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The Cathedral of the Santi Apostoli had no Apostles; its great front was a cube of unfinished brick; but colonnades ran in all the streets, row after row of beautifully ordered arches; over them were jutting cornices enriched with dancing children, sea monsters, tritons, dolphins, nymphs blowing conches, Nereus, Thetis, and all their sleek familiars, moulded in red clay.
These he brought to Florence, and they are now preserved at SS. Apostoli, the little church in the Piazza del Limbo, off the Borgo SS. Apostoli, and every year the flints are used to kindle the fire needed for the right preservation of Easter Day. Gradually the ceremony enlarged until it became a spectacle indeed, which the Pazzi family for centuries controlled.
As you leave Via Garibaldi and pass down Via Cairoli, on your left you pass Via S. Siro. Turning down this little way, you come almost immediately to the Church of S. Siro. The present building dates from the seventeenth century, but the old church, then called Dei Dodici Apostoli, was the Cathedral of Genoa.
La mia pittura morta Difendi orma', Giovanni, e 'l mio onore, Non sendo in loco bon, nè io pittore. According to the first plan, Michael Angelo bargained with the Pope for twelve Apostles in the lunettes, and another part to be filled with ornament in the usual manner "dodici Apostoli nelle lunette, e 'l resto un certo partimento ripieno d' adornamenti come si usa."
Howells S. Giovanni Crisostomo Piombo and Giorgione A Sacristan artist Marino Faliero's house SS. Apostoli and Tiepolo Venetian skittles A broad walk Filled in canals The Rialto Bridge S. Giacomo di Rialto The two Ghettos The Rialto hunchback Vegetables and fruits The fish market Symmetrical irony S. Giovanni Elemosinario A busy thoroughfare Old books The convivial gondoliers.
I should add that anyone on the route in charge of a street shrine had the right to stop the procession in order to take a light from it; while at SS. Apostoli women congregated with tapers and lanterns in the hope of getting these kindled from the sacred flame, in order to wash their babies or cook their food in water heated with the fire.
This Borgo SS. Apostoli and the Via Lambertesca which continues it are indeed streets of old palaces and towers. Here the Buondelmonti lived, and the Torre de' Girolami, where S. Zanobi is said to have dwelt, still stands, while Via Lambertesca is full of remembrance of the lesser guilds.
About the year 1472, Melozzo painted his famous fresco of the Ascension in the great chapel of the Santi Apostoli at Rome. Vasari says of this work, "the figure of Christ is so admirably foreshortened, as to appear to pierce the vault; and in the same manner, the Angels are seen sweeping through the fields of air in different directions."
The Pitti side of the river is less interesting than the other, but it has some very fascinating old and narrow streets, although they are less comfortable for foreigners to wander in than those, for example, about the Borgo SS. Apostoli. They are far dirtier. From the Pitti end of the Ponte Vecchio one can obtain a most charming walk.
At the beginning, most probably, Charles Edward drank only in the evening, and slept off his drunkenness over-night; nor does Bonstetten appear to have guessed that there was any skeleton in the palace at the Santissimi Apostoli.
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