The Shops In Verona Appear Very Splendid, And The
Bra, When Lighted Up In The Evening, Is A Very Lively And Animating
Scene.
MANTUA, 15 June.
I could not go to Milan without stepping a little out of my road to visit
this ancient and redoubtable fortress, so celebrated in the early campaigns
of Buonaparte, besides the other claims it has on the traveller's attention
as the birth place of Virgil. This place is of immense strength, as a
military post; being situated on a small isthmus of land, separating two
lakes, and communicating with the rest of the country by an exceeding
narrow causeway. This position, added to the strength of the
fortifications, render the fortress impregnable, if well garrisoned and
provisioned. The city is, however, unhealthy from the lake and marshy land
about it, and there is but a scanty population. Grass grows in the streets
and it is the dullest and indeed the only dull town in all Italy.
Everything in this city announces decay and melancholy, and I met with
several men looking full as halfstarved and deplorable as Shakespeare's
Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet. Yet the city is by no means an ugly one.
The buildings are imposing, the streets broad and well paved, and there is
a fine circular promenade in the centre of which is a Monument erected in
honor of Virgil by the French general Miollis, who had a great veneration
for all poets. The Palazzo pubblico and the Cathedral are the most
striking buildings.
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