Oropa (_continued_)
[Picture: Chapels at Oropa] ON the east side of the main block of
buildings there is a grassy slope adorned with chapels that contain
illustrating scenes in the history of the Virgin. These figures are of
terra-cotta, for the most part life-size, and painted up to nature. In
some cases, if I remember rightly, they have hemp or flax for hair, as at
Varallo, and throughout realism is aimed at as far as possible, not only
in the figures, but in the accessories. We have very little of the same
kind in England. In the Tower of London there is an effigy of Queen
Elizabeth going to the city to give thanks for the defeat of the Spanish
Armada. This looks as if it might have been the work of some one of the
Valsesian sculptors. There are also the figures that strike the quarters
of Sir John Bennett’s city clock in Cheapside. The automatic movements
of these last-named figures would have struck the originators of the
Varallo chapels with envy. They aimed at realism so closely that they
would assuredly have had recourse to clockwork in some one or two of
their chapels; I cannot doubt, for example, that they would have eagerly
welcomed the idea of making the cock crow to Peter by a cuckoo-clock
arrangement, if it had been presented to them. This opens up the whole
question of realism _versus_ conventionalism in art—a subject much too
large to be treated here.
As I have said, the founders of these Italian chapels aimed at realism.
Each chapel was intended as an illustration, and the desire was to bring
the whole scene more vividly before the faithful by combining the
picture, the statue, and the effect of a scene upon the stage in a single
work of art. The attempt would be an ambitious one, though made once
only in a neighbourhood, but in most of the places in North Italy where
anything of the kind has been done, the people have not been content with
a single illustration; it has been their scheme to take a mountain as
though it had been a book or wall and cover it with illustrations. In
some cases—as at Orta, whose Sacro Monte is perhaps the most beautiful of
all as regards the site itself—the failure is complete, but in some of
the chapels at Varese and in many of those at Varallo, great works have
been produced which have not yet attracted as much attention as they
deserve. It may be doubted, indeed, whether there is a more remarkable
work of art in North Italy than the Crucifixion chapel at Varallo, where
the twenty-five statues, as well as the frescoes behind them, are (with
the exception of the figure of Christ, which has been removed) by
Gaudenzio Ferrari. It is to be wished that some one of these
chapels—both chapel and sculptures—were reproduced at South Kensington.
Varallo, which is undoubtedly the most interesting sanctuary in North
Italy, has forty-four of these illustrative chapels; Varese, fifteen;
Orta, eighteen; and Oropa, seventeen. No one is allowed to enter them,
except when repairs are needed; but when these are going on, as is
constantly the case, it is curious to look through the grating into the
somewhat darkened interior, and to see a living figure or two among the
statues; a little motion on the part of a single figure seems to
communicate itself to the rest and make them all more animated. If the
living figure does not move much, it is easy at first to mistake it for a
terra-cotta one. At Orta, some years since, looking one evening into a
chapel when the light was fading, I was surprised to see a saint whom I
had not seen before; he had no glory except what shone from a very red
nose; he was smoking a short pipe, and was painting the Virgin Mary’s
face. The touch was a finishing one, put on with deliberation, slowly,
so that it was two or three seconds before I discovered that the
interloper was no saint.
The figures in the chapels at Oropa are not as good as the best of those
at Varallo, but some of them are very nice notwithstanding. We liked the
seventh chapel the best—the one which illustrates the sojourn of the
Virgin Mary in the temple. It contains forty-four figures, and
represents the Virgin on the point of completing her education as head
girl at a high-toned academy for young gentlewomen. All the young ladies
are at work making mitres for the bishop, or working slippers in Berlin
wool for the new curate, but the Virgin sits on a dais above the others
on the same platform with the venerable lady-principal, who is having
passages read out to her from some standard Hebrew writer. The statues
are the work of a local sculptor, named Aureggio, who lived at the end of
the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century.
The highest chapel must be a couple of hundred feet above the main
buildings, and from near it there is an excellent bird’s-eye view of the
sanctuary and the small plain behind; descending on to this last, we
entered the quadrangle from the north-west side and visited the chapel in
which the sacred image of the Madonna is contained. We did not see the
image itself, which is only exposed to public view on great occasions.
