In the afternoon I walked through the old, deserted, and often grass-grown streets of the town. In the Piazza Ariostea stands a fine old column, and the church in the great square is a fine building externally, the front consisting of numerous rows of arches one above the other. This and the ancient castle or palace of the house of Esté, a large moated brick building, with numerous square towers, in one of which the dungeon of Tasso is still shown, are all that is worth seeing here.
8th. We quitted Ferrara in very bad weather, it having snowed all night, and snow and sleet still continued to fall during the day. We stopped to bait at a lone house, which proved to be a very large and good inn, and then proceeded after dinner to Bologna, which we entered in company with three other English carriages. This is a very fine city, with good streets, on each side of which are lofty arcades, so that even in the worst weather one can walk through the greater part of the town without getting wet. In the evening I finished reading the "Castle of Otranto" to Sir Humphry, for the second time.
9th. Sir Humphry dictated a letter this morning to Professor Morichini at Rome, and I afterwards walked about the town whilst he paid a visit to Madame M——, the wife of a sculptor to whom he had been introduced when he was formerly in Italy. The streets appear well built and modern, though very dirty, and the houses are for the most part fine and lofty; but there are very few grand single buildings or churches; many of the latter are only to be distinguished from private houses under the arcades, by a coloured drapery hung over the door. The Neptune which surmounts the fountain in the square of the cathedral, a work by Jean de Bologna, certainly has its merits as a statue, but the poor water-god enjoys so little of his element, that he can scarcely provide for the wants of his immediate neighbours. After wandering quite alone through the town, the whole morning and a part of the afternoon, I returned to the hotel St. Marco. Madame M—— having invited Sir Humphry to take a seat in her box at the theatre in the evening, I went to see the play and ballet, and was very much pleased with each. The house is spacious and grand, but dark; the spectacle showy, and the singing and ballet very good.
10th. A wet and rainy day. We left Bologna at eight in the morning, and had a dreary and unpleasant day's journey through a flat country, to Faenza, having only stopped to bait at a little village on the road.
11th. Left Faenza this morning, and arrived in the evening at Rimini, passing through Forti and Cecena. Every step we now advance is on heroic ground; and before entering Rimini near Savignano, we passed over the Rubicon, a little insignificant stream, though once the boundary of the most powerful state in the world. The bridge over the little river which flows by the gates of Rimini, is said to have stood for twenty centuries; and in the middle of the town is an ancient triumphal arch nearly as old. It was built by Augustus on his return from his victory over Marc Antony, and is a fine simple arch of stone, though now patched up with bricks. The town is small and dirty, and the Leon Bianco is a wretched inn.
12th. Leaving Rimini we drove along the coast of the Adriatic, close to the sea shore. We saw the distant Appenines on our right, as yet only low hills covered with vineyards and towns, one of which, San Marino, situated on the top of a hill, is a small independent republic of about five thousand souls. Having dined at a little village on the road, we drove on through Pesaro to Fano. The surrounding country is rather mountainous, and seems to abound in defiles and narrow passes, which may easily account for the defeat of the Carthaginians by the Romans, in this neighbourhood. Fano is a small town, lying close upon the sea. The inn where we passed the night was remarkably good.
13th. We left Fano early in the morning, and with it the Adriatic; and turning off to the right, we entered into the Appenines and dined at Fossombrone, (probably modernized from Forum Sempronii,) a small and very old town, situated on the side of a hill not far from the spot where Hasdrubal was defeated and slain by the Roman Consuls, Nero and Sempronius. The country here begins to be very fine, but is not at all alpine. Through a wide and fertile valley runs the Metauro, a beautifully clear green stream. Quitting Fossombrone, we soon came to the Forli, a celebrated pass in the mountains, and a work of the old Romans. The rock in a narrow glen on the side of a small stream has been cut away in order to make the road, which then runs for some hundred yards through an arched gallery hollowed out of the solid stone; this work appears as if very lately finished, and the sublime and rocky scene around, beautifully relieved by the fine and varied autumnal tints of the shrubs, and by the white and foaming stream, is a most fitting spot for such a grand undertaking. Descending from the pass into the valley on the other side, we drove on through Aqualagna to Cagli, where we remained for the night, in a most wretched inn.
14th. We had a long drive from Cagli to Sigillo through a fine mountainous country, passing over some small Roman bridges, easily distinguished from those of modern times, by the gigantic size of the blocks of stone of which they are formed. Another remarkable object on this road is a bridge of great height, built over a deep ravine, in order to preserve the level of the road. It consists of a small arch thrown across the mountain stream, above which a complete circle or tunnel of nearly one hundred feet in diameter, has been built, and thus forms the support of the road. In one part of the mountain we observed some very curiously carved strata in the limestone rock which composes this chain. From Sigillo we proceeded in the afternoon to Nocera, passing on the road many a hill of stones surmounted by a wooden cross, the only monument of the unfortunate travellers who had perished in these wild and solitary spots, by the hands of the ferocious banditti, which still too often infest these parts of the Appenines. It was dark when we reached Nocera, and we here found the hotel as bad if not worse than at Cagli.
15th. We left Nocera at about half-past seven in the morning and reached Foligno by eleven. This latter place is a large and very dirty town, nor does there seem to be anything interesting in it or its vicinity. We quitted it at two o'clock, and drove on to Spoleto, passing along the banks of the Clytumnus, which Byron with truth calls