once lettered and devout-and also slightly vindictive? And what famous scholar is dictating the Latin letters of the Republic-what fiery philosopher is lecturing on Dante in the Duomo, and going home to write bitter invectives against the father and mother of the bad critic who may have found fault with his classical spelling? Are our wiser heads leaning toward alliance with the Pope and the Regno,* or are they rather inclining their ears to the orators of France and of Milan ?

"There is knowledge of these things to be had in the streets below, on the beloved Marmi in front of the churches, and under the sheltering Loggie, where surely our citizens have still their gossips and debates, their bitter and merry jests as of old. For are not the well-remembered buildings all there? The changes have not been so great in those uncounted years. I will go down and hear-I will tread the familiar pavement, and hear once again the speech of Florentines."

families; but in the fifteenth century they were only noisy with the unhistorical quarrels and broad jests of wood-carders in the cloth-producing quarters of San Martino and Garbo.

Under this loggia, in the early morning of the 9th of April, 1492, two men had their eyes fixed on each other: one was stooping slightly, and looking downward with the scrutiny of curiosity; the other, lying on the pavement, was looking upward with the startled gaze of a suddenlyawakened dreamer.

Go not down, good Spirit! for the changes are great, and the speech of Florentines would sound as a riddle in your ears. Or, if you go, mingle with no politicians on the Marmi or elsewhere; ask no questions about trade in the Calimara; confuse yourself with no inquiries into scholarship, official or monastic. Only look at the sunlight and shadows on the grand walls that were built solidly, and have endured in their grandeur; look at the faces of the little children, making another sunlight amidst the shadows of age; look, if you will, into the churches, and hear the same chants, see the same images as of old-the images of willing anguish for a great end, of beneficent love and ascending glory; see upturned living faces and lips moving to the old prayers for help. These The standing figure was the first to speak. things have not changed. The sunlight and He was a gray-haired, broad-shouldered man, shadows bring their old beauty and waken the of the type which, in Tuscan phrase, is moulded old heart-strains at morning, noon, and even- with the fist and polished with the pickaxe; but tide; the little children are still the symbol of the self-important gravity which had written itthe eternal marriage between love and duty; and self out in the deep lines about his brow and men still yearn for the reign of peace and right- mouth seemed intended to correct any contempteousness-still own that life to be the highest uous inferences from the hasty workmanship which is a conscious voluntary sacrifice. For which Nature had bestowed on his exterior. He the Pope Angelico is not come yet. had deposited a large well-filled bag, made of skins, on the pavement, and before him hung a peddler's basket, garnished partly with small woman's-ware, such as thread and pins, and partly with fragments of glass, which had probably been taken in exchange for those commodities.

CHAPTER I.

THE SHIPWRECKED STRANGER.

THE Loggia de' Cerchi stood in the heart of old Florence, within a labyrinth of narrow streets behind the Badia, now rarely threaded by the stranger, unless in a dubious search for a certain severely-simple door-place, bearing this inscription:

QUI NACQUE IL DIVINO POETA.

To the ear of Tante the same streets rang with the shout and clash of fierce battle between rival

* The name given to Naples by way of distinction among the Italian States.

"Young man," he said, pointing to a ring on the finger of the reclining figure, "when your chin has got a stiffer crop on it, you'll know better than to take your nap in street corners with a ring like that on your fore-finger. By the holy 'vangels! if it had been any body but me standing over you two minutes ago-but Bratti Ferravecchj is not the man to steal. cat couldn't eat her mouse if she didn't catch it alive, and Bratti couldn't relish gain if it had no taste of a bargain. Why, young man, one San Giovanni, three years ago, the Saint sent a dead

The

and cowl for the Duomo, and there's not so much yellow cloth as would make hose for Saint Christopher-blessed be his name, and send me a sight of him this day!-Abbaratta, baratta, bratta-chi abbaratta?"

"All that is very amusing information you are parting with for nothing," said the stranger, rather scornfully; "but it happens not to concern me. I am no Hebrew."

"See, now!" said Bratti, triumphantly; "I've made a good bargain with mere words. I've made you tell me something, young man, though you're as hard to hold as a lamprey. San Giovanni be praised! a blind Florentine is a match for two one-eyed men. But here we are in Mercato."

