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Passages from the French and Italian Notebooks, Volume 2. by Nathaniel Hawthorne
page 73 of 252 (28%)
with time and apparent neglect, though rendered sufficiently interesting
by statues of mediaeval date by John of Bologna and other old sculptors,
and by monumental busts and bas-reliefs: also, there is a wooden crucifix
by Giotto, with ancient gilding on it; and a painting of Christ, which
was considered a wonderful work in its day. Each shrine, or most of
them, at any rate, had its dark old picture, and there is a very old and
hideous mosaic of the Virgin and two saints, which I looked at very
slightly, with the purpose of immediately forgetting it. Savonarola, the
reforming monk, was a brother of this convent, and was torn from its
shelter, to be subsequently hanged and burnt in the Grand Ducal Piazza.
A large chapel in the left transept is of the Salviati family, dedicated
to St. Anthony, and decorated with several statues of saints, and with
some old frescos. When we had more than sufficiently examined these, the
custode proposed to show us some frescos of Fra Angelico, and conducted
us into a large cloister, under the arches of which, and beneath a
covering of glass, he pointed to a picture of St. Dominic kneeling at the
Cross. There are two or three others by the angelic friar in different
parts of the cloister, and a regular series, filling up all the arches,
by various artists. Its four-sided, cloistered walk surrounds a square,
open to the sky as usual, and paved with gray stones that have no
inscriptions, but probably are laid over graves. Its walls, however, are
incrusted, and the walk itself is paved with monumental inscriptions on
marble, none of which, so far as I observed, were of ancient date.
Either the fashion of thus commemorating the dead is not ancient in
Florence, or the old tombstones have been removed to make room for new
ones. I do not know where the monks themselves have their burial-place;
perhaps in an inner cloister, which we did not see. All the inscriptions
here, I believe, were in memory of persons not connected with the
convent.

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