m the Uffizi is, just before emerging into the palace,
to avoid the room where copies of pictures are sold, for not only is
it a very catacomb of headache, from the fresh paint, but the copies
are in themselves horrible and lead to disquieting reflections on
the subject of sweated labour. The next thing to do, on at last
emerging, is to walk out on the roof from the little room at the
top of the stairs, and get a supply of fresh air for the gallery,
and see Florence, which is very beautiful from here. Looking over
the city one notices that the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio is almost
more dominating than the Duomo, the work of the same architect who
began this palace. Between the two is Fiesole. The Signoria tower is,
as I say, the highest. Then the Duomo. Then Giotto's Campanile. The
Bargello is hidden, but the graceful Badia tower is seen; also the
little white Baptistery roof with its lantern just showing. From the
fortezza come the sounds of drums and bugles.

Returning from this terrace we skirt a vast porphyry basin and reach
the top landing of the stairs (which was, I presume, once a loggia)
where there is a very charming marble fountain; and from this we
enter the first room of the gallery. The Pitti walls are so congested
and so many of the pictures so difficult to see, that I propose to
refer only to those which, after a series of visits, seem to me the
absolute best. Let me hasten to say that to visit the Pitti gallery
on any but a really bright day is folly. The great windows (which
were to be larger than Cosimo de' Medici's doors) are excellent to
look out of, but the rooms are so crowded with paintings on walls
and ceilings, and the curtains are so absorbent of light, that unless
there is sunshine one gropes in gloom. The only pictures in short that
are properly visible are those on screens or hinges; and these are,
fortunately almost without exception, the best. The Pitti rooms were
never made for pictures at all, and it is really absurd that so many
beautiful things should be massed here without reasonable lighting.

The Pitti also is always crowded. The Uffizi is never crowded; the
Accademia is always comfortable; the Bargello is sparsely attended. But
the Pitti is normally congested, not only by individuals but by flocks,
whose guides, speaking broken English, and sometimes broken American,
lead from room to room. I need hardly say that they form the tightest
knots before the works of Raphael. All this