It is believed to have been carved by St. Luke the Evangelist. I must
ask the reader to content himself with the following account of it which
I take from Marocco’s work upon Oropa:—
“That this statue of the Virgin is indeed by St. Luke is attested by St.
Eusebius, a man of eminent piety and no less enlightened than truthful.
St. Eusebius discovered its origin by revelation; and the store which he
set by it is proved by his shrinking from no discomforts in his carriage
of it from a distant country, and by his anxiety to put it in a place of
great security. His desire, indeed, was to keep it in the spot which was
most near and dear to him, so that he might extract from it the higher
incitement to devotion, and more sensible comfort in the midst of his
austerities and apostolic labours.
“This truth is further confirmed by the quality of the wood from which
the statue is carved, which is commonly believed to be cedar; by the
Eastern character of the work; by the resemblance both of the lineaments
and the colour to those of other statues by St. Luke; by the tradition of
the neighbourhood, which extends in an unbroken and well-assured line to
the time of St. Eusebius himself; by the miracles that have been worked
here by its presence, and elsewhere by its invocation, or even by
indirect contact with it; by the miracles, lastly, which are inherent in
the image itself, {178} and which endure to this day, such as is its
immunity from all worm and from the decay which would naturally have
occurred in it through time and damp—more especially in the feet, through
the rubbing of religious objects against them.
* * * * *
“The authenticity of this image is so certainly and clearly established,
that all supposition to the contrary becomes inexplicable and absurd.
Such, for example, is a hypothesis that it should not be attributed to
the Evangelist, but to another Luke, also called ‘Saint,’ and a
Florentine by birth. This painter lived in the eleventh century—that is
to say, about seven centuries after the image of Oropa had been known and
venerated! This is indeed an anachronism.
“Other difficulties drawn either from the ancient discipline of the
Church, or from St. Luke the Evangelist’s profession, which was that of a
physician, vanish at once when it is borne in mind—firstly, that the cult
of holy images, and especially of that of the most blessed Virgin, is of
extreme antiquity in the Church, and of apostolic origin as is proved by
ecclesiastical writers and monuments found in the catacombs which date as
far back as the first century (see among other authorities, Nicolas, “La
Vergine vivente nella Chiesa,” lib. iii. cap. iii. § 2); secondly, that
as the medical profession does not exclude that of artist, St. Luke may
have been both artist and physician; that he did actually handle both the
brush and the scalpel is established by respectable and very old
traditions, to say nothing of other arguments which can be found in
impartial and learned writers upon such matters.”
I will only give one more extract. It runs:—
“In 1855 a celebrated Roman portrait-painter, after having carefully
inspected the image of the Virgin Mary at Oropa, declared it to be
certainly a work of the first century of our era.” {180}
I once saw a common cheap china copy of this Madonna announced as to be
given away with two pounds of tea, in a shop near Hatton Garden.
The church in which the sacred image is kept is interesting from the
pilgrims who at all times frequent it, and from the collection of votive
pictures which adorn its walls. Except the votive pictures and the
pilgrims the church contains little of interest, and I will pass on to
the constitution and objects of the establishment.
The objects are—1. Gratuitous lodging to all comers for a space of from
three to nine days as the rector may think fit. 2. A school. 3. Help
to the sick and poor. It is governed by a president and six members, who
form a committee. Four members are chosen by the communal council, and
two by the cathedral chapter of Biella. At the hospice itself there
reside a director, with his assistant, a surveyor to keep the fabric in
repair, a rector or dean with six priests, called _cappellani_, and a
medical man. “The government of the laundry,” so runs the statute on
this head, “and analogous domestic services are entrusted to a competent
number of ladies of sound constitution and good conduct, who live
together in the hospice under the direction of an inspectress, and are
called daughters of Oropa.”
The bye-laws of the establishment are conceived in a kindly genial
spirit, which in great measure accounts for its unmistakeable popularity.
