PICTURES FROM ITALY (Est. 2001)
  • Private Tours
    • Private Tours of Rome
    • Private Tours of Florence
    • Private Tours of Venice
  • Contact
  • Rome
  • Vatican
  • Florence
  • Venice
  • Tuscany
  • Gallery
  • Year in Art
Private Tours of Florence

A Room With a View

19/4/2019

 
Walking Tours of Florence
Picture

When staying in a hotel, most of us prefer a room with a view. And Lily Forster was no different.

​She and her son, the soon-to-be famous writer, Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970), pitched up in Florence in the autumn of 1901. The pair first stayed at the
Albergo Bonciani (Via de’ Panzani) before moving to the Pensione Simi (Lungarno delle Grazie). The Simi overlooked the river and Mrs Forster wanted a room with a view.


As Forster wrote to a friend on October 30th: "We go tomorrow to the Pension Simi, 2 Lungarno delle Grazie. We have been here three days, and very comfortable, but my mother hankers after an Arno view and a South aspect, so we are not stopping....Everything about the Pension Simi seems nice except the lady who keeps it, who scatters Hs like morsels and calls me 'the young gentleman'. But perhaps this is fastidious....Jennings Riccioli, alas! was full as regards South rooms..."

Mother and son took up residence at the Pensione Simi for six weeks. Seven years later the Simi would become the model for the Pension Bertolini in Forster’s novel A Room with a View (1908), which is partly set in Florence.  

Neither the Pensione Simi nor the Hotel Jennings Riccioli any longer exist, but the Albergo Bonciani is still in business.

Comments are closed.

    Blogging about Florence:
    its art, history and culture.


    My name is David Lown and I am an art historian from Cambridge, England.

    Since 200I I have been living in Italy, where I run
    ​ private tours of Florence, Rome &
    Venice.


    Search Pictures From Italy:

    Blog Posts

    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018


Follow Pictures From Italy on Facebook

Private Tours of Rome, Florence & Venice

Copyright © David Lown 2001-2019. All Rights Reserved. 
  • Private Tours
    • Private Tours of Rome
    • Private Tours of Florence
    • Private Tours of Venice
  • Contact
  • Rome
  • Vatican
  • Florence
  • Venice
  • Tuscany
  • Gallery
  • Year in Art