On quitting Venice, we had decided on retracing our steps, in order to visit the cities we had not yet seen. From Genoa we followed the beautiful coast road to Pisa, whence we took rail to Florence, arriving there towards the latter part of September. We thus had time to visit the various galleries and artistic curiosities of the city of the Medici, previously to the commencement of the fashionable season, when Florence is usually thronged with strangers. We engaged a fine apartment—“primo piano”—(first floor) on the Lungo L’Arno, considered the best situation by strangers, though not by the Florentines themselves, who call it unhealthy. Nor are they wrong—for the Arno, like the Tiber, is a yellow, dirty stream, unpoetic to the eye, and frequently most unsavory to another sense. Florence nevertheless well deserves her name of “La bella.” The town is built on either side of the river, which is spanned by five exquisitely light and well proportioned bridges, each of which differs in the style of its architecture from the others. These bridges unite the two cities as it were into one. As is usual, one side of the river monopolizes the rank and fashion of Florence, although the grand ducal palace of Pitti is situate on its opposite and quieter border. Our first visit was of course to the “Palazzo d’egli Uffizis,” to view the celebrated Venus de Medicis. We expected much, and were therefore of course disappointed. The figure is artistically perfect; perhaps this very perfection causes the effect to be cold and unsympathetic. The face, too, is entirely without expression. She resembles rather a young nymph of Diana than the goddess of love and beauty, whose voluptuous charms are far better portrayed in the statue called the Venus of the Capitol in Rome—infinitely superior, in my opinion, to her Florentine sister.