Brescia housefronts are as gaily decorated as those of Nuremberg, many of them at least. It is a remarkable feature of Brescia's domestic architecture.
The castle or citadel itself was built by the Viscontis in the fourteenth century on the summit of a hill overlooking the town. The Venetians strengthened it and again the Austrians. General Haynau bombarded the low-lying city round about in barbarous fashion, so much so that the memory of it caused him to be chased from London some years later, when he was sent there as Ambassador.
The men of Brescia seem to have a passion for wearing a great Capucin shoulder cloak, which looks very Spanish. It is most picturesque, and is one of the characteristic things seen in all Brescia's public places, _caffés_ and restaurants, and is worn by all those classes whom a discerning traveller once described as men who work hard at doing nothing, for Brescia's street corners are never vacant and her _caffés_ never empty.
Between Brescia and Bergamo is the Lake of Iseo; the fourth in size of the north Italian lakes. The vegetation of its shores is purely Italian and vineyards and olive groves abound. A fringe of old castle towers, of walls, palaces and villas surround it, all blended together with a historic web and woof of mediævalism and romance.
From Brescia to Bergamo runs one of the best national highroads in Italy. The automobilist will appreciate this and will want to push on to the end. He would do better to break it midway and drop down on the road to Martinengo, a detour of twenty kilometres only, passing the great Castle of Malpaga built by the celebrated Bartolommeo Colleoni, an edifice which gives a more complete idea of unspoiled, unrestored residence of a mediæval Italian nobleman than any other extant.
Bergamo is a strange combination of the new and the old. The upper and lower towns--for it is built on a rise of the Bergamon Alps--have nothing in common with each other. In the lower town there are great hotels, shops, and even a vast factory which turns out a celebrated make of automobiles. In the upper town there are market-men and women, with chickens, vegetables and fruit to sell, all spread out under an imposing array of great mushroom umbrellas only second to those of the market place at Brescia.