even current as the other Lakes that rise under the Alps but the scituation of the Hills about it throws it into several courses The Switzers have here several little Provinces or Baliages of which during the Wars of Italy between the Dukes of Milan and the two Crowns in Francis the First and Charles the Fifths time they possessed themselves as a pledge for payment of their Arrears and they were then such considerable Allies that they made both the Competitors for the Durchy of Milan Court them by turns and became the peaceable Possessors of almost all that Tract that lies between the Lake of Como to the Countrey of the Vâ—lessii or the Valleys The Inhabitants here are so well used they live to free of all Impositions and the Switzers Government is so gentle that hâ—re I must tell you another Paradox this is the worst Countrey the least Productive the most exposed to cold and the least capable of Trade of all Italy and yet is by far the best peopled of any that I saw in all Italy There belongs to the Baliage of Lugane alone ninety nine Villages of which a great many are very large and all are full of people The twelve ancient Cantons have their turns of all the Baliages and other Officers here but when it comes to the turn of those of the Religion their Bayliffs must be contented with private Devotions in their own House but can have no publick exercises nor so much as a Minister in their Houses For here as in the Valteline when the Spaniards confirmed the right of the Cantons to those Territories they made an express provision that no Religion except the Popish should be tolerated here so that the Bayliff who is the Prince often hath not the free Liberty of his Religion in these parts The Bayliffs here make their advantages as well as in the other parts of Switzerland but yet with more caution for they take great care not to give the natives any distast tho the miseries to which they see all their Neighbours exposed and the abundance and liberty in which they live should by all appearance deliver their Masters from any great apprehensions of a revolt A geeat many Mechanicks of all sorts live in these parts who go all Summer long over Italy and come back hither with what they have gained and live free of all Taxes I was told that some Nephews of Popes in particular the Barberines had Treated with the Switzers to buy this Country from them and so to erect it into a principality and that they had resolved to offer twelve thousand Crowns to the twelve Cantons but they found it would certainly be rejected so they made not the proposition to the Diet of the Cantons as they once intended and it is certain whensoever this Country is brought under a yoke like that which the rest of Italy bears it will be soon abandoned for there is nothing that draws so many people to live in so ill a soil when they are in sight of the best soil of Europe but the easiness of the Government From Lugane I went to the Lago Maggiore which is a great and Noble Lake it is six and fifty miles long and in most places six miles broad and a Hundred Fathom deep about the middle of it it makes a great Bay to the VVestward and their lies here two Islands called the Borromean Islands that are certainly the loveliest spots of ground in the VVorld there is nothing in all Italy that can be compared to them they have the full view of the Lake and the ground rises so sweetly in them that nothing can be imagined like the Terrasses here they belong to two Counts of the Borromean Family I was only in one of them which belongs to the head of the Family who is Nephew to the Famous Cardinal known by the name of S. Carlo on the VVest-end lies the Palace which is one of the best of Italy for the lodgings within tho the Architecture is but ordinary there is one Noble apartment above four and twenty foot high and there is a vast addition making to it and here is a great Collection of Noble Pictures beyond any thing I saw out of Rome The whole Island is a Garden except a little corner to the South set off for a Village of about forty little Houses and because the figure of the Island was not made regular by nature they have built great Vaults and Portaca's along the Rock which are all made Grotesque and so they have brought it to a regular form by laying Earth over those Vaults There is first a Garden to the East that rises up from the Lake by five rows of Terrasses on the three sides of the Garden that are watered by the Lake the Stairs are Noble the VValls are all covered with Oranges and Citrons and a more beautiful spot of a Garden cannot be seen There are two buildings in the two corners of this Garden the one is only a milne for fetching up the VVater and the other is a noble Summer-house all wainscotted if I may speak so with Alabaster and Marble of a fine colour inclining to red from this Garden one goes in a level to all the rest of the Allies and parterres Herb-Gardens and Flower-Gardens in all which there are varieties of Fountains and Arbors but the great parterre is a surprizing thing for as it is well furnished with Statues and Fountains and is of a vast extent and justly scituated to the Palace so at the further-end of it there is a great Mount that face of it that looks to the Parterre is made like a Theater all full of Fountains and Statues the height rising up in five several rows it being about Fifty foot high and about Fourscore foot in front and round this Mount answering to the Five rows into which the Theater is divided there goes as many terrasses of noble walks the Walls are all as close covered with Oranges and Citrons as any of our Walls in England are with Lawrel the top of the Mount is Seventy foot long and Forty broad and here is a vast Cistern into which the Mill plays up the Water that must furnish all the Fountains The Fountains were not quite finished when I was there but when all is finished this place will look like an Inchanted Island The freshness of the Air it being both in a Lake and near the Mountains the fragrant smell the beautiful prospect and the delighting variety that is here makes it such a habitation for Summer that perhaps the whole World hath nothing like it From this I went to Sestio a miserable Village at the end of the Lake and here I began to feel a mighty change being now in Lombardy which is certainly the beautifullest Country that can be imagined the ground lies so even it is so well watered so sweetly divided by rows of Trees inclosing every piece of ground of an Acre or two Acres compass that it
there are about a hundred Convents in Naples so every one of these if it were in another place would be thought well worth seeing tho the riches of the greater Convents here make many of them to be less visited Every year there is a new Governour of the Annunciata who perhaps puts in his own Pocket twenty thousand Crowns and to make some compensation when he goeth out of Office he giveth a vast piece of Plate to the House a Statue for a Saint in Silver or some Coloss of a Candlestick for several of those Pieces of Plate are said to be worth ten thousand Crowns and thus all the Silver of Naples becomes dead and useless The Jesuits are great Merchants here their Wine Cellar is a vast Vault and holds above a thousand Hogsheads and the best Wine of Naples is sold by them yet they do not retail it out so scandalously as the Minims who live on the great Square before the Viceroys Palace and sell out their Wine by retail They pay no duty and have extraordinary good Wine and are in the best place of the Town for this retail It is true the Neapolitans are no great Drinkers so the profits of this Tavern are not so great as they would be in colder Countries for here men go only in for a draught in the mornings or when they are a thirst Yet the House groweth extream rich and hath one of the finest Chappels that is in all Naples but the Trade seems very unbecoming men of that Profession and of so strict an Order The Convents have a very particular Priviledge in this Town for they may buy all the Houses that lye on either side till the first street that discontinueth the Houses and there being scarce a street in Naples in which there is not a Convent by this means they may come to buy in the whole Town And the progress that the wealth of the Clergy makes in this Kingdom is so visible that if there is not some stop put to it within an Age they will make themselves Masters of the whole Kingdom It is an amazing thing to see so profound an ignorance as Reigns among the Clergy prevail so effectually for tho all the Secular Persons here speak of them with all possible scorn yet they are the Masters of the Spirits of the people The Women are infinitely superstitious and give their Husbands no rest but as they draw from them great presents to the Church It is true there are Societies of men at Naples of freer thoughts than can be found in any other place of Italy The Greek learning begins to flourish there and the new Philosophy is much Studied and there is an Assembly that is held in D. Joseph Valleta's Library where there is a vast Collection of well chosen Books composed by men that have a right taste of true learning and good sense They are ill looked on by the Câ—ergy and represented as a set of Athâ—ists and as the spawn of Pomponatius's School But I found no such thing â—mâ—ng them for I had the Honour to meet twice or thrice with a considerable number of them during thâ— short stay that I made among them There is a lâ—â—rned Lawyer Francisco Andria that is câ—nside eâ— as one of the most inquisitive men of the Assâ—mâ—ly There is also a Grand-child of the Great Alciat who is very curious as well as learned Few Churchmen come in to this attâ—mpt for the reviving of Learning among them On the contrary it is plain that thâ—y dread it above all things Oâ—ly one Eminent Preacher Rinaldi that is Arch-deacon of Capua Associates himself with them He was once of the Jesuites Order but left it and as that alone served to give a good character of him to me so upon a long conversation with him I found a great many other things that possessed me with a high value for him Some Physitians in Naples are brought under the scandal of Atheism and it is certain that in Italy men of searching understandings who have no other Idea of the Christian Religion but that which they see received among them are very naturally tempted to disbelieve it quite for they believing it all alike in gross without distinction and finding such notorious cheats as appear in many parts of their Religion are upon that induced to disbelieve the whole The Preachings of the Monks in Naples are terrible things I saw a Jesuite go in a sort of a Procession with a great company about him and calling upon all that he saw to follow him to a place where a Mounte-bank was selling his Medicines near whom he took his Room and entertained the people with a sort of a Farce till the Mountebank got him to give over fearing least his action should grow tedious and disperse the compâ—ny that was brought together There are no famous Preachers nor men of any reputation nor learning among the Jesuites I was told they had not men capable to teach their Schools and that they were forced to hire Strangers The Order of the Oratory hath not that reputation in Italy that it hath gainâ—d in France and the little Learning that is among the Clergy in Naples is among some few Secular Priests The new method of Molinos doth so much prevail in Naples that it is believed he hath above twenty thousand followers in this City And since this hath made some noise in the World and yet is generally but little understood I will give you some account of him He is a Spanish Priest that seems to be but an ordinary Divine and is certainly a very ill Reasoner when he undertakes to prove his opinions He hath writ a Book which is intituled Il Guida Spirituale which is a short abstract of the Mystical Divinity the substance of the whole is reduced to this that in our Prayers and other Devotions the best methods are to retire the mind from all gross Images and so to form an act of Faith and thereby to present our selves before God and then to sink into a silence and cessation of new acts and to let God act upon us and so to follow his conduct This way he prefers to the multiplication of many new acts and different forms of Devotion and he makes small account of corporal austerities and reduces all the exercises of Religion to this simplicity of mind He â—hinks this is not only to be proposed to such as live â—n Religious Houses but even to secular persons and by this he hath proposed a great Reformation of mens minds and manners He hath many Priests in Italy but chiefly in Naples that dispose those who confess â—hemselves to them to follow his methods The Jesuits have set themselves much against this conduct as foreseeing that it may much weaken the Empire that Superstition hath over the minds of people that it may make Religion become a more plain and simple thing and may also open a door to Enthusiasms They also pretend that his
