A Ride on Horseback to Florence Through France and Switzerland. Vol. 2 of 2

aucon-His death deferred till dark, in expectation of the king's relenting-His last words resembling Wolsey's-Lodi-The Austrians-Imprecations-The serenade-Doubts as to the road-Piacenza-A thirsty doua

erving two purposes-A procession seeking a criminal-Cambacérès-Ariosto-A robber's love of poetry-Correggio-Modena

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roops encamped at about two miles from Milan. The city was ably defended, though Francis Sforza had yet been unable to re-enter his capital,-and by his chancellor's order, an eloquent monk, to arouse the zeal of the Milanese, preached against the barbarians. The Milan army swelled its ranks with German mercenaries; that of France obtained an unexpected reinforcement in the person of Giovanni de' Medici, who, rendered free by the death of Leo the Tenth, arrived to profit by the higher pay and greater advantages the service of France offered him, conducting three thousand foot and two hundred horse beneath the mourning banners, adopted in memory of th

ls, and the white cross of France; and Lautrec, to penetrate more easily into Colonna's camp, obliged his soldiers to change, for the Italian, their national colour. The Marshal of Foix, arrived at the bridge, defeated the Milanese of Francis Sforza, and, supported, might have gained the battle; but the impatient Swiss retreated in discomfiture ere yet he had time to arrive, and Prospero Colonna, informed of Lautrec's stratagem, easily recognised the spurious red crosses from those of his own soldiers, who wore, by his order, each a green branch as plume to his helmet. The Swiss infantry, still unpaid, and having lost in this unfortunate affair three thousand men, retired across the frontier. Lautrec, anxious to justify himself i

a debt he owed her, as she had placed in his hands funds proceeding from her revenues, and the fruit of her economy. The Surintendant's assurances to the contrary, his known character for probity, and his habits of life, which kept him apart from all court intrigues or passions, convinced the king, who was so attached to him as to have contracted the habit of callin

lusion in the Bastille. His vindictive mother craved that he should be brought to trial, and the Chancellor Duprat presented, for the king's signature, a list he held ready of judges, who, chosen from the various parliaments of the kingdom, were either placed by himself or devoted to him as having shared in the profits of confiscations pronounced according to his desire. The accused was interrogated, and Duprat, aware that by delay and chicanery he could best blind the multitude, under various pretexts, so lengthened the proceedings, that they filled four years. On the 9th of August, 1527, he was condemned to be hanged at Montfaucon, and on the 12th of the same month, conducted on foot from the Bastille thither, passing through the Rue St. Denis, where, in conformity to an ancient ceremony, criminals on their way to execution were made stop at a monastery, and swallo

oduce all the cheese called Parmesan, only because the inhabitants of Parma first made a trade of its exportation. Our passport examined again, as carefully as on leaving Milan, we rode to La Posta through a town cleaner and prettier than usual: the old innkeeper, at first exorbitant in his demands, accepting the less startling prices we offered, but reminding me of Shylock as he left th

lian, with his dark eyes and ferocious features, who received it, and the moment his back was turned, raised his clenched hand to invoke imprecations on the Tedeschi. "Accidenti in fiume, accidenti per viaggio,

here broad and rapid. The same wooden bridge exists which the Austrians (repulsed and driven back by Bona

et, and the trees which fringe its banks, and were reflected in its clear water. At night, sleeping with windows open, as the heat was extreme, we were wakened by the first

venuti, cavalca

er, the two Austrian officers, who had preceded their comrades, and occupied a room near ours, were serenaded also by a fine military b

r. Lodi to

s passed us with their horses, but I have learned to ask questions with discrimination, for the brutal incivility of the common Italians I have never seen equalled. They shout their disapprobation of our mode of travelling, their energy seeming to expend itself in "sound and fury, signifying nothing;" drive on us their cart-horses or oxen, or at least act like a waggoner we came up with yesterday, and whom I requested to allow me room to pass on the side where Fanny, who, to his amusement, was starting violently, would be in no danger of arriving with me at the bottom of a twenty fee

and sunburned feet were treading the wine-press as we had seen them doing in the fields also. At last, Piacenza was in sight; the dark red city rising on the broad plain beyond the broad P?, with the one stone arch, the relic of a Roman bridge, standing in its centre, on the deposit of sand and stones; and

