ABSTRACT

Piacenza, or Placentia, is approached by the desert shores of the Trebia, the site of many an ancient, many a modern fight. One deep stream alone poured through its rough channel; and the fine ruin of a massive arch, marked by classic travellers as the remains of that bridge crossed by Hannibal, had a singular effect in the midst of the broad, stony, and undulating strand, that looked as if it covered the surface of a buried city. A celebrated female writer has declared that an aristocracy is a law of nature. Whatever philosophers may think of this notion, it is certain that the law, as it has operated on the continent, has produced a most fatal modification of society; and if, in its quality of natural, it is to remain immutable, Piacenza and some other of the lesser Italian cities will preserve a curious specimen of its influence for the amusement of posterity.