The descendant of Buonarotti is now an old man, and fortunately rich enough to preserve the house of his great ancestor as an object of curiosity. He has a son, I believe studying the arts at Rome. * * * * * On a beautiful hill which ascends directly from one of the southern gates of Florence, stands a church built so long ago as at the close of the first century. The gate, church, and hill, are all called San Miniato, after a saint buried under the church pavement. A large, and at present flourishing convent, hangs on the side of the hill below, and around the church stand the walls of a strong fortress, built by Michael Angelo. A half mile or more south, across a valley, an old tower rises against the sky, which was erected for the observations of Galileo. A mile to the left, on the same ridge, an old villa is to be seen in which Boccaccio wrote most of his "Hundred Tales of Love." The Arno comes down from Vallombrosa, and passing through Florence at the foot of San Miniato, is seen for three miles further on its way to Pisa; the hill, tower, and convent of Fiesole, where Milton studied and Catiline encamped with his conspirators, rise from the opposite bank of the river; and right below, as if you could leap into the lantern of the dome, nestles the lovely city of Florence, in the lap of the very brightest vale that ever mountain sheltered or river ran through. Such are the temptations to a _walk in Italy_, and add to it the charms of the climate, and you may understand one of a hundred reasons why it is the land of poetry and romance, and why it so easily becomes the land of a stranger's affection. The villas which sparkle all over the hills which lean unto Florence, are occupied mainly by foreigners living here for health or luxury, and most of them are known and visited by the floating society of the place. Among them are Madame Catalani, the celebrated singer, who occupies a beautiful palace on the ascent of Fiesole, and Walter Savage Landor, the author of the "Imaginary Conversations," as refined a scholar perhaps as is now living, who is her near neighbor. A pleasant family of my acquaintance lives just back of the fortress of San Miniato, and in walking out to them with a friend yesterday, I visited the church again, and remarked more particularly the features of the scene I have described.