"
About this time Byron seems to have entertained the idea of returning to
England in the spring, i.e. after a year's absence. This design, however,
was soon set aside, partly in consequence of a slow malarian fever, by
which he was prostrated for several weeks. On his partial recovery,
attributed to his having had neither medicine nor doctor, and a
determination to live till he had "put one or two people out of the
world," he started on an expedition to Rome.
His first stage was Arqua; then Ferrara, where he was inspired, by a sight
of the Italian poet's prison, with the _Lament of Tasso_; the next,
Florence, where he describes himself as drunk with the beauty of the
galleries. Among the pictures, he was most impressed with the mistresses
of Raphael and Titian, to whom, along with Giorgione, he is always
reverential; and he recognized in Santa Croce the Westminster Abbey of
Italy. Passing through Foligno, he reached his destination early in May,
and met his old friends, Lord Lansdowne and Hobhouse. The poet employed
his short time at Rome in visiting on horseback the most famous sites in
the city and neighbourhood--as the Alban Mount, Tivoli, Frascati, the
Falls of Terni, and the Clitumnus--re-casting the crude first draft of the
third act of _Manfred_, and sitting for his bust to Thorwaldsen.
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