This past Thursday, one of my tutors decided to offer an alternative to the regular morning class -- a trip to Lago d'Orta, a lake about a half-hour from where we were staying at Verbania. Since it was a replacement for the tutoring session, we would be speaking in Italian for the trip. She extended the offer to any of the other seminarians who were interested. In all, eight of us went.
Our main sites to see were the island in the middle of the lake, where there is the Church of San Giulio and a Benedictine monastery, and the Sacro Monte, a series of small chapels run by the Franciscans. More on those in a bit.
We had to walk down into one of the towns on the lakeshore in order to catch a ferry to the island. This is a view of the island from the town.
Also, I've noticed in quite a few of these towns, there is art many public buildings other than churches. In the town marketplace, there are frescos on the building, as well as a modern sculpture (metal hats on a disc) next to it.
On the island is the Church of San Giulio. As is fairly common here, the relics of San Giulio are on display in a small chapel under the main sanctuary (you can see the tip of the doorframe for the stairway in the lower right corner of the the first picture). The church contained multiple frescoes, including the one shown of St. Christopher. The Ambo in the final picture is from the 12th Century, and is one of the few Ambos from that era in existence.
After we rode back to the town, we went to the Sacro Monte. This is one of about eight scattered throughout the Alps in Italy and Switzerland. They served as small pilgrimage sites to counter the effects of the Protestant Reformation. This Sacro Monte was quite visible from the island. The other seminarian in the picture with Dan is Scott, one of our classmates from the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin.
This particular Sacro Monte is dedicated to the life of St. Francis. There are twenty small chapels that depict different scenes from his life, death, and canonization. Each of these scenes is portrayed using a combination of frescoes and life-sized statues. The scene shown is St. Francis speaking with the Sultan of Egypt. The Pieta that is above the High Altar in the main Church is about a thousand years old.
The final picture that I will leave you with is the magnificent view of the island that I was greeted with upon leaving the main Church, after the sun had come out again. Ciao until next time.
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