e floor. There is a flat roof of wood, carved;
and a pavement of terra-cotta consisting of yellow designs on a red
ground.

When the room was first fitted up there were 44 desks on each side, but
when the reading-room was built at the beginning of the last century,
four were destroyed. This reading-room also blocks four windows. The glass
was supplied by Giovanni da Udine in 1567 and 1568. The subjects are
heraldic. In each window the arms of the Medici occupy a central position,
and are surrounded by wreaths, arabesques, and other devices of infinite
grace and variety, in the style which the genius of Raphael had introduced
into the Vatican.

[Illustration: Fig. 101. Bookcases in the Medicean Library, Florence.]

The bookcases (fig. 101) are of walnut-wood, a material which is said to
have been prescribed by the Pope himself. They were executed, if we may
believe Vasari[422], by Battista del Cinque and Ciapino, but they are now
known to have been designed by Michelangelo. A rough outline in one of his
sketch-books, preserved in the Casa Buonarotti at Florence with other
relics illustrating his life, and here reproduced (fig. 102),
unquestionably represents one of these desks. The indication of a human
figure on the seat proves the care which he took to ensure a height
convenient for readers.

[Illustration: Fig. 102. Copy, slightly reduced, of a sketch by
Michelangelo for one of the bookcases in the Medicean Library, Florence.]

These desks are on the same general plan as those at Cesena, but they are
rather higher and more richly ornamented. Each is 11 ft. 3 in. long, and 4
ft. 4 in. high. It must be admitted that the straight back to the reader's
seat is not so comfortable as the gentle slope provided in the older
example. A frame for the catalogue hangs on the end of each desk next the
central alley. In order to make clear the differences in the construction
of the desks at Cesena and at Florence I append an elevation of each
(figs. 103, 104).

[Illustration: Fig. 103. Elevation of desks at Cesena.]

[Illustration: Fig. 104. Elevation of desks at Florence.]

It will be seen from the view of one of the desks (fig. 101) that the
books either lie on the sloping desk or are packed away on the shelf under
it. There is an average of 25 books on each desk. The chains, as at
Cesena, are attached to the lower edge of the right board, at distances
varying from 2 in. to 4 in. from the back of the book (fig. 105). The