diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10769-0.txt | 11203 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10769-8.txt | 11621 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10769-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 265887 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10769.txt | 11621 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10769.zip | bin | 0 -> 265726 bytes |
8 files changed, 34461 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10769-0.txt b/10769-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d30268a --- /dev/null +++ b/10769-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11203 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10769 *** + +A WANDERER IN FLORENCE + +By E.V. Lucas + + + +Preface + +A sentence from a "Synthetical Guidebook" which is circulated in the +Florentine hotels will express what I want to say, at the threshold +of this volume, much better than could unaided words of mine. It runs +thus: "The natural kindness, the high spirit, of the Florentine people, +the wonderful masterpieces of art created by her great men, who in +every age have stood in the front of art and science, rivalize with +the gentle smile of her splendid sky to render Florence one of the +finest towns of beautiful Italy". These words, written, I feel sure, +by a Florentine, and therefore "inspirated" (as he says elsewhere) by +a patriotic feeling, are true; and it is my hope that the pages that +follow will at once fortify their truth and lead others to test it. + +Like the synthetical author, I too have not thought it necessary +to provide "too many informations concerning art and history," but +there will be found a few, practically unavoidable, in the gathering +together of which I have been indebted to many authors: notably Vasari, +Symonds, Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Ruskin, Pater, and Baedeker. Among +more recent books I would mention Herr Bode's "Florentine Sculptors of +the Renaissance," Mr. F.M. Hyett's "Florence," Mr. E.L.S. Horsburgh's +"Lorenzo the Magnificent" and "Savonarola," Mr. Gerald S. Davies' +"Michelangelo," Mr. W.G. Waters' "Italian Sculptors," and Col. Young's +"The Medici". + +I have to thank very heartily a good English Florentine for the +construction of the historical chart at the end of the volume. + +E.V.L. + +May, 1912 + + + +Contents + + Preface +Chapter I The Duomo I: Its Construction +Chapter II The Duomo II: Its Associations +Chapter III The Duomo III: A Ceremony and a Museum +Chapter IV The Campanile and the Baptistery +Chapter V The Riccardi Palace and the Medici +Chapter VI S. Lorenzo and Michelangelo +Chapter VII Or San Michele and the Palazzo Vecchio +Chapter VIII The Uffizi I: The Building and the Collectors +Chapter IX The Uffizi II: The First Six Rooms +Chapter X The Uffizi III: Botticelli +Chapter XI The Uffizi IV: Remaining Rooms +Chapter XII "Aèrial Fiesole" +Chapter XIII The Badia and Dante +Chapter XIV The Bargello +Chapter XV S. Croce +Chapter XVI The Accademia +Chapter XVII Two Monasteries and a Procession +Chapter XVIII S. Marco +Chapter XIX The SS. Annunziata and the Spedale Degli + Innocenti +Chapter XX The Cascine and the Arno +Chapter XXI S. Maria Novella +Chapter XXII The Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele to S. Trinità +Chapter XXIII The Pitti +Chapter XXIV English Poets in Florence +Chapter XXV The Carmine and San Miniato + Historical Chart of Florence and Europe, 1296-1564 + + + + +List of Illustrations + + +In Colour + +The Duomo and Campanile, From the Via Pecori + +The Cloisters of San Lorenzo, Showing the Windows of the Biblioteca +Laurenziana + +The Via Calzaioli, from the Baptistery, Showing the Bigallo and the +Top of Or San Michele + +The Palazzo Vecchio + +The Loggia of the Palazzo Vecchio and the Via de' Leoni + +The Loggia de' Lanzi, the Duomo, and the Palazzo Vecchio, from the +Portico of the Uffizi + +Fiesole, from the Hill under the Monastery + +The Badia and the Bargello, from the Piazza S. Firenze + +Interior of S. Croce + +The Ponte S. Trinità + +The Ponte Vecchio and Back of the Via de' Bardi + +S. Maria Novella and the Corner of the Loggia di S. Paolo + +The Via de' Vagellai, from the Piazza S. Jacopo Trafossi + +The Piazza Della Signoria on a Wet Friday Afternoon + +View of Florence at Evening, from the Piazzale Michelangelo + +Evening at the Piazzale Michelangelo, Looking West + + + +In Monotone + + +A Cantoria. +By Donatello, in the Museum of the Cathedral + +Cain and Abel and Abraham and Isaac. +By Ghiberti, from his second Baptistery Doors + +The Procession of the Magi. +By Benozzo Gozzoli, in the Palazzo Riccardi + +Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino. +By Michelangelo, in the New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo + +Christ and S. Thomas. +By Verrocchio, in a niche by Donatello and Michelozzo in the wall of +Or San Michele + +Putto with Dolphin. +By Verrocchio, in the Palazzo Vecchio + +Madonna Adoring. +Ascribed to Filippino Lippi, in the Uffizi + +The Adoration of the Magi. +By Leonardo da Vinci, in the Uffizi + +Madonna and Child. +By Luca Signorelli, in the Uffizi + +†The Birth of Venus. +By Botticelli, in the Uffizi + +The Annunciation. +By Botticelli, in the Uffizi + +San Giacomo. +By Andrea del Sarto, in the Uffizi + +The Madonna del Cardellino. +By Raphael, in the Uffizi + +The Madonna del Pozzo. +By Franciabigio, in the Uffizi + +Monument to Count Ugo. +By Mino da Fiesole, in the Badia + +David. +By Donatello, in the Bargello +By Verrocchio, in the Bargello + +St. George. +By Donatello, in the Bargello + +Madonna and Child. +By Verrocchio, in the Bargello + +Madonna and Child. +By Luca della Robbia, in the Bargello + +Bust of a Boy. +By Luca or Andrea della Robbia, in the Bargello + +*Monument to Carlo Marzuppini. +By Desiderio da Settignano, in S. Croce + +David. +By Michelangelo, in the Accademia + +The Flight into Egypt. +By Fra Angelico, in the Accademia + +The Adoration of the Shepherds. +By Ghirlandaio, in the Accademia + +The Vision of S. Bernard. +By Fra Bartolommeo, in the Accademia + +Virgin and Child Enthroned, with Saints. +By Botticelli, in the Accademia + +Primavera. +By Botticelli, in the Accademia + +The Coronation of the Virgin. +By Fra Angelico, in the Convent of S. Marco + +The Annunciation. +By Luca della Robbia, in the Spedale degli Innocenti + +The Birth of the Virgin. +By Ghirlandaio, in S. Maria Novella + +The Madonna del Granduca. +By Raphael, in the Pitti + +The Madonna della Sedia. +By Raphael, in the Pitti + +The Concert. +By Giorgione, in the Pitti + +Madonna Adoring. +By Botticini, in the Pitti + +The Madonna and Children. +By Perugino, in the Pitti + +*A Gipsy. +By Boccaccio Boccaccini, in the Pitti + +All the illustrations are from photographs by G. Brogi, except those +marked †, which are by Fratelli Alinari, and that marked *, which is +by R. Anderson. + + + + +A WANDERER IN FLORENCE + +CHAPTER I + +The Duomo I: Its Construction + +The City of the Miracle--The Marble Companions--Twilight and +Immensity--Arnolfo di Cambio--Dante's seat--Ruskin's "Shepherd"--Giotto +the various--Giotto's fun--The indomitable Brunelleschi--Makers of +Florence--The present façade. + +All visitors to Florence make first for the Duomo. Let us do the same. + +The real name of the Duomo is the Cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore, or +St. Mary of the Flowers, the flower being the Florentine lily. Florence +herself is called the City of Flowers, and that, in the spring and +summer, is a happy enough description. But in the winter it fails. A +name appropriate to all the seasons would be the City of the Miracle, +the miracle being the Renaissance. For though all over Italy traces +of the miracle are apparent, Florence was its very home and still +can point to the greatest number of its achievements. Giotto (at the +beginning of this quickening movement) may at Assisi have been more +inspired as a painter; but here is his campanile and here are his +S. Maria Novella and S. Croce frescoes. Fra Angelico and Donatello +(in the midst of it) were never more inspired than here, where they +worked and died. Michelangelo (at the end of it) may be more surprising +in the Vatican; but here are his wonderful Medici tombs. How it came +about that between the years 1300 and 1500 Italian soil--and chiefly +Tuscan soil--threw up such masters, not only with the will and spirit +to do what they did but with the power too, no one will ever be able +to explain. But there it is. In the history of the world two centuries +were suddenly given mysteriously to the activities of Italian men of +humane genius and as suddenly the Divine gift was withdrawn. And to see +the very flower of these two centuries it is to Florence we must go. + +It is best to enter the Piazza del Duomo from the Via de' Martelli, +the Via de' Cerretani, the Via Calzaioli, or the Via Pecori, because +then one comes instantly upon the campanile too. The upper windows--so +very lovely--may have been visible at the end of the streets, with +Brunelleschi's warm dome high in the sky beside them, but that was +not to diminish the effect of the first sight of the whole. Duomo and +campanile make as fair a couple as ever builders brought together: the +immense comfortable church so solidly set upon the earth, and at its +side this delicate, slender marble creature, all gaiety and lightness, +which as surely springs from roots within the earth. For one cannot +be long in Florence, looking at this tower every day and many times a +day, both from near and far, without being perfectly certain that it +grows--and from a bulb, I think--and was never really built at all, +whatever the records may aver. + +The interior of the Duomo is so unexpected that one has the +feeling of having entered, by some extraordinary chance, the wrong +building. Outside it was so garish with its coloured marbles, under +the southern sky; outside, too, one's ears were filled with all the +shattering noises in which Florence is an adept; and then, one step, +and behold nothing but vast and silent gloom. This surprise is the more +emphatic if one happens already to have been in the Baptistery. For the +Baptistery is also coloured marble without, yet within it is coloured +marble and mosaic too: there is no disparity; whereas in the Duomo +the walls have a Northern grey and the columns are brown. Austerity +and immensity join forces. + +When all is said the chief merit of the Duomo is this immensity. Such +works of art as it has are not very noticeable, or at any rate do +not insist upon being seen; but in its vastness it overpowers. Great +as are some of the churches of Florence, I suppose three or four of +them could be packed within this one. And mere size with a dim light +and a savour of incense is enough: it carries religion. No need for +masses and chants or any ceremony whatever: the world is shut out, +one is on terms with the infinite. A forest exercises the same spell; +among mountains one feels it; but in such a cathedral as the Duomo one +feels it perhaps most of all, for it is the work of man, yet touched +with mystery and wonder, and the knowledge that man is the author of +such a marvel adds to its greatness. + +The interior is so dim and strange as to be for a time sheer terra +incognita, and to see a bat flitting from side to side, as I have +often done even in the morning, is to receive no shock. In such a +twilight land there must naturally be bats, one thinks. The darkness +is due not to lack of windows but to time. The windows are there, +but they have become opaque. None of the coloured ones in the aisle +allows more than a filtration of light through it; there are only the +plain, circular ones high up and those rich, coloured, circular ones +under the dome to do the work. In a little while, however, one's eyes +not only become accustomed to the twilight but are very grateful for +it; and beginning to look inquiringly about, as they ever do in this +city of beauty, they observe, just inside, an instant reminder of the +antiseptic qualities of Italy. For by the first great pillar stands a +receptacle for holy water, with a pretty and charming angelic figure +upon it, which from its air of newness you would think was a recent +gift to the cathedral by a grateful Florentine. It is six hundred +years old and perhaps was designed by Giotto himself. + +The emptiness of the Duomo is another of its charms. Nothing is allowed +to impair the vista as you stand by the western entrance: the floor +has no chairs; the great columns rise from it in the gloom as if they, +too, were rooted. The walls, too, are bare, save for a few tablets. + +The history of the building is briefly this. The first cathedral of +Florence was the Baptistery, and S. John the Baptist is still the +patron saint of the city. Then in 1182 the cathedral was transferred +to S. Reparata, which stood on part of the site of the Duomo, and in +1294 the decision to rebuild S. Reparata magnificently was arrived +at, and Arnolfo di Cambio was instructed to draw up plans. Arnolfo, +whom we see not only on a tablet in the left aisle, in relief, with +his plan, but also more than life size, seated beside Brunelleschi +on the Palazzo de' Canonici on the south side of the cathedral, +facing the door, was then sixty-two and an architect of great +reputation. Born in 1232, he had studied under Niccolo Pisano, the +sculptor of the famous pulpit at Pisa (now in the museum there), +of that in the cathedral in Siena, and of the fountain at Perugia +(in all of which Arnolfo probably helped), and the designer of many +buildings all over Italy. Arnolfo's own unaided sculpture may be seen +at its best in the ciborium in S. Paolo Fuori le Mura in Rome; but +it is chiefly as an architect that he is now known. He had already +given Florence her extended walls and some of her most beautiful +buildings--the Or San Michele and the Badia--and simultaneously he +designed S. Croce and the Palazzo Vecchio. Vasari has it that Arnolfo +was assisted on the Duomo by Cimabue; but that is doubtful. + +The foundations were consecrated in 1296 and the first stone laid +on September 8th, 1298, and no one was more interested in its early +progress than a young, grave lawyer who used to sit on a stone seat +on the south side and watch the builders, little thinking how soon +he was to be driven from Florence for ever. This seat--the Sasso di +Dante--was still to be seen when Wordsworth visited Florence in 1837, +for he wrote a sonnet in which he tells us that he in reverence sate +there too, "and, for a moment, filled that empty Throne". But one +can do so no longer, for the place which it occupied has been built +over and only a slab in the wall with an inscription (on the house +next the Palazzo de' Canonici) marks the site. + +Arnolfo died in 1310, and thereupon there seems to have been a +cessation or slackening of work, due no doubt to the disturbed +state of the city, which was in the throes of costly wars and +embroilments. Not until 1332 is there definite news of its progress, +by which time the work had passed into the control of the Arte della +Lana; but in that year, although Florentine affairs were by no means +as flourishing as they should be, and a flood in the Arno had just +destroyed three or four of the bridges, a new architect was appointed, +in the person of the most various and creative man in the history +of the Renaissance--none other than Giotto himself, who had already +received the commission to design the campanile which should stand +at the cathedral's side. + +Giotto was the son of a small farmer at Vespignano, near Florence. He +was instructed in art by Cimabue, who discovered him drawing a lamb +on a stone while herding sheep, and took him as his pupil. Cimabue, +of whom more is said, together with more of Giotto as a painter, in the +chapter on the Accademia, had died in 1302, leaving Giotto far beyond +all living artists, and Giotto, between the age of fifty and sixty, was +now residing in Cimabue's house. He had already painted frescoes in the +Bargello (introducing his friend Dante), in S. Maria Novella, S. Croce, +and elsewhere in Italy, particularly in the upper and lower churches +at Assisi, and at the Madonna dell' Arena chapel at Padua when Dante +was staying there during his exile. In those days no man was painter +only or architect only; an all-round knowledge of both arts and crafts +was desired by every ambitious youth who was attracted by the wish to +make beautiful things, and Giotto was a universal master. It was not +then surprising that on his settling finally in Florence he should be +invited to design a campanile to stand for ever beside the cathedral, +or that he should be appointed superintendent of the cathedral works. + +Giotto did not live to see even his tower completed--it is the unhappy +destiny of architects to die too soon--but he was able during the +four years left him to find time for certain accessory decorations, +of which more will be said later, and also to paint for S. Trinità +the picture which we shall see in the Accademia, together with a few +other works, since perished, for the Badia and S. Giorgio. He died in +1336 and was buried in the cathedral, as the tablet, with Benedetto +da Maiano's bust of him, tells. He is also to be seen full length, +in stone, in a niche at the Uffizi; but the figure is misleading, +for if Vasari is to be trusted (and for my part I find it amusing to +trust him as much as possible) the master was insignificant in size. + +Giotto has suffered, I think, in reputation, from Ruskin, who took +him peculiarly under his wing, persistently called him "the Shepherd," +and made him appear as something between a Sunday-school superintendent +and the Creator. The "Mornings in Florence" and "Giotto and his Works +in Padua" so insist upon the artist's holiness and conscious purpose +in all he did that his genial worldliness, shrewdness, and humour, as +brought out by Dante, Vasari, Sacchetti, and Boccaccio, are utterly +excluded. What we see is an intense saint where really was a very +robust man. Sacchetti's story of Giotto one day stumbling over a +pig that ran between his legs and remarking, "And serve me right; +for I've made thousands with the help of pigs' bristles and never +once given them even a cup of broth," helps to adjust the balance; +while to his friend Dante he made a reply, so witty that the poet +could not forget his admiration, in answer to his question how was +it that Giotto's pictures were so beautiful and his six children so +ugly; but I must leave the reader to hunt it for himself, as these +are modest pages. Better still, for its dry humour, was his answer +to King Robert of Naples, who had commanded him to that city to paint +some Scriptural scenes, and, visiting the artist while he worked, on +a very hot day, remarked, "Giotto, if I were you I should leave off +painting for a while". "Yes," replied Giotto, "if I were you I should." + +To Giotto happily we come again and again in this book. Enough at +present to say that upon his death in 1336 he was buried, like Arnolfo, +in the cathedral, where the tablet to his memory may be studied, +and was succeeded as architect, both of the church and the tower, +by his friend and assistant, Andrea Pisano, whose chief title to +fame is his Baptistery doors and the carving, which we are soon to +examine, of the scenes round the base of the campanile. He, too, +died--in 1348--before the tower was finished. + +Francesco Talenti was next called in, again to superintend both +buildings, and not only to superintend but to extend the plans of the +cathedral. Arnolfo and Giotto had both worked upon a smaller scale; +Talenti determined the present floor dimensions. The revised façade +was the work of a committee of artists, among them Giotto's godson +and disciple, Taddeo Gaddi, then busy with the Ponte Vecchio, and +Andrea Orcagna, whose tabernacle we shall see at Or San Michele. And +so the work went on until the main structure was complete in the +thirteen-seventies. + +Another longish interval then came, in which nothing of note in the +construction occurred, and the next interesting date is 1418, when a +competition for the design for the dome was announced, the work to +be given eventually to one Filippo Brunelleschi, then an ambitious +and nervously determined man, well known in Florence as an architect, +of forty-one. Brunelleschi, who, again according to Vasari, was small, +and therefore as different as may be from the figure which is seated +on the clergy house opposite the south door of the cathedral, watching +his handiwork, was born in 1377, the son of a well-to-do Florentine of +good family who wished to make him a notary. The boy, however, wanted +to be an artist, and was therefore placed with a goldsmith, which was +in those days the natural course. As a youth he attempted everything, +being of a pertinacious and inquiring mind, and he was also a great +debater and student of Dante; and, taking to sculpture, he was one +of those who, as we shall see in a later chapter, competed for the +commission for the Baptistery gates. It was indeed his failure in that +competition which decided him to concentrate on architecture. That +he was a fine sculptor his competitive design, now preserved in the +Bargello, and his Christ crucified in S. Maria Novella, prove; but +in leading him to architecture the stars undoubtedly did rightly. + +It was in 1403 that the decision giving Ghiberti the Baptistery +commission was made, when Brunelleschi was twenty-six and Donatello, +destined to be his life-long friend, was seventeen; and when +Brunelleschi decided to go to Rome for the study of his new branch of +industry, architecture, Donatello went too. There they worked together, +copying and measuring everything of beauty, Brunelleschi having always +before his mind the problem of how to place a dome upon the cathedral +of his native city. But, having a shrewd knowledge of human nature +and immense patience, he did not hasten to urge upon the authorities +his claims as the heaven-born architect, but contented himself with +smaller works, and even assisted his rival Ghiberti with his gates, +joining at that task Donatello and Luca della Robbia, and giving +lessons in perspective to a youth who was to do more than any man +after Giotto to assure the great days of painting and become the +exemplar of the finest masters--Masaccio. + +It was not until 1419 that Brunelleschi's persistence and belief +in his own powers satisfied the controllers of the cathedral works +that he might perhaps be as good as his word and was the right man +to build the dome; but at last he was able to begin. [1] For the +story of his difficulties, told minutely and probably with sufficient +accuracy, one must go to Vasari: it is well worth reading, and is a +lurid commentary on the suspicions and jealousies of the world. The +building of the dome, without scaffolding, occupied fourteen years, +Brunelleschi's device embracing two domes, one within the other, +tied together with stone for material support and strength. It is +because of this inner dome that the impression of its size, from +within the cathedral, can disappoint. Meanwhile, in spite of all the +wear and tear of the work, the satisfying of incredulous busy-bodies, +and the removal of such an incubus as Ghiberti, who because he was a +superb modeller of bronze reliefs was made for a while joint architect +with a salary that Brunelleschi felt should either be his own or no +one's, the little man found time also to build beautiful churches +and cloisters all over Florence. He lived to see his dome finished +and the cathedral consecrated by Pope Eugenius IV in 1436, dying ten +years later. He was buried in the cathedral, and his adopted son and +pupil, Buggiano, made the head of him on the tablet to his memory. + +Brunelleschi's lantern, the model of which from his own hand we shall +see in the museum of the cathedral, was not placed on the dome until +1462. The copper ball above it was the work of Verrocchio. In 1912 +there are still wanting many yards of stone border to the dome. + +Of the man himself we know little, except that he was of iron +tenacity and lived for his work. Vasari calls him witty, but gives +a not good example of his wit; he seems to have been philanthropic +and a patron of poor artists, and he grieved deeply at the untimely +death of Masaccio, who painted him in one of the Carmine frescoes, +together with Donatello and other Florentines. + +As one walks about Florence, visiting this church and that, and +peering into cool cloisters, one's mind is always intent upon the +sculpture or paintings that may be preserved there for the delectation +of the eye. The tendency is to think little of the architect who made +the buildings where they are treasured. Asked to name the greatest +makers of this beautiful Florence, the ordinary visitor would +say Michelangelo, Giotto, Raphael, Donatello, the della Robbias, +Ghirlandaio, and Andrea del Sarto: all before Brunelleschi, even if +he named him at all. But this is wrong. Not even Michelangelo did +so much for Florence as he. Michelangelo was no doubt the greatest +individualist in the whole history of art, and everything that he did +grips the memory in a vice; but Florence without Michelangelo would +still be very nearly Florence, whereas Florence without Brunelleschi +is unthinkable. No dome to the cathedral, first of all; no S. Lorenzo +church or cloisters; no S. Croce cloisters or Pazzi chapel; no Badia +of Fiesole. Honour where honour is due. We should be singing the +praises of Filippo Brunelleschi in every quarter of the city. + +After Brunelleschi the chief architect of the cathedral was Giuliano da +Maiano, the artist of the beautiful intarsia woodwork in the sacristy, +and the uncle of Benedetto da Maiano who made the S. Croce pulpit. + +The present façade is the work of the architect Emilio de Fabris, +whose tablet is to be seen on the left wall. It was finished in 1887, +five hundred and more years after the abandonment of Arnolfo's original +design and three hundred and more years after the destruction of the +second one, begun in 1357 and demolished in 1587. Of Arnolfo's façade +the primitive seated statue of Boniface VIII (or John XXII) just inside +the cathedral is, with a bishop in one of the sacristies, the only +remnant; while of the second façade, for which Donatello and other +early Renaissance sculptors worked, the giant S. John the Evangelist, +in the left aisle, is perhaps the most important relic. Other statues +in the cathedral were also there, while the central figure--the Madonna +with enamel eyes--may be seen in the cathedral museum. Although not +great, the group of the Madonna and Child now over the central door +of the Duomo has much charm and benignancy. + +The present façade, although attractive as a mass of light, is not +really good. Its patterns are trivial, its paintings and statues +commonplace; and I personally have the feeling that it would have +been more fitting had Giotto's marble been supplied rather with +a contrast than an imitation. As it is, it is not till Giotto's +tower soars above the façade that one can rightly (from the front) +appreciate its roseate delicacy, so strong is this rival. + + + +CHAPTER II + +The Duomo II: Its Associations + +Dante's picture--Sir John Hawkwood--Ancestor and Descendant--The Pazzi +Conspiracy--Squeamish Montesecco--Giuliano de' Medici dies--Lorenzo's +escape--Vengeance on the Pazzi--Botticelli's cartoon--High +Mass--Luca della Robbia--Michelangelo nearing the end--The Miracles +of Zenobius--East and West meet in splendour--Marsilio Ficino and +the New Learning--Beautiful glass. + +Of the four men most concerned in the structure of the Duomo I have +already spoken. There are other men held in memory there, and certain +paintings and statues, of which I wish to speak now. + +The picture of Dante in the left aisle was painted by command of +the Republic in 1465, one hundred and sixty-three years after his +banishment from the city. Lectures on Dante were frequently delivered +in the churches of Florence during the fourteenth and fifteenth +centuries, and it was interesting for those attending them to have +a portrait on the wall. This picture was painted by Domenico di +Michelino, the portrait of Dante being prepared for him by Alessio +Baldovinetti, who probably took it from Giotto's fresco in the chapel +of the Podestá at the Bargello. In this picture Dante stands between +the Inferno and a concentrated Florence in which portions of the +Duomo, the Signoria, the Badia, the Bargello, and Or San Michele are +visible. Behind him is Paradise. In his hand is the "Divine Comedy". I +say no more of the poet here, because a large part of the chapter on +the Badia is given to him. + +Near the Dante picture in the left aisle are two Donatellos--the +massive S. John the Evangelist, seated, who might have given ideas +to Michelangelo for his Moses a century and more later; and, nearer +the door, between the tablets to De Fabris and Squarciaparello, the +so-called Poggio Bracciolini, a witty Italian statesman and Humanist +and friend of the Medici, who, however, since he was much younger than +this figure at the time of its exhibition, and is not known to have +visited Florence till later, probably did not sit for it. But it is +a powerful and very natural work, although its author never intended +it to stand on any floor, even of so dim a cathedral as this. The +S. John, I may say, was brought from the old façade--not Arnolfo's, +but the committee's façade--where it had a niche about ten feet from +the ground. The Poggio was also on this façade, but higher. It was +Poggio's son, Jacopo, who took part in the Pazzi Conspiracy, of which +we are about to read, and was very properly hanged for it. + +Of the two pictures on the entrance wall, so high as to be imperfectly +seen, that on the right as you face it has peculiar interest to +English visitors, for (painted by Paolo Uccello, whose great battle +piece enriches our National Gallery) it represents Sir John Hawkwood, +an English free-lance and head of the famous White Company, who +after some successful raids on Papal territory in Provence, put his +sword, his military genius, and his bravoes at the service of the +highest bidder among the warlike cities and provinces of Italy, and, +eventually passing wholly into the employment of Florence (after +harrying her for other pay-masters for some years), delivered her +very signally from her enemies in 1392. Hawkwood was an Essex man, +the son of a tanner at Hinckford, and was born there early in the +fourteenth century. He seems to have reached France as an archer under +Edward III, and to have remained a free-booter, passing on to Italy, +about 1362, to engage joyously in as much fighting as any English +commander can ever have had, for some thirty years, with very good +pay for it. Although, by all accounts, a very Salomon Brazenhead, +Hawkwood had enough dignity to be appointed English Ambassador to Rome, +and later to Florence, which he made his home, and where he died in +1394. He was buried in the Duomo, on the north side of the choir, and +was to have reposed beneath a sumptuous monument made under his own +instructions, with frescoes by Taddeo Gaddi and Giuliano d'Arrigo; +but something intervened, and Uccello's fresco was used instead, +and this, some sixty years ago, was transferred to canvas and moved +to the position in which it now is seen. + +Hawkwood's life, briskly told by a full-blooded hand, would make a fine +book. One pleasant story at least is related of him, that on being +beset by some begging friars who prefaced their mendicancy with the +words, "God give you peace," he answered, "God take away your alms"; +and, on their protesting, reminded them that such peace was the last +thing he required, since should their pious wish come true he would +die of hunger. One of the daughters of this fire-eater married John +Shelley, and thus became an ancestress of Shelley the poet, who, +as it chances, also found a home for a while in this city, almost +within hailing distance of his ancestor's tomb and portrait, and here +wrote not only his "Ode to the West Wind," but his caustic satire, +"Peter Bell the Third". + +Hawkwood's name is steeped sufficiently in carnage; but we get to the +scene of bloodshed in reality as we approach the choir, for it was +here that Giuliano de' Medici was assassinated, as he attended High +Mass, on April 26th, 1478, with the connivance, if not actually at the +instigation, of Christ's Vicar himself, Pope Sixtus IV. Florentine +history is so eventful and so tortuous that beyond the bare outline +given in chapter V, I shall make in these pages but little effort to +follow it, assuming a certain amount of knowledge on the part of the +reader; but it must be stated here that periodical revolts against +the power and prestige of the Medici often occurred, and none was +more desperate than that of the Pazzi family in 1478, acting with +the support of the Pope behind all and with the co-operation of +Girolamo Riario, nephew of the Pope, and Salviati, Archbishop of +Pisa. The Pazzi, who were not only opposed to the temporal power +of the Medici, but were their rivals in business--both families +being bankers--wished to rid Florence of Lorenzo and Giuliano in +order to be greater both civically and financially. Girolamo wished +the removal of Lorenzo and Giuliano in order that hostility to his +plans for adding Forli and Faenza to the territory of Imola, which +the Pope had successfully won for him against Lorenzo's opposition, +might disappear. The Pope had various political reasons for wishing +Lorenzo's and Giuliano's death and bringing Florence, always headstrong +and dangerous, to heel. While as for Salviati, it was sufficient that +he was Archbishop of Pisa, Florence's ancient rival and foe; but he +was a thoroughly bad lot anyway. Assassination also was in the air, +for Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan had been stabbed in church in 1476, +thus to some extent paving the way for this murder, since Lorenzo +and Sforza, when acting together, had been practically unassailable. + +In 1478 Lorenzo was twenty-nine, Giuliano twenty-five. Lorenzo had +been at the head of Florentine affairs for nine years and he was +steadily growing in strength and popularity. Hence it was now or never. + +The conspirators' first idea was to kill the brothers at a banquet +which Lorenzo was to give to the great-nephew of the Pope, the +youthful Cardinal Raffaello Riario, who promised to be an amenable +catspaw. Giuliano, however, having hurt his leg, was not well enough to +be present, but as he would attend High Mass, the conspirators decided +to act then. That is to say, it was then, in the cathedral, that the +death of the Medici brothers was to be effected; meanwhile another +detachment of conspirators under Salviati was to rise simultaneously to +capture the Signoria, while the armed men of the party who were outside +and inside the walls would begin their attacks on the populace. Thus, +at the same moment Medici and city would fall. Such was the plan. + +The actual assassins were Francesco de' Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini, +who were nominally friends of the Medici (Francesco's brother Guglielmo +having married Bianca de' Medici, Lorenzo's sister), and two priests +named Maffeo da Volterra and Stefano da Bagnone. A professional bravo +named Montesecco was to have killed Lorenzo, but refused on learning +that the scene of the murder was to be a church. At that, he said, +he drew the line: murder anywhere else he could perform cheerfully, +but in a sacred building it was too much to ask. He therefore did +nothing, but, subsequently confessing, made the guilt of all his +associates doubly certain. + +When High Mass began it was found that Giuliano was not present, +and Francesco de' Pazzi and Bandini were sent to persuade him to +come--a Judas-like errand indeed. On the way back, it is said, one +of them affectionately placed his arm round Giuliano--to see if he +wore a shirt of mail--remarking, to cover the action, that he was +getting fat. On his arrival, Giuliano took his place at the north +side of the circular choir, near the door which leads to the Via de' +Servi, while Lorenzo stood at the opposite side. At the given signal +Bandini and Pazzi were to stab Giuliano and the two priests were to +stab Lorenzo. The signal was the breaking of the Eucharistic wafer, +and at this solemn moment Giuliano was instantly killed, with one stab +in the heart and nineteen elsewhere, Francesco so overdoing his attack +that he severely wounded himself too; but Lorenzo was in time to see +the beginning of the assault, and, making a movement to escape, he +prevented the priest from doing aught but inflict a gash in his neck, +and, springing away, dashed behind the altar to the old sacristy, +where certain of his friends who followed him banged the heavy bronze +doors on the pursuing foe. Those in the cathedral, mean-while, were in +a state of hysterical alarm; the youthful cardinal was hurried into +the new sacristy; Guglielmo de' Pazzi bellowed forth his innocence +in loud tones; and his murderous brother and Bandini got off. + +Order being restored, Lorenzo was led by a strong bodyguard to +the Palazzo Medici, where he appeared at a window to convince the +momentarily increasing crowd that he was still living. Meanwhile +things were going not much more satisfactorily for the Pazzi at +the Palazzo Vecchio, where, according to the plan, the gonfalonier, +Cesare Petrucci, was to be either killed or secured. The Archbishop +Salviati, who was to effect this, managed his interview so clumsily +that Petrucci suspected something, those being suspicious times, +and, instead of submitting to capture, himself turned the key on his +visitors. The Pazzi faction in the city, meanwhile, hoping that all +had gone well in the Palazzo Vecchio, as well as in the cathedral +(as they thought), were running through the streets calling "Viva la +Libertà !" to be met with counter cries of "Palle! palle!"--the palle +being the balls on the Medici escutcheon, still to be seen all over +Florence and its vicinity and on every curtain in the Uffizi. + +The truth gradually spreading, the city then rose for the Medici and +justice began to be done. The Archbishop was handed at once, just as +he was, from a window of the Palazzo Vecchio. Francesco de' Pazzi, +who had got home to bed, was dragged to the Palazzo and hanged too. The +mob meanwhile were not idle, and most of the Pazzi were accounted for, +together with many followers--although Lorenzo publicly implored them +to be merciful. Poliziano, the scholar-poet and friend of Lorenzo, +has left a vivid account of the day. With his own eyes he saw the +hanging Salviati, in his last throes, bite the hanging Francesco de +Pazzi. Old Jacopo succeeded in escaping, but not for long, and a day +or so later he too was hanged. Bandini got as far as Constantinople, +but was brought back in chains and hanged. The two priests hid in +the Benedictine abbey in the city and for a while evaded search, +but being found they were torn to pieces by the crowd. Montesecco, +having confessed, was beheaded in the courtyard of the Bargello. + +The hanging of the chief conspirators was kept in the minds of the +short-memoried Florentines by a representation outside the Palazzo +Vecchio, by none other than the wistful, spiritual Botticelli; while +three effigies, life size, of Lorenzo--one of them with his bandaged +neck--were made by Verrocchio in coloured wax and set up in places +where prayers might be offered. Commemorative medals which may be +seen in the Bargello, were also struck, and the family of Pazzi was +banished and its name removed by decree from the city's archives. Poor +Giuliano, who was generally beloved for his charm and youthful spirits, +was buried at S. Lorenzo in great state. + +I have often attended High Mass in this Duomo choir--the theatre of +the Pazzi tragedy--but never without thinking of that scene. + +Luca della Robbia's doors to the new sacristy, which gave the young +cardinal his safety, had been finished only eleven years. Donatello was +to have designed them, but his work at Padua was too pressing. The +commission was then given to Michelozzo, Donatello's partner, +and to Luca della Robbia, but it seems likely that Luca did nearly +all. The doors are in very high relief, thus differing absolutely +from Donatello's at S. Lorenzo, which are in very low. Luca's work +here is sweet and mild rather than strong, and the panels derive +their principal charm from the angels, who, in pairs, attend the +saints. Above the door was placed, at the time of Lorenzo's escape, +the beautiful cantoria, also by Luca, which is now in the museum of +the cathedral, while above the door of the old sacristy was Donatello's +cantoria. Commonplace new ones now take their place. In the semicircle +over each door is a coloured relief by Luca: that over the bronze doors +being the "Resurrection," and the other the "Ascension"; and they are +interesting not only for their beauty but as being the earliest-known +examples in Luca's newly-discovered glazed terra-cotta medium, +which was to do so much in the hands of himself, his nephew Andrea, +and his followers, to make Florence still lovelier and the legend +of the Virgin Mary still sweeter. But of the della Robbias and their +exquisite genius I shall say more later, when we come to the Bargello. + +As different as would be possible to imagine is the genius of that +younger sculptor, the author of the Pietà at the back of the altar, +near where we now stand, who, when Luca finished these bronze doors, +in 1467, was not yet born--Michelangelo Buonarroti. This group, which +is unfinished, is the last the old and weary Titan ever worked at, +and it was meant to be part of his own tomb. Vasari, to whose "Lives +of the Painters" we shall be indebted, as this book proceeds, for so +much good human nature, and who speaks of Michelangelo with peculiar +authority, since he was his friend, pupil, and correspondent, tells us +that once when he went to see the sculptor in Rome, near the end, he +found him at work upon this Pietà , but the sculptor was so dissatisfied +with one portion that he let his lantern fall in order that Vasari +might not see it, saying: "I am so old that death frequently drags +at my mantle to take me, and one day my person will fall like this +lantern". The Pietà is still in deep gloom, as the master would have +liked, but enough is revealed to prove its pathos and its power. + +In the east end of the nave is the chapel of S. Zenobius, containing a +bronze reliquary by Ghiberti, with scenes upon it from the life of this +saint, so important in Florentine religious history. It is, however, +very hard to see, and should be illuminated. Zenobius was born at +Florence in the reign of Constantine the Great, when Christianity +was by no means the prevailing religion of the city, although the +way had been paved by various martyrs. After studying philosophy +and preaching with much acceptance, Zenobius was summoned to Rome +by Pope Damasus. On the Pope's death he became Bishop of Florence, +and did much, says Butler, to "extirpate the kingdom of Satan". The +saint lived in the ancient tower which still stands--one of the few +survivors of Florence's hundreds of towers--at the corner of the Via +Por S. Maria (which leads from the Mercato Nuovo to the Ponte Vecchio) +and the Via Lambertesca. It is called the Torre de' Girolami, and +on S. Zenobius' day--May 25th--is decorated with flowers; and since +never are so many flowers in the city of flowers as at that time, it +is a sight to see. The remains of the saint were moved to the Duomo, +although it had not then its dome, from S. Lorenzo, in 1330, and the +simple column in the centre of the road opposite Ghiberti's first +Baptistery doors was erected to mark the event, since on that very +spot, it is said, stood a dead elm tree which, when the bier of the +saint chanced to touch it, immediately sprang to life again and burst +into leaf; even, the enthusiastic chronicler adds, into flower. The +result was that the tree was cut completely to pieces by relic hunters, +but the column by the Baptistery, the work of Brunelleschi (erected on +the site of an earlier one), fortunately remains as evidence of the +miracle. Ghiberti, however, did not choose this miracle but another +for representation; for not only did Zenobius dead restore animation, +but while he was himself living he resuscitated two boys. The one was a +ward of his own; the second was an ordinary Florentine, for whom the +same modest boon was craved by his sorrowing parents. It is one of +these scenes of resuscitation which Ghiberti has designed in bronze, +while Ridolfo Ghirlandaio painted it in a picture in the Uffizi. We +shall see S. Zenobius again in the fresco by Ridolfo's father, the +great Ghirlandaio, in the Palazzo Vecchio; while the portrait on the +first pillar of the left aisle, as one enters the cathedral is of +Zenobius too. + +The date of the Pazzi Conspiracy was 1478. A few years later the +same building witnessed the extraordinary effects of Savonarola's +oratory, when such was the terrible picture he drew of the fate of +unregenerate sinners that his listeners' hair was said actually to +rise with fright. Savonarola came towards the end of the Renaissance, +to give it its death-blow. By contrast there is a tablet on the right +wall of the cathedral in honour of one who did much to bring about the +paganism and sophistication against which the impassioned reformer +uttered his fiercest denunciations: Marsilio Ficino (1433-1491), +the neo-Platonist protegé of Cosimo de' Medici, and friend both +of Piero de' Medici and Lorenzo. To explain Marsilio's influence +it is necessary to recede a little into history. In 1439 Cosimo de' +Medici succeeded in transferring the scene of the Great Council of the +Church to Florence. At this conference representatives of the Western +Church, centred in Rome, met those of the Eastern Church, centred +in Constantinople, which was still Christian, for the purpose of +discussing various matters, not the least of which was the protection +of the Eastern Church against the Infidel. Not only was Constantinople +continually threatened by the Turks, and in need of arms as well +as sympathy, but the two branches of the Church were at enmity over +a number of points. It was as much to heal these differences as to +seek temporal aid that the Emperor John Palaeologus, the Patriarch +of Constantinople, and a vast concourse of nobles, priests, and +Greek scholars, arrived in Italy, and, after sojourning at Venice +and Ferrara, moved on to Florence at the invitation of Cosimo. The +Emperor resided in the Peruzzi palace, now no more, near S. Croce; +the Patriarch of Constantinople lodged (and as it chanced, died, for +he was very old) at the Ferrantini palace, now the Casa Vernaccia, +in the Borgo Pinti; while Pope Eugenius was at the convent attached +to S. Maria Novella. The meetings of the Council were held where we +now stand--in the cathedral, whose dome had just been placed upon it +all ready for them. + +The Council failed in its purpose, and, as we know, Constantinople +was lost some years later, and the great empire of which John +Palaeologus was the last ruler ceased to be. That, however, at the +moment is beside the mark. The interesting thing to us is that among +the scholars who came from Constantinople, bringing with them numbers +of manuscripts and systems of thought wholly new to the Florentines, +was one Georgius Gemisthos, a Greek philosopher of much personal +charm and comeliness, who talked a bland and beautiful Platonism that +was extremely alluring not only to his youthful listeners but also +to Cosimo himself. Gemisthos was, however, a Greek, and Cosimo was +too busy a man in a city of enemies, or at any rate of the envious, +to be able to do much more than extend his patronage to the old man +and despatch emissaries to the East for more and more manuscripts; +but discerning the allurements of the new gospel, Cosimo directed +a Florentine enthusiast who knew Greek to spread the serene creed +among his friends, who were all ripe for it, and this enthusiast was +none other than a youthful scholar by name Marsilio Ficino, connected +with S. Lorenzo, Cosimo's family church, and the son of Cosimo's own +physician. To the young and ardent Marsilio, Plato became a god and +Gemisthos not less than divine for bringing the tidings. He kept a lamp +always burning before Plato's bust, and later founded the Platonic +Academy, at which Plato's works were discussed, orations delivered, +and new dialogues exchanged, between such keen minds as Marsilio, +Pulci, Landini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Leon Battista Alberti, the +architect and scholar, Pico dell a Mirandola, the precocious disputant +and aristocratic mystic, Poliziano, the tutor of Lorenzo's sons, and +Lorenzo the Magnificent himself. It was thus from the Greek invasion +of Florence that proceeded the stream of culture which is known as +Humanism, and which, no doubt, in time, was so largely concerned in +bringing about that indifference to spiritual things which, leading +to general laxity and indulgence, filled Savonarola with despair. + +I am not concerned to enter deeply into the subject of the +Renaissance. But this must be said--that the new painting and +sculpture, particularly the painting of Masaccio and the sculpture +of Donatello, had shown the world that the human being could be made +the measure of the Divine. The Madonna and Christ had been related +to life. The new learning, by leading these keen Tuscan intellects, +so eager for reasonableness, to the Greek philosophers who were so +wise and so calm without any of the consolations of Christianity, +naturally set them wondering if there were not a religion of Humanity +that was perhaps a finer thing than the religion that required all the +machinery and intrigue of Rome. And when, as the knowledge of Greek +spread and the minute examination of documents ensued, it was found +that Rome had not disdained forgery to gain her ends, a blow was struck +against the Church from which it never recovered;--and how much of this +was due to this Florentine Marsilio, sitting at the feet of the Greek +Gemisthos, who came to Florence at the invitation of Cosimo de' Medici! + +The cathedral glass, as I say, is mostly overladen with grime; but the +circular windows in the dome seem to be magnificent in design. They +are attributed to Ghiberti and Donatello, and are lovely in colour. The +greens in particular are very striking. But the jewel of these circular +windows of Florence is that by Ghiberti on the west wall of S. Croce. + +And here I leave the Duomo, with the counsel to visitors to Florence +to make a point of entering it every day--not, as so many Florentines +do, in order to make a short cut from the Via Calzaioli to the Via de' +Servi, and vice versâ, but to gather its spirit. It is different every +hour in the day, and every hour the light enters it with new beauty. + + + +CHAPTER III + +The Duomo III: A Ceremony and a Museum + +The Scoppio del Carro--The Pazzi beneficent--Holy Saturday's +programme--April 6th, 1912--The flying palle--The nervous +pyrotechnist--The influence of noon--A little sister of the +Duomo--Donatello's cantoria--Luca della Robbia's cantoria. + +In the last chapter we saw the Pazzi family as very black sheep, +although there are plenty of students of Florentine history who +hold that any attempt to rid Florence of the Medici was laudable. In +this chapter we see them in a kindlier situation as benefactors to +the city. For it happened that when Pazzo de' Pazzi, a founder of +the house, was in the Holy Land during the First Crusade, it was his +proud lot to set the Christian banner on the walls of Jerusalem, and, +as a reward, Godfrey of Boulogne gave him some flints from the Holy +Sepulchre. 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. After the Pazzi conspiracy +they lost it and the Signoria took it over; but, on being pardoned, +the Pazzi again resumed. + +The Carro is a car containing explosives, and the Scoppio is its +explosion. This car, after being drawn in procession through the +streets by white oxen, is ignited by the sacred fire borne to it by +a mechanical dove liberated at the high altar of the Duomo, and with +its explosion Easter begins. There is still a Pazzi fund towards the +expenses, but a few years ago the city became responsible for the +whole proceedings, and the ceremony as it is now given, under civic +management, known as the Scoppio del Cairo, is that which I saw on +Holy Saturday last and am about to describe. + +First, however, let me state what had happened before the proceedings +opened in the Piazza del Duomo. At six o'clock mass began at +SS. Apostoli, lasting for more than two hours. At its close the +celebrant was handed a plate on which were the sacred flints, and these +he struck with a steel in view of the congregation, thus igniting a +taper. The candle, in an ancient copper porta fuoco surmounted by a +dove, was then lighted, and the procession of priests started off for +the cathedral with their precious flame, escorted by a civic guard +and various standard bearers. Their route was the Piazza del Limbo, +along the Borgo SS. Apostoli to the Via Por S. Maria and through +the Vacchereccia to the Piazza della Signoria, the Via Condotta, the +Via del Proconsolo, to the Duomo, through whose central doors they +passed, depositing the sacred burden at the high altar. 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. + +Meanwhile at seven o'clock the four oxen, which are kept in the +Cascine all the year round and do no other work, had been harnessed to +the car and had drawn it to the Piazza del Duomo, which was reached +about nine. The oxen were then tethered by the Pisano doors of the +Baptistery until needed again. + +After some haggling on the night before, I had secured a seat on a +balcony facing Ghiberti's first Baptistery doors, for eleven lire, and +to this place I went at half-past ten. The piazza was then filling up, +and at a quarter to eleven the trams running between the Cathedral and +the Baptistery were stopped. In this space was the car. The present +one, which dates from 1622, is more like a catafalque, and unless one +sees it in motion, with the massive white oxen pulling it, one cannot +believe in it as a vehicle at all. It is some thirty feet high, all +black, with trumpery coloured-paper festoons (concealing fireworks) +upon it: trumpery as only the Roman Catholic Church can contrive. It +stood in front of the Duomo some four yards from the Baptistery gates +in a line with the Duomo's central doors and the high altar. The +doors were open, seats being placed on each side of the aisle the +whole distance, and people making a solid avenue. Down this avenue +were to come the clergy, and above it was to be stretched the line +on which the dove was to travel from the altar, with the Pazzi fire, +to ignite the car. + +The space in front of the cathedral was cleared at about eleven, +and cocked hats and red-striped trousers then became the most +noticeable feature. The crowd was jolly and perhaps a little cynical; +picture-postcard hawkers made most of the noise, and for some reason +or other a forlorn peasant took this opportunity to offer for sale two +equally forlorn hedgehogs. Each moment the concourse increased, for it +is a fateful day and every one wants to know the issue: because, you +see, if the dove runs true, lights the car, and returns, as a good dove +should, to the altar ark, there will be a prosperous vintage and the +pyrotechnist who controls the sacred bird's movements will receive his +wages. But if the dove runs defectively and there is any hitch, every +one is dismayed, for the harvest will be bad and the pyrotechnist will +receive nothing. Once he was imprisoned when things went astray--and +quite right too--but the Florentines have grown more lenient. + +At about a quarter past eleven a procession of clergy emerged from the +Duomo and crossed the space to the Baptistery. First, boys and youths +in surplices. Then some scarlet hoods, waddling. Then purple hoods, +and other colours, a little paunchier, waddling more, and lastly the +archbishop, very sumptuous. All having disappeared into the Baptistery, +through Ghiberti's second gates, which I never saw opened before, the +dove's wire was stretched and fastened, a matter needing much care; +and the crowds began to surge. The cocked hats and officers had the +space all to themselves, with the car, the firemen, the pyrotechnist +and the few privileged and very self-conscious civilians who were +allowed inside. + +A curious incident, which many years ago might have been magnified +into a portent, occurred while the ecclesiastics were in the Artistry. +Some one either bought and liberated several air balloons, or the +string holding them was surreptitiously cut; but however it happened, +the balls escaped and suddenly the crowd sent up a triumphant yell. At +first I could see no reason for it, the Baptistery intervening, +but then the balls swam into our ken and steadily floated over +the cathedral out of sight amid tremendous satisfaction. And the +portent? Well, as they moved against the blue sky they formed +themselves into precisely the pattern of the palle on the Medici +escutcheon. That is all. But think what that would have meant in the +fifteenth century; the nods and frowns it would have occasioned; the +dispersal of the Medici, the loss of power, and all the rest of it, +that it would have presaged! + +At about twenty to twelve the ecclesiastics returned and were +swallowed up by the Duomo, and then excitement began to be acute. The +pyrotechnist was not free from it; he fussed about nervously; he tested +everything again and again; he crawled under the car and out of it; +he talked to officials; he inspected and re-inspected. Photographers +began to adjust their distances; the detached men in bowlers looked +at their watches; the cocked hats drew nearer to the Duomo door. And +then we heard a tearing noise. All eyes were turned to the great door, +and out rushed the dove emitting a wake of sparks, entered the car +and was out again on its homeward journey before one realized what had +happened. And then the explosions began, and the bells--silent since +Thursday--broke out. How many explosions there were I do not know; +but they seemed to go on for ten minutes. + +This is a great moment not only for the spectator but for all Florence, +for in myriad rooms mothers have been waiting, with their babies +on their knees, for the first clang of the belfries, because if a +child's eyes are washed then it is unlikely ever to have weak sight, +while if a baby takes its first steps to this accompaniment its legs +will not be bowed. + +At the last explosion the pyrotechnist, now a calm man once more +and a proud one, approached the car, the firemen poured water on +smouldering parts, and the work of clearing up began. Then came +the patient oxen, their horns and hooves gilt, and great masses of +flowers on their heads, and red cloths with the lily of Florence +on it over their backs--much to be regretted since they obliterated +their beautiful white skins--and slowly the car lumbered off, and, +the cocked hats relenting, the crowd poured after it and the Scoppio +del Carro was over. + +The Duomo has a little sister in the shape of the Museo di Santa +Maria del Fiore, or the Museo dell' Opera del Duomo, situated in the +Piazza opposite the apse; and we should go there now. This museum, +which is at once the smallest and, with the exception of the Natural +History Museum, the cheapest of the Florentine museums, for it +costs but half a lira, is notable for containing the two cantorie, +or singing galleries, made for the cathedral, one by Donatello and +one by Luca della Robbia. A cantoria by Donatello we shall soon see in +its place in S. Lorenzo; but that, beautiful as it is, cannot compare +with this one, with its procession of merry, dancing children, its +massiveness and grace, its joyous ebullitions of gold mosaic and blue +enamel. Both the cantorie--Donatello's, begun in 1433 and finished +in 1439, and Luca's, begun in 1431 and finished in 1438--fulfilled +their melodious functions in the Duomo until 1688, when they were +ruthlessly cleared away to make room for large wooden balconies to +be used in connexion with the nuptials of Ferdinand de' Medici and +the Princess Violante of Bavaria. In the year 1688 taste was at a low +ebb, and no one thought the deposed cantorie even worth preservation, +so that they were broken up and occasionally levied upon for cornices +and so forth. The fragments were collected and taken to the Bargello +in the middle of the last century, and in 1883 Signer del Moro, the +then architect of the Duomo (whose bust is in the courtyard of this +museum), reconstructed them to the best of his ability in their present +situation. It has to be remembered not only that, with the exception +of the figures, the galleries are not as their artists made them, +lacking many beautiful accessories, but that, as Vasari tells us, +Donatello deliberately designed his for a dim light. None the less, +they remain two of the most delightful works of the Renaissance and +two of the rarest treasures of Florence. + +The dancing boys behind the small pillars with their gold chequering, +the brackets, and the urn of the cornice over the second pair +of pillars from the right, are all that remain of Donatello's own +handiwork. All else is new and conjectural. It is supposed that bronze +heads of lions filled the two circular spaces between the brackets +in the middle. But although the loss of the work as a whole is to be +regretted, the dancing boys remain, to be for ever an inspiration and +a pleasure. The Luca della Robbia cantoria opposite is not quite so +triumphant a masterpiece, but from the point of view of suitability it +is perhaps better. We can believe that Luca's children hymn the glory +of the Lord, as indeed the inscription makes them, whereas Donatello's +romp with a gladness that might easily be purely pagan. Luca's design +is more formal, more conventional; Donatello's is rich and free and +fluid with personality. The two end panels of Luca's are supplied in +the cantoria by casts; the originals are on the wall below and may +be carefully studied. The animation and fervour of these choristers +are unforgettable. + +It is well, while enjoying Donatello's work, to remember that Prato +is only half an hour from Florence, and that there may be seen +the open-air pulpit, built on the corner of the cathedral, which +Donatello, with Michelozzo, his friend and colleague, made at the +same time that the cantoria was in progress, and which in its relief +of happy children is very similar, although not, I think, quite so +remarkable. It lacks also the peculiarly naturalistic effect gained +in the cantoria by setting the dancing boys behind the pillars, which +undoubtedly, as comparison with the Luca shows, assists realism. The +row of pillars attracts the eye first and the boys are thus thrown +into a background which almost moves. + +Although the cantorie dominate the museum they must not be allowed to +overshadow all else. A marble relief of the Madonna and Children by +Agostino di Duccio (1418-1481) must be sought for: it is No. 77 and +the children are the merriest in Florence. Another memorable Madonna +and Child is No. 94, by Pagno di Lapo Portigiani (1406-1470), who has +interest for us in this place as being one of Donatello's assistants, +very possibly on this very cantoria, and almost certainly on the Prato +pulpit. Everything here, it must be remembered, has some association +with the Duomo and was brought here for careful preservation and that +whoever has fifty centimes might take pleasure in seeing it; but the +great silver altar is from the Baptistery, and being made for that +temple is naturally dedicated to the life of John the Baptist. Although +much of it was the work of not the greatest modellers in the second +half of the fourteenth century, three masters at least contributed +later: Michelozzo adding the statue of the Baptist, Pollaiuolo the +side relief depicting his birth, and Verrocchio that of his death, +which is considered one of the most remarkable works of this sculptor, +whom we are to find so richly represented at the Bargello. Before +leaving this room, look for 100^3, an unknown terra-cotta of the +Birth of Eve, which is both masterly and amusing, and 110^4, a very +lovely intaglio in wood. I might add that among the few paintings, +all very early, is a S. Sebastian in whose sacred body I counted no +fewer than thirty arrows; which within my knowledge of pictures of +this saint--not inconsiderable--is the highest number. + +The next room is given to models and architectural plans and +drawings connected with the cathedral, the most interesting thing +being Brunelleschi's own model for the lantern. On the stairs are a +series of fine bas-reliefs by Bandinelli and Giovanni dell' Opera from +the old choir screen of the Duomo, and downstairs, among many other +pieces of sculpture, is a bust of Brunelleschi from a death-mask and +several beautiful della Robbia designs for lunettes over doors. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +The Campanile and the Baptistery + +A short way with Veronese critics--Giotto's missing spire--Donatello's +holy men--Giotto as encyclopaedist--The seven and twenty +reliefs--Ruskin in American--At the top of the tower--A sea of +red roofs--The restful Baptistery--Historic stones--An ex-Pope's +tomb--Andrea Pisano's doors--Ghiberti's first doors--Ghiberti's second +doors--Michelangelo's praise--A gentleman artist. + +It was in 1332, as I have said, that Giotto was made capo-maestro, +and on July 18th, 1334, the first stone of his campanile was laid, the +understanding being that the structure was to exceed "in magnificence, +height, and excellence of workmanship" anything in the world. As +some further indication of the glorious feeling of patriotism then +animating the Florentines, it may be remarked that when a Veronese +who happened to be in Florence ventured to suggest that the city +was aiming rather too high, he was at once thrown into gaol, and, +on being set free when his time was done, was shown the treasury as +an object lesson. Of the wealth and purposefulness of Florence at +that time, in spite of the disastrous bellicose period she had been +passing through, Villani the historian, who wrote history as it was +being made, gives an excellent account, which Macaulay summarizes in +his vivid way. Thus: "The revenue of the Republic amounted to three +hundred thousand florins; a sum which, allowing for the depreciation of +the precious metals, was at least equivalent to six hundred thousand +pounds sterling; a larger sum than England and Ireland, two centuries +ago, yielded to Elizabeth. The manufacture of wool alone employed two +hundred factories and thirty thousand workmen. The cloth annually +produced sold, at an average, for twelve hundred thousand florins; +a sum fully equal in exchangeable value to two millions and a half of +our money. Four hundred thousand florins were annually coined. Eighty +banks conducted the commercial operations, not of Florence only but of +all Europe. The transactions of these establishments were sometimes +of a magnitude which may surprise even the contemporaries of the +Barings and the Rothschilds. Two houses advanced to Edward III of +England upwards of three hundred thousand marks, at a time when the +mark contained more silver than fifty shillings of the present day, +and when the value of silver was more than quadruple of what it now +is. The city and its environs contained a hundred and seventy thousand +children inhabitants. In the various schools about ten thousand +children were taught to read; twelve hundred studied arithmetic; +six hundred received a learned education." + +Giotto died in 1386, and after his death, as I have said, Andrea +Pisano came in for a while; to be followed by Talenti, who is said +to have made considerable alterations in Giotto's design and to +be responsible for the happy idea of increasing the height of the +windows with the height of the tower and thus adding to the illusion +of springing lightness. The topmost ones, so bold in size and so +lovely with their spiral columns, almost seem to lift it. + +The campanile to-day is 276 feet in height, and Giotto proposed to +add to that a spire of 105 feet. The Florentines completed the façade +of the cathedral in 1887 and are now spending enormous sums on the +Medici chapel at S. Lorenzo; why should they not one day carry out +their greatest artist's intention? + +The campanile as a structure had been finished in 1387, but not for +many years did it receive its statues, of which something must be said, +although it is impossible to get more than a vague idea of them, so +high are they. A captive balloon should be arranged for the use of +visitors. Those by Donatello, on the Baptistery side, are the most +remarkable. The first of these--that nearest to the cathedral and +the most striking as seen from the distant earth--is called John the +Baptist, always a favourite subject with this sculptor, who, since +he more than any at that thoughtful time endeavoured to discover +and disclose the secret of character, is curiously unfortunate in +the accident that has fastened names to these figures. This John, +for example, bears no relation to his other Baptists; nor does the +next figure represent David, as is generally supposed, but owes that +error to the circumstance that when the David that originally stood +here was moved to the north side, the old plinth bearing his name was +left behind. This famous figure is stated by Vasari to be a portrait of +a Florentine merchant named Barduccio Cherichini, and for centuries it +has been known as Il Zuccone (or pumpkin) from its baldness. Donatello, +according to Vasari, had a particular liking for the work, so much that +he used to swear by it; while, when engaged upon it, he is said to +have so believed in its reality as to exclaim, "Speak, speak! or may +a dysentery seize thee!" It is now generally considered to represent +Job, and we cannot too much regret the impossibility of getting near +enough to study it. Next is the Jeremiah, which, according to Vasari, +was a portrait of another Florentine, but which, since he bears his +name on a scroll, may none the less be taken to realize the sculptor's +idea of Jeremiah. It is (according to the photographs) a fine piece +of rugged vivacity, and the head is absolutely that of a real man. On +the opposite side of the tower is the magnificent Abraham's sacrifice +from the same strong hand, and by it Habakkuk, who is no less near +life than the Jeremiah and Job, but a very different type. At both +Or San Michele and the Bargello we are to find Donatello perhaps in +a finer mood than here, and comfortably visible. + +For most visitors to Florence and all disciples of Ruskin, the chief +interest of the campanile ("The Shepherd's Tower" as he calls it) +is the series of twenty-seven reliefs illustrating the history of +the world and the progress of mankind, which are to be seen round the +base, the design, it is supposed, of Giotto, executed by Andrea Pisano +and Luca della Robbia. To Andrea are given all those on the west (7), +south (7), east (5), and the two eastern ones on the north; to Luca the +remaining five on the north. Ruskin's fascinating analysis of these +reliefs should most certainly be read (without a total forgetfulness +of the shepherd's other activities as a painter, architect, humorist, +and friend of princes and poets), but equally certainly not in the +American pirated edition which the Florentine booksellers are so ready +(to their shame) to sell you. Only Ruskin in his best mood of fury +could begin to do justice to the misspellings and mispunctuations of +this terrible production. + +Ruskin, I may say, believes several of the carvings to be from +Giotto's own chisel as well as design, but other and more modern +authorities disagree, although opinion now inclines to the belief +that the designs for Pisano's Baptistery doors are also his. Such +thoroughness and ingenuity were all in Giotto's way, and they certainly +suggest his active mind. The campanile series begins at the west side +with the creation of man. Among the most attractive are, I think, +those devoted to agriculture, with the spirited oxen, to astronomy, to +architecture, to weaving, and to pottery. Giotto was even so thorough +as to give one relief to the conquest of the air; and he makes Noah +most satisfactorily drunk. Note also the Florentine fleur-de-lis +round the base of the tower. Every fleur-de-lis in Florence is +beautiful--even those on advertisements and fire-plugs--but few are +more beautiful than these. + +I climbed the campanile one fine morning--417 steps from the +ground--and was well repaid; but I think it is wiser to ascend the +tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, because one is higher there and, since +the bulk of the dome, which intrudes from the campanile, is avoided, +one has a better all-round view. Florence seen from this eminence +is very red--so uniformly so that many towers rise against it almost +indistinguishably, particularly the Bargello's and the Badia's. One +sees at once how few straight streets there are--the Ricasoli standing +out among them as the exception; and one realizes how the city has +developed outside, with its boulevards where the walls once were, +leaving the gates isolated, and its cincture of factories. The +occasional glimpses of cloisters and verdure among the red are very +pleasant. One of the objects cut off by the cathedral dome is the +English cemetery, but the modern Jewish temple stands out as noticeably +almost as any of the ancient buildings. The Pitti looks like nothing +but a barracks and the Porta Ferdinando has prominence which it gets +from no other point. The roof of the Mercato Centrale is the ugliest +thing in the view. While I was there the midday gun from the Boboli +fortress was fired, instantly having its punctual double effect of +sending all the pigeons up in a grey cloud of simulated alarm and +starting every bell in the city. + +Those wishing to make either the campanile or Duomo ascents must +remember to do it early. The closing hour for the day being twelve, +no one is allowed to start up after about a quarter past eleven: a +very foolish arrangement, since Florence and the surrounding Apennines +under a slanting sun are more beautiful than in the morning glare, +and the ascent would be less fatiguing. As it was, on descending, after +being so long at the top, I was severely reprimanded by the custodian, +who had previously marked me down as a barbarian for refusing his offer +of field-glasses. But the Palazzo Vecchio tower is open till five. + +The Baptistery is the beautiful octagonal building opposite the +cathedral, and once the cathedral itself. It dates from the seventh +or eighth century, but as we see it now is a product chiefly of the +thirteenth. The bronze doors opposite the Via Calzaioli are open every +day, a circumstance which visitors, baffled by the two sets of Ghiberti +doors always so firmly closed, are apt to overlook. All children born +in Florence are still baptized here, and I watched one afternoon an old +priest at the task, a tiny Florentine being brought in to receive the +name of Tosca, which she did with less distaste than most, considering +how thorough was his sprinkling. The Baptistery is rich in colour +both without and within. The floor alone is a marvel of intricate +inlaying, including the signs of the zodiac and a gnomic sentence which +reads the same backwards and forwards--"En gire torte sol ciclos et +roterigne". On this very pavement Dante, who called the church his +"beautiful San Giovanni," has walked. Over the altar is a gigantic +and primitive Christ in mosaic, more splendid than spiritual. The +mosaics in the recesses of the clerestory--grey and white--are the +most soft and lovely of all. I believe the Baptistery is the most +restful place in Florence; and this is rather odd considering that it +is all marble and mosaic patterns. But its shape is very soothing, +and age has given it a quality of its own, and there is just that +touch of barbarism about it such as one gets in Byzantine buildings +to lend it a peculiar character here. + +The most notable sculpture in the Baptistery is the tomb of the ex-Pope +John XXIII, whose licentiousness was such that there was nothing for +it but to depose and imprison him. He had, however, much money, and on +his liberation he settled in Florence, presented a true finger of John +the Baptist to the Baptistery, and arranged in return for his bones +to repose in that sanctuary. One of his executors was that Niccolò +da Uzzano, the head of the noble faction in the city, whose coloured +bust by Donatello is in the Bargello. The tomb is exceedingly fine, +the work of Donatello and his partner Michelozzo, who were engaged +to make it by Giovanni de' Medici, the ex-pontiff's friend, and the +father of the great Cosimo. The design is all Donatello's, and his +the recumbent cleric, lying very naturally, hardly as if dead at +all, a little on one side, so that his face is seen nearly full; +the three figures beneath are Michelozzo's; but Donatello probably +carved the seated angels who display the scroll which bears the +dead Pope's name. The Madonna and Child above are by Donatello's +assistant, Pagno di Lapo Portigiani, a pretty relief by whom we saw +in the Museum of the Cathedral. Being in red stone, and very dusty, +like Ghiberti's doors (which want the hose regularly), the lines of +the tomb are much impaired. Donatello is also represented here by a +Mary Magdalene in wood, on an altar at the left of the entrance door, +very powerful and poignant. + +In the ordinary way, when visitors to Florence speak of the Baptistery +doors they mean those opposite the Duomo, and when they go to the +Bargello and look at the designs made by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi in +competition, they think that the competition was for those. But that +is wrong. Ghiberti won his spurs with the doors on the north side, +at which comparatively few persons look. The famous doors opposite +the Duomo were commissioned many years later, when his genius was +acknowledged and when he had become so accomplished as to do what +he liked with his medium. Before, however, coming to Ghiberti, +we ought to look at the work of an early predecessor but for whom +there might have been no Ghiberti at all; for while Ghiberti was at +work with his assistants on these north doors, between 1403 and 1424, +the place which they occupy was filled by those executed seventy years +earlier by Andrea Pisano (1270-1348), possibly from Giotto's designs, +which are now at the south entrance, opposite the charming little +loggia at the corner of the Via Calzaioli, called the Bigallo. These +represent twenty scenes in the life of S. John the Baptist, and below +them are eight figures of cardinal and Christian virtues, and they +employed their sculptor from 1330 to 1336. They have three claims to +notice: as being admirably simple and vigorous in themselves; as having +influenced all later workers in this medium, and particularly Ghiberti +and Donatello; and as being the bronze work of the sculptor of certain +of the stone scenes round the base of Giotto's campanile. The panel +in which the Baptist is seen up to his waist in the water is surely +the very last word in audacity in bronze. Ghiberti was charged with +making bronze do things that it was ill fitted for; but I do not know +that even he moulded water--and transparent water--from it. + +The year 1399 is one of the most notable in the history of modern art, +since it was then that the competition for the Baptistery gates was +made public, this announcement being the spring from which many rivers +flowed. In that year Lorenzo Ghiberti, a young goldsmith assisting +his father, was twenty-one, and Filippo Brunelleschi, another +goldsmith, was twenty-two, while Giotto had been dead sixty-three +years and the impulse he had given to painting had almost worked +itself out. The new doors were to be of the same shape and size as +those by Andrea Pisano, which were already getting on for seventy +years old, and candidates were invited to make a specimen relief to +scale, representing the interrupted sacrifice of Isaac, although +the subject-matter of the doors was to be the Life of S. John the +Baptist. Among the judges was that Florentine banker whose name +was beginning to be known in the city as a synonym for philanthropy, +enlightenment, and sagacity, Giovanni de' Medici. In 1401 the specimens +were ready, and after much deliberation as to which was the better, +Ghiberti's or Brunelleschi's--assisted, some say, by Brunelleschi's +own advice in favour of his rival--the award was given to Ghiberti, +and he was instructed to proceed with his task; while Brunelleschi, +as we have seen, being a man of determined ambition, left for Rome to +study architecture, having made up his mind to be second to no one +in whichever of the arts and crafts he decided to pursue. Here then +was the first result of the competition--that it turned Brunelleschi +to architecture. + +Ghiberti began seriously in 1408 and continued till 1424, when the +doors were finished; but, in order to carry out the work, he required +assistance in casting and so forth, and for that purpose engaged among +others a sculptor named Donatello (born in 1386), a younger sculptor +named Luca della Robbia (born in 1400), and a gigantic young painter +called Masaccio (born in 1401), each of whom was destined, taking +fire no doubt from Ghiberti and his fine free way, to be a powerful +innovator--Donatello (apart from other and rarer achievements) being +the first sculptor since antiquity to place a statue on a pedestal +around which observers could walk; Masaccio being the first painter +to make pictures in the modern use of the term, with men and women +of flesh and blood in them, as distinguished from decorative saints, +and to be by example the instructor of all the greatest masters, +from his pupil Lippo Lippi to Leonardo and Michelangelo; and Luca +della Robbia being the inspired discoverer of an inexpensive means of +glazing terra-cotta so that his beautiful and radiant Madonnas could +be brought within the purchasing means of the poorest congregation in +Italy. These alone are remarkable enough results, but when we recollect +also that Brunelleschi's defeat led to the building of the cathedral +dome, the significance of the event becomes the more extraordinary. + +The doors, as I say, were finished in 1424, after twenty-one years' +labour, and the Signoria left the Palazzo Vecchio in procession to see +their installation. In the number and shape of the panels Pisano set +the standard, but Ghiberti's work resembled that of his predecessor +very little in other ways, for he had a mind of domestic sweetness +without austerity and he was interested in making everything as easy +and fluid and beautiful as might be. His thoroughness recalls Giotto +in certain of his frescoes. The impression left by Pisano's doors is +akin to that left by reading the New Testament; but Ghiberti makes +everything happier than that. Two scenes--both on the level of the +eye--I particularly like: the "Annunciation," with its little, lithe, +reluctant Virgin, and the "Adoration". The border of the Pisano doors +is, I think, finer than that of Ghiberti's; but it is a later work. + +Looking at them even now, with eyes that remember so much of the +best art that followed them and took inspiration from them, we +can understand the better how delighted Florence must have been +with this new picture gallery and how the doors were besieged by +sightseers. But greater still was to come. Ghiberti at once received +the commission to make two more doors on his own scale for the south +side of the Baptistery, and in 1425 he had begun on them. These were +not finished until 1452, so that Ghiberti, then a man of seventy-four, +had given practically his whole life to the making of four bronze +doors. It is true that he did a few other things besides, such as the +casket of S. Zenobius in the Duomo, and the Baptist and S. Matthew +for Or San Michele; but he may be said justly to live by his doors, +and particularly by the second pair, although it was the first pair +that had the greater effect on his contemporaries and followers. + +Among his assistants on these were Antonio Pollaiuolo (born in +1429), who designed the quail in the left border, and Paolo Uccello +(born in 1397), both destined to be men of influence. The bald head +on the right door is a portrait of Ghiberti; that of the old man +on the left is his father, who helped him to polish the original +competition plaque. Although commissioned for the south side they +were placed where they now are, on the east, as being most worthy of +the position of honour, and Pisano's doors, which used to be here, +were moved to the south, where they now are. + +On Ghiberti's workshop opposite S. Maria Nuova, in the Via Bufalini, +the memorial tablet mentions Michelangelo's praise--that these doors +were beautiful enough to be the Gates of Paradise. After that what is +an ordinary person to say? That they are lovely is a commonplace. But +they are more. They are so sensitive; bronze, the medium which Horace +has called, by implication, the most durable of all, has become in +Ghiberti's hands almost as soft as wax and tender as flesh. It does +all he asks; it almost moves; every trace of sternness has vanished +from it. Nothing in plastic art that we have ever seen or shall see +is more easy and ingratiating than these almost living pictures. + +Before them there is steadily a little knot of admirers, and on +Sundays you may always see country people explaining the panels to each +other. Every one has his favourite among these fascinating Biblical +scenes, and mine are Cain and Abel, with the ploughing, and Abraham +and Isaac, with its row of fir trees. It has been explained by the +purists that the sculptor stretched the bounds of plastic art too +far and made bronze paint pictures; but most persons will agree to +ignore that. Of the charm of Ghiberti's mind the border gives further +evidence, with its fruits and foliage, birds and woodland creatures, +so true to life, and here fixed for all time, so naturally, that if +these animals should ever (as is not unlikely in Italy where every +one has a gun and shoots at his pleasure) become extinct, they could +be created again from these designs. + +Ghiberti, who enjoyed great honour in his life and a considerable +salary as joint architect of the dome with Brunelleschi, died three +years after the completion of the second doors and was buried in +S. Croce. His place in Florentine art is unique and glorious. + +The broken porphyry pillars by these second doors were a gift from +Pisa to Florence in recognition of Florence's watchfulness over Pisa +while the Pisans were away subduing the Balearic islanders. + +The bronze group over Ghiberti's first doors, representing John +the Baptist preaching between a Pharisee and a Levite, are the +work (either alone or assisted by his master Leonardo da Vinci) +of an interesting Florentine sculptor, Giovanni Francesco Rustici +(1474-1554), who was remarkable among the artists of his time in +being what we should call an amateur, having a competence of his own +and the manners of a patron. Placing himself under Verrocchio, he +became closely attached to Leonardo, a fellow-pupil, and made him his +model rather than the older man. He took his art lightly, and lived, +in Vasari's phrase, "free from care," having such beguilements as a +tame menagerie (Leonardo, it will be remembered, loved animals too and +had a habit of buying small caged birds in order to set them free), +and two or three dining clubs, the members of which vied with each +other in devising curious and exotic dishes. Andrea del Sarto, for +example, once brought as his contribution to the feast a model of this +very church we are studying, the Baptistery, of which the floor was +constructed of jelly, the pillars of sausages, and the choir desk of +cold veal, while the choristers were roast thrushes. Rustici further +paved the way to a life free from care by appointing a steward of his +estate whose duty it was to see that his money-box, to which he went +whenever he wanted anything, always had money in it. This box he never +locked, having learned that he need fear no robbery by once leaving +his cloak for two days under a bush and then finding it again. "This +world," he exclaimed, "is too good: it will not last." Among his pets +were a porcupine trained to prick the legs of his guests under the +table "so that they drew them in quickly"; a raven that spoke like a +human being; an eagle, and many snakes. He also studied necromancy, +the better to frighten his apprentices. He left Florence in 1528, +after the Medici expulsion, and, like Leonardo, took service with +Francis the First. He died at the age of eighty. + +I had an hour and more exactly opposite the Rustici group, on the same +level, while waiting for the Scoppio del Carro, and I find it easy +to believe that Leonardo himself had a hand in the work. The figure +of the Baptist is superb, the attitude of his listeners masterly. + + + +CHAPTER V + +The Riccardi Palace and the Medici + +An evasion of history--"Il Caparra"--The Gozzoli frescoes--Giovanni +de' Medici (di Bicci)--Cosimo de' Medici--The first banishment--Piero +de' Medici--Lorenzo de' Medici--Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici--The +second banishment--Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici--Leo X--Lorenzo di +Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici--Clement VII--Third banishment of the +Medici--The siege of Florence--Alessandro de' Medici--Ippolito de' +Medici--Lorenzino de' Medici--Giovanni delle Bande Nere--Cosimo I--The +Grand Dukes. + +The natural step from the Baptistery would be to the Uffizi. But for +us not yet; because in order to understand Florence, and particularly +the Florence that existed between the extreme dates that I have chosen +as containing the fascinating period--namely 1296, when the Duomo was +begun, and 1564, when Michelangelo died--one must understand who and +what the Medici were. + +While I have been enjoying the pleasant task of writing this +book--which has been more agreeable than any literary work I have ever +done--I have continually been conscious of a plaintive voice at my +shoulder, proceeding from one of the vigilant and embarrassing imps +who sit there and do duty as conscience, inquiring if the time is not +about ripe for introducing that historical sketch of Florence without +which no account such as this can be rightly understood. And ever I +have replied with words of a soothing and procrastinating nature. But +now that we are face to face with the Medici family, in their very +house, I am conscious that the occasion for that historical sketch +is here indeed, and equally I am conscious of being quite incapable +of supplying it. For the history of Florence between, say the birth +of Giotto or Dante and the return of Cosimo de' Medici from exile, +when the absolute Medici rule began, is so turbulent, crowded, and +complex that it would require the whole of this volume to describe +it. The changes in the government of the city would alone occupy a +good third, so constant and complicated were they. I should have to +explain the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, the Neri and the Bianchi, +the Guilds and the Priors, the gonfalonieri and the podesta, the +secondo popolo and the buonuomini. + +Rather than do this imperfectly I have chosen to do it not at all; +and the curious must resort to historians proper. But there is at +the end of the volume a table of the chief dates in Florentine and +European history in the period chosen, together with births and deaths +of artists and poets and other important persons, so that a bird's-eye +view of the progress of affairs can be quickly gained, while in this +chapter I offer an outline of the great family of rulers of Florence +who made the little city an aesthetic lawgiver to the world and with +whom her later fame, good or ill, is indissolubly united. For the rest, +is there not the library? + +The Medici, once so powerful and stimulating, are still ever in the +background of Florence as one wanders hither and thither. They are +behind many of the best pictures and most of the best statues. Their +escutcheon is everywhere. I ought, I believe, to have made them +the subject of my first chapter. But since I did not, let us without +further delay turn to the Via Cavour, which runs away to the north from +the Baptistery, being a continuation of the Via de' Martelli, and pause +at the massive and dignified palace at the first corner on the left. +For that is the Medici's home; and afterwards we will step into +S. Lorenzo and see the church which Brunelleschi and Donatello made +beautiful and Michelangelo wonderful that the Medici might lie there. + +Visitors go to the Riccardi palace rather to see Gozzoli's frescoes +than anything else; and indeed apart from the noble solid Renaissance +architecture of Michelozzo there is not much else to see. In the +courtyard are certain fragments of antique sculpture arranged against +the walls, and a sarcophagus is shown in which an early member of the +family, Guccio de' Medici, who was gonfalonier in 1299, once reposed. +There too are Donatello's eight medallions, but they are not very +interesting, being only enlarged copies of old medals and cameos and +not notable for his own characteristics. + +Hence it is that, after Gozzoli, by far the most interesting +part of this building is its associations. For here lived Cosimo +de' Medici, whose building of the palace was interrupted by his +banishment as a citizen of dangerous ambition; here lived Piero +de' Medici, for whom Gozzoli worked; here was born and here lived +Lorenzo the Magnificent. To this palace came the Pazzi conspirators +to lure Giuliano to the Duomo and his doom. Here did Charles +VIII--Savonarola's "Flagellum Dei"--lodge and loot, and it was here +that Capponi frightened him with the threat of the Florentine bells; +hither came in 1494 the fickle and terrible Florentine mob, always +passionate in its pursuit of change and excitement, and now inflamed +by the sermons of Savonarola, to destroy the priceless manuscripts +and works of art; here was brought up for a year or so the little +Catherine de' Medici, and next door was the house in which Alessandro +de' Medici was murdered. + +It was in the seventeenth century that the palace passed to the +Riccardi family, who made many additions. A century later Florence +acquired it, and to-day it is the seat of the Prefect of the +city. Cosimo's original building was smaller; but much of it remains +untouched. The exquisite cornice is Michelozzo's original, and the +courtyard has merely lost its statues, among which are Donatello's +Judith, now in the Loggia de' Lanzi, and his bronze David, now in the +Bargello, while Verrocchio's David was probably on the stairs. The +escutcheon on the corner of the house gives us the period of its +erection. The seven plain balls proclaim it Cosimo's. Each of +the Medici sported these palle, although each had also his private +crest. Under Giovanni, Cosimo's father, the balls were eight in number; +under Cosimo, seven; under Piero, seven, with the fleur-de-lis of +France on the uppermost, given him by Louis XI; under Lorenzo, six; +and as one walks about Florence one can approximately fix the date of +a building by remembering these changes. How many times they occur on +the façades of Florence and its vicinity, probably no one could say; +but they are everywhere. The French wits, who were amused to derive +Catherine de' Medici from a family of apothecaries, called them pills. + +The beautiful lantern at the corner was added by Lorenzo and was +the work of an odd ironsmith in Florence for whom he had a great +liking--Niccolò Grosso. For Lorenzo had all that delight in character +which belongs so often to the born patron and usually to the born +connoisseur. This Grosso was a man of humorous independence and +bluntness. He had the admirable custom of carrying out his commissions +in the order in which they arrived, so that if he was at work upon a +set of fire-irons for a poor client, not even Lorenzo himself (who as +a matter of fact often tried) could induce him to turn to something +more lucrative. The rich who cannot wait he forced to wait. Grosso +also always insisted upon something in advance and payment on +delivery, and pleasantly described his workshop as being the Sign +of the Burning Books,--since if his books were burnt how could he +enter a debt? This rule earned for him from Lorenzo the nickname of +"Il Caparra" (earnest money). Another of Grosso's eccentricities was +to refuse to work for Jews. + +Within the palace, up stairs, is the little chapel which Gozzoli made +so gay and fascinating that it is probably the very gem among the +private chapels of the world. Here not only did the Medici perform +their devotions--Lorenzo's corner seat is still shown, and anyone +may sit in it--but their splendour and taste are reflected on the +walls. Cosimo, as we shall see when we reach S. Marco, invited Fra +Angelico to paint upon the walls of that convent sweet and simple +frescoes to the glory of God. Piero employed Fra Angelico's pupil, +Benozzo Gozzoli to decorate this chapel. + +In the year 1439, as chapter II related, through the instrumentality +of Cosimo a great episcopal Council was held at Florence, at which +John Palaeologus, Emperor of the East, met Pope Eugenius IV. In that +year Cosimo's son Piero was twenty-three, and Gozzoli nineteen, +and probably upon both, but certainly on the young artist, such +pomp and splendour and gorgeousness of costume as then were visible +in Florence made a deep impression. When therefore Piero, after +becoming head of the family, decided to decorate the chapel with +a procession of Magi, it is not surprising that the painter should +recall this historic occasion. We thus get the pageantry of the East +with more than common realism, while the portraits, or at any rate +representations, of the Patriarch of Constantinople (the first king) +and the Emperor (the second king) are here, together with those of +certain Medici, for the youthful third king is none other than Piero's +eldest son Lorenzo. Among their followers are (the third on the left) +Cosimo de' Medici, who is included as among the living, although, +like the Patriarch of Constantinople, he was dead, and his brother +Lorenzo (the middle one of the three), whose existence is forgotten +so completely until the accession of Cosimo I, in 1537, brings his +branch of the family into power; while on the right is Piero de' +Medici himself. Piero's second son Giuliano is on the white horse, +preceded by a negro carrying his bow. The head immediately above +Giuliano I do not know, but that one a little to the left above it +is Gozzoli's own. Among the throng are men of learning who either +came to Florence from the East or Florentines who assimilated their +philosophy--such as Georgius Gemisthos, Marsilio Ficino, and perhaps +certain painters among them, all protégés of Cosimo and Piero, and +all makers of the Renaissance. + +The assemblage alone, apart altogether from any beauty and charm +that the painting possesses, makes these frescoes valuable. But the +painting is a delight. We have a pretty Gozzoli in our National +Gallery--No. 283--but it gives no indication of the ripeness and +richness and incident of this work; while the famous Biblical +series in the Campo Santo of Pisa has so largely perished as to be +scarcely evidence to his colour. The first impression made by the +Medici frescoes is their sumptuousness. When Gozzoli painted--if the +story be true--he had only candle light: the window over the altar +is new. But think of candle light being all the illumination of these +walls as the painter worked! A new door and window have also been cut +in the wall opposite the altar close to the three daughters of Piero, +by vandal hands; and "Bruta, bruta!" says the guardian, very rightly. + +The landscape behind the procession is hardly less interesting than the +procession itself; but it is when we come to the meadows of paradise, +with the angels and roses, the cypresses and birds, in the two chancel +scenes, that this side of Gozzoli's art is most fascinating. He has +travelled a long way from his master Fra Angelico here: the heaven +is of the visible rather than the invisible eye; sense is present +as well as the rapturous spirit. The little Medici who endured the +tedium of the services here are to be felicitated with upon such an +adorable presentment of glory. With plenty of altar candles the sight +of these gardens of the blest must have beguiled many a mass. Thinking +here in England upon the Medici chapel, I find that the impression +it has left upon me is chiefly cypresses--cypresses black and comely, +disposed by a master hand, with a glint of gold among them. + +The picture that was over the altar has gone. It was a Lippo Lippi +and is now in Berlin. + +The first of the Medici family to rise to the highest power was +Giovanni d'Averardo de' Medici (known as Giovanni di Bicci), 1360-1429, +who, a wealthy banker living in what is now the Piazza del Duomo, +was well known for his philanthropy and interest in the welfare of +the Florentines, but does not come much into public notice until +1401, when he was appointed one of the judges in the Baptistery door +competition. He was a retiring, watchful man. Whether he was personally +ambitious is not too evident, but he was opposed to tyranny and was the +steady foe of the Albizzi faction, who at that time were endeavouring +to obtain supreme power in Florentine affairs. In 1419 Giovanni +increased his popularity by founding the Spedale degli Innocenti, +and in 1421 he was elected gonfalonier, or, as we might now say, +President of the Republic. In this capacity he made his position +secure and reduced the nobles (chief of whom was Niccolò da Uzzano) +to political weakness. Giovanni died in 1429, leaving one son, Cosimo, +aged forty, a second, Lorenzo, aged thirtyfour, a fragrant memory +and an immense fortune. + +To Lorenzo, who remained a private citizen, we shall return in time; +it is Cosimo (1389-1464) with whom we are now concerned. Cosimo de' +Medici was a man of great mental and practical ability: he had been +educated as well as possible; he had a passion both for art and +letters; he inherited his father's financial ability and generosity, +while he added to these gifts a certain genius for the management +of men. One of the first things that Cosimo did after his father's +death was to begin the palace where we now are, rejecting a plan by +Brunelleschi as too splendid, and choosing instead one by Michelozzo, +the partner of Donatello, two artists who remained his personal +friends through life. Cosimo selected this site, in what was then +the Via Larga but is now the Via Cavour, partly because his father +had once lived there, and partly because it was close to S. Lorenzo, +which his father, with six other families, had begun to rebuild, +a work he intended himself to carry on. + +The palace was begun in 1430 abd was still in progress in 1433 when +the Albizzi, who had always viewed the rise of the Medici family +with apprehension and misgiving, and were now strengthened by the +death of Niccolò da Uzzano, who, though powerful, had been a very +cautious and temperate adviser, succeeded in getting a majority +in the Signoria and passing a sentence of banishment on the whole +Medici tribe as being too rich and ambitious to be good citizens of +a simple and frugal Republic. Cosimo therefore, after some days of +imprisonment in the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, during which he +expected execution at any moment, left Florence for Venice, taking +his architect with him. In 1434, however, the Florentines, realizing +that under the Albizzi they were losing their independence, and what +was to be a democracy was become an oligarchy, revolted, and Cosimo +was recalled, and, like his father, was elected gonfalonier. With this +recall began his long supremacy; for he returned like a king and like +a king remained, quickly establishing himself as the leading man in +the city, the power behind the Signoria. Not only did he never lose +that position, but he made it so naturally his own that when he died +he was able to transmit it to his son. + +Cosimo de' Medici was, I think, the wisest and best ruler that Florence +ever had and ranks high among the rulers that any state ever had. But +he changed the Florentines from an independent people to a dependent +one. In his capacity of Father of his Country he saw to it that his +children lost their proud spirit. He had to be absolute; and this +end he achieved in many ways, but chiefly by his wealth, which made +it possible to break the rich rebel and to enslave the poor. His +greatest asset--next his wealth--was his knowledge of the Florentine +character. To know anything of this capricious, fickle, turbulent +folk even after the event was in itself a task of such magnitude that +almost no one else had compassed it; but Cosimo did more, he knew what +they were likely to do. By this knowledge, together with his riches, +his craft, his tact, his business ramifications as an international +banker, his open-handedness and air of personal simplicity, Cosimo +made himself a power. For Florence could he not +do enough. By inviting the Pope and the Greek Emperor to meet there +he gave it great political importance, and incidentally brought +about the New Learning. He established the Platonic Academy and +formed the first public library in the west. He rebuilt and endowed +the monastery of S. Marco. He built and rebuilt other churches. He +gave Donatello a free hand in sculpture and Fra Lippo Lippi and Fra +Angelico in painting. He distributed altogether in charity and churches +four hundred thousand of those golden coins which were invented by +Florence and named florins after her--a sum equal to a million pounds +of to-day. In every direction one comes upon traces of his generosity +and thoroughness. After his death it was decided that as Pater Patriae, +or Father of his Country, he should be for ever known. + +Cosimo died in 1464, leaving an invalid son, Piero, aged forty-eight, +known for his almost continuous gout as Il Gottoso. Giovanni and Cosimo +had had to work for their power; Piero stepped naturally into it, +although almost immediately he had to deal with a plot--the first for +thirty years--to ruin the Medici prestige, the leader of which was that +Luca Pitti who began the Pitti palace in order to have a better house +than the Medici. The plot failed, not a little owing to young Lorenzo +de' Medici's address, and the remaining few years of Piero's life were +tranquil. He was a quiet, kindly man with the traditional family love +of the arts, and it was for him that Gozzoli worked. He died in 1469, +leaving two sons, Lorenzo (1449-1492) and Giuliano (1453-1478). + +Lorenzo had been brought up as the future leading citizen of Florence: +he had every advantage of education and environment, and was rich in +the aristocratic spirit which often blossoms most richly in the second +or third generation of wealthy business families. Giovanni had been +a banker before everything, Cosimo an administrator, Piero a faithful +inheritor of his father's wishes; it was left for Lorenzo to be the +first poet and natural prince of the Medici blood. Lorenzo continued +to bank but mismanaged the work and lost heavily; while his poetical +tendencies no doubt distracted his attention generally from affairs. +Yet such was his sympathetic understanding and his native splendour and +gift of leadership that he could not but be at the head of everything, +the first to be consulted and ingratiated. Not only was he the first +Medici poet but the first of the family to marry not for love but +for policy, and that too was a sign of decadence. + +Lorenzo came into power when only twenty, and at the age of forty-two +he was dead, but in the interval, by his interest in every kind of +intellectual and artistic activity, by his passion for the greatness +and glory of Florence, he made for himself a name that must always +connote liberality, splendour, and enlightenment. But it is beyond +question that under Lorenzo the Florentines changed deeply and for +the worse. The old thrift and simplicity gave way to extravagance and +ostentation; the old faith gave way too, but that was not wholly the +effect of Lorenzo's natural inclination towards Platonic philosophy, +fostered by his tutor Marsilio Ficino and his friends Poliziano and +Pico della Mirandola, but was due in no small measure also to the +hostility of Pope Sixtus, which culminated in the Pazzi Conspiracy of +1478 and the murder of Giuliano. Looking at the history of Florence +from our present vantage-point we can see that although under +Lorenzo the Magnificent she was the centre of the world's culture +and distinction, there was behind this dazzling front no seriousness +of purpose. She was in short enjoying the fruits of her labours as +though the time of rest had come; and this when strenuousness was more +than ever important. Lorenzo carried on every good work of his father +and grandfather (he spent £65,000 a year in books alone) and was as +jealous of Florentine interests; but he was also "The Magnificent," +and in that lay the peril. Florence could do with wealth and power, +but magnificence went to her head. + +Lorenzo died in 1492, leaving three sons, of whom the eldest, Piero +(1471-1503), succeeded him. Never was such a decadence. In a moment +the Medici prestige, which had been steadily growing under Cosimo, +Piero, and Lorenzo until it was world famous, crumbled to dust. Piero +was a coarse-minded, pleasure-loving youth--"The Headstrong" his +father had called him--whose one idea of power was to be sensual and +tyrannical; and the enemies of Florence and of Italy took advantage +of this fact. Savonarola's sermons had paved the way from within +too. In 1494 Charles VIII of France marched into Italy; Piero pulled +himself together and visited the king to make terms for Florence, +but made such terms that on returning to the city he found an order +of banishment and obeyed it. On November 9th, 1494, he and his family +were expelled, and the mob, forgetting so quickly all that they owed +to the Medici who had gone before, rushed to this beautiful palace and +looted it. The losses that art and learning sustained in a few hours +can never be estimated. A certain number of treasures were subsequently +collected again, such as Donatello's David and Verrocchio's David, +while Donatello's Judith was removed to the Palazzo Vecchio, where +an inscription was placed upon it saying that her short way with +Holofernes was a warning to all traitors; but priceless pictures, +sculpture, and MSS. were ruthlessly demolished. + +In the chapter on S. Marco we shall read of what experiments in +government the Florentines substituted for that of the Medici, +Savonarola for a while being at the head of the government, although +only for a brief period which ended amid an orgy of lawlessness; and +then, after a restless period of eighteen years, in which Florence +had every claw cut and was weakened also by dissension, the Medici +returned--the change being the work of Lorenzo's second son, Giovanni +de' Medici, who on the eve of becoming Pope Leo X procured their +reinstatement, thus justifying the wisdom of his father in placing +him in the Church. Piero having been drowned long since, his admirable +but ill-starred brother Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, now thirty-three, +assumed the control, always under Leo X; while their cousin, Giulio, +also a Churchman, and the natural son of the murdered Giuliano, +was busy, behind the scenes, with the family fortunes. + +Giuliano lived only till 1516 and was succeeded by his nephew +Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, a son of Peiro, a young man of no more +political use than his father, and one who quickly became almost +equally unpopular. Things indeed were going so badly that Leo X sent +Giulio de' Medici (now a cardinal) from Rome to straighten them out, +and by some sensible repeals he succeeded in allaying a little of +the bitterness in the city. Lorenzo had one daughter, born in this +palace, who was destined to make history--Catherine de' Medici--and +no son. When therefore he died in 1519, at the age of twenty-seven, +after a life of vicious selfishness (which, however, was no bar +to his having the noblest tomb in the world, at S. Lorenzo), the +succession should have passed to the other branch of the Medici +family, the descendants of old Giovanni's second son Lorenzo, +brother of Cosimo. But Giulio, at Rome, always at the ear of the +indolent, pleasure-loving Leo X, had other projects. Born in 1478, +the illegitimate son of a charming father, Giulio had none of the +great Medici traditions, and the Medici name never stood so low as +during his period of power. Himself illegitimate, he was the father +of an illegitimate son, Alessandro, for whose advancement he toiled +much as Alexander VI had toiled for that of Caesar Borgia. He had not +the black, bold wickedness of Alexander VI, but as Pope Clement VII, +which he became in 1523, he was little less admirable. He was cunning, +ambitious, and tyrannical, and during his pontificate he contrived not +only to make many powerful enemies and to see both Rome and Florence +under siege, but to lose England for the Church. + +We move, however, too fast. The year is 1519 and Lorenzo is dead, +and the rightful heir to the Medici wealth and power was to be +kept out. To do this Giulio himself moved to Florence and settled +in the Medici palace, and on his return to Rome Cardinal Passerini +was installed in the Medici palace in his stead, nominally as the +custodian of little Catherine de' Medici and Ippolito, a boy of ten, +the illegitimate son of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours. That Florence +should have put up with this Roman control shows us how enfeebled +was her once proud spirit. In 1521 Leo X died, to be succeeded, in +spite of all Giulio's efforts, by Adrian of Utrecht, as Adrian VI, +a good, sincere man who, had he lived, might have enormously changed +the course not only of Italian but of English history. He survived, +however, for less than two years, and then came Giulio's chance, +and he was elected Pope Clement VII. + +Clement's first duty was to make Florence secure, and he therefore +sent his son Alessandro, then about thirteen, to join the others +at the Medici palace, which thus now contained a resident cardinal, +watchful of Medici interests; a legitimate daughter of Lorenzo, Duke +of Urbino (but owing to quarrels she was removed to a convent); an +illegitimate son of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, the nominal heir and +already a member of the Government; and the Pope's illegitimate son, +of whose origin, however, nothing was said, although it was implied +that Lorenzo, Duke of Nemours, was his father. + +This was the state of affairs during Clement's war with the Emperor +Charles V, [2] which ended with the siege of Rome and the imprisonment +of the Pope in the Castle of S. Angelo for some months until he +contrived to escape to Orvieto; and meanwhile Florence, realizing his +powerlessness, uttered a decree again banishing the Medici family, and +in 1527 they were sent forth from the city for the third time. But even +now, when the move was so safe, Florence lacked courage to carry it +out until a member of the Medici family, furious at the presence of the +base-born Medici in the palace, and a professed hater of her base-born +uncle Clement VII and all his ways--Clarice Strozzi, née Clarice de' +Medici, granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent--came herself to this +house and drove the usurpers from it with her extremely capable tongue. + +To explain clearly the position of the Florentine Republic at this +time would be too deeply to delve into history, but it may briefly be +said that by means of humiliating surrenders and much crafty diplomacy, +Clement VII was able to bring about in 1529 peace between the Emperor +Charles V and Francis I of France, by which Charles was left master +of Italy, while his partner and ally in these transactions, Clement, +expected for his own share certain benefits in which the humiliation +of Florence and the exaltation of Alessandro came first. Florence, +having taken sides with Francis, found herself in any case very badly +left, with the result that at the end of 1529 Charles V's army, with +the papal forces to assist, laid siege to her. The siege lasted for +ten months, in which the city was most ably defended by Ferrucci, +that gallant soldier whose portrait by Piero di Cosimo is in our +National Gallery--No. 895--and then came a decisive battle in which +the Emperor and Pope were conquerors, a thousand brave Florentines +were put to death and others were imprisoned. + +Alessandro de' Medici arrived at the Medici palace in 1531, and +in 1532 the glorious Florentine Republic of so many years' growth, +for the establishment of which so much good blood had been spilt, was +declared to be at an end. Alessandro being proclaimed Duke, his first +act was to order the demolition of the great bell of the Signoria which +had so often called the citizens to arms or meetings of independence. + +Meanwhile Ippolito, the natural son of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and +therefore the rightful heir, after having been sent on various missions +by Clement VII, to keep him out of the way, settled at Bologna and took +to poetry. He was a kindly, melancholy man with a deep sense of human +injustice; and in 1535, when, after Clement VII's very welcome demise, +the Florentine exiles who either had been banished from Florence by +Alessandro or had left of their own volition rather than live in the +city under such a contemptible ruler, sent an embassy to the Emperor +Charles V to help them against this new tyrant, Ippolito headed it; +but Alessandro prudently arranged for his assassination en route. + +It is unlikely, however, that the Emperor would have done anything, +for in the following year he allowed his daughter Margaret to become +Alessandro's wife. That was in 1536. In January, 1537, Lorenzino de' +Medici, a cousin, one of the younger branch of the family, assuming +the mantle of Brutus, or liberator, stabbed Alessandro to death while +he was keeping an assignation in the house that then adjoined this +palace. Thus died, at the age of twenty-six, one of the most worthless +of men, and, although illegitimate, the last of the direct line of +Cosimo de' Medici, the Father of his Country, to govern Florence. + +The next ruler came from the younger branch, to which we now turn. Old +Giovanni di Bicci had two sons, Cosimo and Lorenzo. Lorenzo's son, Pier +Francesco de' Medici, had a son Giovanni de' Medici. This Giovanni, +who married Caterina Sforza of Milan, had also a son named Giovanni, +born in 1498, and it was he who was the rightful heir when Lorenzo, +Duke of Urbino, died in 1519. He was connected with both sides of +the family, for his father, as I have said, was the great grandson +of the first Medici on our list, and his wife was Maria Salviati, +daughter of Lucrezia de' Medici--herself a daughter of Lorenzo the +Magnificent--and Jacopo Salviati, a wealthy Florentine. When, however, +Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, died in 1519, Giovanni was a young man of +twenty-one with an absorbing passion for fighting, which Clement VII +(then Giulio) was only too keen to foster, since he wished him out of +the way in order that his own projects for the ultimate advancement +of the base-born Alessandro, and meanwhile of the catspaw, the +base-born Ippolito, might be furthered. Giovanni had already done +some good service in the field, was becoming famous as the head of +his company of Black Bands, and was known as Giovanni delle Bande +Nere; and his marriage to his cousin Maria Salviati and the birth +of his only son Cosimo in 1519 made no difference to his delight +in warfare. He was happy only when in the field of battle, and the +struggle between Francis and Charles gave him ample opportunities, +fighting on the side of Charles and the Pope and doing many brave and +dashing things. He died at an early age, only twenty-eight, in 1526, +the idol of his men, leaving a widow and child in poverty. + +Almost immediately afterwards came the third banishment of the Medici +family from Florence. Giovanni's widow and their son Cosimo got +along as best they could until the murder of Alessandro in 1537, +when Cosimo was nearly eighteen. He was a quiet, reserved youth, +who had apparently taken but little interest in public affairs, and +had spent his time in the country with his mother, chiefly in field +sports. But no sooner was Alessandro dead, and his slayer Lorenzino +had escaped, than Cosimo approached the Florentine council and claimed +to be appointed to his rightful place as head of the State, and this +claim he put, or suggested, with so much humility that his wish was +granted. Instantly one of the most remarkable transitions in history +occurred: the youth grew up almost in a day and at once began to exert +unsuspected reserves of power and authority. In despair a number of +the chief Florentines made an effort to depose him, and a battle was +fought at Montemurlo, a few miles from Florence, between Cosimo's +troops, fortified by some French allies, and the insurgents. That +was in 1537; the victory fell to Cosimo; and his long and remarkable +reign began with the imprisonment and execution of the chief rebels. + +Although Cosimo made so bloody a beginning he was the first imaginative +and thoughtful administrator that Florence had had since Lorenzo the +Magnificent. He set himself grimly to build upon the ruins which the +past forty and more years had produced; and by the end of his reign he +had worked wonders. As first he lived in the Medici palace, but after +marrying a wealthy wife, Eleanora of Toledo, he transferred his home +to the Signoria, now called the Palazzo Vecchio, as a safer spot, and +established a bodyguard of Swiss lancers in Orcagna's loggia, close +by. [3] Later he bought the unfinished Pitti palace with his wife's +money, finished it, and moved there. Meanwhile he was strengthening +his position in every way by alliances and treaties, and also by the +convenient murder of Lorenzino, the Brutus who had rid Florence of +Alessandro ten years earlier, and whose presence in the flesh could +not but be a cause of anxiety since Lorenzino derived from an elder +son of the Medici, and Cosimo from a younger. In 1555 the ancient +republic of Siena fell to Cosimo's troops after a cruel and barbarous +siege and was thereafter merged in Tuscany, and in 1570 Cosimo assumed +the title of Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and was crowned at Rome. + +Whether or not the common accusation against the Medici as a +family, that they had but one motive--mercenary ambition and +self-aggrandisement--is true, the fact remains that the crown did +not reach their brows until one hundred and seventy years from the +first appearance of old Giovanni di Bicci in Florentine affairs. The +statue of Cosimo I in the Piazza della Signoria has a bas-relief of +his coronation. He was then fifty-one; he lived but four more years, +and when he died he left a dukedom flourishing in every way: rich, +powerful, busy, and enlightened. He had developed and encouraged +the arts, capriciously, as Cellini's "Autobiography" tells us, but +genuinely too, as we can see at the Uffizi and the Pitti. The arts, +however, were not what they had been, for the great period had passed +and Florence was in the trough of the wave. Yet Cosimo found the best +men he could--Cellini, Bronzino, and Vasari--and kept them busy. But +his greatest achievement as a connoisseur was his interest in Etruscan +remains and the excavations at Arezzo and elsewhere which yielded +the priceless relics now at the Archaeological Museum. + +With Cosimo I this swift review of the Medici family ends. The +rest have little interest for the visitor to Florence to-day, +for whom Cellini's Perseus, made to Cosimo I's order, is the last +great artistic achievement in the city in point of time. But I may +say that Cosimo I's direct descendants occupied the throne (as it +had now become) until the death of Gian Gastone, son of Cosimo III, +who died in 1737. Tuscany passed to Austria until 1801. In 1807 it +became French, and in 1814 Austrian again. In 1860 it was merged in +the Kingdom of Italy under the rule of the monarch who has given his +name to the great new Piazza--Vittorio Emmanuele. + +After Gian Gastone's death one other Medici remained alive: Anna +Maria Ludovica, daughter of Cosimo III. Born in 1667, she married +the Elector Palatine of the Rhine, and survived until 1743. It was +she who left to the city the priceless Medici collections, as I have +stated in chapter VIII. The earlier and greatest of the Medici are +buried in the church of S. Lorenzo or in Michelangelo's sacristy; the +later Medici, beginning with Giovanni delle Bande Nere and his wife, +and their son Cosimo I, are in the gorgeous mausoleum that adjoins +S. Lorenzo and is still being enriched with precious marbles. + +Such is an outline of the history of this wonderful family, and we +leave their ancient home, built by the greatest and wisest of them, +with mixed feelings of admiration and pity. They were seldom lovable; +they were often despicable; but where they were great they were +very great indeed. A Latin inscription in the courtyard reminds the +traveller of the distinction which the house possesses, calling it +the home not only of princes but of knowledge herself and a treasury +of the arts. But Florence, although it bought the palace from the +Riccardi family a century and more ago, has never cared to give it +back its rightful name. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +S. Lorenzo and Michelangelo + +A forlorn façade--The church of the Medici--Cosimo's +parents' tomb--Donatello's cantoria and pulpits--Brunelleschi's +sacristy--Donatello again--The palace of the dead Grand Dukes--Costly +intarsia--Michelangelo's sacristy--A weary Titan's life--The victim +of capricious pontiffs--The Medici tombs--Mementi mori--The Casa +Buonarroti--Brunelleschi's cloisters--A model library. + +Architecturally S. Lorenzo does not attract as S. Croce and S. Maria +Novella do; but certain treasures of sculpture make it unique. Yet it +is a cool scene of noble grey arches, and the ceiling is very happily +picked out with gold and colour. Savonarola preached some of his most +important sermons here; here Lorenzo the Magnificent was married. + +The façade has never yet been finished: it is just ragged brickwork +waiting for its marble, and likely to wait, although such expenditure +on marble is going on within a few yards of it as makes one gasp. Not +very far away, in the Via Ghibellina, is a house which contains some +rough plans by a master hand for this façade, drawn some four hundred +years ago--the hand of none other than Michelangelo, whose scheme +was to make it not only a wonder of architecture but a wonder also +of statuary, the façade having many niches, each to be filled with +a sacred figure. But Michelangelo always dreamed on a scale utterly +disproportionate to the foolish little span of life allotted to us +and the S. Lorenzo façade was never even begun. + +The piazza which these untidy bricks overlook is now given up to stalls +and is the centre of the cheap clothing district. Looking diagonally +across it from the church one sees the great walls of the courtyard +of what is now the Riccardi palace, but was in the great days the +Medici palace; and at the corner, facing the Borgo S. Lorenzo, is +Giovanni delle Bande Nere, in stone, by the impossible Bandinelli, +looking at least twenty years older than he ever lived to be. + +S. Lorenzo was a very old church in the time of Giovanni de' Medici, +the first great man of the family, and had already been restored +once, in the eleventh century, but it was his favourite church, +chosen by him for his own resting-place, and he spent great sums +in improving it. All this with the assistance of Brunelleschi, who +is responsible for the interior as we now see it, and would, had he +lived, have completed the façade. After Giovanni came Cosimo, who also +devoted great sums to the glory of this church, not only assisting +Brunelleschi with his work but inducing Donatello to lavish his genius +upon it; and the church was thus established as the family vault of +the Medici race. Giovanni lies here; Cosimo lies here; and Piero; +while Lorenzo the Magnificent and Giuliano and certain descendants +were buried in the Michelangelo sacristy, and all the Grand Dukes in +the ostentatious chapel behind the altar. + +Cosimo is buried beneath the floor in front of the high altar, +in obedience to his wish, and by the special permission of the +Roman Church; and in the same vault lies Donatello. Cosimo, who +was buried with all simplicity on August 22nd, 1464, in his last +illness recommended Donatello, who was then seventy-eight, to his son +Piero. The old sculptor survived his illustrious patron and friend +only two and a half years, declining gently into the grave, and his +body was brought here in December, 1466. A monument to his memory +was erected in the church in 1896. Piero (the Gouty), who survived +until 1469, lies close by, his bronze monument, with that of his +brother, being that between the sacristy and the adjoining chapel, +in an imposing porphyry and bronze casket, the work of Verrocchio, one +of the richest and most impressive of all the memorial sculptures of +the Renaissance. The marble pediment is supported by four tortoises, +such as support the monoliths in the Piazza S. Maria Novella. The +iron rope work that divides the sacristy from the chapel is a marvel +of workmanship. + +But we go too fast: the church before the sacristy, and the glories of +the church are Donatello's. We have seen his cantoria in the Museum of +the Cathedral. Here is another, not so riotous and jocund in spirit, +but in its own way hardly less satisfying. The Museum cantoria has +the wonderful frieze of dancing figures; this is an exercise in +marble intarsia. It has the same row of pillars with little specks +of mosaic gold; but its beauty is that of delicate proportions and +soft tones. The cantoria is in the left aisle, in its original place; +the two bronze pulpits are in the nave. These have a double interest +as being not only Donatello's work but his latest work. They were +incomplete at his death, and were finished by his pupil Bertoldo +(1410-1491), and since, as we shall see, Bertoldo became the master of +Michelangelo, when he was a lad of fifteen and Bertoldo an old man of +eighty, these pulpits may be said to form a link between the two great +S. Lorenzo sculptors. How fine and free and spirited Bertoldo could +be, alone, we shall see at the Bargello. The S. Lorenzo pulpits are +very difficult to study: nothing wants a stronger light than a bronze +relief, and in Florence students of bronze reliefs are accustomed +to it, since the most famous of all--the Ghiberti doors--are in the +open air. Only in course of time can one discern the scenes here. The +left pulpit is the finer, for it contains the "Crucifixion" and the +"Deposition," which to me form the most striking of the panels. + +The other piece of sculpture in the church itself is a ciborium +by Desiderio da Settignano, in the chapel at the end of the +right transept--an exquisite work by this rare and playful and +distinguished hand. It is fitting that Desiderio should be here, for +he was Donatello's favourite pupil. The S. Lorenzo ciborium is wholly +charming, although there is a "Deposition" upon it; the little Boy is +adorable; but one sees it with the greatest difficulty owing to the +crowded state of the altar and the dim light. The altar picture in +the Martelli chapel, where the sympathetic Donatello monument (in the +same medium as his "Annunciation" at S. Croce) is found--on the way to +the Library--is by Lippo Lippi, and is notable for the pretty Virgin +receiving the angel's news. There is nice colour in the predella. + +As I have said in the first chapter, we are too prone to ignore the +architect. We look at the jewels and forget the casket. Brunelleschi is +a far greater maker of Florence than either Donatello or Michelangelo; +but one thinks of him rather as an abstraction than a man or forgets +him altogether. Yet the S. Lorenzo sacristy is one of the few perfect +things in the world. What most people, however, remember is its tombs, +its doors, and its reliefs; the proportions escape them. I think its +shallow easy dome beyond description beautiful. Brunelleschi, who had +an investigating genius, himself painted the quaint constellations in +the ceiling over the altar. At the Pazzi chapel we shall find similar +architecture; but there extraneous colour was allowed to come in. Here +such reliefs as were admitted are white too. + +The tomb under the great marble and porphyry table in the centre is +that of Giovanni di Bicci, the father, and Piccarda, the mother, of +Cosimo Pater, and is usually attributed to Buggiano, the adopted son +of Brunelleschi, but other authorities give it either to Donatello +alone or to Donatello with Michelozzo: both from the evidence of +the design and because it is unlikely that Cosimo would ask any one +else than one of these two friends of his to carry out a commission +so near his heart. The table is part of the scheme and not a chance +covering. I think the porphyry centre ought to be movable, so that +the beautiful flying figures on the sarcophagus could be seen. But +Donatello's most striking achievement here is the bronze doors, which +are at once so simple and so strong and so surprising by the activity +of the virile and spirited holy men, all converting each other, thereon +depicted. These doors could not well be more different from Ghiberti's, +in the casting of which Donatello assisted; those in such high relief, +these so low; those so fluid and placid, and these so vigorous. + +Donatello presides over this room (under Brunelleschi). The vivacious, +speaking terra-cotta bust of the young S. Lorenzo on the altar is +his; the altar railing is probably his; the frieze of terra-cotta +cherubs may be his; the four low reliefs in the spandrels, which it +is so difficult to discern but which photographs prove to be wonderful +scenes in the life of S. John the Evangelist--so like, as one peers up +at them, plastic Piranesis, with their fine masonry--are his. The other +reliefs are Donatello's too; but the lavabo in the inner sacristy is +Verrocchio's, and Verrocchio's tomb of Piero can never be overlooked +even amid such a wealth of the greater master's work. + +From this fascinating room--fascinating both in itself and in its +possessions--we pass, after distributing the necessary largesse to +the sacristan, to a turnstile which admits, on payment of a lira, +to the Chapel of the Princes and to Michelangelo's sacristy. Here is +contrast, indeed: the sacristy, austere and classic, and the chapel +a very exhibition building of floridity and coloured ornateness, +dating from the seventeenth century and not finished yet. In paying +the necessary fee to see these buildings one thinks again what the +feelings of Giovanni and Cosimo and Lorenzo the Magnificent, and +even of Cosimo I, all such generous patrons of Florence, would be, +if they could see the present feverish collection of lire in their +beautiful city. + +Of the Chapel of the Princes I have little to say. To pass from +Michelangelo's sacristy to this is an error; see it, if see it you +must, first. While the façade of S. Lorenzo is still neglected and the +cornice of Brunelleschi's dome is still unfinished, this lapidary's +show-room is being completed at a cost of millions of lire. Ever since +1888 has the floor been in progress, and there are many years' work +yet. An enthusiastic custodian gave me a list of the stones which were +used in the designs of the coats of arms of Tuscan cities, of which +that of Fiesole is the most attractive:--Sicily jasper, French jasper, +Tuscany jasper, petrified wood, white and yellow, Corsican granite, +Corsican jasper, Oriental alabaster, French marble, lapis lazuli, +verde antico, African marble, Siena marble, Carrara marble, rose agate, +mother of pearl, and coral. 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. Only two of the Grand +Dukes have their statues--Ferdinand I and Cosimo II--and the Medici +no longer exist in the Florentine memory; and yet the quiet brick +floor is having all this money squandered on it to superimpose costly +marbles which cannot matter to anybody. + +Michelangelo's chapel, called the New Sacristy, was begun for Leo X +and finished for Giulio de' Medici, illegitimate son of the murdered +Giuliano and afterwards Pope Clement VII. Brunelleschi's design +for the Old Sacristy was followed but made more severe. This, one +would feel to be the very home of dead princes even if there were no +statues. The only colours are the white of the walls and the brown +of the pillars and windows; the dome was to have been painted, but +it fortunately escaped. + +The contrast between Michelangelo's dome and Brunelleschi's is +complete--Brunelleschi's so suave and gentle in its rise, with its +grey lines to help the eye, and this soaring so boldly to its lantern, +with its rigid device of dwindling squares. The odd thing is that +with these two domes to teach him better the designer of the Chapel +of the Princes should have indulged in such floridity. + +Such is the force of the architecture in the sacristy that one is +profoundly conscious of being in melancholy's most perfect home; +and the building is so much a part of Michelangelo's life and it +contains such marvels from his hand that I choose it as a place +to tell his story. Michelangelo Buonarroti was born on March 6th, +1475, at Caprese, of which town his father was Podestà . At that time +Brunelleschi had been dead twenty-nine years, Fra Angelico twenty +years, Donatello nine years, Leonardo da Vinci was twenty-three years +old, and Raphael was not yet born. Lorenzo the Magnificent had been +on what was virtually the throne of Florence since 1469 and was a +young man of twenty-six. For foster-mother the child had the wife +of a stone-mason at Settignano, whither the family soon moved, and +Michelangelo used to say that it was with her milk that he imbibed +the stone-cutting art. It was from the air too, for Settignano's +principal industry was sculpture. The village being only three miles +from Florence, from it the boy could see the city very much as we see +it now--its Duomo, its campanile, with the same attendant spires. He +was sent to Florence to school and intended for either the wool or silk +trade, as so many Florentines were; but displaying artistic ability, +he induced his father to apprentice him, at the age of thirteen, to +a famous goldsmith and painter of Florence who had a busy atelier--no +other than Domenico Ghirlandaio, who was then a man of thirty-nine. + +Michelangelo remained with him for three years, and although his +power and imagination were already greater than his master's, he +learned much, and would never have made his Sixtine Chapel frescoes +with the ease he did but for this early grounding. For Ghirlandaio, +although not of the first rank of painters in genius, was pre-eminently +there in thoroughness, while he was good for the boy too in spirit, +having a large way with him. The first work of Ghirlandaio which +the boy saw in the making was the beautiful "Adoration of the Magi," +in the Church of the Spedale degli Innocenti, completed in 1488, and +the S. Maria Novella frescoes, and it is reasonable to suppose that +he helped with the frescoes in colour grinding, even if he did not, +as some have said, paint with his own hand the beggar sitting on the +steps in the scene representing the "Presentation of the Virgin". That +he was already clever with his pencil, we know, for he had made some +caricatures and corrected a drawing or two. + +The three years with Ghirlandaio were reduced eventually to one, the +boy having the good fortune to be chosen as one of enough promise to be +worth instruction, both by precept and example, in the famous Medici +garden. Here he was more at home than in a painting room, for plastic +art was his passion, and not only had Lorenzo the Magnificent gathered +together there many of those masterpieces of ancient sculpture which we +shall see at the Uffizi, but Bertoldo, the aged head of this informal +school, was the possessor of a private collection of Donatellos and +other Renaissance work of extraordinary beauty and worth. Donatello's +influence on the boy held long enough for him to make the low relief +of the Madonna, much in his style, which is now preserved in the +Casa Buonarroti, while the plaque of the battle of the Centaurs and +Lapithae which is also there shows Bertoldo's influence. + +The boy's first encounter with Lorenzo occurred while he was modelling +the head of an aged faun. His magnificent patron stopped to watch him, +pointing out that so old a creature would probably not have such a +fine set of teeth, and Michelangelo, taking the hint, in a moment had +not only knocked out a tooth or two but--and here his observation +told--hollowed the gums and cheeks a little in sympathy. Lorenzo +was so pleased with his quickness and skill that he received him +into his house as the companion of his three sons: of Piero, who +was so soon and so disastrously to succeed his father, but was now a +high-spirited youth; of Giovanni, who, as Pope Leo X many years after, +was to give Michelangelo the commission for this very sacristy; and +of Giuliano, who lies beneath one of the tombs. As their companion +he enjoyed the advantage of sharing their lessons under Poliziano, +the poet, and of hearing the conversation of Pico della Mirandola, +who was usually with Lorenzo; and to these early fastidious and +intellectual surroundings the artist owed much. + +That he read much, we know, the Bible and Dante being constant +companions; and we know also that in addition to modelling and copying +under Bertoldo, he was assiduous in studying Masaccio's frescoes at +the church of the Carmine across the river, which had become a school +of painting. It was there that his fellow-pupil, Pietro Torrigiano, +who was always his enemy and a bully, broke his nose with one blow +and flew to Rome from the rage of Lorenzo. + +It was when Michelangelo was seventeen that Lorenzo died, at the early +age of forty-two, and although the garden still existed and the Medici +palace was still open to the youth, the spirit had passed. Piero, who +succeeded his father, had none of his ability or sagacity, and in two +years was a refugee from the city, while the treasures of the garden +were disposed by auction, and Michelangelo, too conspicuous as a Medici +protégé to be safe, hurried away to Bologna. He was now nineteen. + +Of his travels I say nothing here, for we must keep to Florence, +whither he thought it safe to return in 1495. The city was now governed +by the Great Council and the Medici banished. Michelangelo remained +only a brief time and then went to Rome, where he made his first Pietà , +at which he was working during the trial and execution of Savonarola, +whom he admired and reverenced, and where he remained until 1501, +when, aged twenty-six, he returned to Florence to do some of his most +famous work. The Medici were still in exile. + +It was in August, 1501, that the authorities of the cathedral asked +Michelangelo to do what he could with a great block of marble on +their hands, from which he carved that statue of David of which I +tell the story in chapter XVI. This established his pre-eminence as +a sculptor. Other commissions for statues poured in, and in 1504 he +was invited to design a cartoon for the Palazzo Vecchio, to accompany +one by Leonardo, and a studio was given him in the Via Guelfa for +the purpose. This cartoon, when finished, so far established him +also as the greatest of painters that the Masaccios in the Carmine +were deserted by young artists in order that this might be studied +instead. The cartoon, as I relate in the chapter on the Palazzo +Vecchio, no longer exists. + +The next year, 1505, Michelangelo, nearing his thirtieth birthday, +returned to Rome and entered upon the second and tragic period of his +life, for he arrived there only to receive the order for the Julius +tomb which poisoned his remaining years, and of which more is said +in the chapter on the Accademia, where we see so many vestiges of it +both in marble and plaster. But I might remark here that this vain +and capricious pontiff, whose pride and indecision robbed the world +of no one can ever say what glorious work from Michelangelo's hand, +is the benevolent-looking old man whose portrait by Raphael is in +the Pitti and Uffizi in colour, in the Corsini Palace in charcoal, +and again in our own National Gallery in colour. + +Of Michelangelo at Rome and Carrara, whither he went to superintend +in person the quarrying of the marble that was to be transferred to +life and where he had endless vexations and mortifications, I say +nothing. Enough that the election of his boy friend Giovanni de' +Medici as Pope Leo X in 1513 brought him again to Florence, the Pope +having a strong wish that Michelangelo should complete the façade of +the Medici family church, S. Lorenzo, where we now are. As we know, +the scheme was not carried out, but in 1520 the Pope substituted +another and more attractive one: namely, a chapel to contain the +tombs not only of his father the Magnificent, and his uncle, who had +been murdered in the Duomo many years before, but also his nephew +Piero de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, who had just died, in 1519, and +his younger brother (and Michelangelo's early playmate) Giuliano de' +Medici, Duke of Nemours, who had died in 1516. These were not Medici +of the highest class, but family pride was strong. It is, however, +odd that no memorial of Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici, who had been +drowned at the age of twenty-two in 1503, was required; perhaps it +may have been that since it was Piero's folly that had brought the +Medici into such disgrace in 1494, the less thought of him the better. + +Michelangelo took fire at once, and again hastened to Carrara to +arrange for marble to be sent to his studio in the Via Mozzi, now the +Via S. Zenobi; while the building stone was brought from Fiesole. Leo +X lived only to know that the great man had begun, the new patron +being Giulio de' Medici, natural son of the murdered Giuliano, +now a cardinal, and soon, in 1523, to become Pope Clement VII. This +Pope showed deep interest in the project, but wished not only to add +tombs of himself and Pope Leo X, but also to build a library for the +Laurentian collection, which Michelangelo must design. A little later +he had decided that he would prefer to lie in the choir of the church, +and Leo X with him, and instead therefore of tombs Michelangelo might +merely make a colossal statue of him to stand in the piazza before the +church. The sculptor's temper had not been improved by his many years' +experience of papal caprice, and he replied to this suggestion with +a letter unique even in the annals of infuriated artists. Let the +statue be made, of course, he said, but let it be useful as well as +ornamental: the lower portion to be also a barber's shop, and the +head, since it would be empty, a greengrocer's. The Pope allowed +himself to be rebuked, and abandoned the statue, writing a mild and +even pathetic reply. + +Until 1527 Michelangelo worked away at the building and the tombs, +always secretly, behind impenetrable barriers; and then came the +troubles which led to the siege of Florence, following upon the +banishment of Alessandro, Duke of Urbino, natural son of the very +Lorenzo whom the sculptor was to dignify for all time. By the Emperor +Charles V and Pope Clement VII the city was attacked, and Michelangelo +was called away from Clement's sacristy to fortify Florence against +Clement's soldiers. Part of his ramparts at S. Miniato still remain, +and he strengthened all the gates; but, feeling himself slighted and +hating the whole affair, he suddenly disappeared. One story is that he +hid in the church tower of S. Niccolò, below what is now the Piazzale +dedicated to his memory. Wherever he was, he was proclaimed an outlaw, +and then, on Florence finding that she could not do without him, +was pardoned, and so returned, the city meanwhile having surrendered +and the Medici again being restored to power. + +The Pope showed either fine magnanimity or compounded with facts +in the interest of the sacristy; for he encouraged Michelangelo to +proceed, and the pacific work was taken up once more after the martial +interregnum, and in a desultory way he was busy at it, always secretly +and moodily, until 1533, when he tired completely and never touched +it again. A year later Clement VII died, having seen only drawings +of the tombs, if those. + +But though left unfinished, the sacristy is wholly satisfying--more +indeed than satisfying, conquering. Whatever help Michelangelo may +have had from his assistants, it is known that the symbolical figures +on the tombs and the two seated Medici are from his hand. Of the two +finished or practically finished tombs--to my mind as finished as they +should be--that of Lorenzo is the finer. The presentment of Lorenzo in +armour brooding and planning is more splendid than that of Giuliano; +while the old man, whose head anticipates everything that is considered +most original in Rodin's work, is among the best of Michelangelo's +statuary. Much speculation has been indulged in as to the meaning +of the symbolism of these tombs, and having no theory of my own to +offer, I am glad to borrow Mr. Gerald S. Davies' summary from his +monograph on Michelangelo. The figure of Giuliano typifies energy +and leadership in repose; while the man on his tomb typifies Day and +the woman Night, or the man Action and the woman the sleep and rest +that produce Action. The figure of Lorenzo typifies Contemplation, +the woman Dawn, and the man Twilight, the states which lie between +light and darkness, action and rest. What Michelangelo--who owed +nothing to any Medici save only Lorenzo the Magnificent and had seen +the best years of his life frittered away in the service of them and +other proud princes--may also have intended we shall never know; but +he was a saturnine man with a long memory, and he might easily have +made the tombs a vehicle for criticism. One would not have another +touch of the chisel on either of the symbolical male figures. + +Although a tomb to Lorenzo the Magnificent by Michelangelo would +surely have been a wonderful thing, there is something startling and +arresting in the circumstance that he has none at all from any hand, +but lies here unrecorded. His grandfather, in the church itself, +rests beneath a plain slab, which aimed so consciously at modesty +as thereby to achieve special distinction: Lorenzo, leaving no such +directions, has nothing, while in the same room are monuments to +two common-place descendants to thrill the soul. The disparity is in +itself monumental. That Michelangelo's Madonna and Child are on the +slab which covers the dust of Lorenzo and his brother is a chance. The +saints on either side are S. Cosimo and S. Damian, the patron saints +of old Cosimo de' Medici, and are by Michelangelo's assistants. The +Madonna was intended for the altar of the sacristy. Into this work the +sculptor put much of his melancholy and, one feels, disappointment. The +face of the Madonna is already sad and hopeless; but the Child is +perhaps the most splendid and determined of any in all Renaissance +sculpture. He may, if we like, symbolize the new generation that is +always deriving sustenance from the old, without care or thought of +what the old has to suffer; he crushes his head against his mother's +breast in a very passion of vigorous dependence. [4] + +Whatever was originally intended, it is certain that in Michelangelo's +sacristy disillusionment reigns as well as death. But how beautiful +it is! + +In a little room leading from the sacristy I was shown by a smiling +custodian Lorenzo the Magnificent's coffin, crumbling away, and +photographs of the skulls of the two brothers: Giuliano's with one +of Francesco de' Pazzi's dagger wounds in it, and Lorenzo's, ghastly +in its decay. I gave the man half a lira. + +While he was working on the tombs Michelangelo had undertaken now and +then a small commission, and to this period belongs the David which we +shall see in the little room on the ground floor of the Bargello. In +1534, when he finally abandoned the sacristy, and, leaving Florence for +ever, settled in Rome, the Laurentian library was only begun, and he +had little interest in it. He never saw it again. At Rome his time was +fully occupied in painting the "Last Judgment" in the Sixtine Chapel, +and in various architectural works. But Florence at any rate has two +marble masterpieces that belong to the later period--the Brutus in +the Bargello and the Pietà in the Duomo, which we have seen--that +poignantly impressive rendering of the entombment upon which the old +man was at work when he died, and which he meant for his own grave. + +His death came in 1564, on February 23rd, when he was nearly +eighty-nine, and his body was brought to Florence and buried amid +universal grief in S. Croce, where it has a florid monument. + +Since we are considering the life of Michelangelo, I might perhaps +say here a few words about his house, which is only a few minutes' +distant--at No. 64 Via Ghibellina--where certain early works and +personal relics are preserved. Michelangelo gave the house to his +nephew Leonardo; it was decorated early in the seventeenth century with +scenes in the life of the master, and finally bequeathed to the city +as a heritage in 1858. It is perhaps the best example of the rapacity +of the Florentines; for notwithstanding that it was left freely in +this way a lira is charged for admission. The house contains more +collateral curiosities, as they might be called, than those in the +direct line; but there are architectural drawings from the wonderful +hand, colour drawings of a Madonna, a few studies, and two early pieces +of sculpture--the battle of the Lapithae and Centaurs, a relief marked +by tremendous vigour and full of movement, and a Madonna and Child, +also in relief, with many marks of greatness upon it. In a recess +in Room IV are some personal relics of the artist, which his great +nephew, the poet, who was named after him, began to collect early in +the seventeenth century. As a whole the house is disappointing. + +Upstairs have been arranged a quantity of prints and drawings +illustrating the history of Florence. + +The S. Lorenzo cloisters may be entered either from a side door in +the church close to the Old Sacristy or from the piazza. Although an +official in uniform keeps the piazza door, they are free. Brunelleschi +is again the architect, and from the loggia at the entrance to the +library you see most acceptably the whole of his cathedral dome and +half of Giotto's tower. It is impossible for Florentine cloisters--or +indeed any cloisters--not to have a certain beauty, and these are +unusually charming and light, seen both from the loggia and the ground. + +Michelangelo's Biblioteca Laurenziana, which leads from them, +is one of the most perfect of sombre buildings, the very home of +well-ordered scholarship. The staircase is impressive, although perhaps +a little too severe; the long room could not be more satisfying to +the eye. Michelangelo died before it was finished, but it is his in +design, even to the ceiling and cases for MSS. in which the library +is so rich, and the rich red wood ceiling. Vasari, Michelangelo's +pupil and friend and the biographer to whom we are so much indebted, +carried on the work. His scheme of windows has been upset on the +side opposite the cloisters by the recent addition of a rotunda +leading from the main room. If ever rectangular windows were more +exquisitely and nobly proportioned I should like to see them. The +library is free for students, and the attendants are very good in +calling stray visitors' attention to illuminated missals, old MSS., +early books and so forth. 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. If you look at Mr. Hewlett's +"Earthwork out of Tuscany" you will find an entertaining description +of what it used to be like. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Or San Michele and the Palazzo Vecchio + +The little Bigallo--The Misericordia--Or San Michele--Andrea +Orcagna--The Tabernacle--Old Glass--A company of stone +saints--Donatello's S. George--Dante conferences--The Guilds of +Florence--The Palazzo Vecchio--Two Towers--Bandinelli's group--The +Marzocco--The Piazza della Signoria--Orcagna's Loggia--Cellini +and Cosimo--The Perseus--Verrocchio's dolphin--The Great Council +Hall--Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo's cartoons--Bandinelli's +malice--The Palazzo Vecchio as a home--Two cells and the bell of +independence. + +Let us now proceed along the Via Calzaioli (which means street of +the stocking-makers), running away from the Piazza del Duomo to +the Piazza della Signoria. The fascinatingly pretty building at +the corner, opposite Pisano's Baptistery doors, is the Bigallo, +in the loggia of which foundling children used to be displayed in +the hope that passers-by might pity them sufficiently to make them +presents or even adopt them; but this custom continues no longer. The +Bigallo was designed, it is thought, by Orcagna, and it is worth the +minutest study. + +The Company of the Bigallo, which is no longer an active force, was +one of the benevolent societies of old Florence. But the greatest +of these societies, still busy and merciful, is the Misericordia, +whose head-quarters are just across the Via Calzaioli, in the piazza, +facing the campanile, a company of Florentines pledged at a moment's +notice, no matter on what they may be engaged, to assist in any +charitable work of necessity. For the most part they carry ambulances +to the scenes of accident and perform the last offices for the dead +in the poorer districts. When on duty they wear black robes and +hoods. Their headquarters comprise a chapel, with an altar by Andrea +della Robbia, and a statue of the patron saint of the Misericordia, +S. Sebastian. But their real patron saint is their founder, a common +porter named Pietro Borsi. In the thirteenth century it was the custom +for the porters and loafers connected with the old market to meet +in a shelter here and pass the time away as best they could. Borsi, +joining them, was distressed to find how unprofitable were the hours, +and he suggested the formation of a society to be of some real use, +the money to support it to be obtained by fines in payment for oaths +and blasphemies. A litter or two were soon bought and the machinery +started. The name was the Company of the Brothers of Mercy. That was +in 1240 to 1250. To-day no Florentine is too grand to take his part, +and at the head of the porter's band of brethren is the King. + +Passing along the Via Calzaioli we come on the right to a noble square +building with statues in its niches--Or San Michele, which stands on +the site of the chapel of San Michele in Orto. San Michele in Orto, +or more probably in Horreo (meaning either in the garden or in the +granary), was once part of a loggia used as a corn market, in which +was preserved a picture by Ugolino da Siena representing the Virgin, +and this picture had the power of working miracles. Early in the +fourteenth century the loggia was burned down but the picture was +saved (or quickly replaced), and a new building on a much larger and +more splendid scale was made for it, none other than Or San Michele, +the chief architect being Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's pupil and later +the constructor of the Ponte Vecchio. Where the picture then was, I +cannot say--whether inside the building or out--but the principal use +of the building was to serve as a granary. After 1348, when Florence +was visited by that ravaging plague which Boccaccio describes in +such gruesome detail at the beginning of the "Decameron" and which +sent his gay company of ladies and gentlemen to the Villa Palmieri +to take refuge in story telling, and when this sacred picture was +more than commonly busy and efficacious, it was decided to apply +the enormous sums of money given to the shrine from gratitude in +beautifying the church still more, and chiefly in providing a casket +worthy of holding such a pictorial treasure. Hence came about the +noble edifice of to-day. + +A man of universal genius was called in to execute the tabernacle: +Andrea Orcagna, a pupil probably of Andrea Pisano, and also much +influenced by Giotto, whom though he had not known he idolized, +and one who, like Michelangelo later, was not only a painter and +sculptor but an architect and a poet. Orcagna, or, to give him his +right name, Andrea di Cione, for Orcagna was an abbreviation of +Arcagnolo, flourished in the middle of the fourteenth century. Among +his best-known works in painting are the Dantesque frescoes in the +Strozzi chapel at S. Maria Novella, and that terrible allegory of +Death and Judgment in the Campo Santo at Pisa, in which the gay riding +party come upon the three open graves. Orcagna put all his strength +into the tabernacle of Or San Michele, which is a most sumptuous, +beautiful and thoughtful shrine, yet owing to the darkness of the +church is almost invisible. Guides, it is true, will emerge from the +gloom and hold lighted tapers to it, but a right conception of it is +impossible. The famous miraculous picture over the altar is notable +rather for its properties than for its intrinsic beauty; it is the +panels of the altar, which contain Orcagna's most exquisite work, +representing scenes in the life of the Virgin, with emblematical +figures interspersed, that one wishes to see. Only the back, however, +can be seen really well, and this only when a door opposite to it--in +the Via Calzaioli--is opened. It should always be open, with a grille +across it, that passers-by might have constant sight of this almost +unknown Florentine treasure. It is in the relief of the death of the +Virgin on the back that--on the extreme right--Orcagna introduced +his own portrait. The marble employed is of a delicate softness, and +Orcagna had enough of Giotto's tradition to make the Virgin a reality +and to interest Her, for example, as a mother in the washing of Her +Baby, as few painters have done, and in particular, as, according +to Ruskin, poor Ghirlandaio could not do in his fresco of the birth +of the Virgin Herself. It was Orcagna's habit to sign his sculpture +"Andrea di Cione, painter," and his paintings "Andrea di Cione, +sculptor," and thus point his versatility. By this tabernacle, by +his Pisan fresco, and by the designs of the Loggia de' Lanzi and the +Bigallo (which are usually given to him), he takes his place among +the most interesting and various of the forerunners of the Renaissance. + +Within Or San Michele you learn the secret of the stoned-up windows +which one sees with regret from without. Each, or nearly each, has +an altar against it. What the old glass was like one can divine from +the lovely and sombre top lights in exquisite patterns that are left; +that on the centre of the right wall of the church, as one enters, +having jewels of green glass as lovely as any I ever saw. But blues, +purples, and reds predominate. + +The tabernacle apart, the main appeal of Or San Michele is the statuary +and stone-work of the exterior; for here we find the early masters +at their best. The building being the head-quarters of the twelve +Florentine guilds, the statues and decorations were commissioned by +them. It is as though our City companies should unite in beautifying +the Guildhall. Donatello is the greatest artist here, and it was +for the Armourers that he made his S. George, which stands now, as +he carved it in marble, in the Bargello, but has a bronze substitute +in its original niche, below which is a relief of the slaying of the +dragon from Donatello's chisel. Of this glorious S. George more will +be said later. But I may remark now that in its place here it instantly +proves the modernity and realistic vigour of its sculptor. Fine though +they be, all the other statues of this building are conventional; +they carry on a tradition of religious sculpture such as Niccolò +Pisano respected, many years earlier, when he worked at the Pisan +pulpit. But Donatello's S. George is new and is as beautiful as a +Greek god, with something of real human life added. + +Donatello (with Michelozzo) also made the exquisite border of the +niche in the Via Calzaioli façade, in which Christ and S. Thomas now +stand. He was also to have made the figures (for the Merchants' Guild) +but was busy elsewhere, and they fell to Verrocchio, of whom also we +shall have much to see and say at the Bargello, and to my mind they +are the most beautiful of all. The John the Baptist (made for the +Cloth-dealers), also on this façade, is by Ghiberti of the Baptistery +gates. On the façade of the Via de' Lamberti is Donatello's superb +S. Mark (for the Joiners), which led to Michelangelo's criticism that +he had never seen a man who looked more virtuous, and if S. Mark +were really like that he would believe all his words. "Why don't +you speak to me?" he also said to this statue, as Donatello had +said to the Zuccone. Higher on this façade is Luca della Robbia's +famous arms of the Silk-weavers, one of the perfect things. Luca +also made the arms of the Guild of Merchants, with its Florentine +fleur-de-lis in the midst. For the rest, Ghiberti's S. Stephen, +and Ghiberti and Michelozzo's S. Matthew, on the entrance wall, +are the most remarkable. The blacksmith relief is very lively and +the blacksmith's saint a noble figure. + +The little square reliefs let into the wall at intervals +are often charming, and the stone-work of the windows is very +lovely. In fact, the four walls of this fortress church are almost +inexhaustible. Within, its vaulted roof is so noble, its proportions +so satisfying. One should often sit quietly here, in the gloom, +and do nothing. + +The little building just across the way was the Guild House of the +Arte della Lana, or Wool-combers, and is now the head-quarters of +the Italian Dante Society, who hold a conference every Thursday +in the large room over Or San Michele, gained by the flying +buttress-bridge. The dark picture on the outer wall is the very +Madonna to which, when its position was at the Mercato Vecchio, +condemned criminals used to pray on their way to execution. + +Before we leave Or San Michele and the Arte della Lana, a word on +the guilds of Florence is necessary, for at a period in Florentine +history between, say, the middle of the thirteenth century and the +beginning of the fifteenth, they were the very powerful controllers +of the domestic affairs of the city; and it is possible that it would +have been better for the Florentines had they continued to be so. For +Florence was essentially mercantile and the guilds were composed of +business men; and it is natural that business men should know better +than noblemen what a business city needed. They were divided into +major guilds, chief of which were the woollen merchants--the Arte +della Lana--and the silk merchants--the Calimala--and it was their +pride to put their riches at the city's service. Thus, the Arte della +Lana had charge of the building of the cathedral. Each of the major +guilds provided a Prior, and the Priors elected the Signoria, who +governed the city. It is one of the principal charges that is brought +against Cosimo de' Medici that he broke the power of the guilds. + +Returning to the Via Calzaioli, and turning to the right, we come +very quickly to the Piazza della Signoria, and see before us, +diagonally across it, the Loggia de' Lanzi and the Palazzo Vecchio, +with the gleaming, gigantic figure of Michelangelo's David against +the dark gateway. This, more than the Piazza del Duomo, is the centre +of Florence. + +The Palazzo Vecchio was for centuries called the Signoria, being the +home of the Gonfalonier of Florence and the Signoria who assisted +his councils. It was begun by Arnolfo, the architect of the Duomo and +S. Croce, at the end of the thirteenth century, that being, as we have +seen, a period of great prosperity and ambition in Florence, but many +alterations and additions were made--by Michelozzo, Cronaca, Vasari, +and others--to bring it to what it now is. After being the scene +of many riots, executions, and much political strife and dubiety, +it became a ducal palace in 1532, and is now a civic building and +show-place. In the old days the Palazzo had a ringhiera, or platform, +in front of it, from which proclamations were made. To know what +this was like one has but to go to S. Trinità on a very fine morning +and look at Ghirlandaio's fresco of the granting of the charter to +S. Francis. The scene, painted in 1485, includes not only the Signoria +but the Loggia de' Lanzi (then the Loggia dell' Orcagna)--both before +any statues were set up. + +Every façade of the Palazzo Vecchio is splendid. I cannot say which +I admire more--that which one sees from the Loggia de' Lanzi, with +its beautiful coping of corbels, at once so heavy and so light, with +coloured escutcheons between them, or that in the Via de' Gondi, with +its fine jumble of old brickwork among the stones. The Palazzo Vecchio +is one of the most resolute and independent buildings in the world; +and it had need to be strong, for the waves of Florentine revolt were +always breaking against it. The tower rising from this square fortress +has at once grace and strength and presents a complete contrast to +Giotto's campanile; for Giotto's campanile is so light and delicate and +reasonable and this tower of the Signoria so stern and noble. There +is a difference as between a beautiful woman and a powerful man. In +the functions of the two towers--the dominating towers of Florence--is +a wide difference also, for the campanile calls to prayer, while for +years the sombre notes of the great Signoria bell--the Vacca--rang out +only to bid the citizens to conclave or battle or to sound an alarm. + +It was this Vacca wich (with others) the brave Piero Capponi +threatened to ring when Charles VIII wished, in 1494, to force a +disgraceful treaty on the city. The scene was the Medici Palace in +the Via Larga. The paper was ready for signature and Capponi would +not sign. "Then I must bid my trumpets blow," said Charles. "If you +sound your trumpets," Capponi replied, "we will ring our bells;" +and the King gave way, for he knew that his men had no chance in this +city if it rose suddenly against them. + +But the glory of the Palazzo Vecchio tower--afer its proportions--is +that brilliant inspiration of the architect which led him, so to +speak, to begin again by setting the four columns on the top of the +solid portion. These pillars are indescribably right: so solid +and yet so light, so powerful and yet so comely. Their duty was +to support the bells, and particularly the Vacca, when he rocked +his gigantic weight of green bronze to and fro to warn the city. +Seen from a distance the columns are always beautiful; seen close +by they are each a tower of comfortable strength. And how the wind +blows through them from the Apennines! + +The David on the left of the Palazzo Vecchio main door is only a copy. +The original stood there until 1873, when, after three hundred and +sixty-nine years, it was moved to a covered spot in the Accademia, +as we shall there see and learn its history. If we want to know what +the Palazzo Vecchio looked like at the time David was placed there, +a picture by Piero di Cosimo in our National Gallery tells us, for +he makes it the background of his portrait of Ferrucci, No. 895. + +The group on the right represents Hercules and Cacus, [5] and +is by Baccio Bandinelli (1485-1560), a coarse and offensive man, +jealous of most people and particularly of Michelangelo, to whom, +but for his displeasing Pope Clement VII, the block of marble from +which the Hercules was carved would have been given. Bandinelli in +his delight at obtaining it vowed to surpass that master's David, +and those who want to know what Florence thought of his effort should +consult the amusing and malicious pages of Cellini's Autobiography. +On its way to Bandinelli's studio the block fell into the Arrio, and +it was a joke of the time that it had drowned itself to avoid its fate +at the sculptor's hands. Even after he had half done it, there was a +moment when Michelangelo had an opportunity of taking over the stone +and turning it into a Samson, but the siege of Florence intervened, +and eventually Bandinelli had his way and the hideous thing now on +view was evolved. + +The lion at the left end of the façade is also a copy, the original +by Donatello being in the Bargello, close by; but the pedestal is +Donatello's original. This lion is the Marzocco, the legendary guardian +of the Florentine republic, and it stood here for four centuries and +more, superseding one which was kissed as a sign of submission by +thousands of Pisan prisoners in 1364. The Florentine fleur-de-lis on +the pediment is very beautiful. The same lion may be seen in iron on +his staff at the top of the Palazzo Vecchio tower, and again on the +Bargello, bravely flourishing his lily against the sky. + +The great fountain with its bronze figures at this corner is by +Bartolommeo Ammanati, a pupil of Bandinelli, and the statue of Cosimo +I is by Gian Bologna, who was the best of the post-Michelangelo +sculptors and did much good work in Florence, as we shall see at the +Bargello and in the Boboli Gardens. He studied under Michelangelo +in Rome. Though born a Fleming and called a Florentine, his great +fountain at Bologna, which is really a fine thing, has identified his +fame with that city. Had not Ammanati's design better pleased Cosimo +I, the Bologna fountain would be here, for it was designed for this +piazza. Gian's best-known work is the Flying Mercury in the Bargello, +which we have seen, on mantelpieces and in shop windows, everywhere; +but what is considered his masterpiece is over there, in the Loggia de' +Lanzi, the very beautiful building on the right of the Palazzo, the +"Rape of the Sabines," a group which, to me, gives no pleasure. The +bronze reliefs under the Cosimo statue--this Cosimo being, of course, +far other than Cosimo de' Medici, Father of his Country: Cosimo +I of Tuscany, who insisted upon a crown and reigned from 1537 to +1575--represents his assumption of rule on the death of Alessandro in +1537; his triumphant entry into Siena when he conquered it and absorbed +it; and his reception of the rank of Grand Duke. Of Cosimo (whom we +met in Chapter V) more will be said when we enter the Palazzo Vecchio. + +Between this statue and the Loggia de' Lanzi is a bronze tablet let +into the paving which tells us that it was on this very spot, in 1498, +that Savonarola and two of his companions were put to death. The +ancient palace on the Duomo side of the piazza is attributed in +design to Raphael, who, like most of the great artists of his time, +was also an architect and was the designer of the Palazzo Pandolfini +in the Via San Gallo, No. 74. The Palazzo we are now admiring for +its blend of massiveness and beauty is the Uguccione, and anybody +who wishes may probably have a whole floor of it to-day for a few +shillings a week. The building which completes the piazza on the +right of us, with coats of arms on its façade, is now given to the +Board of Agriculture and has been recently restored. It was once +a Court of Justice. The great building at the opposite side of the +piazza, where the trams start, is a good example of modern Florentine +architecture based on the old: the Palazzo Landi, built in 1871 and +now chiefly an insurance office. In London we have a more attractive +though smaller derivative of the great days of Florentine building, +in Standen's wool shop in Jermyn Street. + +The Piazza della Signoria has such riches that one is in danger of +neglecting some. The Palazzo Vecchio, for example, so overpowers +the Loggia de' Lanzi in size as to draw the eye from that perfect +structure. One should not allow this to happen; one should let +the Palazzo Vecchio's solid nobility wait awhile and concentrate +on the beauty of Orcagna's three arches. Coming so freshly from his +tabernacle in Or San Michele we are again reminded of the versatility +of the early artists. + +This structure, originally called the Loggia de' Priori or Loggia +d'Orcagna, was built in the fourteenth century as an open place for +the delivery of proclamations and for other ceremonies, and also as +a shelter from the rain, the last being a purpose it still serves. It +was here that Savonarola's ordeal by fire would have had place had it +not been frustrated. Vasari also gives Orcagna the four symbolical +figures in the recesses in the spandrels of the arches. The Loggia, +which took its new name from the Swiss lancers, or lanzi, that Cosimo +I kept there--he being a fearful ruler and never comfortable without a +bodyguard--is now a recognized place of siesta; and hither many people +carry their poste-restante correspondence from the neighbouring post +office in the Uffizi to read in comfort. A barometer and thermometer +are almost the only novelties that a visitor from the sixteenth +century would notice. + +The statuary is both old and new; for here are genuine antiques once +in Ferdinand I's Villa Medici at Rome, and such modern masterpieces +as Donatello's Judith and Holofernes, Cellini's Perseus, and Gian +Bologna's two muscular and restless groups. The best of the antiques +is the Woman Mourning, the fourth from the end on the left, which is +a superb creation. + +Donatello's Judith, which gives me less pleasure than any of his work, +both in the statue and in the relief, was commissioned for Cosimo +de' Medici, who placed it in the courtyard or garden of the Medici +palace--Judith, like David, by her brave action against a tyrant, +being a champion of the Florentine republic. In 1495, after Cosimo's +worthless grandson Piero de' Medici had been expelled from Florence +and the Medici palace sacked, the statue was moved to the front of the +Palazzo Vecchio, where the David now is, and an inscription placed +on it describing it as a warning to all enemies of liberty. This +position being needed for Michelangelo's David, in 1506, Judith was +moved to the Loggia to the place where the Sabine group now is. In +1560 it took up its present position. + +Cellini's Perseus will not quite do, I think, after Donatello and +Verrocchio; but few bronzes are more famous, and certainly of none +has so vivacious and exciting a story been written as Cellini's own, +setting forth his disappointments, mortifications, and pride in +connexion with this statue. Cellini, whatever one may think of his +veracity, is a diverting and valuable writer, and the picture of +Cosimo I which he draws for us is probably very near the truth. We +see him haughty, familiar, capricious, vain, impulsive, clear-sighted, +and easily flattered; intensely pleased to be in a position to command +the services of artists and very unwilling to pay. Cellini was a blend +of lackey, child, and genius. He left Francis I in order to serve +Cosimo and never ceased to regret the change. The Perseus was his +greatest accomplishment for Cosimo, and the narrative of its casting +is terrific and not a little like Dumas. When it was uncovered in its +present position all Florence flocked to the Loggia to praise it; the +poets placed commendatory sonnets on the pillars, and the sculptor +peacocked up and down in an ecstasy of triumph. Then, however, his +troubles once more began, for Cosimo had the craft to force Cellini +to name the price, and we see Cellini in an agony between desire for +enough and fear lest if he named enough he would offend his patron. + +The whole book is a comedy of vanity and jealousy and Florentine +vigour, with Courts as a background. It is good to read it; it is +good, having read it, to study once again the unfevered resolute +features of Donatello's S. George. Cellini himself we may see among +the statues under the Uffizi and again in the place of honour (as a +goldsmith) in the centre of the Ponte Vecchio. Looking at the Perseus +and remembering Donatello, one realizes that what Cellini wanted was +character. He had temperament enough but no character. Perseus is +superb, commanding, distinguished, and one doesn't care a fig for it. + +On entering the Palazzo Vecchio we come instantly to one of the most +charming things in Florence--Verrocchio's fountain--which stands +in the midst of the courtyard. This adorable work--a little bronze +Cupid struggling with a spouting dolphin--was made for Lorenzo de' +Medici's country villa at Careggi and was brought here when the +palazzo was refurnished for Francis I, Cosimo I's son and successor, +and his bride, Joanna of Austria, in 1565. Nothing could better +illustrate the accomplishment and imaginative adaptability of the great +craftsmen of the day than the two works of Verrocchio that we have +now seen: the Christ and S. Thomas at Or San Michele, in Donatello +and Michelozzo's niche, and this exquisite fountain splashing water +so musically. Notice the rich decorations of the pillars of this +courtyard and the rich colour and power of the pillars themselves. The +half-obliterated frescoes of Austrian towns on the walls were made to +prevent Joanna from being homesick, but were more likely, one would +guess, to stimulate that malady. In the left corner is the entrance +to the old armoury, now empty, with openings in the walls through +which pieces might be discharged at various angles on any advancing +host. The groined ceiling could support a pyramid. + +The Palazzo Vecchio's ground floor is a series of thoroughfares in +which people are passing continually amid huge pillars and along +dark passages; but our way is up the stone steps immediately to the +left on leaving the courtyard where Verrocchio's child eternally +smiles, for the steps take us to that vast hall designed by Cronaca +for Savonarola's Great Council, which was called into being for the +government of Florence after the luckless Piero de' Medici had been +banished in 1494. Here much history was made. As to its structure +and its architect, Vasari, who later was called in to restore it, +has a deal to say, but it is too technical for us. It was built +by Simone di Pollaiuolo, who was known as Cronaca (the Chronicler) +from his vivid way of telling his adventures. Cronaca (1454-1508), +who was a personal friend and devotee of Savonarola, drew up his plan +in consultation with Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo (although then +so young: only nineteen or twenty) and others. Its peculiarity is that +it is one of the largest rooms in existence without pillars. From the +foot of the steps to the further wall I make it fifty-eight paces, +and thirty wide; and the proportions strike the eye as perfect. The +wall behind the steps is not at right angles with the other--and this +must be as peculiar as the absence of pillars. + +Once there were to be paintings here by the greatest of all, for +masters no less than Leonardo and Michelangelo were commissioned to +decorate it, each with a great historical painting: a high honour +for the youthful Michelangelo. The loss of these works is one of +the tragedies of art. Leonardo chose for his subject the battle of +Anghiari, an incident of 1440 when the Florentines defeated Piccinino +and saved their Republic from the Milanese and Visconti. But both +the cartoon and the fresco have gone for ever, and our sense of loss +is not diminished by reading in Leonardo's Thoughts on Painting the +directions which he wrote for the use of artists who proposed to paint +battles: one of the most interesting and exciting pieces of writing in +the literature of art. Michelangelo's work, which never reached the +wall of the room, as Leonardo's had done, was completed as a cartoon +in 1504 to 1506 in his studio in the hospital of the dyers in Sant' +Onofrio, which is now the Via Guelfa. The subject was also military: +an incident in the long and bitter struggle between Florence and Pisa, +when Sir John Hawkwood (then in the pay of the Pisans, before he came +over finally to the Florentines) attacked a body of Florentines who +were bathing in the river. The scene gave the young artist scope both +for his power of delineating a spirited incident and for his drawing +of the nude, and those who saw it said of this work that it was finer +than anything the painter ever did. While it was in progress all +the young artists came to Sant' Onofrio to study it, as they and its +creator had before flocked to the Carmine, where Masaccio's frescoes +had for three-quarters of a century been object-lessons to students. + +What became of the cartoon is not definitely known, but Vasari's +story is that Bandinelli, the sculptor of the Hercules and Cacus +outside the Palazzo, who was one of the most diligent copyists of the +cartoon after it was placed in a room in this building, had the key +of the door counterfeited, and, obtaining entrance during a moment +of tumult, destroyed the picture. The reasons given are: (1, and a +very poor one) that he desired to own the pieces; (2) that he wished +to deprive other and rival students of the advantage of copying it; +(3) that he wanted Leonardo to be the only painter of the Palazzo to +be considered; and (4, and sufficient) that he hated Michelangelo. At +this time Bandinelli could not have been more than eighteen. Vasari's +story is uncorroborated. + +Leonardo's battle merely perished, being done in some fugitive medium; +and the walls are now covered with the works of Vasari himself +and his pupils and do not matter, while the ceiling is a muddle +of undistinguished paint. There are many statues which also do not +matter; but at the raised end is Leo X, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, +and the first Medici Pope, and at the other a colossal modern statue +of Savonarola, who was in person the dominating influence here for +the years between 1494 and 1497; who is to many the central figure +in the history of this building; and whose last night on earth was +spent with his companions in this very room. But to him we come in +the chapter on S. Marco. + +Many rooms in the Palazzo are to be seen only on special occasions, +but the great hall is always accessible. Certain rooms upstairs, +mostly with rich red and yellow floors, are also visible daily, all +interesting; but most notable is the Salle de Lys, with its lovely blue +walls of lilies, its glorious ceiling of gold and roses, Ghirlandaio's +fresco of S. Zenobius, and the perfect marble doorway containing +the wooden doors of Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano, with the heads +of Dante and Petrarch in intarsia. Note the figures of Charity and +Temperance in the doorway and the charming youthful Baptist. + +In Eleanor of Toledo's dining-room there are some rich and elaborate +green jugs which I remember very clearly and also the ceiling of her +workroom with its choice of Penelope as the presiding genius. Both +Eleanor's chapel and that in which Savonarola prayed before his +execution are shown. + +But the most popular room of all with visitors--and quite naturally--is +the little boudoiresque study of Francis I, with its voluptuous +ladies on the ceiling and the secret treasure-room leading from it, +while on the way, just outside the door, is a convenient oubliette +into which to push any inconvenient visitor. + +The loggia, which Mr. Morley has painted from the Via Castellani, +is also always accessible, and from it one has one of those pleasant +views of warm roofs in which Florence abounds. + +One of the most attractive of the smaller rooms usually on view is +that one which leads from the lily-room and contains nothing but +maps of the world: the most decorative things conceivable, next to +Chinese paintings. Looking naturally for Sussex on the English map, +I found Winchelsey, Battel, Rye, Lewes, Sorham, Arônde, and Cicestra. + +From the map-room a little room is gained where the debates in +the Great Council Hall might be secretly overheard by interested +eavesdroppers, but in particular by Cosimo I. A part of the cornice +has holes in it for this purppse, but on regaining the hall itself +I found that the disparity in the pattern was perfectly evident even +to my eye, so that every one in those suspicious days must have been +aware of the listener. + +The tower should certainly be ascended--not only for the view +and to be so near the bells and the pillars, but also for historic +associations. After a little way we come to the cell where Cosimo de' +Medici, later to be the Father of his Country, was imprisoned, before +that exile which ended in recall and triumph in 1433. This cell, +although not exactly "a home from home," is possible. What is to be +said of that other, some thousands of steps (as it seems) higher, +where Savonarola was kept for forty days, varied only by intervals +of torture? For Savonarola's cell, which is very near the top, is +nothing but a recess in the wall with a door to it. It cannot be +more than five feet wide and eight feet long, with an open loophole +to the wind. If a man were here for forty days and then pardoned his +life would be worth very little. A bitter eyrie from which to watch +the city one had risked all to reform. What thoughts must have been +his in that trap! What reviews of policy! What illuminations as to +Florentine character! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The Uffizi I: The Building and the Collectors + +The growth of a gallery--Vasari's Passaggio--Cosimo I--Francis +I--Ferdinand I--Ferdinand II--Cosimo III--Anna Maria Ludovica de' +Medici--Pietro-Leopoldo--The statues of the façade--Art, literature, +arms, science, and learning--The omissions--Florentine rapacity--An +antique custom--Window views--The Uffizi drawings--The best picture. + +The foreigner should understand at once that any inquiries into the +history of the Uffizi family--such as for example yield interesting +results in the case of the Pazzi and the Albizzi--are doomed to +failure; because Uffizi merely means offices. The Palazzo degli +Uffizi, or palace of offices, was built by Vasari, the biographer of +the artists, for Cosimo I, who having taken the Signoria, or Palazzo +Vecchio, for his own home, wished to provide another building for the +municipal government. It was begun in 1560 and still so far fulfils +its original purpose as to contain the general post office, while it +also houses certain Tuscan archives and the national library. + +A glance at Piero di Cosimo's portrait of Ferrucci in our National +Gallery will show that an ordinary Florentine street preceded the +erection of the Uffizi. At that time the top storey of the building, +as it now exists, was an open terrace affording a pleasant promenade +from the Palazzo Vecchio down to the river and back to the Loggia +de' Lanzi. Beneath this were studios and workrooms where Cosimo's +army of artists and craftsmen (with Bronzino and Cellini as the most +famous) were kept busy; while the public offices were on the ground +floor. Then, as his family increased, Cosimo decided to move, and the +incomplete and abandoned Pitti Palace was bought and finished. In 1565, +as we have seen, Francis, Cosimo's son, married and was installed in +the Palazzo Vecchio, and it was then that Vasari was called upon to +construct the Passaggio which unites the Palazzo Vecchio and the Pitti, +crossing the river by the Ponte Vecchio--Cosimo's idea (borrowed it +is said from Homer's description of the passage uniting the palaces of +Priam and Hector) being not only that he and his son might have access +to each other, but that in the event of danger on the other side of the +river a body of soldiers could be swiftly and secretly mobilized there. + +Cosimo I died in 1574, and Francis I (1574-1587) succeeded him not only +in rule but in that patronage of the arts which was one of the finest +Medicean traditions; and it was he who first thought of making the +Uffizi a picture gallery. To do this was simple: it merely meant the +loss of part of the terrace by walling and roofing it in. Ferdinand +I (1587-1609) added the pretty Tribuna and other rooms, and brought +hither a number of the treasures from the Villa Medici at Rome. Cosimo +II (1609-1621) did little, but Ferdinand II (1621-1670) completed +the roofing in of the terraces, placed there his own collection of +drawings and a valuable collection of Venetian pictures which he +had bought, together with those that his wife Vittoria della Rovere +had brought him from Urbino, while his brothers, Cardinal Giovanni +Carlo de' Medici and Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici (the extremely +ugly man with the curling chin, at the head of the Uffizi stairs), +added theirs. Giovanni Carlo's pictures, which mostly went to the +Pitti were varied; but Leopold's were chiefly portraits of artists, +wherever possible painted by themselves, a collection which is steadily +being added to at the present time and is to be seen in several rooms +of the Uffizi, and those miniature portraits of men of eminence which +we shall see in the corridor between the Poccetti Gallery and Salon of +Justice at the Pitti. Cosimo III (1670-1723) added the Dutch pictures +and the famous Venus de' Medici and other Tribuna statuary. + +The galleries remained the private property of the Medici family until +the Electress Palatine, Anna Maria Ludovica de' Medici, daughter of +Cosimo III and great niece of the Cardinal Leopold, bequeathed all +these treasures, to which she had greatly added, together with bronzes +now in the Bargello, Etruscan antiquities now in the Archaeological +Museum, tapestries also there, and books in the Laurentian library, +to Florence for ever, on condition that they should never be removed +from Florence and should exist for the benefit of the public. Her +death was in 1743, and with her passed away the last descendant of +that Giovanni de' Medici (1360-1429) whom we saw giving commissions +to Donatello, building the children's hospital, and helping Florence +to the best of his power: so that the first Medici and the last were +akin in love of art and in generosity to their beautiful city. + +The new Austrian Grand Dukes continued to add to the Uffizi, +particularly Pietro-Leopoldo (1765-1790), who also founded the +Accademia. To him was due the assembling, under the Uffizi roof, +of all the outlying pictures then belonging to the State, including +those in the gallery of the hospital of S. Maria Nuova, which owned, +among others, the famous Hugo van der Goes. It was he also who +brought together from Rome the Niobe statues and constructed a room +for them. Leopold II added the Iscrizioni. + +It was as recently as 1842 to 1856 that the statues of the great +Florentines were placed in the portico. These, beginning at the Palazzo +Vecchio, are, first, against the inner wall, Cosimo Pater (1389-1464) +and Lorenzo the Magnificent (1450-1492); then, outside: Orcagna; +Andrea Pisano, of the first Baptistery doors; Giotto and Donatello; +Alberti, who could do everything and who designed the façade of +S. Maria Novella; Leonardo and Michelangelo. Next, three poets, Dante +(1265-1321), Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), and Giovanni Boccaccio +(1313-1375). Then Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), the statesman, +and Francesco Guicciardini (1482-1540), the historian. That completes +the first side. + +At the end are Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1516), the explorer, who gave +his name to America, and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), the astronomer; +and above is Cosimo I, the first Grand Duke. + +On the Uffizi's river façade are four figures only--and hundreds of +swallows' nests. The figures are Francesco Ferrucci, who died in 1530, +the general painted by Piero di Cosimo in our National Gallery, who +recaptured Volterra from Pope Clement VII in 1529; Giovanni delle Bande +Nere (1500-1527), father of Cosimo I, and a great fighting man; Piero +Capponi, who died in 1496, and delivered Florence from Charles VIII in +1494, by threatening to ring the city bells; and Farinata degli Uberti, +an earlier soldier, who died in 1264 and is in the "Divina Commedia" +as a hero. It was he who repulsed the Ghibelline suggestion that +Florence should be destroyed and the inhabitants emigrate to Empoli. + +Working back towards the Loggia de' Lanzi we find less-known names: +Pietro Antonio Michele (1679-1737), the botanist; Francesco Redi +(1626-1697), a poet and a man of science; Paolo Mascagni (1732-1815), +the anatomist; Andrea Cesalpino (1519-1603), the philosopher; +S. Antonio (died 1461), Prior of the Convent of S. Marco and Archbishop +of Florence; Francesco Accorso (1182-1229), the jurist; Guido Aretino +(eleventh century), musician; and Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1572), +the goldsmith and sculptor. The most notable omissions are Arnolfo +and Brunelleschi (but these are, as we have seen, on the façade of +the Palazzo de' Canonici, opposite the south side of the cathedral), +Ghiberti, Fra Angelico, and Savonarola. Personally I should like to +have still others here, among them Giorgio Vasari, in recognition +of his enthusiastic and entertaining biographies of the Florentine +artists, to say nothing of the circumstance that he designed this +building. + +Before we enter any Florentine gallery let me say that there is only +one free day and that the crowded Sabbath. Admittance to nearly all is +a lira. Moreover, there is no re-admission. The charge strikes English +visitors, accustomed to the open portals of their own museums and +galleries, as an outrage, and it explains also the little interest in +their treasures which most Florentines display, for being essentially +a frugal people they have seldom seen them. Visitors who can satisfy +the authorities that they are desirous of studying the works of art +with a serious purpose can obtain free passes; but only after certain +preliminaries, which include a seance with a photographer to satisfy +the doorkeeper, by comparing the real and counterfeit physiognomies, +that no illicit transference of the precious privilege has been +made. Italy is, one knows, not a rich country; but the revenue which +the gallery entrance-fees represent cannot reach any great volume, +and such as it is it had much better, I should say, be raised by +other means. Meanwhile, the foreigner chiefly pays it. What Giovanni +de' Medici and Lorenzo de' Medici, and--even more--what Anna Maria +Ludovica de' Medici, who bequeathed to the State these possessions, +would think could they see this feverish and implacable pursuit of +pence, I have not imagination, or scorn, enough to set down. + +Infirm and languid visitors should get it clearly into their heads (1) +that the tour of the Uffizi means a long walk and (2) that there is +a lift. You find it in the umbrella room--at every Florentine gallery +and museum is an official whose one object in life is to take away your +umbrella--and it costs twopence-halfpenny and is worth far more. But +walking downstairs is imperative, because otherwise one would miss +Silenus and Bacchus, and a beautiful urgent Mars, in bronze, together +with other fine sculptured things. + +One of the quaintest symbols of conservatism in Florence is the +scissors of the officials who supply tickets of entrance. Apparently +the perforated line is unknown in Italy; hence the ticket is divided +from its counterfoil (which I assume goes to the authorities in +order that they may check their horrid takings) by a huge pair +of shears. These things are snip-snapping all over Italy, all day +long. Having obtained your ticket you hand it to another official at a +turn-stile, and at last you are free of cupidity and red tape and may +breathe easily again and examine the products of the light-hearted, +generous Renaissance in the right spirit. + +One should never forget, in any gallery of Florence, to look out +of the windows. There is always a courtyard, a street, or a spire +against the sky; and at the Uffizi there are the river and bridges +and mountains. From the loggia of the Palazzo Vecchio I once saw a +woman with some twenty or thirty city pigeons on the table of her +little room, feeding them with maize. + +Except for glimpses of the river and the Via Guicciardini which it +gives, I advise no one to walk through the passage uniting the Pitti +and the Uffizi--unless of course bent on catching some of the ancient +thrill when armed men ran swiftly from one palace to the other to quell +a disturbance or repulse an assault. Particularly does this counsel +apply to wet days, when all the windows are closed and there is no +air. A certain interest attaches to the myriad portraits which line +the walls, chiefly of the Medici and comparatively recent worthies; +but one must have a glutton's passion either for paint or history to +wish to examine these. As a matter of fact, only a lightning-speed +tourist could possibly think of seeing both the Uffizi and the Pitti +on the same day, and therefore the need of the passage disappears. It +is hard worked only on Sundays. + +The drawings in the cases in the first long corridor are worth close +study--covering as they do the whole range of great Italian art: from, +say, Uccello to Carlo Dolci. But as they are from time to time changed +it is useless to say more of them. There is also on the first landing +of the staircase a room in which exhibitions of drawings of the Old +Masters are held, and this is worth knowing about, not only because +of the riches of the portfolios in the collection, but also because +once you have passed the doors you are inside the only picture gallery +in Florence for which no entrance fee is asked. How the authorities +have come to overlook this additional source of revenue, I have no +notion; but they have, and visitors should hasten to make the most +of it for fear that a translation of these words of mine may wander +into bad hands. + +To name the most wonderful picture in the Uffizi would be a very +difficult task. At the Accademia, if a plebiscite were taken, there is +little doubt but that Botticelli's "Primavera" would win. At the Pitti +I personally would name Giorgione's "Concert" without any hesitation at +all; but probably the public vote would go to Raphael's "Madonna della +Sedia". But the Uffizi? Here we are amid such wealth of masterpieces, +and yet when one comes to pass them in review in memory none stands +out as those other two I have named. Perhaps Botticelli would win +again, with his "Birth of Venus". Were the Leonardo finished ... but +it is only a sketch. Luca Signorelli's wild flowers in No. 74 seem to +abide with me as vividly and graciously as anything; but they are but a +detail and it is a very personal predilection. Perhaps the great exotic +work painted far away in Belgium--the Van der Goes triptych--is the +most memorable; but to choose an alien canvas is to break the rules of +the game. Is it perhaps the unfinished Leonardo after all? If not, and +not the Botticelli, it is beyond question that lovely adoring Madonna, +so gentle and sweet, against the purest and bluest of Tuscan skies, +which is attributed to Filippino Lippi: No. 1354. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The Uffizi II: The First Six Rooms + +Lorenzo Monaco--Fra Angelico--Mariotto Albertinelli turns +innkeeper--The Venetian rooms--Giorgione's death--Titian--Mantegna +uniting north and south--Giovanni Bellini--Domenico +Ghirlandaio--Michelangelo--Luca Signorelli--Wild flowers--Leonardo +da Vinci--Paolo Uccello. + +The first and second rooms are Venetian; but I am inclined to think +that it is better to take the second door on the left--the first Tuscan +salon--and walking straight across it come at once to the Salon of +Lorenzo Monaco and the primitives. For the earliest good pictures +are here. Here especially one should remember that the pictures +were painted never for a gallery but for churches. Lorenzo Monaco +(Lawrence the Monk, 1370-c. 1425), who gives his name to this room, +was a monk of the Camaldolese order in the Monastery of the Angeli, +and was a little earlier than Fra Angelico (the Angelic Brother), +the more famous painting monk, whose dates are 1387-1455. Lorenzo +was influenced by Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's godson, friend, pupil, and +assistant. His greatest work is this large Uffizi altar-piece--he +painted nothing but altar-pieces--depicting the Coronation of the +Virgin: a great gay scene of splendour, containing pretty angels who +must have been the delight of children in church. The predella--and +here let me advise the visitor never to overlook the predellas, where +the artist often throws off formality and allows his more natural +feelings to have play, almost as though he painted the picture for +others and the predella for himself--is peculiarly interesting. Look, +at the left, at the death of an old Saint attended by monks and nuns, +whose grief is profound. One other good Lorenzo is here, an "Adoration +of the Magi," No. 39, a little out of drawing but full of life. + +But for most people the glory of the room is not Lorenzo the Monk, +but Brother Giovanni of Fiesole, known ever more as Beato, or Fra, +Angelico. Of that most adoring and most adorable of painters I say much +in the chapter on the Accademia, where he is very fully represented, +and it might perhaps be well to turn to those pages (227-230) and read +here, on our first sight of his genius, what is said. Two Angelicos are +in this room--the great triptych, opposite the chief Lorenzo, and the +"Crowning of the Virgin," on an easel. The triptych is as much copied +as any picture in the gallery, not, however, for its principal figures, +but for the border of twelve angels round the centre panel. Angelico's +benignancy and sweetness are here, but it is not the equal of the +"Coronation," which is a blaze of pious fervour and glory. The group +of saints on the right is very charming; but we are to be more pleased +by this radiant hand when we reach the Accademia. Already, however, +we have learned his love of blue. Another altar-piece with a subtle +quality of its own is the early Annunciation by Simone Martini of +Siena (1285-1344) and Lippo Memmi, his brother (d. 1357), in which +the angel speaks his golden words across the picture through a vase +of lilies, and the Virgin receives them shrinkingly. It is all very +primitive, but it has great attraction, and it is interesting to +think that the picture must be getting on for six hundred years of +age. This Simone was a pupil of Giotto and the painter of a portrait +of Petrarch's Laura, now preserved in the Laurentian library, which +earned him two sonnets of eulogy. It is also two Sienese painters +who have made the gayest thing in this room, the predella, No. 1304, +by Neroccio di Siena (1447-1500) and Francesco di Giorgio di Siena +(1439-1502), containing scenes in the life of S. Benedetto. Neroccio +did the landscape and figures; the other the architecture, and very +fine it is. Another delightful predella is that by Benozzo Gozzoli +(1420-1498), Fra Angelico's pupil, whom we have seen at the Riccardi +palace. Gozzoli's predella is No. 1302. Finally, look at No. 64, +which shows how prettily certain imitators of Fra Angelico could paint. + +After the Sala di Lorenzo Monaco let us enter the first Tuscan +room. The draughtsmanship of the great Last Judgment fresco by Fra +Bartolommeo (1475-1517) and Mariotto Albertinelli (1474-1515) is very +fine. It is now a ruin, but enough remains to show that it must have +been impressive. These collaborators, although intimate friends, +ultimately went different ways, for Fra Bartolommeo came under +the influence of Savonarola, burned his nude drawings, and entered +the Convent of S. Marco; whereas Albertinelli, who was a convivial +follower of Venus, tiring of art and even more of art jargon, took +an inn outside the S. Gallo gate and a tavern on the Ponte Vecchio, +remarking that he had found a way of life that needed no knowledge +of muscles, foreshortening, or perspective, and better still, was +without critics. Among his pupils was Franciabigio, whose lovely +Madonna of the Well we are coming to in the Tribuna. + +Chief among the other pictures are two by the delightful Alessio +Baldovinetti, the master of Domenico Ghirlandaio, Nos. 60 and 56; +and a large early altar-piece by the brothers Orcagna, painted in +1367 for S. Maria Nuova, now the principal hospital of Florence +and once the home of many beautiful pictures. This work is rather +dingy now, but it is interesting as coming in part from the hand +that designed the tabernacle in Or San Michele and the Loggia de' +Lanzi. Another less-known painter represented here is Francesco +Granacci (1469-1543), the author of Nos. 1541 and 1280, both rich +and warm and pleasing. Granacci was a fellow-pupil of Michelangelo +both in Lorenzo de' Medici's garden and in Ghirlandaio's workshop, +and the bosom friend of that great man all his life. Like Piero +di Cosimo, Granacci was a great hand at pageantry, and Lorenzo de' +Medici kept him busy. He was not dependent upon art for his living, +but painted for love of it, and Vasari makes him a very agreeable man. + +Here too is Gio. Antonio Sogliani (1492-1544), also a rare painter, +with a finely coloured and finely drawn "Disputa," No. 63. This painter +seems to have had the same devotion to his master, Lorenzo di Credi, +that di Credi had for his master, Verrocchio. Vasari calls Sogliani a +worthy religious man who minded his own affairs--a good epitaph. His +work is rarely met with in Florence, but he has a large fresco at +S. Marco. Lorenzo di Credi (1459-1537) himself has two pretty circular +paintings here, of which No. 1528 is particularly sweet: "The Virgin +and Child with St. John and Angels," all comfortable and happy in +a Tuscan meadow; while on an easel is another circular picture, by +Pacchiarotto (1477-1535). This has good colour and twilight beauty, +but it does not touch one and is not too felicitously composed. Over +the door to the Venetian room is a Cosimo Rosselli with a prettily +affectionate Madonna and Child. + +From this miscellaneous Tuscan room we pass to the two rooms which +contain the Venetian pictures, of which I shall say less than might +perhaps be expected, not because I do not intensely admire them but +because I feel that the chief space in a Florentine book should be +given to Florentine or Tuscan things. As a matter of fact, I find +myself when in the Uffizi continually drawn to revisit these walls. The +chief treasures are the Titians, the Giorgiones, the Mantegnas, +the Carpaccio, and the Bellini allegory. These alone would make +the Uffizi a Mecca of connoisseurs. Giorgione is to be found in his +richest perfection at the Pitti, in his one unforgettable work that +is preserved there, but here he is wonderful too, with his Cavalier +of Malta, black and golden, and the two rich scenes, Nos. 621 and +630, nominally from Scripture, but really from romantic Italy. To me +these three pictures are the jewels of the Venetian collection. To +describe them is impossible: enough to say that some glowing genius +produced them; and whatever the experts admit, personally I prefer +to consider that genius Giorgione. Giorgione, who was born in 1477 +and died young--at thirty-three--was, like Titian, the pupil of +Bellini, but was greatly influenced by Leonardo da Vinci. Later he +became Titian's master. He was passionately devoted to music and to +ladies, and it was indeed from a lady that he had his early death, +for he continued to kiss her after she had taken the plague. (No bad +way to die, either; for to be in the power of an emotion that sways +one to such foolishness is surely better than to live the lukewarm +calculating lives of most of us.) Giorgione's claim to distinction +is that not only was he a glorious colourist and master of light and +shade, but may be said to have invented small genre pictures that +could be earned about and hung in this or that room at pleasure--such +pictures as many of the best Dutch painters were to bend their genius +to almost exclusively--his favourite subjects being music parties +and picnics. These Moses and Solomon pictures in the Uffizi are of +course only a pretext for gloriously coloured arrangements of people +with rich scenic backgrounds. No.621 is the finer. The way in which +the baby is being held in the other indicates how little Giorgione +thought of verisimilitude. The colour was the thing. + +After the Giorgiones the Titians, chief of which is No.633, "The +Madonna and Child with S. John and S. Anthony," sometimes called the +"Madonna of the Roses," a work which throws a pallor over all Tuscan +pictures; No.626, the golden Flora, who glows more gloriously every +moment (whom we shall see again, at the Pitti, as the Magdalen); +the Duke and Duchess of Urbino, Nos.605 and 599, the Duchess set +at a window with what looks so curiously like a deep blue Surrey +landscape through it and a village spire in the midst; and 618, +an unfinished Madonna and Child in which the Master's methods can +be followed. The Child, completed save for the final bath of light, +is a miracle of draughtsmanship. + +The triptych by Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) is of inexhaustible +interest, for here, as ever, Mantegna is full of thought and +purpose. The left panel represents the Ascension, Christ being borne +upwards by eleven cherubim in a solid cloud; the right panel--by far +the best, I think--shows the Circumcision, where the painter has set +himself various difficulties of architecture and goldsmith's work +for the pleasure of overcoming them, every detail being painted with +Dutch minuteness and yet leaving the picture big; while the middle +panel, which is concave, depicts an Adoration of the Magi that will +bear much study. The whole effect is very northern: not much less +so than our own new National Gallery Mabuse. Mantegna also has a +charming Madonna and Child, No. 1025, with pleasing pastoral and +stone-quarrying activities in the distance. + +On the right of the triptych is the so-called Carpaccio (1450-1519), +a confused but glorious melee of youths and halberds, reds and yellows +and browns, very modern and splendid and totally unlike anything else +in the whole gallery. Uccello may possibly be recalled, but only for +subject. Finally there is Giovanni Bellini (1426-1516), master of +Titian and Giorgione, with his "Sacra Conversazione," No. 631, which +means I know not what but has a haunting quality. Later we shall +see a picture by Michelangelo which has been accused of blending +Christianity and paganism; but Bellini's sole purpose was to do +this. We have children from a Bacchic vase and the crowned Virgin; two +naked saints and a Venetian lady; and a centaur watching a hermit. The +foreground is a mosaic terrace; the background is rocks and water. It +is all bizarre and very curious and memorable and quite unique. For the +rest, I should mention two charming Guardis; a rich little Canaletto; +a nice scene of sheep by Jacopo Bassano; the portrait of an unknown +young man by an unknown painter, No. 1157; and Tintoretto's daring +"Abraham and Isaac". + +The other Venetian room is almost wholly devoted to portraits, chief +among them being a red-headed Tintoretto burning furiously, No. 613, +and Titian's sly and sinister Caterina Cornaro in her gorgeous dress, +No. 648; Piombo's "L'Uomo Ammalato"; Tintoretto's Jacopo Sansovino, +the sculptor, the grave old man holding his calipers who made that +wonderful Greek Bacchus at the Bargello; Schiavone's ripe, bearded +"Ignoto," No. 649, and, perhaps above all, the Moroni, No. 386, +black against grey. There is also Paolo Veronese's "Holy Family with +S. Catherine," superbly masterly and golden but suggesting the Rialto +rather than Nazareth. + +One picture gives the next room, the Sala di Michelangelo, its name; +but entering from the Venetian room we come first on the right to a +very well-known Lippo Lippi, copied in every picture shop in Florence: +No. 1307, a Madonna and two Children. Few pictures are so beset by +delighted observers, but apart from the perfection of it as an early +painting, leaving nothing to later dexterity, its appeal to me is +weak. The Madonna (whose head-dress, as so often in Lippo Lippi, +foreshadows Botticelli) and the landscape equally delight; the +children almost repel, and the decorative furniture in the corner +quite repels. The picture is interesting also for its colour, which +is unlike anything else in the gallery, the green of the Madonna's +dress being especially lovely and distinguished, and vulgarizing +the Ghirlandaio--No. 1297--which hangs next. This picture is far too +hot throughout, and would indeed be almost displeasing but for the +irradiation of the Virgin's face. The other Ghirlandaio--No. 1295--in +this room is far finer and sweeter; but at the Accademia and the Badia +we are to see him at his best in this class of work. None the less, +No. 1295 is a charming thing, and the little Mother and her happy +Child, whose big toe is being so reverently adored by the ancient +mage, are very near real simple life. This artist, we shall see, +always paints healthy, honest babies. The seaport in the distance is +charming too. + +Ghirlandaio's place in this room is interesting on account of his +relation to Michelangelo as first instructor; but by the time that the +great master's "Holy Family," hanging here, was painted all traces +of Ghirlandaio's influence had disappeared, and if any forerunner +is noticeable it is Luca Signorelli. But we must first glance at +the pretty little Lorenzo di Credi, No. 1160, the Annunciation, +an artificial work full of nice thoughts and touches, with the +prettiest little blue Virgin imaginable, a heavenly landscape, and +a predella in monochrome, in one scene of which Eve rises from the +side of the sleeping Adam with extraordinary realism. The announcing +Gabriel is deferential but positive; Mary is questioning but not +wholly surprised. In any collection of Annunciations this picture +would find a prominent place. + +The "Holy Family" of Michelangelo--No. 1139--is remarkable for more +than one reason. It is, to begin with, the only finished easel picture +that exists from his brush. It is also his one work in oils, for he +afterwards despised that medium as being fit "only for children". The +frame is contemporary and was made for it, the whole being commissioned +by Angelo Doni, a wealthy connoisseur whose portrait by Raphael we +shall see in the Pitti, and who, according to Vasari, did his best to +get it cheaper than his bargain, and had in the end to pay dearer. The +period of the picture is about 1503, while the great David was in +progress, when the painter was twenty-eight. That it is masterly and +superb there can be no doubt, but, like so much of Michelangelo's +work, it suffers from its author's greatness. There is an austerity +of power here that ill consorts with the tender domesticity of the +scene, and the Child is a young Hercules. The nude figures in the +background introduce an alien element and suggest the conflict between +Christianity and paganism, the new religion and the old: in short, the +Twilight of the Gods. Whether Michelangelo intended this we shall not +know; but there it is. The prevailing impression left by the picture +is immense power and virtuosity and no religion. In the beautiful Luca +Signorelli--No.74--next it, we find at once a curious similarity and +difference. The Madonna and Child only are in the foreground, a not +too radiant but very tender couple; in the background are male figures +nearly nude: not quite, as Michelangelo made them, and suggesting +no discord as in his picture. Luca was born in 1441, and was thus +thirty-four years older than Michelangelo. This picture is perhaps that +one presented by Luca to Lorenzo de' Medici, of which Vasari tells, and +if so it was probably on a wall in the Medici palace when Michelangelo +as a boy was taught with Lorenzo's sons. Luca's sweetness was alien +to Michelangelo, but not his melancholy or his sense of composition; +while Luca's devotion to the human form as the unit of expression +was in Michelangelo carried out to its highest power. Vasari, who +was a relative of Luca's and a pupil of Michelangelo's, says that +his master had the greatest admiration for Luca's genius. + +Luca Signorelli was born at Cortona, and was instructed by Piero della +Francesca, whose one Uffizi painting is in a later room. His chief work +is at Cortona, at Rome (in the Sixtine Chapel), and at Orvieto. His +fame was sufficient in Florence in 1491 for him to be made one of +the judges of the designs for the façade of the Duomo. Luca lived +to a great age, not dying till 1524, and was much beloved. He was +magnificent in his habits and loved fine clothes, was very kindly +and helpful in disposition, and the influence of his naturalness and +sincerity upon art was great. One very pretty sad story is told of him, +to the effect that when his son, whom he had dearly loved, was killed +at Cortona, he caused the body to be stripped, and painted it with the +utmost exactitude, that through his own handiwork he might be able +to contemplate that treasure of which fate had robbed him. Perhaps +the most beautiful or at any rate the most idiosyncratic thing in the +picture before us is its lovely profusion of wayside flowers. These +come out but poorly in the photograph, but in the painting they +are exquisite both in form and in detail. Luca painted them as if +he loved them. (There is a hint of the same thoughtful care in the +flowers in No. 1133, by Luca, in our National Gallery; but these at +Florence are the best.) No. 74 is in tempera: the next, also by Luca, +No.1291, is in oil, a "Holy Family," a work at once powerful, rich, +and sweet. Here, again, we may trace an influence on Michelangelo, +for the child is shown deprecating a book which his mother is +displaying, while in the beautiful marble tondo of the "Madonna and +Child" by Michelangelo, which we are soon to see in the Bargello, +a reading lesson is in progress, and the child wearying of it. We +find Luca again in the next large picture--No.1547--a Crucifixion, +with various Saints, done in collaboration with Perugino. The design +suggests Luca rather than his companion, and the woman at the foot of +the cross is surely the type of which he was so fond. The drawing of +Christ is masterly and all too sombre for Perugino. Finally, there is +a Luca predella, No. 1298, representing the Annunciation, the Birth +of Christ (in which Joseph is older almost than in any version), and +the Adoration of the Magi, all notable for freedom and richness. Note +the realism and charm and the costume of the two pages of the Magi. + +And now we come to what is perhaps the most lovely picture in the whole +gallery, judged purely as colour and sweetness and design--No.1549--a +"Madonna Adoring," with Filippino Lippi's name and an interrogation +mark beneath it. Who painted it if not Filippino? That is the question; +but into such problems, which confront one at every turn in Florence, +I am neither qualified nor anxious to enter. When doctors disagree any +one may decide before me. The thought, moreover, that always occurs +in the presence of these good debatable pictures, is that any doubt +as to their origin merely enriches this already over-rich period, +since some one had to paint them. Simon not pure becomes hardly less +remarkable than Simon pure. + +If only the Baby were more pleasing, this would be perhaps the most +delightful picture in the world: as it is, its blues alone lift it to +the heavens of delectableness. By an unusual stroke of fortune a crack +in the paint where the panels join has made a star in the tender blue +sky. The Tuscan landscape is very still and beautiful; the flowers, +although conventional and not accurate like Luca's, are as pretty +as can be; the one unsatisfying element is the Baby, who is a little +clumsy and a little in pain, but diffuses radiance none the less. And +the Mother--the Mother is all perfection and winsomeness. Her face +and hands are exquisite, and the Tuscan twilight behind her is so +lovely. I have given a reproduction, but colour is essential. + +The remaining three pictures in the room are a Bastiano and a +Pollaiolo, which are rather for the student than for the wanderer, +and a charming Ignoto, No. 75, which I like immensely. But Ignoto +nearly always paints well. + +In the Sala di Leonardo are two pictures which bear the name of +this most fascinating of all the painters of the world. One is the +Annunciation, No. 1288, upon the authenticity of which much has been +said and written, and the other an unfinished Adoration of the Magi +which cannot be questioned by anyone. The probabilities are that the +Annunciation is an early work and that the ascription is accurate: +at Oxford is a drawing known to be Leonardo's that is almost certainly +a study for a detail of this work, while among the Leonardo drawings +in the His de la Salle collection at the Louvre is something very +like a first sketch of the whole. Certainly one can think of no one +else who could have given the picture its quality, which increases +in richness with every visit to the gallery; but the workshop of +Verrocchio, where Leonardo worked, together with Lorenzo di Credi and +Perugino, with Andrea of the True Eye over all, no doubt put forth +wonderful things. The Annunciation is unique in the collection, both +in colour and character: nothing in the Uffizi so deepens. There are +no cypresses like these in any other picture, no finer drawing than +that of Mary's hands. Luca's flowers are better, in the adjoining +room; one is not too happy about the pedestal of the reading-desk; +and there are Virgins whom we can like more; but as a whole it is +perhaps the most fascinating picture of all, for it has the Leonardo +darkness as well as light. + +Of Leonardo I could write for ever, but this book is not the place; +for though he was a Florentine, Florence has very little of his work: +these pictures only, and one of these only for certain, together +with an angel in a work by Verrocchio at the Accademia which we +shall see, and possibly a sculptured figure over the north door of +the Baptistery. Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Francis I of +France, lured him away, to the eternal loss of his own city. It is +Milan and Paris that are richest in his work, and after that London, +which has at South Kensington a sculptured relief by him as well as +a painting at the National Gallery, a cartoon at Burlington House, +and the British Museum drawings. + +His other work here--No. 1252--in the grave brown frame, was to have +been Leonardo's greatest picture in oil, so Vasari says: larger, in +fact, than any known picture at that time. Being very indistinct, +it is, curiously enough, best as the light begins to fail and the +beautiful wistful faces emerge from the gloom. In their presence one +recalls Leonardo's remark in one of his notebooks that faces are most +interesting beneath a troubled sky. "You should make your portrait," +he adds, "at the hour of the fall of the evening when it is cloudy +or misty, for the light then is perfect." In the background one can +discern the prancing horses of the Magi's suite; a staircase with +figures ascending and descending; the rocks and trees of Tuscany; +and looking at it one cannot but ponder upon the fatality which seems +to have pursued this divine and magical genius, ordaining that almost +everything that he put forth should be either destroyed or unfinished: +his work in the Castello at Milan, which might otherwise be an eighth +wonder of the world, perished; his "Last Supper" at Milan perishing; +his colossal equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza broken to pieces; +his sculpture lost; his Palazzo Vecchio battle cartoon perished; +this picture only a sketch. Even after long years the evil fate still +persists, for in 1911 his "Gioconda" was stolen from the Louvre by +madman or knave. + +Among the other pictures in this room is the rather hot "Adoration +of the Magi," by Cosimo Rosselli (1439-1507), over the Leonardo +"Annunciation," a glowing scene of colour and animation: this Cosimo +being the Cosimo from whom Piero di Cosimo took his name, and an +associate of Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Perugino, and Luca Signorelli +on the Sixtine Chapel frescoes. On the left wall is Uccello's battle +piece, No. 52, very like that in our National Gallery: rich and +glorious as decoration, but quite bearing out Vasari's statement that +Uccello could not draw horses. Uccello was a most laborious student +of animal life and so absorbed in the mysteries of perspective that +he preferred them to bed; but he does not seem to have been able to +unite them. He was a perpetual butt of Donatello. It is told of him +that having a commission to paint a fresco for the Mercato Vecchio +he kept the progress of the work a secret and allowed no one to +see it. At last, when it was finished, he drew aside the sheet for +Donatello, who was buying fruit, to admire. "Ah, Paolo," said the +sculptor reproachfully, "now that you ought to be covering it up, +you uncover it." + +There remain a superb nude study of Venus by Lorenzo di Credi, +No. 3452--one of the pictures which escaped Savonarola's bonfire +of vanities, and No. 1305, a Virgin and Child with various Saints +by Domenico Veneziano (1400-1461), who taught Gentile da Fabriano, +the teacher of Jacopo Bellini. This picture is a complete contrast to +the Uccello: for that is all tapestry, richness, and belligerence, +and this is so pale and gentle, with its lovely light green, a rare +colour in this gallery. + + + +CHAPTER X + +The Uffizi III: Botticelli + +A painter apart--Sandro Filipepi--Artists' names--Piero de' Medici--The +"Adoration of the Magi"--The "Judith" pictures--Lucrezia Tornabuoni, +Lorenzo and Giuliano's mother--The Tournaments--The "Birth of Venus" +and the "Primavera"--Simonetta--A new star--Sacred pictures--Savonarola +and "The Calumny"--The National Gallery--Botticelli's old age and +death. + +We come next to the Sala di Botticelli, and such is the position +held by this painter in the affection of visitors to Florence, and +such the wealth of works from his hand that the Uffizi possesses, +that I feel that a single chapter may well be devoted to his genius, +more particularly as many of his pictures were so closely associated +with Piero de' Medici and Lorenzo de' Medici. We see Botticelli here +at his most varied. The Accademia also is very rich in his work, +having above all the "Primavera," and in this chapter I shall glance +at the Accademia pictures too, returning to them when we reach that +gallery in due course. Among the great Florentine masters Botticelli +stands apart by reason not only of the sensitive wistful delicacy +of his work, but for the profound interest of his personality. He +is not essentially more beautiful than his friend Filippino Lippi +or--occasionally--than Fra Lippo Lippi his master; but he is always +deeper. One feels that he too felt the emotion that his characters +display; he did not merely paint, he thought and suffered. Hence his +work is dramatic. Again Botticelli had far wider sympathies than most +of his contemporaries. He was a friend of the Medici, a neo-Platonist, +a student of theology with the poet Palmieri, an illustrator of Dante, +and a devoted follower of Savonarola. Of the part that women played +in his life we know nothing: in fact we know less of him intimately +than of almost any of the great painters; but this we may guess, that +he was never a happy man. His work falls naturally into divisions +corresponding to his early devotion to Piero de' Medici and his +wife Lucrezia Tornabuoni, in whose house for a while he lived; to +his interest in their sons Lorenzo and Giuliano; and finally to his +belief in Savonarola. Sublime he never is; comforting he never is; +but he is everything else. One can never forget in his presence the +tragedy that attends the too earnest seeker after beauty: not "all +is vanity" does Botticelli say, but "all is transitory". + +Botticelli, as we now call him, was the son of Mariano Filipepi and +was born in Florence in 1447. According to one account he was called +Sandro di Botticelli because he was apprenticed to a goldsmith of +that name; according to another his brother Antonio, a goldsmith, +was known as Botticello (which means a little barrel), and Sandro +being with him was called Sandro di Botticello. Whatever the cause, +the fact remains that the name of Filipepi is rarely used. + +And here a word as to the capriciousness of the nomenclature of +artists. We know some by their Christian names; some by their surnames; +some by their nicknames; some by the names of their towns, and some +by the names of their masters. Tommaso Bigordi, a goldsmith, was so +clever in designing a pretty garland for women's hair that he was +called Ghirlandaio, the garland-maker, and his painter son Domenico +is therefore known for ever as Uomenico Ghirlandaio. Paolo Doni, a +painter of battle scenes, was so fond of birds that he was known as +Uccello (a bird) and now has no other name; Pietro Vannucci coming +from Perugia was called Perugino; Agnolo di Francesco di Migliore +happened to be a tailor with a genius of a son, Andrea; that genius is +therefore Andrea of the Tailor--del Sarto--for all time. And so forth. + +To return to Botticelli. In 1447, when he was born, Fra Angelico +was sixty; and Masaccio had been dead for some years. At the age +of twelve the boy was placed with Fra Lippo Lippi, then a man of +a little more than fifty, to learn painting. That Lippo was his +master one may see continually, but particularly by comparison of +his headdresses with almost any of Botticelli's. Both were minutely +careful in this detail. But where Lippo was beautifully obvious, +Sandro was beautifully analytical: he was also, as I have said, +much more interesting and dramatic. + +Botticelli's best patron was Piero de' Medici, who took him into +his house, much as his son Lorenzo was to take Michelangelo into +his, and made him one of the family. For Piero, Botticelli always +had affection and respect, and when he painted his "Fortitude" as +one of the Pollaiuoli's series of the Virtues for the Mercatanzia +(of which several are in this gallery), he made the figure symbolize +Piero's life and character--or so it is possible, if one wishes to +believe. But it should be understood that almost nothing is known +about Botticelli and the origin of his pictures. At Piero's request +Botticelli painted the "Adoration of the Magi" (No. 1286) which was +to hang in S. Maria Novella as an offering of gratitude for Piero's +escape from the conspiracy of Luca Pitti in 1466. Piero had but just +succeeded to Cosimo when Pitti, considering him merely an invalid, +struck his blow. By virtue largely of the young Lorenzo's address +the attack miscarried: hence the presence of Lorenzo in the picture, +on the extreme left, with a sword. Piero himself in scarlet kneels +in the middle; Giuliano, his second son, doomed to an early death by +assassination, is kneeling on his right. The picture is not only a +sacred painting but (like the Gozzoli fresco at the Riccardi palace) +an exaltation of the Medici family. The dead Cosimo is at the Child's +feet; the dead Giovanni, Piero's brother, stands close to the kneeling +Giuliano. Among the other persons represented are collateral Medici +and certain of their friends. + +It is by some accepted that the figure in yellow, on the extreme right, +looking out of this picture, is Botticelli himself. But for a portrait +of the painter of more authenticity we must go to the Carmine, where, +in the Brancacci chapel, we shall see a fresco by Botticelli's friend +Filippino Lippi representing the Crucifixion of S. Peter, in which +our painter is depicted on the right, looking on at the scene--a +rather coarse heavy face, with a large mouth and long hair. He wears +a purple cap and red cloak. Vasari tells us that Botticelli, although +so profoundly thoughtful and melancholy in his work, was extravagant, +pleasure loving, and given to practical jokes. Part at least of this +might be gathered from observation of Filippino Lippi's portrait of +him. According to Vasari it was No. 1286 which brought Botticelli his +invitation to Rome from Sixtus IV to decorate the Sixtine Chapel. But +that was several years later and much was to happen in the interval. + +The two little "Judith" pictures (Nos. 1156 and 1158) were painted for +Piero de' Medici and had their place in the Medici palace. In 1494, +when Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici was banished from Florence and the +palace looted, they were stolen and lost sight of; but during the reign +of Francis I they reappeared and were presented to his wife Bianca +Capella and once more placed with the Medici treasures. No. 1156, +the Judith walking springily along, sword in hand, having slain the +tyrant, is one of the masterpieces of paint. Everything about it is +radiant, superb, and unforgettable. + +One other picture which the young painter made for his patron--or in +this case his patroness, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Piero's wife--is the +"Madonna of the Magnificat," No. 1267, with its beautiful children and +sweet Madonna, its lovely landscape but not too attractive Child. The +two boys are Lorenzo, on the left, and Giuliano, in yellow. One +of their sisters leans over them. Here the boys are perhaps, in +Botticelli's way, typified rather than portrayed. Although this +picture came so early in his career Botticelli never excelled its +richness, beauty, and depth of feeling, nor its liquid delicacy of +treatment. Lucrezia Tornabuoni, for whom he painted it, was a very +remarkable woman, not only a good mother to her children and a good +wife to Piero, but a poet and exemplar. She survived Piero by thirteen +years and her son Giuliano by five. Botticelli painted her portrait, +which is now in Berlin. + +These pictures are the principal work of Botticelli's first period, +which coincides with the five years of Piero's rule and the period +of mourning for him. + +He next appears in what many of his admirers find his most fascinating +mood, as a joyous allegorist, the picture of Venus rising from +the sea in this room, the "Primavera" which we shall see at the +Accademia, and the "Mars and Venus" in our National Gallery, +belonging to this epoch. But in order to understand them we must +again go to history. Piero was succeeded in 1469 by his son Lorenzo +the Magnificent, who continued his father's friendship for the young +painter, now twenty-two years of age. In 1474 Lorenzo devised for his +brother Giuliano a tournament in the Piazza of S. Croce very like that +which Piero had given for Lorenzo on the occasion of his betrothal +in 1469; and Botticelli was commissioned by Lorenzo to make pictures +commemorating the event. Verrocchio again helped with the costumes; +Lucrezia Donati again was Queen of the Tournament; but the Queen of +Beauty was the sixteen-year-old bride of Marco Vespucci--the lovely +Simonetta Cattaneo, a lady greatly beloved by all and a close friend +both of Giuliano and Lorenzo. + +The praises of Lorenzo's tournament had been sung by Luca Pulci: +Giuliano's were sung by Poliziano, under the title "La Giostra di +Giuliano de' Medici," and it is this poem which Botticelli may be +said to have illustrated, for both poet and artist employ the same +imagery. Thus Poliziano, or Politian (of whom we shall hear more in the +chapter on S. Marco) compares Simonetta to Venus, and in stanzas 100 +and 101 speaks of her birth, describing her blown to earth over the +sea by the breath of the Zephyrs, and welcomed there by the Hours, +one of whom offers her a robe. This, Botticelli translates into +exquisite tempera with a wealth of pretty thoughts. The cornflowers +and daisies on the Hour's dress are alone a perennial joy. + +Simonetta as Venus has some of the wistfulness of the Madonnas; +and not without reason does Botticelli give her this expression, for +her days were very short. In the "Primavera," which we are to see at +the Accademia, but which must be described here, we find Simonetta +again but we do not see her first. We see first that slender upright +commanding figure, all flowers and youth and conquest, in her lovely +floral dress, advancing over the grass like thistle-down. Never +before in painting had anything been done at once so distinguished +and joyous and pagan as this. For a kindred emotion one had to go to +Greek sculpture, but Botticelli, while his grace and joy are Hellenic, +was intensely modern too: the problems of the Renaissance, the tragedy +of Christianity, equally cloud his brow. + +The symbolism of the "Primavera" is interesting. Glorious Spring is +returning to earth--in the presence of Venus--once more to make all +glad, and with her her attendants to dance and sing, and the Zephyrs +to bring the soft breezes; and by Spring Botticelli meant the reign +of Lorenzo, whose tournament motto was "Le temps revient". Simonetta +is again the central figure, and never did Botticelli paint more +exquisitely than here. Her bosom is the prettiest in Florence; the +lining of her robe over her right arm has such green and blue and +gold as never were seen elsewhere; her golden sandals are delicate +as gossamer. Over her head a little cupid hovers, directing his arrow +at Mercury, on the extreme left, beside the three Graces. + +In Mercury, who is touching the trees with his caduceus and +bidding them burgeon, some see Giuliano de' Medici, who was not yet +betrothed. But when the picture was painted both Giuliano and Simonetta +were dead: Simonetta first, of consumption, in 1476, and Giuliano, by +stabbing in 1478. Lorenzo, who was at Pisa during Simonetta's illness, +detailed his own physician for her care. On hearing of her death he +walked out into the night and noticed for the first time a brilliant +star. "See," he said, "either the soul of that most gentle lady +hath been transferred into that new star or else hath it been joined +together thereunto." Of Giuliano's end we have read in Chapter II, +and it was Botticelli, whose destinies were so closely bound up with +the Medici, who was commissioned to paint portraits of the murderous +Pazzi to be displayed outside the Palazzo Vecchio. + +A third picture in what may be called the tournament period is found by +some in the "Venus and Mars," No. 915, in our National Gallery. Here +Giuliano would be Mars, and Venus either one woman in particular +whom Florence wished him to marry, or all women, typified by one, +trying to lure him from other pre-occupations, such as hunting. To +make her Simonetta is to go too far; for she is not like the Simonetta +of the other pictures, and Simonetta was but recently married and a +very model of fair repute. In No. 916 in the National Gallery is a +"Venus with Cupids" (which might be by Botticelli and might be by that +interesting painter of whom Mr. Berenson has written so attractively +as Amico di Sandro), in which Politian's description of Venus, in +his poem, is again closely followed. + +After the tournament pictures we come in Botticelli's career to the +Sixtine Chapel frescoes, and on his return to Florence to other +frescoes, including that lovely one at the Villa Lemmi (then the +Villa Tornabuoni) which is now on the staircase of the Louvre. These +are followed by at least two more Medici pictures--the portrait of +Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici, in this room, No. 1154, the sad-faced +youth with the medal; and the "Pallas and the Centaur" at the Pitti, +an historical record of Lorenzo's success as a diplomatist when he +went to Naples in 1480. + +The latter part of Botticelli's life was spent under the influence +of Savonarola and in despair at the wickedness of the world and its +treatment of that prophet. His pictures became wholly religious, but +it was religion without joy. Never capable of disguising the sorrow +that underlies all human happiness--or, as I think of it in looking +at his work, the sense of transience--Botticelli, as age came upon +him, was more than ever depressed. One has the feeling that he was +persuaded that only through devotion and self-negation could peace of +mind be gained, and yet for himself could find none. The sceptic was +too strong in him. Savonarola's eloquence could not make him serene, +however much he may have come beneath its spell. It but served to +increase his melancholy. Hence these wistful despondent Madonnas, all +so conscious of the tragedy before their Child; hence these troubled +angels and shadowed saints. + +Savonarola was hanged and burned in 1498, and Botticelli paid +a last tribute to his friend in the picture in this room called +"The Calumny". Under the pretence of merely illustrating a passage +in Lucian, who was one of his favourite authors, Botticelli has +represented the campaign against the great reformer. The hall +represents Florence; the judge (with the ears of an ass) the +Signoria and the Pope. Into these ears Ignorance and Suspicion +are whispering. Calumny, with Envy at her side and tended by Fraud +and Deception, holds a torch in one hand and with the other drags +her victim, who personifies (but with no attempt at a likeness) +Savonarola. Behind are the figures of Remorse, cloaked and miserable, +and Truth, naked and unafraid. The statues in the niches ironically +represent abstract virtues. Everything in the decoration of the palace +points to enlightenment and content; and beyond is the calmest and +greenest of seas. + +One more picture was Botticelli to paint, and this also was to +the glory of Savonarola. By good fortune it belongs to the English +people and is No. 1034 in the National Gallery. It has upon it a +Greek inscription in the painter's own hand which runs in English +as follows: "This picture I, Alessandro, painted at the end of the +year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, in the half-time after the time +during the fulfilment of the eleventh of St. John, in the second +woe of the Apocalypse, in the loosing of the devil for three years +and a half. Afterwards he shall be confined, and we shall see him +trodden down, as in this picture." The loosing of the devil was the +three years and a half after Savonarola's execution on May 23rd, +1498, when Florence was mad with reaction from the severity of his +discipline. S. John says, "I will give power unto my two witnesses, +and they shall prophesy"; the painter makes three, Savonarola having +had two comrades with him. The picture was intended to give heart to +the followers of Savonarola and bring promise of ultimate triumph. + +After the death of Savonarola, Botticelli became both poor and +infirm. He had saved no money and all his friends were dead--Piero de' +Medici, Lorenzo, Giuliano, Lucrezia, Simonetta, Filippino Lippi, and +Savonarola. He hobbled about on crutches for a while, a pensioner of +the Medici family, and dying at the age of seventy-eight was buried +in Ognissanti, but without a tombstone for fear of desecration by +the enemies of Savonarola's adherents. + +Such is the outline of Botticelli's life. We will now look at such +of the pictures in this room as have not been mentioned. + +Entering from the Sala di Leonardo, the first picture on the right is +the "Birth of Venus". Then the very typical circular picture--a shape +which has come to be intimately associated with this painter--No. 1289, +"The Madonna of the Pomegranate," one of his most beautiful works, +and possibly yet another designed for Lucrezia Tornabuoni, for the +curl on the forehead of the boy to the left of the Madonna--who is +more than usually troubled--is very like that for which Giuliano de' +Medici was famous. This is a very lovely work, although its colour +is a little depressed. Next is the most remarkable of the Piero de' +Medici pictures, which I have already touched upon--No. 1286, "The +Adoration of the Magi," as different from the Venus as could be: +the Venus so cool and transparent, and this so hot and rich, with +its haughty Florentines and sumptuous cloaks. Above it is No. 23, +a less subtle group--the Madonna, the Child and angels--difficult to +see. And then comes the beautiful "Magnificat," which we know to have +been painted for Lucrezia Tornabuoni and which shall here introduce a +passage from Pater: "For with Botticelli she too, although she holds in +her hands the 'Desire of all nations,' is one of those who are neither +for Jehovah nor for His enemies; and her choice is on her face. The +white light on it is cast up hard and cheerless from below, as when +snow lies upon the ground, and the children look up with surprise +at the strange whiteness of the ceiling. Her trouble is in the very +caress of the mysterious child, whose gaze is always far from her, +and who has already that sweet look of devotion which men have never +been able altogether to love, and which still makes the born saint an +object almost of suspicion to his earthly brethren. Once, indeed, he +guides her hand to transcribe in a book the words of her exaltation, +the 'Ave,' and the 'Magnificat,' and the 'Gaude Maria,' and the young +angels, glad to rouse her for a moment from her devotion, are eager +to hold the ink-horn and to support the book. But the pen almost +drops from her hand, and the high cold words have no meaning for her, +and her true children are those others among whom, in her rude home, +the intolerable honour came to her, with that look of wistful inquiry +on their irregular faces which you see in startled animals--gipsy +children, such as those who, in Apennine villages, still hold out +their long brown arms to beg of you, with their thick black hair +nicely combed, and fair white linen on their sunburnt throats." + +The picture's frame is that which was made for it four hundred and +fifty years ago: by whom, I cannot say, but it was the custom at that +time for the painter himself to be responsible also for the frame. + +The glory of the end wall is the "Annunciation," reproduced in this +book. The picture is a work that may perhaps not wholly please at +first, the cause largely of the vermilion on the floor, but in the +end conquers. The hands are among the most beautiful in existence, +and the landscape, with its one tree and its fairy architecture, is a +continual delight. Among "Annunciations," as among pictures, it stands +very high. It has more of sophistication than most: the Virgin not +only recognizes the honour, but the doom, which the painter himself +foreshadows in the predella, where Christ is seen rising from the +grave. None of Fra Angelico's simple radiance here, and none of Fra +Lippo Lippi's glorified matter-of-fact. Here is tragedy. The painting +of the Virgin's head-dress is again marvellous. + +Next the "Annunciation" on the left is, to my eyes, one of Botticelli's +most attractive works: No. 1303, just the Madonna and Child again, +in a niche, with roses climbing behind them: the Madonna one of his +youngest, and more placid and simple than most, with more than a hint +of the Verrocchio type in her face. To the "School of Botticelli" this +is sometimes attributed: it may be rightly. Its pendant is another +"Madonna and Child," No. 76, more like Lippo Lippi and very beautiful +in its darker graver way. + +The other wall has the "Fortitude," the "Calumny," and the two little +"Judith and Holofernes" pictures. Upon the "Fortitude," to which I +have already alluded, it is well to look at Ruskin, who, however, +was not aware that the artist intended any symbolic reference to +the character and career of Piero de' Medici. The criticism is in +"Mornings in Florence" and it is followed by some fine pages on the +"Judith". The "Justice," "Prudence," and "Charity" of the Pollaiuolo +brothers, belonging to the same series as the "Fortitude," are also +here; but after the "Fortitude" one does not look at them. