Forty years ago, there was assuredly no spot
of ground, out of Palestine, in all the round world, on which, if you
knew, even but a little, the true course of that world's history, you
saw with so much joyful reverence the dawn of morning, as at the foot
of the Tower of Giotto. For there the traditions of faith and hope, of
both the Gentile and Jewish races, met for their beautiful labour: the
Baptistery of Florence is the last building raised on the earth by the
descendants of the workmen taught by Dadalus: and the Tower of Giotto
is the loveliest of those raised on earth under the inspiration of the
men who lifted up the tabernacle in the wilderness. Of living Greek
work there is none after the Florentine Baptistery; of living Christian
work, none so perfect as the Tower of Giotto; and, under the gleam and
shadow of their marbles, the morning light was haunted by the ghosts of
the Father of Natural Science, Galileo; of Sacred Art, Angelico, and
the Master of Sacred Song. Which spot of ground the modern Florentine
has made his principal hackney-coach stand and omnibus station. The
hackney coaches, with their more or less farmyard-like litter of
occasional hay, and smell of variously mixed horse-manure, are yet in
more permissible harmony with the place than the ordinary populace of a
fashionable promenade would be, with its cigars, spitting, and harlot-
planned fineries: but the omnibus place of call being in front of the
door of the tower, renders it impossible to stand for a moment near it,
to look at the sculptures either of the eastern or southern side; while
the north side is enclosed with an iron railing, and usually encumbered
with lumber as well: not a soul in Florence ever caring now for sight
of any piece of its old artists' work; and the mass of strangers being
on the whole intent on nothing but getting the omnibus to go by steam;
and so seeing the cathedral in one swift circuit, by glimpses between
the puffs of it.
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