Brick and Marble in the Middle Ages: Notes of Tours in the North of Italy

by George Edmund Street

Our principal companions on the steamer were a large party of English, whose travelling-carriage and horses blocked up half the boat, and a very pleasant old Italian woman, whose elaborately neat hair and magnificent array of pins, each filigreed at the end, and all radiating like arrows from a central knot of hair, through which two larger and more magnificent pins were passed horizontally, forced upon our notice—but not more strongly than it had been forced before—this wonderful smartness and elaborate treatment and get-up of the hair, so common among the middle and lower classes in the North of Italy, and so unlike the customs of a similar class in England: I am bound to say, though, that the result of the elaborate straining and dressing of the hair seems generally to be, that, by the time women are fifty, they have no hair at all, or, at best, some two or three stray locks, which are then brought carefully together, and tied up, with a bold disregard of effect, in a knot at the top of the head.

When we landed at Magadino we found a diligence waiting, and, securing the coupé, jumped in, and were soon trotting off rapidly on the road to Bellinzona; in little more than an hour we passed through its gateway without having our passports demanded (how pleasant a change after Italy!), and were soon comfortably ensconced at the very respectable Albergo dell’ Angelo.

We started from Bellinzona very early the next morning, determined, if possible, to surmount the worst part of the road and to sleep at Hospenthal, on the northern side of the pass. The view of Bellinzona on leaving it is very striking; three old castles perched on crags above give it an air of picturesque antiquity, and these, with the mountains rising grandly on either side of the Ticino, and sloping down in the distance to the bosom of Lago Maggiore, make a most beautiful picture. The situation is not, however, to be compared to that of Chiavenna, whose wall of mountains, clothed with Italian luxuriance of foliage, is pierced here and there with a chasm only, for the passage of some headlong river dashing down into the broad valley below the town; here the valley continues to be of considerable width for some miles above the town, whilst there one scarcely sees in what way any road is to escape across the mountains.

The first portion of the road is not very interesting. The pass of the Bernardino soon turns off to the right up a valley which allows a partial view, and from this point the S. Gothard road is sole possessor of the valley. Our first change of horses was at Bodio; and from thence the road gradually became much more beautiful. Many churches are seen scattered here and there on the summits of the inaccessible-looking mountains on either side of the valley, all of them whitewashed and generally distinguished by their tall campanili, and sometimes by the small cluster of houses and the patches of cultivated ground around them, betokening man’s labour as well as man’s religious love, on the summit of these forbidding-looking steeps. And whilst the distant prospect was so fair, the scenery close to the road was embellished by vineyards and magnificent chestnuts, growing in some places among great rocks shivered from the mountain-side above, and, in others, in groves on either side of some beautiful stream descending in a silver fall over the grey precipices which overhang the road.

The villages through which we passed were pretty and picturesque, and the villagers all very busy in the fields bringing in their hay, and gathering their grapes, which are always trained here over rocks and roofs in the most picturesquely irregular way; and altogether the valley, rife with so many signs of industry and activity, bore thoroughly the appearance rather of a Swiss than of an Italian district. The upper slopes of the mountains, on either side, were clustered with fir-trees, and the deep blue water of the Ticino, here gently murmuring, there hastily dashing over some rocky impediment, made grateful music in our ears and imparted additional beauty to the way.

At Biasca and Giornico there are ancient churches, the exteriors of which are, however, of no interest; though the interior of the latter, with its crypt and curious paintings, well deserves a passing visit; but besides these all seemed new, and the houses as well as the people and the scenery soon began to remind us of Switzerland. There were those particularly large well-to-do looking inns in every village, with white walls and windows resplendent with green wooden shutter-blinds which are so common throughout this country; and here and there were to be seen houses with a display of well-carved or craftily-framed woodwork, which gave proof of our rapid approach to the land par excellence of carpentry.

