The odd thing to remember is that for the poor of Florence, who now inhabit houses of the same age as the Davanzati palace, the conditions are almost as they were in the fifteenth century.  A few changes have come in, but hardly any.  Myriads of the tenements have no water laid on:  it must still be pulled up in buckets exactly as here.  Indeed you may often see the top floor at work in this way; and there is a row of houses on the left of the road to the Certosa, a little way out of Florence, with a most elaborate network of bucket ropes over many gardens to one well.  Similarly one sees the occupants of the higher floors drawing vegetables and bread in baskets from the street and lowering the money for them.  The postman delivers letters in this way, too.  Again, one of the survivals of the Davanzati to which the custodian draws attention is the rain-water pipe, like a long bamboo, down the wall of the court; but one has but to walk along the Via Lambertesca, between the Uffizi and the Via Por S. Maria, and peer into the alleys, to see that these pipes are common enough yet.

In fact, directly one leaves the big streets Florence is still fifteenth century.  Less colour in the costumes, and a few anachronisms, such as gas or electric light, posters, newspapers, cigarettes, and bicycles, which dart like dragon flies (every Florentine cyclist being a trick cyclist); but for the rest there is no change.  The business of life has not altered; the same food is eaten, the same vessels contain it, the same fire cooks it, the same red wine is made from the same grapes in the same vineyards, the same language (almost) is spoken.  The babies are christened at the same font, the parents visit the same churches.  Similarly the handicrafts can have altered little.  The coppersmith, the blacksmith, the cobbler, the woodcarver, the goldsmiths in their yellow smocks, must be just as they were, and certainly the cellars and caverns under the big houses in which they work have not changed.  Where the change is, is among the better-to-do, the rich, and in the government.  For no longer is a man afraid to talk freely of politics; no longer does he shudder as he passes the Bargello; no longer is the name of Medici on his lips.  Everything else is practically as it was.

The Via Porta Rossa runs to the Piazza S. Trinita, the church of S. Trinita being our destination.  For here are some interesting frescoes.  First, however, let us look at the sculpture:  a very beautiful altar by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the fifth chapel of the right aisle; a monument by Luca della Robbia to one of the archbishops of Fiesole, once in S. Pancrazio (which is now a tobacco factory) in the Via della Spada and brought here for safe keeping—­a beautiful example of Luca’s genius, not only as a modeller but also as a very treasury of pretty thoughts, for the border of flowers and leaves is beyond praise delightful.  The best green in Florence (after Nature’s, which is seen through so many doorways and which splashes over so many white walls and mingles with gay fruits in so many shops) is here.