One of Galileo's fingers, stolen from his body, used to be kept here, in a glass case, and may be here still; but I did not see it.

I saw, however, the portraits, in an old volume, of Petrarch and his Laura.
This wonderful collection was begun by Cosimo de' Medici; others added to it until it became one of the most valuable in the world, not, however, without various vicissitudes incident to any Florentine institution: while one of its most cherished treasures, the Virgil of the fourth or fifth century, was even carried to Paris by Napoleon and not returned until the great year of restoration, 1816.

Among the holograph MSS.

is Cellini's "Autobiography".

The library, in time, after being confiscated by the Republic and sold to the monks of S.Marco, again passed into the possession of a Medici, Leo X, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and then of Clement VII, and he it was who commissioned Michelangelo to house it with dignity.
An old daily custom in the cloisters of S.Lorenzo was the feeding of cats; but it has long since been dropped.