May 8 Sunday – Sam’s notebook entry in Florence: “May 8, 9, 10. These days Joseph [Verey] has been about as idle & hard to find as ever, though the seat at the door is comfortable” [NB 31 TS 41-2].

[entered on May 9]: The Villa Ross where we took tea yesterday [May 8] is superb — house, grounds & all — & has a noble view out over distant Florence & the hill-ranges. In this houe Boccacio wrote the Decameron. Close by is the house in which Michelangelo was born. Sir John Hawksworth battered part of the house down with his cannon in one of those old forgotten wars.

Three years ago Mrs. Ross (daughter of Lady Duff Gordon,) bought the house from a woman who was born in it, & all of whose ancestors had also been born in it since the year 1342.

Went to Mrs. Ross’s with Prof. Willard Fisk[e], whose villa is the one which Walter Savage Landor lived in so many years [NB 32 TS 8].