“But now ‘tis pass’d,
That turbulent chaos; and the promised land
Lies at my feet in all its loveliness!
To him who starts up from a terrible dream,
And lo, the sun is shining and the lark
Singing aloud for joy, to him is not
Such sudden ravishment as now I feel,
At the first glimpses of fair Italy.”
_Rogers._
Chiavenna--Lake of Riva--Colico--Gravidona--Lake of
Como--Varenna--Stelvio Pass--Lecco--Bergamo:
Broletto--Churches--Castle of Malpaga.
The situation of Chiavenna is eminently beautiful: in a deep valley
surrounded on all sides by mountains whose slopes are covered with soft
and luxuriant foliage of oak and chestnut, and where every available
open space is devoted to trellised vineyards, it contrasts strongly with
the pine-covered hills so lately passed on the northern slopes of the
Alps; placed, too, at the confluence of two streams--the Meira and the
Lira--it rejoices in the constant rushing sound of many waters.
It was only necessary to move out of the shade of our hotel into the
melancholy piazza in which it stands, to discover that an Italian sun
lighted up the deep blue sky; and a walk to the principal church,
dedicated in honour of S. Lawrence, a stroll through the narrow streets,
and a rather toilsome ascent through a vineyard formed upon a rock
which towers up behind a kind of ruined castle, and from which a capital
view is obtained of the singular and beautiful cul-de-sac in which the
town is planted, sufficiently convinced us of its power.
The church of S. Lawrence is entered from a large oblong cloister, in
one angle of the space enclosed by which rises a tall campanile, its
simple form, and its arcaded belfry full of musical bells, contrasting
well with the outline of the hills which overhang and hem it in. On the
east side of the cloister are the church, an octagonal baptistery, and a
bone-house, all ranged side by side and opening into it, and the latter
curious as an example of the extent to which the people of Chiavenna
amuse themselves by arranging sculls and arm-bones into all kinds of
religious and heraldic devices, and with labels to mark the names of
their former owners. The _tout ensemble_ is picturesque in its effect,
and the cool pleasant shade of the cloister, with the view of the church
and its tall campanile, and irregularly grouped buildings looking
brilliantly white in the clear sunshine, was very pleasing.[4]
Italian beggars, persevering, and, at any rate in appearance, very
devout, did their best to annoy us here and everywhere when we ventured
to stop to examine or admire anything; and Italian beggars are certainly
both in pertinacity and in filth about the most unpleasant of their
class.
My voiturier gave me a lesson worth learning, and not perhaps unworthy
of note for other unsuspicious travellers. We had a written contract to
Chiavenna, and thence to Colico he had agreed verbally to take us for a
certain sum; before we started I found, however, that he intended to
charge us three times as much as we had agreed upon, and, as very
luckily we found a diligence on the point of starting, we secured places
in the cabriolet at its back, from which we had the best possible
position for seeing the views, and so left him in the lurch, with divers
admonitions to behave himself more honestly for the future.
At ten we left, and had a very enjoyable ride to Colico. The valley,
however, bore sad traces of the havoc made by the inundations of the
Meira, and of the storm of the previous night. We soon reached the
shores of the little Lake of Riva, along whose banks our road took us
sometimes in tunnels, sometimes on causeways built out into the water,
until at last we reached the valley up which runs the Stelvio road, and
then, after passing along the whole length of a straight road lined on
each side with a wearisome and endless row of poplars, we were at
Colico. Here we prudently availed ourselves of the opportunity of an
hour’s delay in the departure of the boat for an early dinner, and, then
embarking, waited patiently the pleasure of our captain.
