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First American Edition, (First English edition was in 1885). Hard cover, 12mo, in olive green cloth with the pictorial cover blocked with landscape and nautical scenes in gilt and black to the front board, the titles and a view of Venice's Rialto Bridge on the spine. Top edge gilt. Illustrated with 10 black and white reproductions from etchings, including the tissue-guarded frontispiece, as well as renaissance-style headers and footers. viii, 280 pp. In English. Printed from the T. Fisher Unwin plates presumably, with their Gresham Press colophon at rear of work. (The cancel title page does not carry the advertisement, on the verso, of the Unwin edition.) **CONDITION: Good. Mark to front board, spine a bit darkened, with some losses of the cloth at head and foot of spine. A one inch split at head of front joint. Inside, both hinges somewhat loose. Occasional foxing and soiling. Still, a pleasing, functional copy of an interesting book. **This travelogue advises on the residence and travels of the English Author (and her second Italian husband) made around Tuscany and Venice in the early years of the twentieth century. Life at the historic Villa Gamberaia, in Settignano on the northeast outskirts of Florence forms the first part of the book, (where Napoleon III was once sequestered while his father invaded Italy.) The integrated house and garden design are extensively commented on. Further north, she writes about the scenic, mountainous commune of Barga, with its Duomo and artworks by the Della Robbias, whose history was so wrapped up in the conflict between the warring Florentine, Pisan and Lucchese dukes. The area's local silk manufacture is mentioned; a trade in which the Author's father was engaged on back in England. The Abetone, a mountainous central Tuscan resort town, forms the third part of the author's narrative, followed by the Palio Races at Siena and festival at Bocca di Rio. Cultural comment on the method of rentals and the hiring of man-servants is made for the prospective ex-pat. The second part of the book, based upon visits to Venice, offers impressions of summering in San Samuele, with descriptions of the distribution of fresh water by barge and gondola, traveling by steam launch to the beach at the Lido, as well as many investigations of lesser-known art treasures and destinations, found down the "side canals" of La Serenissima.
Ref: ADV 9249
$85.00