PIAZZA DELLA SIGNORIA, FLORENCE
Sometimes I think if I could have but one of these gems of architecture, I'd choose the Duomo, with its graceful façade and its campanile; but when I cross the street to the Baptistery of San Giovanni, and gaze at its bronze doors, I change my mind, and give it first place.
Now it is Santa Croce, with its wondrous wealth of marbles, where Ruskin—and I—spent many happy hours; but soon Santa Maria Novella has outshone them all, until the loveliness of the Medicean Chapel wins my heart anew.
Alas, so weak am I, that all the cathedrals sink into obscurity when the Uffizi Palazzo, with its Tribune, is seen. It holds the one perfect woman—the Uffizi Venus. The Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens; the Bargello, with its unique staircase and court; the Riccardi—in truth, all the wealth of incomparable grandeur of artistic Florence have their places in my affections.
The wealth, beauty and royalty of Florence are seen on the fashionable driveway. The Cascine is to Florence what the Pincio is to Rome. There, in the late afternoon, society drives back and forth along the bank of the Arno, listening to the music of a military band.
It is of little consequence how the artist gives expression to his dream—whether by pencil, pen, brush, chisel or voice, in marble, painting, song or story—Florence is the home of them all.
And Fiesole, ah, Fiesole by moonlight! I have walked up the Fiesolian Hill, and taken the little electric tram, but last night I took you with me in a carriage. The others did not know you were there, so you and I "cuddled down" on the back seat. You held my hand and said never a word, but by that same blessed silence I knew you were drinking in the beauty of it all.
