the windows. There is always a courtyard, a street, or a spire
against the sky; and at the Uffizi there are the river and bridges
and mountains. From the loggia of the Palazzo Vecchio I once saw a
woman with some twenty or thirty city pigeons on the table of her
little room, feeding them with maize.

Except for glimpses of the river and the Via Guicciardini which it
gives, I advise no one to walk through the passage uniting the Pitti
and the Uffizi--unless of course bent on catching some of the ancient
thrill when armed men ran swiftly from one palace to the other to quell
a disturbance or repulse an assault. Particularly does this counsel
apply to wet days, when all the windows are closed and there is no
air. A certain interest attaches to the myriad portraits which line
the walls, chiefly of the Medici and comparatively recent worthies;
but one must have a glutton's passion either for paint or history to
wish to examine these. As a matter of fact, only a lightning-speed
tourist could possibly think of seeing both the Uffizi and the Pitti
on the same day, and therefore the need of the passage disappears. It
is hard worked only on Sundays.

The drawings in the cases in the first long corridor are worth close
study--covering as they do the whole range of great Italian art: from,
say, Uccello to Carlo Dolci. But as they are from time to time changed
it is useless to say more of them. There is also on the first landing
of the staircase a room in which exhibitions of drawings of the Old
Masters are held, and this is worth knowing about, not only because
of the riches of the portfolios in the collection, but also because
once you have passed the doors you are inside the only picture gallery
in Florence for which no entrance fee is asked. How the authorities
have come to overlook this additional source of revenue, I have no
notion; but they have, and visitors should hasten to make the most
of it for fear that a translation of these words of mine may wander
into bad hands.

To name the most wonderful picture in the Uffizi would be a very
difficult task. At the Accademia, if a plebiscite were taken, there is
little doubt but that Botticelli's "Primavera" would win. At the Pitti
I personally would name Giorgione's "Concert" without any hesitation at
all; but probably the public vote would go to Raphael's "Madonna della
Sedia". But the Uffizi? Here we are amid such wealth of masterpieces,
and yet when one comes to pass them i