from Notes from a Diary, Kept Chiefly in Southern India, 1881-1886 By Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff, 1886

We gave an hour to Piacenza, and an hour may well be given to the fine, though dilapidated, cathedral and the Palazzo del Comune of this sadly fallen place, where the passage of a carriage from the railway station, with two strangers in it, is so remarkable that the very priest, who is carrying the Viaticum, stops to stare and to gossip with his attendant about so unheard of a circumstances!

from Autobiography of Miss Cornelia Knight, Lady Companion to the Princess ... by Ellis Cornelia Knight

We liked Genoa much, but were compelled to leave it when the intrigues of the revolutionary government of France rendered this city an undesirable residence for English families. On our way to Rome we stayed a few days at Parma, the sovereign of which was greatly beloved by his subjects, for, it was said, he had never refused a petition, and never imposed a new tax. There was no appearance of poverty in his states, and I never saw a more happy people. How he and his country were treated by the French republicans is matter of history. Both Parma and Piacenza were free cities.
A few years after this visit I became acquainted with a regular canon of the great church of Piacenza, and who, according to custom, had his own cenfessional box. One day, after the French occupation of the country, he entered the church, with the intention of taking his own seat, but was surprised at not finding the confessional in its proper place. After looking about for it in all directions, he found it in a gallery lying on its side, and on the top of it the dead body of a French soldier, which three surgeons, or surgeon's mates, of that army were busily skinning. Horrified at the sight, he asked the meaning of this ghastly proceeding, and was told that some scientific men had discovered that the human skin made excellent leather. It had, therefore, been ordered that all dead bodies should be skinned, for the purpose of providing boots and shoes for the soldiers.

Some account of my life and writings: an autobiography (1883) by Sir Archibald Alison 1828

VISIT TO LORD BYRON
Having rejoined our carriage and the great road at Martigny, after ten days of exquisite enjoyment, we crossed the Simplon, and, after visiting the Italian lakes, repaired to Milan. Thence we went to Placentia to visit the double field of battle — of Hannibal against the Romans, and Suwarrow against Macdonald — which lies on the banks of the Trebbia, about three miles from that city. We went to the spot with Livy in our hands, and identified the features described by his graphic pen, particularly the hollow banks overhung with brushwood, unchanged after the lapse of two thousand years. 
With some difficulty I made myself master of the movements of the French and Russians on the same ground in recent times ; and it was there that I first recollect figuring to myself the description of a battle on the ground where it actually occurred. 
Next morning at Placentia I saw the two bronze statues of the Duke of Parma and another hero ; and I then felt for the first time that much of the effect of sculpture when in the open air consists in its being placed in a small square ; so small as to render the statue a considerable object with reference to the adjoining buildings, and to prevent it from being seen but at the proper distance, so as to have this effect preserved.

from a letter of Francis Marquess Of Tavistock To The Earl Of Upper Ossory, Paris, Sept. 12, 1763

... At Placentia, (for I shall observe the route I went, in speaking of the different places ; if you don't do the same, it will make no difference), — at Placentia, I say, you must see two equestrian statues in the Piazza; I did not much like them myself, but they A.D. are much admired, and I believe with great reason. You must absolutely see St. Augustino, a church built by my favourite architect Vignola...

from L'Hermite en Italie, The LATEST WORK Of MR. JOUY. TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 1824

[sul gioco del Cucù] 

I had at first intended to go directly to Florence,"by the way of Placentia and Parma; but my wish to enjoy for'a longer time the society of my new fellow-traveller caused me to change my direction, and I determined to accompany him to Bobbio. ...
In the course of the evening we played the game of chuchu (pronounced kookoo) which is suitable only for numerous parties. The pack is composed of nineteen double cards, each bearing u number from one to fifteen ; on five of the cards, between five and fifteen, are represented either a prison, a cat, a horse, a bregou, or the chuchu, or crowned owl, which is the highest card. On five other cards are grotesquely painted the representations of a fool, a bucket, a yellow mask with long ears, and the word nulla; the bucket is of less value than nulla, and the yellow mask is the lowest card of all.
" When each person has received five counters, and deposited his quota in the pool, the cards of the two packs are shuffled and dealt by the person who cuts them, each player receiving only one card. If the player on the right of the dealer is not satisfied with his card, he may pass it to his neighbour, unless the card hdld by the latter confer on him the privilege of making the former keep his card, which he is then compelled to do, however bad it may be. This exchange of cards is continued throughout the whole circle, till it comes to the turn of the person on the left of the dealer. When a player meets in the hand of his neighbour, the priton, the bregou, or the chuchu, his card is stopped, and he puts a counter into the pool. If he meets the cat, his card is passed from player to player till it comes into the hands of its first owner. If he meets the hone, bis card is passed to the person immediately below him who holds the horte; when two foolt meet, the persons holding them are entitled each to take a counter from the pool, and that is called faire firinc. In short, when the circle is completed, those who hold the lowest cards are condemned to put a counter into the pool, and the game is repeated till only one counter remains. The person who holds this, wins the game.
This game was the constant amusement of the numerous parties of the Marchioness. The packs of cards are sold at Placentia, and entitled, by the manufacturers, Nuovo e dilettevole giuoco del Chuchu, o giuoco del tratto In Pia cenza; that is, the new and delightful game of the chuchu, or fool at Placentia.

from a Letter of Richard Twining dated September 1827 (from Selections from Papers of the Twining Family, 1887)

At Monza we visited the cathedral, saw the iron crown, and other treasures of the church, passed over the bridge of Lodi, with less of bloodshed than Bonaparte occasioned there, to Placentia and Bologna. At Placentia we had a tremendous storm of thunder, lightning, and rain. It began in the night, and lasted through the next day. I could not have believed that the country could have been so flooded in the time. 
Some of the rivers which we crossed — and many thanks to the bridges by which we crossed them ! — were rolling down their beds with magnificent force. After full- twenty-four hours of storm we entered Bologna in sunshine, to an eight o'clock dinner.