In all these churches—the great convent church, upper and lower, of the Franciscans elaborately adorned with frescoes by Cimabue and by Giotto; in the ancient Duomo; in Santa Chiara and in Santa Maria degli Angeli—statues of the two saints, Francis and Chiara, are placed side by side. She shares all the exaltation of his memory and the fulness of his fame.

The strange problem of the stigmata has, perhaps, never been absolutely solved. Canon Knox Little says that as to the miracles of St. Francis generally speaking, there is no intrinsic improbability; that “his holy life, his constant communion with God, the abundant blessings with which it pleased God to mark his ministry, all point in the same direction.” Latter-day revelations of psychic science disclose contemporary facts of the power of mental influence on the physical form that are, in many instances, hardly less wonderful than this alleged miracle of St. Francis. Whether the story is accepted literally or only in a figurative sense does not affect the transcendent power of his influence. His entire life and work illustrate the beauty of holiness. “Art in its widest sense gained a marvellous impulse from his work and effort,” says Canon Knox Little. The French and Provençal literature and the schools of Byzantine art preceded the life of Francis; but his influence imparted a powerful wave of sympathetic and vital insight and awakened a world of new sensibilities of feeling. Indeed, it is a proverb of Italy, “Without Francis, no Dante.” Certainly the life of Francis was the inspiration of the early Italian art. Cimabue and Giotto drew from the inspiration of that unique and lovely life the pictorial conceptions that have made Assisi the cradle of Italian painting. The great works of Giotto are in the lower church of the Franciscan monastery. One of these frescoes represents chastity as a maiden kneeling in a shrine, while angels bring to her branches of palm. Obedience is depicted as placing a yoke upon the bowed figure of a priest, while St. Francis, attended by two angels, looks on; Poverty, whom Francis declared to be his bride, is pictured as accompanied by Hope and Charity, who give her in marriage to St. Francis, the union being blessed by Christ, while the heavenly Father and throngs of angels gaze through the clouds on this nuptial scene. The fresco called Gloriosus Franciscus is perhaps the crowning work of Giotto. Francis is seen in a beatitude of glory, with a richly decorated banner bearing the cross and seven stars floating above his head and bands of angels in the air surrounding him. Canon Knox Little, alluding to these interesting works of Giotto, says that “even in their faded glories they give an immense interest to the lower church of Assisi. No one can look at them now unmoved, or wander on the hillside to the west of the little city, with the rugged rocks above one’s head, and beneath one’s feet the rich carpets of cyclamen, and before one’s eyes long dreamy stretches of the landscape of Umbria, without being touched by the feeling of that beautiful and loving life devoted to God and man and nature, in utter truth, which therefore left such an impress on Christian art.”

The Madonna and saints painted by Cimabue are faded almost to the point of obliteration, yet there still lingers about them a certain grace and charm. The visitor to this Franciscan monastery church realizes that he is beholding the art which was the very pledge and prophecy of the Renaissance, and he realizes, too, that the Renaissance itself was the outgrowth of the new vitality communicated to the world by the life and character of St. Francis. He gave to the world the realization of the living Christ; he taught that religion was in action, not in theology. He liberated the spirit; and when this colossal church was being built (1228-53) the artists who had felt the new thrill of life opened by his teaching hastened to Assisi to express their appreciation by their pictorial work on its walls. The qualities of spiritual life—faith, sacrifice, sympathy, and love—began, for the first time, to be interpreted into artistic expression.

The tomb of St. Francis is in the crypt of the church. The stone sarcophagus containing his body was discovered in 1818, and then placed here in a little chamber especially prepared, surrounded by an iron latticework with candles perpetually burning.

From the sacristy of the lower church, stairs ascend to the upper, with its beautiful nave and transept with a high altar, and the choir stalls. While the lower church with its great arches is always dark, the upper is flooded with light from vast windows. There is a series of frescoed panels on either side, accredited to pupils of Giotto, full of forcible action and a glow of color. But the upper church, while it is magnificent, lacks somewhat of that mystic atmosphere one is so swiftly conscious of in the gloom and mystery of the lower church.

