Mantua is a large city, with spacious streets, and some fine edifices. Its cathedral, built nearly upon the same plan as Santa Maria Maggiore, in Rome, is a very regular and beautiful edifice.

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 The day after our arrival happened to be the festival of St. Anselmo, patron of Mantua. At evening service, about six o'clock, the cathedral was illuminated in the finest manner imaginable. Double rows of lustres lighted up the nave; the aisles and arcades had as many clusters of torches as there were arches and pillars; while a thousand chandeliers, suspended from the dome, shed a blaze of light on the choir and altar. The music might have been deemed heavenly, had it not been rather too theatrical, and, like all Italian church music, performed with violins; however, the organ sometimes interposed with all its solemnity, and some bursts in chorus were truly celestial. The venerable old bishop presided in full pontific majesty; the crowded congregation were silent, orderly, and pious, and the scene, though perhaps too glaring and stage-like for English taste, was splendid, and even awful.