Frankfurt was formerly a free city of the
Holy Roman Empire, now modernized with its old fortifications replaced by public gardens.
The city was important as a banking and mercantile center, with a large Jewish population
including such prosperous families as the Rothschilds. Ministers from
Great Britain and
Europe were stationed here; accordingly, in his guidebook,
Murray advises that “travellers going to
Austria or
Italy should not neglect . . . having their passport properly
visé”,
and
Mary Richardson notes that the familyʼs passports were sent to the Austrian ambassador for signature. (See the poem,
“The Descent”
about descending from the
Splügen Pass into
Italy, where the Ruskinsʼ passports were again inspected by Austrian customs officials.)
In
Frankfurt, the family stayed in the
Hotel de Russie, erected by a gentleman of property for his own use, according to
Ruskinʼs cousin,
Mary Richardson,
and still recommended by
Murray in
1836. On Sunday, all but
Margaret attended Protestant services, and they were visited by a
Mr. and Mrs. Koch (unidentified), who also received them in their home the next evening
(
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 28–30;
Hand‐book for Travellers on the Continent, 402–5).
On Monday,
Mr. Koch drove the Ruskins to a cemetery, doubtless the
New Cemetery (Neue Friedhof) beyond the city walls,
which
Murray recommended for its “charming view of
Frankfort, and the
Taunus [River]”.
Opened in
1828 along with the adjacent Jewish cemetery, the
New Cemetery presented an example of the public cemetery that was starting to replace church and churchyard burial,
an antiquated custom according to
John Claudius Loudon
that “deserve[d] to be abolished” especially in “large and densely inhabited cities”.
The most famous example of the new trend was the
Cimetière du Père‐Lachaise in
Paris,
which the Ruskins visited toward the end of their tour
(
Murray, Hand‐book for Travellers on the Continent, 405;
Loudon, review of Der Neue Friedhof vom Frankfurt am Main).
Visiting the
Frankfurt cemetery in about the same year as did the Ruskins,
the English artist
James Mathews Leigh (
1808–60)
noted, like
Loudon, the neoclassicism of the architecture,
while also enjoying propects influenced by the picturesque tradition.
The structures were designed by the neoclassical architect,
Friedrich Rumpf (
1795–1867),
and the grounds were laid out in English garden style by
Sebastian Rinz (
1782–1861).
A Doric propylaeum formed the entrance, which doubled as apartments for burial preparations “undertaken by a Company at small cost”, indicating the new commercial cemetery operations
that were displacing parish church control; and the burial plots were housed both in a necropolis‐style “simple colonnade . . . divided into fifty‐five compartments”,
“each . . . devoted to a family vault”, and in grander, “handsome mausoleum[s]” that stood apart from the colonnade.
Mary Richardson, with her usual British pride,
considered the
Frankfurt cemetery inferior to one in
Liverpool,
likely referring to
St. Jamesʼs Cemetery, opened in
1829 as a pioneering British alternative to overcrowded urban churchyards.
Designed by
John Foster (
1787–1846), this site likewise featured severe neoclassicism in the form of a Doric temple,
the
Oratory. Thus, contemporary cemetery architecture and sepulchral monuments presented
Ruskin
with one notable experience of modern neoclassicism; see also
Neoclassical and Napoleonic‐Era Architecture in Milan; and see
Early Victorian Cemetery Architecture
(
Leigh, Rhenish Album, 257;
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 28–30;
“The Oratory and St. Jamesʼs Cemetery”).
“Strasburg” (MS VIII)—For
the Ruskinsʼ stay in
Kehl and visit to
Strasbourg, see
“Oh the morn looked bright on hill and dale” [“The Black Forest”]
and associated glosses. It is possible that
Ruskin decided that the latter poem and its associated essay,
“It was a wide and stretchy sweep of lovely blue champaign”,
would become identical with the section
“Strasburg”, since
the section associated with those pieces,
“The Swiss Cottages”,
is omitted following
“Strasburg” in Table 2 (Illustrations)
of the
List of Proposed Additional Contents for the “Account”;
instead, the title “The Swiss Cottages” appears in Table 2 as an illustration.
In
Strasbourg, the Ruskins visited the Gothic
cathedral,
climbing its tall spire “half way up” for the view—probably arresting their ascent at the platform where,
according to
Murray, fire watchmen were posted, who would accompany braver tourists past a locked grate
into the higher, attenuated tracery, where “one might almost fancy oneself suspended in a cage over the city”
(
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 34;
Hand‐book for Travellers on the Continent, 446).
The family also visited the
Lutheran Church of St. Thomas,
where they were impressed by the baroque
mausoleum of the Maréshal de Saxe (
1753–76)
by
Jean‐Baptiste Pigalle (
1714–85). In her travel diary,
Mary Richardson describes how the allegorical figure of
France strains to hold the figure of Death at bay as the military hero
descends toward the tomb (
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 34).
Since
Maurice de Saxe remained a Lutheran throughout his life, the commission of his elaborate tomb by the French crown
was regarded as a symbol of tolerance of Protestantism in the province of
Alsace.
“In another part of town”,
Mary writes, they viewed “a good deal of armour, some very old; some models of war engines, bridges, &c”.
This site was probably the
Arsenal and cannon foundry,
“the largest depôt of artillery in
France”,
Murray explains, dating from the city's annexation by
Louis XIV and defensive construction
under
Louis XV (
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 34;
Hand‐book for Travellers on the Continent, 447).
