onna and Christ had been related
to life. The new learning, by leading these keen Tuscan intellects,
so eager for reasonableness, to the Greek philosophers who were so
wise and so calm without any of the consolations of Christianity,
naturally set them wondering if there were not a religion of Humanity
that was perhaps a finer thing than the religion that required all the
machinery and intrigue of Rome. And when, as the knowledge of Greek
spread and the minute examination of documents ensued, it was found
that Rome had not disdained forgery to gain her ends, a blow was struck
against the Church from which it never recovered;--and how much of this
was due to this Florentine Marsilio, sitting at the feet of the Greek
Gemisthos, who came to Florence at the invitation of Cosimo de' Medici!

The cathedral glass, as I say, is mostly overladen with grime; but the
circular windows in the dome seem to be magnificent in design. They
are attributed to Ghiberti and Donatello, and are lovely in colour. The
greens in particular are very striking. But the jewel of these circular
windows of Florence is that by Ghiberti on the west wall of S. Croce.

And here I leave the Duomo, with the counsel to visitors to Florence
to make a point of entering it every day--not, as so many Florentines
do, in order to make a short cut from the Via Calzaioli to the Via de'
Servi, and vice versa, but to gather its spirit. It is different every
hour in the day, and every hour the light enters it with new beauty.

CHAPTER III

The Duomo III: A Ceremony and a Museum

The Scoppio del Carro--The Pazzi beneficent--Holy Saturday's
programme--April 6th, 1912--The flying palle--The nervous
pyrotechnist--The influence of noon--A little sister of the
Duomo--Donatello's cantoria--Luca della Robbia's cantoria.

In the last chapter we saw the Pazzi family as very black sheep,
although there are plenty of students of Florentine history who
hold that any attempt to rid Florence of the Medici was laudable. In
this chapter we see them in a kindlier situation as benefactors to
the city. For it happened that when Pazzo de' Pazzi, a founder of
the house, was in the Holy Land during the First Crusade, it was his
proud lot to set the Christian banner on the walls of Jerusalem, and,
as a reward, Godfrey of Boulogne gave him some flints from the Holy
Sepulchre. These he brought to Florence, and they are now preserved
at SS. Apostoli, the little church in the Piazza del