Constance Fenimore Woolson

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

  434.10 the Velasquez?”] The portrait of Pope Innocent X (c. 1650) by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez.

  434.12 the two large Claude Lorraines?”] French landscape painter Claude Lorrain (1600–1682) spent much of his life working in Italy. Although spelled with an “e” in the nineteenth century, today the artist’s name is spelled Claude Lorrain.

  434.15 “The Memling?”] German artist Hans Memling’s Lamentation (1475–80).

  440.35 “solferino,”] Purplish red color.

  450.12 the Campagna] Pastoral area surrounding Rome, a popular subject for artists and a common site for excursions.

  456.35 the Pincio] The terrace in the Borghese Gardens, a popular site for strolling, overlooking Rome.

  DOROTHY AND OTHER ITALIAN STORIES

  463.24 Bellosguardo] The hill to the southwest of Florence, where Woolson lived in Villa Castellani in 1886 and Villa Brichieri from 1887 through 1889. In a letter of February 24, 1887, Woolson describes Bellosguardo: “I have taken a villa . . . at Bellosguardo, for a year; perhaps two. Bellosguardo is just outside the Roman Gate of Florence; it is the hill of Galileo; of Hawthorne (where he wrote The Marble Faun); of Aurora Leigh. Take down that poem, turn to the Seventh Book . . . & you will comprehend the views I have from my windows, & my terrace. It is useless for me to try to describe it after Mrs Browning; but I do believe it is the most beautiful view in the world.”

  463.31 the Carrara Mountains!] Foothills of the Apuan Alps.

  466.16 the Uffizi Gallery] Art museum in Florence, rich in painting and sculpture from the Italian Renaissance.

  466.24–25 aguish belvedere] A belvedere is a structure with open sides, usually at rooftop level; the belvedere is “aguish” because it exposes one to the ague, or malaria, a disease transmitted by mosquitos but believed in the nineteenth century to be caused by bad air.

  468.3–4 Raphael’s young St. John . . . the Uffizi] Raffaello Sanzio’s Young St. John (1518), known today as St. John the Baptist in the Desert and believed to have been executed by his assistants.

  468.9 his hair . . . King Humbert’s] Umberto I (1844–1900), king of Italy from 1878 to his assassination in 1900, was a tall, striking figure with a large white handlebar moustache and white hair worn in pompadour style.

  470.21 petits fours, the bouchées aux confitures] Tiny cakes and bite-sized past­ries with a jam filling.

  477.10–13 “Through the long days . . . and years?”] “Through the Long Days” (1878), a song composed by Woolson’s friend and Bellosguardo neighbor Francis Boott (1813–1904), with lyrics by another friend, John Hay (1838–1905). In a letter of February 23, 1887, to John Hay, Woolson wrote of the piece: “Words & music are both supremely beautiful. I sing the song (under my breath), & play it, every morning of my life.”

  481.1–2 Viale dei Colli] A scenic route in Florence, extending from the Porta Romana on the south side of the Arno River to the Niccolò Bridge west of the city. It is made up of three roads: Viale Michelangelo, Viale Galileo, and Viale Machiavelli.

  481.8 Galignani’s Messenger] An English-language daily newspaper published in Paris from 1814 to 1904.

  482.24–25 Borgo San Frediano to San Spirito] Borgo San Frediano is the name of a street running parallel to the south side of the Arno, which was the meat district of Florence. On its western end it turns into the Via San Spirito, named for the Basilica di San Spirito.

  484.21 Tosti’s serenades] Neapolitan singer and composer Francesco Paolo Tosti (1846–1916) wrote immensely popular sentimental love songs and ballads.

  487.31 “Ring out . . . Angelus—”] Cf. “The Angelus” (1883), with words by Frances L. Mace and music by Woolson’s friend Francis Boott: “Ring soft across the dying day, Angelus! / Across the amber-tinted bay, / The meadow flushed with sunset ray,— / Ring out, and float, and melt away, Angelus.” See also note 352.16.

  488.28 San Vito’s] Here, not the church but Via di San Vito, an east–west street on Bellosguardo.

  489.26 Roman fever] See note 392.5–6.

  490.2 pinchbeck] An alloy of zinc and copper used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to simulate gold.

  491.9 dahabeeyah] A large, shallow-bottomed passenger boat, the primary means of transportation on the Nile in the Victorian era.

  492.25 Galileo’s tower] From 1617 to 1631, Italian scientist Galileo Galilei lived in the Villa dell’Ombrellino on Bellosguardo, where he made many astronomical observations from his tower.

  497.22 Lung’ Arno] Road next to the Arno River in Florence, on which many fashionable hotels were situated.

  498.23 Via dei Serragli] Road that runs from the west side of Bellosguardo to Florence.

  501.23 Vevey] A Swiss town on Lake Geneva that was a popular resort for British and American tourists.

  504.22 Corney Grain] The stage name of Richard Corney Grain (1844–1895), a popular British actor and entertainer.

  511.11 black-letter] Old-fashioned. Black letter is heavy Gothic type predominant in printing from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries.

  511.11–12 ‘Merrily sungen the monks of Ely.’] Old English song that dates to at least 1300, author unknown.

  511.12 In Baedeker, you know.”] Meaning conventional. The German publisher Baedeker began to issue its popular guidebooks in English in 1861.

  512.34–35 Benozzo, and Nicolo the Pisan!] Benozzo Gozzoli (c. 1421–1497), a Florentine Renaissance painter; Nicola Pisano, a classical Italian sculptor (c. 1220–c. 1284), sometimes called the father of modern sculpture.

  513.34–35 shaped like a lachrymal . . . catacombs] Lachrymatories, or tear-vessels, found in large numbers in Roman catacombs, had long necks and small bulb-like bodies. Despite their name, they held unguents.

  513.36 marrons glacés] Candied chestnuts.

  516.7 old sarcophagus . . . talking about] The elaborately carved Phaedra sarcophagus, or stone coffin, from the second or third century C.E. in the Camposanto, or Monumental Cemetery, in Pisa.

  516.31–32 Campo Santo frescoes] Frescoes dating to the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries, some of them by Benozzo Gozzoli, in the Monumental Cemetery in Pisa.

  516.34–517.2 Shelley and Byron . . . Mary Shelley?] Percy Bysshe Shelley’s first wife, Harriet, drowned herself two years after Shelley had abandoned her for Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley lived at the Palazzi di Chiesa on the Lungarno Galileo Galilei from 1821 until his death in 1822; Lord Byron lived across the Arno River, in the Palazzo Toscanelli. After Shelley drowned in a storm off the coast of Lerici, near Pisa, his friends Lord Byron and Edward Trelawny burned his body on the beach.

  519.29 Society for Psychical Research] Founded in England in 1882, a society dedicated to the scientific study of paranormal, supernatural, or psychic phenomena, such as mind-reading, premonitions, and spectral visitations.

  519.29–30 Herbert Spencer’s works] The English philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) made a significant contribution to the acceptance of the theory of evolution through his application of Darwinian ideas to social transformation.

  523.3 the Bagni] The Bagni di Lucca, a spa town approximately twenty-five miles north of Pisa.

  526.22 Aix-les-Bains] Spa town in the French Alps.

  526.32 “furbelows”] Trimmings, flounces, or decorations.

  529.23 Lake Bourget] Lake on which Aix-les-Baines sits.

  542.15–16 majolica plates] Majolica is decorated and glazed Italian Renaissance pottery.

  542.16 campaniles] Bell towers in Italy, often freestanding.

  542.23–24 “Sapete . . . campanile—”] Mangled Italian: Do you know a cutlery in the bell tower?

  542.30–31 “Tisch . .
. gesehn ein?”] Mangled German: Have you seen a table in the tower?

  544.9 peple all cooks turists] Thomas Cook & Son of London published Cook’s Tourist’s Handbook, a series of popular English guidebooks aimed at middle-class travelers. The company also organized tours.

  550.3 Fiesole] The hills of Fiesole, including the town of the same name, three miles northeast of Florence, a popular nineteenth-century tourist site.

  551.15 Carrara mountains] See note 463.31.

  552.15 the Palazzo Vecchio] Florence’s Town Hall, dating from 1299, with its tall bell tower rising far above the city.

  553.16 the Lakes] Northern Italian lakes, chiefly Lake Como, Lake Garda, and Lake Maggiore.

  559.13 the Boboli Garden] The Medici family’s extensive, lavish gardens and sculpture collection, behind the Pitti Palace in Florence.

  562.11–12 an Apollo, an Endymion] Apollo, the Greek and Roman god of the sun, associated with intellectual light, music, and poetry; Endymion, in Greek mythology, a youth of great beauty, visited every night by the moon goddess Selene.

