A Wanderer in FlorenceLucas, E. V. (Edward Verrall)
History
A Wanderer in Florence
Lucas, E. V. (Edward Verrall)
Art -- Italy -- Florence; Florence (Italy) -- Description and travel
But we have Browning's word that he did not spend much time in remorse
or regret, while there was the composition of the pretty little tender
epigrams of this last period to amuse him and Italian politics to
enchain his sympathy. His impulsive generosity led him to give his old
and trusted watch to the funds for Garibaldi's Sicilian expedition;
but Browning persuaded him to take it again. For Garibaldi's wounded
prisoners he wrote an Italian dialogue between Savonarola and the
Prior of S. Marco. The death of Mrs. Browning in 1861 sent Browning
back to England, and Landor after that was less cheerful and rarely
left the house. His chief solace was the novels of Anthony Trollope
and G.P.R. James. In his last year he received a visit from a young
English poet and enthusiast for poetry, one Algernon Charles Swinburne,
who arrived in time to have a little glowing talk with the old lion and
thus obtain inspiration for some fine memorial stanzas. On September
17th, 1864, Death found Landor ready--as nine years earlier he had
promised it should--
To my ninth decade I have totter'd on,
And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady;
She who once led me where she would, is gone,
So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready.
Landor was buried, as we saw, in the English cemetery within the city,
whither his son Arnold was borne less than seven years later. Here is
his own epitaph, one of the most perfect things in form and substance
in the English language:--
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife,
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life,
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
It should be cut on his tombstone.
CHAPTER XXV
The Carmine and San Miniato
The human form divine and waxen--Galileo--Bianca Capella--A
faithful Grand Duke--S. Spirito--The Carmine--Masaccio's place
in art--Leonardo's summary--The S. Peter frescoes--The Pitti
side--Romola--A little country walk--The ancient wall--The Piazzale
Michelangelo--An evening prospect--S. Miniato--Antonio Rossellino's
masterpiece--The story of S. Gualberto--A city of the dead--The
reluctant departure.
The Via Maggio is now our way, but first there is a museum which
I think should be visited, if only because it gave Dickens so much
pleasure when he was here--the Museo di Storia Naturale, which is
open three days a week only and is always free. Many visitors to
Florence never even hear of it and one quickly finds that its chief
frequenters are the poor. All the better for that. Here not only is
the whole animal kingdom spread out before the eye in crowded cases,
but the most wonderful collection of wax reproductions of the human
form is to be seen. These anatomical models are so numerous and so
exact that, since the human body does not change with the times,
a medical student could learn everything from them in the most
gentlemanly way possible. But they need a strong stomach. Mine,
I confess, quailed before the end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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