This palace's sole reason
to be remembered is that it was the residence of King Carlo-Alberto.
To-day Guarni's original façade has been covered by a non-contemporary
colonnade, with columns and statues of a certain impressive presence,
which would be considered handsome if it were some degrees finer in
workmanship, for the conception was certainly on becoming general lines.
The Palazzo Valentino, built in 1633 by Christine of France, the
daughter of Henri IV and Marie de Medici, and wife of Vittorio Amedeo
II, is now devoted to the usages of an educational institution. It is on
the classic French chateau order and is as out of place in Italy as the
Italian Renaissance architecture is in England.
On the Piazza Castello rises Turin's old castle of the fourteenth
century, built of brick, and, though moss-grown, it is hardly a ruin.
The Palazzo Reale, built in 1678 on the north side of the Piazza, is
severe and simple as to exterior, but luxurious enough within by reason
of the collections which it houses.
In the armory of Turin's royal palace is the full suit of armour worn by
Duke Emanuele-Filiberto on the occasion of the battle of St. Quentin,
and made by his own hand. He was an armourer, a silversmith and a worker
in fine metals beyond compare. In peace he was a craftsman without an
equal; in war he was the same kind of a fighter.
Another armour suit is of gigantic proportions. Who its owner was
history and the catalogue fail to state. The breast-plate bears a ducal
coronet and the letter F. The suit contains enough metal to armour plate
a small battle ship. For the more sentimentally inclined there is a
cabinet of delicately fashioned stilettos, which we have always fondly
believed were the national arms of Italy. These particular stilettos
were taken from fair ladies after they had made away with their lovers
when they came to be a nuisance. Fickle women!
Turin is one of the many places on the map of Europe famous for a
specialty in the eating line. This time it is chocolate. Let not any one
think that all chocolate comes from Aiguebelle or Royat. The bread of
Turin, "_grissini_," is also in a class by itself. It is made in long
sticks about the diameter of a pipe stem, and you eat yards of it with
your _minestra_ and between courses.
The puppet show or marionette theatres of Turin have ever been famous,
indeed the _fantoccini_ theatre had its origin in Piedmont. The buffon
Gianduja was of Piedmontese birth, as was Arlequino of Bergamo.
Around Turin are various suburban neighbourhoods with historic memories
and some palace and villa remains which might well be noted.
The Vigna della Regina, or the Queen's Vineyard, is the name given to a
once royal residence, now a girls' school. The house was built in 1650
by Cardinal Maurice of Savoy. Another one of the nearby sights, not
usually "taken in," is the natural garden (an undefiled landscape
garden) arranged in the sixteenth century by the Duke of Savoy, Emanuele
Filiberto.
King Carlo Felice had a country house called the Castello d'Aglie to the
north of the city. It is remarkable for nothing but the pure air of the
neighbourhood, and that abounds everywhere in these parts.
[Illustration: On the Strada, Moncenisio]
At Rivoli, a few kilometres out on the Mont Cenis road, is a clumsily
built, half finished mass of buildings, planned by Vittorio Amedeo II.
in the eighteenth century as a royal residence to which he some day
might return if he ever got tired of playing abdicator. He occupied
it surely enough, in due course, but as a prisoner, not as a ruler. He
was a well-meaning monarch, and through him the house of Savoy obtained
Sardinia, but he made awful blunders at times, or at least one, for
ultimately he landed in prison where he died in 1732.
Six leagues from Turin is the little garrison town of Pinerolo. A heap
of stones on the mountain marks the site of a chateau where were once
imprisoned the man of the Iron Mask, Lauzun, the political prisoner of
history, and Fouquet, the money-grabbing minister of Louis XIV.
Lauzun and his personal history make interesting reading for one versed
in things Italian and French. He made a famous _mot_ when being
transported to his mountain prison. He was requested from time to time
to descend from his carriage, whenever by chance it had got stuck in the
mud or wedged between offending rocks. With much apology he was begged
to descend. "Oh! this is nothing; these little misfortunes of travel are
nothing of moment compared to the object of my journey." Other prisoners
may have put things similarly, but hardly with the same grace of
diction.
