Vallombrosa

“ Bradamant, when departed was the peer,
Remained distressed in mind; since in what way
She knew not her good kinsman's warlike gear
And courser to Mount Alban to convey.
For on her heart, which they inflame and tear,
The warm desire and greedy will yet prey
To see the Child; whom she to find once more
At Vallombrosa thought, if not before. ”

“ And now I am going to tell you of Vallombrosa. You heard how we meant to stay two months there, and you are to imagine how we got up at three in the morning to escape the heat (imagine me!) —and with all our possessions and a 'dozen of port' (which my husband doses me with twice a day because once it was necessary) proceeded to Pelago by vettura, and from thence in two sledges, drawn each by two white bullocks up to the top of the holy mountain. (Robert was on horseback.) Precisely it must be as you left it. Who can make a road up a house? ”

“ Whilst we were at Florence, living in the Casa Iandelli, I made a delightful excursion to Vallombrosa, driving in a little carriage to Pelago, and thence riding on a cart-horse up the forest-clothed mountain by the rough track which emerges on a bright green lawn, then covered with masses of lilies and columbine, and other spring flowers of every description. All around the dark forests swept down from the mountains towards the convent, where the hospitable monks entertained me with a most excellent dinner, and the abbot showed the manuscripts. ”

“ This timber is needed for prairie States, Lake cities, and exports.
"A friend of mine, now residing in western Michigan, and who once spent several years in Europe, thus writes respecting this region:
"'Oh, such trees as we have here! Magnificent, (p. 162) tall, large-leafed, umbrageous. Vallombrosa, the far-famed Vallombrosa of Tuscany, is nothing to the thousand Vallombrosas here! A fig for your Italian scenery! This is the country where nature reigns in her virgin beauty; where trees grow, where corn grows; where men grow better than they do anywhere else in the world. ”

“ Determined to conquer the weather at the beginning, we kept on, although before many miles were passed, it became too penetrating to be agreeable. The mountains grew nearly black under the shadow of the clouds, and the storms swept drearily down their passes and defiles, till the scenery looked more like the Hartz than Italy. We were obliged to stop at Ponte Sieve and dry our saturated garments: when, as the rain slackened somewhat, we rounded the foot of the mountain of Vallombrosa, above the swollen and noisy Arno, to the little village of Cucina. ”

“ No public road passes by their doors, and it is not often that a visiter toils up the steep path that leads to their lonely abode. A few farm-houses and hamlets are scattered here and there in the valley below, but few inhabitants are to be seen. Those who love retirement may find Vallombrosa a desirable summer residence; but in winter, the snows and fogs confine the monks within doors. It is even said that the woods abound in bears and wolves, which in that season carry their depredations to the convent doors. ”

“ Yes, as one wanders about these hills where life itself is so hard a master, it is just that which one understands in almost every village. You go to S. Maria delle Grazie—Vallombrosella, they call it, since it was a daughter of the monastery of Vallombrosa—and there in that beautiful fifteenth-century church you still find the simple things of life, of love; work of the della Robbia; pictures, too, cheerful flowerlike things, with Madonna like a rose in the midst. ”

“ Katharine came in this morning, bright and early, with her hands full of roses and her head full of plans. 224 She had been modelling steadily for ten days, and, having reached a convenient stopping-place, announced her intention of taking a vacation of three days, which she would be glad to devote to us and our sight-seeing. Would it please us to go to Fiesole for the day or to Vallombrosa? Zelphine says that we must see Vallombrosa if we would know something of the beauties of Paradise in advance. ”

“ The hills and vales, the Arno and the City of the Lily, with its domes and towers, have little changed during the many passing years.
Out from Florence by the Porta alla Croce runs the road to Vallombrosa, which may be reached also from Fiesole without entering Florence by taking the road leading over the Ponte a Mensola. Just beyond Pontassieve, some twenty kilometres distant, the road to Vallombrosa leaves the Arezzo highway and plunges boldly into the heart of the Apennines. ”

