Out in the Piazza once more, I shall turn into Borgo S. Lorenzo, and follow it till I come to Piazza di S. Lorenzo, with its bookstalls where Browning found that book, “small quarto size, part print, part manuscript,” which told him the story of “The Ring and the Book.”  There I shall look once more on the ragged, rugged front of S. Lorenzo, and entering, find the tomb of Piero de’ Medici, made by Verrocchio, and thinking awhile of those other tombs where Michelangelo hard by carved his Night and Day, Twilight and Dawn, I shall find my way again into the Piazza del Duomo, and, following Via Cerretani, that busy street, I shall come at last into Piazza S. Maria Novella, and there on the north I shall see again the bride of Michelangelo, S. Maria Novella of the Dominicans.

Perhaps I shall rest there a little before Duccio’s Madonna on her high altar,[85] and linger under the grave, serene work of Ghirlandajo; but it may be the sky will be too fair for any church to hold me, so that passing down the way of the Beautiful Ladies, and taking Via dei Serpi on my left, I shall come into Via Tornabuoni, that smiling, lovely way just above the beautiful Palazzo Antinori, whence I may see Palazzo Strozzi, but without the great lamp at the corner where the flowers are heaped and there are always so many loungers.  Indeed, the whole street is full of flowers and sunshine and cool shadow, and in some way, I know not what, it remains the most beautiful gay street in Florence, where past and present have met and are friends.  And then I know if I follow this way I shall come to Lung’ Arno,—­I may catch a glimpse of it even from the corner of Via Porta Rossa over the cabs, past the Column of S. Trinita.

[Illustration:  PONTE VECCHIO]

Presently, in the afternoon, I shall follow Via Porta Rossa, with its old palaces of the Torrigiani (now, Hotel Porta Rossa), and the Davanzati into Mercato Nuovo, where, because it is Thursday, the whole place will be smothered with flowers and children, little laughing rascals as impudent as Lippo Lippi’s Angiolini, who play about the Tacca and splash themselves with water.  And so I shall pass at last into Piazza della Signoria, before the marvellous palace of the people with its fierce, proud tower, and I shall stand on the spot before the fountains where Humanism avenged itself on Puritanism, where Savonarola, that Ferrarese who burned the pictures and would have burned the city, was himself burned in the fire he had invoked.  And I shall look once more on the Loggia de’ Lanzi, and see Cellini’s young contadino masquerading as Perseus, and in my heart I shall remember the little wax figure he made for a model, now in Bargello, which is so much more beautiful than this young giant.  So, under the cool cloisters of Palazzo degli Uffizi I shall come at last on to Lung’ Arno, where it is very quiet, and no horses may pass, and the trams are a long way off.  And I shall lift up my eyes and behold once