SUMMER OF 1847—FLORENCE, VILLA CAREGGI
On our arrival in Florence, we took up our abode on the north side of
the Arno, in the same house with our friends the de Fauveaus, and many a
delightful hour did I pass in Félicie’s studio, watching her beautiful
work with deep interest, and sometimes reading aloud to her the works of
our best authors, for she was as good an English scholar as I was,
although she could not often be tempted to converse in our language. But
we did not stay long under the same roof, for it had been arranged that
our summer should be spent in Villeggiatura.
Lord Holland, who then possessed the beautiful villa of Careggi de
Medici, in the immediate neighbourhood of Florence, kindly placed it at
my mother’s disposition for the summer months of the year 1847, and when
I look back upon the time we passed there, a dream of beauty, peace and
happiness rises up before me, surrounded by the golden haze of memory
and regret. The villa, which is in itself a palace, is situated in a
charming garden, and the interior contains spacious and lofty
apartments, and, at the time of which I am speaking, had just been
embellished by frescoes from the master hand of our countryman George
Watts, the illustrious Academician. One in particular, at the entrance
of the villa, attracted especial notice. It represented the attack made
by the servants of Lorenzo the Magnificent on the physician who attended
their beloved master in his last hours, and whom they suspected of
wilful neglect, or culpable designs on the life of the august prince.
The moment chosen by the painter was that in which the retainers seized
upon the medical attendant and ruthlessly cast him into the well, which
then still existed in the court of the villa. The artist in question, a
friend of Lord Holland, was a resident of Careggi when we arrived and
most unwillingly drove him away. Assuredly there was room for us all,
and many more, in that large and spacious house, but our painter had
that love for solitude and that distaste for the society of strangers so
frequently to be found in the artistic nature. He had betaken himself to
a pavilion in the garden, and courteously but firmly withstood for a
time all our advances at nearer companionship. I well remember writing
what I considered a coaxing note, asking him to dine with us on Ash
Wednesday, as I knew it was more to his taste to fast than to feast.
Slowly and gradually we won our way towards his friendship, and, as I
once afterwards told him laughingly, how proud I felt when by degrees he
grew tame and would eat out of my hand. From that time we have been
friends, and I watched with pride and pleasure his rising fame, and
gazed with increasing admiration of years on his splendid creations. Our
household was a curious medley. Our family consisted of my mother, my
sister, my brother Charles and myself, with our three English
servants—the faithful Henry and the two lady’s-maids. The domestics we
found in the villa were as follows: the porter (an old soldier) and the
gardener and his family, the _babbo_, the _mama_, the son and two
daughters good, excellent people—the eldest girl Amalia a little
hump-back, or _gobbina_, with a tender heart and loving eyes, her sister
Violante—always selected on the occasion of any _festa_ or procession to
take the principal part therein, on account of her extreme beauty.
[Sidenote: LIFE AT VILLA CAREGGI]
The two mothers became great friends, notwithstanding their respective
ignorance of each other’s language, but it was touching to see them
sitting side by side in the garden, teaching each other Italian and
English names for the different flowers, which the _mama_ brought in
handfuls and deposited on the lap of the “cara e buona miladi.”
The old gardener, with gentle manners and calm exterior, who rented the
garden, but would never let us pay a _soldo_ for the beautiful nosegays
he showered on us, was a real Italian at heart. On one occasion, the
gardener of a neighbouring villa, Salviati, had brought a large present
of choice flowers to my mother, from our friend Mrs Vansittart. This
circumstance so raised the ire of the rival functionary at Careggi, that
it was with great difficulty that our English servant interposed to
appease the _babbo_, for, as he told me afterwards, he saw the moment
when knives were likely to be drawn. The porter, old Pietro, had been,
as I said before, a soldier, and was a great character in his way. He
would sometimes pace the terrace with me, and not only discuss, but
quote long extracts from Dante. Like many other scholars and students of
the divine poet, he found the greatest delight in the story of Francesca
di Rimini, and he delivered it as his emphatic opinion that her
punishment was immeasurably too severe for her fault. I think I should
have to wait some time before an English hall-porter, or domestic
servant of any class, would be likely to discuss with me the
characteristics of one of Shakespeare’s heroines.
