17 October 1644 – 23 October 1644

Accompanied by a most courteous marchand, called Tomson, we went to view the rarities. The city is built in the hollow or bosom of a mountain, whose ascent is very steep, high, and rocky, so that, from the Lantern and Mole to the hill, it represents the shape of a theater; the streets and buildings so ranged one above another, as our seats are in the playhouses; but, from their materials, beauty, and structure, never was an artificial scene more beautiful to the eye, nor is any place, for the size of it, so full of well-designed and stately palaces, as may be easily concluded by that rare book in a large folio which the great virtuoso and painter, Paul Rubens, has published, though it contains only one street and two or three churches. The first palace we went to visit was that of Hieronymo del Negros, to which we passed by boat across the harbor. Here I could not but observe the sudden and devilish passion of a seaman, who plying us was intercepted by another fellow, that interposed his boat before him and took us in; for the tears gushing out of his eyes, he put his finger in his mouth and almost bit it off by the joint, showing it to his antagonist as an assurance to him of some bloody revenge, if ever he came near that part of the harbor again. Indeed this beautiful city is more stained with such horrid acts of revenge and murders, than any one place in Europe, or haply in the world, where there is a political government, which makes it unsafe to strangers. It is made a galley matter to carry a knife whose point is not broken off. This palace of Negros is richly furnished with the rarest pictures; on the terrace, or hilly garden, there is a grove of stately trees, among which are sheep, shepherds, and wild beasts, cut very artificially in a gray stone; fountains, rocks, and fish ponds; casting your eyes one way, you would imagine yourself in a wilderness and silent country; sideways, in the heart of a great city; and backward, in the midst of the sea. All this is within one acre of ground. In the house, I noticed those red-plaster floors which are made so hard, and kept so polished, that for some time one would take them for whole pieces of porphyry. I have frequently wondered that we never practiced this in England for cabinets and rooms of state, for it appears to me beyond any invention of that kind; but by their carefully covering them with canvass and fine mattresses, where there is much passage, I suppose they are not lasting there in glory, and haply they are often repaired. There are numerous other palaces of particular curiosities, for the marchands being very rich, have, like our neighbors, the Hollanders, little or no extent of ground to employ their estates in; as those in pictures and hangings, so these lay it out on marble houses and rich furniture. One of the greatest here for circuit is that of the Prince Doria, which reaches from the sea to the summit of the mountains. The house is most magnificently built without, nor less gloriously furnished within, having whole tables and bedsteads of massy silver, many of them set with agates, onyxes, cornelians, lazulis, pearls, torquoises, and other precious stones. The pictures and statues are innumerable. To this palace belong three gardens, the first whereof is beautified with a terrace, supported by pillars of marble; there is a fountain of eagles, and one of Neptune, with other sea-gods, all of the purest white marble; they stand in a most ample basin of the same stone. At the side of this garden is such an aviary as Sir Francis Bacon describes in his "Sermones Fidelium," or "Essays," wherein grow trees of more than two feet diameter, besides cypress, myrtles, lentiscuses, and other rare shrubs, which serve to nestle and perch all sorts of birds, who have air and place enough under their airy canopy, supported with huge iron work, stupendous for its fabric and the charge. The other two gardens are full of orange trees, citrons, and pomegranates, fountains, grots, and statues. One of the latter is a colossal Jupiter, under which is the sepulchre of a beloved dog, for the care of which one of this family received of the King of Spain 500 crowns a year, during the life of that faithful animal. The reservoir of water here is a most admirable piece of art; and so is the grotto over against it. We went hence to the Palace of the Dukes, where is also the Court of Justice; thence to the Merchant's Walk, rarely covered. Near the Ducal Palace we saw the public armory, which was almost all new, most neatly kept and ordered, sufficient for 30,000 men. We were showed many rare inventions and engines of war peculiar to that armory, as in the state when guns were first put in use. The garrison of the town chiefly consists of Germans and Corsicans. The famous Strada Nova, built wholly of polished marble, was designed by Rubens, and for stateliness of the buildings, paving, and evenness of the street, is far superior to any in Europe, for the number of houses; that of Don Carlo Doria is a most magnificent structure. In the gardens of the old Marquis Spinola, I saw huge citrons hanging on the trees, applied like our apricots to the walls. The churches are no less splendid than the palaces; that of St. Francis is wholly built of Parian marble; St. Laurence, in the middle of the city, of white and black polished stone, the inside wholly incrusted with marble and other precious materials; on the altar of St. John stand four sumptuous columns of porphyry; and here we were showed an emerald, supposed to be one of the largest in the world. The church of St. Ambrosio, belonging to the Jesuits, will, when finished, exceed all the rest; and that of the Annunciada, founded at the charges of one family, in