colour scheme as
in the church, and here again Brunelleschi's miraculous genius
for proportion is to be found. Here and there are foliations and
other exquisite tracery by pupils of Desiderio da Settignano. The
refectory has a high-spirited fresco by that artist whose room in
the Uffizi is so carefully avoided by discreet chaperons--Giovanni di
San Giovanni--representing Christ eating at a table, his ministrants
being a crowd of little roguish angels and cherubim, one of whom (on
the right) is in despair at having broken a plate. In the entrance
lobby is a lavabo by Mino da Fiesole, with two little boys of the
whitest and softest marble on it, which is worth study.

And now we will return to the heart of Florence once more.

CHAPTER XIII

The Badia and Dante

Filippino Lippi--Buffalmacco--Mino da Fiesole--The Dante quarter--Dante
and Beatrice--Monna Tessa--Gemma Donati--Dante in exile--Dante
memorials in Florence--The Torre della Castagna--The Borgo degli
Albizzi and the old palaces--S. Ambrogio--Mino's tabernacle--Wayside
masterpieces--S. Egidio.

Opposite the Bargello is a church with a very beautiful doorway
designed by Benedetto da Rovezzano. This church is known as the Badia,
and its delicate spire is a joy in the landscape from every point of
vantage. The Badia is very ancient, but the restorers have been busy
and little of Arnolfo's thirteenth-century work is left. It is chiefly
famous now for its Filippino Lippi and two tombs by Mino da Fiesole,
but historically it is interesting as being the burial-place of the
chief Florentine families in the Middle Ages and as being the scene
of Boccaccio's lectures on Dante in 1373. The Filippino altar-piece,
which represents S. Bernard's Vision of the Virgin (a subject we shall
see treated very beautifully by Fra Bartolommeo at the Accademia)
is one of the most perfect and charming pictures by this artist:
very grave and real and sweet, and the saint's hands exquisitely
painted. The figure praying in the right-hand corner is the patron,
Piero di Francesco del Pugliese, who commissioned this picture for the
church of La Campora, outside the Porta Romana, where it was honoured
until 1529, when Clement VII's troops advancing, it was brought here
for safety and has here remained.

Close by--in the same chapel--is a little door which the sacristan
will open, disclosing a portion of Arnolfo's building with perishing
frescoes which are attributed to Buffalmacco, an ar