52 BROWN : 



"frowning." Most consummate skill and daring on the 

 part of him that did the work. His name is written in the 

 brass and stone and parchment, but not in my faithless 

 memory. The tower of the Palazzo Vecchio is a mere child 

 in point of age when compared with the Campanile, but had 

 that fallen the other day instead of this, the world would have 

 lost a far more striking and important monument of the 

 builders' art than it has done. 



Take now the Bargello, as it is called, the Palazzo del 

 Podesta. Built the usual number of years ago — say 500 or 

 600. A century or so, more or less, does not matter to such 

 masonry. The council room which it contains is to my mind 

 the grandest room I ever saw. From top to bottom, from end 

 to end, and from side to side solid stone, with almost every 

 adornment that can be made out of solid, cut stone — and no 

 other. Not by any means overlarge. About such a room as 

 the great waiting hall at the Reading Terminal would be if the 

 floor were sunk to the ground level. Why one enormous iron 

 ring, at least six feet in diameter, should be suspended from 

 the soffit of the arch passes ordinary comprehension, but here 

 are two such, and still the wonder grows. The Austrians 

 occupied Florence for a while, and they turned this noble 

 building into a political prison, putting floor after floor into 

 the great Council Chamber and into the other stately galleries 

 and apartments of the place. Amongst other things they 

 whitewashed and walled in an inestimable portrait of Dante 

 which was and is, one might almost say, world renowned. 

 When they were turned out, the next thing was to turn their 

 work out. With caution and good heed the task was entered 

 on. "Ah, Signora," said the direct(«- of the work to Mrs. 

 Anastasia Trollope, who wrote a loving description of the 

 purifying process, "Ah, Signora, here is an amazing mass of 

 robaccia (rubbish) to be pulled out; and if any one but old 

 Arnolfo had built these walls we should have tlieni about our 

 ears; but we shall be all right — fear not." 



Now as this portrait of Dante was known to every artist 



