Excursion to Mirabello.--Beauty of the road thither.--Madame de
R.’s wild-looking niece.--A comfortable Monk’s nest.
Padua, June 19th, 1782.
The morning was delightful, and St. Anthony’s bells in full chime. A
shower which had fallen in the night rendered the air so cool and
grateful, that Madame de R. and myself determined to seize the
opportunity and go to Mirabello, a country house, which Algarotti had
inhabited, situate amongst the Euganean hills, eight or nine miles from
Padua.
Our road lay between poplar alleys and fields of yellow corn, overhung
by garlands of vine, most beautifully green. I soon found myself in the
midst of my favourite hills, upon slopes covered with clover, and shaded
by cherry-trees. Bending down their boughs I gathered the fruit, and
grew cooler and happier every instant.
We dined very comfortably in a strange hall, where my friend’s little
wild-looking niece pitched her pianoforte, and sang the voluptuous airs
of Bertoni’s Armida. That enchantress might have raised her palace in
this situation; and, had I been Rinaldo, I certainly should not very
soon have abandoned it.
After dinner we drank coffee under some branching lemons, which sprang
from a terrace, commanding a boundless scene of towers and villas; tall
cypresses and shrubby hillocks rising, like islands, out of a sea of
corn and vine.
Evening drawing on, and the breeze blowing fresh from the distant
Adriatic, I reclined on a slope, and turned my eyes anxiously towards
Venice; then upon some little fields hemmed in by chesnuts, where the
peasants were making their hay, and, from thence, to a mountain, crowned
by a circular grove of fir and cypress.
In the centre of these shades some monks have a comfortable nest;
perennial springs, a garden of delicious vegetables, and, I dare say, a
thousand luxuries besides, which the poor mortals below never dream of.
Had it not been late, I should certainly have climbed up to the grove,
and asked admittance into its recesses; but having no mind to pass the
night in this eyrie, I contented myself with the distant prospect.