particularly well placed at the table d'hôte. Zelphine is not more
fortunate in conversation than Angela, as her neighbor is an Italian
gentleman who, although charmingly polite, is deaf and dumb in every
language save his own. Angela and I have concluded that this Signor
A. is preternaturally dull, as Zelphine can say enough with her eyes
to make most men understand; beside which her adroitly pronounced and
cleverly emphasized French usually appeals to the intelligent Italian
imagination. Occasionally she touches the roses on the table, and
says "Bella," when there follows a rapid flow of conversation on the
part of Signor A., through which Zelphine smiles sweetly. She scored
quite a point this evening when Madame made her appearance, after an
indisposition of a couple of days, and Zelphine bowed in recognition
of the return of our presiding genius, and, turning to her neighbor,
said "Benia." "Benia" may not be the very best Italian equivalent for
"better," but it evidently conveyed Zelphine's idea to Signor A., who
nodded his head in approval and beamed upon her like a sunburst. He has
been her devoted slave ever since, passing everything at his end of the
table to her, evidently quite incapable of helping himself first, and
urging wine upon her until I tremble for her sobriety. Zelphine is of
a yielding nature up to a certain point, of course, beyond which she
is a rock of steadfastness, as Angela and I have learned in the course
of our travels together. We trust that she may discover the rocky side
of her character if Signor A. fills up her glass too often, or makes
her an offer of his heart, his hand, and his fortune. This latter we
are disposed to think is inconsiderable, as one of his chief sources of
revenue is, as we have incidentally gathered, the keeping of Madame's
books.
Angela looks discontentedly at her own insatiable neighbor and then at
Zelphine, so tenderly cared for by hers, and remarks in the crude slang
of the day that "Zelphine has a soft thing of it, all right!"
A blooming widow opposite, with a daughter of twelve at her side,
wastes the sweetness of her smiles upon the unrequiting feminine
company of the pension. The only available man, available, I mean, for
excursions and strolls in the Cascine, left this morning for Venice,
wearing a bright red necktie which the lady has been knitting for days
while he sat by her side in the rose-garden. Angela thought it very
unbecoming, because it did not match his hair exactly, scarlet not
being the color one would choose for a red-haired man, but then our
youngest is overcritical in the matter of color.
Further down the table d'hôte are several widows with daughters, one,
two, or three. Zelphine and I have been wondering when the great
mortality among American men occurred, as most of the women whom
we meet are too young to be relicts of the Civil War. The widow _en
voyage_ with grown daughters is the rule. Some few wives are here who
have husbands at home; the exception is when paterfamilias accompanies
the party, and when he does, I must frankly admit that he looks
excessively bored, especially in picture-galleries.
Sunday, May 9th.
Katharine came in this morning, bright and early, with her hands full
of roses and her head full of plans. She had been modelling steadily
for ten days, and, having reached a convenient stopping-place,
announced her intention of taking a vacation of three days, which she
would be glad to devote to us and our sight-seeing. Would it please
us to go to Fiesole for the day or to Vallombrosa? Zelphine says that
we must see Vallombrosa if we would know something of the beauties
of Paradise in advance. Milton is said to have drawn his description
of the Garden of Eden from the lovely slopes of the Pratomagno. You,
ardent lover of the English classics, may recall a passage in the
first book of "Paradise Lost," in which Milton speaks of Fiesole and
Valdarno, and of
"Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High overarch'd embower."
As Katharine is a delightful cicerone, intelligent and appreciative,
her enthusiasm well balanced by common sense, we were charmed by the
prospect of three days in her good company, and when she asked us
what we would do to-day, I was about to say, properly and politely,
that we would go wherever it would please her to take us; but
Zelphine interposed, and solemnly protested that it would be quite
impossible for her to spend another day in Florence without visiting
the grave of Mrs. Browning. Being of a cheerful temper and not given
to haunting graveyards, Katharine seemed to have a rather vague idea
of the location of the Protestant Cemetery, but she readily consented
to Zelphine's request, and by dint of considerable questioning we
found it. Not an ideal Campo Santo is this, like that at Rome, where
tall cypresses shut it in from the outside world, and where the vast
pyramidal Tomb of Caius Cestius overshadows it grandly. Just outside
the Porta Pinti is this Protestant burial-ground of Florence. The old
walls that once framed it in have been removed, and it now stands in
the midst of dusty highways where noisy trams pass to and fro with
their freight of eager-eyed tourists. Once inside the enclosure, we
found trees and shrubbery, and roses blooming everywhere. Katharine
and Angela stood under a tree to rest beneath its grateful shade,
while Zelphine walked on and on as if drawn by a magnet, I following
her, until we stood before a square marble sarcophagus, simple and
dignified, with the initials E. B. B. on one side and the date June 29,
1861. A cedar-tree stands guard by the poet's grave, one branch leaning
over it protectingly, roses climb all about it, and as we stood there,
silent and reverent, a bird sang from one of the branches overhead,
and, like Browning's "wise thrush," he sang his song
"twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!"
