The Mysteries of Florence

BY G E O R G E L I P P A R D. AUTHOR OF “THE EMPIRE CITY, OR NEW YORK BY NIGHT AND DAY,” “THE MEMOIRS OF A PREACHER,” “WASHINGTON AND HIS MEN,” “THE LEGENDS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, OR, WASHINGTON AND HIS GENERALS,” “THE QUAKER CITY; OR, THE MONKS OF MONK HALL,” “PAUL ARDENHEIM, THE MONK OF WISSAHIKON,” “LEGENDS OF MEXICO,” “THE NAZARENE,” “BLANCHE OF BRANDYWINE,” “THE ENTRANCED,” “THE BANK DIRECTOR’S SON,” ETC., ETC. COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. Philadelphia: T. B. P E T E R S O N & B R O T H E R S, 306 CHESTNUT STREET. Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1864, by T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS. In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.


The moon arose!
Reposing on the porch of an ancient mansion,—which, deserted and falling to ruins, was pitched on the brow of a dizzy steep;—a traveller, who had journeyed far and long, looked forth upon the night, through an opening in the trees crowning the verge of the cliff, and, with a soul filled with silent awe, beheld this scene of the grandeur of nature, combined with the glories of art, and the stern memories of a long past age.
A lovely valley lay sleeping in the moonbeams: ancient towers, Gothic temples, domes of religion, palaces of pleasure, rose clearly in the air, from amid gardens gay with flowers, or forests heavy with foliage, while around the scene of slumbering grandeur, swept the mighty Apennines, lifting their blue peaks into the universe of azure that arched above, silvered and tinted and mellowed by the midnight moon.
A stream of tremulous silver wandered brightly through the valley, like a banner waving along the blackness of night. The domes of an ancient city, baptized by the strains of the Minstrel, and consecrated by the words of the Romancer, were seen looming over the forest trees, from the dim distance of the vale.
The moon arose!
There was softness, and beauty, and power, written on the wide sweep of that boundless sky, with its horizon of blue mountains; there was solemn silence resting on the night, and the angels of God might look down upon the scene, and weep to think that a land so like heaven in its gorgeousness of beauty, should be stamped with the footsteps of crimes too mighty for belief, wrongs too dark for the page of history, woes steeped in the very bitterness of death.