furnisheth her with Masters of all sorts ordered Letters to be carved in Wood and she by feeling the Characters formed such an Idea of them that she writes with a Crayon so distinctly that her writing can be well read of which I have several Essays I saw her write she doth it more nimbly than can be imagined she hath a Machine that holds the Paper and keeps her always in line But that which is above all the rest she is a person of extraordinary Devotion great resignation to the Will of God and a profound humility The Preceptor that the Father kept in the house with her hath likewise a wonderful faculty of acquiring Tongues When he came first to Geneva for he is of Zurich he spoke not a word of French and within Thirteen months he Preacht in French correctly and with a good accent He also began to study Italian in the month of November and before the end of the following February he preacht in Italian his accent was good and his stile was florid which was very extraordinary for the Italian language is not spoken in Geneva though the Race of the Italians do keep up still an Italian Church there THE THIRD LETTER Florence the 5th of November I Have now another Month over my head since I writ last to you and so I know you expect an account of the most considerable things that have occurred to me since my last from Milan Twenty miles from Milan we past through Lodi a miserable Garrison though a Frontier Town but indeed the Frontiers both of the Spaniards and the Venetians as well as those of other Princes of Italy shew that they are not very apprehensive of one another and when one passes through those places which are represented in History as places of great strength capable of resisting a long Siege he must acknowledge that the sight of them brings the Idea that he had conceived of them a great many degrees lower For Lombardy which was so long the seat of War could not stand out a good Army now for so many Days as it did then for Years The Garrison of Crema which is the first of the Venetian Territory is no better than that of Lodi only the People in the Venetian Dominion live happier than under the Spaniard The Senate sends Podesta's much like the Bailifs of the Switzers who order the Justice and the Civil Government of the Jurisdiction assigned them There is also a Captain General who hath the Military Authority in his hands and these two are checks upon one another as the Bassa's and the Cadi's are among the Turks But here in Crema the Town is so small that both these are in one Person We were there in the time of the Fair Linnen Cloath and Cheese which though it goes by the name of Parmesan is made chiefly in Lodi are the main Ingredients of the Fair. The magnificence of the Podesta appeared very extraordinary for he went through the Fair with a great train of Coaches all in his own Livery and the two Coaches in which he and his Lady ride were both extraordinary rich his was a huge Bed-coach all the out side black Velvet and a mighty rich Gold fringe lined with black Damask flowred with Gold From Crema it is Thirty miles to Brescia which is a great Town and full of Trade and Wealth here they make the best Barrils for Pistols and Muskets of all Italy There are great Iron Works near it but the War with the Turk had occasioned an Order that none be sold without a permission from Venice They are building a Noble Dome at Brescia I was shewed a Nunnery there which is now under a great disgrace some years ago a new Bishop coming thither began with the Visitation of that Nunnery he discovered two Vaults by one Men came ordinarily into it and by another the Nuns that were big went and lay-in of Child-bed when he was examining the Nuns severely concerning those Vaults some of them told him that his own Priests did much worse He shut up the Nuns so that those who are professed live still there but none come to take the Vail and by this means the House will soon come to an end The Cittadel lies over the Town on a Rock and commands it absolutely Both here and in Crema the Towns have begun a Complement within these last Ten or Twelve Years to their Podesta's which is a matter of great Ornament to their Palaces but will grow to a vast charge for they erect Statues to their Podesta's and this being once begun must be carried on otherwise those to whom the like Honour is not done will resent it as a high affront and the revenges of the Noble Venetians are dreadful things their to Subjects This name of Podesta is very ancient for in the Roman times the chief Magistrates of the lesser Towns was called the Potestas as appears by that of Juveral-Fidenarum Gabiorumve esse potestas From Brescia the beauty of Lombardy is a little interrupted for as all the way from Milan to Brescia is as one Garden so here on the one side we come under the Mountains and we pass by the Lake of Guarda which is Forty miles long and where it is broadest is Twenty miles broad The miles indeed all Lombardy over are extream short for I walkt often four or five miles in a walk and I found a Thousand paces made their common mile but in Tuscany and the Kingdom of Naples the mile is Fifteen Hundred paces We pass through a great Heath for Seven or Eight miles on this side of Verona which begins to be cultivated Verona is a vast Town and much of it well built there are many rich Churches in it but there is so little Trade stirring and so little money going that it is not easie here to change a Pistol without taking their coin of base alloy which doth not pass out of the Veronese for this seems a strange maxim of the Venetians to suffer those small states to retain still a coin peculiar to them which is extream inconvenient for Commerce The known Antiquity of Verona is the Amphitheater one of the least of all that the Romans built but the best preserved for though most of the great stones of the out-side are pickt out yet the great flopping Vault on which the rows of the seats are also intire they are four and forty rows every row is a foot and half high and as much in breadth so that a Man sits conveniently in them under the feet of those of the higher row and allowing every Man a foot and a half the whole Amphitheater can hold Twenty three thousand persons In the Vaults under the rows of seats were the Stalls for the Beasts that were presented to entertain the Company the thickness of the building from the outward Wall to the lowest row of seats is ninety foot But this Noble remnant of Antiquity is so often and so copiously described
that I will say no more of it The next thing of value is the famous Museum Calceolarium now in the hands of the Count Mascardo where there is a whole apartment of Rooms all furnisht with Antiquities and Rarities There are some old Inscriptions made by two Towns in Africk to the Honour of M. Crassus There is a great collection of Medals and Medaillons and of the Roman Weights and their Instruments for their Sacrifices there are many Curiosities of Nature and a great collection of Pictures of which many are of Paulo Veronese's hand There is a noble Garden in Verona that riseth up in Terrasses the whole heigth of a Hill in which there are many ancient Inscriptions which belongs to Count Giusto As we go from Verona to Vincenza which is thirty miles we return to the beauty of Lombardy for there is all the way as it were a succession of Gardens the Ground is better cultivated here than I saw it in any other place of Italy But the Wine is not good for at the roots of all their Trees they plant a Vine which grows up winding about the Tree to which it joins but the Soil is too rich to produce a rich Wine for that requires a dry ground There is near the Lake of Guarda a very extraordinary Wine which they call Vino Santo which drinks like the best sort of Canary it is not made till Christmas and from thence it carries the name of Holy Wine and it is not to be drunk till Midsummer for it is so long before it is quite wrought clear but I have not marked down how long it may be kept We had it there for a groat an English quart I wondred that they did not Trade with it All the Cattle of Italy are gray or white and all their Hogs are black except in the Bolognese and there they are red I will not inquire into the reasons of these things It is certain Hogs-Flesh in Italy is much better than it is in France and England whether the truffs on which they feed much in Winter occasion this or not I know not the husks of the pressed Grapes is also a mighty nourishment to them but Cattel of that grayish colour are certainly weaker The carriage of Italy is generally performed by them and this is very hard work in Lombardy when it hath rained never so little for the ground being quite level and there being no raised High-ways or Cause-ways the Carts go deep and are hardly drawn Vincenza hath still more of its ancient liberty reserved than any of these Towns as Padua hath less for it delivered it self to the Venetians whereas the other disputed long with it and brought it often very low one sees the marks of Liberty in Vincenza in the riches of their Palaces and Churches of which many are newly built They have a modern Theater made in imitation of the ancient Roman Theaters Count Valarano's Gardens at the Port of Verona is the sinest thing of the Town there is in it a very noble Alley of Oranges and Cttrons some as big as a Mans body but those are covered all the Winter long for in this appears the sensible difference of Lombardy from those parts of Italy that lies to the South of the Apenins that here generally they keep their Oranges and Citrons in great Boxes as we do in England that so they may be lodged in Winter and defended from the breezes that blow sometimes so sharp from the Alps that otherwise they would kill those delicate Plants whereas in Tuscany they grow as other Trees in their Gardens and in the Kingdom of Naples they grow wild without any care or cultivation We were at Vincenza upon a Holy-day and there I saw a preparation for a Procession that was to be in the afternoon I did not wonder at what a French Papist said to me that he could hardly bear the Religion of Italy the Idolatry in it was so gross The statue of the Virgin was of Wood so finely painted that I thought the Head was Wax it was richly clad and had a Crown on its Head and was set full of Flowers how they did when it was carried about I do not know but in the morning all People run to it and said their Prayers to it ond kissed the ground before it with all the appearances of devotion From Vincenza it is Eighteen miles to Padua all like a Garden here one sees the decays of a vast City which was once one of the biggest of all Italy the compass is the same that it was but there is much uninhabited ground in it and Houses there go almost for nothing their Air is extream good and there is so great a plenty of all things except money that a little money goes a great way The University here though so much supported by the Venetians that they pay fifty Professors yet sinks extreamly there are no Men of any great fame now in it and the quarrels among the Students have driven away most of the strangers that used to come and study here for it is not safe to stir abroad here after Sun set The number of the Palaces here is incredible and though the Nobility of Padua is almost quite ruined yet the beauty of their ancient Palaces shews what they once were The Venetians have been willing to let the ancient quarrels that were in all those conquered Cities continue still among them for while one kills another and the Children of the other take their revenges afterwards both comes under the bando by this means and the Confiscation goes to the Senate At some times of grace when the Senate wants Money and offers a Pardon to all that will compound for it the numbers of the guilty Persons are incredible In Vincenza and the Country that belongs to it I was assured by Monsieur Patin that learned Antiquary that hath been many years a Professor in Padua that there were Five and thirty thousand pardoned at the last Grace this I could hardly believe but he bid me write it down upon his word The Nobility of Padua and of the other Towns seem not to see what a profit their quarrels bring to the Venetians and how they eat out their Families For one Family in the same Man's time who was alive while I was there was reduced from Fourteen thousand Ducats revenue to less than Three thousand by its falling at several times under the bando But their jealousies and their revenges are pursued by them with so much vigor that when these are in their way all other things are forgot by them There is here the remnant of the Amphitheater though nothing but the outward Wall stands There is here as well as in Milan an inward Town called the City and an outward without that called the Burgo but though there is a Ditch about the City the great Ditch and Wall goeth about all and Padua is Eight miles in compass it lies almost round The publick
