learn that through many centuries these two rivers had for all practical purposes been high seas for the contending navies of the hostile states whose dominions were made approachable by their waters.

It will be sufficient to cite but a few instances out of very many from which the nature of these conflicts may be gathered. In June 1431 Nicolò Trevisano, a captain of the Signorie of Venice, had a powerful fleet all but wiped out by the Milanese ships under Ambrogio Spinola, close by Cremona. It was a staggering blow to the Venetians, but, having nursed their wrath for some years, a resolution was passed in July 1438 to build a fleet to humble the pride of the Duke of Milan and the Marquis of Mantua. Vast numbers of men were at once set to work at the Arsenal of Venice, and on the 28th of August in the same year, a fleet left the Venetian capital consisting of 100 galeoni (galleons), six riguardi (?), thirty barche (barks), six galere (galleys), which with other vessels laden with ammunition and provisions that followed raised the whole number to 256! 20

Dealing with a later period, the year 1509, let me quote an extract from Fenton's Guicciardini :

After this the Venetian armie drew towards Monselice and Montagnana, both to recover Polisena, and to charge the places of Ferrara together with their navie, which the Senate... had determined to send against the Duke of Ferrara, well furnished with strength and munition along the river of Paw . . . it was agreed that their navie and sea armie, commanded by Ange Trevisan, compounded upon seventeen light gallies with a large furnishment of meaner vessels and able bodies for service, should sayle toward Ferrara. This fleete entring into Paw by the mouth of the fornaces and burning Corvola with certaine other villages neare to Paw, went pilling and spoiling the country up to the lake of Scuro, from which place the light horsemen who followed them as a strength by land, made incursions as farre as Ficherolo; . . . the coming of this navie together with the rumour of the armie by land that was to follow, brought no little amaze to the Duke. . . . Trevisan, after he had in vaine assayed to passe, seeing he could advance nothing without he were succoured by land, came to an anker in the middest of the river of Paw behind a little Isle right over against Puliselle, a place within xi myles of Ferrara, and very apt to torment the towne and make many hurtfull executions upon the countrey.

...

at which time the Duke of Ferrara, together with the Lord of Chastillion with the French bands lay encamped upon the river of Paw, between the hospitall [lo Spedaletto] and Bondin, on the opposite to the Venetian regiments which were beyond Paw; whose navie seeking to retire for the sharpness of the Season and for the ill provision that came from Venice, being charged by many Barkes of Ferrara whose artilleries sunke eight vessels to the bottome, retired with great paine by Newcastle upon Paw, into the ditch that falleth into Tanare 21 and

20 Atti della commissione etc. Relazione Generale, p. 18.

21 This passage clearly establishes the existence of a navigable waterway connection between the Po and the Adige in the neighbourhood of the places mentioned. The Canal is not marked on the map of 1564. 'Tanaro' in the original text is obviously an error for Tartaro, which, in the region referred to, comes to within a few miles of the Po, while further north it is connected with the Adige near Leg nago.

Adice, and there is separate ['Si condusse con difficoltà a Castelnuovo del Po nella fossa che va nel Tanaro, e nell' Adice, e dipoi si risolve.'-Guicciardini.]

The Naviglio Grande, the great link between Milan and the Ticino in early times, has already been mentioned, and its importance during the war in 1524 between the Imperial forces and the Venetians under the Duke of Urbino is given due prominence in Fenton's translation. Referring to Biagrassa [Abbiategrasso] the only town then left in the power of the French, he tells us :

it was plentifully provided of victuals and garded with a strong garrison of a thousand footemen under Jeronimo Caracciollo: but because it hath his situation upon the great channell ['in sul canal grande,' in original], and by that means stoppeth the course of victuals which that channel is wont to bring in greate plentie to Millan,

it was besieged and captured by Sforza.

Innumerable other instances might be quoted from Guicciardini and others to show the sea-like character of the river Po in the centuries of war in Northern Italy before Shakespeare's day. Of the Adige it is the same tale. One extract of a somewhat remarkable kind, bearing on the latter waterway, may fittingly close this portion of my paper. When describing the siege of Brescia by the Milanese, in 1438, Hazlitt 22 mentions that the Venetian Republic had no ships on the Lago di Garda, the east side of which was still open to them. To help their armies in this quarter, an astounding proposal was made to the Senate to convey a flotilla in midwinter up the Adige and across the Tyrolese Alps, a distance of about 200 miles, which was at once agreed to. The fleet consisted of five and twenty barks and six galleys; it was under the care of Pietro Zeno. Zeno proceeded by water from the mouth of the Adige up to Roveredo, at the east side of the northern end of Lake Garda, from which point the passage to the summit of Monte Baldo over an artificial causeway of boughs, stones, and other rough materials, running along the bed of a precipitous fall, furnished a spectacle which none could witness and forget. The descent was a perfect prodigy of mechanical skill, and the fleet was at last set afloat on the Lago di Garda in February 1439.

