THE PALACE OF URBINO.

I.

At Rimini, one spring, the impulse came upon my wife and me to make our
way across San Marino to Urbino. In the Piazza, called apocryphally
after Julius Caesar, I found a proper _vetturino_, with a good carriage
and two indefatigable horses. He was a splendid fellow, and bore a great
historic name, as I discovered when our bargain was completed. "What are
you called?" I asked him. "_Filippo Visconti, per servirla!_" was the
prompt reply. Brimming over with the darkest memories of the Italian
Renaissance, I hesitated when I heard this answer. The associations
seemed too ominous. And yet the man himself was so attractive--tall,
stalwart, and well-looking--no feature of his face or limb of his
athletic form recalling the gross tyrant who concealed worse than
Caligula's ugliness from sight in secret chambers--that I shook this
preconception from my mind. As it turned out, Filippo Visconti had
nothing in common with his infamous namesake but the name. On a long and
trying journey, he showed neither sullen nor yet ferocious tempers; nor,
at the end of it, did he attempt by any masterstroke of craft to wheedle
from me more than his fair pay; but took the meerschaum pipe I gave him
for a keepsake, with the frank good-will of an accomplished gentleman.
The only exhibition of his hot Italian blood which I remember did his
humanity credit. While we were ascending a steep hillside, he jumped
from his box to thrash a ruffian by the roadside for brutal treatment to
a little boy. He broke his whip, it is true, in this encounter; risked a
dangerous quarrel; and left his carriage, with myself and wife inside
it, to the mercy of his horses in a somewhat perilous position. But when
he came back, hot and glowing, from this deed of justice, I could only
applaud his zeal.

An Italian of this type, handsome as an antique statue, with the
refinement of a modern gentleman and that intelligence which is innate
in a race of immemorial culture, is a fascinating being. He may be
absolutely ignorant in all book-learning. He may be as ignorant as a
Bersagliere from Montalcino with whom I once conversed at Rimini, who
gravely said that he could walk in three months to North America, and
thought of doing it when his term of service was accomplished. But he
will display, as this young soldier did, a grace and ease of address
which are rare in London drawing-rooms; and by his shrewd remarks upon
the cities he has visited,