Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1883-08-17
DREAMY ITALIA N D AVS.
Musings or Como's Cool ana Lovely Shores
Beneath the Soft and Azure skies
I. 5s@ OF Sunny Italy. %.@s
4 Modern Italians Abandon Old Religious and
Political Creeds for Free Thought 4
# and Republicanisn.
American Artists in Rome Making Use of the
3rg, Brains and Skill OF Others Tor
Masterpieces.

masterpieces.
BEIhAa1o. Lake Como, Italy, Special Core.
spondsncs July 20.--I have retreated hithsr
to this mountain region to write my weekly
iettsr--an exercise for which Central Italy is
ut present rather too warm -Four days of
Venice and four of Rome are quite enough at
this particular season, even when one does not
go entirely for pleasure, but partly in the per-
Torrance Of journalistic duty. ! write you
to day from the most picturesque town on the
prettiest lake in the world. Bel
lagio is in the very middle of
Lake Como, on the northern point Of
the fifteen mile long peninsula that divides the
lake in twain. This hotel sits steeply on the
hillside, the shore terraced and dower-covered
down to the lake in front, and garden full Of
bloom and fruitage rising along the slope be-
hind, through olives, orange trees, gigantic
aloes, shcdoaandron5 aud oieaaders grown
into trees, and masnolias bearing great bios
SONS as large as my hat, full of delicious fra
cranes. The horizon is thick. set with mount
aims from 5000 to 900 feet high, those to
the north covered with snow and bearing icy
rivulets suspended On their sides, which
glsaen in the MONDAY sun. Ny
north window looks upon these
mountains and the lake between which, as the
hours pass, turns from blue to a peacock
green, from green to purple. according to the
varying light and the reflection Of the hills.
The water face is no moro ehangeable or
opalescent than that Of our Lake George, to
which Lake Como is often compared; and, in
deed, the two aheets Of water havs many
points Of resemblance. Lake George is gu
perior in possession Of a hundred islands,
-.
lacks; but the cliffs here are far higher and
more precipitous, sometimes overhanging the
water up g sheer ACTIVITY of three or
four shoueand feet, and the torch of
IRE ana the moulding fingers of storm
have been hare, supplemented by the skillful
hand OF man, till every mountain scar seems
masked with vines, every lettering erag stayed
by pretty srch, and every hoyden rivulet
turned into cresture Of grace and loneliness.
Nature unadorned, spite Of the poet, is often
very ugly. am sure that the sight of these
Alpine peaks around, with glacier brooks
caught in their descent and hung aloft like
jawelry, with tired clouds resting in the hol-
lows half way down, and little white villages
here and there, and invisible shepherds tend
ing invisible cattle, and churches hanging over
cliffs without any obvious congregation, and
vineyards trailing lower STILL and the dainty
manipulation of art and culture every
whore along the shore, revealing gar
dens, orchards, mounting terraces, rustic
bridges, romantic visducts, mimic bastions,
turrets and towers-I am sure this is superior
to the majestic but still barbarous framing Of
Americas most beautiful lake. There are not
many people at Beliagio now, the season being
April, May and June, September, October and
November. But We do not find it very warm,
and the lakes are call that can be desired" A
lady Of our party is badly mashed on the SUBJ
ject Ct mountains. She insists on constant
diet OF mountains; in this respect she is
F. I. G-perfectly Unsuitable girl. When che
gets home she will insist on having mountain
IA volcano, if possible) to set in the front yard
Coming through the Mt Gents pass she stood
up almost all the way for nine hours and
rhapsodized about the snow-cappsd mountains
that fanked the way. Any suggestion that she
ait down aud rest was resented as fat bias
phemy. So we shall stay here for a week and
take ono lofty range for daily ration and an
extra peak (through field glass) for lunch.
ART AND RELIGION IN ROME.
There is not much new to write you about
the ruins of Rome --w which is not go SUI
perhuous sentence as it first appears. More
than half OF the classic ruins have been dis
closed to view within the last tveuty-f five years.
when Napoleon Ill seriously began she work
of excavation. Since his Reinforcement it has
been carried forward languidly, aud al present
the remainder Of the Roman forum is being
uncovered at the rate of half an acre year
few good statues have been found this year,
but nothing Of primary Importance and little
that will be used to illustrate the progress of
art Rome is the center Of the study of sculpt-
ure, as Paris is Of painting. There are here
more than 3, 900 artists and students Of arr,
from all quarters Of the globe. There is one
student here from Patagonia; several from Ja-
pan and China and the Sandwich and Society
islands There are eight or ten Americans.
none OF them students, I am afraid, all Of
them professors and practitioners. People Of
other Municipalities come to Rome to study;
Americans generally come 10 go to work and
s.sculp" at once An artist told me:
II have never known but two Americans, beside
myself. who here and honestly went to study
ing. They generally come and set up studio the
first thing; take few lessons of some impecunious
Italian, got some clay, and 60 to work-fshing for
orders If they get a commission. good luck |
They then hire an artist. generally an Italian, to
make a model for them, and then hire workmen to
make the statue. I can mention half dozen
artists whose names stand high in America, who
got their populations on work conceived and exc
cuted almost wholly by Italians, and I know some
OF the men who did the work. Rogers has always
made his own models believe; so has Mrs Phin-
ney, who received severe training in our schools
here: SO has Bartlett But majority of thu
American sculptors have been pretenders, when
Cor thirty francs year for tuition they might have
thoroughly qualified themselves by full course in
the Royal Institute
"Relgous?" he continued in reply to my question,
mo; no men 10 Italy religious excepting the
priests and some OF tho peasants. I mean what
say--a}naost literally none. know scores of art
lists, lawyers, doctors, educated men. hundreds,
perhaps. and / do not remember one single re-
ligious among them all. There is, Of course
now and then religious here who is not abso-
lutely lHarate, but he is regarded with astonish-
nent if not with scorn. I heard two young artists
yesterday talk about a companion. There's Fiz :
zacio. said one, a bright fellow, fair artist, en-
Hghtened and respected--what can we hope for
Italy when such man as he is goes to church, to
prayer. and even to confesson?' This shows the
feeiipp The bettnr class of Ttssns-.thst 10 Tho