Dearest:

                        Again in Rome, in the Capitall, where I arrived after driving 230 miles through the Apennines.  I told the receptionist they did me proud last time & could I have a good room this time & she’s given me a millionaire’s suite on the first floor. – Entrance hall, sitting room, bathroom & bedroom !  All for 2/6 !  The bathroom is tiled in biscuit coloured tiles & all like a surgeons operating theatre, the sitting room has a beige & blue settee, 2 armchairs & a satin wood table & and delicate lights & the bedroom has a luscious carpet & built in wardrobes & a heavenly (single !!) bed.  So lonely I’ll be.

                        My run today was to Cecina, (get out the atlas), due east to Volterra, a heavenly little lost city on a mountain where they make alabaster ware.  I bought an ash tray & cigarette case, and then through the mountains to Poggibonsi, & to Siena. Siena you’ll love.  Its all Medieval & the cathedral is all striped black & white.  Lunch at Siena & down the winding mountain road, where German derelict tanks speak of last summer’s campaign, to Buonconvento, Radicofani, Aquapendente, around the east of Lago di Bolsena, to Montefiascine, Viterbo & Rome.  A glorious ride, & all a recce for when we go up there.  Hardly any soldier’s or military traffic.  Sunny all the way.  And now, in my suite, I write to my lover.

                        For three days I’ve been spellbound in Florence !  My dear, its superb. It’s lovely & gracious & the people are well dressed & charming & the women beautiful, & I have stood & walked where Leonardo & Michelangelo & Lorenzo & Lippo Lippi & Cellini & Dante & a host of great beauty givers stood & walked. I am spellbound and tongue tied, but I have resolved to work very hard for 3 years to be able to take you to live there for three months. April, May & June 1948. You’ll cry at the loveliness of it all. The Duomo, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Palazzo Ricardi, the Palazzo Pitti, the Ponte Vecchio, the Arno, the colours and the flowers. Magnificent shops, all full of lovely things.  So very much I did not buy.  I was so good !  But I did buy you some brushes, & Peter is posting them to you.  I also bought you a little present, which he has to post.  And quite a lot of prints.  I’ll send them on.  The print shops, the miniatures & the leather work is staggering.  The people are charming, the girls lovely, the children beautiful & the city a dream land.  I can understand the Renaissance now.  I’ll write it up, primarily for you to understand, secondarily for you to sell to Ivy Davidson.  I am deeply enamoured of Florence, & wait impatiently the excitement of exploring it thoroughly with you.  All the time, with Peter, I had you in my mind !  Its so lovely I ached for you.  More of Florence later. Tomorrow I go to Naples, happy, naughty & charming Naples, & on Saturday to my regular haunt – and to my letters.  It was very good being with Peter, with you these places will be paradise.