Brescia, like Bergamo, is situated on the fringe of the mountains and the plains, and like Bergamo played an important part in the wars against Austria. Its _castello_ stands high above the rest of the city, but in the face of the power possessed of modern arms it would not be worth a garrison. So its ramparts and entrenchments have been wisely converted into a pleasant garden from which wide views of rolling country and level plain extend.
Many traces of the Roman colony of Brescia remain, but it was due to a small boy of the virile race that populate the city that the most interesting was unearthed. When a child, Girolamo Ioli was much exercised in mind about a Corinthian column that stuck out of the ground and around which he was wont to play. In maturer years the curiosity of youth was still the ruling passion, and he made it his business to agitate. Like many another agitator his demands were in time gratified, and excavations were commenced which resulted in the unearthing of a building erected by Vespasian it is supposed in the year 72--the supposition resting on fragmentary inscriptions. Palace of Justice or temple, this building is now the museum, and contains one of the finest bronzes Italy can boast of. Found in 1826, this beautiful winged figure of Victory, which is six feet high, still bears a trace of the silver fillet interwoven with a wreath of laurel-leaves that bound her hair. The last-century additions of a shield, which she was thought to have held, and a helmet under one of her feet, have been removed, and Victory stands in the state in which she was discovered. The head and limbs are finely modelled, and the arrangement of the drapery could not be excelled.
Down the wide street in front of the Museum a Corinthian column and heavy frieze, supported by massive brick pillars, have been excavated. Opposite these relics is the huge Martinengo Palace. In a line due south is the church of Sta Afra built on the site of a temple to Saturn. Most of the houses in the vicinity have Roman masonry in their basements and Roman inscriptions let into their walls. From this one gathers that ancient Brixia occupied this part of the later city. Write it down to the credit of Brescia that her citizens passed a law as early as 1480 that all antiquities found should be preserved and given up to the town.