Italian Highways and Byways from a Motor Car

From Varese to Laveno on the Lago di Maggiore is a matter of fifty kilometres, and here one comes to the most famous, if not the most beautiful, of all the lakes.

The whole range of towns circling this daintily environed lake have an almost inexpressible charm, and its islands – the Borromean Islands – are superlatively beautiful.

Baveno, on the mainland, and its villas, modern though they are, is a charming place, and Stresa, a little further to the south, is even more delightfully disposed. All about the Italian lakeland are the modern villa residences of distinguished Milanese, Turinese and Genoese families.

Arona is at the southern end of the lake. Above this town is a colossal statue of San Carlo Borromeo, the head, hands and feet being cast in bronze, the remainder being fabricated of beaten copper.

The famous Borromean Islands in the Lago di Maggiore number four: Isola Bella, Isola Madre, Isola San Giovanni and Isola dei Piscatori, of which the three former belong to the Borromean family, whilst the latter is divided among small proprietors.

The vast Palazzo of Isola Bella was a conception of an ancestor of the present family in 1671. The great fabric, with its terraces, gardens and grottoes, is an exotic thing of the first importance. It is idyllically picturesque, but withal inartistic from many points of view. The contrast of all this semi-tropical luxuriousness with its snow-capped Alpine background is not its least remarkable feature. It has been called “fairylike,” “a caprice of grandiose ideas,” and “enchanted,” and these words describe it well enough. It looks unreal, as if one saw it in a dream. Certainly its wonderful panoramic background and foreground are not equalled elsewhere and no garden carpet of formal flowerbeds ever made so beautifully disposed a platform on which to stand and marvel. The architect of it all made no allowance apparently for the natural setting, but overloaded his immediate foreground with all things that suggested themselves to his imaginative mind. Somehow or other he didn’t spoil things as much as he might have done. The setting is theatrical and so are the accessories; all is splendidly spectacular, and, since this is its classification, no one can cavil. What other effect could be produced where ten staired terraces tumble down one on another in a veritable cascade simply as a decorative accessory to a monumental edifice and not as a thing of utility?

On Isola Madre is another vast structure surrounded by tropical and semi-tropical trees, flowers and shrubs. A chapel contains many of the tombs of the Borromeo family.

The Isola dei Piscatori is the artists’ paradise of these parts. It lacks the “prettiness” of the other islands but gains in “character” as artists call that picturesqueness which often is unsuspected and unseen by the masses.

Going back to history, here is what happened once on the Isola Bella: It is a warm June night. The mauve summits of the Simplon and the reflets of the mirrored lake throw back a penetrating shimmer to the view. Coming from Baveno, and holding straight its course for Isola Bella, is a gently moving bark. It is the year 1800, and on the stern seat of the boat sits the First Consul, who was once the Little Corporal and afterwards became Napoleon I.

The French army had freed the Alps, some days before. Over the passes of Mont Cenis, of the Simplon, of Saint Bernard, and Saint Gothard they had come, soon to form in battle line on the plains of Piedmont. Moncey was at the gates of Milan, Lannes held the passage of the Po. The First Consul, arriving on the shores of the Lago di Maggiore, decided to pass the night in the Castle of Isola Bella, alone on this enchanting isle, with his thoughts and his plans. Bonaparte jumped first from the boat as it grated on the sands and was received by a grotesquely attired major-domo, in the name of the Counts of Borromeo, the sovereign princes of this tiny archipelago.

In the seigneurial chamber, of which the furniture comprised a great four poster dating from the time of the Medicis, a massive round table, its top laid in mosaic, some chairs and a terrestrial globe, Napoleon shook off the dust of travel forthwith: but he did not seek repose. On the mosaic table-top Napoleon unfolded a great map of Italy, and with forehead in his hands gazed attentively at its tracings, soliloquizing thus: “Yes, Italy is reconquered already; the Austrian army cannot escape me. Fifteen days will suffice to efface the disasters of two years. The Austrian army is already in retreat; its rear guard has become its advance guard. The tricolour of France will yet float on the shores of the Adriatic. I shall march on Rome. I will chase the hateful Bourbons from the Kingdom of Naples for ever. Europe will tremble at the echo of my footsteps.”

