Mesocco, S. Bernardino, and S. Maria in Calanca
AT the time of my first visit there was an inn kept by one Desteffanis
and his wife, where I stayed nearly a month, and was made very
comfortable. Last year, however, Jones and I found it closed, but did
very well at the Hotel Toscani. At the Hotel Desteffanis there used to
be a parrot which lived about loose and had no cage, but did exactly what
it liked. Its name was Lorrito. It was a very human bird; I saw it eat
some bread and milk from its tin one day and then sidle along a pole to a
place where there was a towel hanging. It took a corner of the towel in
its claw, wiped its beak with it, and then sidled back again. It would
sometimes come and see me at breakfast; it got from a chair-back on to
the table by dropping its head and putting its round beak on to the table
first, making a third leg as it were of its head; it would then waddle to
the butter and begin helping itself. It was a great respecter of persons
and knew the landlord and landlady perfectly well. It yawned just like a
dog or a human being, and this not from love of imitation but from being
sleepy. I do not remember to have seen any other bird yawn. It hated
boys because the boys plagued it sometimes. The boys generally go
barefoot in summer, and if ever a boy came near the door of the hotel
this parrot would go straight for his toes.
[Picture: Castle of Mesocco]
The most striking feature of Mesocco is the castle, which, as I have
said, occupies a rock in the middle of the valley, and is one of the
finest ruins in Switzerland. More interesting than the castle, however,
is the church of S. Cristoforo. Before I entered it I was struck with
the fresco on the _facciata_ of the church, which, though the _facciata_
bears the date 1720, was painted in a style so much earlier than that of
1720 that I at first imagined I had found here another old master born
out of due time; for the fresco was in such a good state of preservation
that it did not look more than 150 years old, and it was hardly likely to
have been preserved when the _facciata_ was renovated in 1720. When,
however, my friend Jones joined me, he blew that little romance away by
discovering a series of names with dates scrawled upon it from “1481.
viii. Febraio” to the present century. The lowest part of the fresco
must be six feet from the ground, and it must rise at least ten or a
dozen feet more, so the writings upon it are not immediately obvious, but
they will be found on looking at all closely.
[Picture: S. Cristoforo]
It is plain, therefore, that when the _facciata_ paired the original
fresco was preserved; it cannot be, as I had supposed, the work of a
local painter who had taken his ideas of rocks and trees from the
frescoes inside the church. That I am right in supposing the curious
blanc-mange-mould-looking objects on either side St. Christopher’s legs
to be intended for rocks will be clear to any one who has seen the
frescoes inside the church, where mountains with trees and towns upon
them are treated on exactly the same principle. I cannot think the
artist can have been quite easy in his mind about them.
On entering the church the left-hand wall is found to be covered with the
most remarkable series of frescoes in the Italian Grisons. They are
disposed in three rows, one above the other, occupying the whole wall of
the church as far as the chancel. The top row depicts a series of
incidents prior to the Crucifixion, and is cut up by the pulpit at the
chancel end. These events are treated so as to form a single picture.
The second row is in several compartments. There is a saint in armour on
horseback, life-size, killing a dragon, and a queen who seems to have
been leading the dragon by a piece of red tape buckled round its
neck—unless, indeed, the dragon is supposed to have been leading the
queen. The queen still holds the tape and points heavenward. Next to
this there is a very nice saint on horse-back, who is giving a cloak to a
man who is nearly naked. Then comes St. Michael trampling on the dragon,
and holding a pair of scales in his hand, in which are two little souls
of a man and of a woman. The dragon has a hook in his hand, and
thrusting this up from under St. Michael, he hooks it on to the edge of
the scale with the woman in it, and drags her down. The man, it seems,
will escape. Next to this there is a compartment in which a monk is
offering a round thing to St. Michael, who does not seem to care much
about it; there are other saints and martyrs in this compartment, and St.
