Behind and beside the church is a crowded city of the Florentine dead, reproducing to some extent the city of the Florentine living, in its closely packed habitations—­the detached palaces for the rich and the great congeries of cells for the poor—­more of which are being built all the time.  There is a certain melancholy interest in wandering through these silent streets, peering through the windows and recognizing over the vaults names famous in Florence.  One learns quickly how bad modern mortuary architecture and sculpture can be, but I noticed one monument with some sincerity and unaffected grace:  that to a charitable Marchesa, a friend of the poor, at the foot of whose pedestal are a girl and baby done simply and well.

Better perhaps to remain on the highest point and look at the city beneath.  One should try to be there before sunset and watch the Apennines turning to a deeper and deeper indigo and the city growing dimmer and dimmer in the dusk.  Florence is beautiful from every point of vantage, but from none more beautiful than from this eminence.  As one reluctantly leaves the church and passes again through Michelangelo’s fortification gateway to descend, one has, framed in its portal, a final lovely Apennine scene.

Historical Chart of Florence and Europe, 1296-1564

Artists’ Dates.

1300 (c.)           Taddeo Gaddi born (d. 1366)
1302 (c.)           Cimabue died (b. c. 1240)
1308 (c.)           Andrea Orcagna born (d. 1368)
1310                Arnolfo di Cambio died (b. 1232 ?)
1333                Spinello Aretino born (d. 1410)
1336                Giotto died (b. 1276 ?)
1344                Simone Martini died (b. 1283)
1348                Andrea Pisano died (b. 1270)
1356                Lippo Memmi died
1366                Taddeo Gaddi died (b. c. 1300)
1368                Andrea Orcagna died
1370 (c.)           Lorenzo Monaco born (d. 1425)
Gentile da Fabriano born
(d. 1450)
1371                Jacopo della Quercia born (d. 1438)
1377                Filippo Brunelleschi born (d. 1446)
1378                Lorenzo Ghiberti born (d. 1455)
1386 (?)            Donatello born (d. 1466)
1387                Fra Angelico born (d. 1455)
1391                Michelozzo born (d. 1472)
1396 (?)            Andrea del Castagno born (d. 1457)
1397                Paolo Uccello born (d. 1475)
1399 or 1400        Luca della Robbia born (d. 1482)
1401 or 1402        Masaccio born (d. 1428?)
1405                Leon Battista Alberti born (d. 1472)
1406                Lippo Lippi born (d. 1469)
1409                Bernardo Rossellino born (d. 1464)
1410                Spinello Aretino died
1415                Piero della Francesca born (d. 1492)
1420                Benozzo Gozzoli born (d. 1498)
1425                Il Monaco died
Alessio Baldovinetti born
(d. 1499)
1427                Antonio Rossellino born (d. 1478)
1428 (?)            Masaccio died
1428                Desiderio  da Settignano born (d. 1464)