table was a dream of beauty, covered with exquisite flowers, sparkling
glass and silver, and, not less important to hungry sight-seers, the
menu was delicious. It was all like a fairy feast to which we had
been bidden by Prince Charming himself. Zelphine said she would not be
surprised to see a white cat or a genie appear at any moment.
"Priest and book are what we are in more danger of than white cat
or genie," I whispered, as I bent over the table to admire some rare
lilies that adorned its centre.
I feel as if a spell of enchantment were being spread around Angela's
path, and yet she talks and laughs and is as free as air, never by word
or look revealing which of her suitors she prefers, or whether she has
a penchant for either. The modern girl is a study, as you well know,
and Angela is not the least interesting one that I have met.
After luncheon the Count proposed that we should stroll over to the
Boboli Gardens. Here in one of the marvellous pergolas, where, by the
careful clipping and training of the ilexes, a refreshing twilight
shade is to be found at high noon, we sought refuge from the scorching
heat of the sun. Again it appeared that our host's thoughtful care had
preceded us, as camp-chairs awaited us in this green bower, and here
coffee and ices were served to us as if by magic, which we enjoyed
in the coolness of our pergola, from which we looked forth upon the
terraces beneath us, where the horse-chestnuts are covered with pink
feathery bloom, and upon the old amphitheatre, the fountain, and the
"cyclopean massiveness" of the walls of the great Palazzo Pitti.
The amphitheatre was filled with children at play and nurses with
babies, as it always is on the free days at the Boboli.
"Why are the boys catching so many crickets and putting them in cages?"
asked Angela of Ludovico.
For several days we have noticed the children in the Cascine busily
engaged in catching crickets, on the grass and among the bushes. Some
of the boys go off with dozens of them, sometimes in large cages, but
more frequently in a number of pretty little cages of wire or wood, all
strung on a stick, a single cricket in each one.
"Yes," added Zelphine, "what is the meaning of all this catching of
crickets?"
"For Grilli Day, of course," said Ludovico, laughing heartily at the
idea of our not knowing anything so well known. "On the feast of the
Ascension, to-morrow, you will see what the boys do with the _grilli_,
and you will be buying _grilli_ like the rest."
"And why should I buy crickets," asked Angela, "especially as I don't
like them at all?"
"For luck, of course, signorina; everybody buys the _grilli_ for luck."
And then Ludovico sang, in his light, gay Italian fashion but in a
voice in which a minor chord seemed to dominate the gay notes:
"'Grillo, mio grillo!
Si tu vo' moglie dillo!'"
To our surprise, the Count joined in Ludovico's song, in a rich bass
voice that resounded through the little pergola and brought a crowd of
urchins to our retreat with their hands full of _grilli_ in cages. The
Count laughed good-humoredly, and presented each one of us with a caged
_grillo_, saying, "For luck, ladies; if the _grilli_ live, the luck
will be good; if not," with a shrug, "it may be good all the same."
He then insisted that Angela should buy him a _grillo_ in a cage, which
she did laughingly, but which he received quite seriously, looking as
if he intended to guard it with his life.
Zelphine, her thirst for knowledge still unsatisfied, asked for
information as to the origin of this curious custom.
"It is a custom of great antiquity," replied Ludovico, which, as we
have learned by experience, is his method of silencing troublesome
American questions that he is unable to answer. The Count, who appeared
to be in an especially genial mood, then told us many stories and
legends about the _grilli_, in which fairies and princesses figured
quite prominently and goodness was rewarded and wickedness punished
after the charmingly judicial fashion of fairyland. One of the
prettiest of these tales we found afterwards in Mr. Leland's "Legends
of Florence," in the form of a poem called "The King of the Crickets."
About four o'clock a delightful breeze sprang up, and Ludovico proposed
that we drive to San Miniato. The suggestion was made apparently on
the spur of the moment, and yet when we descended from our airy height
to the street below, carriages were awaiting us, not ordinary cabs but
fairy coaches fit for princesses.