Standing by the grave of the English poetess in the beauty of a May
day, with the blue sky above it, the air filled with the fragrance of
flowers and the songs of birds, it seemed to us that they were wise who
decided that Elizabeth Browning's tomb should be here, in this Italy
that she loved, and among the Florentines who adored her, rather than
in the vast gloom of the abbey where her husband lies and where she is
by right entitled to rest among the great of England.
Two other English poets sleep in this cemetery, Arthur Hugh Clough and
Walter Savage Landor. Landor died in Florence in a house on the Via
Nunziatina, in 1864. As we stood by his grave, Zelphine softly murmured
Swinburne's lovely lines to his brother poet:
"So shall thy lovers, come from far,
Mix with thy name,
As morning-star with evening-star,
His faultless fame."
This afternoon, returning from Katharine's studio, which is beyond the
Porta Romana, as we passed the vast monotonous façade of Palazzo Pitti
and entered the Via Maggio, we were attracted by a tall gray house
with a white tablet above its first-floor windows. "The Casa Guidi!"
exclaimed Zelphine, reading the words in which the Florentines recorded
their love and gratitude to the woman poet who had by her golden ring
of verse linked Italy to England. The well-known lines by the poet
Tommaseo are inscribed in letters of gold upon the marble tablet, in
Italian of course, but I am quite sure that Zelphine could read an
inscription to the Brownings in Hindustani. After lingering long before
the windows of the _primo piano_, which will always be associated with
the Brownings, we walked around the corner to the Piazza Santa Felicità
and looked up at the terrace where Mrs. Browning spent so many days,
and up and down which she described her husband as walking with the
third Browning in his arms.
I must frankly confess that we were disappointed in the terrace, as we
had expected to see one of the charming garden terraces, adorned with
blooming plants and even trees, in which the Italians delight to find
rest and seclusion above the noise and dirt of the street; instead
we saw only a balcony overhanging the piazza, with a few straggling
plants in pots. So small is this balcony that Mr. Browning's goodly
proportions must have filled all the available space, even if it was
quite large enough for the fairy-like lady who sat there through long
summer days. Do you remember that she wrote to Miss Mitford that she
was so happy despite the intense heat that she could quite comprehend
the possibility of St. Lawrence's ecstasies on a gridiron? In another
letter Mrs. Browning wrote, "Here we can step out of the window on a
sort of balcony terrace which is quite private, and swims over with
moonlight in the evenings, and as we live upon watermelons, iced
water, and figs, and all manner of fruit, we bear the heat with angelic
patience and felicity which are really edifying."
It is not strange that, with new happiness and renewed health,
everything in Florence was glorified to Mrs. Browning, and that the
Casa Guidi apartment, with its windows looking out upon the Pitti
Palace on one side and on the other "toward the gray wall of a church,
called San Felice, for good omen," seemed a bit of Paradise.
Near the Casa Guidi are several classic spots. On the right of the Via
Maggio at the corner of the Via Marsili is the house where Bernardo
Buontalenti lived when the great Tasso came from Ferrara to embrace
him and thank him for the beautiful scenery painted by him which had
contributed so much to the success of his "Aminta." The story runs, as
told by Baldinucci, that after thanking Buontalenti and kissing him on
the neck and forehead Tasso mounted his horse and rode away, leaving
the painter as amazed as if he had beheld a vision from the world of
spirits.
A little way beyond on the same street is the house of Bianca Capello,
from whose windows her delicate, fascinating face looked forth for
men's undoing. Whether or not Bianca looked out from these windows "to
see the Duke go by," as Mrs. Browning says, it was from her balcony
here that she attracted the admiration of her first husband, Pietro
Bonaventuri, with whom she eloped, and near this house he was murdered
to give place to a princely suitor. The story of Bianca's marriage
with the Grand Duke Francesco, of which we found accounts in several
books at the all-embracing Vieusseux's, reads like a chapter of the
"Arabian Nights." Never, surely, were wrong-doing and shame so gilded
and glorified!--gilded literally, as the bodies of men and women were
painted with gold that they might represent the deities of Olympus
in the nuptial procession of Bianca, whose own car was drawn by real
lions, while to other chariots were harnessed horses and buffaloes
dressed in the skins of wild animals to represent griffins, unicorns,
and elephants.