Finally the twilight faded; back of the mountains of Lugano shone a brilliant star. Napoleon thought it his star of destiny. To the wide open window came the First Consul for a breath of the sweet night air. It acted like champagne. He turned back into the room; he kicked over the terrestrial globe of the Borromeo; he threw the map of Italy to the floor. “What is Italy!” he cried, “a mere nothing! Bah! it’s hardly worth the conquering. Certainly not worth more than a few weeks. But I will leave the memory of my name behind. And then – and then Saint Jean d’Acre, the Orient, the Indies. Allons, we will follow the route of Tamerlane! Poland will come to life again, Moscow, St. Petersburg …” and then he dreamed.

And that is what passed one night in the Palazzo Borromeo a little more than a hundred years ago.

From the shores of the Lago di Maggiore to Orta, on the lake of that name, is a short dozen kilometres from either Arona or Baveno. At Orta the traveller may take his ease at an humble inn and from its broad balcony overhanging the lake enjoy emotions which he will not experience at every halting place.

Orta’s Municipio, or Town hall, dominating its tiny Piazza is unspeakably lovely though indeed it is a hybrid blend of the architecture of Germany and Italy. It might as well be in Nuremberg, in Bavaria or Barberino in Tuscany for all it looks like anything else in Piedmont.

Out in the lake glitters – glitters is the word – Isola San Giulio, its graceful campanile and ancient stone buildings hung with crimson creepers and mirrored in the clear blue depths. About this island there hangs a legend. The story goes that no one could be found ready to ferry the apostle Julius across to the chosen site of his mission in the year 1500. According to popular rumour the isle was haunted by dragons and venomous reptiles that none dared face. Not to be deterred from his purpose, the holy man spread his cloak upon the water, and floated quickly and quietly across. Nor did the miracle end here, for, as with St. Patrick of Ireland, the unclean monsters, acknowledging his power, retired to a far-away mountain, leaving the saint unmolested to carry on his labours, which were continued after his death by faithful friends. This is the story as it is told on the spot.

The island was held as an outpost against invasions for many years, and for long witnessed the hopeless struggles of a brave woman, Villa, wife of King Berenger of Lombardy, who was besieged there by the Emperor Otho the Great.

CHAPTER XVIII

MILAN AND THE PLAINS OF LOMBARDY

THE great artichoke of Lombardy, whose petals have fallen one by one before its enemies of Piedmont, is now much circumscribed in area compared with its former estate.

From Como to Mantua and from Brescia to Pavia, in short the district of Milan as it is locally known to-day, is the only political entity which has been preserved intact. Tortona, Novara, Alessandria and Asti have become alienated entirely, and for most travellers Milan is Lombardy and Lombardy is Milan. To-day the dividing line in the minds of most is decidedly vague.

Lombardy is the region of all Italy most prolific in signs of modernity and prosperity, and, with Torino, Milan shares the honour of being the centre of automobilism in Italy. The roads here, take them all in all, are of the best, though not always well conditioned. That from Milan to Como can be very, very good and six months later degenerate into something equally as bad. The roads of these parts have an enormous traffic over them and it is for this reason, as much as anything, that their maintenance is difficult and variable. For the greater part they are all at a general level, except of course in entering or leaving certain cities and towns of the hills and on the direct roads leading to the mountain passes back of Torino, or the roads crossing the lake region and entering Switzerland or the Oberland.

Lombardy in times past, and to-day to some extent, possessed a dialect or patois quite distinct from the Franco-Italian mélange of Piedmont, or the pure Italian of Tuscany. The Lombard, more than all other dialects of Italy, has a decided German flavour which, considering that the Lombard crown was worn by a German head, is not remarkable. In time – after the Guelph-Ghibelline feud – Lombardy was divided into many distinct camps which in turn became recognized principalities.

The Viscontis ruled the territory for the most part up to 1447, when the condottière Francesco Sforza developed that despotism which brought infamy on his head and State, a condition of affairs which the Pope described as conducive to the greatest possible horrors.

Lombardy has ever been considered the real paradise and land of riches of all Italy, and even now, in a certain luxuriousness of attitude towards life, it lives up to its repudiation of the days of the dominating Visconti and Sforza.

