Florence, Italy, is known as being one of the most beautiful cities in the world. A hub of artisan crafts and art, it has also inspired many a poet to pen a poem praising its beauty. Walking along the river banks of the Arno, or looking out over the panorama perched high above the city skyline in Piazzale Michelangelo, the city’s beauty is indeed inspiring.

For those who have been to Florence, reading the poetry of various poets describing the wondrous city, brings back memories of one’s stay in Florence in memories that flash before you, with images beautiful and studied like landscape paintings. For those yet to see the Renaissance city, these poems just add further motivation to follow in the footsteps of such famed writers.

Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barret Browning, having married against her family’s wishes, fled to Florence in 1845, and their son was even born here.

Barret Browning’s epic poem, Aurora Leigh, details the life of its Florentine protagonist in a poem in 9 parts which forms a novel detailing the life of Aurora, born to a Florentine mother and English father:

I found a house, at Florence, on the hill
Of Bellosguardo. ‘Tis a tower that keeps
A post of double-observation o’er
The valley of Arno (holding as a hand
The outspread city) straight toward Fiesole
And Mount Morello and the setting sun,–
The Vallombrosan mountains to the right,
Which sunrise fills as full as crystal cups
Wine-filled, and red to the brim because it’s red.
No sun could die, nor yet be born, unseen
By dwellers at my villa: morn and eve
Were magnified before us in the pure
Illimitable space and pause of sky,
Intense as angels’ garments blanched with God,
Less blue than radiant. From the outer wall
Of the garden, dropped the mystic floating grey
Of olive-trees, (with interruptions green
From maize and vine) until ’twas caught and torn
On that abrupt black line of cypresses
Which signed the way to Florence. Beautiful
The city lay along the ample vale,
Cathedral, tower and palace, piazza and street;
The river trailing like a silver cord
Through all, and curling loosely, both before
And after, over the whole stretch of land
Sown whitely up and down its opposite slopes,
With farms and villas.

Robert Browning, in love with his new wife, their newborn child, and also their city, wrote his Old Pictures in Florence:

The morn when first it thunders in March,
  The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say:
As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch
  Of the villa-gate this warm March day,
No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled
  In the valley beneath where, white and wide
And washed by the morning water-gold,
  Florence lay out on the mountain-side.

When Barrett Browning died here in 1861, her husband arranged her burial to be in the cemetery known as Il Cimitero degli Inglesi (The English Cemetery) - although it is in fact an international cemetery located just outside the city’s medieval walls, for non-Catholics. Barrett Browning’s Florentine tomb is inscribed with a passage from a poem by her fellow cemetery companion, Walter Savage Landor.  

Having fled London in exile and starting out in Como, Italy, in 1815, before being expelled. Landor arrived in Florence in 1821 and was threatened with expulsion from this city also for having insulted the local police. After leaving his family to return to England, he later returned to Florence to live with the Brownings in 1858, where he stayed until his death in 1864. His acclaimed work, Imaginary Conversations was written whilst the poet lived with his family in Villa Castiglione. Writing to his daughter, Julia, Landor intertwines his love for his daughter with his passion for Florence:

By that dejected city, Arno runs,

Where Ugolino claspt his famisht sons.

There wert thou born, my Julia! there thine eyes

Return’d as bright a blue to vernal skies.

And thence, my little wanderer! when the Spring

Advanced, thee, too, the hours on silent wing

Brought, while anemonies were quivering round,

And pointed tulips pierced the purple ground,

Where stood fair Florence: there thy voice first blest

My ear, and sank like balm into my breast:

For many griefs had wounded it, and more

Thy little hands could lighten were in store.

Poet Emily Dickson was so inspired by an image of Barrett Browning’s grave, and in fact wrote her own poem regarding it’s image, titled ‘The soul selects her own society’:

The soul selects her own society,

Then shuts the door;

On her divine majority

Obtrude no more.

 

Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing

At her low gate;

Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling

Upon her mat.

