and already existed outside the first walls of the city.  Within, the church is beautiful, and indeed Brunellesco is reported by Vasari to have taken it as a model for S. Lorenzo and S. Spirito.  In the sacristy lies the stone which Mad Pazzi brought from Jerusalem, and from which the Easter fire is still struck in the Duomo; while in the chapel to the left of the high altar is a beautiful Tabernacle by the della Robbia, and a monument to Otto Altoviti by Benedetto da Rovezzano.  The Altoviti are buried here, and their palace, which Benedetto built for them, is just without to the south.

This Borgo SS.  Apostoli and the Via Lambertesca which continues it are indeed streets of old palaces and towers.  Here the Buondelmonti lived, and the Torre de’ Girolami, where S. Zanobi is said to have dwelt, still stands, while Via Lambertesca is full of remembrance of the lesser guilds.  Borgo SS.  Apostoli passes into Via Lambertesca at the corner of Por S. Maria, where of old the great gate of St. Mary stood in the first walls, and the Amidei had their towers.  It must have been just here the Statue of Mars was set, under the shadow of which Buondelmonte was murdered so brutally; and thus, as Bandello tells us, following Villani, began the Guelph and Ghibelline factions in Florence.

Just out of Via Lambertesca, on the left, is the little Church of S. Stefano and S. Cecilia—­S.  Cecilia only since the end of the eighteenth century, when that church was destroyed in Piazza Signoria; but S. Stefano, ad portam ferram, since the thirteenth century at any rate.  This church seems to have been confused by many with the little Santo Stefano, still, I think, a parish church, though now incorporated with the abbey buildings, of the Badia.  You pass out of Via Lambertesca by Via de’ Lanzi, coming thus into Piazza Signoria; then, passing Palazzo Uguccione, you take Via Condotta to the right, and thus come into Via del Proconsolo at the Abbey gate.

Here in this quiet Benedictine house one seems really to be back in an older world, to have left the noise and confusion of to-day far behind, and in order and in quiet to have found again the beautiful things that are from of old.  The Badia, dedicated to S. Maria Assunta, was founded in 978 by Countess Willa, the mother of Ugo of Tuscany,[112] and was rebuilt in 1285 by Arnolfo di Cambio.  The present building is, however, almost entirely a work of the seventeenth century, though the beautiful tower was built in 1328.  Here still, however, in spite of rebuilding, you may see the tomb of the Great Marquis by Mino da Fiesole.  “It was erected,” says Mr. Carmichael, “at the expense of the monks, not of the Signoria....  Ugo died in 1006, on the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, December 21, and every year on that date a solemn requiem for the repose of his soul is celebrated in the Abbey Church.  His helmet and breast-plate are always laid upon the catafalque.  In times past—­down to 1859, I think—­a young Florentine used