hes with
such ease, for Florence is incurious about them. Either the Florentines
are too much engrossed in their own affairs or the peering foreigner
has become too familiar an object to merit notice, but one may drift
about even in the narrowest alleys beside the Arno, east and west,
and attract few eyes. And the city here is at its most romantic:
between the Piazza S. Trinita and the Via Por S. Maria, all about
the Borgo SS. Apostoli.

We have just been discussing Benedetto da Maiano the sculptor. If we
turn to the left on leaving S. Trinita, instead of losing ourselves in
the little streets, we are in the Via Tornabuoni, where the best shops
are and American is the prevailing language. We shall soon come, on the
right, to an example of Benedetto's work as an architect, for the first
draft of the famous Palazzo Strozzi, the four-square fortress-home
which Filippo Strozzi began for himself in 1489, was his. Benedetto
continued the work until his death in 1507, when Cronaca, who built
the great hall in the Palazzo Vecchio, took it over and added the
famous cornice. The iron lantern and other smithwork were by Lorenzo
the Magnificent's sardonic friend, "Il Caparro," of the Sign of the
Burning Books, of whom I wrote in the chapter on the Medici palace.

The first mistress of the Strozzi palace was Clarice Strozzi,
nee Clarice de' Medici, the daughter of Piero, son of Lorenzo the
Magnificent. She was born in 1493 and married Filippo Strozzi the
younger in 1508, during the family's second period of exile. They
then lived at Rome, but were allowed to return to Florence in
1510. Clarice's chief title to fame is her proud outburst when she
turned Ippolito and Alessandro out of the Medici palace. She died
in 1528 and was buried in S. Maria Novella. The unfortunate Filippo
met his end nine years later in the Boboli fortezza, which his money
had helped to build and in which he was imprisoned for his share in
a conspiracy against Cosimo I. Cosimo confiscated the palace and all
Strozzi's other possessions, but later made some restitution. To-day
the family occupy the upper part of their famous imperishable home,
and beneath there is an exhibition of pictures and antiquities for
sale. No private individual, whatever his wealth or ambition, will
probably ever again succeed in building a house half so strong or
noble as this.

CHAPTER XXIII

The Pitti

Luca Pitti's pride--Preliminary caution--A terrace view--A
collection b