 

I’ve known her from an ample nation

Choose one;

Then close the valves of her attention

Like stone.   

Oscar Wilde also penned poems on Florence’s beauty during his time here in the 1870s. Once can just image the poet sitting by the river, pen and parchment in hand, watching the sun set over Florence’s Arno river. As the last of the sun’s light changes guard with that of the city’s lights, it is just magical to see the city change her colours, putting on her sparkling evening gown. And as Wilde sat on the river banks, he was inspired to write his By the Arno:

The oleander on the wall

Grows crimson in the dawning light,

Though the grey shadows of the night

Lie yet on Florence like a pall.

The dew is bright upon the hill,

And bright the blossoms overhead,

But ah! the grasshoppers have fled,

The little Attic song is still.

Only the leaves are gently stirred

By the soft breathing of the gale,

And in the almond-scented vale

The lonely nightingale is heard.

The day will make thee silent soon,

O nightingale sing on for love!

While yet upon the shadowy grove

Splinter the arrows of the moon.

Before across the silent lawn

In sea-green vest the morning steals,

And to love’s frightened eyes reveals

The long white fingers of the dawn.

Fast climbing up the eastern sky

To grasp and slay the shuddering night,

All careless of my heart’s delight,

Or if the nightingale should die.

The joy of William Leighton (1833-1911) as he strolled the streets of Florence is palpable in his Florentine Sonnets. His wonder of walking the same streets as famed writers of the past is described so accurately, and it is lovely to think of dreamily wandering these same old streets as did Leighton during his time here in 1906:

Through these old streets I wander dreamily;
Around me Florence sweeps her busy tide
Of life; quaint palaces on every side.
Here, where I pass, perchance in former day
Petrarch hath walked, composing poetry

To oft-sung charms of Laura. Here hath hied
Dante, of Florence now the greatest pride,
But whom, in life, she fiercely drove away,
To write in gloom his epic. Here, beneath

This loggia, Boccaccio hath told
His laughing tales, to comrades, merrily

What wondrous memories these scenes bequeath

What artists, sculptors, painters, here of old
Fashioned this lovely gem of Italy!

Similarly inspired by a visit to the wondrous Florentine, and Tuscan landscape, Arthur Hugh Clough (who also lies in the Cimitero degli Inglesi) penned his Amours De Voyage, with its characters passing through Florence. The author takes time out from the storyline of the poem to note on the beauty of the land:

Therefore farewell, ye hills, and ye, ye envineyarded ruins!
    Therefore farewell, ye walls, palaces, pillars, and domes!
Therefore farewell, far seen, ye peaks of the mythic Albano,
    Seen from Montorio’s height, Tibur and Æsula’s hills!
Ah, could we once, ere we go, could we stand, while, to ocean descending,
    Sinks o’er the yellow dark plain slowly the yellow broad sun,
Stand, from the forest emerging at sunset, at once in the champaign,
    Open, but studded with trees, chestnuts umbrageous and old,
E’en in those fair open fields that incurve to thy beautiful hollow,
    Nemi, imbedded in wood, Nemi, interned in the hill!—
Therefore farewell, ye plains, and ye hills, and the City Eternal!
    Therefore farewell! We depart, but to behold you again!

Florence, the beautiful Tuscan city, has inspired artists, poets, musicians, with its beauty, its architecture, its landscape, the passion of its people, the world acclaimed food and the wine. Being in this magical city which inspired such great minds to write such great poetry just adds to the romance, to the experience of sitting by the Arno river, of hearing the click of heels on the cobbled streets, of sipping wine sitting in an outdoor table in Piazza Signoria watching the last light of the day behind the wondrous facade of the Santa Croce church, or perhaps looking at the changing light of the city from the view of Piazzale Michelangelo.

This city is inspiring and enchanting, even if we cannot all pen such fantastic poetry to express our experiences, we still feel the sentiments of these famous poets and their love for this city.