On the Lago di Maggiore
From Varese to Laveno on the Lago di Maggiore is a matter of fifty kilometres, and here one comes to the most famous, if not the most beautiful, of all the lakes.
The whole range of towns circling this daintily environed lake have an almost inexpressible charm, and its islands—the Borromean Islands—are superlatively beautiful.
Baveno, on the mainland, and its villas, modern though they are, is a charming place, and Stresa, a little further to the south, is even more delightfully disposed. All about the Italian lakeland are the modern villa residences of distinguished Milanese, Turinese and Genoese families.
Arona is at the southern end of the lake. Above this town is a colossal statue of San Carlo Borromeo, the head, hands and feet being cast in bronze, the remainder being fabricated of beaten copper.
The famous Borromean Islands in the Lago di Maggiore number four: Isola Bella, Isola Madre, Isola San Giovanni and Isola dei Piscatori, of which the three former belong to the Borromean family, whilst the latter is divided among small proprietors.
The vast Palazzo of Isola Bella was a conception of an ancestor of the present family in 1671. The great fabric, with its terraces, gardens and grottoes, is an exotic thing of the first importance. It is idyllically picturesque, but withal inartistic from many points of view. The contrast of all this semi-tropical luxuriousness with its snow-capped Alpine background is not its least remarkable feature. It has been called “fairylike,” “a caprice of grandiose ideas,” and “enchanted,” and these words describe it well enough. It looks unreal, as if one saw it in a dream. Certainly its wonderful panoramic background and foreground are not equalled elsewhere and no garden carpet of formal flowerbeds ever made so beautifully disposed a platform on which to stand and marvel. The architect of it all made no allowance apparently for the natural setting, but overloaded his immediate foreground with all things that suggested themselves to his imaginative mind. Somehow or other he didn’t spoil things as much as he might have done. The setting is theatrical and so are the accessories; all is splendidly spectacular, and, since this is its classification, no one can cavil. What other effect could be produced where ten staired terraces tumble down one on another in a veritable cascade simply as a decorative accessory to a monumental edifice and not as a thing of utility?
On Isola Madre is another vast structure surrounded by tropical and semi-tropical trees, flowers and shrubs. A chapel contains many of the tombs of the Borromeo family.
The Isola dei Piscatori is the artists’ paradise of these parts. It lacks the “prettiness” of the other islands but gains in “character” as artists call that picturesqueness which often is unsuspected and unseen by the masses.
Going back to history, here is what happened once on the Isola Bella: It is a warm June night. The mauve summits of the Simplon and the reflets of the mirrored lake throw back a penetrating shimmer to the view. Coming from Baveno, and holding straight its course for Isola Bella, is a gently moving bark. It is the year 1800, and on the stern seat of the boat sits the First Consul, who was once the Little Corporal and afterwards became Napoleon I.