ows in most cases that the square or street named after
him supplants an older one, and if the Italians had any memory or
imaginative interest in history they would see to it that the old
name was not wholly obliterated. In Florence, in order to honour the
first king of United Italy, much grave violence was done to antiquity,
for a very picturesque quarter had to be cleared away for the huge
brasseries, stores and hotels which make up the west side; which
in their turn marked the site of the old market where Donatello and
Brunelleschi and all the later artists of the great days did their
shopping and met to exchange ideals and banter; and that market in
its turn marked the site of the Roman forum.

One of the features of the old market was the charming Loggia di Pesce;
another, Donatello's figure of Abundance, surmounting a column. This
figure is now in the museum of ancient city relics in the monastery
of S. Marco, where one confronts her on a level instead of looking
up at her in mid sky. But she is very good, none the less.

In talking to elderly persons who can remember Florence forty and fifty
years ago I find that nothing so distresses them as the loss of the
old quarter for the making of this new spacious piazza; and probably
nothing can so delight the younger Florentines as its possession,
for, having nothing to do in the evenings, they do it chiefly in the
Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. Chairs and tables spring up like mushrooms
in the roadway, among which too few waiters distribute those very
inexpensive refreshments which seem to be purchased rather for the
right to the seat that they confer than for any stimulation. It is
extraordinary to the eyes of the thriftless English, who are never
so happy as when they are overpaying Italian and other caterers in
their own country, to notice how long these wiser folk will occupy
a table on an expenditure of fourpence.

I do not mean that there are no theatres in Florence. There are
many, but they are not very good; and the young men can do without
them. Curious old theatres, faded and artificial, all apparently built
for the comedies of Goldoni. There are cinema theatres too, at prices
which would delight the English public addicted to those insidious
entertainments, but horrify English managers; and the Teatro Salvini
at the back of the Palazzo Vecchio is occasionally transformed into a
Folies Bergeres (as it is called) where one after another comediennes
sing each tw