‘Let us be wise enough to think so,’ said the Poet, ‘and it was quite in keeping with Lorenzo’s magnificence, when that testy scholar, to whom he had committed the tuition of his sons, quarrelled with Donna Clarice because she thought she also should have something to say to their training, to provide him with such a sanctuary. Besides, in Italy, Tradition is not, as some one has said she is elsewhere, a toothless old crone with memory half gone, but the trustworthy depositary of unforgotten glories.‘
‘It is more than a tradition,’ said Veronica. ‘Only this morning I came across a passage from Politian’s correspondence, which would seem to confirm local legend. Here it is. He is writing to Lorenzo. “When you are incommoded by the heat of the season at Careggi, you will perchance bethink you of the shelter of my abode, nor deem it undeserving of your notice. Nestled in the sloping sides of the hill, we have here water in abundance, and, being constantly refreshed by moderate breezes, experience but little inconvenience from the fervour of the sun. As you approach the villa itself, it seems embosomed in a grove; but, when you reach it, you discover that it commands a full view of the city. Though the neighbourhood is not without its denizens, I can here enjoy the solitude so congenial to my disposition. But I can offer you the temptation of other allurements. Wandering beyond his own boundaries, Pico della Mirandola sometimes steals unexpectedly on my retirement, and draws me from my seclusion to share his supper. What that is, you well know; modest indeed, but neatly served, and made grateful by the charm of his converse. But be you my guest. The meal shall be as good, and the wine better.”‘
‘How very philosophic!’ said Lamia. ‘So much so, that the passage was probably written on the morrow of a certain fascinating young woman, whose name I cannot remember, but of whom Politian, I have read, was, notwithstanding his erudition, deeply enamoured, giving her hand to a rival scholar, though which of them, I need scarcely say, I have equally forgotten.’
‘The great Marullus, I think,’ said the Poet; ‘and your fascinating young woman was Alessandra, the accomplished daughter of Lorenzo’s Chancellor, Bartolomeo della Scala, whose house, still standing, you must remind us to show you in Florence.‘
A TUSCAN VILLA
Our first business was to make acquaintance with the immediate surroundings of the home provided for us by Veronica’s indefatigable foresight, operating through a protracted correspondence none of us had been deemed worthy to peruse. The rural architecture of Tuscany is of a noble simplicity; and, in the main portion of our villa, built in the course of the sixteenth century, there was no deviation from the familiar type. But, adjoining it westward, and seemingly of more ancient date, were an upper and a lower loggia of conventual aspect; the upper one having a sloping roof of rich red tiles supported by graceful pillars of pietra serena, and the lower one serving as an Italian equivalent of an English verandah, only more spacious and more tasteful, in which we could sun or shade ourselves according to the mood of the weather. Together, they formed an impenetrable barrier against the well-known keenness of the tramontana, while the main building provided ample shelter against possible inclemency from the east. To the west our view was over the final valley of the Arno, that spacious plain of fertile cultivation tenderly protected by hills of exquisite shape and moderate elevation, on whose bolder ridges stand historic towns of unmatched picturesqueness; while southward, over vineyards and olive-groves terraced down precipitously-sloping ground, we gazed on the domes and towers of the fair Tuscan capital. If one lives on the side of a hill, one cannot reasonably expect to have a very vast level expanse for the purposes of a garden. A quadrangular space of modest dimensions between the house and the low boundary wall, where the ground began to fall away, was all that had been dedicated to that pleasurable end; and this afforded Lamia an opportunity of observing that two such enthusiastic horticulturists as the Poet and myself would find but few worlds to conquer in so narrow a territory.
‘Forget,’ I ventured to plead, ‘what it is useless to remember. England is well enough, and so is Italy, but only on condition that you do not ask from the one what belongs to the other. I am not quite sure that the person who is intimately acquainted with both is ever quite satisfied with either, since it is part of our perverse human nature mentally to extol what we have not, to the depreciation of what we have.’
‘Is it to a woman you say that?’ observed Lamia, to my complete confusion. ‘Men preach Philosophy, women practise it; and I shall probably show myself quite content without your well-filled borders, while you inwardly, and perhaps sometimes outwardly, long for your rampant greenery and untidy efflorescence. These garofani—you see,’ she said, turning to the Poet, ‘I know the Italian for carnations,—in their tasteful pots along the loopholed wall are much more to my taste than all the straggling annuals and robust perpetuals in the world.’