The scenery of Lake Como has been so often extravagantly praised that I
was quite prepared to be disappointed; but for the whole distance from
Colico to Lecco it is certainly on the whole more striking than any lake
scenery I have seen. The mountains at its head are extremely irregular
and picturesque, and throughout its whole length there is great change
and variety. In this respect it contrasts favourably with most other
lakes, and I certainly think that not even in the Lake of Lucerne is
there any one view so grand as that which one has looking up from within
a short distance of the head of Como over the Lake of Riva to the
mountains closing in the Stelvio, and rising nobly above the sources of
the Meira and the Lira.
Somewhat, too, may be said of the innumerable villages and white villas
with which the banks of the lake are studded; they give a sunny,
inhabited, and cheerful feeling to the whole scene; and, reflected in
the deep blue lake in those long-drawn lines of flakey white which are
seen in no other water to such perfection, add certainly some beauty to
the general view.
One of these villages--Gravidona--within half an hour’s sail of Colico,
ought not to be left unvisited by any one who cares about architecture.
Close to its little harbour stand two churches side by side, one an
oblong basilica, the other a baptistery of, as it seems to me, such
great interest that I give illustrations both of its plan and of its
exterior. It will be seen that the dimensions are small, the total
internal width being less than forty feet, whilst the design of the east
end is most ingeniously contrived so as to give no less than five
eastern apsidal recesses. There are two stair-turrets in the wall on
each side of the western tower which lead up to a sort of
triforium-passage which is formed behind an arcade in the side wall of
the church, and one of them leads also to the first floor of the tower.
The triforium consists of an arcade of seven arches in each side wall.
The three small apses at the east have each their own semi-dome, and the
chancel as well as all the other apsidal recesses are similarly roofed.
All the walls retain more or less traces of old paintings, the
Coronation of the Blessed Virgin occupying the principal apse, and the
Last Judgment the west wall. The whole church is built in white marble
and black lime-stone used in courses, or stripes, with extremely good
effect.
The roof of this Baptistery is of wood. The exterior is best explained
by reference to my drawing of the west front. It stands on a charming
site with a background of lake and mountain, such as one seldom enjoys.
There is a contrast here, which strikes one very much, between the
ingenious skill of the planning of such a building as this and the
rudeness of the execution of the details. I know nothing as to the
history of Gravidona; but it looks as though the plan came from the
hands of men who knew something of the Church of San Vitale at Ravenna,
whilst its execution was left to the rustic skill of the masons of the
country.
[Illustration: PLAN--BAPTISTERY, GRAVIDONA.]
[Illustration: 4. BAPTISTERY. GRAVIDONA. p. 48.]
The Baptistery is dedicated to S. John the Baptist. Close to it, as I
have said, stands the Church of San Vincenzo, which though Romanesque in
its foundation has been much modernized, and is now mainly interesting
on account of the exquisite examples of late fifteenth century
silversmiths’ work which still enrich its sacristy. Conspicuous among
these is a silver processional cross. This cross is nearly two feet
across the arms by three feet in height from the top of the staff. There
is a crucifix on one side and a sitting figure of Our Lord on the other;
figures of SS. George, Vincent, Sebastian, Christopher, and Victor, and
Our Lord on the base or knop; and half-figures of the Evangelists on the
arms of the cross. The ornaments consist of crockets bent and twisted,
of blue enamels, filigree-work, nielli, and turquoises set in the centre
of dark-blue enamels. It is, in short, a piece of metal work which might
well make a modern silversmith run down swiftly into the lake and drown
himself in despair at the apparent impossibility in these days of
rivalling such a piece of artistic and cunning workmanship, in spite of
all our boasted progress!
Not much less splendid is a chalice of about the same age. It is ten and
three-quarter inches high, has a plain bowl, but knop, stem, and foot
all most richly wrought with figures, niches and canopies, and the flat
surfaces filled in with fine blue and white Limoges enamels. The paten
belonging to this chalice is very large--nearly ten inches across, and
quite plain.
