In place of spending several days at Venice, as I now think I should have, I left already in the afternoon at 3:35 o’clock, and reached Bologna that evening.  It required between 6 and 7 minutes to cross the bridge, over two miles long, which connects Venice with the land.  The water is not deep, and most of this bridge is a mere bank of earth running into the sea.  It was on account of my being disgusted at the general unpretending appearance of Venice, that I left her so soon.  Among the objects of interest that I saw between Venice and Bologna, was a herd of a hundred deer on a hill-side, and the merry bells of stage-teams jingling like our sleigh-bells, but which may be heard in Italy and Switzerland all the year round.  When I observed in my Satchel Guide that Bologna has two leaning towers, one of them nearly 300 feet high leaning 4 feet, and the other about half that height and leaning 8 feet, I determined to go and see them.  They are massive but plain brick structures, and it is difficult to decide which way the higher one leans.  The inclination of the lower one, however, is decided, but presents nothing striking or threatening in its appearance.  I felt afraid that the Leaning Tower of Pisa might possibly also fail to present anything that was remarkable or imposing to the beholder when I would come to see it once, just as a thousand and one other objects do which antiquity and poetry have rendered sacred and famous; and I walked away with down-cast countenance and took passage for Firenze (Florence).

Florence.

The Cathedral, (Il Duomo), begun in 1298, is 554 feet long; and 334 feet through the transepts.  The nave is 152 feet high; the cupola is 138 feet in diameter or about the same as that of St. Peter’s in Rome, for which it also served Michael Angelo as a model.

Close by the cathedral is Giotto’s Campanile, 300 feet high, the most beautiful of all the towers that I have seen in Europe.  The square blocks of many colored marble with which its four sides are coated, produce a richness of effect that is indescribable.  Decorated from top to bottom with all manner of statues and architectural ornamentations, “it is like a toy of ivory, which some ingenious and pious monk might have spent his life-time in adorning with sculptural designs and figures of saints; and when it was finished, seeing it so beautiful, he prayed that it might be miraculously magnified from the size of one foot to that of three hundred.”  The view of this superb structure in connection with the grand edifice (the Cathedral) to which it belongs, opens so suddenly upon the visitor, that he will never forget what feelings of joy and surprise he experienced on making the last turn around the corner, when these splendid edifices leaped upon him so unexpectedly in all their beauty and magesty.

The church of Santa Croce, whose foundation was laid in 1294, is “the Pantheon of Tuscany.”  It contains the tomb of Michael Angelo, and magnificent monuments of Dante, of Alfiero, of Macchiavelli, of Galileo and of many others of less fame.