He Had The Proper Orthodox Fit Of Admiration Over It, And Then We Went Through The Other Rooms.

After a while we found ourselves before West's picture of "Christ healing the sick." My French friend did not,

I suppose, examine it very carefully, at any rate he believed he was again before the raising of Lazarus by Sebastian del Piombo; he paused before it and had his fit of admiration over again: then turning to me he said, "Ah! you would understand this picture better if you were a Catholic." I did not tell him of the mistake he had made, but I thought even a Protestant after a certain amount of experience would learn to see some difference between Benjamin West and Sebastian del Piombo.

From Calonico I went down into the main road and walked to Giornico, taking the right bank of the river from the bridge at the top of the Biaschina. Not a sod of the railway was as yet turned. At Giornico I visited the grand old church of S. Nicolao, which, though a later foundation than the church at Mairengo, retains its original condition, and appears, therefore, to be much the older of the two. The stones are very massive, and the courses are here and there irregular as in Cyclopean walls; the end wall is not bonded into the side walls but simply built between them; the main door is very fine, and there is a side door also very good. There are two altars one above the other, as in the churches of S. Abbondio and S. Cristoforo at Como, but I could not make the lower altar intelligible in my sketch, and indeed could hardly see it, so was obliged to leave it out. The remains of some very early frescoes can be seen, but I did not think them remarkable. Altogether, however, the church is one which no one should miss seeing who takes an interest in early architecture.

While painting the study from which the following sketch is taken, I was struck with the wonderfully vivid green which the whitewashed vault of the chancel and the arch dividing the chancel from the body of the church took by way of reflection from the grass and trees outside. It is not easy at first to see how the green manages to find its way inside the church, but the grass seems to get in everywhere. I had already often seen green reflected from brilliant pasturage on to the shadow under the eaves of whitewashed houses, but I never saw it suffuse a whole interior as it does on a fine summer's day at Giornico. I do not remember to have seen this effect in England.

Looking up again against the mountain through the open door of the church when the sun was in a certain position, I could see an infinity of insect life swarming throughout the air. No one could have suspected its existence, till the sun's rays fell on the wings of these small creatures at a proper angle; on this they became revealed against the darkness of the mountain behind them.

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