Graglia
THE sanctuary of Graglia is reached in about two hours from Biella.
There are daily diligences. It is not so celebrated as that of Oropa,
nor does it stand so high above the level of the sea, but it is a
remarkable place and well deserves a visit. The restaurant is
perfect—the best, indeed, that I ever saw in North Italy, or, I think,
anywhere else. I had occasion to go into the kitchen, and could not see
how anything could beat it for the most absolute cleanliness and order.
Certainly I never dined better than at the sanctuary of Graglia; and one
dines all the more pleasantly for doing so on a lovely terrace shaded by
trellised creepers, and overlooking Lombardy.
I find from a small handbook by Signor Giuseppe Muratori, that the
present institution, like that of S. Michele, and almost all things else
that achieve success, was founded upon the work of a predecessor, and
became great not in one, but in several generations. The site was
already venerated on account of a chapel in honour of the _Vergine
addolorata_ which had existed here from very early times. A certain
Nicolao Velotti, about the year 1616, formed the design of reproducing
Mount Calvary on this spot, and of erecting perhaps a hundred chapels
with terra-cotta figures in them. The famous Valsesian sculptor,
Tabachetti, and his pupils, the brothers Giovanni and Antonio (commonly
called “Tanzio”), D’Enrico of Riva in the Val Sesia, all of whom had
recently been working at the sanctuary of Varallo, were invited to
Graglia, and later on, another eminent native of the Val Sesia, Pietro
Giuseppe Martello. These artists appear to have done a good deal of work
here, of which nothing now remains visible to the public, though it is
possible that in the chapel of S. Carlo and the closed chapels on the way
to it, there may be some statues lying neglected which I know nothing
about. I was told of no such work, but when I was at Graglia I did not
know that the above-named great men had ever worked there, and made no
inquiries. It is quite possible that all the work they did here has not
perished.
[Picture: Chapel of S. Carlo at Graglia]
The means at the disposal of the people of Graglia were insufficient for
the end they had in view, but subscriptions came in freely from other
quarters. Among the valuable rights, liberties, privileges, and
immunities that were conferred upon the institution, was one which in
itself was a source of unfailing and considerable revenue, namely, the
right of setting a robber free once in every year; also, the authorities
there were allowed to sell all kinds of wine and eatables (_robe
mangiative_) without paying duty upon them. As far as I can understand,
the main work of Velotti’s is the chapel of S. Carlo, on the top of a
hill some few hundred feet above the present establishment. I give a
sketch of this chapel here, but was not able to include the smaller
chapels which lead up to it.
A few years later, one Nicolao Garono built a small oratory at Campra,
which is nearer to Biella than Graglia is. He dedicated it to S. Maria
della Neve—to St. Mary of the Snow. This became more frequented than
Graglia itself, and the feast of the Virgin on the 5th August was
exceedingly popular. Signor Muratori says of it:—
“This is the popular feast of Graglia, and I can remember how but a few
years since it retained on a small scale all the features of the _sacre
campestri_ of the Middle Ages. For some time past, however, the stricter
customs which have been introduced here no less than in other Piedmontese
villages have robbed this feast (as how many more popular feasts has it
not also robbed?) of that original and spontaneous character in which a
jovial heartiness and a diffusive interchange of the affections came
welling forth from all abundantly. In spite of all, however, and
notwithstanding its decline, the feast of the Madonna is even now one of
those rare gatherings—the only one, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of
Biella—to which the pious Christian and the curious idler are alike
attracted, and where they will alike find appropriate amusement.” {190}
How Miltonic, not to say Handelian, is this attitude towards the Pagan
tendencies which, it is clear, predominated at the _festa_ of St. Mary of
the Snow. In old days a feast was meant to be a time of actual
merriment—a praising “with mirth, high cheer, and wine.” {191a} Milton
felt this a little, and Handel much. To them an opportunity for a little
paganism is like the scratching of a mouse to the princess who had been
born a cat. Off they go after it—more especially Handel—under some
decent pretext no doubt, but as fast, nevertheless, as their art can
carry them. As for Handel, he had not only a sympathy for paganism, but
for the shades and gradations of paganism. What, for example, can be a
completer contrast than between the polished and refined Roman paganism
in Theodora, {191b} the rustic paganism of “Bid the maids the youths
provoke” in Hercules, the magician’s or sorcerer’s paganism of the blue
furnace in “Chemosh no more,” {191c} or the Dagon choruses in Samson—to
say nothing of a score of other examples that might be easily adduced?