The drive through the Porta Romana and along the hillside road of Le
Colle was enchanting. The church which Michael Angelo called "La Bella
Villanella" is beautiful in its simplicity. After we had admired _some_
of the frescoes on the walls--not all of them--and the exquisitely
wrought marble screen and pulpit, and explored the crypt with its
twenty-eight columns, we were glad to go out upon the marble steps
and enjoy from thence the view of Florence in the distance, and the
intervening hills covered with olive-groves and vineyards. Count B.,
who had lingered with Angela in the lovely cypress avenue that leads
to the church, joined us on the terrace and took us back into the nave
to show us the chapel tomb of young Cardinal Jacopo of the royal house
of Portugal, with its beautiful low reliefs by Luca della Robbia.
Descanting eloquently upon the virtues and charity of the Portuguese
cardinal, who died at an early age, Count B. led us down the steps
of the church and out upon the Piazza Michelangelo, where the David
stands, as best becomes him, _en plein air_. You know that the original
marble, of which this is an admirable copy in bronze, was sculptured
for the Piazza della Signoria. It is now carefully guarded from the
elements in the Belle Arti. This noble figure is the embodiment of
glorious, inextinguishable youth and strength, and is to me the most
inspiring of Michael Angelo's statues.
Zelphine and I walked around the piazza to view the statue from all
sides, while Count B. and Ludovico took turns in trying to keep the
sun off Angela, whose complexion seems to require unusual care in these
days!
"Is there any other American girl who could resist all this devotion
and a title to crown it?" asked Zelphine.
"You seem to have decided this important question for Angela," said
I. "What makes you think that she will turn a deaf ear to Prince
Charming's suit?"
"I cannot say just why. Angela is charmingly polite and appreciative,
and yet----"
At this moment, having suddenly recalled the fact that we existed,
Ludovico came over to point out to us the beauty of the Duomo from this
hill-top, Giotto's pink tower glowing to rose in the warm sunset light.
Ludovico looks rather sad and distrait, to my thinking; his views may
differ from Zelphine's, whose "and yet--" may be variously construed by
the three onlookers who anxiously await developments.
Ascension Day, otherwise Grilli Day.
Zelphine and Angela, with the two cavaliers of the party, started off
early this morning in a great stage-coach to breakfast _al fresco_
in some pretty garden after the Florentine fashion. The idea of a
festival here seems to be to breakfast or to dine anywhere in space
except at home; consequently all Florence seems to be breakfasting
abroad. The little dairies in and about the Cascine are surrounded by
so many tables filled with family parties and gaily dressed folk that
they look like huge bouquets of many-colored flowers. It is delightful
to see people take their pleasure after so natural and simple a
fashion as they do in these Latin countries. To be out of doors, with
ever so simple a menu before them, seems to make a _festa_ for these
light-hearted people.
Although I admire the Florentine custom, I was glad to stay at home
to-day to write letters and to sit in the Cascine, as I am doing this
minute, where the great trees spread "their webs of full greenery"
above me and the children are playing all around on the grass.
I was rejoicing in the beauty and restfulness of this lovely spot,
having up to this time escaped the vendors of _grilli_, when several
boys approached me with their crickets in especially pretty cages.
"Quanto?" I asked, pointing to a dainty wire cage. "Una lira," was
the reply. This was too much by half, and having managed to reduce
the price to the proper sum, I handed the boy a lira, and waited for
the change with the cage in my hand. The small salesman seemed to have
considerable difficulty in finding the desired change, turned out his
pockets, questioned his companions, and finally rubbed his eyes hard
and began to weep piteously. At this moment a policeman appeared, and
asked the boy what troubled him, when he, accomplished actor that he
was, pointed to the cage in my hand, and explained that I had taken
his wares and not paid him the half lira demanded. To prove this he
pointed to his empty pockets. What he had done with my lira, whether
he had swallowed it or deposited it with a confederate, I know not.
The policeman, looking very stern, asked me for an explanation, which
I gave in the best Italian that I could muster, feeling quite sure
that had Zelphine been there, her ready tongue and eloquent gestures
would have convinced that distrustful policeman of my innocence. An
Englishwoman who had witnessed the transaction approached, and gave in
her testimony in much better Italian than mine, all to no purpose.
By this time quite a crowd had gathered around us, all deeply
interested. The boy, encouraged by a sympathetic audience, wept
copiously and repeated his tale of woe; the big policeman looked at
me threateningly. My English ally repeated her explanation, and seeing
that it made no impression, and the lira not being in the boy's hands,
she whispered to me, "You had better pay him again for the cage; the
policeman is evidently on the boy's side, and between them they may
make a disagreeable scene for you." "Never," I replied, resolutely,
"but he shall have his cage again," handing it to the little gamin,
saying, "I have paid for it twice already, but you may have it."
