The extraordinary capacity of this great architect will, however, win more homage from ordinary observers when they contemplate the Pitti Palace and the cupola of the cathedral.

Both of these are master-works of personal originality.

What is Roman in the Pitti Palace, is the robust simplicity of massive strength; but it is certain that no patrician of the republic or the empire inhabited a house at all resembling this.

The domestic habits of the Middle Ages, armed for self-defence, and on guard against invasion from without, still find expression in the solid bulk of this forbidding dwelling-place, although its majesty and largeness show that the reign of milder and more courtly manners has begun.

To speak of the cupola of the Duomo in connection with a simple revival of Roman taste, would be equally inappropriate.