Passing from Ognissanti down the Borgo to Piazza Ponte alla Carraja, you come to the great palace built by Michelozzo for the Ricasoli family:  it is now the Hotel New York.  Thence you turn into Via di Parione behind the palace, where at No. 7 you pass the Palazzo Corsini, coming at last into Via Tornabuoni, where at the corner is the Church of S. Trinita facing the Piazza.

This beautiful and very ancient church stands on the site of an oratory of S. Maria dello Spasimo, destroyed, as it is said, in the tenth century.  It was built by the monks of Vallombrosa, and was therefore in the hands of Benedictines.  Here, in the Cappella Sassetti, Domenico Ghirlandajo has painted the Life of S. Francis; but it is not with his commonplace treatment, often irrelevant enough, of a subject which Giotto had already used with genius, that we are concerned, but perhaps with the fresco above the altar, and certainly with the marvellous portraits of Sassetti and Nera Cosi his wife, on either side.  Here in this portrait for once Ghirlandajo seems to have escaped from the limitations of his cleverness, and to have really expressed himself so that his talent becomes something more than talent, is full of life and charm, and only just fails to convince us of his genius.

Many another delightful or surprising thing may be found in the old church, which has more than once suffered from restoration.  In a chapel in the right aisle Lorenzo Monaco has painted the Annunciation, while, close by, you may see a beautiful altar by Benedetto da Rovezzano.  Over the high altar is the crucifix which bowed to S. Giovanni Gualberto, who forbore to slay his brother’s murderer; but the chief treasure of the church is the tomb in the left transept of Benozzo Federighi, Bishop of Fiesole, by Luca della Robbia.  It was in the year 1450 that Luca finished his most perfect work in marble—­begun and finished, as it is said, within the year—­the tomb of Bishop Federighi.  And here, as one might almost expect, remembering his happy expressive art in many a terra-cotta up and down in Italy, he has thought of death almost with cheerfulness, not as oblivion, but as just sleep after labour.  Amid a profusion of natural things—­fruits, garlands, grapes—­the old man lies half turned towards us, at rest at last.  Behind him Luca has carved a Pieta, and beneath two angels unfold the name of the dead man.  The tomb was removed hither from S. Francesco di Paolo.

Passing now under the Column of the Trinita across the Piazza between the two palaces, Bartolini Salimbeni and Buondelmonte on the left, and Palazzo Spini on the right, you come into Borgo Santi Apostoli, where, facing the Piazzetta del Limbo, is the little church de’ Santi Apostoli, which, if we may believe the inscription on the facade, was founded by Charlemagne and consecrated by Turpin before Roland and Oliver.  However that may be, it is, with the exception of the Baptistery, the oldest church on this side Arno,