square, in order to produce a beautiful effect, ought not to be too
big; it is also necessary that it should be bordered by varied monuments
of diverse elevations. The Place of the Grand Duke at Florence unites
all these conditions; bordered by monuments regular in themselves, but
different from one another, it is pleasing to the eye without wearying
by a cold symmetry.

The Palace of the Seigneurie, or Old Palace, which by its imposing mass
and severe elegance at first attracts the attention, occupies a corner
of the Place, instead of the middle. This idea, a happy one, in our
opinion, regrettable for those who only see architectural beauty in
geometrical regularity, is not fortuitous; it has a reason wholly
Florentine. In order to obtain perfect symmetry, it would have been
necessary to build upon the detested soil of the Ghibelline house,
rebellious and proscribed by the Uberti; something that the Guelph
faction, then all-powerful, were not willing to allow the architect,
Arnolfo di Lapo, to do. Learned men contest the truth of this tradition;
we will not discuss here the value of their objections. It is certain,
however, that the Old Palace gains greatly by the singularity of this
location and also leaves space for the great Fountain of Neptune and
the equestrian statue of Cosmo the First.

The name of fortress would be more appropriate than any other, for the
Old Palace; it is a great mass of stone, without columns, without
frontal, without order of architecture. Time has gilded the walls with
beautiful vermilion tints which the pure blue of the sky sets off
marvelously, and the whole structure has that haughty and romantic
aspect which accords well with the idea that one forms for oneself of
that old Palace of the Seigneurie, the witness, since the date of its
erection in the thirteenth century, of so many intrigues, tumults,
violent acts, and crimes. The battlements of the palace, cut square,
show that it was built to that height by the Guelph faction; the
trifurcated battlements of the belfry indicate a sudden change on the
accession to power of the Ghibelline faction.

Guelphs and Ghibellines detested each other so violently that they
exprest their opinions in their garments, in the cut of their hair, in
their arms, in their manner of fortifying themselves. They feared
nothing so much as to be captured by one another, and differed as much
as they possibly could. They had a special salutation after the manner