WALKS IN FLORENCE: CHURCHES, STREETS AND PALACES

SUSAN AND JOANNA HORNER

Chapter XIV:  The Uffizi - National Library

The Uffizi, or government offices, is a building connected with the Piazza della Signoria by a covered way, over a single arch spanning the Via della Ninna, and which joins the piazza at the Loggia de' Lanzi.  At the farther extremity are three open arches, through which may be seen the quay along the Arno.
The Uffizi was begun by Giorgio Vasari in 1561, at the command of the Grand-Duke Cosimo I., who, in order to give greater space for the new building, removed the old fish-market, and built a loggia for the fish-vendors in the Mercato Vecchio.  The Uffizi were only finished in the reign of Cosimo's successor, Francis I., who employed Buontalenti to complete the work of Vasari.  The statue of this sovereign, by Giovan Bologna, adorns the façade above the arches at the end nearest the Arno; he is representing standing between allegorical figures of Justice and Rigour, executed by Vincenzio Danti, the scholar of Baccio Bandinelli.

In niches between the arches of the Colonnade are statues by modern sculptors, commemorating the most remarkable Florentines of the past.  Beneath the Colonnade, near the Via della Ninna, are Cosimo Pater Patriæ, and his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent.  The series outside begins with Andrea Orcagna, who is supposed to face his own work, the Loggia de Lanzi.  The statues of Nicolò Pisano, Cimabue, and Giotto, the revivers of architecture, sculpture, and painting, follow:  they are appropriately placed in front of the door leading to the Gallery of Fine Arts.  Donatello is next to Giotto, and after him, the architect Leon Battista Alberti.  Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo Buonarotti conclude the list of artists.  Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio represent the poetry of Tuscany; Macchiavelli and Guicciardini, her historians; and Amerigo Vespucci, the discoverer of distant lands.  On the opposite side of the building are men of science:  Galileo, and the botanist Antonio Micheli.  The poet Françesco Redi represents the agricultural products of the country, as, in his well-known poem of "Bacco in Toscana," he spread the fame of Tuscan vines.  Paolo Mascagni, the anatomist, follows, with Andrea Cesalpini, the physician and botanist.  The two succeeding statues are the finest:  the first represents Sant' Antonino, the good Archbishop of Florence; the second Taddeo Accorso, or Accursius, a celebrated lawyer of the twelfth century, whose interpretation of the codes of Italy - at that time much involved - was accepted, and maintained as authority during three centuries.  Guido Aretino, one of the earliest musical composers, and Benvenuto Cellini, occupy the last niches.

Facing the river, between the arches, are statues of civic and military heroes.  First among these is Farinata degli Uberti, the Ghibelline who saved Florence when threatened with destruction by his own faction; secondly, Pier Capponi, who preserved the liberties of Florence by boldly tearing to pieces an unworthy treaty proposed by the French king, Charles VIII.; thirdly, Giovanni della Bande Nere, the brave soldier and skilful commander, who was father of the Grand-Duke Cosimo I.; and, lastly, Ferruccio, the last defender of the Republic, who fell, cruelly murdered in cold blood, after a battle fought among the mountains above Pistoia, in 1529.

Returning to the Colonnade of the Uffizi, the Zecca, or Mint of Florence, once stood where is now the general post-office, next the Loggia de' Lanzi.  Here the gold florin was coined which, with the single exception of the Venetian sequin, was reckoned the purest gold coin of Europe.  The Uffizi, as it appeared in 1738-1741, is described by the Countess of Pomfret, in a letter to the Countess of Hertford:127 "The lower part was begun by Cosimo I.; it consists of colonnades with stone pillars, paved with brick, and within are the public offices, as the mint, &c.  Upon the latter is a storey of shops, where the workmen of the grand-duke formerly engraved, painted, made models for statues, inlaid tables, distilled essence, &c.  This floor is joined over the stone arches by an open portico, in the middle of which is placed the statue of Francis I., who finished the fabric.  Over all is the gallery, to which we ascend from the street by a great staircase.  The side next the street is one continued glass window, except at equal distances, so much wall as serves to support the roof; and this is ornamented with pillars on the outside, and statues and busts within.  The ceiling is divided into compartments, painted by the best hands in grotesque; each compartment representing a different art, science, or history, with portraits intermixed, applicable to the subject."