Milan is to-day the luxurious capital of Lombardy, as was Pavia in the past. At one time, be it recalled, Milan was a Duchy in its own right. Years of despotism at the hands of a man of genius made Milan a great city and the intellectual capital of Italy. Milanese art and architecture of the fifteenth century reached a great height. It was then, too, that the Milanese metal workers became celebrated, and it was a real distinction for a knight to be clad in the armour of Milan.

“Well was he armed from head to heelIn mail and plate of Milan steel.”

Milan has a history of the past, but paradoxically Milan is entirely modern, for it struggled to its death against Pavia, the city of five hundred and twenty-five towers, and was born again as it now is. One should enter Milan in as happy a mood as did Evelyn who “passynge by Lodi came to a grete citty famous for a cheese little short of the best Parmesan.” It was a queer mood to have as one was coming under Milan’s spell, and the sculptured and Gothic glories of the Cathedral, as it stands in completion to-day, are quite likely to add to, rather than detract from, any preconceived idea of the glories of the city and its treasures.

Milan is one of the most princely cities of Europe, and lies in the centre of a region flowing with milk and honey. In Evelyn’s time it had a hundred churches, seventy monasteries and forty thousand inhabitants. To-day its churches and monasteries are not so many, but it has a population of half a million souls.

The comment of the usual tourist is invariably: “There is so little to see in Milan.” Well, perhaps so! It depends upon how hard you look for it. Milan is a very progressive up-to-date sort of city, but its storied past has been most momentous, and historic monuments are by no means wanting. Milan is modern in its general aspect, it is true, and has little for the unexpert in antiquarian lore, but all the same it has three magic lode stones; its luxuriously flamboyant Gothic Duomo; its Ambrosian Library and its Palace of arts and sciences, La Brera.

Tourists may forget the two latter and what they contain, but they will not forget the former, nor the Arch of Triumph built as a guide post by Napoleon on his march across Europe, or the Galleria Victor-Emmanuel, “as wide as a street and as tall as a Cathedral,” a great arcade with shops, cafés, restaurants and the like.

There is the Scala opera house, too, which ranks high among its kind.

Milan’s “eighth wonder of the world,” its great Cathedral, is the chef d’œuvre of the guide books. Details of its magnitude and splendours are there duly set forth. Milan’s Cathedral has long sheltered a dubious statue of St. Bartholomew, and tourists have so long raved over it that the authorities have caused to be graven on its base: “I am not the work of Praxiteles but of Marcus Agrates.” Now the throngs cease to admire, and late experts condemn the work utterly. Such is the follow-my-leader idea in art likes and dislikes! And such is the ephemeral nature of an artist’s reputation!

The Palazzo Reale occupies the site of the Palazzo di Corte of the Visconti and the Sforza of the fourteenth century, “one of the finest palaces of its time,” it is recorded. The Palazzo of to-day is a poor, mean thing architecturally, although the residence of the King to-day when he visits Milan. The Archiepiscopal Palace of the sixteenth century is perhaps the finest domestic establishment of its class and epoch in Milan.

Milan’s Castello, the ancient castle of Milan, was the ancient ducal castle, built by Galeazzo Visconti II in 1358, to keep the Milanese in subjection. It was demolished after his death, but rebuilt with increased strength by Gian Galeazzo. On the death of the Duke Filippo Maria, the Milanese rose (1447), and, having proclaimed the “Aurea respublica Ambrosiana,” destroyed the castle. It was rebuilt (1452) by Francesco Sforza, “for the ornament (he said) of the city and its safety against enemies.” This building, completed in 1476, is the one now standing. In the interior is a keep, where the dukes often resided. Philip II added extensive modern fortifications, and caused to be pulled down all the neighbouring towers which overlooked them. The castle was taken by the French in 1796, and again in 1800, when Napoleon ordered the fortifications to be razed. It has since been converted into a barrack. Of the round towers at the angles, those towards the north have been replaced by modern brick ones, while the two towards the city, formed of massive granite blocks, remain. During the vice-royalty of Eugene Beauharnais, a Doric gateway of granite, with a portico, or line of arches, now filled up, on each side, and in the same style, was erected on the northwest side; between each arch is a medallion containing the bas-relief portrait of some illustrious Italian military commander.

