Journal.
Florence,
November 5.—A rainy day. I went, however, to see my friend
Bellocq, whom I knew in
Madrid as
Secretary of the
French Embassy there, and who is here Charge d'affaires from
France, a bachelor, grown old, and somewhat
delabre, but apparently with as much
bonhomie as ever.
I drove, too, to Greenough's house, but found he had gone to the
United States;
1 . . . . but I did little else except make inquiries about the cholera at
Naples, which threatens to interfere with our plans.
In the evening I went to a regular Italian
conversazione, which occurs twice a week at the house of the
Marchioness Lenzoni, the last descendant of one branch of the Medici family.
Her house is beautifully fitted up with works of art, and is in all respects redolent of the genius of
Italy, and. . . . she receives more intellectual society than anybody in
Florence.
She is, I suppose, about fifty years old, and, like all well-bred
Italian women of her class, entirely without affectation or pretension.
I found there
Micali, the author of ‘
Italia avanti il Dominio dei Romani,’—an old man, but very full of life and spirit; Forti, who is distinguishing himself as a political economist; a professor of mathematics, and two or three other agreeable people. . . . I was particularly glad to make the acquaintance of
Micali, whose book, which I have valued these twenty years, has, I find, passed through eight or ten editions, notwithstanding its severe and learned character.
November 7.—This morning I went to the gallery . . . . . The Tribune I found—as far as I can recollect—just as I left it eighteen