The scene was already sufficiently disagreeable, and, supported by
my English friend, I made my way to another part of the Cascine, with
visions of a Florentine court and jail floating through my mind.
"That is one of the stock tricks of these gamins," she explained. "It
would have been all right if you had given him the half lira at once,
but with the whole lira in his hand there came the temptation to keep
it all. These people see so little money, a lira is quite a fortune to
them."
The _grilli_ had certainly brought me no luck, and I now carefully
avoid looking at a cage, although I do want one of the pretty little
wire ones to take home with me. Perhaps Ludovico will get me one. When
he joined me later and heard of my experience, he was so indignant that
if he could have laid hands on that small actor it is doubtful whether
his histrionic powers would have been allowed to develop to maturity.
The humor of the situation did not appeal to him, as it did to Angela
and Zelphine.
May 16th.
As Ludovico and Count B. do not speak of leaving Florence soon, we
conclude that the military affairs that keep them here must be of a
rather protracted nature. They do not, however, complain of the delay,
nor do we. To be escorted by two devoted cavaliers through palaces and
villas and gardens of delight is an experience that one might wish to
prolong indefinitely. Halcyon days are these, truly, and if storms and
rain come, it is only at night, as we awake each morning to find the
sun shining upon the rose-garden beneath our windows and a new day of
pleasure beckoning us on.
We have had some charming afternoons in the villas near Florence.
Yesterday we went to Sesto in a tram that starts from the Piazza del
Duomo, and from Sesto a short walk brought us to Castello. This royal
villa, which once belonged to the Medici, is full of family portraits,
and some of its beautiful rooms look really home-like--"as if one
could live in them," Angela said, which remark seemed greatly to amuse
Count B., who has, I fancy, spent all his days in such cold, formal
apartments as are to be found in most of these palaces. It was in the
gardens, however, that we were tempted to linger. Those of Castello are
elaborately laid out and adorned with fountains and statues, and now
with the orange and lemon trees in blossom are filled with delicious
fragrance. We stopped so long on the terrace under the great ilexes
and beeches that the twilight had begun to fall and the nightingales
to sing before we started homeward. _Usignuoli_ Ludovico calls these
birds of the night. He and the Count were so pleased with Zelphine's
delight over Castello and its nightingales that they insisted upon
taking us this afternoon to Petraja, an even more elaborate villa on
the heights above Castello. In this villa, which is on the southern
slope of the Apennines, Scipione Ammirato wrote his celebrated history
of Florence. In the last century Petraja was elaborately fitted up by
Victor Emmanuel II. for Madame Mirafiore, for which reason, probably,
it has not been a favorite residence of the royal family of Italy,
and its lovely gardens and terraces are enjoyed only by tourists and
occasional visitors.
XVI
FIESOLE
FIESOLE, Tuesday, May 17th.
We women, in the absence of our cavaliers, who will be away for two
days upon some special military service, have planned to spend a day
in fairyland and an evening in Bohemia. Is not that a sufficiently
sensational beginning to please one of our own newspapers at home? This
morning, Bertha and Mrs. Robins having joined us, we all set forth in
a tram from the Piazza della Signoria for Fiesole. Half-way up the
hillside we stopped at the Domenico, where Fra Angelico lived as a
monk, gathering here, as one of his brothers relates, "in abundance
the flowers of art which he seemed to have plucked from Paradise."
One of the richest of these treasures, the Coronation of the Virgin,
has been carried away to the Louvre, but there is still in the choir
of the Domenico a lovely memorial of him--a Virgin Enthroned between
St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist. Behind the group
are five guardian angels with tributes of flowers in their hands.
This and a Baptism of Christ, by Lorenzo di Credi, are the treasures
of the Domenico. We stopped at La Badia and enjoyed the fine view
from its terrace, and walked slowly past the Villa Landore, now shut
in by tall cypresses, where Walter Savage Landor once lived. Here
in these beautiful grounds described by Boccaccio in his "Valley of
Ladies," surrounded by his little children and his many pets, Porigi
the house-dog, the cat Cincirillo, whose original sin showed itself in
a decided taste for birds, the tame martin, and the leveret, Landor
spent the most peaceful years of a life that was far from happy.
