147
CANOSSA 163
FORNOVO 180
FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI 201
THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE 258
POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY 276
POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE 305
THE 'ORFEO' OF POLIZIANO 345
EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH 365

SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE

_RAVENNA_

The Emperor Augustus chose Ravenna for one of his two naval stations,
and in course of time a new city arose by the sea-shore, which
received the name of Portus Classis. Between this harbour and the
mother city a third town sprang up, and was called Caesarea. Time and
neglect, the ravages of war, and the encroaching powers of Nature have
destroyed these settlements, and nothing now remains of the three
cities but Ravenna. It would seem that in classical times Ravenna
stood, like modern Venice, in the centre of a huge lagune, the fresh
waters of the Ronco and the Po mixing with the salt waves of the
Adriatic round its very walls. The houses of the city were built on
piles; canals instead of streets formed the means of communication,
and these were always filled with water artificially conducted from
the southern estuary of the Po. Round Ravenna extended a vast morass,
for the most part under shallow water, but rising at intervals into
low islands like the Lido or Murano or Torcello which surround Venice.
These islands were celebrated for their fertility: the vines and
fig-trees and pomegranates, springing from a fat and fruitful soil,
watered with constant moisture, and fostered by a mild sea-wind and
liberal sunshine, yielded crops that for luxuriance and quality
surpassed the harvests of any orchards on the mainland. All the
conditions of life in old Ravenna seem to have resembled those of
modern Venice; the people went about in gondolas, and in the early
morning barges laden with fresh fruit or meat and vegetables flocked
from all quarters to the city of the sea.[1] Water also had to be
procured from the neighbouring shore, for, as Martial says, a well at
Ravenna was more valuable than a vineyard. Again, between the city and
the mainland ran a long low causeway all across the lagune like that
on which the trains now glide into Venice. Strange to say, the air of
Ravenna was rema