3*8 j U £ I A G 0 ft Z A G A* 



and other poets, vied with each other In difpelling hef 

 forrow, by poems of various kinds; but this was a 

 wound thatadmitted of no cure by the charms pf poetry . 



She was frill bewailing at Fondi the irreparable lofs 

 of her brother Lewis, while cruel fortune was prepa- 

 ring for her a more fevere affliction. The Turks were 

 then at war with the chriftians. Barbaroffa, the ad- 

 miral of the turkifh fleet, found means in the month 

 of September, 1533. to come upon the Italian coalt 

 without meeting any renltance* The fame of the rare 

 beauty of Julia Gonzaga had penetrated even to the 

 ottoman port. Barbaroffa formed the delign of car- 

 tying her off as a prize for Solyman his mafter. He 

 landed two thoufand Turks in the confines of Procida 

 and Spelunca, who were conducted by fome neapolitan 

 renegadoes, acrofs the defert mountains, quite to 

 Fondi. No intimation was had of their approach, 

 till, about an hour before day, they prefented them- 

 felves beneath the walls of the fortrefs. They had al- 

 ready forced the gates, and were hardening, like ra- 

 venous wolves, to the palace were Julia dwelt. Rouzed 

 from fleep by the piteous cry of the amazed inhabi - 

 tants, fhe fprursg upon a horfe with theutmoft alacrity, 

 and palling through a fecret poftern, efcaped to the 

 neighbouring mountains. The Turks examined every 

 corner of the palace and the town, carried every thing 

 away they could meet with, and omitted no fpecies of 

 cruelty on the inhabitants, on feeing their fcheme de- 

 feated. In the mean time the half-naked Julia was 

 feampering over hill and dale, in the cold and difmal 

 gloom of day-break, like a hunted deer, which, at 

 every motion of the bufhes^ feems. to feel the mur* 



derous 



