"How do I love thee -- let me count the ways ...."
Immortal words from the reclusive and sickly poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, written during poet Robert Browning's ardent courtship. She began "Sonnets from the Portuguese," which includes that particular poem, before her marriage to Browning.
Being in ill health and six years Browning's senior, Barrett had some difficulty believing he was truly interested in her -- but Browning eventually won out and the two married in 1846, and a week later headed to Italy to settle down. Her father disinherited her, as he did all his children who married, but the two lived comfortably in Florence until her death in 1861. She was buried in Florence's Cimitero Degli Inglesi.
Florence still looks today much as it has for centuries -- and much as the Brownings must have seen it, rich with romantic possibility. A short walk from the Brownings' home are Florence's Boboli Gardens, behind the grand Palazzo Pitti, built by a 15th century merchant and later expanded by the Medicis. The palace now houses several museums.
The Brownings lived at #8 on the Piazza San Felice, the square at the end of Via Maggio, where visitors can still pass by on a walking tour. The street is near the River Arno and the famed Ponte Vecchio.
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