--We set out yesterday morning to visit the Palazzo Buonarotti,
Michael Angelo's ancestral home. . . . . It is in the Via Ghibellina, an
ordinary-looking, three-story house, with broad-brimmed eaves, a stuccoed
front, and two or three windows painted in fresco, besides the real ones.
Adown the street, there is a glimpse of the hills outside of Florence.
The sun shining heavily directly upon the front, we rang the door-bell,
and then drew back into the shadow that fell from the opposite side of
the street. After we had waited some time a man looked out from an upper
window, and a woman from a lower one, and informed us that we could not
be admitted now, nor for two or three months to come, the house being
under repairs. It is a pity, for I wished to see Michael Angelo's sword
and walking-stick and old slippers, and whatever other of his closest
personalities are to be shown. . . . .
We passed into the Piazza of the Grand Duke, and looked into the court of
the Palazzo Vecchio, with its beautifully embossed pillars; and, seeing
just beyond the court a staircase of broad and easy steps, we ascended it
at a venture.
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