This reminds me of an incident related by my dear friend, Lady Marian
Alford. She was coming out of the Cathedral at Siena, and talking of the
lines in Dante which commemorate the sad fate of “La Pia.” She had got
as far as “Siena mi fè,” when she paused and hesitated, being unable to
remember the rest of the line, when a little street Arab, or _gamin_,
came to her assistance and completed the sentence, “disfeci mi Maremma,”
to the satisfaction of both. But we must not wander from Careggi and the
golden summer we passed there.
The windows were scrupulously closed during the intense heat of the day,
but between the hours of four and five they were flung wide open to
admit the refreshing air, and then we would sit in the garden, or walk,
or drive, interchanging visits, and offering or accepting invitations
from the neighbouring villas, or sometimes from dwellers in the city.
From the _loggia_ at Careggi, where we used to spend a great part of our
evenings, watching the lights which starred the city, inhaling the
perfumes of the orange flowers, and delighting in the erratic flights of
those embodied stars, the fire-flies, we commanded the windows of the
Villa Quarto, inhabited by our Swedish friend, the Comtesse Pipa and her
nephew, Eric Baker, with whom we had invented a code of signals, and by
displaying some scarlet or yellow drapery, understood at once if an
invitation to dinner was refused or accepted.
[Sidenote: “BALLET D’ACTION”]
On the opposite side, but at a greater distance, stood the Villa
Salviati, inhabited by a beautiful countrywoman of ours, Mrs Vansittart
before-mentioned, the tall and stately chatelaine of that magnificent
house afterwards purchased by Mario and Grisi, and which, I believe,
still bears the name of the former. Many delightful evenings were spent
beneath Mrs Vansittart’s roof, where Charles and I were frequent guests.
I remember once when he and I had done our best to amuse our hosts with
a _ballet d’action_ on a small scale, at the conclusion of which I was
nearly smothered by the profusion of flowers which were lavished upon me
from that fertile garden. Oh yes, and I remember only too vividly the
homeward walk with that beloved companion, across a short cut, all
hedged and fringed with cypress and ilex, glistening and sparkling in
the silver radiance of a Tuscan moonlight.
That was an eventful period in the lives of both, for, during that
summer Charles’s destiny became entwined with that of a young English
lady whose acquaintance he had made the previous winter at Rome, and who
with her widowed mother was a constant visitor at the Villa Careggi.
Indeed, before the end of the summer, my dear brother was engaged to be
married to Miss Moore, the daughter of General Sir Lorenzo Moore, late
Governor of the Ionian Islands, in commemoration of which office he had
bestowed on his daughter the somewhat strange though musical name of
Zacyntha. The lovers were separated for the winter, but on their return
to England, in the year 1849, they were united, and my brother gained a
devoted and faithful wife, even to his life’s end, and she became the
mother of a large family of noble and beautiful children.
During our stay at Careggi we kept open house. Numerous friends and
acquaintances, _en route_ for Florence or Rome, flocked from all parts
to find a hearty welcome from the English occupants of that historical
palace, so intimately bound up with memories of the palmy days of
Florence and her merchant princes; while the neighbours from the villas
before-mentioned often frequented our charming gardens of an evening.
Amongst our visitors was Prince Anatole Demidoff (so well known in
Florence as one of the chief leaders of society), afterwards the husband
of Princess Mathilde, the sister of Prince Napoleon, who gave splendid
receptions at his own villa of San Donato.
I was much amused by an anecdote which was related to me as having
happened some years before the time of which I am speaking. Prince
Demidoff was very hospitable to foreigners, and an English lady having
received an invitation to a _soirée_ at this villa, arrayed herself in
the best ornaments contained in her jewel-box, which were not of a very
costly description. It was at a time when, in England at least,
malachite was very much used, not only for table ornaments, such as
ink-stands and paper-weights, but also occasionally for brooches,
earrings, and the like, or what then were called _sevignés_. Thus
decorated, our countrywoman took her way to Prince Demidoff’s reception,
but her consternation was great when, on entering the noble suite of
apartments, she found that the chimney-pieces, the consoles, and the
very doors themselves were constructed of the identical material which
formed her _parure_.