Yet who can doubt the sincerity and even fervour of either Milton’s or
Handel’s religious convictions? The attitude assumed by these men, and
by the better class of Romanists, seems to have become impossible to
Protestants since the time of Dr. Arnold.
I once saw a church dedicated to St. Francis. Outside it, over the main
door, there was a fresco of the saint receiving the stigmata; his eyes
were upturned in a fine ecstasy to the illuminated spot in the heavens
whence the causes of the stigmata were coming. The church was insured,
and the man who had affixed the plate of the insurance office had put it
at the precise spot in the sky to which St. Francis’s eyes were turned,
so that the plate appeared to be the main cause of his ecstasy. Who
cared? No one; until a carping Englishman came to the place, and thought
it incumbent upon him to be scandalised, or to pretend to be so; on this
the authorities were made very uncomfortable, and changed the position of
the plate. Granted that the Englishman was right; granted, in fact, that
we are more logical; this amounts to saying that we are more rickety, and
must walk more supported by cramp-irons. All the “earnestness,” and
“intenseness,” and “æstheticism,” and “culture” (for they are in the end
one) of the present day, are just so many attempts to conceal weakness.
But to return. The church of St. Mary of the Snow at Campra was
incorporated into the Graglia institution in 1628. There was originally
no connection between the two, and it was not long before the later
church became more popular than the earlier, insomuch that the work at
Graglia was allowed to fall out of repair. On the death of Velotti the
scheme languished, and by and by, instead of building more chapels, it
was decided that it would be enough to keep in repair those that were
already built. These, as I have said, are the chapels of S. Carlo, and
the small ones which are now seen upon the way up to it, but they are all
in a semi-ruinous state.
Besides the church of St. Mary of the Snow at Campra, there was another
which was an exact copy of the _Santa Casa di Loreto_, and where there
was a remarkable echo which would repeat a word of ten syllables when the
wind was quiet. This was exactly on the site of the present sanctuary.
It seemed a better place for the continuation of Velotti’s work than the
one he had himself chosen for it, inasmuch as it was where Signor
Muratori so well implies a centre of devotion ought to be, namely, in “a
milder climate, and in a spot which offers more resistance to the
inclemency of the weather, and is better adapted to attract and retain
the concourse of the faithful.”
The design of the present church was made by an architect of the name of
Arduzzi, in the year 1654, and the first stone was laid in 1659. In 1687
the right of liberating a bandit every year had been found to be
productive of so much mischief that it was discontinued, and a yearly
contribution of two hundred _lire_ was substituted. The church was not
completed until the second half of the last century, when the cupola was
finished mainly through the energy of a priest, Carlo Giuseppe Gastaldi
of Netro. This poor man came to his end in a rather singular way. He
was dozing for a few minutes upon a scaffolding, and being awakened by a
sudden noise, he started up, lost his balance, and fell over on to the
pavement below. He died a few days later, on the 17th of October, either
1787 or 1778, I cannot determine which, through a misprint in Muratori’s
account.
The work was now virtually finished, and the buildings were much as they
are seen now, except that a third storey was added to the hospice about
the year 1840. It is in the hospice that the apartments are in which
visitors are lodged. I was shown all over them, and found them not only
comfortable but luxurious—decidedly more so than those of Oropa; there
was the same cleanliness everywhere which I had noticed in the
restaurant. As one stands at the windows or on the balconies and looks
down on to the tops of the chestnuts, and over these to the plains, one
feels almost as if one could fly out of the window like a bird; for the
slope of the hills is so rapid that one has a sense of being already
suspended in mid-air.
