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

us the Second-St. Petronio-Mistake of a learned man-Charles the Fifth-Here crowned King of Lombardy-K

e-Pietra Mala-Strange properties of its fire and cold spring-Fruit-Montecarelli-St. Antonio's grapes-Palazzo Borghese-H?tel du Nord-Jerome Bonaparte's cook-Piazza della Santa Trinità-Spot occupied by the Palazzo d

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ts, increased in number, in a neighbouring town mustered forty knights, it took from them the name of Quarantola. This legend you may doubt or believe in; but the family of Pio and Pic, sprung from Euridice, produced in 1463 the ph?nix, Pic de la Mirandole, who, at ten years of age, held the first place among the poets and orators of his day; and in 1486, at Rome, published a list of nine hundred propositions on "all that is or can be known," offering to argue their truth with any such learned personages as could be induce

owers and ribands. The toilette of the women, who wore their best clothes, had an elegance about it, the lace or embroidered handkerchief covering, in guise of mantilla, the head and shoulders, and the clear worked muslin apron tied on over the bright petticoat. On the chapter of beauty, however, their "glory has departed." Since leaving Milan, we have seen bu

stel Franco are the pope's custom-house and passport office. Truly the subjects of his holiness lack conscience. One touched our baggage; "What have you here?" and to the usual reply, "Linen; will you see it?" rejoined, "On no account, but we will dr

ke; and riding beneath an archway which bears an inscription in Napoleon's honour, whitewashed for the sake of effacing it, but restored by the late heavy rains. We went, as recommended, to the Pellegrino, but it wa

ur poor comrades were lodged in a crowded stable, without space to lie down, and next kicking horses, one of whom had lamed his neighbour the night before. To run the risk of a like accident to ours was not to be thought of-the warlike Fanny, with open mouth and ears laid back, and Grizzle, with her heels, were prepared to resent any insult from the tall carriage horses, or even to take the initiative if necessary; and Italy being a place where even bribes are vain to induce an attendant to practise care, D-- remained standing beside the surly groom, while I sallied forth on a voyage of discovery, having changed my dress, and summoned to conduct me a poor facchino, who had carried our baggage into the inn-a dwarfish wretched being we noticed for his civility, and who had since remained leaning against the wall in the hope of further employment. I desired him to be my guide to L

an Marco and the direttore of the Tre Mori, one on each side, like Scylla and Charybdis, and the Englishman, foaming with the powerless fury of the sea in like situation, for the worthies were uncivil and positive. Escaped from their fangs, our horses led by the ragazzo, we arrived at La Pace at dusk, crossing on our way the fine Piazza Maggiore, most striking in that imperfect light, with the Pal

ossessed, he finally turned into the streets, from the shelter which had been their own, the father and young daughter. The latter wandered over Paris during the day, vainly seeking employment, which, owing to her youth and disbelief in her story, was everywhere refused her. At last, night coming on, and those who passed examining the forlorn girl with curiosity or contempt, in despair, and ashamed to beg, as she crossed the Pont Royal on her way back to the spot where she had left her father, she suddenly resolved on suicide, and was about to throw herself into the river, when her arm was caught by an old officer, who forcibly held her back, gravely remonstrated with her, and passed on. Softened, and her purpose changed, she knocked meekly at several doors, and at last found shelter with a poor portress, who received herself and her father for charity. She next took servic

hardly quitted them, when the indignant Bolognese struck it down. The church of St. Petronio, though unfinished, and likely to remain so, has an imposing aspect, and is of ancient date, as commenced in 1590. It possesses its patron saint's entire body, the head, which only was wanting, having been bestowed by Po

ssing the same papal foot he had before held captive, and creating, after the ceremony, two hundred kn

ed within these walls twenty years, and died in the year 1262. There is a legend which would make the family of Bentivoglio of royal origin: it recites that there was a fair young peasant enamoured of Enzio, and who, by bribes or stratagem, found means to see him in his confine

erty, and the youth adopted as a family name the

the first, towards the west, is but five feet out of the perpendicular; it was built in 1109, and is three hundred and seven feet high. The last is in height but one hundred and forty-four feet from the ground, but it

repair when it came to Paris, then was repainted the sky, which now starts from the canvass, before the heads of which it is the back ground. You would have smiled to see the man who came when we rang for admittance, these halls being open to the public except on festivals. We asked if entranc

e speditori, of our baggage we have heard nothing since the day it quitted Vevay to precede us in Italy. Whether it has crossed the Simpl

lso prevent the free circulation of air at night. The stifling and ill-scented streets make bad promenades; and the dirt of the population of Bologna passes description. We walked into San Petronio this evening: it was decorated for the festival, and the altar, a blaze of wax-lights, contrasted with the gloom of the spacious aisles. The priests, in their rich robes, moving before, and the multitude kneeling on the pavement, had a fine and solemn effect; but the infected atm

arnestly that her bill might remain unpaid till our return from Florence. She regrets her own country, though she has stayed here long enough to lose its accent. Her Italian r

brethren at Ancona, by our friend Capt. de V--l, whose conduct at Lyons I mentioned to you, and I write it here, as a story of

tto, the pontifical battalion, and the quiet commandant, were all three forgotten. In the morning, enraged at the neglect, he angrily inquired whether the French general was aware of the presence of a battalion in the lazzeretto. "Very probably,"

ence of Colonel Combes, who then commanded the 66th, and laughing hea

ir allegiance to their new government, yielded difficult passes it would have been easy to defend, retreating before the Austrian army, and continually defeated till their king was repla

