Next Day The Holy Image Was To Be
Carried Back From The Church Of S. Antonio To Its Normal Resting-
Place At The Sanctuary.
We wanted to see all this, but it was the
artificial apparition of the Madonna that most attracted us.
Locarno is, as every one knows, a beautiful town. Both the Hotel
Locarno and the Hotel della Corona are good, but the latter is, I
believe, the cheaper. At the castello there is a fresco of the
Madonna, ascribed, I should think rightly, to Bernardino Luini, and
at the cemetery outside the town there are some old frescoes of the
second half of the fifteenth century, in a ruinous state, but
interesting. If I remember rightly there are several dates on
them, averaging 1475-80. They might easily have been done by the
same man who did the frescoes at Mesocco, but I prefer these last.
The great feature, however, of Locarno is the Sacro Monte which
rises above it. From the wooden bridge which crosses the stream
just before entering upon the sacred precincts, the church and
chapels and road arrange themselves as on p. 269.
On the way up, keeping to the steeper and abrupter route, one
catches sight of the monks' garden - a little paradise with vines,
beehives, onions, lettuces, cabbages, marigolds to colour the
risotto with, and a little plot of great luxuriant tobacco plants.
Amongst the foliage may be now and again seen the burly figure of a
monk with a straw hat on. The best view of the sanctuary from
above is the one which I give on p. 270.
The church itself is not remarkable, but it contains the best
collection of votive pictures that I know in any church, unless the
one at Oropa be excepted; there is also a modern Italian "Return
from the Cross" by Ciseri, which is very much admired, but with
which I have myself no sympathy whatever. It is an Academy
picture.
The cloister looking over the lake is very beautiful. In the
little court down below - which also is of great beauty - there is a
chapel containing a representation of the Last Supper in life-sized
coloured statues as at Varallo, which has a good deal of feeling,
and a fresco (?) behind it which ought to be examined, but the
chapel is so dark that this is easier said than done. There is
also a fresco down below in the chapel where the founder of the
sanctuary is buried which should not be passed over. It is dated
1522, and is Luinesque in character. When I was last there,
however, it was hardly possible to see anything, for everything was
being turned topsy-turvy by the arrangements which were being made
for the approaching fetes. These were very gay and pretty; they
must have cost a great deal of money, and I was told that the
municipality in its collective capacity was thought mean, because
it had refused to contribute more than 100 francs, or 4 pounds
sterling.
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