Vs.< A' Ulrich Middeldorf i Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/newobservationso01gros NEW OBSERVATIONS O N ITALY AND ITS INHABITANTS. T N TWO VOL U M E S. r * rt-i ■ ~r i \ i a i < • - v /' >■ i NEW OBSERVATIONS O N ITALY AND ITS INHABITANTS. WRITTEN IN FRENCH BY TWO SWEDISH GENTLEMEN. TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY THOMAS NUGENT, L. L. D. AND FELLOW OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTI QJJ ARIES. VOL. I. L O N D O N : PRINTED FOR L. DAVIS AND C. REYMERS, PRINTERS TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY. MDCCLXIX. f \ T . ii H c'a . o -A * r T O EDWIN FRANCIS STANHOPE, Efq ; THESE OBSERVATIONS ON ITALY and its inhabitants. As a Teftimony of Efteem for his public and private Virtues, As a Monument of fincere Friendihip, And as a Tribute of Acknowledgement for many Favours, Are moft refpedtfully infcribed By his moft humble and Obedient Servant, Thomas Nugent. % r l' ' :"V ’4 ■ ( „ ... •" i A * >"i . . ■-• JV l- ; - - ;-5i y r • ■ ' : c t If ~ " ■ ! - .. \rih . z : ziit ' 0 $ r^nso-ie ■ ■.i'ivir.' "r. ‘ j ( iii ) P R E FAC E BY THE TRANSLATOR. IT has been obferved by a late cele<~ brated writer *, that it is impoflible to be tired of fo agreeable a fubject as ancient Rome; and that grangers frequently neg- lect the modern palaces of that renowned capital, to run in fearch of its ruins. The fame remark may juftly be extended to Italy in general, which fince the reftora- tion of learning has been the grand objedt of travellers, efpecially fuch as are delirous of treading on claffic ground, and viewing with their own eyes thofe fcenes, upon which their imaginations have dwelt with pleafure, from their earlieft years, in the. writings of the Roman poets. Hence the descriptions of that delightful coun- try have been multiplied to fuch a degree, that the very titles of the many books, to ■ the publication of which it has given o'ccahpo, would be fufficieot to fill a vo- lume. It is not our intention to depreciate the merit of thofe writings ; moft of them - • contain '* The prefident Montefquieu. IV PREFACE. contain a variety of curious and ufeful knowledge, and deferve our efteem, in pro- portion to the abilities of the writers, and the main objedt or view of their feveral publications. Among thefe compolitions none feem to be intitled to a greater fhare of the public favour, than the following Obfervations on Italy and its Inhabitants. They were publifhed in France as the work of two Swedifh gentlemen ; but at prefent it is well known, they are the production of the very learned and ingenious M. Groffey. This gentleman is fuppofed to have aftumed the the abovementioned title, with a view of pre- judicing the public in favour of his per- formance. For in France it is a received and perhaps a juft opinion, that foreign tra- vellers are generally more attentive, more patient and lefs fuperficial than the French, and withal more judicious and impartial in their obfervations. Another reafon af- iigned for his putting on this dilguile, is the liberty he takes with his country- men, in acquainting them with feveral dis- agreeable truths concerning their national foibles, which perhaps they would more eafily excufe from the pen of a foreigner, than from that of a Frenchman. To which we may add, that as he is pretty free in expofing the abufes of PREFACE. ix of his own religion, he might have been ap- prehenfive of rendering himfelf obnoxious to the implacable malice of bigots and enthu halls . But fince he has ventured to pull off the mafk, the public, which from the very be- ginning applauded his performance, has paid him the tribute due to his perfonal merit. France has rung with his praifes, and thefe have been echoed by the foreign journals in different parts of Europe *. Thole who have moll nicely examined into his ex- cellencies, reprefent him as the philofophical traveller, who dirndls all his remarks, all his refearches, to his own, or to his country’s improvement : Omnis exempli document a intue- tur, indeque Jibi, fuceque patria quod imitetur capit •f*. The prefent work is particularly diftin- guilhed from the relations of all other travel- lers by its profound refearches on hillory, geography, antiquities, and the polite arts. In vain would it be to look for fo much ufeful and interefting matter in the accounts of the generality of writers. Some perhaps may give a more ample detail of the fituation of towns, others of the grandeur of palaces, and others * See Bibllotlieque d.es Sciences, tom, 24. p. 2. p. 388* and tom. 26* p. i, 105 , f Livv, of X PREFACE. of the fumptuoufnefs and beauty of chur- ches, of the variety and elegance of paint- ings, the number of infcriptions, and the an- tiquity of monuments. Our author enters upon a nobler and more comprehenfive plan ; he inveftigates the character, the manners, the cuftoms, and the private life of the inha- bitants of that much admired country. He gives us an idea of the revolutions, which have happened in the government of the dif- ferent ftates of Italy ; and of the changes, which thofe revolutions have produced in their policy and manners ; from v/hence he takes an opportunity of drawing comparifons and reflexions applicable to other nations. The public adminiifration, the ftate of reli- gion, polite literature, commerce and the fine arts, are fubjedts which never fail to engage his attention ; and his obfervations on thofe interefting topics, are conftantly interfperfed and enlivened with curious and amufing anecdotes. To conclude, his abilities as a painter of men and manners, £>ui mores ho- minum multorum vidit & urbes, are fo con- fpicuous, that he may well be allowed to exclaim with Correggio or the great Mon- tefquieu, ed io anche Jon pittore, and I am a painter alfo. PLACES ( xi ) PLACES DESCRIBED IN VOL. I. NANTUA - — ■ Page 4 Geneva — — 9 Savoy and the Alps 2 1 Piedmont 39 Turin — — - — - — — - — - — • * 41 Vercelli, Novara, Pavia and Lodi ■ — — 54 Milan . — ■ ■ ■■ 61 Placentia - — — 98 Parma • — — — . — — — ■ — - - — - no Reggio and Modena 1 16 Bologna • — — — — . — — — ■ 123 Romania — - — ■ — — — ■ — • • — 142 Rimini — — — — - 146 La Catolica — . — — — — - 147 San Marino ■ — ■ — • — • — — — ■ — 148 Pezaro 150 Sinigaglia ■ — — 158 Ferrara — • • — • — — — ■ — ■ • — 215 Venice — - — . 232 Padua ■ — • — ■ ■ — • — • • — > — • — — 296 Montselice — — • — — — — — 330 Macerata ' - — ■ — — ~ — • — - — — 357 Pieces relative to the Article of Venice * 375 Sacred Panegyric of St. Francis * — ■ — 413 ERRATA. VoL I. p. 2. I. 6. for manuturers read manufacturers p> 9. 1. 11. f prelident r. refident p. 145. 1 . 9. from the bottom 5 after his creature p. 172. 1. 7 . from the bottom , yi have r. has p. 217. 1. ult. before which infert from p. 227. 1. 19. y% 1 pattered r. fcattered p. 247. 1. 16. f head r. tread p. 265. 1. 3. after that infert is p. 294. 1. 10 , from the bottom , f, in r. of p. 340. 1. 19. before modern infert the p. 359. I. 2. f laid r. lay Vol. II. p. 2. I. 10. f is r. are p. 21 1, 1. 14. f mas r. mai p. 245. 1 . 2. f Conradin Conrad p. 347. L ult. f lubricas V. kibrieus [ ■ 3 OBSERVATIONS O N I T A L AFTER fpending three years at Paris in all the pleafures and amufements which ftrangers find in that capital, we fet out for Italy in the month of June, 1758 The choice of this year proved very fortunate for us. The fummer heats were moderate, the autumn very fine, and the winter in Italy as mild as a favourable fpring in France. As for- tune never does any thing by halves for thofe to whom it is propitious, we had not a fingle drop of rain throughout the journey, though in fettling the times of flaying in a place we never confidered fair or foul weather. Befides letters of recommendation, which we brought from Sweden, feveral perfons of the firfl Vol. I. B rank 2 OBSERVATIONS rank favoured us with theirs : to thefe letters, in- deed, we owe the chief pleafures of our journey, and the more fuccefsful purfuit of our ftudies, by opening to us the palaces of the great, and bring- ing us acquainted with the principal bankers, as likewife with the moft ingenious artifts and manu- turers. This affiftance was the more effential to us, as, in our long ftay at Paris, we had contracted a calt of the French air ; that is the very world air a”' man can carry into Italy : not that the Italians re- tain any keen refentment of the former hoftilities between the two nations ; but they dread the French vivacity : this is too oppofite to their phlegmatic difpofition ; and that freedom of be- haviour, which a Frenchman daily gives into more and more, little agrees with their precife exaft- nefs in every point of decorum. In a word, Italy is infefted with French adventurers, who fubfift, and fometimes even make a figure, at the expence of thofe whom they draw in to be their dupes : fo that to a Frenchman, or any one appearing to be fuch, Italy is like an enemy’s country, all the ave- nues to which are locked up, and the feveral polls fcriftly guarded. The firft care Should be to make it plainly appear that you are not an adventurer ; then let it be feen that a lively deportment does not always exclude folidity of j udgment *, after all, with the very bell recommendations, you muft Hand an enquiry of feme length, but condu&ed on the fide of the Italians with as much politenefs as ON ITALY. 3 53 s referve : if favourable, the fruit of it is friend- fhip, and a friendihip founded on that very fame vivacity, which they delight in, when they are convinced they have nothing to apprehend from that quarter ; a friendihip which in its increafe glows with as much warmth, as in its commence- ment it feemed to freeze with referve and indif- ference. Thus far is meant to juftify the Italians, and to prepare the French for a fcene quite dif- ferent from their manners, and far from agreeable ^ but without which they would only gaze on the Italians, in the fame manner as they view their paintings and ftatues. Leaving Paris the twentieth of May, we went to Lyons by the way of Troyes and Dijon, and from Lyons to Turin through Geneva, Savoy, and over mount Cenis, making fuch a fray at the places on the road as their confequence deferves. We returned to Paris by the way of Bourdeaux ; fo that our journey takes in a part of France, on which however we fliall not publifh our remarks, unlefs it fhould be at the defire of thofe very refpedt- able perfonages to whom we could not refufe the following obfervations. France is feparated from Italy by a chain of mountains, difpofed, as it were, to intercept all communication between the two fined: countries in Europe. Amidft the horror of thefe precipices. Na- ture offers to the phiiofopher the moll intereft- ing objeft, and for a fkilful eye the molt inviting ; B 2 to 4 OBSERVATIONS to a painter the nioft romantic landfcapes,. and huge maffes of rocks ftrangely contrafted j to the, mere traveller profpecls varying every ftep j terraffes, from whence the eye, at one glance, beholds the four feafons of the year cafcades be- yond any thing which imagination can form ; every wonder, in fhort, that art has in vain la- boured to introduce into the gardens of fovereigns. Thofe, however, who are born and brought up in level countries, find themfelves unable to repel that imprefiion of melancholy, which the dreari- nefs of this grand fpeftacle leaves on their minds. They cannot conceive, that creatures of their fpe- cies can fupport life in fo barren and fo mis-lhapen a country. The naturalift may tell them, with effufions of admiration, this country is Nature’s laboratory •, and would you, anfwer they, fpend your whole life in a laboratory ? The fovereign of this dreary country is the duke of Savoy, whofe dominions Virgil feems to have had in his eye, when he defcribed thofe of iEolus* With regard to the nature of its foil, Nantua may be looked on as the chief place. N A- N T U A. This little town, which furnifhes all Savoy with ihoes, as the greateft part of its inhabitants indeed are fhoemakers, has grown up clofe by the walls and under the protection of the abbey of Nantua, founded, during the firft race of the kings of France, by St. Amand, to whom the celebrated abbey ON ITALY. 5 abbey in Flanders of that name likewife owes its - foundation. T hefe two abbeys have the fame claim to his relics as the abbey of mount Caffin in Italy, and that of St. Benoit-fur-loire in France have to the relics of the patriarch of the Benedictines. The abbey of Nantua, originally very rich, has loft the greater part of its lay-lands. The neigh- bouring nobility have, in times of confufion, ufurp- ed feme under fpecious pretences ; and fome they have feized by open force : it has even buffered fieges from the lords of Thoire and Villars. An- other part the counts of Savoy have laid their hands on, under colour of guardianfhip and pro- tection. By thefe Ioffes the abbey of Nantua, no longer able to fupport the title, is reduced to a priory, dependent on Cluni. Its buildings are fhapelefs remains of Gothic rudenefs •, the houfe, which confifts only of a fub- prior, two monks, and fome novices, all in a lay habit, has efcaped the reform. I enquired of the fub-prior, whether the body or any monuments of Charles the bald, who died in eroding mount Ce- nis, and was buried at Nantua, were extant ; but my enquiries of him, and my diligent fearch in the church, proved equally fruitlefs. This monaftery, and the town which depends on it, ftand in an impervious valley, formed by lofty mountains : it is open towards the north, and almoft entirely furrounded by a beautiful lake, which abounds with fifh, and receives a fmall ri- ver. This river runs through the town and the B 3 court- 6 OBSERVATIONS court-yards of the monaftery. Within a little way of the town you come to a very fceep brow of a hill, which, after interfering the road, projects over the head of the lake. On this brow Hands a mill, plentifully fupplied with water, fpringing from the eaftern part of the mountains. It dis- charges itfelf into a deftly, which precipitates the fuperfluous ftream down the fteep of that moun- tain, the body of which erodes the road. Thefe waters, in their fall, form a cafcade, between twenty and thirty feet high, in a girandole perfectly circular. The waters happened to be playing when we came to Nantua : their pofition, the rocks at the bottom, the lake and the moun- tains which inclofe it, together with the oblique rays of the fun illuftrating the whole feene, exhi- bited a fpeCtacle which we could not fufficiently admire. The houfes at Nantua are of wood, with very fiat roofs, projecting a great way over the ftreet, and every ftory beyond the other. This conftruCtion, however ridiculed by thofe who do not confider that towns are to be made for the convenience of the inhabitants, is here quite pro- per and neceffary on account of the fnows, with which Nantua is covered for fome part of the year : the north wind drives them in heaps on the houfes, and great quantities are alfo precipitated from the mountain ; and thefe, by the almoft ho- rizontal inclination and the projeCture of the roofs, are carried into the middle of the ftreet ; fo that the ON ITALY. 