PONTE SANTA TRINITÀ. Da dotta mano in varie forme sculti, -Neque ego detrahere ausim, ARIOSTO. HORACE. THE Bridge of the Santa Trinità, erected over the Arno, rivals the most beautiful structures of a similar kind known throughout Europe. Yet, beautiful and noble as it is, we owe the first regular description of it to a countryman of our own-the talented Mr. Vulliamy, who, while residing at Florence as one of the travelling students of the Royal Academy, measured it with great accuracy, and, on his return, published the interesting drawings he had taken of its architectural structure and dimensions. According to the work of this gentleman, the accounts given of it previous to his own are of the most inaccurate kind, and no exact measurement of it was ever taken. Florentine genius, however, appears to have exerted itself with distinguished success in raising the bridge, though its men of science have not since thought of directing their attention to the investigation of the principles on which it was so ably constructed. On the extremities of its marble exterior stand four elegant G statues, representing the Seasons. At the centre of each arch there is also another marble figure; and these ornaments, as we are informed by Mr. Vulliamy, were intended to conceal the interruptions of the arched line by the intersection of the two curves which form the arch. But nothing, says the same gentleman, can exceed the beauty of the effect produced by the lightness of the arches, contrasted with the massiveness of the piers and the cut-waters, the strength of which, it seems, was necessarily great, owing to the force with which the Arno frequently overswells its usual current. It was formerly believed that the bridge was unequal to the support of any great weight, and on this account carriages were not suffered at one time to pass over it; but the French, on obtaining possession of Florence, taught the citizens to be less careful of their bridge, and it was thence discovered that there was little or no reason to suspect its solidity. The history of this bridge, however, presents a formidable idea of the power of the Arno; for the earliest structure of which mention is made was destroyed by its floods in 1252. It was thrice rebuilt and twice destroyed in less than a hundred years from that period. The bridge which was built in 1346 cost 20,000 gold florins; but on the first of March, 1566, the present structure was commenced, and was finished in the spring of 1569, on a plan which has enabled it to resist all the force of the stream, while it is unsurpassed for beauty and lightness of appearance. The completion of the entire undertaking is stated to have cost above 40,000 silver florins. The character of Tuscan architecture is that of simple grandeur. Imposing in its aspect, its principle is one of power and security; and, in the lapse of time, the great masters of the Medicean age threw an air of Grecian grace and nobility round the old Etruscan style, without depriving it of the firm square form and heavy projecting cornices. To Michael Angelo is due the honor of combining the different styles so as to preserve the basis of the Etruscan, varied by Roman. and Grecian lightness. At once grand, and suited to warlike times, by its deep massy walls, it appealed also to national taste by its old hereditary character. To this early and massive style is to be attributed the sombre air which not all the grace and splendour of more modern art has wholly removed from the general aspect of Florence. The ground stone line, coarse rustic base, iron rings, and stone seats, with the square front and projecting cornices, affording a retreat from the glowing noon-tide sun, serve still to remind us of the days when every house was a castle, and Florence herself was one formidable garrison. Walls embracing the circumference of five miles, commanded by sixteen towers with as many gates, frowned defiance on her enemies, till the middle of the fifteenth century. Not a bridge but what was equally well defended, and the grand imposing effect produced by these towers has been often mentioned by writers with regret, about the period of their demolition under Cosmo de Medici. On more important grounds, however, it was a salutary and politic measure, at once removing a source of civil broils, and the more fearful ravages of the plague. The possession of a tower, rising over his palace, and threatening some hereditary foe, was no longer the marked distinction of a Florentine noble. It is recorded that, when Totila sacked the city, it was defended by two-and-sixty towers, filled only with the gentlemen of Florence. Unquenched by civil discord or by foreign aggression, Freedom soon opened to Florence the path to greatness and renown, her merchant princes secured her wealth from the most distant shores, and she assumed her rank in the presence of Pontiffs and of Kings. Her ambassadors were to be seen in every European Court, and her fortunes exercised a marked influence on the councils and destiny of the most powerful states. This moreover was effected by the singular union of the warehouse and the palace, and those arcades that were the scene of midnight factions became, by day, the great mart and exchange for trade. In a city of bridges, palaces, and churches, most of them on a rich and magnificent scale of architecture, the effect is not so imposing as would be produced on a wider theatre than is presented by the view of Florence. It seems too contracted for the bold masculine taste of the Tuscan, and the scene which opens on the eye of the tourist from the bridge of S. Trinità combined of massy squares, domes, spires, pinnacles, with the Arno broadly swelling beneath its noble arches-is almost oppressive and overwhelming. It conveys the impression of a giant city of nobles and of serfs,-superb, massy, but with its edifices heaped as it were together, and encroaching on each other; a profusion that |