The original architect of the modern S. Croce was the same Arnolfo di Cambio, or Lapo, who began the Duomo.  He had some right to be chosen since his father, Jacopo, or Lapo, a German, was the builder of the most famous of all the Franciscan churches—­that at Assisi, which was begun while S. Francis was still living.  And Giotto, who painted in that church his most famous frescoes, depicting scenes in the life of S. Francis, succeeded Arnolfo here, as at the Duomo, with equal fitness.  Arnolfo began S. Croce in 1294, the year that the building of the Duomo was decided upon, as a reply to the new Dominican Church of S. Maria Novella, and to his German origin is probably due the Northern impression which the interiors both of S. Croce and the Duomo convey.

The first thing to examine in S. Croce is the floor-tomb, close to the centre door, upon which Ruskin wrote one of his most characteristic passages.  The tomb is of an ancestor of Galileo (who lies close by, but beneath a florid monument), and it represents a mediaeval scholarly figure with folded hands.  Ruskin writes:  “That worn face is still a perfect portrait of the old man, though like one struck out at a venture, with a few rough touches of a master’s chisel.  And that falling drapery of his cap is, in its few lines, faultless, and subtle beyond description.  And now, here is a simple but most useful test of your capacity for understanding Florentine sculpture or painting.  If you can see that the lines of that cap are both right, and lovely; that the choice of the folds is exquisite in its ornamental relations of line; and that the softness and ease of them is complete,—­though only sketched with a few dark touches,—­then you can understand Giotto’s drawing, and Botticelli’s; Donatello’s carving and Luca’s.  But if you see nothing in this sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs, of theirs.  Where they choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any vulgar modern trick with marble—­(and they often do)—­whatever, in a word, is French, or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see; but what is Florentine, and for ever great—­unless you can see also the beauty of this old man in his citizen’s cap,—­you will see never.”

The passage is in “Mornings in Florence,” which begins with S. Croce and should be read by every one visiting the city.  And here let me advise another companion for this church:  a little dark enthusiast, in a black skull cap, named Alfred Branconi, who is usually to be found just inside the doors, but may be secured as a guide by a postcard to the church.  Signor Branconi knows S. Croce and he loves it, and he has the further qualifications of knowing all Florence too and speaking excellent English, which he taught himself.