We spent all this day at Ferrara and visited there many fine churches, gardens, and private houses, and all that was by report worth seeing; amongst other things, a rose bush at the monastery of the Jesuates which flowers all the year round, and even now they found thereon a rose which they gave to M. de Montaigne. We saw likewise the _Bucentaur_, which the duke, in emulation of the one at Venice, had caused to be built for his new wife,[35] who is fair and far too young for him, in order that she may sail in the same on the river Po. Next we visited the duke’s arsenal, where there is a piece of ordnance thirty-five spans in length and having a bore one foot in diameter. The thick new wine which we drank and the turbid water drawn from the river made M. de Montaigne fear an attack of colic. On the door of every room in the inn is an inscription, “_Ricordati della boletta_,” and immediately a stranger arrives he must needs send his name and the number of his attendants to the magistrate, who will then give orders for lodgment, but if this be not done no one will take them in. On the Thursday morning we set forth[36] over a level, very fertile country, and one hard to be traversed by foot passengers should the ways be miry, because the soil of Lombardy is very sticky. Moreover, the roads being banked on either side, there is not space enough to allow foot travellers to escape the mud by walking on the unbroken ground, wherefore many of the country folk go shod with shoes half a foot high. We arrived at Boulougne[37] in the evening, after travelling thirty miles without a halt. [Illustration: FOUNTAIN AT BOLOGNA _To face p. 38_, vol. ii. ] This is a fine handsome town, larger and much more populous than Ferrara. At the same house in which we lodged the young Seigneur de Montluc had arrived an hour sooner than ourselves, having come from France to this city to learn riding and the use of arms. On the Friday we witnessed some sword play by a certain Venetian, who boasted of having discovered some new tricks in the art of fencing, all the others following his lead; in sooth his style differs vastly from the ordinary sword exercise. The best of his pupils was a young Bordelais named Binet. We saw there a square clock tower, very ancient, which leaned over so much that it threatened to fall in ruins; also the School of Sciences, which is the finest building devoted to such uses I ever beheld. On the Saturday after dinner we saw a play by the comedians, with which M. de Montaigne was highly pleased, but from this, or some other cause, he was troubled afterwards with headache, a distemper which had not molested him for several years, but it passed away during the night. Moreover at this time he professed to be freer of pain in the kidneys than for a long while, and rejoiced in digestive powers as sane as when he returned from Banieres.