the long residence of the Medicis, those celebrated Patrons of the Fine Arts; which were first revived at Florence, by Artists invited over from Greece, soon after the excursions of the Crusades had given the rising Nations of Europe a taste for the elegant luxuries of the East. The gloomy Edifice was erected by Arnolfo, the Disciple of Cimabue, in the Thirteenth Century, that equivocal period when superstition and ferocity were so strangely blended. It is a heavy structure, immensely high, crowned with a square Tower, the projecting quoins at the top of which make it look dangerously top-heavy from below. In it is preserved the original Copy of the Pandects of Justinian, discovered at Amalphi, in the year 1137.

At the great door are two gigantic Groupes-David slaying Goliah, and some other bloody Story, the subject of which I have forgotten: But I shall not easily forget the chilling impression made by the dark and massy Hall, over which are now held the Courts of Justice; so often in the Old Countries teeming with deeds of horror.

Another side of the Court is formed by the celebrated Loggia, an Arcade of three arches, in one of which is placed the famous masterpiece of Benevenuto Cellini. Perseus, standing over the bleeding carcass of Medusa, holds aloft by the hair, in his left hand, the head, which he has just severed from the body, with the sword which he still grasps in his right. In another, stands the Judith

and Holofernes of Donatello. In the third, Giovanni di Bologna has repre sented, with equal spirit, the Rape of a Sabine Virgin by a Roman Warrior.

A Moralist cannot but regret that the finest talents should be thus employed in perpetuating acts of violence and cruelty: but such is the fatality of statuary that it is difficult to invent a harmless circumstance that can be accompanied with the degree of action that seems necessary to animate a Groupe-Alike unhappily in Painting, the graces of Nature can hardly be displayed to advantage, without offending, more or less, against the rules of decency and continence.

On

On one side of the Square is an Eques. trian Statue of Cosmo the First, by Giovanni di Bologna.

Double Corridors form a street to the left of the Palace, opening upon the river by Arcades. Over these is carried the celebrated Gallery, which communicated with the Palace, when it was inhabited by the Grand Dukes, by means of an arch, thrown over the intermediate street.

You enter it from the Court, by long flights of steps, by which you ascend to the upper story of the Building; and approach the long Corridors through a double Anti-Chamber, in the first Cube of which are ten busts of the Medicean Princes. In the second is a Horse and a Wild Boar, both antiques; and over the

door

door is a Bust of Leopold, the first Grand Duke of the Austrian Family, who afterward ascended the Imperial throne.

In the first Wing of the Corridors are antique Statues, and Sarcophaguses, with Busts of almost all the Roman Emperors.

In the Second, which commands a pleasing view of the river, the principal objects, worth notice, are a Venus, sitting in a shell, and a Torso, or mutilated Statue, of exquisite workmanship.

In the Third you observe a Morpheus, in touch-stone; and a Copy of the Lao

coon.

The