Part 9 (2/2)
Now it only remained to colonize the monastery, and ultimately the Benedictines came to inhabit it, and here the giant lived amongst them a life of penance and good works, dying in the year 878. His body, so tradition states, was buried on the right-hand side of the high altar in the church. But although many searches have been made for his remains during the period which elapsed between his death and the middle of the seventeenth century, they have never been discovered.
But the last search in 1644 was disastrous as well as unsuccessful, because it undermined a great part of the wall of the church, which collapsed. The popular belief in the two giants is kept alive by the huge wooden statues representing them, which are placed at the entrance of the church. The interior of the building is in the form of a basilica, and contains not only frescoes by Caspar Waldmann, but also some good pictures by Grasmayr, Busjager, Andersag, Egid Schor, and other artists.
The Abbey of Wilten in those days was one of the three most important in Tyrol, and was not only the centre of religious, but also of the artistic life of the country, and it nowadays possesses some very interesting and valuable pictures.
One of the most famous of the old-time inmates of the Abbey was Petermann, once a lover of the licentious Margaret of Tyrol, yclept ”Pocket-Mouthed Meg.” After her abdication in 1367, Petermann entered the monastery to expiate the sins and follies of his youth. He endowed the Abbey with an estate, but he showed his business capacity by having an agreement drawn up with the Abbot setting forth the terms upon which he joined the brotherhood. Amongst other things he was, firstly, to derive benefit from all the ma.s.ses said by the monks, and the good works performed by them; secondly, was to have two servants to wait upon him, who were to share the meals of the brethren; thirdly, he, himself, was to have food similar to that served to the Abbot and wines from the monastic cellar. Apparently the arrangement did not, after all, fit in with the views of Petermann, for we find he afterwards insisted upon an increase in his food allowance to the extent of a capon, four fowls, forty eggs, and four pounds of b.u.t.ter, with sufficient hay for the feeding of his three horses.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A PINE WOOD NEAR INNSBRUCK]
[Sidenote: A LEGEND OF WILTEN]
The other church at Wilten (the Parish Church), which stands on the opposite side of Leopold-Stra.s.se, dates only from the latter part of the eighteenth century, and was built as a secular church in conformity with the decree of the Emperor Joseph II., by Franz Penz of Telfs, in the Rococo style of architecture. On the high altar of the church is a very ancient and quaint Madonna known as ”Mutter Gottes unter den vier Saulen” carved in sandstone, the legend relating to which is as follows: The ”Thundering Legion” of Marcus Aurelius, when stationed at Veldidena about the year 137, brought this image with them, which they are stated to have wors.h.i.+pped, and on one occasion, when departing for an expedition to a distant part of the country, they buried it under four trees, and as they did not return had no opportunity of resurrecting it. There it lay for many years, until one, Rathold Von Aiblingen, after making a pilgrimage to Rome, where he heard the story of its burying and the place of its concealment, dug it up and set it upon the altar in a _baldachino_, which was supported by four pillars, where it has always been an object of much veneration. Amongst its many famous devotees was Frederick of the Empty Purse, who, during his wanderings through Tyrol with his trusty Hans Von Mullinen, when under the ban of the church, came and knelt before the shrine and prayed for a blessing. Afterwards, when he had regained his possessions, he attributed his success to the intervention of the Madonna at Wilten and caused a picture to be painted of himself and his esquire, in which they are shown kneeling at the shrine under the protective mantle of the Virgin. This quaint picture is now hung in the church amongst many other curious and often pathetic votive offerings.
In the mortuary chapel is a rudely carved and painted wooden statue of Haimon holding the dragon's tongue in his hand. There are also some of Grasmayr's paintings to be seen in the church, and in the adjoining churchyard, from which one can obtain a most beautiful view of the valley and surrounding mountains, is the modern Calvary by the Tyrolean sculptor, Professor Fuss. In this quiet spot, crowded with memories of the dead past, one is able in a measure to conjure up pictures of the times when the Etruscan, Roman, and Gothic invaders poured into the valley by the Brenner Pa.s.s and overran Tyrol, and left upon the country and the people enduring traces of their occupation.
The Wilten Churches are both of simple architectural style, but nevertheless are effective and even impressive when seen amidst the environment of a beautiful landscape, with their picturesque, red-capped towers lit by the Alpine sunlight, and with their buff-coloured walls beautified by the stains of weather and of time.
