with his sword. Then, says Villani, "Conte
Giordano, seeing what manner of man he was, and of how great authority,
and how the Ghibelline party might be broken up and come to blows,
abandoned the design and took new counsel, so that by one good man and
citizen our city of Florence was saved from so great fury, destruction,
and ruin." But Florence was ever forgetful of her greatest sons, and
Farinata's praise was not found in her mouth, but in that of her
greatest exile, who, finding him in his fiery tomb, wishes him rest.

"Deh se riposi mai vostra semenza
Prega io lui."

To-day, however, in Empoli the long days are unbroken by the whisperings
from any council; and as though to mark the fact that all are friends at
last, if you come to her at all, you will sleep at the Aquila Nera in
the street of the Lily; Guelph and Ghibelline hate no more. And as
though to prove to man, ever more mindful of war than peace, that it is
only the works of love after all that abide for ever, in Empoli at least
scarcely anything remains from the old beloved days save the churches,
and, best of all, the pictures that were painted for them.

You pass the Church of S. Maria a Ripa just before you enter the city by
the beautiful Porta Pisana, but though you may find some delightful
works of della Robbia ware there, especially a S. Lucia, it is in the
Collegiata di S. Andrea in the lovely Piazza Farinata degli Uberti, that
most of the works have been gathered in some of the rooms of the old
college. The church itself is very interesting, with its beautiful
facade in the manner of the Badia at Fiesole, where you may see carved
on either side of the great door the head of S. Andrea and of St. John
Baptist.

In the Baptistery, however, comes your first surprise, a beautiful
fresco, a Pieta attributed to Masolino da Panicale, where Christ is laid
in the tomb by Madonna and St. John, while behind rises the Cross, on
which hangs a scourge of knotted chords. And then in the second chapel
on the right is a lovely Sienese Madonna, and a strange fresco on the
left wall of men taming bulls.

In the gallery itself a few lovely things have been gathered together,
of which certainly the finest are the angels of Botticini, two children
winged and crowned with roses, dressed in the manner of the fifteenth
century, with purfled skirts and slashed sleeves powdered with flowers,
who bow before the S. Sebastian of Rossellino. Two other works
att