One can scarcely credit the common account that there were about a million pilgrims at one time assembled in the great city.

"We do not perceive," says Petrarch, "that the plague has depopulated the world." And, indeed, if this computation of the congregated pilgrims approaches the truth, we cannot but suspect that the alleged depopulation of Europe, already mentioned, must have been exaggerated.

"The crowds," he continues, "diminished a little during summer and the gathering-in of the harvest; but recommenced towards the end of the year.

The great nobles and ladies from beyond the Alps came the last." [Illustration: BRIDGE OF SIGHS,--VENICE.] Many of the female pilgrims arrived by way of the marshes of Ancona, where Bernardino di Roberto, Lord of Ravenna, waited for them, and scandal whispered that his assiduities and those of his suite were but too successful in seducing them.

A contemporary author, in allusion to the circumstance, remarks that journeys and indulgences are not good for young persons, and that the fair ones had better have remained at home, since the vessel that stays in port is never shipwrecked.
The strangers, who came from all countries, were for the most part unacquainted with the Italian language, and were obliged to employ interpreters in making their confession, for the sake of obtaining absolution.