THE MADONNA ALLE LASTE
In the immediate neighbourhood of Trent are several other buildings and places of very considerable interest and of great picturesqueness. One favourite excursion is to the chapel of Madonna Alle Laste, which lies on the hillside to the east of the city, about half an hour's stiff walking from the Port Aquila, a little way off the road to Bassano. From this spot one not only obtains good views of the town, but can visit on a spur of the mountain the celebrated marble Maria Bild, to which there is an interesting legend attached. This "picture" has been an object of veneration with the people of Trent and the district round about for centuries.
Some time about the middle of the seventeenth century this fine tablet was sacrilegiously injured and disfigured by a travelling Jew, much to the rage and indignation of the people of Trent. And although a German artist, Detscher by name, did his best to restore the carving, it was impossible for him to entirely obliterate all trace of the injury it had received. But, so the legendary story goes, by some miraculous power it was altogether restored in one night, and this miracle so increased the veneration in which the Maria Bild was held that people thought there was no kind of disease too desperate that it could not be cured by prayers at such a holy shrine. Several miracles are ascribed to this wonderful carving, which became so venerated that ultimately a chapel was built for it and placed in charge of a hermit; and later on a community of Carmelites was established on the spot by reason of the generosity of Field-Marshal Gallas, and this remained until the secularization, now many years ago.
The convent buildings, however, still stand, and from them there is a fine view of the distant range of mountains, and the foreground slopes covered with peach and other fruit trees.
With the many other interesting walks and legends attached to the scattered villages which lie in the immediate neighbourhood of quaint and historic Trent there is no space to deal. Most travellers must leave Trent reluctantly, for it is beautiful in situation and deeply interesting from all points of view.
To the south and south-west of it lie two interesting towns. The first is Roveredo, the second Arco; the former, though a less frequented and less historic town than Trent, is yet one of some importance and remarkably well situated. It dates from Roman times, and received its name Roboretum in consequence of the enormous oak forests by which it was surrounded. The high road which leads to it, owing to the fact that it was one of the ancient ways into Tyrol, is crowded with ruins of ancient fortresses and of castles in a state of more or less decay. Most of these, including Predajo, Castlebarco, Beseno, Lizzana (at the last named of which Dante lived during the first few years of the fourteenth century, after his banishment from Florence), and others took part in the various struggles for the possession of Tyrol which were waged at different times between the Emperor of Germany, the Republic of Venice, the Prince Bishops of Trent, and other powerful families of the district who carried on private and other feuds throughout the Middle Ages.
A BURIED CITY
At the time of Dante's banishment from Florence Castle Lizzana was the home of the Scaligers, who gave shelter to the poet during his exile. Not far from the Castle is that famous Sclavini (or land slip) di San Marco, which is in reality a vast "steinmeer," and is probably rather of the nature of a great and possibly pre-historic moraine, than a land slide. But be this as it may the locality of this immense accumulation of huge rocks thrown hither and thither no doubt provided the poet with at least the inspiration of the descent into the Inferno,[19] which runs as follows:—
"The place, where to descend the precipice
We came, was rough as Alp; and on its verge