One of the quaintest symbols of conservatism in Florence is the scissors of the officials who supply tickets of entrance.  Apparently the perforated line is unknown in Italy; hence the ticket is divided from its counterfoil (which I assume goes to the authorities in order that they may check their horrid takings) by a huge pair of shears.  These things are snip-snapping all over Italy, all day long.  Having obtained your ticket you hand it to another official at a turn-stile, and at last you are free of cupidity and red tape and may breathe easily again and examine the products of the light-hearted, generous Renaissance in the right spirit.

One should never forget, in any gallery of Florence, to look out of the windows.  There is always a courtyard, a street, or a spire against the sky; and at the Uffizi there are the river and bridges and mountains.  From the loggia of the Palazzo Vecchio I once saw a woman with some twenty or thirty city pigeons on the table of her little room, feeding them with maize.

Except for glimpses of the river and the Via Guicciardini which it gives, I advise no one to walk through the passage uniting the Pitti and the Uffizi—­unless of course bent on catching some of the ancient thrill when armed men ran swiftly from one palace to the other to quell a disturbance or repulse an assault.  Particularly does this counsel apply to wet days, when all the windows are closed and there is no air.  A certain interest attaches to the myriad portraits which line the walls, chiefly of the Medici and comparatively recent worthies; but one must have a glutton’s passion either for paint or history to wish to examine these.  As a matter of fact, only a lightning-speed tourist could possibly think of seeing both the Uffizi and the Pitti on the same day, and therefore the need of the passage disappears.  It is hard worked only on Sundays.

The drawings in the cases in the first long corridor are worth close study—­covering as they do the whole range of great Italian art:  from, say, Uccello to Carlo Dolci.  But as they are from time to time changed it is useless to say more of them.  There is also on the first landing of the staircase a room in which exhibitions of drawings of the Old Masters are held, and this is worth knowing about, not only because of the riches of the portfolios in the collection, but also because once you have passed the doors you are inside the only picture gallery in Florence for which no entrance fee is asked.  How the authorities have come to overlook this additional source of revenue, I have no notion; but they have, and visitors should hasten to make the most of it for fear that a translation of these words of mine may wander into bad hands.