CATANIA. 



Catania, on* must have recognised the likeness of his portrait. 



~\~*~' We have saiJ Mr palna-s of Mr noliiliti/, because in 

 . i,( rank inhabits a ' ;ther does 



the country produce wh.it in England i* called a 

 tlcman. These palaces are built in a square, with 

 one side to the street ; the tnt upper floors arc oc- 

 cupied by the proprietor, for none of the nobility. re- 

 side upon their estates. They contain large apart- 

 ments for show, and generally pretty small rooms for 

 If a stranger makes his visit at the time of a 



** i _ r ' \ n i * *. 



use. 



meal, he will certainly find the family in a small dirty 

 apartment, with pyramids of maccaroni piled before- 

 each, upon a table-cloth bearing stains of oil, of an 

 older date than yesterday's supper, attended by squa- 

 lid lousy servants. The scene is changed on gala 

 days, the spiders are dislodged from gilded apart- 

 ments, by prescriptive right their own, and the pow- 

 dered menials are decked out in laced liveries. The 

 lower part of the palace forms a striking contrast to 

 an English eye, but it is, nevertheless, in a state of 

 Italian consistency, filth and finery, and silken rags ; 

 here coblers and all sorts of mechanics of the lowest 

 orders -are to be seen at work in their cells, when dri- 

 ven in by the heat, or on the pavement, when the 

 coolness allows them to breathe a purer air. 



Catania is chiefly resorted to by the nobles, whose 

 fortunes do not enable them to shine at the royal re- 

 sidence in Palermo. The city is superabundantly 

 stocked with priests, monks, nuns, and beggars. Any 

 one passing through a Sicilian town, might readily 

 believe that it contained the aggregate of decrepitude 

 and deformity of Europe. The industrious inhabi- 

 tants are few, thefruges consumerc nati numerous. 



In the square before the cathedral a gigantic ele- 

 phant, the ancient symbol of Catania, of lava, with 

 an obelisk upon his back, on the sides of which hie- 

 roglyphic characters are carved, stands, having with- 

 stood the concussions of many earthquakes. 



The prince of Biscari, the great man of the place, 

 has a choice collection of specimens of Carthaginian, 

 Grecian, and Roman architecture, mosaic work, and 

 statues ; a very perfect collection of Tuscan and 

 othe'r vases and lamps of infinite variety of form; 

 bronzes, volcanic specimens, and an assortment of 

 cameos and intaglios of the most exquisite workman- 

 ship. There aie also many excellent monuments of 

 the arts, which have escaped the ravages of time, in 

 iron and other metals, such as pieces of armour, har- 

 ness, keys, iVc. Instead of confining themselves to 

 the display of what they are almost unrivalled in, the 

 vanity of the Biscari family has led them to disfi- 

 gure their museum, by the introduction of lusus na- 

 tura: t and disgusting anatomical preparations. 



We are told tlfat Catania contains 80,000 souls ; 

 but we cannot give them credit for half tnat number 

 of inhabitants. It is the see of a bishop, much of 

 whose ample revenue is drawn from the snow sold 

 from Etna. There is an university of much repute 

 (in Sicily) in this place, where the three learned pro- 

 fessions are taught. The students destined for the 

 church far outnumber those of physic or law, the 

 reason of which is very obvious : nearly one-third of 

 the landed property of the island is in the possession 

 of the church and the religious orders, many temp- 

 tations are therefore held out : the higher classes ac- 

 cordingly, very frequently force their daughters, who 

 are not fortunate enough to get married, to take the 



veil ; and at younger sons could not pursue any pro- 

 fession w:- grading their illustrious family, 

 they take the vows to obtain a provision f.r Lu-, and 

 to partake of the good things of this world which 

 the church has to offer. The lower clauses flock to 

 those convents which admit people not of noble de- 

 scent, some from y.eal, othir-. to advance in the tcale 

 of rank, and many from indolence, to eat the bread 

 of idleness rather than earn it by labour. Of the 

 poorer students for the church, many are educated at 

 the expence of the bishop. 



It may amuse such of our readers as are so curious 

 to know the progress of the sciences, to lay before 

 them a few points to illustrate the state of medicine 

 as practised in Sicily ; in this view, we shall tran- 

 scribe some dogmas from the Institutionet McdicituB 

 of the present professor of that science in the univer- 

 sity of Catania. " Ungues pedum et digitorum H- 

 mati, vomitum excitant, (it would indeed be very ex- 

 traordinary if they did not,) et valent contra epilep- 

 siam, lethargiam, hydropem et intermittentes fibres, 

 &c. Urina interne assnmpta et recens et tepida ab 

 v. ad ^vi. matutino tempore, jejumo stomacho vi- 

 perarum venenum arcet. Urina mariti a parturien- 

 tibus hausta partum facilem reddit ! cum multis de 

 genere hc.-c !" Such a breakfast, such siculee dapes t 

 would not suit an English stomach. 



It may gratify the adherents of that northern light 

 in physic, John Brown, to learn, that their hero has 

 divided the faculty in Sicily into two parties, in each 

 of which, symptoms are to be traced evincing the ex- 

 istence of a malady well known amongst doctors, 

 though undet-cribed by nosologists, viz. the odium 

 medicum, in as genuine a form as ever Germany ex- 

 hibited. A preliminary to a consultation has more 

 than once been the question, How does opium ope- 

 rate ? and we have often read a most excellent appli- 

 cation of the true Brunonian answer, written with 

 charcoal in large characters, on the outside of a wine 

 house in the plain of Catania, Non sedal opium, fol- 

 lowed by the appropriate. exclamation, Viva il ccle~ 

 berrimo Brown. 



How the laws are taught in this university we are 

 not competent to say ; but we have seen enough of 

 their administration to form a pretty accurate judg- 

 ment of their practical application, from which we 

 are inclined to doubt the pobsibility of the jurisnjru- 

 dence of the petty states of Barbary being upcn a 

 worse or more uncertain footing. A very tew years 

 ago, two atrocious murders were committed in the 

 course of one week : The bishop's cook was most 

 sacrilegiously stabbed when officiating at his own al- 

 tar, namely the kitchen dresser ; and a travelling 

 guide was shot in the dusk of the evening, at the 

 door of a wine house, by a companion, with whom 

 he had had a dispute the day before. Many exam- 

 ples might be cited, to shew how prone the Sicilians 

 are to commit murder, under the impulse of passion, 

 which is no way restrained by the laws. Although 

 assassination is very frequent, a capital punishment 

 hardly ever is inflicted, and, if it were to take place, 

 the process is so tedious, that the crime would be 

 forgotten before the criminal suffered. We were still 

 more surprised to observe, that the perpetration of 

 two murders in so short a time, called forth no ex- 

 pression of indignation on the part of those whom 

 we may suppose to have been more enlightened, no 



