PIACENZA, or Placentia, is approached by the desert shores of the TREBBIA, the site of many an ancient, many a modern fight. The bed of this vast mountain-torrent was nearly dried up as we crossed it. One deep stream alone poured through its rough channel ; and the fine ruin of a massive arch, marked by classic travellers, as the remains of that bridge crossed by Hannibal, had a singular effect in the midst of the broad, stony, and undulating strand, that looked as if its surface covered a buried city. The plain beyond is dreary and formless : in its centre rose the dark red city of Piacenza. Its burnished gloom, as it reflected the burning rays of a mid-day sun, was that of some bronzed city of Egyptian deserts; where sky, earth, and habitation are all bathed in the same swarthy tints. Its shattered walls, and mouldering gates, were guarded by troops of Austrian soldiers (the supposed armed force of Parma) ; and legions of the eternal Doganieri were ready to pounce on the passport, examine the imperial, and shew their power to detain and to harass those who are not inclined to purchase a speedy escape from their clutches. From wall to wall, and gate to gate, we were thus stopped four times ; and no where did Austria, with her system of restrictions, her spies, her fears, and her distrust, appear more formidable or more odious, than at the frontiers of the Parmesan territory, over which she aifects to hold no direct jurisdiction. We were at last permitted to enter the city of pleasantness, which looks like the city of the plague. To judge by its silent empty streets and dismantled edifices, it seemed to have been lately* swept by pestilence, or depopulated by famine.
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The ducal palace of the Farnese is a singular fabric, and worthy of observation. Like the greater part of the city, it is built of dusky red brick, and, as we saw it in the setting sun, it had a sort of burnt crustiness about it, which gave it the air of a building baked in a furnace. It is vast and desolate ; partly unfinished, partly in ruin. It was once the scene of much barbaric pomp and gay carousals ; for the Farnese were noted for their sumptuosity and love of dissipation. They were also patrons of the arts, which had then become more indispensable to the vanity than the taste of Italian princes ; and the walls of the now damp mouldering gallery were once covered with the works of Raphael, Corregio, and Parmigiano.
When the last of the Dukes of Parma, Don Carlos, changed his brick palace of Piacenza for the throne of Naples, he carried away from its cabinets and saloons, all they contained that was most rare and precious.
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A celebrated female writer has declared that an aristocracy is a law of nature. Whatever philosophers may think of this notion, it is certain that the law, as it has operated on the continent, has produced a most fatal modification of society ; and if, in its quality of natural, it is to remain immutable, Piacenza and some other of the lesser Italian cities will preserve a curious specimen of its influence for the amusement of posterity. We heard much, though we saw but little, of its agency in Piacenza ; for our view was taken merely en passant. But we learned from the persons we did see there, that its inhabitants were divided into two classes, the nobles and shop-keepers. We saw the latter lounging in their silent and half-empty shops ; or talking at their doors to a gossiping priest, a character here by no means rare. The nobles exhibit themselves on their Corso in vehicles, which they take to be carriages ; and which were so, in the days of Ranuccio and Alexander. The Corso itself is only the gloomy " strada maestra" or great street of the town ; and through its close and heated atmosphere (which had all the suffocating density of flames extinguished by dirty water) these noble illustrations of divine-righted aristocracy are carried along at a funereal pace, until the shadows of night send them home to Tarocco, in some high and remote apartment of their dismantled palaces : the church, the corso, and the card-table, making up the sum of their very useful existence.
We were assured by a gentleman of Piacenza, that no dinner has been given in that ducal city within the memory of man, except by the Marchese Mandelli, whose table is always open to those who have none of their own. This gentleman is said to have a considerable share of literary taste and scientific information which would appear a solecism in the present state of society in his native city, if Piacenza had not produced, and did not possess, Giordani : and whatever her nobles may think, it is more to her glory to have given birth to this eloquent and patriotic citizen, than even to have produced that clever organ of despotism, (the Wolsey of his day and country) Cardinal Alberoni!
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Pliny has asserted that, in his time, men lived in Piacenza to the age of a hundred and forty.
In its present state, I never saw a place where one would be more willing to die, if there was no other mode of escaping from its dark walls. As, however, in our own case, escape was possible, we left it with due speed for PARMA ; and refreshed our senses and spirits with a return to that nature, which, though always lovely, is loveliest to the eye and imagination of the traveller, in the moment that he leaves one of these ducal towns,' these petty capitals of petty principalities, which rise so frequently and so formidably, in sadness and desolation, amidst the blooming Paradise of Italian landscape.
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