ns, and is scarcely worth a visit, perhaps, unless
it be to see the fresco of Andrea del Castagno in the cloister, and to
remind ourselves that here, in the fifteenth century, Don Ambrogio
Traversari used to lecture in the humanities, a cynical remembrance
enough to-day.

If we take the second street to the right, Via de' Servi, we shall come
at once into the beautiful Piazza della Santissima Annunziata. Before us
is the desecrated convent of the Servites, now turned into a school, and
the Church of SS. Annunziata itself, now the most fashionable church in
Florence. On the left and right are the beautiful arcades of
Brunellesco, decorated by the della Robbia; the building on the left is
now used for private houses, that on the right is the Ospedale degli
Innocenti. The equestrian statue was made by Giovanni da Bologna, and
represents Ferdinando I.

The Order of Servites, whose church and convent are before us, was
originally founded by seven Florentines of the Laudesi, that Compagnia
di S. Michele in Orto which built Madonna a shrine by the art of Orcagna
in Or S. Michele, as we have seen. "I Servi di Maria" they were called,
and, determined to quit a worldly life, they retired to a little house
where now S. Croce stands; and later, finding that too near the city,
went over the hills of Fiesole beyond Pratolino, founding a hermitage on
Monte Senario. And I, who have heard their bells from afar at sunset,
why should I be sorry that they are no longer in the city. Well, on
Monte Senario, be sure, they lived hardly enough on the charity of
Florence, so that at last they built a little rest-house just without
the city, where SS. Annunziata stands to-day. But in those days Florence
was full of splendour and life; it had no fear of the Orders, and even
loved them, giving alms. Presently the Servi di Maria were able to build
not a rest-house only, but a church and a convent, and then they who
served Madonna were not forgotten by her, for did she not give them
miraculously a picture of her Annunciation, so beautiful and full of
grace that all the city flocked to see it? Thus it used to be. To-day,
as I have said, SS. Annunziata is the fashionable church of Florence.
The ladies go in to hear Mass; the gentlemen lounge in the cloister and
await them. It is not quite our way in England, but then the sun is not
so kind to us. It is true that on any spring morning you may see the
cloister filled with laughing lilies to be laid at M