Thus filling a memorable day, we should come at eventide, as the setting sun sifts its gold on olive-clad hills, to Prato on the Bisenzio, where even an emperor might study with interest the civilization of the West during the "age of the despots," and its reawakening in learning and art. He would also enjoy the hospitality, for which the city was noted when Florentine nobles made Prato their frequent residence and enriched their palaces there with every form of art and luxury, for which that time was celebrated. Prato, we find, has her tradition honouring her above all other cities in the world, and about which centres much of her importance in art. The story runs something like this: When the Blessed Virgin disappeared from earth, it seems that St. Thomas, father of skeptics, could not believe that she had been caught up into heaven, as everybody knows who looks at Italian paintings. The Virgin, to convince him, dropped from the clouds her girdle (_cintola_), which St. Thomas faithfully cherished while he lived. After his death the holy relic descended in course of time to a Greek priest. All this happened in the Holy Land, to which, in 1096, journeyed a certain Michael of Prato, who, being an Italian, was presumably a handsome man with a silver tongue, won the love of the aforesaid Greek priest's daughter, who brought the _sacra cintola_ as part of her dowry. Michael returned with his bride to Prato, where they lived the rest of their lives, and treasured the precious relic with the greatest reverence and care. Eventually it was transferred to the cathedral, where it is kept in a chest sculptured by Giovanni Pisano, and the keys thereof jealously guarded by the Bishop of the Diocese and worshipful Syndic of the City of Prato. The people hold the relic in the profoundest reverence; five times during the year it is, with great ceremony, publicly exhibited, until about the tradition has gathered a religious cult, to which many of the noblest works of art in the Duomo directly refer. The Duomo alone stands for seven centuries of art (though little remains of the earliest church, built in the eighth century), and, like its noble campanile, is the work of Giovanni Pisano. It is built of alternate bands of fine limestone and the dark green serpentine from neighboring Monte Ferrato.[2] On the northwest corner of the church is the external pulpit of Donatello, "Prince of Humanists," supported by Michelozzo's bronze capital. The pulpit is adorned with seven reliefs of dancing figures, "half-childish and half-mythical," with musical instruments. From this pulpit, if it chance to be May Day or Easter, we may witness the picturesque ceremony of exhibiting the _sacra cintola_ to the devout people in gala dress, kneeling in the piazza below. We enter the Duomo under Andrea della Robbia's lunette of the Madonna and Child, attended by St. Stephen and St. Laurence, the whole surrounded by a wreath of