exquisitely tinted rosebud or the perfume of apple blossoms. The
ruggedness of aspect common to most mountain lakes is here lost in the
soft luxuriance of the green shores, the sparkling waters, and the rich
blue sky. The hills are lined with terraces of green vineyards,
interspersed with the pink of peach and almond blossoms. Camellias and
azaleas brighten the gardens. Mulberry trees, olives, and cypresses,
mingling with their sturdy Northern companions, the spruces and pines,
cast their varied foliage against the brown of the near-by mountains. In
the distance the snow-clad peaks of the Alps interpose their white
mantles between the blue of the sky and the warmer tones of the
hillsides, while here and there picturesque villages stand out on
projecting promontories to lend an additional gleam of whiteness to the
landscape.
Mingling with the charm of all this natural beauty and intensifying it
are the atmosphere of poetry and romance which one instinctively feels,
and the more tangible associations with history, literature, science,
art, and architecture which are constantly suggested as one makes the
tour of the lakes.
In the morning we found our places on the upper deck of the little
steamer that makes a zigzag journey through Maggiore. No sooner had the
boat started than we heard sweet strains of music and a chorus of
well-modulated male voices. The night before we had had a miniature play
for our special benefit. Can it be possible that now we are to have
Italian opera? They were only a party of native excursionists, but we
were genuinely sorry when they disembarked at the next landing.
Leaving Stresa, famous as the home of Cavour, when that great statesman
was planning the creation of a united Italy, we soon came in sight of
Isola Bella. As it lay there in the bright sunlight, its green terraces
and tropical foliage, its white towers and arcaded walls reflected in
the blue waters of the lake, the snowy mountains forming a distant
background and a cloudless blue sky surmounting the whole, we thought it
beautiful. But in this, it seems, our taste was at fault, and while
admiring we ought to have been criticizing. It was like spending an
evening with genuine enjoyment at the theater, only to find out the next
morning from the critic of the daily newspaper that the play was poor,
the acting only ordinary, and the applause merely an act of generosity.
Southey wrote of it, "Isola Bella is at once the most costly and the
most absurd effort of bad taste that has ever been produced by wealth
and extravagance." A more recent English writer condemns its "monstrous
artificialities." He declares that "the gardens are a triumph of bad
taste," and that "artificial grottoes, bristling with shells, terrible
pieces of hewn stone, which it would be an offense to sculpture to term
statuary, offend the eye at every turn." Another says that it is "like a
Perigord pie, stuck all over with the heads of woodcocks and
partridges," while some one else thinks it "worthy the taste of a
confectioner."
On the other hand, our own distinguished novelist, Mrs. Edith Wharton,
found much to be admired:--
The palace has ... one feature of peculiar interest to the student of
villa architecture, namely, the beautiful series of rooms in the south
basement, opening on the gardens, and decorated with the most
exquisite ornamentation of pebble-work and sea-shells, mingled with
delicate-tinted stucco. These low-vaulted rooms, with marble floors,
grotto-like walls, and fountains dripping into fluted conches, are
like a poet's notion of some twilight refuge from summer heats, where
the languid green air has the coolness of water: even the fantastic
consoles, tables, and benches, in which cool glimmering mosaics are
combined with carved wood and stucco painted in faint greens and
rose-tints, might have been made of mother-of-pearl, coral, and
seaweed for the adornment of some submarine palace.
It was the fashion to admire the island before it became the rule to
condemn its artificiality. Bishop Burnet visited Maggiore in 1685,
fourteen years after the Count Vitaliano Borromeo had transformed the
island from a barren slate rock into a costly summer residence. He
thought it "one of the loveliest spots of ground in the world," and
wrote, "there is nothing in all Italy that can be compared with it." At
a much later time, Lord Lytton allowed himself to rise to the heights of
enthusiasm:--
"O fairy island of a fairy sea,
Wherein Calypso might have spelled the Greek,
Or Flora piled her fragrant treasury,
Culled from each shore her zephyr's wings could seek,--
From rocks where aloes blow.
"Tier upon tier, Hesperian fruits arise:
The hanging bowers of this soft Babylon;
An India mellows in the Lombard skies,
And changelings, stolen from the Lybian sun,
Smile to yon Alps of snow."
