Ch. 10: Lanzo

From S. Ambrogio we went to Turin, a city so well known that I need not describe it. The Hotel Europa is the best, and, indeed, one of the best hotels on the continent. Nothing can exceed it for comfort and good cookery. The gallery of old masters contains some great gems. Especially remarkable are two pictures of Tobias and the angel, by Antonio Pollaiuolo and Sandro Botticelli; and a magnificent tempera painting of the Crucifixion, by Gaudenzio Ferrari--one of his very finest works. There are also several other pictures by the same master, but the Crucifixion is the best.

From Turin I went alone to Lanzo, about an hour and a half's railway journey from Turin, and found a comfortable inn, the Hotel de la Poste. There is a fine fourteenth-century tower here, and the general effect of the town is good.

One morning while I was getting my breakfast, English fashion, with some cutlets to accompany my bread and butter, I saw an elderly Italian gentleman, with his hand up to his chin, eyeing me with thoughtful interest. After a time he broke silence.

"Ed il latte," he said, "serve per la suppa." {21}

I said that that was the view we took of it. He thought it over a while, and then feelingly exclaimed -

"Oh bel!"

Soon afterwards he left me with the words -

"La! dunque! cerrea! chow! stia bene."

"La" is a very common close to an Italian conversation. I used to be a little afraid of it at first. It sounds rather like saying, "There, that's that. Please to bear in mind that I talked to you very nicely, and let you bore me for a long time; I think I have now done the thing handsomely, so you'll be good enough to score me one and let me go." But I soon found out that it was quite a friendly and civil way of saying good-bye.

The "dunque" is softer; it seems to say, "I cannot bring myself to say so sad a word as 'farewell,' but we must both of us know that the time has come for us to part, and so" -

"Cerrea" is an abbreviation and corruption of "di sua Signoria,"-- "by your highness's leave." "Chow" I have explained already. "Stia bene" is simply "farewell."

The principal piazza of Lanzo is nice. In the upper part of the town there is a large school or college. One can see into the school through a grating from the road. I looked down, and saw that the boys had cut their names all over the desks, just as English boys would do. They were very merry and noisy, and though there was a priest standing at one end of the room, he let them do much as they liked, and they seemed quite happy. I heard one boy shout out to another, "Non c' e pericolo," in answer to something the other had said. This is exactly the "no fear" of America and the colonies. Near the school there is a field on the