The Porta Ticinese corresponds to the original gate of the same name in the old circuit of the Roman walls, which stood nearer into the centre of the city at a spot now called _Carobbio_, a corruption of Quadrivium, the Four Ways. The modern gate is some little distance further south. This is the way out of the city to Pavia, the ancient Ticinum, hence the name Via Ticinese. Throughout the Middle Ages, from the time when Pavia was a royal seat, this street was the scene of all the state entries of conquering kings, or princely visitors. Barbarossa came this way, passing in majesty over the flattened earthworks and prone gates of the humiliated city. Three centuries later, the victorious soldier of fortune, Francesco Sforza, made his state entry by Porta Ticinese, appearing with his wife, Bianca Maria, and his young son, Galeazzo, upon a triumphal car beneath a canopy of cloth of gold, followed by the captains and chosen men of his army. Less than fifty years after, the destroyer of the brief Sforza domination, Louis XII., passed up in unparalleled splendour, wearing the ducal cap of Milan, having been presented by the Constable of the Gate with the keys of Porta Ticinese on the bridge over the canal immediately outside. He was preceded by all the clergy in pontifical array, and by a gorgeous procession of pages, musicians, men-at-arms, and courtiers. Immediately before him rode Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, the golden staff of a Marshal of France in his hand, and in the throng of cardinals and ambassadors who followed, the most conspicuous was that warlike ecclesiastic, known then as S. Pietro in Vincula, who, as Julius II., a few years later became the scourge of the French intruders. So is the shame of Milan and of Italy written on the stones of that street. Just beyond the gate the street crosses the canal—the _Naviglio_ it is called—which follows the mediæval circumference of the city, on the line of the great fosse dug by the Milanese as a defence against Barbarossa. It is the central mesh as it were of the network of waterways connecting Milan with Pavia and the other cities of the Lombard Plain. The narrow streak of water, with picturesque backs of houses descending into it, and women in bright coloured skirts and gay kerchiefs on their heads, washing by the edge, is a pleasant interruption to the crowded, rather squalid street. [Illustration: HOUSES ON THE NAVIGLIO.]