Visiting Italy's Lake District: Part IV - Il Lago d'Orta

Il Lago d'Orta (Lake Orta) is one of the smallest - just eight miles long and two miles wide - and least known of the northern Italian lakes.  Tiny as it is, however, it provided both HWMBO and me with some of our most pleasant and memorable, even sublime, moments from the visit to Italy.

This little jewel of a lake has been known as Lake Orta since the 16th century.  Before then, it was known as the Lago di San Giulio after San Guilio (Saint Julius of Novara), who lived during the fourth century and is the patron saint of the region.  More about him later.

Our day began in Stresa where our group walked to the lakeside and boarded a small tour bus.  On the way, Guide K described some of what we would be seeing once we had arrived.

Once the bus had arrived at Orta San Guilio, the little town named after San Guilio, which is built on a peninsula projecting from the east shore of the lake, we were reunited with Guide P, who described the walk that we would take for the first part of the morning, which was to be a climb to the Sacro Monte (Sacred Mountain) di Orta.

Wouldn't you know it?  The morning was beautiful, bright and sunny, with none of the haze that we had experienced the previous day when we had hoped to view Lago Maggiore and its setting from the heights.  In fact, it was actually growing hot and the climb to the Sacro Monte was more of a challenge than we had anticipated.   When we got to the top, some of us were winded.  We all had new respect for those medieval pilgrims who had made this particular pilgrimage in conditions much less favorable than our own.

The Sacro Monte was built on a hill overlooking the old village of Orta San Guilio and Lake Orta.  The itinerary is a devotional one begun in the late 16th century with work lasting more than a century.  It consisnts of twenty chapels depicting the high points of the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.  The Sacro Monte chapels were presented in a way intended to prevent those followers of the Catholic Church in Rome from converting to Protestantism.  Saint Francis was chosen as the model for living a Christian life and the itinerary of the visit presents those aspects of his life that most echo those of Jesus Christ.  

The chapels are decorated with frescoes

and life-size terra cotta figures. 

The episodes are often depicted in a charmingly lifelike and credible manner.  The artists used local people as models so that those who visited, who were illiterate for the most part, could easily follow the events of Saint Francis's life, identify with them to a certain extent and understand that the message was not meant just for those who were wealthy members of the aristocracy.

While the earlier chapels were built in late Renaissance-style, the style changed to baroque during the second half of the 17th century. 

Rococo touches were added until the last quarter of the 18th century. 

Building of the last chapel, the Cappella Nuova, was conducted in the neoclassical style but it remains incomplete.

After viewing most of the chapels on the Sacro Monte, we headed towards the little city of Orto San Giulio for the next part of our visit, which would take us to the lovely Isola San Giulio.