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +the Uffizi IV: Remaining Rooms + +S. Zenobius--Piero della Francesca--Federigo da Montefeltro--Melozzo +da Forli--The Tribuna--Raphael--Re-arrangement--The gems--The +self-painted portraits--A northern room--Hugo van der Goes-- +Tommaso Portinari--The sympathetic Memling--Rubens riotous--Vittoria +della Rovere--Baroccio--Honthorst--Giovanni the indiscreet--The +Medusa--Medici miniatures--Hercules Seghers--The Sala di Niobe-- +Beautiful antiques. + +Passing from the Sala di Botticelli through the Sala di Lorenzo +Monaco and the first Tuscan rooms to the corridor, we come to +the second Tuscan room, which is dominated by Andrea del Sarto +(1486-1531), whose "Madonna and Child," with "S. Francis and S. John +the Evangelist"--No. 112--is certainly the favourite picture here, +as it is, in reproduction, in so many homes; but, apart from the +Child, I like far better the "S. Giacomo"--No. 1254--so sympathetic +and rich in colour, which is reproduced in this volume. Another +good Andrea is No. 93--a soft and misty apparition of Christ to +the Magdalen. The Sodoma (1477-1549) on the easel--"S. Sebastian," +No. 1279--is very beautiful in its Leonardesque hues and romantic +landscape, and the two Ridolfo Ghirlandaios (1483-1561) near it are +interesting as representing, with much hard force, scenes in the story +of S. Zenobius, of Florence, of whom we read in chapter II. In one he +restores life to the dead child in the midst of a Florentine crowd; +in the other his bier, passing the Baptistery, reanimates the dead +tree. Giotto's tower and the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio are to be +seen on the left. A very different picture is the Cosimo Rosselli, +No. 1280 his, a comely "Madonna and Saints," with a motherly thought +in the treatment of the bodice. + +Among the other pictures is a naked sprawling scene of bodies and +limbs by Cosimo I's favourite painter, Bronzino (1502-1572), called +"The Saviour in Hell," and two nice Medici children from the same +brush, which was kept busy both on the living and ancestral lineaments +of that family; two Filippino Lippis, both fine if with a little +too much colour for this painter: one--No. 1257--approaching the +hotness of a Ghirlandaio carpet piece, but a great feat of crowded +activity; the other, No. 1268, having a beautiful blue Madonna and +a pretty little cherub with a red book. Piero di Cosimo is here, +religious and not mythological; and here are a very straightforward +and satisfying Mariotto Albertinelli--the "Virgin and S. Elizabeth," +very like a Fra Bartolommeo; a very rich and beautiful "Deposition" +by Botticini, one of Verrocchio's pupils, with a gay little predella +underneath it, and a pretty "Holy Family" by Franciabigio. But Andrea +remains the king of the walls. + +From this Sala a little room is gained which I advise all +tired visitors to the Uffizi to make their harbour of refuge and +recuperation; for it has only three or four pictures in it and three +or four pieces of sculpture and some pleasant maps and tapestry +on the walls, and from its windows you look across the brown-red +tiles to S. Miniato. The pictures, although so few, are peculiarly +attractive, being the work of two very rare hands, Piero della +Francesca (? 1398-1492) and Melozzo da Forli (1438-1494). Melozzo +has here a very charming Annunciation in two panels, the fascination +of which I cannot describe. That they are fascinating there is, +however, no doubt. We have symbolical figures by him in our National +Gallery--again hanging next to Piero della Francesca--but they are not +the equal of these in charm, although very charming. These grow more +attractive with every visit: the eager advancing angel with his lily, +and the timid little Virgin in her green dress, with folded hands. + +The two Pieros are, of course, superb. Piero never painted anything +that was not distinguished and liquid, and here he gives us of +his best: portraits of Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and +Battista, his second Duchess, with classical scenes behind them. Piero +della Francesca has ever been one of my favourite painters, and here he +is wholly a joy. Of his works Florence has but few, since he was not +a Florentine, nor did he work here, being engaged chiefly at Urbino, +Ferrara, Arezzo, and Rome. His life ended sadly, for he became totally +blind. In addition to his painting he was a mathematician of much +repute. The Duke of Urbino here depicted is Federigo da Montefeltro, +who ruled from 1444 to 1482, and in 1459 married as his second wife +a daughter of Alessandro Sforza, of Pesaro, the wedding being the +occasion of Piero's pictures. The duke stands out among the many +Italian lords of that time as a humane and beneficent ruler and +collector, and eager to administer well. He was a born fighter, and it +was owing to the loss of his right eye and the fracture of his noble +old nose that he is seen here in such a determined profile against +the lovely light over the Umbrian hills. The symbolical chariots in +the landscape at the back represent respectively the Triumph of Fame +(the Duke's) and the Triumph of Chastity (that of the Duchess). The +Duke's companions are Victory, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, and +Temperance; the little Duchess's are Love, Hope, Faith, Charity, +and Innocence; and if these are not exquisite pictures I never saw any. + +The statues in the room should not be missed, particularly the little +Genius of Love, the Bacchus and Ampelos, and the spoilt little comely +boy supposed to represent--and quite conceivably--the infant Nero. + +Crossing the large Tuscan room again, we come to a little narrow room +filled with what are now called cabinet pictures: far too many to +study properly, but comprising a benignant old man's head, No. 1167, +which is sometimes called a Filippino Lippi and sometimes a Masaccio, +a fragment of a fresco; a boy from the serene perfect hand of Perugino, +No. 1217; two little panels by Fra Bartolommeo--No. 1161--painted for a +tabernacle to hold a Donatello relief and representing the Circumcision +and Nativity, in colours, and at the back a pretty Annunciation in +monochrome; No. 1235, on the opposite wall, a very sweet Mother and +Child by the same artist; a Perseus liberating Andromeda, by Piero +di Cosimo, No. 1312; two or three Lorenzo di Credis; two or three +Alloris; a portrait of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, by Antonio Pollaiuolo; +and three charming little scenes from the lives of S. John the Baptist +and the Virgin, by Fra Angelico, which belong properly to the predella +of an altar-piece that we saw in the first room we entered--No. 1290, +"The Coronation of the Virgin". No. 1162 has the gayest green dress +in it imaginable. + +And here we enter the Tribuna, which is to the Uffizi what the Salon +Carré is to the Louvre: the special treasure-room of the gallery, +holding its most valuable pictures. But to-day there are as good works +outside it as in; for the Michelangelo has been moved to another +room, and Botticelli (to name no other) is not represented here at +all. Probably the statue famous as the Venus de' Medici would be +considered the Tribuna's chief possession; but not by me. Nor should +I vote either for Titian's Venus. In sculpture I should choose rather +the "Knife-sharpener," and among the pictures Raphael's "Madonna del +Cardellino," No. 1129. But this is not to suggest that everything +is not a masterpiece, for it is. Beginning at the door leading from +the room of the little pictures, we find, on our left, Raphael's +"Ignota," No. 1120, so rich and unfeeling, and then Francia's portrait +of Evangelista Scappi, so rich and real and a picture that one never +forgets. Raphael's Julius II comes next, not so powerful as the version +in the Pitti, and above that Titian's famous Venus. In Perugino's +portrait of Francesco delle Opere, No. 287, we find an evening sky +and landscape still more lovely than Francia's. This Francesco was +brother of Giovanni delle Corniole, a protégé of Lorenzo de' Medici, +famous as a carver of intaglios, whose portrait of Savonarola in +this medium, now preserved in the Uffizi, in the Gem Room, was said +by Michelangelo to carry art to its farthest possible point. + +A placid and typical Perugino--the Virgin and two saints--comes next, +and then a northern air sweeps in with Van Dyck's Giovanni di Montfort, +now darkening into gloom but very fine and commanding. Titian's second +Venus is above, for which his daughter Lavinia acted as model (the +Venus of the other version being possibly the Marchesa della Rovere), +and under it is the only Luini in the Uffizi, unmistakably from the +sweet hand and full of Leonardesque influence. Beneath this is a rich +and decorative work of the Veronese school, a portrait of Elisabetta +Gonzaga, with another evening sky. Then we go north again, to Dürer's +Adoration of the Magi, a picture full of pleasant detail--a little +mountain town here, a knight in difficulties with his horse there, +two butterflies close to the Madonna--and interesting also for the +treatment of the main theme in Dürer's masterly careful way; and then +to Spain to Spagnoletto's "S. Jerome" in sombre chiaroscuro; then north +again to a painfully real Christ crowned with thorns, by Lucas van +Leyden, and the mousy, Reynoldsy, first wife of Peter Paul Rubens, +while a Van Dyck portrait under a superb Domenichino and an "Adam +and Eve" by Lucas Cranach complete the northern group. And so we come +to the two Correggios--so accomplished and rich and untouching--all +delightful virtuosity without feeling. The favourite is, of course, +No. 1134, for its adorable Baby, whose natural charm atones for its +theatrical Mother. + +On the other side of the door is No. 1129, the perfect "Madonna +del Cardellino" of Raphael, so called from the goldfinch that the +little boys are caressing. This, one is forced to consider one of the +perfect pictures of the world, even though others may communicate more +pleasure. The landscape is so exquisite and the mild sweetness of the +whole work so complete; and yet, although the technical mastery is +almost thrilling, the "Madonna del Pozzo" by Andrea del Sarto's friend +Franciabigio, close by--No. 1125--arouses infinitely livelier feelings +in the observer, so much movement and happiness has it. Raphael is +perfect but cold; Franciabigio is less perfect (although exceedingly +accomplished) but warm with life. The charm of this picture is as +notable as the skill of Raphael's: it is wholly joyous, and the little +Madonna really once lived. Both are reproduced in this volume. + +Raphael's neighbouring youthful "John the Baptist" is almost a +Giorgione for richness, but is as truly Raphael as the Sebastian +del Piombo, once (like the Franciabigio also) called a Raphael, is +not. How it came to be considered Raphael, except that there may be +a faint likeness to the Fornarina, is a mystery. + +The rooms next the Tribuna have for some time been under +reconstruction, and of these I say little, nor of what pictures are +to be placed there. But with the Tribuna, in any case, the collection +suddenly declines, begins to crumble. The first of these rooms, in the +spring of this year, 1912, was opened with a number of small Italian +paintings; but they are probably only temporarily there. Chief among +them was a Parmigianino, a Boltraffio, a pretty little Guido Reni, +a Cosimo Tura, a Lorenzo Costa, but nothing really important. + +In the tiny Gem Room at the end of the corridor are wonders of +the lapidary's art--and here is the famous intaglio portrait of +Savonarola--but they want better treatment. The vases and other +ornaments should have the light all round them, as in the Galerie +d'Apollon at the Louvre. These are packed together in wall cases and +are hard to see. + +Passing through the end corridor, where the beautiful Matrona reclines +so placidly on her couch against the light, and where we have such +pleasant views of the Ponte Vecchio, the Trinita bridge, the Arno, +and the Apennines, so fresh and real and soothing after so much paint, +we come to the rooms containing the famous collection of self-painted +portraits, which, moved hither from Rome, has been accumulating +in the Uffizi for many years and is still growing, to be invited +to contribute to it being one of the highest honours a painter can +receive. The portraits occupy eight rooms and a passage. Though the +collection is historically and biographically valuable, it contains for +every interesting portrait three or four dull ones, and thus becomes +something of a weariness. Among the best are Lucas Cranach, Anton More, +Van Dyck, Rembrandt (three), Rubens, Seybold, Jordaens, Reynolds, +and Romney, all of which remind us of Michelangelo's dry comment, +"Every painter draws himself well". Among the most interesting to us, +wandering in Florence, are the two Andreas, one youthful and the other +grown fatter than one likes and very different from the melancholy +romantic figure in the Pitti; Verrocchio, by Lorenzo di Credi; Carlo +Dolci, surprising by its good sense and humour; Raphael, angelic, +wistful, and weak; Tintoretto, old and powerful; and Jacopo Bassano, +old and simple. Among the moderns, Corot's portrait of himself is +one of the most memorable, but Fantin Latour, Flandrin, Leon Bonnat, +and Lenbach are all strong and modest; which one cannot say of our +own Leighton. Among the later English heads Orchardson's is notable, +but Mr. Sargent's is disappointing. + +We now come to one of the most remarkable rooms in the gallery, where +every picture is a gem; but since all are northern pictures, imported, +I give no reproductions. This is the Sala di Van der Goes, so called +from the great work here, the triptych, painted in 1474 to 1477 by +Hugo van der Goes, who died in 1482, and was born at Ghent or Leyden +about 1405. This painter, of whose genius there can be no question, +is supposed to have been a pupil of the Van Eycks. Not much is known +of him save that he painted at Bruges and Ghent and in 1476 entered +a convent at Brussels where he was allowed to dine with distinguished +strangers who came to see him and where he drank so much wine that his +natural excitability turned to insanity. He seems, however, to have +recovered, and if ever a picture showed few signs of a deranged or +inflamed mind it is this, which was painted for the agent of the Medici +bank at Bruges, Tommaso Portinari, who presented it to the Hospital of +S. Maria Nuova in his native city of Florence, which had been founded +by his ancestor Folco, the father of Dante's Beatrice. The left panel +shows Tommaso praying with his two sons Antonio and Pigallo, the right +his wife Maria Portinari and their adorably quaint little daughter +with her charming head-dress and costume. The flowers in the centre +panel are among the most beautiful things in any Florentine picture: +not wild and wayward like Luca Signorelli's, but most exquisitely +done: irises, red lilies, columbines and dark red clove pinks--all +unexpected and all very unlikely to be in such a wintry landscape at +all. On the ground are violets. The whole work is grave, austere, +cool, and as different as can be from the Tuscan spirit; yet it is +said to have had a deep influence on the painters of the time and +must have drawn throngs to the Hospital to see it. + +The other Flemish and German pictures in the room are all remarkable +and all warmer in tone. No. 906, an unknown work, is perhaps the +finest: a Crucifixion, which might have borrowed its richness from +the Carpaccio, we saw in the Venetian room. There is a fine Adoration +of the Magi, by Gerard David (1460-1523); an unknown portrait of +Pierantonio Baroncelli and his wife, with a lovely landscape; a jewel +of paint by Hans Memling (1425-1492)--No. 703--the Madonna Enthroned; +a masterpiece of drawing by Dürer, "Calvary"; an austere and poignant +Transportation of Christ to the Sepulchre, by Roger van der Weyden +(1400-1464); and several very beautiful portraits by Memling, notably +Nos. 769 and 780 with their lovely evening light. Memling, indeed, +I never liked better than here. Other fine pictures are a Spanish +prince by Lucas van Leyden; an old Dutch scholar by an artist unknown, +No. 784; and a young husband and wife by Joost van Cleef the Elder, +and a Breughel the Elder, like an old Crome--a beauty--No. 928. The +room is interesting both for itself and also as showing how the +Flemish brushes were working at the time that so many of the great +Italians were engaged on similar themes. + +After the cool, self-contained, scientific work of these northerners +it is a change to enter the Sala di Rubens and find that luxuriant +giant--their compatriot, but how different!--once more. In the Uffizi, +Rubens seems more foreign, far, than any one, so fleshly pagan is +he. In Antwerp Cathedral his "Descent from the Cross," although +its bravura is, as always with him, more noticeable than its piety, +might be called a religious picture, but I doubt if even that would +seem so here. At any rate his Uffizi works are all secular, while +his "Holy Family" in the Pitti is merely domestic and robust. His +Florentine masterpieces are the two Henri IV pictures in this room, +"Henri IV at Ivry," magnificent if not war, and "Henri's entry into +Paris after Ivry," with its confusing muddle of naked warriors and +spears. Only Rubens could have painted these spirited, impossible, +glorious things, which for all their greatness send one's thoughts +back longingly to the portrait of his wife, in the Tribuna, while +No. 216--the Bacchanale--is so coarse as almost to send one's feet +there too. + +Looking round the room, after Rubens has been dismissed, it is too +evident that the best of the Uffizi collection is behind us. There +are interesting portraits here, but biographically rather than +artistically. Here are one or two fine Sustermans' (1597-1681), +that imported painter whom we shall find in such rare form at the +Pitti. Here, for example, is Ferdinand II, who did so much for the +Uffizi and so little for Galileo; and his cousin and wife Vittoria +della Rovere, daughter of Claudia de' Medici (whose portrait, No. 763, +is on the easel), and Federigo della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. This +silly, plump lady had been married at the age of fourteen, and she +brought her husband a little money and many pictures from Urbino, +notably those delightful portraits of an earlier Duke and Duchess of +Urbino by Piero della Francesca, and also the two Titian "Venuses" +in the Tribuna. Ferdinand II and his Grand Duchess were on bad terms +for most of their lives, and she behaved foolishly, and brought up +her son Cosimo III foolishly, and altogether was a misfortune to +Florence. Sustermans the painter she held in the highest esteem, and +in return he painted her not only as herself but in various unlikely +characters, among them a Vestal Virgin and even the Madonna. + +Here also is No. 196, Van Dyck's portrait of Margherita of Lorraine, +whose daughter became Cosimo III's wife--a mischievous, weak face +but magnificently painted; and No. 1536, a vividly-painted elderly +widow by Jordaens (1593-1678); and on each side of the outrageous +Rubens a distinguished Dutch gentleman and lady by the placid, +refined Mierevelt. + +The two priceless rooms devoted to Iscrizioni come next, but we +will finish the pictures first and therefore pass on to the Sala di +Baroccio. Federigo Baroccio (1528-1612) is one of the later painters +for whom I, at any rate, cannot feel any enthusiasm. His position in +the Uffizi is due rather to the circumstance that he was a protégé of +the Cardinal della Rovere at Rome, whose collection came here, than to +his genius. This room again is of interest rather historically than +artistically. Here, for example, are some good Medici portraits by +Bronzino, among them the famous Eleanora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I, +in a rich brocade (in which she was buried), with the little staring +Ferdinand I beside her. Eleanora, as we saw in chapter V. was the first +mistress of the Pitti palace, and the lady who so disliked Cellini and +got him into such trouble through his lying tongue. Bronzino's little +Maria de' Medici--No. 1164--is more pleasing, for the other picture has +a sinister air. This child, the first-born of Cosimo I and Eleanora, +died when only sixteen. Baroccio has a fine portrait--Francesco Maria +II, last Duke of Urbino, and the grandfather of the Vittoria della +Rovere whom we saw in the Sala di Rubens. Here also is a portrait +of Lorenzo the Magnificent by Vasari, but it is of small value +since Vasari was not born till after Lorenzo's death. The Galileo +by Sustermans--No. 163--on the contrary would be from life; and +after the Tribuna portrait of Rubens' first wife it is interesting +to find here his pleasant portrait of Helen Fourment, his second. To +my eyes two of the most attractive pictures in the room are the Young +Sculptor--No. 1266--by Bronzino, and the version of Leonardo's S. Anne +at the Louvre by Andrea Salaino of Milan (1483?-1520?). I like also +the hints of tenderness of Bernardino Luini which break through the +hardness of the Aurelio Luini picture--No. 204. For the rest there are +some sickly Guido Renis and Carlo Dolcis and a sentimental Guercino. + +But the most popular works--on Sundays--are the two Gerard Honthorsts, +and not without reason, for they are dramatic and bold and vivid, +and there is a Baby in each that goes straight to the maternal +heart. No. 157 is perhaps the more satisfying, but I have more reason +to remember the larger one--the Adoration of the Shepherds--for I +watched a copyist produce a most remarkable replica of it in something +under a week, on the same scale. He was a short, swarthy man with +a neck like a bull's, and he carried the task off with astonishing +brio, never drawing a line, finishing each part as he came to it, and +talking to a friend or an official the whole time. Somehow one felt him +to be precisely the type of copyist that Gherardo della Notte ought +to have. This painter was born at Utrecht in 1590 but went early to +Italy, and settling in Rome devoted himself to mastering the methods +of Amerighi, better known as Caravaggio (1569-1609), who specialized +in strong contrasts of light and shade. After learning all he could +in Rome, Honthorst returned to Holland and made much money and fame, +for his hand was swift and sure. Charles I engaged him to decorate +Whitehall. He died in 1656. These two Honthorsts are, as I say, the +most popular of the pictures on Sunday, when the Uffizi is free; but +their supremacy is challenged by the five inlaid tables, one of which, +chiefly in lapis lazuli, must be the bluest thing on earth. + +Passing for the present the Sala di Niobe, we come to the Sala di +Giovanni di San Giovanni, which is given to a second-rate painter who +was born in 1599 and died in 1636. His best work is a fresco at the +Badia of Fiesole. Here he has some theatrical things, including one +picture which sends English ladies out blushing. Here also are some +Lelys, including "Nelly Gwynn". Next are two rooms, one leading from +the other, given to German and Flemish pictures and to miniatures, +both of which are interesting. In the first are more Dürers, and +that alone would make it a desirable resort. Here is a "Virgin and +Child"--No. 851--very naive and homely, and the beautiful portrait of +his father--No. 766---a symphony of brown and green. Less attractive +works from the same hand are the "Apostle Philip"--No. 777--and +"S. Giacomo Maggiore," an old man very coarsely painted by comparison +with the artist's father. Here also is a very beautiful portrait +of Richard Southwell, by Holbein, with the peacock-green background +that we know so well and always rejoice to see; a typical candle-light +Schalcken, No. 800; several golden Poelenburghs; an anonymous portrait +of Virgilius von Hytta of Zuicham, No. 784; a clever smiling lady by +Sustermans, No. 709; the Signora Puliciani and her husband, No. 699; +a rather crudely coloured Rubens--"Venus and Adonis"--No. 812; the +same artist's "Three Graces," in monochrome, very naked; and some +quaint portraits by Lucas Cranach. + +But no doubt to many persons the most enchaining picture here is +the Medusa's head, which used to be called a Leonardo and quite +satisfied Ruskin of its genuineness, but is now attributed to the +Flemish school. The head, at any rate, would seem to be very similar +to that of which Vasari speaks, painted by Leonardo for a peasant, +but retained by his father. Time has dealt hardly with the paint, and +one has to study minutely before Medusa's horrors are visible. Whether +Leonardo's or not, it is not uninteresting to read how the picture +affected Shelley when he saw it here in 1819:-- + + + ... Its Horror and its Beauty are divine. + Upon its lips and eyelids seem to lie + Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine, + Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath, + The agonies of anguish and of death. + + +The little room leading from this one should be neglected by no one +interested in Medicean history, for most of the family is here, in +miniature, by Bronzino's hand. Here also are miniatures by other great +painters, such as Pourbus, Guido Reni, Bassano, Clouet, Holbein. Look +particularly at No. 3382, a woman with brown hair, in purple--a most +fascinating little picture. The Ignota in No. 3348 might easily be +Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England. The other exhibits +are copies in miniature of famous pictures, notable among them a +Raphael--No. 3386--and a Breughel--No. 3445--while No. 3341, the +robing of a monk, is worth attention. + +We come now to the last pictures of the collection--in three little +rooms at the end, near the bronze sleeping Cupid. Those in the first +room were being rearranged when I was last here; the others contain +Dutch works notable for a few masterpieces. There are too many +Poelenburghs, but the taste shown as a whole is good. Perhaps to +the English enthusiast for painting the fine landscape by Hercules +Seghers will, in view of the recent agitation over Lord Lansdowne's +Rembrandt, "The Mill,"--ascribed in some quarters to Seghers--be the +most interesting picture of all. It is a sombre, powerful scene of +rugged coast which any artist would have been proud to sign; but it +in no way recalls "The Mill's" serene strength. Among the best of +its companions are a very good Terburg, a very good Metsu, and an +extremely beautiful Ruysdael. + +And so we are at the end of the pictures--but only to return again and +again--and are not unwilling to fall into the trap of the official who +sits here, and allow him to unlock the door behind the Laocöon group +and enjoy what he recommends as a "bella vista" from the open space, +which turns out to be the roof of the Loggia de' Lanzi. From this +high point one may see much of Florence and its mountains, while, +on looking down, over the coping, one finds the busy Piazza della +Signoria below, with all its cabs and wayfarers. + +Returning to the gallery, we come quickly on the right to the first +of the neglected statuary rooms, the beautiful Sala di Niobe, which +contains some interesting Medicean and other tapestries, and the +sixteen statues of Niobe and her children from the Temple of Apollo, +which the Cardinal Ferdinand de' Medici acquired, and which were for +many years at the Villa Medici at Rome. A suggested reconstruction +of the group will be found by the door. I cannot pretend to a deep +interest in the figures, but I like to be in the room. The famous +Medicean vase is in the middle of it. Sculpture more ingratiating +is close by, in the two rooms given to Iscrizioni: a collection +of priceless antiques which are not only beautiful but peculiarly +interesting in that they can be compared with the work of Donatello, +Verrocchio, and other of the Renaissance sculptors. For in such a case +comparisons are anything but odious and become fascinating. In the +first room there is, for example, a Mercury, isolated on the left, +in marble, who is a blood relation of Donatello's bronze David in +the Bargello; and certain reliefs of merry children, on the right, +low down, as one approaches the second room, are cousins of the same +sculptor's cantoria romps. Not that Donatello ever reproduced the +antique spirit as Michelangelo nearly did in his Bacchus, and Sansovino +absolutely did in his Bacchus, both at the Bargello: Donatello was +of his time, and the spirit of his time animates his creations, but +he had studied the Greek art in Rome and profited by his lessons, +and his evenly-balanced humane mind had a warm corner for pagan +joyfulness. Among other statues in this first room is a Sacerdotessa, +wearing a marble robe with long folds, whose hands can be seen through +the drapery. Opposite the door are Bacchus and Ampelos, superbly +pagan, while a sleeping Cupid is most lovely. Among the various fine +heads is one of Cicero, of an Unknown--No. 377--and of Homer in bronze +(called by the photographers Aristophanes). But each thing in turn is +almost the best. The trouble is that the Uffizi is so vast, and the +Renaissance seems to be so eminently the only proper study of mankind +when one is here, that to attune oneself to the enjoyment of antique +sculpture needs a special effort which not all are ready to make. + +In the centre of the next room is the punctual Hermaphrodite without +which no large Continental gallery is complete. But more worthy of +attention is the torso of a faun on the left, on a revolving pedestal +which (unlike those in the Bargello, as we shall discover) really does +revolve and enables you to admire the perfect back. There is also a +torso in basalt or porphyry which one should study from all points, +and on the walls some wonderful portions of a frieze from the Ara +Pacis, erected in Rome, B.C. 139, with wonderful figures of men, +women, and children on it. Among the heads is a colossal Alexander, +very fine indeed, a beautiful Antoninus, a benign and silly Roman +lady in whose existence one can quite believe, and a melancholy +Seneca. Look also at Nos. 330 and 332, on the wall: 330, a charming +genius, carrying one of Jove's thunderbolts; and 332, a boy who is +sheer Luca della Robbia centuries before his birth. + +I ought to add that, in addition to the various salons in the Uffizi, +the long corridors are hung with pictures too, in chronological order, +the earliest of all being to the right of the entrance door, and in +the corridors there is also some admirable statuary. But the pictures +here, although not the equals of those in the rooms, receive far too +little attention, while the sculpture receives even less, whether the +beutiful full-length athletes or the reliefs on the cisterns, several +of which have riotous Dionysian processions. On the stairs, too, are +some very beautiful works; while at the top, in the turnstile room, is +the original of the boar which Tacca copied in bronze for the Mercato +Nuovo, and just outside it are the Medici who were chiefly concerned +with the formation of the collection. On the first landing, nearest +the ground, is a very beautiful and youthful Bacchus. The ceilings +of the Uffizi rooms and corridors also are painted, thoughtfully +and dexterously, in the Pompeian manner; but there are limits to the +receptive capacity of travellers' eyes, and I must plead guilty to +consistently neglecting them. + + + +CHAPTER XII + +"Aërial Fiesole" + +Andrea del Sarto--Fiesole sights--The Villa Palmieri +and the "Decameron"--Botticini's picture in the National +Gallery--S. Francesco--The Roman amphitheatre--The Etruscan museum--A +sculptor's walk--The Badia di Fiesole--Brunelleschi again--Giovanni +di San Giovanni. + +After all these pictures, how about a little climbing? From so many +windows in Florence, along so many streets, from so many loggias and +towers, and perhaps, above all, from the Piazzale di Michelangelo, +Fiesole is to be seen on her hill, with the beautiful campanile of +her church in the dip between the two eminences, that very soon one +comes to feel that this surely is the promised land. Florence lies +so low, and the delectable mountain is so near and so alluring. But +I am not sure that to dream of Fiesole as desirable, and to murmur +its beautiful syllables, is not best. + + + Let me sit +Here by the window with your hand in mine, +And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole + + +--that was Andrea's way and not an unwise one. For Fiesole at +nearer view can easily disappoint. It is beautifully set on its +hill and it has a fascinating past; but the journey thither on +foot is very wearisome, by the electric tram vexatious and noisy, +and in a horse-drawn carriage expensive and cruel; and when you +are there you become once more a tourist without alleviation and +are pestered by beggars, and by nice little girls who ought to +know better, whose peculiar importunacy it is to thrust flowers +into the hand or buttonhole without any denial. What should have +been a mountain retreat from the city has become a kind of Devil's +Dyke. But if one is resolute, and, defying all, walks up to the +little monastery of S. Francesco at the very top of the hill, one +may rest almost undisturbed, with Florence in the valley below, and +gardens and vineyards undulating beneath, and a monk or two ascending +or descending the steps, and three or four picture-postcard hawkers +gambling in a corner, and lizards on the wall. Here it is good to be +in the late afternoon, when the light is mellowing; and if you want +tea there is a little loggia a few yards down this narrow steep path +where it may be found. How many beautiful villas in which one could +be happy sunning oneself among the lizards lie between this point +and Florence! Who, sitting here, can fail to think that? + +In walking to Fiesole one follows the high walls of the Villa Palmieri, +which is now very private American property, but is famous for ever as +the first refuge of Boccaccio's seven young women and three young men +when they fled from plague-stricken Florence in 1348 and told tales for +ten halcyon days. It is now generally agreed that if Boccaccio had any +particular house in his mind it was this. It used to be thought that +the Villa Poggio Gherardo, Mrs. Ross's beautiful home on the way to +Settignano, was the first refuge, and the Villa Palmieri the second, +but the latest researches have it that the Palmieri was the first and +the Podere della Fonte, or Villa di Boccaccio, as it is called, near +Camerata, a little village below S. Domenico, the other. The Villa +Palmieri has another and somewhat different historical association, +for it was there that Queen Victoria resided for a while in 1888. But +the most interesting thing of all about it is the circumstance that +it was the home of Matteo Palmieri, the poet, and Botticelli's friend +and fellow-speculator on the riddle of life. Palmieri was the author +of a remarkable poem called "La Citta della Vita" (The City of Life) +which developed a scheme of theology that had many attractions to +Botticelli's curious mind. The poem was banned by Rome, although +not until after its author's death. In our National Gallery is a +picture which used to be considered Botticelli's--No. 1126, "The +Assumption of the Virgin"--especially as it is mentioned with some +particularity by Vasari, together with the circumstance that the +poet and painter devised it in collaboration, in which the poem is +translated into pigment. As to the theology, I say nothing, nor as to +its new ascription to Botticini; but the picture has a greater interest +for us in that it contains a view of Florence with its wall of towers +around it in about 1475. The exact spot where the painter sat has been +identified by Miss Stokes in "Six Months in the Apennines". On the +left immediately below the painter's vantage-ground is the Mugnone, +with a bridge over it. On the bank in front is the Villa Palmieri, +and on the picture's extreme left is the Badia of Fiesole. + +On leaving S. Domenico, if still bent on walking, one should keep +straight on and not follow the tram lines to the right. This is the +old and terribly steep road which Lorenzo the Magnificent and his +friends Politian and Pico della Mirandola had to travel whenever they +visited the Medici villa, just under Fiesole, with its drive lined with +cypresses. Here must have been great talk and much conviviality. It +is now called the Villa McCalmont. + +Once at Fiesole, by whatever means you reach it, do not neglect to +climb the monastery steps to the very top. It is a day of climbing, +and a hundred or more steps either way mean nothing now. For here +is a gentle little church with swift, silent monks in it, and a few +flowers in bowls, and a religious picture by that strange Piero di +Cosimo whose heart was with the gods in exile; and the view of Monte +Ceceri, on the other side of Fiesole, seen through the cypresses here, +which could not be better in disposition had Benozzo Gozzoli himself +arranged them, is very striking and memorable. + +Fiesole's darling son is Mino the sculptor--the "Raphael of the +chisel"--whose radiant Madonnas and children and delicate tombs may +be seen here and there all over Florence. The piazza is named after +him; he is celebrated on a marble slab outside the museum, where all +the famous names of the vicinity may be read too; and in the church +is one of his most charming groups and finest heads. They are in a +little chapel on the right of the choir. The head is that of Bishop +Salutati, humorous, wise, and benign, and the group represents the +adoration of a merry little Christ by a merry little S. John and +others. As for the church itself, it is severe and cool, with such +stone columns in it as must last for ever. + +But the main interest of Fiesole to most people is not the +cypress-covered hill of S. Francesco; not the view from the summit; +not the straw mementoes; not the Mino relief in the church; but +the Roman arena. The excavators have made of this a very complete +place. One can stand at the top of the steps and reconstruct it +all--the audience, the performance, the performers. A very little time +spent on building would be needed to restore the amphitheatre to its +original form. Beyond it are baths, and in a hollow the remains of a +temple with the altar where it ever was; and then one walks a little +farther and is on the ancient Etruscan wall, built when Fiesole was an +Etruscan fortified hill city. So do the centuries fall away here! But +everywhere, among the ancient Roman stones so massive and exact, +and the Etruscan stones, are the wild flowers which Luca Signorelli +painted in that picture in the Uffizi which I love so much. + +After the amphitheatre one visits the Museum--with the same ticket--a +little building filled with trophies of the spade. There is nothing +very wonderful--nothing to compare with the treasures of the +Archaeological Museum in Florence--but it is well worth a visit. + +On leaving the Museum on the last occasion that I was there--in +April--I walked to Settignano. The road for a while is between +houses, for Fiesole stretches a long way farther than one suspects, +very high, looking over the valley of the Mugnone; and then after a +period between pine trees and grape-hyacinths one turns to the right +and begins to descend. Until Poggio del Castello, a noble villa, +on an isolated eminence, the descent is very gradual, with views of +Florence round the shoulder of Monte Ceceri; but afterwards the road +winds, to ease the fall, and the wayfarer turns off into the woods and +tumbles down the hill by a dry water-course, amid crags and stones, +to the beginnings of civilization again, at the Via di Desiderio da +Settignano, a sculptor who stands to his native town in precisely +the same relation as Mino to his. + +Settignano is a mere village, with villas all about it, and +the thing to remember there is not only that Desiderio was born +there but that Michelangelo's foster-mother was the wife of a +local stone-cutter--stone-cutting at that time being the staple +industry. On the way back to Florence in the tram, one passes on the +right a gateway surmounted by statues of the poets, the Villa Poggio +Gherardo, of which I have spoken earlier in the chapter. There is no +villa with a nobler mien than this. + +That is one walk from Fiesole. Another is even more a sculptors' way: +for it would include Maiano too, where Benedetto was born. The road +is by way of the tram lines to that acute angle just below Fiesole +when they turn back to S. Domenico, and so straight on down the hill. + +But if one is returning to Florence direct after leaving Fiesole it +is well to walk down the precipitous paths to S. Domenico, and before +again taking the tram visit the Badia overlooking the valley of the +Mugnone. This is done by turning to the right just opposite the church +of S. Domenico, which has little interest structurally but is famous +as being the chapel of the monastery where Fra Angelico was once a +monk. The Badia (Abbey) di Fiesole, as it now is, was built on the +site of an older monastery, by Cosimo Pater. Here Marsilio Ficino's +Platonic Academy used to meet, in the loggia and in the little temple +which one gains from the cloisters, and here Pico della Mirandola +composed his curious gloss on Genesis. + +The dilapidated marble façade of the church and its rugged stone-work +are exceedingly ancient--dating in fact from the eleventh century; +the new building is by Brunelleschi and to my mind is one of his +most beautiful works, its lovely proportions and cool, unfretted +white spaces communicating even more pleasure than the Pazzi chapel +itself. The decoration has been kept simple and severe, and the colour +is just the grey pietra serena of Fiesole, of which the lovely arches +are made, all most exquisitely chiselled, and the pure white of the +walls and ceilings. This church was a favourite with the Medici, and +the youthful Giovanni, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, received +his cardinal's hat here in 1492, at the age of sixteen. He afterwards +became Pope Leo X. How many of the boys, now in the school--for the +monastery has become a Jesuit school--will, one wonders, rise to +similar eminence. + +In the beautiful cloisters we have the same colour scheme as +in the church, and here again Brunelleschi's miraculous genius +for proportion is to be found. Here and there are foliations and +other exquisite tracery by pupils of Desiderio da Settignano. The +refectory has a high-spirited fresco by that artist whose room in +the Uffizi is so carefully avoided by discreet chaperons--Giovanni di +San Giovanni--representing Christ eating at a table, his ministrants +being a crowd of little roguish angels and cherubim, one of whom (on +the right) is in despair at having broken a plate. In the entrance +lobby is a lavabo by Mino da Fiesole, with two little boys of the +whitest and softest marble on it, which is worth study. + +And now we will return to the heart of Florence once more. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +The Badia and Dante + +Filippino Lippi--Buffalmacco--Mino da Fiesole--The Dante quarter--Dante +and Beatrice--Monna Tessa--Gemma Donati--Dante in exile--Dante +memorials in Florence--The Torre della Castagna--The Borgo degli +Albizzi and the old palaces--S. Ambrogio--Mino's tabernacle--Wayside +masterpieces--S. Egidio. + +Opposite the Bargello is a church with a very beautiful doorway +designed by Benedetto da Rovezzano. This church is known as the Badia, +and its delicate spire is a joy in the landscape from every point of +vantage. The Badia is very ancient, but the restorers have been busy +and little of Arnolfo's thirteenth-century work is left. It is chiefly +famous now for its Filippino Lippi and two tombs by Mino da Fiesole, +but historically it is interesting as being the burial-place of the +chief Florentine families in the Middle Ages and as being the scene +of Boccaccio's lectures on Dante in 1373. The Filippino altar-piece, +which represents S. Bernard's Vision of the Virgin (a subject we shall +see treated very beautifully by Fra Bartolommeo at the Accademia) +is one of the most perfect and charming pictures by this artist: +very grave and real and sweet, and the saint's hands exquisitely +painted. The figure praying in the right-hand corner is the patron, +Piero di Francesco del Pugliese, who commissioned this picture for the +church of La Campora, outside the Porta Romana, where it was honoured +until 1529, when Clement VII's troops advancing, it was brought here +for safety and has here remained. + +Close by--in the same chapel--is a little door which the sacristan +will open, disclosing a portion of Arnolfo's building with perishing +frescoes which are attributed to Buffalmacco, an artist as to whose +reality much scepticism prevails. They are not in themselves of much +interest, although the sacristan's eagerness should not be discouraged; +but Buffalmacco being Boccaccio's, Sacchetti's, Vasari's (and, later, +Anatole France's) amusing hero, it is pleasant to look at his work and +think of his freakishness. Buffalmacco (if he ever existed) was one +of the earlier painters, flourishing between 1311 and 1350, and was +a pupil of Andrea Tafi. This simple man he plagued very divertingly, +once frightening him clean out of his house by fixing little lighted +candles to the backs of beetles and steering them into Tafi's bedroom +at night. Tafi was terrified, but on being told by Buffalmacco (who was +a lazy rascal) that these devils were merely showing their objection +to early rising, he became calm again, and agreed to lie in bed to +a reasonable hour. Cupidity, however, conquering, he again ordered +his pupil to be up betimes, when the beetles again re-appeared and +continued to do so until the order was revoked. + +The sculptor Mino da Fiesole, whom we shall shortly see again, at the +Bargello, in portrait busts and Madonna reliefs, is at his best here, +in the superb monument to Count Ugo, who founded, with his mother, +the Benedictine Abbey of which the Badia is the relic. Here all Mino's +sweet thoughts, gaiety and charm are apparent, together with the +perfection of radiant workmanship. The quiet dignity of the recumbent +figure is no less masterly than the group above it. Note the impulsive +urgency of the splendid Charity, with her two babies, and the quiet +beauty of the Madonna and Child above all, while the proportions and +delicate patterns of the tomb as a whole still remain to excite one's +pleasure and admiration. We shall see many tombs in Florence--few not +beautiful--but none more joyously accomplished than this. The tomb +of Carlo Marsuppini in S. Croce by Desiderio da Settignano, which +awaits us, was undoubtedly the parent of the Ugo, Mino following his +master very closely; but his charm was his own. According to Vasari, +the Ugo tomb was considered to be Mino's finest achievement, and he +deliberately made the Madonna and Child as like the types of his +beloved Desiderio as he could. It was finished in 1481, and Mino +died in 1484, from a chill following over-exertion in moving heavy +stones. Mino also has here a monument to Bernardo Giugni, a famous +gonfalonier in the time of Cosimo de' Medici, marked by the same +distinction, but not quite so memorable. The Ugo is his masterpiece. + +The carved wooden ceiling, which is a very wonderful piece of work +and of the deepest and most glorious hue, should not be forgotten; +but nothing is easier than to overlook ceilings. + +The cloisters are small, but they atone for that--if it is a fault--by +having a loggia. From the loggia the top of the noble tower of the +Palazzo Vecchio is seen to perfection. Upon the upper walls is a +series of frescoes illustrating the life of S. Benedict which must +have been very gay and spirited once but are now faded. + +The Badia may be said to be the heart of the Dante quarter. Dante must +often have been in the church before it was restored as we now see it, +and a quotation from the "Divine Comedy" is on its façade. The Via +Dante and the Piazza Donati are close by, and in the Via Dante are many +reminders of the poet besides his alleged birthplace. Elsewhere in the +city we find incised quotations from his poem; but the Baptistery--his +"beautiful San Giovanni"--is the only building in the city proper now +remaining which Dante would feel at home in could he return to it, and +where we can feel assured of sharing his presence. The same pavement is +there on which his feet once stood, and on the same mosaic of Christ +above the altar would his eyes have fallen. When Dante was exiled in +1302 the cathedral had been in progress only for six or eight years; +but it is known that he took the deepest interest in its construction, +and we have seen the stone marking the place where he sat, watching +the builders. The façade of the Badia of Fiesole and the church of +S. Miniato can also remember Dante; no others. + +Here, however, we are on that ground which is richest in personal +associations with him and his, for in spite of re-building and +certain modern changes the air is heavy with antiquity in these +narrow streets and passages where the poet had his childhood and +youth. The son of a lawyer named Alighieri, Dante was born in +1265, but whether or not in this Casa Dante is an open question, +and it was in the Baptistery that he received the name of Durante, +afterwards abbreviated to Dante--Durante meaning enduring, and Dante +giving. Those who have read the "Vita Nuova," either in the original +or in Rossetti's translation, may be surprised to learn that the +boy was only nine when he first met his Beatrice, who was seven, +and for ever passed into bondage to her. Who Beatrice was is again +a mystery, but it has been agreed to consider her in real life a +daughter of Folco Portinari, a wealthy Florentine and the founder of +the hospital of S. Maria Nuova, one of whose descendants commissioned +Hugo van der Goes to paint the great triptych in the Uffizi. Folco's +tomb is in S. Egidio, the hospital church, while in the passage to +the cloisters is a stone figure of Monna Tessa (of whom we are about +to see a coloured bust in the Bargello), who was not only Beatrice's +nurse (if Beatrice were truly of the Portinari) but the instigator, +it is said, of Folco's deed of charity. + +Of Dante's rapt adoration of his lady, the "Vita Nuova" +tells. According to that strangest monument of devotion it was not +until another nine years had passed that he had speech of her; and +then Beatrice, meeting him in the street, saluted him as she passed +him with such ineffable courtesy and grace that he was lifted into a +seventh heaven of devotion and set upon the writing of his book. The +two seem to have had no closer intercourse: Beatrice shone distantly +like a star and her lover worshipped her with increasing loyalty +and fervour, overlaying the idea of her, as one might say, with gold +and radiance, very much as we shall see Fra Angelico adding glory to +the Madonna and Saints in his pictures, and with a similar intensity +of ecstasy. Then one day Beatrice married, and not long afterwards, +being always very fragile, she died, at the age of twenty-three. The +fact that she was no longer on earth hardly affected her poet, +whose worship of her had always so little of a physical character; +and she continued to dominate his thoughts. + +In 1293, however, Dante married, one Gemma Donati of the powerful +Guelph family of that name, of which Corso Donati was the turbulent +head; and by her he had many children. For Gemma, however, he seems +to have had no affection; and when in 1301 he left Florence, never to +return, he left his wife for ever too. In 1289 Dante had been present +at the battle of Campaldino, fighting with the Guelphs against the +Ghibellines, and on settling down in Florence and taking to politics it +was as a Guelph, or rather as one of that branch of the Guelph party +which had become White--the Bianchi--as opposed to the other party +which was Black--the Neri. The feuds between these divisions took the +place of those between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, since Florence +was never happy without internal strife, and it cannot have added +to Dante's home comfort that his wife was related to Corso Donati, +who led the Neri and swaggered in his bullying way about the city with +proprietary, intolerant airs that must have been infuriating to a man +with Dante's stern sense of right and justice. It was Corso who brought +about Dante's exile; but he himself survived only six years, and was +then killed, by his own wish, on his way to execution, rather than be +humiliated in the city in which he had swayed. Dante, whose genius +devised a more lasting form of reprisal than any personal encounter +could be, has depicted him in the "Purgatorio" as on the road to Hell. + +But this is going too fast. In 1300, when Dante was thirty-five, +he was sufficiently important to be made one of the six priors of +the city, and in that capacity was called upon to quell a Neri and +Bianchi disturbance. It is characteristic of him that he was a party +to the banishment of the leaders of both factions, among whom was +his closest friend, Guido Cavalcanti the poet, who was one of the +Bianchi. Whether it was because of Guide's illness in his exile, or +from what motive, we shall not know; but the sentence was lightened in +the case of this Bianco, a circumstance which did not add to Dante's +chances when the Neri, having plotted successfully with Charles of +Valois, captured supreme power in Florence. This was in the year 1301, +Dante being absent from that city on an embassy to Rome to obtain help +for the Bianchi. He never came back; for the Neri plans succeeded; +the Neri assumed control; and in January, 1302, he was formally fined +and banished. The nominal charge against him was of misappropriating +funds while a prior; but that was merely a matter of form. His real +offence was in being one of the Bianchi, an enemy of the Neri, and +a man of parts. + +In the rest of Dante's life Florence had no part, except in his +thoughts. How he viewed her the "Divine Comedy" tells us, and that he +longed to return we also know. The chance was indeed once offered, +but under the impossible condition that he should do public penance +in the Baptistery for his offence. This he refused. He wandered here +and there, and settled finally in Ravenna, where he died in 1321. The +"Divine Comedy" anticipating printing by so many years--the invention +did not reach Florence until 1471--Dante could not make much popular +way as a poet before that time; but to his genius certain Florentines +were earlier no strangers, not only by perusing MS. copies of his +great work, which by its richness in Florentine allusions excited +an interest apart altogether from that created by its beauty, but by +public lectures on the poem, delivered in the churches by order of +the Signoria. The first Dante professor to be appointed was Giovanni +Boccaccio, the author of the "Decameron," who was born in 1313, +eight years before Dante's death, and became an enthusiast upon the +poet. The picture in the Duomo was placed there in 1465. Then came +printing to Florence and Dante passed quickly into his countrymen's +thoughts and language. + +Michelangelo, who was born in time--1475--to enjoy in Lorenzo the +Magnificent's house the new and precious advantage of printed books, +became as a boy a profound student of the poet, and when later an +appeal was made from Florence to the Pope to sanction the removal of +Dante's bones to Florence, Michelangelo was among the signatories. But +it was not done. His death-mask from Ravenna is in the Bargello: +a few of his bones and their coffin are still in Ravenna, in the +monastery of Classe, piously preserved in a room filled with Dante +relics and literature; his tomb is elsewhere at Ravenna, a shrine +visited by thousands every year. + +Ever since has Dante's fame been growing, so that only the Bible has +led to more literature; and to-day Florence is more proud of him than +any of her sons, except perhaps Michelangelo. We have seen one or +two reminders of him already; more are here where we stand. We have +seen the picture in honour of him which the Republic set up in the +cathedral; his head on a beautiful inlaid door in the Palazzo Vecchio, +the building where his sentence of banishment was devised and carried, +to be followed by death sentence thrice repeated (burning alive, +to be exact); and we have seen the head-quarters of the Florentine +Dante society in the guild house at Or San Michele. We have still +to see his statue opposite S. Croce, another fresco head in S. Maria +Novella, certain holograph relics at the library at S. Lorenzo, and +his head again by his friend Giotto, in the Bargello, where he would +have been confined while waiting for death had he been captured. + +Dante's house has been rebuilt, very recently, and next to it is a +newer building still, with a long inscription in Italian upon it, +to the effect that the residence of Bella and Bellincione Alighieri +stood hereabouts, and in that abode was Dante born. The Commune of +Florence, it goes on to say, having secured possession of the site, +"built this edifice on the remains of the ancestral house as fresh +evidence of the public veneration of the divine poet". The Torre della +Castagna, across the way, has an inscription in Italian, which may be +translated thus: "This Tower, the so-called Tower of the Chestnut, is +the solitary remnant of the head-quarters from which the Priors of the +Arts governed Florence, before the power and glory of the Florentine +Commune procured the erection of the Palace of the Signoria". + +Few persons in the real city of Florence, it may be said confidently, +live in a house built for them; but hereabouts none at all. In fact, +it is the exception anywhere near the centre of the city to live in +a house built less than three centuries ago. Palaces abound, cut up +into offices, flats, rooms, and even cinema theatres. The telegraph +office in the Via del Proconsolo is a palace commissioned by the +Strozzi but never completed: hence its name, Nonfinito; next it is +the superb Palazzo Quaratesi, which Brunelleschi designed, now the +head-quarters of a score of firms and an Ecclesiastical School whence +sounds of sacred song continually emerge. + +Since we have Mino da Fiesole in our minds and are on the subject +of old palaces let us walk from the Dante quarter in a straight line +from the Corso, that very busy street of small shops, across the Via +del Proconsolo and down the Borgo degli Albizzi to S. Ambrogio, where +Mino was buried. This Borgo is a street of palaces and an excellent one +in which to reflect upon the strange habit which wealthy Florentines +then indulged of setting their mansions within a few feet of those +opposite. Houses--or rather fortresses--that must have cost fortunes +and have been occupied by families of wealth and splendour were +erected so close to their vis-à -vis that two carts could not pass +abreast between them. Side by side contiguity one can understand, +but not this other adjacence. Every ground floor window is barred +like a gaol. Those bars tell us something of the perils of life in +Florence in the great days of faction ambition; while the thickness +of the walls and solidity of construction tell us something too of +the integrity of the Florentine builders. These ancient palaces, +one feels, whatever may happen to them, can never fall to ruin. Such +stones as are placed one upon the other in the Pitti and the Strozzi +and the Riccardi nothing can displace. It is an odd thought that +several Florentine palaces and villas built before Columbus sailed +for America are now occupied by rich Americans, some of them draw +possibly much of their income from the manufacture of steel girders +for sky-scrapers. These ancient streets with their stern and sombre +palaces specially touched the imagination of Dickens when he was in +Florence in 1844, but in his "Pictures from Italy" he gave the city +only fugitive mention. The old prison, which then adjoined the Palazzo +Vecchio, and in which the prisoners could be seen, also moved him. + +The Borgo degli Albizzi, as I have said, is crowded with +Palazzi. No. 24--and there is something very incongruous in palaces +having numbers at all--is memorable in history as being one of the +homes of the Pazzi family who organized the conspiracy against the +Medici in 1478, as I have related in the second chapter, and failed +so completely. Donatello designed the coat of arms here. The palace +at No. 18 belonged to the Altoviti. No. 12 is the Palazzo Albizzi, +the residence of one of the most powerful of the Florentine families, +whose allies were all about them in this quarter, as it was wise to be. + +As a change from picture galleries, I can think of nothing more +delightful than to wander about these ancient streets, and, wherever a +courtyard or garden shines, penetrate to it; stopping now and again to +enjoy the vista, the red Duomo, or Giotto's tower, so often mounting +into the sky at one end, or an indigo Apennine at the other. Standing +in the middle of the Via Ricasoli, for example, one has sight of both. + +At the Piazza S. Pietro we see one of the old towers of Florence, +of which there were once so many, into which the women and children +might retreat in times of great danger, and here too is a series of +arches which fruit and vegetable shops make gay. + +The next Piazza is that of S. Ambrogio. This church is interesting +not only for doing its work in a poor quarter--one has the feeling at +once that it is a right church in the right place--but as containing, +as I have said, the grave of Mino da Fiesole: Mino de' Poppi detto da +Fiesole, as the floor tablet has it. Over the altar of Mino's little +chapel is a large tabernacle from his hand, in which the gayest little +Boy gives the benediction, own brother to that one by Desiderio at +S. Lorenzo. The tabernacle must be one of the master's finest works, +and beneath it is a relief in which a priest pours something--perhaps +the very blood of Christ which is kept here--from one chalice to +another held by a kneeling woman, surrounded by other kneeling women, +which is a marvel of flowing beauty and life. The lines of it are +peculiarly lovely. + +On the wall of the same little chapel is a fresco by Cosimo Rosselli +which must once have been a delight, representing a procession of +Corpus Christi--this chapel being dedicated to the miracle of the +Sacrament--and it contains, according to Vasari, a speaking likeness of +Pico della Mirandola. Other graves in the church are those of Cronaca, +the architect of the Palazzo Vecchio's great Council Room, a friend +of Savonarola and Rosselli's nephew by marriage; and Verrocchio, the +sculptor, whose beautiful work we are now to see in the Bargello. It +is said that Lorenzo di Credi also lies here, and Albertinelli, +who gave up the brush for innkeeping. + +Opposite the church, on a house at the corner of the Borgo S. Croce +and the Via de' Macci, is a della Robbia saint--one of many such +mural works of art in Florence. Thus, at the corner of the Via Cavour +and the Via de' Pucci, opposite the Riccardi palace, is a beautiful +Madonna and Child by Donatello. In the Via Zannetti, which leads +out of the Via Cerretani, is a very pretty example by Mino, a few +houses on the right. These are sculpture. And everywhere in the older +streets you may see shrines built into the wall: there is even one in +the prison, in the Via dell' Agnolo, once the convent of the Murate, +where Catherine de' Medici was imprisoned as a girl; but many of them +are covered with glass which has been allowed to become black. + +A word or two on S. Egidio, the church of the great hospital of +S. Maria Nuova, might round off this chapter, since it was Folco +Portinari, Beatrice's father, who founded it. The hospital stands +in a rather forlorn square a few steps from the Duomo, down the Via +dell' Orivolo and then the first to the left; and it extends right +through to the Via degli Alfani in cloisters and ramifications. The +façade is in a state of decay, old frescoes peeling off it, but one +picture has been enclosed for protection--a gay and busy scene of the +consecration of the church by Pope Martin V. Within, it is a church +of the poor, notable for its general florid comfort (comparatively) +and Folco's gothic tomb. In the chancel is a pretty little tabernacle +by Mino, which used to have a bronze door by Ghiberti, but has it no +longer, and a very fine della Robbia Madonna and Child, probably by +Andrea. Behind a grille, upstairs, sit the hospital nurses. In the +adjoining cloisters--one of the high roads to the hospital proper--is +the ancient statue of old Monna Tessa, Beatrice's nurse, and, in a +niche, a pretty symbolical painting of Charity by that curious painter +Giovanni di San Giovanni. It was in the hospital that the famous Van +der Goes triptych used to hang. + +A tablet on a house opposite S. Egidio, a little to the right, +states that it was there that Ghiberti made the Baptistery gates +which Michelangelo considered fit to be the portals of Paradise. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +The Bargello + +Plastic art--Blood-soaked stones--The faithful +artists--Michelangelo--Italian custodians--The famous +Davids--Michelangelo's tondo--Brutus--Benedetto da +Rovezzano--Donatello's life-work--The S. George--Verrocchio--Ghiberti +and Brunelleschi and the Baptistery doors--Benvenuto Cellini--John of +Bologna--Antonio Pollaiuolo--Verrocchio again--Mino da Fiesole--The +Florentine wealth of sculpture--Beautiful ladies--The della +Robbias--South Kensington and the Louvre. + +Before my last visit but one to Florence, plastic art was less +attractive to me than pictorial art. But now I am not sure. At +any rate when, here in England, I think of Florence, as so often +I do, I find myself visiting in imagination the Bargello before the +Uffizi. Pictures in any number can bewilder and dazzle as much as they +delight. The eye tires. And so, it is true, can a multiplicity of +antique statuary such as one finds at the Vatican or at the Louvre; +but a small collection of Renaissance work, so soft and human, +as at the Bargello, is not only joy-giving but refreshing too. The +soft contours soothe as well as enrapture the eye: the tenderness of +the Madonnas, the gentleness of the Florentine ladies and youths, as +Verrocchio and Mino da Fiesole, Donatello, and Pollaiuolo moulded them, +calm one where the perfection of Phidias and Praxiteles excites. Hence +the very special charm of the Bargello, whose plastic treasures are +comparatively few and picked, as against the heaped profusion of paint +in the Uffizi and the Pitti. It pairs off rather with the Accademia, +and has this further point in common with that choicest of galleries, +that Michelangelo's chisel is represented in both. + +The Bargello is at the corner of the Via Ghibellina in the narrow +Via del Proconsolo--so narrow that if you take one step off the +pavement a tram may easily sweep you into eternity; so narrow also +that the real dignity of the Bargello is never to be properly seen, +and one thinks of it rather for its inner court and staircase and +its strong tower than for its massive façades. Its history is soaked +in blood. It was built in the middle of the thirteenth century as the +residence of the chief magistrate of the city, the Capitano del popolo, +or Podestà , first appointed soon after the return of the Guelphs in +1251, and it so remained, with such natural Florentine vicissitudes +as destruction by mobs and fire, for four hundred years, when, in +1574, it was converted into a prison and place of execution and the +head-quarters of the police, and changed its name from the Palazzo +del Podestà to that by which it is now known, so called after the +Bargello, or chief of the police. + +It is indeed fortunate that no rioters succeeded in obliterating +Giotto's fresco in the Bargello chapel, which he painted probably in +1300, when his friend Dante was a Prior of the city. Giotto introduced +the portrait of Dante which has drawn so many people to this little +room, together with portraits of Corso Donati, and Brunetto Latini, +Dante's tutor. Whitewash covered it for two centuries. Dante's head +has been restored. + +It was in 1857 that the Bargello was again converted, this time to its +present gracious office of preserving the very flower of Renaissance +plastic art. + +Passing through the entrance hall, which has a remarkable collection of +Medicean armour and weapons, and in which (I have read but not seen) +is an oubliette under one of the great pillars, the famous court is +gained and the famous staircase. Of this court what can I say? Its +quality is not to be communicated in words; and even the photographs of +it that are sold have to be made from pictures, which the assiduous +Signor Giuliani, among others, is always so faithfully painting, +stone for stone. One forgets all the horrors that once were enacted +here--the execution of honourable Florentine patriots whose only +offence was that in their service of this proud and beautiful city they +differed from those in power; one thinks only of the soft light on the +immemorial walls, the sturdy graceful columns, the carved escutcheons, +the resolute steps, the spaciousness and stern calm of it all. + +In the colonnade are a number of statues, the most famous of which +is perhaps the "Dying Adonis" which Baedeker gives to Michelangelo +but the curator to Vincenzo di Rossi; an ascription that would annoy +Michelangelo exceedingly, if it were a mistake, since Rossi was a +pupil of his enemy, the absurd Bandinelli. Mr. W.G. Waters, in his +"Italian Sculptors," considers not only that Michelangelo was the +sculptor, but that the work was intended to form part of the tomb of +Pope Julius. In the second room opposite the main entrance across the +courtyard, we come however to Michelangelo authentic and supreme, +for here are his small David, his Brutus, his Bacchus, and a tondo +of the Madonna and Child. + +According to Baedeker the Bacchus and the David revolve. Certainly they +are on revolving stands, but to say that they revolve is to disregard +utterly the character of the Italian official. A catch holds each in +its place, and any effort to release this or to induce the custodian to +release it is equally futile. "Chiuso" (closed), he replies, and that +is final. Useless to explain that the backs of statues can be beautiful +as the front; that one of the triumphs of great statuary is its equal +perfection from every point; that the revolving stand was not made +for a joke but for a serious purpose. "Chiuso," he replies. The museum +custodians of Italy are either like this--jaded figures of apathy--or +they are enthusiasts. To each enthusiast there are ninety-nine of the +other, who either sit in a kind of stupor and watch you with sullen +suspicion, or clear their throats as no gentleman should. The result +is that when one meets the enthusiasts one remembers them. There is +a little dark fellow in the Brera at Milan whose zeal in displaying +the merits of Mantegna's foreshortened Christ is as unforgettable as +a striking piece of character-acting in a theatre. There is a more +reserved but hardly less appreciative official in the Accademia at +Bologna with a genuine if incommunicable passion for Guido Reni. And, +lastly, there is Alfred Branconi, at S. Croce, with his continual and +rapturous "It is faine! It is faine!" but he is a private guide. The +Bargello custodians belong to the other camp. + +The fondness of sculptors for David as a subject is due to the fact +that the Florentines, who had spent so much of their time under +tyrants and so much of their blood in resisting them, were captivated +by the idea of this stripling freeing his compatriots from Goliath +and the Philistines. David, as I have said in my remarks on the +Piazza della Signoria, stood to them, with Judith, as a champion of +liberty. He was alluring also on account of his youth, so attractive +to Renaissance sculptors and poets, and the Florentines' admiration +was not diminished by the circumstance that his task was a singularly +light one, since he never came to close quarters with his antagonist +at all and had the Lord of Hosts on his side. A David of mythology, +Perseus, another Florentine hero, a stripling with what looked like +a formidable enemy, also enjoyed supernatural assistance. + +David appealed to the greatest sculptors of all--to Michelangelo, +to Donatello, and to Verrocchio; and Michelangelo made two figures, +one of which is here and the other at the Accademia, and Donatello +two figures, both of which are here, so that, Verrocchio's example +being also here, very interesting comparisons are possible. + +Personally I put Michelangelo's small David first; it is the one +in which, apart from its beauty, you can best believe. His colossal +David seems to me one of the most glorious things in the world; but it +is not David; not the simple, ruddy shepherd lad of the Bible. This +David could obviously defeat anybody. Donatello's more famous David, +in the hat, upstairs, is the most charming creature you ever saw, +but it had been far better to call him something else. Both he and +Verrocchio's David, also upstairs, are young tournament nobles rather +than shepherd lads who have slung a stone at a Philistine bully. I see +them both--but particularly perhaps Verrocchio's--in the intervals of +strife most acceptably holding up a lady's train, or lying at her feet +reading one of Boccaccio's stories; neither could ever have watched +a flock. Donatello's second David, behind the more famous one, has +more reality; but I would put Michelangelo's smaller one first. And +what beautiful marble it is--so rich and warm! + +One point which both Donatello's and Verrocchio's David emphasizes +is the gulf that was fixed between the Biblical and religious +conception of the youthful psalmist and that of these sculptors of the +Renaissance. One can, indeed, never think of Donatello as a religious +artist. Serious, yes; but not religious, or at any rate not religious +in the too common sense of the word, in the sense of appertaining +to a special reverential mood distinguished from ordinary moods of +dailiness. His David, as I have said, is a comely, cultured boy, +who belongs to the very flower of chivalry and romance. Verrocchio's +is akin to him, but he has less radiant mastery. Donatello's David +might be the young lord; Verrocchio's, his page. Here we see the new +spirit, the Renaissance, at work, for though religion called it into +being and the Church continued to be its patron, it rapidly divided +into two halves, and while the painters were bringing all their +genius to glorify sacred history, the scholars were endeavouring to +humanize it. In this task they had no such allies as the sculptors, +and particularly Donatello, who, always thinking independently and +vigorously, was their best friend. Donatello's David fought also more +powerfully for the modern spirit (had he known it) than ever he could +have done in real life with such a large sword in such delicate hands; +for by being the first nude statue of a Biblical character, he made +simpler the way to all humanists in whatever medium they worked. + +Michelangelo was not often tender. Profoundly sad he could be: indeed +his own head, in bronze, at the Accademia, might stand for melancholy +and bitter world-knowledge; but seldom tender; yet the Madonna and +Child in the circular bas-relief in this ground-floor room have +something very nigh tenderness, and a greatness that none of the +other Italian sculptors, however often they attempted this subject, +ever reached. The head of Mary in this relief is, I think, one of the +most beautiful things in Florence, none the less so for the charming +head-dress which the great austere artist has given her. The Child +is older than is usual in such groups, and differs in another way, +for tiring of a reading lesson, He has laid His arm upon the book: +a pretty touch. + +Michelangelo's Bacchus, an early work, is opposite. It is a remarkable +proof of his extraordinary range that the same little room should +contain the David, the Madonna, the Brutus, and the Bacchus. In +David one can believe, as I have said, as the young serious stalwart +of the Book of Kings. The Madonna, although perhaps a shade too +intellectual--or at any rate more intellectual and commanding than +the other great artists have accustomed us to think of her--has a +sweet gravity and power and almost domestic tenderness. The Brutus +is powerful and modern and realistic; while Bacchus is steeped in the +Greek spirit, and the little faun hiding behind him is the very essence +of mischief. Add to these the fluid vigour of the unfinished relief +of the Martyrdom of S. Andrew, No. 126, and you have five examples of +human accomplishment that would be enough without the other Florentine +evidences at all--the Medici chapel tombs and the Duomo Pieta. + +The inscription under the Brutus says: "While the sculptor was carving +the statue of Brutus in marble, he thought of the crime and held +his hand"; and the theory is that Michelangelo was at work upon this +head at Rome when, in 1537, Lorenzino de' Medici, who claimed to be +a modern Brutus, murdered Alessandro de' Medici. But it might easily +have been that the sculptor was concerned only with Brutus the friend +of Cæsar and revolted at his crime. The circumstance that the head +is unfinished matters nothing. Once seen it can never be forgotten. + +Although Michelangelo is, as always, the dominator, this room has +other possessions to make it a resort of visitors. At the end is a +fireplace from the Casa Borgherini, by Benedetto da Rovezzano, which +probably has not an equal, although the pietra serena of which it is +made is a horrid hue; and on the walls are fragments of the tomb of +S. Giovanni Gualberto at Vallombrosa, designed by the same artist but +never finished. Benedetto (1474-1556) has a peculiar interest to the +English in having come to England in 1524 at the bidding of Cardinal +Wolsey to design a tomb for that proud prelate. On Wolsey's disgrace, +Henry VIII decided that the tomb should be continued for his own bones; +but the sculptor died first and it was unfinished. Later Charles I cast +envious eyes upon it and wished to lie within it; but circumstances +deprived him too of the honour. Finally, after having been despoiled +of certain bronze additions, the sarcophagus was used for the remains +of Nelson, which it now holds, in St. Paul's crypt. The Borgherini +fireplace is a miracle of exquisite work, everything having received +thought, the delicate traceries on the pillars not less than the +frieze. The fireplace is in perfect condition, not one head having +been knocked off, but the Gualberto reliefs are badly damaged, yet +full of life. The angel under the saint's bier in No. 104 almost moves. + +In this room look also at the beautiful blades of barley on the +pillars in the corner close to Brutus, and the lovely frieze by an +unknown hand above Michelangelo's Martyrdom of S. Andrew, and the +carving upon the two niches for statues on either side of the door. + +The little room through which one passes to the Michelangelos may +well be lingered in. There is a gravely fine floor-tomb of a nun +to the left of the door--No. 20--which one would like to see in its +proper position instead of upright against the wall; and a stone font +in the middle which is very fine. There is also a beautiful tomb by +Giusti da Settignano, and the iron gates are worth attention. + +From Michelangelo let us ascend the stairs, past the splendid gates, +to Donatello; and here a word about that sculptor, for though we +meet him again and again in Florence (yet never often enough) it is +in the upper room in the Bargello that he is enthroned. Of Donatello +there is nothing known but good, and good of the most captivating +variety. Not only was he a great creative genius, equally the first +modern sculptor and the sanest, but he was himself tall and comely, +open-handed, a warm friend, humorous and of vigorous intellect. A +hint of the affection in which he was held is obtained from his name +Donatello, which is a pet diminutive of Donato--his full style being +Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi. Born in 1386, four years before +Fra Angelico and nearly a century after Giotto, he was the son of a +well-to-do wool-comber who was no stranger to the perils of political +energy in these times. Of Donatello's youth little is known, but it is +almost certain that he helped Ghiberti with his first Baptistery doors, +being thirteen when that sculptor began upon them. At sixteen he was +himself enrolled as a sculptor. It was soon after this that, as I have +said in the first chapter, he accompanied his friend Brunelleschi, +who was thirteen years his senior, to Rome; and returning alone he +began work in Florence in earnest, both for the cathedral and campanile +and for Or San Michele. In 1425 he took into partnership Michelozzo, +and became, with him, a protégé of Cosimo de' Medici, with whom both +continued on friendly terms for the rest of their lives. In 1433 he +was in Rome again, probably not sorry to be there since Cosimo had +been banished and had taken Michelozzo with him. On the triumphant +return of Cosimo in 1434 Donatello's most prosperous period began; +for he was intimate with the most powerful man in Florence, was +honoured by him, and was himself at the useful age of forty-four. + +Of Donatello as an innovator I have said something above, in +considering the Florentine Davids, but he was also the inventor of +that low relief in which his school worked, called rilievo stiacciato, +of which there are some excellent examples at South Kensington. In +Ghiberti's high relief, breaking out often into completely detached +figures, he was also a master, as we shall see at S. Lorenzo. But his +greatest claim to distinction is his psychological insight allied +to perfect mastery of form. His statues were not only the first +really great statues since the Greeks, but are still (always leaving +Michelangelo on one side as abnormal) the greatest modern examples +judged upon a realistic basis. Here in the Bargello, in originals and +in casts, he may be adequately appreciated; but to Padua his admirers +must certainly go, for the bronze equestrian statue of Gattamelata is +there. Donatello was painted by his friend Masaccio at the Carmine, +but the fresco has perished. He is to be seen in the Uffizi portico, +although that is probably a fancy representation; and again on a tablet +in the wall opposite the apse of the Duomo. The only contemporary +portrait (and this is very doubtful) is in a picture in the Louvre +given to Uccello--a serious, thoughtful, bearded face with steady, +observant eyes: one of five heads, the others being Giotto, Manetti, +Brunelleschi, and Uccello himself. + +Donatello, who never married, but lived for much of his life with his +mother and sister, died at a great age, cared for both by Cosimo de' +Medici and his son and successor Piero. He was buried with Cosimo +in S. Lorenzo. Vasari tells us that he was free, affectionate, and +courteous, but of a high spirit and capable of sudden anger, as when +he destroyed with a blow a head he had made for a mean patron who +objected to its very reasonable price. "He thought," says Vasari, +"nothing of money, keeping it in a basket suspended from the ceiling, +so that all his workmen and friends took what they wanted without +saying anything." He was as careless of dress as great artists have +ever been, and of a handsome robe which Cosimo gave him he complained +that it spoiled his work. When he was dying his relations affected +great concern in the hope of inheriting a farm at Prato, but he told +them that he had left it to the peasant who had always toiled there, +and he would not alter his will. + +The Donatello collection in the Bargello has been made representative +by the addition of casts. The originals number ten: there is also +a cast of the equestrian statue of Gattemalata at Padua, which is, +I suppose, next to Verrocchio's Bartolommeo Colleoni at Venice, the +finest equestrian statue that exists; heads from various collections, +including M. Dreyfus' in Paris, although Dr. Bode now gives that +charming example to Donatello's pupil Desiderio; and various +other masterpieces elsewhere. But it is the originals that chiefly +interest us, and first of these in bronze is the David, of which I +have already spoken, and first of these in marble the S. George. This +George is just such a resolute, clean, warlike idealist as one dreams +him. He would kill a dragon, it is true; but he would eat and sleep +after it and tell the story modestly and not without humour. By a +happy chance the marble upon which Donatello worked had light veins +running through it just where the head is, with the result that the +face seems to possess a radiance of its own. This statue was made for +Or San Michele, where it used to stand until 1891, when the present +bronze replica that takes its place was made. The spirited marble +frieze underneath it at Or San Michele is the original and has been +there for centuries. It was this S. George whom Ruskin took as the +head and inspiration of his Saint George's Guild. + +The David is interesting not only in itself but as being the first +isolated statue of modern times. It was made for Cosimo de' Medici, +to stand in the courtyard of the Medici palace (now the Riccardi), +and until that time, since antiquity, no one had made a statue to +stand on a pedestal and be observable from all points. Hitherto modern +sculptors had either made reliefs or statues for niches. It was also +the first nude statue of modern times; and once again one has the +satisfaction of recognizing that the first was the best. At any rate, +no later sculptor has made anything more charming than this figure, +or more masterly within its limits. + +After the S. George and the bronze David, the two most memorable things +are the adorable bronze Amorino in its quaint little trousers--or +perhaps not Amorino at all, since it is trampling on a snake, +which such little sprites did not do--and the coloured terra-cotta +bust called Niccolò da Uzzano, so like life as to be after a while +disconcerting. The sensitiveness of the mouth can never have been +excelled. The other originals include the gaunt John the Baptist with +its curious little moustache, so far removed from the Amorino and so +admirable a proof of the sculptor's vigilant thoughtfulness in all +he did; the relief of the infant John, one of the most animated of +the heads (the Baptist at all periods of his life being a favourite +with this sculptor); three bronze heads, of which those of the Young +Gentleman and the Roman Emperor remain most clearly in my mind. But +the authorship of the Roman Emperor is very doubtful. And lastly the +glorious Marzocco--the lion from the front of the Palazzo Vecchio, +firmly holding the Florentine escutcheon against the world. Florence +has other Donatellos--the Judith in the Loggia de' Lanzi, the figures +on Giotto's campanile, the Annunciation in S. Croce, and above all +the cantoria in the Museum of the Cathedral; but this room holds most +of his strong sweet genius. Here (for there are seldom more than two +or three persons in it) you can be on terms with him. + +After the Donatellos we should see the other Renaissance sculpture. But +first the Carrand collection of ivories, pictures, jewels, carvings, +vestments, plaquettes, and objets d'art, bequeathed to Florence +in 1888. Everything here is good and worth examination. Among the +outstanding things is a plaquette, No. 393, a Satyr and a Bacchante, +attributed to Donatello, under the title "Allegory of Spring," which +is the work of a master and a very riot of mythological imagery. The +neighbouring plaquettes, many of them of the school of Donatello, +are all beautiful. + +We now find the sixth salon, to see Verrocchio's David, of which I have +already spoken. This wholly charming boy, a little nearer life perhaps +than Donatello's, although not quite so radiantly distinguished, +illustrates the association of Verrocchio and Leonardo as clearly +as any of the paintings do; for the head is sheer Leonardo. At the +Palazzo Vecchio we saw Verrocchio's boy with the dolphin--that happy +bronze lyric--and outside Or San Michele his Christ and S. Thomas, in +Donatello and Michelozzo's niche, with the flying cherubim beneath. But +as with Donatello, so with Verrocchio, one must visit the Bargello +to see him, in Florence, most intimately. For here are not only his +David, which once known can never be forgotten and is as full of the +Renaissance spirit as anything ever fashioned, whether in bronze, +marble, or paint, but--upstairs--certain other wonderfully beautiful +things to which we shall come, and, that being so, I would like here +to say a little about their author. + +Verrocchio is a nickname, signifying the true eye. Andrea's real name +was de' Cioni; he is known to fame as Andrea of the true eye, and since +he had acquired this style at a time when every eye was true enough, +his must have been true indeed. It is probable that he was a pupil +of Donatello, who in 1435, when Andrea was born, was forty-nine, and +in time he was to become the master of Leonardo: thus are the great +artists related. The history of Florentine art is practically the +history of a family; one artist leads to the other--the genealogy +of genius. The story goes that it was the excellence of the angel +contributed by Leonardo to his master's picture of the Baptism of +Christ (at the Accademia) which decided Verrocchio to paint no more, +just as Ghiberti's superiority in the relief of Abraham and Isaac +drove Brunelleschi from sculpture. If this be so, it accounts for the +extraordinarily small number of pictures by him. Like many artists +of his day Verrocchio was also a goldsmith, but he was versatile +above most, even when versatility was a habit, and excelled also as +a musician. Both Piero de' Medici and Lorenzo employed him to design +their tournament costumes; and it was for Lorenzo that he made this +charming David and the boy and the dolphin. His greatest work of all +is the bronze equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni in Venice, the +finest thing of its kind in the world, and so glorious and exciting +indeed that every city should have a cast of it in a conspicuous +position just for the good of the people. It was while at work upon +this that Verrocchio died, at the age of fifty-three. His body was +brought from Venice by his pupil Lorenzo di Credi, who adored him, +and was buried in S. Ambrogio in Florence. Lorenzo di Credi painted his +portrait, which is now in the Uffizi--a plump, undistinguished-looking +little man. + +In the David room are also the extremely interesting rival bronze +reliefs of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, which were made by Ghiberti and +Brunelleschi as trials of skill to see which would win the commission +to design the new gates of the Baptistery, as I have told earlier in +this book. Six competitors entered for the contest; but Ghiberti's and +Brunelleschi's efforts were alone considered seriously. A comparison +of these two reliefs proves that Ghiberti, at any rate, had a finer +sense of grouping. He filled the space at his disposal more easily +and his hand was more fluent; but there is a very engaging vivacity +in the other work, the realistic details of which are so arresting +as to make one regret that Brunelleschi had for sculpture so little +time. In S. Maria Novella is that crucifix in wood which he carved for +his friend Donatello, but his only other sculptured work in Florence is +the door of his beautiful Pazzi chapel in the cloisters of S. Croce. Of +Ghiberti's Baptistery gates I have said more elsewhere. Enough here +to add that the episode of Abraham and Isaac does not occur in them. + +This little room also has a Cassa Reliquiaria by Ghiberti, below a fine +relief by Bertoldo, Michelangelo's master in sculpture, representing +a battle between the Romans and the Barbarians; cases of exquisite +bronzes; the head, in bronze (No. 25), of an old placid, shrewd woman, +executed from a death-mask, which the photographers call Contessina +de' Bardi, wife of Cosimo de' Medici, by Donatello, but which cannot +be so, since the sculptor died first; heads of Apollo and two babies, +over the Ghiberti and Brunelleschi competition reliefs; a crucifixion +by Bertoldo; a row of babies representing the triumph of Bacchus; and +below these a case of medals and plaquettes, every one a masterpiece. + +The next room, Sala VII, is apportioned chiefly between Cellini +and Gian or Giovanni da Bologna, the two sculptors who dominate the +Loggia de' Lanzi. Here we may see models for Cellini's Perseus in +bronze and wax and also for the relief of the rescue of Andromeda, +under the statue; his Cosimo I, with the wart (omitted by Bandinelli +in the head downstairs, which pairs with Michelangelo's Brutus); +and various smaller works. But personally I find that Cellini will +not do in such near proximity to Donatello, Verrocchio, and their +gentle followers. He was, of course, far later. He was not born (in +1500) until Donatello had been dead thirty-four years, Mino da Fiesole +sixteen years, Desiderio da Settignano thirty-six years, and Verrocchio +twelve years. He thus did not begin to work until the finer impulses +of the Renaissance were exhausted. Giovanni da Bologna, although he, +it is true, was even later (1524-1608), I find more sympathetic; while +Landor boldly proclaimed him superior to Michelangelo. His "Mercury," +in the middle of the room, which one sees counterfeited in all the +statuary shops of Florence, is truly very nearly light as air. If ever +bronze floated, this figure does. His cherubs and dolphins are very +skilful and merry; his turkey and eagle and other animals indicate +that he had humility. John of Bologna is best known at Florence by +his Rape of the Sabines and Hercules and Nessus in the Loggia de' +Lanzi; but the Boboli gardens have a fine group of Oceanus and river +gods by him in the midst of a lake. Before leaving this room look at +the relief of Christ in glory (No. 35), to the left of the door, by +Jacopo Sansovino, a rival of Michelangelo, which is most admirable, +and at the case of bronze animals by Pietro Tacca, John of Bologna's +pupil, who made the famous boar (a copy of an ancient marble) at +the Mercato Nuovo and the reliefs for the pediment of the statue of +Cosimo I (by his master) in the Piazza della Signoria. But I believe +that the most beautiful thing in this room is the bronze figure for +the tomb of Mariano Sozzino by Lorenzo di Pietro. + +Before we look at the della Robbias, which are in the two large rooms +upstairs, let us finish with the marble and terra-cotta statuary in +the two smaller rooms to the left as one passes through the first +della Robbia room. In the first of them, corresponding to the room +with Verrocchio's David downstairs, we find Verrocchio again, with +a bust of Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici (whom Botticelli painted in +the Uffizi holding a medal in his hand) and a most exquisite Madonna +and Child in terra-cotta from S. Maria Nuova. (This is on a hinge, +for better light, but the official skies will fall if you touch +it.) Here also is the bust of a young warrior by Antonio Pollaiuolo +(1429-1498) who was Verrocchio's closest rival and one of Ghiberti's +assistants for the second Baptistery doors. His greatest work is at +Rome, but this bust is indescribably charming, and the softness of the +boy's contours is almost of life. It is sometimes called Giuliano de' +Medici. Other beautiful objects in the room are the terra-cotta Madonna +and Child by Andrea Sansovino (1460-1529), Pollaiuolo's pupil, which +is as radiant although not so domestically lovely as Verrocchio's; +the bust by Benedetto da Maiano (1442-1497) of Pietro Mellini, that +shrewd and wrinkled patron of the Church who presented to S. Croce +the famous pulpit by this sculptor; an ancient lady, by the door, +in coloured terra-cotta, who is thought to represent Monna Tessa, the +nurse of Dante's Beatrice; and certain other works by that delightful +and prolific person Ignoto Fiorentino, who here, and in the next room, +which we now enter, is at his best. + +This next priceless room is chiefly memorable for Verrocchio and +Mino da Fiesole. We come to Verrocchio at once, on the left, where +his relief of the death of Francesca Pitti Tornabuoni (on a tiny +bed only half as long as herself) may be seen. This poor lady, who +died in childbirth, was the wife of Giovanni Tornabuoni, and he it +was who employed Ghirlandaio to make the frescoes in the choir of +S. Maria Novella. (I ought, however, to state that Miss Cruttwell, +in her monograph on Verrocchio, questions both the subject and the +artist.) Close by we have two more works by Verrocchio--No. 180, a +marble relief of the Madonna and Child, the Madonna's dress fastened +by the prettiest of brooches, and She herself possessing a dainty sad +head and the long fingers that Verrocchio so favoured, which we find +again in the famous "Gentildonna" (No. 181) next it--that Florentine +lady with flowers in her bosom, whose contours are so exquisite and +who has such pretty shoulders. + +Near by is the little eager S. John the Baptist as a boy by Antonio +Rossellino (1427-1478), and on the next wall the same sculptor's +circular relief of the Madonna adoring, in a border of cherubs. +In the middle is the masterpiece of Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570): a +Bacchus, so strangely like a genuine antique, full of Greek lightness +and grace. And then we come back to the wall in which the door is, +and find more works from the delicate hand of Mino da Fiesole, whom +we in London are fortunate in being able to study as near home as at +the Victoria and Albert Museum. Of Mino I have said more both at the +Badia and at Fiesole. But here I might remark again that he was born +in 1431 and died in 1484, and was the favourite pupil of Desiderio +da Settignano, who was in his turn the favourite pupil of Donatello. + +In the little church of S. Ambrogio we have seen a tablet to the +memory of Mino, who lies there, not far from the grave of Verrocchio, +whom he most nearly approached in feeling, although their ideal type of +woman differed in everything save the slenderness of the fingers. The +Bargello has both busts and reliefs by him, all distinguished and +sensitive and marked by Mino's profound refinement. The Madonna and +Child in No. 232 are peculiarly beautiful and notable both for high +relief and shallow relief, and the Child in No. 193 is even more +charming. For delicacy and vivacity in marble portraiture it would +be impossible to surpass the head of Rinaldo della Luna; and the two +Medicis are wonderfully real. Everything in Mino's work is thoughtful +and exquisite, while the unusual type of face which so attracted him +gives him freshness too. + +This room and that next it illustrate the wealth of fine sculptors +which Florence had in the fifteenth century, for the works by the +unknown hands are in some cases hardly less beautiful and masterly than +those by the known. Look, for example, at the fleur-de-lis over the +door; at the Madonna and Child next it, on the right; at the girl's +head next to that; at the baby girl at the other end of the room; +and at the older boy and his pendant. But one does not need to come +here to form an idea of the wealth of good sculpture. The streets +alone are full of it. Every palace has beautiful stone-work and an +escutcheon which often only a master could execute--as Donatello +devised that for the Palazzo Pazzi in the Borgo degli Albizzi. On the +great staircase of the Bargello, for example, are numbers of coats +of arms that could not be more beautifully designed and incised. + +In the room leading from that which is memorable for Pollaiuolo's +youth in armour is a collection of medals by all the best medallists, +beginning, in the first case, with Pisanello. Here are his Sigismondo +Malatesta, the tyrant of Rimini, and Isotta his wife; here also is +a portrait of Leon Battista Alberti, who designed and worked on the +cathedral of Rimini as well as upon S. Maria Novella in Florence. On +the other side of this case is the medal commemorating the Pazzi +conspiracy. In other cases are pretty Italian ladies, such as Julia +Astalla, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, with her hair in curls just as in +Ghirlandaio's frescoes, Costanza Rucellai, Leonora Altoviti, Maria +Poliziano, and Maria de' Mucini. + +And so we come to the della Robbias, without whose joyous, radiant +art Florence would be only half as beautiful as she is. Of these +exquisite artists Luca, the uncle, born in 1400, was by far the +greatest. Andrea, his nephew, born in 1435, came next, and then +Giovanni. Luca seems to have been a serious, quiet man who would +probably have made sculpture not much below his friend Donatello's had +not he chanced on the discovery of a means of colouring and glazing +terra-cotta. Examples of this craft are seen all over Florence both +within doors and out, as the pages of this book indicate, but at the +Bargello is the greatest number of small pieces gathered together. I +do not say there is anything here more notable than the Annunciation +attributed to Andrea at the Spedale degli Innocenti, while of course, +for most people, his putti on the façade of that building are the +della Robbia symbol; nor is there anything finer than Luca's work +at Impruneta; but as a collection of sweetness and gentle domestic +beauty these Bargello reliefs are unequalled, both in character and in +volume. Here you see what one might call Roman Catholic art--that is, +the art which at once gives pleasure to simple souls and symbolizes +benevolence and safety--carried out to its highest power. Tenderness, +happiness, and purity are equally suggested by every relief here. Had +Luca and Andrea been entrusted with the creation of the world it +would be a paradise. And, as it is, it seems to me impossible but +that they left the world sweeter than they found it. Such examples +of affection and solicitude as they were continually bringing to the +popular vision must have engendered kindness. + +I have noted as especially beautiful in the first room Nos. 4, +6, 12, 23, by Andrea; and 10 and 21, by Luca. These, by the +way, are the Bargello ascriptions, but the experts do not always +agree. Herr Bode, for example, who has studied the della Robbias with +passionate thoroughness, gives the famous head of the boy, which is +in reproduction one of the best-known works of plastic art, to Luca; +but the Bargello director says Andrea. In Herr Bode's fascinating +monograph, "Florentine Sculptors of the Renaissance," he goes very +carefully into the differences between the uncle and the nephew, +master and pupil. In all the groups, for example, he says that Luca +places the Child on the Madonna's left arm, Andrea on the right. In +the second room I have marked particularly Nos. 21, 28, and 31, +by Luca, 28 being a deeper relief than usual, and the Madonna not +adoring but holding and delighting in one of the most adorable of +Babies. Observe in the reproduction of this relief in this volume-- +how the Mother's fingers sink into the child's flesh. Luca was the +first sculptor to notice that. No. 31 is the lovely Madonna of the +Rose Bower. But nothing gives me more pleasure than the boy's head of +which I have just spoken, attributed to Andrea and also reproduced +here. The "Giovane Donna" which pairs with it has extraordinary +charm and delicacy too. I have marked also, by Andrea, Nos. 71 and +76. Giovanni della Robbia's best is perhaps No. 15, in the other room. + +One curious thing that one notes about della Robbia pottery is its +inability to travel. It was made for the church and it should remain +there. Even in the Bargello, where there is an ancient environment, +it loses half its charm; while in an English museum it becomes hard +and cold. But in a church to which the poor carry their troubles, +with a dim light and a little incense, it is perfect, far beyond +painting in its tenderness and symbolic value. I speak of course +of the Madonnas and altar-pieces. When the della Robbias worked for +the open air--as in the façade of the Children's Hospital, or at the +Certosa, or in the Loggia di San Paolo, opposite S. Maria Novella, +where one may see the beautiful meeting of S. Francis and S. Dominic, +by Andrea--they seem, in Italy, to have fitness enough; but it would +not do to transplant any of these reliefs to an English façade. There +was once, I might add, in Florence a Via della Robbia, but it is now +the Via Nazionale. I suppose this injustice to the great potters came +about in the eighteen-sixties, when popular political enthusiasm led +to every kind of similar re-naming. + +In the room leading out of the second della Robbia room is a collection +of vestments and brocades bequeathed by Baron Giulio Franchetti, where +you may see, dating from as far back as the sixth century, designs +that for beauty and splendour and durability put to shame most of the +stuffs now woven; but the top floor of the Museo Archeologico in the +Via della Colonna is the chief home in Florence of such treasures. + +There are other beautiful things in the Bargello of which I have said +nothing--a gallery of mediaeval bells most exquisitely designed, from +famous steeples; cases of carved ivory; and many of such treasures as +one sees at the Cluny in Paris. But it is for its courtyard and for the +Renaissance sculpture that one goes to the Bargello, and returns again +and again to the Bargello, and it is for these that one remembers it. + +On returning to London the first duty of every one who has drunk +deep of delight in the Bargello is to visit that too much neglected +treasure-house of our own, the Victoria and Albert Museum at South +Kensington. There may be nothing at South Kensington as fine as the +Bargello's finest, but it is a priceless collection and is superior +to the Bargello in one respect at any rate, for it has a relief +attributed to Leonardo. Here also is an adorable Madonna and laughing +Child, beyond anything in Florence for sheer gaiety if not mischief, +which the South Kensington authorities call a Rossellino but Herr +Bode a Desiderio da Settignano. The room is rich too in Donatello +and in Verrocchio, and altogether it makes a perfect footnote to the +Bargello. It also has within call learned gentlemen who can give +intimate information about the exhibits, which the Bargello badly +lacks. The Louvre and the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin--but +particularly the Kaiser Friedrich since Herr Bode, who has such +a passion for this period, became its director--have priceless +treasures, and in Paris I have had the privilege of seeing the little +but exquisite collection formed by M. Gustave Dreyfus, dominated by +that mirthful Italian child which the Bargello authorities consider to +be by Donatello, but Herr Bode gives to Desiderio. At the Louvre, in +galleries on the ground floor gained through the Egyptian sculpture +section and opened very capriciously, may be seen the finest of +the prisoners from Michelangelo's tomb for Pope Julius; Donatello's +youthful Baptist; a Madonna and Children by Agostino di Duccio, whom +we saw at the Museum of the Cathedral; an early coloured terra-cotta +by Luca della Robbia, and No. 316, a terra-cotta Madonna and Child +without ascription, which looks very like Rossellino. + +In addition to originals there are at South Kensington casts of many +of the Bargello's most valuable possessions, such as Donatello's +and Verrocchio's Davids, Donatello's Baptist and many heads, Mino +da Fiesole's best Madonna, Pollaiuolo's Young Warrior, and so forth; +so that to loiter there is most attractively to recapture something +of the Florentine feeling. + + + +CHAPTER XV + +S. Croce + +An historic piazza--Marble façades--Florence's Westminster +Abbey--Galileo's ancestor and Ruskin--Benedetto's +pulpit--Michelangelo's tomb--A fond lady--Donatello's +Annunciation--Giotto's frescoes--S. Francis--Donatello magnanimous--The +gifted Alberti--Desiderio's great tomb--The sacristy--The Medici +chapel--The Pazzi chapel--Old Jacopo desecrated--A Restoration. + +The piazza S. Croce now belongs to children. The church is at one +end, bizarre buildings are on either side, the Dante statue is in the +middle, and harsh gravel covers the ground. Everywhere are children, +all dirty, and all rather squalid and mostly bow-legged, showing that +they were of the wrong age to take their first steps on Holy Saturday +at noon. The long brown building on the right, as we face S. Croce, +is a seventeenth-century palazzo. For the rest, the architecture is +chiefly notable for green shutters. + +The frigid and florid Dante memorial, which was unveiled in 1865 on +the six hundredth anniversary of the poet's birthday, looks gloomily +upon what once was a scene of splendour and animation, for in 1469 +Piero de' Medici devised here a tournament in honour of the betrothal +of Lorenzo to Clarice Orsini. The Queen of the tournament was Lucrezia +Donati, and she awarded the first prize to Lorenzo. The tournament cost +10,000 gold florins and was very splendid, Verrocchio and other artists +being called in to design costumes, and it is thought that Pollaiuolo's +terra-cotta of the Young Warrior in the Bargello represents the comely +Giuliano de' Medici as he appeared in his armour in the lists. The +piazza was the scene also of that famous tournament given by Lorenzo +de' Medici for Giuliano in 1474, of which the beautiful Simonetta +was the Queen of Beauty, and to which, as I have said elsewhere, we +owe Botticelli's two most famous pictures. Difficult to reconstruct +in the Piazza any of those glories to-day. + +The new façade of S. Croce, endowed not long since by an Englishman, +has been much abused, but it is not so bad. As the front of so +beautiful and wonderful a church it may be inadequate, but as a +structure of black and white marble it will do. To my mind nothing +satisfactory can now be done in this medium, which, unless it is +centuries old, is always harsh and cuts the sky like a knife, instead +of resting against it as architecture should. But when it is old, +as at S. Miniato, it is right. + +S. Croce is the Westminster Abbey of Florence. Michelangelo lies here, +Machiavelli lies here, Galileo lies here; and here Giotto painted, +Donatello carved, and Brunelleschi planned. Although outside the church +is disappointing, within it is the most beautiful in Florence. It +has the boldest arches, the best light at all seasons, the most +attractive floor--of gentle red--and an apse almost wholly made of +coloured glass. Not a little of its charm comes from the delicate +passage-way that runs the whole course of the church high up on the +yellow walls. It also has the finest circular window in Florence, +over the main entrance, a "Deposition" by Ghiberti. + +The lightness was indeed once so intense that no fewer than twenty-two +windows had to be closed. The circular window over the altar upon which +a new roof seems to be intruding is in reality the interloper: the roof +is the original one, and the window was cut later, in defiance of good +architecture, by Vasari, who, since he was a pupil of Michelangelo, +should have known better. To him was entrusted the restoration of +the church in the middle of the sixteenth century. + +The original architect of the modern S. Croce was the same Arnolfo di +Cambio, or Lapo, who began the Duomo. He had some right to be chosen +since his father, Jacopo, or Lapo, a German, was the builder of the +most famous of all the Franciscan churches--that at Assisi, which was +begun while S. Francis was still living. And Giotto, who painted in +that church his most famous frescoes, depicting scenes in the life +of S. Francis, succeeded Arnolfo here, as at the Duomo, with equal +fitness. Arnolfo began S. Croce in 1294, the year that the building of +the Duomo was decided upon, as a reply to the new Dominican Church of +S. Maria Novella, and to his German origin is probably due the Northern +impression which the interiors both of S. Croce and the Duomo convey. + +The first thing to examine in S. Croce is the floor-tomb, close to the +centre door, upon which Ruskin wrote one of his most characteristic +passages. The tomb is of an ancestor of Galileo (who lies close +by, but beneath a florid monument), and it represents a mediaeval +scholarly figure with folded hands. Ruskin writes: "That worn face is +still a perfect portrait of the old man, though like one struck out +at a venture, with a few rough touches of a master's chisel. And that +falling drapery of his cap is, in its few lines, faultless, and subtle +beyond description. And now, here is a simple but most useful test of +your capacity for understanding Florentine sculpture or painting. If +you can see that the lines of that cap are both right, and lovely; that +the choice of the folds is exquisite in its ornamental relations of +line; and that the softness and ease of them is complete,--though only +sketched with a few dark touches,--then you can understand Giotto's +drawing, and Botticelli's; Donatello's carving and Luca's. But if +you see nothing in this sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs, +of theirs. Where they choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any +vulgar modern trick with marble--(and they often do)--whatever, in a +word, is French, or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see; +but what is Florentine, and for ever great--unless you can see also +the beauty of this old man in his citizen's cap,--you will see never." + +The passage is in "Mornings in Florence," which begins with S. Croce +and should be read by every one visiting the city. And here let me +advise another companion for this church: a little dark enthusiast, in +a black skull cap, named Alfred Branconi, who is usually to be found +just inside the doors, but may be secured as a guide by a postcard +to the church. Signor Branconi knows S. Croce and he loves it, and +he has the further qualifications of knowing all Florence too and +speaking excellent English, which he taught himself. + +The S. Croce pulpit, which is by Benedetto da Maiano, is a satisfying +thing, accomplished both in proportions and workmanship, with panels +illustrating scenes in the life of S. Francis. These are all most +gently and persuasively done, influenced, of course, by the Baptistery +doors, but individual too, and full of a kindred sweetness and +liveliness. The scenes are the "Confirmation of the Franciscan Order" +(the best, I think); the "Burning of the Books"; the "Stigmata," +which we shall see again in the church, in fresco, for here we are +all dedicated to the saint of Assisi, not yet having come upon the +stern S. Dominic, the ruler at S. Marco and S. Maria Novella; the +"Death of S. Francis," very real and touching, which we shall also +see again; and the execution of certain Franciscans. Benedetto, +who was also an architect and made the plan of the Strozzi palace, +was so unwilling that anything should mar the scheme of his pulpit, +that after strengthening this pillar with the greatest care and +thoroughness, he hollowed it and placed the stairs inside. + +The first tomb on the right, close to this pulpit, is Michelangelo's, +a mass of allegory, designed by his friend Vasari, the author of the +"Lives of the Artists," the reading of which is perhaps the best +preparation for the understanding of Florence. "If life pleases us," +Michelangelo once said, "we ought not to be grieved by death, which +comes from the same Giver." Michelangelo had intended the Pietà , now +in the Duomo, to stand above his grave; but Vasari, who had a little +of the Pepys in his nature, thought to do him greater honour by this +ornateness. The artist was laid to his rest in 1564, but not before his +body was exhumed, by his nephew, at Rome, where the great man had died, +and a series of elaborate ceremonies had been performed, which Vasari, +who is here trustworthy enough, describes minutely. All the artists +in Florence vied in celebrating the dead master in memorial paintings +for his catafalque and its surroundings, which have now perished; +but probably the loss is not great, except as an example of homage, +for that was a bad period. How bad it was may be a little gauged by +Vasari's tributory tomb and his window over the high altar. + +Opposite Michelangelo's tomb, on the pillar, is the pretty but rather +Victorian "Madonna del Latte," surrounded by angels, by Bernardo +Rossellino (1409-1464), brother of the author of the great tomb at +S. Miniato. This pretty relief was commissioned as a family memorial +by that Francesco Nori, the close friend of Lorenzo de' Medici, who +was killed in the Duomo during the Pazzi conspiracy in his effort to +save Lorenzo from the assassins. + +The tomb of Alfieri, the dramatist, to which we now come, was +erected at the cost of his mistress, the Countess of Albany, +who herself sat to Canova for the figure of bereaved Italy. This +curious and unfortunate woman became, at the age of nineteen, the +wife of the Young Pretender, twenty-seven years after the '45, and +led a miserable existence with him (due chiefly to his depravity, +but a little, she always held, to the circumstance that they chose +Good Friday for their wedding day) until Alfieri fell in love with +her and offered his protection. Together she and the poet remained, +apparently contented with each other and received by society, even +by the English Royal family, until Alfieri died, in 1803, when after +exclaiming that she had lost all--"consolations, support, society, +all, all!"--and establishing this handsome memorial, she selected the +French artist Fabre to fill the aching void in her fifty-years-old +heart; and Fabre not only filled it until her death in 1824, but +became the heir of all that had been bequeathed to her by both the +Stuart and Alfieri. Such was the Countess of Albany, to whom human +affection was so necessary. She herself is buried close by, in the +chapel of the Castellani. + +Mrs. Piozzi, in her "Glimpses of Italian Society," mentions seeing +in Florence in 1785 the unhappy Pretender. Though old and sickly, +he went much into society, sported the English arms and livery, +and wore the garter. + +Other tombs in the right aisle are those of Machiavelli, the +statesman and author of "The Prince," and Rossini, the composer of +"William Tell," who died in Paris in 1868, but was brought here for +burial. These tombs are modern and of no artistic value, but there +is near them a fine fifteenth-century example in the monument by +Bernardo Rossellino to another statesman and author, Leonardo Bruni, +known as Aretino, who wrote the lives of Dante and Petrarch and a +Latin history of Florence, a copy of which was placed on his heart at +his funeral. This tomb is considered to be Rossellino's masterpiece; +but there is one opposite by another hand which dwarfs it. + +There is also a work of sculpture near it, in the same wall, which +draws away the eyes--Donatello's "Annunciation". The experts now think +this to belong to the sculptor's middle period, but Vasari thought it +earlier, and makes it the work which had most influence in establishing +his reputation; while according to the archives it was placed in the +church before Donatello was living. Vasari ought to be better informed +upon this point than usual, since it was he who was employed in the +sixteenth century to renovate S. Croce, at which time the chapel for +whose altar the relief was made--that of the Cavalcanti family--was +removed. The relief now stands unrelated to anything. Every detail of +it should be examined; but Alfred Branconi will see to that. The stone +is the grey pietra serena of Fiesole, and Donatello has plentifully, +but not too plentifully, lightened it with gold, which is exactly what +all artists who used this medium for sculpture should have done. By a +pleasant tactful touch the designer of the modern Donatello monument +in S. Lorenzo has followed the master's lead. + +Almost everything of Donatello's that one sees is in turn the best; but +standing before this lovely work one is more than commonly conscious +of being in the presence of a wonderful creator. The Virgin is wholly +unlike any other woman, and She is surprising and modern even for +Donatello with his vast range. The charming terra-cotta boys above +are almost without doubt from the same hand, but they cannot have +been made for this monument. + +To the della Robbias we come in the Castellani chapel in the right +transept, which has two full-length statues by either Luca or +Andrea, in the gentle glazed medium, of S. Francis and S. Bernard, +quite different from anything we have seen or shall see, because +isolated. The other full-size figures by these masters--such as +those at Impruneta--are placed against the wall. The S. Bernard, +on the left as one enters the chapel, is far the finer. It surely +must be one of the most beautiful male draped figures in the world. + +The next chapel, at the end of the transept, was once enriched by +Giotto frescoes, but they no longer exist. There are, however, an +interesting but restored series of scenes in the life of the Virgin +by Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's godson; a Madonna ascending to heaven, +by Mainardi, who was Ghirlandaio's pupil, and so satisfactory a one +that he was rewarded by the hand of his master's sister; and a pretty +piece of Gothic sculpture with the Christ Child upon it. Hereabouts, +I may remark, we have continually to be walking over floor-tombs, +now ruined beyond hope, their ruin being perhaps the cause of a +protecting rail being placed round the others; although a floor-tomb +should have, I think, a little wearing from the feet of worshippers, +just to soften the lines. Those at the Certosa are, for example, +far too sharp and clean. + +Let us complete the round of the church before we examine the sacristy, +and go now to the two chapels, where Giotto may be found at his best, +although restored too, on this side of the high altar. The Peruzzi +chapel has scenes from the lives of the two S. Johns, the Baptist, +and the Evangelist: all rather too thoroughly re-painted, although +following Giotto's groundwork closely enough to retain much of +their interest and value. And here once again one should consult the +"Mornings in Florence," where the wilful discerning enthusiast is, +like his revered subject, also at his best. Giotto's thoughtfulness +could not be better illustrated than in S. Croce. One sees him, as +ever, thinking of everything: not a very remarkable attribute of the +fresco painter since then, but very remarkable then, when any kind of +facile saintliness sufficed. Signor Bianchi, who found these paintings +under the whitewash in 1853, and restored them, overdid his part, +there is no doubt; but as I have said, their interest is unharmed, +and it is that which one so delights in. Look, for instance, at the +attitude of Drusiana, suddenly twitched by S. John back again into +this vale of tears, while her bier is on its way to the cemetery +outside the pretty city. "Am I really to live again?" she so plainly +says to the inexorable miracle-worker. The dancing of Herodias' +daughter, which offered Giotto less scope, is original too--original +not because it came so early, but because Giotto's mind was original +and innovating and creative. The musician is charming. The last scene +of all is a delightful blend of religious fervour and reality: the +miraculous ascent from the tomb, through an elegant Florentine loggia, +to everlasting glory, in a blaze of gold, and Christ and an apostle +leaning out of heaven with outstretched hands to pull the saint in, +as into a boat. Such a Christ as that could not but be believed in. + +In the next chapel, the Bardi, we find Giotto at work on a life of +S. Francis, and here again Ruskin is essential. It was a task which, +since this church was the great effort of the Florentine Franciscans, +would put an artist upon his mettle, and Giotto set the chosen +incidents before the observers with the discretion and skill of the +great biographer that he was, and not only that, but the great Assisi +decorator that he was. No choice could have been better at any time +in the history of art. Giotto chose the following scenes, one or two +of which coincide with those on Benedetto da Maiano's pulpit, which +came of course many years later: the "Confirmation of the Rules of the +Franciscans," "S. Francis before the Sultan and the Magi," "S. Francis +Sick and Appearing to the Bishop of Assisi," "S. Francis Fleeing from +His Father's House and His Reception by the Bishop of Assisi," and the +"Death of S. Francis". Giotto's Assisi frescoes, which preceded these, +anticipate them; but in some cases these are considered to be better, +although in others not so good. It is generally agreed that the death +scene is the best. Note the characteristic touch by which Giotto makes +one of the monks at the head of the bed look up at the precise moment +when the saint dies, seeing him being received into heaven. According +to Vasari, one of the two monks (on the extreme left, as I suppose) +is Giotto's portrait of the architect of the church, Amolfo. The altar +picture, consisting of many more scenes in the life of S. Francis, +is often attributed to Cimabue, Giotto's master, but probably is by +another hand. In one of these scenes the saint is found preaching +to what must be the most attentive birds on record. The figures on +the ceiling represent Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, which all +Franciscans are pledged to observe. The glass is coeval with the +building, which has been described as the most perfect Gothic chapel +in existence. + +The founder of this chapel was Ridolfo de' Bardi, whose family early +in the fourteenth century bade fair to become as powerful as the +Medici, and by the same means, their business being banking and +money-lending, in association with the founders of the adjoining +chapel, the Peruzzi. Ridolfo's father died in 1310, and his son, +who had become a Franciscan, in 1327; and the chapel was built, +and Giotto probably painted the frescoes, soon after the father's +death. Both the Bardi and Peruzzi were brought low by our King Edward +III, who borrowed from them money with which to fight the French, +at Crecy and Poitiers, and omitted to repay it. + +The chapels in the left transept are less interesting, except perhaps +to students of painting in its early days. In the chapel at the end +we find Donatello's wooden crucifix which led to that friendly rivalry +on the part of Brunelleschi, the story of which is one of the best in +all Vasari. Donatello, having finished this wooden crucifix, and being +unusually satisfied with it, asked Brunelleschi's opinion, confidently +expecting praise. But Brunelleschi, who was sufficiently close a friend +to say what he thought, replied that the type was too rough and common: +it was not Christ but a peasant. Christ, of course, was a peasant; +but by peasant Brunelleschi meant a stupid, dull man. Donatello, +chagrined, had recourse to what has always been a popular retort to +critics, and challenged him to make a better. Brunelleschi took it very +quietly: he said nothing in reply, but secretly for many months, in +the intervals of his architecture, worked at his own version, and then +one day, when it was finished, invited Donatello to dinner, stopping +at the Mercato Vecchio to get some eggs and other things. These he +gave Donatello to carry, and sent him on before him to the studio, +where the crucifix was standing unveiled. When Brunelleschi arrived he +found the eggs scattered and broken on the floor and Donatello before +his carving in an ecstasy of admiration. "But what are we going to +have for dinner?" the host inquired. "Dinner!" said Donatello; "I've +had all the dinner I require. To thee it is given to carve Christs: +to me only peasants." No one should forget this pretty story, either +here or at S. Maria Novella, where Brunelleschi's crucifix now is. + +The flexible Siena iron grille of this end chapel dates from 1335. Note +its ivy border. + +On entering the left aisle we find the tombs of Cherubini, the +composer, Raphael Morghen, the engraver, and that curious example of +the Florentine universalist, whose figure we saw under the Uffizi, +Leon Battista Alberti (1405-1472), architect, painter, author, +mathematician, scholar, conversationalist, aristocrat, and friend of +princes. His chief work in Florence is the Rucellai palace and the +façade of S. Maria Novella, but he was greater as an influence than +creator, and his manuals on architecture, painting, and the study of +perspective helped to bring the arts to perfection. It is at Rimini +that he was perhaps most wonderful. Lorenzo de' Medici greatly valued +his society, and he was a leader in the Platonic Academy. But the most +human achievement to his credit is his powerful plea for using the +vernacular in literature, rather than concealing one's best thoughts, +as was fashionable before his protest, in Latin. So much for Alberti's +intellectual side. Physically he was remarkable too, and one of his +accomplishments was to jump over a man standing upright, while he was +also able to throw a coin on to the highest tower, even, I suppose, +the Campanile, and ride any horse, however wild. At the Bargello may +be seen Alberti's portrait, on a medal designed by Pisanello. The old +medals are indeed the best authority for the lineaments of the great +men of the Renaissance, better far than paint. At South Kensington +thousands may be seen, either in the original or in reproduction. + +In the right aisle we saw Bernardo Rossellino's tomb of Leonardo Bruni; +in the left is that of Bruni's successor as Secretary of State, Carlo +Marsuppini, by Desiderio da Settignano, which is high among the most +beautiful monuments that exist. "Faine, faine!" says Alfred Branconi, +with his black eyes dimmed; and this though he has seen it every day +for years and explained its beauties in the same words. Everything +about it is beautiful, as the photograph which I give in this volume +will help the reader to believe: proportions, figures, and tracery; +but I still consider Mino's monument to Ugo in the Badia the finest +Florentine example of the gentler memorial style, as contrasted with +the severe Michelangelesque manner. Mino, it must be remembered, +was Desiderio's pupil, as Desiderio was Donatello's. Note how +Desiderio, by an inspiration, opened the leaf-work at each side of +the sarcophagus and instantly the great solid mass of marble became +light, almost buoyant. Never can a few strokes of the chisel have had +so transforming an effect. There is some doubt as to whether the boys +are just where the sculptor set them, and the upper ones with their +garlands are thought to be a later addition; but we are never likely +to know. The returned visitor from Florence will like to be reminded +that, as of so many others of the best Florentine sculptures, there +is a cast of this at South Kensington. + +The last tomb of the highest importance in the church is that of +Galileo, the astronomer, who died in 1642; but it is not interesting +as a work of art. In the centre of the church is a floor-tomb by +Ghiberti, with a bronze figure of a famous Franciscan, Francesco +Sansoni da Brescia. + +Next the sacristy. Italian priests apparently have no resentment +against inquisitive foreigners who are led into their dressing-rooms +while sumptuous and significant vestments are being donned; but I must +confess to feeling it for them, and if my impressions of the S. Croce +sacristy are meagre and confused it is because of a certain delicacy +that I experienced in intruding upon their rites. For on both occasions +when I visited the sacristy there were several priests either robing +or disrobing. Apart from a natural disinclination to invade privacy, +I am so poor a Roman Catholic as to be in some doubt as to whether one +has a right to be so near such a mystery at all. But I recollect that +in this sacristy are treasures of wood and iron--the most beautiful +intarsia wainscotting I ever saw, by Giovanni di Michele, with a frieze +of wolves and foliage, and fourteenth-century iron gates to the little +chapel, pure Gothic in design, with a little rose window at the top, +delicate beyond words: all which things once again turn the thoughts +to this wonderful Italy of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, +when not even the best was good enough for those who built churches, +but something miraculous was demanded from every craftsman. + +At the end of the passage in which the sacristy is situated is the +exquisite little Cappella Medici, which Michelozzo, the architect of +S. Marco and the Palazzo Medici, and for a while Donatello's partner, +built for his friend Cosimo de' Medici, who though a Dominican in his +cell at S. Marco was a Franciscan here, but by being equally a patron +dissociated himself from partisanship. Three treasures in particular +does this little temple hold: Giotto's "Coronation of the Virgin"; the +della Robbia altar relief, and Mino da Fiesole's tabernacle. Giotto's +picture, which is signed, once stood as altar-piece in the Baroncelli +chapel of the church proper. In addition to the beautiful della +Robbia altar-piece, so happy and holy--which Alfred Branconi boldly +calls Luca--there is over the door Christ between two angels, +a lovely example of the same art. For a subtler, more modern and +less religious mind, we have but to turn to the tabernacle by Mino, +every inch of which is exquisite. + +On the same wall is a curious thing. In the eighteen-sixties died +a Signor Lombardi, who owned certain reliefs which he believed to +be Donatello's. When his monument was made these ancient works were +built into them and here and there gilded (for it is a wicked world +and there was no taste at that time). One's impulse is not to look +at this encroaching piece of novelty at all; but one should resist +that feeling, because, on examination, the Madonna and Children above +Signor Lombardi's head become exceedingly interesting. Her hands are +the work of a great artist, and they are really holding the Child. Why +this should not be an early Donatello I do not see. + +The cloisters of S. Croce are entered from the piazza, just to the +right of the church: the first, a little ornate, by Arnolfo, and +the second, until recently used as a barracks but now being restored +to a more pacific end, by Brunelleschi, and among the most perfect +of his works. Brunelleschi is also the designer of the Pazzi chapel +in the first cloisters. The severity of the façade is delightfully +softened and enlivened by a frieze of mischievous cherubs' heads, the +joint work of Donatello and Desiderio. Donatello's are on the right, +and one sees at once that his was the bolder, stronger hand. Look +particularly at the laughing head fourth from the right. But that one +of Desiderio's over the middle columns has much charm and power. The +doors, from Brunelleschi's own hand, in a doorway perfect in scale, +are noble and worthy. The chapel itself I find too severe and a little +fretted by its della Robbias and the multiplicity of circles. It is +called Brunelleschi's masterpiece, but I prefer both the Badia of +Fiesole and the Old Sacristy at S. Lorenzo, and I remember with more +pleasure the beautiful doorway leading from the Arnolfo cloisters +to the Brunelleschi cloisters, which probably is his too. The +della Robbia reliefs, once one can forgive them for being here, are +worth study. Nothing could be more charming (or less conducive to a +methodical literary morning) than the angel who holds S. Matthew's +ink-pot. But I think my favourite of all is the pensive apostle who +leans his cheek on his hand and his elbow on his book. This figure +alone proves what a sculptor Luca was, apart altogether from the +charm of his mind and the fascination of his chosen medium. + +This chapel was once the scene of a gruesome ceremony. Old Jacopo +Pazzi, the head of the family at the time of the Pazzi conspiracy +against the Medici, after being hanged from a window of the Palazzo +Vecchio, was buried here. Some short while afterwards Florence was +inundated by rain to such an extent that the vengeance of God was +inferred, and, casting about for a reason, the Florentines decided +that it was because Jacopo had been allowed to rest in sacred soil. A +mob therefore rushed to S. Croce, broke open his tomb and dragged +his body through the streets, stopping on their way at the Pazzi +palace to knock on the door with his skull. He was then thrown into +the swollen Arno and borne away by the tide. + +In the old refectory of the convent are now a number of pictures +and fragments of sculpture. The "Last Supper," by Taddeo Gaddi, on +the wall, is notable for depicting Judas, who had no shrift at the +hands of the painters, without a halo. Castagno and Ghirlandaio, +as we shall see, under similar circumstances, placed him on the +wrong side of the table. In either case, but particularly perhaps in +Taddeo's picture, the answer to Christ's question, which Leonardo at +Milan makes so dramatic, is a foregone conclusion. The "Crucifixion" +on the end wall, at the left, is interesting as having been painted +for the Porta S. Gallo (in the Piazza Cavour) and removed here. All +the gates of Florence had religious frescoes in them, some of which +still remain. The great bronze bishop is said to be by Donatello and +to have been meant for Or San Michele; but one does not much mind. + +One finds occasion to say so many hard things of the Florentine +disregard of ancient art that it is peculiarly a pleasure to see +the progress that is being made in restoring Brunelleschi's perfect +cloisters at S. Croce to their original form. When they were turned +into barracks the Loggia was walled in all round and made into a series +of rooms. These walls are now gradually coming away, the lovely pillars +being again isolated, the chimneys removed, and everything lightly +washed. Grass has also been sown in the great central square. The +crumbling of the decorative medals in the spandrels of the cloisters +cannot of course be restored; but one does not complain of such +natural decay as that. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +The Accademia + +Michelangelo--The David--The tomb of Julius--A contrast--Fra +Angelico--The beatific painter--Cimabue and Giotto--Masaccio--Gentile +da Fabriano--Domenico Ghirlandaio--Fra Angelico again--Fra +Bartolommeo--Perugino--Botticelli--The "Primavera"--Leonardo da Vinci +and Verrocchio--Botticelli's sacred pictures--Botticini--Tapestries +of Eden. + +The Accademia delle Belle Arti is in the Via Ricasoli, that street +which seen from the top of the Campanile is the straightest thing in +Florence, running like a ruled line from the Duomo to the valley of +the Mugnone. Upstairs are modern painters: but upstairs I have never +been. It is the ground-floor rooms that are so memorable, containing +as they do a small but very choice collection of pictures illustrating +the growth of Italian art, with particular emphasis on Florentine +art; the best assemblage of the work of Fra Angelico that exists; +and a large gallery given up to Michelangelo's sculpture: originals +and casts. The principal magnets that draw people here, no doubt, +are the Fra Angelicos and Botticelli's "Primavera"; but in five at +least of the rooms there is not an uninteresting picture, while the +collection is so small that one can study it without fatigue--no +little matter after the crowded Uffizi and Pitti. + +It is a simple matter to choose in such a book as this the best +place in which to tell something of the life-story of, say, Giotto +and Brunelleschi and the della Robbias; for at a certain point their +genius is found concentrated--Donatello's and the della Robbias' +in the Bargello and those others at the Duomo and Campanile. But +with Michelangelo it is different, he is so distributed over the +city--his gigantic David here, the Medici tombs at S. Lorenzo, his +fortifications at S. Miniato, his tomb at S. Croce, while there remains +his house as a natural focus of all his activities. I have, however, +chosen the Medici chapel as the spot best suited for his biography, +and therefore will here dwell only on the originals that are preserved +about the David. The David himself, superb and confident, is the +first thing you see in entering the doors of the gallery. He stands +at the end, white and glorious, with his eyes steadfastly measuring +his antagonist and calculating upon what will be his next move if the +sling misdirects the stone. Of the objection to the statue as being +not representative of the Biblical figure I have said something in the +chapter on the Bargello, where several Davids come under review. Yet, +after all that can be said against its dramatic fitness, the statue +remains an impressive and majestic yet strangely human thing. There +it is--a sign of what a little Italian sculptor with a broken nose +could fashion with his mallet and chisel from a mass of marble four +hundred and more years ago. + +Its history is curious. In 1501, when Michelangelo was twenty-six +and had just returned to Florence from Rome with a great reputation +as a sculptor, the joint authorities of the cathedral and the Arte +della Lana offered him a huge block of marble that had been in their +possession for thirty-five years, having been worked upon clumsily by +a sculptor named Baccellino and then set aside. Michelangelo was told +that if he accepted it he must carve from it a David and have it done +in two years. He began in September, 1501, and finished in January, +1504, and a committee was appointed to decide upon its position, +among them being Leonardo da Vinci, Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi, +Filippino Lippi, Botticelli, and Andrea della Robbia, There were +three suggested sites: the Loggia de' Lanzi; the courtyard of the +Palazzo Vecchio, where Verrocchio's little boudoir David then stood +(now in the Bargello) and where his Cupid and dolphin now are; and +the place where it now stands, then occupied by Donatello's Judith and +Holofernes. This last was finally selected, not by the committee but by +the determination of Michelangelo himself, and Judith and Holofernes +were moved to the Loggia de' Lanzi to their present position. The +David was set up in May, 1504, and remained there for three hundred +and sixty-nine years, suffering no harm from the weather but having +an arm broken in the Medici riots in 1527. In 1878, however, it was +decided that further exposure might be injurious, and so the statue +was moved here to its frigid niche and a replica in marble afterwards +set up in its place. Since this glorious figure is to be seen thrice +in Florence, he may be said to have become the second symbol of the +city, next the fleur-de-lis. + +The Tribuna del David, as the Michelangelo salon is called, has +among other originals several figures intended for that tomb of Pope +Julius II (whose portrait by Raphael we have seen at the Uffizi) +which was to be the eighth wonder of the world, and by which the last +years of the sculptor's life were rendered so unhappy. The story +is a miserable one. Of the various component parts of the tomb, +finished or unfinished, the best known is the Moses at S. Pietro +in Vincoli at Rome, reproduced in plaster here, in the Accademia, +beneath the bronze head of its author. Various other parts are in Rome +too; others here; one or two may be at the Bargello (although some +authorities give these supposed Michelangelos to Vincenzo Danti); +others are in the grotto of the Boboli Gardens; and the Louvre has +what is in some respects the finest of the "Prisoners". + +The first statue on the right of the entrance of the Tribuna del David +is a group called "Genio Vittorioso". Here in the old man we see rock +actually turned to life; in the various "Prisoners" near we see life +emerging from rock; in the David we forget the rock altogether. One +wonders how Michelangelo went to work. Did the shape of the block +of marble influence him, or did he with his mind's eye, the Röntgen +rays of genius, see the figure within it, embedded in the midst, and +hew and chip until it disclosed? On the back of the fourth statue on +the left a monkish face has been incised: probably some visitor to the +studio. After looking at these originals and casts, and remembering +those other Michelangelo sculptures elsewhere in Florence--the tombs +of the Medici, the Brutus and the smaller David--turn to the bronze +head over the cast of Moses and reflect upon the author of it all: +the profoundly sorrowful eyes behind which so much power and ambition +and disappointment dwelt. + +It is peculiarly interesting to walk out of the Michelangelo gallery +into the little room containing the Fra Angelicos: to pass from a great +melancholy saturnine sculptor, the victim of the caprice of princes +temporal and spiritual, his eyes troubled with world knowledge and +world weariness, to the child-like celebrant of the joy of simple faith +who painted these gay and happy pictures. Fra Angelico--the sweetest +of all the Florentine painters--was a monk of Fiesole, whose real name +was Guido Petri da Mugello, but becoming a Dominican he called himself +Giovanni, and now through the sanctity and happiness of his brush is +for all time Beato Angelico. He was born in 1390, nearly sixty years +after Giotto's death, when Chaucer was fifty, and Richard II on the +English throne. His early years were spent in exile from Fiesole, +the brothers having come into difficulties with the Archbishop, +but by 1418 he was again at Fiesole, and when in 1436 Cosimo de' +Medici, returned from exile at Venice, set his friend Michelozzo +upon building the convent of S. Marco, Fra Angelico was fetched from +Fiesole to decorate the walls. There, and here, in the Accademia, are +his chief works assembled; but he worked also at Fiesole, at Cortona, +and at Rome, where he painted frescoes in the chapel of Nicholas V in +the Vatican and where he died, aged sixty-eight, and was buried. It +was while at Rome that the Pope offered him the priorship of S. Marco, +which he declined as being unworthy, but recommended Antonio, "the good +archbishop".--That practically is his whole life. As to his character, +let Vasari tell us. "He would often say that whosoever practised art +needed a quiet life and freedom from care, and he who occupies himself +with the things of Christ ought always to be with Christ. . . . Some +say that Fra Giovanni never took up his brush without first making a +prayer. . . . He never made a crucifix when the tears did not course +down his cheeks." The one curious thing--to me--about Fra Angelico +is that he has not been canonized. If ever a son of the Church toiled +for her honour and for the happiness of mankind it was he. + +There are examples of Fra Angelico's work elsewhere in Florence; +the large picture in Room I of this gallery; the large altar-piece +at the Uffizi, with certain others; the series of mural paintings +in the cells of S. Marco; and his pictures will be found not only +elsewhere in Florence and Italy but in the chief galleries of the +world; for he was very assiduous. We have an excellent example at +the National Gallery, No. 663; but this little room gives us the +artist and rhapsodist most completely. In looking at his pictures, +three things in particular strike the mind: the skill with which he +composed them; his mastery of light; and--and here he is unique--the +pleasure he must have had in painting them. All seem to have been play; +he enjoyed the toil exactly as a child enjoys the labour of building +a house with toy bricks. Nor, one feels, could he be depressed. Even +in his Crucifixions there is a certain underlying happiness, due +to his knowledge that the Crucified was to rise again and ascend to +Heaven and enjoy eternal felicity. Knowing this (as he did know it) +how could he be wholly cast down? You see it again in the Flagellation +of Christ, in the series of six scenes (No. 237). The scourging is +almost a festival. But best of all I like the Flight into Egypt, in +No. 235. Everything here is joyous and (in spite of the terrible cause +of the journey) bathed in the sunny light of the age of innocence: +the landscape; Joseph, younger than usual, brave and resolute and +undismayed by the curious turn in his fortunes; and Mary with the +child in her arms, happy and pretty, seated securely on an amiable +donkey that has neither bit nor bridle. It is when one looks at +Fra Angelico that one understands how wise were the Old Masters to +seek their inspiration in the life of Christ. One cannot imagine Fra +Angelico's existence in a pagan country. Look, in No. 236, at the six +radiant and rapturous angels clustering above the manger. Was there +ever anything prettier? But I am not sure that I do not most covet +No. 250, Christ crucified and two saints, and No. 251, the Coronation +of the Virgin, for their beauty of light. + +In the photographs No. 246--a Deposition--is unusually striking, +but in the original, although beautiful, it is far less radiant than +usual with this painter. It has, however, such feeling as to make it +especially memorable among the many treatments of this subject. What +is generally considered the most important work in this room is the +Last Judgment, which is certainly extraordinarily interesting, and in +the hierarchy of heaven and the company of the blest Fra Angelico is +in a very acceptable mood. The benignant Christ Who divides the sheep +and the goats; the healthy ripe-lipped Saints and Fathers who assist +at the tribunal and have never a line of age or experience on their +blooming cheeks; the monks and nuns, just risen from their graves, who +embrace each other in the meads of paradise with such fervour--these +have much of the charm of little flowers. But in delineating the damned +the painter is in strange country. It was a subject of which he knew +nothing, and the introduction among them of monks of the rival order +of S. Francis is mere party politics and a blot. + +There are two other rooms here, but Fra Angelico spoils us for +them. Four panels by another Frate, but less radiant, Lippo Lippi, are +remarkable, particularly the figure of the Virgin in the Annunciation; +and there is a curious series of scenes entitled "L'Albero della +Croce," by an Ignoto of the fourteenth century, with a Christ crucified +in the midst and all Scripture in medallions around him, the tragedy of +Adam and Eve at the foot (mutilated by some chaste pedant) being very +quaint. And in Angelico's rooms there is a little, modest Annunciation +by one of his school--No. 256--which shows what a good influence he +was, and to which the eye returns and returns. Here also, on easels, +are two portraits of Vallombrosan monks by Fra Bartolommeo, serene, +and very sympathetically painted, which cause one to regret the +deterioration in Italian ecclesiastic physiognomy; and Andrea del +Sarto's two pretty angels, which one so often finds in reproduction, +are here too. + +Let us now enter the first room of the collection proper and begin at +the very beginning of Tuscan art, for this collection is historical +and not fortuitous like that of the Pitti. The student may here trace +the progress of Tuscan painting from the level to the highest peaks +and downwards again. The Accademia was established with this purpose +by that enlightened prince, Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, +in 1784. Other pictures not wholly within his scheme have been added +since, together with the Michelangelo statues and casts; but they do +not impair the original idea. For the serious student the first room +is of far the most importance, for there he may begin with Cimabue +(? 1240-? 1302), and Giotto (1267-? 1337), and pass steadily to Luca +Signorelli (? 1450-1523). For the most part the pictures in this room +appeal to the inquirer rather than the sightseer; but there is not +one that is without interest, while three works of extraordinary charm +have thoughtfully been enisled, on screens, for special attention--a +Fra Angelico, a Fabriano, and a Ghirlandaio. Before reaching these, +let us look at the walls. + +The first large picture, on the left, the Cimabue, marks the transition +from Byzantine art to Italian art. Giovanni Cimabue, who was to be +the forerunner of the new art, was born about 1240. At that time +there was plenty of painting in Italy, but it was Greek, the work of +artists at Constantinople (Byzantium), the centre of Christianity in +the eastern half of the Roman Empire and the fount of ecclesiastical +energy, and it was crude workmanship, existing purely as an accessory +of worship. Cimabue, of whom, I may say, almost nothing definite +is known, and upon whom the delightful but casual old Vasari is the +earliest authority, as Dante was his first eulogist, carried on the +Byzantine tradition, but breathed a little life into it. In his picture +here we see him feeling his way from the unemotional painted symbols +of the Faith to humanity itself. One can understand this large panel +being carried (as we know the similar one at S. Maria Novella was) +in procession and worshipped, but it is nearer to the icon of the +Russian peasant of today than to a Raphael. The Madonna is above +life; the Child is a little man. This was painted, say, in 1280, +as an altar-piece for the Badia of S. Trinità at Florence. + +Next came Giotto, Cimabue's pupil, born about 1267, whom we have +met already as an architect, philosopher, and innovator; and in the +second picture in this room, from Giotto's brush, we see life really +awakening. The Madonna is vivifying; the Child is nearer childhood; we +can believe that here are veins with blood in them. Moreover, whereas +Cimabue's angels brought masonry, these bring flowers. It is crude, +no doubt, but it is enough; the new art, which was to counterfeit +and even extend nature, has really begun; the mystery and glory of +painting are assured and the door opened for Botticelli. + +But much had to happen first, particularly the mastery of the laws of +perspective, and it was not (as we have seen) until Ghiberti had got +to work on his first doors, and Brunelleschi was studying architecture +and Uccello sitting up all night at his desk, that painting as we +know it--painting of men and women "in the round"--could be done, +and it was left for a youth who was not born until Giotto had been +dead sixty-four years to do this first as a master--one Tommaso +di Ser Giovanni Guido da Castel San Giovanni, known as Masaccio, +or Big Tom. The three great names then in the evolution of Italian +painting, a subject to which I return in chapter XXV, on the Carmine, +are Cimabue, Giotto, Masaccio. + +We pass on at the Accademia from Cimabue's pupil Giotto, to Giotto's +followers, Taddeo Gaddi and Bernardo Daddi, and Daddi's follower +Spinello Aretino, and the long dependent and interdependent line of +painters. For the most part they painted altar-pieces, these early +craftsmen, the Church being the principal patron of art. These +works are many of them faded and so elementary as to have but an +antiquarian interest; but think of the excitement in those days when +the picture was at last ready, and, gay in its gold, was erected in the +chapel! Among the purely ecclesiastical works No. 137, an Annunciation +by Giovanni del Biondo (second half of the fourteenth century), +is light and cheerful, and No. 142, the Crowning of the Virgin, by +Rosello di Jacopo Franchi (1376-1456), has some delightful details and +is everywhere joyous, with a charming green pattern in it. The wedding +scenes in No. 147 give us Florentine life on the mundane side with +some valuable thoroughness, and the Pietro Lorenzetti above--scenes +in the life of S. Umilita--is very quaint and cheery and was painted +as early as 1316. The little Virgin adoring, No. 160, in the corner, +by the fertile Ignoto, is charmingly pretty. + +And now for the three screens, notable among the screens of the +galleries of Europe as holding three of the happiest pictures +ever painted. The first is the Adoration of the Magi, by Gentile +da Fabriano, an artist of whom one sees too little. His full +name was Gentile di Niccolò di Giovanni Massi, and he was born +at Fabriano between 1360 and 1370, some twenty years before Fra +Angelico. According to Vasari he was Fra Angelico's master, but +that is now considered doubtful, and yet the three little scenes +from the life of Christ in the predella of this picture are nearer +Fra Angelico in spirit and charm than any, not by a follower, that I +have seen. Gentile did much work at Venice before he came to Florence, +in 1422, and this picture, which is considered his masterpiece, was +painted in 1423 for S. Trinita. He died four years later. Gentile +was charming rather than great, and to this work might be applied +Ruskin's sarcastic description of poor Ghirlandaio's frescoes, that +they are mere goldsmith's work; and yet it is much more, for it has +gaiety and sweetness and the nice thoughtfulness that made the Child a +real child, interested like a child in the bald head of the kneeling +mage; while the predella is not to be excelled in its modest, tender +beauty by any in Florence; and predellas, I may remark again, should +never be overlooked, strong as the tendency is to miss them. Many +a painter has failed in the large space or made only a perfunctory +success, but in the small has achieved real feeling. Gentile's Holy +Family on its way to Egypt is never to be forgotten. Not so radiant +as Fra Angelico's, in the room we have visited out of due course, +but as charming in its own manner--both in personages and landscape; +while the city to which Joseph leads the donkey (again without reins) +is the most perfect thing out of fairyland. + +Ghirlandaio's picture, which is the neighbour of Gentile's, is as +a whole nearer life and one of his most attractive works. It is, +I think, excelled only by his very similar Adoration of the Magi +at the Spedale degli Innocenti, which, however, it is difficult to +see; and it is far beyond the examples at the Uffizi, which are too +hot. Of the life of this artist, who was Michelangelo's master, I +shall speak in the chapter on S. Maria Novella. This picture, which +represents the Adoration of the Shepherds, was painted in 1485, when +the artist was thirty-six. It is essentially pleasant: a religious +picture on the sunny side. The Child is the soul of babyish content, +equally amused with its thumb and the homage it is receiving. Close +by is a goldfinch unafraid; in the distance is a citied valley, with +a river winding in it; and down a neighbouring hill, on the top of +which the shepherds feed their flocks, comes the imposing procession +of the Magi. Joseph is more than commonly perplexed, and the disparity +between his own and his wife's age, which the old masters agreed to +make considerable, is more considerable than usual. + +Both Gentile and Ghirlandaio chose a happy subject and made it happier; +Fra Angelico (for the third screen picture) chose a melancholy +subject and made it happy, not because that was his intention, but +because he could not help it. He had only one set of colours and one +set of countenances, and since the colours were of the gayest and the +countenances of the serenest, the result was bound to be peaceful and +glad. This picture is a large "Deposizione della Croce," an altar-piece +for S. Trinità . There is such joy in the painting and light in the +sky that a child would clap his hands at it all, and not least at +the vermilion of the Redeemer's blood. Fra Angelico gave thought to +every touch: and his beatific holiness floods the work. Each of these +three great pictures, I may add, has its original frame. + +The room which leads from this one is much less valuable; but Fra +Bartolommeo's Vision of S. Bernard has lately been brought to an easel +here to give it character. I find this the Frate's most beautiful +work. It may have details that are a little crude, and the pointed nose +of the Virgin is not perhaps in accordance with the best tradition, +while she is too real for an apparition; but the figure of the kneeling +saint is masterly and the landscape lovely in subject and feeling. Here +too is Fra Bartolommeo's portrait of Savonarola, in which the reformer +is shown as personating S. Peter Martyr. The picture was not painted +from life, but from an earlier portrait. Fra Bartolommeo had some +reason to know what Savonarola was like, for he was his personal +friend and a brother in the same convent of S. Marco, a few yards +from the Accademia, across the square. He was born in 1475 and was +apprenticed to the painter Cosimo Rosselli; but he learned more from +studying Masaccio's frescoes at the Carmine and the work of Leonardo da +Vinci. It was in 1495 that he came under the influence of Savonarola, +and he was the first artist to run home and burn his studies from the +nude in response to the preacher's denunciations. Three years later, +when Savonarola was an object of hatred and the convent of S. Marco +was besieged, the artist was with him, and he then made a vow that if +he lived he would join the order; and this promise he kept, although +not until Savonarola had been executed. For a while, as a monk, he +laid aside the brush, but in 1506 he resumed it and painted until +his death, in 1517. He was buried at S. Marco. + +In his less regenerate days Fra Bartolommeo's greatest friend was the +jovial Mariotto Albertinelli, whose rather theatrical Annunciation +hangs between a number of the monk's other portraits, all very +interesting. Of Albertinelli I have spoken earlier. Before leaving, +look at the tiny Ignoto next the door--a Madonna and Child, the child +eating a pomegranate. It is a little picture to steal. + +In the next room are a number of the later and showy painters, such as +Carlo Dolci, Lorenzo Lippi, and Francesco Furini, all bold, dashing, +self-satisfied hands, in whom (so near the real thing) one can take +no interest. Nothing to steal here. + +Returning through Sala Prima we come to the Sala del Perugino and +are among the masters once more--riper and richer than most of +those we have already seen, for Tuscan art here reaches its finest +flower. Perugino is here and Botticelli, Fra Bartolommeo and Leonardo, +Luca Signorelli, Fra Lippo Lippi and Filippino Lippi. And here is a +Masaccio. The great Perugino Assumption has all his mellow sunset calm, +and never was a landscape more tenderly sympathetic. The same painter's +Deposition hangs next, and the custodian brings a magnifying glass +that the tears on the Magdalen's cheek may be more closely observed; +but the third, No. 53, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, is finer, +and here again the landscape and light are perfect. For the rest, +there is a Royal Academy Andrea and a formal Ghirlandaio. + +And now we come to Botticelli, who although less richly represented +in numbers than at the Uffizi, is for the majority of his admirers +more to be sought here, by reason of the "Primavera" allegory, +which is the Accademia's most powerful magnet. The Botticellis are +divided between two rooms, the "Primavera" being in the first. The +first feeling one has is how much cooler it is here than among the +Peruginos, and how much gayer; for not only is there the "Primavera," +but Fra Lippo Lippi is here too, with a company of angels helping +to crown the Virgin, and a very sweet, almost transparent, little +Madonna adoring--No. 79--which one cannot forget. + +The "Primavera" is not wearing too well: one sees that at once. Being +in tempera it cannot be cleaned, and a dulness is overlaying it; but +nothing can deprive the figure of Spring of her joy and movement, +a floating type of conquering beauty and youth. The most wonderful +thing about this wonderful picture is that it should have been painted +when it was: that, suddenly, out of a solid phalanx of Madonnas should +have stepped these radiant creatures of the joyous earth, earthy and +joyful. And not only that they should have so surprisingly and suddenly +emerged, but that after all these years this figure of Spring should +still be the finest of her kind. That is the miracle! Luca Signorelli's +flowers at the Uffizi remain the best, but Botticelli's are very +thoughtful and before the grass turned black they must have been very +lovely; the exquisite drawing of the irises in the right-hand corner +can still be traced, although the colour has gone. The effect now is +rather like a Chinese painting. For the history of the "Primavera" +and its signification, one must turn back to Chapter X. + +I spoke just now of Luca's flowers. There are others in his picture in +this room--botanist's flowers as distinguished from painter's flowers: +the wild strawberry beautifully straggling. This picture is one of +the most remarkable in all Florence to me: a Crucifixion to which +the perishing of the colour has given an effect of extreme delicacy, +while the group round the cross on the distant mound has a quality for +which one usually goes to Spanish art. The Magdalen is curiously sulky +and human. Into the skull at the foot of the cross creeps a lizard. + +This room has three Lippo Lippis, which is an interesting circumstance +when we remember that that dissolute brother was the greatest influence +on Botticelli. The largest is the Coronation of the Virgin with its +many lilies--a picture which one must delight in, so happy and crowded +is it, but which never seems to me quite what it should be. The most +fascinating part of it is the figures in the two little medallions: +two perfect pieces of colour and design. The kneeling monk on the +right is Lippo Lippi himself. Near it is the Madonna adoring, No. 79, +of which I have spoken, with herself so luminous and the background +so dark; the other--No. 82--is less remarkable. No. 81, above it, +is by Browning's Pacchiorotto (who worked in distemper); close by +is the Masaccio, which has a deep, quiet beauty; and beneath it is a +richly coloured predella by Andrea del Sarto, the work of a few hours, +I should guess, and full of spirit and vigour. It consists of four +scriptural scenes which might be called the direct forerunners of +Sir John Gilbert and the modern illustrators. Lastly we have what +is in many ways the most interesting picture in Florence--No. 71, +the Baptism of Christ--for it is held by some authorities to be the +only known painting by Verrocchio, whose sculptures we saw in the +Bargello and at Or San Michele, while in one of the angels--that +surely on the left--we are to see the hand of his pupil Leonardo da +Vinci. Their faces are singularly sweet. Other authorities consider +not only that Verrocchio painted the whole picture himself but that +he painted also the Annunciation at the Uffizi to which Leonardo's +name is given. Be that as it may--and we shall never know--this +is a beautiful thing. According to Vasari it was the excellence +of Leonardo's contribution which decided Verrocchio to give up the +brush. Among the thoughts of Leonardo is one which comes to mind with +peculiar force before this work when we know its story: "Poor is the +pupil who does not surpass his master". + +The second Sala di Botticelli has not the value of the first. It +has magnificent examples of Botticelli's sacred work, but the other +pictures are not the equal of those in the other rooms. Chief of the +Botticellis is No. 85, "The Virgin and Child with divers Saints," in +which there are certain annoying and restless elements. One feels that +in the accessories--the flooring, the curtains, and gilt--the painter +was wasting his time, while the Child is too big. Botticelli was seldom +too happy with his babies. But the face of the Saint in green and blue +on the left is most exquisitely painted, and the Virgin has rather less +troubled beauty than usual. The whole effect is not quite spiritual, +and the symbolism of the nails and the crown of thorns held up for +the Child to see is rather too cruel and obvious. I like better the +smaller picture with the same title--No. 88--in which the Saints at +each side are wholly beautiful in Botticelli's wistful way, and the +painting of their heads and head-dresses is so perfect as to fill +one with a kind of despair. But taken altogether one must consider +Botticelli's triumph in the Accademia to be pagan rather than sacred. + +No. 8, called officially School of Verrocchio, and by one firm of +photographers Botticini, and by another Botticelli, is a fine free +thing, low in colour, with a quiet landscape, and is altogether a +delight. It represents Tobias and the three angels, and Raphael moves +nobly, although not with quite such a step as the radiant figure in a +somewhat similar picture in our own National Gallery--No. 781--which, +once confidently given to Verrocchio, is now attributed to Botticini; +while our No. 296, which the visitor from Florence on returning to +London should hasten to examine, is no longer Verrocchio but School +of Verrocchio. When we think of these attributions and then look at +No. 154 in the Accademia--another Tobias and the Angel, here given +to Botticini--we have a concrete object lesson in the perilous career +that awaits the art expert, + +The other pictures here are two sunny panels by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, +high up, with nice easy colouring; No. 92, an Adoration of the +Shepherds by Lorenzo di Credi, with a good landscape and all very +sweet and quiet; No. 98, a Deposition by Filippino Lippi and Perugino, +in collaboration, with very few signs of Filippino; and No. 90, +a Resurrection by Raffaellino del Garbo, an uncommon painter in +Florence; the whole thing a tour de force, but not important. + +And now let us look at the Angelicos again. + +Before leaving the Accademia for the last time, one should glance +at the tapestries near the main entrance, just for fun. That one in +which Adam names the animals is so delightfully naive that it ought to +be reproduced as a nursery wall-paper. The creatures pass in review +in four processions, and Adam must have had to be uncommonly quick +to make up his mind first and then rattle out their resultant names +in the time. The main procession is that of the larger quadrupeds, +headed by the unicorn in single glory; and the moment chosen by the +artist is that in which the elephant, having just heard his name +(for the first time) and not altogether liking it, is turning towards +Adam in surprised remonstrance. The second procession is of reptiles, +led by the snail; the third, the smaller quadrupeds, led by four rats, +followed desperately close (but of course under the white flag) by two +cats; while the fourth--all sorts and conditions of birds--streams +through the air. The others in this series are all delightful, not +the least being that in which God, having finished His work, takes +Adam's arm and flies with him over the earth to point out its merits. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Two Monasteries and a Procession + +The Certosa--A Company of Uncles--The +Cells--Machiavelli--Impruneta--The +della Robbias--Pontassieve--Pelago--Milton's +simile--Vallombrosa--S. Gualberto--Prato and the Lippis--The Grassina +Albergo--An American invasion--The Procession of the Dead Christ--My +loss. + +Everyone who merely visits Florence holds it a duty to bring home at +least one flask of the Val d'Ema liqueur from the Carthusian monastery +four or five miles distant from the city, not because that fiery +distillation is peculiarly attractive but because the vessels which +contain it are at once pretty decorations and evidences of travel and +culture. They can be bought in Florence itself, it is true (at a shop +at the corner of the Via de' Cerretani, close to the Baptistery), +but the Certosa is far too interesting to miss, if one has time to +spare from the city's own treasures. The trams start from the Mercato +Nuovo and come along the Via dell' Arcivescovado to the Baptistery, +and so to the Porta Romana and out into the hilly country. The ride +is dull and rather tiresome, for there is much waiting at sidings, +but the expedition becomes attractive immediately the tram is +left. There is then a short walk, principally up the long narrow +approach to the monastery gates, outside which, when I was there, +was sitting a beggar at a stone table, waiting for the bowl of soup +to which all who ask are entitled. + +Passing within the courtyard you ring the bell on the right and enter +the waiting hall, from which, in the course of time, when a sufficient +party has been gathered, an elderly monk in a white robe leads you +away. How many monks there may be, I cannot say; but of the few of whom +I caught a glimpse, all were alike in the possession of white beards, +and all suggested uncles in fancy dress. Ours spoke good French and +was clearly a man of parts. Lulled by his soothing descriptions I +passed in a kind of dream through this ancient abode of peace. + +The Certosa dates from 1341 and was built and endowed by a wealthy +merchant named Niccolo Acciaioli, after whom the Lungarno Acciaioli +is named. The members of the family are still buried here, certain +of the tombstones bearing dates of the present century. To-day it is +little but a show place, the cells of the monks being mostly empty and +the sale of the liqueur its principal reason for existence. But the +monks who are left take a pride in their church, which is attributed +to Orcagna, and its possessions, among which come first the relief +monuments of early Acciaioli in the floor of one of the chapels--the +founder's being perhaps also the work of Orcagna, while that of his son +Lorenzo, who died in 1353, is attributed by our cicerone to Donatello, +but by others to an unknown hand. It is certainly very beautiful. These +tombs are the very reverse of those which we saw in S. Croce; for +those bear the obliterating traces of centuries of footsteps, so that +some are nearly flat with the stones, whereas these have been railed +off for ever and have lost nothing. The other famous Certosa tomb is +that of Cardinal Angelo Acciaioli, which, once given to Donatello, +is now sometimes attributed to Giuliano di Sangallo and sometimes to +his son Francesco. + +The Certosa has a few good pictures, but it is as a monastery that +it is most interesting: as one of the myriad lonely convents of +Italy, which one sees so constantly from the train, perched among +the Apennines, and did not expect ever to enter. The cloisters +which surround the garden, in the centre of which is a well, and +beneath which is the distillery, are very memorable, not only for +their beauty but for the sixty and more medallions of saints and +evangelists all round it by Giovanni della Robbia. Here the monks +have sunned themselves, and here been buried, these five and a half +centuries. One suite of rooms is shown, with its own little private +garden and no striking discomfort except the hole in the wall by +the bed, through which the sleeper is awakened. From its balcony one +sees the Etna far below and hears the roar of a weir, and away in the +distance is Florence with the Duomo and a third of Giotto's Campanile +visible above the intervening hills. + +Having shown you all the sights the monk leads you again to the +entrance hall and bids you good-bye, with murmurs of surprise and +a hint of reproach on discovering a coin in his hand, for which, +however, none the less, he manages in the recesses of his robe to +find a place; and you are then directed to the room where the liqueur, +together with sweets and picture post-cards, is sold by another monk, +assisted by a lay attendant, and the visit to the Certosa is over. + +The tram that passes the Certosa continues to S. Casciano in the +Chianti district (but much wine is called Chianti that never came +from here), where there is a point of interest in the house to which +Machiavelli retired in 1512, to give himself to literature and to live +that wonderful double life--a peasant loafer by day in the fields and +the village inn, and at night, dressed in his noblest clothes, the +cold, sagacious mentor of the rulers of mankind. But at S. Casciano +I did not stop. + +And farther still one comes to the village of Impruneta, after climbing +higher and higher, with lovely calm valleys on either side coloured +by silver olive groves and vivid wheat and maize, and studded with +white villas and villages and church towers. On the road every woman +in every doorway plaits straw with rapid fingers just as if we were in +Bedfordshire. Impruneta is famous for its new terra-cotta vessels and +its ancient della Robbias. For in the church is some of Luca's most +exquisite work--an altarpiece with a frieze of aerial angels under it, +and a stately white saint on either side, and the loveliest decorated +columns imaginable; while in an adjoining chapel is a Christ crucified +mourned by the most dignified and melancholy of Magdalens. Andrea della +Robbia is here too, and here also is a richly designed cantoria by Mino +da Fiesole. The village is not in the regular programme of visitors, +and Baedeker ignores it; hence perhaps the excitement which an arrival +from Florence causes, for the children turn out in battalions. The +church is very dirty, and so indeed is everything else; but no amount +of grime can disguise the charm of the cloisters. + +The Certosa is a mere half-hour from Florence, Impruneta an hour +and a half; but Vallombrosa asks a long day. One can go by rail, +changing at Sant' Ellero into the expensive rack-and-pinion car which +climbs through the vineyards to a point near the summit, and has, +since it was opened, brought to the mountain so many new residents, +whose little villas cling to the western slopes among the lizards, +and, in summer, are smitten unbearably by the sun. But the best way +to visit the monastery and the groves is by road. A motor-car no +doubt makes little of the journey; but a carriage and pair such as I +chartered at Florence for forty-five lire has to be away before seven, +and, allowing three hours on the top, is not back again until the +same hour in the evening; and this, the ancient way, with the beat +of eight hoofs in one's ears, is the right way. + +For several miles the road and the river--the Arno--run side by +side--and the railway close by too--through venerable villages whose +inhabitants derive their living either from the soil or the water, +and amid vineyards all the time. Here and there a white villa is seen, +but for the most part this is peasants' district: one such villa +on the left, before Pontassieve, having about it, and on each side +of its drive, such cypresses as one seldom sees and only Gozzoli or +Mr. Sargent could rightly paint, each in his own style. Not far beyond, +in a scrap of meadow by the road, sat a girl knitting in the morning +sun--with a placid glance at us as we rattled by; and ten hours later, +when we rattled past again, there she still was, still knitting, in +the evening sun, and again her quiet eyes were just raised and dropped. + +At Pontassieve we stopped a while for coffee at an inn at the corner +of the square of pollarded limes, and while it was preparing watched +the little crumbling town at work, particularly the cooper opposite, +who was finishing a massive cask within whose recesses good Chianti +is doubtless now maturing; and then on the white road again, to the +turning, a mile farther on, to the left, where one bids the Arno +farewell till the late afternoon. Steady climbing now, and then a +turn to the right and we see Pelago before us, perched on its crags, +and by and by come to it--a tiny town, with a clean and alluring +inn, very different from the squalor of Pontassieve: famous in art +and particularly Florentine art as being the birthplace of Lorenzo +Ghiberti, who made the Baptistery doors. From Pelago the road descends +with extreme steepness to a brook in a rocky valley, at a bridge over +which the real climb begins, to go steadily on (save for another swift +drop before Tosi) until Vallombrosa is reached, winding through woods +all the way, chiefly chestnut--those woods which gave Milton, who was +here in 1638, his famous simile. [6] The heat was now becoming intense +(it was mid-September) and the horses were suffering, and most of this +last stage was done at walking pace; but such was the exhilaration of +the air, such the delight of the aromas which the breeze continually +wafted from the woods, now sweet, now pungent, and always refreshing, +that one felt no fatigue even though walking too. And so at last the +monastery, and what was at that moment better than anything, lunch. + +The beauty and joy of Vallombrosa, I may say at once, are Nature's, +not man's. The monastery, which is now a Government school of +forestry, is ugly and unkempt; the hotel is unattractive; the few +people one meets want to sell something or take you for a drive. But +in an instant in any direction one can be in the woods--and at this +level they are pine woods, soft underfoot and richly perfumed--and +a quarter of an hour's walking brings the view. It is then that you +realize you are on a mountain indeed. Florence is to the north-west +in the long Arno valley, which is here precipitous and narrow. The +river is far below--if you slipped you would slide into it--fed by +tumbling Apennine streams from both walls. The top of the mountain +is heathery like Scotland, and open; but not long will it be so, +for everywhere are the fenced parallelograms which indicate that a +villa is to be erected. Nothing, however, can change the mountain +air or the glory of the surrounding heights. + +Another view, unbroken by villas but including the monastery and the +Foresters' Hotel in the immediate foreground, and extending as far as +Florence itself (on suitable days), is obtained from Il Paradisino, +a white building on a ledge which one sees from the hotel above the +monastery. But that is not by any means the top. The view covers much +of the way by which we came hither. + +Of the monastery of Vallombrosa we have had foreshadowings in +Florence. We saw at the Accademia two exquisite portraits by Fra +Bartolommeo of Vallombrosan monks. We saw at the Bargello the remains +of a wonderful frieze by Benedetto da Rovezzano for the tomb of +the founder of the order, S. Giovanni Gualberto; we shall see at +S. Miniato scenes in the saint's life on the site of the ancient +chapel where the crucifix bent and blessed him. As the head of the +monastery Gualberto was famous for the severity and thoroughness of +his discipline. But though a martinet as an abbot, personally he was +humble and mild. His advice on all kinds of matters is said to have +been invited even by kings and popes. He invented the system of lay +brothers to help with the domestic work of the convent; and after a +life of holiness, which comprised several miracles, he died in 1073 +and was subsequently canonized. + +The monastery, as I have said, is now secularized, save for the chapel, +where three resident monks perform service. One may wander through its +rooms and see in the refectory, beneath portraits of famous brothers, +the tables now laid for young foresters. The museum of forestry is +interesting to those interested in museums of forestry. + +It was to the monastery at Vallombrosa that the Brownings travelled +in 1848 when Mrs. Browning was ill. But the abbot could not break the +rules in regard to women, and after five days they had to return to +Florence. Browning used to play the organ in the chapel, as, it is +said, Milton had done two centuries earlier. + +At such a height and with only a short season the hotel proprietors +must do what they can, and prices do not rule low. A departing American +was eyeing his bill with a rueful glance as we were leaving. "Milton +had it wrong," he said to me (with the freemasonry of the plucked, +for I knew him not), "what he meant was, 'thick as thieves'." + +We returned by way of Sant' Ellero, the gallant horses trotting +steadily down the hill, and then beside the Arno once more all the +way to Florence. It chanced to be a great day in the city--September +20th, the anniversary of the final defeat of papal temporal power, +in 1870--which we were not sorry to have missed, the first tidings +coming to us from the beautiful tower of the Palazzo Vecchio which +in honour of the occasion had been picked out with fairy lamps. + +Among the excursions which I think ought to be made if one is in +Florence for a justifying length of time is a visit to Prato. This +ancient town one should see for several things: for its age and for +its walls; for its great piazza (with a pile of vividly dyed yarn +in the midst) surrounded by arches under which coppersmiths hammer +all day at shining rotund vessels, while their wives plait straw; +for Filippino Lippi's exquisite Madonna in a little mural shrine at +the narrow end of the piazza, which a woman (fetched by a crowd of +ragged boys) will unlock for threepence; and for the cathedral, with +Filippino's dissolute father's frescoes in it, the Salome being one +of the most interesting pre-Botticelli scenes in Italian art. If only +it had its colour what a wonder of lightness and beauty this still +would be! But probably most people are attracted to Prato chiefly by +Donatello and Michelozzo's outdoor pulpit, the frieze of which is a +kind of prentice work for the famous cantoria in the museum of the +cathedral at Florence, with just such wanton boys dancing round it. + +On Good Friday evening in the lovely dying April light I paid +thirty centimes to be taken by tram to Grassina to see the famous +procession of the Gesù Morto. The number of people on the same +errand having thrown out the tram service, we had very long waits, +while the road was thronged with other vehicles; and the result was +I was tired enough--having been standing all the way--when Grassina +was reached, for festivals six miles out of Florence at seven in the +evening disarrange good habits. But a few pence spent in the albergo +on bread and cheese and wine soon restored me. A queer cavern of a +place, this inn, with rough tables, rows and rows of wine flasks, +and an open fire behind the bar, tended by an old woman, from which +everything good to eat proceeded rapidly without dismay--roast chicken +and fish in particular. A strapping girl with high cheek bones and a +broad dark comely face washed plates and glasses assiduously, and two +waiters, with eyes as near together as monkeys', served the customers +with bewildering intelligence. It was the sort of inn that in England +would throw up its hands if you asked even for cold beef. + +The piazza of Grassina, which, although merely a village, is +enterprising enough to have a cinematoscope hall, was full of +stalls given chiefly to the preparation and sale of cake like the +Dutch wafelen, and among the stalls were conjurors, cheap-jacks, +singers, and dice throwers; while every moment brought its fresh +motor-car or carriage load, nearly all speaking English with a nasal +twang. Meanwhile every one shouted, the naphtha flared, the drums beat, +the horses champed. The street was full too, chiefly of peasants, +but among them myriad resolute American virgins, in motor veils, whom +nothing can ever surprise; a few American men, sceptical, as ever, +of anything ever happening; here and there a diffident Englishwoman +and Englishman, more in the background, but destined in the end +to see all. But what I chiefly noticed was the native girls, with +their proud bosoms carried high and nothing on their heads. They at +any rate know their own future. No rushing over the globe for them, +but the simple natural home life and children. + +In the gloom the younger girls in white muslin were like pretty +ghosts, each followed by a solicitous mother giving a touch here +and a touch there--mothers who once wore muslin too, will wear it no +more, and are now happy in pride in their daughters. And very little +girls too--mere tots--wearing wings, who very soon were to join the +procession as angels. + +And all the while the darkness was growing, and on the hill where the +church stands lights were beginning to move about, in that mysterious +way which torches have when a procession is being mobilized, while +all the villas on the hills around had their rows of candles. + +And then the shifting flames came gradually into a mass and took +a steady upward progress, and the melancholy strains of an ancient +ecclesiastical lamentation reached our listening ears. As the lights +drew nearer I left the bank where all the Mamies and Sadies with +their Mommas were stationed and walked down into the river valley +to meet the vanguard. On the bridge I found a little band of Roman +soldiers on horseback, without stirrups, and had a few words with +one of them as to his anachronistic cigarette, and then the first +torches arrived, carried by proud little boys in red; and after the +torches the little girls in muslin veils, which were, however, for +the most part disarranged for the better recognition of relations +and even more perhaps for recognition by relations: and very pretty +this recognition was on both sides. And then the village priests in +full canonicals, looking a little self-conscious; and after them the +dead Christ on a litter carried by a dozen contadini who had a good +deal to say to each other as they bore Him. + +This was the same dead Christ which had been lying in state in the +church, for the past few days, to be worshipped and kissed by the +peasantry. I had seen a similar image at Settignano the day before and +had watched how the men took it. They began by standing in groups in +the piazza, gossipping. Then two or three would break away and make +for the church. There, all among the women and children, half-shyly, +half-defiantly, they pecked at the plaster flesh and returned to resume +the conversation in the piazza with a new serenity and confidence in +their hearts. + +After the dead Christ came a triumphal car of the very little girls +with wings, signifying I know not what, but intensely satisfying to +the onlookers. One little wet-nosed cherub I patted, so chubby and +innocent she was; and Heaven send that the impulse profited me! This +car was drawn by an ancient white horse, amiable and tractable as a +saint, but as bewildered as I as to the meaning of the whole strange +business. After the car of angels a stalwart body of white-vestmented +singers, sturdy fellows with black moustaches who had been all day +among the vines, or steering placid white oxen through the furrows, +and were now lifting their voices in a miserere. And after them the +painted plaster Virgin, carried as upright as possible, and then +more torches and the wailing band; and after the band another guard +of Roman soldiers. + +Such was the Grassina procession. It passed slowly and solemnly through +the town from the hill and up the hill again; and not soon shall I +forget the mournfulness of the music, which nothing of tawdriness in +the constituents of the procession itself could rid of impressiveness +and beauty. One thing is certain--all processions, by day or night, +should first descend a hill and then ascend one. All should walk to +melancholy strains. Indeed, a joyful procession becomes an impossible +thought after this. + +And then I sank luxuriously into a corner seat in the waiting tram, +and, seeking for the return journey's thirty centimes, found that +during the proceedings my purse had been stolen. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +S. Marco + +Andrea del Castagno--"The Last Supper"--The stolen Madonna--Fra +Angelico's frescoes--"Little Antony"--The good archbishop--The +Buonuomini--Savonarola--The death of Lorenzo the Magnificent--Pope +Alexander VI--The Ordeal by Fire--The execution--The S. Marco +cells--The cloister frescoes--Ghirlandaio's "Last Supper"--Relics of +old Florence--Pico and Politian--Piero di Cosimo--Andrea del Sarto. + +From the Accademia it is but a step to S. Marco, across the Piazza, but +it is well first to go a little beyond that in order to see a certain +painting which both chronologically and as an influence comes before +a painting that we shall find in the Museo S. Marco. We therefore +cross the Piazza S. Marco to the Via d'Arrazzieri, which leads into +the Via 27 Aprile, [7] where at a door on the left, marked A, is an +ancient refectory, preserved as a picture gallery: the Cenacolo di +S. Apollonia, all that is kept sacred of the monastery of S. Apollonia, +now a military establishment. This room is important to students of +art in containing so much work of Andrea del Castagno (1390-1457), +to whom Vasari gives so black a character. The portrait frescoes are +from the Villa Pandolfini (previously Carducci), and among them are +Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Dante--who is here rather less ascetic than +usual--none of whom the painter could have seen. There is also a very +charming little cupid carrying a huge peacock plume. But "The Last +Supper" is the glory of the room. This work, which belongs to the +middle of the fifteenth century, is interesting as a real effort at +psychology. Leonardo makes Judas leave his seat to ask if it is he +that is meant--that being the dramatic moment chosen by this prince +of painters: Castagno calls attention to Judas as an undesirable +member of the little band of disciples by placing him apart, the +only one on his side of the table; which was avoiding the real task, +since naturally when one of the company was forced into so sinister +a position the question would be already answered. Castagno indeed +renders Judas so obviously untrustworthy as to make it a surprise +that he ever was admitted among the disciples (or wished to be one) +at all; while Vasari blandly suggests that he is the very image of the +painter himself. Other positions which later artists converted into a +convention may also be noted: John, for example, is reclining on the +table in an ecstasy of affection and fidelity; while the Florentine +loggia as the scene of the meal was often reproduced later. + +Andrea del Castagno began life as a farm lad, but was educated as an +artist at the cost of one of the less notable Medici. He had a vigorous +way with his brush, as we see here and have seen elsewhere. In the +Duomo, for example, we saw his equestrian portrait of Niccolò da +Tolentino, a companion to Uccello's Hawkwood. When the Albizzi and +Peruzzi intrigues which had led to the banishment of Cosimo de' Medici +came to their final frustration with the triumphant return of Cosimo, +it was Andrea who was commissioned by the Signoria to paint for the +outside of the Bargello a picture of the leaders of the insurrection, +upside down. Vasari is less to be trusted in his dates and facts in his +memoir of Andrea del Castagno than anywhere else; for he states that +he commemorated the failure of the Pazzi Conspiracy (which occurred +twenty years after his death), and accuses him not only of murdering +his fellow-painter Domenico Veneziano but confessing to the crime; +the best answer to which allegation is that Domenico survived Andrea +by four years. + +We may now return to S. Marco. The convent as we now see it was +built by Michelozzo, Donatello's friend and partner and the friend +also of Cosimo de' Medici, at whose cost he worked here. Antonino, +the saintly head of the monastery, having suggested to Cosimo that +he should apply some of his wealth, not always too nicely obtained, +to the Lord, Cosimo began literally to squander money on S. Marco, +dividing his affection between S. Lorenzo, which he completed upon +the lines laid down by his father, and this Dominican monastery, +where he even had a cell reserved for his own use, with a bedroom +in addition, whither he might now and again retire for spiritual +refreshment and quiet. + +It was at S. Marco that Cosimo kept the MSS. which he was constantly +collecting, and which now, after curious vicissitudes, are lodged +in Michelangelo's library at S. Lorenzo; and on his death he left +them to the monks. Cosimo's librarian was Tommaso Parenticelli, a +little busy man, who, to the general astonishment, on the death of +Eugenius IV became Pope and took the name of Nicholas V. His energies +as Pontiff went rather towards learning and art than anything else: he +laid the foundations of the Vatican library, on the model of Cosimo's, +and persuaded Fra Angelico to Rome to paint Vatican frescoes. + +The magnets which draw every one who visits Florence to S. Marco are +first Fra Angelico, and secondly Savonarola, or first Savonarola, and +secondly Fra Angelico, according as one is constituted. Fra Angelico, +at Cosimo's desire and cost, came from Fiesole to paint here; while +Girolamo Savonarola, forced to leave Ferrara during the war, entered +these walls in 1482. Fra Angelico in his single crucifixion picture in +the first cloisters and in his great scene of the Mount of Olives in +the chapter house shows himself less incapable of depicting unhappiness +than we have yet seen him; but the most memorable of the ground-floor +frescoes is the symbol of hospitality over the door of the wayfarers' +room, where Christ is being welcomed by two Dominicans in the way +that Dominicans (as contrasted with scoundrelly Franciscans) would of +course welcome Him. In this Ospizio are three reliquaries which Fra +Angelico painted for S. Maria Novella, now preserved here in a glass +case. They represent the Madonna della Stella, the Coronation of the +Virgin, and the Adoration of the Magi. All are in Angelico's happiest +manner, with plenty of gold; and the predella of the Coronation is +the prettiest thing possible, with its blue saints gathered about a +blue Mary and Joseph, who bend over the Baby. + +The Madonna della Stella is the picture which was stolen in 1911, but +quickly recovered. It is part of the strange complexity of this world +that it should equally contain artists such as Fra Angelico and thieves +such as those who planned and carried out this robbery: nominally +custodians of the museum. To repeat one of Vasari's sentences: "Some +say that he never took up his brush without first making a prayer".... + +The "Peter" with his finger to his lips, over the sacristy, is +reminding the monks that that room is vowed to silence. In the chapter +house is the large Crucifixion by the same gentle hand, his greatest +work in Florence, and very fine and true in character. Beneath it +are portraits of seventeen famous Dominicans with S. Dominic in +the midst. Note the girl with the scroll in the right--how gay and +light the colouring. Upstairs, in the cells, and pre-eminently in the +passage, where his best known Annunciation is to be seen, Angelico is +at his best. In each cell is a little fresco reminding the brother +of the life of Christ--and of those by Angelico it may be said that +each is as simple as it can be and as sweet: easy lines, easy colours, +with the very spirit of holiness shining out. I think perhaps that the +Coronation of the Virgin in the ninth cell, reproduced in this volume, +is my favourite, as it is of many persons; but the Annunciation in the +third, the two Maries at the Sepulchre in the eighth, and the Child +in the Stable in the fifth, are ever memorable too. In the cell set +apart for Cosimo de' Medici, No. 38, which the officials point out, +is an Adoration of the Magi, painted there at Cosimo's express wish, +that he might be reminded of the humility proper to rulers; and here +we get one of the infrequent glimpses of this best and wisest of the +Medici, for a portrait of him adorns it, with a wrong death-date on it. + +Here also is a sensitive terra-cotta bust of S. Antonio, Cosimo's +friend and another pride of the monastery: the monk who was also +Archbishop of Florence until his death, and whom we saw, in stone, in +a niche under the Uffizi. His cell was the thirty-first cell, opposite +the entrance. This benign old man, who has one of the kindest faces +of his time, which was often introduced into pictures, was appointed +to the see at the suggestion of Fra Angelico, to whom Pope Eugenius +(who consecrated the new S. Marco in 1442 and occupied Cosimo de' +Medici's cell on his visit) had offered it; but the painter declined +and put forward Antonio in his stead. Antonio Pierozzi, whose destiny +it was to occupy this high post, to be a confidant of Cosimo de' +Medici, and ultimately, in 1523, to be enrolled among the saints, +was born at Florence in 1389. According to Butler, from the cradle +"Antonino" or "Little Antony," as the Florentines affectionately +called him, had "no inclination but to piety," and was an enemy even +as an infant "both to sloth and to the amusements of children". As +a schoolboy his only pleasure was to read the lives of the saints, +converse with pious persons or to pray. When not at home or at school +he was in church, either kneeling or lying prostrate before a crucifix, +"with a perseverance that astonished everybody". S. Dominic himself, +preaching at Fiesole, made him a Dominican, his answers to an +examination of the whole decree of Gratian being the deciding cause, +although Little Antony was then but sixteen. As a priest he was +"never seen at the altar but bathed in tears". After being prior of +a number of convents and a counsellor of much weight in convocation, +he was made Archbishop of Florence: but was so anxious to avoid the +honour and responsibility that he hid in the island of Sardinia. On +being discovered he wrote a letter praying to be excused and watered it +with his tears; but at last he consented and was consecrated in 1446. + +As archbishop his life was a model of simplicity and solicitude. He +thought only of his duties and the well-being of the poor. His purse +was open to all in need, and he "often sold" his single mule in order +to relieve some necessitous person. He gave up his garden to the growth +of vegetables for the poor, and kept an ungrateful leper whose sores +he dressed with his own hands. He died in 1459 and was canonized in +1523. His body was still free from corruption in 1559, when it was +translated to the chapel in S. Marco prepared for it by the Salviati. + +But perhaps the good Antonino's finest work was the foundation of a +philanthropic society of Florentines which still carries on its good +work. Antonino's sympathy lay in particular with the reduced families +of Florence, and it was to bring help secretly to them--too proud to +beg--that he called for volunteers. The society was known in the city +as the Buonuomini (good men) of S. Martino, the little church close to +Dante's house, behind the Badia: S. Martin being famous among saints +for his impulsive yet wise generosity with his cloak. + +The other and most famous prior of S. Marco was Savonarola. Girolamo +Savonarola was born of noble family at Ferrara in 1452, and after a +profound education, in which he concentrated chiefly upon religion and +philosophy, he entered the Dominican order at the age of twenty-two. He +first came to S. Marco at the age of thirty and preached there in +Lent in 1482, but without attracting much notice. When, however, he +returned to S. Marco seven years later it was to be instantly hailed +both as a powerful preacher and reformer. His eloquent and burning +declarations were hurled both at Florence and Rome: at the apathy and +greed of the Church as a whole, and at the sinfulness and luxury of +this city, while Lorenzo the Magnificent, who was then at the height +of his influence, surrounded by accomplished and witty hedonists, +and happiest when adding to his collection of pictures, jewels, +and sculpture, in particular did the priest rebuke. Savonarola stood +for the spiritual ideals and asceticism of the Baptist, Christ, and +S. Paul; Lorenzo, in his eyes, made only for sensuality and decadence. + +The two men, however, recognized each other's genius, and Lorenzo, +with the tolerance which was as much a mark of the first three +Medici rulers as its absence was notable in most of the later ones, +rather encouraged Savonarola in his crusade than not. He visited him +in the monastery and did not resent being kept waiting; and he went +to hear him preach. In 1492 Lorenzo died, sending for Savonarola on +his death-bed, which was watched by the two closest of his scholarly +friends, Pico della Mirandola and Politian. The story of what happened +has been variously told. According to the account of Politian, Lorenzo +met his end with fortitude, and Savonarola prayed with the dying man +and gave him his blessing; according to another account, Lorenzo was +called upon by Savonarola to make three undertakings before he died, +and, Lorenzo declining, Savonarola left him unabsolved. These promises +were (1) to repent of all his sins, and in particular of the sack +of Volterra, of the alleged theft of public dowry funds and of the +implacable punishment of the Pazzi conspirators; (2) to restore all +property of which he had become possessed by unjust means; and (3) +to give back to Florence her liberty. But the probabilities are in +favour of Politian's account being the true one, and the later story +a political invention. + +Lorenzo dead and Piero his son so incapable, Savonarola came to his +own. He had long foreseen a revolution following on the death of +Lorenzo, and in one of his most powerful sermons he had suggested +that the "Flagellum Dei" to punish the wicked Florentines might be +a foreign invader. When therefore in 1493 the French king Charles +VIII arrived in Italy with his army, Savonarola was recognized not +only as a teacher but as a prophet; and when the Medici had been +again banished and Charles, having asked too much, had retreated +from Florence, the Republic was remodelled with Savonarola virtually +controlling its Great Council. For a year or two his power was supreme. + +This was the period of the Piagnoni, or Weepers. The citizens adopted +sober attire; a spirit as of England under the Puritans prevailed; +and Savonarola's eloquence so far carried away not only the populace +but many persons of genius that a bonfire was lighted in the middle +of the Piazza della Signoria in which costly dresses, jewels, false +hair and studies from the nude were destroyed. + +Savonarola, meanwhile, was not only chastising and reforming Florence, +but with fatal audacity was attacking with even less mincing of words +the licentiousness of the Pope. As to the character of Lorenzo de' +Medici there can be two opinions, and indeed the historians of Florence +are widely divided in their estimates; but of Roderigo Borgia (Pope +Alexander VI) there is but one, and Savonarola held it. Savonarola +was excommunicated, but refused to obey the edict. Popes, however, +although Florence had to a large extent put itself out of reach, +have long arms, and gradually--taking advantage of the city's growing +discontent with piety and tears and recurring unquiet, there being +still a strong pro-Medici party, and building not a little on his +knowledge of the Florentine love of change--the Pope gathered together +sufficient supporters of his determination to crush this too outspoken +critic and humiliate his fellow-citizens. + +Events helped the pontiff. A pro-Medici conspiracy excited the +populace; a second bonfire of vanities led to rioting, for the +Florentines were beginning to tire of virtue; and the preaching of a +Franciscan monk against Savonarola (and the gentle Fra Angelico has +shown us, in the Accademia, how Franciscans and Dominicans could hate +each other) brought matters to a head, for he challenged Savaronola +to an ordeal by fire in the Loggia de' Lanzi, to test which of them +spoke with the real voice of God. A Dominican volunteered to make the +essay with a Franciscan. This ceremony, anticipated with the liveliest +eagerness by the Florentines, was at the last moment forbidden, +and Savonarola, who had to bear the responsibility of such a bitter +disappointment to a pleasure-loving people, became an unpopular +figure. Everything just then was against him, for Charles VIII, +with whom he had an understanding and of whom the Pope was afraid, +chose that moment to die. + +The Pope drove home his advantage, and getting more power among +individuals on the Council forced them to indict their firebrand. No +means were spared, however base; forgery and false witness were as +nothing. The summons arrived on April 8th, 1497, when Savonarola was +at S. Marco. The monks, who adored him, refused to let him go, and +for a whole day the convent was under siege. But might, of course, +prevailed, and Savonarola was dragged from the church to the Palazzo +Vecchio and prosecuted for the offence of claiming to have supernatural +power and fomenting political disturbance. He was imprisoned in a tiny +cell in the tower for many days, and under constant torture he no doubt +uttered words which would never have passed his lips had he been in +control of himself; but we may dismiss, as false, the evidence which +makes them into confessions. Evidence there had to be, and evidence +naturally was forthcoming; and sentence of death was passed. + +In that cell, when not under torture, he managed to write meditations +on the thirteenth psalm, "In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped," and a little +work entitled "A Rule for Living a Christian Life". Before the last +day he administered the Sacrament to his two companions, who were to +die with him, with perfect composure, and the night preceding they +spent together in prayer in the Great Hall which he had once dominated. + +The execution was on May 23rd, 1498. A gallows was erected in +the Piazza della Signoria on the spot now marked by the bronze +tablet. Beneath the gallows was a bonfire. All those members of the +Government who could endure the scene were present, either on the +platform of the Palazzo Vecchio or in the Loggia de' Lanzi. The crowd +filled the Piazza. The three monks went to their death unafraid. When +his friar's gown was taken from him, Savonarola said: "Holy gown, +thou wert granted to me by God's grace and I have ever kept thee +unstained. Now I forsake thee not but am bereft of thee." (This very +garment is in the glass case in Savonarola's cell at S. Marco.) The +Bishop replied hastily: "I separate thee from the Church militant +and triumphant". "Militant," replied Savonarola, "not triumphant, for +that rests not with you." The monks were first hanged and then burned. + +The larger picture of the execution which hangs in Savonarola's +cell, although interesting and up to a point credible, is of course +not right. The square must have been crowded: in fact we know it +was. The picture has still other claims on the attention, for it +shows the Judith and Holofernes as the only statue before the Palazzo +Vecchio, standing where David now is; it shows the old ringhiera, +the Marzocco (very inaccurately drawn), and the Loggia de' Lanzi +empty of statuary. We have in the National Gallery a little portrait +of Savonarola--No. 1301--with another representation of the execution +on the back of it. + +So far as I can understand Savonarola, his failure was due to +two causes: firstly, his fatal blending of religion and politics, +and secondly, the conviction which his temporary success with the +susceptible Florentines bred in his heated mind that he was destined +to carry all before him, totally failing to appreciate the Florentine +character with all its swift and deadly changes and love of change. As +I see it, Savonarola's special mission at that time was to be a +wandering preacher, spreading the light and exciting his listeners to +spiritual revival in this city and that, but never to be in a position +of political power and never to become rooted. The peculiar tragedy +of his career is that he left Florence no better than he found it: +indeed, very likely worse; for in a reaction from a spiritual revival +a lower depth can be reached than if there had been no revival at all; +while the visit of the French army to Italy, for which Savonarola took +such credit to himself, merely ended in disaster for Italy, disease +for Europe, and the spreading of the very Renaissance spirit which +he had toiled to destroy. But, when all is said as to his tragedy, +personal and political, there remains this magnificent isolated figure, +single-minded, austere and self-sacrificing, in an age of indulgence. + +For most people "Romola" is the medium through which Savonarola is +visualized; but there he is probably made too theatrical. Yet he +must have had something of the theatre in him even to consent to the +ordeal by fire. That he was an intense visionary is beyond doubt, +but a very real man too we must believe when we read of the devotion +of his monks to his person, and of his success for a while with the +shrewd, worldly Great Council. + +Savonarola had many staunch friends among the artists. We have seen +Lorenzo di Credi and Fra Bartolommeo under his influence. After +his death Fra Bartolommeo entered S. Marco (his cell was No. 34), +and di Credi, who was noted for his clean living, entered S. Maria +Nuova. Two of Luca della Robbia's nephews were also monks under +Savonarola. We have seen Fra Bartolommeo's portrait of Savonarola in +the Accademia, and there is another of him here. Cronaca, who built +the Great Council's hall, survived Savonarola only ten years, and +during that time all his stories were of him. Michelangelo, who was +a young man when he heard him preach, read his sermons to the end of +his long life. But upon Botticelli his influence was most powerful, +for he turned that master's hand from such pagan allegories as the +"Primavera" and the "Birth of Venus" wholly to religious subjects. + +Savonarola had three adjoining cells. In the first is a monument to +him, his portrait by Fra Bartolommeo and three frescoes by the same +hand. In the next room is the glass case containing his robe, his +hair shirt, and rosary; and here also are his desk and some books. In +the bedroom is a crucifixion by Fra Angelico on linen. No one knowing +Savonarola's story can remain here unmoved. + +We find Fra Bartolommeo again with a pencil drawing of S. Antonio +in that saint's cell. Here also is Antonino's death-mask. The +terra-cotta bust of him in Cosimo's cell is the most like life, but +there is an excellent and vivacious bronze in the right transept of +S. Maria Novella. + +Before passing downstairs again the library should be visited, that +delightful assemblage of grey pillars and arches. Without its desks +and cases it would be one of the most beautiful rooms in Florence. All +the books have gone, save the illuminated music. + +In the first cloisters, which are more liveable-in than the ordinary +Florentine cloisters, having a great shady tree in the midst with a +seat round it, and flowers, are the Fra Angelicos I have mentioned. The +other painting is rather theatrical and poor. In the refectory is +a large scene of the miracle of the Providenza, when S. Dominic and +his companions, during a famine, were fed by two angels with bread; +while at the back S. Antonio watches the crucified Christ. The artist +is Sogliano. + +In addition to Fra Angelico's great crucifixion fresco in the chapter +house, is a single Christ crucified, with a monk mourning, by Antonio +Pollaiuolo, very like the Fra Angelico in the cloisters; but the +colour has left it, and what must have been some noble cypresses are +now ghosts dimly visible. The frame is superb. + +One other painting we must see--the "Last Supper" of Domenico +Ghirlandaio. Florence has two "Last Suppers" by this artist--one at +the Ognissanti and this. The two works are very similar and have much +entertaining interest, but the debt which this owes to Castagno is very +obvious: it is indeed Castagno sweetened. Although psychologically this +picture is weak, or at any rate not strong, it is full of pleasant +touches: the supper really is a supper, as it too often is not, +with fruit and dishes and a generous number of flasks; the tablecloth +would delight a good housekeeper; a cat sits close to Judas, his only +companion; a peacock perches in a niche; there are flowers on the wall, +and at the back of the charming loggia where the feast is held are +luxuriant trees, and fruits, and flying birds. The monks at food in +this small refectory had compensation for their silence in so engaging +a scene. This room also contains a beautiful della Robbia "Deposition". + +The little refectory, which is at the foot of the stairs leading to +the cells, opens on the second cloisters, and these few visitors ever +enter. But they are of deep interest to any one with a passion for +the Florence of the great days, for it is here that the municipality +preserves the most remarkable relics of buildings that have had to +be destroyed. It is in fact the museum of the ancient city. Here, +for example, is that famous figure of Abundance, in grey stone, +which Donatello made for the old market, where the Piazza Vittorio +Emmanuele now is, in the midst of which she poured forth her fruits +from a cornucopia high on a column for all to see. Opposite is a +magnificent doorway designed by Donatello for the Pazzi garden. Old +windows, chimney-pieces, fragments of cornice, carved pillars, +painted beams, coats of arms, are everywhere. + +In cell No. 3 is a pretty little coloured relief of the Virgin +adoring, which I covet, from a tabernacle in the old Piazza di +Brunelleschi. Here too are relics of the guild houses of some of +the smaller Arti, while perhaps the most humanly interesting thing +of all is the great mournful bell of S. Marco in Savonarola's time, +known as La Piagnone. + +In the church of S. Marco lie two of the learned men, friends of +Lorenzo de' Medici, whose talk at the Medici table was one of the +youthful Michelangelo's educative influences, what time he was studying +in the Medici garden, close by: Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494), the +poet and the tutor of the three Medici boys, and the marvellous Pico +della Mirandola (1463-1494), the enchanted scholar. Pico was one of the +most fascinating and comely figures of his time. He was born in 1463, +the son of the Count of Mirandola, and took early to scholarship, +spending his time among philosophies as other boys among games or +S. Antonio at his devotions, but by no means neglecting polished life +too, for we know him to have been handsome, accomplished, and a knight +in the court of Venus. In 1486 he challenged the whole world to meet +him in Rome and dispute publicly upon nine hundred theses; but so +many of them seemed likely to be paradoxes against the true faith, +too brilliantly defended, that the Pope forbade the contest. Pico +dabbled in the black arts, wrote learnedly (in his room at the Badia +of Fiesole) on the Mosaic law, was an amorous poet in Italian as well +as a serious poet in Latin, and in everything he did was interesting +and curious, steeped in Renaissance culture, and inspired by the wish +to reconcile the past and the present and humanize Christ and the +Fathers. He found time also to travel much, and he gave most of his +fortune to establish a fund to provide penniless girls with marriage +portions. He had enough imagination to be the close friend both of +Lorenzo de' Medici and Savonarola. Savonarola clothed his dead body +in Dominican robes and made him posthumously one of the order which +for some time before his death he had desired to join. He died in +1494 at the early age of thirty-one, two years after Lorenzo. + +Angelo Poliziano, known as Politian, was also a Renaissance scholar +and also a friend of Lorenzo, and his companion, with Pico, at +his death-bed; but although in precocity, brilliancy of gifts, +and literary charm he may be classed with Pico, the comparison +there ends, for he was a gross sensualist of mean exterior and +capable of much pettiness. He was tutor to Lorenzo's sons until +their mother interfered, holding that his views were far too loose, +but while in that capacity he taught also Michelangelo and put him +upon the designing of his relief of the battle of the Lapithae and +Centaurs. At the time of Lorenzo and Giuliano's famous tournament +in the Piazza of S. Croce, Poliziano wrote, as I have said, the +descriptive allegorical poem which gave Botticelli ideas for his +"Birth of Venus" and "Primavera". He lives chiefly by his Latin poems; +but he did much to make the language of Tuscany a literary tongue. His +elegy on the death of Lorenzo has real feeling in it and proves him to +have esteemed that friend and patron. Like Pico, he survived Lorenzo +only two years, and he also was buried in Dominican robes. Perhaps +the finest feat of Poliziano's life was his action in slamming the +sacristy doors in the face of Lorenzo's pursuers on that fatal day +in the Duomo when Giuliano de' Medici was stabbed. + +Ghirlandaio's fresco in S. Trinità of the granting of the charter +to S. Francis gives portraits both of Poliziano and Lorenzo in the +year 1485. Lorenzo stands in a little group of four in the right-hand +corner, holding out his hand towards Poliziano, who, with Lorenzo's +son Giuliano on his right and followed by two other boys, is advancing +up the steps. Poliziano is seen again in a Ghirlandaio fresco at +S. Maria Novella. + +From S. Marco we are going to SS. Annunziata, but first let us just +take a few steps down the Via Cavour, in order to pass the Casino +Medici, since it is built on the site of the old Medici garden where +Lorenzo de' Medici established Bertoldo, the sculptor, as head of a +school of instruction, amid those beautiful antiques which we have +seen in the Uffizi, and where the boy Michelangelo was a student. + +A few steps farther on the left, towards the Fiesole heights, which +we can see rising at the end of the street, we come, at No. 69, to a +little doorway which leads to a little courtyard--the Chiostro dello +Scalzo--decorated with frescoes by Andrea del Sarto and Franciabigio +and containing the earliest work of both artists. The frescoes are in +monochrome, which is very unusual, but their interest is not impaired +thereby: one does not miss other colours. No. 7, the Baptism of Christ, +is the first fresco these two associates ever did; and several years +elapsed between that and the best that are here, such as the group +representing Charity and the figure of Faith, for the work was long +interrupted. The boys on the staircase in the fresco which shows +S. John leaving his father's house are very much alive. This is by +Franciabigio, as is also S. John meeting with Christ, a very charming +scene. Andrea's best and latest is the Birth of the Baptist, which +has the fine figure of Zacharias writing in it. But what he should +be writing at that time and place one cannot imagine: more reasonably +might he be called a physician preparing a prescription. On the wall +is a terra-cotta bust of S. Antonio, making him much younger than +is usual. + +Andrea's suave brush we find all over Florence, both in fresco and +picture, and this is an excellent place to say something of the man +of whom English people have perhaps a more intimate impression than +of any other of the old masters, by reason largely of Browning's +poem and not a little by that beautiful portrait which for so long +was erroneously considered to represent the painter himself, in our +National Gallery. Andrea's life was not very happy. No painter had +more honour in his own day, and none had a greater number of pupils, +but these stopped with him only a short time, owing to the demeanour +towards them of Andrea's wife, who developed into a flirt and shrew, +dowered with a thousand jealousies. Andrea, the son of a tailor, was +born in 1486 and apprenticed to a goldsmith. Showing, however, more +drawing than designing ability, he was transferred to a painter named +Barile and then passed to that curious man of genius who painted the +fascinating picture "The Death of Procris" which hangs near Andrea's +portrait in our National Gallery--Piero di Cosimo. Piero carried +oddity to strange lengths. He lived alone in indescribable dirt, +and lived wholly on hard-boiled eggs, which he cooked, with his glue, +by the fifty, and ate as he felt inclined. He forbade all pruning of +trees as an act of insubordination to Nature, and delighted in rain +but cowered in terror from thunder and lightning. He peered curiously +at clouds to find strange shapes in them, and in his pursuit of the +grotesque examined the spittle of sick persons on the walls or ground, +hoping for suggestions of monsters, combats of horses, or fantastic +landscapes. But why this should have been thought madness in Cosimo +when Leonardo in his directions to artists explicitly advises them +to look hard at spotty walls for inspiration, I cannot say. He +was also the first, to my knowledge, to don ear-caps in tedious +society--as Herbert Spencer later used to do. He had many pupils, +but latterly could not bear them in his presence and was therefore +but an indifferent instructor. As a deviser of pageants he was more in +demand than as a painter; but his brush was not idle. Both London and +Paris have, I think, better examples of his genius than the Uffizi; +but he is well represented at S. Spirito. + +Piero sent Andrea to the Palazzo Vecchio to study the Leonardo and +Michelangelo cartoons, and there he met Franciabigio, with whom +he struck up one of his close friendships, and together they took a +studio and began to paint for a living. Their first work together was +the Baptism of Christ at which we are now looking. The next commission +after the Scalzo was to decorate the courtyard of the Convent of the +Servi, now known as the Church of the Annunciation; and moving into +adjacent lodgings, Andrea met Jacopo Sansovino, the Venetian sculptor, +whose portrait by Bassano is in the Uffizi, a capable all-round +man who had studied in Rome and was in the way of helping the young +Andrea at all points. It was then too that he met the agreeable and +convivial Rustici, of whom I have said something in the chapter on +the Baptistery, and quickly became something of a blood--for by this +time, the second decade of the sixteenth century, the simplicity of +the early artists had given place to dashing sophistication and the +great period was nearly over. For this change the brilliant complex +inquiring mind of Leonardo da Vinci was largely responsible, together +with the encouragement and example of Lorenzo de' Medici and such of +his cultured sceptical friends as Alberti, Pico della Mirandola, and +Poliziano. But that is a subject too large for this book. Enough that +a worldly splendour and vivacity had come into artistic life and Andrea +was an impressionable young man in the midst of it. It does not seem to +have affected the power and dexterity of his hand, but it made him a +religious court-painter instead of a religious painter. His sweetness +and an underlying note of pathos give his work a peculiar and genuine +character; but he is just not of the greatest. Not so great really +as Luca Signorelli, for example, whom few visitors to the galleries +rush at with gurgling cries of rapture as they rush at Andrea. + +When Andrea was twenty-six he married. The lady was the widow of a +hatter. Andrea had long loved her, but the hatter clung outrageously +to life. In 1513, however, she was free, and, giving her hand to the +painter, his freedom passed for ever. Vasari being among Andrea's +pupils may be trusted here, and Vasari gives her a bad character, +which Browning completes. Andrea painted her often, notably in the +fresco of the "Nativity of the Virgin," to which we shall soon come +at the Annunziata: a fine statuesque woman by no means unwilling to +have the most popular artist in Florence as her slave. + +Of the rest of Andrea's life I need say little. He grew steadily in +favour and was always busy; he met Michelangelo and admired him, and +Michelangelo warned Raphael in Rome of a little fellow in Florence who +would "make him sweat". Browning, in his monologue, makes this remark +of Michelangelo's, and the comparison between Andrea and Raphael that +follows, the kernel of the poem. + +Like Leonardo and Rustici, Andrea accepted, in 1518, an invitation from +Francis I to visit Paris and once there began to paint for that royal +patron. But although his wife did not love him, she wanted him back, +and in the midst of his success he returned, taking with him a large +sum of money from Francis with which to buy for the king works of +art in Italy. That money he misapplied to his own extravagant ends, +and although Francis took no punitive steps, the event cannot have +improved either Andrea's position or his peace of mind; while it +caused Francis to vow that he had done with Florentines. Andrea died +in 1531, of fever, nursed by no one, for his wife, fearing it might +be the dreaded plague, kept away. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +The SS. Annunziata and the Spedale degli Innocenti + +Andrea del Sarto again--Franciabigio outraged--Alessio +Baldovinetti--Piero de' Medici's church--An Easter Sunday +congregation--Andrea's "Madonna del Sacco"--"The Statue and +the Bust"--Henri IV--The Spedale degli Innocenti--Andrea della +Robbia--Domenico Ghirlandaio--Cosimo I and the Etruscans--Bronzes and +tapestries--Perugino's triptych--S. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi--"Very +sacred human dust". + +From S. Marco it is an easy step, along the Via Sapienza, to the +Piazza dell' Annunziata, where one finds the church of that name, +the Palazzo Riccardi-Mannelli, and opposite it, gay with the famous +della Robbia reliefs of swaddled children, the Spedale degli Innocenti. + +First the church, which is notable for possessing in its courtyard +Andrea del Sarto's finest frescoes. This series, of which he was the +chief painter, with his friend Franciabigio again as his principal +ally, depict scenes in the life of the Virgin and S. Filippo. The +scene of the Birth of the Virgin has been called the triumph of +fresco painting, and certainly it is very gay and life-like in +that medium. The whole picture very charming and easy, with the +pleasantest colouring imaginable and pretty details, such as the +washing of the baby and the boy warming his hands, while of the two +women in the foreground, that on the left, facing the spectator, +is a portrait of Andrea's wife, Lucrezia. In the Arrival of the +Magi we find Andrea himself, the figure second from the right-hand +side, pointing; while next to him, on the left, is his friend Jacopo +Sansovino. The "Dead Man Restored to Life by S. Filippo" is Andrea's +next best. Franciabigio did the scene of the Marriage of the Virgin, +which contains another of his well-drawn boys on the steps. The injury +to this fresco--the disfigurement of Mary's face--was the work of +the painter himself, in a rage that the monks should have inspected +it before it was ready. Vasari is interesting on this work. He draws +attention to it as illustrating "Joseph's great faith in taking her, +his face expressing as much fear as joy". He also says that the blow +which the man is giving Joseph was part of the marriage ceremony at +that time in Florence. + +Franciabigio, in spite of his action in the matter of this fresco, +seems to have been a very sweet-natured man, who painted rather to be +able to provide for his poor relations than from any stronger inner +impulse, and when he saw some works by Raphael gave up altogether, +as Verrocchio gave up after Leonardo matured. Franciabigio was a +few years older than Andrea, but died at the same age. Possibly it +was through watching his friend's domestic troubles that he remained +single, remarking that he who takes a wife endures strife. His most +charming work is that "Madonna of the Well" in the Uffizi, which +is reproduced in this volume. Franciabigio's master was Mariotto +Albertinelli, who had learned from Cosimo Rosselli, the teacher +of Piero di Cosimo, Andrea's master--another illustration of the +interdependence of Florentine artists. + +One of the most attractive works in the courtyard must once have +been the "Adoration of the Shepherds" by Alessio Baldovinetti, at +the left of the entrance to the church. It is badly damaged and the +colour has gone, but one can see that the valley landscape, when it +was painted, was a dream of gaiety and happiness. + +The particular treasure of the church is the extremely ornate chapel +of the Virgin, containing a picture of the Virgin displayed once a +year on the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25th, in the painting +of which the Virgin herself took part, descending from heaven for +that purpose. The artist thus divinely assisted was Pietro Cavallini, +a pupil of Giotto. The silver shrine for the picture was designed by +Michelozzo and was a beautiful thing before the canopy and all the +distressing accessories were added. It was made at the order of Piero +de' Medici, who was as fond of this church as his father Cosimo was +of S. Lorenzo. Michelozzo only designed it; the sculpture was done +by Pagno di Lapo Portigiani, whose Madonna is over the tomb of Pope +John by Donatello and Michelozzo in the Baptistery. + +Among the altar-pieces are two by Perugino; but of Florentine +altar-pieces one can say little or nothing in a book of reasonable +dimensions. There are so many and they are for the most part so +difficult to see. Now and then one arrests the eye and holds it; +but for the most part they go unstudied. The rotunda of the choir +is interesting, for here we meet again Alberti, who completed it +from designs by Michelozzo. It does not seem to fit the church from +within, and even less so from without, but it is a fine structure. The +seventeenth-century painting of the dome is almost impressive. + +But one can forget and forgive all the church's gaudiness and floridity +when the choir is in good voice and the strings play Palestrina as +they did last Easter Sunday. The Annunziata is famous for its music, +and on the great occasions people crowd there as nowhere else. At High +Mass the singing was fine but the instrumental music finer. One is +accustomed to seeing vicarious worship in Italy; but never was there +so vicarious a congregation as ours, and indeed if it had not been +for the sight of the busy celibates at the altar one would not have +known that one was worshipping at all. The culmination of detachment +came when a family of Siamese or Burmese children, in native dress, +entered. A positive hum went round, and not an eye but was fixed +on the little Orientals. When, however, the organ was for a while +superseded and the violas and violins quivered under the plangent +melody of Palestrina, our roving attention was fixed and held. + +I am not sure that the Andrea in the cloisters is not the best of +all his work. It is very simple and wholly beautiful, and in spite +of years of ravage the colouring is still wonderful, perhaps indeed +better for the hand of Time. It is called the "Madonna del Sacco" +(grain sack), and fills the lunette over the door leading from the +church. The Madonna--Andrea's favourite type, with the eyes set widely +in the flat brow over the little trustful nose--has her Son, older than +usual, sprawling on her knee. Her robes are ample and rich; a cloak +of green is over her pretty head. By her sits S. Joseph, on the sack, +reading with very long sight. That is all; but one does not forget it. + +For the rest the cloisters are a huddle of memorial slabs and +indifferent frescoes. In the middle is a well with nice iron work. No +grass at all. The second cloisters, into which it is not easy to get, +have a gaunt John the Baptist in terra-cotta by Michelozzo. + +On leaving the church, our natural destination is the Spedale, on the +left, but one should pause a moment in the doorway of the courtyard (if +the beggars who are always there do not make it too difficult) to look +down the Via de' Servi running straight away to the cathedral, which, +with its great red warm dome, closes the street. The statue in the +middle of the piazza is that of the Grand Duke Ferdinand by Giovanni da +Bologna, cast from metal taken from the Italians' ancient enemies the +Turks, while the fountains are by Tacca, Giovanni's pupil, who made +the bronze boar at the Mercato Nuovo. "The Synthetical Guide Book," +from which I have already quoted, warns its readers not to overlook +"the puzzling bees" at the back of Ferdinand's statue. "Try to count +them," it adds. (I accepted the challenge and found one hundred and +one.) The bees have reference to Ferdinand's emblem--a swarm of these +insects, with the words "Majestate tantum". The statue, by the way, +is interesting for two other reasons than its subject. First, it is +that to which Browning's poem, "The Statue and the Bust," refers, and +which, according to the poet, was set here at Ferdinand's command to +gaze adoringly for ever at the della Robbia bust of the lady whom he +loved in vain. But the bust no longer is visible, if ever it was. John +of Douay (as Gian Bologna was also called)-- + + + +John of Douay shall effect my plan, +Set me on horseback here aloft, +Alive, as the crafty sculptor can, + + +In the very square I have crossed so oft: +That men may admire, when future suns +Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft, + + +While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze-- +Admire and say, "when he was alive +How he would take his pleasure once!" + + + +The other point of interest is that when Maria de' Medici, Ferdinand's +niece, wished to erect a statue of Henri IV (her late husband) at the +Pont Neuf in Paris she asked to borrow Gian Bologna. But the sculptor +was too old to go and therefore only a bronze cast of this same horse +was offered. In the end Tacca completed both statues, and Henri IV +was set up in 1614 (after having fallen overboard on the voyage from +Leghorn to Havre). The present statue at the Pont Neuf is, however, +a modern substitute. + +The façade of the Spedale degli Innocenti, or children's hospital, when +first seen by the visitor evokes perhaps the quickest and happiest +cry of recognition in all Florence by reason of its row of della +Robbia babies, each in its blue circle, reproductions of which have +gone all over the world. These are thought to be by Andrea, Luca's +nephew, and were added long after the building was completed. Luca +probably helped him. The hospital was begun by Brunelleschi at the +cost of old Giovanni de' Medici, Cosimo's father, but the Guild of +the Silk Weavers, for whom Luca made the exquisite coat of arms on Or +San Michele, took it over and finished it. Andrea not only modelled +the babies outside but the beautiful Annunciation (of which I give a +reproduction in this volume) in the court: one of his best works. The +photograph will show how full of pretty thoughts it is, but in colour +it is more charming still and the green of the lily stalks is not +the least delightful circumstance. Not only among works of sculpture +but among Annunciations this relief holds a very high place. Few of +the artists devised a scene in which the great news was brought more +engagingly, in sweeter surroundings, or received more simply. + +The door of the chapel close by leads to another work of art equally +adapted to its situation--Ghirlandaio's Adoration of the Magi: one of +the perfect pictures for children. We have seen Ghirlandaio's Adoration +of the Shepherds at the Accademia: this is its own brother. It has +the sweetest, mildest little Mother, and in addition to the elderly +Magi two tiny little saintlings adore too. In the distance is an +enchanted landscape about a fairy estuary. + +This hospital is a very busy one, and the authorities are glad to show +it to visitors who really take an interest in such work. Rich Italians +carry on a fine rivalry in generosity to such institutions. Bologna, +for instance, could probably give lessons in thoughtful charity to +the whole world. + +The building opposite the hospital has a loggia which is notable +for a series of four arches, like those of the Mercato Nuovo, and in +summer for the flowers that hang down from the little balconies. A +pretty building. Before turning to the right under the last of the +arches of the hospital loggia, which opens on the Via della Colonna +and from the piazza always frames such a charming picture of houses +and mountains, it is well, with so much of Andrea del Sarto's work +warm in one's memory, to take a few steps up the Via Gino Capponi +(which also always frames an Apennine vista under its arch) to No. 24, +and see Andrea's house, on the right, marked with a tablet. + +In the Via della Colonna we find, at No. 26 on the left, the Palazzo +Crocetta, which is now a Museum of Antiquities, and for its Etruscan +exhibits is of the greatest historical value and interest to visitors +to Tuscany, such as ourselves. For here you may see what civilization +was like centuries before Christ and Rome. The beginnings of the +Etruscan people are indistinct, but about 1000 B.C. has been agreed +to as the dawn of their era. Etruria comprised Tuscany, Perugia, +and Rome itself. Florence has no remains, but Fiesole was a fortified +Etruscan town, and many traces of its original builders may be seen +there, together with Etruscan relics in the little museum. For the +best reconstructions of an Etruscan city one must go to Volterra, +where so many of the treasures in the present building were found. + +The Etruscans in their heyday were the most powerful people in +the world, but after the fifth century their supremacy gradually +disappeared, the Gauls on the one side and the Romans on the other +wearing them down. All our knowledge of them comes through the +spade. Excavations at Volterra and elsewhere have revealed some +thousands of inscriptions which have been in part deciphered; but +nothing has thrown so much light on this accomplished people as their +habit of providing the ashes of their dead with everything likely +to be needed for the next world, whose requirements fortunately so +exactly tallied with those of this that a complete system of domestic +civilization can be deduced. In arts and sciences they were most +enviably advanced, as a visit to the British Museum will show in +a moment. But it is to this Florentine Museum of Antiquities that +all students of Etruria must go. The garden contains a number of the +tombs themselves, rebuilt and refurnished exactly as they were found; +while on the ground floor is the amazing collection of articles which +the tombs yielded. The grave has preserved them for us, not quite +so perfectly as the volcanic dust of Vesuvius preserved the domestic +appliances of Pompeii, but very nearly so. Jewels, vessels, weapons, +ornaments--many of them of a beauty never since reproduced--are to +be seen in profusion, now gathered together for study only a short +distance from the districts in which centuries ago they were made +and used for actual life. + +Upstairs we find relics of an older civilization still, the Egyptian, +and a few rooms of works of art, all found in Etruscan soil, +the property of the Pierpont Morgans and George Saltings of that +ancient day, who had collected them exactly as we do now. Certain +of the statues are world-famous. Here, for example, in Sala IX, is +the bronze Minerva which was found near Arezzo in 1554 by Cosimo's +workmen. Here is the Chimæra, also from Arezzo in 1554, which Cellini +restored for Cosimo and tells us about in his Autobiography. Here is +the superb Orator from Lake Trasimene, another of Cosimo's discoveries. + +In Sala X look at the bronze situla in an isolated glass case, of such +a peacock blue as only centuries could give it. Upstairs in Sala XVI +are many more Greek and Roman bronzes, among which I noticed a faun +with two pipes as being especially good; while the little room leading +from it has some fine life-size heads, including a noble one of a +horse, and the famous Idolino on its elaborate pedestal--a full-length +Greek bronze from the earth of Pesaro, where it was found in 1530. + +The top floor is given to tapestries and embroideries. The collection +is vast and comprises much foreign work; but Cosimo I introducing +tapestry weaving into Florence, many of the examples come from the +city's looms. The finest, or at any rate most interesting, series +is that depicting the court of France under Catherine de' Medici, +with portraits: very sumptuous and gay examples of Flemish work. + +The trouble at Florence is that one wants the days to be ten times as +long in order that one may see its wonderful possessions properly. Here +is this dry-looking archaeological museum, with antipathetic custodians +at the door who refuse to get change for twenty-lira pieces: nothing +could be more unpromising than they or their building; and yet you +find yourself instantly among countless vestiges of a past people who +had risen to power and crumbled again before Christ was born--but at +a time when man was so vastly more sensitive to beauty than he now is +that every appliance for daily life was the work of an artist. Well, +a collection like this demands days and days of patient examination, +and one has only a few hours. Were I Joshua--had I his curious gift--it +is to Florence I would straightway fare. The sun should stand still +there: no rock more motionless. + +Continuing along the Via della Colonna, we come, on the right, +at No. 8, to the convent of S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, which is +now a barracks but keeps sacred one room in which Perugino painted a +crucifixion, his masterpiece in fresco. The work is in three panels, +of which that on the left, representing the Virgin and S. Bernard, +is the most beautiful. Indeed, there is no more beautiful light +in any picture we shall see, and the Virgin's melancholy face is +inexpressibly sweet. Perugino is best represented at the Accademia, +and there are works of his at the Uffizi and Pitti and in various +Florentine churches; but here he is at his best. Vasari tells us that +he made much money and was very fond of it; also that he liked his +young wife to wear light head-dresses both out of doors and in the +house, and often dressed her himself. His master was Verrocchio and +his best pupil Raphael. + +S. