S. Ambrose, who speaks of its bareness and decay, and like Parma it was one of the places in which Gratian settled his Gothic captives. It suffered, of course, in the Dark Ages from the incursions of the barbarians, and was then, in so far as its central part about the Cathedral was concerned, surrounded by a wall. About this, in time, rose the borghi, that on the west being at first limited by the torrent Crostolo, whose bed has now become the Corso Garibaldi.

Like every other Lombardy town, it benefited by the Peace of Constance in 1183, and established the lordship of its Commune upon the surrounding territory, enclosing then its borghi with the wall which in some sort we still see; the principal gates being those of S. Croce, S. Pietro, S. Stefano and Castello, which named the quarters of the city.

In 1339 Luigi Gonzaga had obtained the lordship of Reggio, and he then built the Cittadella, in the place now occupied by the Passeggio Pubblico, on the ruins of a hundred and twenty-five houses and a ruined convent within the city, and twenty-four other buildings without it. The Cittadella besides being a fortress contained the parochial Church of S. Nazaro and the Ducal Palace, and it is now thought that Ariosto was born within its walls on September 8, 1474.

In 1409 Reggio was united by Niccolò d'Este to Modena, which his house had obtained in 1288. The last Este to reign was that Hercules III. who lost his dominions at the Peace of Luneville, when Reggio came with the rest of the dukedom of Modena to the Austrian House, from which it only passed in 1859, when Vittorio Emanuele proclaimed United Italy.

The centre of Reggio for ages has been the Piazza del Duomo, now called after Victor Emmanuel; it is the heart of the city now as in old days, and there stand the Cathedral, the Bell Tower and the Palazzo del

Comune, now the Monte di Pietà. Beside the Palace open the arcades of the Peschiera, where opposite the Municipio is Albergo della Porta, known in the seventeenth century as the Osteria del Cappel Rosso. In front of the Monte di Pietà stands the Municipio, built in 1414, and here in the great Sala del Consiglio was held, on January 7, 1797, the Congress of the cities of the Emilia which created the short-lived "Repubblica Cispadana."

On the eastern side of the Piazza stand the Duomo and the Palazzo Vescovile, to the left of which is the Palazzo dei Canonici. Opposite is the house of Ariosto. The Palazzo Vescovile is of great antiquity of foundation, but as we see it is a building largely of the sixteenth century.

The Duomo, originally a Lombard church of the twelfth, was largely re-erected in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Thus its façade is, in so far as it is finished, of the Renaissance, with recumbent figures, in the manner of Michaelangelo, of Adam and Eve by Prospero Clementi over its main doorway, and the four statues in the niches representing S. Grisante, S. Daria, S. Venerio and S. Gioconda are by his pupils. Above, in the beautiful octagonal tower, is a bronze group of the Madonna and Child with two Donors, Giroldo Fiordibelli and Antonia Boiardi, by Bartolommeo Spani.

Within, the Cathedral has a lofty choir over a crypt, but it has suffered many restorations. Here we find the best works of these two Reggiani sculptors, Bartolommeo and Prospero Clementi. To the former belongs the tomb of Valerio Malaguzzi, uncle of Ariosto, in the third chapel on the right, and the tomb of Bishop Buonfrancesco Arlotti in the chapel to the left of the choir; to the latter the tombs of Ugo Rangoni, Bishop of Reggio, and Paul III., nuncio at the court of Charles v. In the chapel to the right of the choir, the beautiful Christ

upon the altar and the tomb of Cherubino Sforzani in the left aisle are also his.

Behind the Duomo, in the Piazza di S. Prospero, stands the church of S. Prospero, built on the foundation of an old Lombard building by Gasparo Bisi in 1504. The aspect of this Piazza is very charming, not only by reason of the Church of S. Prospero and the fine old octagonal tower which stands beside it, but because the three apses of the Duomo, so gracious from here, look into the square and add something strange and lovely to its quietness. Unfortunately, the façade of S. Prospero is of 1748, but the six lions in red Verona marble are by Bisi and were carved in 1503.

Here again we find the work of the Clementi. To Bartolommeo is due the tomb of Rufino Gabloneta over the entrance, and to Prospero the fine statue of the Madonna in the right transept. Here, too, by the fourth altar on the south side is a picture, perhaps by Sodoma,1 welcome in so poor a place as Reggio. This work, S. Homobonus giving alms, is a remarkable and powerful picture, with certain curious and almost grotesque faults. Mr. Cust, whose book on Sodoma is a mine of carefully gathered information, suggests that Anselmi was Sodoma's partner in this work. There are two altarpieces, as it happens, by Anselmi in this church, a fine S. Paul and a Baptism of Our Lord. It is interesting to compare them. The frescoes by Bernardo Campi of Cremona in the choir have been restored.

Returning to the Piazza del Duomo and taking the Via di S. Pietro Martire, and then turning to the right up the Corso Garibaldi, we come to the Madonna della Ghiara. This is a beautiful church in the form of a Greek cross built in Bramante's manner, and of fine proportions. In the right transept is a Madonna by Lelio Orsi. Now,

1 Venturi gives it to Bernardino Zacchetti, an obscure Reggian painter. Cf. L'Arte, 1901, Sept.-Oct. fase. ix.-x.

till I came to Reggio all I knew of Lelio Orsi was that he had a very original picture, the Walk to Emmaus (1466), in the National Gallery. He was probably a son of that Bernardino Orsi a picture by whom I find in the Duomo of Reggio. He was certainly employed to decorate some triumphal arches erected in honour of Ercole Gonzaga's visit to Reggio in 1536, and it has been thought that he was a pupil of Correggio. In 1546 he was banished from Reggio for some unknown offence, and in 1552 he was pardoned and allowed to return. During these years he lived at Novellara, to the north of Reggio, on the line to Guastalla and within easy reach of the city. There some of his works remain, as do more than one in the Museo here in Reggio.

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CHAPTER XX

MODENA

OTHING of much interest is to be found on the

great road between Reggio and Modena. A mile or more outside the Roman gate of Reggio we find, as before at Parma, a leper hospital under the dedication of S. Lazzaro. At S. Maurizio we pass a villa of Ariosto's, and at Rubiera we are in a fief of Boiardo, the author of the Orlando Innamorato, who was not only a poet, but lord of Scandiano, five miles away to the south at the foot of the great hills. Then, after crossing the Secchia, the great road curves suddenly northward, really the first turn it has made since it left Piacenza: and we enter the city of Modena.

Modena, the Roman Mutina, a Gallic city, probably of Etruscan origin, belonged to the Boii, and seems to have come into Roman hands in 222 B.C., at the close of the Gallic War. They fortified it, and at the opening of the Second Punic War, in 218 B.C., it was already a considerable place, and there the triumvirs took refuge when the Gauls rose to greet Hannibal and Placentia was no longer safe. It was thus a walled town before Piacenza or Cremona, and it is probable that even in Gallic times it had been a stronghold. In 183 B.C. the Republic determined to establish a colony here and at Parma: these were both coloniae civium, and their 2000 settlers enjoyed the full rights of Roman citizens.

Mutina, however, had not been long founded when it suffered disaster. The Ligurians of the hills swept