Excerpt from Mornings in Florence: Being Simple Studies of Christian Art for English Travellers; I. Santa Croce, II. The Golden Gate, III. Before the Soldan, IV. The Vaulted Book, V. The Strait Gate, Vi. The Shepherd's Tower Ir seems to me that the real duty involved in my Oxford professorship cannot be completely done by giving lectures in Oxford only, but that I ought also to give what guidance I may to travellers in Italy. The following letters are written as I would write to any of my friends who asked me what they ought preferably to study in limited time and I hope they may be found of use if read in the places which they describe, or before the pictures to which they refer. But in the outset let me give my readers one piece of practical advice. If you can afford it, pay your custode or sacristan well. You may think it an injustice to the next comer but your paying him ill is an injustice to all comers, for the necessary result of your doing so is that he will lock up or cover whatever he can, that he may get his penny fee for showing it and that, thus exacting a small tax from everybody, he is thankful to none, and gets into a sullen passion if you stay more than a quarter of a minute to look at the object after it is uncovered. And you Will not find it pos sible to examine anything properly under these circumstances. Pay your sacristan well, and make friends with him: in nine cases out of ten an Italian is really grateful for the money, and more than grateful for human courtesy; and will give you some true zeal and kindly feeling in return for a franc and a pleasant look. How very horrid of him to be grateful for money, you think! Well, I can only tell you that I know fifty people who will write me letters full of tender sentiment, for one who will give me tenpence and I shall be very much obliged to you if you will give me tenpence for each of these letters-of mine, though I have done more work than you know of, to make them good ten-pennyworths to you. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.