7 the entrance and communication of the houfes are never obftrufted. This country has only a nominal relation to the Nantuates, a people of Swifferland, mentioned by Cffifar and Pliny. The country of thofe antient Nantuates was Le Valais and Le Chablais. In Savoy, Swifierland, and all over the Alps, are feveral lakes, greater or lefs than that of Nantua. The molt general pofition of thefe lakes fhews them to have been formed after the deluge by the waters that fell down from the mountains, as it is at the feet of fuch eminences that all thefe refer- voirs are found. Towards the end of the univer- fal inundation they were of the fame nature as the bafons in a river, which receive the waters if* fuing from the depths and floodgates : the water, in fcooping thefe bafons, partly inclofed them, by the feveral fubftances thus detached from the bot- tom, and gathering into a continued heap like a bar or bank. Between Nantua and Geneva, at the foot of mount Credo, is another natural wonder. The Rhone, after palling by fort L’Eclufe, and under G refin bridge, ingulphs itfelf within rocks, through which it has, as it were, filed a paffage ; here it lofes itfelf under ground, and at the diltance of a hundred- paces rifes again. Before it is thus ingulphed, it re- ceives a river, of which I could not learn the name ; but it is crofied at Belle Garde bridge, and its wa- ters, like that of the Rhone, are of a dark blue, with a fcum. This has likewile eaten itfelf a paf* B 4 fage, 8 OBSERVATIONS fage, but very narrow, through rocks, on the cor- refpondent furfaces of which are perfeft figures of water-budgets, or large pottage pots, the rotun- dity of one anfwering to the interval of two oppo- fites : nothing can be more difagreeable than the noife of the confined waters, clafhing among thefe pots ; it is indeed the ferri jiridor , or the grating of a file on a faw. Before thefe rocks became thus excavated, or the Rhone had made its way into the abyfs, where it is abforbecl, its waters, being fupported by the ground under which it now runs, may be con- cluded to have formed a lake between thefe moun- tains of France, which are commanded by fort L’Eclufe, and thofe of Savoy •, thofe huge mafles being in fuch a correfpondent difpofition, as to form a bafon for receiving the waters to whatever height they had rifen. We had more leifure to take a view of this coun- try than we defired ; in our afcent up mount Credo which was by means of pwo yokes of oxen, one of the braces of our chaife broke on the fide of the precipice, along which the road lies, and the remaining half days journey we accomplished on foot. We reached Geneva on the 12 th of June : at a fmall diftance from it we faw the gate of a moil beautiful garden open, when out came a very handfome chaife, and, to our great furprife, two jefuits in it. We were afterwards informed that this fame garden is M. Voltaire’s fo celebrated Delices \ ON ITALY. 9 jOelices •, that the jefuits have on the lafl line, which feparates the country of Gex from Geneva, a houfe or receptacle ; and that thefe fathers live very fo- ciably with that gentleman. Thefe explanations removed our wonder at fuch an appearance within the cannon of Geneva : but we were farther given to underiland, that many a jefuit had been feen at Geneva ; father la Chaife, having availed himfelf of the fubmiffion of the republic to Lewis XIVth’s demands that jefuits might live there, and ap- pear in public, as chaplains to the French prdl- dent, G E N E V A. This city is remarkable for its fituation, inde- pendency, religion, and commerce : formerly it Hood only on that hill, which is the key of lake Le- man, at the part where the Rhone ilfues out of that lake ; and this river was one of its chief de- fences : it has gradually, like all ancient towns built on mountains, funk down into the level, fo that now the efflux of the Rhone is within its circuit. In its primitive fituation it enjoyed a very healthy air, with a view of the whole lake which it command- ed, and at the fame time ail the advantages arif- ing from this lake, either for the neceffaries of life, or the convenience of trade ; whereas, by re- moving into the level, it has loft the defence of the Rhone, has plunged itfelf amidil the continual fogs and vapours of the lake - 3 and as for the beaded walks 10 OBSERVATIONS walks of V reille and Rain-palais , they are by no means equal to that of the plat-form. Its fortifications, though fufficient againft a hid- den affault, would not Hand a formal fiege. I was greatly furprifed at finding a Swifs garrifon here, having always imagined that Geneva had guarded itfelf. At the corps de garde of the gates, are only fome of the republic’s fervants, whofe bufinefs is to examine the pafiports of ftrang- ers -j but I much queftion whether, in cafe of an attack, they would be of any great fervice either for addon or advice. St. Peter’s church was the cathedral of Geneva, till the revolution in 1 535. It is in the tafte of the French cathedrals, of the 14th and 15th Centuries, with a new portal, defigned by a Genevan, who has united fimplicity, majefty, and grandeur. It is a portico of the doric order, fup- ported by columns of a very exact proportion. The confiftory’s fcrupulous regard to the firft com- mandment of the decalogue, would not allow the architect the leaft decoration for the tympan of the pediment, with which this portico is crowned. It is the like religious averfion for graven images, which keeps the fine tomb of the famous duke de Rohan fo clofely confined under lock and key ; yet the organ, which at length has been admitted, intimates a relaxnefs, which bids fair to fet his grace at liberty. In that part of the church, which was the chancel, is ftill feen the bifhop’s throne, crowded with fculptures and baffo relievo’s. ON ITALY. ii of the 1 5th century, but extremely disfigured and mutilated by the adz and hatchet. They might with little difficulty have been totally planed away; perhaps they are left to ftand as monuments of the zeal of the former Genevans. This zeal, though with fome abatement, ftill prevails at Geneva, at leaft in the confiftory ; and of this the refult is a religion, (a) not fo much adapted to common people, as to philofophers, difpofed to embrace it by choice. This religion may, in many refpedts, be compared with the Sa- bine inftitutes, in which King Numa had been educated, by Livy termed difciplinam trijiem et te~ tricam Sabinorum. Not that Calvin’s doctrine is maintained at Ge- neva in all its rigour. It has been much foftened by Arminianifm, and, as far as I can learn, the charge in the Encyclopedia, on more important and more capital articles, is not without grounds. To me the French divines feem to have de- clined taking all the advantage which this charge played into their hands. Inftead of joining in the invedlives of the confiftory of Geneva, againfl Mr. D’Alembert, as a fianderer, they fhould have turned over their ancient controverfifts, where, in every page, they would have feen that Calvinifm would fome time or other lead its follow- ers to Deifm, and thus have bleffed the Lord for the accomplifhment of that prediction. ( a) M. Pafcal fays, that a religion wholly intellectual is not made for the people, I do 12 OBSERVATIONS I do not take upon me to fay that the confiftory of Geneva have efpoufed focinianifm unanimouf- ly and openly : fome of the old miniflers flick to the ancient forms, but thefe old miniflers are no longer in vogue, not even among the common- alty, and when they preach, they may almoft be faid to preach to the walls. Private inftruftion allows certain latitudes, with regard to revelation, original fin, the punifhments and rewards of a future life, which public inflru&ion neither oppo- fes nor overthrows. Geneva, however, is not without very confi- derable means for the education of youth : the public library has made good ufe of Miffon’s hints for its improvement ; it is greatly in- creafed, and, by the care of M. Jallabert, who had the direction of it many years, it is enriched with a mufeum of antiquities and natural hiflory. When we were at Geneva, a gentleman of the name of Lullin had juft fucceeded M. Jallabert in that capacity, on his promotion to be a coun- fellor of flate. The college is in a very flourifhing condition, and not fo much by pecuniary affiftances from the flate, as by the zeal of the profeffors, w'ho are at- tached to this college from father to fon, and whofe next flep is generally into the council of the repub- lic ; befides being themfelves fathers of families, their own hearts tell them the meafure, both of the indulgence which education allows, and of the flri&nefs which it requires. Emulation is excited here ON ITALY. * I here by prizes, which the ftate itfelf diftributes with great foiemnity, after very rigid examinations, without the leaft fufpicion of partiality. Thefe prizes are filver medals, and when a youth has ob- tained one, all his relations make him a prefent of thofe which they got in the fame clafs *, thefe pre- fents make his cabinet of medals, which is as a pledge to his family of his application, and the continuance of his fuccefles. The firft prize is for writing, which I never faw any where but here ; the word: compofed theme, if its writing be the belt, carries the firft prize. Geneva received part of its political laws from Calvin : miftrufting the fpirit of domineering, in tire very clergy fo recently formed by himfelf, he has directed that the confiftory is not to take any refo- lution, even in a cafe purely ecclefiaftic, but joint- ly with a certain number of magiftrates, and that its afiemblies and deliberations fhall be held in a place open to all the world. Sumptuary laws are obferved, with all the ftrifl- nefs neceftary in a fmall ftate, fubfifting only by the induftry of its inhabitants. I have been fur- prized that thefe laws fhould have allowed the fumptuous edifices, lately built by private pcrfons along the ‘Treille walk : they utterly difiolve the fpirit of equality, which Ihould be the leading object of fumptuary laws. % They to whom the care of the public morality is committed, are likewife relaxed from their pri- mitive rigour. By the former laws, he who re- fufed 1 4 OBSERVATIONS fufed marrying a girl of whom he had obtained the gratification of his defires, was to fuffer death. This at prefen t is abated to a Uriel procefs, which is carried on by the concurrence of both powers, and the upfhot is a fum of money, proportioned to the feducer’s wealth and the condition of the girl. During our flay at Geneva, fucn a fuit was commenced againft a very pretty young fellow of the canton of Zurich, who had deluded a Genevan girl. Whether it was from the fear of incurring the difpleaflire of his family, which was very wealthy, whereas the girl had little or nothing, or whether it was in confequence of a frefli amour ; he failed in his promife to her ; on which the girl applied for juftice, and he was imprifoned. We often faw him at the .grates with his hair dreft, and in all the glit- ter of a beau. A few days ago he was confronted with his adverfary, who, falling at his feet, poured forth her lamentations and complaints in the moft pathetic manner. This fcene lafted fome time, arid was fo affe&ing, that the youth fell, into a fwoon ; and the very judges, among whom were feveral ?.ged minifters, could not refrain from tears. It was hoped that this would revive the faithlefs lover’s tendernefs ; the principal heads of the con- fiftory indeed made it their bufinefs, but whether they fucceeded we know not. This conliftory not only preaches, but fummons thofe who are wanting in the duties of religion, and a fmart reprimand they undergo ; thefe reprimands are fometinies given by deputies, as when a re- gard ON ITALY. 15 gar’d is due to the ftation of the perfons who are the obje<5ls of it. I was amazed to hear that the notion of witches flood its ground in Geneva fince the fettlement of the reformation there ; and that even, about the middle of the laft century, an old woman had been folemnly burnt on a charge of forcery. Certainly fome body of men found it their interefb to referve this prejudice for their occafional ufe, fince it could furvive fo many other prejudices, to which, though more entitled to regard than that abfur- dity, the Geneva reformers had given no quarter. It would unqueftionably be a miftake to ima- gine that, amidft continual preachments, under the eyes of fo watchful a confiftory, and with laws in which no duty is overlooked, the people of Ge- neva anfwer its anagram mentioned by MiiTon ( refpublica Genevenjis, gens fub c cells vere pia ). No where is the thirft of gain more predominant : and hence that attachment to work, that induftry, that fobriety, that fupplenefs and acutenefs, for which the Genevans are fo remarkable. If Plato was right in denying that probity is to be found in a city of fhops and warehoufes, at leaf; Geneva is not the place to feek for it. I will even venture to fay, that the religion of Geneva is too fublime, too metaphyfical, and too much diveiled of every fenfible objeft, to influence the manners of a peo- ple •, for which the mind mull be affefted, and the heart engaged. It has more of the fchool of the Portico or Lyceum, than of any kind of wor- IS OBSERVATIONS fhip. It was for want of fenfitive objefts in their religion, that the Ifraelites fet up the golden calf at the foot of mount Horeb, and this being nearly the cafe with the Genevans, they have fet up in- tereft for their golden calf. As to the Genevan fages faying that their religion is pure chriftianity, the chriftianity of the primitive church, facro- fanfia Cbrifti religio in fuarn puritatem repofita , as it Rands on the front of the town houfe ; they can- not but know that the chriftianity of the primitive church was the religion not of a people cafually born in it, but of fublime, deft, and fanftified fouls, eleSlif vocati , fanffi, who embraced it from choice, who, on their initiation into it, facrificed all the defires of fleih and blood, and whofe molt de- lightful hope was martyrdom. The Geneva converfation, in general, has more of the German than the French; among the men it is carried on in clubs, who hire a chamber where they refort in the evenings to fmoak, talk politics, and chat about private concerns, and the news of the town. The women have their meetings on fundays, with amufements in their way ; and, for more particular parties, here are little villa’s in abundance, and very much frequented. The Italian refervednefs and the German phlegm prevail in the converfation of the Genevans, both among themfelves and with foreigners ; if fome few have any tinfture of French manners, it is by imitating the politenefs of the inhabitants of Dauphine. We ON ITALY- if We mull not omit obferving here, that Geneva has partly realized Dr. Swift’s project, in his Great Myfiery , or art of meditating in a houfe cf office. On that part of the lake which faces the upper town, very large eafements have been lately built, divid- ed into feats, with flight partitions on each fide, molt about elbow high , as the doCtor directs, for the conveniency of converfation. I went there one morning, and taking my feat in the center, fhared in a very fprightly converfation, among feveral women, fome of whom were bufy, and others waiting their turn. Trade at Geneva, inftead of waiting at home for cuftomers, travels in quell; of them, and, where- ever it can be promoted, the Genevans never fail to repair. Its principal branches are clocks and watches, jewelry, muflins, and the finer fort of linens. A great part of the clock and watch pieces are made among the mountains of Swiflerland ; this being the occupation of the inhabitants during the fnowy feafon. Moll of them have at Geneva fet watch-makers, who purchafe thefe pieces of them half wrought, and work them up into watches ; which, with indefatigable induftry, they difpofe of over Germany, France, and Spain. They like- wife export great numbers to the houfes which fe- veral of thefe Geneva dealers have at Paris, or to watchmakers of that city, who get their name put on them, and then fell them for their own work. London was formerly as good a cuftomer to Geneva as Paris itfelf ; but the Englilh having ex- tended this manufacture among themfelves and their dependencies, at prefent do without the Vo i.. I, C Genevans j 1 8 OBSERVATIONS Genevans *, or if they take any of their goods, it muft be at their own price. This proceeding has fo far cooled the mighty fondnefs of the Genevans for them, that they now openly declare the Eng- lifh to be a parcel of mere Jews, who would have others take every thing from them, without their taking the leaf: thing from others. From Eng- land it is, however, that they ftill have the far greater part of their cloth, both for home con- fumption and for fending to Italy, and likewife that which they fmuggle into France ; at the fame time owning that the French clothes, at leaf: thofe of the firft fort, are preferable to the Englifh. The laft war, being very detrimental to the jewel trade in France, had driven a great number both of workmen and dealers from Paris ; and the prefent war has occafioned a ftill more confiderable emigration. The Genevans have received them kindly, and fet them to work ; fo that jewelry at prefent fully repairs the breach, which the induftry of the Englifh had made in their watch trade : they feem even in a fair way to fupplant France in -that confiderable branch. The ftandard of the gold and filver which they work up is left to them- felves ; but the ftandard is what a fine lady or a fop- ling, who muft have a fnuff-box or a tweezer, little concern themfelves about : befides, here is no du- ty to be paid ; and as to the duties of import into France and Spain, their way of eluding thofe in- conveniences is this : The Genevan dealer and his fervant fet out from Geneva well mount- ed, and with two portmanteaus ftocked with watches and trinkets •, the m after is in a Swifs half uniform, and, at every pafs and gate of a town. ON ITALY.' town, claps on a cockade ; to every ®>ui va la f his anfwer is Ojjicier Smjfe, and he goes on with- out further ceremony. The Geneva trade confifts chiefly in muf- lins, calicoes, lawns, and flowered linen. The greater part of the muflins worn in France come from hence, and Geneva has them from Swiflerland. In the laft war Geneva even fupplied the fale at port L’Orient with thefe goods, which otherwife muft have failed by the delay of the In- dia company’s returns. As to thefe matters, all Swiflerland may be looked on as one vaft manu- facture, in which every advantage concenters ; en- tire freedom, exemption from all duties, plenty of the raw fub fiances, cheapnefs of labour, and the inceffant induftry of a very laborious people. It mufl have been by means more effectual than fchemes, memoirs, and differtations, that Geneva and Bafli have contrived to put off, to the very utmoil it was poflible, the prohibition of printed cottons in France. A pretty nice conjecture of the advan- tages or difadvantages of fuch prohibition, with refpeCt to that kingdom, might have been formed only from the buftle and confternation of the trad- ers of thole two cities. Since the ceflation of it, they give over that very profitable branch of their commerce as loft for evef, when the, return of peace fhall reduce the price of cotton and dying drugs in France. The refult of this account fhews, that the bal- lance of a very confiderable trade between France, Swiflerland, and the Genevans, is entirely in fa- vour of the latter, who take nothing from France but corn ; and this makes but a very (lender de- C 2 du&ion 20 OBSERVATIONS duftion from the fums which the payment of the Swifs troops draws from France ; and this trade is always fuch as to be entirely to their advan- tage, whether part of the corn be remitted into Germany* or, as fometimes is done, they re-im- port into France that fame corn, which is always with a confiderable profit. Among the channels which bring French money to Geneva, may be reckoned the celebrated Tron- chin, who is to this city what Efculapius was to the diftrift of Epidaurus. As the Romans took that god out of his tetnple, and brought him to Rome fo have the French drawn Mr. Tronchin to Paris : but he made no long ftay there. When we pafied through Geneva, M. Voltaire was at the Delicts , with his nieces and a young Ipark his nephew. We waited on them, and were charmed with their oeconomy and manner of living ; it is enough to fay, the honours of the houfe are performed by M. Voltaire. Gratia , fama , valetudo contingit abunde> Et lautus villus non deficiente crumena. He was then exercifing a company of actors, whofe theatre was a quarter of a league both from the Delices and from Geneva, but in the territories of Savoy. One of the two days which I fpent with him, the aftors came to rehearfe his Merope , in which he aflifted them, reading every fentence af- ter them, at firft in a low languid voice, but gra- dually affuming the fire of the compofition. Non ON ITALY. 21 Non vultus , 7W/Z color urns , Air ccmptte mansere com#, fed pettus anhelum , , A/ r able f era cor da tument , majorque videri Nec moriale fonans. And from this fire iffued like fo many fcintilla- tions, the reafons he gave to his a< 5 tors for modu- lating the voice, for railing, or lowering the utter- ance, for animating or moderating the gefture, for quickening or flackening the dialogue (a). I do not know that I was ever fo entertained and af- fefted at a play, as at this rehearfal. On taking my leave of M. Voltaire, he favoured me with his picture, accompanied with a Angular prefervative againft the Inquifition’s flames, fliould it be difpofed to deftroy or disfigure the picture. SAVOY and the ALP S. Savoy begins at the gates of Genev^, which was formerly a part of it •, but now their territories are feparated by the Arva. The people of that part of Savoy which we travelled through, except the cantons of Chamber y and Maurienne, carry in their air and countenance the imprefs of the rigours of that climate. The animated part of the fpeftacle, which nature offers here, confifts of faces of a livid pale- nefs, huge wens, meagre and languid bodies. And befides phyfical bufferings, thefe poor people labour (a) According to Cicero, there is no doing any thing to the purpofe in this exercife, but am fu?nmo labor e, Jlomacho 9 miferiaque , Jam enim , adds he (and to whom can it be bet- ter applied than to M. Voltaire) quo quifque in eo genere foler - tier ejl Cf ingeniojior hoc docet iracundius . Pro Rofc. Comaed. C 3 under OBSERVATIONS ■ 2 ± under political preffures. In times of peace, they are not difpenfed from keeping the militia on foot. The imports, if they may be believed, are enor- mous ; and well may they feem fuch, however Render in themfelves, as fcarce leaving to thofe on whom they are levied wherewith to keep life and foul together-, and, what fill aggravates thefe oppreffive burdens is the feverity of levying them. Judging of their fovereign by themfelves, believ- ing all his dominions to be like their craggs, and ilruck with the appearance of opulence and grandeur which France difplays in comparifon of their country, they could wifh Savoy united to France imagining, to be fure, that a potent mo- narch could not find in his heart to require any thing from fuch a country as theirs. Yet it feems cultivated as far as practicable, although it may be prefugned, that, by fame abatement in the le- vies of men and money, it would be both better cultivated and better peopled, as thus the people’s induftry, who are both very fober and very labo- rious, would be able to exert itfelf. Annecy is beholden for its fubfiftence to the devotion paid to the relics of St. Francis de Sales, and the money of ftrangers whom that devotion draws hither. Chameery affords nothing remark- able but its delightful fituation, and this is but a very relative beauty, which, in any other coun- try, would not take the eye fo much. Here we fell in company with two Swifs officers in the king of Sardinia’s fervice ; they came from Berne, their native country, and were going to do duty at Turin. The elder (Mr. Charmer), befides his having fre- quently travelled this road, is a gentleman of lite- rature. © N ITALY. n fature, great parts and politenefs, and perfectly acquainted with Italy, fo that no company could better fuit our tafle and the objeft of our travels. At fupper, which cemented our acquaintance, was a young Englilh gentleman, under the tui- tion of a man in a riding-coat, with a fupercilious look, a wild Hare, totally ignorant of the Englilh language, murdering the French, and his beha- viour rough and pedantic : in a word, very little qualified for the function of Mentor to a young traveller. The Swiffers began the converfation with him ; it turned on the Romilh religion, that of Swifferland, and that of England. The jefuits were defcanted on at large, as they now are every where. Another member of the company was a Spanifh friar, who, from his own knowledge of Paraguay, maintained, that all the forces of Spain and Portugal put together were not fuffi- cient to wreft that country from the jefuits. The faid Mentor engroffed the whole talk, and held forth on all thefe points fo, that we might not in the leaft doubt of his being a good church of England man. Fie and his Telemachus fetting off the next day before us, we underftood that the pupil was a catholic, and his governor a jefuit of Turin, carrying him back to England. The Swif- fers, fo far from being concerned for the freedom of their evening’s table-talk, feemed to wilh that they might meet with many more fiach adventures. At Chambery are two ways for palling the Alps : one by the Tarentaife, which, after Ikirt- ing the Ifere, opens by mount St. Bernard into the valley of Aouft ; the other by Maurienne, C 4 which. 24 OBSERVATIONS which, afcending the Arche or Arc for about twenty leagues, ends at mount Cenis. The latter is the moil frequented, as indeed the leaft difficult, eft mint . , fays Ammianus Marcellinus, e Galliis veni - entibus frond humilitate devexa. This continual de- clivity, which the Arche follows in its fall, leads al- tnoft infenfibly to the fummit of mount Cenis. The Ifere, lefs rapid than the Arche, the Hope of its bed being more gradual, leads to the foot of mountains, which, on their arrival, travellers are obliged to fcale. It mult not be imagined that the paffes in the Alps, where the known roads terminate, are like the famous Cafpian gates in mount Caucafus, ftraits with gates to fhut, and where a fmall detachment may put a whole army to a ftand, if the Greek hif- torians and modern travellers have not impofed on us, or they themfelves been impofed on. The Alps are open on all fides to thofe who are acquainted with the defiles, the ftraits, the iftues and communi- cations. Whatever advantage fuch an acquaintance with the country may be of to the people for their defence, we find that in all ages foreign armies have fucceeded in making their way through it. The moft celebrated of thefe enterprizes is that of Hannibal, and againft many difadvantages, a frozen climate infupportable to an army of Africans and Spaniards, a total ignorance of the country, which was all up in arms, the trouble oc- cafioned by the elephants and the incumbrance of the feveral machines appertaining to ancient artillery. His opening a way.” through a rock by difiblving it with vinegar, has been pompoufly celebrated by the Latin hiftarians and poets, not confiftering ON ITALY. 25 confidering the fides Tunica \ and thefe have been blindly followed by the crowd of commentators and fucceeding hiftorians. Polybius miftrufting the matter repaired in perfon to the fpot j and in the account which, from this furvey, he gives of Hannibal’s croffing the Alps into Italy, the ftory of the rock is found to be no more than an acci- dent very common to roads made in mountainous countries, that is the falling in, for the length of a hade and a half, of the ground which formed the road, on the fide of a fteep rock. This acci- dent, which, after viewing the ground, Polybius might have taken for the laft effort of the moun- taineers enmity againft Hannibal, retarded that ge- neral’s march, putting him under a neceftity of trying fome other paffage, and, finding none, of re- turning to the rock, and clearing away there ; an operation which took up the whole Carthaginian, army four days. Moft authors, who mention this operation, fay that his intention was to open a way through the very rock ; but what was much eafier and anfwered the fame end, was only repairing the way which had fallen down, and was no more than a caufeway of ftones laid one over the other, and refting againft the fide of the rock ; fuch to this day is the road down the Alps in many places. Livy expreffes this operation by a word which is differently read, but the import nearly the fame : milites duSli ad rupem muniendam or minuendam . The firft reading which comes nearer to Poly- bius’s re xpptov 1 £oxo$o[mi, indicates the road raifed on the ruins of the former ; the fecond, the ufe made of the rock itfelf, by taking from its mafs part of the ftones neceffary for making the caufe- way. Polybius 2 6 OBSERVATIONS Polybius omits the means of the operation, fay- ing only, to xpi^vov i^oxoSopiu fjt,zrx TroAXiif t«j tolaxi- Traptxs : and Livy, in faying that a way of a ftade and a half was opened in the very rock, has preferred the marvellous to the probable, (a) To reconcile this fad: with the brevity of Poly- bius’s relation and to the indications which the pre- fentftate of the ground furnifheth, may it not be faid that Hannibal fell to work on the rock with every method ufed ' for that kind of operation, before gunpowder was found out : that at firft he avail- ed himfelf of the fiflures or crevices along the top and the fide of the rock, for breaking away as much as poffible of the furface, and, when totally ftrip- ped, he caufed it to be torrifted, that the adion of the fire might open frelh chafms in it ? This me- thod we may fuppofe he owed to the Spaniards in his army, that being pradifed in working their mines. As to the vinegar made ufe of, it was anciently very common in armies, and feveral ways ufeful to the foldiers, to whom it was diftributed by allow- ances ; and no lefs beneficial would it be to our troops : it was one of the ftrongell diffolvents known to the ancients, and the Spaniards to this day make ufe of it, together with fire, for diffolving pieces of an ore mine, blown up by gunpowder. Thus the remaining objedion does not lye in the ufing vinegar for an operation of this kind, nor in the difficulty of finding a requifite quantity in fuch a country, but only in the impoffibility of injed- (a) Ita torridam incendio rupem fcrro pandunt , molli unique mo- dicis anfra&ibus dives, ut mn jumenia folum, fed et eiepbanti deduci pojjint* ON ITALY. 