brook and following the path round the hillside, where so often the nightingale sings, you pass under a little villa by a stony way to Corbignano, and there, in what may well be the oldest house in the place, at the end of the street, past the miraculous orange tree, just where the hill turns out of sight, you see Boccaccio’s house, Casa di Boccaccio, as it is written; and though the old tower has become a loggia, and much has been rebuilt, you may still see the very ancient stones of the place jutting into the lane, where the water sings so after the rain, and the olives whisper softly all night long, and God walks always among the vines.

Turning then uphill, you come at last to a group of houses, and where the way turns suddenly there is the Oratorio del Vannella, in the parish of Settignano:  it is truly just an old wayside tabernacle, but within is one of the earliest works, a Madonna and Child, of Botticelli, whose father had a podere hereabout.  If you follow where the road leads, and turn at last where you may, past the cemetery, you come to Settignano, founded by Septimus Severus or by the Settimia family, it matters little which, for its glory now lies with Desiderio the sculptor, who was born, it seems, at Corbignano, and Antonio and Bernardo Rossellino, who were born here.  There is no other village near Florence that has so smiling a face as Settignano among the gardens.  There is little or nothing to see, though the church of S. Maria has a lovely terra-cotta of Madonna with Our Lord between two angels in the manner of the della Robbia; but the little town is delightful, full of stonecutters and sculptors, still at work in their shops as they were in the great days of Michelangelo.  Far away behind the hill of cypresses Vincigliata still stands on guard, on the hilltop Castel di Poggio looks into the valley of Ontignano and guards the road to Arezzo and Rome.  Here there is peace; not too far from the city nor too near the gate, as I said:  and so to Firenze in the twilight.

NOTE.—­I have said little of the country places about Florence, Settimo, the Certosa in Val d’Ema, the Incontro and such, because there seemed to be too much to say, and I wanted to treat of them in a book that should be theirs only.  See my Country Walks Round Florence (Methuen, 1908).

FOOTNOTES: 

[129] This perhaps is open to criticism:  there is a huge suburb of course towards Prato, the other barriere are still fairly in the country.

[130] Villani, Cronica, translated by R.E.  Selfe (London, 1906), pp. 71-3, 97.

[131] Cf.  Fortini and Sermini for instance.  See Symonds’ New Italian Sketches (Tauchnitz Ed.), p. 37.

XXVI.  VALLOMBROSA AND THE CASENTINO, CAMALDOLI AND LA VERNA

I. VALLOMBROSA