They had now emerged from the narrow streets into a broad piazza, known to the elder Florentine writers as the Mercato Vecchio, or the Old Market. This piazza, though it had been the scene of a provision market from time immemorial, and may perhaps, says fond imagination, be the very spot to which the Fesulean ancestors of the Florentines descended from their high fastness to traffic with the rustic population of the valley, had not been shunned as a place of residence by Florentine wealth. In the early decades of the fifteenth century, which was now near its end, the Medici and other powerful families of the popolani grassi, or commercial nobility, had their houses there, not, perhaps, finding their ears much offended by the loud roar of mingled dialects, or their eyes much shocked by the butchers' stalls, which the old poet Antonio Pucci accounts a chief glory, or dignità, of a market that, in his esteem, eclipsed the markets of all the earth besides. But the glory of mutton and veal (well attested to be the flesh of the right animals; for were not the skins, with the heads attached, duly displayed, according to the decree of the Signoria ?) was just now wanting to the Mercato, the time of Lent not being yet over. The proud corporation, or "Art,” of butchers was in abeyance, and it was the great harvest-time of the market-gardeners, the cheesemongers, the vendors of macaroni, corn, eggs, milk, and dried fruits: a change which was apt to make the women's voices predominant in the chorus. But in all seasons there was the experimental ringing of pots and pans, the chinking of the money-changers, the tempting offers of cheapness at the old-clothes' stalls, the challenges of the dicers, the vaunting of new linens and woolens, of excellent wooden-ware, kettles, and frying-pans; there was the choking of the narrow inlets with mules and carts, together with much uncomplimentary remonstrance in terms remarkably identical with the insults in use by the gentler sex of the present day, under the same imbrowning and heating circumstances. Ladies and gentlemen who came to market looked on at a larger amount of amateur fighting than could easily be seen in these later times, and beheld more revolting rags, beggary, and rascaldom than modern householders could well picture to themselves. As the day wore on, the

hideous drama of the gaming-house might be seen here by any chance open-air spectator-the quivering eagerness, the blank despair, the sobs, the blasphemy, and the blows:

"E vedesi chi perde con gran soffi,

E bestemmiar colla mano alla mascella,
E ricever e dar dimolti ingoffi."

But still there was the relief of prettier sights:
there were brood-rabbits, not less innocent and
astonished than those of our own period; there
were doves and singing-birds to be bought as
presents for the children; there were even kit-
tens for sale, and here and there a handsome
gattuccio, or "Tom," with the highest character
for mousing; and, better than all, there were
young, softly rounded cheeks and bright eyes,
freshened by the start from the far-off castello*
at daybreak, not to speak of older faces with the
unfading charm of honest good-will in them—
such as are never quite wanting in scenes of hu-
man industry. And high on a pillar in the
centre of the place-a venerable pillar, fetched
from the church of San Giovanni-stood Dona-
tello's stone statue of Plenty, with a fountain
near it, where, says old Pucci, the good wives
of the market freshened their utensils, and their
throats also-not because they were unable to
buy wine, but because they wished to save the
money for their husbands-"Ma pe' mariti vog-
lion risparmiare."

But on this particular morning a sudden change seemed to have come over the face of the market. The deschi, or stalls, were indeed partly dressed with their various commodities, and already there were purchasers assembled, on the alert to secure the finest, freshest vegetables and the most unexceptionable butter. But when Bratti and his companion entered the piazza it appeared that some common preoccupation had for the moment distracted the attention both of buyers and sellers from their proper business. Most of the traders had turned their backs on their goods, and had joined the knots of talkers who were concentrating themselves at different points in the piazza. A vendor of old clothes, in the act of hanging out a pair of long hose, had distractedly hung them round his neck in his eagerness to join the nearest group; an oratorical cheesemonger, with a piece of cheese in one hand and a knife in the other, was incautiously making notes of his emphatic pauses on that excellent specimen of marzolino; and elderly market-women, with their egg-baskets in a dangerously oblique position, contributed a wailing fugue of invocation.

In this general distraction, the Florentine boys, who were never wanting in any street scene, and were of an especially mischievous sort—as who should say, very sour crabs indeed -saw a great opportunity. Some made a rush at the nuts and dried figs, others preferred the farinaceous delicacies at the cooked provision stalls-delicacies to which certain four-footed dogs also, who had learned to take kindly to Lenten fare, applied a discriminating nostril, *Walled village.

they might well”—“ Boto* caduto in Santissima Nunziata!"- "Died like the best of Christians" -"God will have pardoned him"-were oftenrepeated phrases, which shot across each other like storm-driven hailstones, each speaker feel

and then disappeared with much rapidity under the nearest shelter; while the mules, not without some kicking and plunging among impeding baskets, were stretching their muzzles toward the aromatic green-meat. "Diavolo!" said Bratti, as he and his coming rather the necessity of utterance than of findpanion came, quite unnoticed, upon the noisy scene; "the Mercato is gone as mad as if the most Holy Father had excommunicated us again. I must know what this is. But never fear: it seems a thousand years to you till you see the pretty Tessa and get your cup of milk; but keep hold of me, and I'll hold to my bargain. Remember, I'm to have the first bid for your suit, specially for the hose, which, with all their stains, are the best panno di garbo-as good as ruined, though, with mud and weather stains."

