The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-02-07

side of the cars, until. crossing. it was
matter of no moment LIZ was difncuity
TO find Italy so mountainous: 1here
was no place for broad fields. and
many of the mountain sides were I'M
promising Ii was pleasing TO see that
the trees have been largely saved. Ihey
had the tinge of an October AMERICAN
wood. much faded, and grown ashen. The
villages were not large and prosperous IN
STYLE. There were occasionally old wells
of the Hutter-wheel style. Sycamore
trees tlisplayed their whiteness, and were
pleasing reminders of the watercourseS OF
the Ohio valley. There were not many
frowning castles on the ragged rocks, but
few extraordinarily picturesque features.
Wherever there was a chance. there was
good work done in farming. No spot APP
peared where any more profitable labor
could be applied to the soil. he piano.
rama of the country grew broader ana
brighter. 1t was relief 10 ma lnat
Italy was not full of mountains, ana that
if the Roman Campagna were desoiate
other places were not. The perfecton or
Italian labor in the fields was a dellght
while the fields lasted. We were on the
way to Florence and had to pass from the
lands drained by the Tiber TO those whose
streams form the Arno, and again the
mountains came TO Us, ana when OF tne
forty odd tunnels carried US from the Iloer
TO the Arno district [ am incompetent to
declare. As we rumbled into and hummed
out of the tunnels il was With the redec-
ton that even the harshness OF the iron
wheels should be made musical with the
soft Tuscan accent. There were syInp-
toms of the mountaineering char
acter of the Arno as soon as
we struck that famous stream, and
we struck it high. We had down grade
by q swift stream, Drawing over super
abundant rocks; and so we rushed upon
fair Florence. each mile flnding trlou-
tary from a mountain gorge for the river,
now running mills and oyerrunnIng
dams. The mountains still stood around,
but receded into the shadows and soon
town filled the valley, and above 1t smiled
dome ample for the crown OF city;
deep-toned bell sounded from tower
with magnificent melancholy; our loco
motive gave spiteful little dow, we
halted, and were five hours from Rome. IN
Florence. where has bloomed above all the
comsummate flower OF art
It was December evening in Florence,
whose beautiful fame is fairly her own.
We remember Of Genoa, Pisa and Venice
that they were the prey of ambitious men
and remorseless party and provincial
spirit; that their affections were municipal
and their ambition aristocratic; that the
few schemed and the many worked and
fought for them; that glory came and lib
erty persisted; that riches took wings and
flew away, and that good names were lost
in the general wreck. The history of Flor
ence has in it the same turbulence and pur-
suit of the broad roads that lead to death;
but all this seems more remote and less I'M
portant in her case. THIS is not so much the
Florence of the factions where Calico was
imprisoned and Sayonarola burnt, where
Dante was baptized and assailed and
deiied, or even where Victor Emmanuel
set up his kingdom when he came down
from Turin and tarried a few years on the
way to Rome. and the Pantheon, as it is
the city where art is enthroned and the
supremacy of artistic affairs acknowledged,
always greatly and now entirely. Dante,
Michael Angelo and Raphael are the mon
archs, and their reign is never over; they
are elected by universal suffrage, today,
tomorrow, evermore. We come to see
Florence, not to study it; to worship art,
not TO know 1T; to enjoy the eternal,
not to consume it; and have days,
temptation. We must find the features
and get the flavor and take flight
from the banks of the Arno, as from those
of the Tiber. Blue mountains are tum-
bled against the sky around us. The Arno
runs between massive walls provided for
its restriction, and seems quite a prisoner.
1t grows wild, though, in it's mountain
Businesses, and often RACES to the Mediter-
ranean, scofting the letters of Florence.
The first street begins to tell the story of
the city. The windows set forth the Tus-
can tales of genius and achievements in
the artistic, refining away the august Sc
verities of Greece Here is the beautiful
of Raphael; the grim features of
Michael Angelo, with his broken nose,
and sneer in the wrinkles at
the worshipers of the personal loneliness
of the siipsof boy, Raphael, who dared to
dispute with him the highest place-with
him who held pen and pencil and chisel
with equal aptitude and power. We have
seen his mighty Moses in Rome, the steady
eyes following the spectators with the god
like calm of serene sovereignty; and here
is his David, in which youth becomes not
only heroic, but gigantic, alert, far-seeing;
the force is supple, the pose graceful, the
countenance conscious of kingly destiny.
But Raphael was the stripping David that
came in the days of Michael Angelo to
overcome giants. the pupil whose decora-
tive work displayed such traits that
he stalked away from the swarm of
vain striving young men and walked at
once among the masters. Angelo and
Raphael were here together, and each
probably had his views and ways, his loves
and dislkes, and here they are in their
works IN enduring association, the high
communion of conquerors. What is it to
their ashes how they are ranked as. com
pared, when they alone are comparable?
Each enriched his country and his age;
and perhaps he was the happier in the for
tune of life who died with no wrinkles to
mar his face, and walks down the endless
corridors of time in his youth, stainless as
star.
Wonder rude and lonely tower is where
GaGleo was held prisoner. 1t IS, as is
becoming, ruin. square and grim and
oh
history. Behind 1t, and away beyond it
on the horizon, is the mountain from
which the Bonapartes emigrated to Cor
sica. This broad square, Overshadowed by
rock-built fortress, with tower that
Is n progidy, a cluster of hacks in the
center of the broad paved space, with
group of bronze satyrS for fountain, is
where SaVonaroia was sacrificed and
there, in the trowning wall, are the
windows of the council hall where
he was condemned. 1t Is in the
City Hall, whose battlements are,
through photographs, familiar the world
over. 1t Is L castle, once the seat of the
government OF the republic. | am not
sure but this editce surpasses the cathe-
drals in architectural effect A short ride
and there IS small, low hill used as
burial ground, and covered with trees and
tombs. There is buried, on the central
walk, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, with
only the initials OF her name to identify
the stone; and far away in Venice the
green sea waters wash silently the marble
steps OF the palace where her husband
lately died. and their son. an art
Ist, has his studio; and her
sweet, wOmanly letters about the poet.
recently given the world are the most
fragrant tribute 10 his memory. Walter
HaVage Lander reposes in the bosom of
the green hill OF sacred soil, and there are
nlDN English luzgrIDtiOr1s with