Note 12 — Chapter V · NORTH TIROL—UNTERINNTHAL. (LEFT INN-BANK.)

Close opposite Viecht lies Schwatz;12 a number of straggling houses, called ‘die lange Gasse,’ on the Viecht side belong to it also; between them there is a bridge, which we will not cross now, but continue a little further along the left bank; this, though less rich in smiling pastures than the right, has many points of interest. The next village to Viecht is Vomp, situated at the entrance of the Vomperthal, the sternest and most barren in scenery or settlements of any valley of Tirol, and characterized by a hardy pedestrian as ‘frightfully solitary, and difficult of access: even the boldest Jägers,’ he adds, ‘seldom pursue their game into it.’ The village church of Vomp once possessed a priceless work of Albert Dürer, an ‘Ancona,’ showing forth in its various compartments the history of the Passion; but it was destroyed in 1809, when the French, under Deroi, set fire to the church in revenge for the havoc the Tirolean sharp-shooters had committed among their ranks. Joseph Arnold (in 1814) did his best to repair the loss, by painting another altar-piece, in which we see a less painful than the usual treatment of the martyrdom of St. Sebastian: the artist has chosen the moment at which the young warrior is being bound to the tree where he is to suffer so bravely. Above the village stands the once splendid castle of Sigmundslust, one of the hunting-seats of Sigismund the Monied (der Münzreiche),13 now the villa of a private family of Innsbruck, Riccabona by name. Vomp is also the birth-place of Joseph Hell, the wood-carver.