differently lodged
in a house that stunk like a privy, and fared wretchedly at supper. The
city is large and well built: the inhabitants pique themselves upon
their politeness, and the purity of their dialect. Certain it is, some
strangers reside in this place on purpose to learn the best
pronunciation of the Italian tongue. The Mosaic pavement of their
duomo, or cathedral, has been much admired; as well as the history of
Aeneas Sylvius, afterwards pope Pius II., painted on the walls of the
library, partly by Pietro Perugino, and partly by his pupil Raphael
D'Urbino.

Next day, at Buon Convento, where the emperor Henry VII. was poisoned
by a friar with the sacramental wafer, I refused to give money to the
hostler, who in revenge put two young unbroke stone-horses in the
traces next to the coach, which became so unruly, that before we had
gone a quarter of a mile, they and the postilion were rolling in the
dust. In this situation they made such efforts to disengage themselves,
and kicked with such violence, that I imagined the carriage and all our
trunks would have been beaten in pieces. We leaped out of the coach,
however, without sustaining any personal damage, except the fright; nor
was any hurt done to the vehicle. But the horses were terribly bruised,
and almost strangled, before they could be disengaged. Exasperated at
the villany of the hostler, I resolved to make a complaint to the
uffiziale or magistrate of the place. I found him wrapped in an old,
greasy, ragged, great-coat, sitting in a wretched apartment, without
either glass, paper, or boards in the windows; and there was no sort of
furniture but a couple of broken chairs and a miserable truckle-bed. He
looked pale, and meagre, and had more the air of a half-starved
prisoner than of a magistrate. Having heard my complaint, he came forth
into a kind of outward room or bellfrey, and rung a great bell with his
own hand. In consequence of this signal, the postmaster came up stairs,
and I suppose he was the first man in the place, for the uffiziale
stood before him cap-in-hand, and with great marks of humble respect
repeated the complaint I had made. This man assured me, with an air of
conscious importance, that he himself had ordered the hostler to supply
me with those very horses, which were the best in his stable; and that
the misfortune which happened was owing to the misconduct of the
fore-postilion, who did not keep the fore-horses to a proper speed
propor