xxvi INTRODUCTION 



in keeping myselfe warme for some time after ; for coming 

 out, I immediately began to visit the famous places of the 

 city ; and travellers who come in to Italy do nothing but run 

 up and down to see sights. ' 



Evelyn had the good fortune to see Venice en fete^ and 

 in those days that must have been a sight well worth 

 seeing. He saw the Doge espouse the Adriatic by casting 

 a gold ring into it on Ascension day with very great pomp 

 and ceremony. ' It was now Ascension Weeke, and the 

 greate mart or faire of ye whole yeare was kept, every 

 body at liberty and jollie. The noblemen stalking with 

 their ladys on choppines ; these are high-heel'd shoes, par- 

 ticularly affected by these proude dames, or, as some say, 

 invented to keepe them at home, it being very difficult to 

 walke with them ; whence one being asked how he liked 

 the Venetian dames, replied, they were mezzo carne, mezzo 

 ligno, half flesh, half wood, and he would have none of them. 

 The truth is, their garb is very odd, as seeming always in 

 masquerade ; their other habits also totaly different from all 

 nations. ' 



In Venice Evelyn made arrangements for visiting the 

 Holy Land and parts of Syria, Egypt, and Turkey ; but 

 they fell through owing to the vessel, in which he would 

 have sailed, being requisitioned to carry provisions to Can- 

 dia, then under attack from the Turks. Forced to abandon 

 this project, he remained in Venice * being resolved to spend 

 some moneths here in study, especially physic and anatomic, 

 of both which there was now the most famous professors in 

 Europe. ' But in the autumn Mr. Thicknesse, ' my dear 

 friend, and till now my constant fellow traveller,' was oblig- 

 ed to return to England on private affairs; so Evelyn was left 

 alone in Venice. Very shortly after that he had an illness 

 which seems to have at one time threatened a fatal termination. 

 4 Using to drink my wine cool'd with snow and ice, as the 

 manner here is, I was so afflicted with the angina and soare- 

 throat, that it had almost cost me my life. After all the 

 remedies Cavalier Veslingius, cheife professor here, could 

 apply, old Salvatico (that famous physician) being call'd 

 made me be cupp'd and scarified in the back in foure places, 

 which began to give me breath, and consequently life, for I 