“ Beyond, our road led through forests of chesnut and oak, and a broad view of mountain and vale lay below us. We asked a peasant boy we met, how much land the Monks of Vallombrosa possessed. "All that you see!" was the reply. The dominion of the good fathers reached once even to the gates of Florence. At length, about noon, we emerged from the woods into a broad avenue leading across a lawn, at whose extremity stood the massivs buildings of the monastery. ”

“ The Certosa is a mere half-hour from Florence, Impruneta an hour and a half; but Vallombrosa asks a long day. One can go by rail, changing at Sant' Ellero into the expensive rack-and-pinion car which climbs through the vineyards to a point near the summit, and has, since it was opened, brought to the mountain so many new residents, whose little villas cling to the western slopes among the lizards, and, in summer, are smitten unbearably by the sun. But the best way to visit the monastery and the groves is by road. A motor-car no doubt makes little of the journey ”

“ After walking three or four miles, we entered the Appenines, keeping along the side of the Arno, whose bed is more than half dried up from the long summer heats. The mountain sides were covered with vineyards, glowing with their wealth of white and purple grapes, but the summits were naked and barren. We passed through the little town of Ponte Sieve, at the entrance of a romantic valley, where our view of the Arno was made more interesting by the lofty range of the Appenines, amid whose forests we could see the white front of the monastery of Vallombrosa. ”

“ Valla, Laurence, a learned humanist, born in Rome, and a valiant defender of the claims of scholarship; was a distinguished Latinist (1405-1457) .
Valladolid (62) , a famous city of Spain, the capital of old Castile, and now of a province of the name, 150 m. N. of Madrid; is a fortress town; is the seat of an archbishop; has a university and a number of churches; manufactures textile fabrics, iron, and leather.
Vallombrosa (shady valley) , a Benedictine abbey 15 m. E. of Florence, in a valley of the Apennines, surrounded by forests of beech, firs, &c.; is a classic spot. ”

“ She shrinks from the general eye, but in conversation she is the high-minded woman more than the timid child for which her manner seems to mark her. In either light, she is the very presence of purity. She stands by the side of her not less beautiful rival, like a Madonna by a Magdalen—both seem not at home in the world, but only one could have dropped from heaven.
LETTER XLVIII. VALLOMBROSA—ITALIAN OXEN—CONVENT—SERVICE IN THE CHAPEL—HOUSE OCCUPIED BY MILTON.
I left Florence for Vallombrosa at daylight on a warm summer's morning, in company with four ladies. ”

“ Having finished this work, which is certainly worthy of all praise, Andrea del Sarto painted a picture for the General of Vallombrosa, depicting therein four singularly beautiful figures, San Giovanni Battista namely, San Giovanni Gualberto, founder of the order, San Michele the archangel, and the Cardinal San Bernardo, who was a monk of their order; in the midst of these are certain children, which could not be more life-like nor more beautiful than they are. ”

“ Pelago (pop. 2000) . Inn: Buon Cuore; whence mule, 5 fr., guide, 2 fr., to Vallombrosa, 8 miles south. Or coach as far as Tosi, about 51⁄2 miles from Pelago, and the rest by mule or on foot. At Pontassieve a carriage for two at 12 fr. per day, or for four at 20 fr. per day, may be hired for visiting the three sanctuaries. Having visited Vallombrosa, return to Pelago, and proceed to Bibbiena, 15 miles east, by the Consuma, Borgo alla Collina, and Poppi, 4 miles from Bibbiena. From Bibbiena mules or horses must be hired for Alvernia, 2 hours distant. ”

“ We long inexpressibly to stay a week here and then take a couple of days for La Verna, where again one comes upon footprints of St. Francis and his brothers, but we all learned from our school copybooks that "time and tide wait for no man," and we have promised to be in Florence to-morrow night to meet Bertha and Mrs. Robins, who are to join us in a trip to the Certosa on the following day. Zelphine and I make solemn vows, as we have done in many other entrancing spots, that we will return to Vallombrosa some day and stay as long as we wish. ”