Stretching behind the churches, along the crest of the high hill, is the colossal monastery itself, with that double row of arches and colonnades that makes it so conspicuous a feature of all the Umbrian valley. Formerly hundreds of monks dwelt here; but the Italian government suppressed this monastery in 1866, and since that time it has been used as a school for boys.

The ancient Duomo, whose façade is of the twelfth century, has three exquisite rose windows, and on either side, as one approaches the high altar, stand the statues of St. Francis and of Santa Chiara. In the little piazza in front of the church is a bronze copy of Dupré’s famous statue of St. Francis.

The colossal church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, with its magnificent dome, is a contrast, indeed, to the primitive little Portiuncula where Francis knelt in prayer, and which is now preserved in the centre of this vast cathedral,—the rude structure encased in marble, and decorated, above the entrance, with a picture by Overbeck, whose motive is St. Francis as he stands, hushed and reverent, listening to the voice that tells him to embrace poverty. There is a fine Perugino in the church, representing the Saviour. The cell in which St. Francis died, enclosed in the little chapel which St. Bonaventura built over it, is preserved in this great cathedral.

“And who was he that opened that door in heaven?” questions Canon Knox Little in reference to St. Francis. “Who was he that gave that fresh life and thought? Who but the man who had brought down in his own person the living Christ into his century, who had taught men again the love of God, and then the love of man and the love of nature; who had lifted the people out of their misery and degradation, and awakened the church out of its stiffness and worldliness; it was he, too, who inspired, who may at most be said to have created, Italian art,—the great St. Francis! Such are the deep, such are the penetrating, such are the far-reaching effects of sanctity. If a soul is, by divine grace, given wholly to God, it is impossible for us to say to what heights it may attain, or what good, in every region of human effort, it may do.”

Perugia, the neighboring city only fifteen miles from Assisi, is the metropolis of all this Umbrian region. Like Assisi, it is a “hill town,” built on an acropolis of rock, its foundations laid by the Etruscans more than three thousand years before the Christian era, and its atmosphere is freighted with the records of artists and scholars. The Perugians were the forerunners. They held the secret of artifice in metals and gems; they were architects and sculptors. The only traces of their painting that have come down to us are their works on sarcophagi, on vases or funeral urns,—traces that indicate their gifts for line and form. It was about 310 B.C. that all Umbria became a Roman province. The colossal porta of Augustus—a gateway apparently designed for the Cyclops—still retains its inscription, “Augustus Perusia.” The imperishable impress of the great Roman conqueror is still seen in many places. Perugia was a firm citadel, as is attested by the fact that Totila and his army of Goths spent seven years in besieging it. The centuries from the thirteenth to the fifteenth inclusive, when it was under the sway of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, were years of tragic violence. Even the cathedral became the scene of riot, and its interior was entirely washed with wine, and it was reconsecrated before it could be again used for holy offices. The little piazza in front of the cathedral, now dreaming in the sun, has been the scene of strange and contrasting crises of life. Strife and warfare have desolated it; the footsteps of Bernardino of Siena have consecrated it, as he passed within the great portals to preach the gospel of peace. He was one of the most potent of the Francescan disciples, and Bernardino (born of the noble family of the Albizzeschi, in 1380, in Siena, the year after St. Catherine’s death) for forty years wandered over Italy, preaching peace and repentance. Vespasiano da Bisticci, a contemporary historian, records that Bernardino “converted and changed the minds and spirits of men marvellously and had a wondrous power in persuading men to lay aside their mortal hatreds.” Bernardino died at the age of sixty-four in Aquila, and the towns in which he had faithfully carried on his apostolic work placed the sacred sign of the divine name (I.H.S.) upon their gates and palaces, in his memory. In the Sienese gallery is a portrait of San Bernardino by Sano, painted in 1460, representing the saint as the champion of the Holy Name, with the inscription, “I have manifested Thy name to men.” In one of his impressive and wonderful sermons San Bernardino said:—

Opposite the Duomo of Perugia, on the other side of the piazza, is the Palazzo Municipio, with a Gothic façade, a beautiful example of thirteenth-century architecture. Here also is the colossal fountain with three basins, decorated with pictorial designs from the Bible by Niccolo Pisano and Arnolfo of Florence, and in the shadow of this fountain St. Dominic, St. Francis, and St. Bernardino often met and held converse.

