For there was another spirit, too, moving secretly through the ways of the city, among the crowds that gathered round the Cantastoria of the Mercato Vecchio, or mingled with the wild procession of the carnival, a spirit not of life, but of denial, a little forgetful as yet that the days of the Middle Age were over:  and even as one day that joy in the earth and the beauty of world was to pass almost into Paganism, so this mysticism, that was at first like some marvellous fore-taste of heaven, fell into just Puritanism, a brutal political and schismatic hatred in the fanaticism of—­let us be thankful for that—­a foreigner.  “If I am deceived, Christ, thou hast deceived me,” Savonarola will come to say; and amid his cursing and prophecies it is perhaps difficult to catch the words of Pico—­“We may rather love God than either know Him or by speech utter Him.”  But in Cosimo’s day men had no fear, the day was at the dawn:  who could have thought by sunset life would be so disastrous?

[Illustration:  CHIOSTRO DI S. MARCO]

Cosimo de’ Medici had a villa near the convent of S. Domenico at Fiesole, where, as it is said, he would often go when Careggi was too far, and the summer had turned the city into a furnace.  Here, as we may think, he may well have talked with Fra Angelico, for he would often walk in the cloisters in the evening with the friars, and must have seen and praised the frescoes there.  These Dominicans at Fiesole had already sent a colony to Florence, for in June 1435 they had obtained from Pope Eugenius iv, who was then at S. Maria Novella the little church of S. Giorgio across Arno.  Seeing the order and comeliness of that convent at Fiesole, Cosimo, on behalf of the magistrates of Florence, presented a petition to the Pope about this time, praying that since he was engaged on a reform of the Religious Orders, which, partly owing to the schism and partly to the plague, were much relaxed, he would suppress the Sylvestrians who dwelt in the old convent of S. Marco, and give it to the Dominicans of Fiesole, who in exchange would give up their convent of S. Giorgio, for in the centre of the city numerous and zealous ministers were needed.  Eugenius very gladly agreed to this, and in a Bull of January 1436, S. Marco was given to the Dominican Friars.[97] So they came down from Fiesole in procession, and went through the city accompanied by three bishops, all the clergy, and an immense concourse of people, and Fra Cipriano took possession of S. Marco “in the name of his congregation.”  The convent at this time would seem to have been in a deplorable state:  in the previous year a fire had destroyed much of it, and the church even was without a roof, so that the friars were obliged to build themselves wooden cells to live in, and to roof the church with timber.  When Cosimo heard this he prepared at once to rebuild the convent, and sent Michelozzo to see what could be done.  Michelozzo first pulled down the old cloister, leaving only the church and