Italian Alps / Sketches in the Mountains of Ticino, Lombardy, the Trentino, and Venetia

by Douglas William Freshfield

of the days of King James I., and to learn what he may have to say—

—— Of the Alps and Apennines,

The Pyrenean and the River Po.

In listening to Tom Coryat's gossip we realise as far as is now possible such an evening's entertainment as may have suggested these lines to Shakspeare. We can almost fancy ourselves seated in the Mermaid Tavern, while our traveller, swollen with his own importance, told his tales, and the wits laughed over some of the earliest 'Alpine shop.' The address of one of Coryat's letters 'to the Right Worshipfull Society of Sirenaical Gentlemen that meet the first Fridaie of every moneth at the signe of the Mermaide in Bread Street' shows him a frequent guest at the famous inn. His friends have drawn his character with force and perfect freedom. He was one of those wits who are more often laughed at than with. 'He is,' writes Ben Jonson, 'always Tongue-Major of the Company, and if ever perpetual motion be to be hoped it is from thence. He is frequent at all sorts of Free-Tables, where though he might sit as a guest he would rather be served in as a dish, and is loth to have anything of himself kept cold against the next day.' In conversation as well as writing he was an euphuist, 'a great carpenter of words.' Travel was so far his engrossing passion that he would give up any company to talk with even a carrier. 'The mere superscription of a letter from Zurich set him up like a top; Basel or Heidelberg made him spin.'

The prominent mention in the title of his book of Alpine regions naturally suggests that we may have here lit on an early appreciator of the Alps; and in the first few pages this hope receives some confirmation. Mr. Stephen has told us that the Gothic cathedral and the granite cliffs have many properties in common, and that 'one might venture to predict from a man's taste in human buildings whether he preferred the delicate grace of lowland scenery or the more startling effects only to be seen in the heart of the mountains.' Coryat's avowal therefore that Amiens Cathedral is 'the Queen of all the churches in France and the fairest that ever I saw till then,' seems to promise well for his taste in mountains.

We get the first Alpine adventure just before reaching Chambery. Coryat was apparently a nervous horseman, and would not with his companions ride over the 'Montagne Aiguebelette.' Consequently he was led 'to compound for a cardakew, which is eighteen pence English,' with 'certain poore fellowes which get their living especially by carrying men in chairs to the toppe of the mountain.' 'This,' he says, 'was the manner of their carrying of me. They did put two slender poles through certaine woodden rings which were at the foure corners of the chaire, and so carried me on their shoulders, sitting in the chaire, one before and another behinde; but such was the miserable paines that the poore slaves willingly undertooke for the gaine of that cardakew, that I would not have done the like for five hundred.' 'The worst wayes that ever I travelled in all my life in the summer were those betwixt Chamberie and Aiguebelle, which were as bad as the worst I ever rode in England in the midst of winter;' but still Coryat says, 'I commended Savoy a pretty while for the best place that ever I saw in my life for abundance of pleasant springs descending from the mountaines, till at the last I considered the cause of those springs, for they are not fresh springs, as I conjectured at the first, but only little torrents of snow-water.' Why snow-water should be held of no value is explained afterwards. It is the cause of the bunches, 'almost as great as an ordinary football with us in England,' on the necks of the Savoyards. The swiftness of the Isère, the great blocks fallen from the mountain-side, of course strike Coryat, but he has also his eyes open for the snow-mountains; he mentions one 'wondrous high mountain at the top whereof there is an exceeding high rock,' and another 'covered with snow, and of a most excessive and stupendious height.' From Lanslebourg he sets out for the Cenis. 'The waies were exceeding uneasie, wonderfull hard, all stony, and full of windings and intricate turnings.' Coryat therefore had to walk down the mountain, passing on the way 'many people ascending, mules laden with carriage, and a great company of dunne kine driven up the hill with collars about their necks.'

The 'Roch Melow' (Roche Melon) was said to be 'the highest mountain of all the Alpes, saving one of those that part Italy and Germany.' We learn afterwards that this was the 'Mountaine Goddard, commonly esteemed the highest of all the Alpine mountains.'[31] Monte Viso Coryat knew only by name. Otherwise he has no information as to peaks, and he believes that the Alps 'consiste of two ranges sunderd by the space of many miles,' and dividing respectively Italy from France and Germany. As to passes, he mentions besides the Cenis, the Brenner, the St. Gothard and the Splugen; he knows that the Rhone springs from 'the Rheticall Alpes out of a certain high mountaine called Furca;' that the Rhine has two sources from 'the mountain Adula,' between which and the springs of the Rhone 'there is interjected no longer space than of 3 houres journey.' So much for his Alpine geography.

I wish I had space to follow Coryat into Italy, where he discovers forks and umbrellas, and describes them with the minuteness appropriate to such important novelties. Venice was the goal of his journey, and there he 'swam in a gondola' for six weeks—'the sweetest time (I must needs confesse) that ever I spent in my life.' He saw and describes all the sights we know so well, filled with the crowd which for us lives only in pictures, visited the Arsenal in its glory, was shown the Titians and Tintorettos in their fresh beauty, and bursts out into an enthusiasm which might satisfy Mr. Ruskin for that 'peerlesse place' the Piazza di San Marco.

Coryat's homeward journey through the Alps began at Bergamo. On reaching that town his route was altered by the news given him by a friendly Dominican monk, who warned him that a castle near the head of the Lago di Como was held by Spaniards,[32] who would have little scruple in submitting a heretic to the tortures of the Inquisition. He consequently gave up the lake for Val Brembana and the Passo di San Marco.