Orta’s Municipio, or Town hall, dominating its tiny Piazza is unspeakably lovely though indeed it is a hybrid blend of the architecture of Germany and Italy. It might as well be in Nuremberg, in Bavaria or Barberino in Tuscany for all it looks like anything else in Piedmont.
Out in the lake glitters—glitters is the word—Isola San Giulio, its graceful campanile and ancient stone buildings hung with crimson creepers and mirrored in the clear blue depths. About this island there hangs a legend. The story goes that no one could be found ready to ferry the apostle Julius across to the chosen site of his mission in the year 1500. According to popular rumour the isle was haunted by dragons and venomous reptiles that none dared face. Not to be deterred from his purpose, the holy man spread his cloak upon the water, and floated quickly and quietly across. Nor did the miracle end here, for, as with St. Patrick of Ireland, the unclean monsters, acknowledging his power, retired to a far-away mountain, leaving the saint unmolested to carry on his labours, which were continued after his death by faithful friends. This is the story as it is told on the spot.
The island was held as an outpost against invasions for many years, and for long witnessed the hopeless struggles of a brave woman, Villa, wife of King Berenger of Lombardy, who was besieged there by the Emperor Otho the Great.
CHAPTER XVIII
MILAN AND THE PLAINS OF LOMBARDY
THE great artichoke of Lombardy, whose petals have fallen one by one before its enemies of Piedmont, is now much circumscribed in area compared with its former estate.
From Como to Mantua and from Brescia to Pavia, in short the district of Milan as it is locally known to-day, is the only political entity which has been preserved intact. Tortona, Novara, Alessandria and Asti have become alienated entirely, and for most travellers Milan is Lombardy and Lombardy is Milan. To-day the dividing line in the minds of most is decidedly vague.
Lombardy is the region of all Italy most prolific in signs of modernity and prosperity, and, with Torino, Milan shares the honour of being the centre of automobilism in Italy. The roads here, take them all in all, are of the best, though not always well conditioned. That from Milan to Como can be very, very good and six months later degenerate into something equally as bad. The roads of these parts have an enormous traffic over them and it is for this reason, as much as anything, that their maintenance is difficult and variable. For the greater part they are all at a general level, except of course in entering or leaving certain cities and towns of the hills and on the direct roads leading to the mountain passes back of Torino, or the roads crossing the lake region and entering Switzerland or the Oberland.
Lombardy in times past, and to-day to some extent, possessed a dialect or patois quite distinct from the Franco-Italian mélange of Piedmont, or the pure Italian of Tuscany. The Lombard, more than all other dialects of Italy, has a decided German flavour which, considering that the Lombard crown was worn by a German head, is not remarkable. In time—after the Guelph-Ghibelline feud—Lombardy was divided into many distinct camps which in turn became recognized principalities.
The Viscontis ruled the territory for the most part up to 1447, when the condottière Francesco Sforza developed that despotism which brought infamy on his head and State, a condition of affairs which the Pope described as conducive to the greatest possible horrors.