Florence : Elisabeth Barret Browning house museum – love story & poems, an Italian life
Finally after many years I was able to visit this special museum I ‘ve only seen on internet .
Such a great emotion to discover Elisabeth ‘s books, fornitures & letters, her bed & seeing frim the same view she could see from her balcony😍😍😍
The great love for her husband , the poet Robert Browing, brought her to Florence with him ,leaving England , London , and her family to live with her beloved Robert who wasn’t very much liked by her father..so it was a love escape!
So in 1845 they got married & moved to Florence living in this house called Casa Guidi just close to palazzo Pitti .
I loved so much reading some lovely letters written by Elisabeth about FOOD in Firenze , so interesting reading about Chianti wine she drunk & coffee , coffee coffee!!!👏👏👏She had great time in Italy & lived just like a real Italian , or I should say a real Tuscan lady 😉
She died in Florence in 1861 & buried in the English Cemetery in Piazzale Donatello in Firenze .
This sonnet is one of her most known , hope you will love it !❤️❤️❤️
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
‘I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.
