[J] The irony is here so wild as to be at first hardly intelligible. Red is usually a gay and festive colour; when _she_ is disposed to be gay—when her absorbing grief leaves her "leisure for laughing," as she says in the original, it will be when she can wear a mandile dyed in her father's blood—that is, never. By the bold figure in the concluding lines of the vocero, she intimates at once the victim's innocence and the cruel circumstances of his death.—_Tr._ [K] Quarter of the city beyond the Tiber.—_Tr._ BOOK VII.—WANDERINGS IN CORSICA. CHAPTER I. TO CORTE THROUGH BALAGNA. I gave up the thought of a journey which I had at one time intended to make along the coast from Calvi to Sagone, where the large gulfs of Porto and Sagone, and those of Galeria and Girolata run into the country. The region is for the most part uncultivated, and the roads are frightful. I travelled through the glorious valley of Balagna by the Diligenza which runs between Calvi and Corte. As I have already mentioned, this large, beautiful, and well-cultivated district receives the name of the Garden of Corsica. Lofty mountains enclose it, snow-capped summits like Mount Tolo, and the mighty Grosso—heights of the finest forms, and that would enchant the landscape painter. Great numbers of villages are seen upon the slopes, San Reparato, Muro, Belgodere, Costa, Speloncata, Feliceto, Nessa, Occhiatana—all formerly seats of noble families and Caporali, and full of memories of old times. The Malaspinas once ruled here, the Tuscan margraves of Massa and the Lunigian marches, a race of powerful seigniors, whom Dante celebrates in the _Divine Comedy_. When he finds Currado Malaspina in purgatory, we have the following verses:— "Oh, never have I seen thy land, I said; But where throughout all Europe may be found The spot to which thy glory hath not spread? The fame that o'er this house such lustre throws Makes both its nobles and the land renowned: E'en he who ne'er was there, their greatness knows." The Malaspinas built the village of Speloncato. Subsequently to the year 1019, five counts of this house had come to Corsica—Guglielmo, Ugo, Rinaldo, Isuardo, and Alberto Rufo. The family is spread in numerous branches over the Italian countries.