Here, where these little poor men begged or prayed, Andrea del Sarto was appointed to paint in grisaille scenes from the life of John the Baptist.  They have been much injured by damp, and in fact are not altogether Andrea’s work.

Returning down Via Cavour, if we turn into Via Ventisette Aprile we come to two more desecrated convents,—­that of S. Caterina, now the Commando Militare, and facing it, S. Appolonia, now a magazine for military stores.

Here, in the refectory of the latter convent, where Michelangelo is said to have had a niece, and for this cause to have built the nuns a door, is the fresco of the Last Supper by Andrea del Castagno; while on the walls are some portraits, brought here from the Bargello, of Farinata degli Uberti, Niccolo Acciaiuoli, and others.

In another suppressed convent, S. Onofrio in Via Faenza, not far away (turn to the left down Via di S. Reparata, and then to the right into Via Guelfa), is another Last Supper, supposed to be the work of a pupil of Perugino,—­Morelli says Giannicolo Manni, who painted the miracle picture of Madonna in the Duomo of Perugia.

Another picture of the Last Supper—­this by Andrea del Sarto—­may be found in another desecrated monastery, founded in 1048 by the Vallombrosans, the second monastery of the congregation, S. Salvi, just without the Barriera towards Settignano.  It was in front of this monastery that Corso Donati was killed in 1307.  He was buried by the monks in the church, and four years later his body was borne away to Florence by his family.  This monastery is now turned into houses, and the refectory with the Andrea del Sarto is become a national monument.  Like many another desecrated church, convent, or religious house, the Government, as at S. Marco, Chiostro dello Scalzo, and S. Onofrio, charges you twenty-five centesimi to see their stolen goods.

FOOTNOTES: 

[111] Villari, History of Florence, London, 1905:  p. 318.

[112] The best account of this abbey I ever read in English is contained in a book full of similar good things, good English, and good pictures, called The Old Road through France to Florence, written by H.W.  Nevinson and Montgomery Carmichael, and illustrated by Hallam Murray (Murray, London, 1904).

XX.  FLORENCE

OLTR’ARNO

The Sesto Oltr’arno, the Quartiere di S. Spirito as it was called later, was never really part of the city proper, but rather a suburb surrounded, as Florence itself was, by wall and river.  The home for the most part of the poor, though by no means without the towers and palaces of the nobles, it seems always to have lent itself readily enough to the hatching of any plot against the Government of the day.  Here in 1343 the nobles made their last stand, here the signal was given for the Ciompi rising, and here