some Secular Men and some Churchmen and as the Princes authority is delegated to them so they have a sort of an Episcopal jurisdiction over all the Clergy This Order was a surprise to them as being a direct breach upon their Laws and the Liberty of their Religion so they sent a Deputation to Court to let the Elector know the reasons that hindred them from obeying his Orders which were heard with so much Justice and Gentleness that their Prince instead of expressing any displeasure against them recalled the Order that he had sent them The way from Heidelberg to Frankfort is for the first twelve or fifteen miles the beautifullest piece of ground that can be imagined for we went under a ridge of little Hills that are all covered with Vines and from them as far as the eye can go there is a beautiful Plain of Corn-fields and Meadows all sweetly divided and inclosed with rows of Trees so that I fancied I was in Lombardy again but with this advantage that here all was not of a piece as it is in Lombardy but the Hills as they made a pleasant inequality in the prospect so they made the Air purer and produced a pleasant Wine The way near Darmstat and all forwards to Frankfort becometh more wild and more sandy There is a good Suburb on the South-side of the Main over against Frankfort which hath a very considerable Fortification there is a double Wall and a double Ditch that goeth round it and the outward Wall as it is regularly fortified so it is faced with Brick to a considerable heighth The Town of Frankfort is of a great extent and seemed to be but about a third part less then Strasburg The three Religions are also tolerated there and though the number of the Papists is very inconsiderable yet they have the great Church which is a huge rude building they have also several other Churches and some Convents there There are several open squares for Market places and the Houses about them look very well without Among their Archives they preserve the Original of the Bulla Aurea which is only a great Parchment writ in High Dutch without any beauty answering to its Title and since I could not have understood it I was not at the pains of desiring to see it for that is not obtained without difficulty The Lutherans have here built a new Church called St. Catherin's in which there is as much painting as ever I saw in any Popish Church and over the high Altar there is an huge carved Crucifix as there are painted ones in other places of their Church The Pulpit is extream fine of Marble of different colours very well polished and joyned I was here at a Sermon where I understood nothing but I liked one thing that I saw both at Strasburg and here that at the end of Prayers there was a considerable interval of silence left before the conclusion for all peoples private devotions In the House of their publick Discipline they retain still the old Roman Pistrina or Hand-mill at which lewd Women are condemned to grind that is to drive about the Wheel that maketh the Milstones go There is a great number of Jews there though their two Synagogues are very little and by consequence the numbers being great they are very nasty I was told they were in all above twelve hundred The Women had the most of a tawdry Imbroidery of Gold and Silver about them that ever I saw for they had all Mantles of Crape and both about the top and the bottom there was a border above a hand breadth of imbroidery The Fortification of Frankfort is considerable their Ditch is very broad and very full of Water all the Bastions have a Counter-mine that runneth along by the brim of the Ditch but the Counterscarp is not faced with Brick as the Walls are and so in many places it is in an ill condition the covered Way and glacy are also in an ill case The Town is rich and driveth a great Trade and is very pleasantly scituated Not far from hence is Hockam that yieldeth the best Wine of those parts Since I took Frankfort in my way from Heidelberg to Mentz I could not pass by Worms for which I was sorry I had a great mind to see that place where Luther made his first appearance before the Emperor and the Diet and in that solemn audience expressed an undaunted zeal for that Glorious Cause in which God made him such a blessed Instrument I had another piece of Curiosity on me which will perhaps appear to you somewhat ridiculous I had a mind to see a Picture that as I was told is over one of the Popish Altars there which one would think was Invented by the Enemies of Transubstantiation to make it appear ridiculous There is a Windmill and the Virgin throws Christ into the Hopper and he comes out at the eye of the Milne all in Waters which some Priests take up to give the People This is so course an Embleme that one would think it too gross even for Laplanders but a Man that can swallow Transubstantiation it self will digest this likewise Mentz is very nobly scituated on a rising ground a little below the conjunction of the two Rivers the Rhine and the Main it is of too great a compass and too ill Peopled to be capable of a great defence There is a Cittadel upon the highest part of the Hill that commandeth the Town it is compassed about with a dry Ditch that is considerably deep The Walls of the Town are faced with Brick and regularly fortified but the Counterscarp is not faced with Brick so all is in a sad condition and the Fortification is weakest on that side where the Elector's Palace is There is one side of a new Palace very nobly built in a regular Architecture only the Germans do still retain somewhat of the Gothick manner It is of a great length and the design is to build quite round the Court and then it will be a very magnificent Palace only the Stone is red for all the Quarries that are upon the Rhine from Bazile down to Coblentz are of red Stone which doth not look beautiful The Elector of Mentz is an absolute Prince his Subjects present Lists of their Magistrates to him but he is not tied to them and may name whom he will The Ancient Demeasne of the Electorate is about Forty thousand Crowns But the Taxes rise to about Three hundred thousand Crowns so that the Subjects here are as heavily taxed as in the Palatinate There is Twelve thousand Crowns a year given the Elector for his privy Purse and the State bears the rest of his whole expence It can Arm Ten thousand Men and there is a Garison of Two thousand Men in Mentz This Elector hath three Councels one as he is Chancellour of the Empire consisting of three Persons the other two are for the Policy and Justice of his Principality He and his Chapter
have Months by turns for the Nomination of the Prebends In the Month of January he names if any dies and they chuse in the Room of such as die in February and so all the Year round The Prebendaries or Domeheer's have about Three thousand Crowns a year a piece When the Elector dieth the Emperor sendeth one to see the Election made and he recommendeth one but the Canons may chuse whom they please and the present Elector was not of the Emperors recommendation Besides the Palace at Mentz the Elector hath another near Frankfort which is thought the best that is in those parts of Germany The Cathedral is a huge Gothick Building there is a great Cupulo in the West-end and there the Quire singeth Mass I could not learn whether this was done only because the place here was of greater reception than at the East-end or if any burying place and endowment obliged them to the West-end Near the Cathedral there is a huge Chapel of great Antiquity and on the North Door there are two great Brass Gates with a long Inscription which I had not time to write out but I found it was in the Emperor Lotharius's time There are a vast number of Churches in this Town but it is poor and ill inhabited The Rhine here is almost half an English mile broad and there is a Bridge of Boats laid over it From Mentz all along to Baccharach which seems to carry its name Bacchi Ara from some famous Altar that the Romans probably erected by reason of the good Wine that grows in the neighbourhood There is a great number of very considerable Villages on both sides of the River Here the Rats Tower is shewed and the People of the Country do all firmly believe the story of the Rats eating up an Elector and that though he Fled to this Island where he built a small high Tower they pursued him still and swimmed after him and eat him up And they told us that there were some of his Bones to be seen still in the Tower This extraordinary Death makes me call to mind a peculiar and unlooked for sort of Death that carried off a poor Labourer off the ground a few days before I left Geneva The foot of one of his Cattel as he was ploughing went into a nest of Wasps upon which the whole swarm came out and set upon him that held the Plough and killed him in a very little time and his body was prodigiously swelled with the poyson of so many Stings But to return to the Rhine all the way from Baccharach down to Coblents there is on both sides of the River hanging grounds or little Hills so laid as if many of them had been laid by Art which produce the rich Rhenish Wine They are indeed as well exposed to the Sun and covered from Storms as can be imagined and the ground on those Hills which are in some places of a considerable heighth is so cultivated that there is not an inch lost that is capable of improvement and this bringeth so much wealth into the Country that all along there is a great number of considerable Villages Coblentz is the strongest place that I saw of all that belong to the Empire the scituation is Noble the Rhine running before it and the Moselle passing along the side of the Town it is well fortified the Ditch is large the Counterscarp is high and the covered way is in a good condition both Walls and Counterscarp are faced with Brick and there are Ravelines before the Cortines but on the side of the Moselle it is very slightly fortified and there is no Fort at the end of the stone Bridge that is laid over the Moselle so that it lieth quite open on that side which seemeth a strange defect in a place of that consequence But though the Fortifications of this place are very considerable yet its chief defence lieth in the Fort of Hermanstan which is built on the top of a very high Hill that lieth on the other side of the Rhine and which commandeth this place so absolutely that he who is Master of Hermanstan is always Master of Coblentz This belongeth to the Elector of Triers whose Palace lieth on the East-side of the Rhine just at the foot of the Hill of Hermanstan and over against the point where the Moselle falleth into the Rhine so that nothing can be more pleasantly scituated only the ground begins to rise just at the back of the House with so much steepness that there is not Room for Gardens or Walks The House maketh a great shew upon the River but we were told that the Apartments within were not answerable to the outside I say we were told for the German Princes keep such forms that without a great deal of ado one cannot come within their Courts unless it be when they are abroad themselves so that we neither got within the Palace at Mentz nor this of Hermanstan It is but a few Hours from this to Bonne where the Elector of Collen keepeth his Court the place hath a regular Fortification the Walls are faced with Brick but though the Ditch which is dry is pretty broad the Counterscarp is in so ill a condition that it is not able to make a great defence This Elector is the Noblest born and the best provided of all the German Clergy for he is Brother to the great Maximilian Duke of Bavaria and besides Collen he hath Liege Munster and Hidelsheim which are all great Bishopricks He hath been also Six and Thirty years in the Electorate His Palace is very mean consisting but of one Court the half of which is cast into a little Garden and the Wood-yard is in the very Court the lower part of the Court was a stable but he hath made an apartment here that is all furnished with Pictures where as there are some of the hands of the greatest Masters so there are a great many foils to set these off that are scarce good enough for Signposts The Elector has a great many gold meddals which will give me occasion to tell you one of the Extravagantest pieces of forgery that perhaps ever was which happened to be found out at the last siege of Bonne for while they were clearing the ground for planting a battery they discovered a Vault in which there was an Iron Chest that was full of meddals of gold to the value of 100000 Crowns and of which I was told the Elector bought to the value of 30000 Crowns They are huge big one weighed 800. Ducats and the gold was of the fineness of Ducat gold but though they bore the Impressions of Roman Meddals or rather Medallions they were all Counterfeit and the imitation was so coursely done that one must be extream Ignorant in Meddals to be deceived by them Some few that seemed true were of the late Greek Emperours Now it is very unaccountable what could induce a Man to make a forgery upon such mettle and in so
drawn in some that would have been otherwise more moderate and that it did likewise precipitate that barbarous action yet it was afterwards found out that the Plot had been formed long before so that the industry and rage of the Priests managed by Spanish Emissaries working upon the bigotry of the people was the real cause and this was only made use of as a pretext to give some more plausible colours to the Massacre vvhich was executed some months after this Chamber was dissolved It began while the Protestants were at Church there were some hundreds destroyed the rest got all up to the Mountains and so escaped into the Countrey of the Grisons and those of Chavennes got likewise up to the Hills for they are scituated just at the bottom of them I shall not prosecure the rest of that War the French savv of vvhat advantage it vvas to them not to let this pass from Italy into Germany fall into the hands of the Spaniards so Bassompiere was sent to Madrid and obtained a promise that all things should be put in the same state in vvhich they vvere before the year 1618 but vvhen that order vvas sent to the Governour of Milan it vvas plain he had secret orders to the contrary for he refused to execute it so a War follovved in vvhich the Grisons found it vvas not easie for them to support the charge of it vvithout imploying the assistance of the French But the Spaniards pretended to have no other interest in the affairs of the Valteline then the preservation of the Catholick Religion and to shevv their sincerity they put the Countrey into the Pope's hands knovving that he could not preserve it but by their assistance nor restore it vvithout securing it from all change of Religion The French vvillingly undertook the cause of the Grisons and because the Duke of Rohan vvas like to be the most favourable General as being of the Religion he vvas sent to command some forces that marched thither But he savv that if the French once made themselves Masters of the passes of the Countrey it vvould turn to their ruine and finding the Grisons reposed an intire confidence in him he thought it unbecoming him to be an instrument in that vvhich he savv must be fatal to them The Spaniards seeing the French ingage in the quarrel and fearing lest they should possess themselves of the passes offered to restore all the Territory in Italy for Chavennes and Bormio had likevvise revolted only the Pretestants got avvay so quick upon the disorders in the Valteline that they prevented the rage of the Priests The Spaniards ask'd these