Perugia easily reads her title clear to artistic immortality in having been the home of Perugino, the master of Raphael. Here he lived for several years working with Pinturicchio in the frescoes that adorn the Collegio del Cambio, now held as a priceless treasure hall of art. They still glow with rich coloring,—the Christ seen on the Mount of Transfiguration; the Mother and Child with the adoring magi; and the chariot of the dawn driven by Apollo a century before Guido painted his “Aurora” in the Palazzo Rospigliosi in Rome.

No journey in Italy is quite like that to the lovely Umbrian valley and its Jerusalem, Assisi, the shrine which, with the single exception of Rome, is the special place of pilgrimage for the entire religious world. Perugia offers the charm of art, and attracts the visitor, also, by an exceptional degree of modern comfort and convenience; but Assisi is the shrine before which he kneels, where the footsteps of saints who have knelt in prayer make holy ground, and where he realizes anew the consecration of faith and sacrifice. The very air is filled with divine messages, and in lowly listening he will hear, again, those wonderful and thrilling words of St. Francis:—

VI

THE GLORY OF A VENETIAN JUNE

which eludes all translation into words. Nor does the spell dissolve and vanish when put to the test of one’s actual sojourn in the Dream City. It is an experience outside the boundaries of the ordinary day and daylight world, as if one were caught up into the ethereal realm to find a city

The sense of remoteness from common life could hardly be greater if one were suddenly swept away to some far star, blazing in the firmament; or if Charon had rowed him over the mystic river and he had entered the abodes of life on the plane beyond. Even the hotel becomes an enchanted palace whose salons, luxuriously decorated, open by long windows on marble balconies overhanging the Grand Canal. Dainty little tables piled with current reading matter, in French, English, and Italian, stand around; the writing-desks are sumptuous, filled with every convenience of stationery; and the matutinal coffee and rolls are served the guest in any idyllic niche wherein he chooses to ensconce himself, regardless of the regulation salle-à-manger. One looks across the Grand Canal to the beautiful Church of Santa Maria della Salute. The water plashes against the marble steps as gondolas glide past; the blue sky of Italy reflects itself in the waters below, until one feels as if he were floating in the air between sea and sky. In the heart of the city, with throngs of people moving to and fro, all is yet silence, save the cry of the gondolier, the confused echo of voices from the people who pass, and here and there the faint call of a bird. No whir and rush of electric cars and motors; no click of the horses’ feet on the asphalt pavement—no pavement, indeed, and no horses, no twentieth-century rush of life. It is Venice, it is June, and the two combine to make an illuminated chapter. To live in Venice is like being domesticated in the heart of an opal. How wonderful it is to drift—a sky above and a sky below—on still waters at sunset, with the Dream City mirrored in the depths, every shade of gold and rose and amber mirrored back,—the very atmosphere a sea of color, recalling to one Ruskin’s words that “none of us appreciate the nobleness and the sacredness of color. Of all God’s gifts to man,” he continues, “color is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn. Color is the sacred and saving element.” If the enthusiasm in these words savor of exaggeration, Venice is the place that will lure one to forgetfulness of it. One is simply conscious of being steeped in color and revelling in a strange loveliness. One no longer marvels at the glory of Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese. They but interpreted on canvas the shining reality. A charming writer on Venice has well said:—

It was in the autumn of 1882 that the Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks, later Bishop of Massachusetts, visited Venice and wrote of San Marco:—

