Henry James and many others

Meet the “Italian” Henry James (and many others) in an extraordinary private tour, a walk around the hills south of the Arno River, starting with Bellosguardo. This area, in the late 18th and early 20th century represented the most sought after area of the city for many famous foreign artists, especially from the UK, who settled here. The villas built in the Florentine countryside at just a stone's throw from the Capital of Tuscany, offered everything these foreigners could wish for: antiquity, exquisite architecture, history and, as Henry James, the important author, observed, economic rent. 

In these luxurious hillside homes, numerous writers and wealthy people from other countries, mostly England and north America, in search of a golden past, relived the Renaissance era as they had imagined it. Walk with your private guide along Bellosguardo landscape (exactly where Henry James wrote “The Aspern paper” in 1888), down the narrow streets that hold the magnificent houses in which they once lived. Get a feel of the atmosphere that inspired their poetry and prose, and, as Henry James underlined, the impressions, emotions and life style of these “infatuated aliens”.

Isabel Archer (the protagonist of “The Portrait of a Lady”) found her love right in Florence. Won’t you like to experience the romantic touch of our city too?

Florence and Tuscany Tours: see more, do more, make it yours.