Chapter XXIII
Angera and Arona
From the Hotel Riposo we drove to Angera, on the Lago Maggiore. There are many interesting things to see on the way. Close to Velate, for example, there is the magnificent bit of ruin which is so striking a feature as seen from the Sacro Monte. A little further on, at Luinate, there is a fine old Lombard campanile and some conventual buildings which are worth sparing five minutes or so to see. The views hereabouts over the lake of Varese and towards Monte Rosa are exceedingly fine. The driver should be told to go a mile or so out of his direct route in order to pass Oltrona, near Voltrone. Here there was a monastery which must once have been an important one. Little of old work remains, except a very beautiful cloister of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, which should not be missed. It measures about twenty-one paces each way: the north side has round arches made of brick, the arches are supported by small columns about six inches through, each of which has a different capital; the middle is now garden ground. A few miles nearer Angera there is Brebbia, the church of which is an excellent specimen of early Lombard work. We thought we saw the traditions of Cyclopean masonry in the occasional irregularity of the string-courses. The stones near the bottom of the wall are very massive, and the west wall is not, if I remember rightly, bonded into the north and south walls, but these walls are only built up against it as at Giornico. The door on the south side is simple, but remarkably beautiful. It looks almost as if it might belong to some early Norman church in England, and the stones have acquired a most exquisite warm colour with age. At Ispra there is a campanile which Mr. Ruskin would probably disapprove of, but which we thought lovely. A few kilometres further on a corner is turned, and the splendid castle of Angera is caught sight of.
Before going up to the castle we stayed at the inn on the left immediately on entering the town, to dine. They gave us a very good dinner, and the garden was a delightful place to dine in. There is a kind of red champagne made hereabouts which is very good; the figs were ripe, and we could gather them for ourselves and eat ad libitum. There were two tame sparrows hopping continually about us; they pretended to make a little fuss about allowing themselves to be caught, but they evidently did not mind it. I dropped a bit of bread and was stooping to pick it up; one of them on seeing me move made for it and carried it off at once; the action was exactly that of one who was saying, “I don’t particularly want it myself, but I’m not going to let you have it.” Presently some cacciatori came with a poodle-dog. They explained to us that though the poodle was “a truly hunting dog,” he would not touch the sparrows, which to do him justice he did not. There was a tame jay also, like the sparrows going about loose, but, like them, aware when he was well off.
After dinner we went up to the castle, which I have now visited off and on for many years, and like always better and better each time I go there. I know no place comparable to it in its own way. I know no place so pathetic, and yet so impressive, in its decay. It is not a ruin—all ruins are frauds—it is only decayed. It is a kind of Stokesay or Ightham Mote, better preserved than the first, and less furnished than the second, but on a grander scale than either, and set in incomparably finer surroundings. The path towards it passes the church, which has been spoiled. Outside this there are parts of old Roman columns from some temple, stuck in the ground; inside are two statues called St. Peter and St. Paul, but evidently effigies of some magistrates in the Roman times. If the traveller likes to continue the road past the church for three-quarters of a mile or so, he will get a fine view of the castle, and if he goes up to the little chapel of S. Quirico on the top of the hill on his right hand, he will look down upon it and upon Arona. We will suppose, however, that he goes straight for the castle itself; every moment as he approaches it, it will seem finer and finer; presently he will turn into a vineyard on his left, and at once begin to climb.
Passing under the old gateway—with its portcullis still ready to be dropped, if need be, and with the iron plates that sheathe it pierced with bullets—as at S. Michele, the visitor enters at once upon a terrace from which the two foregoing illustrations were taken. I know nothing like this terrace. On a summer’s afternoon and evening it is fully shaded, the sun being behind the castle. The lake and town below are still in sunlight. This, I think, is about the best time to see the castle—say from six to eight on a July evening, or at any hour on a gray day.
Count Borromeo, to whom the castle belongs, allows it to be shown, and visitors are numerous. There is very little furniture inside the rooms, and the little there is is decaying; the walls are covered with pictures, mostly copies, and none of them of any great merit, but the rooms themselves are lovely. Here is a sketch of the one in which San Carlo Borromeo was born, but the one on the floor beneath is better still. The whole of this part was built about the year 1350, and inside, where the weather has not reached, the stones are as sharp as if they had been cut yesterday. It was in the great Sala of this castle that the rising against the Austrians in 1848 was planned; then there is the Sala di Giustizia, a fine room, with the remains of frescoes; the roof and the tower should also certainly be visited. All is solid and real, yet it is like an Italian opera in actual life. Lastly, there is the kitchen, where the wheel still remains in which a turnspit dog used to be put to turn it and roast the meat; but this room is not shown to strangers.