The sunny spaces of the one building, with its terra-cotta traceries of birds and grapes and Cupids, contrast with the stern brown mouldings and impenetrable solidity of the other.

That the one was raised by the munificence of a sovereign in his capital, while the other was the dwelling of a burgher in a city proud of its antique sobriety, goes some way to explain the difference.

In like manner the court-life of a dynastic principality produced the castle of Urbino, so diverse in its style and adaptation from the ostentatious mansions of the Genoese merchants.

It is not fanciful to say that the civic life of a free and factious republic is represented by the heavy walls and narrow windows of Florentine dwelling-places.

In their rings of iron, welded between rock and rock about the basement, as though for the beginning of a barricade--in their torch-rests of wrought metal, gloomy portals and dimly-lighted courts, we trace the habits of caution and reserve that marked the men who led the parties of Uberti and Albizzi.