Botticelli I was shy of, because of the craze about him among people who know nothing: he is far more wonderful than I had hoped, both at the Uffizi and the Academia: but he is quite pagan. I don't know why I say "but"; he is quite typical of the world's art-training: Christianity may get hold of the names and dictate the subjects, but the artist-breed carries a fairly level head through it all, and, like Pater's Mona Lisa, draws Christianity and Paganism into one: at least, wherever it reaches perfect expression it has done so. Some of the distinctly primitives are different; their works inclose a charm which is not artistic. Fra Angelico, after being a great disappointment to me in some of his large set pictures in the Academia and elsewhere, shows himself lovely in fresco (though I think the "crumb" element helps him). His great Crucifixion is big altogether, and has so permanent a force in its aloofness from mere drama and mere life. In San Marco, the cells of the monks are quite charming, a row of little square bandboxes under a broad raftered corridor, and in every cell is a beautiful little fresco for the monks to live up to. But they no longer live there now: all that part of San Marco has become a peep-show. I liked being in Savonarola's room, and was more susceptible to the remains of his presence than I have been to Michel Angelo or anyone else's. Michel Angelo I feel most when he has left a thing unfinished; then one can put one's finger into the print of the chisel, and believe anything of the beauty that might have come out of the great stone chrysalis lying cased and rough, waiting to be raised up to life. Yesterday Arthur and I walked from here to Fiesole, which we had neglected while in Florence--six miles going, and more like twelve coming back, all because of Arthur's absurd cross-country instinct, which, after hours of river-bends, bare mountain tracks, and tottering precipices, brought us out again half a mile nearer Florence than when we started. At Fiesole is the only church about here whose interior architecture I have greatly admired, austere but at the same time gracious--like a Madonna of the best period of painting. We also went to look at the Roman baths and theater: the theater is charming enough, because it is still there: but for the baths--oblongs of stone don't interest me just because they are old. All stone is old: and these didn't even hold water to give one the real look of the thing. Too tired, and even more too lazy, to write other things, except love, most dear Beloved. LETTER XXXIV.