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Vasari, speaking of four rough-hewn Captives, possibly the figures now in a grotto of the Boboli Gardens, says: They are well adapted for teaching a beginner how to extract statues from the marble without injury to the stone. The safe method which they illustrate may be described as follows. You first take a model in wax or some other hard material, and place it lying in a vessel full of water.
The great fountain with its bronze figures at this corner is by Bartolommeo Ammanati, a pupil of Bandinelli, and the statue of Cosimo I is by Gian Bologna, who was the best of the post-Michelangelo sculptors and did much good work in Florence, as we shall see at the Bargello and in the Boboli Gardens. He studied under Michelangelo in Rome.
As this is strictly a chapter of travel and weather, I may not stop to say how impressive and beautiful Florence seemed to us; how bewildering in art treasures, which one sees at a glance in the streets; or scarcely to hint how lovely were the Boboli Gardens behind the Pitti Palace, the roses, geraniums etc, in bloom, the birds singing, and all in a soft, dreamy air.
The town itself seemed to me more agreeable than Rome; but the Boboli Gardens could not rival the Borghese, and the Pitti and Uffizi galleries were not so captivating as the Vatican and the Capitol. However, the Cascine and the Lung' Arno were delightful, and the Arno, shallow and placid, flowing through the midst of the city, was a fairer object than the muddy and turbulent Tiber.
When he recovered from that adventure, King Victor Emanuel gave permission for him to appear in the Jardin Boboli. The excitement was so great during that appearance and the crowd so large that ticket takers were carried away from the gates, and though many thus entered free, several thousand francs were realized. Paul was now the fashion in Italy.
I prefer the Boboli Gardens to those of Versailles, and Venetian or Florentine history to that of India. Great states, great captains, great kings, great gods, leave me cold. They are all for peoples who dwell on vast plains which are crossed by mighty rivers, for the Egyptians, for the Chinese, for the Hindus, for the Germans, for the French.
Gay abbés, cavaliers, beautiful ladies of the late Renaissance, red-heeled, painted, powdered; frail, degenerate children of the hard-headed old Florentine citizens pictured in the frescoes of Giotto and Masaccio. No greater shades could come to Boboli.
It is really steep, but never mind. Take it easily, and rest half-way where the houses on the left break and give a wonderful view of the city. Still climbing, you come to the best gate of all that is left a true gate in being an inlet into a fortified city that of S. Giorgio, high on the Boboli hill by the fort.
He examined them with charmed attention until she closed them on the handle of her umbrella. Then, standing behind her, he looked at her again. Her bust and arms, graceful and pure in line, her beautiful form, which was like that of a living amphora, pleased him. "Monsieur Dechartre, that black spot over there is the Boboli Gardens, is it not? I saw the gardens three years ago.
In the valley, Florence extended its domes, its towers, and the multitudes of its red roofs, through which the Arno showed its undulating line. Beyond were the soft blue hills. She tried to recognize the Boboli Gardens, where she had walked at her first visit; the Cascine, which she did not like; the Pitti Palace. Then the charming infinity of the sky attracted her.
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