In Florence itself Elizabeth is the far more significant of the two poets, not merely because she is the one buried there, but because of a specific poem she wrote. On their first wedding anniversary, the couple watched from their home’s window as thousands of people marched by. It was a political protest, banners calling for liberty, and the unification of Italy. In the 1840s when the couple were there, Italy was not the unified country we know today, but an assortment of states. Elizabeth wrote her poem in passionate support for Italy’s struggle for liberty and unification: “For the heart of man beat higher that day in Florence, flooding all her streets, And piazzas with a tumult and desire…” Turning from the tomb, upon which someone had affectionately laid a bouquet of flowers, I continued up into the heart of the graveyard, moving up the path. Walking a little way I come to the crossroads at the very centre of the graveyard, and in the very centre of the crossroads stands a large column under the cypress trees. Looking up, the column is surmounted by a cross. The column and the trees, that afternoon, were backlit by a sun struggling to pierce the dark clouds. The column is the tallest structure in the graveyard, apart from the trees themselves. It was erected in 1858, to commemorate the visit of the Lutheran King of Prussia, Frederick William IV. Neighbouring this, on one of the crossroad’s intersections, there stands an obelisk, a gravesite surrounded by purple irises. This is the resting place of Thomas Southwood Smith.

Southwood Smith was an English doctor from Somerset, and a dedicated Unitarian. He came from a conservative Baptist family, and in his mid-20s he became disillusioned with Calvinism. In his subsequent spiritual seeking he contacted the Swedenborgian William Blake, who in turn put Smith into contact with an ex-Baptist Unitarian minister, who prompted his Unitarian conversion. Smith, who lived in the 19th Century, wrote in particular on public health issues in London, and the inadequacy of living conditions amongst the working class. He was writing before germ theory was properly understood, and so, he believed that disease and health epidemics were the result of people being exposed to foul smelling air. Though this is of course a misunderstanding, it was a misunderstanding that did a lot of good, as it led to him pushing for more sanitary living spaces, and led to the establishment of the first social housing program in England, particularly for the families of factory workers in London. He was also notably a good friend of the father of utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham.