Did she hear as of old—­that Virgin with narrow half-open eyes and the sidelong look?  God, I know not if she heard or no.  Perhaps I alone have heard in all the world.

XII.  FLORENCE

THE BAPTISTERY—­THE DUOMO—­THE CAMPANILE—­THE OPERA DEL DUOMO

On coming into the Piazza del Duomo, perhaps from the light and space of the Lung’ Arno or from the largeness of the Piazza della Signoria, one is apt to think of it as too small for the buildings which it holds, as wanting in a certain spaciousness such as the Piazza of St. Peter at Rome certainly possesses, or in the light of the meadow of Pisa; and yet this very smallness, only smallness when we consider the great buildings set there so precisely, gives it an element of beauty lacking in the great Piazza of Rome and in Pisa too—­a certain delicate colour and shadow and a sense of nearness, of homeliness almost; for the shadow of the dome falls right across the city itself every morning and evening.  And indeed the Piazza del Duomo of Florence is still the centre of the life of the city, and though to some this may be matter for regret, I have found in just that a sort of consolation for the cabs which Ruskin hated so, for the trams which he never saw; for just these two necessary unfortunate things bring one so often there that of all the cathedrals of Italy that of Florence must be best known to the greatest number of people at all hours of the day.  And this fact, evil and good working together for life’s sake, makes the Duomo a real power in the city, so that everyone is interested, often passionately interested, in it:  it has a real influence on the lives of the citizens, so that nothing in the past or even to-day has ever been attempted with regard to it without winning the people’s leave.  Yet it is not the Duomo alone that thus lives in the hearts of the Florentines, but the whole Piazza.  There they have established their trophies, and set up their gifts, and lavished their treasure.  It was built for all, and it belongs to all; it is the centre of the city.

This enduring vitality of a place so old, so splendid, and so beloved, is, I think, particularly manifest in the Church of S. Giovanni Battista, the Baptistery.  It is the oldest building in Florence, built probably with the stones from the Temple of Mars about which Villani tells us, and almost certainly in its place; every Florentine child, fortunate at least in this, is still brought there for baptism, and receives its name in the place where Dante was christened, where Ippolito Buondelmonti first saw Dianora de’ Bardi, where Donatello has laboured, which Michelangelo has loved.