1384 a certain man, whose name has been preserved there by adequate
and unbroken record, refused to content himself on Easter day with
the Eucharist as offered to the people, and demanded to receive that
which was wont to be given to the priesthood alone. While he had this
in his mouth the earth beneath him opened and swallowed him up to the
neck, and while he held on for a moment to the corner of the altar the
priest withdrew the Host from his mouth. They still exhibit the hole
covered with an iron grating, the altar which bears the impress of this
man’s fingers, and the Host of a reddish hue like drops of blood. We
found there, written in recent Latin, an account how a certain Tiroler,
who had swallowed some days before a bit of flesh which stuck in his
throat and could neither be swallowed nor vomited, made a vow and
repaired to this church, where he was healed forthwith. On quitting
this place we found on the high land several nice villages, and after
half-an-hour’s descent, we perceived at the foot of the hill a fair
hamlet finely placed, and high above it on a cloven and seemingly
inaccessible rock, a magnificent castle commanding the road we had
come down, which is narrow and cut in the mountain side. The road is
scarcely wide enough to let pass a common cart, as in divers other
places amongst these mountains, so much so that the carters hereabout
are wont to reduce the size of their carts a foot at the least. Beyond
this we came upon a valley of great extent through which the Inn flows
to join the Danube at Vienna. In Latin it is called Œnus. It is five or
six days’ journey by water from Insprug to Vienna. To M. de Montaigne
this valley seemed the fairest country he had ever seen, now narrowing
itself with the mountains pressing close on it, now spreading out wide
on our side of the river--the left--and forming a space meet for
cultivation on the very slopes of the mountains, which were not too
steep for this, and now expanding on the other bank. Next it would
reveal to the eye platforms on two or three different levels, one above
the other, and everywhere fair houses of noblemen and churches. And
all this in a country shut and walled in on every side by mountains of
immeasurable height. On our side of the valley we espied in a rocky
place a crucifix, set up where no man could have gone save by being let
down by cords from above.[85] They say that the Emperor Maximilian,
grandfather of Charles V., lost himself one day while hunting in these
mountains; and, as a witness of the danger he escaped, he erected this
image, a story which is recorded by a painting in the hall of the
Arquebusiers at Augsburg. We arrived that evening, after travelling
three leagues, at Insprug.[86]
[Illustration: INSBRUCK
_Reproduced from Civitates Orbis Terrarum_
_To face p. 158_, vol. i.
]
IV
TIROL
This is the chief town of the county of Tirol, _Œnopontum_ in Latin,
the residence of Fernand, Archduke of Austria.[87] It is a very
beautiful little town and well built, standing in the bottom of the
valley and full of fountains and running water, a convenience most
common in all the towns we have seen in Germany and Switzerland. The
houses are almost all built terraced, and we found lodgment at the
“Rose,” an excellent house where they served us on plates of pewter.
As to napkins of French fashion, we had already had them given us
several days previous. Round about some of the beds they had hung
curtains which, as typical of the character of the people, were fine
and rich, of a certain sort of cloth, slashed and open worked, and also
very short and narrow. In fine they were quite unfitted for the use to
which we put such things, and there was besides a little tester, three
fingers wide, with a lot of tassels. They gave me for M. de Montaigne
white sheets trimmed with lace, four fingers wide, as is the custom of
most towns in Germany. All night long men go about the streets crying
the hour. Everywhere we have been they have the fashion of serving
the fish the same time as the meat; but, as far as we saw, they offer
no meat on fish days. On the Monday we departed, travelling along the
right bank of the Inn through a fair plain for two leagues until we
reached Hala.
We made the journey solely to see this place. Like Insprug it is a
small town, about the size of Libourne, on the river Inn, which we
crossed by a bridge. Here is produced all the salt used in Germany;
they make nine hundred loaves thereof weekly at one crown apiece, the
loaves being about the thickness of a half-hogshead, and somewhat
of the same shape, for the vessel which serves as a mould is of the
aforesaid kind. This traffic belongs to the archduke, and is carried
on at a vast cost. To produce the salt they had gathered together the
greatest store of wood I ever saw, for they boil in vast stoves of iron
the brine, which is brought from a mountain more than two good leagues
distant.
