Cambio, or Lapo, who began the Duomo. He had some right to be chosen
since his father, Jacopo, or Lapo, a German, was the builder of the
most famous of all the Franciscan churches--that at Assisi, which was
begun while S. Francis was still living. And Giotto, who painted in
that church his most famous frescoes, depicting scenes in the life
of S. Francis, succeeded Arnolfo here, as at the Duomo, with equal
fitness. Arnolfo began S. Croce in 1294, the year that the building of
the Duomo was decided upon, as a reply to the new Dominican Church of
S. Maria Novella, and to his German origin is probably due the Northern
impression which the interiors both of S. Croce and the Duomo convey.

The first thing to examine in S. Croce is the floor-tomb, close to the
centre door, upon which Ruskin wrote one of his most characteristic
passages. The tomb is of an ancestor of Galileo (who lies close
by, but beneath a florid monument), and it represents a mediaeval
scholarly figure with folded hands. Ruskin writes: "That worn face is
still a perfect portrait of the old man, though like one struck out
at a venture, with a few rough touches of a master's chisel. And that
falling drapery of his cap is, in its few lines, faultless, and subtle
beyond description. And now, here is a simple but most useful test of
your capacity for understanding Florentine sculpture or painting. If
you can see that the lines of that cap are both right, and lovely; that
the choice of the folds is exquisite in its ornamental relations of
line; and that the softness and ease of them is complete,--though only
sketched with a few dark touches,--then you can understand Giotto's
drawing, and Botticelli's; Donatello's carving and Luca's. But if
you see nothing in this sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs,
of theirs. Where they choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any
vulgar modern trick with marble--(and they often do)--whatever, in a
word, is French, or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see;
but what is Florentine, and for ever great--unless you can see also
the beauty of this old man in his citizen's cap,--you will see never."

The passage is in "Mornings in Florence," which begins with S. Croce
and should be read by every one visiting the city. And here let me
advise another companion for this church: a little dark enthusiast, in
a black skull cap, named Alfred Branconi, who is usually to be found
just inside the doors, but may be secured as