n which Ghirlandaio was allowed
to paint over, and Vasari adds that the later artist availed himself
of many of the ideas of his predecessors. This, however, is not
very likely, I think, except perhaps in choice of subject. Orcagna,
like Giotto, and later, Michelangelo, was a student of Dante, and
the Strozzi chapel frescoes follow the poet's descriptions. In the
Last Judgment, Dante himself is to be seen, among the elect, in the
attitude of prayer. Petrarch is with him.

The sacristy is by Talenti (of the Campanile) and was added in
1350. Among its treasures once were the three reliquaries painted
by Fra Angelico, but they are now at S. Marco. It has still rich
vestments, fine woodwork, and a gay and elaborate lavabo by one of
the della Robbias, with its wealth of ornament and colour and its
charming Madonna and Child with angels.

A little doorway close by used to lead to the cloisters, and a
mercenary sacristan was never far distant, only too ready to unlock for
a fee what should never have been locked, and black with fury if he got
nothing. But all this has now been done away with, and the entrance
to the cloisters is from the Piazza, just to the left of the church,
and there is a turnstile and a fee of fifty centimes. At S. Lorenzo the
cloisters are free. At the Carmine and the Annunziata the cloisters
are free. At S. Croce the charge is a lira and at S. Maria Novella
half a lira. To make a charge for the cloisters alone seems to me
utterly wicked. Let the Pazzi Chapel at S. Croce and the Spanish
Chapel here have fees, if you like; but the cloisters should be open
to all. Children should be encouraged to play there.

Since, however, S. Maria Novella imposes a fee we must pay it,
and the new arrangement at any rate carries this advantage with it,
that one knows what one is expected to pay and can count on entrance.

The cloisters are everywhere interesting to loiter in, but their
chief fame is derived from the Spanish Chapel, which gained that name
when in 1566 it was put at the disposal of Eleanor of Toledo's suite
on the occasion of her marriage to Cosimo I. Nothing Spanish about
it otherwise. Both structure and frescoes belong to the fourteenth
century. Of these frescoes, which are of historical and human interest
rather than artistically beautiful, that one on the right wall as
we enter is the most famous. It is a pictorial glorification of the
Dominican order triumphant; with a vivid reminder of the origin