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ITALIAN DAYS AND WAYS

[THIRD EDITION]


      *      *      *      *      *      *

_By Anne Hollingsworth Wharton_


     Italian Days and Ways. Decorated title and 8 illustrations.
     Crown, 8vo. Cloth, extra, $1.50 _net_.

     Social Life in the Early Republic. Profusely illustrated.
     8vo. Buckram, gilt top, uncut edges, $3.00 _net_; half levant,
     $6.00 _net_.

     Salons, Colonial and Republican. Profusely illustrated. 8vo.
     Buckram, $3.00; three-quarters levant, $6.00.

     Heirlooms in Miniatures. Profusely illustrated. 8vo. Buckram,
     $3.00; three-quarters levant, $6.00.

     Through Colonial Doorways. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25.

     Colonial Days and Dames. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25.

     A Last Century Maid. Illustrated. 4to. Cloth, $1.25.

      *      *      *      *      *      *


  [Illustration: Castello Sant' Angelo]




ITALIAN DAYS AND WAYS

by

ANNE HOLLINGSWORTH WHARTON

With Illustrations


[Illustration: Church of S. Damian, Assisi]







Philadelphia and London
J. B. Lippincott Company
MCMVII

Copyright, 1906 By J. B. Lippincott Company

Published, November, 1906




CONTENTS


                                                   PAGE

      I LA SUPERBA IN THE CLOUDS                      9

     II ALONG THE RIVIERA                            27

    III CAPTURED BY A CABMAN                         39

     IV AN EXCITING DRIVE                            53

      V BELLA ROMA                                   76

     VI A POET'S CORNER                              93

    VII ANTIQUITIES AND ORANGE-BLOSSOMS             102

   VIII VIA APPIA                                   116

     IX TU ES PETRUS                                129

      X VALE ROMA                                   145

     XI SHORT JOURNEYS                              158

    XII AN UMBRIAN IDYL                             173

   XIII A SUNDAY IN ASSISI                          192

    XIV THE CITY OF FLOWERS                         211

     XV AN EARTHLY PARADISE                         232

    XVI FIESOLE                                     253

   XVII HAPS AND HAPPENINGS                         272

  XVIII ANGELA'S LETTER                             295




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


  CASTELLO SANT' ANGELO                                 _Frontispiece_
  THE BAY OF NAPLES. _Photographed by Dr. Bertha Lewis_             41
  ON THE ROAD TO PAESTUM. _Photographed by Dr. Bertha Lewis_        59
  AN AMAZONIAN TRIBUTE, CAPRI. _Photographed by Dr. Bertha Lewis_   71
  CYPRESS WALK, HADRIAN'S VILLA                                     87
  A STREET IN FLORENCE                                             212
  THE MICHAEL ANGELO WELL AT THE CERTOSA, FLORENCE                 269
  PALAZZO REZZONICO                                                277




ITALIAN DAYS AND WAYS




I

LA SUPERBA IN THE CLOUDS


                                                   GENOA, February 19th.

Your most interesting letter, Sir Philosopher, reached me at Gibraltar,
and served to give me a homelike feeling in that alien land of Spain.
Any one who can write letters as interesting as yours, from your
library, with the mercury at zero outside, and nothing more refreshing
to look upon from the window than snow and sleet, does not need to
wander in sunny lands and among ancient ruins for an inspiration. No,
travel would be absolutely wasted upon you, who require only a cigar
and a wood fire to encourage your "reveries of a bachelor."

You wish to know what are my first impressions of Italy, and how
we three women get on together? To be perfectly candid with you, we
ourselves are not wandering in sunny lands at present, and the cheerful
blaze of your library fire would prove most welcome to benumbed fingers
and pinched noses.

Our welcome to Genoa was not particularly cheerful. It had been raining
for days; the sky was heavy with clouds, and the air chilly and damp.
We can well understand why the prudent and all-informing Baedeker
advises invalids visiting Genoa at this time to guard against raw winds
and abrupt changes of temperature.

We enjoyed coming into the fine harbor, around which Genoa is built
upon its hills and terraces in the form of a half-circle, the city
widening out toward the ends of the arc. On the hills, we know, are
many beautiful villas, seen to-day but dimly through veils of mist, and
beyond are the mountains, which in clear weather must add much to the
charm of this old fortress as seen from the sea.

Zelphine says that it would be very ungrateful of us if we were to
complain of cloudy weather, as the skies might be pouring down upon
us instead of only threatening, and, after all, we are having the same
good luck that we had in Madeira, Granada, and Algiers in coming after
the rain instead of before it.

And how do we get on together? Really, monsieur, you display courage
when you ask that question, as I might here and now unburden my mind
of a long list of grievances. As it is, however, I have so far no
woes to relate, although I know that a sojourn on the Continent has
wrecked many a friendship. We three must appear to those who meet us
an ill-assorted trio; but because of our individualities we may be the
better fitted to stand the crucial test of a tour of indefinite length,
whose only object is pleasure.

Zelphine is the encyclopaedia of the party, and, as Angela says,
her information is always on tap, besides which she is amiable and
refreshingly romantic. It is inspiring to travel with a woman, no
longer young, to whom the world and its inhabitants still wear "the
glory and the dream." On the other hand, when one is suffering from
the discomforts of travel to such an extent that it would be a luxury
to moan and groan a bit and find fault with the general condition of
things, it is a trifle irritating to see Zelphine sailing serenely upon
the seas of high content, apparently above such trifling accidents as
material comfort. You, being a man and consequently a philosopher of
greater or less degree, may not be able to understand this; it is just
here that Zelphine and I might quarrel, but we "generally most always"
do not.

Angela you have scarcely known since she was a little girl, when she
was a prime favorite of yours. In the half-hour in which you saw her,
just before we sailed, you must have realized that in appearance she
had fulfilled the promise of her beautiful childhood. She is a spirited
creature, but with a fine balance of common sense, and with her
delicate, spirit