VICE'NZA, the capital of the province of Vicenza in Austrian Italy, is situated in a fine and fertile country on the river Bacchiglione, 30 miles by railway W. from Venice, and has about 33,000 inhabit ants. The city is about three miles in circumference, and is surrounded by walls. It is adorned with many beautiful architectural mansions or palaces, many of which were built by Palladio, a native of the town. The cathedral and other churches of Vicenza are rich in m paintings by native artists, the two Montagnas, Maganas, Zelotti, Andrea Vieentino, Raman°, and others. The Metro Olimpleo, which was not 6nitthed till after Palladio's death, is an imitation of an ancient theatre; it was opened in 15S5 for the performance of the • tEdipas of Sophoclea, translated Into Italian.
Vicenza is a bishop'a see : it has a lyceum with too professore, a gymnasium with fourteen professors, a clerical seminary, and a college fur boarders, a public library of 36,000 volumes and about 200 manu scripts, an orphan asylum, and several hospitals. There are also several private collections of minerals and with which the country abounds. In the Piazza de Signori, a fine square, are two columns, in imitation of those in the Piazza San Marco in 'Venice, and a beautiful campanile 20 feet square and 300 feet high. The remains of antiquity consist of the ruins of a Roman theatre, and some remains of a palace, and three arches of an aqueduct near the village of Olbhs. Niceuza has been long known for its silk manu
factures, whirls are the most important of the kind in the Venetian states. In the neighbourhood of Vicenza is the celebrated Villa Capra, by Palladio, the architecture of which has been imitated for country seats in England and other countries. The church of La Madonna del Monte, upon a hill called Monte Berieo, about a mile out of Vieente, is a celebrated sanctuary. A long covered portico leads up the hill to the church, whence there is a splendid view of the sur rounding country from the Alps to the Adriatic. The church and annexed convent are possessed of some valuable paintings.
Vicentia, or Vicetis, is mentioned by Pliny (' Hist. Nat.,' iii. 23) among the towns of the Veneti. In the middle ages it was for a time a free municipal city ; it became subject to Ezzelino da Romano, and afterwards to the Della Scala, lords of Verona. It afterwards fell under the dominion of Glen Galeazzo Visconti, duke of Milan ; after his death, 1401, the citizens called in the Venetians, who held Vicenza till 1797. [Vextez.] Vieenza had a university in the 13th century, which was frequented chiefly for the study of the canon law. The people of Vicenza are ebaracterised in history as irritable, quarrel some, and prone to revenge. The town was bombarded and taken by the Austrians iu the campaign of 1848.