We
can hardly fancy the Archbishop of Canterbury or York resigning his
diocese and settling down quietly on the top of Scafell or Cader
Idris to secure his eternal welfare. They would hardly do so even
on the top of Primrose Hill. But nine hundred years ago human
nature was not the same as nowadays.
The valley of Susa, then little else than marsh and forest, was
held by a marquis of the name of Arduin, a descendant of a French
or Norman adventurer Roger, who, with a brother, also named Arduin,
had come to seek his fortune in Italy at the beginning of the tenth
century. Roger had a son, Arduin Glabrio, who recovered the valley
of Susa from the Saracens, and established himself at Susa, at the
junction of the roads that come down from Mont Cenis and the Mont
Genevre. He built a castle here which commanded the valley, and
was his base of operations as Lord of the Marches and Warden of the
Alps.
Hugh de Montboissier applied to Arduin for leave to build upon the
Monte Pirchiriano. Arduin was then holding his court at Avigliana,
a small town near S. Ambrogio, even now singularly little altered,
and full of mediaeval remains; he not only gave his consent, but
volunteered to sell a site to the monastery, so as to ensure it
against future disturbance.
The first church of Giovanni Vincenzo had been built upon whatever
little space could be found upon the top of the mountain, without,
so far as I can gather, enlarging the ground artificially. The
present church - the one, that is to say, built by Hugh de
Montboissier about A.D. 1000 - rests almost entirely upon stone
piers and masonry. The rock has been masked by a lofty granite
wall of several feet in thickness, which presents something of a
keep-like appearance. The spectator naturally imagines that there
are rooms, &c., behind this wall, whereas in point of fact there is
nothing but the staircase leading up to the floor of the church.
Arches spring from this masking wall, and are continued thence
until the rock is reached; it is on the level surface thus obtained
that the church rests. The true floor, therefore, does not begin
till near what appears from the outside to be the top of the
building.
There is some uncertainty as to the exact date of the foundation of
the monastery, but Claretta {11} inclines decidedly to the date
999, as against 966, the one assigned by Mabillon and Torraneo.
Claretta relies on the discovery, by Provana, of a document in the
royal archives which seems to place the matter beyond dispute. The
first abbot was undoubtedly Avverto or Arveo, who established the
rules of the Benedictine Order in his monastery. "In the seven
hours of daily work prescribed by the Benedictine rule," writes
Cesare Balbo, "innumerable were the fields they ploughed, and the
houses they built in deserts, while in more frequented places men
were laying cultivated ground waste, and destroying buildings:
innumerable, again, were the works of the holy fathers and of
ancient authors which were copied and preserved." {12}
From this time forward the monastery received gifts in land and
privileges, and became in a few years the most important religious
establishment in that part of Italy.
There have been several fires - one, among others, in the year 1340,
which destroyed a great part of the monastery, and some of the
deeds under which it held valuable grants; but though the part
inhabited by the monks may have been rebuilt or added to, the
church is certainly untouched.
CHAPTER VIII - S. Michele (continued)
I had often seen this wonderful pile of buildings, and had
marvelled at it, as all must do who pass from Susa to Turin, but I
never went actually up to it till last summer, in company with my
friend and collaborateur, Mr. H. F. Jones. We reached S. Ambrogio
station one sultry evening in July, and, before many minutes were
over, were on the path that leads to San Pietro, a little more than
an hour's walk above S. Ambrogio.
In spite of what I have said about Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, we
found ourselves thinking how thin and wanting, as it were, in
adipose cushion is every other country in comparison with Italy;
but the charm is enhanced in these days by the feeling that it can
be reached so easily. Wednesday morning, Fleet Street; Thursday
evening, a path upon the quiet mountain side, under the
overspreading chestnuts, with Lombardy at one's feet.
Some twenty minutes after we had begun to climb, the sanctuary
became lost to sight, large drops of thunder-rain began to fall,
and by the time we reached San Pietro it was pouring heavily, and
had become quite dark. An hour or so later the sky had cleared,
and there was a splendid moon: opening the windows, we found
ourselves looking over the tops of trees on to some lovely upland
pastures, on a winding path through which we could almost fancy we
saw a youth led by an angel, and there was a dog with him, and he
held a fish in his hand. Far below were lights from villages in
the valley of the Dora. Above us rose the mountains, bathed in
shadow, or glittering in the moonbeams, and there came from them
the pleasant murmuring of streamlets that had been swollen by the
storm.
Next morning the sky was cloudless and the air invigorating. S.
Ambrogio, at the foot of the mountain, must be some 800 feet above
the sea, and San Pietro about 1500 feet above S. Ambrogio. The
sanctuary at the top of the mountain is 2800 feet above the sea-
level, or about 500 feet above San Pietro.