At the corner of the Via Toscanella an old wall marks the site of "the
darksome, sad, and silent house" where Boccaccio lived and wrote.
As we regained the Piazza Pitti and turned for one more look at the
Casa Guidi windows, Angela was indiscreet enough to say what I had
been thinking all the time: "After all, it does not look much like
a palace, although Mrs. Browning dated some of her letters from the
Palazzo Guidi. It's just like an ordinary apartment-house." Zelphine
vouchsafed no word in reply to this irreverent criticism, but with a
withering glance at Angela strode before us along the Via Guicciardini
and across the Ponte Vecchio, her head in the air and her thoughts
doubtless "commencing with the skies," which were of Italy's bluest
this evening. The emotions of the day had evidently been quite too much
for Zelphine. She left us abruptly after dinner, and shut herself up
in her own room, "to think great thoughts," Angela said, while we more
practical travellers turned to our Hare and our Baedeker to plan out a
campaign for to-morrow.
I forgot to tell you that we went across the river this afternoon to
the little American Church on the Piazza del Carmine, where there was
a short service, after which we had quite enough daylight to study
Masaccio's interesting frescoes in the Cappella Brancacci of the Church
of the Carmine near by. There is something intensely realistic and
hopelessly sad in Masaccio's Expulsion from Paradise. Here despair
and anguish are portrayed in every feature and line; our first parents
really suffer, as Masaccio represents them being driven by an avenging
angel from the Paradise in which, according to Filippino Lippi's panel
near by, they seem to have lived in a placid and rather dull content
before the Fall.
Angela reminds me of the lateness of the hour and of our early start
for Vallombrosa to-morrow, whither we have elected to spend two of
Katharine's holidays, thus breaking through our resolve at the very
start, you see, and leaving Florence for two whole days; but as you are
already familiar with my sentiments on the subject of changes of plans,
I offer no apology, especially as Katharine says that one really cannot
do justice to Vallombrosa in a hurried day's journey.
XV
AN EARTHLY PARADISE
HOTEL CROCE DI SAVOIA,
VALLOMBROSA, May 10th.
The day has been spent in driving, walking, and climbing hills, yet we
seem to feel no fatigue, so invigorating is this air, "mountain air,
sheathed in Italian sunshine," as Mrs. Browning aptly described it.
Vallombrosa is three thousand feet above Florence--small wonder that
we have been ascending skyward since we drove away from Pelago this
morning!
Zelphine's pet project was to stop over night at the hermitage of Il
Paradisino, which is on a rock more than two hundred feet above the old
monastery of Vallombrosa; but here again Katharine's common sense stood
us in good stead. The inn at Il Paradisino is, she says, wretchedly
kept, so we have adopted her plan and are spending the night here in
comfort. We climbed up to the hermitage and chapel this evening for the
sunset view of the valley of the Arno, in which Florence lies. In the
far distance we could see the strangely indented line of the mountains
of Carrara, with Mount Cimone, and other remote peaks of the Apennines.
Zelphine found a copy of Mrs. Browning's letters _chez_ Vieusseux, that
good friend of all English-speaking travellers. We have brought the
first volume with us, and are thus enjoying, in Mrs. Browning's good
company, the charms of this region which she described so vividly.
Although we did not set out from Pelago at four in the morning, nor
journey in a sledge drawn by white oxen, but in a carriage, even in
this less picturesque conveyance we felt that we were ascending the
heights of Paradise, and were awed into silence by the rugged grandeur
of the scenery, the hills with their heads among the clouds, the dense
pine forests and the beech and chestnut woods hanging from the mountain
sides. We were at times reminded of Switzerland, although some of our
fellow-travellers found a stronger likeness to Norway in the black
ravines, gurgling waters, and mountain torrents; but alas and alas! as
we drew near the summit, instead of Milton's
"Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view,"
we found that most of the fine trees which once adorned the ascent
had been ruthlessly destroyed. They tell us that a public-spirited and
beauty-loving Englishman offered to pay a fair price for some of the
goodliest trees if they might only be left standing in their places;
but the offer was refused, and the vandalism continues. How you will
mourn these noble trees when you come here!--feeling, as you do, that
the wanton destruction of trees is a crime near to that of homicide in
the category of sins. Yet, in the midst of this wholesale destruction,
a school has been established for the training of foresters. It is
to be hoped that this Foresteria, which occupies the old monastery
buildings, may disseminate so much light that in the future trees may
be preserved as well as planted. We were told that thousands of trees
had been planted within a short time.