Half the passengers on the steamboat were, of course, Austrian soldiers
and officers, the other half English or Americans, either resident at or
going to Como. We, however, stopped on the way, and, leaving the
steamboat in the middle of the lake, after a row of about twenty minutes
found ourselves at Varenna, a village exquisitely placed just where the
three arms of the lake--the Como, the Lecco, and the Colico
branches--separate, affording, whether seen from here, from Bellagio, or
from Cadenabbia, the most lovely lake views it has ever been my good
fortune to see.
Here we had what seemed likely to be an endless discussion upon the
relative merits of a four-oared boat and a carriage as a means of
conveyance to Lecco. We inclined to the latter; but, leaving the matter
in the hands of an active waiter, we busied ourselves with eating
delicious fruit, admiring the tall cypresses growing everywhere about
the shores of the lake, and watching the exquisite beauty of the
reflections of Bellagio and the opposite mountains on the smooth bosom
of the water.
We were soon off again, and well satisfied to find ourselves trotting
rapidly along the well kept Stelvio Road, instead of dragging heavily
and slowly along as one always does with a Swiss voiturier; soon,
however, we were to find that our driver was an exception to the Italian
rule, and that he who wishes to travel fast must not expect to do so
with vetturini.
The churches which we passed were in no way remarkable; they all had
campanili, with the bells hung in the Italian fashion in the belfry
windows, with their wheels projecting far beyond the line of the wall;
but they all seemed alike uninteresting in their architecture, so that
we were in no way sorry to pass them rapidly on our way to Lecco. This
eastern arm of the lake, though of course much less travelled than the
rest of its course, is very beautiful, and its uninhabited and less
cultivated looking shores, with bold cliffs here and there rising
precipitously from the water, were seen to great advantage, with the
calm unrippled surface of the lake below, and the sky just tinged with
the bright light of the sun before it set above.
Lecco contains nothing to interest a traveller; we had an hour to spend
there before we could get fresh horses to take us on to Bergamo, and
wandered about the quaint-looking streets, which were full of
people--some idly enjoying themselves, others selling luscious-looking
fruit. We went into a large church not yet quite completed; it was
Renaissance in style, almost of course, and on the old plan, with
aisles, but very ugly notwithstanding. In the nave was a coffin covered
with a pall of black and gold; six large candles stood by it, three on
either side, and two larger than the others on each side of a crucifix
at the west end. The whole church revelled in compo inside and out and
there was external access to a wretched bone-house in a crypt.
Leaving Lecco, we had a long drive in the dark to Bergamo; the night was
very dark, but the air was absolutely teeming with life and sounds of
life; myriads of _cicale_ seemed to surround us, each giving vent to its
pleasure in its own particular note and voice with the greatest possible
determination; and had I not heard them, I could scarcely have believed
it possible that such sounds could be made by insects, however numerous
they might be. We changed horses at a village on the road, and went on
rapidly. The old town of Ponte San Pietro was passed, having been taken
at first to be Bergamo, and remembered by the sound of a troop of men
singing well together as they passed us in the dark in one of its narrow
streets, awakening with their voices all the echoes of the place, which
till then had seemed to us to be supernaturally silent. It was eleven
o’clock before we reached Bergamo, and tired with our long day’s work,
we were soon in bed.
A prodigious noise in the streets before five o’clock the next morning
gave us the first warning that the great fair of Bergamo was in full
swing; sleep was impossible, and so we were soon out, enjoying the busy
throng which crowded the streets of the Borgo, in a before-breakfast
walk; the crowd of women selling fruit, the bright colours of their
dresses, the rich tints of stuff hung out for sale, the display of
hair-pins and other ornaments in the innumerable silversmiths’ shops,
and the noisy, laughing, talking people who animated the whole scene,
made the narrow arcaded streets of the busy place most amusing.
After breakfast we started at once for the Città, as the old city of
Bergamo is called. It stands on a lofty hill overlooking the Borgo San
Leonardo, within whose precincts we had slept, quite distinct from it
and enclosed within its own walls. The ascent was both steep and hot,
but the view at the entrance gateway of the Città over the flat Lombard
country was very striking, and well repaid the labour of the ascent.
