et follows
Milton's accentuation of the word "Cambuscan", on the penult;
it's properly accented on the ultimate.

beccaccia: woodcock.

the Duomo's fit ally: "There is, as far as I know,
only one Gothic building in Europe, the Duomo of Florence,
in which the ornament is so exquisitely finished as to enable us
to imagine what might have been the effect of the perfect workmanship
of the Renaissance, coming out of the hands of men like Verocchio
and Ghiberti, had it been employed on the magnificent framework
of Gothic structure."--Ruskin in `Stones of Venice'.

36.

Shall I be alive that morning the scaffold
Is broken away, and the long-pent fire,
Like the golden hope of the world, unbaffled
Springs from its sleep, and up goes the spire,
While, "God and the People" plain for its motto,
Thence the new tricolor flaps at the sky?
At least to foresee that glory of Giotto
And Florence together, the first am I!

--
St. 36. and up goes the spire: Giotto's plan included a spire
of 100 feet, but the project was abandoned by Taddeo Gaddi,
who carried on the work after the death of Giotto in 1336.

"The mountains from without
In silence listen for the word said next.
What word will men say,--here where Giotto planted
His Campanile like an unperplexed
Fine question heaven-ward, touching the things granted
A noble people, who, being greatly vexed
In act, in aspiration keep undaunted?"
--Mrs. Browning's `Casa Guidi Windows',
Pt. I., vv. 66-72.

Pictor Ignotus.

{Florence, 15--.}

I could have painted pictures like that youth's
Ye praise so. How my soul springs up! No bar
Stayed me--ah, thought which saddens while it soothes!
--Never did fate forbid me, star by star,
To outburst on your night, with all my gift
Of fires from God: nor would my flesh have shrunk
From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift
And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk
To the centre, of an instant; or around
Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan {10}
The license and the limit, space and bound,
Allowed to truth made visible in man.
And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw,
Over the canvas could my hand have flung,
Each face obedient to its passion's law,
Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue: