Baldassarre Makes an Acquaintance

Grayscale illustration of two cloaked men talking in the narrow streets of Florence. A candlestick streetlight stands in a small square.

Along a narrow Florentine street, Baldassarre moves past a tall stone column and clustered buildings on the city’s only rising ground, where the street opens briefly toward distant hills. When he pauses at this overlooked corner and accepts shelter nearby, the stark architecture frames his shift from aimless wandering to fragile refuge.

"When Baldassarre was wandering about Florence in search of a spare outhouse where he might have the cheapest of sheltered beds, his steps had been attracted towards that sole portion of ground within the walls of the city which is not perfectly level, and where the spectator, lifted above the roofs of the houses, can see beyond the city to the protecting hills and far-stretching valley, otherwise shut out from his view except along the welcome opening made by the course of the Arno" ("Baldassarre Makes an Acquaintance", Chapter 33).

Leighton, Frederic (1830-1896)

Swain, Joseph (1820-1909), engraver

George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett, https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org

1863, 1880

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Leighton, Frederic (1830-1896), Baldassarre Makes an Acquaintance, George Eliot Illustrations Gallery, George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett, https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://www.georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/83590