[Sidenote: WINTER SPORTS]
Numerous as are the undoubted attractions of Innsbruck in early spring, summer, and autumn, when the encircling fields and mountain slopes are gay with Alpine flowers, and beautiful with the varied tints of the foliage of trees and shrubs, the town is yearly becoming more widely known and more largely frequented as a winter holiday resort, where what are generally known as ”winter sports” can be indulged in to one's heart's content. Indeed, Innsbruck, which possesses one of the largest and most beautiful ice rinks in Europe, takes a very leading part in the Tyrolean winter sports. One of the town's most remarkable features is its climate, which, notwithstanding the proximity of huge ma.s.ses of ice and snow, not only upon the summits of the towering mountains of the Karwendel, but also on the lower slopes, and in the valley of the Inn itself, is a mild one, and the sunny days are many.
One of the most delightful Alpine experiences possible, for those who do not take part in the more active sports of ski running, skating, or tobogganing, is a sleigh ride on the Brenner Road to Matrei or even further, returning on the other side of the gorge of the Sill by way of Igls and Patsch. Expert ski runners find many opportunities for exercising their skill, the more adventurous and hardy making excursions far afield in the valley of the Inn. A very favourite ground for this pastime of ski-ing is on the farther side of the Sill near Natters and Mutters, where are to be found those immense plateaux of smooth-surfaced snow beloved of good runners, and a beautiful landscape forming a charming background. Expert runners, however, frequently extend their field of operations into the Karwendel mountains, or as far as the Kalkkogel in the beautiful Stubai valley.
Tobogganing has become not only a fas.h.i.+onable pastime amongst visitors, but also with the better cla.s.s inhabitants of Innsbruck. And thus every evening when the snow is sufficient and in good condition, hundreds of tobogganers make their way of the heights of Igls and Mutters, where the best tracks are prepared.
Sunday is, however, the great day; and then the long runs near Hall and Oberperfutz are crowded with hundreds of bob-sleighs and tobogganers. The Hall run is famous throughout Tyrol. A road extends from Salzberg far into the Karwendel mountains, pa.s.sing through beautiful Alpine scenery to Hall itself, forming a natural run or track some five kilometres (just over three miles) in length, with a drop of nearly 3000 feet in that distance. The Innsbruck Club, by means of a snow plough, keeps a run about fifteen feet wide clear.
This track is to be soon further lengthened to the extent of two kilometres by carrying it as far as Lafatscherjoch, where several important races are arranged and held every year.
Winter sports are indulged in on all sides. Along the valley of the swiftly flowing Inn from Schwaz, past Jenbach and Brixlegg on to Kufstein, one finds facilities for those most invigorating of pastimes tobogganing, ski-ing, and skating. Even the children have their little home-made and often ornamented toboggans, and on the mountain roads and by-paths one meets with scores of youngsters emulating their elders and foreign visitors; whilst the frozen tributary streams which fall into the Inn provide fine skating grounds and curling links without stint set amid the delightful scenery, which had so much to do with the popularity of the valley of the Inn and Innsbruck as winter holiday resorts.
It is not without reason that many who come to the capital of Tyrol return again and again, finding in its life and movement, its historic buildings, a.s.sociations, and art treasures material for study; in its climate renewed health and vigour.
The circle of snow-capped environing hills, upon which effects of cloud and sunlight ceaselessly pa.s.s, never palls; and in the ancient byways and secluded courtyards ears and minds attuned to the historic past seem to catch the echoes and see visions of stirring scenes, and the pageantry of long ago when knights and ladies and serving-men, and burghers in quaint old-time costumes trod the rough-paved streets.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] See Zoller's ”Geschichte der Stadt Innsbruck.”
[11] By some authorities the work is stated to have been carried out by Andrea Crivelli of Trent.
[12] See Kloppel's ”Maximilian.”
[13] This is as stated in Baedeker, and is the view of several authorities, though by no means certain.-C. H.
CHAPTER V
THE ENVIRONS OF INNSBRUCK--CASTLE AMBRAS AND ITS TREASURES--IGLS: A QUAINT LEGEND CONCERNING ITS CHURCH--THE STUBAI VALLEY, AND SOME VILLAGES--HALL AND ITS SALT MINES--SPECKBACHER'S OLD HOME--ST. MICHAEL
Distant from Innsbruck about three miles by a shady road running eastward from Berg Isel, which forms a charming walk of a summer afternoon, stands the famous Castle Ambras on a well-wooded spur of the Mittelgebirge overlooking the wide Inn Valley, and with a fine view of the slopes and peaked summits of the limestone mountains which shut in the valley. It is a conspicuous and commanding feature of the landscape when seen from the latter, its yellow-grey walls pierced with many windows showing up against a background of dark-green forest. But on a fine summer day Castle Ambras is too bare-looking and insistent in colour to be entirely picturesque.
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