believe in it as a vehicle at all. It is some thirty feet high, all
black, with trumpery coloured-paper festoons (concealing fireworks)
upon it: trumpery as only the Roman Catholic Church can contrive. It
stood in front of the Duomo some four yards from the Baptistery gates
in a line with the Duomo's central doors and the high altar. The
doors were open, seats being placed on each side of the aisle the
whole distance, and people making a solid avenue. Down this avenue
were to come the clergy, and above it was to be stretched the line
on which the dove was to travel from the altar, with the Pazzi fire,
to ignite the car.

The space in front of the cathedral was cleared at about eleven,
and cocked hats and red-striped trousers then became the most
noticeable feature. The crowd was jolly and perhaps a little cynical;
picture-postcard hawkers made most of the noise, and for some reason
or other a forlorn peasant took this opportunity to offer for sale two
equally forlorn hedgehogs. Each moment the concourse increased, for it
is a fateful day and every one wants to know the issue: because, you
see, if the dove runs true, lights the car, and returns, as a good dove
should, to the altar ark, there will be a prosperous vintage and the
pyrotechnist who controls the sacred bird's movements will receive his
wages. But if the dove runs defectively and there is any hitch, every
one is dismayed, for the harvest will be bad and the pyrotechnist will
receive nothing. Once he was imprisoned when things went astray--and
quite right too--but the Florentines have grown more lenient.

At about a quarter past eleven a procession of clergy emerged from the
Duomo and crossed the space to the Baptistery. First, boys and youths
in surplices. Then some scarlet hoods, waddling. Then purple hoods,
and other colours, a little paunchier, waddling more, and lastly the