e
sweetest and least fortunate of Tuscan poets. Turning thence into Via
Cavour, you come to S. Giovanni Evangelista, once without the walls, but
now not far from the middle of the city, really the earliest of her
churches, a Lombard building of about 1160, the facade decorated
somewhat in the Pisan manner with rows of pillars, while over the gates
is a relief of the Last Supper, by Gruamonte, whom some have thought to
be the architect of the church. Within is the beautiful pulpit of Fra
Guglielmo, disciple of Niccolo Pisano, and there on the east he has
carved the Annunciation and the Birth of Jesus; on the north, the
Washing of the Disciples' Feet, the Crucifixion, the Deposition, and
Christ in Hades; while on the west is the Ascension and the Death of the
Virgin. And just as at Bologna, in the tomb of St. Dominic, Fra
Guglielmo's work is but an inferior copy of the style of his master, so
here in this pulpit, built most probably in 1270, we find just Niccolo's
work spoiled, in a mere repetition, feeble, and without any of the
devotional spirit we might expect in the work of a friar. Beside it,
near the next altar, is a very beautiful group in glazed terra-cotta, in
the manner of the della Robbia, by Fra Paolino. The holy water basin
supported by figures of the Virtues is a much-injured work by Giovanni
Pisano.

Following Via Cavour, past Palazzo Panciatichi-Cellesi, through Via
Francesco Magni, into Piazza del Duomo, you are in the midst of all that
was most splendid in Pistoja of old: the Duomo, with its old fortified
tower, Torre del Potesta, which still carries the arms of those
captains; the Baptistery, high above the way, designed by Andrea Pisano,
with its open-air pulpit and broken sculptures; the magnificent Palazzo
del Comune; and opposite, the not less splendid Palazzo Pretorio, the
palace of the Podesta. Of old the Piazza was less spacious, but in 1312
it was enlarged, and later, too, the palace of the Capitano, on the
north, was destroyed. Here every Wednesday they still hold the
corn-market, and every Saturday a market of stuffs, silks, and tissues.

It was S. Romolo who first brought the gospel to Pistoja, and the
tradition is that he converted a temple built by the Romans to the God
Mars into a church, on the spot where now the Duomo stands,[140] and
indeed in 1599 certain inscriptions were found, and the capitals of some
Roman columns. It is generally thought that a church was built here in
the early