entury it became a parish church, but was only taken
from them at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Within, there is
an early picture of Madonna, which comes from the Church of S. Piero
Maggiore, now destroyed. You may reach the Piazza di S. Piero (for it
still bears that name) if you turn into Via di Mercatino. Here the
bishops of Florence were of old welcomed to the city and installed in
the See. Thither came all the clergy of the diocese to take part in a
strange and beautiful ceremony. Attached to the church was a Benedictine
convent, whose abbess seems to have represented the diocese of Florence.
There in S. Piero the Archbishop came to wed her, and thus became the
guardian of the city. The church is destroyed now, and, as we have seen,
all the monks and nuns have departed; the Government has stolen their
dowries and thrust them into the streets. Well might the child, passing
S. Felice, cry before this came to pass, O bella Liberta! But S. Piero
was memorable for other reasons too beside this mystic marriage. There
lay Luca della Robbia, Lorenzo di Credi, Mariotto Albertinelli, Piero di
Cosimo: where is their dust to-day? As we look at their work in the
galleries and churches, who cares what has happened to them, or whether
such graves as theirs are rifled or no? Yet not one of them but has done
more for Italy than Vittorio Emmanuele; not one of them, O Italia Nuova,
but is to-day filling your pockets with gold, while he is nothing in the
Pantheon; yet their graves are rifled and forgotten, and him you have
placed on the Capitol.

It is to another Benedictine convent you come down Via Pietrapiana, past
Borgo Allegri, whence the Florentines say they bore Cimabue's Madonna in
triumph to S. Maria Novella. It is a pity, truly, that it is not his
picture that is in the Rucellai Chapel to-day, and that the name of the
Borgo does not come from that rejoicing, but from the Allegri family,
who here had their towers. Yet here Cimabue lived, and Ghiberti and
Antonio Rossellino. Who knows what beauty has here passed by?

The Benedictine Church and Convent at end of Via Pietrapiana is
dedicated to S. Ambrogio. It was the first convent of nuns built in
Florence, and dates certainly from the eleventh century. Like the rest,
it has been suppressed, and indeed destroyed. To-day it is nothing,
having suffered restoration, beside the other violations. Within,
Verrocchio was buried, and in the Cappella del Miracolo, where in th