“Pfaffers” (MS VIII)—Spelled
Pfeffers in nineteenth‐century English guidebooks, and today known by
Pfäfers. Since the early Middle Ages
Pfäfers was the site of a Benedictine abbey, but the place was best known for its mineral springs, which
John Murray III declared “one of the most extraordinary spots in
Switzerland”
(
Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 173).
The physician and travel writer,
William Beattie (
1793–1875), described
Bad Pfäfers (today called the
Tamina Gorge) as a “golden fleece guarded by a frightful dragon”,
approached through a “wild scene . . . without competitor among the many savage regions to which the human foot has found access”, yet affording in its waters
medicinal virtues that “in numerous cases . . . , in pharmaceutic principles, [are] . . . impossible to explain”
(
Beattie, Switzerland Illustrated, 1:178, 179, 185).
Mary Richardson begins her account with a sentence taken nearly verbatim from
J. G. Ebel: “The waters have their source in an abyss from whence runs the
Tamina,
they are conducted to the bathing house by an aqueduct, raised about 200 feet above the river” (
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 39;
see
Ebel, Travellerʼs Guide through Switzerland, 233).
She then describes their intrepid descent into the gorge, again borrowing on the following account in
Ebel:
The most lively imagination could not describe the entrance of Tartarus, under so hideous a form as that which nature has displayed in framing the defile of the Tamina.
You enter it over a bridge composed of planks that rest on wedges beat into the rocks. This bridge is 6 or 700 paces long, which requires above a quarter of an hour
to get over, as you must proceed with great caution. It is suspended over the Tamina, which is heard to roll furiously beneath it thirty or forty feet deep.
Near to the bridge the defile is thirty feet wide, but lower down it straitens as it descends along the torrent. The lateral walls, cleft and torn in divers ways,
rise 200 feet high, bend towards each other in the shape of a dome, and are 290 feet in height at that part where they entirely join. The faint light which illumines
the entrance of the defile disappears in proportion as you proceed; and the damp cold that prevails increases the horror of the place. Sometimes the rocks
that overhang the bridge are so close, that they will not allow one to stand up; and at another time they are so distant from it, that they no longer serve as a support.
The bridge is narrow, often very slippery, and it will sometimes occur that one single plank stands between the traveller and the dark abyss of the Tamina. . . .
The best method of avoiding danger is to walk between two men, each of them holding the extremities of a pole on the side of the precipice, which will serve as a support
and a railing to the tourist. The spring is situated beyond the bridge. . . . I shall invite all such people, who are unwilling to expose themselves to the danger
of going as far as the spring, to advance at least fifty paces on the bridge, beyond the entrance of the defile, and to sit down there to view at leisure the terrific prospect
of that dreadful passage.
The Ruskins took this advice,
Mary commenting: “We did not go quite to the end for it was so frightful, the rocks rise high above the shelf, and are so close to each other
as almost to exclude daylight” (
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 39).
“The corso of Milan” (MS VIII)—In
1847, the
Hand‐book for Travellers in Northern Italy reported that, “[d]uring the summer,
the fashionable evening drive is in the
Corso di Porta Orientale; most particularly on Sundays and Thursdays”
(
Maule, Hand‐book for Travellers in Northern Italy, 142).
Taking their drive on a
Wednesday, June 19,
Mary Richardson remarked that the
Corso “was full of carriages like our
Hyde Park, but not half so splendid”,
contradicting an
1836 Italian guidebook written for British tourists that promised “English tourists, who join in a few of the usual drives from
Porta Orientale to
Porta Nuova, and back again,
will for a moment forget their ‘
Hyde‐Park’ and ‘
Kensington Gardens’, and conceive an idea both of the wealth and good taste of the Milanese”.
The Ruskins did, at least, enjoy an ice, in “Milanese fashion”
(
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 50;
Mazzoni, The Travellerʼs Guide of Milan, 62).
Nonplussed by these modern urban public spaces,
Mary and
John
responded enthusiastically to the Gothic cathedral, a preference that led early in the development of the
“Account” to
Ruskinʼs only completed poem about
Milan,
“Milan Cathedral”.
In that poem,
Ruskin emphasizes the vertical thrust of the carthedral, comparing its spires to
Monte Rosa rising on the cityʼs horizon,
whereas he projected, but evidently failed to execute a poem or essay on the
Corso, which presumably would have directed attention to the horizontal axes and breadth of the
Enlightenment city.
Nonetheless, the Ruskins did seek out monuments in
Milan that attested to
Napoleonʼs thwarted plans
to impress the stamp of imperial government on the cityʼs architecture; see
Neoclassical and Napoleonic‐Era Architecture in Milan.
“The certosa” (MS VIII)—The Certosa of Pavia,
which the
1847 Hand‐book for Travellers in Northern Italy
describes as “the most splendid monastery in the world”, founded by
Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the first duke of
Milan, “built by him as an atonement for guilt, to relieve his conscience
of the murder of his uncle and father‐in‐law,
Barnabo Visconti, and his family. . . . The foundation was laid the
8th September, 1396. Twenty‐five Carthusian monks
were appointed to take charge of this sanctuary, and executed, down to their expulsion in
1782 [by order of the
Emperor Joseph II, to shut down the monasteries of the contemplative orders],
the task imposed on them, of augmenting the glory of the Madonna, by adding to the beauty of the
Certosa. . . . From
1782 to 1810, the
Certosa was occupied by other orders,
and in the latter year it was finally closed. . . . The monks were re‐established at Christmas,
1843, and the building is now well cared for”
(
Maule, Hand‐book for Travellers in Northern Italy, 203).
In
1833, the
Certosa being still closed to religious orders,
Mary Richardson says that the family visited the cells of former monks and noted their wealth, the
Certosa being the “heir . . . and son of a hundred fathers”
(
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 52).
“The house of Byron” (MS VIII)—For
the Ruskinsʼ visit to
Byronʼs former residence in a suburb of
Genoa
on
24 June, see also the contextual notes for
“Of various trees a vista green”.
Mary Richardson considered the suburbs “very pretty” but “the house in which his lordship lived” to be “large but melancholy looking, and though highly situated”
affording “very little view” (
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 57).
In
October 1822, following the drowning of
Percy Shelley in the
Ligurean Sea
off the coast of
Leghorn in
July of that year,
Byron
moved his household to
Genoa, where
Mary Shelley had already arrived.
Joined by his lover,
Teresa Guiccioli, and his companion,
Edward John Trelawny,
Byron leased
Casa Saluzzo in the suburb,
Albaro.
A mile away,
Mary Shelley occupied
Casa Negroto along with
Leigh Hunt and his family.
Byron lived in
Casa Saluzzo until he and
Trelawny
sailed for
Greece in
July 1823
(
Hawkins, ed., “The Byron Chronology”, years
1822–23).
While the Ruskins were traveling the
Continent,
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (
1789–1849),
was continuing publication of her
Journal of Conversations with Lord Byron (
1832–33)
as installments in the
New Monthly Magazine.
She based the
Conversations on visits exchanged with
Byron
during her stay in
Genoa, where she settled during travels with her husband and companions in
April–June 1823.
In the book, she describes
Byronʼs residence thus:
“
Albaro, the village in which the
Casa Saluzzo,
where he lives, is situated, is about a mile and a
half distant from
Genoa; it is a fine old palazzo,
commanding an extensive view, and with spacious
apartments, the front looking into a court‐yard
and the back into the garden”
(
Blessington, Conversations of Lord Byron with the Countess of Blessington, 4; and see
Scheuerle, “Gardiner [née Power; other married name, Farmer], Marguerite [Margaret], countess of Blessington [1789–1849]”).
For treatments of
Byronʼs residences in illustrated travel publications contemporary with the
“Account”,
see
J. M. W. Turnerʼs frontispiece,
Genoa,
for volume 15 of the
Works of Lord Byron ([
1833], and see also
Piggott, Turnerʼs Vignettes, 48);
and
Samuel Proutʼs plate,
Mocenige Palace, Venice (
1830),
accompanying
Thomas Roscoeʼs essay,
“Lord Byronʼs Palace”, in
Roscoe, The Tourist in Italy (Jenningsʼs Landscape Annual for 1830), 84 opp., 77–84.
Mary Richardsonʼs remarks about
Casa Saluzzo share some rhetorical features with
Thomas Roscoeʼs account of
Byronʼs residence in
Palazzo Mocenigo.
“Turin” (MS VIII)—The
Ruskins arrived in
Turin on
26 June 1833 and departed on
1 July. In the
eighteenth century,
Turin was the first major stop for British travelers on the Grand Tour,
entering
Italy via the
Mont Cenis Pass. The cityʼs attractions included its elegant court
(
Black, Italy and the Grand Tour, 33–34).
In
1833, the Savoyard royalty still held a fascination for the Ruskins. On
Saturday, June 29, the
Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul,
they attended services in
Turin Cathedral,
where they had a good view of the
King of Sardinia,
Charles Albert (
1798–1849), and the Queen,
Maria Theresa (
1801–55), who were seated
in the circular, black‐marble chapel on the far side of the cathedral altar—that is, the
Sindone Chapel, although
Mary Richardson does not identify it as such,
which was designed by
Guarino Guarini (
1624–83) to house the sacred relic of the shroud. They also attended the opera, hearing
Gioachino Rossiniʼs (
1792–1868)
The Barber of Seville, a work they enjoyed more than once during the tour. (By comparison, in
Genoa, they considered
Gaetano Donizettiʼs [
1797–1848]
recently premiered
Anna Bolena “fine but melancholy”, despite its English story, and left before the end.)
Yet
Mary Richardson was not impressed by the city, finding the cathedral and other churches “nothing particular”,
and her diary gives no indication that they viewed the Royal Gallery of Pictures,
which, less than one year earlier, had been established in the
Palazzo Madama Reale, and which years later would prove important to
Ruskin for its paintings
by
Paolo Veronese (
1528–88) (
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 59–60, 57).
The visit improved on their last day in Turin, when Mary, John James, and John
ascended to the “Villa Regina” (i.e., the Vigna della Regina) for “a most splendid view, more Italian than anything we had yet seen”—a
sight more likely than the urban experiences in Turin to have inspired Johnʼs projected poem. Mary describes the scene expansively:
The late rain had given a freshness to the country, the air was delightfully mild and balmy, the sky clear,
the sun was behind the town, and threw the towers and steeples into deep shade, giving all the buildings a grand but solemn air,
a few gold coloured bright clouds were near the sun and some of them cast a light shadow on the mountains near us,
which were cultivated high up, while those in extreme distance to the left, were covered with snow.
We returned to the hotel as it began to get dark, with a higher opinion of the sunny land of Italy.
