sists of a broad band, or hoop, of gold, studded with jewels, and inclosing a thin strip of iron, said to have been made from a nail (one of the supposed relics of the Passion of Christ), brought by the Empress Helena from Palestine. The Austrians carried off this national treasure in the war of 1859, but restored it after the peace of 1866. The peculiar galleries of Romanesque form which distinguish St. Ambrose, and the carved marble and porphyry canopy or baldacchino over the high altar, which witnesses to the extreme antiquity of the church, strike one less than the extraordinary display of early goldsmiths' work which adorns the high altar itself. The latter is a square-bottom table, between three and four feet high, each side of which is covered with gold and silver, some of which is engraved in relievo, but mostly encrusted with uncut gems, and enriched with enamel; the work of a German artist contemporary with Charlemagne (ninth century). This "golden portal" reminded me of the equally marvellous "golden screen," or reredos, of St. Mark's at Venice, a wall of jewelry standing behind the altar; but, like the "portal," only exposed on high days and holidays, unless when privately uncovered for the benefit of sight seers. Like most of the churches of the ante-mediæval time, St. Ambrose's is distinguished by a bishop's throne behind the altar, in the further end of the apse. The most perfect specimen I ever saw of the earliest Italian arrangement of seats for the clergy in a cathedral, is at the obscure, deserted little island-town of Torcello, six miles from Venice, where the seventh century cathedral is a plain, rectangular basilica, supported by columns, and having the east end, or apse, filled by semicircular seats, rising in six tiers, and commanded by a lofty episcopal throne of rudely-carved stone in the centre. The present Roman Catholic custom is for the bishop's throne to be on the right-hand side of the altar. One of the religious pictures most popular and wellknown throughout the world has its defaced and damaged original in the ancient refectory or dining-hall of the (suppressed) monastery connected with the abbey-church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. This is Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper." It is almost unrecognizable, but some authentic copies and engravings exist, which prove that the popular representatives of the picture are very far from being faithful copies. The head of the Saviour, especially, has less of the usual defect of genuineness than its equivalent in most pictures of Christ, and far less of the conventionality given to it by repeated filtrations of this particular original, through careless engravings and photographs. On driving through the rather bare Piazza d'Armi, or drilling-ground, the changed condition of the city of the Visconti, and then of the Sforza, is strikingly noticed, for the castle of the "tyrants" is now a barrack, and not far is an arena, or circus, for races, built by Napoleon; while opposite, the chief feature in the dreary surroundings, stands the Arch of Peace, with its goddess careering in a chariot with six horses, attended by four "victories" on horseback. River-gods and allegorical and historical bassreliefs and inscriptions cover the rest of the space, which is intended to remind one of the Triumphal Arches in the Roman Forum, but usually carries the mind rather to Paris and the Champs Elysées. I confess I could not see the beauty of this gate, standing by itself in a miniature wilderness; it has some of the cold beauty of the Munich buildings, but equally with them leaves the spectator unimpressed and rather cheerless. Does any one think Milan has, so far, vindicated its claim to being in the van of modern civilization? A sec tion of the inhabitants, at any rate, was determined to prove its "progression" by far more practical tests, one of which exists in the Temple of Cremation, erected for the proper burning of the dead, in the large new cemetery, one of the finest in Italy, whose monuments form absolutely a museum of modern Milanese sculpture, and whose space of 500 acres is inclosed by beautiful, classic colonnades. The environs of Milan ought to be the subject of a separate sketch, so peculiar are their characteristics, so unItalian, with their half-submerged rice-fields, and excellent roads on elevated causeways, often bordered with luxuriant hedges worthy of England, and hiding under their bushiness masses of brilliant wild-flowers. Well-cultivated farms, and well-kept farm-buildings, distinguish Lombardy from almost every other Italian agricultural region. As to scenery, there is not much, except in the distant view of the Alps-especially beautiful at sunrise and sunset. CHAPTER XX. THE GENOVA LA SUPERBA ITS STANDING COMPARED WITH THE DUOMO THE CHURCH OF ST. MATTHEW THE MONUMENT OF CO- ROSAZZA THEATRE THE PORTO General Grant and his party also visited Genoa, where they were received by the nobility of the city in a most cordial manner. A correspondent writes from this point as follows:- The surname which distinguished Venice's princely rival in the struggle for supremacy in the Middle Ages did not signify so much the "magnificent" as the "proud." Genova la Superba stood for independence and lofty self-confidence; it was the synonym of all that was haughty in politics, aristocratic in association, domineering in commerce. Genoa was more thoroughly Italian than Venice; her position was more central; her policy, so to speak, more national. Venice stood in a more exceptional position, and was as much a world's wonder as a working practical power among the family of nations. But both these cities, fallen as they now are from their independent sovereignty, have kept, more than any others, the outward form with which imagination not very inaccurately clothes their busy life of earlier days. Both of them abodes of luxury and homes of elegant and advanced civilization, they have kept almost intact the outer shell of their old courtly life. Rome, torn by the internal broils of robber barons and occasional popular revolutions, had but a rude aspect, and contained within her bosom more fortresses than museums. When the Popes returned from Avignon, and enlightened men, artists, and literati began to gather round the throne of the Medici, the Roveri, the grand Sixtus V., and others of like renown, Rome took on the garment of a civilization which naturally borrowed much from the old classic times, the peculiar pride of her people. As centuries rolled on, the ecclesiastical nature of the government, blending with the artistic associations of classicism, produced a type unique in Italy, or, indeed, in Europe. Florence, a thoroughly stirring, progressive commonwealth, became, from a sovereign city, the capital of an important principality, and went gracefully and naturally with the current of innovation, till it became a kind of intellectual sanctuary "the neutral abode of exiles of all lands; the placid harborer of every new idea, however impracticable; and the nucleus of a large foreign population. Naples, the least historical, because the least independent, of Italian States in the Middle Ages, drifted from one foreign ruler to the other, always a prize for the victor, but never herself a serious party to the transfer. Pleasureloving and frivolous, like decrepid Imperial Rome in the days when the unthinking mob cried "Panem et circenses!" and willingly let even the semblance of autonomy drop from their hands, Naples was as wax in the grasp of her rulers, and never had that vigorous national life which alone can and does give a characteristic aspect to the outward form and buildings of a city. Milan, the Paris of Italy, has followed, especially of late, in the footsteps of her prototype, and gradually swept away all architectural signs of individualism. The city of St. Charles and St. |