The Beautiful Sonnet To Her, Which Accompanies
The Dedication Of His Tragedy Of Mirra, Well Deserves The Monument; There
Is So Much Feeling In It That I Cannot Retrain From Transcribing It:
Vergognando talor, che ancor si taccia,
Donna, per me l'almo tuo nome in fronte
Di queste omai gla troppe a te ben conte
Tragedie, ond'io di folle avrommi taccia;
Or vo' qual d'esse meno a te dispiaccia
Di te fregiar; benche di tutte il fonte
Tu sola fosti, e'l viver mio non conte
Se non dal Di, ch'al viver tuo si allaccia.
Della figlia di Ciniro infelice
L'orrendo a un tempo ed innocente amore
Sempre da' tuoi begli occhi il planto elice;
Prova emmi questo, ch'al mio dubbio core
Tacitamente imperiosa dice,
Ch'io di Mirra consacri a te il dolore.
In this sanctuary (church of the Santa Croce) are likewise the tombs and
monuments of other great men which Italy has produced. There is the
monument erected to Galileo which represents the earth turning round the
sun with the emphatic words: Eppur si muove. Here too repose the ashes of
Machiavelli and Michel Angelo. This church is in fact the Westminster Abbey
of Florence.
To go from the Piazza del gran Duca to the Piazza del Duomo, where
stands the Cathedral, you have only to pass thro' a long narrow street or
rather alley (for it is impervious to carriages) with shops on each side
and always filled with people going to or returning from the Duomo. This
Cathedral is of immense size. The architecture is singular from its being a
mixture of the Gothic and Greek. It appears the most ponderous load that
ever was laid on the shoulders of poor mother earth. There is nothing light
in its structure to relieve the massiveness of the building, and in this
respect it forms a striking contrast to the Cathedral of Milan which
appears the work of Sylphs. The outside of this Duomo of Florence is
decorated and incrusted with black and white marble, which increases the
massiveness of its appearance. The steeple or Campanile stands by itself,
altogether separate from the Cathedral, and this is the case with most of
the Churches in Italy that are not of pure Gothic architecture. This
Campanile is curiously inlaid and incrusted on its outside with red,
white and black marble. The Baptistery is another building on the same
Piazza. It is in the same stile of building as the Duomo, but incloses
much less space, and was formerly a separate church, called the church of
St John the Baptist. The immense bronze doors or rather gates, both of the
Duomo and Battisterio, attracted my peculiar notice. On them are figured
bas-reliefs of exquisite and admirable workmanship, representing Scripture
histories. It was the symmetry and perfection of these gates that induced
Michel Angelo to call them in a fit of enthusiasm The Gates of Paradise.
At the door of the Battisterio are the columns in red granite, which once
adorned the gates of the city at Pisa, and were carried off by the
Florentines in one of their wars.
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