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Florence May 11/18 Dear Mother My three weeks leave is now coming to a close and I expect to leave at six in the morning for Monselice and the will get back to work. I have had simply a splendid time and have learned enough to know the places to go next time I get some. I think you will be interested to hear about the Pitti picture gallery. I have been there twice now and wish I had the time to go again. I find that in looking at pictures no matter how good they are one tires very shortly so there is the advantage in going more than once. This PITTI pallery is one of the finest in the world and contains some of the best and most valuable pictures. I met an American there yesterday and he showed me some of the best. I will enclose a copy of what he told me was the most popular picture in the world La Madonna della Seggiala by Raphael. If anyone wants to paint this picture he has to put in his application at least ten years before his turn will come. It has a very interesting story. "One day Raphael was walking outside Rome and he chanced to come across a mother and her child sitting in a chair outside a tavern with some empty beer barrels nearby. Struck by their beauty he persuaded another child come beside them and then and there made a sketch of them on the end of one of the Beer barrels." Thus was painted one of the worlds most famous pictures and one can see if he looks closely the cracks as they would appear in the end of the barrel. Another in the Madonna del Granduce which one has to wait eight years to paint. It is by the same artist. One which impressed me very much was San Giovanni by Andrea del Sarto, although not so famous. They say that had he lived longer he would have outrivaled Raphael but he died young of starvation neglected by his fellow Florentines to whom he bequeathed such