With the single exception of Fenton's translation of Guicciardini's History, the whole of the foregoing references to the waterways of Lombardy are based on Italian authorities. I do not suggest that our Dramatist ever read any of them, though Fenton's work was within his reach had he wished to consult it. I have quoted these extracts merely for the purpose of demonstrating certain geographical facts which have been largely overlooked by students of Shakespeare.

The mistake has been repeated in all editions and translations of Guicciardini. The Tanaro is about 200 miles to the west.

22 History of the Venetian Republic (ed. 1860), iv. 141 sqq.

The authorities quoted, however, are far from exhausting the evidence, and they are fully confirmed by a number of English writers who have left us some extremely interesting narratives of journeys made by water in the same region.

The Pylgrymage of Sir R. Guylforde, for instance, which was published by Richard Pynson in 1511,23 describes, with some detail, the journey he made in 1506 through North Italy on his way to Jerusalem. At Alessandria his company left their horses and took the water of Tanaro. Being brought to the Po by this river, they passed Pavia. Next day, they passed Piacenza and Cremona, and lay at Polesina. The day after they passed Torricella, Casalmaggiore, Viadana, Mantua, Grescello, and stayed for the night at Guastalla: and so on, until after passing Ferrara

somewhat before noone we left all the Poo and toke our course by a lytell ryver yt cummeth to the same, called the Fosse, made and cutte out by hande, whiche brought us overthawart into another ryver, called Lytyze [l'Adige] that commeth from Verone and Trent; and yet within a whyle we traversed out of that ryver into another lytell ryver, whiche brought us thawarte agen into Latyze, whiche Latyze brought us into Chose [Chioggia] upon the see, called in Latyne Claudium. . . . The next daye we come to Venyse. . . . XII. daye of

...

June... we wente by water to Padua by the ryver of Brente.

Following closely upon this, we have the Pilgrimage of Sir Richard Torkington,2* also to the Holy Land. He left England in 1517, and crossing France, reached Pavia, where he sold his horse, saddle, and bridle.

'Wednesday, the XXI. day of Aprill, I toke a barke at the forseyd Pavia, upon the ryver which is called Poo; the same night I cam to Placiencia or Plesaunce [Piacenza] . . .

Like his predecessor Guylforde, he describes with minuteness the towns he passed in descending the river-mentioning Cremena ' [Cremona], 'Dosor' [Caorso], Mantua, Ryver' [? Revere], 'Fferare' [Ferrara], 'Ffrancclyno' [Francolin], and Corbala. His description of leaving the Po and crossing to the Adige in order to reach Venice is, strange to say, in the identical words used by Guylforde as quoted above. It is possible that they were both indebted to some early guide-book in the matter.

Another English traveller in Italy, with whose work Shakespeare was undoubtedly acquainted, is Fynes Moryson. In his own words:

In the spring of the yeare 1594 (the Italians beginning the yeare the first of January) I began my journey to see Italy, and taking boat at the East gate of Padua, the same was drawne by horses along the River Brenta; . .

...

we came

to the Village Lizzafusina, where there is a damme to stop the waters of Brenta, lest in processe of time the Marshes on that side of Venice should be filled with

"Reprinted, from the unique copy in the British Museum, by the Camden Society, vol. i.

"Ye oldest diarie of Englysshe travell, etc., W. J. Loftie (1884).

sand or earth and so a passage made on firme ground to the City." Heere whiles our boat was drawne by an Instrument, out of the River Brenta, into the Marshes of Venice, wee the passengers refreshed our selves with meat and wine. . . . Then we entred our boat againe, and passed five miles to Venice, upon the marshes thereof; and each man paied for his passage a lire, or twenty sols, and for a horse more then ordinary that we might be drawne more swiftly from Padua to Lizzafusina, each man paied foure sols, but the ordinary passage is only sixteene sols. We might have had coaches, but since a boat passeth daily too and fro betweene these cities, most men use this passage as most convenient. For the boat is covered with arched hatches, and there is very pleasant company, so a man beware to give no offence.

From Venice to Farraria [i.e., Ferrara] are eighty-five miles by water and land; and upon the third of February (after the new style) and in the yeare 1594 . . . and upon Wednesday in the evening, my selfe with two Dutchmen, my consorts in this journey, went into the Barke which weekely passeth betwixt Venice and Ferrara.

...

The same night we passed 25 miles upon the marshes, within the sea banke, to Chioza....

