Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/65

4, 1863.] iron glory round his head, and his fingers spread out in the act of blessing, stands before it. There is a road here, at a right angle with the one we have taken, which leads to the gate of San Frediano, facing the old Leghorn road to the west of Florence. Behind the chapel is the office of the municipality, and opposite this office, bent in two as sharply as a card, a villa, which forms the angle of the two roads.

Higher up is a shrine, with its Madonna placed outside a small iron gate. This gate belongs to the Villa Nicolini, an unpretending, and somewhat dilapidated-looking building, but which has the most wonderful of panoramas, day and night, before its windows. Its quaint garden supported on arches, its two balconies, and its noble hall, make it the most picturesque, both within and without, of all the villas of the neighbourhood of Florence.

At the next curve the road divides. In one direction is the chapel of San Vito, and then a raised road, which is almost a bridge, brings you to a neighbouring but lower height, Monte Oliveto, and its cypresses and monastery. Turning back from this to the Bellosguardo road, you have Villa Nuti on your right hand, and Florence below you on the left. Villa Nuti is supposed to be haunted; but, except the fact that Pope Leo X. slept there for a few nights, there is nothing to account for such a tradition. It is a strong-looking building, with barred lower windows and a green court. On the first story is one of those picturesque-looking open rooms, supported by pillars, which have such an eminently Italian appearance. A few yards higher up you come to the projecting slab which, from the wonderful beauty of the prospect seen from it, has given the whole height the name of Bellosguardo! It is just below the Michelozzi tower. Nowhere does Florence look more lovely than from this platform. As it lies to the north east of the spectator, all the architectural beauty of the city lies before him in clear outline of light and shade. From Fiesole the view is more extensive, but the city itself is seen at a greater distance. In the morning a mist often veils it; and at noon it glitters vaguely under the sparkling sunshine, in which it lies as in a golden cup. From Bellosguardo the effect is more distinct, and, at the same time, more picturesque. Monte Morello, Fiesole, the Bologna Apennines, the Vallombrosan hills to the right, as you look towards Florence, the Carrara and Lucca hills to the left, are fitting backgrounds to the picture. Their forms and undulations are cut clear and firm as with a knife on the blue sky, while the ever-changing light is perpetually varying their hues, sometimes bathed in a rosy blush as if new-born, sometimes displaying the weird character of ages, in the deep indentations and fissures which mark their surface. The distant mountains form the outer circle of the amphitheatre before us; the nearer ones run into the plains, either lapsing down in gentle slopes, or more boldly, shoulder over shoulder, breaking into vast knolls, which stand out green against the grey of the remoter chain.

The Val d’Arno to our left looks like an enormous bay which has spread by some convulsion of nature into a vast inland sea, but instead of the masts of ships riding at anchor, in that broad expanse are the spires and towers of countless villages.

But we must leave this vision and, turning our backs upon it, descend and take the road which, from the height of Bellosguardo, leads towards the different villas which have been built upon it. Some are modern; some, such as the Michelozzi, the Albizzi, the Montauto, are many hundred years old. Montauto, with its old tower, should be interesting to the English and Americans as having been the residence of Nathaniel Hawthorne for three months, during the summer of the year 1858.

The road divides itself in two just below Villa Albizzi, as it passes a quaint-looking public well in the centre of a grassplot. One prong of the fork runs to Villa Montauto, and then drops by a very steep descent and sharp curve till it comes down to the west of Bellosguardo, and connects itself with the old Leghorn road, which lies like a winding ribbon on the plain we have been surveying. The other prong is longer, and descends, with villas on each side of it, till by another subdivision it breaks into three more roads, and two of these join the Roman road to the south of Bellosguardo. One is a very steep cut rather than a road, and can scarcely be used by carriages, but it takes a pedestrian in ten minutes to the gate.

My villa makes the angle of this steep path and the broader, easier road which comes further down, and also joins the Strado Regia.

If you enter by the gate that is at this angle, you have a low two-storied building to the right of you, with a wide flagged pavement in front of it, then a broad space of gravel spotted over by huge flower-pots and lemon plants in uncouth green tubs; and beyond are the orchards and fields belonging to my landlord. He is a lawyer, who spends his days at Florence in his office, or at a café, and returns to dine and sleep here. The rambling, irregular building is divided into three sets of apartments with separate entrances. The part nearest the gate is occupied by my landlord and his family. He has a wife and two sons. In true patriarchal fashion, the eldest, though married and a father, lives under the paternal roof. The other is a student at Pisa. The second apartment is a very small one, and is usually let for short periods to any Florentine requiring a breath of fresh air during those months in which Florentines affect a change. The third part of the building is mine, and is almost entirely detached from the rest. It is the part which is devoted to “forestieri,” and is well furnished, according to Italian ideas.

A large door opens into a hall divided into two parts, the larger one raised above the other by a flight of four broad shallow steps; an arched window looks into a triangular paved court, where a great fig-tree grows with a sturdy and persistent luxuriance.

My little garden, which might be a very bower of sweets in this shady spot, has been utterly neglected; but with patience and care I trust that the wilderness will soon be made to blossom again. My rooms (eleven, besides a kitchen), are hired, furnished, for much less than the price