JUNE 339 



in Venice, was the loveliness of the deserted cloisters 

 belonging to so many of the former. These enclose nearly 

 always a grass-grown space, where daisies and dandelions 

 began to abound with the earliest consent of spring. 

 Most public places and edifices in Italy have been so 

 much photographed that few have any surprise left in 

 them ; one is sure that one has seen them before. But 

 the cloisters are not yet the prey of this sort of pre- 

 acquaintance. Whether the vaults and walls of the 

 colonnades are beautifully frescoed, like those of Santa 

 Maria Novella or Santa Annunziata or San Marco, or 

 the place has no attraction but its grass and sculptured 

 stone, it is charming ; and these cloisters linger in my 

 mind as something not less Florentine in character than 

 the Ponte Vecchio or the Palazzo Publico. I remember 

 particularly an evening effect in the cloister of Santa 

 Annunziata, when the belfry in the corner, lifted aloft in 

 its tower, showed with its pendulous bells like a great 

 graceful flower against the dome of the church behind it. 

 The quiet in the place was almost sensible ; the pale light, 

 suffused with rose, had a delicate clearness ; there was a 

 little agreeable thrill of cold in the air ; there could not 

 have been a more refined moment's pleasure offered to a 

 sympathetic tourist loitering homeward to his hotel.' 



As I write I feel ' Of course everyone knows this book,' 

 but it is often not so, and no one told me of it till long 

 after I got back. I experienced one of those ' refined 

 moments of pleasure ' when one beautiful June afternoon 

 warm, but not one bit too hot we drove to the Certosa, 

 and, sending the carriage round, walked up its steep Olive 

 slopes to the monastery. A few of the white-robed 

 monks still remain in possession. I did not make out if 

 they are renewed or not, but their presence preserves the 

 character of the place. I had never seen it before ; for of 

 course years ago, like San Marco, it was not shown to 



