[Sidenote: Santa Maria de la Croce.]

This done, wee went to a Monasterie of Friers called Sancta Maria de la Croce, these are westerne Christians, for the Greekes haue nothing to doe with them, nor they with the Greekes, for they differ very much in religion.

[Sidenote: Monte de la Croce.]

The 9. after midnight my company rid to the hill called Monte de la Croce (but I not disposed would not go) which hill is from Arnacho 15.

In S. Maria Novella is that crucifix in wood which he carved for his friend Donatello, but his only other sculptured work in Florence is the door of his beautiful Pazzi chapel in the cloisters of S. Croce.

CHAPTER XV S. Croce An historic piazzaMarble façadesFlorence's Westminster AbbeyGalileo's ancestor and RuskinBenedetto's pulpitMichelangelo's tombA fond ladyDonatello's AnnunciationGiotto's frescoesS. FrancisDonatello

The piazza S. Croce now belongs to children.

The long brown building on the right, as we face S. Croce, is a seventeenth-century palazzo.

The new façade of S. Croce, endowed not long since by an Englishman, has been much abused, but it is not so bad.

S. Croce is the Westminster Abbey of Florence.

The original architect of the modern S. Croce was the same Arnolfo di Cambio, or Lapo, who began the Duomo.

Arnolfo began S. Croce in 1294, the year that the building of the Duomo was decided upon, as a reply to the new Dominican Church of S. Maria Novella, and to his German origin is probably due the Northern impression which the interiors both of S. Croce and the Duomo convey.

Arnolfo began S. Croce in 1294, the year that the building of the Duomo was decided upon, as a reply to the new Dominican Church of S. Maria Novella, and to his German origin is probably due the Northern impression which the interiors both of S. Croce and the Duomo convey.

The first thing to examine in S. Croce is the floor-tomb, close to the centre door, upon which Ruskin wrote one of his most characteristic passages.

" The passage is in "Mornings in Florence," which begins with S. Croce and should be read by every one visiting the city.

Signor Branconi knows S. Croce and he loves it, and he has the further qualifications of knowing all Florence too and speaking excellent English, which he taught himself.

The S. Croce pulpit, which is by Benedetto da Maiano, is a satisfying thing, accomplished both in proportions and workmanship, with panels illustrating scenes in the life of S. Francis.

Vasari ought to be better informed upon this point than usual, since it was he who was employed in the sixteenth century to renovate S. Croce, at which time the chapel for whose altar the relief was madethat of the Cavalcanti familywas removed.

Giotto's thoughtfulness could not be better illustrated than in S. Croce.

Italian priests apparently have no resentment against inquisitive foreigners who are led into their dressing-rooms while sumptuous and significant vestments are being donned; but I must confess to feeling it for them, and if my impressions of the S. Croce sacristy are meagre and confused it is because of a certain delicacy that I experienced in intruding upon their rites.

The cloisters of S. Croce are entered from the piazza, just to the right of the church: the first, a little ornate, by Arnolfo, and the second, until recently used as a barracks but now being restored to a more pacific end, by Brunelleschi, and among the most perfect of his works.

A mob therefore rushed to S. Croce, broke open his tomb and dragged his body through the streets, stopping on their way at the Pazzi palace to knock on the door with his skull.

One finds occasion to say so many hard things of the Florentine disregard of ancient art that it is peculiarly a pleasure to see the progress that is being made in restoring Brunelleschi's perfect cloisters at S. Croce to their original form.

But with Michelangelo it is different, he is so distributed over the cityhis gigantic David here, the Medici tombs at S. Lorenzo, his fortifications at S. Miniato, his tomb at S. Croce, while there remains his house as a natural focus of all his activities.

Disease at last found him out; he died of dropsy at Turnham Green, near Hammersmith, in 1827, when only in the fiftieth year of his age, and was buried in Chiswick churchyard; but in June 1871 his body was exhumed and conveyed to Florence, where he was buried in Santa Croce, between the tomb of Alfieri and the monument of Dante.