Dr. Brooks noted that Venice had “two aspects, one sensuous and self-indulgent, the other lofty, spiritual, and even severe. Both aspects,” he continues, “are in its history and both are also in its art. Titian often represents the former. The loftier, nobler Tintoretto gives us the second. There is something in his greatest pictures, as, for instance, in the Crucifixion, at St. Rocco, which no other artist approaches. The lordly composition gives us an impression of intellectual grasp and vigor. The foreground group of prostrate women is full of a tenderness. The rich pearly light, which floods the centre, glows with a solemn picturesqueness, and the great Christ, who hangs like a benediction over the whole, is vocal with a piety which no other picture in the world displays. And the Presentation of the Virgin, in Santa Maria dell’Orto, is the consummate presentation of that beautiful subject, its beauty not lost in its majesty.”

Of other pictures Dr. Brooks said:—

Tennyson loved best, of all the pictures in Venice, a Bellini,—a beautiful work, in the Church of Il Redentore; and he was deeply impressed by the “Presentation of the Virgin,” from Tintoretto, in the Church of the Madonna dell’Orto. “He was fascinated by St. Mark’s,” writes the poet’s son, “by the Doge’s Palace and the Piazza, and by the blaze of color in water and sky. He climbed the Campanile, and walked to the library where he could scarcely tear himself away from the Grimani Breviary.”

Venice, though not containing any single gallery comparable with the Pitti and the Uffizi, is still singularly rich in treasures of art, and rich in legend and story. The school of encrusted architecture is nowhere so wonderfully represented as here, and it is only in this architecture that a perfect scheme of color decoration is possible. In all the world there is no such example of encrusted architecture as that revealed in St. Mark’s. It is a gleaming mass of gold, opal, ruby, and pearl; with alabaster pillars carved in designs of palm and pomegranate and lily; with legions of sculptured angels looking down; with altars of gold ablaze with scarlet flowers and snowy lilies, while clouds of mystic incense fill the air. One most impressive place is the baptistery, where is the tomb of St. Mark and also that of the Doge Andrea Dandolo, who died at the age of forty-six, having been chosen Doge ten years before. His tomb is under a window in the baptistery, and the design is that of his statue in bronze, lying on a couch, while two angels at the head and the feet hold back the curtains.

The sarcophagus that is said to contain the body of St. Mark is of the richest description, encrusted with gold and jewels on polished ebony and marble. There is a legend that after St. Mark had seen the people of Aguilia well grounded in religion he was called to Rome by St. Peter; but before setting off he took with him in a boat the holy Bishop Hennagoras and sailed to the marshes of Venice. The boat was driven by wind to a small island called Rialto, on which were some houses, and St. Mark was suddenly snatched into ecstasy and heard the voice of an angel saying, “Peace be to thee, Mark; here shall thy body rest.”

There is also a legend that in the great conflagration which destroyed Venice in 976 A.D., the body of St. Mark was lost and no one knew where to find it. Then the pious Doge and the people gave themselves to fasting and prayer, and assembled in the church, asking that the place be revealed them. It was on the 25th of June that the assemblage took place. Suddenly one of the pillars of the church trembled, and opened to disclose the sarcophagus,—a chest of bronze. The legend goes on to say that St. Mark stretched his hand out through the side and that a noble, Dolfini by name, drew a gold ring off the finger.

The place where this miracle is said to have been wrought is now marked by the Altar of the Cross.

Ruskin declares that “a complete understanding of the sanctity of color is the key to European art.” Nowhere is this sanctity of color so felt as at San Marco. The church is like the temple of the New Jerusalem.

The origin of Venice is steeped in sacred history. It is pre-eminently the city founded in religious enthusiasm. The chronicles of De Monici, written in 421, give this passage: “God, who punishes the sins of men by war, sorrow, and whose ways are past finding out, willing both to save the innocent blood, and that a great power, beneficial to the whole world, should arise in a place strange beyond belief, moved the chief men of the cities of the Venetian province both in memory of the past, and in dread of future distress, to establish states upon the nearer islands of the Adriatic, to which, in the last extremity, they might retreat for refuge. . . . They laid the foundation of the new city under good auspices on the island of the Rialto, the highest and nearest to the mouth of the Brenta, on March 25, 471.”

