I dined at Duomo d’Ossola in company with a young Englishman, who seemed to have been all over the world; and afterwards, as we were talking together in the balcony, he exclaimed, “Do you keep a pet scorpion?” I followed the direction of his eyes, and saw one of the largest size, crawling on my right breast. I soon got rid of him, but I dare say I looked fifty times at my waistcoat during the evening to see if any other had taken its place: I have no conception how it came there. The room we were in had been newly plastered, but we found another on the wall: they seem to be dull, sluggish animals.
On Monday, 30th of September, I left Duomo d’Ossola, and crossing the valley, great part of the way on beds of gravel covered with Hippophæ rhamnoides, mounted by a pleasant rocky defile to Val Vigezza. These Italian vals are for the most part surrounded on three sides by mountains, and on the fourth connected with the plain country by a deep ravine, through which the waters are discharged. I should perhaps rather say separated than connected, as it is only by a narrow track on the slope of the mountain, that the communication is preserved; and it has in some cases been found easier to make the road across the mountain, than to carry it through the defile. Val Vigezza occupies the highest part of the hollow, and discharges its water both ways; partly by the defile through which I ascended, and partly by Cento Valli, where there is hardly any open space, and where the views are finer than on the ascent, but which I should probably have admired more, if I had not just passed the grander and more impressive scenery of the Simplon. I eat, and slept, at the house of the parish priest in the little village of Borgnone, in the Swiss state of Ticino, and the next morning continued my walk to Locarno. I did not fare very well on this road, probably from not being sufficiently aware of the manners of the people, nor having learned to apply for food at the proper hours. In all these remote places you must comply with the customs of the country; it is too difficult a task to teach the inhabitants to accommodate themselves to yours.
On Wednesday morning I walked to Ascona, and thence, along the shores of the lake, to Canobio. The road near the villages is usually between two stone walls, with a trellis supporting the vines overhead. The grapes within reach are whitewashed, apparently to prevent passengers from eating them. In the remoter parts these precautions are omitted, and the rude trellis, which supports the vines, rests on posts of granite or mica slate; but the trees and vines seldom permit an extensive view, though the road is a continued succession of steep ascents and descents. I became rather tired of this, and at Canobio hired a boat to take me down the lake, and to the Borromean islands. The scenery improves as we descend; the mountains divide, and present more variety in themselves, as well as give occasional views of higher and more distant summits. About Intra, Palanza, and Laveno, it is particularly fine: the long continuous range of mountains, forming the eastern shore of the lake, here ceases; and at the last mentioned place, and below it, we have only hills of moderate elevation, covered with trees and cultivation, and terminating in steep banks or little cliffs at the water’s edge. The range on the western side also ceases at Intra; but there is a fine detached hill behind Palanza, and mountains again occur of considerable height, beyond the bay which incloses the Borromean islands. Two rivers fall into the head of this bay: their vallies are separated by a noble crag, and a long perspective of a succession of mountains, exposes the snowy summits of the higher Alps, which form a delightful contrast with the beauties of the nearer scenery. There is one island near Palanza which commands this view better than any other; but it is seldom visited, because there is only a small villa upon it. On the Isola Madre is a larger villa; on another island (Isola Peschiera) is a little village; but the great object of curiosity is the Isola Bella, where we see a magnificent villa of the Borromean family, in sublimely bad taste, both inside and out. There are however, some handsome rooms within; and the profuse and extended scale on which art has exerted itself, joined to a luxuriant vegetation, produces no small effect of grandeur without. The views from it are most beautiful, both up and down the lake, and up the bay. I landed at Stresa, and walked to Belgirate, and thence to Arona. The