This vast plain of bluish-green colour, intersected in all directions by
rows of mulberry-trees and poplars, diversified only by the tall white
lines of the campanili which mark every village in this part of
Lombardy, and stretching away in the same endless level as far as the
eye could reach, was grand if only on account of its simplicity, and had
for us all the charm of novelty.
Through narrow and rather dirty streets, which do little credit to the
cleanly habits of the Bergamask nobility, to whom it seems that the
Città is sacred, and whose palaces are, many of them, large and
important buildings, we reached at last the Piazza Vecchia, around which
is gathered almost all that in my eyes gives interest to Bergamo.
Across the upper end of the Piazza stretches the Broletto, or town-hall,
supported on open arches, through which pleasant glimpses are obtained
of the cathedral and church of Sta. Maria Maggiore, which last is the
great architectural feature of the city.
But we must examine the Broletto before we go farther. And first of all,
its very position teaches a lesson. Forming on one side the boundary of
a spacious Piazza, on the other it faces, within a few feet only, the
church of Sta. Maria Maggiore, and abuts at one end upon the west front
of the Duomo. It is to this singularly close--even huddled--grouping
that much of the exquisite beauty of the whole is owing. No doubt Sta.
Maria and the original cathedral were built first, and then the
architect of the Broletto, not fearing--as one would fear now--to damage
what has been done before, boldly throws his work across in front of
them, but upon lofty open arches, through which glimpses just obtained
of the beauties in store beyond make the gazer even more delighted with
the churches when he reaches them, than he would have been had they been
all seen from the first. It is, in fact, a notable example of the
difference between ancient grouping and modern, and one instance only
out of hundreds that might be adduced from our own country and from the
Continent of the principle upon which old architects worked; and yet
people, ignorant of real principles in art, talk as though somewhat
would be gained if we could pull down S. Margaret’s in order to let
Westminster Abbey be seen; whereas, in truth, the certain result would
be, in the first place, a great loss of scale in the Abbey seen without
another building to compare it with and measure it by; and in the next,
the loss of that kind of intricacy and mystery which is one of the chief
evidences of the Gothic spirit. Let us learn from such examples as this
at Bergamo that buildings do not always require a large open space in
front of them, so that they may be all seen and taken in at one view, in
order to give them real dignity.
The whole design of the Broletto is so very simple as to be almost
chargeable with rudeness of character. The ground on which it stands is
divided by columns and piers, the spaces between them being all arched
and groined. Towards the Piazza three of these arches, springing from
rather wide piers, support the main building, and another supports an
additional building to the west of it. Above the three main arches are
three windows, of which that in the centre, though very much altered,
still retains a partially old balcony in front, and was evidently the
Ringhiera, from which the people standing in the Piazza were wont to be
addressed by their magistrates. The windows on either side are very
similar in their design and detail; their tracery is of fair
middle-pointed character; and the main points in which they strike one
as being different from English work are the marble shafts with square
capitals in place of monials, a certain degree of squareness and
flatness in the mouldings, and the very pronounced effect of the sills,
which have a course of foliage and moulding, and below this of trefoiled
arcaded ornament, which in one shape or another is to meet the traveller
everywhere in Northern Italy; either, as here, hanging on under the
sills of windows, or else running up the sides of gables, forming
string-courses and cornices, but always unsatisfactory, because
unmeaning and unconstructional. The origin of this sort of detail is to
be found in the numerous brick buildings not far distant, where the
facility of repeating the patterns of moulded bricks led (as it did in
other countries also) to this rather unsatisfactory kind of enrichment.
