"Let us go to the Medici Chapel. I am tired of galleries. I shall need a week to digest what I saw yesterday at the Uffizi."
"What suits you will suit me," said Ellen, and soon the girls were driving toward San Lorenzo.
"These booths remind me of the Rag Fair at Rome," said Irma, glancing at the display of trinkets and small household articles on canvas-shaded tables, in an open space near the church. "Only these things are much cheaper. But what a crowd. Italians seem to like open-air shopping."
Within the lofty church the girls saw much to admire, especially the sculptures by Thorwaldsen, Donatello, and Verocchio. But the tomb of Cosimo de Medici, "the father of his country," was a plain porphyry slab.
"The great monument must be somewhere else." And Irma followed Ellen to the old sacristy, where, though they saw other Medici tombs, they knew these were not what they sought. In the new sacristy were Michelangelo's famous statues of Lorenzo, with the figures of Dawn and Twilight at the base, and of Guiliano, with Day and Night. But beautiful as these were, they knew they must search further.
At last some one directed them to a door outside, at the other end of the church, and then with tickets they entered the mausoleum.
"Ah," said Irma, "it is really all I expected. Some one told me it was not in good taste, and it is not really completed. But a building like this is more impressive than if decorated with paintings. The pavement is beautiful, and the walls of exquisite marbles seem built to last forever."
"There are not many statues," said Ellen.