we come almost at once into Piazza Giglio,
where the old Palazzo Arnolfi stands--a building of the sixteenth
century that is now Albergo Universo. Thence by the Via del Duomo, past
S. Giovanni, we enter the Piazza S. Martino, that silent, empty square
before the Duomo. The little Church of S. Giovanni that we pass on the
way is the old cathedral, standing on the site of a pagan temple, and
rebuilt by S. Frediano in 573, after the Lombards had destroyed the
first Christian building. The present church dates, in part at least,
from the eleventh century, and the three white pillars of the nave are
from the Roman building; but the real interest of the church lies in its
Baptistery--Lombard work dug out of the earth which had covered it, the
floor set in a waved pattern of black and white marble, while in the
midst is the great square font in which the people of Lucca were
immersed for baptism. Little else remains of interest in this the most
ancient church in Lucca--only a fresco of Madonna with St. Nicholas and
others, a fifteenth-century work in the north transept, and a beautiful
window of the end of the sixteenth century in the Baptistery itself.

All that is best in Lucca, all that is sweetest and most naive, may be
found in the beautiful Duomo, which Pope Alexander II consecrated in
1070,--Pope Alexander II, who had once been Bishop of Lucca. _Non e
finito_, the sacristan, himself one of the most delightful and simple
souls in this little forgotten city, will tell you--it is not finished;
and indeed, the alteration that was made in the church in the early part
of the fourteenth century--when the nave was lengthened and the roof
raised--was never completed; and you may still see where, through so
many centuries, that which was so well begun has awaited a second S.
Frediano.

It is, however, the facade that takes you at once by its ancient smiling
aspect, its three great unequal arches, over which, in three tiers,
various with beautiful columns, rise the open galleries we have so loved
at Pisa. Built, as it is said, in 1204 by Guidetto, much work remains
in that beautiful frontispiece to one of the most beautiful churches in
Italy that is far older than itself: the statue of S. Martino, the
patron, for instance; that labyrinth, too, on the great pier to the
right; and perhaps the acts of St. Martin carved between the doors, and
below them three reliefs of the months, where in January you see man
sitting beside the fire