The gallery is connected with the Palazzo dei Pitti by a passage, which crosses the Ponte Vecchio, in the middle of which was once a bathing-room, communicating with the Arno, whose waters were supposed by the Medici to possess a salutary property, and to be a specific against various diseases.

Among the workmen engaged in the shops below the gallery were Benvenuto Cellini, and other celebrated goldsmiths, besides artists in Florentine mosaic, who were in the pay of the Medici grand-dukes.
The Medici collection, which forms the rich museum of art in the corridor above, and in the adjoining rooms added by Francis Il, was greatly enriched by Ferdinand I., and afterwards by Cardinal Leopold de' Medici, the son of the Grand-Duke Cosimo II., who built two rooms expressly for the portraits of celebrated painters, and spent vast sums on the embellishment of the gallery.

The workshops below have been long demolished, and the first landing-place leads to a magnificent hall, which, until 1871, when Rome became the Italian capital, was used for the Senate House of the Parliament.  This hall was in the commencement part of the first Florentine theatre; but from 1852 to 1864, it had contained part of the public archives.  The Director, Cavaliere Bonaini, was only allowed a fortnight to remove the vast accumulation of documents into the room which had been the stage of the old theatre, and into the smaller rooms beyond.  The collection was thus thrown into a disorder from which it has hardly yet had time to recover.

The entrance to the archives and the national Library is also under the Colonnade, but nearer the river than the door leading to the gallery.  This collection of ancient documents is not only valuable to the city of Florence, but contains authentic historical information respecting foreign countries in the correspondence of Florentine ambassadors to England and other courts.  The largest chamber, which once formed the stage to the theatre, was built by Buontalenti, and in 1594, Dafne, the first opera, was performed here.  Eurydice, which followed, was composed and represented at Paris in 1600, at the festivities given on the marriage of Marie de' Medici, the daughter of the Grand-Duke Francis I., with Henry IV. of France; but it was not acted here until 1660.  The words of both operas were written by Ottavio Rinnuccini, a poet belonging to one of the old Florentine families, and the music was by Peri, the Maestro di Capella of the Grand-Duke Francis I.  This stage is, however, still more renowned as the place where the Aminta of Tasso was first represented.  Tasso had been severely criticised by the Accademia della Crusca, and his mortification had been increased by the preference given to Ariosto.  When he therefore heard how his pastoral had been produced here, he rode from Ferrara to Florence to express his gratitude to Buontalenti, the architect and designer of the scenes.

The walls of the old stage are now decorated with the arms of the city guilds, and contain documents relating to these corporations.  The rest of the archives are arranged under different heads, and each is placed under the charge of a special clerk or official.  As a general rule, the documents relating to the Republic, including the diplomatic papers, occupy the first floor; among them are records of the Medicean rulers, and documents relating to the Duchy of Urbino, &c., as well as to the affairs of the Grand-Dukes of the House of Lorraine.  Five of these chambers serve as a deposit for miscellaneous papers; eleven contain archives of a later date.  On the ground-floor are twenty-two large and small rooms, seven of which are assigned to documents relating to religious confraternities.  Among the autographs in this collection which may interest the general public, are letters from the Grand-Duke Cosimo I. and from Catharine de' Medici, and several volumes of correspondence between Bianca Capello and her brother.  She writes in a clear decided hand, indicative of her character.  There are also letters from several of the Medicean family, besides those from the eccentric Margaret of Orleans, wife of the Grand-Duke Cosimo III.

The National Library, which is below the archives, was formed in 1867 by the union of the Magliabechian and Palatine Libraries.  It contains about two hundred thousand volumes of printed books, and fourteen thousand MSS.