The detail of the arcades supporting the upper part of the building is
throughout bold and simple, and I should say of the thirteenth century;
the bases are quite northern in their section, the caps rather less deep
in their cutting, but still in their general design, and in the grouping
of tufts of drooping foliage regularly one above the other, reminding
one much of Early French work, though they are certainly not nearly so
good as that generally is. There is a flatness about the carving, too,
which gives the impression of a
[Illustration: 5.--BROLETTO, BERGAMO. Page 54.]
struggle, in the hand of the carver, between the Classic and Gothic
principles, in which the latter never quite asserted the mastery. The
lesson to be learnt from such a building as this Broletto appears to me
to be the excessive value of simplicity and regularity of parts
carefully and constructionally treated; for there are no breaks or
buttresses in the design, and all its elements are most simple, yet
nevertheless the result is beautiful.
To the west of the Broletto is a good open staircase (much like that in
the Piazza dei Signori at Verona),[5] forming a portion of one side of
the Piazza, and leading to the upper part of the buildings, and, I
think, to the great clock-tower, which, gaunt and severe in its outline,
undecorated and apparently uncared for, rears its great height of rough
stone wall boldly against the sky, and groups picturesquely with the
irregular buildings around it. I have omitted to notice that the whole
of the Broletto, with the exception of the window-shafts, is executed in
stone, and without any introduction of coloured material, so that it in
no way competes with the exquisite piece of coloured construction which
we have next to examine, immediately behind it.
A few steps will take us under the open-arched and cool space beneath
the Broletto, to the face of the north porch and baptistery of Sta.
Maria Maggiore. This is a very fine early Romanesque[6] church, but with
many additions and alterations on the outside, and so much modernized
inside as to be quite uninteresting to any one who thinks good forms and
good details necessary to good effect. The plan is cruciform, with apses
to the choir, on the east and west sides of the south transept, on the
east of the north transept, and at the west end of an additional north
aisle; in all no less than five apsidal ends. The nave is of three bays
with aisles, and to each transept have been added, in the fourteenth
century, porches, thoroughly Italian in their whole idea, and novel to a
degree in their effect upon an English eye.
A domed chapel, erected as a sepulchral chapel by Bartolomeo Colleoni in
the Renaissance style, on the north side of the nave, is most
elaborately constructed of coloured marbles. The effect is too bizarre
to be good; there is an entire absence of any true style in its design,
and there is nothing which makes it necessary to criticize it with much
minuteness.
The best and most striking feature in the whole church is the north
porch,[7] a most elaborate structure of red, grey, and white marble, to
which a drawing without colour can hardly do justice. It is supported
upon detached marble shafts, whose bases rest upon the backs of rather
grand-looking lions, curiously grouped with children and cubs. Above the
arches which rest upon these shafts, and which, though circular, are
elaborately cusped, is another stage divided by columns and trefoiled
arches into three spaces, the centre of which is occupied by a noble
figure of a certain Duke Lupus on horseback, with a saint on either side
in the other divisions. All the shafts except those in the upper
division are of red marble; the highest stage of all is entirely of grey
marble; in the middle stage all the moulded parts are of red, and the
trefoiled arches and their spandrels of grey marble; the space at the
back of the open divisions and the wall over the main arches of the
porch are built in courses of red and white marble. All the groining is
divided into diamond-shaped panels, composed alternately of black, red,
and white marble, all carved in the same kind of pattern. In the great
arch of the porch the outer moulding is of red marble, and all the
cusping of grey. The construction of the whole is obviously very weak,
and depends altogether for its stability upon iron ties in every
direction.
The approach to the porch, by seven steps formed alternately of black
and white marble, increases the impressiveness of the grand doorway, in
front of which it is built, the whole of which is of white marble, whose
carved surfaces and richly moulded and traceried work have obtained a
soft yellow colour by their exposure to the changing atmosphere, and are
relieved by one--the central--shaft being executed in the purest red
marble. There are three shafts in each jamb, carved, twisted, or moulded
very beautifully. These shafts are set in square recesses, ornamented,
not with mouldings, but with elaborate flat carvings, in one place of
saints, in another of animals, and with foliage very flat in its
character, and mainly founded on the acanthus.