  563.7 Baedeker, Horner, and Hare.] Shorthand reference to popular guidebooks. Baedeker, see note 511.12; Horner, Walks in Florence (1873) by Susan and Joanna Horner; Hare, Cities of Central and Northern Italy (1876) by Augustus Hare.

  563.8 Cascine] Extensive public park on the north bank of the Arno River in Florence.

  563.21 Giotto and Botticelli] Giotto, see note 382.22; Botticelli, Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510), one of the most famous painters of the Italian Renaissance, although his reputation was only beginning to grow in the nineteenth century.

  564.14–15 the great statue of Abbondanza] In Florence’s Boboli Gardens. See also note 559.13.

  564.17 the Duomo] Florence’s cathedral, its famed dome designed by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446).

  564.34–35 Giotto’s two little frescoes . . . Santa Maria Novella] In Mornings in Florence (1875–1877), John Ruskin describes “two small frescoes” in Santa Maria Novella’s second cloister (the Cloister of the Dead), which he attributes to Giotto, “that on the left, the Meeting of Joachim and Anna at the Golden Gate; and that on the right, the Birth of the Virgin.”

  564.36–37 the little Virgin . . . in Venice] The Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple in the Tornabuoni Chapel at Santa Maria Novella is now attributed to Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449–1494). The version by Titian, or Tiziano Vecelli (1488–1576), is in Venice’s Gallerie dell’Accademia.

  564.38 round Botticelli of the Uffizi] Either Madonna of the Magnificat (1481) or Madonna of the Pomegranate (1487), both round paintings by Botticelli in the Uffizi.

  564.39 one in the Prometheus room at the Pitti] Most likely Botticelli’s Madonna and Child with Young St. John (c. 1495). Florence’s Palazzo Pitti, the chief residence of the Medici family from the mid-sixteenth to mid-eighteenth centuries, contains several museums.

  566.15 the Academy] The Academy, the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, the home of Michelangelo’s David (1501–1504).

  566.17 the monastery of San Marco] The former monastery in Florence in which visitors can glimpse the renowned frescoes of early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico (1395–1455).

  566.25 De Contemptu Mundi] Latin for “On Contempt of the World,” the title of various works, including a fifth-century epistle by St. Eucherius, a twelfth-century book by Innocent III, and a sixteenth-century three-thousand-line poem by Bernard of Cluny. All three critique the vanity of the material world.

  567.13–21 “SEMPER FIDELIS . . . faithful forever.”] The poem is Wool­son’s.

  573.33 “Madonna of the Chair.”] Painting by Raphael with the Italian title Madonna della Siggiola (1513–1514). Henry James extolled its beauty in his “Florentine Notes,” published in Transatlantic Sketches (1875) and reprinted in Italian Hours (1909).

  573.38–40 one of Titian’s portraits . . . young man in black.] Titian’s Ritratto Virile or Portrait of a Young Englishman (1540–1545), also praised by James in “Florentine Notes.”

  579.21–23 Romola . . . the remark.”] George Eliot’s novel Romola (1863), set in Renaissance Florence, portrays the union of the scholarly Romola and the charming but unfaithful schemer Tito.

  580.3 St. Peter the Martyr] Most likely Fra Angelico’s The Triptych of St. Peter the Martyr (1429) at San Marco. See note 566.17.

  580.4–13 Michel Angelo chapel of San Lorenzo . . . sleep in Night.] After completing his design and architectural work on the Medici Chapels of Florence’s Basilica of San Lorenzo in 1524, Michelangelo turned to the sculptures and the sarcophagi, among them the allegorical figures Dawn and Dusk for the tomb of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino and Day and Night for the tomb of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours.

  582.12 “Spare me . . . ‘A fellow-feeling,’] English playwright David Garrick’s Prologue on Quitting the State (1776) contains the often-reprinted line “A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind.”

  582.19–20 “Giovanni . . . golden hair?”] The warrior Ludovico di Giovanni de’ Medici, also called Giovanni dalle Bande Nere (1498–1526), was buried in his armor. Leonore of Toledo, or Eleanor de’ Medici (1522–1562), the wife of Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, had brown hair, but portraits show it pulled back and covered with a gold mesh snood.

  587.32 “Lung’ Arno Nuovo,”] The extension, or new part of the Lung’ Arno, today called Lungarno Amerigo Vespucci.