There are several fine churches, notably one belonging to the Jesuits,
and this, as well as the one in Insprug, M. de Montaigne visited. Other
churches there are, richly adorned and finely situated. After dinner we
recrossed the river, forasmuch as the fine palace where the Archduke
Fernand of Austria dwells is there situated. M. de Montaigne desired to
kiss the hand of this prince, as he passed thereby in the morning, but
from what a certain count told him he learned that the archduke was
holding a council.
When we retraced our steps thither after dinner, and found that the
archduke was in his garden, we hoped at least to be presented to him;
but those who went to inform him that Messieurs were there, and at his
service, brought word back that he prayed to be excused from granting
an interview at that moment, but that on the morrow he would find it
convenient so to do. Meantime, if Messieurs desired any favour of him,
they might state their wants to a certain Milanese count. This cold
reception, added to the fact that he refused to allow us to see the
castle, ruffled somewhat M. de Montaigne’s temper; and when we spoke
of this offence to an officer of the household this gentleman told him
that the prince had said he was averse from seeing Frenchmen, for that
the house of France was the foe of his own. We then returned to Insprug.
We next saw in a church eighteen magnificent bronze statues of the
princes and princesses of the house of Austria.[88] We also went to
sup with the Cardinal of Austria[89] and the Marquis of Burgant,[90]
sons of the archduke by a concubine, the daughter of a merchant of
Augsburg. She bore him only these two sons, and then he married her
to make them legitimate. She died during the present year and all the
court still wears mourning. Here the ceremonial is almost the same as
with our princes. The hall, the dais, and the chairs were all covered
with black cloth. The cardinal, the elder, is not, I fancy, more than
twenty; he drank wine freely diluted with water, and the marquis naught
but sweet drink.[91] The dinner was not served in a closed tray,[92]
but everything uncovered, the service of viands being conducted as with
us. When they took their seats they placed themselves some distance
from the table, which was moved towards them, laden with dishes; the
cardinal sat highest, the right-hand place being always reckoned the
chief one. In this palace we saw two tennis-courts and a seemly garden.
This archduke is a mighty builder and planner of all such useful
devices. There we saw ten or twelve field-pieces, each carrying a ball
as big as a goose’s egg, and mounted on wheels enriched and gilded all
over; the very pieces themselves being gilded. They are made of nothing
stronger than wood, but the muzzles are covered with iron plating, and
inside the guns this plating is of double thickness. A man can carry
one on his back. These guns are not fired so often as those cast in
iron, but they will carry a ball almost as far. At the archduke’s
country house we saw two oxen of an extraordinary size, grey with white
heads, which M. de Ferrara had given him; for the aforesaid Duke of
Ferrara had married one of his sisters, the Duke of Florence another,
and the Duke of Mantua a third. At Hala three others formerly resided
who were called “the Three Queens,”[93] for to the daughters of the
Emperor they give this style, as they call the daughters of other
rulers countesses and duchesses, according to their estates; also to
the Emperor’s daughters is given a surname from the kingdoms ruled
by the Emperor. Two of these three are dead, and the third, who was
still residing there, M. de Montaigne was unable to see. She lives in
religious seclusion, and has called in and established the Jesuits at
Hala.
Report goes that the archduke cannot leave his possessions to his
children, but that these must revert to the successor to the Empire.
They could not, however, give the reason for this arrangement; and, as
far as this remark applies to the wife, it seems to carry no meaning,
forasmuch as, though she was not of suitable rank, still he married
her, and all men hold her to have been his lawful wife, and her
children legitimate. However, he has amassed much money in order to
bequeath them something.