2 f Ing it on the body of an ignited rock, almoft red hot. • Had I forefeen that this difcuffion would have led me fo far, I Ihould not have meddled with it ; they whom it may difguft will be fo kind as to excufe it, and likewife indulge me in a few obfervations con- cerning the place where Hannibal crofted the Alps. What light the ancients have left us on this head, is loft in the obfcurity of the places they mention, in the uncertainty of later writers on the fite of thofe places, and in the alterations of their names. Were the tradition of the country to decide, it was cer- tainly mount St. Bernard which Hannibal palled. From that fo memorable paffage, numberlefs authors fay this part of the Alps came to be dif- tingulhed by the name of Abes Pennine ; and on this road is ftill (hewn the rock, which, ac- cording to the fame tradition, pafies for that opened by Hannibal, with fome fuppofed remains of a Punic infcription, intended by that ge- neral as a memorial of fuch a fignal atchievement. But Shifter's conjeftures for his having palled by the way of mount Cenis or mount Genevre, appear to me better grounded, ift as Hannibal began his march from Dauphine, mount Genevre and mount Cenis faced him -, 2d ten days brought him from the banks of the Rhone to the Alps ; 3d from the fummit of thefe mountains he had a view of Pied- mont, of which he availed himfelf to encourage his army againft the difficulties of the defcent. Now of all the Alpine mountains which have an iflue into Italy, it is only from the tops of mount Cenis and mount Genevre that Piedmont can be difcovered, 4th to thefe arguments let me add that the Car- thaginian Q a 8 OBSERVATIONS thaginian army being flopped on the fummit of the Alps, by the falling in of the road, encamped four days on that fummit with its elephants and all its baggage, cajtra in ipfo jugo pofita \ the fummit of mount Cenis afforded them a level of near two leagues, as if made for the encampment of fo con- fiderable an army ; whereas I know from a furvey of my own, that neither mount Saint Bernard nor mount Genevre, have any thing like fuch a fpa- cious furface. In a word, though the defcent alono- mount Cenis has been improved by immenfe works, though the greater part of its prefent road be formed amidft the very rocks blown up by mines, yet are there fome places, where the road, as formed of broken fragments of rocks heaped up, might either by an accidental fall, or being over fet by the country people, throw an army whofe route lay be- hind it, into the fame plunge as Hannibal’s was. The chevalier Follard, Vol. IV. lays out Han- nibal’s march along mount Lens, the Lautaret, mount Genevre, the defile of Seftrieres and the valley of Pragelas : he will by no means allow mount St. Bernard the honour of this famous paf- fage ; as to mount Cenis, at that time, fays he, “ it was inacceffible to an army,” and he adds, “ I even “ queftion whether this paffage was open in thofe “ times.” Allowing this affertion, and his doubt to be of equal weight : it may be obferved that Maurienne, as a fpot tolerably pleafant, in the midft of a moft difmal country, was in ancient times one of the beft peo- pled, and confequently one of the beft known and moft frequented cantons of the country of the Al- lobrogians, and had a bifhop even in the primi- tive ON ITALY. 29 tive times of chriftianity •, that the river on which its capital Hands, led, in going up it, to mount Cenis, through a long chain of valleys or defiles, more or lefs open ; that on the plot at the fummit of this mountain is a road, the like fcarce to be met with in thefineft plains. Laftly, that the reafons for which this road has ever been deemed the Strada Romana , and for which it is now the moil known, and the moil frequented of all the Alpine roads, muft in very early ages have pointed it out to obfervation, and confequently opened it. To thefe confiderations in favour of mount Cenis it may be fubjoined, that, according to Polybius, that is according to the very text of the chevalier Fol- lard, Hannibal before he marched his army among the mountains, had for ten days fucceffi vely Ikirted a river, which in the chevalier Fqfiard’s opinion could be no other than the Ifere •, 2d that the country peo- ple having made difpofitions for oppofing his paf- fage, he, after his fir ft march, encamped in valleys, the heights of which they were poffefied of, and that; having in the night made himfelf mafter of thofe heights, he, by a forced march the next day reached the mountaineers chief town, Cqfisllum y fays Livy, quod, erat caput ejus regioms. Now I would afk thofe who are beft acquainted with the frontiers of Savoy and Dauphine, for inftance Mr. Pour- cet, whether a march of ten days along the Ifere, from its influx into the Rhone, did not bring Han- nibal to the line, whidh running parallel to this river, at prefent feparates the territories of France and thofe of Savoy ; whether this ten days march did not reach a great way beyond mount Lens, where the chevalier Follard begins his route through the go observations the Alps ; whether the caput ejus regionis , to which after leaving the Ifere, he fought his way in two fmall days journey, does not denote, St. Jean de Maurienne ; in a word whether at fuch a height, in going up the Ifere, and whether at this diftance from that fame height, there was any other chief town or capital of a canton befides St. Jean de Maurienne. Let it be further obferved that Ammianus Mar- cellinus, lib. xv. c. 20. whofe authority the faid chevalier produces, has left us a particular defcrip- tion of feveral roads laid open at different times, for going from Italy into Gaul. He firft expli- citly defcribes that which the chevalier Follard de- lineates as Hannibal’s, by mount Genevre, Matro- nse Verticem, and Brianfon, caftellum Virgantiam. Afterwards fpeaking of the real road which Hanni- bal took, he makes him go, per TricaJiinoj et cram Vocontiorum extremum , ad Saltus 'Triccrios. Now had the informations preferved by tradition and hiftory concerning this expedition, corref- ponded with the chevalier’s fyftem, Amianus Mar- cellinus, without bewildering his readers by particu- larizing thefe cantons, would only have laid that Hannibal took the road which he had defcribed along mount Genevre and Brianfon. We fliall now clofe thefe obfervations with no- ticing that the fix marches which, from the chief town Hannibal had made himfelf mailer of at his entrance among the Alps, brought him to the foot of the fummit of thefe mountains, to ufe Po- lybius’s terms, exactly fill up the diftance between St. Jean de Maurienne, and the foot of mount Cents. As to the engagement with the mountaineers which ON ITALY. 31 which difturbed his fifth march, it may be placed between Bramens and Sobers, in a kind of tunnel formed by mountains opening to the right, whilft on the left the Arche, confined by a craggy mountain, along which it winds, leaves but a very narrow way in the flanks of this mountain, which may be the fame on whofe top Hannibal with half his army fpent a very bad night. From Chambery, after croffing the Here, be- yond Montmelian, we came on the twenty fecond of June, to Aiguebel. It mult certainly be by way of antiphrafis, that fuch a pretty name was given to fuch a difagreeable place : with the Iky per- fectly ferene and clear, all the horizon was covered with a thick brownilh red fog, of a very nau- feous fmell, and fo early as five in the evening, the fun had left Aiguebel ; a water of rather a yellowifh fcurn, very offenfive both to the fmeH and fight, trickled down from all parts of the mountains, which intercepted its light. In the village is a fort of a well, the bottom of which rung with the grating fibilations of the waters of the Arche, and the noife of the fragments of rocks rolling with its current. The feveral mines of metals with which thefe mountains are enriched, could not reconcile our imagination to this difinal place. We were however entertained with an ex- traordinary phenomenon, quite unforefeem An hour after the fun had difappeared, and by its abfence and the fog, night feemed to have taken place, a ray darting, between a villa in the moun- tains, and, piercing the fog, blazed like a lumi- nous body, and for the ip&ce of five or fix minutes 5* OBSERVATIONS minutes diffufed a clear light, throughout the whole valley. The inhabitants of fuch a place, I concluded mult be Autochthones, and my curiofity led me to pay a vifit to the oldefl man in the place, who was a farrier. I afked him whether he or his father had ever known any Arranger to come and fettle at Aiguebel ; he anfwered with an oath that Aigue- bel’s blood had never been mixed with any foreign blood, except travellers and the canons of its little collegiate church : this was his anfwer. Then he afked me news about France, and what I thought of the beauties of Aiguebell, and all with a chear- fulnefs which furprized me. Afterwards I fet the whole place in motion to getme change for a French crown, but it was not to be had : all whom I afked told me, as it were with one voice, that within a few days the tax gatherers had been about, and fwept Aiguebel of every fou. The Arche which we had again met with there, carried us to mount Cenis : its bed is a kind of efcalier more or lefs deep, and clogged with maffes of rocks, which it carries along with a thundering clatter : it is increafed by all the waters of the [freights, which terminate at its bed, and by water-falls from perpendicular rocks. The caf- cades which are very common, and at a diflance taken for perpendicular plat-bands of fnow, are as far beyond any thing of the kind in any European prince’s palace, as the fined cafcades there are be- yond thofe of the Paris opera. The clearnefs of the waters is heightened by the bottom of the rock over which they run without touching it; thefe are generally fragments of rocks, having a perpendicular perforation ON ITALY. S3 perforation through their centre, and tinged with a ferruginous colour differently fhaded. The man- ner of thefe cafcades reaching the bottom, likewife drew my attention ; I could not but admire a fheet ten feet broad, and falling from a height of a hundred feet, yet in appearance rather gently refting itfeif on the fpot where it falls, with a flight ebullition. The place v/e lay at, after leaving Aiguebel, was ftill worfe, as, befides the fame difmal fitua- tion, it is no uncommon thing for gangs of banditti to furprize paffengers in their beds ; however v/e had the good fortune to efcape them. From thence, farther among the Alps, oppofite to Bra- mens, is a hamlet called Abries or Abris, on the left of the Arche. This I take to be the place where died Charles the Bald, and not at Bryon nor Briord in Brefle, as the Breffians had told me. And, indeed the annals of St. Berlin, in their account of the death of this prince fay, that in his return from Italy being, by the poifon which his phyfician had given him, taken ill in eroding mount Cenis, he flopped at a place called Brios, where he fent for Richilda his confort, who was waiting for him at St. Jean de Maurienne, and that after lying eleven days in that condition he expired in viliflimo tugurio> a very mean cottage. Had this Brios been in Brefie, Richilda muft have been there along with her hufband, whether fhe had come from France to meet him, or whether, after accompanying him in his Italian expedition, fhe had returned over the Alps before him. In the firfl cafe, being come fo far as St. Jean de Maurienne, fhe muft have met him Vql, I. D there j OBSERVATIONS U there ; and efpecially in the irrecoverable condition in which he then was, fhe would have accom- panied him to Breffe and not have flayed at St. Jean. In the other cafe, he would have taken her with him at his palling through St. Jean de Mau- rienne ; fo that from every circumflance, this ham- let mult have flood between the laft town and mount Cenis. Aimofl all the contemporary an- nals, and from them the chronicles of St. Denis, relate that in the very place where Charles died, “ his attendants ripped open his body and took “ out the intrails, and having well wafhed and “ embalmed them, put them in a cafe, intending “ to carry them to St. Denis’s church in France, “ he having chofen that place for his interment •, “ but beginning to fmell ftrong, and the flench “ increafmg fo as to become intolerable, thev “ buried him at Vercelli in the church of St. “ Eufebius the Martyr.” This the annals of St. Bertin contradict, faying, that Nantua was the place of his interment : It was not till feveral years after his death that his fon and the monks of St. Denis, who had tafled largely of his munificence, caufed his remains to be tranflated to St. Den- is ( a) and to this laft duty nothing lefs than two vifions could induce them. The indifference with which this emperor’s body was embalmed, and left on the road, the uncer- tainty of the hiftorians of his age on the place of his interrment, the oblivion in which he lay for feveral years, the remifnefs of later writers to find out and afcertain, whether Nantua was Really his burial place, as St. Bertin’s annals affirm, or Ver- (a) Chron. de St. Denis. eeili. ON ITALY, 35 Celli, according to the chronicle of St. Denis, and other annals of thofe times, fo many neglects do not fhew any great regard for Charles’s memory. He had almoft accomplifhed the re-union of the fcatter- ed limbs of his grandfather Charlemain’s empire ; but an ambition without views, giddy and incoherent politics, a blind confidence in worthlefs people, of thefe united limbs made but a (keleton ill put to- gether, fo that it foon fell to pieces, and the Car- lovingian race was involved in its ruin. We eroded mount Cenis the day before Mid- fummer-day, and it was the firft time we had felt what might be called real hot weather. In our afeent, however, we faw fnow in feveral places. On our reaching the fpacious level which ex- tends itfelf along the fummit* we found a molt beautiful iky and clear air, and the ground all over covered with very lively verdure and flowers almoft in bloom. Among thefe flowers we ob- fervedfome narciffus’s, arid moft beautiful ranuncu- lus’s of a jonquille yellow, with fomething of that fmell; alfopanfey violets with very large petals, a'nd a fragrancy equal to any orange-flower efience. But the very next day being Midfummer-day, all this verdure and thefe charming flowers were to be given up to the flocks of the neighbouring coun- try, which come annually on that day, to take pofleflion of the fummit, there remaining till the fnowy weather. We (topped at a priory in the middle of the plain, having (upped the evening before with the prior, who had invited us to refrefh ourfelves at his houfe. On our coming there, we found the cloth laid, excellent wine and trouts which he had D 2 juft 3 6 OBSERVATIONS juft caught, in a lake facing his hermitage, at the bottom ot a kind of cup, which the fummit of mount Cenis forms. The colour, firmnefs, and tafte of the trouts, which the prior himfelf order- ed to be dreffed, might induce epicures to come to mount Cenis, were it only to feaft themfelves on the {pot. This hofpitality the prior fhews to all pilgrims W'hom he accounts capable of placing a due value on his trouts, and in the acknowledg- ment of the pilgrims confifts the belt part of the priory’s revenue. We defired him to put up fome flips of anemonies with feeds of violets and other flowers, leaving him a direction to Lyons with a fix livre crown-piece as a gratuity ; but unfortu- nately this commiffion flipt his memory. Out of the lake breeding thefe excellent trouts, ifiues the Idler Doria, on the fide of which lies the defcent into Italy; but to the account given of the above plain, where this lake is, we muft add, for the fatisfadion of the naturalifts, that the kind of cup formed by it, is bordered with very lofty eminences, fo that literally it cannot be faid to be on the fummit of mount Cenis. Half way up the fide of one of thefe eminences, and equal with the priory, it is, that the plains of Piedmont firft come in fight ; and this may be the fpot from whence Hannibal {hewed them to his army ! In frcmontcrio quodam unde longe ac late profpeffius crat y ccnfiftere juffts militibus , Italiam oftentat , fubjediof- que Alpinis montibus circum-padanos campos . We crofted mount Cenis in the ufual carriage, that is, a hand-barrow like a hurdle, fixed to two {ticks. This is the carriage which the nobleft grandees muft take up with in pafting the Alps ; the ON I T A L Y. 37 the fare-hire is not unreafonable, and is fettled by the king of Sardinia at fo much per carrier, but the number of carriers for thofe who come from France, is left to the fyndic of Lafneburgh. On our arrival this fyndic came to us, and after, as it were, meafuring and weighing us by the eye, he pronounced that we fhouid want fourteen car- riers, fix for me and eight for my fellow-travel- ler, having more flelh upon his bones than me. At length by compounding we got off for ten