Brick and Marble in the Middle Ages: Notes of Tours in the North of Italy. George Edmund Street
behave himself more honestly for the future.
At ten we left, and had a very enjoyable ride to Colico. The valley, however, bore sad traces of the havoc made by the inundations of the Meira, and of the storm of the previous night. We soon reached the shores of the little Lake of Riva, along whose banks our road took us sometimes in tunnels, sometimes on causeways built out into the water, until at last we reached the valley up which runs the Stelvio road, and then, after passing along the whole length of a straight road lined on each side with a wearisome and endless row of poplars, we were at Colico. Here we prudently availed ourselves of the opportunity of an hour’s delay in the departure of the boat for an early dinner, and, then embarking, waited patiently the pleasure of our captain.
The scenery of Lake Como has been so often extravagantly praised that I was quite prepared to be disappointed; but for the whole distance from Colico to Lecco it is certainly on the whole more striking than any lake scenery I have seen. The mountains at its head are extremely irregular and picturesque, and throughout its whole length there is great change and variety. In this respect it contrasts favourably with most other lakes, and I certainly think that not even in the Lake of Lucerne is there any one view so grand as that which one has looking up from within a short distance of the head of Como over the Lake of Riva to the mountains closing in the Stelvio, and rising nobly above the sources of the Meira and the Lira.
Somewhat, too, may be said of the innumerable villages and white villas with which the banks of the lake are studded; they give a sunny, inhabited, and cheerful feeling to the whole scene; and, reflected in the deep blue lake in those long-drawn lines of flakey white which are seen in no other water to such perfection, add certainly some beauty to the general view.
One of these villages—Gravidona—within half an hour’s sail of Colico, ought not to be left unvisited by any one who cares about architecture.
Close to its little harbour stand two churches side by side, one an oblong basilica, the other a baptistery of, as it seems to me, such great interest that I give illustrations both of its plan and of its exterior. It will be seen that the dimensions are small, the total internal width being less than forty feet, whilst the design of the east end is most ingeniously contrived so as to give no less than five eastern apsidal recesses. There are two stair-turrets in the wall on each side of the western tower which lead up to a sort of triforium-passage which is formed behind an arcade in the side wall of the church, and one of them leads also to the first floor of the tower. The triforium consists of an arcade of seven arches in each side wall. The three small apses at the east have each their own semi-dome, and the chancel as well as all the other apsidal recesses are similarly roofed. All the walls retain more or less traces of old paintings, the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin occupying the principal apse, and the Last Judgment the west wall. The whole church is built in white marble and black lime-stone used in courses, or stripes, with extremely good effect.
The roof of this Baptistery is of wood. The exterior is best explained by reference to my drawing of the west front. It stands on a charming site with a background of lake and mountain, such as one seldom enjoys. There is a contrast here, which strikes one very much, between the ingenious skill of the planning of such a building as this and the rudeness of the execution of the details. I know nothing as to the history of Gravidona; but it looks as though the plan came from the hands of men who knew something of the Church of San Vitale at Ravenna, whilst its execution was left to the rustic skill of the masons of the country.
The Baptistery is dedicated to S. John the Baptist. Close to it, as I have said, stands the Church of San Vincenzo, which though Romanesque in its foundation has been much modernized, and is now mainly interesting on account of the exquisite examples of late fifteenth century silversmiths’ work which still enrich its sacristy. Conspicuous among these is a silver processional cross. This cross is nearly two feet across the arms by three feet in height from the top of the staff. There is a crucifix on one side and a sitting figure of Our Lord on the other; figures of SS. George, Vincent, Sebastian, Christopher, and Victor, and Our Lord on the base or knop; and half-figures of the Evangelists on the arms of the cross. The ornaments consist of crockets bent and twisted, of blue enamels, filigree-work, nielli, and turquoises set in the centre of dark-blue enamels. It is, in short, a piece of metal work which might well make a modern silversmith run down swiftly into the lake and drown himself in despair at the apparent impossibility in these days of rivalling such a piece of artistic and cunning workmanship, in spite of all our boasted progress!
Not much less splendid is a chalice of about the same age. It is ten and three-quarter inches high, has a plain bowl, but knop, stem, and foot all most richly wrought with figures, niches and canopies, and the flat surfaces filled in with fine blue and white Limoges enamels. The paten belonging to this chalice is very large—nearly ten inches across, and quite plain.
Half the passengers on the steamboat were, of course, Austrian soldiers and officers, the other half English or Americans, either resident at or going to Como. We, however, stopped on the way, and, leaving the steamboat in the middle of the lake, after a row of about twenty minutes found ourselves at Varenna, a village exquisitely placed just where the three arms of the lake—the Como, the Lecco, and the Colico branches—separate, affording, whether seen from here, from Bellagio, or from Cadenabbia, the most lovely lake views it has ever been my good fortune to see.
Here we had what seemed likely to be an endless discussion upon the relative merits of a four-oared boat and a carriage as a means of conveyance to Lecco. We inclined to the latter; but, leaving the matter in the hands of an active waiter, we busied ourselves with eating delicious fruit, admiring the tall cypresses growing everywhere about the shores of the lake, and watching the exquisite beauty of the reflections of Bellagio and the opposite mountains on the smooth bosom of the water.
We were soon off again, and well satisfied to find ourselves trotting rapidly along the well kept Stelvio Road, instead of dragging heavily and slowly along as one always does with a Swiss voiturier; soon, however, we were to find that our driver was an exception to the Italian rule, and that he who wishes to travel fast must not expect to do so with vetturini.
The churches which we passed were in no way remarkable; they all had campanili, with the bells hung in the Italian fashion in the belfry windows, with their wheels projecting far beyond the line of the wall; but they all seemed alike uninteresting in their architecture, so that we were in no way sorry to pass them rapidly on our way to Lecco. This eastern arm of the lake, though of course much less travelled than the rest of its course, is very beautiful, and its uninhabited and less cultivated looking shores, with bold cliffs here and there rising precipitously from the water, were seen to great advantage, with the calm unrippled surface of the lake below, and the sky just tinged with the bright light of the sun before it set above.
Lecco contains nothing to interest a traveller; we had an hour to spend there before we could get fresh horses to take us on to Bergamo, and wandered about the quaint-looking streets, which were full of people—some idly enjoying themselves, others selling luscious-looking fruit. We went into a large church not yet quite completed; it was Renaissance in style, almost of course, and on the old plan, with aisles, but very ugly notwithstanding. In the nave was a coffin covered with a pall of black and gold; six large candles stood by it, three on either side, and two larger than the others on each side of a crucifix at the west end. The whole church revelled in compo inside and out and there was external access to a wretched bone-house in a crypt.
Leaving Lecco, we had a long drive in the dark to Bergamo; the night was very dark, but the air was absolutely teeming with life and sounds of life; myriads of cicale seemed to surround us, each giving vent to its pleasure in its own particular note and voice with the greatest possible