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, a member of the same family that plotted +against the Medici and owned the sacred flints, was born in 1566, and, +says Miss Dunbar, [8] "showed extraordinary piety from a very tender +age". When only a child herself she used to teach small children, and +she daily carried lunch to the prisoners. Her real name was Catherine, +but becoming a nun she called herself Mary Magdalene. In an illness in +which she was given up for dead, she lay on her bed for forty days, +during which she saw continual visions, and then recovered. Like +S. Catherine of Bologna she embroidered well and painted miraculously, +and she once healed a leprosy by licking it. She died in 1607. + +The old English Cemetery, as it is usually called--the Protestant +Cemetery, as it should be called--is an oval garden of death in the +Piazza Donatello, at the end of the Via di Pinti and the Via Alfieri, +rising up from the boulevard that surrounds the northern half of +Florence. (The new Protestant Cemetery is outside the city on the +road to the Certosa.) I noticed, as I walked beneath the cypresses, +the grave of Arthur Hugh Clough, the poet of "Dipsychus," who died +here in Florence on November 13th, 1861; of Walter Savage Landor, +that old lion (born January 30th, 1775; died September 17th, 1864), +of whom I shall say much more in a later chapter; of his son Arnold, +who was born in 1818 and died in 1871; and of Mrs. Holman Hunt, who +died in 1866. But the most famous grave is that of Elizabeth Barrett +Browning, who lies beneath a massive tomb that bears only the initials +E.B.B. and the date 1861. "Italy," wrote James Thomson, the poet of +"The City of Dreadful Night," on hearing of Mrs. Browning's death, + + +"Italy, you hold in trust +Very sacred human dust." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +The Cascine and the Arno + +Florence's Bois de Boulogne--Shelley--The races--The game of +Pallone--SS. Ognissanti--Botticelli and Ghirlandaio--Amerigo +Vespucci--The Platonic Academy's garden--Alberti's Palazzo +Rucellai--Melancholy decay--Two smiling boys--The Corsini +palace--The Trinità bridge--The Borgo San Jacopo from the back--Home +fishing--SS. Apostoli--A sensitive river--The Ponte Vecchio--The +goldsmiths--S. Stefano. + +The Cascine is the "Bois" of Florence; but it does not compare with +the Parisian expanse either in size or attraction. Here the wealthy +Florentines drive, the middle classes saunter and ride bicycles, the +poor enjoy picnics, and the English take country walks. The further +one goes the better it is, and the better also the river, which at +the very end of the woods becomes such a stream as the pleinairistes +love, with pollarded trees on either side. Among the trees of one of +these woods nearly a hundred years ago, a walking Englishman named +Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote his "Ode to the West Wind". + +The Cascine is a Bois also in having a race-course in it--a small +course with everything about it on a little scale, grandstand, betting +boxes, and all. And why not?--for after all Florence is quite small in +size, however remarkable in character. Here funny little race-meetings +are held, beginning on Easter Monday and continuing at intervals until +the weather gets too hot. The Florentines pour out in their hundreds +and lie about in the long grass among the wild flowers, and in their +fives and tens back their fancies. The system is the pari-mutuel, +and here one seems to be more at its mercy even than in France. The +odds keep distressingly low; but no one seems to be either elated or +depressed, whatever happens. To be at the races is the thing--to walk +about and watch the people and enjoy the air. It is the most orderly +frugal scene, and the baleful and mysterious power of the racehorse +to poison life and landscape, as in England, does not exist here. + +To the Cascine also in the spring and autumn several hundred Florentine +men come every afternoon to see the game of pallone and risk a few lire +on their favourite players. Mr. Ruskin, whose "Mornings in Florence" +is still the textbook of the devout, is severe enough upon those +visitors who even find it in their hearts to shop and gossip in the +city of Giotto. What then would he have said of one who has spent not +a few afternoon hours, between five and six, in watching the game of +pallone? I would not call pallone a good game. Compared with tennis, +it is nothing; compared with lawn tennis, it is poor; compared with +football, it is anaemic; yet in an Italian city, after the galleries +have closed, on a warm afternoon, it will do, and it will more than +do as affording an opportunity of seeing muscular Italian athletes in +the pink of condition. The game is played by six, three each side: +a battitore, who smites the ball, which is served to him very much +as in rounders; the spalla, who plays back; and the terzino, who +plays forward. The court is sixty or more yards long, on one side +being a very high wall and on the other and at each end netting. The +implements are the ball, which is hollow and of leather, about half +the size of a football, and a cylinder studded with spikes, rather +like a huge fir-cone or pine-apple, which is placed over the wrist +and forearm to hit the ball with; and the game is much as in tennis, +only there is no central net: merely a line. Each man's ambition, +however, is less to defeat the returning power of the foe than to +paralyse it by hitting the ball out of reach. It is as though a +batsman were out if he failed to hit three wides. + +A good battitore, for instance, can smite the ball right down the +sixty yards into the net, above the head of the opposing spalla who +stands awaiting it at the far end. Such a stroke is to the English +mind a blot, and it is no uncommon thing, after each side has had a +good rally, to see the battitore put every ball into the net in this +way and so win the game without his opponents having one return; +which is the very negation of sport. Each innings lasts until one +side has gained eight points, the points going to whichever player +makes the successful stroke. This means that the betting--and of +course there is betting--is upon individuals and not upon sides. + +The pari-mutuel system is that which is adopted at both the pallone +courts in Florence (there is another at the Piazza Beccaria), and the +unit is two lire. Bets are invited on the winner and the second, and +place-money is paid on both. No wonder then that as the game draws to a +close the excitement becomes intense; while during its progress feeling +runs high too. For how can a young Florentine who has his money on, +say, Gabri the battitore, withhold criticism when Gabri's arm fails +and the ball drops comfortably for the terzino Ugo to smash it into +Gabri's net? Such a lapse should not pass unnoticed; nor does it. + +From the Cascine we may either return to Florence along the banks +of the river, or cross the river by the vile iron Ponte Sospeso +and enter the city again, on the Pitti side, by the imposing Porta +S. Frediano. Supposing that we return by the Lungarno Amerigo Vespucci +there is little to notice, beyond costly modern houses of a Portland +Place type and the inevitable Garibaldi statue, until, just past the +oblique pescaja (or weir), we see across the Piazza Manin the church +of All Saints--S. Salvadore d'Ognissanti, which must be visited since +it is the burial-place of Botticelli and Amerigo Vespucci, the chapel +of the Vespucci family being painted by Ghirlandaio; and since here too +lies Botticelli's beautiful Simonetta, who so untimely died. According +to Vasari the frescoes of S. Jerome by Ghirlandaio and S. Augustine by +Botticelli were done in competition. They were painted, as it happens, +elsewhere, but moved here without injury. I think the S. Jerome is the +more satisfying, a benevolent old scientific author--a Lord Avebury +of the canon--with his implements about him on a tapestry tablecloth, +a brass candlestick, his cardinal's hat, and a pair of tortoise-shell +eyeglasses handy. S. Augustine is also scientific; astronomical books +and instruments surround him too. His tablecloth is linen. + +Amerigo Vespucci, whose statue we saw in the Uffizi portico +colonnade, was a Florentine by birth who settled in Spain and took to +exploration. His discoveries were important, but America is not really +among them, for Columbus, whom he knew and supported financially, +got there first. By a mistake in the date in his account of his +travels, Vespucci's name came to be given to the new continent, and +it was then too late to alter it. He became a naturalized Spaniard +and died in 1512. Columbus indeed suffers in Florence; for had it +not been for Vespucci, America would no doubt be called Columbia; +while Brunelleschi anticipated him in the egg trick. + +The church is very proud of possessing the robe of S. Francis, which +is displayed once a year on October 4th. In the refectory is a "Last +Supper" by Ghirlandaio, not quite so good as that which we saw at +S. Marco, but very similar, and, like that, deriving from Castagno's +at the Cenacolo di Sant' Apollonia. The predestined Judas is once +more on the wrong side of the table. + +Returning to the river bank again, we are at once among the hotels and +pensions, which continue cheek by jowl right away to the Ponte Vecchio +and beyond. In the Piazza Goldoni, where the Ponte Carraia springs off, +several streets meet, best of them and busiest of them being that Via +della Vigna Nuova which one should miss few opportunities of walking +along, for here is the palazzo--at No. 20--which Leon Battista Alberti +designed for the Rucellai. The Rucellai family's present palace, I +may say here, is in the Via della Scala, and by good fortune I found +at the door sunning himself a complacent major-domo who, the house +being empty of its august owners, allowed me to walk through into +the famous garden--the Orti Oricellari--where the Platonic Academy +met for a while in Bernardo Rucellai's day. A monument inscribed +with their names has been erected among the evergreens. Afterwards +the garden was given by Francis I to his beloved Bianca Capella. Its +natural beauties are impaired by a gigantic statue of Polyphemus, +bigger than any other statue in Florence. + +The new Rucellai palace does not compare with the old, which is, I +think, the most beautiful of all the private houses of the great day, +and is more easily seen too, for there is a little piazza in front +of it. The palace, with its lovely design and its pilastered windows, +is now a rookery, while various industries thrive beneath it. Part of +the right side has been knocked away; but even still the proportions +are noble. This is a bad quarter for vandalism; for in the piazza +opposite is a most exquisite little loggia, built in 1468, the three +lovely arches of which have been filled in and now form the windows of +an English establishment known as "The Artistic White House". An absurd +name, for if it were really artistic it would open up the arches again. + +The Rucellai chapel, behind the palace, is in the Via della Spada, +and the key must be asked for in the palace stables. It is in a +shocking state, and quite in keeping with the traditions of the +neighbourhood, while the old church of S. Pancrazio, its neighbour, +is now a Government tobacco factory. The Rucellai chapel contains a +model of the Holy Sepulchre, at Jerusalem, in marble and intarsia, +by the great Alberti--one of the most jewel-like little buildings +imaginable. Within it are the faint vestiges of a fresco which the +stable-boy calls a Botticelli, and indeed the hands and faces of +the angels, such as one can see of them with a farthing dip, do not +render the suggestion impossible. On the altar is a terra-cotta Christ +which he calls a Donatello, and again he may be right; but fury at a +condition of things that can permit such a beautiful place to be so +desecrated renders it impossible to be properly appreciative. + +Since we are here, instead of returning direct to the river let us +go a few yards along this Via della Spada to the left, cross the +Via de' Fossi, and so come to the busy Via di Pallazzuolo, on the +left of which, past the piazza of S. Paolino, is the little church of +S. Francesco de' Vanchetoni. This church is usually locked, but the key +is next door, on the right, and it has to be obtained because over the +right sacristy door is a boy's head by Rossellino, and over the left a +boy's head by Desiderio da Settignano, and each is joyful and perfect. + +The Via de' Fossi will bring us again to the Piazza Goldoni and the +Arno, and a few yards farther along there is a palace to be seen, +the Corsini, the only palazzo still inhabited by its family to which +strangers are admitted--the long low white façade with statues on +the top and a large courtyard, on the Lungarno Corsini, just after +the Piazza Goldoni. It is not very interesting and belongs to the +wrong period, the seventeenth century. It is open on fixed days, +and free save that one manservant receives the visitor and another +conducts him from room to room. There are many pictures, but few +of outstanding merit, and the authorship of some of these has been +challenged. Thus, the cartoon of Julius II, which is called a Raphael +and seems to be the sketch for one of the well-known portraits at the +Pitti, Uffizi, or our National Gallery, is held to be not by Raphael +at all. Among the pleasantest pictures are a Lippo Lippi Madonna and +Child, a Filippino Lippi Madonna and Child with Angels, and a similar +group by Botticelli; but one has a feeling that Carlo Dolci and Guido +Reni are the true heroes of the house. Guido Reni's Lucrezia Romana, +with a dagger which she has already thrust two inches into her bosom, +as though it were cheese, is one of the most foolish pictures I ever +saw. The Corsini family having given the world a pope, a case of papal +vestments is here. It was this Pope when Cardinal Corsini who said to +Dr. Johnson's friend, Mrs. Piozzi, meeting him in Florence in 1785, +"Well, Madam, you never saw one of us red-legged partridges before, +I believe". + +There may be more beautiful bridges in the world than the Trinità , +but I have seen none. Its curve is so gentle and soft, and its three +arches so light and graceful, that I wonder that whenever new bridges +are necessary the authorities do not insist upon the Trinità being +copied. The Ponte Vecchio, of course, has a separate interest of its +own, and stands apart, like the Rialto. It is a bridge by chance, one +might almost say. But the Trinità is a bridge in intent and supreme at +that, the most perfect union of two river banks imaginable. It shows +to what depths modern Florence can fall--how little she esteems her +past--that the iron bridge by the Cascine should ever have been built. + +The various yellows of Florence--the prevailing colours--are spread +out nowhere so favourably as on the Pitti side of the river between +the Trinità and the Ponte Vecchio on the backs of the houses of the +Borgo San Jacopo, and just so must this row have looked for four +hundred years. Certain of the occupants of these tenements, even on +the upper floors, have fishing nets, on pulleys, which they let down +at intervals during the day for the minute fish which seem to be as +precious to Italian fishermen as sparrows and wrens to Italian gunners. + +The great palace at the Trinità end of this stretch of yellow +buildings--the Frescobaldi--must have been very striking when the +loggia was open: the three rows of double arches that are now walled +in. From this point, as well as from similar points on the other +side of the Ponte Vecchio, one realizes the mischief done by Cosimo +I's secret passage across it; for not only does the passage impose a +straight line on a bridge that was never intended to have one, but it +cuts Florence in two. If it were not for its large central arches one +would, from the other bridges or the embankment, see nothing whatever +of the further side of the city; but as it is, through these arches +one has heavenly vignettes. + +We leave the river again for a few minutes about fifty yards along +the Lungarno Acciaioli beyond the Trinità and turn up a narrow passage +to see the little church of SS. Apostoli, where there is a delightful +gay ciborium, all bright colours and happiness, attributed to Andrea +della Robbia, with pretty cherubs and pretty angels, and a benignant +Christ and flowers and fruit which cannot but chase away gloom and +dubiety. Here also is a fine tomb by the sculptor of the elaborate +chimney-piece which we saw in the Bargello, Benedetto da Rovezzano, +who also designed the church's very beautiful door. Whether or +not it is true that SS. Apostoli was built by Charlemagne, it is +certainly very old and architecturally of great interest. Vasari says +that Brunelleschi acquired from it his inspiration for S. Lorenzo +and S. Spirito. To many Florentines its principal importance is its +custody of the Pazzi flints for the igniting of the sacred fire which +in turn ignites the famous Carro. + +Returning again to the embankment, we are quickly at the Ponte +Vecchio, where it is pleasant at all times to loiter and observe +both the river and the people; while from its central arches one +sees the mountains. From no point are the hill of S. Miniato and +its stately cypresses more beautiful; but one cannot see the church +itself--only the church of S. Niccolò below it, and of course the +bronze "David". In dry weather the Arno is green; in rainy weather +yellow. It is so sensitive that one can almost see it respond to the +most distant shower; but directly the rain falls and it is fed by +a thousand Apennine torrents it foams past this bridge in fury. The +Ponte Vecchio was the work, upon a Roman foundation, of Taddeo Gaddi, +Giotto's godson, in the middle of the fourteenth century, but the +shops are, of course, more recent. The passage between the Pitti +and Uffizi was added in 1564. Gaddi, who was a fresco painter first +and architect afterwards, was employed because Giotto was absent in +Milan, Giotto being the first thought of every one in difficulties +at that time. The need, however, was pressing, for a flood in 1333 +had destroyed a large part of the Roman bridge. Gaddi builded so well +that when, two hundred and more years later, another flood severely +damaged three other bridges, the Ponte Vecchio was unharmed. None +the less it is not Gaddi's bust but Cellini's that has the post of +honour in the centre; but this is, of course, because Cellini was +a goldsmith, and it is to goldsmiths that the shops belong. Once it +was the butchers' quarter! + +I never cross the Ponte Vecchio and see these artificers in their +blouses through the windows, without wondering if in any of their boy +assistants is the Michelangelo, or Orcagna, or Ghirlandaio, or even +Cellini, of the future, since all of those, and countless others of +the Renaissance masters, began in precisely this way. + +The odd thing is that one is on the Ponte Vecchio, from either +end, before one knows it to be a bridge at all. A street of sudden +steepness is what it seems to be. Not the least charming thing upon +it is the masses of groundsel which have established themselves on +the pent roof over the goldsmiths' shops. Every visitor to Florence +must have longed to occupy one of these little bridge houses; but I +am not aware that any has done so. + +One of the oldest streets in Florence must be the Via Girolami, from +the Ponte Vecchio to the Uffizi, under an arch. A turning to the left +brings one to the Piazza S. Stefano, where the barn-like church of +S. Stefano is entered; and close by is the Torre de' Girolami, where +S. Zenobius lived. S. Stefano, although it is now so easily overlooked, +was of importance in its day, and it was here that Niccolò da Uzzano, +the leader of the nobles, held a meeting to devise means of checking +the growing power of the people early in the fifteenth century and was +thwarted by old Giovanni de' Medici. From that thwarting proceeded +the power of the Medici family and the gloriously endowed Florence +that we travel to see. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +S. Maria Novella + +The great churches of Florence--A Dominican cathedral--The "Decameron" +begins--Domenico Ghirlandaio--Alessio Baldovinetti--The Louvre--The +S. Maria Novella frescoes--Giovanni and Lorenzo Tornabuoni--Ruskin +implacable--Cimabue's Madonna--Filippino Lippi--Orcagna's "Last +Judgment"--The Cloisters of Florence--The Spanish Chapel--S. Dominic +triumphant--Giotto at his sweetest--The "Wanderer's" doom--The Piazza, +as an arena. + +S. Maria Novella is usually bracketed with S. Croce as the most +interesting Florentine church after the Duomo, but S. Lorenzo has of +course to be reckoned with very seriously. I think that for interest +I should place S. Maria Novella fifth, including also the Baptistery +before it, but architecturally second. Its interior is second in +beauty only to S. Croce. S. Croce is its immediate religious rival, +for it was because the Dominicans had S. Maria Novella, begun in +1278, that several years later the Franciscans determined to have an +equally important church and built S. Croce. The S. Maria Novella +architects were brothers of the order, but Talenti, whom we saw at +work both on Giotto's tower and on San Michele, built the campanile, +and Leon Battista Alberti the marble façade, many years later. The +richest patrons of S. Maria Novella--corresponding to the Medici at +S. Lorenzo and the Bardi at S. Croce--were the Rucellai, whose palace, +designed also by the wonderful versatile Alberti, we have seen. + +The interior of S. Maria Novella is very fine and spacious, and +it gathers and preserves an exquisite light at all times of the +day. Nowhere in Florence is there a finer aisle, with the roof +springing so nobly and masterfully from the eight columns on either +side. The whole effect, like that of S. Croce, is rather northern, +the result of the yellow and brown hues; but whereas S. Croce has a +crushing flat roof, this one is all soaring gladness. + +The finest view of the interior is from the altar steps looking back +to the beautiful circular window over the entrance, a mass of happy +colour. In the afternoon the little plain circular windows high up +in the aisle shoot shafts of golden light upon the yellow walls. The +high altar of inlaid marble is, I think, too bright and too large. The +church is more impressive on Good Friday, when over this altar is built +a Calvary with the crucifix on the summit and life-size mourners at its +foot; while a choir and string orchestra make superbly mournful music. + +I like to think that it was within the older S. Maria Novella that +those seven mirthful young ladies of Florence remained one morning +in 1348, after Mass, to discuss plans of escape from the city during +the plague. As here they chatted and plotted, there entered the church +three young men; and what simpler than to engage them as companions in +their retreat, especially as all three, like all seven of the young +women, were accomplished tellers of stories with no fear whatever of +Mrs. Grundy? And thus the "Decameron" of Giovanni Boccaccio came about. + +S. Maria Novella also resembles S. Croce in its moving groups of +sight-seers each in the hands of a guide. These one sees always and +hears always: so much so that a reminder has been printed and set up +here and there in this church, to the effect that it is primarily the +house of God and for worshippers. But S. Maria Novella has not a tithe +of S. Croce's treasures. Having almost no tombs of first importance, +it has to rely upon its interior beauty and upon its frescoes, and +its chief glory, whatever Mr. Ruskin, who hated them, might say, is, +for most people, Ghirlandaio's series of scenes in the life of the +Virgin and S. John the Baptist. These cover the walls of the choir +and for more than four centuries have given delight to Florentines +and foreigners. Such was the thoroughness of their painter in his +colour mixing (in which the boy Michelangelo assisted him) that, +although they have sadly dimmed and require the best morning light, +they should endure for centuries longer, a reminder not only of +the thoughtful sincere interesting art of Ghirlandaio and of the +pious generosity of the Tornabuoni family, who gave them, but also +of the costumes and carriage of the Florentine ladies at the end +of the fifteenth century when Lorenzo the Magnificent was in his +zenith. Domenico Ghirlandaio may not be quite of the highest rank +among the makers of Florence; but he comes very near it, and indeed, +by reason of being Michelangelo's first instructor, perhaps should +stand amid them. But one thing is certain--that without him Florence +would be the poorer by many beautiful works. + +He was born in 1449, twenty-one years after the death of Masaccio and +three before Leonardo, twenty-six before Michelangelo, and thirty-four +before Raphael. His full name was Domenico or Tommaso di Currado di +Doffo Bigordi, but his father Tommaso Bigordi, a goldsmith, having +hit upon a peculiarly attractive way of making garlands for the hair, +was known as Ghirlandaio, the garland maker; and time has effaced +the Bigordi completely. + +The portraits of both Tommaso and Domenico, side by side, occur in the +fresco representing Joachim driven from the Temple: Domenico, who is to +be seen second from the extreme right, a little resembles our Charles +II. Like his father, and, as we have seen, like most of the artists of +Florence, he too became a goldsmith, and his love of the jewels that +goldsmiths made may be traced in his pictures; but at an early age he +was sent to Alessio Baldovinetti to learn to be a painter. Alessio's +work we find all over Florence: a Last Judgment in the Accademia, for +example, but that is not a very pleasing thing; a Madonna Enthroned, +in the Uffizi; the S. Miniato frescoes; the S. Trinità frescoes; +and that extremely charming although faded work in the outer court of +SS. Annunziata. For the most delightful picture from his hand, however, +one has to go to the Louvre, where there is a Madonna and Child (1300 +a), in the early Tuscan room, which has a charm not excelled by any +such group that I know. The photographers still call it a Piero della +Francesca, and the Louvre authorities omit to name it at all; but it +is Alessio beyond question. Next it hangs the best Ghirlandaio that +I know--the very beautiful Visitation, and, to add to the interest +of this room to the returning Florentine wanderer, on the same wall +are two far more attractive works by Bastiano Mainardi (Ghirlandaio's +brother-in-law and assistant at S. Maria Novella) than any in Florence. + +Alessio, who was born in 1427, was an open-handed ingenious man who +could not only paint and do mosaic but once made a wonderful clock for +Lorenzo. His experiments with colour were disastrous: hence most of his +frescoes have perished; but possibly it was through Alessio's mistakes +that Ghirlandaio acquired the use of such a lasting medium. Alessio +was an independent man who painted from taste and not necessity. + +Ghirlandaio's chief influences, however, were Masaccio, at the Carmine, +Fra Lippo Lippi, and Verrocchio, who is thought also to have been +Baldovinetti's pupil and whose Baptism of Christ, in the Accademia, +painted when Ghirlandaio was seventeen, must have given Ghirlandaio +the lines for his own treatment of the incident in this church. One +has also only to compare Verrocchio's sculptured Madonnas in the +Bargello with many of Ghirlandaio's to see the influence again; +both were attracted by a similar type of sweet, easy-natured girl. + +When he was twenty-six Ghirlandaio went to Rome to paint the Sixtine +library, and then to San Gimignano, where he was assisted by Mainardi, +who was to remain his most valuable ally in executing the large +commissions which were to come to his workshop. His earliest Florentine +frescoes are those which we shall see at Ognissanti; the Madonna della +Misericordia and the Deposition painted for the Vespucci family and +only recently discovered, together with the S. Jerome, in the church, +and the Last Supper, in the refectory. By this time Ghirlandaio and +Botticelli were in some sort of rivalry, although, so far as I know, +friendly enough, and both went to Rome in 1481, together with Perugino, +Piero di Cosimo, Cosimo Rosselli, Luca Signorelli and others, at +the command of Pope Sixtus IV to decorate the Sixtine chapel, the +excommunication of all Florentines which the Pope had decreed after +the failure of the Pazzi Conspiracy to destroy the Medici (as we saw +in chapter II) having been removed in order to get these excellent +workmen to the Holy City. Painting very rapidly the little band had +finished their work in six months, and Ghirlandaio was at home again +with such an ambition and industry in him that he once expressed the +wish that every inch of the walls of Florence might be covered by +his brush--and in those days Florence had walls all round it, with +twenty-odd towers in addition to the gates. His next great frescoes +were those in the Palazzo Vecchio and S. Trinita. It was in 1485 +that he painted his delightful Adoration, at the Accademia, and in +1486 he began his great series at S. Maria Novella, finishing them +in 1490, his assistants being his brother David, Benedetto Mainardi, +who married Ghirlandaio's sister, and certain apprentices, among them +the youthful Michelangelo, who came to the studio in 1488. + +The story of the frescoes is this. Ghirlandaio when in Rome had +met Giovanni Tornabuoni, a wealthy merchant whose wife had died +in childbirth. Her death we have already seen treated in relief by +Verrocchio in the Bargello. Ghirlandaio was first asked to beautify +in her honour the Minerva at Rome, where she was buried, and this +he did. Later when Giovanni Tornabuoni wished to present S. Maria +Novella with a handsome benefaction, he induced the Ricci family, +who owned this chapel, to allow him to re-decorate it, and engaged +Ghirlandaio for the task. This meant first covering the fast fading +frescoes by Orcagna, which were already there, and then painting over +them. What the Orcagnas were like we cannot know; but the substitute, +although probably it had less of curious genius in it was undoubtedly +more attractive to the ordinary observer. + +The right wall, as one faces the window (whose richness of coloured +glass, although so fine in the church as a whole, is here such a +privation), is occupied by scenes in the story of the Baptist; the +left by the life of the Virgin. The left of the lowest pair on the +right wall represents S. Mary and S. Elizabeth, and in it a party of +Ghirlandaio's stately Florentine ladies watch the greeting of the two +saints outside Florence itself, symbolized rather than portrayed, +very near the church in which we stand. The girl in yellow, on the +right of the picture, with her handkerchief in her hand and wearing a +rich dress, is Giovanna degli Albizzi, who married Lorenzo Tornabuoni +at the Villa Lemmi near Florence, that villa from which Botticelli's +exquisite fresco, now in the Louvre at the top of the main staircase, +in which she again is to be seen, was taken. Her life was a sad +one, for her husband was one of those who conspired with Piero di +Lorenzo de' Medici for his return some ten years later, and was +beheaded. S. Elizabeth is of course the older woman. The companion +to this picture represents the angel appearing to S. Zacharias, and +here again Ghirlandaio gives us contemporary Florentines, portraits +of distinguished Tornabuoni men and certain friends of eminence +among them. In the little group low down on the left, for example, +are Poliziano and Marsilio Ficino, the Platonist. Above--but seeing +is beginning to be difficult--the pair of frescoes represent, on the +right, the birth of the Baptist, and on the left, his naming. The birth +scene has much beauty, and is as well composed as any, and there is +a girl in it of superb grace and nobility; but the birth scene of the +Virgin, on the opposite wall, is perhaps the finer and certainly more +easily seen. In the naming of the child we find Medici portraits once +more, that family being related to the Tornabuoni; and Mr. Davies, +in his book on Ghirlandaio, offers the interesting suggestion, which +he supports very reasonably, that the painter has made the incident +refer to the naming of Lorenzo de' Medici's third son, Giovanni (or +John), who afterwards became Pope Leo X. In that case the man on the +left, in green, with his hand on his hip, would be Lorenzo himself, +whom he certainly resembles. Who the sponsor is is not known. The +landscape and architecture are alike charming. + +Above these we faintly see that strange Baptism of Christ, so curiously +like the Verrocchio in the Accademia, and the Baptist preaching. + +The left wall is perhaps the favourite. We begin with Joachim being +driven from the Temple, one of the lowest pair; and this has a peculiar +interest in giving us a portrait of the painter and his associates--the +figure on the extreme right being Benedetto Mainardi; then Domenico +Ghirlandaio; then his father; and lastly his brother David. On the +opposite side of the picture is the fated Lorenzo Tornabuoni, of whom +I have spoken above, the figure farthest from the edge, with his hand +on his hip. The companion picture is the most popular of all--the +Birth of the Virgin--certainly one of the most charming interiors in +Florence. Here again we have portraits--no doubt Tornabuoni ladies--and +much pleasant fancy on the part of the painter, who made everything as +beautiful as he could, totally unmindful of the probabilities. Ruskin +is angry with him for neglecting to show the splashing of the water +in the vessel, but it would be quite possible for no splashing to +be visible, especially if the pouring had only just begun; but for +Ruskin's strictures you must go to "Mornings in Florence," where poor +Ghirlandaio gets a lash for every virtue of Giotto. Next--above, on +the left--we have the Presentation of the Virgin and on the right +her Marriage. The Presentation is considered by Mr. Davies to be +almost wholly the work of Ghirlandaio's assistants, while the youthful +Michelangelo himself has been credited with the half-naked figure on +the steps, although Mr. Davies gives it to Mainardi. Mainardi again +is probably the author of the companion scene. The remaining frescoes +are of less interest and much damaged; but in the window wall one +should notice the portraits of Giovanni Tornabuoni and Francesca di +Luca Pitti, his wife, kneeling, because this Giovanni was the donor +of the frescoes, and his sister Lucrezia was the wife of Piero de' +Medici and therefore the mother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, while +Francesca Tornabuoni, the poor lady who died in childbirth, was the +daughter of that proud Florentine who began the Pitti palace but +ended his life in disgrace. + +And so we leave this beautiful recess, where pure religious feeling +may perhaps be wanting but where the best spirit of the Renaissance +is to be found: everything making for harmony and pleasure; and on +returning to London the visitor should make a point of seeing the +Florentine girl by the same hand in our National Gallery, No. 1230, +for she is very typical of his genius. + +On the entrance wall of the church is what must once have been a fine +Masaccio--"The Trinity"--but it is in very bad condition; while in +the Cappella Rucellai in the right transept is what purports to be +a Cimabue, very like the one in the Accademia, but with a rather +more matured Child in it. Vasari tells us that on its completion +this picture was carried in stately procession from the painter's +studio to the church, in great rejoicing and blowing of trumpets, +the populace being moved not only by religious ecstasy but by pride in +an artist who could make such a beautiful and spacious painting, the +largest then known. Vasari adds that when Cimabue was at work upon it, +Charles of Anjou, visiting Florence, was taken to his studio, to see +the wonderful painter, and a number of Florentines entering too, they +broke out into such rejoicings that the locality was known ever after +as Borgo Allegro, or Joyful Quarter. This would be about 1290. There +was a certain fitness in Cimabue painting this Madonna, for it is said +that he had his education in the convent which stood here before the +present church was begun. But I should add that of Cimabue we know +practically nothing, and that most of Vasari's statements have been +confuted, while the painter of the S. Maria Novella Madonna is held +by some authorities to be Duccio of Siena. So where are we? + +The little chapel next the choir on the right is that of Filippo +Strozzi the elder who was one of the witnesses of the Pazzi outrage in +the Duomo in 1478. This was the Filippo Strozzi who began the Strozzi +palace in 1489, father of the Filippo Strozzi who married Lorenzo +de' Medici's noble grand-daughter Clarice and came to a tragic end +under Cosimo I. Old Filippo's tomb here was designed by Benedetto da +Maiano, who made the famous Franciscan pulpit in S. Croce, and was +Ghirlandaio's friend and the Strozzi palace's first architect. The +beautiful circular relief of the Virgin and Child, with a border of +roses and flying worshipping angels all about it, behind the altar, is +Benedetto's too, and very lovely and human are both Mother and Child. + +The frescoes in this chapel, by Filippino Lippi, are interesting, +particularly that one on the left, depicting the Resuscitation of +Drusiana by S. John the Evangelist, at Rome, in which the group of +women and children on the right, with the little dog, is full of +life and most naturally done. Above (but almost impossible to see) +is S. John in his cauldron of boiling oil between Roman soldiers and +the denouncing Emperor, under the banner S.P.Q.R.--a work in which +Roman local colour completely excludes religious feeling. Opposite, +below, we see S. Philip exorcising a dragon, a very florid scene, +and, above, a painfully spirited and realistic representation of the +Crucifixion. The sweetness of the figures of Charity and Faith in +monochrome and gold helps, with Benedetto's tondo, to engentle the air. + +We then come again to the Choir, with Ghirlandaio's urbane Florentine +pageant in the guise of sacred history, and pass on to the next chapel, +the Cappella Gondi, where that crucifix in wood is to be seen which +Brunelleschi carved as a lesson to Donatello, who received it like +the gentleman he was. I have told the story in Chapter XV. + +The left transept ends in the chapel of the Strozzi family, of which +Filippo was the head in his day, and here we find Andrea Orcagna and +his brother's fresco of Heaven, the Last Judgment and Hell. It was +the two Orcagnas who, according to Vasari, had covered the Choir with +those scenes in the life of the Virgin which Ghirlandaio was allowed +to paint over, and Vasari adds that the later artist availed himself +of many of the ideas of his predecessors. This, however, is not +very likely, I think, except perhaps in choice of subject. Orcagna, +like Giotto, and later, Michelangelo, was a student of Dante, and +the Strozzi chapel frescoes follow the poet's descriptions. In the +Last Judgment, Dante himself is to be seen, among the elect, in the +attitude of prayer. Petrarch is with him. + +The sacristy is by Talenti (of the Campanile) and was added in +1350. Among its treasures once were the three reliquaries painted +by Fra Angelico, but they are now at S. Marco. It has still rich +vestments, fine woodwork, and a gay and elaborate lavabo by one of +the della Robbias, with its wealth of ornament and colour and its +charming Madonna and Child with angels. + +A little doorway close by used to lead to the cloisters, and a +mercenary sacristan was never far distant, only too ready to unlock for +a fee what should never have been locked, and black with fury if he got +nothing. But all this has now been done away with, and the entrance +to the cloisters is from the Piazza, just to the left of the church, +and there is a turnstile and a fee of fifty centimes. At S. Lorenzo the +cloisters are free. At the Carmine and the Annunziata the cloisters +are free. At S. Croce the charge is a lira and at S. Maria Novella +half a lira. To make a charge for the cloisters alone seems to me +utterly wicked. Let the Pazzi Chapel at S. Croce and the Spanish +Chapel here have fees, if you like; but the cloisters should be open +to all. Children should be encouraged to play there. + +Since, however, S. Maria Novella imposes a fee we must pay it, +and the new arrangement at any rate carries this advantage with it, +that one knows what one is expected to pay and can count on entrance. + +The cloisters are everywhere interesting to loiter in, but their +chief fame is derived from the Spanish Chapel, which gained that name +when in 1566 it was put at the disposal of Eleanor of Toledo's suite +on the occasion of her marriage to Cosimo I. Nothing Spanish about +it otherwise. Both structure and frescoes belong to the fourteenth +century. Of these frescoes, which are of historical and human interest +rather than artistically beautiful, that one on the right wall as +we enter is the most famous. It is a pictorial glorification of the +Dominican order triumphant; with a vivid reminder of the origin of +the word Dominican in the episode of the wolves (or heretics) being +attacked by black and white dogs, the Canes Domini, or hounds of the +Lord. The "Mornings in Florence" should here be consulted again, for +Ruskin made a very thorough and characteristically decisive analysis +of these paintings, which, whether one agrees with it or not, is +profoundly interesting. Poor old Vasari, who so patiently described +them too and named a number of the originals of the portraits, is now +shelved, and from both his artists, Simone Martini and Taddeo Gaddi, +has the authorship been taken by modern experts. Some one, however, +must have done the work. The Duomo as represented here is not the +Duomo of fact, which had not then its dome, but of anticipation. + +Opposite, we see a representation of the triumph of the greatest of the +Dominicans, after its founder, S. Thomas Aquinas, the author of the +"Summa Theologiae," who died in 1274. The painter shows the Angelic +Doctor enthroned amid saints and patriarchs and heavenly attendants, +while three powerful heretics grovel at his feet, and beneath are the +Sciences and Moral Qualities and certain distinguished men who served +them conspicuously, such as Aristotle, the logician, whom S. Thomas +Aquinas edited, and Cicero, the rhetorician. In real life Aquinas was +so modest and retiring that he would accept no exalted post from the +Church, but remained closeted with his books and scholars; and we can +conceive what his horror would be could he view this apotheosis. On the +ceiling is a quaint rendering of the walking on the water, S. Peter's +failure being watched from the ship with the utmost closeness by the +other disciples, but attracting no notice whatever from an angler, +close by, on the shore. The chapel is desolate and unkempt, and those +of us who are not Dominicans are not sorry to leave it and look for +the simple sweetness of the Giottos. + +These are to be found, with some difficulty, on the walls of the niche +where the tomb of the Marchese Ridolfo stands. They are certainly +very simple and telling, and I advise every one to open the "Mornings +in Florence" and learn how the wilful magical pen deals with them; +but it would be a pity to give up Ghirlandaio because Giotto was so +different, as Ruskin wished. Room for both. One scene represents +the meeting of S. Joachim and S. Anna outside a mediaeval city's +walls, and it has some pretty Giottesque touches, such as the man +carrying doves to the Temple and the angel uniting the two saints +in friendliness; and the other is the Birth of the Virgin, which +Ruskin was so pleased to pit against Ghirlandaio's treatment of the +same incident. Well, it is given to some of us to see only what we +want to see and be blind to the rest; and Ruskin was of these the +very king. I agree with him that Ghirlandaio in both his Nativity +frescoes thought little of the exhaustion of the mothers; but it is +arguable that two such accouchements might with propriety be treated +as abnormal--as indeed every painter has treated the birth of Christ, +where the Virgin, fully dressed, is receiving the Magi a few moments +after. Ruskin, after making his deadly comparisons, concludes thus +genially of the Giotto version--"If you can be pleased with this, +you can see Florence. But if not, by all means amuse yourself there, +if you can find it amusing, as long as you like; you can never see it." + +The S. Maria Novella habit is one to be quickly contracted by the +visitor to Florence: nearly as important as the S. Croce habit. Both +churches are hospitable and, apart from the cloisters, free and +eminently suited for dallying in; thus differing from the Duomo, +which is dark, and S. Lorenzo, where there are payments to be made +and attendants to discourage. + +An effort should be made at S. Maria Novella to get into the old +cloisters, which are very large and indicate what a vast convent it +once was. But there is no certainty. The way is to go through to the +Palaestra and hope for the best. Here, as I have said in the second +chapter, were lodged Pope Eugenius and his suite, when they came +to the Council of Florence in 1439. These large and beautiful green +cloisters are now deserted. Through certain windows on the left one +may see chemists at work compounding drugs and perfumes after old +Dominican recipes, to be sold at the Farmacia in the Via della Scala +close by. The great refectory has been turned into a gymnasium. + +The two obelisks, supported by tortoises and surmounted by beautiful +lilies, in the Piazza of S. Maria Novella were used as boundaries in +the chariot races held here under Cosimo I, and in the collection of +old Florentine prints on the top floor of Michelangelo's house you +may see representations of these races. The charming loggia opposite +S. Maria Novella, with della Robbia decorations, is the Loggia di +S. Paolo, a school designed, it is thought, by Brunelleschi, and +here, at the right hand end, we see S. Dominic himself in a friendly +embrace with S. Francis, a very beautiful group by either Luca or +Andrea della Robbia. + +In the loggia cabmen now wrangle all day and all night. From it +S. Maria Novella is seen under the best conditions, always cheerful +and serene; while far behind the church is the huge Apennine where +most of the weather of Florence seems to be manufactured. In mid +April this year (1912) it still had its cap of snow. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +The Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele to S. Trinità + +A city of trams--The old market--Donatello's figure of Abundance--An +evening resort--A hall of variety--Florentines of to-day--The war +with Turkey--Homecoming heroes--Restaurants--The new market--The +bronze boar--A fifteenth century palace--Old Florentine life +reconstructed--Where changes are few--S. Trinità --Ghirlandaio +again--S. Francis--The Strozzi palace--Clarice de' Medici. + +Florence is not simple to the stranger. Like all very old cities +built fortuitously it is difficult to learn: the points of the +compass are elusive; the streets are so narrow that the sky is no +constant guide; the names of the streets are often not there; the +policemen have no high standard of helpfulness. There are trams, +it is true--too many and too noisy, and too near the pavement--but +the names of their outward destinations, from the centre, too rarely +correspond to any point of interest that one is desiring. Hence one +has many embarrassments and even annoyances. Yet I daresay this is +best: an orderly Florence is unthinkable. Since, however, the trams +that are returning to the centre nearly all go to the Duomo, either +passing it or stopping there, the tram becomes one's best friend and +the Duomo one's starting point for most excursions. + +Supposing ourselves to be there once more, let us quickly get through +the horrid necessity, which confronts one in all ancient Italian +cities, of seeing the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. In an earlier chapter +we left the Baptistery and walked along the Via Calzaioli. Again +starting from the Baptistery let us take the Via dell' Arcivescovado, +which is parallel with the Via Calzaioli, on the right of it, and +again walk straight forward. We shall come almost at once to the +great modern square. + +No Italian city or town is complete without a Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele +and a statue of that monarch. In Florence the sturdy king bestrides +his horse here. Italy being so old and Vittorio Emmanuele so new, +it follows in most cases that the square or street named after +him supplants an older one, and if the Italians had any memory or +imaginative interest in history they would see to it that the old +name was not wholly obliterated. In Florence, in order to honour the +first king of United Italy, much grave violence was done to antiquity, +for a very picturesque quarter had to be cleared away for the huge +brasseries, stores and hotels which make up the west side; which +in their turn marked the site of the old market where Donatello and +Brunelleschi and all the later artists of the great days did their +shopping and met to exchange ideals and banter; and that market in +its turn marked the site of the Roman forum. + +One of the features of the old market was the charming Loggia di Pesce; +another, Donatello's figure of Abundance, surmounting a column. This +figure is now in the museum of ancient city relics in the monastery +of S. Marco, where one confronts her on a level instead of looking +up at her in mid sky. But she is very good, none the less. + +In talking to elderly persons who can remember Florence forty and fifty +years ago I find that nothing so distresses them as the loss of the +old quarter for the making of this new spacious piazza; and probably +nothing can so delight the younger Florentines as its possession, +for, having nothing to do in the evenings, they do it chiefly in the +Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. Chairs and tables spring up like mushrooms +in the roadway, among which too few waiters distribute those very +inexpensive refreshments which seem to be purchased rather for the +right to the seat that they confer than for any stimulation. It is +extraordinary to the eyes of the thriftless English, who are never +so happy as when they are overpaying Italian and other caterers in +their own country, to notice how long these wiser folk will occupy +a table on an expenditure of fourpence. + +I do not mean that there are no theatres in Florence. There are +many, but they are not very good; and the young men can do without +them. Curious old theatres, faded and artificial, all apparently built +for the comedies of Goldoni. There are cinema theatres too, at prices +which would delight the English public addicted to those insidious +entertainments, but horrify English managers; and the Teatro Salvini +at the back of the Palazzo Vecchio is occasionally transformed into a +Folies Bergères (as it is called) where one after another comediennes +sing each two or three songs rapidly to an audience who regard them +with apathy and converse without ceasing. The only sign of interest +which one observes is the murmur which follows anything a little +off the beaten track--a sound that might equally be encouragement +or disapproval. But a really pretty woman entering a box moves +them. Then they employ every note in the gamut; and curiously enough +the pretty woman in the box is usually as cool under the fusillade +as a professional and hardened sister would be. A strange music hall +this to the English eye, where the orchestra smokes, and no numbers +are put up, and every one talks, and the intervals seem to be hours +long. But the Florentines do not mind, for they have not the English +thirst for entertainment and escape; they carry their entertainment +with them and do not wish to escape--going to such places only because +they are warmer than out of doors. + +Sitting here and watching their ironical negligence of the stage and +their interest in each other's company; their animated talk and rapid +decisions as to the merits and charms of a performer; the comfort of +their attitudes and carelessness (although never quite slovenliness) +in dress; one seems to realize the nation better than anywhere. The +old fighting passion may have gone; but much of the quickness, the +shrewdness and the humour remains, together with the determination of +each man to have if possible his own way and, whether possible or not, +his own say. + +Seeing them in great numbers one quickly learns and steadily +corroborates the fact that the Florentines are not beautiful. A +pretty woman or a handsome man is a rarity; but a dull-looking man +or woman is equally rare. They are shrewd, philosophic, cynical, and +very ready for laughter. They look contented also: Florence clearly +is the best place to be born in, to live in, and to die in. Let all +the world come to Florence, by all means, and spend its money there; +but don't ask Florence to go to the world. Don't in fact ask Florence +to do anything very much. + +Civilization and modern conditions have done the Florentines no +good. Their destiny was to live in a walled city in turbulent +days, when the foe came against it, or tyranny threatened from +within and had to be resisted. They were then Florentines and +everything mattered. To-day they are Italians and nothing matters +very much. Moreover, it must be galling to have somewhere in the +recesses of their consciousness the knowledge that their famous city, +built and cemented with their ancestors' blood, is now only a museum. + +When it is fine and warm the music hall does not exist, and it is +in the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele that the Florentines sit and talk, +or walk and talk, or listen to the band which periodically inhabits a +stand near the centre; and it was here that I watched the reception +of the news that Italy had declared war on Turkey, a decision which +while it rejoiced the national warlike spirit of the populace could +not but carry with it a reminder that wars have to be paid for. Six +or seven months later I saw the return to Florence of the first +troops from the war, and their reception was terrific. In the mass +they were welcome enough; but as soon as units could be separated +from the mass the fun began, for they were carried shoulder high to +whatever destination they wanted, their knapsacks and rifles falling +to proud bearers too; while the women clapped from the upper windows, +the shrewd shopkeepers cheered from their doorways, and the crowd which +followed and surrounded the hero every moment increased. As for the +heroes, they looked for the most part a good deal less foolish than +Englishmen would have done; but here and there was one whose expression +suggested that the Turks were nothing to this. One poor fellow had +his coat dragged from his back and torn into a thousand souvenirs. + +The restaurants of Florence are those of a city where the natives +are thrifty and the visitors dine in hotels. There is one expensive +high-class house, in the Via Tornabuoni--Doney e Nipoti or Doney +et Neveux--where the cooking is Franco-Italian, and the Chianti and +wines are dear beyond belief, and the venerable waiters move with a +deliberation which can drive a hungry man--and one is always hungry +in this fine Tuscan air--to despair. I like better the excellent +old-fashioned purely Italian food and Chianti and speed at Bonciani's +in the Via de Panzani, close to the station. These twain are the +best. But it is more interesting to go to the huge Gambrinus in +the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele, because so much is going on all the +time. One curious Florentine habit is quickly discovered and resented +by the stranger who frequents a restaurant, and that is the system of +changing waiters from one set of tables to another; so that whereas +in London and Paris the wise diner is true to a corner because it +carries the same service with it, in Florence he must follow the +service. But if the restaurants have odd ways, and a limited range of +dishes and those not very interesting, they make up for it by being +astonishingly quick. Things are cooked almost miraculously. + +The Florentines eat little. But greediness is not an Italian fault. No +greedy people would have a five-syllabled word for waiter. + +Continuing along the Via dell' Arcivescovado, which after the Piazza +becomes the Via Celimana, we come to that very beautiful structure +the Mercato Nuovo, which, however, is not so wonderfully new, having +been built as long ago as 1547-1551. Its columns and arched roof are +exquisitely proportioned. As a market it seems to be a poor affair, +the chief commodity being straw hats. For the principal food market one +has to go to the Via d'Ariento, near S. Lorenzo, and this is, I think, +well worth doing early in the morning. Lovers of Hans Andersen go to +the Mercato Nuovo to see the famous bronze boar (or "metal pig," as it +was called in the translation on which I was brought up) that stands +here, on whose back the little street boy had such adventures. The +boar himself was the work of Pietro Tacca (1586-1650), a copy from +an ancient marble original, now in the Uffizi, at the top of the +entrance stairs; but the pedestal with its collection of creeping +things is modern. The Florentines who stand in the market niches are +Bernardo Cennini, a goldsmith and one of Ghiberti's assistants, who +introduced printing into Florence in 1471 and began with an edition of +Virgil; Giovanni Villani, who was the city's first serious historian, +beginning in 1300 and continuing till his death in 1348; and Michele +Lando, the wool-carder, who on July 22nd, 1378, at the head of a mob, +overturned the power of the Signory. + +By continuing straight on we should come to that crowded and fussy +little street which crosses the river by the Ponte Vecchio and +eventually becomes the Roman way; but let us instead turn to the +right this side of the market, down the Via Porta Rossa, because +here is the Palazzo Davanzati, which has a profound interest to +lovers of the Florentine past in that it has been restored exactly +to its ancient state when Pope Eugenius IV lodged here, and has been +filled with fourteenth and fifteenth century furniture. In those days +it was the home of the Davizza family. The Davanzati bought it late +in the sixteenth century and retained it until 1838. In 1904 it was +bought by Professor Elia Volpi, who restored its ancient conditions +and presented it to the city as a permanent monument of the past. + +Here we see a mediaeval Florentine palace precisely as it was when its +Florentine owner lived his uncomfortable life there. For say what one +may, there is no question that life must have been uncomfortable. In +early and late summer, when the weather was fine and warm, these +stone floors and continuous draughts may have been solacing; but in +winter and early spring, when Florentine weather can be so bitterly +hostile, what then? That there was a big fire we know by the smoky +condition of Michelozzo's charming frieze on the chimney piece; but +the room--I refer to that on the first floor--is so vast that this +fire can have done little for any one but an immediate vis-à -vis; +and the room, moreover, was between the open world on the one side, +and the open court (now roofed in with glass) on the other, with +such additional opportunities for draughts as the four trap-doors +in the floor offered. It was through these traps that the stone +cannon-balls still stacked in the window seats were dropped, or a few +gallons of boiling oil poured, whenever the city or a faction of it +turned against the householder. Not comfortable, you see, at least +not in our northern sense of the word, although to the hardy frugal +Florentine it may have seemed a haven of luxury. + +The furniture of the salon is simple and sparse and very hard. A bust +here, a picture there, a coloured plate, a crucifix, and a Madonna +and Child in a niche: that was all the decoration save tapestry. An +hour glass, a pepper mill, a compass, an inkstand, stand for utility, +and quaint and twisted musical instruments and a backgammon board +for beguilement. + +In the salle-à -manger adjoining is less light, and here also is +a symbol of Florentine unrest in the shape of a hole in the wall +(beneath the niche which holds the Madonna and Child) through which +the advancing foe, who had successfully avoided the cannon balls +and the oil, might be prodded with lances, or even fired at. The +next room is the kitchen, curiously far from the well, the opening +to which is in the salon, and then a bedroom (with some guns in it) +and smaller rooms gained from the central court. + +The rest of the building is the same--a series of self-contained +flats, but all dipping for water from the same shaft and all depending +anxiously upon the success of the first floor with invaders. At the +top is a beautiful loggia with Florence beneath it. + +The odd thing to remember is that for the poor of Florence, who now +inhabit houses of the same age as the Davanzati palace, the conditions +are almost as they were in the fifteenth century. A few changes have +come in, but hardly any. Myriads of the tenements have no water laid +on: it must still be pulled up in buckets exactly as here. Indeed you +may often see the top floor at work in this way; and there is a row +of houses on the left of the road to the Certosa, a little way out +of Florence, with a most elaborate network of bucket ropes over many +gardens to one well. Similarly one sees the occupants of the higher +floors drawing vegetables and bread in baskets from the street and +lowering the money for them. The postman delivers letters in this +way, too. Again, one of the survivals of the Davanzati to which the +custodian draws attention is the rain-water pipe, like a long bamboo, +down the wall of the court; but one has but to walk along the Via +Lambertesca, between the Uffizi and the Via Por S. Maria, and peer +into the alleys, to see that these pipes are common enough yet. + +In fact, directly one leaves the big streets Florence is still +fifteenth century. Less colour in the costumes, and a few anachronisms, +such as gas or electric light, posters, newspapers, cigarettes, and +bicycles, which dart like dragon flies (every Florentine cyclist +being a trick cyclist); but for the rest there is no change. The +business of life has not altered; the same food is eaten, the same +vessels contain it, the same fire cooks it, the same red wine is +made from the same grapes in the same vineyards, the same language +(almost) is spoken. The babies are christened at the same font, +the parents visit the same churches. Similarly the handicrafts can +have altered little. The coppersmith, the blacksmith, the cobbler, +the woodcarver, the goldsmiths in their yellow smocks, must be just +as they were, and certainly the cellars and caverns under the big +houses in which they work have not changed. Where the change is, +is among the better-to-do, the rich, and in the government. For no +longer is a man afraid to talk freely of politics; no longer does he +shudder as he passes the Bargello; no longer is the name of Medici +on his lips. Everything else is practically as it was. + +The Via Porta Rossa runs to the Piazza S. Trinità , the church of +S. Trinità being our destination. For here are some interesting +frescoes. First, however, let us look at the sculpture: a very +beautiful altar by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the fifth chapel of the +right aisle; a monument by Luca della Robbia to one of the archbishops +of Fiesole, once in S. Pancrazio (which is now a tobacco factory) +in the Via della Spada and brought here for safe keeping--a beautiful +example of Luca's genius, not only as a modeller but also as a very +treasury of pretty thoughts, for the border of flowers and leaves is +beyond praise delightful. The best green in Florence (after Nature's, +which is seen through so many doorways and which splashes over so +many white walls and mingles with gay fruits in so many shops) is here. + +In the fifth chapel of the left aisle is a Magdalen carved in wood +by Desiderio da Settignano and finished by Benedetto da Maiano; +while S. Trinità now possesses, but shows only on Good Friday, +the very crucifix from S. Miniato which bowed down and blessed +S. Gualberto. The porphyry tombs of the Sassetti, in the chapel of +that family, by Giuliano di Sangallo, are magnificent. + +It is in the Sassetti chapel that we find the Ghirlandaio frescoes +of scenes in the life of S. Francis which bring so many strangers +to this church. The painting which depicts S. Francis receiving +the charter from the Emperor Honorius is interesting both for its +history and its painting; for it contains a valuable record of what +the Palazzo Vecchio and Loggia de' Lanzi were like in 1485, and also +many portraits: among them Lorenzo the Magnificent, on the extreme +right holding out his hand: Poliziano, tutor of the Medici boys, +coming first up the stairs; and on the extreme left very probably +Verrocchio, one of Ghirlandaio's favourite painters. We find old +Florence again in the very attractive picture of the resuscitation +of the nice little girl in violet, a daughter of the Spini family, +who fell from a window of the Spini palace (as we see in the distance +on the left, this being one of the old synchronized scenes) and was +brought to life by S. Francis, who chanced to be flying by. The +scene is intensely local: just outside the church, looking along +what is now the Piazza S. Trinità and the old Trinità bridge. The +Spini palace is still there, but is now called the Ferroni, and it +accommodates no longer Florentine aristocrats but consuls and bank +clerks. Among the portraits in the fresco are noble friends of the +Spini family--Albrizzi, Acciaioli, Strozzi and so forth. The little +girl is very quaint and perfectly ready to take up once more the +threads of her life. How long she lived this second time and what +became of her I have not been able to discover. Her tiny sister, +behind the bier, is even quainter. On the left is a little group +of the comely Florentine ladies in whom Ghirlandaio so delighted, +tall and serene, with a few youths among them. + +It is interesting to note that Ghirlandaio in his S. Trinità frescoes +and Benedetto da Maiano in his S. Croce pulpit reliefs chose exactly +the same scenes in the life of S. Francis: interesting because +when Ghirlandaio was painting frescoes at San Gimignano in 1475, +Benedetto was at work on the altar for the same church of S. Fina, +and they were friends. Where Ghirlandaio and Giotto, also in S. Croce, +also coincide in choice of subject some interesting comparisons may +be made, all to the advantage of Giotto in spiritual feeling and +unsophisticated charm, but by no means to Ghirlandaio's detriment +as a fascinating historian in colour. In the scene of the death of +S. Francis we find Ghirlandaio and Giotto again on the same ground, +and here it is probable that the later painter went to the earlier +for inspiration; for he has followed Giotto in the fine thought that +makes one of the attendant brothers glance up as though at the saint's +ascending spirit. It is remarkable how, with every picture that one +sees, Giotto's completeness of equipment as a religious painter becomes +more marked. His hand may have been ignorant of many masterly devices +for which the time was not ripe; but his head and heart knew all. + +The patriarchs in the spandrels of the choir are by Ghirlandaio's +master, Alessio Baldovinetti, of whom I said something in the chapter +on S. Maria Novella. They once more testify to this painter's charm +and brilliance. Almost more than that of any other does one regret the +scarcity of his work. It was fitting that he should have painted the +choir, for his name-saint, S. Alessio, guards the façade of the church. + +The column opposite the church came from the baths of Caracalla and +was set up by Cosimo I, upon the attainment of his life-long ambition +of a grand-dukeship and a crown. The figure at the top is Justice. + +S. Trinità is a good starting-point for the leisurely examination of +the older and narrower streets, an occupation which so many visitors +to Florence prefer to the study of picture galleries and churches. And +perhaps rightly. In no city can they carry on their researches with +such ease, for Florence is incurious about them. Either the Florentines +are too much engrossed in their own affairs or the peering foreigner +has become too familiar an object to merit notice, but one may drift +about even in the narrowest alleys beside the Arno, east and west, +and attract few eyes. And the city here is at its most romantic: +between the Piazza S. Trinità and the Via Por S. Maria, all about +the Borgo SS. Apostoli. + +We have just been discussing Benedetto da Maiano the sculptor. If we +turn to the left on leaving S. Trinità , instead of losing ourselves in +the little streets, we are in the Via Tornabuoni, where the best shops +are and American is the prevailing language. We shall soon come, on the +right, to an example of Benedetto's work as an architect, for the first +draft of the famous Palazzo Strozzi, the four-square fortress-home +which Filippo Strozzi began for himself in 1489, was his. Benedetto +continued the work until his death in 1507, when Cronaca, who built +the great hall in the Palazzo Vecchio, took it over and added the +famous cornice. The iron lantern and other smithwork were by Lorenzo +the Magnificent's sardonic friend, "Il Caparro," of the Sign of the +Burning Books, of whom I wrote in the chapter on the Medici palace. + +The first mistress of the Strozzi palace was Clarice Strozzi, +née Clarice de' Medici, the daughter of Piero, son of Lorenzo the +Magnificent. She was born in 1493 and married Filippo Strozzi the +younger in 1508, during the family's second period of exile. They +then lived at Rome, but were allowed to return to Florence in +1510. Clarice's chief title to fame is her proud outburst when she +turned Ippolito and Alessandro out of the Medici palace. She died +in 1528 and was buried in S. Maria Novella. The unfortunate Filippo +met his end nine years later in the Boboli fortezza, which his money +had helped to build and in which he was imprisoned for his share in +a conspiracy against Cosimo I. Cosimo confiscated the palace and all +Strozzi's other possessions, but later made some restitution. To-day +the family occupy the upper part of their famous imperishable home, +and beneath there is an exhibition of pictures and antiquities for +sale. No private individual, whatever his wealth or ambition, will +probably ever again succeed in building a house half so strong or +noble as this. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +The Pitti + +Luca Pitti's pride--Preliminary caution--A terrace view--A +collection but not a gallery--The personally-conducted--Giorgione +the superb--Sustermans--The "Madonna del Granduca"--The "Madonna +della Sedia"--From Cimabue to Raphael--Andrea del Sarto--Two Popes +and a bastard--The ill-fated Ippolito--The National Gallery--Royal +apartments--"Pallas Subduing the Centaur"--The Boboli Gardens. + +The Pitti approached from the Via Guicciardini is far liker a prison +than a palace. It was commissioned by Luca Pitti, one of the proudest +and richest of the rivals of the Medici, in 1441. Cosimo de' Medici, +as we have seen, had rejected Brunelleschi's plans for a palazzo +as being too pretentious and gone instead to his friend Michelozzo +for something that externally at any rate was more modest; Pitti, +whose one ambition was to exceed Cosimo in power, popularity, and +visible wealth, deliberately chose Brunelleschi, and gave him carte +blanche to make the most magnificent mansion possible. Pitti, however, +plotting against Cosimo's son Piero, was frustrated and condemned to +death; and although Piero obtained his pardon he lost all his friends +and passed into utter disrespect in the city. Meanwhile his palace +remained unfinished and neglected, and continued so for a century, +when it was acquired by the Grand Duchess Eleanor of Toledo, the wife +of Cosimo I, who though she saw only the beginnings of its splendours +lived there awhile and there brought up her doomed brood. Eleanor's +architect--or rather Cosimo's, for though the Grand Duchess paid, +the Grand Duke controlled--was Ammanati, the designer of the Neptune +fountain in the Piazza della Signoria. Other important additions were +made later. The last Medicean Grand Duke to occupy the Pitti was Gian +Gastone, a bizarre detrimental, whose head, in a monstrous wig, may +be seen at the top of the stairs leading to the Uffizi gallery. He +died in 1737. + +As I have said in chapter VIII, it was by the will of Gian Gastone's +sister, widow of the Elector Palatine, who died in 1743, that the +Medicean collections became the property of the Florentines. This +bequest did not, however, prevent the migration of many of the +best pictures to Paris under Napoleon, but after Waterloo they came +back. The Pitti continued to be the home of princes after Gian Gastone +quitted a world which he found strange and made more so; but they were +not of the Medici blood. It is now a residence of the royal family. + +The first thing to do if by evil chance one enters the Pitti by the +covered way from the Uffizi is, just before emerging into the palace, +to avoid the room where copies of pictures are sold, for not only is +it a very catacomb of headache, from the fresh paint, but the copies +are in themselves horrible and lead to disquieting reflections on +the subject of sweated labour. The next thing to do, on at last +emerging, is to walk out on the roof from the little room at the +top of the stairs, and get a supply of fresh air for the gallery, +and see Florence, which is very beautiful from here. Looking over +the city one notices that the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio is almost +more dominating than the Duomo, the work of the same architect who +began this palace. Between the two is Fiesole. The Signoria tower is, +as I say, the highest. Then the Duomo. Then Giotto's Campanile. The +Bargello is hidden, but the graceful Badia tower is seen; also the +little white Baptistery roof with its lantern just showing. From the +fortezza come the sounds of drums and bugles. + +Returning from this terrace we skirt a vast porphyry basin and reach +the top landing of the stairs (which was, I presume, once a loggia) +where there is a very charming marble fountain; and from this we +enter the first room of the gallery. The Pitti walls are so congested +and so many of the pictures so difficult to see, that I propose to +refer only to those which, after a series of visits, seem to me the +absolute best. Let me hasten to say that to visit the Pitti gallery +on any but a really bright day is folly. The great windows (which +were to be larger than Cosimo de' Medici's doors) are excellent to +look out of, but the rooms are so crowded with paintings on walls +and ceilings, and the curtains are so absorbent of light, that unless +there is sunshine one gropes in gloom. The only pictures in short that +are properly visible are those on screens or hinges; and these are, +fortunately almost without exception, the best. The Pitti rooms were +never made for pictures at all, and it is really absurd that so many +beautiful things should be massed here without reasonable lighting. + +The Pitti also is always crowded. The Uffizi is never crowded; the +Accademia is always comfortable; the Bargello is sparsely attended. But +the Pitti is normally congested, not only by individuals but by flocks, +whose guides, speaking broken English, and sometimes broken American, +lead from room to room. I need hardly say that they form the tightest +knots before the works of Raphael. All this is proper enough, of +course, but it serves to render the Pitti a difficult gallery rightly +to study pictures in. + +In the first chapter on the Uffizi I have said how simple it is, +in the Pitti, to name the best picture of all, and how difficult in +most galleries. But the Pitti has one particular jewel which throws +everything into the background: the work not of a Florentine but of a +Venetian: "The Concert" of Giorgione, which stands on an easel in the +Sala di Marte. [9] It is true that modern criticism has doubted the +lightness of the ascription, and many critics, whose one idea seems +to be to deprive Giorgione of any pictures at all, leaving him but +a glorious name without anything to account for it, call it an early +Titian; but this need not trouble us. There the picture is, and never +do I think to see anything more satisfying. Piece by piece, it is +not more than fine rich painting, but as a whole it is impressive and +mysterious and enchanting. Pater compares the effect of it to music; +and he is right. + +The Sala dell' Iliade (the name of each room refers always to the +ceiling painting, which, however, one quite easily forgets to look at) +is chiefly notable for the Raphael just inside the door: "La Donna +Gravida," No. 229, one of his more realistic works, with bolder colour +than usual and harder treatment; rather like the picture that has +been made its pendant, No. 224, an "Incognita" by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, +very firmly painted, but harder still. Between them is the first of the +many Pitti Andrea del Sartos: No. 225, an "Assumption of the Madonna," +opposite a similar work from the same brush, neither containing quite +the finest traits of this artist. But the youth with outstretched hand +at the tomb is nobly done. No. 265, "Principe Mathias de' Medici," +is a good bold Sustermans, but No. 190, on the opposite wall, is a +far better--a most charming work representing the Crown Prince of +Denmark, son of Frederick III. Justus Sustermans, who has so many +portraits here and elsewhere in Florence, was a Belgian, born in 1597, +who settled in Florence as a portrait painter to Cosimo III. Van Dyck +greatly admired his work and painted him. He died at Florence in 1681. + +No. 208, a "Virgin Enthroned," by Fra Bartolommeo, is from S. Marco, +and it had better have been painted on the wall there, like the Fra +Angelicos, and then the convent would have it still. The Child is very +attractive, as almost always in this artist's work, but the picture +as a whole has grown rather dingy. By the window is a Velasquez, the +first we have seen in Florence, a little Philip IV on his prancing +steed, rather too small for its subject, but very interesting here +among the Italians. + +In the next large room--the Sala di Saturno--we come again to +Raphael, who is indeed the chief master of the Pitti, his exquisite +"Madonna del Granduca" being just to the left of the door. Here we +have the simplest colouring and perfect sweetness, and such serenity +of mastery as must be the despair of the copyists, who, however, +never cease attempting it. The only defect is a little clumsiness +in the Madonna's hand. The picture was lost for two centuries and it +then changed owners for twelve crowns, the seller being a poor woman +and the buyer a bookseller. The bookseller found a ready purchaser +in the director of the Grand Duke Ferdinand III's gallery, and the +Grand Duke so esteemed it that he carried it with him on all his +journeys, just as Sir George Beaumont, the English connoisseur, never +travelled without a favourite Claude. Hence its name. Another Andrea +del Sarto, the "Disputa sulla Trinita," No. 172, is close by, nobly +drawn but again not of his absolute best, and then five more Raphaels +or putative Raphaels--No. 171, Tommaso Inghirami; No. 61, Angelo Doni, +the collector and the friend of artists, for whom Michelangelo painted +his "Holy Family" in the Uffizi; No. 59, Maddalena Doni; and above +all No. 174, "The Vision of Ezekiel," that little great picture, +so strong and spirited, and--to coin a word--Sixtinish. All these, +I may say, are questioned by experts; but some very fine hand is +to be seen in them any way. Over the "Ezekiel" is still another, +No. 165, the "Madonna detta del Baldacchino," which is so much better +in the photographs. Next this group--No. 164--we find Raphael's +friend Perugino with an Entombment, but it lacks his divine glow; +and above it a soft and mellow and easy Andrea del Sarto, No. 163, +which ought to be in a church rather than here. A better Perugino +is No. 42, which has all his sweetness, but to call it the Magdalen +is surely wrong; and close by it a rather formal Fra Bartolommeo, +No. 159, "Gesu Resuscitato," from the church of SS. Annunziata, in +which once again the babies who hold the circular landscape are the +best part. After another doubtful Raphael--the sly Cardinal Divizio +da Bibbiena, No. 158--let us look at an unquestioned one, No. 151, +the most popular picture in Florence, if not the whole world, Raphael's +"Madonna della Sedia," that beautiful rich scene of maternal tenderness +and infantine peace. Personally I do not find myself often under +Raphael's spell; but here he conquers. The Madonna again is without +enough expression, but her arms are right, and the Child is right, +and the colour is so rich, almost Venetian in that odd way in which +Raphael now and then could suggest Venice. + +It is interesting to compare Raphael's two famous Madonnas in this +room: this one belonging to his Roman period and the other, opposite +it, to Florence, with the differences so marked. For by the time he +painted this he knew more of life and human affection. This picture, +I suppose, might be called the consummation of Renaissance painting in +fullest bloom: the latest triumph of that impulse. I do not say it is +the best; but it may be called a crown on the whole movement both in +subject and treatment. Think of the gulf between the Cimabue Madonna +and the Giotto Madonna, side by side, which we saw in the Accademia, +and this. With so many vivid sympathies Giotto must have wanted with +all his soul to make the mother motherly and the child childlike; but +the time was not yet; his hand was neither free nor fit. Between Giotto +and Raphael had to come many things before such treatment as this was +possible; most of all, I think, Luca della Robbia had to come between, +for he was the most valuable reconciler of God and man of them all. He +was the first to bring a tender humanity into the Church, the first +to know that a mother's fingers, holding a baby, sink into its soft +little body. Without Luca I doubt if the "Madonna della Sedia" could +be the idyll of protective solicitude and loving pride that it is. + +The Sala di Giove brings us to Venetian painting indeed, and glorious +painting too, for next the door is Titian's "Bella," No. 18, the lady +in the peacock-blue dress with purple sleeves, all richly embroidered +in gold, whom to see once is to remember for ever. On the other side of +the door is Andrea's brilliant "S. John the Baptist as a Boy," No. 272, +and then the noblest Fra Bartolommeo here, a Deposition, No. 64, not +good in colour, but superbly drawn and pitiful. In this room also is +the monk's great spirited figure of S. Marco, for the convent of that +name. Between them is a Tintoretto, No. 131, Vincenzo Zeino, one of his +ruddy old men, with a glimpse of Venice, under an angry sky, through +the window. Over the door, No. 124, is an Annunciation by Andrea, +with a slight variation in it, for two angels accompany that one who +brings the news, and the announcement is made from the right instead +of the left, while the incident is being watched by some people on the +terrace over a classical portico. A greater Andrea hangs next: No. 123, +the Madonna in Glory, fine but rather formal, and, like all Andrea's +work, hall-marked by its woman type. The other notable pictures are +Raphael's Fornarina, No. 245, which is far more Venetian than the +"Madonna della Sedia," and has been given to Sebastian del Piombo; +and the Venetian group on the right of the door, which is not only +interesting for its own charm but as being a foretaste of the superb +and glorious Giorgione in the Sala di Marte, which we now enter. + +Here we find a Rembrandt, No. 16, an old man: age and dignity emerging +golden from the gloom; and as a pendant a portrait, with somewhat +similar characteristics, but softer, by Tintoretto, No. 83. Between +them is a prosperous, ruddy group of scholars by Rubens, who has +placed a vase of tulips before the bust of Seneca. And we find Rubens +again with a sprawling, brilliant feat entitled "The Consequences +of War," but what those consequences are, beyond nakedness, one +has difficulty in discerning. Raphael's Holy Family, No. 94 (also +known as the "Madonna dell' Impannata"), next it might be called the +perfection of drawing without feeling. The authorities consider it a +school piece: that is to say, chiefly the work of his imitators. The +vivacity of the Child's face is very remarkable. The best Andrea is +in this room--a Holy Family, No. 81, which gets sweeter and simpler +and richer with every glance. Other Andreas are here too, notably on +the right of the further door a sweet mother and sprawling, vigorous +Child. But every Andrea that I see makes me think more highly of the +"Madonna della Sacco," in the cloisters of SS. Annunziata. Van Dyck, +who painted much in Italy before settling down at the English court, +we find in this room with a masterly full-length seated portrait of +an astute cardinal. But the room's greatest glory, as I have said, +is the Giorgione on the easel. + +In the Sala di Apollo, at the right of the door as we enter, is +Andrea's portrait of himself, a serious and mysterious face shining +out of darkness, and below it is Titian's golden Magdalen, No. 67, +the same ripe creature that we saw at the Uffizi posing as Flora, +again diffusing Venetian light. On the other side of the door we find, +for the first time in Florence, Murillo, who has two groups of the +Madonna and Child on this wall, the better being No. 63, which is both +sweet and masterly. In No. 56 the Child becomes a pretty Spanish boy +playing with a rosary, and in both He has a faint nimbus instead of +the halo to which we are accustomed. On the same wall is another fine +Andrea, who is most lavishly represented in this gallery, No. 58, +a Deposition, all gentle melancholy rather than grief. The kneeling +girl is very beautiful. + +Finally there are Van Dyck's very charming portrait of Charles +I of England and Henrietta, a most deft and distinguished work, +and Raphael's famous portrait of Leo X with two companions: rather +dingy, and too like three persons set for the camera, but powerful and +deeply interesting to us, because here we see the first Medici pope, +Leo X, Lorenzo de' Medici's son Giovanni, who gave Michelangelo the +commission for the Medici tombs and the new Sacristy of S. Lorenzo; +and in the young man on the Pope's right hand we see none other +than Giulio, natural son of Giuliano de' Medici, Lorenzo's brother, +who afterwards became Pope as Clement VII. It was he who laid siege +to Florence when Michelangelo was called upon to fortify it; and it +was during his pontificate that Henry VIII threw off the shackles +of Rome and became the Defender of the Faith. Himself a bastard, +Giulio became the father of the base-born Alessandro of Urbino, +first Duke of Florence, who, after procuring the death of Ippolito +and living a life of horrible excess, was himself murdered by his +cousin Lorenzino in order to rid Florence of her worst tyrant. In +his portrait Leo X has an illuminated missal and a magnifying glass, +as indication of his scholarly tastes. That he was also a good liver +his form and features testify. + +Of this picture an interesting story is told. After the battle of +Pavia, in 1525, Clement VII wishing to be friendly with the Marquis +of Gonzaga, a powerful ally of the Emperor Charles V, asked him what +he could do for him, and Gonzaga expressed a wish for the portrait +of Leo X, then in the Medici palace. Clement complied, but wishing +to retain at any rate a semblance of the original, directed that the +picture should be copied, and Andrea del Sarto was chosen for that +task. The copy turned out to be so close that Gonzaga never obtained +the original at all. + +In the next room--the Sala di Venere, and the last room in the long +suite--we find another Raphael portrait, and another Pope, this time +Julius II, that Pontiff whose caprice and pride together rendered +null and void and unhappy so many years of Michelangelo's life, +since it was for him that the great Julian tomb, never completed, was +designed. A replica of this picture is in our National Gallery. Here +also are a wistful and poignant John the Baptist by Dossi, No. 380; +two Dürers--an Adam and an Eve, very naked and primitive, facing +each other from opposite walls; and two Rubens landscapes not equal +to ours at Trafalgar Square, but spacious and lively. The gem of the +room is a lovely Titian, No. 92, on an easel, a golden work of supreme +quietude and disguised power. The portrait is called sometimes the +Duke of Norfolk, sometimes the "Young Englishman". + +Returning to the first room--the Sala of the Iliad--we enter the Sala +dell' Educazione di Giove, and find on the left a little gipsy portrait +by Boccaccio Boccaccino (1497-1518) which has extraordinary charm: +a grave, wistful, childish face in a blue handkerchief: quite a new +kind of picture here. I reproduce it in this volume, but it wants +its colour. For the rest, the room belongs to less-known and later +men, in particular to Cristofano Allori (1577-1621), with his famous +Judith, reproduced in all the picture shops of Florence. This work is +no favourite of mine, but one cannot deny it power and richness. The +Guido Reni opposite, in which an affected fat actress poses as +Cleopatra with the asp, is not, however, even tolerable. + +We next pass, after a glance perhaps at the adjoining tapestry room +on the left (where the bronze Cain and Abel are), the most elegant +bathroom imaginable, fit for anything rather than soap and splashes, +and come to the Sala di Ulisse and some good Venetian portraits: +a bearded senator in a sable robe by Paolo Veronese, No. 216, and, +No. 201, Titian's fine portrait of the ill-fated Ippolito de' +Medici, son of that Giuliano de' Medici, Duc de Nemours, whose +tomb by Michelangelo is at S. Lorenzo. This amiable young man was +brought up by Leo X until the age of twelve, when the Pope died, +and the boy was sent to Florence to live at the Medici palace, +with the base-born Alessandro, under the care of Cardinal Passerini, +where he remained until Clarice de' Strozzi ordered both the boys to +quit. In 1527 came the third expulsion of the Medici from Florence, +and Ippolito wandered about until Clement VII, the second Medici +Pope, was in Rome, after the sack, and, joining him there, he was, +against his will, made a cardinal, and sent to Hungary: Clement's idea +being to establish Alessandro (his natural son) as Duke of Florence, +and squeeze Ippolito, the rightful heir, out. This, Clement succeeded +in doing, and the repulsive and squalid-minded Alessandro--known as +the Mule--was installed. Ippolito, in whom this proceeding caused +deep grief, settled in Bologna and took to scholarship, among other +tasks translating part of the Aeneid into Italian blank verse; +but when Clement died and thus liberated Rome from a vile tyranny, +he was with him and protected his corpse from the angry mob. That +was in 1534, when Ippolito was twenty-seven. In the following year +a number of exiles from Florence who could not endure Alessandro's +offensive ways, or had been forced by him to fly, decided to appeal +to the Emperor Charles V for assistance against such a contemptible +ruler; and Ippolito headed the mission; but before he could reach the +Emperor an emissary of Alessandro's succeeded in poisoning him. Such +was Ippolito de' Medici, grandson of the great Lorenzo, whom Titian +painted, probably when he was in Bologna, in 1533 or 1534. + +This room also contains a nice little open decorative scene--like a +sketch for a fresco--of the Death of Lucrezia, No. 388, attributed +to the School of Botticelli, and above it a good Royal Academy Andrea +del Sarto. + +The next is the best of these small rooms--the Sala of +Prometheus--where on Sundays most people spend their time in +astonishment over the inlaid tables, but where Tuscan art also is +very beautiful. The most famous picture is, I suppose, the circular +Filippino Lippi, No. 343, but although the lively background is +very entertaining and the Virgin most wonderfully painted, the Child +is a serious blemish. The next favourite, if not the first, is the +Perugino on the easel--No. 219--one of his loveliest small pictures, +with an evening glow among the Apennines such as no other painter +could capture. Other fine works here are the Fra Bartolommeo, No. 256, +over the door, a Holy Family, very pretty and characteristic, and his +"Ecce Homo," next it; the adorable circular Botticini (as the catalogue +calls it, although the photographers waver between Botticelli and +Filippino Lippi), No. 347, with its myriad roses and children with +their little folded hands and the Mother and Child diffusing happy +sweetness, which, if only it were a little less painty, would be one +of the chief magnets of the gallery. + +Hereabout are many Botticelli school pictures, chief of these the +curious girl, called foolishly "La Bella Simonetta," which Mr. Berenson +attributes to that unknown disciple of Botticelli to whom he has given +the charming name of Amico di Sandro. This study in browns, yellow, +and grey always has its public. Other popular Botticelli derivatives +are Nos. 348 and 357. Look also at the sly and curious woman (No. 102), +near the window, by Ubertini, a new artist here; and the pretty Jacopo +del Sellaio, No. 364; a finely drawn S. Sebastian by Pollaiuolo; +the Holy Family by Jacopo di Boateri, No. 362, with very pleasant +colouring; No. 140, the "Incognita," which people used to think was +by Leonardo--for some reason difficult to understand except on the +principle of making the wish father to the thought--and is now given +to Bugiardini; and lastly a rich and comely example of Lombardy art, +No. 299. + +From this room we will enter first the Corridio delle Colonne where +Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici's miniature portraits are hung, all +remarkable and some superb, but unfortunately not named, together +with a few larger works, all very interesting. That Young Goldsmith, +No. 207, which used to be given to Leonardo but is now Ridolfo +Ghirlandaio's, is here; a Franciabigio, No. 43; a questioned Raphael, +No. 44; a fine and sensitive head of one of the Gonzaga family by +Mantegna, No. 375; the coarse head of Giovanni Bentivoglio by da +Costa, No. 376; and a Pollaiuolo, No. 370, S. Jerome, whose fine rapt +countenance is beautifully drawn. + +In the Sala della Giustizia we come again to the Venetians: a noble +Piombo, No. 409; the fine Aretino and Tommaso Mosti by Titian; +Tintoretto's portrait of a man, No. 410; and two good Moronis. But +I am not sure that Dosso Dossi's "Nymph and Satyr" on the easel is +not the most remarkable achievement here. I do not, however, care +greatly for it. + +In the Sala di Flora we find some interesting Andreas; a beautiful +portrait by Puligo, No. 184; and Giulio Romano's famous frieze of +dancers. Also a fine portrait by Allori, No. 72. The end room of all +is notable for a Ruysdael. + +Finally there is the Sala del Poccetti, out of the Sala di Prometeo, +which, together with the preceding two rooms that I have described, +has lately been rearranged. Here now is the hard but masterly Holy +Family of Bronzino, who has an enormous amount of work in Florence, +chiefly Medicean portraits, but nowhere, I think, reaches the level +of his "Allegory" in our National Gallery, or the portrait in the +Taylor collection sold at Christie's in 1912. Here also are four +rich Poussins; two typical Salvator Rosa landscapes and a battle +piece from the same hand; and, by some strange chance, a portrait +of Oliver Cromwell by Sir Peter Lely. But the stone table again wins +most attention. + +And here, as we leave the last of the great picture collections of +Florence, I would say how interesting it is to the returned visitor +to London to go quickly to the National Gallery and see how we +compare with them. Florence is naturally far richer than we, but +although only now and then have we the advantage, we can valuably +supplement in a great many cases. And the National Gallery keeps +up its quality throughout--it does not suddenly fall to pieces as +the Uffizi does. Thus, I doubt if Florence with all her Andreas +has so exquisite a thing from his hand as our portrait of a "Young +Sculptor," so long called a portrait of the painter himself; and we +have two Michelangelo paintings to the Uffizi's one. In Leonardo the +Louvre is of course far richer, even without the Gioconda, but we +have at Burlington House the cartoon for the Louvre's S. Anne which +may pair off with the Uffizi's unfinished Madonna, and we have also +at the National Gallery his finished "Virgin of the Rocks," while +to Burlington House one must go too for Michelangelo's beautiful +tondo. In Piero di Cosimo we are more fortunate than the Uffizi; and +we have Raphaels as important as those of the Pitti. We are strong +too in Perugino, Filippino Lippi, and Luca Signorelli, while when it +comes to Piero della Francesca we lead absolutely. Our Verrocchio, +or School of Verrocchio, is a superb thing, while our Cimabue (from +S. Croce) has a quality of richness not excelled by any that I have +seen elsewhere. But in Botticelli Florence wins. + +The Pitti palace contains also the apartments in which the King +and Queen of Italy reside when they visit Florence, which is not +often. Florence became the capital of Italy in 1865, on the day of +the sixth anniversary of the birth of Dante. It remained the capital +until 1870, when Rome was chosen. The rooms are shown thrice a +week, and are not, I think, worth the time that one must give to the +perambulation. Beyond this there is nothing to say, except that they +would delight children. Visitors are hurried through in small bands, +and dallying is discouraged. Hence one is merely tantalized by the +presence of their greatest treasure, Botticelli's "Pallas subduing +the Centaur," painted to commemorate Lorenzo de' Medici's successful +diplomatic mission to the King of Naples in 1480, to bring about +the end of the war with Sixtus IV, the prime instigator of the Pazzi +Conspiracy and the bitter enemy of Lorenzo in particular--whose only +fault, as he drily expressed it, had been to "escape being murdered +in the Cathedral"--and of all Tuscany in general. Botticelli, whom +we have already seen as a Medicean allegorist, always ready with +his glancing genius to extol and commend the virtues of that family, +here makes the centaur typify war and oppression while the beautiful +figure which is taming and subduing him by reason represents Pallas, +or the arts of peace, here identifiable with Lorenzo by the laurel +wreath and the pattern of her robe, which is composed of his private +crest of diamond rings intertwined. This exquisite picture--so rich +in colour and of such power and impressiveness--ought to be removed +to an easel in the Pitti Gallery proper. The "Madonna della Rosa," +by Botticelli or his School, is also here, and I had a moment before +a very alluring Holbein. But my memory of this part of the palace is +made up of gilt and tinsel and plush and candelabra, with two pieces +of furniture outstanding--a blue and silver bed, and a dining table +rather larger than a lawn-tennis court. + +The Boboli gardens, which climb the hill from the Pitti, are also +opened only on three afternoons a week. The panorama of Florence and +the surrounding Apennines which one has from the Belvedere makes a +visit worth while; but the gardens themselves are, from the English +point of view, poor, save in extent and in the groves on the way to +the stables (scuderie). Like all gardens where clipped walks are the +principal feature, they want people. They were made for people to +enjoy them, rather than for flowers to grow in, and at every turn +there is a new and charming vista in a green frame. + +It was from the Boboli hill-side before it was a garden that much +of the stone of Florence was quarried. With such stones so near it +is less to be wondered at that the buildings are what they are. And +yet it is wonderful too--that these little inland Italian citizens +should so have built their houses for all time. It proves them to +have had great gifts of character. There is no such building any more. + +The Grotto close to the Pitti entrance, which contains some of +Michelangelo's less remarkable "Prisoners," intended for the great +Julian tomb, is so "grottesque" that the statues are almost lost, and +altogether it is rather an Old Rye House affair; and though Giovanni +da Bologna's fountain in the midst of a lake is very fine, I doubt if +the walk is quite worth it. My advice rather is to climb at once to +the top, at the back of the Pitti, by way of the amphitheatre where +the gentlemen and ladies used to watch court pageants, and past that +ingenious fountain above it, in which Neptune's trident itself spouts +water, and rest in the pretty flower garden on the very summit of the +hill, among the lizards. There, seated on the wall, you may watch the +peasants at work in the vineyards, and the white oxen ploughing in +the olive groves, in the valley between this hill and S. Miniato. In +spring the contrast between the greens of the crops and the silver +grey of the olives is vivid and gladsome; in September, one may see +the grapes being picked and piled into the barrels, immediately below, +and hear the squdge as the wooden pestle is driven into the purple +mass and the juice gushes out. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +English Poets in Florence + +Casa Guidi--The Brownings--Giotto's missing spire--James Russell +Lowell--Lander's early life--Fra Bartolommeo before Raphael--The Tuscan +gardener--The "Villa Landor" to-day--Storms on the hillside--Pastoral +poetry--Italian memories in England--The final outburst--Last days +in Florence--The old lion's beguilements--The famous epitaph. + +On a house in the Piazza S. Felice, obliquely facing the Pitti, with +windows both in the Via Maggio and Via Mazzetta, is a tablet, placed +there by grateful Florence, stating that it was the home of Robert +and of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and that her verse made a golden +ring to link England to Italy. In other words, this is Casa Guidi. + +A third member of the family, Flush the spaniel, was also with them, +and they moved here in 1848, and it was here that Mrs. Browning +died, in 1861. But it was not their first Florentine home, for in +1847 they had gone into rooms in the Via delle Belle Donne--the +Street of Beautiful Ladies--whose name so fascinated Ruskin, near +S. Maria Novella. At Casa Guidi Browning wrote, among other poems, +"Christinas Eve and Easter Day," "The Statue and the Bust" of which I +have said something in chapter XIX, and the "Old Pictures in Florence," +that philosophic commentary on Vasari, which ends with the spirited +appeal for the crowning of Giotto's Campanile with the addition of +the golden spire that its builder intended-- + + + Fine as the beak of a young beccaccia + The campanile, the Duomo's fit ally, + Shall soar up in gold full fifty braccia, + Completing Florence, as Florence Italy. + + +But I suppose that the monologues "Andrea del Sarto" and "Fra Lippo +Lippi" would be considered the finest fruit of Browning's Florentine +sojourn, as "Casa Guidi Windows" is of Mrs. Browning's. Her great poem +is indeed as passionate a plea for Italian liberty as anything by an +Italian poet. Here also she wrote much if not all of "Aurora Leigh," +"The Poems before Congress," and those other Italian political pieces +which when her husband collected them as "Last Poems" he dedicated +"to 'grateful Florence'". + +In these Casa Guidi rooms the happiest days of both lives were +spent, and many a time have the walls resounded to the great voice, +laughing, praising or condemning, of Walter Savage Landor; while the +shy Hawthorne has talked here too. Casa Guidi lodged not only the +Brownings, but, at one time, Lowell, who was not, however, a very +good Florentine. "As for pictures," I find him writing, in 1874, +on a later visit, "I am tired to death of 'em,... and then most of +them are so bad. I like best the earlier ones, that say so much in +their half-unconscious prattle, and talk nature to me instead of +high art." But "the older streets," he says, "have a noble mediaeval +distance and reserve for me--a frown I was going to call it, not +of hostility, but of haughty doubt. These grim palace fronts meet +you with an aristocratic start that puts you to the proof of your +credentials. There is to me something wholesome in that that makes +you feel your place." + +The Brownings are the two English poets who first spring to mind +in connexion with Florence; but they had had very illustrious +predecessors. In August and September, 1638, during the reign +of Ferdinand II, John Milton was here, and again in the spring of +1639. He read Latin poems to fellow-scholars in the city and received +complimentary sonnets in reply. Here he met Galileo, and from here +he made the excursion to Vallombrosa which gave him some of his most +famous lines. He also learned enough of the language to write love +poetry to a lady in Bologna, although he is said to have offended +Italians generally by his strict morality. + +Skipping a hundred and eighty years we find Shelley in Florence, +in 1819, and it was here that his son was born, receiving the names +Percy Florence. Here he wrote, as I have said, his "Ode to the West +Wind" and that grimly comic work "Peter Bell the Third". + +But next the Brownings it is Walter Savage Landor of whom I always +think as the greatest English Florentine. Florence became his second +home when he was middle-aged and strong; and then again, when he was +a very old man, shipwrecked by his impulsive and impossible temper, +it became his last haven. It was Browning who found him his final +resting-place--a floor of rooms not far from where we now stand, +in the Via Nunziatina. + +Florence is so intimately associated with Landor, and Landor was +so happy in Florence, that a brief outline of his life seems to +be imperative. Born in 1775, the heir to considerable estates, +the boy soon developed that whirlwind headstrong impatience which +was to make him as notorious as his exquisite genius has made him +famous. He was sent to Rugby, but disapproving of the headmaster's +judgment of his Latin verses, he produced such a lampoon upon him, +also in Latin, as made removal or expulsion a necessity. At Oxford +his Latin and Greek verses were still his delight, but he took +also to politics, was called a mad Jacobin, and, in order to prove +his sanity and show his disapproval of a person obnoxious to him, +fired a gun at his shutters and was sent down for a year. He never +returned. After a period of strained relations with his father +and hot repudiations of all the plans for his future which were +made for him--such as entering the militia, reading law, and so +forth--he retired to Wales on a small allowance and wrote "Gebir" +which came out in 1798, when its author was twenty-three. In 1808 +Landor threw in his lot with the Spaniards against the French, saw +some fighting and opened his purse for the victims of the war; but +the usual personal quarrel intervened. Returning to England he bought +Llanthony Abbey, stocked it with Spanish sheep, planted extensively, +and was to be the squire of squires; and at the same time seeing a +pretty penniless girl at a ball in Bath, he made a bet he would marry +her, and won it. As a squire he became quickly involved with neighbours +(an inevitable proceeding with him) and also with a Bishop concerning +the restoration of the church. Lawsuits followed, and such expenses +and vexations occurred that Landor decided to leave England--always +a popular resource with his kind. His mother took over the estate +and allowed him an income upon which he travelled from place to +place for a few years, quarrelling with his wife and making it up, +writing Latin verses everywhere and on everything, and coming into +collision not only with individuals but with municipalities. + +He settled in Florence in 1821, finding rooms in the Palazzo Medici, +or, rather, Riccardi. There he remained for five years, which no doubt +would have been a longer period had he not accused his landlord, +the Marquis, who was then the head of the family, of seducing away +his coachman. Landor wrote stating the charge; the Marquis, calling +in reply, entered the room with his hat on, and Landor first knocked +it off and then gave notice. It was at the Palazzo Medici that Landor +was visited by Hazlitt in 1825, and here also he began the "Imaginary +Conversations," his best-known work, although it is of course such +brief and faultless lyrics as "Rose Aylmer" and "To Ianthe" that have +given him his widest public. + +On leaving the Palazzo, Landor acquired the Villa Gherardesca, on +the hill-side below Fiesole, and a very beautiful little estate in +which the stream Affrico rises. + +Crabb Robinson, the friend of so many men of genius, who was in +Florence in 1880, in rooms at 1341 Via della Nuova Vigna, met Landor +frequently at his villa and has left his impressions. Landor had +made up his mind to live and die in Italy, but hated the Italians. He +would rather, he said, follow his daughter to the grave than to her +wedding with an Italian husband. Talking on art, he said he preferred +John of Bologna to Michelangelo, a statement he repeated to Emerson, +but afterwards, I believe, recanted. He said also to Robinson that +he would not give 1000 Pounds for Raphael's "Transfiguration," but +ten times that sum for Fra Bartolommeo's picture of S. Mark in the +Pitti. Next to Raphael and Fra Bartolommeo he loved Perugino. + +Landor soon became quite the husbandman. Writing to his sisters in +1831, he says: "I have planted 200 cypresses, 600 vines, 400 roses, +200 arbutuses, and 70 bays, besides laurustinas, etc., etc., and +60 fruit trees of the best qualities from France. I have not had +a moment's illness since I resided here, nor have the children. My +wife runs after colds; it would be strange if she did not take them; +but she has taken none here; hers are all from Florence. I have the +best water, the best air, and the best oil in the world. They speak +highly of the wine too; but here I doubt. In fact, I hate wine, +unless hock or claret.... + +"Italy is a fine climate, but Swansea better. That however is the +only spot in Great Britain where we have warmth without wet. Still, +Italy is the country I would live in.... In two [years] I hope to +have a hundred good peaches every day at table during two months: +at present I have had as many bad ones. My land is said to produce +the best figs in Tuscany; I have usually six or seven bushels of them." + +I have walked through Lander's little paradise--now called the Villa +Landor and reached by the narrow rugged road to the right just below +the village of S. Domenico. Its cypresses, planted, as I imagine, +by Lander's own hand, are stately as minarets and its lawn is as +green and soft as that of an Oxford college. The orchard, in April, +was a mass of blossom. Thrushes sang in the evergreens and the first +swallow of the year darted through the cypresses just as we reached +the gates. It is truly a poet's house and garden. + +In 1833 a French neighbour accused Landor of robbing him of water by +stopping an underground stream, and Landor naturally challenged him to +a duel. The meeting was avoided through the tact of Lander's second, +the English consul at Florence, and the two men became friends. At his +villa Landor wrote much of his best prose--the "Pentameron," "Pericles +and Aspasia" and the "Trial of Shakespeare for Deer-stealing "--and he +was in the main happy, having so much planting and harvesting to do, +his children to play with, and now and then a visitor. In the main +too he managed very well with the country people, but one day was +amused to overhear a conversation over the hedge between two passing +contadini. "All the English are mad," said one, "but as for this +one...!" There was a story of Landor current in Florence in those +days which depicted him, furious with a spoiled dish, throwing his +cook out of the window, and then, realizing where he would fall, +exclaiming in an agony, "Good God, I forgot the violets!" + +Such was Landor's impossible way on occasion that he succeeded in +getting himself exiled from Tuscany; but the Grand Duke was called in +as pacificator, and, though the order of expulsion was not rescinded, +it was not carried out. + +In 1835 Landor wrote some verses to his friend Ablett, who had lent +him the money to buy the villa, professing himself wholly happy-- + + + Thou knowest how, and why, are dear to me + My citron groves of Fiesole, + My chirping Affrico, my beechwood nook, + My Naiads, with feet only in the brook, + Which runs away and giggles in their faces; + Yet there they sit, nor sigh for other places-- + + +but later in the year came a serious break. Landor's relations with +Mrs. Landor, never of such a nature as to give any sense of security, +had grown steadily worse as he became more explosive, and they now +reached such a point that he flung out of the house one day and did +not return for many years, completing the action by a poem in which +he took a final (as he thought) farewell of Italy:-- + + + I leave thee, beauteous Italy! No more + From the high terraces, at even-tide, + To look supine into thy depths of sky, + The golden moon between the cliff and me, + Or thy dark spires of fretted cypresses + Bordering the channel of the milky way. + Fiesole and Valdarno must be dreams, + Hereafter, and my own lost Affrico + Murmur to me but the poet's song. + + +Landor gave his son Arnold the villa, settling a sum on his wife +for the other children's maintenance, and himself returned to Bath, +where he added to his friends Sir William Napier (who first found +a resemblance to a lion in Landor's features), John Forster, who +afterwards wrote his life, and Charles Dickens, who named a child +after him and touched off his merrier turbulent side most charmingly +as Leonard Boythom in "Bleak House". But his most constant companion +was a Pomeranian dog; in dogs indeed he found comfort all his life, +right to the end. + +Landor's love of his villa and estate finds expression again and again +in his verse written at this time. The most charming of all these +charming poems--the perfection of the light verse of a serious poet--is +the letter from England to his youngest boy, speculating on his +Italian pursuits. I begin at the passage describing the villa's cat:-- + + + Does Cincirillo follow thee about, + Inverting one swart foot suspensively, + And wagging his dread jaw at every chirp + Of bird above him on the olive-branch? + Frighten him then away! 'twas he who slew + Our pigeons, our white pigeons peacock-tailed, + That feared not you and me--alas, nor him! + I flattened his striped sides along my knee, + And reasoned with him on his bloody mind, + Till he looked blandly, and half-closed his eyes + To ponder on my lecture in the shade. + I doubt his memory much, his heart a little, + And in some minor matters (may I say it?) + Could wish him rather sager. But from thee + God hold back wisdom yet for many years! + Whether in early season or in late + It always comes high-priced. For thy pure breast + I have no lesson; it for me has many. + Come throw it open then! What sports, what cares + (Since there are none too young for these) engage + Thy busy thoughts? Are you again at work, + Walter and you, with those sly labourers, + Geppo, Giovanni, Cecco, and Poeta, + To build more solidly your broken dam + Among the poplars, whence the nightingale + Inquisitively watch'd you all day long? + I was not of your council in the scheme, + Or might have saved you silver without end, + And sighs too without number. Art thou gone + Below the mulberry, where that cold pool + Urged to devise a warmer, and more fit + For mighty swimmers, swimming three abreast? + Or art though panting in this summer noon + Upon the lowest step before the hall, + Drawing a slice of watermelon, long + As Cupid's bow, athwart thy wetted lips + (Like one who plays Pan's pipe), and letting drop + The sable seeds from all their separate cells, + And leaving bays profound and rocks abrupt, + Redder than coral round Calypso's cave? + + +In 1853 Landor put forth what he thought his last book, under the title +"Last Fruit off an Old Tree". Unhappily it was not his last, for in +1858 he issued yet one more, "Dry Sticks faggotted by W. S. Landor," +in which was a malicious copy of verses reflecting upon a lady. He +was sued for libel, lost the case with heavy damages, and once +more and for the last time left England for Florence. He was now +eighty-three. At first he went to the Villa Gherardesco, then the +home of his son Arnold, but his outbursts were unbearable, and three +times he broke away, to be three times brought back. In July, 1859, +he made a fourth escape, and then escaped altogether, for Browning +took the matter in hand and established him, after a period in Siena, +in lodgings in the Via Nunziatina. From this time till his death in +1864 Landor may be said at last to have been at rest. He had found +safe anchorage and never left it. Many friends came to see him, chief +among them Browning, who was at once his adviser, his admirer and his +shrewd observer. Landor, always devoted to pictures, but without much +judgment, now added to his collection; Browning in one of his letters +to Forster tells how he has found him "particularly delighted by the +acquisition of three execrable daubs by Domenichino and Gaspar Poussin +most benevolently battered by time". Another friend says that he had +a habit of attributing all his doubtful pictures to Corregoio. "He +cannot," Browning continues, "in the least understand that he is at +all wrong, or injudicious, or unfortunate in anything.... Whatever +he may profess, the thing he really loves is a pretty girl to talk +nonsense with." + +Of the old man in the company of fair listeners we have glimpses +in the reminiscences of Mrs. Fields in the "Atlantic Monthly" in +1866. She also describes him as in a cloud of pictures. There with +his Pomeranian Giallo within fondling distance, the poet, seated in +his arm-chair, fired comments upon everything. Giallo's opinion was +asked on all subjects, and Landor said of him that an approving wag +of his tail was worth all the praise of all the "Quarterlies ". It +was Giallo who led to the profound couplet-- + + + He is foolish who supposes + Dogs are ill that have hot noses. + + +Mrs. Fields tells how, after some classical or fashionable music had +been played, Landor would come closer to the piano and ask for an +old English ballad, and when "Auld Robin Gray," his favourite of all, +was sung, the tears would stream down his face. "Ah, you don't know +what thoughts you are recalling to the troublesome old man." + +But we have Browning's word that he did not spend much time in remorse +or regret, while there was the composition of the pretty little tender +epigrams of this last period to amuse him and Italian politics to +enchain his sympathy. His impulsive generosity led him to give his old +and trusted watch to the funds for Garibaldi's Sicilian expedition; +but Browning persuaded him to take it again. For Garibaldi's wounded +prisoners he wrote an Italian dialogue between Savonarola and the +Prior of S. Marco. The death of Mrs. Browning in 1861 sent Browning +back to England, and Landor after that was less cheerful and rarely +left the house. His chief solace was the novels of Anthony Trollope +and G.P.R. James. In his last year he received a visit from a young +English poet and enthusiast for poetry, one Algernon Charles Swinburne, +who arrived in time to have a little glowing talk with the old lion and +thus obtain inspiration for some fine memorial stanzas. On September +17th, 1864, Death found Landor ready--as nine years earlier he had +promised it should-- + + +To my ninth decade I have totter'd on, + And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady; +She who once led me where she would, is gone, + So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready. + + +Landor was buried, as we saw, in the English cemetery within the city, +whither his son Arnold was borne less than seven years later. Here is +his own epitaph, one of the most perfect things in form and substance +in the English language:-- + + +I strove with none, for none was worth my strife, + Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; +I warmed both hands before the fire of life, + It sinks, and I am ready to depart. + + +It should be cut on his tombstone. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +The Carmine and San Miniato + +The human form divine and waxen--Galileo--Bianca Capella--A +faithful Grand Duke--S. Spirito--The Carmine--Masaccio's place +in art--Leonardo's summary--The S. Peter frescoes--The Pitti +side--Romola--A little country walk--The ancient wall--The Piazzale +Michelangelo--An evening prospect--S. Miniato--Antonio Rossellino's +masterpiece--The story of S. Gualberto--A city of the dead--The +reluctant departure. + +The Via Maggio is now our way, but first there is a museum which +I think should be visited, if only because it gave Dickens so much +pleasure when he was here--the Museo di Storia Naturale, which is +open three days a week only and is always free. Many visitors to +Florence never even hear of it and one quickly finds that its chief +frequenters are the poor. All the better for that. Here not only is +the whole animal kingdom spread out before the eye in crowded cases, +but the most wonderful collection of wax reproductions of the human +form is to be seen. These anatomical models are so numerous and so +exact that, since the human body does not change with the times, +a medical student could learn everything from them in the most +gentlemanly way possible. But they need a strong stomach. Mine, +I confess, quailed before the end. + +The hero of the Museum is Galileo, whose tomb at S. Croce we have seen: +here are preserved certain of his instruments in a modern, floridly +decorated Tribuna named after him. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) belongs +rather to Pisa, where he was born and where he found the Leaning Tower +useful for experiments, and to Rome, where in 1611 he demonstrated +his discovery of the telescope; but Florence is proud of him and it +was here that he died, under circumstances tragic for an astronomer, +for he had become totally blind. + +The frescoes in the Tribuna celebrate other Italian scientific +triumphs, and in the cases are historic telescopes, astrolabes, +binoculars, and other mysteries. + +The Via Maggio, which runs from Casa Guidi to the Ponte Trinita, and +at noon is always full of school-girls, brings us by way of the Via +Michelozzo to S. Spirito, but by continuing in it we pass a house of +great interest, now No. 26, where once lived the famous Bianca Capella, +that beautiful and magnetic Venetian whom some hold to have been so +vile and others so much the victim of fate. Bianca Capella was born in +1543, when Francis I, Cosimo I's eldest son, afterwards to play such a +part in her life, was two years of age. While he was being brought up +in Florence, Bianca was gaining loveliness in her father's palace. When +she was seventeen she fell in love with a young Florentine engaged +in a bank in Venice, and they were secretly married. Her family +were outraged by the mésalliance and the young couple had to flee +to Florence, where they lived in poverty and hiding, a prize of 2000 +ducats being offered by the Capella family to anyone who would kill +the husband; while, by way of showing how much in earnest they were, +they had his uncle thrown into prison, where he died. + +One day the unhappy Bianca was sitting at her window when the young +prince Francis was passing: he looked up, saw her, and was enslaved on +the spot. (The portraits of Bianca do not, I must admit, lay emphasis +on this story. Titian's I have not seen; but there is one by Bronzino +in our National Gallery--No. 650--and many in Florence.) There was, +however, something in Bianca's face to which Francis fell a victim, and +he brought about a speedy meeting. At first Bianca repulsed him; but +when she found that her husband was unworthy of her, she returned the +Prince's affection. (I am telling her story from the pro-Bianca point +of view: there are plenty of narrators on the other side.) Meanwhile, +Francis's official life going on, he married that archduchess Joanna +of Austria for whom the Austrian frescoes in the Palazzo Vecchio were +painted; but his heart remained Bianca's and he was more at her house +than in his own. At last, Bianca's husband being killed in some fray, +she was free from the persecution of her family and ready to occupy +the palace which Francis hastened to build for her, here, in the Via +Maggio, now cut up into tenements at a few lire a week. The attachment +continued unabated when Francis came to the throne, and upon the death +of his archduchess in 1578 Bianca and he were almost immediately, +but privately, married, she being then thirty-five; and in the next +year they were publicly married in the church of S. Lorenzo with every +circumstance of pomp; while later in the same year Bianca was crowned. + +Francis remained her lover till his death, which was both dramatic +and suspicious, husband and wife dying within a few hours of each +other at the Medici villa of Poggia a Caiano in 1587. Historians +have not hesitated to suggest that Francis was poisoned by his wife; +but there is no proof. It is indeed quite possible that her life +was more free of intrigue, ambition and falsehood, than that of any +one about the court at that time; but the Florentines, encouraged by +Francis's brother Ferdinand I, who succeeded him, made up their minds +that she was a witch, and few things in the way of disaster happened +that were not laid to her charge. Call a woman a witch and everything +is possible. Ferdinand not only detested Bianca in life and deplored +her fascination for his brother, but when she died he refused to allow +her to be buried with the others of the family; hence the Chapel of +the Princes at S. Lorenzo lacks one archduchess. Her grave is unknown. + +The whole truth we shall never know; but it is as easy to think of +Bianca as a harmless woman who both lost and gained through love as +to picture her as sinister and scheming. At any rate we know that +Francis was devoted to her with a fidelity and persistence for which +Grand Dukes have not always been conspicuous. + +S. Spirito is one of Brunelleschi's solidest works. Within it resembles +the city of Bologna in its vistas of brown and white arches. The +effect is severe and splendid; but the church is to be taken rather +as architecture than a treasury of art, for although each of its +eight and thirty chapels has an altar picture and several have fine +pieces of sculpture--one a copy of Michelangelo's famous Pieta in +Rome--there is nothing of the highest value. It was in this church +that I was asked alms by one of the best-dressed men in Florence; +but the Florentine beggars are not importunate: they ask, receive or +are denied, and that is the end of it. + +The other great church in the Pitti quarter is the Carmine, and here +we are on very sacred ground in art--for it was here, as I have had +occasion to say more than once in this book, that Masaccio painted +those early frescoes which by their innovating boldness turned the +Brancacci chapel into an Academy. For all the artists came to study +and copy them: among others Michelangelo, whose nose was broken by +the turbulent Torrigiano, a fellow-student, under this very roof. + +Tommaso di Ser Giovanni, or Masaccio, the son of a notary, was born +in 1402. His master is not known, but Tommaso Fini or Masolino, +born in 1383, is often named. Vasari states that as a youth Masaccio +helped Ghiberti with his first Baptistery doors; and if so, the fact +is significant. But all that is really known of his early life is +that he went to Rome to paint a chapel in S. Clemente. He returned, +apparently on hearing that his patron Giovanni de' Medici was in +power again. Another friend, Brunelleschi, having built the church +of S. Spirito in 1422, Masaccio began to work there in 1423, when he +was only twenty-one. + +Masaccio's peculiar value in the history of painting is his early +combined power of applying the laws of perspective and representing +human beings "in the round". Giotto was the first and greatest +innovator in painting--the father of real painting; Masaccio was the +second. If from Giotto's influence a stream of vigour had flowed such +as flowed from Masaccio's, there would have been nothing special to +note about Masaccio at all. But the impulse which Giotto gave to art +died down; some one had to reinvigorate it, and that some one was +Masaccio. In his remarks on painting, Leonardo da Vinci sums up the +achievements of the two. They stood out, he says, from the others +of their time, by reason of their wish to go to life rather than to +pictures. Giotto went to life, his followers went to pictures; and +the result was a decline in art until Masaccio, who again went to life. + +From the Carmine frescoes came the new painting. It is not that walls +henceforth were covered more beautifully or suitably than they had +been by Giotto's followers; probably less suitably very often; but +that religious symbolism without much relation to actual life gave +way to scenes which might credibly have occurred, where men, women +and saints walked and talked much as we do, in similar surroundings, +with backgrounds of cities that could be lived in and windows that +could open. It was this revolution that Masaccio performed. No doubt +if he had not, another would, for it had to come: the new demand was +that religion should be reconciled with life. + +It is generally supposed that Masaccio had Masolino as his ally in +this wonderful series; and a vast amount of ink has been spilt over +Masolino's contributions. Indeed the literature of expert art criticism +on Florentine pictures alone is of alarming bulk and astonishing in +its affirmations and denials. The untutored visitor in the presence +of so much scientific variance will be wise to enact the part of +the lawyer in the old caricature of the litigants and the cow, who, +while they pull, one at the head and the other at the tail, fills +his bucket with milk. In other words, the plain duty of the ordinary +person is to enjoy the picture. + +Without any special knowledge of art one can, by remembering the +early date of these frescoes, realize what excitement they must have +caused in the studios and how tongues must have clacked in the Old +Market. We have but to send our thoughts to the Spanish chapel at +S. Maria Novella to realize the technical advance. Masaccio, we see, +was peopling a visible world; the Spanish chapel painters were merely +allegorizing, as agents of holiness. The Ghirlandaio choir in the same +church would yield a similar comparison; but what we have to remember +is that Ghirlandaio painted these frescoes in 1490, sixty-two years +after Masaccio's death, and Masaccio showed him how. + +It is a pity that the light is so poor and that the frescoes have +not worn better; but their force and dramatic vigour remain beyond +doubt. The upper scene on the left of the altar is very powerful: the +Roman tax collector has asked Christ for a tribute and Christ bids +Peter find the money in the mouth of a fish. Figures, architecture, +landscape, all are in right relation; and the drama is moving, without +restlessness. This and the S. Peter preaching and distributing alms +are perhaps the best, but the most popular undoubtedly is that below +it, finished many years after by Filippino Lippi (although there are +experts to question this and even substitute his amorous father), in +which S. Peter, challenged by Simon Magus, resuscitates a dead boy, +just as S. Zenobius used to do in the streets of this city. Certain +more modern touches, such as the exquisite Filippino would naturally +have thought of, may be seen here: the little girl behind the boy, +for instance, who recalls the children in that fresco by the same +hand at S. Maria Novella in which S. John resuscitates Drusiana. In +this Carmine fresco are many portraits of Filippino's contemporaries, +including Botticelli, just as in the scene of the consecration of +the Carmine which Masaccio painted in the cloisters, but which has +almost perished, he introduced Brancacci, his employer, Brunelleschi, +Donatello, some of whose innovating work in stone he was doing in +paint, Giovanni de' Medici and Masolino. The scanty remains of this +fresco tell us that it must have been fine indeed. + +Masaccio died at the early age of twenty-six, having suddenly +disappeared from Florence, leaving certain work unfinished. A strange +portentous meteor in art. + +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. Turn to the left as you leave the bridge, under the arch made by +Cosimo's passage, and you are in the Via de' Bardi, the backs of whose +houses on the river-side are so beautiful from the Uffizi's central +arches, as Mr. Morley's picture shows. At the end of the street is +an archway under a large house. Go through this, and you are at the +foot of a steep, stone hill. It is really steep, but never mind. Take +it easily, and rest half-way where the houses on the left break and +give a wonderful view of the city. Still climbing, you come to the +best gate of all that is left--a true gate in being an inlet into a +fortified city--that of S. Giorgio, high on the Boboli hill by the +fort. The S. Giorgio gate has a S. George killing a dragon, in stone, +on its outside, and the saint painted within, Donatello's conception +of him being followed by the artist. Parsing through, you are in the +country. The fort and gardens are on one side and villas on the other; +and a great hill-side is in front, covered with crops. Do not go on, +but turn sharp to the left and follow the splendid city wall, behind +which for a long way is the garden of the Villa Karolath, one of the +choicest spots in Florence, occasionally tossing its branches over the +top. This wall is immense all the way down to the Porta S. Miniato, +and two of the old towers are still standing in their places upon +it. Botticini's National Gallery picture tells exactly how they looked +in their heyday. Ivy hangs over, grass and flowers spring from the +ancient stones, and lizards run about. Underneath are olive-trees. + +It was, by the way, in the Via de' Bardi that George Eliot's +Romola lived, for she was of the Bardi family. The story, it may be +remembered, begins on the morning of Lorenzo the Magnificent's death, +and ends after the execution of Savonarola. It is not an inspired +romance, and is remarkable almost equally for its psychological +omissions and the convenience of its coincidences, but it is an +excellent preparation for a first visit in youth to S. Marco and the +Palazzo Vecchio, while the presence in its somewhat naive pages of +certain Florentine characters makes it agreeable to those who know +something of the city and its history. The painter Piero di Cosimo, +for example, is here, straight from Vasari; so also are Cronaca, the +architect, Savonarola, Capparo, the ironsmith, and even Machiavelli; +while Bernardo del Nero, the gonfalonier, whose death sentence +Savonarola refused to revise, was Romola's godfather. + +The Via Guicciardini, which runs from the foot of the Via de' Bardi +to the Pitti, is one of the narrowest and busiest Florentine streets, +with an undue proportion of fruit shops overflowing to the pavement +to give it gay colouring. At No. 24 is a stable with pillars and +arches that would hold up a pyramid. But this is no better than most +of the old stables of Florence, which are all solid vaulted caverns +of immense size and strength. + +From the Porta Romana one may do many things--take the tram, +for example, for the Certosa of the Val d'Ema, which is only some +twenty minutes distant, or make a longer journey to Impruneta, where +the della Robbias are. But just now let us walk or ride up the long +winding Viale Macchiavelli, which curves among the villas behind the +Boboli Gardens, to the Piazzale Michelangelo and S. Miniato. + +The Piazzale Michelangelo is one of the few modern tributes of Florence +to her illustrious makers. The Dante memorial opposite S. Croce is +another, together with the preservation of certain buildings with +Dante associations in the heart of the city; but, as I have said more +than once, there is no piazza in Florence, and only one new street, +named after a Medici. From the Piazzale Michelangelo you not only +have a fine panoramic view of the city of this great man--in its +principal features not so vastly different from the Florence of his +day, although of course larger and with certain modern additions, +such as factory chimneys, railway lines, and so forth--but you can see +the remains of the fortifications which he constructed in 1529, and +which kept the Imperial troops at bay for nearly a year. Just across +the river rises S. Croce, where the great man is buried, and beyond, +over the red roofs, the dome of the Medici chapel at S. Lorenzo shows +us the position of the Biblioteca Laurenziana and the New Sacristy, +both built by him. Immediately below us is the church of S. Niccolo, +where he is said to have hidden in 1529, when there was a hue and +cry for him. In the middle of this spacious plateau is a bronze +reproduction of his David, and it is good to see it, from the cafe +behind it, rising head and shoulders above the highest Apennines. + +S. Miniato, the church on the hill-top above the Piazzale Michelangelo, +deserves many visits. One may not be too greatly attached to marble +façades, but this little temple defeats all prejudices by its radiance +and perfection, and to its extraordinary charm its situation adds. It +crowns the hill, and in the late afternoon--the ideal time to visit +it--is full in the eye of the sun, bathed in whose light the green +and white façade, with miracles of delicate intarsia, is balm to the +eyes instead of being, as marble so often is, dazzling and cold. + +On the way up we pass the fine church of S. Salvatore, which Cronaca +of the Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Strozzi built and Michelangelo +admired, and which is now secularized, and pass through the gateway of +Michelangelo's upper fortifications. S. Miniato is one of the oldest +churches of Florence, some of it eleventh century. It has its name +from Minias, a Roman soldier who suffered martyrdom at Florence under +Decius. Within, one does not feel quite to be in a Christian church, +the effect partly of the unusual colouring, all grey, green, and gold +and soft light tints as of birds' bosoms; partly of the ceiling, +which has the bright hues of a Russian toy; partly of the forest +of great gay columns; partly of the lovely and so richly decorated +marble screen; and partly of the absence of a transept. The prevailing +feeling indeed is gentle gaiety; and in the crypt this is intensified, +for it is just a joyful assemblage of dancing arches. + +The church as a whole is beautiful and memorable enough; but +its details are wonderful too, from the niello pavement, and +the translucent marble windows of the apse, to the famous tomb of +Cardinal Jacopo of Portugal, and the Luca della Robbia reliefs of the +Virtues. This tomb is by Antonio Rossellino. It is not quite of the +rank of Mino's in the Badia; but it is a noble and beautiful thing +marked in every inch of it by modest and exquisite thought. Vasari +says of Antonio that he "practised his art with such grace that +he was valued as something more than a man by those who knew him, +who well-nigh adored him as a saint". Facing it is a delightful +Annunciation by Alessio Baldovinetti, in which the angel declares the +news from a far greater distance than we are accustomed to; and the +ceiling is made an abode of gladness by the blue and white figures +(designed by Luca della Robbia) of Prudence and Chastity, Moderation +and Fortitude, for all of which qualities, it seems, the Cardinal was +famous. In short, one cannot be too glad that, since he had to die, +death's dart struck down this Portuguese prelate while he was in +Rossellino's and Luca's city. + +No longer is preserved here the miraculous crucifix which, standing +in a little chapel in the wood on this spot, bestowed blessing and +pardon--by bending towards him--upon S. Giovanni Gualberto, the founder +of the Vallombrosan order. The crucifix is now in S. Trinita. The saint +was born in 985 of noble stock and assumed naturally the splendour and +arrogance of his kind. His brother Hugo being murdered in some affray, +Giovanni took upon himself the duty of avenging the crime. One Good +Friday he chanced to meet, near this place, the assassin, in so narrow +a passage as to preclude any chance of escape; and he was about to kill +him when the man fell on his knees and implored mercy by the passion of +Christ Who suffered on that very day, adding that Christ had prayed on +the cross for His own murderers. Giovanni was so much impressed that he +not only forgave the man but offered him his friendship. Entering then +the chapel to pray and ask forgiveness of all his sins, he was amazed +to see the crucifix bend down as though acquiescing and blessing, and +this special mark of favour so wrought upon him that he became a monk, +himself shaving his head for that purpose and defying his father's +rage, and subsequently founded the Vallombrosan order. He died in 1073. + +I have said something of the S. Croce habit and the S. Maria Novella +habit; but I think that when all is said the S. Miniato habit is +the most important to acquire. There is nothing else like it; and +the sense of height is so invigorating too. At all times of the year +it is beautiful; but perhaps best in early spring, when the highest +mountains still have snow upon them and the neighbouring slopes are +covered with tender green and white fruit blossom, and here the violet +wistaria blooms and there the sombre crimson of the Judas-tree. + +Behind and beside the church is a crowded city of the Florentine +dead, reproducing to some extent the city of the Florentine living, +in its closely packed habitations--the detached palaces for the rich +and the great congeries of cells for the poor--more of which are +being built all the time. There is a certain melancholy interest in +wandering through these silent streets, peering through the windows +and recognizing over the vaults names famous in Florence. One learns +quickly how bad modern mortuary architecture and sculpture can be, +but I noticed one monument with some sincerity and unaffected grace: +that to a charitable Marchesa, a friend of the poor, at the foot of +whose pedestal are a girl and baby done simply and well. + +Better perhaps to remain on the highest point and look at the +city beneath. One should try to be there before sunset and watch +the Apennines turning to a deeper and deeper indigo and the city +growing dimmer and dimmer in the dusk. Florence is beautiful from +every point of vantage, but from none more beautiful than from this +eminence. As one reluctantly leaves the church and passes again +through Michelangelo's fortification gateway to descend, one has, +framed in its portal, a final lovely Apennine scene. + + + + + +Historical Chart of Florence and Europe, 1296-1564 + + +Artists' Dates. + +1300 (c.) Taddeo Gaddi born (d. 1366) +1302 (c.) Cimabue died (b. c. 1240) +1308 (c.) Andrea Orcagna born (d. 1368) +1310 Arnolfo di Cambio died (b. 1232 ?) +1333 Spinello Aretino born (d. 1410) +1336 Giotto died (b. 1276 ?) +1344 Simone Martini died (b. 1283) +1348 Andrea Pisano died (b. 1270) +1356 Lippo Memmi died +1366 Taddeo Gaddi died (b. c. 1300) +1368 Andrea Orcagna died +1370 (c.) Lorenzo Monaco born (d. 1425) + Gentile da Fabriano born + (d. 1450) +1371 Jacopo della Quercia born (d. 1438) +1377 Filippo Brunelleschi born (d. 1446) +1378 Lorenzo Ghiberti born (d. 1455) +1386 (?) Donatello born (d. 1466) +1387 Fra Angelico born (d. 1455) +1391 Michelozzo born (d. 1472) +1396 (?) Andrea del Castagno born (d. 1457) +1397 Paolo Uccello born (d. 1475) +1399 or 1400 Luca della Robbia born (d. 1482) +1401 or 1402 Masaccio born (d. 1428?) +1405 Leon Battista Alberti born (d. 1472) +1406 Lippo Lippi born (d. 1469) +1409 Bernardo Rossellino born (d. 1464) +1410 Spinello Aretino died +1415 Piero della Francesca born (d. 1492) +1420 Benozzo Gozzoli born (d. 1498) +1425 Il Monaco died + Alessio Baldovinetti born + (d. 1499) +1427 Antonio Rossellino born (d. 1478) +1428 (?) Masaccio died +1428 Desiderio da Settignano born (d. 1464) +1429 (?) Giovanni Bellini born (d. 1516) + Antonio Pollaiuolo born + (d. 1498) +1430 Cosimo Tura died +1431 Andrea Mantegna born (d. 1506) +1432 (?) Mina da Fiesole born (d. 1484) +1435 Andrea Verrocchio born (d. 1488) + Andrea della Robbia born + (d. 1525) +1438 Melozzo da Forli born (d. 1494) +1439 Cosimo Rosselli born (d. 1507) +1441 Luca Signorelli born (d. 1523) +1442 Benedetto da Maiano born (d. 1497) +1444 Sandro Botticelli born (d. 1510) +1446 Brunelleschi died + Perugino born (d. 1523 or 24) + Francesco Botticini born + (d. 1498) +1449 Domenico Ghirlandaio born (d. 1494) +1450 Gentile da Fabriano died +1452 Leonardi da Vinci born (d. 1519) +1455 Ghiberti died + Fra Angelico died +1456 Lorenzo di Credi born (d. 1537) +1457 Cronaca born (d. 1508 or 9) + Filippino Lippi born (d. 1504) + Andrea del Castagno died +1462 Piero di Cosimo born (d. 1521) +1463 or 4 Desiderio da Settignano died +1464 Bernardo Rossellino died +1466 Donatello died +1469 Giovanni della Robbia born (d. 1529) + Lippo Lippi died +1472 Michelozzo died + Alberti died +1474 Benedetto da Rovezzano born (d. 1556) + Rustici born (d. 1554) + Mariotto Albertinelli born + (d. 1515) +1475 Fra Bartolommeo born (d. 1517) + Michelangelo Buonarroti born + (d. 1564) +1477 Titian born (d. 1576) + Giorgione born (d. 1510) +1478 Antonio Rossellino died +1482 Francia Bigio born (d. 1523) + Guicciardini born (d. 1540) +1483 Raphael born (d. 1520) + Ridolfo Ghirlandaio born + (d. 1561) +1484 Mino da Fiesole died +1485 Sebastiano del Piombo born (d. 1547) +1486 Jacopo Sansovino born (d. 1570) +1486 or 7 Andrea del Sarto born (d. 1531) +1488 Verrocchio died + Baccio Bandinelli born + (d. 1560) +1492 Piero della Francesco died +1494 Jacopo da Pontormo born (d. 1556) + Correggio born (d. 1534) + Domenico Ghirlandaio died + Melozzo da Forli died +1497 Benedetto da Maiano died + Benozzo Gozzoli died +1498 Antonio Pollaiuolo died + Francesco Botticini died +1499 Alessio Baldovinetti died +1500 Benvenuto Cellini born (d. 1572) +1502 Angelo Bronzino born (d. 1572) +1504 Filippino Lippi died +1506 Mantegna died +1507 Cosimo Rosselli died +1508 Cronaca died +1510 Botticelli died + Giorgione died +1511 Vasari born (d. 1574) +1515 Albertinelli died +1516 Giovanni Bellini died +1517 Fra Bartolommeo died +1518 Tintoretto born (d. 1594) +1519 Leonardo da Vinci died +1520 Raphael died +1521 Piero di Cosimo died +1523 Signorelli died + Perugino died +1524 Giovanni da Bologna born (d. 1608) +1525 Andrea della Robbia died + Francia Bigio died +1528 Paolo Veronese born (d. 1588) + Federigo Baroccio born + (d. 1612) +1529 Giovanni della Robbia died +1531 Andrea del Sarto died +1534 Correggio died +1537 Credi died +1547 Sebastiano del Piombo died +1554 Rustici died +1556 Pontormo died + Benedetto da Rovezzano died +1560 Baccio Bandinelli died +1561 Ridolfo Ghirlandaio died +1564 Michael Angelo died + + +Some Important Florentine Dates + +1296 Foundations of the Duomo consecrated +1298 Palazzo Vecchio commenced by Arnolfo + di Cambio +1300 Beginning of the feuds of the Bianchi + and Xeri + Guido Cavalcanti died +1302 Dante exiled, Jan. 27 +1304 Petrarch born (d. 1374) +1308 Death of Corso Donati +1312 Siege of Florence by Henry VII +1313 Boccaccio born (d. 1375) +1321 Dante died Sept. 14 (b. 1265) +1333 Destructive floods +1334 Foundations of the Campanile laid +1337 Or San Michele begun +1339 Andrea Pisano's gates finished +1348 Black Death of the Decameron + Giovanni Villani died + (b. 1275 c.) +1360 Giovanni de' Medici (di Bicci) born +1365 (c) Ponte Vecchio rebuilt by Taddeo Gaddi +1374 Petrarch died +1375 Boccaccio died +1376 Loggia de' Lanzi commenced +1378 Salvestro de' Medici elected + Gonfaloniere +1389 Cosimo de' Medici (Pater Patrise) born +1390 War with Milan +1394 Sir John Hawkwood died +1399 Competition for Baptistery Gates +1416 Piero de' Medici (il Gottoso) born +1421 Purchase of Leghorn by Florence + Giovanni de' Medici elected + Gonfaloniere + Spedale degli Innocenti + commenced +1424 Ghiberti's first gate set up +1429 Giovanni de' Medici died +1432 Niccolo da Uzzano died +1433 Marsilio Ficino born + Cosimo de' Medici banished, + Oct. 3 +1434 Cosimo returned to power, Sept. 29 + Banishment of Albizzi and + Strozzi +1435 Francesco Sforza visited Florence +1436 Brunelleschi's dome completed + The Duomo consecrated +1439 Council of Florence + Gemisthos Plethon in Florence +1440 Cosimo occupied the Medici Palace +1449 Lorenzo de' Medici (the Magnificent + born) +1452 Ghiberti's second gates set up + Savonarola born +1454 Politian born +1463 Pico della Mirandola born +1464 Cosimo de' Medici died and was + succeeded by Piero +1466 Luca Pitti's Conspiracy +1469 Lorenzo's Tournament, Feb. + Lorenzo's Marriage to Clarice + Orsini, June + Death of Piero, Dec. + Niccolò Machiavelli born +1471 Piero de' Medici, son of Lorenzo, born + Visit of Galeazzo Sforza + to Florence + Cennini's Press established + in Florence +1474 Ariosto born +1475 Giuliano's Tournament +1478 Pazzi Conspiracy + Giuliano murdered +1479 Lorenzo's Mission to Naples +1492 Lorenzo the Magnificent died + Piero succeeded +1494 Charles VIII invaded Italy + Piero banished + Charles VIII in Florence. Sack of + Medici Palace + Florence governed by General Council + Savonarola in power + Politian died + Pico della Mirandola died +1497 Francesco Valori elected Gonfaloniere + Piero attempted to return to Florence +1498 Savonarola burnt +1499 Marsilio Ficino died + Amerigo Vespucci reached America +1503 Death of Piero di Medici +1512 Cardinal Giovanni and Giuliano, Duke of + Nemours, reinstated in Florence + Great Council abolished +1519 Cardinal Giulio de' Medici in power + Catherine de' Medici born +1524 Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici in power +1526 Death of Giovanni delle Bande Nere +1527 Ippolito and Alessandro left Florence +1528 Machiavelli died +1529-30 Siege of Florence +1530 Capitulation of Florence +1531 Alessandro de' Medici declared Head of Republic +1537 Cosimo de' Medici made Ruler of Florence + Battle of Montemurlo + Lorenzino assassinated + in Venice +1539 Cosimo married Eleanor di Toledo and moved + to Palazzo Vecchio +1553 Cosimo occupied the Pitti Palace +1564 Galileo Galilei born + + +Popes. + + Boniface VIII +1303 Benedict XI +1305 Clement V +1316 John XXII +1334 Benedict XII +1337 Boniface VIII +1342 Clement VI +1352 Innocent VI +1362 Urban V +1370 Gregory XI +1378 Urban VI +1389 Boniface IX +1404 Innocent VII +1406 Gregory XII +1409 Alex. V +1410 John XXIII +1417 Martin V +1431 Eugenius IV +1447 Nicolas V +1455 Calixtus III +1458 Pius II +1464 Paul II +1471 Sixtus IV +1484 Innocent VIII +1492 Alex. VI +1503 Pius III + Julius II +1513 Leo X +1522 Hadrian VI +1523 Clement VII +1534 Paul III +1550 Julius III +1555 Marcellus II + Paul IV +1559 Pius IV + + +French Kings. + + Philip IV +1314 Louis X +1316 John I + Philip V +1322 Charles IV +1328 Philip VI + Philip +1350 John II +1364 Charles V +1380 Charles VI +1422 Charles VII +1461 Louis XI +1483 Charles VIII +1498 Louis XII +1515 Francis I +1547 Henry II +1559 Francis II +1560 Charles IX + + +English Kings. + + Edward I +1307 Edward II +1327 Edward III +1377 Richard II +1422 Charles VII +1461 Edward IV +1483 Edward V + Richard III +1485 Henry VII +1509 Henry VIII +1547 Edward VI +1553 Mary +1558 Elizabeth + + +Milan. + +1310 Matteo Visconti +1322 Galeazzo Visconti +1328 +1329 Azzo Visconti +1339 Luchino and Giovanni Visconti +1349 Giovanni Visconti +1354 Matteó Bernabò Galeazzo +1378 Gian Galeazzo Visconti +1402 Gian Maria Visconti +1412 Filippo Maria Visconti +1447...1450 Francesco Sforza +1466 Galeazzo Sforza +1476 Gian Galeazzo Sforza (Ludovico Sforza Regent) +1495 Ludovico Sforza +1499 Ludovico exiled + + +Some Important General Dates + +1298 Battle of Falkirk +1306 Coronation of Bruce +1314 Battle of Bannockburn +1324 (?) John Wyclif born +1337 Froissart born (d. 1410?) +1339 Beginning of the Hundred Years' War +1346 Battle of Crécy +1347 Rienzi made Tribune of Rome + Edward III took Calais +1348-9 Black Death in England +1348 S. Catherine of Siena born +1356 Battle of Poictiers +1362 First draft of Piers Plowman +1379 Thomas à Kempis born +1381 Wat Tyler's Rebellion +1400 Geoffrey Chaucer died +1414 Council of Constance +1428 Siege of Orléans +1431 Joan of Arc burnt +1435 (c.) Hans Meinling born +1450 John Gutenburg printed at Mainz + Jack Cade's Insurrection +1453 Fall of Constantinople +1455 Beginning of the Wars of the Roses +1467 Erasmus born (d. 1528) +1470 (c.) Mabuse born (d. 1555) +1471 Albert Dürer born (d. 1528) + Caxton's Press established in + Westminster +1476 Chevalier Bayard born +1482 Hugo van der Goes died +1483 Rabelais born (d. 1553) + Martin Luther born + Murder of the Princes in + the Tower +1491 Ignatius Loyola born +1492 America discovered by Christopher Columbus +1494 Lucas van Leyden born (d. 1533) +1505 John Knox born (d. 1582) +1509 Calvin born +1516 More's Utopia published +1519 First Voyage round the world + (Ferd. Magellan) +1519-21 Conquest of Mexico +1520 Field of the Cloth of Gold +1527 Brantôme born (d. 1614) +1528 Albert Dürer died +1531-2 Conquest of Peru +1533 Montaigne born (d. 1592) +1535 Henry VIII became Supreme Head of the Church +1537 Sack of Rome +1544 Torquato Tasso born +1553 Edmund Spenser born +1554 Execution of Lady Jane Grey + Sir Philip Sidney born +1555-6 Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer burnt +1558 Calais recaptured by the French +1564 Shakespeare born + + + + +NOTES + +[1] One of Brunelleschi's devices to bring before the authorities +an idea of the dome he projected, was of standing an egg on end, +as Columbus is famed for doing, fully twenty years before Columbus +was born. + +[2] It was Charles V who said of Giotto's Campanile that it ought to +be kept in a glass case. + +[3] Hence its new name: Loggia de' Lanzi. + +[4] In the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington are casts +of the two Medici on the tombs and also the Madonna and Child. They +are in the great gallery of the casts, together with the great David, +two of the Julian tomb prisoners, the Bargello tondo and the Brutus. + +[5] Cacus, the son of Vulcan and Medusa, was a famous robber who +breathed fire and smoke and laid waste Italy. He made the mistake, +however, of robbing Hercules of some cows, and for this Hercules +strangled him. + +[6] "Thick as leaves in Vallombrosa" has come to be the form of +words as most people quote them. But Milton wrote ("Paradise Lost," +Book I. 300-304):-- + + "He called + His legions, angel-forms, who lay entranced + Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks + In Vallombrosa where the Etrurian shades, + High over-arched, embower." + +Wordsworth, by the way, when he visited Vallombrosa with Crabb Robinson +in 1837, wrote an inferior poem there, in a rather common metre, +in honour of Milton's association with it. + +[7] 27 April, 1859, the day that the war with Austria was proclaimed. + +[8] In "A Dictionary of Saintly Women". + +[9] The position of easel pictures in the Florentine galleries often +changes. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Wanderer in Florence, by E. V. Lucas + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10769 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3f6c80d --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10769 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10769) diff --git a/old/10769-8.txt b/old/10769-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9edeb1c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10769-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11621 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Wanderer in Florence, by E. V. Lucas + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Wanderer in Florence + +Author: E. V. Lucas + +Release Date: January 21, 2004 [EBook #10769] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WANDERER IN FLORENCE *** + + + + +Produced by Jeroen Hellingman & the Distributed Proofreaders Team + + + + +A WANDERER IN FLORENCE + +By E.V. Lucas + + + +Preface + +A sentence from a "Synthetical Guidebook" which is circulated in the +Florentine hotels will express what I want to say, at the threshold +of this volume, much better than could unaided words of mine. It runs +thus: "The natural kindness, the high spirit, of the Florentine people, +the wonderful masterpieces of art created by her great men, who in +every age have stood in the front of art and science, rivalize with +the gentle smile of her splendid sky to render Florence one of the +finest towns of beautiful Italy". These words, written, I feel sure, +by a Florentine, and therefore "inspirated" (as he says elsewhere) by +a patriotic feeling, are true; and it is my hope that the pages that +follow will at once fortify their truth and lead others to test it. + +Like the synthetical author, I too have not thought it necessary +to provide "too many informations concerning art and history," but +there will be found a few, practically unavoidable, in the gathering +together of which I have been indebted to many authors: notably Vasari, +Symonds, Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Ruskin, Pater, and Baedeker. Among +more recent books I would mention Herr Bode's "Florentine Sculptors of +the Renaissance," Mr. F.M. Hyett's "Florence," Mr. E.L.S. Horsburgh's +"Lorenzo the Magnificent" and "Savonarola," Mr. Gerald S. Davies' +"Michelangelo," Mr. W.G. Waters' "Italian Sculptors," and Col. Young's +"The Medici". + +I have to thank very heartily a good English Florentine for the +construction of the historical chart at the end of the volume. + +E.V.L. + +May, 1912 + + + +Contents + + Preface +Chapter I The Duomo I: Its Construction +Chapter II The Duomo II: Its Associations +Chapter III The Duomo III: A Ceremony and a Museum +Chapter IV The Campanile and the Baptistery +Chapter V The Riccardi Palace and the Medici +Chapter VI S. Lorenzo and Michelangelo +Chapter VII Or San Michele and the Palazzo Vecchio +Chapter VIII The Uffizi I: The Building and the Collectors +Chapter IX The Uffizi II: The First Six Rooms +Chapter X The Uffizi III: Botticelli +Chapter XI The Uffizi IV: Remaining Rooms +Chapter XII "Aèrial Fiesole" +Chapter XIII The Badia and Dante +Chapter XIV The Bargello +Chapter XV S. Croce +Chapter XVI The Accademia +Chapter XVII Two Monasteries and a Procession +Chapter XVIII S. Marco +Chapter XIX The SS. Annunziata and the Spedale Degli + Innocenti +Chapter XX The Cascine and the Arno +Chapter XXI S. Maria Novella +Chapter XXII The Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele to S. Trinità +Chapter XXIII The Pitti +Chapter XXIV English Poets in Florence +Chapter XXV The Carmine and San Miniato + Historical Chart of Florence and Europe, 1296-1564 + + + + +List of Illustrations + + +In Colour + +The Duomo and Campanile, From the Via Pecori + +The Cloisters of San Lorenzo, Showing the Windows of the Biblioteca +Laurenziana + +The Via Calzaioli, from the Baptistery, Showing the Bigallo and the +Top of Or San Michele + +The Palazzo Vecchio + +The Loggia of the Palazzo Vecchio and the Via de' Leoni + +The Loggia de' Lanzi, the Duomo, and the Palazzo Vecchio, from the +Portico of the Uffizi + +Fiesole, from the Hill under the Monastery + +The Badia and the Bargello, from the Piazza S. Firenze + +Interior of S. Croce + +The Ponte S. Trinità + +The Ponte Vecchio and Back of the Via de' Bardi + +S. Maria Novella and the Corner of the Loggia di S. Paolo + +The Via de' Vagellai, from the Piazza S. Jacopo Trafossi + +The Piazza Della Signoria on a Wet Friday Afternoon + +View of Florence at Evening, from the Piazzale Michelangelo + +Evening at the Piazzale Michelangelo, Looking West + + + +In Monotone + + +A Cantoria. +By Donatello, in the Museum of the Cathedral + +Cain and Abel and Abraham and Isaac. +By Ghiberti, from his second Baptistery Doors + +The Procession of the Magi. +By Benozzo Gozzoli, in the Palazzo Riccardi + +Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino. +By Michelangelo, in the New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo + +Christ and S. Thomas. +By Verrocchio, in a niche by Donatello and Michelozzo in the wall of +Or San Michele + +Putto with Dolphin. +By Verrocchio, in the Palazzo Vecchio + +Madonna Adoring. +Ascribed to Filippino Lippi, in the Uffizi + +The Adoration of the Magi. +By Leonardo da Vinci, in the Uffizi + +Madonna and Child. +By Luca Signorelli, in the Uffizi + +†The Birth of Venus. +By Botticelli, in the Uffizi + +The Annunciation. +By Botticelli, in the Uffizi + +San Giacomo. +By Andrea del Sarto, in the Uffizi + +The Madonna del Cardellino. +By Raphael, in the Uffizi + +The Madonna del Pozzo. +By Franciabigio, in the Uffizi + +Monument to Count Ugo. +By Mino da Fiesole, in the Badia + +David. +By Donatello, in the Bargello +By Verrocchio, in the Bargello + +St. George. +By Donatello, in the Bargello + +Madonna and Child. +By Verrocchio, in the Bargello + +Madonna and Child. +By Luca della Robbia, in the Bargello + +Bust of a Boy. +By Luca or Andrea della Robbia, in the Bargello + +*Monument to Carlo Marzuppini. +By Desiderio da Settignano, in S. Croce + +David. +By Michelangelo, in the Accademia + +The Flight into Egypt. +By Fra Angelico, in the Accademia + +The Adoration of the Shepherds. +By Ghirlandaio, in the Accademia + +The Vision of S. Bernard. +By Fra Bartolommeo, in the Accademia + +Virgin and Child Enthroned, with Saints. +By Botticelli, in the Accademia + +Primavera. +By Botticelli, in the Accademia + +The Coronation of the Virgin. +By Fra Angelico, in the Convent of S. Marco + +The Annunciation. +By Luca della Robbia, in the Spedale degli Innocenti + +The Birth of the Virgin. +By Ghirlandaio, in S. Maria Novella + +The Madonna del Granduca. +By Raphael, in the Pitti + +The Madonna della Sedia. +By Raphael, in the Pitti + +The Concert. +By Giorgione, in the Pitti + +Madonna Adoring. +By Botticini, in the Pitti + +The Madonna and Children. +By Perugino, in the Pitti + +*A Gipsy. +By Boccaccio Boccaccini, in the Pitti + +All the illustrations are from photographs by G. Brogi, except those +marked †, which are by Fratelli Alinari, and that marked *, which is +by R. Anderson. + + + + +A WANDERER IN FLORENCE + +CHAPTER I + +The Duomo I: Its Construction + +The City of the Miracle--The Marble Companions--Twilight and +Immensity--Arnolfo di Cambio--Dante's seat--Ruskin's "Shepherd"--Giotto +the various--Giotto's fun--The indomitable Brunelleschi--Makers of +Florence--The present façade. + +All visitors to Florence make first for the Duomo. Let us do the same. + +The real name of the Duomo is the Cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore, or +St. Mary of the Flowers, the flower being the Florentine lily. Florence +herself is called the City of Flowers, and that, in the spring and +summer, is a happy enough description. But in the winter it fails. A +name appropriate to all the seasons would be the City of the Miracle, +the miracle being the Renaissance. For though all over Italy traces +of the miracle are apparent, Florence was its very home and still +can point to the greatest number of its achievements. Giotto (at the +beginning of this quickening movement) may at Assisi have been more +inspired as a painter; but here is his campanile and here are his +S. Maria Novella and S. Croce frescoes. Fra Angelico and Donatello +(in the midst of it) were never more inspired than here, where they +worked and died. Michelangelo (at the end of it) may be more surprising +in the Vatican; but here are his wonderful Medici tombs. How it came +about that between the years 1300 and 1500 Italian soil--and chiefly +Tuscan soil--threw up such masters, not only with the will and spirit +to do what they did but with the power too, no one will ever be able +to explain. But there it is. In the history of the world two centuries +were suddenly given mysteriously to the activities of Italian men of +humane genius and as suddenly the Divine gift was withdrawn. And to see +the very flower of these two centuries it is to Florence we must go. + +It is best to enter the Piazza del Duomo from the Via de' Martelli, +the Via de' Cerretani, the Via Calzaioli, or the Via Pecori, because +then one comes instantly upon the campanile too. The upper windows--so +very lovely--may have been visible at the end of the streets, with +Brunelleschi's warm dome high in the sky beside them, but that was +not to diminish the effect of the first sight of the whole. Duomo and +campanile make as fair a couple as ever builders brought together: the +immense comfortable church so solidly set upon the earth, and at its +side this delicate, slender marble creature, all gaiety and lightness, +which as surely springs from roots within the earth. For one cannot +be long in Florence, looking at this tower every day and many times a +day, both from near and far, without being perfectly certain that it +grows--and from a bulb, I think--and was never really built at all, +whatever the records may aver. + +The interior of the Duomo is so unexpected that one has the +feeling of having entered, by some extraordinary chance, the wrong +building. Outside it was so garish with its coloured marbles, under +the southern sky; outside, too, one's ears were filled with all the +shattering noises in which Florence is an adept; and then, one step, +and behold nothing but vast and silent gloom. This surprise is the more +emphatic if one happens already to have been in the Baptistery. For the +Baptistery is also coloured marble without, yet within it is coloured +marble and mosaic too: there is no disparity; whereas in the Duomo +the walls have a Northern grey and the columns are brown. Austerity +and immensity join forces. + +When all is said the chief merit of the Duomo is this immensity. Such +works of art as it has are not very noticeable, or at any rate do +not insist upon being seen; but in its vastness it overpowers. Great +as are some of the churches of Florence, I suppose three or four of +them could be packed within this one. And mere size with a dim light +and a savour of incense is enough: it carries religion. No need for +masses and chants or any ceremony whatever: the world is shut out, +one is on terms with the infinite. A forest exercises the same spell; +among mountains one feels it; but in such a cathedral as the Duomo one +feels it perhaps most of all, for it is the work of man, yet touched +with mystery and wonder, and the knowledge that man is the author of +such a marvel adds to its greatness. + +The interior is so dim and strange as to be for a time sheer terra +incognita, and to see a bat flitting from side to side, as I have +often done even in the morning, is to receive no shock. In such a +twilight land there must naturally be bats, one thinks. The darkness +is due not to lack of windows but to time. The windows are there, +but they have become opaque. None of the coloured ones in the aisle +allows more than a filtration of light through it; there are only the +plain, circular ones high up and those rich, coloured, circular ones +under the dome to do the work. In a little while, however, one's eyes +not only become accustomed to the twilight but are very grateful for +it; and beginning to look inquiringly about, as they ever do in this +city of beauty, they observe, just inside, an instant reminder of the +antiseptic qualities of Italy. For by the first great pillar stands a +receptacle for holy water, with a pretty and charming angelic figure +upon it, which from its air of newness you would think was a recent +gift to the cathedral by a grateful Florentine. It is six hundred +years old and perhaps was designed by Giotto himself. + +The emptiness of the Duomo is another of its charms. Nothing is allowed +to impair the vista as you stand by the western entrance: the floor +has no chairs; the great columns rise from it in the gloom as if they, +too, were rooted. The walls, too, are bare, save for a few tablets. + +The history of the building is briefly this. The first cathedral of +Florence was the Baptistery, and S. John the Baptist is still the +patron saint of the city. Then in 1182 the cathedral was transferred +to S. Reparata, which stood on part of the site of the Duomo, and in +1294 the decision to rebuild S. Reparata magnificently was arrived +at, and Arnolfo di Cambio was instructed to draw up plans. Arnolfo, +whom we see not only on a tablet in the left aisle, in relief, with +his plan, but also more than life size, seated beside Brunelleschi +on the Palazzo de' Canonici on the south side of the cathedral, +facing the door, was then sixty-two and an architect of great +reputation. Born in 1232, he had studied under Niccolo Pisano, the +sculptor of the famous pulpit at Pisa (now in the museum there), +of that in the cathedral in Siena, and of the fountain at Perugia +(in all of which Arnolfo probably helped), and the designer of many +buildings all over Italy. Arnolfo's own unaided sculpture may be seen +at its best in the ciborium in S. Paolo Fuori le Mura in Rome; but +it is chiefly as an architect that he is now known. He had already +given Florence her extended walls and some of her most beautiful +buildings--the Or San Michele and the Badia--and simultaneously he +designed S. Croce and the Palazzo Vecchio. Vasari has it that Arnolfo +was assisted on the Duomo by Cimabue; but that is doubtful. + +The foundations were consecrated in 1296 and the first stone laid +on September 8th, 1298, and no one was more interested in its early +progress than a young, grave lawyer who used to sit on a stone seat +on the south side and watch the builders, little thinking how soon +he was to be driven from Florence for ever. This seat--the Sasso di +Dante--was still to be seen when Wordsworth visited Florence in 1837, +for he wrote a sonnet in which he tells us that he in reverence sate +there too, "and, for a moment, filled that empty Throne". But one +can do so no longer, for the place which it occupied has been built +over and only a slab in the wall with an inscription (on the house +next the Palazzo de' Canonici) marks the site. + +Arnolfo died in 1310, and thereupon there seems to have been a +cessation or slackening of work, due no doubt to the disturbed +state of the city, which was in the throes of costly wars and +embroilments. Not until 1332 is there definite news of its progress, +by which time the work had passed into the control of the Arte della +Lana; but in that year, although Florentine affairs were by no means +as flourishing as they should be, and a flood in the Arno had just +destroyed three or four of the bridges, a new architect was appointed, +in the person of the most various and creative man in the history +of the Renaissance--none other than Giotto himself, who had already +received the commission to design the campanile which should stand +at the cathedral's side. + +Giotto was the son of a small farmer at Vespignano, near Florence. He +was instructed in art by Cimabue, who discovered him drawing a lamb +on a stone while herding sheep, and took him as his pupil. Cimabue, +of whom more is said, together with more of Giotto as a painter, in the +chapter on the Accademia, had died in 1302, leaving Giotto far beyond +all living artists, and Giotto, between the age of fifty and sixty, was +now residing in Cimabue's house. He had already painted frescoes in the +Bargello (introducing his friend Dante), in S. Maria Novella, S. Croce, +and elsewhere in Italy, particularly in the upper and lower churches +at Assisi, and at the Madonna dell' Arena chapel at Padua when Dante +was staying there during his exile. In those days no man was painter +only or architect only; an all-round knowledge of both arts and crafts +was desired by every ambitious youth who was attracted by the wish to +make beautiful things, and Giotto was a universal master. It was not +then surprising that on his settling finally in Florence he should be +invited to design a campanile to stand for ever beside the cathedral, +or that he should be appointed superintendent of the cathedral works. + +Giotto did not live to see even his tower completed--it is the unhappy +destiny of architects to die too soon--but he was able during the +four years left him to find time for certain accessory decorations, +of which more will be said later, and also to paint for S. Trinità +the picture which we shall see in the Accademia, together with a few +other works, since perished, for the Badia and S. Giorgio. He died in +1336 and was buried in the cathedral, as the tablet, with Benedetto +da Maiano's bust of him, tells. He is also to be seen full length, +in stone, in a niche at the Uffizi; but the figure is misleading, +for if Vasari is to be trusted (and for my part I find it amusing to +trust him as much as possible) the master was insignificant in size. + +Giotto has suffered, I think, in reputation, from Ruskin, who took +him peculiarly under his wing, persistently called him "the Shepherd," +and made him appear as something between a Sunday-school superintendent +and the Creator. The "Mornings in Florence" and "Giotto and his Works +in Padua" so insist upon the artist's holiness and conscious purpose +in all he did that his genial worldliness, shrewdness, and humour, as +brought out by Dante, Vasari, Sacchetti, and Boccaccio, are utterly +excluded. What we see is an intense saint where really was a very +robust man. Sacchetti's story of Giotto one day stumbling over a +pig that ran between his legs and remarking, "And serve me right; +for I've made thousands with the help of pigs' bristles and never +once given them even a cup of broth," helps to adjust the balance; +while to his friend Dante he made a reply, so witty that the poet +could not forget his admiration, in answer to his question how was +it that Giotto's pictures were so beautiful and his six children so +ugly; but I must leave the reader to hunt it for himself, as these +are modest pages. Better still, for its dry humour, was his answer +to King Robert of Naples, who had commanded him to that city to paint +some Scriptural scenes, and, visiting the artist while he worked, on +a very hot day, remarked, "Giotto, if I were you I should leave off +painting for a while". "Yes," replied Giotto, "if I were you I should." + +To Giotto happily we come again and again in this book. Enough at +present to say that upon his death in 1336 he was buried, like Arnolfo, +in the cathedral, where the tablet to his memory may be studied, +and was succeeded as architect, both of the church and the tower, +by his friend and assistant, Andrea Pisano, whose chief title to +fame is his Baptistery doors and the carving, which we are soon to +examine, of the scenes round the base of the campanile. He, too, +died--in 1348--before the tower was finished. + +Francesco Talenti was next called in, again to superintend both +buildings, and not only to superintend but to extend the plans of the +cathedral. Arnolfo and Giotto had both worked upon a smaller scale; +Talenti determined the present floor dimensions. The revised façade +was the work of a committee of artists, among them Giotto's godson +and disciple, Taddeo Gaddi, then busy with the Ponte Vecchio, and +Andrea Orcagna, whose tabernacle we shall see at Or San Michele. And +so the work went on until the main structure was complete in the +thirteen-seventies. + +Another longish interval then came, in which nothing of note in the +construction occurred, and the next interesting date is 1418, when a +competition for the design for the dome was announced, the work to +be given eventually to one Filippo Brunelleschi, then an ambitious +and nervously determined man, well known in Florence as an architect, +of forty-one. Brunelleschi, who, again according to Vasari, was small, +and therefore as different as may be from the figure which is seated +on the clergy house opposite the south door of the cathedral, watching +his handiwork, was born in 1377, the son of a well-to-do Florentine of +good family who wished to make him a notary. The boy, however, wanted +to be an artist, and was therefore placed with a goldsmith, which was +in those days the natural course. As a youth he attempted everything, +being of a pertinacious and inquiring mind, and he was also a great +debater and student of Dante; and, taking to sculpture, he was one +of those who, as we shall see in a later chapter, competed for the +commission for the Baptistery gates. It was indeed his failure in that +competition which decided him to concentrate on architecture. That +he was a fine sculptor his competitive design, now preserved in the +Bargello, and his Christ crucified in S. Maria Novella, prove; but +in leading him to architecture the stars undoubtedly did rightly. + +It was in 1403 that the decision giving Ghiberti the Baptistery +commission was made, when Brunelleschi was twenty-six and Donatello, +destined to be his life-long friend, was seventeen; and when +Brunelleschi decided to go to Rome for the study of his new branch of +industry, architecture, Donatello went too. There they worked together, +copying and measuring everything of beauty, Brunelleschi having always +before his mind the problem of how to place a dome upon the cathedral +of his native city. But, having a shrewd knowledge of human nature +and immense patience, he did not hasten to urge upon the authorities +his claims as the heaven-born architect, but contented himself with +smaller works, and even assisted his rival Ghiberti with his gates, +joining at that task Donatello and Luca della Robbia, and giving +lessons in perspective to a youth who was to do more than any man +after Giotto to assure the great days of painting and become the +exemplar of the finest masters--Masaccio. + +It was not until 1419 that Brunelleschi's persistence and belief +in his own powers satisfied the controllers of the cathedral works +that he might perhaps be as good as his word and was the right man +to build the dome; but at last he was able to begin. [1] For the +story of his difficulties, told minutely and probably with sufficient +accuracy, one must go to Vasari: it is well worth reading, and is a +lurid commentary on the suspicions and jealousies of the world. The +building of the dome, without scaffolding, occupied fourteen years, +Brunelleschi's device embracing two domes, one within the other, +tied together with stone for material support and strength. It is +because of this inner dome that the impression of its size, from +within the cathedral, can disappoint. Meanwhile, in spite of all the +wear and tear of the work, the satisfying of incredulous busy-bodies, +and the removal of such an incubus as Ghiberti, who because he was a +superb modeller of bronze reliefs was made for a while joint architect +with a salary that Brunelleschi felt should either be his own or no +one's, the little man found time also to build beautiful churches +and cloisters all over Florence. He lived to see his dome finished +and the cathedral consecrated by Pope Eugenius IV in 1436, dying ten +years later. He was buried in the cathedral, and his adopted son and +pupil, Buggiano, made the head of him on the tablet to his memory. + +Brunelleschi's lantern, the model of which from his own hand we shall +see in the museum of the cathedral, was not placed on the dome until +1462. The copper ball above it was the work of Verrocchio. In 1912 +there are still wanting many yards of stone border to the dome. + +Of the man himself we know little, except that he was of iron +tenacity and lived for his work. Vasari calls him witty, but gives +a not good example of his wit; he seems to have been philanthropic +and a patron of poor artists, and he grieved deeply at the untimely +death of Masaccio, who painted him in one of the Carmine frescoes, +together with Donatello and other Florentines. + +As one walks about Florence, visiting this church and that, and +peering into cool cloisters, one's mind is always intent upon the +sculpture or paintings that may be preserved there for the delectation +of the eye. The tendency is to think little of the architect who made +the buildings where they are treasured. Asked to name the greatest +makers of this beautiful Florence, the ordinary visitor would +say Michelangelo, Giotto, Raphael, Donatello, the della Robbias, +Ghirlandaio, and Andrea del Sarto: all before Brunelleschi, even if +he named him at all. But this is wrong. Not even Michelangelo did +so much for Florence as he. Michelangelo was no doubt the greatest +individualist in the whole history of art, and everything that he did +grips the memory in a vice; but Florence without Michelangelo would +still be very nearly Florence, whereas Florence without Brunelleschi +is unthinkable. No dome to the cathedral, first of all; no S. Lorenzo +church or cloisters; no S. Croce cloisters or Pazzi chapel; no Badia +of Fiesole. Honour where honour is due. We should be singing the +praises of Filippo Brunelleschi in every quarter of the city. + +After Brunelleschi the chief architect of the cathedral was Giuliano da +Maiano, the artist of the beautiful intarsia woodwork in the sacristy, +and the uncle of Benedetto da Maiano who made the S. Croce pulpit. + +The present façade is the work of the architect Emilio de Fabris, +whose tablet is to be seen on the left wall. It was finished in 1887, +five hundred and more years after the abandonment of Arnolfo's original +design and three hundred and more years after the destruction of the +second one, begun in 1357 and demolished in 1587. Of Arnolfo's façade +the primitive seated statue of Boniface VIII (or John XXII) just inside +the cathedral is, with a bishop in one of the sacristies, the only +remnant; while of the second façade, for which Donatello and other +early Renaissance sculptors worked, the giant S. John the Evangelist, +in the left aisle, is perhaps the most important relic. Other statues +in the cathedral were also there, while the central figure--the Madonna +with enamel eyes--may be seen in the cathedral museum. Although not +great, the group of the Madonna and Child now over the central door +of the Duomo has much charm and benignancy. + +The present façade, although attractive as a mass of light, is not +really good. Its patterns are trivial, its paintings and statues +commonplace; and I personally have the feeling that it would have +been more fitting had Giotto's marble been supplied rather with +a contrast than an imitation. As it is, it is not till Giotto's +tower soars above the façade that one can rightly (from the front) +appreciate its roseate delicacy, so strong is this rival. + + + +CHAPTER II + +The Duomo II: Its Associations + +Dante's picture--Sir John Hawkwood--Ancestor and Descendant--The Pazzi +Conspiracy--Squeamish Montesecco--Giuliano de' Medici dies--Lorenzo's +escape--Vengeance on the Pazzi--Botticelli's cartoon--High +Mass--Luca della Robbia--Michelangelo nearing the end--The Miracles +of Zenobius--East and West meet in splendour--Marsilio Ficino and +the New Learning--Beautiful glass. + +Of the four men most concerned in the structure of the Duomo I have +already spoken. There are other men held in memory there, and certain +paintings and statues, of which I wish to speak now. + +The picture of Dante in the left aisle was painted by command of +the Republic in 1465, one hundred and sixty-three years after his +banishment from the city. Lectures on Dante were frequently delivered +in the churches of Florence during the fourteenth and fifteenth +centuries, and it was interesting for those attending them to have +a portrait on the wall. This picture was painted by Domenico di +Michelino, the portrait of Dante being prepared for him by Alessio +Baldovinetti, who probably took it from Giotto's fresco in the chapel +of the Podestá at the Bargello. In this picture Dante stands between +the Inferno and a concentrated Florence in which portions of the +Duomo, the Signoria, the Badia, the Bargello, and Or San Michele are +visible. Behind him is Paradise. In his hand is the "Divine Comedy". I +say no more of the poet here, because a large part of the chapter on +the Badia is given to him. + +Near the Dante picture in the left aisle are two Donatellos--the +massive S. John the Evangelist, seated, who might have given ideas +to Michelangelo for his Moses a century and more later; and, nearer +the door, between the tablets to De Fabris and Squarciaparello, the +so-called Poggio Bracciolini, a witty Italian statesman and Humanist +and friend of the Medici, who, however, since he was much younger than +this figure at the time of its exhibition, and is not known to have +visited Florence till later, probably did not sit for it. But it is +a powerful and very natural work, although its author never intended +it to stand on any floor, even of so dim a cathedral as this. The +S. John, I may say, was brought from the old façade--not Arnolfo's, +but the committee's façade--where it had a niche about ten feet from +the ground. The Poggio was also on this façade, but higher. It was +Poggio's son, Jacopo, who took part in the Pazzi Conspiracy, of which +we are about to read, and was very properly hanged for it. + +Of the two pictures on the entrance wall, so high as to be imperfectly +seen, that on the right as you face it has peculiar interest to +English visitors, for (painted by Paolo Uccello, whose great battle +piece enriches our National Gallery) it represents Sir John Hawkwood, +an English free-lance and head of the famous White Company, who +after some successful raids on Papal territory in Provence, put his +sword, his military genius, and his bravoes at the service of the +highest bidder among the warlike cities and provinces of Italy, and, +eventually passing wholly into the employment of Florence (after +harrying her for other pay-masters for some years), delivered her +very signally from her enemies in 1392. Hawkwood was an Essex man, +the son of a tanner at Hinckford, and was born there early in the +fourteenth century. He seems to have reached France as an archer under +Edward III, and to have remained a free-booter, passing on to Italy, +about 1362, to engage joyously in as much fighting as any English +commander can ever have had, for some thirty years, with very good +pay for it. Although, by all accounts, a very Salomon Brazenhead, +Hawkwood had enough dignity to be appointed English Ambassador to Rome, +and later to Florence, which he made his home, and where he died in +1394. He was buried in the Duomo, on the north side of the choir, and +was to have reposed beneath a sumptuous monument made under his own +instructions, with frescoes by Taddeo Gaddi and Giuliano d'Arrigo; +but something intervened, and Uccello's fresco was used instead, +and this, some sixty years ago, was transferred to canvas and moved +to the position in which it now is seen. + +Hawkwood's life, briskly told by a full-blooded hand, would make a fine +book. One pleasant story at least is related of him, that on being +beset by some begging friars who prefaced their mendicancy with the +words, "God give you peace," he answered, "God take away your alms"; +and, on their protesting, reminded them that such peace was the last +thing he required, since should their pious wish come true he would +die of hunger. One of the daughters of this fire-eater married John +Shelley, and thus became an ancestress of Shelley the poet, who, +as it chances, also found a home for a while in this city, almost +within hailing distance of his ancestor's tomb and portrait, and here +wrote not only his "Ode to the West Wind," but his caustic satire, +"Peter Bell the Third". + +Hawkwood's name is steeped sufficiently in carnage; but we get to the +scene of bloodshed in reality as we approach the choir, for it was +here that Giuliano de' Medici was assassinated, as he attended High +Mass, on April 26th, 1478, with the connivance, if not actually at the +instigation, of Christ's Vicar himself, Pope Sixtus IV. Florentine +history is so eventful and so tortuous that beyond the bare outline +given in chapter V, I shall make in these pages but little effort to +follow it, assuming a certain amount of knowledge on the part of the +reader; but it must be stated here that periodical revolts against +the power and prestige of the Medici often occurred, and none was +more desperate than that of the Pazzi family in 1478, acting with +the support of the Pope behind all and with the co-operation of +Girolamo Riario, nephew of the Pope, and Salviati, Archbishop of +Pisa. The Pazzi, who were not only opposed to the temporal power +of the Medici, but were their rivals in business--both families +being bankers--wished to rid Florence of Lorenzo and Giuliano in +order to be greater both civically and financially. Girolamo wished +the removal of Lorenzo and Giuliano in order that hostility to his +plans for adding Forli and Faenza to the territory of Imola, which +the Pope had successfully won for him against Lorenzo's opposition, +might disappear. The Pope had various political reasons for wishing +Lorenzo's and Giuliano's death and bringing Florence, always headstrong +and dangerous, to heel. While as for Salviati, it was sufficient that +he was Archbishop of Pisa, Florence's ancient rival and foe; but he +was a thoroughly bad lot anyway. Assassination also was in the air, +for Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan had been stabbed in church in 1476, +thus to some extent paving the way for this murder, since Lorenzo +and Sforza, when acting together, had been practically unassailable. + +In 1478 Lorenzo was twenty-nine, Giuliano twenty-five. Lorenzo had +been at the head of Florentine affairs for nine years and he was +steadily growing in strength and popularity. Hence it was now or never. + +The conspirators' first idea was to kill the brothers at a banquet +which Lorenzo was to give to the great-nephew of the Pope, the +youthful Cardinal Raffaello Riario, who promised to be an amenable +catspaw. Giuliano, however, having hurt his leg, was not well enough to +be present, but as he would attend High Mass, the conspirators decided +to act then. That is to say, it was then, in the cathedral, that the +death of the Medici brothers was to be effected; meanwhile another +detachment of conspirators under Salviati was to rise simultaneously to +capture the Signoria, while the armed men of the party who were outside +and inside the walls would begin their attacks on the populace. Thus, +at the same moment Medici and city would fall. Such was the plan. + +The actual assassins were Francesco de' Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini, +who were nominally friends of the Medici (Francesco's brother Guglielmo +having married Bianca de' Medici, Lorenzo's sister), and two priests +named Maffeo da Volterra and Stefano da Bagnone. A professional bravo +named Montesecco was to have killed Lorenzo, but refused on learning +that the scene of the murder was to be a church. At that, he said, +he drew the line: murder anywhere else he could perform cheerfully, +but in a sacred building it was too much to ask. He therefore did +nothing, but, subsequently confessing, made the guilt of all his +associates doubly certain. + +When High Mass began it was found that Giuliano was not present, +and Francesco de' Pazzi and Bandini were sent to persuade him to +come--a Judas-like errand indeed. On the way back, it is said, one +of them affectionately placed his arm round Giuliano--to see if he +wore a shirt of mail--remarking, to cover the action, that he was +getting fat. On his arrival, Giuliano took his place at the north +side of the circular choir, near the door which leads to the Via de' +Servi, while Lorenzo stood at the opposite side. At the given signal +Bandini and Pazzi were to stab Giuliano and the two priests were to +stab Lorenzo. The signal was the breaking of the Eucharistic wafer, +and at this solemn moment Giuliano was instantly killed, with one stab +in the heart and nineteen elsewhere, Francesco so overdoing his attack +that he severely wounded himself too; but Lorenzo was in time to see +the beginning of the assault, and, making a movement to escape, he +prevented the priest from doing aught but inflict a gash in his neck, +and, springing away, dashed behind the altar to the old sacristy, +where certain of his friends who followed him banged the heavy bronze +doors on the pursuing foe. Those in the cathedral, mean-while, were in +a state of hysterical alarm; the youthful cardinal was hurried into +the new sacristy; Guglielmo de' Pazzi bellowed forth his innocence +in loud tones; and his murderous brother and Bandini got off. + +Order being restored, Lorenzo was led by a strong bodyguard to +the Palazzo Medici, where he appeared at a window to convince the +momentarily increasing crowd that he was still living. Meanwhile +things were going not much more satisfactorily for the Pazzi at +the Palazzo Vecchio, where, according to the plan, the gonfalonier, +Cesare Petrucci, was to be either killed or secured. The Archbishop +Salviati, who was to effect this, managed his interview so clumsily +that Petrucci suspected something, those being suspicious times, +and, instead of submitting to capture, himself turned the key on his +visitors. The Pazzi faction in the city, meanwhile, hoping that all +had gone well in the Palazzo Vecchio, as well as in the cathedral +(as they thought), were running through the streets calling "Viva la +Libertà!" to be met with counter cries of "Palle! palle!"--the palle +being the balls on the Medici escutcheon, still to be seen all over +Florence and its vicinity and on every curtain in the Uffizi. + +The truth gradually spreading, the city then rose for the Medici and +justice began to be done. The Archbishop was handed at once, just as +he was, from a window of the Palazzo Vecchio. Francesco de' Pazzi, +who had got home to bed, was dragged to the Palazzo and hanged too. The +mob meanwhile were not idle, and most of the Pazzi were accounted for, +together with many followers--although Lorenzo publicly implored them +to be merciful. Poliziano, the scholar-poet and friend of Lorenzo, +has left a vivid account of the day. With his own eyes he saw the +hanging Salviati, in his last throes, bite the hanging Francesco de +Pazzi. Old Jacopo succeeded in escaping, but not for long, and a day +or so later he too was hanged. Bandini got as far as Constantinople, +but was brought back in chains and hanged. The two priests hid in +the Benedictine abbey in the city and for a while evaded search, +but being found they were torn to pieces by the crowd. Montesecco, +having confessed, was beheaded in the courtyard of the Bargello. + +The hanging of the chief conspirators was kept in the minds of the +short-memoried Florentines by a representation outside the Palazzo +Vecchio, by none other than the wistful, spiritual Botticelli; while +three effigies, life size, of Lorenzo--one of them with his bandaged +neck--were made by Verrocchio in coloured wax and set up in places +where prayers might be offered. Commemorative medals which may be +seen in the Bargello, were also struck, and the family of Pazzi was +banished and its name removed by decree from the city's archives. Poor +Giuliano, who was generally beloved for his charm and youthful spirits, +was buried at S. Lorenzo in great state. + +I have often attended High Mass in this Duomo choir--the theatre of +the Pazzi tragedy--but never without thinking of that scene. + +Luca della Robbia's doors to the new sacristy, which gave the young +cardinal his safety, had been finished only eleven years. Donatello was +to have designed them, but his work at Padua was too pressing. The +commission was then given to Michelozzo, Donatello's partner, +and to Luca della Robbia, but it seems likely that Luca did nearly +all. The doors are in very high relief, thus differing absolutely +from Donatello's at S. Lorenzo, which are in very low. Luca's work +here is sweet and mild rather than strong, and the panels derive +their principal charm from the angels, who, in pairs, attend the +saints. Above the door was placed, at the time of Lorenzo's escape, +the beautiful cantoria, also by Luca, which is now in the museum of +the cathedral, while above the door of the old sacristy was Donatello's +cantoria. Commonplace new ones now take their place. In the semicircle +over each door is a coloured relief by Luca: that over the bronze doors +being the "Resurrection," and the other the "Ascension"; and they are +interesting not only for their beauty but as being the earliest-known +examples in Luca's newly-discovered glazed terra-cotta medium, +which was to do so much in the hands of himself, his nephew Andrea, +and his followers, to make Florence still lovelier and the legend +of the Virgin Mary still sweeter. But of the della Robbias and their +exquisite genius I shall say more later, when we come to the Bargello. + +As different as would be possible to imagine is the genius of that +younger sculptor, the author of the Pietà at the back of the altar, +near where we now stand, who, when Luca finished these bronze doors, +in 1467, was not yet born--Michelangelo Buonarroti. This group, which +is unfinished, is the last the old and weary Titan ever worked at, +and it was meant to be part of his own tomb. Vasari, to whose "Lives +of the Painters" we shall be indebted, as this book proceeds, for so +much good human nature, and who speaks of Michelangelo with peculiar +authority, since he was his friend, pupil, and correspondent, tells us +that once when he went to see the sculptor in Rome, near the end, he +found him at work upon this Pietà, but the sculptor was so dissatisfied +with one portion that he let his lantern fall in order that Vasari +might not see it, saying: "I am so old that death frequently drags +at my mantle to take me, and one day my person will fall like this +lantern". The Pietà is still in deep gloom, as the master would have +liked, but enough is revealed to prove its pathos and its power. + +In the east end of the nave is the chapel of S. Zenobius, containing a +bronze reliquary by Ghiberti, with scenes upon it from the life of this +saint, so important in Florentine religious history. It is, however, +very hard to see, and should be illuminated. Zenobius was born at +Florence in the reign of Constantine the Great, when Christianity +was by no means the prevailing religion of the city, although the +way had been paved by various martyrs. After studying philosophy +and preaching with much acceptance, Zenobius was summoned to Rome +by Pope Damasus. On the Pope's death he became Bishop of Florence, +and did much, says Butler, to "extirpate the kingdom of Satan". The +saint lived in the ancient tower which still stands--one of the few +survivors of Florence's hundreds of towers--at the corner of the Via +Por S. Maria (which leads from the Mercato Nuovo to the Ponte Vecchio) +and the Via Lambertesca. It is called the Torre de' Girolami, and +on S. Zenobius' day--May 25th--is decorated with flowers; and since +never are so many flowers in the city of flowers as at that time, it +is a sight to see. The remains of the saint were moved to the Duomo, +although it had not then its dome, from S. Lorenzo, in 1330, and the +simple column in the centre of the road opposite Ghiberti's first +Baptistery doors was erected to mark the event, since on that very +spot, it is said, stood a dead elm tree which, when the bier of the +saint chanced to touch it, immediately sprang to life again and burst +into leaf; even, the enthusiastic chronicler adds, into flower. The +result was that the tree was cut completely to pieces by relic hunters, +but the column by the Baptistery, the work of Brunelleschi (erected on +the site of an earlier one), fortunately remains as evidence of the +miracle. Ghiberti, however, did not choose this miracle but another +for representation; for not only did Zenobius dead restore animation, +but while he was himself living he resuscitated two boys. The one was a +ward of his own; the second was an ordinary Florentine, for whom the +same modest boon was craved by his sorrowing parents. It is one of +these scenes of resuscitation which Ghiberti has designed in bronze, +while Ridolfo Ghirlandaio painted it in a picture in the Uffizi. We +shall see S. Zenobius again in the fresco by Ridolfo's father, the +great Ghirlandaio, in the Palazzo Vecchio; while the portrait on the +first pillar of the left aisle, as one enters the cathedral is of +Zenobius too. + +The date of the Pazzi Conspiracy was 1478. A few years later the +same building witnessed the extraordinary effects of Savonarola's +oratory, when such was the terrible picture he drew of the fate of +unregenerate sinners that his listeners' hair was said actually to +rise with fright. Savonarola came towards the end of the Renaissance, +to give it its death-blow. By contrast there is a tablet on the right +wall of the cathedral in honour of one who did much to bring about the +paganism and sophistication against which the impassioned reformer +uttered his fiercest denunciations: Marsilio Ficino (1433-1491), +the neo-Platonist protegé of Cosimo de' Medici, and friend both +of Piero de' Medici and Lorenzo. To explain Marsilio's influence +it is necessary to recede a little into history. In 1439 Cosimo de' +Medici succeeded in transferring the scene of the Great Council of the +Church to Florence. At this conference representatives of the Western +Church, centred in Rome, met those of the Eastern Church, centred +in Constantinople, which was still Christian, for the purpose of +discussing various matters, not the least of which was the protection +of the Eastern Church against the Infidel. Not only was Constantinople +continually threatened by the Turks, and in need of arms as well +as sympathy, but the two branches of the Church were at enmity over +a number of points. It was as much to heal these differences as to +seek temporal aid that the Emperor John Palaeologus, the Patriarch +of Constantinople, and a vast concourse of nobles, priests, and +Greek scholars, arrived in Italy, and, after sojourning at Venice +and Ferrara, moved on to Florence at the invitation of Cosimo. The +Emperor resided in the Peruzzi palace, now no more, near S. Croce; +the Patriarch of Constantinople lodged (and as it chanced, died, for +he was very old) at the Ferrantini palace, now the Casa Vernaccia, +in the Borgo Pinti; while Pope Eugenius was at the convent attached +to S. Maria Novella. The meetings of the Council were held where we +now stand--in the cathedral, whose dome had just been placed upon it +all ready for them. + +The Council failed in its purpose, and, as we know, Constantinople +was lost some years later, and the great empire of which John +Palaeologus was the last ruler ceased to be. That, however, at the +moment is beside the mark. The interesting thing to us is that among +the scholars who came from Constantinople, bringing with them numbers +of manuscripts and systems of thought wholly new to the Florentines, +was one Georgius Gemisthos, a Greek philosopher of much personal +charm and comeliness, who talked a bland and beautiful Platonism that +was extremely alluring not only to his youthful listeners but also +to Cosimo himself. Gemisthos was, however, a Greek, and Cosimo was +too busy a man in a city of enemies, or at any rate of the envious, +to be able to do much more than extend his patronage to the old man +and despatch emissaries to the East for more and more manuscripts; +but discerning the allurements of the new gospel, Cosimo directed +a Florentine enthusiast who knew Greek to spread the serene creed +among his friends, who were all ripe for it, and this enthusiast was +none other than a youthful scholar by name Marsilio Ficino, connected +with S. Lorenzo, Cosimo's family church, and the son of Cosimo's own +physician. To the young and ardent Marsilio, Plato became a god and +Gemisthos not less than divine for bringing the tidings. He kept a lamp +always burning before Plato's bust, and later founded the Platonic +Academy, at which Plato's works were discussed, orations delivered, +and new dialogues exchanged, between such keen minds as Marsilio, +Pulci, Landini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Leon Battista Alberti, the +architect and scholar, Pico dell a Mirandola, the precocious disputant +and aristocratic mystic, Poliziano, the tutor of Lorenzo's sons, and +Lorenzo the Magnificent himself. It was thus from the Greek invasion +of Florence that proceeded the stream of culture which is known as +Humanism, and which, no doubt, in time, was so largely concerned in +bringing about that indifference to spiritual things which, leading +to general laxity and indulgence, filled Savonarola with despair. + +I am not concerned to enter deeply into the subject of the +Renaissance. But this must be said--that the new painting and +sculpture, particularly the painting of Masaccio and the sculpture +of Donatello, had shown the world that the human being could be made +the measure of the Divine. The Madonna and Christ had been related +to life. The new learning, by leading these keen Tuscan intellects, +so eager for reasonableness, to the Greek philosophers who were so +wise and so calm without any of the consolations of Christianity, +naturally set them wondering if there were not a religion of Humanity +that was perhaps a finer thing than the religion that required all the +machinery and intrigue of Rome. And when, as the knowledge of Greek +spread and the minute examination of documents ensued, it was found +that Rome had not disdained forgery to gain her ends, a blow was struck +against the Church from which it never recovered;--and how much of this +was due to this Florentine Marsilio, sitting at the feet of the Greek +Gemisthos, who came to Florence at the invitation of Cosimo de' Medici! + +The cathedral glass, as I say, is mostly overladen with grime; but the +circular windows in the dome seem to be magnificent in design. They +are attributed to Ghiberti and Donatello, and are lovely in colour. The +greens in particular are very striking. But the jewel of these circular +windows of Florence is that by Ghiberti on the west wall of S. Croce. + +And here I leave the Duomo, with the counsel to visitors to Florence +to make a point of entering it every day--not, as so many Florentines +do, in order to make a short cut from the Via Calzaioli to the Via de' +Servi, and vice versâ, but to gather its spirit. It is different every +hour in the day, and every hour the light enters it with new beauty. + + + +CHAPTER III + +The Duomo III: A Ceremony and a Museum + +The Scoppio del Carro--The Pazzi beneficent--Holy Saturday's +programme--April 6th, 1912--The flying palle--The nervous +pyrotechnist--The influence of noon--A little sister of the +Duomo--Donatello's cantoria--Luca della Robbia's cantoria. + +In the last chapter we saw the Pazzi family as very black sheep, +although there are plenty of students of Florentine history who +hold that any attempt to rid Florence of the Medici was laudable. In +this chapter we see them in a kindlier situation as benefactors to +the city. For it happened that when Pazzo de' Pazzi, a founder of +the house, was in the Holy Land during the First Crusade, it was his +proud lot to set the Christian banner on the walls of Jerusalem, and, +as a reward, Godfrey of Boulogne gave him some flints from the Holy +Sepulchre. 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. After the Pazzi conspiracy +they lost it and the Signoria took it over; but, on being pardoned, +the Pazzi again resumed. + +The Carro is a car containing explosives, and the Scoppio is its +explosion. This car, after being drawn in procession through the +streets by white oxen, is ignited by the sacred fire borne to it by +a mechanical dove liberated at the high altar of the Duomo, and with +its explosion Easter begins. There is still a Pazzi fund towards the +expenses, but a few years ago the city became responsible for the +whole proceedings, and the ceremony as it is now given, under civic +management, known as the Scoppio del Cairo, is that which I saw on +Holy Saturday last and am about to describe. + +First, however, let me state what had happened before the proceedings +opened in the Piazza del Duomo. At six o'clock mass began at +SS. Apostoli, lasting for more than two hours. At its close the +celebrant was handed a plate on which were the sacred flints, and these +he struck with a steel in view of the congregation, thus igniting a +taper. The candle, in an ancient copper porta fuoco surmounted by a +dove, was then lighted, and the procession of priests started off for +the cathedral with their precious flame, escorted by a civic guard +and various standard bearers. Their route was the Piazza del Limbo, +along the Borgo SS. Apostoli to the Via Por S. Maria and through +the Vacchereccia to the Piazza della Signoria, the Via Condotta, the +Via del Proconsolo, to the Duomo, through whose central doors they +passed, depositing the sacred burden at the high altar. 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. + +Meanwhile at seven o'clock the four oxen, which are kept in the +Cascine all the year round and do no other work, had been harnessed to +the car and had drawn it to the Piazza del Duomo, which was reached +about nine. The oxen were then tethered by the Pisano doors of the +Baptistery until needed again. + +After some haggling on the night before, I had secured a seat on a +balcony facing Ghiberti's first Baptistery doors, for eleven lire, and +to this place I went at half-past ten. The piazza was then filling up, +and at a quarter to eleven the trams running between the Cathedral and +the Baptistery were stopped. In this space was the car. The present +one, which dates from 1622, is more like a catafalque, and unless one +sees it in motion, with the massive white oxen pulling it, one cannot +believe in it as a vehicle at all. It is some thirty feet high, all +black, with trumpery coloured-paper festoons (concealing fireworks) +upon it: trumpery as only the Roman Catholic Church can contrive. It +stood in front of the Duomo some four yards from the Baptistery gates +in a line with the Duomo's central doors and the high altar. The +doors were open, seats being placed on each side of the aisle the +whole distance, and people making a solid avenue. Down this avenue +were to come the clergy, and above it was to be stretched the line +on which the dove was to travel from the altar, with the Pazzi fire, +to ignite the car. + +The space in front of the cathedral was cleared at about eleven, +and cocked hats and red-striped trousers then became the most +noticeable feature. The crowd was jolly and perhaps a little cynical; +picture-postcard hawkers made most of the noise, and for some reason +or other a forlorn peasant took this opportunity to offer for sale two +equally forlorn hedgehogs. Each moment the concourse increased, for it +is a fateful day and every one wants to know the issue: because, you +see, if the dove runs true, lights the car, and returns, as a good dove +should, to the altar ark, there will be a prosperous vintage and the +pyrotechnist who controls the sacred bird's movements will receive his +wages. But if the dove runs defectively and there is any hitch, every +one is dismayed, for the harvest will be bad and the pyrotechnist will +receive nothing. Once he was imprisoned when things went astray--and +quite right too--but the Florentines have grown more lenient. + +At about a quarter past eleven a procession of clergy emerged from the +Duomo and crossed the space to the Baptistery. First, boys and youths +in surplices. Then some scarlet hoods, waddling. Then purple hoods, +and other colours, a little paunchier, waddling more, and lastly the +archbishop, very sumptuous. All having disappeared into the Baptistery, +through Ghiberti's second gates, which I never saw opened before, the +dove's wire was stretched and fastened, a matter needing much care; +and the crowds began to surge. The cocked hats and officers had the +space all to themselves, with the car, the firemen, the pyrotechnist +and the few privileged and very self-conscious civilians who were +allowed inside. + +A curious incident, which many years ago might have been magnified +into a portent, occurred while the ecclesiastics were in the Artistry. +Some one either bought and liberated several air balloons, or the +string holding them was surreptitiously cut; but however it happened, +the balls escaped and suddenly the crowd sent up a triumphant yell. At +first I could see no reason for it, the Baptistery intervening, +but then the balls swam into our ken and steadily floated over +the cathedral out of sight amid tremendous satisfaction. And the +portent? Well, as they moved against the blue sky they formed +themselves into precisely the pattern of the palle on the Medici +escutcheon. That is all. But think what that would have meant in the +fifteenth century; the nods and frowns it would have occasioned; the +dispersal of the Medici, the loss of power, and all the rest of it, +that it would have presaged! + +At about twenty to twelve the ecclesiastics returned and were +swallowed up by the Duomo, and then excitement began to be acute. The +pyrotechnist was not free from it; he fussed about nervously; he tested +everything again and again; he crawled under the car and out of it; +he talked to officials; he inspected and re-inspected. Photographers +began to adjust their distances; the detached men in bowlers looked +at their watches; the cocked hats drew nearer to the Duomo door. And +then we heard a tearing noise. All eyes were turned to the great door, +and out rushed the dove emitting a wake of sparks, entered the car +and was out again on its homeward journey before one realized what had +happened. And then the explosions began, and the bells--silent since +Thursday--broke out. How many explosions there were I do not know; +but they seemed to go on for ten minutes. + +This is a great moment not only for the spectator but for all Florence, +for in myriad rooms mothers have been waiting, with their babies +on their knees, for the first clang of the belfries, because if a +child's eyes are washed then it is unlikely ever to have weak sight, +while if a baby takes its first steps to this accompaniment its legs +will not be bowed. + +At the last explosion the pyrotechnist, now a calm man once more +and a proud one, approached the car, the firemen poured water on +smouldering parts, and the work of clearing up began. Then came +the patient oxen, their horns and hooves gilt, and great masses of +flowers on their heads, and red cloths with the lily of Florence +on it over their backs--much to be regretted since they obliterated +their beautiful white skins--and slowly the car lumbered off, and, +the cocked hats relenting, the crowd poured after it and the Scoppio +del Carro was over. + +The Duomo has a little sister in the shape of the Museo di Santa +Maria del Fiore, or the Museo dell' Opera del Duomo, situated in the +Piazza opposite the apse; and we should go there now. This museum, +which is at once the smallest and, with the exception of the Natural +History Museum, the cheapest of the Florentine museums, for it +costs but half a lira, is notable for containing the two cantorie, +or singing galleries, made for the cathedral, one by Donatello and +one by Luca della Robbia. A cantoria by Donatello we shall soon see in +its place in S. Lorenzo; but that, beautiful as it is, cannot compare +with this one, with its procession of merry, dancing children, its +massiveness and grace, its joyous ebullitions of gold mosaic and blue +enamel. Both the cantorie--Donatello's, begun in 1433 and finished +in 1439, and Luca's, begun in 1431 and finished in 1438--fulfilled +their melodious functions in the Duomo until 1688, when they were +ruthlessly cleared away to make room for large wooden balconies to +be used in connexion with the nuptials of Ferdinand de' Medici and +the Princess Violante of Bavaria. In the year 1688 taste was at a low +ebb, and no one thought the deposed cantorie even worth preservation, +so that they were broken up and occasionally levied upon for cornices +and so forth. The fragments were collected and taken to the Bargello +in the middle of the last century, and in 1883 Signer del Moro, the +then architect of the Duomo (whose bust is in the courtyard of this +museum), reconstructed them to the best of his ability in their present +situation. It has to be remembered not only that, with the exception +of the figures, the galleries are not as their artists made them, +lacking many beautiful accessories, but that, as Vasari tells us, +Donatello deliberately designed his for a dim light. None the less, +they remain two of the most delightful works of the Renaissance and +two of the rarest treasures of Florence. + +The dancing boys behind the small pillars with their gold chequering, +the brackets, and the urn of the cornice over the second pair +of pillars from the right, are all that remain of Donatello's own +handiwork. All else is new and conjectural. It is supposed that bronze +heads of lions filled the two circular spaces between the brackets +in the middle. But although the loss of the work as a whole is to be +regretted, the dancing boys remain, to be for ever an inspiration and +a pleasure. The Luca della Robbia cantoria opposite is not quite so +triumphant a masterpiece, but from the point of view of suitability it +is perhaps better. We can believe that Luca's children hymn the glory +of the Lord, as indeed the inscription makes them, whereas Donatello's +romp with a gladness that might easily be purely pagan. Luca's design +is more formal, more conventional; Donatello's is rich and free and +fluid with personality. The two end panels of Luca's are supplied in +the cantoria by casts; the originals are on the wall below and may +be carefully studied. The animation and fervour of these choristers +are unforgettable. + +It is well, while enjoying Donatello's work, to remember that Prato +is only half an hour from Florence, and that there may be seen +the open-air pulpit, built on the corner of the cathedral, which +Donatello, with Michelozzo, his friend and colleague, made at the +same time that the cantoria was in progress, and which in its relief +of happy children is very similar, although not, I think, quite so +remarkable. It lacks also the peculiarly naturalistic effect gained +in the cantoria by setting the dancing boys behind the pillars, which +undoubtedly, as comparison with the Luca shows, assists realism. The +row of pillars attracts the eye first and the boys are thus thrown +into a background which almost moves. + +Although the cantorie dominate the museum they must not be allowed to +overshadow all else. A marble relief of the Madonna and Children by +Agostino di Duccio (1418-1481) must be sought for: it is No. 77 and +the children are the merriest in Florence. Another memorable Madonna +and Child is No. 94, by Pagno di Lapo Portigiani (1406-1470), who has +interest for us in this place as being one of Donatello's assistants, +very possibly on this very cantoria, and almost certainly on the Prato +pulpit. Everything here, it must be remembered, has some association +with the Duomo and was brought here for careful preservation and that +whoever has fifty centimes might take pleasure in seeing it; but the +great silver altar is from the Baptistery, and being made for that +temple is naturally dedicated to the life of John the Baptist. Although +much of it was the work of not the greatest modellers in the second +half of the fourteenth century, three masters at least contributed +later: Michelozzo adding the statue of the Baptist, Pollaiuolo the +side relief depicting his birth, and Verrocchio that of his death, +which is considered one of the most remarkable works of this sculptor, +whom we are to find so richly represented at the Bargello. Before +leaving this room, look for 100^3, an unknown terra-cotta of the +Birth of Eve, which is both masterly and amusing, and 110^4, a very +lovely intaglio in wood. I might add that among the few paintings, +all very early, is a S. Sebastian in whose sacred body I counted no +fewer than thirty arrows; which within my knowledge of pictures of +this saint--not inconsiderable--is the highest number. + +The next room is given to models and architectural plans and +drawings connected with the cathedral, the most interesting thing +being Brunelleschi's own model for the lantern. On the stairs are a +series of fine bas-reliefs by Bandinelli and Giovanni dell' Opera from +the old choir screen of the Duomo, and downstairs, among many other +pieces of sculpture, is a bust of Brunelleschi from a death-mask and +several beautiful della Robbia designs for lunettes over doors. