Ravenna
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| In
August 1821,
Shelley
spent ten
days visiting
Byron, who
was comfortably
ensconced
in a lavish
suite of
apartments
in the Palazzo
Guiccioli.
(The Ravenna
palazzo was
the property
of the Count
Guiccioli,
whose wife
Teresa was
Byron's mistress.)
The place
swarmed with
an eclectic
menagerie
of humans
and animals—Shelley
counted
among the
latter "two
monkeys,
five cats,
eight dogs
. . . ten
horses
. . . an
eagle,
a crow,
and a falcon." All
except
the
horses,
he noted, "walk
about
the
house,
which
every
now
and then
resounds
with
their
unarbitrated
quarrels" (cited
in Holmes's
Shelley:
The Pursuit,
664-5).
Today, the
palace houses
offices
on a busy
pedestrian
walkway;
it is currently
in some
disrepair
but was
undergoing
restoration
when we
visited. |
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|
| Although the gardens are overgrown and the plaster chipped
and peeling, one can still get a sense of how luxurious
the Palazzo Guiccioli must have been. |
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| Nearby
is the Capuchin
convent of
Bagnacavallo,
where Byron
sent his
daughter Allegra,
and the lovely
hill-town
of Fossonbrone,
which Shelley
visited in
1822. |
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