XXVI

The self same cherub faces which emboss

The rail, lean inward to the mercy-seat.

↑ They show at Verona an empty trough of stone as the tomb of Juliet↑ In the Sagrestia Nuovo, where the statues of Day and Night, Dawn and Twilight, recline on the tombs of Giuliano de' Medici, third son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Lorenzo of Urbino, his grandson. Strozzi's epigram on the Night, with Michel Angelo's rejoinder, is well known.↑ This mocking task was set by Pietro, the unworthy successor of Lorenzo the Magnificent.↑ Savonarola was burnt in martyrdom for his testimony against Papal corruptions as early as March, 1498: and, as late as our own day, it is a custom in Florence to strew violets on the pavement when he suffered, in grateful recognition of the anniversary.↑ See his description of the plague in Florence.↑ Charles of Anjou, whom, in his passage through Florence, Olmabue allowed to see this picture while yet in his "Bottega." The populace followed the royal visitor, and in the universal delight and admiration, the quarter of the city In which the artist lived was called "Borgo Allegri." The picture was carried in a triumph to the church and deposited there.↑ How Cimabue found Giotto, the shepherd-boy, sketching a ram of his flock upon a stone, is a pretty story told by Vasari, who also relates how the elder artist Margheritone died "infastidito" of the successes of the new school.↑ Since when the constitutional concessions have been complete in Tuscany, as all the world knows. The event breaks in upon the meditation, and is too fast for prophecy in these strange times.—E. B. B.↑ The Florentines, to whom the Ravennese denied the body of Dante which was asked of them in a "late remorse of love," have given a cenotaph to their divine poet in this church. Something less than a grave!↑ In allusion to Mr. Kirkup's well-known discovery of Giotto's fresco-portrait of Dante.↑ Galileo's villa near Florence is built on an eminence called Bellosguardo.↑ Referring to the well-known opening passage of the Agamemnon of Æschylus.↑ Philostratus relates of Apollonius that he objected to the musical instrument of Linus the Rhodian, its incompetence to enrich and beautify. The history of music in our day, would, upon the former point, sufficiently confute the philosopher.