During our stay at Careggi, I had provided myself with an independent
little vehicle in which I drove occasionally into Florence, to pay a
visit to Félicie de Fauveau. I was invariably stopped at the gate of the
city, and interrogated by a pompous official as to whether I had
anything contraband to declare. “Oh dear yes,” said I one day, impatient
at being delayed, “two apricots and a book,” which reply made my driver
laugh aloud. My coachman was a bright young fellow who rejoiced in the
classical name of Œdipus. He had been educated at a Jesuit school, and
spoke his native language with great purity, and even eloquence. It is
certainly remarkable to listen to the choice selection of words used by
the lower classes in Tuscany. The common saying of “lingua Toscana in
bocca Romana,” is strikingly true, for the guttural pronunciation of the
Florentines—inherited doubtless from the Spaniards—contrasts
disadvantageously with the soft, so to speak, languishing, cadence of
the Roman dialect.
[Sidenote: BATHS OF CASCIANO]
I made a delightful little expedition in my own _carretella_ to the
Baths of Casciano, near Pisa, to pay a visit of two days to Félicie de
Fauveau and her mother. It was a whole day’s journey, and we halted
half-way, if I remember right, at the picturesque, fortified old town,
to bait our little stout Calabrian pony. I found Œdipus a delightful
travelling companion, for he knew the history and the legends of the
country through which we passed, and I was quite sorry to bid him
good-bye, for it was settled I should return with my friends.
Casciano is a picturesque spot, whose baths were at one time in great
repute, and the legend connected with the discovery of its boiling
springs interested me not a little. The Empress Matilda, it would
appear, who was devoted to the sport of hawking, possessed a falcon of
uncommon skill and beauty, whose constant perch was on the Imperial
wrist. Suddenly the favourite began to droop and shed its feathers, and
to show signs of some malady more severe than the usual moulting of
birds. Unable to carry on its vocation or to join in its beloved
mistress’s cherished sport, the poor falcon hung its head, disfigured
and ashamed. One morning the bird was missing, and could not be traced,
and much surprise was expressed that the diminished pinions should have
had sufficient strength to ensure its flight. Time passed, and the
“tasset gentle” was supplanted but not replaced in the heart of the
royal sportswoman. But one day, when on a grand hawking expedition, the
Empress had just let fly her falcon in search of its quarry—lo! a
miracle: perching on her wrist, pluming itself, and nodding and bowing,
with all the grace of which a bird can be capable, and all the loyalty
of a devoted subject, was the long lost one. A recurrence of the
falcon’s indisposition, and a restlessness which seemed to foretell an
inclination to absent itself once more, caused the Empress to issue her
commands that the bird should be watched. It seems difficult to imagine
how her wishes were carried out, but we must suppose that the will of
that Imperial lady was omnipotent. At all events, the story goes (and
who would question so romantic a legend) that the winged invalid was
found bathing in the warm springs of Casciano, and after this voluntary
cure, found its way back in renovated health and plumage to the Court of
its noble mistress, thereby laying claim to being the founder and patron
of the baths in question.
[Sidenote: LEGEND OF THE FALCON]
Oh! it is hard, even in retrospective thought, to tear one’s self away
from those blissful days which were prolonged late into the autumn, when
the Apennines so often assume that rich colouring of Imperial purple,
illumined by golden sunlight, which adds fresh lustre to the environs of
Florence. To that city we made our next move, and took up our abode in a
house in the Santa Croce quarter, between which and the Casa Fenzi, in
Piazza Santa Maria Novella, where Lady Moore and her daughter were now
located, there was constant intercourse, until the _sposa_ and her
mother left for Rome, and my brother Charles took his departure for
England.
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