Of the monastery of Vallombrosa we have had foreshadowings in Florence.  We saw at the Accademia two exquisite portraits by Fra Bartolommeo of Vallombrosan monks.  We saw at the Bargello the remains of a wonderful frieze by Benedetto da Rovezzano for the tomb of the founder of the order, S. Giovanni Gualberto; we shall see at S. Miniato scenes in the saint’s life on the site of the ancient chapel where the crucifix bent and blessed him.  As the head of the monastery Gualberto was famous for the severity and thoroughness of his discipline.  But though a martinet as an abbot, personally he was humble and mild.  His advice on all kinds of matters is said to have been invited even by kings and popes.  He invented the system of lay brothers to help with the domestic work of the convent; and after a life of holiness, which comprised several miracles, he died in 1073 and was subsequently canonized.

The monastery, as I have said, is now secularized, save for the chapel, where three resident monks perform service.  One may wander through its rooms and see in the refectory, beneath portraits of famous brothers, the tables now laid for young foresters.  The museum of forestry is interesting to those interested in museums of forestry.

It was to the monastery at Vallombrosa that the Brownings travelled in 1848 when Mrs. Browning was ill.  But the abbot could not break the rules in regard to women, and after five days they had to return to Florence.  Browning used to play the organ in the chapel, as, it is said, Milton had done two centuries earlier.

At such a height and with only a short season the hotel proprietors must do what they can, and prices do not rule low.  A departing American was eyeing his bill with a rueful glance as we were leaving.  “Milton had it wrong,” he said to me (with the freemasonry of the plucked, for I knew him not), “what he meant was, ’thick as thieves’.”

We returned by way of Sant’ Ellero, the gallant horses trotting steadily down the hill, and then beside the Arno once more all the way to Florence.  It chanced to be a great day in the city—­September 20th, the anniversary of the final defeat of papal temporal power, in 1870—­which we were not sorry to have missed, the first tidings coming to us from the beautiful tower of the Palazzo Vecchio which in honour of the occasion had been picked out with fairy lamps.

Among the excursions which I think ought to be made if one is in Florence for a justifying length of time is a visit to Prato.  This ancient town one should see for several things:  for its age and for its walls; for its great piazza (with a pile of vividly dyed yarn in the midst) surrounded by arches under which coppersmiths hammer all day at shining rotund vessels, while their wives plait straw; for Filippino Lippi’s exquisite Madonna in a little mural shrine at the narrow end of the piazza, which a woman (fetched by a crowd of ragged boys) will unlock for threepence;