Dear Henry
Can you at all make out the enclosed gentian it was nearly red when fresh and fringed not like ciliata but Amarella & grew very low down the mountains on rocky banks – it must be a late flowering one as there were many in bud & none in seed.
There is a certain Devisiani a Dalmatian curator horti botanici <1> at Padua which is a tolerably good one, who makes a voyage to Dalmatia every year in quest of plants – he has brought a hederæfolious variety of Cyclamen Europæum. I believe there is no distinct hederæfolium but that all in turns put on that appearance in different parts of Europe in order to be Crux botanica <2>
The weather now (8. Octr –) is detestable as bad as Novr last year at Florence to my great annoyance as it breaks up the season the roads & my tour all together – I have a letter from Barbini offering his 4 pictures which I believe I told you of for 50£ – he asked 96 – to which I vouchsafe no answer as I want all my money for travelling I drove such a hard bargain with Neri <3> that he has left me alone too & I dare say sold his Garofalino <4> to some other traveller. His soidisant Correggio <5> you will certainly see where it is the next time you go to Bologna if he does not lower his prices –
Your affte
W T H F S
If you have an opportunity ask Jane <6> if she ever received or what she did with a book of sketches in the Carpathians &c which I sent to her in London in the Spring or Winter<Enclosed: pressed gentian flower>
Henry Talbot Esq
31 Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. Of the botanical garden.
2. A botanical torture, that is, ‘in order to torture botanists’.
3. See Doc. No: 01483.
4. Probably Benvenuto Tisio (Il Garofalo) (1481–1559), Italian painter who worked at Ferrara.
5. Supposedly Correggio, Antonio Allegri (1484–1534).
6. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796–1874).