t until it became one of the most valuable in the world,
not, however, without various vicissitudes incident to any Florentine
institution: while one of its most cherished treasures, the Virgil
of the fourth or fifth century, was even carried to Paris by Napoleon
and not returned until the great year of restoration, 1816. Among the
holograph MSS. is Cellini's "Autobiography". The library, in time,
after being confiscated by the Republic and sold to the monks of
S. Marco, again passed into the possession of a Medici, Leo X, son
of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and then of Clement VII, and he it was
who commissioned Michelangelo to house it with dignity.

An old daily custom in the cloisters of S. Lorenzo was the feeding of
cats; but it has long since been dropped. If you look at Mr. Hewlett's
"Earthwork out of Tuscany" you will find an entertaining description
of what it used to be like.

CHAPTER VII

Or San Michele and the Palazzo Vecchio

The little Bigallo--The Misericordia--Or San Michele--Andrea
Orcagna--The Tabernacle--Old Glass--A company of stone
saints--Donatello's S. George--Dante conferences--The Guilds of
Florence--The Palazzo Vecchio--Two Towers--Bandinelli's group--The
Marzocco--The Piazza della Signoria--Orcagna's Loggia--Cellini
and Cosimo--The Perseus--Verrocchio's dolphin--The Great Council
Hall--Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo's cartoons--Bandinelli's
malice--The Palazzo Vecchio as a home--Two cells and the bell of
independence.

Let us now proceed along the Via Calzaioli (which means street of
the stocking-makers), running away from the Piazza del Duomo to
the Piazza della Signoria. The fascinatingly pretty building at
the corner, opposite Pisano's Baptistery doors, is the Bigallo,
in the loggia of which foundling children used to be displayed in
the hope that passers-by might pity them sufficiently to make them
presents or even adopt them; but this custom continues no longer. The
Bigallo was designed, it is thought, by Orcagna, and it is worth the
minutest study.

The Company of the Bigallo, which is no longer an active force, was
one of the benevolent societies of old Florence. But the greatest
of these societies, still busy and merciful, is the Misericordia,
whose head-quarters are just across the Via Calzaioli, in the piazza,
facing the campanile, a company of Florentines pledged at a moment's
notice, no matter on what they may be engaged, to assist in any
charitable work of necessity