The chapel was furnished with curiously carved old
chairs, and looked surprisingly venerable within its little precinct.
We were next guided into the grand gallery, a hall of respectable size,
with a frescoed ceiling, on which is represented the blue sky, and
various members of the Medici family ascending through it by the help of
angelic personages, who seem only to have waited for their society to be
perfectly happy. At least, this was the meaning, so far as I could
make it out. Along one side of the gallery were oil-pictures on
looking-glasses, rather good than otherwise; but Rome, with her palaces
and villas, takes the splendor out of all this sort of thing elsewhere.
On our way home, and on our own side of the Ponte Vecchio, we passed the
Palazzo Guicciardini, the ancient residence of the historian of Italy,
who was a politic statesman of his day, and probably as cruel and
unprincipled as any of those whose deeds he has recorded. Opposite,
across the narrow way, stands the house of Macchiavelli, who was his
friend, and, I should judge, an honester man than he.
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