Irma in Italy Part 27

"What a beautiful country!" cried Irma. "The people up there must be very happy if it is all as pretty."

It was now growing dusk, and the horses took the last turn very quickly.

Irma noticed that Katie was quiet. Could it be that she and Marion had had some disagreement? The driver hurried on through an arched gateway.

"Oh, a narrow, city street," cried Irma, in a tone of disappointment.

"No matter," responded Richard, as their horse clattered along. "We'll get some fun out of it to-morrow. Now, in the dusk, I'll admit it does look rather like a tenement district."

After their long, warm drive, it wasn't a pleasing prospect to find their hotel on this narrow street instead of in a pleasant garden, as Katie said she had pictured it.

"At least it is different from any other hotel we have seen," said Ellen, philosophically, "and we hoped San Gimignano would be rather queer."

"But not this kind of queerness," Katie continued to protest.

CHAPTER XV

A LETTER FROM FLORENCE

Irma had been two or three days in Florence before she had time to write the long letter to Tessie that for some time she had been planning.

"Dear Tessie," she began:

"Though I have sent you messages and post cards, this is my first letter. I know you do not care to hear much about pictures and churches, of which I have seen almost too many, so I will tell you about other things. I can't say much about foreign children, only that they all seem shy, except the little girls who beg, and the little boys who wish to be our guides, and I am sorry to say that sometimes, just to get rid of them, we give them the penny that we know is not good for them. They want all the money they can get from _forestieri_, for we are _forestieri_ here.

"The Italian children seem to have long school hours, and that is one reason we do not see many of them about. When we do see a group together it troubles Aunt Caroline that they are not playing, but simply standing about solemnly. Sometimes, when we pa.s.s a station in the middle of the day, we see a little boy with a loaf of bread under his arm, cutting off a slice with a jack-knife. That probably is all he has for breakfast, and perhaps his dinner will be nothing but a dish of macaroni.

"Well, all we have ourselves for breakfast is chocolate and some rolls and b.u.t.ter. Older people take coffee. If we ask for a boiled egg we can have it, but we are trying to live as the Italians do. After breakfast we go sightseeing, and we are always half starved by one o'clock, when we have _dejeuner_. Everything then is served in courses, and if you are late you simply have to go without the things that were served before you sat down. In the middle of the day we rest, for it is as hot as our hottest summer from twelve to three. After that we drive, or visit some church or museum, ending with afternoon tea. If you happen to have friends at some hotel, it is fun to drop in there. But over all the pastry shops, that are almost like restaurants, you see the sign 'afternoon tea.' It is the one English expression most Italians seem to know.

"Dinner is served in courses like _dejeuner_. But whatever else they give us, we are sure of one thing, a course of chicken and salad. By the time the chicken comes to me, it is generally all wings, which I never eat. None of us ever eat salad, because we are suspicious of the water it is washed in.

"You have not had many railroad journeys, and so the little cars and engines might not seem as funny to you as they do to us. Each car is divided into little compartments, with room for five persons on each side, and there you have to sit and stare at the persons opposite. But we have generally been fortunate enough to have a carriage to ourselves.

"When we arrive at a station, we always find a row of men in blue cotton blouses and conductors' caps lined up waiting to carry our bags.

They are the _facchini_, or porters, and each one tries to carry several bags, for it is the law that he shall be paid ten centimes, or two cents, for each piece of luggage he carries.

"We got rid of crowded railway carriages and _facchini_, when we went from Siena to Florence. For we drove all the way, staying one day at San Gimignano, the most curious place we have seen. We wouldn't have thought of going there but for Richard Sanford, whose family we met in Siena.

Just think! His cousin, Katie Grimston, is travelling with him and his mother. Katie Grimston, who says that Nap still belongs to her; and I am afraid she really will take him away from us. But to return to San Gimignano. It is on the top of a high hill, and has a wall going completely around it, with handsome great arches, or gates.

"There are eight tall towers in the town, and five on the walls. But none of them are considered safe now for visitors to climb, though we had all we could do to keep Marion and Richard from trying one or two of them. The people of San Gimignano were divided into two great parties, Guelph for the pope and Ghibelline for the emperor. From the towers, belonging to the leading families in the town, they could do any amount of harm to their enemies in the streets below, and also keep a lookout for outside enemies on their way from Siena.

"Next to the towers (which, to be honest, look a great deal like factory chimneys of gray stone) you would like the pictures in the cathedral that tell all the old Bible stories, especially the one where they are building the Ark, with Noah and his family and all the animals standing about and looking on.