The Palatine or Palatial Library was collected by the late grand-dukes in the Pitti Palace.  The Magliabechian was commenced by a poor man, Antonio Magliabechi, born in 1633, whose mother, a widow, gave him a good education in Latin and drawing, and apprenticed him to a goldsmith.  His master fortunately observed his literary tastes, and encouraged them.  Magliabechi had a singularly tenacious memory, and not only remembered the subject, but the words, of all he read.  Cosimo III. made him his librarian, but left him sufficient leisure to make copies of the MS. in the Laurenziana.  He lived near the Piazza di Sta. Maria Novella, and converted his house into a library.  Books formed his only furniture, and he generally slept on a chair with pamphlets for a pillow. He never kindled a fire, and his food was of the coarsest description.  It was vain for the grand-duke to try and persuade him to indulge in greater luxury; for, though a room was provided for him in the palace, Magliabechi only occupied it a few months, and then returned to his former haunts; he died in the infirmary of St. Maria Novella in 1714, at the age of eighty-one.  He bequeathed his whole library, consisting of thirty thousand volumes, to the city of Florence.  It was, however, only opened to the public in 1717 by the first sovereign of the House of Lorraine, Francis II., the husband of the Empress Maria Theresa.

The funds for the support of the library were supplied by munificent gifts from private individuals, and, whenever a monastery was suppressed, the number of books in the Magliabechian was increased.  The union with the Palatine Library has brought an accession of modern works.

The walls of the entrance hall are hung with indifferent portraits of the literary men who composed the Accademia della Crusca and the Accademia del Cimento.  The first of these academies held their sittings here towards the end of the last century, when the French occupied Tuscany.  The Accademia della Crusca was founded in the reign of Cosimo I., and as the name crusca, "Bran," imports, with the intention of sifting the flour from the bran, or of purifying the Italian language.  In their eager pursuit of this praiseworthy end, the society gave offence by criticising or condemning all works which did not conform to their rules; and among those thus severely treated was the "Gerusalemme Liberata."128 The Accademia del Cimento was founded in 1657, during the reign of Ferdinand II.; and was intended to test all discoveries by experiments.  Ferdinand and his brother Cardinal Leopold were the patrons of this society, which arose under the auspices of Galileo Galilei, and which adopted the motto, "Provando e Riprovando."  The first report was published in 1666, and was principally the work of the secretary Magalotti.  The Cimento was short-lived - its last meeting was held in 1667; but it had the honour of being the precursor of the Royal Society of London and of the Institute of Paris, and it survived long enough to sanction the great principle of Galileo, to induce the laws of being, by the facts of observation proved by the severest tests of experiment.

The National Library is chiefly contained in a spacious hall lined with the books, and filled with tables and chairs for the use of readers, who are admitted with the utmost liberality.  A good bust of the founder, Magliabechi, is placed at the end of the room.  He was remarkable for ugliness; but he has a shrewd expression, though the features are made more hideous by the cynical laugh on his mouth and half-closed eyes.

Among the treasures of this library, the most interesting to a stranger is the collection of autographs.  There are three hundred volumes of letters and papers of Galileo, and of his most distinguished contemporaries, as well as of all the members of the Accademia del Cimento.  First of these is the MS. of Galileo's celebrated treatise "I Dialoghi," which formed part of his "Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche." The work was approved of by the censor, and, after undergoing the usual curtailments or alterations, was printed by permission at Florence.  These dialoghi - dialogues - are supposed to be carried on between three persons - two friends of Galileo, Salviati, a Florentine, and Sagredi, a Venetian, who endeavour to convince the third, Semplicius, of certain philosophical truths.  The work made a great sensation throughout Europe, and increased the number of Galileo's admirers, as well as of his opponents, who were jealous of their own reputation as well as attached to antiquated systems.  Among these last was Pope Urban VIII. (Barberini), who concluded that Semplicius was intended to represent himself, and he summoned Galileo to answer for his heretical opinions before the Roman tribunal.  Mortified vanity had converted the Pope from Galileo's friend into his bitter enemy.

A letter from Galileo, written by another hand after he had become blind, treats on the subjects which then engaged the Accademia della Crusca; the comparative merits of Tasso and Ariosto, in which Galileo gives the preference to Ariosto.

A still more interesting letter, in the writing of Galileo's favourite pupil, Vicenzio Viviani, proves that Galileo was the first to apply the pendulum to the clock.  Vicenzio Antinori, the late director of the Scientific Museum of Florence, in his notice of Galileo, writes thus: - "The pendulum, as is already known, was the result of the first observations of our philosopher in Pisa; it was the spark which kindled his genius, the instrument by which he tested the conceptions of his mind; the torch which led him along the road of his discoveries.  The pendulum, by proving the resistance of air, served to confirm him in his theory of gravitation; it likewise illustrated his theory of music by the intersection of waves of sound.  The pendulum suspended to a fixed centre suggested to him the motion of the earth, with the moon, around the sun; and it is singular to reflect how the two marvellous discoveries with which he so happily commenced his glorious career, the isochronism of the pendulum and gravitation, should have occupied him at the close."

