On a summer's afternoon
and evening it is fully shaded, the sun being behind the castle.
The lake and town below are still in sunlight.
This, I think, is
about the best time to see the castle - say from six to eight on a
July evening, or at any hour on a gray day.
Count Borromeo, to whom the castle belongs, allows it to be shown,
and visitors are numerous. There is very little furniture inside
the rooms, and the little there is is decaying; the walls are
covered with pictures, mostly copies, and none of them of any great
merit, but the rooms themselves are lovely. 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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 232 of 279
Words from 62127 to 62387
of 75076
