Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/221

Rh ; for, since quitting Venice, the travelling-bag has got more and more into confusion.

Early in the morning (at twenty-three o'clock, or about ten of our reckoning) we left the region of the Apennines, and saw Florence in an extensive valley, which is highly cultivated, and sprinkled over with villas and houses without end.

I ran rapidly over the city, the cathedral, the baptistery. Here, again, a perfectly new and unknown world opened upon me, on which, however, I will not further dwell. The gardens of the Botoli are most delightfully situated. I hastened out of them as fast as I had entered them.

In the city we see the proof of the prosperity of the generations who built it. The conviction is at once forced upon us, that they must have enjoyed a long succession of wise rulers, but, above all, one is struck with the beauty and grandeur which distinguish all the public works and roads and bridges in Tuscany. Everything here is at once substantial and clean. Use and profit, not less than elegance, are alike kept in view: everywhere we discern traces of the care which is taken to preserve them. The cities of the Papal States, on the contrary, only seem to stand because the earth is unwilling to swallow them up.

The sort of country that I lately remarked the region of the Apennines might have been, is what Tuscany really is. As it lies so much lower, the ancient sea was able to do its duty properly, and has thrown up here deep beds of excellent marl. It is a light yellow hue, and easily worked. They plough deep, retaining, however, most exactly the ancient manner. Their ploughs have no wheels, and the share is not movable. Bowed down behind his oxen, the peasant pushes it down into the earth, and turns up the soil. They plough over a field as many as five times, and use but little dung, which they scatter with