blood of Christ which is kept here--from one chalice to
another held by a kneeling woman, surrounded by other kneeling women,
which is a marvel of flowing beauty and life. The lines of it are
peculiarly lovely.

On the wall of the same little chapel is a fresco by Cosimo Rosselli
which must once have been a delight, representing a procession of
Corpus Christi--this chapel being dedicated to the miracle of the
Sacrament--and it contains, according to Vasari, a speaking likeness of
Pico della Mirandola. Other graves in the church are those of Cronaca,
the architect of the Palazzo Vecchio's great Council Room, a friend
of Savonarola and Rosselli's nephew by marriage; and Verrocchio, the
sculptor, whose beautiful work we are now to see in the Bargello. It
is said that Lorenzo di Credi also lies here, and Albertinelli,
who gave up the brush for innkeeping.

Opposite the church, on a house at the corner of the Borgo S. Croce
and the Via de' Macci, is a della Robbia saint--one of many such
mural works of art in Florence. Thus, at the corner of the Via Cavour
and the Via de' Pucci, opposite the Riccardi palace, is a beautiful
Madonna and Child by Donatello. In the Via Zannetti, which leads
out of the Via Cerretani, is a very pretty example by Mino, a few
houses on the right. These are sculpture. And everywhere in the older
streets you may see shrines built into the wall: there is even one in
the prison, in the Via dell' Agnolo, once the convent of the Murate,
where Catherine de' Medici was imprisoned as a girl; but many of them
are covered with glass which has been allowed to become black.

A word or two on S. Egidio, the church of the great hospital of
S. Maria Nuova, might round off this chapter, since it was Folco
Portinari, Beatrice's father, who founded it. The hospital stands
in a rather forlorn square a few steps from the Duomo, down the Via
dell' Orivolo and then the first to the left; and it extends right
through to the Via degli Alfani in cloisters and ramifications. The
facade is in a state of decay, old frescoes peeling off it, but one
picture has been enclosed for protection--a gay and busy scene of the
consecration of the church by Pope Martin V. Within, it is a church
of the poor, notable for its general florid comfort (comparatively)
and Folco's gothic tomb. In the chancel is a pretty little tabernacle
by Mino, which used to have a bronze door by Ghiberti, but has it no
longer, and a very fine della Robbia M