"In another church some beautiful frescoes by Gozzoli tell the story of St. Augustine's life. One, where he is shown going to school with his books under his arm, is very entertaining.

"All the young people seem to have left San Gimignano. There are none but middle-aged and old, and I never in one place saw so many bent old men and women. The town itself is so gray and old and poor that we were glad to leave it. We had enjoyed our drive from Siena so much that Aunt Caroline and Mrs. Sanford thought we might as well drive to Florence.

This was forty miles, and we all got rather tired. But the country was beautiful, and after our sixty miles of it by carriage, we feel that we know just what Tuscany is. The farmers use great white oxen for their work, white and large and smooth skinned. They made more impression on us than anything else we saw.

"Now we feel quite at home in Florence. My room looks out on the Arno, the river that runs through the centre of the city. Not far away I see the famous Ponte Vecchio, or old bridge. Give my love to every one, especially Mahala and Nap.

"Your affectionate sister,

"Irma."

Hardly had Irma signed her letter, when Ellen Sanford came into the room.

"The door was half open, and you did not hear my knock. But what a long letter. My family never gets anything but post cards from me when I am travelling."

"Well, this is to my little sister. I promised her one long letter."

"I am glad it's finished, for now you can go out with me. Katie went off in great spirits, because she had managed to get Marion and Richard both to go shopping with her; the boys hate shops, too. Your uncle and aunt have taken mother driving, and so what shall we do?"

"Let us go to the Medici Chapel. I am tired of galleries. I shall need a week to digest what I saw yesterday at the Uffizi."

"What suits you will suit me," said Ellen, and soon the girls were driving toward San Lorenzo.

"These booths remind me of the Rag Fair at Rome," said Irma, glancing at the display of trinkets and small household articles on canvas-shaded tables, in an open s.p.a.ce near the church. "Only these things are much cheaper. But what a crowd. Italians seem to like open-air shopping."

Within the lofty church the girls saw much to admire, especially the sculptures by Thorwaldsen, Donatello, and Verocchio. But the tomb of Cosimo de Medici, "the father of his country," was a plain porphyry slab.

"The great monument must be somewhere else." And Irma followed Ellen to the old sacristy, where, though they saw other Medici tombs, they knew these were not what they sought. In the new sacristy were Michelangelo's famous statues of Lorenzo, with the figures of Dawn and Twilight at the base, and of Guiliano, with Day and Night. But beautiful as these were, they knew they must search further.

At last some one directed them to a door outside, at the other end of the church, and then with tickets they entered the mausoleum.

"Ah," said Irma, "it is really all I expected. Some one told me it was not in good taste, and it is not really completed. But a building like this is more impressive than if decorated with paintings. The pavement is beautiful, and the walls of exquisite marbles seem built to last forever."

"There are not many statues," said Ellen.

"No, but I dare say they meant to have more. It is because the grandeur of the Medicis didn't last that this interests me, Ellen. In the Palazzo Vecchio and the Riccardi Palace we have seen them painted as conquering heroes, and every one of them holds his head as if he owned the world."

"They did own a good bit of their little world in their own day."

"That is just what I mean. We have the paintings and the statues, and we know all that Cosimo the first and Lorenzo the Magnificent did for Florence by encouraging art and establishing museums and libraries. But the later men who were not so great built this chapel, and when I look on these magnificent tombs, and remember what harm came to Savonarola through a de Medici, and what harm Catherine de Medici did----"

"Oh, Irma, I believe they did more good than harm in the world, and this tomb is a splendid memorial."

"Yes, it is; only the effect it has on me is different from its effect on you."

"Now for the library," said Irma, as they turned away from the tomb, "and after that I will try to show you something quite different."

"This isn't at all like a library," exclaimed Ellen, as they stood in the high-roofed hall of the Laurentian Library. "There are no bookcases, and why are these pews here?"

Before Irma could reply, an attendant explained that Irma's pews were stands for the valuable ma.n.u.scripts, and he added that Michelangelo had designed them as well as the fine wooden ceiling of the great room. He permitted the girls to look at the ma.n.u.scripts in substantial covers chained to the stands. Many of them were Greek and Latin cla.s.sics of great age. Others were in Italian, and exquisitely illuminated, like the _Canzone_ of Petrarch, with portraits of Petrarch and Laura. Ellen bought large copies of these portraits, with the delicate coloring exquisitely reproduced, and Irma sighed, as she realized how seldom she herself could spend money on things she liked.

"Ask him the way to the cloisters," she whispered, as they bade the librarian good-by; and Ellen, when she had interpreted his reply, asked, "But why should we go to the cloisters?"