carriers, in the arithmetical proportion laid down by the fyndic. Thefe carriers relieving each other alternately go at a great rate, and the relais furniihes talk to the palfengers by the way ; this talk generally turns on the cardinals, the ge- nerals, the princes and princefles whom they have had the honour of carrying, and the generofity of thofe eminencies and highnefles. One told me that his father had carried M. de Vendome, and that this M. de Vendome was the drolled fellow in the world. I aiked them whether they had never heard of a captain of Algerines, one Hannibal, eroding mount Cenis with a great army, about two thoufand years ago. They told me they had heard of fuch a one, and that the folks of mount St. Bernard faid it was through their very country that he had palled ; but mar- fhal Villiers and the cardinal de Polignac had allured the people of Lafneburg, that it was by the way of mount Cenis. This carrying con- tinues for near four leagues our fervants per- formed the journey on mules, likewife hired at Lafneburg according to the fettled rate, with which, a little muttering excepted, they were very well fatisfied. P 3 Livy’s OBSERVATIONS 38 Livy’s defcription of the defcent into Italy is per- fectly juil : Pleraque Alpiirn ah Italia, Jicut brevier a, ita artliora feint : omnis fere via pr creeps , angufta , kihrica. To give an idea of this precipice, it fuf- fices to fay, that the defcent is not quite three leagues, and the afcent takes up full twenty-five. We were amazed at the rapidity of the Arche, along which the way lies in attending •, but compared to the little Daria, along which you go down, it only creeps. The fall of the latter is one continual caf- a cade, diftributed by flights of twenty, thirty, fifty feet perpendicular height, down which the water precipitates itfelf like furf, or very light froth, fo that at feme diftance it looks like the tranfparent clouds failing along in a fine fummer’s fky. The road of this defcent is a zigzag at very acute angles, contrived and laid out with admir- able art, and on it our carriers trotted as fafe as the beft chairmen in the ftreets of Paris. They relied but two or three times, and in thefe intervals, they placed the two hand-barrows along fide of each other, on the point of a rock, where, fitting on the ground, we talked of whatever remarkable had occured to us. To fhorten the way they would ftride over the point of the angles, and there we and our carriages fometimes hung over a precipice two or three thoufand perpendicular feet in depth. The very mules, when their riders are fo venturefome, of not knowing how to guide them, trull to them for fear of worfe, take the fame bold pace. This defcent is to travellers, like being driven into Italy by a dorm. From Novelefe, the firfc place on even ground in going to Sufa, the Swifs officers Ihewed us the back ON I T A L Y. 39 back of Afiiette-flrait, famous for the attacks made on it in 174 7, by the chevalier de Belleifle, who got himfelf and fo many brave fellows knock- ed on the head there. M. Charmer, who was at the defence of that poll, told us, that had that expedition fucceeded, it would have laid open Piedmont and all the king of Sardinia’s dominions to the French •, that it would have fucceeded had the attack, according to the chevalier Belleifle’s plan, begun an hour fooner ; that ftill it might have fucceeded, had it been carried on half an hour longer ; for when the French retreated, the Piedmontefe troops had fpent all their fhot, and almoft all their powder. Adeo fortuna in omni re dominatur , Salluft. So much is there of chance in every thing. PIEDMONT. Susa. Sufa, towards the Alps, is the key of Pied- mont ; it- Hands in the center of the open- ing into this plain. As it is commanded on the right and left, its fortifications, which might make a figure before the ufe of artillery, its walls and the fquare towers along them, are of no mariner of account now, but for their antiquity. Thefe towers, and fome others of the fame con {fraction within this town, are fomething like the tower of St. Germain des Pres, that of S. Pierfe de Cha- lons, and fome other edifices of this kind, efieem- ed by antiquarians as valuable monuments of Gaulilh architecture. The lower part is a mere D 4 lump OBSERVATIONS 40 lump of done-mafonry, without any openings or windows, till the height of thirty or forty feet : above are two or three dories, which may almoft be feen through, and the openings decorated, or rather loaded with pillars, void of all proportion and determinate form, in the model, bafe and capital ; the feparation of the dories is marked on the outfide, by a freeze of chequer-work. The pillars of thefe towers, and many others of the like condruftion, in feveral parts of Lombardy, are ge- nerally white marble, and the gaps of the openings, where they dand, are lined with the fame marble. Befides thefe Gaulilh remains, Sufa has a monu- ment of Roman antiquity, a triumphal arch, raifed in the commencement of the Roman em- pire : it confids of large blocks of very beautiful Carrara marble, and well preferved. A de- fcription of it is to be found in the Atlas of Piedmont. .Marquis Maffei has alfo clefcribed it ; but a Piedmontefe engineer, difguded at the little agreement of thofe defcriptions with the monument itfelf, which he had clofely exa- mined, has publifhed a later with all its particu- lars and illudrations, which deferve the more to be taken notice of by architects, as the common rules have not been very fcrupuloufly obferved in that drufture. The infcription on the freeze of this arch was in letters of gilt brafs •, but have been dolen : the vacuities in which thefe letters were inferted are dill to be feen, and from their combination and refpedtive pofition, the Piedmontefe artid has re- ftored the infcription. According to this redorer, the arch was erecded by Coffius, king of a part of ON ITALY. 45 of Piedmont and the Alps, though the infcription itfelf ftyles him only prefect. Suetonius, indeed, fpeaks of a king in thefe parts, whofe country was reduced into a province by Nero. About a mile from Sufa, on a hillock, where the mountains begin to appear at feme diftance, the king of Sardinia has lately eretled a citadel called fort Brunette : all the inventions of art, efpecially relating to mines and counter-mines, and thefe take in every point from whence the fort might be attacked or infulted, are faid to be exhaufted on this fortrefs. Nobody is allowed to go into it, or fo much as to look at it ; we hap- pened to be calling an eye on a part of the out- works where men were at work •, but we w r ere foon, though with great civility, defired to withdraw. T U R I N. This city takes up the center of a plain, over- looked by the Alps and the Appennine, and makes a very grand appearance ; its gates, ftreets, churches, palaces, form villa’s, nothing equal to which is to be feen in the cities of France. Yet, on a particular view of each of thefe ob- jects, the eye is offended at the Itrangenefs of the architecture, thefe edifices being awkward malfes, with parts which feem to hit againlt one another ; and what at firft attracts notice, is foon turned into difguft. One would conclude fuch a grotefque Ityle to be the produCt of the Borromini fchool, were not the royal chapel at Turin, built before that architect flourifhed, a model in this kind. Deci- pii exemplar vitiis imiiaUle. The church of the Theatines OBSERVATIONS 42 Theatmes at Paris is in this tafte, which the ftuc- co artifts, having given into it, are fp reading all over] Italy. It is a new kind of Gothic, become neceffary to eyes tired with the beautiful fimpli- city of the antient monuments, and the edifices erecfted from thofe models (a). La fazieta di rib ehe lungamente fi e adoprato , fa mutare il guidirio e JpeJfo lo inganna , e fa appetere, ed apprejfo tentare cofe move. II dejiderio della gloria fiimola fempre gli intelletti piu vivi a farfi inventori , e fpczialmente i giovani che confidando molto nelle forze loro e nelle loro imaginazioni , le cofe antiche ricufano. i. e. “ Sa- tiety of what one has long been ufed to, biaf- fing the judgment, often mifleads it, makes it fond of novelties, and next prompts to attempt them. The moft lively geniufes are apt, from a thirft of glory, to fet up for inventors ; and more efpecially youth, who, full of their abilities and imaginations, defpife the works of former ages.” A reflection truely philofophical, founded on the experience of all ages, and applicable to more arts than one The king’s palace at Turin is worthy of its fove- reign •, it has a great number of apartments, which for tafte, difpofition, and magnificence of furni- ture, might have vied with thofe for which the (a) Michael Angelo Buonarotti, ift the dedication of his grandfather’s poems to cardinal Barberini. Quintilian has the fame thought : Re£la & fecundum naturam clireQa nihil ha- bere ex ingenio ogn > altra cura , Quella e Amanza Jicura , And afterwards, Di te, lella Manza, Jefu Jicut ilk Atticorum, /onus . cannon ON ITALY. lojfc tannon of Placentia, he founded a ferninary, erefted at his own expence all the feveral build- ings fit for fuch an inflitution, and procured it to be fuitably endowed. Having thefe lands, he join- ed others in the neighbourhood of Placentia, which he difcovered to have been ufurped from the church. This foundation was an eye fore to the Pla- centians : But how great muft have been the mor- tification of the cardinal himfelf, when, in the campaign of 1746, his ferninary becoming the point of attack and defence to three formida- ble armies, was battered in his very fight by all the Spanifh and Genoefe artillery, which did not leave a fingle wall Handing ! The moft intimate of my friends being at that time in the French army, had the pleafure of fee- ing his eminence. On the Auflrians taking pofief- fion of his ferninary, he had withdrawn to Placen- tia, in an apartment, the whole furniture of which was a bed, a table and four chairs, with a little pot boiling in the chimney over the fmall fire of an apricot tree, cut that very day in the court-yard of the houfe to which his apartment belonged ; neither his money nor interefi: having been able to procure a faggot The cardinal at that time was above fourfcore, yet without any of the infirmities of old age My friend had been introduced to him by the prefi- dent Scrivani, and thofe three perfons have fre- quently fpent three or four hours by themfelves. He treated Mr. Scrivani as a bofom friend. The converfation was free and lively, and the old gent- leman, who had a great fhare in it, by his fpirited manner heightened the imprefiion, which the fubje&s log OBSERVATIONS fubjeCts he related or difcufled would, from their importance, have naturally made on fuch hearers. He {poke Italian, French or Spanifh, according to the affairs or perfons he was talking of ; and in thefe three languages he expreffed himfelf with equal energy and vivacity : his reflections he ufually backed with fome maxims of Tacitus, and always in Latin ; his relations and remarks ufually turned on the campaigns in which he had attend- ed the duke de Vendome, his miniftry in Spain, and the tranfactions on the carpet, at the time of this difafter. The particulars of all this I have feen in my friend’s memoirs, who among other An- gularities heard him lay down his plan for fettling the pretender ; a plan which I have fince met with unfolded more at large in that cardinal’s will, as made public fince his death. The above memoirs farther inform me, iff. that when, in 1 746, marfhal Maillebois came into Placentia at the head of the French army, to flght againft his advice that battle, which the council of Madrid had refolved on, cardinal Alberoni, too eager to ftand on ceremony, flew to the marfhal, and got to his anti-chamber without fending up his name. A fecretary, better acquainted with the exercife of troops than the ceremony of courts, was for flopping the cardinal, telling him in an abrupt manner, that the marfhal was bufy and faw no body. Friend, anfwered the cardinal with an imperious air, at the fame time opening the door himfelf, I would have you to know that the duke de Vendome would fee me on his clofe-ftool. This anfwer in the memoirs is followed by another very keen ON ITALY. 109 Iceen one of the Abbe Aqua Viva, but which here might be thought mifplaced. 2d. Thefe memoirs inform me that the Spaniards, who were blocked up in Placentia, expreffed the deeped: veneration for cardinal Alberoni: they mentioned, with trans- port, how greatly their monarchy was obliged to his miniftry, a miniftry very remarkable indeed, by exciting the jealoufy of the greateft powers in Europe, leagued together againft a man, who, by the force of his genius, the extent of his de- figns, and the depth of his views, had made liim- felf thus formidable. Nimiurn vobis Hifpana propago VifapotenSy Superi , propria hac fi dona fuijfent. By the laws of Placentia, children Ihare equally, even in noble inheritances. This equality being the Palladium of democratical States, and the finew of induftry in commercial towns, might fuit Pla- centia before it was transferred to the houfe of Farnefe; but fince that Settlement, Since the decay of its manufactures, lince its nobility have given over trade, that equality Subdividing the fortunes of the nobility ad infinitum , and depriving the country of its laft refource, which it would have found in the eafy circumftances of the nobility, has filled it with a people of counts and titled Haves, whofe dignity is of little weight without the Support of wealth. A foreigner indeed finds himfelf unexpectedly rich here, by the high value of the current Specie, receiving about ninety fix livres for a French louidor, and Still is he a lofer ; the paulis and other no OBSERVATIONS other Italic current coins, which are givetl him in exchange, being four times their value ; among them are flipped fome of the country fpecie, which do not go any where elfe : in fhort, your expences there are made to keep pace with the rife of the courfe of exchange. In our way from Placentia to Parma we forded, that is on the fhoulders of peafants who live by this conveyance, the river Taro, on the banks of which, belowFornovo, CharlesVIII. kingof France, gained that memorable victory, which delivered that prince and his army out of the hands of the Italians. This river wantonly roves along a vaft plain, which it furrows and covers with ftones and fragments of rocks from the Appenines, without any appearance of endeavours to confine it in a fixed bed. 1 was told it had formerly a bridge, but no ruins or traces of any fuch thing could I per- ceive: the keeping up or repairing of this bridge would furely have done the former fovereigns of this, country more real honour, than building the famous theatre of Parma, which is of no manner of ufe, and cannot be feen but by expofing your- felf to be drowned in the Taro. P A R M A. Under the Romans and the ages fubfequent td the fall of their empire, the deftinies of Parma and Placentia, have been linked together by the fame events, and the fame revolutions. On the affaffination of Peter Lewis Farnefe, they both threw themfelves in the arms of Charles V, who afterwards fold them to Oftavius brother of Peter Lewis, ON ITALY. in Lewis, in conftderation of his marriage with Mar- garet that emperor’s natural daughter ; the fame Margaret who afterwards governed the Low coun- tries with fuch reputation, and was mother to Alexander Farnefe. Parma is more regularly fortified than Placen- tia ; both the works and the citadel are ftill in pretty good condition. Its fituation is quite de- lightful, and the paintings in its public edifices afford a moil exquifite entertainment ; every place charms the curious fpedlator