, we left our passport at the gate, and the douaniers came smilingly forward. "W

exceedingly agreeable. One is sure of giving in the right place, and without offence, and also of saving trouble at small cost, for it happened that the only change we possessed w

h its dome is of such elegant form that I should like to transport it afar, but spoiled with gaudy frescoes on wall and ceiling, by dirty floor, and ragged furniture. The eating room, a noble hall, with a range of pillars down its centre, and hung round with paintings

ntrance, is some curious carving. The church is large without being handsome; two thirds of the roof, glaring with fresh whitewash, contrast with the dark grey columns. The choir has its frescoes still; and there is a subterranean church which we admired-sombre and solemn, its arched roof sustained by numerous pillars, as li

a strict investigation of their past conduct, and punished its derelictions with heavy fines or confiscation of property, exercising the same tyranny of which he had given proof when five years before he had been sent by the pope to subdue his revolted province of Perugino, the birthplace of Raphael's master; for having reduced it to obedience, he devastated its territory, and put its chief citizens to the most cruel deaths. The nobles of Placentia, roused to desperation, at last conspired against him, demanding and obtaining the aid of Ferdinand of Gonzagua, who detested Farnese also. It is said that a man celebrated for divination of the future presented himself before Pier Luigi to warn him of his fate, desiring him to examine one of his own coins struck at Parma, as thereupon, and contained in the same word, he would find the init

gi and his successor, and look on the square, not one opens on a balcony. The inner courts are invisible to strangers, the citadel being converted to a barrack, and the other side of the edifice looks on garde

cture, dark and imposing, forms one side of the place which contains the two eques

ooking palace, and around the pedestals of the duke's statues, were grouped the market-women, with their heaps of fruit and baskets of flowers, as if they were offerin

of Anjou, brother of Henry the Third of France. Alessandro, whose triumphs had continued almost uninterruptedly, receiving news of the loss of his father Octavio, and become by this event Duke of Parma and Placentia, solicited of the Spanish court permission to return and take possession of his sovereignty. Philip refusing the leave he asked, he prosecuted, with unabat

le pope sent to the castle of St. Angelo his mandate for the young man's execution. Unacquainted with the subject of the message, the cardinal continued to implore, and at eleven obtained from the hand of Sixtus a second order,-bearing that, on its receipt, Ranuccio Farnese should be set free. Provided with this last, the cardinal arrived breathless at the castle of St. Angelo, where, to his astonishment and terror, he found his young relative kneeling before his confessor, and heard that the execution had been deferred only on his instant prayer for more time to reconcile himself with God. Whether the pope had intended merely to terrify his prisoner to future obedience, or whethe

ere and sombre exterior fitly accompanied a distrustful and avaricious disposition, long kept them separated, and Ranuccio during this time named Octavio his heir. As the youth grew up, he became daily and deservedly more popular, changing his father's favour to fear and hatred, till, having heirs by his wife Margaret, he pretended a fear that the disappointed prince might

d, grated, and wired, like a prison or a mad-house, with precaution which seems excessive where the entrance is voluntary. On the whole, though we made the tour of all the other churches we found open, and wandered till we were we