the present and future design can never be outdone for cost and art. From the churches we walked to the Mole, a work of solid huge stone, stretching itself near 600 paces into the main sea, and secures the harbor, heretofore of no safety. Of all the wonders of Italy, for the art and nature of the design, nothing parallels this. We passed over to the Pharos, or Lantern, a tower of very great height. Here we took horses, and made the circuit of the city as far as the new walls, built of a prodigious height, and with Herculean industry; witness those vast pieces of whole mountains which they have hewn away, and blown up with gunpowder, to render them steep and inaccessible. They are not much less than twenty English miles in extent, reaching beyond the utmost buildings of the city. From one of these promontories we could easily discern the island of Corsica; and from the same, eastward, we saw a vale having a great torrent running through a most desolate barren country; and then turning our eyes more northward, saw those delicious villas of St. Pietro d'Arena, which present another Genoa to you, the ravishing retirements of the Genoese nobility. Hence, with much pain, we descended toward the Arsenal, where the galleys lie in excellent order. The inhabitants of the city are much affected to the Spanish mode and stately garb. From the narrowness of the streets, they use sedans and litters, and not coaches.

We embarked in a felucca for Livorno, or Leghorn; but the sea running very high, we put in at Porto Venere, which we made with peril, between two narrow horrid rocks, against which the sea dashed with great velocity; but we were soon delivered into as great a calm and a most ample harbor, being in the Golfo di Spetia. From hence, we could see Pliny's Delphini Promontorium, now called Capo fino. Here stood that famous city of Luna, whence the port was named Lunaris, being about two leagues over, more resembling a lake than a haven, but defended by castles and excessive high mountains. We landed at Lerici, where, being Sunday, was a great procession, carrying the Sacrament about the streets in solemn devotion. After dinner we took post-horses, passing through whole groves of olive trees, the way somewhat rugged and hilly at first, but afterward pleasant. Thus we passed through the towns of Sarzana and Massa, and the vast marble quarries of Carrara, and lodged in an obscure inn, at a place called Viregio. The next morning we arrived at Pisa, where I met my old friend, Mr. Thomas Henshaw, who was then newly come out of Spain, and from whose company I never parted till more than a year after. The city of Pisa is as much worth seeing as any in Italy; it has contended with Rome, Florence, Sardinia, Sicily, and even Carthage. The palace and church of St. Stefano (where the order of knighthood called by that name was instituted) drew first our curiosity, the outside thereof being altogether of polished marble; within, it is full of tables relating to this Order; over which hang divers banners and pendants, with other trophies taken by them from the Turks, against whom they are particularly obliged to fight; though a religious order, they are permitted to marry. At the front of the palace stands a fountain, and the statue of the great Duke Cosmo. The Campanile, or Settezonio, built by John Venipont, a German, consists of several orders of pillars, thirty in a row, designed to be much higher. It stands alone on the right side of the cathedral, strangely remarkable for this, that the beholder would expect it to fall, being built exceedingly declining, by a rare address of the architect; and how it is supported from falling I think would puzzle a good geometrician. The Duomo, or Cathedral, standing near it, is a superb structure, beautified with six columns of great antiquity; the gates are of brass, of admirable workmanship. The cemetery called Campo Santo is made of divers galley ladings of earth formerly brought from Jerusalem, said to be of such a nature, as to consume dead bodies in forty hours. 'Tis cloistered with marble arches; and here lies buried the learned Philip Decius, who taught in this University. At one side of this church stands an ample and well-wrought marble vessel, which heretofore contained the tribute paid yearly by the city to Cæsar. It is placed, as I remember, on a pillar of opal stone, with divers other antique urns. Near this, and in the same field, is the Baptistery of San Giovanni, built of pure white marble, and covered with so artificial a cupola, that the voice uttered under it seems to break out of a cloud. The font and pulpit, supported by four lions, is of inestimable value for the preciousness of the materials. The place where these buildings stand they call the Area. Hence, we went to the College, to which joins a gallery so furnished with natural rarities, stones, minerals, shells, dried animals, skeletons, etc., as is hardly to be seen in Italy. To this the Physic Garden lies, where is a noble palm tree, and very fine waterworks. The river Arno runs through the middle of this stately city, whence the main street is named Lung 'Arno. It is so ample that the Duke's galleys, built in the arsenal here, are easily conveyed to Livorno; over the river is an arch, the like of which, for its flatness, and serving for a bridge, is nowhere in Europe. The Duke has a stately Palace, before which is placed the statue of Ferdinand the Third; over against it is the Exchange, built of marble. Since this city came to be under the Dukes of Tuscany, it has been much depopulated, though there is hardly in Italy any which exceeds it for stately edifices. The situation of it is low and flat; but the inhabitants have spacious gardens, and even fields within the walls.

