Florence is the only city of the old world that is said to be destitute of ruins. She is the fair metropolis of modern art; the home of science, rather, which came to displace the old artistic types, and create all things new. Such was her influence in the culminating power of the Renaissance under her great son, Leo X., whose pontificate was cotemporaneous with the radical overthrow of mediæval architecture. The Tuscan capital will best illustrate the approach and consummation of that result. The church of St. Maria Novella, projected in the year 1280, is a Latin cross, with nave and aisles. Simple and majestic, solid and light, it embraces an ensemble of beauties that makes it the fairest in Florence; and, according to Rica and Fineschi, the most graceful in Italy. This is the edifice which Michael Angelo termed his "gentle spouse," and was, doubtless, the precursor of Brunellesco's architecture. When beheld arrayed in its pomp on festal days, draped in silk and gold, with its altars lighted; or, better still, when contemplated in its severe simplicity, toward evening, when the grand shadows of the pillars cross each other, falling on the opposite walls, and the richly tinted rays stream through its storied windows, coloring every object around, the spectator feels himself exhilarated and ennobled with a thousand celestial thoughts. And be it remembered to the honor of the two Dominican architects, Fra Sisto and Fra Ristaro, that they went not to the outer world for models of such beauty as this; for it was not till 1294 that Arnolfo laid the foundation of St. Croce, and St. Maria del Fiore was not begun till 1298. But the latter building, the cathedral of Florence, is the masterpiece of Italian Gothic, one of the largest and finest churches produced in the middle ages. The nave and smaller domes of the choir were probably completed as they now stand, in the first quarter of the fourteenth century. The great octagon remained uncovered till Brunelleschi commenced the present dome in the year 1420, and finished it before his death, in 1444. The building may, therefore, be considered as essentially cotemporary with the cathedral of Cologne, and is very nearly of the same size. What a contrast in both spirit and form! Perhaps the most typical example of Italian art in its best period, is the tower erected close to the Duomo just referred to, from designs by Giotto, commenced in 1324, and probably finished at the time of his death, two years afterward. It is certainly a very beautiful structure, and worthy of the enthusiastic praise which it has received. The openings are happily graduated, and being covered with ornament from the base to the summit, it has not that naked look so repulsive in many others. The convent of St. Mark, whose history is identified with that of literature, arts, politics, and religion, was founded toward the close of the thirteenth century. Little did the magnificent Cosimo imagine that he was there