divers leagues seaward.’

It would be pleasant to ramble through Italy in Evelyn’s company, and to share with him the many enjoyments recorded in his Diary: but space forbids. From Genoa he went to Leghorn and Pisa, from Pisa to Florence, thence to Sienna, and on to Rome. ‘I came to Rome on the 4th November, 1644, about 5 at night, and being perplexed for a convenient lodging, wandered up and down on horseback, till at last one conducted us to Monsieur Petits, a Frenchman, near the Piazza Spagnola. Here I alighted, and having bargained with my host for 20 crownes a moneth, I   caused a good fire to be made in my chamber and went to bed, being so very wet. The next morning (for I was resolved to spend no time idly here) I got acquainted with several persons who had long lived at Rome.’

Evelyn’s description of the interesting sights he saw in Rome is so good that it might well be perused in place of modern guide-books by those visiting the city. There is a delightful attractiveness about it, in which these up-to-date works are sometimes wanting. But even his youthful energy began to tire, and his keen appetite to become sated with continuous sightseeing. After more than six months of it ‘we now determined to desist from visiting any more curiosities, except what should happen to come in our way, when my companion Mr. Henshaw or myself should go out to take the aire.’ Then, however, as now for some people, the crowning event of a visit to Rome was to receive the Papal blessing. This Evelyn desired and obtained, although the event is not recorded in his diary with any great enthusiasm. ‘May, 4th. Having seen the entrie of ye ambassador of Lucca, I went to the Vatican, where, by favour of our Cardinal Protector, Frair Barberini, I was admitted into the consistorie, heard the ambassador make his ovation in Latine to the Pope, sitting on an elevated state or throne, and changing two pontifical miters; after which I was presented to kisse his toe, that is, his embroder’d slipper, two Cardinals holding up his vest and surplice, and then being sufficiently bless’d with his thumb and two fingers for that day, I return’d home to dinner.’

He quitted Rome about the middle of May after a sojourn there of seven months, which had occasioned him so small an outlay that he remarked thereon in his Diary. ‘The bills of exchange I took up from my first entering Italy till I went from Rome amounted but to 616 ducanti di banco, though I purchas’d many books, pictures, and curiosities.’ Going northwards by Sienna, Leghorn, Lucca, Florence, Bologna, and Ferrara, he reached Venice early in June. Arriving ‘extreamly weary and beaten’ with the journey, he went and enjoyed the new luxury of a Turkish bath. ‘This bath did so open my pores that it cost me one of the greatest colds I ever had in my life, for want of necessary caution   in keeping myselfe warme for some time after; for coming out, I immediately began to visit the famous places of the city; and travellers who come in to Italy do nothing but run up and down to see sights.’

Evelyn had the good fortune to see Venice en fête, and in those days that must have been a sight well worth seeing. He saw the Doge espouse the Adriatic by casting a gold ring into it on Ascension day with very great pomp and ceremony. ‘It was now Ascension Weeke, and the greate mart or faire of ye whole yeare was kept, every body at liberty and jollie. The noblemen stalking with their ladys on choppines; these are high-heel’d shoes, particularly affected by these proude dames, or, as some say, invented to keepe them at home, it being very difficult to walke with them; whence one being asked how he liked the Venetian dames, replied, they were mezzo carne, mezzo ligno, half flesh, half wood, and he would have none of them. The truth is, their garb is very odd, as seeming always in masquerade; their other habits also totaly different from all nations.’

In Venice Evelyn made arrangements for visiting the Holy Land and parts of Syria, Egypt, and Turkey; but they fell through owing to the vessel, in which he would have sailed, being requisitioned to carry provisions to Candia, then under attack from the Turks. Forced to abandon this project, he remained in Venice ‘being resolved to spend some moneths here in study, especially physic and anatomie, of both which there was now the most famous professors in Europe.’ But in the autumn Mr. Thicknesse, ‘my dear friend, and till now my constant fellow traveller,’ was obliged to return to England on private affairs; so Evelyn was left alone in Venice. Very shortly after that he had an illness which seems to have at one time threatened a fatal termination. ‘Using to drink my wine cool’d with snow and ice, as the manner here is, I was so afflicted with the angina and soare-throat, that it had almost cost me my life. After all the remedies Cavalier Veslingius, cheife professor here, could apply, old Salvatico (that famous physician) being call’d made me be cupp’d and scarified in the back in foure places, which began to give me breath, and consequently life, for I   was in ye utmost danger: but God being mercifull to me, I was after a fortnight abroad againe; when changing my lodging I went over against Pozzo Pinto, where I bought for winter provisions 3000 weight of excellent grapes, and pressed my owne wine, which proved incomparable liquor.’ Its goodness, indeed, seems to have been the death of it. ‘Oct. 31st. Being my birth-day, the nuns of St. Catherine’s sent me flowers of silk-work. We were very studious all this winter till Christmas, when on twelfth day we invited all the English and Scotts in towne to feast, which sunk our excellent wine considerably.’ In explanation of this passage, it needs to be said that he had soon again changed his lodging and gone to reside with three English friends ‘neere St. Catherine’s over against the monasterie of nunnes, where we hired the whole house and lived very nobly. Here I learned to play on ye theorbo, taught by Sig. Dominico Bassano.’

After ‘the folly and madnesse of the Carnevall’ was over, Evelyn left Venice for Padua in January, 1646, but went back in March to take leave of his friends there, and at Easter set out on his return journey to England in company with the poet Waller, who had been glad to go abroad after being much worried by the Puritan party. They travelled by way of Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Milan, the Lago Maggiore, the Simplon Pass, Sion, and St. Maurice to Geneva. Here again Evelyn became sick nigh unto death, from small-pox contracted at Beveretta, the night before reaching Geneva. ‘Being extremely weary and complaining of my head, and finding little accommodation in the house, I caus’d one of our hostesses daughters to be removed out of her bed and went immediately into it whilst it was yet warme, being so heavy with pain and drowsinesse that I would not stay to have the sheets chang’d; but I shortly after payd dearly for my impatience, falling sick of the small-pox so soon as I came to Geneva, for by the smell of frankincense and ye tale of ye good woman told me of her daughter having had an ague, I afterwards concluded she had been newly recovered of the small-pox.’ Becoming very ill he was bled of the physician ‘a very learned old man..... He afterwards acknowledg’d that he should not have bled me had he suspected ye   small-pox, which brake out a day after.’ As nurse he had a Swiss matron afflicted with gôitre, ‘whose monstrous throat, when I sometimes awak’d out of unquiet slumbers, would affright me.’ But again he was spared for the work he was destined to do. ‘By God’s mercy after five weeks keeping my chamber I went abroad.’