The
Ticino flows through it just after leaving the lake. It is very
wide here, and when flooded must carry down an enormous quantity of
water. Barges go down it at all times, but the river is difficult
of navigation and requires skilful pilots. These pilots are well
paid, and Tonio seemed to have a great respect for them. The views
of Monte Rosa are superb.
One of the great advantages of Arona, as of Mendrisio, is that it
commands such a number of other places. There is rail to Milan,
and again to Novara, and each station on the way is a sub-centre;
there are also the steamers on the lake, and there is not a village
at which they stop which will not repay examination, and which is
not in its turn a sub-centre. In England I have found by
experience that there is nothing for it but to examine every
village and town within easy railway distance; no books are of much
use: one never knows that something good is not going to be sprung
upon one, and few indeed are the places where there is no old
public-house, or overhanging cottage, or farmhouse and barn, or bit
of De Hooghe-like entry which, if one had two or three lives, one
would not willingly leave unpainted. It is just the same in North
Italy; there is not a village which can be passed over with a light
heart.
CHAPTER XXIV - Locarno
We were attracted to Locarno by the approaching fetes in honour of
the fourth centenary of the apparition of the Virgin Mary to Fra
Bartolomeo da Ivrea, who founded the sanctuary in consequence.
The programme announced that the festivities would begin on,
Saturday, at 3.30 P.M., with the carrying of the sacred image
(sacro simulacro) of the Virgin from the Madonna del Sasso to the
collegiate church of S. Antonio. There would then be a benediction
and celebration of the holy communion. At eight o'clock there were
to be illuminations, fireworks, balloons, &c., at the sanctuary and
the adjacent premises.
On Sunday at half-past nine there was to be mass at the church of
S. Antonio, with a homily by Monsignor Paolo Angelo Ballerini,
Patriarch of Alexandria in partibus, and blessing of the crown sent
by Pope Leo XIII for the occasion. S. Antonio is the church the
roof of which fell in during service one Sunday in 1865, through
the weight of the snow, killing sixty people. At half-past three a
grand procession would convey the Holy Image to a pretty temple
which had been erected in the market-place. The image was then to
be crowned by the Patriarch, carried round the town in procession,
and returned to the church of S. Antonio. At eight o'clock there
were to be fireworks near the port; a grand illumination of a
triumphal arch, an illumination of the sanctuary and chapels with
Bengal lights, and an artificial apparition of the Madonna
(Apparizione artificiale della Beata Vergine col Bambino) above the
church upon the Sacro Monte. Next day the Holy Image was to be
carried back from the church of S. Antonio to its normal resting-
place at the sanctuary. We wanted to see all this, but it was the
artificial apparition of the Madonna that most attracted us.
Locarno is, as every one knows, a beautiful town. Both the Hotel
Locarno and the Hotel della Corona are good, but the latter is, I
believe, the cheaper. At the castello there is a fresco of the
Madonna, ascribed, I should think rightly, to Bernardino Luini, and
at the cemetery outside the town there are some old frescoes of the
second half of the fifteenth century, in a ruinous state, but
interesting. If I remember rightly there are several dates on
them, averaging 1475-80. They might easily have been done by the
same man who did the frescoes at Mesocco, but I prefer these last.
The great feature, however, of Locarno is the Sacro Monte which
rises above it. From the wooden bridge which crosses the stream
just before entering upon the sacred precincts, the church and
chapels and road arrange themselves as on p. 269.
On the way up, keeping to the steeper and abrupter route, one
catches sight of the monks' garden - a little paradise with vines,
beehives, onions, lettuces, cabbages, marigolds to colour the
risotto with, and a little plot of great luxuriant tobacco plants.
Amongst the foliage may be now and again seen the burly figure of a
monk with a straw hat on. The best view of the sanctuary from
above is the one which I give on p. 270.
The church itself is not remarkable, but it contains the best
collection of votive pictures that I know in any church, unless the
one at Oropa be excepted; there is also a modern Italian "Return
from the Cross" by Ciseri, which is very much admired, but with
which I have myself no sympathy whatever. It is an Academy
picture.
The cloister looking over the lake is very beautiful. In the
little court down below - which also is of great beauty - there is a
chapel containing a representation of the Last Supper in life-sized
coloured statues as at Varallo, which has a good deal of feeling,
and a fresco (?) behind it which ought to be examined, but the
chapel is so dark that this is easier said than done. There is
also a fresco down below in the chapel where the founder of the
sanctuary is buried which should not be passed over. It is dated
1522, and is Luinesque in character. When I was last there,
however, it was hardly possible to see anything, for everything was
being turned topsy-turvy by the arrangements which were being made
for the approaching fetes. These were very gay and pretty; they
must have cost a great deal of money, and I was told that the
municipality in its collective capacity was thought mean, because
it had refused to contribute more than 100 francs, or 4 pounds
sterling.
