fréquent revolutions in petty states made it necessary that the nobility and rich citizens should build their habitations strong enough for citadels, in case tumults and rebellions might compel them to take refuge therein. The general plan of the best houses is a square or a parallelogram, leaving a spacious open court in the centre; and into which the inhabitants and their carriages enter from the street through a wide archway, as they do in France. Churches abound here, as is the case in all the Italian cities; and most of them are magnificent within, but many of their outsides remain in an unfinished state, with rough brickwork only, which were no doubt intended to be faced with stone or marble, and were evidently left in this condition on account of the expense. Santa Maria del Fiore is the name of the metropolitan church, which stands in the centre of a large open area. The plan of it forms a cross, but the superstructure is in so unique and heterogeneous style of architecture as to bear little or no resemblance to any other. Although this edifice was begun in the thirteenth century, when the art of design was but just emerging from the abyss of ignorance, and when all knowledge of Grecian purity and excellence had been for a long time unhappily superceded by a barbarous taste, it ought nevertheless to be admired in every period as a prodigious monument of the exertions and intellect of Arnolfo di Lapo, the architect, who, by his own creative and unassisted genius, designed and commenced this most stupendous pile, under all the && disadvantages of the benighted age in which he lived. The walls consist chiefly of brick; but externally it is incrusted with black and white marble, forming compartments of various shapes and sizes, that produce the same effect on the sight as a rich piece of cabinet-work inlaid with ebony and ivory. The pannels are of black and the margins of white marble; and this is the most complete idea I can convey by words alone of its general character. At different parts of the exterior are groups, statues, foliage, and other fanciful decorations. In the façade, which is modern, and in the Grecian style of architecture, are three large handsome doors. At a door on the north side are two columns; one stands on the back of a tygress, with her litter around her and in other parts are representations equally extravagant. The octagon cupola was built a long while afterwards, by Brunellesco, and in its outline has the shape of half a pine-apple, capped with a small lantern. It is said to measure 140 feet across. Michael Angelo thought this cupola so excellent a work, that he used to say--" he might be able to imitate it, but none could surpass it." This astonishing church is 476 feet in length, 130 feet in width, and the transverse cross is 306 feet. The whole of the roof and the cupola are covered with tiles. The side elevations form two distinct stories, that is to say, the upper one (as is usual in all the churches in France and Italy) stands as far back from the lower one as the width of the aisles, and is supported by the pillars in the interior. Long narrow windows below of the Gothic kind light the aisles; and the circular or wheel windows, which are placed in the receding story above, afford light to the nave still nothing can be more dismal and gloomy than the inside. The nave is divided from the aisles by heavy stone pillars. At the top is a groined ceiling, and the walls are plastered in a homely manner. Indeed, it is so extremely dark within, that in many places, even in the middle of the day, you cannot see to read without candles, particularly under the dome and at the east end. The pavement consists of various marbles, beautifully disposed, after the designs of Baccio, San Gallo, and Michael Angelo. Zuccheri painted the dome with the subject of the Resurrection; and underneath it is a description of Hell. In regard to the sculpture---the statues of the four evangelists, larger than life, by Donatello; the fine figures at the altar, representing God the Father in a sedentary attitude, and the Saviour dead at his feet, supported by an angel, by Bandinelli; are excellent performances: and in various niches are the apostles, as large as life, by other artists. Over the door, opposite the cloister, is a Madonna, full size, with two angels, in marble, by Giovanni di Pisa the whole is full of sweetness, and reckoned a masterly work. Against the walls appear a variety of inscriptions and epitaphs, in Latin, to the memory of some of the celebrated men of Florence; namely, Brunellesco, Giotto, Marsilio Ficino, the reviver of the Platonic philosophy; and one to Danté, the great master of Tuscan poetry, which is as follows:--- Qui Coelum cecinit, mediumq; Imumq; Tribunal Among the curiosities and relics of saints contained in this church, are (as it is related) a part of the holy cross, one of the nails by which our Saviour was fastened to it, and also one of the thorns belonging to the crown which the Jews put upon his head. They are preserved in a case of massive gold, richly embossed, and studded with pearls, jewels, and precious stones. In the tribune of the holy cross is a globe of marble, upon which, in the solstice of June, by the sun's rays passing through a ring fixed in the lantern of the cupola, the Florentines used to ascertain the point of its greatest height. It was the invention of the celebrated Toscanelli, who died in the year 1482, and was the most ancient meridian in Europe. But the great mathematician Ximenes afterward drew on the pavement of the church a meridian line, in an instrument of metal, for the purpose of the solstitial observations, which the inhabitants still continue. Leaving the church at the south door, against the outer wall on the right, appears this inscription : Annis millenis centum bis octo nogenis Venit Legatus Roma bonitate donatus, Qui lapidem fixit fundo, simul et benedixit Praesule Francisco gestanti Pontificatum The campanile, or tower for the bells, stands as usual at a small distance, detached from the church. Surprising as the tower at Pisa appeared to me, on account of its inclination, this at Florence was no less so, owing to its enormous height, and the comparative slenderness of its superstructure; and is very justly esteemed the finest tower in Italy, if not in the world. We may say of its character, what we often have it in our power to do respecting that description of dress so frequently adopted by the ladies, and which is purely the result of fancy and invention:---with uncommon singularity it combines a general mixture of elegance; and though capriciously disposed, it still possesses in the composition that propriety and concord of parts and ornaments as fully to demonstrate that the hand which designed it was directed by taste, genius, and experience. The plan forms a square, with a buttress at each angle, continued all the way up, resembling in a small degree some of our Gothic towers. In height it is said to be 270 feet, and only forty-six feet square in the shaft, which is the same from bottom to top. In the centre there is a square perpendicular well-hole, for the purpose of ringing the bells. A staircase on a |