The
seventeenth‐century villa, the
Vigna della Regina, is described in the
1847 Hand‐book for Travellers in Northern Italy
as “overlook[ing]
Turin” from “the side of the
Collina, immediately above the
Po”—that is, from the “beautiful range of hills” beyond the
Po River
“called the
Collina . . . di Torino, rising to the height of about 1200 or 1500 feet . . . sparkling with villas;
and, in their forms, possess[ing] alpine boldness without alpine severity”. The guidebook advises that the “views of the city from hence are very beautiful”
(
Maule, Hand‐book for Travellers in Northern Italy, 32, 14, 32).
Twenty‐five years later,
Ruskin returned to this view, characterizing it in strikingly similar terms to
Maryʼs: “a view which, perhaps, of all those that can be obtained north of the
Appenines,
gives the most comprehensive idea of the nature of
Italy, considered as one great country”. At this time, in
1858,
Ruskin was studying
Veronese
in the Royal Gallery, and he incorporated that episode along with observations about
the art patronage of the villaʼs first owner, the
Cardinal Maurizio di Savola (
Maurice of Savoy [
1593–1657]) in
the
“Inaugural Address” delivered at the
Cambridge School of Art
(
Ruskin, Works, 16:171–201, especially 193–97).
“Novara” (MS VIII)—The
Ruskins stayed only the night of
July 1 in
Novara, and
Mary Richardsonʼs diary records little observation of the town, except for
John James and
John
“look[ing] into”
Novara Cathedral before departure the next day and being “pleased with” it. The Romanesque structure that they witnessed,
“an early and noble Lombard building” as described in the
1847 Hand‐book for Travellers in Northern Italy,
differed considerably, however, from the neoclassical design with which large portions of the building were replaced starting in the
1850s.
The main focus of
Maryʼs diary is on the surrounding countryside: “every thing seems to flourish in this part of the country”, she comments,
remarking on the numerous crops and busy gleaners. The guidebook agrees, noting that this part of
Lombardy was “cultivated like a rich garden”
and presented an advantageous viewpoint for
Monte Rosa (
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 61–62;
Maule, Hand‐book for Travellers in Northern Italy, 38).
Before naming this proposed section after
Novara,
Ruskin initially entitled it after, not
Monte Rosa, but
Mont Cenis, which is farther southwest,
rising above
Turin. Throughout the
eighteenth century, the
Mont Cenis Pass was the preferred route for British travelers on the Grand Tour—preferred
over not only other Alpine passes but also over the lengthy and dangerous routes by sea
(
Black, Italy and the Grand Tour, 27).
The pass had been accessible since the
seventeenth century by a carriage road, which was replaced by a new road undertaken by command of
Napoleon in
1803
and completed in
1817. At the end of the
1820s,
William Brockedon
wrote appreciatively of the scenery accompanying the crossing, not only on the Italian side descending to
Turin,
but also on the French side ascending from
Lyons—“some of the most beautiful scenery in
France . . . the vast plains watered
by the
Rhone and the
Ain . . . seen extending to the
Jura, and to the snowy ranges of the
Savoy mountatins;
and, in clear weather, even beyond and above these,
Mont Blanc can be seen, appearing to be rather an object of the sky than of the earth,
hovering like a mighty spirit” (
Illustrations of the Passes of the Alps,
“The Pass of the
Mont Cenis”, 3, 5, 1).
“The Madonna del monte” (MS VIII)—On
3 July,
Mary Richardson recorded that the family, after visiting
Arona on
Lake Maggiore (see
“It was an eve of summer mild” [“Lago Maggiore”]),
crossed to
Varese and ascended the
Madonna del Monte—the
Sacro Monte di Varese,
one of the nine
Sacri Monti of
Piedmont and
Lombardy.
She mentions the chapels situated along the ascent, the
Via Sacra.
Each chapel (which she numbered incorrectly at twelve) exhibited “a passage in our
Saviourʼs life”,
depicted using life‐sized figures. At the top, she and
John enjoyed the view from a steeple
that they ascended accompanied by
Salvador
(
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 63–64).
According to the
1847 guidebook edited by
G. B. Maule,
“The chief object of attraction at
Varese is the celebrated
Santuario of the Virgin,
called
La Madonna del Monte, which is situated on a lofty hill about five miles to the north‐west of the city
[
Varese]. It is said to have been founded in
397 by
St. Ambrose,
to commemorate a great victory,—not in argument, but in arms,—gained by him on this spot over the Arians.
The slaughter is said to have been so great that the heterodox party were exterminated. It was dedicated to the
Virgin,
and her statue, which was consecrated by
St. Ambrose, is still preserved. At the end of the
16th century
Agaggiari [
sic, G. Battista Aguggiari], a Capuchin monk, built, out of funds raised by his exertions, the fourteen chapels
which stand by the side of the road which leads to the church on the summit. . . . The fourteen chapels represent the fourteen mysteries of the Rosary. . . . They contain coloured statues
in stucco, . . . and frescoes . . . of the painters of the Milanese school of the
16th century. Over the fountain, near the last chapel,
is a fine
colossal statue of Moses,
by
Gaetano [Matteo] Monti [
1776–1847]. . . . Connected with the chureh is a convent of
Augustinian nuns. . . . Those who are not tempted by the religions objects may be perhaps induced to visit the
Santuario by being told that the ascent affords the most magnificent views of the rich plain of
Lombardy as far as the
Apennines, of the higher and lower chains of the
Alps,
and the lakes of
Varese,
Comabbio,
Biandrone,
Monate,
Maggiore, and
Como”
(
Maule, Hand‐book for Travellers in Northern Italy, 201–2).