Anthony with his pig, and Sta. Lucia holding a box with two eyes in it,
she being patroness of the eyesight as well as of mariners. Lastly,
there is the Adoration, ruined by the pulpit.
Below this second compartment are twelve frescoes, each about three and a
half feet square, representing the twelve months—from a purely secular
point of view. January is a man making and hanging up sausages;
February, a man chopping wood; March, a youth proclaiming spring with two
horns to his mouth, and his hair flying all abroad; April is a young man
on horseback carrying a flower in his hand; May, a knight, not in armour,
going out hawking with his hawk on one finger, his bride on a pillion
behind him, and a dog beside the horse; June is a mower; July, another
man reaping twenty-seven ears of corn; August, an invalid going to see
his doctor; October, a man knocking down chestnuts from a tree and a
woman catching them; November is hidden and destroyed by the pulpit;
December is a butcher felling an ox with a hatchet.
[Picture: Fresco at Mesocco—March]
[Picture: Fresco at Mesocco—April]
[Picture: Fresco at Mesocco—May]
[Picture: Fresco at Mesocco—August]
We could find no signature of the artist, nor any date on the frescoes to
show when they were painted; but while looking for a signature we found a
name scratched with a knife or stone, and rubbed the tracing which I
reproduce, greatly reduced, here; Jones thinks the last line was not
written by Lazarus Bovollinus, but by another who signs A. T.
[Picture: Brass rubbing: Lazarus Bouollins 1534 30 Augusti explenit 20
Amurs ...]
The Boelini were one of the principal families in Mesocco. Gaspare
Boelini, the head of the house, had been treacherously thrown over the
castle walls and killed by order of Giovanni Giacomo Triulci in the year
1525, because as chancellor of the valley he declined to annul the
purchase of the castle of Mesocco, which Triulci had already sold to the
people of Mesocco, and for which he had been in great part paid. His
death is recorded on a stone placed by the roadside under the castle.
Examining the wall further, we found a little to the right that the same
Lazzaro Bovollino (I need hardly say that “Bovollino” is another way of
spelling “Boelini”) scratched his name again some sixteen years later, as
follows:—
[Picture: Diagram showing Lazzaro Bovollino, 26 Decemb. 1550 etc.]
The handwriting is not so good as it was when he wrote his name before;
but we observed, with sympathy, that the writer had dropped his Latin.
Close by is scratched “Gullielmo Bo.”
The mark between the two letters L and B was the family mark of the
Boelini, each family having its mark, a practice of which further
examples will be given presently.
We looked still more, and on the border of one of the frescoes we
discovered—
.
“1481 die Jovis Veneris viiij Februarij hoines di Misochi et Soazza
fecerunt fidelitatem in manibus di Johani Jacobi Triulzio,”
—“The men of Mesocco and Soazza did fealty to John Jacob Triulci on
Friday the 8th of February 1481.” The day originally written was
Thursday the 7th of February, but “Jovis” was scratched out and “Veneris”
written above, while another “i” was intercalated among the i’s of the
viij of February. We could not determine whether some hitch arose so as
to cause a change of day, or whether “Thursday” and “viij” were written
by a mistake for “Friday” and “viiij,” but we imagined both inscription
and correction to have been contemporaneous with the event itself. It
will be remembered that on the St. Christopher outside the church there
is scratched it “1481. 8 Febraio” and nothing more. The mistake of the
day, therefore, if it was a mistake, was made twice, and was corrected
inside the church but not upon the fresco outside—perhaps because a
ladder would have had to be fetched to reach it. Possibly the day had
been originally fixed for Thursday the 8th, and a heavy snow-storm
prevented people from coming till next day.
I could not find that any one in Mesocco, not even my excellent friend
Signor à Marca, the _curato_ himself, knew anything about either the
inscriptions or the cause of their being written. No one was aware even
of their existence; on borrowing, however, the history of the Valle
Mesolcina by Signor Giovanni Antonio à Marca, {215} I found what I think
will throw light upon the matter. The family of De Sax had held the
valley of Mesocco for over four hundred years, and sold it in 1480 to
John Jacob Triulci, who it seems tried to cheat him out of a large part
of the purchase money later on; probably this John Jacob Triulci had the
frescoes painted to conciliate the clergy and inaugurate his entry into
possession. Early in 1481 he made the inhabitants of the valley do
fealty to him. I may say that as soon as he had entered upon possession,
he began to oppress the people by demanding tolls on all produce that
passed the castle. This the people resisted. They were also harassed by
Peter De Sax, who made incursions into the valley and seized property,
being unable to get his money out of John Jacob Triulci.
Other reasons that make me think the frescoes were painted in 1480 are as
follows. The spurs worn by the young men in the April and May frescoes
(pp. 211, 212) are about the date 1460. Their facsimiles can be seen in
the Tower of London with this date assigned to them. The frescoes,
therefore, can hardly have been painted before this time; but they were
probably painted later, for in the St. Christopher there is a distinct
hint at anatomy; enough to show that the study of anatomy introduced by
Leonardo da Vinci was beginning to be talked about as more or less the
correct thing. This would hardly be the case before 1480, as Leonardo
was not born till 1452. By February 1481 the frescoes were already
painted; this is plain because the inscription—which, I think, may be
taken as a record made at the time that fealty was done—is scratched over
them. Peter De Sax, if he was selling his property, is not likely to
have had the frescoes painted just before he was going away; I think it
most likely, therefore, that they were painted in 1480, when the valley
of Mesocco passed from the hands of the De Sax family to those of the
Triulci.
Underneath the inscription about the doing fealty there is scratched in
another hand, and very likely years after the event it commemorates—“1548
fu liberata la Vallata.” This date is contradicted (and, I believe,
corrected) by another inscription hard by, also in another hand, which
says—
“1549. La valle di Misocho comprò la liberti da casa Triulcia per
2400 scuti.”
This inscription is signed thus:—
[Picture: Copy of inscription] Carlo à Marca had written his name
along with three others in 1606 on another part of the frescoes.
Here are the signatures:—
[Picture: Signatures]
Two of these signatures belong to members of the Triulci family, as
appears by the trident, which translates the name. The T in each case is
doubtless for “Triulci.” Four years earlier still, Carlo à Marca had
written his name, with that of his wife or fiancée, on the fresco of St.
Christopher on the _facciata_ of the church, for we found there—
1602 Carlo à Marca.
Margherita dei Paglioni.
There is one other place where his name appears, or rather a part of it,
for the inscription is half hidden by a gallery, erected probably in the
last century.
The à Marca family still flourish in Mesocco. The _curato_ is an à
Marca, so is the postmaster. On the walls of a house near the convent
there is an inscription to the effect that it was given by his
fellow-townsmen to a member of the à Marca family, and the best work on
the history of the valley is the work of Giovanni Antonio Marca from
which I have already quoted.
Returning to the frescoes, we found that the men of Soazza and Mesocco
did fealty again to John Jacob Triulci on the feast of St. Bartholomew,
the 24th day of August 1503; this I believe to have been the son of the
original purchaser, but am not certain; if so, he is the Triulci who had
Gaspare Boelini thrown down from the castle walls. The people seem by
another inscription to have done fealty again upon the same day of the
following year.
On the St. Christopher we found one date, 1530, scratched on the right
ankle, and several of 1607, apparently done at one time. One date was
scratched in the left-hand corner—
1498 . . .
il Conte di (Misocho?)
There are also other dates—1627, 1633, 1635, 1626; and right across the
fresco there is written in red chalk, in a bold sixteenth or seventeenth
century handwriting—
“Il parlar di li homini da bene deve valer più che quello degli
altri.”
—“The word of a man of substance ought to carry more weight than that of
other people;” and again—
“Non ha la fede ognun come tu chredi;
Non chreder almen [quello?] che non vedi”
—“People are not so worthy of being believed as you think they are; do
not believe anything that you do not see yourself.”
Big with our discoveries, we returned towards our inn, Jones leaving me
sketching by the roadside. Presently an elderly English gentleman of
some importance, judging from his manner, came up to me and entered into
conversation. Englishmen do not often visit Mesocco, and I was rather
surprised. “Have you seen that horrid fresco of St. Christopher down at
that church there?” said he, pointing towards it. I said I had. “It’s
very bad,” said he decidedly; “it was painted in the year 1725.” I had
been through all that myself, and I was a little cross into the bargain,
so I said, “No; the fresco is very good. It is of the fifteenth century,
and the _facciata_ was restored in 1720, not in 1725. The old fresco was
preserved.” The old gentleman looked a little scared. “Oh,” said he, “I
know nothing about art—but I will see you again at the hotel;” and left
me at once. I never saw him again. Who he was, where he came from, how
he departed, I do not know. He was the only Englishman I saw during my
stay of some four weeks at Mesocco.
On the first day of my first visit to Mesocco in 1879, I had gone on to
S. Bernardino, and just before getting there, looking down over the great
stretches of pasture land above S. Giacomo, could see that there was a
storm raging lower down in the valley about where Mesocco should be; I
never saw such inky blackness in clouds before, and the conductor of the
diligence said that he had seen nothing like it. Next morning we learnt
that a water-spout had burst on the mountain above Anzone, a hamlet of
Mesocco, and that the water had done a great deal of damage to the
convent at Mesocco. Returning a few days later, I saw where the torrent
had flowed by the mud upon the grass, but could not have believed such a
stream of water (running with the velocity with which it must have run)
to have been possible under any circumstances in that place unless I had
actually seen its traces. It carried great rocks of several cubic yards
as though they had been small stones, and among other mischief it had
knocked down the garden wall of the convent of S. Rocco and covered the
garden with débris. As I looked at it I remembered what Signor Bullo had
told me at Faido about the inundations of 1868, “It was not the great
rivers,” he said, “which did the damage: it was the _ruscelli_” or small
streams. So in revolutions it is not the heretofore great people, but
small ones swollen under unusual circumstances who are most conspicuous
and do most damage. Padre Bernardino, of the convent of S. Rocco, asked
me to make him a sketch of the effect of the inundation, which I was
delighted to do. It was not, however, exactly what he wanted, and,
moreover, it got spoiled in the mounting, so I did another and he
returned me the first with an inscription upon it which I reproduce
below.
First came the words—
[Picture: Ricordo a Mesocco written]
Then came my sketch; and then—
[Picture: The sketch]
The English of which is as follows:—“View of the church, garden, and
hospice of S. Rocco, after the visitation inflicted upon them by the sad
torrent of Anzone, on the unhallowed evening of the 4th of August 1879.”
I regret that the “no” of Padre Bernardino’s name, through being written
in faint ink, was not reproduced in my facsimile. I doubt whether Padre
Bernardino would have got the second sketch out of me, if I had not liked
the inscription he had written on the first so much that I wanted to be
possessed of it. Besides, he wrote me a note addressed “all’ egregio
pittore S. Butler.” To be called an egregious painter was too much for
me, so I did the sketch. I was once addressed as “L’esimio pittore.” I
think this is one degree better even than “egregio.”
The damage which torrents can do must be seen to be believed. There is
not a streamlet, however innocent looking, which is not liable
occasionally to be turned into a furious destructive agent, carrying ruin
over the pastures which at ordinary times it irrigates. Perhaps in old
times people deified and worshipped streams because they were afraid of
them. Every year each one of the great Alpine roads will be interrupted
at some point or another by the tons of stones and gravel that are swept
over it perhaps for a hundred yards together. I have seen the St.
