like it; and
the sense of height is so invigorating too. At all times of the year
it is beautiful; but perhaps best in early spring, when the highest
mountains still have snow upon them and the neighbouring slopes are
covered with tender green and white fruit blossom, and here the violet
wistaria blooms and there the sombre crimson of the Judas-tree.

Behind and beside the church is a crowded city of the Florentine
dead, reproducing to some extent the city of the Florentine living,
in its closely packed habitations--the detached palaces for the rich
and the great congeries of cells for the poor--more of which are
being built all the time. There is a certain melancholy interest in
wandering through these silent streets, peering through the windows
and recognizing over the vaults names famous in Florence. One learns
quickly how bad modern mortuary architecture and sculpture can be,
but I noticed one monument with some sincerity and unaffected grace:
that to a charitable Marchesa, a friend of the poor, at the foot of
whose pedestal are a girl and baby done simply and well.

Better perhaps to remain on the highest point and look at the
city beneath. One should try to be there before sunset and watch
the Apennines turning to a deeper and deeper indigo and the city
growing dimmer and dimmer in the dusk. Florence is beautiful from
every point of vantage, but from none more beautiful than from this
eminence. As one reluctantly leaves the church and passes again
through Michelangelo's fortification gateway to descend, one has,
framed in its portal, a final lovely Apennine scene.

Historical Chart of Florence and Europe, 1296-1564

Artists' Dates.

1300 (c.) Taddeo Gaddi born (d. 1366)
1302 (c.) Cimabue died (b. c. 1240)
1308 (c.) Andrea Orcagna born (d. 1368)
1310 Arnolfo di Cambio died (b. 1232 ?)
1333 Spinello Aretino born (d. 1410)
1336 Giotto died (b. 1276 ?)
1344 Simone Martini died (b. 1283)
1348 Andrea Pisano died (b. 1270)
1356 Lippo Memmi died
1366 Taddeo Gaddi died (b. c. 1300)
1368 Andrea Orcagna died
1370 (c.) Lorenzo Monaco born (d. 1425)
Gentile da Fabriano born
(d. 1450)
1371 Jacopo della Quercia born (d. 1438)
1377 Filippo Brunelleschi born (d. 1446)
1378