The first Doge of Venice was Paolo Lucio Anafesto, elected by the tribunal of commonalty, tribunals, and clergy, at Heraclea, in 697. The period of the subjection of the ecclesiastical to the ducal and patrician powers followed. The “Council of Ten” was established in 1335, and the last Doge elected was Lodovico Manin in 1789, who exclaimed, “Tolè questo: no la doperò più,” as the French Revolution destroyed the Republic of Venice.

The finest example of Renaissance architecture in Venice is that of the Libreria Vecchia, the work of Jacobo Sansovino, completed in the sixteenth century. Never were the creations of poet and philosopher more fittingly enshrined. The rich Doric frieze, the Ionic columns, the stately balustrade, with statues and obelisks, the resplendent richness of ornamentation, offer a majesty and beauty seldom found even in the best classical architecture of Europe. On the ceiling of one sala is a picture by Titian representing “Wisdom” as a woman, reclining on a cloud, her right hand outstretched to take a book that Genius is offering her. There are two beautiful caryatides by Vittoria and rich mural work by Battista Franco and De Moro.

The Doge’s Palace is a treasure house of history. One enters the Porta della Carta, which dates back to 1638, erected by Bartolomeo Buon. The portal is very rich in sculpture, and among the reliefs is a heroic one of Francesco Foscari, kneeling before the lion at St. Mark’s. One recalls his tragic fate and passes on. Perhaps, en passant, one may say that his pilgrimage through Venice and Florence is so constantly in the scenes of tragedy that he is prone to sink almost into utter sadness, even, rather than seriousness. The air is full of ghosts. One feels the oppression of all the life that has there been lived, all the tragedies that have been enacted in these scenes.

In Renaissance nothing more wonderful in Europe can be found than the court of the Palace of the Doges. Antonio Rizzo began the east façade of the building in 1480, and it was continued by Lombardo, and completed by Scarpagnino. “Words cannot be found to praise the beauty of these sculptures,” says Salvatico, “as well as of the single ornaments of the walls and of the ogres which have been carved so delicately and richly that they cannot be excelled by the Roman antique friezes.”

By the golden staircase one goes to the council chambers,—the hall of the Senate, the Council of Ten, and the Council of Three. In the great council chamber is that most celebrated mural painting in the world, “The Glory of Venice,” by Paolo Veronese, which covers the ceiling. In a frieze are the portraits of seventy-six of the Doges, but in one space is a black tablet only, with the inscription: “This in place of M. F., who was executed for his crimes.”

The “Sala del Maggior Consiglio” (hall of the grand council) is very rich in paintings. Above the throne is Tintoretto’s “The Glory of Paradise,” and the walls are covered with battle pieces and symbolic and allegorical paintings. There is “Venice Crowned by Fame,” by Paolo Veronese, “Doge Niccolò da Ponte Presenting the Senate and Envoys of Conquered Cities to Venice,” by Tintoretto; “Venice Crowned by the Goddess of Victory,” by Palma Giovane, and many another of the richest and most wonderful beauty.

Descending into the prisons and dungeons brings one into a vivid realization of the grim history of which these were the scenes. The Bridge of Sighs has two covered passages, one for the political and one for the criminal prisoners. Here is shown a narrow ledge on which the condemned man stood, with a slanting stone passageway before him, which, when the guillotine had done its swift and deadly work, conveyed the crimson flood into the dark waters of the canal below, while the body was thrown in the water on the other side. There are the “Chambers of Lead,” where prisoners were confined, intensely hot in the summer, and as intensely cold in the winter. Many of these dark, close, narrow cells—in which the one article of furniture allowed was the wooden slanting rack, that served as a bed—still remain. In many of these are inscriptions that were written by the prisoners. One reads (in translation): “May God protect me against him whom I trust; I will protect myself against him whom I do not trust.”

