rooms of works of art, all found in Etruscan soil,
the property of the Pierpont Morgans and George Saltings of that
ancient day, who had collected them exactly as we do now. Certain
of the statues are world-famous. Here, for example, in Sala IX, is
the bronze Minerva which was found near Arezzo in 1554 by Cosimo's
workmen. Here is the Chimaera, also from Arezzo in 1554, which Cellini
restored for Cosimo and tells us about in his Autobiography. Here is
the superb Orator from Lake Trasimene, another of Cosimo's discoveries.

In Sala X look at the bronze situla in an isolated glass case, of such
a peacock blue as only centuries could give it. Upstairs in Sala XVI
are many more Greek and Roman bronzes, among which I noticed a faun
with two pipes as being especially good; while the little room leading
from it has some fine life-size heads, including a noble one of a
horse, and the famous Idolino on its elaborate pedestal--a full-length
Greek bronze from the earth of Pesaro, where it was found in 1530.

The top floor is given to tapestries and embroideries. The collection
is vast and comprises much foreign work; but Cosimo I introducing
tapestry weaving into Florence, many of the examples come from the
city's looms. The finest, or at any rate most interesting, series
is that depicting the court of France under Catherine de' Medici,
with portraits: very sumptuous and gay examples of Flemish work.

The trouble at Florence is that one wants the days to be ten times as
long in order that one may see its wonderful possessions properly. Here
is this dry-looking archaeological museum, with antipathetic custodians
at the door who refuse to get change for twenty-lira pieces: nothing
could be more unpromising than they or their building; and yet you
find yourself instantly among countless vestiges of a past people who
had risen to power and crumbled again before Christ was born--but at
a time when man was so vastly more sensitive to beauty than he now is
that every appliance for daily life was the work of an artist. Well,
a collection like this demands days and days of patient examination,
and one has only a few hours. Were I Joshua--had I his curious gift--it
is to Florence I would straightway fare. The sun should stand still
there: no rock more motionless.

Continuing along the Via della Colonna, we come, on the right,
at No. 8, to the convent of S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, which is
now a barracks but keeps sacred one room in wh