There Is A Very Fine
Campanile Near The Post-Office, And An Old Brick Baptistery, Also
Hard By; But The
Church to which both campanile and baptistery
belonged, has, as the author of "Round about London" so well says,
been
"Utterly restored;" it cannot be uglier than what we sometimes
do, but it is quite as ugly. We found an Italian opera company in
Biella; peeping through a grating, as many others were doing, we
watched the company rehearsing "La forza del destino," which was to
be given later in the week.
The morning after our arrival, we took the daily diligence for
Oropa, leaving Biella at eight o'clock. Before we were clear of
the town we could see the long line of the hospice, and the chapels
dotted about near it, high up in a valley at some distance off;
presently we were shown another fine building some eight or nine
miles away, which we were told was the sanctuary of Graglia. About
this time the pictures and statuettes of the Madonna began to
change their hue and to become black - for the sacred image of Oropa
being black, all the Madonnas in her immediate neighbourhood are of
the same complexion. Underneath some of them is written, "Nigra
sum sed sum formosa," which, as a rule, was more true as regards
the first epithet than the second.
It was not market-day, but streams of people were coming to the
town. Many of them were pilgrims returning from the sanctuary, but
more were bringing the produce of their farms, or the work of their
hands for sale. We had to face a steady stream of chairs, which
were coming to town in baskets upon women's heads. Each basket
contained twelve chairs, though whether it is correct to say that
the basket contained the chairs - when the chairs were all, so to
say, froth running over the top of the basket - is a point I cannot
settle. Certainly we had never seen anything like so many chairs
before, and felt almost as though we had surprised nature in the
laboratory wherefrom she turns out the chair supply of the world.
The road continued through a succession of villages almost running
into one another for a long way after Biella was passed, but
everywhere we noticed the same air of busy thriving industry which
we had seen in Biella itself. We noted also that a preponderance
of the people had light hair, while that of the children was
frequently nearly white, as though the infusion of German blood was
here stronger even than usual. Though so thickly peopled, the
country was of great beauty. Near at hand were the most exquisite
pastures close shaven after their second mowing, gay with autumnal
crocuses, and shaded with stately chestnuts; beyond were rugged
mountains, in a combe on one of which we saw Oropa itself now
gradually nearing; behind and below, many villages with vineyards
and terraces cultivated to the highest perfection; further on,
Biella already distant, and beyond this a "big stare," as an
American might say, over the plains of Lombardy from Turin to
Milan, with the Apennines from Genoa to Bologna hemming the
horizon. On the road immediate before us, we still faced the same
steady stream of chairs flowing ever Biella-ward.
After a couple of hours the houses became more rare; we got above
the sources of the chair-stream; bits of rough rock began to jut
out from the pasture; here and there the rhododendron began to show
itself by the roadside; the chestnuts left off along a line as
level as though cut with a knife; stone-roofed cascine began to
abound, with goats and cattle feeding near them; the booths of the
religious trinket-mongers increased; the blind, halt, and maimed
became more importunate, and the foot-passengers were more entirely
composed of those whose object was, or had been, a visit to the
sanctuary itself. The numbers of these pilgrims - generally in
their Sunday's best, and often comprising the greater part of a
family - were so great, though there was no special festa, as to
testify to the popularity of the institution. They generally
walked barefoot, and carried their shoes and stockings; their
baggage consisted of a few spare clothes, a little food, and a pot
or pan or two to cook with. Many of them looked very tired, and
had evidently tramped from long distances - indeed, we saw costumes
belonging to valleys which could not be less than two or three days
distant. They were almost invariably quiet, respectable, and
decently clad, sometimes a little merry, but never noisy, and none
of them tipsy. As we travelled along the road, we must have fallen
in with several hundreds of these pilgrims coming and going; nor is
this likely to be an extravagant estimate, seeing that the hospice
can make up more than five thousand beds. By eleven we were at the
sanctuary itself.
Fancy a quiet upland valley, the floor of which is about the same
height as the top of Snowdon, shut in by lofty mountains upon three
sides, while on the fourth the eye wanders at will over the plains
below. Fancy finding a level space in such a valley watered by a
beautiful mountain stream, and nearly filled by a pile of
collegiate buildings, not less important than those, we will say,
of Trinity College, Cambridge. True, Oropa is not in the least
like Trinity, except that one of its courts is large, grassy, has a
chapel and a fountain in it, and rooms all round it; but I do not
know how better to give a rough description of Oropa than by
comparing it with one of our largest English colleges.
The buildings consist of two main courts. The first comprises a
couple of modern wings, connected by the magnificent facade of what
is now the second or inner court. This facade dates from about the
middle of the seventeenth century; its lowest storey is formed by
an open colonnade, and the whole stands upon a raised terrace from
which a noble flight of steps descends into the outer court.
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