On the Tuesday morning we resumed our journey, crossing the plain and
following the mountain path. At the end of the first league we ascended
for an hour a small mountain by an easy road. On the left hand we
had a view of divers other mountains, which for the reason that they
sloped gently, were covered with villages and churches and for the most
part tilled up to the very tops, a pleasing prospect on account of
the diversity of the landscape aforesaid. The mountains on the right
were somewhat wilder and sparsely peopled. We crossed several brooks
and torrents, running in varied course, and on the road we passed
several large towns and villages and good inns, at the very base of the
mountains. Also on the left hand were two castles and some gentlemen’s
dwellings; and, about four leagues from Insprug, on the left side of
a very narrow passage, we came upon a bronze tablet, richly engraved,
attached to the rock and inscribed thus: “The Emperor Charles V.,
returning from Spain and Italy,[94] where he had received the Imperial
crown; and his brother Ferdinand, King of Hungary and Bohemia, coming
from Pannonia, seeking one another after an interval of eight years,
met at this spot in the year 1530. Ferdinand commanded this memorial to
be placed here.” They are represented embracing one another.
A short distance farther on, as we passed beneath a gate which blocked
the road, we found written thereon some Latin verses recording the
passage of the Emperor aforesaid, and of his stay in this place
after his capture of the King of France and of Rome. M. de Montaigne
found the scenery of this pass greatly to his taste on account of
the diversity of the objects to be seen, and we encountered no
inconvenience, except the thickest and most intolerable dust we had
ever experienced, which kept with us the whole of our mountain passage.
After we had been on the road ten hours, M. de Montaigne affirmed that
this journey seemed to him like moonlight travelling.[95] It was always
his habit, whether he purposed to halt on the road or not, to let his
horses have oats to eat in the morning at the inn before starting.
After faring seven leagues, we all arrived fasting late at night at
Stertzinguen, a decent little town,[96] belonging to the county of
Tirol, with a fine new castle built on the rock above. At table they
gave us round loaves, joined one to another, and as everywhere else
in Germany, the mustard was liquid, with the taste of white French
mustard. Everywhere the vinegar is white. No wine grows in these
mountains, but corn enough for the inhabitants, who drink three sorts
of good white wine. All these roads are perfectly safe, being much
used by merchants, coachmen, and carters. Instead of the cold, which
had been instanced as a detriment to this road, we were troubled with
intolerable heat. The women of the country wear cloth hats, like our
scholars’ caps, with their hair braided and hanging down as in other
places. M. de Montaigne, having espied a fair young girl in a church,
asked if she could speak Latin, deeming she was a scholar.
Here we had curtains to our beds of thick linen dyed red. In all our
travels in Germany we found no room or chamber which was not panelled,
the ceilings being very low. M. de Montaigne suffered this night from
colic for two or three hours, and very sharply, to judge from what he
said next morning. Then indeed, when he rose from bed, he passed a
stone of medium size which crumbled easily: outside it was yellowish,
and when broken showed white in the middle. He had taken cold the
previous day and found himself ailing, but he had not suffered from
colic since Plommieres. This seizure partially removed the fear he
felt that at Plommieres some gravel had descended into the bladder
without passing therefrom, and that certain matter, there arrested, was
collecting and consolidating. Now, seeing what had happened, he felt
he might reasonably infer that, if there were indeed other particles,
they would have joined themselves to the stone he had just passed. On
the way he complained of pain in his loins, and now he declared he
had prolonged the day’s journey simply on this account, deeming that
he would find greater ease on horseback than elsewhere. At this place
he called for the schoolmaster to converse with him in Latin, but the
fellow was a fool from whom he could get no information as to the
country.
On the morrow, Wednesday, October 26, we set out over a plain some
half-quarter of a league in width, having the river Aisoc[97] on our
right hand, and traversed this plain for two leagues. At the foot of
the neighbouring mountains we saw here and there spaces of ground,
inhabited and cultivated and often adjacent one to the other, but could
discern no road leading thereto. We passed four or five castles, and
crossed the river on a wooden bridge, and came upon some roadmakers
who were repairing the way because it was somewhat stony, but not
worse than the roads in Perigord. Then, having passed a stone gateway,
we mounted to higher ground, where we came upon a level space about
a league in length, and espied a similar plain on the other side of
the river, both being sterile and rocky. There were some very fine
low-lying meadows on our side of the stream. After going four leagues
without halt we arrived in time for supper at Brixen, a fair little
town, through which flows the river aforesaid, crossed by a wooden
bridge. A bishop resides here and we saw two fine churches. We found
good lodging at the “Eagle.”