od or medicine thought necessary. Our friend's lodgings looked on the hospital, wherein, when the panic had in some measure subsided, the sick were admitted-to die-either from the virulence of the malady, or the measures adopted for its cure: for abstinence was so strictly practised, that many perished from starvation. Monsieur de V-

nurse; "quì non si mangià

nd through almost the entire day and night which followed; but the second morning his hunger was no longe

o great was the cowardice, that a consecrated wafer was presented to a dying man by his priest at the extremity of a pair of pincers. The only active means they adopted was the ordering a procession in honour of Our Lady of Ancona, attired for the occasion in a white robe, spangled with golden stars. Capt. de V--l and his company formed part of the procession, it always happening, he assured me, that he was on duty as the Madonna's guard whenever she came forth. This Madonna is the same of whom Napoleon, when playing his part on this stage, asked an interview, and who, after a conference of some length, was obs

perished ere the close of the next; but there is, not far from Ancona, a small town or village, whose name I forget, which escaped the pestilence by reason of a miracle performed by its patron saint, the details of which Capt. de V--l saw on a printed affiche.

lian, "le dico che ho vedut

tch it, grumbling when I had paid him well, I took from the table, which was in a corner of the half-

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and lonely masses, but swelling like wave beyond wave, and in their details losing grandeur. On the whole, though admiring and enjoying the pure mountain air, and passing some spots of romantic beauty, (particularly one where the road was carried under a wall formed by the high cliff, while before us, on a tall crag, stood a lone church, and on the right hand far below, lay the valley, with its green hills close crowded and dotted with pleasant habitations,) our first day's journey over the Appennine almost disappointed me in its tranquil beauty, as compared with the wild and grand Swiss passes. The heavy oxen toiling on their way, as they preceded th

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erb, we could distinguish the chain of the Alps and the plains of Lombardy, but not, as I hear is sometimes possible, the Adriatic. Past the town the road grew wilder and the ascents more rapid, and we shortly arrived at Filigare, the frontier, where the grand duke has built a new and handsome edifice for police station and custom-house. Pietra Mala is at no great distance, with its dirty town and church on a crag, and inn to which is linked a robber story. About half a mile to the right, a peasant pointed out the place

have been of late in their loneliest parts scarcely safe for travellers. Hereabouts there is an inn, good apparently, but which I should hardly choose from its utter solitude, and we soon arrived at the summit of this mountain, the highest on our route; formerly dangerous, as the wind, which rushes down the gorge in sudden gusts, often swept off carriages. It is now, at the pla

scape the heat, at least in part. Our last day's journey was the most interesting. Montecarelli left behind, we wound through groves of old oak up and down abrupt hills, catching glimpses through the trees into valleys on either side; to the west the sky was blue and pure, but eastward, as the sun rose, it shone on the surface of the mist which lay like a broad lake in the hollow, the green tops of the hills surmounting it like its islands. The clouds are more agreeable as well as picturesque far than near; for, riding through them, the country was completely veiled, and the chill unpleasant and penetrating. About four miles from Montecarelli, we passed Le Maschere, which appears a good inn; and near it

he extreme heat for its fresher air. Climbing slowly, as the way was steep, suddenly from behind a cabin at the angle issued forth to meet us an ill-dressed suspicious looking party; the eight or ten foremost carrying guns, the stragglers who followed, thick sticks; and as one must needs be imaginative in the Appennines, we began to think that robbers we had heard of were indeed abroad, and

ountry was covered with vine and olive, sounding prettier in description than they look in reality; and the terraced gardens of the villas we passed were gay with a profusion of summer flowers, and the laurier-rose with its double and beautiful blossom, growing in the open ground and shooting up against the blue sky. In compensation, the heat was scarce

guided us over the flat and dangerous pavement to the Palazzo Bertolini, now the h?tel du Nord, and opened about a week since by the ci-devant cook of Jerome Bonaparte, having moderate terms and fine apartments, only too comfortable, as this weather we would gladly dispense with their thick carpets. Our dresses changed and dinner ended, and the horses, for which there was no room here, lodged at Huband's livery stables, I was too impatient to remain enclosed in the h?tel till

ms of Napoleon and the grand dukes are last in order, and among those which mark the factions of Guelph and Gibelline, those of Charles of Anjou and King Robert of Naples; of the wool-carders and the Medici, the merchant monarchs. There is one bearing the monogram of the Saviour, for Nicholas Capponi, in the year 1527, and at a period of excitement when no temporal sovereign seemed strong enough to sway the disobedient Florentines, proclaimed Jesus Christ their king, in a grand council composed of a thousand voters, of whom twenty, opposing the election, formed a minority!! The colossal statues which guard the entrance, the fine fountain with its Neptune and marine horses, beside its steps to the left, and beyond on the Place the royal statue of Cosmo mounted on his war-horse, to the right, as we stood opposite

sacrilege to think that its monstrous dome seems to weigh down the remainder of the building; that its mass of black and white marble wants relief, or what the French call mouvement, to give it light and shadow; that the octagon temple, with its pointed roof, once pagan, cased in marble, and become that of St. John, is heavy and ungraceful? St. John possesses the bronze doors, so beautiful in their workmanship: th

ut, while we lingered, there issued thence a funereal procession, the most solemn I have seen; the mourners in their long sable robes, and hoods forming masks, with openings for the eyes only, two and two, bearing torches in their hands, following the priests, ca