"Aerial Fiesole" he might well name this lovely hillside garden, in
which he promised Mr. Francis Hare and his bride "grapes, figs, and
nightingale concerts galore." At the Medici Villa, a favorite residence
of Lorenzo the Magnificent, we admired once again the unerring taste of
old Cosimo, who chose for a summer residence this favorite spot which
overhangs Florence. Brunelleschi's superb dome, Giotto's belfry, Santa
Maria Novella, beautiful as a bride, Santa Croce, San Marco, and San
Spirito, all stood out in fairy-like beauty this lovely May morning.
After stopping at the cathedral on the Piazza of Fiesole, and at Santa
Maria Primerana to look at a tabernacle by one of the Della Robbias
and a painting by Andrea da Fiesole, Angela insisted that we had done
our whole duty as sight-seers and might now begin to enjoy ourselves
in earnest. To this Bertha heartily agreed, suggesting that as we had
come to Fiesole for a day of rest and recreation in the open, we should
lunch on the terrace of the little hotel, and spend the afternoon in
the ancient theatre.
We have learned in Florence, even better than in vast Rome, whose
historic past appealed to us so insistently on all sides, that it is
not in the galleries and churches, interesting as they are, that we
find the most pleasure, but in the market-places and on the streets,
with their chatter and life, or in sitting, as we sat to-day, on
the hotel terrace, with the fertile plain spread before us and the
garden at our feet, in which the peasants were singing at their tasks.
Beyond are villa-dotted hills, and still beyond, the chain of distant
mountains veiled in purple light, which melts into the azure sky with
an indescribable charm of its own.
Florence is on the other side of Fiesole, and from the terrace we had
a rural view, with nothing but hill, valley, and mountain, excepting
the villas, of course, among these Vincigliata, which Katharine says
we must see if we would know what a castle of the middle ages is like.
Vincigliata is built on the ruins of a castle of the Bisdomini, and
contains great collections of ancient furniture and armor. We shall
drive out to Vincigliata in a coach and four some day, as this is a
favorite afternoon excursion from the Pension C.
Having finished our luncheon, which was quite Italian and really
delicious, we strolled down to the old amphitheatre, where we sit on
the stone seats and look away toward Florence while Mrs. Robins reads
to us Browning's "Old Pictures in Florence" and "Andrea del Sarto,"
both poems so full of the atmosphere of the beautiful city.
The other day when we were at the Annunziata, at the corner of the
Via della Mandorla, we saw the little house where Andrea and his fair
and false Lucrezia sat in the evenings and looked over toward "yonder
sober, pleasant Fiesole." We seem to see the old-world pair sitting
there
"Inside that melancholy little house
We built to be so gay with,"
Andrea with the face of an artist and dreamer, a trifle weak withal,
and she with the
"Perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,
And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird
The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare."
How beautiful this Lucrezia was we know from many a picture of
Andrea's. Zelphine and I think that the Madonna del Sacco must have
been likest to her. The superb beauty of flesh and blood, line and
color, so satisfies us that we do not miss the soul that seems to have
been wanting in the original; or did Andrea, artist-like, give to the
pictured Lucrezia graces with which his imagination endowed her? We
hope so, for if he saw her as Browning represents her in his poem, he
must have been indeed the most unhappy of men.
While I write, Angela and Zelphine try to get snap-shots of us as we
sit under the trees, and Katharine warns us that we shall soon have
to turn our faces homeward, if we wish to be in time for the dinner in
Bohemia to which she invites us.
PENSION C., Tuesday Evening.
Our evening in Bohemia was, in its way, quite as much of a success
as the day in fairyland. Katharine conducted us through winding
streets, whose twistings and turnings we shall never be able to follow
without Ariadne's thread, to a café in a cellar, where artists most
do congregate. A friend of Katharine's, an exceedingly pretty and
vivacious Englishwoman, joined us at table, and amused us very much by
telling us that she had sometimes been taken for an American and was
said to talk like an American, which evidently pleased her very much.
Did I think so? I laughed, and said that she would have to talk many
different ways in order to verify the description, as that was a part
of our infinite variety. She said that she had recently met a unique
American man.
"Why unique?" asked Bertha.
