[110] the phrase) which characterize so large a part of the lawyers of America.1 . . .I shall be in Boston in December or January. Let me hear from you there at least, if not before; and believe me, as ever,Most sincerely yours,
C. S.
To George W. Greene, Rome.
Florence, Sept. 11, 1839.dear Greene,—I have thought of you every hour since I left Rome; but have delayed writing till I was on the point of quitting Florence, wishing to give you my final report upon this place. But things in the natural order. My journey was very pleasant,—four days and a half. My companions, a French officer, quite a gentleman and scholar, an Italian artist and a litterateur,—the latter Signor Ottavio Gigli.2 With him I became quite well acquainted. He took me, on his arrival in Florence, to old Abbate Missirini,3 and to the Marquesa Luzaris, and has given me a letter to Giordani.4 I found Gigli quietly engaged in literary pursuits, one of which is so akin to yours that I am anxious you should know him; and he is quite desirous of your acquaintance. He is preparing a ‘Storia Politica’ of Italy, and has collected from all the principal libraries such manuscripts as will illustrate his subject. He is an admirer of Botta, and is anxious to talk with you about this historian; A friend of his has in press at Milan a collection of letters from Botta. He is of our own age, and is amiable and agreeable. He will return to Rome in the course of a few weeks, and I have given him a note of introduction to you. In Florence I passed one night at Madame Hambet's, in the Piazza Trinita (not the S. Maria Novella, as you said), which cost me three francesconi;then decamped, and am now in the house at the corner of Lunga Arno and the Piazza, with Alfieri's palace near. Greenough5 I like infinitely. He is a person of remarkable character every way,—with scholarship such as few of our countrymen have; with a practical knowledge of his art, and the poetry of it; with an elevated tone of mind that shows itself equally in his views of art, and in all his conversation. I am firmly convinced that he is a superior person to any of the great artists now on the stage. I have seen something, you know, of Chantrey in England, David in France,
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1 The omitted part of the letter is chiefly a strong plea for an interest in Crawford.
2 Gigli lived at Rome, and was well known among Italian scholars.
4 Pietro Giordani, 1774-1848. He began his career as a lawyer; was afterwards a Benedictine monk; and at one time Professor of Eloquence at the University of Bologna. He published, in 1808, a panegyric of Napoleon.
5 Horatio Greenough, 1805-52. He passed most of his life, after leaving college, in Florence. He was a native of Boston, and died in its neighborhood. His chief works are the ‘Chanting Cherubs;’ ‘The Angel and Child;’ ‘Venus contending for the Golden Apple;’ the statue of Washington; and ‘The Rescue.’ The ‘Washington,’ for which the artist received a commission in 1832, cost him four years of active labor, and was not shipped from Italy till Oct., 1840. ‘The Rescue,’ designed in 1837, was completed in 1851. Greenough's ‘Essays,’ with a ‘Memoir’ by H. T. Tuckerman, were published after his death. Tuckerman's ‘Book of Artists,’ pp. 247-275.
Cambridge, MA. Press of John Wilson and Son. 1877.
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