The university of “Fair Padua, nursery of the Arts,” became under Venetian auspices the most famous and most honoured centre of learning in Europe. Liberal salaries and an atmosphere of intellectual freedom drew an array of the most eminent teachers in Christendom. Fallopius, in physiology and medicine; Galileo, in astronomy and mathematics, were names that crowded its halls with eager students. As many as eighteen thousand of all nations were gathered there daily in the sixteenth century. During his professorship of twenty years, Galileo invented the thermometer and the telescope. Tasso studied, and our own Harvey (Italians claim) learned the secret of the circulation of the blood there. The Earl of Arundel sent his two sons in 1622 to drink of its springs. The Admirable Crichton having called on one of the Aldi in 1580, was introduced to the Signory, and improvised before the Senate a Latin oration of “most rare and singular power.” The Fathers voted the impecunious youth one hundred crowns as a courteous recognition of his marvellous powers, and sent him to Padua with a warm introduction. To Sebastian Venier succeeded Doge Nicolo da Ponte in 1577, a worthy scholar and student of theology, who had represented the Republic at the Council of Trent. At his death, in 1585, Pasquale Cigogna, descended from an apothecary ennobled after the war of Chioggia, was preferred to the ducal office. Cigogna saw the erection of the new stone Rialto bridge, and, after ten years’ peaceful reign, was followed by a popular and lavish prince, Marino Grimani, whose consort was exceptionally honoured by a gorgeous coronation ceremony. Grimani died on Christmas Day 1605, the very evening of the delivery of the first papal brief, and Leonardo Donato was chosen to open the document, and to preside over the conflict with the Spanish papalists at Rome. When he died in 1612, weird stories were whispered by fanatics of shrieks and cries heard from his chamber as the Evil One bore him away.