with mafler-pieces by Corregio, his rivals and his difciples. The Af- fumption in the cupola of the dome, coft that im- mortal artift his life. Having given himfelf up to the heat of his fancy, he hazarded fome bold flights, which are the aflonifhment and admiration of the greateft mailers in our days, but difpleafed the canons, who had befpoke the piece. • Though the price was but {lender, they would have it that they had been impofed on, and befides an arbitrary deduction, told him out the remainder in quadrins & bajooccos , and other copper money ; which poor Correggio took on his back, carrying it two or three leagues, to an old country houfe where his workfhop was. The incumbrance of fuch a bur- den, the heat of the day, and the length of the way, together with the indignation and fretfulnefs which rankled in his heart, brought on a pleurify, fome touches of which he felt by the way, and he died of it three days after, at the age of only forty years. The invaluable communion of St. Jerom by Dominichini, and Bourdon’s m after-piece, that diftinguifhed ornament of Montpellier cathe- dral, met with the like reception, and were as ill paid 1 12 OBSERVATIONS paid for, by thofe who had fet the ar tills to worfcj as fhall be related in its place. Skiateniis, heu nefas ! Virlutem incolumem odimus : Sublatam ex oculis qucerimus invidi f I faid to one of the canons, from whom I had the above relation, that in honour and confcience, this chapter ought to appoint a perpetual anniver- fary for poor Correggio •, he fell a laughing, and promifed it fhould be done : a like propofal which I afterwards made in behalf of Bourdon, to a groupe of the prebendaries of Montpellier, who were coming together from the rifing of a chapter, was anfwered in the very fame manner. The cathedral and feveral other churches in Parma, are covered with frefcos , by Correggio Parmegiano, &c. Thofe of the cathedral which are moftly camayeus, reprefent virtues perfonated by women, in attitudes very elegantly varied. Thefe figures are attired, but without hiding any flroke of nudity, and exhibit more graces than feera to comport with the place. In a chapel of this church, was formerly feen the piece where Correggio has furpaffed him- felf ; it is a Holy family with St. Jerom, and Mary Magdalen grouped into it. The Farnefian princes fhewing a llrong defire of adding this piece to their immenfe collection, the canons took it down, and conveying it privately from hand to hand, fecreted it from all the fovereign’s narrow fearches, for the fpace of forty or fifty years. On the deceafe of Anthony, the laft duke, they lodged it among the ON ITALY. 113 Kioft valuable curiofities of their treafury, from whence, however, it has been removed by the infant Don Philip, and at prefent makes the capital ornament of a gallery in his palace, of which that prince has given the ufe to the aca- demy of painting, fculpture, and architecture, founded by himfelf ; it is kept under lock and key. 8 This picture is an affemblage of beauties, en- gaging to every eye ; it fpeaks to the mind in its expreffion, delicacy, and aCtion ; and no lefs to the heart, in the graces, the foftnefs, and tendernefs, which {trike even into the moft minute circumftances. Here St. Jerom and Mary Mag- dalen do not {land apart from the principal fub- jeCt, as in almoft all the Italian pictures : St. Jerom’s aufterity, and Mary Magdalen’s amorous calt, with the infant Jefus playing with her tref- fes, fpread a feeling throughout the whole piece, which pleafes the more, as perceivable only to an intelligent examination. Innumerable copies and engravings have been made of this wonderful performance, and though by the belt hands, not one has been able to hit Mary’s fmile : in moft of the copies, that ravifhing fmile is degene- rated into a fneer. Another diftinguiflied piece by the fame mafter, in the churches of Parma, is the Virgin alia Scu~ della , or with the porringer, at the Rochettini •, the figures to me appeared of the fliorteft, but every thing elfe befpeaks Correggio. By way of fecuring the veftry keeper’s fee from ftrangers, who would fee this piece, it is hidden under a prepofterous daubing, which lets down into the body of the Vol. I, | altar. ii 4 OBSERVATIONS altar, but intercepts the air from the painting over which it hangs ; and thus the moifture of the wall, fettling on this pretty performance, muft halters its decay. At the time of our being at Parma, one of its principal wonders was Madame Ifabella, daughter to the infant Don Philip. In this princefs, whofe hand had been promifed to the eldelt of the arch- dukes, Ihone all the graces which charmed in the mailer-pieces that Hood round her cra- dle (a)\ graces heightened by talents in all the agreeable arts, and by no llender improvements in iblid literature : fhe relided at the palace Giar- dino. The hereditary prince, with a governor and preceptor appointed in France (M. de Ke- raglio and the Abbe de Condillac) lived by him- felf in the palace of Parma ; whillt the infant, their father, refided at Colorno, having with him M. du Tillot, his cabinet minifter, who, as he was born in Spain of French parents, poffeffes the charadleriftical merits of both nations. Among, the fuite of the court at Colorno, was a complete company of French players. Mr. Addifon in his travels into Italy, defcants on the expenfivenefs of thefe little courts, like an Englifhman, blaming it as deftruiftive to peo- ple, who Ihould be the happier for having their fovereign among them.. He would, perhaps, have reafoned otherwife, had it occurred to him what would be the condition of thefe fame people un- der a fovereign, who buried all the money he got from them. ( a) Una cmnss furrifuit Vi meres * From ON ITALY. ii5 From Parma toColorno the price of poftchaifes is quadrupled ; I would not make any great enquiry about the caufe of fuch an apparent exadlion. This palace, which was built by one of the name of San Severino, and embellifhed.in the wars of Lewis XII. is more remarkable for its fituation than the beauty and regularity of its conftrudtion. In the laft Italian war, the Auftrians had their head-quarters here ; in what condition they left both the palace and the gardens is eafily ima- gined. In the gardens are two antique coloiles (a). That which was leaft mutilated has been repaired, and at prefent Hands in the center of a grafs-plat on a pedeftal proportioned to its ftature. Having in this infulated pofition no other ground than the circumambient air, the black and gloffy furface of the touch-ftone, of which it is made, is hardly perceivable by the eye. The other coloffus ftill lies in the adjoining plat, wanting a like re- pair. This reprefents a naked youth in the em- braces of a little fatyr, (training to lay his right- hand over the youth’s right hip, and his other hand griping the left hip. Nothing can exceed the fine proportion of the principal figure *, that of the fatyr is diminutive, and the countenance is mean and fordid, but full of fire and expreflion. A pretty good defign of this piece is among the ornaments in the frontifpiece of Abbe Barthes’s diflertation, of which I gave an account in the article of Turin. ( a) Thefe two colofies were found laft century, on the mount Palatine at Rome. See M. Biandiini Palazzo dP Ce- / art, where they are engraved. I 2 10 ii 6 OBSERVATIONS In our way to Parma we pafled through Borga- San-Donino, a fmall place dignified with an epif- copal fee. On the outfide of its cathedral’s great door, which indeed is common to mofl of the cathedrals in Lombardy, are two marble lions, not every where of the fame bignefs, but either fquatting, or railed on their fore paws, according to the fculp tor’s fancy. The greater part are moftly prior to the revival of arts in Italy. The great altar-piece in the cathedral of Borgo is a Puri- fication, by an artift of the Bologna fchool ; the two turtle doves are in a balket, covered with a linen cloth; a boy lifts up a corner of it, and holds out his finger at them, which they peck at. The fovereign’s palaces at Parma and Placentia are only half finifhed plans, which, if lefs enorm- ous, would unqueftionably have been completed. REGGIO and MODENA. Thefe cities which, fo long ago as in the reign of Theodofius, St. Ambrofe termed femirutarum urbium cadavera . , were fince deftroyed by thofe fwarms of barbarians who over-ran Italy under that prince’s fucceffors (b). On the profpedt of (a) Epijl . ad FauJUn . (b) I fometimes place at the head of the articles, the ac- counts which, for my private ufe, I had extra&ed from the very learned, and very difFufe Leandro Alberti. Thefe fu- perficial ilri&ures concerning countries, with which one is not yet acquainted, are to travellers, and thofe who read their narratives, like a word fpoken by the by, concerning the com- pany in an afiembly, where one happens to be for the firft time, an ON ITALY. ”7 an univerfal peace, expected from Charlemain’s p-overnment, the defcendants of the former inha- ,,«D 9 bitants of thefe cities returned and rebuilt them : they had been left in fuch a ruinous condition, that it was thought belt to rebuild Modena in a more convenient fite than where it had flood before. Through induflry and populoufnefs, ani- mated by the love of their country and freedom, they foon became wealthy, flourifhing, and mar- tial (a). Under the anarchy which followed, the condition of thefe cities and the petty neighbour- ing flates, was the fame as that of the ancient La~ tium in the firfl ages of the Roman republic. Every city was a flate by itfelf, ever embroiled with its neighbours, and often rent by fadions and intefline divifions. If none of thefe flates could, like Rome, acquire a dominion, it was un- queflionably owing to their people’s never lofing fight of the ballance of power, herein more po- litic than the neighbours of ancient Rome*, this was the capital concern abforbing all fufpicions, rivalries, animofities, and private interefls. In this anarchy Modena and Reggio aded a part. (a) Thefe cities likewife owed part of their profperity to the laws which they made for themfelves at that jun&ure. Among thofe which Modena laid down to itfelf in 1225 .vas one, revived a few years, ago, by England, and a general law it ought to be in all countries which have the improve- ment of agriculture at heart. This law appointed a jury, on whofe eftimate any proprietor of one or more large parcels of land, might, by purchafe or exchange, acquire the fmall parcels which either bordered on, or feparated his pofteffions. By this wife meafure, every farm being as one field, both to the owner’s eye and the farmer’s tillage, the limits of poffef- fions became more fixed and certain, and the cultivation of them infinitely more eafy. I 3 Being n8 OBSERVATIONS Being moftly governed by citizens of their own, whofe authority they ufed to fhake off on every little umbrage, they fucceflively transferred them- felves to the emperor, the pope, the Venetians, the dukes of Ferrara, Mantua, and Milan, but whofe governors they either expelled or affaffmated on the firft difcontent. The authors of thefe abrupt revolutions are commemorated in their annals a- mong their worthies. At length Julius II. hav- ing wreiled them from Alphonfo d’Efte, duke of Ferrara, this duke recovered them, whilft Rome was befieged by Charles V. They ftill belong to the houfe of Efte, by grant from Clement VIII. when he re-united the duchy of Ferrara to the ec- clefiaftical Hate. The territory of thefe cities, is a fertile plain . watered by the Po, the Panaro, the Secchia, and Lenza, and every where planted in almoft a con- tinual quincunx, with ftately elms, and on each one or two large vines. The extremities of thefe fpreading vines reaching fo as to be interlaced, form, in every interval, an ample garland, the natural prominence of which in the middle, I am inclined to think gave the firft hint of thofe garlands or feftoons among the onaments of archi- tecture. The land thus Ihaded by thefe trees and fufpended vines, is tilled and fowed : when I ufed to fay that this was the very way to have both bad vines and bad grounds, the anfwer was, that it had always been the way, and that the ground was too moift and cold for the vine ; and on my replying this was making the ground ftill more cold and moift for the grain, I had the firft reafon over again. 4 ON ITALY, Jig We were told that it has been a cuftom, a- inong the vintagers, time out of mind, when they are gathering grapes on thefe trees near a road, to fpew out at all who pafs by, without minding fex or rank, all the foul language and ribaldry, ufed in the mod; abandoned places. An omiffion Lib, 3 . iuit. K 4 church r 3 6 OBSERVATIONS church (of Corpus Domini) his whole aflonifh- ment is confounded by the beauty of the inaieftic paintings which adorn all its facred walls, in a lively reprefentation of the aftions and virtues of our holy heroine St. Catharine of Bologna.” Among this crowd of mailer-pieces, I was more particularly taken with fome, for reafons which I am going to relate. i ft. A St. Peter weeping, by Guido, at the Zampieri palace. Of all the paintings I ever faw, never was I fo much ftruck with any as this. St. Peter, whom an apofble is comforting, is as big as life. It is impoffible for the pencil to exceed this deception. The Greeks muft certainly have had very great mailers in this kind, if what Pliny faid of one of their pictures be as true as it is of this : caput , crus & pedes eminent , extra tabulam videntur. 2dly. By the fame mailer, in the church de ’ Men - dicanti , Job replaced on the throne : a picture, perhaps, inferior in the eyes of the great con- noiffeurs to that of the chief altar, by the fame hand ; but I iliould prefer the former; Amidil a multitude of people offering prefents to Job on his reiloration, the painter has with inimitable delicacy hit on, and with all poilible juftnefs ex- preifed, the different gradations of emotion, which the difference of age, rank, and condition, could refpeftively excite among all thofe perfons. This fmgular fubjeft, and which no other painter has handled, was unqueflionably an allegory in which Guido might have in his eye Frederic V. eleftor palatine. ON ITALY. * 37 ' palatine, chofen king of Bohemia in 1619, and in 1620 put under the ban of the empire. Had this prince actually afcended the throne to which he had been called, he would have met wi:h his hiftory in this picture, and unqueftionably have rewarded the artift like a king. I muft leave to thofe who are better acquainted with the particu- lars of the hiitory of painters, the care of verify- ing this conjefture, by comparing the dates which I have fpecified, with that which they may affign to this mafterly performance. 3dly. In the fame church is a St. Jofeph by Tiarini, and angels bringing him back at the feet of the virgin, with whom he expoftulates concerning her pregnancy. Some neighbours of both fexes, prefent at this expoftulation, form an acceffory, taken from common life, and handled with a fuitable fimplicity, not in the lealt deroga- tory to the dignity of the principal fubjedt. 4thly. Among the mafter-pieces of the Carra- chi and their fchool, of which the monaftery of Sl Michael in Bofco is full, I could not but ad- mire the paintings of the library. Each faculty, which, in the libraries, is ufually indicated by an infcription, is there denoted by two perfons who have excelled in that faculty, and who, lying on the two cornices of a feigned pediment, confer to- gether, either warmly or quietly, fmartly or dully, according to the character of their works, and the nature of the faculty which they denote. For inftance, on the pediment over fcholafcic phi- lofophy, the painter has reprefented the Ange- lic Doftor dilputing with the Subtile DoFier, on the univerfal ^ garte ret : this piece, by its lire '13$ OBSERVATIONS and force of expreffion, makes the fpedator, as it were, prefent at the difpute of Panurgus a- gainft T aumaftes the Englifnman, who argued by geftures *. Thefe figures, which are as big as life, were performed by Canuti, who unqueftion- ably had the firft ideas of each groupe, from the abbe Pepoli, to whofe care the library owes this ingenious embellifhment. 