458 SUNDRY JOURNEYS AND EXPERIENCES-V 



taking refuge in carriages and cabs, and staying in them 

 through the night. 



Next morning I walked forth to find what had hap 

 pened, first to the cathedral, to see if anything was 

 left of Giotto s tower and Brunelleschi s dome, and, to my 

 great joy, found them standing; but, as I entered the vast 

 building, I saw one of the enormous iron bars which take 

 the thrust of the wide arches of the nave pulled apart 

 and broken as if it had been pack-thread; there were 

 also a few cracks in one of the piers supporting the dome, 

 but all else was as before. 



At the Palazzo Strozzi a crowd of people were examin 

 ing sundry crevices which had been made in its mighty 

 walls: and at various villas in the neighborhood, espe 

 cially those on the road to San Miniato, I found that the 

 damage had been much worse. A part of the tower of 

 one villa, occupied by an English lady of literary distinc 

 tion, had been thrown down, crashing directly through 

 one of the upper rooms, but causing no loss of life; the 

 villa of Judge Stallo, at the Porta Komana, was so 

 wrecked that he was obliged to leave it ; and in the house 

 of another friend a heavy German stove on the upper 

 floor, having been thrown over, had come down through 

 the ceiling of the main parlor, crashing through the grand 

 piano, and thence into the cellar, without injury to any 

 person. One of the professors whom I afterward met 

 told me that he was giving a dinner-party when, suddenly, 

 the house was lifted and shaken to and fro, the chandeliers 

 swinging, broken glass crashing, and the ladies scream 

 ing, and, in a moment, a portion of the outer wall gave 

 way, but fortunately fell outward, so that the guests 

 scrambled forth over the ruins, and passed the night in 

 the garden. Perhaps the worst damage was wrought at 

 the Convent of the Certosa, where some of the beautiful 

 old work was irreparably injured. 



It was very difficult next morning to get any real in 

 formation from the newspapers. They claimed that but 

 three persons lost their lives in the city: it was clearly 