[Picture: Sanctuary of Graglia]
I thought I observed a desire to attract English visitors in the pictures
which I saw in the bedrooms. Thus there was “A view of the black lead
mine in Cumberland,” a coloured English print of the end of the last
century or the beginning of this, after, I think, Loutherbourg, and in
several rooms there were English engravings after Martin. The English
will not, I think, regret if they yield to these attractions. They will
find the air cool, shady walks, good food, and reasonable prices. Their
rooms will not be charged for, but they will do well to give the same as
they would have paid at an hotel. I saw in one room one of those
flippant, frivolous, Lorenzo de’ Medici match-boxes on which there was a
gaudily-coloured nymph in high-heeled boots and tights, smoking a
cigarette. Feeling that I was in a sanctuary, I was a little surprised
that such a matchbox should have been tolerated. I suppose it had been
left behind by some guest. I should myself select a matchbox with the
Nativity, or the Flight into Egypt upon it, if I were going to stay a
week or so at Graglia. I do not think I can have looked surprised or
scandalised, but the worthy official who was with me could just see that
there was something on my mind. “Do you want a match?” said he,
immediately reaching me the box. I helped myself, and the matter
dropped.
There were many fewer people at Graglia than at Oropa, and they were
richer. I did not see any poor about, but I may have been there during a
slack time. An impression was left upon me, though I cannot say whether
it was well or ill founded, as though there were a tacit understanding
between the establishments at Oropa and Graglia that the one was to adapt
itself to the poorer, and the other to the richer classes of society; and
this not from any sordid motive, but from a recognition of the fact that
any great amount of intermixture between the poor and the rich is not
found satisfactory to either one or the other. Any wide difference in
fortune does practically amount to a specific difference, which renders
the members of either species more or less suspicious of those of the
other, and seldom fertile _inter se_. The well-to-do working-man can
help his poorer friends better than we can. If an educated man has money
to spare, he will apply it better in helping poor educated people than
those who are more strictly called the poor. As long as the world is
progressing, wide class distinctions are inevitable; their discontinuance
will be a sign that equilibrium has been reached. Then human
civilisation will become as stationary as that of ants and bees. Some
may say it will be very sad when this is so; others, that it will be a
good thing; in truth, it is good either way, for progress and equilibrium
have each of them advantages and disadvantages which make it impossible
to assign superiority to either; but in both cases the good greatly
overbalances the evil; for in both the great majority will be fairly well
contented, and would hate to live under any other system.
Equilibrium, if it is ever reached, will be attained very slowly, and the
importance of any change in a system depends entirely upon the rate at
which it is made. No amount of change shocks—or, in other words, is
important—if it is made sufficiently slowly, while hardly any change is
too small to shock if it is made suddenly. We may go down a ladder of
ten thousand feet in height if we do so step by step, while a sudden fall
of six or seven feet may kill us. The importance, therefore, does not
lie in the change, but in the abruptness of its introduction. Nothing is
absolutely important or absolutely unimportant, absolutely good or
absolutely bad.
This is not what we like to contemplate. The instinct of those whose
religion and culture are on the surface only is to conceive that they
have found, or can find, an absolute and eternal standard, about which
they can be as earnest as they choose. They would have even the pains of
hell eternal if they could. If there had been any means discoverable by
which they could torment themselves beyond endurance, we may be sure they
would long since have found it out; but fortunately there is a stronger
power which bars them inexorably from their desire, and which has ensured
that intolerable pain shall last only for a very little while. For
either the circumstances or the sufferer will change after no long time.
If the circumstances are intolerable, the sufferer dies: if they are not
intolerable, he becomes accustomed to them, and will cease to feel them
grievously. No matter what the burden, there always has been, and always
must be, a way for us also to escape.