The murderer, Giovanni M. Borni, wrote in his cell: “G. M. B. was confined very unjustly in this prison; if God does not help it will be the last desolation of a poor, numerous, and honest family.”

All visitors to these gloomy dungeons recall the lines of Byron:—

The piazza of St. Mark’s is a distinctive feature, even in all Europe. It is not large; it is surrounded on three sides with shops, which are merely glittering bazaars of jewels and bric-a-brac; the sidewalk is blockaded with cafés al fresco, the ground is half covered with the dense flocks of white doves, but here all lingers and loiters. The façade of St. Mark’s fills one end—a mass of gleaming color. At one corner is the tall clock tower (Torre dell’Orologio) in the Renaissance style of 1400, crowned with the gilded lion of St. Mark. On the festa days three figures, the Three Wise Men, preceded by an angel, come forth on the tower and bow before the Madonna, in a niche above,—a very ingenious piece of mechanism. With its rich architecture and sculptures and masses of color, the piazza of San Marco is really an open-air hall, where all the town congregates from morning till midnight.

To study the art of the Venetian school is a work of months, and one that would richly repay the student. The churches and galleries of Venice give a truly unique opportunity. In the Church of San Sebastiano lies Paolo Veronese, the church in which he painted his celebrated frescoes, now transformed into a temple for himself. Here one finds his “Coronation of the Virgin,” “The Virgin in the Gloria,” “Adoration of the Magi,” “Martyrdom of San Sebastian,” and many others. In the Scuola di San Rocco are the great works of Tintoretto, “St. Magdalene in the Wilderness,” the “Visitation,” and the “Murder of the Innocents.”

In the San Maria dei Frari is the tomb of Titian,—an exquisite grouping of sculpture in Carrara marble, erected in 1878-80 by the command of the Emperor of Austria, the work of Zandomenighi. In this church is Titian’s most famous painting, the “Madonna of the Pessaro,” the work of which is probably, too, the greatest in all Venetian art. The Hall of Heaven is shown, supported by colossal columns. St. Peter, Francis, and Antoninus are commending the Pessaro family to the Virgin, who is enthroned on high. The beauty of line, the splendor of color, and the marvellous composition render this immortal masterpiece something whose sight marks an epoch in life. Canova’s tomb in San Maria dei Frari is a wonderful thing. It is a pyramid of purest marble, with a door opening for the sarcophagus, above which is a portrait of Canova in relief, and on either side the door angels and symbolic figures are sculptured.

The Church of Santa Maria della Salute, to which one is always returning, is a wonderful example of artistic architecture, as its snowy towers and dome seem to rise out of the water and float in the air.

The fall of the Campanile in 1904 was regarded as a calamity by all the civilized world. For a thousand years it had stood at the side of St. Mark’s; but the disaster aroused the attention of experts to the condition of the great cathedral itself, and it was found that the vast area of over fifty thousand square feet of matchless mosaic needed restoration in order that they should be preserved.

The Palazzo Rezzonico, which dates to Clement XIII, usually known as the “Browning Palace,” has been for many years one of the special interests to the visitor in Venice. In the early months of 1907 it passed out of the hands of Robert Barrett Browning, who had purchased it in 1888, and had held it sacredly, with its poetic and personal associations, since the death of his father, the poet, in 1889. To Mr. Barrett Browning is due the grateful appreciation of a multitude of tourists for his generous and never-failing courtesy in permitting them the privilege of visiting this palace in which his father had passed many months of enjoyment. It was from this residence that the poet Browning wrote, in October of 1880, to a friend:—

Later, of his son’s palace, Mr. Browning wrote:—

In this palace Mr. Browning wrote some of his later poems, and it may well be that it was when he was clad in his singing robes that he perhaps most deeply felt the ineffable charm of Venice:—

It was from these lofty salons in the Browning Palace that the poet passed to the “life more abundant” on that December day of 1889, on the very day that his last volume, “Asolando,” was published and also the last volume of Tennyson’s. Regarding these Mr. Gladstone said, in a letter to Lord Tennyson: “The death of Browning on the day of the appearance of your volume, and we hear of one of his own, is a touching event.”