"Olà, Monna Trecca," Bratti proceeded, turning toward an old woman on the outside of the nearest group, who for the moment has suspended her wail to listen, and shouting close in her ear, "Here are the mules upsetting all your bunches of parsley: is the world coming to an end, then ?"

"Monna Trecca" (equivalent to "Dame Greengrocer") turned round at this unexpected trumpeting in her right ear with a half-fierce, half-bewildered look, first at the speaker, then at her disarranged commodities, and then at the speaker again.

"A bad Easter and a bad year to you, and may you die by the sword!" she burst out, rushing toward her stall, but directing this first volley of her wrath against Bratti, who, without heeding the malediction, quietly slipped into her place, within hearing of the narrative which had been absorbing her attention, making a sign at the same time to the young stranger to keep near him.

"I tell you I saw it myself," said a fat man, with a bunch of newly-purchased leeks in his hand. "I was in Santa Maria Novella, and saw it myself. The woman started up and threw out her arms, and cried out and said she saw a big bull with fiery horns coming down on the church to crush it. I saw it myself."

ing a listener. Perhaps the only silent members of the group were Bratti, who, as a newcomer, was busy in mentally piecing together the flying fragments of information; the man of the razor; and a thin-lipped, eager-looking personage in spectacles, wearing a pen-and-ink case at his belt.

66

Ebbene, Nello," said Bratti, skirting the group till he was within hearing of the barber. "It appears the Magnifico is dead-rest his soul!-and the price of wax will rise?"

"Even as you say," answered Nello; and then added, with an air of extra gravity, but with marvelous rapidity, "and his waxen image in the Nunziata fell at the same moment, they say; or at some other time, whenever it pleases the Frati Serviti, who know best. And several cows and women have had still-born calves this Quaresima; and for the bad eggs that have been broken since the carnival, nobody has counted them! Ah! a great man—a great politician— a greater poet than Dante. And yet the cupola didn't fall-only the lantern. Che miracolo!"

A sharp and lengthened. "Pst!" was suddenly heard darting across the pelting storm of gutturals. It came from the pale man in spectacles, and had the effect he intended; for the noise ceased, and all eyes in the group were fixed on him with a look of expectation.

""Tis well said you Florentines are blind," he began, in an incisive high voice. "It appears to me you need nothing but a diet of hay to make cattle of you. What! do you think the death of Lorenzo is the scourge God has prepared for Florence? Go! you are sparrows chattering praise over the dead hawk. What! a man who was trying to slip a noose over every neck in the Republic that he might tighten it at his pleasure! You like that; you like to have the election of your magistrates turned into fig-closet-work, and no man to use the rights of a citizen unless he is a Medicean. That is what is meant by qualification now: netto di specchiot no longer means a man who pays his dues to the Republic: it means a man who'll wink at robbery of the people's money—at robbery of their daughters' dowries; who'll play the chamberer and the philosopher by turns-listen to bawdy songs at the Carnival, and cry 'Bellisimo!'-and listen to sacred lauds, and cry again 'Bellisimo!' But this is what you love: you grumble and raise a riot over your quattrini bianchi" (white farthings), "but you take no notice when the public treasury has got a hole in

"Saw what, Goro?" said a man of slim ure, whose eye twinkled rather roguishly. He wore a close jerkin, a skull-cap lodged carelessly over his left ear as if it had fallen there by chance, a delicate linen apron tucked up on one side, and a razor stuck in his belt. "Saw the bull, or only the woman ?"

"Why, the woman, to be sure; but it's all one, mi pare: it doesn't alter the meaningva!" answered the fat man, with some contempt.

"Meaning? no, no; that's clear enough," said several voices at once, and then followed a confusion of tongues, in which "Lights shooting over San Lorenzo for three nights together""Thunder in the clear starlight"-"Lantern of the Duomo struck with the sword of St. Michael" -"Palle"*—"All smashed"—"Lasso !"—"Lions tearing each other to pieces”—“Ah! and

*Arms of the Medici.

the bottom for the gold to run into Lorenzo's and those who follow him are like to have the drains. You like to pay for staffieri to walk be- fate of certain swine that ran headlong into the fore and behind one of your citizens, that he sea-or some hotter place. With San Domenico may be affable and condescending to you. 'See roaring è vero in one ear, and San Francisco what a tall Pisan we keep,' say you, to march screaming è falso in the other, what is a poor before him with the drawn sword flashing in barber to do-unless he were illuminated? But our eyes; and yet Lorenzo smiles at us. What it's plain our Goro here is beginning to be illugoodness! And you think the death of a man minated, for he already sees that the bull with who would soon have saddled and bridled you the flaming horns means first himself, and, secas the Sforza has saddled and bridled Milan- ondly, all the other aggrieved taxpayers of Floryou think his death is the scourge God is warn-ence, who are determined to gore the magistracy ing you of by portents. I tell you there is an- on the first opportunity." other sort of scourge in the air."

