ABSTRACT
Shelley was at 'I Cappucini' from 30 September through 10 October, and this date accords with S's prose description in his next recorded letter of Venice with its domes & turrets glittering in a long line over the blue waves and of the view from the Euganean Hills of 'the wide flat plains of Lombardy, in which we see the sun & moon rise & set, & the evening star, & all the golden magnificence of autumnal clouds'. The poem celebrates a single 'island' of happiness, temporal and geographical, in a sea of calamity, and if the physical descriptions were from life, the day celebrated can be identified. The poem celebrates a single 'island' of happiness, temporal and geographical, in a sea of calamity, and if the physical descriptions were from life, the day celebrated can be identified. The tower of the Benedictine Monastery of the Olivetani on Monte Venda, the topmost point of the Euganean Hills.
