From the Pitti end of the Ponte Vecchio one can obtain a most charming walk.  Turn to the left as you leave the bridge, under the arch made by Cosimo’s passage, and you are in the Via de’ Bardi, the backs of whose houses on the river-side are so beautiful from the Uffizi’s central arches, as Mr. Morley’s picture shows.  At the end of the street is an archway under a large house.  Go through this, and you are at the foot of a steep, stone hill.  It is really steep, but never mind.  Take it easily, and rest half-way where the houses on the left break and give a wonderful view of the city.  Still climbing, you come to the best gate of all that is left—­a true gate in being an inlet into a fortified city—­that of S. Giorgio, high on the Boboli hill by the fort.  The S. Giorgio gate has a S. George killing a dragon, in stone, on its outside, and the saint painted within, Donatello’s conception of him being followed by the artist.  Parsing through, you are in the country.  The fort and gardens are on one side and villas on the other; and a great hill-side is in front, covered with crops.  Do not go on, but turn sharp to the left and follow the splendid city wall, behind which for a long way is the garden of the Villa Karolath, one of the choicest spots in Florence, occasionally tossing its branches over the top.  This wall is immense all the way down to the Porta S. Miniato, and two of the old towers are still standing in their places upon it.  Botticini’s National Gallery picture tells exactly how they looked in their heyday.  Ivy hangs over, grass and flowers spring from the ancient stones, and lizards run about.  Underneath are olive-trees.

It was, by the way, in the Via de’ Bardi that George Eliot’s Romola lived, for she was of the Bardi family.  The story, it may be remembered, begins on the morning of Lorenzo the Magnificent’s death, and ends after the execution of Savonarola.  It is not an inspired romance, and is remarkable almost equally for its psychological omissions and the convenience of its coincidences, but it is an excellent preparation for a first visit in youth to S. Marco and the Palazzo Vecchio, while the presence in its somewhat naive pages of certain Florentine characters makes it agreeable to those who know something of the city and its history.  The painter Piero di Cosimo, for example, is here, straight from Vasari; so also are Cronaca, the architect, Savonarola, Capparo, the ironsmith, and even Machiavelli; while Bernardo del Nero, the gonfalonier, whose death sentence Savonarola refused to revise, was Romola’s godfather.

The Via Guicciardini, which runs from the foot of the Via de’ Bardi to the Pitti, is one of the narrowest and busiest Florentine streets, with an undue proportion of fruit shops overflowing to the pavement to give it gay colouring.  At No. 24 is a stable with pillars and arches that would hold up a pyramid.  But this is no better than most of the old stables of Florence, which are all solid vaulted caverns of immense size and strength.