And then, here are frescoes by Cosimo Rosselli, Andrea del Sarto, under glass too, a Nativity of Christ by Alessio Baldovinetti, not under glass, which seems unfair; and what if they be the finest work of Andrea, since you cannot see them.  Within, the church is spoiled and very ugly.  On the left is the shrine of Madonna, carved by Michelozzo, to the order of Piero de’ Medici, decorated with all the spoils of the Grand Dukes.  Ah no, be sure Madonna is fled away!

Passing out of the north transept, you come into the cloisters.  Here is, I think, Andrea’s best work, the Madonna del Sacco, and the tomb of a French knight slain at Campaldino.

Passing out of the SS.  Annunziata into S. Maria degli Innocenti, we come to a beautiful picture by Domenico Ghirlandajo in the great altarpiece, the Adoration of the Magi, painted in 1488.  Though scarcely so lovely as the Adoration of the Shepherds in the Accademia, perhaps spoiled a little by over cleaning and restoration, it is one of the most simple and serene pictures in Florence.  The predella to this picture is in the Ospedale; it represents the Marriage of the Virgin, the Presentation in the Temple, the Baptism and Entombment of Our Lord.  There, too, is a replica of the Madonna of Lippo Lippi in the Uffizi.

The Ospedale degli Innocenti was founded in 1421 by the Republic, urged thereto by that Leonardo Bruni who is buried in S. Croce in the tomb by Rossellino.  It appears to have been already open in 1450, and was apparently under the government of the Guild of Silk, for their arms are just by the door.  It is said to have been the first of its kind in Europe; originally meant for the reception of illegitimate children—­Leonardo da Vinci, for instance—­it is to-day ready to receive any poor little soul who has come unwanted into the world; it cares for more than a thousand of such every year.

Passing out of Piazza degli SS.  Annunziata through Via di Sapienza into Piazza di S. Marco, we pass the desecrated convent of the Dominicans, where Savonarola, Fra Antonino, and Fra Angelico lived, now a museum on the right; and passing to the right into Via Cavour, come at No. 69 to the Chiostro dello Scalzo.  This is a cloister belonging to the Brotherhood of St. John, which was suppressed in the eighteenth century.  The Brotherhood of St. John seems to have come about in this way.  When Frate Elias, who succeeded S. Francesco as Minister of the Franciscan Order, began to rule after his own fashion, the Order was divided into two parts, consisting of those who followed the Rule and those who did not.  The first were called Observants, the second Conventuals.  The Osservanti, or Observants, remained poor, and observed all the fasts; perhaps their greatest, certainly their most widely known Vicar-General was S. Bernardino of Siena.  In France the Osservanti were known as the Recollects, and the reform there having been introduced by John de la Puebla, a Spaniard, about 1484, these brethren were known as the Brotherhood of John, or Discalced Friars.  In Italy they were called Riformati.  All this confusion is now at an end, for Leo XIII, in the Constitution “Felicitate quadam,” in 1897 joined all the Observants into one family, giving them again the most ancient and beautiful of their names, the Friars Minor.