Gothard road more than once soon after these interruptions and could not
have believed such damage possible; in 1869 people would still shudder
when they spoke of the inundations of 1868. It is curious to note how
they will now say that rocks which have evidently been in their present
place for hundreds of years, were brought there in 1868; as for the
torrent that damaged S. Rocco when I was in the valley of Mesocco, it
shaved off the strong parapet of the bridge on either side clean and
sharp, but the arch was left standing, the flood going right over the
top. Many scars are visible on the mountain tops which are clearly the
work of similar water-spouts, and altogether the amount of solid matter
which gets taken down each year into the valleys is much greater than we
generally think. Let any one watch the Ticino flowing into the Lago
Maggiore after a few days’ heavy rain, and consider how many tons of mud
per day it must carry into and leave in the lake, and he will wonder that
the gradual filling-up process is not more noticeable from age to age
than it is.
Anzone, whence the sad torrent derives its name, is an exquisitely lovely
little hamlet close to Mesocco. Another no less beautiful village is
Doera, on the other side of the Moesa, and half a mile lower down than
Mesocco. Doera overlooks the castle, the original hexagonal form of
which can be made out from this point. It must have been much of the
same plan as the castle at Eynsford in Kent—of which, by the way, I was
once assured that the oldest inhabitant could not say “what it come
from.” While I was copying the fresco outside the chapel at Doera, some
charming people came round me. I said the fresco was very beautiful.
“Son persuaso,” said the spokesman solemnly. Then he said there were
some more pictures inside and we had better see them; so the keys were
brought. We said that they too were very beautiful. “Siam persuasi,”
was the reply in chorus. Then they said that perhaps we should like to
buy them and take them away with us. This was a more serious matter, so
we explained that they were very beautiful, but that these things had a
charm upon the spot which they would lose if removed elsewhere. The nice
people at once replied, “Siam persuasi,” and so they left us. It was
like a fragment from one of Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas.
For the rest, Mesocco is beautifully situated and surrounded by
waterfalls. There is a man there who takes the cows and goats out in the
morning for their several owners in the village, and brings them home in
the evening. He announces his departure and his return by blowing a
twisted shell, like those that Tritons blow on fountains or in pictures;
it yields a softer sound than a horn; when his shell is heard people go
to the cow-house and let the cows out; they need not drive them to join
the others, they need only open the door; and so in the evening, they
only want the sound of the shell to tell them that they must open the
stable-door, for the cows or goats when turned from the rest of the mob
make straight to their own abode.
There are two great avalanches which descend every spring; one of them
when I was there last was not quite gone until September; these
avalanches push the air before them and compress it, so that a terrific
wind descends to the bottom of the valley and mounts up on to the village
of Mesocco. One year this wind snapped a whole grove of full-grown
walnuts across the middle of their trunks, and carried stones and bits of
wood up against the houses at some distance off; it tore off part of the
covering from the cupola of the church, and twisted the weathercock awry
in the fashion in which it may still be seen, unless it has been mended
since I left.
The judges at Mesocco get four francs a day when they are wanted, but
unless actually sitting they get nothing. No wonder the people are so
nice to one another and quarrel so seldom.
The walk from Mesocco to S. Bernardino is delightful; it should take
about three hours. For grassy slopes and flowers I do not know a better,
more especially from S. Giacomo onward. In the woods above S. Giacomo
there are some bears, or were last year. Five were known—a father,
mother, and three young ones—but two were killed. They do a good deal of
damage, and the Canton offers a reward for their destruction. The
Grisons is the only Swiss Canton in which there are bears still
remaining.
San Bernardino, 5500 feet above the sea, pleased me less than Mesocco,
but there are some nice bits in it. The Hotel Brocco is the best to go
to. The village is about two hours below the top of the pass; the walk
to this is a pleasant one. The old Roman road can still be seen in many
places, and is in parts in an excellent state even now. San Bernardino
is a fashionable watering-place and has a chalybeate spring. In the
summer it often has as many as two or three thousand visitors, chiefly
from the neighbourhood of the Lago Maggiore and even from Milan. It is
not so good a sketching ground—at least so I thought—as some others of a
similar character that I have seen. It is not comparable, for example,
to Fusio. It is little visited by the English.
