NORTHERN ITALY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 8 January 1944, Page 3

NORTHERN ITALY

REGION OF BEAUTY VESTIBULE TO GERMANY Northern Italy seems destined soon to become a battle field of prime strategic importance. The area between the Alps, the River Po and the Adriatic is the vestibule to Germany’s naturemade southern defences; a high-way to France, Switzerland and Austria, and a link between the Mediterranean and Central Europe. It is usual, says a writer in the Melbourne “Age,” to refer to the plains of the Po valley and to the country lying north of the river as Northern Italy. The region consists of the provinces of Venetia, Lombardy and Piedmont, each of which was imbued with a powerful national consciousness prior to the unification of Italy. Even today it is reasonable to speak of them as units, very different from each other and from the remainder of Italy, rather than to group them together under a single geographic name. The fourth province, Emilia, lying to the north of the Apennines, is merely a continuation across the Po of Lombardy and Venetia. The river Po which gathers up all the streams of Northern Italy, flows from the Cottian Alps, on the French border, across the plains to the Adriatic Sea. It rises on the slopes of Monte Viso, highest peak south of Mont Blanc, and its swift upper course brings it to the capital of Piedmont, Turin. That city, with its 600,000 inhabitants, is the largest oil the banks of the Po. It is a pleasant, restful, dignified city, conscious of its historic past as capital of the Kingdom of Savoy prior to 1860 and of all Italy for five years thereafter, until the seat of government was transferred to Rome. Northern Piedmont offers some of the most exquisite mountain scenery in Europe. Here a chain of mountain giants—Mont Blanc, the Great St. Bernard, Matterhorn, Monte Rosa—separate Italy from France and Switzerland. Each peak, each valley and mountain pass offers unforgettable vistas, and is the paradise of mountaineers. The famous Val d’Avosta, with its mountain railway, luxury hotels and cableways, parallels the Alps. To the north-east the Simplon Pass an ’ tunnel form Italy’s most important gateway among the mountains. On the border between Piedmont and Lombardy, Lake Maggiore thrusts its arms into the mountain valleys. Maggiore’s main arm reaches as far as Locarno, but most of its area is in Italian territory, including the idyllic Borromean Islands. Several smaller but lovely lakes are strewn around .Maggiore. ISLAND ASYLUM East of the Ticino River, which emerges from Lake Maggiore, begins Lombardy. Spectacular mountain scenery continues along the Swiss and Tyrolean frontiers. The southern tip of Switzerland juts far down into the valley towards Milan, all but touching one arm of the Lake of Como, slightly smaller than Maggiore, but perhaps the most beautiful of all Italian lakes. Como has its islands too, Comacina, celebrated in the Middle Ages as an asylum for royalty. It is ironical to recall that Comacina was presented to the King of Italy in 1920 by King Albert of Belgium, who owned the island and its palace. Milan, capital of Lombardy and Italy’s largest city, lies on the small Olona. a tributary of the Po. Milan has been the leading town of the province since the sixth century, and was Napoleon’s choice for a capital when he .founded his short-lived Italian kingdom in 1805. Since unification it has been the natural commercial and industrial centre of Northern Italy, mainly because of its fortunate geographical situation. Milan is the hub of the widespread railway system south of the Alps, the junction of the Simplon and St. Gotthard routes with other lines radiating toward Turin. Genoa, central and southern Italy and Venice. Apart from its magnificent and oftdescribed cathedral, Milan boasts scores of smaller churcffes, numerous public and private palaces, art galleries, libraries and finally, La Scala, perhaps Europe’s most famous Opera House. The galleries, emptied early in the war, contained many of the finest Italian paintings, but the, greatest of them all. Leonardo’s Last Supper, is found in a church. Milan is also renowned as the centre of Italy’s book publishing trade. Lombardy’s plains are Italy’s most fertile and intensively cultivated agricultural area. Extensively irrigated and traversed by many small rivers, its dairying and silk industries, its vineyards and its cereals contribute materially to the riches of the province and of Milan. There are several other cities in Lombardy. To-day most of them are small, but in mediaeval times they were individually powerful and more than once they came together as the Lombard League to resist invasion from the north. The first alliance was joined against Frederick Barbarossa and the Ghibellines in the 7th century; another came into being in the 12th century to defeat Emperor Frederick I. Among existing historically interesting towns is Pavia, alternatively centre, with Milan, of the first federation and still a fine city; Cremona, home of the great violin makers; and Mantura, south of Lake Garda. In Emilia and other mediaeval city-states;—Parma, home of the painter Correggio; Piacenza another leading unit of the Lombard League, and, near the mouth of the Po, Ferrara, celebrated for its school of painting. The large town of Bologna, although north of the Apennines, was for centuries part of the papal temporal domains, and as such is traditionally part of central Italy rather than the north. VENICE THE UNIQUE From the shore ... of Lake Gardia, which marks the border of Lombardy, the main east-west railway continues to the Gulf of Venice, at the head of the Adriatic. This line, the route of the Simplon-Orient Express, connects Milan with the cities of Venetia:— Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and finally Venice. The town of the Doge s is utterly different from any other town in the world. But it is not simply because ©£ its canals, its innumerable bridges' and palaces, its churches and its winding lanes that Venice has no duplicate. The atmosphere of the town, permeated with tradition, affects the resident as powerfully as the tourist, and none can but be deeply impressed by it. Venice is built on islands in lagoons north of the mouths of the Po, and is linked with the mainland by the old railway bridge and a new roadway carrying a modern trolley-bus service. There are no roads in the town itself, and motorists are obliged to park their cars in a vast garage near the railway terminus. The most striking feature of Venice is perhaps its Grand Canal, lined with an uninterrupted series of beautiful palaces mostly built on piles. Along the Grand Canal, and also through some of the other larger canals, ply small ferries and motor boats, though the more romantically minded may still engage a gondola. At the height of its power the Republic of Venice ruled the Adriatic, Cyprus, Crete, Morea, as well as the plains of the Po as far afield as Ber-

gamo, and most of her historical riches date back to the years of its political ascendancy and mercantile prosperity. To-day the world’s eyes are again focussing on Venice and the gateway to Central Europe.