The pari-mutuel system is that which is adopted at both the pallone courts in Florence (there is another at the Piazza Beccaria), and the unit is two lire.  Bets are invited on the winner and the second, and place-money is paid on both.  No wonder then that as the game draws to a close the excitement becomes intense; while during its progress feeling runs high too.  For how can a young Florentine who has his money on, say, Gabri the battitore, withhold criticism when Gabri’s arm fails and the ball drops comfortably for the terzino Ugo to smash it into Gabri’s net?  Such a lapse should not pass unnoticed; nor does it.

From the Cascine we may either return to Florence along the banks of the river, or cross the river by the vile iron Ponte Sospeso and enter the city again, on the Pitti side, by the imposing Porta S. Frediano.  Supposing that we return by the Lungarno Amerigo Vespucci there is little to notice, beyond costly modern houses of a Portland Place type and the inevitable Garibaldi statue, until, just past the oblique pescaja (or weir), we see across the Piazza Manin the church of All Saints—­S.  Salvadore d’Ognissanti, which must be visited since it is the burial-place of Botticelli and Amerigo Vespucci, the chapel of the Vespucci family being painted by Ghirlandaio; and since here too lies Botticelli’s beautiful Simonetta, who so untimely died.  According to Vasari the frescoes of S. Jerome by Ghirlandaio and S. Augustine by Botticelli were done in competition.  They were painted, as it happens, elsewhere, but moved here without injury.  I think the S. Jerome is the more satisfying, a benevolent old scientific author—­a Lord Avebury of the canon—­with his implements about him on a tapestry tablecloth, a brass candlestick, his cardinal’s hat, and a pair of tortoise-shell eyeglasses handy.  S. Augustine is also scientific; astronomical books and instruments surround him too.  His tablecloth is linen.

Amerigo Vespucci, whose statue we saw in the Uffizi portico colonnade, was a Florentine by birth who settled in Spain and took to exploration.  His discoveries were important, but America is not really among them, for Columbus, whom he knew and supported financially, got there first.  By a mistake in the date in his account of his travels, Vespucci’s name came to be given to the new continent, and it was then too late to alter it.  He became a naturalized Spaniard and died in 1512.  Columbus indeed suffers in Florence; for had it not been for Vespucci, America would no doubt be called Columbia; while Brunelleschi anticipated him in the egg trick.

The church is very proud of possessing the robe of S. Francis, which is displayed once a year on October 4th.  In the refectory is a “Last Supper” by Ghirlandaio, not quite so good as that which we saw at S. Marco, but very similar, and, like that, deriving from Castagno’s at the Cenacolo di Sant’ Apollonia.  The predestined Judas is once more on the wrong side of the table.