On the margin of a small Bible, which once belonged to Girolamo Savonarola, are his closely written comments, in so fine and delicate a hand that it requires the assistance of a magnifying glass to decipher them.  His breviary beside it has a touching inscription at the beginning, composed by his friend and disciple, Fra Serafino, after his master's cruel death, and is likewise full of Savonarola's notes.

The clear, bold handwriting of a very different man, the artist Benvenuto Cellini, is interesting to all who have read his memoirs or seen his works.  The first letter in this collection relates to the death of a little child, which had afflicted him greatly, and beside whom he desires to be laid after death.  The story of his visit to Fiesole when in a bad humour, and leaving his child in a passion of tears at his departure, and of his unexpected death, which ensued a few days later is given in Benvenuto's memoirs.129  In the same collection is a copy, in Benvenuto's handwriting, of a letter from Carnesecchi, a cousin of the philosopher and reformer, who was executed in 1567.  Carnesecchi was a Florentine nobleman, for some time secretary to Pope Clement VII., and who had been treated as a personal friend by the Pope's niece Catherine de' Medici, when Queen of France; he had also lived on terms of intimacy with her cousin, the Grand-Duke Cosimo I.  After the death of Clement, Carnesecchi travelled in Europe, and became acquainted with some of the great Reformers, whose conversation exercised an influence on his religious opinions.  Catherine de' Medici protected him from the Inquisition in France, and he returned to Tuscany, where Cosimo obtained a declaration in his favour, absolving him from all taint of heresy, and pronouncing him to be a faithful servant of the Church.  Carnesecchi, nevertheless, continued his intercourse with heretics in Tuscany, and even assisted the escape of one called Il Pero.  Unfortunately and Inquisitor succeeded to the papal throne under the name of Pius V., who persuaded Cosimo to relinquish his friend Carnesecchi to the tender mercies of the Roman tribunal.  The philosopher was accordingly arrested and conveyed to Rome, where, in 1567 he was beheaded and his body burnt.  Pope Pius V. rewarded the treachery of Cosimo by creating him a grand-duke, and this letter, addressed to him in 1570 by the cousin of his victim, from the debtor's prison of the Stinche in Florence, where he lay in want of food and clothing, may perhaps be accepted as a proof of the misfortunes into which the family had fallen.  He entreats the grand-duke to oblige his undutiful son, Giovan Andrea Carnesecchi, to yield up a house sold to Benvenuto Cellini in the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella, since half the price was withheld until Cellini could take possession, and Carnesecchi feared to die of hunger unless the full amount was immediately paid.

A scrap-book of Lorenzo Ghiberti, which had been preserved by his son, contains notes and sketches by himself as well as by other artists; among these are several attempts at a design for the monument of Pope John XXIII., in the Baptistery, and probably, therefore, by Donatello or Michelozzi.

This collection is, besides, rich in autographs, letters, and portions of the works of Macchiavelli, Boccaccio, Poliziano, Michael Angelo, Tasso, Alfieri, Monti, Redi, &c. &c.

Among the illuminated books are several missals, one of which belonged to the royal family of France; and another has a splendid binding, with medallions in enamel, like the enamel by Pollaioli, in the gem-room of the Uffizi Gallery; a third is bound in tortoiseshell.  One curious old missal is said to have been the property of the Emperor Otho III. 983-1002.  This emperor was contemporary with Hugh Capet of France; he aimed at the restoration of the power of the Empire, as well as the purification of the spiritual authority of the papacy, and came to Italy for these objects, but died on his way back from Rome, at the early age of twenty-two, the victim of poison administered by Stephania, a lady he had married after murdering her husband, the Consul Crescentius.  The name of Otho is written on this missal.

A beautiful manuscript edition of Petrarch's works has an illuminated frontispiece.  A copy of the Divina Commedia with the Commentaries of Françesco Buti, 1385, only fifty-four years after Dante's death, has miniatures, which are more curious than beautiful; another copy of the Divina Commedia contains a portrait of Dante in profile, traced from some lost picture; he is represented in middle life with greater power and vigour of countenance than is usually found in his likenesses.  This book belonged to one of the Sassetti family, who presented it to a Bardi in 1560.

