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

by George Edmund Street

Leaving Innichen and going eastward, we went first to Lienz; then, after a détour to Heiligenblut, we crossed from the Pusterthal to the Gail Thal, and from thence across the Predil pass to the Adriatic at Gorizia. From Innichen till we reached the Italian sea-board, we saw and were much interested in a series of churches, generally of the fifteenth century, and all built apparently by the same school of German architects. They are small mountain churches, and are mainly remarkable for the complicated and ingenious character of their groined roofs. They have usually aisles, columns without capitals, and no distinct arches between them, but only vaulting-ribs. The panels between the ribs are often ornamented with slightly sunk quatrefoils, or in some cases regularly filled with tracery.

One of the best of these churches is that at Heiligenblut, in Carinthia. Here, where the main object of every one is the exploration of the mountains grouped around the beautiful snow-peak of the Gross-Glockner, it is not a little pleasant to find again, as at Innichen, a remarkable church just opposite the inn-door. This was built as a pilgrimage church to contain a phial of the sacred blood, and is extremely interesting architecturally as a church, built with a regular system of stone constructional galleries round the north, south, and west sides of the nave. The aisles are narrow and divided into two stages in height—both groined—and the upper no doubt intended for a throng of people to stand in, and see the functions below. Now, however, just as in most modern galleries, raised tiers of seats are formed in them, and their effect is destroyed. A pretty Retable at the end of the north gallery suggests that originally perhaps they were built in part to make room for side altars, but this was clearly not the primary object. The fronts of the galleries are covered with paintings of no merit, which illustrate the beautiful legend of S. Briccius, who is said to have brought the phial of blood from the East, and to have perished with it in the snow just above Heiligenblut. There is a crypt under the choir, entered by a flight of steps descending from the nave; a grand Sakramentshaus north of the chancel where the holy blood is kept (not over the altar); and there is a lofty gabled tower and spire on the north side of the chancel, whose pretty outline adds not a little to the picturesqueness of the village.

From Heiligenblut, looking at churches by the same hands on the way at S. Martin Pockhorn and Winklern, we made our way back to Lienz, and thence, crossing the mountains, descended on Kötschach in the Gail Thal, passing a good church on the road at S. Daniel.

Kötschach is in one of the most charming situations for any one who can enjoy mountains of extreme beauty of outline, even though they are not covered with snow to their base, nor are more than some nine thousand feet in height. To me this pastoral Gail Thal, with its green fields, green mountain sides, wholesome air, and occasional grand views of Dolomite crags, among which the Polinik and Kollin Kofel are the finest peaks, is one of the most delightful bits of country I have ever seen. At Kötschach the architectural feature is a fine lofty gabled steeple with an octagonal spire. It is very remarkable how German these Germans are! Here, close to the Italian Alps, we have a design identical with those of the fine steeples of Lübeck, and as vigorously Teutonic and unlike Italian work as anything can possibly be.

From Kötschach a pleasant road runs down the valley to Hermagor, another charming little town beautifully placed, and with—no small attraction—a capital hostelry. On the road, at Kirchbach, the drivers of the country waggons in which we were travelling pulled up their horses, to my no small delight, in front of a most interesting mediæval churchyard-gate; this is a simple archway overshadowed by a shingled pent-house roof, to whose kindly guardianship we owe it that a fifteenth-century painting of S. Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar, and several saints under craftily-painted canopies, are still in fair preservation on the wayside gate, making one of the most lovely pictures possible on the road.

At Hermagor, where the grand and massive mountain range of the Dobratsch to the east, and the Gartner Kogel to the west, give never-failing pleasure to the eyes whichever way they turn, there is another fine church, very much of the same character as that at Heiligenblut, but without galleries.

Between Hermagor and Ober Tarvis the churches are not important, but one in the village of S. Paul has the unusual feature of a cornice under the external eaves effectively painted in the fifteenth century, with elaborate and very German traceries in red and buff, which are still fairly perfect.

At Ober Tarvis the Predil Pass is reached; and starting from thence in the morning, passing on the ascent the pretty Raibl See, and on the descent some of the most stupendous and aweful rocky precipices I have ever seen, we reached Flitsch to sleep, and on the following afternoon emerged from the mountains at Gorizia, not far from the head of the Adriatic, after a long and beautiful drive down the valley of the Isonzo.

I found absolutely nothing old to see here. It is a smart town, in which the hand of the improver has been particularly busy in the work of destruction; but it is the most convenient starting-place for a visit to Aquileja and Grado, and provides good horses and vehicles.

It is a drive of about a couple of hours from Gorizia to Aquileja. The country is perfectly flat, but teeming with vegetation, and it is not until the end of the journey is reached that one realizes under what baleful conditions life or existence is endured here. A Roman capital and a fragment or two of Roman columns or mouldings are all that one sees at first to show that one is driving into one of the greatest of the old Roman seaports. Here, where before its destruction by Attila in A.D. 452 the population is said to have been about a hundred thousand in number, there are now only a few poor houses, and a sparse population, pauperized and invalided by fever and swamps on every side, whilst the sea has retreated some three miles, and left the place to its misery without any of the compensating gains of commerce. Certainly Torcello is a degree more wretched and deserted, but these two old cities have few compeers in misery, and I advise no one but an antiquary to make the pilgrimage to Aquileja, who is not quite prepared to tolerate dirt, misery, and wretchedness with nothing to redeem them.