supply the wants of the capital was very widespread indeed.  And there can be no doubt that the houses built by Powers are at the present day worth much less than they were at the time he built them, and still less than they would have been worth had Florence remained the capital.  Nevertheless, I do not think that he would have abstained from building from any considerations of this kind.  He built solely with a view to residence, and in that respect he could hardly have done better than he did.

He did not move very far.  His old lodging and studio were, as has been said, a little way within the Porta Romana, and the villa residence which he built is but two or three minutes’ walk on the outside of it.  Immediately outside this Porta Romana, sloping off a little to the left from the road to Rome, is a magnificent avenue of ilex and cypress conducting to a grand-ducal villa called the “Poggio Imperiale.”  To the left again of this avenue, which is perhaps a mile or somewhat more in length, and between it and the city wall, which in that part of its course encloses the Boboli Gardens attached to the Palazzo Pitti, is a large extent of hillside, rapidly rising to the heights crowned by the ancient and storied church of San Miniato, and by the suburban villages of Arcetri and Pian Guillari.  This space was, and had been for time out of mind, occupied by fields and market-gardens.  But when the new fortunes of the City of Flowers fallaciously seemed to be in the ascendant, it was at once seen that of all the spaces immediately around Florence which were available for that increase of the city which was expected to be urgently required, none was more desirable or more favorably circumstanced than this hillside.  A really magnificent carriage-road, ornamented with gardens on either side of it, was led in well-arranged curves up to San Miniato, and down on the other side of the hill till it reaches the Arno at the village of Ricorboli.  The entire course of this road commands a series of varied views of the city and the Vale of Arno than which nothing can be conceived more charming.  It is in truth the finest city promenade and drive that I know in Europe.  Rome has nothing comparable to it.  The Bois de Boulogne and Hyde Park are, as far as natural beauty goes, tame and flat in comparison to it.  The planning and the execution of it have been alike excellent.  The whole of the space up which the road serpentines has been turned into ornamental gardens, and on either side of it, and among its lawns and shrubberies, a large number of villa-sites were reserved to be disposed of to purchasers.  Of this singular opportunity Powers was one of the first to avail himself.  He selected with admirable judgment three sites in the immediate neighborhood of each other—­one for a residence for himself, one for that of his eldest son, a married man, established and doing well as a photographer, and one for that of his eldest daughter and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Ibbetson.  The friends