Note 15 — PART III.—1842. (continued 2)

I remember an instance of the sort of interference which occurred in Tuscany, at the University of Pisa, during the mild and comparatively liberal reign of Ferdinand. It is well known that during the Carnival the people promenade in particular streets (in Pisa on the Lungo l’Arno), the gentry in their carriages, and often masked. The students at Pisa got up a masque of an elaborate kind, I think of heathen gods and goddesses, or some such thing. The following Carnival, the professors, wishing to turn this play to nobler uses, combined with the students to get up a procession of masks personating all the illustrious men of Italian history. Government considered this a dangerous reminiscence of past glory, and forbade it.