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +The Campanile and the Baptistery + +A short way with Veronese critics--Giotto's missing spire--Donatello's +holy men--Giotto as encyclopaedist--The seven and twenty +reliefs--Ruskin in American--At the top of the tower--A sea of +red roofs--The restful Baptistery--Historic stones--An ex-Pope's +tomb--Andrea Pisano's doors--Ghiberti's first doors--Ghiberti's second +doors--Michelangelo's praise--A gentleman artist. + +It was in 1332, as I have said, that Giotto was made capo-maestro, +and on July 18th, 1334, the first stone of his campanile was laid, the +understanding being that the structure was to exceed "in magnificence, +height, and excellence of workmanship" anything in the world. As +some further indication of the glorious feeling of patriotism then +animating the Florentines, it may be remarked that when a Veronese +who happened to be in Florence ventured to suggest that the city +was aiming rather too high, he was at once thrown into gaol, and, +on being set free when his time was done, was shown the treasury as +an object lesson. Of the wealth and purposefulness of Florence at +that time, in spite of the disastrous bellicose period she had been +passing through, Villani the historian, who wrote history as it was +being made, gives an excellent account, which Macaulay summarizes in +his vivid way. Thus: "The revenue of the Republic amounted to three +hundred thousand florins; a sum which, allowing for the depreciation of +the precious metals, was at least equivalent to six hundred thousand +pounds sterling; a larger sum than England and Ireland, two centuries +ago, yielded to Elizabeth. The manufacture of wool alone employed two +hundred factories and thirty thousand workmen. The cloth annually +produced sold, at an average, for twelve hundred thousand florins; +a sum fully equal in exchangeable value to two millions and a half of +our money. Four hundred thousand florins were annually coined. Eighty +banks conducted the commercial operations, not of Florence only but of +all Europe. The transactions of these establishments were sometimes +of a magnitude which may surprise even the contemporaries of the +Barings and the Rothschilds. Two houses advanced to Edward III of +England upwards of three hundred thousand marks, at a time when the +mark contained more silver than fifty shillings of the present day, +and when the value of silver was more than quadruple of what it now +is. The city and its environs contained a hundred and seventy thousand +children inhabitants. In the various schools about ten thousand +children were taught to read; twelve hundred studied arithmetic; +six hundred received a learned education." + +Giotto died in 1386, and after his death, as I have said, Andrea +Pisano came in for a while; to be followed by Talenti, who is said +to have made considerable alterations in Giotto's design and to +be responsible for the happy idea of increasing the height of the +windows with the height of the tower and thus adding to the illusion +of springing lightness. The topmost ones, so bold in size and so +lovely with their spiral columns, almost seem to lift it. + +The campanile to-day is 276 feet in height, and Giotto proposed to +add to that a spire of 105 feet. The Florentines completed the façade +of the cathedral in 1887 and are now spending enormous sums on the +Medici chapel at S. Lorenzo; why should they not one day carry out +their greatest artist's intention? + +The campanile as a structure had been finished in 1387, but not for +many years did it receive its statues, of which something must be said, +although it is impossible to get more than a vague idea of them, so +high are they. A captive balloon should be arranged for the use of +visitors. Those by Donatello, on the Baptistery side, are the most +remarkable. The first of these--that nearest to the cathedral and +the most striking as seen from the distant earth--is called John the +Baptist, always a favourite subject with this sculptor, who, since +he more than any at that thoughtful time endeavoured to discover +and disclose the secret of character, is curiously unfortunate in +the accident that has fastened names to these figures. This John, +for example, bears no relation to his other Baptists; nor does the +next figure represent David, as is generally supposed, but owes that +error to the circumstance that when the David that originally stood +here was moved to the north side, the old plinth bearing his name was +left behind. This famous figure is stated by Vasari to be a portrait of +a Florentine merchant named Barduccio Cherichini, and for centuries it +has been known as Il Zuccone (or pumpkin) from its baldness. Donatello, +according to Vasari, had a particular liking for the work, so much that +he used to swear by it; while, when engaged upon it, he is said to +have so believed in its reality as to exclaim, "Speak, speak! or may +a dysentery seize thee!" It is now generally considered to represent +Job, and we cannot too much regret the impossibility of getting near +enough to study it. Next is the Jeremiah, which, according to Vasari, +was a portrait of another Florentine, but which, since he bears his +name on a scroll, may none the less be taken to realize the sculptor's +idea of Jeremiah. It is (according to the photographs) a fine piece +of rugged vivacity, and the head is absolutely that of a real man. On +the opposite side of the tower is the magnificent Abraham's sacrifice +from the same strong hand, and by it Habakkuk, who is no less near +life than the Jeremiah and Job, but a very different type. At both +Or San Michele and the Bargello we are to find Donatello perhaps in +a finer mood than here, and comfortably visible. + +For most visitors to Florence and all disciples of Ruskin, the chief +interest of the campanile ("The Shepherd's Tower" as he calls it) +is the series of twenty-seven reliefs illustrating the history of +the world and the progress of mankind, which are to be seen round the +base, the design, it is supposed, of Giotto, executed by Andrea Pisano +and Luca della Robbia. To Andrea are given all those on the west (7), +south (7), east (5), and the two eastern ones on the north; to Luca the +remaining five on the north. Ruskin's fascinating analysis of these +reliefs should most certainly be read (without a total forgetfulness +of the shepherd's other activities as a painter, architect, humorist, +and friend of princes and poets), but equally certainly not in the +American pirated edition which the Florentine booksellers are so ready +(to their shame) to sell you. Only Ruskin in his best mood of fury +could begin to do justice to the misspellings and mispunctuations of +this terrible production. + +Ruskin, I may say, believes several of the carvings to be from +Giotto's own chisel as well as design, but other and more modern +authorities disagree, although opinion now inclines to the belief +that the designs for Pisano's Baptistery doors are also his. Such +thoroughness and ingenuity were all in Giotto's way, and they certainly +suggest his active mind. The campanile series begins at the west side +with the creation of man. Among the most attractive are, I think, +those devoted to agriculture, with the spirited oxen, to astronomy, to +architecture, to weaving, and to pottery. Giotto was even so thorough +as to give one relief to the conquest of the air; and he makes Noah +most satisfactorily drunk. Note also the Florentine fleur-de-lis +round the base of the tower. Every fleur-de-lis in Florence is +beautiful--even those on advertisements and fire-plugs--but few are +more beautiful than these. + +I climbed the campanile one fine morning--417 steps from the +ground--and was well repaid; but I think it is wiser to ascend the +tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, because one is higher there and, since +the bulk of the dome, which intrudes from the campanile, is avoided, +one has a better all-round view. Florence seen from this eminence +is very red--so uniformly so that many towers rise against it almost +indistinguishably, particularly the Bargello's and the Badia's. One +sees at once how few straight streets there are--the Ricasoli standing +out among them as the exception; and one realizes how the city has +developed outside, with its boulevards where the walls once were, +leaving the gates isolated, and its cincture of factories. The +occasional glimpses of cloisters and verdure among the red are very +pleasant. One of the objects cut off by the cathedral dome is the +English cemetery, but the modern Jewish temple stands out as noticeably +almost as any of the ancient buildings. The Pitti looks like nothing +but a barracks and the Porta Ferdinando has prominence which it gets +from no other point. The roof of the Mercato Centrale is the ugliest +thing in the view. While I was there the midday gun from the Boboli +fortress was fired, instantly having its punctual double effect of +sending all the pigeons up in a grey cloud of simulated alarm and +starting every bell in the city. + +Those wishing to make either the campanile or Duomo ascents must +remember to do it early. The closing hour for the day being twelve, +no one is allowed to start up after about a quarter past eleven: a +very foolish arrangement, since Florence and the surrounding Apennines +under a slanting sun are more beautiful than in the morning glare, +and the ascent would be less fatiguing. As it was, on descending, after +being so long at the top, I was severely reprimanded by the custodian, +who had previously marked me down as a barbarian for refusing his offer +of field-glasses. But the Palazzo Vecchio tower is open till five. + +The Baptistery is the beautiful octagonal building opposite the +cathedral, and once the cathedral itself. It dates from the seventh +or eighth century, but as we see it now is a product chiefly of the +thirteenth. The bronze doors opposite the Via Calzaioli are open every +day, a circumstance which visitors, baffled by the two sets of Ghiberti +doors always so firmly closed, are apt to overlook. All children born +in Florence are still baptized here, and I watched one afternoon an old +priest at the task, a tiny Florentine being brought in to receive the +name of Tosca, which she did with less distaste than most, considering +how thorough was his sprinkling. The Baptistery is rich in colour +both without and within. The floor alone is a marvel of intricate +inlaying, including the signs of the zodiac and a gnomic sentence which +reads the same backwards and forwards--"En gire torte sol ciclos et +roterigne". On this very pavement Dante, who called the church his +"beautiful San Giovanni," has walked. Over the altar is a gigantic +and primitive Christ in mosaic, more splendid than spiritual. The +mosaics in the recesses of the clerestory--grey and white--are the +most soft and lovely of all. I believe the Baptistery is the most +restful place in Florence; and this is rather odd considering that it +is all marble and mosaic patterns. But its shape is very soothing, +and age has given it a quality of its own, and there is just that +touch of barbarism about it such as one gets in Byzantine buildings +to lend it a peculiar character here. + +The most notable sculpture in the Baptistery is the tomb of the ex-Pope +John XXIII, whose licentiousness was such that there was nothing for +it but to depose and imprison him. He had, however, much money, and on +his liberation he settled in Florence, presented a true finger of John +the Baptist to the Baptistery, and arranged in return for his bones +to repose in that sanctuary. One of his executors was that Niccolò +da Uzzano, the head of the noble faction in the city, whose coloured +bust by Donatello is in the Bargello. The tomb is exceedingly fine, +the work of Donatello and his partner Michelozzo, who were engaged +to make it by Giovanni de' Medici, the ex-pontiff's friend, and the +father of the great Cosimo. The design is all Donatello's, and his +the recumbent cleric, lying very naturally, hardly as if dead at +all, a little on one side, so that his face is seen nearly full; +the three figures beneath are Michelozzo's; but Donatello probably +carved the seated angels who display the scroll which bears the +dead Pope's name. The Madonna and Child above are by Donatello's +assistant, Pagno di Lapo Portigiani, a pretty relief by whom we saw +in the Museum of the Cathedral. Being in red stone, and very dusty, +like Ghiberti's doors (which want the hose regularly), the lines of +the tomb are much impaired. Donatello is also represented here by a +Mary Magdalene in wood, on an altar at the left of the entrance door, +very powerful and poignant. + +In the ordinary way, when visitors to Florence speak of the Baptistery +doors they mean those opposite the Duomo, and when they go to the +Bargello and look at the designs made by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi in +competition, they think that the competition was for those. But that +is wrong. Ghiberti won his spurs with the doors on the north side, +at which comparatively few persons look. The famous doors opposite +the Duomo were commissioned many years later, when his genius was +acknowledged and when he had become so accomplished as to do what +he liked with his medium. Before, however, coming to Ghiberti, +we ought to look at the work of an early predecessor but for whom +there might have been no Ghiberti at all; for while Ghiberti was at +work with his assistants on these north doors, between 1403 and 1424, +the place which they occupy was filled by those executed seventy years +earlier by Andrea Pisano (1270-1348), possibly from Giotto's designs, +which are now at the south entrance, opposite the charming little +loggia at the corner of the Via Calzaioli, called the Bigallo. These +represent twenty scenes in the life of S. John the Baptist, and below +them are eight figures of cardinal and Christian virtues, and they +employed their sculptor from 1330 to 1336. They have three claims to +notice: as being admirably simple and vigorous in themselves; as having +influenced all later workers in this medium, and particularly Ghiberti +and Donatello; and as being the bronze work of the sculptor of certain +of the stone scenes round the base of Giotto's campanile. The panel +in which the Baptist is seen up to his waist in the water is surely +the very last word in audacity in bronze. Ghiberti was charged with +making bronze do things that it was ill fitted for; but I do not know +that even he moulded water--and transparent water--from it. + +The year 1399 is one of the most notable in the history of modern art, +since it was then that the competition for the Baptistery gates was +made public, this announcement being the spring from which many rivers +flowed. In that year Lorenzo Ghiberti, a young goldsmith assisting +his father, was twenty-one, and Filippo Brunelleschi, another +goldsmith, was twenty-two, while Giotto had been dead sixty-three +years and the impulse he had given to painting had almost worked +itself out. The new doors were to be of the same shape and size as +those by Andrea Pisano, which were already getting on for seventy +years old, and candidates were invited to make a specimen relief to +scale, representing the interrupted sacrifice of Isaac, although +the subject-matter of the doors was to be the Life of S. John the +Baptist. Among the judges was that Florentine banker whose name +was beginning to be known in the city as a synonym for philanthropy, +enlightenment, and sagacity, Giovanni de' Medici. In 1401 the specimens +were ready, and after much deliberation as to which was the better, +Ghiberti's or Brunelleschi's--assisted, some say, by Brunelleschi's +own advice in favour of his rival--the award was given to Ghiberti, +and he was instructed to proceed with his task; while Brunelleschi, +as we have seen, being a man of determined ambition, left for Rome to +study architecture, having made up his mind to be second to no one +in whichever of the arts and crafts he decided to pursue. Here then +was the first result of the competition--that it turned Brunelleschi +to architecture. + +Ghiberti began seriously in 1408 and continued till 1424, when the +doors were finished; but, in order to carry out the work, he required +assistance in casting and so forth, and for that purpose engaged among +others a sculptor named Donatello (born in 1386), a younger sculptor +named Luca della Robbia (born in 1400), and a gigantic young painter +called Masaccio (born in 1401), each of whom was destined, taking +fire no doubt from Ghiberti and his fine free way, to be a powerful +innovator--Donatello (apart from other and rarer achievements) being +the first sculptor since antiquity to place a statue on a pedestal +around which observers could walk; Masaccio being the first painter +to make pictures in the modern use of the term, with men and women +of flesh and blood in them, as distinguished from decorative saints, +and to be by example the instructor of all the greatest masters, +from his pupil Lippo Lippi to Leonardo and Michelangelo; and Luca +della Robbia being the inspired discoverer of an inexpensive means of +glazing terra-cotta so that his beautiful and radiant Madonnas could +be brought within the purchasing means of the poorest congregation in +Italy. These alone are remarkable enough results, but when we recollect +also that Brunelleschi's defeat led to the building of the cathedral +dome, the significance of the event becomes the more extraordinary. + +The doors, as I say, were finished in 1424, after twenty-one years' +labour, and the Signoria left the Palazzo Vecchio in procession to see +their installation. In the number and shape of the panels Pisano set +the standard, but Ghiberti's work resembled that of his predecessor +very little in other ways, for he had a mind of domestic sweetness +without austerity and he was interested in making everything as easy +and fluid and beautiful as might be. His thoroughness recalls Giotto +in certain of his frescoes. The impression left by Pisano's doors is +akin to that left by reading the New Testament; but Ghiberti makes +everything happier than that. Two scenes--both on the level of the +eye--I particularly like: the "Annunciation," with its little, lithe, +reluctant Virgin, and the "Adoration". The border of the Pisano doors +is, I think, finer than that of Ghiberti's; but it is a later work. + +Looking at them even now, with eyes that remember so much of the +best art that followed them and took inspiration from them, we +can understand the better how delighted Florence must have been +with this new picture gallery and how the doors were besieged by +sightseers. But greater still was to come. Ghiberti at once received +the commission to make two more doors on his own scale for the south +side of the Baptistery, and in 1425 he had begun on them. These were +not finished until 1452, so that Ghiberti, then a man of seventy-four, +had given practically his whole life to the making of four bronze +doors. It is true that he did a few other things besides, such as the +casket of S. Zenobius in the Duomo, and the Baptist and S. Matthew +for Or San Michele; but he may be said justly to live by his doors, +and particularly by the second pair, although it was the first pair +that had the greater effect on his contemporaries and followers. + +Among his assistants on these were Antonio Pollaiuolo (born in +1429), who designed the quail in the left border, and Paolo Uccello +(born in 1397), both destined to be men of influence. The bald head +on the right door is a portrait of Ghiberti; that of the old man +on the left is his father, who helped him to polish the original +competition plaque. Although commissioned for the south side they +were placed where they now are, on the east, as being most worthy of +the position of honour, and Pisano's doors, which used to be here, +were moved to the south, where they now are. + +On Ghiberti's workshop opposite S. Maria Nuova, in the Via Bufalini, +the memorial tablet mentions Michelangelo's praise--that these doors +were beautiful enough to be the Gates of Paradise. After that what is +an ordinary person to say? That they are lovely is a commonplace. But +they are more. They are so sensitive; bronze, the medium which Horace +has called, by implication, the most durable of all, has become in +Ghiberti's hands almost as soft as wax and tender as flesh. It does +all he asks; it almost moves; every trace of sternness has vanished +from it. Nothing in plastic art that we have ever seen or shall see +is more easy and ingratiating than these almost living pictures. + +Before them there is steadily a little knot of admirers, and on +Sundays you may always see country people explaining the panels to each +other. Every one has his favourite among these fascinating Biblical +scenes, and mine are Cain and Abel, with the ploughing, and Abraham +and Isaac, with its row of fir trees. It has been explained by the +purists that the sculptor stretched the bounds of plastic art too +far and made bronze paint pictures; but most persons will agree to +ignore that. Of the charm of Ghiberti's mind the border gives further +evidence, with its fruits and foliage, birds and woodland creatures, +so true to life, and here fixed for all time, so naturally, that if +these animals should ever (as is not unlikely in Italy where every +one has a gun and shoots at his pleasure) become extinct, they could +be created again from these designs. + +Ghiberti, who enjoyed great honour in his life and a considerable +salary as joint architect of the dome with Brunelleschi, died three +years after the completion of the second doors and was buried in +S. Croce. His place in Florentine art is unique and glorious. + +The broken porphyry pillars by these second doors were a gift from +Pisa to Florence in recognition of Florence's watchfulness over Pisa +while the Pisans were away subduing the Balearic islanders. + +The bronze group over Ghiberti's first doors, representing John +the Baptist preaching between a Pharisee and a Levite, are the +work (either alone or assisted by his master Leonardo da Vinci) +of an interesting Florentine sculptor, Giovanni Francesco Rustici +(1474-1554), who was remarkable among the artists of his time in +being what we should call an amateur, having a competence of his own +and the manners of a patron. Placing himself under Verrocchio, he +became closely attached to Leonardo, a fellow-pupil, and made him his +model rather than the older man. He took his art lightly, and lived, +in Vasari's phrase, "free from care," having such beguilements as a +tame menagerie (Leonardo, it will be remembered, loved animals too and +had a habit of buying small caged birds in order to set them free), +and two or three dining clubs, the members of which vied with each +other in devising curious and exotic dishes. Andrea del Sarto, for +example, once brought as his contribution to the feast a model of this +very church we are studying, the Baptistery, of which the floor was +constructed of jelly, the pillars of sausages, and the choir desk of +cold veal, while the choristers were roast thrushes. Rustici further +paved the way to a life free from care by appointing a steward of his +estate whose duty it was to see that his money-box, to which he went +whenever he wanted anything, always had money in it. This box he never +locked, having learned that he need fear no robbery by once leaving +his cloak for two days under a bush and then finding it again. "This +world," he exclaimed, "is too good: it will not last." Among his pets +were a porcupine trained to prick the legs of his guests under the +table "so that they drew them in quickly"; a raven that spoke like a +human being; an eagle, and many snakes. He also studied necromancy, +the better to frighten his apprentices. He left Florence in 1528, +after the Medici expulsion, and, like Leonardo, took service with +Francis the First. He died at the age of eighty. + +I had an hour and more exactly opposite the Rustici group, on the same +level, while waiting for the Scoppio del Carro, and I find it easy +to believe that Leonardo himself had a hand in the work. The figure +of the Baptist is superb, the attitude of his listeners masterly. + + + +CHAPTER V + +The Riccardi Palace and the Medici + +An evasion of history--"Il Caparra"--The Gozzoli frescoes--Giovanni +de' Medici (di Bicci)--Cosimo de' Medici--The first banishment--Piero +de' Medici--Lorenzo de' Medici--Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici--The +second banishment--Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici--Leo X--Lorenzo di +Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici--Clement VII--Third banishment of the +Medici--The siege of Florence--Alessandro de' Medici--Ippolito de' +Medici--Lorenzino de' Medici--Giovanni delle Bande Nere--Cosimo I--The +Grand Dukes. + +The natural step from the Baptistery would be to the Uffizi. But for +us not yet; because in order to understand Florence, and particularly +the Florence that existed between the extreme dates that I have chosen +as containing the fascinating period--namely 1296, when the Duomo was +begun, and 1564, when Michelangelo died--one must understand who and +what the Medici were. + +While I have been enjoying the pleasant task of writing this +book--which has been more agreeable than any literary work I have ever +done--I have continually been conscious of a plaintive voice at my +shoulder, proceeding from one of the vigilant and embarrassing imps +who sit there and do duty as conscience, inquiring if the time is not +about ripe for introducing that historical sketch of Florence without +which no account such as this can be rightly understood. And ever I +have replied with words of a soothing and procrastinating nature. But +now that we are face to face with the Medici family, in their very +house, I am conscious that the occasion for that historical sketch +is here indeed, and equally I am conscious of being quite incapable +of supplying it. For the history of Florence between, say the birth +of Giotto or Dante and the return of Cosimo de' Medici from exile, +when the absolute Medici rule began, is so turbulent, crowded, and +complex that it would require the whole of this volume to describe +it. The changes in the government of the city would alone occupy a +good third, so constant and complicated were they. I should have to +explain the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, the Neri and the Bianchi, +the Guilds and the Priors, the gonfalonieri and the podesta, the +secondo popolo and the buonuomini. + +Rather than do this imperfectly I have chosen to do it not at all; +and the curious must resort to historians proper. But there is at +the end of the volume a table of the chief dates in Florentine and +European history in the period chosen, together with births and deaths +of artists and poets and other important persons, so that a bird's-eye +view of the progress of affairs can be quickly gained, while in this +chapter I offer an outline of the great family of rulers of Florence +who made the little city an aesthetic lawgiver to the world and with +whom her later fame, good or ill, is indissolubly united. For the rest, +is there not the library? + +The Medici, once so powerful and stimulating, are still ever in the +background of Florence as one wanders hither and thither. They are +behind many of the best pictures and most of the best statues. Their +escutcheon is everywhere. I ought, I believe, to have made them +the subject of my first chapter. But since I did not, let us without +further delay turn to the Via Cavour, which runs away to the north from +the Baptistery, being a continuation of the Via de' Martelli, and pause +at the massive and dignified palace at the first corner on the left. +For that is the Medici's home; and afterwards we will step into +S. Lorenzo and see the church which Brunelleschi and Donatello made +beautiful and Michelangelo wonderful that the Medici might lie there. + +Visitors go to the Riccardi palace rather to see Gozzoli's frescoes +than anything else; and indeed apart from the noble solid Renaissance +architecture of Michelozzo there is not much else to see. In the +courtyard are certain fragments of antique sculpture arranged against +the walls, and a sarcophagus is shown in which an early member of the +family, Guccio de' Medici, who was gonfalonier in 1299, once reposed. +There too are Donatello's eight medallions, but they are not very +interesting, being only enlarged copies of old medals and cameos and +not notable for his own characteristics. + +Hence it is that, after Gozzoli, by far the most interesting +part of this building is its associations. For here lived Cosimo +de' Medici, whose building of the palace was interrupted by his +banishment as a citizen of dangerous ambition; here lived Piero +de' Medici, for whom Gozzoli worked; here was born and here lived +Lorenzo the Magnificent. To this palace came the Pazzi conspirators +to lure Giuliano to the Duomo and his doom. Here did Charles +VIII--Savonarola's "Flagellum Dei"--lodge and loot, and it was here +that Capponi frightened him with the threat of the Florentine bells; +hither came in 1494 the fickle and terrible Florentine mob, always +passionate in its pursuit of change and excitement, and now inflamed +by the sermons of Savonarola, to destroy the priceless manuscripts +and works of art; here was brought up for a year or so the little +Catherine de' Medici, and next door was the house in which Alessandro +de' Medici was murdered. + +It was in the seventeenth century that the palace passed to the +Riccardi family, who made many additions. A century later Florence +acquired it, and to-day it is the seat of the Prefect of the +city. Cosimo's original building was smaller; but much of it remains +untouched. The exquisite cornice is Michelozzo's original, and the +courtyard has merely lost its statues, among which are Donatello's +Judith, now in the Loggia de' Lanzi, and his bronze David, now in the +Bargello, while Verrocchio's David was probably on the stairs. The +escutcheon on the corner of the house gives us the period of its +erection. The seven plain balls proclaim it Cosimo's. Each of +the Medici sported these palle, although each had also his private +crest. Under Giovanni, Cosimo's father, the balls were eight in number; +under Cosimo, seven; under Piero, seven, with the fleur-de-lis of +France on the uppermost, given him by Louis XI; under Lorenzo, six; +and as one walks about Florence one can approximately fix the date of +a building by remembering these changes. How many times they occur on +the façades of Florence and its vicinity, probably no one could say; +but they are everywhere. The French wits, who were amused to derive +Catherine de' Medici from a family of apothecaries, called them pills. + +The beautiful lantern at the corner was added by Lorenzo and was +the work of an odd ironsmith in Florence for whom he had a great +liking--Niccolò Grosso. For Lorenzo had all that delight in character +which belongs so often to the born patron and usually to the born +connoisseur. This Grosso was a man of humorous independence and +bluntness. He had the admirable custom of carrying out his commissions +in the order in which they arrived, so that if he was at work upon a +set of fire-irons for a poor client, not even Lorenzo himself (who as +a matter of fact often tried) could induce him to turn to something +more lucrative. The rich who cannot wait he forced to wait. Grosso +also always insisted upon something in advance and payment on +delivery, and pleasantly described his workshop as being the Sign +of the Burning Books,--since if his books were burnt how could he +enter a debt? This rule earned for him from Lorenzo the nickname of +"Il Caparra" (earnest money). Another of Grosso's eccentricities was +to refuse to work for Jews. + +Within the palace, up stairs, is the little chapel which Gozzoli made +so gay and fascinating that it is probably the very gem among the +private chapels of the world. Here not only did the Medici perform +their devotions--Lorenzo's corner seat is still shown, and anyone +may sit in it--but their splendour and taste are reflected on the +walls. Cosimo, as we shall see when we reach S. Marco, invited Fra +Angelico to paint upon the walls of that convent sweet and simple +frescoes to the glory of God. Piero employed Fra Angelico's pupil, +Benozzo Gozzoli to decorate this chapel. + +In the year 1439, as chapter II related, through the instrumentality +of Cosimo a great episcopal Council was held at Florence, at which +John Palaeologus, Emperor of the East, met Pope Eugenius IV. In that +year Cosimo's son Piero was twenty-three, and Gozzoli nineteen, +and probably upon both, but certainly on the young artist, such +pomp and splendour and gorgeousness of costume as then were visible +in Florence made a deep impression. When therefore Piero, after +becoming head of the family, decided to decorate the chapel with +a procession of Magi, it is not surprising that the painter should +recall this historic occasion. We thus get the pageantry of the East +with more than common realism, while the portraits, or at any rate +representations, of the Patriarch of Constantinople (the first king) +and the Emperor (the second king) are here, together with those of +certain Medici, for the youthful third king is none other than Piero's +eldest son Lorenzo. Among their followers are (the third on the left) +Cosimo de' Medici, who is included as among the living, although, +like the Patriarch of Constantinople, he was dead, and his brother +Lorenzo (the middle one of the three), whose existence is forgotten +so completely until the accession of Cosimo I, in 1537, brings his +branch of the family into power; while on the right is Piero de' +Medici himself. Piero's second son Giuliano is on the white horse, +preceded by a negro carrying his bow. The head immediately above +Giuliano I do not know, but that one a little to the left above it +is Gozzoli's own. Among the throng are men of learning who either +came to Florence from the East or Florentines who assimilated their +philosophy--such as Georgius Gemisthos, Marsilio Ficino, and perhaps +certain painters among them, all protégés of Cosimo and Piero, and +all makers of the Renaissance. + +The assemblage alone, apart altogether from any beauty and charm +that the painting possesses, makes these frescoes valuable. But the +painting is a delight. We have a pretty Gozzoli in our National +Gallery--No. 283--but it gives no indication of the ripeness and +richness and incident of this work; while the famous Biblical +series in the Campo Santo of Pisa has so largely perished as to be +scarcely evidence to his colour. The first impression made by the +Medici frescoes is their sumptuousness. When Gozzoli painted--if the +story be true--he had only candle light: the window over the altar +is new. But think of candle light being all the illumination of these +walls as the painter worked! A new door and window have also been cut +in the wall opposite the altar close to the three daughters of Piero, +by vandal hands; and "Bruta, bruta!" says the guardian, very rightly. + +The landscape behind the procession is hardly less interesting than the +procession itself; but it is when we come to the meadows of paradise, +with the angels and roses, the cypresses and birds, in the two chancel +scenes, that this side of Gozzoli's art is most fascinating. He has +travelled a long way from his master Fra Angelico here: the heaven +is of the visible rather than the invisible eye; sense is present +as well as the rapturous spirit. The little Medici who endured the +tedium of the services here are to be felicitated with upon such an +adorable presentment of glory. With plenty of altar candles the sight +of these gardens of the blest must have beguiled many a mass. Thinking +here in England upon the Medici chapel, I find that the impression +it has left upon me is chiefly cypresses--cypresses black and comely, +disposed by a master hand, with a glint of gold among them. + +The picture that was over the altar has gone. It was a Lippo Lippi +and is now in Berlin. + +The first of the Medici family to rise to the highest power was +Giovanni d'Averardo de' Medici (known as Giovanni di Bicci), 1360-1429, +who, a wealthy banker living in what is now the Piazza del Duomo, +was well known for his philanthropy and interest in the welfare of +the Florentines, but does not come much into public notice until +1401, when he was appointed one of the judges in the Baptistery door +competition. He was a retiring, watchful man. Whether he was personally +ambitious is not too evident, but he was opposed to tyranny and was the +steady foe of the Albizzi faction, who at that time were endeavouring +to obtain supreme power in Florentine affairs. In 1419 Giovanni +increased his popularity by founding the Spedale degli Innocenti, +and in 1421 he was elected gonfalonier, or, as we might now say, +President of the Republic. In this capacity he made his position +secure and reduced the nobles (chief of whom was Niccolò da Uzzano) +to political weakness. Giovanni died in 1429, leaving one son, Cosimo, +aged forty, a second, Lorenzo, aged thirtyfour, a fragrant memory +and an immense fortune. + +To Lorenzo, who remained a private citizen, we shall return in time; +it is Cosimo (1389-1464) with whom we are now concerned. Cosimo de' +Medici was a man of great mental and practical ability: he had been +educated as well as possible; he had a passion both for art and +letters; he inherited his father's financial ability and generosity, +while he added to these gifts a certain genius for the management +of men. One of the first things that Cosimo did after his father's +death was to begin the palace where we now are, rejecting a plan by +Brunelleschi as too splendid, and choosing instead one by Michelozzo, +the partner of Donatello, two artists who remained his personal +friends through life. Cosimo selected this site, in what was then +the Via Larga but is now the Via Cavour, partly because his father +had once lived there, and partly because it was close to S. Lorenzo, +which his father, with six other families, had begun to rebuild, +a work he intended himself to carry on. + +The palace was begun in 1430 abd was still in progress in 1433 when +the Albizzi, who had always viewed the rise of the Medici family +with apprehension and misgiving, and were now strengthened by the +death of Niccolò da Uzzano, who, though powerful, had been a very +cautious and temperate adviser, succeeded in getting a majority +in the Signoria and passing a sentence of banishment on the whole +Medici tribe as being too rich and ambitious to be good citizens of +a simple and frugal Republic. Cosimo therefore, after some days of +imprisonment in the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, during which he +expected execution at any moment, left Florence for Venice, taking +his architect with him. In 1434, however, the Florentines, realizing +that under the Albizzi they were losing their independence, and what +was to be a democracy was become an oligarchy, revolted, and Cosimo +was recalled, and, like his father, was elected gonfalonier. With this +recall began his long supremacy; for he returned like a king and like +a king remained, quickly establishing himself as the leading man in +the city, the power behind the Signoria. Not only did he never lose +that position, but he made it so naturally his own that when he died +he was able to transmit it to his son. + +Cosimo de' Medici was, I think, the wisest and best ruler that Florence +ever had and ranks high among the rulers that any state ever had. But +he changed the Florentines from an independent people to a dependent +one. In his capacity of Father of his Country he saw to it that his +children lost their proud spirit. He had to be absolute; and this +end he achieved in many ways, but chiefly by his wealth, which made +it possible to break the rich rebel and to enslave the poor. His +greatest asset--next his wealth--was his knowledge of the Florentine +character. To know anything of this capricious, fickle, turbulent +folk even after the event was in itself a task of such magnitude that +almost no one else had compassed it; but Cosimo did more, he knew what +they were likely to do. By this knowledge, together with his riches, +his craft, his tact, his business ramifications as an international +banker, his open-handedness and air of personal simplicity, Cosimo +made himself a power. For Florence could he not +do enough. By inviting the Pope and the Greek Emperor to meet there +he gave it great political importance, and incidentally brought +about the New Learning. He established the Platonic Academy and +formed the first public library in the west. He rebuilt and endowed +the monastery of S. Marco. He built and rebuilt other churches. He +gave Donatello a free hand in sculpture and Fra Lippo Lippi and Fra +Angelico in painting. He distributed altogether in charity and churches +four hundred thousand of those golden coins which were invented by +Florence and named florins after her--a sum equal to a million pounds +of to-day. In every direction one comes upon traces of his generosity +and thoroughness. After his death it was decided that as Pater Patriae, +or Father of his Country, he should be for ever known. + +Cosimo died in 1464, leaving an invalid son, Piero, aged forty-eight, +known for his almost continuous gout as Il Gottoso. Giovanni and Cosimo +had had to work for their power; Piero stepped naturally into it, +although almost immediately he had to deal with a plot--the first for +thirty years--to ruin the Medici prestige, the leader of which was that +Luca Pitti who began the Pitti palace in order to have a better house +than the Medici. The plot failed, not a little owing to young Lorenzo +de' Medici's address, and the remaining few years of Piero's life were +tranquil. He was a quiet, kindly man with the traditional family love +of the arts, and it was for him that Gozzoli worked. He died in 1469, +leaving two sons, Lorenzo (1449-1492) and Giuliano (1453-1478). + +Lorenzo had been brought up as the future leading citizen of Florence: +he had every advantage of education and environment, and was rich in +the aristocratic spirit which often blossoms most richly in the second +or third generation of wealthy business families. Giovanni had been +a banker before everything, Cosimo an administrator, Piero a faithful +inheritor of his father's wishes; it was left for Lorenzo to be the +first poet and natural prince of the Medici blood. Lorenzo continued +to bank but mismanaged the work and lost heavily; while his poetical +tendencies no doubt distracted his attention generally from affairs. +Yet such was his sympathetic understanding and his native splendour and +gift of leadership that he could not but be at the head of everything, +the first to be consulted and ingratiated. Not only was he the first +Medici poet but the first of the family to marry not for love but +for policy, and that too was a sign of decadence. + +Lorenzo came into power when only twenty, and at the age of forty-two +he was dead, but in the interval, by his interest in every kind of +intellectual and artistic activity, by his passion for the greatness +and glory of Florence, he made for himself a name that must always +connote liberality, splendour, and enlightenment. But it is beyond +question that under Lorenzo the Florentines changed deeply and for +the worse. The old thrift and simplicity gave way to extravagance and +ostentation; the old faith gave way too, but that was not wholly the +effect of Lorenzo's natural inclination towards Platonic philosophy, +fostered by his tutor Marsilio Ficino and his friends Poliziano and +Pico della Mirandola, but was due in no small measure also to the +hostility of Pope Sixtus, which culminated in the Pazzi Conspiracy of +1478 and the murder of Giuliano. Looking at the history of Florence +from our present vantage-point we can see that although under +Lorenzo the Magnificent she was the centre of the world's culture +and distinction, there was behind this dazzling front no seriousness +of purpose. She was in short enjoying the fruits of her labours as +though the time of rest had come; and this when strenuousness was more +than ever important. Lorenzo carried on every good work of his father +and grandfather (he spent £65,000 a year in books alone) and was as +jealous of Florentine interests; but he was also "The Magnificent," +and in that lay the peril. Florence could do with wealth and power, +but magnificence went to her head. + +Lorenzo died in 1492, leaving three sons, of whom the eldest, Piero +(1471-1503), succeeded him. Never was such a decadence. In a moment +the Medici prestige, which had been steadily growing under Cosimo, +Piero, and Lorenzo until it was world famous, crumbled to dust. Piero +was a coarse-minded, pleasure-loving youth--"The Headstrong" his +father had called him--whose one idea of power was to be sensual and +tyrannical; and the enemies of Florence and of Italy took advantage +of this fact. Savonarola's sermons had paved the way from within +too. In 1494 Charles VIII of France marched into Italy; Piero pulled +himself together and visited the king to make terms for Florence, +but made such terms that on returning to the city he found an order +of banishment and obeyed it. On November 9th, 1494, he and his family +were expelled, and the mob, forgetting so quickly all that they owed +to the Medici who had gone before, rushed to this beautiful palace and +looted it. The losses that art and learning sustained in a few hours +can never be estimated. A certain number of treasures were subsequently +collected again, such as Donatello's David and Verrocchio's David, +while Donatello's Judith was removed to the Palazzo Vecchio, where +an inscription was placed upon it saying that her short way with +Holofernes was a warning to all traitors; but priceless pictures, +sculpture, and MSS. were ruthlessly demolished. + +In the chapter on S. Marco we shall read of what experiments in +government the Florentines substituted for that of the Medici, +Savonarola for a while being at the head of the government, although +only for a brief period which ended amid an orgy of lawlessness; and +then, after a restless period of eighteen years, in which Florence +had every claw cut and was weakened also by dissension, the Medici +returned--the change being the work of Lorenzo's second son, Giovanni +de' Medici, who on the eve of becoming Pope Leo X procured their +reinstatement, thus justifying the wisdom of his father in placing +him in the Church. Piero having been drowned long since, his admirable +but ill-starred brother Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, now thirty-three, +assumed the control, always under Leo X; while their cousin, Giulio, +also a Churchman, and the natural son of the murdered Giuliano, +was busy, behind the scenes, with the family fortunes. + +Giuliano lived only till 1516 and was succeeded by his nephew +Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, a son of Peiro, a young man of no more +political use than his father, and one who quickly became almost +equally unpopular. Things indeed were going so badly that Leo X sent +Giulio de' Medici (now a cardinal) from Rome to straighten them out, +and by some sensible repeals he succeeded in allaying a little of +the bitterness in the city. Lorenzo had one daughter, born in this +palace, who was destined to make history--Catherine de' Medici--and +no son. When therefore he died in 1519, at the age of twenty-seven, +after a life of vicious selfishness (which, however, was no bar +to his having the noblest tomb in the world, at S. Lorenzo), the +succession should have passed to the other branch of the Medici +family, the descendants of old Giovanni's second son Lorenzo, +brother of Cosimo. But Giulio, at Rome, always at the ear of the +indolent, pleasure-loving Leo X, had other projects. Born in 1478, +the illegitimate son of a charming father, Giulio had none of the +great Medici traditions, and the Medici name never stood so low as +during his period of power. Himself illegitimate, he was the father +of an illegitimate son, Alessandro, for whose advancement he toiled +much as Alexander VI had toiled for that of Caesar Borgia. He had not +the black, bold wickedness of Alexander VI, but as Pope Clement VII, +which he became in 1523, he was little less admirable. He was cunning, +ambitious, and tyrannical, and during his pontificate he contrived not +only to make many powerful enemies and to see both Rome and Florence +under siege, but to lose England for the Church. + +We move, however, too fast. The year is 1519 and Lorenzo is dead, +and the rightful heir to the Medici wealth and power was to be +kept out. To do this Giulio himself moved to Florence and settled +in the Medici palace, and on his return to Rome Cardinal Passerini +was installed in the Medici palace in his stead, nominally as the +custodian of little Catherine de' Medici and Ippolito, a boy of ten, +the illegitimate son of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours. That Florence +should have put up with this Roman control shows us how enfeebled +was her once proud spirit. In 1521 Leo X died, to be succeeded, in +spite of all Giulio's efforts, by Adrian of Utrecht, as Adrian VI, +a good, sincere man who, had he lived, might have enormously changed +the course not only of Italian but of English history. He survived, +however, for less than two years, and then came Giulio's chance, +and he was elected Pope Clement VII. + +Clement's first duty was to make Florence secure, and he therefore +sent his son Alessandro, then about thirteen, to join the others +at the Medici palace, which thus now contained a resident cardinal, +watchful of Medici interests; a legitimate daughter of Lorenzo, Duke +of Urbino (but owing to quarrels she was removed to a convent); an +illegitimate son of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, the nominal heir and +already a member of the Government; and the Pope's illegitimate son, +of whose origin, however, nothing was said, although it was implied +that Lorenzo, Duke of Nemours, was his father. + +This was the state of affairs during Clement's war with the Emperor +Charles V, [2] which ended with the siege of Rome and the imprisonment +of the Pope in the Castle of S. Angelo for some months until he +contrived to escape to Orvieto; and meanwhile Florence, realizing his +powerlessness, uttered a decree again banishing the Medici family, and +in 1527 they were sent forth from the city for the third time. But even +now, when the move was so safe, Florence lacked courage to carry it +out until a member of the Medici family, furious at the presence of the +base-born Medici in the palace, and a professed hater of her base-born +uncle Clement VII and all his ways--Clarice Strozzi, née Clarice de' +Medici, granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent--came herself to this +house and drove the usurpers from it with her extremely capable tongue. + +To explain clearly the position of the Florentine Republic at this +time would be too deeply to delve into history, but it may briefly be +said that by means of humiliating surrenders and much crafty diplomacy, +Clement VII was able to bring about in 1529 peace between the Emperor +Charles V and Francis I of France, by which Charles was left master +of Italy, while his partner and ally in these transactions, Clement, +expected for his own share certain benefits in which the humiliation +of Florence and the exaltation of Alessandro came first. Florence, +having taken sides with Francis, found herself in any case very badly +left, with the result that at the end of 1529 Charles V's army, with +the papal forces to assist, laid siege to her. The siege lasted for +ten months, in which the city was most ably defended by Ferrucci, +that gallant soldier whose portrait by Piero di Cosimo is in our +National Gallery--No. 895--and then came a decisive battle in which +the Emperor and Pope were conquerors, a thousand brave Florentines +were put to death and others were imprisoned. + +Alessandro de' Medici arrived at the Medici palace in 1531, and +in 1532 the glorious Florentine Republic of so many years' growth, +for the establishment of which so much good blood had been spilt, was +declared to be at an end. Alessandro being proclaimed Duke, his first +act was to order the demolition of the great bell of the Signoria which +had so often called the citizens to arms or meetings of independence. + +Meanwhile Ippolito, the natural son of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and +therefore the rightful heir, after having been sent on various missions +by Clement VII, to keep him out of the way, settled at Bologna and took +to poetry. He was a kindly, melancholy man with a deep sense of human +injustice; and in 1535, when, after Clement VII's very welcome demise, +the Florentine exiles who either had been banished from Florence by +Alessandro or had left of their own volition rather than live in the +city under such a contemptible ruler, sent an embassy to the Emperor +Charles V to help them against this new tyrant, Ippolito headed it; +but Alessandro prudently arranged for his assassination en route. + +It is unlikely, however, that the Emperor would have done anything, +for in the following year he allowed his daughter Margaret to become +Alessandro's wife. That was in 1536. In January, 1537, Lorenzino de' +Medici, a cousin, one of the younger branch of the family, assuming +the mantle of Brutus, or liberator, stabbed Alessandro to death while +he was keeping an assignation in the house that then adjoined this +palace. Thus died, at the age of twenty-six, one of the most worthless +of men, and, although illegitimate, the last of the direct line of +Cosimo de' Medici, the Father of his Country, to govern Florence. + +The next ruler came from the younger branch, to which we now turn. Old +Giovanni di Bicci had two sons, Cosimo and Lorenzo. Lorenzo's son, Pier +Francesco de' Medici, had a son Giovanni de' Medici. This Giovanni, +who married Caterina Sforza of Milan, had also a son named Giovanni, +born in 1498, and it was he who was the rightful heir when Lorenzo, +Duke of Urbino, died in 1519. He was connected with both sides of +the family, for his father, as I have said, was the great grandson +of the first Medici on our list, and his wife was Maria Salviati, +daughter of Lucrezia de' Medici--herself a daughter of Lorenzo the +Magnificent--and Jacopo Salviati, a wealthy Florentine. When, however, +Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, died in 1519, Giovanni was a young man of +twenty-one with an absorbing passion for fighting, which Clement VII +(then Giulio) was only too keen to foster, since he wished him out of +the way in order that his own projects for the ultimate advancement +of the base-born Alessandro, and meanwhile of the catspaw, the +base-born Ippolito, might be furthered. Giovanni had already done +some good service in the field, was becoming famous as the head of +his company of Black Bands, and was known as Giovanni delle Bande +Nere; and his marriage to his cousin Maria Salviati and the birth +of his only son Cosimo in 1519 made no difference to his delight +in warfare. He was happy only when in the field of battle, and the +struggle between Francis and Charles gave him ample opportunities, +fighting on the side of Charles and the Pope and doing many brave and +dashing things. He died at an early age, only twenty-eight, in 1526, +the idol of his men, leaving a widow and child in poverty. + +Almost immediately afterwards came the third banishment of the Medici +family from Florence. Giovanni's widow and their son Cosimo got +along as best they could until the murder of Alessandro in 1537, +when Cosimo was nearly eighteen. He was a quiet, reserved youth, +who had apparently taken but little interest in public affairs, and +had spent his time in the country with his mother, chiefly in field +sports. But no sooner was Alessandro dead, and his slayer Lorenzino +had escaped, than Cosimo approached the Florentine council and claimed +to be appointed to his rightful place as head of the State, and this +claim he put, or suggested, with so much humility that his wish was +granted. Instantly one of the most remarkable transitions in history +occurred: the youth grew up almost in a day and at once began to exert +unsuspected reserves of power and authority. In despair a number of +the chief Florentines made an effort to depose him, and a battle was +fought at Montemurlo, a few miles from Florence, between Cosimo's +troops, fortified by some French allies, and the insurgents. That +was in 1537; the victory fell to Cosimo; and his long and remarkable +reign began with the imprisonment and execution of the chief rebels. + +Although Cosimo made so bloody a beginning he was the first imaginative +and thoughtful administrator that Florence had had since Lorenzo the +Magnificent. He set himself grimly to build upon the ruins which the +past forty and more years had produced; and by the end of his reign he +had worked wonders. As first he lived in the Medici palace, but after +marrying a wealthy wife, Eleanora of Toledo, he transferred his home +to the Signoria, now called the Palazzo Vecchio, as a safer spot, and +established a bodyguard of Swiss lancers in Orcagna's loggia, close +by. [3] Later he bought the unfinished Pitti palace with his wife's +money, finished it, and moved there. Meanwhile he was strengthening +his position in every way by alliances and treaties, and also by the +convenient murder of Lorenzino, the Brutus who had rid Florence of +Alessandro ten years earlier, and whose presence in the flesh could +not but be a cause of anxiety since Lorenzino derived from an elder +son of the Medici, and Cosimo from a younger. In 1555 the ancient +republic of Siena fell to Cosimo's troops after a cruel and barbarous +siege and was thereafter merged in Tuscany, and in 1570 Cosimo assumed +the title of Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and was crowned at Rome. + +Whether or not the common accusation against the Medici as a +family, that they had but one motive--mercenary ambition and +self-aggrandisement--is true, the fact remains that the crown did +not reach their brows until one hundred and seventy years from the +first appearance of old Giovanni di Bicci in Florentine affairs. The +statue of Cosimo I in the Piazza della Signoria has a bas-relief of +his coronation. He was then fifty-one; he lived but four more years, +and when he died he left a dukedom flourishing in every way: rich, +powerful, busy, and enlightened. He had developed and encouraged +the arts, capriciously, as Cellini's "Autobiography" tells us, but +genuinely too, as we can see at the Uffizi and the Pitti. The arts, +however, were not what they had been, for the great period had passed +and Florence was in the trough of the wave. Yet Cosimo found the best +men he could--Cellini, Bronzino, and Vasari--and kept them busy. But +his greatest achievement as a connoisseur was his interest in Etruscan +remains and the excavations at Arezzo and elsewhere which yielded +the priceless relics now at the Archaeological Museum. + +With Cosimo I this swift review of the Medici family ends. The +rest have little interest for the visitor to Florence to-day, +for whom Cellini's Perseus, made to Cosimo I's order, is the last +great artistic achievement in the city in point of time. But I may +say that Cosimo I's direct descendants occupied the throne (as it +had now become) until the death of Gian Gastone, son of Cosimo III, +who died in 1737. Tuscany passed to Austria until 1801. In 1807 it +became French, and in 1814 Austrian again. In 1860 it was merged in +the Kingdom of Italy under the rule of the monarch who has given his +name to the great new Piazza--Vittorio Emmanuele. + +After Gian Gastone's death one other Medici remained alive: Anna +Maria Ludovica, daughter of Cosimo III. Born in 1667, she married +the Elector Palatine of the Rhine, and survived until 1743. It was +she who left to the city the priceless Medici collections, as I have +stated in chapter VIII. The earlier and greatest of the Medici are +buried in the church of S. Lorenzo or in Michelangelo's sacristy; the +later Medici, beginning with Giovanni delle Bande Nere and his wife, +and their son Cosimo I, are in the gorgeous mausoleum that adjoins +S. Lorenzo and is still being enriched with precious marbles. + +Such is an outline of the history of this wonderful family, and we +leave their ancient home, built by the greatest and wisest of them, +with mixed feelings of admiration and pity. They were seldom lovable; +they were often despicable; but where they were great they were +very great indeed. A Latin inscription in the courtyard reminds the +traveller of the distinction which the house possesses, calling it +the home not only of princes but of knowledge herself and a treasury +of the arts. But Florence, although it bought the palace from the +Riccardi family a century and more ago, has never cared to give it +back its rightful name. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +S. Lorenzo and Michelangelo + +A forlorn façade--The church of the Medici--Cosimo's +parents' tomb--Donatello's cantoria and pulpits--Brunelleschi's +sacristy--Donatello again--The palace of the dead Grand Dukes--Costly +intarsia--Michelangelo's sacristy--A weary Titan's life--The victim +of capricious pontiffs--The Medici tombs--Mementi mori--The Casa +Buonarroti--Brunelleschi's cloisters--A model library. + +Architecturally S. Lorenzo does not attract as S. Croce and S. Maria +Novella do; but certain treasures of sculpture make it unique. Yet it +is a cool scene of noble grey arches, and the ceiling is very happily +picked out with gold and colour. Savonarola preached some of his most +important sermons here; here Lorenzo the Magnificent was married. + +The façade has never yet been finished: it is just ragged brickwork +waiting for its marble, and likely to wait, although such expenditure +on marble is going on within a few yards of it as makes one gasp. Not +very far away, in the Via Ghibellina, is a house which contains some +rough plans by a master hand for this façade, drawn some four hundred +years ago--the hand of none other than Michelangelo, whose scheme +was to make it not only a wonder of architecture but a wonder also +of statuary, the façade having many niches, each to be filled with +a sacred figure. But Michelangelo always dreamed on a scale utterly +disproportionate to the foolish little span of life allotted to us +and the S. Lorenzo façade was never even begun. + +The piazza which these untidy bricks overlook is now given up to stalls +and is the centre of the cheap clothing district. Looking diagonally +across it from the church one sees the great walls of the courtyard +of what is now the Riccardi palace, but was in the great days the +Medici palace; and at the corner, facing the Borgo S. Lorenzo, is +Giovanni delle Bande Nere, in stone, by the impossible Bandinelli, +looking at least twenty years older than he ever lived to be. + +S. Lorenzo was a very old church in the time of Giovanni de' Medici, +the first great man of the family, and had already been restored +once, in the eleventh century, but it was his favourite church, +chosen by him for his own resting-place, and he spent great sums +in improving it. All this with the assistance of Brunelleschi, who +is responsible for the interior as we now see it, and would, had he +lived, have completed the façade. After Giovanni came Cosimo, who also +devoted great sums to the glory of this church, not only assisting +Brunelleschi with his work but inducing Donatello to lavish his genius +upon it; and the church was thus established as the family vault of +the Medici race. Giovanni lies here; Cosimo lies here; and Piero; +while Lorenzo the Magnificent and Giuliano and certain descendants +were buried in the Michelangelo sacristy, and all the Grand Dukes in +the ostentatious chapel behind the altar. + +Cosimo is buried beneath the floor in front of the high altar, +in obedience to his wish, and by the special permission of the +Roman Church; and in the same vault lies Donatello. Cosimo, who +was buried with all simplicity on August 22nd, 1464, in his last +illness recommended Donatello, who was then seventy-eight, to his son +Piero. The old sculptor survived his illustrious patron and friend +only two and a half years, declining gently into the grave, and his +body was brought here in December, 1466. A monument to his memory +was erected in the church in 1896. Piero (the Gouty), who survived +until 1469, lies close by, his bronze monument, with that of his +brother, being that between the sacristy and the adjoining chapel, +in an imposing porphyry and bronze casket, the work of Verrocchio, one +of the richest and most impressive of all the memorial sculptures of +the Renaissance. The marble pediment is supported by four tortoises, +such as support the monoliths in the Piazza S. Maria Novella. The +iron rope work that divides the sacristy from the chapel is a marvel +of workmanship. + +But we go too fast: the church before the sacristy, and the glories of +the church are Donatello's. We have seen his cantoria in the Museum of +the Cathedral. Here is another, not so riotous and jocund in spirit, +but in its own way hardly less satisfying. The Museum cantoria has +the wonderful frieze of dancing figures; this is an exercise in +marble intarsia. It has the same row of pillars with little specks +of mosaic gold; but its beauty is that of delicate proportions and +soft tones. The cantoria is in the left aisle, in its original place; +the two bronze pulpits are in the nave. These have a double interest +as being not only Donatello's work but his latest work. They were +incomplete at his death, and were finished by his pupil Bertoldo +(1410-1491), and since, as we shall see, Bertoldo became the master of +Michelangelo, when he was a lad of fifteen and Bertoldo an old man of +eighty, these pulpits may be said to form a link between the two great +S. Lorenzo sculptors. How fine and free and spirited Bertoldo could +be, alone, we shall see at the Bargello. The S. Lorenzo pulpits are +very difficult to study: nothing wants a stronger light than a bronze +relief, and in Florence students of bronze reliefs are accustomed +to it, since the most famous of all--the Ghiberti doors--are in the +open air. Only in course of time can one discern the scenes here. The +left pulpit is the finer, for it contains the "Crucifixion" and the +"Deposition," which to me form the most striking of the panels. + +The other piece of sculpture in the church itself is a ciborium +by Desiderio da Settignano, in the chapel at the end of the +right transept--an exquisite work by this rare and playful and +distinguished hand. It is fitting that Desiderio should be here, for +he was Donatello's favourite pupil. The S. Lorenzo ciborium is wholly +charming, although there is a "Deposition" upon it; the little Boy is +adorable; but one sees it with the greatest difficulty owing to the +crowded state of the altar and the dim light. The altar picture in +the Martelli chapel, where the sympathetic Donatello monument (in the +same medium as his "Annunciation" at S. Croce) is found--on the way to +the Library--is by Lippo Lippi, and is notable for the pretty Virgin +receiving the angel's news. There is nice colour in the predella. + +As I have said in the first chapter, we are too prone to ignore the +architect. We look at the jewels and forget the casket. Brunelleschi is +a far greater maker of Florence than either Donatello or Michelangelo; +but one thinks of him rather as an abstraction than a man or forgets +him altogether. Yet the S. Lorenzo sacristy is one of the few perfect +things in the world. What most people, however, remember is its tombs, +its doors, and its reliefs; the proportions escape them. I think its +shallow easy dome beyond description beautiful. Brunelleschi, who had +an investigating genius, himself painted the quaint constellations in +the ceiling over the altar. At the Pazzi chapel we shall find similar +architecture; but there extraneous colour was allowed to come in. Here +such reliefs as were admitted are white too. + +The tomb under the great marble and porphyry table in the centre is +that of Giovanni di Bicci, the father, and Piccarda, the mother, of +Cosimo Pater, and is usually attributed to Buggiano, the adopted son +of Brunelleschi, but other authorities give it either to Donatello +alone or to Donatello with Michelozzo: both from the evidence of +the design and because it is unlikely that Cosimo would ask any one +else than one of these two friends of his to carry out a commission +so near his heart. The table is part of the scheme and not a chance +covering. I think the porphyry centre ought to be movable, so that +the beautiful flying figures on the sarcophagus could be seen. But +Donatello's most striking achievement here is the bronze doors, which +are at once so simple and so strong and so surprising by the activity +of the virile and spirited holy men, all converting each other, thereon +depicted. These doors could not well be more different from Ghiberti's, +in the casting of which Donatello assisted; those in such high relief, +these so low; those so fluid and placid, and these so vigorous. + +Donatello presides over this room (under Brunelleschi). The vivacious, +speaking terra-cotta bust of the young S. Lorenzo on the altar is +his; the altar railing is probably his; the frieze of terra-cotta +cherubs may be his; the four low reliefs in the spandrels, which it +is so difficult to discern but which photographs prove to be wonderful +scenes in the life of S. John the Evangelist--so like, as one peers up +at them, plastic Piranesis, with their fine masonry--are his. The other +reliefs are Donatello's too; but the lavabo in the inner sacristy is +Verrocchio's, and Verrocchio's tomb of Piero can never be overlooked +even amid such a wealth of the greater master's work. + +From this fascinating room--fascinating both in itself and in its +possessions--we pass, after distributing the necessary largesse to +the sacristan, to a turnstile which admits, on payment of a lira, +to the Chapel of the Princes and to Michelangelo's sacristy. Here is +contrast, indeed: the sacristy, austere and classic, and the chapel +a very exhibition building of floridity and coloured ornateness, +dating from the seventeenth century and not finished yet. In paying +the necessary fee to see these buildings one thinks again what the +feelings of Giovanni and Cosimo and Lorenzo the Magnificent, and +even of Cosimo I, all such generous patrons of Florence, would be, +if they could see the present feverish collection of lire in their +beautiful city. + +Of the Chapel of the Princes I have little to say. To pass from +Michelangelo's sacristy to this is an error; see it, if see it you +must, first. While the façade of S. Lorenzo is still neglected and the +cornice of Brunelleschi's dome is still unfinished, this lapidary's +show-room is being completed at a cost of millions of lire. Ever since +1888 has the floor been in progress, and there are many years' work +yet. An enthusiastic custodian gave me a list of the stones which were +used in the designs of the coats of arms of Tuscan cities, of which +that of Fiesole is the most attractive:--Sicily jasper, French jasper, +Tuscany jasper, petrified wood, white and yellow, Corsican granite, +Corsican jasper, Oriental alabaster, French marble, lapis lazuli, +verde antico, African marble, Siena marble, Carrara marble, rose agate, +mother of pearl, and coral. 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. Only two of the Grand +Dukes have their statues--Ferdinand I and Cosimo II--and the Medici +no longer exist in the Florentine memory; and yet the quiet brick +floor is having all this money squandered on it to superimpose costly +marbles which cannot matter to anybody. + +Michelangelo's chapel, called the New Sacristy, was begun for Leo X +and finished for Giulio de' Medici, illegitimate son of the murdered +Giuliano and afterwards Pope Clement VII. Brunelleschi's design +for the Old Sacristy was followed but made more severe. This, one +would feel to be the very home of dead princes even if there were no +statues. The only colours are the white of the walls and the brown +of the pillars and windows; the dome was to have been painted, but +it fortunately escaped. + +The contrast between Michelangelo's dome and Brunelleschi's is +complete--Brunelleschi's so suave and gentle in its rise, with its +grey lines to help the eye, and this soaring so boldly to its lantern, +with its rigid device of dwindling squares. The odd thing is that +with these two domes to teach him better the designer of the Chapel +of the Princes should have indulged in such floridity. + +Such is the force of the architecture in the sacristy that one is +profoundly conscious of being in melancholy's most perfect home; +and the building is so much a part of Michelangelo's life and it +contains such marvels from his hand that I choose it as a place +to tell his story. Michelangelo Buonarroti was born on March 6th, +1475, at Caprese, of which town his father was Podestà. At that time +Brunelleschi had been dead twenty-nine years, Fra Angelico twenty +years, Donatello nine years, Leonardo da Vinci was twenty-three years +old, and Raphael was not yet born. Lorenzo the Magnificent had been +on what was virtually the throne of Florence since 1469 and was a +young man of twenty-six. For foster-mother the child had the wife +of a stone-mason at Settignano, whither the family soon moved, and +Michelangelo used to say that it was with her milk that he imbibed +the stone-cutting art. It was from the air too, for Settignano's +principal industry was sculpture. The village being only three miles +from Florence, from it the boy could see the city very much as we see +it now--its Duomo, its campanile, with the same attendant spires. He +was sent to Florence to school and intended for either the wool or silk +trade, as so many Florentines were; but displaying artistic ability, +he induced his father to apprentice him, at the age of thirteen, to +a famous goldsmith and painter of Florence who had a busy atelier--no +other than Domenico Ghirlandaio, who was then a man of thirty-nine. + +Michelangelo remained with him for three years, and although his +power and imagination were already greater than his master's, he +learned much, and would never have made his Sixtine Chapel frescoes +with the ease he did but for this early grounding. For Ghirlandaio, +although not of the first rank of painters in genius, was pre-eminently +there in thoroughness, while he was good for the boy too in spirit, +having a large way with him. The first work of Ghirlandaio which +the boy saw in the making was the beautiful "Adoration of the Magi," +in the Church of the Spedale degli Innocenti, completed in 1488, and +the S. Maria Novella frescoes, and it is reasonable to suppose that +he helped with the frescoes in colour grinding, even if he did not, +as some have said, paint with his own hand the beggar sitting on the +steps in the scene representing the "Presentation of the Virgin". That +he was already clever with his pencil, we know, for he had made some +caricatures and corrected a drawing or two. + +The three years with Ghirlandaio were reduced eventually to one, the +boy having the good fortune to be chosen as one of enough promise to be +worth instruction, both by precept and example, in the famous Medici +garden. Here he was more at home than in a painting room, for plastic +art was his passion, and not only had Lorenzo the Magnificent gathered +together there many of those masterpieces of ancient sculpture which we +shall see at the Uffizi, but Bertoldo, the aged head of this informal +school, was the possessor of a private collection of Donatellos and +other Renaissance work of extraordinary beauty and worth. Donatello's +influence on the boy held long enough for him to make the low relief +of the Madonna, much in his style, which is now preserved in the +Casa Buonarroti, while the plaque of the battle of the Centaurs and +Lapithae which is also there shows Bertoldo's influence. + +The boy's first encounter with Lorenzo occurred while he was modelling +the head of an aged faun. His magnificent patron stopped to watch him, +pointing out that so old a creature would probably not have such a +fine set of teeth, and Michelangelo, taking the hint, in a moment had +not only knocked out a tooth or two but--and here his observation +told--hollowed the gums and cheeks a little in sympathy. Lorenzo +was so pleased with his quickness and skill that he received him +into his house as the companion of his three sons: of Piero, who +was so soon and so disastrously to succeed his father, but was now a +high-spirited youth; of Giovanni, who, as Pope Leo X many years after, +was to give Michelangelo the commission for this very sacristy; and +of Giuliano, who lies beneath one of the tombs. As their companion +he enjoyed the advantage of sharing their lessons under Poliziano, +the poet, and of hearing the conversation of Pico della Mirandola, +who was usually with Lorenzo; and to these early fastidious and +intellectual surroundings the artist owed much. + +That he read much, we know, the Bible and Dante being constant +companions; and we know also that in addition to modelling and copying +under Bertoldo, he was assiduous in studying Masaccio's frescoes at +the church of the Carmine across the river, which had become a school +of painting. It was there that his fellow-pupil, Pietro Torrigiano, +who was always his enemy and a bully, broke his nose with one blow +and flew to Rome from the rage of Lorenzo. + +It was when Michelangelo was seventeen that Lorenzo died, at the early +age of forty-two, and although the garden still existed and the Medici +palace was still open to the youth, the spirit had passed. Piero, who +succeeded his father, had none of his ability or sagacity, and in two +years was a refugee from the city, while the treasures of the garden +were disposed by auction, and Michelangelo, too conspicuous as a Medici +protégé to be safe, hurried away to Bologna. He was now nineteen. + +Of his travels I say nothing here, for we must keep to Florence, +whither he thought it safe to return in 1495. The city was now governed +by the Great Council and the Medici banished. Michelangelo remained +only a brief time and then went to Rome, where he made his first Pietà, +at which he was working during the trial and execution of Savonarola, +whom he admired and reverenced, and where he remained until 1501, +when, aged twenty-six, he returned to Florence to do some of his most +famous work. The Medici were still in exile. + +It was in August, 1501, that the authorities of the cathedral asked +Michelangelo to do what he could with a great block of marble on +their hands, from which he carved that statue of David of which I +tell the story in chapter XVI. This established his pre-eminence as +a sculptor. Other commissions for statues poured in, and in 1504 he +was invited to design a cartoon for the Palazzo Vecchio, to accompany +one by Leonardo, and a studio was given him in the Via Guelfa for +the purpose. This cartoon, when finished, so far established him +also as the greatest of painters that the Masaccios in the Carmine +were deserted by young artists in order that this might be studied +instead. The cartoon, as I relate in the chapter on the Palazzo +Vecchio, no longer exists. + +The next year, 1505, Michelangelo, nearing his thirtieth birthday, +returned to Rome and entered upon the second and tragic period of his +life, for he arrived there only to receive the order for the Julius +tomb which poisoned his remaining years, and of which more is said +in the chapter on the Accademia, where we see so many vestiges of it +both in marble and plaster. But I might remark here that this vain +and capricious pontiff, whose pride and indecision robbed the world +of no one can ever say what glorious work from Michelangelo's hand, +is the benevolent-looking old man whose portrait by Raphael is in +the Pitti and Uffizi in colour, in the Corsini Palace in charcoal, +and again in our own National Gallery in colour. + +Of Michelangelo at Rome and Carrara, whither he went to superintend +in person the quarrying of the marble that was to be transferred to +life and where he had endless vexations and mortifications, I say +nothing. Enough that the election of his boy friend Giovanni de' +Medici as Pope Leo X in 1513 brought him again to Florence, the Pope +having a strong wish that Michelangelo should complete the façade of +the Medici family church, S. Lorenzo, where we now are. As we know, +the scheme was not carried out, but in 1520 the Pope substituted +another and more attractive one: namely, a chapel to contain the +tombs not only of his father the Magnificent, and his uncle, who had +been murdered in the Duomo many years before, but also his nephew +Piero de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, who had just died, in 1519, and +his younger brother (and Michelangelo's early playmate) Giuliano de' +Medici, Duke of Nemours, who had died in 1516. These were not Medici +of the highest class, but family pride was strong. It is, however, +odd that no memorial of Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici, who had been +drowned at the age of twenty-two in 1503, was required; perhaps it +may have been that since it was Piero's folly that had brought the +Medici into such disgrace in 1494, the less thought of him the better. + +Michelangelo took fire at once, and again hastened to Carrara to +arrange for marble to be sent to his studio in the Via Mozzi, now the +Via S. Zenobi; while the building stone was brought from Fiesole. Leo +X lived only to know that the great man had begun, the new patron +being Giulio de' Medici, natural son of the murdered Giuliano, +now a cardinal, and soon, in 1523, to become Pope Clement VII. This +Pope showed deep interest in the project, but wished not only to add +tombs of himself and Pope Leo X, but also to build a library for the +Laurentian collection, which Michelangelo must design. A little later +he had decided that he would prefer to lie in the choir of the church, +and Leo X with him, and instead therefore of tombs Michelangelo might +merely make a colossal statue of him to stand in the piazza before the +church. The sculptor's temper had not been improved by his many years' +experience of papal caprice, and he replied to this suggestion with +a letter unique even in the annals of infuriated artists. Let the +statue be made, of course, he said, but let it be useful as well as +ornamental: the lower portion to be also a barber's shop, and the +head, since it would be empty, a greengrocer's. The Pope allowed +himself to be rebuked, and abandoned the statue, writing a mild and +even pathetic reply. + +Until 1527 Michelangelo worked away at the building and the tombs, +always secretly, behind impenetrable barriers; and then came the +troubles which led to the siege of Florence, following upon the +banishment of Alessandro, Duke of Urbino, natural son of the very +Lorenzo whom the sculptor was to dignify for all time. By the Emperor +Charles V and Pope Clement VII the city was attacked, and Michelangelo +was called away from Clement's sacristy to fortify Florence against +Clement's soldiers. Part of his ramparts at S. Miniato still remain, +and he strengthened all the gates; but, feeling himself slighted and +hating the whole affair, he suddenly disappeared. One story is that he +hid in the church tower of S. Niccolò, below what is now the Piazzale +dedicated to his memory. Wherever he was, he was proclaimed an outlaw, +and then, on Florence finding that she could not do without him, +was pardoned, and so returned, the city meanwhile having surrendered +and the Medici again being restored to power. + +The Pope showed either fine magnanimity or compounded with facts +in the interest of the sacristy; for he encouraged Michelangelo to +proceed, and the pacific work was taken up once more after the martial +interregnum, and in a desultory way he was busy at it, always secretly +and moodily, until 1533, when he tired completely and never touched +it again. A year later Clement VII died, having seen only drawings +of the tombs, if those. + +But though left unfinished, the sacristy is wholly satisfying--more +indeed than satisfying, conquering. Whatever help Michelangelo may +have had from his assistants, it is known that the symbolical figures +on the tombs and the two seated Medici are from his hand. Of the two +finished or practically finished tombs--to my mind as finished as they +should be--that of Lorenzo is the finer. The presentment of Lorenzo in +armour brooding and planning is more splendid than that of Giuliano; +while the old man, whose head anticipates everything that is considered +most original in Rodin's work, is among the best of Michelangelo's +statuary. Much speculation has been indulged in as to the meaning +of the symbolism of these tombs, and having no theory of my own to +offer, I am glad to borrow Mr. Gerald S. Davies' summary from his +monograph on Michelangelo. The figure of Giuliano typifies energy +and leadership in repose; while the man on his tomb typifies Day and +the woman Night, or the man Action and the woman the sleep and rest +that produce Action. The figure of Lorenzo typifies Contemplation, +the woman Dawn, and the man Twilight, the states which lie between +light and darkness, action and rest. What Michelangelo--who owed +nothing to any Medici save only Lorenzo the Magnificent and had seen +the best years of his life frittered away in the service of them and +other proud princes--may also have intended we shall never know; but +he was a saturnine man with a long memory, and he might easily have +made the tombs a vehicle for criticism. One would not have another +touch of the chisel on either of the symbolical male figures. + +Although a tomb to Lorenzo the Magnificent by Michelangelo would +surely have been a wonderful thing, there is something startling and +arresting in the circumstance that he has none at all from any hand, +but lies here unrecorded. His grandfather, in the church itself, +rests beneath a plain slab, which aimed so consciously at modesty +as thereby to achieve special distinction: Lorenzo, leaving no such +directions, has nothing, while in the same room are monuments to +two common-place descendants to thrill the soul. The disparity is in +itself monumental. That Michelangelo's Madonna and Child are on the +slab which covers the dust of Lorenzo and his brother is a chance. The +saints on either side are S. Cosimo and S. Damian, the patron saints +of old Cosimo de' Medici, and are by Michelangelo's assistants. The +Madonna was intended for the altar of the sacristy. Into this work the +sculptor put much of his melancholy and, one feels, disappointment. The +face of the Madonna is already sad and hopeless; but the Child is +perhaps the most splendid and determined of any in all Renaissance +sculpture. He may, if we like, symbolize the new generation that is +always deriving sustenance from the old, without care or thought of +what the old has to suffer; he crushes his head against his mother's +breast in a very passion of vigorous dependence. [4] + +Whatever was originally intended, it is certain that in Michelangelo's +sacristy disillusionment reigns as well as death. But how beautiful +it is! + +In a little room leading from the sacristy I was shown by a smiling +custodian Lorenzo the Magnificent's coffin, crumbling away, and +photographs of the skulls of the two brothers: Giuliano's with one +of Francesco de' Pazzi's dagger wounds in it, and Lorenzo's, ghastly +in its decay. I gave the man half a lira. + +While he was working on the tombs Michelangelo had undertaken now and +then a small commission, and to this period belongs the David which we +shall see in the little room on the ground floor of the Bargello. In +1534, when he finally abandoned the sacristy, and, leaving Florence for +ever, settled in Rome, the Laurentian library was only begun, and he +had little interest in it. He never saw it again. At Rome his time was +fully occupied in painting the "Last Judgment" in the Sixtine Chapel, +and in various architectural works. But Florence at any rate has two +marble masterpieces that belong to the later period--the Brutus in +the Bargello and the Pietà in the Duomo, which we have seen--that +poignantly impressive rendering of the entombment upon which the old +man was at work when he died, and which he meant for his own grave. + +His death came in 1564, on February 23rd, when he was nearly +eighty-nine, and his body was brought to Florence and buried amid +universal grief in S. Croce, where it has a florid monument. + +Since we are considering the life of Michelangelo, I might perhaps +say here a few words about his house, which is only a few minutes' +distant--at No. 64 Via Ghibellina--where certain early works and +personal relics are preserved. Michelangelo gave the house to his +nephew Leonardo; it was decorated early in the seventeenth century with +scenes in the life of the master, and finally bequeathed to the city +as a heritage in 1858. It is perhaps the best example of the rapacity +of the Florentines; for notwithstanding that it was left freely in +this way a lira is charged for admission. The house contains more +collateral curiosities, as they might be called, than those in the +direct line; but there are architectural drawings from the wonderful +hand, colour drawings of a Madonna, a few studies, and two early pieces +of sculpture--the battle of the Lapithae and Centaurs, a relief marked +by tremendous vigour and full of movement, and a Madonna and Child, +also in relief, with many marks of greatness upon it. In a recess +in Room IV are some personal relics of the artist, which his great +nephew, the poet, who was named after him, began to collect early in +the seventeenth century. As a whole the house is disappointing. + +Upstairs have been arranged a quantity of prints and drawings +illustrating the history of Florence. + +The S. Lorenzo cloisters may be entered either from a side door in +the church close to the Old Sacristy or from the piazza. Although an +official in uniform keeps the piazza door, they are free. Brunelleschi +is again the architect, and from the loggia at the entrance to the +library you see most acceptably the whole of his cathedral dome and +half of Giotto's tower. It is impossible for Florentine cloisters--or +indeed any cloisters--not to have a certain beauty, and these are +unusually charming and light, seen both from the loggia and the ground. + +Michelangelo's Biblioteca Laurenziana, which leads from them, +is one of the most perfect of sombre buildings, the very home of +well-ordered scholarship. The staircase is impressive, although perhaps +a little too severe; the long room could not be more satisfying to +the eye. Michelangelo died before it was finished, but it is his in +design, even to the ceiling and cases for MSS. in which the library +is so rich, and the rich red wood ceiling. Vasari, Michelangelo's +pupil and friend and the biographer to whom we are so much indebted, +carried on the work. His scheme of windows has been upset on the +side opposite the cloisters by the recent addition of a rotunda +leading from the main room. If ever rectangular windows were more +exquisitely and nobly proportioned I should like to see them. The +library is free for students, and the attendants are very good in +calling stray visitors' attention to illuminated missals, old MSS., +early books and so forth. 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. If you look at Mr. Hewlett's +"Earthwork out of Tuscany" you will find an entertaining description +of what it used to be like. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Or San Michele and the Palazzo Vecchio + +The little Bigallo--The Misericordia--Or San Michele--Andrea +Orcagna--The Tabernacle--Old Glass--A company of stone +saints--Donatello's S. George--Dante conferences--The Guilds of +Florence--The Palazzo Vecchio--Two Towers--Bandinelli's group--The +Marzocco--The Piazza della Signoria--Orcagna's Loggia--Cellini +and Cosimo--The Perseus--Verrocchio's dolphin--The Great Council +Hall--Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo's cartoons--Bandinelli's +malice--The Palazzo Vecchio as a home--Two cells and the bell of +independence. + +Let us now proceed along the Via Calzaioli (which means street of +the stocking-makers), running away from the Piazza del Duomo to +the Piazza della Signoria. The fascinatingly pretty building at +the corner, opposite Pisano's Baptistery doors, is the Bigallo, +in the loggia of which foundling children used to be displayed in +the hope that passers-by might pity them sufficiently to make them +presents or even adopt them; but this custom continues no longer. The +Bigallo was designed, it is thought, by Orcagna, and it is worth the +minutest study. + +The Company of the Bigallo, which is no longer an active force, was +one of the benevolent societies of old Florence. But the greatest +of these societies, still busy and merciful, is the Misericordia, +whose head-quarters are just across the Via Calzaioli, in the piazza, +facing the campanile, a company of Florentines pledged at a moment's +notice, no matter on what they may be engaged, to assist in any +charitable work of necessity. For the most part they carry ambulances +to the scenes of accident and perform the last offices for the dead +in the poorer districts. When on duty they wear black robes and +hoods. Their headquarters comprise a chapel, with an altar by Andrea +della Robbia, and a statue of the patron saint of the Misericordia, +S. Sebastian. But their real patron saint is their founder, a common +porter named Pietro Borsi. In the thirteenth century it was the custom +for the porters and loafers connected with the old market to meet +in a shelter here and pass the time away as best they could. Borsi, +joining them, was distressed to find how unprofitable were the hours, +and he suggested the formation of a society to be of some real use, +the money to support it to be obtained by fines in payment for oaths +and blasphemies. A litter or two were soon bought and the machinery +started. The name was the Company of the Brothers of Mercy. That was +in 1240 to 1250. To-day no Florentine is too grand to take his part, +and at the head of the porter's band of brethren is the King. + +Passing along the Via Calzaioli we come on the right to a noble square +building with statues in its niches--Or San Michele, which stands on +the site of the chapel of San Michele in Orto. San Michele in Orto, +or more probably in Horreo (meaning either in the garden or in the +granary), was once part of a loggia used as a corn market, in which +was preserved a picture by Ugolino da Siena representing the Virgin, +and this picture had the power of working miracles. Early in the +fourteenth century the loggia was burned down but the picture was +saved (or quickly replaced), and a new building on a much larger and +more splendid scale was made for it, none other than Or San Michele, +the chief architect being Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's pupil and later +the constructor of the Ponte Vecchio. Where the picture then was, I +cannot say--whether inside the building or out--but the principal use +of the building was to serve as a granary. After 1348, when Florence +was visited by that ravaging plague which Boccaccio describes in +such gruesome detail at the beginning of the "Decameron" and which +sent his gay company of ladies and gentlemen to the Villa Palmieri +to take refuge in story telling, and when this sacred picture was +more than commonly busy and efficacious, it was decided to apply +the enormous sums of money given to the shrine from gratitude in +beautifying the church still more, and chiefly in providing a casket +worthy of holding such a pictorial treasure. Hence came about the +noble edifice of to-day. + +A man of universal genius was called in to execute the tabernacle: +Andrea Orcagna, a pupil probably of Andrea Pisano, and also much +influenced by Giotto, whom though he had not known he idolized, +and one who, like Michelangelo later, was not only a painter and +sculptor but an architect and a poet. Orcagna, or, to give him his +right name, Andrea di Cione, for Orcagna was an abbreviation of +Arcagnolo, flourished in the middle of the fourteenth century. Among +his best-known works in painting are the Dantesque frescoes in the +Strozzi chapel at S. Maria Novella, and that terrible allegory of +Death and Judgment in the Campo Santo at Pisa, in which the gay riding +party come upon the three open graves. Orcagna put all his strength +into the tabernacle of Or San Michele, which is a most sumptuous, +beautiful and thoughtful shrine, yet owing to the darkness of the +church is almost invisible. Guides, it is true, will emerge from the +gloom and hold lighted tapers to it, but a right conception of it is +impossible. The famous miraculous picture over the altar is notable +rather for its properties than for its intrinsic beauty; it is the +panels of the altar, which contain Orcagna's most exquisite work, +representing scenes in the life of the Virgin, with emblematical +figures interspersed, that one wishes to see. Only the back, however, +can be seen really well, and this only when a door opposite to it--in +the Via Calzaioli--is opened. It should always be open, with a grille +across it, that passers-by might have constant sight of this almost +unknown Florentine treasure. It is in the relief of the death of the +Virgin on the back that--on the extreme right--Orcagna introduced +his own portrait. The marble employed is of a delicate softness, and +Orcagna had enough of Giotto's tradition to make the Virgin a reality +and to interest Her, for example, as a mother in the washing of Her +Baby, as few painters have done, and in particular, as, according +to Ruskin, poor Ghirlandaio could not do in his fresco of the birth +of the Virgin Herself. It was Orcagna's habit to sign his sculpture +"Andrea di Cione, painter," and his paintings "Andrea di Cione, +sculptor," and thus point his versatility. By this tabernacle, by +his Pisan fresco, and by the designs of the Loggia de' Lanzi and the +Bigallo (which are usually given to him), he takes his place among +the most interesting and various of the forerunners of the Renaissance. + +Within Or San Michele you learn the secret of the stoned-up windows +which one sees with regret from without. Each, or nearly each, has +an altar against it. What the old glass was like one can divine from +the lovely and sombre top lights in exquisite patterns that are left; +that on the centre of the right wall of the church, as one enters, +having jewels of green glass as lovely as any I ever saw. But blues, +purples, and reds predominate. + +The tabernacle apart, the main appeal of Or San Michele is the statuary +and stone-work of the exterior; for here we find the early masters +at their best. The building being the head-quarters of the twelve +Florentine guilds, the statues and decorations were commissioned by +them. It is as though our City companies should unite in beautifying +the Guildhall. Donatello is the greatest artist here, and it was +for the Armourers that he made his S. George, which stands now, as +he carved it in marble, in the Bargello, but has a bronze substitute +in its original niche, below which is a relief of the slaying of the +dragon from Donatello's chisel. Of this glorious S. George more will +be said later. But I may remark now that in its place here it instantly +proves the modernity and realistic vigour of its sculptor. Fine though +they be, all the other statues of this building are conventional; +they carry on a tradition of religious sculpture such as Niccolò +Pisano respected, many years earlier, when he worked at the Pisan +pulpit. But Donatello's S. George is new and is as beautiful as a +Greek god, with something of real human life added. + +Donatello (with Michelozzo) also made the exquisite border of the +niche in the Via Calzaioli façade, in which Christ and S. Thomas now +stand. He was also to have made the figures (for the Merchants' Guild) +but was busy elsewhere, and they fell to Verrocchio, of whom also we +shall have much to see and say at the Bargello, and to my mind they +are the most beautiful of all. The John the Baptist (made for the +Cloth-dealers), also on this façade, is by Ghiberti of the Baptistery +gates. On the façade of the Via de' Lamberti is Donatello's superb +S. Mark (for the Joiners), which led to Michelangelo's criticism that +he had never seen a man who looked more virtuous, and if S. Mark +were really like that he would believe all his words. "Why don't +you speak to me?" he also said to this statue, as Donatello had +said to the Zuccone. Higher on this façade is Luca della Robbia's +famous arms of the Silk-weavers, one of the perfect things. Luca +also made the arms of the Guild of Merchants, with its Florentine +fleur-de-lis in the midst. For the rest, Ghiberti's S. Stephen, +and Ghiberti and Michelozzo's S. Matthew, on the entrance wall, +are the most remarkable. The blacksmith relief is very lively and +the blacksmith's saint a noble figure. + +The little square reliefs let into the wall at intervals +are often charming, and the stone-work of the windows is very +lovely. In fact, the four walls of this fortress church are almost +inexhaustible. Within, its vaulted roof is so noble, its proportions +so satisfying. One should often sit quietly here, in the gloom, +and do nothing. + +The little building just across the way was the Guild House of the +Arte della Lana, or Wool-combers, and is now the head-quarters of +the Italian Dante Society, who hold a conference every Thursday +in the large room over Or San Michele, gained by the flying +buttress-bridge. The dark picture on the outer wall is the very +Madonna to which, when its position was at the Mercato Vecchio, +condemned criminals used to pray on their way to execution. + +Before we leave Or San Michele and the Arte della Lana, a word on +the guilds of Florence is necessary, for at a period in Florentine +history between, say, the middle of the thirteenth century and the +beginning of the fifteenth, they were the very powerful controllers +of the domestic affairs of the city; and it is possible that it would +have been better for the Florentines had they continued to be so. For +Florence was essentially mercantile and the guilds were composed of +business men; and it is natural that business men should know better +than noblemen what a business city needed. They were divided into +major guilds, chief of which were the woollen merchants--the Arte +della Lana--and the silk merchants--the Calimala--and it was their +pride to put their riches at the city's service. Thus, the Arte della +Lana had charge of the building of the cathedral. Each of the major +guilds provided a Prior, and the Priors elected the Signoria, who +governed the city. It is one of the principal charges that is brought +against Cosimo de' Medici that he broke the power of the guilds. + +Returning to the Via Calzaioli, and turning to the right, we come +very quickly to the Piazza della Signoria, and see before us, +diagonally across it, the Loggia de' Lanzi and the Palazzo Vecchio, +with the gleaming, gigantic figure of Michelangelo's David against +the dark gateway. This, more than the Piazza del Duomo, is the centre +of Florence. + +The Palazzo Vecchio was for centuries called the Signoria, being the +home of the Gonfalonier of Florence and the Signoria who assisted +his councils. It was begun by Arnolfo, the architect of the Duomo and +S. Croce, at the end of the thirteenth century, that being, as we have +seen, a period of great prosperity and ambition in Florence, but many +alterations and additions were made--by Michelozzo, Cronaca, Vasari, +and others--to bring it to what it now is. After being the scene +of many riots, executions, and much political strife and dubiety, +it became a ducal palace in 1532, and is now a civic building and +show-place. In the old days the Palazzo had a ringhiera, or platform, +in front of it, from which proclamations were made. To know what +this was like one has but to go to S. Trinità on a very fine morning +and look at Ghirlandaio's fresco of the granting of the charter to +S. Francis. The scene, painted in 1485, includes not only the Signoria +but the Loggia de' Lanzi (then the Loggia dell' Orcagna)--both before +any statues were set up. + +Every façade of the Palazzo Vecchio is splendid. I cannot say which +I admire more--that which one sees from the Loggia de' Lanzi, with +its beautiful coping of corbels, at once so heavy and so light, with +coloured escutcheons between them, or that in the Via de' Gondi, with +its fine jumble of old brickwork among the stones. The Palazzo Vecchio +is one of the most resolute and independent buildings in the world; +and it had need to be strong, for the waves of Florentine revolt were +always breaking against it. The tower rising from this square fortress +has at once grace and strength and presents a complete contrast to +Giotto's campanile; for Giotto's campanile is so light and delicate and +reasonable and this tower of the Signoria so stern and noble. There +is a difference as between a beautiful woman and a powerful man. In +the functions of the two towers--the dominating towers of Florence--is +a wide difference also, for the campanile calls to prayer, while for +years the sombre notes of the great Signoria bell--the Vacca--rang out +only to bid the citizens to conclave or battle or to sound an alarm. + +It was this Vacca wich (with others) the brave Piero Capponi +threatened to ring when Charles VIII wished, in 1494, to force a +disgraceful treaty on the city. The scene was the Medici Palace in +the Via Larga. The paper was ready for signature and Capponi would +not sign. "Then I must bid my trumpets blow," said Charles. "If you +sound your trumpets," Capponi replied, "we will ring our bells;" +and the King gave way, for he knew that his men had no chance in this +city if it rose suddenly against them. + +But the glory of the Palazzo Vecchio tower--afer its proportions--is +that brilliant inspiration of the architect which led him, so to +speak, to begin again by setting the four columns on the top of the +solid portion. These pillars are indescribably right: so solid +and yet so light, so powerful and yet so comely. Their duty was +to support the bells, and particularly the Vacca, when he rocked +his gigantic weight of green bronze to and fro to warn the city. +Seen from a distance the columns are always beautiful; seen close +by they are each a tower of comfortable strength. And how the wind +blows through them from the Apennines! + +The David on the left of the Palazzo Vecchio main door is only a copy. +The original stood there until 1873, when, after three hundred and +sixty-nine years, it was moved to a covered spot in the Accademia, +as we shall there see and learn its history. If we want to know what +the Palazzo Vecchio looked like at the time David was placed there, +a picture by Piero di Cosimo in our National Gallery tells us, for +he makes it the background of his portrait of Ferrucci, No. 895. + +The group on the right represents Hercules and Cacus, [5] and +is by Baccio Bandinelli (1485-1560), a coarse and offensive man, +jealous of most people and particularly of Michelangelo, to whom, +but for his displeasing Pope Clement VII, the block of marble from +which the Hercules was carved would have been given. Bandinelli in +his delight at obtaining it vowed to surpass that master's David, +and those who want to know what Florence thought of his effort should +consult the amusing and malicious pages of Cellini's Autobiography. +On its way to Bandinelli's studio the block fell into the Arrio, and +it was a joke of the time that it had drowned itself to avoid its fate +at the sculptor's hands. Even after he had half done it, there was a +moment when Michelangelo had an opportunity of taking over the stone +and turning it into a Samson, but the siege of Florence intervened, +and eventually Bandinelli had his way and the hideous thing now on +view was evolved. + +The lion at the left end of the façade is also a copy, the original +by Donatello being in the Bargello, close by; but the pedestal is +Donatello's original. This lion is the Marzocco, the legendary guardian +of the Florentine republic, and it stood here for four centuries and +more, superseding one which was kissed as a sign of submission by +thousands of Pisan prisoners in 1364. The Florentine fleur-de-lis on +the pediment is very beautiful. The same lion may be seen in iron on +his staff at the top of the Palazzo Vecchio tower, and again on the +Bargello, bravely flourishing his lily against the sky. + +The great fountain with its bronze figures at this corner is by +Bartolommeo Ammanati, a pupil of Bandinelli, and the statue of Cosimo +I is by Gian Bologna, who was the best of the post-Michelangelo +sculptors and did much good work in Florence, as we shall see at the +Bargello and in the Boboli Gardens. He studied under Michelangelo +in Rome. Though born a Fleming and called a Florentine, his great +fountain at Bologna, which is really a fine thing, has identified his +fame with that city. Had not Ammanati's design better pleased Cosimo +I, the Bologna fountain would be here, for it was designed for this +piazza. Gian's best-known work is the Flying Mercury in the Bargello, +which we have seen, on mantelpieces and in shop windows, everywhere; +but what is considered his masterpiece is over there, in the Loggia de' +Lanzi, the very beautiful building on the right of the Palazzo, the +"Rape of the Sabines," a group which, to me, gives no pleasure. The +bronze reliefs under the Cosimo statue--this Cosimo being, of course, +far other than Cosimo de' Medici, Father of his Country: Cosimo +I of Tuscany, who insisted upon a crown and reigned from 1537 to +1575--represents his assumption of rule on the death of Alessandro in +1537; his triumphant entry into Siena when he conquered it and absorbed +it; and his reception of the rank of Grand Duke. Of Cosimo (whom we +met in Chapter V) more will be said when we enter the Palazzo Vecchio. + +Between this statue and the Loggia de' Lanzi is a bronze tablet let +into the paving which tells us that it was on this very spot, in 1498, +that Savonarola and two of his companions were put to death. The +ancient palace on the Duomo side of the piazza is attributed in +design to Raphael, who, like most of the great artists of his time, +was also an architect and was the designer of the Palazzo Pandolfini +in the Via San Gallo, No. 74. The Palazzo we are now admiring for +its blend of massiveness and beauty is the Uguccione, and anybody +who wishes may probably have a whole floor of it to-day for a few +shillings a week. The building which completes the piazza on the +right of us, with coats of arms on its façade, is now given to the +Board of Agriculture and has been recently restored. It was once +a Court of Justice. The great building at the opposite side of the +piazza, where the trams start, is a good example of modern Florentine +architecture based on the old: the Palazzo Landi, built in 1871 and +now chiefly an insurance office. In London we have a more attractive +though smaller derivative of the great days of Florentine building, +in Standen's wool shop in Jermyn Street. + +The Piazza della Signoria has such riches that one is in danger of +neglecting some. The Palazzo Vecchio, for example, so overpowers +the Loggia de' Lanzi in size as to draw the eye from that perfect +structure. One should not allow this to happen; one should let +the Palazzo Vecchio's solid nobility wait awhile and concentrate +on the beauty of Orcagna's three arches. Coming so freshly from his +tabernacle in Or San Michele we are again reminded of the versatility +of the early artists. + +This structure, originally called the Loggia de' Priori or Loggia +d'Orcagna, was built in the fourteenth century as an open place for +the delivery of proclamations and for other ceremonies, and also as +a shelter from the rain, the last being a purpose it still serves. It +was here that Savonarola's ordeal by fire would have had place had it +not been frustrated. Vasari also gives Orcagna the four symbolical +figures in the recesses in the spandrels of the arches. The Loggia, +which took its new name from the Swiss lancers, or lanzi, that Cosimo +I kept there--he being a fearful ruler and never comfortable without a +bodyguard--is now a recognized place of siesta; and hither many people +carry their poste-restante correspondence from the neighbouring post +office in the Uffizi to read in comfort. A barometer and thermometer +are almost the only novelties that a visitor from the sixteenth +century would notice. + +The statuary is both old and new; for here are genuine antiques once +in Ferdinand I's Villa Medici at Rome, and such modern masterpieces +as Donatello's Judith and Holofernes, Cellini's Perseus, and Gian +Bologna's two muscular and restless groups. The best of the antiques +is the Woman Mourning, the fourth from the end on the left, which is +a superb creation. + +Donatello's Judith, which gives me less pleasure than any of his work, +both in the statue and in the relief, was commissioned for Cosimo +de' Medici, who placed it in the courtyard or garden of the Medici +palace--Judith, like David, by her brave action against a tyrant, +being a champion of the Florentine republic. In 1495, after Cosimo's +worthless grandson Piero de' Medici had been expelled from Florence +and the Medici palace sacked, the statue was moved to the front of the +Palazzo Vecchio, where the David now is, and an inscription placed +on it describing it as a warning to all enemies of liberty. This +position being needed for Michelangelo's David, in 1506, Judith was +moved to the Loggia to the place where the Sabine group now is. In +1560 it took up its present position. + +Cellini's Perseus will not quite do, I think, after Donatello and +Verrocchio; but few bronzes are more famous, and certainly of none +has so vivacious and exciting a story been written as Cellini's own, +setting forth his disappointments, mortifications, and pride in +connexion with this statue. Cellini, whatever one may think of his +veracity, is a diverting and valuable writer, and the picture of +Cosimo I which he draws for us is probably very near the truth. We +see him haughty, familiar, capricious, vain, impulsive, clear-sighted, +and easily flattered; intensely pleased to be in a position to command +the services of artists and very unwilling to pay. Cellini was a blend +of lackey, child, and genius. He left Francis I in order to serve +Cosimo and never ceased to regret the change. The Perseus was his +greatest accomplishment for Cosimo, and the narrative of its casting +is terrific and not a little like Dumas. When it was uncovered in its +present position all Florence flocked to the Loggia to praise it; the +poets placed commendatory sonnets on the pillars, and the sculptor +peacocked up and down in an ecstasy of triumph. Then, however, his +troubles once more began, for Cosimo had the craft to force Cellini +to name the price, and we see Cellini in an agony between desire for +enough and fear lest if he named enough he would offend his patron. + +The whole book is a comedy of vanity and jealousy and Florentine +vigour, with Courts as a background. It is good to read it; it is +good, having read it, to study once again the unfevered resolute +features of Donatello's S. George. Cellini himself we may see among +the statues under the Uffizi and again in the place of honour (as a +goldsmith) in the centre of the Ponte Vecchio. Looking at the Perseus +and remembering Donatello, one realizes that what Cellini wanted was +character. He had temperament enough but no character. Perseus is +superb, commanding, distinguished, and one doesn't care a fig for it. + +On entering the Palazzo Vecchio we come instantly to one of the most +charming things in Florence--Verrocchio's fountain--which stands +in the midst of the courtyard. This adorable work--a little bronze +Cupid struggling with a spouting dolphin--was made for Lorenzo de' +Medici's country villa at Careggi and was brought here when the +palazzo was refurnished for Francis I, Cosimo I's son and successor, +and his bride, Joanna of Austria, in 1565. Nothing could better +illustrate the accomplishment and imaginative adaptability of the great +craftsmen of the day than the two works of Verrocchio that we have +now seen: the Christ and S. Thomas at Or San Michele, in Donatello +and Michelozzo's niche, and this exquisite fountain splashing water +so musically. Notice the rich decorations of the pillars of this +courtyard and the rich colour and power of the pillars themselves. The +half-obliterated frescoes of Austrian towns on the walls were made to +prevent Joanna from being homesick, but were more likely, one would +guess, to stimulate that malady. In the left corner is the entrance +to the old armoury, now empty, with openings in the walls through +which pieces might be discharged at various angles on any advancing +host. The groined ceiling could support a pyramid. + +The Palazzo Vecchio's ground floor is a series of thoroughfares in +which people are passing continually amid huge pillars and along +dark passages; but our way is up the stone steps immediately to the +left on leaving the courtyard where Verrocchio's child eternally +smiles, for the steps take us to that vast hall designed by Cronaca +for Savonarola's Great Council, which was called into being for the +government of Florence after the luckless Piero de' Medici had been +banished in 1494. Here much history was made. As to its structure +and its architect, Vasari, who later was called in to restore it, +has a deal to say, but it is too technical for us. It was built +by Simone di Pollaiuolo, who was known as Cronaca (the Chronicler) +from his vivid way of telling his adventures. Cronaca (1454-1508), +who was a personal friend and devotee of Savonarola, drew up his plan +in consultation with Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo (although then +so young: only nineteen or twenty) and others. Its peculiarity is that +it is one of the largest rooms in existence without pillars. From the +foot of the steps to the further wall I make it fifty-eight paces, +and thirty wide; and the proportions strike the eye as perfect. The +wall behind the steps is not at right angles with the other--and this +must be as peculiar as the absence of pillars. + +Once there were to be paintings here by the greatest of all, for +masters no less than Leonardo and Michelangelo were commissioned to +decorate it, each with a great historical painting: a high honour +for the youthful Michelangelo. The loss of these works is one of +the tragedies of art. Leonardo chose for his subject the battle of +Anghiari, an incident of 1440 when the Florentines defeated Piccinino +and saved their Republic from the Milanese and Visconti. But both +the cartoon and the fresco have gone for ever, and our sense of loss +is not diminished by reading in Leonardo's Thoughts on Painting the +directions which he wrote for the use of artists who proposed to paint +battles: one of the most interesting and exciting pieces of writing in +the literature of art. Michelangelo's work, which never reached the +wall of the room, as Leonardo's had done, was completed as a cartoon +in 1504 to 1506 in his studio in the hospital of the dyers in Sant' +Onofrio, which is now the Via Guelfa. The subject was also military: +an incident in the long and bitter struggle between Florence and Pisa, +when Sir John Hawkwood (then in the pay of the Pisans, before he came +over finally to the Florentines) attacked a body of Florentines who +were bathing in the river. The scene gave the young artist scope both +for his power of delineating a spirited incident and for his drawing +of the nude, and those who saw it said of this work that it was finer +than anything the painter ever did. While it was in progress all +the young artists came to Sant' Onofrio to study it, as they and its +creator had before flocked to the Carmine, where Masaccio's frescoes +had for three-quarters of a century been object-lessons to students. + +What became of the cartoon is not definitely known, but Vasari's +story is that Bandinelli, the sculptor of the Hercules and Cacus +outside the Palazzo, who was one of the most diligent copyists of the +cartoon after it was placed in a room in this building, had the key +of the door counterfeited, and, obtaining entrance during a moment +of tumult, destroyed the picture. The reasons given are: (1, and a +very poor one) that he desired to own the pieces; (2) that he wished +to deprive other and rival students of the advantage of copying it; +(3) that he wanted Leonardo to be the only painter of the Palazzo to +be considered; and (4, and sufficient) that he hated Michelangelo. At +this time Bandinelli could not have been more than eighteen. Vasari's +story is uncorroborated. + +Leonardo's battle merely perished, being done in some fugitive medium; +and the walls are now covered with the works of Vasari himself +and his pupils and do not matter, while the ceiling is a muddle +of undistinguished paint. There are many statues which also do not +matter; but at the raised end is Leo X, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, +and the first Medici Pope, and at the other a colossal modern statue +of Savonarola, who was in person the dominating influence here for +the years between 1494 and 1497; who is to many the central figure +in the history of this building; and whose last night on earth was +spent with his companions in this very room. But to him we come in +the chapter on S. Marco. + +Many rooms in the Palazzo are to be seen only on special occasions, +but the great hall is always accessible. Certain rooms upstairs, +mostly with rich red and yellow floors, are also visible daily, all +interesting; but most notable is the Salle de Lys, with its lovely blue +walls of lilies, its glorious ceiling of gold and roses, Ghirlandaio's +fresco of S. Zenobius, and the perfect marble doorway containing +the wooden doors of Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano, with the heads +of Dante and Petrarch in intarsia. Note the figures of Charity and +Temperance in the doorway and the charming youthful Baptist. + +In Eleanor of Toledo's dining-room there are some rich and elaborate +green jugs which I remember very clearly and also the ceiling of her +workroom with its choice of Penelope as the presiding genius. Both +Eleanor's chapel and that in which Savonarola prayed before his +execution are shown. + +But the most popular room of all with visitors--and quite naturally--is +the little boudoiresque study of Francis I, with its voluptuous +ladies on the ceiling and the secret treasure-room leading from it, +while on the way, just outside the door, is a convenient oubliette +into which to push any inconvenient visitor. + +The loggia, which Mr. Morley has painted from the Via Castellani, +is also always accessible, and from it one has one of those pleasant +views of warm roofs in which Florence abounds. + +One of the most attractive of the smaller rooms usually on view is +that one which leads from the lily-room and contains nothing but +maps of the world: the most decorative things conceivable, next to +Chinese paintings. Looking naturally for Sussex on the English map, +I found Winchelsey, Battel, Rye, Lewes, Sorham, Arônde, and Cicestra. + +From the map-room a little room is gained where the debates in +the Great Council Hall might be secretly overheard by interested +eavesdroppers, but in particular by Cosimo I. A part of the cornice +has holes in it for this purppse, but on regaining the hall itself +I found that the disparity in the pattern was perfectly evident even +to my eye, so that every one in those suspicious days must have been +aware of the listener. + +The tower should certainly be ascended--not only for the view +and to be so near the bells and the pillars, but also for historic +associations. After a little way we come to the cell where Cosimo de' +Medici, later to be the Father of his Country, was imprisoned, before +that exile which ended in recall and triumph in 1433. This cell, +although not exactly "a home from home," is possible. What is to be +said of that other, some thousands of steps (as it seems) higher, +where Savonarola was kept for forty days, varied only by intervals +of torture? For Savonarola's cell, which is very near the top, is +nothing but a recess in the wall with a door to it. It cannot be +more than five feet wide and eight feet long, with an open loophole +to the wind. If a man were here for forty days and then pardoned his +life would be worth very little. A bitter eyrie from which to watch +the city one had risked all to reform. What thoughts must have been +his in that trap! What reviews of policy! What illuminations as to +Florentine character! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The Uffizi I: The Building and the Collectors + +The growth of a gallery--Vasari's Passaggio--Cosimo I--Francis +I--Ferdinand I--Ferdinand II--Cosimo III--Anna Maria Ludovica de' +Medici--Pietro-Leopoldo--The statues of the façade--Art, literature, +arms, science, and learning--The omissions--Florentine rapacity--An +antique custom--Window views--The Uffizi drawings--The best picture. + +The foreigner should understand at once that any inquiries into the +history of the Uffizi family--such as for example yield interesting +results in the case of the Pazzi and the Albizzi--are doomed to +failure; because Uffizi merely means offices. The Palazzo degli +Uffizi, or palace of offices, was built by Vasari, the biographer of +the artists, for Cosimo I, who having taken the Signoria, or Palazzo +Vecchio, for his own home, wished to provide another building for the +municipal government. It was begun in 1560 and still so far fulfils +its original purpose as to contain the general post office, while it +also houses certain Tuscan archives and the national library. + +A glance at Piero di Cosimo's portrait of Ferrucci in our National +Gallery will show that an ordinary Florentine street preceded the +erection of the Uffizi. At that time the top storey of the building, +as it now exists, was an open terrace affording a pleasant promenade +from the Palazzo Vecchio down to the river and back to the Loggia +de' Lanzi. Beneath this were studios and workrooms where Cosimo's +army of artists and craftsmen (with Bronzino and Cellini as the most +famous) were kept busy; while the public offices were on the ground +floor. Then, as his family increased, Cosimo decided to move, and the +incomplete and abandoned Pitti Palace was bought and finished. In 1565, +as we have seen, Francis, Cosimo's son, married and was installed in +the Palazzo Vecchio, and it was then that Vasari was called upon to +construct the Passaggio which unites the Palazzo Vecchio and the Pitti, +crossing the river by the Ponte Vecchio--Cosimo's idea (borrowed it +is said from Homer's description of the passage uniting the palaces of +Priam and Hector) being not only that he and his son might have access +to each other, but that in the event of danger on the other side of the +river a body of soldiers could be swiftly and secretly mobilized there. + +Cosimo I died in 1574, and Francis I (1574-1587) succeeded him not only +in rule but in that patronage of the arts which was one of the finest +Medicean traditions; and it was he who first thought of making the +Uffizi a picture gallery. To do this was simple: it merely meant the +loss of part of the terrace by walling and roofing it in. Ferdinand +I (1587-1609) added the pretty Tribuna and other rooms, and brought +hither a number of the treasures from the Villa Medici at Rome. Cosimo +II (1609-1621) did little, but Ferdinand II (1621-1670) completed +the roofing in of the terraces, placed there his own collection of +drawings and a valuable collection of Venetian pictures which he +had bought, together with those that his wife Vittoria della Rovere +had brought him from Urbino, while his brothers, Cardinal Giovanni +Carlo de' Medici and Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici (the extremely +ugly man with the curling chin, at the head of the Uffizi stairs), +added theirs. Giovanni Carlo's pictures, which mostly went to the +Pitti were varied; but Leopold's were chiefly portraits of artists, +wherever possible painted by themselves, a collection which is steadily +being added to at the present time and is to be seen in several rooms +of the Uffizi, and those miniature portraits of men of eminence which +we shall see in the corridor between the Poccetti Gallery and Salon of +Justice at the Pitti. Cosimo III (1670-1723) added the Dutch pictures +and the famous Venus de' Medici and other Tribuna statuary. + +The galleries remained the private property of the Medici family until +the Electress Palatine, Anna Maria Ludovica de' Medici, daughter of +Cosimo III and great niece of the Cardinal Leopold, bequeathed all +these treasures, to which she had greatly added, together with bronzes +now in the Bargello, Etruscan antiquities now in the Archaeological +Museum, tapestries also there, and books in the Laurentian library, +to Florence for ever, on condition that they should never be removed +from Florence and should exist for the benefit of the public. Her +death was in 1743, and with her passed away the last descendant of +that Giovanni de' Medici (1360-1429) whom we saw giving commissions +to Donatello, building the children's hospital, and helping Florence +to the best of his power: so that the first Medici and the last were +akin in love of art and in generosity to their beautiful city. + +The new Austrian Grand Dukes continued to add to the Uffizi, +particularly Pietro-Leopoldo (1765-1790), who also founded the +Accademia. To him was due the assembling, under the Uffizi roof, +of all the outlying pictures then belonging to the State, including +those in the gallery of the hospital of S. Maria Nuova, which owned, +among others, the famous Hugo van der Goes. It was he also who +brought together from Rome the Niobe statues and constructed a room +for them. Leopold II added the Iscrizioni. + +It was as recently as 1842 to 1856 that the statues of the great +Florentines were placed in the portico. These, beginning at the Palazzo +Vecchio, are, first, against the inner wall, Cosimo Pater (1389-1464) +and Lorenzo the Magnificent (1450-1492); then, outside: Orcagna; +Andrea Pisano, of the first Baptistery doors; Giotto and Donatello; +Alberti, who could do everything and who designed the façade of +S. Maria Novella; Leonardo and Michelangelo. Next, three poets, Dante +(1265-1321), Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), and Giovanni Boccaccio +(1313-1375). Then Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), the statesman, +and Francesco Guicciardini (1482-1540), the historian. That completes +the first side. + +At the end are Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1516), the explorer, who gave +his name to America, and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), the astronomer; +and above is Cosimo I, the first Grand Duke. + +On the Uffizi's river façade are four figures only--and hundreds of +swallows' nests. The figures are Francesco Ferrucci, who died in 1530, +the general painted by Piero di Cosimo in our National Gallery, who +recaptured Volterra from Pope Clement VII in 1529; Giovanni delle Bande +Nere (1500-1527), father of Cosimo I, and a great fighting man; Piero +Capponi, who died in 1496, and delivered Florence from Charles VIII in +1494, by threatening to ring the city bells; and Farinata degli Uberti, +an earlier soldier, who died in 1264 and is in the "Divina Commedia" +as a hero. It was he who repulsed the Ghibelline suggestion that +Florence should be destroyed and the inhabitants emigrate to Empoli. + +Working back towards the Loggia de' Lanzi we find less-known names: +Pietro Antonio Michele (1679-1737), the botanist; Francesco Redi +(1626-1697), a poet and a man of science; Paolo Mascagni (1732-1815), +the anatomist; Andrea Cesalpino (1519-1603), the philosopher; +S. Antonio (died 1461), Prior of the Convent of S. Marco and Archbishop +of Florence; Francesco Accorso (1182-1229), the jurist; Guido Aretino +(eleventh century), musician; and Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1572), +the goldsmith and sculptor. The most notable omissions are Arnolfo +and Brunelleschi (but these are, as we have seen, on the façade of +the Palazzo de' Canonici, opposite the south side of the cathedral), +Ghiberti, Fra Angelico, and Savonarola. Personally I should like to +have still others here, among them Giorgio Vasari, in recognition +of his enthusiastic and entertaining biographies of the Florentine +artists, to say nothing of the circumstance that he designed this +building. + +Before we enter any Florentine gallery let me say that there is only +one free day and that the crowded Sabbath. Admittance to nearly all is +a lira. Moreover, there is no re-admission. The charge strikes English +visitors, accustomed to the open portals of their own museums and +galleries, as an outrage, and it explains also the little interest in +their treasures which most Florentines display, for being essentially +a frugal people they have seldom seen them. Visitors who can satisfy +the authorities that they are desirous of studying the works of art +with a serious purpose can obtain free passes; but only after certain +preliminaries, which include a seance with a photographer to satisfy +the doorkeeper, by comparing the real and counterfeit physiognomies, +that no illicit transference of the precious privilege has been +made. Italy is, one knows, not a rich country; but the revenue which +the gallery entrance-fees represent cannot reach any great volume, +and such as it is it had much better, I should say, be raised by +other means. Meanwhile, the foreigner chiefly pays it. What Giovanni +de' Medici and Lorenzo de' Medici, and--even more--what Anna Maria +Ludovica de' Medici, who bequeathed to the State these possessions, +would think could they see this feverish and implacable pursuit of +pence, I have not imagination, or scorn, enough to set down. + +Infirm and languid visitors should get it clearly into their heads (1) +that the tour of the Uffizi means a long walk and (2) that there is +a lift. You find it in the umbrella room--at every Florentine gallery +and museum is an official whose one object in life is to take away your +umbrella--and it costs twopence-halfpenny and is worth far more. But +walking downstairs is imperative, because otherwise one would miss +Silenus and Bacchus, and a beautiful urgent Mars, in bronze, together +with other fine sculptured things. + +One of the quaintest symbols of conservatism in Florence is the +scissors of the officials who supply tickets of entrance. Apparently +the perforated line is unknown in Italy; hence the ticket is divided +from its counterfoil (which I assume goes to the authorities in +order that they may check their horrid takings) by a huge pair +of shears. These things are snip-snapping all over Italy, all day +long. Having obtained your ticket you hand it to another official at a +turn-stile, and at last you are free of cupidity and red tape and may +breathe easily again and examine the products of the light-hearted, +generous Renaissance in the right spirit. + +One should never forget, in any gallery of Florence, to look out +of the windows. There is always a courtyard, a street, or a spire +against the sky; and at the Uffizi there are the river and bridges +and mountains. From the loggia of the Palazzo Vecchio I once saw a +woman with some twenty or thirty city pigeons on the table of her +little room, feeding them with maize. + +Except for glimpses of the river and the Via Guicciardini which it +gives, I advise no one to walk through the passage uniting the Pitti +and the Uffizi--unless of course bent on catching some of the ancient +thrill when armed men ran swiftly from one palace to the other to quell +a disturbance or repulse an assault. Particularly does this counsel +apply to wet days, when all the windows are closed and there is no +air. A certain interest attaches to the myriad portraits which line +the walls, chiefly of the Medici and comparatively recent worthies; +but one must have a glutton's passion either for paint or history to +wish to examine these. As a matter of fact, only a lightning-speed +tourist could possibly think of seeing both the Uffizi and the Pitti +on the same day, and therefore the need of the passage disappears. It +is hard worked only on Sundays. + +The drawings in the cases in the first long corridor are worth close +study--covering as they do the whole range of great Italian art: from, +say, Uccello to Carlo Dolci. But as they are from time to time changed +it is useless to say more of them. There is also on the first landing +of the staircase a room in which exhibitions of drawings of the Old +Masters are held, and this is worth knowing about, not only because +of the riches of the portfolios in the collection, but also because +once you have passed the doors you are inside the only picture gallery +in Florence for which no entrance fee is asked. How the authorities +have come to overlook this additional source of revenue, I have no +notion; but they have, and visitors should hasten to make the most +of it for fear that a translation of these words of mine may wander +into bad hands. + +To name the most wonderful picture in the Uffizi would be a very +difficult task. At the Accademia, if a plebiscite were taken, there is +little doubt but that Botticelli's "Primavera" would win. At the Pitti +I personally would name Giorgione's "Concert" without any hesitation at +all; but probably the public vote would go to Raphael's "Madonna della +Sedia". But the Uffizi? Here we are amid such wealth of masterpieces, +and yet when one comes to pass them in review in memory none stands +out as those other two I have named. Perhaps Botticelli would win +again, with his "Birth of Venus". Were the Leonardo finished ... but +it is only a sketch. Luca Signorelli's wild flowers in No. 74 seem to +abide with me as vividly and graciously as anything; but they are but a +detail and it is a very personal predilection. Perhaps the great exotic +work painted far away in Belgium--the Van der Goes triptych--is the +most memorable; but to choose an alien canvas is to break the rules of +the game. Is it perhaps the unfinished Leonardo after all? If not, and +not the Botticelli, it is beyond question that lovely adoring Madonna, +so gentle and sweet, against the purest and bluest of Tuscan skies, +which is attributed to Filippino Lippi: No. 1354. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The Uffizi II: The First Six Rooms + +Lorenzo Monaco--Fra Angelico--Mariotto Albertinelli turns +innkeeper--The Venetian rooms--Giorgione's death--Titian--Mantegna +uniting north and south--Giovanni Bellini--Domenico +Ghirlandaio--Michelangelo--Luca Signorelli--Wild flowers--Leonardo +da Vinci--Paolo Uccello. + +The first and second rooms are Venetian; but I am inclined to think +that it is better to take the second door on the left--the first Tuscan +salon--and walking straight across it come at once to the Salon of +Lorenzo Monaco and the primitives. For the earliest good pictures +are here. Here especially one should remember that the pictures +were painted never for a gallery but for churches. Lorenzo Monaco +(Lawrence the Monk, 1370-c. 1425), who gives his name to this room, +was a monk of the Camaldolese order in the Monastery of the Angeli, +and was a little earlier than Fra Angelico (the Angelic Brother), +the more famous painting monk, whose dates are 1387-1455. Lorenzo +was influenced by Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's godson, friend, pupil, and +assistant. His greatest work is this large Uffizi altar-piece--he +painted nothing but altar-pieces--depicting the Coronation of the +Virgin: a great gay scene of splendour, containing pretty angels who +must have been the delight of children in church. The predella--and +here let me advise the visitor never to overlook the predellas, where +the artist often throws off formality and allows his more natural +feelings to have play, almost as though he painted the picture for +others and the predella for himself--is peculiarly interesting. Look, +at the left, at the death of an old Saint attended by monks and nuns, +whose grief is profound. One other good Lorenzo is here, an "Adoration +of the Magi," No. 39, a little out of drawing but full of life. + +But for most people the glory of the room is not Lorenzo the Monk, +but Brother Giovanni of Fiesole, known ever more as Beato, or Fra, +Angelico. Of that most adoring and most adorable of painters I say much +in the chapter on the Accademia, where he is very fully represented, +and it might perhaps be well to turn to those pages (227-230) and read +here, on our first sight of his genius, what is said. Two Angelicos are +in this room--the great triptych, opposite the chief Lorenzo, and the +"Crowning of the Virgin," on an easel. The triptych is as much copied +as any picture in the gallery, not, however, for its principal figures, +but for the border of twelve angels round the centre panel. Angelico's +benignancy and sweetness are here, but it is not the equal of the +"Coronation," which is a blaze of pious fervour and glory. The group +of saints on the right is very charming; but we are to be more pleased +by this radiant hand when we reach the Accademia. Already, however, +we have learned his love of blue. Another altar-piece with a subtle +quality of its own is the early Annunciation by Simone Martini of +Siena (1285-1344) and Lippo Memmi, his brother (d. 1357), in which +the angel speaks his golden words across the picture through a vase +of lilies, and the Virgin receives them shrinkingly. It is all very +primitive, but it has great attraction, and it is interesting to +think that the picture must be getting on for six hundred years of +age. This Simone was a pupil of Giotto and the painter of a portrait +of Petrarch's Laura, now preserved in the Laurentian library, which +earned him two sonnets of eulogy. It is also two Sienese painters +who have made the gayest thing in this room, the predella, No. 1304, +by Neroccio di Siena (1447-1500) and Francesco di Giorgio di Siena +(1439-1502), containing scenes in the life of S. Benedetto. Neroccio +did the landscape and figures; the other the architecture, and very +fine it is. Another delightful predella is that by Benozzo Gozzoli +(1420-1498), Fra Angelico's pupil, whom we have seen at the Riccardi +palace. Gozzoli's predella is No. 1302. Finally, look at No. 64, +which shows how prettily certain imitators of Fra Angelico could paint. + +After the Sala di Lorenzo Monaco let us enter the first Tuscan +room. The draughtsmanship of the great Last Judgment fresco by Fra +Bartolommeo (1475-1517) and Mariotto Albertinelli (1474-1515) is very +fine. It is now a ruin, but enough remains to show that it must have +been impressive. These collaborators, although intimate friends, +ultimately went different ways, for Fra Bartolommeo came under +the influence of Savonarola, burned his nude drawings, and entered +the Convent of S. Marco; whereas Albertinelli, who was a convivial +follower of Venus, tiring of art and even more of art jargon, took +an inn outside the S. Gallo gate and a tavern on the Ponte Vecchio, +remarking that he had found a way of life that needed no knowledge +of muscles, foreshortening, or perspective, and better still, was +without critics. Among his pupils was Franciabigio, whose lovely +Madonna of the Well we are coming to in the Tribuna. + +Chief among the other pictures are two by the delightful Alessio +Baldovinetti, the master of Domenico Ghirlandaio, Nos. 60 and 56; +and a large early altar-piece by the brothers Orcagna, painted in +1367 for S. Maria Nuova, now the principal hospital of Florence +and once the home of many beautiful pictures. This work is rather +dingy now, but it is interesting as coming in part from the hand +that designed the tabernacle in Or San Michele and the Loggia de' +Lanzi. Another less-known painter represented here is Francesco +Granacci (1469-1543), the author of Nos. 1541 and 1280, both rich +and warm and pleasing. Granacci was a fellow-pupil of Michelangelo +both in Lorenzo de' Medici's garden and in Ghirlandaio's workshop, +and the bosom friend of that great man all his life. Like Piero +di Cosimo, Granacci was a great hand at pageantry, and Lorenzo de' +Medici kept him busy. He was not dependent upon art for his living, +but painted for love of it, and Vasari makes him a very agreeable man. + +Here too is Gio. Antonio Sogliani (1492-1544), also a rare painter, +with a finely coloured and finely drawn "Disputa," No. 63. This painter +seems to have had the same devotion to his master, Lorenzo di Credi, +that di Credi had for his master, Verrocchio. Vasari calls Sogliani a +worthy religious man who minded his own affairs--a good epitaph. His +work is rarely met with in Florence, but he has a large fresco at +S. Marco. Lorenzo di Credi (1459-1537) himself has two pretty circular +paintings here, of which No. 1528 is particularly sweet: "The Virgin +and Child with St. John and Angels," all comfortable and happy in +a Tuscan meadow; while on an easel is another circular picture, by +Pacchiarotto (1477-1535). This has good colour and twilight beauty, +but it does not touch one and is not too felicitously composed. Over +the door to the Venetian room is a Cosimo Rosselli with a prettily +affectionate Madonna and Child. + +From this miscellaneous Tuscan room we pass to the two rooms which +contain the Venetian pictures, of which I shall say less than might +perhaps be expected, not because I do not intensely admire them but +because I feel that the chief space in a Florentine book should be +given to Florentine or Tuscan things. As a matter of fact, I find +myself when in the Uffizi continually drawn to revisit these walls. The +chief treasures are the Titians, the Giorgiones, the Mantegnas, +the Carpaccio, and the Bellini allegory. These alone would make +the Uffizi a Mecca of connoisseurs. Giorgione is to be found in his +richest perfection at the Pitti, in his one unforgettable work that +is preserved there, but here he is wonderful too, with his Cavalier +of Malta, black and golden, and the two rich scenes, Nos. 621 and +630, nominally from Scripture, but really from romantic Italy. To me +these three pictures are the jewels of the Venetian collection. To +describe them is impossible: enough to say that some glowing genius +produced them; and whatever the experts admit, personally I prefer +to consider that genius Giorgione. Giorgione, who was born in 1477 +and died young--at thirty-three--was, like Titian, the pupil of +Bellini, but was greatly influenced by Leonardo da Vinci. Later he +became Titian's master. He was passionately devoted to music and to +ladies, and it was indeed from a lady that he had his early death, +for he continued to kiss her after she had taken the plague. (No bad +way to die, either; for to be in the power of an emotion that sways +one to such foolishness is surely better than to live the lukewarm +calculating lives of most of us.) Giorgione's claim to distinction +is that not only was he a glorious colourist and master of light and +shade, but may be said to have invented small genre pictures that +could be earned about and hung in this or that room at pleasure--such +pictures as many of the best Dutch painters were to bend their genius +to almost exclusively--his favourite subjects being music parties +and picnics. These Moses and Solomon pictures in the Uffizi are of +course only a pretext for gloriously coloured arrangements of people +with rich scenic backgrounds. No.621 is the finer. The way in which +the baby is being held in the other indicates how little Giorgione +thought of verisimilitude. The colour was the thing. + +After the Giorgiones the Titians, chief of which is No.633, "The +Madonna and Child with S. John and S. Anthony," sometimes called the +"Madonna of the Roses," a work which throws a pallor over all Tuscan +pictures; No.626, the golden Flora, who glows more gloriously every +moment (whom we shall see again, at the Pitti, as the Magdalen); +the Duke and Duchess of Urbino, Nos.605 and 599, the Duchess set +at a window with what looks so curiously like a deep blue Surrey +landscape through it and a village spire in the midst; and 618, +an unfinished Madonna and Child in which the Master's methods can +be followed. The Child, completed save for the final bath of light, +is a miracle of draughtsmanship. + +The triptych by Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) is of inexhaustible +interest, for here, as ever, Mantegna is full of thought and +purpose. The left panel represents the Ascension, Christ being borne +upwards by eleven cherubim in a solid cloud; the right panel--by far +the best, I think--shows the Circumcision, where the painter has set +himself various difficulties of architecture and goldsmith's work +for the pleasure of overcoming them, every detail being painted with +Dutch minuteness and yet leaving the picture big; while the middle +panel, which is concave, depicts an Adoration of the Magi that will +bear much study. The whole effect is very northern: not much less +so than our own new National Gallery Mabuse. Mantegna also has a +charming Madonna and Child, No. 1025, with pleasing pastoral and +stone-quarrying activities in the distance. + +On the right of the triptych is the so-called Carpaccio (1450-1519), +a confused but glorious melee of youths and halberds, reds and yellows +and browns, very modern and splendid and totally unlike anything else +in the whole gallery. Uccello may possibly be recalled, but only for +subject. Finally there is Giovanni Bellini (1426-1516), master of +Titian and Giorgione, with his "Sacra Conversazione," No. 631, which +means I know not what but has a haunting quality. Later we shall +see a picture by Michelangelo which has been accused of blending +Christianity and paganism; but Bellini's sole purpose was to do +this. We have children from a Bacchic vase and the crowned Virgin; two +naked saints and a Venetian lady; and a centaur watching a hermit. The +foreground is a mosaic terrace; the background is rocks and water. It +is all bizarre and very curious and memorable and quite unique. For the +rest, I should mention two charming Guardis; a rich little Canaletto; +a nice scene of sheep by Jacopo Bassano; the portrait of an unknown +young man by an unknown painter, No. 1157; and Tintoretto's daring +"Abraham and Isaac". + +The other Venetian room is almost wholly devoted to portraits, chief +among them being a red-headed Tintoretto burning furiously, No. 613, +and Titian's sly and sinister Caterina Cornaro in her gorgeous dress, +No. 648; Piombo's "L'Uomo Ammalato"; Tintoretto's Jacopo Sansovino, +the sculptor, the grave old man holding his calipers who made that +wonderful Greek Bacchus at the Bargello; Schiavone's ripe, bearded +"Ignoto," No. 649, and, perhaps above all, the Moroni, No. 386, +black against grey. There is also Paolo Veronese's "Holy Family with +S. Catherine," superbly masterly and golden but suggesting the Rialto +rather than Nazareth. + +One picture gives the next room, the Sala di Michelangelo, its name; +but entering from the Venetian room we come first on the right to a +very well-known Lippo Lippi, copied in every picture shop in Florence: +No. 1307, a Madonna and two Children. Few pictures are so beset by +delighted observers, but apart from the perfection of it as an early +painting, leaving nothing to later dexterity, its appeal to me is +weak. The Madonna (whose head-dress, as so often in Lippo Lippi, +foreshadows Botticelli) and the landscape equally delight; the +children almost repel, and the decorative furniture in the corner +quite repels. The picture is interesting also for its colour, which +is unlike anything else in the gallery, the green of the Madonna's +dress being especially lovely and distinguished, and vulgarizing +the Ghirlandaio--No. 1297--which hangs next. This picture is far too +hot throughout, and would indeed be almost displeasing but for the +irradiation of the Virgin's face. The other Ghirlandaio--No. 1295--in +this room is far finer and sweeter; but at the Accademia and the Badia +we are to see him at his best in this class of work. None the less, +No. 1295 is a charming thing, and the little Mother and her happy +Child, whose big toe is being so reverently adored by the ancient +mage, are very near real simple life. This artist, we shall see, +always paints healthy, honest babies. The seaport in the distance is +charming too. + +Ghirlandaio's place in this room is interesting on account of his +relation to Michelangelo as first instructor; but by the time that the +great master's "Holy Family," hanging here, was painted all traces +of Ghirlandaio's influence had disappeared, and if any forerunner +is noticeable it is Luca Signorelli. But we must first glance at +the pretty little Lorenzo di Credi, No. 1160, the Annunciation, +an artificial work full of nice thoughts and touches, with the +prettiest little blue Virgin imaginable, a heavenly landscape, and +a predella in monochrome, in one scene of which Eve rises from the +side of the sleeping Adam with extraordinary realism. The announcing +Gabriel is deferential but positive; Mary is questioning but not +wholly surprised. In any collection of Annunciations this picture +would find a prominent place. + +The "Holy Family" of Michelangelo--No. 1139--is remarkable for more +than one reason. It is, to begin with, the only finished easel picture +that exists from his brush. It is also his one work in oils, for he +afterwards despised that medium as being fit "only for children". The +frame is contemporary and was made for it, the whole being commissioned +by Angelo Doni, a wealthy connoisseur whose portrait by Raphael we +shall see in the Pitti, and who, according to Vasari, did his best to +get it cheaper than his bargain, and had in the end to pay dearer. The +period of the picture is about 1503, while the great David was in +progress, when the painter was twenty-eight. That it is masterly and +superb there can be no doubt, but, like so much of Michelangelo's +work, it suffers from its author's greatness. There is an austerity +of power here that ill consorts with the tender domesticity of the +scene, and the Child is a young Hercules. The nude figures in the +background introduce an alien element and suggest the conflict between +Christianity and paganism, the new religion and the old: in short, the +Twilight of the Gods. Whether Michelangelo intended this we shall not +know; but there it is. The prevailing impression left by the picture +is immense power and virtuosity and no religion. In the beautiful Luca +Signorelli--No.74--next it, we find at once a curious similarity and +difference. The Madonna and Child only are in the foreground, a not +too radiant but very tender couple; in the background are male figures +nearly nude: not quite, as Michelangelo made them, and suggesting +no discord as in his picture. Luca was born in 1441, and was thus +thirty-four years older than Michelangelo. This picture is perhaps that +one presented by Luca to Lorenzo de' Medici, of which Vasari tells, and +if so it was probably on a wall in the Medici palace when Michelangelo +as a boy was taught with Lorenzo's sons. Luca's sweetness was alien +to Michelangelo, but not his melancholy or his sense of composition; +while Luca's devotion to the human form as the unit of expression +was in Michelangelo carried out to its highest power. Vasari, who +was a relative of Luca's and a pupil of Michelangelo's, says that +his master had the greatest admiration for Luca's genius. + +Luca Signorelli was born at Cortona, and was instructed by Piero della +Francesca, whose one Uffizi painting is in a later room. His chief work +is at Cortona, at Rome (in the Sixtine Chapel), and at Orvieto. His +fame was sufficient in Florence in 1491 for him to be made one of +the judges of the designs for the façade of the Duomo. Luca lived +to a great age, not dying till 1524, and was much beloved. He was +magnificent in his habits and loved fine clothes, was very kindly +and helpful in disposition, and the influence of his naturalness and +sincerity upon art was great. One very pretty sad story is told of him, +to the effect that when his son, whom he had dearly loved, was killed +at Cortona, he caused the body to be stripped, and painted it with the +utmost exactitude, that through his own handiwork he might be able +to contemplate that treasure of which fate had robbed him. Perhaps +the most beautiful or at any rate the most idiosyncratic thing in the +picture before us is its lovely profusion of wayside flowers. These +come out but poorly in the photograph, but in the painting they +are exquisite both in form and in detail. Luca painted them as if +he loved them. (There is a hint of the same thoughtful care in the +flowers in No. 1133, by Luca, in our National Gallery; but these at +Florence are the best.) No. 74 is in tempera: the next, also by Luca, +No.1291, is in oil, a "Holy Family," a work at once powerful, rich, +and sweet. Here, again, we may trace an influence on Michelangelo, +for the child is shown deprecating a book which his mother is +displaying, while in the beautiful marble tondo of the "Madonna and +Child" by Michelangelo, which we are soon to see in the Bargello, +a reading lesson is in progress, and the child wearying of it. We +find Luca again in the next large picture--No.1547--a Crucifixion, +with various Saints, done in collaboration with Perugino. The design +suggests Luca rather than his companion, and the woman at the foot of +the cross is surely the type of which he was so fond. The drawing of +Christ is masterly and all too sombre for Perugino. Finally, there is +a Luca predella, No. 1298, representing the Annunciation, the Birth +of Christ (in which Joseph is older almost than in any version), and +the Adoration of the Magi, all notable for freedom and richness. Note +the realism and charm and the costume of the two pages of the Magi. + +And now we come to what is perhaps the most lovely picture in the whole +gallery, judged purely as colour and sweetness and design--No.1549--a +"Madonna Adoring," with Filippino Lippi's name and an interrogation +mark beneath it. Who painted it if not Filippino? That is the question; +but into such problems, which confront one at every turn in Florence, +I am neither qualified nor anxious to enter. When doctors disagree any +one may decide before me. The thought, moreover, that always occurs +in the presence of these good debatable pictures, is that any doubt +as to their origin merely enriches this already over-rich period, +since some one had to paint them. Simon not pure becomes hardly less +remarkable than Simon pure. + +If only the Baby were more pleasing, this would be perhaps the most +delightful picture in the world: as it is, its blues alone lift it to +the heavens of delectableness. By an unusual stroke of fortune a crack +in the paint where the panels join has made a star in the tender blue +sky. The Tuscan landscape is very still and beautiful; the flowers, +although conventional and not accurate like Luca's, are as pretty +as can be; the one unsatisfying element is the Baby, who is a little +clumsy and a little in pain, but diffuses radiance none the less. And +the Mother--the Mother is all perfection and winsomeness. Her face +and hands are exquisite, and the Tuscan twilight behind her is so +lovely. I have given a reproduction, but colour is essential. + +The remaining three pictures in the room are a Bastiano and a +Pollaiolo, which are rather for the student than for the wanderer, +and a charming Ignoto, No. 75, which I like immensely. But Ignoto +nearly always paints well. + +In the Sala di Leonardo are two pictures which bear the name of +this most fascinating of all the painters of the world. One is the +Annunciation, No. 1288, upon the authenticity of which much has been +said and written, and the other an unfinished Adoration of the Magi +which cannot be questioned by anyone. The probabilities are that the +Annunciation is an early work and that the ascription is accurate: +at Oxford is a drawing known to be Leonardo's that is almost certainly +a study for a detail of this work, while among the Leonardo drawings +in the His de la Salle collection at the Louvre is something very +like a first sketch of the whole. Certainly one can think of no one +else who could have given the picture its quality, which increases +in richness with every visit to the gallery; but the workshop of +Verrocchio, where Leonardo worked, together with Lorenzo di Credi and +Perugino, with Andrea of the True Eye over all, no doubt put forth +wonderful things. The Annunciation is unique in the collection, both +in colour and character: nothing in the Uffizi so deepens. There are +no cypresses like these in any other picture, no finer drawing than +that of Mary's hands. Luca's flowers are better, in the adjoining +room; one is not too happy about the pedestal of the reading-desk; +and there are Virgins whom we can like more; but as a whole it is +perhaps the most fascinating picture of all, for it has the Leonardo +darkness as well as light. + +Of Leonardo I could write for ever, but this book is not the place; +for though he was a Florentine, Florence has very little of his work: +these pictures only, and one of these only for certain, together +with an angel in a work by Verrocchio at the Accademia which we +shall see, and possibly a sculptured figure over the north door of +the Baptistery. Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Francis I of +France, lured him away, to the eternal loss of his own city. It is +Milan and Paris that are richest in his work, and after that London, +which has at South Kensington a sculptured relief by him as well as +a painting at the National Gallery, a cartoon at Burlington House, +and the British Museum drawings. + +His other work here--No. 1252--in the grave brown frame, was to have +been Leonardo's greatest picture in oil, so Vasari says: larger, in +fact, than any known picture at that time. Being very indistinct, +it is, curiously enough, best as the light begins to fail and the +beautiful wistful faces emerge from the gloom. In their presence one +recalls Leonardo's remark in one of his notebooks that faces are most +interesting beneath a troubled sky. "You should make your portrait," +he adds, "at the hour of the fall of the evening when it is cloudy +or misty, for the light then is perfect." In the background one can +discern the prancing horses of the Magi's suite; a staircase with +figures ascending and descending; the rocks and trees of Tuscany; +and looking at it one cannot but ponder upon the fatality which seems +to have pursued this divine and magical genius, ordaining that almost +everything that he put forth should be either destroyed or unfinished: +his work in the Castello at Milan, which might otherwise be an eighth +wonder of the world, perished; his "Last Supper" at Milan perishing; +his colossal equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza broken to pieces; +his sculpture lost; his Palazzo Vecchio battle cartoon perished; +this picture only a sketch. Even after long years the evil fate still +persists, for in 1911 his "Gioconda" was stolen from the Louvre by +madman or knave. + +Among the other pictures in this room is the rather hot "Adoration +of the Magi," by Cosimo Rosselli (1439-1507), over the Leonardo +"Annunciation," a glowing scene of colour and animation: this Cosimo +being the Cosimo from whom Piero di Cosimo took his name, and an +associate of Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Perugino, and Luca Signorelli +on the Sixtine Chapel frescoes. On the left wall is Uccello's battle +piece, No. 52, very like that in our National Gallery: rich and +glorious as decoration, but quite bearing out Vasari's statement that +Uccello could not draw horses. Uccello was a most laborious student +of animal life and so absorbed in the mysteries of perspective that +he preferred them to bed; but he does not seem to have been able to +unite them. He was a perpetual butt of Donatello. It is told of him +that having a commission to paint a fresco for the Mercato Vecchio +he kept the progress of the work a secret and allowed no one to +see it. At last, when it was finished, he drew aside the sheet for +Donatello, who was buying fruit, to admire. "Ah, Paolo," said the +sculptor reproachfully, "now that you ought to be covering it up, +you uncover it." + +There remain a superb nude study of Venus by Lorenzo di Credi, +No. 3452--one of the pictures which escaped Savonarola's bonfire +of vanities, and No. 1305, a Virgin and Child with various Saints +by Domenico Veneziano (1400-1461), who taught Gentile da Fabriano, +the teacher of Jacopo Bellini. This picture is a complete contrast to +the Uccello: for that is all tapestry, richness, and belligerence, +and this is so pale and gentle, with its lovely light green, a rare +colour in this gallery. + + + +CHAPTER X + +The Uffizi III: Botticelli + +A painter apart--Sandro Filipepi--Artists' names--Piero de' Medici--The +"Adoration of the Magi"--The "Judith" pictures--Lucrezia Tornabuoni, +Lorenzo and Giuliano's mother--The Tournaments--The "Birth of Venus" +and the "Primavera"--Simonetta--A new star--Sacred pictures--Savonarola +and "The Calumny"--The National Gallery--Botticelli's old age and +death. + +We come next to the Sala di Botticelli, and such is the position +held by this painter in the affection of visitors to Florence, and +such the wealth of works from his hand that the Uffizi possesses, +that I feel that a single chapter may well be devoted to his genius, +more particularly as many of his pictures were so closely associated +with Piero de' Medici and Lorenzo de' Medici. We see Botticelli here +at his most varied. The Accademia also is very rich in his work, +having above all the "Primavera," and in this chapter I shall glance +at the Accademia pictures too, returning to them when we reach that +gallery in due course. Among the great Florentine masters Botticelli +stands apart by reason not only of the sensitive wistful delicacy +of his work, but for the profound interest of his personality. He +is not essentially more beautiful than his friend Filippino Lippi +or--occasionally--than Fra Lippo Lippi his master; but he is always +deeper. One feels that he too felt the emotion that his characters +display; he did not merely paint, he thought and suffered. Hence his +work is dramatic. Again Botticelli had far wider sympathies than most +of his contemporaries. He was a friend of the Medici, a neo-Platonist, +a student of theology with the poet Palmieri, an illustrator of Dante, +and a devoted follower of Savonarola. Of the part that women played +in his life we know nothing: in fact we know less of him intimately +than of almost any of the great painters; but this we may guess, that +he was never a happy man. His work falls naturally into divisions +corresponding to his early devotion to Piero de' Medici and his +wife Lucrezia Tornabuoni, in whose house for a while he lived; to +his interest in their sons Lorenzo and Giuliano; and finally to his +belief in Savonarola. Sublime he never is; comforting he never is; +but he is everything else. One can never forget in his presence the +tragedy that attends the too earnest seeker after beauty: not "all +is vanity" does Botticelli say, but "all is transitory". + +Botticelli, as we now call him, was the son of Mariano Filipepi and +was born in Florence in 1447. According to one account he was called +Sandro di Botticelli because he was apprenticed to a goldsmith of +that name; according to another his brother Antonio, a goldsmith, +was known as Botticello (which means a little barrel), and Sandro +being with him was called Sandro di Botticello. Whatever the cause, +the fact remains that the name of Filipepi is rarely used. + +And here a word as to the capriciousness of the nomenclature of +artists. We know some by their Christian names; some by their surnames; +some by their nicknames; some by the names of their towns, and some +by the names of their masters. Tommaso Bigordi, a goldsmith, was so +clever in designing a pretty garland for women's hair that he was +called Ghirlandaio, the garland-maker, and his painter son Domenico +is therefore known for ever as Uomenico Ghirlandaio. Paolo Doni, a +painter of battle scenes, was so fond of birds that he was known as +Uccello (a bird) and now has no other name; Pietro Vannucci coming +from Perugia was called Perugino; Agnolo di Francesco di Migliore +happened to be a tailor with a genius of a son, Andrea; that genius is +therefore Andrea of the Tailor--del Sarto--for all time. And so forth. + +To return to Botticelli. In 1447, when he was born, Fra Angelico +was sixty; and Masaccio had been dead for some years. At the age +of twelve the boy was placed with Fra Lippo Lippi, then a man of +a little more than fifty, to learn painting. That Lippo was his +master one may see continually, but particularly by comparison of +his headdresses with almost any of Botticelli's. Both were minutely +careful in this detail. But where Lippo was beautifully obvious, +Sandro was beautifully analytical: he was also, as I have said, +much more interesting and dramatic. + +Botticelli's best patron was Piero de' Medici, who took him into +his house, much as his son Lorenzo was to take Michelangelo into +his, and made him one of the family. For Piero, Botticelli always +had affection and respect, and when he painted his "Fortitude" as +one of the Pollaiuoli's series of the Virtues for the Mercatanzia +(of which several are in this gallery), he made the figure symbolize +Piero's life and character--or so it is possible, if one wishes to +believe. But it should be understood that almost nothing is known +about Botticelli and the origin of his pictures. At Piero's request +Botticelli painted the "Adoration of the Magi" (No. 1286) which was +to hang in S. Maria Novella as an offering of gratitude for Piero's +escape from the conspiracy of Luca Pitti in 1466. Piero had but just +succeeded to Cosimo when Pitti, considering him merely an invalid, +struck his blow. By virtue largely of the young Lorenzo's address +the attack miscarried: hence the presence of Lorenzo in the picture, +on the extreme left, with a sword. Piero himself in scarlet kneels +in the middle; Giuliano, his second son, doomed to an early death by +assassination, is kneeling on his right. The picture is not only a +sacred painting but (like the Gozzoli fresco at the Riccardi palace) +an exaltation of the Medici family. The dead Cosimo is at the Child's +feet; the dead Giovanni, Piero's brother, stands close to the kneeling +Giuliano. Among the other persons represented are collateral Medici +and certain of their friends. + +It is by some accepted that the figure in yellow, on the extreme right, +looking out of this picture, is Botticelli himself. But for a portrait +of the painter of more authenticity we must go to the Carmine, where, +in the Brancacci chapel, we shall see a fresco by Botticelli's friend +Filippino Lippi representing the Crucifixion of S. Peter, in which +our painter is depicted on the right, looking on at the scene--a +rather coarse heavy face, with a large mouth and long hair. He wears +a purple cap and red cloak. Vasari tells us that Botticelli, although +so profoundly thoughtful and melancholy in his work, was extravagant, +pleasure loving, and given to practical jokes. Part at least of this +might be gathered from observation of Filippino Lippi's portrait of +him. According to Vasari it was No. 1286 which brought Botticelli his +invitation to Rome from Sixtus IV to decorate the Sixtine Chapel. But +that was several years later and much was to happen in the interval. + +The two little "Judith" pictures (Nos. 1156 and 1158) were painted for +Piero de' Medici and had their place in the Medici palace. In 1494, +when Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici was banished from Florence and the +palace looted, they were stolen and lost sight of; but during the reign +of Francis I they reappeared and were presented to his wife Bianca +Capella and once more placed with the Medici treasures. No. 1156, +the Judith walking springily along, sword in hand, having slain the +tyrant, is one of the masterpieces of paint. Everything about it is +radiant, superb, and unforgettable. + +One other picture which the young painter made for his patron--or in +this case his patroness, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Piero's wife--is the +"Madonna of the Magnificat," No. 1267, with its beautiful children and +sweet Madonna, its lovely landscape but not too attractive Child. The +two boys are Lorenzo, on the left, and Giuliano, in yellow. One +of their sisters leans over them. Here the boys are perhaps, in +Botticelli's way, typified rather than portrayed. Although this +picture came so early in his career Botticelli never excelled its +richness, beauty, and depth of feeling, nor its liquid delicacy of +treatment. Lucrezia Tornabuoni, for whom he painted it, was a very +remarkable woman, not only a good mother to her children and a good +wife to Piero, but a poet and exemplar. She survived Piero by thirteen +years and her son Giuliano by five. Botticelli painted her portrait, +which is now in Berlin. + +These pictures are the principal work of Botticelli's first period, +which coincides with the five years of Piero's rule and the period +of mourning for him. + +He next appears in what many of his admirers find his most fascinating +mood, as a joyous allegorist, the picture of Venus rising from +the sea in this room, the "Primavera" which we shall see at the +Accademia, and the "Mars and Venus" in our National Gallery, +belonging to this epoch. But in order to understand them we must +again go to history. Piero was succeeded in 1469 by his son Lorenzo +the Magnificent, who continued his father's friendship for the young +painter, now twenty-two years of age. In 1474 Lorenzo devised for his +brother Giuliano a tournament in the Piazza of S. Croce very like that +which Piero had given for Lorenzo on the occasion of his betrothal +in 1469; and Botticelli was commissioned by Lorenzo to make pictures +commemorating the event. Verrocchio again helped with the costumes; +Lucrezia Donati again was Queen of the Tournament; but the Queen of +Beauty was the sixteen-year-old bride of Marco Vespucci--the lovely +Simonetta Cattaneo, a lady greatly beloved by all and a close friend +both of Giuliano and Lorenzo. + +The praises of Lorenzo's tournament had been sung by Luca Pulci: +Giuliano's were sung by Poliziano, under the title "La Giostra di +Giuliano de' Medici," and it is this poem which Botticelli may be +said to have illustrated, for both poet and artist employ the same +imagery. Thus Poliziano, or Politian (of whom we shall hear more in the +chapter on S. Marco) compares Simonetta to Venus, and in stanzas 100 +and 101 speaks of her birth, describing her blown to earth over the +sea by the breath of the Zephyrs, and welcomed there by the Hours, +one of whom offers her a robe. This, Botticelli translates into +exquisite tempera with a wealth of pretty thoughts. The cornflowers +and daisies on the Hour's dress are alone a perennial joy. + +Simonetta as Venus has some of the wistfulness of the Madonnas; +and not without reason does Botticelli give her this expression, for +her days were very short. In the "Primavera," which we are to see at +the Accademia, but which must be described here, we find Simonetta +again but we do not see her first. We see first that slender upright +commanding figure, all flowers and youth and conquest, in her lovely +floral dress, advancing over the grass like thistle-down. Never +before in painting had anything been done at once so distinguished +and joyous and pagan as this. For a kindred emotion one had to go to +Greek sculpture, but Botticelli, while his grace and joy are Hellenic, +was intensely modern too: the problems of the Renaissance, the tragedy +of Christianity, equally cloud his brow. + +The symbolism of the "Primavera" is interesting. Glorious Spring is +returning to earth--in the presence of Venus--once more to make all +glad, and with her her attendants to dance and sing, and the Zephyrs +to bring the soft breezes; and by Spring Botticelli meant the reign +of Lorenzo, whose tournament motto was "Le temps revient". Simonetta +is again the central figure, and never did Botticelli paint more +exquisitely than here. Her bosom is the prettiest in Florence; the +lining of her robe over her right arm has such green and blue and +gold as never were seen elsewhere; her golden sandals are delicate +as gossamer. Over her head a little cupid hovers, directing his arrow +at Mercury, on the extreme left, beside the three Graces. + +In Mercury, who is touching the trees with his caduceus and +bidding them burgeon, some see Giuliano de' Medici, who was not yet +betrothed. But when the picture was painted both Giuliano and Simonetta +were dead: Simonetta first, of consumption, in 1476, and Giuliano, by +stabbing in 1478. Lorenzo, who was at Pisa during Simonetta's illness, +detailed his own physician for her care. On hearing of her death he +walked out into the night and noticed for the first time a brilliant +star. "See," he said, "either the soul of that most gentle lady +hath been transferred into that new star or else hath it been joined +together thereunto." Of Giuliano's end we have read in Chapter II, +and it was Botticelli, whose destinies were so closely bound up with +the Medici, who was commissioned to paint portraits of the murderous +Pazzi to be displayed outside the Palazzo Vecchio. + +A third picture in what may be called the tournament period is found by +some in the "Venus and Mars," No. 915, in our National Gallery. Here +Giuliano would be Mars, and Venus either one woman in particular +whom Florence wished him to marry, or all women, typified by one, +trying to lure him from other pre-occupations, such as hunting. To +make her Simonetta is to go too far; for she is not like the Simonetta +of the other pictures, and Simonetta was but recently married and a +very model of fair repute. In No. 916 in the National Gallery is a +"Venus with Cupids" (which might be by Botticelli and might be by that +interesting painter of whom Mr. Berenson has written so attractively +as Amico di Sandro), in which Politian's description of Venus, in +his poem, is again closely followed. + +After the tournament pictures we come in Botticelli's career to the +Sixtine Chapel frescoes, and on his return to Florence to other +frescoes, including that lovely one at the Villa Lemmi (then the +Villa Tornabuoni) which is now on the staircase of the Louvre. These +are followed by at least two more Medici pictures--the portrait of +Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici, in this room, No. 1154, the sad-faced +youth with the medal; and the "Pallas and the Centaur" at the Pitti, +an historical record of Lorenzo's success as a diplomatist when he +went to Naples in 1480. + +The latter part of Botticelli's life was spent under the influence +of Savonarola and in despair at the wickedness of the world and its +treatment of that prophet. His pictures became wholly religious, but +it was religion without joy. Never capable of disguising the sorrow +that underlies all human happiness--or, as I think of it in looking +at his work, the sense of transience--Botticelli, as age came upon +him, was more than ever depressed. One has the feeling that he was +persuaded that only through devotion and self-negation could peace of +mind be gained, and yet for himself could find none. The sceptic was +too strong in him. Savonarola's eloquence could not make him serene, +however much he may have come beneath its spell. It but served to +increase his melancholy. Hence these wistful despondent Madonnas, all +so conscious of the tragedy before their Child; hence these troubled +angels and shadowed saints. + +Savonarola was hanged and burned in 1498, and Botticelli paid +a last tribute to his friend in the picture in this room called +"The Calumny". Under the pretence of merely illustrating a passage +in Lucian, who was one of his favourite authors, Botticelli has +represented the campaign against the great reformer. The hall +represents Florence; the judge (with the ears of an ass) the +Signoria and the Pope. Into these ears Ignorance and Suspicion +are whispering. Calumny, with Envy at her side and tended by Fraud +and Deception, holds a torch in one hand and with the other drags +her victim, who personifies (but with no attempt at a likeness) +Savonarola. Behind are the figures of Remorse, cloaked and miserable, +and Truth, naked and unafraid. The statues in the niches ironically +represent abstract virtues. Everything in the decoration of the palace +points to enlightenment and content; and beyond is the calmest and +greenest of seas. + +One more picture was Botticelli to paint, and this also was to +the glory of Savonarola. By good fortune it belongs to the English +people and is No. 1034 in the National Gallery. It has upon it a +Greek inscription in the painter's own hand which runs in English +as follows: "This picture I, Alessandro, painted at the end of the +year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, in the half-time after the time +during the fulfilment of the eleventh of St. John, in the second +woe of the Apocalypse, in the loosing of the devil for three years +and a half. Afterwards he shall be confined, and we shall see him +trodden down, as in this picture." The loosing of the devil was the +three years and a half after Savonarola's execution on May 23rd, +1498, when Florence was mad with reaction from the severity of his +discipline. S. John says, "I will give power unto my two witnesses, +and they shall prophesy"; the painter makes three, Savonarola having +had two comrades with him. The picture was intended to give heart to +the followers of Savonarola and bring promise of ultimate triumph. + +After the death of Savonarola, Botticelli became both poor and +infirm. He had saved no money and all his friends were dead--Piero de' +Medici, Lorenzo, Giuliano, Lucrezia, Simonetta, Filippino Lippi, and +Savonarola. He hobbled about on crutches for a while, a pensioner of +the Medici family, and dying at the age of seventy-eight was buried +in Ognissanti, but without a tombstone for fear of desecration by +the enemies of Savonarola's adherents. + +Such is the outline of Botticelli's life. We will now look at such +of the pictures in this room as have not been mentioned. + +Entering from the Sala di Leonardo, the first picture on the right is +the "Birth of Venus". Then the very typical circular picture--a shape +which has come to be intimately associated with this painter--No. 1289, +"The Madonna of the Pomegranate," one of his most beautiful works, +and possibly yet another designed for Lucrezia Tornabuoni, for the +curl on the forehead of the boy to the left of the Madonna--who is +more than usually troubled--is very like that for which Giuliano de' +Medici was famous. This is a very lovely work, although its colour +is a little depressed. Next is the most remarkable of the Piero de' +Medici pictures, which I have already touched upon--No. 1286, "The +Adoration of the Magi," as different from the Venus as could be: +the Venus so cool and transparent, and this so hot and rich, with +its haughty Florentines and sumptuous cloaks. Above it is No. 23, +a less subtle group--the Madonna, the Child and angels--difficult to +see. And then comes the beautiful "Magnificat," which we know to have +been painted for Lucrezia Tornabuoni and which shall here introduce a +passage from Pater: "For with Botticelli she too, although she holds in +her hands the 'Desire of all nations,' is one of those who are neither +for Jehovah nor for His enemies; and her choice is on her face. The +white light on it is cast up hard and cheerless from below, as when +snow lies upon the ground, and the children look up with surprise +at the strange whiteness of the ceiling. Her trouble is in the very +caress of the mysterious child, whose gaze is always far from her, +and who has already that sweet look of devotion which men have never +been able altogether to love, and which still makes the born saint an +object almost of suspicion to his earthly brethren. Once, indeed, he +guides her hand to transcribe in a book the words of her exaltation, +the 'Ave,' and the 'Magnificat,' and the 'Gaude Maria,' and the young +angels, glad to rouse her for a moment from her devotion, are eager +to hold the ink-horn and to support the book. But the pen almost +drops from her hand, and the high cold words have no meaning for her, +and her true children are those others among whom, in her rude home, +the intolerable honour came to her, with that look of wistful inquiry +on their irregular faces which you see in startled animals--gipsy +children, such as those who, in Apennine villages, still hold out +their long brown arms to beg of you, with their thick black hair +nicely combed, and fair white linen on their sunburnt throats." + +The picture's frame is that which was made for it four hundred and +fifty years ago: by whom, I cannot say, but it was the custom at that +time for the painter himself to be responsible also for the frame. + +The glory of the end wall is the "Annunciation," reproduced in this +book. The picture is a work that may perhaps not wholly please at +first, the cause largely of the vermilion on the floor, but in the +end conquers. The hands are among the most beautiful in existence, +and the landscape, with its one tree and its fairy architecture, is a +continual delight. Among "Annunciations," as among pictures, it stands +very high. It has more of sophistication than most: the Virgin not +only recognizes the honour, but the doom, which the painter himself +foreshadows in the predella, where Christ is seen rising from the +grave. None of Fra Angelico's simple radiance here, and none of Fra +Lippo Lippi's glorified matter-of-fact. Here is tragedy. The painting +of the Virgin's head-dress is again marvellous. + +Next the "Annunciation" on the left is, to my eyes, one of Botticelli's +most attractive works: No. 1303, just the Madonna and Child again, +in a niche, with roses climbing behind them: the Madonna one of his +youngest, and more placid and simple than most, with more than a hint +of the Verrocchio type in her face. To the "School of Botticelli" this +is sometimes attributed: it may be rightly. Its pendant is another +"Madonna and Child," No. 76, more like Lippo Lippi and very beautiful +in its darker graver way. + +The other wall has the "Fortitude," the "Calumny," and the two little +"Judith and Holofernes" pictures. Upon the "Fortitude," to which I +have already alluded, it is well to look at Ruskin, who, however, +was not aware that the artist intended any symbolic reference to +the character and career of Piero de' Medici. The criticism is in +"Mornings in Florence" and it is followed by some fine pages on the +"Judith". The "Justice," "Prudence," and "Charity" of the Pollaiuolo +brothers, belonging to the same series as the "Fortitude," are also +here; but after the "Fortitude" one does not look at them. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +the Uffizi IV: Remaining Rooms + +S. Zenobius--Piero della Francesca--Federigo da Montefeltro--Melozzo +da Forli--The Tribuna--Raphael--Re-arrangement--The gems--The +self-painted portraits--A northern room--Hugo van der Goes-- +Tommaso Portinari--The sympathetic Memling--Rubens riotous--Vittoria +della Rovere--Baroccio--Honthorst--Giovanni the indiscreet--The +Medusa--Medici miniatures--Hercules Seghers--The Sala di Niobe-- +Beautiful antiques. + +Passing from the Sala di Botticelli through the Sala di Lorenzo +Monaco and the first Tuscan rooms to the corridor, we come to +the second Tuscan room, which is dominated by Andrea del Sarto +(1486-1531), whose "Madonna and Child," with "S. Francis and S. John +the Evangelist"--No. 112--is certainly the favourite picture here, +as it is, in reproduction, in so many homes; but, apart from the +Child, I like far better the "S. Giacomo"--No. 1254--so sympathetic +and rich in colour, which is reproduced in this volume. Another +good Andrea is No. 93--a soft and misty apparition of Christ to +the Magdalen. The Sodoma (1477-1549) on the easel--"S. Sebastian," +No. 1279--is very beautiful in its Leonardesque hues and romantic +landscape, and the two Ridolfo Ghirlandaios (1483-1561) near it are +interesting as representing, with much hard force, scenes in the story +of S. Zenobius, of Florence, of whom we read in chapter II. In one he +restores life to the dead child in the midst of a Florentine crowd; +in the other his bier, passing the Baptistery, reanimates the dead +tree. Giotto's tower and the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio are to be +seen on the left. A very different picture is the Cosimo Rosselli, +No. 1280 his, a comely "Madonna and Saints," with a motherly thought +in the treatment of the bodice. + +Among the other pictures is a naked sprawling scene of bodies and +limbs by Cosimo I's favourite painter, Bronzino (1502-1572), called +"The Saviour in Hell," and two nice Medici children from the same +brush, which was kept busy both on the living and ancestral lineaments +of that family; two Filippino Lippis, both fine if with a little +too much colour for this painter: one--No. 1257--approaching the +hotness of a Ghirlandaio carpet piece, but a great feat of crowded +activity; the other, No. 1268, having a beautiful blue Madonna and +a pretty little cherub with a red book. Piero di Cosimo is here, +religious and not mythological; and here are a very straightforward +and satisfying Mariotto Albertinelli--the "Virgin and S. Elizabeth," +very like a Fra Bartolommeo; a very rich and beautiful "Deposition" +by Botticini, one of Verrocchio's pupils, with a gay little predella +underneath it, and a pretty "Holy Family" by Franciabigio. But Andrea +remains the king of the walls. + +From this Sala a little room is gained which I advise all +tired visitors to the Uffizi to make their harbour of refuge and +recuperation; for it has only three or four pictures in it and three +or four pieces of sculpture and some pleasant maps and tapestry +on the walls, and from its windows you look across the brown-red +tiles to S. Miniato. The pictures, although so few, are peculiarly +attractive, being the work of two very rare hands, Piero della +Francesca (? 1398-1492) and Melozzo da Forli (1438-1494). Melozzo +has here a very charming Annunciation in two panels, the fascination +of which I cannot describe. That they are fascinating there is, +however, no doubt. We have symbolical figures by him in our National +Gallery--again hanging next to Piero della Francesca--but they are not +the equal of these in charm, although very charming. These grow more +attractive with every visit: the eager advancing angel with his lily, +and the timid little Virgin in her green dress, with folded hands. + +The two Pieros are, of course, superb. Piero never painted anything +that was not distinguished and liquid, and here he gives us of +his best: portraits of Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and +Battista, his second Duchess, with classical scenes behind them. Piero +della Francesca has ever been one of my favourite painters, and here he +is wholly a joy. Of his works Florence has but few, since he was not +a Florentine, nor did he work here, being engaged chiefly at Urbino, +Ferrara, Arezzo, and Rome. His life ended sadly, for he became totally +blind. In addition to his painting he was a mathematician of much +repute. The Duke of Urbino here depicted is Federigo da Montefeltro, +who ruled from 1444 to 1482, and in 1459 married as his second wife +a daughter of Alessandro Sforza, of Pesaro, the wedding being the +occasion of Piero's pictures. The duke stands out among the many +Italian lords of that time as a humane and beneficent ruler and +collector, and eager to administer well. He was a born fighter, and it +was owing to the loss of his right eye and the fracture of his noble +old nose that he is seen here in such a determined profile against +the lovely light over the Umbrian hills. The symbolical chariots in +the landscape at the back represent respectively the Triumph of Fame +(the Duke's) and the Triumph of Chastity (that of the Duchess). The +Duke's companions are Victory, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, and +Temperance; the little Duchess's are Love, Hope, Faith, Charity, +and Innocence; and if these are not exquisite pictures I never saw any. + +The statues in the room should not be missed, particularly the little +Genius of Love, the Bacchus and Ampelos, and the spoilt little comely +boy supposed to represent--and quite conceivably--the infant Nero. + +Crossing the large Tuscan room again, we come to a little narrow room +filled with what are now called cabinet pictures: far too many to +study properly, but comprising a benignant old man's head, No. 1167, +which is sometimes called a Filippino Lippi and sometimes a Masaccio, +a fragment of a fresco; a boy from the serene perfect hand of Perugino, +No. 1217; two little panels by Fra Bartolommeo--No. 1161--painted for a +tabernacle to hold a Donatello relief and representing the Circumcision +and Nativity, in colours, and at the back a pretty Annunciation in +monochrome; No. 1235, on the opposite wall, a very sweet Mother and +Child by the same artist; a Perseus liberating Andromeda, by Piero +di Cosimo, No. 1312; two or three Lorenzo di Credis; two or three +Alloris; a portrait of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, by Antonio Pollaiuolo; +and three charming little scenes from the lives of S. John the Baptist +and the Virgin, by Fra Angelico, which belong properly to the predella +of an altar-piece that we saw in the first room we entered--No. 1290, +"The Coronation of the Virgin". No. 1162 has the gayest green dress +in it imaginable. + +And here we enter the Tribuna, which is to the Uffizi what the Salon +Carré is to the Louvre: the special treasure-room of the gallery, +holding its most valuable pictures. But to-day there are as good works +outside it as in; for the Michelangelo has been moved to another +room, and Botticelli (to name no other) is not represented here at +all. Probably the statue famous as the Venus de' Medici would be +considered the Tribuna's chief possession; but not by me. Nor should +I vote either for Titian's Venus. In sculpture I should choose rather +the "Knife-sharpener," and among the pictures Raphael's "Madonna del +Cardellino," No. 1129. But this is not to suggest that everything +is not a masterpiece, for it is. Beginning at the door leading from +the room of the little pictures, we find, on our left, Raphael's +"Ignota," No. 1120, so rich and unfeeling, and then Francia's portrait +of Evangelista Scappi, so rich and real and a picture that one never +forgets. Raphael's Julius II comes next, not so powerful as the version +in the Pitti, and above that Titian's famous Venus. In Perugino's +portrait of Francesco delle Opere, No. 287, we find an evening sky +and landscape still more lovely than Francia's. This Francesco was +brother of Giovanni delle Corniole, a protégé of Lorenzo de' Medici, +famous as a carver of intaglios, whose portrait of Savonarola in +this medium, now preserved in the Uffizi, in the Gem Room, was said +by Michelangelo to carry art to its farthest possible point. + +A placid and typical Perugino--the Virgin and two saints--comes next, +and then a northern air sweeps in with Van Dyck's Giovanni di Montfort, +now darkening into gloom but very fine and commanding. Titian's second +Venus is above, for which his daughter Lavinia acted as model (the +Venus of the other version being possibly the Marchesa della Rovere), +and under it is the only Luini in the Uffizi, unmistakably from the +sweet hand and full of Leonardesque influence. Beneath this is a rich +and decorative work of the Veronese school, a portrait of Elisabetta +Gonzaga, with another evening sky. Then we go north again, to Dürer's +Adoration of the Magi, a picture full of pleasant detail--a little +mountain town here, a knight in difficulties with his horse there, +two butterflies close to the Madonna--and interesting also for the +treatment of the main theme in Dürer's masterly careful way; and then +to Spain to Spagnoletto's "S. Jerome" in sombre chiaroscuro; then north +again to a painfully real Christ crowned with thorns, by Lucas van +Leyden, and the mousy, Reynoldsy, first wife of Peter Paul Rubens, +while a Van Dyck portrait under a superb Domenichino and an "Adam +and Eve" by Lucas Cranach complete the northern group. And so we come +to the two Correggios--so accomplished and rich and untouching--all +delightful virtuosity without feeling. The favourite is, of course, +No. 1134, for its adorable Baby, whose natural charm atones for its +theatrical Mother. + +On the other side of the door is No. 1129, the perfect "Madonna +del Cardellino" of Raphael, so called from the goldfinch that the +little boys are caressing. This, one is forced to consider one of the +perfect pictures of the world, even though others may communicate more +pleasure. The landscape is so exquisite and the mild sweetness of the +whole work so complete; and yet, although the technical mastery is +almost thrilling, the "Madonna del Pozzo" by Andrea del Sarto's friend +Franciabigio, close by--No. 1125--arouses infinitely livelier feelings +in the observer, so much movement and happiness has it. Raphael is +perfect but cold; Franciabigio is less perfect (although exceedingly +accomplished) but warm with life. The charm of this picture is as +notable as the skill of Raphael's: it is wholly joyous, and the little +Madonna really once lived. Both are reproduced in this volume. + +Raphael's neighbouring youthful "John the Baptist" is almost a +Giorgione for richness, but is as truly Raphael as the Sebastian +del Piombo, once (like the Franciabigio also) called a Raphael, is +not. How it came to be considered Raphael, except that there may be +a faint likeness to the Fornarina, is a mystery. + +The rooms next the Tribuna have for some time been under +reconstruction, and of these I say little, nor of what pictures are +to be placed there. But with the Tribuna, in any case, the collection +suddenly declines, begins to crumble. The first of these rooms, in the +spring of this year, 1912, was opened with a number of small Italian +paintings; but they are probably only temporarily there. Chief among +them was a Parmigianino, a Boltraffio, a pretty little Guido Reni, +a Cosimo Tura, a Lorenzo Costa, but nothing really important. + +In the tiny Gem Room at the end of the corridor are wonders of +the lapidary's art--and here is the famous intaglio portrait of +Savonarola--but they want better treatment. The vases and other +ornaments should have the light all round them, as in the Galerie +d'Apollon at the Louvre. These are packed together in wall cases and +are hard to see. + +Passing through the end corridor, where the beautiful Matrona reclines +so placidly on her couch against the light, and where we have such +pleasant views of the Ponte Vecchio, the Trinita bridge, the Arno, +and the Apennines, so fresh and real and soothing after so much paint, +we come to the rooms containing the famous collection of self-painted +portraits, which, moved hither from Rome, has been accumulating +in the Uffizi for many years and is still growing, to be invited +to contribute to it being one of the highest honours a painter can +receive. The portraits occupy eight rooms and a passage. Though the +collection is historically and biographically valuable, it contains for +every interesting portrait three or four dull ones, and thus becomes +something of a weariness. Among the best are Lucas Cranach, Anton More, +Van Dyck, Rembrandt (three), Rubens, Seybold, Jordaens, Reynolds, +and Romney, all of which remind us of Michelangelo's dry comment, +"Every painter draws himself well". Among the most interesting to us, +wandering in Florence, are the two Andreas, one youthful and the other +grown fatter than one likes and very different from the melancholy +romantic figure in the Pitti; Verrocchio, by Lorenzo di Credi; Carlo +Dolci, surprising by its good sense and humour; Raphael, angelic, +wistful, and weak; Tintoretto, old and powerful; and Jacopo Bassano, +old and simple. Among the moderns, Corot's portrait of himself is +one of the most memorable, but Fantin Latour, Flandrin, Leon Bonnat, +and Lenbach are all strong and modest; which one cannot say of our +own Leighton. Among the later English heads Orchardson's is notable, +but Mr. Sargent's is disappointing. + +We now come to one of the most remarkable rooms in the gallery, where +every picture is a gem; but since all are northern pictures, imported, +I give no reproductions. This is the Sala di Van der Goes, so called +from the great work here, the triptych, painted in 1474 to 1477 by +Hugo van der Goes, who died in 1482, and was born at Ghent or Leyden +about 1405. This painter, of whose genius there can be no question, +is supposed to have been a pupil of the Van Eycks. Not much is known +of him save that he painted at Bruges and Ghent and in 1476 entered +a convent at Brussels where he was allowed to dine with distinguished +strangers who came to see him and where he drank so much wine that his +natural excitability turned to insanity. He seems, however, to have +recovered, and if ever a picture showed few signs of a deranged or +inflamed mind it is this, which was painted for the agent of the Medici +bank at Bruges, Tommaso Portinari, who presented it to the Hospital of +S. Maria Nuova in his native city of Florence, which had been founded +by his ancestor Folco, the father of Dante's Beatrice. The left panel +shows Tommaso praying with his two sons Antonio and Pigallo, the right +his wife Maria Portinari and their adorably quaint little daughter +with her charming head-dress and costume. The flowers in the centre +panel are among the most beautiful things in any Florentine picture: +not wild and wayward like Luca Signorelli's, but most exquisitely +done: irises, red lilies, columbines and dark red clove pinks--all +unexpected and all very unlikely to be in such a wintry landscape at +all. On the ground are violets. The whole work is grave, austere, +cool, and as different as can be from the Tuscan spirit; yet it is +said to have had a deep influence on the painters of the time and +must have drawn throngs to the Hospital to see it. + +The other Flemish and German pictures in the room are all remarkable +and all warmer in tone. No. 906, an unknown work, is perhaps the +finest: a Crucifixion, which might have borrowed its richness from +the Carpaccio, we saw in the Venetian room. There is a fine Adoration +of the Magi, by Gerard David (1460-1523); an unknown portrait of +Pierantonio Baroncelli and his wife, with a lovely landscape; a jewel +of paint by Hans Memling (1425-1492)--No. 703--the Madonna Enthroned; +a masterpiece of drawing by Dürer, "Calvary"; an austere and poignant +Transportation of Christ to the Sepulchre, by Roger van der Weyden +(1400-1464); and several very beautiful portraits by Memling, notably +Nos. 769 and 780 with their lovely evening light. Memling, indeed, +I never liked better than here. Other fine pictures are a Spanish +prince by Lucas van Leyden; an old Dutch scholar by an artist unknown, +No. 784; and a young husband and wife by Joost van Cleef the Elder, +and a Breughel the Elder, like an old Crome--a beauty--No. 928. The +room is interesting both for itself and also as showing how the +Flemish brushes were working at the time that so many of the great +Italians were engaged on similar themes. + +After the cool, self-contained, scientific work of these northerners +it is a change to enter the Sala di Rubens and find that luxuriant +giant--their compatriot, but how different!--once more. In the Uffizi, +Rubens seems more foreign, far, than any one, so fleshly pagan is +he. In Antwerp Cathedral his "Descent from the Cross," although +its bravura is, as always with him, more noticeable than its piety, +might be called a religious picture, but I doubt if even that would +seem so here. At any rate his Uffizi works are all secular, while +his "Holy Family" in the Pitti is merely domestic and robust. His +Florentine masterpieces are the two Henri IV pictures in this room, +"Henri IV at Ivry," magnificent if not war, and "Henri's entry into +Paris after Ivry," with its confusing muddle of naked warriors and +spears. Only Rubens could have painted these spirited, impossible, +glorious things, which for all their greatness send one's thoughts +back longingly to the portrait of his wife, in the Tribuna, while +No. 216--the Bacchanale--is so coarse as almost to send one's feet +there too. + +Looking round the room, after Rubens has been dismissed, it is too +evident that the best of the Uffizi collection is behind us. There +are interesting portraits here, but biographically rather than +artistically. Here are one or two fine Sustermans' (1597-1681), +that imported painter whom we shall find in such rare form at the +Pitti. Here, for example, is Ferdinand II, who did so much for the +Uffizi and so little for Galileo; and his cousin and wife Vittoria +della Rovere, daughter of Claudia de' Medici (whose portrait, No. 763, +is on the easel), and Federigo della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. This +silly, plump lady had been married at the age of fourteen, and she +brought her husband a little money and many pictures from Urbino, +notably those delightful portraits of an earlier Duke and Duchess of +Urbino by Piero della Francesca, and also the two Titian "Venuses" +in the Tribuna. Ferdinand II and his Grand Duchess were on bad terms +for most of their lives, and she behaved foolishly, and brought up +her son Cosimo III foolishly, and altogether was a misfortune to +Florence. Sustermans the painter she held in the highest esteem, and +in return he painted her not only as herself but in various unlikely +characters, among them a Vestal Virgin and even the Madonna. + +Here also is No. 196, Van Dyck's portrait of Margherita of Lorraine, +whose daughter became Cosimo III's wife--a mischievous, weak face +but magnificently painted; and No. 1536, a vividly-painted elderly +widow by Jordaens (1593-1678); and on each side of the outrageous +Rubens a distinguished Dutch gentleman and lady by the placid, +refined Mierevelt. + +The two priceless rooms devoted to Iscrizioni come next, but we +will finish the pictures first and therefore pass on to the Sala di +Baroccio. Federigo Baroccio (1528-1612) is one of the later painters +for whom I, at any rate, cannot feel any enthusiasm. His position in +the Uffizi is due rather to the circumstance that he was a protégé of +the Cardinal della Rovere at Rome, whose collection came here, than to +his genius. This room again is of interest rather historically than +artistically. Here, for example, are some good Medici portraits by +Bronzino, among them the famous Eleanora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I, +in a rich brocade (in which she was buried), with the little staring +Ferdinand I beside her. Eleanora, as we saw in chapter V. was the first +mistress of the Pitti palace, and the lady who so disliked Cellini and +got him into such trouble through his lying tongue. Bronzino's little +Maria de' Medici--No. 1164--is more pleasing, for the other picture has +a sinister air. This child, the first-born of Cosimo I and Eleanora, +died when only sixteen. Baroccio has a fine portrait--Francesco Maria +II, last Duke of Urbino, and the grandfather of the Vittoria della +Rovere whom we saw in the Sala di Rubens. Here also is a portrait +of Lorenzo the Magnificent by Vasari, but it is of small value +since Vasari was not born till after Lorenzo's death. The Galileo +by Sustermans--No. 163--on the contrary would be from life; and +after the Tribuna portrait of Rubens' first wife it is interesting +to find here his pleasant portrait of Helen Fourment, his second. To +my eyes two of the most attractive pictures in the room are the Young +Sculptor--No. 1266--by Bronzino, and the version of Leonardo's S. Anne +at the Louvre by Andrea Salaino of Milan (1483?-1520?). I like also +the hints of tenderness of Bernardino Luini which break through the +hardness of the Aurelio Luini picture--No. 204. For the rest there are +some sickly Guido Renis and Carlo Dolcis and a sentimental Guercino. + +But the most popular works--on Sundays--are the two Gerard Honthorsts, +and not without reason, for they are dramatic and bold and vivid, +and there is a Baby in each that goes straight to the maternal +heart. No. 157 is perhaps the more satisfying, but I have more reason +to remember the larger one--the Adoration of the Shepherds--for I +watched a copyist produce a most remarkable replica of it in something +under a week, on the same scale. He was a short, swarthy man with +a neck like a bull's, and he carried the task off with astonishing +brio, never drawing a line, finishing each part as he came to it, and +talking to a friend or an official the whole time. Somehow one felt him +to be precisely the type of copyist that Gherardo della Notte ought +to have. This painter was born at Utrecht in 1590 but went early to +Italy, and settling in Rome devoted himself to mastering the methods +of Amerighi, better known as Caravaggio (1569-1609), who specialized +in strong contrasts of light and shade. After learning all he could +in Rome, Honthorst returned to Holland and made much money and fame, +for his hand was swift and sure. Charles I engaged him to decorate +Whitehall. He died in 1656. These two Honthorsts are, as I say, the +most popular of the pictures on Sunday, when the Uffizi is free; but +their supremacy is challenged by the five inlaid tables, one of which, +chiefly in lapis lazuli, must be the bluest thing on earth. + +Passing for the present the Sala di Niobe, we come to the Sala di +Giovanni di San Giovanni, which is given to a second-rate painter who +was born in 1599 and died in 1636. His best work is a fresco at the +Badia of Fiesole. Here he has some theatrical things, including one +picture which sends English ladies out blushing. Here also are some +Lelys, including "Nelly Gwynn". Next are two rooms, one leading from +the other, given to German and Flemish pictures and to miniatures, +both of which are interesting. In the first are more Dürers, and +that alone would make it a desirable resort. Here is a "Virgin and +Child"--No. 851--very naive and homely, and the beautiful portrait of +his father--No. 766---a symphony of brown and green. Less attractive +works from the same hand are the "Apostle Philip"--No. 777--and +"S. Giacomo Maggiore," an old man very coarsely painted by comparison +with the artist's father. Here also is a very beautiful portrait +of Richard Southwell, by Holbein, with the peacock-green background +that we know so well and always rejoice to see; a typical candle-light +Schalcken, No. 800; several golden Poelenburghs; an anonymous portrait +of Virgilius von Hytta of Zuicham, No. 784; a clever smiling lady by +Sustermans, No. 709; the Signora Puliciani and her husband, No. 699; +a rather crudely coloured Rubens--"Venus and Adonis"--No. 812; the +same artist's "Three Graces," in monochrome, very naked; and some +quaint portraits by Lucas Cranach. + +But no doubt to many persons the most enchaining picture here is +the Medusa's head, which used to be called a Leonardo and quite +satisfied Ruskin of its genuineness, but is now attributed to the +Flemish school. The head, at any rate, would seem to be very similar +to that of which Vasari speaks, painted by Leonardo for a peasant, +but retained by his father. Time has dealt hardly with the paint, and +one has to study minutely before Medusa's horrors are visible. Whether +Leonardo's or not, it is not uninteresting to read how the picture +affected Shelley when he saw it here in 1819:-- + + + ... Its Horror and its Beauty are divine. + Upon its lips and eyelids seem to lie + Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine, + Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath, + The agonies of anguish and of death. + + +The little room leading from this one should be neglected by no one +interested in Medicean history, for most of the family is here, in +miniature, by Bronzino's hand. Here also are miniatures by other great +painters, such as Pourbus, Guido Reni, Bassano, Clouet, Holbein. Look +particularly at No. 3382, a woman with brown hair, in purple--a most +fascinating little picture. The Ignota in No. 3348 might easily be +Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England. The other exhibits +are copies in miniature of famous pictures, notable among them a +Raphael--No. 3386--and a Breughel--No. 3445--while No. 3341, the +robing of a monk, is worth attention. + +We come now to the last pictures of the collection--in three little +rooms at the end, near the bronze sleeping Cupid. Those in the first +room were being rearranged when I was last here; the others contain +Dutch works notable for a few masterpieces. There are too many +Poelenburghs, but the taste shown as a whole is good. Perhaps to +the English enthusiast for painting the fine landscape by Hercules +Seghers will, in view of the recent agitation over Lord Lansdowne's +Rembrandt, "The Mill,"--ascribed in some quarters to Seghers--be the +most interesting picture of all. It is a sombre, powerful scene of +rugged coast which any artist would have been proud to sign; but it +in no way recalls "The Mill's" serene strength. Among the best of +its companions are a very good Terburg, a very good Metsu, and an +extremely beautiful Ruysdael. + +And so we are at the end of the pictures--but only to return again and +again--and are not unwilling to fall into the trap of the official who +sits here, and allow him to unlock the door behind the Laocöon group +and enjoy what he recommends as a "bella vista" from the open space, +which turns out to be the roof of the Loggia de' Lanzi. From this +high point one may see much of Florence and its mountains, while, +on looking down, over the coping, one finds the busy Piazza della +Signoria below, with all its cabs and wayfarers. + +Returning to the gallery, we come quickly on the right to the first +of the neglected statuary rooms, the beautiful Sala di Niobe, which +contains some interesting Medicean and other tapestries, and the +sixteen statues of Niobe and her children from the Temple of Apollo, +which the Cardinal Ferdinand de' Medici acquired, and which were for +many years at the Villa Medici at Rome. A suggested reconstruction +of the group will be found by the door. I cannot pretend to a deep +interest in the figures, but I like to be in the room. The famous +Medicean vase is in the middle of it. Sculpture more ingratiating +is close by, in the two rooms given to Iscrizioni: a collection +of priceless antiques which are not only beautiful but peculiarly +interesting in that they can be compared with the work of Donatello, +Verrocchio, and other of the Renaissance sculptors. For in such a case +comparisons are anything but odious and become fascinating. In the +first room there is, for example, a Mercury, isolated on the left, +in marble, who is a blood relation of Donatello's bronze David in +the Bargello; and certain reliefs of merry children, on the right, +low down, as one approaches the second room, are cousins of the same +sculptor's cantoria romps. Not that Donatello ever reproduced the +antique spirit as Michelangelo nearly did in his Bacchus, and Sansovino +absolutely did in his Bacchus, both at the Bargello: Donatello was +of his time, and the spirit of his time animates his creations, but +he had studied the Greek art in Rome and profited by his lessons, +and his evenly-balanced humane mind had a warm corner for pagan +joyfulness. Among other statues in this first room is a Sacerdotessa, +wearing a marble robe with long folds, whose hands can be seen through +the drapery. Opposite the door are Bacchus and Ampelos, superbly +pagan, while a sleeping Cupid is most lovely. Among the various fine +heads is one of Cicero, of an Unknown--No. 377--and of Homer in bronze +(called by the photographers Aristophanes). But each thing in turn is +almost the best. The trouble is that the Uffizi is so vast, and the +Renaissance seems to be so eminently the only proper study of mankind +when one is here, that to attune oneself to the enjoyment of antique +sculpture needs a special effort which not all are ready to make. + +In the centre of the next room is the punctual Hermaphrodite without +which no large Continental gallery is complete. But more worthy of +attention is the torso of a faun on the left, on a revolving pedestal +which (unlike those in the Bargello, as we shall discover) really does +revolve and enables you to admire the perfect back. There is also a +torso in basalt or porphyry which one should study from all points, +and on the walls some wonderful portions of a frieze from the Ara +Pacis, erected in Rome, B.C. 139, with wonderful figures of men, +women, and children on it. Among the heads is a colossal Alexander, +very fine indeed, a beautiful Antoninus, a benign and silly Roman +lady in whose existence one can quite believe, and a melancholy +Seneca. Look also at Nos. 330 and 332, on the wall: 330, a charming +genius, carrying one of Jove's thunderbolts; and 332, a boy who is +sheer Luca della Robbia centuries before his birth. + +I ought to add that, in addition to the various salons in the Uffizi, +the long corridors are hung with pictures too, in chronological order, +the earliest of all being to the right of the entrance door, and in +the corridors there is also some admirable statuary. But the pictures +here, although not the equals of those in the rooms, receive far too +little attention, while the sculpture receives even less, whether the +beutiful full-length athletes or the reliefs on the cisterns, several +of which have riotous Dionysian processions. On the stairs, too, are +some very beautiful works; while at the top, in the turnstile room, is +the original of the boar which Tacca copied in bronze for the Mercato +Nuovo, and just outside it are the Medici who were chiefly concerned +with the formation of the collection. On the first landing, nearest +the ground, is a very beautiful and youthful Bacchus. The ceilings +of the Uffizi rooms and corridors also are painted, thoughtfully +and dexterously, in the Pompeian manner; but there are limits to the +receptive capacity of travellers' eyes, and I must plead guilty to +consistently neglecting them. + + + +CHAPTER XII + +"Aërial Fiesole" + +Andrea del Sarto--Fiesole sights--The Villa Palmieri +and the "Decameron"--Botticini's picture in the National +Gallery--S. Francesco--The Roman amphitheatre--The Etruscan museum--A +sculptor's walk--The Badia di Fiesole--Brunelleschi again--Giovanni +di San Giovanni. + +After all these pictures, how about a little climbing? From so many +windows in Florence, along so many streets, from so many loggias and +towers, and perhaps, above all, from the Piazzale di Michelangelo, +Fiesole is to be seen on her hill, with the beautiful campanile of +her church in the dip between the two eminences, that very soon one +comes to feel that this surely is the promised land. Florence lies +so low, and the delectable mountain is so near and so alluring. But +I am not sure that to dream of Fiesole as desirable, and to murmur +its beautiful syllables, is not best. + + + Let me sit +Here by the window with your hand in mine, +And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole + + +--that was Andrea's way and not an unwise one. For Fiesole at +nearer view can easily disappoint. It is beautifully set on its +hill and it has a fascinating past; but the journey thither on +foot is very wearisome, by the electric tram vexatious and noisy, +and in a horse-drawn carriage expensive and cruel; and when you +are there you become once more a tourist without alleviation and +are pestered by beggars, and by nice little girls who ought to +know better, whose peculiar importunacy it is to thrust flowers +into the hand or buttonhole without any denial. What should have +been a mountain retreat from the city has become a kind of Devil's +Dyke. But if one is resolute, and, defying all, walks up to the +little monastery of S. Francesco at the very top of the hill, one +may rest almost undisturbed, with Florence in the valley below, and +gardens and vineyards undulating beneath, and a monk or two ascending +or descending the steps, and three or four picture-postcard hawkers +gambling in a corner, and lizards on the wall. Here it is good to be +in the late afternoon, when the light is mellowing; and if you want +tea there is a little loggia a few yards down this narrow steep path +where it may be found. How many beautiful villas in which one could +be happy sunning oneself among the lizards lie between this point +and Florence! Who, sitting here, can fail to think that? + +In walking to Fiesole one follows the high walls of the Villa Palmieri, +which is now very private American property, but is famous for ever as +the first refuge of Boccaccio's seven young women and three young men +when they fled from plague-stricken Florence in 1348 and told tales for +ten halcyon days. It is now generally agreed that if Boccaccio had any +particular house in his mind it was this. It used to be thought that +the Villa Poggio Gherardo, Mrs. Ross's beautiful home on the way to +Settignano, was the first refuge, and the Villa Palmieri the second, +but the latest researches have it that the Palmieri was the first and +the Podere della Fonte, or Villa di Boccaccio, as it is called, near +Camerata, a little village below S. Domenico, the other. The Villa +Palmieri has another and somewhat different historical association, +for it was there that Queen Victoria resided for a while in 1888. But +the most interesting thing of all about it is the circumstance that +it was the home of Matteo Palmieri, the poet, and Botticelli's friend +and fellow-speculator on the riddle of life. Palmieri was the author +of a remarkable poem called "La Citta della Vita" (The City of Life) +which developed a scheme of theology that had many attractions to +Botticelli's curious mind. The poem was banned by Rome, although +not until after its author's death. In our National Gallery is a +picture which used to be considered Botticelli's--No. 1126, "The +Assumption of the Virgin"--especially as it is mentioned with some +particularity by Vasari, together with the circumstance that the +poet and painter devised it in collaboration, in which the poem is +translated into pigment. As to the theology, I say nothing, nor as to +its new ascription to Botticini; but the picture has a greater interest +for us in that it contains a view of Florence with its wall of towers +around it in about 1475. The exact spot where the painter sat has been +identified by Miss Stokes in "Six Months in the Apennines". On the +left immediately below the painter's vantage-ground is the Mugnone, +with a bridge over it. On the bank in front is the Villa Palmieri, +and on the picture's extreme left is the Badia of Fiesole. + +On leaving S. Domenico, if still bent on walking, one should keep +straight on and not follow the tram lines to the right. This is the +old and terribly steep road which Lorenzo the Magnificent and his +friends Politian and Pico della Mirandola had to travel whenever they +visited the Medici villa, just under Fiesole, with its drive lined with +cypresses. Here must have been great talk and much conviviality. It +is now called the Villa McCalmont. + +Once at Fiesole, by whatever means you reach it, do not neglect to +climb the monastery steps to the very top. It is a day of climbing, +and a hundred or more steps either way mean nothing now. For here +is a gentle little church with swift, silent monks in it, and a few +flowers in bowls, and a religious picture by that strange Piero di +Cosimo whose heart was with the gods in exile; and the view of Monte +Ceceri, on the other side of Fiesole, seen through the cypresses here, +which could not be better in disposition had Benozzo Gozzoli himself +arranged them, is very striking and memorable. + +Fiesole's darling son is Mino the sculptor--the "Raphael of the +chisel"--whose radiant Madonnas and children and delicate tombs may +be seen here and there all over Florence. The piazza is named after +him; he is celebrated on a marble slab outside the museum, where all +the famous names of the vicinity may be read too; and in the church +is one of his most charming groups and finest heads. They are in a +little chapel on the right of the choir. The head is that of Bishop +Salutati, humorous, wise, and benign, and the group represents the +adoration of a merry little Christ by a merry little S. John and +others. As for the church itself, it is severe and cool, with such +stone columns in it as must last for ever. + +But the main interest of Fiesole to most people is not the +cypress-covered hill of S. Francesco; not the view from the summit; +not the straw mementoes; not the Mino relief in the church; but +the Roman arena. The excavators have made of this a very complete +place. One can stand at the top of the steps and reconstruct it +all--the audience, the performance, the performers. A very little time +spent on building would be needed to restore the amphitheatre to its +original form. Beyond it are baths, and in a hollow the remains of a +temple with the altar where it ever was; and then one walks a little +farther and is on the ancient Etruscan wall, built when Fiesole was an +Etruscan fortified hill city. So do the centuries fall away here! But +everywhere, among the ancient Roman stones so massive and exact, +and the Etruscan stones, are the wild flowers which Luca Signorelli +painted in that picture in the Uffizi which I love so much. + +After the amphitheatre one visits the Museum--with the same ticket--a +little building filled with trophies of the spade. There is nothing +very wonderful--nothing to compare with the treasures of the +Archaeological Museum in Florence--but it is well worth a visit. + +On leaving the Museum on the last occasion that I was there--in +April--I walked to Settignano. The road for a while is between +houses, for Fiesole stretches a long way farther than one suspects, +very high, looking over the valley of the Mugnone; and then after a +period between pine trees and grape-hyacinths one turns to the right +and begins to descend. Until Poggio del Castello, a noble villa, +on an isolated eminence, the descent is very gradual, with views of +Florence round the shoulder of Monte Ceceri; but afterwards the road +winds, to ease the fall, and the wayfarer turns off into the woods and +tumbles down the hill by a dry water-course, amid crags and stones, +to the beginnings of civilization again, at the Via di Desiderio da +Settignano, a sculptor who stands to his native town in precisely +the same relation as Mino to his. + +Settignano is a mere village, with villas all about it, and +the thing to remember there is not only that Desiderio was born +there but that Michelangelo's foster-mother was the wife of a +local stone-cutter--stone-cutting at that time being the staple +industry. On the way back to Florence in the tram, one passes on the +right a gateway surmounted by statues of the poets, the Villa Poggio +Gherardo, of which I have spoken earlier in the chapter. There is no +villa with a nobler mien than this. + +That is one walk from Fiesole. Another is even more a sculptors' way: +for it would include Maiano too, where Benedetto was born. The road +is by way of the tram lines to that acute angle just below Fiesole +when they turn back to S. Domenico, and so straight on down the hill. + +But if one is returning to Florence direct after leaving Fiesole it +is well to walk down the precipitous paths to S. Domenico, and before +again taking the tram visit the Badia overlooking the valley of the +Mugnone. This is done by turning to the right just opposite the church +of S. Domenico, which has little interest structurally but is famous +as being the chapel of the monastery where Fra Angelico was once a +monk. The Badia (Abbey) di Fiesole, as it now is, was built on the +site of an older monastery, by Cosimo Pater. Here Marsilio Ficino's +Platonic Academy used to meet, in the loggia and in the little temple +which one gains from the cloisters, and here Pico della Mirandola +composed his curious gloss on Genesis. + +The dilapidated marble façade of the church and its rugged stone-work +are exceedingly ancient--dating in fact from the eleventh century; +the new building is by Brunelleschi and to my mind is one of his +most beautiful works, its lovely proportions and cool, unfretted +white spaces communicating even more pleasure than the Pazzi chapel +itself. The decoration has been kept simple and severe, and the colour +is just the grey pietra serena of Fiesole, of which the lovely arches +are made, all most exquisitely chiselled, and the pure white of the +walls and ceilings. This church was a favourite with the Medici, and +the youthful Giovanni, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, received +his cardinal's hat here in 1492, at the age of sixteen. He afterwards +became Pope Leo X. How many of the boys, now in the school--for the +monastery has become a Jesuit school--will, one wonders, rise to +similar eminence. + +In the beautiful cloisters we have the same colour scheme as +in the church, and here again Brunelleschi's miraculous genius +for proportion is to be found. Here and there are foliations and +other exquisite tracery by pupils of Desiderio da Settignano. The +refectory has a high-spirited fresco by that artist whose room in +the Uffizi is so carefully avoided by discreet chaperons--Giovanni di +San Giovanni--representing Christ eating at a table, his ministrants +being a crowd of little roguish angels and cherubim, one of whom (on +the right) is in despair at having broken a plate. In the entrance +lobby is a lavabo by Mino da Fiesole, with two little boys of the +whitest and softest marble on it, which is worth study. + +And now we will return to the heart of Florence once more. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +The Badia and Dante + +Filippino Lippi--Buffalmacco--Mino da Fiesole--The Dante quarter--Dante +and Beatrice--Monna Tessa--Gemma Donati--Dante in exile--Dante +memorials in Florence--The Torre della Castagna--The Borgo degli +Albizzi and the old palaces--S. Ambrogio--Mino's tabernacle--Wayside +masterpieces--S. Egidio. + +Opposite the Bargello is a church with a very beautiful doorway +designed by Benedetto da Rovezzano. This church is known as the Badia, +and its delicate spire is a joy in the landscape from every point of +vantage. The Badia is very ancient, but the restorers have been busy +and little of Arnolfo's thirteenth-century work is left. It is chiefly +famous now for its Filippino Lippi and two tombs by Mino da Fiesole, +but historically it is interesting as being the burial-place of the +chief Florentine families in the Middle Ages and as being the scene +of Boccaccio's lectures on Dante in 1373. The Filippino altar-piece, +which represents S. Bernard's Vision of the Virgin (a subject we shall +see treated very beautifully by Fra Bartolommeo at the Accademia) +is one of the most perfect and charming pictures by this artist: +very grave and real and sweet, and the saint's hands exquisitely +painted. The figure praying in the right-hand corner is the patron, +Piero di Francesco del Pugliese, who commissioned this picture for the +church of La Campora, outside the Porta Romana, where it was honoured +until 1529, when Clement VII's troops advancing, it was brought here +for safety and has here remained. + +Close by--in the same chapel--is a little door which the sacristan +will open, disclosing a portion of Arnolfo's building with perishing +frescoes which are attributed to Buffalmacco, an artist as to whose +reality much scepticism prevails. They are not in themselves of much +interest, although the sacristan's eagerness should not be discouraged; +but Buffalmacco being Boccaccio's, Sacchetti's, Vasari's (and, later, +Anatole France's) amusing hero, it is pleasant to look at his work and +think of his freakishness. Buffalmacco (if he ever existed) was one +of the earlier painters, flourishing between 1311 and 1350, and was +a pupil of Andrea Tafi. This simple man he plagued very divertingly, +once frightening him clean out of his house by fixing little lighted +candles to the backs of beetles and steering them into Tafi's bedroom +at night. Tafi was terrified, but on being told by Buffalmacco (who was +a lazy rascal) that these devils were merely showing their objection +to early rising, he became calm again, and agreed to lie in bed to +a reasonable hour. Cupidity, however, conquering, he again ordered +his pupil to be up betimes, when the beetles again re-appeared and +continued to do so until the order was revoked. + +The sculptor Mino da Fiesole, whom we shall shortly see again, at the +Bargello, in portrait busts and Madonna reliefs, is at his best here, +in the superb monument to Count Ugo, who founded, with his mother, +the Benedictine Abbey of which the Badia is the relic. Here all Mino's +sweet thoughts, gaiety and charm are apparent, together with the +perfection of radiant workmanship. The quiet dignity of the recumbent +figure is no less masterly than the group above it. Note the impulsive +urgency of the splendid Charity, with her two babies, and the quiet +beauty of the Madonna and Child above all, while the proportions and +delicate patterns of the tomb as a whole still remain to excite one's +pleasure and admiration. We shall see many tombs in Florence--few not +beautiful--but none more joyously accomplished than this. The tomb +of Carlo Marsuppini in S. Croce by Desiderio da Settignano, which +awaits us, was undoubtedly the parent of the Ugo, Mino following his +master very closely; but his charm was his own. According to Vasari, +the Ugo tomb was considered to be Mino's finest achievement, and he +deliberately made the Madonna and Child as like the types of his +beloved Desiderio as he could. It was finished in 1481, and Mino +died in 1484, from a chill following over-exertion in moving heavy +stones. Mino also has here a monument to Bernardo Giugni, a famous +gonfalonier in the time of Cosimo de' Medici, marked by the same +distinction, but not quite so memorable. The Ugo is his masterpiece. + +The carved wooden ceiling, which is a very wonderful piece of work +and of the deepest and most glorious hue, should not be forgotten; +but nothing is easier than to overlook ceilings. + +The cloisters are small, but they atone for that--if it is a fault--by +having a loggia. From the loggia the top of the noble tower of the +Palazzo Vecchio is seen to perfection. Upon the upper walls is a +series of frescoes illustrating the life of S. Benedict which must +have been very gay and spirited once but are now faded. + +The Badia may be said to be the heart of the Dante quarter. Dante must +often have been in the church before it was restored as we now see it, +and a quotation from the "Divine Comedy" is on its façade. The Via +Dante and the Piazza Donati are close by, and in the Via Dante are many +reminders of the poet besides his alleged birthplace. Elsewhere in the +city we find incised quotations from his poem; but the Baptistery--his +"beautiful San Giovanni"--is the only building in the city proper now +remaining which Dante would feel at home in could he return to it, and +where we can feel assured of sharing his presence. The same pavement is +there on which his feet once stood, and on the same mosaic of Christ +above the altar would his eyes have fallen. When Dante was exiled in +1302 the cathedral had been in progress only for six or eight years; +but it is known that he took the deepest interest in its construction, +and we have seen the stone marking the place where he sat, watching +the builders. The façade of the Badia of Fiesole and the church of +S. Miniato can also remember Dante; no others. + +Here, however, we are on that ground which is richest in personal +associations with him and his, for in spite of re-building and +certain modern changes the air is heavy with antiquity in these +narrow streets and passages where the poet had his childhood and +youth. The son of a lawyer named Alighieri, Dante was born in +1265, but whether or not in this Casa Dante is an open question, +and it was in the Baptistery that he received the name of Durante, +afterwards abbreviated to Dante--Durante meaning enduring, and Dante +giving. Those who have read the "Vita Nuova," either in the original +or in Rossetti's translation, may be surprised to learn that the +boy was only nine when he first met his Beatrice, who was seven, +and for ever passed into bondage to her. Who Beatrice was is again +a mystery, but it has been agreed to consider her in real life a +daughter of Folco Portinari, a wealthy Florentine and the founder of +the hospital of S. Maria Nuova, one of whose descendants commissioned +Hugo van der Goes to paint the great triptych in the Uffizi. Folco's +tomb is in S. Egidio, the hospital church, while in the passage to +the cloisters is a stone figure of Monna Tessa (of whom we are about +to see a coloured bust in the Bargello), who was not only Beatrice's +nurse (if Beatrice were truly of the Portinari) but the instigator, +it is said, of Folco's deed of charity. + +Of Dante's rapt adoration of his lady, the "Vita Nuova" +tells. According to that strangest monument of devotion it was not +until another nine years had passed that he had speech of her; and +then Beatrice, meeting him in the street, saluted him as she passed +him with such ineffable courtesy and grace that he was lifted into a +seventh heaven of devotion and set upon the writing of his book. The +two seem to have had no closer intercourse: Beatrice shone distantly +like a star and her lover worshipped her with increasing loyalty +and fervour, overlaying the idea of her, as one might say, with gold +and radiance, very much as we shall see Fra Angelico adding glory to +the Madonna and Saints in his pictures, and with a similar intensity +of ecstasy. Then one day Beatrice married, and not long afterwards, +being always very fragile, she died, at the age of twenty-three. The +fact that she was no longer on earth hardly affected her poet, +whose worship of her had always so little of a physical character; +and she continued to dominate his thoughts. + +In 1293, however, Dante married, one Gemma Donati of the powerful +Guelph family of that name, of which Corso Donati was the turbulent +head; and by her he had many children. For Gemma, however, he seems +to have had no affection; and when in 1301 he left Florence, never to +return, he left his wife for ever too. In 1289 Dante had been present +at the battle of Campaldino, fighting with the Guelphs against the +Ghibellines, and on settling down in Florence and taking to politics it +was as a Guelph, or rather as one of that branch of the Guelph party +which had become White--the Bianchi--as opposed to the other party +which was Black--the Neri. The feuds between these divisions took the +place of those between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, since Florence +was never happy without internal strife, and it cannot have added +to Dante's home comfort that his wife was related to Corso Donati, +who led the Neri and swaggered in his bullying way about the city with +proprietary, intolerant airs that must have been infuriating to a man +with Dante's stern sense of right and justice. It was Corso who brought +about Dante's exile; but he himself survived only six years, and was +then killed, by his own wish, on his way to execution, rather than be +humiliated in the city in which he had swayed. Dante, whose genius +devised a more lasting form of reprisal than any personal encounter +could be, has depicted him in the "Purgatorio" as on the road to Hell. + +But this is going too fast. In 1300, when Dante was thirty-five, +he was sufficiently important to be made one of the six priors of +the city, and in that capacity was called upon to quell a Neri and +Bianchi disturbance. It is characteristic of him that he was a party +to the banishment of the leaders of both factions, among whom was +his closest friend, Guido Cavalcanti the poet, who was one of the +Bianchi. Whether it was because of Guide's illness in his exile, or +from what motive, we shall not know; but the sentence was lightened in +the case of this Bianco, a circumstance which did not add to Dante's +chances when the Neri, having plotted successfully with Charles of +Valois, captured supreme power in Florence. This was in the year 1301, +Dante being absent from that city on an embassy to Rome to obtain help +for the Bianchi. He never came back; for the Neri plans succeeded; +the Neri assumed control; and in January, 1302, he was formally fined +and banished. The nominal charge against him was of misappropriating +funds while a prior; but that was merely a matter of form. His real +offence was in being one of the Bianchi, an enemy of the Neri, and +a man of parts. + +In the rest of Dante's life Florence had no part, except in his +thoughts. How he viewed her the "Divine Comedy" tells us, and that he +longed to return we also know. The chance was indeed once offered, +but under the impossible condition that he should do public penance +in the Baptistery for his offence. This he refused. He wandered here +and there, and settled finally in Ravenna, where he died in 1321. The +"Divine Comedy" anticipating printing by so many years--the invention +did not reach Florence until 1471--Dante could not make much popular +way as a poet before that time; but to his genius certain Florentines +were earlier no strangers, not only by perusing MS. copies of his +great work, which by its richness in Florentine allusions excited +an interest apart altogether from that created by its beauty, but by +public lectures on the poem, delivered in the churches by order of +the Signoria. The first Dante professor to be appointed was Giovanni +Boccaccio, the author of the "Decameron," who was born in 1313, +eight years before Dante's death, and became an enthusiast upon the +poet. The picture in the Duomo was placed there in 1465. Then came +printing to Florence and Dante passed quickly into his countrymen's +thoughts and language. + +Michelangelo, who was born in time--1475--to enjoy in Lorenzo the +Magnificent's house the new and precious advantage of printed books, +became as a boy a profound student of the poet, and when later an +appeal was made from Florence to the Pope to sanction the removal of +Dante's bones to Florence, Michelangelo was among the signatories. But +it was not done. His death-mask from Ravenna is in the Bargello: +a few of his bones and their coffin are still in Ravenna, in the +monastery of Classe, piously preserved in a room filled with Dante +relics and literature; his tomb is elsewhere at Ravenna, a shrine +visited by thousands every year. + +Ever since has Dante's fame been growing, so that only the Bible has +led to more literature; and to-day Florence is more proud of him than +any of her sons, except perhaps Michelangelo. We have seen one or +two reminders of him already; more are here where we stand. We have +seen the picture in honour of him which the Republic set up in the +cathedral; his head on a beautiful inlaid door in the Palazzo Vecchio, +the building where his sentence of banishment was devised and carried, +to be followed by death sentence thrice repeated (burning alive, +to be exact); and we have seen the head-quarters of the Florentine +Dante society in the guild house at Or San Michele. We have still +to see his statue opposite S. Croce, another fresco head in S. Maria +Novella, certain holograph relics at the library at S. Lorenzo, and +his head again by his friend Giotto, in the Bargello, where he would +have been confined while waiting for death had he been captured. + +Dante's house has been rebuilt, very recently, and next to it is a +newer building still, with a long inscription in Italian upon it, +to the effect that the residence of Bella and Bellincione Alighieri +stood hereabouts, and in that abode was Dante born. The Commune of +Florence, it goes on to say, having secured possession of the site, +"built this edifice on the remains of the ancestral house as fresh +evidence of the public veneration of the divine poet". The Torre della +Castagna, across the way, has an inscription in Italian, which may be +translated thus: "This Tower, the so-called Tower of the Chestnut, is +the solitary remnant of the head-quarters from which the Priors of the +Arts governed Florence, before the power and glory of the Florentine +Commune procured the erection of the Palace of the Signoria". + +Few persons in the real city of Florence, it may be said confidently, +live in a house built for them; but hereabouts none at all. In fact, +it is the exception anywhere near the centre of the city to live in +a house built less than three centuries ago. Palaces abound, cut up +into offices, flats, rooms, and even cinema theatres. The telegraph +office in the Via del Proconsolo is a palace commissioned by the +Strozzi but never completed: hence its name, Nonfinito; next it is +the superb Palazzo Quaratesi, which Brunelleschi designed, now the +head-quarters of a score of firms and an Ecclesiastical School whence +sounds of sacred song continually emerge. + +Since we have Mino da Fiesole in our minds and are on the subject +of old palaces let us walk from the Dante quarter in a straight line +from the Corso, that very busy street of small shops, across the Via +del Proconsolo and down the Borgo degli Albizzi to S. Ambrogio, where +Mino was buried. This Borgo is a street of palaces and an excellent one +in which to reflect upon the strange habit which wealthy Florentines +then indulged of setting their mansions within a few feet of those +opposite. Houses--or rather fortresses--that must have cost fortunes +and have been occupied by families of wealth and splendour were +erected so close to their vis-à-vis that two carts could not pass +abreast between them. Side by side contiguity one can understand, +but not this other adjacence. Every ground floor window is barred +like a gaol. Those bars tell us something of the perils of life in +Florence in the great days of faction ambition; while the thickness +of the walls and solidity of construction tell us something too of +the integrity of the Florentine builders. These ancient palaces, +one feels, whatever may happen to them, can never fall to ruin. Such +stones as are placed one upon the other in the Pitti and the Strozzi +and the Riccardi nothing can displace. It is an odd thought that +several Florentine palaces and villas built before Columbus sailed +for America are now occupied by rich Americans, some of them draw +possibly much of their income from the manufacture of steel girders +for sky-scrapers. These ancient streets with their stern and sombre +palaces specially touched the imagination of Dickens when he was in +Florence in 1844, but in his "Pictures from Italy" he gave the city +only fugitive mention. The old prison, which then adjoined the Palazzo +Vecchio, and in which the prisoners could be seen, also moved him. + +The Borgo degli Albizzi, as I have said, is crowded with +Palazzi. No. 24--and there is something very incongruous in palaces +having numbers at all--is memorable in history as being one of the +homes of the Pazzi family who organized the conspiracy against the +Medici in 1478, as I have related in the second chapter, and failed +so completely. Donatello designed the coat of arms here. The palace +at No. 18 belonged to the Altoviti. No. 12 is the Palazzo Albizzi, +the residence of one of the most powerful of the Florentine families, +whose allies were all about them in this quarter, as it was wise to be. + +As a change from picture galleries, I can think of nothing more +delightful than to wander about these ancient streets, and, wherever a +courtyard or garden shines, penetrate to it; stopping now and again to +enjoy the vista, the red Duomo, or Giotto's tower, so often mounting +into the sky at one end, or an indigo Apennine at the other. Standing +in the middle of the Via Ricasoli, for example, one has sight of both. + +At the Piazza S. Pietro we see one of the old towers of Florence, +of which there were once so many, into which the women and children +might retreat in times of great danger, and here too is a series of +arches which fruit and vegetable shops make gay. + +The next Piazza is that of S. Ambrogio. This church is interesting +not only for doing its work in a poor quarter--one has the feeling at +once that it is a right church in the right place--but as containing, +as I have said, the grave of Mino da Fiesole: Mino de' Poppi detto da +Fiesole, as the floor tablet has it. Over the altar of Mino's little +chapel is a large tabernacle from his hand, in which the gayest little +Boy gives the benediction, own brother to that one by Desiderio at +S. Lorenzo. The tabernacle must be one of the master's finest works, +and beneath it is a relief in which a priest pours something--perhaps +the very blood of Christ which is kept here--from one chalice to +another held by a kneeling woman, surrounded by other kneeling women, +which is a marvel of flowing beauty and life. The lines of it are +peculiarly lovely. + +On the wall of the same little chapel is a fresco by Cosimo Rosselli +which must once have been a delight, representing a procession of +Corpus Christi--this chapel being dedicated to the miracle of the +Sacrament--and it contains, according to Vasari, a speaking likeness of +Pico della Mirandola. Other graves in the church are those of Cronaca, +the architect of the Palazzo Vecchio's great Council Room, a friend +of Savonarola and Rosselli's nephew by marriage; and Verrocchio, the +sculptor, whose beautiful work we are now to see in the Bargello. It +is said that Lorenzo di Credi also lies here, and Albertinelli, +who gave up the brush for innkeeping. + +Opposite the church, on a house at the corner of the Borgo S. Croce +and the Via de' Macci, is a della Robbia saint--one of many such +mural works of art in Florence. Thus, at the corner of the Via Cavour +and the Via de' Pucci, opposite the Riccardi palace, is a beautiful +Madonna and Child by Donatello. In the Via Zannetti, which leads +out of the Via Cerretani, is a very pretty example by Mino, a few +houses on the right. These are sculpture. And everywhere in the older +streets you may see shrines built into the wall: there is even one in +the prison, in the Via dell' Agnolo, once the convent of the Murate, +where Catherine de' Medici was imprisoned as a girl; but many of them +are covered with glass which has been allowed to become black. + +A word or two on S. Egidio, the church of the great hospital of +S. Maria Nuova, might round off this chapter, since it was Folco +Portinari, Beatrice's father, who founded it. The hospital stands +in a rather forlorn square a few steps from the Duomo, down the Via +dell' Orivolo and then the first to the left; and it extends right +through to the Via degli Alfani in cloisters and ramifications. The +façade is in a state of decay, old frescoes peeling off it, but one +picture has been enclosed for protection--a gay and busy scene of the +consecration of the church by Pope Martin V. Within, it is a church +of the poor, notable for its general florid comfort (comparatively) +and Folco's gothic tomb. In the chancel is a pretty little tabernacle +by Mino, which used to have a bronze door by Ghiberti, but has it no +longer, and a very fine della Robbia Madonna and Child, probably by +Andrea. Behind a grille, upstairs, sit the hospital nurses. In the +adjoining cloisters--one of the high roads to the hospital proper--is +the ancient statue of old Monna Tessa, Beatrice's nurse, and, in a +niche, a pretty symbolical painting of Charity by that curious painter +Giovanni di San Giovanni. It was in the hospital that the famous Van +der Goes triptych used to hang. + +A tablet on a house opposite S. Egidio, a little to the right, +states that it was there that Ghiberti made the Baptistery gates +which Michelangelo considered fit to be the portals of Paradise. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +The Bargello + +Plastic art--Blood-soaked stones--The faithful +artists--Michelangelo--Italian custodians--The famous +Davids--Michelangelo's tondo--Brutus--Benedetto da +Rovezzano--Donatello's life-work--The S. George--Verrocchio--Ghiberti +and Brunelleschi and the Baptistery doors--Benvenuto Cellini--John of +Bologna--Antonio Pollaiuolo--Verrocchio again--Mino da Fiesole--The +Florentine wealth of sculpture--Beautiful ladies--The della +Robbias--South Kensington and the Louvre. + +Before my last visit but one to Florence, plastic art was less +attractive to me than pictorial art. But now I am not sure. At +any rate when, here in England, I think of Florence, as so often +I do, I find myself visiting in imagination the Bargello before the +Uffizi. Pictures in any number can bewilder and dazzle as much as they +delight. The eye tires. And so, it is true, can a multiplicity of +antique statuary such as one finds at the Vatican or at the Louvre; +but a small collection of Renaissance work, so soft and human, +as at the Bargello, is not only joy-giving but refreshing too. The +soft contours soothe as well as enrapture the eye: the tenderness of +the Madonnas, the gentleness of the Florentine ladies and youths, as +Verrocchio and Mino da Fiesole, Donatello, and Pollaiuolo moulded them, +calm one where the perfection of Phidias and Praxiteles excites. Hence +the very special charm of the Bargello, whose plastic treasures are +comparatively few and picked, as against the heaped profusion of paint +in the Uffizi and the Pitti. It pairs off rather with the Accademia, +and has this further point in common with that choicest of galleries, +that Michelangelo's chisel is represented in both. + +The Bargello is at the corner of the Via Ghibellina in the narrow +Via del Proconsolo--so narrow that if you take one step off the +pavement a tram may easily sweep you into eternity; so narrow also +that the real dignity of the Bargello is never to be properly seen, +and one thinks of it rather for its inner court and staircase and +its strong tower than for its massive façades. Its history is soaked +in blood. It was built in the middle of the thirteenth century as the +residence of the chief magistrate of the city, the Capitano del popolo, +or Podestà, first appointed soon after the return of the Guelphs in +1251, and it so remained, with such natural Florentine vicissitudes +as destruction by mobs and fire, for four hundred years, when, in +1574, it was converted into a prison and place of execution and the +head-quarters of the police, and changed its name from the Palazzo +del Podestà to that by which it is now known, so called after the +Bargello, or chief of the police. + +It is indeed fortunate that no rioters succeeded in obliterating +Giotto's fresco in the Bargello chapel, which he painted probably in +1300, when his friend Dante was a Prior of the city. Giotto introduced +the portrait of Dante which has drawn so many people to this little +room, together with portraits of Corso Donati, and Brunetto Latini, +Dante's tutor. Whitewash covered it for two centuries. Dante's head +has been restored. + +It was in 1857 that the Bargello was again converted, this time to its +present gracious office of preserving the very flower of Renaissance +plastic art. + +Passing through the entrance hall, which has a remarkable collection of +Medicean armour and weapons, and in which (I have read but not seen) +is an oubliette under one of the great pillars, the famous court is +gained and the famous staircase. Of this court what can I say? Its +quality is not to be communicated in words; and even the photographs of +it that are sold have to be made from pictures, which the assiduous +Signor Giuliani, among others, is always so faithfully painting, +stone for stone. One forgets all the horrors that once were enacted +here--the execution of honourable Florentine patriots whose only +offence was that in their service of this proud and beautiful city they +differed from those in power; one thinks only of the soft light on the +immemorial walls, the sturdy graceful columns, the carved escutcheons, +the resolute steps, the spaciousness and stern calm of it all. + +In the colonnade are a number of statues, the most famous of which +is perhaps the "Dying Adonis" which Baedeker gives to Michelangelo +but the curator to Vincenzo di Rossi; an ascription that would annoy +Michelangelo exceedingly, if it were a mistake, since Rossi was a +pupil of his enemy, the absurd Bandinelli. Mr. W.G. Waters, in his +"Italian Sculptors," considers not only that Michelangelo was the +sculptor, but that the work was intended to form part of the tomb of +Pope Julius. In the second room opposite the main entrance across the +courtyard, we come however to Michelangelo authentic and supreme, +for here are his small David, his Brutus, his Bacchus, and a tondo +of the Madonna and Child. + +According to Baedeker the Bacchus and the David revolve. Certainly they +are on revolving stands, but to say that they revolve is to disregard +utterly the character of the Italian official. A catch holds each in +its place, and any effort to release this or to induce the custodian to +release it is equally futile. "Chiuso" (closed), he replies, and that +is final. Useless to explain that the backs of statues can be beautiful +as the front; that one of the triumphs of great statuary is its equal +perfection from every point; that the revolving stand was not made +for a joke but for a serious purpose. "Chiuso," he replies. The museum +custodians of Italy are either like this--jaded figures of apathy--or +they are enthusiasts. To each enthusiast there are ninety-nine of the +other, who either sit in a kind of stupor and watch you with sullen +suspicion, or clear their throats as no gentleman should. The result +is that when one meets the enthusiasts one remembers them. There is +a little dark fellow in the Brera at Milan whose zeal in displaying +the merits of Mantegna's foreshortened Christ is as unforgettable as +a striking piece of character-acting in a theatre. There is a more +reserved but hardly less appreciative official in the Accademia at +Bologna with a genuine if incommunicable passion for Guido Reni. And, +lastly, there is Alfred Branconi, at S. Croce, with his continual and +rapturous "It is faine! It is faine!" but he is a private guide. The +Bargello custodians belong to the other camp. + +The fondness of sculptors for David as a subject is due to the fact +that the Florentines, who had spent so much of their time under +tyrants and so much of their blood in resisting them, were captivated +by the idea of this stripling freeing his compatriots from Goliath +and the Philistines. David, as I have said in my remarks on the +Piazza della Signoria, stood to them, with Judith, as a champion of +liberty. He was alluring also on account of his youth, so attractive +to Renaissance sculptors and poets, and the Florentines' admiration +was not diminished by the circumstance that his task was a singularly +light one, since he never came to close quarters with his antagonist +at all and had the Lord of Hosts on his side. A David of mythology, +Perseus, another Florentine hero, a stripling with what looked like +a formidable enemy, also enjoyed supernatural assistance. + +David appealed to the greatest sculptors of all--to Michelangelo, +to Donatello, and to Verrocchio; and Michelangelo made two figures, +one of which is here and the other at the Accademia, and Donatello +two figures, both of which are here, so that, Verrocchio's example +being also here, very interesting comparisons are possible. + +Personally I put Michelangelo's small David first; it is the one +in which, apart from its beauty, you can best believe. His colossal +David seems to me one of the most glorious things in the world; but it +is not David; not the simple, ruddy shepherd lad of the Bible. This +David could obviously defeat anybody. Donatello's more famous David, +in the hat, upstairs, is the most charming creature you ever saw, +but it had been far better to call him something else. Both he and +Verrocchio's David, also upstairs, are young tournament nobles rather +than shepherd lads who have slung a stone at a Philistine bully. I see +them both--but particularly perhaps Verrocchio's--in the intervals of +strife most acceptably holding up a lady's train, or lying at her feet +reading one of Boccaccio's stories; neither could ever have watched +a flock. Donatello's second David, behind the more famous one, has +more reality; but I would put Michelangelo's smaller one first. And +what beautiful marble it is--so rich and warm! + +One point which both Donatello's and Verrocchio's David emphasizes +is the gulf that was fixed between the Biblical and religious +conception of the youthful psalmist and that of these sculptors of the +Renaissance. One can, indeed, never think of Donatello as a religious +artist. Serious, yes; but not religious, or at any rate not religious +in the too common sense of the word, in the sense of appertaining +to a special reverential mood distinguished from ordinary moods of +dailiness. His David, as I have said, is a comely, cultured boy, +who belongs to the very flower of chivalry and romance. Verrocchio's +is akin to him, but he has less radiant mastery. Donatello's David +might be the young lord; Verrocchio's, his page. Here we see the new +spirit, the Renaissance, at work, for though religion called it into +being and the Church continued to be its patron, it rapidly divided +into two halves, and while the painters were bringing all their +genius to glorify sacred history, the scholars were endeavouring to +humanize it. In this task they had no such allies as the sculptors, +and particularly Donatello, who, always thinking independently and +vigorously, was their best friend. Donatello's David fought also more +powerfully for the modern spirit (had he known it) than ever he could +have done in real life with such a large sword in such delicate hands; +for by being the first nude statue of a Biblical character, he made +simpler the way to all humanists in whatever medium they worked. + +Michelangelo was not often tender. Profoundly sad he could be: indeed +his own head, in bronze, at the Accademia, might stand for melancholy +and bitter world-knowledge; but seldom tender; yet the Madonna and +Child in the circular bas-relief in this ground-floor room have +something very nigh tenderness, and a greatness that none of the +other Italian sculptors, however often they attempted this subject, +ever reached. The head of Mary in this relief is, I think, one of the +most beautiful things in Florence, none the less so for the charming +head-dress which the great austere artist has given her. The Child +is older than is usual in such groups, and differs in another way, +for tiring of a reading lesson, He has laid His arm upon the book: +a pretty touch. + +Michelangelo's Bacchus, an early work, is opposite. It is a remarkable +proof of his extraordinary range that the same little room should +contain the David, the Madonna, the Brutus, and the Bacchus. In +David one can believe, as I have said, as the young serious stalwart +of the Book of Kings. The Madonna, although perhaps a shade too +intellectual--or at any rate more intellectual and commanding than +the other great artists have accustomed us to think of her--has a +sweet gravity and power and almost domestic tenderness. The Brutus +is powerful and modern and realistic; while Bacchus is steeped in the +Greek spirit, and the little faun hiding behind him is the very essence +of mischief. Add to these the fluid vigour of the unfinished relief +of the Martyrdom of S. Andrew, No. 126, and you have five examples of +human accomplishment that would be enough without the other Florentine +evidences at all--the Medici chapel tombs and the Duomo Pieta. + +The inscription under the Brutus says: "While the sculptor was carving +the statue of Brutus in marble, he thought of the crime and held +his hand"; and the theory is that Michelangelo was at work upon this +head at Rome when, in 1537, Lorenzino de' Medici, who claimed to be +a modern Brutus, murdered Alessandro de' Medici. But it might easily +have been that the sculptor was concerned only with Brutus the friend +of Cæsar and revolted at his crime. The circumstance that the head +is unfinished matters nothing. Once seen it can never be forgotten. + +Although Michelangelo is, as always, the dominator, this room has +other possessions to make it a resort of visitors. At the end is a +fireplace from the Casa Borgherini, by Benedetto da Rovezzano, which +probably has not an equal, although the pietra serena of which it is +made is a horrid hue; and on the walls are fragments of the tomb of +S. Giovanni Gualberto at Vallombrosa, designed by the same artist but +never finished. Benedetto (1474-1556) has a peculiar interest to the +English in having come to England in 1524 at the bidding of Cardinal +Wolsey to design a tomb for that proud prelate. On Wolsey's disgrace, +Henry VIII decided that the tomb should be continued for his own bones; +but the sculptor died first and it was unfinished. Later Charles I cast +envious eyes upon it and wished to lie within it; but circumstances +deprived him too of the honour. Finally, after having been despoiled +of certain bronze additions, the sarcophagus was used for the remains +of Nelson, which it now holds, in St. Paul's crypt. The Borgherini +fireplace is a miracle of exquisite work, everything having received +thought, the delicate traceries on the pillars not less than the +frieze. The fireplace is in perfect condition, not one head having +been knocked off, but the Gualberto reliefs are badly damaged, yet +full of life. The angel under the saint's bier in No. 104 almost moves. + +In this room look also at the beautiful blades of barley on the +pillars in the corner close to Brutus, and the lovely frieze by an +unknown hand above Michelangelo's Martyrdom of S. Andrew, and the +carving upon the two niches for statues on either side of the door. + +The little room through which one passes to the Michelangelos may +well be lingered in. There is a gravely fine floor-tomb of a nun +to the left of the door--No. 20--which one would like to see in its +proper position instead of upright against the wall; and a stone font +in the middle which is very fine. There is also a beautiful tomb by +Giusti da Settignano, and the iron gates are worth attention. + +From Michelangelo let us ascend the stairs, past the splendid gates, +to Donatello; and here a word about that sculptor, for though we +meet him again and again in Florence (yet never often enough) it is +in the upper room in the Bargello that he is enthroned. Of Donatello +there is nothing known but good, and good of the most captivating +variety. Not only was he a great creative genius, equally the first +modern sculptor and the sanest, but he was himself tall and comely, +open-handed, a warm friend, humorous and of vigorous intellect. A +hint of the affection in which he was held is obtained from his name +Donatello, which is a pet diminutive of Donato--his full style being +Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi. Born in 1386, four years before +Fra Angelico and nearly a century after Giotto, he was the son of a +well-to-do wool-comber who was no stranger to the perils of political +energy in these times. Of Donatello's youth little is known, but it is +almost certain that he helped Ghiberti with his first Baptistery doors, +being thirteen when that sculptor began upon them. At sixteen he was +himself enrolled as a sculptor. It was soon after this that, as I have +said in the first chapter, he accompanied his friend Brunelleschi, +who was thirteen years his senior, to Rome; and returning alone he +began work in Florence in earnest, both for the cathedral and campanile +and for Or San Michele. In 1425 he took into partnership Michelozzo, +and became, with him, a protégé of Cosimo de' Medici, with whom both +continued on friendly terms for the rest of their lives. In 1433 he +was in Rome again, probably not sorry to be there since Cosimo had +been banished and had taken Michelozzo with him. On the triumphant +return of Cosimo in 1434 Donatello's most prosperous period began; +for he was intimate with the most powerful man in Florence, was +honoured by him, and was himself at the useful age of forty-four. + +Of Donatello as an innovator I have said something above, in +considering the Florentine Davids, but he was also the inventor of +that low relief in which his school worked, called rilievo stiacciato, +of which there are some excellent examples at South Kensington. In +Ghiberti's high relief, breaking out often into completely detached +figures, he was also a master, as we shall see at S. Lorenzo. But his +greatest claim to distinction is his psychological insight allied +to perfect mastery of form. His statues were not only the first +really great statues since the Greeks, but are still (always leaving +Michelangelo on one side as abnormal) the greatest modern examples +judged upon a realistic basis. Here in the Bargello, in originals and +in casts, he may be adequately appreciated; but to Padua his admirers +must certainly go, for the bronze equestrian statue of Gattamelata is +there. Donatello was painted by his friend Masaccio at the Carmine, +but the fresco has perished. He is to be seen in the Uffizi portico, +although that is probably a fancy representation; and again on a tablet +in the wall opposite the apse of the Duomo. The only contemporary +portrait (and this is very doubtful) is in a picture in the Louvre +given to Uccello--a serious, thoughtful, bearded face with steady, +observant eyes: one of five heads, the others being Giotto, Manetti, +Brunelleschi, and Uccello himself. + +Donatello, who never married, but lived for much of his life with his +mother and sister, died at a great age, cared for both by Cosimo de' +Medici and his son and successor Piero. He was buried with Cosimo +in S. Lorenzo. Vasari tells us that he was free, affectionate, and +courteous, but of a high spirit and capable of sudden anger, as when +he destroyed with a blow a head he had made for a mean patron who +objected to its very reasonable price. "He thought," says Vasari, +"nothing of money, keeping it in a basket suspended from the ceiling, +so that all his workmen and friends took what they wanted without +saying anything." He was as careless of dress as great artists have +ever been, and of a handsome robe which Cosimo gave him he complained +that it spoiled his work. When he was dying his relations affected +great concern in the hope of inheriting a farm at Prato, but he told +them that he had left it to the peasant who had always toiled there, +and he would not alter his will. + +The Donatello collection in the Bargello has been made representative +by the addition of casts. The originals number ten: there is also +a cast of the equestrian statue of Gattemalata at Padua, which is, +I suppose, next to Verrocchio's Bartolommeo Colleoni at Venice, the +finest equestrian statue that exists; heads from various collections, +including M. Dreyfus' in Paris, although Dr. Bode now gives that +charming example to Donatello's pupil Desiderio; and various +other masterpieces elsewhere. But it is the originals that chiefly +interest us, and first of these in bronze is the David, of which I +have already spoken, and first of these in marble the S. George. This +George is just such a resolute, clean, warlike idealist as one dreams +him. He would kill a dragon, it is true; but he would eat and sleep +after it and tell the story modestly and not without humour. By a +happy chance the marble upon which Donatello worked had light veins +running through it just where the head is, with the result that the +face seems to possess a radiance of its own. This statue was made for +Or San Michele, where it used to stand until 1891, when the present +bronze replica that takes its place was made. The spirited marble +frieze underneath it at Or San Michele is the original and has been +there for centuries. It was this S. George whom Ruskin took as the +head and inspiration of his Saint George's Guild. + +The David is interesting not only in itself but as being the first +isolated statue of modern times. It was made for Cosimo de' Medici, +to stand in the courtyard of the Medici palace (now the Riccardi), +and until that time, since antiquity, no one had made a statue to +stand on a pedestal and be observable from all points. Hitherto modern +sculptors had either made reliefs or statues for niches. It was also +the first nude statue of modern times; and once again one has the +satisfaction of recognizing that the first was the best. At any rate, +no later sculptor has made anything more charming than this figure, +or more masterly within its limits. + +After the S. George and the bronze David, the two most memorable things +are the adorable bronze Amorino in its quaint little trousers--or +perhaps not Amorino at all, since it is trampling on a snake, +which such little sprites did not do--and the coloured terra-cotta +bust called Niccolò da Uzzano, so like life as to be after a while +disconcerting. The sensitiveness of the mouth can never have been +excelled. The other originals include the gaunt John the Baptist with +its curious little moustache, so far removed from the Amorino and so +admirable a proof of the sculptor's vigilant thoughtfulness in all +he did; the relief of the infant John, one of the most animated of +the heads (the Baptist at all periods of his life being a favourite +with this sculptor); three bronze heads, of which those of the Young +Gentleman and the Roman Emperor remain most clearly in my mind. But +the authorship of the Roman Emperor is very doubtful. And lastly the +glorious Marzocco--the lion from the front of the Palazzo Vecchio, +firmly holding the Florentine escutcheon against the world. Florence +has other Donatellos--the Judith in the Loggia de' Lanzi, the figures +on Giotto's campanile, the Annunciation in S. Croce, and above all +the cantoria in the Museum of the Cathedral; but this room holds most +of his strong sweet genius. Here (for there are seldom more than two +or three persons in it) you can be on terms with him. + +After the Donatellos we should see the other Renaissance sculpture. But +first the Carrand collection of ivories, pictures, jewels, carvings, +vestments, plaquettes, and objets d'art, bequeathed to Florence +in 1888. Everything here is good and worth examination. Among the +outstanding things is a plaquette, No. 393, a Satyr and a Bacchante, +attributed to Donatello, under the title "Allegory of Spring," which +is the work of a master and a very riot of mythological imagery. The +neighbouring plaquettes, many of them of the school of Donatello, +are all beautiful. + +We now find the sixth salon, to see Verrocchio's David, of which I have +already spoken. This wholly charming boy, a little nearer life perhaps +than Donatello's, although not quite so radiantly distinguished, +illustrates the association of Verrocchio and Leonardo as clearly +as any of the paintings do; for the head is sheer Leonardo. At the +Palazzo Vecchio we saw Verrocchio's boy with the dolphin--that happy +bronze lyric--and outside Or San Michele his Christ and S. Thomas, in +Donatello and Michelozzo's niche, with the flying cherubim beneath. But +as with Donatello, so with Verrocchio, one must visit the Bargello +to see him, in Florence, most intimately. For here are not only his +David, which once known can never be forgotten and is as full of the +Renaissance spirit as anything ever fashioned, whether in bronze, +marble, or paint, but--upstairs--certain other wonderfully beautiful +things to which we shall come, and, that being so, I would like here +to say a little about their author. + +Verrocchio is a nickname, signifying the true eye. Andrea's real name +was de' Cioni; he is known to fame as Andrea of the true eye, and since +he had acquired this style at a time when every eye was true enough, +his must have been true indeed. It is probable that he was a pupil +of Donatello, who in 1435, when Andrea was born, was forty-nine, and +in time he was to become the master of Leonardo: thus are the great +artists related. The history of Florentine art is practically the +history of a family; one artist leads to the other--the genealogy +of genius. The story goes that it was the excellence of the angel +contributed by Leonardo to his master's picture of the Baptism of +Christ (at the Accademia) which decided Verrocchio to paint no more, +just as Ghiberti's superiority in the relief of Abraham and Isaac +drove Brunelleschi from sculpture. If this be so, it accounts for the +extraordinarily small number of pictures by him. Like many artists +of his day Verrocchio was also a goldsmith, but he was versatile +above most, even when versatility was a habit, and excelled also as +a musician. Both Piero de' Medici and Lorenzo employed him to design +their tournament costumes; and it was for Lorenzo that he made this +charming David and the boy and the dolphin. His greatest work of all +is the bronze equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni in Venice, the +finest thing of its kind in the world, and so glorious and exciting +indeed that every city should have a cast of it in a conspicuous +position just for the good of the people. It was while at work upon +this that Verrocchio died, at the age of fifty-three. His body was +brought from Venice by his pupil Lorenzo di Credi, who adored him, +and was buried in S. Ambrogio in Florence. Lorenzo di Credi painted his +portrait, which is now in the Uffizi--a plump, undistinguished-looking +little man. + +In the David room are also the extremely interesting rival bronze +reliefs of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, which were made by Ghiberti and +Brunelleschi as trials of skill to see which would win the commission +to design the new gates of the Baptistery, as I have told earlier in +this book. Six competitors entered for the contest; but Ghiberti's and +Brunelleschi's efforts were alone considered seriously. A comparison +of these two reliefs proves that Ghiberti, at any rate, had a finer +sense of grouping. He filled the space at his disposal more easily +and his hand was more fluent; but there is a very engaging vivacity +in the other work, the realistic details of which are so arresting +as to make one regret that Brunelleschi had for sculpture so little +time. In S. Maria Novella is that crucifix in wood which he carved for +his friend Donatello, but his only other sculptured work in Florence is +the door of his beautiful Pazzi chapel in the cloisters of S. Croce. Of +Ghiberti's Baptistery gates I have said more elsewhere. Enough here +to add that the episode of Abraham and Isaac does not occur in them. + +This little room also has a Cassa Reliquiaria by Ghiberti, below a fine +relief by Bertoldo, Michelangelo's master in sculpture, representing +a battle between the Romans and the Barbarians; cases of exquisite +bronzes; the head, in bronze (No. 25), of an old placid, shrewd woman, +executed from a death-mask, which the photographers call Contessina +de' Bardi, wife of Cosimo de' Medici, by Donatello, but which cannot +be so, since the sculptor died first; heads of Apollo and two babies, +over the Ghiberti and Brunelleschi competition reliefs; a crucifixion +by Bertoldo; a row of babies representing the triumph of Bacchus; and +below these a case of medals and plaquettes, every one a masterpiece. + +The next room, Sala VII, is apportioned chiefly between Cellini +and Gian or Giovanni da Bologna, the two sculptors who dominate the +Loggia de' Lanzi. Here we may see models for Cellini's Perseus in +bronze and wax and also for the relief of the rescue of Andromeda, +under the statue; his Cosimo I, with the wart (omitted by Bandinelli +in the head downstairs, which pairs with Michelangelo's Brutus); +and various smaller works. But personally I find that Cellini will +not do in such near proximity to Donatello, Verrocchio, and their +gentle followers. He was, of course, far later. He was not born (in +1500) until Donatello had been dead thirty-four years, Mino da Fiesole +sixteen years, Desiderio da Settignano thirty-six years, and Verrocchio +twelve years. He thus did not begin to work until the finer impulses +of the Renaissance were exhausted. Giovanni da Bologna, although he, +it is true, was even later (1524-1608), I find more sympathetic; while +Landor boldly proclaimed him superior to Michelangelo. His "Mercury," +in the middle of the room, which one sees counterfeited in all the +statuary shops of Florence, is truly very nearly light as air. If ever +bronze floated, this figure does. His cherubs and dolphins are very +skilful and merry; his turkey and eagle and other animals indicate +that he had humility. John of Bologna is best known at Florence by +his Rape of the Sabines and Hercules and Nessus in the Loggia de' +Lanzi; but the Boboli gardens have a fine group of Oceanus and river +gods by him in the midst of a lake. Before leaving this room look at +the relief of Christ in glory (No. 35), to the left of the door, by +Jacopo Sansovino, a rival of Michelangelo, which is most admirable, +and at the case of bronze animals by Pietro Tacca, John of Bologna's +pupil, who made the famous boar (a copy of an ancient marble) at +the Mercato Nuovo and the reliefs for the pediment of the statue of +Cosimo I (by his master) in the Piazza della Signoria. But I believe +that the most beautiful thing in this room is the bronze figure for +the tomb of Mariano Sozzino by Lorenzo di Pietro. + +Before we look at the della Robbias, which are in the two large rooms +upstairs, let us finish with the marble and terra-cotta statuary in +the two smaller rooms to the left as one passes through the first +della Robbia room. In the first of them, corresponding to the room +with Verrocchio's David downstairs, we find Verrocchio again, with +a bust of Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici (whom Botticelli painted in +the Uffizi holding a medal in his hand) and a most exquisite Madonna +and Child in terra-cotta from S. Maria Nuova. (This is on a hinge, +for better light, but the official skies will fall if you touch +it.) Here also is the bust of a young warrior by Antonio Pollaiuolo +(1429-1498) who was Verrocchio's closest rival and one of Ghiberti's +assistants for the second Baptistery doors. His greatest work is at +Rome, but this bust is indescribably charming, and the softness of the +boy's contours is almost of life. It is sometimes called Giuliano de' +Medici. Other beautiful objects in the room are the terra-cotta Madonna +and Child by Andrea Sansovino (1460-1529), Pollaiuolo's pupil, which +is as radiant although not so domestically lovely as Verrocchio's; +the bust by Benedetto da Maiano (1442-1497) of Pietro Mellini, that +shrewd and wrinkled patron of the Church who presented to S. Croce +the famous pulpit by this sculptor; an ancient lady, by the door, +in coloured terra-cotta, who is thought to represent Monna Tessa, the +nurse of Dante's Beatrice; and certain other works by that delightful +and prolific person Ignoto Fiorentino, who here, and in the next room, +which we now enter, is at his best. + +This next priceless room is chiefly memorable for Verrocchio and +Mino da Fiesole. We come to Verrocchio at once, on the left, where +his relief of the death of Francesca Pitti Tornabuoni (on a tiny +bed only half as long as herself) may be seen. This poor lady, who +died in childbirth, was the wife of Giovanni Tornabuoni, and he it +was who employed Ghirlandaio to make the frescoes in the choir of +S. Maria Novella. (I ought, however, to state that Miss Cruttwell, +in her monograph on Verrocchio, questions both the subject and the +artist.) Close by we have two more works by Verrocchio--No. 180, a +marble relief of the Madonna and Child, the Madonna's dress fastened +by the prettiest of brooches, and She herself possessing a dainty sad +head and the long fingers that Verrocchio so favoured, which we find +again in the famous "Gentildonna" (No. 181) next it--that Florentine +lady with flowers in her bosom, whose contours are so exquisite and +who has such pretty shoulders. + +Near by is the little eager S. John the Baptist as a boy by Antonio +Rossellino (1427-1478), and on the next wall the same sculptor's +circular relief of the Madonna adoring, in a border of cherubs. +In the middle is the masterpiece of Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570): a +Bacchus, so strangely like a genuine antique, full of Greek lightness +and grace. And then we come back to the wall in which the door is, +and find more works from the delicate hand of Mino da Fiesole, whom +we in London are fortunate in being able to study as near home as at +the Victoria and Albert Museum. Of Mino I have said more both at the +Badia and at Fiesole. But here I might remark again that he was born +in 1431 and died in 1484, and was the favourite pupil of Desiderio +da Settignano, who was in his turn the favourite pupil of Donatello. + +In the little church of S. Ambrogio we have seen a tablet to the +memory of Mino, who lies there, not far from the grave of Verrocchio, +whom he most nearly approached in feeling, although their ideal type of +woman differed in everything save the slenderness of the fingers. The +Bargello has both busts and reliefs by him, all distinguished and +sensitive and marked by Mino's profound refinement. The Madonna and +Child in No. 232 are peculiarly beautiful and notable both for high +relief and shallow relief, and the Child in No. 193 is even more +charming. For delicacy and vivacity in marble portraiture it would +be impossible to surpass the head of Rinaldo della Luna; and the two +Medicis are wonderfully real. Everything in Mino's work is thoughtful +and exquisite, while the unusual type of face which so attracted him +gives him freshness too. + +This room and that next it illustrate the wealth of fine sculptors +which Florence had in the fifteenth century, for the works by the +unknown hands are in some cases hardly less beautiful and masterly than +those by the known. Look, for example, at the fleur-de-lis over the +door; at the Madonna and Child next it, on the right; at the girl's +head next to that; at the baby girl at the other end of the room; +and at the older boy and his pendant. But one does not need to come +here to form an idea of the wealth of good sculpture. The streets +alone are full of it. Every palace has beautiful stone-work and an +escutcheon which often only a master could execute--as Donatello +devised that for the Palazzo Pazzi in the Borgo degli Albizzi. On the +great staircase of the Bargello, for example, are numbers of coats +of arms that could not be more beautifully designed and incised. + +In the room leading from that which is memorable for Pollaiuolo's +youth in armour is a collection of medals by all the best medallists, +beginning, in the first case, with Pisanello. Here are his Sigismondo +Malatesta, the tyrant of Rimini, and Isotta his wife; here also is +a portrait of Leon Battista Alberti, who designed and worked on the +cathedral of Rimini as well as upon S. Maria Novella in Florence. On +the other side of this case is the medal commemorating the Pazzi +conspiracy. In other cases are pretty Italian ladies, such as Julia +Astalla, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, with her hair in curls just as in +Ghirlandaio's frescoes, Costanza Rucellai, Leonora Altoviti, Maria +Poliziano, and Maria de' Mucini. + +And so we come to the della Robbias, without whose joyous, radiant +art Florence would be only half as beautiful as she is. Of these +exquisite artists Luca, the uncle, born in 1400, was by far the +greatest. Andrea, his nephew, born in 1435, came next, and then +Giovanni. Luca seems to have been a serious, quiet man who would +probably have made sculpture not much below his friend Donatello's had +not he chanced on the discovery of a means of colouring and glazing +terra-cotta. Examples of this craft are seen all over Florence both +within doors and out, as the pages of this book indicate, but at the +Bargello is the greatest number of small pieces gathered together. I +do not say there is anything here more notable than the Annunciation +attributed to Andrea at the Spedale degli Innocenti, while of course, +for most people, his putti on the façade of that building are the +della Robbia symbol; nor is there anything finer than Luca's work +at Impruneta; but as a collection of sweetness and gentle domestic +beauty these Bargello reliefs are unequalled, both in character and in +volume. Here you see what one might call Roman Catholic art--that is, +the art which at once gives pleasure to simple souls and symbolizes +benevolence and safety--carried out to its highest power. Tenderness, +happiness, and purity are equally suggested by every relief here. Had +Luca and Andrea been entrusted with the creation of the world it +would be a paradise. And, as it is, it seems to me impossible but +that they left the world sweeter than they found it. Such examples +of affection and solicitude as they were continually bringing to the +popular vision must have engendered kindness. + +I have noted as especially beautiful in the first room Nos. 4, +6, 12, 23, by Andrea; and 10 and 21, by Luca. These, by the +way, are the Bargello ascriptions, but the experts do not always +agree. Herr Bode, for example, who has studied the della Robbias with +passionate thoroughness, gives the famous head of the boy, which is +in reproduction one of the best-known works of plastic art, to Luca; +but the Bargello director says Andrea. In Herr Bode's fascinating +monograph, "Florentine Sculptors of the Renaissance," he goes very +carefully into the differences between the uncle and the nephew, +master and pupil. In all the groups, for example, he says that Luca +places the Child on the Madonna's left arm, Andrea on the right. In +the second room I have marked particularly Nos. 21, 28, and 31, +by Luca, 28 being a deeper relief than usual, and the Madonna not +adoring but holding and delighting in one of the most adorable of +Babies. Observe in the reproduction of this relief in this volume-- +how the Mother's fingers sink into the child's flesh. Luca was the +first sculptor to notice that. No. 31 is the lovely Madonna of the +Rose Bower. But nothing gives me more pleasure than the boy's head of +which I have just spoken, attributed to Andrea and also reproduced +here. The "Giovane Donna" which pairs with it has extraordinary +charm and delicacy too. I have marked also, by Andrea, Nos. 71 and +76. Giovanni della Robbia's best is perhaps No. 15, in the other room. + +One curious thing that one notes about della Robbia pottery is its +inability to travel. It was made for the church and it should remain +there. Even in the Bargello, where there is an ancient environment, +it loses half its charm; while in an English museum it becomes hard +and cold. But in a church to which the poor carry their troubles, +with a dim light and a little incense, it is perfect, far beyond +painting in its tenderness and symbolic value. I speak of course +of the Madonnas and altar-pieces. When the della Robbias worked for +the open air--as in the façade of the Children's Hospital, or at the +Certosa, or in the Loggia di San Paolo, opposite S. Maria Novella, +where one may see the beautiful meeting of S. Francis and S. Dominic, +by Andrea--they seem, in Italy, to have fitness enough; but it would +not do to transplant any of these reliefs to an English façade. There +was once, I might add, in Florence a Via della Robbia, but it is now +the Via Nazionale. I suppose this injustice to the great potters came +about in the eighteen-sixties, when popular political enthusiasm led +to every kind of similar re-naming. + +In the room leading out of the second della Robbia room is a collection +of vestments and brocades bequeathed by Baron Giulio Franchetti, where +you may see, dating from as far back as the sixth century, designs +that for beauty and splendour and durability put to shame most of the +stuffs now woven; but the top floor of the Museo Archeologico in the +Via della Colonna is the chief home in Florence of such treasures. + +There are other beautiful things in the Bargello of which I have said +nothing--a gallery of mediaeval bells most exquisitely designed, from +famous steeples; cases of carved ivory; and many of such treasures as +one sees at the Cluny in Paris. But it is for its courtyard and for the +Renaissance sculpture that one goes to the Bargello, and returns again +and again to the Bargello, and it is for these that one remembers it. + +On returning to London the first duty of every one who has drunk +deep of delight in the Bargello is to visit that too much neglected +treasure-house of our own, the Victoria and Albert Museum at South +Kensington. There may be nothing at South Kensington as fine as the +Bargello's finest, but it is a priceless collection and is superior +to the Bargello in one respect at any rate, for it has a relief +attributed to Leonardo. Here also is an adorable Madonna and laughing +Child, beyond anything in Florence for sheer gaiety if not mischief, +which the South Kensington authorities call a Rossellino but Herr +Bode a Desiderio da Settignano. The room is rich too in Donatello +and in Verrocchio, and altogether it makes a perfect footnote to the +Bargello. It also has within call learned gentlemen who can give +intimate information about the exhibits, which the Bargello badly +lacks. The Louvre and the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin--but +particularly the Kaiser Friedrich since Herr Bode, who has such +a passion for this period, became its director--have priceless +treasures, and in Paris I have had the privilege of seeing the little +but exquisite collection formed by M. Gustave Dreyfus, dominated by +that mirthful Italian child which the Bargello authorities consider to +be by Donatello, but Herr Bode gives to Desiderio. At the Louvre, in +galleries on the ground floor gained through the Egyptian sculpture +section and opened very capriciously, may be seen the finest of +the prisoners from Michelangelo's tomb for Pope Julius; Donatello's +youthful Baptist; a Madonna and Children by Agostino di Duccio, whom +we saw at the Museum of the Cathedral; an early coloured terra-cotta +by Luca della Robbia, and No. 316, a terra-cotta Madonna and Child +without ascription, which looks very like Rossellino. + +In addition to originals there are at South Kensington casts of many +of the Bargello's most valuable possessions, such as Donatello's +and Verrocchio's Davids, Donatello's Baptist and many heads, Mino +da Fiesole's best Madonna, Pollaiuolo's Young Warrior, and so forth; +so that to loiter there is most attractively to recapture something +of the Florentine feeling. + + + +CHAPTER XV + +S. Croce + +An historic piazza--Marble façades--Florence's Westminster +Abbey--Galileo's ancestor and Ruskin--Benedetto's +pulpit--Michelangelo's tomb--A fond lady--Donatello's +Annunciation--Giotto's frescoes--S. Francis--Donatello magnanimous--The +gifted Alberti--Desiderio's great tomb--The sacristy--The Medici +chapel--The Pazzi chapel--Old Jacopo desecrated--A Restoration. + +The piazza S. Croce now belongs to children. The church is at one +end, bizarre buildings are on either side, the Dante statue is in the +middle, and harsh gravel covers the ground. Everywhere are children, +all dirty, and all rather squalid and mostly bow-legged, showing that +they were of the wrong age to take their first steps on Holy Saturday +at noon. The long brown building on the right, as we face S. Croce, +is a seventeenth-century palazzo. For the rest, the architecture is +chiefly notable for green shutters. + +The frigid and florid Dante memorial, which was unveiled in 1865 on +the six hundredth anniversary of the poet's birthday, looks gloomily +upon what once was a scene of splendour and animation, for in 1469 +Piero de' Medici devised here a tournament in honour of the betrothal +of Lorenzo to Clarice Orsini. The Queen of the tournament was Lucrezia +Donati, and she awarded the first prize to Lorenzo. The tournament cost +10,000 gold florins and was very splendid, Verrocchio and other artists +being called in to design costumes, and it is thought that Pollaiuolo's +terra-cotta of the Young Warrior in the Bargello represents the comely +Giuliano de' Medici as he appeared in his armour in the lists. The +piazza was the scene also of that famous tournament given by Lorenzo +de' Medici for Giuliano in 1474, of which the beautiful Simonetta +was the Queen of Beauty, and to which, as I have said elsewhere, we +owe Botticelli's two most famous pictures. Difficult to reconstruct +in the Piazza any of those glories to-day. + +The new façade of S. Croce, endowed not long since by an Englishman, +has been much abused, but it is not so bad. As the front of so +beautiful and wonderful a church it may be inadequate, but as a +structure of black and white marble it will do. To my mind nothing +satisfactory can now be done in this medium, which, unless it is +centuries old, is always harsh and cuts the sky like a knife, instead +of resting against it as architecture should. But when it is old, +as at S. Miniato, it is right. + +S. Croce is the Westminster Abbey of Florence. Michelangelo lies here, +Machiavelli lies here, Galileo lies here; and here Giotto painted, +Donatello carved, and Brunelleschi planned. Although outside the church +is disappointing, within it is the most beautiful in Florence. It +has the boldest arches, the best light at all seasons, the most +attractive floor--of gentle red--and an apse almost wholly made of +coloured glass. Not a little of its charm comes from the delicate +passage-way that runs the whole course of the church high up on the +yellow walls. It also has the finest circular window in Florence, +over the main entrance, a "Deposition" by Ghiberti. + +The lightness was indeed once so intense that no fewer than twenty-two +windows had to be closed. The circular window over the altar upon which +a new roof seems to be intruding is in reality the interloper: the roof +is the original one, and the window was cut later, in defiance of good +architecture, by Vasari, who, since he was a pupil of Michelangelo, +should have known better. To him was entrusted the restoration of +the church in the middle of the sixteenth century. + +The original architect of the modern S. Croce was the same Arnolfo di +Cambio, or Lapo, who began the Duomo. He had some right to be chosen +since his father, Jacopo, or Lapo, a German, was the builder of the +most famous of all the Franciscan churches--that at Assisi, which was +begun while S. Francis was still living. And Giotto, who painted in +that church his most famous frescoes, depicting scenes in the life +of S. Francis, succeeded Arnolfo here, as at the Duomo, with equal +fitness. Arnolfo began S. Croce in 1294, the year that the building of +the Duomo was decided upon, as a reply to the new Dominican Church of +S. Maria Novella, and to his German origin is probably due the Northern +impression which the interiors both of S. Croce and the Duomo convey. + +The first thing to examine in S. Croce is the floor-tomb, close to the +centre door, upon which Ruskin wrote one of his most characteristic +passages. The tomb is of an ancestor of Galileo (who lies close +by, but beneath a florid monument), and it represents a mediaeval +scholarly figure with folded hands. Ruskin writes: "That worn face is +still a perfect portrait of the old man, though like one struck out +at a venture, with a few rough touches of a master's chisel. And that +falling drapery of his cap is, in its few lines, faultless, and subtle +beyond description. And now, here is a simple but most useful test of +your capacity for understanding Florentine sculpture or painting. If +you can see that the lines of that cap are both right, and lovely; that +the choice of the folds is exquisite in its ornamental relations of +line; and that the softness and ease of them is complete,--though only +sketched with a few dark touches,--then you can understand Giotto's +drawing, and Botticelli's; Donatello's carving and Luca's. But if +you see nothing in this sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs, +of theirs. Where they choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any +vulgar modern trick with marble--(and they often do)--whatever, in a +word, is French, or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see; +but what is Florentine, and for ever great--unless you can see also +the beauty of this old man in his citizen's cap,--you will see never." + +The passage is in "Mornings in Florence," which begins with S. Croce +and should be read by every one visiting the city. And here let me +advise another companion for this church: a little dark enthusiast, in +a black skull cap, named Alfred Branconi, who is usually to be found +just inside the doors, but may be secured as a guide by a postcard +to the church. Signor Branconi knows S. Croce and he loves it, and +he has the further qualifications of knowing all Florence too and +speaking excellent English, which he taught himself. + +The S. Croce pulpit, which is by Benedetto da Maiano, is a satisfying +thing, accomplished both in proportions and workmanship, with panels +illustrating scenes in the life of S. Francis. These are all most +gently and persuasively done, influenced, of course, by the Baptistery +doors, but individual too, and full of a kindred sweetness and +liveliness. The scenes are the "Confirmation of the Franciscan Order" +(the best, I think); the "Burning of the Books"; the "Stigmata," +which we shall see again in the church, in fresco, for here we are +all dedicated to the saint of Assisi, not yet having come upon the +stern S. Dominic, the ruler at S. Marco and S. Maria Novella; the +"Death of S. Francis," very real and touching, which we shall also +see again; and the execution of certain Franciscans. Benedetto, +who was also an architect and made the plan of the Strozzi palace, +was so unwilling that anything should mar the scheme of his pulpit, +that after strengthening this pillar with the greatest care and +thoroughness, he hollowed it and placed the stairs inside. + +The first tomb on the right, close to this pulpit, is Michelangelo's, +a mass of allegory, designed by his friend Vasari, the author of the +"Lives of the Artists," the reading of which is perhaps the best +preparation for the understanding of Florence. "If life pleases us," +Michelangelo once said, "we ought not to be grieved by death, which +comes from the same Giver." Michelangelo had intended the Pietà, now +in the Duomo, to stand above his grave; but Vasari, who had a little +of the Pepys in his nature, thought to do him greater honour by this +ornateness. The artist was laid to his rest in 1564, but not before his +body was exhumed, by his nephew, at Rome, where the great man had died, +and a series of elaborate ceremonies had been performed, which Vasari, +who is here trustworthy enough, describes minutely. All the artists +in Florence vied in celebrating the dead master in memorial paintings +for his catafalque and its surroundings, which have now perished; +but probably the loss is not great, except as an example of homage, +for that was a bad period. How bad it was may be a little gauged by +Vasari's tributory tomb and his window over the high altar. + +Opposite Michelangelo's tomb, on the pillar, is the pretty but rather +Victorian "Madonna del Latte," surrounded by angels, by Bernardo +Rossellino (1409-1464), brother of the author of the great tomb at +S. Miniato. This pretty relief was commissioned as a family memorial +by that Francesco Nori, the close friend of Lorenzo de' Medici, who +was killed in the Duomo during the Pazzi conspiracy in his effort to +save Lorenzo from the assassins. + +The tomb of Alfieri, the dramatist, to which we now come, was +erected at the cost of his mistress, the Countess of Albany, +who herself sat to Canova for the figure of bereaved Italy. This +curious and unfortunate woman became, at the age of nineteen, the +wife of the Young Pretender, twenty-seven years after the '45, and +led a miserable existence with him (due chiefly to his depravity, +but a little, she always held, to the circumstance that they chose +Good Friday for their wedding day) until Alfieri fell in love with +her and offered his protection. Together she and the poet remained, +apparently contented with each other and received by society, even +by the English Royal family, until Alfieri died, in 1803, when after +exclaiming that she had lost all--"consolations, support, society, +all, all!"--and establishing this handsome memorial, she selected the +French artist Fabre to fill the aching void in her fifty-years-old +heart; and Fabre not only filled it until her death in 1824, but +became the heir of all that had been bequeathed to her by both the +Stuart and Alfieri. Such was the Countess of Albany, to whom human +affection was so necessary. She herself is buried close by, in the +chapel of the Castellani. + +Mrs. Piozzi, in her "Glimpses of Italian Society," mentions seeing +in Florence in 1785 the unhappy Pretender. Though old and sickly, +he went much into society, sported the English arms and livery, +and wore the garter. + +Other tombs in the right aisle are those of Machiavelli, the +statesman and author of "The Prince," and Rossini, the composer of +"William Tell," who died in Paris in 1868, but was brought here for +burial. These tombs are modern and of no artistic value, but there +is near them a fine fifteenth-century example in the monument by +Bernardo Rossellino to another statesman and author, Leonardo Bruni, +known as Aretino, who wrote the lives of Dante and Petrarch and a +Latin history of Florence, a copy of which was placed on his heart at +his funeral. This tomb is considered to be Rossellino's masterpiece; +but there is one opposite by another hand which dwarfs it. + +There is also a work of sculpture near it, in the same wall, which +draws away the eyes--Donatello's "Annunciation". The experts now think +this to belong to the sculptor's middle period, but Vasari thought it +earlier, and makes it the work which had most influence in establishing +his reputation; while according to the archives it was placed in the +church before Donatello was living. Vasari ought to be better informed +upon this point than usual, since it was he who was employed in the +sixteenth century to renovate S. Croce, at which time the chapel for +whose altar the relief was made--that of the Cavalcanti family--was +removed. The relief now stands unrelated to anything. Every detail of +it should be examined; but Alfred Branconi will see to that. The stone +is the grey pietra serena of Fiesole, and Donatello has plentifully, +but not too plentifully, lightened it with gold, which is exactly what +all artists who used this medium for sculpture should have done. By a +pleasant tactful touch the designer of the modern Donatello monument +in S. Lorenzo has followed the master's lead. + +Almost everything of Donatello's that one sees is in turn the best; but +standing before this lovely work one is more than commonly conscious +of being in the presence of a wonderful creator. The Virgin is wholly +unlike any other woman, and She is surprising and modern even for +Donatello with his vast range. The charming terra-cotta boys above +are almost without doubt from the same hand, but they cannot have +been made for this monument. + +To the della Robbias we come in the Castellani chapel in the right +transept, which has two full-length statues by either Luca or +Andrea, in the gentle glazed medium, of S. Francis and S. Bernard, +quite different from anything we have seen or shall see, because +isolated. The other full-size figures by these masters--such as +those at Impruneta--are placed against the wall. The S. Bernard, +on the left as one enters the chapel, is far the finer. It surely +must be one of the most beautiful male draped figures in the world. + +The next chapel, at the end of the transept, was once enriched by +Giotto frescoes, but they no longer exist. There are, however, an +interesting but restored series of scenes in the life of the Virgin +by Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's godson; a Madonna ascending to heaven, +by Mainardi, who was Ghirlandaio's pupil, and so satisfactory a one +that he was rewarded by the hand of his master's sister; and a pretty +piece of Gothic sculpture with the Christ Child upon it. Hereabouts, +I may remark, we have continually to be walking over floor-tombs, +now ruined beyond hope, their ruin being perhaps the cause of a +protecting rail being placed round the others; although a floor-tomb +should have, I think, a little wearing from the feet of worshippers, +just to soften the lines. Those at the Certosa are, for example, +far too sharp and clean. + +Let us complete the round of the church before we examine the sacristy, +and go now to the two chapels, where Giotto may be found at his best, +although restored too, on this side of the high altar. The Peruzzi +chapel has scenes from the lives of the two S. Johns, the Baptist, +and the Evangelist: all rather too thoroughly re-painted, although +following Giotto's groundwork closely enough to retain much of +their interest and value. And here once again one should consult the +"Mornings in Florence," where the wilful discerning enthusiast is, +like his revered subject, also at his best. Giotto's thoughtfulness +could not be better illustrated than in S. Croce. One sees him, as +ever, thinking of everything: not a very remarkable attribute of the +fresco painter since then, but very remarkable then, when any kind of +facile saintliness sufficed. Signor Bianchi, who found these paintings +under the whitewash in 1853, and restored them, overdid his part, +there is no doubt; but as I have said, their interest is unharmed, +and it is that which one so delights in. Look, for instance, at the +attitude of Drusiana, suddenly twitched by S. John back again into +this vale of tears, while her bier is on its way to the cemetery +outside the pretty city. "Am I really to live again?" she so plainly +says to the inexorable miracle-worker. The dancing of Herodias' +daughter, which offered Giotto less scope, is original too--original +not because it came so early, but because Giotto's mind was original +and innovating and creative. The musician is charming. The last scene +of all is a delightful blend of religious fervour and reality: the +miraculous ascent from the tomb, through an elegant Florentine loggia, +to everlasting glory, in a blaze of gold, and Christ and an apostle +leaning out of heaven with outstretched hands to pull the saint in, +as into a boat. Such a Christ as that could not but be believed in. + +In the next chapel, the Bardi, we find Giotto at work on a life of +S. Francis, and here again Ruskin is essential. It was a task which, +since this church was the great effort of the Florentine Franciscans, +would put an artist upon his mettle, and Giotto set the chosen +incidents before the observers with the discretion and skill of the +great biographer that he was, and not only that, but the great Assisi +decorator that he was. No choice could have been better at any time +in the history of art. Giotto chose the following scenes, one or two +of which coincide with those on Benedetto da Maiano's pulpit, which +came of course many years later: the "Confirmation of the Rules of the +Franciscans," "S. Francis before the Sultan and the Magi," "S. Francis +Sick and Appearing to the Bishop of Assisi," "S. Francis Fleeing from +His Father's House and His Reception by the Bishop of Assisi," and the +"Death of S. Francis". Giotto's Assisi frescoes, which preceded these, +anticipate them; but in some cases these are considered to be better, +although in others not so good. It is generally agreed that the death +scene is the best. Note the characteristic touch by which Giotto makes +one of the monks at the head of the bed look up at the precise moment +when the saint dies, seeing him being received into heaven. According +to Vasari, one of the two monks (on the extreme left, as I suppose) +is Giotto's portrait of the architect of the church, Amolfo. The altar +picture, consisting of many more scenes in the life of S. Francis, +is often attributed to Cimabue, Giotto's master, but probably is by +another hand. In one of these scenes the saint is found preaching +to what must be the most attentive birds on record. The figures on +the ceiling represent Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, which all +Franciscans are pledged to observe. The glass is coeval with the +building, which has been described as the most perfect Gothic chapel +in existence. + +The founder of this chapel was Ridolfo de' Bardi, whose family early +in the fourteenth century bade fair to become as powerful as the +Medici, and by the same means, their business being banking and +money-lending, in association with the founders of the adjoining +chapel, the Peruzzi. Ridolfo's father died in 1310, and his son, +who had become a Franciscan, in 1327; and the chapel was built, +and Giotto probably painted the frescoes, soon after the father's +death. Both the Bardi and Peruzzi were brought low by our King Edward +III, who borrowed from them money with which to fight the French, +at Crecy and Poitiers, and omitted to repay it. + +The chapels in the left transept are less interesting, except perhaps +to students of painting in its early days. In the chapel at the end +we find Donatello's wooden crucifix which led to that friendly rivalry +on the part of Brunelleschi, the story of which is one of the best in +all Vasari. Donatello, having finished this wooden crucifix, and being +unusually satisfied with it, asked Brunelleschi's opinion, confidently +expecting praise. But Brunelleschi, who was sufficiently close a friend +to say what he thought, replied that the type was too rough and common: +it was not Christ but a peasant. Christ, of course, was a peasant; +but by peasant Brunelleschi meant a stupid, dull man. Donatello, +chagrined, had recourse to what has always been a popular retort to +critics, and challenged him to make a better. Brunelleschi took it very +quietly: he said nothing in reply, but secretly for many months, in +the intervals of his architecture, worked at his own version, and then +one day, when it was finished, invited Donatello to dinner, stopping +at the Mercato Vecchio to get some eggs and other things. These he +gave Donatello to carry, and sent him on before him to the studio, +where the crucifix was standing unveiled. When Brunelleschi arrived he +found the eggs scattered and broken on the floor and Donatello before +his carving in an ecstasy of admiration. "But what are we going to +have for dinner?" the host inquired. "Dinner!" said Donatello; "I've +had all the dinner I require. To thee it is given to carve Christs: +to me only peasants." No one should forget this pretty story, either +here or at S. Maria Novella, where Brunelleschi's crucifix now is. + +The flexible Siena iron grille of this end chapel dates from 1335. Note +its ivy border. + +On entering the left aisle we find the tombs of Cherubini, the +composer, Raphael Morghen, the engraver, and that curious example of +the Florentine universalist, whose figure we saw under the Uffizi, +Leon Battista Alberti (1405-1472), architect, painter, author, +mathematician, scholar, conversationalist, aristocrat, and friend of +princes. His chief work in Florence is the Rucellai palace and the +façade of S. Maria Novella, but he was greater as an influence than +creator, and his manuals on architecture, painting, and the study of +perspective helped to bring the arts to perfection. It is at Rimini +that he was perhaps most wonderful. Lorenzo de' Medici greatly valued +his society, and he was a leader in the Platonic Academy. But the most +human achievement to his credit is his powerful plea for using the +vernacular in literature, rather than concealing one's best thoughts, +as was fashionable before his protest, in Latin. So much for Alberti's +intellectual side. Physically he was remarkable too, and one of his +accomplishments was to jump over a man standing upright, while he was +also able to throw a coin on to the highest tower, even, I suppose, +the Campanile, and ride any horse, however wild. At the Bargello may +be seen Alberti's portrait, on a medal designed by Pisanello. The old +medals are indeed the best authority for the lineaments of the great +men of the Renaissance, better far than paint. At South Kensington +thousands may be seen, either in the original or in reproduction. + +In the right aisle we saw Bernardo Rossellino's tomb of Leonardo Bruni; +in the left is that of Bruni's successor as Secretary of State, Carlo +Marsuppini, by Desiderio da Settignano, which is high among the most +beautiful monuments that exist. "Faine, faine!" says Alfred Branconi, +with his black eyes dimmed; and this though he has seen it every day +for years and explained its beauties in the same words. Everything +about it is beautiful, as the photograph which I give in this volume +will help the reader to believe: proportions, figures, and tracery; +but I still consider Mino's monument to Ugo in the Badia the finest +Florentine example of the gentler memorial style, as contrasted with +the severe Michelangelesque manner. Mino, it must be remembered, +was Desiderio's pupil, as Desiderio was Donatello's. Note how +Desiderio, by an inspiration, opened the leaf-work at each side of +the sarcophagus and instantly the great solid mass of marble became +light, almost buoyant. Never can a few strokes of the chisel have had +so transforming an effect. There is some doubt as to whether the boys +are just where the sculptor set them, and the upper ones with their +garlands are thought to be a later addition; but we are never likely +to know. The returned visitor from Florence will like to be reminded +that, as of so many others of the best Florentine sculptures, there +is a cast of this at South Kensington. + +The last tomb of the highest importance in the church is that of +Galileo, the astronomer, who died in 1642; but it is not interesting +as a work of art. In the centre of the church is a floor-tomb by +Ghiberti, with a bronze figure of a famous Franciscan, Francesco +Sansoni da Brescia. + +Next the sacristy. Italian priests apparently have no resentment +against inquisitive foreigners who are led into their dressing-rooms +while sumptuous and significant vestments are being donned; but I must +confess to feeling it for them, and if my impressions of the S. Croce +sacristy are meagre and confused it is because of a certain delicacy +that I experienced in intruding upon their rites. For on both occasions +when I visited the sacristy there were several priests either robing +or disrobing. Apart from a natural disinclination to invade privacy, +I am so poor a Roman Catholic as to be in some doubt as to whether one +has a right to be so near such a mystery at all. But I recollect that +in this sacristy are treasures of wood and iron--the most beautiful +intarsia wainscotting I ever saw, by Giovanni di Michele, with a frieze +of wolves and foliage, and fourteenth-century iron gates to the little +chapel, pure Gothic in design, with a little rose window at the top, +delicate beyond words: all which things once again turn the thoughts +to this wonderful Italy of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, +when not even the best was good enough for those who built churches, +but something miraculous was demanded from every craftsman. + +At the end of the passage in which the sacristy is situated is the +exquisite little Cappella Medici, which Michelozzo, the architect of +S. Marco and the Palazzo Medici, and for a while Donatello's partner, +built for his friend Cosimo de' Medici, who though a Dominican in his +cell at S. Marco was a Franciscan here, but by being equally a patron +dissociated himself from partisanship. Three treasures in particular +does this little temple hold: Giotto's "Coronation of the Virgin"; the +della Robbia altar relief, and Mino da Fiesole's tabernacle. Giotto's +picture, which is signed, once stood as altar-piece in the Baroncelli +chapel of the church proper. In addition to the beautiful della +Robbia altar-piece, so happy and holy--which Alfred Branconi boldly +calls Luca--there is over the door Christ between two angels, +a lovely example of the same art. For a subtler, more modern and +less religious mind, we have but to turn to the tabernacle by Mino, +every inch of which is exquisite. + +On the same wall is a curious thing. In the eighteen-sixties died +a Signor Lombardi, who owned certain reliefs which he believed to +be Donatello's. When his monument was made these ancient works were +built into them and here and there gilded (for it is a wicked world +and there was no taste at that time). One's impulse is not to look +at this encroaching piece of novelty at all; but one should resist +that feeling, because, on examination, the Madonna and Children above +Signor Lombardi's head become exceedingly interesting. Her hands are +the work of a great artist, and they are really holding the Child. Why +this should not be an early Donatello I do not see. + +The cloisters of S. Croce are entered from the piazza, just to the +right of the church: the first, a little ornate, by Arnolfo, and +the second, until recently used as a barracks but now being restored +to a more pacific end, by Brunelleschi, and among the most perfect +of his works. Brunelleschi is also the designer of the Pazzi chapel +in the first cloisters. The severity of the façade is delightfully +softened and enlivened by a frieze of mischievous cherubs' heads, the +joint work of Donatello and Desiderio. Donatello's are on the right, +and one sees at once that his was the bolder, stronger hand. Look +particularly at the laughing head fourth from the right. But that one +of Desiderio's over the middle columns has much charm and power. The +doors, from Brunelleschi's own hand, in a doorway perfect in scale, +are noble and worthy. The chapel itself I find too severe and a little +fretted by its della Robbias and the multiplicity of circles. It is +called Brunelleschi's masterpiece, but I prefer both the Badia of +Fiesole and the Old Sacristy at S. Lorenzo, and I remember with more +pleasure the beautiful doorway leading from the Arnolfo cloisters +to the Brunelleschi cloisters, which probably is his too. The +della Robbia reliefs, once one can forgive them for being here, are +worth study. Nothing could be more charming (or less conducive to a +methodical literary morning) than the angel who holds S. Matthew's +ink-pot. But I think my favourite of all is the pensive apostle who +leans his cheek on his hand and his elbow on his book. This figure +alone proves what a sculptor Luca was, apart altogether from the +charm of his mind and the fascination of his chosen medium. + +This chapel was once the scene of a gruesome ceremony. Old Jacopo +Pazzi, the head of the family at the time of the Pazzi conspiracy +against the Medici, after being hanged from a window of the Palazzo +Vecchio, was buried here. Some short while afterwards Florence was +inundated by rain to such an extent that the vengeance of God was +inferred, and, casting about for a reason, the Florentines decided +that it was because Jacopo had been allowed to rest in sacred soil. A +mob therefore rushed to S. Croce, broke open his tomb and dragged +his body through the streets, stopping on their way at the Pazzi +palace to knock on the door with his skull. He was then thrown into +the swollen Arno and borne away by the tide. + +In the old refectory of the convent are now a number of pictures +and fragments of sculpture. The "Last Supper," by Taddeo Gaddi, on +the wall, is notable for depicting Judas, who had no shrift at the +hands of the painters, without a halo. Castagno and Ghirlandaio, +as we shall see, under similar circumstances, placed him on the +wrong side of the table. In either case, but particularly perhaps in +Taddeo's picture, the answer to Christ's question, which Leonardo at +Milan makes so dramatic, is a foregone conclusion. The "Crucifixion" +on the end wall, at the left, is interesting as having been painted +for the Porta S. Gallo (in the Piazza Cavour) and removed here. All +the gates of Florence had religious frescoes in them, some of which +still remain. The great bronze bishop is said to be by Donatello and +to have been meant for Or San Michele; but one does not much mind. + +One finds occasion to say so many hard things of the Florentine +disregard of ancient art that it is peculiarly a pleasure to see +the progress that is being made in restoring Brunelleschi's perfect +cloisters at S. Croce to their original form. When they were turned +into barracks the Loggia was walled in all round and made into a series +of rooms. These walls are now gradually coming away, the lovely pillars +being again isolated, the chimneys removed, and everything lightly +washed. Grass has also been sown in the great central square. The +crumbling of the decorative medals in the spandrels of the cloisters +cannot of course be restored; but one does not complain of such +natural decay as that. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +The Accademia + +Michelangelo--The David--The tomb of Julius--A contrast--Fra +Angelico--The beatific painter--Cimabue and Giotto--Masaccio--Gentile +da Fabriano--Domenico Ghirlandaio--Fra Angelico again--Fra +Bartolommeo--Perugino--Botticelli--The "Primavera"--Leonardo da Vinci +and Verrocchio--Botticelli's sacred pictures--Botticini--Tapestries +of Eden. + +The Accademia delle Belle Arti is in the Via Ricasoli, that street +which seen from the top of the Campanile is the straightest thing in +Florence, running like a ruled line from the Duomo to the valley of +the Mugnone. Upstairs are modern painters: but upstairs I have never +been. It is the ground-floor rooms that are so memorable, containing +as they do a small but very choice collection of pictures illustrating +the growth of Italian art, with particular emphasis on Florentine +art; the best assemblage of the work of Fra Angelico that exists; +and a large gallery given up to Michelangelo's sculpture: originals +and casts. The principal magnets that draw people here, no doubt, +are the Fra Angelicos and Botticelli's "Primavera"; but in five at +least of the rooms there is not an uninteresting picture, while the +collection is so small that one can study it without fatigue--no +little matter after the crowded Uffizi and Pitti. + +It is a simple matter to choose in such a book as this the best +place in which to tell something of the life-story of, say, Giotto +and Brunelleschi and the della Robbias; for at a certain point their +genius is found concentrated--Donatello's and the della Robbias' +in the Bargello and those others at the Duomo and Campanile. But +with Michelangelo it is different, he is so distributed over the +city--his gigantic David here, the Medici tombs at S. Lorenzo, his +fortifications at S. Miniato, his tomb at S. Croce, while there remains +his house as a natural focus of all his activities. I have, however, +chosen the Medici chapel as the spot best suited for his biography, +and therefore will here dwell only on the originals that are preserved +about the David. The David himself, superb and confident, is the +first thing you see in entering the doors of the gallery. He stands +at the end, white and glorious, with his eyes steadfastly measuring +his antagonist and calculating upon what will be his next move if the +sling misdirects the stone. Of the objection to the statue as being +not representative of the Biblical figure I have said something in the +chapter on the Bargello, where several Davids come under review. Yet, +after all that can be said against its dramatic fitness, the statue +remains an impressive and majestic yet strangely human thing. There +it is--a sign of what a little Italian sculptor with a broken nose +could fashion with his mallet and chisel from a mass of marble four +hundred and more years ago. + +Its history is curious. In 1501, when Michelangelo was twenty-six +and had just returned to Florence from Rome with a great reputation +as a sculptor, the joint authorities of the cathedral and the Arte +della Lana offered him a huge block of marble that had been in their +possession for thirty-five years, having been worked upon clumsily by +a sculptor named Baccellino and then set aside. Michelangelo was told +that if he accepted it he must carve from it a David and have it done +in two years. He began in September, 1501, and finished in January, +1504, and a committee was appointed to decide upon its position, +among them being Leonardo da Vinci, Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi, +Filippino Lippi, Botticelli, and Andrea della Robbia, There were +three suggested sites: the Loggia de' Lanzi; the courtyard of the +Palazzo Vecchio, where Verrocchio's little boudoir David then stood +(now in the Bargello) and where his Cupid and dolphin now are; and +the place where it now stands, then occupied by Donatello's Judith and +Holofernes. This last was finally selected, not by the committee but by +the determination of Michelangelo himself, and Judith and Holofernes +were moved to the Loggia de' Lanzi to their present position. The +David was set up in May, 1504, and remained there for three hundred +and sixty-nine years, suffering no harm from the weather but having +an arm broken in the Medici riots in 1527. In 1878, however, it was +decided that further exposure might be injurious, and so the statue +was moved here to its frigid niche and a replica in marble afterwards +set up in its place. Since this glorious figure is to be seen thrice +in Florence, he may be said to have become the second symbol of the +city, next the fleur-de-lis. + +The Tribuna del David, as the Michelangelo salon is called, has +among other originals several figures intended for that tomb of Pope +Julius II (whose portrait by Raphael we have seen at the Uffizi) +which was to be the eighth wonder of the world, and by which the last +years of the sculptor's life were rendered so unhappy. The story +is a miserable one. Of the various component parts of the tomb, +finished or unfinished, the best known is the Moses at S. Pietro +in Vincoli at Rome, reproduced in plaster here, in the Accademia, +beneath the bronze head of its author. Various other parts are in Rome +too; others here; one or two may be at the Bargello (although some +authorities give these supposed Michelangelos to Vincenzo Danti); +others are in the grotto of the Boboli Gardens; and the Louvre has +what is in some respects the finest of the "Prisoners". + +The first statue on the right of the entrance of the Tribuna del David +is a group called "Genio Vittorioso". Here in the old man we see rock +actually turned to life; in the various "Prisoners" near we see life +emerging from rock; in the David we forget the rock altogether. One +wonders how Michelangelo went to work. Did the shape of the block +of marble influence him, or did he with his mind's eye, the Röntgen +rays of genius, see the figure within it, embedded in the midst, and +hew and chip until it disclosed? On the back of the fourth statue on +the left a monkish face has been incised: probably some visitor to the +studio. After looking at these originals and casts, and remembering +those other Michelangelo sculptures elsewhere in Florence--the tombs +of the Medici, the Brutus and the smaller David--turn to the bronze +head over the cast of Moses and reflect upon the author of it all: +the profoundly sorrowful eyes behind which so much power and ambition +and disappointment dwelt. + +It is peculiarly interesting to walk out of the Michelangelo gallery +into the little room containing the Fra Angelicos: to pass from a great +melancholy saturnine sculptor, the victim of the caprice of princes +temporal and spiritual, his eyes troubled with world knowledge and +world weariness, to the child-like celebrant of the joy of simple faith +who painted these gay and happy pictures. Fra Angelico--the sweetest +of all the Florentine painters--was a monk of Fiesole, whose real name +was Guido Petri da Mugello, but becoming a Dominican he called himself +Giovanni, and now through the sanctity and happiness of his brush is +for all time Beato Angelico. He was born in 1390, nearly sixty years +after Giotto's death, when Chaucer was fifty, and Richard II on the +English throne. His early years were spent in exile from Fiesole, +the brothers having come into difficulties with the Archbishop, +but by 1418 he was again at Fiesole, and when in 1436 Cosimo de' +Medici, returned from exile at Venice, set his friend Michelozzo +upon building the convent of S. Marco, Fra Angelico was fetched from +Fiesole to decorate the walls. There, and here, in the Accademia, are +his chief works assembled; but he worked also at Fiesole, at Cortona, +and at Rome, where he painted frescoes in the chapel of Nicholas V in +the Vatican and where he died, aged sixty-eight, and was buried. It +was while at Rome that the Pope offered him the priorship of S. Marco, +which he declined as being unworthy, but recommended Antonio, "the good +archbishop".--That practically is his whole life. As to his character, +let Vasari tell us. "He would often say that whosoever practised art +needed a quiet life and freedom from care, and he who occupies himself +with the things of Christ ought always to be with Christ. . . . Some +say that Fra Giovanni never took up his brush without first making a +prayer. . . . He never made a crucifix when the tears did not course +down his cheeks." The one curious thing--to me--about Fra Angelico +is that he has not been canonized. If ever a son of the Church toiled +for her honour and for the happiness of mankind it was he. + +There are examples of Fra Angelico's work elsewhere in Florence; +the large picture in Room I of this gallery; the large altar-piece +at the Uffizi, with certain others; the series of mural paintings +in the cells of S. Marco; and his pictures will be found not only +elsewhere in Florence and Italy but in the chief galleries of the +world; for he was very assiduous. We have an excellent example at +the National Gallery, No. 663; but this little room gives us the +artist and rhapsodist most completely. In looking at his pictures, +three things in particular strike the mind: the skill with which he +composed them; his mastery of light; and--and here he is unique--the +pleasure he must have had in painting them. All seem to have been play; +he enjoyed the toil exactly as a child enjoys the labour of building +a house with toy bricks. Nor, one feels, could he be depressed. Even +in his Crucifixions there is a certain underlying happiness, due +to his knowledge that the Crucified was to rise again and ascend to +Heaven and enjoy eternal felicity. Knowing this (as he did know it) +how could he be wholly cast down? You see it again in the Flagellation +of Christ, in the series of six scenes (No. 237). The scourging is +almost a festival. But best of all I like the Flight into Egypt, in +No. 235. Everything here is joyous and (in spite of the terrible cause +of the journey) bathed in the sunny light of the age of innocence: +the landscape; Joseph, younger than usual, brave and resolute and +undismayed by the curious turn in his fortunes; and Mary with the +child in her arms, happy and pretty, seated securely on an amiable +donkey that has neither bit nor bridle. It is when one looks at +Fra Angelico that one understands how wise were the Old Masters to +seek their inspiration in the life of Christ. One cannot imagine Fra +Angelico's existence in a pagan country. Look, in No. 236, at the six +radiant and rapturous angels clustering above the manger. Was there +ever anything prettier? But I am not sure that I do not most covet +No. 250, Christ crucified and two saints, and No. 251, the Coronation +of the Virgin, for their beauty of light. + +In the photographs No. 246--a Deposition--is unusually striking, +but in the original, although beautiful, it is far less radiant than +usual with this painter. It has, however, such feeling as to make it +especially memorable among the many treatments of this subject. What +is generally considered the most important work in this room is the +Last Judgment, which is certainly extraordinarily interesting, and in +the hierarchy of heaven and the company of the blest Fra Angelico is +in a very acceptable mood. The benignant Christ Who divides the sheep +and the goats; the healthy ripe-lipped Saints and Fathers who assist +at the tribunal and have never a line of age or experience on their +blooming cheeks; the monks and nuns, just risen from their graves, who +embrace each other in the meads of paradise with such fervour--these +have much of the charm of little flowers. But in delineating the damned +the painter is in strange country. It was a subject of which he knew +nothing, and the introduction among them of monks of the rival order +of S. Francis is mere party politics and a blot. + +There are two other rooms here, but Fra Angelico spoils us for +them. Four panels by another Frate, but less radiant, Lippo Lippi, are +remarkable, particularly the figure of the Virgin in the Annunciation; +and there is a curious series of scenes entitled "L'Albero della +Croce," by an Ignoto of the fourteenth century, with a Christ crucified +in the midst and all Scripture in medallions around him, the tragedy of +Adam and Eve at the foot (mutilated by some chaste pedant) being very +quaint. And in Angelico's rooms there is a little, modest Annunciation +by one of his school--No. 256--which shows what a good influence he +was, and to which the eye returns and returns. Here also, on easels, +are two portraits of Vallombrosan monks by Fra Bartolommeo, serene, +and very sympathetically painted, which cause one to regret the +deterioration in Italian ecclesiastic physiognomy; and Andrea del +Sarto's two pretty angels, which one so often finds in reproduction, +are here too. + +Let us now enter the first room of the collection proper and begin at +the very beginning of Tuscan art, for this collection is historical +and not fortuitous like that of the Pitti. The student may here trace +the progress of Tuscan painting from the level to the highest peaks +and downwards again. The Accademia was established with this purpose +by that enlightened prince, Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, +in 1784. Other pictures not wholly within his scheme have been added +since, together with the Michelangelo statues and casts; but they do +not impair the original idea. For the serious student the first room +is of far the most importance, for there he may begin with Cimabue +(? 1240-? 1302), and Giotto (1267-? 1337), and pass steadily to Luca +Signorelli (? 1450-1523). For the most part the pictures in this room +appeal to the inquirer rather than the sightseer; but there is not +one that is without interest, while three works of extraordinary charm +have thoughtfully been enisled, on screens, for special attention--a +Fra Angelico, a Fabriano, and a Ghirlandaio. Before reaching these, +let us look at the walls. + +The first large picture, on the left, the Cimabue, marks the transition +from Byzantine art to Italian art. Giovanni Cimabue, who was to be +the forerunner of the new art, was born about 1240. At that time +there was plenty of painting in Italy, but it was Greek, the work of +artists at Constantinople (Byzantium), the centre of Christianity in +the eastern half of the Roman Empire and the fount of ecclesiastical +energy, and it was crude workmanship, existing purely as an accessory +of worship. Cimabue, of whom, I may say, almost nothing definite +is known, and upon whom the delightful but casual old Vasari is the +earliest authority, as Dante was his first eulogist, carried on the +Byzantine tradition, but breathed a little life into it. In his picture +here we see him feeling his way from the unemotional painted symbols +of the Faith to humanity itself. One can understand this large panel +being carried (as we know the similar one at S. Maria Novella was) +in procession and worshipped, but it is nearer to the icon of the +Russian peasant of today than to a Raphael. The Madonna is above +life; the Child is a little man. This was painted, say, in 1280, +as an altar-piece for the Badia of S. Trinità at Florence. + +Next came Giotto, Cimabue's pupil, born about 1267, whom we have +met already as an architect, philosopher, and innovator; and in the +second picture in this room, from Giotto's brush, we see life really +awakening. The Madonna is vivifying; the Child is nearer childhood; we +can believe that here are veins with blood in them. Moreover, whereas +Cimabue's angels brought masonry, these bring flowers. It is crude, +no doubt, but it is enough; the new art, which was to counterfeit +and even extend nature, has really begun; the mystery and glory of +painting are assured and the door opened for Botticelli. + +But much had to happen first, particularly the mastery of the laws of +perspective, and it was not (as we have seen) until Ghiberti had got +to work on his first doors, and Brunelleschi was studying architecture +and Uccello sitting up all night at his desk, that painting as we +know it--painting of men and women "in the round"--could be done, +and it was left for a youth who was not born until Giotto had been +dead sixty-four years to do this first as a master--one Tommaso +di Ser Giovanni Guido da Castel San Giovanni, known as Masaccio, +or Big Tom. The three great names then in the evolution of Italian +painting, a subject to which I return in chapter XXV, on the Carmine, +are Cimabue, Giotto, Masaccio. + +We pass on at the Accademia from Cimabue's pupil Giotto, to Giotto's +followers, Taddeo Gaddi and Bernardo Daddi, and Daddi's follower +Spinello Aretino, and the long dependent and interdependent line of +painters. For the most part they painted altar-pieces, these early +craftsmen, the Church being the principal patron of art. These +works are many of them faded and so elementary as to have but an +antiquarian interest; but think of the excitement in those days when +the picture was at last ready, and, gay in its gold, was erected in the +chapel! Among the purely ecclesiastical works No. 137, an Annunciation +by Giovanni del Biondo (second half of the fourteenth century), +is light and cheerful, and No. 142, the Crowning of the Virgin, by +Rosello di Jacopo Franchi (1376-1456), has some delightful details and +is everywhere joyous, with a charming green pattern in it. The wedding +scenes in No. 147 give us Florentine life on the mundane side with +some valuable thoroughness, and the Pietro Lorenzetti above--scenes +in the life of S. Umilita--is very quaint and cheery and was painted +as early as 1316. The little Virgin adoring, No. 160, in the corner, +by the fertile Ignoto, is charmingly pretty. + +And now for the three screens, notable among the screens of the +galleries of Europe as holding three of the happiest pictures +ever painted. The first is the Adoration of the Magi, by Gentile +da Fabriano, an artist of whom one sees too little. His full +name was Gentile di Niccolò di Giovanni Massi, and he was born +at Fabriano between 1360 and 1370, some twenty years before Fra +Angelico. According to Vasari he was Fra Angelico's master, but +that is now considered doubtful, and yet the three little scenes +from the life of Christ in the predella of this picture are nearer +Fra Angelico in spirit and charm than any, not by a follower, that I +have seen. Gentile did much work at Venice before he came to Florence, +in 1422, and this picture, which is considered his masterpiece, was +painted in 1423 for S. Trinita. He died four years later. Gentile +was charming rather than great, and to this work might be applied +Ruskin's sarcastic description of poor Ghirlandaio's frescoes, that +they are mere goldsmith's work; and yet it is much more, for it has +gaiety and sweetness and the nice thoughtfulness that made the Child a +real child, interested like a child in the bald head of the kneeling +mage; while the predella is not to be excelled in its modest, tender +beauty by any in Florence; and predellas, I may remark again, should +never be overlooked, strong as the tendency is to miss them. Many +a painter has failed in the large space or made only a perfunctory +success, but in the small has achieved real feeling. Gentile's Holy +Family on its way to Egypt is never to be forgotten. Not so radiant +as Fra Angelico's, in the room we have visited out of due course, +but as charming in its own manner--both in personages and landscape; +while the city to which Joseph leads the donkey (again without reins) +is the most perfect thing out of fairyland. + +Ghirlandaio's picture, which is the neighbour of Gentile's, is as +a whole nearer life and one of his most attractive works. It is, +I think, excelled only by his very similar Adoration of the Magi +at the Spedale degli Innocenti, which, however, it is difficult to +see; and it is far beyond the examples at the Uffizi, which are too +hot. Of the life of this artist, who was Michelangelo's master, I +shall speak in the chapter on S. Maria Novella. This picture, which +represents the Adoration of the Shepherds, was painted in 1485, when +the artist was thirty-six. It is essentially pleasant: a religious +picture on the sunny side. The Child is the soul of babyish content, +equally amused with its thumb and the homage it is receiving. Close +by is a goldfinch unafraid; in the distance is a citied valley, with +a river winding in it; and down a neighbouring hill, on the top of +which the shepherds feed their flocks, comes the imposing procession +of the Magi. Joseph is more than commonly perplexed, and the disparity +between his own and his wife's age, which the old masters agreed to +make considerable, is more considerable than usual. + +Both Gentile and Ghirlandaio chose a happy subject and made it happier; +Fra Angelico (for the third screen picture) chose a melancholy +subject and made it happy, not because that was his intention, but +because he could not help it. He had only one set of colours and one +set of countenances, and since the colours were of the gayest and the +countenances of the serenest, the result was bound to be peaceful and +glad. This picture is a large "Deposizione della Croce," an altar-piece +for S. Trinità. There is such joy in the painting and light in the +sky that a child would clap his hands at it all, and not least at +the vermilion of the Redeemer's blood. Fra Angelico gave thought to +every touch: and his beatific holiness floods the work. Each of these +three great pictures, I may add, has its original frame. + +The room which leads from this one is much less valuable; but Fra +Bartolommeo's Vision of S. Bernard has lately been brought to an easel +here to give it character. I find this the Frate's most beautiful +work. It may have details that are a little crude, and the pointed nose +of the Virgin is not perhaps in accordance with the best tradition, +while she is too real for an apparition; but the figure of the kneeling +saint is masterly and the landscape lovely in subject and feeling. Here +too is Fra Bartolommeo's portrait of Savonarola, in which the reformer +is shown as personating S. Peter Martyr. The picture was not painted +from life, but from an earlier portrait. Fra Bartolommeo had some +reason to know what Savonarola was like, for he was his personal +friend and a brother in the same convent of S. Marco, a few yards +from the Accademia, across the square. He was born in 1475 and was +apprenticed to the painter Cosimo Rosselli; but he learned more from +studying Masaccio's frescoes at the Carmine and the work of Leonardo da +Vinci. It was in 1495 that he came under the influence of Savonarola, +and he was the first artist to run home and burn his studies from the +nude in response to the preacher's denunciations. Three years later, +when Savonarola was an object of hatred and the convent of S. Marco +was besieged, the artist was with him, and he then made a vow that if +he lived he would join the order; and this promise he kept, although +not until Savonarola had been executed. For a while, as a monk, he +laid aside the brush, but in 1506 he resumed it and painted until +his death, in 1517. He was buried at S. Marco. + +In his less regenerate days Fra Bartolommeo's greatest friend was the +jovial Mariotto Albertinelli, whose rather theatrical Annunciation +hangs between a number of the monk's other portraits, all very +interesting. Of Albertinelli I have spoken earlier. Before leaving, +look at the tiny Ignoto next the door--a Madonna and Child, the child +eating a pomegranate. It is a little picture to steal. + +In the next room are a number of the later and showy painters, such as +Carlo Dolci, Lorenzo Lippi, and Francesco Furini, all bold, dashing, +self-satisfied hands, in whom (so near the real thing) one can take +no interest. Nothing to steal here. + +Returning through Sala Prima we come to the Sala del Perugino and +are among the masters once more--riper and richer than most of +those we have already seen, for Tuscan art here reaches its finest +flower. Perugino is here and Botticelli, Fra Bartolommeo and Leonardo, +Luca Signorelli, Fra Lippo Lippi and Filippino Lippi. And here is a +Masaccio. The great Perugino Assumption has all his mellow sunset calm, +and never was a landscape more tenderly sympathetic. The same painter's +Deposition hangs next, and the custodian brings a magnifying glass +that the tears on the Magdalen's cheek may be more closely observed; +but the third, No. 53, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, is finer, +and here again the landscape and light are perfect. For the rest, +there is a Royal Academy Andrea and a formal Ghirlandaio. + +And now we come to Botticelli, who although less richly represented +in numbers than at the Uffizi, is for the majority of his admirers +more to be sought here, by reason of the "Primavera" allegory, +which is the Accademia's most powerful magnet. The Botticellis are +divided between two rooms, the "Primavera" being in the first. The +first feeling one has is how much cooler it is here than among the +Peruginos, and how much gayer; for not only is there the "Primavera," +but Fra Lippo Lippi is here too, with a company of angels helping +to crown the Virgin, and a very sweet, almost transparent, little +Madonna adoring--No. 79--which one cannot forget. + +The "Primavera" is not wearing too well: one sees that at once. Being +in tempera it cannot be cleaned, and a dulness is overlaying it; but +nothing can deprive the figure of Spring of her joy and movement, +a floating type of conquering beauty and youth. The most wonderful +thing about this wonderful picture is that it should have been painted +when it was: that, suddenly, out of a solid phalanx of Madonnas should +have stepped these radiant creatures of the joyous earth, earthy and +joyful. And not only that they should have so surprisingly and suddenly +emerged, but that after all these years this figure of Spring should +still be the finest of her kind. That is the miracle! Luca Signorelli's +flowers at the Uffizi remain the best, but Botticelli's are very +thoughtful and before the grass turned black they must have been very +lovely; the exquisite drawing of the irises in the right-hand corner +can still be traced, although the colour has gone. The effect now is +rather like a Chinese painting. For the history of the "Primavera" +and its signification, one must turn back to Chapter X. + +I spoke just now of Luca's flowers. There are others in his picture in +this room--botanist's flowers as distinguished from painter's flowers: +the wild strawberry beautifully straggling. This picture is one of +the most remarkable in all Florence to me: a Crucifixion to which +the perishing of the colour has given an effect of extreme delicacy, +while the group round the cross on the distant mound has a quality for +which one usually goes to Spanish art. The Magdalen is curiously sulky +and human. Into the skull at the foot of the cross creeps a lizard. + +This room has three Lippo Lippis, which is an interesting circumstance +when we remember that that dissolute brother was the greatest influence +on Botticelli. The largest is the Coronation of the Virgin with its +many lilies--a picture which one must delight in, so happy and crowded +is it, but which never seems to me quite what it should be. The most +fascinating part of it is the figures in the two little medallions: +two perfect pieces of colour and design. The kneeling monk on the +right is Lippo Lippi himself. Near it is the Madonna adoring, No. 79, +of which I have spoken, with herself so luminous and the background +so dark; the other--No. 82--is less remarkable. No. 81, above it, +is by Browning's Pacchiorotto (who worked in distemper); close by +is the Masaccio, which has a deep, quiet beauty; and beneath it is a +richly coloured predella by Andrea del Sarto, the work of a few hours, +I should guess, and full of spirit and vigour. It consists of four +scriptural scenes which might be called the direct forerunners of +Sir John Gilbert and the modern illustrators. Lastly we have what +is in many ways the most interesting picture in Florence--No. 71, +the Baptism of Christ--for it is held by some authorities to be the +only known painting by Verrocchio, whose sculptures we saw in the +Bargello and at Or San Michele, while in one of the angels--that +surely on the left--we are to see the hand of his pupil Leonardo da +Vinci. Their faces are singularly sweet. Other authorities consider +not only that Verrocchio painted the whole picture himself but that +he painted also the Annunciation at the Uffizi to which Leonardo's +name is given. Be that as it may--and we shall never know--this +is a beautiful thing. According to Vasari it was the excellence +of Leonardo's contribution which decided Verrocchio to give up the +brush. Among the thoughts of Leonardo is one which comes to mind with +peculiar force before this work when we know its story: "Poor is the +pupil who does not surpass his master". + +The second Sala di Botticelli has not the value of the first. It +has magnificent examples of Botticelli's sacred work, but the other +pictures are not the equal of those in the other rooms. Chief of the +Botticellis is No. 85, "The Virgin and Child with divers Saints," in +which there are certain annoying and restless elements. One feels that +in the accessories--the flooring, the curtains, and gilt--the painter +was wasting his time, while the Child is too big. Botticelli was seldom +too happy with his babies. But the face of the Saint in green and blue +on the left is most exquisitely painted, and the Virgin has rather less +troubled beauty than usual. The whole effect is not quite spiritual, +and the symbolism of the nails and the crown of thorns held up for +the Child to see is rather too cruel and obvious. I like better the +smaller picture with the same title--No. 88--in which the Saints at +each side are wholly beautiful in Botticelli's wistful way, and the +painting of their heads and head-dresses is so perfect as to fill +one with a kind of despair. But taken altogether one must consider +Botticelli's triumph in the Accademia to be pagan rather than sacred. + +No. 8, called officially School of Verrocchio, and by one firm of +photographers Botticini, and by another Botticelli, is a fine free +thing, low in colour, with a quiet landscape, and is altogether a +delight. It represents Tobias and the three angels, and Raphael moves +nobly, although not with quite such a step as the radiant figure in a +somewhat similar picture in our own National Gallery--No. 781--which, +once confidently given to Verrocchio, is now attributed to Botticini; +while our No. 296, which the visitor from Florence on returning to +London should hasten to examine, is no longer Verrocchio but School +of Verrocchio. When we think of these attributions and then look at +No. 154 in the Accademia--another Tobias and the Angel, here given +to Botticini--we have a concrete object lesson in the perilous career +that awaits the art expert, + +The other pictures here are two sunny panels by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, +high up, with nice easy colouring; No. 92, an Adoration of the +Shepherds by Lorenzo di Credi, with a good landscape and all very +sweet and quiet; No. 98, a Deposition by Filippino Lippi and Perugino, +in collaboration, with very few signs of Filippino; and No. 90, +a Resurrection by Raffaellino del Garbo, an uncommon painter in +Florence; the whole thing a tour de force, but not important. + +And now let us look at the Angelicos again. + +Before leaving the Accademia for the last time, one should glance +at the tapestries near the main entrance, just for fun. That one in +which Adam names the animals is so delightfully naive that it ought to +be reproduced as a nursery wall-paper. The creatures pass in review +in four processions, and Adam must have had to be uncommonly quick +to make up his mind first and then rattle out their resultant names +in the time. The main procession is that of the larger quadrupeds, +headed by the unicorn in single glory; and the moment chosen by the +artist is that in which the elephant, having just heard his name +(for the first time) and not altogether liking it, is turning towards +Adam in surprised remonstrance. The second procession is of reptiles, +led by the snail; the third, the smaller quadrupeds, led by four rats, +followed desperately close (but of course under the white flag) by two +cats; while the fourth--all sorts and conditions of birds--streams +through the air. The others in this series are all delightful, not +the least being that in which God, having finished His work, takes +Adam's arm and flies with him over the earth to point out its merits. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Two Monasteries and a Procession + +The Certosa--A Company of Uncles--The +Cells--Machiavelli--Impruneta--The +della Robbias--Pontassieve--Pelago--Milton's +simile--Vallombrosa--S. Gualberto--Prato and the Lippis--The Grassina +Albergo--An American invasion--The Procession of the Dead Christ--My +loss. + +Everyone who merely visits Florence holds it a duty to bring home at +least one flask of the Val d'Ema liqueur from the Carthusian monastery +four or five miles distant from the city, not because that fiery +distillation is peculiarly attractive but because the vessels which +contain it are at once pretty decorations and evidences of travel and +culture. They can be bought in Florence itself, it is true (at a shop +at the corner of the Via de' Cerretani, close to the Baptistery), +but the Certosa is far too interesting to miss, if one has time to +spare from the city's own treasures. The trams start from the Mercato +Nuovo and come along the Via dell' Arcivescovado to the Baptistery, +and so to the Porta Romana and out into the hilly country. The ride +is dull and rather tiresome, for there is much waiting at sidings, +but the expedition becomes attractive immediately the tram is +left. There is then a short walk, principally up the long narrow +approach to the monastery gates, outside which, when I was there, +was sitting a beggar at a stone table, waiting for the bowl of soup +to which all who ask are entitled. + +Passing within the courtyard you ring the bell on the right and enter +the waiting hall, from which, in the course of time, when a sufficient +party has been gathered, an elderly monk in a white robe leads you +away. How many monks there may be, I cannot say; but of the few of whom +I caught a glimpse, all were alike in the possession of white beards, +and all suggested uncles in fancy dress. Ours spoke good French and +was clearly a man of parts. Lulled by his soothing descriptions I +passed in a kind of dream through this ancient abode of peace. + +The Certosa dates from 1341 and was built and endowed by a wealthy +merchant named Niccolo Acciaioli, after whom the Lungarno Acciaioli +is named. The members of the family are still buried here, certain +of the tombstones bearing dates of the present century. To-day it is +little but a show place, the cells of the monks being mostly empty and +the sale of the liqueur its principal reason for existence. But the +monks who are left take a pride in their church, which is attributed +to Orcagna, and its possessions, among which come first the relief +monuments of early Acciaioli in the floor of one of the chapels--the +founder's being perhaps also the work of Orcagna, while that of his son +Lorenzo, who died in 1353, is attributed by our cicerone to Donatello, +but by others to an unknown hand. It is certainly very beautiful. These +tombs are the very reverse of those which we saw in S. Croce; for +those bear the obliterating traces of centuries of footsteps, so that +some are nearly flat with the stones, whereas these have been railed +off for ever and have lost nothing. The other famous Certosa tomb is +that of Cardinal Angelo Acciaioli, which, once given to Donatello, +is now sometimes attributed to Giuliano di Sangallo and sometimes to +his son Francesco. + +The Certosa has a few good pictures, but it is as a monastery that +it is most interesting: as one of the myriad lonely convents of +Italy, which one sees so constantly from the train, perched among +the Apennines, and did not expect ever to enter. The cloisters +which surround the garden, in the centre of which is a well, and +beneath which is the distillery, are very memorable, not only for +their beauty but for the sixty and more medallions of saints and +evangelists all round it by Giovanni della Robbia. Here the monks +have sunned themselves, and here been buried, these five and a half +centuries. One suite of rooms is shown, with its own little private +garden and no striking discomfort except the hole in the wall by +the bed, through which the sleeper is awakened. From its balcony one +sees the Etna far below and hears the roar of a weir, and away in the +distance is Florence with the Duomo and a third of Giotto's Campanile +visible above the intervening hills. + +Having shown you all the sights the monk leads you again to the +entrance hall and bids you good-bye, with murmurs of surprise and +a hint of reproach on discovering a coin in his hand, for which, +however, none the less, he manages in the recesses of his robe to +find a place; and you are then directed to the room where the liqueur, +together with sweets and picture post-cards, is sold by another monk, +assisted by a lay attendant, and the visit to the Certosa is over. + +The tram that passes the Certosa continues to S. Casciano in the +Chianti district (but much wine is called Chianti that never came +from here), where there is a point of interest in the house to which +Machiavelli retired in 1512, to give himself to literature and to live +that wonderful double life--a peasant loafer by day in the fields and +the village inn, and at night, dressed in his noblest clothes, the +cold, sagacious mentor of the rulers of mankind. But at S. Casciano +I did not stop. + +And farther still one comes to the village of Impruneta, after climbing +higher and higher, with lovely calm valleys on either side coloured +by silver olive groves and vivid wheat and maize, and studded with +white villas and villages and church towers. On the road every woman +in every doorway plaits straw with rapid fingers just as if we were in +Bedfordshire. Impruneta is famous for its new terra-cotta vessels and +its ancient della Robbias. For in the church is some of Luca's most +exquisite work--an altarpiece with a frieze of aerial angels under it, +and a stately white saint on either side, and the loveliest decorated +columns imaginable; while in an adjoining chapel is a Christ crucified +mourned by the most dignified and melancholy of Magdalens. Andrea della +Robbia is here too, and here also is a richly designed cantoria by Mino +da Fiesole. The village is not in the regular programme of visitors, +and Baedeker ignores it; hence perhaps the excitement which an arrival +from Florence causes, for the children turn out in battalions. The +church is very dirty, and so indeed is everything else; but no amount +of grime can disguise the charm of the cloisters. + +The Certosa is a mere half-hour from Florence, Impruneta an hour +and a half; but Vallombrosa asks a long day. One can go by rail, +changing at Sant' Ellero into the expensive rack-and-pinion car which +climbs through the vineyards to a point near the summit, and has, +since it was opened, brought to the mountain so many new residents, +whose little villas cling to the western slopes among the lizards, +and, in summer, are smitten unbearably by the sun. But the best way +to visit the monastery and the groves is by road. A motor-car no +doubt makes little of the journey; but a carriage and pair such as I +chartered at Florence for forty-five lire has to be away before seven, +and, allowing three hours on the top, is not back again until the +same hour in the evening; and this, the ancient way, with the beat +of eight hoofs in one's ears, is the right way. + +For several miles the road and the river--the Arno--run side by +side--and the railway close by too--through venerable villages whose +inhabitants derive their living either from the soil or the water, +and amid vineyards all the time. Here and there a white villa is seen, +but for the most part this is peasants' district: one such villa +on the left, before Pontassieve, having about it, and on each side +of its drive, such cypresses as one seldom sees and only Gozzoli or +Mr. Sargent could rightly paint, each in his own style. Not far beyond, +in a scrap of meadow by the road, sat a girl knitting in the morning +sun--with a placid glance at us as we rattled by; and ten hours later, +when we rattled past again, there she still was, still knitting, in +the evening sun, and again her quiet eyes were just raised and dropped. + +At Pontassieve we stopped a while for coffee at an inn at the corner +of the square of pollarded limes, and while it was preparing watched +the little crumbling town at work, particularly the cooper opposite, +who was finishing a massive cask within whose recesses good Chianti +is doubtless now maturing; and then on the white road again, to the +turning, a mile farther on, to the left, where one bids the Arno +farewell till the late afternoon. Steady climbing now, and then a +turn to the right and we see Pelago before us, perched on its crags, +and by and by come to it--a tiny town, with a clean and alluring +inn, very different from the squalor of Pontassieve: famous in art +and particularly Florentine art as being the birthplace of Lorenzo +Ghiberti, who made the Baptistery doors. From Pelago the road descends +with extreme steepness to a brook in a rocky valley, at a bridge over +which the real climb begins, to go steadily on (save for another swift +drop before Tosi) until Vallombrosa is reached, winding through woods +all the way, chiefly chestnut--those woods which gave Milton, who was +here in 1638, his famous simile. [6] The heat was now becoming intense +(it was mid-September) and the horses were suffering, and most of this +last stage was done at walking pace; but such was the exhilaration of +the air, such the delight of the aromas which the breeze continually +wafted from the woods, now sweet, now pungent, and always refreshing, +that one felt no fatigue even though walking too. And so at last the +monastery, and what was at that moment better than anything, lunch. + +The beauty and joy of Vallombrosa, I may say at once, are Nature's, +not man's. The monastery, which is now a Government school of +forestry, is ugly and unkempt; the hotel is unattractive; the few +people one meets want to sell something or take you for a drive. But +in an instant in any direction one can be in the woods--and at this +level they are pine woods, soft underfoot and richly perfumed--and +a quarter of an hour's walking brings the view. It is then that you +realize you are on a mountain indeed. Florence is to the north-west +in the long Arno valley, which is here precipitous and narrow. The +river is far below--if you slipped you would slide into it--fed by +tumbling Apennine streams from both walls. The top of the mountain +is heathery like Scotland, and open; but not long will it be so, +for everywhere are the fenced parallelograms which indicate that a +villa is to be erected. Nothing, however, can change the mountain +air or the glory of the surrounding heights. + +Another view, unbroken by villas but including the monastery and the +Foresters' Hotel in the immediate foreground, and extending as far as +Florence itself (on suitable days), is obtained from Il Paradisino, +a white building on a ledge which one sees from the hotel above the +monastery. But that is not by any means the top. The view covers much +of the way by which we came hither. + +Of the monastery of Vallombrosa we have had foreshadowings in +Florence. We saw at the Accademia two exquisite portraits by Fra +Bartolommeo of Vallombrosan monks. We saw at the Bargello the remains +of a wonderful frieze by Benedetto da Rovezzano for the tomb of +the founder of the order, S. Giovanni Gualberto; we shall see at +S. Miniato scenes in the saint's life on the site of the ancient +chapel where the crucifix bent and blessed him. As the head of the +monastery Gualberto was famous for the severity and thoroughness of +his discipline. But though a martinet as an abbot, personally he was +humble and mild. His advice on all kinds of matters is said to have +been invited even by kings and popes. He invented the system of lay +brothers to help with the domestic work of the convent; and after a +life of holiness, which comprised several miracles, he died in 1073 +and was subsequently canonized. + +The monastery, as I have said, is now secularized, save for the chapel, +where three resident monks perform service. One may wander through its +rooms and see in the refectory, beneath portraits of famous brothers, +the tables now laid for young foresters. The museum of forestry is +interesting to those interested in museums of forestry. + +It was to the monastery at Vallombrosa that the Brownings travelled +in 1848 when Mrs. Browning was ill. But the abbot could not break the +rules in regard to women, and after five days they had to return to +Florence. Browning used to play the organ in the chapel, as, it is +said, Milton had done two centuries earlier. + +At such a height and with only a short season the hotel proprietors +must do what they can, and prices do not rule low. A departing American +was eyeing his bill with a rueful glance as we were leaving. "Milton +had it wrong," he said to me (with the freemasonry of the plucked, +for I knew him not), "what he meant was, 'thick as thieves'." + +We returned by way of Sant' Ellero, the gallant horses trotting +steadily down the hill, and then beside the Arno once more all the +way to Florence. It chanced to be a great day in the city--September +20th, the anniversary of the final defeat of papal temporal power, +in 1870--which we were not sorry to have missed, the first tidings +coming to us from the beautiful tower of the Palazzo Vecchio which +in honour of the occasion had been picked out with fairy lamps. + +Among the excursions which I think ought to be made if one is in +Florence for a justifying length of time is a visit to Prato. This +ancient town one should see for several things: for its age and for +its walls; for its great piazza (with a pile of vividly dyed yarn +in the midst) surrounded by arches under which coppersmiths hammer +all day at shining rotund vessels, while their wives plait straw; +for Filippino Lippi's exquisite Madonna in a little mural shrine at +the narrow end of the piazza, which a woman (fetched by a crowd of +ragged boys) will unlock for threepence; and for the cathedral, with +Filippino's dissolute father's frescoes in it, the Salome being one +of the most interesting pre-Botticelli scenes in Italian art. If only +it had its colour what a wonder of lightness and beauty this still +would be! But probably most people are attracted to Prato chiefly by +Donatello and Michelozzo's outdoor pulpit, the frieze of which is a +kind of prentice work for the famous cantoria in the museum of the +cathedral at Florence, with just such wanton boys dancing round it. + +On Good Friday evening in the lovely dying April light I paid +thirty centimes to be taken by tram to Grassina to see the famous +procession of the Gesù Morto. The number of people on the same +errand having thrown out the tram service, we had very long waits, +while the road was thronged with other vehicles; and the result was +I was tired enough--having been standing all the way--when Grassina +was reached, for festivals six miles out of Florence at seven in the +evening disarrange good habits. But a few pence spent in the albergo +on bread and cheese and wine soon restored me. A queer cavern of a +place, this inn, with rough tables, rows and rows of wine flasks, +and an open fire behind the bar, tended by an old woman, from which +everything good to eat proceeded rapidly without dismay--roast chicken +and fish in particular. A strapping girl with high cheek bones and a +broad dark comely face washed plates and glasses assiduously, and two +waiters, with eyes as near together as monkeys', served the customers +with bewildering intelligence. It was the sort of inn that in England +would throw up its hands if you asked even for cold beef. + +The piazza of Grassina, which, although merely a village, is +enterprising enough to have a cinematoscope hall, was full of +stalls given chiefly to the preparation and sale of cake like the +Dutch wafelen, and among the stalls were conjurors, cheap-jacks, +singers, and dice throwers; while every moment brought its fresh +motor-car or carriage load, nearly all speaking English with a nasal +twang. Meanwhile every one shouted, the naphtha flared, the drums beat, +the horses champed. The street was full too, chiefly of peasants, +but among them myriad resolute American virgins, in motor veils, whom +nothing can ever surprise; a few American men, sceptical, as ever, +of anything ever happening; here and there a diffident Englishwoman +and Englishman, more in the background, but destined in the end +to see all. But what I chiefly noticed was the native girls, with +their proud bosoms carried high and nothing on their heads. They at +any rate know their own future. No rushing over the globe for them, +but the simple natural home life and children. + +In the gloom the younger girls in white muslin were like pretty +ghosts, each followed by a solicitous mother giving a touch here +and a touch there--mothers who once wore muslin too, will wear it no +more, and are now happy in pride in their daughters. And very little +girls too--mere tots--wearing wings, who very soon were to join the +procession as angels. + +And all the while the darkness was growing, and on the hill where the +church stands lights were beginning to move about, in that mysterious +way which torches have when a procession is being mobilized, while +all the villas on the hills around had their rows of candles. + +And then the shifting flames came gradually into a mass and took +a steady upward progress, and the melancholy strains of an ancient +ecclesiastical lamentation reached our listening ears. As the lights +drew nearer I left the bank where all the Mamies and Sadies with +their Mommas were stationed and walked down into the river valley +to meet the vanguard. On the bridge I found a little band of Roman +soldiers on horseback, without stirrups, and had a few words with +one of them as to his anachronistic cigarette, and then the first +torches arrived, carried by proud little boys in red; and after the +torches the little girls in muslin veils, which were, however, for +the most part disarranged for the better recognition of relations +and even more perhaps for recognition by relations: and very pretty +this recognition was on both sides. And then the village priests in +full canonicals, looking a little self-conscious; and after them the +dead Christ on a litter carried by a dozen contadini who had a good +deal to say to each other as they bore Him. + +This was the same dead Christ which had been lying in state in the +church, for the past few days, to be worshipped and kissed by the +peasantry. I had seen a similar image at Settignano the day before and +had watched how the men took it. They began by standing in groups in +the piazza, gossipping. Then two or three would break away and make +for the church. There, all among the women and children, half-shyly, +half-defiantly, they pecked at the plaster flesh and returned to resume +the conversation in the piazza with a new serenity and confidence in +their hearts. + +After the dead Christ came a triumphal car of the very little girls +with wings, signifying I know not what, but intensely satisfying to +the onlookers. One little wet-nosed cherub I patted, so chubby and +innocent she was; and Heaven send that the impulse profited me! This +car was drawn by an ancient white horse, amiable and tractable as a +saint, but as bewildered as I as to the meaning of the whole strange +business. After the car of angels a stalwart body of white-vestmented +singers, sturdy fellows with black moustaches who had been all day +among the vines, or steering placid white oxen through the furrows, +and were now lifting their voices in a miserere. And after them the +painted plaster Virgin, carried as upright as possible, and then +more torches and the wailing band; and after the band another guard +of Roman soldiers. + +Such was the Grassina procession. It passed slowly and solemnly through +the town from the hill and up the hill again; and not soon shall I +forget the mournfulness of the music, which nothing of tawdriness in +the constituents of the procession itself could rid of impressiveness +and beauty. One thing is certain--all processions, by day or night, +should first descend a hill and then ascend one. All should walk to +melancholy strains. Indeed, a joyful procession becomes an impossible +thought after this. + +And then I sank luxuriously into a corner seat in the waiting tram, +and, seeking for the return journey's thirty centimes, found that +during the proceedings my purse had been stolen. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +S. Marco + +Andrea del Castagno--"The Last Supper"--The stolen Madonna--Fra +Angelico's frescoes--"Little Antony"--The good archbishop--The +Buonuomini--Savonarola--The death of Lorenzo the Magnificent--Pope +Alexander VI--The Ordeal by Fire--The execution--The S. Marco +cells--The cloister frescoes--Ghirlandaio's "Last Supper"--Relics of +old Florence--Pico and Politian--Piero di Cosimo--Andrea del Sarto. + +From the Accademia it is but a step to S. Marco, across the Piazza, but +it is well first to go a little beyond that in order to see a certain +painting which both chronologically and as an influence comes before +a painting that we shall find in the Museo S. Marco. We therefore +cross the Piazza S. Marco to the Via d'Arrazzieri, which leads into +the Via 27 Aprile, [7] where at a door on the left, marked A, is an +ancient refectory, preserved as a picture gallery: the Cenacolo di +S. Apollonia, all that is kept sacred of the monastery of S. Apollonia, +now a military establishment. This room is important to students of +art in containing so much work of Andrea del Castagno (1390-1457), +to whom Vasari gives so black a character. The portrait frescoes are +from the Villa Pandolfini (previously Carducci), and among them are +Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Dante--who is here rather less ascetic than +usual--none of whom the painter could have seen. There is also a very +charming little cupid carrying a huge peacock plume. But "The Last +Supper" is the glory of the room. This work, which belongs to the +middle of the fifteenth century, is interesting as a real effort at +psychology. Leonardo makes Judas leave his seat to ask if it is he +that is meant--that being the dramatic moment chosen by this prince +of painters: Castagno calls attention to Judas as an undesirable +member of the little band of disciples by placing him apart, the +only one on his side of the table; which was avoiding the real task, +since naturally when one of the company was forced into so sinister +a position the question would be already answered. Castagno indeed +renders Judas so obviously untrustworthy as to make it a surprise +that he ever was admitted among the disciples (or wished to be one) +at all; while Vasari blandly suggests that he is the very image of the +painter himself. Other positions which later artists converted into a +convention may also be noted: John, for example, is reclining on the +table in an ecstasy of affection and fidelity; while the Florentine +loggia as the scene of the meal was often reproduced later. + +Andrea del Castagno began life as a farm lad, but was educated as an +artist at the cost of one of the less notable Medici. He had a vigorous +way with his brush, as we see here and have seen elsewhere. In the +Duomo, for example, we saw his equestrian portrait of Niccolò da +Tolentino, a companion to Uccello's Hawkwood. When the Albizzi and +Peruzzi intrigues which had led to the banishment of Cosimo de' Medici +came to their final frustration with the triumphant return of Cosimo, +it was Andrea who was commissioned by the Signoria to paint for the +outside of the Bargello a picture of the leaders of the insurrection, +upside down. Vasari is less to be trusted in his dates and facts in his +memoir of Andrea del Castagno than anywhere else; for he states that +he commemorated the failure of the Pazzi Conspiracy (which occurred +twenty years after his death), and accuses him not only of murdering +his fellow-painter Domenico Veneziano but confessing to the crime; +the best answer to which allegation is that Domenico survived Andrea +by four years. + +We may now return to S. Marco. The convent as we now see it was +built by Michelozzo, Donatello's friend and partner and the friend +also of Cosimo de' Medici, at whose cost he worked here. Antonino, +the saintly head of the monastery, having suggested to Cosimo that +he should apply some of his wealth, not always too nicely obtained, +to the Lord, Cosimo began literally to squander money on S. Marco, +dividing his affection between S. Lorenzo, which he completed upon +the lines laid down by his father, and this Dominican monastery, +where he even had a cell reserved for his own use, with a bedroom +in addition, whither he might now and again retire for spiritual +refreshment and quiet. + +It was at S. Marco that Cosimo kept the MSS. which he was constantly +collecting, and which now, after curious vicissitudes, are lodged +in Michelangelo's library at S. Lorenzo; and on his death he left +them to the monks. Cosimo's librarian was Tommaso Parenticelli, a +little busy man, who, to the general astonishment, on the death of +Eugenius IV became Pope and took the name of Nicholas V. His energies +as Pontiff went rather towards learning and art than anything else: he +laid the foundations of the Vatican library, on the model of Cosimo's, +and persuaded Fra Angelico to Rome to paint Vatican frescoes. + +The magnets which draw every one who visits Florence to S. Marco are +first Fra Angelico, and secondly Savonarola, or first Savonarola, and +secondly Fra Angelico, according as one is constituted. Fra Angelico, +at Cosimo's desire and cost, came from Fiesole to paint here; while +Girolamo Savonarola, forced to leave Ferrara during the war, entered +these walls in 1482. Fra Angelico in his single crucifixion picture in +the first cloisters and in his great scene of the Mount of Olives in +the chapter house shows himself less incapable of depicting unhappiness +than we have yet seen him; but the most memorable of the ground-floor +frescoes is the symbol of hospitality over the door of the wayfarers' +room, where Christ is being welcomed by two Dominicans in the way +that Dominicans (as contrasted with scoundrelly Franciscans) would of +course welcome Him. In this Ospizio are three reliquaries which Fra +Angelico painted for S. Maria Novella, now preserved here in a glass +case. They represent the Madonna della Stella, the Coronation of the +Virgin, and the Adoration of the Magi. All are in Angelico's happiest +manner, with plenty of gold; and the predella of the Coronation is +the prettiest thing possible, with its blue saints gathered about a +blue Mary and Joseph, who bend over the Baby. + +The Madonna della Stella is the picture which was stolen in 1911, but +quickly recovered. It is part of the strange complexity of this world +that it should equally contain artists such as Fra Angelico and thieves +such as those who planned and carried out this robbery: nominally +custodians of the museum. To repeat one of Vasari's sentences: "Some +say that he never took up his brush without first making a prayer".... + +The "Peter" with his finger to his lips, over the sacristy, is +reminding the monks that that room is vowed to silence. In the chapter +house is the large Crucifixion by the same gentle hand, his greatest +work in Florence, and very fine and true in character. Beneath it +are portraits of seventeen famous Dominicans with S. Dominic in +the midst. Note the girl with the scroll in the right--how gay and +light the colouring. Upstairs, in the cells, and pre-eminently in the +passage, where his best known Annunciation is to be seen, Angelico is +at his best. In each cell is a little fresco reminding the brother +of the life of Christ--and of those by Angelico it may be said that +each is as simple as it can be and as sweet: easy lines, easy colours, +with the very spirit of holiness shining out. I think perhaps that the +Coronation of the Virgin in the ninth cell, reproduced in this volume, +is my favourite, as it is of many persons; but the Annunciation in the +third, the two Maries at the Sepulchre in the eighth, and the Child +in the Stable in the fifth, are ever memorable too. In the cell set +apart for Cosimo de' Medici, No. 38, which the officials point out, +is an Adoration of the Magi, painted there at Cosimo's express wish, +that he might be reminded of the humility proper to rulers; and here +we get one of the infrequent glimpses of this best and wisest of the +Medici, for a portrait of him adorns it, with a wrong death-date on it. + +Here also is a sensitive terra-cotta bust of S. Antonio, Cosimo's +friend and another pride of the monastery: the monk who was also +Archbishop of Florence until his death, and whom we saw, in stone, in +a niche under the Uffizi. His cell was the thirty-first cell, opposite +the entrance. This benign old man, who has one of the kindest faces +of his time, which was often introduced into pictures, was appointed +to the see at the suggestion of Fra Angelico, to whom Pope Eugenius +(who consecrated the new S. Marco in 1442 and occupied Cosimo de' +Medici's cell on his visit) had offered it; but the painter declined +and put forward Antonio in his stead. Antonio Pierozzi, whose destiny +it was to occupy this high post, to be a confidant of Cosimo de' +Medici, and ultimately, in 1523, to be enrolled among the saints, +was born at Florence in 1389. According to Butler, from the cradle +"Antonino" or "Little Antony," as the Florentines affectionately +called him, had "no inclination but to piety," and was an enemy even +as an infant "both to sloth and to the amusements of children". As +a schoolboy his only pleasure was to read the lives of the saints, +converse with pious persons or to pray. When not at home or at school +he was in church, either kneeling or lying prostrate before a crucifix, +"with a perseverance that astonished everybody". S. Dominic himself, +preaching at Fiesole, made him a Dominican, his answers to an +examination of the whole decree of Gratian being the deciding cause, +although Little Antony was then but sixteen. As a priest he was +"never seen at the altar but bathed in tears". After being prior of +a number of convents and a counsellor of much weight in convocation, +he was made Archbishop of Florence: but was so anxious to avoid the +honour and responsibility that he hid in the island of Sardinia. On +being discovered he wrote a letter praying to be excused and watered it +with his tears; but at last he consented and was consecrated in 1446. + +As archbishop his life was a model of simplicity and solicitude. He +thought only of his duties and the well-being of the poor. His purse +was open to all in need, and he "often sold" his single mule in order +to relieve some necessitous person. He gave up his garden to the growth +of vegetables for the poor, and kept an ungrateful leper whose sores +he dressed with his own hands. He died in 1459 and was canonized in +1523. His body was still free from corruption in 1559, when it was +translated to the chapel in S. Marco prepared for it by the Salviati. + +But perhaps the good Antonino's finest work was the foundation of a +philanthropic society of Florentines which still carries on its good +work. Antonino's sympathy lay in particular with the reduced families +of Florence, and it was to bring help secretly to them--too proud to +beg--that he called for volunteers. The society was known in the city +as the Buonuomini (good men) of S. Martino, the little church close to +Dante's house, behind the Badia: S. Martin being famous among saints +for his impulsive yet wise generosity with his cloak. + +The other and most famous prior of S. Marco was Savonarola. Girolamo +Savonarola was born of noble family at Ferrara in 1452, and after a +profound education, in which he concentrated chiefly upon religion and +philosophy, he entered the Dominican order at the age of twenty-two. He +first came to S. Marco at the age of thirty and preached there in +Lent in 1482, but without attracting much notice. When, however, he +returned to S. Marco seven years later it was to be instantly hailed +both as a powerful preacher and reformer. His eloquent and burning +declarations were hurled both at Florence and Rome: at the apathy and +greed of the Church as a whole, and at the sinfulness and luxury of +this city, while Lorenzo the Magnificent, who was then at the height +of his influence, surrounded by accomplished and witty hedonists, +and happiest when adding to his collection of pictures, jewels, +and sculpture, in particular did the priest rebuke. Savonarola stood +for the spiritual ideals and asceticism of the Baptist, Christ, and +S. Paul; Lorenzo, in his eyes, made only for sensuality and decadence. + +The two men, however, recognized each other's genius, and Lorenzo, +with the tolerance which was as much a mark of the first three +Medici rulers as its absence was notable in most of the later ones, +rather encouraged Savonarola in his crusade than not. He visited him +in the monastery and did not resent being kept waiting; and he went +to hear him preach. In 1492 Lorenzo died, sending for Savonarola on +his death-bed, which was watched by the two closest of his scholarly +friends, Pico della Mirandola and Politian. The story of what happened +has been variously told. According to the account of Politian, Lorenzo +met his end with fortitude, and Savonarola prayed with the dying man +and gave him his blessing; according to another account, Lorenzo was +called upon by Savonarola to make three undertakings before he died, +and, Lorenzo declining, Savonarola left him unabsolved. These promises +were (1) to repent of all his sins, and in particular of the sack +of Volterra, of the alleged theft of public dowry funds and of the +implacable punishment of the Pazzi conspirators; (2) to restore all +property of which he had become possessed by unjust means; and (3) +to give back to Florence her liberty. But the probabilities are in +favour of Politian's account being the true one, and the later story +a political invention. + +Lorenzo dead and Piero his son so incapable, Savonarola came to his +own. He had long foreseen a revolution following on the death of +Lorenzo, and in one of his most powerful sermons he had suggested +that the "Flagellum Dei" to punish the wicked Florentines might be +a foreign invader. When therefore in 1493 the French king Charles +VIII arrived in Italy with his army, Savonarola was recognized not +only as a teacher but as a prophet; and when the Medici had been +again banished and Charles, having asked too much, had retreated +from Florence, the Republic was remodelled with Savonarola virtually +controlling its Great Council. For a year or two his power was supreme. + +This was the period of the Piagnoni, or Weepers. The citizens adopted +sober attire; a spirit as of England under the Puritans prevailed; +and Savonarola's eloquence so far carried away not only the populace +but many persons of genius that a bonfire was lighted in the middle +of the Piazza della Signoria in which costly dresses, jewels, false +hair and studies from the nude were destroyed. + +Savonarola, meanwhile, was not only chastising and reforming Florence, +but with fatal audacity was attacking with even less mincing of words +the licentiousness of the Pope. As to the character of Lorenzo de' +Medici there can be two opinions, and indeed the historians of Florence +are widely divided in their estimates; but of Roderigo Borgia (Pope +Alexander VI) there is but one, and Savonarola held it. Savonarola +was excommunicated, but refused to obey the edict. Popes, however, +although Florence had to a large extent put itself out of reach, +have long arms, and gradually--taking advantage of the city's growing +discontent with piety and tears and recurring unquiet, there being +still a strong pro-Medici party, and building not a little on his +knowledge of the Florentine love of change--the Pope gathered together +sufficient supporters of his determination to crush this too outspoken +critic and humiliate his fellow-citizens. + +Events helped the pontiff. A pro-Medici conspiracy excited the +populace; a second bonfire of vanities led to rioting, for the +Florentines were beginning to tire of virtue; and the preaching of a +Franciscan monk against Savonarola (and the gentle Fra Angelico has +shown us, in the Accademia, how Franciscans and Dominicans could hate +each other) brought matters to a head, for he challenged Savaronola +to an ordeal by fire in the Loggia de' Lanzi, to test which of them +spoke with the real voice of God. A Dominican volunteered to make the +essay with a Franciscan. This ceremony, anticipated with the liveliest +eagerness by the Florentines, was at the last moment forbidden, +and Savonarola, who had to bear the responsibility of such a bitter +disappointment to a pleasure-loving people, became an unpopular +figure. Everything just then was against him, for Charles VIII, +with whom he had an understanding and of whom the Pope was afraid, +chose that moment to die. + +The Pope drove home his advantage, and getting more power among +individuals on the Council forced them to indict their firebrand. No +means were spared, however base; forgery and false witness were as +nothing. The summons arrived on April 8th, 1497, when Savonarola was +at S. Marco. The monks, who adored him, refused to let him go, and +for a whole day the convent was under siege. But might, of course, +prevailed, and Savonarola was dragged from the church to the Palazzo +Vecchio and prosecuted for the offence of claiming to have supernatural +power and fomenting political disturbance. He was imprisoned in a tiny +cell in the tower for many days, and under constant torture he no doubt +uttered words which would never have passed his lips had he been in +control of himself; but we may dismiss, as false, the evidence which +makes them into confessions. Evidence there had to be, and evidence +naturally was forthcoming; and sentence of death was passed. + +In that cell, when not under torture, he managed to write meditations +on the thirteenth psalm, "In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped," and a little +work entitled "A Rule for Living a Christian Life". Before the last +day he administered the Sacrament to his two companions, who were to +die with him, with perfect composure, and the night preceding they +spent together in prayer in the Great Hall which he had once dominated. + +The execution was on May 23rd, 1498. A gallows was erected in +the Piazza della Signoria on the spot now marked by the bronze +tablet. Beneath the gallows was a bonfire. All those members of the +Government who could endure the scene were present, either on the +platform of the Palazzo Vecchio or in the Loggia de' Lanzi. The crowd +filled the Piazza. The three monks went to their death unafraid. When +his friar's gown was taken from him, Savonarola said: "Holy gown, +thou wert granted to me by God's grace and I have ever kept thee +unstained. Now I forsake thee not but am bereft of thee." (This very +garment is in the glass case in Savonarola's cell at S. Marco.) The +Bishop replied hastily: "I separate thee from the Church militant +and triumphant". "Militant," replied Savonarola, "not triumphant, for +that rests not with you." The monks were first hanged and then burned. + +The larger picture of the execution which hangs in Savonarola's +cell, although interesting and up to a point credible, is of course +not right. The square must have been crowded: in fact we know it +was. The picture has still other claims on the attention, for it +shows the Judith and Holofernes as the only statue before the Palazzo +Vecchio, standing where David now is; it shows the old ringhiera, +the Marzocco (very inaccurately drawn), and the Loggia de' Lanzi +empty of statuary. We have in the National Gallery a little portrait +of Savonarola--No. 1301--with another representation of the execution +on the back of it. + +So far as I can understand Savonarola, his failure was due to +two causes: firstly, his fatal blending of religion and politics, +and secondly, the conviction which his temporary success with the +susceptible Florentines bred in his heated mind that he was destined +to carry all before him, totally failing to appreciate the Florentine +character with all its swift and deadly changes and love of change. As +I see it, Savonarola's special mission at that time was to be a +wandering preacher, spreading the light and exciting his listeners to +spiritual revival in this city and that, but never to be in a position +of political power and never to become rooted. The peculiar tragedy +of his career is that he left Florence no better than he found it: +indeed, very likely worse; for in a reaction from a spiritual revival +a lower depth can be reached than if there had been no revival at all; +while the visit of the French army to Italy, for which Savonarola took +such credit to himself, merely ended in disaster for Italy, disease +for Europe, and the spreading of the very Renaissance spirit which +he had toiled to destroy. But, when all is said as to his tragedy, +personal and political, there remains this magnificent isolated figure, +single-minded, austere and self-sacrificing, in an age of indulgence. + +For most people "Romola" is the medium through which Savonarola is +visualized; but there he is probably made too theatrical. Yet he +must have had something of the theatre in him even to consent to the +ordeal by fire. That he was an intense visionary is beyond doubt, +but a very real man too we must believe when we read of the devotion +of his monks to his person, and of his success for a while with the +shrewd, worldly Great Council. + +Savonarola had many staunch friends among the artists. We have seen +Lorenzo di Credi and Fra Bartolommeo under his influence. After +his death Fra Bartolommeo entered S. Marco (his cell was No. 34), +and di Credi, who was noted for his clean living, entered S. Maria +Nuova. Two of Luca della Robbia's nephews were also monks under +Savonarola. We have seen Fra Bartolommeo's portrait of Savonarola in +the Accademia, and there is another of him here. Cronaca, who built +the Great Council's hall, survived Savonarola only ten years, and +during that time all his stories were of him. Michelangelo, who was +a young man when he heard him preach, read his sermons to the end of +his long life. But upon Botticelli his influence was most powerful, +for he turned that master's hand from such pagan allegories as the +"Primavera" and the "Birth of Venus" wholly to religious subjects. + +Savonarola had three adjoining cells. In the first is a monument to +him, his portrait by Fra Bartolommeo and three frescoes by the same +hand. In the next room is the glass case containing his robe, his +hair shirt, and rosary; and here also are his desk and some books. In +the bedroom is a crucifixion by Fra Angelico on linen. No one knowing +Savonarola's story can remain here unmoved. + +We find Fra Bartolommeo again with a pencil drawing of S. Antonio +in that saint's cell. Here also is Antonino's death-mask. The +terra-cotta bust of him in Cosimo's cell is the most like life, but +there is an excellent and vivacious bronze in the right transept of +S. Maria Novella. + +Before passing downstairs again the library should be visited, that +delightful assemblage of grey pillars and arches. Without its desks +and cases it would be one of the most beautiful rooms in Florence. All +the books have gone, save the illuminated music. + +In the first cloisters, which are more liveable-in than the ordinary +Florentine cloisters, having a great shady tree in the midst with a +seat round it, and flowers, are the Fra Angelicos I have mentioned. The +other painting is rather theatrical and poor. In the refectory is +a large scene of the miracle of the Providenza, when S. Dominic and +his companions, during a famine, were fed by two angels with bread; +while at the back S. Antonio watches the crucified Christ. The artist +is Sogliano. + +In addition to Fra Angelico's great crucifixion fresco in the chapter +house, is a single Christ crucified, with a monk mourning, by Antonio +Pollaiuolo, very like the Fra Angelico in the cloisters; but the +colour has left it, and what must have been some noble cypresses are +now ghosts dimly visible. The frame is superb. + +One other painting we must see--the "Last Supper" of Domenico +Ghirlandaio. Florence has two "Last Suppers" by this artist--one at +the Ognissanti and this. The two works are very similar and have much +entertaining interest, but the debt which this owes to Castagno is very +obvious: it is indeed Castagno sweetened. Although psychologically this +picture is weak, or at any rate not strong, it is full of pleasant +touches: the supper really is a supper, as it too often is not, +with fruit and dishes and a generous number of flasks; the tablecloth +would delight a good housekeeper; a cat sits close to Judas, his only +companion; a peacock perches in a niche; there are flowers on the wall, +and at the back of the charming loggia where the feast is held are +luxuriant trees, and fruits, and flying birds. The monks at food in +this small refectory had compensation for their silence in so engaging +a scene. This room also contains a beautiful della Robbia "Deposition". + +The little refectory, which is at the foot of the stairs leading to +the cells, opens on the second cloisters, and these few visitors ever +enter. But they are of deep interest to any one with a passion for +the Florence of the great days, for it is here that the municipality +preserves the most remarkable relics of buildings that have had to +be destroyed. It is in fact the museum of the ancient city. Here, +for example, is that famous figure of Abundance, in grey stone, +which Donatello made for the old market, where the Piazza Vittorio +Emmanuele now is, in the midst of which she poured forth her fruits +from a cornucopia high on a column for all to see. Opposite is a +magnificent doorway designed by Donatello for the Pazzi garden. Old +windows, chimney-pieces, fragments of cornice, carved pillars, +painted beams, coats of arms, are everywhere. + +In cell No. 3 is a pretty little coloured relief of the Virgin +adoring, which I covet, from a tabernacle in the old Piazza di +Brunelleschi. Here too are relics of the guild houses of some of +the smaller Arti, while perhaps the most humanly interesting thing +of all is the great mournful bell of S. Marco in Savonarola's time, +known as La Piagnone. + +In the church of S. Marco lie two of the learned men, friends of +Lorenzo de' Medici, whose talk at the Medici table was one of the +youthful Michelangelo's educative influences, what time he was studying +in the Medici garden, close by: Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494), the +poet and the tutor of the three Medici boys, and the marvellous Pico +della Mirandola (1463-1494), the enchanted scholar. Pico was one of the +most fascinating and comely figures of his time. He was born in 1463, +the son of the Count of Mirandola, and took early to scholarship, +spending his time among philosophies as other boys among games or +S. Antonio at his devotions, but by no means neglecting polished life +too, for we know him to have been handsome, accomplished, and a knight +in the court of Venus. In 1486 he challenged the whole world to meet +him in Rome and dispute publicly upon nine hundred theses; but so +many of them seemed likely to be paradoxes against the true faith, +too brilliantly defended, that the Pope forbade the contest. Pico +dabbled in the black arts, wrote learnedly (in his room at the Badia +of Fiesole) on the Mosaic law, was an amorous poet in Italian as well +as a serious poet in Latin, and in everything he did was interesting +and curious, steeped in Renaissance culture, and inspired by the wish +to reconcile the past and the present and humanize Christ and the +Fathers. He found time also to travel much, and he gave most of his +fortune to establish a fund to provide penniless girls with marriage +portions. He had enough imagination to be the close friend both of +Lorenzo de' Medici and Savonarola. Savonarola clothed his dead body +in Dominican robes and made him posthumously one of the order which +for some time before his death he had desired to join. He died in +1494 at the early age of thirty-one, two years after Lorenzo. + +Angelo Poliziano, known as Politian, was also a Renaissance scholar +and also a friend of Lorenzo, and his companion, with Pico, at +his death-bed; but although in precocity, brilliancy of gifts, +and literary charm he may be classed with Pico, the comparison +there ends, for he was a gross sensualist of mean exterior and +capable of much pettiness. He was tutor to Lorenzo's sons until +their mother interfered, holding that his views were far too loose, +but while in that capacity he taught also Michelangelo and put him +upon the designing of his relief of the battle of the Lapithae and +Centaurs. At the time of Lorenzo and Giuliano's famous tournament +in the Piazza of S. Croce, Poliziano wrote, as I have said, the +descriptive allegorical poem which gave Botticelli ideas for his +"Birth of Venus" and "Primavera". He lives chiefly by his Latin poems; +but he did much to make the language of Tuscany a literary tongue. His +elegy on the death of Lorenzo has real feeling in it and proves him to +have esteemed that friend and patron. Like Pico, he survived Lorenzo +only two years, and he also was buried in Dominican robes. Perhaps +the finest feat of Poliziano's life was his action in slamming the +sacristy doors in the face of Lorenzo's pursuers on that fatal day +in the Duomo when Giuliano de' Medici was stabbed. + +Ghirlandaio's fresco in S. Trinità of the granting of the charter +to S. Francis gives portraits both of Poliziano and Lorenzo in the +year 1485. Lorenzo stands in a little group of four in the right-hand +corner, holding out his hand towards Poliziano, who, with Lorenzo's +son Giuliano on his right and followed by two other boys, is advancing +up the steps. Poliziano is seen again in a Ghirlandaio fresco at +S. Maria Novella. + +From S. Marco we are going to SS. Annunziata, but first let us just +take a few steps down the Via Cavour, in order to pass the Casino +Medici, since it is built on the site of the old Medici garden where +Lorenzo de' Medici established Bertoldo, the sculptor, as head of a +school of instruction, amid those beautiful antiques which we have +seen in the Uffizi, and where the boy Michelangelo was a student. + +A few steps farther on the left, towards the Fiesole heights, which +we can see rising at the end of the street, we come, at No. 69, to a +little doorway which leads to a little courtyard--the Chiostro dello +Scalzo--decorated with frescoes by Andrea del Sarto and Franciabigio +and containing the earliest work of both artists. The frescoes are in +monochrome, which is very unusual, but their interest is not impaired +thereby: one does not miss other colours. No. 7, the Baptism of Christ, +is the first fresco these two associates ever did; and several years +elapsed between that and the best that are here, such as the group +representing Charity and the figure of Faith, for the work was long +interrupted. The boys on the staircase in the fresco which shows +S. John leaving his father's house are very much alive. This is by +Franciabigio, as is also S. John meeting with Christ, a very charming +scene. Andrea's best and latest is the Birth of the Baptist, which +has the fine figure of Zacharias writing in it. But what he should +be writing at that time and place one cannot imagine: more reasonably +might he be called a physician preparing a prescription. On the wall +is a terra-cotta bust of S. Antonio, making him much younger than +is usual. + +Andrea's suave brush we find all over Florence, both in fresco and +picture, and this is an excellent place to say something of the man +of whom English people have perhaps a more intimate impression than +of any other of the old masters, by reason largely of Browning's +poem and not a little by that beautiful portrait which for so long +was erroneously considered to represent the painter himself, in our +National Gallery. Andrea's life was not very happy. No painter had +more honour in his own day, and none had a greater number of pupils, +but these stopped with him only a short time, owing to the demeanour +towards them of Andrea's wife, who developed into a flirt and shrew, +dowered with a thousand jealousies. Andrea, the son of a tailor, was +born in 1486 and apprenticed to a goldsmith. Showing, however, more +drawing than designing ability, he was transferred to a painter named +Barile and then passed to that curious man of genius who painted the +fascinating picture "The Death of Procris" which hangs near Andrea's +portrait in our National Gallery--Piero di Cosimo. Piero carried +oddity to strange lengths. He lived alone in indescribable dirt, +and lived wholly on hard-boiled eggs, which he cooked, with his glue, +by the fifty, and ate as he felt inclined. He forbade all pruning of +trees as an act of insubordination to Nature, and delighted in rain +but cowered in terror from thunder and lightning. He peered curiously +at clouds to find strange shapes in them, and in his pursuit of the +grotesque examined the spittle of sick persons on the walls or ground, +hoping for suggestions of monsters, combats of horses, or fantastic +landscapes. But why this should have been thought madness in Cosimo +when Leonardo in his directions to artists explicitly advises them +to look hard at spotty walls for inspiration, I cannot say. He +was also the first, to my knowledge, to don ear-caps in tedious +society--as Herbert Spencer later used to do. He had many pupils, +but latterly could not bear them in his presence and was therefore +but an indifferent instructor. As a deviser of pageants he was more in +demand than as a painter; but his brush was not idle. Both London and +Paris have, I think, better examples of his genius than the Uffizi; +but he is well represented at S. Spirito. + +Piero sent Andrea to the Palazzo Vecchio to study the Leonardo and +Michelangelo cartoons, and there he met Franciabigio, with whom +he struck up one of his close friendships, and together they took a +studio and began to paint for a living. Their first work together was +the Baptism of Christ at which we are now looking. The next commission +after the Scalzo was to decorate the courtyard of the Convent of the +Servi, now known as the Church of the Annunciation; and moving into +adjacent lodgings, Andrea met Jacopo Sansovino, the Venetian sculptor, +whose portrait by Bassano is in the Uffizi, a capable all-round +man who had studied in Rome and was in the way of helping the young +Andrea at all points. It was then too that he met the agreeable and +convivial Rustici, of whom I have said something in the chapter on +the Baptistery, and quickly became something of a blood--for by this +time, the second decade of the sixteenth century, the simplicity of +the early artists had given place to dashing sophistication and the +great period was nearly over. For this change the brilliant complex +inquiring mind of Leonardo da Vinci was largely responsible, together +with the encouragement and example of Lorenzo de' Medici and such of +his cultured sceptical friends as Alberti, Pico della Mirandola, and +Poliziano. But that is a subject too large for this book. Enough that +a worldly splendour and vivacity had come into artistic life and Andrea +was an impressionable young man in the midst of it. It does not seem to +have affected the power and dexterity of his hand, but it made him a +religious court-painter instead of a religious painter. His sweetness +and an underlying note of pathos give his work a peculiar and genuine +character; but he is just not of the greatest. Not so great really +as Luca Signorelli, for example, whom few visitors to the galleries +rush at with gurgling cries of rapture as they rush at Andrea. + +When Andrea was twenty-six he married. The lady was the widow of a +hatter. Andrea had long loved her, but the hatter clung outrageously +to life. In 1513, however, she was free, and, giving her hand to the +painter, his freedom passed for ever. Vasari being among Andrea's +pupils may be trusted here, and Vasari gives her a bad character, +which Browning completes. Andrea painted her often, notably in the +fresco of the "Nativity of the Virgin," to which we shall soon come +at the Annunziata: a fine statuesque woman by no means unwilling to +have the most popular artist in Florence as her slave. + +Of the rest of Andrea's life I need say little. He grew steadily in +favour and was always busy; he met Michelangelo and admired him, and +Michelangelo warned Raphael in Rome of a little fellow in Florence who +would "make him sweat". Browning, in his monologue, makes this remark +of Michelangelo's, and the comparison between Andrea and Raphael that +follows, the kernel of the poem. + +Like Leonardo and Rustici, Andrea accepted, in 1518, an invitation from +Francis I to visit Paris and once there began to paint for that royal +patron. But although his wife did not love him, she wanted him back, +and in the midst of his success he returned, taking with him a large +sum of money from Francis with which to buy for the king works of +art in Italy. That money he misapplied to his own extravagant ends, +and although Francis took no punitive steps, the event cannot have +improved either Andrea's position or his peace of mind; while it +caused Francis to vow that he had done with Florentines. Andrea died +in 1531, of fever, nursed by no one, for his wife, fearing it might +be the dreaded plague, kept away. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +The SS. Annunziata and the Spedale degli Innocenti + +Andrea del Sarto again--Franciabigio outraged--Alessio +Baldovinetti--Piero de' Medici's church--An Easter Sunday +congregation--Andrea's "Madonna del Sacco"--"The Statue and +the Bust"--Henri IV--The Spedale degli Innocenti--Andrea della +Robbia--Domenico Ghirlandaio--Cosimo I and the Etruscans--Bronzes and +tapestries--Perugino's triptych--S. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi--"Very +sacred human dust". + +From S. Marco it is an easy step, along the Via Sapienza, to the +Piazza dell' Annunziata, where one finds the church of that name, +the Palazzo Riccardi-Mannelli, and opposite it, gay with the famous +della Robbia reliefs of swaddled children, the Spedale degli Innocenti. + +First the church, which is notable for possessing in its courtyard +Andrea del Sarto's finest frescoes. This series, of which he was the +chief painter, with his friend Franciabigio again as his principal +ally, depict scenes in the life of the Virgin and S. Filippo. The +scene of the Birth of the Virgin has been called the triumph of +fresco painting, and certainly it is very gay and life-like in +that medium. The whole picture very charming and easy, with the +pleasantest colouring imaginable and pretty details, such as the +washing of the baby and the boy warming his hands, while of the two +women in the foreground, that on the left, facing the spectator, +is a portrait of Andrea's wife, Lucrezia. In the Arrival of the +Magi we find Andrea himself, the figure second from the right-hand +side, pointing; while next to him, on the left, is his friend Jacopo +Sansovino. The "Dead Man Restored to Life by S. Filippo" is Andrea's +next best. Franciabigio did the scene of the Marriage of the Virgin, +which contains another of his well-drawn boys on the steps. The injury +to this fresco--the disfigurement of Mary's face--was the work of +the painter himself, in a rage that the monks should have inspected +it before it was ready. Vasari is interesting on this work. He draws +attention to it as illustrating "Joseph's great faith in taking her, +his face expressing as much fear as joy". He also says that the blow +which the man is giving Joseph was part of the marriage ceremony at +that time in Florence. + +Franciabigio, in spite of his action in the matter of this fresco, +seems to have been a very sweet-natured man, who painted rather to be +able to provide for his poor relations than from any stronger inner +impulse, and when he saw some works by Raphael gave up altogether, +as Verrocchio gave up after Leonardo matured. Franciabigio was a +few years older than Andrea, but died at the same age. Possibly it +was through watching his friend's domestic troubles that he remained +single, remarking that he who takes a wife endures strife. His most +charming work is that "Madonna of the Well" in the Uffizi, which +is reproduced in this volume. Franciabigio's master was Mariotto +Albertinelli, who had learned from Cosimo Rosselli, the teacher +of Piero di Cosimo, Andrea's master--another illustration of the +interdependence of Florentine artists. + +One of the most attractive works in the courtyard must once have +been the "Adoration of the Shepherds" by Alessio Baldovinetti, at +the left of the entrance to the church. It is badly damaged and the +colour has gone, but one can see that the valley landscape, when it +was painted, was a dream of gaiety and happiness. + +The particular treasure of the church is the extremely ornate chapel +of the Virgin, containing a picture of the Virgin displayed once a +year on the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25th, in the painting +of which the Virgin herself took part, descending from heaven for +that purpose. The artist thus divinely assisted was Pietro Cavallini, +a pupil of Giotto. The silver shrine for the picture was designed by +Michelozzo and was a beautiful thing before the canopy and all the +distressing accessories were added. It was made at the order of Piero +de' Medici, who was as fond of this church as his father Cosimo was +of S. Lorenzo. Michelozzo only designed it; the sculpture was done +by Pagno di Lapo Portigiani, whose Madonna is over the tomb of Pope +John by Donatello and Michelozzo in the Baptistery. + +Among the altar-pieces are two by Perugino; but of Florentine +altar-pieces one can say little or nothing in a book of reasonable +dimensions. There are so many and they are for the most part so +difficult to see. Now and then one arrests the eye and holds it; +but for the most part they go unstudied. The rotunda of the choir +is interesting, for here we meet again Alberti, who completed it +from designs by Michelozzo. It does not seem to fit the church from +within, and even less so from without, but it is a fine structure. The +seventeenth-century painting of the dome is almost impressive. + +But one can forget and forgive all the church's gaudiness and floridity +when the choir is in good voice and the strings play Palestrina as +they did last Easter Sunday. The Annunziata is famous for its music, +and on the great occasions people crowd there as nowhere else. At High +Mass the singing was fine but the instrumental music finer. One is +accustomed to seeing vicarious worship in Italy; but never was there +so vicarious a congregation as ours, and indeed if it had not been +for the sight of the busy celibates at the altar one would not have +known that one was worshipping at all. The culmination of detachment +came when a family of Siamese or Burmese children, in native dress, +entered. A positive hum went round, and not an eye but was fixed +on the little Orientals. When, however, the organ was for a while +superseded and the violas and violins quivered under the plangent +melody of Palestrina, our roving attention was fixed and held. + +I am not sure that the Andrea in the cloisters is not the best of +all his work. It is very simple and wholly beautiful, and in spite +of years of ravage the colouring is still wonderful, perhaps indeed +better for the hand of Time. It is called the "Madonna del Sacco" +(grain sack), and fills the lunette over the door leading from the +church. The Madonna--Andrea's favourite type, with the eyes set widely +in the flat brow over the little trustful nose--has her Son, older than +usual, sprawling on her knee. Her robes are ample and rich; a cloak +of green is over her pretty head. By her sits S. Joseph, on the sack, +reading with very long sight. That is all; but one does not forget it. + +For the rest the cloisters are a huddle of memorial slabs and +indifferent frescoes. In the middle is a well with nice iron work. No +grass at all. The second cloisters, into which it is not easy to get, +have a gaunt John the Baptist in terra-cotta by Michelozzo. + +On leaving the church, our natural destination is the Spedale, on the +left, but one should pause a moment in the doorway of the courtyard (if +the beggars who are always there do not make it too difficult) to look +down the Via de' Servi running straight away to the cathedral, which, +with its great red warm dome, closes the street. The statue in the +middle of the piazza is that of the Grand Duke Ferdinand by Giovanni da +Bologna, cast from metal taken from the Italians' ancient enemies the +Turks, while the fountains are by Tacca, Giovanni's pupil, who made +the bronze boar at the Mercato Nuovo. "The Synthetical Guide Book," +from which I have already quoted, warns its readers not to overlook +"the puzzling bees" at the back of Ferdinand's statue. "Try to count +them," it adds. (I accepted the challenge and found one hundred and +one.) The bees have reference to Ferdinand's emblem--a swarm of these +insects, with the words "Majestate tantum". The statue, by the way, +is interesting for two other reasons than its subject. First, it is +that to which Browning's poem, "The Statue and the Bust," refers, and +which, according to the poet, was set here at Ferdinand's command to +gaze adoringly for ever at the della Robbia bust of the lady whom he +loved in vain. But the bust no longer is visible, if ever it was. John +of Douay (as Gian Bologna was also called)-- + + + +John of Douay shall effect my plan, +Set me on horseback here aloft, +Alive, as the crafty sculptor can, + + +In the very square I have crossed so oft: +That men may admire, when future suns +Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft, + + +While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze-- +Admire and say, "when he was alive +How he would take his pleasure once!" + + + +The other point of interest is that when Maria de' Medici, Ferdinand's +niece, wished to erect a statue of Henri IV (her late husband) at the +Pont Neuf in Paris she asked to borrow Gian Bologna. But the sculptor +was too old to go and therefore only a bronze cast of this same horse +was offered. In the end Tacca completed both statues, and Henri IV +was set up in 1614 (after having fallen overboard on the voyage from +Leghorn to Havre). The present statue at the Pont Neuf is, however, +a modern substitute. + +The façade of the Spedale degli Innocenti, or children's hospital, when +first seen by the visitor evokes perhaps the quickest and happiest +cry of recognition in all Florence by reason of its row of della +Robbia babies, each in its blue circle, reproductions of which have +gone all over the world. These are thought to be by Andrea, Luca's +nephew, and were added long after the building was completed. Luca +probably helped him. The hospital was begun by Brunelleschi at the +cost of old Giovanni de' Medici, Cosimo's father, but the Guild of +the Silk Weavers, for whom Luca made the exquisite coat of arms on Or +San Michele, took it over and finished it. Andrea not only modelled +the babies outside but the beautiful Annunciation (of which I give a +reproduction in this volume) in the court: one of his best works. The +photograph will show how full of pretty thoughts it is, but in colour +it is more charming still and the green of the lily stalks is not +the least delightful circumstance. Not only among works of sculpture +but among Annunciations this relief holds a very high place. Few of +the artists devised a scene in which the great news was brought more +engagingly, in sweeter surroundings, or received more simply. + +The door of the chapel close by leads to another work of art equally +adapted to its situation--Ghirlandaio's Adoration of the Magi: one of +the perfect pictures for children. We have seen Ghirlandaio's Adoration +of the Shepherds at the Accademia: this is its own brother. It has +the sweetest, mildest little Mother, and in addition to the elderly +Magi two tiny little saintlings adore too. In the distance is an +enchanted landscape about a fairy estuary. + +This hospital is a very busy one, and the authorities are glad to show +it to visitors who really take an interest in such work. Rich Italians +carry on a fine rivalry in generosity to such institutions. Bologna, +for instance, could probably give lessons in thoughtful charity to +the whole world. + +The building opposite the hospital has a loggia which is notable +for a series of four arches, like those of the Mercato Nuovo, and in +summer for the flowers that hang down from the little balconies. A +pretty building. Before turning to the right under the last of the +arches of the hospital loggia, which opens on the Via della Colonna +and from the piazza always frames such a charming picture of houses +and mountains, it is well, with so much of Andrea del Sarto's work +warm in one's memory, to take a few steps up the Via Gino Capponi +(which also always frames an Apennine vista under its arch) to No. 24, +and see Andrea's house, on the right, marked with a tablet. + +In the Via della Colonna we find, at No. 26 on the left, the Palazzo +Crocetta, which is now a Museum of Antiquities, and for its Etruscan +exhibits is of the greatest historical value and interest to visitors +to Tuscany, such as ourselves. For here you may see what civilization +was like centuries before Christ and Rome. The beginnings of the +Etruscan people are indistinct, but about 1000 B.C. has been agreed +to as the dawn of their era. Etruria comprised Tuscany, Perugia, +and Rome itself. Florence has no remains, but Fiesole was a fortified +Etruscan town, and many traces of its original builders may be seen +there, together with Etruscan relics in the little museum. For the +best reconstructions of an Etruscan city one must go to Volterra, +where so many of the treasures in the present building were found. + +The Etruscans in their heyday were the most powerful people in +the world, but after the fifth century their supremacy gradually +disappeared, the Gauls on the one side and the Romans on the other +wearing them down. All our knowledge of them comes through the +spade. Excavations at Volterra and elsewhere have revealed some +thousands of inscriptions which have been in part deciphered; but +nothing has thrown so much light on this accomplished people as their +habit of providing the ashes of their dead with everything likely +to be needed for the next world, whose requirements fortunately so +exactly tallied with those of this that a complete system of domestic +civilization can be deduced. In arts and sciences they were most +enviably advanced, as a visit to the British Museum will show in +a moment. But it is to this Florentine Museum of Antiquities that +all students of Etruria must go. The garden contains a number of the +tombs themselves, rebuilt and refurnished exactly as they were found; +while on the ground floor is the amazing collection of articles which +the tombs yielded. The grave has preserved them for us, not quite +so perfectly as the volcanic dust of Vesuvius preserved the domestic +appliances of Pompeii, but very nearly so. Jewels, vessels, weapons, +ornaments--many of them of a beauty never since reproduced--are to +be seen in profusion, now gathered together for study only a short +distance from the districts in which centuries ago they were made +and used for actual life. + +Upstairs we find relics of an older civilization still, the Egyptian, +and a few rooms of works of art, all found in Etruscan soil, +the property of the Pierpont Morgans and George Saltings of that +ancient day, who had collected them exactly as we do now. Certain +of the statues are world-famous. Here, for example, in Sala IX, is +the bronze Minerva which was found near Arezzo in 1554 by Cosimo's +workmen. Here is the Chimæra, also from Arezzo in 1554, which Cellini +restored for Cosimo and tells us about in his Autobiography. Here is +the superb Orator from Lake Trasimene, another of Cosimo's discoveries. + +In Sala X look at the bronze situla in an isolated glass case, of such +a peacock blue as only centuries could give it. Upstairs in Sala XVI +are many more Greek and Roman bronzes, among which I noticed a faun +with two pipes as being especially good; while the little room leading +from it has some fine life-size heads, including a noble one of a +horse, and the famous Idolino on its elaborate pedestal--a full-length +Greek bronze from the earth of Pesaro, where it was found in 1530. + +The top floor is given to tapestries and embroideries. The collection +is vast and comprises much foreign work; but Cosimo I introducing +tapestry weaving into Florence, many of the examples come from the +city's looms. The finest, or at any rate most interesting, series +is that depicting the court of France under Catherine de' Medici, +with portraits: very sumptuous and gay examples of Flemish work. + +The trouble at Florence is that one wants the days to be ten times as +long in order that one may see its wonderful possessions properly. Here +is this dry-looking archaeological museum, with antipathetic custodians +at the door who refuse to get change for twenty-lira pieces: nothing +could be more unpromising than they or their building; and yet you +find yourself instantly among countless vestiges of a past people who +had risen to power and crumbled again before Christ was born--but at +a time when man was so vastly more sensitive to beauty than he now is +that every appliance for daily life was the work of an artist. Well, +a collection like this demands days and days of patient examination, +and one has only a few hours. Were I Joshua--had I his curious gift--it +is to Florence I would straightway fare. The sun should stand still +there: no rock more motionless. + +Continuing along the Via della Colonna, we come, on the right, +at No. 8, to the convent of S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, which is +now a barracks but keeps sacred one room in which Perugino painted a +crucifixion, his masterpiece in fresco. The work is in three panels, +of which that on the left, representing the Virgin and S. Bernard, +is the most beautiful. Indeed, there is no more beautiful light +in any picture we shall see, and the Virgin's melancholy face is +inexpressibly sweet. Perugino is best represented at the Accademia, +and there are works of his at the Uffizi and Pitti and in various +Florentine churches; but here he is at his best. Vasari tells us that +he made much money and was very fond of it; also that he liked his +young wife to wear light head-dresses both out of doors and in the +house, and often dressed her himself. His master was Verrocchio and +his best pupil Raphael. + +S. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, a member of the same family that plotted +against the Medici and owned the sacred flints, was born in 1566, and, +says Miss Dunbar, [8] "showed extraordinary piety from a very tender +age". When only a child herself she used to teach small children, and +she daily carried lunch to the prisoners. Her real name was Catherine, +but becoming a nun she called herself Mary Magdalene. In an illness in +which she was given up for dead, she lay on her bed for forty days, +during which she saw continual visions, and then recovered. Like +S. Catherine of Bologna she embroidered well and painted miraculously, +and she once healed a leprosy by licking it. She died in 1607. + +The old English Cemetery, as it is usually called--the Protestant +Cemetery, as it should be called--is an oval garden of death in the +Piazza Donatello, at the end of the Via di Pinti and the Via Alfieri, +rising up from the boulevard that surrounds the northern half of +Florence. (The new Protestant Cemetery is outside the city on the +road to the Certosa.) I noticed, as I walked beneath the cypresses, +the grave of Arthur Hugh Clough, the poet of "Dipsychus," who died +here in Florence on November 13th, 1861; of Walter Savage Landor, +that old lion (born January 30th, 1775; died September 17th, 1864), +of whom I shall say much more in a later chapter; of his son Arnold, +who was born in 1818 and died in 1871; and of Mrs. Holman Hunt, who +died in 1866. But the most famous grave is that of Elizabeth Barrett +Browning, who lies beneath a massive tomb that bears only the initials +E.B.B. and the date 1861. "Italy," wrote James Thomson, the poet of +"The City of Dreadful Night," on hearing of Mrs. Browning's death, + + +"Italy, you hold in trust +Very sacred human dust." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +The Cascine and the Arno + +Florence's Bois de Boulogne--Shelley--The races--The game of +Pallone--SS. Ognissanti--Botticelli and Ghirlandaio--Amerigo +Vespucci--The Platonic Academy's garden--Alberti's Palazzo +Rucellai--Melancholy decay--Two smiling boys--The Corsini +palace--The Trinità bridge--The Borgo San Jacopo from the back--Home +fishing--SS. Apostoli--A sensitive river--The Ponte Vecchio--The +goldsmiths--S. Stefano. + +The Cascine is the "Bois" of Florence; but it does not compare with +the Parisian expanse either in size or attraction. Here the wealthy +Florentines drive, the middle classes saunter and ride bicycles, the +poor enjoy picnics, and the English take country walks. The further +one goes the better it is, and the better also the river, which at +the very end of the woods becomes such a stream as the pleinairistes +love, with pollarded trees on either side. Among the trees of one of +these woods nearly a hundred years ago, a walking Englishman named +Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote his "Ode to the West Wind". + +The Cascine is a Bois also in having a race-course in it--a small +course with everything about it on a little scale, grandstand, betting +boxes, and all. And why not?--for after all Florence is quite small in +size, however remarkable in character. Here funny little race-meetings +are held, beginning on Easter Monday and continuing at intervals until +the weather gets too hot. The Florentines pour out in their hundreds +and lie about in the long grass among the wild flowers, and in their +fives and tens back their fancies. The system is the pari-mutuel, +and here one seems to be more at its mercy even than in France. The +odds keep distressingly low; but no one seems to be either elated or +depressed, whatever happens. To be at the races is the thing--to walk +about and watch the people and enjoy the air. It is the most orderly +frugal scene, and the baleful and mysterious power of the racehorse +to poison life and landscape, as in England, does not exist here. + +To the Cascine also in the spring and autumn several hundred Florentine +men come every afternoon to see the game of pallone and risk a few lire +on their favourite players. Mr. Ruskin, whose "Mornings in Florence" +is still the textbook of the devout, is severe enough upon those +visitors who even find it in their hearts to shop and gossip in the +city of Giotto. What then would he have said of one who has spent not +a few afternoon hours, between five and six, in watching the game of +pallone? I would not call pallone a good game. Compared with tennis, +it is nothing; compared with lawn tennis, it is poor; compared with +football, it is anaemic; yet in an Italian city, after the galleries +have closed, on a warm afternoon, it will do, and it will more than +do as affording an opportunity of seeing muscular Italian athletes in +the pink of condition. The game is played by six, three each side: +a battitore, who smites the ball, which is served to him very much +as in rounders; the spalla, who plays back; and the terzino, who +plays forward. The court is sixty or more yards long, on one side +being a very high wall and on the other and at each end netting. The +implements are the ball, which is hollow and of leather, about half +the size of a football, and a cylinder studded with spikes, rather +like a huge fir-cone or pine-apple, which is placed over the wrist +and forearm to hit the ball with; and the game is much as in tennis, +only there is no central net: merely a line. Each man's ambition, +however, is less to defeat the returning power of the foe than to +paralyse it by hitting the ball out of reach. It is as though a +batsman were out if he failed to hit three wides. + +A good battitore, for instance, can smite the ball right down the +sixty yards into the net, above the head of the opposing spalla who +stands awaiting it at the far end. Such a stroke is to the English +mind a blot, and it is no uncommon thing, after each side has had a +good rally, to see the battitore put every ball into the net in this +way and so win the game without his opponents having one return; +which is the very negation of sport. Each innings lasts until one +side has gained eight points, the points going to whichever player +makes the successful stroke. This means that the betting--and of +course there is betting--is upon individuals and not upon sides. + +The pari-mutuel system is that which is adopted at both the pallone +courts in Florence (there is another at the Piazza Beccaria), and the +unit is two lire. Bets are invited on the winner and the second, and +place-money is paid on both. No wonder then that as the game draws to a +close the excitement becomes intense; while during its progress feeling +runs high too. For how can a young Florentine who has his money on, +say, Gabri the battitore, withhold criticism when Gabri's arm fails +and the ball drops comfortably for the terzino Ugo to smash it into +Gabri's net? Such a lapse should not pass unnoticed; nor does it. + +From the Cascine we may either return to Florence along the banks +of the river, or cross the river by the vile iron Ponte Sospeso +and enter the city again, on the Pitti side, by the imposing Porta +S. Frediano. Supposing that we return by the Lungarno Amerigo Vespucci +there is little to notice, beyond costly modern houses of a Portland +Place type and the inevitable Garibaldi statue, until, just past the +oblique pescaja (or weir), we see across the Piazza Manin the church +of All Saints--S. Salvadore d'Ognissanti, which must be visited since +it is the burial-place of Botticelli and Amerigo Vespucci, the chapel +of the Vespucci family being painted by Ghirlandaio; and since here too +lies Botticelli's beautiful Simonetta, who so untimely died. According +to Vasari the frescoes of S. Jerome by Ghirlandaio and S. Augustine by +Botticelli were done in competition. They were painted, as it happens, +elsewhere, but moved here without injury. I think the S. Jerome is the +more satisfying, a benevolent old scientific author--a Lord Avebury +of the canon--with his implements about him on a tapestry tablecloth, +a brass candlestick, his cardinal's hat, and a pair of tortoise-shell +eyeglasses handy. S. Augustine is also scientific; astronomical books +and instruments surround him too. His tablecloth is linen. + +Amerigo Vespucci, whose statue we saw in the Uffizi portico +colonnade, was a Florentine by birth who settled in Spain and took to +exploration. His discoveries were important, but America is not really +among them, for Columbus, whom he knew and supported financially, +got there first. By a mistake in the date in his account of his +travels, Vespucci's name came to be given to the new continent, and +it was then too late to alter it. He became a naturalized Spaniard +and died in 1512. Columbus indeed suffers in Florence; for had it +not been for Vespucci, America would no doubt be called Columbia; +while Brunelleschi anticipated him in the egg trick. + +The church is very proud of possessing the robe of S. Francis, which +is displayed once a year on October 4th. In the refectory is a "Last +Supper" by Ghirlandaio, not quite so good as that which we saw at +S. Marco, but very similar, and, like that, deriving from Castagno's +at the Cenacolo di Sant' Apollonia. The predestined Judas is once +more on the wrong side of the table. + +Returning to the river bank again, we are at once among the hotels and +pensions, which continue cheek by jowl right away to the Ponte Vecchio +and beyond. In the Piazza Goldoni, where the Ponte Carraia springs off, +several streets meet, best of them and busiest of them being that Via +della Vigna Nuova which one should miss few opportunities of walking +along, for here is the palazzo--at No. 20--which Leon Battista Alberti +designed for the Rucellai. The Rucellai family's present palace, I +may say here, is in the Via della Scala, and by good fortune I found +at the door sunning himself a complacent major-domo who, the house +being empty of its august owners, allowed me to walk through into +the famous garden--the Orti Oricellari--where the Platonic Academy +met for a while in Bernardo Rucellai's day. A monument inscribed +with their names has been erected among the evergreens. Afterwards +the garden was given by Francis I to his beloved Bianca Capella. Its +natural beauties are impaired by a gigantic statue of Polyphemus, +bigger than any other statue in Florence. + +The new Rucellai palace does not compare with the old, which is, I +think, the most beautiful of all the private houses of the great day, +and is more easily seen too, for there is a little piazza in front +of it. The palace, with its lovely design and its pilastered windows, +is now a rookery, while various industries thrive beneath it. Part of +the right side has been knocked away; but even still the proportions +are noble. This is a bad quarter for vandalism; for in the piazza +opposite is a most exquisite little loggia, built in 1468, the three +lovely arches of which have been filled in and now form the windows of +an English establishment known as "The Artistic White House". An absurd +name, for if it were really artistic it would open up the arches again. + +The Rucellai chapel, behind the palace, is in the Via della Spada, +and the key must be asked for in the palace stables. It is in a +shocking state, and quite in keeping with the traditions of the +neighbourhood, while the old church of S. Pancrazio, its neighbour, +is now a Government tobacco factory. The Rucellai chapel contains a +model of the Holy Sepulchre, at Jerusalem, in marble and intarsia, +by the great Alberti--one of the most jewel-like little buildings +imaginable. Within it are the faint vestiges of a fresco which the +stable-boy calls a Botticelli, and indeed the hands and faces of +the angels, such as one can see of them with a farthing dip, do not +render the suggestion impossible. On the altar is a terra-cotta Christ +which he calls a Donatello, and again he may be right; but fury at a +condition of things that can permit such a beautiful place to be so +desecrated renders it impossible to be properly appreciative. + +Since we are here, instead of returning direct to the river let us +go a few yards along this Via della Spada to the left, cross the +Via de' Fossi, and so come to the busy Via di Pallazzuolo, on the +left of which, past the piazza of S. Paolino, is the little church of +S. Francesco de' Vanchetoni. This church is usually locked, but the key +is next door, on the right, and it has to be obtained because over the +right sacristy door is a boy's head by Rossellino, and over the left a +boy's head by Desiderio da Settignano, and each is joyful and perfect. + +The Via de' Fossi will bring us again to the Piazza Goldoni and the +Arno, and a few yards farther along there is a palace to be seen, +the Corsini, the only palazzo still inhabited by its family to which +strangers are admitted--the long low white façade with statues on +the top and a large courtyard, on the Lungarno Corsini, just after +the Piazza Goldoni. It is not very interesting and belongs to the +wrong period, the seventeenth century. It is open on fixed days, +and free save that one manservant receives the visitor and another +conducts him from room to room. There are many pictures, but few +of outstanding merit, and the authorship of some of these has been +challenged. Thus, the cartoon of Julius II, which is called a Raphael +and seems to be the sketch for one of the well-known portraits at the +Pitti, Uffizi, or our National Gallery, is held to be not by Raphael +at all. Among the pleasantest pictures are a Lippo Lippi Madonna and +Child, a Filippino Lippi Madonna and Child with Angels, and a similar +group by Botticelli; but one has a feeling that Carlo Dolci and Guido +Reni are the true heroes of the house. Guido Reni's Lucrezia Romana, +with a dagger which she has already thrust two inches into her bosom, +as though it were cheese, is one of the most foolish pictures I ever +saw. The Corsini family having given the world a pope, a case of papal +vestments is here. It was this Pope when Cardinal Corsini who said to +Dr. Johnson's friend, Mrs. Piozzi, meeting him in Florence in 1785, +"Well, Madam, you never saw one of us red-legged partridges before, +I believe". + +There may be more beautiful bridges in the world than the Trinità, +but I have seen none. Its curve is so gentle and soft, and its three +arches so light and graceful, that I wonder that whenever new bridges +are necessary the authorities do not insist upon the Trinità being +copied. The Ponte Vecchio, of course, has a separate interest of its +own, and stands apart, like the Rialto. It is a bridge by chance, one +might almost say. But the Trinità is a bridge in intent and supreme at +that, the most perfect union of two river banks imaginable. It shows +to what depths modern Florence can fall--how little she esteems her +past--that the iron bridge by the Cascine should ever have been built. + +The various yellows of Florence--the prevailing colours--are spread +out nowhere so favourably as on the Pitti side of the river between +the Trinità and the Ponte Vecchio on the backs of the houses of the +Borgo San Jacopo, and just so must this row have looked for four +hundred years. Certain of the occupants of these tenements, even on +the upper floors, have fishing nets, on pulleys, which they let down +at intervals during the day for the minute fish which seem to be as +precious to Italian fishermen as sparrows and wrens to Italian gunners. + +The great palace at the Trinità end of this stretch of yellow +buildings--the Frescobaldi--must have been very striking when the +loggia was open: the three rows of double arches that are now walled +in. From this point, as well as from similar points on the other +side of the Ponte Vecchio, one realizes the mischief done by Cosimo +I's secret passage across it; for not only does the passage impose a +straight line on a bridge that was never intended to have one, but it +cuts Florence in two. If it were not for its large central arches one +would, from the other bridges or the embankment, see nothing whatever +of the further side of the city; but as it is, through these arches +one has heavenly vignettes. + +We leave the river again for a few minutes about fifty yards along +the Lungarno Acciaioli beyond the Trinità and turn up a narrow passage +to see the little church of SS. Apostoli, where there is a delightful +gay ciborium, all bright colours and happiness, attributed to Andrea +della Robbia, with pretty cherubs and pretty angels, and a benignant +Christ and flowers and fruit which cannot but chase away gloom and +dubiety. Here also is a fine tomb by the sculptor of the elaborate +chimney-piece which we saw in the Bargello, Benedetto da Rovezzano, +who also designed the church's very beautiful door. Whether or +not it is true that SS. Apostoli was built by Charlemagne, it is +certainly very old and architecturally of great interest. Vasari says +that Brunelleschi acquired from it his inspiration for S. Lorenzo +and S. Spirito. To many Florentines its principal importance is its +custody of the Pazzi flints for the igniting of the sacred fire which +in turn ignites the famous Carro. + +Returning again to the embankment, we are quickly at the Ponte +Vecchio, where it is pleasant at all times to loiter and observe +both the river and the people; while from its central arches one +sees the mountains. From no point are the hill of S. Miniato and +its stately cypresses more beautiful; but one cannot see the church +itself--only the church of S. Niccolò below it, and of course the +bronze "David". In dry weather the Arno is green; in rainy weather +yellow. It is so sensitive that one can almost see it respond to the +most distant shower; but directly the rain falls and it is fed by +a thousand Apennine torrents it foams past this bridge in fury. The +Ponte Vecchio was the work, upon a Roman foundation, of Taddeo Gaddi, +Giotto's godson, in the middle of the fourteenth century, but the +shops are, of course, more recent. The passage between the Pitti +and Uffizi was added in 1564. Gaddi, who was a fresco painter first +and architect afterwards, was employed because Giotto was absent in +Milan, Giotto being the first thought of every one in difficulties +at that time. The need, however, was pressing, for a flood in 1333 +had destroyed a large part of the Roman bridge. Gaddi builded so well +that when, two hundred and more years later, another flood severely +damaged three other bridges, the Ponte Vecchio was unharmed. None +the less it is not Gaddi's bust but Cellini's that has the post of +honour in the centre; but this is, of course, because Cellini was +a goldsmith, and it is to goldsmiths that the shops belong. Once it +was the butchers' quarter! + +I never cross the Ponte Vecchio and see these artificers in their +blouses through the windows, without wondering if in any of their boy +assistants is the Michelangelo, or Orcagna, or Ghirlandaio, or even +Cellini, of the future, since all of those, and countless others of +the Renaissance masters, began in precisely this way. + +The odd thing is that one is on the Ponte Vecchio, from either +end, before one knows it to be a bridge at all. A street of sudden +steepness is what it seems to be. Not the least charming thing upon +it is the masses of groundsel which have established themselves on +the pent roof over the goldsmiths' shops. Every visitor to Florence +must have longed to occupy one of these little bridge houses; but I +am not aware that any has done so. + +One of the oldest streets in Florence must be the Via Girolami, from +the Ponte Vecchio to the Uffizi, under an arch. A turning to the left +brings one to the Piazza S. Stefano, where the barn-like church of +S. Stefano is entered; and close by is the Torre de' Girolami, where +S. Zenobius lived. S. Stefano, although it is now so easily overlooked, +was of importance in its day, and it was here that Niccolò da Uzzano, +the leader of the nobles, held a meeting to devise means of checking +the growing power of the people early in the fifteenth century and was +thwarted by old Giovanni de' Medici. From that thwarting proceeded +the power of the Medici family and the gloriously endowed Florence +that we travel to see. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +S. Maria Novella + +The great churches of Florence--A Dominican cathedral--The "Decameron" +begins--Domenico Ghirlandaio--Alessio Baldovinetti--The Louvre--The +S. Maria Novella frescoes--Giovanni and Lorenzo Tornabuoni--Ruskin +implacable--Cimabue's Madonna--Filippino Lippi--Orcagna's "Last +Judgment"--The Cloisters of Florence--The Spanish Chapel--S. Dominic +triumphant--Giotto at his sweetest--The "Wanderer's" doom--The Piazza, +as an arena. + +S. Maria Novella is usually bracketed with S. Croce as the most +interesting Florentine church after the Duomo, but S. Lorenzo has of +course to be reckoned with very seriously. I think that for interest +I should place S. Maria Novella fifth, including also the Baptistery +before it, but architecturally second. Its interior is second in +beauty only to S. Croce. S. Croce is its immediate religious rival, +for it was because the Dominicans had S. Maria Novella, begun in +1278, that several years later the Franciscans determined to have an +equally important church and built S. Croce. The S. Maria Novella +architects were brothers of the order, but Talenti, whom we saw at +work both on Giotto's tower and on San Michele, built the campanile, +and Leon Battista Alberti the marble façade, many years later. The +richest patrons of S. Maria Novella--corresponding to the Medici at +S. Lorenzo and the Bardi at S. Croce--were the Rucellai, whose palace, +designed also by the wonderful versatile Alberti, we have seen. + +The interior of S. Maria Novella is very fine and spacious, and +it gathers and preserves an exquisite light at all times of the +day. Nowhere in Florence is there a finer aisle, with the roof +springing so nobly and masterfully from the eight columns on either +side. The whole effect, like that of S. Croce, is rather northern, +the result of the yellow and brown hues; but whereas S. Croce has a +crushing flat roof, this one is all soaring gladness. + +The finest view of the interior is from the altar steps looking back +to the beautiful circular window over the entrance, a mass of happy +colour. In the afternoon the little plain circular windows high up +in the aisle shoot shafts of golden light upon the yellow walls. The +high altar of inlaid marble is, I think, too bright and too large. The +church is more impressive on Good Friday, when over this altar is built +a Calvary with the crucifix on the summit and life-size mourners at its +foot; while a choir and string orchestra make superbly mournful music. + +I like to think that it was within the older S. Maria Novella that +those seven mirthful young ladies of Florence remained one morning +in 1348, after Mass, to discuss plans of escape from the city during +the plague. As here they chatted and plotted, there entered the church +three young men; and what simpler than to engage them as companions in +their retreat, especially as all three, like all seven of the young +women, were accomplished tellers of stories with no fear whatever of +Mrs. Grundy? And thus the "Decameron" of Giovanni Boccaccio came about. + +S. Maria Novella also resembles S. Croce in its moving groups of +sight-seers each in the hands of a guide. These one sees always and +hears always: so much so that a reminder has been printed and set up +here and there in this church, to the effect that it is primarily the +house of God and for worshippers. But S. Maria Novella has not a tithe +of S. Croce's treasures. Having almost no tombs of first importance, +it has to rely upon its interior beauty and upon its frescoes, and +its chief glory, whatever Mr. Ruskin, who hated them, might say, is, +for most people, Ghirlandaio's series of scenes in the life of the +Virgin and S. John the Baptist. These cover the walls of the choir +and for more than four centuries have given delight to Florentines +and foreigners. Such was the thoroughness of their painter in his +colour mixing (in which the boy Michelangelo assisted him) that, +although they have sadly dimmed and require the best morning light, +they should endure for centuries longer, a reminder not only of +the thoughtful sincere interesting art of Ghirlandaio and of the +pious generosity of the Tornabuoni family, who gave them, but also +of the costumes and carriage of the Florentine ladies at the end +of the fifteenth century when Lorenzo the Magnificent was in his +zenith. Domenico Ghirlandaio may not be quite of the highest rank +among the makers of Florence; but he comes very near it, and indeed, +by reason of being Michelangelo's first instructor, perhaps should +stand amid them. But one thing is certain--that without him Florence +would be the poorer by many beautiful works. + +He was born in 1449, twenty-one years after the death of Masaccio and +three before Leonardo, twenty-six before Michelangelo, and thirty-four +before Raphael. His full name was Domenico or Tommaso di Currado di +Doffo Bigordi, but his father Tommaso Bigordi, a goldsmith, having +hit upon a peculiarly attractive way of making garlands for the hair, +was known as Ghirlandaio, the garland maker; and time has effaced +the Bigordi completely. + +The portraits of both Tommaso and Domenico, side by side, occur in the +fresco representing Joachim driven from the Temple: Domenico, who is to +be seen second from the extreme right, a little resembles our Charles +II. Like his father, and, as we have seen, like most of the artists of +Florence, he too became a goldsmith, and his love of the jewels that +goldsmiths made may be traced in his pictures; but at an early age he +was sent to Alessio Baldovinetti to learn to be a painter. Alessio's +work we find all over Florence: a Last Judgment in the Accademia, for +example, but that is not a very pleasing thing; a Madonna Enthroned, +in the Uffizi; the S. Miniato frescoes; the S. Trinità frescoes; +and that extremely charming although faded work in the outer court of +SS. Annunziata. For the most delightful picture from his hand, however, +one has to go to the Louvre, where there is a Madonna and Child (1300 +a), in the early Tuscan room, which has a charm not excelled by any +such group that I know. The photographers still call it a Piero della +Francesca, and the Louvre authorities omit to name it at all; but it +is Alessio beyond question. Next it hangs the best Ghirlandaio that +I know--the very beautiful Visitation, and, to add to the interest +of this room to the returning Florentine wanderer, on the same wall +are two far more attractive works by Bastiano Mainardi (Ghirlandaio's +brother-in-law and assistant at S. Maria Novella) than any in Florence. + +Alessio, who was born in 1427, was an open-handed ingenious man who +could not only paint and do mosaic but once made a wonderful clock for +Lorenzo. His experiments with colour were disastrous: hence most of his +frescoes have perished; but possibly it was through Alessio's mistakes +that Ghirlandaio acquired the use of such a lasting medium. Alessio +was an independent man who painted from taste and not necessity. + +Ghirlandaio's chief influences, however, were Masaccio, at the Carmine, +Fra Lippo Lippi, and Verrocchio, who is thought also to have been +Baldovinetti's pupil and whose Baptism of Christ, in the Accademia, +painted when Ghirlandaio was seventeen, must have given Ghirlandaio +the lines for his own treatment of the incident in this church. One +has also only to compare Verrocchio's sculptured Madonnas in the +Bargello with many of Ghirlandaio's to see the influence again; +both were attracted by a similar type of sweet, easy-natured girl. + +When he was twenty-six Ghirlandaio went to Rome to paint the Sixtine +library, and then to San Gimignano, where he was assisted by Mainardi, +who was to remain his most valuable ally in executing the large +commissions which were to come to his workshop. His earliest Florentine +frescoes are those which we shall see at Ognissanti; the Madonna della +Misericordia and the Deposition painted for the Vespucci family and +only recently discovered, together with the S. Jerome, in the church, +and the Last Supper, in the refectory. By this time Ghirlandaio and +Botticelli were in some sort of rivalry, although, so far as I know, +friendly enough, and both went to Rome in 1481, together with Perugino, +Piero di Cosimo, Cosimo Rosselli, Luca Signorelli and others, at +the command of Pope Sixtus IV to decorate the Sixtine chapel, the +excommunication of all Florentines which the Pope had decreed after +the failure of the Pazzi Conspiracy to destroy the Medici (as we saw +in chapter II) having been removed in order to get these excellent +workmen to the Holy City. Painting very rapidly the little band had +finished their work in six months, and Ghirlandaio was at home again +with such an ambition and industry in him that he once expressed the +wish that every inch of the walls of Florence might be covered by +his brush--and in those days Florence had walls all round it, with +twenty-odd towers in addition to the gates. His next great frescoes +were those in the Palazzo Vecchio and S. Trinita. It was in 1485 +that he painted his delightful Adoration, at the Accademia, and in +1486 he began his great series at S. Maria Novella, finishing them +in 1490, his assistants being his brother David, Benedetto Mainardi, +who married Ghirlandaio's sister, and certain apprentices, among them +the youthful Michelangelo, who came to the studio in 1488. + +The story of the frescoes is this. Ghirlandaio when in Rome had +met Giovanni Tornabuoni, a wealthy merchant whose wife had died +in childbirth. Her death we have already seen treated in relief by +Verrocchio in the Bargello. Ghirlandaio was first asked to beautify +in her honour the Minerva at Rome, where she was buried, and this +he did. Later when Giovanni Tornabuoni wished to present S. Maria +Novella with a handsome benefaction, he induced the Ricci family, +who owned this chapel, to allow him to re-decorate it, and engaged +Ghirlandaio for the task. This meant first covering the fast fading +frescoes by Orcagna, which were already there, and then painting over +them. What the Orcagnas were like we cannot know; but the substitute, +although probably it had less of curious genius in it was undoubtedly +more attractive to the ordinary observer. + +The right wall, as one faces the window (whose richness of coloured +glass, although so fine in the church as a whole, is here such a +privation), is occupied by scenes in the story of the Baptist; the +left by the life of the Virgin. The left of the lowest pair on the +right wall represents S. Mary and S. Elizabeth, and in it a party of +Ghirlandaio's stately Florentine ladies watch the greeting of the two +saints outside Florence itself, symbolized rather than portrayed, +very near the church in which we stand. The girl in yellow, on the +right of the picture, with her handkerchief in her hand and wearing a +rich dress, is Giovanna degli Albizzi, who married Lorenzo Tornabuoni +at the Villa Lemmi near Florence, that villa from which Botticelli's +exquisite fresco, now in the Louvre at the top of the main staircase, +in which she again is to be seen, was taken. Her life was a sad +one, for her husband was one of those who conspired with Piero di +Lorenzo de' Medici for his return some ten years later, and was +beheaded. S. Elizabeth is of course the older woman. The companion +to this picture represents the angel appearing to S. Zacharias, and +here again Ghirlandaio gives us contemporary Florentines, portraits +of distinguished Tornabuoni men and certain friends of eminence +among them. In the little group low down on the left, for example, +are Poliziano and Marsilio Ficino, the Platonist. Above--but seeing +is beginning to be difficult--the pair of frescoes represent, on the +right, the birth of the Baptist, and on the left, his naming. The birth +scene has much beauty, and is as well composed as any, and there is +a girl in it of superb grace and nobility; but the birth scene of the +Virgin, on the opposite wall, is perhaps the finer and certainly more +easily seen. In the naming of the child we find Medici portraits once +more, that family being related to the Tornabuoni; and Mr. Davies, +in his book on Ghirlandaio, offers the interesting suggestion, which +he supports very reasonably, that the painter has made the incident +refer to the naming of Lorenzo de' Medici's third son, Giovanni (or +John), who afterwards became Pope Leo X. In that case the man on the +left, in green, with his hand on his hip, would be Lorenzo himself, +whom he certainly resembles. Who the sponsor is is not known. The +landscape and architecture are alike charming. + +Above these we faintly see that strange Baptism of Christ, so curiously +like the Verrocchio in the Accademia, and the Baptist preaching. + +The left wall is perhaps the favourite. We begin with Joachim being +driven from the Temple, one of the lowest pair; and this has a peculiar +interest in giving us a portrait of the painter and his associates--the +figure on the extreme right being Benedetto Mainardi; then Domenico +Ghirlandaio; then his father; and lastly his brother David. On the +opposite side of the picture is the fated Lorenzo Tornabuoni, of whom +I have spoken above, the figure farthest from the edge, with his hand +on his hip. The companion picture is the most popular of all--the +Birth of the Virgin--certainly one of the most charming interiors in +Florence. Here again we have portraits--no doubt Tornabuoni ladies--and +much pleasant fancy on the part of the painter, who made everything as +beautiful as he could, totally unmindful of the probabilities. Ruskin +is angry with him for neglecting to show the splashing of the water +in the vessel, but it would be quite possible for no splashing to +be visible, especially if the pouring had only just begun; but for +Ruskin's strictures you must go to "Mornings in Florence," where poor +Ghirlandaio gets a lash for every virtue of Giotto. Next--above, on +the left--we have the Presentation of the Virgin and on the right +her Marriage. The Presentation is considered by Mr. Davies to be +almost wholly the work of Ghirlandaio's assistants, while the youthful +Michelangelo himself has been credited with the half-naked figure on +the steps, although Mr. Davies gives it to Mainardi. Mainardi again +is probably the author of the companion scene. The remaining frescoes +are of less interest and much damaged; but in the window wall one +should notice the portraits of Giovanni Tornabuoni and Francesca di +Luca Pitti, his wife, kneeling, because this Giovanni was the donor +of the frescoes, and his sister Lucrezia was the wife of Piero de' +Medici and therefore the mother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, while +Francesca Tornabuoni, the poor lady who died in childbirth, was the +daughter of that proud Florentine who began the Pitti palace but +ended his life in disgrace. + +And so we leave this beautiful recess, where pure religious feeling +may perhaps be wanting but where the best spirit of the Renaissance +is to be found: everything making for harmony and pleasure; and on +returning to London the visitor should make a point of seeing the +Florentine girl by the same hand in our National Gallery, No. 1230, +for she is very typical of his genius. + +On the entrance wall of the church is what must once have been a fine +Masaccio--"The Trinity"--but it is in very bad condition; while in +the Cappella Rucellai in the right transept is what purports to be +a Cimabue, very like the one in the Accademia, but with a rather +more matured Child in it. Vasari tells us that on its completion +this picture was carried in stately procession from the painter's +studio to the church, in great rejoicing and blowing of trumpets, +the populace being moved not only by religious ecstasy but by pride in +an artist who could make such a beautiful and spacious painting, the +largest then known. Vasari adds that when Cimabue was at work upon it, +Charles of Anjou, visiting Florence, was taken to his studio, to see +the wonderful painter, and a number of Florentines entering too, they +broke out into such rejoicings that the locality was known ever after +as Borgo Allegro, or Joyful Quarter. This would be about 1290. There +was a certain fitness in Cimabue painting this Madonna, for it is said +that he had his education in the convent which stood here before the +present church was begun. But I should add that of Cimabue we know +practically nothing, and that most of Vasari's statements have been +confuted, while the painter of the S. Maria Novella Madonna is held +by some authorities to be Duccio of Siena. So where are we? + +The little chapel next the choir on the right is that of Filippo +Strozzi the elder who was one of the witnesses of the Pazzi outrage in +the Duomo in 1478. This was the Filippo Strozzi who began the Strozzi +palace in 1489, father of the Filippo Strozzi who married Lorenzo +de' Medici's noble grand-daughter Clarice and came to a tragic end +under Cosimo I. Old Filippo's tomb here was designed by Benedetto da +Maiano, who made the famous Franciscan pulpit in S. Croce, and was +Ghirlandaio's friend and the Strozzi palace's first architect. The +beautiful circular relief of the Virgin and Child, with a border of +roses and flying worshipping angels all about it, behind the altar, is +Benedetto's too, and very lovely and human are both Mother and Child. + +The frescoes in this chapel, by Filippino Lippi, are interesting, +particularly that one on the left, depicting the Resuscitation of +Drusiana by S. John the Evangelist, at Rome, in which the group of +women and children on the right, with the little dog, is full of +life and most naturally done. Above (but almost impossible to see) +is S. John in his cauldron of boiling oil between Roman soldiers and +the denouncing Emperor, under the banner S.P.Q.R.--a work in which +Roman local colour completely excludes religious feeling. Opposite, +below, we see S. Philip exorcising a dragon, a very florid scene, +and, above, a painfully spirited and realistic representation of the +Crucifixion. The sweetness of the figures of Charity and Faith in +monochrome and gold helps, with Benedetto's tondo, to engentle the air. + +We then come again to the Choir, with Ghirlandaio's urbane Florentine +pageant in the guise of sacred history, and pass on to the next chapel, +the Cappella Gondi, where that crucifix in wood is to be seen which +Brunelleschi carved as a lesson to Donatello, who received it like +the gentleman he was. I have told the story in Chapter XV. + +The left transept ends in the chapel of the Strozzi family, of which +Filippo was the head in his day, and here we find Andrea Orcagna and +his brother's fresco of Heaven, the Last Judgment and Hell. It was +the two Orcagnas who, according to Vasari, had covered the Choir with +those scenes in the life of the Virgin which Ghirlandaio was allowed +to paint over, and Vasari adds that the later artist availed himself +of many of the ideas of his predecessors. This, however, is not +very likely, I think, except perhaps in choice of subject. Orcagna, +like Giotto, and later, Michelangelo, was a student of Dante, and +the Strozzi chapel frescoes follow the poet's descriptions. In the +Last Judgment, Dante himself is to be seen, among the elect, in the +attitude of prayer. Petrarch is with him. + +The sacristy is by Talenti (of the Campanile) and was added in +1350. Among its treasures once were the three reliquaries painted +by Fra Angelico, but they are now at S. Marco. It has still rich +vestments, fine woodwork, and a gay and elaborate lavabo by one of +the della Robbias, with its wealth of ornament and colour and its +charming Madonna and Child with angels. + +A little doorway close by used to lead to the cloisters, and a +mercenary sacristan was never far distant, only too ready to unlock for +a fee what should never have been locked, and black with fury if he got +nothing. But all this has now been done away with, and the entrance +to the cloisters is from the Piazza, just to the left of the church, +and there is a turnstile and a fee of fifty centimes. At S. Lorenzo the +cloisters are free. At the Carmine and the Annunziata the cloisters +are free. At S. Croce the charge is a lira and at S. Maria Novella +half a lira. To make a charge for the cloisters alone seems to me +utterly wicked. Let the Pazzi Chapel at S. Croce and the Spanish +Chapel here have fees, if you like; but the cloisters should be open +to all. Children should be encouraged to play there. + +Since, however, S. Maria Novella imposes a fee we must pay it, +and the new arrangement at any rate carries this advantage with it, +that one knows what one is expected to pay and can count on entrance. + +The cloisters are everywhere interesting to loiter in, but their +chief fame is derived from the Spanish Chapel, which gained that name +when in 1566 it was put at the disposal of Eleanor of Toledo's suite +on the occasion of her marriage to Cosimo I. Nothing Spanish about +it otherwise. Both structure and frescoes belong to the fourteenth +century. Of these frescoes, which are of historical and human interest +rather than artistically beautiful, that one on the right wall as +we enter is the most famous. It is a pictorial glorification of the +Dominican order triumphant; with a vivid reminder of the origin of +the word Dominican in the episode of the wolves (or heretics) being +attacked by black and white dogs, the Canes Domini, or hounds of the +Lord. The "Mornings in Florence" should here be consulted again, for +Ruskin made a very thorough and characteristically decisive analysis +of these paintings, which, whether one agrees with it or not, is +profoundly interesting. Poor old Vasari, who so patiently described +them too and named a number of the originals of the portraits, is now +shelved, and from both his artists, Simone Martini and Taddeo Gaddi, +has the authorship been taken by modern experts. Some one, however, +must have done the work. The Duomo as represented here is not the +Duomo of fact, which had not then its dome, but of anticipation. + +Opposite, we see a representation of the triumph of the greatest of the +Dominicans, after its founder, S. Thomas Aquinas, the author of the +"Summa Theologiae," who died in 1274. The painter shows the Angelic +Doctor enthroned amid saints and patriarchs and heavenly attendants, +while three powerful heretics grovel at his feet, and beneath are the +Sciences and Moral Qualities and certain distinguished men who served +them conspicuously, such as Aristotle, the logician, whom S. Thomas +Aquinas edited, and Cicero, the rhetorician. In real life Aquinas was +so modest and retiring that he would accept no exalted post from the +Church, but remained closeted with his books and scholars; and we can +conceive what his horror would be could he view this apotheosis. On the +ceiling is a quaint rendering of the walking on the water, S. Peter's +failure being watched from the ship with the utmost closeness by the +other disciples, but attracting no notice whatever from an angler, +close by, on the shore. The chapel is desolate and unkempt, and those +of us who are not Dominicans are not sorry to leave it and look for +the simple sweetness of the Giottos. + +These are to be found, with some difficulty, on the walls of the niche +where the tomb of the Marchese Ridolfo stands. They are certainly +very simple and telling, and I advise every one to open the "Mornings +in Florence" and learn how the wilful magical pen deals with them; +but it would be a pity to give up Ghirlandaio because Giotto was so +different, as Ruskin wished. Room for both. One scene represents +the meeting of S. Joachim and S. Anna outside a mediaeval city's +walls, and it has some pretty Giottesque touches, such as the man +carrying doves to the Temple and the angel uniting the two saints +in friendliness; and the other is the Birth of the Virgin, which +Ruskin was so pleased to pit against Ghirlandaio's treatment of the +same incident. Well, it is given to some of us to see only what we +want to see and be blind to the rest; and Ruskin was of these the +very king. I agree with him that Ghirlandaio in both his Nativity +frescoes thought little of the exhaustion of the mothers; but it is +arguable that two such accouchements might with propriety be treated +as abnormal--as indeed every painter has treated the birth of Christ, +where the Virgin, fully dressed, is receiving the Magi a few moments +after. Ruskin, after making his deadly comparisons, concludes thus +genially of the Giotto version--"If you can be pleased with this, +you can see Florence. But if not, by all means amuse yourself there, +if you can find it amusing, as long as you like; you can never see it." + +The S. Maria Novella habit is one to be quickly contracted by the +visitor to Florence: nearly as important as the S. Croce habit. Both +churches are hospitable and, apart from the cloisters, free and +eminently suited for dallying in; thus differing from the Duomo, +which is dark, and S. Lorenzo, where there are payments to be made +and attendants to discourage. + +An effort should be made at S. Maria Novella to get into the old +cloisters, which are very large and indicate what a vast convent it +once was. But there is no certainty. The way is to go through to the +Palaestra and hope for the best. Here, as I have said in the second +chapter, were lodged Pope Eugenius and his suite, when they came +to the Council of Florence in 1439. These large and beautiful green +cloisters are now deserted. Through certain windows on the left one +may see chemists at work compounding drugs and perfumes after old +Dominican recipes, to be sold at the Farmacia in the Via della Scala +close by. The great refectory has been turned into a gymnasium. + +The two obelisks, supported by tortoises and surmounted by beautiful +lilies, in the Piazza of S. Maria Novella were used as boundaries in +the chariot races held here under Cosimo I, and in the collection of +old Florentine prints on the top floor of Michelangelo's house you +may see representations of these races. The charming loggia opposite +S. Maria Novella, with della Robbia decorations, is the Loggia di +S. Paolo, a school designed, it is thought, by Brunelleschi, and +here, at the right hand end, we see S. Dominic himself in a friendly +embrace with S. Francis, a very beautiful group by either Luca or +Andrea della Robbia. + +In the loggia cabmen now wrangle all day and all night. From it +S. Maria Novella is seen under the best conditions, always cheerful +and serene; while far behind the church is the huge Apennine where +most of the weather of Florence seems to be manufactured. In mid +April this year (1912) it still had its cap of snow. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +The Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele to S. Trinità + +A city of trams--The old market--Donatello's figure of Abundance--An +evening resort--A hall of variety--Florentines of to-day--The war +with Turkey--Homecoming heroes--Restaurants--The new market--The +bronze boar--A fifteenth century palace--Old Florentine life +reconstructed--Where changes are few--S. Trinità--Ghirlandaio +again--S. Francis--The Strozzi palace--Clarice de' Medici. + +Florence is not simple to the stranger. Like all very old cities +built fortuitously it is difficult to learn: the points of the +compass are elusive; the streets are so narrow that the sky is no +constant guide; the names of the streets are often not there; the +policemen have no high standard of helpfulness. There are trams, +it is true--too many and too noisy, and too near the pavement--but +the names of their outward destinations, from the centre, too rarely +correspond to any point of interest that one is desiring. Hence one +has many embarrassments and even annoyances. Yet I daresay this is +best: an orderly Florence is unthinkable. Since, however, the trams +that are returning to the centre nearly all go to the Duomo, either +passing it or stopping there, the tram becomes one's best friend and +the Duomo one's starting point for most excursions. + +Supposing ourselves to be there once more, let us quickly get through +the horrid necessity, which confronts one in all ancient Italian +cities, of seeing the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. In an earlier chapter +we left the Baptistery and walked along the Via Calzaioli. Again +starting from the Baptistery let us take the Via dell' Arcivescovado, +which is parallel with the Via Calzaioli, on the right of it, and +again walk straight forward. We shall come almost at once to the +great modern square. + +No Italian city or town is complete without a Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele +and a statue of that monarch. In Florence the sturdy king bestrides +his horse here. Italy being so old and Vittorio Emmanuele so new, +it follows in most cases that the square or street named after +him supplants an older one, and if the Italians had any memory or +imaginative interest in history they would see to it that the old +name was not wholly obliterated. In Florence, in order to honour the +first king of United Italy, much grave violence was done to antiquity, +for a very picturesque quarter had to be cleared away for the huge +brasseries, stores and hotels which make up the west side; which +in their turn marked the site of the old market where Donatello and +Brunelleschi and all the later artists of the great days did their +shopping and met to exchange ideals and banter; and that market in +its turn marked the site of the Roman forum. + +One of the features of the old market was the charming Loggia di Pesce; +another, Donatello's figure of Abundance, surmounting a column. This +figure is now in the museum of ancient city relics in the monastery +of S. Marco, where one confronts her on a level instead of looking +up at her in mid sky. But she is very good, none the less. + +In talking to elderly persons who can remember Florence forty and fifty +years ago I find that nothing so distresses them as the loss of the +old quarter for the making of this new spacious piazza; and probably +nothing can so delight the younger Florentines as its possession, +for, having nothing to do in the evenings, they do it chiefly in the +Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. Chairs and tables spring up like mushrooms +in the roadway, among which too few waiters distribute those very +inexpensive refreshments which seem to be purchased rather for the +right to the seat that they confer than for any stimulation. It is +extraordinary to the eyes of the thriftless English, who are never +so happy as when they are overpaying Italian and other caterers in +their own country, to notice how long these wiser folk will occupy +a table on an expenditure of fourpence. + +I do not mean that there are no theatres in Florence. There are +many, but they are not very good; and the young men can do without +them. Curious old theatres, faded and artificial, all apparently built +for the comedies of Goldoni. There are cinema theatres too, at prices +which would delight the English public addicted to those insidious +entertainments, but horrify English managers; and the Teatro Salvini +at the back of the Palazzo Vecchio is occasionally transformed into a +Folies Bergères (as it is called) where one after another comediennes +sing each two or three songs rapidly to an audience who regard them +with apathy and converse without ceasing. The only sign of interest +which one observes is the murmur which follows anything a little +off the beaten track--a sound that might equally be encouragement +or disapproval. But a really pretty woman entering a box moves +them. Then they employ every note in the gamut; and curiously enough +the pretty woman in the box is usually as cool under the fusillade +as a professional and hardened sister would be. A strange music hall +this to the English eye, where the orchestra smokes, and no numbers +are put up, and every one talks, and the intervals seem to be hours +long. But the Florentines do not mind, for they have not the English +thirst for entertainment and escape; they carry their entertainment +with them and do not wish to escape--going to such places only because +they are warmer than out of doors. + +Sitting here and watching their ironical negligence of the stage and +their interest in each other's company; their animated talk and rapid +decisions as to the merits and charms of a performer; the comfort of +their attitudes and carelessness (although never quite slovenliness) +in dress; one seems to realize the nation better than anywhere. The +old fighting passion may have gone; but much of the quickness, the +shrewdness and the humour remains, together with the determination of +each man to have if possible his own way and, whether possible or not, +his own say. + +Seeing them in great numbers one quickly learns and steadily +corroborates the fact that the Florentines are not beautiful. A +pretty woman or a handsome man is a rarity; but a dull-looking man +or woman is equally rare. They are shrewd, philosophic, cynical, and +very ready for laughter. They look contented also: Florence clearly +is the best place to be born in, to live in, and to die in. Let all +the world come to Florence, by all means, and spend its money there; +but don't ask Florence to go to the world. Don't in fact ask Florence +to do anything very much. + +Civilization and modern conditions have done the Florentines no +good. Their destiny was to live in a walled city in turbulent +days, when the foe came against it, or tyranny threatened from +within and had to be resisted. They were then Florentines and +everything mattered. To-day they are Italians and nothing matters +very much. Moreover, it must be galling to have somewhere in the +recesses of their consciousness the knowledge that their famous city, +built and cemented with their ancestors' blood, is now only a museum. + +When it is fine and warm the music hall does not exist, and it is +in the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele that the Florentines sit and talk, +or walk and talk, or listen to the band which periodically inhabits a +stand near the centre; and it was here that I watched the reception +of the news that Italy had declared war on Turkey, a decision which +while it rejoiced the national warlike spirit of the populace could +not but carry with it a reminder that wars have to be paid for. Six +or seven months later I saw the return to Florence of the first +troops from the war, and their reception was terrific. In the mass +they were welcome enough; but as soon as units could be separated +from the mass the fun began, for they were carried shoulder high to +whatever destination they wanted, their knapsacks and rifles falling +to proud bearers too; while the women clapped from the upper windows, +the shrewd shopkeepers cheered from their doorways, and the crowd which +followed and surrounded the hero every moment increased. As for the +heroes, they looked for the most part a good deal less foolish than +Englishmen would have done; but here and there was one whose expression +suggested that the Turks were nothing to this. One poor fellow had +his coat dragged from his back and torn into a thousand souvenirs. + +The restaurants of Florence are those of a city where the natives +are thrifty and the visitors dine in hotels. There is one expensive +high-class house, in the Via Tornabuoni--Doney e Nipoti or Doney +et Neveux--where the cooking is Franco-Italian, and the Chianti and +wines are dear beyond belief, and the venerable waiters move with a +deliberation which can drive a hungry man--and one is always hungry +in this fine Tuscan air--to despair. I like better the excellent +old-fashioned purely Italian food and Chianti and speed at Bonciani's +in the Via de Panzani, close to the station. These twain are the +best. But it is more interesting to go to the huge Gambrinus in +the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele, because so much is going on all the +time. One curious Florentine habit is quickly discovered and resented +by the stranger who frequents a restaurant, and that is the system of +changing waiters from one set of tables to another; so that whereas +in London and Paris the wise diner is true to a corner because it +carries the same service with it, in Florence he must follow the +service. But if the restaurants have odd ways, and a limited range of +dishes and those not very interesting, they make up for it by being +astonishingly quick. Things are cooked almost miraculously. + +The Florentines eat little. But greediness is not an Italian fault. No +greedy people would have a five-syllabled word for waiter. + +Continuing along the Via dell' Arcivescovado, which after the Piazza +becomes the Via Celimana, we come to that very beautiful structure +the Mercato Nuovo, which, however, is not so wonderfully new, having +been built as long ago as 1547-1551. Its columns and arched roof are +exquisitely proportioned. As a market it seems to be a poor affair, +the chief commodity being straw hats. For the principal food market one +has to go to the Via d'Ariento, near S. Lorenzo, and this is, I think, +well worth doing early in the morning. Lovers of Hans Andersen go to +the Mercato Nuovo to see the famous bronze boar (or "metal pig," as it +was called in the translation on which I was brought up) that stands +here, on whose back the little street boy had such adventures. The +boar himself was the work of Pietro Tacca (1586-1650), a copy from +an ancient marble original, now in the Uffizi, at the top of the +entrance stairs; but the pedestal with its collection of creeping +things is modern. The Florentines who stand in the market niches are +Bernardo Cennini, a goldsmith and one of Ghiberti's assistants, who +introduced printing into Florence in 1471 and began with an edition of +Virgil; Giovanni Villani, who was the city's first serious historian, +beginning in 1300 and continuing till his death in 1348; and Michele +Lando, the wool-carder, who on July 22nd, 1378, at the head of a mob, +overturned the power of the Signory. + +By continuing straight on we should come to that crowded and fussy +little street which crosses the river by the Ponte Vecchio and +eventually becomes the Roman way; but let us instead turn to the +right this side of the market, down the Via Porta Rossa, because +here is the Palazzo Davanzati, which has a profound interest to +lovers of the Florentine past in that it has been restored exactly +to its ancient state when Pope Eugenius IV lodged here, and has been +filled with fourteenth and fifteenth century furniture. In those days +it was the home of the Davizza family. The Davanzati bought it late +in the sixteenth century and retained it until 1838. In 1904 it was +bought by Professor Elia Volpi, who restored its ancient conditions +and presented it to the city as a permanent monument of the past. + +Here we see a mediaeval Florentine palace precisely as it was when its +Florentine owner lived his uncomfortable life there. For say what one +may, there is no question that life must have been uncomfortable. In +early and late summer, when the weather was fine and warm, these +stone floors and continuous draughts may have been solacing; but in +winter and early spring, when Florentine weather can be so bitterly +hostile, what then? That there was a big fire we know by the smoky +condition of Michelozzo's charming frieze on the chimney piece; but +the room--I refer to that on the first floor--is so vast that this +fire can have done little for any one but an immediate vis-à-vis; +and the room, moreover, was between the open world on the one side, +and the open court (now roofed in with glass) on the other, with +such additional opportunities for draughts as the four trap-doors +in the floor offered. It was through these traps that the stone +cannon-balls still stacked in the window seats were dropped, or a few +gallons of boiling oil poured, whenever the city or a faction of it +turned against the householder. Not comfortable, you see, at least +not in our northern sense of the word, although to the hardy frugal +Florentine it may have seemed a haven of luxury. + +The furniture of the salon is simple and sparse and very hard. A bust +here, a picture there, a coloured plate, a crucifix, and a Madonna +and Child in a niche: that was all the decoration save tapestry. An +hour glass, a pepper mill, a compass, an inkstand, stand for utility, +and quaint and twisted musical instruments and a backgammon board +for beguilement. + +In the salle-à-manger adjoining is less light, and here also is +a symbol of Florentine unrest in the shape of a hole in the wall +(beneath the niche which holds the Madonna and Child) through which +the advancing foe, who had successfully avoided the cannon balls +and the oil, might be prodded with lances, or even fired at. The +next room is the kitchen, curiously far from the well, the opening +to which is in the salon, and then a bedroom (with some guns in it) +and smaller rooms gained from the central court. + +The rest of the building is the same--a series of self-contained +flats, but all dipping for water from the same shaft and all depending +anxiously upon the success of the first floor with invaders. At the +top is a beautiful loggia with Florence beneath it. + +The odd thing to remember is that for the poor of Florence, who now +inhabit houses of the same age as the Davanzati palace, the conditions +are almost as they were in the fifteenth century. A few changes have +come in, but hardly any. Myriads of the tenements have no water laid +on: it must still be pulled up in buckets exactly as here. Indeed you +may often see the top floor at work in this way; and there is a row +of houses on the left of the road to the Certosa, a little way out +of Florence, with a most elaborate network of bucket ropes over many +gardens to one well. Similarly one sees the occupants of the higher +floors drawing vegetables and bread in baskets from the street and +lowering the money for them. The postman delivers letters in this +way, too. Again, one of the survivals of the Davanzati to which the +custodian draws attention is the rain-water pipe, like a long bamboo, +down the wall of the court; but one has but to walk along the Via +Lambertesca, between the Uffizi and the Via Por S. Maria, and peer +into the alleys, to see that these pipes are common enough yet. + +In fact, directly one leaves the big streets Florence is still +fifteenth century. Less colour in the costumes, and a few anachronisms, +such as gas or electric light, posters, newspapers, cigarettes, and +bicycles, which dart like dragon flies (every Florentine cyclist +being a trick cyclist); but for the rest there is no change. The +business of life has not altered; the same food is eaten, the same +vessels contain it, the same fire cooks it, the same red wine is +made from the same grapes in the same vineyards, the same language +(almost) is spoken. The babies are christened at the same font, +the parents visit the same churches. Similarly the handicrafts can +have altered little. The coppersmith, the blacksmith, the cobbler, +the woodcarver, the goldsmiths in their yellow smocks, must be just +as they were, and certainly the cellars and caverns under the big +houses in which they work have not changed. Where the change is, +is among the better-to-do, the rich, and in the government. For no +longer is a man afraid to talk freely of politics; no longer does he +shudder as he passes the Bargello; no longer is the name of Medici +on his lips. Everything else is practically as it was. + +The Via Porta Rossa runs to the Piazza S. Trinità, the church of +S. Trinità being our destination. For here are some interesting +frescoes. First, however, let us look at the sculpture: a very +beautiful altar by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the fifth chapel of the +right aisle; a monument by Luca della Robbia to one of the archbishops +of Fiesole, once in S. Pancrazio (which is now a tobacco factory) +in the Via della Spada and brought here for safe keeping--a beautiful +example of Luca's genius, not only as a modeller but also as a very +treasury of pretty thoughts, for the border of flowers and leaves is +beyond praise delightful. The best green in Florence (after Nature's, +which is seen through so many doorways and which splashes over so +many white walls and mingles with gay fruits in so many shops) is here. + +In the fifth chapel of the left aisle is a Magdalen carved in wood +by Desiderio da Settignano and finished by Benedetto da Maiano; +while S. Trinità now possesses, but shows only on Good Friday, +the very crucifix from S. Miniato which bowed down and blessed +S. Gualberto. The porphyry tombs of the Sassetti, in the chapel of +that family, by Giuliano di Sangallo, are magnificent. + +It is in the Sassetti chapel that we find the Ghirlandaio frescoes +of scenes in the life of S. Francis which bring so many strangers +to this church. The painting which depicts S. Francis receiving +the charter from the Emperor Honorius is interesting both for its +history and its painting; for it contains a valuable record of what +the Palazzo Vecchio and Loggia de' Lanzi were like in 1485, and also +many portraits: among them Lorenzo the Magnificent, on the extreme +right holding out his hand: Poliziano, tutor of the Medici boys, +coming first up the stairs; and on the extreme left very probably +Verrocchio, one of Ghirlandaio's favourite painters. We find old +Florence again in the very attractive picture of the resuscitation +of the nice little girl in violet, a daughter of the Spini family, +who fell from a window of the Spini palace (as we see in the distance +on the left, this being one of the old synchronized scenes) and was +brought to life by S. Francis, who chanced to be flying by. The +scene is intensely local: just outside the church, looking along +what is now the Piazza S. Trinità and the old Trinità bridge. The +Spini palace is still there, but is now called the Ferroni, and it +accommodates no longer Florentine aristocrats but consuls and bank +clerks. Among the portraits in the fresco are noble friends of the +Spini family--Albrizzi, Acciaioli, Strozzi and so forth. The little +girl is very quaint and perfectly ready to take up once more the +threads of her life. How long she lived this second time and what +became of her I have not been able to discover. Her tiny sister, +behind the bier, is even quainter. On the left is a little group +of the comely Florentine ladies in whom Ghirlandaio so delighted, +tall and serene, with a few youths among them. + +It is interesting to note that Ghirlandaio in his S. Trinità frescoes +and Benedetto da Maiano in his S. Croce pulpit reliefs chose exactly +the same scenes in the life of S. Francis: interesting because +when Ghirlandaio was painting frescoes at San Gimignano in 1475, +Benedetto was at work on the altar for the same church of S. Fina, +and they were friends. Where Ghirlandaio and Giotto, also in S. Croce, +also coincide in choice of subject some interesting comparisons may +be made, all to the advantage of Giotto in spiritual feeling and +unsophisticated charm, but by no means to Ghirlandaio's detriment +as a fascinating historian in colour. In the scene of the death of +S. Francis we find Ghirlandaio and Giotto again on the same ground, +and here it is probable that the later painter went to the earlier +for inspiration; for he has followed Giotto in the fine thought that +makes one of the attendant brothers glance up as though at the saint's +ascending spirit. It is remarkable how, with every picture that one +sees, Giotto's completeness of equipment as a religious painter becomes +more marked. His hand may have been ignorant of many masterly devices +for which the time was not ripe; but his head and heart knew all. + +The patriarchs in the spandrels of the choir are by Ghirlandaio's +master, Alessio Baldovinetti, of whom I said something in the chapter +on S. Maria Novella. They once more testify to this painter's charm +and brilliance. Almost more than that of any other does one regret the +scarcity of his work. It was fitting that he should have painted the +choir, for his name-saint, S. Alessio, guards the façade of the church. + +The column opposite the church came from the baths of Caracalla and +was set up by Cosimo I, upon the attainment of his life-long ambition +of a grand-dukeship and a crown. The figure at the top is Justice. + +S. Trinità is a good starting-point for the leisurely examination of +the older and narrower streets, an occupation which so many visitors +to Florence prefer to the study of picture galleries and churches. And +perhaps rightly. In no city can they carry on their researches with +such ease, for Florence is incurious about them. Either the Florentines +are too much engrossed in their own affairs or the peering foreigner +has become too familiar an object to merit notice, but one may drift +about even in the narrowest alleys beside the Arno, east and west, +and attract few eyes. And the city here is at its most romantic: +between the Piazza S. Trinità and the Via Por S. Maria, all about +the Borgo SS. Apostoli. + +We have just been discussing Benedetto da Maiano the sculptor. If we +turn to the left on leaving S. Trinità, instead of losing ourselves in +the little streets, we are in the Via Tornabuoni, where the best shops +are and American is the prevailing language. We shall soon come, on the +right, to an example of Benedetto's work as an architect, for the first +draft of the famous Palazzo Strozzi, the four-square fortress-home +which Filippo Strozzi began for himself in 1489, was his. Benedetto +continued the work until his death in 1507, when Cronaca, who built +the great hall in the Palazzo Vecchio, took it over and added the +famous cornice. The iron lantern and other smithwork were by Lorenzo +the Magnificent's sardonic friend, "Il Caparro," of the Sign of the +Burning Books, of whom I wrote in the chapter on the Medici palace. + +The first mistress of the Strozzi palace was Clarice Strozzi, +née Clarice de' Medici, the daughter of Piero, son of Lorenzo the +Magnificent. She was born in 1493 and married Filippo Strozzi the +younger in 1508, during the family's second period of exile. They +then lived at Rome, but were allowed to return to Florence in +1510. Clarice's chief title to fame is her proud outburst when she +turned Ippolito and Alessandro out of the Medici palace. She died +in 1528 and was buried in S. Maria Novella. The unfortunate Filippo +met his end nine years later in the Boboli fortezza, which his money +had helped to build and in which he was imprisoned for his share in +a conspiracy against Cosimo I. Cosimo confiscated the palace and all +Strozzi's other possessions, but later made some restitution. To-day +the family occupy the upper part of their famous imperishable home, +and beneath there is an exhibition of pictures and antiquities for +sale. No private individual, whatever his wealth or ambition, will +probably ever again succeed in building a house half so strong or +noble as this. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +The Pitti + +Luca Pitti's pride--Preliminary caution--A terrace view--A +collection but not a gallery--The personally-conducted--Giorgione +the superb--Sustermans--The "Madonna del Granduca"--The "Madonna +della Sedia"--From Cimabue to Raphael--Andrea del Sarto--Two Popes +and a bastard--The ill-fated Ippolito--The National Gallery--Royal +apartments--"Pallas Subduing the Centaur"--The Boboli Gardens. + +The Pitti approached from the Via Guicciardini is far liker a prison +than a palace. It was commissioned by Luca Pitti, one of the proudest +and richest of the rivals of the Medici, in 1441. Cosimo de' Medici, +as we have seen, had rejected Brunelleschi's plans for a palazzo +as being too pretentious and gone instead to his friend Michelozzo +for something that externally at any rate was more modest; Pitti, +whose one ambition was to exceed Cosimo in power, popularity, and +visible wealth, deliberately chose Brunelleschi, and gave him carte +blanche to make the most magnificent mansion possible. Pitti, however, +plotting against Cosimo's son Piero, was frustrated and condemned to +death; and although Piero obtained his pardon he lost all his friends +and passed into utter disrespect in the city. Meanwhile his palace +remained unfinished and neglected, and continued so for a century, +when it was acquired by the Grand Duchess Eleanor of Toledo, the wife +of Cosimo I, who though she saw only the beginnings of its splendours +lived there awhile and there brought up her doomed brood. Eleanor's +architect--or rather Cosimo's, for though the Grand Duchess paid, +the Grand Duke controlled--was Ammanati, the designer of the Neptune +fountain in the Piazza della Signoria. Other important additions were +made later. The last Medicean Grand Duke to occupy the Pitti was Gian +Gastone, a bizarre detrimental, whose head, in a monstrous wig, may +be seen at the top of the stairs leading to the Uffizi gallery. He +died in 1737. + +As I have said in chapter VIII, it was by the will of Gian Gastone's +sister, widow of the Elector Palatine, who died in 1743, that the +Medicean collections became the property of the Florentines. This +bequest did not, however, prevent the migration of many of the +best pictures to Paris under Napoleon, but after Waterloo they came +back. The Pitti continued to be the home of princes after Gian Gastone +quitted a world which he found strange and made more so; but they were +not of the Medici blood. It is now a residence of the royal family. + +The first thing to do if by evil chance one enters the Pitti by the +covered way from the Uffizi is, just before emerging into the palace, +to avoid the room where copies of pictures are sold, for not only is +it a very catacomb of headache, from the fresh paint, but the copies +are in themselves horrible and lead to disquieting reflections on +the subject of sweated labour. The next thing to do, on at last +emerging, is to walk out on the roof from the little room at the +top of the stairs, and get a supply of fresh air for the gallery, +and see Florence, which is very beautiful from here. Looking over +the city one notices that the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio is almost +more dominating than the Duomo, the work of the same architect who +began this palace. Between the two is Fiesole. The Signoria tower is, +as I say, the highest. Then the Duomo. Then Giotto's Campanile. The +Bargello is hidden, but the graceful Badia tower is seen; also the +little white Baptistery roof with its lantern just showing. From the +fortezza come the sounds of drums and bugles. + +Returning from this terrace we skirt a vast porphyry basin and reach +the top landing of the stairs (which was, I presume, once a loggia) +where there is a very charming marble fountain; and from this we +enter the first room of the gallery. The Pitti walls are so congested +and so many of the pictures so difficult to see, that I propose to +refer only to those which, after a series of visits, seem to me the +absolute best. Let me hasten to say that to visit the Pitti gallery +on any but a really bright day is folly. The great windows (which +were to be larger than Cosimo de' Medici's doors) are excellent to +look out of, but the rooms are so crowded with paintings on walls +and ceilings, and the curtains are so absorbent of light, that unless +there is sunshine one gropes in gloom. The only pictures in short that +are properly visible are those on screens or hinges; and these are, +fortunately almost without exception, the best. The Pitti rooms were +never made for pictures at all, and it is really absurd that so many +beautiful things should be massed here without reasonable lighting. + +The Pitti also is always crowded. The Uffizi is never crowded; the +Accademia is always comfortable; the Bargello is sparsely attended. But +the Pitti is normally congested, not only by individuals but by flocks, +whose guides, speaking broken English, and sometimes broken American, +lead from room to room. I need hardly say that they form the tightest +knots before the works of Raphael. All this is proper enough, of +course, but it serves to render the Pitti a difficult gallery rightly +to study pictures in. + +In the first chapter on the Uffizi I have said how simple it is, +in the Pitti, to name the best picture of all, and how difficult in +most galleries. But the Pitti has one particular jewel which throws +everything into the background: the work not of a Florentine but of a +Venetian: "The Concert" of Giorgione, which stands on an easel in the +Sala di Marte. [9] It is true that modern criticism has doubted the +lightness of the ascription, and many critics, whose one idea seems +to be to deprive Giorgione of any pictures at all, leaving him but +a glorious name without anything to account for it, call it an early +Titian; but this need not trouble us. There the picture is, and never +do I think to see anything more satisfying. Piece by piece, it is +not more than fine rich painting, but as a whole it is impressive and +mysterious and enchanting. Pater compares the effect of it to music; +and he is right. + +The Sala dell' Iliade (the name of each room refers always to the +ceiling painting, which, however, one quite easily forgets to look at) +is chiefly notable for the Raphael just inside the door: "La Donna +Gravida," No. 229, one of his more realistic works, with bolder colour +than usual and harder treatment; rather like the picture that has +been made its pendant, No. 224, an "Incognita" by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, +very firmly painted, but harder still. Between them is the first of the +many Pitti Andrea del Sartos: No. 225, an "Assumption of the Madonna," +opposite a similar work from the same brush, neither containing quite +the finest traits of this artist. But the youth with outstretched hand +at the tomb is nobly done. No. 265, "Principe Mathias de' Medici," +is a good bold Sustermans, but No. 190, on the opposite wall, is a +far better--a most charming work representing the Crown Prince of +Denmark, son of Frederick III. Justus Sustermans, who has so many +portraits here and elsewhere in Florence, was a Belgian, born in 1597, +who settled in Florence as a portrait painter to Cosimo III. Van Dyck +greatly admired his work and painted him. He died at Florence in 1681. + +No. 208, a "Virgin Enthroned," by Fra Bartolommeo, is from S. Marco, +and it had better have been painted on the wall there, like the Fra +Angelicos, and then the convent would have it still. The Child is very +attractive, as almost always in this artist's work, but the picture +as a whole has grown rather dingy. By the window is a Velasquez, the +first we have seen in Florence, a little Philip IV on his prancing +steed, rather too small for its subject, but very interesting here +among the Italians. + +In the next large room--the Sala di Saturno--we come again to +Raphael, who is indeed the chief master of the Pitti, his exquisite +"Madonna del Granduca" being just to the left of the door. Here we +have the simplest colouring and perfect sweetness, and such serenity +of mastery as must be the despair of the copyists, who, however, +never cease attempting it. The only defect is a little clumsiness +in the Madonna's hand. The picture was lost for two centuries and it +then changed owners for twelve crowns, the seller being a poor woman +and the buyer a bookseller. The bookseller found a ready purchaser +in the director of the Grand Duke Ferdinand III's gallery, and the +Grand Duke so esteemed it that he carried it with him on all his +journeys, just as Sir George Beaumont, the English connoisseur, never +travelled without a favourite Claude. Hence its name. Another Andrea +del Sarto, the "Disputa sulla Trinita," No. 172, is close by, nobly +drawn but again not of his absolute best, and then five more Raphaels +or putative Raphaels--No. 171, Tommaso Inghirami; No. 61, Angelo Doni, +the collector and the friend of artists, for whom Michelangelo painted +his "Holy Family" in the Uffizi; No. 59, Maddalena Doni; and above +all No. 174, "The Vision of Ezekiel," that little great picture, +so strong and spirited, and--to coin a word--Sixtinish. All these, +I may say, are questioned by experts; but some very fine hand is +to be seen in them any way. Over the "Ezekiel" is still another, +No. 165, the "Madonna detta del Baldacchino," which is so much better +in the photographs. Next this group--No. 164--we find Raphael's +friend Perugino with an Entombment, but it lacks his divine glow; +and above it a soft and mellow and easy Andrea del Sarto, No. 163, +which ought to be in a church rather than here. A better Perugino +is No. 42, which has all his sweetness, but to call it the Magdalen +is surely wrong; and close by it a rather formal Fra Bartolommeo, +No. 159, "Gesu Resuscitato," from the church of SS. Annunziata, in +which once again the babies who hold the circular landscape are the +best part. After another doubtful Raphael--the sly Cardinal Divizio +da Bibbiena, No. 158--let us look at an unquestioned one, No. 151, +the most popular picture in Florence, if not the whole world, Raphael's +"Madonna della Sedia," that beautiful rich scene of maternal tenderness +and infantine peace. Personally I do not find myself often under +Raphael's spell; but here he conquers. The Madonna again is without +enough expression, but her arms are right, and the Child is right, +and the colour is so rich, almost Venetian in that odd way in which +Raphael now and then could suggest Venice. + +It is interesting to compare Raphael's two famous Madonnas in this +room: this one belonging to his Roman period and the other, opposite +it, to Florence, with the differences so marked. For by the time he +painted this he knew more of life and human affection. This picture, +I suppose, might be called the consummation of Renaissance painting in +fullest bloom: the latest triumph of that impulse. I do not say it is +the best; but it may be called a crown on the whole movement both in +subject and treatment. Think of the gulf between the Cimabue Madonna +and the Giotto Madonna, side by side, which we saw in the Accademia, +and this. With so many vivid sympathies Giotto must have wanted with +all his soul to make the mother motherly and the child childlike; but +the time was not yet; his hand was neither free nor fit. Between Giotto +and Raphael had to come many things before such treatment as this was +possible; most of all, I think, Luca della Robbia had to come between, +for he was the most valuable reconciler of God and man of them all. He +was the first to bring a tender humanity into the Church, the first +to know that a mother's fingers, holding a baby, sink into its soft +little body. Without Luca I doubt if the "Madonna della Sedia" could +be the idyll of protective solicitude and loving pride that it is. + +The Sala di Giove brings us to Venetian painting indeed, and glorious +painting too, for next the door is Titian's "Bella," No. 18, the lady +in the peacock-blue dress with purple sleeves, all richly embroidered +in gold, whom to see once is to remember for ever. On the other side of +the door is Andrea's brilliant "S. John the Baptist as a Boy," No. 272, +and then the noblest Fra Bartolommeo here, a Deposition, No. 64, not +good in colour, but superbly drawn and pitiful. In this room also is +the monk's great spirited figure of S. Marco, for the convent of that +name. Between them is a Tintoretto, No. 131, Vincenzo Zeino, one of his +ruddy old men, with a glimpse of Venice, under an angry sky, through +the window. Over the door, No. 124, is an Annunciation by Andrea, +with a slight variation in it, for two angels accompany that one who +brings the news, and the announcement is made from the right instead +of the left, while the incident is being watched by some people on the +terrace over a classical portico. A greater Andrea hangs next: No. 123, +the Madonna in Glory, fine but rather formal, and, like all Andrea's +work, hall-marked by its woman type. The other notable pictures are +Raphael's Fornarina, No. 245, which is far more Venetian than the +"Madonna della Sedia," and has been given to Sebastian del Piombo; +and the Venetian group on the right of the door, which is not only +interesting for its own charm but as being a foretaste of the superb +and glorious Giorgione in the Sala di Marte, which we now enter. + +Here we find a Rembrandt, No. 16, an old man: age and dignity emerging +golden from the gloom; and as a pendant a portrait, with somewhat +similar characteristics, but softer, by Tintoretto, No. 83. Between +them is a prosperous, ruddy group of scholars by Rubens, who has +placed a vase of tulips before the bust of Seneca. And we find Rubens +again with a sprawling, brilliant feat entitled "The Consequences +of War," but what those consequences are, beyond nakedness, one +has difficulty in discerning. Raphael's Holy Family, No. 94 (also +known as the "Madonna dell' Impannata"), next it might be called the +perfection of drawing without feeling. The authorities consider it a +school piece: that is to say, chiefly the work of his imitators. The +vivacity of the Child's face is very remarkable. The best Andrea is +in this room--a Holy Family, No. 81, which gets sweeter and simpler +and richer with every glance. Other Andreas are here too, notably on +the right of the further door a sweet mother and sprawling, vigorous +Child. But every Andrea that I see makes me think more highly of the +"Madonna della Sacco," in the cloisters of SS. Annunziata. Van Dyck, +who painted much in Italy before settling down at the English court, +we find in this room with a masterly full-length seated portrait of +an astute cardinal. But the room's greatest glory, as I have said, +is the Giorgione on the easel. + +In the Sala di Apollo, at the right of the door as we enter, is +Andrea's portrait of himself, a serious and mysterious face shining +out of darkness, and below it is Titian's golden Magdalen, No. 67, +the same ripe creature that we saw at the Uffizi posing as Flora, +again diffusing Venetian light. On the other side of the door we find, +for the first time in Florence, Murillo, who has two groups of the +Madonna and Child on this wall, the better being No. 63, which is both +sweet and masterly. In No. 56 the Child becomes a pretty Spanish boy +playing with a rosary, and in both He has a faint nimbus instead of +the halo to which we are accustomed. On the same wall is another fine +Andrea, who is most lavishly represented in this gallery, No. 58, +a Deposition, all gentle melancholy rather than grief. The kneeling +girl is very beautiful. + +Finally there are Van Dyck's very charming portrait of Charles +I of England and Henrietta, a most deft and distinguished work, +and Raphael's famous portrait of Leo X with two companions: rather +dingy, and too like three persons set for the camera, but powerful and +deeply interesting to us, because here we see the first Medici pope, +Leo X, Lorenzo de' Medici's son Giovanni, who gave Michelangelo the +commission for the Medici tombs and the new Sacristy of S. Lorenzo; +and in the young man on the Pope's right hand we see none other +than Giulio, natural son of Giuliano de' Medici, Lorenzo's brother, +who afterwards became Pope as Clement VII. It was he who laid siege +to Florence when Michelangelo was called upon to fortify it; and it +was during his pontificate that Henry VIII threw off the shackles +of Rome and became the Defender of the Faith. Himself a bastard, +Giulio became the father of the base-born Alessandro of Urbino, +first Duke of Florence, who, after procuring the death of Ippolito +and living a life of horrible excess, was himself murdered by his +cousin Lorenzino in order to rid Florence of her worst tyrant. In +his portrait Leo X has an illuminated missal and a magnifying glass, +as indication of his scholarly tastes. That he was also a good liver +his form and features testify. + +Of this picture an interesting story is told. After the battle of +Pavia, in 1525, Clement VII wishing to be friendly with the Marquis +of Gonzaga, a powerful ally of the Emperor Charles V, asked him what +he could do for him, and Gonzaga expressed a wish for the portrait +of Leo X, then in the Medici palace. Clement complied, but wishing +to retain at any rate a semblance of the original, directed that the +picture should be copied, and Andrea del Sarto was chosen for that +task. The copy turned out to be so close that Gonzaga never obtained +the original at all. + +In the next room--the Sala di Venere, and the last room in the long +suite--we find another Raphael portrait, and another Pope, this time +Julius II, that Pontiff whose caprice and pride together rendered +null and void and unhappy so many years of Michelangelo's life, +since it was for him that the great Julian tomb, never completed, was +designed. A replica of this picture is in our National Gallery. Here +also are a wistful and poignant John the Baptist by Dossi, No. 380; +two Dürers--an Adam and an Eve, very naked and primitive, facing +each other from opposite walls; and two Rubens landscapes not equal +to ours at Trafalgar Square, but spacious and lively. The gem of the +room is a lovely Titian, No. 92, on an easel, a golden work of supreme +quietude and disguised power. The portrait is called sometimes the +Duke of Norfolk, sometimes the "Young Englishman". + +Returning to the first room--the Sala of the Iliad--we enter the Sala +dell' Educazione di Giove, and find on the left a little gipsy portrait +by Boccaccio Boccaccino (1497-1518) which has extraordinary charm: +a grave, wistful, childish face in a blue handkerchief: quite a new +kind of picture here. I reproduce it in this volume, but it wants +its colour. For the rest, the room belongs to less-known and later +men, in particular to Cristofano Allori (1577-1621), with his famous +Judith, reproduced in all the picture shops of Florence. This work is +no favourite of mine, but one cannot deny it power and richness. The +Guido Reni opposite, in which an affected fat actress poses as +Cleopatra with the asp, is not, however, even tolerable. + +We next pass, after a glance perhaps at the adjoining tapestry room +on the left (where the bronze Cain and Abel are), the most elegant +bathroom imaginable, fit for anything rather than soap and splashes, +and come to the Sala di Ulisse and some good Venetian portraits: +a bearded senator in a sable robe by Paolo Veronese, No. 216, and, +No. 201, Titian's fine portrait of the ill-fated Ippolito de' +Medici, son of that Giuliano de' Medici, Duc de Nemours, whose +tomb by Michelangelo is at S. Lorenzo. This amiable young man was +brought up by Leo X until the age of twelve, when the Pope died, +and the boy was sent to Florence to live at the Medici palace, +with the base-born Alessandro, under the care of Cardinal Passerini, +where he remained until Clarice de' Strozzi ordered both the boys to +quit. In 1527 came the third expulsion of the Medici from Florence, +and Ippolito wandered about until Clement VII, the second Medici +Pope, was in Rome, after the sack, and, joining him there, he was, +against his will, made a cardinal, and sent to Hungary: Clement's idea +being to establish Alessandro (his natural son) as Duke of Florence, +and squeeze Ippolito, the rightful heir, out. This, Clement succeeded +in doing, and the repulsive and squalid-minded Alessandro--known as +the Mule--was installed. Ippolito, in whom this proceeding caused +deep grief, settled in Bologna and took to scholarship, among other +tasks translating part of the Aeneid into Italian blank verse; +but when Clement died and thus liberated Rome from a vile tyranny, +he was with him and protected his corpse from the angry mob. That +was in 1534, when Ippolito was twenty-seven. In the following year +a number of exiles from Florence who could not endure Alessandro's +offensive ways, or had been forced by him to fly, decided to appeal +to the Emperor Charles V for assistance against such a contemptible +ruler; and Ippolito headed the mission; but before he could reach the +Emperor an emissary of Alessandro's succeeded in poisoning him. Such +was Ippolito de' Medici, grandson of the great Lorenzo, whom Titian +painted, probably when he was in Bologna, in 1533 or 1534. + +This room also contains a nice little open decorative scene--like a +sketch for a fresco--of the Death of Lucrezia, No. 388, attributed +to the School of Botticelli, and above it a good Royal Academy Andrea +del Sarto. + +The next is the best of these small rooms--the Sala of +Prometheus--where on Sundays most people spend their time in +astonishment over the inlaid tables, but where Tuscan art also is +very beautiful. The most famous picture is, I suppose, the circular +Filippino Lippi, No. 343, but although the lively background is +very entertaining and the Virgin most wonderfully painted, the Child +is a serious blemish. The next favourite, if not the first, is the +Perugino on the easel--No. 219--one of his loveliest small pictures, +with an evening glow among the Apennines such as no other painter +could capture. Other fine works here are the Fra Bartolommeo, No. 256, +over the door, a Holy Family, very pretty and characteristic, and his +"Ecce Homo," next it; the adorable circular Botticini (as the catalogue +calls it, although the photographers waver between Botticelli and +Filippino Lippi), No. 347, with its myriad roses and children with +their little folded hands and the Mother and Child diffusing happy +sweetness, which, if only it were a little less painty, would be one +of the chief magnets of the gallery. + +Hereabout are many Botticelli school pictures, chief of these the +curious girl, called foolishly "La Bella Simonetta," which Mr. Berenson +attributes to that unknown disciple of Botticelli to whom he has given +the charming name of Amico di Sandro. This study in browns, yellow, +and grey always has its public. Other popular Botticelli derivatives +are Nos. 348 and 357. Look also at the sly and curious woman (No. 102), +near the window, by Ubertini, a new artist here; and the pretty Jacopo +del Sellaio, No. 364; a finely drawn S. Sebastian by Pollaiuolo; +the Holy Family by Jacopo di Boateri, No. 362, with very pleasant +colouring; No. 140, the "Incognita," which people used to think was +by Leonardo--for some reason difficult to understand except on the +principle of making the wish father to the thought--and is now given +to Bugiardini; and lastly a rich and comely example of Lombardy art, +No. 299. + +From this room we will enter first the Corridio delle Colonne where +Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici's miniature portraits are hung, all +remarkable and some superb, but unfortunately not named, together +with a few larger works, all very interesting. That Young Goldsmith, +No. 207, which used to be given to Leonardo but is now Ridolfo +Ghirlandaio's, is here; a Franciabigio, No. 43; a questioned Raphael, +No. 44; a fine and sensitive head of one of the Gonzaga family by +Mantegna, No. 375; the coarse head of Giovanni Bentivoglio by da +Costa, No. 376; and a Pollaiuolo, No. 370, S. Jerome, whose fine rapt +countenance is beautifully drawn. + +In the Sala della Giustizia we come again to the Venetians: a noble +Piombo, No. 409; the fine Aretino and Tommaso Mosti by Titian; +Tintoretto's portrait of a man, No. 410; and two good Moronis. But +I am not sure that Dosso Dossi's "Nymph and Satyr" on the easel is +not the most remarkable achievement here. I do not, however, care +greatly for it. + +In the Sala di Flora we find some interesting Andreas; a beautiful +portrait by Puligo, No. 184; and Giulio Romano's famous frieze of +dancers. Also a fine portrait by Allori, No. 72. The end room of all +is notable for a Ruysdael. + +Finally there is the Sala del Poccetti, out of the Sala di Prometeo, +which, together with the preceding two rooms that I have described, +has lately been rearranged. Here now is the hard but masterly Holy +Family of Bronzino, who has an enormous amount of work in Florence, +chiefly Medicean portraits, but nowhere, I think, reaches the level +of his "Allegory" in our National Gallery, or the portrait in the +Taylor collection sold at Christie's in 1912. Here also are four +rich Poussins; two typical Salvator Rosa landscapes and a battle +piece from the same hand; and, by some strange chance, a portrait +of Oliver Cromwell by Sir Peter Lely. But the stone table again wins +most attention. + +And here, as we leave the last of the great picture collections of +Florence, I would say how interesting it is to the returned visitor +to London to go quickly to the National Gallery and see how we +compare with them. Florence is naturally far richer than we, but +although only now and then have we the advantage, we can valuably +supplement in a great many cases. And the National Gallery keeps +up its quality throughout--it does not suddenly fall to pieces as +the Uffizi does. Thus, I doubt if Florence with all her Andreas +has so exquisite a thing from his hand as our portrait of a "Young +Sculptor," so long called a portrait of the painter himself; and we +have two Michelangelo paintings to the Uffizi's one. In Leonardo the +Louvre is of course far richer, even without the Gioconda, but we +have at Burlington House the cartoon for the Louvre's S. Anne which +may pair off with the Uffizi's unfinished Madonna, and we have also +at the National Gallery his finished "Virgin of the Rocks," while +to Burlington House one must go too for Michelangelo's beautiful +tondo. In Piero di Cosimo we are more fortunate than the Uffizi; and +we have Raphaels as important as those of the Pitti. We are strong +too in Perugino, Filippino Lippi, and Luca Signorelli, while when it +comes to Piero della Francesca we lead absolutely. Our Verrocchio, +or School of Verrocchio, is a superb thing, while our Cimabue (from +S. Croce) has a quality of richness not excelled by any that I have +seen elsewhere. But in Botticelli Florence wins. + +The Pitti palace contains also the apartments in which the King +and Queen of Italy reside when they visit Florence, which is not +often. Florence became the capital of Italy in 1865, on the day of +the sixth anniversary of the birth of Dante. It remained the capital +until 1870, when Rome was chosen. The rooms are shown thrice a +week, and are not, I think, worth the time that one must give to the +perambulation. Beyond this there is nothing to say, except that they +would delight children. Visitors are hurried through in small bands, +and dallying is discouraged. Hence one is merely tantalized by the +presence of their greatest treasure, Botticelli's "Pallas subduing +the Centaur," painted to commemorate Lorenzo de' Medici's successful +diplomatic mission to the King of Naples in 1480, to bring about +the end of the war with Sixtus IV, the prime instigator of the Pazzi +Conspiracy and the bitter enemy of Lorenzo in particular--whose only +fault, as he drily expressed it, had been to "escape being murdered +in the Cathedral"--and of all Tuscany in general. Botticelli, whom +we have already seen as a Medicean allegorist, always ready with +his glancing genius to extol and commend the virtues of that family, +here makes the centaur typify war and oppression while the beautiful +figure which is taming and subduing him by reason represents Pallas, +or the arts of peace, here identifiable with Lorenzo by the laurel +wreath and the pattern of her robe, which is composed of his private +crest of diamond rings intertwined. This exquisite picture--so rich +in colour and of such power and impressiveness--ought to be removed +to an easel in the Pitti Gallery proper. The "Madonna della Rosa," +by Botticelli or his School, is also here, and I had a moment before +a very alluring Holbein. But my memory of this part of the palace is +made up of gilt and tinsel and plush and candelabra, with two pieces +of furniture outstanding--a blue and silver bed, and a dining table +rather larger than a lawn-tennis court. + +The Boboli gardens, which climb the hill from the Pitti, are also +opened only on three afternoons a week. The panorama of Florence and +the surrounding Apennines which one has from the Belvedere makes a +visit worth while; but the gardens themselves are, from the English +point of view, poor, save in extent and in the groves on the way to +the stables (scuderie). Like all gardens where clipped walks are the +principal feature, they want people. They were made for people to +enjoy them, rather than for flowers to grow in, and at every turn +there is a new and charming vista in a green frame. + +It was from the Boboli hill-side before it was a garden that much +of the stone of Florence was quarried. With such stones so near it +is less to be wondered at that the buildings are what they are. And +yet it is wonderful too--that these little inland Italian citizens +should so have built their houses for all time. It proves them to +have had great gifts of character. There is no such building any more. + +The Grotto close to the Pitti entrance, which contains some of +Michelangelo's less remarkable "Prisoners," intended for the great +Julian tomb, is so "grottesque" that the statues are almost lost, and +altogether it is rather an Old Rye House affair; and though Giovanni +da Bologna's fountain in the midst of a lake is very fine, I doubt if +the walk is quite worth it. My advice rather is to climb at once to +the top, at the back of the Pitti, by way of the amphitheatre where +the gentlemen and ladies used to watch court pageants, and past that +ingenious fountain above it, in which Neptune's trident itself spouts +water, and rest in the pretty flower garden on the very summit of the +hill, among the lizards. There, seated on the wall, you may watch the +peasants at work in the vineyards, and the white oxen ploughing in +the olive groves, in the valley between this hill and S. Miniato. In +spring the contrast between the greens of the crops and the silver +grey of the olives is vivid and gladsome; in September, one may see +the grapes being picked and piled into the barrels, immediately below, +and hear the squdge as the wooden pestle is driven into the purple +mass and the juice gushes out. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +English Poets in Florence + +Casa Guidi--The Brownings--Giotto's missing spire--James Russell +Lowell--Lander's early life--Fra Bartolommeo before Raphael--The Tuscan +gardener--The "Villa Landor" to-day--Storms on the hillside--Pastoral +poetry--Italian memories in England--The final outburst--Last days +in Florence--The old lion's beguilements--The famous epitaph. + +On a house in the Piazza S. Felice, obliquely facing the Pitti, with +windows both in the Via Maggio and Via Mazzetta, is a tablet, placed +there by grateful Florence, stating that it was the home of Robert +and of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and that her verse made a golden +ring to link England to Italy. In other words, this is Casa Guidi. + +A third member of the family, Flush the spaniel, was also with them, +and they moved here in 1848, and it was here that Mrs. Browning +died, in 1861. But it was not their first Florentine home, for in +1847 they had gone into rooms in the Via delle Belle Donne--the +Street of Beautiful Ladies--whose name so fascinated Ruskin, near +S. Maria Novella. At Casa Guidi Browning wrote, among other poems, +"Christinas Eve and Easter Day," "The Statue and the Bust" of which I +have said something in chapter XIX, and the "Old Pictures in Florence," +that philosophic commentary on Vasari, which ends with the spirited +appeal for the crowning of Giotto's Campanile with the addition of +the golden spire that its builder intended-- + + + Fine as the beak of a young beccaccia + The campanile, the Duomo's fit ally, + Shall soar up in gold full fifty braccia, + Completing Florence, as Florence Italy. + + +But I suppose that the monologues "Andrea del Sarto" and "Fra Lippo +Lippi" would be considered the finest fruit of Browning's Florentine +sojourn, as "Casa Guidi Windows" is of Mrs. Browning's. Her great poem +is indeed as passionate a plea for Italian liberty as anything by an +Italian poet. Here also she wrote much if not all of "Aurora Leigh," +"The Poems before Congress," and those other Italian political pieces +which when her husband collected them as "Last Poems" he dedicated +"to 'grateful Florence'". + +In these Casa Guidi rooms the happiest days of both lives were +spent, and many a time have the walls resounded to the great voice, +laughing, praising or condemning, of Walter Savage Landor; while the +shy Hawthorne has talked here too. Casa Guidi lodged not only the +Brownings, but, at one time, Lowell, who was not, however, a very +good Florentine. "As for pictures," I find him writing, in 1874, +on a later visit, "I am tired to death of 'em,... and then most of +them are so bad. I like best the earlier ones, that say so much in +their half-unconscious prattle, and talk nature to me instead of +high art." But "the older streets," he says, "have a noble mediaeval +distance and reserve for me--a frown I was going to call it, not +of hostility, but of haughty doubt. These grim palace fronts meet +you with an aristocratic start that puts you to the proof of your +credentials. There is to me something wholesome in that that makes +you feel your place." + +The Brownings are the two English poets who first spring to mind +in connexion with Florence; but they had had very illustrious +predecessors. In August and September, 1638, during the reign +of Ferdinand II, John Milton was here, and again in the spring of +1639. He read Latin poems to fellow-scholars in the city and received +complimentary sonnets in reply. Here he met Galileo, and from here +he made the excursion to Vallombrosa which gave him some of his most +famous lines. He also learned enough of the language to write love +poetry to a lady in Bologna, although he is said to have offended +Italians generally by his strict morality. + +Skipping a hundred and eighty years we find Shelley in Florence, +in 1819, and it was here that his son was born, receiving the names +Percy Florence. Here he wrote, as I have said, his "Ode to the West +Wind" and that grimly comic work "Peter Bell the Third". + +But next the Brownings it is Walter Savage Landor of whom I always +think as the greatest English Florentine. Florence became his second +home when he was middle-aged and strong; and then again, when he was +a very old man, shipwrecked by his impulsive and impossible temper, +it became his last haven. It was Browning who found him his final +resting-place--a floor of rooms not far from where we now stand, +in the Via Nunziatina. + +Florence is so intimately associated with Landor, and Landor was +so happy in Florence, that a brief outline of his life seems to +be imperative. Born in 1775, the heir to considerable estates, +the boy soon developed that whirlwind headstrong impatience which +was to make him as notorious as his exquisite genius has made him +famous. He was sent to Rugby, but disapproving of the headmaster's +judgment of his Latin verses, he produced such a lampoon upon him, +also in Latin, as made removal or expulsion a necessity. At Oxford +his Latin and Greek verses were still his delight, but he took +also to politics, was called a mad Jacobin, and, in order to prove +his sanity and show his disapproval of a person obnoxious to him, +fired a gun at his shutters and was sent down for a year. He never +returned. After a period of strained relations with his father +and hot repudiations of all the plans for his future which were +made for him--such as entering the militia, reading law, and so +forth--he retired to Wales on a small allowance and wrote "Gebir" +which came out in 1798, when its author was twenty-three. In 1808 +Landor threw in his lot with the Spaniards against the French, saw +some fighting and opened his purse for the victims of the war; but +the usual personal quarrel intervened. Returning to England he bought +Llanthony Abbey, stocked it with Spanish sheep, planted extensively, +and was to be the squire of squires; and at the same time seeing a +pretty penniless girl at a ball in Bath, he made a bet he would marry +her, and won it. As a squire he became quickly involved with neighbours +(an inevitable proceeding with him) and also with a Bishop concerning +the restoration of the church. Lawsuits followed, and such expenses +and vexations occurred that Landor decided to leave England--always +a popular resource with his kind. His mother took over the estate +and allowed him an income upon which he travelled from place to +place for a few years, quarrelling with his wife and making it up, +writing Latin verses everywhere and on everything, and coming into +collision not only with individuals but with municipalities. + +He settled in Florence in 1821, finding rooms in the Palazzo Medici, +or, rather, Riccardi. There he remained for five years, which no doubt +would have been a longer period had he not accused his landlord, +the Marquis, who was then the head of the family, of seducing away +his coachman. Landor wrote stating the charge; the Marquis, calling +in reply, entered the room with his hat on, and Landor first knocked +it off and then gave notice. It was at the Palazzo Medici that Landor +was visited by Hazlitt in 1825, and here also he began the "Imaginary +Conversations," his best-known work, although it is of course such +brief and faultless lyrics as "Rose Aylmer" and "To Ianthe" that have +given him his widest public. + +On leaving the Palazzo, Landor acquired the Villa Gherardesca, on +the hill-side below Fiesole, and a very beautiful little estate in +which the stream Affrico rises. + +Crabb Robinson, the friend of so many men of genius, who was in +Florence in 1880, in rooms at 1341 Via della Nuova Vigna, met Landor +frequently at his villa and has left his impressions. Landor had +made up his mind to live and die in Italy, but hated the Italians. He +would rather, he said, follow his daughter to the grave than to her +wedding with an Italian husband. Talking on art, he said he preferred +John of Bologna to Michelangelo, a statement he repeated to Emerson, +but afterwards, I believe, recanted. He said also to Robinson that +he would not give 1000 Pounds for Raphael's "Transfiguration," but +ten times that sum for Fra Bartolommeo's picture of S. Mark in the +Pitti. Next to Raphael and Fra Bartolommeo he loved Perugino. + +Landor soon became quite the husbandman. Writing to his sisters in +1831, he says: "I have planted 200 cypresses, 600 vines, 400 roses, +200 arbutuses, and 70 bays, besides laurustinas, etc., etc., and +60 fruit trees of the best qualities from France. I have not had +a moment's illness since I resided here, nor have the children. My +wife runs after colds; it would be strange if she did not take them; +but she has taken none here; hers are all from Florence. I have the +best water, the best air, and the best oil in the world. They speak +highly of the wine too; but here I doubt. In fact, I hate wine, +unless hock or claret.... + +"Italy is a fine climate, but Swansea better. That however is the +only spot in Great Britain where we have warmth without wet. Still, +Italy is the country I would live in.... In two [years] I hope to +have a hundred good peaches every day at table during two months: +at present I have had as many bad ones. My land is said to produce +the best figs in Tuscany; I have usually six or seven bushels of them." + +I have walked through Lander's little paradise--now called the Villa +Landor and reached by the narrow rugged road to the right just below +the village of S. Domenico. Its cypresses, planted, as I imagine, +by Lander's own hand, are stately as minarets and its lawn is as +green and soft as that of an Oxford college. The orchard, in April, +was a mass of blossom. Thrushes sang in the evergreens and the first +swallow of the year darted through the cypresses just as we reached +the gates. It is truly a poet's house and garden. + +In 1833 a French neighbour accused Landor of robbing him of water by +stopping an underground stream, and Landor naturally challenged him to +a duel. The meeting was avoided through the tact of Lander's second, +the English consul at Florence, and the two men became friends. At his +villa Landor wrote much of his best prose--the "Pentameron," "Pericles +and Aspasia" and the "Trial of Shakespeare for Deer-stealing "--and he +was in the main happy, having so much planting and harvesting to do, +his children to play with, and now and then a visitor. In the main +too he managed very well with the country people, but one day was +amused to overhear a conversation over the hedge between two passing +contadini. "All the English are mad," said one, "but as for this +one...!" There was a story of Landor current in Florence in those +days which depicted him, furious with a spoiled dish, throwing his +cook out of the window, and then, realizing where he would fall, +exclaiming in an agony, "Good God, I forgot the violets!" + +Such was Landor's impossible way on occasion that he succeeded in +getting himself exiled from Tuscany; but the Grand Duke was called in +as pacificator, and, though the order of expulsion was not rescinded, +it was not carried out. + +In 1835 Landor wrote some verses to his friend Ablett, who had lent +him the money to buy the villa, professing himself wholly happy-- + + + Thou knowest how, and why, are dear to me + My citron groves of Fiesole, + My chirping Affrico, my beechwood nook, + My Naiads, with feet only in the brook, + Which runs away and giggles in their faces; + Yet there they sit, nor sigh for other places-- + + +but later in the year came a serious break. Landor's relations with +Mrs. Landor, never of such a nature as to give any sense of security, +had grown steadily worse as he became more explosive, and they now +reached such a point that he flung out of the house one day and did +not return for many years, completing the action by a poem in which +he took a final (as he thought) farewell of Italy:-- + + + I leave thee, beauteous Italy! No more + From the high terraces, at even-tide, + To look supine into thy depths of sky, + The golden moon between the cliff and me, + Or thy dark spires of fretted cypresses + Bordering the channel of the milky way. + Fiesole and Valdarno must be dreams, + Hereafter, and my own lost Affrico + Murmur to me but the poet's song. + + +Landor gave his son Arnold the villa, settling a sum on his wife +for the other children's maintenance, and himself returned to Bath, +where he added to his friends Sir William Napier (who first found +a resemblance to a lion in Landor's features), John Forster, who +afterwards wrote his life, and Charles Dickens, who named a child +after him and touched off his merrier turbulent side most charmingly +as Leonard Boythom in "Bleak House". But his most constant companion +was a Pomeranian dog; in dogs indeed he found comfort all his life, +right to the end. + +Landor's love of his villa and estate finds expression again and again +in his verse written at this time. The most charming of all these +charming poems--the perfection of the light verse of a serious poet--is +the letter from England to his youngest boy, speculating on his +Italian pursuits. I begin at the passage describing the villa's cat:-- + + + Does Cincirillo follow thee about, + Inverting one swart foot suspensively, + And wagging his dread jaw at every chirp + Of bird above him on the olive-branch? + Frighten him then away! 'twas he who slew + Our pigeons, our white pigeons peacock-tailed, + That feared not you and me--alas, nor him! + I flattened his striped sides along my knee, + And reasoned with him on his bloody mind, + Till he looked blandly, and half-closed his eyes + To ponder on my lecture in the shade. + I doubt his memory much, his heart a little, + And in some minor matters (may I say it?) + Could wish him rather sager. But from thee + God hold back wisdom yet for many years! + Whether in early season or in late + It always comes high-priced. For thy pure breast + I have no lesson; it for me has many. + Come throw it open then! What sports, what cares + (Since there are none too young for these) engage + Thy busy thoughts? Are you again at work, + Walter and you, with those sly labourers, + Geppo, Giovanni, Cecco, and Poeta, + To build more solidly your broken dam + Among the poplars, whence the nightingale + Inquisitively watch'd you all day long? + I was not of your council in the scheme, + Or might have saved you silver without end, + And sighs too without number. Art thou gone + Below the mulberry, where that cold pool + Urged to devise a warmer, and more fit + For mighty swimmers, swimming three abreast? + Or art though panting in this summer noon + Upon the lowest step before the hall, + Drawing a slice of watermelon, long + As Cupid's bow, athwart thy wetted lips + (Like one who plays Pan's pipe), and letting drop + The sable seeds from all their separate cells, + And leaving bays profound and rocks abrupt, + Redder than coral round Calypso's cave? + + +In 1853 Landor put forth what he thought his last book, under the title +"Last Fruit off an Old Tree". Unhappily it was not his last, for in +1858 he issued yet one more, "Dry Sticks faggotted by W. S. Landor," +in which was a malicious copy of verses reflecting upon a lady. He +was sued for libel, lost the case with heavy damages, and once +more and for the last time left England for Florence. He was now +eighty-three. At first he went to the Villa Gherardesco, then the +home of his son Arnold, but his outbursts were unbearable, and three +times he broke away, to be three times brought back. In July, 1859, +he made a fourth escape, and then escaped altogether, for Browning +took the matter in hand and established him, after a period in Siena, +in lodgings in the Via Nunziatina. From this time till his death in +1864 Landor may be said at last to have been at rest. He had found +safe anchorage and never left it. Many friends came to see him, chief +among them Browning, who was at once his adviser, his admirer and his +shrewd observer. Landor, always devoted to pictures, but without much +judgment, now added to his collection; Browning in one of his letters +to Forster tells how he has found him "particularly delighted by the +acquisition of three execrable daubs by Domenichino and Gaspar Poussin +most benevolently battered by time". Another friend says that he had +a habit of attributing all his doubtful pictures to Corregoio. "He +cannot," Browning continues, "in the least understand that he is at +all wrong, or injudicious, or unfortunate in anything.... Whatever +he may profess, the thing he really loves is a pretty girl to talk +nonsense with." + +Of the old man in the company of fair listeners we have glimpses +in the reminiscences of Mrs. Fields in the "Atlantic Monthly" in +1866. She also describes him as in a cloud of pictures. There with +his Pomeranian Giallo within fondling distance, the poet, seated in +his arm-chair, fired comments upon everything. Giallo's opinion was +asked on all subjects, and Landor said of him that an approving wag +of his tail was worth all the praise of all the "Quarterlies ". It +was Giallo who led to the profound couplet-- + + + He is foolish who supposes + Dogs are ill that have hot noses. + + +Mrs. Fields tells how, after some classical or fashionable music had +been played, Landor would come closer to the piano and ask for an +old English ballad, and when "Auld Robin Gray," his favourite of all, +was sung, the tears would stream down his face. "Ah, you don't know +what thoughts you are recalling to the troublesome old man." + +But we have Browning's word that he did not spend much time in remorse +or regret, while there was the composition of the pretty little tender +epigrams of this last period to amuse him and Italian politics to +enchain his sympathy. His impulsive generosity led him to give his old +and trusted watch to the funds for Garibaldi's Sicilian expedition; +but Browning persuaded him to take it again. For Garibaldi's wounded +prisoners he wrote an Italian dialogue between Savonarola and the +Prior of S. Marco. The death of Mrs. Browning in 1861 sent Browning +back to England, and Landor after that was less cheerful and rarely +left the house. His chief solace was the novels of Anthony Trollope +and G.P.R. James. In his last year he received a visit from a young +English poet and enthusiast for poetry, one Algernon Charles Swinburne, +who arrived in time to have a little glowing talk with the old lion and +thus obtain inspiration for some fine memorial stanzas. On September +17th, 1864, Death found Landor ready--as nine years earlier he had +promised it should-- + + +To my ninth decade I have totter'd on, + And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady; +She who once led me where she would, is gone, + So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready. + + +Landor was buried, as we saw, in the English cemetery within the city, +whither his son Arnold was borne less than seven years later. Here is +his own epitaph, one of the most perfect things in form and substance +in the English language:-- + + +I strove with none, for none was worth my strife, + Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; +I warmed both hands before the fire of life, + It sinks, and I am ready to depart. + + +It should be cut on his tombstone. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +The Carmine and San Miniato + +The human form divine and waxen--Galileo--Bianca Capella--A +faithful Grand Duke--S. Spirito--The Carmine--Masaccio's place +in art--Leonardo's summary--The S. Peter frescoes--The Pitti +side--Romola--A little country walk--The ancient wall--The Piazzale +Michelangelo--An evening prospect--S. Miniato--Antonio Rossellino's +masterpiece--The story of S. Gualberto--A city of the dead--The +reluctant departure. + +The Via Maggio is now our way, but first there is a museum which +I think should be visited, if only because it gave Dickens so much +pleasure when he was here--the Museo di Storia Naturale, which is +open three days a week only and is always free. Many visitors to +Florence never even hear of it and one quickly finds that its chief +frequenters are the poor. All the better for that. Here not only is +the whole animal kingdom spread out before the eye in crowded cases, +but the most wonderful collection of wax reproductions of the human +form is to be seen. These anatomical models are so numerous and so +exact that, since the human body does not change with the times, +a medical student could learn everything from them in the most +gentlemanly way possible. But they need a strong stomach. Mine, +I confess, quailed before the end. + +The hero of the Museum is Galileo, whose tomb at S. Croce we have seen: +here are preserved certain of his instruments in a modern, floridly +decorated Tribuna named after him. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) belongs +rather to Pisa, where he was born and where he found the Leaning Tower +useful for experiments, and to Rome, where in 1611 he demonstrated +his discovery of the telescope; but Florence is proud of him and it +was here that he died, under circumstances tragic for an astronomer, +for he had become totally blind. + +The frescoes in the Tribuna celebrate other Italian scientific +triumphs, and in the cases are historic telescopes, astrolabes, +binoculars, and other mysteries. + +The Via Maggio, which runs from Casa Guidi to the Ponte Trinita, and +at noon is always full of school-girls, brings us by way of the Via +Michelozzo to S. Spirito, but by continuing in it we pass a house of +great interest, now No. 26, where once lived the famous Bianca Capella, +that beautiful and magnetic Venetian whom some hold to have been so +vile and others so much the victim of fate. Bianca Capella was born in +1543, when Francis I, Cosimo I's eldest son, afterwards to play such a +part in her life, was two years of age. While he was being brought up +in Florence, Bianca was gaining loveliness in her father's palace. When +she was seventeen she fell in love with a young Florentine engaged +in a bank in Venice, and they were secretly married. Her family +were outraged by the mésalliance and the young couple had to flee +to Florence, where they lived in poverty and hiding, a prize of 2000 +ducats being offered by the Capella family to anyone who would kill +the husband; while, by way of showing how much in earnest they were, +they had his uncle thrown into prison, where he died. + +One day the unhappy Bianca was sitting at her window when the young +prince Francis was passing: he looked up, saw her, and was enslaved on +the spot. (The portraits of Bianca do not, I must admit, lay emphasis +on this story. Titian's I have not seen; but there is one by Bronzino +in our National Gallery--No. 650--and many in Florence.) There was, +however, something in Bianca's face to which Francis fell a victim, and +he brought about a speedy meeting. At first Bianca repulsed him; but +when she found that her husband was unworthy of her, she returned the +Prince's affection. (I am telling her story from the pro-Bianca point +of view: there are plenty of narrators on the other side.) Meanwhile, +Francis's official life going on, he married that archduchess Joanna +of Austria for whom the Austrian frescoes in the Palazzo Vecchio were +painted; but his heart remained Bianca's and he was more at her house +than in his own. At last, Bianca's husband being killed in some fray, +she was free from the persecution of her family and ready to occupy +the palace which Francis hastened to build for her, here, in the Via +Maggio, now cut up into tenements at a few lire a week. The attachment +continued unabated when Francis came to the throne, and upon the death +of his archduchess in 1578 Bianca and he were almost immediately, +but privately, married, she being then thirty-five; and in the next +year they were publicly married in the church of S. Lorenzo with every +circumstance of pomp; while later in the same year Bianca was crowned. + +Francis remained her lover till his death, which was both dramatic +and suspicious, husband and wife dying within a few hours of each +other at the Medici villa of Poggia a Caiano in 1587. Historians +have not hesitated to suggest that Francis was poisoned by his wife; +but there is no proof. It is indeed quite possible that her life +was more free of intrigue, ambition and falsehood, than that of any +one about the court at that time; but the Florentines, encouraged by +Francis's brother Ferdinand I, who succeeded him, made up their minds +that she was a witch, and few things in the way of disaster happened +that were not laid to her charge. Call a woman a witch and everything +is possible. Ferdinand not only detested Bianca in life and deplored +her fascination for his brother, but when she died he refused to allow +her to be buried with the others of the family; hence the Chapel of +the Princes at S. Lorenzo lacks one archduchess. Her grave is unknown. + +The whole truth we shall never know; but it is as easy to think of +Bianca as a harmless woman who both lost and gained through love as +to picture her as sinister and scheming. At any rate we know that +Francis was devoted to her with a fidelity and persistence for which +Grand Dukes have not always been conspicuous. + +S. Spirito is one of Brunelleschi's solidest works. Within it resembles +the city of Bologna in its vistas of brown and white arches. The +effect is severe and splendid; but the church is to be taken rather +as architecture than a treasury of art, for although each of its +eight and thirty chapels has an altar picture and several have fine +pieces of sculpture--one a copy of Michelangelo's famous Pieta in +Rome--there is nothing of the highest value. It was in this church +that I was asked alms by one of the best-dressed men in Florence; +but the Florentine beggars are not importunate: they ask, receive or +are denied, and that is the end of it. + +The other great church in the Pitti quarter is the Carmine, and here +we are on very sacred ground in art--for it was here, as I have had +occasion to say more than once in this book, that Masaccio painted +those early frescoes which by their innovating boldness turned the +Brancacci chapel into an Academy. For all the artists came to study +and copy them: among others Michelangelo, whose nose was broken by +the turbulent Torrigiano, a fellow-student, under this very roof. + +Tommaso di Ser Giovanni, or Masaccio, the son of a notary, was born +in 1402. His master is not known, but Tommaso Fini or Masolino, +born in 1383, is often named. Vasari states that as a youth Masaccio +helped Ghiberti with his first Baptistery doors; and if so, the fact +is significant. But all that is really known of his early life is +that he went to Rome to paint a chapel in S. Clemente. He returned, +apparently on hearing that his patron Giovanni de' Medici was in +power again. Another friend, Brunelleschi, having built the church +of S. Spirito in 1422, Masaccio began to work there in 1423, when he +was only twenty-one. + +Masaccio's peculiar value in the history of painting is his early +combined power of applying the laws of perspective and representing +human beings "in the round". Giotto was the first and greatest +innovator in painting--the father of real painting; Masaccio was the +second. If from Giotto's influence a stream of vigour had flowed such +as flowed from Masaccio's, there would have been nothing special to +note about Masaccio at all. But the impulse which Giotto gave to art +died down; some one had to reinvigorate it, and that some one was +Masaccio. In his remarks on painting, Leonardo da Vinci sums up the +achievements of the two. They stood out, he says, from the others +of their time, by reason of their wish to go to life rather than to +pictures. Giotto went to life, his followers went to pictures; and +the result was a decline in art until Masaccio, who again went to life. + +From the Carmine frescoes came the new painting. It is not that walls +henceforth were covered more beautifully or suitably than they had +been by Giotto's followers; probably less suitably very often; but +that religious symbolism without much relation to actual life gave +way to scenes which might credibly have occurred, where men, women +and saints walked and talked much as we do, in similar surroundings, +with backgrounds of cities that could be lived in and windows that +could open. It was this revolution that Masaccio performed. No doubt +if he had not, another would, for it had to come: the new demand was +that religion should be reconciled with life. + +It is generally supposed that Masaccio had Masolino as his ally in +this wonderful series; and a vast amount of ink has been spilt over +Masolino's contributions. Indeed the literature of expert art criticism +on Florentine pictures alone is of alarming bulk and astonishing in +its affirmations and denials. The untutored visitor in the presence +of so much scientific variance will be wise to enact the part of +the lawyer in the old caricature of the litigants and the cow, who, +while they pull, one at the head and the other at the tail, fills +his bucket with milk. In other words, the plain duty of the ordinary +person is to enjoy the picture. + +Without any special knowledge of art one can, by remembering the +early date of these frescoes, realize what excitement they must have +caused in the studios and how tongues must have clacked in the Old +Market. We have but to send our thoughts to the Spanish chapel at +S. Maria Novella to realize the technical advance. Masaccio, we see, +was peopling a visible world; the Spanish chapel painters were merely +allegorizing, as agents of holiness. The Ghirlandaio choir in the same +church would yield a similar comparison; but what we have to remember +is that Ghirlandaio painted these frescoes in 1490, sixty-two years +after Masaccio's death, and Masaccio showed him how. + +It is a pity that the light is so poor and that the frescoes have +not worn better; but their force and dramatic vigour remain beyond +doubt. The upper scene on the left of the altar is very powerful: the +Roman tax collector has asked Christ for a tribute and Christ bids +Peter find the money in the mouth of a fish. Figures, architecture, +landscape, all are in right relation; and the drama is moving, without +restlessness. This and the S. Peter preaching and distributing alms +are perhaps the best, but the most popular undoubtedly is that below +it, finished many years after by Filippino Lippi (although there are +experts to question this and even substitute his amorous father), in +which S. Peter, challenged by Simon Magus, resuscitates a dead boy, +just as S. Zenobius used to do in the streets of this city. Certain +more modern touches, such as the exquisite Filippino would naturally +have thought of, may be seen here: the little girl behind the boy, +for instance, who recalls the children in that fresco by the same +hand at S. Maria Novella in which S. John resuscitates Drusiana. In +this Carmine fresco are many portraits of Filippino's contemporaries, +including Botticelli, just as in the scene of the consecration of +the Carmine which Masaccio painted in the cloisters, but which has +almost perished, he introduced Brancacci, his employer, Brunelleschi, +Donatello, some of whose innovating work in stone he was doing in +paint, Giovanni de' Medici and Masolino. The scanty remains of this +fresco tell us that it must have been fine indeed. + +Masaccio died at the early age of twenty-six, having suddenly +disappeared from Florence, leaving certain work unfinished. A strange +portentous meteor in art. + +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. Turn to the left as you leave the bridge, under the arch made by +Cosimo's passage, and you are in the Via de' Bardi, the backs of whose +houses on the river-side are so beautiful from the Uffizi's central +arches, as Mr. Morley's picture shows. At the end of the street is +an archway under a large house. Go through this, and you are at the +foot of a steep, stone hill. It is really steep, but never mind. Take +it easily, and rest half-way where the houses on the left break and +give a wonderful view of the city. Still climbing, you come to the +best gate of all that is left--a true gate in being an inlet into a +fortified city--that of S. Giorgio, high on the Boboli hill by the +fort. The S. Giorgio gate has a S. George killing a dragon, in stone, +on its outside, and the saint painted within, Donatello's conception +of him being followed by the artist. Parsing through, you are in the +country. The fort and gardens are on one side and villas on the other; +and a great hill-side is in front, covered with crops. Do not go on, +but turn sharp to the left and follow the splendid city wall, behind +which for a long way is the garden of the Villa Karolath, one of the +choicest spots in Florence, occasionally tossing its branches over the +top. This wall is immense all the way down to the Porta S. Miniato, +and two of the old towers are still standing in their places upon +it. Botticini's National Gallery picture tells exactly how they looked +in their heyday. Ivy hangs over, grass and flowers spring from the +ancient stones, and lizards run about. Underneath are olive-trees. + +It was, by the way, in the Via de' Bardi that George Eliot's +Romola lived, for she was of the Bardi family. The story, it may be +remembered, begins on the morning of Lorenzo the Magnificent's death, +and ends after the execution of Savonarola. It is not an inspired +romance, and is remarkable almost equally for its psychological +omissions and the convenience of its coincidences, but it is an +excellent preparation for a first visit in youth to S. Marco and the +Palazzo Vecchio, while the presence in its somewhat naive pages of +certain Florentine characters makes it agreeable to those who know +something of the city and its history. The painter Piero di Cosimo, +for example, is here, straight from Vasari; so also are Cronaca, the +architect, Savonarola, Capparo, the ironsmith, and even Machiavelli; +while Bernardo del Nero, the gonfalonier, whose death sentence +Savonarola refused to revise, was Romola's godfather. + +The Via Guicciardini, which runs from the foot of the Via de' Bardi +to the Pitti, is one of the narrowest and busiest Florentine streets, +with an undue proportion of fruit shops overflowing to the pavement +to give it gay colouring. At No. 24 is a stable with pillars and +arches that would hold up a pyramid. But this is no better than most +of the old stables of Florence, which are all solid vaulted caverns +of immense size and strength. + +From the Porta Romana one may do many things--take the tram, +for example, for the Certosa of the Val d'Ema, which is only some +twenty minutes distant, or make a longer journey to Impruneta, where +the della Robbias are. But just now let us walk or ride up the long +winding Viale Macchiavelli, which curves among the villas behind the +Boboli Gardens, to the Piazzale Michelangelo and S. Miniato. + +The Piazzale Michelangelo is one of the few modern tributes of Florence +to her illustrious makers. The Dante memorial opposite S. Croce is +another, together with the preservation of certain buildings with +Dante associations in the heart of the city; but, as I have said more +than once, there is no piazza in Florence, and only one new street, +named after a Medici. From the Piazzale Michelangelo you not only +have a fine panoramic view of the city of this great man--in its +principal features not so vastly different from the Florence of his +day, although of course larger and with certain modern additions, +such as factory chimneys, railway lines, and so forth--but you can see +the remains of the fortifications which he constructed in 1529, and +which kept the Imperial troops at bay for nearly a year. Just across +the river rises S. Croce, where the great man is buried, and beyond, +over the red roofs, the dome of the Medici chapel at S. Lorenzo shows +us the position of the Biblioteca Laurenziana and the New Sacristy, +both built by him. Immediately below us is the church of S. Niccolo, +where he is said to have hidden in 1529, when there was a hue and +cry for him. In the middle of this spacious plateau is a bronze +reproduction of his David, and it is good to see it, from the cafe +behind it, rising head and shoulders above the highest Apennines. + +S. Miniato, the church on the hill-top above the Piazzale Michelangelo, +deserves many visits. One may not be too greatly attached to marble +façades, but this little temple defeats all prejudices by its radiance +and perfection, and to its extraordinary charm its situation adds. It +crowns the hill, and in the late afternoon--the ideal time to visit +it--is full in the eye of the sun, bathed in whose light the green +and white façade, with miracles of delicate intarsia, is balm to the +eyes instead of being, as marble so often is, dazzling and cold. + +On the way up we pass the fine church of S. Salvatore, which Cronaca +of the Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Strozzi built and Michelangelo +admired, and which is now secularized, and pass through the gateway of +Michelangelo's upper fortifications. S. Miniato is one of the oldest +churches of Florence, some of it eleventh century. It has its name +from Minias, a Roman soldier who suffered martyrdom at Florence under +Decius. Within, one does not feel quite to be in a Christian church, +the effect partly of the unusual colouring, all grey, green, and gold +and soft light tints as of birds' bosoms; partly of the ceiling, +which has the bright hues of a Russian toy; partly of the forest +of great gay columns; partly of the lovely and so richly decorated +marble screen; and partly of the absence of a transept. The prevailing +feeling indeed is gentle gaiety; and in the crypt this is intensified, +for it is just a joyful assemblage of dancing arches. + +The church as a whole is beautiful and memorable enough; but +its details are wonderful too, from the niello pavement, and +the translucent marble windows of the apse, to the famous tomb of +Cardinal Jacopo of Portugal, and the Luca della Robbia reliefs of the +Virtues. This tomb is by Antonio Rossellino. It is not quite of the +rank of Mino's in the Badia; but it is a noble and beautiful thing +marked in every inch of it by modest and exquisite thought. Vasari +says of Antonio that he "practised his art with such grace that +he was valued as something more than a man by those who knew him, +who well-nigh adored him as a saint". Facing it is a delightful +Annunciation by Alessio Baldovinetti, in which the angel declares the +news from a far greater distance than we are accustomed to; and the +ceiling is made an abode of gladness by the blue and white figures +(designed by Luca della Robbia) of Prudence and Chastity, Moderation +and Fortitude, for all of which qualities, it seems, the Cardinal was +famous. In short, one cannot be too glad that, since he had to die, +death's dart struck down this Portuguese prelate while he was in +Rossellino's and Luca's city. + +No longer is preserved here the miraculous crucifix which, standing +in a little chapel in the wood on this spot, bestowed blessing and +pardon--by bending towards him--upon S. Giovanni Gualberto, the founder +of the Vallombrosan order. The crucifix is now in S. Trinita. The saint +was born in 985 of noble stock and assumed naturally the splendour and +arrogance of his kind. His brother Hugo being murdered in some affray, +Giovanni took upon himself the duty of avenging the crime. One Good +Friday he chanced to meet, near this place, the assassin, in so narrow +a passage as to preclude any chance of escape; and he was about to kill +him when the man fell on his knees and implored mercy by the passion of +Christ Who suffered on that very day, adding that Christ had prayed on +the cross for His own murderers. Giovanni was so much impressed that he +not only forgave the man but offered him his friendship. Entering then +the chapel to pray and ask forgiveness of all his sins, he was amazed +to see the crucifix bend down as though acquiescing and blessing, and +this special mark of favour so wrought upon him that he became a monk, +himself shaving his head for that purpose and defying his father's +rage, and subsequently founded the Vallombrosan order. He died in 1073. + +I have said something of the S. Croce habit and the S. Maria Novella +habit; but I think that when all is said the S. Miniato habit is +the most important to acquire. There is nothing else like it; and +the sense of height is so invigorating too. At all times of the year +it is beautiful; but perhaps best in early spring, when the highest +mountains still have snow upon them and the neighbouring slopes are +covered with tender green and white fruit blossom, and here the violet +wistaria blooms and there the sombre crimson of the Judas-tree. + +Behind and beside the church is a crowded city of the Florentine +dead, reproducing to some extent the city of the Florentine living, +in its closely packed habitations--the detached palaces for the rich +and the great congeries of cells for the poor--more of which are +being built all the time. There is a certain melancholy interest in +wandering through these silent streets, peering through the windows +and recognizing over the vaults names famous in Florence. One learns +quickly how bad modern mortuary architecture and sculpture can be, +but I noticed one monument with some sincerity and unaffected grace: +that to a charitable Marchesa, a friend of the poor, at the foot of +whose pedestal are a girl and baby done simply and well. + +Better perhaps to remain on the highest point and look at the +city beneath. One should try to be there before sunset and watch +the Apennines turning to a deeper and deeper indigo and the city +growing dimmer and dimmer in the dusk. Florence is beautiful from +every point of vantage, but from none more beautiful than from this +eminence. As one reluctantly leaves the church and passes again +through Michelangelo's fortification gateway to descend, one has, +framed in its portal, a final lovely Apennine scene. + + + + + +Historical Chart of Florence and Europe, 1296-1564 + + +Artists' Dates. + +1300 (c.) Taddeo Gaddi born (d. 1366) +1302 (c.) Cimabue died (b. c. 1240) +1308 (c.) Andrea Orcagna born (d. 1368) +1310 Arnolfo di Cambio died (b. 1232 ?) +1333 Spinello Aretino born (d. 1410) +1336 Giotto died (b. 1276 ?) +1344 Simone Martini died (b. 1283) +1348 Andrea Pisano died (b. 1270) +1356 Lippo Memmi died +1366 Taddeo Gaddi died (b. c. 1300) +1368 Andrea Orcagna died +1370 (c.) Lorenzo Monaco born (d. 1425) + Gentile da Fabriano born + (d. 1450) +1371 Jacopo della Quercia born (d. 1438) +1377 Filippo Brunelleschi born (d. 1446) +1378 Lorenzo Ghiberti born (d. 1455) +1386 (?) Donatello born (d. 1466) +1387 Fra Angelico born (d. 1455) +1391 Michelozzo born (d. 1472) +1396 (?) Andrea del Castagno born (d. 1457) +1397 Paolo Uccello born (d. 1475) +1399 or 1400 Luca della Robbia born (d. 1482) +1401 or 1402 Masaccio born (d. 1428?) +1405 Leon Battista Alberti born (d. 1472) +1406 Lippo Lippi born (d. 1469) +1409 Bernardo Rossellino born (d. 1464) +1410 Spinello Aretino died +1415 Piero della Francesca born (d. 1492) +1420 Benozzo Gozzoli born (d. 1498) +1425 Il Monaco died + Alessio Baldovinetti born + (d. 1499) +1427 Antonio Rossellino born (d. 1478) +1428 (?) Masaccio died +1428 Desiderio da Settignano born (d. 1464) +1429 (?) Giovanni Bellini born (d. 1516) + Antonio Pollaiuolo born + (d. 1498) +1430 Cosimo Tura died +1431 Andrea Mantegna born (d. 1506) +1432 (?) Mina da Fiesole born (d. 1484) +1435 Andrea Verrocchio born (d. 1488) + Andrea della Robbia born + (d. 1525) +1438 Melozzo da Forli born (d. 1494) +1439 Cosimo Rosselli born (d. 1507) +1441 Luca Signorelli born (d. 1523) +1442 Benedetto da Maiano born (d. 1497) +1444 Sandro Botticelli born (d. 1510) +1446 Brunelleschi died + Perugino born (d. 1523 or 24) + Francesco Botticini born + (d. 1498) +1449 Domenico Ghirlandaio born (d. 1494) +1450 Gentile da Fabriano died +1452 Leonardi da Vinci born (d. 1519) +1455 Ghiberti died + Fra Angelico died +1456 Lorenzo di Credi born (d. 1537) +1457 Cronaca born (d. 1508 or 9) + Filippino Lippi born (d. 1504) + Andrea del Castagno died +1462 Piero di Cosimo born (d. 1521) +1463 or 4 Desiderio da Settignano died +1464 Bernardo Rossellino died +1466 Donatello died +1469 Giovanni della Robbia born (d. 1529) + Lippo Lippi died +1472 Michelozzo died + Alberti died +1474 Benedetto da Rovezzano born (d. 1556) + Rustici born (d. 1554) + Mariotto Albertinelli born + (d. 1515) +1475 Fra Bartolommeo born (d. 1517) + Michelangelo Buonarroti born + (d. 1564) +1477 Titian born (d. 1576) + Giorgione born (d. 1510) +1478 Antonio Rossellino died +1482 Francia Bigio born (d. 1523) + Guicciardini born (d. 1540) +1483 Raphael born (d. 1520) + Ridolfo Ghirlandaio born + (d. 1561) +1484 Mino da Fiesole died +1485 Sebastiano del Piombo born (d. 1547) +1486 Jacopo Sansovino born (d. 1570) +1486 or 7 Andrea del Sarto born (d. 1531) +1488 Verrocchio died + Baccio Bandinelli born + (d. 1560) +1492 Piero della Francesco died +1494 Jacopo da Pontormo born (d. 1556) + Correggio born (d. 1534) + Domenico Ghirlandaio died + Melozzo da Forli died +1497 Benedetto da Maiano died + Benozzo Gozzoli died +1498 Antonio Pollaiuolo died + Francesco Botticini died +1499 Alessio Baldovinetti died +1500 Benvenuto Cellini born (d. 1572) +1502 Angelo Bronzino born (d. 1572) +1504 Filippino Lippi died +1506 Mantegna died +1507 Cosimo Rosselli died +1508 Cronaca died +1510 Botticelli died + Giorgione died +1511 Vasari born (d. 1574) +1515 Albertinelli died +1516 Giovanni Bellini died +1517 Fra Bartolommeo died +1518 Tintoretto born (d. 1594) +1519 Leonardo da Vinci died +1520 Raphael died +1521 Piero di Cosimo died +1523 Signorelli died + Perugino died +1524 Giovanni da Bologna born (d. 1608) +1525 Andrea della Robbia died + Francia Bigio died +1528 Paolo Veronese born (d. 1588) + Federigo Baroccio born + (d. 1612) +1529 Giovanni della Robbia died +1531 Andrea del Sarto died +1534 Correggio died +1537 Credi died +1547 Sebastiano del Piombo died +1554 Rustici died +1556 Pontormo died + Benedetto da Rovezzano died +1560 Baccio Bandinelli died +1561 Ridolfo Ghirlandaio died +1564 Michael Angelo died + + +Some Important Florentine Dates + +1296 Foundations of the Duomo consecrated +1298 Palazzo Vecchio commenced by Arnolfo + di Cambio +1300 Beginning of the feuds of the Bianchi + and Xeri + Guido Cavalcanti died +1302 Dante exiled, Jan. 27 +1304 Petrarch born (d. 1374) +1308 Death of Corso Donati +1312 Siege of Florence by Henry VII +1313 Boccaccio born (d. 1375) +1321 Dante died Sept. 14 (b. 1265) +1333 Destructive floods +1334 Foundations of the Campanile laid +1337 Or San Michele begun +1339 Andrea Pisano's gates finished +1348 Black Death of the Decameron + Giovanni Villani died + (b. 1275 c.) +1360 Giovanni de' Medici (di Bicci) born +1365 (c) Ponte Vecchio rebuilt by Taddeo Gaddi +1374 Petrarch died +1375 Boccaccio died +1376 Loggia de' Lanzi commenced +1378 Salvestro de' Medici elected + Gonfaloniere +1389 Cosimo de' Medici (Pater Patrise) born +1390 War with Milan +1394 Sir John Hawkwood died +1399 Competition for Baptistery Gates +1416 Piero de' Medici (il Gottoso) born +1421 Purchase of Leghorn by Florence + Giovanni de' Medici elected + Gonfaloniere + Spedale degli Innocenti + commenced +1424 Ghiberti's first gate set up +1429 Giovanni de' Medici died +1432 Niccolo da Uzzano died +1433 Marsilio Ficino born + Cosimo de' Medici banished, + Oct. 3 +1434 Cosimo returned to power, Sept. 29 + Banishment of Albizzi and + Strozzi +1435 Francesco Sforza visited Florence +1436 Brunelleschi's dome completed + The Duomo consecrated +1439 Council of Florence + Gemisthos Plethon in Florence +1440 Cosimo occupied the Medici Palace +1449 Lorenzo de' Medici (the Magnificent + born) +1452 Ghiberti's second gates set up + Savonarola born +1454 Politian born +1463 Pico della Mirandola born +1464 Cosimo de' Medici died and was + succeeded by Piero +1466 Luca Pitti's Conspiracy +1469 Lorenzo's Tournament, Feb. + Lorenzo's Marriage to Clarice + Orsini, June + Death of Piero, Dec. + Niccolò Machiavelli born +1471 Piero de' Medici, son of Lorenzo, born + Visit of Galeazzo Sforza + to Florence + Cennini's Press established + in Florence +1474 Ariosto born +1475 Giuliano's Tournament +1478 Pazzi Conspiracy + Giuliano murdered +1479 Lorenzo's Mission to Naples +1492 Lorenzo the Magnificent died + Piero succeeded +1494 Charles VIII invaded Italy + Piero banished + Charles VIII in Florence. Sack of + Medici Palace + Florence governed by General Council + Savonarola in power + Politian died + Pico della Mirandola died +1497 Francesco Valori elected Gonfaloniere + Piero attempted to return to Florence +1498 Savonarola burnt +1499 Marsilio Ficino died + Amerigo Vespucci reached America +1503 Death of Piero di Medici +1512 Cardinal Giovanni and Giuliano, Duke of + Nemours, reinstated in Florence + Great Council abolished +1519 Cardinal Giulio de' Medici in power + Catherine de' Medici born +1524 Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici in power +1526 Death of Giovanni delle Bande Nere +1527 Ippolito and Alessandro left Florence +1528 Machiavelli died +1529-30 Siege of Florence +1530 Capitulation of Florence +1531 Alessandro de' Medici declared Head of Republic +1537 Cosimo de' Medici made Ruler of Florence + Battle of Montemurlo + Lorenzino assassinated + in Venice +1539 Cosimo married Eleanor di Toledo and moved + to Palazzo Vecchio +1553 Cosimo occupied the Pitti Palace +1564 Galileo Galilei born + + +Popes. + + Boniface VIII +1303 Benedict XI +1305 Clement V +1316 John XXII +1334 Benedict XII +1337 Boniface VIII +1342 Clement VI +1352 Innocent VI +1362 Urban V +1370 Gregory XI +1378 Urban VI +1389 Boniface IX +1404 Innocent VII +1406 Gregory XII +1409 Alex. V +1410 John XXIII +1417 Martin V +1431 Eugenius IV +1447 Nicolas V +1455 Calixtus III +1458 Pius II +1464 Paul II +1471 Sixtus IV +1484 Innocent VIII +1492 Alex. VI +1503 Pius III + Julius II +1513 Leo X +1522 Hadrian VI +1523 Clement VII +1534 Paul III +1550 Julius III +1555 Marcellus II + Paul IV +1559 Pius IV + + +French Kings. + + Philip IV +1314 Louis X +1316 John I + Philip V +1322 Charles IV +1328 Philip VI + Philip +1350 John II +1364 Charles V +1380 Charles VI +1422 Charles VII +1461 Louis XI +1483 Charles VIII +1498 Louis XII +1515 Francis I +1547 Henry II +1559 Francis II +1560 Charles IX + + +English Kings. + + Edward I +1307 Edward II +1327 Edward III +1377 Richard II +1422 Charles VII +1461 Edward IV +1483 Edward V + Richard III +1485 Henry VII +1509 Henry VIII +1547 Edward VI +1553 Mary +1558 Elizabeth + + +Milan. + +1310 Matteo Visconti +1322 Galeazzo Visconti +1328 +1329 Azzo Visconti +1339 Luchino and Giovanni Visconti +1349 Giovanni Visconti +1354 Matteó Bernabò Galeazzo +1378 Gian Galeazzo Visconti +1402 Gian Maria Visconti +1412 Filippo Maria Visconti +1447...1450 Francesco Sforza +1466 Galeazzo Sforza +1476 Gian Galeazzo Sforza (Ludovico Sforza Regent) +1495 Ludovico Sforza +1499 Ludovico exiled + + +Some Important General Dates + +1298 Battle of Falkirk +1306 Coronation of Bruce +1314 Battle of Bannockburn +1324 (?) John Wyclif born +1337 Froissart born (d. 1410?) +1339 Beginning of the Hundred Years' War +1346 Battle of Crécy +1347 Rienzi made Tribune of Rome + Edward III took Calais +1348-9 Black Death in England +1348 S. Catherine of Siena born +1356 Battle of Poictiers +1362 First draft of Piers Plowman +1379 Thomas à Kempis born +1381 Wat Tyler's Rebellion +1400 Geoffrey Chaucer died +1414 Council of Constance +1428 Siege of Orléans +1431 Joan of Arc burnt +1435 (c.) Hans Meinling born +1450 John Gutenburg printed at Mainz + Jack Cade's Insurrection +1453 Fall of Constantinople +1455 Beginning of the Wars of the Roses +1467 Erasmus born (d. 1528) +1470 (c.) Mabuse born (d. 1555) +1471 Albert Dürer born (d. 1528) + Caxton's Press established in + Westminster +1476 Chevalier Bayard born +1482 Hugo van der Goes died +1483 Rabelais born (d. 1553) + Martin Luther born + Murder of the Princes in + the Tower +1491 Ignatius Loyola born +1492 America discovered by Christopher Columbus +1494 Lucas van Leyden born (d. 1533) +1505 John Knox born (d. 1582) +1509 Calvin born +1516 More's Utopia published +1519 First Voyage round the world + (Ferd. Magellan) +1519-21 Conquest of Mexico +1520 Field of the Cloth of Gold +1527 Brantôme born (d. 1614) +1528 Albert Dürer died +1531-2 Conquest of Peru +1533 Montaigne born (d. 1592) +1535 Henry VIII became Supreme Head of the Church +1537 Sack of Rome +1544 Torquato Tasso born +1553 Edmund Spenser born +1554 Execution of Lady Jane Grey + Sir Philip Sidney born +1555-6 Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer burnt +1558 Calais recaptured by the French +1564 Shakespeare born + + + + +NOTES + +[1] One of Brunelleschi's devices to bring before the authorities +an idea of the dome he projected, was of standing an egg on end, +as Columbus is famed for doing, fully twenty years before Columbus +was born. + +[2] It was Charles V who said of Giotto's Campanile that it ought to +be kept in a glass case. + +[3] Hence its new name: Loggia de' Lanzi. + +[4] In the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington are casts +of the two Medici on the tombs and also the Madonna and Child. They +are in the great gallery of the casts, together with the great David, +two of the Julian tomb prisoners, the Bargello tondo and the Brutus. + +[5] Cacus, the son of Vulcan and Medusa, was a famous robber who +breathed fire and smoke and laid waste Italy. He made the mistake, +however, of robbing Hercules of some cows, and for this Hercules +strangled him. + +[6] "Thick as leaves in Vallombrosa" has come to be the form of +words as most people quote them. But Milton wrote ("Paradise Lost," +Book I. 300-304):-- + + "He called + His legions, angel-forms, who lay entranced + Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks + In Vallombrosa where the Etrurian shades, + High over-arched, embower." + +Wordsworth, by the way, when he visited Vallombrosa with Crabb Robinson +in 1837, wrote an inferior poem there, in a rather common metre, +in honour of Milton's association with it. + +[7] 27 April, 1859, the day that the war with Austria was proclaimed. + +[8] In "A Dictionary of Saintly Women". + +[9] The position of easel pictures in the Florentine galleries often +changes. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Wanderer in Florence, by E. V. Lucas + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WANDERER IN FLORENCE *** + +***** This file should be named 10769-8.txt or 10769-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/6/10769/ + +Produced by Jeroen Hellingman & the Distributed Proofreaders Team + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/10769-8.zip b/old/10769-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..21803fb --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10769-8.zip diff --git a/old/10769.txt b/old/10769.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aef7194 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10769.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11621 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Wanderer in Florence, by E. V. Lucas + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Wanderer in Florence + +Author: E. V. Lucas + +Release Date: January 21, 2004 [EBook #10769] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WANDERER IN FLORENCE *** + + + + +Produced by Jeroen Hellingman & the Distributed Proofreaders Team + + + + +A WANDERER IN FLORENCE + +By E.V. Lucas + + + +Preface + +A sentence from a "Synthetical Guidebook" which is circulated in the +Florentine hotels will express what I want to say, at the threshold +of this volume, much better than could unaided words of mine. It runs +thus: "The natural kindness, the high spirit, of the Florentine people, +the wonderful masterpieces of art created by her great men, who in +every age have stood in the front of art and science, rivalize with +the gentle smile of her splendid sky to render Florence one of the +finest towns of beautiful Italy". These words, written, I feel sure, +by a Florentine, and therefore "inspirated" (as he says elsewhere) by +a patriotic feeling, are true; and it is my hope that the pages that +follow will at once fortify their truth and lead others to test it. + +Like the synthetical author, I too have not thought it necessary +to provide "too many informations concerning art and history," but +there will be found a few, practically unavoidable, in the gathering +together of which I have been indebted to many authors: notably Vasari, +Symonds, Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Ruskin, Pater, and Baedeker. Among +more recent books I would mention Herr Bode's "Florentine Sculptors of +the Renaissance," Mr. F.M. Hyett's "Florence," Mr. E.L.S. Horsburgh's +"Lorenzo the Magnificent" and "Savonarola," Mr. Gerald S. Davies' +"Michelangelo," Mr. W.G. Waters' "Italian Sculptors," and Col. Young's +"The Medici". + +I have to thank very heartily a good English Florentine for the +construction of the historical chart at the end of the volume. + +E.V.L. + +May, 1912 + + + +Contents + + Preface +Chapter I The Duomo I: Its Construction +Chapter II The Duomo II: Its Associations +Chapter III The Duomo III: A Ceremony and a Museum +Chapter IV The Campanile and the Baptistery +Chapter V The Riccardi Palace and the Medici +Chapter VI S. Lorenzo and Michelangelo +Chapter VII Or San Michele and the Palazzo Vecchio +Chapter VIII The Uffizi I: The Building and the Collectors +Chapter IX The Uffizi II: The First Six Rooms +Chapter X The Uffizi III: Botticelli +Chapter XI The Uffizi IV: Remaining Rooms +Chapter XII "Aerial Fiesole" +Chapter XIII The Badia and Dante +Chapter XIV The Bargello +Chapter XV S. Croce +Chapter XVI The Accademia +Chapter XVII Two Monasteries and a Procession +Chapter XVIII S. Marco +Chapter XIX The SS. Annunziata and the Spedale Degli + Innocenti +Chapter XX The Cascine and the Arno +Chapter XXI S. Maria Novella +Chapter XXII The Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele to S. Trinita +Chapter XXIII The Pitti +Chapter XXIV English Poets in Florence +Chapter XXV The Carmine and San Miniato + Historical Chart of Florence and Europe, 1296-1564 + + + + +List of Illustrations + + +In Colour + +The Duomo and Campanile, From the Via Pecori + +The Cloisters of San Lorenzo, Showing the Windows of the Biblioteca +Laurenziana + +The Via Calzaioli, from the Baptistery, Showing the Bigallo and the +Top of Or San Michele + +The Palazzo Vecchio + +The Loggia of the Palazzo Vecchio and the Via de' Leoni + +The Loggia de' Lanzi, the Duomo, and the Palazzo Vecchio, from the +Portico of the Uffizi + +Fiesole, from the Hill under the Monastery + +The Badia and the Bargello, from the Piazza S. Firenze + +Interior of S. Croce + +The Ponte S. Trinita + +The Ponte Vecchio and Back of the Via de' Bardi + +S. Maria Novella and the Corner of the Loggia di S. Paolo + +The Via de' Vagellai, from the Piazza S. Jacopo Trafossi + +The Piazza Della Signoria on a Wet Friday Afternoon + +View of Florence at Evening, from the Piazzale Michelangelo + +Evening at the Piazzale Michelangelo, Looking West + + + +In Monotone + + +A Cantoria. +By Donatello, in the Museum of the Cathedral + +Cain and Abel and Abraham and Isaac. +By Ghiberti, from his second Baptistery Doors + +The Procession of the Magi. +By Benozzo Gozzoli, in the Palazzo Riccardi + +Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino. +By Michelangelo, in the New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo + +Christ and S. Thomas. +By Verrocchio, in a niche by Donatello and Michelozzo in the wall of +Or San Michele + +Putto with Dolphin. +By Verrocchio, in the Palazzo Vecchio + +Madonna Adoring. +Ascribed to Filippino Lippi, in the Uffizi + +The Adoration of the Magi. +By Leonardo da Vinci, in the Uffizi + +Madonna and Child. +By Luca Signorelli, in the Uffizi + +The Birth of Venus. +By Botticelli, in the Uffizi + +The Annunciation. +By Botticelli, in the Uffizi + +San Giacomo. +By Andrea del Sarto, in the Uffizi + +The Madonna del Cardellino. +By Raphael, in the Uffizi + +The Madonna del Pozzo. +By Franciabigio, in the Uffizi + +Monument to Count Ugo. +By Mino da Fiesole, in the Badia + +David. +By Donatello, in the Bargello +By Verrocchio, in the Bargello + +St. George. +By Donatello, in the Bargello + +Madonna and Child. +By Verrocchio, in the Bargello + +Madonna and Child. +By Luca della Robbia, in the Bargello + +Bust of a Boy. +By Luca or Andrea della Robbia, in the Bargello + +*Monument to Carlo Marzuppini. +By Desiderio da Settignano, in S. Croce + +David. +By Michelangelo, in the Accademia + +The Flight into Egypt. +By Fra Angelico, in the Accademia + +The Adoration of the Shepherds. +By Ghirlandaio, in the Accademia + +The Vision of S. Bernard. +By Fra Bartolommeo, in the Accademia + +Virgin and Child Enthroned, with Saints. +By Botticelli, in the Accademia + +Primavera. +By Botticelli, in the Accademia + +The Coronation of the Virgin. +By Fra Angelico, in the Convent of S. Marco + +The Annunciation. +By Luca della Robbia, in the Spedale degli Innocenti + +The Birth of the Virgin. +By Ghirlandaio, in S. Maria Novella + +The Madonna del Granduca. +By Raphael, in the Pitti + +The Madonna della Sedia. +By Raphael, in the Pitti + +The Concert. +By Giorgione, in the Pitti + +Madonna Adoring. +By Botticini, in the Pitti + +The Madonna and Children. +By Perugino, in the Pitti + +*A Gipsy. +By Boccaccio Boccaccini, in the Pitti + +All the illustrations are from photographs by G. Brogi, except those +marked , which are by Fratelli Alinari, and that marked *, which is +by R. Anderson. + + + + +A WANDERER IN FLORENCE + +CHAPTER I + +The Duomo I: Its Construction + +The City of the Miracle--The Marble Companions--Twilight and +Immensity--Arnolfo di Cambio--Dante's seat--Ruskin's "Shepherd"--Giotto +the various--Giotto's fun--The indomitable Brunelleschi--Makers of +Florence--The present facade. + +All visitors to Florence make first for the Duomo. Let us do the same. + +The real name of the Duomo is the Cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore, or +St. Mary of the Flowers, the flower being the Florentine lily. Florence +herself is called the City of Flowers, and that, in the spring and +summer, is a happy enough description. But in the winter it fails. A +name appropriate to all the seasons would be the City of the Miracle, +the miracle being the Renaissance. For though all over Italy traces +of the miracle are apparent, Florence was its very home and still +can point to the greatest number of its achievements. Giotto (at the +beginning of this quickening movement) may at Assisi have been more +inspired as a painter; but here is his campanile and here are his +S. Maria Novella and S. Croce frescoes. Fra Angelico and Donatello +(in the midst of it) were never more inspired than here, where they +worked and died. Michelangelo (at the end of it) may be more surprising +in the Vatican; but here are his wonderful Medici tombs. How it came +about that between the years 1300 and 1500 Italian soil--and chiefly +Tuscan soil--threw up such masters, not only with the will and spirit +to do what they did but with the power too, no one will ever be able +to explain. But there it is. In the history of the world two centuries +were suddenly given mysteriously to the activities of Italian men of +humane genius and as suddenly the Divine gift was withdrawn. And to see +the very flower of these two centuries it is to Florence we must go. + +It is best to enter the Piazza del Duomo from the Via de' Martelli, +the Via de' Cerretani, the Via Calzaioli, or the Via Pecori, because +then one comes instantly upon the campanile too. The upper windows--so +very lovely--may have been visible at the end of the streets, with +Brunelleschi's warm dome high in the sky beside them, but that was +not to diminish the effect of the first sight of the whole. Duomo and +campanile make as fair a couple as ever builders brought together: the +immense comfortable church so solidly set upon the earth, and at its +side this delicate, slender marble creature, all gaiety and lightness, +which as surely springs from roots within the earth. For one cannot +be long in Florence, looking at this tower every day and many times a +day, both from near and far, without being perfectly certain that it +grows--and from a bulb, I think--and was never really built at all, +whatever the records may aver. + +The interior of the Duomo is so unexpected that one has the +feeling of having entered, by some extraordinary chance, the wrong +building. Outside it was so garish with its coloured marbles, under +the southern sky; outside, too, one's ears were filled with all the +shattering noises in which Florence is an adept; and then, one step, +and behold nothing but vast and silent gloom. This surprise is the more +emphatic if one happens already to have been in the Baptistery. For the +Baptistery is also coloured marble without, yet within it is coloured +marble and mosaic too: there is no disparity; whereas in the Duomo +the walls have a Northern grey and the columns are brown. Austerity +and immensity join forces. + +When all is said the chief merit of the Duomo is this immensity. Such +works of art as it has are not very noticeable, or at any rate do +not insist upon being seen; but in its vastness it overpowers. Great +as are some of the churches of Florence, I suppose three or four of +them could be packed within this one. And mere size with a dim light +and a savour of incense is enough: it carries religion. No need for +masses and chants or any ceremony whatever: the world is shut out, +one is on terms with the infinite. A forest exercises the same spell; +among mountains one feels it; but in such a cathedral as the Duomo one +feels it perhaps most of all, for it is the work of man, yet touched +with mystery and wonder, and the knowledge that man is the author of +such a marvel adds to its greatness. + +The interior is so dim and strange as to be for a time sheer terra +incognita, and to see a bat flitting from side to side, as I have +often done even in the morning, is to receive no shock. In such a +twilight land there must naturally be bats, one thinks. The darkness +is due not to lack of windows but to time. The windows are there, +but they have become opaque. None of the coloured ones in the aisle +allows more than a filtration of light through it; there are only the +plain, circular ones high up and those rich, coloured, circular ones +under the dome to do the work. In a little while, however, one's eyes +not only become accustomed to the twilight but are very grateful for +it; and beginning to look inquiringly about, as they ever do in this +city of beauty, they observe, just inside, an instant reminder of the +antiseptic qualities of Italy. For by the first great pillar stands a +receptacle for holy water, with a pretty and charming angelic figure +upon it, which from its air of newness you would think was a recent +gift to the cathedral by a grateful Florentine. It is six hundred +years old and perhaps was designed by Giotto himself. + +The emptiness of the Duomo is another of its charms. Nothing is allowed +to impair the vista as you stand by the western entrance: the floor +has no chairs; the great columns rise from it in the gloom as if they, +too, were rooted. The walls, too, are bare, save for a few tablets. + +The history of the building is briefly this. The first cathedral of +Florence was the Baptistery, and S. John the Baptist is still the +patron saint of the city. Then in 1182 the cathedral was transferred +to S. Reparata, which stood on part of the site of the Duomo, and in +1294 the decision to rebuild S. Reparata magnificently was arrived +at, and Arnolfo di Cambio was instructed to draw up plans. Arnolfo, +whom we see not only on a tablet in the left aisle, in relief, with +his plan, but also more than life size, seated beside Brunelleschi +on the Palazzo de' Canonici on the south side of the cathedral, +facing the door, was then sixty-two and an architect of great +reputation. Born in 1232, he had studied under Niccolo Pisano, the +sculptor of the famous pulpit at Pisa (now in the museum there), +of that in the cathedral in Siena, and of the fountain at Perugia +(in all of which Arnolfo probably helped), and the designer of many +buildings all over Italy. Arnolfo's own unaided sculpture may be seen +at its best in the ciborium in S. Paolo Fuori le Mura in Rome; but +it is chiefly as an architect that he is now known. He had already +given Florence her extended walls and some of her most beautiful +buildings--the Or San Michele and the Badia--and simultaneously he +designed S. Croce and the Palazzo Vecchio. Vasari has it that Arnolfo +was assisted on the Duomo by Cimabue; but that is doubtful. + +The foundations were consecrated in 1296 and the first stone laid +on September 8th, 1298, and no one was more interested in its early +progress than a young, grave lawyer who used to sit on a stone seat +on the south side and watch the builders, little thinking how soon +he was to be driven from Florence for ever. This seat--the Sasso di +Dante--was still to be seen when Wordsworth visited Florence in 1837, +for he wrote a sonnet in which he tells us that he in reverence sate +there too, "and, for a moment, filled that empty Throne". But one +can do so no longer, for the place which it occupied has been built +over and only a slab in the wall with an inscription (on the house +next the Palazzo de' Canonici) marks the site. + +Arnolfo died in 1310, and thereupon there seems to have been a +cessation or slackening of work, due no doubt to the disturbed +state of the city, which was in the throes of costly wars and +embroilments. Not until 1332 is there definite news of its progress, +by which time the work had passed into the control of the Arte della +Lana; but in that year, although Florentine affairs were by no means +as flourishing as they should be, and a flood in the Arno had just +destroyed three or four of the bridges, a new architect was appointed, +in the person of the most various and creative man in the history +of the Renaissance--none other than Giotto himself, who had already +received the commission to design the campanile which should stand +at the cathedral's side. + +Giotto was the son of a small farmer at Vespignano, near Florence. He +was instructed in art by Cimabue, who discovered him drawing a lamb +on a stone while herding sheep, and took him as his pupil. Cimabue, +of whom more is said, together with more of Giotto as a painter, in the +chapter on the Accademia, had died in 1302, leaving Giotto far beyond +all living artists, and Giotto, between the age of fifty and sixty, was +now residing in Cimabue's house. He had already painted frescoes in the +Bargello (introducing his friend Dante), in S. Maria Novella, S. Croce, +and elsewhere in Italy, particularly in the upper and lower churches +at Assisi, and at the Madonna dell' Arena chapel at Padua when Dante +was staying there during his exile. In those days no man was painter +only or architect only; an all-round knowledge of both arts and crafts +was desired by every ambitious youth who was attracted by the wish to +make beautiful things, and Giotto was a universal master. It was not +then surprising that on his settling finally in Florence he should be +invited to design a campanile to stand for ever beside the cathedral, +or that he should be appointed superintendent of the cathedral works. + +Giotto did not live to see even his tower completed--it is the unhappy +destiny of architects to die too soon--but he was able during the +four years left him to find time for certain accessory decorations, +of which more will be said later, and also to paint for S. Trinita +the picture which we shall see in the Accademia, together with a few +other works, since perished, for the Badia and S. Giorgio. He died in +1336 and was buried in the cathedral, as the tablet, with Benedetto +da Maiano's bust of him, tells. He is also to be seen full length, +in stone, in a niche at the Uffizi; but the figure is misleading, +for if Vasari is to be trusted (and for my part I find it amusing to +trust him as much as possible) the master was insignificant in size. + +Giotto has suffered, I think, in reputation, from Ruskin, who took +him peculiarly under his wing, persistently called him "the Shepherd," +and made him appear as something between a Sunday-school superintendent +and the Creator. The "Mornings in Florence" and "Giotto and his Works +in Padua" so insist upon the artist's holiness and conscious purpose +in all he did that his genial worldliness, shrewdness, and humour, as +brought out by Dante, Vasari, Sacchetti, and Boccaccio, are utterly +excluded. What we see is an intense saint where really was a very +robust man. Sacchetti's story of Giotto one day stumbling over a +pig that ran between his legs and remarking, "And serve me right; +for I've made thousands with the help of pigs' bristles and never +once given them even a cup of broth," helps to adjust the balance; +while to his friend Dante he made a reply, so witty that the poet +could not forget his admiration, in answer to his question how was +it that Giotto's pictures were so beautiful and his six children so +ugly; but I must leave the reader to hunt it for himself, as these +are modest pages. Better still, for its dry humour, was his answer +to King Robert of Naples, who had commanded him to that city to paint +some Scriptural scenes, and, visiting the artist while he worked, on +a very hot day, remarked, "Giotto, if I were you I should leave off +painting for a while". "Yes," replied Giotto, "if I were you I should." + +To Giotto happily we come again and again in this book. Enough at +present to say that upon his death in 1336 he was buried, like Arnolfo, +in the cathedral, where the tablet to his memory may be studied, +and was succeeded as architect, both of the church and the tower, +by his friend and assistant, Andrea Pisano, whose chief title to +fame is his Baptistery doors and the carving, which we are soon to +examine, of the scenes round the base of the campanile. He, too, +died--in 1348--before the tower was finished. + +Francesco Talenti was next called in, again to superintend both +buildings, and not only to superintend but to extend the plans of the +cathedral. Arnolfo and Giotto had both worked upon a smaller scale; +Talenti determined the present floor dimensions. The revised facade +was the work of a committee of artists, among them Giotto's godson +and disciple, Taddeo Gaddi, then busy with the Ponte Vecchio, and +Andrea Orcagna, whose tabernacle we shall see at Or San Michele. And +so the work went on until the main structure was complete in the +thirteen-seventies. + +Another longish interval then came, in which nothing of note in the +construction occurred, and the next interesting date is 1418, when a +competition for the design for the dome was announced, the work to +be given eventually to one Filippo Brunelleschi, then an ambitious +and nervously determined man, well known in Florence as an architect, +of forty-one. Brunelleschi, who, again according to Vasari, was small, +and therefore as different as may be from the figure which is seated +on the clergy house opposite the south door of the cathedral, watching +his handiwork, was born in 1377, the son of a well-to-do Florentine of +good family who wished to make him a notary. The boy, however, wanted +to be an artist, and was therefore placed with a goldsmith, which was +in those days the natural course. As a youth he attempted everything, +being of a pertinacious and inquiring mind, and he was also a great +debater and student of Dante; and, taking to sculpture, he was one +of those who, as we shall see in a later chapter, competed for the +commission for the Baptistery gates. It was indeed his failure in that +competition which decided him to concentrate on architecture. That +he was a fine sculptor his competitive design, now preserved in the +Bargello, and his Christ crucified in S. Maria Novella, prove; but +in leading him to architecture the stars undoubtedly did rightly. + +It was in 1403 that the decision giving Ghiberti the Baptistery +commission was made, when Brunelleschi was twenty-six and Donatello, +destined to be his life-long friend, was seventeen; and when +Brunelleschi decided to go to Rome for the study of his new branch of +industry, architecture, Donatello went too. There they worked together, +copying and measuring everything of beauty, Brunelleschi having always +before his mind the problem of how to place a dome upon the cathedral +of his native city. But, having a shrewd knowledge of human nature +and immense patience, he did not hasten to urge upon the authorities +his claims as the heaven-born architect, but contented himself with +smaller works, and even assisted his rival Ghiberti with his gates, +joining at that task Donatello and Luca della Robbia, and giving +lessons in perspective to a youth who was to do more than any man +after Giotto to assure the great days of painting and become the +exemplar of the finest masters--Masaccio. + +It was not until 1419 that Brunelleschi's persistence and belief +in his own powers satisfied the controllers of the cathedral works +that he might perhaps be as good as his word and was the right man +to build the dome; but at last he was able to begin. [1] For the +story of his difficulties, told minutely and probably with sufficient +accuracy, one must go to Vasari: it is well worth reading, and is a +lurid commentary on the suspicions and jealousies of the world. The +building of the dome, without scaffolding, occupied fourteen years, +Brunelleschi's device embracing two domes, one within the other, +tied together with stone for material support and strength. It is +because of this inner dome that the impression of its size, from +within the cathedral, can disappoint. Meanwhile, in spite of all the +wear and tear of the work, the satisfying of incredulous busy-bodies, +and the removal of such an incubus as Ghiberti, who because he was a +superb modeller of bronze reliefs was made for a while joint architect +with a salary that Brunelleschi felt should either be his own or no +one's, the little man found time also to build beautiful churches +and cloisters all over Florence. He lived to see his dome finished +and the cathedral consecrated by Pope Eugenius IV in 1436, dying ten +years later. He was buried in the cathedral, and his adopted son and +pupil, Buggiano, made the head of him on the tablet to his memory. + +Brunelleschi's lantern, the model of which from his own hand we shall +see in the museum of the cathedral, was not placed on the dome until +1462. The copper ball above it was the work of Verrocchio. In 1912 +there are still wanting many yards of stone border to the dome. + +Of the man himself we know little, except that he was of iron +tenacity and lived for his work. Vasari calls him witty, but gives +a not good example of his wit; he seems to have been philanthropic +and a patron of poor artists, and he grieved deeply at the untimely +death of Masaccio, who painted him in one of the Carmine frescoes, +together with Donatello and other Florentines. + +As one walks about Florence, visiting this church and that, and +peering into cool cloisters, one's mind is always intent upon the +sculpture or paintings that may be preserved there for the delectation +of the eye. The tendency is to think little of the architect who made +the buildings where they are treasured. Asked to name the greatest +makers of this beautiful Florence, the ordinary visitor would +say Michelangelo, Giotto, Raphael, Donatello, the della Robbias, +Ghirlandaio, and Andrea del Sarto: all before Brunelleschi, even if +he named him at all. But this is wrong. Not even Michelangelo did +so much for Florence as he. Michelangelo was no doubt the greatest +individualist in the whole history of art, and everything that he did +grips the memory in a vice; but Florence without Michelangelo would +still be very nearly Florence, whereas Florence without Brunelleschi +is unthinkable. No dome to the cathedral, first of all; no S. Lorenzo +church or cloisters; no S. Croce cloisters or Pazzi chapel; no Badia +of Fiesole. Honour where honour is due. We should be singing the +praises of Filippo Brunelleschi in every quarter of the city. + +After Brunelleschi the chief architect of the cathedral was Giuliano da +Maiano, the artist of the beautiful intarsia woodwork in the sacristy, +and the uncle of Benedetto da Maiano who made the S. Croce pulpit. + +The present facade is the work of the architect Emilio de Fabris, +whose tablet is to be seen on the left wall. It was finished in 1887, +five hundred and more years after the abandonment of Arnolfo's original +design and three hundred and more years after the destruction of the +second one, begun in 1357 and demolished in 1587. Of Arnolfo's facade +the primitive seated statue of Boniface VIII (or John XXII) just inside +the cathedral is, with a bishop in one of the sacristies, the only +remnant; while of the second facade, for which Donatello and other +early Renaissance sculptors worked, the giant S. John the Evangelist, +in the left aisle, is perhaps the most important relic. Other statues +in the cathedral were also there, while the central figure--the Madonna +with enamel eyes--may be seen in the cathedral museum. Although not +great, the group of the Madonna and Child now over the central door +of the Duomo has much charm and benignancy. + +The present facade, although attractive as a mass of light, is not +really good. Its patterns are trivial, its paintings and statues +commonplace; and I personally have the feeling that it would have +been more fitting had Giotto's marble been supplied rather with +a contrast than an imitation. As it is, it is not till Giotto's +tower soars above the facade that one can rightly (from the front) +appreciate its roseate delicacy, so strong is this rival. + + + +CHAPTER II + +The Duomo II: Its Associations + +Dante's picture--Sir John Hawkwood--Ancestor and Descendant--The Pazzi +Conspiracy--Squeamish Montesecco--Giuliano de' Medici dies--Lorenzo's +escape--Vengeance on the Pazzi--Botticelli's cartoon--High +Mass--Luca della Robbia--Michelangelo nearing the end--The Miracles +of Zenobius--East and West meet in splendour--Marsilio Ficino and +the New Learning--Beautiful glass. + +Of the four men most concerned in the structure of the Duomo I have +already spoken. There are other men held in memory there, and certain +paintings and statues, of which I wish to speak now. + +The picture of Dante in the left aisle was painted by command of +the Republic in 1465, one hundred and sixty-three years after his +banishment from the city. Lectures on Dante were frequently delivered +in the churches of Florence during the fourteenth and fifteenth +centuries, and it was interesting for those attending them to have +a portrait on the wall. This picture was painted by Domenico di +Michelino, the portrait of Dante being prepared for him by Alessio +Baldovinetti, who probably took it from Giotto's fresco in the chapel +of the Podesta at the Bargello. In this picture Dante stands between +the Inferno and a concentrated Florence in which portions of the +Duomo, the Signoria, the Badia, the Bargello, and Or San Michele are +visible. Behind him is Paradise. In his hand is the "Divine Comedy". I +say no more of the poet here, because a large part of the chapter on +the Badia is given to him. + +Near the Dante picture in the left aisle are two Donatellos--the +massive S. John the Evangelist, seated, who might have given ideas +to Michelangelo for his Moses a century and more later; and, nearer +the door, between the tablets to De Fabris and Squarciaparello, the +so-called Poggio Bracciolini, a witty Italian statesman and Humanist +and friend of the Medici, who, however, since he was much younger than +this figure at the time of its exhibition, and is not known to have +visited Florence till later, probably did not sit for it. But it is +a powerful and very natural work, although its author never intended +it to stand on any floor, even of so dim a cathedral as this. The +S. John, I may say, was brought from the old facade--not Arnolfo's, +but the committee's facade--where it had a niche about ten feet from +the ground. The Poggio was also on this facade, but higher. It was +Poggio's son, Jacopo, who took part in the Pazzi Conspiracy, of which +we are about to read, and was very properly hanged for it. + +Of the two pictures on the entrance wall, so high as to be imperfectly +seen, that on the right as you face it has peculiar interest to +English visitors, for (painted by Paolo Uccello, whose great battle +piece enriches our National Gallery) it represents Sir John Hawkwood, +an English free-lance and head of the famous White Company, who +after some successful raids on Papal territory in Provence, put his +sword, his military genius, and his bravoes at the service of the +highest bidder among the warlike cities and provinces of Italy, and, +eventually passing wholly into the employment of Florence (after +harrying her for other pay-masters for some years), delivered her +very signally from her enemies in 1392. Hawkwood was an Essex man, +the son of a tanner at Hinckford, and was born there early in the +fourteenth century. He seems to have reached France as an archer under +Edward III, and to have remained a free-booter, passing on to Italy, +about 1362, to engage joyously in as much fighting as any English +commander can ever have had, for some thirty years, with very good +pay for it. Although, by all accounts, a very Salomon Brazenhead, +Hawkwood had enough dignity to be appointed English Ambassador to Rome, +and later to Florence, which he made his home, and where he died in +1394. He was buried in the Duomo, on the north side of the choir, and +was to have reposed beneath a sumptuous monument made under his own +instructions, with frescoes by Taddeo Gaddi and Giuliano d'Arrigo; +but something intervened, and Uccello's fresco was used instead, +and this, some sixty years ago, was transferred to canvas and moved +to the position in which it now is seen. + +Hawkwood's life, briskly told by a full-blooded hand, would make a fine +book. One pleasant story at least is related of him, that on being +beset by some begging friars who prefaced their mendicancy with the +words, "God give you peace," he answered, "God take away your alms"; +and, on their protesting, reminded them that such peace was the last +thing he required, since should their pious wish come true he would +die of hunger. One of the daughters of this fire-eater married John +Shelley, and thus became an ancestress of Shelley the poet, who, +as it chances, also found a home for a while in this city, almost +within hailing distance of his ancestor's tomb and portrait, and here +wrote not only his "Ode to the West Wind," but his caustic satire, +"Peter Bell the Third". + +Hawkwood's name is steeped sufficiently in carnage; but we get to the +scene of bloodshed in reality as we approach the choir, for it was +here that Giuliano de' Medici was assassinated, as he attended High +Mass, on April 26th, 1478, with the connivance, if not actually at the +instigation, of Christ's Vicar himself, Pope Sixtus IV. Florentine +history is so eventful and so tortuous that beyond the bare outline +given in chapter V, I shall make in these pages but little effort to +follow it, assuming a certain amount of knowledge on the part of the +reader; but it must be stated here that periodical revolts against +the power and prestige of the Medici often occurred, and none was +more desperate than that of the Pazzi family in 1478, acting with +the support of the Pope behind all and with the co-operation of +Girolamo Riario, nephew of the Pope, and Salviati, Archbishop of +Pisa. The Pazzi, who were not only opposed to the temporal power +of the Medici, but were their rivals in business--both families +being bankers--wished to rid Florence of Lorenzo and Giuliano in +order to be greater both civically and financially. Girolamo wished +the removal of Lorenzo and Giuliano in order that hostility to his +plans for adding Forli and Faenza to the territory of Imola, which +the Pope had successfully won for him against Lorenzo's opposition, +might disappear. The Pope had various political reasons for wishing +Lorenzo's and Giuliano's death and bringing Florence, always headstrong +and dangerous, to heel. While as for Salviati, it was sufficient that +he was Archbishop of Pisa, Florence's ancient rival and foe; but he +was a thoroughly bad lot anyway. Assassination also was in the air, +for Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan had been stabbed in church in 1476, +thus to some extent paving the way for this murder, since Lorenzo +and Sforza, when acting together, had been practically unassailable. + +In 1478 Lorenzo was twenty-nine, Giuliano twenty-five. Lorenzo had +been at the head of Florentine affairs for nine years and he was +steadily growing in strength and popularity. Hence it was now or never. + +The conspirators' first idea was to kill the brothers at a banquet +which Lorenzo was to give to the great-nephew of the Pope, the +youthful Cardinal Raffaello Riario, who promised to be an amenable +catspaw. Giuliano, however, having hurt his leg, was not well enough to +be present, but as he would attend High Mass, the conspirators decided +to act then. That is to say, it was then, in the cathedral, that the +death of the Medici brothers was to be effected; meanwhile another +detachment of conspirators under Salviati was to rise simultaneously to +capture the Signoria, while the armed men of the party who were outside +and inside the walls would begin their attacks on the populace. Thus, +at the same moment Medici and city would fall. Such was the plan. + +The actual assassins were Francesco de' Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini, +who were nominally friends of the Medici (Francesco's brother Guglielmo +having married Bianca de' Medici, Lorenzo's sister), and two priests +named Maffeo da Volterra and Stefano da Bagnone. A professional bravo +named Montesecco was to have killed Lorenzo, but refused on learning +that the scene of the murder was to be a church. At that, he said, +he drew the line: murder anywhere else he could perform cheerfully, +but in a sacred building it was too much to ask. He therefore did +nothing, but, subsequently confessing, made the guilt of all his +associates doubly certain. + +When High Mass began it was found that Giuliano was not present, +and Francesco de' Pazzi and Bandini were sent to persuade him to +come--a Judas-like errand indeed. On the way back, it is said, one +of them affectionately placed his arm round Giuliano--to see if he +wore a shirt of mail--remarking, to cover the action, that he was +getting fat. On his arrival, Giuliano took his place at the north +side of the circular choir, near the door which leads to the Via de' +Servi, while Lorenzo stood at the opposite side. At the given signal +Bandini and Pazzi were to stab Giuliano and the two priests were to +stab Lorenzo. The signal was the breaking of the Eucharistic wafer, +and at this solemn moment Giuliano was instantly killed, with one stab +in the heart and nineteen elsewhere, Francesco so overdoing his attack +that he severely wounded himself too; but Lorenzo was in time to see +the beginning of the assault, and, making a movement to escape, he +prevented the priest from doing aught but inflict a gash in his neck, +and, springing away, dashed behind the altar to the old sacristy, +where certain of his friends who followed him banged the heavy bronze +doors on the pursuing foe. Those in the cathedral, mean-while, were in +a state of hysterical alarm; the youthful cardinal was hurried into +the new sacristy; Guglielmo de' Pazzi bellowed forth his innocence +in loud tones; and his murderous brother and Bandini got off. + +Order being restored, Lorenzo was led by a strong bodyguard to +the Palazzo Medici, where he appeared at a window to convince the +momentarily increasing crowd that he was still living. Meanwhile +things were going not much more satisfactorily for the Pazzi at +the Palazzo Vecchio, where, according to the plan, the gonfalonier, +Cesare Petrucci, was to be either killed or secured. The Archbishop +Salviati, who was to effect this, managed his interview so clumsily +that Petrucci suspected something, those being suspicious times, +and, instead of submitting to capture, himself turned the key on his +visitors. The Pazzi faction in the city, meanwhile, hoping that all +had gone well in the Palazzo Vecchio, as well as in the cathedral +(as they thought), were running through the streets calling "Viva la +Liberta!" to be met with counter cries of "Palle! palle!"--the palle +being the balls on the Medici escutcheon, still to be seen all over +Florence and its vicinity and on every curtain in the Uffizi. + +The truth gradually spreading, the city then rose for the Medici and +justice began to be done. The Archbishop was handed at once, just as +he was, from a window of the Palazzo Vecchio. Francesco de' Pazzi, +who had got home to bed, was dragged to the Palazzo and hanged too. The +mob meanwhile were not idle, and most of the Pazzi were accounted for, +together with many followers--although Lorenzo publicly implored them +to be merciful. Poliziano, the scholar-poet and friend of Lorenzo, +has left a vivid account of the day. With his own eyes he saw the +hanging Salviati, in his last throes, bite the hanging Francesco de +Pazzi. Old Jacopo succeeded in escaping, but not for long, and a day +or so later he too was hanged. Bandini got as far as Constantinople, +but was brought back in chains and hanged. The two priests hid in +the Benedictine abbey in the city and for a while evaded search, +but being found they were torn to pieces by the crowd. Montesecco, +having confessed, was beheaded in the courtyard of the Bargello. + +The hanging of the chief conspirators was kept in the minds of the +short-memoried Florentines by a representation outside the Palazzo +Vecchio, by none other than the wistful, spiritual Botticelli; while +three effigies, life size, of Lorenzo--one of them with his bandaged +neck--were made by Verrocchio in coloured wax and set up in places +where prayers might be offered. Commemorative medals which may be +seen in the Bargello, were also struck, and the family of Pazzi was +banished and its name removed by decree from the city's archives. Poor +Giuliano, who was generally beloved for his charm and youthful spirits, +was buried at S. Lorenzo in great state. + +I have often attended High Mass in this Duomo choir--the theatre of +the Pazzi tragedy--but never without thinking of that scene. + +Luca della Robbia's doors to the new sacristy, which gave the young +cardinal his safety, had been finished only eleven years. Donatello was +to have designed them, but his work at Padua was too pressing. The +commission was then given to Michelozzo, Donatello's partner, +and to Luca della Robbia, but it seems likely that Luca did nearly +all. The doors are in very high relief, thus differing absolutely +from Donatello's at S. Lorenzo, which are in very low. Luca's work +here is sweet and mild rather than strong, and the panels derive +their principal charm from the angels, who, in pairs, attend the +saints. Above the door was placed, at the time of Lorenzo's escape, +the beautiful cantoria, also by Luca, which is now in the museum of +the cathedral, while above the door of the old sacristy was Donatello's +cantoria. Commonplace new ones now take their place. In the semicircle +over each door is a coloured relief by Luca: that over the bronze doors +being the "Resurrection," and the other the "Ascension"; and they are +interesting not only for their beauty but as being the earliest-known +examples in Luca's newly-discovered glazed terra-cotta medium, +which was to do so much in the hands of himself, his nephew Andrea, +and his followers, to make Florence still lovelier and the legend +of the Virgin Mary still sweeter. But of the della Robbias and their +exquisite genius I shall say more later, when we come to the Bargello. + +As different as would be possible to imagine is the genius of that +younger sculptor, the author of the Pieta at the back of the altar, +near where we now stand, who, when Luca finished these bronze doors, +in 1467, was not yet born--Michelangelo Buonarroti. This group, which +is unfinished, is the last the old and weary Titan ever worked at, +and it was meant to be part of his own tomb. Vasari, to whose "Lives +of the Painters" we shall be indebted, as this book proceeds, for so +much good human nature, and who speaks of Michelangelo with peculiar +authority, since he was his friend, pupil, and correspondent, tells us +that once when he went to see the sculptor in Rome, near the end, he +found him at work upon this Pieta, but the sculptor was so dissatisfied +with one portion that he let his lantern fall in order that Vasari +might not see it, saying: "I am so old that death frequently drags +at my mantle to take me, and one day my person will fall like this +lantern". The Pieta is still in deep gloom, as the master would have +liked, but enough is revealed to prove its pathos and its power. + +In the east end of the nave is the chapel of S. Zenobius, containing a +bronze reliquary by Ghiberti, with scenes upon it from the life of this +saint, so important in Florentine religious history. It is, however, +very hard to see, and should be illuminated. Zenobius was born at +Florence in the reign of Constantine the Great, when Christianity +was by no means the prevailing religion of the city, although the +way had been paved by various martyrs. After studying philosophy +and preaching with much acceptance, Zenobius was summoned to Rome +by Pope Damasus. On the Pope's death he became Bishop of Florence, +and did much, says Butler, to "extirpate the kingdom of Satan". The +saint lived in the ancient tower which still stands--one of the few +survivors of Florence's hundreds of towers--at the corner of the Via +Por S. Maria (which leads from the Mercato Nuovo to the Ponte Vecchio) +and the Via Lambertesca. It is called the Torre de' Girolami, and +on S. Zenobius' day--May 25th--is decorated with flowers; and since +never are so many flowers in the city of flowers as at that time, it +is a sight to see. The remains of the saint were moved to the Duomo, +although it had not then its dome, from S. Lorenzo, in 1330, and the +simple column in the centre of the road opposite Ghiberti's first +Baptistery doors was erected to mark the event, since on that very +spot, it is said, stood a dead elm tree which, when the bier of the +saint chanced to touch it, immediately sprang to life again and burst +into leaf; even, the enthusiastic chronicler adds, into flower. The +result was that the tree was cut completely to pieces by relic hunters, +but the column by the Baptistery, the work of Brunelleschi (erected on +the site of an earlier one), fortunately remains as evidence of the +miracle. Ghiberti, however, did not choose this miracle but another +for representation; for not only did Zenobius dead restore animation, +but while he was himself living he resuscitated two boys. The one was a +ward of his own; the second was an ordinary Florentine, for whom the +same modest boon was craved by his sorrowing parents. It is one of +these scenes of resuscitation which Ghiberti has designed in bronze, +while Ridolfo Ghirlandaio painted it in a picture in the Uffizi. We +shall see S. Zenobius again in the fresco by Ridolfo's father, the +great Ghirlandaio, in the Palazzo Vecchio; while the portrait on the +first pillar of the left aisle, as one enters the cathedral is of +Zenobius too. + +The date of the Pazzi Conspiracy was 1478. A few years later the +same building witnessed the extraordinary effects of Savonarola's +oratory, when such was the terrible picture he drew of the fate of +unregenerate sinners that his listeners' hair was said actually to +rise with fright. Savonarola came towards the end of the Renaissance, +to give it its death-blow. By contrast there is a tablet on the right +wall of the cathedral in honour of one who did much to bring about the +paganism and sophistication against which the impassioned reformer +uttered his fiercest denunciations: Marsilio Ficino (1433-1491), +the neo-Platonist protege of Cosimo de' Medici, and friend both +of Piero de' Medici and Lorenzo. To explain Marsilio's influence +it is necessary to recede a little into history. In 1439 Cosimo de' +Medici succeeded in transferring the scene of the Great Council of the +Church to Florence. At this conference representatives of the Western +Church, centred in Rome, met those of the Eastern Church, centred +in Constantinople, which was still Christian, for the purpose of +discussing various matters, not the least of which was the protection +of the Eastern Church against the Infidel. Not only was Constantinople +continually threatened by the Turks, and in need of arms as well +as sympathy, but the two branches of the Church were at enmity over +a number of points. It was as much to heal these differences as to +seek temporal aid that the Emperor John Palaeologus, the Patriarch +of Constantinople, and a vast concourse of nobles, priests, and +Greek scholars, arrived in Italy, and, after sojourning at Venice +and Ferrara, moved on to Florence at the invitation of Cosimo. The +Emperor resided in the Peruzzi palace, now no more, near S. Croce; +the Patriarch of Constantinople lodged (and as it chanced, died, for +he was very old) at the Ferrantini palace, now the Casa Vernaccia, +in the Borgo Pinti; while Pope Eugenius was at the convent attached +to S. Maria Novella. The meetings of the Council were held where we +now stand--in the cathedral, whose dome had just been placed upon it +all ready for them. + +The Council failed in its purpose, and, as we know, Constantinople +was lost some years later, and the great empire of which John +Palaeologus was the last ruler ceased to be. That, however, at the +moment is beside the mark. The interesting thing to us is that among +the scholars who came from Constantinople, bringing with them numbers +of manuscripts and systems of thought wholly new to the Florentines, +was one Georgius Gemisthos, a Greek philosopher of much personal +charm and comeliness, who talked a bland and beautiful Platonism that +was extremely alluring not only to his youthful listeners but also +to Cosimo himself. Gemisthos was, however, a Greek, and Cosimo was +too busy a man in a city of enemies, or at any rate of the envious, +to be able to do much more than extend his patronage to the old man +and despatch emissaries to the East for more and more manuscripts; +but discerning the allurements of the new gospel, Cosimo directed +a Florentine enthusiast who knew Greek to spread the serene creed +among his friends, who were all ripe for it, and this enthusiast was +none other than a youthful scholar by name Marsilio Ficino, connected +with S. Lorenzo, Cosimo's family church, and the son of Cosimo's own +physician. To the young and ardent Marsilio, Plato became a god and +Gemisthos not less than divine for bringing the tidings. He kept a lamp +always burning before Plato's bust, and later founded the Platonic +Academy, at which Plato's works were discussed, orations delivered, +and new dialogues exchanged, between such keen minds as Marsilio, +Pulci, Landini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Leon Battista Alberti, the +architect and scholar, Pico dell a Mirandola, the precocious disputant +and aristocratic mystic, Poliziano, the tutor of Lorenzo's sons, and +Lorenzo the Magnificent himself. It was thus from the Greek invasion +of Florence that proceeded the stream of culture which is known as +Humanism, and which, no doubt, in time, was so largely concerned in +bringing about that indifference to spiritual things which, leading +to general laxity and indulgence, filled Savonarola with despair. + +I am not concerned to enter deeply into the subject of the +Renaissance. But this must be said--that the new painting and +sculpture, particularly the painting of Masaccio and the sculpture +of Donatello, had shown the world that the human being could be made +the measure of the Divine. The Madonna and Christ had been related +to life. The new learning, by leading these keen Tuscan intellects, +so eager for reasonableness, to the Greek philosophers who were so +wise and so calm without any of the consolations of Christianity, +naturally set them wondering if there were not a religion of Humanity +that was perhaps a finer thing than the religion that required all the +machinery and intrigue of Rome. And when, as the knowledge of Greek +spread and the minute examination of documents ensued, it was found +that Rome had not disdained forgery to gain her ends, a blow was struck +against the Church from which it never recovered;--and how much of this +was due to this Florentine Marsilio, sitting at the feet of the Greek +Gemisthos, who came to Florence at the invitation of Cosimo de' Medici! + +The cathedral glass, as I say, is mostly overladen with grime; but the +circular windows in the dome seem to be magnificent in design. They +are attributed to Ghiberti and Donatello, and are lovely in colour. The +greens in particular are very striking. But the jewel of these circular +windows of Florence is that by Ghiberti on the west wall of S. Croce. + +And here I leave the Duomo, with the counsel to visitors to Florence +to make a point of entering it every day--not, as so many Florentines +do, in order to make a short cut from the Via Calzaioli to the Via de' +Servi, and vice versa, but to gather its spirit. It is different every +hour in the day, and every hour the light enters it with new beauty. + + + +CHAPTER III + +The Duomo III: A Ceremony and a Museum + +The Scoppio del Carro--The Pazzi beneficent--Holy Saturday's +programme--April 6th, 1912--The flying palle--The nervous +pyrotechnist--The influence of noon--A little sister of the +Duomo--Donatello's cantoria--Luca della Robbia's cantoria. + +In the last chapter we saw the Pazzi family as very black sheep, +although there are plenty of students of Florentine history who +hold that any attempt to rid Florence of the Medici was laudable. In +this chapter we see them in a kindlier situation as benefactors to +the city. For it happened that when Pazzo de' Pazzi, a founder of +the house, was in the Holy Land during the First Crusade, it was his +proud lot to set the Christian banner on the walls of Jerusalem, and, +as a reward, Godfrey of Boulogne gave him some flints from the Holy +Sepulchre. 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. After the Pazzi conspiracy +they lost it and the Signoria took it over; but, on being pardoned, +the Pazzi again resumed. + +The Carro is a car containing explosives, and the Scoppio is its +explosion. This car, after being drawn in procession through the +streets by white oxen, is ignited by the sacred fire borne to it by +a mechanical dove liberated at the high altar of the Duomo, and with +its explosion Easter begins. There is still a Pazzi fund towards the +expenses, but a few years ago the city became responsible for the +whole proceedings, and the ceremony as it is now given, under civic +management, known as the Scoppio del Cairo, is that which I saw on +Holy Saturday last and am about to describe. + +First, however, let me state what had happened before the proceedings +opened in the Piazza del Duomo. At six o'clock mass began at +SS. Apostoli, lasting for more than two hours. At its close the +celebrant was handed a plate on which were the sacred flints, and these +he struck with a steel in view of the congregation, thus igniting a +taper. The candle, in an ancient copper porta fuoco surmounted by a +dove, was then lighted, and the procession of priests started off for +the cathedral with their precious flame, escorted by a civic guard +and various standard bearers. Their route was the Piazza del Limbo, +along the Borgo SS. Apostoli to the Via Por S. Maria and through +the Vacchereccia to the Piazza della Signoria, the Via Condotta, the +Via del Proconsolo, to the Duomo, through whose central doors they +passed, depositing the sacred burden at the high altar. 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. + +Meanwhile at seven o'clock the four oxen, which are kept in the +Cascine all the year round and do no other work, had been harnessed to +the car and had drawn it to the Piazza del Duomo, which was reached +about nine. The oxen were then tethered by the Pisano doors of the +Baptistery until needed again. + +After some haggling on the night before, I had secured a seat on a +balcony facing Ghiberti's first Baptistery doors, for eleven lire, and +to this place I went at half-past ten. The piazza was then filling up, +and at a quarter to eleven the trams running between the Cathedral and +the Baptistery were stopped. In this space was the car. The present +one, which dates from 1622, is more like a catafalque, and unless one +sees it in motion, with the massive white oxen pulling it, one cannot +believe in it as a vehicle at all. It is some thirty feet high, all +black, with trumpery coloured-paper festoons (concealing fireworks) +upon it: trumpery as only the Roman Catholic Church can contrive. It +stood in front of the Duomo some four yards from the Baptistery gates +in a line with the Duomo's central doors and the high altar. The +doors were open, seats being placed on each side of the aisle the +whole distance, and people making a solid avenue. Down this avenue +were to come the clergy, and above it was to be stretched the line +on which the dove was to travel from the altar, with the Pazzi fire, +to ignite the car. + +The space in front of the cathedral was cleared at about eleven, +and cocked hats and red-striped trousers then became the most +noticeable feature. The crowd was jolly and perhaps a little cynical; +picture-postcard hawkers made most of the noise, and for some reason +or other a forlorn peasant took this opportunity to offer for sale two +equally forlorn hedgehogs. Each moment the concourse increased, for it +is a fateful day and every one wants to know the issue: because, you +see, if the dove runs true, lights the car, and returns, as a good dove +should, to the altar ark, there will be a prosperous vintage and the +pyrotechnist who controls the sacred bird's movements will receive his +wages. But if the dove runs defectively and there is any hitch, every +one is dismayed, for the harvest will be bad and the pyrotechnist will +receive nothing. Once he was imprisoned when things went astray--and +quite right too--but the Florentines have grown more lenient. + +At about a quarter past eleven a procession of clergy emerged from the +Duomo and crossed the space to the Baptistery. First, boys and youths +in surplices. Then some scarlet hoods, waddling. Then purple hoods, +and other colours, a little paunchier, waddling more, and lastly the +archbishop, very sumptuous. All having disappeared into the Baptistery, +through Ghiberti's second gates, which I never saw opened before, the +dove's wire was stretched and fastened, a matter needing much care; +and the crowds began to surge. The cocked hats and officers had the +space all to themselves, with the car, the firemen, the pyrotechnist +and the few privileged and very self-conscious civilians who were +allowed inside. + +A curious incident, which many years ago might have been magnified +into a portent, occurred while the ecclesiastics were in the Artistry. +Some one either bought and liberated several air balloons, or the +string holding them was surreptitiously cut; but however it happened, +the balls escaped and suddenly the crowd sent up a triumphant yell. At +first I could see no reason for it, the Baptistery intervening, +but then the balls swam into our ken and steadily floated over +the cathedral out of sight amid tremendous satisfaction. And the +portent? Well, as they moved against the blue sky they formed +themselves into precisely the pattern of the palle on the Medici +escutcheon. That is all. But think what that would have meant in the +fifteenth century; the nods and frowns it would have occasioned; the +dispersal of the Medici, the loss of power, and all the rest of it, +that it would have presaged! + +At about twenty to twelve the ecclesiastics returned and were +swallowed up by the Duomo, and then excitement began to be acute. The +pyrotechnist was not free from it; he fussed about nervously; he tested +everything again and again; he crawled under the car and out of it; +he talked to officials; he inspected and re-inspected. Photographers +began to adjust their distances; the detached men in bowlers looked +at their watches; the cocked hats drew nearer to the Duomo door. And +then we heard a tearing noise. All eyes were turned to the great door, +and out rushed the dove emitting a wake of sparks, entered the car +and was out again on its homeward journey before one realized what had +happened. And then the explosions began, and the bells--silent since +Thursday--broke out. How many explosions there were I do not know; +but they seemed to go on for ten minutes. + +This is a great moment not only for the spectator but for all Florence, +for in myriad rooms mothers have been waiting, with their babies +on their knees, for the first clang of the belfries, because if a +child's eyes are washed then it is unlikely ever to have weak sight, +while if a baby takes its first steps to this accompaniment its legs +will not be bowed. + +At the last explosion the pyrotechnist, now a calm man once more +and a proud one, approached the car, the firemen poured water on +smouldering parts, and the work of clearing up began. Then came +the patient oxen, their horns and hooves gilt, and great masses of +flowers on their heads, and red cloths with the lily of Florence +on it over their backs--much to be regretted since they obliterated +their beautiful white skins--and slowly the car lumbered off, and, +the cocked hats relenting, the crowd poured after it and the Scoppio +del Carro was over. + +The Duomo has a little sister in the shape of the Museo di Santa +Maria del Fiore, or the Museo dell' Opera del Duomo, situated in the +Piazza opposite the apse; and we should go there now. This museum, +which is at once the smallest and, with the exception of the Natural +History Museum, the cheapest of the Florentine museums, for it +costs but half a lira, is notable for containing the two cantorie, +or singing galleries, made for the cathedral, one by Donatello and +one by Luca della Robbia. A cantoria by Donatello we shall soon see in +its place in S. Lorenzo; but that, beautiful as it is, cannot compare +with this one, with its procession of merry, dancing children, its +massiveness and grace, its joyous ebullitions of gold mosaic and blue +enamel. Both the cantorie--Donatello's, begun in 1433 and finished +in 1439, and Luca's, begun in 1431 and finished in 1438--fulfilled +their melodious functions in the Duomo until 1688, when they were +ruthlessly cleared away to make room for large wooden balconies to +be used in connexion with the nuptials of Ferdinand de' Medici and +the Princess Violante of Bavaria. In the year 1688 taste was at a low +ebb, and no one thought the deposed cantorie even worth preservation, +so that they were broken up and occasionally levied upon for cornices +and so forth. The fragments were collected and taken to the Bargello +in the middle of the last century, and in 1883 Signer del Moro, the +then architect of the Duomo (whose bust is in the courtyard of this +museum), reconstructed them to the best of his ability in their present +situation. It has to be remembered not only that, with the exception +of the figures, the galleries are not as their artists made them, +lacking many beautiful accessories, but that, as Vasari tells us, +Donatello deliberately designed his for a dim light. None the less, +they remain two of the most delightful works of the Renaissance and +two of the rarest treasures of Florence. + +The dancing boys behind the small pillars with their gold chequering, +the brackets, and the urn of the cornice over the second pair +of pillars from the right, are all that remain of Donatello's own +handiwork. All else is new and conjectural. It is supposed that bronze +heads of lions filled the two circular spaces between the brackets +in the middle. But although the loss of the work as a whole is to be +regretted, the dancing boys remain, to be for ever an inspiration and +a pleasure. The Luca della Robbia cantoria opposite is not quite so +triumphant a masterpiece, but from the point of view of suitability it +is perhaps better. We can believe that Luca's children hymn the glory +of the Lord, as indeed the inscription makes them, whereas Donatello's +romp with a gladness that might easily be purely pagan. Luca's design +is more formal, more conventional; Donatello's is rich and free and +fluid with personality. The two end panels of Luca's are supplied in +the cantoria by casts; the originals are on the wall below and may +be carefully studied. The animation and fervour of these choristers +are unforgettable. + +It is well, while enjoying Donatello's work, to remember that Prato +is only half an hour from Florence, and that there may be seen +the open-air pulpit, built on the corner of the cathedral, which +Donatello, with Michelozzo, his friend and colleague, made at the +same time that the cantoria was in progress, and which in its relief +of happy children is very similar, although not, I think, quite so +remarkable. It lacks also the peculiarly naturalistic effect gained +in the cantoria by setting the dancing boys behind the pillars, which +undoubtedly, as comparison with the Luca shows, assists realism. The +row of pillars attracts the eye first and the boys are thus thrown +into a background which almost moves. + +Although the cantorie dominate the museum they must not be allowed to +overshadow all else. A marble relief of the Madonna and Children by +Agostino di Duccio (1418-1481) must be sought for: it is No. 77 and +the children are the merriest in Florence. Another memorable Madonna +and Child is No. 94, by Pagno di Lapo Portigiani (1406-1470), who has +interest for us in this place as being one of Donatello's assistants, +very possibly on this very cantoria, and almost certainly on the Prato +pulpit. Everything here, it must be remembered, has some association +with the Duomo and was brought here for careful preservation and that +whoever has fifty centimes might take pleasure in seeing it; but the +great silver altar is from the Baptistery, and being made for that +temple is naturally dedicated to the life of John the Baptist. Although +much of it was the work of not the greatest modellers in the second +half of the fourteenth century, three masters at least contributed +later: Michelozzo adding the statue of the Baptist, Pollaiuolo the +side relief depicting his birth, and Verrocchio that of his death, +which is considered one of the most remarkable works of this sculptor, +whom we are to find so richly represented at the Bargello. Before +leaving this room, look for 100^3, an unknown terra-cotta of the +Birth of Eve, which is both masterly and amusing, and 110^4, a very +lovely intaglio in wood. I might add that among the few paintings, +all very early, is a S. Sebastian in whose sacred body I counted no +fewer than thirty arrows; which within my knowledge of pictures of +this saint--not inconsiderable--is the highest number. + +The next room is given to models and architectural plans and +drawings connected with the cathedral, the most interesting thing +being Brunelleschi's own model for the lantern. On the stairs are a +series of fine bas-reliefs by Bandinelli and Giovanni dell' Opera from +the old choir screen of the Duomo, and downstairs, among many other +pieces of sculpture, is a bust of Brunelleschi from a death-mask and +several beautiful della Robbia designs for lunettes over doors. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +The Campanile and the Baptistery + +A short way with Veronese critics--Giotto's missing spire--Donatello's +holy men--Giotto as encyclopaedist--The seven and twenty +reliefs--Ruskin in American--At the top of the tower--A sea of +red roofs--The restful Baptistery--Historic stones--An ex-Pope's +tomb--Andrea Pisano's doors--Ghiberti's first doors--Ghiberti's second +doors--Michelangelo's praise--A gentleman artist. + +It was in 1332, as I have said, that Giotto was made capo-maestro, +and on July 18th, 1334, the first stone of his campanile was laid, the +understanding being that the structure was to exceed "in magnificence, +height, and excellence of workmanship" anything in the world. As +some further indication of the glorious feeling of patriotism then +animating the Florentines, it may be remarked that when a Veronese +who happened to be in Florence ventured to suggest that the city +was aiming rather too high, he was at once thrown into gaol, and, +on being set free when his time was done, was shown the treasury as +an object lesson. Of the wealth and purposefulness of Florence at +that time, in spite of the disastrous bellicose period she had been +passing through, Villani the historian, who wrote history as it was +being made, gives an excellent account, which Macaulay summarizes in +his vivid way. Thus: "The revenue of the Republic amounted to three +hundred thousand florins; a sum which, allowing for the depreciation of +the precious metals, was at least equivalent to six hundred thousand +pounds sterling; a larger sum than England and Ireland, two centuries +ago, yielded to Elizabeth. The manufacture of wool alone employed two +hundred factories and thirty thousand workmen. The cloth annually +produced sold, at an average, for twelve hundred thousand florins; +a sum fully equal in exchangeable value to two millions and a half of +our money. Four hundred thousand florins were annually coined. Eighty +banks conducted the commercial operations, not of Florence only but of +all Europe. The transactions of these establishments were sometimes +of a magnitude which may surprise even the contemporaries of the +Barings and the Rothschilds. Two houses advanced to Edward III of +England upwards of three hundred thousand marks, at a time when the +mark contained more silver than fifty shillings of the present day, +and when the value of silver was more than quadruple of what it now +is. The city and its environs contained a hundred and seventy thousand +children inhabitants. In the various schools about ten thousand +children were taught to read; twelve hundred studied arithmetic; +six hundred received a learned education." + +Giotto died in 1386, and after his death, as I have said, Andrea +Pisano came in for a while; to be followed by Talenti, who is said +to have made considerable alterations in Giotto's design and to +be responsible for the happy idea of increasing the height of the +windows with the height of the tower and thus adding to the illusion +of springing lightness. The topmost ones, so bold in size and so +lovely with their spiral columns, almost seem to lift it. + +The campanile to-day is 276 feet in height, and Giotto proposed to +add to that a spire of 105 feet. The Florentines completed the facade +of the cathedral in 1887 and are now spending enormous sums on the +Medici chapel at S. Lorenzo; why should they not one day carry out +their greatest artist's intention? + +The campanile as a structure had been finished in 1387, but not for +many years did it receive its statues, of which something must be said, +although it is impossible to get more than a vague idea of them, so +high are they. A captive balloon should be arranged for the use of +visitors. Those by Donatello, on the Baptistery side, are the most +remarkable. The first of these--that nearest to the cathedral and +the most striking as seen from the distant earth--is called John the +Baptist, always a favourite subject with this sculptor, who, since +he more than any at that thoughtful time endeavoured to discover +and disclose the secret of character, is curiously unfortunate in +the accident that has fastened names to these figures. This John, +for example, bears no relation to his other Baptists; nor does the +next figure represent David, as is generally supposed, but owes that +error to the circumstance that when the David that originally stood +here was moved to the north side, the old plinth bearing his name was +left behind. This famous figure is stated by Vasari to be a portrait of +a Florentine merchant named Barduccio Cherichini, and for centuries it +has been known as Il Zuccone (or pumpkin) from its baldness. Donatello, +according to Vasari, had a particular liking for the work, so much that +he used to swear by it; while, when engaged upon it, he is said to +have so believed in its reality as to exclaim, "Speak, speak! or may +a dysentery seize thee!" It is now generally considered to represent +Job, and we cannot too much regret the impossibility of getting near +enough to study it. Next is the Jeremiah, which, according to Vasari, +was a portrait of another Florentine, but which, since he bears his +name on a scroll, may none the less be taken to realize the sculptor's +idea of Jeremiah. It is (according to the photographs) a fine piece +of rugged vivacity, and the head is absolutely that of a real man. On +the opposite side of the tower is the magnificent Abraham's sacrifice +from the same strong hand, and by it Habakkuk, who is no less near +life than the Jeremiah and Job, but a very different type. At both +Or San Michele and the Bargello we are to find Donatello perhaps in +a finer mood than here, and comfortably visible. + +For most visitors to Florence and all disciples of Ruskin, the chief +interest of the campanile ("The Shepherd's Tower" as he calls it) +is the series of twenty-seven reliefs illustrating the history of +the world and the progress of mankind, which are to be seen round the +base, the design, it is supposed, of Giotto, executed by Andrea Pisano +and Luca della Robbia. To Andrea are given all those on the west (7), +south (7), east (5), and the two eastern ones on the north; to Luca the +remaining five on the north. Ruskin's fascinating analysis of these +reliefs should most certainly be read (without a total forgetfulness +of the shepherd's other activities as a painter, architect, humorist, +and friend of princes and poets), but equally certainly not in the +American pirated edition which the Florentine booksellers are so ready +(to their shame) to sell you. Only Ruskin in his best mood of fury +could begin to do justice to the misspellings and mispunctuations of +this terrible production. + +Ruskin, I may say, believes several of the carvings to be from +Giotto's own chisel as well as design, but other and more modern +authorities disagree, although opinion now inclines to the belief +that the designs for Pisano's Baptistery doors are also his. Such +thoroughness and ingenuity were all in Giotto's way, and they certainly +suggest his active mind. The campanile series begins at the west side +with the creation of man. Among the most attractive are, I think, +those devoted to agriculture, with the spirited oxen, to astronomy, to +architecture, to weaving, and to pottery. Giotto was even so thorough +as to give one relief to the conquest of the air; and he makes Noah +most satisfactorily drunk. Note also the Florentine fleur-de-lis +round the base of the tower. Every fleur-de-lis in Florence is +beautiful--even those on advertisements and fire-plugs--but few are +more beautiful than these. + +I climbed the campanile one fine morning--417 steps from the +ground--and was well repaid; but I think it is wiser to ascend the +tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, because one is higher there and, since +the bulk of the dome, which intrudes from the campanile, is avoided, +one has a better all-round view. Florence seen from this eminence +is very red--so uniformly so that many towers rise against it almost +indistinguishably, particularly the Bargello's and the Badia's. One +sees at once how few straight streets there are--the Ricasoli standing +out among them as the exception; and one realizes how the city has +developed outside, with its boulevards where the walls once were, +leaving the gates isolated, and its cincture of factories. The +occasional glimpses of cloisters and verdure among the red are very +pleasant. One of the objects cut off by the cathedral dome is the +English cemetery, but the modern Jewish temple stands out as noticeably +almost as any of the ancient buildings. The Pitti looks like nothing +but a barracks and the Porta Ferdinando has prominence which it gets +from no other point. The roof of the Mercato Centrale is the ugliest +thing in the view. While I was there the midday gun from the Boboli +fortress was fired, instantly having its punctual double effect of +sending all the pigeons up in a grey cloud of simulated alarm and +starting every bell in the city. + +Those wishing to make either the campanile or Duomo ascents must +remember to do it early. The closing hour for the day being twelve, +no one is allowed to start up after about a quarter past eleven: a +very foolish arrangement, since Florence and the surrounding Apennines +under a slanting sun are more beautiful than in the morning glare, +and the ascent would be less fatiguing. As it was, on descending, after +being so long at the top, I was severely reprimanded by the custodian, +who had previously marked me down as a barbarian for refusing his offer +of field-glasses. But the Palazzo Vecchio tower is open till five. + +The Baptistery is the beautiful octagonal building opposite the +cathedral, and once the cathedral itself. It dates from the seventh +or eighth century, but as we see it now is a product chiefly of the +thirteenth. The bronze doors opposite the Via Calzaioli are open every +day, a circumstance which visitors, baffled by the two sets of Ghiberti +doors always so firmly closed, are apt to overlook. All children born +in Florence are still baptized here, and I watched one afternoon an old +priest at the task, a tiny Florentine being brought in to receive the +name of Tosca, which she did with less distaste than most, considering +how thorough was his sprinkling. The Baptistery is rich in colour +both without and within. The floor alone is a marvel of intricate +inlaying, including the signs of the zodiac and a gnomic sentence which +reads the same backwards and forwards--"En gire torte sol ciclos et +roterigne". On this very pavement Dante, who called the church his +"beautiful San Giovanni," has walked. Over the altar is a gigantic +and primitive Christ in mosaic, more splendid than spiritual. The +mosaics in the recesses of the clerestory--grey and white--are the +most soft and lovely of all. I believe the Baptistery is the most +restful place in Florence; and this is rather odd considering that it +is all marble and mosaic patterns. But its shape is very soothing, +and age has given it a quality of its own, and there is just that +touch of barbarism about it such as one gets in Byzantine buildings +to lend it a peculiar character here. + +The most notable sculpture in the Baptistery is the tomb of the ex-Pope +John XXIII, whose licentiousness was such that there was nothing for +it but to depose and imprison him. He had, however, much money, and on +his liberation he settled in Florence, presented a true finger of John +the Baptist to the Baptistery, and arranged in return for his bones +to repose in that sanctuary. One of his executors was that Niccolo +da Uzzano, the head of the noble faction in the city, whose coloured +bust by Donatello is in the Bargello. The tomb is exceedingly fine, +the work of Donatello and his partner Michelozzo, who were engaged +to make it by Giovanni de' Medici, the ex-pontiff's friend, and the +father of the great Cosimo. The design is all Donatello's, and his +the recumbent cleric, lying very naturally, hardly as if dead at +all, a little on one side, so that his face is seen nearly full; +the three figures beneath are Michelozzo's; but Donatello probably +carved the seated angels who display the scroll which bears the +dead Pope's name. The Madonna and Child above are by Donatello's +assistant, Pagno di Lapo Portigiani, a pretty relief by whom we saw +in the Museum of the Cathedral. Being in red stone, and very dusty, +like Ghiberti's doors (which want the hose regularly), the lines of +the tomb are much impaired. Donatello is also represented here by a +Mary Magdalene in wood, on an altar at the left of the entrance door, +very powerful and poignant. + +In the ordinary way, when visitors to Florence speak of the Baptistery +doors they mean those opposite the Duomo, and when they go to the +Bargello and look at the designs made by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi in +competition, they think that the competition was for those. But that +is wrong. Ghiberti won his spurs with the doors on the north side, +at which comparatively few persons look. The famous doors opposite +the Duomo were commissioned many years later, when his genius was +acknowledged and when he had become so accomplished as to do what +he liked with his medium. Before, however, coming to Ghiberti, +we ought to look at the work of an early predecessor but for whom +there might have been no Ghiberti at all; for while Ghiberti was at +work with his assistants on these north doors, between 1403 and 1424, +the place which they occupy was filled by those executed seventy years +earlier by Andrea Pisano (1270-1348), possibly from Giotto's designs, +which are now at the south entrance, opposite the charming little +loggia at the corner of the Via Calzaioli, called the Bigallo. These +represent twenty scenes in the life of S. John the Baptist, and below +them are eight figures of cardinal and Christian virtues, and they +employed their sculptor from 1330 to 1336. They have three claims to +notice: as being admirably simple and vigorous in themselves; as having +influenced all later workers in this medium, and particularly Ghiberti +and Donatello; and as being the bronze work of the sculptor of certain +of the stone scenes round the base of Giotto's campanile. The panel +in which the Baptist is seen up to his waist in the water is surely +the very last word in audacity in bronze. Ghiberti was charged with +making bronze do things that it was ill fitted for; but I do not know +that even he moulded water--and transparent water--from it. + +The year 1399 is one of the most notable in the history of modern art, +since it was then that the competition for the Baptistery gates was +made public, this announcement being the spring from which many rivers +flowed. In that year Lorenzo Ghiberti, a young goldsmith assisting +his father, was twenty-one, and Filippo Brunelleschi, another +goldsmith, was twenty-two, while Giotto had been dead sixty-three +years and the impulse he had given to painting had almost worked +itself out. The new doors were to be of the same shape and size as +those by Andrea Pisano, which were already getting on for seventy +years old, and candidates were invited to make a specimen relief to +scale, representing the interrupted sacrifice of Isaac, although +the subject-matter of the doors was to be the Life of S. John the +Baptist. Among the judges was that Florentine banker whose name +was beginning to be known in the city as a synonym for philanthropy, +enlightenment, and sagacity, Giovanni de' Medici. In 1401 the specimens +were ready, and after much deliberation as to which was the better, +Ghiberti's or Brunelleschi's--assisted, some say, by Brunelleschi's +own advice in favour of his rival--the award was given to Ghiberti, +and he was instructed to proceed with his task; while Brunelleschi, +as we have seen, being a man of determined ambition, left for Rome to +study architecture, having made up his mind to be second to no one +in whichever of the arts and crafts he decided to pursue. Here then +was the first result of the competition--that it turned Brunelleschi +to architecture. + +Ghiberti began seriously in 1408 and continued till 1424, when the +doors were finished; but, in order to carry out the work, he required +assistance in casting and so forth, and for that purpose engaged among +others a sculptor named Donatello (born in 1386), a younger sculptor +named Luca della Robbia (born in 1400), and a gigantic young painter +called Masaccio (born in 1401), each of whom was destined, taking +fire no doubt from Ghiberti and his fine free way, to be a powerful +innovator--Donatello (apart from other and rarer achievements) being +the first sculptor since antiquity to place a statue on a pedestal +around which observers could walk; Masaccio being the first painter +to make pictures in the modern use of the term, with men and women +of flesh and blood in them, as distinguished from decorative saints, +and to be by example the instructor of all the greatest masters, +from his pupil Lippo Lippi to Leonardo and Michelangelo; and Luca +della Robbia being the inspired discoverer of an inexpensive means of +glazing terra-cotta so that his beautiful and radiant Madonnas could +be brought within the purchasing means of the poorest congregation in +Italy. These alone are remarkable enough results, but when we recollect +also that Brunelleschi's defeat led to the building of the cathedral +dome, the significance of the event becomes the more extraordinary. + +The doors, as I say, were finished in 1424, after twenty-one years' +labour, and the Signoria left the Palazzo Vecchio in procession to see +their installation. In the number and shape of the panels Pisano set +the standard, but Ghiberti's work resembled that of his predecessor +very little in other ways, for he had a mind of domestic sweetness +without austerity and he was interested in making everything as easy +and fluid and beautiful as might be. His thoroughness recalls Giotto +in certain of his frescoes. The impression left by Pisano's doors is +akin to that left by reading the New Testament; but Ghiberti makes +everything happier than that. Two scenes--both on the level of the +eye--I particularly like: the "Annunciation," with its little, lithe, +reluctant Virgin, and the "Adoration". The border of the Pisano doors +is, I think, finer than that of Ghiberti's; but it is a later work. + +Looking at them even now, with eyes that remember so much of the +best art that followed them and took inspiration from them, we +can understand the better how delighted Florence must have been +with this new picture gallery and how the doors were besieged by +sightseers. But greater still was to come. Ghiberti at once received +the commission to make two more doors on his own scale for the south +side of the Baptistery, and in 1425 he had begun on them. These were +not finished until 1452, so that Ghiberti, then a man of seventy-four, +had given practically his whole life to the making of four bronze +doors. It is true that he did a few other things besides, such as the +casket of S. Zenobius in the Duomo, and the Baptist and S. Matthew +for Or San Michele; but he may be said justly to live by his doors, +and particularly by the second pair, although it was the first pair +that had the greater effect on his contemporaries and followers. + +Among his assistants on these were Antonio Pollaiuolo (born in +1429), who designed the quail in the left border, and Paolo Uccello +(born in 1397), both destined to be men of influence. The bald head +on the right door is a portrait of Ghiberti; that of the old man +on the left is his father, who helped him to polish the original +competition plaque. Although commissioned for the south side they +were placed where they now are, on the east, as being most worthy of +the position of honour, and Pisano's doors, which used to be here, +were moved to the south, where they now are. + +On Ghiberti's workshop opposite S. Maria Nuova, in the Via Bufalini, +the memorial tablet mentions Michelangelo's praise--that these doors +were beautiful enough to be the Gates of Paradise. After that what is +an ordinary person to say? That they are lovely is a commonplace. But +they are more. They are so sensitive; bronze, the medium which Horace +has called, by implication, the most durable of all, has become in +Ghiberti's hands almost as soft as wax and tender as flesh. It does +all he asks; it almost moves; every trace of sternness has vanished +from it. Nothing in plastic art that we have ever seen or shall see +is more easy and ingratiating than these almost living pictures. + +Before them there is steadily a little knot of admirers, and on +Sundays you may always see country people explaining the panels to each +other. Every one has his favourite among these fascinating Biblical +scenes, and mine are Cain and Abel, with the ploughing, and Abraham +and Isaac, with its row of fir trees. It has been explained by the +purists that the sculptor stretched the bounds of plastic art too +far and made bronze paint pictures; but most persons will agree to +ignore that. Of the charm of Ghiberti's mind the border gives further +evidence, with its fruits and foliage, birds and woodland creatures, +so true to life, and here fixed for all time, so naturally, that if +these animals should ever (as is not unlikely in Italy where every +one has a gun and shoots at his pleasure) become extinct, they could +be created again from these designs. + +Ghiberti, who enjoyed great honour in his life and a considerable +salary as joint architect of the dome with Brunelleschi, died three +years after the completion of the second doors and was buried in +S. Croce. His place in Florentine art is unique and glorious. + +The broken porphyry pillars by these second doors were a gift from +Pisa to Florence in recognition of Florence's watchfulness over Pisa +while the Pisans were away subduing the Balearic islanders. + +The bronze group over Ghiberti's first doors, representing John +the Baptist preaching between a Pharisee and a Levite, are the +work (either alone or assisted by his master Leonardo da Vinci) +of an interesting Florentine sculptor, Giovanni Francesco Rustici +(1474-1554), who was remarkable among the artists of his time in +being what we should call an amateur, having a competence of his own +and the manners of a patron. Placing himself under Verrocchio, he +became closely attached to Leonardo, a fellow-pupil, and made him his +model rather than the older man. He took his art lightly, and lived, +in Vasari's phrase, "free from care," having such beguilements as a +tame menagerie (Leonardo, it will be remembered, loved animals too and +had a habit of buying small caged birds in order to set them free), +and two or three dining clubs, the members of which vied with each +other in devising curious and exotic dishes. Andrea del Sarto, for +example, once brought as his contribution to the feast a model of this +very church we are studying, the Baptistery, of which the floor was +constructed of jelly, the pillars of sausages, and the choir desk of +cold veal, while the choristers were roast thrushes. Rustici further +paved the way to a life free from care by appointing a steward of his +estate whose duty it was to see that his money-box, to which he went +whenever he wanted anything, always had money in it. This box he never +locked, having learned that he need fear no robbery by once leaving +his cloak for two days under a bush and then finding it again. "This +world," he exclaimed, "is too good: it will not last." Among his pets +were a porcupine trained to prick the legs of his guests under the +table "so that they drew them in quickly"; a raven that spoke like a +human being; an eagle, and many snakes. He also studied necromancy, +the better to frighten his apprentices. He left Florence in 1528, +after the Medici expulsion, and, like Leonardo, took service with +Francis the First. He died at the age of eighty. + +I had an hour and more exactly opposite the Rustici group, on the same +level, while waiting for the Scoppio del Carro, and I find it easy +to believe that Leonardo himself had a hand in the work. The figure +of the Baptist is superb, the attitude of his listeners masterly. + + + +CHAPTER V + +The Riccardi Palace and the Medici + +An evasion of history--"Il Caparra"--The Gozzoli frescoes--Giovanni +de' Medici (di Bicci)--Cosimo de' Medici--The first banishment--Piero +de' Medici--Lorenzo de' Medici--Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici--The +second banishment--Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici--Leo X--Lorenzo di +Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici--Clement VII--Third banishment of the +Medici--The siege of Florence--Alessandro de' Medici--Ippolito de' +Medici--Lorenzino de' Medici--Giovanni delle Bande Nere--Cosimo I--The +Grand Dukes. + +The natural step from the Baptistery would be to the Uffizi. But for +us not yet; because in order to understand Florence, and particularly +the Florence that existed between the extreme dates that I have chosen +as containing the fascinating period--namely 1296, when the Duomo was +begun, and 1564, when Michelangelo died--one must understand who and +what the Medici were. + +While I have been enjoying the pleasant task of writing this +book--which has been more agreeable than any literary work I have ever +done--I have continually been conscious of a plaintive voice at my +shoulder, proceeding from one of the vigilant and embarrassing imps +who sit there and do duty as conscience, inquiring if the time is not +about ripe for introducing that historical sketch of Florence without +which no account such as this can be rightly understood. And ever I +have replied with words of a soothing and procrastinating nature. But +now that we are face to face with the Medici family, in their very +house, I am conscious that the occasion for that historical sketch +is here indeed, and equally I am conscious of being quite incapable +of supplying it. For the history of Florence between, say the birth +of Giotto or Dante and the return of Cosimo de' Medici from exile, +when the absolute Medici rule began, is so turbulent, crowded, and +complex that it would require the whole of this volume to describe +it. The changes in the government of the city would alone occupy a +good third, so constant and complicated were they. I should have to +explain the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, the Neri and the Bianchi, +the Guilds and the Priors, the gonfalonieri and the podesta, the +secondo popolo and the buonuomini. + +Rather than do this imperfectly I have chosen to do it not at all; +and the curious must resort to historians proper. But there is at +the end of the volume a table of the chief dates in Florentine and +European history in the period chosen, together with births and deaths +of artists and poets and other important persons, so that a bird's-eye +view of the progress of affairs can be quickly gained, while in this +chapter I offer an outline of the great family of rulers of Florence +who made the little city an aesthetic lawgiver to the world and with +whom her later fame, good or ill, is indissolubly united. For the rest, +is there not the library? + +The Medici, once so powerful and stimulating, are still ever in the +background of Florence as one wanders hither and thither. They are +behind many of the best pictures and most of the best statues. Their +escutcheon is everywhere. I ought, I believe, to have made them +the subject of my first chapter. But since I did not, let us without +further delay turn to the Via Cavour, which runs away to the north from +the Baptistery, being a continuation of the Via de' Martelli, and pause +at the massive and dignified palace at the first corner on the left. +For that is the Medici's home; and afterwards we will step into +S. Lorenzo and see the church which Brunelleschi and Donatello made +beautiful and Michelangelo wonderful that the Medici might lie there. + +Visitors go to the Riccardi palace rather to see Gozzoli's frescoes +than anything else; and indeed apart from the noble solid Renaissance +architecture of Michelozzo there is not much else to see. In the +courtyard are certain fragments of antique sculpture arranged against +the walls, and a sarcophagus is shown in which an early member of the +family, Guccio de' Medici, who was gonfalonier in 1299, once reposed. +There too are Donatello's eight medallions, but they are not very +interesting, being only enlarged copies of old medals and cameos and +not notable for his own characteristics. + +Hence it is that, after Gozzoli, by far the most interesting +part of this building is its associations. For here lived Cosimo +de' Medici, whose building of the palace was interrupted by his +banishment as a citizen of dangerous ambition; here lived Piero +de' Medici, for whom Gozzoli worked; here was born and here lived +Lorenzo the Magnificent. To this palace came the Pazzi conspirators +to lure Giuliano to the Duomo and his doom. Here did Charles +VIII--Savonarola's "Flagellum Dei"--lodge and loot, and it was here +that Capponi frightened him with the threat of the Florentine bells; +hither came in 1494 the fickle and terrible Florentine mob, always +passionate in its pursuit of change and excitement, and now inflamed +by the sermons of Savonarola, to destroy the priceless manuscripts +and works of art; here was brought up for a year or so the little +Catherine de' Medici, and next door was the house in which Alessandro +de' Medici was murdered. + +It was in the seventeenth century that the palace passed to the +Riccardi family, who made many additions. A century later Florence +acquired it, and to-day it is the seat of the Prefect of the +city. Cosimo's original building was smaller; but much of it remains +untouched. The exquisite cornice is Michelozzo's original, and the +courtyard has merely lost its statues, among which are Donatello's +Judith, now in the Loggia de' Lanzi, and his bronze David, now in the +Bargello, while Verrocchio's David was probably on the stairs. The +escutcheon on the corner of the house gives us the period of its +erection. The seven plain balls proclaim it Cosimo's. Each of +the Medici sported these palle, although each had also his private +crest. Under Giovanni, Cosimo's father, the balls were eight in number; +under Cosimo, seven; under Piero, seven, with the fleur-de-lis of +France on the uppermost, given him by Louis XI; under Lorenzo, six; +and as one walks about Florence one can approximately fix the date of +a building by remembering these changes. How many times they occur on +the facades of Florence and its vicinity, probably no one could say; +but they are everywhere. The French wits, who were amused to derive +Catherine de' Medici from a family of apothecaries, called them pills. + +The beautiful lantern at the corner was added by Lorenzo and was +the work of an odd ironsmith in Florence for whom he had a great +liking--Niccolo Grosso. For Lorenzo had all that delight in character +which belongs so often to the born patron and usually to the born +connoisseur. This Grosso was a man of humorous independence and +bluntness. He had the admirable custom of carrying out his commissions +in the order in which they arrived, so that if he was at work upon a +set of fire-irons for a poor client, not even Lorenzo himself (who as +a matter of fact often tried) could induce him to turn to something +more lucrative. The rich who cannot wait he forced to wait. Grosso +also always insisted upon something in advance and payment on +delivery, and pleasantly described his workshop as being the Sign +of the Burning Books,--since if his books were burnt how could he +enter a debt? This rule earned for him from Lorenzo the nickname of +"Il Caparra" (earnest money). Another of Grosso's eccentricities was +to refuse to work for Jews. + +Within the palace, up stairs, is the little chapel which Gozzoli made +so gay and fascinating that it is probably the very gem among the +private chapels of the world. Here not only did the Medici perform +their devotions--Lorenzo's corner seat is still shown, and anyone +may sit in it--but their splendour and taste are reflected on the +walls. Cosimo, as we shall see when we reach S. Marco, invited Fra +Angelico to paint upon the walls of that convent sweet and simple +frescoes to the glory of God. Piero employed Fra Angelico's pupil, +Benozzo Gozzoli to decorate this chapel. + +In the year 1439, as chapter II related, through the instrumentality +of Cosimo a great episcopal Council was held at Florence, at which +John Palaeologus, Emperor of the East, met Pope Eugenius IV. In that +year Cosimo's son Piero was twenty-three, and Gozzoli nineteen, +and probably upon both, but certainly on the young artist, such +pomp and splendour and gorgeousness of costume as then were visible +in Florence made a deep impression. When therefore Piero, after +becoming head of the family, decided to decorate the chapel with +a procession of Magi, it is not surprising that the painter should +recall this historic occasion. We thus get the pageantry of the East +with more than common realism, while the portraits, or at any rate +representations, of the Patriarch of Constantinople (the first king) +and the Emperor (the second king) are here, together with those of +certain Medici, for the youthful third king is none other than Piero's +eldest son Lorenzo. Among their followers are (the third on the left) +Cosimo de' Medici, who is included as among the living, although, +like the Patriarch of Constantinople, he was dead, and his brother +Lorenzo (the middle one of the three), whose existence is forgotten +so completely until the accession of Cosimo I, in 1537, brings his +branch of the family into power; while on the right is Piero de' +Medici himself. Piero's second son Giuliano is on the white horse, +preceded by a negro carrying his bow. The head immediately above +Giuliano I do not know, but that one a little to the left above it +is Gozzoli's own. Among the throng are men of learning who either +came to Florence from the East or Florentines who assimilated their +philosophy--such as Georgius Gemisthos, Marsilio Ficino, and perhaps +certain painters among them, all proteges of Cosimo and Piero, and +all makers of the Renaissance. + +The assemblage alone, apart altogether from any beauty and charm +that the painting possesses, makes these frescoes valuable. But the +painting is a delight. We have a pretty Gozzoli in our National +Gallery--No. 283--but it gives no indication of the ripeness and +richness and incident of this work; while the famous Biblical +series in the Campo Santo of Pisa has so largely perished as to be +scarcely evidence to his colour. The first impression made by the +Medici frescoes is their sumptuousness. When Gozzoli painted--if the +story be true--he had only candle light: the window over the altar +is new. But think of candle light being all the illumination of these +walls as the painter worked! A new door and window have also been cut +in the wall opposite the altar close to the three daughters of Piero, +by vandal hands; and "Bruta, bruta!" says the guardian, very rightly. + +The landscape behind the procession is hardly less interesting than the +procession itself; but it is when we come to the meadows of paradise, +with the angels and roses, the cypresses and birds, in the two chancel +scenes, that this side of Gozzoli's art is most fascinating. He has +travelled a long way from his master Fra Angelico here: the heaven +is of the visible rather than the invisible eye; sense is present +as well as the rapturous spirit. The little Medici who endured the +tedium of the services here are to be felicitated with upon such an +adorable presentment of glory. With plenty of altar candles the sight +of these gardens of the blest must have beguiled many a mass. Thinking +here in England upon the Medici chapel, I find that the impression +it has left upon me is chiefly cypresses--cypresses black and comely, +disposed by a master hand, with a glint of gold among them. + +The picture that was over the altar has gone. It was a Lippo Lippi +and is now in Berlin. + +The first of the Medici family to rise to the highest power was +Giovanni d'Averardo de' Medici (known as Giovanni di Bicci), 1360-1429, +who, a wealthy banker living in what is now the Piazza del Duomo, +was well known for his philanthropy and interest in the welfare of +the Florentines, but does not come much into public notice until +1401, when he was appointed one of the judges in the Baptistery door +competition. He was a retiring, watchful man. Whether he was personally +ambitious is not too evident, but he was opposed to tyranny and was the +steady foe of the Albizzi faction, who at that time were endeavouring +to obtain supreme power in Florentine affairs. In 1419 Giovanni +increased his popularity by founding the Spedale degli Innocenti, +and in 1421 he was elected gonfalonier, or, as we might now say, +President of the Republic. In this capacity he made his position +secure and reduced the nobles (chief of whom was Niccolo da Uzzano) +to political weakness. Giovanni died in 1429, leaving one son, Cosimo, +aged forty, a second, Lorenzo, aged thirtyfour, a fragrant memory +and an immense fortune. + +To Lorenzo, who remained a private citizen, we shall return in time; +it is Cosimo (1389-1464) with whom we are now concerned. Cosimo de' +Medici was a man of great mental and practical ability: he had been +educated as well as possible; he had a passion both for art and +letters; he inherited his father's financial ability and generosity, +while he added to these gifts a certain genius for the management +of men. One of the first things that Cosimo did after his father's +death was to begin the palace where we now are, rejecting a plan by +Brunelleschi as too splendid, and choosing instead one by Michelozzo, +the partner of Donatello, two artists who remained his personal +friends through life. Cosimo selected this site, in what was then +the Via Larga but is now the Via Cavour, partly because his father +had once lived there, and partly because it was close to S. Lorenzo, +which his father, with six other families, had begun to rebuild, +a work he intended himself to carry on. + +The palace was begun in 1430 abd was still in progress in 1433 when +the Albizzi, who had always viewed the rise of the Medici family +with apprehension and misgiving, and were now strengthened by the +death of Niccolo da Uzzano, who, though powerful, had been a very +cautious and temperate adviser, succeeded in getting a majority +in the Signoria and passing a sentence of banishment on the whole +Medici tribe as being too rich and ambitious to be good citizens of +a simple and frugal Republic. Cosimo therefore, after some days of +imprisonment in the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, during which he +expected execution at any moment, left Florence for Venice, taking +his architect with him. In 1434, however, the Florentines, realizing +that under the Albizzi they were losing their independence, and what +was to be a democracy was become an oligarchy, revolted, and Cosimo +was recalled, and, like his father, was elected gonfalonier. With this +recall began his long supremacy; for he returned like a king and like +a king remained, quickly establishing himself as the leading man in +the city, the power behind the Signoria. Not only did he never lose +that position, but he made it so naturally his own that when he died +he was able to transmit it to his son. + +Cosimo de' Medici was, I think, the wisest and best ruler that Florence +ever had and ranks high among the rulers that any state ever had. But +he changed the Florentines from an independent people to a dependent +one. In his capacity of Father of his Country he saw to it that his +children lost their proud spirit. He had to be absolute; and this +end he achieved in many ways, but chiefly by his wealth, which made +it possible to break the rich rebel and to enslave the poor. His +greatest asset--next his wealth--was his knowledge of the Florentine +character. To know anything of this capricious, fickle, turbulent +folk even after the event was in itself a task of such magnitude that +almost no one else had compassed it; but Cosimo did more, he knew what +they were likely to do. By this knowledge, together with his riches, +his craft, his tact, his business ramifications as an international +banker, his open-handedness and air of personal simplicity, Cosimo +made himself a power. For Florence could he not +do enough. By inviting the Pope and the Greek Emperor to meet there +he gave it great political importance, and incidentally brought +about the New Learning. He established the Platonic Academy and +formed the first public library in the west. He rebuilt and endowed +the monastery of S. Marco. He built and rebuilt other churches. He +gave Donatello a free hand in sculpture and Fra Lippo Lippi and Fra +Angelico in painting. He distributed altogether in charity and churches +four hundred thousand of those golden coins which were invented by +Florence and named florins after her--a sum equal to a million pounds +of to-day. In every direction one comes upon traces of his generosity +and thoroughness. After his death it was decided that as Pater Patriae, +or Father of his Country, he should be for ever known. + +Cosimo died in 1464, leaving an invalid son, Piero, aged forty-eight, +known for his almost continuous gout as Il Gottoso. Giovanni and Cosimo +had had to work for their power; Piero stepped naturally into it, +although almost immediately he had to deal with a plot--the first for +thirty years--to ruin the Medici prestige, the leader of which was that +Luca Pitti who began the Pitti palace in order to have a better house +than the Medici. The plot failed, not a little owing to young Lorenzo +de' Medici's address, and the remaining few years of Piero's life were +tranquil. He was a quiet, kindly man with the traditional family love +of the arts, and it was for him that Gozzoli worked. He died in 1469, +leaving two sons, Lorenzo (1449-1492) and Giuliano (1453-1478). + +Lorenzo had been brought up as the future leading citizen of Florence: +he had every advantage of education and environment, and was rich in +the aristocratic spirit which often blossoms most richly in the second +or third generation of wealthy business families. Giovanni had been +a banker before everything, Cosimo an administrator, Piero a faithful +inheritor of his father's wishes; it was left for Lorenzo to be the +first poet and natural prince of the Medici blood. Lorenzo continued +to bank but mismanaged the work and lost heavily; while his poetical +tendencies no doubt distracted his attention generally from affairs. +Yet such was his sympathetic understanding and his native splendour and +gift of leadership that he could not but be at the head of everything, +the first to be consulted and ingratiated. Not only was he the first +Medici poet but the first of the family to marry not for love but +for policy, and that too was a sign of decadence. + +Lorenzo came into power when only twenty, and at the age of forty-two +he was dead, but in the interval, by his interest in every kind of +intellectual and artistic activity, by his passion for the greatness +and glory of Florence, he made for himself a name that must always +connote liberality, splendour, and enlightenment. But it is beyond +question that under Lorenzo the Florentines changed deeply and for +the worse. The old thrift and simplicity gave way to extravagance and +ostentation; the old faith gave way too, but that was not wholly the +effect of Lorenzo's natural inclination towards Platonic philosophy, +fostered by his tutor Marsilio Ficino and his friends Poliziano and +Pico della Mirandola, but was due in no small measure also to the +hostility of Pope Sixtus, which culminated in the Pazzi Conspiracy of +1478 and the murder of Giuliano. Looking at the history of Florence +from our present vantage-point we can see that although under +Lorenzo the Magnificent she was the centre of the world's culture +and distinction, there was behind this dazzling front no seriousness +of purpose. She was in short enjoying the fruits of her labours as +though the time of rest had come; and this when strenuousness was more +than ever important. Lorenzo carried on every good work of his father +and grandfather (he spent L65,000 a year in books alone) and was as +jealous of Florentine interests; but he was also "The Magnificent," +and in that lay the peril. Florence could do with wealth and power, +but magnificence went to her head. + +Lorenzo died in 1492, leaving three sons, of whom the eldest, Piero +(1471-1503), succeeded him. Never was such a decadence. In a moment +the Medici prestige, which had been steadily growing under Cosimo, +Piero, and Lorenzo until it was world famous, crumbled to dust. Piero +was a coarse-minded, pleasure-loving youth--"The Headstrong" his +father had called him--whose one idea of power was to be sensual and +tyrannical; and the enemies of Florence and of Italy took advantage +of this fact. Savonarola's sermons had paved the way from within +too. In 1494 Charles VIII of France marched into Italy; Piero pulled +himself together and visited the king to make terms for Florence, +but made such terms that on returning to the city he found an order +of banishment and obeyed it. On November 9th, 1494, he and his family +were expelled, and the mob, forgetting so quickly all that they owed +to the Medici who had gone before, rushed to this beautiful palace and +looted it. The losses that art and learning sustained in a few hours +can never be estimated. A certain number of treasures were subsequently +collected again, such as Donatello's David and Verrocchio's David, +while Donatello's Judith was removed to the Palazzo Vecchio, where +an inscription was placed upon it saying that her short way with +Holofernes was a warning to all traitors; but priceless pictures, +sculpture, and MSS. were ruthlessly demolished. + +In the chapter on S. Marco we shall read of what experiments in +government the Florentines substituted for that of the Medici, +Savonarola for a while being at the head of the government, although +only for a brief period which ended amid an orgy of lawlessness; and +then, after a restless period of eighteen years, in which Florence +had every claw cut and was weakened also by dissension, the Medici +returned--the change being the work of Lorenzo's second son, Giovanni +de' Medici, who on the eve of becoming Pope Leo X procured their +reinstatement, thus justifying the wisdom of his father in placing +him in the Church. Piero having been drowned long since, his admirable +but ill-starred brother Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, now thirty-three, +assumed the control, always under Leo X; while their cousin, Giulio, +also a Churchman, and the natural son of the murdered Giuliano, +was busy, behind the scenes, with the family fortunes. + +Giuliano lived only till 1516 and was succeeded by his nephew +Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, a son of Peiro, a young man of no more +political use than his father, and one who quickly became almost +equally unpopular. Things indeed were going so badly that Leo X sent +Giulio de' Medici (now a cardinal) from Rome to straighten them out, +and by some sensible repeals he succeeded in allaying a little of +the bitterness in the city. Lorenzo had one daughter, born in this +palace, who was destined to make history--Catherine de' Medici--and +no son. When therefore he died in 1519, at the age of twenty-seven, +after a life of vicious selfishness (which, however, was no bar +to his having the noblest tomb in the world, at S. Lorenzo), the +succession should have passed to the other branch of the Medici +family, the descendants of old Giovanni's second son Lorenzo, +brother of Cosimo. But Giulio, at Rome, always at the ear of the +indolent, pleasure-loving Leo X, had other projects. Born in 1478, +the illegitimate son of a charming father, Giulio had none of the +great Medici traditions, and the Medici name never stood so low as +during his period of power. Himself illegitimate, he was the father +of an illegitimate son, Alessandro, for whose advancement he toiled +much as Alexander VI had toiled for that of Caesar Borgia. He had not +the black, bold wickedness of Alexander VI, but as Pope Clement VII, +which he became in 1523, he was little less admirable. He was cunning, +ambitious, and tyrannical, and during his pontificate he contrived not +only to make many powerful enemies and to see both Rome and Florence +under siege, but to lose England for the Church. + +We move, however, too fast. The year is 1519 and Lorenzo is dead, +and the rightful heir to the Medici wealth and power was to be +kept out. To do this Giulio himself moved to Florence and settled +in the Medici palace, and on his return to Rome Cardinal Passerini +was installed in the Medici palace in his stead, nominally as the +custodian of little Catherine de' Medici and Ippolito, a boy of ten, +the illegitimate son of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours. That Florence +should have put up with this Roman control shows us how enfeebled +was her once proud spirit. In 1521 Leo X died, to be succeeded, in +spite of all Giulio's efforts, by Adrian of Utrecht, as Adrian VI, +a good, sincere man who, had he lived, might have enormously changed +the course not only of Italian but of English history. He survived, +however, for less than two years, and then came Giulio's chance, +and he was elected Pope Clement VII. + +Clement's first duty was to make Florence secure, and he therefore +sent his son Alessandro, then about thirteen, to join the others +at the Medici palace, which thus now contained a resident cardinal, +watchful of Medici interests; a legitimate daughter of Lorenzo, Duke +of Urbino (but owing to quarrels she was removed to a convent); an +illegitimate son of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, the nominal heir and +already a member of the Government; and the Pope's illegitimate son, +of whose origin, however, nothing was said, although it was implied +that Lorenzo, Duke of Nemours, was his father. + +This was the state of affairs during Clement's war with the Emperor +Charles V, [2] which ended with the siege of Rome and the imprisonment +of the Pope in the Castle of S. Angelo for some months until he +contrived to escape to Orvieto; and meanwhile Florence, realizing his +powerlessness, uttered a decree again banishing the Medici family, and +in 1527 they were sent forth from the city for the third time. But even +now, when the move was so safe, Florence lacked courage to carry it +out until a member of the Medici family, furious at the presence of the +base-born Medici in the palace, and a professed hater of her base-born +uncle Clement VII and all his ways--Clarice Strozzi, nee Clarice de' +Medici, granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent--came herself to this +house and drove the usurpers from it with her extremely capable tongue. + +To explain clearly the position of the Florentine Republic at this +time would be too deeply to delve into history, but it may briefly be +said that by means of humiliating surrenders and much crafty diplomacy, +Clement VII was able to bring about in 1529 peace between the Emperor +Charles V and Francis I of France, by which Charles was left master +of Italy, while his partner and ally in these transactions, Clement, +expected for his own share certain benefits in which the humiliation +of Florence and the exaltation of Alessandro came first. Florence, +having taken sides with Francis, found herself in any case very badly +left, with the result that at the end of 1529 Charles V's army, with +the papal forces to assist, laid siege to her. The siege lasted for +ten months, in which the city was most ably defended by Ferrucci, +that gallant soldier whose portrait by Piero di Cosimo is in our +National Gallery--No. 895--and then came a decisive battle in which +the Emperor and Pope were conquerors, a thousand brave Florentines +were put to death and others were imprisoned. + +Alessandro de' Medici arrived at the Medici palace in 1531, and +in 1532 the glorious Florentine Republic of so many years' growth, +for the establishment of which so much good blood had been spilt, was +declared to be at an end. Alessandro being proclaimed Duke, his first +act was to order the demolition of the great bell of the Signoria which +had so often called the citizens to arms or meetings of independence. + +Meanwhile Ippolito, the natural son of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and +therefore the rightful heir, after having been sent on various missions +by Clement VII, to keep him out of the way, settled at Bologna and took +to poetry. He was a kindly, melancholy man with a deep sense of human +injustice; and in 1535, when, after Clement VII's very welcome demise, +the Florentine exiles who either had been banished from Florence by +Alessandro or had left of their own volition rather than live in the +city under such a contemptible ruler, sent an embassy to the Emperor +Charles V to help them against this new tyrant, Ippolito headed it; +but Alessandro prudently arranged for his assassination en route. + +It is unlikely, however, that the Emperor would have done anything, +for in the following year he allowed his daughter Margaret to become +Alessandro's wife. That was in 1536. In January, 1537, Lorenzino de' +Medici, a cousin, one of the younger branch of the family, assuming +the mantle of Brutus, or liberator, stabbed Alessandro to death while +he was keeping an assignation in the house that then adjoined this +palace. Thus died, at the age of twenty-six, one of the most worthless +of men, and, although illegitimate, the last of the direct line of +Cosimo de' Medici, the Father of his Country, to govern Florence. + +The next ruler came from the younger branch, to which we now turn. Old +Giovanni di Bicci had two sons, Cosimo and Lorenzo. Lorenzo's son, Pier +Francesco de' Medici, had a son Giovanni de' Medici. This Giovanni, +who married Caterina Sforza of Milan, had also a son named Giovanni, +born in 1498, and it was he who was the rightful heir when Lorenzo, +Duke of Urbino, died in 1519. He was connected with both sides of +the family, for his father, as I have said, was the great grandson +of the first Medici on our list, and his wife was Maria Salviati, +daughter of Lucrezia de' Medici--herself a daughter of Lorenzo the +Magnificent--and Jacopo Salviati, a wealthy Florentine. When, however, +Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, died in 1519, Giovanni was a young man of +twenty-one with an absorbing passion for fighting, which Clement VII +(then Giulio) was only too keen to foster, since he wished him out of +the way in order that his own projects for the ultimate advancement +of the base-born Alessandro, and meanwhile of the catspaw, the +base-born Ippolito, might be furthered. Giovanni had already done +some good service in the field, was becoming famous as the head of +his company of Black Bands, and was known as Giovanni delle Bande +Nere; and his marriage to his cousin Maria Salviati and the birth +of his only son Cosimo in 1519 made no difference to his delight +in warfare. He was happy only when in the field of battle, and the +struggle between Francis and Charles gave him ample opportunities, +fighting on the side of Charles and the Pope and doing many brave and +dashing things. He died at an early age, only twenty-eight, in 1526, +the idol of his men, leaving a widow and child in poverty. + +Almost immediately afterwards came the third banishment of the Medici +family from Florence. Giovanni's widow and their son Cosimo got +along as best they could until the murder of Alessandro in 1537, +when Cosimo was nearly eighteen. He was a quiet, reserved youth, +who had apparently taken but little interest in public affairs, and +had spent his time in the country with his mother, chiefly in field +sports. But no sooner was Alessandro dead, and his slayer Lorenzino +had escaped, than Cosimo approached the Florentine council and claimed +to be appointed to his rightful place as head of the State, and this +claim he put, or suggested, with so much humility that his wish was +granted. Instantly one of the most remarkable transitions in history +occurred: the youth grew up almost in a day and at once began to exert +unsuspected reserves of power and authority. In despair a number of +the chief Florentines made an effort to depose him, and a battle was +fought at Montemurlo, a few miles from Florence, between Cosimo's +troops, fortified by some French allies, and the insurgents. That +was in 1537; the victory fell to Cosimo; and his long and remarkable +reign began with the imprisonment and execution of the chief rebels. + +Although Cosimo made so bloody a beginning he was the first imaginative +and thoughtful administrator that Florence had had since Lorenzo the +Magnificent. He set himself grimly to build upon the ruins which the +past forty and more years had produced; and by the end of his reign he +had worked wonders. As first he lived in the Medici palace, but after +marrying a wealthy wife, Eleanora of Toledo, he transferred his home +to the Signoria, now called the Palazzo Vecchio, as a safer spot, and +established a bodyguard of Swiss lancers in Orcagna's loggia, close +by. [3] Later he bought the unfinished Pitti palace with his wife's +money, finished it, and moved there. Meanwhile he was strengthening +his position in every way by alliances and treaties, and also by the +convenient murder of Lorenzino, the Brutus who had rid Florence of +Alessandro ten years earlier, and whose presence in the flesh could +not but be a cause of anxiety since Lorenzino derived from an elder +son of the Medici, and Cosimo from a younger. In 1555 the ancient +republic of Siena fell to Cosimo's troops after a cruel and barbarous +siege and was thereafter merged in Tuscany, and in 1570 Cosimo assumed +the title of Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and was crowned at Rome. + +Whether or not the common accusation against the Medici as a +family, that they had but one motive--mercenary ambition and +self-aggrandisement--is true, the fact remains that the crown did +not reach their brows until one hundred and seventy years from the +first appearance of old Giovanni di Bicci in Florentine affairs. The +statue of Cosimo I in the Piazza della Signoria has a bas-relief of +his coronation. He was then fifty-one; he lived but four more years, +and when he died he left a dukedom flourishing in every way: rich, +powerful, busy, and enlightened. He had developed and encouraged +the arts, capriciously, as Cellini's "Autobiography" tells us, but +genuinely too, as we can see at the Uffizi and the Pitti. The arts, +however, were not what they had been, for the great period had passed +and Florence was in the trough of the wave. Yet Cosimo found the best +men he could--Cellini, Bronzino, and Vasari--and kept them busy. But +his greatest achievement as a connoisseur was his interest in Etruscan +remains and the excavations at Arezzo and elsewhere which yielded +the priceless relics now at the Archaeological Museum. + +With Cosimo I this swift review of the Medici family ends. The +rest have little interest for the visitor to Florence to-day, +for whom Cellini's Perseus, made to Cosimo I's order, is the last +great artistic achievement in the city in point of time. But I may +say that Cosimo I's direct descendants occupied the throne (as it +had now become) until the death of Gian Gastone, son of Cosimo III, +who died in 1737. Tuscany passed to Austria until 1801. In 1807 it +became French, and in 1814 Austrian again. In 1860 it was merged in +the Kingdom of Italy under the rule of the monarch who has given his +name to the great new Piazza--Vittorio Emmanuele. + +After Gian Gastone's death one other Medici remained alive: Anna +Maria Ludovica, daughter of Cosimo III. Born in 1667, she married +the Elector Palatine of the Rhine, and survived until 1743. It was +she who left to the city the priceless Medici collections, as I have +stated in chapter VIII. The earlier and greatest of the Medici are +buried in the church of S. Lorenzo or in Michelangelo's sacristy; the +later Medici, beginning with Giovanni delle Bande Nere and his wife, +and their son Cosimo I, are in the gorgeous mausoleum that adjoins +S. Lorenzo and is still being enriched with precious marbles. + +Such is an outline of the history of this wonderful family, and we +leave their ancient home, built by the greatest and wisest of them, +with mixed feelings of admiration and pity. They were seldom lovable; +they were often despicable; but where they were great they were +very great indeed. A Latin inscription in the courtyard reminds the +traveller of the distinction which the house possesses, calling it +the home not only of princes but of knowledge herself and a treasury +of the arts. But Florence, although it bought the palace from the +Riccardi family a century and more ago, has never cared to give it +back its rightful name. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +S. Lorenzo and Michelangelo + +A forlorn facade--The church of the Medici--Cosimo's +parents' tomb--Donatello's cantoria and pulpits--Brunelleschi's +sacristy--Donatello again--The palace of the dead Grand Dukes--Costly +intarsia--Michelangelo's sacristy--A weary Titan's life--The victim +of capricious pontiffs--The Medici tombs--Mementi mori--The Casa +Buonarroti--Brunelleschi's cloisters--A model library. + +Architecturally S. Lorenzo does not attract as S. Croce and S. Maria +Novella do; but certain treasures of sculpture make it unique. Yet it +is a cool scene of noble grey arches, and the ceiling is very happily +picked out with gold and colour. Savonarola preached some of his most +important sermons here; here Lorenzo the Magnificent was married. + +The facade has never yet been finished: it is just ragged brickwork +waiting for its marble, and likely to wait, although such expenditure +on marble is going on within a few yards of it as makes one gasp. Not +very far away, in the Via Ghibellina, is a house which contains some +rough plans by a master hand for this facade, drawn some four hundred +years ago--the hand of none other than Michelangelo, whose scheme +was to make it not only a wonder of architecture but a wonder also +of statuary, the facade having many niches, each to be filled with +a sacred figure. But Michelangelo always dreamed on a scale utterly +disproportionate to the foolish little span of life allotted to us +and the S. Lorenzo facade was never even begun. + +The piazza which these untidy bricks overlook is now given up to stalls +and is the centre of the cheap clothing district. Looking diagonally +across it from the church one sees the great walls of the courtyard +of what is now the Riccardi palace, but was in the great days the +Medici palace; and at the corner, facing the Borgo S. Lorenzo, is +Giovanni delle Bande Nere, in stone, by the impossible Bandinelli, +looking at least twenty years older than he ever lived to be. + +S. Lorenzo was a very old church in the time of Giovanni de' Medici, +the first great man of the family, and had already been restored +once, in the eleventh century, but it was his favourite church, +chosen by him for his own resting-place, and he spent great sums +in improving it. All this with the assistance of Brunelleschi, who +is responsible for the interior as we now see it, and would, had he +lived, have completed the facade. After Giovanni came Cosimo, who also +devoted great sums to the glory of this church, not only assisting +Brunelleschi with his work but inducing Donatello to lavish his genius +upon it; and the church was thus established as the family vault of +the Medici race. Giovanni lies here; Cosimo lies here; and Piero; +while Lorenzo the Magnificent and Giuliano and certain descendants +were buried in the Michelangelo sacristy, and all the Grand Dukes in +the ostentatious chapel behind the altar. + +Cosimo is buried beneath the floor in front of the high altar, +in obedience to his wish, and by the special permission of the +Roman Church; and in the same vault lies Donatello. Cosimo, who +was buried with all simplicity on August 22nd, 1464, in his last +illness recommended Donatello, who was then seventy-eight, to his son +Piero. The old sculptor survived his illustrious patron and friend +only two and a half years, declining gently into the grave, and his +body was brought here in December, 1466. A monument to his memory +was erected in the church in 1896. Piero (the Gouty), who survived +until 1469, lies close by, his bronze monument, with that of his +brother, being that between the sacristy and the adjoining chapel, +in an imposing porphyry and bronze casket, the work of Verrocchio, one +of the richest and most impressive of all the memorial sculptures of +the Renaissance. The marble pediment is supported by four tortoises, +such as support the monoliths in the Piazza S. Maria Novella. The +iron rope work that divides the sacristy from the chapel is a marvel +of workmanship. + +But we go too fast: the church before the sacristy, and the glories of +the church are Donatello's. We have seen his cantoria in the Museum of +the Cathedral. Here is another, not so riotous and jocund in spirit, +but in its own way hardly less satisfying. The Museum cantoria has +the wonderful frieze of dancing figures; this is an exercise in +marble intarsia. It has the same row of pillars with little specks +of mosaic gold; but its beauty is that of delicate proportions and +soft tones. The cantoria is in the left aisle, in its original place; +the two bronze pulpits are in the nave. These have a double interest +as being not only Donatello's work but his latest work. They were +incomplete at his death, and were finished by his pupil Bertoldo +(1410-1491), and since, as we shall see, Bertoldo became the master of +Michelangelo, when he was a lad of fifteen and Bertoldo an old man of +eighty, these pulpits may be said to form a link between the two great +S. Lorenzo sculptors. How fine and free and spirited Bertoldo could +be, alone, we shall see at the Bargello. The S. Lorenzo pulpits are +very difficult to study: nothing wants a stronger light than a bronze +relief, and in Florence students of bronze reliefs are accustomed +to it, since the most famous of all--the Ghiberti doors--are in the +open air. Only in course of time can one discern the scenes here. The +left pulpit is the finer, for it contains the "Crucifixion" and the +"Deposition," which to me form the most striking of the panels. + +The other piece of sculpture in the church itself is a ciborium +by Desiderio da Settignano, in the chapel at the end of the +right transept--an exquisite work by this rare and playful and +distinguished hand. It is fitting that Desiderio should be here, for +he was Donatello's favourite pupil. The S. Lorenzo ciborium is wholly +charming, although there is a "Deposition" upon it; the little Boy is +adorable; but one sees it with the greatest difficulty owing to the +crowded state of the altar and the dim light. The altar picture in +the Martelli chapel, where the sympathetic Donatello monument (in the +same medium as his "Annunciation" at S. Croce) is found--on the way to +the Library--is by Lippo Lippi, and is notable for the pretty Virgin +receiving the angel's news. There is nice colour in the predella. + +As I have said in the first chapter, we are too prone to ignore the +architect. We look at the jewels and forget the casket. Brunelleschi is +a far greater maker of Florence than either Donatello or Michelangelo; +but one thinks of him rather as an abstraction than a man or forgets +him altogether. Yet the S. Lorenzo sacristy is one of the few perfect +things in the world. What most people, however, remember is its tombs, +its doors, and its reliefs; the proportions escape them. I think its +shallow easy dome beyond description beautiful. Brunelleschi, who had +an investigating genius, himself painted the quaint constellations in +the ceiling over the altar. At the Pazzi chapel we shall find similar +architecture; but there extraneous colour was allowed to come in. Here +such reliefs as were admitted are white too. + +The tomb under the great marble and porphyry table in the centre is +that of Giovanni di Bicci, the father, and Piccarda, the mother, of +Cosimo Pater, and is usually attributed to Buggiano, the adopted son +of Brunelleschi, but other authorities give it either to Donatello +alone or to Donatello with Michelozzo: both from the evidence of +the design and because it is unlikely that Cosimo would ask any one +else than one of these two friends of his to carry out a commission +so near his heart. The table is part of the scheme and not a chance +covering. I think the porphyry centre ought to be movable, so that +the beautiful flying figures on the sarcophagus could be seen. But +Donatello's most striking achievement here is the bronze doors, which +are at once so simple and so strong and so surprising by the activity +of the virile and spirited holy men, all converting each other, thereon +depicted. These doors could not well be more different from Ghiberti's, +in the casting of which Donatello assisted; those in such high relief, +these so low; those so fluid and placid, and these so vigorous. + +Donatello presides over this room (under Brunelleschi). The vivacious, +speaking terra-cotta bust of the young S. Lorenzo on the altar is +his; the altar railing is probably his; the frieze of terra-cotta +cherubs may be his; the four low reliefs in the spandrels, which it +is so difficult to discern but which photographs prove to be wonderful +scenes in the life of S. John the Evangelist--so like, as one peers up +at them, plastic Piranesis, with their fine masonry--are his. The other +reliefs are Donatello's too; but the lavabo in the inner sacristy is +Verrocchio's, and Verrocchio's tomb of Piero can never be overlooked +even amid such a wealth of the greater master's work. + +From this fascinating room--fascinating both in itself and in its +possessions--we pass, after distributing the necessary largesse to +the sacristan, to a turnstile which admits, on payment of a lira, +to the Chapel of the Princes and to Michelangelo's sacristy. Here is +contrast, indeed: the sacristy, austere and classic, and the chapel +a very exhibition building of floridity and coloured ornateness, +dating from the seventeenth century and not finished yet. In paying +the necessary fee to see these buildings one thinks again what the +feelings of Giovanni and Cosimo and Lorenzo the Magnificent, and +even of Cosimo I, all such generous patrons of Florence, would be, +if they could see the present feverish collection of lire in their +beautiful city. + +Of the Chapel of the Princes I have little to say. To pass from +Michelangelo's sacristy to this is an error; see it, if see it you +must, first. While the facade of S. Lorenzo is still neglected and the +cornice of Brunelleschi's dome is still unfinished, this lapidary's +show-room is being completed at a cost of millions of lire. Ever since +1888 has the floor been in progress, and there are many years' work +yet. An enthusiastic custodian gave me a list of the stones which were +used in the designs of the coats of arms of Tuscan cities, of which +that of Fiesole is the most attractive:--Sicily jasper, French jasper, +Tuscany jasper, petrified wood, white and yellow, Corsican granite, +Corsican jasper, Oriental alabaster, French marble, lapis lazuli, +verde antico, African marble, Siena marble, Carrara marble, rose agate, +mother of pearl, and coral. 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. Only two of the Grand +Dukes have their statues--Ferdinand I and Cosimo II--and the Medici +no longer exist in the Florentine memory; and yet the quiet brick +floor is having all this money squandered on it to superimpose costly +marbles which cannot matter to anybody. + +Michelangelo's chapel, called the New Sacristy, was begun for Leo X +and finished for Giulio de' Medici, illegitimate son of the murdered +Giuliano and afterwards Pope Clement VII. Brunelleschi's design +for the Old Sacristy was followed but made more severe. This, one +would feel to be the very home of dead princes even if there were no +statues. The only colours are the white of the walls and the brown +of the pillars and windows; the dome was to have been painted, but +it fortunately escaped. + +The contrast between Michelangelo's dome and Brunelleschi's is +complete--Brunelleschi's so suave and gentle in its rise, with its +grey lines to help the eye, and this soaring so boldly to its lantern, +with its rigid device of dwindling squares. The odd thing is that +with these two domes to teach him better the designer of the Chapel +of the Princes should have indulged in such floridity. + +Such is the force of the architecture in the sacristy that one is +profoundly conscious of being in melancholy's most perfect home; +and the building is so much a part of Michelangelo's life and it +contains such marvels from his hand that I choose it as a place +to tell his story. Michelangelo Buonarroti was born on March 6th, +1475, at Caprese, of which town his father was Podesta. At that time +Brunelleschi had been dead twenty-nine years, Fra Angelico twenty +years, Donatello nine years, Leonardo da Vinci was twenty-three years +old, and Raphael was not yet born. Lorenzo the Magnificent had been +on what was virtually the throne of Florence since 1469 and was a +young man of twenty-six. For foster-mother the child had the wife +of a stone-mason at Settignano, whither the family soon moved, and +Michelangelo used to say that it was with her milk that he imbibed +the stone-cutting art. It was from the air too, for Settignano's +principal industry was sculpture. The village being only three miles +from Florence, from it the boy could see the city very much as we see +it now--its Duomo, its campanile, with the same attendant spires. He +was sent to Florence to school and intended for either the wool or silk +trade, as so many Florentines were; but displaying artistic ability, +he induced his father to apprentice him, at the age of thirteen, to +a famous goldsmith and painter of Florence who had a busy atelier--no +other than Domenico Ghirlandaio, who was then a man of thirty-nine. + +Michelangelo remained with him for three years, and although his +power and imagination were already greater than his master's, he +learned much, and would never have made his Sixtine Chapel frescoes +with the ease he did but for this early grounding. For Ghirlandaio, +although not of the first rank of painters in genius, was pre-eminently +there in thoroughness, while he was good for the boy too in spirit, +having a large way with him. The first work of Ghirlandaio which +the boy saw in the making was the beautiful "Adoration of the Magi," +in the Church of the Spedale degli Innocenti, completed in 1488, and +the S. Maria Novella frescoes, and it is reasonable to suppose that +he helped with the frescoes in colour grinding, even if he did not, +as some have said, paint with his own hand the beggar sitting on the +steps in the scene representing the "Presentation of the Virgin". That +he was already clever with his pencil, we know, for he had made some +caricatures and corrected a drawing or two. + +The three years with Ghirlandaio were reduced eventually to one, the +boy having the good fortune to be chosen as one of enough promise to be +worth instruction, both by precept and example, in the famous Medici +garden. Here he was more at home than in a painting room, for plastic +art was his passion, and not only had Lorenzo the Magnificent gathered +together there many of those masterpieces of ancient sculpture which we +shall see at the Uffizi, but Bertoldo, the aged head of this informal +school, was the possessor of a private collection of Donatellos and +other Renaissance work of extraordinary beauty and worth. Donatello's +influence on the boy held long enough for him to make the low relief +of the Madonna, much in his style, which is now preserved in the +Casa Buonarroti, while the plaque of the battle of the Centaurs and +Lapithae which is also there shows Bertoldo's influence. + +The boy's first encounter with Lorenzo occurred while he was modelling +the head of an aged faun. His magnificent patron stopped to watch him, +pointing out that so old a creature would probably not have such a +fine set of teeth, and Michelangelo, taking the hint, in a moment had +not only knocked out a tooth or two but--and here his observation +told--hollowed the gums and cheeks a little in sympathy. Lorenzo +was so pleased with his quickness and skill that he received him +into his house as the companion of his three sons: of Piero, who +was so soon and so disastrously to succeed his father, but was now a +high-spirited youth; of Giovanni, who, as Pope Leo X many years after, +was to give Michelangelo the commission for this very sacristy; and +of Giuliano, who lies beneath one of the tombs. As their companion +he enjoyed the advantage of sharing their lessons under Poliziano, +the poet, and of hearing the conversation of Pico della Mirandola, +who was usually with Lorenzo; and to these early fastidious and +intellectual surroundings the artist owed much. + +That he read much, we know, the Bible and Dante being constant +companions; and we know also that in addition to modelling and copying +under Bertoldo, he was assiduous in studying Masaccio's frescoes at +the church of the Carmine across the river, which had become a school +of painting. It was there that his fellow-pupil, Pietro Torrigiano, +who was always his enemy and a bully, broke his nose with one blow +and flew to Rome from the rage of Lorenzo. + +It was when Michelangelo was seventeen that Lorenzo died, at the early +age of forty-two, and although the garden still existed and the Medici +palace was still open to the youth, the spirit had passed. Piero, who +succeeded his father, had none of his ability or sagacity, and in two +years was a refugee from the city, while the treasures of the garden +were disposed by auction, and Michelangelo, too conspicuous as a Medici +protege to be safe, hurried away to Bologna. He was now nineteen. + +Of his travels I say nothing here, for we must keep to Florence, +whither he thought it safe to return in 1495. The city was now governed +by the Great Council and the Medici banished. Michelangelo remained +only a brief time and then went to Rome, where he made his first Pieta, +at which he was working during the trial and execution of Savonarola, +whom he admired and reverenced, and where he remained until 1501, +when, aged twenty-six, he returned to Florence to do some of his most +famous work. The Medici were still in exile. + +It was in August, 1501, that the authorities of the cathedral asked +Michelangelo to do what he could with a great block of marble on +their hands, from which he carved that statue of David of which I +tell the story in chapter XVI. This established his pre-eminence as +a sculptor. Other commissions for statues poured in, and in 1504 he +was invited to design a cartoon for the Palazzo Vecchio, to accompany +one by Leonardo, and a studio was given him in the Via Guelfa for +the purpose. This cartoon, when finished, so far established him +also as the greatest of painters that the Masaccios in the Carmine +were deserted by young artists in order that this might be studied +instead. The cartoon, as I relate in the chapter on the Palazzo +Vecchio, no longer exists. + +The next year, 1505, Michelangelo, nearing his thirtieth birthday, +returned to Rome and entered upon the second and tragic period of his +life, for he arrived there only to receive the order for the Julius +tomb which poisoned his remaining years, and of which more is said +in the chapter on the Accademia, where we see so many vestiges of it +both in marble and plaster. But I might remark here that this vain +and capricious pontiff, whose pride and indecision robbed the world +of no one can ever say what glorious work from Michelangelo's hand, +is the benevolent-looking old man whose portrait by Raphael is in +the Pitti and Uffizi in colour, in the Corsini Palace in charcoal, +and again in our own National Gallery in colour. + +Of Michelangelo at Rome and Carrara, whither he went to superintend +in person the quarrying of the marble that was to be transferred to +life and where he had endless vexations and mortifications, I say +nothing. Enough that the election of his boy friend Giovanni de' +Medici as Pope Leo X in 1513 brought him again to Florence, the Pope +having a strong wish that Michelangelo should complete the facade of +the Medici family church, S. Lorenzo, where we now are. As we know, +the scheme was not carried out, but in 1520 the Pope substituted +another and more attractive one: namely, a chapel to contain the +tombs not only of his father the Magnificent, and his uncle, who had +been murdered in the Duomo many years before, but also his nephew +Piero de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, who had just died, in 1519, and +his younger brother (and Michelangelo's early playmate) Giuliano de' +Medici, Duke of Nemours, who had died in 1516. These were not Medici +of the highest class, but family pride was strong. It is, however, +odd that no memorial of Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici, who had been +drowned at the age of twenty-two in 1503, was required; perhaps it +may have been that since it was Piero's folly that had brought the +Medici into such disgrace in 1494, the less thought of him the better. + +Michelangelo took fire at once, and again hastened to Carrara to +arrange for marble to be sent to his studio in the Via Mozzi, now the +Via S. Zenobi; while the building stone was brought from Fiesole. Leo +X lived only to know that the great man had begun, the new patron +being Giulio de' Medici, natural son of the murdered Giuliano, +now a cardinal, and soon, in 1523, to become Pope Clement VII. This +Pope showed deep interest in the project, but wished not only to add +tombs of himself and Pope Leo X, but also to build a library for the +Laurentian collection, which Michelangelo must design. A little later +he had decided that he would prefer to lie in the choir of the church, +and Leo X with him, and instead therefore of tombs Michelangelo might +merely make a colossal statue of him to stand in the piazza before the +church. The sculptor's temper had not been improved by his many years' +experience of papal caprice, and he replied to this suggestion with +a letter unique even in the annals of infuriated artists. Let the +statue be made, of course, he said, but let it be useful as well as +ornamental: the lower portion to be also a barber's shop, and the +head, since it would be empty, a greengrocer's. The Pope allowed +himself to be rebuked, and abandoned the statue, writing a mild and +even pathetic reply. + +Until 1527 Michelangelo worked away at the building and the tombs, +always secretly, behind impenetrable barriers; and then came the +troubles which led to the siege of Florence, following upon the +banishment of Alessandro, Duke of Urbino, natural son of the very +Lorenzo whom the sculptor was to dignify for all time. By the Emperor +Charles V and Pope Clement VII the city was attacked, and Michelangelo +was called away from Clement's sacristy to fortify Florence against +Clement's soldiers. Part of his ramparts at S. Miniato still remain, +and he strengthened all the gates; but, feeling himself slighted and +hating the whole affair, he suddenly disappeared. One story is that he +hid in the church tower of S. Niccolo, below what is now the Piazzale +dedicated to his memory. Wherever he was, he was proclaimed an outlaw, +and then, on Florence finding that she could not do without him, +was pardoned, and so returned, the city meanwhile having surrendered +and the Medici again being restored to power. + +The Pope showed either fine magnanimity or compounded with facts +in the interest of the sacristy; for he encouraged Michelangelo to +proceed, and the pacific work was taken up once more after the martial +interregnum, and in a desultory way he was busy at it, always secretly +and moodily, until 1533, when he tired completely and never touched +it again. A year later Clement VII died, having seen only drawings +of the tombs, if those. + +But though left unfinished, the sacristy is wholly satisfying--more +indeed than satisfying, conquering. Whatever help Michelangelo may +have had from his assistants, it is known that the symbolical figures +on the tombs and the two seated Medici are from his hand. Of the two +finished or practically finished tombs--to my mind as finished as they +should be--that of Lorenzo is the finer. The presentment of Lorenzo in +armour brooding and planning is more splendid than that of Giuliano; +while the old man, whose head anticipates everything that is considered +most original in Rodin's work, is among the best of Michelangelo's +statuary. Much speculation has been indulged in as to the meaning +of the symbolism of these tombs, and having no theory of my own to +offer, I am glad to borrow Mr. Gerald S. Davies' summary from his +monograph on Michelangelo. The figure of Giuliano typifies energy +and leadership in repose; while the man on his tomb typifies Day and +the woman Night, or the man Action and the woman the sleep and rest +that produce Action. The figure of Lorenzo typifies Contemplation, +the woman Dawn, and the man Twilight, the states which lie between +light and darkness, action and rest. What Michelangelo--who owed +nothing to any Medici save only Lorenzo the Magnificent and had seen +the best years of his life frittered away in the service of them and +other proud princes--may also have intended we shall never know; but +he was a saturnine man with a long memory, and he might easily have +made the tombs a vehicle for criticism. One would not have another +touch of the chisel on either of the symbolical male figures. + +Although a tomb to Lorenzo the Magnificent by Michelangelo would +surely have been a wonderful thing, there is something startling and +arresting in the circumstance that he has none at all from any hand, +but lies here unrecorded. His grandfather, in the church itself, +rests beneath a plain slab, which aimed so consciously at modesty +as thereby to achieve special distinction: Lorenzo, leaving no such +directions, has nothing, while in the same room are monuments to +two common-place descendants to thrill the soul. The disparity is in +itself monumental. That Michelangelo's Madonna and Child are on the +slab which covers the dust of Lorenzo and his brother is a chance. The +saints on either side are S. Cosimo and S. Damian, the patron saints +of old Cosimo de' Medici, and are by Michelangelo's assistants. The +Madonna was intended for the altar of the sacristy. Into this work the +sculptor put much of his melancholy and, one feels, disappointment. The +face of the Madonna is already sad and hopeless; but the Child is +perhaps the most splendid and determined of any in all Renaissance +sculpture. He may, if we like, symbolize the new generation that is +always deriving sustenance from the old, without care or thought of +what the old has to suffer; he crushes his head against his mother's +breast in a very passion of vigorous dependence. [4] + +Whatever was originally intended, it is certain that in Michelangelo's +sacristy disillusionment reigns as well as death. But how beautiful +it is! + +In a little room leading from the sacristy I was shown by a smiling +custodian Lorenzo the Magnificent's coffin, crumbling away, and +photographs of the skulls of the two brothers: Giuliano's with one +of Francesco de' Pazzi's dagger wounds in it, and Lorenzo's, ghastly +in its decay. I gave the man half a lira. + +While he was working on the tombs Michelangelo had undertaken now and +then a small commission, and to this period belongs the David which we +shall see in the little room on the ground floor of the Bargello. In +1534, when he finally abandoned the sacristy, and, leaving Florence for +ever, settled in Rome, the Laurentian library was only begun, and he +had little interest in it. He never saw it again. At Rome his time was +fully occupied in painting the "Last Judgment" in the Sixtine Chapel, +and in various architectural works. But Florence at any rate has two +marble masterpieces that belong to the later period--the Brutus in +the Bargello and the Pieta in the Duomo, which we have seen--that +poignantly impressive rendering of the entombment upon which the old +man was at work when he died, and which he meant for his own grave. + +His death came in 1564, on February 23rd, when he was nearly +eighty-nine, and his body was brought to Florence and buried amid +universal grief in S. Croce, where it has a florid monument. + +Since we are considering the life of Michelangelo, I might perhaps +say here a few words about his house, which is only a few minutes' +distant--at No. 64 Via Ghibellina--where certain early works and +personal relics are preserved. Michelangelo gave the house to his +nephew Leonardo; it was decorated early in the seventeenth century with +scenes in the life of the master, and finally bequeathed to the city +as a heritage in 1858. It is perhaps the best example of the rapacity +of the Florentines; for notwithstanding that it was left freely in +this way a lira is charged for admission. The house contains more +collateral curiosities, as they might be called, than those in the +direct line; but there are architectural drawings from the wonderful +hand, colour drawings of a Madonna, a few studies, and two early pieces +of sculpture--the battle of the Lapithae and Centaurs, a relief marked +by tremendous vigour and full of movement, and a Madonna and Child, +also in relief, with many marks of greatness upon it. In a recess +in Room IV are some personal relics of the artist, which his great +nephew, the poet, who was named after him, began to collect early in +the seventeenth century. As a whole the house is disappointing. + +Upstairs have been arranged a quantity of prints and drawings +illustrating the history of Florence. + +The S. Lorenzo cloisters may be entered either from a side door in +the church close to the Old Sacristy or from the piazza. Although an +official in uniform keeps the piazza door, they are free. Brunelleschi +is again the architect, and from the loggia at the entrance to the +library you see most acceptably the whole of his cathedral dome and +half of Giotto's tower. It is impossible for Florentine cloisters--or +indeed any cloisters--not to have a certain beauty, and these are +unusually charming and light, seen both from the loggia and the ground. + +Michelangelo's Biblioteca Laurenziana, which leads from them, +is one of the most perfect of sombre buildings, the very home of +well-ordered scholarship. The staircase is impressive, although perhaps +a little too severe; the long room could not be more satisfying to +the eye. Michelangelo died before it was finished, but it is his in +design, even to the ceiling and cases for MSS. in which the library +is so rich, and the rich red wood ceiling. Vasari, Michelangelo's +pupil and friend and the biographer to whom we are so much indebted, +carried on the work. His scheme of windows has been upset on the +side opposite the cloisters by the recent addition of a rotunda +leading from the main room. If ever rectangular windows were more +exquisitely and nobly proportioned I should like to see them. The +library is free for students, and the attendants are very good in +calling stray visitors' attention to illuminated missals, old MSS., +early books and so forth. 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. If you look at Mr. Hewlett's +"Earthwork out of Tuscany" you will find an entertaining description +of what it used to be like. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Or San Michele and the Palazzo Vecchio + +The little Bigallo--The Misericordia--Or San Michele--Andrea +Orcagna--The Tabernacle--Old Glass--A company of stone +saints--Donatello's S. George--Dante conferences--The Guilds of +Florence--The Palazzo Vecchio--Two Towers--Bandinelli's group--The +Marzocco--The Piazza della Signoria--Orcagna's Loggia--Cellini +and Cosimo--The Perseus--Verrocchio's dolphin--The Great Council +Hall--Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo's cartoons--Bandinelli's +malice--The Palazzo Vecchio as a home--Two cells and the bell of +independence. + +Let us now proceed along the Via Calzaioli (which means street of +the stocking-makers), running away from the Piazza del Duomo to +the Piazza della Signoria. The fascinatingly pretty building at +the corner, opposite Pisano's Baptistery doors, is the Bigallo, +in the loggia of which foundling children used to be displayed in +the hope that passers-by might pity them sufficiently to make them +presents or even adopt them; but this custom continues no longer. The +Bigallo was designed, it is thought, by Orcagna, and it is worth the +minutest study. + +The Company of the Bigallo, which is no longer an active force, was +one of the benevolent societies of old Florence. But the greatest +of these societies, still busy and merciful, is the Misericordia, +whose head-quarters are just across the Via Calzaioli, in the piazza, +facing the campanile, a company of Florentines pledged at a moment's +notice, no matter on what they may be engaged, to assist in any +charitable work of necessity. For the most part they carry ambulances +to the scenes of accident and perform the last offices for the dead +in the poorer districts. When on duty they wear black robes and +hoods. Their headquarters comprise a chapel, with an altar by Andrea +della Robbia, and a statue of the patron saint of the Misericordia, +S. Sebastian. But their real patron saint is their founder, a common +porter named Pietro Borsi. In the thirteenth century it was the custom +for the porters and loafers connected with the old market to meet +in a shelter here and pass the time away as best they could. Borsi, +joining them, was distressed to find how unprofitable were the hours, +and he suggested the formation of a society to be of some real use, +the money to support it to be obtained by fines in payment for oaths +and blasphemies. A litter or two were soon bought and the machinery +started. The name was the Company of the Brothers of Mercy. That was +in 1240 to 1250. To-day no Florentine is too grand to take his part, +and at the head of the porter's band of brethren is the King. + +Passing along the Via Calzaioli we come on the right to a noble square +building with statues in its niches--Or San Michele, which stands on +the site of the chapel of San Michele in Orto. San Michele in Orto, +or more probably in Horreo (meaning either in the garden or in the +granary), was once part of a loggia used as a corn market, in which +was preserved a picture by Ugolino da Siena representing the Virgin, +and this picture had the power of working miracles. Early in the +fourteenth century the loggia was burned down but the picture was +saved (or quickly replaced), and a new building on a much larger and +more splendid scale was made for it, none other than Or San Michele, +the chief architect being Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's pupil and later +the constructor of the Ponte Vecchio. Where the picture then was, I +cannot say--whether inside the building or out--but the principal use +of the building was to serve as a granary. After 1348, when Florence +was visited by that ravaging plague which Boccaccio describes in +such gruesome detail at the beginning of the "Decameron" and which +sent his gay company of ladies and gentlemen to the Villa Palmieri +to take refuge in story telling, and when this sacred picture was +more than commonly busy and efficacious, it was decided to apply +the enormous sums of money given to the shrine from gratitude in +beautifying the church still more, and chiefly in providing a casket +worthy of holding such a pictorial treasure. Hence came about the +noble edifice of to-day. + +A man of universal genius was called in to execute the tabernacle: +Andrea Orcagna, a pupil probably of Andrea Pisano, and also much +influenced by Giotto, whom though he had not known he idolized, +and one who, like Michelangelo later, was not only a painter and +sculptor but an architect and a poet. Orcagna, or, to give him his +right name, Andrea di Cione, for Orcagna was an abbreviation of +Arcagnolo, flourished in the middle of the fourteenth century. Among +his best-known works in painting are the Dantesque frescoes in the +Strozzi chapel at S. Maria Novella, and that terrible allegory of +Death and Judgment in the Campo Santo at Pisa, in which the gay riding +party come upon the three open graves. Orcagna put all his strength +into the tabernacle of Or San Michele, which is a most sumptuous, +beautiful and thoughtful shrine, yet owing to the darkness of the +church is almost invisible. Guides, it is true, will emerge from the +gloom and hold lighted tapers to it, but a right conception of it is +impossible. The famous miraculous picture over the altar is notable +rather for its properties than for its intrinsic beauty; it is the +panels of the altar, which contain Orcagna's most exquisite work, +representing scenes in the life of the Virgin, with emblematical +figures interspersed, that one wishes to see. Only the back, however, +can be seen really well, and this only when a door opposite to it--in +the Via Calzaioli--is opened. It should always be open, with a grille +across it, that passers-by might have constant sight of this almost +unknown Florentine treasure. It is in the relief of the death of the +Virgin on the back that--on the extreme right--Orcagna introduced +his own portrait. The marble employed is of a delicate softness, and +Orcagna had enough of Giotto's tradition to make the Virgin a reality +and to interest Her, for example, as a mother in the washing of Her +Baby, as few painters have done, and in particular, as, according +to Ruskin, poor Ghirlandaio could not do in his fresco of the birth +of the Virgin Herself. It was Orcagna's habit to sign his sculpture +"Andrea di Cione, painter," and his paintings "Andrea di Cione, +sculptor," and thus point his versatility. By this tabernacle, by +his Pisan fresco, and by the designs of the Loggia de' Lanzi and the +Bigallo (which are usually given to him), he takes his place among +the most interesting and various of the forerunners of the Renaissance. + +Within Or San Michele you learn the secret of the stoned-up windows +which one sees with regret from without. Each, or nearly each, has +an altar against it. What the old glass was like one can divine from +the lovely and sombre top lights in exquisite patterns that are left; +that on the centre of the right wall of the church, as one enters, +having jewels of green glass as lovely as any I ever saw. But blues, +purples, and reds predominate. + +The tabernacle apart, the main appeal of Or San Michele is the statuary +and stone-work of the exterior; for here we find the early masters +at their best. The building being the head-quarters of the twelve +Florentine guilds, the statues and decorations were commissioned by +them. It is as though our City companies should unite in beautifying +the Guildhall. Donatello is the greatest artist here, and it was +for the Armourers that he made his S. George, which stands now, as +he carved it in marble, in the Bargello, but has a bronze substitute +in its original niche, below which is a relief of the slaying of the +dragon from Donatello's chisel. Of this glorious S. George more will +be said later. But I may remark now that in its place here it instantly +proves the modernity and realistic vigour of its sculptor. Fine though +they be, all the other statues of this building are conventional; +they carry on a tradition of religious sculpture such as Niccolo +Pisano respected, many years earlier, when he worked at the Pisan +pulpit. But Donatello's S. George is new and is as beautiful as a +Greek god, with something of real human life added. + +Donatello (with Michelozzo) also made the exquisite border of the +niche in the Via Calzaioli facade, in which Christ and S. Thomas now +stand. He was also to have made the figures (for the Merchants' Guild) +but was busy elsewhere, and they fell to Verrocchio, of whom also we +shall have much to see and say at the Bargello, and to my mind they +are the most beautiful of all. The John the Baptist (made for the +Cloth-dealers), also on this facade, is by Ghiberti of the Baptistery +gates. On the facade of the Via de' Lamberti is Donatello's superb +S. Mark (for the Joiners), which led to Michelangelo's criticism that +he had never seen a man who looked more virtuous, and if S. Mark +were really like that he would believe all his words. "Why don't +you speak to me?" he also said to this statue, as Donatello had +said to the Zuccone. Higher on this facade is Luca della Robbia's +famous arms of the Silk-weavers, one of the perfect things. Luca +also made the arms of the Guild of Merchants, with its Florentine +fleur-de-lis in the midst. For the rest, Ghiberti's S. Stephen, +and Ghiberti and Michelozzo's S. Matthew, on the entrance wall, +are the most remarkable. The blacksmith relief is very lively and +the blacksmith's saint a noble figure. + +The little square reliefs let into the wall at intervals +are often charming, and the stone-work of the windows is very +lovely. In fact, the four walls of this fortress church are almost +inexhaustible. Within, its vaulted roof is so noble, its proportions +so satisfying. One should often sit quietly here, in the gloom, +and do nothing. + +The little building just across the way was the Guild House of the +Arte della Lana, or Wool-combers, and is now the head-quarters of +the Italian Dante Society, who hold a conference every Thursday +in the large room over Or San Michele, gained by the flying +buttress-bridge. The dark picture on the outer wall is the very +Madonna to which, when its position was at the Mercato Vecchio, +condemned criminals used to pray on their way to execution. + +Before we leave Or San Michele and the Arte della Lana, a word on +the guilds of Florence is necessary, for at a period in Florentine +history between, say, the middle of the thirteenth century and the +beginning of the fifteenth, they were the very powerful controllers +of the domestic affairs of the city; and it is possible that it would +have been better for the Florentines had they continued to be so. For +Florence was essentially mercantile and the guilds were composed of +business men; and it is natural that business men should know better +than noblemen what a business city needed. They were divided into +major guilds, chief of which were the woollen merchants--the Arte +della Lana--and the silk merchants--the Calimala--and it was their +pride to put their riches at the city's service. Thus, the Arte della +Lana had charge of the building of the cathedral. Each of the major +guilds provided a Prior, and the Priors elected the Signoria, who +governed the city. It is one of the principal charges that is brought +against Cosimo de' Medici that he broke the power of the guilds. + +Returning to the Via Calzaioli, and turning to the right, we come +very quickly to the Piazza della Signoria, and see before us, +diagonally across it, the Loggia de' Lanzi and the Palazzo Vecchio, +with the gleaming, gigantic figure of Michelangelo's David against +the dark gateway. This, more than the Piazza del Duomo, is the centre +of Florence. + +The Palazzo Vecchio was for centuries called the Signoria, being the +home of the Gonfalonier of Florence and the Signoria who assisted +his councils. It was begun by Arnolfo, the architect of the Duomo and +S. Croce, at the end of the thirteenth century, that being, as we have +seen, a period of great prosperity and ambition in Florence, but many +alterations and additions were made--by Michelozzo, Cronaca, Vasari, +and others--to bring it to what it now is. After being the scene +of many riots, executions, and much political strife and dubiety, +it became a ducal palace in 1532, and is now a civic building and +show-place. In the old days the Palazzo had a ringhiera, or platform, +in front of it, from which proclamations were made. To know what +this was like one has but to go to S. Trinita on a very fine morning +and look at Ghirlandaio's fresco of the granting of the charter to +S. Francis. The scene, painted in 1485, includes not only the Signoria +but the Loggia de' Lanzi (then the Loggia dell' Orcagna)--both before +any statues were set up. + +Every facade of the Palazzo Vecchio is splendid. I cannot say which +I admire more--that which one sees from the Loggia de' Lanzi, with +its beautiful coping of corbels, at once so heavy and so light, with +coloured escutcheons between them, or that in the Via de' Gondi, with +its fine jumble of old brickwork among the stones. The Palazzo Vecchio +is one of the most resolute and independent buildings in the world; +and it had need to be strong, for the waves of Florentine revolt were +always breaking against it. The tower rising from this square fortress +has at once grace and strength and presents a complete contrast to +Giotto's campanile; for Giotto's campanile is so light and delicate and +reasonable and this tower of the Signoria so stern and noble. There +is a difference as between a beautiful woman and a powerful man. In +the functions of the two towers--the dominating towers of Florence--is +a wide difference also, for the campanile calls to prayer, while for +years the sombre notes of the great Signoria bell--the Vacca--rang out +only to bid the citizens to conclave or battle or to sound an alarm. + +It was this Vacca wich (with others) the brave Piero Capponi +threatened to ring when Charles VIII wished, in 1494, to force a +disgraceful treaty on the city. The scene was the Medici Palace in +the Via Larga. The paper was ready for signature and Capponi would +not sign. "Then I must bid my trumpets blow," said Charles. "If you +sound your trumpets," Capponi replied, "we will ring our bells;" +and the King gave way, for he knew that his men had no chance in this +city if it rose suddenly against them. + +But the glory of the Palazzo Vecchio tower--afer its proportions--is +that brilliant inspiration of the architect which led him, so to +speak, to begin again by setting the four columns on the top of the +solid portion. These pillars are indescribably right: so solid +and yet so light, so powerful and yet so comely. Their duty was +to support the bells, and particularly the Vacca, when he rocked +his gigantic weight of green bronze to and fro to warn the city. +Seen from a distance the columns are always beautiful; seen close +by they are each a tower of comfortable strength. And how the wind +blows through them from the Apennines! + +The David on the left of the Palazzo Vecchio main door is only a copy. +The original stood there until 1873, when, after three hundred and +sixty-nine years, it was moved to a covered spot in the Accademia, +as we shall there see and learn its history. If we want to know what +the Palazzo Vecchio looked like at the time David was placed there, +a picture by Piero di Cosimo in our National Gallery tells us, for +he makes it the background of his portrait of Ferrucci, No. 895. + +The group on the right represents Hercules and Cacus, [5] and +is by Baccio Bandinelli (1485-1560), a coarse and offensive man, +jealous of most people and particularly of Michelangelo, to whom, +but for his displeasing Pope Clement VII, the block of marble from +which the Hercules was carved would have been given. Bandinelli in +his delight at obtaining it vowed to surpass that master's David, +and those who want to know what Florence thought of his effort should +consult the amusing and malicious pages of Cellini's Autobiography. +On its way to Bandinelli's studio the block fell into the Arrio, and +it was a joke of the time that it had drowned itself to avoid its fate +at the sculptor's hands. Even after he had half done it, there was a +moment when Michelangelo had an opportunity of taking over the stone +and turning it into a Samson, but the siege of Florence intervened, +and eventually Bandinelli had his way and the hideous thing now on +view was evolved. + +The lion at the left end of the facade is also a copy, the original +by Donatello being in the Bargello, close by; but the pedestal is +Donatello's original. This lion is the Marzocco, the legendary guardian +of the Florentine republic, and it stood here for four centuries and +more, superseding one which was kissed as a sign of submission by +thousands of Pisan prisoners in 1364. The Florentine fleur-de-lis on +the pediment is very beautiful. The same lion may be seen in iron on +his staff at the top of the Palazzo Vecchio tower, and again on the +Bargello, bravely flourishing his lily against the sky. + +The great fountain with its bronze figures at this corner is by +Bartolommeo Ammanati, a pupil of Bandinelli, and the statue of Cosimo +I is by Gian Bologna, who was the best of the post-Michelangelo +sculptors and did much good work in Florence, as we shall see at the +Bargello and in the Boboli Gardens. He studied under Michelangelo +in Rome. Though born a Fleming and called a Florentine, his great +fountain at Bologna, which is really a fine thing, has identified his +fame with that city. Had not Ammanati's design better pleased Cosimo +I, the Bologna fountain would be here, for it was designed for this +piazza. Gian's best-known work is the Flying Mercury in the Bargello, +which we have seen, on mantelpieces and in shop windows, everywhere; +but what is considered his masterpiece is over there, in the Loggia de' +Lanzi, the very beautiful building on the right of the Palazzo, the +"Rape of the Sabines," a group which, to me, gives no pleasure. The +bronze reliefs under the Cosimo statue--this Cosimo being, of course, +far other than Cosimo de' Medici, Father of his Country: Cosimo +I of Tuscany, who insisted upon a crown and reigned from 1537 to +1575--represents his assumption of rule on the death of Alessandro in +1537; his triumphant entry into Siena when he conquered it and absorbed +it; and his reception of the rank of Grand Duke. Of Cosimo (whom we +met in Chapter V) more will be said when we enter the Palazzo Vecchio. + +Between this statue and the Loggia de' Lanzi is a bronze tablet let +into the paving which tells us that it was on this very spot, in 1498, +that Savonarola and two of his companions were put to death. The +ancient palace on the Duomo side of the piazza is attributed in +design to Raphael, who, like most of the great artists of his time, +was also an architect and was the designer of the Palazzo Pandolfini +in the Via San Gallo, No. 74. The Palazzo we are now admiring for +its blend of massiveness and beauty is the Uguccione, and anybody +who wishes may probably have a whole floor of it to-day for a few +shillings a week. The building which completes the piazza on the +right of us, with coats of arms on its facade, is now given to the +Board of Agriculture and has been recently restored. It was once +a Court of Justice. The great building at the opposite side of the +piazza, where the trams start, is a good example of modern Florentine +architecture based on the old: the Palazzo Landi, built in 1871 and +now chiefly an insurance office. In London we have a more attractive +though smaller derivative of the great days of Florentine building, +in Standen's wool shop in Jermyn Street. + +The Piazza della Signoria has such riches that one is in danger of +neglecting some. The Palazzo Vecchio, for example, so overpowers +the Loggia de' Lanzi in size as to draw the eye from that perfect +structure. One should not allow this to happen; one should let +the Palazzo Vecchio's solid nobility wait awhile and concentrate +on the beauty of Orcagna's three arches. Coming so freshly from his +tabernacle in Or San Michele we are again reminded of the versatility +of the early artists. + +This structure, originally called the Loggia de' Priori or Loggia +d'Orcagna, was built in the fourteenth century as an open place for +the delivery of proclamations and for other ceremonies, and also as +a shelter from the rain, the last being a purpose it still serves. It +was here that Savonarola's ordeal by fire would have had place had it +not been frustrated. Vasari also gives Orcagna the four symbolical +figures in the recesses in the spandrels of the arches. The Loggia, +which took its new name from the Swiss lancers, or lanzi, that Cosimo +I kept there--he being a fearful ruler and never comfortable without a +bodyguard--is now a recognized place of siesta; and hither many people +carry their poste-restante correspondence from the neighbouring post +office in the Uffizi to read in comfort. A barometer and thermometer +are almost the only novelties that a visitor from the sixteenth +century would notice. + +The statuary is both old and new; for here are genuine antiques once +in Ferdinand I's Villa Medici at Rome, and such modern masterpieces +as Donatello's Judith and Holofernes, Cellini's Perseus, and Gian +Bologna's two muscular and restless groups. The best of the antiques +is the Woman Mourning, the fourth from the end on the left, which is +a superb creation. + +Donatello's Judith, which gives me less pleasure than any of his work, +both in the statue and in the relief, was commissioned for Cosimo +de' Medici, who placed it in the courtyard or garden of the Medici +palace--Judith, like David, by her brave action against a tyrant, +being a champion of the Florentine republic. In 1495, after Cosimo's +worthless grandson Piero de' Medici had been expelled from Florence +and the Medici palace sacked, the statue was moved to the front of the +Palazzo Vecchio, where the David now is, and an inscription placed +on it describing it as a warning to all enemies of liberty. This +position being needed for Michelangelo's David, in 1506, Judith was +moved to the Loggia to the place where the Sabine group now is. In +1560 it took up its present position. + +Cellini's Perseus will not quite do, I think, after Donatello and +Verrocchio; but few bronzes are more famous, and certainly of none +has so vivacious and exciting a story been written as Cellini's own, +setting forth his disappointments, mortifications, and pride in +connexion with this statue. Cellini, whatever one may think of his +veracity, is a diverting and valuable writer, and the picture of +Cosimo I which he draws for us is probably very near the truth. We +see him haughty, familiar, capricious, vain, impulsive, clear-sighted, +and easily flattered; intensely pleased to be in a position to command +the services of artists and very unwilling to pay. Cellini was a blend +of lackey, child, and genius. He left Francis I in order to serve +Cosimo and never ceased to regret the change. The Perseus was his +greatest accomplishment for Cosimo, and the narrative of its casting +is terrific and not a little like Dumas. When it was uncovered in its +present position all Florence flocked to the Loggia to praise it; the +poets placed commendatory sonnets on the pillars, and the sculptor +peacocked up and down in an ecstasy of triumph. Then, however, his +troubles once more began, for Cosimo had the craft to force Cellini +to name the price, and we see Cellini in an agony between desire for +enough and fear lest if he named enough he would offend his patron. + +The whole book is a comedy of vanity and jealousy and Florentine +vigour, with Courts as a background. It is good to read it; it is +good, having read it, to study once again the unfevered resolute +features of Donatello's S. George. Cellini himself we may see among +the statues under the Uffizi and again in the place of honour (as a +goldsmith) in the centre of the Ponte Vecchio. Looking at the Perseus +and remembering Donatello, one realizes that what Cellini wanted was +character. He had temperament enough but no character. Perseus is +superb, commanding, distinguished, and one doesn't care a fig for it. + +On entering the Palazzo Vecchio we come instantly to one of the most +charming things in Florence--Verrocchio's fountain--which stands +in the midst of the courtyard. This adorable work--a little bronze +Cupid struggling with a spouting dolphin--was made for Lorenzo de' +Medici's country villa at Careggi and was brought here when the +palazzo was refurnished for Francis I, Cosimo I's son and successor, +and his bride, Joanna of Austria, in 1565. Nothing could better +illustrate the accomplishment and imaginative adaptability of the great +craftsmen of the day than the two works of Verrocchio that we have +now seen: the Christ and S. Thomas at Or San Michele, in Donatello +and Michelozzo's niche, and this exquisite fountain splashing water +so musically. Notice the rich decorations of the pillars of this +courtyard and the rich colour and power of the pillars themselves. The +half-obliterated frescoes of Austrian towns on the walls were made to +prevent Joanna from being homesick, but were more likely, one would +guess, to stimulate that malady. In the left corner is the entrance +to the old armoury, now empty, with openings in the walls through +which pieces might be discharged at various angles on any advancing +host. The groined ceiling could support a pyramid. + +The Palazzo Vecchio's ground floor is a series of thoroughfares in +which people are passing continually amid huge pillars and along +dark passages; but our way is up the stone steps immediately to the +left on leaving the courtyard where Verrocchio's child eternally +smiles, for the steps take us to that vast hall designed by Cronaca +for Savonarola's Great Council, which was called into being for the +government of Florence after the luckless Piero de' Medici had been +banished in 1494. Here much history was made. As to its structure +and its architect, Vasari, who later was called in to restore it, +has a deal to say, but it is too technical for us. It was built +by Simone di Pollaiuolo, who was known as Cronaca (the Chronicler) +from his vivid way of telling his adventures. Cronaca (1454-1508), +who was a personal friend and devotee of Savonarola, drew up his plan +in consultation with Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo (although then +so young: only nineteen or twenty) and others. Its peculiarity is that +it is one of the largest rooms in existence without pillars. From the +foot of the steps to the further wall I make it fifty-eight paces, +and thirty wide; and the proportions strike the eye as perfect. The +wall behind the steps is not at right angles with the other--and this +must be as peculiar as the absence of pillars. + +Once there were to be paintings here by the greatest of all, for +masters no less than Leonardo and Michelangelo were commissioned to +decorate it, each with a great historical painting: a high honour +for the youthful Michelangelo. The loss of these works is one of +the tragedies of art. Leonardo chose for his subject the battle of +Anghiari, an incident of 1440 when the Florentines defeated Piccinino +and saved their Republic from the Milanese and Visconti. But both +the cartoon and the fresco have gone for ever, and our sense of loss +is not diminished by reading in Leonardo's Thoughts on Painting the +directions which he wrote for the use of artists who proposed to paint +battles: one of the most interesting and exciting pieces of writing in +the literature of art. Michelangelo's work, which never reached the +wall of the room, as Leonardo's had done, was completed as a cartoon +in 1504 to 1506 in his studio in the hospital of the dyers in Sant' +Onofrio, which is now the Via Guelfa. The subject was also military: +an incident in the long and bitter struggle between Florence and Pisa, +when Sir John Hawkwood (then in the pay of the Pisans, before he came +over finally to the Florentines) attacked a body of Florentines who +were bathing in the river. The scene gave the young artist scope both +for his power of delineating a spirited incident and for his drawing +of the nude, and those who saw it said of this work that it was finer +than anything the painter ever did. While it was in progress all +the young artists came to Sant' Onofrio to study it, as they and its +creator had before flocked to the Carmine, where Masaccio's frescoes +had for three-quarters of a century been object-lessons to students. + +What became of the cartoon is not definitely known, but Vasari's +story is that Bandinelli, the sculptor of the Hercules and Cacus +outside the Palazzo, who was one of the most diligent copyists of the +cartoon after it was placed in a room in this building, had the key +of the door counterfeited, and, obtaining entrance during a moment +of tumult, destroyed the picture. The reasons given are: (1, and a +very poor one) that he desired to own the pieces; (2) that he wished +to deprive other and rival students of the advantage of copying it; +(3) that he wanted Leonardo to be the only painter of the Palazzo to +be considered; and (4, and sufficient) that he hated Michelangelo. At +this time Bandinelli could not have been more than eighteen. Vasari's +story is uncorroborated. + +Leonardo's battle merely perished, being done in some fugitive medium; +and the walls are now covered with the works of Vasari himself +and his pupils and do not matter, while the ceiling is a muddle +of undistinguished paint. There are many statues which also do not +matter; but at the raised end is Leo X, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, +and the first Medici Pope, and at the other a colossal modern statue +of Savonarola, who was in person the dominating influence here for +the years between 1494 and 1497; who is to many the central figure +in the history of this building; and whose last night on earth was +spent with his companions in this very room. But to him we come in +the chapter on S. Marco. + +Many rooms in the Palazzo are to be seen only on special occasions, +but the great hall is always accessible. Certain rooms upstairs, +mostly with rich red and yellow floors, are also visible daily, all +interesting; but most notable is the Salle de Lys, with its lovely blue +walls of lilies, its glorious ceiling of gold and roses, Ghirlandaio's +fresco of S. Zenobius, and the perfect marble doorway containing +the wooden doors of Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano, with the heads +of Dante and Petrarch in intarsia. Note the figures of Charity and +Temperance in the doorway and the charming youthful Baptist. + +In Eleanor of Toledo's dining-room there are some rich and elaborate +green jugs which I remember very clearly and also the ceiling of her +workroom with its choice of Penelope as the presiding genius. Both +Eleanor's chapel and that in which Savonarola prayed before his +execution are shown. + +But the most popular room of all with visitors--and quite naturally--is +the little boudoiresque study of Francis I, with its voluptuous +ladies on the ceiling and the secret treasure-room leading from it, +while on the way, just outside the door, is a convenient oubliette +into which to push any inconvenient visitor. + +The loggia, which Mr. Morley has painted from the Via Castellani, +is also always accessible, and from it one has one of those pleasant +views of warm roofs in which Florence abounds. + +One of the most attractive of the smaller rooms usually on view is +that one which leads from the lily-room and contains nothing but +maps of the world: the most decorative things conceivable, next to +Chinese paintings. Looking naturally for Sussex on the English map, +I found Winchelsey, Battel, Rye, Lewes, Sorham, Aronde, and Cicestra. + +From the map-room a little room is gained where the debates in +the Great Council Hall might be secretly overheard by interested +eavesdroppers, but in particular by Cosimo I. A part of the cornice +has holes in it for this purppse, but on regaining the hall itself +I found that the disparity in the pattern was perfectly evident even +to my eye, so that every one in those suspicious days must have been +aware of the listener. + +The tower should certainly be ascended--not only for the view +and to be so near the bells and the pillars, but also for historic +associations. After a little way we come to the cell where Cosimo de' +Medici, later to be the Father of his Country, was imprisoned, before +that exile which ended in recall and triumph in 1433. This cell, +although not exactly "a home from home," is possible. What is to be +said of that other, some thousands of steps (as it seems) higher, +where Savonarola was kept for forty days, varied only by intervals +of torture? For Savonarola's cell, which is very near the top, is +nothing but a recess in the wall with a door to it. It cannot be +more than five feet wide and eight feet long, with an open loophole +to the wind. If a man were here for forty days and then pardoned his +life would be worth very little. A bitter eyrie from which to watch +the city one had risked all to reform. What thoughts must have been +his in that trap! What reviews of policy! What illuminations as to +Florentine character! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The Uffizi I: The Building and the Collectors + +The growth of a gallery--Vasari's Passaggio--Cosimo I--Francis +I--Ferdinand I--Ferdinand II--Cosimo III--Anna Maria Ludovica de' +Medici--Pietro-Leopoldo--The statues of the facade--Art, literature, +arms, science, and learning--The omissions--Florentine rapacity--An +antique custom--Window views--The Uffizi drawings--The best picture. + +The foreigner should understand at once that any inquiries into the +history of the Uffizi family--such as for example yield interesting +results in the case of the Pazzi and the Albizzi--are doomed to +failure; because Uffizi merely means offices. The Palazzo degli +Uffizi, or palace of offices, was built by Vasari, the biographer of +the artists, for Cosimo I, who having taken the Signoria, or Palazzo +Vecchio, for his own home, wished to provide another building for the +municipal government. It was begun in 1560 and still so far fulfils +its original purpose as to contain the general post office, while it +also houses certain Tuscan archives and the national library. + +A glance at Piero di Cosimo's portrait of Ferrucci in our National +Gallery will show that an ordinary Florentine street preceded the +erection of the Uffizi. At that time the top storey of the building, +as it now exists, was an open terrace affording a pleasant promenade +from the Palazzo Vecchio down to the river and back to the Loggia +de' Lanzi. Beneath this were studios and workrooms where Cosimo's +army of artists and craftsmen (with Bronzino and Cellini as the most +famous) were kept busy; while the public offices were on the ground +floor. Then, as his family increased, Cosimo decided to move, and the +incomplete and abandoned Pitti Palace was bought and finished. In 1565, +as we have seen, Francis, Cosimo's son, married and was installed in +the Palazzo Vecchio, and it was then that Vasari was called upon to +construct the Passaggio which unites the Palazzo Vecchio and the Pitti, +crossing the river by the Ponte Vecchio--Cosimo's idea (borrowed it +is said from Homer's description of the passage uniting the palaces of +Priam and Hector) being not only that he and his son might have access +to each other, but that in the event of danger on the other side of the +river a body of soldiers could be swiftly and secretly mobilized there. + +Cosimo I died in 1574, and Francis I (1574-1587) succeeded him not only +in rule but in that patronage of the arts which was one of the finest +Medicean traditions; and it was he who first thought of making the +Uffizi a picture gallery. To do this was simple: it merely meant the +loss of part of the terrace by walling and roofing it in. Ferdinand +I (1587-1609) added the pretty Tribuna and other rooms, and brought +hither a number of the treasures from the Villa Medici at Rome. Cosimo +II (1609-1621) did little, but Ferdinand II (1621-1670) completed +the roofing in of the terraces, placed there his own collection of +drawings and a valuable collection of Venetian pictures which he +had bought, together with those that his wife Vittoria della Rovere +had brought him from Urbino, while his brothers, Cardinal Giovanni +Carlo de' Medici and Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici (the extremely +ugly man with the curling chin, at the head of the Uffizi stairs), +added theirs. Giovanni Carlo's pictures, which mostly went to the +Pitti were varied; but Leopold's were chiefly portraits of artists, +wherever possible painted by themselves, a collection which is steadily +being added to at the present time and is to be seen in several rooms +of the Uffizi, and those miniature portraits of men of eminence which +we shall see in the corridor between the Poccetti Gallery and Salon of +Justice at the Pitti. Cosimo III (1670-1723) added the Dutch pictures +and the famous Venus de' Medici and other Tribuna statuary. + +The galleries remained the private property of the Medici family until +the Electress Palatine, Anna Maria Ludovica de' Medici, daughter of +Cosimo III and great niece of the Cardinal Leopold, bequeathed all +these treasures, to which she had greatly added, together with bronzes +now in the Bargello, Etruscan antiquities now in the Archaeological +Museum, tapestries also there, and books in the Laurentian library, +to Florence for ever, on condition that they should never be removed +from Florence and should exist for the benefit of the public. Her +death was in 1743, and with her passed away the last descendant of +that Giovanni de' Medici (1360-1429) whom we saw giving commissions +to Donatello, building the children's hospital, and helping Florence +to the best of his power: so that the first Medici and the last were +akin in love of art and in generosity to their beautiful city. + +The new Austrian Grand Dukes continued to add to the Uffizi, +particularly Pietro-Leopoldo (1765-1790), who also founded the +Accademia. To him was due the assembling, under the Uffizi roof, +of all the outlying pictures then belonging to the State, including +those in the gallery of the hospital of S. Maria Nuova, which owned, +among others, the famous Hugo van der Goes. It was he also who +brought together from Rome the Niobe statues and constructed a room +for them. Leopold II added the Iscrizioni. + +It was as recently as 1842 to 1856 that the statues of the great +Florentines were placed in the portico. These, beginning at the Palazzo +Vecchio, are, first, against the inner wall, Cosimo Pater (1389-1464) +and Lorenzo the Magnificent (1450-1492); then, outside: Orcagna; +Andrea Pisano, of the first Baptistery doors; Giotto and Donatello; +Alberti, who could do everything and who designed the facade of +S. Maria Novella; Leonardo and Michelangelo. Next, three poets, Dante +(1265-1321), Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), and Giovanni Boccaccio +(1313-1375). Then Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), the statesman, +and Francesco Guicciardini (1482-1540), the historian. That completes +the first side. + +At the end are Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1516), the explorer, who gave +his name to America, and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), the astronomer; +and above is Cosimo I, the first Grand Duke. + +On the Uffizi's river facade are four figures only--and hundreds of +swallows' nests. The figures are Francesco Ferrucci, who died in 1530, +the general painted by Piero di Cosimo in our National Gallery, who +recaptured Volterra from Pope Clement VII in 1529; Giovanni delle Bande +Nere (1500-1527), father of Cosimo I, and a great fighting man; Piero +Capponi, who died in 1496, and delivered Florence from Charles VIII in +1494, by threatening to ring the city bells; and Farinata degli Uberti, +an earlier soldier, who died in 1264 and is in the "Divina Commedia" +as a hero. It was he who repulsed the Ghibelline suggestion that +Florence should be destroyed and the inhabitants emigrate to Empoli. + +Working back towards the Loggia de' Lanzi we find less-known names: +Pietro Antonio Michele (1679-1737), the botanist; Francesco Redi +(1626-1697), a poet and a man of science; Paolo Mascagni (1732-1815), +the anatomist; Andrea Cesalpino (1519-1603), the philosopher; +S. Antonio (died 1461), Prior of the Convent of S. Marco and Archbishop +of Florence; Francesco Accorso (1182-1229), the jurist; Guido Aretino +(eleventh century), musician; and Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1572), +the goldsmith and sculptor. The most notable omissions are Arnolfo +and Brunelleschi (but these are, as we have seen, on the facade of +the Palazzo de' Canonici, opposite the south side of the cathedral), +Ghiberti, Fra Angelico, and Savonarola. Personally I should like to +have still others here, among them Giorgio Vasari, in recognition +of his enthusiastic and entertaining biographies of the Florentine +artists, to say nothing of the circumstance that he designed this +building. + +Before we enter any Florentine gallery let me say that there is only +one free day and that the crowded Sabbath. Admittance to nearly all is +a lira. Moreover, there is no re-admission. The charge strikes English +visitors, accustomed to the open portals of their own museums and +galleries, as an outrage, and it explains also the little interest in +their treasures which most Florentines display, for being essentially +a frugal people they have seldom seen them. Visitors who can satisfy +the authorities that they are desirous of studying the works of art +with a serious purpose can obtain free passes; but only after certain +preliminaries, which include a seance with a photographer to satisfy +the doorkeeper, by comparing the real and counterfeit physiognomies, +that no illicit transference of the precious privilege has been +made. Italy is, one knows, not a rich country; but the revenue which +the gallery entrance-fees represent cannot reach any great volume, +and such as it is it had much better, I should say, be raised by +other means. Meanwhile, the foreigner chiefly pays it. What Giovanni +de' Medici and Lorenzo de' Medici, and--even more--what Anna Maria +Ludovica de' Medici, who bequeathed to the State these possessions, +would think could they see this feverish and implacable pursuit of +pence, I have not imagination, or scorn, enough to set down. + +Infirm and languid visitors should get it clearly into their heads (1) +that the tour of the Uffizi means a long walk and (2) that there is +a lift. You find it in the umbrella room--at every Florentine gallery +and museum is an official whose one object in life is to take away your +umbrella--and it costs twopence-halfpenny and is worth far more. But +walking downstairs is imperative, because otherwise one would miss +Silenus and Bacchus, and a beautiful urgent Mars, in bronze, together +with other fine sculptured things. + +One of the quaintest symbols of conservatism in Florence is the +scissors of the officials who supply tickets of entrance. Apparently +the perforated line is unknown in Italy; hence the ticket is divided +from its counterfoil (which I assume goes to the authorities in +order that they may check their horrid takings) by a huge pair +of shears. These things are snip-snapping all over Italy, all day +long. Having obtained your ticket you hand it to another official at a +turn-stile, and at last you are free of cupidity and red tape and may +breathe easily again and examine the products of the light-hearted, +generous Renaissance in the right spirit. + +One should never forget, in any gallery of Florence, to look out +of the windows. There is always a courtyard, a street, or a spire +against the sky; and at the Uffizi there are the river and bridges +and mountains. From the loggia of the Palazzo Vecchio I once saw a +woman with some twenty or thirty city pigeons on the table of her +little room, feeding them with maize. + +Except for glimpses of the river and the Via Guicciardini which it +gives, I advise no one to walk through the passage uniting the Pitti +and the Uffizi--unless of course bent on catching some of the ancient +thrill when armed men ran swiftly from one palace to the other to quell +a disturbance or repulse an assault. Particularly does this counsel +apply to wet days, when all the windows are closed and there is no +air. A certain interest attaches to the myriad portraits which line +the walls, chiefly of the Medici and comparatively recent worthies; +but one must have a glutton's passion either for paint or history to +wish to examine these. As a matter of fact, only a lightning-speed +tourist could possibly think of seeing both the Uffizi and the Pitti +on the same day, and therefore the need of the passage disappears. It +is hard worked only on Sundays. + +The drawings in the cases in the first long corridor are worth close +study--covering as they do the whole range of great Italian art: from, +say, Uccello to Carlo Dolci. But as they are from time to time changed +it is useless to say more of them. There is also on the first landing +of the staircase a room in which exhibitions of drawings of the Old +Masters are held, and this is worth knowing about, not only because +of the riches of the portfolios in the collection, but also because +once you have passed the doors you are inside the only picture gallery +in Florence for which no entrance fee is asked. How the authorities +have come to overlook this additional source of revenue, I have no +notion; but they have, and visitors should hasten to make the most +of it for fear that a translation of these words of mine may wander +into bad hands. + +To name the most wonderful picture in the Uffizi would be a very +difficult task. At the Accademia, if a plebiscite were taken, there is +little doubt but that Botticelli's "Primavera" would win. At the Pitti +I personally would name Giorgione's "Concert" without any hesitation at +all; but probably the public vote would go to Raphael's "Madonna della +Sedia". But the Uffizi? Here we are amid such wealth of masterpieces, +and yet when one comes to pass them in review in memory none stands +out as those other two I have named. Perhaps Botticelli would win +again, with his "Birth of Venus". Were the Leonardo finished ... but +it is only a sketch. Luca Signorelli's wild flowers in No. 74 seem to +abide with me as vividly and graciously as anything; but they are but a +detail and it is a very personal predilection. Perhaps the great exotic +work painted far away in Belgium--the Van der Goes triptych--is the +most memorable; but to choose an alien canvas is to break the rules of +the game. Is it perhaps the unfinished Leonardo after all? If not, and +not the Botticelli, it is beyond question that lovely adoring Madonna, +so gentle and sweet, against the purest and bluest of Tuscan skies, +which is attributed to Filippino Lippi: No. 1354. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The Uffizi II: The First Six Rooms + +Lorenzo Monaco--Fra Angelico--Mariotto Albertinelli turns +innkeeper--The Venetian rooms--Giorgione's death--Titian--Mantegna +uniting north and south--Giovanni Bellini--Domenico +Ghirlandaio--Michelangelo--Luca Signorelli--Wild flowers--Leonardo +da Vinci--Paolo Uccello. + +The first and second rooms are Venetian; but I am inclined to think +that it is better to take the second door on the left--the first Tuscan +salon--and walking straight across it come at once to the Salon of +Lorenzo Monaco and the primitives. For the earliest good pictures +are here. Here especially one should remember that the pictures +were painted never for a gallery but for churches. Lorenzo Monaco +(Lawrence the Monk, 1370-c. 1425), who gives his name to this room, +was a monk of the Camaldolese order in the Monastery of the Angeli, +and was a little earlier than Fra Angelico (the Angelic Brother), +the more famous painting monk, whose dates are 1387-1455. Lorenzo +was influenced by Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's godson, friend, pupil, and +assistant. His greatest work is this large Uffizi altar-piece--he +painted nothing but altar-pieces--depicting the Coronation of the +Virgin: a great gay scene of splendour, containing pretty angels who +must have been the delight of children in church. The predella--and +here let me advise the visitor never to overlook the predellas, where +the artist often throws off formality and allows his more natural +feelings to have play, almost as though he painted the picture for +others and the predella for himself--is peculiarly interesting. Look, +at the left, at the death of an old Saint attended by monks and nuns, +whose grief is profound. One other good Lorenzo is here, an "Adoration +of the Magi," No. 39, a little out of drawing but full of life. + +But for most people the glory of the room is not Lorenzo the Monk, +but Brother Giovanni of Fiesole, known ever more as Beato, or Fra, +Angelico. Of that most adoring and most adorable of painters I say much +in the chapter on the Accademia, where he is very fully represented, +and it might perhaps be well to turn to those pages (227-230) and read +here, on our first sight of his genius, what is said. Two Angelicos are +in this room--the great triptych, opposite the chief Lorenzo, and the +"Crowning of the Virgin," on an easel. The triptych is as much copied +as any picture in the gallery, not, however, for its principal figures, +but for the border of twelve angels round the centre panel. Angelico's +benignancy and sweetness are here, but it is not the equal of the +"Coronation," which is a blaze of pious fervour and glory. The group +of saints on the right is very charming; but we are to be more pleased +by this radiant hand when we reach the Accademia. Already, however, +we have learned his love of blue. Another altar-piece with a subtle +quality of its own is the early Annunciation by Simone Martini of +Siena (1285-1344) and Lippo Memmi, his brother (d. 1357), in which +the angel speaks his golden words across the picture through a vase +of lilies, and the Virgin receives them shrinkingly. It is all very +primitive, but it has great attraction, and it is interesting to +think that the picture must be getting on for six hundred years of +age. This Simone was a pupil of Giotto and the painter of a portrait +of Petrarch's Laura, now preserved in the Laurentian library, which +earned him two sonnets of eulogy. It is also two Sienese painters +who have made the gayest thing in this room, the predella, No. 1304, +by Neroccio di Siena (1447-1500) and Francesco di Giorgio di Siena +(1439-1502), containing scenes in the life of S. Benedetto. Neroccio +did the landscape and figures; the other the architecture, and very +fine it is. Another delightful predella is that by Benozzo Gozzoli +(1420-1498), Fra Angelico's pupil, whom we have seen at the Riccardi +palace. Gozzoli's predella is No. 1302. Finally, look at No. 64, +which shows how prettily certain imitators of Fra Angelico could paint. + +After the Sala di Lorenzo Monaco let us enter the first Tuscan +room. The draughtsmanship of the great Last Judgment fresco by Fra +Bartolommeo (1475-1517) and Mariotto Albertinelli (1474-1515) is very +fine. It is now a ruin, but enough remains to show that it must have +been impressive. These collaborators, although intimate friends, +ultimately went different ways, for Fra Bartolommeo came under +the influence of Savonarola, burned his nude drawings, and entered +the Convent of S. Marco; whereas Albertinelli, who was a convivial +follower of Venus, tiring of art and even more of art jargon, took +an inn outside the S. Gallo gate and a tavern on the Ponte Vecchio, +remarking that he had found a way of life that needed no knowledge +of muscles, foreshortening, or perspective, and better still, was +without critics. Among his pupils was Franciabigio, whose lovely +Madonna of the Well we are coming to in the Tribuna. + +Chief among the other pictures are two by the delightful Alessio +Baldovinetti, the master of Domenico Ghirlandaio, Nos. 60 and 56; +and a large early altar-piece by the brothers Orcagna, painted in +1367 for S. Maria Nuova, now the principal hospital of Florence +and once the home of many beautiful pictures. This work is rather +dingy now, but it is interesting as coming in part from the hand +that designed the tabernacle in Or San Michele and the Loggia de' +Lanzi. Another less-known painter represented here is Francesco +Granacci (1469-1543), the author of Nos. 1541 and 1280, both rich +and warm and pleasing. Granacci was a fellow-pupil of Michelangelo +both in Lorenzo de' Medici's garden and in Ghirlandaio's workshop, +and the bosom friend of that great man all his life. Like Piero +di Cosimo, Granacci was a great hand at pageantry, and Lorenzo de' +Medici kept him busy. He was not dependent upon art for his living, +but painted for love of it, and Vasari makes him a very agreeable man. + +Here too is Gio. Antonio Sogliani (1492-1544), also a rare painter, +with a finely coloured and finely drawn "Disputa," No. 63. This painter +seems to have had the same devotion to his master, Lorenzo di Credi, +that di Credi had for his master, Verrocchio. Vasari calls Sogliani a +worthy religious man who minded his own affairs--a good epitaph. His +work is rarely met with in Florence, but he has a large fresco at +S. Marco. Lorenzo di Credi (1459-1537) himself has two pretty circular +paintings here, of which No. 1528 is particularly sweet: "The Virgin +and Child with St. John and Angels," all comfortable and happy in +a Tuscan meadow; while on an easel is another circular picture, by +Pacchiarotto (1477-1535). This has good colour and twilight beauty, +but it does not touch one and is not too felicitously composed. Over +the door to the Venetian room is a Cosimo Rosselli with a prettily +affectionate Madonna and Child. + +From this miscellaneous Tuscan room we pass to the two rooms which +contain the Venetian pictures, of which I shall say less than might +perhaps be expected, not because I do not intensely admire them but +because I feel that the chief space in a Florentine book should be +given to Florentine or Tuscan things. As a matter of fact, I find +myself when in the Uffizi continually drawn to revisit these walls. The +chief treasures are the Titians, the Giorgiones, the Mantegnas, +the Carpaccio, and the Bellini allegory. These alone would make +the Uffizi a Mecca of connoisseurs. Giorgione is to be found in his +richest perfection at the Pitti, in his one unforgettable work that +is preserved there, but here he is wonderful too, with his Cavalier +of Malta, black and golden, and the two rich scenes, Nos. 621 and +630, nominally from Scripture, but really from romantic Italy. To me +these three pictures are the jewels of the Venetian collection. To +describe them is impossible: enough to say that some glowing genius +produced them; and whatever the experts admit, personally I prefer +to consider that genius Giorgione. Giorgione, who was born in 1477 +and died young--at thirty-three--was, like Titian, the pupil of +Bellini, but was greatly influenced by Leonardo da Vinci. Later he +became Titian's master. He was passionately devoted to music and to +ladies, and it was indeed from a lady that he had his early death, +for he continued to kiss her after she had taken the plague. (No bad +way to die, either; for to be in the power of an emotion that sways +one to such foolishness is surely better than to live the lukewarm +calculating lives of most of us.) Giorgione's claim to distinction +is that not only was he a glorious colourist and master of light and +shade, but may be said to have invented small genre pictures that +could be earned about and hung in this or that room at pleasure--such +pictures as many of the best Dutch painters were to bend their genius +to almost exclusively--his favourite subjects being music parties +and picnics. These Moses and Solomon pictures in the Uffizi are of +course only a pretext for gloriously coloured arrangements of people +with rich scenic backgrounds. No.621 is the finer. The way in which +the baby is being held in the other indicates how little Giorgione +thought of verisimilitude. The colour was the thing. + +After the Giorgiones the Titians, chief of which is No.633, "The +Madonna and Child with S. John and S. Anthony," sometimes called the +"Madonna of the Roses," a work which throws a pallor over all Tuscan +pictures; No.626, the golden Flora, who glows more gloriously every +moment (whom we shall see again, at the Pitti, as the Magdalen); +the Duke and Duchess of Urbino, Nos.605 and 599, the Duchess set +at a window with what looks so curiously like a deep blue Surrey +landscape through it and a village spire in the midst; and 618, +an unfinished Madonna and Child in which the Master's methods can +be followed. The Child, completed save for the final bath of light, +is a miracle of draughtsmanship. + +The triptych by Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) is of inexhaustible +interest, for here, as ever, Mantegna is full of thought and +purpose. The left panel represents the Ascension, Christ being borne +upwards by eleven cherubim in a solid cloud; the right panel--by far +the best, I think--shows the Circumcision, where the painter has set +himself various difficulties of architecture and goldsmith's work +for the pleasure of overcoming them, every detail being painted with +Dutch minuteness and yet leaving the picture big; while the middle +panel, which is concave, depicts an Adoration of the Magi that will +bear much study. The whole effect is very northern: not much less +so than our own new National Gallery Mabuse. Mantegna also has a +charming Madonna and Child, No. 1025, with pleasing pastoral and +stone-quarrying activities in the distance. + +On the right of the triptych is the so-called Carpaccio (1450-1519), +a confused but glorious melee of youths and halberds, reds and yellows +and browns, very modern and splendid and totally unlike anything else +in the whole gallery. Uccello may possibly be recalled, but only for +subject. Finally there is Giovanni Bellini (1426-1516), master of +Titian and Giorgione, with his "Sacra Conversazione," No. 631, which +means I know not what but has a haunting quality. Later we shall +see a picture by Michelangelo which has been accused of blending +Christianity and paganism; but Bellini's sole purpose was to do +this. We have children from a Bacchic vase and the crowned Virgin; two +naked saints and a Venetian lady; and a centaur watching a hermit. The +foreground is a mosaic terrace; the background is rocks and water. It +is all bizarre and very curious and memorable and quite unique. For the +rest, I should mention two charming Guardis; a rich little Canaletto; +a nice scene of sheep by Jacopo Bassano; the portrait of an unknown +young man by an unknown painter, No. 1157; and Tintoretto's daring +"Abraham and Isaac". + +The other Venetian room is almost wholly devoted to portraits, chief +among them being a red-headed Tintoretto burning furiously, No. 613, +and Titian's sly and sinister Caterina Cornaro in her gorgeous dress, +No. 648; Piombo's "L'Uomo Ammalato"; Tintoretto's Jacopo Sansovino, +the sculptor, the grave old man holding his calipers who made that +wonderful Greek Bacchus at the Bargello; Schiavone's ripe, bearded +"Ignoto," No. 649, and, perhaps above all, the Moroni, No. 386, +black against grey. There is also Paolo Veronese's "Holy Family with +S. Catherine," superbly masterly and golden but suggesting the Rialto +rather than Nazareth. + +One picture gives the next room, the Sala di Michelangelo, its name; +but entering from the Venetian room we come first on the right to a +very well-known Lippo Lippi, copied in every picture shop in Florence: +No. 1307, a Madonna and two Children. Few pictures are so beset by +delighted observers, but apart from the perfection of it as an early +painting, leaving nothing to later dexterity, its appeal to me is +weak. The Madonna (whose head-dress, as so often in Lippo Lippi, +foreshadows Botticelli) and the landscape equally delight; the +children almost repel, and the decorative furniture in the corner +quite repels. The picture is interesting also for its colour, which +is unlike anything else in the gallery, the green of the Madonna's +dress being especially lovely and distinguished, and vulgarizing +the Ghirlandaio--No. 1297--which hangs next. This picture is far too +hot throughout, and would indeed be almost displeasing but for the +irradiation of the Virgin's face. The other Ghirlandaio--No. 1295--in +this room is far finer and sweeter; but at the Accademia and the Badia +we are to see him at his best in this class of work. None the less, +No. 1295 is a charming thing, and the little Mother and her happy +Child, whose big toe is being so reverently adored by the ancient +mage, are very near real simple life. This artist, we shall see, +always paints healthy, honest babies. The seaport in the distance is +charming too. + +Ghirlandaio's place in this room is interesting on account of his +relation to Michelangelo as first instructor; but by the time that the +great master's "Holy Family," hanging here, was painted all traces +of Ghirlandaio's influence had disappeared, and if any forerunner +is noticeable it is Luca Signorelli. But we must first glance at +the pretty little Lorenzo di Credi, No. 1160, the Annunciation, +an artificial work full of nice thoughts and touches, with the +prettiest little blue Virgin imaginable, a heavenly landscape, and +a predella in monochrome, in one scene of which Eve rises from the +side of the sleeping Adam with extraordinary realism. The announcing +Gabriel is deferential but positive; Mary is questioning but not +wholly surprised. In any collection of Annunciations this picture +would find a prominent place. + +The "Holy Family" of Michelangelo--No. 1139--is remarkable for more +than one reason. It is, to begin with, the only finished easel picture +that exists from his brush. It is also his one work in oils, for he +afterwards despised that medium as being fit "only for children". The +frame is contemporary and was made for it, the whole being commissioned +by Angelo Doni, a wealthy connoisseur whose portrait by Raphael we +shall see in the Pitti, and who, according to Vasari, did his best to +get it cheaper than his bargain, and had in the end to pay dearer. The +period of the picture is about 1503, while the great David was in +progress, when the painter was twenty-eight. That it is masterly and +superb there can be no doubt, but, like so much of Michelangelo's +work, it suffers from its author's greatness. There is an austerity +of power here that ill consorts with the tender domesticity of the +scene, and the Child is a young Hercules. The nude figures in the +background introduce an alien element and suggest the conflict between +Christianity and paganism, the new religion and the old: in short, the +Twilight of the Gods. Whether Michelangelo intended this we shall not +know; but there it is. The prevailing impression left by the picture +is immense power and virtuosity and no religion. In the beautiful Luca +Signorelli--No.74--next it, we find at once a curious similarity and +difference. The Madonna and Child only are in the foreground, a not +too radiant but very tender couple; in the background are male figures +nearly nude: not quite, as Michelangelo made them, and suggesting +no discord as in his picture. Luca was born in 1441, and was thus +thirty-four years older than Michelangelo. This picture is perhaps that +one presented by Luca to Lorenzo de' Medici, of which Vasari tells, and +if so it was probably on a wall in the Medici palace when Michelangelo +as a boy was taught with Lorenzo's sons. Luca's sweetness was alien +to Michelangelo, but not his melancholy or his sense of composition; +while Luca's devotion to the human form as the unit of expression +was in Michelangelo carried out to its highest power. Vasari, who +was a relative of Luca's and a pupil of Michelangelo's, says that +his master had the greatest admiration for Luca's genius. + +Luca Signorelli was born at Cortona, and was instructed by Piero della +Francesca, whose one Uffizi painting is in a later room. His chief work +is at Cortona, at Rome (in the Sixtine Chapel), and at Orvieto. His +fame was sufficient in Florence in 1491 for him to be made one of +the judges of the designs for the facade of the Duomo. Luca lived +to a great age, not dying till 1524, and was much beloved. He was +magnificent in his habits and loved fine clothes, was very kindly +and helpful in disposition, and the influence of his naturalness and +sincerity upon art was great. One very pretty sad story is told of him, +to the effect that when his son, whom he had dearly loved, was killed +at Cortona, he caused the body to be stripped, and painted it with the +utmost exactitude, that through his own handiwork he might be able +to contemplate that treasure of which fate had robbed him. Perhaps +the most beautiful or at any rate the most idiosyncratic thing in the +picture before us is its lovely profusion of wayside flowers. These +come out but poorly in the photograph, but in the painting they +are exquisite both in form and in detail. Luca painted them as if +he loved them. (There is a hint of the same thoughtful care in the +flowers in No. 1133, by Luca, in our National Gallery; but these at +Florence are the best.) No. 74 is in tempera: the next, also by Luca, +No.1291, is in oil, a "Holy Family," a work at once powerful, rich, +and sweet. Here, again, we may trace an influence on Michelangelo, +for the child is shown deprecating a book which his mother is +displaying, while in the beautiful marble tondo of the "Madonna and +Child" by Michelangelo, which we are soon to see in the Bargello, +a reading lesson is in progress, and the child wearying of it. We +find Luca again in the next large picture--No.1547--a Crucifixion, +with various Saints, done in collaboration with Perugino. The design +suggests Luca rather than his companion, and the woman at the foot of +the cross is surely the type of which he was so fond. The drawing of +Christ is masterly and all too sombre for Perugino. Finally, there is +a Luca predella, No. 1298, representing the Annunciation, the Birth +of Christ (in which Joseph is older almost than in any version), and +the Adoration of the Magi, all notable for freedom and richness. Note +the realism and charm and the costume of the two pages of the Magi. + +And now we come to what is perhaps the most lovely picture in the whole +gallery, judged purely as colour and sweetness and design--No.1549--a +"Madonna Adoring," with Filippino Lippi's name and an interrogation +mark beneath it. Who painted it if not Filippino? That is the question; +but into such problems, which confront one at every turn in Florence, +I am neither qualified nor anxious to enter. When doctors disagree any +one may decide before me. The thought, moreover, that always occurs +in the presence of these good debatable pictures, is that any doubt +as to their origin merely enriches this already over-rich period, +since some one had to paint them. Simon not pure becomes hardly less +remarkable than Simon pure. + +If only the Baby were more pleasing, this would be perhaps the most +delightful picture in the world: as it is, its blues alone lift it to +the heavens of delectableness. By an unusual stroke of fortune a crack +in the paint where the panels join has made a star in the tender blue +sky. The Tuscan landscape is very still and beautiful; the flowers, +although conventional and not accurate like Luca's, are as pretty +as can be; the one unsatisfying element is the Baby, who is a little +clumsy and a little in pain, but diffuses radiance none the less. And +the Mother--the Mother is all perfection and winsomeness. Her face +and hands are exquisite, and the Tuscan twilight behind her is so +lovely. I have given a reproduction, but colour is essential. + +The remaining three pictures in the room are a Bastiano and a +Pollaiolo, which are rather for the student than for the wanderer, +and a charming Ignoto, No. 75, which I like immensely. But Ignoto +nearly always paints well. + +In the Sala di Leonardo are two pictures which bear the name of +this most fascinating of all the painters of the world. One is the +Annunciation, No. 1288, upon the authenticity of which much has been +said and written, and the other an unfinished Adoration of the Magi +which cannot be questioned by anyone. The probabilities are that the +Annunciation is an early work and that the ascription is accurate: +at Oxford is a drawing known to be Leonardo's that is almost certainly +a study for a detail of this work, while among the Leonardo drawings +in the His de la Salle collection at the Louvre is something very +like a first sketch of the whole. Certainly one can think of no one +else who could have given the picture its quality, which increases +in richness with every visit to the gallery; but the workshop of +Verrocchio, where Leonardo worked, together with Lorenzo di Credi and +Perugino, with Andrea of the True Eye over all, no doubt put forth +wonderful things. The Annunciation is unique in the collection, both +in colour and character: nothing in the Uffizi so deepens. There are +no cypresses like these in any other picture, no finer drawing than +that of Mary's hands. Luca's flowers are better, in the adjoining +room; one is not too happy about the pedestal of the reading-desk; +and there are Virgins whom we can like more; but as a whole it is +perhaps the most fascinating picture of all, for it has the Leonardo +darkness as well as light. + +Of Leonardo I could write for ever, but this book is not the place; +for though he was a Florentine, Florence has very little of his work: +these pictures only, and one of these only for certain, together +with an angel in a work by Verrocchio at the Accademia which we +shall see, and possibly a sculptured figure over the north door of +the Baptistery. Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Francis I of +France, lured him away, to the eternal loss of his own city. It is +Milan and Paris that are richest in his work, and after that London, +which has at South Kensington a sculptured relief by him as well as +a painting at the National Gallery, a cartoon at Burlington House, +and the British Museum drawings. + +His other work here--No. 1252--in the grave brown frame, was to have +been Leonardo's greatest picture in oil, so Vasari says: larger, in +fact, than any known picture at that time. Being very indistinct, +it is, curiously enough, best as the light begins to fail and the +beautiful wistful faces emerge from the gloom. In their presence one +recalls Leonardo's remark in one of his notebooks that faces are most +interesting beneath a troubled sky. "You should make your portrait," +he adds, "at the hour of the fall of the evening when it is cloudy +or misty, for the light then is perfect." In the background one can +discern the prancing horses of the Magi's suite; a staircase with +figures ascending and descending; the rocks and trees of Tuscany; +and looking at it one cannot but ponder upon the fatality which seems +to have pursued this divine and magical genius, ordaining that almost +everything that he put forth should be either destroyed or unfinished: +his work in the Castello at Milan, which might otherwise be an eighth +wonder of the world, perished; his "Last Supper" at Milan perishing; +his colossal equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza broken to pieces; +his sculpture lost; his Palazzo Vecchio battle cartoon perished; +this picture only a sketch. Even after long years the evil fate still +persists, for in 1911 his "Gioconda" was stolen from the Louvre by +madman or knave. + +Among the other pictures in this room is the rather hot "Adoration +of the Magi," by Cosimo Rosselli (1439-1507), over the Leonardo +"Annunciation," a glowing scene of colour and animation: this Cosimo +being the Cosimo from whom Piero di Cosimo took his name, and an +associate of Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Perugino, and Luca Signorelli +on the Sixtine Chapel frescoes. On the left wall is Uccello's battle +piece, No. 52, very like that in our National Gallery: rich and +glorious as decoration, but quite bearing out Vasari's statement that +Uccello could not draw horses. Uccello was a most laborious student +of animal life and so absorbed in the mysteries of perspective that +he preferred them to bed; but he does not seem to have been able to +unite them. He was a perpetual butt of Donatello. It is told of him +that having a commission to paint a fresco for the Mercato Vecchio +he kept the progress of the work a secret and allowed no one to +see it. At last, when it was finished, he drew aside the sheet for +Donatello, who was buying fruit, to admire. "Ah, Paolo," said the +sculptor reproachfully, "now that you ought to be covering it up, +you uncover it." + +There remain a superb nude study of Venus by Lorenzo di Credi, +No. 3452--one of the pictures which escaped Savonarola's bonfire +of vanities, and No. 1305, a Virgin and Child with various Saints +by Domenico Veneziano (1400-1461), who taught Gentile da Fabriano, +the teacher of Jacopo Bellini. This picture is a complete contrast to +the Uccello: for that is all tapestry, richness, and belligerence, +and this is so pale and gentle, with its lovely light green, a rare +colour in this gallery. + + + +CHAPTER X + +The Uffizi III: Botticelli + +A painter apart--Sandro Filipepi--Artists' names--Piero de' Medici--The +"Adoration of the Magi"--The "Judith" pictures--Lucrezia Tornabuoni, +Lorenzo and Giuliano's mother--The Tournaments--The "Birth of Venus" +and the "Primavera"--Simonetta--A new star--Sacred pictures--Savonarola +and "The Calumny"--The National Gallery--Botticelli's old age and +death. + +We come next to the Sala di Botticelli, and such is the position +held by this painter in the affection of visitors to Florence, and +such the wealth of works from his hand that the Uffizi possesses, +that I feel that a single chapter may well be devoted to his genius, +more particularly as many of his pictures were so closely associated +with Piero de' Medici and Lorenzo de' Medici. We see Botticelli here +at his most varied. The Accademia also is very rich in his work, +having above all the "Primavera," and in this chapter I shall glance +at the Accademia pictures too, returning to them when we reach that +gallery in due course. Among the great Florentine masters Botticelli +stands apart by reason not only of the sensitive wistful delicacy +of his work, but for the profound interest of his personality. He +is not essentially more beautiful than his friend Filippino Lippi +or--occasionally--than Fra Lippo Lippi his master; but he is always +deeper. One feels that he too felt the emotion that his characters +display; he did not merely paint, he thought and suffered. Hence his +work is dramatic. Again Botticelli had far wider sympathies than most +of his contemporaries. He was a friend of the Medici, a neo-Platonist, +a student of theology with the poet Palmieri, an illustrator of Dante, +and a devoted follower of Savonarola. Of the part that women played +in his life we know nothing: in fact we know less of him intimately +than of almost any of the great painters; but this we may guess, that +he was never a happy man. His work falls naturally into divisions +corresponding to his early devotion to Piero de' Medici and his +wife Lucrezia Tornabuoni, in whose house for a while he lived; to +his interest in their sons Lorenzo and Giuliano; and finally to his +belief in Savonarola. Sublime he never is; comforting he never is; +but he is everything else. One can never forget in his presence the +tragedy that attends the too earnest seeker after beauty: not "all +is vanity" does Botticelli say, but "all is transitory". + +Botticelli, as we now call him, was the son of Mariano Filipepi and +was born in Florence in 1447. According to one account he was called +Sandro di Botticelli because he was apprenticed to a goldsmith of +that name; according to another his brother Antonio, a goldsmith, +was known as Botticello (which means a little barrel), and Sandro +being with him was called Sandro di Botticello. Whatever the cause, +the fact remains that the name of Filipepi is rarely used. + +And here a word as to the capriciousness of the nomenclature of +artists. We know some by their Christian names; some by their surnames; +some by their nicknames; some by the names of their towns, and some +by the names of their masters. Tommaso Bigordi, a goldsmith, was so +clever in designing a pretty garland for women's hair that he was +called Ghirlandaio, the garland-maker, and his painter son Domenico +is therefore known for ever as Uomenico Ghirlandaio. Paolo Doni, a +painter of battle scenes, was so fond of birds that he was known as +Uccello (a bird) and now has no other name; Pietro Vannucci coming +from Perugia was called Perugino; Agnolo di Francesco di Migliore +happened to be a tailor with a genius of a son, Andrea; that genius is +therefore Andrea of the Tailor--del Sarto--for all time. And so forth. + +To return to Botticelli. In 1447, when he was born, Fra Angelico +was sixty; and Masaccio had been dead for some years. At the age +of twelve the boy was placed with Fra Lippo Lippi, then a man of +a little more than fifty, to learn painting. That Lippo was his +master one may see continually, but particularly by comparison of +his headdresses with almost any of Botticelli's. Both were minutely +careful in this detail. But where Lippo was beautifully obvious, +Sandro was beautifully analytical: he was also, as I have said, +much more interesting and dramatic. + +Botticelli's best patron was Piero de' Medici, who took him into +his house, much as his son Lorenzo was to take Michelangelo into +his, and made him one of the family. For Piero, Botticelli always +had affection and respect, and when he painted his "Fortitude" as +one of the Pollaiuoli's series of the Virtues for the Mercatanzia +(of which several are in this gallery), he made the figure symbolize +Piero's life and character--or so it is possible, if one wishes to +believe. But it should be understood that almost nothing is known +about Botticelli and the origin of his pictures. At Piero's request +Botticelli painted the "Adoration of the Magi" (No. 1286) which was +to hang in S. Maria Novella as an offering of gratitude for Piero's +escape from the conspiracy of Luca Pitti in 1466. Piero had but just +succeeded to Cosimo when Pitti, considering him merely an invalid, +struck his blow. By virtue largely of the young Lorenzo's address +the attack miscarried: hence the presence of Lorenzo in the picture, +on the extreme left, with a sword. Piero himself in scarlet kneels +in the middle; Giuliano, his second son, doomed to an early death by +assassination, is kneeling on his right. The picture is not only a +sacred painting but (like the Gozzoli fresco at the Riccardi palace) +an exaltation of the Medici family. The dead Cosimo is at the Child's +feet; the dead Giovanni, Piero's brother, stands close to the kneeling +Giuliano. Among the other persons represented are collateral Medici +and certain of their friends. + +It is by some accepted that the figure in yellow, on the extreme right, +looking out of this picture, is Botticelli himself. But for a portrait +of the painter of more authenticity we must go to the Carmine, where, +in the Brancacci chapel, we shall see a fresco by Botticelli's friend +Filippino Lippi representing the Crucifixion of S. Peter, in which +our painter is depicted on the right, looking on at the scene--a +rather coarse heavy face, with a large mouth and long hair. He wears +a purple cap and red cloak. Vasari tells us that Botticelli, although +so profoundly thoughtful and melancholy in his work, was extravagant, +pleasure loving, and given to practical jokes. Part at least of this +might be gathered from observation of Filippino Lippi's portrait of +him. According to Vasari it was No. 1286 which brought Botticelli his +invitation to Rome from Sixtus IV to decorate the Sixtine Chapel. But +that was several years later and much was to happen in the interval. + +The two little "Judith" pictures (Nos. 1156 and 1158) were painted for +Piero de' Medici and had their place in the Medici palace. In 1494, +when Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici was banished from Florence and the +palace looted, they were stolen and lost sight of; but during the reign +of Francis I they reappeared and were presented to his wife Bianca +Capella and once more placed with the Medici treasures. No. 1156, +the Judith walking springily along, sword in hand, having slain the +tyrant, is one of the masterpieces of paint. Everything about it is +radiant, superb, and unforgettable. + +One other picture which the young painter made for his patron--or in +this case his patroness, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Piero's wife--is the +"Madonna of the Magnificat," No. 1267, with its beautiful children and +sweet Madonna, its lovely landscape but not too attractive Child. The +two boys are Lorenzo, on the left, and Giuliano, in yellow. One +of their sisters leans over them. Here the boys are perhaps, in +Botticelli's way, typified rather than portrayed. Although this +picture came so early in his career Botticelli never excelled its +richness, beauty, and depth of feeling, nor its liquid delicacy of +treatment. Lucrezia Tornabuoni, for whom he painted it, was a very +remarkable woman, not only a good mother to her children and a good +wife to Piero, but a poet and exemplar. She survived Piero by thirteen +years and her son Giuliano by five. Botticelli painted her portrait, +which is now in Berlin. + +These pictures are the principal work of Botticelli's first period, +which coincides with the five years of Piero's rule and the period +of mourning for him. + +He next appears in what many of his admirers find his most fascinating +mood, as a joyous allegorist, the picture of Venus rising from +the sea in this room, the "Primavera" which we shall see at the +Accademia, and the "Mars and Venus" in our National Gallery, +belonging to this epoch. But in order to understand them we must +again go to history. Piero was succeeded in 1469 by his son Lorenzo +the Magnificent, who continued his father's friendship for the young +painter, now twenty-two years of age. In 1474 Lorenzo devised for his +brother Giuliano a tournament in the Piazza of S. Croce very like that +which Piero had given for Lorenzo on the occasion of his betrothal +in 1469; and Botticelli was commissioned by Lorenzo to make pictures +commemorating the event. Verrocchio again helped with the costumes; +Lucrezia Donati again was Queen of the Tournament; but the Queen of +Beauty was the sixteen-year-old bride of Marco Vespucci--the lovely +Simonetta Cattaneo, a lady greatly beloved by all and a close friend +both of Giuliano and Lorenzo. + +The praises of Lorenzo's tournament had been sung by Luca Pulci: +Giuliano's were sung by Poliziano, under the title "La Giostra di +Giuliano de' Medici," and it is this poem which Botticelli may be +said to have illustrated, for both poet and artist employ the same +imagery. Thus Poliziano, or Politian (of whom we shall hear more in the +chapter on S. Marco) compares Simonetta to Venus, and in stanzas 100 +and 101 speaks of her birth, describing her blown to earth over the +sea by the breath of the Zephyrs, and welcomed there by the Hours, +one of whom offers her a robe. This, Botticelli translates into +exquisite tempera with a wealth of pretty thoughts. The cornflowers +and daisies on the Hour's dress are alone a perennial joy. + +Simonetta as Venus has some of the wistfulness of the Madonnas; +and not without reason does Botticelli give her this expression, for +her days were very short. In the "Primavera," which we are to see at +the Accademia, but which must be described here, we find Simonetta +again but we do not see her first. We see first that slender upright +commanding figure, all flowers and youth and conquest, in her lovely +floral dress, advancing over the grass like thistle-down. Never +before in painting had anything been done at once so distinguished +and joyous and pagan as this. For a kindred emotion one had to go to +Greek sculpture, but Botticelli, while his grace and joy are Hellenic, +was intensely modern too: the problems of the Renaissance, the tragedy +of Christianity, equally cloud his brow. + +The symbolism of the "Primavera" is interesting. Glorious Spring is +returning to earth--in the presence of Venus--once more to make all +glad, and with her her attendants to dance and sing, and the Zephyrs +to bring the soft breezes; and by Spring Botticelli meant the reign +of Lorenzo, whose tournament motto was "Le temps revient". Simonetta +is again the central figure, and never did Botticelli paint more +exquisitely than here. Her bosom is the prettiest in Florence; the +lining of her robe over her right arm has such green and blue and +gold as never were seen elsewhere; her golden sandals are delicate +as gossamer. Over her head a little cupid hovers, directing his arrow +at Mercury, on the extreme left, beside the three Graces. + +In Mercury, who is touching the trees with his caduceus and +bidding them burgeon, some see Giuliano de' Medici, who was not yet +betrothed. But when the picture was painted both Giuliano and Simonetta +were dead: Simonetta first, of consumption, in 1476, and Giuliano, by +stabbing in 1478. Lorenzo, who was at Pisa during Simonetta's illness, +detailed his own physician for her care. On hearing of her death he +walked out into the night and noticed for the first time a brilliant +star. "See," he said, "either the soul of that most gentle lady +hath been transferred into that new star or else hath it been joined +together thereunto." Of Giuliano's end we have read in Chapter II, +and it was Botticelli, whose destinies were so closely bound up with +the Medici, who was commissioned to paint portraits of the murderous +Pazzi to be displayed outside the Palazzo Vecchio. + +A third picture in what may be called the tournament period is found by +some in the "Venus and Mars," No. 915, in our National Gallery. Here +Giuliano would be Mars, and Venus either one woman in particular +whom Florence wished him to marry, or all women, typified by one, +trying to lure him from other pre-occupations, such as hunting. To +make her Simonetta is to go too far; for she is not like the Simonetta +of the other pictures, and Simonetta was but recently married and a +very model of fair repute. In No. 916 in the National Gallery is a +"Venus with Cupids" (which might be by Botticelli and might be by that +interesting painter of whom Mr. Berenson has written so attractively +as Amico di Sandro), in which Politian's description of Venus, in +his poem, is again closely followed. + +After the tournament pictures we come in Botticelli's career to the +Sixtine Chapel frescoes, and on his return to Florence to other +frescoes, including that lovely one at the Villa Lemmi (then the +Villa Tornabuoni) which is now on the staircase of the Louvre. These +are followed by at least two more Medici pictures--the portrait of +Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici, in this room, No. 1154, the sad-faced +youth with the medal; and the "Pallas and the Centaur" at the Pitti, +an historical record of Lorenzo's success as a diplomatist when he +went to Naples in 1480. + +The latter part of Botticelli's life was spent under the influence +of Savonarola and in despair at the wickedness of the world and its +treatment of that prophet. His pictures became wholly religious, but +it was religion without joy. Never capable of disguising the sorrow +that underlies all human happiness--or, as I think of it in looking +at his work, the sense of transience--Botticelli, as age came upon +him, was more than ever depressed. One has the feeling that he was +persuaded that only through devotion and self-negation could peace of +mind be gained, and yet for himself could find none. The sceptic was +too strong in him. Savonarola's eloquence could not make him serene, +however much he may have come beneath its spell. It but served to +increase his melancholy. Hence these wistful despondent Madonnas, all +so conscious of the tragedy before their Child; hence these troubled +angels and shadowed saints. + +Savonarola was hanged and burned in 1498, and Botticelli paid +a last tribute to his friend in the picture in this room called +"The Calumny". Under the pretence of merely illustrating a passage +in Lucian, who was one of his favourite authors, Botticelli has +represented the campaign against the great reformer. The hall +represents Florence; the judge (with the ears of an ass) the +Signoria and the Pope. Into these ears Ignorance and Suspicion +are whispering. Calumny, with Envy at her side and tended by Fraud +and Deception, holds a torch in one hand and with the other drags +her victim, who personifies (but with no attempt at a likeness) +Savonarola. Behind are the figures of Remorse, cloaked and miserable, +and Truth, naked and unafraid. The statues in the niches ironically +represent abstract virtues. Everything in the decoration of the palace +points to enlightenment and content; and beyond is the calmest and +greenest of seas. + +One more picture was Botticelli to paint, and this also was to +the glory of Savonarola. By good fortune it belongs to the English +people and is No. 1034 in the National Gallery. It has upon it a +Greek inscription in the painter's own hand which runs in English +as follows: "This picture I, Alessandro, painted at the end of the +year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, in the half-time after the time +during the fulfilment of the eleventh of St. John, in the second +woe of the Apocalypse, in the loosing of the devil for three years +and a half. Afterwards he shall be confined, and we shall see him +trodden down, as in this picture." The loosing of the devil was the +three years and a half after Savonarola's execution on May 23rd, +1498, when Florence was mad with reaction from the severity of his +discipline. S. John says, "I will give power unto my two witnesses, +and they shall prophesy"; the painter makes three, Savonarola having +had two comrades with him. The picture was intended to give heart to +the followers of Savonarola and bring promise of ultimate triumph. + +After the death of Savonarola, Botticelli became both poor and +infirm. He had saved no money and all his friends were dead--Piero de' +Medici, Lorenzo, Giuliano, Lucrezia, Simonetta, Filippino Lippi, and +Savonarola. He hobbled about on crutches for a while, a pensioner of +the Medici family, and dying at the age of seventy-eight was buried +in Ognissanti, but without a tombstone for fear of desecration by +the enemies of Savonarola's adherents. + +Such is the outline of Botticelli's life. We will now look at such +of the pictures in this room as have not been mentioned. + +Entering from the Sala di Leonardo, the first picture on the right is +the "Birth of Venus". Then the very typical circular picture--a shape +which has come to be intimately associated with this painter--No. 1289, +"The Madonna of the Pomegranate," one of his most beautiful works, +and possibly yet another designed for Lucrezia Tornabuoni, for the +curl on the forehead of the boy to the left of the Madonna--who is +more than usually troubled--is very like that for which Giuliano de' +Medici was famous. This is a very lovely work, although its colour +is a little depressed. Next is the most remarkable of the Piero de' +Medici pictures, which I have already touched upon--No. 1286, "The +Adoration of the Magi," as different from the Venus as could be: +the Venus so cool and transparent, and this so hot and rich, with +its haughty Florentines and sumptuous cloaks. Above it is No. 23, +a less subtle group--the Madonna, the Child and angels--difficult to +see. And then comes the beautiful "Magnificat," which we know to have +been painted for Lucrezia Tornabuoni and which shall here introduce a +passage from Pater: "For with Botticelli she too, although she holds in +her hands the 'Desire of all nations,' is one of those who are neither +for Jehovah nor for His enemies; and her choice is on her face. The +white light on it is cast up hard and cheerless from below, as when +snow lies upon the ground, and the children look up with surprise +at the strange whiteness of the ceiling. Her trouble is in the very +caress of the mysterious child, whose gaze is always far from her, +and who has already that sweet look of devotion which men have never +been able altogether to love, and which still makes the born saint an +object almost of suspicion to his earthly brethren. Once, indeed, he +guides her hand to transcribe in a book the words of her exaltation, +the 'Ave,' and the 'Magnificat,' and the 'Gaude Maria,' and the young +angels, glad to rouse her for a moment from her devotion, are eager +to hold the ink-horn and to support the book. But the pen almost +drops from her hand, and the high cold words have no meaning for her, +and her true children are those others among whom, in her rude home, +the intolerable honour came to her, with that look of wistful inquiry +on their irregular faces which you see in startled animals--gipsy +children, such as those who, in Apennine villages, still hold out +their long brown arms to beg of you, with their thick black hair +nicely combed, and fair white linen on their sunburnt throats." + +The picture's frame is that which was made for it four hundred and +fifty years ago: by whom, I cannot say, but it was the custom at that +time for the painter himself to be responsible also for the frame. + +The glory of the end wall is the "Annunciation," reproduced in this +book. The picture is a work that may perhaps not wholly please at +first, the cause largely of the vermilion on the floor, but in the +end conquers. The hands are among the most beautiful in existence, +and the landscape, with its one tree and its fairy architecture, is a +continual delight. Among "Annunciations," as among pictures, it stands +very high. It has more of sophistication than most: the Virgin not +only recognizes the honour, but the doom, which the painter himself +foreshadows in the predella, where Christ is seen rising from the +grave. None of Fra Angelico's simple radiance here, and none of Fra +Lippo Lippi's glorified matter-of-fact. Here is tragedy. The painting +of the Virgin's head-dress is again marvellous. + +Next the "Annunciation" on the left is, to my eyes, one of Botticelli's +most attractive works: No. 1303, just the Madonna and Child again, +in a niche, with roses climbing behind them: the Madonna one of his +youngest, and more placid and simple than most, with more than a hint +of the Verrocchio type in her face. To the "School of Botticelli" this +is sometimes attributed: it may be rightly. Its pendant is another +"Madonna and Child," No. 76, more like Lippo Lippi and very beautiful +in its darker graver way. + +The other wall has the "Fortitude," the "Calumny," and the two little +"Judith and Holofernes" pictures. Upon the "Fortitude," to which I +have already alluded, it is well to look at Ruskin, who, however, +was not aware that the artist intended any symbolic reference to +the character and career of Piero de' Medici. The criticism is in +"Mornings in Florence" and it is followed by some fine pages on the +"Judith". The "Justice," "Prudence," and "Charity" of the Pollaiuolo +brothers, belonging to the same series as the "Fortitude," are also +here; but after the "Fortitude" one does not look at them. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +the Uffizi IV: Remaining Rooms + +S. Zenobius--Piero della Francesca--Federigo da Montefeltro--Melozzo +da Forli--The Tribuna--Raphael--Re-arrangement--The gems--The +self-painted portraits--A northern room--Hugo van der Goes-- +Tommaso Portinari--The sympathetic Memling--Rubens riotous--Vittoria +della Rovere--Baroccio--Honthorst--Giovanni the indiscreet--The +Medusa--Medici miniatures--Hercules Seghers--The Sala di Niobe-- +Beautiful antiques. + +Passing from the Sala di Botticelli through the Sala di Lorenzo +Monaco and the first Tuscan rooms to the corridor, we come to +the second Tuscan room, which is dominated by Andrea del Sarto +(1486-1531), whose "Madonna and Child," with "S. Francis and S. John +the Evangelist"--No. 112--is certainly the favourite picture here, +as it is, in reproduction, in so many homes; but, apart from the +Child, I like far better the "S. Giacomo"--No. 1254--so sympathetic +and rich in colour, which is reproduced in this volume. Another +good Andrea is No. 93--a soft and misty apparition of Christ to +the Magdalen. The Sodoma (1477-1549) on the easel--"S. Sebastian," +No. 1279--is very beautiful in its Leonardesque hues and romantic +landscape, and the two Ridolfo Ghirlandaios (1483-1561) near it are +interesting as representing, with much hard force, scenes in the story +of S. Zenobius, of Florence, of whom we read in chapter II. In one he +restores life to the dead child in the midst of a Florentine crowd; +in the other his bier, passing the Baptistery, reanimates the dead +tree. Giotto's tower and the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio are to be +seen on the left. A very different picture is the Cosimo Rosselli, +No. 1280 his, a comely "Madonna and Saints," with a motherly thought +in the treatment of the bodice. + +Among the other pictures is a naked sprawling scene of bodies and +limbs by Cosimo I's favourite painter, Bronzino (1502-1572), called +"The Saviour in Hell," and two nice Medici children from the same +brush, which was kept busy both on the living and ancestral lineaments +of that family; two Filippino Lippis, both fine if with a little +too much colour for this painter: one--No. 1257--approaching the +hotness of a Ghirlandaio carpet piece, but a great feat of crowded +activity; the other, No. 1268, having a beautiful blue Madonna and +a pretty little cherub with a red book. Piero di Cosimo is here, +religious and not mythological; and here are a very straightforward +and satisfying Mariotto Albertinelli--the "Virgin and S. Elizabeth," +very like a Fra Bartolommeo; a very rich and beautiful "Deposition" +by Botticini, one of Verrocchio's pupils, with a gay little predella +underneath it, and a pretty "Holy Family" by Franciabigio. But Andrea +remains the king of the walls. + +From this Sala a little room is gained which I advise all +tired visitors to the Uffizi to make their harbour of refuge and +recuperation; for it has only three or four pictures in it and three +or four pieces of sculpture and some pleasant maps and tapestry +on the walls, and from its windows you look across the brown-red +tiles to S. Miniato. The pictures, although so few, are peculiarly +attractive, being the work of two very rare hands, Piero della +Francesca (? 1398-1492) and Melozzo da Forli (1438-1494). Melozzo +has here a very charming Annunciation in two panels, the fascination +of which I cannot describe. That they are fascinating there is, +however, no doubt. We have symbolical figures by him in our National +Gallery--again hanging next to Piero della Francesca--but they are not +the equal of these in charm, although very charming. These grow more +attractive with every visit: the eager advancing angel with his lily, +and the timid little Virgin in her green dress, with folded hands. + +The two Pieros are, of course, superb. Piero never painted anything +that was not distinguished and liquid, and here he gives us of +his best: portraits of Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and +Battista, his second Duchess, with classical scenes behind them. Piero +della Francesca has ever been one of my favourite painters, and here he +is wholly a joy. Of his works Florence has but few, since he was not +a Florentine, nor did he work here, being engaged chiefly at Urbino, +Ferrara, Arezzo, and Rome. His life ended sadly, for he became totally +blind. In addition to his painting he was a mathematician of much +repute. The Duke of Urbino here depicted is Federigo da Montefeltro, +who ruled from 1444 to 1482, and in 1459 married as his second wife +a daughter of Alessandro Sforza, of Pesaro, the wedding being the +occasion of Piero's pictures. The duke stands out among the many +Italian lords of that time as a humane and beneficent ruler and +collector, and eager to administer well. He was a born fighter, and it +was owing to the loss of his right eye and the fracture of his noble +old nose that he is seen here in such a determined profile against +the lovely light over the Umbrian hills. The symbolical chariots in +the landscape at the back represent respectively the Triumph of Fame +(the Duke's) and the Triumph of Chastity (that of the Duchess). The +Duke's companions are Victory, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, and +Temperance; the little Duchess's are Love, Hope, Faith, Charity, +and Innocence; and if these are not exquisite pictures I never saw any. + +The statues in the room should not be missed, particularly the little +Genius of Love, the Bacchus and Ampelos, and the spoilt little comely +boy supposed to represent--and quite conceivably--the infant Nero. + +Crossing the large Tuscan room again, we come to a little narrow room +filled with what are now called cabinet pictures: far too many to +study properly, but comprising a benignant old man's head, No. 1167, +which is sometimes called a Filippino Lippi and sometimes a Masaccio, +a fragment of a fresco; a boy from the serene perfect hand of Perugino, +No. 1217; two little panels by Fra Bartolommeo--No. 1161--painted for a +tabernacle to hold a Donatello relief and representing the Circumcision +and Nativity, in colours, and at the back a pretty Annunciation in +monochrome; No. 1235, on the opposite wall, a very sweet Mother and +Child by the same artist; a Perseus liberating Andromeda, by Piero +di Cosimo, No. 1312; two or three Lorenzo di Credis; two or three +Alloris; a portrait of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, by Antonio Pollaiuolo; +and three charming little scenes from the lives of S. John the Baptist +and the Virgin, by Fra Angelico, which belong properly to the predella +of an altar-piece that we saw in the first room we entered--No. 1290, +"The Coronation of the Virgin". No. 1162 has the gayest green dress +in it imaginable. + +And here we enter the Tribuna, which is to the Uffizi what the Salon +Carre is to the Louvre: the special treasure-room of the gallery, +holding its most valuable pictures. But to-day there are as good works +outside it as in; for the Michelangelo has been moved to another +room, and Botticelli (to name no other) is not represented here at +all. Probably the statue famous as the Venus de' Medici would be +considered the Tribuna's chief possession; but not by me. Nor should +I vote either for Titian's Venus. In sculpture I should choose rather +the "Knife-sharpener," and among the pictures Raphael's "Madonna del +Cardellino," No. 1129. But this is not to suggest that everything +is not a masterpiece, for it is. Beginning at the door leading from +the room of the little pictures, we find, on our left, Raphael's +"Ignota," No. 1120, so rich and unfeeling, and then Francia's portrait +of Evangelista Scappi, so rich and real and a picture that one never +forgets. Raphael's Julius II comes next, not so powerful as the version +in the Pitti, and above that Titian's famous Venus. In Perugino's +portrait of Francesco delle Opere, No. 287, we find an evening sky +and landscape still more lovely than Francia's. This Francesco was +brother of Giovanni delle Corniole, a protege of Lorenzo de' Medici, +famous as a carver of intaglios, whose portrait of Savonarola in +this medium, now preserved in the Uffizi, in the Gem Room, was said +by Michelangelo to carry art to its farthest possible point. + +A placid and typical Perugino--the Virgin and two saints--comes next, +and then a northern air sweeps in with Van Dyck's Giovanni di Montfort, +now darkening into gloom but very fine and commanding. Titian's second +Venus is above, for which his daughter Lavinia acted as model (the +Venus of the other version being possibly the Marchesa della Rovere), +and under it is the only Luini in the Uffizi, unmistakably from the +sweet hand and full of Leonardesque influence. Beneath this is a rich +and decorative work of the Veronese school, a portrait of Elisabetta +Gonzaga, with another evening sky. Then we go north again, to Duerer's +Adoration of the Magi, a picture full of pleasant detail--a little +mountain town here, a knight in difficulties with his horse there, +two butterflies close to the Madonna--and interesting also for the +treatment of the main theme in Duerer's masterly careful way; and then +to Spain to Spagnoletto's "S. Jerome" in sombre chiaroscuro; then north +again to a painfully real Christ crowned with thorns, by Lucas van +Leyden, and the mousy, Reynoldsy, first wife of Peter Paul Rubens, +while a Van Dyck portrait under a superb Domenichino and an "Adam +and Eve" by Lucas Cranach complete the northern group. And so we come +to the two Correggios--so accomplished and rich and untouching--all +delightful virtuosity without feeling. The favourite is, of course, +No. 1134, for its adorable Baby, whose natural charm atones for its +theatrical Mother. + +On the other side of the door is No. 1129, the perfect "Madonna +del Cardellino" of Raphael, so called from the goldfinch that the +little boys are caressing. This, one is forced to consider one of the +perfect pictures of the world, even though others may communicate more +pleasure. The landscape is so exquisite and the mild sweetness of the +whole work so complete; and yet, although the technical mastery is +almost thrilling, the "Madonna del Pozzo" by Andrea del Sarto's friend +Franciabigio, close by--No. 1125--arouses infinitely livelier feelings +in the observer, so much movement and happiness has it. Raphael is +perfect but cold; Franciabigio is less perfect (although exceedingly +accomplished) but warm with life. The charm of this picture is as +notable as the skill of Raphael's: it is wholly joyous, and the little +Madonna really once lived. Both are reproduced in this volume. + +Raphael's neighbouring youthful "John the Baptist" is almost a +Giorgione for richness, but is as truly Raphael as the Sebastian +del Piombo, once (like the Franciabigio also) called a Raphael, is +not. How it came to be considered Raphael, except that there may be +a faint likeness to the Fornarina, is a mystery. + +The rooms next the Tribuna have for some time been under +reconstruction, and of these I say little, nor of what pictures are +to be placed there. But with the Tribuna, in any case, the collection +suddenly declines, begins to crumble. The first of these rooms, in the +spring of this year, 1912, was opened with a number of small Italian +paintings; but they are probably only temporarily there. Chief among +them was a Parmigianino, a Boltraffio, a pretty little Guido Reni, +a Cosimo Tura, a Lorenzo Costa, but nothing really important. + +In the tiny Gem Room at the end of the corridor are wonders of +the lapidary's art--and here is the famous intaglio portrait of +Savonarola--but they want better treatment. The vases and other +ornaments should have the light all round them, as in the Galerie +d'Apollon at the Louvre. These are packed together in wall cases and +are hard to see. + +Passing through the end corridor, where the beautiful Matrona reclines +so placidly on her couch against the light, and where we have such +pleasant views of the Ponte Vecchio, the Trinita bridge, the Arno, +and the Apennines, so fresh and real and soothing after so much paint, +we come to the rooms containing the famous collection of self-painted +portraits, which, moved hither from Rome, has been accumulating +in the Uffizi for many years and is still growing, to be invited +to contribute to it being one of the highest honours a painter can +receive. The portraits occupy eight rooms and a passage. Though the +collection is historically and biographically valuable, it contains for +every interesting portrait three or four dull ones, and thus becomes +something of a weariness. Among the best are Lucas Cranach, Anton More, +Van Dyck, Rembrandt (three), Rubens, Seybold, Jordaens, Reynolds, +and Romney, all of which remind us of Michelangelo's dry comment, +"Every painter draws himself well". Among the most interesting to us, +wandering in Florence, are the two Andreas, one youthful and the other +grown fatter than one likes and very different from the melancholy +romantic figure in the Pitti; Verrocchio, by Lorenzo di Credi; Carlo +Dolci, surprising by its good sense and humour; Raphael, angelic, +wistful, and weak; Tintoretto, old and powerful; and Jacopo Bassano, +old and simple. Among the moderns, Corot's portrait of himself is +one of the most memorable, but Fantin Latour, Flandrin, Leon Bonnat, +and Lenbach are all strong and modest; which one cannot say of our +own Leighton. Among the later English heads Orchardson's is notable, +but Mr. Sargent's is disappointing. + +We now come to one of the most remarkable rooms in the gallery, where +every picture is a gem; but since all are northern pictures, imported, +I give no reproductions. This is the Sala di Van der Goes, so called +from the great work here, the triptych, painted in 1474 to 1477 by +Hugo van der Goes, who died in 1482, and was born at Ghent or Leyden +about 1405. This painter, of whose genius there can be no question, +is supposed to have been a pupil of the Van Eycks. Not much is known +of him save that he painted at Bruges and Ghent and in 1476 entered +a convent at Brussels where he was allowed to dine with distinguished +strangers who came to see him and where he drank so much wine that his +natural excitability turned to insanity. He seems, however, to have +recovered, and if ever a picture showed few signs of a deranged or +inflamed mind it is this, which was painted for the agent of the Medici +bank at Bruges, Tommaso Portinari, who presented it to the Hospital of +S. Maria Nuova in his native city of Florence, which had been founded +by his ancestor Folco, the father of Dante's Beatrice. The left panel +shows Tommaso praying with his two sons Antonio and Pigallo, the right +his wife Maria Portinari and their adorably quaint little daughter +with her charming head-dress and costume. The flowers in the centre +panel are among the most beautiful things in any Florentine picture: +not wild and wayward like Luca Signorelli's, but most exquisitely +done: irises, red lilies, columbines and dark red clove pinks--all +unexpected and all very unlikely to be in such a wintry landscape at +all. On the ground are violets. The whole work is grave, austere, +cool, and as different as can be from the Tuscan spirit; yet it is +said to have had a deep influence on the painters of the time and +must have drawn throngs to the Hospital to see it. + +The other Flemish and German pictures in the room are all remarkable +and all warmer in tone. No. 906, an unknown work, is perhaps the +finest: a Crucifixion, which might have borrowed its richness from +the Carpaccio, we saw in the Venetian room. There is a fine Adoration +of the Magi, by Gerard David (1460-1523); an unknown portrait of +Pierantonio Baroncelli and his wife, with a lovely landscape; a jewel +of paint by Hans Memling (1425-1492)--No. 703--the Madonna Enthroned; +a masterpiece of drawing by Duerer, "Calvary"; an austere and poignant +Transportation of Christ to the Sepulchre, by Roger van der Weyden +(1400-1464); and several very beautiful portraits by Memling, notably +Nos. 769 and 780 with their lovely evening light. Memling, indeed, +I never liked better than here. Other fine pictures are a Spanish +prince by Lucas van Leyden; an old Dutch scholar by an artist unknown, +No. 784; and a young husband and wife by Joost van Cleef the Elder, +and a Breughel the Elder, like an old Crome--a beauty--No. 928. The +room is interesting both for itself and also as showing how the +Flemish brushes were working at the time that so many of the great +Italians were engaged on similar themes. + +After the cool, self-contained, scientific work of these northerners +it is a change to enter the Sala di Rubens and find that luxuriant +giant--their compatriot, but how different!--once more. In the Uffizi, +Rubens seems more foreign, far, than any one, so fleshly pagan is +he. In Antwerp Cathedral his "Descent from the Cross," although +its bravura is, as always with him, more noticeable than its piety, +might be called a religious picture, but I doubt if even that would +seem so here. At any rate his Uffizi works are all secular, while +his "Holy Family" in the Pitti is merely domestic and robust. His +Florentine masterpieces are the two Henri IV pictures in this room, +"Henri IV at Ivry," magnificent if not war, and "Henri's entry into +Paris after Ivry," with its confusing muddle of naked warriors and +spears. Only Rubens could have painted these spirited, impossible, +glorious things, which for all their greatness send one's thoughts +back longingly to the portrait of his wife, in the Tribuna, while +No. 216--the Bacchanale--is so coarse as almost to send one's feet +there too. + +Looking round the room, after Rubens has been dismissed, it is too +evident that the best of the Uffizi collection is behind us. There +are interesting portraits here, but biographically rather than +artistically. Here are one or two fine Sustermans' (1597-1681), +that imported painter whom we shall find in such rare form at the +Pitti. Here, for example, is Ferdinand II, who did so much for the +Uffizi and so little for Galileo; and his cousin and wife Vittoria +della Rovere, daughter of Claudia de' Medici (whose portrait, No. 763, +is on the easel), and Federigo della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. This +silly, plump lady had been married at the age of fourteen, and she +brought her husband a little money and many pictures from Urbino, +notably those delightful portraits of an earlier Duke and Duchess of +Urbino by Piero della Francesca, and also the two Titian "Venuses" +in the Tribuna. Ferdinand II and his Grand Duchess were on bad terms +for most of their lives, and she behaved foolishly, and brought up +her son Cosimo III foolishly, and altogether was a misfortune to +Florence. Sustermans the painter she held in the highest esteem, and +in return he painted her not only as herself but in various unlikely +characters, among them a Vestal Virgin and even the Madonna. + +Here also is No. 196, Van Dyck's portrait of Margherita of Lorraine, +whose daughter became Cosimo III's wife--a mischievous, weak face +but magnificently painted; and No. 1536, a vividly-painted elderly +widow by Jordaens (1593-1678); and on each side of the outrageous +Rubens a distinguished Dutch gentleman and lady by the placid, +refined Mierevelt. + +The two priceless rooms devoted to Iscrizioni come next, but we +will finish the pictures first and therefore pass on to the Sala di +Baroccio. Federigo Baroccio (1528-1612) is one of the later painters +for whom I, at any rate, cannot feel any enthusiasm. His position in +the Uffizi is due rather to the circumstance that he was a protege of +the Cardinal della Rovere at Rome, whose collection came here, than to +his genius. This room again is of interest rather historically than +artistically. Here, for example, are some good Medici portraits by +Bronzino, among them the famous Eleanora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I, +in a rich brocade (in which she was buried), with the little staring +Ferdinand I beside her. Eleanora, as we saw in chapter V. was the first +mistress of the Pitti palace, and the lady who so disliked Cellini and +got him into such trouble through his lying tongue. Bronzino's little +Maria de' Medici--No. 1164--is more pleasing, for the other picture has +a sinister air. This child, the first-born of Cosimo I and Eleanora, +died when only sixteen. Baroccio has a fine portrait--Francesco Maria +II, last Duke of Urbino, and the grandfather of the Vittoria della +Rovere whom we saw in the Sala di Rubens. Here also is a portrait +of Lorenzo the Magnificent by Vasari, but it is of small value +since Vasari was not born till after Lorenzo's death. The Galileo +by Sustermans--No. 163--on the contrary would be from life; and +after the Tribuna portrait of Rubens' first wife it is interesting +to find here his pleasant portrait of Helen Fourment, his second. To +my eyes two of the most attractive pictures in the room are the Young +Sculptor--No. 1266--by Bronzino, and the version of Leonardo's S. Anne +at the Louvre by Andrea Salaino of Milan (1483?-1520?). I like also +the hints of tenderness of Bernardino Luini which break through the +hardness of the Aurelio Luini picture--No. 204. For the rest there are +some sickly Guido Renis and Carlo Dolcis and a sentimental Guercino. + +But the most popular works--on Sundays--are the two Gerard Honthorsts, +and not without reason, for they are dramatic and bold and vivid, +and there is a Baby in each that goes straight to the maternal +heart. No. 157 is perhaps the more satisfying, but I have more reason +to remember the larger one--the Adoration of the Shepherds--for I +watched a copyist produce a most remarkable replica of it in something +under a week, on the same scale. He was a short, swarthy man with +a neck like a bull's, and he carried the task off with astonishing +brio, never drawing a line, finishing each part as he came to it, and +talking to a friend or an official the whole time. Somehow one felt him +to be precisely the type of copyist that Gherardo della Notte ought +to have. This painter was born at Utrecht in 1590 but went early to +Italy, and settling in Rome devoted himself to mastering the methods +of Amerighi, better known as Caravaggio (1569-1609), who specialized +in strong contrasts of light and shade. After learning all he could +in Rome, Honthorst returned to Holland and made much money and fame, +for his hand was swift and sure. Charles I engaged him to decorate +Whitehall. He died in 1656. These two Honthorsts are, as I say, the +most popular of the pictures on Sunday, when the Uffizi is free; but +their supremacy is challenged by the five inlaid tables, one of which, +chiefly in lapis lazuli, must be the bluest thing on earth. + +Passing for the present the Sala di Niobe, we come to the Sala di +Giovanni di San Giovanni, which is given to a second-rate painter who +was born in 1599 and died in 1636. His best work is a fresco at the +Badia of Fiesole. Here he has some theatrical things, including one +picture which sends English ladies out blushing. Here also are some +Lelys, including "Nelly Gwynn". Next are two rooms, one leading from +the other, given to German and Flemish pictures and to miniatures, +both of which are interesting. In the first are more Duerers, and +that alone would make it a desirable resort. Here is a "Virgin and +Child"--No. 851--very naive and homely, and the beautiful portrait of +his father--No. 766---a symphony of brown and green. Less attractive +works from the same hand are the "Apostle Philip"--No. 777--and +"S. Giacomo Maggiore," an old man very coarsely painted by comparison +with the artist's father. Here also is a very beautiful portrait +of Richard Southwell, by Holbein, with the peacock-green background +that we know so well and always rejoice to see; a typical candle-light +Schalcken, No. 800; several golden Poelenburghs; an anonymous portrait +of Virgilius von Hytta of Zuicham, No. 784; a clever smiling lady by +Sustermans, No. 709; the Signora Puliciani and her husband, No. 699; +a rather crudely coloured Rubens--"Venus and Adonis"--No. 812; the +same artist's "Three Graces," in monochrome, very naked; and some +quaint portraits by Lucas Cranach. + +But no doubt to many persons the most enchaining picture here is +the Medusa's head, which used to be called a Leonardo and quite +satisfied Ruskin of its genuineness, but is now attributed to the +Flemish school. The head, at any rate, would seem to be very similar +to that of which Vasari speaks, painted by Leonardo for a peasant, +but retained by his father. Time has dealt hardly with the paint, and +one has to study minutely before Medusa's horrors are visible. Whether +Leonardo's or not, it is not uninteresting to read how the picture +affected Shelley when he saw it here in 1819:-- + + + ... Its Horror and its Beauty are divine. + Upon its lips and eyelids seem to lie + Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine, + Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath, + The agonies of anguish and of death. + + +The little room leading from this one should be neglected by no one +interested in Medicean history, for most of the family is here, in +miniature, by Bronzino's hand. Here also are miniatures by other great +painters, such as Pourbus, Guido Reni, Bassano, Clouet, Holbein. Look +particularly at No. 3382, a woman with brown hair, in purple--a most +fascinating little picture. The Ignota in No. 3348 might easily be +Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England. The other exhibits +are copies in miniature of famous pictures, notable among them a +Raphael--No. 3386--and a Breughel--No. 3445--while No. 3341, the +robing of a monk, is worth attention. + +We come now to the last pictures of the collection--in three little +rooms at the end, near the bronze sleeping Cupid. Those in the first +room were being rearranged when I was last here; the others contain +Dutch works notable for a few masterpieces. There are too many +Poelenburghs, but the taste shown as a whole is good. Perhaps to +the English enthusiast for painting the fine landscape by Hercules +Seghers will, in view of the recent agitation over Lord Lansdowne's +Rembrandt, "The Mill,"--ascribed in some quarters to Seghers--be the +most interesting picture of all. It is a sombre, powerful scene of +rugged coast which any artist would have been proud to sign; but it +in no way recalls "The Mill's" serene strength. Among the best of +its companions are a very good Terburg, a very good Metsu, and an +extremely beautiful Ruysdael. + +And so we are at the end of the pictures--but only to return again and +again--and are not unwilling to fall into the trap of the official who +sits here, and allow him to unlock the door behind the Laocoeon group +and enjoy what he recommends as a "bella vista" from the open space, +which turns out to be the roof of the Loggia de' Lanzi. From this +high point one may see much of Florence and its mountains, while, +on looking down, over the coping, one finds the busy Piazza della +Signoria below, with all its cabs and wayfarers. + +Returning to the gallery, we come quickly on the right to the first +of the neglected statuary rooms, the beautiful Sala di Niobe, which +contains some interesting Medicean and other tapestries, and the +sixteen statues of Niobe and her children from the Temple of Apollo, +which the Cardinal Ferdinand de' Medici acquired, and which were for +many years at the Villa Medici at Rome. A suggested reconstruction +of the group will be found by the door. I cannot pretend to a deep +interest in the figures, but I like to be in the room. The famous +Medicean vase is in the middle of it. Sculpture more ingratiating +is close by, in the two rooms given to Iscrizioni: a collection +of priceless antiques which are not only beautiful but peculiarly +interesting in that they can be compared with the work of Donatello, +Verrocchio, and other of the Renaissance sculptors. For in such a case +comparisons are anything but odious and become fascinating. In the +first room there is, for example, a Mercury, isolated on the left, +in marble, who is a blood relation of Donatello's bronze David in +the Bargello; and certain reliefs of merry children, on the right, +low down, as one approaches the second room, are cousins of the same +sculptor's cantoria romps. Not that Donatello ever reproduced the +antique spirit as Michelangelo nearly did in his Bacchus, and Sansovino +absolutely did in his Bacchus, both at the Bargello: Donatello was +of his time, and the spirit of his time animates his creations, but +he had studied the Greek art in Rome and profited by his lessons, +and his evenly-balanced humane mind had a warm corner for pagan +joyfulness. Among other statues in this first room is a Sacerdotessa, +wearing a marble robe with long folds, whose hands can be seen through +the drapery. Opposite the door are Bacchus and Ampelos, superbly +pagan, while a sleeping Cupid is most lovely. Among the various fine +heads is one of Cicero, of an Unknown--No. 377--and of Homer in bronze +(called by the photographers Aristophanes). But each thing in turn is +almost the best. The trouble is that the Uffizi is so vast, and the +Renaissance seems to be so eminently the only proper study of mankind +when one is here, that to attune oneself to the enjoyment of antique +sculpture needs a special effort which not all are ready to make. + +In the centre of the next room is the punctual Hermaphrodite without +which no large Continental gallery is complete. But more worthy of +attention is the torso of a faun on the left, on a revolving pedestal +which (unlike those in the Bargello, as we shall discover) really does +revolve and enables you to admire the perfect back. There is also a +torso in basalt or porphyry which one should study from all points, +and on the walls some wonderful portions of a frieze from the Ara +Pacis, erected in Rome, B.C. 139, with wonderful figures of men, +women, and children on it. Among the heads is a colossal Alexander, +very fine indeed, a beautiful Antoninus, a benign and silly Roman +lady in whose existence one can quite believe, and a melancholy +Seneca. Look also at Nos. 330 and 332, on the wall: 330, a charming +genius, carrying one of Jove's thunderbolts; and 332, a boy who is +sheer Luca della Robbia centuries before his birth. + +I ought to add that, in addition to the various salons in the Uffizi, +the long corridors are hung with pictures too, in chronological order, +the earliest of all being to the right of the entrance door, and in +the corridors there is also some admirable statuary. But the pictures +here, although not the equals of those in the rooms, receive far too +little attention, while the sculpture receives even less, whether the +beutiful full-length athletes or the reliefs on the cisterns, several +of which have riotous Dionysian processions. On the stairs, too, are +some very beautiful works; while at the top, in the turnstile room, is +the original of the boar which Tacca copied in bronze for the Mercato +Nuovo, and just outside it are the Medici who were chiefly concerned +with the formation of the collection. On the first landing, nearest +the ground, is a very beautiful and youthful Bacchus. The ceilings +of the Uffizi rooms and corridors also are painted, thoughtfully +and dexterously, in the Pompeian manner; but there are limits to the +receptive capacity of travellers' eyes, and I must plead guilty to +consistently neglecting them. + + + +CHAPTER XII + +"Aerial Fiesole" + +Andrea del Sarto--Fiesole sights--The Villa Palmieri +and the "Decameron"--Botticini's picture in the National +Gallery--S. Francesco--The Roman amphitheatre--The Etruscan museum--A +sculptor's walk--The Badia di Fiesole--Brunelleschi again--Giovanni +di San Giovanni. + +After all these pictures, how about a little climbing? From so many +windows in Florence, along so many streets, from so many loggias and +towers, and perhaps, above all, from the Piazzale di Michelangelo, +Fiesole is to be seen on her hill, with the beautiful campanile of +her church in the dip between the two eminences, that very soon one +comes to feel that this surely is the promised land. Florence lies +so low, and the delectable mountain is so near and so alluring. But +I am not sure that to dream of Fiesole as desirable, and to murmur +its beautiful syllables, is not best. + + + Let me sit +Here by the window with your hand in mine, +And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole + + +--that was Andrea's way and not an unwise one. For Fiesole at +nearer view can easily disappoint. It is beautifully set on its +hill and it has a fascinating past; but the journey thither on +foot is very wearisome, by the electric tram vexatious and noisy, +and in a horse-drawn carriage expensive and cruel; and when you +are there you become once more a tourist without alleviation and +are pestered by beggars, and by nice little girls who ought to +know better, whose peculiar importunacy it is to thrust flowers +into the hand or buttonhole without any denial. What should have +been a mountain retreat from the city has become a kind of Devil's +Dyke. But if one is resolute, and, defying all, walks up to the +little monastery of S. Francesco at the very top of the hill, one +may rest almost undisturbed, with Florence in the valley below, and +gardens and vineyards undulating beneath, and a monk or two ascending +or descending the steps, and three or four picture-postcard hawkers +gambling in a corner, and lizards on the wall. Here it is good to be +in the late afternoon, when the light is mellowing; and if you want +tea there is a little loggia a few yards down this narrow steep path +where it may be found. How many beautiful villas in which one could +be happy sunning oneself among the lizards lie between this point +and Florence! Who, sitting here, can fail to think that? + +In walking to Fiesole one follows the high walls of the Villa Palmieri, +which is now very private American property, but is famous for ever as +the first refuge of Boccaccio's seven young women and three young men +when they fled from plague-stricken Florence in 1348 and told tales for +ten halcyon days. It is now generally agreed that if Boccaccio had any +particular house in his mind it was this. It used to be thought that +the Villa Poggio Gherardo, Mrs. Ross's beautiful home on the way to +Settignano, was the first refuge, and the Villa Palmieri the second, +but the latest researches have it that the Palmieri was the first and +the Podere della Fonte, or Villa di Boccaccio, as it is called, near +Camerata, a little village below S. Domenico, the other. The Villa +Palmieri has another and somewhat different historical association, +for it was there that Queen Victoria resided for a while in 1888. But +the most interesting thing of all about it is the circumstance that +it was the home of Matteo Palmieri, the poet, and Botticelli's friend +and fellow-speculator on the riddle of life. Palmieri was the author +of a remarkable poem called "La Citta della Vita" (The City of Life) +which developed a scheme of theology that had many attractions to +Botticelli's curious mind. The poem was banned by Rome, although +not until after its author's death. In our National Gallery is a +picture which used to be considered Botticelli's--No. 1126, "The +Assumption of the Virgin"--especially as it is mentioned with some +particularity by Vasari, together with the circumstance that the +poet and painter devised it in collaboration, in which the poem is +translated into pigment. As to the theology, I say nothing, nor as to +its new ascription to Botticini; but the picture has a greater interest +for us in that it contains a view of Florence with its wall of towers +around it in about 1475. The exact spot where the painter sat has been +identified by Miss Stokes in "Six Months in the Apennines". On the +left immediately below the painter's vantage-ground is the Mugnone, +with a bridge over it. On the bank in front is the Villa Palmieri, +and on the picture's extreme left is the Badia of Fiesole. + +On leaving S. Domenico, if still bent on walking, one should keep +straight on and not follow the tram lines to the right. This is the +old and terribly steep road which Lorenzo the Magnificent and his +friends Politian and Pico della Mirandola had to travel whenever they +visited the Medici villa, just under Fiesole, with its drive lined with +cypresses. Here must have been great talk and much conviviality. It +is now called the Villa McCalmont. + +Once at Fiesole, by whatever means you reach it, do not neglect to +climb the monastery steps to the very top. It is a day of climbing, +and a hundred or more steps either way mean nothing now. For here +is a gentle little church with swift, silent monks in it, and a few +flowers in bowls, and a religious picture by that strange Piero di +Cosimo whose heart was with the gods in exile; and the view of Monte +Ceceri, on the other side of Fiesole, seen through the cypresses here, +which could not be better in disposition had Benozzo Gozzoli himself +arranged them, is very striking and memorable. + +Fiesole's darling son is Mino the sculptor--the "Raphael of the +chisel"--whose radiant Madonnas and children and delicate tombs may +be seen here and there all over Florence. The piazza is named after +him; he is celebrated on a marble slab outside the museum, where all +the famous names of the vicinity may be read too; and in the church +is one of his most charming groups and finest heads. They are in a +little chapel on the right of the choir. The head is that of Bishop +Salutati, humorous, wise, and benign, and the group represents the +adoration of a merry little Christ by a merry little S. John and +others. As for the church itself, it is severe and cool, with such +stone columns in it as must last for ever. + +But the main interest of Fiesole to most people is not the +cypress-covered hill of S. Francesco; not the view from the summit; +not the straw mementoes; not the Mino relief in the church; but +the Roman arena. The excavators have made of this a very complete +place. One can stand at the top of the steps and reconstruct it +all--the audience, the performance, the performers. A very little time +spent on building would be needed to restore the amphitheatre to its +original form. Beyond it are baths, and in a hollow the remains of a +temple with the altar where it ever was; and then one walks a little +farther and is on the ancient Etruscan wall, built when Fiesole was an +Etruscan fortified hill city. So do the centuries fall away here! But +everywhere, among the ancient Roman stones so massive and exact, +and the Etruscan stones, are the wild flowers which Luca Signorelli +painted in that picture in the Uffizi which I love so much. + +After the amphitheatre one visits the Museum--with the same ticket--a +little building filled with trophies of the spade. There is nothing +very wonderful--nothing to compare with the treasures of the +Archaeological Museum in Florence--but it is well worth a visit. + +On leaving the Museum on the last occasion that I was there--in +April--I walked to Settignano. The road for a while is between +houses, for Fiesole stretches a long way farther than one suspects, +very high, looking over the valley of the Mugnone; and then after a +period between pine trees and grape-hyacinths one turns to the right +and begins to descend. Until Poggio del Castello, a noble villa, +on an isolated eminence, the descent is very gradual, with views of +Florence round the shoulder of Monte Ceceri; but afterwards the road +winds, to ease the fall, and the wayfarer turns off into the woods and +tumbles down the hill by a dry water-course, amid crags and stones, +to the beginnings of civilization again, at the Via di Desiderio da +Settignano, a sculptor who stands to his native town in precisely +the same relation as Mino to his. + +Settignano is a mere village, with villas all about it, and +the thing to remember there is not only that Desiderio was born +there but that Michelangelo's foster-mother was the wife of a +local stone-cutter--stone-cutting at that time being the staple +industry. On the way back to Florence in the tram, one passes on the +right a gateway surmounted by statues of the poets, the Villa Poggio +Gherardo, of which I have spoken earlier in the chapter. There is no +villa with a nobler mien than this. + +That is one walk from Fiesole. Another is even more a sculptors' way: +for it would include Maiano too, where Benedetto was born. The road +is by way of the tram lines to that acute angle just below Fiesole +when they turn back to S. Domenico, and so straight on down the hill. + +But if one is returning to Florence direct after leaving Fiesole it +is well to walk down the precipitous paths to S. Domenico, and before +again taking the tram visit the Badia overlooking the valley of the +Mugnone. This is done by turning to the right just opposite the church +of S. Domenico, which has little interest structurally but is famous +as being the chapel of the monastery where Fra Angelico was once a +monk. The Badia (Abbey) di Fiesole, as it now is, was built on the +site of an older monastery, by Cosimo Pater. Here Marsilio Ficino's +Platonic Academy used to meet, in the loggia and in the little temple +which one gains from the cloisters, and here Pico della Mirandola +composed his curious gloss on Genesis. + +The dilapidated marble facade of the church and its rugged stone-work +are exceedingly ancient--dating in fact from the eleventh century; +the new building is by Brunelleschi and to my mind is one of his +most beautiful works, its lovely proportions and cool, unfretted +white spaces communicating even more pleasure than the Pazzi chapel +itself. The decoration has been kept simple and severe, and the colour +is just the grey pietra serena of Fiesole, of which the lovely arches +are made, all most exquisitely chiselled, and the pure white of the +walls and ceilings. This church was a favourite with the Medici, and +the youthful Giovanni, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, received +his cardinal's hat here in 1492, at the age of sixteen. He afterwards +became Pope Leo X. How many of the boys, now in the school--for the +monastery has become a Jesuit school--will, one wonders, rise to +similar eminence. + +In the beautiful cloisters we have the same colour scheme as +in the church, and here again Brunelleschi's miraculous genius +for proportion is to be found. Here and there are foliations and +other exquisite tracery by pupils of Desiderio da Settignano. The +refectory has a high-spirited fresco by that artist whose room in +the Uffizi is so carefully avoided by discreet chaperons--Giovanni di +San Giovanni--representing Christ eating at a table, his ministrants +being a crowd of little roguish angels and cherubim, one of whom (on +the right) is in despair at having broken a plate. In the entrance +lobby is a lavabo by Mino da Fiesole, with two little boys of the +whitest and softest marble on it, which is worth study. + +And now we will return to the heart of Florence once more. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +The Badia and Dante + +Filippino Lippi--Buffalmacco--Mino da Fiesole--The Dante quarter--Dante +and Beatrice--Monna Tessa--Gemma Donati--Dante in exile--Dante +memorials in Florence--The Torre della Castagna--The Borgo degli +Albizzi and the old palaces--S. Ambrogio--Mino's tabernacle--Wayside +masterpieces--S. Egidio. + +Opposite the Bargello is a church with a very beautiful doorway +designed by Benedetto da Rovezzano. This church is known as the Badia, +and its delicate spire is a joy in the landscape from every point of +vantage. The Badia is very ancient, but the restorers have been busy +and little of Arnolfo's thirteenth-century work is left. It is chiefly +famous now for its Filippino Lippi and two tombs by Mino da Fiesole, +but historically it is interesting as being the burial-place of the +chief Florentine families in the Middle Ages and as being the scene +of Boccaccio's lectures on Dante in 1373. The Filippino altar-piece, +which represents S. Bernard's Vision of the Virgin (a subject we shall +see treated very beautifully by Fra Bartolommeo at the Accademia) +is one of the most perfect and charming pictures by this artist: +very grave and real and sweet, and the saint's hands exquisitely +painted. The figure praying in the right-hand corner is the patron, +Piero di Francesco del Pugliese, who commissioned this picture for the +church of La Campora, outside the Porta Romana, where it was honoured +until 1529, when Clement VII's troops advancing, it was brought here +for safety and has here remained. + +Close by--in the same chapel--is a little door which the sacristan +will open, disclosing a portion of Arnolfo's building with perishing +frescoes which are attributed to Buffalmacco, an artist as to whose +reality much scepticism prevails. They are not in themselves of much +interest, although the sacristan's eagerness should not be discouraged; +but Buffalmacco being Boccaccio's, Sacchetti's, Vasari's (and, later, +Anatole France's) amusing hero, it is pleasant to look at his work and +think of his freakishness. Buffalmacco (if he ever existed) was one +of the earlier painters, flourishing between 1311 and 1350, and was +a pupil of Andrea Tafi. This simple man he plagued very divertingly, +once frightening him clean out of his house by fixing little lighted +candles to the backs of beetles and steering them into Tafi's bedroom +at night. Tafi was terrified, but on being told by Buffalmacco (who was +a lazy rascal) that these devils were merely showing their objection +to early rising, he became calm again, and agreed to lie in bed to +a reasonable hour. Cupidity, however, conquering, he again ordered +his pupil to be up betimes, when the beetles again re-appeared and +continued to do so until the order was revoked. + +The sculptor Mino da Fiesole, whom we shall shortly see again, at the +Bargello, in portrait busts and Madonna reliefs, is at his best here, +in the superb monument to Count Ugo, who founded, with his mother, +the Benedictine Abbey of which the Badia is the relic. Here all Mino's +sweet thoughts, gaiety and charm are apparent, together with the +perfection of radiant workmanship. The quiet dignity of the recumbent +figure is no less masterly than the group above it. Note the impulsive +urgency of the splendid Charity, with her two babies, and the quiet +beauty of the Madonna and Child above all, while the proportions and +delicate patterns of the tomb as a whole still remain to excite one's +pleasure and admiration. We shall see many tombs in Florence--few not +beautiful--but none more joyously accomplished than this. The tomb +of Carlo Marsuppini in S. Croce by Desiderio da Settignano, which +awaits us, was undoubtedly the parent of the Ugo, Mino following his +master very closely; but his charm was his own. According to Vasari, +the Ugo tomb was considered to be Mino's finest achievement, and he +deliberately made the Madonna and Child as like the types of his +beloved Desiderio as he could. It was finished in 1481, and Mino +died in 1484, from a chill following over-exertion in moving heavy +stones. Mino also has here a monument to Bernardo Giugni, a famous +gonfalonier in the time of Cosimo de' Medici, marked by the same +distinction, but not quite so memorable. The Ugo is his masterpiece. + +The carved wooden ceiling, which is a very wonderful piece of work +and of the deepest and most glorious hue, should not be forgotten; +but nothing is easier than to overlook ceilings. + +The cloisters are small, but they atone for that--if it is a fault--by +having a loggia. From the loggia the top of the noble tower of the +Palazzo Vecchio is seen to perfection. Upon the upper walls is a +series of frescoes illustrating the life of S. Benedict which must +have been very gay and spirited once but are now faded. + +The Badia may be said to be the heart of the Dante quarter. Dante must +often have been in the church before it was restored as we now see it, +and a quotation from the "Divine Comedy" is on its facade. The Via +Dante and the Piazza Donati are close by, and in the Via Dante are many +reminders of the poet besides his alleged birthplace. Elsewhere in the +city we find incised quotations from his poem; but the Baptistery--his +"beautiful San Giovanni"--is the only building in the city proper now +remaining which Dante would feel at home in could he return to it, and +where we can feel assured of sharing his presence. The same pavement is +there on which his feet once stood, and on the same mosaic of Christ +above the altar would his eyes have fallen. When Dante was exiled in +1302 the cathedral had been in progress only for six or eight years; +but it is known that he took the deepest interest in its construction, +and we have seen the stone marking the place where he sat, watching +the builders. The facade of the Badia of Fiesole and the church of +S. Miniato can also remember Dante; no others. + +Here, however, we are on that ground which is richest in personal +associations with him and his, for in spite of re-building and +certain modern changes the air is heavy with antiquity in these +narrow streets and passages where the poet had his childhood and +youth. The son of a lawyer named Alighieri, Dante was born in +1265, but whether or not in this Casa Dante is an open question, +and it was in the Baptistery that he received the name of Durante, +afterwards abbreviated to Dante--Durante meaning enduring, and Dante +giving. Those who have read the "Vita Nuova," either in the original +or in Rossetti's translation, may be surprised to learn that the +boy was only nine when he first met his Beatrice, who was seven, +and for ever passed into bondage to her. Who Beatrice was is again +a mystery, but it has been agreed to consider her in real life a +daughter of Folco Portinari, a wealthy Florentine and the founder of +the hospital of S. Maria Nuova, one of whose descendants commissioned +Hugo van der Goes to paint the great triptych in the Uffizi. Folco's +tomb is in S. Egidio, the hospital church, while in the passage to +the cloisters is a stone figure of Monna Tessa (of whom we are about +to see a coloured bust in the Bargello), who was not only Beatrice's +nurse (if Beatrice were truly of the Portinari) but the instigator, +it is said, of Folco's deed of charity. + +Of Dante's rapt adoration of his lady, the "Vita Nuova" +tells. According to that strangest monument of devotion it was not +until another nine years had passed that he had speech of her; and +then Beatrice, meeting him in the street, saluted him as she passed +him with such ineffable courtesy and grace that he was lifted into a +seventh heaven of devotion and set upon the writing of his book. The +two seem to have had no closer intercourse: Beatrice shone distantly +like a star and her lover worshipped her with increasing loyalty +and fervour, overlaying the idea of her, as one might say, with gold +and radiance, very much as we shall see Fra Angelico adding glory to +the Madonna and Saints in his pictures, and with a similar intensity +of ecstasy. Then one day Beatrice married, and not long afterwards, +being always very fragile, she died, at the age of twenty-three. The +fact that she was no longer on earth hardly affected her poet, +whose worship of her had always so little of a physical character; +and she continued to dominate his thoughts. + +In 1293, however, Dante married, one Gemma Donati of the powerful +Guelph family of that name, of which Corso Donati was the turbulent +head; and by her he had many children. For Gemma, however, he seems +to have had no affection; and when in 1301 he left Florence, never to +return, he left his wife for ever too. In 1289 Dante had been present +at the battle of Campaldino, fighting with the Guelphs against the +Ghibellines, and on settling down in Florence and taking to politics it +was as a Guelph, or rather as one of that branch of the Guelph party +which had become White--the Bianchi--as opposed to the other party +which was Black--the Neri. The feuds between these divisions took the +place of those between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, since Florence +was never happy without internal strife, and it cannot have added +to Dante's home comfort that his wife was related to Corso Donati, +who led the Neri and swaggered in his bullying way about the city with +proprietary, intolerant airs that must have been infuriating to a man +with Dante's stern sense of right and justice. It was Corso who brought +about Dante's exile; but he himself survived only six years, and was +then killed, by his own wish, on his way to execution, rather than be +humiliated in the city in which he had swayed. Dante, whose genius +devised a more lasting form of reprisal than any personal encounter +could be, has depicted him in the "Purgatorio" as on the road to Hell. + +But this is going too fast. In 1300, when Dante was thirty-five, +he was sufficiently important to be made one of the six priors of +the city, and in that capacity was called upon to quell a Neri and +Bianchi disturbance. It is characteristic of him that he was a party +to the banishment of the leaders of both factions, among whom was +his closest friend, Guido Cavalcanti the poet, who was one of the +Bianchi. Whether it was because of Guide's illness in his exile, or +from what motive, we shall not know; but the sentence was lightened in +the case of this Bianco, a circumstance which did not add to Dante's +chances when the Neri, having plotted successfully with Charles of +Valois, captured supreme power in Florence. This was in the year 1301, +Dante being absent from that city on an embassy to Rome to obtain help +for the Bianchi. He never came back; for the Neri plans succeeded; +the Neri assumed control; and in January, 1302, he was formally fined +and banished. The nominal charge against him was of misappropriating +funds while a prior; but that was merely a matter of form. His real +offence was in being one of the Bianchi, an enemy of the Neri, and +a man of parts. + +In the rest of Dante's life Florence had no part, except in his +thoughts. How he viewed her the "Divine Comedy" tells us, and that he +longed to return we also know. The chance was indeed once offered, +but under the impossible condition that he should do public penance +in the Baptistery for his offence. This he refused. He wandered here +and there, and settled finally in Ravenna, where he died in 1321. The +"Divine Comedy" anticipating printing by so many years--the invention +did not reach Florence until 1471--Dante could not make much popular +way as a poet before that time; but to his genius certain Florentines +were earlier no strangers, not only by perusing MS. copies of his +great work, which by its richness in Florentine allusions excited +an interest apart altogether from that created by its beauty, but by +public lectures on the poem, delivered in the churches by order of +the Signoria. The first Dante professor to be appointed was Giovanni +Boccaccio, the author of the "Decameron," who was born in 1313, +eight years before Dante's death, and became an enthusiast upon the +poet. The picture in the Duomo was placed there in 1465. Then came +printing to Florence and Dante passed quickly into his countrymen's +thoughts and language. + +Michelangelo, who was born in time--1475--to enjoy in Lorenzo the +Magnificent's house the new and precious advantage of printed books, +became as a boy a profound student of the poet, and when later an +appeal was made from Florence to the Pope to sanction the removal of +Dante's bones to Florence, Michelangelo was among the signatories. But +it was not done. His death-mask from Ravenna is in the Bargello: +a few of his bones and their coffin are still in Ravenna, in the +monastery of Classe, piously preserved in a room filled with Dante +relics and literature; his tomb is elsewhere at Ravenna, a shrine +visited by thousands every year. + +Ever since has Dante's fame been growing, so that only the Bible has +led to more literature; and to-day Florence is more proud of him than +any of her sons, except perhaps Michelangelo. We have seen one or +two reminders of him already; more are here where we stand. We have +seen the picture in honour of him which the Republic set up in the +cathedral; his head on a beautiful inlaid door in the Palazzo Vecchio, +the building where his sentence of banishment was devised and carried, +to be followed by death sentence thrice repeated (burning alive, +to be exact); and we have seen the head-quarters of the Florentine +Dante society in the guild house at Or San Michele. We have still +to see his statue opposite S. Croce, another fresco head in S. Maria +Novella, certain holograph relics at the library at S. Lorenzo, and +his head again by his friend Giotto, in the Bargello, where he would +have been confined while waiting for death had he been captured. + +Dante's house has been rebuilt, very recently, and next to it is a +newer building still, with a long inscription in Italian upon it, +to the effect that the residence of Bella and Bellincione Alighieri +stood hereabouts, and in that abode was Dante born. The Commune of +Florence, it goes on to say, having secured possession of the site, +"built this edifice on the remains of the ancestral house as fresh +evidence of the public veneration of the divine poet". The Torre della +Castagna, across the way, has an inscription in Italian, which may be +translated thus: "This Tower, the so-called Tower of the Chestnut, is +the solitary remnant of the head-quarters from which the Priors of the +Arts governed Florence, before the power and glory of the Florentine +Commune procured the erection of the Palace of the Signoria". + +Few persons in the real city of Florence, it may be said confidently, +live in a house built for them; but hereabouts none at all. In fact, +it is the exception anywhere near the centre of the city to live in +a house built less than three centuries ago. Palaces abound, cut up +into offices, flats, rooms, and even cinema theatres. The telegraph +office in the Via del Proconsolo is a palace commissioned by the +Strozzi but never completed: hence its name, Nonfinito; next it is +the superb Palazzo Quaratesi, which Brunelleschi designed, now the +head-quarters of a score of firms and an Ecclesiastical School whence +sounds of sacred song continually emerge. + +Since we have Mino da Fiesole in our minds and are on the subject +of old palaces let us walk from the Dante quarter in a straight line +from the Corso, that very busy street of small shops, across the Via +del Proconsolo and down the Borgo degli Albizzi to S. Ambrogio, where +Mino was buried. This Borgo is a street of palaces and an excellent one +in which to reflect upon the strange habit which wealthy Florentines +then indulged of setting their mansions within a few feet of those +opposite. Houses--or rather fortresses--that must have cost fortunes +and have been occupied by families of wealth and splendour were +erected so close to their vis-a-vis that two carts could not pass +abreast between them. Side by side contiguity one can understand, +but not this other adjacence. Every ground floor window is barred +like a gaol. Those bars tell us something of the perils of life in +Florence in the great days of faction ambition; while the thickness +of the walls and solidity of construction tell us something too of +the integrity of the Florentine builders. These ancient palaces, +one feels, whatever may happen to them, can never fall to ruin. Such +stones as are placed one upon the other in the Pitti and the Strozzi +and the Riccardi nothing can displace. It is an odd thought that +several Florentine palaces and villas built before Columbus sailed +for America are now occupied by rich Americans, some of them draw +possibly much of their income from the manufacture of steel girders +for sky-scrapers. These ancient streets with their stern and sombre +palaces specially touched the imagination of Dickens when he was in +Florence in 1844, but in his "Pictures from Italy" he gave the city +only fugitive mention. The old prison, which then adjoined the Palazzo +Vecchio, and in which the prisoners could be seen, also moved him. + +The Borgo degli Albizzi, as I have said, is crowded with +Palazzi. No. 24--and there is something very incongruous in palaces +having numbers at all--is memorable in history as being one of the +homes of the Pazzi family who organized the conspiracy against the +Medici in 1478, as I have related in the second chapter, and failed +so completely. Donatello designed the coat of arms here. The palace +at No. 18 belonged to the Altoviti. No. 12 is the Palazzo Albizzi, +the residence of one of the most powerful of the Florentine families, +whose allies were all about them in this quarter, as it was wise to be. + +As a change from picture galleries, I can think of nothing more +delightful than to wander about these ancient streets, and, wherever a +courtyard or garden shines, penetrate to it; stopping now and again to +enjoy the vista, the red Duomo, or Giotto's tower, so often mounting +into the sky at one end, or an indigo Apennine at the other. Standing +in the middle of the Via Ricasoli, for example, one has sight of both. + +At the Piazza S. Pietro we see one of the old towers of Florence, +of which there were once so many, into which the women and children +might retreat in times of great danger, and here too is a series of +arches which fruit and vegetable shops make gay. + +The next Piazza is that of S. Ambrogio. This church is interesting +not only for doing its work in a poor quarter--one has the feeling at +once that it is a right church in the right place--but as containing, +as I have said, the grave of Mino da Fiesole: Mino de' Poppi detto da +Fiesole, as the floor tablet has it. Over the altar of Mino's little +chapel is a large tabernacle from his hand, in which the gayest little +Boy gives the benediction, own brother to that one by Desiderio at +S. Lorenzo. The tabernacle must be one of the master's finest works, +and beneath it is a relief in which a priest pours something--perhaps +the very blood of Christ which is kept here--from one chalice to +another held by a kneeling woman, surrounded by other kneeling women, +which is a marvel of flowing beauty and life. The lines of it are +peculiarly lovely. + +On the wall of the same little chapel is a fresco by Cosimo Rosselli +which must once have been a delight, representing a procession of +Corpus Christi--this chapel being dedicated to the miracle of the +Sacrament--and it contains, according to Vasari, a speaking likeness of +Pico della Mirandola. Other graves in the church are those of Cronaca, +the architect of the Palazzo Vecchio's great Council Room, a friend +of Savonarola and Rosselli's nephew by marriage; and Verrocchio, the +sculptor, whose beautiful work we are now to see in the Bargello. It +is said that Lorenzo di Credi also lies here, and Albertinelli, +who gave up the brush for innkeeping. + +Opposite the church, on a house at the corner of the Borgo S. Croce +and the Via de' Macci, is a della Robbia saint--one of many such +mural works of art in Florence. Thus, at the corner of the Via Cavour +and the Via de' Pucci, opposite the Riccardi palace, is a beautiful +Madonna and Child by Donatello. In the Via Zannetti, which leads +out of the Via Cerretani, is a very pretty example by Mino, a few +houses on the right. These are sculpture. And everywhere in the older +streets you may see shrines built into the wall: there is even one in +the prison, in the Via dell' Agnolo, once the convent of the Murate, +where Catherine de' Medici was imprisoned as a girl; but many of them +are covered with glass which has been allowed to become black. + +A word or two on S. Egidio, the church of the great hospital of +S. Maria Nuova, might round off this chapter, since it was Folco +Portinari, Beatrice's father, who founded it. The hospital stands +in a rather forlorn square a few steps from the Duomo, down the Via +dell' Orivolo and then the first to the left; and it extends right +through to the Via degli Alfani in cloisters and ramifications. The +facade is in a state of decay, old frescoes peeling off it, but one +picture has been enclosed for protection--a gay and busy scene of the +consecration of the church by Pope Martin V. Within, it is a church +of the poor, notable for its general florid comfort (comparatively) +and Folco's gothic tomb. In the chancel is a pretty little tabernacle +by Mino, which used to have a bronze door by Ghiberti, but has it no +longer, and a very fine della Robbia Madonna and Child, probably by +Andrea. Behind a grille, upstairs, sit the hospital nurses. In the +adjoining cloisters--one of the high roads to the hospital proper--is +the ancient statue of old Monna Tessa, Beatrice's nurse, and, in a +niche, a pretty symbolical painting of Charity by that curious painter +Giovanni di San Giovanni. It was in the hospital that the famous Van +der Goes triptych used to hang. + +A tablet on a house opposite S. Egidio, a little to the right, +states that it was there that Ghiberti made the Baptistery gates +which Michelangelo considered fit to be the portals of Paradise. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +The Bargello + +Plastic art--Blood-soaked stones--The faithful +artists--Michelangelo--Italian custodians--The famous +Davids--Michelangelo's tondo--Brutus--Benedetto da +Rovezzano--Donatello's life-work--The S. George--Verrocchio--Ghiberti +and Brunelleschi and the Baptistery doors--Benvenuto Cellini--John of +Bologna--Antonio Pollaiuolo--Verrocchio again--Mino da Fiesole--The +Florentine wealth of sculpture--Beautiful ladies--The della +Robbias--South Kensington and the Louvre. + +Before my last visit but one to Florence, plastic art was less +attractive to me than pictorial art. But now I am not sure. At +any rate when, here in England, I think of Florence, as so often +I do, I find myself visiting in imagination the Bargello before the +Uffizi. Pictures in any number can bewilder and dazzle as much as they +delight. The eye tires. And so, it is true, can a multiplicity of +antique statuary such as one finds at the Vatican or at the Louvre; +but a small collection of Renaissance work, so soft and human, +as at the Bargello, is not only joy-giving but refreshing too. The +soft contours soothe as well as enrapture the eye: the tenderness of +the Madonnas, the gentleness of the Florentine ladies and youths, as +Verrocchio and Mino da Fiesole, Donatello, and Pollaiuolo moulded them, +calm one where the perfection of Phidias and Praxiteles excites. Hence +the very special charm of the Bargello, whose plastic treasures are +comparatively few and picked, as against the heaped profusion of paint +in the Uffizi and the Pitti. It pairs off rather with the Accademia, +and has this further point in common with that choicest of galleries, +that Michelangelo's chisel is represented in both. + +The Bargello is at the corner of the Via Ghibellina in the narrow +Via del Proconsolo--so narrow that if you take one step off the +pavement a tram may easily sweep you into eternity; so narrow also +that the real dignity of the Bargello is never to be properly seen, +and one thinks of it rather for its inner court and staircase and +its strong tower than for its massive facades. Its history is soaked +in blood. It was built in the middle of the thirteenth century as the +residence of the chief magistrate of the city, the Capitano del popolo, +or Podesta, first appointed soon after the return of the Guelphs in +1251, and it so remained, with such natural Florentine vicissitudes +as destruction by mobs and fire, for four hundred years, when, in +1574, it was converted into a prison and place of execution and the +head-quarters of the police, and changed its name from the Palazzo +del Podesta to that by which it is now known, so called after the +Bargello, or chief of the police. + +It is indeed fortunate that no rioters succeeded in obliterating +Giotto's fresco in the Bargello chapel, which he painted probably in +1300, when his friend Dante was a Prior of the city. Giotto introduced +the portrait of Dante which has drawn so many people to this little +room, together with portraits of Corso Donati, and Brunetto Latini, +Dante's tutor. Whitewash covered it for two centuries. Dante's head +has been restored. + +It was in 1857 that the Bargello was again converted, this time to its +present gracious office of preserving the very flower of Renaissance +plastic art. + +Passing through the entrance hall, which has a remarkable collection of +Medicean armour and weapons, and in which (I have read but not seen) +is an oubliette under one of the great pillars, the famous court is +gained and the famous staircase. Of this court what can I say? Its +quality is not to be communicated in words; and even the photographs of +it that are sold have to be made from pictures, which the assiduous +Signor Giuliani, among others, is always so faithfully painting, +stone for stone. One forgets all the horrors that once were enacted +here--the execution of honourable Florentine patriots whose only +offence was that in their service of this proud and beautiful city they +differed from those in power; one thinks only of the soft light on the +immemorial walls, the sturdy graceful columns, the carved escutcheons, +the resolute steps, the spaciousness and stern calm of it all. + +In the colonnade are a number of statues, the most famous of which +is perhaps the "Dying Adonis" which Baedeker gives to Michelangelo +but the curator to Vincenzo di Rossi; an ascription that would annoy +Michelangelo exceedingly, if it were a mistake, since Rossi was a +pupil of his enemy, the absurd Bandinelli. Mr. W.G. Waters, in his +"Italian Sculptors," considers not only that Michelangelo was the +sculptor, but that the work was intended to form part of the tomb of +Pope Julius. In the second room opposite the main entrance across the +courtyard, we come however to Michelangelo authentic and supreme, +for here are his small David, his Brutus, his Bacchus, and a tondo +of the Madonna and Child. + +According to Baedeker the Bacchus and the David revolve. Certainly they +are on revolving stands, but to say that they revolve is to disregard +utterly the character of the Italian official. A catch holds each in +its place, and any effort to release this or to induce the custodian to +release it is equally futile. "Chiuso" (closed), he replies, and that +is final. Useless to explain that the backs of statues can be beautiful +as the front; that one of the triumphs of great statuary is its equal +perfection from every point; that the revolving stand was not made +for a joke but for a serious purpose. "Chiuso," he replies. The museum +custodians of Italy are either like this--jaded figures of apathy--or +they are enthusiasts. To each enthusiast there are ninety-nine of the +other, who either sit in a kind of stupor and watch you with sullen +suspicion, or clear their throats as no gentleman should. The result +is that when one meets the enthusiasts one remembers them. There is +a little dark fellow in the Brera at Milan whose zeal in displaying +the merits of Mantegna's foreshortened Christ is as unforgettable as +a striking piece of character-acting in a theatre. There is a more +reserved but hardly less appreciative official in the Accademia at +Bologna with a genuine if incommunicable passion for Guido Reni. And, +lastly, there is Alfred Branconi, at S. Croce, with his continual and +rapturous "It is faine! It is faine!" but he is a private guide. The +Bargello custodians belong to the other camp. + +The fondness of sculptors for David as a subject is due to the fact +that the Florentines, who had spent so much of their time under +tyrants and so much of their blood in resisting them, were captivated +by the idea of this stripling freeing his compatriots from Goliath +and the Philistines. David, as I have said in my remarks on the +Piazza della Signoria, stood to them, with Judith, as a champion of +liberty. He was alluring also on account of his youth, so attractive +to Renaissance sculptors and poets, and the Florentines' admiration +was not diminished by the circumstance that his task was a singularly +light one, since he never came to close quarters with his antagonist +at all and had the Lord of Hosts on his side. A David of mythology, +Perseus, another Florentine hero, a stripling with what looked like +a formidable enemy, also enjoyed supernatural assistance. + +David appealed to the greatest sculptors of all--to Michelangelo, +to Donatello, and to Verrocchio; and Michelangelo made two figures, +one of which is here and the other at the Accademia, and Donatello +two figures, both of which are here, so that, Verrocchio's example +being also here, very interesting comparisons are possible. + +Personally I put Michelangelo's small David first; it is the one +in which, apart from its beauty, you can best believe. His colossal +David seems to me one of the most glorious things in the world; but it +is not David; not the simple, ruddy shepherd lad of the Bible. This +David could obviously defeat anybody. Donatello's more famous David, +in the hat, upstairs, is the most charming creature you ever saw, +but it had been far better to call him something else. Both he and +Verrocchio's David, also upstairs, are young tournament nobles rather +than shepherd lads who have slung a stone at a Philistine bully. I see +them both--but particularly perhaps Verrocchio's--in the intervals of +strife most acceptably holding up a lady's train, or lying at her feet +reading one of Boccaccio's stories; neither could ever have watched +a flock. Donatello's second David, behind the more famous one, has +more reality; but I would put Michelangelo's smaller one first. And +what beautiful marble it is--so rich and warm! + +One point which both Donatello's and Verrocchio's David emphasizes +is the gulf that was fixed between the Biblical and religious +conception of the youthful psalmist and that of these sculptors of the +Renaissance. One can, indeed, never think of Donatello as a religious +artist. Serious, yes; but not religious, or at any rate not religious +in the too common sense of the word, in the sense of appertaining +to a special reverential mood distinguished from ordinary moods of +dailiness. His David, as I have said, is a comely, cultured boy, +who belongs to the very flower of chivalry and romance. Verrocchio's +is akin to him, but he has less radiant mastery. Donatello's David +might be the young lord; Verrocchio's, his page. Here we see the new +spirit, the Renaissance, at work, for though religion called it into +being and the Church continued to be its patron, it rapidly divided +into two halves, and while the painters were bringing all their +genius to glorify sacred history, the scholars were endeavouring to +humanize it. In this task they had no such allies as the sculptors, +and particularly Donatello, who, always thinking independently and +vigorously, was their best friend. Donatello's David fought also more +powerfully for the modern spirit (had he known it) than ever he could +have done in real life with such a large sword in such delicate hands; +for by being the first nude statue of a Biblical character, he made +simpler the way to all humanists in whatever medium they worked. + +Michelangelo was not often tender. Profoundly sad he could be: indeed +his own head, in bronze, at the Accademia, might stand for melancholy +and bitter world-knowledge; but seldom tender; yet the Madonna and +Child in the circular bas-relief in this ground-floor room have +something very nigh tenderness, and a greatness that none of the +other Italian sculptors, however often they attempted this subject, +ever reached. The head of Mary in this relief is, I think, one of the +most beautiful things in Florence, none the less so for the charming +head-dress which the great austere artist has given her. The Child +is older than is usual in such groups, and differs in another way, +for tiring of a reading lesson, He has laid His arm upon the book: +a pretty touch. + +Michelangelo's Bacchus, an early work, is opposite. It is a remarkable +proof of his extraordinary range that the same little room should +contain the David, the Madonna, the Brutus, and the Bacchus. In +David one can believe, as I have said, as the young serious stalwart +of the Book of Kings. The Madonna, although perhaps a shade too +intellectual--or at any rate more intellectual and commanding than +the other great artists have accustomed us to think of her--has a +sweet gravity and power and almost domestic tenderness. The Brutus +is powerful and modern and realistic; while Bacchus is steeped in the +Greek spirit, and the little faun hiding behind him is the very essence +of mischief. Add to these the fluid vigour of the unfinished relief +of the Martyrdom of S. Andrew, No. 126, and you have five examples of +human accomplishment that would be enough without the other Florentine +evidences at all--the Medici chapel tombs and the Duomo Pieta. + +The inscription under the Brutus says: "While the sculptor was carving +the statue of Brutus in marble, he thought of the crime and held +his hand"; and the theory is that Michelangelo was at work upon this +head at Rome when, in 1537, Lorenzino de' Medici, who claimed to be +a modern Brutus, murdered Alessandro de' Medici. But it might easily +have been that the sculptor was concerned only with Brutus the friend +of Caesar and revolted at his crime. The circumstance that the head +is unfinished matters nothing. Once seen it can never be forgotten. + +Although Michelangelo is, as always, the dominator, this room has +other possessions to make it a resort of visitors. At the end is a +fireplace from the Casa Borgherini, by Benedetto da Rovezzano, which +probably has not an equal, although the pietra serena of which it is +made is a horrid hue; and on the walls are fragments of the tomb of +S. Giovanni Gualberto at Vallombrosa, designed by the same artist but +never finished. Benedetto (1474-1556) has a peculiar interest to the +English in having come to England in 1524 at the bidding of Cardinal +Wolsey to design a tomb for that proud prelate. On Wolsey's disgrace, +Henry VIII decided that the tomb should be continued for his own bones; +but the sculptor died first and it was unfinished. Later Charles I cast +envious eyes upon it and wished to lie within it; but circumstances +deprived him too of the honour. Finally, after having been despoiled +of certain bronze additions, the sarcophagus was used for the remains +of Nelson, which it now holds, in St. Paul's crypt. The Borgherini +fireplace is a miracle of exquisite work, everything having received +thought, the delicate traceries on the pillars not less than the +frieze. The fireplace is in perfect condition, not one head having +been knocked off, but the Gualberto reliefs are badly damaged, yet +full of life. The angel under the saint's bier in No. 104 almost moves. + +In this room look also at the beautiful blades of barley on the +pillars in the corner close to Brutus, and the lovely frieze by an +unknown hand above Michelangelo's Martyrdom of S. Andrew, and the +carving upon the two niches for statues on either side of the door. + +The little room through which one passes to the Michelangelos may +well be lingered in. There is a gravely fine floor-tomb of a nun +to the left of the door--No. 20--which one would like to see in its +proper position instead of upright against the wall; and a stone font +in the middle which is very fine. There is also a beautiful tomb by +Giusti da Settignano, and the iron gates are worth attention. + +From Michelangelo let us ascend the stairs, past the splendid gates, +to Donatello; and here a word about that sculptor, for though we +meet him again and again in Florence (yet never often enough) it is +in the upper room in the Bargello that he is enthroned. Of Donatello +there is nothing known but good, and good of the most captivating +variety. Not only was he a great creative genius, equally the first +modern sculptor and the sanest, but he was himself tall and comely, +open-handed, a warm friend, humorous and of vigorous intellect. A +hint of the affection in which he was held is obtained from his name +Donatello, which is a pet diminutive of Donato--his full style being +Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi. Born in 1386, four years before +Fra Angelico and nearly a century after Giotto, he was the son of a +well-to-do wool-comber who was no stranger to the perils of political +energy in these times. Of Donatello's youth little is known, but it is +almost certain that he helped Ghiberti with his first Baptistery doors, +being thirteen when that sculptor began upon them. At sixteen he was +himself enrolled as a sculptor. It was soon after this that, as I have +said in the first chapter, he accompanied his friend Brunelleschi, +who was thirteen years his senior, to Rome; and returning alone he +began work in Florence in earnest, both for the cathedral and campanile +and for Or San Michele. In 1425 he took into partnership Michelozzo, +and became, with him, a protege of Cosimo de' Medici, with whom both +continued on friendly terms for the rest of their lives. In 1433 he +was in Rome again, probably not sorry to be there since Cosimo had +been banished and had taken Michelozzo with him. On the triumphant +return of Cosimo in 1434 Donatello's most prosperous period began; +for he was intimate with the most powerful man in Florence, was +honoured by him, and was himself at the useful age of forty-four. + +Of Donatello as an innovator I have said something above, in +considering the Florentine Davids, but he was also the inventor of +that low relief in which his school worked, called rilievo stiacciato, +of which there are some excellent examples at South Kensington. In +Ghiberti's high relief, breaking out often into completely detached +figures, he was also a master, as we shall see at S. Lorenzo. But his +greatest claim to distinction is his psychological insight allied +to perfect mastery of form. His statues were not only the first +really great statues since the Greeks, but are still (always leaving +Michelangelo on one side as abnormal) the greatest modern examples +judged upon a realistic basis. Here in the Bargello, in originals and +in casts, he may be adequately appreciated; but to Padua his admirers +must certainly go, for the bronze equestrian statue of Gattamelata is +there. Donatello was painted by his friend Masaccio at the Carmine, +but the fresco has perished. He is to be seen in the Uffizi portico, +although that is probably a fancy representation; and again on a tablet +in the wall opposite the apse of the Duomo. The only contemporary +portrait (and this is very doubtful) is in a picture in the Louvre +given to Uccello--a serious, thoughtful, bearded face with steady, +observant eyes: one of five heads, the others being Giotto, Manetti, +Brunelleschi, and Uccello himself. + +Donatello, who never married, but lived for much of his life with his +mother and sister, died at a great age, cared for both by Cosimo de' +Medici and his son and successor Piero. He was buried with Cosimo +in S. Lorenzo. Vasari tells us that he was free, affectionate, and +courteous, but of a high spirit and capable of sudden anger, as when +he destroyed with a blow a head he had made for a mean patron who +objected to its very reasonable price. "He thought," says Vasari, +"nothing of money, keeping it in a basket suspended from the ceiling, +so that all his workmen and friends took what they wanted without +saying anything." He was as careless of dress as great artists have +ever been, and of a handsome robe which Cosimo gave him he complained +that it spoiled his work. When he was dying his relations affected +great concern in the hope of inheriting a farm at Prato, but he told +them that he had left it to the peasant who had always toiled there, +and he would not alter his will. + +The Donatello collection in the Bargello has been made representative +by the addition of casts. The originals number ten: there is also +a cast of the equestrian statue of Gattemalata at Padua, which is, +I suppose, next to Verrocchio's Bartolommeo Colleoni at Venice, the +finest equestrian statue that exists; heads from various collections, +including M. Dreyfus' in Paris, although Dr. Bode now gives that +charming example to Donatello's pupil Desiderio; and various +other masterpieces elsewhere. But it is the originals that chiefly +interest us, and first of these in bronze is the David, of which I +have already spoken, and first of these in marble the S. George. This +George is just such a resolute, clean, warlike idealist as one dreams +him. He would kill a dragon, it is true; but he would eat and sleep +after it and tell the story modestly and not without humour. By a +happy chance the marble upon which Donatello worked had light veins +running through it just where the head is, with the result that the +face seems to possess a radiance of its own. This statue was made for +Or San Michele, where it used to stand until 1891, when the present +bronze replica that takes its place was made. The spirited marble +frieze underneath it at Or San Michele is the original and has been +there for centuries. It was this S. George whom Ruskin took as the +head and inspiration of his Saint George's Guild. + +The David is interesting not only in itself but as being the first +isolated statue of modern times. It was made for Cosimo de' Medici, +to stand in the courtyard of the Medici palace (now the Riccardi), +and until that time, since antiquity, no one had made a statue to +stand on a pedestal and be observable from all points. Hitherto modern +sculptors had either made reliefs or statues for niches. It was also +the first nude statue of modern times; and once again one has the +satisfaction of recognizing that the first was the best. At any rate, +no later sculptor has made anything more charming than this figure, +or more masterly within its limits. + +After the S. George and the bronze David, the two most memorable things +are the adorable bronze Amorino in its quaint little trousers--or +perhaps not Amorino at all, since it is trampling on a snake, +which such little sprites did not do--and the coloured terra-cotta +bust called Niccolo da Uzzano, so like life as to be after a while +disconcerting. The sensitiveness of the mouth can never have been +excelled. The other originals include the gaunt John the Baptist with +its curious little moustache, so far removed from the Amorino and so +admirable a proof of the sculptor's vigilant thoughtfulness in all +he did; the relief of the infant John, one of the most animated of +the heads (the Baptist at all periods of his life being a favourite +with this sculptor); three bronze heads, of which those of the Young +Gentleman and the Roman Emperor remain most clearly in my mind. But +the authorship of the Roman Emperor is very doubtful. And lastly the +glorious Marzocco--the lion from the front of the Palazzo Vecchio, +firmly holding the Florentine escutcheon against the world. Florence +has other Donatellos--the Judith in the Loggia de' Lanzi, the figures +on Giotto's campanile, the Annunciation in S. Croce, and above all +the cantoria in the Museum of the Cathedral; but this room holds most +of his strong sweet genius. Here (for there are seldom more than two +or three persons in it) you can be on terms with him. + +After the Donatellos we should see the other Renaissance sculpture. But +first the Carrand collection of ivories, pictures, jewels, carvings, +vestments, plaquettes, and objets d'art, bequeathed to Florence +in 1888. Everything here is good and worth examination. Among the +outstanding things is a plaquette, No. 393, a Satyr and a Bacchante, +attributed to Donatello, under the title "Allegory of Spring," which +is the work of a master and a very riot of mythological imagery. The +neighbouring plaquettes, many of them of the school of Donatello, +are all beautiful. + +We now find the sixth salon, to see Verrocchio's David, of which I have +already spoken. This wholly charming boy, a little nearer life perhaps +than Donatello's, although not quite so radiantly distinguished, +illustrates the association of Verrocchio and Leonardo as clearly +as any of the paintings do; for the head is sheer Leonardo. At the +Palazzo Vecchio we saw Verrocchio's boy with the dolphin--that happy +bronze lyric--and outside Or San Michele his Christ and S. Thomas, in +Donatello and Michelozzo's niche, with the flying cherubim beneath. But +as with Donatello, so with Verrocchio, one must visit the Bargello +to see him, in Florence, most intimately. For here are not only his +David, which once known can never be forgotten and is as full of the +Renaissance spirit as anything ever fashioned, whether in bronze, +marble, or paint, but--upstairs--certain other wonderfully beautiful +things to which we shall come, and, that being so, I would like here +to say a little about their author. + +Verrocchio is a nickname, signifying the true eye. Andrea's real name +was de' Cioni; he is known to fame as Andrea of the true eye, and since +he had acquired this style at a time when every eye was true enough, +his must have been true indeed. It is probable that he was a pupil +of Donatello, who in 1435, when Andrea was born, was forty-nine, and +in time he was to become the master of Leonardo: thus are the great +artists related. The history of Florentine art is practically the +history of a family; one artist leads to the other--the genealogy +of genius. The story goes that it was the excellence of the angel +contributed by Leonardo to his master's picture of the Baptism of +Christ (at the Accademia) which decided Verrocchio to paint no more, +just as Ghiberti's superiority in the relief of Abraham and Isaac +drove Brunelleschi from sculpture. If this be so, it accounts for the +extraordinarily small number of pictures by him. Like many artists +of his day Verrocchio was also a goldsmith, but he was versatile +above most, even when versatility was a habit, and excelled also as +a musician. Both Piero de' Medici and Lorenzo employed him to design +their tournament costumes; and it was for Lorenzo that he made this +charming David and the boy and the dolphin. His greatest work of all +is the bronze equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni in Venice, the +finest thing of its kind in the world, and so glorious and exciting +indeed that every city should have a cast of it in a conspicuous +position just for the good of the people. It was while at work upon +this that Verrocchio died, at the age of fifty-three. His body was +brought from Venice by his pupil Lorenzo di Credi, who adored him, +and was buried in S. Ambrogio in Florence. Lorenzo di Credi painted his +portrait, which is now in the Uffizi--a plump, undistinguished-looking +little man. + +In the David room are also the extremely interesting rival bronze +reliefs of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, which were made by Ghiberti and +Brunelleschi as trials of skill to see which would win the commission +to design the new gates of the Baptistery, as I have told earlier in +this book. Six competitors entered for the contest; but Ghiberti's and +Brunelleschi's efforts were alone considered seriously. A comparison +of these two reliefs proves that Ghiberti, at any rate, had a finer +sense of grouping. He filled the space at his disposal more easily +and his hand was more fluent; but there is a very engaging vivacity +in the other work, the realistic details of which are so arresting +as to make one regret that Brunelleschi had for sculpture so little +time. In S. Maria Novella is that crucifix in wood which he carved for +his friend Donatello, but his only other sculptured work in Florence is +the door of his beautiful Pazzi chapel in the cloisters of S. Croce. Of +Ghiberti's Baptistery gates I have said more elsewhere. Enough here +to add that the episode of Abraham and Isaac does not occur in them. + +This little room also has a Cassa Reliquiaria by Ghiberti, below a fine +relief by Bertoldo, Michelangelo's master in sculpture, representing +a battle between the Romans and the Barbarians; cases of exquisite +bronzes; the head, in bronze (No. 25), of an old placid, shrewd woman, +executed from a death-mask, which the photographers call Contessina +de' Bardi, wife of Cosimo de' Medici, by Donatello, but which cannot +be so, since the sculptor died first; heads of Apollo and two babies, +over the Ghiberti and Brunelleschi competition reliefs; a crucifixion +by Bertoldo; a row of babies representing the triumph of Bacchus; and +below these a case of medals and plaquettes, every one a masterpiece. + +The next room, Sala VII, is apportioned chiefly between Cellini +and Gian or Giovanni da Bologna, the two sculptors who dominate the +Loggia de' Lanzi. Here we may see models for Cellini's Perseus in +bronze and wax and also for the relief of the rescue of Andromeda, +under the statue; his Cosimo I, with the wart (omitted by Bandinelli +in the head downstairs, which pairs with Michelangelo's Brutus); +and various smaller works. But personally I find that Cellini will +not do in such near proximity to Donatello, Verrocchio, and their +gentle followers. He was, of course, far later. He was not born (in +1500) until Donatello had been dead thirty-four years, Mino da Fiesole +sixteen years, Desiderio da Settignano thirty-six years, and Verrocchio +twelve years. He thus did not begin to work until the finer impulses +of the Renaissance were exhausted. Giovanni da Bologna, although he, +it is true, was even later (1524-1608), I find more sympathetic; while +Landor boldly proclaimed him superior to Michelangelo. His "Mercury," +in the middle of the room, which one sees counterfeited in all the +statuary shops of Florence, is truly very nearly light as air. If ever +bronze floated, this figure does. His cherubs and dolphins are very +skilful and merry; his turkey and eagle and other animals indicate +that he had humility. John of Bologna is best known at Florence by +his Rape of the Sabines and Hercules and Nessus in the Loggia de' +Lanzi; but the Boboli gardens have a fine group of Oceanus and river +gods by him in the midst of a lake. Before leaving this room look at +the relief of Christ in glory (No. 35), to the left of the door, by +Jacopo Sansovino, a rival of Michelangelo, which is most admirable, +and at the case of bronze animals by Pietro Tacca, John of Bologna's +pupil, who made the famous boar (a copy of an ancient marble) at +the Mercato Nuovo and the reliefs for the pediment of the statue of +Cosimo I (by his master) in the Piazza della Signoria. But I believe +that the most beautiful thing in this room is the bronze figure for +the tomb of Mariano Sozzino by Lorenzo di Pietro. + +Before we look at the della Robbias, which are in the two large rooms +upstairs, let us finish with the marble and terra-cotta statuary in +the two smaller rooms to the left as one passes through the first +della Robbia room. In the first of them, corresponding to the room +with Verrocchio's David downstairs, we find Verrocchio again, with +a bust of Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici (whom Botticelli painted in +the Uffizi holding a medal in his hand) and a most exquisite Madonna +and Child in terra-cotta from S. Maria Nuova. (This is on a hinge, +for better light, but the official skies will fall if you touch +it.) Here also is the bust of a young warrior by Antonio Pollaiuolo +(1429-1498) who was Verrocchio's closest rival and one of Ghiberti's +assistants for the second Baptistery doors. His greatest work is at +Rome, but this bust is indescribably charming, and the softness of the +boy's contours is almost of life. It is sometimes called Giuliano de' +Medici. Other beautiful objects in the room are the terra-cotta Madonna +and Child by Andrea Sansovino (1460-1529), Pollaiuolo's pupil, which +is as radiant although not so domestically lovely as Verrocchio's; +the bust by Benedetto da Maiano (1442-1497) of Pietro Mellini, that +shrewd and wrinkled patron of the Church who presented to S. Croce +the famous pulpit by this sculptor; an ancient lady, by the door, +in coloured terra-cotta, who is thought to represent Monna Tessa, the +nurse of Dante's Beatrice; and certain other works by that delightful +and prolific person Ignoto Fiorentino, who here, and in the next room, +which we now enter, is at his best. + +This next priceless room is chiefly memorable for Verrocchio and +Mino da Fiesole. We come to Verrocchio at once, on the left, where +his relief of the death of Francesca Pitti Tornabuoni (on a tiny +bed only half as long as herself) may be seen. This poor lady, who +died in childbirth, was the wife of Giovanni Tornabuoni, and he it +was who employed Ghirlandaio to make the frescoes in the choir of +S. Maria Novella. (I ought, however, to state that Miss Cruttwell, +in her monograph on Verrocchio, questions both the subject and the +artist.) Close by we have two more works by Verrocchio--No. 180, a +marble relief of the Madonna and Child, the Madonna's dress fastened +by the prettiest of brooches, and She herself possessing a dainty sad +head and the long fingers that Verrocchio so favoured, which we find +again in the famous "Gentildonna" (No. 181) next it--that Florentine +lady with flowers in her bosom, whose contours are so exquisite and +who has such pretty shoulders. + +Near by is the little eager S. John the Baptist as a boy by Antonio +Rossellino (1427-1478), and on the next wall the same sculptor's +circular relief of the Madonna adoring, in a border of cherubs. +In the middle is the masterpiece of Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570): a +Bacchus, so strangely like a genuine antique, full of Greek lightness +and grace. And then we come back to the wall in which the door is, +and find more works from the delicate hand of Mino da Fiesole, whom +we in London are fortunate in being able to study as near home as at +the Victoria and Albert Museum. Of Mino I have said more both at the +Badia and at Fiesole. But here I might remark again that he was born +in 1431 and died in 1484, and was the favourite pupil of Desiderio +da Settignano, who was in his turn the favourite pupil of Donatello. + +In the little church of S. Ambrogio we have seen a tablet to the +memory of Mino, who lies there, not far from the grave of Verrocchio, +whom he most nearly approached in feeling, although their ideal type of +woman differed in everything save the slenderness of the fingers. The +Bargello has both busts and reliefs by him, all distinguished and +sensitive and marked by Mino's profound refinement. The Madonna and +Child in No. 232 are peculiarly beautiful and notable both for high +relief and shallow relief, and the Child in No. 193 is even more +charming. For delicacy and vivacity in marble portraiture it would +be impossible to surpass the head of Rinaldo della Luna; and the two +Medicis are wonderfully real. Everything in Mino's work is thoughtful +and exquisite, while the unusual type of face which so attracted him +gives him freshness too. + +This room and that next it illustrate the wealth of fine sculptors +which Florence had in the fifteenth century, for the works by the +unknown hands are in some cases hardly less beautiful and masterly than +those by the known. Look, for example, at the fleur-de-lis over the +door; at the Madonna and Child next it, on the right; at the girl's +head next to that; at the baby girl at the other end of the room; +and at the older boy and his pendant. But one does not need to come +here to form an idea of the wealth of good sculpture. The streets +alone are full of it. Every palace has beautiful stone-work and an +escutcheon which often only a master could execute--as Donatello +devised that for the Palazzo Pazzi in the Borgo degli Albizzi. On the +great staircase of the Bargello, for example, are numbers of coats +of arms that could not be more beautifully designed and incised. + +In the room leading from that which is memorable for Pollaiuolo's +youth in armour is a collection of medals by all the best medallists, +beginning, in the first case, with Pisanello. Here are his Sigismondo +Malatesta, the tyrant of Rimini, and Isotta his wife; here also is +a portrait of Leon Battista Alberti, who designed and worked on the +cathedral of Rimini as well as upon S. Maria Novella in Florence. On +the other side of this case is the medal commemorating the Pazzi +conspiracy. In other cases are pretty Italian ladies, such as Julia +Astalla, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, with her hair in curls just as in +Ghirlandaio's frescoes, Costanza Rucellai, Leonora Altoviti, Maria +Poliziano, and Maria de' Mucini. + +And so we come to the della Robbias, without whose joyous, radiant +art Florence would be only half as beautiful as she is. Of these +exquisite artists Luca, the uncle, born in 1400, was by far the +greatest. Andrea, his nephew, born in 1435, came next, and then +Giovanni. Luca seems to have been a serious, quiet man who would +probably have made sculpture not much below his friend Donatello's had +not he chanced on the discovery of a means of colouring and glazing +terra-cotta. Examples of this craft are seen all over Florence both +within doors and out, as the pages of this book indicate, but at the +Bargello is the greatest number of small pieces gathered together. I +do not say there is anything here more notable than the Annunciation +attributed to Andrea at the Spedale degli Innocenti, while of course, +for most people, his putti on the facade of that building are the +della Robbia symbol; nor is there anything finer than Luca's work +at Impruneta; but as a collection of sweetness and gentle domestic +beauty these Bargello reliefs are unequalled, both in character and in +volume. Here you see what one might call Roman Catholic art--that is, +the art which at once gives pleasure to simple souls and symbolizes +benevolence and safety--carried out to its highest power. Tenderness, +happiness, and purity are equally suggested by every relief here. Had +Luca and Andrea been entrusted with the creation of the world it +would be a paradise. And, as it is, it seems to me impossible but +that they left the world sweeter than they found it. Such examples +of affection and solicitude as they were continually bringing to the +popular vision must have engendered kindness. + +I have noted as especially beautiful in the first room Nos. 4, +6, 12, 23, by Andrea; and 10 and 21, by Luca. These, by the +way, are the Bargello ascriptions, but the experts do not always +agree. Herr Bode, for example, who has studied the della Robbias with +passionate thoroughness, gives the famous head of the boy, which is +in reproduction one of the best-known works of plastic art, to Luca; +but the Bargello director says Andrea. In Herr Bode's fascinating +monograph, "Florentine Sculptors of the Renaissance," he goes very +carefully into the differences between the uncle and the nephew, +master and pupil. In all the groups, for example, he says that Luca +places the Child on the Madonna's left arm, Andrea on the right. In +the second room I have marked particularly Nos. 21, 28, and 31, +by Luca, 28 being a deeper relief than usual, and the Madonna not +adoring but holding and delighting in one of the most adorable of +Babies. Observe in the reproduction of this relief in this volume-- +how the Mother's fingers sink into the child's flesh. Luca was the +first sculptor to notice that. No. 31 is the lovely Madonna of the +Rose Bower. But nothing gives me more pleasure than the boy's head of +which I have just spoken, attributed to Andrea and also reproduced +here. The "Giovane Donna" which pairs with it has extraordinary +charm and delicacy too. I have marked also, by Andrea, Nos. 71 and +76. Giovanni della Robbia's best is perhaps No. 15, in the other room. + +One curious thing that one notes about della Robbia pottery is its +inability to travel. It was made for the church and it should remain +there. Even in the Bargello, where there is an ancient environment, +it loses half its charm; while in an English museum it becomes hard +and cold. But in a church to which the poor carry their troubles, +with a dim light and a little incense, it is perfect, far beyond +painting in its tenderness and symbolic value. I speak of course +of the Madonnas and altar-pieces. When the della Robbias worked for +the open air--as in the facade of the Children's Hospital, or at the +Certosa, or in the Loggia di San Paolo, opposite S. Maria Novella, +where one may see the beautiful meeting of S. Francis and S. Dominic, +by Andrea--they seem, in Italy, to have fitness enough; but it would +not do to transplant any of these reliefs to an English facade. There +was once, I might add, in Florence a Via della Robbia, but it is now +the Via Nazionale. I suppose this injustice to the great potters came +about in the eighteen-sixties, when popular political enthusiasm led +to every kind of similar re-naming. + +In the room leading out of the second della Robbia room is a collection +of vestments and brocades bequeathed by Baron Giulio Franchetti, where +you may see, dating from as far back as the sixth century, designs +that for beauty and splendour and durability put to shame most of the +stuffs now woven; but the top floor of the Museo Archeologico in the +Via della Colonna is the chief home in Florence of such treasures. + +There are other beautiful things in the Bargello of which I have said +nothing--a gallery of mediaeval bells most exquisitely designed, from +famous steeples; cases of carved ivory; and many of such treasures as +one sees at the Cluny in Paris. But it is for its courtyard and for the +Renaissance sculpture that one goes to the Bargello, and returns again +and again to the Bargello, and it is for these that one remembers it. + +On returning to London the first duty of every one who has drunk +deep of delight in the Bargello is to visit that too much neglected +treasure-house of our own, the Victoria and Albert Museum at South +Kensington. There may be nothing at South Kensington as fine as the +Bargello's finest, but it is a priceless collection and is superior +to the Bargello in one respect at any rate, for it has a relief +attributed to Leonardo. Here also is an adorable Madonna and laughing +Child, beyond anything in Florence for sheer gaiety if not mischief, +which the South Kensington authorities call a Rossellino but Herr +Bode a Desiderio da Settignano. The room is rich too in Donatello +and in Verrocchio, and altogether it makes a perfect footnote to the +Bargello. It also has within call learned gentlemen who can give +intimate information about the exhibits, which the Bargello badly +lacks. The Louvre and the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin--but +particularly the Kaiser Friedrich since Herr Bode, who has such +a passion for this period, became its director--have priceless +treasures, and in Paris I have had the privilege of seeing the little +but exquisite collection formed by M. Gustave Dreyfus, dominated by +that mirthful Italian child which the Bargello authorities consider to +be by Donatello, but Herr Bode gives to Desiderio. At the Louvre, in +galleries on the ground floor gained through the Egyptian sculpture +section and opened very capriciously, may be seen the finest of +the prisoners from Michelangelo's tomb for Pope Julius; Donatello's +youthful Baptist; a Madonna and Children by Agostino di Duccio, whom +we saw at the Museum of the Cathedral; an early coloured terra-cotta +by Luca della Robbia, and No. 316, a terra-cotta Madonna and Child +without ascription, which looks very like Rossellino. + +In addition to originals there are at South Kensington casts of many +of the Bargello's most valuable possessions, such as Donatello's +and Verrocchio's Davids, Donatello's Baptist and many heads, Mino +da Fiesole's best Madonna, Pollaiuolo's Young Warrior, and so forth; +so that to loiter there is most attractively to recapture something +of the Florentine feeling. + + + +CHAPTER XV + +S. Croce + +An historic piazza--Marble facades--Florence's Westminster +Abbey--Galileo's ancestor and Ruskin--Benedetto's +pulpit--Michelangelo's tomb--A fond lady--Donatello's +Annunciation--Giotto's frescoes--S. Francis--Donatello magnanimous--The +gifted Alberti--Desiderio's great tomb--The sacristy--The Medici +chapel--The Pazzi chapel--Old Jacopo desecrated--A Restoration. + +The piazza S. Croce now belongs to children. The church is at one +end, bizarre buildings are on either side, the Dante statue is in the +middle, and harsh gravel covers the ground. Everywhere are children, +all dirty, and all rather squalid and mostly bow-legged, showing that +they were of the wrong age to take their first steps on Holy Saturday +at noon. The long brown building on the right, as we face S. Croce, +is a seventeenth-century palazzo. For the rest, the architecture is +chiefly notable for green shutters. + +The frigid and florid Dante memorial, which was unveiled in 1865 on +the six hundredth anniversary of the poet's birthday, looks gloomily +upon what once was a scene of splendour and animation, for in 1469 +Piero de' Medici devised here a tournament in honour of the betrothal +of Lorenzo to Clarice Orsini. The Queen of the tournament was Lucrezia +Donati, and she awarded the first prize to Lorenzo. The tournament cost +10,000 gold florins and was very splendid, Verrocchio and other artists +being called in to design costumes, and it is thought that Pollaiuolo's +terra-cotta of the Young Warrior in the Bargello represents the comely +Giuliano de' Medici as he appeared in his armour in the lists. The +piazza was the scene also of that famous tournament given by Lorenzo +de' Medici for Giuliano in 1474, of which the beautiful Simonetta +was the Queen of Beauty, and to which, as I have said elsewhere, we +owe Botticelli's two most famous pictures. Difficult to reconstruct +in the Piazza any of those glories to-day. + +The new facade of S. Croce, endowed not long since by an Englishman, +has been much abused, but it is not so bad. As the front of so +beautiful and wonderful a church it may be inadequate, but as a +structure of black and white marble it will do. To my mind nothing +satisfactory can now be done in this medium, which, unless it is +centuries old, is always harsh and cuts the sky like a knife, instead +of resting against it as architecture should. But when it is old, +as at S. Miniato, it is right. + +S. Croce is the Westminster Abbey of Florence. Michelangelo lies here, +Machiavelli lies here, Galileo lies here; and here Giotto painted, +Donatello carved, and Brunelleschi planned. Although outside the church +is disappointing, within it is the most beautiful in Florence. It +has the boldest arches, the best light at all seasons, the most +attractive floor--of gentle red--and an apse almost wholly made of +coloured glass. Not a little of its charm comes from the delicate +passage-way that runs the whole course of the church high up on the +yellow walls. It also has the finest circular window in Florence, +over the main entrance, a "Deposition" by Ghiberti. + +The lightness was indeed once so intense that no fewer than twenty-two +windows had to be closed. The circular window over the altar upon which +a new roof seems to be intruding is in reality the interloper: the roof +is the original one, and the window was cut later, in defiance of good +architecture, by Vasari, who, since he was a pupil of Michelangelo, +should have known better. To him was entrusted the restoration of +the church in the middle of the sixteenth century. + +The original architect of the modern S. Croce was the same Arnolfo di +Cambio, or Lapo, who began the Duomo. He had some right to be chosen +since his father, Jacopo, or Lapo, a German, was the builder of the +most famous of all the Franciscan churches--that at Assisi, which was +begun while S. Francis was still living. And Giotto, who painted in +that church his most famous frescoes, depicting scenes in the life +of S. Francis, succeeded Arnolfo here, as at the Duomo, with equal +fitness. Arnolfo began S. Croce in 1294, the year that the building of +the Duomo was decided upon, as a reply to the new Dominican Church of +S. Maria Novella, and to his German origin is probably due the Northern +impression which the interiors both of S. Croce and the Duomo convey. + +The first thing to examine in S. Croce is the floor-tomb, close to the +centre door, upon which Ruskin wrote one of his most characteristic +passages. The tomb is of an ancestor of Galileo (who lies close +by, but beneath a florid monument), and it represents a mediaeval +scholarly figure with folded hands. Ruskin writes: "That worn face is +still a perfect portrait of the old man, though like one struck out +at a venture, with a few rough touches of a master's chisel. And that +falling drapery of his cap is, in its few lines, faultless, and subtle +beyond description. And now, here is a simple but most useful test of +your capacity for understanding Florentine sculpture or painting. If +you can see that the lines of that cap are both right, and lovely; that +the choice of the folds is exquisite in its ornamental relations of +line; and that the softness and ease of them is complete,--though only +sketched with a few dark touches,--then you can understand Giotto's +drawing, and Botticelli's; Donatello's carving and Luca's. But if +you see nothing in this sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs, +of theirs. Where they choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any +vulgar modern trick with marble--(and they often do)--whatever, in a +word, is French, or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see; +but what is Florentine, and for ever great--unless you can see also +the beauty of this old man in his citizen's cap,--you will see never." + +The passage is in "Mornings in Florence," which begins with S. Croce +and should be read by every one visiting the city. And here let me +advise another companion for this church: a little dark enthusiast, in +a black skull cap, named Alfred Branconi, who is usually to be found +just inside the doors, but may be secured as a guide by a postcard +to the church. Signor Branconi knows S. Croce and he loves it, and +he has the further qualifications of knowing all Florence too and +speaking excellent English, which he taught himself. + +The S. Croce pulpit, which is by Benedetto da Maiano, is a satisfying +thing, accomplished both in proportions and workmanship, with panels +illustrating scenes in the life of S. Francis. These are all most +gently and persuasively done, influenced, of course, by the Baptistery +doors, but individual too, and full of a kindred sweetness and +liveliness. The scenes are the "Confirmation of the Franciscan Order" +(the best, I think); the "Burning of the Books"; the "Stigmata," +which we shall see again in the church, in fresco, for here we are +all dedicated to the saint of Assisi, not yet having come upon the +stern S. Dominic, the ruler at S. Marco and S. Maria Novella; the +"Death of S. Francis," very real and touching, which we shall also +see again; and the execution of certain Franciscans. Benedetto, +who was also an architect and made the plan of the Strozzi palace, +was so unwilling that anything should mar the scheme of his pulpit, +that after strengthening this pillar with the greatest care and +thoroughness, he hollowed it and placed the stairs inside. + +The first tomb on the right, close to this pulpit, is Michelangelo's, +a mass of allegory, designed by his friend Vasari, the author of the +"Lives of the Artists," the reading of which is perhaps the best +preparation for the understanding of Florence. "If life pleases us," +Michelangelo once said, "we ought not to be grieved by death, which +comes from the same Giver." Michelangelo had intended the Pieta, now +in the Duomo, to stand above his grave; but Vasari, who had a little +of the Pepys in his nature, thought to do him greater honour by this +ornateness. The artist was laid to his rest in 1564, but not before his +body was exhumed, by his nephew, at Rome, where the great man had died, +and a series of elaborate ceremonies had been performed, which Vasari, +who is here trustworthy enough, describes minutely. All the artists +in Florence vied in celebrating the dead master in memorial paintings +for his catafalque and its surroundings, which have now perished; +but probably the loss is not great, except as an example of homage, +for that was a bad period. How bad it was may be a little gauged by +Vasari's tributory tomb and his window over the high altar. + +Opposite Michelangelo's tomb, on the pillar, is the pretty but rather +Victorian "Madonna del Latte," surrounded by angels, by Bernardo +Rossellino (1409-1464), brother of the author of the great tomb at +S. Miniato. This pretty relief was commissioned as a family memorial +by that Francesco Nori, the close friend of Lorenzo de' Medici, who +was killed in the Duomo during the Pazzi conspiracy in his effort to +save Lorenzo from the assassins. + +The tomb of Alfieri, the dramatist, to which we now come, was +erected at the cost of his mistress, the Countess of Albany, +who herself sat to Canova for the figure of bereaved Italy. This +curious and unfortunate woman became, at the age of nineteen, the +wife of the Young Pretender, twenty-seven years after the '45, and +led a miserable existence with him (due chiefly to his depravity, +but a little, she always held, to the circumstance that they chose +Good Friday for their wedding day) until Alfieri fell in love with +her and offered his protection. Together she and the poet remained, +apparently contented with each other and received by society, even +by the English Royal family, until Alfieri died, in 1803, when after +exclaiming that she had lost all--"consolations, support, society, +all, all!"--and establishing this handsome memorial, she selected the +French artist Fabre to fill the aching void in her fifty-years-old +heart; and Fabre not only filled it until her death in 1824, but +became the heir of all that had been bequeathed to her by both the +Stuart and Alfieri. Such was the Countess of Albany, to whom human +affection was so necessary. She herself is buried close by, in the +chapel of the Castellani. + +Mrs. Piozzi, in her "Glimpses of Italian Society," mentions seeing +in Florence in 1785 the unhappy Pretender. Though old and sickly, +he went much into society, sported the English arms and livery, +and wore the garter. + +Other tombs in the right aisle are those of Machiavelli, the +statesman and author of "The Prince," and Rossini, the composer of +"William Tell," who died in Paris in 1868, but was brought here for +burial. These tombs are modern and of no artistic value, but there +is near them a fine fifteenth-century example in the monument by +Bernardo Rossellino to another statesman and author, Leonardo Bruni, +known as Aretino, who wrote the lives of Dante and Petrarch and a +Latin history of Florence, a copy of which was placed on his heart at +his funeral. This tomb is considered to be Rossellino's masterpiece; +but there is one opposite by another hand which dwarfs it. + +There is also a work of sculpture near it, in the same wall, which +draws away the eyes--Donatello's "Annunciation". The experts now think +this to belong to the sculptor's middle period, but Vasari thought it +earlier, and makes it the work which had most influence in establishing +his reputation; while according to the archives it was placed in the +church before Donatello was living. Vasari ought to be better informed +upon this point than usual, since it was he who was employed in the +sixteenth century to renovate S. Croce, at which time the chapel for +whose altar the relief was made--that of the Cavalcanti family--was +removed. The relief now stands unrelated to anything. Every detail of +it should be examined; but Alfred Branconi will see to that. The stone +is the grey pietra serena of Fiesole, and Donatello has plentifully, +but not too plentifully, lightened it with gold, which is exactly what +all artists who used this medium for sculpture should have done. By a +pleasant tactful touch the designer of the modern Donatello monument +in S. Lorenzo has followed the master's lead. + +Almost everything of Donatello's that one sees is in turn the best; but +standing before this lovely work one is more than commonly conscious +of being in the presence of a wonderful creator. The Virgin is wholly +unlike any other woman, and She is surprising and modern even for +Donatello with his vast range. The charming terra-cotta boys above +are almost without doubt from the same hand, but they cannot have +been made for this monument. + +To the della Robbias we come in the Castellani chapel in the right +transept, which has two full-length statues by either Luca or +Andrea, in the gentle glazed medium, of S. Francis and S. Bernard, +quite different from anything we have seen or shall see, because +isolated. The other full-size figures by these masters--such as +those at Impruneta--are placed against the wall. The S. Bernard, +on the left as one enters the chapel, is far the finer. It surely +must be one of the most beautiful male draped figures in the world. + +The next chapel, at the end of the transept, was once enriched by +Giotto frescoes, but they no longer exist. There are, however, an +interesting but restored series of scenes in the life of the Virgin +by Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's godson; a Madonna ascending to heaven, +by Mainardi, who was Ghirlandaio's pupil, and so satisfactory a one +that he was rewarded by the hand of his master's sister; and a pretty +piece of Gothic sculpture with the Christ Child upon it. Hereabouts, +I may remark, we have continually to be walking over floor-tombs, +now ruined beyond hope, their ruin being perhaps the cause of a +protecting rail being placed round the others; although a floor-tomb +should have, I think, a little wearing from the feet of worshippers, +just to soften the lines. Those at the Certosa are, for example, +far too sharp and clean. + +Let us complete the round of the church before we examine the sacristy, +and go now to the two chapels, where Giotto may be found at his best, +although restored too, on this side of the high altar. The Peruzzi +chapel has scenes from the lives of the two S. Johns, the Baptist, +and the Evangelist: all rather too thoroughly re-painted, although +following Giotto's groundwork closely enough to retain much of +their interest and value. And here once again one should consult the +"Mornings in Florence," where the wilful discerning enthusiast is, +like his revered subject, also at his best. Giotto's thoughtfulness +could not be better illustrated than in S. Croce. One sees him, as +ever, thinking of everything: not a very remarkable attribute of the +fresco painter since then, but very remarkable then, when any kind of +facile saintliness sufficed. Signor Bianchi, who found these paintings +under the whitewash in 1853, and restored them, overdid his part, +there is no doubt; but as I have said, their interest is unharmed, +and it is that which one so delights in. Look, for instance, at the +attitude of Drusiana, suddenly twitched by S. John back again into +this vale of tears, while her bier is on its way to the cemetery +outside the pretty city. "Am I really to live again?" she so plainly +says to the inexorable miracle-worker. The dancing of Herodias' +daughter, which offered Giotto less scope, is original too--original +not because it came so early, but because Giotto's mind was original +and innovating and creative. The musician is charming. The last scene +of all is a delightful blend of religious fervour and reality: the +miraculous ascent from the tomb, through an elegant Florentine loggia, +to everlasting glory, in a blaze of gold, and Christ and an apostle +leaning out of heaven with outstretched hands to pull the saint in, +as into a boat. Such a Christ as that could not but be believed in. + +In the next chapel, the Bardi, we find Giotto at work on a life of +S. Francis, and here again Ruskin is essential. It was a task which, +since this church was the great effort of the Florentine Franciscans, +would put an artist upon his mettle, and Giotto set the chosen +incidents before the observers with the discretion and skill of the +great biographer that he was, and not only that, but the great Assisi +decorator that he was. No choice could have been better at any time +in the history of art. Giotto chose the following scenes, one or two +of which coincide with those on Benedetto da Maiano's pulpit, which +came of course many years later: the "Confirmation of the Rules of the +Franciscans," "S. Francis before the Sultan and the Magi," "S. Francis +Sick and Appearing to the Bishop of Assisi," "S. Francis Fleeing from +His Father's House and His Reception by the Bishop of Assisi," and the +"Death of S. Francis". Giotto's Assisi frescoes, which preceded these, +anticipate them; but in some cases these are considered to be better, +although in others not so good. It is generally agreed that the death +scene is the best. Note the characteristic touch by which Giotto makes +one of the monks at the head of the bed look up at the precise moment +when the saint dies, seeing him being received into heaven. According +to Vasari, one of the two monks (on the extreme left, as I suppose) +is Giotto's portrait of the architect of the church, Amolfo. The altar +picture, consisting of many more scenes in the life of S. Francis, +is often attributed to Cimabue, Giotto's master, but probably is by +another hand. In one of these scenes the saint is found preaching +to what must be the most attentive birds on record. The figures on +the ceiling represent Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, which all +Franciscans are pledged to observe. The glass is coeval with the +building, which has been described as the most perfect Gothic chapel +in existence. + +The founder of this chapel was Ridolfo de' Bardi, whose family early +in the fourteenth century bade fair to become as powerful as the +Medici, and by the same means, their business being banking and +money-lending, in association with the founders of the adjoining +chapel, the Peruzzi. Ridolfo's father died in 1310, and his son, +who had become a Franciscan, in 1327; and the chapel was built, +and Giotto probably painted the frescoes, soon after the father's +death. Both the Bardi and Peruzzi were brought low by our King Edward +III, who borrowed from them money with which to fight the French, +at Crecy and Poitiers, and omitted to repay it. + +The chapels in the left transept are less interesting, except perhaps +to students of painting in its early days. In the chapel at the end +we find Donatello's wooden crucifix which led to that friendly rivalry +on the part of Brunelleschi, the story of which is one of the best in +all Vasari. Donatello, having finished this wooden crucifix, and being +unusually satisfied with it, asked Brunelleschi's opinion, confidently +expecting praise. But Brunelleschi, who was sufficiently close a friend +to say what he thought, replied that the type was too rough and common: +it was not Christ but a peasant. Christ, of course, was a peasant; +but by peasant Brunelleschi meant a stupid, dull man. Donatello, +chagrined, had recourse to what has always been a popular retort to +critics, and challenged him to make a better. Brunelleschi took it very +quietly: he said nothing in reply, but secretly for many months, in +the intervals of his architecture, worked at his own version, and then +one day, when it was finished, invited Donatello to dinner, stopping +at the Mercato Vecchio to get some eggs and other things. These he +gave Donatello to carry, and sent him on before him to the studio, +where the crucifix was standing unveiled. When Brunelleschi arrived he +found the eggs scattered and broken on the floor and Donatello before +his carving in an ecstasy of admiration. "But what are we going to +have for dinner?" the host inquired. "Dinner!" said Donatello; "I've +had all the dinner I require. To thee it is given to carve Christs: +to me only peasants." No one should forget this pretty story, either +here or at S. Maria Novella, where Brunelleschi's crucifix now is. + +The flexible Siena iron grille of this end chapel dates from 1335. Note +its ivy border. + +On entering the left aisle we find the tombs of Cherubini, the +composer, Raphael Morghen, the engraver, and that curious example of +the Florentine universalist, whose figure we saw under the Uffizi, +Leon Battista Alberti (1405-1472), architect, painter, author, +mathematician, scholar, conversationalist, aristocrat, and friend of +princes. His chief work in Florence is the Rucellai palace and the +facade of S. Maria Novella, but he was greater as an influence than +creator, and his manuals on architecture, painting, and the study of +perspective helped to bring the arts to perfection. It is at Rimini +that he was perhaps most wonderful. Lorenzo de' Medici greatly valued +his society, and he was a leader in the Platonic Academy. But the most +human achievement to his credit is his powerful plea for using the +vernacular in literature, rather than concealing one's best thoughts, +as was fashionable before his protest, in Latin. So much for Alberti's +intellectual side. Physically he was remarkable too, and one of his +accomplishments was to jump over a man standing upright, while he was +also able to throw a coin on to the highest tower, even, I suppose, +the Campanile, and ride any horse, however wild. At the Bargello may +be seen Alberti's portrait, on a medal designed by Pisanello. The old +medals are indeed the best authority for the lineaments of the great +men of the Renaissance, better far than paint. At South Kensington +thousands may be seen, either in the original or in reproduction. + +In the right aisle we saw Bernardo Rossellino's tomb of Leonardo Bruni; +in the left is that of Bruni's successor as Secretary of State, Carlo +Marsuppini, by Desiderio da Settignano, which is high among the most +beautiful monuments that exist. "Faine, faine!" says Alfred Branconi, +with his black eyes dimmed; and this though he has seen it every day +for years and explained its beauties in the same words. Everything +about it is beautiful, as the photograph which I give in this volume +will help the reader to believe: proportions, figures, and tracery; +but I still consider Mino's monument to Ugo in the Badia the finest +Florentine example of the gentler memorial style, as contrasted with +the severe Michelangelesque manner. Mino, it must be remembered, +was Desiderio's pupil, as Desiderio was Donatello's. Note how +Desiderio, by an inspiration, opened the leaf-work at each side of +the sarcophagus and instantly the great solid mass of marble became +light, almost buoyant. Never can a few strokes of the chisel have had +so transforming an effect. There is some doubt as to whether the boys +are just where the sculptor set them, and the upper ones with their +garlands are thought to be a later addition; but we are never likely +to know. The returned visitor from Florence will like to be reminded +that, as of so many others of the best Florentine sculptures, there +is a cast of this at South Kensington. + +The last tomb of the highest importance in the church is that of +Galileo, the astronomer, who died in 1642; but it is not interesting +as a work of art. In the centre of the church is a floor-tomb by +Ghiberti, with a bronze figure of a famous Franciscan, Francesco +Sansoni da Brescia. + +Next the sacristy. Italian priests apparently have no resentment +against inquisitive foreigners who are led into their dressing-rooms +while sumptuous and significant vestments are being donned; but I must +confess to feeling it for them, and if my impressions of the S. Croce +sacristy are meagre and confused it is because of a certain delicacy +that I experienced in intruding upon their rites. For on both occasions +when I visited the sacristy there were several priests either robing +or disrobing. Apart from a natural disinclination to invade privacy, +I am so poor a Roman Catholic as to be in some doubt as to whether one +has a right to be so near such a mystery at all. But I recollect that +in this sacristy are treasures of wood and iron--the most beautiful +intarsia wainscotting I ever saw, by Giovanni di Michele, with a frieze +of wolves and foliage, and fourteenth-century iron gates to the little +chapel, pure Gothic in design, with a little rose window at the top, +delicate beyond words: all which things once again turn the thoughts +to this wonderful Italy of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, +when not even the best was good enough for those who built churches, +but something miraculous was demanded from every craftsman. + +At the end of the passage in which the sacristy is situated is the +exquisite little Cappella Medici, which Michelozzo, the architect of +S. Marco and the Palazzo Medici, and for a while Donatello's partner, +built for his friend Cosimo de' Medici, who though a Dominican in his +cell at S. Marco was a Franciscan here, but by being equally a patron +dissociated himself from partisanship. Three treasures in particular +does this little temple hold: Giotto's "Coronation of the Virgin"; the +della Robbia altar relief, and Mino da Fiesole's tabernacle. Giotto's +picture, which is signed, once stood as altar-piece in the Baroncelli +chapel of the church proper. In addition to the beautiful della +Robbia altar-piece, so happy and holy--which Alfred Branconi boldly +calls Luca--there is over the door Christ between two angels, +a lovely example of the same art. For a subtler, more modern and +less religious mind, we have but to turn to the tabernacle by Mino, +every inch of which is exquisite. + +On the same wall is a curious thing. In the eighteen-sixties died +a Signor Lombardi, who owned certain reliefs which he believed to +be Donatello's. When his monument was made these ancient works were +built into them and here and there gilded (for it is a wicked world +and there was no taste at that time). One's impulse is not to look +at this encroaching piece of novelty at all; but one should resist +that feeling, because, on examination, the Madonna and Children above +Signor Lombardi's head become exceedingly interesting. Her hands are +the work of a great artist, and they are really holding the Child. Why +this should not be an early Donatello I do not see. + +The cloisters of S. Croce are entered from the piazza, just to the +right of the church: the first, a little ornate, by Arnolfo, and +the second, until recently used as a barracks but now being restored +to a more pacific end, by Brunelleschi, and among the most perfect +of his works. Brunelleschi is also the designer of the Pazzi chapel +in the first cloisters. The severity of the facade is delightfully +softened and enlivened by a frieze of mischievous cherubs' heads, the +joint work of Donatello and Desiderio. Donatello's are on the right, +and one sees at once that his was the bolder, stronger hand. Look +particularly at the laughing head fourth from the right. But that one +of Desiderio's over the middle columns has much charm and power. The +doors, from Brunelleschi's own hand, in a doorway perfect in scale, +are noble and worthy. The chapel itself I find too severe and a little +fretted by its della Robbias and the multiplicity of circles. It is +called Brunelleschi's masterpiece, but I prefer both the Badia of +Fiesole and the Old Sacristy at S. Lorenzo, and I remember with more +pleasure the beautiful doorway leading from the Arnolfo cloisters +to the Brunelleschi cloisters, which probably is his too. The +della Robbia reliefs, once one can forgive them for being here, are +worth study. Nothing could be more charming (or less conducive to a +methodical literary morning) than the angel who holds S. Matthew's +ink-pot. But I think my favourite of all is the pensive apostle who +leans his cheek on his hand and his elbow on his book. This figure +alone proves what a sculptor Luca was, apart altogether from the +charm of his mind and the fascination of his chosen medium. + +This chapel was once the scene of a gruesome ceremony. Old Jacopo +Pazzi, the head of the family at the time of the Pazzi conspiracy +against the Medici, after being hanged from a window of the Palazzo +Vecchio, was buried here. Some short while afterwards Florence was +inundated by rain to such an extent that the vengeance of God was +inferred, and, casting about for a reason, the Florentines decided +that it was because Jacopo had been allowed to rest in sacred soil. A +mob therefore rushed to S. Croce, broke open his tomb and dragged +his body through the streets, stopping on their way at the Pazzi +palace to knock on the door with his skull. He was then thrown into +the swollen Arno and borne away by the tide. + +In the old refectory of the convent are now a number of pictures +and fragments of sculpture. The "Last Supper," by Taddeo Gaddi, on +the wall, is notable for depicting Judas, who had no shrift at the +hands of the painters, without a halo. Castagno and Ghirlandaio, +as we shall see, under similar circumstances, placed him on the +wrong side of the table. In either case, but particularly perhaps in +Taddeo's picture, the answer to Christ's question, which Leonardo at +Milan makes so dramatic, is a foregone conclusion. The "Crucifixion" +on the end wall, at the left, is interesting as having been painted +for the Porta S. Gallo (in the Piazza Cavour) and removed here. All +the gates of Florence had religious frescoes in them, some of which +still remain. The great bronze bishop is said to be by Donatello and +to have been meant for Or San Michele; but one does not much mind. + +One finds occasion to say so many hard things of the Florentine +disregard of ancient art that it is peculiarly a pleasure to see +the progress that is being made in restoring Brunelleschi's perfect +cloisters at S. Croce to their original form. When they were turned +into barracks the Loggia was walled in all round and made into a series +of rooms. These walls are now gradually coming away, the lovely pillars +being again isolated, the chimneys removed, and everything lightly +washed. Grass has also been sown in the great central square. The +crumbling of the decorative medals in the spandrels of the cloisters +cannot of course be restored; but one does not complain of such +natural decay as that. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +The Accademia + +Michelangelo--The David--The tomb of Julius--A contrast--Fra +Angelico--The beatific painter--Cimabue and Giotto--Masaccio--Gentile +da Fabriano--Domenico Ghirlandaio--Fra Angelico again--Fra +Bartolommeo--Perugino--Botticelli--The "Primavera"--Leonardo da Vinci +and Verrocchio--Botticelli's sacred pictures--Botticini--Tapestries +of Eden. + +The Accademia delle Belle Arti is in the Via Ricasoli, that street +which seen from the top of the Campanile is the straightest thing in +Florence, running like a ruled line from the Duomo to the valley of +the Mugnone. Upstairs are modern painters: but upstairs I have never +been. It is the ground-floor rooms that are so memorable, containing +as they do a small but very choice collection of pictures illustrating +the growth of Italian art, with particular emphasis on Florentine +art; the best assemblage of the work of Fra Angelico that exists; +and a large gallery given up to Michelangelo's sculpture: originals +and casts. The principal magnets that draw people here, no doubt, +are the Fra Angelicos and Botticelli's "Primavera"; but in five at +least of the rooms there is not an uninteresting picture, while the +collection is so small that one can study it without fatigue--no +little matter after the crowded Uffizi and Pitti. + +It is a simple matter to choose in such a book as this the best +place in which to tell something of the life-story of, say, Giotto +and Brunelleschi and the della Robbias; for at a certain point their +genius is found concentrated--Donatello's and the della Robbias' +in the Bargello and those others at the Duomo and Campanile. But +with Michelangelo it is different, he is so distributed over the +city--his gigantic David here, the Medici tombs at S. Lorenzo, his +fortifications at S. Miniato, his tomb at S. Croce, while there remains +his house as a natural focus of all his activities. I have, however, +chosen the Medici chapel as the spot best suited for his biography, +and therefore will here dwell only on the originals that are preserved +about the David. The David himself, superb and confident, is the +first thing you see in entering the doors of the gallery. He stands +at the end, white and glorious, with his eyes steadfastly measuring +his antagonist and calculating upon what will be his next move if the +sling misdirects the stone. Of the objection to the statue as being +not representative of the Biblical figure I have said something in the +chapter on the Bargello, where several Davids come under review. Yet, +after all that can be said against its dramatic fitness, the statue +remains an impressive and majestic yet strangely human thing. There +it is--a sign of what a little Italian sculptor with a broken nose +could fashion with his mallet and chisel from a mass of marble four +hundred and more years ago. + +Its history is curious. In 1501, when Michelangelo was twenty-six +and had just returned to Florence from Rome with a great reputation +as a sculptor, the joint authorities of the cathedral and the Arte +della Lana offered him a huge block of marble that had been in their +possession for thirty-five years, having been worked upon clumsily by +a sculptor named Baccellino and then set aside. Michelangelo was told +that if he accepted it he must carve from it a David and have it done +in two years. He began in September, 1501, and finished in January, +1504, and a committee was appointed to decide upon its position, +among them being Leonardo da Vinci, Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi, +Filippino Lippi, Botticelli, and Andrea della Robbia, There were +three suggested sites: the Loggia de' Lanzi; the courtyard of the +Palazzo Vecchio, where Verrocchio's little boudoir David then stood +(now in the Bargello) and where his Cupid and dolphin now are; and +the place where it now stands, then occupied by Donatello's Judith and +Holofernes. This last was finally selected, not by the committee but by +the determination of Michelangelo himself, and Judith and Holofernes +were moved to the Loggia de' Lanzi to their present position. The +David was set up in May, 1504, and remained there for three hundred +and sixty-nine years, suffering no harm from the weather but having +an arm broken in the Medici riots in 1527. In 1878, however, it was +decided that further exposure might be injurious, and so the statue +was moved here to its frigid niche and a replica in marble afterwards +set up in its place. Since this glorious figure is to be seen thrice +in Florence, he may be said to have become the second symbol of the +city, next the fleur-de-lis. + +The Tribuna del David, as the Michelangelo salon is called, has +among other originals several figures intended for that tomb of Pope +Julius II (whose portrait by Raphael we have seen at the Uffizi) +which was to be the eighth wonder of the world, and by which the last +years of the sculptor's life were rendered so unhappy. The story +is a miserable one. Of the various component parts of the tomb, +finished or unfinished, the best known is the Moses at S. Pietro +in Vincoli at Rome, reproduced in plaster here, in the Accademia, +beneath the bronze head of its author. Various other parts are in Rome +too; others here; one or two may be at the Bargello (although some +authorities give these supposed Michelangelos to Vincenzo Danti); +others are in the grotto of the Boboli Gardens; and the Louvre has +what is in some respects the finest of the "Prisoners". + +The first statue on the right of the entrance of the Tribuna del David +is a group called "Genio Vittorioso". Here in the old man we see rock +actually turned to life; in the various "Prisoners" near we see life +emerging from rock; in the David we forget the rock altogether. One +wonders how Michelangelo went to work. Did the shape of the block +of marble influence him, or did he with his mind's eye, the Roentgen +rays of genius, see the figure within it, embedded in the midst, and +hew and chip until it disclosed? On the back of the fourth statue on +the left a monkish face has been incised: probably some visitor to the +studio. After looking at these originals and casts, and remembering +those other Michelangelo sculptures elsewhere in Florence--the tombs +of the Medici, the Brutus and the smaller David--turn to the bronze +head over the cast of Moses and reflect upon the author of it all: +the profoundly sorrowful eyes behind which so much power and ambition +and disappointment dwelt. + +It is peculiarly interesting to walk out of the Michelangelo gallery +into the little room containing the Fra Angelicos: to pass from a great +melancholy saturnine sculptor, the victim of the caprice of princes +temporal and spiritual, his eyes troubled with world knowledge and +world weariness, to the child-like celebrant of the joy of simple faith +who painted these gay and happy pictures. Fra Angelico--the sweetest +of all the Florentine painters--was a monk of Fiesole, whose real name +was Guido Petri da Mugello, but becoming a Dominican he called himself +Giovanni, and now through the sanctity and happiness of his brush is +for all time Beato Angelico. He was born in 1390, nearly sixty years +after Giotto's death, when Chaucer was fifty, and Richard II on the +English throne. His early years were spent in exile from Fiesole, +the brothers having come into difficulties with the Archbishop, +but by 1418 he was again at Fiesole, and when in 1436 Cosimo de' +Medici, returned from exile at Venice, set his friend Michelozzo +upon building the convent of S. Marco, Fra Angelico was fetched from +Fiesole to decorate the walls. There, and here, in the Accademia, are +his chief works assembled; but he worked also at Fiesole, at Cortona, +and at Rome, where he painted frescoes in the chapel of Nicholas V in +the Vatican and where he died, aged sixty-eight, and was buried. It +was while at Rome that the Pope offered him the priorship of S. Marco, +which he declined as being unworthy, but recommended Antonio, "the good +archbishop".--That practically is his whole life. As to his character, +let Vasari tell us. "He would often say that whosoever practised art +needed a quiet life and freedom from care, and he who occupies himself +with the things of Christ ought always to be with Christ. . . . Some +say that Fra Giovanni never took up his brush without first making a +prayer. . . . He never made a crucifix when the tears did not course +down his cheeks." The one curious thing--to me--about Fra Angelico +is that he has not been canonized. If ever a son of the Church toiled +for her honour and for the happiness of mankind it was he. + +There are examples of Fra Angelico's work elsewhere in Florence; +the large picture in Room I of this gallery; the large altar-piece +at the Uffizi, with certain others; the series of mural paintings +in the cells of S. Marco; and his pictures will be found not only +elsewhere in Florence and Italy but in the chief galleries of the +world; for he was very assiduous. We have an excellent example at +the National Gallery, No. 663; but this little room gives us the +artist and rhapsodist most completely. In looking at his pictures, +three things in particular strike the mind: the skill with which he +composed them; his mastery of light; and--and here he is unique--the +pleasure he must have had in painting them. All seem to have been play; +he enjoyed the toil exactly as a child enjoys the labour of building +a house with toy bricks. Nor, one feels, could he be depressed. Even +in his Crucifixions there is a certain underlying happiness, due +to his knowledge that the Crucified was to rise again and ascend to +Heaven and enjoy eternal felicity. Knowing this (as he did know it) +how could he be wholly cast down? You see it again in the Flagellation +of Christ, in the series of six scenes (No. 237). The scourging is +almost a festival. But best of all I like the Flight into Egypt, in +No. 235. Everything here is joyous and (in spite of the terrible cause +of the journey) bathed in the sunny light of the age of innocence: +the landscape; Joseph, younger than usual, brave and resolute and +undismayed by the curious turn in his fortunes; and Mary with the +child in her arms, happy and pretty, seated securely on an amiable +donkey that has neither bit nor bridle. It is when one looks at +Fra Angelico that one understands how wise were the Old Masters to +seek their inspiration in the life of Christ. One cannot imagine Fra +Angelico's existence in a pagan country. Look, in No. 236, at the six +radiant and rapturous angels clustering above the manger. Was there +ever anything prettier? But I am not sure that I do not most covet +No. 250, Christ crucified and two saints, and No. 251, the Coronation +of the Virgin, for their beauty of light. + +In the photographs No. 246--a Deposition--is unusually striking, +but in the original, although beautiful, it is far less radiant than +usual with this painter. It has, however, such feeling as to make it +especially memorable among the many treatments of this subject. What +is generally considered the most important work in this room is the +Last Judgment, which is certainly extraordinarily interesting, and in +the hierarchy of heaven and the company of the blest Fra Angelico is +in a very acceptable mood. The benignant Christ Who divides the sheep +and the goats; the healthy ripe-lipped Saints and Fathers who assist +at the tribunal and have never a line of age or experience on their +blooming cheeks; the monks and nuns, just risen from their graves, who +embrace each other in the meads of paradise with such fervour--these +have much of the charm of little flowers. But in delineating the damned +the painter is in strange country. It was a subject of which he knew +nothing, and the introduction among them of monks of the rival order +of S. Francis is mere party politics and a blot. + +There are two other rooms here, but Fra Angelico spoils us for +them. Four panels by another Frate, but less radiant, Lippo Lippi, are +remarkable, particularly the figure of the Virgin in the Annunciation; +and there is a curious series of scenes entitled "L'Albero della +Croce," by an Ignoto of the fourteenth century, with a Christ crucified +in the midst and all Scripture in medallions around him, the tragedy of +Adam and Eve at the foot (mutilated by some chaste pedant) being very +quaint. And in Angelico's rooms there is a little, modest Annunciation +by one of his school--No. 256--which shows what a good influence he +was, and to which the eye returns and returns. Here also, on easels, +are two portraits of Vallombrosan monks by Fra Bartolommeo, serene, +and very sympathetically painted, which cause one to regret the +deterioration in Italian ecclesiastic physiognomy; and Andrea del +Sarto's two pretty angels, which one so often finds in reproduction, +are here too. + +Let us now enter the first room of the collection proper and begin at +the very beginning of Tuscan art, for this collection is historical +and not fortuitous like that of the Pitti. The student may here trace +the progress of Tuscan painting from the level to the highest peaks +and downwards again. The Accademia was established with this purpose +by that enlightened prince, Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, +in 1784. Other pictures not wholly within his scheme have been added +since, together with the Michelangelo statues and casts; but they do +not impair the original idea. For the serious student the first room +is of far the most importance, for there he may begin with Cimabue +(? 1240-? 1302), and Giotto (1267-? 1337), and pass steadily to Luca +Signorelli (? 