Romola

dusty pathway to notice the fresh shoots among the darker green of the oak and fir in the coppice, and to

ar morning the brightness of the eastern sun on the Arno had something special in it; the ringing of the

th contumely; for while they consecrated their beautiful and noble temple to the honour of God and of the 'Beato Messere Santo Giovanni,' they placed old Mars respectfully on a high tower near the River Arno, finding in certain ancient memorials that he had been elected as their tutelar deity under such astral influences that if he were broken, or otherwise treated with indignity, the city would suffer grea

elf, and especially over hated Pisa, whose marble buildings were too high and beautiful, whose masts were too much honoured on Greek and Italian coasts. The name of Florence had been growing prouder and prouder in all the courts of Europe, nay, in Africa itself, on the strength of purest gold coinage, finest dyes and textures, pre-eminent scholarship and poetic genius, and wits of the most servi

m the high domes and tribunes of the churches. The clouds were made of good woven stuff, the saints and cherubs were unglorified mortals supported by firm bars, and those mysterious giants were really men of very steady brain, balancing themselves on stilts, and enlarged, like Greek tragedians, by huge masks and stuffed shoulders; but he was a miserably unimaginative Florentine who thought only of that - nay, somewhat impious, for in the images of sacred things was there not some of the virtue of sacred things themselves? And if, after that, there came a company of merry black demons well armed with claws and thongs, and other implements of sport, ready to perform impromptu farces of bastinadoing and clothes-tearing, why, that was the demons' way of keeping a vigil, and they, too, might have descended from the domes and the tribunes. The Tuscan mind slipped from the devout to the burlesque, as readily as water round an angle; and the saints had already had their turn, had gone their way, and made their due pause before the gates of San Giovanni, to do him honour on the eve of his festa. And on the morrow, the great day t

g of that century, there were weddings and the grandest gatherings, with so much piping, music and song,

predominant over the murmured desire for government on a broader basis, in which corruption might be arrested, and there might be that free play for everybody's jealousy and ambition, which made the ideal liberty of the good old quarrelsome, struggling times, when Florence raised her great buildings, reared her own soldiers, drove out would-be tyrants a

he bells swung so vigorously that every evil spirit with sense enough to be formidable, must long since have taken his flight; windows and terraced roofs were alive with human faces; sombre stone houses were bright with hanging draperies; the boldly soaring palace tower, the yet older square tower of the Bargello, and the spire of the neighbouring Badia, seemed to keep watch above; and below, on the broad polygonal flags of the piazza, was the glorious show of banners, and horses with rich trap

athedral and the walls of the houses on the other sides of the quadrangle, was covered, at the height of forty feet or more, with blue drapery, adorned with well-stitched yellow lilies and the familiar coats of arms, while sheaves of many

o other change from the two months and more that had passed since his first appearance in the weather-stained tunic and hose, than that added radiance of good fortune, which is like the just perceptible perfecting of a flower after it has drunk a morning's sunbeams. Close behind him, ensconced in the narrow angle between his chair and the window-frame, stood the slim figure of Nello in holiday suit, and at his left the younger Cennini - Pietro, the erudite corrector of proof-sheets, not Domenico the practical. Tito was looking alternately down on the scene below, and upward at the varied knot of gazers and talkers immediately around

rned towards him, and fixing on him a gaze that seemed to have more meaning in it than the ordinary passing observation of a stranger. It was a face with tonsured head, that rose above the black mantle and white tunic of a Dominican friar - a very common sight in Flore

ointment, 'Ah, he has turned round. It was that tall, thin friar who is

llo, carelessly; you don't expect me to

g about his face,' said ' Ti

Fra Girolamo? Too tall; and he neve

now,' said Francesco Cei, the popular poet: 'he has taken Piero de' Me

nage seated at the other corner of the window; 'he only prophesies against vice. I

ly. 'No, I was not under that mistake, Nello. Your Fra Girolamo has a high nose

h white trappings - that with the red eagle holding the green dragon between his talons. and the red lily over the eagle - is the Gonfalon of the Guelf party, and those cavaliers close round it are the ch

w, 'which means triumph of the fat popolani over the lean, which aga

ndle. Trust me, your cornices will lose half their beauty if you begin to mingle bitterness with them; that is the maniera Tedesca which yo

rned by this time the best way to please Florentines; 'but a

lon. For my part, I think our Florentine cavaliers sit their horses as well as any of those cut-and-thrust northerners, whose wits lie in their heels and saddles; and for yon Venetian, I fancy he would feel himself more at ease on the back of a dolphin.