"In being selfish," was the prompt reply. "All the American men I
had met before were unselfish, chivalrous, ready to do anything and
everything for the comfort and pleasure of the women of their party;
but this man, this unique specimen, seemed to forget that we existed."
Now was not that a pleasant hearing, and are you not proud of the
reputation of your compatriots?
While we were discussing national traits the cook, in white cap and
apron, was broiling our beefsteak and cooking vegetables over his
little charcoal fire; these he served to us smoking hot and delicious.
The wine was brought on the table in a huge bottle, which was weighed
before and afterwards, like the unfortunates who are fattened on
cereals and predigested foods, with this difference, that the bottle
lost in weight instead of gaining, and we paid for the shortage. We had
an _omelette soufflée_ of the lightest for our dessert, after which a
man in a white paper cap handed around a tray of sweets, all manner of
delicious confections on sticks, for each of which we paid one soldo.
It was all delightfully novel and Bohemian, and as we strolled home by
the Arno, with the sound of its rushing water in our ears, its shining
breast gleaming like silver in the moonlight, we sang old songs, like
college-girls, and were so happy that one drop more would have caused
our cup of content to overflow in tears--and if tears had been shed
it would have been because some of those we care for were not here
to share with us the pleasure of this day of days and this night of
perfect beauty.
May 18th.
If we think of Dante and Savonarola as we cross the Piazza of the
Signoria and walk through the narrow winding streets that lead from it,
every old building and quaint corner recalls some line or verse of the
Brownings, husband or wife. In the Via Belle Donne we naturally thought
of them, as it was in this little street, which opens into the Piazza
di Santa Maria Novella, that the poet lovers first made their home, and
in the Cascine, where we saw some of the lovely Florentine beauties,
as Mrs. Browning described them, "lean and melt to music as the band
plays," and above all at the Belvedere, that crowns the many terraces
of the Boboli Gardens, from which height Florence, with her domes and
towers and palaces, framed in by hills of blue velvet, answers to the
poet's own picture of the beautiful city, and
"Of golden Arno, as it shoots away
Through Florence' heart beneath her bridges four!"
To-day has been devoted to Browning pilgrimages. An American woman
at our table rashly asserted that Mr. Browning had made a mistake
in his "Statue and the Bust" by placing the lady with the "pale brow
spirit-pure" at the window of the Riccardi Palace, as it would be quite
impossible for the great Duke Ferdinand to look up from the Piazza
of the Annunziata at the casement of the Palazzo Riccardi, now the
Prefettura, which is way over on the Piazza San Lorenzo. This statement
may seem to you a trifle confusing; but it was sufficiently clear to
rouse Zelphine's ire, and after breakfast we set forth determined to
clear up the seeming inconsistency. In the Piazza of the Annunziata
Duke Ferdinand still "rides by with the royal air," as John of Bologna
has represented him, "in subtle mould of brazen shape," his face turned
directly toward the one window of the palace, from which a terra-cotta
bust should look forth.
"This all answers perfectly to the description," said Angela, "except
that there is no bust of the lady at the casement; it seems as if Mr.
Browning had made a mistake this time. I really don't care very much,
but I can't stand having that flippant, red-haired woman get the better
of you, Z."
"She shall not," said Zelphine, with determination in every line of her
lithe figure. "Vieusseux to the rescue!"
Zelphine set forth to gain what information might be had from the
library shelves, while Angela and I crossed over to the Piazza San
Lorenzo, and spent a delightful hour in studying the wonderful frescoes
that adorn the chapel of the debatable Palazzo Riccardi.
Here is that most remarkable procession of the Magi winding along a
rocky hillside, the perspective of the most original character: Cosimo,
Pater Patriæ, well in the foreground, the Three Kings represented by
the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Emperor of the East, and, youngest
of the three, Lorenzo the Magnificent, on a white charger. You know
the painting well, but no photograph can give you any conception of the
richness of color and exquisite details of this impossible, fairy-like
landscape, in which distant mountains, hovering angels, birds, beasts,
and flowers unknown to this lower world, add to the variety and charm
of Gozzoli's great work. It is of this fresco that Mr. Ruskin wrote,
"Bright birds hover here and there in the serene sky, and groups of
angels, hand joined with hand and wing with wing, glide and float
through the glades of the unentangled forest."