eing in relief. The frame is
flanked by S. Michael and a saint, with a little angel flying below and
holding a book, also with the heads only painted. These figures and the
Virgin and Child have a good deal of gilding about them, and may be of
the fifteenth century, since they look earlier than the rest, which is
late sixteenth or early seventeenth. In the chapel to the left is a
Byzantine-looking relief gilded all over except the hands and faces,
which are painted pink, mounted on a polished slab of black marble. The
subject is the Virgin and Child standing, the Child draped. A
half-finished building not far off is all that was completed of a
magnificent church designed to house the arca of S. Simeon. It was
commenced in 1572, but abandoned in 1600.

Beyond the cathedral, and not far from the walls, is the church and
convent of S. Francesco, consecrated in 1282 by Archbishop Lorenzo
Periandro, according to an inscription on a pilaster in the choir. The
choir contains a very fine set of stalls, made in 1394 by "Maestro
Giovanni quondam Giacomo da Borgo San Sepolcro in Venezia," at a cost of
456 ducats of gold. They used to be in front of the altar, but were
moved in 1808 when the new altar was put up. In the Cappella del
Crocifisso is a large Carpaccio, an allegory of the militant and
triumphant Church, with a row of portrait figures. It is in rather a bad
state, painted in tempera on panel. In the sky is a pretty Madonna and
Child in a vesica surrounded by angels. The rest of the sky has rows of
angels in it, and below, on the earth, kneeling bishops, potentates, and
others, with some nice little children in front. Between the two
divisions is a landscape with a shrine in the centre, and the whole
composition is contained in an upright oval, the corners being filled up
with later painting. The usual white dog appears with a red
collar-ribbon. The frame is well carved, but not architectural. In a
side chapel is a S. Francis by Palma Giovane. The chapel of S. Carlo,
once called degli Innocenti, can be entered either from the cloister or
the church. In it is an enormous painted crucifix of wood in relief,
with the Virgin and S. John half-length painted at the ends of the
cross, and an angel above. It bears inscriptions in Greek and Latin,
"ICTAVPOCIC" and "Rex Ivdeorvm," and, below the arms of Christ, "In me
credentes ad me concvrrite gentes." It is believed to be of the tenth
century, or even earlier. In the sacristy is