Milan, the capital of Lombardy, is in every respect one of the leading cities of Italy. In population it is inferior to Naples, in commerce it is outstripped only {226} by Genoa, but in industry it is the equal of both. Its scientific and literary life entitles it, probably, to the first rank amongst the cities between the Alps and Sicily. In the most remote times Milan was an important town of the Celts, and since then the advantages of its position have given it the preponderance amongst all other cities of Northern Italy. Its power during the Middle Ages gained it the epithet of the “Second Rome.” At the close of the thirteenth century it had 200,000 inhabitants, whilst London had not then a sixth of that number. Milan stood in want of water, for it was dependent upon the feeble stream of the Olona, and its citizens created the Naviglio Grande and the Martesana, veritable rivers, which furnish a quantity of water double that of the Seine at Paris during summer. They likewise erected magnificent monuments, but most of these have perished during innumerable wars, and the aspect of Milan is now that of a modern town of Western Europe. Its most famous building, the “Duomo,” with its prodigious crowd of statues, its finely chiselled marbles and granites, must be looked upon as a marvel of architecture, though from an artistic point of view it is hardly more than an elaborately carved trinket out of all proportion. The stones for this edifice were quarried on the Lago Maggiore, near the mouth of the Toce.