In the Contrada della Pace there remains a very bold fragment of a castle tower. It is built of very roughly-jointed stone, and is perfectly plain till near the top, where it has a bold machicolation with tall square angle-turrets, the whole battlemented with a forked battlement. Out of the centre of the tower a tall thin tower rises to some height above the battlements. One of the most picturesque spots in the city is the Piazza, at the end of which stands the Palazzo della Loggia; the effect on coming into it from the narrow streets in which we had been wandering was very pleasant, the large open space being surrounded with rather elaborate Renaissance work with rich coloured sun-blinds projecting from the windows over the sunny pavement, which in its turn was thronged with people in picturesque attire selling fruit and vegetables. The streets are all arcaded, and some of them have very considerable remains of frescoes on the exterior, giving much interest to the otherwise ugly walls; they have, however, suffered very greatly from exposure, and are only in places intelligible; still they give traces of brilliant external colour, and are therefore much valued in my recollections of Brescia. Compared with Bergamo, Brescia has the air of a smart and busy place; its streets are wider and better paved, and the smells which still greeted us were not quite so bad as there. The staple manufacture of the city seems to be that of copper vessels; shop after shop, indeed street after street, is full of coppersmiths’ shops; the men all sitting at work, and keeping up a ceaseless din of hammering, in open shops, so that all the world may see them. Nor is the coppersmiths’ the only trade that loves publicity, for here as elsewhere the barbers’ shops are very amusing, quite open in front, with perhaps a yellow curtain hanging down half way, affecting only to conceal the inviting interior, which however is always sufficiently visible, occupied in the centre by a chair, on which sits the customer gravely holding a soapdish to his chin whilst the barber operates; and this going on all day makes one think that shaving is, after all, one of the great works of an Italian’s time!