conditions that an Amnesty should be granted for vvhat vvas past that there should be no exercise of the Protestant Religion tolerated in the Countrey and that even the Bailiffs and other Magistrates of the Religion that came to be sent into the Valteline should have no exercise of their Religion and as for other persons that none of the Religion might stay above six vveeks at a time in the Countrey The Duke of Rohan seeing that conditions of so much advantage to the Leagues vvere offered to them did underhand advise those of the Religion to accept of them at the same time that he seemed openly to oppose the treaty set on foot on those terms and that he might get out of this imployment vvith the less dishonour he advised their clapping him up in prison till they had finished their treaty vvith the Spaniards So that they very gratefully to this day ovvn that they ovve the preservation of their Countrey to the vvise advices of that great Man Many that vvere of the Religion returned to their Houses and Estates but the greatest part fearing such another Massacre have since changed their Religion others have sold their Estates and left the Country some stay still and go tvvo or three hours journey to some of the Protestant communities vvhere they have the exercise of the Religion And tho they may not stay in the Valteline above six weeks at a time yet they avoid that by going for a day or two out of the Countrey once within that time nor is that matter at present so severely examined so that there is a calm among them as to those matters But when it comes to the turn of the Protestant communities to send one of the Religion to those imployments he is often much embarassed by the Bishop of Como to whose Diocess those Territories belong for if the Bishop fancies that they do any thing contrary to the Ecclesiastical immunities he excommunicates them and tho this may appear a ridiculous thing since they are already in a worse state by being Hereticks yet it produces a very sensible effect for the people that are extreamly superstitious will not after that come near such Magistrates so that about three years ago a Bailiff found himself obliged to desire to be recalled tho his time was not out since being excommunicated he could no longer maintain the Government in his own person Among the Grisons the Roman Lavv prevails modified a little by their Customs One that vvas a little particular vvas executed vvhen I vvas there A Man that hath an Estate by his Wife enjoys it after her Death as long as he continues a Widovver but when he marries again he is bound to divide it among the Children that he had by her The Justice is short and simple but it is oft thought that Bribes go here tho' but meanly in proportion to their Poverty as well as in other Places The married Women here do scarce appear abroad except at Church but the young Women have more Liberty before they are married There is such a plenty of all things by reason of the gentleness of the Government and the industry of the People that in all the ten days in which I stayed at Coire I was but once ask'd an Alms in the Streets There are two Churches in Coire in the one there is an Organ that joyns with their Voices in the singing of the Psalms and there was for the honour of the Diet while we were there an Anthem sung by a set of Musicians very regularly In all the Churches both of Switzerland and the Grisons except in this only the Minister preaches covered but here he is bare-headed And I observed a particular Devotion used here in saying of the Lord's Prayer that the Ministers who wear Caps put them off when it was said The Women here as in Bern turn all to the East in time of Prayer and also in their private Devotions before and after the publick Prayers many also bow at the Name of Jesus They Christen discovering the whole Head and pouring the Water on the hind-head using a trine Aspersion which is also the practice of the Switzers It vvas matter of much Edification to see the great Numbers both here and all Switzerland over that come every day to Prayers morning and evening They give here in the middle of
half Diameter and about a foot and a quarter thick and they work it in a Mill where the Chizzels that cut the Stone are driven about by a Wheel that is set a going by VVater and which is so ordered that he who manages the Chizzel very easily draws forward the VVheel out of the course of the VVater they turn off first the outward Coat of this Stone till it is exactly smooth and then they separate one Pot after another by those small and hooked Chizzels by which they make a nest of Pots all one within another the outward and biggest being as big as an ordinary Beef-pot and the inward Pot being no bigger than a small Pipkin these they arm with hooks and circles of Brass and so they are served by them in their Kitchins One of these Stone-pots takes heat and boils sooner than any Pot of Mettle and whereas the bottoms of Mettle-pots transmit the heat so intirely to the Liquor within that they are not insufferably hot the bottom of this Stone-pot which is about twice so thick as a Pot of Mettle burns extreamly it never cracks neither gives it any sort of taste to the Liquor that is boiled in it but if it falls to the ground it is very brittle yet this is repaired by pâ—â—ching it up for they piece their broken Pots so close tho without any cement by sowing with Iron-wire the broken Parcels together that in the holes which they pierce with the Wire there is not the least breach made except that which the Wire both makes and sills The passage to this Mine is very inconvenient for thâ— must creep into it for near half a mile through a 〈◊〉 that is so hard that the passage is not above three foot high and so those that draw out the Stones creep all along upon their Belly having a Candle fastned in their forehead and the Stone laid on a sort of Cushion made for it upon their hips The Stones are commonly two hundred weight But having mentioned some falls of Mountains in those parts I cannot pass by the extraordinary fate of the Town of Pleurs that was about a league from Chavennes to the North in the same bottom but on a ground that is a little more raised The Town was half the bigness of Chavenness the number of the Inhabitants was about two and twenty hundred pâ—rsons but it was much more nobly Built for besides the great Palace of the Francken that cost some millions there were many other Palaces that were built by several rich Factors both of Milan and the other parts of Italy who liked the scituation and Air as well as the freedom of the Government of this place so they used to come hither during the heats and here they gave themselves all the Indulgences that a vast wealth could furnish By one of the Palaces that was a little distant from the Town which was not overwhelmed with it one may judge of the rest It was an out-house of the Family of the Francken and yet it may compare with many Palaces in Italy and certainly House and Gardens could not cost so little as one hundred thousand Crowns The voluptuousness of this place became very crying and Madâ—m de Salis told mâ— that she heard her Mother often relate some passages of a Protestant Ministers Sermons that preached in a little Church which those of the Religion had there and warned them often of the terrible judgments of God which were hanging over their heads and that he believed would suddenly break ouâ—â—â—on them On the 25th of August 1618 Anâ—â—â—bitant came and told them to be gone for he saw the Mountains cleaving but he was laughed at for his pains He had a Daughter whom he perswaded to leave all and go with him but when she was gone out of Town with him she called to mind that she had not locked the Door of a Room in which she had some things of value and so she went back to do that and was buried with the rest for at the hour of Supper the Hill fell down and buried the Town and all the Inhabitants so that not one person escaped The fall of the Mountains did so fill the Channel of the River that the first news those of Chavennes had of it was by the failing of their River for three or four hours there came not a drop of Water but the River wrought for it self a new course and returned to them I could hear no particular character of the Man who escaped so I must leave the secret reason of so singular a preservation to the great discovery at the last day of those steps of Divine Providence that are now so unaccountable Some of the Family of the Francken got some Miners to work under ground to find out the wealth that was buried in their Palace for besides their Plate and Furniture there was a great cash and many Jewels in the House the Miners pretended they could find nothing but they went to their Countrey of Tirol and built fine Houses and a great wealth appeared of which no other visible account could be given but this that they had found some of that treasure The chief Factors of Italy have been Grisons and they told me that as the Trade of Banking began in Lombardy so that all Europe over a Lombard and a Bank signified the same thing so the great Bankiers of Lombardy were Grisons and to this day the Grisons drive a great Trade in money for a Man there of a hundred thousand Crowns Estate hath not perhaps a third part of this within the Countrey but puts it out in the neighbouring States And the liberty of the Countrey is such that the Natives when they have made up Estates elsewhere are glad to leave even Italy and the best parts of Germany and to come and live among those Mountains of which the very sight is enough to fill a Man with horror From Chavennes we went for two hours through a plain to the Lake of Chavennes which is almost round and is about two mile Diameter This Lake falls into the Lake of Como over against the Fort Fuentes when we passed there the Water was so low that the Boat could not easily get over a Bank that lay between the two Lakes The Lake of Como is about eight and forty miles long and four broad it runs between two ranges of Hills I did not stay long enough in Como to give any description of it for I thought to have returned that way from a â—ittle Tour that I made into the Baâ—iaâ—es that the Switzers have in Italy of Lugane Locarmo and Bellinzona But I took another course so I saw nothing in Como the best thing in it is a fine Chappel which the present Pope who is a native of Como is building From Como we went eight miles to Codelago which belongs to the Switzers and from thence to Lugane we had eight miles of Lake this Lake doth not run in an
Hall is the Noblest of Italy the Dome is an ancient and mean Building but the Church of St. Anthony especially the Holy Chapel in it where the Saint lies is one of the best pieces of modern Sculpture for round the Chapel the chief Miracles in the legend of that Saint are represented in Mezzo rilievo in a very surprizing manner The devotion that is paid to this Saint all Lombardy over is amazing he is called by way of excellence il Santo and the Beggars generally ask Alms for his sake But among the little Vows that hang without the Holy Chapel there is one that is the highest pitch of Blasphemy that can be imagined Exaudit speaking of the Saint quos non audit ipse Deus he hears those whom God himself doth not hear St. Justina is a Church so well ordered within the Architecture is so beautiful it is so well inlightned and the Cupulo's are so advantagiously placed that if the outside answered the inside it would be one of the best Churches of Italy but the Building is of Brick and it hath no Frontispiece there are many new Altars made as fine as they are Idolatrous all full of Statues of Marble This Abby hath a Hundred Thousand Ducats of Revenue and so by its Wealth one may conclude that it belongs to the Benedictine Order Cardinal Barberigo is Bishop here he seems to set St. Carlo before him as his pattern he hath founded a Noble Seminary for the secular Priests he lives in a constant discipline himself and endeavours to reform his Clergy all he can but he is now in ill terms with his Canons who are all Noble Venetians and so allow themselves great liberties of which they will not be willingly abridged he is charitable to a high degree and is in all respects a very extraordinary Man In the Venetian Territory their subjects live easie and happy if they could be so wise as to give over their quarrels but though the taxes are not high they oppress their Tenants so severely that the Pesants live most miserably yet on all hands round about them the oppressions being more intollerable they know not whither to go for ease whereas on the contrary the miseries under which their neighbours groan chiefly those of the Ecclesiastical state send in an increase of People among them so that they are well stockt with People but the Venetians are so jealous of their subjects understanding Military matters which may dispose them to revolt that they never make any Levies among them for their Wars this jealousie is the true ground of that maxim though another is pretended that is more plausible which is their care of their own People whom they study to preserve and therefore they hire Strangers rather than expose their Subjects It is certain a revolt here were no hard matter to effectuate for the Garrisons and Fortifications are so slight that those great Towns could easily shake off their yoke if it were not for the factions that still reign among them by which one party would chuse rather to expose the other to the rigor of the Inquisitors than concur with them in asserting their liberty and the Inquisitors in such cases proceed so secretly and yet so effectually that none dares trust another with a secret of such consequence and the oppressed Nobility of those States retain still so much of their old and unsubdued insolence and treat such as are under them