The "Anthologia," or selection from the Greek poets, 1499, is in beautiful type, with a frontispiece of most exquisite miniatures in chiaroscuro.  The small medallions round contain representations of Hercules and Antæus; Cupids; a horse in full gallop, excellent as a Greek gem; and arabesques worthy of Raffaelle.  They are supposed to have been painted by the celebrated Florentine artist in miniature, Attavante degli Attavanti, who also adorned the choral books of the Cathedral:  he painted a graceful miniature in another work here, called the "Apollonii Rhodii."130

There are here two copies of the geography of Claudius Ptolomæus, or Ptolomy, whose works in the second century of our era on astronomy and geography comprised all the scientific knowledge of the times on both subjects.  He was considered an authority until refuted by Copernicus and Galileo, in the sixteenth century.  This copy of Claudius Ptolemai is the translation by Jacopo Angelo.  That in manuscript is adorned by coloured illustrations; the printed copy, though inferior in many respects, is peculiar on account of the maps having been struck off from a single block, and afterwards coloured by the hand.

"Plotius," a curious book of charts, has a portrait of Marsilio Ficino on the first page.  The work was presented by Ficino to Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, afterwards pope Leo X.  The miniatures are supposed to be by Boccardini, who lived early in the sixteenth century, as well as Attavanti, who painted in the choral books for the Cathedral of Florence, and for San Lorenzo.  He was employed in Sienna, Perugia, and Monte Cassino, and was celebrated for the elegance of his ornamentation, and for the lavish use of gold in his costumes, as well as in the ground of his pictures.  Boccardini was superior in drawing to Attavanti, and to the other renowned miniature painters of that period.

A beautifully illuminated copy of the Pandects of Justinian was made by order of the Florentine Signory when Leo X. withdrew the copy which had been discovered at Amalfi, in order to bestow it on his nephew Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino.  The original has, however, been restored to Florence, and is now in the Laurentian Library.  There is still extant a record of the sum of fifty-two golden florins paid by the Signory to Boccardini for illuminating this copy.

The "Monte di Dio" is a very rare work, containing three woodcuts attributed to Botticelli.  The second represents Christ in a nimbus supported by angels, and is very fine.  The angels are graceful, and the figure of Christ dignified; his drapery falls in majestic folds.  The Latin Bible of St. Jerome has a miniature of his head on the first page, and below are two boy-angels who support a shield, whilst delicate little drawings of deer and landscape adorn the margins of the page.  The work consists of two folio volumes, and the writing is very clear and beautiful.

A very curious work on alchemy and magic, by Bernardo Lulli, has finely-painted illustrations attributed to another celebrated artist, Girolamo da Cremona.  They are executed with the utmost delicacy, and are full of nature and life, with lovely landscape backgrounds.  One of the most rare and singular books in this collection is a Portuguese work on the "Miracles of the Madonna."  It is full of illustrations, which partake of the Moorish as well as European type, strangely intermingled.  The heads of the figures, with their long black eyes, and the architecture, are completely Eastern.  The ships are of a most singular shape, and are probably not unlike those in which Vasco di Gama and Columbus sailed.

A "Homily in praise of the Virgin," by Fra Angelo, a Vallombrosian hermit, is worthy of notice, as well as a valuable work entitled, "Lugdunense somnium de D. Leonis ad summum pontificatum promotione."  The author's name is Zacharias Ferrerii, and the date is Lyons, 1513.  Zacharias was the brother of one Bartolommeo Ferrerii of Milan, who founded a religious order in 1580, with the aim of reforming the clergy.  It was approved by Pope Paul III., and received the name of the Regular Clergy of St. Paul's; but the members of this fraternity were called Barnabites, from their patron saint, Barnabas.  This work of Zacharias, which has been hitherto unknown to bibliographers, is in the form of a poem.

