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try-house of his in the mountains, about eight miles 
off. We staid there two days to botanize ; found 
EMeracium cymosum and Auricula, Linum viscosum, 
and many other good things, at your service, except 
the Linum, of which I have not a duplicate ; Lin- 
neus had it not. We travelled in sedan chairs. 
Dined in our way with the Senator Durazzo (mas- 
ter of the great house in Strada Balbi*) at his villa 
of Pino; he is a very courteous, affable old man, 
and his brother the abbé quite charmed me. I have 
* “The palace ofthe Durazzo family was erected by the cele- 
brated Fontana ; the length and elevation of its immense front 
astonish the spectator, who perhaps can scarce find in his me- 
mory a similar edifice of equal magnitude. Besides the rustic 
ground-floor, it has two grand stories, with mezzanini, and over 
the middle part, consisting of eleven windows, an attic. The 
portal, of four massive Doric pillars with its entablature, rises 
as high as the balcony of the second story. The mezzanini win- 
dows, with the continuation of the rustic work up to the cornice, 
break this magnificent front into too many petty parts, and not 
a little diminish the effect of a double line of two-and-twenty 
noble windows. The portico, which is wide and spacious, con- 
ducts to a staircase, each step of which is formed of a single block 
of Carrara marble. A large antechamber then leads to ten 
saloons, either opening into one another, or communicating by 
spacious galleries. These saloons are all on a grand scale in all 
their proportions, adorned with pictures and busts, and fitted up 
with prodigious richness, both in decorations and furniture. One 
of them surpasses in the splendour of its gildings anything of the 
kind I believe in Europe. ‘These apartments open on a terrace, 
which commands an extensive view of the bay, with its moles 
and light-house, and the rough coast that borders it on one side. 
In this palace the Emperor Joseph was lodged during his short 
visit to Genoa, and is reported to have acknowledged that it far 
surpassed any that he was master of. The merit of this compli- 
ment is, that it is strictly true.’—Eustace’s Classical Tour, vol, i, 
s 2 