[Illustration: BRIXEN
_From Civitates Orbis Terrarum_
_To face p. 172_, vol. i.
]
The level ground here is of no great extent, but the adjacent mountains
rise so gently, even on the left-hand side, that they can, so to
speak, be curled and combed up to the very ears.[98] The whole country
seems full of clock towers and villages high up in the hills, and
near the town are several fine houses well built and situated. M. de
Montaigne declared “that he had all his life distrusted the verdict
of other people upon the amenities of foreign lands, no one being
able, apparently, to appreciate them except by the rule of his own
peculiar habit, and the custom of his village; and that he paid very
little respect to the information given him by travellers. But now he
was more amazed than ever over their stupidity, seeing that he had
heard tell--and especially concerning travelling in this region--of
the exceeding difficulties to be overcome in these passes of the Alps;
that the manners of the people were uncouth, the roads impassable, the
lodging rough, and the air intolerable. As to the air, he thanked God
to find it so mild--for he was fain of excess of heat rather than of
cold, and up to the present we had experienced only three days of cold,
and an hour or so of rain--and moreover, if he were minded to take
his little girl[99] of eight out for a walk, he would as lief take
her out on this road as in his own garden; that, as to the lodgings,
he had never seen a country where they were so plentiful and good,
having always found accommodation in handsome towns well supplied with
provision and wine at a cheaper rate than elsewhere.”
They use in these parts a machine with various wheels to turn the
spits. They bind closely a strong cord round a great spindle of iron;
this unwinds itself, and, the movement thereof being arrested somehow,
the process lasts an hour. When it stops the machine has to be wound
up afresh. As to smoke-jacks we saw several of these. So great is
the abundance of iron that, besides fitting gratings of divers sorts
to their windows and doors, they cover even the wooden shutters with
plates of iron. Here we came again into the land of vines, which we
had lost sight of since we quitted Augsburg. Round about these parts
most of the houses have every storey vaulted. In Germany they do what
we cannot do in France, to wit, they use hollow tiles to cover the
narrowest slopes of roofing, as in their clock towers. Their tiling is
smaller and more hollowed, and sometimes plastered at the joints. We
quitted Brixen on the morning of the morrow, and traversed the same
wide open valley, the roadsides being adorned with divers fine houses.
Travelling with the river Eisock on our left, we passed a small village
named Clause,[100] inhabited by various sorts of workers, and at the
end of three leagues came to Colman[101] in time for dinner, a small
place where the archduke has a pleasure-house.
At table they gave us, together with silver goblets, others of painted
earthenware, and they washed the glasses with white salt. The first
service was sent up in a hot dish, very handy, which they placed on the
table with an iron implement. It contained eggs poached with butter.
