The cathedral glass, as I say, is mostly overladen with grime; but the circular windows in the dome seem to be magnificent in design.  They are attributed to Ghiberti and Donatello, and are lovely in colour.  The greens in particular are very striking.  But the jewel of these circular windows of Florence is that by Ghiberti on the west wall of S. Croce.

And here I leave the Duomo, with the counsel to visitors to Florence to make a point of entering it every day—­not, as so many Florentines do, in order to make a short cut from the Via Calzaioli to the Via de’ Servi, and vice versa, but to gather its spirit.  It is different every hour in the day, and every hour the light enters it with new beauty.

CHAPTER III

The Duomo III:  A Ceremony and a Museum

The Scoppio del Carro—­The Pazzi beneficent—­Holy Saturday’s programme—­April 6th, 1912—­The flying palle—­The nervous pyrotechnist—­The influence of noon—­A little sister of the Duomo—­Donatello’s cantoria—­Luca della Robbia’s cantoria.

In the last chapter we saw the Pazzi family as very black sheep, although there are plenty of students of Florentine history who hold that any attempt to rid Florence of the Medici was laudable.  In this chapter we see them in a kindlier situation as benefactors to the city.  For it happened that when Pazzo de’ Pazzi, a founder of the house, was in the Holy Land during the First Crusade, it was his proud lot to set the Christian banner on the walls of Jerusalem, and, as a reward, Godfrey of Boulogne gave him some flints from the Holy Sepulchre.  These he brought to Florence, and they are now preserved at SS.  Apostoli, the little church in the Piazza del Limbo, off the Borgo SS.  Apostoli, and every year the flints are used to kindle the fire needed for the right preservation of Easter Day.  Gradually the ceremony enlarged until it became a spectacle indeed, which the Pazzi family for centuries controlled.  After the Pazzi conspiracy they lost it and the Signoria took it over; but, on being pardoned, the Pazzi again resumed.

The Carro is a car containing explosives, and the Scoppio is its explosion.  This car, after being drawn in procession through the streets by white oxen, is ignited by the sacred fire borne to it by a mechanical dove liberated at the high altar of the Duomo, and with its explosion Easter begins.  There is still a Pazzi fund towards the expenses, but a few years ago the city became responsible for the whole proceedings, and the ceremony as it is now given, under civic management, known as the Scoppio del Cairo, is that which I saw on Holy Saturday last and am about to describe.