The Portland daily press., 1900-03-10
Some of the Things of
Interest Noted.
Busy Streets of Florence Fasci-
Mating to View.

fair helds OF Italy and Italian art are IN
exhaustible; and when the winter SHOWS
commence to tip the Alpine peaks and
the oheerless winds and duh weather and
leaden skies settle over the valleys and
large cities which are so delightful In
summer, the mind Of the student turns to
the land of song. and he longs to hask
under the blue Italian skiea, where on the
shores OF the hluer waters of the fair
| Mediterranean or on soms Adriatio
height, he may delve in Italian lore.
Here he lives again with the Italian poets,
painters and soulptofs as they worked at
their art which has come down to the
present generation as rich legacy.
30 over the Gotthard we go, that ever
wonderful piece of railroad engineering
which never grows less 3 marvel or less
interesting to study and see; for Ihe
waterfalls hang over the preoipioes In
the same graceful fashion and fall into
the deep goryes below In the same rain
bow tints, rs the years go By.
After traversIpg score Of times this
ascending and descending labyrinth Of
spiral railroading, which mounts and de-
soends in a oorkscrsw IA sAiop, one gets
familiar With the summons, oftentimes
in the middle of the night, TO get out at
Cbissso end have the luggage examined.
This usually happens in an orderly man
ner. For after perfunotory examine
ton in which you place the least oDjec-
tionahls and mcst accessible piece OF lug
gage open before the Custom House
officer, be marks the whole lot, In oass
you do mot have the yillainous air of a
person who has concealed about him
boxes OF cigars and casks Of spirits. In
such case woe to you. Then after an
| imprisonment OF twenty minutes you are
filed out and take your places In your
original carriage, exactly as you were
three quarters Of an hour before. But,
as often happens, In this world of the
unexpected, things do not turn out just
as they seem; for occasionally the crowd
grows pugnacious and makes q rush for
the best seals, deriving you Of your we'll
chosen PLACES, the original possession of
which ought TO be nine points of law;
and when you find unknown parties
making up berths ON your velvet cushions
you cry out against the dastardly deed.
The eye Of the law, with its usual strict
foreign surveillance, comes TO the rsoue
and order succeeds chaos, while sleep
visits the dropping lashss. which open no
more until the end of the journey.
BY the fast trains 1t is eight hours from
Basic to Milan,, eleven hours and a half
TO Genoa, sixteen hours to Florence,
| twenty hours to Rome and twenty four
and half TO Naples; SO that on the day
folio n ing the one you leave Basic you
walk the strssts OF the fair Tuscan Flor
encs where the eye ever opsns except that
1t rests on the work which some hand Of
genius has done.
Visit Florencs as many times as you
Will, there Is still some subtle andiscoV-
cred secret of art which shines out like q
bright, newly discovered star IN the
night. You think you have exhausted
Raphael and fathomed the depths of the
work which Michael Angeles gigantic
hands have wrought. You think you
know all the fine old churches by heart,
with their unique ohapels filed with
gems of ant. But here they are again
as fresh and new as when you saw them
last, lighting up the soul with the same
uuspeskable glow which only the per-
lection of art can produces. You may
think you know the Uffizzi and Pitt
Palaces thoroughly with tine Tribuna,
which never changes except 10 an occas-
ionai re-hanging OF pictures on the wall,
and the miles of Pitt galleries, OF
Saturn, Apollo, Venus, Jupiter and
Mars with their inimitable MadonDas,
but In your absence their faces hAvs
grown more celestial.
Whether 1t Is Cimatus (Chimi-bo or
Jimmy Booy, as some of our English
friends are heard to call him, who has
helped to adorn the chapels Of Maria
NovslIa, or Fra Angelica. who has glori-
lied the cloisters of st. Marks with hi )
Madonna of the Star, or Giotto who lie
inmates the Peruzzi and Badi Chapel In
st. Crocs with scenes from the life of st.
John the Baptist and the sanity St.
Francis, there 10 always some divine
Illumination to discover. For these old
painters and monks, who were often ar
lists. wrought their spiritual life into
the eyes Of thei- Nadonnas, and believed
themselves near enough the God-head to
interpret his motives when he said to the
darkness. that there should be light and
commanded the stars 10 shine in the fir
mamsnt and the beasts TO creep upon the
earth. They tried to fashion man in
Gods image and succeeded Ia making
woman, to the eye of the novice, as well
as 10 their own mental vision, the most
perfsct creation, which will be handed
down through all the ages.
Ihess were themes which al tbs paint
ers Of the earlier centuries chose; they
began at tho Creation, and In great