5 thly. A Hercules in Frefco in a faloon of Graffi- palace. Lewis Carrachi had painted it on a wall of his houfe, from whence it has been removed, together with a part of the wall, to the place where it now Hands. This figure alone, which is of a coloffal fize, gives the higheft idea of the artift’s talents. Time, and perhaps the new ce- ment to which it was fixed, has a little degraded the colouring. The Madonnas, in moil of the voids left by the unequal elvation of the porticos along the ftreets, are generally done by the belt hands. Bologna is the only place where fuch valuable pieces are feen in the ftreets. The profufion of paintings in this city, made me curious to know what price the Carrachi and their pupils ufed to put on their performances ; and I find it next kin to nothing when compared to what they bear at prefent. I fliall only tell you, as one inftance, that for the martyrdom of St. Agnes, a picture of equal dimenfions to thofe of Mai in Notre Dame at Paris, and one of the prime paintings in Italy, Dominichini only re- ceived forty zequins, that is about four hundred and fifty livres, according to the prefent currency, * Rah. 1. 2 . 1. ig. All ON ITALY. 139 AH thefe great painters, working from inclination, placed their whole ambition in the perfection of their art, and the judgment of polterity. Guida is the only one whole happinefs it was to enjoy his reputation, on which he raifed, almoft unknow- ingly, a fortune, which he did not keep : he had made a vaft progrefs in his career, in having early entered on it ; he had an amazing eafe and readi- nefs, which in his latter days he unhappily abufed ; and the fortune he accumulated he owed to the homage paid by foreigners and fovereigns to his admired talents. The vexations, enmities, and erodes which embittered the life of thefe famous men, and adtually fhortened the days of moft of them, are facts corroborating the many inftances, that eminent genius and reputation fo far from being productive of happinefs, very often prove a misfortune. The Carrachi might have lived very happy as taylors, in which profeffion Lewis was born, and from which lie drew away Hannibal and Auguftine ; but then their names would never have been heard of. In the laft century, Bologna had a man of that calling, who was particularly famous for his knowledge in painting and immediate difcernment of the capital merit of pictures, and the different ftiles of fchools and mailers. This taylor was likewife a mighty politician, and his (hop the office of intelligence for all the news which the court of Verfaiiles would have fp read over Italy: as a connoiffeur in pictures and a politician, Lewis XIY. allowed him a penfion, and fuch was his zeal for that prince and his affairs, that he actually died by the iliock which feized him, 98 146 OBSERVATIONS on the news of the battle of Ramelies or Hoch J fiet. The Bologna fchool has fub filled down to the prefent time with great honour. Carlo Cignani, who was brought up by Albano, and furpaffed his mailer, lived and handled his pencil till 1719. M. Smith, the Englilh conful at Venice, made a collection of this ardft’s original deligns, and had them engraved under his own eye by John Michael Liotard of Geneva, adding a defcription of them with explanations, of which, however, fome particulars relating to Cignani’s life are the bell part. This defcription came out at Venice in 1749. In what condition the Carrachi found painting at Bologna, appears by the names which Leandro Alberti has left us of the Bolognefe who had diftinguilhed themfelves there, till the time in which he wrote, that is about the middle of the 1 6th century. This lift mentions only five or fix artifts, of whofe talents fcarce any monuments are now exifting, being loft in the multitude of fu* perior performances. Bologna has an idiom or jargon particular to itfelf, and the common Italian is there fpoken fo very uncouthly, that Italians themfelves can fcarce make any thing of it. In the poem of the Sec- chia Rapita, are many inftances of this jargon and difagreeable pronunciation, for which the doc- tors of the Italian ftrollers are noted. The late pope himfelf had not got over it, and particu- larly when in a heat. During the difference with Venice, which warmly interefted him, at an au- dience with M. Capello, the Venetian ambaffador. ON ITALY. 14* this gentleman frequently interrupted him, both by objections and contrary relations of faCts. The pope, little ufed to fuch interruptions, faid in an angry manner, I fuppofe you have fometimes been at a play ? and what’s that to the purpofe ? bluntly anfwered M. Capello ; that is, replied the pope, you ought to have obferved there, che quando parla it Dottore, tace il Pant alone, i. e. on the doctor’s fpeaking, Pantaloon (a) holds his tongue. The informations I got at Bologna are chiefly owing to the marquis Grafli, and the abbe Monti’s regard to the recommendations I brought them : the marquis, one of the leading men in the council of Bologna, is taken up with well digefted fchemes for remedying the decay of the trade of his country, by reviving the ancient and introducing new manufactures. Here plenty of the firft materials, as it were, invites induftry* and what might not be com- pafled by this induftry, if employed on filk and hemp, of which Bologna affords fuch abundance, yet exports it to the very great emolument of more induftrious foreigners ? But the papal go- vernment and its attendant, continual peace, feem to have thrown Bologna into a torpid infenfi- bility, from which it was fo very different in thofe tumultuous ages, of which I have given a flight Iketch in the beginning of this article. The buftle in which we found the Bologna traders getting ready for Sinigaglia fair, made us curious to fee it, efpecially as it was pretty near- ly in our way. The diftance between Bologna and Sinigaglia is twelve poll ftages, but almoft double (a) Theatrical name for a Venetian buffoon. thofe •i4$ OBSERVATIONS thofe of France, as are all the Italian Rages be- yond Milan. We made quick work of this jour- ney, in which, at every Rage, you come to a city; thus fucceffively palling through Imola, Faen- Z2, Forli, Cefena, Rimini, Pezaro, Fano, and Sinigaglia, croffing almoft at the half way the famous river Rubicon. R O M A N I A. The above towns make the more confiderable and. wealthy part of Romania. Our Ihort flay, would not allow us a very particular furvey of their beauties, of which they are not quite bare ; but, fliort as it was, we were heartily tired of thofe flethful infolent fet of fcoundrels, ftrutting with fwords by their fides along the ftreets, efpeciaily in the firft four cities. Both the Romanefe and the people along the Po are of one common origin with the modem French, being the defendants of thofe Gauls who followed Brennus above two thoufand years ago. The part of Italy confining on the Adriatic fea, took the names of thofe provinces of Gaul from whence thefe people came, whether becaufe they fettled apart as provincial bodies, or whe- ther they were united only fortuitouily, and the refemblance of the countries and fites gave rife to thof 1 appellations. Thus Bologna became the capital of a new Berry (a) : One part of Umbria took the name of Senones •, the coun- tries near the mouth of the Po, that of the peo- ple who had left the mouth of the Loire ; and thefe laft had for neighbours new Manceaux (b). (a) Boii, (b) Cenomani, ■ Tq ON ITALY. *43 To go about tracing any veftiges of a common origin between the Gauls fettled in Italy, and the modern French, would be loft labour : it beino- now many ages fmee all refemblance either in manners, cuftoms, or fentiment, has been worn out. Never did they fo differ as in the party for which one and the other declared in a matter of the utmoft importance and in like circumftances. The decay of the imperial prerogative under the defeendants of Charlemain rouzed the Gauls, now become Lombards and Romanefe, to recover a liberty which they maintained for the Ipace of three centuries, lefs indeed by open force, than the ftipplenefs of an ever intriguing policy. The Venetians immediately availed themfelves of the anarchy to fecure the foundations of their go- vernment. The Lombards and Romanefe, being preffed by that power, and x by the popes, who left no ftone unturned to make themfelves poten- tates, and being farther harraffed, from time to , time, by the emperors coming fword in hand to renew their claims, which had grown obfolete ; their only fhift was, to give themfelves up al- ternately, according to the times, to one or other of thofe powers, who however treated them with the confiderations due to new conquefts. But no fooner did the yoke begin to make itfelf felt, than they fhook it off. The boldeft ftrokes of- ten decided thefe revolutions, by means of which thefe Gauls recovered their independency ; but fuch intervals only ferved the turn of petty ty- rants, either foreign or natives, and they were driven out or made away with, either on fufpi- cion 144 OBSERVATIONS cion or mere humour. In a word, till Julius II. who laid on thefe turbulent people a yoke which they have not yet thought of throwing off, they found means to preferve a liberty, which they were every inftant in danger of lofing. The love of independency has furvived their liberty, and for its laft fecurity has made choice of indolence. Thus under that anarchy, which we know only from wretched accounts ( a ), the ftate of Lom- bardy and Romania was the fame as that of Greece, under thofe fhining asras immortalized by Herodotus and Thucydides Fixers fortes poft Agammnona Multi : fed omnes illacrymabiles Urgent ur, ignotique longd. Noffe y carent quia vate facro. The condition of France to which we muft return, was very different under that fame anarchy, intro- duced by the weaknefs into which the regal autho- rity fell under Charlemain’s defcendants. Whilffc ufurpers were fetting up a new form of government on the ruins of that authority, the love, nay the very notion of liberty was wearing away among the people, who feemed to prefer a quiet flavery to a liberty ever in arms. The new mafters of the feveral provinces found in the Frenchman, now under villenage, a compliance and fubmif- fion the more wonderful, as that brave peo- (a) It is unquellionably from thefe annals that the arch rogue Rabelais, as Brantome calls him, has forged his Pol- tronifmus rerum It all car urn, which is in St. Victor’s library. pie, ON ITALY. M-5' pic quietly reftrained their courage, except when the advantage of their mailers called for its exer- tion. Whether was this people or that of Lombardy and Romania the happier at that time ? a very nice queftion, the decifion of which will be more certainly come at, by a knowledge of the pecu- liar temper and difpofition of each of thefe people, than by any moral or political fpeculations. The towns, in our p adage from Bologna to Sinigaglia, are well built and without porticos : in fome of the churches we faw very good paint- ings ; they have likewife elegant palaces with fquares and fountains. Romania has even had a painting-fchool to itfelf ; and for its head counts a Barocci, whofe compofitions are not at all inferior to thofe of the great mailers of Lom- bardy. This fchool is Hill fubfilling in a painter iettled at Fano, and whofe talents, being without employment in his own country, have happily- found a generous patron in the Marckgrave of Ba- reith, who, without troubling him to remove, has made him his with a penfion. This painter is to work for Germany, Italy being already too full of the performances of ancient mailers to think of encouraging living talents. All we faw at Imola, Faenza, Forli, and Ce- fena (a), was the cathedral of Forli, its cupola, painted by Cignani, and the vice-prefident of that city, to whom we applied for jullice againll the po- ftillion who had brought us from Faenza. His (a) Rimini, Pezaro, and Fano, we faw more at leifure, palling through them again both in our way from Sinigaglia *q Venice, and in our return from Venice to Rome 0 Vol, I, L excel- OBSERVATIONS excellency, who was in his waiftcoat and a brown* linen cap, v/as then at work in his clofet about a piece of black gloffy linen, for a hammer’s waift- coat, and he did not leave off for our coming. At length, after a very long delay, vcuchfafing to hear us, he cut fhort the difpute with a mezzo t ermine , by which part of the poftillion’s buona - mancia , or fee, went into his people’s pockets. R I M I N I. After paffirig the Rubicon which the Pizatello and another fmall river claim the honour of re- prefenting, we arrived at Rimini over a bridge, all built of blocks of the fineft white marble. 1'he in- fcription, ftill intire, attributes it to Auguftus and Tiberius. This bridge, equally worthy of notice for its ft length and fine prefervation, is the moft intire monument of the Auguftan age. Time,, which disfigures and deftroys the monuments of mere often tation erected in honour of the Cafa di- vimii feems to have fpared this in regard to its defigri and ufefulnefs. It confifts of three com- plete arches, and on proportions recommended by Palladio as models. On each key-ftone is a fym- bol of the priefthood or augurate. The Lituus y leen there in great, is abfolutely the very fame thine as the crofier of the modern Roman ca- O tholic bifhops. Rimini had alfo a harbour, lined by Auguftus with the like magnificence, but be- coming ufelefs by the withdrawing of the fe a, it v/as demolifhed about the middle of the 15th century: Pandolphus Malatefta made ufe of the materials for building St. Francis’s church, i» ON ITALY. 147' In which it mult be owned architecture has dis- played whatever it was capable of before the re- vival of the fine arts. Rimini cathedral, which was built on the foun- dations of a temple of Caltor and Pollox, is dedi- cated to St. Columba, to whom Sens in France gave birth, and where the likewife died. I could get no information on what account the ancient inhabitants of Rimini chofe this faint for their pa- tronefs : as to examining whether this choice was a confequence of the continuation of a fraternity between the Senonefe of France and thofe of Ro- mania, till the firfi: ages of the chrifdan era, that I refer to others. On leaving Rimini you pafs under a triumphal arch, railed in honour of Auguftus, after a tho- rough repair of the great roads in Italy, all which concentered at Rimini, where, if I miftake not, began the Via iriumphalis. This arch being much funk and flattened by time, bears no farther like- nefs to the bridge than in its being of white marble (a). LA CATOLICA. On the road from Rimini to Pezaro, lies La Catolica, a village whofe ftnall church, ftill in be- ing, is famous as the fhelter of thofe bifhops, who, feparating from the famous council of Ri- mini, held a meeting in it to protefi: againft the deciflons of that council. If the country people - (a) It is known by thefe proportions, in the medal ftruck in honour of Auguftus, on the repair of the Via Flaminw, with this infcription, quod vim mun. sunt, L 2 in i 4 § OBSERVATIONS in Romania may be judged of by thofe who re- ceived us in a cottage of this village, and their neighbours who flocked to fee us, the ruftics here certainly differ from the towns people more than in any other country. In thefe good folks, al- moft all fifhermen, we found a candour, opennefs, and morals which amazed us, and the more, as a total diflntereftednefs was among their good quali- ties. They allured us that the inhabitants of the neighbouring; mountains were to the full as good as themfelves •, that they had, one and all, rather die than be like the people in the towns on the great road, whom they call canaglia maledetta , an abandoned breed ; in a word, that if there be any truly good people in the world, the territory of St. Marino is the place where they are to be found. From the hill, on the fummit of which ftands La Catolica, we were Ihewn the place where once Hood a city now covered with the fea, which gained there what it loft in receding from Ri- mini. SAN MARINO. The road from La Catolica to Pezaro fkirts the territories of this fmall republic, concerning the government of which we referred ourlelves to the defcription given of it by Mr. Addifon, who went in perfon to get a'/fKorough knowledge of it. This little ftate was on the point of lofing its liberty, by cardinal Alberoni’s enterprife againft it, during his legation in Romania*. The ma- '* About 1750. nagement ON ITALY. 