particular members of the republic, and gives the commons a figure: so that it is no small check upon the aristocracy, and may be one reason why the Genoese senate carries it with greater moderation towards their subjects than the Venetian. It would have been well for the republic of Ge noa, if she had followed the example of her sister of Venice, in not permitting her nobles to make any purchase of lands or houses in the dominions of a foreign prince. For at present, the greatest among the Genoese, are in part subjects to the monarchy of Spain, by reason of their estates that lie in the king. dom of Naples. The Spaniards tax them very high upon occasion, and are so sensible of the advantage this gives them over the republic, that they will not suffer a Neapolitan to buy the lands of a Genoese, who must find a purchaser among his own countrymen, if he has a mind to sell. For this reason, as well as on account of the great sums of money which the Spaniard owes the Genoese, they are under a necessity, at present, of being in the interest of the French, and would probably continue so, though all the other states of Italy entered into a league against them. Genoa is not yet secure from a bombardment, though it is not so exposed as formerly; for, since the insult of the French, they have built a mole, with some little ports, and have provided themselves with long guns and mortars. It is easy for those that are strong at sea to bring them to what terms they please; for having but very little arable land, they are forced to fetch all their corn from Naples, Sicily, and other foreign countries; except what comes to them from Lombardy, which probably goes another way, whilst it furnishes two great armies with provisions. Their fleet, that formerly gained so many victories over the Saracens, Pisans, Venetians, Turks, and Spaniards, that made them masters of Crete, Sardinia, Majorca, Minorca, Negrepont, Lesbos, Malta, that settled them in Scio, Smyrna, Achaia, Theodosia, and several towns on the eastern confines of Europe, is now reduced to six gallies. When they had made an addition of but four new ones, the king of France sent his orders to suppress them, telling the republic at the same time, that he knew very well how many they had occasion for. This little fleet serves only to fetch them wine and corn, and to give their ladies an airing in the summer season. The republic of Genoa has a crown and sceptre for its doge, by reason of their conquest of Corsica, where there was formerly a Saracen king. This indeed gives their ambassadors a more honourable reception at some courts, but, at the same time, may teach their people to have a mean notion of their own form of government, and is a tacit acknowledgment that monarchy is the more honourable. The old Romans, on the contrary, made use of a very barbarous kind of politics, to inspire their people with a contempt of kings, whom they treated with infamy, and dragged at the wheels of their triumphal chariots. From Genoa we took chaise for Milan, and by the way stopped at Pavia, that was once the metropolis of a kingdom, but is at present a poor town. We here saw the convent of Austin monks, who ahout three years ago, pretended to have found out the body of the saint that gives the name to their order. King Luitprand, whose ashes are in the same church, brought hither the corps, and was very industrious to conceal it, lest it might be abused by the barbarous nations, which at that time ravaged Italy. One would therefore rather wonder that it has not been found out much earlier, than that it is discovered at last. The fathers however do not yet find their account in the discovery they have made: for there are canons regular, who have half the same church in their hands, that will by no means allow it to be the body of the saint, nor is it yet recognised by the pope. The monks say for themselves, that the very name was written on the urn where the ashes lay, and that, in an old record of the convent, they are said to have been interred between the very wall and the altar where they were taken up. They have already too, as the monks told us, began to justify themselves by miracles. At the corner of one of the cloisters of this convent are buried the duke of Suffolk, and the duke of Lorrain, who were both killed in the famous battle of Pavia. Their monument was erected to them by one Charles Parker, an ecclesiastic, as I learned from the inscription, which I cannot omit transcribing, since I have not seen it printed. "Capto a Milite Cæsareo Francisco I. Gallorum rege in agro