[40] Spoleto and the Bolognese territories as well were greatly overrun with brigands at this period. Large bands of armed ruffians ranged the country, nominally fighting one another, but really robbing and murdering the helpless peasants. One band, that of Sassomolari, was estimated to number four or five hundred men. Brigandage was not put down till the pontificate of Sixtus V.
[41] Lojano.
[42] I fuochi di Pietramala. There are emanations of coal gas from the rocks. At Acqua Buja, about a mile distant, the gas rises through the water of a small lake and ignites if fire be applied to it.
[43] Pratolino, a villa built in 1573 by Francesco dei Medici, Grand Duke of Florence. Little now remains of it save some out-buildings, the colossal statue of L’Appennino, and some of the waterworks in which Montaigne found so much to admire. It was built from the design of Bernardo Buontalenti, but some portions—not the statue aforesaid—were the work of Gian Bologna. The villa seems to have been in existence at the beginning of the present century. The park now belongs to Prince Demidoff.
[44] This alley is still in existence.
[45] L’Appennino, erroneously attributed to Gian Bologna. It was repaired in 1877 by Prince Demidoff.
[46] These were in the Piazza S. Marco. They were built by Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, in 1515. In 1550 Cosimo transferred to an adjoining site the wild animals which had been hitherto kept in the Palazzo Vecchio. The Grand Duke alluded to was Francesco, son of Cosimo I.
[47] This was the Strozzi whose tomb Montaigne had recently visited at Epernay (vol. i. p. 31). He was defeated by the Spaniards and Imperialists at Lucignano in 1554.
[48] The statues in the Medici Chapel.
[49] In Essais, iii. 5, he writes in a more charitable strain: “Ceux qui connoissent l’Italie, ne trouveront jamais estrange, si pour ce sujet je ne cherche ailleurs des examples. Car cette nation se peut dire regente du reste du Monde en cela. Ils ont plus communément de belles femmes, et moins de laides que nous: mais des rares et excellentes beautez, j’estime que nous allons à pair.”