
25 
their mothers and their friends were pure and pious, and that 
the race that gave them to the world was not depraved. In 
what other nation of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries can 
we show the same gifts of moral sweetness and intellectual 
light diffused throughout all classes from the highest to the 
lowest ?” 
A long series of views of Florence were then thrown on the 
screen, beginning with a general view of the famous city itself, 
about which they could learn much by reading George Eliot’s 
“ Romola.”’ The sectional detailed views included the Ponte 
Vecchio, by Taddo Gaddi (1360), over the Arno, with its long por- 
trait galleries connecting the Uffizi Palace with the Pitti Palace, 
built by Vasari. The earliest building in Florence, or the earliest 
they had any record of, was the Baptistry, San Giovanni, of 
doubtful'date. Restorations were made in 1293, when Arnolfo di 
Cambio introduced some black and white Prato marble ad- 
ditions. No place in Florence had more tender associations. 
Dante was baptised there in May, 1265; he was exiled from 
Florence in 1302, and died at Ravenna in 1321. The three bronze 
doors were a most remarkable feature. The first by Andrea 
Pisano was of 1332; Lorenzo Ghiberti constructed the second 
gate from 1403-1424; and the third from 1425-1450. These 
gates of Lorenzo Ghiberti were, said Michael Angelo, “fit to be 
the gates of heaven.” They occupied 21 and 25 years 
respectively to construct, and while they were being worked the 
workmen were licensed to go about Florence at any time of the 
night. They were privileged persons, having to attend to the 
furnaces. The Baptistry owes much of its renown to these 
beautiful figured gates of Lorenzo Ghiberti. The Cathedral 
and the Churches of the Dominicans represented the eccle- 
siastical life of the early architecture of Florence, and they were 
splendid examples of Italian Gothic, built of beautiful white 
marble, with panels of variegated marble, and enriched with 
sculpture, delicate carving, and pointed arches. The Palazzo 
Podesta and the Palazzo Vecchio represented the political life 
of the early architecture, and the characteristics of those were 
stone structures of simple square outline, plain, strong details, 
and bold over-hanging corbelled cornices, surmounted by lofty 
bell towers—the whole having a castellated appearance. The 
beginning of the fifteenth century witnessed the dawn of the 
Renascence, and art study was directed to the examples of the 
antique. A large variety of work was displayed at the 
Cathedral (1294) built by Arnolfo di Cambio, Giotto and Fran- 
cesco Talenti. The dome, octagonal in shape, by Bruneileschi, 
was 1384 ft. in diameter, 133 ft. from cornice to eye, and 376 
ft. from floor to top of cross. The Cupola was completed in 
