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.
The inner court of the castle is as beautiful as the outer one.
Through the open door one catches glimpses of the terrace, and of
the lake beyond it. I know Ightham, Hever, and Stokesay, both
inside and out, and I know the outside of Leeds; these are all of
them exquisitely beautiful, but neither they nor any other such
place that I have ever seen please me as much as the castle of
Angera.
We stayed talking to my old friend Signor Signorelli, the custode
of the castle, and his family, and sketching upon the terrace until
Tonio came to tell us that his boat was at the quay waiting for us.
Tonio is now about fourteen years old, but was only four when I
first had the pleasure of making his acquaintance. He is son to
Giovanni, or as he is more commonly called, Giovannino, a boatman
of Arona. The boy is deservedly a great favourite, and is now a
padrone with a boat of his own, from which he can get a good
living.
He pulled us across the warm and sleepy lake, so far the most
beautiful of all even the Italian lakes; as we neared Arona, and
the wall that runs along the lake became more plain, I could not
help thinking of what Giovanni had told me about it some years
before, when Tonio was lying curled up, a little mite of an object,
in the bottom of the boat. He was extolling a certain family of
peasants who live near the castle of Angera, as being models of
everything a family ought to be. "There," he said, "the children
do not speak at meal-times, the polenta is put upon the table, and
each takes exactly what is given him, even though one of the
children thinks another has got a larger helping than he has, he
will eat his piece in silence. My children are not like that; if
Marietta thinks Irene has a bigger piece than she has, she will
leave the room and go to the wall."
"What," I asked, "does she go to the wall for?"
"Oh!
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