so cruelly that the Venetianâ— â—â—e as secure in those Conquests as if they had many strong Cittadels and numerous Garrisons spread up and down among them From Padua down to Venice all along the River Brent there are many Palaces of the Noble Venetians on both sides of the River built with so great a variety of Architecture that there is not one of them like another there is also the like diversity in the laying out of their Gardens and here they retire during the hot months and some allow themselves all the excesses of dissolute liberty that can possibly be imagined From Lizza Fucina which is at the mouth of the Brent we pass for Five or Six miles on the Lagunes or shallows to Venice these shallows sink of late so much that the preserving Venice still an Island is like to become as great a charge to the Venetians as the keeping out the Sea is to the Dutch for they use all possible industry to cleanse the Channels of their lagunes and to keep them full of water and yet many think that the water hath failed so much in this last age that if it continues to abate at the same rate within an age or two more Venice may become apart of the Terra firma It is certainly the most surprizing sight in the whole World to see so vast a city scituated thus in the Sea and such a number of Islands so united together by Bridges brought to such a regular figure the Pilotty supplying the want of earth to build on and all so nobly built which is of all the things that one can see the most amazing And though this Republick is much sunk from what it was both by the great losses they have suffered in their Wars with the Turks and by the great decay of Trade yet there is an incredible Wealth and a vast plenty of all things in this place I will not offer to describe neither the Church nor the Palace of S. Mark which are too well known to need a long digression to be made for them The painting of the Walls and the roofs of the Halls and publick Rooms in the Palace are of vast value Here I saw that Story of Pope Alexander the III. treading on the neck of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa The nobleness of the stair-cases the riches of the Halls and the beauty of the whole building are much prejudiced by the beastliness of those that walk along and that leave their marks behind them as if this were rather a common house of Office than so Noble a Palace And the great Hall where the whole body of the Nobility meet in the Great Council hath nothing but the roof and walls that answers to such an Assembly for the seats are liker the benches of an Auditory of Schollars than of so glorious a body When the two sides of this Palace are built as the third which is the most hid it will be one of the gloriousest Palaces that the World can shew The two sides that are most seen the one facing the square of St. Mark and the other the great Canale are only of Brick the third being all of Marble but the War of Candy put a stop to the building St. Mark 's Church hath nothing to recommend it but its great antiquity and the vast riches of the building it is dark and low but the pavement is so rich a Mosaick and the whole roof is also Mosaick the outside and inside are of such excellent Marble the frontispiece is adorned with so
from the necessities as well as the aspirings of younger Brothers or their Families whose blood qualifies them to pretend as well as their pride and necessities push them on to acquire first a reputation and then a fortune But all this is a mystery to the Venetians who apprehend so much from the active Spirits of a necessitous Nobility that to lay those to sleep they incourage them in all those things that may blunt and depress their minds and youth natâ—rally hates Letters as much as it loves pleasure when it is so far from being restrained that it is rather pushed on to all the licentiousness of unlimited disorders Yet I must add one thing that though Venice is the place in the whole World where pleasure is most studied and where the youth have both the greatest Wealth and the most leisure to pursue it yet it is the place that I ever saw where true and innocent pleasure is the least understood in which I will make a little digression that perhaps will not be unpleasant As for the pleasures of friendship or marriage they are strangers to them for the horrible distrust in which they all live of one another makes that it is very rare to find a friend in Italy but most of all in Venice and though we have been told of several stories of celebrated friendships there yet these are now very rare As for their Wives they are bred to so much ignorance they converse so little that they know nothing but the dull superstition on Holy-days in which they stay in the Churches as long as they can and so prolong the little liberty they have of going abroad on those days as Children do their hours of play They are not imployed in their domestick affairs and generally they understand no sort of work so that I was told that they were the insipidest creatures imaginable they are perhaps as vitious as in other places but it is among them down-right lewdness for they are not drawn into it by the intranglements of amour that inveigle and lead many persons much farther than they imagined or intended at first but in them the first step without any preamble or preparative is down-right beastliness And an Italian that knew the World well said upon this matter a very lively thing to me he said their jealousie made them restrain their Daughters and their Wives so much that they could have none of those domestick entertainments of Wit Conversation and Friendship that the French or English have at home It is true those he said hazard a little the honour of their Families by that liberty but the Italians by their excessive caution made that they had none of the true delights of a Married State and notwithstanding all their uneasie jealousie they were still in danger of a contraband Nobility therefore he thought they would do much better to hazard a little when it would produce a certain satisfaction then to watch so anxiously and thereby have an insipid companion instead of a lively Friend though she might perhaps have some ill moments As for their houses they have nothing convenient at Venice for the Architecture is almost all the same one stair-case a Hall that runs along the body of the house and chambers on both hands but there are no apartments no Closets or Back-stairs so that in houses that are of an excessive wealth they have yet no sort of convenience Their Bedsteads are of Iron because of the Vermin that their moisture produces the bottoms are of boards upon which they lay so many quilts that it is a huge step to get up to them their great Chairs are all upright without a stop in the back hard in the bottom and the wood of the arms is not covered they mix water with their wine in their Hogsheads so that for above half the year the wine is either dead or sour they do not leaven their Bread so that it is extream heavy and the Oven is too much heated so that the crum is as Dough when the crust is hard as a stone in all Inns they boil Meat first before it is roasted and thus as indeed they make it tender so it is quite tastless and insipid And as for their Land-carriage all Lombardy over it is extream inconvenient for their Coaches are fastned to the pearch which makes them as uneasie as a Cart It it true they begin to have at Rome and Naples Coaches that are fastned to a sort of double pearch that runs round the bottom of the Coach of both sides which are thin that they ply to the motion of the Coach and are extream easie but those are not known in Lombardy and besides this their Caleshes are open so that one is exposed to the Sun and dust in Summer and to the Weather in Winter But though they are covered as ours are on the other side of the Appenins yet I saw none that were covered in Lombardy And thus by an enumeration of many of the innocent pleasures and conveniences of life it appears that the Venetians pursue so violently forbidden pleasures that they know not how to find out that which is allowable Their constant practices in the Broglio is their chief business where those that are necessitous are pursuing for Employments of advantage and those that are full of wealth take a sort of pleasure in crossing their pretentions and in embroiling matters The walk in which the Nobility tread is left to them for no others dare walk among them and they change the side of the square of St. Mark as the Sun and the Weather directs them Perhaps a derivation that Mr. Patin gave me of Brolio from the Greek Peribolâion a little corrupted is not forced and since they make all their parties and manage all their intreague in those Walks I am apt to think that broils brovillons and imbroilments are derived from the agitations that are managed in those walks As for the last created Nobility of Venice I came to know some particulars that I have not yet seen in any books which I suppose will not be unacceptable to you It is certain that if the Venetians could have foreseen at the beginning of the War of Candy the vast expence in which the length of it engaged them they would have abandoned the Isle rather than have wasted their Treasure and debased their Nobility This last was extream sensible to them for as the dignity of the rank they hold is so much the more eminent as it is restrained to a small number so all the best Imployments and Honours of the State belonging to this body the admitting such a number into it as must rise out of Seventy Eight Families was in effect the sharing their Inheritance among so many adopted Brothers This had been less Infamous if they had communicated that Honour only to the ancient Citizens of Venice or to the Nobility of those States that they have subdued in the Terra firma for as there
in comparison of the advantages that they found from it And after Eleven Years spent in their service he said he never was so much as once sent for to receive a reprimand from them And if the Nobility that have any Commerce with strangers confess it sincerely to the Inquisitors they are in danger by it by if they conceal it or any main circumstances of it their Process will be soon dispatched These are the most remarkable things that I could pick up during my stay at Venice I have avoided to say any thing relating to their several Councels Officers and Judicatories or to the other parts of their Government which are to be found in all Books and the Forms by which they give Votes by Ballot are so well known that it were an abusing of your time to enlarge my self concerning them nor was I sufficiently informed concerning the particulars of the Sale of Nobility that is now on foot since this last War with the Turks which hath made them willing to take up once again this easie way of raising of Money Nor could I give credit to that of which a Person of great Eminence there assured me that there was a poysoner general in Venice that had a Salary and was employed by the Inquisitors to dispatch those against whom a publick proceeding would make too great a noise this I could not believe though my Author protested that the Brother of one that was solicited to accept of the Employment discovered it to him There is no place in the World where strangers live with more freedom and I was amazed to see so little exactness among the Searchers of the Custom-house for though we had a Mullets load of Trunks and Portmantles yet none offered to ask us either coming or going what we were or what we carried with us But the best and Noblest Entertainment that Venice afforded while I was there was the company of Mr. dela Haye the French Ambassadour who as he hath spent his whole life in publick Embassies so he hath acquired so great a knowledge of the World with so true a Judgment and so obliging a civility that he may well pass for a Pattern and it is no wonder to see him still engaged in a constant succession of publick Employments and his Lady is so wonderful a Person that I pay them both but a very small part of what I owe them in this acknowledgement which I judge my self bound to make of their extraordinary civilities to me and indeed without the advantage of such a rendezvous as I had there a fortnights stay at Venice had been a very tedious matter From Venice we went again to Padua From thence to Rovigo which is but a small Town and so to the Po which divides the Territory of the Republick from the Ferrarese which is now the Popes Country and here one sees what a difference a good and a bad Government makes in a Countrey for though the Soil is the same on both sides of the River and the Ferrarese was once one of the beautifullest spots of all Italy as Ferrara was one of its best Towns while they had Princes of their own who for a course of some Ages were Princes of such Eminent virtue and of so Heroical a Nobleness that they were really the Fathers of their Country nothing can be imagined more changed than all this is now The Soil is abandoned and uncultivated nor were there hands enough so much as to mow their Grass which we saw withering in their Meadows to our no small wonder We were amazed to see so rich a Soil thus forsaken of its Inhabitants and much more when we passed through that vast Town which by its extent shews what it was about an Age ago and is now so much deserted that there are whole sides of Streets without Inhabitants and the poverty of the place appears signally in the Churches which are mean and poorly adorned for the superstition of Italy is so ravenous and makes such progress in this Age that one may justly take the measures of the Wealth of any place from the Churches The Superstition or Vanity of this Age is so much beyond that of the past though the contrary to this is commonly believed that all the vast buildings of great Churches