Ch. 4: Rossura, Calonico

Another day I went up to Rossura, a village that can be seen from the windows of the Hotel dell' Angelo, and which stands about 3500 feet above the sea, or a little more than 1100 feet above Faido. The path to it passes along some meadows, from which the church of Calonico can be seen on the top of its rocks some few miles off. By and by a torrent is reached, and the ascent begins in earnest. When the level of Rossura has been nearly attained, the path turns off into meadows to the right, and continues--occasionally under magnificent chestnuts--till one comes to Rossura.

The church has been a good deal restored during the last few years, and an interesting old chapel--with an altar in it--at which mass was said during a time of plague, while the people stood some way off in a meadow, has just been entirely renovated; but as with some English churches, the more closely a piece of old work is copied the more palpably does the modern spirit show through it, so here the opposite occurs, for the old-worldliness of the place has not been impaired by much renovation, though the intention has been to make everything as modern as possible.

I know few things more touching in their way than the porch of Rossura church. It is dated early in the last century, and is absolutely without ornament; the flight of steps inside it lead up to the level of the floor of the church. One lovely summer Sunday morning, passing the church betimes, I saw the people kneeling upon these steps, the church within being crammed. In the darker light of the porch, they told out against the sky that showed through the open arch beyond them; far away the eye rested on the mountains-- deep blue save where the snow still lingered. I never saw anything more beautiful--and these forsooth are the people whom so many of us think to better by distributing tracts about Protestantism among them!

While I was looking, there came a sound of music through the open door--the people lifting up their voices and singing, as near as I can remember, something which on the piano would come thus:-

[At this point in the book a music score is given]

I liked the porch almost best under an aspect which it no longer presents. One summer an opening was made in the west wall, which was afterwards closed because the wind blew through it too much and made the church too cold. While it was open, one could sit on the church steps and look down through it on to the bottom of the Ticino valley; and through the windows one could see the slopes about Dalpe and Cornone. Between the two windows there is a picture of austere old S. Carlo Borromeo with his hands joined in prayer.

It was at Rossura that I made the acquaintance of a word which I have since found very largely used throughout North Italy. It is pronounced "chow" pure and simple, but is written, if written at all, "ciau," or "ciao," the "a" being kept very