oldest
church on this side Arno, and already existed outside the first walls of
the city. Within, the church is beautiful, and indeed Brunellesco is
reported by Vasari to have taken it as a model for S. Lorenzo and S.
Spirito. In the sacristy lies the stone which Mad Pazzi brought from
Jerusalem, and from which the Easter fire is still struck in the Duomo;
while in the chapel to the left of the high altar is a beautiful
Tabernacle by the della Robbia, and a monument to Otto Altoviti by
Benedetto da Rovezzano. The Altoviti are buried here, and their palace,
which Benedetto built for them, is just without to the south.

This Borgo SS. Apostoli and the Via Lambertesca which continues it are
indeed streets of old palaces and towers. Here the Buondelmonti lived,
and the Torre de' Girolami, where S. Zanobi is said to have dwelt,
still stands, while Via Lambertesca is full of remembrance of the lesser
guilds. Borgo SS. Apostoli passes into Via Lambertesca at the corner of
Por S. Maria, where of old the great gate of St. Mary stood in the first
walls, and the Amidei had their towers. It must have been just here the
Statue of Mars was set, under the shadow of which Buondelmonte was
murdered so brutally; and thus, as Bandello tells us, following Villani,
began the Guelph and Ghibelline factions in Florence.

Just out of Via Lambertesca, on the left, is the little Church of S.
Stefano and S. Cecilia--S. Cecilia only since the end of the eighteenth
century, when that church was destroyed in Piazza Signoria; but S.
Stefano, _ad portam ferram_, since the thirteenth century at any rate.
This church seems to have been confused by many with the little Santo
Stefano, still, I think, a parish church, though now incorporated with
the abbey buildings, of the Badia. You pass out of Via Lambertesca by
Via de' Lanzi, coming thus into Piazza Signoria; then, passing Palazzo
Uguccione, you take Via Condotta to the right, and thus come into Via
del Proconsolo at the Abbey gate.

Here in this quiet Benedictine house one seems really to be back in an
older world, to have left the noise and confusion of to-day far behind,
and in order and in quiet to have found again the beautiful things that
are from of old. The Badia, dedicated to S. Maria Assunta, was founded
in 978 by Countess Willa, the mother of Ugo of Tuscany,[112] and was
rebuilt in 1285 by Arnolfo di Cambio. The present building is, however,
almost entirely a work of the seventeenth centu