The next morning in the same Barke we entred the River and passed 15 miles to the Village Lorea and after dinner 10 miles in the territory of Venice, and 8 miles in the Dukedom of Ferraria to Popaci, and upon Friday in the morning 22 miles to Francoline, where we paied for our passage from Venice thither, each man three lires and a halfe. . . .

We left our Barke at Francoline, where we might have hired a coach to Ferraria, for which we should have paid 22 bolinei, but the way being pleasant to walke, we chose rather to goe these 5 miles on foot.

From hence [Ferrara] they reckon 34 miles to Bologna.

3 miles to the village La Torre del fossa.

We went on foot

From hence we hired a boat for 4 bolinei and foure quatrines, and passed, in a broad ditch betweene high reedes, to a place called Mal' Albergo . . . being nine miles ...

The next morning a boat went from hence to Bologna. [But they went the 18 miles on foot as the charge was high, and 'the day was faire' and 'the way very pleasant.']

On foote from Pavia . . 20 miles through rich pastures to Milan. . . .

It is large, populous, and very rich, seated in a Plaine (as all Lombardy lies) and that most firtile, and by the commoditie of a little River brought to the Citie by the French, and almost compassing the same, it aboundeth also with forraine Merchandise.

The 2nd day we rode 14 miles to Mantua . . . in a most durtie highway.

The Citie is compassed with Lakes, which usually are covered with infinite number of water-foule; and from these Lakes there is a passage into the River Po, and so by water to Venice.

I said formerly that there is a passage from the Lakes into the River Po, and so by water to Venice, and the Duke, to take his pleasure upon the water, hath a baot [sic] called Bucentoro, because it will beare some two hundred and it is built in the upper part like a banqueting house, having five rooms (with glased windowes) wherein the Duke and his Traine doe sit; . . . these roomes according to occasions have more or lesse rich hangings, when the Duke either goeth out to disport himself, or when he takes any journey therein (as oft he doth). . . .

25 It was the same in Dante's time, some three centuries before :

Fanno lo schermo perchè il mar si fuggia;

E quale i Padovan lungo la Brenta,

Per difender lor ville e lor castelli, etc.-Inferno, xv. 4.

Being to goe from hence to Padua . . . hired a horse from Mantua to the Castle Este for eleven lires.

...

First day passed a Fort upon the River Athesis, called Lignaco, and rode 20 miles... to Monteguiara.

Next morning 9 miles to Castle Este.

From thence I passed by boate 15 miles to Padua, and paied 22 soldi for my passage. This day . was the 14 of December, after the new stile, in the yeere 1594.

Thomas Coryat, 'the Odcombian Legge-stretcher,' as he describes himself, is another of those who travelled in North Italy, and published (in 1611) an account of his journeys there.26 His travels began in 1608. Here are a few extracts from his work:

Many do travel down this river [the Po] from Turin to Venice all by water, and so save the travelling of 227 miles by land. For the young Prince of Savoy with all his traine travelled to Venice down the Po when I was at Turin. [I. 97.]

Speaking of Milan [I. 124] he says:

The Citadell is moted round about with a broade mote of fine running water, and many other sweet rivers and delectable currents of water doe flow within the Citadell. . . .

Also, whereas these rivers doe runne into the towne to the great commodity of the townsmen, the inhabitants can at all times when they list restraine the passage of them. . . but so cannot the townsmen on the contrary side restraine the inhabitants of the Citadell.

In another place he described his journey 'in a barke' down the river Brenta from Padua to Venice [i. 194], while of Verona he writes:

the noble river Athesis runneth by it. . . . This river yeeldeth a speciall commoditie to the citie. For although it be not able to beare vessels of a great burden, yet it carrieth prety barges of convenient quantitie, wherein great store of merchandise is brought unto the city, both out of Germany and from Venice itselfe. [II. 99.]

Montaigne's Travels in Italy might be cited if further proof be wanted. He covered much the same ground, in 1581-2, as other travellers in Italy did in and about that time. Part of his journey from Padua to Venice was by boat-he describes the machinery and pulleys worked by horses by which the boats were brought ashore for the purpose of being conveyed on wheels to the canal which runs into the sea at Venice. He tells us, too, that his trunks were sent down the Adige from Rovere, near the Lake of Garda, to Verona, for which he paid one florin; and, when in the neighbourhood of Milan, we are informed that he crossed the river Naviglio, which was narrow, but still deep enough to carry great barks to Milan.'

The evidence I have collected bearing on Shakespeare's notions of the geography of Lombardy, curtailed though it be, is, I fancy, sufficient to acquit him of any serious imputation of blundering, and is

26 Crudities, hastily gobled up in five Moneths Travells in France, Savoy, Italy, etc. 1611.