xactly how they looked
in their heyday. Ivy hangs over, grass and flowers spring from the
ancient stones, and lizards run about. Underneath are olive-trees.

It was, by the way, in the Via de' Bardi that George Eliot's
Romola lived, for she was of the Bardi family. The story, it may be
remembered, begins on the morning of Lorenzo the Magnificent's death,
and ends after the execution of Savonarola. It is not an inspired
romance, and is remarkable almost equally for its psychological
omissions and the convenience of its coincidences, but it is an
excellent preparation for a first visit in youth to S. Marco and the
Palazzo Vecchio, while the presence in its somewhat naive pages of
certain Florentine characters makes it agreeable to those who know
something of the city and its history. The painter Piero di Cosimo,
for example, is here, straight from Vasari; so also are Cronaca, the
architect, Savonarola, Capparo, the ironsmith, and even Machiavelli;
while Bernardo del Nero, the gonfalonier, whose death sentence
Savonarola refused to revise, was Romola's godfather.

The Via Guicciardini, which runs from the foot of the Via de' Bardi
to the Pitti, is one of the narrowest and busiest Florentine streets,
with an undue proportion of fruit shops overflowing to the pavement
to give it gay colouring. At No. 24 is a stable with pillars and
arches that would hold up a pyramid. But this is no better than most
of the old stables of Florence, which are all solid vaulted caverns
of immense size and strength.

From the Porta Romana one may do many things--take the tram,
for example, for the Certosa of the Val d'Ema, which is only some
twenty minutes distant, or make a longer journey to Impruneta, where
the della Robbias are. But just now let us walk or ride up the long
winding Viale Macchiavelli, which curves among the villas behind the
Boboli Gardens, to the Piazzale Michelangelo and S. Miniato.

The Piazzale Michelangelo is one of the few modern tributes of Florence
to her illustrious makers. The Dante memorial opposite S. Croce is
another, together with the preservation of certain buildings with
Dante associations in the heart of the city; but, as I have said more
than once, there is no piazza in Florence, and only one new street,
named after a Medici. From the Piazzale Michelangelo you not only
have a fine panoramic view of the city of this great man--in its
principal features not so vastly different from the Florence of his
day,