We understood that the poorer visitors, as a general rule, avail
themselves of the gratuitous lodging, without making any present when
they leave, but in spite of this it is quite clear that they are wanted
to come, and come they accordingly do. It is sometimes difficult to lay
one’s hands upon the exact passages which convey an impression, but as we
read the bye-laws which are posted up in the cloisters, we found
ourselves continually smiling at the manner in which almost anything that
looked like a prohibition could be removed with the consent of the
director. There is no rule whatever about visitors attending the church;
all that is required of them is that they do not interfere with those who
do. They must not play games of chance, or noisy games; they must not
make much noise of any sort after ten o’clock at night (which corresponds
about with midnight in England). They should not draw upon the walls of
their rooms, nor cut the furniture. They should also keep their rooms
clean, and not cook in those that are more expensively furnished. This
is about all that they must not do, except fee the servants, which is
most especially and particularly forbidden. If any one infringes these
rules, he is to be admonished, and in case of grave infraction or
continued misdemeanour he may be expelled and not readmitted.
Visitors who are lodged in the better-furnished apartments can be waited
upon if they apply at the office; the charge is twopence for cleaning a
room, making the bed, bringing water, &c. If there is more than one bed
in a room, a penny must be paid for every bed over the first. Boots can
be cleaned for a penny, shoes for a half-penny. For carrying wood, &c.,
either a halfpenny or a penny will be exacted according to the time
taken. Payment for these services must not be made to the servant, but
at the office.
The gates close at ten o’clock at night, and open at sunrise, “but if any
visitor wishes to make Alpine excursions, or has any other sufficient
reason, he should let the director know.” Families occupying many rooms
must—when the hospice is very crowded, and when they have had due
notice—manage to pack themselves into a smaller compass. No one can have
rooms kept for him. It is to be strictly “first come, first served.” No
one must sublet his room. Visitors must not go away without giving up
the key of their room. Candles and wood may be bought at a fixed price.
Any one wishing to give anything to the support of the hospice must do so
only to the director, the official who appoints the apartments, the dean
or the _cappellani_, or to the inspectress of the daughters of Oropa, but
they must have a receipt for even the smallest sum; alms-boxes, however,
are placed here and there, into which the smaller offerings may be
dropped (we imagine this means anything under a franc).
The poor will be fed as well as housed for three days
gratuitously—provided their health does not require a longer stay; but
they must not beg on the premises of the hospice; professional beggars
will be at once handed over to the mendicity society in Biella, or even
perhaps to prison. The poor for whom a hydropathic course is
recommended, can have it under the regulations made by the committee—that
is to say, if there is a vacant place.
There are _trattorie_ and cafés at the hospice, where refreshments may be
obtained both good and cheap. Meat is to be sold there at the prices
current in Biella; bread at two centimes the chilogramma more, to pay for
the cost of carriage.
Such are the bye-laws of this remarkable institution. Few except the
very rich are so under-worked that two or three days of change and rest
are not at times a boon to them, while the mere knowledge that there is a
place where repose can be had cheaply and pleasantly is itself a source
of strength. Here, so long as the visitor wishes to be merely housed, no
questions are asked; no one is refused admittance, except for some
obviously sufficient reason; it is like getting a reading ticket for the
British Museum, there is practically but one test—that is to say, desire
on the part of the visitor—the coming proves the desire, and this
suffices. A family, we will say, has just gathered its first harvest;
the heat on the plains is intense, and the malaria from the rice grounds
little less than pestilential; what, then, can be nicer than to lock up
the house and go for three days to the bracing mountain air of Oropa? So
at daybreak off they all start, trudging, it may be, their thirty or
forty miles, and reaching Oropa by nightfall. If there is a weakly one
among them, some arrangement is sure to be practicable, whereby he or she
can be helped to follow more leisurely, and can remain longer at the
hospice. Once arrived, they generally, it is true, go the round of the
chapels, and make some slight show of pilgrimage, but the main part of
their time is spent in doing absolutely nothing. It is sufficient
amusement to them to sit on the steps, or lie about under the shadow of
the trees, and neither say anything nor do anything, but simply breathe,
and look at the sky and at each other. We saw scores of such people just
resting instinctively in a kind of blissful waking dream. Others saunter
along the walks which have been cut in the woods that surround the
hospice, or if they have been pent up in a town and have a fancy for
climbing, there are mountain excursions, for the making of which the
hospice affords excellent headquarters, and which are looked upon with
every favour by the authorities.
