It was an hour after sunrise when I set out for Fosdinovo of the Malaspina, for Sarzana, for Spezia, for England.  The way lies over the rivers Aulella and Bardine, through Soliero in the valley, through Ceserano of the hills.  Thence by a way steep and dangerous I came into the valley of Bardine, only to mount again to Tendola and at last to Foce Cuccu, where on all sides the valleys filled with woods fell away from me, and suddenly at a turning of the way I spied out Fosdinovo, lordly still on its bastion of rock, guarding Val di Magra, looking towards Luna and the sea.

Little more than an eyrie for eagles, Fosdinovo is an almost perfect fortress of the Middle Age.  It glowers in the sun like a threat over the ways that now are so quiet, where only the bullocks dragging the marble from Carrara pass all day long from Massa to Spezia, from the valley to the sea.

It was thence for the first time for many months I looked on a land that was not Tuscany.  Already autumn was come in that high place; a flutter of leaves and the wind of the mountains made a sad music round about the old walls, which had heard the voice of Castruccio Castracani, whose gates he had opened by force.  And then, as I sat there above the woods towards evening, from some bird passing overhead there fell a tiny feather, whiter than snow, that came straight into my hand.  Was it a bird, or my angel, whose beautiful, anxious wings trembled lest I should fall in a land less simple than this?

INDEX

Adeodatus
Agostino di Duccio
Alberti, Leon
Albertinelli
Alessi, Galeazzo
Angelico, Beato
Apuan Alps
Arcola
Arnolfo di Cambio
Arnolfo Fiorentino
Avenza

Bagni di Lucca
Baldovinetti
Bandinelli
Barga
Bartolommeo, Frate
Bellini, Giovanni
Benedetto da Maiano
Benedetto da Rovezzano
Benozzo, Gozzoli
Bertoldo di Giovanni
Bibbiena
Biduino
Boccaccio
Bonannus
Borgo a Mozzano
Borgo S. Lorenzo
Botticelli
Bracco, Passo di
Brunellesco
Buggiano
Byron

Calci
Camaldoli
Camogli
Campaldino
Capraja
Carpaccio
Carrara
   S. Andrea
   Quarries
Cascina
Casentino
   Bibbiena
   Camaldoli
   Campaldino
   Campo Lombardo
   Castel Castagnajo
   Falterona
   La Verna
   Poppi
   Porciano
   Pratovecchio
   Romena
   Stia
   The way to
   Vallombrosella
   Vallucciole
Castagno
Castagno, Andrea del
Castel del Bosco
Castelfranco
Castelnuovo di Garfagnana
Castelnuovo di Magra
Castracani, Castruccio
Cellini, Benvenuto
Cervara
Chiavari
Children in Italy
Cimabue
Cino da Pistoja
Ciuffagni
Civitali, Matteo
Columbus
Consuma Pass
Corbignano
Correggio
Corsica
Country Life, Love of
Crusades

Dante
Desiderio da Settignano
Dicomano
Donatello
Doria, the
Duccio of Siena