With the suppression of the monastery many of the characteristic
features of Vallombrosa have disappeared, and so we may not see the
place as the Brownings saw it when they came here in the summer of
1847. Do you remember how they were ingloriously expelled from the
monastery at the end of five days, as Mrs. Browning says, "by a little
holy abbot with a red face, who was given to sanctity and had set his
face against women"? We could well understand what it would have been
to those lovers of nature to spend two months, as they had planned, in
the midst of the majestic beauty of this mountain paradise. We long
inexpressibly to stay a week here and then take a couple of days for
La Verna, where again one comes upon footprints of St. Francis and his
brothers, but we all learned from our school copybooks that "time and
tide wait for no man," and we have promised to be in Florence to-morrow
night to meet Bertha and Mrs. Robins, who are to join us in a trip to
the Certosa on the following day. Zelphine and I make solemn vows,
as we have done in many other entrancing spots, that we will return
to Vallombrosa some day and stay as long as we wish. These resolves
comfort us, and yet--and yet--do we ever have "the time and the place
and the loved one all together," especially the time? To-morrow we
shall be up betimes to enjoy the early morning view from Il Paradisino,
with the clouds rolling away beneath our feet to show us once again
the dome of our beloved Santa Maria del Fiore above the shoulder of a
hill, a sight which it is worth while climbing mountains to see, and
if the day is fine, and here days usually are fine, we may even catch
a glimpse of the glistening sea beyond Florence and its hills.
PENSION C., FLORENCE, May 12th.
We found Ludovico's cards on our return from Vallombrosa. He had come
quite unexpectedly on military business, so he says, for of course
he returned later in the evening and we had a long talk with him.
He proposes to act as our guide here, as in the old Roman days, and
is planning a number of delightful excursions for us. As the sun is
very hot now we are glad to spend our mornings in the galleries and
churches, which are delightfully cool.
This morning, to our surprise, and also, I think, to Ludovico's,
the Marquis de B. appeared. He also has come upon military business,
being in the army, like most young Italians of good family. Indeed,
as Ludovico ingenuously remarked, the other day, "There is nothing
else for us to do, unless we go into the Church or marry an American
heiress; and neither of these," with perfect sang-froid and not a trace
of embarrassment, "is to my taste."
Although there is nothing in the least alarming in the appearance of
these sons of Mars, I must confess that their arrival has filled me
with misgivings. Ludovico still bears himself with the air of frank
camaraderie that charmed us when we first met him. The Marquis is
formality itself, his manners simply perfection as such; what lies
beyond and beneath an exterior so impressive I have never been clever
enough to discover. Both of these young men address much of their
conversation to Zelphine and me, after the polite Continental fashion,
yet neither one misses a glance or a movement of Angela's, and they
both furtively watch each other. It is interesting and exciting, and
would be amusing were I not the chaperon and temporary guardian of this
apparently unconscious charmer.
It is not easy for such good Americans as we are to adapt our tongues
to foreign titles, and for some inexplicable reason "marquis" is much
more difficult for us "to handle," as Angela says, than "count," and
the Italian "marchese" is quite impossible. Ludovico has relieved our
embarrassment by telling us that it is quite immaterial whether we
call his friend "marquis" or "count," as they have both titles in his
family, and several others beside.
This morning we spent in the Church of San Lorenzo, where the first
Cosimo de' Medici is buried. In one of the chapels are some statuettes
by Donatello and in the other the world-famous Medici tombs, the
thoughtful Lorenzo, the most expressive of all marbles, and beneath
him, the Dawn and Twilight, the former the finest of the four statues,
the effort of waking from sleep being plainly revealed in every line.
The narrow niches in which these masterpieces are placed are so out of
all proportion to their size and grandeur that, as Ludovico pointed
out to us, they seem to be slipping off the pitiable pedestals which
support them. Do you remember what Ruskin said of these impressive
figures? To him they spoke "not of morning nor evening, but of the
departure and the resurrection, the twilight and the dawn of the souls
of men." Zelphine and I think that those few lines give the _motif_
of the statues better than any of the elaborate descriptions that have
been written about them.
