As different as would be possible to imagine is the genius of that younger sculptor, the author of the Pieta at the back of the altar, near where we now stand, who, when Luca finished these bronze doors, in 1467, was not yet born—­Michelangelo Buonarroti.  This group, which is unfinished, is the last the old and weary Titan ever worked at, and it was meant to be part of his own tomb.  Vasari, to whose “Lives of the Painters” we shall be indebted, as this book proceeds, for so much good human nature, and who speaks of Michelangelo with peculiar authority, since he was his friend, pupil, and correspondent, tells us that once when he went to see the sculptor in Rome, near the end, he found him at work upon this Pieta, but the sculptor was so dissatisfied with one portion that he let his lantern fall in order that Vasari might not see it, saying:  “I am so old that death frequently drags at my mantle to take me, and one day my person will fall like this lantern”.  The Pieta is still in deep gloom, as the master would have liked, but enough is revealed to prove its pathos and its power.

In the east end of the nave is the chapel of S. Zenobius, containing a bronze reliquary by Ghiberti, with scenes upon it from the life of this saint, so important in Florentine religious history.  It is, however, very hard to see, and should be illuminated.  Zenobius was born at Florence in the reign of Constantine the Great, when Christianity was by no means the prevailing religion of the city, although the way had been paved by various martyrs.  After studying philosophy and preaching with much acceptance, Zenobius was summoned to Rome by Pope Damasus.  On the Pope’s death he became Bishop of Florence, and did much, says Butler, to “extirpate the kingdom of Satan”.  The saint lived in the ancient tower which still stands—­one of the few survivors of Florence’s hundreds of towers—­at the corner of the Via Por S. Maria (which leads from the Mercato Nuovo to the Ponte Vecchio) and the Via Lambertesca.  It is called the Torre de’ Girolami, and on S. Zenobius’ day—­May 25th—­is decorated with flowers; and since never are so many flowers in the city of flowers as at that time, it is a sight to see.  The remains of the saint were moved to the Duomo, although it had not then its dome, from S. Lorenzo, in 1330, and the simple column in the centre of the road opposite Ghiberti’s first Baptistery doors was erected to mark the event, since on that very spot, it is said, stood a dead elm tree which, when the bier of the saint chanced to touch it, immediately sprang to life again and burst into leaf; even, the enthusiastic chronicler adds, into flower.  The result was that the tree was cut completely to pieces by relic hunters, but the column by the Baptistery, the work of Brunelleschi (erected on the site of an earlier one), fortunately remains as evidence of the miracle.  Ghiberti, however, did not choose this miracle but another for representation; for not only did Zenobius dead restore animation, but while he