2851. EBB to Isa Blagden

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 120.

[Florence]

[?4] [May 1850] [1]

You are very kind, my dear Miss Blagden. Still, with the whole temptation before our eyes, we are afraid that to go to you on monday afternoon would be too great a risk for me, seeing that I have not been out of the house for weeks. It would be a pity, after this winter, to lose one’s liberty for the summer also .. if indeed we are to have a summer, which seems most doubtful. Now, dont you think, we might manage an evening here before Madme Ossoli leaves Italy?

I shall go to see you as soon as Robert’s Italy will let me, and meanwhile you will see him very soon .. he is full of his pictures which turn out even better than he expected, & have been glorified .. canonized .. by one of the best judges in Florence. [2] Think of such names as Ghirlandaio & Cimabue [3] .. but I am keeping your contadino–

Affectely yours,

E Barrett Browning

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.

1. Conjectured date based on EBB’s references to RB’s newly-acquired paintings and Mme. Ossoli, both of which subjects are mentioned in the following letter.

2. Seymour Kirkup.

3. Florentine painters: Cenni di Peppi, known as Cimabue (1240?–1302) and Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio (1483–1561).

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