1450-1523). For the most part the pictures in this room +appeal to the inquirer rather than the sightseer; but there is not +one that is without interest, while three works of extraordinary charm +have thoughtfully been enisled, on screens, for special attention--a +Fra Angelico, a Fabriano, and a Ghirlandaio. Before reaching these, +let us look at the walls. + +The first large picture, on the left, the Cimabue, marks the transition +from Byzantine art to Italian art. Giovanni Cimabue, who was to be +the forerunner of the new art, was born about 1240. At that time +there was plenty of painting in Italy, but it was Greek, the work of +artists at Constantinople (Byzantium), the centre of Christianity in +the eastern half of the Roman Empire and the fount of ecclesiastical +energy, and it was crude workmanship, existing purely as an accessory +of worship. Cimabue, of whom, I may say, almost nothing definite +is known, and upon whom the delightful but casual old Vasari is the +earliest authority, as Dante was his first eulogist, carried on the +Byzantine tradition, but breathed a little life into it. In his picture +here we see him feeling his way from the unemotional painted symbols +of the Faith to humanity itself. One can understand this large panel +being carried (as we know the similar one at S. Maria Novella was) +in procession and worshipped, but it is nearer to the icon of the +Russian peasant of today than to a Raphael. The Madonna is above +life; the Child is a little man. This was painted, say, in 1280, +as an altar-piece for the Badia of S. Trinita at Florence. + +Next came Giotto, Cimabue's pupil, born about 1267, whom we have +met already as an architect, philosopher, and innovator; and in the +second picture in this room, from Giotto's brush, we see life really +awakening. The Madonna is vivifying; the Child is nearer childhood; we +can believe that here are veins with blood in them. Moreover, whereas +Cimabue's angels brought masonry, these bring flowers. It is crude, +no doubt, but it is enough; the new art, which was to counterfeit +and even extend nature, has really begun; the mystery and glory of +painting are assured and the door opened for Botticelli. + +But much had to happen first, particularly the mastery of the laws of +perspective, and it was not (as we have seen) until Ghiberti had got +to work on his first doors, and Brunelleschi was studying architecture +and Uccello sitting up all night at his desk, that painting as we +know it--painting of men and women "in the round"--could be done, +and it was left for a youth who was not born until Giotto had been +dead sixty-four years to do this first as a master--one Tommaso +di Ser Giovanni Guido da Castel San Giovanni, known as Masaccio, +or Big Tom. The three great names then in the evolution of Italian +painting, a subject to which I return in chapter XXV, on the Carmine, +are Cimabue, Giotto, Masaccio. + +We pass on at the Accademia from Cimabue's pupil Giotto, to Giotto's +followers, Taddeo Gaddi and Bernardo Daddi, and Daddi's follower +Spinello Aretino, and the long dependent and interdependent line of +painters. For the most part they painted altar-pieces, these early +craftsmen, the Church being the principal patron of art. These +works are many of them faded and so elementary as to have but an +antiquarian interest; but think of the excitement in those days when +the picture was at last ready, and, gay in its gold, was erected in the +chapel! Among the purely ecclesiastical works No. 137, an Annunciation +by Giovanni del Biondo (second half of the fourteenth century), +is light and cheerful, and No. 142, the Crowning of the Virgin, by +Rosello di Jacopo Franchi (1376-1456), has some delightful details and +is everywhere joyous, with a charming green pattern in it. The wedding +scenes in No. 147 give us Florentine life on the mundane side with +some valuable thoroughness, and the Pietro Lorenzetti above--scenes +in the life of S. Umilita--is very quaint and cheery and was painted +as early as 1316. The little Virgin adoring, No. 160, in the corner, +by the fertile Ignoto, is charmingly pretty. + +And now for the three screens, notable among the screens of the +galleries of Europe as holding three of the happiest pictures +ever painted. The first is the Adoration of the Magi, by Gentile +da Fabriano, an artist of whom one sees too little. His full +name was Gentile di Niccolo di Giovanni Massi, and he was born +at Fabriano between 1360 and 1370, some twenty years before Fra +Angelico. According to Vasari he was Fra Angelico's master, but +that is now considered doubtful, and yet the three little scenes +from the life of Christ in the predella of this picture are nearer +Fra Angelico in spirit and charm than any, not by a follower, that I +have seen. Gentile did much work at Venice before he came to Florence, +in 1422, and this picture, which is considered his masterpiece, was +painted in 1423 for S. Trinita. He died four years later. Gentile +was charming rather than great, and to this work might be applied +Ruskin's sarcastic description of poor Ghirlandaio's frescoes, that +they are mere goldsmith's work; and yet it is much more, for it has +gaiety and sweetness and the nice thoughtfulness that made the Child a +real child, interested like a child in the bald head of the kneeling +mage; while the predella is not to be excelled in its modest, tender +beauty by any in Florence; and predellas, I may remark again, should +never be overlooked, strong as the tendency is to miss them. Many +a painter has failed in the large space or made only a perfunctory +success, but in the small has achieved real feeling. Gentile's Holy +Family on its way to Egypt is never to be forgotten. Not so radiant +as Fra Angelico's, in the room we have visited out of due course, +but as charming in its own manner--both in personages and landscape; +while the city to which Joseph leads the donkey (again without reins) +is the most perfect thing out of fairyland. + +Ghirlandaio's picture, which is the neighbour of Gentile's, is as +a whole nearer life and one of his most attractive works. It is, +I think, excelled only by his very similar Adoration of the Magi +at the Spedale degli Innocenti, which, however, it is difficult to +see; and it is far beyond the examples at the Uffizi, which are too +hot. Of the life of this artist, who was Michelangelo's master, I +shall speak in the chapter on S. Maria Novella. This picture, which +represents the Adoration of the Shepherds, was painted in 1485, when +the artist was thirty-six. It is essentially pleasant: a religious +picture on the sunny side. The Child is the soul of babyish content, +equally amused with its thumb and the homage it is receiving. Close +by is a goldfinch unafraid; in the distance is a citied valley, with +a river winding in it; and down a neighbouring hill, on the top of +which the shepherds feed their flocks, comes the imposing procession +of the Magi. Joseph is more than commonly perplexed, and the disparity +between his own and his wife's age, which the old masters agreed to +make considerable, is more considerable than usual. + +Both Gentile and Ghirlandaio chose a happy subject and made it happier; +Fra Angelico (for the third screen picture) chose a melancholy +subject and made it happy, not because that was his intention, but +because he could not help it. He had only one set of colours and one +set of countenances, and since the colours were of the gayest and the +countenances of the serenest, the result was bound to be peaceful and +glad. This picture is a large "Deposizione della Croce," an altar-piece +for S. Trinita. There is such joy in the painting and light in the +sky that a child would clap his hands at it all, and not least at +the vermilion of the Redeemer's blood. Fra Angelico gave thought to +every touch: and his beatific holiness floods the work. Each of these +three great pictures, I may add, has its original frame. + +The room which leads from this one is much less valuable; but Fra +Bartolommeo's Vision of S. Bernard has lately been brought to an easel +here to give it character. I find this the Frate's most beautiful +work. It may have details that are a little crude, and the pointed nose +of the Virgin is not perhaps in accordance with the best tradition, +while she is too real for an apparition; but the figure of the kneeling +saint is masterly and the landscape lovely in subject and feeling. Here +too is Fra Bartolommeo's portrait of Savonarola, in which the reformer +is shown as personating S. Peter Martyr. The picture was not painted +from life, but from an earlier portrait. Fra Bartolommeo had some +reason to know what Savonarola was like, for he was his personal +friend and a brother in the same convent of S. Marco, a few yards +from the Accademia, across the square. He was born in 1475 and was +apprenticed to the painter Cosimo Rosselli; but he learned more from +studying Masaccio's frescoes at the Carmine and the work of Leonardo da +Vinci. It was in 1495 that he came under the influence of Savonarola, +and he was the first artist to run home and burn his studies from the +nude in response to the preacher's denunciations. Three years later, +when Savonarola was an object of hatred and the convent of S. Marco +was besieged, the artist was with him, and he then made a vow that if +he lived he would join the order; and this promise he kept, although +not until Savonarola had been executed. For a while, as a monk, he +laid aside the brush, but in 1506 he resumed it and painted until +his death, in 1517. He was buried at S. Marco. + +In his less regenerate days Fra Bartolommeo's greatest friend was the +jovial Mariotto Albertinelli, whose rather theatrical Annunciation +hangs between a number of the monk's other portraits, all very +interesting. Of Albertinelli I have spoken earlier. Before leaving, +look at the tiny Ignoto next the door--a Madonna and Child, the child +eating a pomegranate. It is a little picture to steal. + +In the next room are a number of the later and showy painters, such as +Carlo Dolci, Lorenzo Lippi, and Francesco Furini, all bold, dashing, +self-satisfied hands, in whom (so near the real thing) one can take +no interest. Nothing to steal here. + +Returning through Sala Prima we come to the Sala del Perugino and +are among the masters once more--riper and richer than most of +those we have already seen, for Tuscan art here reaches its finest +flower. Perugino is here and Botticelli, Fra Bartolommeo and Leonardo, +Luca Signorelli, Fra Lippo Lippi and Filippino Lippi. And here is a +Masaccio. The great Perugino Assumption has all his mellow sunset calm, +and never was a landscape more tenderly sympathetic. The same painter's +Deposition hangs next, and the custodian brings a magnifying glass +that the tears on the Magdalen's cheek may be more closely observed; +but the third, No. 53, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, is finer, +and here again the landscape and light are perfect. For the rest, +there is a Royal Academy Andrea and a formal Ghirlandaio. + +And now we come to Botticelli, who although less richly represented +in numbers than at the Uffizi, is for the majority of his admirers +more to be sought here, by reason of the "Primavera" allegory, +which is the Accademia's most powerful magnet. The Botticellis are +divided between two rooms, the "Primavera" being in the first. The +first feeling one has is how much cooler it is here than among the +Peruginos, and how much gayer; for not only is there the "Primavera," +but Fra Lippo Lippi is here too, with a company of angels helping +to crown the Virgin, and a very sweet, almost transparent, little +Madonna adoring--No. 79--which one cannot forget. + +The "Primavera" is not wearing too well: one sees that at once. Being +in tempera it cannot be cleaned, and a dulness is overlaying it; but +nothing can deprive the figure of Spring of her joy and movement, +a floating type of conquering beauty and youth. The most wonderful +thing about this wonderful picture is that it should have been painted +when it was: that, suddenly, out of a solid phalanx of Madonnas should +have stepped these radiant creatures of the joyous earth, earthy and +joyful. And not only that they should have so surprisingly and suddenly +emerged, but that after all these years this figure of Spring should +still be the finest of her kind. That is the miracle! Luca Signorelli's +flowers at the Uffizi remain the best, but Botticelli's are very +thoughtful and before the grass turned black they must have been very +lovely; the exquisite drawing of the irises in the right-hand corner +can still be traced, although the colour has gone. The effect now is +rather like a Chinese painting. For the history of the "Primavera" +and its signification, one must turn back to Chapter X. + +I spoke just now of Luca's flowers. There are others in his picture in +this room--botanist's flowers as distinguished from painter's flowers: +the wild strawberry beautifully straggling. This picture is one of +the most remarkable in all Florence to me: a Crucifixion to which +the perishing of the colour has given an effect of extreme delicacy, +while the group round the cross on the distant mound has a quality for +which one usually goes to Spanish art. The Magdalen is curiously sulky +and human. Into the skull at the foot of the cross creeps a lizard. + +This room has three Lippo Lippis, which is an interesting circumstance +when we remember that that dissolute brother was the greatest influence +on Botticelli. The largest is the Coronation of the Virgin with its +many lilies--a picture which one must delight in, so happy and crowded +is it, but which never seems to me quite what it should be. The most +fascinating part of it is the figures in the two little medallions: +two perfect pieces of colour and design. The kneeling monk on the +right is Lippo Lippi himself. Near it is the Madonna adoring, No. 79, +of which I have spoken, with herself so luminous and the background +so dark; the other--No. 82--is less remarkable. No. 81, above it, +is by Browning's Pacchiorotto (who worked in distemper); close by +is the Masaccio, which has a deep, quiet beauty; and beneath it is a +richly coloured predella by Andrea del Sarto, the work of a few hours, +I should guess, and full of spirit and vigour. It consists of four +scriptural scenes which might be called the direct forerunners of +Sir John Gilbert and the modern illustrators. Lastly we have what +is in many ways the most interesting picture in Florence--No. 71, +the Baptism of Christ--for it is held by some authorities to be the +only known painting by Verrocchio, whose sculptures we saw in the +Bargello and at Or San Michele, while in one of the angels--that +surely on the left--we are to see the hand of his pupil Leonardo da +Vinci. Their faces are singularly sweet. Other authorities consider +not only that Verrocchio painted the whole picture himself but that +he painted also the Annunciation at the Uffizi to which Leonardo's +name is given. Be that as it may--and we shall never know--this +is a beautiful thing. According to Vasari it was the excellence +of Leonardo's contribution which decided Verrocchio to give up the +brush. Among the thoughts of Leonardo is one which comes to mind with +peculiar force before this work when we know its story: "Poor is the +pupil who does not surpass his master". + +The second Sala di Botticelli has not the value of the first. It +has magnificent examples of Botticelli's sacred work, but the other +pictures are not the equal of those in the other rooms. Chief of the +Botticellis is No. 85, "The Virgin and Child with divers Saints," in +which there are certain annoying and restless elements. One feels that +in the accessories--the flooring, the curtains, and gilt--the painter +was wasting his time, while the Child is too big. Botticelli was seldom +too happy with his babies. But the face of the Saint in green and blue +on the left is most exquisitely painted, and the Virgin has rather less +troubled beauty than usual. The whole effect is not quite spiritual, +and the symbolism of the nails and the crown of thorns held up for +the Child to see is rather too cruel and obvious. I like better the +smaller picture with the same title--No. 88--in which the Saints at +each side are wholly beautiful in Botticelli's wistful way, and the +painting of their heads and head-dresses is so perfect as to fill +one with a kind of despair. But taken altogether one must consider +Botticelli's triumph in the Accademia to be pagan rather than sacred. + +No. 8, called officially School of Verrocchio, and by one firm of +photographers Botticini, and by another Botticelli, is a fine free +thing, low in colour, with a quiet landscape, and is altogether a +delight. It represents Tobias and the three angels, and Raphael moves +nobly, although not with quite such a step as the radiant figure in a +somewhat similar picture in our own National Gallery--No. 781--which, +once confidently given to Verrocchio, is now attributed to Botticini; +while our No. 296, which the visitor from Florence on returning to +London should hasten to examine, is no longer Verrocchio but School +of Verrocchio. When we think of these attributions and then look at +No. 154 in the Accademia--another Tobias and the Angel, here given +to Botticini--we have a concrete object lesson in the perilous career +that awaits the art expert, + +The other pictures here are two sunny panels by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, +high up, with nice easy colouring; No. 92, an Adoration of the +Shepherds by Lorenzo di Credi, with a good landscape and all very +sweet and quiet; No. 98, a Deposition by Filippino Lippi and Perugino, +in collaboration, with very few signs of Filippino; and No. 90, +a Resurrection by Raffaellino del Garbo, an uncommon painter in +Florence; the whole thing a tour de force, but not important. + +And now let us look at the Angelicos again. + +Before leaving the Accademia for the last time, one should glance +at the tapestries near the main entrance, just for fun. That one in +which Adam names the animals is so delightfully naive that it ought to +be reproduced as a nursery wall-paper. The creatures pass in review +in four processions, and Adam must have had to be uncommonly quick +to make up his mind first and then rattle out their resultant names +in the time. The main procession is that of the larger quadrupeds, +headed by the unicorn in single glory; and the moment chosen by the +artist is that in which the elephant, having just heard his name +(for the first time) and not altogether liking it, is turning towards +Adam in surprised remonstrance. The second procession is of reptiles, +led by the snail; the third, the smaller quadrupeds, led by four rats, +followed desperately close (but of course under the white flag) by two +cats; while the fourth--all sorts and conditions of birds--streams +through the air. The others in this series are all delightful, not +the least being that in which God, having finished His work, takes +Adam's arm and flies with him over the earth to point out its merits. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Two Monasteries and a Procession + +The Certosa--A Company of Uncles--The +Cells--Machiavelli--Impruneta--The +della Robbias--Pontassieve--Pelago--Milton's +simile--Vallombrosa--S. Gualberto--Prato and the Lippis--The Grassina +Albergo--An American invasion--The Procession of the Dead Christ--My +loss. + +Everyone who merely visits Florence holds it a duty to bring home at +least one flask of the Val d'Ema liqueur from the Carthusian monastery +four or five miles distant from the city, not because that fiery +distillation is peculiarly attractive but because the vessels which +contain it are at once pretty decorations and evidences of travel and +culture. They can be bought in Florence itself, it is true (at a shop +at the corner of the Via de' Cerretani, close to the Baptistery), +but the Certosa is far too interesting to miss, if one has time to +spare from the city's own treasures. The trams start from the Mercato +Nuovo and come along the Via dell' Arcivescovado to the Baptistery, +and so to the Porta Romana and out into the hilly country. The ride +is dull and rather tiresome, for there is much waiting at sidings, +but the expedition becomes attractive immediately the tram is +left. There is then a short walk, principally up the long narrow +approach to the monastery gates, outside which, when I was there, +was sitting a beggar at a stone table, waiting for the bowl of soup +to which all who ask are entitled. + +Passing within the courtyard you ring the bell on the right and enter +the waiting hall, from which, in the course of time, when a sufficient +party has been gathered, an elderly monk in a white robe leads you +away. How many monks there may be, I cannot say; but of the few of whom +I caught a glimpse, all were alike in the possession of white beards, +and all suggested uncles in fancy dress. Ours spoke good French and +was clearly a man of parts. Lulled by his soothing descriptions I +passed in a kind of dream through this ancient abode of peace. + +The Certosa dates from 1341 and was built and endowed by a wealthy +merchant named Niccolo Acciaioli, after whom the Lungarno Acciaioli +is named. The members of the family are still buried here, certain +of the tombstones bearing dates of the present century. To-day it is +little but a show place, the cells of the monks being mostly empty and +the sale of the liqueur its principal reason for existence. But the +monks who are left take a pride in their church, which is attributed +to Orcagna, and its possessions, among which come first the relief +monuments of early Acciaioli in the floor of one of the chapels--the +founder's being perhaps also the work of Orcagna, while that of his son +Lorenzo, who died in 1353, is attributed by our cicerone to Donatello, +but by others to an unknown hand. It is certainly very beautiful. These +tombs are the very reverse of those which we saw in S. Croce; for +those bear the obliterating traces of centuries of footsteps, so that +some are nearly flat with the stones, whereas these have been railed +off for ever and have lost nothing. The other famous Certosa tomb is +that of Cardinal Angelo Acciaioli, which, once given to Donatello, +is now sometimes attributed to Giuliano di Sangallo and sometimes to +his son Francesco. + +The Certosa has a few good pictures, but it is as a monastery that +it is most interesting: as one of the myriad lonely convents of +Italy, which one sees so constantly from the train, perched among +the Apennines, and did not expect ever to enter. The cloisters +which surround the garden, in the centre of which is a well, and +beneath which is the distillery, are very memorable, not only for +their beauty but for the sixty and more medallions of saints and +evangelists all round it by Giovanni della Robbia. Here the monks +have sunned themselves, and here been buried, these five and a half +centuries. One suite of rooms is shown, with its own little private +garden and no striking discomfort except the hole in the wall by +the bed, through which the sleeper is awakened. From its balcony one +sees the Etna far below and hears the roar of a weir, and away in the +distance is Florence with the Duomo and a third of Giotto's Campanile +visible above the intervening hills. + +Having shown you all the sights the monk leads you again to the +entrance hall and bids you good-bye, with murmurs of surprise and +a hint of reproach on discovering a coin in his hand, for which, +however, none the less, he manages in the recesses of his robe to +find a place; and you are then directed to the room where the liqueur, +together with sweets and picture post-cards, is sold by another monk, +assisted by a lay attendant, and the visit to the Certosa is over. + +The tram that passes the Certosa continues to S. Casciano in the +Chianti district (but much wine is called Chianti that never came +from here), where there is a point of interest in the house to which +Machiavelli retired in 1512, to give himself to literature and to live +that wonderful double life--a peasant loafer by day in the fields and +the village inn, and at night, dressed in his noblest clothes, the +cold, sagacious mentor of the rulers of mankind. But at S. Casciano +I did not stop. + +And farther still one comes to the village of Impruneta, after climbing +higher and higher, with lovely calm valleys on either side coloured +by silver olive groves and vivid wheat and maize, and studded with +white villas and villages and church towers. On the road every woman +in every doorway plaits straw with rapid fingers just as if we were in +Bedfordshire. Impruneta is famous for its new terra-cotta vessels and +its ancient della Robbias. For in the church is some of Luca's most +exquisite work--an altarpiece with a frieze of aerial angels under it, +and a stately white saint on either side, and the loveliest decorated +columns imaginable; while in an adjoining chapel is a Christ crucified +mourned by the most dignified and melancholy of Magdalens. Andrea della +Robbia is here too, and here also is a richly designed cantoria by Mino +da Fiesole. The village is not in the regular programme of visitors, +and Baedeker ignores it; hence perhaps the excitement which an arrival +from Florence causes, for the children turn out in battalions. The +church is very dirty, and so indeed is everything else; but no amount +of grime can disguise the charm of the cloisters. + +The Certosa is a mere half-hour from Florence, Impruneta an hour +and a half; but Vallombrosa asks a long day. One can go by rail, +changing at Sant' Ellero into the expensive rack-and-pinion car which +climbs through the vineyards to a point near the summit, and has, +since it was opened, brought to the mountain so many new residents, +whose little villas cling to the western slopes among the lizards, +and, in summer, are smitten unbearably by the sun. But the best way +to visit the monastery and the groves is by road. A motor-car no +doubt makes little of the journey; but a carriage and pair such as I +chartered at Florence for forty-five lire has to be away before seven, +and, allowing three hours on the top, is not back again until the +same hour in the evening; and this, the ancient way, with the beat +of eight hoofs in one's ears, is the right way. + +For several miles the road and the river--the Arno--run side by +side--and the railway close by too--through venerable villages whose +inhabitants derive their living either from the soil or the water, +and amid vineyards all the time. Here and there a white villa is seen, +but for the most part this is peasants' district: one such villa +on the left, before Pontassieve, having about it, and on each side +of its drive, such cypresses as one seldom sees and only Gozzoli or +Mr. Sargent could rightly paint, each in his own style. Not far beyond, +in a scrap of meadow by the road, sat a girl knitting in the morning +sun--with a placid glance at us as we rattled by; and ten hours later, +when we rattled past again, there she still was, still knitting, in +the evening sun, and again her quiet eyes were just raised and dropped. + +At Pontassieve we stopped a while for coffee at an inn at the corner +of the square of pollarded limes, and while it was preparing watched +the little crumbling town at work, particularly the cooper opposite, +who was finishing a massive cask within whose recesses good Chianti +is doubtless now maturing; and then on the white road again, to the +turning, a mile farther on, to the left, where one bids the Arno +farewell till the late afternoon. Steady climbing now, and then a +turn to the right and we see Pelago before us, perched on its crags, +and by and by come to it--a tiny town, with a clean and alluring +inn, very different from the squalor of Pontassieve: famous in art +and particularly Florentine art as being the birthplace of Lorenzo +Ghiberti, who made the Baptistery doors. From Pelago the road descends +with extreme steepness to a brook in a rocky valley, at a bridge over +which the real climb begins, to go steadily on (save for another swift +drop before Tosi) until Vallombrosa is reached, winding through woods +all the way, chiefly chestnut--those woods which gave Milton, who was +here in 1638, his famous simile. [6] The heat was now becoming intense +(it was mid-September) and the horses were suffering, and most of this +last stage was done at walking pace; but such was the exhilaration of +the air, such the delight of the aromas which the breeze continually +wafted from the woods, now sweet, now pungent, and always refreshing, +that one felt no fatigue even though walking too. And so at last the +monastery, and what was at that moment better than anything, lunch. + +The beauty and joy of Vallombrosa, I may say at once, are Nature's, +not man's. The monastery, which is now a Government school of +forestry, is ugly and unkempt; the hotel is unattractive; the few +people one meets want to sell something or take you for a drive. But +in an instant in any direction one can be in the woods--and at this +level they are pine woods, soft underfoot and richly perfumed--and +a quarter of an hour's walking brings the view. It is then that you +realize you are on a mountain indeed. Florence is to the north-west +in the long Arno valley, which is here precipitous and narrow. The +river is far below--if you slipped you would slide into it--fed by +tumbling Apennine streams from both walls. The top of the mountain +is heathery like Scotland, and open; but not long will it be so, +for everywhere are the fenced parallelograms which indicate that a +villa is to be erected. Nothing, however, can change the mountain +air or the glory of the surrounding heights. + +Another view, unbroken by villas but including the monastery and the +Foresters' Hotel in the immediate foreground, and extending as far as +Florence itself (on suitable days), is obtained from Il Paradisino, +a white building on a ledge which one sees from the hotel above the +monastery. But that is not by any means the top. The view covers much +of the way by which we came hither. + +Of the monastery of Vallombrosa we have had foreshadowings in +Florence. We saw at the Accademia two exquisite portraits by Fra +Bartolommeo of Vallombrosan monks. We saw at the Bargello the remains +of a wonderful frieze by Benedetto da Rovezzano for the tomb of +the founder of the order, S. Giovanni Gualberto; we shall see at +S. Miniato scenes in the saint's life on the site of the ancient +chapel where the crucifix bent and blessed him. As the head of the +monastery Gualberto was famous for the severity and thoroughness of +his discipline. But though a martinet as an abbot, personally he was +humble and mild. His advice on all kinds of matters is said to have +been invited even by kings and popes. He invented the system of lay +brothers to help with the domestic work of the convent; and after a +life of holiness, which comprised several miracles, he died in 1073 +and was subsequently canonized. + +The monastery, as I have said, is now secularized, save for the chapel, +where three resident monks perform service. One may wander through its +rooms and see in the refectory, beneath portraits of famous brothers, +the tables now laid for young foresters. The museum of forestry is +interesting to those interested in museums of forestry. + +It was to the monastery at Vallombrosa that the Brownings travelled +in 1848 when Mrs. Browning was ill. But the abbot could not break the +rules in regard to women, and after five days they had to return to +Florence. Browning used to play the organ in the chapel, as, it is +said, Milton had done two centuries earlier. + +At such a height and with only a short season the hotel proprietors +must do what they can, and prices do not rule low. A departing American +was eyeing his bill with a rueful glance as we were leaving. "Milton +had it wrong," he said to me (with the freemasonry of the plucked, +for I knew him not), "what he meant was, 'thick as thieves'." + +We returned by way of Sant' Ellero, the gallant horses trotting +steadily down the hill, and then beside the Arno once more all the +way to Florence. It chanced to be a great day in the city--September +20th, the anniversary of the final defeat of papal temporal power, +in 1870--which we were not sorry to have missed, the first tidings +coming to us from the beautiful tower of the Palazzo Vecchio which +in honour of the occasion had been picked out with fairy lamps. + +Among the excursions which I think ought to be made if one is in +Florence for a justifying length of time is a visit to Prato. This +ancient town one should see for several things: for its age and for +its walls; for its great piazza (with a pile of vividly dyed yarn +in the midst) surrounded by arches under which coppersmiths hammer +all day at shining rotund vessels, while their wives plait straw; +for Filippino Lippi's exquisite Madonna in a little mural shrine at +the narrow end of the piazza, which a woman (fetched by a crowd of +ragged boys) will unlock for threepence; and for the cathedral, with +Filippino's dissolute father's frescoes in it, the Salome being one +of the most interesting pre-Botticelli scenes in Italian art. If only +it had its colour what a wonder of lightness and beauty this still +would be! But probably most people are attracted to Prato chiefly by +Donatello and Michelozzo's outdoor pulpit, the frieze of which is a +kind of prentice work for the famous cantoria in the museum of the +cathedral at Florence, with just such wanton boys dancing round it. + +On Good Friday evening in the lovely dying April light I paid +thirty centimes to be taken by tram to Grassina to see the famous +procession of the Gesu Morto. The number of people on the same +errand having thrown out the tram service, we had very long waits, +while the road was thronged with other vehicles; and the result was +I was tired enough--having been standing all the way--when Grassina +was reached, for festivals six miles out of Florence at seven in the +evening disarrange good habits. But a few pence spent in the albergo +on bread and cheese and wine soon restored me. A queer cavern of a +place, this inn, with rough tables, rows and rows of wine flasks, +and an open fire behind the bar, tended by an old woman, from which +everything good to eat proceeded rapidly without dismay--roast chicken +and fish in particular. A strapping girl with high cheek bones and a +broad dark comely face washed plates and glasses assiduously, and two +waiters, with eyes as near together as monkeys', served the customers +with bewildering intelligence. It was the sort of inn that in England +would throw up its hands if you asked even for cold beef. + +The piazza of Grassina, which, although merely a village, is +enterprising enough to have a cinematoscope hall, was full of +stalls given chiefly to the preparation and sale of cake like the +Dutch wafelen, and among the stalls were conjurors, cheap-jacks, +singers, and dice throwers; while every moment brought its fresh +motor-car or carriage load, nearly all speaking English with a nasal +twang. Meanwhile every one shouted, the naphtha flared, the drums beat, +the horses champed. The street was full too, chiefly of peasants, +but among them myriad resolute American virgins, in motor veils, whom +nothing can ever surprise; a few American men, sceptical, as ever, +of anything ever happening; here and there a diffident Englishwoman +and Englishman, more in the background, but destined in the end +to see all. But what I chiefly noticed was the native girls, with +their proud bosoms carried high and nothing on their heads. They at +any rate know their own future. No rushing over the globe for them, +but the simple natural home life and children. + +In the gloom the younger girls in white muslin were like pretty +ghosts, each followed by a solicitous mother giving a touch here +and a touch there--mothers who once wore muslin too, will wear it no +more, and are now happy in pride in their daughters. And very little +girls too--mere tots--wearing wings, who very soon were to join the +procession as angels. + +And all the while the darkness was growing, and on the hill where the +church stands lights were beginning to move about, in that mysterious +way which torches have when a procession is being mobilized, while +all the villas on the hills around had their rows of candles. + +And then the shifting flames came gradually into a mass and took +a steady upward progress, and the melancholy strains of an ancient +ecclesiastical lamentation reached our listening ears. As the lights +drew nearer I left the bank where all the Mamies and Sadies with +their Mommas were stationed and walked down into the river valley +to meet the vanguard. On the bridge I found a little band of Roman +soldiers on horseback, without stirrups, and had a few words with +one of them as to his anachronistic cigarette, and then the first +torches arrived, carried by proud little boys in red; and after the +torches the little girls in muslin veils, which were, however, for +the most part disarranged for the better recognition of relations +and even more perhaps for recognition by relations: and very pretty +this recognition was on both sides. And then the village priests in +full canonicals, looking a little self-conscious; and after them the +dead Christ on a litter carried by a dozen contadini who had a good +deal to say to each other as they bore Him. + +This was the same dead Christ which had been lying in state in the +church, for the past few days, to be worshipped and kissed by the +peasantry. I had seen a similar image at Settignano the day before and +had watched how the men took it. They began by standing in groups in +the piazza, gossipping. Then two or three would break away and make +for the church. There, all among the women and children, half-shyly, +half-defiantly, they pecked at the plaster flesh and returned to resume +the conversation in the piazza with a new serenity and confidence in +their hearts. + +After the dead Christ came a triumphal car of the very little girls +with wings, signifying I know not what, but intensely satisfying to +the onlookers. One little wet-nosed cherub I patted, so chubby and +innocent she was; and Heaven send that the impulse profited me! This +car was drawn by an ancient white horse, amiable and tractable as a +saint, but as bewildered as I as to the meaning of the whole strange +business. After the car of angels a stalwart body of white-vestmented +singers, sturdy fellows with black moustaches who had been all day +among the vines, or steering placid white oxen through the furrows, +and were now lifting their voices in a miserere. And after them the +painted plaster Virgin, carried as upright as possible, and then +more torches and the wailing band; and after the band another guard +of Roman soldiers. + +Such was the Grassina procession. It passed slowly and solemnly through +the town from the hill and up the hill again; and not soon shall I +forget the mournfulness of the music, which nothing of tawdriness in +the constituents of the procession itself could rid of impressiveness +and beauty. One thing is certain--all processions, by day or night, +should first descend a hill and then ascend one. All should walk to +melancholy strains. Indeed, a joyful procession becomes an impossible +thought after this. + +And then I sank luxuriously into a corner seat in the waiting tram, +and, seeking for the return journey's thirty centimes, found that +during the proceedings my purse had been stolen. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +S. Marco + +Andrea del Castagno--"The Last Supper"--The stolen Madonna--Fra +Angelico's frescoes--"Little Antony"--The good archbishop--The +Buonuomini--Savonarola--The death of Lorenzo the Magnificent--Pope +Alexander VI--The Ordeal by Fire--The execution--The S. Marco +cells--The cloister frescoes--Ghirlandaio's "Last Supper"--Relics of +old Florence--Pico and Politian--Piero di Cosimo--Andrea del Sarto. + +From the Accademia it is but a step to S. Marco, across the Piazza, but +it is well first to go a little beyond that in order to see a certain +painting which both chronologically and as an influence comes before +a painting that we shall find in the Museo S. Marco. We therefore +cross the Piazza S. Marco to the Via d'Arrazzieri, which leads into +the Via 27 Aprile, [7] where at a door on the left, marked A, is an +ancient refectory, preserved as a picture gallery: the Cenacolo di +S. Apollonia, all that is kept sacred of the monastery of S. Apollonia, +now a military establishment. This room is important to students of +art in containing so much work of Andrea del Castagno (1390-1457), +to whom Vasari gives so black a character. The portrait frescoes are +from the Villa Pandolfini (previously Carducci), and among them are +Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Dante--who is here rather less ascetic than +usual--none of whom the painter could have seen. There is also a very +charming little cupid carrying a huge peacock plume. But "The Last +Supper" is the glory of the room. This work, which belongs to the +middle of the fifteenth century, is interesting as a real effort at +psychology. Leonardo makes Judas leave his seat to ask if it is he +that is meant--that being the dramatic moment chosen by this prince +of painters: Castagno calls attention to Judas as an undesirable +member of the little band of disciples by placing him apart, the +only one on his side of the table; which was avoiding the real task, +since naturally when one of the company was forced into so sinister +a position the question would be already answered. Castagno indeed +renders Judas so obviously untrustworthy as to make it a surprise +that he ever was admitted among the disciples (or wished to be one) +at all; while Vasari blandly suggests that he is the very image of the +painter himself. Other positions which later artists converted into a +convention may also be noted: John, for example, is reclining on the +table in an ecstasy of affection and fidelity; while the Florentine +loggia as the scene of the meal was often reproduced later. + +Andrea del Castagno began life as a farm lad, but was educated as an +artist at the cost of one of the less notable Medici. He had a vigorous +way with his brush, as we see here and have seen elsewhere. In the +Duomo, for example, we saw his equestrian portrait of Niccolo da +Tolentino, a companion to Uccello's Hawkwood. When the Albizzi and +Peruzzi intrigues which had led to the banishment of Cosimo de' Medici +came to their final frustration with the triumphant return of Cosimo, +it was Andrea who was commissioned by the Signoria to paint for the +outside of the Bargello a picture of the leaders of the insurrection, +upside down. Vasari is less to be trusted in his dates and facts in his +memoir of Andrea del Castagno than anywhere else; for he states that +he commemorated the failure of the Pazzi Conspiracy (which occurred +twenty years after his death), and accuses him not only of murdering +his fellow-painter Domenico Veneziano but confessing to the crime; +the best answer to which allegation is that Domenico survived Andrea +by four years. + +We may now return to S. Marco. The convent as we now see it was +built by Michelozzo, Donatello's friend and partner and the friend +also of Cosimo de' Medici, at whose cost he worked here. Antonino, +the saintly head of the monastery, having suggested to Cosimo that +he should apply some of his wealth, not always too nicely obtained, +to the Lord, Cosimo began literally to squander money on S. Marco, +dividing his affection between S. Lorenzo, which he completed upon +the lines laid down by his father, and this Dominican monastery, +where he even had a cell reserved for his own use, with a bedroom +in addition, whither he might now and again retire for spiritual +refreshment and quiet. + +It was at S. Marco that Cosimo kept the MSS. which he was constantly +collecting, and which now, after curious vicissitudes, are lodged +in Michelangelo's library at S. Lorenzo; and on his death he left +them to the monks. Cosimo's librarian was Tommaso Parenticelli, a +little busy man, who, to the general astonishment, on the death of +Eugenius IV became Pope and took the name of Nicholas V. His energies +as Pontiff went rather towards learning and art than anything else: he +laid the foundations of the Vatican library, on the model of Cosimo's, +and persuaded Fra Angelico to Rome to paint Vatican frescoes. + +The magnets which draw every one who visits Florence to S. Marco are +first Fra Angelico, and secondly Savonarola, or first Savonarola, and +secondly Fra Angelico, according as one is constituted. Fra Angelico, +at Cosimo's desire and cost, came from Fiesole to paint here; while +Girolamo Savonarola, forced to leave Ferrara during the war, entered +these walls in 1482. Fra Angelico in his single crucifixion picture in +the first cloisters and in his great scene of the Mount of Olives in +the chapter house shows himself less incapable of depicting unhappiness +than we have yet seen him; but the most memorable of the ground-floor +frescoes is the symbol of hospitality over the door of the wayfarers' +room, where Christ is being welcomed by two Dominicans in the way +that Dominicans (as contrasted with scoundrelly Franciscans) would of +course welcome Him. In this Ospizio are three reliquaries which Fra +Angelico painted for S. Maria Novella, now preserved here in a glass +case. They represent the Madonna della Stella, the Coronation of the +Virgin, and the Adoration of the Magi. All are in Angelico's happiest +manner, with plenty of gold; and the predella of the Coronation is +the prettiest thing possible, with its blue saints gathered about a +blue Mary and Joseph, who bend over the Baby. + +The Madonna della Stella is the picture which was stolen in 1911, but +quickly recovered. It is part of the strange complexity of this world +that it should equally contain artists such as Fra Angelico and thieves +such as those who planned and carried out this robbery: nominally +custodians of the museum. To repeat one of Vasari's sentences: "Some +say that he never took up his brush without first making a prayer".... + +The "Peter" with his finger to his lips, over the sacristy, is +reminding the monks that that room is vowed to silence. In the chapter +house is the large Crucifixion by the same gentle hand, his greatest +work in Florence, and very fine and true in character. Beneath it +are portraits of seventeen famous Dominicans with S. Dominic in +the midst. Note the girl with the scroll in the right--how gay and +light the colouring. Upstairs, in the cells, and pre-eminently in the +passage, where his best known Annunciation is to be seen, Angelico is +at his best. In each cell is a little fresco reminding the brother +of the life of Christ--and of those by Angelico it may be said that +each is as simple as it can be and as sweet: easy lines, easy colours, +with the very spirit of holiness shining out. I think perhaps that the +Coronation of the Virgin in the ninth cell, reproduced in this volume, +is my favourite, as it is of many persons; but the Annunciation in the +third, the two Maries at the Sepulchre in the eighth, and the Child +in the Stable in the fifth, are ever memorable too. In the cell set +apart for Cosimo de' Medici, No. 38, which the officials point out, +is an Adoration of the Magi, painted there at Cosimo's express wish, +that he might be reminded of the humility proper to rulers; and here +we get one of the infrequent glimpses of this best and wisest of the +Medici, for a portrait of him adorns it, with a wrong death-date on it. + +Here also is a sensitive terra-cotta bust of S. Antonio, Cosimo's +friend and another pride of the monastery: the monk who was also +Archbishop of Florence until his death, and whom we saw, in stone, in +a niche under the Uffizi. His cell was the thirty-first cell, opposite +the entrance. This benign old man, who has one of the kindest faces +of his time, which was often introduced into pictures, was appointed +to the see at the suggestion of Fra Angelico, to whom Pope Eugenius +(who consecrated the new S. Marco in 1442 and occupied Cosimo de' +Medici's cell on his visit) had offered it; but the painter declined +and put forward Antonio in his stead. Antonio Pierozzi, whose destiny +it was to occupy this high post, to be a confidant of Cosimo de' +Medici, and ultimately, in 1523, to be enrolled among the saints, +was born at Florence in 1389. According to Butler, from the cradle +"Antonino" or "Little Antony," as the Florentines affectionately +called him, had "no inclination but to piety," and was an enemy even +as an infant "both to sloth and to the amusements of children". As +a schoolboy his only pleasure was to read the lives of the saints, +converse with pious persons or to pray. When not at home or at school +he was in church, either kneeling or lying prostrate before a crucifix, +"with a perseverance that astonished everybody". S. Dominic himself, +preaching at Fiesole, made him a Dominican, his answers to an +examination of the whole decree of Gratian being the deciding cause, +although Little Antony was then but sixteen. As a priest he was +"never seen at the altar but bathed in tears". After being prior of +a number of convents and a counsellor of much weight in convocation, +he was made Archbishop of Florence: but was so anxious to avoid the +honour and responsibility that he hid in the island of Sardinia. On +being discovered he wrote a letter praying to be excused and watered it +with his tears; but at last he consented and was consecrated in 1446. + +As archbishop his life was a model of simplicity and solicitude. He +thought only of his duties and the well-being of the poor. His purse +was open to all in need, and he "often sold" his single mule in order +to relieve some necessitous person. He gave up his garden to the growth +of vegetables for the poor, and kept an ungrateful leper whose sores +he dressed with his own hands. He died in 1459 and was canonized in +1523. His body was still free from corruption in 1559, when it was +translated to the chapel in S. Marco prepared for it by the Salviati. + +But perhaps the good Antonino's finest work was the foundation of a +philanthropic society of Florentines which still carries on its good +work. Antonino's sympathy lay in particular with the reduced families +of Florence, and it was to bring help secretly to them--too proud to +beg--that he called for volunteers. The society was known in the city +as the Buonuomini (good men) of S. Martino, the little church close to +Dante's house, behind the Badia: S. Martin being famous among saints +for his impulsive yet wise generosity with his cloak. + +The other and most famous prior of S. Marco was Savonarola. Girolamo +Savonarola was born of noble family at Ferrara in 1452, and after a +profound education, in which he concentrated chiefly upon religion and +philosophy, he entered the Dominican order at the age of twenty-two. He +first came to S. Marco at the age of thirty and preached there in +Lent in 1482, but without attracting much notice. When, however, he +returned to S. Marco seven years later it was to be instantly hailed +both as a powerful preacher and reformer. His eloquent and burning +declarations were hurled both at Florence and Rome: at the apathy and +greed of the Church as a whole, and at the sinfulness and luxury of +this city, while Lorenzo the Magnificent, who was then at the height +of his influence, surrounded by accomplished and witty hedonists, +and happiest when adding to his collection of pictures, jewels, +and sculpture, in particular did the priest rebuke. Savonarola stood +for the spiritual ideals and asceticism of the Baptist, Christ, and +S. Paul; Lorenzo, in his eyes, made only for sensuality and decadence. + +The two men, however, recognized each other's genius, and Lorenzo, +with the tolerance which was as much a mark of the first three +Medici rulers as its absence was notable in most of the later ones, +rather encouraged Savonarola in his crusade than not. He visited him +in the monastery and did not resent being kept waiting; and he went +to hear him preach. In 1492 Lorenzo died, sending for Savonarola on +his death-bed, which was watched by the two closest of his scholarly +friends, Pico della Mirandola and Politian. The story of what happened +has been variously told. According to the account of Politian, Lorenzo +met his end with fortitude, and Savonarola prayed with the dying man +and gave him his blessing; according to another account, Lorenzo was +called upon by Savonarola to make three undertakings before he died, +and, Lorenzo declining, Savonarola left him unabsolved. These promises +were (1) to repent of all his sins, and in particular of the sack +of Volterra, of the alleged theft of public dowry funds and of the +implacable punishment of the Pazzi conspirators; (2) to restore all +property of which he had become possessed by unjust means; and (3) +to give back to Florence her liberty. But the probabilities are in +favour of Politian's account being the true one, and the later story +a political invention. + +Lorenzo dead and Piero his son so incapable, Savonarola came to his +own. He had long foreseen a revolution following on the death of +Lorenzo, and in one of his most powerful sermons he had suggested +that the "Flagellum Dei" to punish the wicked Florentines might be +a foreign invader. When therefore in 1493 the French king Charles +VIII arrived in Italy with his army, Savonarola was recognized not +only as a teacher but as a prophet; and when the Medici had been +again banished and Charles, having asked too much, had retreated +from Florence, the Republic was remodelled with Savonarola virtually +controlling its Great Council. For a year or two his power was supreme. + +This was the period of the Piagnoni, or Weepers. The citizens adopted +sober attire; a spirit as of England under the Puritans prevailed; +and Savonarola's eloquence so far carried away not only the populace +but many persons of genius that a bonfire was lighted in the middle +of the Piazza della Signoria in which costly dresses, jewels, false +hair and studies from the nude were destroyed. + +Savonarola, meanwhile, was not only chastising and reforming Florence, +but with fatal audacity was attacking with even less mincing of words +the licentiousness of the Pope. As to the character of Lorenzo de' +Medici there can be two opinions, and indeed the historians of Florence +are widely divided in their estimates; but of Roderigo Borgia (Pope +Alexander VI) there is but one, and Savonarola held it. Savonarola +was excommunicated, but refused to obey the edict. Popes, however, +although Florence had to a large extent put itself out of reach, +have long arms, and gradually--taking advantage of the city's growing +discontent with piety and tears and recurring unquiet, there being +still a strong pro-Medici party, and building not a little on his +knowledge of the Florentine love of change--the Pope gathered together +sufficient supporters of his determination to crush this too outspoken +critic and humiliate his fellow-citizens. + +Events helped the pontiff. A pro-Medici conspiracy excited the +populace; a second bonfire of vanities led to rioting, for the +Florentines were beginning to tire of virtue; and the preaching of a +Franciscan monk against Savonarola (and the gentle Fra Angelico has +shown us, in the Accademia, how Franciscans and Dominicans could hate +each other) brought matters to a head, for he challenged Savaronola +to an ordeal by fire in the Loggia de' Lanzi, to test which of them +spoke with the real voice of God. A Dominican volunteered to make the +essay with a Franciscan. This ceremony, anticipated with the liveliest +eagerness by the Florentines, was at the last moment forbidden, +and Savonarola, who had to bear the responsibility of such a bitter +disappointment to a pleasure-loving people, became an unpopular +figure. Everything just then was against him, for Charles VIII, +with whom he had an understanding and of whom the Pope was afraid, +chose that moment to die. + +The Pope drove home his advantage, and getting more power among +individuals on the Council forced them to indict their firebrand. No +means were spared, however base; forgery and false witness were as +nothing. The summons arrived on April 8th, 1497, when Savonarola was +at S. Marco. The monks, who adored him, refused to let him go, and +for a whole day the convent was under siege. But might, of course, +prevailed, and Savonarola was dragged from the church to the Palazzo +Vecchio and prosecuted for the offence of claiming to have supernatural +power and fomenting political disturbance. He was imprisoned in a tiny +cell in the tower for many days, and under constant torture he no doubt +uttered words which would never have passed his lips had he been in +control of himself; but we may dismiss, as false, the evidence which +makes them into confessions. Evidence there had to be, and evidence +naturally was forthcoming; and sentence of death was passed. + +In that cell, when not under torture, he managed to write meditations +on the thirteenth psalm, "In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped," and a little +work entitled "A Rule for Living a Christian Life". Before the last +day he administered the Sacrament to his two companions, who were to +die with him, with perfect composure, and the night preceding they +spent together in prayer in the Great Hall which he had once dominated. + +The execution was on May 23rd, 1498. A gallows was erected in +the Piazza della Signoria on the spot now marked by the bronze +tablet. Beneath the gallows was a bonfire. All those members of the +Government who could endure the scene were present, either on the +platform of the Palazzo Vecchio or in the Loggia de' Lanzi. The crowd +filled the Piazza. The three monks went to their death unafraid. When +his friar's gown was taken from him, Savonarola said: "Holy gown, +thou wert granted to me by God's grace and I have ever kept thee +unstained. Now I forsake thee not but am bereft of thee." (This very +garment is in the glass case in Savonarola's cell at S. Marco.) The +Bishop replied hastily: "I separate thee from the Church militant +and triumphant". "Militant," replied Savonarola, "not triumphant, for +that rests not with you." The monks were first hanged and then burned. + +The larger picture of the execution which hangs in Savonarola's +cell, although interesting and up to a point credible, is of course +not right. The square must have been crowded: in fact we know it +was. The picture has still other claims on the attention, for it +shows the Judith and Holofernes as the only statue before the Palazzo +Vecchio, standing where David now is; it shows the old ringhiera, +the Marzocco (very inaccurately drawn), and the Loggia de' Lanzi +empty of statuary. We have in the National Gallery a little portrait +of Savonarola--No. 1301--with another representation of the execution +on the back of it. + +So far as I can understand Savonarola, his failure was due to +two causes: firstly, his fatal blending of religion and politics, +and secondly, the conviction which his temporary success with the +susceptible Florentines bred in his heated mind that he was destined +to carry all before him, totally failing to appreciate the Florentine +character with all its swift and deadly changes and love of change. As +I see it, Savonarola's special mission at that time was to be a +wandering preacher, spreading the light and exciting his listeners to +spiritual revival in this city and that, but never to be in a position +of political power and never to become rooted. The peculiar tragedy +of his career is that he left Florence no better than he found it: +indeed, very likely worse; for in a reaction from a spiritual revival +a lower depth can be reached than if there had been no revival at all; +while the visit of the French army to Italy, for which Savonarola took +such credit to himself, merely ended in disaster for Italy, disease +for Europe, and the spreading of the very Renaissance spirit which +he had toiled to destroy. But, when all is said as to his tragedy, +personal and political, there remains this magnificent isolated figure, +single-minded, austere and self-sacrificing, in an age of indulgence. + +For most people "Romola" is the medium through which Savonarola is +visualized; but there he is probably made too theatrical. Yet he +must have had something of the theatre in him even to consent to the +ordeal by fire. That he was an intense visionary is beyond doubt, +but a very real man too we must believe when we read of the devotion +of his monks to his person, and of his success for a while with the +shrewd, worldly Great Council. + +Savonarola had many staunch friends among the artists. We have seen +Lorenzo di Credi and Fra Bartolommeo under his influence. After +his death Fra Bartolommeo entered S. Marco (his cell was No. 34), +and di Credi, who was noted for his clean living, entered S. Maria +Nuova. Two of Luca della Robbia's nephews were also monks under +Savonarola. We have seen Fra Bartolommeo's portrait of Savonarola in +the Accademia, and there is another of him here. Cronaca, who built +the Great Council's hall, survived Savonarola only ten years, and +during that time all his stories were of him. Michelangelo, who was +a young man when he heard him preach, read his sermons to the end of +his long life. But upon Botticelli his influence was most powerful, +for he turned that master's hand from such pagan allegories as the +"Primavera" and the "Birth of Venus" wholly to religious subjects. + +Savonarola had three adjoining cells. In the first is a monument to +him, his portrait by Fra Bartolommeo and three frescoes by the same +hand. In the next room is the glass case containing his robe, his +hair shirt, and rosary; and here also are his desk and some books. In +the bedroom is a crucifixion by Fra Angelico on linen. No one knowing +Savonarola's story can remain here unmoved. + +We find Fra Bartolommeo again with a pencil drawing of S. Antonio +in that saint's cell. Here also is Antonino's death-mask. The +terra-cotta bust of him in Cosimo's cell is the most like life, but +there is an excellent and vivacious bronze in the right transept of +S. Maria Novella. + +Before passing downstairs again the library should be visited, that +delightful assemblage of grey pillars and arches. Without its desks +and cases it would be one of the most beautiful rooms in Florence. All +the books have gone, save the illuminated music. + +In the first cloisters, which are more liveable-in than the ordinary +Florentine cloisters, having a great shady tree in the midst with a +seat round it, and flowers, are the Fra Angelicos I have mentioned. The +other painting is rather theatrical and poor. In the refectory is +a large scene of the miracle of the Providenza, when S. Dominic and +his companions, during a famine, were fed by two angels with bread; +while at the back S. Antonio watches the crucified Christ. The artist +is Sogliano. + +In addition to Fra Angelico's great crucifixion fresco in the chapter +house, is a single Christ crucified, with a monk mourning, by Antonio +Pollaiuolo, very like the Fra Angelico in the cloisters; but the +colour has left it, and what must have been some noble cypresses are +now ghosts dimly visible. The frame is superb. + +One other painting we must see--the "Last Supper" of Domenico +Ghirlandaio. Florence has two "Last Suppers" by this artist--one at +the Ognissanti and this. The two works are very similar and have much +entertaining interest, but the debt which this owes to Castagno is very +obvious: it is indeed Castagno sweetened. Although psychologically this +picture is weak, or at any rate not strong, it is full of pleasant +touches: the supper really is a supper, as it too often is not, +with fruit and dishes and a generous number of flasks; the tablecloth +would delight a good housekeeper; a cat sits close to Judas, his only +companion; a peacock perches in a niche; there are flowers on the wall, +and at the back of the charming loggia where the feast is held are +luxuriant trees, and fruits, and flying birds. The monks at food in +this small refectory had compensation for their silence in so engaging +a scene. This room also contains a beautiful della Robbia "Deposition". + +The little refectory, which is at the foot of the stairs leading to +the cells, opens on the second cloisters, and these few visitors ever +enter. But they are of deep interest to any one with a passion for +the Florence of the great days, for it is here that the municipality +preserves the most remarkable relics of buildings that have had to +be destroyed. It is in fact the museum of the ancient city. Here, +for example, is that famous figure of Abundance, in grey stone, +which Donatello made for the old market, where the Piazza Vittorio +Emmanuele now is, in the midst of which she poured forth her fruits +from a cornucopia high on a column for all to see. Opposite is a +magnificent doorway designed by Donatello for the Pazzi garden. Old +windows, chimney-pieces, fragments of cornice, carved pillars, +painted beams, coats of arms, are everywhere. + +In cell No. 3 is a pretty little coloured relief of the Virgin +adoring, which I covet, from a tabernacle in the old Piazza di +Brunelleschi. Here too are relics of the guild houses of some of +the smaller Arti, while perhaps the most humanly interesting thing +of all is the great mournful bell of S. Marco in Savonarola's time, +known as La Piagnone. + +In the church of S. Marco lie two of the learned men, friends of +Lorenzo de' Medici, whose talk at the Medici table was one of the +youthful Michelangelo's educative influences, what time he was studying +in the Medici garden, close by: Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494), the +poet and the tutor of the three Medici boys, and the marvellous Pico +della Mirandola (1463-1494), the enchanted scholar. Pico was one of the +most fascinating and comely figures of his time. He was born in 1463, +the son of the Count of Mirandola, and took early to scholarship, +spending his time among philosophies as other boys among games or +S. Antonio at his devotions, but by no means neglecting polished life +too, for we know him to have been handsome, accomplished, and a knight +in the court of Venus. In 1486 he challenged the whole world to meet +him in Rome and dispute publicly upon nine hundred theses; but so +many of them seemed likely to be paradoxes against the true faith, +too brilliantly defended, that the Pope forbade the contest. Pico +dabbled in the black arts, wrote learnedly (in his room at the Badia +of Fiesole) on the Mosaic law, was an amorous poet in Italian as well +as a serious poet in Latin, and in everything he did was interesting +and curious, steeped in Renaissance culture, and inspired by the wish +to reconcile the past and the present and humanize Christ and the +Fathers. He found time also to travel much, and he gave most of his +fortune to establish a fund to provide penniless girls with marriage +portions. He had enough imagination to be the close friend both of +Lorenzo de' Medici and Savonarola. Savonarola clothed his dead body +in Dominican robes and made him posthumously one of the order which +for some time before his death he had desired to join. He died in +1494 at the early age of thirty-one, two years after Lorenzo. + +Angelo Poliziano, known as Politian, was also a Renaissance scholar +and also a friend of Lorenzo, and his companion, with Pico, at +his death-bed; but although in precocity, brilliancy of gifts, +and literary charm he may be classed with Pico, the comparison +there ends, for he was a gross sensualist of mean exterior and +capable of much pettiness. He was tutor to Lorenzo's sons until +their mother interfered, holding that his views were far too loose, +but while in that capacity he taught also Michelangelo and put him +upon the designing of his relief of the battle of the Lapithae and +Centaurs. At the time of Lorenzo and Giuliano's famous tournament +in the Piazza of S. Croce, Poliziano wrote, as I have said, the +descriptive allegorical poem which gave Botticelli ideas for his +"Birth of Venus" and "Primavera". He lives chiefly by his Latin poems; +but he did much to make the language of Tuscany a literary tongue. His +elegy on the death of Lorenzo has real feeling in it and proves him to +have esteemed that friend and patron. Like Pico, he survived Lorenzo +only two years, and he also was buried in Dominican robes. Perhaps +the finest feat of Poliziano's life was his action in slamming the +sacristy doors in the face of Lorenzo's pursuers on that fatal day +in the Duomo when Giuliano de' Medici was stabbed. + +Ghirlandaio's fresco in S. Trinita of the granting of the charter +to S. Francis gives portraits both of Poliziano and Lorenzo in the +year 1485. Lorenzo stands in a little group of four in the right-hand +corner, holding out his hand towards Poliziano, who, with Lorenzo's +son Giuliano on his right and followed by two other boys, is advancing +up the steps. Poliziano is seen again in a Ghirlandaio fresco at +S. Maria Novella. + +From S. Marco we are going to SS. Annunziata, but first let us just +take a few steps down the Via Cavour, in order to pass the Casino +Medici, since it is built on the site of the old Medici garden where +Lorenzo de' Medici established Bertoldo, the sculptor, as head of a +school of instruction, amid those beautiful antiques which we have +seen in the Uffizi, and where the boy Michelangelo was a student. + +A few steps farther on the left, towards the Fiesole heights, which +we can see rising at the end of the street, we come, at No. 69, to a +little doorway which leads to a little courtyard--the Chiostro dello +Scalzo--decorated with frescoes by Andrea del Sarto and Franciabigio +and containing the earliest work of both artists. The frescoes are in +monochrome, which is very unusual, but their interest is not impaired +thereby: one does not miss other colours. No. 7, the Baptism of Christ, +is the first fresco these two associates ever did; and several years +elapsed between that and the best that are here, such as the group +representing Charity and the figure of Faith, for the work was long +interrupted. The boys on the staircase in the fresco which shows +S. John leaving his father's house are very much alive. This is by +Franciabigio, as is also S. John meeting with Christ, a very charming +scene. Andrea's best and latest is the Birth of the Baptist, which +has the fine figure of Zacharias writing in it. But what he should +be writing at that time and place one cannot imagine: more reasonably +might he be called a physician preparing a prescription. On the wall +is a terra-cotta bust of S. Antonio, making him much younger than +is usual. + +Andrea's suave brush we find all over Florence, both in fresco and +picture, and this is an excellent place to say something of the man +of whom English people have perhaps a more intimate impression than +of any other of the old masters, by reason largely of Browning's +poem and not a little by that beautiful portrait which for so long +was erroneously considered to represent the painter himself, in our +National Gallery. Andrea's life was not very happy. No painter had +more honour in his own day, and none had a greater number of pupils, +but these stopped with him only a short time, owing to the demeanour +towards them of Andrea's wife, who developed into a flirt and shrew, +dowered with a thousand jealousies. Andrea, the son of a tailor, was +born in 1486 and apprenticed to a goldsmith. Showing, however, more +drawing than designing ability, he was transferred to a painter named +Barile and then passed to that curious man of genius who painted the +fascinating picture "The Death of Procris" which hangs near Andrea's +portrait in our National Gallery--Piero di Cosimo. Piero carried +oddity to strange lengths. He lived alone in indescribable dirt, +and lived wholly on hard-boiled eggs, which he cooked, with his glue, +by the fifty, and ate as he felt inclined. He forbade all pruning of +trees as an act of insubordination to Nature, and delighted in rain +but cowered in terror from thunder and lightning. He peered curiously +at clouds to find strange shapes in them, and in his pursuit of the +grotesque examined the spittle of sick persons on the walls or ground, +hoping for suggestions of monsters, combats of horses, or fantastic +landscapes. But why this should have been thought madness in Cosimo +when Leonardo in his directions to artists explicitly advises them +to look hard at spotty walls for inspiration, I cannot say. He +was also the first, to my knowledge, to don ear-caps in tedious +society--as Herbert Spencer later used to do. He had many pupils, +but latterly could not bear them in his presence and was therefore +but an indifferent instructor. As a deviser of pageants he was more in +demand than as a painter; but his brush was not idle. Both London and +Paris have, I think, better examples of his genius than the Uffizi; +but he is well represented at S. Spirito. + +Piero sent Andrea to the Palazzo Vecchio to study the Leonardo and +Michelangelo cartoons, and there he met Franciabigio, with whom +he struck up one of his close friendships, and together they took a +studio and began to paint for a living. Their first work together was +the Baptism of Christ at which we are now looking. The next commission +after the Scalzo was to decorate the courtyard of the Convent of the +Servi, now known as the Church of the Annunciation; and moving into +adjacent lodgings, Andrea met Jacopo Sansovino, the Venetian sculptor, +whose portrait by Bassano is in the Uffizi, a capable all-round +man who had studied in Rome and was in the way of helping the young +Andrea at all points. It was then too that he met the agreeable and +convivial Rustici, of whom I have said something in the chapter on +the Baptistery, and quickly became something of a blood--for by this +time, the second decade of the sixteenth century, the simplicity of +the early artists had given place to dashing sophistication and the +great period was nearly over. For this change the brilliant complex +inquiring mind of Leonardo da Vinci was largely responsible, together +with the encouragement and example of Lorenzo de' Medici and such of +his cultured sceptical friends as Alberti, Pico della Mirandola, and +Poliziano. But that is a subject too large for this book. Enough that +a worldly splendour and vivacity had come into artistic life and Andrea +was an impressionable young man in the midst of it. It does not seem to +have affected the power and dexterity of his hand, but it made him a +religious court-painter instead of a religious painter. His sweetness +and an underlying note of pathos give his work a peculiar and genuine +character; but he is just not of the greatest. Not so great really +as Luca Signorelli, for example, whom few visitors to the galleries +rush at with gurgling cries of rapture as they rush at Andrea. + +When Andrea was twenty-six he married. The lady was the widow of a +hatter. Andrea had long loved her, but the hatter clung outrageously +to life. In 1513, however, she was free, and, giving her hand to the +painter, his freedom passed for ever. Vasari being among Andrea's +pupils may be trusted here, and Vasari gives her a bad character, +which Browning completes. Andrea painted her often, notably in the +fresco of the "Nativity of the Virgin," to which we shall soon come +at the Annunziata: a fine statuesque woman by no means unwilling to +have the most popular artist in Florence as her slave. + +Of the rest of Andrea's life I need say little. He grew steadily in +favour and was always busy; he met Michelangelo and admired him, and +Michelangelo warned Raphael in Rome of a little fellow in Florence who +would "make him sweat". Browning, in his monologue, makes this remark +of Michelangelo's, and the comparison between Andrea and Raphael that +follows, the kernel of the poem. + +Like Leonardo and Rustici, Andrea accepted, in 1518, an invitation from +Francis I to visit Paris and once there began to paint for that royal +patron. But although his wife did not love him, she wanted him back, +and in the midst of his success he returned, taking with him a large +sum of money from Francis with which to buy for the king works of +art in Italy. That money he misapplied to his own extravagant ends, +and although Francis took no punitive steps, the event cannot have +improved either Andrea's position or his peace of mind; while it +caused Francis to vow that he had done with Florentines. Andrea died +in 1531, of fever, nursed by no one, for his wife, fearing it might +be the dreaded plague, kept away. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +The SS. Annunziata and the Spedale degli Innocenti + +Andrea del Sarto again--Franciabigio outraged--Alessio +Baldovinetti--Piero de' Medici's church--An Easter Sunday +congregation--Andrea's "Madonna del Sacco"--"The Statue and +the Bust"--Henri IV--The Spedale degli Innocenti--Andrea della +Robbia--Domenico Ghirlandaio--Cosimo I and the Etruscans--Bronzes and +tapestries--Perugino's triptych--S. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi--"Very +sacred human dust". + +From S. Marco it is an easy step, along the Via Sapienza, to the +Piazza dell' Annunziata, where one finds the church of that name, +the Palazzo Riccardi-Mannelli, and opposite it, gay with the famous +della Robbia reliefs of swaddled children, the Spedale degli Innocenti. + +First the church, which is notable for possessing in its courtyard +Andrea del Sarto's finest frescoes. This series, of which he was the +chief painter, with his friend Franciabigio again as his principal +ally, depict scenes in the life of the Virgin and S. Filippo. The +scene of the Birth of the Virgin has been called the triumph of +fresco painting, and certainly it is very gay and life-like in +that medium. The whole picture very charming and easy, with the +pleasantest colouring imaginable and pretty details, such as the +washing of the baby and the boy warming his hands, while of the two +women in the foreground, that on the left, facing the spectator, +is a portrait of Andrea's wife, Lucrezia. In the Arrival of the +Magi we find Andrea himself, the figure second from the right-hand +side, pointing; while next to him, on the left, is his friend Jacopo +Sansovino. The "Dead Man Restored to Life by S. Filippo" is Andrea's +next best. Franciabigio did the scene of the Marriage of the Virgin, +which contains another of his well-drawn boys on the steps. The injury +to this fresco--the disfigurement of Mary's face--was the work of +the painter himself, in a rage that the monks should have inspected +it before it was ready. Vasari is interesting on this work. He draws +attention to it as illustrating "Joseph's great faith in taking her, +his face expressing as much fear as joy". He also says that the blow +which the man is giving Joseph was part of the marriage ceremony at +that time in Florence. + +Franciabigio, in spite of his action in the matter of this fresco, +seems to have been a very sweet-natured man, who painted rather to be +able to provide for his poor relations than from any stronger inner +impulse, and when he saw some works by Raphael gave up altogether, +as Verrocchio gave up after Leonardo matured. Franciabigio was a +few years older than Andrea, but died at the same age. Possibly it +was through watching his friend's domestic troubles that he remained +single, remarking that he who takes a wife endures strife. His most +charming work is that "Madonna of the Well" in the Uffizi, which +is reproduced in this volume. Franciabigio's master was Mariotto +Albertinelli, who had learned from Cosimo Rosselli, the teacher +of Piero di Cosimo, Andrea's master--another illustration of the +interdependence of Florentine artists. + +One of the most attractive works in the courtyard must once have +been the "Adoration of the Shepherds" by Alessio Baldovinetti, at +the left of the entrance to the church. It is badly damaged and the +colour has gone, but one can see that the valley landscape, when it +was painted, was a dream of gaiety and happiness. + +The particular treasure of the church is the extremely ornate chapel +of the Virgin, containing a picture of the Virgin displayed once a +year on the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25th, in the painting +of which the Virgin herself took part, descending from heaven for +that purpose. The artist thus divinely assisted was Pietro Cavallini, +a pupil of Giotto. The silver shrine for the picture was designed by +Michelozzo and was a beautiful thing before the canopy and all the +distressing accessories were added. It was made at the order of Piero +de' Medici, who was as fond of this church as his father Cosimo was +of S. Lorenzo. Michelozzo only designed it; the sculpture was done +by Pagno di Lapo Portigiani, whose Madonna is over the tomb of Pope +John by Donatello and Michelozzo in the Baptistery. + +Among the altar-pieces are two by Perugino; but of Florentine +altar-pieces one can say little or nothing in a book of reasonable +dimensions. There are so many and they are for the most part so +difficult to see. Now and then one arrests the eye and holds it; +but for the most part they go unstudied. The rotunda of the choir +is interesting, for here we meet again Alberti, who completed it +from designs by Michelozzo. It does not seem to fit the church from +within, and even less so from without, but it is a fine structure. The +seventeenth-century painting of the dome is almost impressive. + +But one can forget and forgive all the church's gaudiness and floridity +when the choir is in good voice and the strings play Palestrina as +they did last Easter Sunday. The Annunziata is famous for its music, +and on the great occasions people crowd there as nowhere else. At High +Mass the singing was fine but the instrumental music finer. One is +accustomed to seeing vicarious worship in Italy; but never was there +so vicarious a congregation as ours, and indeed if it had not been +for the sight of the busy celibates at the altar one would not have +known that one was worshipping at all. The culmination of detachment +came when a family of Siamese or Burmese children, in native dress, +entered. A positive hum went round, and not an eye but was fixed +on the little Orientals. When, however, the organ was for a while +superseded and the violas and violins quivered under the plangent +melody of Palestrina, our roving attention was fixed and held. + +I am not sure that the Andrea in the cloisters is not the best of +all his work. It is very simple and wholly beautiful, and in spite +of years of ravage the colouring is still wonderful, perhaps indeed +better for the hand of Time. It is called the "Madonna del Sacco" +(grain sack), and fills the lunette over the door leading from the +church. The Madonna--Andrea's favourite type, with the eyes set widely +in the flat brow over the little trustful nose--has her Son, older than +usual, sprawling on her knee. Her robes are ample and rich; a cloak +of green is over her pretty head. By her sits S. Joseph, on the sack, +reading with very long sight. That is all; but one does not forget it. + +For the rest the cloisters are a huddle of memorial slabs and +indifferent frescoes. In the middle is a well with nice iron work. No +grass at all. The second cloisters, into which it is not easy to get, +have a gaunt John the Baptist in terra-cotta by Michelozzo. + +On leaving the church, our natural destination is the Spedale, on the +left, but one should pause a moment in the doorway of the courtyard (if +the beggars who are always there do not make it too difficult) to look +down the Via de' Servi running straight away to the cathedral, which, +with its great red warm dome, closes the street. The statue in the +middle of the piazza is that of the Grand Duke Ferdinand by Giovanni da +Bologna, cast from metal taken from the Italians' ancient enemies the +Turks, while the fountains are by Tacca, Giovanni's pupil, who made +the bronze boar at the Mercato Nuovo. "The Synthetical Guide Book," +from which I have already quoted, warns its readers not to overlook +"the puzzling bees" at the back of Ferdinand's statue. "Try to count +them," it adds. (I accepted the challenge and found one hundred and +one.) The bees have reference to Ferdinand's emblem--a swarm of these +insects, with the words "Majestate tantum". The statue, by the way, +is interesting for two other reasons than its subject. First, it is +that to which Browning's poem, "The Statue and the Bust," refers, and +which, according to the poet, was set here at Ferdinand's command to +gaze adoringly for ever at the della Robbia bust of the lady whom he +loved in vain. But the bust no longer is visible, if ever it was. John +of Douay (as Gian Bologna was also called)-- + + + +John of Douay shall effect my plan, +Set me on horseback here aloft, +Alive, as the crafty sculptor can, + + +In the very square I have crossed so oft: +That men may admire, when future suns +Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft, + + +While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze-- +Admire and say, "when he was alive +How he would take his pleasure once!" + + + +The other point of interest is that when Maria de' Medici, Ferdinand's +niece, wished to erect a statue of Henri IV (her late husband) at the +Pont Neuf in Paris she asked to borrow Gian Bologna. But the sculptor +was too old to go and therefore only a bronze cast of this same horse +was offered. In the end Tacca completed both statues, and Henri IV +was set up in 1614 (after having fallen overboard on the voyage from +Leghorn to Havre). The present statue at the Pont Neuf is, however, +a modern substitute. + +The facade of the Spedale degli Innocenti, or children's hospital, when +first seen by the visitor evokes perhaps the quickest and happiest +cry of recognition in all Florence by reason of its row of della +Robbia babies, each in its blue circle, reproductions of which have +gone all over the world. These are thought to be by Andrea, Luca's +nephew, and were added long after the building was completed. Luca +probably helped him. The hospital was begun by Brunelleschi at the +cost of old Giovanni de' Medici, Cosimo's father, but the Guild of +the Silk Weavers, for whom Luca made the exquisite coat of arms on Or +San Michele, took it over and finished it. Andrea not only modelled +the babies outside but the beautiful Annunciation (of which I give a +reproduction in this volume) in the court: one of his best works. The +photograph will show how full of pretty thoughts it is, but in colour +it is more charming still and the green of the lily stalks is not +the least delightful circumstance. Not only among works of sculpture +but among Annunciations this relief holds a very high place. Few of +the artists devised a scene in which the great news was brought more +engagingly, in sweeter surroundings, or received more simply. + +The door of the chapel close by leads to another work of art equally +adapted to its situation--Ghirlandaio's Adoration of the Magi: one of +the perfect pictures for children. We have seen Ghirlandaio's Adoration +of the Shepherds at the Accademia: this is its own brother. It has +the sweetest, mildest little Mother, and in addition to the elderly +Magi two tiny little saintlings adore too. In the distance is an +enchanted landscape about a fairy estuary. + +This hospital is a very busy one, and the authorities are glad to show +it to visitors who really take an interest in such work. Rich Italians +carry on a fine rivalry in generosity to such institutions. Bologna, +for instance, could probably give lessons in thoughtful charity to +the whole world. + +The building opposite the hospital has a loggia which is notable +for a series of four arches, like those of the Mercato Nuovo, and in +summer for the flowers that hang down from the little balconies. A +pretty building. Before turning to the right under the last of the +arches of the hospital loggia, which opens on the Via della Colonna +and from the piazza always frames such a charming picture of houses +and mountains, it is well, with so much of Andrea del Sarto's work +warm in one's memory, to take a few steps up the Via Gino Capponi +(which also always frames an Apennine vista under its arch) to No. 24, +and see Andrea's house, on the right, marked with a tablet. + +In the Via della Colonna we find, at No. 26 on the left, the Palazzo +Crocetta, which is now a Museum of Antiquities, and for its Etruscan +exhibits is of the greatest historical value and interest to visitors +to Tuscany, such as ourselves. For here you may see what civilization +was like centuries before Christ and Rome. The beginnings of the +Etruscan people are indistinct, but about 1000 B.C. has been agreed +to as the dawn of their era. Etruria comprised Tuscany, Perugia, +and Rome itself. Florence has no remains, but Fiesole was a fortified +Etruscan town, and many traces of its original builders may be seen +there, together with Etruscan relics in the little museum. For the +best reconstructions of an Etruscan city one must go to Volterra, +where so many of the treasures in the present building were found. + +The Etruscans in their heyday were the most powerful people in +the world, but after the fifth century their supremacy gradually +disappeared, the Gauls on the one side and the Romans on the other +wearing them down. All our knowledge of them comes through the +spade. Excavations at Volterra and elsewhere have revealed some +thousands of inscriptions which have been in part deciphered; but +nothing has thrown so much light on this accomplished people as their +habit of providing the ashes of their dead with everything likely +to be needed for the next world, whose requirements fortunately so +exactly tallied with those of this that a complete system of domestic +civilization can be deduced. In arts and sciences they were most +enviably advanced, as a visit to the British Museum will show in +a moment. But it is to this Florentine Museum of Antiquities that +all students of Etruria must go. The garden contains a number of the +tombs themselves, rebuilt and refurnished exactly as they were found; +while on the ground floor is the amazing collection of articles which +the tombs yielded. The grave has preserved them for us, not quite +so perfectly as the volcanic dust of Vesuvius preserved the domestic +appliances of Pompeii, but very nearly so. Jewels, vessels, weapons, +ornaments--many of them of a beauty never since reproduced--are to +be seen in profusion, now gathered together for study only a short +distance from the districts in which centuries ago they were made +and used for actual life. + +Upstairs we find relics of an older civilization still, the Egyptian, +and a few rooms of works of art, all found in Etruscan soil, +the property of the Pierpont Morgans and George Saltings of that +ancient day, who had collected them exactly as we do now. Certain +of the statues are world-famous. Here, for example, in Sala IX, is +the bronze Minerva which was found near Arezzo in 1554 by Cosimo's +workmen. Here is the Chimaera, also from Arezzo in 1554, which Cellini +restored for Cosimo and tells us about in his Autobiography. Here is +the superb Orator from Lake Trasimene, another of Cosimo's discoveries. + +In Sala X look at the bronze situla in an isolated glass case, of such +a peacock blue as only centuries could give it. Upstairs in Sala XVI +are many more Greek and Roman bronzes, among which I noticed a faun +with two pipes as being especially good; while the little room leading +from it has some fine life-size heads, including a noble one of a +horse, and the famous Idolino on its elaborate pedestal--a full-length +Greek bronze from the earth of Pesaro, where it was found in 1530. + +The top floor is given to tapestries and embroideries. The collection +is vast and comprises much foreign work; but Cosimo I introducing +tapestry weaving into Florence, many of the examples come from the +city's looms. The finest, or at any rate most interesting, series +is that depicting the court of France under Catherine de' Medici, +with portraits: very sumptuous and gay examples of Flemish work. + +The trouble at Florence is that one wants the days to be ten times as +long in order that one may see its wonderful possessions properly. Here +is this dry-looking archaeological museum, with antipathetic custodians +at the door who refuse to get change for twenty-lira pieces: nothing +could be more unpromising than they or their building; and yet you +find yourself instantly among countless vestiges of a past people who +had risen to power and crumbled again before Christ was born--but at +a time when man was so vastly more sensitive to beauty than he now is +that every appliance for daily life was the work of an artist. Well, +a collection like this demands days and days of patient examination, +and one has only a few hours. Were I Joshua--had I his curious gift--it +is to Florence I would straightway fare. The sun should stand still +there: no rock more motionless. + +Continuing along the Via della Colonna, we come, on the right, +at No. 8, to the convent of S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, which is +now a barracks but keeps sacred one room in which Perugino painted a +crucifixion, his masterpiece in fresco. The work is in three panels, +of which that on the left, representing the Virgin and S. Bernard, +is the most beautiful. Indeed, there is no more beautiful light +in any picture we shall see, and the Virgin's melancholy face is +inexpressibly sweet. Perugino is best represented at the Accademia, +and there are works of his at the Uffizi and Pitti and in various +Florentine churches; but here he is at his best. Vasari tells us that +he made much money and was very fond of it; also that he liked his +young wife to wear light head-dresses both out of doors and in the +house, and often dressed her himself. His master was Verrocchio and +his best pupil Raphael. + +S. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, a member of the same family that plotted +against the Medici and owned the sacred flints, was born in 1566, and, +says Miss Dunbar, [8] "showed extraordinary piety from a very tender +age". When only a child herself she used to teach small children, and +she daily carried lunch to the prisoners. Her real name was Catherine, +but becoming a nun she called herself Mary Magdalene. In an illness in +which she was given up for dead, she lay on her bed for forty days, +during which she saw continual visions, and then recovered. Like +S. Catherine of Bologna she embroidered well and painted miraculously, +and she once healed a leprosy by licking it. She died in 1607. + +The old English Cemetery, as it is usually called--the Protestant +Cemetery, as it should be called--is an oval garden of death in the +Piazza Donatello, at the end of the Via di Pinti and the Via Alfieri, +rising up from the boulevard that surrounds the northern half of +Florence. (The new Protestant Cemetery is outside the city on the +road to the Certosa.) I noticed, as I walked beneath the cypresses, +the grave of Arthur Hugh Clough, the poet of "Dipsychus," who died +here in Florence on November 13th, 1861; of Walter Savage Landor, +that old lion (born January 30th, 1775; died September 17th, 1864), +of whom I shall say much more in a later chapter; of his son Arnold, +who was born in 1818 and died in 1871; and of Mrs. Holman Hunt, who +died in 1866. But the most famous grave is that of Elizabeth Barrett +Browning, who lies beneath a massive tomb that bears only the initials +E.B.B. and the date 1861. "Italy," wrote James Thomson, the poet of +"The City of Dreadful Night," on hearing of Mrs. Browning's death, + + +"Italy, you hold in trust +Very sacred human dust." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +The Cascine and the Arno + +Florence's Bois de Boulogne--Shelley--The races--The game of +Pallone--SS. Ognissanti--Botticelli and Ghirlandaio--Amerigo +Vespucci--The Platonic Academy's garden--Alberti's Palazzo +Rucellai--Melancholy decay--Two smiling boys--The Corsini +palace--The Trinita bridge--The Borgo San Jacopo from the back--Home +fishing--SS. Apostoli--A sensitive river--The Ponte Vecchio--The +goldsmiths--S. Stefano. + +The Cascine is the "Bois" of Florence; but it does not compare with +the Parisian expanse either in size or attraction. Here the wealthy +Florentines drive, the middle classes saunter and ride bicycles, the +poor enjoy picnics, and the English take country walks. The further +one goes the better it is, and the better also the river, which at +the very end of the woods becomes such a stream as the pleinairistes +love, with pollarded trees on either side. Among the trees of one of +these woods nearly a hundred years ago, a walking Englishman named +Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote his "Ode to the West Wind". + +The Cascine is a Bois also in having a race-course in it--a small +course with everything about it on a little scale, grandstand, betting +boxes, and all. And why not?--for after all Florence is quite small in +size, however remarkable in character. Here funny little race-meetings +are held, beginning on Easter Monday and continuing at intervals until +the weather gets too hot. The Florentines pour out in their hundreds +and lie about in the long grass among the wild flowers, and in their +fives and tens back their fancies. The system is the pari-mutuel, +and here one seems to be more at its mercy even than in France. The +odds keep distressingly low; but no one seems to be either elated or +depressed, whatever happens. To be at the races is the thing--to walk +about and watch the people and enjoy the air. It is the most orderly +frugal scene, and the baleful and mysterious power of the racehorse +to poison life and landscape, as in England, does not exist here. + +To the Cascine also in the spring and autumn several hundred Florentine +men come every afternoon to see the game of pallone and risk a few lire +on their favourite players. Mr. Ruskin, whose "Mornings in Florence" +is still the textbook of the devout, is severe enough upon those +visitors who even find it in their hearts to shop and gossip in the +city of Giotto. What then would he have said of one who has spent not +a few afternoon hours, between five and six, in watching the game of +pallone? I would not call pallone a good game. Compared with tennis, +it is nothing; compared with lawn tennis, it is poor; compared with +football, it is anaemic; yet in an Italian city, after the galleries +have closed, on a warm afternoon, it will do, and it will more than +do as affording an opportunity of seeing muscular Italian athletes in +the pink of condition. The game is played by six, three each side: +a battitore, who smites the ball, which is served to him very much +as in rounders; the spalla, who plays back; and the terzino, who +plays forward. The court is sixty or more yards long, on one side +being a very high wall and on the other and at each end netting. The +implements are the ball, which is hollow and of leather, about half +the size of a football, and a cylinder studded with spikes, rather +like a huge fir-cone or pine-apple, which is placed over the wrist +and forearm to hit the ball with; and the game is much as in tennis, +only there is no central net: merely a line. Each man's ambition, +however, is less to defeat the returning power of the foe than to +paralyse it by hitting the ball out of reach. It is as though a +batsman were out if he failed to hit three wides. + +A good battitore, for instance, can smite the ball right down the +sixty yards into the net, above the head of the opposing spalla who +stands awaiting it at the far end. Such a stroke is to the English +mind a blot, and it is no uncommon thing, after each side has had a +good rally, to see the battitore put every ball into the net in this +way and so win the game without his opponents having one return; +which is the very negation of sport. Each innings lasts until one +side has gained eight points, the points going to whichever player +makes the successful stroke. This means that the betting--and of +course there is betting--is upon individuals and not upon sides. + +The pari-mutuel system is that which is adopted at both the pallone +courts in Florence (there is another at the Piazza Beccaria), and the +unit is two lire. Bets are invited on the winner and the second, and +place-money is paid on both. No wonder then that as the game draws to a +close the excitement becomes intense; while during its progress feeling +runs high too. For how can a young Florentine who has his money on, +say, Gabri the battitore, withhold criticism when Gabri's arm fails +and the ball drops comfortably for the terzino Ugo to smash it into +Gabri's net? Such a lapse should not pass unnoticed; nor does it. + +From the Cascine we may either return to Florence along the banks +of the river, or cross the river by the vile iron Ponte Sospeso +and enter the city again, on the Pitti side, by the imposing Porta +S. Frediano. Supposing that we return by the Lungarno Amerigo Vespucci +there is little to notice, beyond costly modern houses of a Portland +Place type and the inevitable Garibaldi statue, until, just past the +oblique pescaja (or weir), we see across the Piazza Manin the church +of All Saints--S. Salvadore d'Ognissanti, which must be visited since +it is the burial-place of Botticelli and Amerigo Vespucci, the chapel +of the Vespucci family being painted by Ghirlandaio; and since here too +lies Botticelli's beautiful Simonetta, who so untimely died. According +to Vasari the frescoes of S. Jerome by Ghirlandaio and S. Augustine by +Botticelli were done in competition. They were painted, as it happens, +elsewhere, but moved here without injury. I think the S. Jerome is the +more satisfying, a benevolent old scientific author--a Lord Avebury +of the canon--with his implements about him on a tapestry tablecloth, +a brass candlestick, his cardinal's hat, and a pair of tortoise-shell +eyeglasses handy. S. Augustine is also scientific; astronomical books +and instruments surround him too. His tablecloth is linen. + +Amerigo Vespucci, whose statue we saw in the Uffizi portico +colonnade, was a Florentine by birth who settled in Spain and took to +exploration. His discoveries were important, but America is not really +among them, for Columbus, whom he knew and supported financially, +got there first. By a mistake in the date in his account of his +travels, Vespucci's name came to be given to the new continent, and +it was then too late to alter it. He became a naturalized Spaniard +and died in 1512. Columbus indeed suffers in Florence; for had it +not been for Vespucci, America would no doubt be called Columbia; +while Brunelleschi anticipated him in the egg trick. + +The church is very proud of possessing the robe of S. Francis, which +is displayed once a year on October 4th. In the refectory is a "Last +Supper" by Ghirlandaio, not quite so good as that which we saw at +S. Marco, but very similar, and, like that, deriving from Castagno's +at the Cenacolo di Sant' Apollonia. The predestined Judas is once +more on the wrong side of the table. + +Returning to the river bank again, we are at once among the hotels and +pensions, which continue cheek by jowl right away to the Ponte Vecchio +and beyond. In the Piazza Goldoni, where the Ponte Carraia springs off, +several streets meet, best of them and busiest of them being that Via +della Vigna Nuova which one should miss few opportunities of walking +along, for here is the palazzo--at No. 20--which Leon Battista Alberti +designed for the Rucellai. The Rucellai family's present palace, I +may say here, is in the Via della Scala, and by good fortune I found +at the door sunning himself a complacent major-domo who, the house +being empty of its august owners, allowed me to walk through into +the famous garden--the Orti Oricellari--where the Platonic Academy +met for a while in Bernardo Rucellai's day. A monument inscribed +with their names has been erected among the evergreens. Afterwards +the garden was given by Francis I to his beloved Bianca Capella. Its +natural beauties are impaired by a gigantic statue of Polyphemus, +bigger than any other statue in Florence. + +The new Rucellai palace does not compare with the old, which is, I +think, the most beautiful of all the private houses of the great day, +and is more easily seen too, for there is a little piazza in front +of it. The palace, with its lovely design and its pilastered windows, +is now a rookery, while various industries thrive beneath it. Part of +the right side has been knocked away; but even still the proportions +are noble. This is a bad quarter for vandalism; for in the piazza +opposite is a most exquisite little loggia, built in 1468, the three +lovely arches of which have been filled in and now form the windows of +an English establishment known as "The Artistic White House". An absurd +name, for if it were really artistic it would open up the arches again. + +The Rucellai chapel, behind the palace, is in the Via della Spada, +and the key must be asked for in the palace stables. It is in a +shocking state, and quite in keeping with the traditions of the +neighbourhood, while the old church of S. Pancrazio, its neighbour, +is now a Government tobacco factory. The Rucellai chapel contains a +model of the Holy Sepulchre, at Jerusalem, in marble and intarsia, +by the great Alberti--one of the most jewel-like little buildings +imaginable. Within it are the faint vestiges of a fresco which the +stable-boy calls a Botticelli, and indeed the hands and faces of +the angels, such as one can see of them with a farthing dip, do not +render the suggestion impossible. On the altar is a terra-cotta Christ +which he calls a Donatello, and again he may be right; but fury at a +condition of things that can permit such a beautiful place to be so +desecrated renders it impossible to be properly appreciative. + +Since we are here, instead of returning direct to the river let us +go a few yards along this Via della Spada to the left, cross the +Via de' Fossi, and so come to the busy Via di Pallazzuolo, on the +left of which, past the piazza of S. Paolino, is the little church of +S. Francesco de' Vanchetoni. This church is usually locked, but the key +is next door, on the right, and it has to be obtained because over the +right sacristy door is a boy's head by Rossellino, and over the left a +boy's head by Desiderio da Settignano, and each is joyful and perfect. + +The Via de' Fossi will bring us again to the Piazza Goldoni and the +Arno, and a few yards farther along there is a palace to be seen, +the Corsini, the only palazzo still inhabited by its family to which +strangers are admitted--the long low white facade with statues on +the top and a large courtyard, on the Lungarno Corsini, just after +the Piazza Goldoni. It is not very interesting and belongs to the +wrong period, the seventeenth century. It is open on fixed days, +and free save that one manservant receives the visitor and another +conducts him from room to room. There are many pictures, but few +of outstanding merit, and the authorship of some of these has been +challenged. Thus, the cartoon of Julius II, which is called a Raphael +and seems to be the sketch for one of the well-known portraits at the +Pitti, Uffizi, or our National Gallery, is held to be not by Raphael +at all. Among the pleasantest pictures are a Lippo Lippi Madonna and +Child, a Filippino Lippi Madonna and Child with Angels, and a similar +group by Botticelli; but one has a feeling that Carlo Dolci and Guido +Reni are the true heroes of the house. Guido Reni's Lucrezia Romana, +with a dagger which she has already thrust two inches into her bosom, +as though it were cheese, is one of the most foolish pictures I ever +saw. The Corsini family having given the world a pope, a case of papal +vestments is here. It was this Pope when Cardinal Corsini who said to +Dr. Johnson's friend, Mrs. Piozzi, meeting him in Florence in 1785, +"Well, Madam, you never saw one of us red-legged partridges before, +I believe". + +There may be more beautiful bridges in the world than the Trinita, +but I have seen none. Its curve is so gentle and soft, and its three +arches so light and graceful, that I wonder that whenever new bridges +are necessary the authorities do not insist upon the Trinita being +copied. The Ponte Vecchio, of course, has a separate interest of its +own, and stands apart, like the Rialto. It is a bridge by chance, one +might almost say. But the Trinita is a bridge in intent and supreme at +that, the most perfect union of two river banks imaginable. It shows +to what depths modern Florence can fall--how little she esteems her +past--that the iron bridge by the Cascine should ever have been built. + +The various yellows of Florence--the prevailing colours--are spread +out nowhere so favourably as on the Pitti side of the river between +the Trinita and the Ponte Vecchio on the backs of the houses of the +Borgo San Jacopo, and just so must this row have looked for four +hundred years. Certain of the occupants of these tenements, even on +the upper floors, have fishing nets, on pulleys, which they let down +at intervals during the day for the minute fish which seem to be as +precious to Italian fishermen as sparrows and wrens to Italian gunners. + +The great palace at the Trinita end of this stretch of yellow +buildings--the Frescobaldi--must have been very striking when the +loggia was open: the three rows of double arches that are now walled +in. From this point, as well as from similar points on the other +side of the Ponte Vecchio, one realizes the mischief done by Cosimo +I's secret passage across it; for not only does the passage impose a +straight line on a bridge that was never intended to have one, but it +cuts Florence in two. If it were not for its large central arches one +would, from the other bridges or the embankment, see nothing whatever +of the further side of the city; but as it is, through these arches +one has heavenly vignettes. + +We leave the river again for a few minutes about fifty yards along +the Lungarno Acciaioli beyond the Trinita and turn up a narrow passage +to see the little church of SS. Apostoli, where there is a delightful +gay ciborium, all bright colours and happiness, attributed to Andrea +della Robbia, with pretty cherubs and pretty angels, and a benignant +Christ and flowers and fruit which cannot but chase away gloom and +dubiety. Here also is a fine tomb by the sculptor of the elaborate +chimney-piece which we saw in the Bargello, Benedetto da Rovezzano, +who also designed the church's very beautiful door. Whether or +not it is true that SS. Apostoli was built by Charlemagne, it is +certainly very old and architecturally of great interest. Vasari says +that Brunelleschi acquired from it his inspiration for S. Lorenzo +and S. Spirito. To many Florentines its principal importance is its +custody of the Pazzi flints for the igniting of the sacred fire which +in turn ignites the famous Carro. + +Returning again to the embankment, we are quickly at the Ponte +Vecchio, where it is pleasant at all times to loiter and observe +both the river and the people; while from its central arches one +sees the mountains. From no point are the hill of S. Miniato and +its stately cypresses more beautiful; but one cannot see the church +itself--only the church of S. Niccolo below it, and of course the +bronze "David". In dry weather the Arno is green; in rainy weather +yellow. It is so sensitive that one can almost see it respond to the +most distant shower; but directly the rain falls and it is fed by +a thousand Apennine torrents it foams past this bridge in fury. The +Ponte Vecchio was the work, upon a Roman foundation, of Taddeo Gaddi, +Giotto's godson, in the middle of the fourteenth century, but the +shops are, of course, more recent. The passage between the Pitti +and Uffizi was added in 1564. Gaddi, who was a fresco painter first +and architect afterwards, was employed because Giotto was absent in +Milan, Giotto being the first thought of every one in difficulties +at that time. The need, however, was pressing, for a flood in 1333 +had destroyed a large part of the Roman bridge. Gaddi builded so well +that when, two hundred and more years later, another flood severely +damaged three other bridges, the Ponte Vecchio was unharmed. None +the less it is not Gaddi's bust but Cellini's that has the post of +honour in the centre; but this is, of course, because Cellini was +a goldsmith, and it is to goldsmiths that the shops belong. Once it +was the butchers' quarter! + +I never cross the Ponte Vecchio and see these artificers in their +blouses through the windows, without wondering if in any of their boy +assistants is the Michelangelo, or Orcagna, or Ghirlandaio, or even +Cellini, of the future, since all of those, and countless others of +the Renaissance masters, began in precisely this way. + +The odd thing is that one is on the Ponte Vecchio, from either +end, before one knows it to be a bridge at all. A street of sudden +steepness is what it seems to be. Not the least charming thing upon +it is the masses of groundsel which have established themselves on +the pent roof over the goldsmiths' shops. Every visitor to Florence +must have longed to occupy one of these little bridge houses; but I +am not aware that any has done so. + +One of the oldest streets in Florence must be the Via Girolami, from +the Ponte Vecchio to the Uffizi, under an arch. A turning to the left +brings one to the Piazza S. Stefano, where the barn-like church of +S. Stefano is entered; and close by is the Torre de' Girolami, where +S. Zenobius lived. S. Stefano, although it is now so easily overlooked, +was of importance in its day, and it was here that Niccolo da Uzzano, +the leader of the nobles, held a meeting to devise means of checking +the growing power of the people early in the fifteenth century and was +thwarted by old Giovanni de' Medici. From that thwarting proceeded +the power of the Medici family and the gloriously endowed Florence +that we travel to see. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +S. Maria Novella + +The great churches of Florence--A Dominican cathedral--The "Decameron" +begins--Domenico Ghirlandaio--Alessio Baldovinetti--The Louvre--The +S. Maria Novella frescoes--Giovanni and Lorenzo Tornabuoni--Ruskin +implacable--Cimabue's Madonna--Filippino Lippi--Orcagna's "Last +Judgment"--The Cloisters of Florence--The Spanish Chapel--S. Dominic +triumphant--Giotto at his sweetest--The "Wanderer's" doom--The Piazza, +as an arena. + +S. Maria Novella is usually bracketed with S. Croce as the most +interesting Florentine church after the Duomo, but S. Lorenzo has of +course to be reckoned with very seriously. I think that for interest +I should place S. Maria Novella fifth, including also the Baptistery +before it, but architecturally second. Its interior is second in +beauty only to S. Croce. S. Croce is its immediate religious rival, +for it was because the Dominicans had S. Maria Novella, begun in +1278, that several years later the Franciscans determined to have an +equally important church and built S. Croce. The S. Maria Novella +architects were brothers of the order, but Talenti, whom we saw at +work both on Giotto's tower and on San Michele, built the campanile, +and Leon Battista Alberti the marble facade, many years later. The +richest patrons of S. Maria Novella--corresponding to the Medici at +S. Lorenzo and the Bardi at S. Croce--were the Rucellai, whose palace, +designed also by the wonderful versatile Alberti, we have seen. + +The interior of S. Maria Novella is very fine and spacious, and +it gathers and preserves an exquisite light at all times of the +day. Nowhere in Florence is there a finer aisle, with the roof +springing so nobly and masterfully from the eight columns on either +side. The whole effect, like that of S. Croce, is rather northern, +the result of the yellow and brown hues; but whereas S. Croce has a +crushing flat roof, this one is all soaring gladness. + +The finest view of the interior is from the altar steps looking back +to the beautiful circular window over the entrance, a mass of happy +colour. In the afternoon the little plain circular windows high up +in the aisle shoot shafts of golden light upon the yellow walls. The +high altar of inlaid marble is, I think, too bright and too large. The +church is more impressive on Good Friday, when over this altar is built +a Calvary with the crucifix on the summit and life-size mourners at its +foot; while a choir and string orchestra make superbly mournful music. + +I like to think that it was within the older S. Maria Novella that +those seven mirthful young ladies of Florence remained one morning +in 1348, after Mass, to discuss plans of escape from the city during +the plague. As here they chatted and plotted, there entered the church +three young men; and what simpler than to engage them as companions in +their retreat, especially as all three, like all seven of the young +women, were accomplished tellers of stories with no fear whatever of +Mrs. Grundy? And thus the "Decameron" of Giovanni Boccaccio came about. + +S. Maria Novella also resembles S. Croce in its moving groups of +sight-seers each in the hands of a guide. These one sees always and +hears always: so much so that a reminder has been printed and set up +here and there in this church, to the effect that it is primarily the +house of God and for worshippers. But S. Maria Novella has not a tithe +of S. Croce's treasures. Having almost no tombs of first importance, +it has to rely upon its interior beauty and upon its frescoes, and +its chief glory, whatever Mr. Ruskin, who hated them, might say, is, +for most people, Ghirlandaio's series of scenes in the life of the +Virgin and S. John the Baptist. These cover the walls of the choir +and for more than four centuries have given delight to Florentines +and foreigners. Such was the thoroughness of their painter in his +colour mixing (in which the boy Michelangelo assisted him) that, +although they have sadly dimmed and require the best morning light, +they should endure for centuries longer, a reminder not only of +the thoughtful sincere interesting art of Ghirlandaio and of the +pious generosity of the Tornabuoni family, who gave them, but also +of the costumes and carriage of the Florentine ladies at the end +of the fifteenth century when Lorenzo the Magnificent was in his +zenith. Domenico Ghirlandaio may not be quite of the highest rank +among the makers of Florence; but he comes very near it, and indeed, +by reason of being Michelangelo's first instructor, perhaps should +stand amid them. But one thing is certain--that without him Florence +would be the poorer by many beautiful works. + +He was born in 1449, twenty-one years after the death of Masaccio and +three before Leonardo, twenty-six before Michelangelo, and thirty-four +before Raphael. His full name was Domenico or Tommaso di Currado di +Doffo Bigordi, but his father Tommaso Bigordi, a goldsmith, having +hit upon a peculiarly attractive way of making garlands for the hair, +was known as Ghirlandaio, the garland maker; and time has effaced +the Bigordi completely. + +The portraits of both Tommaso and Domenico, side by side, occur in the +fresco representing Joachim driven from the Temple: Domenico, who is to +be seen second from the extreme right, a little resembles our Charles +II. Like his father, and, as we have seen, like most of the artists of +Florence, he too became a goldsmith, and his love of the jewels that +goldsmiths made may be traced in his pictures; but at an early age he +was sent to Alessio Baldovinetti to learn to be a painter. Alessio's +work we find all over Florence: a Last Judgment in the Accademia, for +example, but that is not a very pleasing thing; a Madonna Enthroned, +in the Uffizi; the S. Miniato frescoes; the S. Trinita frescoes; +and that extremely charming although faded work in the outer court of +SS. Annunziata. For the most delightful picture from his hand, however, +one has to go to the Louvre, where there is a Madonna and Child (1300 +a), in the early Tuscan room, which has a charm not excelled by any +such group that I know. The photographers still call it a Piero della +Francesca, and the Louvre authorities omit to name it at all; but it +is Alessio beyond question. Next it hangs the best Ghirlandaio that +I know--the very beautiful Visitation, and, to add to the interest +of this room to the returning Florentine wanderer, on the same wall +are two far more attractive works by Bastiano Mainardi (Ghirlandaio's +brother-in-law and assistant at S. Maria Novella) than any in Florence. + +Alessio, who was born in 1427, was an open-handed ingenious man who +could not only paint and do mosaic but once made a wonderful clock for +Lorenzo. His experiments with colour were disastrous: hence most of his +frescoes have perished; but possibly it was through Alessio's mistakes +that Ghirlandaio acquired the use of such a lasting medium. Alessio +was an independent man who painted from taste and not necessity. + +Ghirlandaio's chief influences, however, were Masaccio, at the Carmine, +Fra Lippo Lippi, and Verrocchio, who is thought also to have been +Baldovinetti's pupil and whose Baptism of Christ, in the Accademia, +painted when Ghirlandaio was seventeen, must have given Ghirlandaio +the lines for his own treatment of the incident in this church. One +has also only to compare Verrocchio's sculptured Madonnas in the +Bargello with many of Ghirlandaio's to see the influence again; +both were attracted by a similar type of sweet, easy-natured girl. + +When he was twenty-six Ghirlandaio went to Rome to paint the Sixtine +library, and then to San Gimignano, where he was assisted by Mainardi, +who was to remain his most valuable ally in executing the large +commissions which were to come to his workshop. His earliest Florentine +frescoes are those which we shall see at Ognissanti; the Madonna della +Misericordia and the Deposition painted for the Vespucci family and +only recently discovered, together with the S. Jerome, in the church, +and the Last Supper, in the refectory. By this time Ghirlandaio and +Botticelli were in some sort of rivalry, although, so far as I know, +friendly enough, and both went to Rome in 1481, together with Perugino, +Piero di Cosimo, Cosimo Rosselli, Luca Signorelli and others, at +the command of Pope Sixtus IV to decorate the Sixtine chapel, the +excommunication of all Florentines which the Pope had decreed after +the failure of the Pazzi Conspiracy to destroy the Medici (as we saw +in chapter II) having been removed in order to get these excellent +workmen to the Holy City. Painting very rapidly the little band had +finished their work in six months, and Ghirlandaio was at home again +with such an ambition and industry in him that he once expressed the +wish that every inch of the walls of Florence might be covered by +his brush--and in those days Florence had walls all round it, with +twenty-odd towers in addition to the gates. His next great frescoes +were those in the Palazzo Vecchio and S. Trinita. It was in 1485 +that he painted his delightful Adoration, at the Accademia, and in +1486 he began his great series at S. Maria Novella, finishing them +in 1490, his assistants being his brother David, Benedetto Mainardi, +who married Ghirlandaio's sister, and certain apprentices, among them +the youthful Michelangelo, who came to the studio in 1488. + +The story of the frescoes is this. Ghirlandaio when in Rome had +met Giovanni Tornabuoni, a wealthy merchant whose wife had died +in childbirth. Her death we have already seen treated in relief by +Verrocchio in the Bargello. Ghirlandaio was first asked to beautify +in her honour the Minerva at Rome, where she was buried, and this +he did. Later when Giovanni Tornabuoni wished to present S. Maria +Novella with a handsome benefaction, he induced the Ricci family, +who owned this chapel, to allow him to re-decorate it, and engaged +Ghirlandaio for the task. This meant first covering the fast fading +frescoes by Orcagna, which were already there, and then painting over +them. What the Orcagnas were like we cannot know; but the substitute, +although probably it had less of curious genius in it was undoubtedly +more attractive to the ordinary observer. + +The right wall, as one faces the window (whose richness of coloured +glass, although so fine in the church as a whole, is here such a +privation), is occupied by scenes in the story of the Baptist; the +left by the life of the Virgin. The left of the lowest pair on the +right wall represents S. Mary and S. Elizabeth, and in it a party of +Ghirlandaio's stately Florentine ladies watch the greeting of the two +saints outside Florence itself, symbolized rather than portrayed, +very near the church in which we stand. The girl in yellow, on the +right of the picture, with her handkerchief in her hand and wearing a +rich dress, is Giovanna degli Albizzi, who married Lorenzo Tornabuoni +at the Villa Lemmi near Florence, that villa from which Botticelli's +exquisite fresco, now in the Louvre at the top of the main staircase, +in which she again is to be seen, was taken. Her life was a sad +one, for her husband was one of those who conspired with Piero di +Lorenzo de' Medici for his return some ten years later, and was +beheaded. S. Elizabeth is of course the older woman. The companion +to this picture represents the angel appearing to S. Zacharias, and +here again Ghirlandaio gives us contemporary Florentines, portraits +of distinguished Tornabuoni men and certain friends of eminence +among them. In the little group low down on the left, for example, +are Poliziano and Marsilio Ficino, the Platonist. Above--but seeing +is beginning to be difficult--the pair of frescoes represent, on the +right, the birth of the Baptist, and on the left, his naming. The birth +scene has much beauty, and is as well composed as any, and there is +a girl in it of superb grace and nobility; but the birth scene of the +Virgin, on the opposite wall, is perhaps the finer and certainly more +easily seen. In the naming of the child we find Medici portraits once +more, that family being related to the Tornabuoni; and Mr. Davies, +in his book on Ghirlandaio, offers the interesting suggestion, which +he supports very reasonably, that the painter has made the incident +refer to the naming of Lorenzo de' Medici's third son, Giovanni (or +John), who afterwards became Pope Leo X. In that case the man on the +left, in green, with his hand on his hip, would be Lorenzo himself, +whom he certainly resembles. Who the sponsor is is not known. The +landscape and architecture are alike charming. + +Above these we faintly see that strange Baptism of Christ, so curiously +like the Verrocchio in the Accademia, and the Baptist preaching. + +The left wall is perhaps the favourite. We begin with Joachim being +driven from the Temple, one of the lowest pair; and this has a peculiar +interest in giving us a portrait of the painter and his associates--the +figure on the extreme right being Benedetto Mainardi; then Domenico +Ghirlandaio; then his father; and lastly his brother David. On the +opposite side of the picture is the fated Lorenzo Tornabuoni, of whom +I have spoken above, the figure farthest from the edge, with his hand +on his hip. The companion picture is the most popular of all--the +Birth of the Virgin--certainly one of the most charming interiors in +Florence. Here again we have portraits--no doubt Tornabuoni ladies--and +much pleasant fancy on the part of the painter, who made everything as +beautiful as he could, totally unmindful of the probabilities. Ruskin +is angry with him for neglecting to show the splashing of the water +in the vessel, but it would be quite possible for no splashing to +be visible, especially if the pouring had only just begun; but for +Ruskin's strictures you must go to "Mornings in Florence," where poor +Ghirlandaio gets a lash for every virtue of Giotto. Next--above, on +the left--we have the Presentation of the Virgin and on the right +her Marriage. The Presentation is considered by Mr. Davies to be +almost wholly the work of Ghirlandaio's assistants, while the youthful +Michelangelo himself has been credited with the half-naked figure on +the steps, although Mr. Davies gives it to Mainardi. Mainardi again +is probably the author of the companion scene. The remaining frescoes +are of less interest and much damaged; but in the window wall one +should notice the portraits of Giovanni Tornabuoni and Francesca di +Luca Pitti, his wife, kneeling, because this Giovanni was the donor +of the frescoes, and his sister Lucrezia was the wife of Piero de' +Medici and therefore the mother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, while +Francesca Tornabuoni, the poor lady who died in childbirth, was the +daughter of that proud Florentine who began the Pitti palace but +ended his life in disgrace. + +And so we leave this beautiful recess, where pure religious feeling +may perhaps be wanting but where the best spirit of the Renaissance +is to be found: everything making for harmony and pleasure; and on +returning to London the visitor should make a point of seeing the +Florentine girl by the same hand in our National Gallery, No. 1230, +for she is very typical of his genius. + +On the entrance wall of the church is what must once have been a fine +Masaccio--"The Trinity"--but it is in very bad condition; while in +the Cappella Rucellai in the right transept is what purports to be +a Cimabue, very like the one in the Accademia, but with a rather +more matured Child in it. Vasari tells us that on its completion +this picture was carried in stately procession from the painter's +studio to the church, in great rejoicing and blowing of trumpets, +the populace being moved not only by religious ecstasy but by pride in +an artist who could make such a beautiful and spacious painting, the +largest then known. Vasari adds that when Cimabue was at work upon it, +Charles of Anjou, visiting Florence, was taken to his studio, to see +the wonderful painter, and a number of Florentines entering too, they +broke out into such rejoicings that the locality was known ever after +as Borgo Allegro, or Joyful Quarter. This would be about 1290. There +was a certain fitness in Cimabue painting this Madonna, for it is said +that he had his education in the convent which stood here before the +present church was begun. But I should add that of Cimabue we know +practically nothing, and that most of Vasari's statements have been +confuted, while the painter of the S. Maria Novella Madonna is held +by some authorities to be Duccio of Siena. So where are we? + +The little chapel next the choir on the right is that of Filippo +Strozzi the elder who was one of the witnesses of the Pazzi outrage in +the Duomo in 1478. This was the Filippo Strozzi who began the Strozzi +palace in 1489, father of the Filippo Strozzi who married Lorenzo +de' Medici's noble grand-daughter Clarice and came to a tragic end +under Cosimo I. Old Filippo's tomb here was designed by Benedetto da +Maiano, who made the famous Franciscan pulpit in S. Croce, and was +Ghirlandaio's friend and the Strozzi palace's first architect. The +beautiful circular relief of the Virgin and Child, with a border of +roses and flying worshipping angels all about it, behind the altar, is +Benedetto's too, and very lovely and human are both Mother and Child. + +The frescoes in this chapel, by Filippino Lippi, are interesting, +particularly that one on the left, depicting the Resuscitation of +Drusiana by S. John the Evangelist, at Rome, in which the group of +women and children on the right, with the little dog, is full of +life and most naturally done. Above (but almost impossible to see) +is S. John in his cauldron of boiling oil between Roman soldiers and +the denouncing Emperor, under the banner S.P.Q.R.--a work in which +Roman local colour completely excludes religious feeling. Opposite, +below, we see S. Philip exorcising a dragon, a very florid scene, +and, above, a painfully spirited and realistic representation of the +Crucifixion. The sweetness of the figures of Charity and Faith in +monochrome and gold helps, with Benedetto's tondo, to engentle the air. + +We then come again to the Choir, with Ghirlandaio's urbane Florentine +pageant in the guise of sacred history, and pass on to the next chapel, +the Cappella Gondi, where that crucifix in wood is to be seen which +Brunelleschi carved as a lesson to Donatello, who received it like +the gentleman he was. I have told the story in Chapter XV. + +The left transept ends in the chapel of the Strozzi family, of which +Filippo was the head in his day, and here we find Andrea Orcagna and +his brother's fresco of Heaven, the Last Judgment and Hell. It was +the two Orcagnas who, according to Vasari, had covered the Choir with +those scenes in the life of the Virgin which Ghirlandaio was allowed +to paint over, and Vasari adds that the later artist availed himself +of many of the ideas of his predecessors. This, however, is not +very likely, I think, except perhaps in choice of subject. Orcagna, +like Giotto, and later, Michelangelo, was a student of Dante, and +the Strozzi chapel frescoes follow the poet's descriptions. In the +Last Judgment, Dante himself is to be seen, among the elect, in the +attitude of prayer. Petrarch is with him. + +The sacristy is by Talenti (of the Campanile) and was added in +1350. Among its treasures once were the three reliquaries painted +by Fra Angelico, but they are now at S. Marco. It has still rich +vestments, fine woodwork, and a gay and elaborate lavabo by one of +the della Robbias, with its wealth of ornament and colour and its +charming Madonna and Child with angels. + +A little doorway close by used to lead to the cloisters, and a +mercenary sacristan was never far distant, only too ready to unlock for +a fee what should never have been locked, and black with fury if he got +nothing. But all this has now been done away with, and the entrance +to the cloisters is from the Piazza, just to the left of the church, +and there is a turnstile and a fee of fifty centimes. At S. Lorenzo the +cloisters are free. At the Carmine and the Annunziata the cloisters +are free. At S. Croce the charge is a lira and at S. Maria Novella +half a lira. To make a charge for the cloisters alone seems to me +utterly wicked. Let the Pazzi Chapel at S. Croce and the Spanish +Chapel here have fees, if you like; but the cloisters should be open +to all. Children should be encouraged to play there. + +Since, however, S. Maria Novella imposes a fee we must pay it, +and the new arrangement at any rate carries this advantage with it, +that one knows what one is expected to pay and can count on entrance. + +The cloisters are everywhere interesting to loiter in, but their +chief fame is derived from the Spanish Chapel, which gained that name +when in 1566 it was put at the disposal of Eleanor of Toledo's suite +on the occasion of her marriage to Cosimo I. Nothing Spanish about +it otherwise. Both structure and frescoes belong to the fourteenth +century. Of these frescoes, which are of historical and human interest +rather than artistically beautiful, that one on the right wall as +we enter is the most famous. It is a pictorial glorification of the +Dominican order triumphant; with a vivid reminder of the origin of +the word Dominican in the episode of the wolves (or heretics) being +attacked by black and white dogs, the Canes Domini, or hounds of the +Lord. The "Mornings in Florence" should here be consulted again, for +Ruskin made a very thorough and characteristically decisive analysis +of these paintings, which, whether one agrees with it or not, is +profoundly interesting. Poor old Vasari, who so patiently described +them too and named a number of the originals of the portraits, is now +shelved, and from both his artists, Simone Martini and Taddeo Gaddi, +has the authorship been taken by modern experts. Some one, however, +must have done the work. The Duomo as represented here is not the +Duomo of fact, which had not then its dome, but of anticipation. + +Opposite, we see a representation of the triumph of the greatest of the +Dominicans, after its founder, S. Thomas Aquinas, the author of the +"Summa Theologiae," who died in 1274. The painter shows the Angelic +Doctor enthroned amid saints and patriarchs and heavenly attendants, +while three powerful heretics grovel at his feet, and beneath are the +Sciences and Moral Qualities and certain distinguished men who served +them conspicuously, such as Aristotle, the logician, whom S. Thomas +Aquinas edited, and Cicero, the rhetorician. In real life Aquinas was +so modest and retiring that he would accept no exalted post from the +Church, but remained closeted with his books and scholars; and we can +conceive what his horror would be could he view this apotheosis. On the +ceiling is a quaint rendering of the walking on the water, S. Peter's +failure being watched from the ship with the utmost closeness by the +other disciples, but attracting no notice whatever from an angler, +close by, on the shore. The chapel is desolate and unkempt, and those +of us who are not Dominicans are not sorry to leave it and look for +the simple sweetness of the Giottos. + +These are to be found, with some difficulty, on the walls of the niche +where the tomb of the Marchese Ridolfo stands. They are certainly +very simple and telling, and I advise every one to open the "Mornings +in Florence" and learn how the wilful magical pen deals with them; +but it would be a pity to give up Ghirlandaio because Giotto was so +different, as Ruskin wished. Room for both. One scene represents +the meeting of S. Joachim and S. Anna outside a mediaeval city's +walls, and it has some pretty Giottesque touches, such as the man +carrying doves to the Temple and the angel uniting the two saints +in friendliness; and the other is the Birth of the Virgin, which +Ruskin was so pleased to pit against Ghirlandaio's treatment of the +same incident. Well, it is given to some of us to see only what we +want to see and be blind to the rest; and Ruskin was of these the +very king. I agree with him that Ghirlandaio in both his Nativity +frescoes thought little of the exhaustion of the mothers; but it is +arguable that two such accouchements might with propriety be treated +as abnormal--as indeed every painter has treated the birth of Christ, +where the Virgin, fully dressed, is receiving the Magi a few moments +after. Ruskin, after making his deadly comparisons, concludes thus +genially of the Giotto version--"If you can be pleased with this, +you can see Florence. But if not, by all means amuse yourself there, +if you can find it amusing, as long as you like; you can never see it." + +The S. Maria Novella habit is one to be quickly contracted by the +visitor to Florence: nearly as important as the S. Croce habit. Both +churches are hospitable and, apart from the cloisters, free and +eminently suited for dallying in; thus differing from the Duomo, +which is dark, and S. Lorenzo, where there are payments to be made +and attendants to discourage. + +An effort should be made at S. Maria Novella to get into the old +cloisters, which are very large and indicate what a vast convent it +once was. But there is no certainty. The way is to go through to the +Palaestra and hope for the best. Here, as I have said in the second +chapter, were lodged Pope Eugenius and his suite, when they came +to the Council of Florence in 1439. These large and beautiful green +cloisters are now deserted. Through certain windows on the left one +may see chemists at work compounding drugs and perfumes after old +Dominican recipes, to be sold at the Farmacia in the Via della Scala +close by. The great refectory has been turned into a gymnasium. + +The two obelisks, supported by tortoises and surmounted by beautiful +lilies, in the Piazza of S. Maria Novella were used as boundaries in +the chariot races held here under Cosimo I, and in the collection of +old Florentine prints on the top floor of Michelangelo's house you +may see representations of these races. The charming loggia opposite +S. Maria Novella, with della Robbia decorations, is the Loggia di +S. Paolo, a school designed, it is thought, by Brunelleschi, and +here, at the right hand end, we see S. Dominic himself in a friendly +embrace with S. Francis, a very beautiful group by either Luca or +Andrea della Robbia. + +In the loggia cabmen now wrangle all day and all night. From it +S. Maria Novella is seen under the best conditions, always cheerful +and serene; while far behind the church is the huge Apennine where +most of the weather of Florence seems to be manufactured. In mid +April this year (1912) it still had its cap of snow. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +The Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele to S. Trinita + +A city of trams--The old market--Donatello's figure of Abundance--An +evening resort--A hall of variety--Florentines of to-day--The war +with Turkey--Homecoming heroes--Restaurants--The new market--The +bronze boar--A fifteenth century palace--Old Florentine life +reconstructed--Where changes are few--S. Trinita--Ghirlandaio +again--S. Francis--The Strozzi palace--Clarice de' Medici. + +Florence is not simple to the stranger. Like all very old cities +built fortuitously it is difficult to learn: the points of the +compass are elusive; the streets are so narrow that the sky is no +constant guide; the names of the streets are often not there; the +policemen have no high standard of helpfulness. There are trams, +it is true--too many and too noisy, and too near the pavement--but +the names of their outward destinations, from the centre, too rarely +correspond to any point of interest that one is desiring. Hence one +has many embarrassments and even annoyances. Yet I daresay this is +best: an orderly Florence is unthinkable. Since, however, the trams +that are returning to the centre nearly all go to the Duomo, either +passing it or stopping there, the tram becomes one's best friend and +the Duomo one's starting point for most excursions. + +Supposing ourselves to be there once more, let us quickly get through +the horrid necessity, which confronts one in all ancient Italian +cities, of seeing the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. In an earlier chapter +we left the Baptistery and walked along the Via Calzaioli. Again +starting from the Baptistery let us take the Via dell' Arcivescovado, +which is parallel with the Via Calzaioli, on the right of it, and +again walk straight forward. We shall come almost at once to the +great modern square. + +No Italian city or town is complete without a Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele +and a statue of that monarch. In Florence the sturdy king bestrides +his horse here. Italy being so old and Vittorio Emmanuele so new, +it follows in most cases that the square or street named after +him supplants an older one, and if the Italians had any memory or +imaginative interest in history they would see to it that the old +name was not wholly obliterated. In Florence, in order to honour the +first king of United Italy, much grave violence was done to antiquity, +for a very picturesque quarter had to be cleared away for the huge +brasseries, stores and hotels which make up the west side; which +in their turn marked the site of the old market where Donatello and +Brunelleschi and all the later artists of the great days did their +shopping and met to exchange ideals and banter; and that market in +its turn marked the site of the Roman forum. + +One of the features of the old market was the charming Loggia di Pesce; +another, Donatello's figure of Abundance, surmounting a column. This +figure is now in the museum of ancient city relics in the monastery +of S. Marco, where one confronts her on a level instead of looking +up at her in mid sky. But she is very good, none the less. + +In talking to elderly persons who can remember Florence forty and fifty +years ago I find that nothing so distresses them as the loss of the +old quarter for the making of this new spacious piazza; and probably +nothing can so delight the younger Florentines as its possession, +for, having nothing to do in the evenings, they do it chiefly in the +Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. Chairs and tables spring up like mushrooms +in the roadway, among which too few waiters distribute those very +inexpensive refreshments which seem to be purchased rather for the +right to the seat that they confer than for any stimulation. It is +extraordinary to the eyes of the thriftless English, who are never +so happy as when they are overpaying Italian and other caterers in +their own country, to notice how long these wiser folk will occupy +a table on an expenditure of fourpence. + +I do not mean that there are no theatres in Florence. There are +many, but they are not very good; and the young men can do without +them. Curious old theatres, faded and artificial, all apparently built +for the comedies of Goldoni. There are cinema theatres too, at prices +which would delight the English public addicted to those insidious +entertainments, but horrify English managers; and the Teatro Salvini +at the back of the Palazzo Vecchio is occasionally transformed into a +Folies Bergeres (as it is called) where one after another comediennes +sing each two or three songs rapidly to an audience who regard them +with apathy and converse without ceasing. The only sign of interest +which one observes is the murmur which follows anything a little +off the beaten track--a sound that might equally be encouragement +or disapproval. But a really pretty woman entering a box moves +them. Then they employ every note in the gamut; and curiously enough +the pretty woman in the box is usually as cool under the fusillade +as a professional and hardened sister would be. A strange music hall +this to the English eye, where the orchestra smokes, and no numbers +are put up, and every one talks, and the intervals seem to be hours +long. But the Florentines do not mind, for they have not the English +thirst for entertainment and escape; they carry their entertainment +with them and do not wish to escape--going to such places only because +they are warmer than out of doors. + +Sitting here and watching their ironical negligence of the stage and +their interest in each other's company; their animated talk and rapid +decisions as to the merits and charms of a performer; the comfort of +their attitudes and carelessness (although never quite slovenliness) +in dress; one seems to realize the nation better than anywhere. The +old fighting passion may have gone; but much of the quickness, the +shrewdness and the humour remains, together with the determination of +each man to have if possible his own way and, whether possible or not, +his own say. + +Seeing them in great numbers one quickly learns and steadily +corroborates the fact that the Florentines are not beautiful. A +pretty woman or a handsome man is a rarity; but a dull-looking man +or woman is equally rare. They are shrewd, philosophic, cynical, and +very ready for laughter. They look contented also: Florence clearly +is the best place to be born in, to live in, and to die in. Let all +the world come to Florence, by all means, and spend its money there; +but don't ask Florence to go to the world. Don't in fact ask Florence +to do anything very much. + +Civilization and modern conditions have done the Florentines no +good. Their destiny was to live in a walled city in turbulent +days, when the foe came against it, or tyranny threatened from +within and had to be resisted. They were then Florentines and +everything mattered. To-day they are Italians and nothing matters +very much. Moreover, it must be galling to have somewhere in the +recesses of their consciousness the knowledge that their famous city, +built and cemented with their ancestors' blood, is now only a museum. + +When it is fine and warm the music hall does not exist, and it is +in the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele that the Florentines sit and talk, +or walk and talk, or listen to the band which periodically inhabits a +stand near the centre; and it was here that I watched the reception +of the news that Italy had declared war on Turkey, a decision which +while it rejoiced the national warlike spirit of the populace could +not but carry with it a reminder that wars have to be paid for. Six +or seven months later I saw the return to Florence of the first +troops from the war, and their reception was terrific. In the mass +they were welcome enough; but as soon as units could be separated +from the mass the fun began, for they were carried shoulder high to +whatever destination they wanted, their knapsacks and rifles falling +to proud bearers too; while the women clapped from the upper windows, +the shrewd shopkeepers cheered from their doorways, and the crowd which +followed and surrounded the hero every moment increased. As for the +heroes, they looked for the most part a good deal less foolish than +Englishmen would have done; but here and there was one whose expression +suggested that the Turks were nothing to this. One poor fellow had +his coat dragged from his back and torn into a thousand souvenirs. + +The restaurants of Florence are those of a city where the natives +are thrifty and the visitors dine in hotels. There is one expensive +high-class house, in the Via Tornabuoni--Doney e Nipoti or Doney +et Neveux--where the cooking is Franco-Italian, and the Chianti and +wines are dear beyond belief, and the venerable waiters move with a +deliberation which can drive a hungry man--and one is always hungry +in this fine Tuscan air--to despair. I like better the excellent +old-fashioned purely Italian food and Chianti and speed at Bonciani's +in the Via de Panzani, close to the station. These twain are the +best. But it is more interesting to go to the huge Gambrinus in +the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele, because so much is going on all the +time. One curious Florentine habit is quickly discovered and resented +by the stranger who frequents a restaurant, and that is the system of +changing waiters from one set of tables to another; so that whereas +in London and Paris the wise diner is true to a corner because it +carries the same service with it, in Florence he must follow the +service. But if the restaurants have odd ways, and a limited range of +dishes and those not very interesting, they make up for it by being +astonishingly quick. Things are cooked almost miraculously. + +The Florentines eat little. But greediness is not an Italian fault. No +greedy people would have a five-syllabled word for waiter. + +Continuing along the Via dell' Arcivescovado, which after the Piazza +becomes the Via Celimana, we come to that very beautiful structure +the Mercato Nuovo, which, however, is not so wonderfully new, having +been built as long ago as 1547-1551. Its columns and arched roof are +exquisitely proportioned. As a market it seems to be a poor affair, +the chief commodity being straw hats. For the principal food market one +has to go to the Via d'Ariento, near S. Lorenzo, and this is, I think, +well worth doing early in the morning. Lovers of Hans Andersen go to +the Mercato Nuovo to see the famous bronze boar (or "metal pig," as it +was called in the translation on which I was brought up) that stands +here, on whose back the little street boy had such adventures. The +boar himself was the work of Pietro Tacca (1586-1650), a copy from +an ancient marble original, now in the Uffizi, at the top of the +entrance stairs; but the pedestal with its collection of creeping +things is modern. The Florentines who stand in the market niches are +Bernardo Cennini, a goldsmith and one of Ghiberti's assistants, who +introduced printing into Florence in 1471 and began with an edition of +Virgil; Giovanni Villani, who was the city's first serious historian, +beginning in 1300 and continuing till his death in 1348; and Michele +Lando, the wool-carder, who on July 22nd, 1378, at the head of a mob, +overturned the power of the Signory. + +By continuing straight on we should come to that crowded and fussy +little street which crosses the river by the Ponte Vecchio and +eventually becomes the Roman way; but let us instead turn to the +right this side of the market, down the Via Porta Rossa, because +here is the Palazzo Davanzati, which has a profound interest to +lovers of the Florentine past in that it has been restored exactly +to its ancient state when Pope Eugenius IV lodged here, and has been +filled with fourteenth and fifteenth century furniture. In those days +it was the home of the Davizza family. The Davanzati bought it late +in the sixteenth century and retained it until 1838. In 1904 it was +bought by Professor Elia Volpi, who restored its ancient conditions +and presented it to the city as a permanent monument of the past. + +Here we see a mediaeval Florentine palace precisely as it was when its +Florentine owner lived his uncomfortable life there. For say what one +may, there is no question that life must have been uncomfortable. In +early and late summer, when the weather was fine and warm, these +stone floors and continuous draughts may have been solacing; but in +winter and early spring, when Florentine weather can be so bitterly +hostile, what then? That there was a big fire we know by the smoky +condition of Michelozzo's charming frieze on the chimney piece; but +the room--I refer to that on the first floor--is so vast that this +fire can have done little for any one but an immediate vis-a-vis; +and the room, moreover, was between the open world on the one side, +and the open court (now roofed in with glass) on the other, with +such additional opportunities for draughts as the four trap-doors +in the floor offered. It was through these traps that the stone +cannon-balls still stacked in the window seats were dropped, or a few +gallons of boiling oil poured, whenever the city or a faction of it +turned against the householder. Not comfortable, you see, at least +not in our northern sense of the word, although to the hardy frugal +Florentine it may have seemed a haven of luxury. + +The furniture of the salon is simple and sparse and very hard. A bust +here, a picture there, a coloured plate, a crucifix, and a Madonna +and Child in a niche: that was all the decoration save tapestry. An +hour glass, a pepper mill, a compass, an inkstand, stand for utility, +and quaint and twisted musical instruments and a backgammon board +for beguilement. + +In the salle-a-manger adjoining is less light, and here also is +a symbol of Florentine unrest in the shape of a hole in the wall +(beneath the niche which holds the Madonna and Child) through which +the advancing foe, who had successfully avoided the cannon balls +and the oil, might be prodded with lances, or even fired at. The +next room is the kitchen, curiously far from the well, the opening +to which is in the salon, and then a bedroom (with some guns in it) +and smaller rooms gained from the central court. + +The rest of the building is the same--a series of self-contained +flats, but all dipping for water from the same shaft and all depending +anxiously upon the success of the first floor with invaders. At the +top is a beautiful loggia with Florence beneath it. + +The odd thing to remember is that for the poor of Florence, who now +inhabit houses of the same age as the Davanzati palace, the conditions +are almost as they were in the fifteenth century. A few changes have +come in, but hardly any. Myriads of the tenements have no water laid +on: it must still be pulled up in buckets exactly as here. Indeed you +may often see the top floor at work in this way; and there is a row +of houses on the left of the road to the Certosa, a little way out +of Florence, with a most elaborate network of bucket ropes over many +gardens to one well. Similarly one sees the occupants of the higher +floors drawing vegetables and bread in baskets from the street and +lowering the money for them. The postman delivers letters in this +way, too. Again, one of the survivals of the Davanzati to which the +custodian draws attention is the rain-water pipe, like a long bamboo, +down the wall of the court; but one has but to walk along the Via +Lambertesca, between the Uffizi and the Via Por S. Maria, and peer +into the alleys, to see that these pipes are common enough yet. + +In fact, directly one leaves the big streets Florence is still +fifteenth century. Less colour in the costumes, and a few anachronisms, +such as gas or electric light, posters, newspapers, cigarettes, and +bicycles, which dart like dragon flies (every Florentine cyclist +being a trick cyclist); but for the rest there is no change. The +business of life has not altered; the same food is eaten, the same +vessels contain it, the same fire cooks it, the same red wine is +made from the same grapes in the same vineyards, the same language +(almost) is spoken. The babies are christened at the same font, +the parents visit the same churches. Similarly the handicrafts can +have altered little. The coppersmith, the blacksmith, the cobbler, +the woodcarver, the goldsmiths in their yellow smocks, must be just +as they were, and certainly the cellars and caverns under the big +houses in which they work have not changed. Where the change is, +is among the better-to-do, the rich, and in the government. For no +longer is a man afraid to talk freely of politics; no longer does he +shudder as he passes the Bargello; no longer is the name of Medici +on his lips. Everything else is practically as it was. + +The Via Porta Rossa runs to the Piazza S. Trinita, the church of +S. Trinita being our destination. For here are some interesting +frescoes. First, however, let us look at the sculpture: a very +beautiful altar by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the fifth chapel of the +right aisle; a monument by Luca della Robbia to one of the archbishops +of Fiesole, once in S. Pancrazio (which is now a tobacco factory) +in the Via della Spada and brought here for safe keeping--a beautiful +example of Luca's genius, not only as a modeller but also as a very +treasury of pretty thoughts, for the border of flowers and leaves is +beyond praise delightful. The best green in Florence (after Nature's, +which is seen through so many doorways and which splashes over so +many white walls and mingles with gay fruits in so many shops) is here. + +In the fifth chapel of the left aisle is a Magdalen carved in wood +by Desiderio da Settignano and finished by Benedetto da Maiano; +while S. Trinita now possesses, but shows only on Good Friday, +the very crucifix from S. Miniato which bowed down and blessed +S. Gualberto. The porphyry tombs of the Sassetti, in the chapel of +that family, by Giuliano di Sangallo, are magnificent. + +It is in the Sassetti chapel that we find the Ghirlandaio frescoes +of scenes in the life of S. Francis which bring so many strangers +to this church. The painting which depicts S. Francis receiving +the charter from the Emperor Honorius is interesting both for its +history and its painting; for it contains a valuable record of what +the Palazzo Vecchio and Loggia de' Lanzi were like in 1485, and also +many portraits: among them Lorenzo the Magnificent, on the extreme +right holding out his hand: Poliziano, tutor of the Medici boys, +coming first up the stairs; and on the extreme left very probably +Verrocchio, one of Ghirlandaio's favourite painters. We find old +Florence again in the very attractive picture of the resuscitation +of the nice little girl in violet, a daughter of the Spini family, +who fell from a window of the Spini palace (as we see in the distance +on the left, this being one of the old synchronized scenes) and was +brought to life by S. Francis, who chanced to be flying by. The +scene is intensely local: just outside the church, looking along +what is now the Piazza S. Trinita and the old Trinita bridge. The +Spini palace is still there, but is now called the Ferroni, and it +accommodates no longer Florentine aristocrats but consuls and bank +clerks. Among the portraits in the fresco are noble friends of the +Spini family--Albrizzi, Acciaioli, Strozzi and so forth. The little +girl is very quaint and perfectly ready to take up once more the +threads of her life. How long she lived this second time and what +became of her I have not been able to discover. Her tiny sister, +behind the bier, is even quainter. On the left is a little group +of the comely Florentine ladies in whom Ghirlandaio so delighted, +tall and serene, with a few youths among them. + +It is interesting to note that Ghirlandaio in his S. Trinita frescoes +and Benedetto da Maiano in his S. Croce pulpit reliefs chose exactly +the same scenes in the life of S. Francis: interesting because +when Ghirlandaio was painting frescoes at San Gimignano in 1475, +Benedetto was at work on the altar for the same church of S. Fina, +and they were friends. Where Ghirlandaio and Giotto, also in S. Croce, +also coincide in choice of subject some interesting comparisons may +be made, all to the advantage of Giotto in spiritual feeling and +unsophisticated charm, but by no means to Ghirlandaio's detriment +as a fascinating historian in colour. In the scene of the death of +S. Francis we find Ghirlandaio and Giotto again on the same ground, +and here it is probable that the later painter went to the earlier +for inspiration; for he has followed Giotto in the fine thought that +makes one of the attendant brothers glance up as though at the saint's +ascending spirit. It is remarkable how, with every picture that one +sees, Giotto's completeness of equipment as a religious painter becomes +more marked. His hand may have been ignorant of many masterly devices +for which the time was not ripe; but his head and heart knew all. + +The patriarchs in the spandrels of the choir are by Ghirlandaio's +master, Alessio Baldovinetti, of whom I said something in the chapter +on S. Maria Novella. They once more testify to this painter's charm +and brilliance. Almost more than that of any other does one regret the +scarcity of his work. It was fitting that he should have painted the +choir, for his name-saint, S. Alessio, guards the facade of the church. + +The column opposite the church came from the baths of Caracalla and +was set up by Cosimo I, upon the attainment of his life-long ambition +of a grand-dukeship and a crown. The figure at the top is Justice. + +S. Trinita is a good starting-point for the leisurely examination of +the older and narrower streets, an occupation which so many visitors +to Florence prefer to the study of picture galleries and churches. And +perhaps rightly. In no city can they carry on their researches with +such ease, for Florence is incurious about them. Either the Florentines +are too much engrossed in their own affairs or the peering foreigner +has become too familiar an object to merit notice, but one may drift +about even in the narrowest alleys beside the Arno, east and west, +and attract few eyes. And the city here is at its most romantic: +between the Piazza S. Trinita and the Via Por S. Maria, all about +the Borgo SS. Apostoli. + +We have just been discussing Benedetto da Maiano the sculptor. If we +turn to the left on leaving S. Trinita, instead of losing ourselves in +the little streets, we are in the Via Tornabuoni, where the best shops +are and American is the prevailing language. We shall soon come, on the +right, to an example of Benedetto's work as an architect, for the first +draft of the famous Palazzo Strozzi, the four-square fortress-home +which Filippo Strozzi began for himself in 1489, was his. Benedetto +continued the work until his death in 1507, when Cronaca, who built +the great hall in the Palazzo Vecchio, took it over and added the +famous cornice. The iron lantern and other smithwork were by Lorenzo +the Magnificent's sardonic friend, "Il Caparro," of the Sign of the +Burning Books, of whom I wrote in the chapter on the Medici palace. + +The first mistress of the Strozzi palace was Clarice Strozzi, +nee Clarice de' Medici, the daughter of Piero, son of Lorenzo the +Magnificent. She was born in 1493 and married Filippo Strozzi the +younger in 1508, during the family's second period of exile. They +then lived at Rome, but were allowed to return to Florence in +1510. Clarice's chief title to fame is her proud outburst when she +turned Ippolito and Alessandro out of the Medici palace. She died +in 1528 and was buried in S. Maria Novella. The unfortunate Filippo +met his end nine years later in the Boboli fortezza, which his money +had helped to build and in which he was imprisoned for his share in +a conspiracy against Cosimo I. Cosimo confiscated the palace and all +Strozzi's other possessions, but later made some restitution. To-day +the family occupy the upper part of their famous imperishable home, +and beneath there is an exhibition of pictures and antiquities for +sale. No private individual, whatever his wealth or ambition, will +probably ever again succeed in building a house half so strong or +noble as this. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +The Pitti + +Luca Pitti's pride--Preliminary caution--A terrace view--A +collection but not a gallery--The personally-conducted--Giorgione +the superb--Sustermans--The "Madonna del Granduca"--The "Madonna +della Sedia"--From Cimabue to Raphael--Andrea del Sarto--Two Popes +and a bastard--The ill-fated Ippolito--The National Gallery--Royal +apartments--"Pallas Subduing the Centaur"--The Boboli Gardens. + +The Pitti approached from the Via Guicciardini is far liker a prison +than a palace. It was commissioned by Luca Pitti, one of the proudest +and richest of the rivals of the Medici, in 1441. Cosimo de' Medici, +as we have seen, had rejected Brunelleschi's plans for a palazzo +as being too pretentious and gone instead to his friend Michelozzo +for something that externally at any rate was more modest; Pitti, +whose one ambition was to exceed Cosimo in power, popularity, and +visible wealth, deliberately chose Brunelleschi, and gave him carte +blanche to make the most magnificent mansion possible. Pitti, however, +plotting against Cosimo's son Piero, was frustrated and condemned to +death; and although Piero obtained his pardon he lost all his friends +and passed into utter disrespect in the city. Meanwhile his palace +remained unfinished and neglected, and continued so for a century, +when it was acquired by the Grand Duchess Eleanor of Toledo, the wife +of Cosimo I, who though she saw only the beginnings of its splendours +lived there awhile and there brought up her doomed brood. Eleanor's +architect--or rather Cosimo's, for though the Grand Duchess paid, +the Grand Duke controlled--was Ammanati, the designer of the Neptune +fountain in the Piazza della Signoria. Other important additions were +made later. The last Medicean Grand Duke to occupy the Pitti was Gian +Gastone, a bizarre detrimental, whose head, in a monstrous wig, may +be seen at the top of the stairs leading to the Uffizi gallery. He +died in 1737. + +As I have said in chapter VIII, it was by the will of Gian Gastone's +sister, widow of the Elector Palatine, who died in 1743, that the +Medicean collections became the property of the Florentines. This +bequest did not, however, prevent the migration of many of the +best pictures to Paris under Napoleon, but after Waterloo they came +back. The Pitti continued to be the home of princes after Gian Gastone +quitted a world which he found strange and made more so; but they were +not of the Medici blood. It is now a residence of the royal family. + +The first thing to do if by evil chance one enters the Pitti by the +covered way from the Uffizi is, just before emerging into the palace, +to avoid the room where copies of pictures are sold, for not only is +it a very catacomb of headache, from the fresh paint, but the copies +are in themselves horrible and lead to disquieting reflections on +the subject of sweated labour. The next thing to do, on at last +emerging, is to walk out on the roof from the little room at the +top of the stairs, and get a supply of fresh air for the gallery, +and see Florence, which is very beautiful from here. Looking over +the city one notices that the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio is almost +more dominating than the Duomo, the work of the same architect who +began this palace. Between the two is Fiesole. The Signoria tower is, +as I say, the highest. Then the Duomo. Then Giotto's Campanile. The +Bargello is hidden, but the graceful Badia tower is seen; also the +little white Baptistery roof with its lantern just showing. From the +fortezza come the sounds of drums and bugles. + +Returning from this terrace we skirt a vast porphyry basin and reach +the top landing of the stairs (which was, I presume, once a loggia) +where there is a very charming marble fountain; and from this we +enter the first room of the gallery. The Pitti walls are so congested +and so many of the pictures so difficult to see, that I propose to +refer only to those which, after a series of visits, seem to me the +absolute best. Let me hasten to say that to visit the Pitti gallery +on any but a really bright day is folly. The great windows (which +were to be larger than Cosimo de' Medici's doors) are excellent to +look out of, but the rooms are so crowded with paintings on walls +and ceilings, and the curtains are so absorbent of light, that unless +there is sunshine one gropes in gloom. The only pictures in short that +are properly visible are those on screens or hinges; and these are, +fortunately almost without exception, the best. The Pitti rooms were +never made for pictures at all, and it is really absurd that so many +beautiful things should be massed here without reasonable lighting. + +The Pitti also is always crowded. The Uffizi is never crowded; the +Accademia is always comfortable; the Bargello is sparsely attended. But +the Pitti is normally congested, not only by individuals but by flocks, +whose guides, speaking broken English, and sometimes broken American, +lead from room to room. I need hardly say that they form the tightest +knots before the works of Raphael. All this is proper enough, of +course, but it serves to render the Pitti a difficult gallery rightly +to study pictures in. + +In the first chapter on the Uffizi I have said how simple it is, +in the Pitti, to name the best picture of all, and how difficult in +most galleries. But the Pitti has one particular jewel which throws +everything into the background: the work not of a Florentine but of a +Venetian: "The Concert" of Giorgione, which stands on an easel in the +Sala di Marte. [9] It is true that modern criticism has doubted the +lightness of the ascription, and many critics, whose one idea seems +to be to deprive Giorgione of any pictures at all, leaving him but +a glorious name without anything to account for it, call it an early +Titian; but this need not trouble us. There the picture is, and never +do I think to see anything more satisfying. Piece by piece, it is +not more than fine rich painting, but as a whole it is impressive and +mysterious and enchanting. Pater compares the effect of it to music; +and he is right. + +The Sala dell' Iliade (the name of each room refers always to the +ceiling painting, which, however, one quite easily forgets to look at) +is chiefly notable for the Raphael just inside the door: "La Donna +Gravida," No. 229, one of his more realistic works, with bolder colour +than usual and harder treatment; rather like the picture that has +been made its pendant, No. 224, an "Incognita" by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, +very firmly painted, but harder still. Between them is the first of the +many Pitti Andrea del Sartos: No. 225, an "Assumption of the Madonna," +opposite a similar work from the same brush, neither containing quite +the finest traits of this artist. But the youth with outstretched hand +at the tomb is nobly done. No. 265, "Principe Mathias de' Medici," +is a good bold Sustermans, but No. 190, on the opposite wall, is a +far better--a most charming work representing the Crown Prince of +Denmark, son of Frederick III. Justus Sustermans, who has so many +portraits here and elsewhere in Florence, was a Belgian, born in 1597, +who settled in Florence as a portrait painter to Cosimo III. Van Dyck +greatly admired his work and painted him. He died at Florence in 1681. + +No. 208, a "Virgin Enthroned," by Fra Bartolommeo, is from S. Marco, +and it had better have been painted on the wall there, like the Fra +Angelicos, and then the convent would have it still. The Child is very +attractive, as almost always in this artist's work, but the picture +as a whole has grown rather dingy. By the window is a Velasquez, the +first we have seen in Florence, a little Philip IV on his prancing +steed, rather too small for its subject, but very interesting here +among the Italians. + +In the next large room--the Sala di Saturno--we come again to +Raphael, who is indeed the chief master of the Pitti, his exquisite +"Madonna del Granduca" being just to the left of the door. Here we +have the simplest colouring and perfect sweetness, and such serenity +of mastery as must be the despair of the copyists, who, however, +never cease attempting it. The only defect is a little clumsiness +in the Madonna's hand. The picture was lost for two centuries and it +then changed owners for twelve crowns, the seller being a poor woman +and the buyer a bookseller. The bookseller found a ready purchaser +in the director of the Grand Duke Ferdinand III's gallery, and the +Grand Duke so esteemed it that he carried it with him on all his +journeys, just as Sir George Beaumont, the English connoisseur, never +travelled without a favourite Claude. Hence its name. Another Andrea +del Sarto, the "Disputa sulla Trinita," No. 172, is close by, nobly +drawn but again not of his absolute best, and then five more Raphaels +or putative Raphaels--No. 171, Tommaso Inghirami; No. 61, Angelo Doni, +the collector and the friend of artists, for whom Michelangelo painted +his "Holy Family" in the Uffizi; No. 59, Maddalena Doni; and above +all No. 174, "The Vision of Ezekiel," that little great picture, +so strong and spirited, and--to coin a word--Sixtinish. All these, +I may say, are questioned by experts; but some very fine hand is +to be seen in them any way. Over the "Ezekiel" is still another, +No. 165, the "Madonna detta del Baldacchino," which is so much better +in the photographs. Next this group--No. 164--we find Raphael's +friend Perugino with an Entombment, but it lacks his divine glow; +and above it a soft and mellow and easy Andrea del Sarto, No. 163, +which ought to be in a church rather than here. A better Perugino +is No. 42, which has all his sweetness, but to call it the Magdalen +is surely wrong; and close by it a rather formal Fra Bartolommeo, +No. 159, "Gesu Resuscitato," from the church of SS. Annunziata, in +which once again the babies who hold the circular landscape are the +best part. After another doubtful Raphael--the sly Cardinal Divizio +da Bibbiena, No. 158--let us look at an unquestioned one, No. 151, +the most popular picture in Florence, if not the whole world, Raphael's +"Madonna della Sedia," that beautiful rich scene of maternal tenderness +and infantine peace. Personally I do not find myself often under +Raphael's spell; but here he conquers. The Madonna again is without +enough expression, but her arms are right, and the Child is right, +and the colour is so rich, almost Venetian in that odd way in which +Raphael now and then could suggest Venice. + +It is interesting to compare Raphael's two famous Madonnas in this +room: this one belonging to his Roman period and the other, opposite +it, to Florence, with the differences so marked. For by the time he +painted this he knew more of life and human affection. This picture, +I suppose, might be called the consummation of Renaissance painting in +fullest bloom: the latest triumph of that impulse. I do not say it is +the best; but it may be called a crown on the whole movement both in +subject and treatment. Think of the gulf between the Cimabue Madonna +and the Giotto Madonna, side by side, which we saw in the Accademia, +and this. With so many vivid sympathies Giotto must have wanted with +all his soul to make the mother motherly and the child childlike; but +the time was not yet; his hand was neither free nor fit. Between Giotto +and Raphael had to come many things before such treatment as this was +possible; most of all, I think, Luca della Robbia had to come between, +for he was the most valuable reconciler of God and man of them all. He +was the first to bring a tender humanity into the Church, the first +to know that a mother's fingers, holding a baby, sink into its soft +little body. Without Luca I doubt if the "Madonna della Sedia" could +be the idyll of protective solicitude and loving pride that it is. + +The Sala di Giove brings us to Venetian painting indeed, and glorious +painting too, for next the door is Titian's "Bella," No. 18, the lady +in the peacock-blue dress with purple sleeves, all richly embroidered +in gold, whom to see once is to remember for ever. On the other side of +the door is Andrea's brilliant "S. John the Baptist as a Boy," No. 272, +and then the noblest Fra Bartolommeo here, a Deposition, No. 64, not +good in colour, but superbly drawn and pitiful. In this room also is +the monk's great spirited figure of S. Marco, for the convent of that +name. Between them is a Tintoretto, No. 131, Vincenzo Zeino, one of his +ruddy old men, with a glimpse of Venice, under an angry sky, through +the window. Over the door, No. 124, is an Annunciation by Andrea, +with a slight variation in it, for two angels accompany that one who +brings the news, and the announcement is made from the right instead +of the left, while the incident is being watched by some people on the +terrace over a classical portico. A greater Andrea hangs next: No. 123, +the Madonna in Glory, fine but rather formal, and, like all Andrea's +work, hall-marked by its woman type. The other notable pictures are +Raphael's Fornarina, No. 245, which is far more Venetian than the +"Madonna della Sedia," and has been given to Sebastian del Piombo; +and the Venetian group on the right of the door, which is not only +interesting for its own charm but as being a foretaste of the superb +and glorious Giorgione in the Sala di Marte, which we now enter. + +Here we find a Rembrandt, No. 16, an old man: age and dignity emerging +golden from the gloom; and as a pendant a portrait, with somewhat +similar characteristics, but softer, by Tintoretto, No. 83. Between +them is a prosperous, ruddy group of scholars by Rubens, who has +placed a vase of tulips before the bust of Seneca. And we find Rubens +again with a sprawling, brilliant feat entitled "The Consequences +of War," but what those consequences are, beyond nakedness, one +has difficulty in discerning. Raphael's Holy Family, No. 94 (also +known as the "Madonna dell' Impannata"), next it might be called the +perfection of drawing without feeling. The authorities consider it a +school piece: that is to say, chiefly the work of his imitators. The +vivacity of the Child's face is very remarkable. The best Andrea is +in this room--a Holy Family, No. 81, which gets sweeter and simpler +and richer with every glance. Other Andreas are here too, notably on +the right of the further door a sweet mother and sprawling, vigorous +Child. But every Andrea that I see makes me think more highly of the +"Madonna della Sacco," in the cloisters of SS. Annunziata. Van Dyck, +who painted much in Italy before settling down at the English court, +we find in this room with a masterly full-length seated portrait of +an astute cardinal. But the room's greatest glory, as I have said, +is the Giorgione on the easel. + +In the Sala di Apollo, at the right of the door as we enter, is +Andrea's portrait of himself, a serious and mysterious face shining +out of darkness, and below it is Titian's golden Magdalen, No. 67, +the same ripe creature that we saw at the Uffizi posing as Flora, +again diffusing Venetian light. On the other side of the door we find, +for the first time in Florence, Murillo, who has two groups of the +Madonna and Child on this wall, the better being No. 63, which is both +sweet and masterly. In No. 56 the Child becomes a pretty Spanish boy +playing with a rosary, and in both He has a faint nimbus instead of +the halo to which we are accustomed. On the same wall is another fine +Andrea, who is most lavishly represented in this gallery, No. 58, +a Deposition, all gentle melancholy rather than grief. The kneeling +girl is very beautiful. + +Finally there are Van Dyck's very charming portrait of Charles +I of England and Henrietta, a most deft and distinguished work, +and Raphael's famous portrait of Leo X with two companions: rather +dingy, and too like three persons set for the camera, but powerful and +deeply interesting to us, because here we see the first Medici pope, +Leo X, Lorenzo de' Medici's son Giovanni, who gave Michelangelo the +commission for the Medici tombs and the new Sacristy of S. Lorenzo; +and in the young man on the Pope's right hand we see none other +than Giulio, natural son of Giuliano de' Medici, Lorenzo's brother, +who afterwards became Pope as Clement VII. It was he who laid siege +to Florence when Michelangelo was called upon to fortify it; and it +was during his pontificate that Henry VIII threw off the shackles +of Rome and became the Defender of the Faith. Himself a bastard, +Giulio became the father of the base-born Alessandro of Urbino, +first Duke of Florence, who, after procuring the death of Ippolito +and living a life of horrible excess, was himself murdered by his +cousin Lorenzino in order to rid Florence of her worst tyrant. In +his portrait Leo X has an illuminated missal and a magnifying glass, +as indication of his scholarly tastes. That he was also a good liver +his form and features testify. + +Of this picture an interesting story is told. After the battle of +Pavia, in 1525, Clement VII wishing to be friendly with the Marquis +of Gonzaga, a powerful ally of the Emperor Charles V, asked him what +he could do for him, and Gonzaga expressed a wish for the portrait +of Leo X, then in the Medici palace. Clement complied, but wishing +to retain at any rate a semblance of the original, directed that the +picture should be copied, and Andrea del Sarto was chosen for that +task. The copy turned out to be so close that Gonzaga never obtained +the original at all. + +In the next room--the Sala di Venere, and the last room in the long +suite--we find another Raphael portrait, and another Pope, this time +Julius II, that Pontiff whose caprice and pride together rendered +null and void and unhappy so many years of Michelangelo's life, +since it was for him that the great Julian tomb, never completed, was +designed. A replica of this picture is in our National Gallery. Here +also are a wistful and poignant John the Baptist by Dossi, No. 380; +two Duerers--an Adam and an Eve, very naked and primitive, facing +each other from opposite walls; and two Rubens landscapes not equal +to ours at Trafalgar Square, but spacious and lively. The gem of the +room is a lovely Titian, No. 92, on an easel, a golden work of supreme +quietude and disguised power. The portrait is called sometimes the +Duke of Norfolk, sometimes the "Young Englishman". + +Returning to the first room--the Sala of the Iliad--we enter the Sala +dell' Educazione di Giove, and find on the left a little gipsy portrait +by Boccaccio Boccaccino (1497-1518) which has extraordinary charm: +a grave, wistful, childish face in a blue handkerchief: quite a new +kind of picture here. I reproduce it in this volume, but it wants +its colour. For the rest, the room belongs to less-known and later +men, in particular to Cristofano Allori (1577-1621), with his famous +Judith, reproduced in all the picture shops of Florence. This work is +no favourite of mine, but one cannot deny it power and richness. The +Guido Reni opposite, in which an affected fat actress poses as +Cleopatra with the asp, is not, however, even tolerable. + +We next pass, after a glance perhaps at the adjoining tapestry room +on the left (where the bronze Cain and Abel are), the most elegant +bathroom imaginable, fit for anything rather than soap and splashes, +and come to the Sala di Ulisse and some good Venetian portraits: +a bearded senator in a sable robe by Paolo Veronese, No. 216, and, +No. 201, Titian's fine portrait of the ill-fated Ippolito de' +Medici, son of that Giuliano de' Medici, Duc de Nemours, whose +tomb by Michelangelo is at S. Lorenzo. This amiable young man was +brought up by Leo X until the age of twelve, when the Pope died, +and the boy was sent to Florence to live at the Medici palace, +with the base-born Alessandro, under the care of Cardinal Passerini, +where he remained until Clarice de' Strozzi ordered both the boys to +quit. In 1527 came the third expulsion of the Medici from Florence, +and Ippolito wandered about until Clement VII, the second Medici +Pope, was in Rome, after the sack, and, joining him there, he was, +against his will, made a cardinal, and sent to Hungary: Clement's idea +being to establish Alessandro (his natural son) as Duke of Florence, +and squeeze Ippolito, the rightful heir, out. This, Clement succeeded +in doing, and the repulsive and squalid-minded Alessandro--known as +the Mule--was installed. Ippolito, in whom this proceeding caused +deep grief, settled in Bologna and took to scholarship, among other +tasks translating part of the Aeneid into Italian blank verse; +but when Clement died and thus liberated Rome from a vile tyranny, +he was with him and protected his corpse from the angry mob. That +was in 1534, when Ippolito was twenty-seven. In the following year +a number of exiles from Florence who could not endure Alessandro's +offensive ways, or had been forced by him to fly, decided to appeal +to the Emperor Charles V for assistance against such a contemptible +ruler; and Ippolito headed the mission; but before he could reach the +Emperor an emissary of Alessandro's succeeded in poisoning him. Such +was Ippolito de' Medici, grandson of the great Lorenzo, whom Titian +painted, probably when he was in Bologna, in 1533 or 1534. + +This room also contains a nice little open decorative scene--like a +sketch for a fresco--of the Death of Lucrezia, No. 388, attributed +to the School of Botticelli, and above it a good Royal Academy Andrea +del Sarto. + +The next is the best of these small rooms--the Sala of +Prometheus--where on Sundays most people spend their time in +astonishment over the inlaid tables, but where Tuscan art also is +very beautiful. The most famous picture is, I suppose, the circular +Filippino Lippi, No. 343, but although the lively background is +very entertaining and the Virgin most wonderfully painted, the Child +is a serious blemish. The next favourite, if not the first, is the +Perugino on the easel--No. 219--one of his loveliest small pictures, +with an evening glow among the Apennines such as no other painter +could capture. Other fine works here are the Fra Bartolommeo, No. 256, +over the door, a Holy Family, very pretty and characteristic, and his +"Ecce Homo," next it; the adorable circular Botticini (as the catalogue +calls it, although the photographers waver between Botticelli and +Filippino Lippi), No. 347, with its myriad roses and children with +their little folded hands and the Mother and Child diffusing happy +sweetness, which, if only it were a little less painty, would be one +of the chief magnets of the gallery. + +Hereabout are many Botticelli school pictures, chief of these the +curious girl, called foolishly "La Bella Simonetta," which Mr. Berenson +attributes to that unknown disciple of Botticelli to whom he has given +the charming name of Amico di Sandro. This study in browns, yellow, +and grey always has its public. Other popular Botticelli derivatives +are Nos. 348 and 357. Look also at the sly and curious woman (No. 102), +near the window, by Ubertini, a new artist here; and the pretty Jacopo +del Sellaio, No. 364; a finely drawn S. Sebastian by Pollaiuolo; +the Holy Family by Jacopo di Boateri, No. 362, with very pleasant +colouring; No. 140, the "Incognita," which people used to think was +by Leonardo--for some reason difficult to understand except on the +principle of making the wish father to the thought--and is now given +to Bugiardini; and lastly a rich and comely example of Lombardy art, +No. 299. + +From this room we will enter first the Corridio delle Colonne where +Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici's miniature portraits are hung, all +remarkable and some superb, but unfortunately not named, together +with a few larger works, all very interesting. That Young Goldsmith, +No. 207, which used to be given to Leonardo but is now Ridolfo +Ghirlandaio's, is here; a Franciabigio, No. 43; a questioned Raphael, +No. 44; a fine and sensitive head of one of the Gonzaga family by +Mantegna, No. 375; the coarse head of Giovanni Bentivoglio by da +Costa, No. 376; and a Pollaiuolo, No. 370, S. Jerome, whose fine rapt +countenance is beautifully drawn. + +In the Sala della Giustizia we come again to the Venetians: a noble +Piombo, No. 409; the fine Aretino and Tommaso Mosti by Titian; +Tintoretto's portrait of a man, No. 410; and two good Moronis. But +I am not sure that Dosso Dossi's "Nymph and Satyr" on the easel is +not the most remarkable achievement here. I do not, however, care +greatly for it. + +In the Sala di Flora we find some interesting Andreas; a beautiful +portrait by Puligo, No. 184; and Giulio Romano's famous frieze of +dancers. Also a fine portrait by Allori, No. 72. The end room of all +is notable for a Ruysdael. + +Finally there is the Sala del Poccetti, out of the Sala di Prometeo, +which, together with the preceding two rooms that I have described, +has lately been rearranged. Here now is the hard but masterly Holy +Family of Bronzino, who has an enormous amount of work in Florence, +chiefly Medicean portraits, but nowhere, I think, reaches the level +of his "Allegory" in our National Gallery, or the portrait in the +Taylor collection sold at Christie's in 1912. Here also are four +rich Poussins; two typical Salvator Rosa landscapes and a battle +piece from the same hand; and, by some strange chance, a portrait +of Oliver Cromwell by Sir Peter Lely. But the stone table again wins +most attention. + +And here, as we leave the last of the great picture collections of +Florence, I would say how interesting it is to the returned visitor +to London to go quickly to the National Gallery and see how we +compare with them. Florence is naturally far richer than we, but +although only now and then have we the advantage, we can valuably +supplement in a great many cases. And the National Gallery keeps +up its quality throughout--it does not suddenly fall to pieces as +the Uffizi does. Thus, I doubt if Florence with all her Andreas +has so exquisite a thing from his hand as our portrait of a "Young +Sculptor," so long called a portrait of the painter himself; and we +have two Michelangelo paintings to the Uffizi's one. In Leonardo the +Louvre is of course far richer, even without the Gioconda, but we +have at Burlington House the cartoon for the Louvre's S. Anne which +may pair off with the Uffizi's unfinished Madonna, and we have also +at the National Gallery his finished "Virgin of the Rocks," while +to Burlington House one must go too for Michelangelo's beautiful +tondo. In Piero di Cosimo we are more fortunate than the Uffizi; and +we have Raphaels as important as those of the Pitti. We are strong +too in Perugino, Filippino Lippi, and Luca Signorelli, while when it +comes to Piero della Francesca we lead absolutely. Our Verrocchio, +or School of Verrocchio, is a superb thing, while our Cimabue (from +S. Croce) has a quality of richness not excelled by any that I have +seen elsewhere. But in Botticelli Florence wins. + +The Pitti palace contains also the apartments in which the King +and Queen of Italy reside when they visit Florence, which is not +often. Florence became the capital of Italy in 1865, on the day of +the sixth anniversary of the birth of Dante. It remained the capital +until 1870, when Rome was chosen. The rooms are shown thrice a +week, and are not, I think, worth the time that one must give to the +perambulation. Beyond this there is nothing to say, except that they +would delight children. Visitors are hurried through in small bands, +and dallying is discouraged. Hence one is merely tantalized by the +presence of their greatest treasure, Botticelli's "Pallas subduing +the Centaur," painted to commemorate Lorenzo de' Medici's successful +diplomatic mission to the King of Naples in 1480, to bring about +the end of the war with Sixtus IV, the prime instigator of the Pazzi +Conspiracy and the bitter enemy of Lorenzo in particular--whose only +fault, as he drily expressed it, had been to "escape being murdered +in the Cathedral"--and of all Tuscany in general. Botticelli, whom +we have already seen as a Medicean allegorist, always ready with +his glancing genius to extol and commend the virtues of that family, +here makes the centaur typify war and oppression while the beautiful +figure which is taming and subduing him by reason represents Pallas, +or the arts of peace, here identifiable with Lorenzo by the laurel +wreath and the pattern of her robe, which is composed of his private +crest of diamond rings intertwined. This exquisite picture--so rich +in colour and of such power and impressiveness--ought to be removed +to an easel in the Pitti Gallery proper. The "Madonna della Rosa," +by Botticelli or his School, is also here, and I had a moment before +a very alluring Holbein. But my memory of this part of the palace is +made up of gilt and tinsel and plush and candelabra, with two pieces +of furniture outstanding--a blue and silver bed, and a dining table +rather larger than a lawn-tennis court. + +The Boboli gardens, which climb the hill from the Pitti, are also +opened only on three afternoons a week. The panorama of Florence and +the surrounding Apennines which one has from the Belvedere makes a +visit worth while; but the gardens themselves are, from the English +point of view, poor, save in extent and in the groves on the way to +the stables (scuderie). Like all gardens where clipped walks are the +principal feature, they want people. They were made for people to +enjoy them, rather than for flowers to grow in, and at every turn +there is a new and charming vista in a green frame. + +It was from the Boboli hill-side before it was a garden that much +of the stone of Florence was quarried. With such stones so near it +is less to be wondered at that the buildings are what they are. And +yet it is wonderful too--that these little inland Italian citizens +should so have built their houses for all time. It proves them to +have had great gifts of character. There is no such building any more. + +The Grotto close to the Pitti entrance, which contains some of +Michelangelo's less remarkable "Prisoners," intended for the great +Julian tomb, is so "grottesque" that the statues are almost lost, and +altogether it is rather an Old Rye House affair; and though Giovanni +da Bologna's fountain in the midst of a lake is very fine, I doubt if +the walk is quite worth it. My advice rather is to climb at once to +the top, at the back of the Pitti, by way of the amphitheatre where +the gentlemen and ladies used to watch court pageants, and past that +ingenious fountain above it, in which Neptune's trident itself spouts +water, and rest in the pretty flower garden on the very summit of the +hill, among the lizards. There, seated on the wall, you may watch the +peasants at work in the vineyards, and the white oxen ploughing in +the olive groves, in the valley between this hill and S. Miniato. In +spring the contrast between the greens of the crops and the silver +grey of the olives is vivid and gladsome; in September, one may see +the grapes being picked and piled into the barrels, immediately below, +and hear the squdge as the wooden pestle is driven into the purple +mass and the juice gushes out. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +English Poets in Florence + +Casa Guidi--The Brownings--Giotto's missing spire--James Russell +Lowell--Lander's early life--Fra Bartolommeo before Raphael--The Tuscan +gardener--The "Villa Landor" to-day--Storms on the hillside--Pastoral +poetry--Italian memories in England--The final outburst--Last days +in Florence--The old lion's beguilements--The famous epitaph. + +On a house in the Piazza S. Felice, obliquely facing the Pitti, with +windows both in the Via Maggio and Via Mazzetta, is a tablet, placed +there by grateful Florence, stating that it was the home of Robert +and of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and that her verse made a golden +ring to link England to Italy. In other words, this is Casa Guidi. + +A third member of the family, Flush the spaniel, was also with them, +and they moved here in 1848, and it was here that Mrs. Browning +died, in 1861. But it was not their first Florentine home, for in +1847 they had gone into rooms in the Via delle Belle Donne--the +Street of Beautiful Ladies--whose name so fascinated Ruskin, near +S. Maria Novella. At Casa Guidi Browning wrote, among other poems, +"Christinas Eve and Easter Day," "The Statue and the Bust" of which I +have said something in chapter XIX, and the "Old Pictures in Florence," +that philosophic commentary on Vasari, which ends with the spirited +appeal for the crowning of Giotto's Campanile with the addition of +the golden spire that its builder intended-- + + + Fine as the beak of a young beccaccia + The campanile, the Duomo's fit ally, + Shall soar up in gold full fifty braccia, + Completing Florence, as Florence Italy. + + +But I suppose that the monologues "Andrea del Sarto" and "Fra Lippo +Lippi" would be considered the finest fruit of Browning's Florentine +sojourn, as "Casa Guidi Windows" is of Mrs. Browning's. Her great poem +is indeed as passionate a plea for Italian liberty as anything by an +Italian poet. Here also she wrote much if not all of "Aurora Leigh," +"The Poems before Congress," and those other Italian political pieces +which when her husband collected them as "Last Poems" he dedicated +"to 'grateful Florence'". + +In these Casa Guidi rooms the happiest days of both lives were +spent, and many a time have the walls resounded to the great voice, +laughing, praising or condemning, of Walter Savage Landor; while the +shy Hawthorne has talked here too. Casa Guidi lodged not only the +Brownings, but, at one time, Lowell, who was not, however, a very +good Florentine. "As for pictures," I find him writing, in 1874, +on a later visit, "I am tired to death of 'em,... and then most of +them are so bad. I like best the earlier ones, that say so much in +their half-unconscious prattle, and talk nature to me instead of +high art." But "the older streets," he says, "have a noble mediaeval +distance and reserve for me--a frown I was going to call it, not +of hostility, but of haughty doubt. These grim palace fronts meet +you with an aristocratic start that puts you to the proof of your +credentials. There is to me something wholesome in that that makes +you feel your place." + +The Brownings are the two English poets who first spring to mind +in connexion with Florence; but they had had very illustrious +predecessors. In August and September, 1638, during the reign +of Ferdinand II, John Milton was here, and again in the spring of +1639. He read Latin poems to fellow-scholars in the city and received +complimentary sonnets in reply. Here he met Galileo, and from here +he made the excursion to Vallombrosa which gave him some of his most +famous lines. He also learned enough of the language to write love +poetry to a lady in Bologna, although he is said to have offended +Italians generally by his strict morality. + +Skipping a hundred and eighty years we find Shelley in Florence, +in 1819, and it was here that his son was born, receiving the names +Percy Florence. Here he wrote, as I have said, his "Ode to the West +Wind" and that grimly comic work "Peter Bell the Third". + +But next the Brownings it is Walter Savage Landor of whom I always +think as the greatest English Florentine. Florence became his second +home when he was middle-aged and strong; and then again, when he was +a very old man, shipwrecked by his impulsive and impossible temper, +it became his last haven. It was Browning who found him his final +resting-place--a floor of rooms not far from where we now stand, +in the Via Nunziatina. + +Florence is so intimately associated with Landor, and Landor was +so happy in Florence, that a brief outline of his life seems to +be imperative. Born in 1775, the heir to considerable estates, +the boy soon developed that whirlwind headstrong impatience which +was to make him as notorious as his exquisite genius has made him +famous. He was sent to Rugby, but disapproving of the headmaster's +judgment of his Latin verses, he produced such a lampoon upon him, +also in Latin, as made removal or expulsion a necessity. At Oxford +his Latin and Greek verses were still his delight, but he took +also to politics, was called a mad Jacobin, and, in order to prove +his sanity and show his disapproval of a person obnoxious to him, +fired a gun at his shutters and was sent down for a year. He never +returned. After a period of strained relations with his father +and hot repudiations of all the plans for his future which were +made for him--such as entering the militia, reading law, and so +forth--he retired to Wales on a small allowance and wrote "Gebir" +which came out in 1798, when its author was twenty-three. In 1808 +Landor threw in his lot with the Spaniards against the French, saw +some fighting and opened his purse for the victims of the war; but +the usual personal quarrel intervened. Returning to England he bought +Llanthony Abbey, stocked it with Spanish sheep, planted extensively, +and was to be the squire of squires; and at the same time seeing a +pretty penniless girl at a ball in Bath, he made a bet he would marry +her, and won it. As a squire he became quickly involved with neighbours +(an inevitable proceeding with him) and also with a Bishop concerning +the restoration of the church. Lawsuits followed, and such expenses +and vexations occurred that Landor decided to leave England--always +a popular resource with his kind. His mother took over the estate +and allowed him an income upon which he travelled from place to +place for a few years, quarrelling with his wife and making it up, +writing Latin verses everywhere and on everything, and coming into +collision not only with individuals but with municipalities. + +He settled in Florence in 1821, finding rooms in the Palazzo Medici, +or, rather, Riccardi. There he remained for five years, which no doubt +would have been a longer period had he not accused his landlord, +the Marquis, who was then the head of the family, of seducing away +his coachman. Landor wrote stating the charge; the Marquis, calling +in reply, entered the room with his hat on, and Landor first knocked +it off and then gave notice. It was at the Palazzo Medici that Landor +was visited by Hazlitt in 1825, and here also he began the "Imaginary +Conversations," his best-known work, although it is of course such +brief and faultless lyrics as "Rose Aylmer" and "To Ianthe" that have +given him his widest public. + +On leaving the Palazzo, Landor acquired the Villa Gherardesca, on +the hill-side below Fiesole, and a very beautiful little estate in +which the stream Affrico rises. + +Crabb Robinson, the friend of so many men of genius, who was in +Florence in 1880, in rooms at 1341 Via della Nuova Vigna, met Landor +frequently at his villa and has left his impressions. Landor had +made up his mind to live and die in Italy, but hated the Italians. He +would rather, he said, follow his daughter to the grave than to her +wedding with an Italian husband. Talking on art, he said he preferred +John of Bologna to Michelangelo, a statement he repeated to Emerson, +but afterwards, I believe, recanted. He said also to Robinson that +he would not give 1000 Pounds for Raphael's "Transfiguration," but +ten times that sum for Fra Bartolommeo's picture of S. Mark in the +Pitti. Next to Raphael and Fra Bartolommeo he loved Perugino. + +Landor soon became quite the husbandman. Writing to his sisters in +1831, he says: "I have planted 200 cypresses, 600 vines, 400 roses, +200 arbutuses, and 70 bays, besides laurustinas, etc., etc., and +60 fruit trees of the best qualities from France. I have not had +a moment's illness since I resided here, nor have the children. My +wife runs after colds; it would be strange if she did not take them; +but she has taken none here; hers are all from Florence. I have the +best water, the best air, and the best oil in the world. They speak +highly of the wine too; but here I doubt. In fact, I hate wine, +unless hock or claret.... + +"Italy is a fine climate, but Swansea better. That however is the +only spot in Great Britain where we have warmth without wet. Still, +Italy is the country I would live in.... In two [years] I hope to +have a hundred good peaches every day at table during two months: +at present I have had as many bad ones. My land is said to produce +the best figs in Tuscany; I have usually six or seven bushels of them." + +I have walked through Lander's little paradise--now called the Villa +Landor and reached by the narrow rugged road to the right just below +the village of S. Domenico. Its cypresses, planted, as I imagine, +by Lander's own hand, are stately as minarets and its lawn is as +green and soft as that of an Oxford college. The orchard, in April, +was a mass of blossom. Thrushes sang in the evergreens and the first +swallow of the year darted through the cypresses just as we reached +the gates. It is truly a poet's house and garden. + +In 1833 a French neighbour accused Landor of robbing him of water by +stopping an underground stream, and Landor naturally challenged him to +a duel. The meeting was avoided through the tact of Lander's second, +the English consul at Florence, and the two men became friends. At his +villa Landor wrote much of his best prose--the "Pentameron," "Pericles +and Aspasia" and the "Trial of Shakespeare for Deer-stealing "--and he +was in the main happy, having so much planting and harvesting to do, +his children to play with, and now and then a visitor. In the main +too he managed very well with the country people, but one day was +amused to overhear a conversation over the hedge between two passing +contadini. "All the English are mad," said one, "but as for this +one...!" There was a story of Landor current in Florence in those +days which depicted him, furious with a spoiled dish, throwing his +cook out of the window, and then, realizing where he would fall, +exclaiming in an agony, "Good God, I forgot the violets!" + +Such was Landor's impossible way on occasion that he succeeded in +getting himself exiled from Tuscany; but the Grand Duke was called in +as pacificator, and, though the order of expulsion was not rescinded, +it was not carried out. + +In 1835 Landor wrote some verses to his friend Ablett, who had lent +him the money to buy the villa, professing himself wholly happy-- + + + Thou knowest how, and why, are dear to me + My citron groves of Fiesole, + My chirping Affrico, my beechwood nook, + My Naiads, with feet only in the brook, + Which runs away and giggles in their faces; + Yet there they sit, nor sigh for other places-- + + +but later in the year came a serious break. Landor's relations with +Mrs. Landor, never of such a nature as to give any sense of security, +had grown steadily worse as he became more explosive, and they now +reached such a point that he flung out of the house one day and did +not return for many years, completing the action by a poem in which +he took a final (as he thought) farewell of Italy:-- + + + I leave thee, beauteous Italy! No more + From the high terraces, at even-tide, + To look supine into thy depths of sky, + The golden moon between the cliff and me, + Or thy dark spires of fretted cypresses + Bordering the channel of the milky way. + Fiesole and Valdarno must be dreams, + Hereafter, and my own lost Affrico + Murmur to me but the poet's song. + + +Landor gave his son Arnold the villa, settling a sum on his wife +for the other children's maintenance, and himself returned to Bath, +where he added to his friends Sir William Napier (who first found +a resemblance to a lion in Landor's features), John Forster, who +afterwards wrote his life, and Charles Dickens, who named a child +after him and touched off his merrier turbulent side most charmingly +as Leonard Boythom in "Bleak House". But his most constant companion +was a Pomeranian dog; in dogs indeed he found comfort all his life, +right to the end. + +Landor's love of his villa and estate finds expression again and again +in his verse written at this time. The most charming of all these +charming poems--the perfection of the light verse of a serious poet--is +the letter from England to his youngest boy, speculating on his +Italian pursuits. I begin at the passage describing the villa's cat:-- + + + Does Cincirillo follow thee about, + Inverting one swart foot suspensively, + And wagging his dread jaw at every chirp + Of bird above him on the olive-branch? + Frighten him then away! 'twas he who slew + Our pigeons, our white pigeons peacock-tailed, + That feared not you and me--alas, nor him! + I flattened his striped sides along my knee, + And reasoned with him on his bloody mind, + Till he looked blandly, and half-closed his eyes + To ponder on my lecture in the shade. + I doubt his memory much, his heart a little, + And in some minor matters (may I say it?) + Could wish him rather sager. But from thee + God hold back wisdom yet for many years! + Whether in early season or in late + It always comes high-priced. For thy pure breast + I have no lesson; it for me has many. + Come throw it open then! What sports, what cares + (Since there are none too young for these) engage + Thy busy thoughts? Are you again at work, + Walter and you, with those sly labourers, + Geppo, Giovanni, Cecco, and Poeta, + To build more solidly your broken dam + Among the poplars, whence the nightingale + Inquisitively watch'd you all day long? + I was not of your council in the scheme, + Or might have saved you silver without end, + And sighs too without number. Art thou gone + Below the mulberry, where that cold pool + Urged to devise a warmer, and more fit + For mighty swimmers, swimming three abreast? + Or art though panting in this summer noon + Upon the lowest step before the hall, + Drawing a slice of watermelon, long + As Cupid's bow, athwart thy wetted lips + (Like one who plays Pan's pipe), and letting drop + The sable seeds from all their separate cells, + And leaving bays profound and rocks abrupt, + Redder than coral round Calypso's cave? + + +In 1853 Landor put forth what he thought his last book, under the title +"Last Fruit off an Old Tree". Unhappily it was not his last, for in +1858 he issued yet one more, "Dry Sticks faggotted by W. S. Landor," +in which was a malicious copy of verses reflecting upon a lady. He +was sued for libel, lost the case with heavy damages, and once +more and for the last time left England for Florence. He was now +eighty-three. At first he went to the Villa Gherardesco, then the +home of his son Arnold, but his outbursts were unbearable, and three +times he broke away, to be three times brought back. In July, 1859, +he made a fourth escape, and then escaped altogether, for Browning +took the matter in hand and established him, after a period in Siena, +in lodgings in the Via Nunziatina. From this time till his death in +1864 Landor may be said at last to have been at rest. He had found +safe anchorage and never left it. Many friends came to see him, chief +among them Browning, who was at once his adviser, his admirer and his +shrewd observer. Landor, always devoted to pictures, but without much +judgment, now added to his collection; Browning in one of his letters +to Forster tells how he has found him "particularly delighted by the +acquisition of three execrable daubs by Domenichino and Gaspar Poussin +most benevolently battered by time". Another friend says that he had +a habit of attributing all his doubtful pictures to Corregoio. "He +cannot," Browning continues, "in the least understand that he is at +all wrong, or injudicious, or unfortunate in anything.... Whatever +he may profess, the thing he really loves is a pretty girl to talk +nonsense with." + +Of the old man in the company of fair listeners we have glimpses +in the reminiscences of Mrs. Fields in the "Atlantic Monthly" in +1866. She also describes him as in a cloud of pictures. There with +his Pomeranian Giallo within fondling distance, the poet, seated in +his arm-chair, fired comments upon everything. Giallo's opinion was +asked on all subjects, and Landor said of him that an approving wag +of his tail was worth all the praise of all the "Quarterlies ". It +was Giallo who led to the profound couplet-- + + + He is foolish who supposes + Dogs are ill that have hot noses. + + +Mrs. Fields tells how, after some classical or fashionable music had +been played, Landor would come closer to the piano and ask for an +old English ballad, and when "Auld Robin Gray," his favourite of all, +was sung, the tears would stream down his face. "Ah, you don't know +what thoughts you are recalling to the troublesome old man." + +But we have Browning's word that he did not spend much time in remorse +or regret, while there was the composition of the pretty little tender +epigrams of this last period to amuse him and Italian politics to +enchain his sympathy. His impulsive generosity led him to give his old +and trusted watch to the funds for Garibaldi's Sicilian expedition; +but Browning persuaded him to take it again. For Garibaldi's wounded +prisoners he wrote an Italian dialogue between Savonarola and the +Prior of S. Marco. The death of Mrs. Browning in 1861 sent Browning +back to England, and Landor after that was less cheerful and rarely +left the house. His chief solace was the novels of Anthony Trollope +and G.P.R. James. In his last year he received a visit from a young +English poet and enthusiast for poetry, one Algernon Charles Swinburne, +who arrived in time to have a little glowing talk with the old lion and +thus obtain inspiration for some fine memorial stanzas. On September +17th, 1864, Death found Landor ready--as nine years earlier he had +promised it should-- + + +To my ninth decade I have totter'd on, + And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady; +She who once led me where she would, is gone, + So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready. + + +Landor was buried, as we saw, in the English cemetery within the city, +whither his son Arnold was borne less than seven years later. Here is +his own epitaph, one of the most perfect things in form and substance +in the English language:-- + + +I strove with none, for none was worth my strife, + Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; +I warmed both hands before the fire of life, + It sinks, and I am ready to depart. + + +It should be cut on his tombstone. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +The Carmine and San Miniato + +The human form divine and waxen--Galileo--Bianca Capella--A +faithful Grand Duke--S. Spirito--The Carmine--Masaccio's place +in art--Leonardo's summary--The S. Peter frescoes--The Pitti +side--Romola--A little country walk--The ancient wall--The Piazzale +Michelangelo--An evening prospect--S. Miniato--Antonio Rossellino's +masterpiece--The story of S. Gualberto--A city of the dead--The +reluctant departure. + +The Via Maggio is now our way, but first there is a museum which +I think should be visited, if only because it gave Dickens so much +pleasure when he was here--the Museo di Storia Naturale, which is +open three days a week only and is always free. Many visitors to +Florence never even hear of it and one quickly finds that its chief +frequenters are the poor. All the better for that. Here not only is +the whole animal kingdom spread out before the eye in crowded cases, +but the most wonderful collection of wax reproductions of the human +form is to be seen. These anatomical models are so numerous and so +exact that, since the human body does not change with the times, +a medical student could learn everything from them in the most +gentlemanly way possible. But they need a strong stomach. Mine, +I confess, quailed before the end. + +The hero of the Museum is Galileo, whose tomb at S. Croce we have seen: +here are preserved certain of his instruments in a modern, floridly +decorated Tribuna named after him. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) belongs +rather to Pisa, where he was born and where he found the Leaning Tower +useful for experiments, and to Rome, where in 1611 he demonstrated +his discovery of the telescope; but Florence is proud of him and it +was here that he died, under circumstances tragic for an astronomer, +for he had become totally blind. + +The frescoes in the Tribuna celebrate other Italian scientific +triumphs, and in the cases are historic telescopes, astrolabes, +binoculars, and other mysteries. + +The Via Maggio, which runs from Casa Guidi to the Ponte Trinita, and +at noon is always full of school-girls, brings us by way of the Via +Michelozzo to S. Spirito, but by continuing in it we pass a house of +great interest, now No. 26, where once lived the famous Bianca Capella, +that beautiful and magnetic Venetian whom some hold to have been so +vile and others so much the victim of fate. Bianca Capella was born in +1543, when Francis I, Cosimo I's eldest son, afterwards to play such a +part in her life, was two years of age. While he was being brought up +in Florence, Bianca was gaining loveliness in her father's palace. When +she was seventeen she fell in love with a young Florentine engaged +in a bank in Venice, and they were secretly married. Her family +were outraged by the mesalliance and the young couple had to flee +to Florence, where they lived in poverty and hiding, a prize of 2000 +ducats being offered by the Capella family to anyone who would kill +the husband; while, by way of showing how much in earnest they were, +they had his uncle thrown into prison, where he died. + +One day the unhappy Bianca was sitting at her window when the young +prince Francis was passing: he looked up, saw her, and was enslaved on +the spot. (The portraits of Bianca do not, I must admit, lay emphasis +on this story. Titian's I have not seen; but there is one by Bronzino +in our National Gallery--No. 650--and many in Florence.) There was, +however, something in Bianca's face to which Francis fell a victim, and +he brought about a speedy meeting. At first Bianca repulsed him; but +when she found that her husband was unworthy of her, she returned the +Prince's affection. (I am telling her story from the pro-Bianca point +of view: there are plenty of narrators on the other side.) Meanwhile, +Francis's official life going on, he married that archduchess Joanna +of Austria for whom the Austrian frescoes in the Palazzo Vecchio were +painted; but his heart remained Bianca's and he was more at her house +than in his own. At last, Bianca's husband being killed in some fray, +she was free from the persecution of her family and ready to occupy +the palace which Francis hastened to build for her, here, in the Via +Maggio, now cut up into tenements at a few lire a week. The attachment +continued unabated when Francis came to the throne, and upon the death +of his archduchess in 1578 Bianca and he were almost immediately, +but privately, married, she being then thirty-five; and in the next +year they were publicly married in the church of S. Lorenzo with every +circumstance of pomp; while later in the same year Bianca was crowned. + +Francis remained her lover till his death, which was both dramatic +and suspicious, husband and wife dying within a few hours of each +other at the Medici villa of Poggia a Caiano in 1587. Historians +have not hesitated to suggest that Francis was poisoned by his wife; +but there is no proof. It is indeed quite possible that her life +was more free of intrigue, ambition and falsehood, than that of any +one about the court at that time; but the Florentines, encouraged by +Francis's brother Ferdinand I, who succeeded him, made up their minds +that she was a witch, and few things in the way of disaster happened +that were not laid to her charge. Call a woman a witch and everything +is possible. Ferdinand not only detested Bianca in life and deplored +her fascination for his brother, but when she died he refused to allow +her to be buried with the others of the family; hence the Chapel of +the Princes at S. Lorenzo lacks one archduchess. Her grave is unknown. + +The whole truth we shall never know; but it is as easy to think of +Bianca as a harmless woman who both lost and gained through love as +to picture her as sinister and scheming. At any rate we know that +Francis was devoted to her with a fidelity and persistence for which +Grand Dukes have not always been conspicuous. + +S. Spirito is one of Brunelleschi's solidest works. Within it resembles +the city of Bologna in its vistas of brown and white arches. The +effect is severe and splendid; but the church is to be taken rather +as architecture than a treasury of art, for although each of its +eight and thirty chapels has an altar picture and several have fine +pieces of sculpture--one a copy of Michelangelo's famous Pieta in +Rome--there is nothing of the highest value. It was in this church +that I was asked alms by one of the best-dressed men in Florence; +but the Florentine beggars are not importunate: they ask, receive or +are denied, and that is the end of it. + +The other great church in the Pitti quarter is the Carmine, and here +we are on very sacred ground in art--for it was here, as I have had +occasion to say more than once in this book, that Masaccio painted +those early frescoes which by their innovating boldness turned the +Brancacci chapel into an Academy. For all the artists came to study +and copy them: among others Michelangelo, whose nose was broken by +the turbulent Torrigiano, a fellow-student, under this very roof. + +Tommaso di Ser Giovanni, or Masaccio, the son of a notary, was born +in 1402. His master is not known, but Tommaso Fini or Masolino, +born in 1383, is often named. Vasari states that as a youth Masaccio +helped Ghiberti with his first Baptistery doors; and if so, the fact +is significant. But all that is really known of his early life is +that he went to Rome to paint a chapel in S. Clemente. He returned, +apparently on hearing that his patron Giovanni de' Medici was in +power again. Another friend, Brunelleschi, having built the church +of S. Spirito in 1422, Masaccio began to work there in 1423, when he +was only twenty-one. + +Masaccio's peculiar value in the history of painting is his early +combined power of applying the laws of perspective and representing +human beings "in the round". Giotto was the first and greatest +innovator in painting--the father of real painting; Masaccio was the +second. If from Giotto's influence a stream of vigour had flowed such +as flowed from Masaccio's, there would have been nothing special to +note about Masaccio at all. But the impulse which Giotto gave to art +died down; some one had to reinvigorate it, and that some one was +Masaccio. In his remarks on painting, Leonardo da Vinci sums up the +achievements of the two. They stood out, he says, from the others +of their time, by reason of their wish to go to life rather than to +pictures. Giotto went to life, his followers went to pictures; and +the result was a decline in art until Masaccio, who again went to life. + +From the Carmine frescoes came the new painting. It is not that walls +henceforth were covered more beautifully or suitably than they had +been by Giotto's followers; probably less suitably very often; but +that religious symbolism without much relation to actual life gave +way to scenes which might credibly have occurred, where men, women +and saints walked and talked much as we do, in similar surroundings, +with backgrounds of cities that could be lived in and windows that +could open. It was this revolution that Masaccio performed. No doubt +if he had not, another would, for it had to come: the new demand was +that religion should be reconciled with life. + +It is generally supposed that Masaccio had Masolino as his ally in +this wonderful series; and a vast amount of ink has been spilt over +Masolino's contributions. Indeed the literature of expert art criticism +on Florentine pictures alone is of alarming bulk and astonishing in +its affirmations and denials. The untutored visitor in the presence +of so much scientific variance will be wise to enact the part of +the lawyer in the old caricature of the litigants and the cow, who, +while they pull, one at the head and the other at the tail, fills +his bucket with milk. In other words, the plain duty of the ordinary +person is to enjoy the picture. + +Without any special knowledge of art one can, by remembering the +early date of these frescoes, realize what excitement they must have +caused in the studios and how tongues must have clacked in the Old +Market. We have but to send our thoughts to the Spanish chapel at +S. Maria Novella to realize the technical advance. Masaccio, we see, +was peopling a visible world; the Spanish chapel painters were merely +allegorizing, as agents of holiness. The Ghirlandaio choir in the same +church would yield a similar comparison; but what we have to remember +is that Ghirlandaio painted these frescoes in 1490, sixty-two years +after Masaccio's death, and Masaccio showed him how. + +It is a pity that the light is so poor and that the frescoes have +not worn better; but their force and dramatic vigour remain beyond +doubt. The upper scene on the left of the altar is very powerful: the +Roman tax collector has asked Christ for a tribute and Christ bids +Peter find the money in the mouth of a fish. Figures, architecture, +landscape, all are in right relation; and the drama is moving, without +restlessness. This and the S. Peter preaching and distributing alms +are perhaps the best, but the most popular undoubtedly is that below +it, finished many years after by Filippino Lippi (although there are +experts to question this and even substitute his amorous father), in +which S. Peter, challenged by Simon Magus, resuscitates a dead boy, +just as S. Zenobius used to do in the streets of this city. Certain +more modern touches, such as the exquisite Filippino would naturally +have thought of, may be seen here: the little girl behind the boy, +for instance, who recalls the children in that fresco by the same +hand at S. Maria Novella in which S. John resuscitates Drusiana. In +this Carmine fresco are many portraits of Filippino's contemporaries, +including Botticelli, just as in the scene of the consecration of +the Carmine which Masaccio painted in the cloisters, but which has +almost perished, he introduced Brancacci, his employer, Brunelleschi, +Donatello, some of whose innovating work in stone he was doing in +paint, Giovanni de' Medici and Masolino. The scanty remains of this +fresco tell us that it must have been fine indeed. + +Masaccio died at the early age of twenty-six, having suddenly +disappeared from Florence, leaving certain work unfinished. A strange +portentous meteor in art. + +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. Turn to the left as you leave the bridge, under the arch made by +Cosimo's passage, and you are in the Via de' Bardi, the backs of whose +houses on the river-side are so beautiful from the Uffizi's central +arches, as Mr. Morley's picture shows. At the end of the street is +an archway under a large house. Go through this, and you are at the +foot of a steep, stone hill. It is really steep, but never mind. Take +it easily, and rest half-way where the houses on the left break and +give a wonderful view of the city. Still climbing, you come to the +best gate of all that is left--a true gate in being an inlet into a +fortified city--that of S. Giorgio, high on the Boboli hill by the +fort. The S. Giorgio gate has a S. George killing a dragon, in stone, +on its outside, and the saint painted within, Donatello's conception +of him being followed by the artist. Parsing through, you are in the +country. The fort and gardens are on one side and villas on the other; +and a great hill-side is in front, covered with crops. Do not go on, +but turn sharp to the left and follow the splendid city wall, behind +which for a long way is the garden of the Villa Karolath, one of the +choicest spots in Florence, occasionally tossing its branches over the +top. This wall is immense all the way down to the Porta S. Miniato, +and two of the old towers are still standing in their places upon +it. Botticini's National Gallery picture tells exactly how they looked +in their heyday. Ivy hangs over, grass and flowers spring from the +ancient stones, and lizards run about. Underneath are olive-trees. + +It was, by the way, in the Via de' Bardi that George Eliot's +Romola lived, for she was of the Bardi family. The story, it may be +remembered, begins on the morning of Lorenzo the Magnificent's death, +and ends after the execution of Savonarola. It is not an inspired +romance, and is remarkable almost equally for its psychological +omissions and the convenience of its coincidences, but it is an +excellent preparation for a first visit in youth to S. Marco and the +Palazzo Vecchio, while the presence in its somewhat naive pages of +certain Florentine characters makes it agreeable to those who know +something of the city and its history. The painter Piero di Cosimo, +for example, is here, straight from Vasari; so also are Cronaca, the +architect, Savonarola, Capparo, the ironsmith, and even Machiavelli; +while Bernardo del Nero, the gonfalonier, whose death sentence +Savonarola refused to revise, was Romola's godfather. + +The Via Guicciardini, which runs from the foot of the Via de' Bardi +to the Pitti, is one of the narrowest and busiest Florentine streets, +with an undue proportion of fruit shops overflowing to the pavement +to give it gay colouring. At No. 24 is a stable with pillars and +arches that would hold up a pyramid. But this is no better than most +of the old stables of Florence, which are all solid vaulted caverns +of immense size and strength. + +From the Porta Romana one may do many things--take the tram, +for example, for the Certosa of the Val d'Ema, which is only some +twenty minutes distant, or make a longer journey to Impruneta, where +the della Robbias are. But just now let us walk or ride up the long +winding Viale Macchiavelli, which curves among the villas behind the +Boboli Gardens, to the Piazzale Michelangelo and S. Miniato. + +The Piazzale Michelangelo is one of the few modern tributes of Florence +to her illustrious makers. The Dante memorial opposite S. Croce is +another, together with the preservation of certain buildings with +Dante associations in the heart of the city; but, as I have said more +than once, there is no piazza in Florence, and only one new street, +named after a Medici. From the Piazzale Michelangelo you not only +have a fine panoramic view of the city of this great man--in its +principal features not so vastly different from the Florence of his +day, although of course larger and with certain modern additions, +such as factory chimneys, railway lines, and so forth--but you can see +the remains of the fortifications which he constructed in 1529, and +which kept the Imperial troops at bay for nearly a year. Just across +the river rises S. Croce, where the great man is buried, and beyond, +over the red roofs, the dome of the Medici chapel at S. Lorenzo shows +us the position of the Biblioteca Laurenziana and the New Sacristy, +both built by him. Immediately below us is the church of S. Niccolo, +where he is said to have hidden in 1529, when there was a hue and +cry for him. In the middle of this spacious plateau is a bronze +reproduction of his David, and it is good to see it, from the cafe +behind it, rising head and shoulders above the highest Apennines. + +S. Miniato, the church on the hill-top above the Piazzale Michelangelo, +deserves many visits. One may not be too greatly attached to marble +facades, but this little temple defeats all prejudices by its radiance +and perfection, and to its extraordinary charm its situation adds. It +crowns the hill, and in the late afternoon--the ideal time to visit +it--is full in the eye of the sun, bathed in whose light the green +and white facade, with miracles of delicate intarsia, is balm to the +eyes instead of being, as marble so often is, dazzling and cold. + +On the way up we pass the fine church of S. Salvatore, which Cronaca +of the Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Strozzi built and Michelangelo +admired, and which is now secularized, and pass through the gateway of +Michelangelo's upper fortifications. S. Miniato is one of the oldest +churches of Florence, some of it eleventh century. It has its name +from Minias, a Roman soldier who suffered martyrdom at Florence under +Decius. Within, one does not feel quite to be in a Christian church, +the effect partly of the unusual colouring, all grey, green, and gold +and soft light tints as of birds' bosoms; partly of the ceiling, +which has the bright hues of a Russian toy; partly of the forest +of great gay columns; partly of the lovely and so richly decorated +marble screen; and partly of the absence of a transept. The prevailing +feeling indeed is gentle gaiety; and in the crypt this is intensified, +for it is just a joyful assemblage of dancing arches. + +The church as a whole is beautiful and memorable enough; but +its details are wonderful too, from the niello pavement, and +the translucent marble windows of the apse, to the famous tomb of +Cardinal Jacopo of Portugal, and the Luca della Robbia reliefs of the +Virtues. This tomb is by Antonio Rossellino. It is not quite of the +rank of Mino's in the Badia; but it is a noble and beautiful thing +marked in every inch of it by modest and exquisite thought. Vasari +says of Antonio that he "practised his art with such grace that +he was valued as something more than a man by those who knew him, +who well-nigh adored him as a saint". Facing it is a delightful +Annunciation by Alessio Baldovinetti, in which the angel declares the +news from a far greater distance than we are accustomed to; and the +ceiling is made an abode of gladness by the blue and white figures +(designed by Luca della Robbia) of Prudence and Chastity, Moderation +and Fortitude, for all of which qualities, it seems, the Cardinal was +famous. In short, one cannot be too glad that, since he had to die, +death's dart struck down this Portuguese prelate while he was in +Rossellino's and Luca's city. + +No longer is preserved here the miraculous crucifix which, standing +in a little chapel in the wood on this spot, bestowed blessing and +pardon--by bending towards him--upon S. Giovanni Gualberto, the founder +of the Vallombrosan order. The crucifix is now in S. Trinita. The saint +was born in 985 of noble stock and assumed naturally the splendour and +arrogance of his kind. His brother Hugo being murdered in some affray, +Giovanni took upon himself the duty of avenging the crime. One Good +Friday he chanced to meet, near this place, the assassin, in so narrow +a passage as to preclude any chance of escape; and he was about to kill +him when the man fell on his knees and implored mercy by the passion of +Christ Who suffered on that very day, adding that Christ had prayed on +the cross for His own murderers. Giovanni was so much impressed that he +not only forgave the man but offered him his friendship. Entering then +the chapel to pray and ask forgiveness of all his sins, he was amazed +to see the crucifix bend down as though acquiescing and blessing, and +this special mark of favour so wrought upon him that he became a monk, +himself shaving his head for that purpose and defying his father's +rage, and subsequently founded the Vallombrosan order. He died in 1073. + +I have said something of the S. Croce habit and the S. Maria Novella +habit; but I think that when all is said the S. Miniato habit is +the most important to acquire. There is nothing else like it; and +the sense of height is so invigorating too. At all times of the year +it is beautiful; but perhaps best in early spring, when the highest +mountains still have snow upon them and the neighbouring slopes are +covered with tender green and white fruit blossom, and here the violet +wistaria blooms and there the sombre crimson of the Judas-tree. + +Behind and beside the church is a crowded city of the Florentine +dead, reproducing to some extent the city of the Florentine living, +in its closely packed habitations--the detached palaces for the rich +and the great congeries of cells for the poor--more of which are +being built all the time. There is a certain melancholy interest in +wandering through these silent streets, peering through the windows +and recognizing over the vaults names famous in Florence. One learns +quickly how bad modern mortuary architecture and sculpture can be, +but I noticed one monument with some sincerity and unaffected grace: +that to a charitable Marchesa, a friend of the poor, at the foot of +whose pedestal are a girl and baby done simply and well. + +Better perhaps to remain on the highest point and look at the +city beneath. One should try to be there before sunset and watch +the Apennines turning to a deeper and deeper indigo and the city +growing dimmer and dimmer in the dusk. Florence is beautiful from +every point of vantage, but from none more beautiful than from this +eminence. As one reluctantly leaves the church and passes again +through Michelangelo's fortification gateway to descend, one has, +framed in its portal, a final lovely Apennine scene. + + + + + +Historical Chart of Florence and Europe, 1296-1564 + + +Artists' Dates. + +1300 (c.) Taddeo Gaddi born (d. 1366) +1302 (c.) Cimabue died (b. c. 1240) +1308 (c.) Andrea Orcagna born (d. 1368) +1310 Arnolfo di Cambio died (b. 1232 ?) +1333 Spinello Aretino born (d. 1410) +1336 Giotto died (b. 1276 ?) +1344 Simone Martini died (b. 1283) +1348 Andrea Pisano died (b. 1270) +1356 Lippo Memmi died +1366 Taddeo Gaddi died (b. c. 1300) +1368 Andrea Orcagna died +1370 (c.) Lorenzo Monaco born (d. 1425) + Gentile da Fabriano born + (d. 1450) +1371 Jacopo della Quercia born (d. 1438) +1377 Filippo Brunelleschi born (d. 1446) +1378 Lorenzo Ghiberti born (d. 1455) +1386 (?) Donatello born (d. 1466) +1387 Fra Angelico born (d. 1455) +1391 Michelozzo born (d. 1472) +1396 (?) Andrea del Castagno born (d. 1457) +1397 Paolo Uccello born (d. 1475) +1399 or 1400 Luca della Robbia born (d. 1482) +1401 or 1402 Masaccio born (d. 1428?) +1405 Leon Battista Alberti born (d. 1472) +1406 Lippo Lippi born (d. 1469) +1409 Bernardo Rossellino born (d. 1464) +1410 Spinello Aretino died +1415 Piero della Francesca born (d. 1492) +1420 Benozzo Gozzoli born (d. 1498) +1425 Il Monaco died + Alessio Baldovinetti born + (d. 1499) +1427 Antonio Rossellino born (d. 1478) +1428 (?) Masaccio died +1428 Desiderio da Settignano born (d. 1464) +1429 (?) Giovanni Bellini born (d. 1516) + Antonio Pollaiuolo born + (d. 1498) +1430 Cosimo Tura died +1431 Andrea Mantegna born (d. 1506) +1432 (?) Mina da Fiesole born (d. 1484) +1435 Andrea Verrocchio born (d. 1488) + Andrea della Robbia born + (d. 1525) +1438 Melozzo da Forli born (d. 1494) +1439 Cosimo Rosselli born (d. 1507) +1441 Luca Signorelli born (d. 1523) +1442 Benedetto da Maiano born (d. 1497) +1444 Sandro Botticelli born (d. 1510) +1446 Brunelleschi died + Perugino born (d. 1523 or 24) + Francesco Botticini born + (d. 1498) +1449 Domenico Ghirlandaio born (d. 1494) +1450 Gentile da Fabriano died +1452 Leonardi da Vinci born (d. 1519) +1455 Ghiberti died + Fra Angelico died +1456 Lorenzo di Credi born (d. 1537) +1457 Cronaca born (d. 1508 or 9) + Filippino Lippi born (d. 1504) + Andrea del Castagno died +1462 Piero di Cosimo born (d. 1521) +1463 or 4 Desiderio da Settignano died +1464 Bernardo Rossellino died +1466 Donatello died +1469 Giovanni della Robbia born (d. 1529) + Lippo Lippi died +1472 Michelozzo died + Alberti died +1474 Benedetto da Rovezzano born (d. 1556) + Rustici born (d. 1554) + Mariotto Albertinelli born + (d. 1515) +1475 Fra Bartolommeo born (d. 1517) + Michelangelo Buonarroti born + (d. 1564) +1477 Titian born (d. 1576) + Giorgione born (d. 1510) +1478 Antonio Rossellino died +1482 Francia Bigio born (d. 1523) + Guicciardini born (d. 1540) +1483 Raphael born (d. 1520) + Ridolfo Ghirlandaio born + (d. 1561) +1484 Mino da Fiesole died +1485 Sebastiano del Piombo born (d. 1547) +1486 Jacopo Sansovino born (d. 1570) +1486 or 7 Andrea del Sarto born (d. 1531) +1488 Verrocchio died + Baccio Bandinelli born + (d. 1560) +1492 Piero della Francesco died +1494 Jacopo da Pontormo born (d. 1556) + Correggio born (d. 1534) + Domenico Ghirlandaio died + Melozzo da Forli died +1497 Benedetto da Maiano died + Benozzo Gozzoli died +1498 Antonio Pollaiuolo died + Francesco Botticini died +1499 Alessio Baldovinetti died +1500 Benvenuto Cellini born (d. 1572) +1502 Angelo Bronzino born (d. 1572) +1504 Filippino Lippi died +1506 Mantegna died +1507 Cosimo Rosselli died +1508 Cronaca died +1510 Botticelli died + Giorgione died +1511 Vasari born (d. 1574) +1515 Albertinelli died +1516 Giovanni Bellini died +1517 Fra Bartolommeo died +1518 Tintoretto born (d. 1594) +1519 Leonardo da Vinci died +1520 Raphael died +1521 Piero di Cosimo died +1523 Signorelli died + Perugino died +1524 Giovanni da Bologna born (d. 1608) +1525 Andrea della Robbia died + Francia Bigio died +1528 Paolo Veronese born (d. 1588) + Federigo Baroccio born + (d. 1612) +1529 Giovanni della Robbia died +1531 Andrea del Sarto died +1534 Correggio died +1537 Credi died +1547 Sebastiano del Piombo died +1554 Rustici died +1556 Pontormo died + Benedetto da Rovezzano died +1560 Baccio Bandinelli died +1561 Ridolfo Ghirlandaio died +1564 Michael Angelo died + + +Some Important Florentine Dates + +1296 Foundations of the Duomo consecrated +1298 Palazzo Vecchio commenced by Arnolfo + di Cambio +1300 Beginning of the feuds of the Bianchi + and Xeri + Guido Cavalcanti died +1302 Dante exiled, Jan. 27 +1304 Petrarch born (d. 1374) +1308 Death of Corso Donati +1312 Siege of Florence by Henry VII +1313 Boccaccio born (d. 1375) +1321 Dante died Sept. 14 (b. 1265) +1333 Destructive floods +1334 Foundations of the Campanile laid +1337 Or San Michele begun +1339 Andrea Pisano's gates finished +1348 Black Death of the Decameron + Giovanni Villani died + (b. 1275 c.) +1360 Giovanni de' Medici (di Bicci) born +1365 (c) Ponte Vecchio rebuilt by Taddeo Gaddi +1374 Petrarch died +1375 Boccaccio died +1376 Loggia de' Lanzi commenced +1378 Salvestro de' Medici elected + Gonfaloniere +1389 Cosimo de' Medici (Pater Patrise) born +1390 War with Milan +1394 Sir John Hawkwood died +1399 Competition for Baptistery Gates +1416 Piero de' Medici (il Gottoso) born +1421 Purchase of Leghorn by Florence + Giovanni de' Medici elected + Gonfaloniere + Spedale degli Innocenti + commenced +1424 Ghiberti's first gate set up +1429 Giovanni de' Medici died +1432 Niccolo da Uzzano died +1433 Marsilio Ficino born + Cosimo de' Medici banished, + Oct. 3 +1434 Cosimo returned to power, Sept. 29 + Banishment of Albizzi and + Strozzi +1435 Francesco Sforza visited Florence +1436 Brunelleschi's dome completed + The Duomo consecrated +1439 Council of Florence + Gemisthos Plethon in Florence +1440 Cosimo occupied the Medici Palace +1449 Lorenzo de' Medici (the Magnificent + born) +1452 Ghiberti's second gates set up + Savonarola born +1454 Politian born +1463 Pico della Mirandola born +1464 Cosimo de' Medici died and was + succeeded by Piero +1466 Luca Pitti's Conspiracy +1469 Lorenzo's Tournament, Feb. + Lorenzo's Marriage to Clarice + Orsini, June + Death of Piero, Dec. + Niccolo Machiavelli born +1471 Piero de' Medici, son of Lorenzo, born + Visit of Galeazzo Sforza + to Florence + Cennini's Press established + in Florence +1474 Ariosto born +1475 Giuliano's Tournament +1478 Pazzi Conspiracy + Giuliano murdered +1479 Lorenzo's Mission to Naples +1492 Lorenzo the Magnificent died + Piero succeeded +1494 Charles VIII invaded Italy + Piero banished + Charles VIII in Florence. Sack of + Medici Palace + Florence governed by General Council + Savonarola in power + Politian died + Pico della Mirandola died +1497 Francesco Valori elected Gonfaloniere + Piero attempted to return to Florence +1498 Savonarola burnt +1499 Marsilio Ficino died + Amerigo Vespucci reached America +1503 Death of Piero di Medici +1512 Cardinal Giovanni and Giuliano, Duke of + Nemours, reinstated in Florence + Great Council abolished +1519 Cardinal Giulio de' Medici in power + Catherine de' Medici born +1524 Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici in power +1526 Death of Giovanni delle Bande Nere +1527 Ippolito and Alessandro left Florence +1528 Machiavelli died +1529-30 Siege of Florence +1530 Capitulation of Florence +1531 Alessandro de' Medici declared Head of Republic +1537 Cosimo de' Medici made Ruler of Florence + Battle of Montemurlo + Lorenzino assassinated + in Venice +1539 Cosimo married Eleanor di Toledo and moved + to Palazzo Vecchio +1553 Cosimo occupied the Pitti Palace +1564 Galileo Galilei born + + +Popes. + + Boniface VIII +1303 Benedict XI +1305 Clement V +1316 John XXII +1334 Benedict XII +1337 Boniface VIII +1342 Clement VI +1352 Innocent VI +1362 Urban V +1370 Gregory XI +1378 Urban VI +1389 Boniface IX +1404 Innocent VII +1406 Gregory XII +1409 Alex. V +1410 John XXIII +1417 Martin V +1431 Eugenius IV +1447 Nicolas V +1455 Calixtus III +1458 Pius II +1464 Paul II +1471 Sixtus IV +1484 Innocent VIII +1492 Alex. VI +1503 Pius III + Julius II +1513 Leo X +1522 Hadrian VI +1523 Clement VII +1534 Paul III +1550 Julius III +1555 Marcellus II + Paul IV +1559 Pius IV + + +French Kings. + + Philip IV +1314 Louis X +1316 John I + Philip V +1322 Charles IV +1328 Philip VI + Philip +1350 John II +1364 Charles V +1380 Charles VI +1422 Charles VII +1461 Louis XI +1483 Charles VIII +1498 Louis XII +1515 Francis I +1547 Henry II +1559 Francis II +1560 Charles IX + + +English Kings. + + Edward I +1307 Edward II +1327 Edward III +1377 Richard II +1422 Charles VII +1461 Edward IV +1483 Edward V + Richard III +1485 Henry VII +1509 Henry VIII +1547 Edward VI +1553 Mary +1558 Elizabeth + + +Milan. + +1310 Matteo Visconti +1322 Galeazzo Visconti +1328 +1329 Azzo Visconti +1339 Luchino and Giovanni Visconti +1349 Giovanni Visconti +1354 Matteo Bernabo Galeazzo +1378 Gian Galeazzo Visconti +1402 Gian Maria Visconti +1412 Filippo Maria Visconti +1447...1450 Francesco Sforza +1466 Galeazzo Sforza +1476 Gian Galeazzo Sforza (Ludovico Sforza Regent) +1495 Ludovico Sforza +1499 Ludovico exiled + + +Some Important General Dates + +1298 Battle of Falkirk +1306 Coronation of Bruce +1314 Battle of Bannockburn +1324 (?) John Wyclif born +1337 Froissart born (d. 1410?) +1339 Beginning of the Hundred Years' War +1346 Battle of Crecy +1347 Rienzi made Tribune of Rome + Edward III took Calais +1348-9 Black Death in England +1348 S. Catherine of Siena born +1356 Battle of Poictiers +1362 First draft of Piers Plowman +1379 Thomas a Kempis born +1381 Wat Tyler's Rebellion +1400 Geoffrey Chaucer died +1414 Council of Constance +1428 Siege of Orleans +1431 Joan of Arc burnt +1435 (c.) Hans Meinling born +1450 John Gutenburg printed at Mainz + Jack Cade's Insurrection +1453 Fall of Constantinople +1455 Beginning of the Wars of the Roses +1467 Erasmus born (d. 1528) +1470 (c.) Mabuse born (d. 1555) +1471 Albert Duerer born (d. 1528) + Caxton's Press established in + Westminster +1476 Chevalier Bayard born +1482 Hugo van der Goes died +1483 Rabelais born (d. 1553) + Martin Luther born + Murder of the Princes in + the Tower +1491 Ignatius Loyola born +1492 America discovered by Christopher Columbus +1494 Lucas van Leyden born (d. 1533) +1505 John Knox born (d. 1582) +1509 Calvin born +1516 More's Utopia published +1519 First Voyage round the world + (Ferd. Magellan) +1519-21 Conquest of Mexico +1520 Field of the Cloth of Gold +1527 Brantome born (d. 1614) +1528 Albert Duerer died +1531-2 Conquest of Peru +1533 Montaigne born (d. 1592) +1535 Henry VIII became Supreme Head of the Church +1537 Sack of Rome +1544 Torquato Tasso born +1553 Edmund Spenser born +1554 Execution of Lady Jane Grey + Sir Philip Sidney born +1555-6 Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer burnt +1558 Calais recaptured by the French +1564 Shakespeare born + + + + +NOTES + +[1] One of Brunelleschi's devices to bring before the authorities +an idea of the dome he projected, was of standing an egg on end, +as Columbus is famed for doing, fully twenty years before Columbus +was born. + +[2] It was Charles V who said of Giotto's Campanile that it ought to +be kept in a glass case. + +[3] Hence its new name: Loggia de' Lanzi. + +[4] In the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington are casts +of the two Medici on the tombs and also the Madonna and Child. They +are in the great gallery of the casts, together with the great David, +two of the Julian tomb prisoners, the Bargello tondo and the Brutus. + +[5] Cacus, the son of Vulcan and Medusa, was a famous robber who +breathed fire and smoke and laid waste Italy. He made the mistake, +however, of robbing Hercules of some cows, and for this Hercules +strangled him. + +[6] "Thick as leaves in Vallombrosa" has come to be the form of +words as most people quote them. But Milton wrote ("Paradise Lost," +Book I. 300-304):-- + + "He called + His legions, angel-forms, who lay entranced + Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks + In Vallombrosa where the Etrurian shades, + High over-arched, embower." + +Wordsworth, by the way, when he visited Vallombrosa with Crabb Robinson +in 1837, wrote an inferior poem there, in a rather common metre, +in honour of Milton's association with it. + +[7] 27 April, 1859, the day that the war with Austria was proclaimed. + +[8] In "A Dictionary of Saintly Women". + +[9] The position of easel pictures in the Florentine galleries often +changes. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Wanderer in Florence, by E. V. Lucas + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WANDERER IN FLORENCE *** + +***** This file should be named 10769.txt or 10769.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/6/10769/ + +Produced by Jeroen Hellingman & the Distributed Proofreaders Team + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/10769.zip b/old/10769.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ba63467 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10769.zip |