From Como
it is seen most plainly, but it is distinguishable over a very
large part of Lombardy when the sun is right; it is frequently
ascended from Como and Cernobbio, but I believe the easiest way of
getting up it is to start from Mendrisio with a trap as far as
Sagno.
A mile and a half or so after leaving Mendrisio there is a village
called Castello on the left. Here, a little off the road on the
right hand, there is the small church of S. Cristoforo, of great
antiquity, containing the remains of some early frescoes, I should
think of the thirteenth or early part of the fourteenth century.
As usual, people have scratched their names on the frescoes. We
found one name "Battista," with the date "1485" against it. It is
a mistake to hold that the English scribble their names about more
than other people. The Italians like doing this just as well as we
do. Let the reader go to Varallo, for example, and note the names
scratched up from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the
present day, on the walls of the chapel containing the Crucifixion.
Indeed, the Italians seem to have begun the habit long before we
did, for we very rarely find names scratched on English buildings
so long ago as the fifteenth century, whereas in Italy they are
common.
