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He had intended to improve the house and grounds, and set about the task; the well-known tower, in memory of the tower of Montaueto, was added for his study, and some other changes were made, but his funds, which were diminished by an unfortunate loan, were insufficient to enable him to do all he desired.
In contrast to the barrenness of the gray inclosures, through the squares of the windows throbbed the blue and gold, green and lilac, of Italian heavens and countryside.... "Some of the rooms at Montaueto I studiously avoided. The forlorn cavern of a parlor, or ballroom, I remember to have seen only once. There was a painful vacuum where good spirits ought to have been.
In 'Monte Beni' this oratory is minutely pictured, where 'beneath the crucifix ... lay a human skull ... carved in gray alabaster, most skillfully done ... with accurate imitation of the teeth, the sutures, the empty eye-caverns. Everywhere the intense picturesqueness gave material, at Montaueto, for my father's romance."
Late in May, 1858, they went north by the carriage road, and settled at Florence in the Casa Bella, near Casa Guidi, where the Brownings were, and not far from Powers's studio. In August they took possession of the old villa of Montaueto on the hill of Bellosguardo, near the city, which is so closely associated with Hawthorne's Italian days as the tower of Monte Beni.
She was, indeed, somewhat a believer in the power of communication with the spiritual world, and its near presence and influence in our lives. The seclusion of the villa of Montaueto was very grateful to Hawthorne, and he writes of it to Fields with almost a home-feeling, as if he had again found a lodging place at least for his wandering Penates:
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