view had long been confined to a deep and narrow defile: our eye now ranged at liberty over an immense extent of scenery, rich, magnificent, and sublime. We had just escaped from the rigors of winter, and we were now basking in the beams of a summer sun. We still stood on the very verge of frost, and beheld whole regions of snow rising full before us; but vernal warmth, vegetation, and verdure, enveloped us on all sides. In such circumstances, when for the first time the traveller beholds the beauties of an Italian prospect expanded before him, and feels the genial influence of an Italian sun around him, he may be allowed to indulge a momentary enthusiasm, and hail Italy in the language of Virgil. On the whole, we visited few places with more satisfaction, and left few with more regret, than Verona; whether as the first Italian city on our road, it happened, by its appearance and monuments, very novel to a transalpine traveller, particularly to engage our attention; or whether it really possesses many means of exciting interest, I know not; but as we departed, we felt ourselves inclined to address it in the words of one of its poets. VOL. I. G "Verona, qui te viderit, "Is, credo, se ipsum non amat, "Et odit omnes gratias *." Сотта. If a traveller have any time to spare (and he who wishes to travel with benefit, ought always to have some days at his disposal) he may spend it with advantage at Verona, as his head-quarters, and take an opportunity of visiting Monte Bolca abought eighteen, and Valle Ronca about fifteen miles distant; where the lovers of the picturesque will find some beautiful scenery, and the mineralogist some remarkable specimens of various stones, earths, petrifactions, incrustations, basaltic pillars, &c. Among similar curiosities, we may rank the Ponte Veia, a natural arch of considerable sweep and boldness. The wines of Verona were formerly famous, as appears from Virgil's apostrophe. "et quo te carmine dicam "Rhætica? nec cellis ideo contende Falernis." But their reputation at present is very low, as is that of almost all the wines produced on the northern side of the Apennines. * The best guide is the Compendio della Verona, in four very thin, or two ordinary small octavo volumes, with prints. It is an abridgment of a larger work, entitled “ Verona Illustrata," by the celebrated Maffei. CHAP. III. -STYLE VICENTIA-BUILDINGS- OLYMPIC ACADEMY AND THEATRE OF PALLADIO-CHURCH OF MONTE BERICOCIMBRI SETTE COMMUNI-PADUA-ITS ANTIQUITY, HISTORY, LITERATURE, AND UNIVERSITY. THE distance from Verona to Vicentia is three posts and a half; the road runs over a plain highly cultivated, and beautifully shaded with vines and mulberries. When I say a plain, I do not mean that the face of the country is a dead insipid flat, but only that it is not hilly. However, near Monte Bello bold hills rise on each side, and present, in their windings or on their summits, villages, towns, and castles. Vincentia (Vicetia), Vicenza is a town as ancient as Verona, large and populous; its circumference is of three miles, and the number of its inhabitants is said to amount to 30,000. It has passed through the same revolutions as its neighbour Verona, but it seems to have suffered more from their consequences. It was indeed burnt by the Emperor Frederic the Second, while at war with the Pope, on account of its attachment to the latter, and cannot consequently be supposed to exhibit any remnants of its Roman glory. 1 But the want of ancient monuments is supplied in a great degree by numberless master-pieces of modern genius. Palladio was a native of this city, and seems to have employed with complacency all the power of his art in the embellishment of his country. Hence the taste and magnificence that reign in most of the public buildings, and in many of the private houses. Among the former we may distinguish the Town House, called very significantly Palazzo della ragione, that is, the Palace of Public Reason, or Opinion, where justice is administered, and the business of the city transacted; the Palazzo del Capitanio, the residence of the Podestà, or principal magistrate, so called from potestas*, a title sometimes given by the Romans to persons charged with the highest functions in provincial towns; the gate of the Campus Martius, a triumphal arch, solid and well proportioned; and, above all, the celebrated Olympic Theatre erected at the expense of a well known academy bearing that pompous title. This edifice is raised upon the plan of ancient theatres, and bears a great resemblance to those of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The permanent and immoveable scenery, the ranges of seats rising above the other, the situation of the orchestra in the podium, and the colonnade that crowns the upper range, are all faithful representations of antiquity. The scene consists of a magnificent gate, supported by a double row of pillars, with niches and statues: it has one large and two smaller entrances, opening into as many principal streets, decorated with temples, palaces, and public edifices of various descriptions, formed of solid materials, and disposed according to the rules of perspective, so as to assume somewhat more than the mere theatrical appearance of reality. The sides are a continuation of the same plan, and have also each one entrance giving into its respective * An Fidenarum Gabiorumque esse potestas.-Juv. x. 100. street; thus there are five entrances, through which the actors pass and repass to and from the stage. The orchestra occupies the centre, or that part which we call the pit; thence rise the seats, forming the side of an ellipsis, and above them the gallery, composed of a range of Corinthian pillars, with their full entablature, surmounted by a balustrade, and adorned with statues of marble. An air of simplicity, lightness, and beauty reigns over the whole edifice, and delights the ordinary observer; while, in the opinion of connoisseurs, it entitles the Teatro Olimpico to the appellation of the master-piece of Palladio. But honourable as it is to the taste and to the talents of its architect, it reflects equal, perhaps greater lustre on the Society, at whose expense and for whose purposes it was erected. The Olympic Academy was instituted at Vicenza so early as the year 1555, by a set of gentlemen, for the encouragement and propagation of polite literature. Public exhibitions were among the means employed by the Society to attain that object; and several attempts were made to accommodate various buildings to their purpose; but finding none perfectly suitable, they at length came to the public spirited resolution of erecting a theatre; and, that its form might correspond with its destination, no less than with the classic spirit of the actors that were to tread its stage, they commissioned Palladio to raise it on the ancient model. The inscription over the stage points out its object: VIRTUTI AC GENIO, OLYMPICORUM ACADEMIA The spirit of ancient genius seemed to revive, and the spectator might have imagined himself at, Athens, when the members of |