f times long before Palladio.

They were rather troublous times, and not to be recalled here in all
their circumstance; but I think it due to Vicenza, which is now little
spoken of, even in Italy, and is scarcely known in America, where her
straw-braid is bought for that of Leghorn, to remind the reader
that the city was for a long time a republic of very independent and
warlike stomach. Before she arrived at that state, however, she had
undergone a great variety of fortunes. The Gauls founded the city
(as I learn from "The Chronicles of Vicenza," by Battista Pagliarino,
published at Vicenza in 1563) when Gideon was Judge in Israel, and
were driven out by the Romans some centuries later. As a matter of
course, Vicenza was sacked by Attila and conquered by Alboin; after
which she was ruled by some lords of her own, until she was made
an imperial city by Henry I. Then she had a government more or less
republican in form till Frederick Barbarossa burnt her, and "wrapped
her in ashes," and gave her to his vicar Ecelino da Romano, who "held
her in cruel tyranny" from 1236 to 1259. The Paduans next ruled
her forty years, and the Veronese seventy-seven, and the Milanese
seventeen years; then she reposed in the arms of the Venetian Republic
till these fell weak and helpless from all the Venetian possessions
at the threat of Napoleon. Vicenza belonged again to Venice during the
brief Republic of 1848, but the most memorable battle of that heroic
but unhappy epoch gave her back to Austria. Now at last, and for the
first time, she is Italian. Vicenza is

"Of kindred that have greatly expiated
And greatly wept,"

and but that I so long fought against Ecelino da Romano, and the
imperial interest in Italy, I could readily forgive her all her past
errors. To us of the Lombard League, it was grievous that she should
remain so doggishly faithful to her tyrant; though it is to be granted
that perhaps fear had as much to do with her devotion as favor. The
defense of 1848 was greatly to her honor, and she took an active part
in that demonstration against the Austrians which endured from 1859
till 1866.

Of the demonstration we travellers saw an amusing phase at the
opera which we attended the evening of our arrival in Vicenza.
"Nabucodonosor" was the piece to be given in the new open-air theatre
outside the city walls, whither we walked under the starlight. It
was a pretty structure of fresh white stucco, oval in form, with some