Dante would seem to have loved it best in the morning; out of it he conjures his Paradiso Terrestre in the twenty-eighth canto of the Purgatorio: 

  “Through that celestial forest, whose thick shade
  With lively greenness the new-springing day
  Attemper’d, eager now to roam, and search
  Its limits round, forthwith I left the bank;
  Along the champain leisurely my way
  Pursuing, o’er the ground, that on all sides
  Delicious odour breathed.  A pleasant air
  That intermitted never, never veer’d,
  Smote on my temples, gently as a wind
  Of softest influence, at which the sprays,
  Obedient all, lean’d trembling to that part
  Where first the holy mountain casts his shade,
  Yet were not so disordered, but that still
  Upon their top the feathered quiristers
  Applied their wonted art, and with full joy
  Welcomed those hours of prime, and warbled shrill
  Amid the leaves that to their jocund lays
  Kept tenour; even as from branch to branch
  Along the piny forests on the shore
  Of Chiassi rolls the gathering melody
  When Eolus hath from his cavern loosed
  The dripping south.  Already had my steps,
  Though slow, so far into that ancient wood
  Transported me, I could not ken the place
  Where I had entered; when, behold, my path
  Was bounded by a rill which to the left
  With little rippling waters bent the grass
  That issued from its brink.  On earth no wave
  How clear so’er that would not seem to have
  Some mixture in itself, compared with this
  Transpicuous clear; yet darkly on it rolled,
  Darkly beneath perpetual gloom, which ne’er
  Admits or sun or moon-light there to shine.”

Well, is not it the very place?  And did not Dante, who knew Italy as few have known it, do well to remember it when he would describe for us the Earthly Paradise?  In the forest the morning is sacred to him and there one should turn, with less misunderstanding than anywhere else, the precious pages of that poem which is in itself a universe.

But if the clear morning there is Dante’s, when we may still hear the voice he heard pass by there, in the stillness, singing, Beati quorum tecta sunt peccata, the long noon belongs to Boccaccio, for it is full of the most tragic and pitiful of his tales.

[Illustration:  THE PINETA]

“Ravenna being a very ancient City in Romania, there dwelt sometime a great number of worthy Gentlemen, among whom I am to speake of one more especially, named Anastasio, descended from the Family of the Honesti, who by the death of his Father, and an Unckle of his, was left extraordinarily abounding in riches, and growing to yeares fitting for marriage, (as young Gallants are easily apt enough to do) he became enamored of a very bountifull Gentlewoman, who was Daughter to Signior Paulo Traversario, one of the most ancient and noble Families in all the Countrey.  Nor made