IN CHAPTER XVI. RAVENNA. N entering upon a tour through the country towns of the Emilia, it may be well to recollect that here money ought to go much further than in other parts of Italy. If travellers have no courier, 2 frs. for a room and 3 frs. for a dinner will be found to be the usual prices. 3 frs. is certainly the proper price at which to order a dinner, as no more would be obtained if you ordered it at 10 frs. The people of the Emilia are almost invariably kind, civil, and hospitable to strangers. They are celebrated for their beauty, especially the women of Pesaro and Fano, while the young men of Forli are considered the noblest specimens of humanity in existence. The men have no national costume ; women of the upper classes generally wear knitted veils, something like Spanish mantillas, especially in the churches. The Emilia is very richly cultivated, the partition system being adopted; by which the owner lets out the land to the contadino, for the benefit of his labour and implements, receiving half the produce in return. (It is three hours by rail from Bologna to Ravenna. I. 9 frs. 50 c.; II. 6 frs. 70 c.; III. 4 frs. 30 c. Trains are changed at Castel Bolognese.) (The Railway nearly follows the course of the Via Emilia. Imola Station. Imola occupies the site of the Roman station Forum Cornelii, mentioned by Cicero and Martial. It is the birthplace (1506) of the painter Innocenzo da Imola, but there is no good work of his here. The Cathedral of S. Cassianus has a picturesque octangular tower. In its crypt is the grave of S. Peter Chrysologus (the great orator of the 5th century, whose surname illustrates the effect of his sermons), and of S. Cassianus. 'S. Casciano (Cassian), patron of Imola, was a schoolmaster of that city, and being denounced as a Christian, the judge gave him up to the fury of his scholars, whom the severity of his discipline had inspired with the deepest hatred. The boys revenged themselves by putting him to a slow and cruel death, piercing him with the iron styles used in writing; his story is told by Prudentius.'-Jameson's 'Sacred Art.' Pius VII. was Bishop of Imola when he was raised to the Papal throne in 1800, and Pius IX. was its Bishop in 1846. After leaving Castel Bolognese, we pass Lugo (Station) supposed to occupy the site of the Lucus Dianae. 3 m. S.E. is Cotignola, where Attendolo, father of Francesco Sforza, was born, 1369,1 who here, a peasant's son, threw his axe into an oak to decide, by its falling or remaining fixed in the trunk, whether he should remain a daylabourer or join a band of condottieri. The painters Francesco and Bernardino Marchesi or Zaganelli took, from this their birthplace, the surname of Cotignola. Four miles north is Fusignano, where the poet Vincenzo Monti and the composer Angelo Corelli were born. Bagnacavallo (Station) gave a name to the painter Bartol. Ramenghi, who was born here, 1484.) Ravenna. (Inns. Spada d'Oro; Europa-tolerable, as very rough Italian inns-both in the Strada del Monte. Carriages from the station to the town, with 1 horse, 50 c.; with 2 horses, I fr.; night, 75 c., with 2 horses, I fr. 50 c. Carriage for the afternoon to S. Apollinare in Classe, the Pineta, &c., 5 frs. For Photographs of Ravenna. (Byron's House).) Ricci, 295 Strada Porta Sisi 'Ravenna in her widowhood-the waste Where dreams a withered ocean; where the hand 1 Montecchio, near Parma, also claims to be his birthplace. Of priest and emperor; where the temples stand, Solemn and sad like clouds that lingeringly Sail, and are loth to fade upon the sky.'-7. A. S. 'Une chose console pourtant de la vue de ce désert qui a pris possession d'une cité jadis si populeuse, si animée, ruine encore debout survivant à tant d'autres ruines. Cette chose, c'est une incomparable réunion de monuments de l'art chrétien, qui nulle part ailleurs ne se trouve aussi purement, aussi complètement représenté dans ses formes primitives et son mystérieux symbolisme. Plus byzantine que Constantinople elle-même, Ravenne, sauf la puissance et la gloire qui se sont retirées d'elle comme le font chaque jour les flots mouvants de l'Adriatique, Ravenne est restée à peu près ce qu'elle était au temps de Justinien et des exarques. De même que Cæré rappelle la ville étrusque, Cumes et Pompeï la cité grecque et le municipe romain, l'ancienne capitale de l'Exarchat nous transporte en plein Eas-Empire. Sa décadence, son immobilité ne représentent que trop fidèlement la décadence et l'immobilité d'un état qui dix siècles durant ne cessa de pencher vers son déclin. Aussi, en la visitant, on ressent le triste plaisir d'avoir sous les yeux la nécropole la mieux conservée de l'Italie. Après avoir fait le tour de ses vieilles murailles qui gardent les traces des brèches ouvertes par les Barbares, pénétrez dans l'intérieur de ses austères basiliques, et vous verrez que l'antiquité chrétienne y revit plus intacte qu'à Rome, car vous n'y rencontrez pas le mélange, parfois choquant, du sacré et du profane. Ainsi qu'on l'a dit avec raison, Ravenne est donc une ville essentiellement hiératique, sortant tout à coup de la profondeur de ses cryptes, et dont les portes semblent encore, de nos jours, gardées par deux statues, celles de l'Empire et de la Religion.'-Dantier, L'Italie.' The early History of Ravenna may be told in the words of Gibbon :: 'On the coast of the Adriatic, about ten or twelve miles from the most southern of the seven mouths of the Po, the Thessalians founded the ancient colony of Ravenna, which they afterwards resigned to the natives of Umbria. Augustus, who had observed the opportunity of the place, prepared, at the distance of three miles from the old town, a capacious harbour, for the reception of two hundred and fifty ships of war. This naval establishment, which included the arsenals and magazines, the barracks of the troops, and the houses of the artificers, derived its origin and name from the permanent station of the Roman fleet; the intermediate space was soon filled with buildings and inhabitants, and the three extensive and populous quarters of Ravenna (Ravenna, Cesarea, and Classis), gradually contributed to form one of |