1829 – In November, leaving his children in the care of other family members, Morse sets sail for Europe. He visits Lafayette in Paris and paints in the Vatican galleries in Rome. During the next three years, he visits numerous art collections to study the work of the Old Masters and other painters. He also paints landscapes. Morse spends much time with his novelist friend James Fenimore Cooper.
 
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Samuel Morse in Italië
17 juni 1830 tot 2 februari, 1831
 
During all these months Morse was diligently at work in the various galleries, making the copies for which he had received commissions, and the day’s record almost invariably begins with “At the Colonna Palace all day”; or, “At the Vatican all day”; or wherever else he may have been working at the time.
 
The heat of the Roman summer seems not yet to have inconvenienced him, for he does not complain, but simply remarks: “Sun almost vertical,… houses and shops shut at noon.” He has this to say of an Italian institution: “Lotteries in Rome make for the Government eight thousand scudi per week; common people venture in them; are superstitious and consult _cabaliste_ or lucky numbers; these tolerated as they help sell the tickets.”
 
While working hard, he occasionally indulged himself in a holiday, and on June 16 he, in company with three other artists, engaged a carriage for an excursion to Albano, Aricia, and Genzano, “to witness at the latter place the celebrated _festa infiorata_, which occurs every year on the 17th of June.”
 
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