Shelley
visited
Livorno
in April
1818, when
he, Mary,
Claire,
three children,
and two
female
servants—Amelia
(Milly)
Shields
and Louise
(Elise)
Duvillard—left
London
for the
continent
. The
party
reached
Milan
4 April,
visited
the Italian
lakes,
sent Allegra
and Elise
to Byron
on 28
April,
and
visited
Livorno
(Leghorn)
in May,
where
they
stayed in the house of
John
and Maria
Gisborne
while the Gisbornes were in England .
In
June 1819,
following
the death
of William
("Willmouse")
Shelley
in Rome,
the Shelleys
fled back
to Livorno
and stayed
at the
Villa
Valsovano.
Mary was
deep in
depression
over the
loss of
her second
child
within
a year
(her daughter
Clara
had
died in
September
of 1818).
Shelley,
attempting
to lose
himself
in work,
wrote The
Cenci during
that
summer.
They
would also
return
to Livorno
in 1820,
and stay
with the
Gisbornes
once more.
Shelley
wrote his “Letter
to Maria
Gisborne” at
that
time.
Shelley's
final visit,
however,
remains the
most
tragic.
On 1 July
1822, Shelley
and Williams
sailed
from Lerici
to Livorno
to meet
the Hunts.
The two
sailed
back to
Lerici on
8 July,
and disappeared.
On 19 July,
Trelawny
identified
their bodies,
one near
Via Reggio
and the
other three
miles down
the shore
at Lericcio.
Livorno
was perhaps
the most
frustrating
of the Italian
sites that
we explored.
Our attempts
to communicate
in English,
college French,
and execrable
Italian were
fruitless;
no one could
direct us
to the Villa
Valsovano
or the Gisbournes'
Casa Ricci.
A day spent
wandering
through the
hills of
Montenero
yielded little
except the
(admittedly
magnificent)
views Shelley
would have
had overlooking
Livorno. |
| We
did,
however,
enjoy
one
small
victory
when we
accidentally
stumbled
upon
Byron's
magnificent
(and
well-hidden)
Villa Dupuy,
now
a
private
home.
From
the
top
of
Montenero,
one
takes
the
small
descending
road
on
the
left
(not
the
Via
Byron)
for
roughly
a
half
mile.
A
bumpy,
nondescript
dirt
road
on
the
left—the
first
one
encounters
after
leaving
the
town—leads
to
the
still-elegant
villa
and
its
exquisite
views
of
the
surrounding
countryside.
One
may
quibble
with
Byron's
morals,
but
the
man
certainly
knew
how
to
live. |
UPDATE!
Recently,
Susan Milford
typed "valsovano" into
her search
engine
and one
of the
sites
that
came up
was www.oldandsold.com/articles08/tuscany-11.shtml.
This
early-twentieth
century
article
locates
the Villa
Valsovano
site
"at
the end
of
the
Via
del
Fagiano,
just
within
the
Municipal
wall:
in
Shelley's
day
it
was
far
outside
the
town."
According
to
the
anonymous
author,
the
villa
was
still
standing,
although
the
porch
at
the
top
was
no
longer
glassed
in.
Milford
found
that
the
Via
del
Fagiano
does
exist
on
MSN
maps:
the
road
is
a
turn-off
from
the
road
leading
from
Livorno
to
Montenero. |
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