Page:The Voyage Of Italy Or A Compleat Journey through Italy, The Second Part.pdf/191

 Castel Franco, anciently called Forum Gallorum, we arrived betimes at Bologna.

Bologna is one of the greatest Towns of Italy, and one of the handsomest. Its the second of the Popes Dominions; and the Chief University of Italy for Law. Hence the Jurists say it is Musarum domus, atque omnis nutricula Juris, and the very common Coyn of the Countrey tells you that Bononia docet.

Its named, by the Common Proverb, Bologna la grassa; because of the fertil soyl in which it stands, to wit, in the very end of Lombardy; and the many springs which humect it from the Apennin hills, at whose feet it stands.

This Countrey was anciently called Felsina, Gallia Cisalpina, Gallia Togata, to distinguish it from Gallia Braccata, the Countrey in France near Narbonne, and from Gallia Comata, the Countrey in France called La Guienne. In Middling Ages it was called Romagnola, because Bologna, Ravenna, Cezena, Forli,