The Florentine men are so-so; they make but a sorry show at this distance with their patch of sallow flesh-tint above the black garments; but those banners with their velvet, and sa

Nello. 'But there is little likelihood of it, seeing the blessed angels themselves are such

our San Giovanni with a good grace. "Pisans false, Florentines blind" - the second half of that proverb will hold no longer. There come the ensigns o

ian looms as Minerva with her peplos, especially as he contents himself with so little drapery. But my eyes are

ity carried on wheels, were not solid but hollow, and had their surface made not solely of wax, but of wood and pasteboard, gilded, carved, and painted, as real sacred tapers often are, with successive circles of figures - warriors on horseback, foot-soldiers with lance and shield, dancing maidens, animals, trees and fruits, and in fine, says the old

se whirling circles one above the other are worse than the jangl

rches,' said Nello; 'you would not miss the country-folk of the Mugello and the C

r of the Zecca comcs. I have seen clowns enough holding taper

t Nello, after an interval during which towers and tapers in

beggar-man, I'll warrant. Our Signoria plays the host to all the Jewish and Christian scum tha

to turn all corners easily. Round the base were living figures of saints and angels arrayed in sculpturesque fashion; and on the summit, at the height of thirty feet well bound to an iron rod and holding an iron cross also firmly infixed, stood a living representative of St John the Baptist, with arms and legs bare, a garment of tiger-skins about his body, and a golden nimbus fastened on his head - as the Precursor was wont to appear in the cloisters and churches, not having yet revealed himself to painters as the brown and sturdy boy who made one of the Holy Family. For where could the image of the patron saint be more fitly placed than on the symbol of the Zecca? Was not the royal prerogative of coining money the surest token that a city had won its independence? and by the blessing of San Giovanni this 'beautiful sheepfold' of his had shown that token earliest among the It

what was too familiar to be remarkable to fellow-citizens. 'Behind come the members of the Corporation of Calimara, the dealers in foreign cloth, to which

e nose which manifest their descent from the ancient Harpies, whose portraits you saw supporting the arms of the Zecca. Shaking off old prejudices now, such a procession as that of some

cause they stand on their heads to look at them, like tumblers and mountebanks, instead of keeping the attitude of rational men. Doubtless it m

g, 'else what becomes of the ancients, whose example you scholars are bound to revere, M

t which the vulgar would be conscious of nothing beyond their own petty wants of back and stomach, and never rise to the sense of community in religion and law. There has been no great peop

is indignant burst of Cennini

m. Twenty years ago we used to see our foreign Podesta, who was our judge in civil causes, walking on his right hand; but our Republic has been over-doctored by clever Medici. Th

o; 'his visage is a fine and venerable one, though

old, which, I fancy, is chiefly that virgin gold that falls about the fair R

lso the adroit and ready speech that prevents a blush

a stream with golden ripple

into the breadth of the piazza in a grand storm of sound - a roar, a blast, and a whistling, well befitting a cit

ject of this greeting - the sweet round blue-eyed face under a white hood - immediately lost in the narrow border of heads, where there was a continual eclipse of round conta

eir owners embroidered on their cloths, had followed up the Signoria, and been duly consecrated to San Giovanni, and every one was moving from the window - Nell

hat you were making sign

mistook me for an acquaintance, for

ave gone in search of adventures together in the crowd, and had some pleasant fooling in honour of San Giovanni. But your high fortune has come on you too soon: I don't mean the pr

no in qua ch'

atto e gentil

g his shoulders, with a look of patient resignation, which was his nearest approach to anger: 'not to mention that such ill-f

his lips, with a responding shrug. 'But it is only

in the hearing of others. If you want to rui

outh: for want of letting my folly run out that way when I was eighteen, it runs out at my tongue's end now I am at the unseemly age