The court of Milan, during such a period, seems a strange theatre for the display of graceful and feminine virtues. Yet it was here, and under the immediate eye of her father, this very Giovanni-Galeazzo, that Valentina Visconti, one of the most amiable female characters of history, passed the early days of her eventful life. As the naturalist culls a wild flower from the brink of the volcano, the historian of the dynasty of Milan pauses to contemplate her pure and graceful character, presenting itself among the tyrants, poisoners, murderers, and infidels who founded the power and amassed the wealth of her family. It would be sad to think that the families of the wicked men of history partook of the crimes of their parents. But we must remember that virtue has little charm for the annalist; he records what is most calculated to excite surprise or awake horror, but takes no notice of the unobtrusive ongoings of those who live and die in peace and quietness. We may be sure that among the patrons of Petrarch there was no want of refinement, or of the domestic amenities with which a youthful princess, and only child, ought to be surrounded. In fact, we have been left the most permanent and practical evidences of the capacity of these tyrants for the enjoyment of the beautiful. The majestic cathedral of Milan is a monument of the noble architectural taste of Valentina's father. In the midst of donjons and fortress-palaces it rose, an embodiment of the refining influence of religion; bearing in many respects a likeness to the fair and innocent being whose fortunes we are about to narrate, and who assisted at its foundation. The progress of the building was slow; it was not till a more magnificent usurper than any of the Visconti assumed the iron-crown of Lombardy, in our own generation, that the general design of the Duomo of Milan was completed. Many of the details still remain unfinished; many statues to be placed on their pinnacles; some to be replaced on the marble stands from which they were overthrown by the cannon of Radetski. Of the old castle of the Visconti two circular towers and a curtain wall alone remain: its court-yard is converted into a barrack, its moats filled up, its terraced gardens laid down as an esplanade for the troops of the Austrian garrison. The family of the Visconti have perished. Milan, so long the scene of their glory, and afterward the battle-ground of contending claimants, whose title was derived through them, has ceased to be the capital of a free and powerful Italian state: but the Cathedral, after a growth of nearly four centuries, is still growing; and the name of the gentle Valentina, so early associated with the majestic Gothic edifice, "smells sweet, and blossoms in the dust."