From France the regal progress continued to Italy, everywhere greeted
with wonder at its magnificence and admiration of my lady's beauty. Two
spring months in 1823 were passed at Genoa, where Lord Byron loved to
sit at the Countess's feet and pay homage to her with eye and tongue.
From Genoa the procession fared majestically to Rome, of which her
ladyship, in spite of the sensation she produced and the adulation she
received, soon wearied; she sighed for Naples, where she was regally
lodged in the Palazzo Belvidere, a Palace, as she declared, "fit for any
queen." And how the squire's daughter revelled in her new
pleasure-house, with its courtyard and plashing fountain, its arcade
and its colonnade, "supporting a terrace covered with flowers"; its
marvellous gardens, filled with the rarest trees, shrubs and plants; and
long gallery, "filled with pictures, statues, and bassi-relievi."
"On the top of the gallery," she says, "is a terrace, at
the extreme end of which is a pavilion, with open arcades
and paved with marble. This pavilion commands a most
charming prospect of the bay, the foreground filled up by
gardens and vineyards. The odour of the flowers in the
grounds around the pavilion, and the Spanish jasmine and
tuberoses that cover the walls, render it one of the most
delicious retreats in the world. The walls of all the
rooms are literally covered with pictures; the
architraves of the doors of the principal rooms are
oriental alabaster and the rarest marbles; the tables and
consoles are composed of the same costly materials; and
the furniture bears the traces of its pristine
splendour."
Such was the Arabian palace of all delights of which her gorgeous
ladyship now found herself mistress; and yet nothing would please her
indulgent lord but the spending of a few thousands in adding to its
splendours by new and costly furnishings. Here she spent two-and-a-half
years of ideal happiness, sailing by moonlight on the lovely bay, with
d'Orsay for companion; visiting all the sights, from Pompeii to the
galleries and museums, with a retinue of experts, such as Herschell and
Gell in her train, and entertaining with a queenly magnificence Italian
nobles and all the great ones of Europe who passed through Naples.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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