The Napoleonic arch, the Arco della Pace, is a remarkably interesting civic monument, a reproduction of a temporary affair first built of wood and canvas in 1806. Now it stands, a comparatively modern work to be sure, but of splendid design and proportions, built of white marble, and elaborately decorated with sculptures all at the expense of Napoleon, who, on his march of migratory conquest, deigned to devote 200,000 francs to the purpose.

Milan’s hotels are of all sorts and conditions, but with a decided tendency towards the good, as is fitting in so opulent a country. Bertolini’s Hotel Europe takes a high rank, at corresponding charges, as for instance four francs for a “box” for your automobile. The Touring Club Italiano endorses the Albergo del Cervo, where you pay nothing for garage and may eat as bountifully as you will of things Italian, real Italian, at from two to three francs a meal. One of the most amusing things to do in Milan is to lunch or dine in one of the great glass covered galleries near the cathedral, and one feasts well indeed for the matter of four francs, with another couple of francs for a bottle of Asti. These great restaurants of the galleries may lack a certain aspect of the next-to-the-soil Italian restaurants, but they do show a phase of another class of Italian life and here “Young Italy” may be seen taking his midday meal and ordering English or German beer or Scotch or American whiskey. He shuns the Italian items on the bill of fare and orders only exotics. You on the contrary will do the reverse.

Pavia, thirty odd kilometres south of Milan, was ever a rival of the greater city of to-day. Pavia is a tourist point, but only because it is on the direct road from Milan.

Pavia was the Lombard capital from 572 to 774. Its old walls and ramparts remain, in part, to-day and the whole aspect of the town is one of a certain mediævalism which comports little with the modernity of its neighbour, Milan, which has so far outgrown its little brother.

Pavia’s Certosa, on the road from Milan to Pavia, is its chief architectural splendour. Of that there is no doubt. It is the most gorgeously endowed and most splendid monastery in all the world, founded in 1396 by one of the Visconti as an atonement to his conscience for having murdered his uncle and father-in-law.

A Venetian, Bernardo da Venezia, was probably the architect of the Certosa, and brick work and superimposed marble slabs and tablets all combine in an elegance which marks the Certosa of Pavia as characteristic of the most distinctive Lombard manner of building of its epoch.

Within the city itself still stands the grim Castello, built on the site of the palace of the Lombard kings. The present building, however, was begun in 1460 and completed in 1469. It formed an ample quadrangle, flanked by four towers, two of which alone remain. The inner court was surrounded by a double cloister, or loggia; in the upper one the arches were filled in by the most delicate tracery in brickwork. The whole was crowned by beautiful forked battlements. In the towers were deposited the treasures of literature and art which Gian Galeazzo had collected: – ancient armour; upwards of 1,000 MSS., which Petrarch had assisted in selecting; and many natural curiosities. All these Visconti collections were carried to France in 1499 by Louis XII and nothing was left but the bare walls. One side of the palace or castle was demolished during the siege by Lautrec in 1527; but in other respects it continued perfect, though deserted, till 1796, when it was again put into a state of defence by the French. They took off the roof and covered the vaultings with earth; and when the rains came on in autumn, the weight broke down the vaultings, and ruined a great part of the edifice. It has since been fitted up as a military barracks. The great ruined gateway, once entered by a drawbridge crossing the fosse, is still the most imposing single detail, and the great quadrangle, with its fourteenth century arcades and windows, “a medley of Gothic and Bramantesque,” is striking, although the marble and terra-cotta ornaments are much dilapidated.

François I’s famous mot: “all is lost save honour,” uttered after the eventful battle of Pavia, will go down with that other remark of his: “Oh, God, but thou hast made me pay dear for my crown,” as the two most apropos sayings of Renaissance times.

One has to look carefully “under the walls of Pavia,” to-day for any historical evidence of the fatal day of François I when he lost his “all, save honour.” Du Bellay has painted the picture so well that in spite of the fact that four hundred years have rolled by, it seems unlikely that even the most superficial traveller should not find some historic stones upon which to build his suppositions.

Pavia’s great University flowered in 1362, and owes much to the generous impulses of Galeas II, who founded its chairs of civic and canonical law, medicine, physics and logic. Galeas II was a great educator, but he was versatile, for he invented a system of torture which would keep a political prisoner alive for forty days and yet kill him at the end of forty-one.

