ple and the angel uniting the two saints
in friendliness; and the other is the Birth of the Virgin, which
Ruskin was so pleased to pit against Ghirlandaio's treatment of the
same incident. Well, it is given to some of us to see only what we
want to see and be blind to the rest; and Ruskin was of these the
very king. I agree with him that Ghirlandaio in both his Nativity
frescoes thought little of the exhaustion of the mothers; but it is
arguable that two such accouchements might with propriety be treated
as abnormal--as indeed every painter has treated the birth of Christ,
where the Virgin, fully dressed, is receiving the Magi a few moments
after. Ruskin, after making his deadly comparisons, concludes thus
genially of the Giotto version--"If you can be pleased with this,
you can see Florence. But if not, by all means amuse yourself there,
if you can find it amusing, as long as you like; you can never see it."

The S. Maria Novella habit is one to be quickly contracted by the
visitor to Florence: nearly as important as the S. Croce habit. Both
churches are hospitable and, apart from the cloisters, free and
eminently suited for dallying in; thus differing from the Duomo,
which is dark, and S. Lorenzo, where there are payments to be made
and attendants to discourage.

An effort should be made at S. Maria Novella to get into the old
cloisters, which are very large and indicate what a vast convent it
once was. But there is no certainty. The way is to go through to the
Palaestra and hope for the best. Here, as I have said in the second
chapter, were lodged Pope Eugenius and his suite, when they came
to the Council of Florence in 1439. These large and beautiful green
cloisters are now deserted. Through certain windows on the left one
may see chemists at work compounding drugs and perfumes after old
Dominican recipes, to be sold at the Farmacia in the Via della Scala
close by. The great refectory has been turned into a gymnasium.

The two obelisks, supported by tortoises and surmounted by beautiful
lilies, in the Piazza of S. Maria Novella were used as boundaries in
the chariot races held here under Cosimo I, and in the collection of
old Florentine prints on the top floor of Michelangelo's house you
may see representations of these races. The charming loggia opposite
S. Maria Novella, with della Robbia decorations, is the Loggia di
S. Paolo, a school designed, it is thought, by Brunelleschi, and
here, at the right hand end,