EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS
before; I do sincerely believe, that they no more think of wiping down a cobweb in a bed-chamber, than our farmers do of sweeping them away in an old barn."[1] He speaks of whole ceilings covered with spiders.
The ill-kept inns merely reflected the sluttishness of the inhabitants, which must have been notable to call forth the following outburst from the usually genial Burnet: "It amazes a stranger to see in their little towns the whole men of the town walking in the market-places in their torn cloaks, and doing nothing. And tho' in some big towns, such as Capua, there is but one inn, yet even that is so miserable that the best room and bed in it is so bad that our footmen in England would make a grievous outcry if they were no better lodged. Nor is there any thing to be had in them; the wine is intolerable, the bread ill-baked, no victuals, except pigeons, and the oil is rotten. In short, except one carries his whole provision from Rome or Naples, he must resolve to endure a good deal of misery in the four days' journey that is between those two places."[2] What was true of the inns along the great road between Rome and Naples was tenfold worse in the extreme South, where tourists never ventured.
With these facts before us we may be led to do injustice to the inns in the larger towns and cities where tourists made their longer stay. There were some well-known hotels at Venice, at Florence, at Bologna,[3] and elsewhere. But De Brosses tells us that at Rome the Auberge du Mont d'Or, in the Piazza di Spagna, was perhaps the only good inn for strangers in the city. He adds in explanation that it was not customary to live at a hotel except just long enough to enable one to find a furnished room elsewhere.[4] In Rome travelers generally lodged in or near the Piazza di Spagna, which has to this day remained a popular quarter with foreigners. Nugent names some of the best inns at Rome. "But," he adds, "those who intend to make any stay had better hire furnished apartments, which are very reasonable; for you may be accommodated with a palazzo, as they call it, or a handsome furnished house for
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