From the time of Mrs. Browning’s death in Florence (in June of 1861) Mr. Browning never felt that he could see Italy again, until the autumn of 1878, when he, with his sister, Miss Sarianna Browning, came to Venice by way of the Italian lakes and Verona. At this time they only remained for a fortnight, domiciled in the old Palazzo Brandolin-Rota, which was transformed into the Albergo dell’Universo. This palace was on the Grand Canal below the Accadémia, and here he returned through two or three subsequent years. Mr. Browning became very fond of Venice, and he explored its winding ways and gardens and knew it, not merely from the gondola view, but from the point of view of the curious little dark and narrow byways, the bridges, and the piazzas.

It was in 1880 that Mr. Browning first met, through the kind offices of Mr. Story, a most charming and notable American lady, Mrs. Arthur Bronson (Katherine DeKay), who had domiciled herself in Casa Alvisi, an old palace on the Grand Canal opposite the Church of Santa Maria della Salute. She was a woman of very interesting personality, and had drawn about her a circle including many of the most distinguished people of her time, authors, artists, poets, and notable figures in the social world. She was eminently simpatica and her lovely impulses of generous kindness were rendered possible to translate into the world of the actual by the freedom which a large fortune confers on its possessor. Between Mrs. Bronson and Mr. Browning there sprang up one of those rare and beautiful friendships that lasted during his lifetime, and to her appreciation and many courtesies he owed much of the happiness of his later years. In the autumn of 1880 Mrs. Bronson made Mr. Browning and his sister her guests, placing at their disposal a suite of rooms in the Palazzo Giustiniani Recanati—a palace adjoining her own—and each night they dined and passed the evening with her, with music and conversation to enchant the hours. After Mr. Browning’s death, Mrs. Bronson was the friend whom all pilgrims to his shrine in Venice felt it a special privilege to meet and to hear speak of him. In her palace was a large easy-chair, with a ribbon tied across the arms, in which Browning was accustomed to sit, and which was held sacred to him. Mrs. Bronson was an accomplished linguist, and the habitués of her salon represented many nationalities. Among these was the Princess Montenegro, the mother of the present Queen of Italy.

It is little wonder that the Browning Palace was for so many years a focus for all who revered and loved the wedded poets, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

In the marble court, roofed only by the blue Venetian sky, stood Mr. Barrett Browning’s statue of “Dryope” in bronze, on its marble pedestal,—a beautiful conception of the Dryope of Keats,—the dweller in forest solitudes whom the Hamadryads transformed into a poplar. Here a fountain makes music all day long, and the court is also adorned in summer by great Venetian jars of pink hydrangeas in full bloom. The grand staircase, with its carved balustrade and the wide landing where a rose window decorates the wall, leads to the lofty salons which were yet as homelike as they were artistic during the residence of the Brownings. Mr. Story’s bust of Mrs. Browning, other portrait busts of both the poets, sculptured by their artist son, and by others, and other memorials abound. In the library were gathered many interesting volumes, autographed from their authors, and many rare and choice editions, among which was one of the “Sonnets from the Portuguese” in a sumptuous volume whose artistic beauty found a fitting setting to Mrs. Browning’s immortal sonnets. Among other volumes were a collection of signed “Etchings” by Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema; presentation copies from Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Aubrey De Vere, Walter Savage Landor, and many another known to fame; and a copy, also, of a study of Mrs. Browning’s poetry[4] by an American writer.

There is one memento over which the visitor always smiled—a souvenir of a London evening in 1855 when the Brownings had invited Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his brother and Lord Madox Brown to meet Tennyson and listen to his reading of his new poem, “Maud,” then still unpublished. During the reading Rossetti drew a caricature representing Tennyson with his hair standing on end, his eyes glowering and his hand theatrically extended, as he held a manuscript inscribed,