There are - besides the "Gnomæ Monastica Græca," of which only two copies exist of the first edition - a very valuable copy of "St. Clementis Alexandrini," a Greek work; one of two copies, printed on vellum, of Malespini's "History of Florence;" "The Triumph of the Cross," by Savonarola; two splendid copies of the "Decrees of the Council of Trent;" and part of a work of Pico della Mirandola, the Platonist academician.  In a collection of old music, are some belonging to the Carnescialleschi, a kind of song, encouraged by Lorenzo de' Medici, but condemned by Savonarola on account of their frequently immoral tendency; among these is a curious hymn of rejoicing, supposed to be sung by newly-baptised Jews.
One of the most interesting works here is the presentation copy of the Divina Commedia, with commentaries by Landino, which he himself presented to the Florentine Signory in 1481.  It is adorned with fine miniatures, among which is a portrait of Dante.  The arms of the Republic are on the top of the first page of the Inferno, and at the bottom, the arms of Landino.  The binding, once in silk, and now in leather, is of red and white - the colours of the Republic - and ornamented with four nielli:  Landino received in return from the Signory a house in the Borgo alla Collina, in the town of Castello of the Casentino, where his body is still preserved under glass, and exhibited to strangers.  There are several rare printed copies of the Divina Commedia in this Library, and among them a copy of the first edition printed in Foligno, 1472; another printed in 1478, &c.

A copy of Homer, printed on vellum, which was presented by the editor, Bernardo Nerli, to Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici, 1488, is adorned with miniatures by Boccardini.

The "Decameron" of Boccaccio presents a beautiful specimen in the art of printing.  This edition is known as the "Deo Gratias," from the last words.  The date has not been positively ascertained.  A rare copy of this edition is in the collection of Lord Spencer at Althorp.

The first copy of Durando's "Rationale Divinorum Officiorum," printed by Faust, at Mentz, 1479.  This work explains the origin of various ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church; it went through forty-eight editions, and an French translation appeared before the end of the century.  This copy is supposed to have been one of the first attampts at printing with movable types.

The first book printed in Florence is entitled, "In tri Virgilii Opera Expositio," and is by Mauri Honorati Servii, 1471, 1472.  It came from the printing-press of Bernardo Cennini, and is not only valuable from its rarity, but because Cennini, a Florentine goldsmith, having seen the result of German discoveries, cast his own type, and produced this splendid copy of Servii's work.  In the first page of the book, Cennini commemorates his own invention, and at the conclusion are these words:  "Florentinis ingeniis nil ardui est," 9 October, 1477.

A fine copy of the Hebrew Bible, printed in Florence in 1488 for "Abrahamum filium Rabbi Chaim," is the first edition ever printed in the Hebrew text; there is also a Latin Bible, printed by Faust, at Mentz, in 1462, with delicate miniatures on the margin of the first page.

The "Rhymes of Bernardo Bellincioni," printed at Milan in 1493, is one of the most rare among the works quoted by the critical members of the Accademia della Crusca; this copy has marginal notes by Simone Berti, called by his fellow-academicians Lo Smunto (The Lean).

A very rare copy of a work by Françesco Berni, "La Catrina," was printed in 1567, with a poem at the end by Bronzino, entitled "La Scrinata" ("The Dishevelled").  Also a copy of the first edition of the "Orlando Furioso" by Ariosto, now very scarce.

The "Convenevole," a Latin poem, describing the corrupt state of religion in the beginning of the fourteenth century.  The papal court was then at Avignon, and the poem is in the form of an appeal to Robert, King of Naples - 1309-1343 - who was the friend of Petrarch; the prohibited sonnets of this great poet, containing animadversions on the Church, and only found in rare copies of his works, prove that he shared the opinions of the author of the "Convenevole," and considered a reform necessary.  Pope Clement V. was the fast ally of Robert when he ascended the throne of Naples, and he appointed him his arbiter in Italy; the Tuscan Guelphic cities, among which Florence was pre-eminent, supported King Robert in his opposition to the claims of the Emperor Henry VII. and of his successor Louis of Bavaria.  Robert's secretary, Jacques d' Eure, succeeded Clement on the papal throne under the name of John XXII., when the Emperor Louis immediately raised up a rival Pope, who was, however, obliged to resign the following year, and John maintained his authority until his death, in 1334, at ninety years of age.  Meantime, Robert sent his son, the Duke of Calabria, with his vassal, Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens, to the assistance of the Florentines in 1336.  In the curious miniatures contained in the "Convenevole," the angels are represented behind walls with swallow-tailed battlements, the sign of the Ghibelline party, whilst the people are behind square or Guelphic battlements.  Rome is a mourning female, a widow lamenting for her absent Pope, whilst Florence wears the colours of Faith, Hope, and Charity - white, green, and red - the badge of the Church, as well as of freedom.

