Page:The Voyage Of Italy Or A Compleat Journey through Italy, The Second Part.pdf/123

 rio Generale del Imperio in Italia. This house of Savoy which now governs here, came anciently from Siguardo King of Saxony, in the year of Christ 636, and hath conserved it self ever since, that is, for a thousand and odd years in a continual series of Heroical Princes, whose Pedegree was never vitiated nor interrupted by any degenerate Off-spring. Five Emperors, and four Kings have issued out of this house.

Antiently the Dukes of Savoy kept their Court at Chambery, or else at Bourg en Bresse, a Country now belonging to France, upon exchange with the Marquisat of Saluzzo; as many of their Tombes curiously cut in Marble, in the Augustins Church there yet shew. It was Amadeo the V. of that name, Duke of Savoy, that transferred the Court to Turin. It was also this Amadeo who in memory of his Grandfather Amadeo the IV, who had defended Rhodes so bravely, instituted the Knighthood of the Annunciata, with this single motto in the collar