Working back towards the Loggia de’ Lanzi we find less-known names:  Pietro Antonio Michele (1679-1737), the botanist; Francesco Redi (1626-1697), a poet and a man of science; Paolo Mascagni (1732-1815), the anatomist; Andrea Cesalpino (1519-1603), the philosopher; S. Antonio (died 1461), Prior of the Convent of S. Marco and Archbishop of Florence; Francesco Accorso (1182-1229), the jurist; Guido Aretino (eleventh century), musician; and Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1572), the goldsmith and sculptor.  The most notable omissions are Arnolfo and Brunelleschi (but these are, as we have seen, on the facade of the Palazzo de’ Canonici, opposite the south side of the cathedral), Ghiberti, Fra Angelico, and Savonarola.  Personally I should like to have still others here, among them Giorgio Vasari, in recognition of his enthusiastic and entertaining biographies of the Florentine artists, to say nothing of the circumstance that he designed this building.

Before we enter any Florentine gallery let me say that there is only one free day and that the crowded Sabbath.  Admittance to nearly all is a lira.  Moreover, there is no re-admission.  The charge strikes English visitors, accustomed to the open portals of their own museums and galleries, as an outrage, and it explains also the little interest in their treasures which most Florentines display, for being essentially a frugal people they have seldom seen them.  Visitors who can satisfy the authorities that they are desirous of studying the works of art with a serious purpose can obtain free passes; but only after certain preliminaries, which include a seance with a photographer to satisfy the doorkeeper, by comparing the real and counterfeit physiognomies, that no illicit transference of the precious privilege has been made.  Italy is, one knows, not a rich country; but the revenue which the gallery entrance-fees represent cannot reach any great volume, and such as it is it had much better, I should say, be raised by other means.  Meanwhile, the foreigner chiefly pays it.  What Giovanni de’ Medici and Lorenzo de’ Medici, and—­even more—­what Anna Maria Ludovica de’ Medici, who bequeathed to the State these possessions, would think could they see this feverish and implacable pursuit of pence, I have not imagination, or scorn, enough to set down.

Infirm and languid visitors should get it clearly into their heads (1) that the tour of the Uffizi means a long walk and (2) that there is a lift.  You find it in the umbrella room—­at every Florentine gallery and museum is an official whose one object in life is to take away your umbrella—­and it costs twopence-halfpenny and is worth far more.  But walking downstairs is imperative, because otherwise one would miss Silenus and Bacchus, and a beautiful urgent Mars, in bronze, together with other fine sculptured things.