If one returns to Milan via the Bridge of Lodi he will have made a hundred kilometre round of classic Lombard scenery. It possesses no elements of topographic grandeur but is rich and prosperous looking, and replete with historic memory, every kilometre of it.

Lodi has evolved its name from the ancient Laus of the Romans, another evidence of the oblique transformation of Latin into the modern dialect. The men of Lodi were ever rivals of the Milanese, but it is to Napoleon’s celebrated engagement at the Bridge of Lodi that it owes its fame in the popular mind.

Above Lodi, the River Adda circles and boils away in a sort of whirlpool rapid, which Leonardo da Vinci, setting his palette and brushes aside, set about to control by a dam and a series of sluices. How well he succeeded may be imagined by recalling the fact that the Italian Edison Company in recent years availed themselves of the foundation of his plan in their successful attempt to turn running water into electricity.

The panorama to the north of Milan is grandiose in every particular. On the horizon the Alpine chain lies clear-cut against the sky, the Viso, Grand Paradise, Mont Blanc, Splugen and other peaks descending in one slope after another, one foothill after another, until all opens out into the great plain of Lombardy.

North of Milan, towards Como and the Alpine background, is Monza. Lady Morgan called Monza dreary and silent, but her judgments were not always sound; she depended too much upon moods and hers were many.

Monza’s Broletto was built by Frederick Barbarossa, or it was a part of a palace built by that monarch. Italian Gothic of an unmistakable local cast is its style and the effect is heightened by the ringhiera between the windows of the south side.

In Monza’s Cathedral – an antique interior with a Gothic exterior, by the way – is the celebrated Iron Crown of Lombardy with which the German Emperors of Lombardy were crowned. Charles V, Napoleon and Ferdinand I also made use of the same historic bauble which is not of much splendour. It costs a five franc fee to see it, and the sight is not worth the price of admission.

From Milan to Domodossola, leaving Italy via the Simplon Pass, is 177 kilometres, or, via Bellinzona and the Splugen, 207 kilometres with mediocre roads until the lake region is reached, when they improve decidedly, being of the very best as they ascend the mountain valleys.

CHAPTER XIX

TURIN AND THE ALPINE GATEWAYS

THE mountains of Piedmont are of the same variety as those of Switzerland and Savoy. They form the highland background to Turin which gives it its magnificent and incomparable framing.

Turin, or Torino, was the old capital of the Duchy of Savoy, then of the Kingdom of Sardinia, up to 1864, and to-day is the chief city of Piedmont.

Turin is laid out in great rectangular blocks, with long straight streets, and it is brilliant and beautiful as modern cities go, but there is not much that is romantic about it, save an occasional historical memory perpetuated by some public monument.

Turin at the time of the founding of the kingdom of Sardinia, which included also the domain of the house of Savoy, contained but 75,000 inhabitants. Said Montesquieu, who visited it in 1728: “It is the most beautiful city in the world.” De Brosseo, a few years later, declared it to be “the finest city in Italy, by the proper alignment of its streets, the regularity of its buildings, and the beauty of its squares.” From this point of view the same holds true to-day, but it is not sympathetic and winsome in the least, and it is not for the contemplation of straight streets, square, box-like buildings or formal public garden plots that one comes to Italy.

Turin’s monumental memories are by no means non-existent or unclassed, but they are almost overpowered by the modern note which rings so loudly in one’s ears and flashes so vividly in one’s eyes.

Of them all the Palazzo Madonna has the greatest appeal. It was originally a thirteenth century construction of the Montferrats, but was added to at various times until well along in the eighteenth century, when it became the palace of Madonna Reale, the widow of Charles Emmanuel II. All its value from an architectural point of view is in its exterior aspect, but its trim twelve-sided towers have a real distinction that a heavier, more clumsy donjon often lacks.

The Palazzo Carignano is a fanciful invention of an architect, Guarni by name, who in 1680 had no very clear idea as to what a consistent and pleasing architectural conception should be. This palace’s sole reason to be remembered is that it was the residence of King Carlo-Alberto. To-day Guarni’s original façade has been covered by a non-contemporary colonnade, with columns and statues of a certain impressive presence, which would be considered handsome if it were some degrees finer in workmanship, for the conception was certainly on becoming general lines.