Young und Okey - 1915 - Travels in France and Italy during the years 1787,

242/Arthur Young
crowned by the Alps, are fine. The Count de Tiene, with the assistance
of another nobleman, of more experience, who happened to be present,
gave me some information relative to the part of the Vicentine in which
their estates are situated. Quitting him, I begged the Abbate Pierropan
to favour me with his company at dinner, by which means I had the
benefit of his conversation so much longer on the favourite topic. The
Abbate de Tracio, vice-president of the academy, joined us. After dinner,
according to appointment, to the Count de Boning, whose coach
was ready, and carried us to the farm. Fortunately the farmer, a sensible
and intelligent man, was ready to answer all such inquiries as I put to
him. At night, returned to the city, after a rich day, that pays for the
trouble of travelling.
26th. My friendly Abbate, continuing his obliging offices, had the
goodness to accompany me this morning to a very famous woollen fabric,
at present under the direction of an Englishman, and to a magazine
of earthenware in imitation of Mr. Wedgwood. It is surely a triumph of
the arts in England to see in Italy Etruscan forms copied from English
models. It is a better imitation than many I have seen in France. View
the Olympic theatre of Palladio, which pleases all the world; nothing
can be more beautiful than the form, or more elegant than the colonnade
that surrounds it. Of all his works here, I like the Palazzo Barbarana
least. I am sorry to see that most of Palladio’s edifices are of bricks
stuccoed, except the Palazzo Raggione, which is of durable stone; and
that there is hardly one of them which is not out of repair. The roof of
the Palazzo di Raggione, which must onend every eye, is not of Palladio;
only the case of arcades that surround the building, which is one vast
room of 200 feet by 80, used for the courts of justice, and also as a
common jakes by the mob, and dreadfully garnished. A pretty use to
which to apply an edifice of Palladio. The brick columns of this great
architect are of the finest work I ever saw; and some of the stucco only
now failing, after 200 years. At Verona and Vicenza there are very few
new houses, and no signs, that I could see, of the wealth and prosperity
of the present age. There are exceptions, but they are few. A silk merchant
here has built a good house; and Signore Cordelina, an advocate
at Venice, a large and handsome one, that cost 100,000 ducats, without
being finished: he made his fortune by pleading.
27th. To Padua. The country, which has been called a garden by
travellers, not at all better cultivated than before, but deeper and richer.
The same flat, lined into rows of pollards and vines in the same manner;