Of the original purchaser, but am not certain; if so,
he is the Triulci who had Gaspare Boelini thrown down from the
castle walls. The people seem by another inscription to have done
fealty again upon the same day of the following year.
On the St. Christopher we found one date, 1530, scratched on the
right ankle, and several of 1607, apparently done at one time. One
date was scratched in the left-hand corner -
1498 . . .
il Conte di (Misocho?)
There are also other dates - 1627, 1633, 1635, 1626; and right
across the fresco there is written in red chalk, in a bold
sixteenth or seventeenth century handwriting -
"Il parlar di li homini da bene deve valer piu che quello degli
altri."
- "The word of a man of substance ought to carry more weight than
that of other people;" and again -
"Non ha la fede ognun come tu chredi;
Non chreder almen [quello?] che non vedi"
- "People are not so worthy of being believed as you think they
are; do not believe anything that you do not see yourself."
Big with our discoveries, we returned towards our inn, Jones
leaving me sketching by the roadside. Presently an elderly English
gentleman of some importance, judging from his manner, came up to
me and entered into conversation. Englishmen do not often visit
Mesocco, and I was rather surprised. "Have you seen that horrid
fresco of St. Christopher down at that church there?" said he,
pointing towards it. I said I had. "It's very bad," said he
decidedly; "it was painted in the year 1725." I had been through
all that myself, and I was a little cross into the bargain, so I
said, "No; the fresco is very good. It is of the fifteenth
century, and the facciata was restored in 1720, not in 1725. The
old fresco was preserved." The old gentleman looked a little
scared. "Oh," said he, "I know nothing about art - but I will see
you again at the hotel;" and left me at once. I never saw him
again. Who he was, where he came from, how he departed, I do not
know. He was the only Englishman I saw during my stay of some four
weeks at Mesocco.
On the first day of my first visit to Mesocco in 1879, I had gone
on to S. Bernardino, and just before getting there, looking down
over the great stretches of pasture land above S. Giacomo, could
see that there was a storm raging lower down in the valley about
where Mesocco should be; I never saw such inky blackness in clouds
before, and the conductor of the diligence said that he had seen
nothing like it. Next morning we learnt that a water-spout had
burst on the mountain above Anzone, a hamlet of Mesocco, and that
the water had done a great deal of damage to the convent at
Mesocco.