“Domo dʼOssola” (MS VIII)—From
Varese, the Ruskins returned to
Arona for the night, and then drove to
Baveno, where they could take a boat to the
Borromean Islands,
the holdings of the Borromeo family in
Lago Maggiore.
The family devoted most of this tour to
Isola Bella, featuring the palace and gardens. It is likely that an untitled drawing,
Lakeside with Terraced Villa,
included in the gallery of drawings inserted at the end of the
MS IX fair copy of the
“Account”,
depicts these terraced gardens at
Isola Bella, viewed from the side of the island opposite the palace. In the
List of Proposed Additional Contents for the “Account”—Table 2 (Illustrations),
Ruskin listed “
Isola bella” as a planned illustration next to the entry for “
Domo dʼOssola”.
The estate on
Isola Bella was developed by members of the Borromeo family over several decades in the
seventeenth century,
and by the
1830s only this residence and the villas and gardens on the other islands were left to them,
their formerly extensive holdings in northern
Italy having been absorbed by the
Cisalpine Republic—
Napoleonʼs
short‐lived political settlement, following his invasion of northern
Italy in
1796, and reassserted with his second invasion over the
Alps
and the
Battle of Marengo in
1800. Through the turmoil, the gardens on
Isola Bella retained their appeal of improbable exoticism.
As
John Murray III marveled in the
1838
Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland,
the project on
Isola Bella “converted this mass of bare and barren slate‐rock, which lifted itself a few feet above the surface of the lake,
into a beautiful garden, teeming with the vegetation of the tropics . . . and this within a dayʼs journey of the Lapland climate
of the
Simplon, and within view of the Alpine snows” (p. 163).
Mary Richardson
remarked on the “great variety of plants, fine
pines and
cypresses, Egyptian
willow,
pomegranite,
orange and
lemon groves”, and, reportedly, “1200 different kinds of
carnations”.
The Ruskins examined a famous
laurel tree, “said to be the largest in
Europe”, on which
Napoleon had carved
“the word ‘Bataille’” (
Murray says “battaglia”) shortly before engaging the Austrians at
Marengo,
Mary noting that “hardly any of the letters can now be traced”, while “the wood all round has been cut away in small bits by the visitors”.
Below the terraces, the family enjoyed the cool grottoes, and they viewed some curiosities in the palace
(
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 66;
Murray, Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 163–64).
Following these sights, and on the same day, the Ruskins set out for the
Val dʼOssola on the road to the
Simplon Pass,
planning to spend the night at
Domo dʼOssola—an explanation for why
Ruskin planned his
drawing of “Isola Bella”
for this uncompleted section of the
“Account” entitled
“Domo dʼOssola”. (He also planned to include a view of
Domo dʼOssola itself, to be copied from
Brockedon, Illustrations of the Passes of the Alps;
see the
List of Proposed Additional Contents for the “Account”—Illustrations [Table 2].)
According to her diary,
Mary Richardson considered the drive through the
Val dʼOssola “equal to . . . foot of
Splugen”; and in the morning, as they began the ascent to the
Simplon,
Mary looked back on the receding valley with admiration for its fertile cultivation and grandeur. She had nothing to say about the town itself,
apart from comments on the hotel.
John Murray III dismisses the town of
Domo dʼOssola as “small and unimportant” and condescends to describe it as a picturesque Italian genre scene:
“Houses with colonnades, streets with awnings, shops teeming with sausages, macaroni, and garlic, lazy‐looking lazzaroni, in red nightcaps,
and bare mahogany‐coloured legs, intermixed with mules, burley priests, and females veiled with the mantilla, fill up the picture of an Italian town”
(
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 67;
Murray, Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 162).
“Farewell to Italy” (MS VIII)—Presumably,
Ruskin would have modeled this poem on
Samuel Rogersʼs
“A Farewell”,
the final poem in the
1830 version of
Italy,
which begins: “And now farewell to
Italy—perhaps / For ever!”.
Mary Richardson possibly quotes the poem in her diary, albeit without specifically mentioning
Rogers, when departing
from
Baveno and
Lago Maggiore and regretting “the scene which we were about to leave, perhaps for ever”
(
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 66;
Rogers, Italy [1830], 233).
In the
List of Proposed Additional Contents for the “Account”—Illustrations (Table 2),
Ruskin listed views of the terrifying
Gondo Gorge, with its sublime features both natural (the narrow and steep defile, turbulent river, and waterfalls)
and man‐made (the famous tunnel or
“gallery” that carried the road through almost 600 feet of rock). Despite the enthusiasm for these features in the post‐Waterloo visual culture documenting the
Simplon passage—
James Pattison Cockburn
devoted nine plates to
Gondo, three of them to the
gallery, in
Cockburn, Views to Illustrate the Route of the Simplon; and
William Brockedon chose the entrance to the
Gondo gallery for his title‐page vignette in the
Simplon chapter of
Illustrations of the Passes of the Alps—
Mary Richardson
seems nonplussed in her diary, merely noting that “there are 5 in all on the
Simplon” road of these “galleries blown out of the rock”.
She gives more space to the technology of the drag required for the carriage in the descent, and to the expansion of the
Simplon hospice
with acquisition of a barracks left unfinished by
Napoleonʼs engineers.
Turnerʼs vignette for
Rogersʼs
“A Farewell”, entitled
Lake of Como, could
have appropriately served to illustrate
Ruskinʼs farewell to
Italy, which begins in
Lago Maggiore.
