/•,•• ^- v?^; ••...-. ^ '-fis^^•••>'•- - •Wi-W:" ••.i^''!^'':!:/Zi:::;;- ••• ••'•$i'ry '^:^;•i:$• ...^#v.^--^.m^^^vm^--^. ••.-.•f••'•..."• ;.'^"*^ri?iss«^.-^"'^' •• i:.^?-'^ ••/.•••' .-•.?..• ^' . -.^.^^ftjj^^^K;'-^*'^-- ' •*iSifiST?.vrfl^PSE&;- •• ••'^ ».-;(S;iii.'. ';«E6&,., *«a *- Isola di San Giulio, Orta. THE SANCTUARIES OF THE PENNINE ALPS By Edith Wharton ILLUSTRATIONS BY E. C. PEIXOTTO WHEN June is Mountain streams flow down between hot on the long alder-fringed banks, white oxen doze un­ yellow streets of der the acacia-hedges, and in the almond Turin, it is pleas­ and cherry orchards the vine hangs its ant to take train Virgilian garlands from blossoming tree for the Biellese, to tree. This pastoral land rolls westward that romantic hill- to the Graiian Alps in an undulating sea country where the of green; while to the north it breaks ab­ last slopes of the ruptly into the height against which rises Pennine Alps melt the terraced outline of Biella. into the Piedmon- The cliffs of the Biellese are the haunt tese plain. of ancient legend, and on almost every The line, cross­ ledge a church or monastery perpetuates Nostra Signora d'Oropa. ing the lowland the story of some wonder-working relic. with its red-tiled Biella, the chief town of this devout dis­ farm-houses and mulberry orchards, rises trict, covers a small conical hill and gradually to a region of rustling verdure. spreads its suburbs over the surrounding VOL. XXXI.—34 353 PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 354 The Sanctuaries of the Pennine Alps level. Its hot sociable streets are full of the picturesqueness mistakenly associated the shrill activity of an Italian watering- with Italian rural architecture; but every place; but the transalpine traveller will window displays its pot of lavender or of probably be inclined to push on at once carnations, and the arched doorways re­ veal gardens flecked with the blue shadows of the vine-pergola. Andorno itself is folded in hills, rounded, umbrage­ ous, cooled with the song of birds. A sylvan hush envelops the place and the air one breathes seems to have travelled over miles of forest freshened by unseen streams. It is all as still and drowsy as the dream of a tired brain. There is noth­ ing to see but the country itself—acacia-fringed banks sloping to the stream below the village; the arch of a ruinous bridge ; an old hex­ agonal chapel with red-tiled roof and arcade of stunted . columns; and, beyond the bridge and the chapel, rich upland meadows, where all day long the peasant women stoop to the swing of the scythe. In June, in this high coun­ try (where patches of snow still he in the shaded hol­ lows), the wild flowers of spring and summer seem to meet : narcissus and forget- me-not lingering in the grass, while yellow broom—Leo- pardi's lover of sad solitudes —sheets the dry banks with gold, and higher up, in the folds of the hills, patches of crimson azalea mix their shy scent with the heavy fra­ grance of the acacia. In the to Andorno, an hour's drive deeper in the meadows the trees stand in well-spaced hills. majestic groups, walnut, chestnut and Biella overhangs the plain ; but Andor­ beech, tenting the grass with shade. The no hes in a valley which soon contracts ivy hangs its drapery over garden walls to a defile between the mountains. The and terraces, and the streams rush down drive thither from Biella skirts the Cervo, under a quivering canopy of laburnum. a fresh mountain stream, and passes The scenery of these high Pennine val­ through villages set on park-Kke slopes leys is everywhere marked by the same in the shade of chestnut groves. The nobleness of color and outline, the same thouses of these villages have Kttle of atmosphere of spaciousness and poet- PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Among the Chapels, Orta. ry. It is the rich studied landscape of flow with irises, roses and peonies, set in Bonifazio's idyls : a scene of peace and box-hedges and shaded by the long mauve plenitude, not the high-colored southern panicles of the wistaria. Presently the opulence but the sober wealth poured road leaves the valley, and ascends the from a glacial horn of plenty. There is beech-clothed flank of the mountain on none of the Swiss abruptness, of the Swiss which San Giovanni is perched. The accumulation of effects. The southern coolness and hush of this verdant tunnel aspect softens and expands. There is no are delicious after the noise and sunshine crowding of impressions, but a stealing of the open road, and one is struck by the sense of sufficiency. civic amenity which, in this remote soh- From Andorno the obvious excursion is tude, has placed benches at intervals be­ to the shrine of San Giovanni; a "sight" neath the trees. taking up eight pages in the excellent At length the brow of the hill is reached. " Guida