or rich Convents and the surprizing Wealth that appears in them on Festival days are the donatives of the present Age so that it is a vulgar error that some have taken up who fancy that Superstition is at a stand if not in a decay unless it be acknowledged that the craft of the Priests hath opened to them a new method to support their riches when the old ones of Purgatory and Indulgences were become less effectual in an Age of more knowledge and better enlightned and that is to engage Men to an emulation and a vanity in enriching their Churches as much as other Italians have in the inriching ther Palaces so that as they have a pleasure as well as a vanity in seeing so much dead Wealth in their houses they have translated the same humour to their Churches And the vanity of the present Age that believes little or nothing of those contrivances of Purgatory or the like produceth the same if not greater effects in the building and inriching their Churches and so carries it in expence and prodigality from the Superstition of the former Ages that believed every thing But to return to Ferrara I could not but ask all I saw how it came that so rich a Soil was so strangely abandoned some said the Air was become so unhealthy that those who stay in it were very short lived but it is well known that Fourscore Years ago it was well peopled and the ill Air is occasioned by the want of Inhabitants for there not being people to drain the ground and to keep the Ditches clean this makes that there is a great deal of Water that lies on the ground and rots which infects the Air in the same manner as is observed in that vast and rich but uninhabited Champaign of Rome so that the ill Air is the effect rather than the cause of the dispeopling of the Popes Dominions The true cause is the severity of the Government and the heavy Taxes and frequent Confiscations by which the Nephews of several Popes as they have devoured many of the Families of Ferrara so they have driven away many more And this appears more visibly by the different state as well as the Constitution of Bologna which is full of People that abound in Wealth and as the Soil is extream rich so it is cultivated with all due care For Bologna delivered it self to the Popedom upon a capitulation by which there are many Priviledges reserved to it Crimes there are only punished in the Persons of those who commit them but there are no confiscations of Estates and though the Authority in Criminal matters belongs to the Pope and is managed by a Legate and his Officers
yet the Civil Government the Magistracy and the power of Judicature in Civil matters is entirely in the hands of the State And by this regulation it is that as the riches of Bologna amaze a stranger it neither being on a Navigable River by which it is not capable of much Trade nor being the Center of a Soveraignty where a Court is kept so the Taxes that the Popes fetch from thence are so considerable that he draws much more from this place of Liberty than from those where his Authority is unlimited and absolute but that are by those means almost quite abandoned for the greatness of a Prince or State rising from the numbers of the Subjects those maxims that retain the Subjects and that draw strangers to come among them are certainly the truest maxims for advancing the greatness of the Master And I could not but with much scorn observe the folly of some Frenchmen who made use of this argument to shew the greatness of their Nation that one found many Frenchmen in all places to which one could come whereas there were no English nor Dutch nor Switzers and very few Germans But is just contrary to the right consequence that ought to be drawn from this observation It is certain that few leave their Country and go to settle elsewhere if they are not pressed with so much uneasiness at home that they cannot well live among their Friends and Kinred so that a mild Government drives out no swarms Whereas it is the sure mark of a severe Government that weakens it self when many of the Subjects find it so hard to subsist at home that they are forced to seek that abroad which they would much rather do in their own Country if Impositions and other severities did not force them to change their habitations But to return to the wealth of Bologna it appears in every corner of the Town and all round it though its scituation is not very favourable for it lies at the foot of the Appenins on the North-side and is extream cold in Winter The houses are built as at Padua and Bern so that one walks all the Town over covered under Piazza's but the walks here are both higher and larger than any where else there are many Noble Palaces all over the Town and the Churches and Convents are incredibly rich within the Town the richest are the Dominicans which is the chief house of the Order where their Founders body is laid in one of the best Chapels of Italy and next to them are the Franciscans the Servites the Jesuites and the Canons Regular of St. Salvator In this last there is a scrowl of the Hebrew Bible which though it is not the tenth part of the Bible they fancy to be the whole Bible and they were made believe by some Jew that hath no doubt sold it at a high rate that it was written by Ezrah's own hand and this hath past long for current but the Manuscript is only a fine Copy like those that the Jews use in their Synagogues that may be perhaps Three or Four Hundred Years old that part of it on which I cast my eye was the book of Esther so by the bulk of the scrowl I judged it to be the collection of those small books of the Old Testament that the Jews set after the Law but those of the house fancy they have a great treasure in it and perhaps such Jews as have seen it are willing to laugh at their ignorance and so suffer them to go on in their error The chief Church in the Town is St. Petrone's and there one sees the curious and exact Meridional-line which that rare Astronomer Cassini laid along a great part of the pavement in a brass Circle it marks the true point of midday from June to January and is one of the best performances that perhaps the World ever saw In the great square before the Church on the one side of which is the Legates Palace among other Statues one surprized me much it was Pope Joans which is so named by the People of the Town it is true the Learned Men say it is the Statue of Pope Nicolas the IV. who had indeed a youthly and womanish face But as I looked at this Statue very attentively through a little prospect that I carried with me it appeared plainly to have the face of a young Woman and was very unlike that of Pope Nicolas the IV. which is in St. Maria Maggiore at Rome For the Statue of that Pope though it hath no beard yet hath an age in it that is very much different from the Statue at Bologna I do not build any thing on this Statue for I do not believe that Story at all and I my self saw in England a Manuscript of Martinus Polonus who is one of the ancient Authors of this matter which did not seem to be written long after the Author's time In it this Story is not in the Text but is added on the margin by another hand On the Hill above Bologna stands the Monastery of St. Michael in Bosco which hath a most charming scituation and prospect and is one of the best Monasteries in Italy it hath many Courts and one that is Cloistered and is Octangular which is so nobly painted in Fresco that it is great pity to see such work exposed to the Air All was retouched by the famous Guido Reni yet it is now again much decayed The Dormitory is very Magnificent the Chappel is little but very fine and the Stalls are richly carved On the other-side of Bologna in the Bottom the Carthusians have also a very rich Monastery Four miles from Bologna there is a Madona of St. Lukes and because many go thither in great devotion there is a portico a building which is already carried on almost half way it is walled towards the North but stands on Pillars to the South and is about Twelve Foot broad and Fifteen Foot high which is carried on very vigorously for in Eight or Ten Years the half is built so that in a little time the whole will be very probably finished and this may prove the bâ—ginning of many such like Portico's in Italy for things of this kind want only a beginning and when they are once set on foot they do quickly spread themselves in a Country that is so intirely subdued by superstition and the artifices of their Priests In Bologna they reckon there are Seventy Thousand Persons I saw not one of the chief glories of this place for the famous Malapighi was out of Town while I was there I saw a Play there but the Poesie was so bad the Farces so rude and all was so ill acted that I was not a little amazed to see the Company express so great a satisfaction in that which would have been hiss'd off the Stage either in England or France From Bologna we go Eight miles in a Plain and then we engage into that range of Hills that carry the
from Florence through the Great Duke's Country looked so sad that I concluded it must be the most dispeopled of all Italy but indeed I changed my Note when I came into the Popes Terriories at Pont Centino where there was a rich bottom all uncultivated and not so much as stocked with Cattle But as I passed from M. Fiascone to Viterbo this appeared yet more amazing for a vast Champion Country lay almost quite deserted And that wide Town which is of so great a compass hath yet so few Inhabitants and those look so poor and miserable that the people in the Ordinary Towns in Scotland and in its worst places make a better appearance When I was within a days Journey of Rome I fancied that the Neighbourhood of so great a City must mend the mattâ—t but I was much disappointed for a soil that was so Rich and lay so sweetly that it far exceeded any thing I ever saw out of Italy had neither Inhabitants in it nor Cattle upon it to the tenth part of what it could bâ—ar The surprize that this gave me encreased upon me as I went out of Rome on its other side chiefly all the way to Naples and on the way to Civita-vecchia for that vast and rich Champion Countrey that runs all along to Terracina which from Civita-vecchia is above a hundred miles long and is in many places twelve or twenty miles broad is abandoned to such a degree that as far as ones eye can carry one there is often not so much as a House to be seen but on the Hills that are on the North-side of this Valley and by this dispeopling of the Country the Air is now become so unwholesome that it is not safe to be a night in it all the Summer long for the Water that lies upon many places not being drained it rots and in the Summer this produces so many noisom steams that it is felt even in Rome it self and if it were not for the breeses that come from the Mountains the Air would be intollerable When one sees all this large but vast Countrey from the Hill of Marino twelve miles beyond Rome he cannot wonder enough at it In a word it is the rigour of the Governmâ—nt that hath driven away the Inhabitants and their being driven away hath now reduced it to such a pass that it is hardly possible to people it for such as would come to drain and cultivate it must run a great hazard and few can resolve on that when they can hope for no other reward of their Industry but an uneasie Government It is the greatest solaecism in Government for the Prince to be Elective and yet Absolute for an Hereditary Prince is induced to consider his posterity and to maintain his people so that those that come after him may still support the rank which they hold in the World But an Elective Prince hath nothing of that in his eye unless he hath a pitch of generosity which is not ordinary among men and least of all among Italians who have a passion for their Families which is not known in other places and thus a Pope who comes in late to this dignity which by consequence he cannot hope to hold long doth very naturally turn to those Councels by which his Family may make all the Hay they can during this Sun-shine And tho anciently the Cardinals were a check upon the Pope and a sort of Councel without whom he could do nothing even in Temporals yet now they have quite lost that and they have no other share in affairs than that to which the Pope thinks fit to admit them so that he is the most absolute Prince in Europe It is true as to Spirituals they retain still a large share so that in censures and definitions the Pope can do nothing regularly without their concurrence tho it is certain that they have not so good a Title to pretend to that as to share in the Temporal Principality For if the Pope drives any thing from St. Peter all that is singly in himself and it is free to him to pr ceed by what method he thinks best since the Infallibility according to their pretensions rests singly in him Yet because there was not so much to be got by acting Arbitrarily in those matters and a Summary way of exercising this Authority might have tempted the World to have enquired too much into the grounds on which it is built Therefore the Popes have let the Cardinals retain still a share in this Supremacy over the Church tho they have no claim to it neither by any Divine nor Ecclesiastical warrants But as for the endowments of the See of Rome to which they may justly lay claim as being in a manner the Chapter of that See there is so much to be got by this that the Popes have engrossed it wholly to themselves and thus it is that the Government of this Principality is very unsteady Sometimes the Pope's Family are extreamly glorious and magnificent at other times they think of nothing but of establishing their house Sometimes the Pope is a man of sense himself Sometimes he is quite sunk and as the last Pope was he become a Child again through old age Sometimes he hath a particular stifness of temper with a great slowness of understanding and an infatiable desire of heaping up wealth which is the character of him that now Reigns By this diversity which appears eminently in every new Pontificate that commonly avoids those excâ—sses that made the former Reign odious the Councels of the Popedome are weak and disjointed But if this is sensible to all Europe with relation to the general concerns of that Body it is much more visible in the Principality it self that is subject to so variable a head There hath been in this Age a succession of four ravenous Reigns and tho there was a short interruption in the Reign of the Rospigliosi that coming after the Barberins the Pamphili and the Ghigi's did inrich it self and yet it disordered the Revenue by the vast magnificence in which he Reigned more in twenty nine months time than any other had done in so many years The Altieri did in a most scandalous manner raise themselves in a very short and dispised Reign and built one of the Noblest Palaces in Rome He that Reigns now doth not indeed raise his Family avowedly but he doth not ease the people of their Taxes and as there is no magnificence in his Court nor any publick buildings now carrying on at Rome so the many vacant Caps occasion many empty Palaces and by this means there is so little expence now made at Rome that it is not possible for the people to live and pay the Taxes which hath driven as is believed almost a fourth part of the Inhabitants out of Rome during this Pontificate And as the pre-emption of the Corn makes that there is no profit made by the Owners out of the cultivation of the Soil all
