Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/283

 FLORENCE 275 has a span of 96 ft. This bridge is a favorite evening walk of the people. The Ponte Vec- chio is 75 ft. wide, and the carriageway in the middle is lined on each side by a row of shops, occupied chiefly by goldsmiths and jewellers. There are also two suspension bridges. In the older parts of the city the streets are narrow and irregular, and the houses for the most part meanly built ; but the newer and larger portions are very handsome and stately, and the streets wider than is common in the cities of southern Europe, and solidly paved with blocks of stone. The churches of Florence are 172 in number, and many of them of great size and antiquity ; but few are completely finished, and their general appearance is neither elegant nor picturesque. The Duomo, or cathedral church of Santa Maria del Fiore, is a vast and superb structure, which is surpassed in archi- tectural grandeur only by St. Peter's at Rome. The decree for its erection was issued in 1294, and its foundations were laid in 1298 ; the great dome was erected by Brunelleschi in the 15th century, but the facade was not completed till the middle of the 17th. The length of the building is nearly 500 ft., and of the united tran- septs 306 ft. ; its height from the pavement to the summit of the cross is 387 ft. ; the height of the nave is 153 ft., and of the side aisles 96 ft., and the width of the nave and aisles is 128 ft. The exterior of the church is covered throughout with red, white, and black marble, disposed in panels and variegated figures ; and the pavement is also of many-colored marble, much of which was laid under the direction of Michel Angelo. The dome of this cathedral is the largest in the world, its circumference being greater than that of the dome of St. General View of Florence. Peter's, and its comparative height greater, though its base is not placed so high above the ground. It excited the admiration of Michel Angelo, to whom it served as a model for the dome of St. Peter's. This church is richly adorned with statues and pictures, most of which are by eminent masters. Among the statues is an unfinished group by Michel An- gelo, representing the entombment of Christ. Among the paintings is a portrait of Dante, ex- cuted in 1465. Near the cathedral stands the 'i.nile or belfry, which was designed by jiotto, and begun in 1 334. It is a square tower, 276 ft. high, light and elegant, in the Italian- Gothic style, and divided into four lofty stories. Charles V. used to say that it deserved to be kept in a glass case. The lower story contains two ranges of tablets, designed by Giotto and executed by him and by Andrea Pisano and Luca della Robbia. Opposite the principal front of the cathedral stands the baptistery, whose three great bronze portals, adorned with bass reliefs by Andrea Pisano and Ghiberti, were declared by Michel Angelo worthy to be the gates of Paradise. The church of San Lorenzo has attached to it a sacristy which contains seven statues by Michel Angelo. Adjoining the same church is the costly Medicean chapel, begun in 1604 by Ferdinand I., grand duke of Tuscany, as the mausoleum of his family, on which, it is said, $17,000,000 have been ex- pended. It is an octagon 94 ft. in diameter and 200 ft. high, and, is lined throughout with lapis lazuli, jasper, onyx, and other precious stones. The church of Santa Croce, 460 ft. long and 134 ft. wide, whose foundation stone was laid in 1294, is the Pantheon or West- minster abbey of Florence. It contains the