Rogersʼs “farewell”, however—according to a note appended to the poem—was written at
Susa,
indicating that the speaker departs from
Italy via the
Mont Cenis Pass. Thoughout the
eighteenth century,
prior to the French engineering of the carriage road over the
Simplon, the
Cenis had served as the most popular and accessible route both entering and departing
Italy
(
Black, Italy and the Grand Tour, 27–30).
Rogersʼs poem therefore looks backward to a more aristocratic period of the Grand Tour, as compared to the Ruskinsʼ post‐Waterloo travel.
In truth, on his
1822–23 tour,
Rogers entered
Italy
via the
Simplon Pass, and he departed via the
Brenner Pass into
Austria;
and although he placed the poem
“Como” following the speakerʼs descent
into
Italy in the poem
“The Alps”,
Rogersʼs actual experience of the Italian lakes was confined to the shores of
Lake Maggiore,
from whence he traveled directly to
Milan, and then went on to
Verona,
Padua,
Venice,
Bologna,
Florence,
Rome, and
Naples
(
Hale, ed., The Italian Journal of Samuel Rogers, 82–83, 161–63).
“The Glaciers” (MS VIII)—On
July 5,
Mary Richardson records that, on the road to the
Simplon Pass, the Ruskins encountered their first glacier shortly after passing through
the village of
Simplon. Yet as they approached the pass, they were “astonished to see beautiful meadows rich with flowers, as well as grass,
along the side of the road at highest part” of the crossing (
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 67–68).
Ruskinʼs proposed illustrations for this section of the
“Account” (Table 2) suggest that his title may refer
both to glaciers near the
Simplon Road and to the glaciers of the
Bernese Alps
as viewed from the summit of the pass. The road approached especially close to glaciers
along the
“Glacier Galleries” shortly beyond the summit on the Swiss side, which carried travelers safely across torrents issuing
from the
Kaltwasser Glacier on
Monte Leone (the terminus and highest peak of the
Leopontine Alps, which forms the east side of the pass).
The galleries, “partly excavated, partly built of masonry strongly arched”, were constructed with “ingenious contrivance”
to “serve in places as bridges and aqueducts at the same time, the torrents being conducted over and beneath them;
and the traveller is surprised to find his carriage suddenly driven in perfect safety underneath a considerable waterfall”.
Gazing ahead into the distance, meanwhile, “the travellerʼs attention” was “riveted by the glorious view” of the
Aletsch Glacier between the peaks of the
Bernese Alps,
“which bound the
Vallais and form the r[igh]t‐hand wall of the valley of the
Rhone”
(
Murray, Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 159).
That is, looking northwest from the summit, away from
Monte Leone and the eastern flank of the
Simplon,
the traveler could view the peaks of the
Bernese Alps, which rise from the east‐west valley of the
Upper Rhône—the
valley into which the traveler descends at the foot of the
Simplon Road in
Brig (
Brieg).
“Tourtman” (MS VIII)—The
attraction of
Turtmann (or
Tourtemagne), which borders the
Rhône midway between
Brig and
Sion,
and which leads into the
Turtmann Valley, is explained by
John Murray III as
holding “some repute among tourists” for its waterfall, which
Ruskin indeed lists first among his proposed illustrations for the section (Table 2).
According to
Murray, a twenty‐minute walk behind the main inn brought the traveler to a cascade, of which the “volume of water is considerable”,
though “on the whole inferior to the
fall of the Sallenche near
Martigny” (i.e., the
Nant dʼArpenaz).
Murray recommends “the scene . . . on account of its entire seclusion”,
but warns against “marshes and stagnant pools”—hazards that
Ruskinʼs cousin,
Mary Richardson, notices near
Sion as “not so pretty”
(
Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 173;
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 69).
Mary does not mention
Turtmann in her travel
diary,
which skips from
Brig to
Sion in recording the familyʼs progress through the upper
Rhône valley. The village is mentioned only cursorily in the guidebook by
Ebel
from which
Mary commonly drew her information (
Ebel, Travellerʼs Guide through Switzerland, 352).
Even more curiously,
Ruskin situates
Turtmann where one would expect
Sion in his
List of Proposed Additional Contents for the “Account”.
Sion was considered the principal town of
canton Valais, and the Ruskins spent two nights and their entire Sunday (
July 8) there.
Ruskin may have intended his section entitled
“Tourtman” to incorporate
Sion;
however, nothing in his proposed illustrations suggests the city.
Ruskinʼs apparent avoidance of mentioning the place may have resulted from the familyʼs perception of it as “dirty and desolate looking,
and the people all miserable creatures, two out of three” suffering “very bad” from goiter, and “many of them . . . idiots”
(
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 69).
This brutal comment likely refers to the affliction of congenital hypothyroidism, which was called
cretinism,
and which was widespread among Alpine populations, as travelers frequently remarked; see
Hypothyroidism in the Alps.
The Ruskins spent their Sunday visiting a hermitage on the mountainside, which
Ebel mentions as a curiosity to be found across the
Rhône from
Sion in
Brämis.
Led there by a local guide,
Mary reports, the Ruskins found the few hermits “cheerful and happy, all about them . . . clean, and their little garden neat”. The hermits presented them with
carnations,
which the family endeavored to preserve (
Ebel, Travellerʼs Guide through Switzerland, 358;
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 70–71; and for a story that may have schooled the Ruskinsʼ response to Valaisian hermits,
see the tale of the skeptical young British traveler abashed by the sincerity of a hermit living in a mountain retreat above
Sion, in
Roscoe, The Tourist in Switzerland and Italy, 88–100).
