The tomb of Alfieri, the dramatist, to which we now come, was erected at the cost of his mistress, the Countess of Albany, who herself sat to Canova for the figure of bereaved Italy.  This curious and unfortunate woman became, at the age of nineteen, the wife of the Young Pretender, twenty-seven years after the ’45, and led a miserable existence with him (due chiefly to his depravity, but a little, she always held, to the circumstance that they chose Good Friday for their wedding day) until Alfieri fell in love with her and offered his protection.  Together she and the poet remained, apparently contented with each other and received by society, even by the English Royal family, until Alfieri died, in 1803, when after exclaiming that she had lost all—­“consolations, support, society, all, all!”—­and establishing this handsome memorial, she selected the French artist Fabre to fill the aching void in her fifty-years-old heart; and Fabre not only filled it until her death in 1824, but became the heir of all that had been bequeathed to her by both the Stuart and Alfieri.  Such was the Countess of Albany, to whom human affection was so necessary.  She herself is buried close by, in the chapel of the Castellani.

Mrs. Piozzi, in her “Glimpses of Italian Society,” mentions seeing in Florence in 1785 the unhappy Pretender.  Though old and sickly, he went much into society, sported the English arms and livery, and wore the garter.

Other tombs in the right aisle are those of Machiavelli, the statesman and author of “The Prince,” and Rossini, the composer of “William Tell,” who died in Paris in 1868, but was brought here for burial.  These tombs are modern and of no artistic value, but there is near them a fine fifteenth-century example in the monument by Bernardo Rossellino to another statesman and author, Leonardo Bruni, known as Aretino, who wrote the lives of Dante and Petrarch and a Latin history of Florence, a copy of which was placed on his heart at his funeral.  This tomb is considered to be Rossellino’s masterpiece; but there is one opposite by another hand which dwarfs it.

There is also a work of sculpture near it, in the same wall, which draws away the eyes—­Donatello’s “Annunciation”.  The experts now think this to belong to the sculptor’s middle period, but Vasari thought it earlier, and makes it the work which had most influence in establishing his reputation; while according to the archives it was placed in the church before Donatello was living.  Vasari ought to be better informed upon this point than usual, since it was he who was employed in the sixteenth century to renovate S. Croce, at which time the chapel for whose altar the relief was made—­that of the Cavalcanti family—­was removed.  The relief now stands unrelated to anything.  Every detail of it should be examined; but Alfred Branconi will see to that.  The stone is the grey pietra serena of Fiesole, and Donatello has plentifully, but not too plentifully, lightened it with gold, which is exactly what all artists who used this medium for sculpture should have done.  By a pleasant tactful touch the designer of the modern Donatello monument in S. Lorenzo has followed the master’s lead.