The works above mentioned are only a very small selection from the treasures contained in this library; there are many inedited volumes, such as Follini on the streets and squares of Florence, with a statistical account of the city; Rosselli on the Florentine cemeteries; Del Miglior on the churches; Parenti, Cerretani, and likewise many foreign works.  Among the books in the English language are the histories of Gibbon, Hume, and Robertson; the philosophical writings of Locke, Dugald Stewart, Brown, Adam Smith, and others; the works of Hallam, George Canning, Macaulay, whose lays are translated into Italian; Brougham, Jeffrey, Southey, Moore, Byron, Rogers, Campbell, Montgomery, and Rogers; the American poet, Longfellow, with a translation of his works by Luisa Grace Bartolini, and Lyell's Geology; there are also copies of English works of art, and illustrated volumes, such as those of Roberts and Louis Haghe; periodicals and reviews and the Athenæum and Art-Journal, the Philosophical Magazine, Newton's Journal of Art and Science; the Quarterly, Edinburgh, and North British Reviews, with the Transactions of the Geographical and Linnæan Societies of London, and the Reports of the Royal Academy of Dublin.

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Chronology
 

Accorso, or Accursius 1151-1229
Alberti, Leon Battista 1405-1472
Antonino, San 1389-1459
Aretino Guido 995
Barnabites, Order founded 1580
Bellincioni, Bernardo died 1491
Berni, Françesco 1610-1673
Boccaccio 1313-1375
Buontalenti, Bernardo 1536-1608
Capponi, Piero, died 1496
Cennini, Bernardo, printed his first book 1471
Cimabue 1240-1310
Clement V., Pope 1305-1314
Clement VII., Pope 1523-1534
Dante Alighieri 1265-1321
Donatello 1386-1466
Durando 1232-1296
Ferruccio died 1529
Francis II. of Lorraine 1727-1765
Galileo Galilei 1564-1642
Giotto 1276-1336
Giovan Bologna 1524-1608
Guicciardini, Françesco 1482-1540
John XXII., Pope 1316-1334
Justinian, Emperor 483-565
Lulli, Bernardo 1235-1315
Macchiavelli 1469-1517
Magliabechi, Antonio 1633-1714
Mascagni, Paolo 1752-1815
Medici, Cosimo, Pater Patriæ 1389-1414
Medici, Cosimo I., Grand-Duke 1519-1574
Medici, Cosimo III., Grand-Duke, reigned 1670-1723
Medici, Giovanni delle Bande Nere 1498-1526
Medici, Francis I., reigned 1564-1574
Medici, Ferdinand I., reigned 1587-1609
Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent 1448-1492
Michael Angelo Buonarotti 1475-1564
Micheli, Piero Antonio 1679-1737
Nicolò Pisano died 1278
Opera, First 1594
Orcagna, Andrea 1308(?)-1368(?)
Otho III., Emperor 983-1002
Paul III., Pope 1534-1549
Petrarch 1304-1374
Redi, Françesco 1626-1694
Robert, King of Naples 1309-1343
Savonarola, Girolamo 1452-1498
Uberti, Farinata degli, exiled from Florence 1250
Uffizi begun 1561
Vasari, Giorgio 1512-1574
Vespucci, Amerigo 1431-1516
Vinci, Leonardo da 1452-1519
Viviani, Vincenzio 1622-1703
 

Notes
 

127 Henrietta Louisa, Countess of Pomfret, and Frances, Countess of Hertford, were ladies of the bedchamber to Queen Caroline, wife of George II.
128 The Accademia della Crusca now has its meetings in the Convent of San Marco.
129 "Vita di Benvenuto Cellini," vol. ii. p. 246. 8vo.
130 In the Royal Library of Berlin, there is another copy of the "Greek Anthology," the first of four works printed in Florence with Greek capitals.  This collection of Greek poetry was made by a physician at Urbino, and the copy now in Berlin was once in the possession of Lorenzo de' Medici.
 

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Chapter XV:  Palazzo Vecchio della Signoria - Exterior and Tower
 

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