“Martigny” (MS VIII)—As
John Murray III succinctly summarizes the crossroads location of
Martigny, the village lay “on the high road of the
Simplon [i.e., along the upper
Rhône valley, which the Ruskins were traveling],
at the termination of the char‐road from the
St. Bernard [i.e., at the Swiss end of the
Great St. Bernard Pass leading from the
Val dʼAosta on the Italian side],
and the mule‐path from
Chamouni, render[ing] it the constant resort of travellers”.
Here also the
Dranse River joins the
Rhône, which makes a right turn to flow north toward
Lake Geneva
(
Murray, Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 155).
When the Ruskins arrived on
July 8, the day was wet and cold, so they stayed inside, venturing out only to view the nearby
Pissevache waterfall
(
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 71).
Both
Ebel and
Murray caution about disease in
Martigny.
Ebel deplores the “loathsome objects”, the crètins, although claiming without explanation that, “since the year
1798”,
their numbers had been “greatly diminished” by the war.
Murray, too, warns that “the travellerʼs attention at every step” will be arrested
by “decreptitude, deformity, and misery” owing to the inhabitantsʼ affliction with “goître, cretinism, and agues”. He attributes
this “hot‐bed of disease” to a “flat swamp” surrounding the bend of the
Rhône, “rendered desolate and unwholesome
by the overflowings of the
Rhine and its tributaries, which, not being carried off by a sufficient declivity in their beds, stagnate,
and exhale a most injurious malaria under the rays of a burning sun”
(
Ebel, Travellerʼs Guide through Switzerland, 361;
Murray, Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 156).
Murrayʼs theory about the cause of hypothyroidism was incorrect but consistent with judgmental attitudes of the time: see
Hypothyroidism in the Alps.
“The Ascent” (MS VIII)—The
Ruskins did not cross the
Great St. Bernard Pass in
1833, despite the misleading itinerary given in the
Library Edition
(
Ruskin, Works, 2:340).
Having crossed via the
Simplon Pass, however, they did ascend the
St. Bernard from the Swiss side, in order to visit
the
Hospice of St. Bernard. Like
Samuel Rogers who himself
crossed into
Italy via the
Simplon to take advantage of the modern carriage road built by
Napoleonʼs engineers,
yet who sent his speaker in
Italy across the
St. Bernard to draw on the romance of this legendary passage,
the Ruskins desired to experience this mountain ascent to the famous
hospice for its own sake. For
William Brockedon, “no passage of the
Alps . . .
affords to the traveller greater pleasure, either in the enjoyment or the recollection of his journey to
Italy, for besides the wildness of this Alpine pass,
and the beauty of the valley of
Aosta [where the passage concludes], . . . the kind reception which . . . [the traveler] experiences from the religious community at the
hospice,
is remembered as long as he can be grateful for the devotion . . . [of] these excellent men”
(
Illustrations of the Passes of the Alps, “The Great Saint Bernard”, 1;
and see
Rogers, The Italian Journal of Samuel Rogers, 82, 159–62).
As
Mary Richardson summarized their experience, “difficult and dangerous as the ascent is,
I would go up again to see these benevolent fathers who encounter any dangers to aid their fellow creatures”
(
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 75).
In departing from Martigny for the Great St. Bernard, the Ruskins would have been mindful—alerted by the guidebooks of the period—that
they followed Napoleonʼs path in 1800, when he led his army through the treacherous pass
in order to make a surprise attack on the Second Coalition and regain Italy for the French Republic.
Mary Richardsonʼs account of the ascent agrees with particulars in the guidebooks, although Murrayʼs 1838 account
reflects improvements in the road that may have postdated the Ruskinsʼ journey.
From Martigny, the family along with Salvador and Ann traveled in two char‐à‐bancs
through scenery that the guidebooks dismiss as dull, but then, on entering the Val dʼEntremont, as Mary says, the scenery became
“very fine, high rocks, with pine forests and cottages and cultivated ground almost to the top”. The valley is drained by the Dranse dʼEntremont,
a tributary of the Dranse, which the Ruskins skirted on their four‐and‐a‐half‐hour ride from Martigny. They
paused in the village of Liddes, where they found other tourists preparing to continue the ascent. While the Ruskins dined, their mules were unhitched
from the vehicles and allowed a rest, before being saddled to carry them the remaining four‐hour trek up the mountain to the hospice.
The Ruskins started out from Liddes on foot, the muleteer and animals catching up with them at Bourg Saint Pierre, the last village in the valley before the final ascent to the pass.
Beyond the village, the path rose high above the river, the incline becoming “more rapid and the road narrower and more stony”,
and the pines and larches giving way to “bare rocks”. Even here, the Ruskins observed “cultivation” of land and “great quantities of the beautiful Alpine rose”.
But now in view the highest peak, Mont Vélan, and its glaciers, the Ruskins had entered on the most rugged stage of the climb through the forest of Saint Pierre and,
crossing the snow line, onto a bleak slope that writers called the Plain of Prou or Sommet de Prou.
At this height, as Brockedon along with other guidebook writers remarks, “the brethren of the convent” had established both a refuge and a charnel house,
since “many of the victims to the storms of these regions” were discovered by the monks and their dogs.
