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.