“ The description, which appears to apply,commences with the word “flava” indeed; but Geoffroy himself has given the specific name trimaculata to the insect (Entom. Proc. ii) . I am returned not long from a visit to the forest school installed newly in the convent of Vallombrosa [The first forestry school to exist in Italy was the Istituto Forestale di Vallombrosa founded August 15, 1869] . It may seem an odd time to go there, and I had intended deferring it to the spring ”

“ The saint is caressing one, who kneels at his feet; the other has an open book in his hand. The draperies are especially graceful, and the expressions soft and pleasing.
After finishing a portrait of the Intendant of the monks at Vallombrosa, which the said monk afterwards placed in an arbour covered with vines, regardless of the injuries of wind and rain—Andrea, having some colours still left on his palette, took up a tile and called his wife to sit for her portrait, that all might see how well she had kept her good looks from her youth ”

“ We tried to make the monks of Vallombrosa let us stay with them for two months, but their new abbot said or implied that Wilson and I stank in his nostrils, being women, and San Gualberto, the establishes of their order, had enjoined on them only the mortification of cleaning out pigsties without fork or shovel. So here a couple of women besides was (as Dickens's American said) 'a piling it up rayther too mountainious.' So we were sent away at the end of five days. So provoking! Such scenery, such hills, such a sea of hills looking alive among the clouds. ”

“ Her sorrows were over, but loud and long were the lamentations of her child; thus left alone with one poor old man and his faithful dog Luachan.
At dead of night strange lights and sounds arose about that rugged dwelling. Watchers at a distance beheld the lonely castle enveloped in fiery smoke. Amid the wreathing vapours a figure of unearthly proportions carried to the sea a white-robed form with long flowing hair. The repentant Valbiorn, too late to save, or even to hold converse with his neglected Bragela, bore to his immortal home her precious remains. ”

“ Valladolid is seated in the midst of an immense valley, or rather hollow which seems to have been scooped by some mighty convulsion out of the plain ground of Castile. The eminences which appear in the neighbourhood are not properly high grounds, but are rather the sides of this hollow. They are jagged and precipitous, and exhibit a strange and uncouth appearance. Volcanic force seems at some distant period to have been busy in these districts. Valladolid abounds with convents, at present deserted, which afford some of the finest specimens of architecture in Spain. ”

“ ITS STORY Valladolid, a thriving, bustling place, as Spanish cities go, stands on the rivers Pisuerga and Esgueva, a few miles above the confluence of their united streams with the Duero. All round spreads the vast, dreary plain of Castile, interrupted within sight of the town by a ring of low hills. Trains thunder past from north, south, and west, keeping Valladolid in close touch with Madrid, with France, with Portugal, and with the rest of the world. The natural centre, this, of the old kingdom of Leon and Castile, of which it was for a long time the political capital. ”

“ When death, the mower, is in the field, few plants are tough enough to turn the edge of his scythe: yet Castruccio is one of these few; and patience and prudence alone can effect his fall. Watch every thing; report all to me; and beware that the countess leaves not Lucca; our power is gone, when she goes."
Such was the scene that immediately followed the destruction of the castle of Valperga. ”

“ Straining up the rugged paths of the mountain, careless of the burning sun, they walk on, shadowed by their broad pilgrim's hats, repeating their pater-nosters, and thus, by the toil of the body, buy indulgence for the soul's idleness. Many on their return visited the castle of Valperga, and partook its hospitality. ”

“ A carpet of rich meadows clothes it from side to side; fruitful trees fleck it with their shadows; the Pelice waters it; and on either hand is a wall of mountains, whose sides display successive zones of festooned vines, golden grain, dark chestnut forests, and rich pasturages. Over these are hung stupendous battlements of rock; and above all, towering high in air, are the everlasting peaks in their robes of ice and snow. But the sublimities of nature were nothing to men whose thoughts were only of blood.
Pursuing their march up the valley, the soldiers next came to Villaro. ”