Take such care of his own
eternal welfare, at the expense of that of his flock, whom no
successor could so well guide and guard from evil; but in the end
he took a reasonable view of the matter, and concluded that his
first duty was to secure his own spiritual position. Nothing short
of the top of a very uncomfortable mountain could do this, so he at
once resigned his bishopric and chose Monte Caprasio as on the
whole the most comfortable uncomfortable mountain he could find.
The latter part of the story will seem strange to Englishmen. 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.
