FRONTIER CITIES OE ITALY 



553 



Roman remains, she invites the visitor 

 to contemplate her Galleria Vittorio 

 Emanuele, one feels she does not appre- 

 ciate her past. 



It is not so. She has been literally 

 trampled into the dust so often she would 

 have nothing- but scars to show but for 

 the invincible courage wliich made her 

 instantly build on her ruins the founda- 

 tions of yet greater things. 



Gian Galeazzo, who made the Certosa 

 possible, did much for Milan. To him 

 we owe the cathedral, one of the largest 

 in the world. What joy must have been 

 his to see these wonderful structures 

 growing, to know that from his care 

 they came. I hope Catharina shared the 

 pleasure a little time. The cathedral was 

 begun in 1386, a few years before she 

 died. 



It is not possible to leave Milan Avith- 

 out a visit to Leonardo da Vinci's "Last 

 Supper," I suppose ; yet it would be well 

 to do so, for it is but a ghost. One de- 

 rives no pleasure from it, unless the mel- 

 ancholy one of meditating upon "might 

 have been's," and in thought it speedily 

 sends one back to Certosa ; to the tomb 

 of Duke Lodovico Sforza, the Moor, and 

 his wife, Bianca Maria (Beatrice d'Este), 

 for they were Leonardo's patrons and 

 were pictured upon this same wall (see 

 picture, page 546). 



JEWEI.-LIKE LAKE.COMO 



And Milan cannot hold any one long 

 who remembers that Lake Como is but 

 two short hours away, wit'n open-air pic- 

 tures far lovelier than any that Milan's 

 rich museums hold. That is not meant 

 to deny art's due to art. There are days 

 when picture galleries and churches are 

 places delectable, their glorious paintings, 

 their statuary, their jewels of surpassing 

 interest ; but there are others when noth- 

 ing compares with the matchless beauty 

 of the great "out-of-doors." On such a 

 day go to Como. The little town of the 

 name at the southern end of the lake is 

 quaint enough ; it has a charming cathe- 

 dral ; it looks straight up to the snow- 

 peaks, but it is not a place to linger ; 

 choose rather some quieter place farther 

 up the lake — Cadennabia, Menaggio, 

 Bellagio. 



When people speak of the Italian lakes 

 it is usually Como and its neighbors that 

 are meant : Como, which is all Italian ; 

 Lugano, which is largely Swiss, and Mag- 

 giore, which is largely Italian ; but there 

 are others, very tiny perhaps, but also 

 lovely : Orta, Varese, and to the east 

 Iseo, Idro ; above all, beautiful Lake 

 Garda, whose upper end is Austrian. So 

 many poets have sung their charms for 

 twenty centuries, so many artists de- 

 picted their beauties, what remains for 

 ungifted lovers to say? So much of his- 

 tory is sleeping in their shining waters, 

 so many world-known names connected 

 with their shores, what could one sum- 

 mer bring to all their memories? 



BEAUTIFUL VIEIvA CARLOTTA 



Which is the loveliest? Who knows? 

 Undoubtedly Lake Como is the most 

 popular. And does any visitor fail to 

 row across its blue, satiny surfaces to the 

 marble steps of the Villa Carlotta to see 

 the Thorwaldsen Frieze and Canova's 

 Cupid and Psyche ? One does not need 

 eyes to know which is the favorite. The 

 "oil's" and "ah's", the sighs and silences, 

 tell it ; but, then, love is immortal, while 

 war is transient. The frieze has more of 

 history, however. Commanded of Thor- 

 waldsen by Napoleon I to adorn the 

 palace of the Ouirinal, it was not yet 

 completed when the Empire fell. Twelve 

 years later Count Giovanni Battista Som- 

 mariva had it finished and placed in his 

 villa here. The triumph of Alexander of 

 Macedon cannot seem quite at home in 

 gardens where nightingales sing — Psyche 

 suits the environment. 



The Villa Carlotta — it was Sommariva, 

 but in 1843 a certain Princess of Prussia 

 bought it and named it for her little 

 daughter, Charlotte, afterward Duchess 

 of Saxe Meiningen, long since dead, to 

 whose family the villa still belongs — is 

 not the only lovely one upon this radiant, 

 pleasure-loving lake, nor are its gardens 

 the only ones whose wonderful flowers 

 bloom. So many gardens there are, and 

 so many lovely views from every one, 

 such marvelous color changes on lake 

 and mountain as clouds drift by or sun 

 and moon go down, such a succession of 

 radiant sunny days and starry, perfume- 