lower part of the lake is quiet, and without any of the sublime character of the upper, but still very beautiful; and points of cliff occasionally rise from the water. Arona is a very picturesque little place, seated on a point at the foot of one of these cliffs. On a hill above it is the statue of St. Charles Borromeo; 66 feet high, on a pedestal of above 30, so that the whole is about 100 English feet in height. As I walked along the road below, the pedestal was quite lost; and the great priest, walking among the woods, which reach only to his middle, and holding up his fingers in the act of blessing the people, had a very singular effect. It is made partly of cast bronze, and partly of plates of copper on timber framing, and the execution is very good. The views from it are exceedingly fine. From Arona I crossed the lake to Ispra, where the custom-house officers took it into their heads to examine my little bundle, and then asked me for something to drink. From Ispra I walked to Comerio, near the lake Varese. The entire change of scenery had a pleasing effect; instead of rocks and mountains, I was among gently swelling hills, well cultivated with different sorts of grain, and shaded with fine chesnut trees. The maize was nearly ripe: the barren flowers and the upper leaves had just been cut off, that the juices of the plant might all be directed to the seed. In some instances the heads of seeds had likewise been gathered and hung up to dry about the houses. Many of the inhabitants were employed in beating down the chesnuts; which were large and good, like the Spanish chesnut; whereas among the mountains, though great part of the wood is formed of chesnut trees, yet the fruit is small, like what we have in England.[[29]] From Gavirate to Comerio, the land rises considerably, and there are extensive surfaces of white limestone, containing beds of flint rather than chertz. Before me lay a great extent of country of the same character as that which I had passed; the Lake of Varese lying on the right; to the left is the woody hill on whose slope the road runs; and behind are the distant mountains of Lago Maggiore, and the still more distant snowy mass of Monte Rosa. My eye is so familiarized to white tops, that I can hardly fancy any mountain high without them, and something always seems wanting where they are not. As it was meagre day, I could get nothing at the little inn but some small fish, called Cavezzali, not much bigger than minnows, maccaroni, and an omelet, but the fellow charged for my supper five francs, the usual price to English travellers at the better inns in this part of Italy, and three for a miserable bed. I gave him six francs, which I am told was twice as much as I ought to have paid; indeed he seemed perfectly conscious that it was too much. I walked in this direction as far as Varese, and then turning short to the left, soon found myself again among mountains, much broken and varied, but not very high. The road lies so low and is so much sheltered, that we only see enough of the scenery to tantalize us; but by the deviation of a few yards, before the descent to Porto on the Lake of Lugano, I enjoyed one of those delicious scenes which baffle all description, comprising every mode of rich and beautiful in landscape, set in a frame of magnificent mountains. A man, who overtook me on the road, asked me a louis for a boat to Lugano, then a napoleon, then eighteen francs, as the least possible. I offered him five, which he accepted, and seemed just as active and good humoured as if he had obtained his whole demand.
The Lake of Lugano is very beautiful, and very different from Lago Maggiore; yet I despair of making you perceive the difference. The mountains are rugged and abrupt, generally rising from the water’s edge; but at the bottom of each of its six bays, they recede, and leave cultivated vallies. The lower part of the slopes is covered with vines and olives, and spotted with villages wherever they are not too steep to admit of it; in other places they are clothed with wood, and the upper parts are all woody, except where the perpendicular rocks prohibit vegetation. Two of the crags, San Salvadore and Valsolda, are particularly fine. Lugano is a nice little town with an excellent inn: it is celebrated for one of the best newspapers on the continent. The women here (and the fashion is common through the north of Italy,) form a sort of star of pins, in fastening the hair at the back of the head, which is a very conspicuous and not ungraceful ornament.
