Italian Journeys (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

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Excerpt from Italian Journeys

In the American woods, very likely, whispering some dreamy, credulous youth, telling him charming fables of its locus, and proposing to itself to abandon him as soon as he sets foot upon its native ground. You see, though I cared little about Tasso, and nothing about his prison, I was heavily disappointed in not being able to believe in it, and felt somehow that I had been awakened from a cherished dream.

But I have no right to cast the unbroken shadow of my skepticism upon the reader, and so I tell him a story about Ferrara which I actually believe. He must know that in Ferrara the streets are marvel ous long and straight. On the corners formed by the crossing of two Of the longest and straightest of these streets stand four palaces, in only one of which we have a present interest. This palace my guide took me to see, after our visit to Tasso's prison, and, standing in its shadow, he related to me thi occurrence which has given it a sad celebrity. It was, in the time of the gifted toxicologist, the resi dence of Lucrezia Borgia, who used to make poison ous little suppers there, and ask the best families of Italy to partake of them. It happened on one occasion that Lucrezia Borgia was thrust out Of a ball-room at Venice as a disreputable character, and treated with peculiar indignity. She determined to make the Venetians repent ...