[Illustration: ISOLA BELLA, LAKE MAGGIORE]
The charge of artificiality must be admitted. A bare rock cannot be
transformed into a thing of beauty and escape the charge. The ten
terraces are a series of walls, built in the form of a pyramid and
covered with earth, transported from the mainland at great expense.
Orange and lemon trees, amid a profusion of tropical foliage, are thus
made to wave their fragrant branches in the face of Alpine snows. Is not
this worth while? The truth is that Lake Maggiore is so rich in the
kind of beauty which the hand of Nature has provided that the creations
of man--the villas, the gardens, the vineyards, the villages nestling
close to the water's edge, and the pilgrimage churches high up on the
mountain-sides--seem only to accentuate the charm.
The Isola dei Pescatori, or Island of the Fishermen, lying near the
"Beautiful Island," forms a striking contrast. If distance is needed to
lend enchantment and conceal the lavish expenditure of wealth on the
Isola Bella, it is needed still more to hide the squalor and avoid the
odor of the poor fishermen's island. Yet the latter, seen from the
steamer's deck, is far more picturesque than its more pretentious
neighbor. The third of the Borromean group is known as the Isola Madre.
It has seven terraces, surmounted by an unused villa. Its gardens are
full of roses, camellias, and all kinds of beautiful plants, lemons,
oranges, myrtle, magnolia, and semi-tropical trees in great profusion.
Less popular than Isola Bella, it is considered by many far more
attractive.
Two villages lying farther south on the western shore of the lake are
worthy of at least passing mention:--Belgirate and Arona. The former was
the home, in the late years of his life, of the great master of Italian
prose, Manzoni, whose novel, "I Promessi Sposi," was thought by Scott to
be the finest ever written. He was a man of the people, greatly beloved
by his countrymen for his benevolence, tender sympathy, and warmth of
affection. Arona was the home of the patron saint of the Italian lakes,
Carlo Borromeo. A colossal statue, sixty-six feet high on a pedestal of
forty feet, built to his memory in 1697, is one of the sights of the
region. St. Charles was born in 1537. At the age of twenty-three he was
made a cardinal by his uncle, Pope Pius IV. Inheriting great wealth, he
devoted his revenues to charity, sometimes living on bread and water and
sleeping on straw. Traveling as a missionary, he visited the remotest
villages and almost inaccessible shepherds' huts high up on the
mountains. He is best remembered for his self-sacrifice and heroic
devotion to the people in the great plague at Milan in 1575. But the
great saint was a hater of heretics and caused many of them to be put to
death. Nor was he without enemies among those of his own faith. A
Franciscan monk once fired upon him, but he escaped as if by miracle,
the bullet glancing from the heavy gold embroidery of his cope--a
demonstration that gold lace is not always a wholly superfluous
decoration.
Our little steamer zigzagged back and forth, stopping at many villages,
until finally Luino was reached. This busy little town was the
birthplace of Bernardino Luini, the illustrious disciple of Leonardo da
Vinci, whose frescoes adorn many of the Italian churches. It was also
the scene of one of Garibaldi's brave exploits, though an unsuccessful
one. Here we left the steamer for a short ride by tramway to Ponte
Tresa, on Lake Lugano, where another little boat was waiting. Although
usually regarded as one of the Italian lakes, the greater portion of
Lugano is in Swiss territory. Most tourists make it the gateway from the
north into Italy, passing through its most populous town, Lugano, which,
with its neighbor, Paradiso, lines the shores of a beautiful blue bay,
guarded on either side by high mountains, clothed with groves of oak and
chestnut set off by vineyards and gardens on the lower slopes. To the
front Monte Caprino rises straight up from the water like one huge,
solitary rock, keeping stern watch over the soft luxuriance of the
towns. San Salvatore is the sentinel on the right, while Monte Bri and
Monte Boglia are on duty at the left. Lugano was the home of the Italian
patriot, Mazzini, who has been called the prophet of Italian unity, as
Garibaldi was its knight-errant and Cavour its statesman.
On the eastern side of the lake and farther to the south is Monte
Generoso. We saw it only from the steamer, but it ought to be seen at
close range, for it is covered with woods and pastures and commands a
view of the chain of lakes that is said to be unsurpassed in all Italy.
