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Both parties to it were of patrician, if not definitely noble descent, and came of families which combined the intellectual gifts of Tuscany with the vigour of their later island home . From her mother's race, the Pietra Santa family, Letizia imbibed the habits of the most backward and savage part of Corsica, where vendettas were rife and education was almost unknown.
In front of him was Fivizzano, nothing, it is true, but a village surrounded by walls, but beyond Fivizzano lay Sarzano and Pietra Santa, both of them considered impregnable fortresses; worse than this, they were coming into a part of the country that was especially unhealthy in October, had no natural product except oil, and even procured its own corn from neighbouring provinces; it was plain that a whole army might perish there in a few days either from scarcity of food or from the unwholesome air, both of which were more disastrous than the impediments offered at every step by the nature of the ground.
The Medici determined to begin working the old marble quarries of Pietra Santa, on the borders of the Florentine domain, and this naturally aroused the commercial jealousy of the folk at Carrara. "Information," says Condivi, "was sent to Pope Leo that marbles could be found in the high-lands above Pietra Santa, fully equal in quality and beauty to those of Carrara.
It is quite possible that some Italians may have shown the native inlayers specimens of Florentine pietra dura, and suggested to them this naturalistic treatment, but if Italians or other Europeans had been engaged to instruct or supervise in the decoration of these buildings they would certainly have left some traces of their handiwork.
The only articles of furniture, were some crimson ottomans which served to set off the splendid paintings; and one table of the Florentine manufacture of pietra dura, on which stood a carved bijou of Benvenuto Cellini's. Our party were early. They were welcomed by Mr. Graeme with great cordiality, and by Mr. Hargrave with some embarrassment, for the tutor was still the bashful man of former days.
Three more hungry mortals did not dine at the Cacciatore that day. The chapel of the Medici, which we visited, is of wonderful beauty. The walls are entirely encrusted with pietra dura and the most precious kinds of marble. The ceiling is covered with gorgeous frescoes by Benevenuto, a modern painter.
One was the Porta Nuova, all in the Dorico-rustic Order, which in its solidity and massive firmness corresponds to the strength of the site, being all built of tufa and pietra viva, and having within it rooms for the soldiers who mount guard there, and many other conveniences, never before added to that kind of building.
It would be even finer than it is, were not the Florentine pietra serena of the stonework so repellent in its ashen dulness, the plaster so white, and the false architectural system so painfully defrauded of the plastic forms for which it was intended to subserve as setting.
Murray on Raining Trees; Forms and Relations of Volcanoes; Cuticular Pores of Plants; Volcano of Pietra Mala; Milk Tree of Demarara; Productiveness of Plants and Animals; Height of the Perpetual Snows on the Cordillera of Peru; Gerard's Botanical Journey in the Himala Mountains; Changes of temperature in Plants; Humboldt's account of the Gold and Platina district of Russia; Sir H. Davy on the durability of Stone; Dr.
Leo did not leave him there long in quiet. Being informed that at Serrayezza, in the highest part of the mountains of Pietra Santa on the Florentine territory, there was marble equal in quality to that of Carrara, he ordered Michelangelo to go to Pietra Santa and work these quarries.
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