149 nagement and execution of this project would do honour to the cardinal’s bravery, had it been a- gainft a people, whom a {lender regard to the Ro * man purple would not have reftrained from offer- ing at a defence. The cardinal’s red veftment, and a Te Deum , in which he was feized with a panic, gave a fanftion to this enterprize: Bene- dict XIV. difowned it, yet he kept the original charters of this republic, the cardinal having pur- loined them ; and they were lodged in the Vatican Archivio. I knew at Rome a petty Curial, or limb of the law, born at St. Marino, who had facrificed his fmall fortune purely to recover the moff eflential of thole charters, which accordingly he had got fafely conveyed back among the records of his country. I likewife frequently faw at Rome, a- mong the Minims of la 'Trinit d di monte , ano- ther member of the fame republic, the very counter-part of Rabelais’s Parnurgus, a complete mafter of the Latin and Greek, and even of the vulgar Greek j well verfed in geometry, chymiftry, and elpecially botany •, he had travelled over the greateft part of Afia, even as far as the king- dom of Thibet, always footing it, and with- out equipage or fo much as money. He lived at Rome from hand to mouth, placing all happinefs in liberty and chearfulnefs, which he looked upon as incompatible with dependance. The firft time I faw him was in the laboratory of la T rinitd di monte , where, with all the vehemence of pulpit elocution, he was holding forth, facing the apo- thecary of the convent, who, according to the conftitution of thofe places, was one of the fociety, L 3 on 150 OBSERVATIONS on miracles and conversions, the marvellous of which increafing in a climax, at length fet the pious brother a weeping and fobbing moft cor- dially. In the opinion of this odd creature, the world afforded nothing comparable to ancient Rome, except his dear republic of St. Marino: it was indeed the only thing he could fpeak of with any ferioufnefs. He propofed, after a few more perambulations, to go and end his days in his Ithaca, and devote his abilities and difcoveries in promoting its happinefs. P E Z A R O. This city was the moft delightful part of the duchy of Urbino : Julius II. difmembered this little territory from his conquefts in Romania, to make a fief of it for his family ; it was, at that time, ten leagues in length and five in breadth, of which the Adriatic was the bafe. By the extinction of Julius’s family (a), this duchy in 1630 devolved again to the holy fee. In that brilliant age, which the Italians diftinguifh by the name of the cinque cento, the court of Urbino was one of the principal ornaments of Italy. A genius, an artift, a gentleman, was fure of being welcome every where, after the happinefs of hav- ing pleafed a court, whofe efteem was the ftandard of reputation in every kind. Count Balthazar Cafti- glione’s Cortigiano (b), i. e. courtier, gives us the (a) La Rovere, (b) This work, too little known in France, where Lewis XII. and Francis I. encouraged the author to go on with it, contains the moil: pure principles of morality and policy, enlivened with all the elegance and facetioufnefs of the court of Urbino* code ON I T A L Y. 151 code of its gallantry at that time. A delicate taile for arts and faiences, a well digefted knowledge of the world in general, and of both fexes, chear- fulnefs, decent jocularity, and ail the graces arifing from refined urbanity, conftituted the cha- rafteritlic of that fhining court, which ufed to fpend the winter at Pezaro, in elegant palaces, of which little more than melancholy remains are now to be feen. This city appeared to me almoft as large as Ri- mini, but better built, and more populous •, it had a bad character in ancient times, from the ma- lignance of its air in fummer. Catullus ufed to call it moribundam fedem ; but its prefen t inhabi- tants fay, that the draining of the neigbouring marlh.es has long fmce removed that diftempera- ture. Its figs keep up their former reputation ; they are certainly the belt in this part of Italy. The churches in Pezaro have feme pieces by Paul Veronefe and Guido, with feveral by Bar- rocci, who was contemporary with the former, prior to the latter, and inferior to neither in colouring and graces. Guido has not a fingle grace which is not to be found again in Barrocci’s Annuncia- tion in the cathedral of Pezaro, and in his Cir- cumcifion , the chief ornament of another church in the fame city. The calling of St. Peter and St. Andrew, in a very pretty fmall church, adds the force of exprefilon and the brilliancy of exe- cution to all the graces the fubjedt would ad- mit, and thefe heightened by tints which time feems to renew and improve. We were told that this painter ufed to take his angels and vir- gins from a brother and filler, who, if art has L 4 not 152 OBSERVATIONS not added to nature, were celeftial beauties in- deed. I fpent an evening here at the coffee-houfe, where the company confided of elderly nobles of this country, talking about foreign news ; the al- liance lately druck up between France and Audria was a long topic for their political talents. A very old commander of an order, next to whom I happened to fit, and who had quietly lidened to the whole, afked me whether I had ever feen any thing of France ; and on my anfwering in the af- firmative, whether Quebec was not near Bour- deaux, as he imagined ? without trying whether he was in jeft or earned : I replied, that Quebec had lain out of my way, but fince he imagined it to be in France it certainly mud. The antiquities of Pezaro were feme years ago engraved with explanations, by one of its inhabi- tants, and make a folio intitled Marmora Pifau - renjia •, it is very well printed, and at Pezaro. The road through Pezaro and Fano, from Ri- mini to Sinigaglia, is very pleafant and ealy a- long the fhore, one wheel in the fea and the other on the fand, which the water confolidates as it wets it. The fhore is bordered by deep rocks, againd which, in tempeduous weather, the fea beats ; and it being fuch at our departure from Pezaro, we could not keep along the fhore. On our returning into the Via Flaminia, we pafled through a very unequal, fruitful, and well cul- tivated country, and which, in our progrefs, prefented us with a continued variety of mod delightful landfcapes. FANO, ON ITALY. *53 F A N O, This city likewife belonged to the duchy of Urbino : its prefent name is a remainder of that of fanum fortune given it by the Romans. In many refpecls it refembles Pezaro, but is more po- pulous, and has what Pezaro wants, one of the fineft opera theatres in Italy. Its churches abound in pictures by the g re ate ft mafters of the Bo- logna fchool. St. Jofeph’s marriage, in the firft chapel on the right-hand in coming into the ca- thedral, pleafed me beyond any I ever faw of Guerchini. The compofition is quite fimple, nihil habere ex ingenio videtur *, but fuch fublimity, and fuch grandeur inthisfimplicity ! the principal fubjeCt confifts of the high-prieft, the Virgin andSt. Jofeph. It was unqueftionably to make it more projecting, that the painter has introduced in the deepening, fome mean perfons fpitefully leering at the ceremo- ny. In the fame church is a chapel decorated with fmall pictures of Dominichini, reprefenting the myfteries of the Rofary. But thefe pieces, no more than one of Guido’s in this cathedral, did not take with me any thing like that of Guerchini. In the church of the Phillipini, or fathers of the oratory, built about the middle of the laft century by a man of wealth, who had taken the habit of the oratory, is a moil valuable collection of paintings, collected by the founder ; a printed lift of them is given. There are feveral by Guido, but part of them fcarce to be known, having been disfigured by a dauber, who was employed to clean *54 OBSERVATIONS clean them, and who, after (craping them, put the finifhing hand to fpoiling them by his prefumptu- ous retouches. That of the great altar, being lefs expofed to moifture than the others, luckily did not fcand in need of repair, and thus efcaped the general ravage. It is a capital compofition, of the fame labour and value as the greated pieces of that mailer to be feen at Bologna. There is likewife another very well preferved in the falfe window on the left. The fight of all the beauties and curioiities in Pezaro I owed to the politenefs of a friendly pried, whom I accidentally fell in with at the ca- thedral. He carried me every where, and in- formed me of every thing in the mod obliging manner •, he even infided on treating me at the eoffee-houfe. I found by his converfation which entirely correfponded with this uncommon cour- tefy, that he was geniale Francefe , a hearty French- man. For in all the cities of Italy and the very villages, the European powers have very warm (ticklers, who are generally fuch from father to fon, and downright hate thofe of a contrary party. The ancient regard of thefe people for martial atchievments dill animates them, fo that Lewis XIV. by the greatnefs of his projects and the rapidity of his conqueds was become the uni- verfal favourite among them. The quarrels of thefe different parties are to Italy, as the religious quarrels in France, Eng- land, and Germany. An Italian in the French intereft deteds the Englifn and their partizans, •.as ss heartily as a good French Molinift detefts Port-Royal and the Janfcnifts, and -vice verfa. Thefe parties however have been put to a kind of nonplus, by the unforefeen alliance between Auftria and France ; yet has it not yet reconciled the geniali of thofe two powers, molt of them re- taining their former affections. In the prefent war, enthufiafm has formed a confiderable party for the king of Pruffia; in fhort, the wars of the European princes are to the Italians pretty nearly what the fhews of gladiators were among the Romans. They amufe the people’s idlenefs ; and the fovereigns foment thefe parties, as diverts ing their attention from objefts which more nearly concern them, according to the maxim, divide & impera. See the article of Ravenna in the fequel. Fano has likewife a triumphal arch of white marble, ereCled to Auguftus. It was thirty cubits high, but is now half ruined by the artillery of Paul II. in the fiege which Fano fuftained againft that pontiff in 1463. Some very uncertain ruins are fhewn as remains of that temple of fortune, from which the city received its name. At the fpace of a league from Fano, the Fla- minian way croffes the Metaurus, now the Metros in the very fpot where Afdrubal was worfted by the Romans. T eft is Metaurum flunien & Afdrubal Deviflus. This River had little or no water, though we croffed it at its entrance into the fea. The pom- pous i 5 6 observations pous Silius Italicus has dedicated to it this in- flated verfe. Rapidafque fonanti Vortice contorquens undas £sf fax a Metaurus. Let us now call an eye on the prefent ftate of trade, in that part of Romania which we have travelled over. Of the firft four cities between Bologna and the Rubicon, Forli is the only one whofe inhabitants have any inclination for work : their chief bu- finefs is wax, linen, and umbrellas, with which they fupply the far greater part of Italy. At Sinigaglia fair we faw a dealer, who alone • dif- pofes of at leafl three thoufand umbrellos every fair. Faenza, as if fatisfied with the honour of having given name to the finer fort of earthen ware, makes at prefent but very little, and that likewife very bad. The manufactures of Rimini and Pezaro fcarce fuffice for home confumption •, they were relin- quifhed to the Englifh, for the advancement of another kind of domeflic induftry. The filk, which is ftill gathered in the duchy of Urbino *, and in the upper part of Romania, is bought up by the traders of thefe two cities, who for this purpofe have entered into terms with the Englifh, in which Italian fubtilty feems to have forgot itfelf,. They remit thefe filks to England, and the enfuing year the Englifh bring them in return fluffs of their manufactures, fuch as mohairs and filk and cotton fluffs, with a profit for the workmanfhip ; and all, according to the con- fcience * See the obfervations on the Milanefe trade. ON ITALY- *57 fcience of the Englifh, who thus get both filk and money from Romania. The Romanefe dealers perhaps may find a prefent profit in this meafure, but it can proceed only from the very low price of the raw filks, which are brought to their ware- houfes •, in the mean time the cultivator, difheart- an objedt fo far from elcaping' ON ITALY. iSl efcsping Muratori’s attention, that he has devoted to it part of his twenty-third diflertation, of which I fhall fet down fome extracts. The condition of Italy, in this refpeft, during the centuries preceding the revival of its lplendour, may eafily be conceived. Its towns and fields being turned into defarts, the diftrefied inhabitants who had furvived the peftilence, famine and the fword of Barbarians, had fcarce the immediate necef- faries of life, and, by the total ceflation of trade, were without any means of bettering their con- dition •, befides prudence would not admit of any oflentation which might ftimulate the avidity of fome favage conqueror. Ricobaldo, who lived in the 13th century, con-" eludes his hiftory of Ferrara with a picture of the manners of the Italians, or at leaft of the Ferra- refe his countrymen. “ Under Frederic II.” fays that hiftorian, “ the “ manners, cuftoms, and way of living, were very “ remote from any appearance of luxury. The “ men wore on a cap, which they called majata , “ a kind of mitre, with no other ornament than “ iron feales. The hulband and wife eat out of the fame difii, as for plates the ufe of them “ was not known. A rummer or two ferved a “ whole family ; their light was a lamp, no “ candles of any kind having been yet invented. “ Men wore cloaks of fkins or coarfe wool, both “ without any linings. The cap was of the fame “ fluff ; as was the women’s apparel, even of “ brides. Little or no gold was to be feen in all ** their drefs. As to food, the commonality eat N 3 “ frefh i 82 OBSERVATIONS tc frefh meat only three times a week, their dinner “ was vegetables dreft with that meat, which cold “ ferved for fupper. It was only fome of the “ moft wealthy who drank wine in fummer ; no- “ thing but abfolute neceffaries were kept in ei- “ ther cellars or lofts. The portions of wives “ were anfwerable to the little coll of their main- “ tenance. The apparel of young women con- “ filled of a kind of coarle robe which they caN “ led Soutanne , and a large flaxen veil called “ Xocca ; all the head-drefs of married women