The Greatness of Cities [25]
should rather, in a matter, be but one body and but one city. To say the truth, we Italians do flatter ourselves too much, and do admire too partially those things that do concern ourselves, especially when we will prefer Italy and her cities beyond all the rest in the world. The and figure of Italy is long and strait, divided withal in the midst with the Apennine Hills. And the paucity and rareness of navigable rivers doth not bear it that there can be very great and populous cities in it. I will not spare to say that her rivers are but little brooks in comparison of Ganges, Menam, Mekong and the rest, and that the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic Seas are but gullets in respect of the ocean. And of consequence our trade and traffic is but poor in respect of the marts and fairs of Canton, Malacca, Calicut, Ormuz, Lisbon, Seville and other cities that bound upon the ocean. Let us add to the aforesaid that the difference and enmity between the Mohammedans and us depriveth us in a manner of the commerce of Africa, and of the most part of the trade of the Levant. Again, the chiefest parts of Italy, that is, the Kingdom of Naples and the Dukedom of Milan are subject to the King of Spain. The other states are mean, and mean also the chiefest of their cities. But it is time we now return from whence we have digressed long. The residence of princes is so powerful and so mighty as it alone is sufficient enough to set up and form a city at a trice. In Ethiopia (Francis Alvarez writeth) there is not a town (although the country be very large) that containeth above a thousand and six hundred houses, and that of this greatness there are but few. For all that the king (called by them the Great Negus, and falsely by us the Prester John) who hath no settled residence representeth with his only court a mighty great city, forasmuch as wherever he be he shadoweth with an innumerable sight of tents and pavilions many miles of the country. In Asia, the cities of account have been all of them the seats of princes: Damascus, Antioch, Ankara, Trebizond, Busra and Jerusalem. But let us pass over into Europe. The translating of the imperial seat hed the glory of Rome and made Constantinople great, which is maintained in her greatness and majesty with the residence of the Great Turk. This city standeth in the fairest, the best and most commodious site that is in the world. It is seated in Europe, but Asia is not from it above four hundred paces. It commandeth two seas, the Euxine and Propontis. The Euxine Sea compasseth two thousand and seven hundred miles. The Propontis stretcheth more than two hundred miles, even till it join with the Archipelago. The weather cannot be so foul, nor so stormy, nor so blustering as it can hinder in a matter the ships from coming with their goods to that same magnificent and gallant city in either of those two seas. If this city had a royal and a navigable river it would lack nothing. It is thirteen miles about and this circuit containeth about seven hundred thousand persons. But the plague makes a mighty slaughter every third year amongst them. But to say truth, seldom or never is that city free of the plague. And hereupon is offered a good matter worthy to be considered, how it comes to pass that that same scourge toucheth it so notably every third year like a tertian ague (as in Cairo it cometh every seventh), especially because that city is seated in a most healthful place. But I will put off this speculation to another time, or leave it to be discussed by wits more exercised therein than mine. There are within Constantinople seven hills; near the seaside towards the east there is the seraglio of the Great Turk, whose walls are in compass three miles; there is an arsenal consisting of more than one hundred arches to lay their ships in. To conclude, the city is for the beauty of the site, for the opportunity of the ports, for the commodity of the sea, for the multitude of the inhabitants, for the greatness of the traffic, for the residence of the Great Turk, so conspicuous and so gallant,