The names of the Medici are in porphyry and ivory.

It is all very marvellous and occasionally beautiful; but...
This pretentious building was designed by a natural son of Cosimo I in 1604, and was begun as the state mausoleum of the Grand Dukes; and all lie here.

All the Grand Duchesses too, save Bianca Capella, wife of Francis I, who was buried none knows where.

It is strange to realize as one stands here that this pavement covers all those ladies, buried in their wonderful clothes.

We shall see Eleanor of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I, in Bronzino's famous picture at the Uffizi, in an amazing brocaded dress: it is that dress in which she reposes beneath us! They had their jewels too, and each Grand Duke his crown and sceptre; but these, with one or two exceptions, were stolen during the French occupation of Tuscany, 1801-1814.