I can not help but see it, now and then, but I keep on protesting against the groveling spirit that could persuade those masters to prostitute their noble talents to the adulation of such monsters as the French, Venetian and Florentine Princes of two and three hundred years ago, all the same.
I am told that the old masters had to do these shameful things for bread, the princes and potentates being the only patrons of art.

If a grandly gifted man may drag his pride and his manhood in the dirt for bread rather than starve with the nobility that is in him untainted, the excuse is a valid one.

It would excuse theft in Washingtons and Wellingtons, and unchastity in women as well.
But somehow, I can not keep that Medici mausoleum out of my memory.

It is as large as a church; its pavement is rich enough for the pavement of a King's palace; its great dome is gorgeous with frescoes; its walls are made of--what?
Marble ?--plaster ?--wood ?--paper?
No.

Red porphyry -- verde antique--jasper--oriental agate--alabaster--mother-of-pearl -- chalcedony--red coral--lapis lazuli! All the vast walls are made wholly of these precious stones, worked in, and in and in together in elaborate patterns and figures, and polished till they glow like great mirrors with the pictured splendors reflected from the dome overhead.