The villa stands high, about a mile from Florence, and a winding carriage road shaded by elms leads up from the plain ending in an avenue of tall cypresses. Thence the view of the hill of Fiesole is enchanting. Beautiful Doccia with its long line of arches lies bathed in sunshine, and just below is the villa where St Louis Gonzaga stayed with Pier Francesco del Turco to learn the Tuscan tongue. Landor’s old villa, now belonging to Professor Willard Fiske, faces us, with the valley of the Ladies below its garden wall, and the Affrico murmuring through its grounds. Visions of the fair Fiametta and her companions arise as one remembers how on the sixth day, after Elisa had crowned Dioneo king and laughingly told him it was time he should find out what a charge it was to rule over and guide women, the three youths sat down to play at draughts while she led the Ladies to an unknown valley. Leaving the “sumptuous palace” they walked about a mile, and “entering by a narrow path on a side where a crystal clear streamlet ran, they saw it to be as beautiful and delightful, especially at that season when the heat was so great, as can be imagined. And according to what some of them told me afterwards the level part of the valley was as circular as though drawn with compasses, yet it was an artifice of nature and not made by human labour. Little more than half a mile in circumference it was surrounded by six hills of no great height, and on the summit of each one was a palace built much in the shape of a small castle. The sides of the hills sloped towards the plain, as we see the seats in theatres from the top row descend in successive flights, always restricting their circles. And these hillsides, at least all those facing south, were clothed with vines, olive, almond, cherry and other fruit trees, and not a palm of ground was lost. Those looking to the north had copses of oak saplings, ash and other trees, green and straight as they could be. There was no other approach to the level plain than the one by which the Ladies had come; it was full of fir-trees, cypresses, bays and a few pines, so well placed and so well ordered as though planted by the greatest of artists. Little or no sun entered there, even when high in the Heavens it only just touched the earth clothed with sward of finest grass and rich in purple and other flowers. Besides this a rivulet, which was not a less delight, came from a valley dividing two of those small hills; it trickled down steep rocks of sandstone, and made in its fall a sound most delightful to hear, while the spray, from afar, seemed to be live silver broken into the lightest of showers. On reaching the level the rivulet gathered into a pleasant channel, rushed rapidly to the centre of the plain and there formed a lakelet, such as now and again townsfolk, who have the art, make in their gardens for fish-ponds. The depth of the lakelet was not more than up to the breast of a man, and so clear