At last, on a ridge between two valleys, we sight the square twelfth-century tower of the villa in question; the remainder of the building dates from the fourteenth century. The heavy grating of the lower windows, the picturesque archway leading to the square, paved courtyard, the little garden on one side, with its olive-tree bending over the grey wall towards the road below—all breathe an almost cloistered quietness. _Parva domus magna quies_,[6] runs the legend sculptured in black letters on grey marble over the house door. Nothing clashes in this villa. The present proprietor, with his antiquarian and artistic tastes, and his love of Latin inscriptions, has produced a rare welding of past with present. On one side of the entrance gate, for instance (whose columns, be it noticed, are crowned with two bombs, probably French, from Elba), another inscription, unearthed during the excavation of some Roman villa, offers rest to those who are justly indignant at the world’s perfidy: jovi hospitali sacrum o quisquis es dummodo honestus si forte pessimos fugis propinquos inimicorum solitaria succedens domo quiesce.[7] The same pessimistic note is struck by a third inscription over the archway before mentioned. There we find, writ large, the following Elban motto: Amici, nemici; Parenti, serpenti; Cugini, assassini; Fratelli, coltelli.[8] We owe it to the owner to add that, like most people who rail against mankind in general, he is very tender-hearted to mankind in particular. Passing from the brilliancy of the outer air, we stumble through a low doorway, over which, on the usual grey marble, stands printed _Frantoio_ (crushing-house), and find ourselves in the hot, heavy atmosphere of the oil-making room. We distinguish a low, broad archway dividing the room into two parts, and at the further end a small twinkling light; while nearer the entrance a lamp, swung from the roof, enables us, after a little practice, to make out the objects around us. The whole place is pervaded by a grey steam, sweetish yet piquant, of the peculiar odour of the undried olive. So great is the heat that the peasants are working without coats, and we, too, are glad enough to lay aside our winter wraps. Looming white through the steam, the first object that attracts our attention is the ox that patiently turns the great stone crushing wheel. Round and round he goes, triturating the dead oak leaves that make his path soft, while the olives, continually poured into the circular concavity in which the wheel moves, are quickly reduced, stone and all, to a dark-looking pulp. The whiteness of the steam and of the ox, the creature’s lustrous eyes as they catch the light, the dark olives pouring into the trough, the peasants dimly visible, make up a scene likely to remain impressed for a long while on the memory.