nd fellow-speculator on the riddle of life. Palmieri was the author
of a remarkable poem called "La Citta della Vita" (The City of Life)
which developed a scheme of theology that had many attractions to
Botticelli's curious mind. The poem was banned by Rome, although
not until after its author's death. In our National Gallery is a
picture which used to be considered Botticelli's--No. 1126, "The
Assumption of the Virgin"--especially as it is mentioned with some
particularity by Vasari, together with the circumstance that the
poet and painter devised it in collaboration, in which the poem is
translated into pigment. As to the theology, I say nothing, nor as to
its new ascription to Botticini; but the picture has a greater interest
for us in that it contains a view of Florence with its wall of towers
around it in about 1475. The exact spot where the painter sat has been
identified by Miss Stokes in "Six Months in the Apennines". On the
left immediately below the painter's vantage-ground is the Mugnone,
with a bridge over it. On the bank in front is the Villa Palmieri,
and on the picture's extreme left is the Badia of Fiesole.

On leaving S. Domenico, if still bent on walking, one should keep
straight on and not follow the tram lines to the right. This is the
old and terribly steep road which Lorenzo the Magnificent and his
friends Politian and Pico della Mirandola had to travel whenever they
visited the Medici villa, just under Fiesole, with its drive lined with
cypresses. Here must have been great talk and much conviviality. It
is now called the Villa McCalmont.

Once at Fiesole, by whatever means you reach it, do not neglect to
climb the monastery steps to the very top. It is a day of climbing,
and a hundred or more steps either way mean nothing now. For here
is a gentle little church with swift, silent monks in it, and a few
flowers in bowls, and a religious picture by that strange Piero di
Cosimo whose heart was with the gods in exile; and the view of Monte
Ceceri, on the other side of Fiesole, seen through the cypresses here,
which could not be better in disposition had Benozzo Gozzoli himself
arranged them, is very striking and memorable.

Fiesole's darling son is Mino the sculptor--the "Raphael of the
chisel"--whose radiant Madonnas and children and delicate tombs may
be seen here and there all over Florence. The piazza is named after
him; he is celebrated on a marble slab outside the museum, where all
the famous