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sculptures representing "The Combats of Hercules," a cabinet of fine crystals, etc. It would require a volume to describe the numerous articles in this collection.

We have been gratified by a visit to the house of Michael Angelo, situated in via Ghibellina, near the Piazza Santa Croce, where there is a collection of his pictures, designs, manuscripts, and other interesting relics. It is shown for a fee of half a franc. We saw his canes and his two-edged sword, which bears the arms of his family, the portraits of many of whom hang upon the walls. Some of his tableware is highly prized as being very beautiful. There is a bust of him in bronze, from a cast taken after death. Models of some of his most celebrated works are likewise preserved here. In an out-of-the-way corner of the house is a little closet, with only one small window, where, we were told, he used to conceal himself whenever he wished to avoid intruders. When closed there was no sign of any door to this snug retreat. He never married. Being asked why he preferred to remain single, he answered, "My art is my wife, and gives me as much trouble as married life could do; and my works will be my children."

Some of our party rode one day to La Certosa, three miles out of town, to visit there an old Carthusian Monastery, "which is approaching dissolution and contains twelve inmates only." These monks were dressed each in a long white flannel robe with a pointed hood and tied around the waist with a thick cord, suspended from which was a string of beads with a cross. They wore sandals strapped to their feet, without stockings. They have an herb garden and pharmacy, and sell medicine, perfumes

of various kinds, and delicious chartreuse, a bottle of which we secured for home consumption. The Monastery is quite a curiosity. When Pius VI. was banished from Rome by the French he had his residence here, and the room he occupied is shown to visitors. The Villa of Galileo is passed on the way to Certosa. It was here or at his prison in Florence that Milton visited Galileo near the close of his life, and wrote: "There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought."

F

CHAPTER XLI.

LORENCE, DECEMBER 8.—On the 24th ultimo we went again to Powers' studio to take another view of the many beautiful statues and busts there, and to obtain photographs of some with which we were most pleased, that we might be able the more readily to recall them hereafter. One of the most charming of these, by Hiram Powers, is that of "Genevra," so named, no doubt, from the circumstance that this was the name of a Florentine lady who was the heroine of a romantic story related by Bocaccio. This story, as given in "Walks in Florence," is as follows: "Genevra, a daughter of the noble house of Amieri, or Admari, was beloved by Antonio Rondinelli, whose family belonged to the popolani, or plebeian order, which had led an attack against the nobles in 1343. The father of Genevra accordingly refused his consent to her

marriage with Rondinelli, and obliged her to accept as a husband Francesco Agolanti, who was of equal birth with herself. During the plague of 1400 she was seized by the fatal malady and fell into a swoon, which her husband mistook for death, and she was buried in the family vault in the cemetery, between the Cathedral and Campanile. In the middle of the night Genevra recovered her senses, and was terrified when she perceived, by the clear moonlight which penetrated the apertures between the stones, that she was lying in a vault. She succeeded in bursting the bandages which confined her, and contrived to raise the stone above, and to make her escape. She first directed her steps toward her husband's home, and in order to reach it she had to pass along the narrow way called from that time forth the via del Morte. Agolanti, looking out when she knocked at the door, supposed her to be a spirit come to torment him, and refused her admittance. She then proceeded to her father's house, near St. Andrea behind the Mercato Vecchio; but, again rejected, she returned to the via Calzaioli and sat down on the steps of the Church of San Bartolommeo, to reflect where to go next. Gaining courage, she sought the house of Rondinelli, near the street which to this day bears the name of his family. Here she was received by his parents, and the tribunals having decided that the marriage of a woman who had been dead and buried was annulled, she was permitted to marry her former lover." Of course, a walk through the via del Morte, or street of Death, and to other points mentioned in this romantic story, possessed additional interest on account of these associations.

At our quiet boarding house we have a parlor

in common with Mr. and Mrs. Stickney and Rev. Mr. Sumner, and every morning join with them in family worship. On the 25th of November, Thanksgiving Day in the United States, we assembled as usual after breakfast, and gathering around us all our relations (in photograph) we could command, the Thanksgiving Proclamations of the President and Governor of Connecticut were read, and the hymn, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," was sung as a part of the morning services. At eleven o'clock we all went to the American Union Church, where we had an excellent discourse on "Cheerfulness" by the pastor, Rev. J. E. Kittredge, and a good Thanksgiving poem by Hon. Charles Thurber, from Brooklyn, N. Y., some time a sojourner in this city. The address was a strong and eloquent plea against all moroseness and morbid feeling, and for a bright and joyous life—driving away all dull care as far as possible. The poem contains many happy hits in allusion to politics and other current matters in our own country, pointedly condemning all action tending to weaken the credit of the United States in the eyes of Europe. Besides congregational singing, the gentleman who presided at the cabinet organ sang with a fine voice an appropriate hymn, and Miss Emma Abbott, a professional singer, gave us the hymn, "Nearer my God to Thee," with touching effect. One of the walls of the old hall in which these services were held is curved, and on inquiring why it was so constructed, we were informed that it was for the purpose of "keeping the devil out," and that many, if not most, of the old buildings here have at least one such wall-the result of this strange superstition. A somewhat similar superstition seems to

prevail in Germany, where, as we observed in our travels, it is the custom, when the roof of a new house is raised, to erect a tree on the ridge-pole; and this is believed to be a security against any intrusion thereafter of his Satanic majesty. Another singular superstition, which prevails in Italy among the lower classes, is that an "evil eye," often detected in a crowd, or in passing along the street, may be turned away from you by closing the two middle fingers and thumb of one hand and pointing with the index and little finger at the "evil-eyed" person. The inference is that the "old boy" is shy of forked instruments. We know that travelers resort to this method, with good effect, to disperse Italian beggars when too troublesome.

It is gratifying to see, everywhere we have been in Italy, that there appears to be perfect religious liberty; and we were particularly struck by this fact on going to the American Episcopal Church here one Sunday, the room in which the Episcopal services were held being separated from an old Roman Catholic church only by a single wall, and the front doors of both buildings opening on the same street. Here was not only entire freedom of worship by sects in some things wide apart, but in bodily conjunction so close as to make one feel that only one step more is necessary to bring about a complete union on the true Christian basis.

The Church of Santa Croce, which dates back to the thirteenth century, stands on the Piazza Santa Croce, in which there is an imposing monument to Dante, consisting of his statue, nineteen feet in height, on a pedestal twenty-three feet high, adorned on its four corners with four shield-bearing lions. This Church is called the Westminster Abbey of

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