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I passed this consecrated spot soon after sunset, when daylight was expiring in the west, and when the distant woods of Fusina were lost in the haze of the horizon. We were now drawing very near the city, and a confused hum began to interrupt the evening stillness; gondolas were continually passing and repassing, and the entrance of the Canal Reggio, with all its stir and bustle, lay before us.
Such as it is, however, this sacristy at St. Peter's was handsome enough to excite the emulation of the canons of the cathedral, for the contract made with Maestro Mariotto who was nicknamed Torzuolo specifies that the work is to be entirely of walnut wood, after the fashion of the sacristy at St. Peter's, and is to be executed "in the manner of a good, loyal and expert master." It is to be all done by his own hand, or at least in his presence and under his superintendence. The work is to be completed in one year, and the canons are to pay for it at the rate of ten florins every square braccio, Florentine measure. This was in 1494; and it will here again be observed that the price, as compared with that to be paid to Maestro Stefano by the monks of St. Peter's for their choir, even fully allowing for the greater richness of the latter, indicates the very rapid alteration in the value of money which took place at the beginning of the sixteenth century. But the canons, it would seem, were very careful hands at a bargain, for we find that it is provided in the contract that when the work shall have been completed it shall be examined by two experts, and that if it shall be found to be worth less than the price named, Maestro Torzuolo shall receive so much less; but that if it shall be found by the said experts and appraisers to be worth more, the maestro shall stand to his bargain and not receive more than the price named an agreement which is frequently found in the contracts made about that period. When the work was completed it was accordingly examined and appraised by Maestro Mattia of Reggio and Maestro Pietro of Florence. The latter was brought from Citt
It was the same eternal story, the same terrible two-edged weapon, "Cujus reggio ejus religio," found in the arsenal of the first Reformers, and in every politico- religious arsenal of history. "By an eternal decree of God," said Gomarus in accordance with Calvin, "it has been fixed who are to be saved and who damned.
The result was that just when the league was made known, Tropea and Amantea, which had been presented by Charles to the Seigneur de Precy, rose in revolt and hoisted the banner of Aragon; and the Spanish fleet had only to present itself at Reggio, in Calabria, for the town to throw open its gates, being more discontented with the new rule than the old; and Don Federiga, Alfonso's brother and Ferdinand's uncle, who had hitherto never quitted Brindisi, had only to appear at Tarentum to be received there as a liberator.
We have seen something of this kind more recently at San Francisco. "After despoiling the corpses, they ransacked the dwellings. Five thousand beds, sir, were carried up from Reggio into the mountains." "Five thousand beds! Per Dio! It seems a considerable number." A young fellow, one of the survivors, attached himself to me in the capacity of guide through the ruins of Reggio.
Via Reggio, the only seaport of the Duchy of Lucca, built and encompassed by an almost boundless expanse of deep, dark sand, is situated in the centre of a broad belt of firs, cedars, pines, and evergreen oaks, which covers a considerable extent of country, extending along the shore from Pisa to Massa.
She had been accompanied all through her journey by the Marechale Duchess of Reggio, lady of honor; by the Marchioness of Podenas, lady companion; and by Count de Mesnard, first equerry. The Duchess of Berry returned enchanted. Could she suspect the reception that awaited her, four years later, in the places where she had just been the object of veritable worship?
On one occasion, in traveling from Ancona to Reggio, he passed himself off for a musical professor, a mortal enemy of Rossini, and sang the words of his own operas to the most execrable music, in a cracked voice, to show his superiority to that donkey, Rossini.
Then the desire was to meet the enemy anywhere and everywhere; now the pursuer had to be eluded, because Garibaldi was determined not to fight him. Thus, instead of marching straight on Reggio, the volunteers sought concealment in the great mountain mass which forms the southernmost bulwark of the Apennines.
The decision taken by the worthy Hungarian was, doubtless, as agreeable to my lovely friend as to me, for our delicacy would have condemned us to a great reserve in his presence. And truly, under the new circumstances, how were we to arrange for our lodgings in Reggio?
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