is is, if
you ask of your father, or of some one that knows, what the height is of
some tall steeple near where you live.

When the architect who conceived the idea of finishing the church by
putting this dome upon it first proposed it, the other architects of the
town declared that it could not be done. It was impossible, they said,
to build so large a dome on the top of so lofty a building. But he
insisted that it was not impossible. He could not only build the dome at
that height, but he could first build an octagonal lantern, he said, on
the top of the church, and then build the dome upon that, which would
carry the dome up a great deal higher. At last they consented to let him
make the attempt; and he succeeded. You see the dome in the engraving,
and the octagonal lantern beneath it, on which it rests. The lantern is
the part which has the round windows.

You see to the left of the church, at the farther end, a tall, square
tower. This is the bell tower. There are six bells in it. It was
designed to have a spire upon it, but the spire has not yet been built,
and perhaps it never will be.

[Illustration: A CHURCH AT FLORENCE.]

This bell tower alone cost an enormous sum of money. It is faced on
every side, as indeed the church itself is, with different colored
marbles, and the four walls of it, on the outside, are so profusely
adorned with sculptures, statues, and other costly and elaborate
architectural decorations, that it would take a week to examine them
fully in detail.

The part of the church which is presented to view in the engraving is
the end. The front proper is on a line with the farther side of the bell
tower. The engraving does not show us the length of the edifice at all,
except so far as we gain an idea of it by the long procession which we
see at the side. As I have already said, the length is more than five
hundred feet, which is nearly half a quarter of a mile.

The putting on of the dome was considered the greatest achievement in
the building of the church; and the architect who planned and
superintended the work gained for himself immortal honor. After his
death a statue of him was made, and placed in a niche in the wall of the
houses on one side of the square, opposite the dome. He is represented
as sitting in a chair, holding a plan of the work in his hand, and
looking up to see it as it appeared completed. We can just see this
statue in the foreground of the picture, on the left.

An