To an English eye these columns in the doorways are some of the most
charming features of Italian architecture; but they must be always
looked at as simply ornamental, and not as constructional features; and
perhaps in all doorways the shafts, being really incapable of supporting
any considerable weight, would be better if, by their twisting and
moulding, it were clearly shown that their architect meant them to be
simply ornamental. In the Bergamo doorway the spaces between the shafts
are so strong in their effect, though carved all over their surface,
that any lightness in the columns themselves is amply atoned for. Such a
work as this northern porch at Bergamo is indeed a great treat to an
English architect, teeming as it does with fresh and new ideas, and in a
small compass showing so many of the radical points of difference
between northern and southern Gothic, and at the same time offering so
beautiful a study of constructional colouring, that it is impossible to
tire of gazing at it.
The porch to the south transept is of a simpler but somewhat similar
design. Both are placed against the western half of the gable against
which they are built, with a pleasant ignorance of those new-fangled
views of regularity of plan which are the curse of modern architects.
This southern porch is round-arched, and fitted exactly to the doorway
which it shields. Its outer arch is carried on detached shafts resting
on the backs of monsters, and it is mainly constructed of black and
white marble. It is of only one stage in height, and has a deep cornice
enriched with a series of niches with figures. An inscription below the
cornice gives the date as 1360.[8] Above the porch, but independent of
it, is a lofty monumental pinnacle corbelled out from the wall, and
richly sculptured with crocketed pinnacles and gablets. When the church
is entered, the reason for the apparently eccentric position of the
porches is seen. They were so placed to give more space for the altars
to the east of the transepts, and their successful effect is good
evidence that no artist need ever distress himself about a want of
regularity, if it is the result of a little common sense attention to
convenience in the arrangement of his plan.
The southern side of the church gives a very fair idea of what the
general character of the original building of 1134 was. The windows were
very plain, the walls lofty, the roof flat, and ornamented with
corbel-tables up the gables and under the eaves, and pilasters were used
at intervals instead of buttresses. There is a central octagonal
lantern which may be old, but which is entirely modernized. The most
interesting remains are the various apses already mentioned. They are of
two divisions in height, the lower adorned with very lofty,
boldly-moulded arcades, above which is an elaborate cornice, and above
this again a low arcade on detached shafts, behind which the walls are
considerably recessed to form galleries which produce a very deep
shadow. The capitals are elaborately carved, and the upper cornice is
again very rich. Altogether, little as remains unaltered of the old
fabric, it is enough to give an idea of a very noble and interesting
phase of art. Near a doorway into the north chancel-aisle the external
walls have traces, faint and rapidly decaying, of some very exquisite
frescoes or, more probably, tempera paintings.
[Illustration: CAMPANILE--BERGAMO.]
The steeple is in a most unusual position--east, namely, of the south
transept--not less, I believe, than some three hundred feet in height,
of good and very simple pointed character, without any approach to
buttressing, and remarkable as having an elaborately arcaded
string-course a few feet below the belfry windows, which have
geometrical traceries enclosed within semi-circular arches, affording,
like the south transept porch, a curious illustration of the
indifference of Italian architects to the use of the pointed arch where
strength was not of consequence.
Italian campanili have quite a character of their own, so distinct from
and utterly unlike the steeples of Northern Europe, that this, the first
Gothic example I had seen, interested me exceedingly. Perhaps its detail
was almost too little peculiar, if I may venture to say so; for
certainly it has left no such impression of individuality on my mind as
has the beautiful campanile to whose grace so much of the charm of
Verona is due.
The cathedral at Bergamo, which is close to the Broletto and Sta. Maria,
may be dismissed in a word. It has been rebuilt within the last two
hundred years, and appeared to be in no way deserving of notice. In a
courtyard on its north side is a small detached polygonal baptistery,
founded in 1275, which must have been very interesting. It is all built
of marble, and richly adorned with shafts; but so far as I could see
every portion of it has been renewed within a few years. Beside Sta.
