Sam’s notebook:

Belli Arti—It is not possible that anybody could take more  solid comfort in martydom that St. Sebastian did….The Old Master’s horses  always rear after the fashion of the kangaroo….500 Last Suppers—they all have  new table cloths with the fold wrinkles sharply defined.

The fig leaf & private members of statues are handled so  much that they are black & polished while the rest of the figure is white  & unpolished. Which sex does this handling?

Left for Florence. Good by, Dittura Agostino! [MTNJ 2: 223-5].

Sam’s notebook:

For two days we have been doubting Dittura’s reliability as a  news gatherer—but to-night I heard a news- man crying a paper—understood “Count  Bismark” & bought a copy—spelled out the fact that 2 days ago, Carlo Conti  di Bismark, a citizen of Venice, committed suicide by shooting himself through  the head with a revolver. So D.[ittura] was 2 days ahead of the newspaper [MTNJ  2: 223].

Stabilimento  Salviati, Venice, sent a statement for items purchased/shipped [MTP].
 

The Clemenses visited Padre  Giacomo Issaverdenz, a friend of Howells,  on the island of San Lazzaro,  two miles southeast of Venice.  At the Armenian monastery the Padre gave them preserved rose-leaves to eat,  showed them photographs and talked about the Howellses [MTHL 1: 241].

Sam’s notebook:

“Very magnificent sunset & lamp effects (Piazza) coming  from San Lazzaro… Dittura—Boom! (finger to temple.) –Morte—Signor  Bismark—to-day–(laying head in palm of hand)” [MTNJ 2: 222-3]. (See Oct.  16 entry for explanation.)
 

Sam wrote from Venice,  Italy to Chatto & Windus,  asking them to send copies of Innocents Abroad and The Adventures of  Tom Sawyer to William Mayer,  care of G.K. Mayer, Vienna Austria [MTLE 3: 94]. Following the establishment of a Linotype factory in 1890 in England,  the publisher William Mayer and his son Jacques traveled to Germany in 1894 to  find business partners there. 

From Sam’s notebook:

D. & C. Mac Iver wrote from Liverpool to advise “by  the request of Mr. George C. Wild we write to say that we shall be glad to  receive any articles, personal effects or otherwise & store & ship them  as you may instruct us” [MTP].
 

From Sam’s notebook:
Today received an  impudent letter from George Burk asking for 175 francs more—but it furnishes me  with his address, which I want.

Afternoon—3 of the very  worst & most dismal solo singers in the world have been on the masonry platform ½ hour apart—never heard anything worse in the opera [MTNJ 2:  208].
 

Sam wrote from Venice,  Italy to J. Langdon & Co. Only the envelope  survives [MTLE 3: 93].

Sam included descriptions of a  “swell big gondola” and a funeral procession in his notebook [MTNJ 2: 204].

Sam’s notebook: “Began with Dittura [Agostino]  Oct 8 by the day at 5 f a day & 50 pour-boir—we have to have  him day & evening both” [MTNJ 2: 205] Agostino was the second  gondolier employed by the Clemens family [205n89].

George Burk wrote from Venice, Italy asking for  additional severance pay of 175 francs and sending his address [MTP;  MTNJ 2: 208].
 

Sam’s notebook:
Great Council Chamber,  Ducal Palace. Immediately at right of the door as you enter, in the big picture  over the book shelves, is a fisherman in the foreground in a green dress  holding one basket of fish against his body & resting another basket of  fish on a woman’s head. This Fisherman has but one leg—but that is not the  singularity, but the fact that it is the port leg, attached to the starboard  side of his body [MTNJ 2:  199- 200]. Note: Sam evaluated several  other paintings in like manner.