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Poppi is the greatest of the Guidi fortresses; built by Arnolfo, it has much of the nobility of its daughter the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence. Of all these castles it is the only one that is not a ruin.
Browning's personal utterances, and some notable passages in 'Casa Guidi Windows' and 'Aurora Leigh'. Even the exalted fervour of the invocation to Caponsacchi, its blending of spiritual ecstasy with half-realized earthly emotion, has, I think, no parallel in her husband's work. 'Pompilia' bears, still, unmistakably, the stamp of her author's genius.
Their first abode was in the Via delle Belle Donne; but after the return from Vallombrosa, in August, they moved across the river, and took furnished rooms in the Palazzo Guidi, the building which, under the name of 'Casa Guidi, is for ever associated with their memory. To Mrs. Martin Florence: April 24, 1847.
As he leaned by the fountain and walked through street and street, he read, and had mastered the contents before his foot was on the threshold of Casa Guidi . That night his brain was a-work; pacing the terrace of Casa Guidi, while from Felice church opposite came the clear voice of the cloistered ones, Chanting a chant made for mid-summer nights,
The gipsy instinct, the desire of wandering, had greatly declined with both husband and wife since the earlier days in Italy. Yet when they returned to Casa Guidi it was only for six weeks. Even at the close of the visit to Siena Mrs Browning had recovered but a slender modicum of strength; she did not dare to enter the cathedral, for there were steps to climb. At Florence she felt her old vitality return and her spirits rose. But the climate of Rome was considered by Dr Gresonowsky more suitable for winter, and towards the close of November they took their departure, flying from the Florentine tramontana. The carriage was furnished with novels of Balzac, and Pen's pony was of the party. The rooms taken in the Via del Tritone were bright and sunny; but a rash visit to the jeweller Castellani, to see and touch the swords presented by Roman citizens to Napoleon III. and Victor Emmanuel, threw back Mrs Browning into all her former troubles of a delicate chest and left her "as weak as a rag." Tidings of the death of Lady Elgin seemed to tell only of a peaceful release from a period of imprisonment in the body, but the loss of Mrs Jameson was a painful blow. Rome at a time of grave political apprehensions was almost empty of foreigners; but among the few Americans who had courage to stay were the sculptor Gibson and Theodore Parker now near the close of his life whose tête-
Three other gentlemen stood at a little distance behind the Queen, but there was nothing to distinguish them from ninety-nine out of a hundred other fine gentlemen of fashionable society who wore extremely good coats, cut and curled their hair in the latest style, and proved that they were not absolute fools by holding their tongues when men like Bernini or Guidi were speaking.
Not only in the pure and high art of the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese, but even in 'Casa Guidi Windows, the rhetorical and sometimes colloquial tone of which might have been thought to lend itself to such devices, imperfect rhymes occur but rarely not exceeding the limits allowed to himself by every poet who has rhymed given and heaven; and the roll of those who have not done so must be small indeed.
We went last evening, at eight o'clock, to see the Brownings; and, after some search and inquiry, we found the Casa Guidi, which is a palace in a street not very far from our own. It being dusk, I could not see the exterior, which, if I remember, Browning has celebrated in song; at all events, Mrs. Browning has called one of her poems "Casa Guidi Windows."
Three times he had quitted his villa, with vows never to return to it, and three times he had been led back. When for a fourth time like a feeble yet majestic Lear one hot summer day, toward noon, he flung himself, or was flung, out of doors with only a few pauls in his pocket, it was to Casa Guidi that he made his way broken-hearted, yet breathing forth wrath.
Have just finished Casa Guidi Windows, a grand poem and so fitting to our terrible struggle.... I wish the government would move quickly, proclaim freedom to every slave and call on every able-bodied negro to enlist in the Union army. How not to do it seems the whole study at Washington.
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