good the Passes and to accommodate themselves the best they could amidst the Mountains The Viceroy sent a great Body against them but they defended themselves for some time vigorously and in one Sally they killed five hundred men but at last seeing that they were like to be hard prest and that the Viceroy intended to come against them in Person they accepted of the Terms that he offered them which was a Pardon for what was past both as to Life and Gallies and six pence a day for their entertainment in Prison during Life or the Viceroys pleasure and so they rendred themselves They are kept in a large Prison and now and then as he sees cause for it he sends some few of them up and down to serve in Garrisons And thus beyond all mens expectation he finished this matter in a very few months and the Kingdom of Naples that hath been so long a scene of Pillage and Robbery is now so much changed that in no place of Europe do the Subjects enjoy a more entire security As for the Coin it s as all the other Spanish money is so subject to clipping that the whole money of Naples is now light and far below the true Value so the Viceroy hath resolved to redress this He considers that the crying down of money that passeth upon the Publick credit is a robbing of those in whose hands the money happens to be when such Proclamations are put out and therefore he takes a method that is more general in which every one will bear his share so that none will be crushed by it He hath laid some Taxes on the whole Kingdom and hath got a great many to bring in some Plate to be Coined And when he hath thus prepared such a quantity as may serve for the circulation that is necessary he intends to call in all the old money and to give out new money for it Thus doth this Viceroy set such a Pattern to the other Ministers of the Crown of Spain that if many would follow it the State of their affairs would be soon altered The Kingdom of Naples is the richest part of all Italy for the very Mountains that are near the half of the Soil are fruitful and produce either Wine or Oyl in great abundance Apulia is a great Corn Countrey but is excessive hot and in some years all is burnt up The Jesuits are the Proprietors of near the half of Apulia and they treat their Tenants with the same rigour that the Barons of this Kingdom do generally use towards their Farmers for the Commons here are so miserably oppressed that in many places they die of hunger even amidst the great plenty of their best years for the Corn is exported to Spain but neither the Spaniards nor the Neapolitans understand Trade so well as to be their own Merchants or Carriers so that the English do generally carry away the profit of this Trade The Oyl of this Kingdom is still a vast Trade and the Manufacture of the Wool and Soap of England consumâ—s yearly some thousands of Tuns The Silk Trade is so low that it only serves themselves but the exportation is inconsiderable the sloth and laziness of this people renders them incapable of making those advantages of so rich a Soil that a more industrious sort of people would find out For it amazes a Stranger to see in their little Towns the whole men of the Town walking in the Market places in their torn Cloaks and doing nothing and tho in some big Towns such as Capua there is but one Inn yet even that is so miserable that the best Room and Bed in it is so bad that our Footmen in England would make a grievous out-cry if they were no better lodged nor is there any thing to be had in them the Wine is intollerable the Bread ill baked no Victuals except Pigeons and the Oyl is rotten In short except one carries his whole provision from Rome or Naples he must resolve to endure a good deal of misery in the four days journey that is between those two places And this is what a Traveller that sees the riches of the soil cannot comprehend but as they have not hands enough for their Soil so those they have are generally too little employed that it is no wonder to see their Soil produce so little that in the midst of all that abundance that Nature hath set before them they are one of the poorest Nations of Europe But besides this which I have named the vast and dead wealth that is in the hands of the Churchmen is another evident cause of their misery One that knew the State of this Kingdom well assured me that if it were divided into five parts upon a strict Survey it would be found that the Churchmen had four parts of the five which he made out thus they have in Soil above the half of the whole which is two and a half and in Tithes and Gifts and Legacies they have one and a half more for no man dieth without leaving a considerable Legacy to some Church or some Convent The Wealth that one sees in the City of Naples alone passeth imagination there are four and twenty Houses of the Order of the Dominicans of both Sexes and two and twenty of the Franciscans seven of the Jesuites bâ—sides the Convents of the Olivitanes the Theatines the Carmelites the Benedictines and above all for scituation and riches the Carthusians on the top of the Hill that lyeth over the Town The riches of the Annunciata are prodigious It is the greatest Hospital in the World the Revenue is said to be four hundred thousand Crowns a year the number of the Sick is not so great as at Milan Yet one convenience for their Sick I observed in their Galleries which was considerable that every Bed stood as in an Alcove and had a Wall on both sides separating it from the Beds on both hands and as much void space of both sides of the Bed that the Bed it self took up but half the Room The young Children that they maintain are so many that one can hardly believe the numbers that they boast of for they talk of many thousands that are not seen but are at Nurse a great part of the Wealth of this House goeth to the enriching their Church which will be all over within crusted with inlayings of lovely Marble in a great variety and beauty of colours The Plate that is in the Treasure here and in the Dome which is but a mean building because it is ancient but hath a Noble Chappel and a vast Treasure and in a great many other Churches are so prodigious that upon the modest estimate the Plate of the Churches of Naples amounts to eight millions of Crowns The new Church of the Jesuits that of S. John the Apostle and that of S. Paul are surprizingly rich the Gilding and Painting that is on the Roofs of those Churches have cost millions And as
fertility of the Subjects for as men and women well cloathed and well fed that are not exhausted with perpetual labour and with the tearing anxieties that want brings with it must be much more lively then those that are pressed with want so it is very likely that the one must be much more disposed to prâ—pagate then the other and this appeared more evident to me when I compared the fruitfulness of Geneva and Switzerland with the barrenness that reigns over all Italy I saw two extraordinary instances of the copious production of Geneva Mr. Tronchin that was Professor of Divinity and Father to the judicious and worthy Professor of the same name that is now there died at the age of sevenâ—y six years and had a hundred and fifteen persâ—ns all alive that had either descended from him called him Father And Mr. Calendrin a pious and laborious Preacher of that Town that is descended from the Family of the Calendrini who râ—ceiving the Reformation about a hundred and fifty years ago left Lucca their Native City with the Turâ—e ini the Diâ—dati and the Bourlamacchi and some others that came and settled at Geneva He is now but seven and forty years old and yet he hath a hundred and five persons that are descended of his Brothers and Sisters or married to them so that if he liveth but to eighty and the Family multiplieth as it hath done he may see some hundreds that will be in the same relation to him but such things as these are not to be found in Italy There is nothing that deâ—ights a Stranger more in Rome then to see the great Fountains of Water that are almost in all the câ—rners of it That oâ—d Aâ—uaduct which Paul the V. restored cometh from a collection of Sources five and thirty miles distant from Rome that runs all the way upon an Aquaduct in a Channel that is vaulted and is liker a River then a Fountain It breaketh out in five several Fountains of which some give water aboue a foot square That of Sixtus the V. the great Fountain of Aqua Travi hath yet no decoration but dischargeth a prodigious quantity of Water The glorious Fountain in the Piazza Navâ—na that hath an air of greatness in it that surprizeth one the Fountain in the Piazza de Spagna those before St. Peters and the Palazzo Farnese with many others furnish Rome so plentifully that almost every private House hath a Fountain that runs continually All theâ—e I say are noble decorations that carry an usefulness with them thâ—t cannot be enough commended and gives a much greater Idea of those who have taken care to supply this City with one of the chief pleasures and conveniences of life then of oth is who have laid out millions meerly to bring quantities of Water to give the eye a little diversion which would have been laid out much more nobly and usefully and would have more effectually eternized their Fame if they had been imployed as the Romans did their Treasureâ— in furnishing great Towns with Water There is an universal Civility that reigns among all sorts of people at Rome which in a great measure flows from their Government for every man being capable of all the advancements of that State since a simple Ecclesiastick may become one of the Monsignori and of these may be a Câ—rdinal and one of these may be chosen Pope this makes every man behave himself towards all other persons with an exactness of respect for no man knows what any other may grow to But this makes professions of esteem and kindness go so promiscuously to all sorts of persons that one ought not to build too much on them The conversation of Rome is generally upon news for tho there is no news Printed there yet in the several Antichamâ—ers of the Cardinals where if they make any câ—nsiderable figure there are Assemblies of those that make their Court to them one is sure to hear all the news of Europe together with many speculations upon what passeth At the Queen of Swedens all that relateth to Germany or the North is ever to be found and that Princess that must ever reign among all that have a true tast either of wit or learning hath still in her drawing Rooms the best Court of the Strangers and her civility together with the vast variety with which she furrisheth her conversation maketh her to be the Chiâ—f of all the living rarities that one sees in Râ—me I will not uâ—e her own word to my self which was that she now grew to be one of the Antiquities of Rome The Ambassadors of Crowns who live here in another form than in any other Court and the Cardinals and Prelates of the several Nations that do all meet and center here maketh that there is more news in Rome thâ—n any where For Priests and the men of Religious Orders write larger and more particular Letters than any other sort of men But such as apply themselves to make their Court hâ—re are condemned to a loss of time that had need be well recompencâ—d for it is very great As for one that Studies Antiquities Pictures Statues or Musick there is more entertainment for him at Rome than in all the rest of Europe but if he hath not a tast of these things he will soon be weary of a place where the Conversation is alwayes gâ—neral and where there is little sincerity or openness practised and by consequence where friendship is little understood The Women here bâ—gin to be a little more conversable tho a Nation naturally jealous will hardly allow a great liberty in a City that is composed of Ecclesiasticks who beiâ—g denied the priviledge of Wives of their own are suspected of being sometimes too bold with the Wives of others The liberties that wâ—re takâ—n in the Constable of Naples's Palace had indâ—ed disgusted the Romans much at that freedom which had no bounds But the Dutchess of Bracciano that is a French Woman hath by the exactness of her deportment amidst all the innocents Freedoms of a Noble conversation recovered in a great measure the credit of those liberties that Ladies beyond the Mountains practise with all the strictness of Virtue For she receivâ—th visits at publick hours and in Publick Rooms and by the liveliness of her conversation maketh that her Court is the pleasantest Assembly of Strangers thâ—â— is to be found in any of the Palaces of the Italians at Rome I will not engage in a dâ—scription of Rome either ancient or modern this hath been done so oft and with such exactness that nothing can be addâ—d to what hath been already published It is certain that when one is in the Capitol and sees those poor rests of what once it was he is surprized to see a building of so great a fame sunk so low that one can scarce imagine that it was once a Castle scituated upon a Hill able to hold out against a Siege of the Gauls The Tarpeian Rock is now
