104 MEDICI CHAPEL. 



are only eighteen or twenty workmen. The stones are all 

 cut with a wire and emery powder, and are cemented in the 

 spaces allotted to them with a composition of wax, turpen- 

 tine, &c.; but so tedious is the work, that one of the men 

 showed me a little piece of inlaying, not two inches square, 

 which had taken four months to accomplish. The artists are 

 principally employed in works for the Medici Chapel, which 

 was begun by Ferdinand I, in 1604, and which the present 

 Grand Duke is anxious to complete. 



ESTHER. 

 I suppose it is very magnificent. 



Yes; it is lined with all the richest varieties of jaspers, 

 marbles, &c. Its form is octagon: six sides are ornamented 

 with magnificent sarcophagi of Egyptian granite,* and round 

 it are the armorial bearings of sixteen Tuscan cities, f most 

 exquisitely executed in lapis lazuli, mother-o'-pearl, oriental 

 alabaster, and all the most precious stones the name of 

 each city being inscribed in lapis lazuli upon tablets of giallo 

 antico. The grandeur of this chapel forms a singular con- 

 trast to the simplicity of the tomb of the great founder of the 

 family. He is buried in the church of St. Lorenzo: a pave- 

 ment of porphyry, serpentine, and other marbles covers the 

 tomb, upon which is inscribed, " Here lies Cosmo de' Medici, 

 surnamed by a public decree, the Father of his Country. He 

 lived 75 years 3 months and 20 days." Such a modest 

 epitaph on the tomb of so great a man, speaks more forcibly 

 to the feelings than the luxury and ornamant bestowed upon, 

 those of his less glorious posterity. 



* The bodies lie in a repository beneath, but the sarcophagi are 

 inscribed to the memory of the six first reigning dukes of the 

 Medici family, Cosmo I, died 1574 Francis, 1587 Ferdi- 

 nand I, 1609 Cosmo II, 1620 Ferdinand II, 1670, and Cosmo 

 III, 1723. 



f Sienna, Fiesole, Firenze, Pisa, Pistoja, Arezzo, Volterra, Cor- 

 tona, San Sepolero, Montepulciano, Pienza, Cbiusi, Soana, Mon- 

 talcino, Massa, Grosseto; and the arms of the Medici. 



