was erected in 1829 by Ricci, as a tardy
homage on the part of Florence to one who suffered so much for her sake
in life.[38]

After Dante comes Victor Alfieri, whose name has been borne with
distinction by his descendants. This monument was erected by Canova in
1807. Compared with the monuments of the fifteenth century and of the
Renaissance, which are to be seen in such splendid profusion in
Florence, these tombs seem so inferior that it is impossible not to
wonder how the decadence was brought about. It is not at Florence alone
that this feeling manifests itself; for at Venice, in the splendid
temple of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, beside the tombs of doges and
condottieri of the fifteenth century there stands that wretched monument
upon which the great name of Titian has been traced. This is evidently
the result of an inevitable law to which humanity is subject. Genius
comes into the world, grows, spreads, and covers the earth with its
shadow; then slowly the sap runs back from the verdant trunk, the tree
yields less luscious fruit and flowers not so fair, until at last the
branches wither and the tree dies.

Close beside Alfieri is buried Machiavelli, his tomb, like so many of
the others, being of modern erection, and consequently less beautiful
than if it had been the work of a sculptor who had studied in the school
of Ghiberti or Donatello. By the side of Machiavelli rests Luigi Lanzi,
a name less generally known, tho celebrated in his time as an
historiographer of painting, or an art critic as we should now call him.
His friend, Chevalier Ornofrio Boni, prepared the design for his tomb,
which was executed at public cost. The pulpit--a fine specimen of
fifteenth-century sculpture, carved by Benedetto da Maiano at the cost
of Pietro Mellini, who presented it to the church--is well worth close
inspection; and close by, between the tombs of Lanzi and Leonardo
Bruni, is a group in freestone, representing the Annunciation. This was
one of the first of Donatello's works, and gave an earnest of his future
genius.

The tomb of Leonardo Bruni Aretino is one of the five or six greatest
works of this nature which ever left the sculptor's hands; it has been
used as a model by the sculptors of all the tombs in Santa Maria del
Popolo at Rome. The monument to Leonardo Bruni is the highest expression
of sculptural art, combining all the taste of ancient Greece with the
grace, the power, the calm, the supreme harmony, and