GLEANINGS IN EUROPE. ITALY: BY AN AMERICAN. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. _PHILADELPHIA_: CAREY, LEA, AND BLANCHARD. 1838. ENTERED according to ACT OF CONGRESS, in the year 1838, BY CAREY, LEA, AND BLANCHARD, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. PREFACE. If the author were required to give a reason why he has written on a country so well known as Italy, he might be puzzled to give any other answer than that he loved the subject, and has been indulging his own recollections possibly more than he will please his readers. As this, like most other books, must speak for itself, the author has little to add, in the way of Preface, to what has already been published in the work with which his travels commence. He has endeavoured to avoid a pretension which his research would not justify, while he hopes some may be glad to go over again, even this beaten road, in his company. ITALY. LETTER I. Departure from Milan.--Lodi.--A Quack.--Frog-eating.--Battle at the Bridge of Lodi.--Piacenza.--The Duchy of Parma.--Charges at Inns.--Castle Guelfo.--Parma.--Modena.--Composition Floors.--Bologna.--Its Towers. Although we had breathed an atmosphere of delight from the moment the carriage turned out of the glen of the Doveria to enter the first really Italian valley, the ardour of expectation and enjoyment was scarcely diminished when we entered the carriage to quit Milan, on our way towards the barrier of mountains that separates the Upper from the Lower, the false from the true Italy. We had certainly some of the architecture, glimpses of the nature, and a multitude of the recollections of the latter, where we then were; but we well knew that there was more beyond, and we were glad to hurry towards it after the two or three days of repose that we had now taken. As yet we had only seen Cis-Alpine Gaul. Old Caspar mounted his horse with renewed vigour, and he trotted through the southern gate with us, some time before the sun had risen. Although it was only the 15th of October, and we were now fairly on the great plain of Lombardy, the morning was so sharp that I found both a surtout and a cloak agreeable, if not necessary. The streets of Milan, and indeed of all the towns of this part of Italy, have lines of flat stones, a sort of railways, laid for the carriage-wheels; the celebrated Corso having two tracks, in order that the vehicles may not intercept each other. The town walls are of bricks, and a good deal covered with ivy; and as the ditch is imperfect and neglected, they were probably more efficient in the days of the Visconti than in those of Napoleon. Military patrols march the streets at night, and all night, so that the place is orderly and safe. We saw many people with _goitres_ in the streets, peasants most probably from the valleys of the Alps.