LETTER XIII. THE GALLERY.—PALAZZO PITTI.—LE BELLE ARTI.—PORTRAIT OF DANTE.—THE CHURCHES 152 LETTER XIV. THE CARBONARI 161 LETTER XV. TUSCANY 181 LETTER XVI. ITALIAN LITERATURE.—MANZONI.—NICCOLINI.—COLLETTA.—AMARI 190 LETTER XVII. VOYAGE TO ROME 212 LETTER XVIII. RAFFAELLE AT ROME 216 LETTER XIX. RUINS OF ROME.—THE HOLY WEEK.—MUSIC AND ILLUMINATIONS 225 LETTER XX. THE PONTIFICAL STATES 234 CHAPTER XXI. INSURRECTION OF 1831, AND OCCUPATION OF ANCONA BY THE FRENCH 249 LETTER XXII. SORRENTO.—CAPRI.—POMPEII 262 LETTER XXIII. EXCURSION TO AMALFI 280 RAMBLES IN GERMANY AND ITALY. PART III.—1842. LETTER I. PRAGUE. THURSDAY, 1ST SEPTEMBER, 1842. Strange and wild legends appertain to Prague, and people the heights that overhang the city. The Bohemians are of Sclavonian race; they were in early times fire-worshippers, and offered victims to their divinity on the Laurenzi Berg, which rises behind the town. On the Hradschin, an eminence that frowns above the Moldau, was built the palace of the old Bohemian kings; and the metropolitan church of Prague stands in the palace-yard, on the highest point of the imperial hill. The most prosperous period for Prague was the reign of the Emperor Charles IV. He appears in no favourable light in the pages of Italian history; but he won immortal and deserved renown as King of Bohemia, by his acts of magnificence, and the liberality and sagacity of his government. He caused the Neustadt to be built, marking the width and termination of the streets, and leaving the spaces to be filled up by private individuals, on whom great privileges were bestowed: the size of the streets and open areas interspersed, give it a noble distinction among the ill-built towns of the middle ages. Churches and convents rose around. He built also the grand old Bridge, which spans the broad and curved stream of the Moldau, and he founded the University, which long vied with Paris and Oxford in celebrity.