But it was not till Faido had been passed, and the increasing barrenness of the hills, the entire absence of vineyards, and the only occasional appearance of some grand old chestnut-tree, weatherbeaten and rugged from conflict with many a storm, or, may be, some frightful inundation such as the Ticino loves at times to indulge in, shewed how rapidly we were rising into mountain regions, that the scenery became really striking. Then the road seems suddenly to arrive at the end of the valley, but presently as we advance, a narrow gorge in the mountain is perceived, and we enter this, the most magnificent portion of the Val Levantina, called Dazio Grande. The road is admirably engineered, carried through two or three short tunnels, and in excavations in the rocks above the torrent; the dark blue water leaps from rock to rock, and here and there dashes down in a fine waterfall; and the scenery is altogether so striking that, on the whole, I am much inclined to give the preference to this portion of the valley—that is to say, from the commencement of Dazio Grande to within a short distance of Airolo—over any portion of similar length in the whole course of the Splügen. The first narrow defile passed, the valley opens out again, and, with occasional glimpses all the way of the old road winding below near the margin of the stream, and destroyed some years since in a storm, ere very long we reach another defile as beautiful as the last, but much shorter; for here, after crossing the stream and mounting a short distance, a projecting rock is pierced, the river finds its outlet beneath through a chasm not twenty feet in width, and then, the valley opening out again, Airolo is seen just before us, and beyond the little cluster of houses which marks the village rise the mountains, so grandly and abruptly closing in the head of the Val Bedretto, up which our course now lies, whilst every here and there on their rugged sides or summits some snowy peak or glacier edge tells not uncertainly of their grand elevation.

We arrived at Airolo by about two o’clock, and here we had a rest of an hour and a half for dinner, followed by a ransacking of a collection of Swiss woodwork, ending—as such an operation always does—much to the advantage of its proprietor.

With fresh horses we were soon on the road again, and now the weather, which had been unpromising and occasionally wet, seemed inclined to improve, and we commenced the real ascent of the mountain under rather more promising circumstances than we had at first anticipated. The road soon leaves the river, and, turning to the right, winds and twists about in the serpentine fashion known only to Alpine roads, and quite incomprehensible until one has seen them, keeping the church and village of Airolo in view, first on the right, then on the left, for hours. Here and there a straight bit of road gives hopes that the zig-zagging is over, but the thought is no sooner expressed than it is contradicted by another ascent worse than before, and one begins to envy the electric telegraph carried here in straight lines from point to point, where one would have thought it impossible to gain footing for its supports, and giving fair idea of the directness and speed of the communications of which it is the channel. The head of the Val Tremola, as the valley along which the road finds its way is called, is nearly reached, and the last glimpse of the mountains, at the head of Val Bedretto, is caught, when a stream is crossed and the last flight of zig-zags is commenced; these are both numerous and intricate, and as one looks down upon them from above, their interlacings produce a most singular effect. At last, however, these are surmounted, greatcoats and plaids are in requisition, and we all begin to feel uncomfortably cold. The cold grey colour of the wild mountains of granite, great blocks from whose sides strew the ground thickly on either side, seems to harmonize well with the scene, and when presently we pass the Capuchin hospice our driver tells us that we are at the summit. Two or three dark deep-looking pools or tarns stand close to the hospice, and reminded me in their gloomy and cold aspect of the tarn which gives so much character to the hospice of the Grimsel. The same kind of scenery accompanied us on the now rapid descent; the sun went down, and the stars were soon out shining brilliantly upon the mountain road, when at last a sudden turn brought us in sight of lights, and then, descending a few zig-zags, we saw below us the roofs of the houses of Hospenthal, and, in less time than it takes to describe, were standing on the steps of one of the best inns even in Switzerland, the Goldner Löwe, and superintending the unpacking of our goods.

In such an inn as this everything proves forcibly that one is in Switzerland; the rooms are all very clean and very small, and there is a certain homely air about everybody and everything which is the especial charm of the better class of Swiss country inns, and in which they excel, perhaps, all but the very best English inns of the same kind.[79]