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ty. At the entrance of Borgo St. Donnino is its quaint old church, guarded without by a strange assemblage of saints, beasts, and nondescript figures; and before arriving at the Angelo, which is at the extremity of the little town, we passed two fine establishments for mendicity, male and female, once a jesuits' monastery. The Angelo is the cleanest inn, and kept by the most honest people we have had the fortune to find since crossing the frontier, the good woman, who lost her husband a year since, and the head waiter, who has lost an eye, vying with each other in civility, and proud of their beds and cookery: still as it rained pitilessly from our coming till

the town's patron, Saint Donnino, who was an officer of the Emperor Maximilian, and, having

une was the place of chaplain

ughout the year. You know that it was built by the Guelfo faction, in opposition to Castel Gibello, which lies between Parma and Placentia, though not on the road we have travelled. These fatal rallying words were first employed in 1140, at the battle of Winsburg, between Conrad the Third, the emperor, and Guelph the Sixth of Bavaria. A castle, which had been the nursery of the dukes of Swabia, was called Gibellin

rtly after, arrived at Parma, built on the river of the same name, which we traversed two or three times as we rode to the Paone, whither we had been recommended, and which, though a bad inn, we bear with patiently, as its owners are civil, and stabling excellent: for, un

lves, there passed beneath a long procession, headed by a few priests, and composed of men, who wore, over their usual dress, a species of friar's cloak and cape of oilskin, with a silver badge, resembling a coffin plate, hung to the left side. They went silently along under the pouring rain, a bareheaded Capucin walking beside the last, and a crowd following. I aske

ecame acquainted with another and a depraved woman, but whom he determined to marry, and his resolution irrevocably formed, he returned home and from her presence one evening, deliberately sawed his

at Modena, as we return by the same road, when I will

t of legitimacy, justice and humility, which cannot be sufficiently praised, signed a deed of renunciation to the title of Prince of Parma in presence of a

, "Master Louis, whence gathered you together such fooleries?" but better appreciated by the wild robber chief Pacchione, when Ariosto (sent by Duke Alfonso to purge the mountainous district of Garfagnana of the lawless bands who infested it, and having so legislated as to succeed, and in a brief space of time to bow or soothe the turbulent to submission) was passing on horseback, and with six or seven domestics only, along a narrow pass, when at a sudden turn, and gr

salute him on his passage as being then unacquainted with the person of one whose f

enius, not with fortune, engraved o

UITED TO ME, OBN

AN, RAISED AT

describe splendid palaces with porticoed courts and marble halls, had built

he was wont to stop to sketch in his walks the groups he met at play, gave him in its representation such purity of conception, such brilliancy and delicacy of touch, that he seemed to paint with the breath, while over his female forms there is diffused a divinity, a celestial grace, belonging to beings of a higher order, as if he had painted in prophecy. Never rich, ill paid for his mighty works, having received but about ￡20 and his food during the

uilt and clean, with wide streets and handsome buildings, a pleasant impressio

h of Germany, the excommunicated emperor, was on his way to seek a personal interview with the pontiff, preferring so to do to awaiting the decision of his holiness the following year at the diet-general of the empire to be invoked at Augsburg for the purpose of his ban or absolution. There exists a village of the same name, where the impregn

the fortress was surrounded by a triple wall, and the ground then covered with snow. He was allowed to wait a long time and alone; the few who attended him being forbidden to approach; and the gate being at last opened to him, he was wholly at the mercy of his enemies, a consideration which did not subdue his courage or change his purpose, for it is said of him, that in the sixty-six battles he had fought, he had always, save when betrayed, come off victorious. Admitted within the second court-yard of Canossa, he was bidden to put off his shoes and the royal robes which

rdinal Ippolito who was Ariosto's unworthy patron. Rival in a love-affair of his natural brother Don Giulio, Ippolito heard its object, who was a lady of Ferrara, praise the beauty of Don Giulio's eyes, having preferred him for her l

na, pillaged Placentia, beheaded sixty-five citizens of Parma, but at last, desirous of peace, as the Marquis of Este opposed to him the brave Attendolo Sforza, consented to a conference at Rubiera. The chief and the noble arrived, each followed by a few chosen knights, and among those of the latter was Attend

here, as at Parma, it has rained the livelong day, and we leave early to-morrow. It is the first ti