Papiensi anno 1525, 23 Feb. inter alios proceres, qui ex suis in prælio occisi sunt, occubue. runt duo illustrissimi principes, Franciscus dux Loth aringiæ et Richardus de la Poole Anglus dux Suffol. ciæ a rege tyranno Hen. VIII. pulsus regno. Quorum corpora hoc in cœnobio et ambitu per annos 57. sine honore tumulata sunt. Tandem Carolus Parker a Morley, Richardi proximus consanguineus, regno Angliæ a reginâ Elizabethâ ob catholicam fidem ejectus, beneficentiá tamen Philippi Regis Cath. Hispaniarum monarchæ invictissimi in statu mediolan. easi sustentatus, hoc qualecunque monumentum, pro rerum suarum tenuitate, charissimo propinquo et illus trissimis principibus posuit, 5 Sept. 1582. et post suum exilium 23. majora et honorificentiora commen. dans Lotharingicis. Viator precare quietem." "Francis the first, king of France, being taken pri. soner by the Imperialists, at the battle of Pavia, February the 23d 1525, among other noblemen who died in the field, were two most illustrious princes, Francis duke of Lorrain, and Richard de la Poole, an Englishman, duke of Suffolk, who had been banished by the tyrant king Henry the eighth. Their bodies lay buried without honour fifty-seven years in this convent. length, Charles Parker of Morley, a near kinsman of the duke of Suffolk, who had been banished from Eng. land by queen Elizabeth for the catholic faith, and was At supported in the Milanese by the bounty of the catholic king Philip, the invincible monarch of Spain, erected this monument, the best his slender abilities could afford, to his most dear kinsman, and these most illustrious princes, recommending a better and more honorable one to the Lorrainers. Passengers pray for their soul's repose." This pretended duke of Suffolk was Sir Richard de la Poole, brother to the earl of Suffolk, who was put to death by Henry the eighth. In his banishment he took upon him the title of duke of Suffolk, which had been sunk in the family ever since the attainder of the great duke of Suffolk, under the reign of Henry the sixth. He fought very bravely in the battle of Pavia, and was magnificently interred by the duke of Bourbon, who, though an enemy, assisted at his funeral in mourn. ing. Parker himself is buried in the same place, with the following inscription. D. O. M. "Carolo Parchero a Morley Anglo ex illustrissima clarissima stirpe. Qui episcopus des. ob fidem catholicam actus in exilium. an XXXI. peregrinatus ab invictiss. Phil. rege Hispan. honestissimis pietatis et constantiæ præmiis ornatus moritur anno a partu Virginis, M. D. C. XI. men. Septembris." "To the memory of Charles Parker of Morley, an Englishman, of a most noble and illustrious family; who, a bishop elect, being banished for the catholic faith, and, in the thirty-first year of his exile, honourably rewarded for his piety and constancy by the most invincible Philip king of Spain, died in Septem ber 1611." In Pavia is an university of seven colleges, one of them called the college of Borromee, very large, and neatly built. There is likewise a statue in brass, of Marcus Antoninus on horseback, which the people of the place call Charles the fifth, and some learned men Constantine the Great. Pavia is the Ticinum of the ancients, which took its name from the river Ticinus, which runs by it, and is now called the Tesin. This river falls into the Po, and is excessively rapid. The bishop of Salisbury says, that he ran down with the stream thirty miles in an hour, by the help of but one rower. I do not know therefore why Silius Italicus has represented it as so very gentle and still a river, in the beautiful decription he has given us of it. Cæruleas Ticinus Smooth and untroubled the Ticinus flows, Lib. iv. And through the crystal stream the shining bottom shows: A poet of another nation would not have dwelt so long upon the clearness and transparency of the stream; but in Italy one seldom sees a river that is extremely bright and limpid, most of them falling down from the mountains, that make their waters very troubled and muddy; whereas the Tesin is only an outlet of that vast lake, which the Italians now call the Lago Maggiore. I saw between Pavia and Milan the convent of Carthusians, which is very spacious and beautiful. Their church is extremely fine, and curiously adorned, but of a Gothic structure. I could not stay long in Milan without going to see the great church that I had heard so much of, but was never more deceived in my expectation than at my first entering: for the front, which was all I had seen of the outside, is not half finished, and the in |
