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us of Padua, not eight years after Harvey left it: ‘There is one special thing wanting in this city, which made me not a little wonder, namely, that frequency of people which I observed in the other Italian cities. For I saw so few people here that I think no city of all Italy, France, or Germany, no, nor of all Christendom, that countervaileth this in quantity, is less peopled.’
But in spite of diminished numbers, the old reputation of the place survived, and its old traditions lingered still about it. We do not forget that it was to Padua the Duke sent for one who could best plead for Antonio, though I fancy none of us regrets the mischance which, instead of the learned Bellario, sent ‘the young doctor of Rome,’ who baffled Shylock, and left to us Englishmen another Shakesperian legacy in Portia.
The old customs had not yet fallen into disuse in Harvey’s time.[1] The medical session began on October 18, the day dedicated to St. Luke, the beloved physician, when all assem-
- ↑ See Statuta Almæ Universitatis Philosophorum et Medicorum, cognomento Artistarum Patavini Gymnasii. Patavii, 4 to. 1607. See p. 77, De Inchoatione Studii.