Let no automobilist, on leaving Turin, come out by way of Pinerolo
unless he is prepared for a detour of a hundred kilometres, a rise of
2,000 metres and a drop down again to 1,300 metres at Cesana Tarinese,
where he strikes the main road over the Col de Mont Cenis to Modane in
France, or via the Col de Mont Genevre to Briançon. The direct road from
Turin is via Rivoli and Suse.
Not every traveller in Italy knows the half-hidden out-of-the-way Val
d'Aoste, the obvious gateway from Turin to the north via the Col du
Saint Bernard. Travellers by rail rush through via the Simplon or Mont
Cenis and know not the delights and joys which possess the traveller by
road as he plunges into the heart of the Alps through the gateway of the
Val d'Aoste.
The Val d'Aoste, less than a hundred kilometres, all counted, has more
scenic and architectural surprises than any similar strip in Europe, but
it is not a _piste_ to be raced over by the scorching automobilist at
sixty miles an hour. On the contrary it can not be done with
satisfaction in less than a day, even by the most blasé of tourists. The
railway also ascends the valley as far as Aoste, and one may cross over
by coach into France or Switzerland by either the Col du Petit Saint
Bernard or the Col du Grand Saint Bernard. It is worth doing!
The whole Val d'Aoste is one great reminder of feudal days and feudal
ways. Curiously enough, too, in this part of Piedmont the aspect is as
much French as Italian, and so too is the speech of the people. At
Courmayer, for instance, the street and shop signs are all in French,
and _'om_ the diminutive of _homme_ replaces the Italian _uomo_; _cheur_
stands for _coeur_ and _sita_ for _cité_ and _citta_. This patois is
universal through the upper valleys, and if one has any familiarity with
the patois of Provence it will not be found so very strange. French,
however, is very commonly understood throughout Piedmont, more so than
elsewhere in north Italy, where, for a fact, a German will find his way
about much more readily than a Frenchman.
One blemish lies all over the Val d'Aoste. It was greatly to be remarked
by travellers of two or three generations ago and is still in evidence
if one looks for it, though actually it is decreasing. Large numbers of
the population are of the afflicted class known as _Cretins_, and many
more suffer from _goitre_. It is claimed that these diseases come from a
squalid filthiness, but the lie is given to this theory by the fact that
there is no apparent filthiness. The diseases are evidently hereditary,
and at some time anterior to their appearance here they were already
known elsewhere. They are then results of an extraneous condition of
affairs imported and developed here in this smiling valley through the
heedlessness of some one. There are certain neighbourhoods, as at
Courmayer and Ivrea, where they do not exist at all, but in other
localities, and for a radius of ten kilometres roundabout, they are most
prevalent.
The southern gateway to the Val d'Aoste is the snug little mountain of
Ivrea, 50 kilometres from Turin. The cheese and butter of the Italian
Alps, known throughout the European market as Beurre de Milan, is mostly
produced in this neighbourhood, and the ten thousand souls who live here
draw almost their entire livelihood from these products. Ivrea has an
old Castle of imposing, though somewhat degenerate, presence. It has
been badly disfigured in the restorations of later years, but two of its
numerous brick towers of old still retain their crenelated battlements.
The place itself is of great antiquity, and Strabon has put it on record
that 3,600 of the inhabitants of the Val d'Aoste were once sold en bloc
in the streets of Ivrea by Terentius Varro, their captor.
The Val d'Aoste, from Ivrea to Courmayer, about one hundred kilometres,
will some day come to its own as a popular touring ground, but that time
is not yet. When the time comes any who will may know all the delights
of Switzerland's high valleys without suffering from the manifest
drawback of overexploitation. One doesn't necessarily want to drink beer
before every waterfall or listen to a yoedel in every cavern. What is
more to the point is that one may here find simple, unobtrusive
attention on the part of hotel keepers and that at a price in keeping
with the surroundings. This you get in the Val d'Aoste and throughout
the Alps of Piedmont, Dauphiny and Savoy.
Up high in the Val d'Aoste lies a battery of little Alpine townlets
scarce known even by name, though possessed of a momentous history and
often of architectural monuments marvellously imposing in their grandeur
and beauty.
Near Pont Saint Martin, high above the torrent of the Doire, is the
picturesque feudal castle of Montalto, a name famous in Italian annals
of the middle ages.
