My comrades went with me to the station "dei Termini," hard by the Diocletian ruins. They did not leave until we had embraced warmly and they stayed until my train disappeared beyond the horizon. Happy beings! they would sleep that night at the Académie, while I was alone, torn by the emotions of leaving, numbed by the keen, icy December cold, shrouded in memories, and, unless fatigue aided me, unable to sleep. Next day I was in Florence. I wanted to see again this city with the richest collections of art in Italy. I went to the Pitti Palace, one of the wonders of Florence. In going through the galleries it seemed to me as though I were not alone, but that the living remembrance of my comrades was with me, that I was a witness of their enthusiasms and raptures before all the masterpieces piled in that splendid palace. I saw again the Titians, the Tintorets, the works of Leonardo, the Veronese, the Michel Angelos, and the Raphaels. With what delightfully charmed eyes I admired anew that priceless treasure, Raphael's masterpiece of painting, the "Madonna della sedella," then the "Temptation of St. Anthony" by Salvator Rosa placed in the Hall of Ulysses, and in the Hall of Flora Canova's "Venus," mounted on a revolving base. I studied, too, the works of Rubens, Rembrandt and Van Dyck. From the Pitti Palace I went to be astounded anew by the Strozzi Palace, the most beautiful type of Florentine palace. Its cornice, attributed to Simon Pollajo, is the most beautiful known to modern times. I saw once more the Buboli gardens, beside the Pitti Palace, designed by Tribolo and Buontalenti. I finished the day with a walk in the so-called Bois de Boulogne de Florence, the Cascine Walk, at the western gate of Florence, between the right bank of the Arno and the railroad. It is the favorite walk of the elegant and fashionable world of Florence, the city called the Athens of Italy. I remember that evening had already fallen and as I was without my watch--I had left it at the hotel--I asked a peasant I met on the road what time it was. The answer I received was so poetically turned that I can never forget it, "_Sono le sette, l'aria ne treme ancor!..._" "It is seven o'clock. The air still trembles from the sound." I left Florence to continue my trip by the way of Pisa. Pisa seemed to me as depopulated as if it had been swept by the plague. When one considers that in the Middle Ages it was a rival of Genoa, Florence, and Venice, one feels puzzled by the comparative desolation that envelops it. I remained alone for nearly an hour on the Piazza del Duomo, looking with curiosity on the masterpieces which raise their artistic beauty there, the Cathedral or Le Dôme de Pisa, the Campanile, better known as the Leaning Tower, and last, the Baptistière. Between the Dôme and the Baptistière stretches the Campo Santo, the famous cemetery. The earth for this cemetery was brought from Jerusalem.