We maintained our zigzag journey, however, until Porlezza was reached,
where another little train stood ready to carry us over to Lake Como.
For kaleidoscopic revelations of Nature's choicest scenes and rarest
beauties, the descent from the highlands to the town of Menaggio could
scarcely be equaled. The train moved slowly through the vineyards and
gardens, gradually descending, until with a sudden turn the whole
northern end of Como burst gloriously into view. Never was sky a
lovelier blue and never did water more splendidly reflect its azure hue.
Far away the snowy Alps gave a touch of the sublime to a view of
surpassing grandeur. In a moment the scene changed, and Bellagio with
its white villas stood before us, separating the two arms of the lake.
Then Varenna with its solitary tower, and finally, at the edge of the
water, the village of Menaggio itself.
"How blest, delicious scene! the eye that greets
Thy open beauties or thy lone retreats,--
Beholds the unwearied sweep of wood that scales
Thy cliffs: the endless waters of thy vales:
Thy lowly cots that sprinkle all the shore,
Each with its household boat beside the door."
So sang Wordsworth in the days of his youth.
Slowly winding our way down the precipitous slopes, we reached at last
the end of the railway, and a third steamer closed the experiences of
the day by carrying us safely to Cadenabbia. "That was Italy! and as
lovely as Italy can be when she tries." So the poet Longfellow wrote to
James T. Fields in 1868. And every one who has been there can appreciate
the poet's feeling when he wrote:--
"I ask myself, Is this a dream?
Will it all vanish into air?
Is there a land of such supreme
And perfect beauty anywhere?
Sweet vision! Do not fade away;
Linger until my heart shall take
Into itself the summer day
And all the beauties of the lake."
Above Cadenabbia and reached by a winding path through terraces of
vineyards, there is a bit of woods, made brilliant at this time of the
spring by a wealth of wild cherries, peaches, and almonds in full
blossom, and by the tall, luxuriant growths of rhododendrons, now
covered in thick profusion with huge clusters of splendid pink and
purple blossoms. A shady spot near the edge of the woods, where there
was a table and some chairs, made a convenient place where we could rest
after our climb, and view Longfellow's vision of "supreme and perfect
beauty." The grand and majestic beauty of Maggiore and the more modest
but sweeter loveliness of Lugano were but the preparation for the
glorious, satisfying perfection of Como, the most beautiful of all the
lakes, "a serene accord of forms and colors."
Lake Como is famous, not alone for its beauty, but for the many
associations of history, science, art, and literature. For centuries its
shores have been thickly set with costly villas--the homes of wealth and
luxury, and not infrequently of learning and culture. The elder Pliny,
whose habits of industry were so great that he worked on his prodigious
"Natural History" even while traveling at night in his carriage, was
born at the city of Como, as was also his gifted nephew. Volta, the
great physicist and pioneer in electrical science, Pope Innocent III,
and Pope Clement XIII were all natives of the same place. The Cathedral
of Como is one of the most splendid in northern Italy. The churches
scattered all along the shores of the lake, as well as the villas, are a
delight to students of art and architecture. They are filled with
paintings of great interest and valuable works of sculpture.
Historically, although not conspicuous in the great events of the
world's progress, the lake has been the theater of many stirring scenes,
particularly in mediaeval times. Halfway between Menaggio and the
northern end of the lake lies a rocky promontory known as Musso, the
site in the sixteenth century of a great and almost impregnable castle.
It was the center of the activities of one of the ablest, wickedest, and
most picturesque figures in the history of Italy. His name was Gian
Giacomo de Medici, although he was not related to the famous Florentine
family. He is best known by the name of "Il Medeghino." He is described
as a man of medium stature, broad-chested, and of pallid but
good-humoured countenance, and possessed of a keen and searching glance.
He was kind to his family and possessed the affection of his soldiers;
he was temperate and not given to the indulgence of the senses; and he
gave liberally to charity and to the encouragement of art. But he was a
murderer, traitor, liar, and all-round villain of the first magnitude.