Over the river Lys, at Pont Saint Martin, there is a Roman bridge; a
modern iron one crosses it side by side, but the advantages, from an
æsthetic and utilitarian view-point, as well, are all in favour of the
former. A ruined castle crowns the height above Pont Saint Martin and a
few kilometres below, at Donnas, is an ancient Roman mile stone still
bearing the uneffaced inscription XXXII M. P.
This whole region abounds in Napoleonic souvenirs. Fort Bard, the key to
the valley, garrisoned by only eight hundred Austrians, gave Bonaparte a
check which he almost despaired of overcoming. The Little Corporal's
ingenuity pulled him through, however. He sent out a patrol which laid
the streets of the little village below the fort with straw and his army
passed unobserved in the night as if slippered with felt. But for this,
the Battle of Marengo, one of the most brilliant of French feats of
arms, might never have been fought.
Bard, the fort and the village, is now ignored by the high road which,
by a cut-off, avoids the steep climb in and out of the place.
Unheard of by most travellers in Italy, and entirely unknown to others,
Verrex in the Val d'Aoste possesses a ravishing architectural surprise
in the shape of a feudal castle on a hillside overlooking the town. It
is of the square keep, or donjon, variety, and played an important part
in the warlike times of the past.
The chateau of Issogne near by, built by the Prior Geor. Challant, less
of a castle and more of a country house, is an admirable fifteenth
century domestic establishment still habitable, and inhabited, to-day.
All up and down the valley are relics of the engineering skill of the
great Roman road and bridge builders. The road over Mont Jovet, a sheer
cut down into the roof of a mountain, was theirs; so were the bridges at
Chatillon and Pont Saint Martin, and another at Salassiens. At the Pont
d'Ael is a Roman aqueduct.
Chatillon, like Verrex, is not marked in big letters on many maps, but
it belongs in every architect lover's Italian itinerary. Its two bridges
of olden time are veritable wonder works. Its chateau Ussel, a ruin of
the fourteenth century, is still glorious under its coat of mail of moss
and ivy, while the Castle of Count Christian d'Entréves is of the kind
seen by most people only in picture books.
At Fénis is a magnificent feudal battlemented castle with donjon tower,
a _chemin ronde_ and a barbican so awe-inspiring as to seem unreal. With
Verrex and Issogne, near by, Fénis completes a trio of chateaux-forts
built by the overlords of the name of Challant who possessed feudal
rights throughout all the Val d'Aoste.
Aimon de Challant built the castle of Fénis in 1330. Virtually it was,
and is, a regular fortress, with as complete a system of defence as
ever princely stronghold had. At once a sumptuous seigneurial residence
and a seemingly impregnable fortress, it is one of the most remarkable
works of its class above ground.
Aoste is a little Italian mountain town far more French than Italian
from many points of view. It is of great antiquity and was the Augusta
Prætoria of various Roman itineraries.
Like most Roman cities Aoste was laid out on the rectangular
parallelogram plan, an aspect which it still retains.
Aoste's triumphal arch, its city gate and walls, and its ancient towers
all lend a quaint aspect of mediævalism which the twentieth century--so
far as it has gone--has entirely failed to contaminate.
For lovers of English church history it will be a pleasure to recall
that Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury in the eleventh century, was born
at Aoste. Another churchly memory at Aoste is a tablet inscribed with
the particulars of the flight of Calvin from his refuge here in 1541.
[Illustration: _Castle of Fénis_]
Saint Bernard, who has given his name to two neighbouring mountain
passes and to a breed of dogs, was Archbishop of Aoste in his time. His
perilous journeys in crossing the Alps, going and coming to and from his
missions of good, led to his founding the celebrated hospice on the
nearby mountain pass which bears his name. The convent of the Great St.
Bernard is the highest habited point in Europe.
From Aoste to the Hospice of the Grand Saint Bernard is twenty-six
kilometres, with a rise of nearly 2,000 metres and a fall of a like
amount to Martigny in Switzerland. The percentage of rise is
considerably greater than the route leading into France by the Little
Saint Bernard, which falls short of the former by three hundred metres,
but the road is rather better. By far the easiest route from Turin into
France is via the Col de Mont Cenis to Modane; but a modern automobile
will not quarrel seriously with any of these save one or two short, ugly
bits of from fifteen to seventeen per cent. They are pretty stiff;
there's no doubt about that, and with a motor whose horse power is
enfeebled by the rarefied atmosphere at these elevations the driver is
likely to meet with some surprises.