ened with the cloaks and veils of prostrate Suppliants, unintentionally emblematic of superstitious horror.

Within this gloomy vault, too well adapted to the perpetration of deeds of darkness, in the year 1478, at the instigation of the then Pope, Paul IV—upon a solemn Festival-at the moment of the elevation of the Host-when all the People were prostrate before the altar, Julian de Medicis, and his Brother Lorenzo, since surnamed the Magnificent, were at the same instant stabbed by desperate Assassins. The wound of Lorenzo was not mortal, and he took refuge in the Vestry: But Julian died upon the spot, leaving behind him a posthumous Son, who afterward, as Pope Clement VII. played

played over again, upon the Theatre of Christendom, the same horrid game.

In the damp and dirty Nave are seen rude Mosaics, executed in the infancy of the art, by Ghirlandajo, and Gaddo Gaddi; and dusky Monuments, stuck here and there upon the walls, contribute to the general gloom.

The Front of this immense pile has never been finished, although the Campanile, a tower erected to suspend the thundering bell, two hundred feet in the air, was designed by Giotto, and completely encrusted with white and black marble, in alternate squares, as long ago as the year 1334; a period when Italian Architecture was neither Gothic nor Grecian,

Grecian, but a whimsical intermixture of both.

On the opposite side of the Square, is the Chapel of the Baptistery, detached, like the Steeple, from the body of the Church, as is often the case in Italy. It is an octagonal structure, said to have been originally a Heathen temple.

The Mosaics of the Dome were done by Apollonius, a Grecian Artist, in the Twelfth Century-but they are scarcely visible, by the twilight glimmer that is admitted from without-in meridian sunshine. Beneath its whelming Canopy, I have seen a squalling Infant, initiated into the Ecclesia, Cattolico, Apostolico, é

Romano

Romano, with all the paraphernalia of Popery-" bell, book, and candle."

The bronze door of this gloomy Edifice, executed by Ghiberti, upon the designs of Arnolfo, is a miracle of art, representing in eight compartments, of three or four feet square, as many Scripture Histories-from the stupendous moment of Creation, when God said, “Let there be light, and there was light”—to the portentous hour, when our First Parents were driven out of Paradise, by the Angel with a flaming sword. The Figures are but a few inches high, yet they are finished to the minutest feature, and project from the surface with perspective relief.

Neither is the door-case unworthy of the door, though it was wrought by another Artist, in Flowers and Foliage, among which are elegantly interwoven Birds and Fruit.

Two lateral Doors are also curious Performances of Contemporary Genius, exhibiting in smaller compartments the awful History of the Life, Sufferings, and Death of Christ; and they are alike richly framed with Fruit and Flowers.

Behind the High Altar of the Church of San Lorenzo is the costly Mausoleum of the Medicean Princes, which remained unfinished when the aspiring Family became extinct.