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Photo (c)
Aldo Casati
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Lago d'Orta - Lake Orta
Lake Orta (It. Lago d'Orta) is a lake in
northern Italy west of Lago Maggiore.
It has been so named since the 16th century, but was
previously called the Lago di San Giulio, after Saint Julius (4th
century), the patron saint of the region; Cusio is a merely poetical name.
Its southern end is about 22 m. by rail N.W. of Novara on the main
Turin-Milan line, while its north end is about 4 m. by rail S. of the
Gravellona-Toce railway station, half-way between Ornavasso and Omegna. Its scenery is characteristically Italian,
while the San Giulio island (just W. of the village of Orta San Giulio) has
some very picturesque buildings, and takes its name from the local saint,
who lived in the 4th century.
The chief place is Orta San Giulio, built on a peninsula
projecting from the east shore of the lake, while Omegna is at its northern
extremity.
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It is supposed that the lake is the remnant of a much
larger sheet of water by which originally the waters of the Toce or Tosa
flowed south towards Novara. As the glaciers retreated the waters flowing
from them sank, and were gradually diverted into Lago Maggiore.
The largest structure on the island is the
Basilica
of Saint Giulio. The large island (just W. of the village of Orta) has some
very picturesque buildings, and takes its name from a local saint (Saint
Julius), who lived in the 4th century.
Text from
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Copyrights for details.)
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Photo (c) Roberto Romano
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Photo (c) Roberto Romano
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The area around the lake was inhabited in Roman
times and then it was part of a Longobard duchy. The territory of Lake Orta
belonged to the Church and to Milan, becoming part of the Kingdom of
Sardinia towards the end of the 18th century.
Orta San Giulio
has a very pleasant climate, made mild by the presence of the lake.
It is worth visiting the Palazzo della Comunità, of the 16th century, and
the parish church, of the 15th century. At little more than a kilometer away
there is the interesting Sacro Monte
(Holy Hill), a wooded hill with a religious complex made up of around twenty
chapels dedicated to Saint Francis, put up between the 16th and 18th
centuries and decorated with frescoes and sculptures.
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Friedrich Nietzsche
No plaque whatsoever is found to record the event, yet among
the illustrious visitors Orta can boast the towering figure of a
great philosopher as Friedrich Nietzsche stands out.
Not much is
known about Nietzsche’s short sojourn at Orta, even less about
the crucial role it played in his overall anguished existence,
being the cause of a turning point in the development of his
thought.
In the month of May 1882, a very young Lou Salomé, a
Russian woman with a great charm and intelligence (most
outstanding among the extraordinary figures of the "belle
époque") spent a few days at Orta; she was accompanied by her
mother, Nietzsche and Paul Rée, a mutual friend.
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Photo (c) Roberto Romano
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Leafing through their correspondence during
the months before the travel, a trace is clearly found of the
former’s impatience to make the acquaintance of the young Russian,
who, in her turn, was no less eager to meet him. Therefore for a
while there was "a party of four" on their journey back to the north
from the Grand Tour. It was on that occasion, upon Nietzsche’s
proposal, that the party made its way towards Orta.
(c) 1997-2008 E. Massetti
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