sacred human dust."

CHAPTER XX

The Cascine and the Arno

Florence's Bois de Boulogne--Shelley--The races--The game of
Pallone--SS. Ognissanti--Botticelli and Ghirlandaio--Amerigo
Vespucci--The Platonic Academy's garden--Alberti's Palazzo
Rucellai--Melancholy decay--Two smiling boys--The Corsini
palace--The Trinita bridge--The Borgo San Jacopo from the back--Home
fishing--SS. Apostoli--A sensitive river--The Ponte Vecchio--The
goldsmiths--S. Stefano.

The Cascine is the "Bois" of Florence; but it does not compare with
the Parisian expanse either in size or attraction. Here the wealthy
Florentines drive, the middle classes saunter and ride bicycles, the
poor enjoy picnics, and the English take country walks. The further
one goes the better it is, and the better also the river, which at
the very end of the woods becomes such a stream as the pleinairistes
love, with pollarded trees on either side. Among the trees of one of
these woods nearly a hundred years ago, a walking Englishman named
Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote his "Ode to the West Wind".

The Cascine is a Bois also in having a race-course in it--a small
course with everything about it on a little scale, grandstand, betting
boxes, and all. And why not?--for after all Florence is quite small in
size, however remarkable in character. Here funny little race-meetings
are held, beginning on Easter Monday and continuing at intervals until
the weather gets too hot. The Florentines pour out in their hundreds
and lie about in the long grass among the wild flowers, and in their
fives and tens back their fancies. The system is the pari-mutuel,
and here one seems to be more at its mercy even than in France. The
odds keep distressingly low; but no one seems to be either elated or
depressed, whatever happens. To be at the races is the thing--to walk
about and watch the people and enjoy the air. It is the most orderly
frugal scene, and the baleful and mysterious power of the racehorse
to poison life and landscape, as in England, does not exist here.

To the Cascine also in the spring and autumn several hundred Florentine
men come every afternoon to see the game of pallone and risk a few lire
on their favourite players. Mr. Ruskin, whose "Mornings in Florence"
is still the textbook of the devout, is severe enough upon those
visitors who even find it in their hearts to shop and gossip in the
city of Giotto. What then would he have said of one who has spent not
a few afte