Norwich bulletin., 1915-07-13
ITALY's RICHEST TREASURES
 IN NORTHERN CITIES
Are in Danger of Destruction As the
 Result of the War.
Especial to The Bulietin.)

Washington, D. C.. July l2.-Where fromance and industry beauty and
 squalor, the greatest in art and veri-
 est quackery run riotous patterns
 through the sub-Alpine lands of Italy. invasion is threatening again and such
 Of the rich heritage of civilization as mas Weathered the many storms that
 have gathered and broken over North
 ern Italy. is again in danger of wars ruthless destruction. Some of Italy's richest treasures and memories are contained in her northern cities, and here, too, lies the weight of industrial commercial and political Italy. An in
 innate description of these provinces aoutung upon the latest battle frontier has been prepared for the National tGeographic society by Florence Craig Albrecht, whose understanding of Italy Is that of a longtime, sympathetic friend. She writes:
 The fatal gift of beauty which is Italy's dover, is that of each of her children, as their history is hers. The | unified Italy, which our generation has known, is no older than us The peninsula bounded, roughly speaking, by the Alps, the Mediterranean. the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenean Sea, has been occupied from the dawn of history ' to our own time by countless rival l states; has been in turn both con queror and conquere+: ruler of half the world, vassal of petty kings. Each of its ancient cities presents a shield sQ< <dented with sears, so overwritten with words and deeds, that no casual | tourist may decipher it.. Its loveltness. l however, he may none-the-less enjoy. |
 If Italy's pages in history a<e | drenched in blood they are gilded and | glowing also with music and poetry | and Song with valor and love and art. H If she were not a nation, she was the home of many; a bit of earth so love ly that the coolest-headed geographer a not only to wondrous fruits and flog- CTS, but to marvellous children of men
 What our debt to her may be-in architecture, in sculpture, in painting, life from dull necesSitouS routine none may measure. Her political past we may criticize; her artistic, never.
 From Genoa northward to Pavia is but little way, but that way is over the Ligurian Alps, all green and | gray with vineyards and olives. and noisy with swift little rushing rivers | and mill wheels claclxing around-a | lovely way that eventually brings us | into the plain of Lombardy. And here | there are many rich cities and much | of art and of history, for in this great | fertile plain between huge mountain | chains armies have ever gathered, | looking up toward the Alps. to great | victories over the pagans beyond them | or. themselves pagans rejoicing in the |
 
 faced joyously the Apennines and | Rome.
 "Northward the snow peaks of the | Alps form natural barrier, it would | seem. to the nation tenanting this | peninsula; but soldiers have little sym | pathy with geographical boundaries | save for strategic purposes and dip lomatists none The western chain of | Alps bends southward to the Medi- | terranean. ending presumably in the | hsna a nd hefI md Monaco. Across this physical bound ary line Italy's western limits have | been thrust back and forth through | centuries, reaching once far beyond | Nice, at present not quite touching | Mentone, which is Is miles to the east | of 1t. In the Central Alps the south ern slopes belong D Italy, although, l of course, the greater portion of the | chain lies in Switzerland; but the | Eastern Alps, to the south as well as | north are Austrian.
 Of beautiful, romantic Austrian Ty- | rol, at present warpawn. the writer says:
 Occupied at the dawn of it's history | by a wild Celtic tribe-the Rhaetians-I tanned by all-conQuering Rome into the tributary province of Rhaetia- the northern part of Tyrol was German ized as early as the fifth century. On Il the other hand. the southern part re- mained Roman, even to the extent of | Romanizing the Teutonic LAndgobarIli | who swept up into it from the plains | of the Pc. The southern part, like | Italy itself, conquered it's Teutonic | conquerors, imposing upon them its | language, it's customs, it's life and | thought, even while submitting to | their laws. In part at least this much | disputed, Italian speaking, Italian | looking district was long ruled by | Verona and by Venice: a hundred | years of Austrian rule have not made | of Trent the most prosperous little | city of south Tyroi, or Riva. the pie turesque port upon Lake Garda, any | thing but Italian towns. Natural sym pathies and geographical boundaries combine to make the Trenttno most desirable to Italy's: yet no one may wonder that Austria Is reluctant to l. yield 1t.
 Milan. the rich, modern, metropolis of the North, where industry is con- tinua1ly throbbing and where the life | of a steadily strengthening commerce pulsates, not many miles removed from | the Austrian frontier, is-thus descrfb1d | by Mrs. Albrecht:
 Milan is today such a halfway house for people rushing up and down T. the earth. from the Mediterranean to the Alps, from Venice to Como: it ifs III SO very well known, so very crowded, M so busy, 50 busting, fone fee1s there " is nothing more to be told of her Perhaps because she seems SO entirely modern, because she bears Co few frannm of <,r1 aafr..I.