May 13th.
Ludovico and Count B. accompanied us to-day on our morning stroll
through the galleries. Ludovico has the excellent taste in art that
seems born in these Latins, and draws our attention to the best
pictures in each gallery without recourse to guide or catalogue.
Count B. doubtless has good taste also, but it is not in the line of
antiques at present, as he seldom withdraws his eyes from Angela's
face, except when she expresses admiration or asks him some question,
when he reveals his knowledge of Florentine history and tradition by
long, erudite, and somewhat tiresome explanations. This morning when
I expressed my preference for the Raphael Madonnas over and above all
others, the Count delivered himself quite sententiously of Vasari's
opinion of Andrea del Sarto's work, especially of the Madonna del
Sacco, which we saw again yesterday at the Annunziata, that "for
drawing, grace, and beauty of color, for liveliness and relief, no
artist had ever done the like," after which he repeated Vasari's story
of Michael Angelo writing to Raphael that there was "a certain sorry
little scrub of a painter going about the streets of Florence who
would bring the sweat to his [Raphael's] brow, if he had his chance."
You know the tale; Browning refers to it in his "Andrea del Sarto."
The Count told this story with a glint of humor in his handsome eyes
that I have never seen there before. Zelphine says that I am not quite
just to Count B. I am willing to admit that he is taller and handsomer
than Ludovico and has more the air of a _grand seigneur_; but then I
like Ludovico far better, and no matter what the Count says or whom he
quotes to support his arguments in favor of the Del Sarto Madonnas, for
tenderness and motherliness we must always come back to the Raphaels.
Our two companions found us this morning lingering before the lovely
Madonna with the Cardinal-bird, which in its sweetness and domesticity
is, I think, only equalled by the Belle Jardinière of the Louvre.
Zelphine agrees with the Count in his estimate of Del Sarto, but Angela
and Ludovico are quite in sympathy with me in their loyalty to Raphael.
When the work of both these great masters is so supremely beautiful, it
seems absurd to be discussing their comparative merits so hotly. Which
side would you take, I wonder?
We crossed the Arno by the picture-gallery of the Ponte Vecchio, a
passageway lined with portraits of dead-and-gone kings and queens,
dukes and princesses, many of these latter proud Spanish ladies with
whom the crafty lords of Tuscany allied themselves. How luxurious
and beauty-loving were those Medici princes! Not content with a
noble gallery of paintings on each side of the river, Cosimo spanned
the distance between them with a third, having already turned the
Florentine butchers out of the lower part of the Ponte Vecchio and
given their stalls to goldsmiths, whose successors still display their
wares here. Half-way across we stopped before the large windows cut in
the sides of the bridge, which frame in a fine view of the heights of
San Miniato upon one side and on the other of the windings of the Arno
and the Cascine with its trees and shrubbery. From the bridge, by many
stairs, we reached the vast salons of the Pitti Palace, which contain
priceless treasures of art with which photographs and engravings have
made us all familiar. We passed from one glorious Raphael to another,
pausing before a superb Del Sarto or Murillo in a state of rapturous
delight, until, as we stood before Fra Bartolommeo's Marriage of St.
Catherine of Siena, beautiful in composition, drawing, and relief, a
pleasant English voice at our side said, "Rather nice, is it not?"
We turned to see a fresh-faced girl, who addressed this remark to the
typical John Bull _en voyage_. We waited, like her, for the reply which
came slowly, in a gruff voice.
"Yes, rather. A pastel?"--and in just such a tone as one might have
spoken of a chromo. An Englishwoman standing near, from the London
cockney district but evidently with an appreciation of art, looked
at the girl compassionately, and ejaculated, "Poor lidy!" Whether
the pitying tone was in consequence of the girl's art-limitations or
because the pretty creature was the bride of the dull, red-faced giant,
with whom she walked away, hand in hand, we shall never know, for just
at this moment we heard a clock striking one. How the morning had sped
away!
"It will be quite impossible to get back to the pension in time for
luncheon," said Angela. Upon which Count B., with elaborate courtesy,
begged us to honor him by breakfasting with him in a little garden-café
near the entrance to the Boboli Gardens. The luncheon had all been
ordered in advance, this being, as we afterwards discovered, a cleverly
arranged plan of the Count's and Ludovico's, and there was nothing to
do but accept the invitation as graciously as it was given.