One of the oldest streets in Florence must be the Via Girolami, from the Ponte Vecchio to the Uffizi, under an arch.

The various yellows of Florencethe prevailing coloursare spread out nowhere so favourably as on the Pitti side of the river between the Trinità and the Ponte Vecchio on the backs of the houses of the Borgo San Jacopo, and just so must this row have looked for four hundred years.

The doors, as I say, were finished in 1424, after twenty-one years' labour, and the Signoria left the Palazzo Vecchio in procession to see their installation.

The most picturesque and melancholy sight was along the river front, where to head off the enemy's approach the French had been obliged to blow up those ancient bridges, landmarks of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, for, like the Ponte Vecchio at Florence, they were lined with houses and mills, whose pointed roofs and apparent beams had weathered nearly five hundred years!

During the year 1503 Piero Soderini determined to adorn the hall of the Great Council in the Palazzo Vecchio with huge mural frescoes, which should represent scenes in Florentine history.

These are the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena and the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence.

On leaving Porto-Vecchio from the northwest and directing his steps towards the interior of the island, the traveller will notice that the land rises rapidly, and after three hours' walking over tortuous paths obstructed by great masses of rock and sometimes cut by ravines, he will find himself on the border of a great mâquis.