On the morning of Sunday, October the 15th, I departed from Rome,[110] where I left my brother with forty-three golden crowns, which money he decided to spend by remaining in Rome for five months and learning the art of fencing. Before I set forth he hired an elegant little apartment for twenty giulios a month.[111] I was accompanied in the first stage by the Signors d’Estissac, di Montu, the Barone di Chase, Morens, and certain others. And if I had not started before the appointed time, so as to save them the trouble which this courtesy of theirs would have entailed, many more--to wit, the Signors di Bellai, d’Ambres, d’Alegra, and several others, would have also gone with me, having got their horses all in readiness. We went thirty miles and slept that night at Ronciglione, having engaged horses as far as Lucca at twenty giulios a horse, the _vetturino_ paying all charges on the road. [Illustration: PONTE MOLLE _From Piranesi’s Views of Rome_ _To face p. 172_, vol. iii. ] On the Monday morning I was astonished at the intense cold, cold such as I had never before felt at this season, and to mark that the vintage was still unfinished in these parts. We dined at Viterbo, where I put on my furs and got ready for winter, and went on twenty-nine miles farther to S. Lorenzo for supper, and slept at S. Chirio, after riding another thirty-two miles. All these roads have recently been levelled by the order of the Duke of Tuscany, a work of the greatest service to the public. May God reward him, seeing that he has made what were the hardest roads to traverse to be as easy as the city streets. The influx of travellers Rome-wards is a marvel; for this reason the charge for horses going thither is exorbitant, while coming away they may be had for nothing. Near Siena, as in many other places, we came upon a double bridge--that is, one with a structure on a higher level by which a stream of water is carried over the chasm. We reached Siena in the evening, after travelling twenty miles.