It Is Not So Celebrated As That Of
Oropa, Nor Does It Stand So High Above The Level Of The Sea, But It
Is A Remarkable Place And Well Deserves A Visit.
The restaurant is
perfect - the best, indeed, that I ever saw in North Italy, or, I
think, anywhere else.
I had occasion to go into the kitchen, and
could not see how anything could beat it for the most absolute
cleanliness and order. Certainly I never dined better than at the
sanctuary of Graglia; and one dines all the more pleasantly for
doing so on a lovely terrace shaded by trellised creepers, and
overlooking Lombardy.
I find from a small handbook by Signor Giuseppe Muratori, that the
present institution, like that of S. Michele, and almost all things
else that achieve success, was founded upon the work of a
predecessor, and became great not in one, but in several
generations. The site was already venerated on account of a chapel
in honour of the Vergine addolorata which had existed here from
very early times. A certain Nicolao Velotti, about the year 1616,
formed the design of reproducing Mount Calvary on this spot, and of
erecting perhaps a hundred chapels with terra-cotta figures in
them. The famous Valsesian sculptor, Tabachetti, and his pupils,
the brothers Giovanni and Antonio (commonly called "Tanzio"),
D'Enrico of Riva in the Val Sesia, all of whom had recently been
working at the sanctuary of Varallo, were invited to Graglia, and
later on, another eminent native of the Val Sesia, Pietro Giuseppe
Martello. These artists appear to have done a good deal of work
here, of which nothing now remains visible to the public, though it
is possible that in the chapel of S. Carlo and the closed chapels
on the way to it, there may be some statues lying neglected which I
know nothing about. I was told of no such work, but when I was at
Graglia I did not know that the above-named great men had ever
worked there, and made no inquiries. It is quite possible that all
the work they did here has not perished.
The means at the disposal of the people of Graglia were
insufficient for the end they had in view, but subscriptions came
in freely from other quarters. Among the valuable rights,
liberties, privileges, and immunities that were conferred upon the
institution, was one which in itself was a source of unfailing and
considerable revenue, namely, the right of setting a robber free
once in every year; also, the authorities there were allowed to
sell all kinds of wine and eatables (robe mangiative) without
paying duty upon them. As far as I can understand, the main work
of Velotti's is the chapel of S. Carlo, on the top of a hill some
few hundred feet above the present establishment. I give a sketch
of this chapel here, but was not able to include the smaller
chapels which lead up to it.
A few years later, one Nicolao Garono built a small oratory at
Campra, which is nearer to Biella than Graglia is. He dedicated it
to S. Maria della Neve - to St. Mary of the Snow. This became more
frequented than Graglia itself, and the feast of the Virgin on the
5th August was exceedingly popular. Signor Muratori says of it:-
"This is the popular feast of Graglia, and I can remember how but a
few years since it retained on a small scale all the features of
the sacre campestri of the Middle Ages. For some time past,
however, the stricter customs which have been introduced here no
less than in other Piedmontese villages have robbed this feast (as
how many more popular feasts has it not also robbed?) of that
original and spontaneous character in which a jovial heartiness and
a diffusive interchange of the affections came welling forth from
all abundantly. In spite of all, however, and notwithstanding its
decline, the feast of the Madonna is even now one of those rare
gatherings - the only one, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of Biella -
to which the pious Christian and the curious idler are alike
attracted, and where they will alike find appropriate amusement."
{25}
How Miltonic, not to say Handelian, is this attitude towards the
Pagan tendencies which, it is clear, predominated at the festa of
St. Mary of the Snow. In old days a feast was meant to be a time
of actual merriment - a praising "with mirth, high cheer, and wine."
{26} Milton felt this a little, and Handel much. To them an
opportunity for a little paganism is like the scratching of a mouse
to the princess who had been born a cat. Off they go after it -
more especially Handel - under some decent pretext no doubt, but as
fast, nevertheless, as their art can carry them. As for Handel, he
had not only a sympathy for paganism, but for the shades and
gradations of paganism. What, for example, can be a completer
contrast than between the polished and refined Roman paganism in
Theodora, {27} the rustic paganism of "Bid the maids the youths
provoke" in Hercules, the magician's or sorcerer's paganism of the
blue furnace in "Chemosh no more," {28} or the Dagon choruses in
Samson - to say nothing of a score of other examples that might be
easily adduced? Yet who can doubt the sincerity and even fervour
of either Milton's or Handel's religious convictions? The attitude
assumed by these men, and by the better class of Romanists, seems
to have become impossible to Protestants since the time of Dr.
Arnold.
I once saw a church dedicated to St. Francis. Outside it, over the
main door, there was a fresco of the saint receiving the stigmata;
his eyes were upturned in a fine ecstasy to the illuminated spot in
the heavens whence the causes of the stigmata were coming. The
church was insured, and the man who had affixed the plate of the
insurance office had put it at the precise spot in the sky to which
St. Francis's eyes were turned, so that the plate appeared to be
the main cause of his ecstasy.
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