In Italy the dead have festivals as well as the living, and on the first and second days of November this cemetery is the favorite resort of Florentines. Beautiful floral decorations are then lavished on the graves, many of which are buried deep in mounds of flowers, while the large tombs resemble temporary gardens, their marble walls being almost entirely concealed by stately plants, garlands of trailing ferns and grasses, and wreaths and crosses woven out of lovely blossoms. On such occasions, the whole character of the cemetery seems changed; for the white gravestones are then rich with color, the rose leaf has replaced the cypress, and Death has abdicated temporarily to Life.

The Interior Of San Miniato.

Among the prominent mausoleums here is that of the family of Tommaso Salvini, whose rank as the greatest tragedian of modern times can hardly be disputed. Though seventy years of age, the illustrious actor is still hale and strong; but he has now, save for an occasional charitable performance, left the stage, to pass the evening of his life in calm retirement at his Florentine villa, where he enjoys the memory of his artistic triumphs, especially those connected with his tours in America. It is in this tomb at San Miniato that the tragedian's body will finally repose, when it shall be no longer animated by his gifted spirit; but even now the sculptured sepulchre has for Americans a touching interest from the fact that the tragedian's son, Alessandro Salvini, is here buried. Many a visitor from the United States will halt before his resting-place above the City of Flowers; and remembering the genuine admiration he won, and his marriage to an American lady, many a rose they will lay tenderly upon the threshold of this house of death, freighted with grateful memories and sorrowful regrets that this young life of brilliant promise should have thus early ended in pathetic suffering.

Salvinl's Tomb At San Miniato.

Standing beside his grave, as I recalled the characters in which he had afforded me such pleasure, I thought of the appropriate lines:

" Two travel-worn and weary feet at rest

From paths of pain now shrouded in the past; Two cold hands crossed upon a pulseless breast

From which the soul has taken flight at last; Two eyes from whose dark vacant cells the glow

Of sunshine seems forever to have fled; Two mute lips, meeting like an unstrung bow,

From which the final arrow, speech, has sped!"

Tommaso Salvini.

A view at sunset from this terrace, on a night in spring, forms one of my most treasured memories. A soft haze mellowed the historic city, and floated off beyond it to the purple hills. The sun hung on the verge of the horizon like a ball of molten gold. On its glowing disk the silhouette of the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio crept upward, little by little, until its apex pierced the upper solar rim, and the great yellow globe appeared to fall asunder and then vanish, as if the stony shaft had cleft it suddenly in twain and tossed it into the abyss of night. Later, a slender, crescent moon stole out upon the sky, so faint and fragile that it seemed more like the spirit than the body of the Queen of Heaven. Still light enough remained to show the dome of Brunelleschi, like an inverted flower, or a silver bell, suspended from the star-gemmed dome of night of which it was the miniature replica. Beside it rose the graceful shaft of Giotto's Campanile, - the wraith of a tower, rather than a monument of stone, - the upper part of which appeared to be detached from earth, and to be floating, spirit-like, in the mysteriously misty air. It called to mind the Angel of the Annunciation, standing motionless, with folded arms and upward-pointed wings. Meantime, no sounds of the great city reached me; and I could almost fancy that Florence was herself a mighty Campo Santo, and that her citizens had perished at the death of day.

Alessandro Salvini.

Bam Miniato, Looking Toward The City.