The campaign finished, I returned to Florence, where, during the lull in Eastern matters, I found my only public occupation in the contest with regard to the restoration of ancient buildings in Italy. Those who can remember the aspect of the Ducal Palace and St. Mark's in those years, shored up to prevent large portions of them from falling in crumbling ruin into the Piazza, and can see that now at least the general aspect of the perfect building is preserved, and in the case of the Ducal Palace even the details of the most important decorative elements restored with a fidelity which defies examination, will hardly be inclined to resent the restorations which have abolished the hideous balks of timber and bulkheads of most of the southern and western façades. The southwest angle of the Palace was prevented only by massive shoring from falling bodily into the Piazzetta. The anti-restoration society in England had raised a great outcry over the works, which had, however, been going on without criticism during the Austrian occupation since 1840; and, after a thorough examination of the state of the two precious buildings, and the plans and appliances for their restoration, I undertook the defense of the restorers, and the hot controversy in the "Times" and other journals on the subject resulted in the confirmation of the authorities in their resolution to continue the works which have left the Ducal Palace at least in a condition to be seen for a few hundred years to come, and relieved the church of the scaffolds and bulkheads which disfigured it up to 1890. The works in St. Mark's reëstablished in more than its original solidity the south flank, which was in such a state of ruin that only the abundant shoring had prevented the façade from top to bottom from falling bodily into the Piazza.