Fiesole and San Girolamo Monastery

I did not sleep at all well last night. Finally at 5:45 I sat up and wrote a long letter to Uncle Hugh about ourselves and about his 3rd manuscript which we received about two weeks or more ago.

Finished my letter about 8 and took it into Florence's B.R. to read and then came back and slept for 3 good hours. Got up just in time for lunch. After lunch studied Italian awhile and got ready to go to Fiesole.

We got there at 4 and went into the straw shop to look around and then we went to the monastery of San Girolamo where the Blue Nuns live. I was just fascinated with the place. It was so beautiful and the acting Mother Superior, Mother Martha, said we could go all over the place and have tea and go into the chapel and see St. Florina, the Martyr who died when he was twelve years old.

We went all over and I was delighted with it. We had tea with thin slices of bread and butter and Sister G. took us over the house to see the cells they made into rooms for boarders.* We said we would stay to Benediction, the evening service at 6 o’clock.

While we were waiting who should come along but Helen with a Mrs. Fisher, a boarder at the Montebello who was very pleasant. They soon went in and we went into the service which was beautiful with the sweet voices of the sisters singing the chants.

We saw the waxen form of the martyr and after the service walked down a steep road to San Domenico** where we took the car for Le Lune. We had dinner out of doors. After dinner we had a game of Sequence and I beat.

It was a beautiful day. Florence paid all the expenses of the trip and gave me four beautiful postcards of the convent and a pamphlet about it with views of the walks re.

*The Blue Nuns until the 1980's ran a guest house at the monastery.
**The little hamlet of San Domenico di Fiesole (148m/486ft above sea level) is only about half a mile southwest of Fiesole and right on the boundary of Florence, with a panoramic view of the city. Its San Domenico Church (1406-1435; rebuilt in the 17th century) has a richly furnished interior, with a beautiful altarpiece by Fra Angelico (c. 1430) in the first chapel on the left.