"There she lies, my Florence," said the monk, stretching his hands out
with enthusiasm. "Is she not indeed a sheltered lily growing fair among
the hollows of the mountains? Little she may be, Sir, compared to old
Rome; but every inch of her is a gem,--every inch!"

And, in truth, the scene was worthy of the artist's enthusiasm. All
the overhanging hills that encircle the city with their silvery
olive-gardens and their pearl-white villas were now lighted up with
evening glory. The old gray walls of the convents of San Miniato and the
Monte Oliveto were touched with yellow; and even the black obelisks of
the cypresses in their cemeteries had here and there streaks and dots
of gold, fluttering like bright birds among their gloomy branches. The
distant snow-peaks of the Apennines, which even in spring long wear
their icy mantles, were shimmering and changing like an opal ring
with tints of violet, green, blue, and rose, blended in inexpressible
softness by that dreamy haze which forms the peculiar feature of Italian
skies.

In this loving embrace of mountains lay the city, divided by the Arno as
by a line of rosy crystal barred by the graceful arches of its bridges.
Amid the crowd of palaces and spires and towers rose central and
conspicuous the great Duomo, just crowned with that magnificent dome
which was then considered a novelty and a marvel in architecture, and
which Michel Angelo looked longingly back upon when he was going to Rome
to build that more wondrous orb of Saint Peter's. White and stately by
its side shot up the airy shaft of the Campanile; and the violet vapor
swathing the whole city in a tender indistinctness, these two striking
objects, rising by their magnitude far above it, seemed to stand alone
in a sort of airy grandeur.