It must be remembered also that the accommodation provided at Oropa is
much better than what the people are, for the most part, accustomed to in
their own homes, and the beds are softer, more often beaten up, and
cleaner than those they have left behind them. Besides, they have
sheets—and beautifully clean sheets. Those who know the sort of place in
which an Italian peasant is commonly content to sleep, will understand
how much he must enjoy a really clean and comfortable bed, especially
when he has not got to pay for it. Sleep, in the circumstances of
comfort which most readers will be accustomed to, is a more expensive
thing than is commonly supposed. If we sleep eight hours in a London
hotel we shall have to pay from 4d. to 6d. an hour, or from 1d. to 1½d.
for every fifteen minutes we lie in bed; nor is it reasonable to believe
that the charge is excessive, when we consider the vast amount of
competition which exists. There is many a man the expenses of whose
daily meat, drink, and clothing are less than what an accountant would
show us we, many of us, lay out nightly upon our sleep. The cost of
really comfortable sleep-necessaries cannot, of course, be nearly so
great at Oropa as in a London hotel, but they are enough to put them
beyond the reach of the peasant under ordinary circumstances, and he
relishes them all the more when he can get them.
But why, it may be asked, should the peasant have these things if he
cannot afford to pay for them; and why should he not pay for them if he
can afford to do so? If such places as Oropa were common, would not lazy
vagabonds spend their lives in going the rounds of them, &c., &c.?
Doubtless if there were many Oropas, they would do more harm than good,
but there are some things which answer perfectly well as rarities or on a
small scale, out of which all the virtue would depart if they were common
or on a larger one; and certainly the impression left upon our minds by
Oropa was that its effects were excellent.
Granted the sound rule to be that a man should pay for what he has, or go
without it; in practice, however, it is found impossible to carry this
rule out strictly. Why does the nation give A. B., for instance, and all
comers a large, comfortable, well-ventilated, warm room to sit in, with
chair, table, reading-desk, &c., all more commodious than what he may
have at home, without making him pay a sixpence for it directly from
year’s end to year’s end? The three or nine days’ visit to Oropa is a
trifle in comparison with what we can all of us obtain in London if we
care about it enough to take a very small amount of trouble. True, one
cannot sleep in the reading-room of the British Museum—not all night, at
least—but by day one can make a home of it for years together except
during cleaning times, and then it is hard if one cannot get into the
National Gallery or South Kensington, and be warm, quiet, and entertained
without paying for it.
It will be said that it is for the national interest that people should
have access to treasuries of art or knowledge, and therefore it is worth
the nation’s while to pay for placing the means of doing so at their
disposal; granted, but is not a good bed one of the great ends of
knowledge, whereto it must work, if it is to be accounted knowledge at
all? and is it not worth a nation’s while that her children should now
and again have practical experience of a higher state of things than the
one they are accustomed to, and a few days’ rest and change of scene and
air, even though she may from time to time have to pay something in order
to enable them to do so? There can be few books which do an
averagely-educated Englishman so much good, as the glimpse of comfort
which he gets by sleeping in a good bed in a well-appointed room does to
an Italian peasant; such a glimpse gives him an idea of higher
potentialities in connection with himself, and nerves him to exertions
which he would not otherwise make. On the whole, therefore, we concluded
that if the British Museum reading-room was in good economy, Oropa was so
also; at any rate, it seemed to be making a large number of very nice
people quietly happy—and it is hard to say more than this in favour of
any place or institution.
The idea of any sudden change is as repulsive to us as it will be to the
greater number of my readers; but if asked whether we thought our English
universities would do most good in their present condition as places of
so-called education, or if they were turned into Oropas, and all the
educational part of the story totally suppressed, we inclined to think
they would be more popular and more useful in this latter capacity. We
thought also that Oxford and Cambridge were just the places, and
contained all the appliances and endowments almost ready made for
constituting two splendid and truly imperial cities of
recreation—universities in deed as well as in name. Nevertheless, we
should not venture to propose any further actual reform during the
present generation than to carry the principle which is already admitted
as regards the M.A. degree a trifle further, and to make the B.A. degree
a mere matter of lapse of time and fees—leaving the Little Go, and
whatever corresponds to it at Oxford, as the final examination. This
would be enough for the present.
There is another sanctuary about three hours’ walk over the mountain
behind Oropa, at Andorno, and dedicated to St. John. We were prevented
by the weather from visiting it, but understand that its objects are much
the same as those of the institution I have just described. I will now
proceed to the third sanctuary for which the neighbourhood of Biella is
renowned.