Longing for the open country came with the early Italian spring, and a hillside villa just outside the walls of Florence was secured. A narrow lane ran between this villa St. Illario and its rustic church of the same name.
The villa had two projecting wings with belvederes and roofed terraces, one of which connected with the author's study. Herein he wrote of "the witchery of Italy"—the land he loved next to his own.
His letters give glorious glimpses of the Arno, their strolls to Bellosguardo's heights, the churches, monasteries, costumes, and songs of the peasants—all attuned to poesy. Frequent were the exchanges of civility between the author's study and the good old curato across the lane. Cooper wrote of him: "The man has some excellent figs, and our cook, having discovered it, lays his trees under contribution." He continues: "One small, green-coated, fresh fig is the precise point of felicity. But the good curato, besides his figs, has a pair of uneasy bells in his church-tower that are exactly forty-three feet from my ears, which ring in pairs six or eight times daily. There are matins, noontide, vespers, to say nothing of christenings, weddings, and funerals."
Then follows a rare account of a night funeral service ending beneath his study walls.
During the great Florentine fête of St. John, the patron saint of the city,—from the Count St. Leu's windows on the Arno,—the author and his family saw the display of gala-boats decked with thousands of colored-paper lanterns.