SACRO MONTE HERMIT

Evening Star, Issue 19784, 7 February 1928, Page 8

SACRO MONTE HERMIT

AN ITALIAN CHARACTER. Italy lost one of her famous characters the other day through (he death of (he Hermit of (be Sacred Mountain (Sacro Monte) of Varallo, in the province of Novara, Piedmont. Ho was eighty-one years of age. For forty-one years lie had been a familiar figure to the thousands of pilgrims who camo yearly to visit t lie ancient shrine, with its lorty-six chapels ranged along the winding path of the beautiful ascent. Ho first appeared on the mountain in 1886, and from that time until his death ho never left it. He lived like a hermit of old, dedicating himself to prayer and meditation and to the cultivation of a small garden in which bo raised rare and beautiful flowers to adorn the shrine of the Madonnas. Tall and straight in spile of the years, entirely bald, and always dressed in a loose jacket of blue linen and trousers of the same material, he was a figure that arrested the eye of every pilgrim. He was a gentle soul, extremely affable and full of human kindness On one subject only he refused to talk, and that- his past before he camo to the mountain. He belonged to no religious order, and followed no particular rule.

His name was Giuseppe de Rocco, and ho was born at-San Stino di Livenza, in the province of Venice, in 1846. That is all that was definitely known of him. Gossip has it that he became a hermit, following the death of ■ his young wife, who was killed by accident. The hermit lived frugally on the offerings •of pilgrims. He received thousands of° lire from visitors. He spent little on himself. Most of the money went toward the construction of a beautiful chapel and a little house. He may have had some premonition of his death, for he had prepared his own grave. His end came while he was playing a hymn. Jt is true that majorities are often wrong, but the same may be said of minorities.