Sebastian, and also to a vase around which the reliefs seemed to assume
life. Both these specimens, he said, were by Benvenuto Cellini, and
there were many others that might well have been wrought by his famous
hand. The third cabinet contained a great number and variety of
crucifixes, chalices, and whatever other vessels are needed in altar
service, exquisitely carved out of amber. They belong to the chapel of
the palace, and into this holy closet we were now conducted. It is large
enough to accommodate comfortably perhaps thirty worshippers, and is
quite covered with frescos by Ghirlandaio in good preservation, and with
remnants enough of gilding and bright color to show how splendid the
chapel must have been when the Medicean Grand Dukes used to pray here.
The altar is still ready for service, and I am not sure that some of the
wax tapers were not burning; but Lorenzo the Magnificent was nowhere to
be seen.

The custode now led us back through the Hall of Audience into a smaller
room, hung with pictures chiefly of the Medici and their connections,
among whom was one Carolina, an intelligent and pretty child, and Bianca
Capella.

There was nothing else to show us, except a very noble and most spacious
saloon, lighted by two large windows at each end, coming down level with
the floor, and by a row of windows on one side just beneath the cornice.
A gilded framework divides the ceiling into squares, circles, and
octagons, the compartments of which are filled with pictures in oil; and
the walls are covered with immense frescos, representing various battles
and triumphs of the Florentines. Statues by Michael Angelo, John of
Bologna, and Bandinello, as well historic as ideal, stand round the hall,
and it is really a fit theatre for the historic scenes of a country to be
acted in. It was built, moreover, with the idea of its being the