1824.] 
by Cardinal Durini. Opposite Balbiano, 
is the island of San Giovanni, where a 
number of Christians sheltered them- 
selves in the fifth century. For some 
time, it served as a place of security to 
Francilion, general of the Greek Empe- 
ror, Mauritius, against Ontaric, king of 
the Lombards; also to Gaidolph, duke 
of Bergamo, against Agilulph; to the 
friends of King Cunibert; to the father 
of King Luitprand; and to Gaidon, the 
son of Beranger. The inhd}siiants were 
at length driven from the island by the 
Comasques. Every year, on the day of 
St. John the Baptist, a sacred tragedy is 
acted here in public, representing the 
decapitation of the saint. 
Pursuing the reute through very po- 
. puleus villages, we arrive at the cele- 
brated Villa Pliniana, where stood, as 
many assert, the finest country-house of 
Pliny the younger. At present it is a 
splendid edifice, erected by Anguissola 
in 1570. This lord, as fame reports, 
was one of the four Plaisantine for Pla- 
centian) nobles, who threw their tyrant, 
Peter Louis Farnese, out of the palace 
windows at Placenza. The house now 
belongs to the Canarisi family. A very 
fine and lofty cascade falls from the top 
of the rocks into the lake, not far from 
the building, which lies under a moun- 
tain covered with laurel, cypress, beech, 
and’-ehesnut ‘trees. The spring that 
supplies the cascade with water is inter- 
mittent. The two Plinys give a de- 
séription of it, which takés place every 
four hours; no cause truly explanatory 
hashitherto been assigned for it. 
From the Villa Plmiana we proceed 
to Perlasca, where the cottage in which 
Odescalchi, or’ Pope Innocent XI., was 
born,:is yet shewn. The Tanzi Palace 
forms a striking contrast to it: an excel 
lent taste for the arts has combined with 
luxury to lavish their treasures upon it. 
The gardens contain a number of ex- 
otic treesand plants, with citron and 
myrtle-trees, aloes in flower, and vari- 
ous sorts of Daphnes, with rose-flowers. 
In the mansion, which is truly royal, are 
paintings, with other works, and objects 
and’ productions of superior art, also 
collections in natural history. A can- 
non fired from the palace, and reverbe- 
rated by the mountains on the opposite 
side of the lake, serves ‘to measure the 
time of the sound traversing the breadth 
of the lake; In the road leading to 
Como, a number of delightful pleasure- 
ses are scattered over the country: 
such are those of the Imbonati, the Ar- 
taria, &c.; and, at Rovena, is a grotto 
Monruty Mac. No. 400. 
Excursion through Lecco to Milan. 
129 
cut out by nature in a rock of veined 
alabaster, which is 900 paces in length. 
Vico is a village that forms one of 
the suburbs of Como, and has the air 
of a small handsome town. The villa 
Odescalchi is its chief ornament. There, 
as B. Giovio reports, stood the magni- 
ficent country house of Caninius Rufus, 
including the portico, the euripus, and 
the grove of plane trees (Platanon opa- 
cissimus) whereof Pliny makes mention 
in his letters. 
The city of Como is in the form of a 
crab-fish, Vico constituting the left claw, 
and the suburbs of St. Augustin the 
right; in the latter are a number of silk- 
mills: The city may contain 11 or 
12,000 inhabitants, many of whom 
are employed im the fabrication of cloth 
and silk stuffs, which of late have 
attained to great perfection. The ca- 
thedral is a proud and noble ‘building 
of marble; the baptistery is from the 
designs of Bramante. In different 
houses of the city, many Roman in~ 
scriptions on stone have been found, 
and particularly relating to Plinius Ce- 
eilius, and the other Plinys that’ were 
of this country. The professors Moc- 
chetti and Carloni have valuable col- 
lections’ of natural history. This was 
the country of the senator Volta, of 
scientific celebrity, and of the canon 
Gattoni, who enriched the Royal Ly- 
ceum with a number of excellent arti- 
cles on natural philosophy. At Como, 
Gattoni constructed an zrian harp, that 
by metallic wires reaching from the top 
of a tower in his garden, in different 
alterations of the atmosphere, emitted 
sounds no less“agreeable than extraor- 
dinary, compared to an angelic concert 
in the air. ; 
Two roads lead from Como to Milan, 
that of Barlassina and that of Canturio. 
Formerly the road had a rapid ascent to 
St. Carposoro, passing by the castle of 
Baradello, where is still to be seen the 
fymous tower whereon Torriani, lord 
and tyrant of Milan, suffered a lingering 
death, in 1277; exposed in an iron cage 
to the injuries of the weather. At pre- 
sent, the new road descends into a 
valley that appears to. have been for- 
merly the basin of a lake; the soil is 
only good as a turbary, or place for ga- 
thering péat and turfs. Here the tra- 
veller comes near to Casciago, where 
the Priest Ariald, in the eleventh cen- 
tury, preached against the simony and 
concubinage of the ecclesiastics; this 
gave rise to a dreadful persecution in 
Lombardy. 
S 
Barlassina 
