In the spoiled Pietà (352) and the Death of SS. Placidus and Flavia (353) we have work nearly contemporary with Il Giorno and of much charm. Both works were painted to the commission of Placido del Bono, the confessor of Paul III., for a chapel in S. Giovanni Evangelista. The Pietà is totally ruined, but the latter work is in excellent preservation and everyway a delight. Of the two frescoes here by Correggio, the fragment called the Madonna della Scala, and the Annunciation, the latter comes from the Annunziata, and both are ruined. But if we wish to see what Correggio was capable of as a decorator and fresco painter when dealing with spaces less heroic and less inaccessible than the cupolas of the Duomo and of S. Giovanni, we may do so in the Convento di S. Paolo, once a Benedictine nunnery where for the famous Abbess Giovanna da Piacenza in 1518 he painted his first work in fresco. Unfortunately, the triumph of colour which he doubtless achieved is gone, and all that remains is a charming design upon a pagan theme, in which we see Diana surrounded and peeped at by naked cupids, Juno naked and unashamed suffering punishment-a whole bower of delight filled. with magic light and shade and pleasure. Little more remains to be seen in Parma. The Library in the great lonely Palace and the Teatro Farnese there should be visited, and the lovely Palazzo del Gardino across the river with its fine frescoes by Agostino Carrocci: and then Parma is done with. Yet before finally leaving this city of dead and despicable princelings, that yet contrived so many lovely and adorable things, some light upon this contradiction which in some way I think spoils Parma for me may be had at Fornovo, a little place in the narrow and lofty valley of the Taro to the south, easily reached from Parma by a train. The significant and as it now would appear really important battle which took place here in the year 1495, and which should have prevented the retreat of the carnival army of Charles VIII. from Italy, shows us at least, though it does not explain, the amazing decadence and anarchy of a people that had almost single-handed re-created Europe. The French march through Italy had, as we know, been rather a pageant than an invasion. Invited into Italy by Ludovico il Moro in 1494, who held out to Charles the bait of Naples, the French had been greeted by Italy at large with a kind of cynical indifference, as though the invasion of their country were a matter which little concerned them. But Charles had not long been established in Naples when Italy took fright, and realising the almost certain consequences of his conquest, attempted by some act to redeem her lost soul. The event proved that she was incapable of action any longer, as it proved that she had irredeemably lost her soul. That event was the battle of Fornovo. A great opportunity, to be seized at once by a virile people, presented itself to the Italians. Ludovico the traitor already repented him of the evil he had done. He hastily patched up a league with Venice, Ferdinand of Naples and Maximilian the Emperor; and Charles awoke one morning in Naples to find himself in a trap. The Neapolitans were his enemies; and Charles, seeing that almost everything was already lost, began at full speed his long retreat through Italy. He had to cross the Apennines, and his only road lay over the Cisa Pass, which debouches by the valley of the Taro upon Fornovo and Parma. Here, and rightly here, the Venetians and the Milanese awaited him with an overwhelming force. In his anxiety Charles gave his enemies every opportunity of revenge. His army was weakened by disease and by many a minor expedition which had been detached from it. Nor was he careful of conciliation. The wanton destruction by the Swiss of Pontremoli would have roused the indignation of any people still capable of anger. But Italy was spiritually bankrupt. Slowly, for all his haste, the French and their Swiss allies crossed the summit of the mountains, slowly they descended into Lombardy by the left bank of the Taro, until their vanguard, thirty miles in advance, reached Fornovo on July 2, and halted there three days till the king should arrive. The Venetians and Milanese were encamped at Giarola in the plain under the last spur of the mountains between it and the Taro. They had the French vanguard at their mercy, and, that destroyed, the whole army, encumbered with artillery, would have been an easy prey in the exhaustion of that long passage. Opportunities so precious are seldom offered to despairing men, and, once lost, can never be retrieved. The Italians did not even attack. We may estimate the total forces so amazingly opposed in the trap of the Taro valley at some nine thousand on the French side, as opposed to some thirtysix thousand of the Venetians and Milanese. The Italians thus had it four to one, and the whole position was so profoundly in their favour that had they been outnumbered still their victory seemed inevitable. Yet the Italians consented to negotiate: they "wished. to let the king pass, without perilling their cause by a general action, which, as all know, is essentially hazardous, and ought therefore to be avoided." 1 Meanwhile the French had crossed the Taro, and both forces were now upon the right bank. At eight on the morning of July, 6 the French, their army united, resumed their march. The king was with the main body, the artillery followed the advance and the baggage was on the left. A Venetian gun opened 1 Sanuto's own words: Guicciardini inculpates the others as well as the Venetians. the battle (if battle it can be called), and was promptly dismounted by the artillery of the enemy, who then recrossed the Taro and marched on for about a mile. Then came the one incident of the day, which, though it may be called an act on the part of the Italians, only completes their shame. The Marquis of Mantua, at the head not of an Italian but of a Dalmatian force of irregular horse, charged, and had nearly succeeded in cutting his way to the king, when his undisciplined men spied the baggage, and gave themselves up to pillage. Meanwhile, the Italians had yielded everywhere, four to one though they were, and at last, as the French pushed onward, the Italian army, broken and fugitive, poured back across the Taro in utter confusion, and fled towards Parma. Charles forbore to press his advantage, his business was the safety of his retreat. He encamped his weary army about a mile from the field. Even next day the Italians might have struck a blow which would for long have preserved their country from foreign invasion. They did nothing: jealousy distracted their leaders, and they contented themselves with announcing their "victory" to their respective Governments, the Venetians even ordering triumphant festivities "on the strength of having captured the King's baggage, of having carried off his rosaries and a portfolio of portraits of the ladies of his harem." Such was the battle of Fornovo, which closed the fifteenth century in Italy and led to the long paralysis and captivity which has only passed away in our own day. A visit to Fornovo reconciles us even to the Farnese rule in Parma, for Italy deserved nothing better. CHAPTER XIX REGGIO HE road from Parma to Reggio, some eighteen THE than the way between Piacenza and Parma, yet it has a charm of its own, and I for one never tire of those vast spaces of country subject to the sky, where the earth lies spread out infinite and quiet to the mountains on the south and to the far low horizon on the north. Just as outside Piacenza we found a leper hospital about a mile from the city, so we do outside Parma and at about the same distance. Nearly a mile before we come to S. Ilario we cross the Enza and come out of the Duchy of Parma into the Duchy of Modena. Thence the road runs as straight as a ruled line into the little city of Reggio. Reggio, so far as we know or can ascertain, was a mere stronghold founded by Æmilius Lepidus to serve and to guard his great highway. It seems to have no Gallic origins whatever, indeed its earliest name was Forum Lepidi, and the origin of its later appellation, Regium Lepidi, is unknown. It did not become a colony like Parma and Mutina, and never rose to the wealth and prosperity that they achieved, yet it has this claim to fame that it was here Marcus Brutus, the father of the murderer of Cæsar, was put to death by Pompey in 79 B.C. That Reggio was little more in the time of the Empire than a mere country town is confirmed to us by |