If San Carlo Borromeo was the patron saint of the Italian lakes, his
uncle, Il Medeghino, was their presiding demon. He began his career at
the age of sixteen by killing another youth--an act for which he was
banished from Milan, but which became the stepping-stone to a successful
campaign of ambition, based upon crime and bloodshed.
In those days of violence the capacity to do murder was a
recommendation, and Il Medeghino soon rose to a position of power. He
helped Francesco Sforza, the last of that famous house, to regain the
Duchy of Milan by taking the life of a French courier and stealing his
documents, for which services he demanded the Castle of Musso. The price
asked by the duke was another murder, and the victim this time was a
personal friend and fellow soldier. Il Medeghino did not hesitate, but
brutally assassinated his friend. The duke, no longer able to refuse,
sent him to the castle with a letter to the governor, ordering the
latter to turn the fortress over to the young adventurer, but also with
a sealed letter requesting the governor to cut his throat. Il Medeghino
took no chances on the secret letter. He broke the seal and destroyed
this message, presenting the open letter and obtaining possession of the
stronghold. Immediately he made his power felt. He strengthened the
walls of the fort and made the cliffs inaccessible. He made himself
feared and his authority respected. He began a career of piracy and
plunder, continuing until he became the master, not only of Lake Como,
but of Lugano and much of the adjacent territory. His fleet of seven
large ships and many smaller ones swept the lake from end to end.
Although but thirty years of age, he was now a power to be reckoned
with. The Spaniards, finding him dangerous and not to be conquered by
force, finally succeeded in winning him by concessions. Charles V
created him Marquis of Musso and Count of Lecco, and induced him to
begin a vigorous warfare against his former master, the Duke of Milan.
But the end was near. A great force of Swiss attacked from the north and
the Duke of Milan sent a large fleet and great army to subdue the rebel.
A battle off Menaggio was lost by the pirate. He made a desperate fight,
but was compelled to yield to superior forces. But he nevertheless
retired with honors. He was given an enormous sum of money and the title
of Marquis of Marignano, together with free pardon for himself and all
his followers. The rest of his days were spent in the service of Spain.
When he died, in his sixtieth year, his brother, Pope Pius IV, erected a
magnificent tomb to his memory in the Cathedral of Milan, where all who
feel so disposed may pause to honor this prince of pirates and most
unscrupulous of plunderers, conspicuous for his wickedness, even in an
age ruled by violence.
It is a relief to turn from the history of one of the wickedest of men
to that of one of the noblest of women, by merely crossing the lake to
the village of Varenna--a town known to tourists for its milk-white
cascade, the Fiume Latte, a waterfall which leaps in spring-time from a
height of a thousand feet. Here the remnant of the castle of the good
Queen Theodelinda may still be seen.
In the sixth century A.D., the Langobards, or Long-Beards, taking
advantage of the weakness and desolation following the long wars against
the Goths, descended into Italy to take possession of the land. A
powerful race of Teutons, renowned for daring and love of war, they met
with little resistance. Their king, soon after, met a tragic death at
the hands of his wife, and his successor reigned only two years. After
ten years of experiments with a national confederacy, composed of some
thirty-five dukes, constantly at war with each other, and resulting in a
condition of anarchy, the first real king of the Lombards was chosen,
Authari the Long-haired, known also by his Roman name of Flavius. The
chief event in the life of this monarch was his courtship and marriage.
Having decided, probably for reasons of state, upon the daughter of
Garibald, Duke of Bavaria, as his future wife, he sent ambassadors to
arrange the union. But becoming possessed of a strange and unaccountable
desire to catch a glimpse of the lady before taking the final step, he
is said to have accompanied his messengers in disguise. Fortunately for
the romance of the incident, he was charmed with her beauty while the
princess promptly fell in love with him.
The Christian Theodelinda became the honored queen of the Lombards and
so won the confidence of their leaders that after the death of Authari,
shortly after their marriage, she was invited to choose her own husband,
who would thereupon become the king. She chose Agilulf, Duke of Turin.
Through the influence of Theodelinda, the Lombards were brought into the
Catholic Church, and the queen herself built at Monza the first Lombard
cathedral. Pope Gregory the Great is said to have recognized her
services by sending her a precious relic, one of the nails of the Cross,
wrought into a narrow band or fillet of iron. Sometime later, probably
in the twelfth century, this ancient relic, combined with a broad band
of gold set with many jewels, was converted into the celebrated Iron
Crown of Lombardy, with which the German Emperors in mediaeval times were
crowned Kings of Italy. It was used at the coronation of Napoleon at
Milan in 1805, and by the present King of Italy upon his accession.
