CHAPTER XXXIX. FLORENCE, NOVEMBER 17.-Yesterday after we went first to the Medicean Chapel connected with the Church of San Lorenzo. This is a magnificent octagonal room, very high in the walls, and lighted from an arched roof, which is adorned with fine fresco paintings in style not unlike the frescoes in the rotunda of our Capitol, and the walls are lined with marble and inlaid stones of various kinds, polished so brightly that they reflect the pictures from above almost as perfectly as the best mirror could do. In point of magnificence and beauty it is far ahead of either the Marble Room in the rear of our Senate Chamber or the Bank Room of the Treasury. We next went into the Sagrestia Nuova, also connected with this Church, a small building planned by Michael Angelo for its monuments, which were executed by him, and which are regarded as masterpieces of art. These are the monuments of Giuliano and Lorenzo de Medici and the "Madonna and Child.' There are also statues here of "San Damiano" and "San Cosimo"-one on the right and the other on the left of "The Virgin." There are allegorical figures on Giuliano's monument, or as composing a part of it, representing Day and Night, and on Lorenzo's representing Aurora and Twilight, or Night and Morning. They are in the human form in reclining positions, and are the originals of those forming a part of the new monument to the great artist on San Miniato. In allusion to these statues Rogers wrote: "There, from age to age, Two ghosts are sitting on their sepulchres; That is the Duke Lorenzo, mark him well! What from beneath his helm - like bonnet scowls? Is it a face or but an eyeless skull ? 'Tis lost in shade; yet, like the basilisk, It fascinates and is intolerable. His mien is noble, most majestical! Then most so, when the distant choir is heard Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici were brothers, and from the latter part of the fourteenth till the early part of the eighteenth century the Medici family held the scepter of power almost continuously in Florence. The elder of these brothers was called "Lorenzo the Magnificent," and was regarded as among the ablest and best sovereigns of his time. Leo X., whose pontificate "is celebrated as one of the most prosperous in the annals of the Romish Church," was his son. During the reign of Lorenzo, in 1478, there was a conspiracy, instigated by Sixtus IV., to assassinate Lorenzo and Giuliano and get possession of the government. The place selected for this atrocious deed was during service at the great Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, otherwise called the Duomo, in Florence, and it was intrusted to the archbishop and several priests. Giuliano not making his appearance at church as soon as expected, two of the conspirators, Francesco de Pazzi and Bandini, went to his house "to insure and hasten his attendance." He accompanied them; "and as he walked between them they threw their arms around him with the familiarity of intimate friends, but, in fact, to discover whether he had any armor under his dress, possibly conjecturing from his long delay that he had suspected their purpose." The signal of attack was to be the ringing of the bell, when the priest should raise the consecrated wafer"the people bowed before it, and at the same instant Bandini plunged a short dagger into the breast of Giuliano. On receiving the wound he took a few hasty steps and fell, when Francesco de Pazzi rushed upon him with incredible fury and stabbed him in different parts of the body, continuing to repeat his strokes even after he was apparently dead. Such was the violence of his rage that he wounded himself deeply in his thigh. The priests who had undertaken the murder of Lorenzo were not equally successful. An ill-directed blow from Maffei, which was aimed at the throat, but took place behind the neck, rather roused him to his defence than disabled him. He immediately threw off his cloak, and holding it up as a shield in his left hand, with his right he drew his sword and repelled his assailants. * * Bandini, his dagger streaming with the blood of Giuliano, rushed toward Lorenzo; but meeting in his way Francesco Novi, a person in the service of the Medici, and in whom they placed great confidence, he stabbed him with a wound instantaneously mortal. At the approach of Bandini the friends of Lorenzo encircled him and hurried him into the sacristy, where Politiano and others closed the doors, which were of brass." While this bloody scene was being enacted in the Cathedral, "the archbishop and about thirty of his associates attempted to overpower the magistrates and to possess themselves of the seat of government" at the Palace; but being foiled at every point, the conspirators now sought to save themselves by flight. In this they were equally unsuccessful. The archbishop and nearly every other prominent actor with him were seized and hung through the Palace windows. Thus the conspiracy was an entire failure; but the people deeply mourned the death of Giuliano. To return to the Church of San Lorenzo, where there are many other things of interest, among them two oblong pulpits, which are entered only by a ladder or moveable steps. On these pulpits are bronze bas-reliefs representing the "Passion and Resurrection of the Saviour"-"The Descent from the Cross" and "The Entombment" being regarded as the finest. On our way home we stopped a few moments at the Baptistery, near the great Cathedral, and examined closely the celebrated bronze doors, of which there are plaster castings in the Corcoran Art Gallery. These are on the side facing the Duomo. On two other sides of the Baptistery there are also bronze doors, we believe, of the same size, but less elaborately constructed. In the interior are some pictures, statuary, etc. One extensive piece of statuary, in rear of the altar, representing some Bible scene, and the mosaic work in the dome, are surpassingly fine. Here priests and their attendants are every day engaged in christening and registering the names of newly-born infants; and the proceedings appeared to us more like an ordinary business transaction than a solemn religious ceremony. On entering the Duomo, which is a most imposing structure, looming high up above all the surrounding buildings, except the Campanile, which is about the same height, we were surprised at the plainness of its finish internally, and at the absence of remarkable works of art. There are, however, many monuments, statues, and paintings here, of more or less merit. The dome is said to have served as a model to Michael Angelo for that of St. Peter's in Rome, which it exceeds in size. The Campanile, or belltower, erected in 1334-'6, is two hundred and ninetytwo feet in height, and is regarded as one of the finest existing works of the kind. It is sometimes called "Giotto's Tower," he being the architect who commenced its construction. It is square in form and four stories high, the lower story being decorated by statues and figures in bas-relief. It is stated that Giotto intended to surmount it by a spire of one hundred feet, but that Gaddi, who completed it after his death, abandoned this project. Longfellow, in a short poem, thus refers to it: "In the old Tuscan town stands Giotto's tower, The builder's perfect and centennial flower, On a beautiful afternoon a party of us rode to the site of the old Roman city of Fiesole, situated on a high hill some three miles northeast of Florence, where the remains of the city walls, built two thousand years ago, are still to be seen, as well as the vestiges of an amphitheater supposed to date back also to that period. The Cathedral which we entered there has been built over eight hundred years, and other buildings near by, occupied as a convent, are equally ancient. What was once a city is now only a scattered village. Hallam describes it as "a villa overhanging the towers of Florence, on the slope of that lofty hill crowned by the mother city, the ancient Fiesole, in gardens which Tully might have envied. With Fieino, Lan |