  587.38 Bellosguardo] See note 463.24.

  590.22–23 frescos of Masaccio at the Carmine] The Brancacci Chapel frescoes in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine by early Renaissance Florentine painter Masaccio, born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone (1401–1428).

  590.25–26 Ruskin . . . pamphlet] Allusion to English art critic John Ruskin’s Mornings in Florence (1875–1877), published in pocket-sized pamphlets with maroon covers, considered the definitive guide to Florence’s art and architecture for English-speaking travelers.

  591.9–10 “To Trent . . . Tadmor,”] Trent could be the northern Italian city Trento or the village Trent in southern England. Tadmor is the Arabic name for Palmyra, in modern-day Syria.

  594.15 golconda] A source of great wealth or advantage, derived from the diamond-rich Golconda mine in India.

  597.2 Lake Leman] The French name for Lake Geneva, along the border of Switzerland and France.

  598.4 If people supposed . . . Horace] An allusion to English writer and art historian Horace Walpole (1717–1797), known for his multivolume Letters, published in the nineteenth century, and his Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto (1764).

  601.10 Silver Needle] Probably the mountain known today as Silberhorn, which has an arrow-like peak. References in nineteenth-century texts indicate a mountain near the Jungfrau in the Alps bore this name.

  603.5 Gibbon lived] Edward Gibbon (1737–1794), English historian, writer, and politician, author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1788).

  603.39–40 Salève and Voirons.] Mountains in France to the south and east of Geneva, respectively.

  604.1 the Jura] Swiss mountain range northeast of Geneva.

  604.18–25 Coppet . . . meaning Madame de Staël,”] Coppet is a Swiss town north of Geneva on Lake Geneva where French-Swiss writer Madame de Staël (1766–1817) had a family home, the Château de Coppet, to which she fled after being exiled by Napoleon; the Château de Coppet became a meeting place for displaced writers and thinkers. “Etonnante femme” is French for “astonishing woman.”

  605.18–19 “‘Le temps . . . nous en allons,’”] From “Sonnet à Marie” by French poet Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585), also a popular song. The lines mean “Time goes on, time goes on, my lady! / Alas! time does not, but we pass away.”

  605.30 “Childe Harold”] Ch
ilde Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812), a long narrative poem by Lord Byron.

  605.31 Miss Yonge] Popular English novelist Charlotte Yonge (1823–1901), best known for The Heir of Redclyffe (1852).

  607.21–22 the phaeton] Small open carriage with large wheels.

  608.1 The Necker homestead] The family home of Madame de Staël, whose maiden name was Necker. See note 604.18–25.

  608.33–34 the ‘incomparable Juliette’ . . . gavotte,”] Parisian salon hostess and famous beauty Juliette Récamier (1777–1849), born Jeanne Françoise Adélaïde Benard, known for excelling at the gavotte, a French dance.

  609.10–11 Madame Récamier] See note 608.33–34.

  609.12 the exile of Coppet] Madame de Staël. See note 604.18–25.

  609.19 Corinne] Titular heroine of Madame de Staël’s novel Corinne, ou L’Italie (1807), possessed of poetic genius and often likened to the author. Though Corinne achieves public recognition, she dies of a broken heart when spurned by her lover for a conventional woman.

  609.23 ravissante amie] French: ravishing friend.

  610.15 the Montmorency] French statesman Mathieu de Montmorency, duc de Montmorency-Laval (1767–1826), a lover of de Staël.

  615.34–35 thrown away her birthright . . . mess of pottage] Cf. Genesis 25:29–34.

  617.8 Campagna] See note 450.12.

  629.28 Madame Necker] Madame de Staël’s mother, Suzanne Curchod (1737–1794), herself a noted writer and salon hostess.

  UNCOLLECTED STORIES

  637.23 “When found, make a note of it.”] From Charles Dickens’s Dombey and Son (1848).

  639.10 Balzac] Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), French novelist and one of the originators of literary realism. La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy), a lifework of interlinked novels and stories, is often seen as offering a comprehensive portrait of French society.

  639.37 Tullia or Lucrezia Borgia.] Two infamous women of Italian history often portrayed as dangerously seductive. Tullia D’Aragona (1510–1556) was a highly esteemed Renaissance poet and philosopher as well as a great beauty and courtesan. Lucrezia Borgia (1480–1519) was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI and member of the ruthless Borgia family of Rome, around whom salacious rumors of incest and murder swirled.