"Nay, nay, Ser Cioni, keep astride your politics, and never mount your prophecy; politics is the better horse," said Nello. "But if you talk of portents, what portent can be greater than a pious notary? Balaam's ass was nothing to it."

"Ay, but a notary out of work, with his inkbottle dry," said another by-stander, very much out at elbows. "Better don a cowl at once, Ser Cioni; every body will believe in your fasting." The notary turned and left the group with a look of indignant contempt, disclosing, as he did so, the sallow but mild face of a short man who had been standing behind him, and whose bent shoulders told of some sedentary occupation.

"By San Giovanni, though," said the fat purchaser of leeks, with the air of a person rather shaken in his theories, "I'm not sure there isn't some truth in what Ser Cioni says. For I know I've good reason to find fault with the quattrini bianchi myself. Grumble, did he say? Suffocation! I should think we do grumble; and, let any body say the word, I'll turn out in piazza | with the readiest, sooner than have our money altered in our hands as if the magistracy were so many necromancers. And it's true Lorenzo might have hindered such work if he would-and for the bull with the flaming horns, why, as Ser Cioni says, there may be many meanings to it, for the matter of that; it may have more to do with the taxes than we think. For when God above sends a sign, it's not to be supposed he'd have only one meaning."

"Spoken like an oracle, Goro!" said the barber. "Why, when we poor mortals can pack two or three meanings into one sentence, it were mere blasphemy not to believe that your miraculous bull means every thing that any man in Florence likes it to mean."

"Thou art pleased to scoff, Nello," said the sallow, round-shouldered man, no longer eclipsed by the notary, "but it is not the less true that every revelation, whether by visions, dreams, portents, or the written word, has many meanings, which it is given to the illuminated only to unfold."

"Assuredly," answered Nello. "Haven't I been to hear the Frate in San Lorenzo ? But then, I've been to hear Fra Menico da Ponzo in the Duomo too; and according to him, your Fra Girolamo, with his visions and interpretations, is running after the wind of Mongibello,

"Goro is a fool!" said a bass voice, with a note that dropped like the sound of a great bell in the midst of much tinkling. "Let him carry home his leeks and shake his flanks over his wool-beating. He'll mend matters more that way than by showing his tun-shaped body in piazza, as if every body might measure his grievances by the size of his paunch. The gravezze (burdens, i. e. taxes) that harm him most are his heavy carcass and his idleness."

The speaker had joined the group only in time to hear the conclusion of Nello's speech, but he was one of those figures for whom all the world instinctively makes way, as it would for a battering-ram. He was not much above the middle height, but the impression of enormous force which was conveyed by his capacious chest and brawny arms bared to the shoulder was deepened by the keen sense and quiet resolution expressed in his glance and in every furrow of his cheek and brow. He had often been an unconscious model to Domenico Ghirlandajo, when that great painter was making the walls of the churches reflect the life of Florence, and translating pale aërial traditions into the deep color and strong lines of the faces he knew. The naturally dark tint of his skin was additionally bronzed by the same powdery deposit that gave a polished black surface to his leathern aprona deposit which habit had probably made a necessary condition of perfect ease, for it was not washed off with punctilious regularity.

Goro turned his fat cheek and glassy eye on the frank speaker with a look of deprecation rather than of resentment.

"Why, Niccolò," he said, in an injured tone, "I've heard you sing to another tune than that often enough, when you've been laying down the law at San Gallo on a festa. I've heard you say yourself that a man wasn't a mill-wheel, to be on the grind, grind, as long as he was driven, and then stick in his place without stirring when the water was low. And you're as fond of your vote as any man in Florence-ay, and I've heard you say, if Lorenzo-"

"Yes, yes," said Niccolò. "Don't you be bringing up my speeches again after you've swallowed them, and handing them about as if they were none the worse. I vote and I speak when there's any use in it: if there's hot metal on the anvil I lose no time before I strike; but I don't spend good hours in tinkling on cold iron, or in standing on the pavement as thou dost, Goro, with snout upward, like a pig under an oak-tree.