The front of the church, the foundation of which was laid six centuries
ago, is still waiting for its casing of marbles, and I suppose will wait
forever, though a carpenter's staging is now erected before it, as if
with the purpose of doing something.

The interior is spacious, the length of the church being between four and
five hundred feet. There is a nave, roofed with wooden cross-beams,
lighted by a clere-story and supported on each side by seven great
pointed arches, which rest upon octagonal pillars. The octagon seems to
be a favorite shape in Florence. These pillars were clad in yellow and
scarlet damask, in honor of the Feast of St. John. The aisles, on each
side of the nave, are lighted with high and somewhat narrow windows of
painted glass, the effect of which, however, is much diminished by the
flood of common daylight that comes in through the windows of the
clere-story. It is like admitting too much of the light of reason and
worldly intelligence into the mind, instead of illuminating it wholly
through a religious medium. The many-hued saints and angels lose their
mysterious effulgence, when we get white light enough, and find we see
all the better without their help.

The main pavement of the church is brickwork; but it is inlaid with many
sepulchral slabs of marble, on some of which knightly or priestly figures
are sculptured in bas-relief. In both of the side aisles there are
saintly shrines, alternating with mural monuments, some of which record
names as illustrious as any in the world. As you enter, the first
monument, on your right is that of Michael Angelo, occupying the ancient
burial-site of his family. The general design is a heavy sarcophagus of
colored marble, with the figures of Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture
as mourners, and Michael Angelo's bust above, the whole assuming a