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Updated: June 27, 2025
At Florence, I would, after spending the day in wandering with you through picture galleries or about those lovely spots near Fiesole, go to bed at night tolerably calm; I would sink into a sleep, haunted no longer by those dreams of the tragedy in which my part had been so cruel, and yet the very act of waking in the morning would bring upon me a whirlwind of anguish; and then would come the struggling light at the window, and the twitter of the birds that seemed to say, "Poor child, poor child!" and I would bury my face in my pillow and moan.
We can trace the sandy bed of the Arno down the valley till it disappears at the foot of the Lower Apennines, which mingle in the distance with the mountains of Carrara. Galileo was wont to make observations "at evening from the top of Fiesole," and the square tower of the old church is still pointed out as the spot.
Florence lies so low, and the delectable mountain is so near and so alluring. But I am not sure that to dream of Fiesole as desirable, and to murmur its beautiful syllables, is not best. Let me sit Here by the window with your hand in mine, And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole that was Andrea's way and not an unwise one. For Fiesole at nearer view can easily disappoint.
Behind her the mountains rise in great amphitheatres, Fiesole on the one side, like a sentinel on her hill; on the other, the Apennines, whose gesture, so noble, precise, and splendid, seems to point ever towards some universal sovereignty, some perfect domination, as though this place had been ordained for the resurrection of man.
If perchance his wanderings lead him, on another occasion, to the hill rising on the opposite side, he will find, in the Cathedral of Fiesole, a fitting companion in the altar-piece by Mino da Fiesole. This is a decidedly unique rendering of the Madre Pia.
I ate my dinner at Bonciani's, near the station, a place little patronized by foreigners, but where one obtains the best Tuscan cooking and after an hour or so over coffee at the Bottegone, I took a taxi up to Fiesole. The night was cold but dry and moonlit.
She knew her worth, realized her beauty, and feeling her power made others feel it, too. On a visit to the villa of the Medici at Fiesole she first saw Sandro Botticelli at an evening assembly in the gardens. She had heard of the man and knew his genius. When they suddenly met face to face under the boughs, she noted how her beauty startled him.
There is not perhaps much of interest in the church, but over the west door you may see a statue of S. Romolo, while in the choir in the Salutati Chapel there is the masterpiece of Mino da Fiesole, the tomb of Bishop Salutati, who died in 1465, and opposite a marble reredos of Madonna between S. Antonio and S. Leonardo, by the same master.
Lunch in the grove behind the ancient Monastery! visits to the ruined Amphitheatre, the Cathedral, and Museum so full of all sorts of antiquities obtained from the excavations of ancient Fiesole! loitering in the spacious Piazza, where they were beset by children and weather-beaten, brown old women, clamoring for them to buy all sorts of things made of the straw there manufactured; and everywhere magnificent views, either of the widely extended valley of the Mugnone on the one side, or of Florence, lying in her amethystine cup, on the other!
Therefore, first by Sylla, and afterward by the three Roman citizens, who, having avenged the death of Caesar, divided the empire among themselves, colonies were sent to Fiesole, which, either in part or in whole, fixed their habitations in the plain, near to the then rising town.
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