We Were Unable To Find That Biella Contains Any Remarkable Pictures
Or Other Works Of Art, Though They Are Doubtless To Be Found By
Those Who Have The Time To Look For Them.
There is a very fine
campanile near the post-office, and an old brick baptistery, also
hard by; but
The church to which both campanile and baptistery
belonged, has, as the author of "Round about London" so well says,
been "utterly restored;" it cannot be uglier than what we sometimes
do, but it is quite as ugly. We found an Italian opera company in
Biella; peeping through a grating, as many others were doing, we
watched the company rehearsing "La forza del destino," which was to
be given later in the week.
The morning after our arrival, we took the daily diligence for
Oropa, leaving Biella at eight o'clock. Before we were clear of
the town we could see the long line of the hospice, and the chapels
dotted about near it, high up in a valley at some distance off;
presently we were shown another fine building some eight or nine
miles away, which we were told was the sanctuary of Graglia. About
this time the pictures and statuettes of the Madonna began to
change their hue and to become black - for the sacred image of Oropa
being black, all the Madonnas in her immediate neighbourhood are of
the same complexion. Underneath some of them is written, "Nigra
sum sed sum formosa," which, as a rule, was more true as regards
the first epithet than the second.
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