Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino

by Samuel Butler

How this would sound upon these stairs, if they would leave the church-door open. It is said in Murray’s handbook that formerly the corpses which are now under the arch, used to be placed in a sitting position upon the stairs, and the peasants would crown them with flowers. Fancy twilight or moonlight on these stairs, with the corpses sitting among the withered flowers and snow, and the pealing of a great organ.

After ascending the steps that lead towards the skeletons, we turn again sharp round to the left, and come upon another noble flight—broad and lofty, and cut in great measure from the living rock.

At the top of this flight there are two sets of Lombard portals, both of them very fine, but in such darkness and so placed that it was impossible to get a drawing of them in detail. After passing through them, the staircase turns again, and, as far as I can remember, some twenty or thirty steps bring one up to the level of the top of the arch which forms the recess where the corpses are. Here there is another beautiful Lombard doorway, with a small arcade on either side which I thought English, rather than Italian, in character. An impression was produced upon both of us that this doorway and the arcade on either side were by a different architect from the two lower archways, and from the inside of the church; or at any rate, that the details of the enrichment were cut by a different mason, or gang of masons. I think, however, the whole doorway is in a later style, and must have been put in after some fire had destroyed the earlier one.

Opening the door, which by day is always unlocked, we found ourselves in the church itself. As I have said, it is of pure Lombard architecture, and very good of its kind; I do not think it has been touched since the beginning of the eleventh century, except that it has been re-roofed and the pitch of the roof altered. At the base of the most westerly of the three piers that divide the nave from the aisles, there crops out a small piece of the living rock; this is at the end farthest from the choir. It is not likely that Giovanni Vincenzo’s church reached east of this point, for from this point onwards towards the choir the floor is artificially supported, and the supporting structure is due entirely to Hugo de Montboissier. The part of the original church which still remains is perhaps the wall, which forms the western limit of the present church. This wall is not external. It forms the eastern wall of a large chamber with frescoes. I am not sure that this chamber does not occupy the whole space of the original church.

There are a few nice votive pictures in the church, and one or two very early frescoes, which are not without interest; but the main charm of the place is in the architecture, and the sense at once of age and strength which it produces. The stock things to see are the vaults in which many of the members of the royal house of Savoy, legitimate and illegitimate, lie buried; they need not, however, be seen.

I have said that the whole building is of much about the same date, and, unless perhaps in the residential parts, about which I can say little, has not been altered. This is not the view taken by the author of Murray’s Handbook for North Italy, who says that “injudicious repairs have marred the effect of the building;” but this writer has fallen into several errors. He talks, for example, of the “open Lombard gallery of small circular arches” as being “one of the oldest and most curious features of the building,” whereas it is obviously no older than the rest of the church, nor than the keep-like construction upon which it rests. Again, he is clearly in error when he says that the “extremely beautiful circular arch by which we pass from the staircase to the corridor leading to the church, is a vestige of the original building.” The double round arched portals through which we pass from the main staircase to the corridor are of exactly the same date as the staircase itself, and as the rest of the church. They certainly formed no part of Giovanni Vincenzo’s edifice; for, besides being far too rich, they are not on a level with what remains of that building, but several feet below it. It is hard to know what the writer means by “the original building;” he appears to think it extended to the present choir, which, he says, “retains traces of an earlier age.” The choir retains no such traces. The only remains of the original church are at the back of the west end, invisible from the inside of the church, and at the opposite end to the choir. As for the church being “in a plain Gothic style,” it is an extremely beautiful example of pure Lombard, of the first few years of the eleventh century. True, the middle arch of the three which divide the nave from the aisles is pointed, whereas the two others are round, but this is evidently done to economise space, which was here unusually costly. There was room for more than two round arches, but not room enough for three, so it was decided to dock the middle arch a little. It is a she-arch—that is to say, it has no keystone, but is formed simply by propping two segments of a circle one against the other. It certainly is not a Gothic arch; it is a Lombard arch, modified in an unusual manner, owing to its having been built under unusual conditions.

The visitor should on no account omit to ring the bell and ask to be shown the open Lombard gallery already referred to as running round the outside of the choir. It is well worth walking round this, if only for the view.

The official who showed us round was very kind, and as a personal favour we were allowed to visit the fathers’ private garden. The large arm-chairs are made out of clipped box-trees. While on our way to the garden we passed a spot where there was an alarming buzzing, and found ourselves surrounded by what appeared to be an angry swarm of bees; closer inspection showed that the host was a medley one, composed of wasps, huge hornets, hive-bees, humble-bees, flies, dragon-flies, butterflies, and all kinds of insects, flying about a single patch of ivy in full blossom, which attracted them so strongly that they neglected everything else. I think some of them were intoxicated. If this was so, then perhaps Bacchus is called “ivy-crowned” because ivy-blossoms intoxicate insects, but I never remember to have before observed that ivy-blossoms had any special attraction for insects.