In
1800,
Brockedon adds, this final segment of the climb presented
Napoleonʼs army with “the chief obstacles to the conveyance of the mounted artillery”; and the general himself had a narrow escape,
when falling from his mule, and had to be rescued by a peasant—an inglorious reality, compared to the impression of this expedition conveyed by the equestrian portrait,
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (
1803),
by
Jacques‐Louis David. The Ruskins experienced a similar hazard,
Mary relates, when the lead mule carrying
Margaret tumbled into the snow,
though both animal and rider landed softly. Following this accident, and now enshrouded by fog, the family party decided to walk the rest of the way,
coming suddenly on the obscured
hospice at 7:15 in the evening—a total of ten hours following their departure from
Martigny,
which is exactly the time predicted for the ascent by
Murrayʼs guidebook
(
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 71–73;
Brockedon, Illustrations of the Passes of the Alps, “The Great Saint Bernard”, 3–5;
Murray, Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 256–57;
Ebel, Travellerʼs Guide through Switzerland, 362–64).
“St Maurice” (MS VIII)—After
descending from the Great St. Bernard and returning to Martigny, the Ruskins resumed their journey on July 11 toward Lake Geneva.
Following the Rhône, they came with sight of the lake at Bex,
situated in Vaud past the narrow defile at Saint‐Maurice,
which divides the canton from Valais.
In Italy, Samuel Rogers describes the pass in the poem,
. The speaker is traveling in the opposite direction from the Ruskins,
from Lake Geneva toward Italy:
ʼTwas dusk; and, journeying upward by the Rhone,
That there came down, a torrent from the Alps,
I entered where a key unlocks a kingdom;
The mountains closing, and the road, the river
Filling the narrow pass. . . .
In the
1830 illustrated
Italy,
Turnerʼs vignette
for the poem features the well‐known bridge across the
Rhône, along with attendant structures, a scene that was explained and updated by
John Murray III in his
1836 guidebook. Quoting the lines above from
Rogers,
Murray explains:
“Such is the scene presented to the traveller at the
Bridge of St. Maurice,
which spans the rapid river with one bold arch, 70 ft. wide, leaning for support (appuyé) on the rt. side upon the
Dent de Morcles [i.e., the western end of the
Bernese Alps]
and on the l. upon the
Dent de Midi [i.e.,
Dents du Midi],
whose bases are pushed so far forward as barely to leave room for the river. The
bridge, erroneously attributed to the Romans,
is not older than the
15th century, but may possibly rest on Roman foundations. It unites the
canton Vaud [to the west, above
Lake Geneva]
with the
canton Vallais [to the east]; and a gate at one end, now removed, formerly served to close the passage up and down:
a circumstance alluded to in the lines of
Rogers. A small fort was erected by the Swiss in
1832, above the road,
to defend the pass”
(
Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 152).
Similar information by
Thomas Roscoe accompanied an engraved view of the bridge drawn by
Samuel Prout
for the
1830 Jennings Landscape Annual
(
The Tourist in Switzerland and Italy, 52–55).
In Rogersʼs poem, the passage through Saint‐Maurice
is attended by the promise of Italy, suggested by the speaker awakening to music—preparations for the nuptials of the innkeeperʼs daughter:
. . . there I slept,
And in my dreams wandered once more, well‐pleased.
But now a charm was on the rocks, and woods,
And waters; for, methought, I was with those
I had at morn and even wished for there.
(Rogers, Italy [1830], 10)
British travelers often applied a more invidious meaning to the passage at
Saint‐Maurice,
regarding it as the divide between the Catholic and Protestant Swiss cantons. Proceeding west toward Protestant
Geneva,
Murray lectures the traveler: “No one can cross the
bridge at St. Maurice
without being struck with the change in the condition of the inhabitants of the two cantons. The neatness and industry
of the
Vaudois are exchanged within the space of a few hundred yards for filth and beggary, equally apparent in the persons and habitations
of the
Vallaisans. Their physical condition is lamentable; no part of
Switzerland is afflicted
to a greater extent with the maladies of goître and cretinism . . . , and the victims of them shock the travellerʼs sight at every step”
(
Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 152;
and for a similar viewpoint in a guidebook used by the Ruskins, see
Ebel, Travellerʼs Guide through Switzerland, 491–92).
Mary Richardson dutifully noted the “entirely different” character of the two cantons, remarking how “pretty” the scenery became
“especially after crossing a
bridge just after leaving
St. Maurice”: “
Valais is a republic, and is not counted as one of the cantons of
Switzerland; the people in it are unhealthy,
dirty and poor looking in comparison with those of the
Vaud, and the whole face of the country looks ragged and neglected compared with
Vaud, which is beautifully cultivated and in fine order;
its cottages neat and clean, and its inhabitants clean, healthy, intelligent‐looking people”. Unknown to
Mary, the real defense against goiter and cretinism lay not in the Protestant confession,
but in the
salt mine the family visited while in
Bex
(
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 76–77; and see
Hypothyroidism in the Alps).
Unknown
Mary was wrong about the political status of
Valais. Formerly ruled by the prince‐bishops of
Sion, the republic of
Valais was occupied by French Revolutionary forces in
1798
and declared part of
Napoleonʼs
Helvetic Republic, but
Valais was accepted into the Swiss confederacy as a canton as part of the post‐war
1815 settlement,
although tensions continued throughout the
1820s and 1830s between liberal cantons and conservative, Catholic cantons like
Valais
(
Church and Head, Concise History of Switzerland, 145, 154).