ool cloisters of Palazzo
degli Uffizi I shall come at last on to Lung' Arno, where it is very
quiet, and no horses may pass, and the trams are a long way off. And I
shall lift up my eyes and behold once more the hill of gardens across
Arno, with the Belvedere just within the old walls, and S. Miniato, like
a white and fragile ghost in the sunshine, and La Bella Villanella
couched like a brown bird under the cypresses above the grey olives in
the wind and the sun. And something in the gracious sweep of the hills,
in the gentle nobility of that holy mountain which Michelangelo has
loved and defended, which Dante Alighieri has spoken of, which Gianozzo
Manetti has so often climbed, will bring the tears to my eyes, and I
shall turn away towards Ponte Vecchio, the oldest and most beautiful of
the bridges, where the houses lead one over the river, and the little
shops of the jewellers still sparkle and smile with trinkets. And in the
midst of the bridge I shall wait awhile and look on Arno. Then I shall
cross the bridge and wander upstream towards Porta S. Niccolo, that
gaunt and naked gate in the midst of the way, and there I shall climb
through the gardens up the steep hill

"... Per salire al monte
Dove siede la chiesa...."

to the great Piazzale, and so to the old worn platform before S. Miniato
itself, under the strange glowing mosaics of the facade: and, standing
on the graves of dead Florentines, I shall look down on the beautiful
city.

Marvellously fair she is on a summer evening as seen from that hill of
gardens, Arno like a river of gold before her, leading over the plain
lost in the farthest hills. Behind her the mountains rise in great
amphitheatres,--Fiesole on the one side, like a sentinel on her hill; on
the other, the Apennines, whose gesture, so noble, precise, and
splendid, seems to point ever towards some universal sovereignty, some
perfect domination, as though this place had been ordained for the
resurrection of man. Under this mighty symbol of annunciation lies the
city, clear and perfect in the lucid light, her towers shining under the
serene evening sky. Meditating there alone for a long time in the
profound silence of that hour, the whole history of this city that
witnessed the birth of the modern world, the resurrection of the gods,
will come to me.

Out of innumerable discords, desolations, hopes unfilled, everlasting
hatred and despair, I shall see the city rise four square within h