Arrigo BOÏTO (1842-1918). L.A.S., Milan March 24, 1883, to Gustave Fuchs in Chicago; 4 pages in-8, envelope with red wax seal. Beautiful letter thanking him for the sending of an inkwell representing Faust, and about his opera Mefistofele. He thanks for this splendid gift, received on his return from Flanders and Spain: "the American inkwell has come to take its place of honor on my work table. When he opened the box, he saw at first only an "avalanche of flowers on Mephisto's head". When he took out the statuette "all resplendent with art and silver, [...] it looked as if it had come out of the last scene of Goethe's Poem", from which Boïto quotes some verses. He thanks for this piece of art, of exquisite taste, and sends his congratulations to the artist and to the Duhme house of Cincinnati. In exchange, and in the name of their common adoration for Goethe's work, "the most sublime Poem of modern literature", he wishes to offer him "a piece of that palm tree which Goethe visited in Padua and which, as you know, inspired him to the theory of the metamorphosis of plants. Goethe himself kept a leaf of this palm tree throughout his long life. This tree still lives, religiously cultivated in my native town [...] This tree bears the name of Goethe and my fellow citizens offered me three branches of it", from which he cut the small piece that he will send to him in a case... "If my vanity does not blind me, if in my music, as I hope, one finds an echo, albeit weakened, of the immense harmony of Goethe's Poem, keep this piece of branch in memory of a man who honors, as you do, in art the gift of the Gods...