uidebooks say, at least. This is five hundred and seventy-five
feet above the sea, and on its summit stands the cathedral, very old
indeed, and built in the form of a basilica, like that of San Miniato.
From this hill you look down upon the plain beneath, with the Arno
winding through it, and upon Florence and the Apennine chain, above
which rise the high mountains of Carrara. Here, on the highest available
point of the rock, I used to sit reading, and looking upon the panorama
beneath, until the sinking sun warned me that I had only time to reach
the city before its setting. I used to love to look also at works of art
in this way, for by so doing I fixed them in my mind for future
reference. I never passed the Piazza della Signoria without standing
some minutes before the Loggia dei Lanzi and the old ducal palace with
its marvelous tower. Before this palace, exposed to the weather for
three hundred and fifty years, stands Michael Angelo's David; to the
left, the fountain on the spot where Savonarola was burnt alive by the
order of Alexander VI.; and immediately facing this is the post-office.
I never could pass the post-office without thinking of the poet Shelley,
who was there brutally felled to the earth by an Englishman, who accused
him of being an infidel, struck his blow and escaped.

I made many visits to the Nuova Sacrista to see the tombs of the two
Medici by Michael Angelo. The one at the right on entering is that of
Giuliano, duke of Nemours, brother of Leo X. The two allegorical
figures reclining beneath are Morning and Night. The tomb of Lorenzo de'
Medici, duke of Urfrino, stands on the other side of the chapel, facing
that of the duke de Nemours. The statue of Lorenzo, for grace of
attitude and beauty of expression, has, in my opinion, never been
equaled. The allegorical figures at the feet of this Medici are more
beautiful and more easily understood than most of Michael Angelo's
allegorical figures. Nevertheless, I used sometimes, when looking at
these four figures, to think that they had been created merely as
architectural auxiliaries, and that their expression was an accident or
a freak of the artist's fancy, rather than the expression of some
particular thought: at other times I saw as much in them as most
enthusiasts do--enough, I have no doubt, to astonish their great author
himself. I believe that very few people really experience rapturous
sensations when they look at works of art. People are gene