Maria Maggiore and the Broletto we found little to see. Two
churches--one in the Città, and another, desecrated, in the Borgo--have
very good simple pointed doorways, with square-headed openings and
carved tympana; but beyond these we saw scarcely any trace of pointed
work. We had a luxuriously hot day in Bergamo, and, as we sat and
sketched the Broletto, a crowd, thoroughly Italian in its composition
and proceedings, gathered round us and gave us a first lesson in the
penance which all sketchers must be content to undergo in Italy. Before
long I found that my only plan was to start an umbrella as a defence
both against the sun and the crowd, and this, though not entirely
successful, still effected a great improvement.
The walk down the hill to the Borgo was more pleasant than the climb up,
and we were soon at our inn again; and then, after a most delicious
luncheon of exquisite fruit and coolest lemonade, concluded by a very
necessary dispute with our landlord about the amount of his bill,
ending, as such disputes generally do in Italy, with a considerable
reduction in the charge and the strongest expressions of regard and good
wishes for our welfare on our way, we mounted our carriage, and were
soon on the road towards Brescia.
Not far from this road and within about eight miles of Bergamo lies one
of the most interesting of the many castles of which one so frequently
sees remains in the North of Italy. This is the Castle of Malpaga, which
was inhabited by the famous Condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni, of whom we
have already heard at Bergamo, and of whom we shall see something again
at Venice. It belongs now to a nobleman who lives in the Città of
Bergamo, and leaves this old and stately pile to the keeping of his
hinds, who tend his silk-worms, gather his grapes, make his wines, look
after his corn and cattle, and do as much as in them lies to gather the
fruits which mother earth yields in these parts with such ungrudging
profusion, but trouble themselves little about the preservation of the
old castle or its belongings, seeing that they seem to give scant
pleasure to their lord.
The castle as originally built was a square building enclosing a
courtyard built of brick externally, and adorned with a forked
battlement, which is common everywhere in old buildings between this and
Vicenza, and with four square corner towers, of which one larger than
the others has a very bold and fine overhanging machicolated parapet. In
the centre of the south front the drawbridge still remains in use, and
was lowered for our exit from the castle. Outside the square castle was
a space, and then a low wall again furnished with the forked battlement.
This must have been a very picturesque arrangement; but unfortunately
its real character is now only intelligible to the skilled eye. For the
great Colleoni, finding himself in possession of a castle which gave him
insufficient space for his magnificence, built up walls on the top of
the old battlemented outer wall, and created his state rooms in the
space between this new wall and the old external wall of the castle.[9]
These rooms of his have much damaged the effect of the outside of the
castle; but internally they are still interesting, owing to the
sumptuous character of the painted decorations with which he had them
adorned. These were executed at about the time of the visit of Christian
II. of Denmark to Colleoni, and are interesting if not great works of
art. The old courtyard though small is very fine in its effect. The
upper walls are carried on pointed arches and are covered with fresco or
distemper paintings, said to have been executed by Giovanni Cariani of
Bergamo, or by Girolamo Romanino of Brescia, extremely striking and
attractive in their general style of colour and drawing. The most
picturesque incidents are illustrations of Colleoni’s career--the Doge
of Venice giving Colleoni his bâton in the presence of the Pope, and a
fine battle subject.
A squalid area for rubbish, children, pigs, cats, and what not, is left
all round the moat, and beyond this are all the farm buildings and
labourers’ residences, which go to make up the _tout ensemble_ of a
great Lombard farmyard. The surroundings are not clean nor very
picturesque, but the castle itself has so great an interest, that no one
who visits Bergamo should pass it by unseen.
[Illustration: 6. CASTLE OF MALPAGA. p. 62.]