Through the Casentino with Hints for the Traveller

The Casentino is the name given to the upper valley of the Arno, where the river, rising in numerous streams on the slopes of the Falterona, flows southwards for about forty miles before it swings round in its course and runs north-westwards in the direction of Florence. The district, to use the words of a modern Italian writer, is “formed by nature in the shape of a basket”—those oval flower-baskets we see carried about the streets of Florence—“with its lowest part green with meadows, fields and vineyards, and encircled and, so to say, closed in by lofty mountains.” It is a district rich in memories of{2} Dante and other associations. The halo of early Christian life, the gloom and splendour of feudal times, and the glow of the Renaissance, all linger here. And many beauties of nature, many feasts of the imagination here await the traveller who foregoes for a time the hasty temper of the tourist.