of so small a fall that a man would think it no great matter for his diversion to leap over it and the shape of the ground hath not been so much altered on one side as to make us think it is very much changed on the other For Severus's Triumphal Arch which is at the foot of the Hill on the other side is not now buried above two foot within the ground as the vast Amphitheater of Titus is not above three foot sunk under the level of the ground Within the Capitol one sees many Noble remnants of Antiquity but none is more glorious as well as more useful then the Tables of their Consuls which are upon the Walls and the Inscription on the Columna Rostrola in the time of the first Punick War is without doubt the most valuable Antiquity in Rome From this all along the sacred way one findeth such remnants of Old Rome in the ruines of the Temples in the Triumphal Arches in the Portico's and other remains of that Glorious Body that as one cannot see these too often so every time one sees them they kindle in him vast Idea's of that Republick and make him reflect on that which he learned in his youth with great pleasure From the heigth of the Convent of Araceli a man hath a full view of all the extent of Rome but literally it is now seges ubi Roma fuit for the parts of the City that were most inhabited anciently are those that are now laid in great Gardens or as they call them Vineyards of which some are half a mile in compass The vastness of the Roman magnificence and luxury is that which passeth imagination the prodigious Amphitheater of Titus that could conveniently receive eighty five thousand spectators the great extent of the Circus maximus the Vaults where the Waters were received that furnished Titus's baths and above all Diocletian's baths tho built when the Empire was in it's decay are so far above all modern buildings that there is not so much as room for a comparison The extent of those baths is above half a mile in compass the vastness of the rooms in which the Bathers might swim of which the Carthusian's Church that yet remains entire is one and the many great Pillars all of one stone of Marble beautifuâ—ly spotted are things of which these latter Ages are not capable The beauty of their Temples and of the Portico's before them is amazing chiefly that of the Rotunda where the Fabrick without looketh as mean being only Brick as the Architecture is bold for it riseth up in a Vault and yet at the Top there is an open left of thirty foot in Diameter which as it is the only Window of the Church so it filleth it with light and is the hardiest piece of Architecture that ever was made The Pillars of the Portico are also the noblest in Rome they are the highest and biggest that one can see any where all of one Stone and the numbers of those Ancient Pillars with which not only many of the Churches are beautified chiefly St. Mary Maggiore and St. John in the Lateran but with which even private Houses are adorned and of the fragments of which there are such multitudes in all the streets of Rome giveth a great Idea of the expence-fulness of the Old Romans in their buildings for the hewing and fetching a few of those Pillars must have Cost more than whole Palaces do now since most of them were brought from Greece Many of these Pillars are of Porphiry others of Jasp others of Granated Marble but the greatest number is of white Marble The two Columns Trajans and Antonins the two Horses that are in the Mount Cavallo and the other two Horses in the Capitol which have not indeed the postures and motion of the other The brass Horse that as is believed carrieth Marcus Aurelius the remains of Nero's Colossus the Temple of Bacchus near the Catacomb of S. Agnus which is the entirest and the least altered of all the Ancient Temples The great Temple of Peace those of the Sun and Moon that of Romulus and Romus which I considered as the ancientest Fabrick that is now left for it is little and simple and standeth in such a place that when Rome grew so costly it could not have been let alone unchanged if it had not been that it was reverenced for its Antiquity the many other Portico's the Arches of Severus of Titus and Constantine in the last of which one sees that the Sculpture of his age was much sunck from what it had been only in the Top there are some bas reliefs that are clearly of a much ancienter time and of a better manner And that which exceedeth all the rest the many great Aqueducts that come from all hands and run over a vast distance are things which a man cannot see oft enough if he would form in himself a just Idea of the vastness of that Republick or rather Empire There are many Statues and Pillars and other Antiquities of great value dug up in all the quarters of Rome these last hundred and fourscore years since Pope Leo the Xs. time who as he was the greatest Patron of Learning and Arts that perhaps ever was so was the generousest Prince that ever Reigned and it was he that first set on foot the inquiring into the Riches of Old Rome that lay till his time for the most part hid under ground and indeed if he had been less scandalous in his Impiety and Atheism of which neither he nor his Court were so much as ashamed he had been one of the most celebrated persons of any Age. Soon after him Pope Paul the III. gave the ground of the Monte Palatino to his Family But I was told that this large piece of ground in which one should look for the greatest Collection of the Antiquities of the highest value since this is the ruin of the Palace of the Roman Emperors hath never been yet searched into with any exactness So that when a curious Prince cometh that is willing to employ many hands in digging up and down this Hill we may expect new Scenes of Roman Antiquities But all this matter would require Volumes and therefore I have only named these things because I can add nothing to those copious descriptions that have been so oft made of them Nor will I say any thing of the modern Palaces or the Ornaments of them either in Pictures or Statues which are things that carry one so far that it is not easie to give bounds to the discriptions into which one findeth himself carried when he once enters upon so fruitful a subject The number of the Palaces is great and every one of them hath enough to fix the attention of a Traveller till a new one drives the former out of his thoughts It is true the Palestrina the Borghese and the Farnese have somewhat in them that leave an impression which no new objects can wear out and
vast a quantity and then to bury all this under ground especially in an Age in which so much gold was ten times the value of what is at present for it is judged to have been done about Four or Five Hundred Years ago The Prince went out a hunting while we were there with a very handsome Guard of about Fourscore Horse well mounted so we saw the Palace but where not suffered to see the Apartment where he lodged There is a great Silver Casolette gilt all set with Emeralds and Rubies that though they made a fine appearance yet were a Composition of the Princes own making His Officers also shewed us a Bason and Ewer which they said were of Mercury fixed by the Prince himself but they added that now for many Years he wrought no more in his Labouratory I did not easily believe this and as the weight of the Plate did not approach to that of Quick-Silver so the Medicinal Virtues of fixed Mercury if there is any such thing are so extraordinary that it seemed very strange to see Twenty or Thirty Pound of it made up in two pieces of Plate A quarter of a mile without the Town the best Garden of those parts of Germany is to be seen in which there is a great variety of Water-works and very many Noble Allies in the French manner and the whole is of a very considerable extent but as it hath no Statues of any value to adorn it so the House about which it lieth in is in ruines and it is strange to see that so rich and so great a Prince during so long a Regence hath done so little to Enlarge or beautifie his Buildings Bonne and Coblentz are both poor and small Towns Collen is three Hours distant from Bonne it is of a prodigious extent but ill built and worse Peopled in the remote parts of it and as the Walls are all in an ill case so it is not possible to fortifie so vast a compass as this Town maketh as it ought to be without a charge that would eat out the whole Wealth of this little State The Jews live in a little Suburb on the other side of the River and may not come over without leave obtained for which they pay considerably There is no exercise of the Protestant Religion suffered within the Town but those of the Religion are suffered to live there and they have a Church at two miles distance The Arsenal here is suitable to the Fortifications very mean and ill furnished The Quire of the great Church is as high in the roof as any Church I ever saw but it seemeth the Wealth of this place could not finish the whole Fabrick so as to answer the heighth of the Quire for the Body of the Church is very low Those that are disposed to believe Legends have enough here to overset even a good degree of credulity both in the story of the three Kings whose Chappel is visited with great devotion and standeth at the East end of the great Quire and in that more copious Fable of the Eleven Thousand Vrsulins whose Church is all over full of rough Tombs and of a vast number of Bones that are piled up in rows about the Walls of the Church These Fables are so firmly believed by the Papists there that the least sign which one giveth of doubting of their truth passeth for an infallible mark of an Heretick The Jesuites have a great and noble Colledge and Church here And for Thauler's sake I went to the Dominicans House and Church which is also very great One grows extreamly weary of walking over this great Town and doth not find enough of entertainment in it The present subject of their discourse is also very melancholy The late Rebellion that was there is so generally known that I need not say much concerning it A report was set about the Town by some Incendiaries that the Magistrates did eat up the publick Revenue and were like to ruine the City I could not learn what ground there was for these reports for it is not ordinary to see reports of that kind fly through a body of Men without some foundation It is certain this came to be so generally believed that there was a horrible disorder occasioned by it The Magistrates were glad to save themselves from the storm and abandoned the Town to the popular fury some of them having been made sacrifices to it and this rage held long But within this last year after near two years disorder those that were sent by the Emperor and Diet to Judge the matter having threatned to put the Town under the Imperial Bann if it had stood longer out were received and have put the Magistrates again in the possession of their Authority and all the chief Incendiaries were clapt in Prison many have already suffered and a great many more are still in Prison they told us that some executions were to be made within a week when we were there Dusseldorp is the first considerable Town below Collen it is the Seat of the Duke of Juliers who is Duke of Newburgh eldest Son to the present Elector Palatine The Palace is old and Gothick enough but the Jesuits have their a fine Colledge and a noble Chappel though there are manifest faults in the Architecture the Protestant Religion is tolerated and they have a Church lately built here within these few years that was procured by the intercession of the Elector of Brandenburgh who observing exactly the liberty of Religion that was agreed to in Cleve had reason to see the same as duly observed in his Neighborhood in favour of his own Religion The Fortification here is very ordinary the Ramparts being faced but a few foot high with Brick But Keiserswart some hours lower on the same side which belongeth to the Elector of Collen though it is a much worse Town then Dusseldorp yet is much better fortified it hath a very broad Ditch and a very regular Fortification the Walls are considerably high faced with Brick and so is the Counterscarp which is also in a very good condition The Fortification of Orsoy is now quite demolished Rhineberg continueth as it was but the Fortification is very mean only of Earth so that it is not capable of making a great resistance And Wesel though it is a very fine Town yet is a very poor Fortification nor can it ever be made good except at a vast expence for the ground all about it being sandy nothing can be made there that will be durable unless the foundation go very deep or that it be laid upon Piloty In all these Towns one sees another air of Wealth and Abundance than in much richer Countries that are exhausted with taxes Rees and Emmerick are good Towns but the Fortifications are quite ruined So that here is a rich and populous Country that hath at present very little defence except what it hath from its scituation Cleve is a delicious place the scituation and prospect