But if not, by all means amuse yourself there, if you can find it amusing, as long as you like; you can never see it." The S.Maria Novella habit is one to be quickly contracted by the visitor to Florence: nearly as important as the S.Croce habit.

Both churches are hospitable and, apart from the cloisters, free and eminently suited for dallying in; thus differing from the Duomo, which is dark, and S.Lorenzo, where there are payments to be made and attendants to discourage.
An effort should be made at S.Maria Novella to get into the old cloisters, which are very large and indicate what a vast convent it once was.

But there is no certainty.

The way is to go through to the Palaestra and hope for the best.

Here, as I have said in the second chapter, were lodged Pope Eugenius and his suite, when they came to the Council of Florence in 1439.