We took coach to Livorno, through the Great Duke's new park full of huge cork trees, the underwood all myrtles, among which were many buffaloes feeding, a kind of wild ox, short nose with horns reversed; those who work with them command them, as our bearwards do the bears, with a ring through the nose, and a cord. Much of this park, as well as a great part of the country about it, is very fenny, and the air very bad. Leghorn is the prime port belonging to all the Duke's territories; heretofore a very obscure town, but since Duke Ferdinand has strongly fortified it (after the modern way), drained the marshes by cutting a channel thence to Pisa navigable sixteen miles, and has raised a Mole, emulating that at Genoa, to secure the shipping, it is become a place of great receipt; it has also a place for the galleys, where they lie safe. Before the sea is an ample piazza for the market, where are the statues in copper of the four slaves, much exceeding the life for proportion, and, in the judgment of most artists, one of the best pieces of modern work. Here, especially in this piazza, is such a concourse of slaves, Turks, Moors, and other nations, that the number and confusion is prodigious; some buying, others selling, others drinking, others playing, some working, others sleeping, fighting, singing, weeping, all nearly naked, and miserably chained. Here was a tent, where any idle fellow might stake his liberty against a few crowns, at dice, or other hazard; and, if he lost, he was immediately chained and led away to the galleys, where he was to serve a term of years, but from whence they seldom returned; many sottish persons, in a drunken bravado, would try their fortune in this way. The houses of this neat town are very uniform, and excellently painted á fresco on the outer walls, with representations of many of their victories over the Turks. The houses, though low on account of the earthquakes which frequently happen here, (as did one during my being in Italy), are very well built; the piazza is very fair and commodious, and, with the church, whose four columns at the portico are of black marble polished, gave the first hint to the building both of the church and piazza in Covent Garden with us, though very imperfectly pursued.

From Livorno, I took coach to Empoly, where we lay, and the next day arrived at Florence, being recommended to the house of Signor Baritiére, in the Piazza del Spirito Santo, where we were exceedingly well treated. Florence is at the foot of the Apennines, the west part full of stately groves and pleasant meadows, beautified with more than a thousand houses and country palaces of note, belonging to gentlemen of the town. The river Arno runs through the city, in a broad, but very shallow channel, dividing it, as it were, in the middle, and over it are four most sumptuous bridges of stone. On that nearest to our quarter are the four Seasons, in white marble; on another are the goldsmiths' shops; at the head of the former stands a column of ophite, upon which a statue of Justice, with her balance and sword, cut out of porphyry, and the more remarkable for being the first which had been carved out of that hard material, and brought to perfection, after the art had been utterly lost; they say this was done by hardening the tools in the juice of certain herbs. This statue was erected in that corner, because there Cosmo was first saluted with the news of Sienna being taken. Near this is the famous Palazzo di Strozzi, a princely piece of architecture, in a rustic manner. The Palace of Pitti was built by that family, but of late greatly beautified by Cosmo with huge square stones of the Doric, Ionic, and the Corinthian orders, with a terrace at each side having rustic uncut balustrades, with a fountain that ends in a cascade seen from the great gate, and so forming a vista to the gardens. Nothing is more admirable than the vacant staircase, marbles, statues, urns, pictures, court, grotto, and waterworks. In the quadrangle is a huge jetto of water in a volto of four faces, with noble statues at each square, especially the Diana of porphyry above the grotto. We were here shown a prodigious great loadstone. The garden has every variety, hills, dales, rocks, groves, aviaries, vivaries, fountains, especially one of five jettos, the middle basin being one of the longest stones I ever saw. Here is everything to make such a Paradise delightful. In the garden I saw a rose grafted on an orange tree. There was much topiary-work, and columns in architecture about the hedges. The Duke has added an ample laboratory, over against which stands a fort on a hill, where they told us his treasure is kept. In this Palace the Duke ordinarily resides, living with his Swiss guards, after the