Something of this power of evocation may still be found in the Piazza della Signoria of Florence:  all the love that founded the city, the beauty that has given her fame, the immense confusion that is her history, the hatred that has destroyed her, lingers yet in that strange and lovely place where Palazzo Vecchio stands like a violated fortress, where the Duke of Athens was expelled the city, where the Ciompi rose against the Ghibellines, where Jesus Christ was proclaimed King of the Florentines, where Savonarola, was burned, and Alessandro de’ Medici made himself Duke.

It is not any great and regular space you come upon in the Piazza della Signoria, such as the huge empty Place de la Concorde of Paris, but one that is large enough for beauty, and full of the sweet variety of the city; it is the symbol of Florence—­a beautiful symbol.

In the morning the whole Piazza is full of sunlight, and swarming with people:  there, is a stall for newspapers; here, a lemonade merchant dispenses his sweet drinks.  Everyone is talking; at the corner of Via Calzaioli a crowd has assembled, a crowd that moves and seems about to dissolve, that constantly re-forms itself without ever breaking up.  On the benches of the loggia men lie asleep in the shadow, and children chase one another among the statues.  Everywhere and from all directions cabs pass with much cracking of whips and hallooing.  There stand two Carabinieri in their splendid uniforms, surveying this noisy world; an officer passes with his wife, leading his son by the hand; you may see him lift his sword as he steps on the pavement.  A group of tourists go by, urged on by a gesticulating guide; he is about to show them the statues in the loggia; they halt under the Perseus.  He begins to speak of it, while the children look up at him as though to catch what he is saying in that foreign tongue.

And surely the Piazza, which has seen so many strange and splendid things, may well tolerate this also; it is so gay, so full of life.  Very fair she seems under the sunlight, picturesque too, with her buildings so different and yet so harmonious.  On the right the gracious beauty of the Loggia de’ Lanzi; then before you the lofty, fierce old Palazzo Vecchio; and beside it the fountains play in the farther Piazza.  Cosimo I rides by as though into Siena, while behind him rises the palace of the Uguccioni, which Folfi made; and beside you the Calzaioli ebbs and flows with its noisy life, as of old the busiest street of the city.

The Palazza Vecchio, peaceful enough now, but still with the fierce gesture of war stands on one side, facing the Piazza, a fortress of huge stones four storeys high—­the last, thrust out from the wall and supported by arches on brackets of stone, as though crowning the palace itself.  It stands almost four-square, and above rises the beautiful tower, the highest tower in the city, with a gallery similar to the last storey of the palace, and above