and streets. An annual fair, which traces its origin to the year 913, is held in this place on the feast of St. Bartholomew. The Fiera contains six hundred shops; and during the fair of 1833, goods, of which one-third consisted of silk, were sold to the amount of more than one million sterling.

LOUVERE,

ON THE LAKE OF ISEO.

RAVELLERS in Italy pursue the beaten track, from which they are rarely tempted to diverge, hence many retired scenes of great beauty never fall under their observation, and amongst these localities Louvere claims a distinguished place. This district was anciently inhabited by the Euganei, a people expelled from their native abodes by the Veneti. According to Pliny, they held at one time thirty-four towns in this neighbourhood, all of which were admitted to the rights of Latin cities by Augustus. Descending to the twelfth century, we find Louvere an arena of the Guelph and Ghibelline contest, that universal curse to the cities of Italy. From this period, however, we are to date the modern population of the district, which was previously but thinly inhabited. The exiles from other cities sought and found a refuge on the banks of the Lago d'Iseo from the fierce vengeance of party strife. Louvere afterwards suffered great extremities, when its inhabitants were opposed to Pandolfo Malatesta, the lord of Bergamo. This nobleman advanced upon the town, and took it; he then lighted a candle and commanded every resident to depart, on pain of death, before it was consumed.

Louvere was the residence of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who in a letter to her daughter, the Countess of Bute, describes the condition of the town and neighbourhood a century ago. "This extraordinary spot of land is almost unknown to the rest of the world; and indeed does not seem to be destined by nature to be inhabited by human creatures; and I believe never would have been so without the cruel civil war between the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Before that time here were only the huts of a few fishermen, who came, at certain seasons, on account of the fine fish with which this lake abounds, particularly trouts, as large and red as salmon. The lake is different from any other I ever saw or read of, being the colour of the sea, rather deeper, tinged with green, which convinces me that the surrounding mountains are full of minerals, and, it may be, rich in mines yet undiscovered, as well as quarries of marble, from whence the churches and houses are ornamented, and even the streets paved, which, if polished and laid with art, would look like the finest mosaic work, being a variety of beautiful colours. I ought to retract the honourable title of street, none of them being broader than an alley, and impassable for any wheel-carriage except a wheel-barrow. This town, which is the largest of twenty-five that are built on the banks of the Lake of Iseo, is nearly two miles long, and the figure of a semicircle, and situated at the northern extremity. If it was a regular range