2025-06-09
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pink and grey and brown, with the ruddy,
huge dome of the cathedral dominating its centre like a captive balloon,
and flanked on the right by the smaller bulb of the Medici Chapel,
and on the left by the airy tower of the Palazzo Vecchio.
After nine months of familiarity with this panorama,
I still think that this is the fairest picture on our planet.
the most enchanting to look upon, the most satisfying to the eye and the spirit.
To see the sun sink down, drowned in his pink and purple and golden floods,
and overwhelm Florence with tides of color that make all the sharp lines dim and faint and turn the solid city into a city of dreams is a sight to stir the coldest nature.
and make a sympathetic one drunk with ecstasy.
So that, Dominic, was Mark Twain,
I think the friend of the show, and for once he's not being rude.
He's actually engaging in extravagant praise
because he's writing from a house in the autumn of 1892 just outside Florence,
and he is gazing at this famously most beautiful of cities,