It is surrounded with
a stone curb, octagonal in shape, and evidently as ancient as Boccaccio's
time. It has a wooden cover, through which is a square opening, and
looking down I saw my own face in the water far beneath.
There is no familiar object connected with daily life so interesting as a
well; and this well or old Arezzo, whence Petrarch had drunk, around
which he had played in his boyhood, and which Boccaccio has made famous,
really interested me more than the cathedral. It lies right under the
pavement of the street, under the sunshine, without any shade of trees
about it, or any grass, except a little that grows in the crevices of its
stones; but the shape of its stone-work would make it a pretty object in
an engraving. As I lingered round it I thought of my own town-pump in
old Salem, and wondered whether my townspeople would ever point it out to
strangers, and whether the stranger would gaze at it with any degree of
such interest as I felt in Boccaccio's well. O, certainly not; but yet I
made that humble town-pump the most celebrated structure in the good
town.
Pages:
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403