On our way down to Bellinzona again we determined to take S. Maria in
Calanca, and accordingly were dropped by the diligence near Gabbiolo,
whence there is a path across the meadows and under the chestnuts which
leads to Verdabbio. There are some good bits near the church of this
village, and some quaint modern frescoes on a public-house a little off
the main footpath, but there is no accommodation. From this village the
path ascends rapidly for an hour or more, till just as one has made
almost sure that one must have gone wrong and have got too high, or be on
the track to an _alpe_ only, one finds one’s self on a wide beaten path
with walls on either side. We are now on a level with S. Maria itself,
and turning sharply to the left come in a few minutes right upon the
massive keep and the _campanile_, which are so striking when seen from
down below. They are much more striking when seen from close at hand.
The sketch I give does not convey the notion—as what sketch can convey
it?—that one is at a great elevation, and it is this which gives its
especial charm to S. Maria in Calanca.
[Picture: Approach to Sta. Maria]
The approach to the church is beautiful, and the church itself full of
interest. The village was evidently at one time a place of some
importance, though it is not easy to understand how it came to be built
in such a situation. Even now it is unaccountably large. There is no
accommodation for sleeping, but an artist who could rough it would, I
think, find a good deal that he would like. On p. 226 is a sketch of the
church and tower as seen from the opposite side to that from which the
sketch on p. 224 was taken.
[Picture: Sta. Maria, Approach to Church]
The church seems to have been very much altered, if indeed the body of it
was not entirely rebuilt, in 1618—a date which is found on a pillar
inside the church. On going up into the gallery at the west end of the
church, there is found a Nativity painted in fresco by a local artist,
one Agostino Duso of Roveredo, in the year 1727, and better by a good
deal than one would anticipate from the epoch and habitat of the painter.
On the other side of the same gallery there is a Death of the Virgin,
also by the same painter, but not so good. On the left-hand side of the
nave going towards the altar there is a remarkable picture of the battle
of Lepanto, signed “Georgius Wilhelmus Groesner Constantiensis fecit A.D.
1649,” and with an inscription to the effect that it was painted for the
confraternity of the most holy Rosary, and by them set up “in this church
of St. Mary commonly called of Calancha.” The picture displays very
little respect for academic principles, but is full of spirit and
sensible painting.
[Picture: Front View of Sta. Maria]
Above this picture there hang two others—also very interesting, from
being examples of, as it were, the last groans of true art while being
stifled by academicism—or it may be the attempt at a new birth, which was
nevertheless doomed to extinction by academicians while yet in its
infancy. Such pictures are to be found all over Italy. Sometimes, as in
the case of the work of Dedomenici, they have absolute merit—more
commonly they have the relative merit of showing that the painter was
trying to look and feel for himself, and a picture does much when it
conveys this impression. It is a small still voice, which, however
small, can be heard through and above the roar of cant which tries to
drown it. We want a book about the unknown Italian painters in
out-of-the-way Italian valleys during the times of the decadence of art.
There is ample material for one who has the time at his command.
We lunched at the house of the incumbent, a monk, who was very kind to
us. We found him drying French marigold blossoms to colour his _risotto_
with during the winter. He gave us some excellent wine, and took us over
the tower near the church. Nothing can be more lovely than the monk’s
garden. If æsthetic people are ever going to get tired of sun-flowers
and lilies, let me suggest to them that they will find a weary utterness
in chicory and seed onions which they should not overlook; I never felt
chicory and seed onions till I was in the monk’s garden at S. Maria in
Calanca. All about the terrace or artificial level ground on which the
church is placed, there are admirable bits for painting, and if there was
only accommodation so that one could get up as high as the _alpi_, I can
fancy few better places to stay at than S. Maria in Calanca.