The singers of longer ballads carry about with them sometimes a series of rudely-executed illustrations of different incidents in the story, painted in distemper and pasted on a large pasteboard frame, which is hung against a wall or on a stand planted behind the singer in the ground. These he pauses now and then in his song to explain to the audience, and they are sure to draw a crowd. As summer comes on and the evenings grow warm, begin the street serenades,--sometimes like that of Lindoro in the opening of the "Barbiere di Sevilla," but generally with only one voice, accompanied by a guitar and a mandolin. These serenades are, for the most part, given by a lover or friend to his _innamorata_, and the words are expressive of the tender passion; but there are also _serenate di gelosia_, or satirical serenades, when the most impertinent and stinging verses are sung. Long before arriving, the serenaders may be heard marching up the street to the thrum of their instruments. They then place themselves before the windows of the fair one, and, surrounded by a group of men and boys, make proclamation of their love in loud and often violent tones. It seems sometimes as if they considered the best method of expressing the intensity of their passion was by the volume of their voice. Certainly, in these cases, the light of love is not hidden under a bushel. Among the Trasteverini, particularly, these serenades are common. Some of them are very clever in their improvisations and imitations of different dialects, particularly of the Neapolitan, in which there are so many charming songs. Their skill in improvisation, however, is not generally displayed in their serenades, but in the _osterias_, during the evenings of the _festas_ in summer. There it is that their quickness and epigrammatic turn of expression are best seen. Two disputants will, when in good-humor and warmed with wine, string off verse after verse at each other's expense, full of point and fun,--the guitar burring along in the intervals, and a chorus of laughter saluting every good hit.