TURIN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2823, 22 April 1908, Page 82

TURIN.

Bt Edith Skaxle Gbossmasa

IV. TURIN, THE CITY OF PIEDMONT. Besides being one of the best specimer.fi cf a flourishing modern town of Italy, Turin has another attraction m its beautiful situation. Tho great chain of tho Alps is m full view from some of its heights, ;ind the pleasant fertile plain m which it stands has rising hills and castles and villas and bright Italian villages, and all of them are bright with the atmosphere of sub-al]>ine Italy. Even the city is only slightly dimmed with smoke. The broad yollow Hoed of tho Po flows through charming hills under stone bridges, where Italian women come to wash their clothes of coloured cotton. Another and much smaller stream, the Dora, bounds it on another side. Piedmont is a pleasant country, and, like its people to-day does not nuggest a warlike state. Yet to English literature it lives obiefiy by Milton's denunciation m his magnificent eonnet on the massacre of the Vaudois Protestants : Slain by the bloody Piedmontcse, who rolled Mother w.th infant down the rocks. I was thinking of that sonnet when we came upon a Vaudois chapel, somewhat plain and severe m its outward appearance, but, to my disappointment, I found upon entering it that tlie service was being conducted m the Catholic fashion. There certainly were images used now m this temple of those worshippers " who kept the faith so pure of old, while all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones." The prettiest part of Turin is the Park Valentino, public gardens ou undulating ground on the banks pf the Po, with the bridges and the Monte dei Capucini and the city m full view on one side. It is modern and it is artificial ; a little more carelessly wild than Kensington Gardens, but never unconscious or even momentarily self-forgetful, as Kew Gardens and Hampton Court are. There are some charming cafes or restaurants m it, especially the Russian restaurant and one m the Swiss style, a pretty piece of sylvan architecture. Then there is the Castle Valentino, built m the middle of the sevenlesnith century by a French princccs, the widow of a reigning sovereign of Savoy. This castle is now •ised as a Technical School of Engineering—a change which is one of the signs of the times m Italy. But much the most interesting and most extraordinary ' thing m the park is the. castle and burgh of the Middle Age. This is an elaborate a~>d extensive building, or, rather, group of buildings, erected quite recently — that is. for the National Exhibition of 1884. It is a conglomeration of various imitations cf mediaeval Italian architecture and art, and except that it ;<_ all copied from the mediaeval makes no pretence to being a unity. The Turinesc wanted to rep:oduce not ore special castle, but a general type of Middle Age Piedmcntcee castles. For the castle some of the designs were taken from La Manta, otheis from Strambino, and so on. In th-e burgh or small town atia.-hed to the castle some parts were copied from the buildings at Anigliana and at IJu&soleno, others from southern villages of Piedmont. Tho result is curious m the extreme, ard most characteristic of medern Italy, which has learned the commercial .';:!ue of its historical bygone arts, and now does nothing to revive there arts, but can only copy° basely. 'For an uncritical mir.d itis iiniuJ-ing" and instructive, lt is something like a gigantic toy or a highly rcali-t-ic stage effect. There is a hospice or inn for pilgrims, a tower surmounted by a belfry,' decorated with paintings on the exterior, wails fortified with a drawbridge and with a great' gateway and a post em. The houses of the burgh are decorated with fantastic ornaments and heraldic designs; and. supported. .by .arcades, forming a -treet. The shops are occupied by artisans carrying on various medieval trades— e.g., that of apothecary or locksmith, etc. The church imitates the same period. There are othor towers, and the whole leads up to tho castle at the top of the rise. This castle has been most

carefully studied, but eomehow one feels it is only an illusion of med'isevalism produced by a trick. Yet it has all the characteristic features of the past, even to small details — the drawbridge, the scutcheon of the royal house of Savoy, the image of the Virgin, tlie massive gate at the entrance, the staircase, the mural paintings, tbe kitchen with its enormous chimneys, the magnificent banqueting hall f the bedchambers, the oratory — all is complete down to the very dungeon. It is all realistic, and none of it is^real. The excursion de nigueur from Turin is up the hill or mount of the Soperga, famous for its Basilica and its view. We went up m the funicular railway, a very pleasant journey as the glittering steel rope visibly pulled us higher and higher up the steep ascent, until the hills that looked so high from the streets >f the town had dwindled into mere knolls. The slope wae covered thick with acacias and Spanish chestnuts, which m some parts fru-nved a little wood, but m the clearer places we looked steeply down on green heights a,nd valleys and red-tiled villages m the smoky mist, and saw the muddy Po winding ia coi.'s - through the plains of Piedmont. The road was Jul! of interest with its open barns, its vineyards, ! und their hanging bunches of purple and yellow graphs ; the wide-spreading fig tresG, and fruit, black or green; the ruddy medlars, ard, m wider parts, the mountain flower's balow the acacias; red ' Chinese lanterns," as we used to call the scarlet papery flowers, berries scarlet or liquid red ; wild raspberries, and large haws. The Basilica was erected m 1706, m the time of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, m gratitude to heaven^for the delivevance * f Turin from the French siege. The , nost interesting parts of the exterior are i he crypts, which hold the tombs of the J l royal house of Savoy, from Victor Arma- [ deo II to Carlo Alberto. There, also, we saw a memorial and an inscription to tbe late King Humbert, who was assassinated by an Anarchist a few yeara ago. Near it m a niche sat a mourning lady m black, who seemed to wish to avoid notice as we hurried through. I could not help wondering if it mipjbt be the murdered King's widow, Queen Margherita, who has a castle not far off. In the grounds there is also a memorial column to K*ng Humbert, and au inscription. "To the name of Humbert," surrounded by che aureole of martyrdom, the people of sub-alpine Italy Have erected this monument, And with the old pride fof Savoy] reaffirm the old loyalty. Al r.ome de Umberto, lato dal aureola' del ma-rtirio, il popo!o sub-alpino con antica ; fierezza, l'antica fede riafiermo. j After descending the crypts we ascended to the balcony wlkich surrounds the top. From this place thane oughi to be a magnificent view ricrtot across the city and river and all the buildings of the plains away to the distant Alps, Monte V:oo, and tbe Rock Melon, Grand PaTadis, the Mattel-horn, and Monte Rosa, and the Apennines. But, unfortunately, though the day was blight and warm, that smoky mist blurred the distant snow-peaks, and only the nearer Alps were visible, snowflocked and spotted.