smash it into
Gabri's net? Such a lapse should not pass unnoticed; nor does it.

From the Cascine we may either return to Florence along the banks
of the river, or cross the river by the vile iron Ponte Sospeso
and enter the city again, on the Pitti side, by the imposing Porta
S. Frediano. Supposing that we return by the Lungarno Amerigo Vespucci
there is little to notice, beyond costly modern houses of a Portland
Place type and the inevitable Garibaldi statue, until, just past the
oblique pescaja (or weir), we see across the Piazza Manin the church
of All Saints--S. Salvadore d'Ognissanti, which must be visited since
it is the burial-place of Botticelli and Amerigo Vespucci, the chapel
of the Vespucci family being painted by Ghirlandaio; and since here too
lies Botticelli's beautiful Simonetta, who so untimely died. According
to Vasari the frescoes of S. Jerome by Ghirlandaio and S. Augustine by
Botticelli were done in competition. They were painted, as it happens,
elsewhere, but moved here without injury. I think the S. Jerome is the
more satisfying, a benevolent old scientific author--a Lord Avebury
of the canon--with his implements about him on a tapestry tablecloth,
a brass candlestick, his cardinal's hat, and a pair of tortoise-shell
eyeglasses handy. S. Augustine is also scientific; astronomical books
and instruments surround him too. His tablecloth is linen.

Amerigo Vespucci, whose statue we saw in the Uffizi portico
colonnade, was a Florentine by birth who settled in Spain and took to
exploration. His discoveries were important, but America is not really
among them, for Columbus, whom he knew and supported financially,
got there first. By a mistake in the date in his account of his
travels, Vespucci's name came to be given to the new continent, and
it was then too late to alter it. He became a naturalized Spaniard
and died in 1512. Columbus indeed suffers in Florence; for had it
not been for Vespucci, America would no doubt be called Columbia;
while Brunelleschi anticipated him in the egg trick.

The church is very proud of possessing the robe of S. Francis, which
is displayed once a year on October 4th. In the refectory is a "Last
Supper" by Ghirlandaio, not quite so good as that which we saw at
S. Marco, but very similar, and, like that, deriving from Castagno's
at the Cenacolo di Sant' Apollonia. The predestined Judas is once
more on the wrong side of the table.

Returning to the river bank again, we a