marble, and ornamented with rows of little arches. In the inside the buttresses that form the arcades of the nave are thick and clumsy, but they support a second range of arcades, consisting of pointed arches, light and airy in themselves and ornamented with fretwork of admirable grace and delicacy.

The immediate vicinity of Lucca is a smooth plain, but as well planted, cultivated, and embellished, as incessant industry can make it. The remaining part, that is, the principal portion of the republican territory, is mountain, and the traveller has an opportunity of observing its scenery on his way to the celebrated baths of Lucca. These baths are about fourteen miles from the city in a north-westerly direction, in the windings of the Apennines. The road to them, having traversed the plain of Lucca watered by the Serchio, still continues to trace the banks of that stream, and enters the defile through which it descends from the mountains at the Ponte Amoriano. This bridge and two others higher up are of a very singular form, consisting of two very high arches, very narrow, extremely steep with a descent in the middle between the arches; they are calculated only for foot passengers and mules. The era of their construction has not yet been ascertained. Some suppose that they were erected in the sixth century by Narses; others, with more probability, assign them to the eleventh, and to the Countess Matilda. Their grotesque appearance harmonizes with the romantic scenery that surrounds them; banks lined with poplars, bold hills covered with woods, churches and villas glittering through groves of cypress. From hence the defile continues without interruption to the baths, while the bordering mountains sometimes advance and some

.

times recede, increasing however in elevation without any diminution of their verdure and foliage.

The village of Dei Bagni stands in the bottom of a valley, on the banks of the Serchio; the baths themselves, with the lodging houses round them, are on the declivity of the hill. The view from thence extends over the dell, deep, broken, and shagged with trees; the torrent rolling over the rocky bottom; the hills all clad in forests of chestnut; at a distance and above all the pyramidal summits of the cloud-capped Apennines. In fact, the baths are in the very heart of these mountains, but surrounded rather with the beautiful than the grand features of their scenery. These baths do not appear to be a place of gay fashionable resort, or likely to furnish much social amusement ; but such persons as retire for purposes of health or improvement, may find here tolerable accommodations, and a country to the highest degree picturesque and interesting. The road from Lucca is good, but on the sides of the hills sometimes too narrow, and too close to the edge of the precipice.

The arts and sciences that generally accompany Liberty, have long flourished at Lucca, so much indeed, that these republicans are supposed to be endowed with more sagacity, and better adapted to mental pursuits than the other Etrurians, however high their natural advantages in this respect are rated. The fact seems to be that the higher class at Lucca, as in England, are obliged to qualify themselves for the administration of public affairs, and are therefore impelled to improvement by a stimulus not felt in other Italian governments. This circumstance renders information not only necessary but

fashionable, makes it a mark of rank and distinction, and diffuses it very generally over the whole territory. It is accompanied as usual by a spirit of order, decency, cleanliness, and even politeness, which raise the Lucchesi far above their countrymen not blest with a similar government.

The river which intersects the plain and almost bathes the walls of Lucca is now called the Serchio, but supposed by Cluverius to have been anciently named the Ausar: a little stream not far from the gate of Lucca on the road to Pisa, still retains the appellation of Osore. The road between these cities runs mostly at the foot of high wooded hills over a rich well-watered level thickly inhabited and extremely well cultivated.

CHAP. XI.

PISA----ITS HISTORY----EDIFICES----BATHS----UNIVERSITY-.

PORT.

PISA appears to great advantage at some distance, presenting the swelling dome of its cathedral, attended by its baptistery on one side, and the singular form of the leaning tower on the other, with various lesser domes and towers around or in perspective.

This city stands in a fertile plain, bounded by the neighbouring Apennines on the north, and on the south open to the Tyrrhenian sea. The fancy loves to trace the origin of Pisa back to the storied period that followed the Trojan war, and to connect its history with the fate of the Grecian chiefs, and particularly with the wanderings of the venerable Nestor. This commencement which at first sight appears like a classic tale framed merely to amuse the imagination, yet rests upon the

authority of Strabo*, and may be admitted at least as a probability. At all events the

Alpheæ ab origine Pisæ

Urbs Etrusca solo,

enjoys the double glory of being one of the most ancient cities of Etruria, and of deriving its name and its origin from the Olympic Pisa on the banks of the Alpheus.

Though always considerable, whether as forming one of the Etruscan tribes or afterwards honoured with a Roman colony, yet Pisa did not arrive at the zenith of its fame till the records of ancient times were closed, and the genius of Rome and liberty seemed for ever buried under the ruins and barbarism of the middle ages. At that period, apparently so unpropitious, the flame burst forth, and again kindled the slumbering spirit of Italian freedom. Pisa was not the last that roused itself to activity; it asserted its independence at an early period, and in the tenth century blazed forth in all the glory of a mighty and victorious republic. Its numerous fleets rode triumphant on the Mediterranean; and Corsica and Sardinia, the Saracens on the coasts of Africa, and the infidel sovereign of Carthage bowed beneath its power. Captive kings appeared before its senate; the Franks in Palestine and in Egypt owed their safety to its prowess, and Naples and Palermo saw its flags unfurled on their Pontiffs and Emperors courted its alliance and acknowledged its effective services, and the glory of Pisa, twice ten centuries after its foundation, eclipsed the fame of its Grecian pa

towers.

* Lib. v.