Chapter I
St Martin’s SummerSpring is the most celebrated season in Florence, for then is it that sweet-blossomed shrubs and fruit-bearing trees and long-trailing vines break into a sensual riot and transform this art-drenched urban centre into a vision of arcadia. But to the cognoscenti of our day, it is the autumn, when the worst of the tourists have disappeared and the strident light of summer has melted, changing the series of noble hills by which the city is surrounded from striking stage set into serene vista, that is the most cherished time of year. And yet, John Forde, as he passed through a massive stone gate, the last vestige of the mediæval walls by which the city was once surrounded, and began a now familiar climb on this mid-November afternoon toward his favoured place of ref
