I sit beneath Italia’s sun,
Where olive orchards gleam and quiver
Along the banks of Arno’s river.
Rich is the soil with fancy’s gold;
The stirring memories of old
Rise thronging in my haunted vision,
And wake my spirit’s young ambition.”
That Italian paradise, situated in the beautiful vale of that most charming river, is perhaps the loveliest spot in all that land. Being the home of such artists as Michael Angelo and Raphael, the abode of such poets as Dante, and of such scientific men as Galileo, it possessed an intense interest because of its association with them. Being also the seat of the De Medici, of Machiavelli, of Pitti, and the resort of the greatest American poets and sculptors, its themes for verse and prose are almost numberless. There Bayard made a stay of several months. He devoted himself to the study of the Italian language, in which he soon became proficient, and visited every castle, monastery, amphitheatre, and mountain in the suburbs, and carefully scrutinized the tombs of Sante Croce, the inlaid work of the Duomo, and those marvels of art in the Pitti and Uffizi galleries. He ever after mentioned his first stay in Florence as a season of the most intense delight, and knowing how vast is the field for study and recreation, and his peculiar susceptibility to all the lights and shades of art, we see how full was his heart of the purest and most satisfactory intellectual joy. There he saw Raphael’s “St. John in the Desert,” and it is probable that the painting prompted him to write the poem entitled “The Picture of St. John,” the scene of which is laid partly in Florence, and is one of his most valued literary productions. There he saw the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael, the companion piece of the Madonna he saw and so much admired in Dresden. There he saw Titian’s Goddess, so radiant with feminine beauty, and there Michael Angelo’s first attempt at sculpture;—so many treasures of art are there, and so many sacred places renowned in history, that the great city gains its living from the visitors and students that fill its hotels, and crowd its churches and museums. Bayard actually loved Florence, and returned to it afterwards with that irresistible yearning which a young man feels for the home of his lover.
There remains in all the world but one other place for the artist after he has seen and appreciated Florence. His love for the exquisitely sweet and beautiful is satisfied,—all the tender and delicate links between art and nature can there be seen and felt. An exhibition of the mighty, grand, colossal side of art remains; and to the lover of such exhibitions, and to the romance-seeker who, like Bayard, desires to walk the dusty halls, peopled with the ghosts of half-forgotten ages, Rome still waits.