frugal Italian way, and even selling what he can spare of his wines, at the cellar under his very house, wicker bottles dangling over even the chief entrance into the palace, serving for a vintner's bush. In the Church of Santo Spirito the altar and reliquary are most rich, and full of precious stones; there are four pillars of a kind of serpentine, and some of blue. Hence we went to another Palace of the Duke's, called Palazzo Vecchio, before which is a statue of David, by Michael Angelo, and one of Hercules, killing Cacus, the work of Baccio Bandinelli. The quadrangle about this is of the Corinthian order, and in the hall are many rare marbles, as those of Leo X. and Clement VII., both Popes of the Medicean family; also the acts of Cosmo, in rare painting. In the chapel is kept (as they would make one believe) the original Gospel of St. John, written with his own hand; and the famous Florentine Pandects, and divers precious stones. Near it is another pendent Tower like that of Pisa, always threatening ruin. Under the Court of Justice is a stately arcade for men to walk in, and over that, the shops of divers rare artists who continually work for the great Duke. Above this is that renowned Ceimeliarcha, or repository, wherein are hundreds of admirable antiquities, statues of marble and metal, vases of porphyry, etc.; but among the statues none so famous as the Scipio, the Boar, the Idol of Apollo, brought from the Delphic Temple, and two triumphant columns. Over these hang the pictures of the most famous persons and illustrious men in arts or arms, to the number of 300, taken out of the museum of Paulus Jovius. They then led us into a large square room, in the middle of which stood a cabinet of an octangular form, so adorned and furnished with crystals, agates, and sculptures, as exceeds any description. This cabinet is called the Tribuna and in it is a pearl as big as an hazelnut. The cabinet is of ebony, lazuli, and jasper; over the door is a round of M. Angelo; on the cabinet, Leo X. with other paintings of Raphael, del Sarto, Perugino, and Correggio, viz, a St. John, a Virgin, a Boy, two Apostles, two heads of Durer, rarely carved. Over this cabinet is a globe of ivory, excellently carved; the Labors of Hercules, in massy silver, and many incomparable pictures in small. There is another, which had about it eight Oriental columns of alabaster, on each whereof was placed a head of a Cæsar, covered with a canopy so richly set with precious stones, that they resembled a firmament of stars. Within it was our Savior's Passion, and the twelve Apostles in amber. This cabinet was valued at two hundred thousand crowns. In another, with calcedon pillars, was a series of golden medals. Here is also another rich ebony cabinet cupolaed with a tortoise shell, and containing a collection of gold medals esteemed worth 50,000 crowns; a wreathed pillar of Oriental alabaster, divers paintings of Da Vinci, Pontorno, del Sarto, an Ecce Homo of Titian, a Boy of Bronzini, etc. They showed us a branch of coral fixed on the rock, which they affirm does still grow. In another room, is kept the Tabernacle appointed for the chapel of St. Laurence, about which are placed small statues of Saints, of precious material; a piece of such art and cost, that having been these forty years in perfecting, it is one of the most curious things in the world. Here were divers tables of Pietra Commesso, which is a marble ground inlaid with several sorts of marbles and stones of various colors representing flowers, trees, beasts, birds, and landscapes. In one is represented the town of Leghorn, by the same hand who inlaid the altar of St. Laurence, Domenico Benotti, of whom I purchased nineteen pieces of the same work for a cabinet. In a press near this they showed an iron nail, one half whereof being converted into gold by one Thurnheuser, a German chemist, is looked on as a great rarity; but it plainly appeared to have been soldered together. There is a curious watch, a monstrous turquoise as big as an egg, on which is carved an emperor's head. In the armory are kept many antique habits, as those of Chinese kings; the sword of Charlemagne; Hannibal's headpiece; a loadstone of a yard long, which bears up 86 lbs. weight, in a chain of seventeen links, such as the slaves are tied to. In another room are such rare turneries in ivory, as are not to be described for their curiosity. There is a fair pillar of oriental alabaster; twelve vast and complete services of silver plate, and one of gold, all of excellent workmanship; a rich embroidered saddle of pearls sent by the Emperor to this Duke; and here is that embroidered chair set with precious stones in which he sits, when, on St. John's day, he receives the tribute of the cities.