That Florence, the “Flower City,” receives only a passing allusion in this record of various impressions that gleam and glow through the days after several visits to the Magic Land, is due to the fact that in a previous volume by the writer—one entitled “The Florence of Landor”—the lovely Tuscan town with its art, its ineffable beauty, and its choice social life, formed the subject matter of that volume. Any attempt to portray Florence in the present book would savor only of the repetition of loves and enthusiasms already recorded in the previous work in which Walter Savage Landor formed the central figure. For that reason no mention of Florence, beyond some mere allusion, is attempted in these pages, which only aim to present certain fragmentary impressions of various sojourns in Italy, refracted through the prism of memory. Whatever inconveniences or discomfort attend the traveller swiftly fade, and leave to him only the precious heritage of resplendent sunset skies, of poetic association, of artistic beauty. In spirit he is again lingering through long afternoons in St. Peter’s till the golden light through the far windows of the tribune is merged into the dusk of twilight in which the vast monumental groups gleam wraith-like. Again he is ascending the magnificent Scala Regia, and lingering in the Raphael Stanze, or in the wonderful sculpture galleries of the Vatican, or sauntering in the sunshine on the Palatine. In memory he is again spellbound by ancient and mediæval art. In the line of modern sculpture the work of Franklin Simmons in Rome is a feature of Italy that haunts the imagination. No lover of beauty would willingly miss his great studios in the Via San Nicolo da Tolentino, with their wealth of ideal creations that contribute new interest to the most divine of all the arts.

“The world of art is an ideal world,—
The world I love, and that I fain would live in;
So speak to me of artists and of art,
Of all the painters, sculptors, and musicians
That now illustrate Rome.”

The mystic charm of the pilgrimage to Assisi; the romance that reflects itself in the violet seas and flaming splendors of the sky on the shores of Ischia and Capri; the buried treasures of Amalfi; the magnetic impressiveness of the Eternal City,—all these enter into life as new forces to build and shape the future into undreamed-of destinies.

L. W.

The Brunswick, Boston,
October Days, 1907.

CONTENTS

PAGE
IThe Period of Modern Art in Rome [3]
II Social Life in the Eternal City [127]
III Day-Dreams in Naples, Amalfi, and Capri [227]
IV A Page de Conti from Ischia [281]
V Voices of St. Francis of Assisi [341]
VI The Glory of a Venetian June [389]
VII The Magic Land [423]
Index [459]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Temple, Taormina [Frontispiece in Photogravure]
Angel, Church of San Andrea delle Fratte, Rome[Page 32]
Detail from the Stuart Monument, St. Peter’s, Rome [33]
Tomb of Clement XIII, St. Peter’s, Rome [42]
“The Genius of Death,” Detail from the Tomb of Clement XIII, St. Peter’s, Rome [43]
“La Fortuna,” Accadémia di San Luca, Rome [47]
Spanish Steps, Piazza Trinità dei Monti, Rome [72]
Tomb of Pio Nono, San Lorenzo (Fuori le Mura) Rome [75]
“The Dance of the Pleiades” [91]
“Grief and History,” Detail from Naval Monument, Washington [105]
“The Genius of Progress Leading the Nations” [107]
“Mother of Moses” [108]
“Valley Forge” [110]
La Pieta, St. Peter’s, Rome [117]
Villa Medici, Rome [135]
Entrance to Villa Pamphilia-Doria, Rome [159]
Statue of Christ, Ancient Church of San Martina, Rome [192]
Castel San Angelo and St. Peter’s, Rome [204]
Porta San Paola, Pyramid of Caius Cestius, Rome [216]
Castel Sant’Elmo, Naples [231]
Ancient Temple, Baiæ [241]
Ischia, from the Sea [283]
La Rocca, Ischia [295]
Castello di Alfonso, Ischia [306]
Detail from “Parnassus,” Raphael Stanze, Palazzo Vaticano, Rome [311]
Vittoria Colonna, Galleria Buonarroti, Florence [312]
San Francescan Convent-Church, Assisi [346]
St. Francis d’Assisi, The Duomo, Assisi [365]
Santa Chiara, The Duomo, Assisi [375]
Baiæ and Ischia, from Camaldoli [381]
Ruins of the Greek Theatre, Taormina, Sicily [429]
Ponte Vecchio, Florence [430]
Campo Santo, Genoa [453]