Wednesday, April 11. 'Dawn has broken, stormy and pale'. Poured all morning and bitterly cold. Sat on sofa with eiderdown wrapped round me up to my chin while L and S mocked me. Tuscan bread and oeufs mouillés for lunch. Local bread and butter have no salt, which seems a mistake to me, while they over-salt their meat dishes. S says it is one reason that bread becomes hard so quickly. In afternoon to Villa I Tatti at invitation of X, where she is a fellow. Up to the top of formal garden which steps down the hill in landings of river stones laid in mosaic and flights of steps between. Enclosures of clipped topiary in balls, cubes and pyramids - all shades of green between flanking high, steep-sided cypress hedges. The sun came out just as we were looking down at it, and clouds of steam, bursting from the hedges, drifted like gold dust across the garden. Then up a wisteria walk to the entrance of the library. X showed us round, pointing out various Sienese masterworks collected by Berenson, a picture of whom at the entrance looked rather like George V with woofy hair.
Dark green highly polished terrazzo underfoot, beautiful carpets, furniture, etc. Then arrived Prue James (wife of Clive) and Lydia someone who seemed to be an Italian cultural wheel of some kind and was travelling with Prue, closely followed by S and T. A uniformed maid served us tea with freshly baked shortbread and tiny coconut macaroons. They bake every day in case one of the fellows should feel like a nibble. The word decadent is hardly adequate. Berenson bought the estate in 1907, plus more or less all the land round about; he constructed the villa, laid out - or had laid out for him - the formal gardens, etc, etc. Though he was a successful art dealer, he was hardly Bill Gates, which you would need to be to buy anything similar now. No doubt that a bit of money went a long way in Italy in those days. Much talk between Prue and the director, who dropped in along with his wife. She is editing a newly discovered Dante MS given to her by the Prof of Latin at Cambridge - v interested when we told her some of said Prof's secret history. Then back home where S turned on the heating, which for him was something of an admission.