title: The City of Florence: Historical Vistas and Personal Sightings
author:  R. W. B. Lewis 
description: With the same grace and scholarship that marked his recent Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Edith Wharton, Lewis takes us into the heart of the city where he and his wife have lived off and on for 50 years. Their experiences in Florence come alive in his descriptions of the places they have rented, their friends, their explorations and their reflections. The author also shows off the city with quotes from Henry James, T.S. Eliot, the Brownings, Bocaccio, Dante and other writers and artists who have been similarly touched by its ambience. While he was working on the book, Lewis informs us, "even a simple bus ride into the center carries me past strong historical and personal associations... [that] we know we have seen before... [yet] we look at as though for the first time." His fresh view of the city on the Arno makes this a treasurable guide. Illustrations not seen by PW.-- we know we have seen before... [yet] we look at as though for the first time." His fresh view of the city on the Arno makes this a treasurable guide. Illustrations not seen by PW. <br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  Recent Florence
  
  
  This page copyright © 2004 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  # Recent Florence
  
  
  ### By Henry James
  
  
  This page copyright © 2004 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
      
  
  EText by Ian Hillman
  
  
  I HAVE never known Florence more charming than I found her for a week
  
  
  in this brilliant October. She sat in the sunshine beside her yellow
  
  
  river like the little treasure-city that she has always seemed, without
  
  
  commerce, without other industry than the manufacture of mosaic
  
  
  paper-weights and alabaster Cupids, without actuality, or energy, or
  
  
  earnestness, or any of those rugged virtues which in most cases are
  
  
  deemed indispensable for civic robustness; with nothing but the little
  
  
  unaugmented stock of her medieval memories, her tender-coloured
  
  
  mountains, her churches and palaces, pictures and statues. There were
  
  
  very few strangers; one's detested fellow sight-seer was infrequent;
  
  
  the native population itself seemed scanty; the 