Galileo’s tomb is adorned with his bust.  His face is calm and dignified, and he holds appropriately in his hands, a globe and telescope.  Aretino, the historian, lies on his tomb with a copy of his works clasped to his breast; above that of Lanzi, the historian of painting, there is a beautiful fresco of the angel of fame; and opposite to him is the scholar Lamio.  The most beautiful monument in the church is that of a Polish princess, in the transept.  She is lying on the bier, her features settled in the repose of death, and her thin, pale hands clasped across her breast.  The countenance wears that half-smile, “so coldly sweet and sadly fair,” which so often throws a beauty over the face of the dead, and the light pall reveals the fixed yet graceful outline of the form.

In that part of the city, which lies on the south bank of the Arno, is the palace of the Grand Duke, known by the name of the Palazzo Pitti, from a Florentine noble of that name, by whom it was first built.  It is a very large, imposing pile, preserving an air of lightness in spite of the rough, heavy stones of which it is built.  It is another example of a magnificent failure.  The Marquis Strozzi, having built a palace which was universally admired for its beauty, (which stands yet, a model of chaste and massive elegance,) his rival, the Marquis Pitti, made the proud boast that he would build a palace, in the court-yard of which could bo placed that of Strozzi.  These are actually the dimensions of the court-yard; but in building the palace, although he was liberally assisted by the Florentine people, he ruined himself, and his magnificent residence passed into other hands, while that of Strozzi is inhabited by his descendants to this very day.

The gallery of the Palazzo Pitti is one of the finest in Europe.  It contains six or seven hundred paintings, selected from the best works of the Italian masters.  By the praiseworthy liberality of the Duke, they are open to the public, six hours every day, and the rooms are thronged with artists of all nations.

Among Titian’s works, there is his celebrated “Bella,” a half-length figure of a young woman.  It is a masterpiece of warm and brilliant coloring, without any decided expression.  The countenance is that of vague, undefined thought, as of one who knew as yet nothing of the realities of life.  In another room is his Magdalen, a large, voluptuous form, with her brown hair falling like a veil over her shoulders and breast, but in her upturned countenance one can sooner read a prayer for an absent lover than repentance for sins she has committed.