We next went to the Church of the Badia, which is built in the form of a
Greek cross, with a flat roof embossed and once splendid with now
tarnished gold. The pavement is of brick, and the walls of dark stone,
similar to that of the interior of the cathedral (pietra serena), and
there being, according to Florentine custom, but little light, the effect
was sombre, though the cool gloomy dusk was refreshing after the hot
turmoil and dazzle of the adjacent street. Here we found three or four
Gothic tombs, with figures of the deceased persons stretched in marble
slumber upon them. There were likewise a picture or two, which it was
impossible to see; indeed, I have hardly ever met with a picture in a
church that was not utterly wasted and thrown away in the deep shadows of
the chapel it was meant to adorn. If there is the remotest chance of its
being seen, the sacristan hangs a curtain before it for the sake of his
fee for withdrawing it. In the chapel of the Bianco family we saw (if it
could be called seeing) what is considered the finest oil-painting of Fra
Filippo Lippi. It was evidently hung with reference to a lofty window on
the other side of the church, whence sufficient light might fall upon it
to show a picture so vividly painted as this is, and as most of Fra
Filippo Lippi's are. The window was curtained, however, and the chapel
so dusky that I could make out nothing.

Several persons came in to say their prayers during the little time that
we remained in the church, and as we came out we passed a good woman who
sat knitting in the coolness of the vestibule, which was lined with mural
tombstones. Probably she spends the day thus, keeping up the little
industry of her fingers, slipping into the church to pray whenever a
devotional impulse swells into her heart, and asking an alms as often as
she sees a person of charitable aspect.

From the church we went to the Uffizi gallery, and reinspected the