This is a smaller town than Ferrara, placed in a plain and surrounded by a vast number of well-cultivated hills. The Arno, which is crossed by divers bridges, runs through it and the walls of the town have no ditches. This day M. de Montaigne passed two stones and a large amount of gravel without perceiving anything more than a slight pain in the lower part of the stomach. On the same day we visited the stables[46] of the Grand Duke, which are large and arched in the roofs, but no valuable horses were therein. The Grand Duke is not at present in residence. We saw there a strange kind of sheep, a camel, some lions and bears, and an animal as big as a large mastiff, the shape of a cat, and spotted black and white, which they called a tiger. We went to the church of Saint Lawrence where those banners of ours which Marshal Strozzi[47] lost in his Tuscan defeat are still hanging. In this same church are several specimens of painting on the flat, and some beautiful statues of excellent workmanship, the work of Michael Angelo.[48] We next saw the Dome, a very large church, and the bell tower, covered with black and white marble and one of the fairest and richest works in the world. M. de Montaigne affirmed that he never saw a nation so lacking in fair women as the Italian,[49] and the lodgment he found far less well arranged than in France or Germany; the food, indeed, was not half so abundant or well served as in Germany. In neither country is the meat larded, but in Germany it is far better seasoned, and there is greater variety in sauces and soups. The rooms themselves in Italy are vastly inferior, no saloons, the windows large, and all uncovered save by a huge wooden shutter, which would exclude all daylight if it should be necessary to keep off the sun or the wind, an inconvenience which M. de Montaigne found still more intolerable than the lack of curtains in Germany. The chambers are wretched boxes, meanly curtained, and never more than one set in a room. Under the hangings is a bed on castors, and any one who is averse to lying hard will find himself in evil case. There is as great, or greater, want of linen; and the wines are for the most part inferior, and at this season undrinkable by all who dislike a mawkish sweetness. The price of everything is indeed somewhat lower; Florence, however, is reputed to be one of the dearest towns in Italy. Before my master arrived I made a bargain at the hostelry of the “Angel”[50] for seven reals a day for man and horse, and four reals for the servants.