Adjoining it is the Piazza del Palazzo Vecchio

a square containing a fine collection of statues, and a noble arcade, the Loggia ‘di Lanzi, under the porticoes of which are magnificent groups of sculpture. But the crowning glory of Florence is its Grand Gallery, occupying the upper floor of the Ufizi, a building erected after a design of Vasari, by Cosmo I., consisting of two parallel corridors or galleries, each 448 feet in length, and 72 feet apart, united at one end by a third corridor. This contains some masterpieces of statuary, as the world-renowned “ Venus de Medici,” ‘The MKnife-Grinder,” the “ Fawn,” “ Niobe and her Children,’ etc. The collection of pictures comprises superb examples of all the best schools, and is said to surpa even that of the Vatican. A splendid apartment, known as the Tribuna, contains the rarest treasures of the collection, and is in itself a wonder of art, with its cupola inlaid with mother of pearl, and its rich marble pavement. ‘Florence is subject to fogs in the winter: but in spring and autumn it is a delightful residence, well provided with everything that can gratify the man of taste and science, or the voluptuary. Florence has produced more celebrated men than any other place in Italy, or, perhaps, of Europe; among others may be specified Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Vil- Jani, Cosmo and Lorenzo de Medici; Galileo, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Benvenuto Cell in i, Albert i, Lapo Brunelleschi, Giotto, Andrea del Sarto, Machi a vell i; Popes Leo X. and XI., Clement VII., VIII., and XII. The origin of this city is not clearly ascertained; but it owed its first distinction to Sylla, who planted in it a Roman colony. In the reign of Tiberius it was distinguished by its writers and orators. In 541 it~ was almost wholly destroyed by Totila, King of the Goths. About 250 years afterward it was restored by Charlemagne. It then became the chief city of a famous republic; and was for a lengthened period in Italy what Athens had been in Greece in the days of Xenophon and Thucydides, At length, in 1537, the Medici, from being the first of her citizens, became sovereign dukes of Florence. The city afterward became the capital of the former grand-duchy of Tuscany till 1860, when it was annexed to the new kingdom of Italy, and in 1865 the seat of government was transferred thither from Turin. Pop. (1901) 204,950.