and threatened war to the Catholic religion.  Nationally fond of innovation, and averse to the court of Rome on account of the dissensions between her father and Pope Julius II., Renee began to receive the teachings of Calvin, with whom she maintained correspondence.  Indeed, Calvin himself, under the name of Huppeville, visited her in Ferrara, in 1536, and ended by corrupting her mind and seducing her into his own errors, which produced discord between her and her religious husband, and resulted in his placing her in temporary seclusion, in order to attempt her conversion.  Hence, the chapel is faced with marble, paneled in relief, and studied to avoid giving place to saints or images, which were disapproved by the almost Anabaptist doctrines of Calvin, then fatally imbibed by the princess.”

We would willingly, as Protestants, have visited this wicked chapel; but we were prevented from seeing it, as well as the famous frescoes of Dosso Dossi in the Hall of Aurora, by the fact that the prefect was giving a little dinner (pranzetto) in that part of the castle.  We were not so greatly disappointed in reality as we made believe; but our servitore di piazza (the unlettered one) was almost moved to lesa maesta with vexation.  He had been full of scorching patriotism the whole morning; but now electing the unhappy and apologetic custodian representative of Piedmontese tyranny, he bitterly assailed the government of the king.  In the times of His Holiness the Legates had made it their pleasure and duty to show the whole castle to strangers.  But now strangers must be sent away without seeing its chief beauties, because, forsooth, the prefect was giving a little dinner.  Presence of the Devil!

VII.

In our visits to the different churches in Ferrara we noticed devotion in classes of people who are devout nowhere else in Italy.  Not only came solid-looking business men to say their prayers, but gay young dandies, who knelt and repeated their orisons and then rose and went seriously out.  In Venice they would have posted themselves against a pillar, sucked the heads of their sticks, and made eyes at the young ladies kneeling near them.  This degree of religion was all the more remarkable in Ferrara, because that city had been so many years under the Pope, and His Holiness contrives commonly to prevent the appearance of religion in young men throughout his dominions.

Valery speaks of the delightful society which he met in the gray old town; and it is said that Ferrara has an unusual share of culture in her wealthy class, which is large.  With such memories of learning and literary splendor as belong to her, it would be strange if she did not in some form keep alive the sacred flame.  But, though there may be refinement and erudition in Ferrara, she has given no great name to modern Italian literature.  Her men of letters seem to be of that race of grubs singularly abundant