The government is monarchical, not restrained by any representative body or any written au thority, but exercised with mildness and judgment. The title of the sovereign is that of Arch-Duke; his appellation is Imperial Highness. The public revenue is X708,500; the public debt R5,000,000; the army does not exceed 4,000 men. The estab lished religion is the Roman Catholic; the number of Jews amounts to 20,000.
Tuscany has been long celebrated for the learned men it has produced: in which respect it is proba bly superior to any other portion of Europe of equal population. It can boast of a long and illus trious list of statuaries, architects, painters, poets, authors historical, literary, scientific, theological. It can boast of the best collections of the fine arts, and the finest specimens of architecture in Europe. The celebrated picture gallery of the De Medicis is well known. Tuscany possesses three universities, those of Florence, Pisa, and Sienna. The number of public libraries is seven, one of them at Florence containing 130,000 volumes, including 11,000 MSS. Elementary schools are in a flourishing state; the Lancastrian mode of tuition has been introduced.
The history of Tuscany can be told in a few words. It long resisted the inroads of the Romans; and it was not conquered by that people till the year of the city 474, or less than three centuries before the christian era. After the fall of the Ro man power, it ryas tributary to Lombardy. During
the contention in the middle ages, Florence, Pisa, and Sienna erected themselves into separate com monwealths. The sovereign power of Florence, and afterwards that of the whole of Tuscany, came into the hands of the Medicis, an illustrious family that first acquired immense wealth by trade, and which, remarkable for literature and taste themselves, knew how to appreciate and reward these distinctions in others. This enlightened family, to whose patron age of the arts and of learning not only Tuscany but Europe are indebted, became extinct in 1737, when by arrangement between France and Austria, the archdutchy was conferred on the duke of Lor raine. Bonaparte deprived this latter family of their territory, which was erected into a monarchy under the name of the kingdom of Etruria, and given to the duke of Parma; it was afterwards de clared an integral part of the French empire. But on the downfall of this ambitious conqueror, it was restored to the family who bad succeeded the Med• leis, and the island of Elba was added to it. (See ELBA.) Ferdinand, a very enlightened prince, was in 1824 succeeded by his son Leopold II., now grand duke of Tuscany.
See the various Travels in Italy, particularly Si mond's Travels in Italy and Sicily; Addison's Re marks on Italy; Eustace's Classical Tour, and Ros coe's Life of Lorenzo de Illedicis.