of the great house which had
already given Dukes to Florence, Kings to France, and two Popes to
the Christian world. In the midst of all this foreign service he never
forgot his old dream of conquering the Valtelline; and in 1547 he
made proposals to the Emperor for a new campaign against the Grisons.
Charles V. did not choose to engage in a war, the profits of which
would have been inconsiderable for the master of half the civilised
world, and which might have proved troublesome by stirring up the
tameless Switzers. Il Medeghino was obliged to abandon a project
cherished from the earliest dawn of his adventurous manhood.

When Gian Giacomo died in 1555, his brother Battista succeeded to his
claims upon Lecco and the Trepievi. His monument, magnificent with
five bronze figures, the masterpiece of Leone Lioni, from Menaggio,
Michelangelesque in style, and of consummate workmanship, still adorns
the Duomo of Milan. It stands close by the door that leads to the
roof. This mausoleum, erected to the memory of Gian Giacomo and
his brother Gabrio, is said to have cost 7800 golden crowns. On the
occasion of the pirate's funeral the Senate of Milan put on mourning,
and the whole city followed the great robber, the hero of Renaissance
_virtu_, to the grave.

Between the Cathedral of Como and the corsair Medeghino there is but
a slight link. Yet so extraordinary were the social circumstances of
Renaissance Italy, that almost at every turn, on her seaboard, in her
cities, from her hill-tops, we are compelled to blend our admiration
for the loveliest and purest works of art amid the choicest scenes
of nature with memories of execrable crimes and lawless characters.
Sometimes, as at Perugia, the _nexus_ is but local. At others,
one single figure, like that of Cellini, unites both points of view in
a romance of unparalleled dramatic vividness. Or, again, beneath
the vaults of the Certosa, near Pavia, a masterpiece of the serenest
beauty carries our thoughts perforce back to the hideous cruelties
and snake-like frauds of its despotic founder. This is the excuse
for combining two such diverse subjects in one study.

* * * * *

_BERGAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI_

From the new town of commerce to the old town of history upon the
hill, the road is carried along a rampart lined, with horse-chestnut
trees--clumps of massy foliage, and snowy pyramids of bloom, expanded
in the rapture of a southern