Shrieks, such as penetrate the inmost soul, * Caffaggiòlo, the favourite retreat of Cosmo, the father of his country.' Eleonora di Toledo was stabbed there on the 11th of July, 1576, by her husband, Pietro de' Medici; and only five days afterwards, on the 16th of the same month, Isabella de' Medici was strangled by hers, Paolo Giordano Orsini, at his villa of Cerreto. They were at Florence, when they were sent for, each in her turn, Isabella under the pretext of a hunting party; and each in her turn went to die. Isabella was one of the most beautiful and accomplished women of the Age. In the Latin, French, and Spanish languages she spoke not only with fluency, but elegance and in her own she excelled as an Improvisatrice, accompanying herself on the lute. On her arrival at dusk, Paolo presented her with two beautiful greyhounds, that she might make a trial of their speed in the morning; and at supper he was gay beyond measure. When he retired, he sent for her into his apartment; and, pressing her tenderly to his bosom, slipped a cord round her neck. She was buried in Florence with great pomp; but at her burial, says Varchi, the crime divulged itself. Her face was black on the bier. Eleonora appears to have had a presentiment of her fate. She went when required; but, before she set out, took leave of her son, then a child; weeping long and bitterly over him. Two unsuspecting victims, passing fair, Said to sweet friends farewell,' melt as at parting; I have here endeavoured to describe an Italian sun-set as I have often seen it. The conclusion is borrowed from that celebrated passage in Dante, "Era già l'ora," &c. It was an hour of universal joy. The lark was up and at the gate of heaven, And come And not a living thing but blessed the hour! In every bush and brake there was a voice Responsive! From the THRASYMENE, that now Slept in the sun, a lake of molten gold, And from the shore that once, when armies met,* The rage, the slaughter, I had turned away; * The Roman and the Carthaginian. Such was the animosity, says Livy, that an earthquake, which turned the course of rivers and overthrew cities and mountains, was felt by none of the combatants. xxii. 5. A tradition. It has been called from time immemorial, Il Sanguinetto. Awhile to deviate. In the midst a cross He rose, and we exchanged, as all are wont, Young, and of an age When Youth is most attractive, when a light Plays round and round, reflected, while it lasts, From some attendant Spirit, that ere long (His charge relinquished with a sigh, a tear) Wings his flight upward—with a look he won My favour; and, the spell of silence broke, I could not but continue. Whence,' I asked, 'Whence art thou?'- From Mont' alto,' he replied, 'My native village in the Apennines.' And whither journeying?' To the holy shrine |