Theodelinda's name was held in reverence by her people, not only for her
great public and private charities, but for her kindliness of heart. The
castle at Varenna is said to have been her home during the last years of
her life.
If this story of the Larian Lake, to use its Roman name, is being told
backwards, it is because we first saw it at the northern end, where the
interest centers in the events of the Middle Ages. But having jumped
from the sixteenth back to the sixth century, it requires no greater
agility to skip a few more hundreds of years until we get back to the
time of Julius Caesar, who as governor of Cisalpine Gaul sent five
thousand colonists to the shores of the lake to protect the region
against the depredations of the Gauls. Five hundred of them settled at
the ancient town of Comum. The city never played an important part in
the history of Rome, but remained a comparatively quiet yet prosperous
municipality.
In the Golden Age of Rome, the shores of the Lacus Larius became lined
with costly villas, where wealthy men sought a retreat from the too
strenuous life of the Imperial City. The need of such a refuge must be
apparent to any one having even the most superficial knowledge of Roman
municipal life in the first century of the Christian era. To escape the
corruption of official life, the endless feasts of extravagance and
immorality, and even the public amusements, where, as in the Flavian
amphitheater, 87,000 people were wont to gather to witness vast
spectacles of cruelty, obscenity, and bloodshed, there was need enough,
and the moral, self-respecting, and refined people of Rome fully
realized it. For there were such people, though the fact has been
obscured by history, which has to deal chiefly with the excesses of the
ruling classes.
The two Plinys and their friends were brilliant examples of the Romans
of the better sort. Though an aristocrat, Pliny the younger was a
charitable, good-natured man, who loved the quiet of a home where he
could combine study with fishing, hunting, and the companionship of
congenial friends. He possessed several villas on the shores of Como,
but two particularly interested him, one of which, in a somewhat
whimsical letter, he called "Tragedy" and the other "Comedy"; the high
boot worn by tragedians suggesting the name of the one on a high rock
over the lake, while the sock or slipper of the comedian applied to the
villa down by the water's edge. The latter had the great advantage that
one might fish from his bedroom, throwing the line out of the window
while he lay in bed. Pliny does not tell how many fish he caught under
these conditions.
The Villa Pliniana, just above Torno, on the eastern side of the lake,
was built in 1570 by Count Giovanni Anguisola, whose claim to
distinction lies in his participation in the murder of Pierluigi
Farnese. The villa was erected as a safe retreat, where he might escape
vengeance. Its feature of greatest interest is a curious stream which
flows through the central apartment of the house. Fifteen centuries
before the villa was constructed, Pliny described this stream in one of
his most interesting letters. "A certain spring," he writes, "rises in a
mountain and runs down through the rocks till it is inclosed in a small
dining-parlor made by hand; after being slightly retarded there, it
empties itself into the Larian lake. Its nature is very remarkable.
Three times a day it is increased or diminished in volume by a regular
rise and fall. This can be plainly seen, and when perceived is a source
of great enjoyment. You recline close to it and take your food and even
drink from the spring itself (for it is remarkably cold): meanwhile with
a regular and measured movement, it either subsides or rises. If you
place a ring or any other object on the dry ground it is gradually
moistened and finally covered over: then again it comes to view and is
by degrees deserted by the water. If you watch long enough you will see
both of these performances repeated a second and even a third time."
Another famous villa at the southern end of the lake, near the city of
Como, was erected by Cardinal Gallio, the son of a fisherman, who
achieved high honors in his Church and amassed great wealth. This villa
was later the home of the discarded Queen Caroline, wife of George IV,
who gave it the name of Villa d'Este and made great additions to its
elegance. It is now a fashionable hotel. Cardinal Gallio seems to have
had a passion for extensive villas. His palace at Gravedona, at the head
of the lake, was one of the most splendid in Europe. It is said that he
could make the journey to Rome, requiring six days, and stop at one of
his own palaces every night.