On quitting this place we found the road somewhat narrow, and the
rocks closed upon us so much that the pass was hardly wide enough for
ourselves and the river together. In sooth we should have been in
danger of pushing one another into the abyss, if they had not built
between the river and the wayfarers a wall which was continued in
places a German league at a stretch. The more lofty of the mountains
which stood around us were wild rocks, some in solid masses, some
scored and broken up by the passage of the torrents, and some of a kind
of shale which let fall below innumerable fragments of astonishing
size, wherefore it impressed us that it would be perilous to travel
here during a tempest. We saw likewise whole forests of pine trees torn
up by the roots which still carried masses of earth. But the country
is well peopled, for, beyond these lower hills, we caught sight of
others higher up, cultivated and inhabited; and we learned also that
above these were fine, broad, level fields and good houses occupied
by rich farmers, who raised abundant corn for the villages below. We
crossed the stream by one of the numerous wooden bridges and then had
it on our left hand. Amongst other objects we saw a castle, perched on
the loftiest and most inaccessible point of the mountains, which they
told us belonged to a baron of the country, who lived there and enjoyed
his fine lands and hunting. Beyond these hills there is always to be
seen the range of high Alps, which we left to themselves. They indeed
bar the issue from this pass, so that the traveller has continually to
return to the course of the stream, and to emerge again at some turn
or other. This county of Tirol, which yields no revenue except from
the mountains, is worth three hundred thousand florins a year to the
archduke, more than he gets from all the rest of his dominions. We
crossed the river again by a stone bridge, and, after a bout of four
leagues, we arrived in good time at Bolzan.[102]
This town, about the size of Libourne, is situated on the river before
named, and is somewhat less pleasing than other towns we had visited in
Germany, so much so that M. de Montaigne exclaimed that it was evident
we were about to cross the German border. The streets are narrow, and
there is no fine public place, but we still found fountains, running
water, paintings, and glass windows. Wine is so plentiful that they
supply the whole of Germany with what it needs, and the bread eaten in
these mountains is the best in the world. The church is a very fine
one, and possesses amongst other things a wooden organ, which is very
high and placed close to the crucifix by the great altar. But the
player sits some twelve feet lower, beside the column to which the
organ is attached, and the bellows are underground outside the church,
about fifteen paces behind the organist. The open space in which this
town is situated is only just large enough to contain it, but the
mountains to the right hand stand back somewhat, thus giving a little
extra ground. From here M. de Montaigne wrote to François Hottoman,
whom he had met at Basel, “that albeit he was bound for Italy, he had
fared so well in Germany that he quitted it with much regret; that
strangers had to suffer the exactions of innkeepers there as elsewhere,
but that this abuse would soon right itself, and that the traveller
would no longer be at the mercy of guides and interpreters who sold him
and shared the profit. In every other respect he had always met with
unbounded courtesy and convenience, and was specially struck with the
justice and security everywhere prevalent.”[103] We left Bolzan early
on Friday morning, and at two leagues’ end we halted for breakfast and
to feed our horses at Brounsol.[104]
This was a small village standing above the river Eysock which, after
bearing us company so far, now mixed itself with the Adisse[105] and
flowed therewith to the Adriatic Sea, broad and tranquil, and no longer
resembling the brawling and furious torrents of the mountains above.
The plain, too, became a little broader as far as Trante,[106] and
the hills showed their peaks less prominently. The slopes of these,
however, are less fertile than those higher up, and in the valley are
some swamps which encroach upon the road in places, but elsewhere the
travelling is easy in the bottom of the valley and along the plain.
Two leagues after leaving Brounsol we came to a large village where a
great crowd was assembled by reason of a fair. Farther on was another
well-built village, called Solorne,[107] where the archduke has a small
castle on the left of the road, set in a strange position on the point
of a rock. Five leagues’ journey took us to Trante, where we arrived in
time for bed.
[Illustration: TRENT
_To face p. 180_, vol. i.
]
Trante is somewhat larger than Aagen, an unpleasant place, and quite
lacking in the grace of the German towns, with narrow and crooked
streets.[108] Two leagues before reaching it we heard the Italian
tongue, and the town itself is equally divided between the two
languages, one quarter thereof being called after the Germans, with a
church in which they have a preacher of their own speech. We heard no
talk of the new forms of religion after we left Augsburg. In Trante,
which is on the Adisse, we saw the cathedral, which had a look of
great antiquity,[109] and the same may be said of a square tower near
thereto. We likewise visited Notre Dame, the new church where the
Council was held, in which church there is an organ, the gift of a
private gentleman. This is exceedingly beautiful; it is set up in a
marble gallery which is carved and adorned with divers fine statues,
those of some singing children being especially lovely.[110] This
church was built by _Bernardus Clesius Cardinalis_ in 1520, a native
of Trante and afterwards bishop.[111] Trante is a free town under the
charge and governance of the bishop, but at a time when they were hard
pressed in a struggle with the Venetians, the people called in the
Count of Tirol to help them, and in return therefor he has retained
certain authority and rights over the town. There has been a contention
between him and the bishop over this matter, but the bishop, who is a
Cardinal Madruccio, now holds possession.[112]