“But there arose colossally”
(MS VIII, Poems [1891]; Works [1903])— Ruskinʼs use of the modifier
colossal
in this poem may be another indication that the untitled piece does in fact refer to
Lago Maggiore, as
W. G. Collingwood assumed.
Like many visitors to
Arona, where the Ruskins staid while touring the lake, they visited the bronze
“colossal statue of S. Carlo Borromeo”,
whose dimensions are exactingly listed by
Ruskinʼs cousin,
Mary Richardson, in her travel diary
(
Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 63).
John Murray III describes the monument in his
1838 travel guide to Switzerland:
“On the summit of a hill, about half an hourʼs walk from the town, stands the
Colossal Statue of St. Charles Borromeo,
66 ft. high, and placed on a pedestal 40 ft. high. The head, hands, and feet, alone, are cast in bronze, the rest of the figure is formed of sheets of beaten copper,
arranged round a pillar of rough masonry which forms the support of it. The saint is represented extending his hand towards the lake,
and over his birth‐place,
Arona, bestowing on them his benediction. There is grace in the attitude, in spite of the gigantic proportions of the figure,
and benevolence beams from the countenance;—altogether the effect of it is good and very impressive. It was erected,
1697, by subscriptions,
principally contributed by the Borromean family. It is possible to enter the statue and to mount up into the head, but the ascent is difficult and fatiguing,
and not to be attempted by the nervous. It is effected by means of two ladders, tied together (provided by a man who lives hard by), resting on the pedestal,
and reaching up to the skirt of the saintʼs robe. Between the folds of the upper and lower drapery the adventurous climber squeezes himself through—a task
of some difficulty, if he be of corpulent dimensions; and he then clambers up the stone pillar which supports the head, by placing his feet upon the iron bars
or cramps by which the copper drapery is attached to it. To effect this, he must assume a straddling attitude, and proceed in the dark till he reaches the head,
which he will find capable of holding 3 persons at once. Here he may rest himself by sitting down in the recess of the nose, which forms no bad substitute
for an arm‐chair. In the neighbouring church several relics of
St. Carlo are preserved”
(
Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 164–65).
Carlo Borromeo (
1538–84) was archbishop of
Milan and a leader of the Counter‐Reformation. His statue, known as the
San Carlone,
was commissioned by his cousin,
Federico Borromeo (
1564–1631),
as part of a
sacromonte, which, according to
Linda Wolk‐Simon, was to be
“comprised of some thirty chapels on a mountainside commemorating events from
Carloʼs exemplary life
of pastoral care and spiritual devotion”, culminating “in a colossal bronze statue of the saint looking out at
Lago Maggiore”.
The scheme was planned by
1598, but not begun until
1614, well after
Carloʼs canonization, and never completed.
The
colossus was finally cast and erected in
1698 by the sculptors
Bernardo Falcone (active
1659–94) and
Siro Zanelli (d.
1724), based on a design by
Giovanni Battista Crespi, known as
Cerano (ca.
1575–1632),
a multi‐talented artist who was appointed by
Federico as professor of painting for his Accademia del Disegno, attached to his library, the
Ambrosiana, at
Milan.
Wolk‐Simon says of the drawing on which
the colossus was based:
“Most striking in the drawing is the realism of the figure, whose individualized, distinctive features are at once recognizable.
This work (and the sculpture for which it served as a model) was . . . intended to be an authentic image, one that by virtue of its very authenticity,
or
verismo, acquired a moral and spiritual authority imparted by its subject”
(
Wolk‐Simon, “Naturalism in Lombard Drawing from Leonardo to Cerano”, 58–59, 201).
