In Florence there are a great many literary societies such as the _Infuocati, Immobili_, and the far renowned _La Crusca_. Frequent _Academies_, for so a sitting of a litterary society in Italy is termed, are held in Florence. There are likewise two Casinos, one for the nobility and the other for the merchants and burghers; the wives and daughters of the members attend occasionally; and cards, music and dancing are the amusements. Florence abounds in artists in alabaster whose workmanship is beautiful. They make models in alabaster of the most celebrated pieces of sculpture and architecture, on any scale you chuse: they fabricate busts too and vases in alabaster. The vases made in imitation of the ancient Greek vases are magnificent, and some of them are of immense size. Foreigners generally chuse to have their busts taken; for almost all foreigners who arrive here are or pretend to be smitten with an ardent love for the fine arts, and every one wishes to take with him models of the fine things he has seen in Italy, on his return to his native country. Here are English travellers who at home would scarcely be able to distinguish the finest piece of ancient sculpture--the Mercury, for instance, in the Florentine Gallery, from a Mercury in a citizen's garden at Highgate--who here affect to be in extacies at the sight of the Venus, Apollino, &c., and they are fond of retailing on all occasions the terms of art and connoisseurship they have learned by rote, in the use of which they make sometimes ridiculous mistakes. For instance I heard an Englishman one day holding forth on the merits of the Vierge _quisouse_, as he called it. I could not for some time divine what he meant by the word _quisouse_, but after some explanation I found that he meant the celebrated painting of the _Vierge qui coud_, or _Vierge couseuse_, as it is sometimes called, which latter word he had transformed into _quisouse_. This affectation, however, of passion for the _belle arti_, tho' sometimes open to ridicule, is very useful. It generates taste, encourages artists, and is surely a more innocent as well as more rational mode of spending money and passing time than in encouraging pugilism or in racing, coach driving and cock fighting. [83] Pope, _Essay on Man_, ep. III, 303-4.--ED. CHAPTER X Journey from Florence to Rome--Sienna--Radicofani--Bolsena--Montefiascone wine--Viterbo--Baccano--The Roman Campagna--The papal _douane_--Monuments and Museums in Rome--Intolerance of the Catholic Christians--The Tiber and the bridges--Character of the Romans--The _Palassi_ and _Ville_--Canova's atelier--Theatricals--An execution in Rome. September----, 1816.