del Biellese," but remaining in The beeches recede, leaving a grassy plat­ the traveller's memory chiefly as the ob­ eau flanked by a long monastic fagade; jective point of a charming walk or drive. and from the brink of this open space the The road leads up the Val d'Andorno, eye drops unhindered down the long leafy between heights set with villages hung reaches of the Val d'Andorno. The scene aloft among the beech groves, or thrust­ is one of the tenderest gradations of color ing their garden-parapets above the spray and line : beeches blending with walnuts, and tumult of the Cervo. The densely these with the tremulous laburnum thick­ wooded cliffs are scarred with quarries of ets along the stream, and the curves of sienite, and the stream, as the valley nar­ the hills flowing into one another till they rows, forces its way over masses of rock lose themselves in the aerial distances of and between shelving stony banks; but the plain. The building which commands the little gardens dashed by its foam over­ this outlook is hardly worthy of its station : 3SS PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED i^^'^^^^^m •:. .•..•••• ••••^•J^^n i-.^^ m^?., ."^^ ^. 'SMi^im&^^jf^iJ ymm San Giovanni d'Andorno. unless, indeed, the traveller feels its sober landscape with wonder-working images. lines to be an admission of art's inferiority When did a miracle take place on a barren to nature in such aspects. To the con­ plain or in a circumscribed hollow? The firmed apologist of Italy there is indeed manifestations of divine favor invariably a certain charm in finding so insignificant sought the heights, and those who dedi­ a building in so rare a spot: as though in cated themselves to the commemoration a land thus amply dowered no architect­ of such holy incidents did so in surround­ ural exclamation point were needed to ings poetic enough to justify their faith call attention to any special point of view. in the supernatural. The church, with its Yet a tenderness for the view, one cannot dignified front and sculptured portal, ad­ but infer, must have guided the steps of joins the hospice, and shows within little those early cenobites who peopled the of interest but the stone grotto containing 356 PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED m'^^'^^^M;^^^^ The Sacro Monte, Varallo. the venerated image of St. John, discov­ tainty is not without its practical advan­ ered in the third century by St. Eusebius, tages ; and one reads that the hospice is Bishop of Vercelli. This grotto is protect­ open the year round, and that an excellent ed by an iron grating, and its dark recess meal may always be enjoyed in the ^rai- twinkles with silver hearts and other votive toria above the arcade; while on the offerings. The place is still a favorite pil­ feasts of the respective saints it is necessa­ grimage, but there seems to be some ry for the devotee to bespeak his board doubt as to which St. John has chosen it as and lodging in advance. the scene of his posthumous thaumaturgy; If San Giovanni appeals chiefly to the for, according to the local guide-book, it is lover of landscape, the more famous equally frequented on the feast of the Bap­ sanctuary of Oropa is of special interest tist and of the EvangeKst. This uncer­ to the architect; for thither, in the eigh- 357 PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Between Biella and Varallo. Vast undulating reach of the Piedraontese plain. teenth century, the piety of the house of pled with forest, with Biella, Novara and Savoy sent Juvara, one of the greatest Vercelli like white fleets anchored on a architects of his time, to add a grand misty sea. This view, with its fold on fa9ade and portico to the group of monas­ fold of woodland, dusky-shimmering in tic buildings erected a hundred years the foreground, then dark blue with dashes earlier by Negro di Pralungo. The ascent of tawny sunlight and purple streaks of to the great mountain-shrine of the Black rain, till it fades into the indeterminate Virgin leads the traveller back to Biella, light of the horizon, suggests some heroic and up the hills behind the town. The landscape of Poussin's or the boundless drive is long, but so diversified, so abound­ russet distances of Rubens's " Chateau of ing in beauty that in nearing its end one Stein." feels the need of an impressive monument Meanwhile the foreground is changing. to close so nobly ordered an approach. The air freshens, the villages with their As the road rises above the vineyards of flower gardens and their guardian images Biella, as the house-roofs, the church- of the Black Virgin are left behind, and steeples and the last suburban villas drop between the thinly-leaved beeches rise below the line of vision, there breaks on bare gravelly slopes backed by treeless the eye the vast undulating reach of the hills.