A boat belonging to Porlezza was at Lugano; I engaged it for four francs. The olive-trees here are not pollards, like those of the south of France, nor collected together into olive-grounds; but graceful trees of a gray green, scattered among the yellow vineyards, and contrasting with the warm hues of the chesnut. They are entirely confined to the lower and more sheltered parts of the hills: the colour is perhaps, rather dull; nevertheless they are, to a northern eye, a beautiful novelty in the landscape. From Porlezza I walked to Menaggio, by a delightful path between mountains; and a charming little lake (Lago di Piano) occurs in the way: all was sweetness and repose. The first view over the Lake of Como is still finer than that I enjoyed of the Lake of Lugano. Some boatmen accompanied me, to persuade me to go to the top of the lake, for which one of them asked me a louis. I offered him seven francs, at which he burst into a laugh, declaring it was quite ridiculous to think of doing it for so little; but it was afterwards accepted by him and his companion; so you see what sort of people I have to deal with; and in the inns it is nearly the same. The next morning, accordingly, I set out on this expedition: the head of the Lake of Como is much more broken than that of Lago Maggiore, and presents some stupendous crags; in each lake, however, the middle is the finest part. There is, perhaps, nothing on the Lake of Como equal to the view up the bay of the Borromean islands, on the Lago Maggiore; yet there is greater variety, and on the whole, greater beauty; indeed the scenes about Menaggio and the opposite shore are exquisitely fine. We caught some Agomi on our return; these are small fishes, little larger than our bleak, and much resembling them in appearance. On being taken out of the water, the colours change very beautifully. They are sold here at thirty sous the pound of thirty ounces, and are very good eating. The next morning I resumed my walk; every step was beautiful; and yet, to say the truth, I got tired of passing continually through rich vineyards and noble groves of chesnut, with the lake eternally spread out on the left. From Caretti I crossed the lake to see the Villa Pliniana; a house built absolutely in the water, at the foot of a steep mountain. Behind it, there is a celebrated intermitting spring, which I believe diminished a little while I was there, but so little that I could hardly be certain of it. It is said to ebb and flow three times a day, but at uncertain intervals; in rainy weather the quantity of water increases very much. Just by there is a waterfall, which the Cicerone estimated at 300 feet, and I at half that height, but in dry weather there is but little water. Since I have crossed the Alps, the weather has been fine and warm, and the first feelings of summer have been accompanied by the symptoms of approaching winter. The leaves had not begun to fall in Switzerland, but in Italy I found them strewed abundantly on the ground. I left this desolate villa, and returned to the little public-house at Caretti, where there was a tidy little bed-room, a very fair dinner, and moderate charges.
On Thursday morning I walked to Cernobio, where at last, the mountains begin to open. The Princess of Wales has purchased a villa here, and I believe, added to it considerably. There are twenty-one windows in front, on the principal floor; but in Italy this is not reckoned very large. Curiosity prompted me to apply for admittance, but it was refused. Bread here is eighteen French sous per pound: wages in agriculture, three lire per diem. The Milanese lira is about two-thirds of the French. My landlord attributes to the high price of bread, the robberies which are sometimes heard of in these parts. Whatever there might be of romantic in being robbed by a horde of picturesque banditti, it would be altogether flat and disagreeable, to be knocked on the head by distressed peasants: however, it does not appear that any thing of the sort is frequent. On the surface of a large plain, the distant objects seem crowded together; but as you approach, they separate, and you find ample space between them: thus it is with these robberies. To you in England; France, Germany, and Italy, are all crowded together; and in these distant events, time as well as space is very much lost; when you come here and find that only one robbery has happened in six months, the danger does not seem very alarming. The south-western branch of the Lake of Como, like the upper part of Lago Maggiore, is inclosed by hills too uniform and unbroken to be altogether pleasing.
Como boasts a large and curious cathedral of the middle ages, but I did not find it out till it was too dark to make any particular observations upon it; and early the next morning I got into the diligence and came to Milan, of which I shall not, at present, attempt any description.
LETTER XV.
MILAN.
Milan, 23rd October, 1816.
I begin my account of this city with its celebrated cathedral, or duomo, as the Italians call it; for that word has no relation to what is called a dome in England, but in coming to us, has travelled as far from its original meaning, as from its original place. The emperor Joseph the Second reproached the Visconti with having transformed a mountain of money into a mountain of marble; such a remark from Vienna is too bad. It is said to have been designed by a German architect, of the name of Henry of Gamodia or Zamodia, but this does not sound very much like a German name; and what proof there is even of the existence of such a person I do not know: the original account of the expenses of the edifice makes no mention of him. Other authorities (says the Guide de l’étranger dans la ville de Milan) claim the honour for Mario di Campileone, native of a little village near Lugano. Be that as it may, the character of the building is rather of the German than of the Italian Gothic, though some particulars of the latter are distinguishable.