An enthusiastic custodian gave me a list of the stones which were used in the designs of the coats of arms of Tuscan cities, of which that of Fiesole is the most attractive:Sicily jasper, French jasper, Tuscany jasper, petrified wood, white and yellow, Corsican granite, Corsican jasper, Oriental alabaster, French marble, lapis lazuli, verde antico, African marble, Siena marble, Carrara marble, rose agate, mother of pearl, and coral.

His best work is a fresco at the Badia of Fiesole.

For Fiesole at nearer view can easily disappoint.

For here is a gentle little church with swift, silent monks in it, and a few flowers in bowls, and a religious picture by that strange Piero di Cosimo whose heart was with the gods in exile; and the view of Monte Ceceri, on the other side of Fiesole, seen through the cypresses here, which could not be better in disposition had Benozzo Gozzoli himself arranged them, is very striking and memorable.

The Badia (Abbey) di Fiesole, as it now is, was built on the site of an older monastery, by Cosimo Pater.

The sculptor Mino da Fiesole, whom we shall shortly see again, at the Bargello, in portrait busts and Madonna reliefs, is at his best here, in the superb monument to Count Ugo, who founded, with his mother, the Benedictine Abbey of which the Badia is the relic.

The façade of the Badia of Fiesole and the church of S. Miniato can also remember Dante; no others.

Since we have Mino da Fiesole in our minds and are on the subject of old palaces let us walk from the Dante quarter in a straight line from the Corso, that very busy street of small shops, across the Via del Proconsolo and down the Borgo degli Albizzi to S. Ambrogio, where Mino was buried.

This church is interesting not only for doing its work in a poor quarterone has the feeling at once that it is a right church in the right placebut as containing, as I have said, the grave of Mino da Fiesole: Mino de' Poppi detto da Fiesole, as the floor tablet has it.

This church is interesting not only for doing its work in a poor quarterone has the feeling at once that it is a right church in the right placebut as containing, as I have said, the grave of Mino da Fiesole: Mino de' Poppi detto da Fiesole, as the floor tablet has it.

Another set of letters, composed in the same tone by a man who signs himself Silvio di Giovanni da Cepparello, was written by a sculptor honourably mentioned in Vasari's Life of Andrea da Fiesole for his work at S. Lorenzo, in Genoa, and elsewhere.

The sky was clear and blue, as it always is in this Italian paradise, when we left Florence a few days ago for Fiesole.

We passed through the public walk at this end of the city, and followed the road to Fiesole along the dried-up bed of a mountain torrent.

At the base of the mountain of Fiesole we passed one of the summer palaces of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and a little distance beyond, took a foot-path overshadowed by magnificent cypresses, between whose dark trunks we looked down on the lovely Val d'Arno.

The modern village of Fiesole occupies the site of an ancient city, generally supposed to be of Etrurian origin.

Galileo was wont to make observations "at evening from the top of Fiesole," and the square tower of the old church is still pointed out as the spot.

We sat all the afternoon under the cypress trees and looked down on the lovely valley, practising Italian sometimes with two young Florentines who came up to enjoy the "bell'aria" of Fiesole.

Fiesole, with its tower and Acropolis, stood out brightly from the blue background, and the hill of San Miniato lay with its cypress groves in the softest morning light.

We passed Fiesole with its tower and acropolis on the right, ascending slowly, with the bold peak of one of the loftiest Appenines on our left.

Before and below you is a vale, with Florence and her great domes and towers in its lap, and across its breadth of five miles the mountain of Fiesole.

Whoever looks on the valley of the Arno from San Miniato, and observes the Appenine range, of which Fiesole is one, bounding it on the north, will immediately notice to the northwest a double peak rising high above all the others.

Notice in particular the tablet representing the Trinity, by Mino da Fiesole, on the W. wall of S. aisle, the Madonna and Child on same wall, and the "Nativity" beneath the tower.

" At Florence Dickens made a pilgrimage to Landor's villa, the owner being then absent in England, and gathered a leaf of ivy from Fiesole to carry back to the veteran poet, as narrated by Mr. Forster.

Dickens is as accurate as a topographer in his description of the villa, as looked down on from Fiesole.

Her most intimate friend at Florence was a Miss Isabella Blagden, who lived for many years at Bellosguardo, in a villa commanding a lovely view over Florence and the valley of the Arno from the southern side, looking across it therefore to Fiesole and its villa-and-cypress-covered slopes.